HA! Three updates in one night! I have this theory that if I get this story done I can finish my homework that was due three weeks ago. Of course, probably not, cause I've already got another big plot running around in my head. BUT I have a promise to make. I will post the epilogue for Starting Over & finish Getting it Together (which you will be pleased to know is fully written, but a very depressing story; I love it) and will keep updating Secrets in my livejournal @ http://www.livejournal.com/users/jessakitty before I start posting this new story!
xoxoxoxoxox thanks for the inspirations
CHAPTER 19 Truth Comes Out
Draco watched with horror as the scene played out before him. Each second felt as if it had slowed to a minute. Ginny looked surprised, but caught Fudge's coat as it sailed through the air, and as her hands closed on it, Dumbledore launched himself across the room. Snape and McGonagall had both performed different hexes on Fudge, and then Ginny disappeared, Dumbledore landing where Ginny had just been.
"Where is she?" Dumbledore roared as he rounded on Fudge.
Draco took a good look at the former Minister and noticed the blank look in his eyes. "He's being controlled," he managed to spit out. He felt like he had just been hit in the face with a stunning spell. His feet wouldn't move, his brain couldn't comprehend.
"I'll get the Veritaserum," Snape said darkly before rushing from the room.
Dumbledore waved his hand and Fudge stiffly stood to his feet and then sat in a chair, magical bindings appearing to hold his wrists and ankles.
Draco lept forward and enclosed his hands around Fudge's neck, watching with twisted satisfaction as his eyes bulged. "Where is she? Where did she go?"
"Mr. Malfoy," Dumbledore's still calm voice warned him, "although I do understand how you feel, killing him will not get us any closer to finding Ms. Weasley."
Snape appeared back in the room at that moment, a small vial in his hand. He tipped Fudge's head back and forced the potion down his throat.
"Where did you send Ginny?" Draco demanded.
"To the Dark Lord," Fudge said calmly.
"What location?" Dumbledore queried.
"The hideout."
"Where is the hideout located?"
"I do not know."
"Who put the curse on you?"
"Lucius. He was always such a good friend."
Draco snorted before shouting, "Where the hell is she?"
"The hideout. The Lucius said his plan did not work and that I was to give this to the Weasley girl so she could be brought to the tower."
Draco suddenly felt sick. "The tower."
"Do you know about the tower?" Snape suddenly rounded on him.
Draco nodded. "My family's summer home. It's not being used. It has a tower."
"Where is it?"
"In France," he nearly whispered. "In south France."
Snape nodded. "Yes, I know it well."
"You've been there," Draco told him. "It's well guarded."
Dumbledore looked up at the many portraits. "He is not to leave here. When the Veritaserum and binds wear off, re-bind him. Of course, the door and fireplace will seal themselves against him. I also need some of you to alert Ron, Harry, and Hermione. They have always proved useful. Minerva, I need you to alert the Order. Draco I want you to go with her."
"No! I have to find Ginny!"
"You will go with your professor. No one else knows how to find this tower and Snape will be coming with
me."
Draco nodded weakly, knowing if Dumbledore couldn't save Ginny, no one else could either.
McGonagall grabbed hold of Draco's wrist before he could say anymore and dragged him to the fireplace. She grabbed an extra large handful of Floo powder and shouted "Grimmauld Place!"
They landed noisily in the living room of Harry's house.
"Remus!" McGonagall shouted. "Remus, are you here?"
It took Draco several seconds to realize who she was calling. He stood still, unsure of what to do while she marched across the room, tapped her wand against a large oak chest and muttered something. He felt like a fool, standing in a house in London while Ginny was at the mercy of his father and the Dark Lord and quite possibly the other Death Eaters in the south of France. If she was still alive. Of course she is he told himself. But there he stood, unable to do a thing. He watched as his professor retrieved a glass globe similar to the one in Dumbledore's office and snapped "Order" at it.
"What's going on?" a sleepy Lupin asked, entering the room and glancing from Draco to McGonagall.
"Tell him," she snapped as she peered into the globe. "Molly, get here right away. Alert your family. Everyone needs to be here now!" She continued talking to the globe, using names of people Draco recognized from the summer.
"They got Ginny," he told Lupin flatly. "Fudge told her to hold his coat but it was a portkey. He was under the controlling curse."
"Explain this from the beginning," Lupin demanded, no longer sleepy.
Draco told him everything he could, as quickly as he could. He kept having to restart the story as more and more members of the Order filled up the room.
"My baby," Mrs. Weasley kept sobbing. "Oh Merlin, my baby! I can't do this! We can't go through this again!"
"Don't do this to yourself Molly," Lupin stepped up. "He doesn't want to kill her. You know what Dumbledore said."
What the hell? Draco wondered. What who wanted? Father?
"How could you take her out of the grounds?" Hermione yelled. "Don't you know they have numerous spells on them to keep us safe!"
"She wasn't taken from Hogsmead!" he yelled back. "She was taken from Dumbledore's office!"
"She'd still be here and we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for that!" she argued.
"Enough." Mr. Weasley stepped between them. "We have to unite if we want to bring her back."
Draco's ears began to burn. Not only had he been indirectly responsible for Ginny's kidnapping, but he had practically just admitted to the entire Order that they were sleeping together. Of course, any fool could have figured it out, and they hadn't shagged at all while they were at the Inn, but just the same, now everyone knew. Besides that, he felt like an outsider here because he was. Bloody fucking hell. He was Draco Malfoy. He was not supposed to feel like this.
"Draco, do you know how to set up a portkey?" Moody asked him.
Draco shifted uncomfortably under the gaze of his magical eye. "No. We are supposed to learn that next month."
"Then I'll need the most accurate description of where this castle is located."
The Malfoy's summer home in France really was a medieval castle, known for its private beach and extraordinary view, but it was continually cold and dark now matter how many heating charms were put on it even in the dead of summer. "It's well protected. It's gonna take us a while to undo all those hexes and spells." He set to work telling Moody everything he knew about it, drawing maps and describing the views while the other members of the Order prepared for battle.
After nearly forty-five minutes, Moody decided he was ready. They used an umbrella, a cooking spoon, and an old plaque. When Moody gave the word, they all took hold of the object nearest them and Draco felt the tug on his belly button, then the world began to spin.
***
Ginny landed with a sickening thud, and before she could scramble to her feet, her wrists and ankles were bound.
"So, you stupid little girl, my son thought he could save you, did he?"
Ginny wasn't even given a chance to answer as a cloth wrapped itself around her mouth. She had never been so scared in her life. Lucius Malfoy stood before, towering over her, his lips pulled up into a cruel smile and his eyes cold and flat as they swept across her flimsy night dress.
"Know this," he hissed. "When the Dark Lord tires of you, I will be here to find out exactly why my son gave everything up for you, and then I will kill you."
She struggled into a sitting position, scooting back to make sure her gown stayed as low as it would go.
He left Ginny alone, and she managed to blink enough tears from her eyes to glance around the room. The room was fairly small, and circular with no furniture at all, with great stone walls rising up above her and a tiny slit of a window near the ceiling. Where am I? How did Fudge get involved in all this? Sure, he was a stupid git, but he wasn't evil. Was he?
She lost track of time after a while, fitfully dozing in and out of sleep. The room was completely dark when she woke to the sound of the heavy wooden door creaking open. "Ginny?"
That smooth, silky voice. The one that had only recently stopped invading her dreams and turning them into nightmares. The one that had tried to kill her before.
"Lumos," the silky voice whispered. The room lit up and she saw Tom Riddle standing before her, smiling down at her petrified form.
He reached out and gently undid her gag, then her wrist and ankle bindings. "I've missed you so much."
"Why are you doing this?" she croaked, her throat parched and her lips cracked and dry.
"I've needed you, Ginny. I've thought about you everyday for 5 years. But you left me." His hand snaked forward and brushed through her hair. "Here." He handed her a glass out of thin air, and Ginny was too thirsty to be worried.
She swallowed one gulp and then another. "But you tried to kill me." Oh how she hated him. He knew exactly what he did to her, haunting her dreams, invading her sleep. She felt like a foolish little girl again, willing to submit to him, willing to give in to the immense power he held over her.
"You know I would have never killed you. You know that."
And she did, somewhere deep inside of her, she knew that Tom could never kill her, not unless she wanted to leave him for good. When Draco came into her life, the dreams of Tom had been replaced by dreams of Draco, but Tom wasn't gone. He was like a shadow, lurking around the corner, just waiting for his moment. There were times when he left her alone for weeks of months, but she hadn't thought of Tom even once since Draco had come into her life. "Then let me go."
"I can't do that. You know why."
"No," she whispered, "I don't."
"You took him from me. The young Malfoy's service was to be mine. And without you to stop him, he will fall to me."
"He won't."
"Then he will die." For a moment Tom's eyes blazed red and Ginny cowered, but he relaxed again. "Why have you been hiding from me?"
Ginny had no answer. There was no answer she could give him that wouldn't enrage him, so she sat silently, tugging her nightgown down, trying to find some balance between too much cleavage and too much thigh.
"As I thought," he said, his face calm, but his voice betraying his anger, "you have no answer. But no matter. You are here now." His hand reached out and touched her thigh. "And you have only gotten more beautiful."
"Please, no," she gasped, petrified.
"You are mine Ginny," he explained calmly, as if he was patiently telling a small child why the sky was blue. "You've always known it."
"I can't be yours," she told him, terrified. "You don't exist."
"But here I am. I'm not a memory any more." He circled around her, seating himself on the floor behind her.
Ginny's heart banged so violently against her ribs she could see the nightgown rapidly moving over her chest. "Don't do this."
"I'm going to make you mine forever." She could feel his breath, hot on her neck.
"You can't."
His hands, which had been caressing her back, suddenly stopped. He roughly grabbed her face and spun her around. She hadn't been imagining it; his eyes really did glow red. "So not only did you steal my servant," he spat, "but you bedded him too."
Ginny began to cry. "I'm sorry."
"No. You are not sorry." His fingers tightened around her jaw. He glared at her, then thrust her roughly away. He stood back to his feet and pulled his wand from his pocket.
Still crying, Ginny bowed her head, and prepared to die.
But instead of killing her, her grabbed her by the hair and pulled her upwards, seizing her waist and muttering a long incantation. With his wand, he drew a narrow scratch down her arm that immediately oozed blood and then did the same to himself. He pressed his forearm into her, mingling their blood, and finished the spell. When he was done, he dropped Ginny back to the floor and smiled. "Now you will never be rid of me. For as long as I am alive, there will be no escaping."
When he left, Ginny cried harder and harder, examining the dried blood on her arm - her blood mingled with Tom's. Except Tom wasn't real. Tom was Lord Voldemort, but he bled real. Her had touched her like he was real. She was scared and confused and alone, and finally cried herself into a fearful, fitful sleep. She woke up time and time again, curled into the far corner of the empty room, certain that Tom had come back in the room. The touch of his fingers on her skin startled her from her sleep, as did his voice in her ear, and his breath on her neck. But each time, she woke alone
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