July 16, 2005 Inserted A/N - Yes, I can hear you! Dumbledore, obviously, should not be alive in this story, right? Well, yeah, you are right. A note in my favor: this chapter was posted nearly a year before book six came out.
However, I am trying to integrate this story in with the new circumstances of book six…so you will find out how and why Dumbledore has managed to reappear in my imagination after Chapter 46 (the last chapter written before book six came out). Quell your cries of indignation and annoyance, readers! Your questions will soon be answered! How soon? Well that depends upon how fast you read.
P.S. Remember Snape…he shouldn't be valued by Ginny as someone who sacrificed with the Light…well, keep reading (after Chapter 46) and you will understand that as well. Yes, in the books, I believe Snape may NOT be a traitor…after all he was sworn by the Unbreakable Vow to kill "that person" (you know who, but can't ruin it for people who aren't finished)…so he may not have wanted to. Then again, the evidence points against him…but JKR is full of surprises. Anyway, read on!
The Turning Point
The week after her conversation with Malfoy, Dumbledore approached Ginny in her office next to the Infirmary. Her position as Hogwarts Healer was merely a cover job she kept as she worked for…no, spied on…the Dark Side. Dumbledore looked worried, older than ever. The Death Eaters had recently attacked Hogsmeade, and the tension was getting to us all. "Has Voldemort revealed his plans for Hogwarts?" Ginny grimaced. The bad news had to be told.
"He has used work with Dark Magic to remove nearly all of the protections on Hogwarts, but the one that uses the Sorting Hat as a Talisman. My initiation to the Inner Circle will come when I bring him the Sorting Hat…which means I effectively bring him Hogwarts…to prove my loyalty, he says." Ginny laughed bitterly.
"I know you want him to attack Hogwarts so that Potter can destroy him. But I won't do it. I have betrayed nearly everything I believe in to spy on him…I will not give him Hogwarts. The farce is over." She was afraid, too. That was something Ginny would not admit to herself. She was afraid of losing herself to the intoxicating Darkness.
"We will find a way to give him what he wants, because we need a spy in the Inner Circle, now that Snape is…incapable of returning. We also need to give Harry an opening. We will do what has to be done." Dumbledore was the embodiment of quiet determination. A mind and soul of steel. But Ginny remembered Snape, his mind destroyed by the Cruciatus Curse, and I trembled. Fury overpowered the fear, though.
"So you will throw it all away for one chance? Hogwarts is...Hogwarts. It cannot be sacrificed." The one refuge she had from the person she had become. It just couldn't.
"Anything can be sacrificed for the survival of the Light. Anything." His voice brought her back from memories of the times that Hogwarts had made Ginny feel safe midst inner turmoil. "Have you found anything else on members of the Dark Side…we need to know, Ginny." She struggled…she couldn't put up her mind shields or he would get suspicious…but try to lie and he could read the lie as a Legilimens…she depended on his trust in her and his reluctance to read minds of spies (the more a mind was opened the easier it was to open it, even by the enemy).
Somehow he had a hunch that she was hiding something…which she was. "No, Dumbledore. I know of all the ones the Order knows of. Oh, and Zabini, and Parkinson. But you have a watch on them already. That is all. The rest are below me."
Ginny was protecting Malfoy. She had to find out what he was hiding from the Dark Lord…no, Voldemort, before she turned him in. There was something in him, something that she needed to know. That day on the beach had burned into her mind. There was something he was hiding from the rest of the Dark Side. A weakness, a desire, something that would help her use him. But she needed him more than the Light did now. And she would have him...for as long as she needed.
Although I didn't know it then, that was the turning point. The day I started protecting Draco from the eyes of the Light was the day that I turned to the Dark. That was the day I first hid something from Dumbledore that was important. That was the day I chose Dark over Light.
Protecting Him
The day after Dumbledore spoke to her, her Dark Mark burned black. Voldemort was calling her to him. "Regresa Maestro," she whispered to her wand, and she was instantaneously Apparated to Voldemort. This time she apparated to a room in a English Manor from the Dark Ages by the looks of it.
"You seem distant. Have you doubts to your loyalty, Nevra." Voldemort said, his voice like the feel of bare steel against her skin. She forgot about her surrounding as other Death Eaters appeared, their faces masked like hers. Her fear was reduced to glowing embers within her mind as she remembered her litany. Hardness cannot be bent, but is simple to break. Iron can not be bent, but is simple to break.
"We will attack St. Mungo's on the sixteenth of October." Voldemort began.
"No." Malfoy's voice cut in, his voice smooth as velvet. She nearly gasped. The Trio never appeared at a simple Death Eater meeting. And no one ever defied the Dark Lord so openly. Then again, she had never heard a conversation between the Dark Lord and his adopted son.
"Yes, Draco?" Voldemort's hiss held a hint of warning for his unruly heir.
"We cannot. Not until I can manage to remove Narcissa from her ward…please, my Lord." Draco, when announced Voldemort's heir at the Coronation Ceremony, had discovered that his real mother was Bellatrix Lestrange…a much more suitable mother, according to his adopted father. Which meant harder and crueler, of course.
Voldemort sneered. "That soft pansy. She would not kill for me, so why should I refrain from killing her?" Draco visibly tensed. His mother was his mother…Bellatrix had never been the maternal sort and she had never been a mother to him. Not even after the Coronation Ceremony.
"Because I will not join you. Not to kill her. Never. You already destroyed her mind…isn't that enough? She is destined to live a futile life. That is enough punishment for anyone." Voldemort's snake eyes turned scarlet…the only other time they did that was when he thought of the Boy Who Lived. He was furious.
"Even you cannot be excused for some things. Betrayal is your answer? You will not follow your Father into battle? To save a woman who is not even your mother? Crucio." Voldemort said quietly, his voice iron.
The Dark Lord let it go on and on, but no sound slipped from the Prince's lips. Tears ran down his face like liquid fire, but not a word sounded. His eyes became gray steel as his vision grayed at the edges. Finally the pain stopped, and his eyes shut of their own accord.
Nevra watched the Dark Lord and his son as the Prince jerked with the pain of the curse. The Dark Lord was killing him as surely as he was waiting for Draco to surrender to him. It never happened. Not a sound escaped from Draco's lips. When the Dark Lord finally let him go, he began to fall.
Not realizing what she was doing or what the consequences would be…not even what this meant for who she was becoming, Ginny rushed forward, catching him before he even fell and cushioning his fall as she cradled his torso in her arms.
She could not conduct a healing spell, because it may anger the Dark Lord to have his work undone, but she could help Draco while he was hurt…and vulnerable. The Dark Side held no loyalty, and the strong were taken down when possible. She would protect him. No matter what.
Pansy's Boys
Voldemort was surprised and perplexed when he saw Nevra protect his son as she did today. To be honest, Nevra was smarter than Pansy Parkinson. The only reason Nevra had not taken Pansy's place was that the two boys would not trust anyone else…they had grown up with Pansy, and therefore she was part of the Dark Trio. Now…Nevra and Draco…maybe Pansy would be pushed out...only time would tell.
Nevra, still on the cold stone floor with Draco, was anxiously peeling back his eyelid. "Circulation is good, and pulse seems normal. Effendivo," she muttered to herself. The spell showed internal bleeding and general trauma. Since the Dark Lord had left, she supposed it would be okay to use a Healing Spell. "Curaro Infinite." Now he would sleep naturally until his body replenished its strength…a Healing Spell took the strength to heal from the patient's body.
Blaise Zabini walked in while she was still intent on the man lying within her arms. "What the hell is going on? Nevra, isn't it?" She looked up startled, and then recognized one of the counterparts of the Dark Trio.
"Yes, it's Nevra. The Dark Lord called us in to discuss an attack on St. Mungo's. Draco and he had a bit of a...disagreement…and Draco has been Healed of all effects."
Blaise shook his head wearily. "About Narcissa, I assume?" Ginny nodded. Blaise sighed. "So why are you taking care of him?"
"I-I don't really know. He just fell, and I caught him…I don't even remember thinking about it, really. But I am a Healer by profession, so it was probably instinct." Ginny paused. She couldn't believe she was revealing her uncertainty. Any information that slipped involuntarily from your mouth usually stabbed you in the back eventually. But she was so far below the Dark Trio, even as second-in-command, she was so insignificant that she didn't think twice about what she said. She had been caught off-guard and said things she hadn't meant to. But the words could not be unsaid. Best to try and brush by it, and hopefully Zabini wouldn't remember.
"Don't…Don't fall in love with him, okay?" She gaped at him. Then shut her mouth remembering exactly who she was speaking with.
"Why the hell would I do that?"
"You already half-way have. But don't. He has pain inside, a sort of darkness all of his own. It can reach out and swallow you if you get too close." Blaise was saying things that confused and yet intrigued her.
"I haven't said more than a few sentences to him in my entire life, and yet I am half-way in love with him? What the hell are you on about?"
Blaise grimaced. "I can't tell you why, just that you are. It's a sort of gift I have." Unbeknownst to both of them, Draco had awoken, just in time to hear Blaise's last sentence.
"Whatever he is talking about, he's right. He's an Empath." Draco drawled out to the hazy face above him.
"You're awake. That's good," a warm feminine voice said. Definitely not Pansy…she was more of a whine. It was…Nevra. That conversation they had had the night before intrigued him. There was more to her than met the surface. Kind of like himself in that aspect, he supposed. Maybe that was why he was so intrigued with what she was hiding. Maybe that is why he trusted her.
"No one is supposed to know that, Malfoy." Blaise's voice was a snarl.
"What? That you are an Empath? It's all right. I trust her." Draco said nonchalantly.
"Why?" This time Nevra asked.
"A gut feeling. But I have learned to trust those. My instincts are pretty good." Draco said wryly.
Blaise snorted. "You mean practically inhuman. He has saved his own life…and mine with his instincts a couple of times. It is eerie how well they work. So I trust you too…all because of a gut feeling. Wow, I am getting superstitious." He laughed at that.
Pansy sauntered in the door at that point. "How are my boys?" Draco and Blaise rolled their eyes. Suddenly she saw the redhead on the floor…with Draco cradled in her lap…Nevra. The second-in-command. "Why are you in her lap, Draco?" He was hers. He was supposed to be hers. The Dark Lord had all but promised him to her. He actually blushed. Draco never blushed. That was when she knew he felt something for this girl. Whatever that something was.
Then the redhead spoke. "I just Healed him, that's all. We were talking, and he didn't get a chance to pick himself up." She smiled invitingly at Pansy as Draco scrambled up from her arms. "I must be intruding. I need to take care of some things. Might as well be now." She waved at Pansy's boys like they were hers and strode out the door.
Time to get business taken care of. No one ever would take her boys away from her. Not even the redhead. "So what exactly is going on with that girl and you guys?"