Chapter 15 -The Room with Eight Doors
Before Draco and Ginny was an octagonal, dimly lit room. On each wall was a door with an ornate golden handle and a lantern.
Draco stepped into the scarlet carpeted room, followed by Ginny. Looking behind her, she saw that she could still go to the room at the inn, but there was no other way out than through one of these doors. Draco picked up a plain parchment tag on the door they had just come through. It read, simply, "The Blue Shutter Inn".
"Do you have any idea what all this is about?" Ginny whispered.
Draco looked around. Bordering the ceiling across the whole room was an inscription. It may surprise you, what you see, but what you choose is who you'll be.
The moment Ginny finished reading the words they lit up. Each door now looked different. To the left of the door to the inn were three doors labeled "Excitement," "Fame" and "Love". To the right, doors were labeled in a similar fashion, reading, "Security," "Power" and "Independence". Directly across from the door to "The Blue Shutter Inn" was a plain door labeled "Stairway."
Ginny looked more concerned than before. "Alright, now, in case you didn't hear me before." she looked Draco directly in the eye. "Do you have any idea what this is about?"
Ginny sighed. "So you were supposed to come here to find the best path for your future, and somehow I got caught here, too?"
Draco eyed her. "Somehow?"
Ginny shrugged it off. "So, anyway, the only way out of this whole place is to find what you came for." She thought a moment, repeating the inscription from the wall in her mind. "'What you choose is who you'll be.' I think you have to go into those rooms and decide what you want. That's all that makes sense."
Draco stood up and walked to the door. He paused. "You coming?"
Ginny tilted her head to the side, wondering how she was getting involved in this. Draco motioned Ginny to the door. Thinking of nothing better to do, she followed.
Draco stood in the middle of the room. He was to choose between six rooms: Power, Fame, Independence, Security, Love and Excitement.
Ginny's voice came from behind him. "Do you think you might get to just try things out now and choose later, or is this decision really it, that you're held to it?"
Draco looked over all the rooms again. A couple stood out to him, one a bit more than the others. He ignored that room and walked up to the one labeled "Power". He looked back to Ginny who smiled at him reassuringly.
He entered the room.
"White?" he spoke to himself, his voice echoing through the room. In fact, the room was so blindingly white that Draco couldn't tell where the floor ended and the walls began. He wondered if he had made the wrong choice. Or, maybe this was all there was. He was turning to walk back out the door when he heard his own voice.
"Coming!" Draco turned and noticed the room wasn't white any longer. He saw himself sitting in a velvet chair with a curved wooden back. He wore an expensive, heavy red robe and was currently bent over putting on his shoes. A nasal, female voice shouted from another room. The Draco in the chair scowled. "Bloody hell, woman, I'm coming!" Standing up, he exited the room.
Looking around, Draco found himself alone in the room. It was a bedroom with elegant furniture and silk drappings on a four poster bed. Draco walked up to the dresser. He recognized some of his things: a watch he had in his trunk at Hogwarts, the cologne he usually wore and one of his hair combs. He also noticed some things that definitely were not his: a heavy gold necklace, a huge bottle of a strong perfume and a bottle of hot pink nail polish.
From the hallway, he could hear the woman speak. "...Did you like your dinner, Drakkie? I put the wine in the glasses myself."
"Mhm, impressive."
Draco moved into the room. He watched himself get up from his chair and get out his wand. Pansy looked disappointed.
"Drakkie!" she moaned. "You're not going to work again are you? Ever since Daddy gave you his share of the company, you're never home! You're always going to work."
Draco shook his head to himself. Work with his father wasn't pleasant, but it was better than being at home. "I'll be back later." He apparated.
In the octagonal room, Ginny had just watched Draco enter one of the labeled rooms. She wondered what she was to do while he was gone. She could wait. Ginny looked at the daylight though the window. But how long would he be? She could try one of the rooms. They may not even open for her, but it was worth a try, wasn't it? She looked at the rooms again. She walked up to "Security" and opened the door.
Draco saw himself in an office. A huge office. Windows spanned the entire northern wall and a navy carpet covered a space almost as large as the potions lab at Hogwarts. A rare, well-taken-care-of owl sat on a perch by an open window, and a large wooden desk stood against the adjacent wall.
Draco was sitting in a fancy black leather chair, sorting through the stacks of papers on his desk. His secretary walked into the room, She was a leggy, conservatively dressed redhead with a clipboard full of memos from his father. Draco was a bit disturbed by the scene. She looked a little too much like Ginny. He hoped her working for him had nothing to do with the resemblance. He didn't take too well to the thought of being hung up on a girl like Ginny for years while married to someone else. At the desk, Draco filled out paperwork and sent several notes via owl to various branches of the company. It was pretty boring to watch until there was a knock at the door.
Lucius dropped a foot high stack of papers onto Draco's desk. "You need to get these files owled to McPherison just before tomorrow night's meeting. He's been getting too comfortable around here. Remind him that you're superior to him."
"Yes, father."
"And you know Connely's branch needs to be inspected and supervised. Fire the incompetent. I need that branch in top shape before I start sending out our more classified information."
"I know, father. I'll handle it."
Lucius bore a satisfied smile. "So when am I getting a grandson, Draco? It's been a year. You and I won't live forever. We need another strong Malfoy to hand this enterprise down to."
Draco's eyes grew downcast. Both Lucius and Pansy were pressuring him into a son. Draco prayed that Pansy would not bear a child. He refused to see his son forced into the company, forced through life as he had been. A daughter wouldn't be any better. She'd be rejected by his family because she couldn't be the boy Lucius wanted. "I know, father." Draco wanted him to leave. "I need to get to work on getting these files out."
Lucius eyed him suspiciously. "I don't want any trouble from you, Draco."
Draco nodded, and his father left the room.
At the desk, Draco slouched into his chair. He was frustrated. His father had forced him into all of this. He picked up a picture of Pansy. She was powdering her nose and flashing him a toothy smile in the photo. Draco slipped the picture from the frame to reveal the one beneath it. It was a picture of Ginny. She was sitting in an arm chair in the Gryffindor common room. She had her feet up on the chair, propping up a book and some parchment. The majority of the time she spent writing, but occasionally she'd look up and smile at the camera. He had been trapped into this life, and now she was out of it.
Draco watched himself stare at the picture. He had to get out of this room. "Out! Enough!" he shouted. The man at the desk failed to notice him, but slowly the room faded into white. Draco found the door and left.
Ginny's room was white, as completely white as Draco's had been. Ginny took a couple of hesitant steps forward as the scene unfolded around her. Ginny gasped when she saw herself standing in front of her. She was cooking, her hair piled atop her head in a messy bun and an apron around her waist. Two young boys ran into the orange and yellow kitchen. One was pudgy, around the age of two, and the other looked as Percy had at the age of three. Ginny smiled at them and gave them juice. A voice came from the other room.
"Ginnybean, is dinner ready yet?"
Ginny watched herself stir the contents of a pot on the stove. "Ten minutes," she called back.
Watching the scene, Ginny had recognized the man's voice. She followed it into the other room. Neville sat reading the Daily Prophet in the den. He wore moderately priced grey robes and circular glasses which he adjusted occasionally. He still wore his ID badge from the accounting job he had just taken at the Malfoy's corporation. Ginny had protested his working there, but the job had been available and they had two boys at home.
Ginny looked around the room. There was a fireplace in the center of the room, a brown couch, and a matching brown easy-chair that Neville was sitting in. Atop the mantle was an array of pictures. There was one Ginny and Neville with the two boys, one of her, Neville, Hermione, Harry, Ron and Luna, and one of just her and Neville.
Something about the engagement photo of her and Neville seemed odd. She picked it up. Neville had his usual clumsy smile as he looked to Ginny in admiration. Ginny looked quite different. Her face looked tired and her smile a little forced. She looked down at her engagement ring, then straight at Ginny, sighing. Almost as quickly as the moment had come, it faded. Ginny looked back to Neville and resumed her smile.
In the dining room, Ginny had put chicken and pasta on the table and called her family to dinner. Just as the family was sitting down, a knock came at the door. Ginny brushed off her apron as she walked the couple feet to the door. She was surprised to see her visitor.
"Hi, Ginny." Harry saw Neville and the children at the table. "Oh, I'm sorry, I can come back..."
Ginny beamed at him. "Nonsense! Come in! I made far too much food anyhow."
Harry joined them in the dining room.
"Are you hungry?" she asked.
Harry gave her a little smile. "Have you ever known me not to be?" He took a seat at the table. Seeing him had to have been the highlight of Ginny's day. Nothing special ever happened at the house. All Neville would talk about was his accounting and working for the Malfoys, which bothered Ginny. She had never told him what had really happened between her and Draco before she and Neville married. Ginny figured it would only make things more complicated for their marriage. Unfortunately, she still thought about him. She put that out of her mind.
"So, what brings you around here, Harry?" Neville asked him. Neville still had the idea in his head that Ginny had a few lingering feelings for Harry. He had it all wrong…
"I just was in the area. Had some things I wanted to talk about." He cleared his throat. "Ginny, do you have a minute?"
She noticed the serious look on his face. "Of course." She turned to Neville. "Can you handle the boys for a moment?"
"Of course I can, I'm their father."
Ginny smiled nervously as she walked out of the room with Harry. "Yeah, that's what I'm worried about."
They sat together on the couch. "So, what's up?"
Harry shifted in his seat a little. "I proposed to Hermione."
Ginny's eyes lit up. "Harry, that's amazing! When's the wedding? Why didn't she tell me?!" Harry and Hermione had had an off and on relationship since Ginny's sixth year.
Harry's eyes looked downcast. "Probably because she said no."
"No?" Ginny was shocked. "No?"
"It doesn't help to hear you say that over and over."
Ginny still couldn't believe it. "Are you sure? I mean, well, why not? What happened?" A crash came from the kitchen that sounded like dishes breaking. Ginny winced.
"She almost left to fly to Greece with Andrew when I proposed..." Andrew had been pursuing Hermione for the past year. "...we had a fight earlier that day. She had said she didn't think I was ready for marriage."
Ginny sighed. "She didn't think you were ready to get married, so you tried to prove her wrong by proposing?"
Harry sighed. "Yeah, that was the idea."
"Are you really ready? Are you sure it wasn't just the fight that brought this on?"
"I love her, Ginny. I can't imagine my life without her... Or her with someone else." Harry thought it had to have been his love for Hermione that made Ginny cry, but Ginny, watching, knew better. She was living a good life, a secure life, but a life without the one thing she really needed. She loved Neville, really, truly, but she couldn't bear to imagine Draco with someone else. Ginny picked her head up and wiped away her tears.
"You can't let her go, Harry. Tell her what you told me. Tell her how you feel because if you let her go..." Ginny sighed. "...you'll never forgive yourself."
Harry nodded. He hugged Ginny and left the house to find Hermione. Ginny watched herself cry silently as she walked into the kitchen and began picking up Neville's broken dishes.
Ginny couldn't bear watching herself cry, so she walked into the bedroom. Her jewelry box caught her eye. She had always kept her personal things hidden there, ever since she'd received the box as a teenager. Opening one of the drawers, she found a blue velvet pouch and a fancy envelope with a green wax seal. Her name was written across the front of the envelope in nearly perfect script. Intrigued, Ginny reached to pick up the letter.
At that moment, everything began to fade. "Wait!" she shouted as the letter disappeared from her hand. Ginny stood in a blank room. There was nothing left to do but leave. Disappointed, Ginny opened the door and entered the octagonal room.