Much thanks to my betas dracosbeauty927, dracosslytheringal, and esus. Also, thank you, my faithful readers, for having patience with me and not killing me over the long wait. Hope you enjoy it!
my mind is black
and I look for the grey outside
but I can’t seem to look outside my mind
where hell has decided to stay
pushing the past before my eyes
yearning away my chance at a future
your deception has caged me
my confusion blurs the lines
that separate everything I see
- Nickel
Trials
Rubbing her forehead to soothe her headache, Ginny let out a sigh of sheer exhaustion. Although she had been spending most of her day listlessly in her bed, her mind had been quite preoccupied with the new discoveries she’d made that morning. Glancing down at the newspapers that littered her lap, she mentally reviewed what had happened since the night Draco had left her with tear-stained cheeks and a sour taste in her mouth.
For days, her frustration and despondency left her in a near-somnolent state. Her trays of food went nearly untouched, for she preferred to spend her time in nostalgia. Memories of Blaise’s smiles and the strength of Draco’s arm kept her mind occupied, while her body lay unused. She ignored Dumbledore’s daily visits and Pomfrey’s bustling and murmuring as the minutes slowly melted into days. Not even Professor Lupin’s death was enough to bring her back to reality. As they wrapped his body in a white sheet and levitated him to the cold room to await burial, she was playing that train ride over and over in her mind, lost in what was, and what could have been.
This morning, Ginny was finally forced back into reality by an insistent tapping on her window. Of course, the noise disrupted her pleasant dream of Blaise and Draco, so she irritably called for Pomfrey. The older woman did not come, but the tapping continued unceasingly. Grumbling a bit, Ginny propped herself on her elbows and peered at the window behind her. Blinking, she tried to focus her eyes and soon realized that Pigwidgeon was at the window, with a letter for her.
Surprise kept Ginny glued in that position for a moment; then, she finally gathered her wits and fumbled with the window’s rusty latch. She was so excited at the arrival of news that it took her a full two minutes to finally open the window and allow the excited owl into the Infirmary. Catching him quickly before he began fluttering about, Ginny plopped back against her pillow and untied the letter from his feet with shaking hands. Once she had opened it, she read:
My dearest Ginny,
I am becoming extremely concerned that I haven’t received any owls from you; I hope you are healing well. Madame Pomfrey insists that you need your rest but you are still my only daughter and I worry about you. You’re a Weasley, I say, and we Weasleys are better off together. But, of course, even my words mean nothing if Dumbledore agrees with her.
That said, Ginny promise me that you will eat whatever you’re given and to drink every potion Madame Pomfrey gives you, even if you think you are feeling better, because you have been through a terrible ordeal. Remember, my dear, you must remain strong and come back to us quickly, because we miss you ever so much. See if you can’t make it home before poor Harry’s funeral; it would mean a great deal to Ron and Hermione especially, and I know that it would comfort you to be here.
Your father has buried himself with work at the Ministry and your brothers are being a general nuisance, unsure of what to do with themselves; we would all be happy and thankful to see you again safe and healthy. I hope that you are well enough to read this, and wish that you would answer me as soon as you feel able to, dear; we’re terribly concerned about you.
Love,
Mum
Ginny reread the owl before she fully comprehended what it said. She smiled in relief; her family was safe, and her brothers seemed to be recovering nicely. After a moment of satisfaction, she furrowed her brow thoughtfully and read the last two paragraphs again; from what her mother had written, her family had been sending owls to her all along. Yet, if they had been communicating with Ginny so much, why didn’t Pomfrey bother to tell her that they were all doing well? And the news that Harry’s funeral was that morning showed her just how much she’d missed during her time in the Infirmary. The reminder that there was life outside of those castle walls prompted the old Ginny to return, if only hesitantly. At the moment, she was determined to get a full explanation from Pomfrey. Slowly, she swung her legs over to the side of her bed. She tried to stand up, but almost fell over; a week of barely moving had weakened her. Steadying herself, Ginny attempted to walk slowly to Pomfrey’s office.
She’d taken her second step when Pomfrey herself opened the main entrance and bustled in, her arms laden with bed linen. Pomfrey didn’t notice Ginny at first; feeling a bit miffed, Ginny candidly blurted out, “Where the bloody hell is my owls?”
Pomfrey nearly dropped her bundle in shock. Finally noticing that Ginny was standing and looking quite upset, she hurried over while scolding, “Miss Weasley! Your language!”
Ginny couldn’t care less about the fact that she had just been disrespectful to her caretaker; instead, in true Weasley fashion, she continued in her accusatory tone, “I know you’ve been hiding my owls from me! How dare you! Do you even know how long I’ve been wondering if my family’s still alive? I’ve been wondering if any of them had died, or if Voldemort was still alive, or if I would be able to stay at Hogwarts - Hermione would be damn proud of me if she knew how much I worried! How could you do this to me?”
Pomfrey paled when she heard the word, “Voldemort,” and immediately slowed her steps. “I’ll have you know, Miss Weasley,” she began haughtily, “that I tried to tell you of their well-being. However, you were too stubborn to listen. Children and their dreaming...” She trailed off as she shook her head. “However, I will fetch the Headmaster to explain it to you, if you’ll simply return to your bed.”
With a hateful glare, Ginny crossed her arms over her chest, leaning against the side of her bed for support. “No,” she flatly refused.
“Miss Weasley,” Pomfrey began exasperatedly.
“I won’t sit,” Ginny interrupted obstinately, “Until you give me a bloody good reason for why you hid my owls.”
Sighing resignedly, Pomfrey replied, “Miss Weasley, it wasn’t I who hid those owls. The Headmaster simply told me that you should not have your owls until you had fully healed, since you refused to talk to either of us.”
“But I have fully healed!” Ginny almost shrieked. “There isn’t a bloody scratch on me!” Except for the ones on my soul, she mentally added.
“Yes, I thought they were there, myself,” a kindly voice interrupted, as though the speaker could hear her thoughts. Startled, Ginny looked in the direction of the mysterious speaker, and found Professor Dumbledore standing at the entrance to the Infirmary.
“Headmaster!” Pomfrey exclaimed with audible relief as she hurried to Dumbledore’s side.
Neither Ginny nor Dumbledore looked at Pomfrey, for they were staring into each other’s eyes from opposite sides of the room. After a moment, Ginny flushed and shifted uncomfortably under his gaze, feeling as though he could see directly into the chaotic contents of her mind. His eyes seemed to bore into her very soul, seeing her memories and thoughts of Draco and Blaise as they resurfaced in her mind. What confused her about these memories was that she was now seeing them with ‘new eyes.’ The bitterness and regret that had clouded her mind in the past days dissipated, leaving her mind free to make rational judgments. She still felt some anger and resentment, but underneath those emotions, she could now see that she felt that strongly because she truly had loved them both, if unequally.
She was startled when Dumbledore cleared his throat loudly; turning to look at him, Ginny saw that he had a sympathetic smile on his face as he began, “Yes, Miss Weasley, it was my idea for you be isolated so drastically from your family and news of the world outside. At first, I thought you merely needed more time to reflect on what had happened, as well as recover from your injuries. But when you showed no signs of improvement, I was forced to take drastic measures.” While he spoke, he gave a look that indicated a greater meaning to his words. Ginny blushed, feeling as though he really had seen everything that she had seen in her mind. Serenely, he looked at Pomfrey and said, “Poppy, please fetch Miss Weasley’s owls from your office. I believe she has now recovered enough to return to the Wizarding World.”
Pomfrey looked at Dumbledore disapprovingly, but she quietly did as he asked and went off to her chambers. Ginny, still in shock about what she’d just heard, stood by her bed awkwardly for a long moment, unsure of what to do. Again, as though he could read her mind, Dumbledore smiled gently and suggested, “Perhaps it would be best if you sat down, Miss Weasley. You’ll need to stretch out your legs a bit more before you can walk as you used to.”
Mechanically, Ginny did as he said and slowly settled herself back under her covers. While she busied herself, Dumbledore moved towards her bedside and continued in a lower voice, “If you should need me, Miss Weasley, I am always available to assist you to the best of my ability, particularly in clearing up certain situations. I will leave you to read your owls and return to visit you again later this evening.” Ginny had merely stared at him and forgot to ask where he would be going, for at that moment, Pomfrey had returned with a week’s worth of newspapers and owls. Ginny’s curiosity was too piqued for her to be bothered with anything else that morning, so Pomfrey and Dumbledore left her as soon as she began reading her first owl.
While the owls from her mother had only been full of love and worry, Ginny was surprised and dismayed when she read her brother Bill’s owls. It was surprising how intent he had been to keep her updated on the family doings, but Ginny mentally thanked him for taking the effort to do so. According to his accounts, Charlie had broken his leg when he had fallen off of his dragon; Charlie, Hagrid, and some others had been involved in a fight between magical creatures outside of the castle walls. She shivered when she heard that even vampires had been present on school grounds that day; from what Bill wrote, it had been a miracle that none of those creatures had entered the castle through he same entrance that Voldemort and the Death Eaters had used. Bill himself had been present in the same corridor that Ginny had been in, and had been slashed with a particularly nasty curse from Augustus Rookwood while they fought each other. Thankfully, both he and Charlie were recovering nicely.
Bill also sent news of the private funeral they had held for Fred, and George’s reaction to his twin’s death. George had originally intended to close Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes for good after the battle was over, but once news of Voldemort’s death spread, Dedalus Diggle and a host of others had wanted to buy some merchandise for their celebrations. Bowing to popular demand, George let the store be opened again, but left it in the hands of Ron and Charlie. Meanwhile, George opted to remain at home, holed up in his room. According to Bill, he never spoke to anyone, and had lost any sense of humor that he had once had.
No one was able to do anything for George, Bill had written, because he would not let anyone help him and refused to talk about what was troubling him. Bill would have pressured his brother more, but he was still required to report to work at the Gringott’s London branch, while their mother and father were busy with Order business and the ministry. Minister Bones had been so impressed by Ginny’s father that she offered him a promotion. Ginny smiled to herself as she read that he had refused, stating that he was “more than happy doing what he had always loved.” As Bill had jokingly commented, if there was anyone in the family who was the epitome of Weasley strength and stubbornness, it was their father.
Ginny cleared her mind of thoughts of that morning, and then refocused her eyes on the parchment that lay on her lap. While Bill’s words had been simple and straightforward, she could still feel the suffering and hardship that he and the rest of the family were surely experiencing. Her heart went out to each of her family members and she longed to be by their side, yet Pomfrey had said nothing about when she would be allowed to leave. Naturally, Ginny was frustrated at the older woman’s reticence on the subject, but she decided to wait for the afternoon to question Dumbledore personally.
Sighing disconsolately, Ginny pushed the owls aside and reached for the Daily Prophets. Surprisingly, it had taken her the better part of four hours to read through every article that pertained to the battle at Hogwarts and the aftermath, as well as skim over the other happenings in the Wizarding World. Rifling through them once more, Ginny reread the headlines in order:
1 November, Morning Edition: You-Know-Who Defeated by Harry Potter!
1 Nov., Evening Edition: Fudge Resigns; A. Bones Declared New Minister.
2 Nov., Morning Edition: Boy-Who-Lived-And-Conquered Dead!
2 Nov., Evening Edition: Final Death Toll: 25; Bagman Murdered
3 Nov., Morning Edition: Potter’s Murderer Suspected Muggle! Still At Large.
3 Nov., Evening Edition: Remaining Death Eaters On Trial; Potter’s Funeral Friday
4 Nov., Morning Edition: Avery & Nott Sentenced to Azkaban; Purebloods Claim You-Know-Who Was Right - Like Potter’s Murderer, Muggles Are Dangerous!
4 Nov., Evening Edition: Snape Declared Innocent; Mulciber Sentenced to Azkaban
5 Nov., Morning Edition: MoM Denies Potter’s Murderer is Muggle; Lestrange Sentenced to Azkaban
5 Nov., Evening Edition: Macnair Sentenced to Azkaban; Rookwood Escapes Custody
6 Nov., Morning Edition: Potter’s Murderer Captured! Identity Withheld By MoM; Jugson Sentenced to Azkaban
6 Nov., Evening Edition: Travers and Crabbe Sentenced to Azkaban; Rookwood Spotted Near Surrey
7 Nov., Morning Edition: Potter’s Funeral; D. Malfoy Declared Innocent
She sighed out loud as she read the last title; apparently, Draco’s money and influence had kept him out of Azkaban again. One part of Ginny was happy to hear this news, yet another wanted revenge for how he’d used her. Shaking her head, Ginny told herself that while Draco was set free, she and her family and friends would always know the truth of what happened. Because of her damning knowledge of his actual activities during that last battle, she was confident that he would never be able to harm her again. Of course, her newfound freedom from him caused her to miss him more, but she was determined to move on with her life.
Trying to turn her mind from Draco, she glanced at the headline screaming, “Potter’s Murderer Captured!” She’d been following the articles that talked about the search, and was quite intrigued by it all. Apparently, Harry had been stabbed by Godric Gryffindor’s sword, yet there were no magical traces on Harry’s body, or in the area where he was slain. Any magical person would have left some sort of magical signature on the hilt of the sword or on Harry himself if they had killed him; yet, there was no sign of a magical person. Thus, the Prophet thought it likely that a Muggle had killed Harry; of course, that was entirely impossible, for no Muggle could see or enter Hogwarts. Ginny herself had thought long and hard about it, yet she couldn’t understand how someone non-magical could kill Harry.
Of course, rumors of a Muggle killing the Boy-Who-Lived simply played into the hands of the remaining Purebloods, who tried to incite public outrage by claiming that Voldemort was correct in his assumptions that Muggles were any wizard or witch’s enemies. That idea didn’t hold with any of the Muggleborns or Halfbloods who had fought in the war, and remembered their own persecution, so the idea lost all its potency. Ginny smirked to herself at the idea of Pureblooded bigots being put in their rightful place.
Her smirk turned to a look of pity as her eyes fell on a picture of Harry in this morning’s issue. He was smiling in the picture, holding up the Snitch in one hand while the other kept him steady on his Firebolt. His Quidditch uniform was rumpled and dirty, yet Ginny thought he’d never looked more beautiful. While she had lost her infatuation with Harry long ago, she still remembered how to read each of his expressions. Tracing an outline around his face, Ginny could see that he was very happy at that moment. In a way, she could relate to him. She had never been happier than when she had been with Draco and Blaise. Unlike everything else in her life, except for some of her clothing, Draco and Blaise were hers alone. They were not hand-me-downs from her brothers or even her brothers’ friends, but they still loved her and cared for her. Just as Harry reveled in his success on the Quidditch pitch, where he was free to claim a victory as his own, Ginny had also once reveled in the knowledge that she had friends who wanted her as she was.
Ginny’s vision blurred with tears of frustration as she stared at the picture and continued tracing it with her finger. No matter what their differences had been, she wished she had been at Harry’s funeral that morning. Yet, she’d been so preoccupied with recovering the owls and Daily Prophets that she’d completely forgotten to ask if she could go. A part of her resented Dumbledore for not mentioning it to her; in hindsight, she could see that he’d been sidestepping the issue the entire time he’d spoken to her. Staring at the picture again, she couldn’t help but wonder why he’d be so cruel as to deny her this one chance for closure. With Harry’s funeral, Ginny felt that she could have ended this chapter of her life and moved on.
Now, she would always be locked in this sea of uncertainty, doubting herself and what she’d once trusted in. The thought of being tortured in that way brought even more tears to her eyes, but she was prevented from making a spectacle of herself when she heard the door to the Infirmary open. Looking up quickly, Ginny sniffed and willed her tears away to get a better look at who had entered. She wasn’t surprised to see Professor Dumbledore approaching her, but she was rather startled by the strange-looking bowl in his arms. “Professor,” she bit out without warmth, not bothering to sit up or tidy the papers and owls on her lap.
“Miss Weasley,” he greeted her cordially, as he settled into a chair next to her bed. “I trust you have caught up with the news while I was away?” His blue eyes seemed a bit dull, even though there was a kindly smile on his face.
Nodding mechanically, Ginny replied, “Yes, I have.” Pausing a moment, she sneered, “I assume you were at Harry’s funeral?”
The smile left the Headmaster’s face as he nodded.
Seething with resentment, she crossed her arms across her chest and muttered, “Since I was unfortunately detained from finding some closure in my life, how was it?”
To her surprise, he simply smiled again and replied, “I had my reasons, Miss Weasley. Yet, you still deserve to see the funeral as though you were there.” Picking up the strange bowl, he held it out to her and stated, “It’s all in this Pensieve.”
“What does it do?” she asked, forgetting that she was to be upset with Dumbledore as she stared at it skeptically.
He smiled genially at her while he explained, “It’s a treasury of my thoughts and memories. If I have something particularly troubling that I want to forget, or if I want to remember something very important, I can simply transfer it from my mind to my Pensieve.” He proceeded to hold his wand to his temple as he spoke; Ginny watched in fascination as he demonstrated extracting a wispy white thread from his forehead with his wand. “This is a memory of mine that I can now add to the Pensieve,” he explained, before touching the wand back to his forehead and allowing the memory to reenter his mind. “I’ve added my memory of today’s funeral ceremony to it. I would have added the actual burial, but that is a particular memory that I do not wish to part with,” he added softly as his blue eyes dulled once again.
Now that she knew that the Pensieve actually held Dumbledore’s memories, Ginny had a sense of what sharing this was costing him. After all, she wouldn’t part with any of her memories of Blaise and Draco, even if someone demanded to see them. Respectfully, she asked, “How can I see this memory, Professor?”
Dumbledore smiled in response and wordlessly reached into his voluminous robes, pulling out her wand. Ginny gasped at the sight of it, and eagerly grabbed it when he offered it to her; while she hadn’t even realized that she was without it for the past few days, she’d found herself longing for it all morning. As she held it, she felt a welcome surge of magical energy throughout her body, as it inspired her self-confidence once again.
Ginny finally tore her eyes away from her wand when she felt Dumbledore set the bowl on her lap. It was surprisingly light, belying the hewn stone that it was forged from. Looking at the Professor, she caught the familiar twinkle in his eyes as he said, “Dip your wand in it.”
She complied and watched in amazement as the liquid-like substance turned clear, then a fantastic mix of oranges, pinks, and blues. Suddenly, she realized that she was staring in the direction of the dawning sun. Turning her eyes away from the blinding light, she blinked rapidly to regain some of her vision. When she looked back into the Pensieve again, she was startled to find that she had a bird’s-eye view of the ceremony before her.
After a moment of hard thinking, Ginny realized that she didn’t recognize the field where the ceremony had taken place. Of course, considering the amount of people she saw before her, she could understand why it would be held in an unfamiliar location, much like the Quidditch World Cup. Slightly horrified that she’d just compared Harry to a Quidditch game, Ginny focused on the elements within the scene.
A platform had been set up near a copse of trees, while the rest of the land for a mile around was covered in green grass, still drenched with dew. Apparition sites were nearly a quarter of a kilometer away, where many people were arriving. The ceremony still hadn’t started, yet there was already a large crowd gathered around the platform, talking in hushed whispers. Spotting Dumbledore’s telltale blue robes, Ginny dipped her head to get a closer look at him; all of a sudden, her nose touched the liquid, and she was falling through a dark, cold whirlpool.
In only a few short moments, she found herself standing on the stage herself. In the right-most corner, she saw Ron consoling a brokenhearted Hermione as she wept. Charlie and Bill were seated nearby, talking quietly to each other while looking out at the crowd periodically. Charlie’s cane was leaning against the back of his chair, while Bill was sitting up rather stiffly, due to the uncomfortable bandages around his torso. George was on the other side of Bill, sitting straight in his chair and staring blankly at his folded hands on his lap. Ginny’s heart constricted in sympathy when she noticed his gaunt features, just as Bill had described them.
Someone cleared their throat, disrupting Ginny’s train of thought. Turning to face the direction of the sound, Ginny found her parents and other Order members and Ministry workers on the other side of the platform. Dumbledore was standing in the middle, facing the multitude of people who had arrived to pay their respects. With the help of a Sonorous Charm, he raised his arms in a gesture of silence and began:
“My fellow witches and wizards.
“We are gathered here this morning to pay our respects to Harry Potter, the wizard of seventeen years of age who defeated the greatest evil of our age. You have all known him as the ‘Boy Who Lived.’ Yet, I stand here today to tell you that he was more than our savior.
”He was a friend, a protégé, and a brother. He was a Muggle-raised wizard who had no idea of his magical abilities until the tender age of eleven. He was a diligent Hogwarts student and a proven leader. He was the youngest Seeker in a century during his first year on the Gryffindor House team. He was even the nemesis of Voldemort and his supporters.
“Yet, most of all, he was simply a boy...”
Ginny tuned out his words as her eyes roved the crowd. Everyone was silent as they listened to Dumbledore speak. One woman, dressed in black from head to toe, was dabbing pitifully at her eyes with a handkerchief, while her husband tightened his arms around her. Biting back her own tears, Ginny forced herself to continue examining the crowd before she made a spectacle of herself. To her astonishment, she realized that some students’ parents and her father’s coworkers were dotted throughout the crowd.
“...In short, he faced obstacles that some of us can only dream of...”
Her gaze moved on to the back of the crowd, where latecomers were straggling in from the apparition points. One particular pair of arrivals caught her eye, and she watched them carefully. Both were cloaked in black, with hoods pulled well over their faces to hide them from view. One was taller than the other, but both were thin and lithe in their movements. In fact, the gait of the shorter one looked vaguely familiar. Squinting as hard as she could, Ginny was horrified when she watched the shorter one’s hood slide back a bit, allowing the emerging sunlight to glint brightly off of his hair. Draco had been there.
“...We all have a destiny, a higher purpose to our lives. Yet, as Harry showed us, the foretelling of our fate is insignificant. It is we who decide our respective destinies, and no one can take that decision from us.”
Ginny couldn’t bear to watch or hear any more, now that she knew that Draco had been there. His appearance at Harry’s funeral was like a knife twisting in her gut; she wondered angrily if he was there to gloat at how he’d played with her, and indirectly with Harry himself. “Bloody bastard,” she muttered out loud in the Pensieve, then covered her mouth in horror, hoping that her parents hadn’t heard her.
Of course, since she was only in a memory, her parents were completely oblivious to what she’d said. Sighing in relief, she turned her attention back to Dumbledore as he ended his speech. However, instead his closing statements, she heard an amused tone behind her mutter, “Actually, I do believe both of his parents were married at the time of his birth.”
Startled, Ginny whipped her head around and found a different Albus Dumbledore standing next to her on the stage. “P- P- Professor!” she exclaimed.
“Do you see now why I did not allow you to attend?” he asked quietly, his eyes boring into hers.
“You knew he’d be there, then!” she exclaimed, stamping her foot indignantly. “How could you let him desecrate-”
“I only thought that he’d see this funeral as a way to obtain some closure, just as you had thought,” he replied mildly. “While I didn’t have control over his actions, I knew I could influence yours greatly. I feared that if you met him there, you would never have the opportunity for resolution, my dear Miss Weasley.”
Amazingly, Ginny found that she couldn’t reply to that statement. It was true, after all; even the sight of Draco in Dumbledore’s memory was enough to make her want to leave the Pensieve altogether.
As though he could read her mind, the Headmaster looked at her from over his half-moon glasses and asked, “Would you like to return to the infirmary now, Miss Weasley?”
She nodded mutely and relented as he put his hand under her elbow. Suddenly, she felt as though she was rising into the sky, and doing a slow somersault in the same black void she had passed through before, until she found herself seated on her bed in the infirmary, with Dumbledore seated beside her. He was smiling indulgently at her as he removed the Pensieve from her lap and placed it carefully on the bedside table. “Well,” he began conversationally, “I expect you have many questions for me.”
Shaking her head, Ginny muttered, “I still can’t believe he had the gall to show his face there. After all he’s done-”
“And what exactly has he done, Miss Weasley?” he interrupted quietly. “He was acquitted of all charges against him, so he was technically free to do as he pleased.”
“He betrayed me! He lied about spying on Voldemort, when he was really spying on us and telling them! He nearly got me killed, too! Aimed the Killing Curse at me and everything,” she finished in a huff of indignation.
To her disgust, Dumbledore’s smile grew wider as he replied, “Perhaps you shouldn’t be so quick to judge his actions, Miss Weasley. After all, you can never know one’s intentions unless that person informs you of them. As for your brush with death,” he paused, “I believe that there were mitigating circumstances at the time that led to Mr. Malfoy’s reaction.”
“What in Merlin’s name could those ‘circumstances’ have been?” Ginny asked with a skeptical look.
“I am not at liberty to say,” he replied evenly. “However, all I can say is that that moment may have been the most painful one in Mr. Malfoy’s young life.”
Ginny crossed her arms over her chest petulantly and muttered, “It caused me quite a bit of pain as well, I’ll have you know.”
Chuckling gently, Dumbledore nodded and asked, “Was there anything else that troubled you, Miss Weasley?”
Staring at the old man seated beside her, Ginny fought to keep her temper in check. She couldn’t understand what was so amusing about what Draco had done to her. It certainly hadn’t been funny to realize that he’d loved her, yet now hated her. Nor had it been amusing to see him cast the Killing Curse at her. Pressing her arms tightly against her chest, she forced herself to breathe normally and stop thinking about it. Instead, she decided to turn the tables on the Headmaster. With an innocent look, she asked, “I was wondering – who killed Harry?”
Pursing his lips together tightly, Dumbledore deliberated before he answered, “I am afraid I cannot release that information.”
“Right, then,” she conceded. “Can you at least tell me why he nearly went mad before he died?”
With dull eyes, the Headmaster looked away from Ginny as he answered, “He had been possessed by Tom on and off throughout the summer. I had known about it and tried to help, but Harry wouldn’t learn Occlumency from Professor Snape, and Professor Snape himself was unwilling to teach Harry. Of course, the possessions got worse during the school term, leading to his brief stint in the Infirmary. I would have helped him, but I was much too afraid that Tom would have known of it. Can you imagine if Tom had gotten a glimpse into my mind, Miss Weasley?” Dumbledore whispered with anguish. “I would have unwittingly betrayed the Order and all that we had worked for. I simply couldn’t.”
He closed his eyes and winced, as though the pain was still too fresh for him to bear. Ginny stared at the old man before her, nearly gaping at his obvious torment. She wanted to reach out to him and tell him about her own mental torment over Blaise’s death and Draco’s betrayal. She wanted to comfort him and show him that he was not to blame for Harry’s death. She wanted to encourage him and find some hope that the Wizarding World would be able to recover from this war.
But before she could say any of those things, his eyes suddenly opened and he muttered, “I beg you, Miss Weasley. Do not seek closure for a time in your life until you know of everything that happened during that period. I have sought my closure over Harry, and I find that I cannot, now that I am aware of what he went through.”
Stunned at this version of her normally barmy Headmaster, Ginny hardly noticed when the door of the Infirmary burst open. Mechanically turning her head towards the doorway, she felt an odd sense of regret when she saw her brother Bill standing there, smiling widely as he called out to her, “Ginny!”
Please feed my addiction and review!
1. The poem at the beginning of the chapter was written by Nickel, the author of Letting Go (D/G) over at Fiction Alley, and a good friend. She's so addicted to this story that she wrote a poem and is painting a scene from it. Here's the rest of the poem:
'I know I was wrong
That doesn’t make you right
You turn your back on me
Resentfully blaming me
Bitter because of a loss
That is killing us both
While we resort to hate
You won’t tell me what I did
You won’t admit your lies
You walk away and I stare
Hoping you’ll return
To where you let out your anger
Inviting me in unknowingly
Before pushing me away again
My mind is black
And I look for the grey outside
But I can’t seem to look outside my mind
Where hell has decided to stay
Pushing the past before my eyes
Yearning away my chance at a future
Your deception has caged me
My confusion blurs the lines
That separate everything I see
So your lies and the truth mix
And I don’t know who I am anymore
I’m positive I loved you both
But love failed to hold us together
Another thing I can’t depend on
I answer your goodbye
With a silent plea… don’t let go'
2. As for the Pensieve, please read the chapter entitled 'Pensieve' from GOF. I followed it as closely as possible, and I believe what I described is canon.
3. If you'd like notifications of new chapters for On Fire and my other fanfics, come on over to my Yahoo group. And please tell me what you think in a review!
and I look for the grey outside
but I can’t seem to look outside my mind
where hell has decided to stay
pushing the past before my eyes
yearning away my chance at a future
your deception has caged me
my confusion blurs the lines
that separate everything I see
- Nickel
Trials
Rubbing her forehead to soothe her headache, Ginny let out a sigh of sheer exhaustion. Although she had been spending most of her day listlessly in her bed, her mind had been quite preoccupied with the new discoveries she’d made that morning. Glancing down at the newspapers that littered her lap, she mentally reviewed what had happened since the night Draco had left her with tear-stained cheeks and a sour taste in her mouth.
For days, her frustration and despondency left her in a near-somnolent state. Her trays of food went nearly untouched, for she preferred to spend her time in nostalgia. Memories of Blaise’s smiles and the strength of Draco’s arm kept her mind occupied, while her body lay unused. She ignored Dumbledore’s daily visits and Pomfrey’s bustling and murmuring as the minutes slowly melted into days. Not even Professor Lupin’s death was enough to bring her back to reality. As they wrapped his body in a white sheet and levitated him to the cold room to await burial, she was playing that train ride over and over in her mind, lost in what was, and what could have been.
This morning, Ginny was finally forced back into reality by an insistent tapping on her window. Of course, the noise disrupted her pleasant dream of Blaise and Draco, so she irritably called for Pomfrey. The older woman did not come, but the tapping continued unceasingly. Grumbling a bit, Ginny propped herself on her elbows and peered at the window behind her. Blinking, she tried to focus her eyes and soon realized that Pigwidgeon was at the window, with a letter for her.
Surprise kept Ginny glued in that position for a moment; then, she finally gathered her wits and fumbled with the window’s rusty latch. She was so excited at the arrival of news that it took her a full two minutes to finally open the window and allow the excited owl into the Infirmary. Catching him quickly before he began fluttering about, Ginny plopped back against her pillow and untied the letter from his feet with shaking hands. Once she had opened it, she read:
My dearest Ginny,
I am becoming extremely concerned that I haven’t received any owls from you; I hope you are healing well. Madame Pomfrey insists that you need your rest but you are still my only daughter and I worry about you. You’re a Weasley, I say, and we Weasleys are better off together. But, of course, even my words mean nothing if Dumbledore agrees with her.
That said, Ginny promise me that you will eat whatever you’re given and to drink every potion Madame Pomfrey gives you, even if you think you are feeling better, because you have been through a terrible ordeal. Remember, my dear, you must remain strong and come back to us quickly, because we miss you ever so much. See if you can’t make it home before poor Harry’s funeral; it would mean a great deal to Ron and Hermione especially, and I know that it would comfort you to be here.
Your father has buried himself with work at the Ministry and your brothers are being a general nuisance, unsure of what to do with themselves; we would all be happy and thankful to see you again safe and healthy. I hope that you are well enough to read this, and wish that you would answer me as soon as you feel able to, dear; we’re terribly concerned about you.
Love,
Mum
Ginny reread the owl before she fully comprehended what it said. She smiled in relief; her family was safe, and her brothers seemed to be recovering nicely. After a moment of satisfaction, she furrowed her brow thoughtfully and read the last two paragraphs again; from what her mother had written, her family had been sending owls to her all along. Yet, if they had been communicating with Ginny so much, why didn’t Pomfrey bother to tell her that they were all doing well? And the news that Harry’s funeral was that morning showed her just how much she’d missed during her time in the Infirmary. The reminder that there was life outside of those castle walls prompted the old Ginny to return, if only hesitantly. At the moment, she was determined to get a full explanation from Pomfrey. Slowly, she swung her legs over to the side of her bed. She tried to stand up, but almost fell over; a week of barely moving had weakened her. Steadying herself, Ginny attempted to walk slowly to Pomfrey’s office.
She’d taken her second step when Pomfrey herself opened the main entrance and bustled in, her arms laden with bed linen. Pomfrey didn’t notice Ginny at first; feeling a bit miffed, Ginny candidly blurted out, “Where the bloody hell is my owls?”
Pomfrey nearly dropped her bundle in shock. Finally noticing that Ginny was standing and looking quite upset, she hurried over while scolding, “Miss Weasley! Your language!”
Ginny couldn’t care less about the fact that she had just been disrespectful to her caretaker; instead, in true Weasley fashion, she continued in her accusatory tone, “I know you’ve been hiding my owls from me! How dare you! Do you even know how long I’ve been wondering if my family’s still alive? I’ve been wondering if any of them had died, or if Voldemort was still alive, or if I would be able to stay at Hogwarts - Hermione would be damn proud of me if she knew how much I worried! How could you do this to me?”
Pomfrey paled when she heard the word, “Voldemort,” and immediately slowed her steps. “I’ll have you know, Miss Weasley,” she began haughtily, “that I tried to tell you of their well-being. However, you were too stubborn to listen. Children and their dreaming...” She trailed off as she shook her head. “However, I will fetch the Headmaster to explain it to you, if you’ll simply return to your bed.”
With a hateful glare, Ginny crossed her arms over her chest, leaning against the side of her bed for support. “No,” she flatly refused.
“Miss Weasley,” Pomfrey began exasperatedly.
“I won’t sit,” Ginny interrupted obstinately, “Until you give me a bloody good reason for why you hid my owls.”
Sighing resignedly, Pomfrey replied, “Miss Weasley, it wasn’t I who hid those owls. The Headmaster simply told me that you should not have your owls until you had fully healed, since you refused to talk to either of us.”
“But I have fully healed!” Ginny almost shrieked. “There isn’t a bloody scratch on me!” Except for the ones on my soul, she mentally added.
“Yes, I thought they were there, myself,” a kindly voice interrupted, as though the speaker could hear her thoughts. Startled, Ginny looked in the direction of the mysterious speaker, and found Professor Dumbledore standing at the entrance to the Infirmary.
“Headmaster!” Pomfrey exclaimed with audible relief as she hurried to Dumbledore’s side.
Neither Ginny nor Dumbledore looked at Pomfrey, for they were staring into each other’s eyes from opposite sides of the room. After a moment, Ginny flushed and shifted uncomfortably under his gaze, feeling as though he could see directly into the chaotic contents of her mind. His eyes seemed to bore into her very soul, seeing her memories and thoughts of Draco and Blaise as they resurfaced in her mind. What confused her about these memories was that she was now seeing them with ‘new eyes.’ The bitterness and regret that had clouded her mind in the past days dissipated, leaving her mind free to make rational judgments. She still felt some anger and resentment, but underneath those emotions, she could now see that she felt that strongly because she truly had loved them both, if unequally.
She was startled when Dumbledore cleared his throat loudly; turning to look at him, Ginny saw that he had a sympathetic smile on his face as he began, “Yes, Miss Weasley, it was my idea for you be isolated so drastically from your family and news of the world outside. At first, I thought you merely needed more time to reflect on what had happened, as well as recover from your injuries. But when you showed no signs of improvement, I was forced to take drastic measures.” While he spoke, he gave a look that indicated a greater meaning to his words. Ginny blushed, feeling as though he really had seen everything that she had seen in her mind. Serenely, he looked at Pomfrey and said, “Poppy, please fetch Miss Weasley’s owls from your office. I believe she has now recovered enough to return to the Wizarding World.”
Pomfrey looked at Dumbledore disapprovingly, but she quietly did as he asked and went off to her chambers. Ginny, still in shock about what she’d just heard, stood by her bed awkwardly for a long moment, unsure of what to do. Again, as though he could read her mind, Dumbledore smiled gently and suggested, “Perhaps it would be best if you sat down, Miss Weasley. You’ll need to stretch out your legs a bit more before you can walk as you used to.”
Mechanically, Ginny did as he said and slowly settled herself back under her covers. While she busied herself, Dumbledore moved towards her bedside and continued in a lower voice, “If you should need me, Miss Weasley, I am always available to assist you to the best of my ability, particularly in clearing up certain situations. I will leave you to read your owls and return to visit you again later this evening.” Ginny had merely stared at him and forgot to ask where he would be going, for at that moment, Pomfrey had returned with a week’s worth of newspapers and owls. Ginny’s curiosity was too piqued for her to be bothered with anything else that morning, so Pomfrey and Dumbledore left her as soon as she began reading her first owl.
While the owls from her mother had only been full of love and worry, Ginny was surprised and dismayed when she read her brother Bill’s owls. It was surprising how intent he had been to keep her updated on the family doings, but Ginny mentally thanked him for taking the effort to do so. According to his accounts, Charlie had broken his leg when he had fallen off of his dragon; Charlie, Hagrid, and some others had been involved in a fight between magical creatures outside of the castle walls. She shivered when she heard that even vampires had been present on school grounds that day; from what Bill wrote, it had been a miracle that none of those creatures had entered the castle through he same entrance that Voldemort and the Death Eaters had used. Bill himself had been present in the same corridor that Ginny had been in, and had been slashed with a particularly nasty curse from Augustus Rookwood while they fought each other. Thankfully, both he and Charlie were recovering nicely.
Bill also sent news of the private funeral they had held for Fred, and George’s reaction to his twin’s death. George had originally intended to close Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes for good after the battle was over, but once news of Voldemort’s death spread, Dedalus Diggle and a host of others had wanted to buy some merchandise for their celebrations. Bowing to popular demand, George let the store be opened again, but left it in the hands of Ron and Charlie. Meanwhile, George opted to remain at home, holed up in his room. According to Bill, he never spoke to anyone, and had lost any sense of humor that he had once had.
No one was able to do anything for George, Bill had written, because he would not let anyone help him and refused to talk about what was troubling him. Bill would have pressured his brother more, but he was still required to report to work at the Gringott’s London branch, while their mother and father were busy with Order business and the ministry. Minister Bones had been so impressed by Ginny’s father that she offered him a promotion. Ginny smiled to herself as she read that he had refused, stating that he was “more than happy doing what he had always loved.” As Bill had jokingly commented, if there was anyone in the family who was the epitome of Weasley strength and stubbornness, it was their father.
Ginny cleared her mind of thoughts of that morning, and then refocused her eyes on the parchment that lay on her lap. While Bill’s words had been simple and straightforward, she could still feel the suffering and hardship that he and the rest of the family were surely experiencing. Her heart went out to each of her family members and she longed to be by their side, yet Pomfrey had said nothing about when she would be allowed to leave. Naturally, Ginny was frustrated at the older woman’s reticence on the subject, but she decided to wait for the afternoon to question Dumbledore personally.
Sighing disconsolately, Ginny pushed the owls aside and reached for the Daily Prophets. Surprisingly, it had taken her the better part of four hours to read through every article that pertained to the battle at Hogwarts and the aftermath, as well as skim over the other happenings in the Wizarding World. Rifling through them once more, Ginny reread the headlines in order:
1 November, Morning Edition: You-Know-Who Defeated by Harry Potter!
1 Nov., Evening Edition: Fudge Resigns; A. Bones Declared New Minister.
2 Nov., Morning Edition: Boy-Who-Lived-And-Conquered Dead!
2 Nov., Evening Edition: Final Death Toll: 25; Bagman Murdered
3 Nov., Morning Edition: Potter’s Murderer Suspected Muggle! Still At Large.
3 Nov., Evening Edition: Remaining Death Eaters On Trial; Potter’s Funeral Friday
4 Nov., Morning Edition: Avery & Nott Sentenced to Azkaban; Purebloods Claim You-Know-Who Was Right - Like Potter’s Murderer, Muggles Are Dangerous!
4 Nov., Evening Edition: Snape Declared Innocent; Mulciber Sentenced to Azkaban
5 Nov., Morning Edition: MoM Denies Potter’s Murderer is Muggle; Lestrange Sentenced to Azkaban
5 Nov., Evening Edition: Macnair Sentenced to Azkaban; Rookwood Escapes Custody
6 Nov., Morning Edition: Potter’s Murderer Captured! Identity Withheld By MoM; Jugson Sentenced to Azkaban
6 Nov., Evening Edition: Travers and Crabbe Sentenced to Azkaban; Rookwood Spotted Near Surrey
7 Nov., Morning Edition: Potter’s Funeral; D. Malfoy Declared Innocent
She sighed out loud as she read the last title; apparently, Draco’s money and influence had kept him out of Azkaban again. One part of Ginny was happy to hear this news, yet another wanted revenge for how he’d used her. Shaking her head, Ginny told herself that while Draco was set free, she and her family and friends would always know the truth of what happened. Because of her damning knowledge of his actual activities during that last battle, she was confident that he would never be able to harm her again. Of course, her newfound freedom from him caused her to miss him more, but she was determined to move on with her life.
Trying to turn her mind from Draco, she glanced at the headline screaming, “Potter’s Murderer Captured!” She’d been following the articles that talked about the search, and was quite intrigued by it all. Apparently, Harry had been stabbed by Godric Gryffindor’s sword, yet there were no magical traces on Harry’s body, or in the area where he was slain. Any magical person would have left some sort of magical signature on the hilt of the sword or on Harry himself if they had killed him; yet, there was no sign of a magical person. Thus, the Prophet thought it likely that a Muggle had killed Harry; of course, that was entirely impossible, for no Muggle could see or enter Hogwarts. Ginny herself had thought long and hard about it, yet she couldn’t understand how someone non-magical could kill Harry.
Of course, rumors of a Muggle killing the Boy-Who-Lived simply played into the hands of the remaining Purebloods, who tried to incite public outrage by claiming that Voldemort was correct in his assumptions that Muggles were any wizard or witch’s enemies. That idea didn’t hold with any of the Muggleborns or Halfbloods who had fought in the war, and remembered their own persecution, so the idea lost all its potency. Ginny smirked to herself at the idea of Pureblooded bigots being put in their rightful place.
Her smirk turned to a look of pity as her eyes fell on a picture of Harry in this morning’s issue. He was smiling in the picture, holding up the Snitch in one hand while the other kept him steady on his Firebolt. His Quidditch uniform was rumpled and dirty, yet Ginny thought he’d never looked more beautiful. While she had lost her infatuation with Harry long ago, she still remembered how to read each of his expressions. Tracing an outline around his face, Ginny could see that he was very happy at that moment. In a way, she could relate to him. She had never been happier than when she had been with Draco and Blaise. Unlike everything else in her life, except for some of her clothing, Draco and Blaise were hers alone. They were not hand-me-downs from her brothers or even her brothers’ friends, but they still loved her and cared for her. Just as Harry reveled in his success on the Quidditch pitch, where he was free to claim a victory as his own, Ginny had also once reveled in the knowledge that she had friends who wanted her as she was.
Ginny’s vision blurred with tears of frustration as she stared at the picture and continued tracing it with her finger. No matter what their differences had been, she wished she had been at Harry’s funeral that morning. Yet, she’d been so preoccupied with recovering the owls and Daily Prophets that she’d completely forgotten to ask if she could go. A part of her resented Dumbledore for not mentioning it to her; in hindsight, she could see that he’d been sidestepping the issue the entire time he’d spoken to her. Staring at the picture again, she couldn’t help but wonder why he’d be so cruel as to deny her this one chance for closure. With Harry’s funeral, Ginny felt that she could have ended this chapter of her life and moved on.
Now, she would always be locked in this sea of uncertainty, doubting herself and what she’d once trusted in. The thought of being tortured in that way brought even more tears to her eyes, but she was prevented from making a spectacle of herself when she heard the door to the Infirmary open. Looking up quickly, Ginny sniffed and willed her tears away to get a better look at who had entered. She wasn’t surprised to see Professor Dumbledore approaching her, but she was rather startled by the strange-looking bowl in his arms. “Professor,” she bit out without warmth, not bothering to sit up or tidy the papers and owls on her lap.
“Miss Weasley,” he greeted her cordially, as he settled into a chair next to her bed. “I trust you have caught up with the news while I was away?” His blue eyes seemed a bit dull, even though there was a kindly smile on his face.
Nodding mechanically, Ginny replied, “Yes, I have.” Pausing a moment, she sneered, “I assume you were at Harry’s funeral?”
The smile left the Headmaster’s face as he nodded.
Seething with resentment, she crossed her arms across her chest and muttered, “Since I was unfortunately detained from finding some closure in my life, how was it?”
To her surprise, he simply smiled again and replied, “I had my reasons, Miss Weasley. Yet, you still deserve to see the funeral as though you were there.” Picking up the strange bowl, he held it out to her and stated, “It’s all in this Pensieve.”
“What does it do?” she asked, forgetting that she was to be upset with Dumbledore as she stared at it skeptically.
He smiled genially at her while he explained, “It’s a treasury of my thoughts and memories. If I have something particularly troubling that I want to forget, or if I want to remember something very important, I can simply transfer it from my mind to my Pensieve.” He proceeded to hold his wand to his temple as he spoke; Ginny watched in fascination as he demonstrated extracting a wispy white thread from his forehead with his wand. “This is a memory of mine that I can now add to the Pensieve,” he explained, before touching the wand back to his forehead and allowing the memory to reenter his mind. “I’ve added my memory of today’s funeral ceremony to it. I would have added the actual burial, but that is a particular memory that I do not wish to part with,” he added softly as his blue eyes dulled once again.
Now that she knew that the Pensieve actually held Dumbledore’s memories, Ginny had a sense of what sharing this was costing him. After all, she wouldn’t part with any of her memories of Blaise and Draco, even if someone demanded to see them. Respectfully, she asked, “How can I see this memory, Professor?”
Dumbledore smiled in response and wordlessly reached into his voluminous robes, pulling out her wand. Ginny gasped at the sight of it, and eagerly grabbed it when he offered it to her; while she hadn’t even realized that she was without it for the past few days, she’d found herself longing for it all morning. As she held it, she felt a welcome surge of magical energy throughout her body, as it inspired her self-confidence once again.
Ginny finally tore her eyes away from her wand when she felt Dumbledore set the bowl on her lap. It was surprisingly light, belying the hewn stone that it was forged from. Looking at the Professor, she caught the familiar twinkle in his eyes as he said, “Dip your wand in it.”
She complied and watched in amazement as the liquid-like substance turned clear, then a fantastic mix of oranges, pinks, and blues. Suddenly, she realized that she was staring in the direction of the dawning sun. Turning her eyes away from the blinding light, she blinked rapidly to regain some of her vision. When she looked back into the Pensieve again, she was startled to find that she had a bird’s-eye view of the ceremony before her.
After a moment of hard thinking, Ginny realized that she didn’t recognize the field where the ceremony had taken place. Of course, considering the amount of people she saw before her, she could understand why it would be held in an unfamiliar location, much like the Quidditch World Cup. Slightly horrified that she’d just compared Harry to a Quidditch game, Ginny focused on the elements within the scene.
A platform had been set up near a copse of trees, while the rest of the land for a mile around was covered in green grass, still drenched with dew. Apparition sites were nearly a quarter of a kilometer away, where many people were arriving. The ceremony still hadn’t started, yet there was already a large crowd gathered around the platform, talking in hushed whispers. Spotting Dumbledore’s telltale blue robes, Ginny dipped her head to get a closer look at him; all of a sudden, her nose touched the liquid, and she was falling through a dark, cold whirlpool.
In only a few short moments, she found herself standing on the stage herself. In the right-most corner, she saw Ron consoling a brokenhearted Hermione as she wept. Charlie and Bill were seated nearby, talking quietly to each other while looking out at the crowd periodically. Charlie’s cane was leaning against the back of his chair, while Bill was sitting up rather stiffly, due to the uncomfortable bandages around his torso. George was on the other side of Bill, sitting straight in his chair and staring blankly at his folded hands on his lap. Ginny’s heart constricted in sympathy when she noticed his gaunt features, just as Bill had described them.
Someone cleared their throat, disrupting Ginny’s train of thought. Turning to face the direction of the sound, Ginny found her parents and other Order members and Ministry workers on the other side of the platform. Dumbledore was standing in the middle, facing the multitude of people who had arrived to pay their respects. With the help of a Sonorous Charm, he raised his arms in a gesture of silence and began:
“My fellow witches and wizards.
“We are gathered here this morning to pay our respects to Harry Potter, the wizard of seventeen years of age who defeated the greatest evil of our age. You have all known him as the ‘Boy Who Lived.’ Yet, I stand here today to tell you that he was more than our savior.
”He was a friend, a protégé, and a brother. He was a Muggle-raised wizard who had no idea of his magical abilities until the tender age of eleven. He was a diligent Hogwarts student and a proven leader. He was the youngest Seeker in a century during his first year on the Gryffindor House team. He was even the nemesis of Voldemort and his supporters.
“Yet, most of all, he was simply a boy...”
Ginny tuned out his words as her eyes roved the crowd. Everyone was silent as they listened to Dumbledore speak. One woman, dressed in black from head to toe, was dabbing pitifully at her eyes with a handkerchief, while her husband tightened his arms around her. Biting back her own tears, Ginny forced herself to continue examining the crowd before she made a spectacle of herself. To her astonishment, she realized that some students’ parents and her father’s coworkers were dotted throughout the crowd.
“...In short, he faced obstacles that some of us can only dream of...”
Her gaze moved on to the back of the crowd, where latecomers were straggling in from the apparition points. One particular pair of arrivals caught her eye, and she watched them carefully. Both were cloaked in black, with hoods pulled well over their faces to hide them from view. One was taller than the other, but both were thin and lithe in their movements. In fact, the gait of the shorter one looked vaguely familiar. Squinting as hard as she could, Ginny was horrified when she watched the shorter one’s hood slide back a bit, allowing the emerging sunlight to glint brightly off of his hair. Draco had been there.
“...We all have a destiny, a higher purpose to our lives. Yet, as Harry showed us, the foretelling of our fate is insignificant. It is we who decide our respective destinies, and no one can take that decision from us.”
Ginny couldn’t bear to watch or hear any more, now that she knew that Draco had been there. His appearance at Harry’s funeral was like a knife twisting in her gut; she wondered angrily if he was there to gloat at how he’d played with her, and indirectly with Harry himself. “Bloody bastard,” she muttered out loud in the Pensieve, then covered her mouth in horror, hoping that her parents hadn’t heard her.
Of course, since she was only in a memory, her parents were completely oblivious to what she’d said. Sighing in relief, she turned her attention back to Dumbledore as he ended his speech. However, instead his closing statements, she heard an amused tone behind her mutter, “Actually, I do believe both of his parents were married at the time of his birth.”
Startled, Ginny whipped her head around and found a different Albus Dumbledore standing next to her on the stage. “P- P- Professor!” she exclaimed.
“Do you see now why I did not allow you to attend?” he asked quietly, his eyes boring into hers.
“You knew he’d be there, then!” she exclaimed, stamping her foot indignantly. “How could you let him desecrate-”
“I only thought that he’d see this funeral as a way to obtain some closure, just as you had thought,” he replied mildly. “While I didn’t have control over his actions, I knew I could influence yours greatly. I feared that if you met him there, you would never have the opportunity for resolution, my dear Miss Weasley.”
Amazingly, Ginny found that she couldn’t reply to that statement. It was true, after all; even the sight of Draco in Dumbledore’s memory was enough to make her want to leave the Pensieve altogether.
As though he could read her mind, the Headmaster looked at her from over his half-moon glasses and asked, “Would you like to return to the infirmary now, Miss Weasley?”
She nodded mutely and relented as he put his hand under her elbow. Suddenly, she felt as though she was rising into the sky, and doing a slow somersault in the same black void she had passed through before, until she found herself seated on her bed in the infirmary, with Dumbledore seated beside her. He was smiling indulgently at her as he removed the Pensieve from her lap and placed it carefully on the bedside table. “Well,” he began conversationally, “I expect you have many questions for me.”
Shaking her head, Ginny muttered, “I still can’t believe he had the gall to show his face there. After all he’s done-”
“And what exactly has he done, Miss Weasley?” he interrupted quietly. “He was acquitted of all charges against him, so he was technically free to do as he pleased.”
“He betrayed me! He lied about spying on Voldemort, when he was really spying on us and telling them! He nearly got me killed, too! Aimed the Killing Curse at me and everything,” she finished in a huff of indignation.
To her disgust, Dumbledore’s smile grew wider as he replied, “Perhaps you shouldn’t be so quick to judge his actions, Miss Weasley. After all, you can never know one’s intentions unless that person informs you of them. As for your brush with death,” he paused, “I believe that there were mitigating circumstances at the time that led to Mr. Malfoy’s reaction.”
“What in Merlin’s name could those ‘circumstances’ have been?” Ginny asked with a skeptical look.
“I am not at liberty to say,” he replied evenly. “However, all I can say is that that moment may have been the most painful one in Mr. Malfoy’s young life.”
Ginny crossed her arms over her chest petulantly and muttered, “It caused me quite a bit of pain as well, I’ll have you know.”
Chuckling gently, Dumbledore nodded and asked, “Was there anything else that troubled you, Miss Weasley?”
Staring at the old man seated beside her, Ginny fought to keep her temper in check. She couldn’t understand what was so amusing about what Draco had done to her. It certainly hadn’t been funny to realize that he’d loved her, yet now hated her. Nor had it been amusing to see him cast the Killing Curse at her. Pressing her arms tightly against her chest, she forced herself to breathe normally and stop thinking about it. Instead, she decided to turn the tables on the Headmaster. With an innocent look, she asked, “I was wondering – who killed Harry?”
Pursing his lips together tightly, Dumbledore deliberated before he answered, “I am afraid I cannot release that information.”
“Right, then,” she conceded. “Can you at least tell me why he nearly went mad before he died?”
With dull eyes, the Headmaster looked away from Ginny as he answered, “He had been possessed by Tom on and off throughout the summer. I had known about it and tried to help, but Harry wouldn’t learn Occlumency from Professor Snape, and Professor Snape himself was unwilling to teach Harry. Of course, the possessions got worse during the school term, leading to his brief stint in the Infirmary. I would have helped him, but I was much too afraid that Tom would have known of it. Can you imagine if Tom had gotten a glimpse into my mind, Miss Weasley?” Dumbledore whispered with anguish. “I would have unwittingly betrayed the Order and all that we had worked for. I simply couldn’t.”
He closed his eyes and winced, as though the pain was still too fresh for him to bear. Ginny stared at the old man before her, nearly gaping at his obvious torment. She wanted to reach out to him and tell him about her own mental torment over Blaise’s death and Draco’s betrayal. She wanted to comfort him and show him that he was not to blame for Harry’s death. She wanted to encourage him and find some hope that the Wizarding World would be able to recover from this war.
But before she could say any of those things, his eyes suddenly opened and he muttered, “I beg you, Miss Weasley. Do not seek closure for a time in your life until you know of everything that happened during that period. I have sought my closure over Harry, and I find that I cannot, now that I am aware of what he went through.”
Stunned at this version of her normally barmy Headmaster, Ginny hardly noticed when the door of the Infirmary burst open. Mechanically turning her head towards the doorway, she felt an odd sense of regret when she saw her brother Bill standing there, smiling widely as he called out to her, “Ginny!”
1. The poem at the beginning of the chapter was written by Nickel, the author of Letting Go (D/G) over at Fiction Alley, and a good friend. She's so addicted to this story that she wrote a poem and is painting a scene from it. Here's the rest of the poem:
'I know I was wrong
That doesn’t make you right
You turn your back on me
Resentfully blaming me
Bitter because of a loss
That is killing us both
While we resort to hate
You won’t tell me what I did
You won’t admit your lies
You walk away and I stare
Hoping you’ll return
To where you let out your anger
Inviting me in unknowingly
Before pushing me away again
My mind is black
And I look for the grey outside
But I can’t seem to look outside my mind
Where hell has decided to stay
Pushing the past before my eyes
Yearning away my chance at a future
Your deception has caged me
My confusion blurs the lines
That separate everything I see
So your lies and the truth mix
And I don’t know who I am anymore
I’m positive I loved you both
But love failed to hold us together
Another thing I can’t depend on
I answer your goodbye
With a silent plea… don’t let go'
2. As for the Pensieve, please read the chapter entitled 'Pensieve' from GOF. I followed it as closely as possible, and I believe what I described is canon.
3. If you'd like notifications of new chapters for On Fire and my other fanfics, come on over to my Yahoo group. And please tell me what you think in a review!
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