Burnt

Burnt
By Pisciculus

Summary: Due to the mysterious disappearance of Lord Voldemort, Ginny becomes part of an alliance fighting Dark wizards who've remained suspiciously active. When she meets Draco Malfoy joining the cause she finds a reason to believe that he might not be as horrid as everybody believes. But who can she convince?

A/N: No, to answer any questions of this nature that might arise, I have not and do not plan to abandon Black Diamond Prophecy. Ever. End of story. It's just that I have to be really careful about the writing in that story because it's all so carefully laid out that if I forget something, I'm screwed. I never said those chapters would be out quickly.

I feel the need to give PhoenixFirebolt from FF.net (she might post here, too, or so it said in her profile) credit for the initial idea of this story. "The Heirs of Hogwarts" was one of the first stories I ever read with Ginny/Draco as a pairing, and it was the first scene between Ginny and Draco in this story that gave me the image of Ginny and Draco arguing over Draco's worth in a tent. Don't ask me how that happened - it just did. And that scene should show up in one of the earlier chapters, hopefully.

Please bear with me, as this is the first Ginny/Draco story I've ever even thought about writing and I know next to nothing about the commonly accepted dynamics of their relationship. Anyway, please leave a review telling me what you think! I'm a glutton for punishment, so stuff me full of constructive criticism and I will be eternally grateful!

Prologue: The Fall of Voldemort

"Ginevra Victoria Weasley, I absolutely forbid you to go out there!"

"But mum! I'm perfectly capable of defending myself! And it's not like I've never been involved before. You can't just-"

"I can hold you back as long as you're a child, my child, and you-"

"I'll be seventeen in two days!"

"And by the grace of Merlin let us hope that the battle - the war - will be over by then!"

Ginevra Victoria Weasley, so-called by her mother and absolutely no one else lest they find their heads being bitten off by her fierce, trademark Weasley temper, stormed out of the Hogwarts Hospital Wing, more furious than ever at her parents for having her on August 11th instead of August 9th seventeen years ago. Her long red hair was in disarray from the panic that had spread when news came that Voldemort had attacked. Her eyes were red and swollen, puffy from crying.

Outside of the Hospital Wing, however, there was nowhere else to go - the corridors were blocked off by solid, invisible walls. Ginny paced the hallway, kicking at the stone floor angrily. Everybody under seventeen lurked in the Hospital Wing, either cowering within each other's arms or having the same argument with the chaperones Ginny had just lost with her own mother.

It wasn't fair, Ginny thought, still pacing and growling every few moments. She ranted and raved but nobody would listen to her. "You're just a little girl, Gin, you wouldn't last five minutes out there. Stay inside where you're safe." That's what Ron, the youngest of her elder brothers, had told her when he shoved her behind the solid barrier. "I love you. Goodbye."

Like he expected to die in the battle that followed. Ginny would have given anything to be out there with him, even if she did get injured or...or worse. She could accept that it was dangerous, but she couldn't accept that everybody, absolutely everybody, treated her like some absent-minded first year Hufflepuff.

"It's not fair," she said aloud, listening to her voice as it echoed off the stone walls, the barrier, the ceiling. The Hospital Wing suddenly seemed more like a prison than an infirmary. "Why can't I fight with them? I could make a difference, I could defend myself. I can't take this much longer!" She stopped pacing suddenly and looked around the hall expectantly as if hoping somebody might come out and sympathize with her.

After a moment of silence, Ginny made a low growling sound deep in her throat, clenching her fist at her sides. "Damn it!" she yelled, hoping somebody would hear her, admit she existed. "Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, DAMN IT!" But no matter how loud she got nobody opened the door, nobody asked her what was wrong. Didn't they understand? She wanted out.

Her mother insisted that the battle wouldn't last two more days, but Ginny secretly hoped that it would. Already Madam Pomfrey had crossed off half a week on her calendar, and presumably there was still fighting going on outside. Perhaps it had already reached the castle corridors. Ginny felt the need to join the fray coursing through her veins, making her nerves jump. It'd been like this for three days. Three long, agonizing days worth of comforting first years and fighting with her mother, with Flitwick and Slughorn and all the teachers who'd not gone out to battle.

There was a constant stream through the fireplace in the Hospital Wing of people, strangers mostly, coming in with the wounded. Ron had been in with a broken arm that didn't want to heal for several hours, but he left the day before.

"You know, the third years have started spreading rumours that you're going mad."

Ginny jumped, whirling around in surprise. Despite how much she wanted somebody to hear her, she hadn't actually expected it now that she'd fallen silent, staring furiously at the wall as if fervently wishing it would burst into flames. She met the eyes of Luna Lovegood, a Ravenclaw in her year. Though Luna was older than Ginny by two months, she'd been blinded within the first three hours of battle. No matter how hard the healers had tried they could not lift whatever spell had been cast.

Luna's once large, dreamy blue eyes were fogged over completely, making her look like a walking, living corpse. It didn't help that her long, scraggly blond hair and usually healthy skin tone had turned almost grey in colour, a side effect of the spell that made her blind, the healers said. Luna moved slowly out into the hall, closing the door behind her and clinging to the frame so as not to lose her balance. Ginny felt a pang of sorrow shoot through her, wrapping itself thick around the ball of fury and dousing her in guilt.

At least Ginny could fight. Luna very likely would never see again; she'd never fight or even live normally after all the fighting was over, and that made Ginny feel horribly self-centred. She sighed heavily and attempted a smile, which came off as more of a grimace. She was glad Luna couldn't see her expression.

"Stir crazy," Ginny agreed. "I'm going stir crazy. Those third years have the right idea."

"The fighting isn't as glorious as you think it is, Ginny," said Luna, her voice unusually grave. "Don't you think you should take advantage of what little time you have to stay out of it? Or you could help us find a way to redirect the floo so we can take the little ones to a safer place."

If anybody else said that, Ginny would have believed they were trying to make her feel (even more) guilty. But Ginny knew, having lived and paid attention to her father all her life, that there was no way to redirect a floo connection without access to the destination. Luna, instead, was offering Ginny something to do, even though they all knew it would lead to nothing.

Three days ago when all of them had been trapped and cornered in the Hospital Wing, they'd found out the hard way that the floo connection from there only lead to Hogsmeade, a place where the fighting still went on strong. That was why Ginny had been crying so much - because they'd lost Colin Creevey and Roselyn Locks, two of Ginny's best friends, and four first years.

Ginny had wanted so badly to fight after that. She needed to fight, for them, for Luna and her sightless eyes. She needed to fight for Ron and his broken arm and Harry and Hermione and Neville and her mom and everybody. But she couldn't - they wouldn't let her.

"I," started Ginny, wanting Luna to understand why she was so insistent, why she was acting so self-centred. "I...Luna, I don't. I know fighting's not glorious - I've participated in enough battles in my life to know. But...Luna, I need..."

Ginny never got the chance to say what she needed, because at that moment a pale purple streak of light shot through the barrier and hit Luna square in the chest. A small yelp escaped Luna's mouth, her eyes widening so far that Ginny half thought they might fall out of her head, and then she fell, slumping against the door with a small thwump.

"What the..." Ginny, in a state of mind she would later regret very much, did not rush to Luna, but rather turned and looked desperately for the source of the purple light. There was only a heavy silence that left a loud ringing in her ears. Ginny immediately reached for her wand, clutching it so tightly that her knuckles turned white and her nails left crescent-shaped marks in her hand. "Who's there?" she said, attempting to keep her voice sharp and steady.

Ginny thought she could hear laughter, shrill and high-pitched but far away, through the barrier. The blood in her veins turned to ice and Ginny forgot all about Luna. She knew that laugh, almost intimately even though it had been several years since she'd last heard it, echoing silently inside her mind. Possessing her rapidly with its confidence, its promise.

Now, though, the sound promised nothing short of pure fear, and Ginny couldn't move. She needed to alert the others, to tell them that something was coming. But for all her demands to go out there and fight, to get involved in the war she'd been a bystander of since she was eleven, this was not what she had expected.

The volume of the laughter grew, but there were shouts, too. Ginny couldn't see anything down either hall, but as the noises of trampling feet, screams, hexes, and, yes, laughter came so close that Ginny was suddenly sure that the barriers weren't truly invisible. The Death Eaters were right there on the other side of the walls, she could sense it.

Luna's groan might have alerted Ginny to the stupidity of her thinking, but at that moment the barrier to her left came crashing down. Ginny yelped and jumped back, cornering herself between the stone wall and, who else?, Lord Voldemort.

Ginny felt her insides fall from her body. The ice in her veins froze to even more impossibly chilling degrees, making it hard for Ginny to breathe. Her mind was clouded with a thick fog; it felt as if somebody had stuffed a wad of cotton in through her ears.

But the Dark Lord paid no attention to Ginny. He, in all his white-skinned, snake-nosed, red-eyed glory, stood in an offensive position, constantly moving and throwing hexes, facing Harry Potter. Ginny saw, to her horror, that Harry was injured, badly. He was wielding his wand with his left hand, for his left arm appeared to have been torn to shreds. Blood soaked through his cloak, his hair, covered every inch of his skin. His injured arm was thrown protectively over his torso, which was also bleeding profusely.

"Incendio!" screamed Harry, sending a blazing red streak towards his opponent. Voldemort easily cut the spell down and sent, and Ginny's scream finally joined the racket when she realized what it was, the Killing Curse towards Harry. Harry dodged out of the way and the spell hit a fighting wizard behind him.

A Death Eater shrieked out his triumph as Nymphadora Tonks fell to the Dark Lord's curse. Ginny shrank back against the wall, her hand trembling so badly she was afraid she might lose her wand. This was not how battle was supposed to be. Voldemort wasn't supposed to be standing less than six feet away from her, hurling hex after hex at the boy she lo- cared about very much.

Aurors weren't supposed to be falling left and right; Aurors and Order members who Ginny knew, had talked to on droll days back before her fourth year when everything seemed so far away. In the battle Ginny had always imagined herself fighting in, she was surrounded by strangers, blank faces who fell as they fought and struggled, but they were always part of a winning team. In Ginny's dreams, in her fantasies of grandeur.

"The fighting isn't as glorious as you think it is, Ginny."

Kingsley Shacklebolt, a dark-skinned brute of an Auror who Ginny had always liked, fell to the floor with a scream, writhing and moaning as some anonymous Death Eater laughingly cast the Cruciatus curse on him, again and again and again. But despite the Death Eater's distraction, she was not cut down by a fighter for the Light.

Ginny recognized the voice as that of Bellatrix Lestrange, but the vague recollection of battles past flew from her mind as her attention was caught by Harry and Lord Voldemort once again.

"Avada Kadavr-!" That was Harry's voice, Ginny recognized fearfully. But before he could finish the spell, the world exploded, turning such a blinding white that it made Ginny's head pound viciously.

And then…there was…

Nothingnothingnothingnothingnothingnothingnothing.

Burnt

By Pisciculus

Summary: Due to the mysterious disappearance of Lord Voldemort, Ginny becomes part of an alliance fighting Dark wizards who've remained suspiciously active. When she meets Draco Malfoy joining the cause she finds a reason to believe that he might not be as horrid as everybody believes. But who can she convince?

A/N: Ah, the joys of writing a story with no outline. The relief. Chapter one of Diamond is still in the works, but I'm slowly hacking my way through it, word by word. In the meantime, you can get Burnt.

I'd like to know what you think of the present-tense dream. I know it's not traditional or very common (at least, I've never seen it done before), but I thought it would give everything a more urgent vibe. I won't use it for anything but dreams, though. The goal is to leave the reader feeling just as disconcerted as the dreamer once the dream is over because of the sudden shift from present-tense to past-tense.

Chapter One: Aftermath

Ginny's mother doesn't stop her from joining in the clean-up effort, after all is said and done. Ginny still doesn't know what happened - after the blinding flash of white she remembers waking up in the Hospital Wing, offered only a brief explanation when she asked, "What happened?"

They say, "We're not entirely sure, but You Know Who's gone!"

They say, "And it's time to celebrate, huzzah!"

They say, "The horror's over folks; the Dark Lord is no more!"

What they don't say, though, is worse. What they don't say is that reality doesn't allow for happiness and celebration after a war, especially one as long and drawn-out as this one. People Ginny knows - knew - friends and people she's grown up with are dead.

Family.

What once was the clear, welcoming grounds of Hogwarts, grassy and beautiful no matter what the season, has become a field of blood and bodies littered about like trash, most forgotten and ignored. There are more important people to worry about than the anonymous fallen soldiers.

Devastation spreads out as far as the eye can see; when Ginny steps out onto the ground it squishes unpleasantly beneath her feet, burying her up to the ankle in blood and…and Merlin only knows what else.

Ginny looks up to the sky, the blue, cheerful sky with not a cloud in sight. It's not rained in days and the sun beats down mockingly, offering a warm and ideal autumn day to the dead and fatally wounded. Ginny doesn't think it's fair, but then, nothing's been very fair recently. Relief sweeps through her, relief that she had not been caught up in this fight - that her mother held her back.

Guilt, too, that she should feel such relief. The man she steps over is groaning and will likely be dead within the hour and all Ginny can think about is how happy she is that it isn't her. She's not ready to die, not even after hours and days of screaming at her mother.

She has never been ready.

"We can't find George!" shrieks Charlie frantically, yelling the words into the air as if he thinks somebody might actually care. His voice clashes with the cries and frantic wails from others - the ones who survive make more noise than the ones who are hurt.

"…can't find Susan!"

"…can't find Colin!"

"…can't find Dean!"

"…can't find Emma!"

"…can't find Tonks!"

Ginny remembers what happened to Tonks. She shudders, seeking out Charlie's voice and trying to avoid stepping on any corpses. She needs to know that she still has family in all this chaos. She needs to know that she still has a shoulder to cry on. She needs somebody to yell at her for being so damn selfish.

"…can't find Ginny!"

"Ginny wasn't in the battle," Ginny mutters to herself. "Ginny had no chance to get lost." She thinks she is going insane, talking to herself like this. But she is too hurt to be scared and too terrified to understand her own contradicting feelings.

"Charlie!" she cries. "I'm here; I'm okay!" She rushes to him, stepping over more corpses and more doomed-to-die. Charlie sees her, his face haggard and ragged from the recent battles he's been forced to fight. Ginny feels even more grateful for her own lack of injury and hates herself for it.

"Thank Merlin," Charlie breathes, catching Ginny into a tight hug. "Thank Merlin for small mercies."

Small mercy it is, Ginny thinks sadly. Maybe she deserves to be huddled up on the ground, grasping at her own wounds or dying or dead. Maybe somebody else deserves to be standing here in the middle of the battlefield, safe from any lingering hexes or curses eating at her insides.

Ginny scolds herself for becoming preoccupied. There are healers and mediwizards all over the field, and people like her, children, helping as much as they can. But Ginny isn't really a child anymore.

They say, "You've been unconscious for two days, Ginny!"

They say, "Happy birthday, Ginny! How wonderful that you should wake on your birthday to the news that You Know Who is gone!"

They say, "He's dead! He really is dead! And that's not the only reason to celebrate, if you know what I mean, eh!"

But they don't see what Ginny sees; the trees of the Forbidden Forest have wilted, as if burned, turned charcoal black and suffering from injuries that still pale in comparison to that of the creatures once living within their confines. Ginny knows that nobody cares about wildlife right now, and she wonders if that makes her uncaring.

"Mum's looking for George, we can't find him anywhere," says Charlie. Ginny can see that if his face weren't so covered in blood and purple bruises, he would be pale and drawn. For the first time since she's waken up, Ginny wonders, If the fight ended two days ago, why hasn't he been healed? And then she also wonders why it looks as if the battle hasn't even been over for an hour.

How long does it take to clean up?

How can they possibly go back to the way they were before?

"Everybody else is accounted for, though," continues Charlie with obvious relief. "Ron…broke his arm, again. Percy's at the Ministry, filing reports…Fred and Bill are unconscious and mum and dad are…are fine, for now. But George, we can't find George."

Ginny nods, and is surprised by her lack of tears. Her lack of any true emotion. Hearing that somebody else (in her family, and that's the only important thing right now) is okay gives her hope because no matter what happens to the rest of the wizarding world, the Weasley family has always pulled through relatively unscathed.

Wanting to be grateful for this, Ginny finds only that she is furious. If George is missing, he's probably just playing a prank or something. That's the kind of thing he'd do, isn't it? George, Ginny believes, will pop up behind her sometime soon with a dungbomb in his hand exclaiming, "Damn, are you sure they're all gone?" Disappointed that he didn't get to shove something squirmy or explosive down a Death Eater's pants.

Still, Ginny follows Charlie's directions and begins searching. Whenever she sees a body that's moving and not being tended by mediwizards or trained healers or somebody, she kneels down until somebody else can come. She kneels down and puts her hand on their forehead or shoulder but doesn't say anything to them, just looks in their eyes and knows that there is nothing she can do to comfort them.

She reaches the edge of the forest in due time and breaks away from the field. The further into the thick of trees she gets the more solid the ground becomes beneath her feet. Looking down, Ginny sees that her ankles are covered in mud, blood, and bits of flesh that are scattered through the field she just walked through.

So she turns to throw up in the skeleton of what must once have been a bush, or perhaps a fern. There's nobody there to hold her hair back and she doesn't bother with it herself, and when she straightens she looks and kind of feels like one of the badly wounded, barely walking on her own bloody two legs.

But it's not her blood. Thank Merlin for that. (Maybe it should be her blood, she thinks. Maybe it should be…) Ginny vomits again, making more of a mess. She keeps wandering, the vile taste in her mouth nothing compared to the dull buzzing in her brain and the sick dread in her churning but recently emptied stomach.

She comes to a silver pool of what can only be unicorn blood, though the creature is nowhere in sight. She looks down, sees her face, and blanches. Maybe this is how Bill felt after having his face torn apart by a werewolf. But Ginny's mess isn't permanent (maybe she deserves for it to be).

A scream echoes through the forest, a scream that Ginny's ears are attuned to. Nobody else can hear it, she knows, because they're too busy making their own screams, or seeking out the screams of their loved ones. In the aftermath of a battle it seems that screams are more comfort than anything else - they let you know that there are still people alive.

Ginny follows the screaming, which hasn't stopped but grown stronger, louder, frightening. A tree branch scratches her cheek and finally she has a mark on her skin to show for all of this travesty. It's a tiny cut and hardly stings, but it's more physical injury than she's suffered since all of this began.

There is a figure bent low to the ground in a nearby crevice in the earth; Ginny thinks it might once have been a stream but all the water has dried up. Ginny rushes towards the figure, sees the flaming red hair and bedraggled outline of her mother and the blood and mangled limbs of…of…

"George!"

Ginny's eyes snapped open and she fell off her bed in a tangle of limbs and sheets damp from sweat. She felt cold and clammy, and the image of George's mangled body seemed to be burnt on the insides of her eyelids. Still panting slightly, Ginny disentangled herself from her bedding, only to find that she was still in the Hospital Wing.

For a moment, Ginny thought that maybe her dream really was nothing more than just a dream. But she still had the memory of three days ago, and though some parts of her dream seemed different, less vivid than the memory, she knew it was a nightmare that would be haunting her for a long time yet.

The bed lay next to a closed window, and when Ginny looked out she was surprised to see that, finally, it was pouring rain. The sky swirled with dark grey clouds that had no silver lining. The grounds were clean, they said, but Ginny thought she saw traces of blood being washed away. Perhaps it was just her imagination.

Scarlett curtains were still drawn around her bed, which Ginny scrambled back onto. She found herself thankful for the closed curtains, because even though most had gone home or transferred to St. Mungos, there were still quite a few people residing within the Hogwarts Hospital Wing.

Still feeling extremely shaky, Ginny reached out for the stand beside her bed and grabbed the glass of water there, glad that she'd had the foresight to put it there before she fell asleep the night before. She looked out the window again, to search for the sun. She wanted to at least have some vague idea as to what time it was. Even if she had been able to find the sun, though, Ginny would have had no idea - she didn't know what direction she was looking.

"Ginny?"

Ginny turned her head from the window and looked up to see Hermione, whose head was wrapped in a bunch of white gauze but other than that looked fine. Her bushy brown hair stuck out awkwardly under the wrapping and little strands stuck out in all directions. It looked like she hadn't brushed it in days. She wore a pair of black student robes with a Ravenclaw crest that seemed too small for her and her brown eyes sparkled dangerously, rimmed with red and very puffy, as if she had been crying for a very long time and might start again at any given moment.

"Hey Hermione," said Ginny, attempting her best smile but failing miserably. "How are you?" She made sure to keep her voice low, lest she disturb anybody else like she probably had with her earlier exclamation. In fact, there was little doubt in Ginny's mind that that was why Hermione was there.

Hermione shrugged and sat down at the end of Ginny's bed. Ginny pushed herself up further into a sitting position, leaning against the wall her bed was up against. "I'm alright, I suppose," answered Hermione. "I just…well, how are you holding up?"

Ginny hated that question being directed at her, but she figured that since she'd asked it of Hermione, she could answer it herself. "Fine," she lied, though she was quite aware that Hermione could see through it. "I'm fine."

A silence fell between them for a moment before Hermione suddenly jumped, as if remembering something. She stood up. "I'm sorry, I was supposed to be checking on you, making sure you're not still hurt." She immediately walked up beside Ginny and checked her forehead, as if looking for a fever.

"But I wasn't hurt," said Ginny, confused.

"You were hurt more than you know," replied Hermione, kneeling down next to the bed and resting her chin there. She took Ginny's hand in her own, turned it over, and started tracing lines on her palm.

Ginny wondered if maybe she'd hit her head when she fainted after finding George. That was the only explanation she could find for Hermione's odd behaviour, but she decided not to question it. Instead she turned her head to look out the window again, following the trails of rain until they hit the pane with her eyes.

She found, much to her horror, that she couldn't speak. A lump seemed to have lodged itself in Ginny's throat, and though she tried to swallow it, it remained stubbornly. Her eyes prickled with tears, and it hit Ginny just why she was crying…about to cry. It wasn't because of George or Tonks or Colin.

"I thought this would be over," she whimpered, choking on her own words. Hermione clutched her hand tightly and Ginny clenched back, still staring determinedly out the window. "You know, after Harry destroyed V-Vold- You Know Who," Ginny hated herself a little more for not being able to say the Dark Lord's name, "everything was supposed to get better. We should be cel-celebrating!"

The tears streamed freely down Ginny's cheeks and her breathing was a little bit ragged, but she refused to let herself succumb entirely to the piercing wail still lodged in her throat.

"Some people are," reassured Hermione. "But there are a lot of things we have to get over before we start celebrating. I…oh, Ginny, it's terrible!"

Ginny's head whipped around to look at Hermione, who was also crying freely. She was surprised by the sudden outburst, which had likely been heard by everybody within a hundred yard vicinity. Hermione buried her head in the mattress next to Ginny's waist and simply sobbed, leaving Ginny at loss for what to do.

Ginny's heart nearly stopped, then. What if Harry was dead? Or Ron? She didn't think she could stand that after everything else. But she'd seen both of them walking around the Hospital Wing these last few days, though it was all rather a blur. Ginny put her hand on Hermione's hair, but instead of trying to sooth her, Ginny wrapped her hands around Hermione's cheeks and lifted her face up, looking into her eyes.

"What happened?" whispered Ginny. The salty tracks down Hermione's pale face looked like faint cuts, Ginny thought, and it horrified her. She shook Hermione desperately, hearing a small squeak of surprise coming out of the girl's mouth but hardly caring. "What happened?" she demanded more fiercely, nearly spitting the words in her panic.

Hermione grasped Ginny's wrist and pulled it away from her face. "Ginny, st-stop it," she said, her voice still trembling. "N-nothing happened, b-but…oh, G-Ginny, I'll e-explain it to you l-later." Hermione stood up, grabbing the hand that was still placed on her cheek. Ginny had forgotten to take it away.

She allowed Hermione to lift her out of the bed, even though she felt she could have done it on her own, and was surprised to find how unsteady her legs felt. She stumbled as Hermione opened the curtains and steadied herself against Hermione's shoulder. Much to her mortification, she was still wearing a hospital gown. Hermione seemed to read her mind.

"There are extra robes that some people have donated over here," she said, gesturing. Much to Ginny's surprise, the infirmary was not a bustle of activity like it had been before. All of the beds were lined in perfect rows, like shelves in a library, and most of them had their curtains drawn. Some, however, were empty, and one…

Ginny stopped short, her free hand coming to her mouth. "Luna?" she whispered. Hermione stumbled a bit, startled, but then straightened herself so that she was still holding Ginny up.

"She's in a coma," said Hermione. "We don't know what sort of spell it was that hit her, but Poppy, that's Madam Pomfrey to you I suppose, said that the longer she went without treatment, the less likely she is to wake up."

Ginny flinched, closing her eyes and bowing her head. Shame and guilt, which had been flitting at the edge of her consciousness in a steady stream these past few days, became suddenly very real, and very heavy. "It was a pale purple streak," she said quietly. "I…oh Hermione, I was there when it happened, right before Harry and…and…the rest of them came in. I could have alerted you guys and tried to save her but I was too d-damn p-p-proud!"

Ginny collapsed in tears, only saved by Hermione pulling her into a warm, sisterly embrace. "Ginny, don't blame yourself for anything," whispered Hermione against Ginny's red hair, rubbing small circles in her back. Ginny just sobbed into the given shoulder.

"It, isn't, fair," she gasped between breaths. Hermione's face lifted and Ginny thought she heard her say something, but the next moment she was being passed into a much firmer, warmer embrace. Ginny didn't care who it was; she wrapped her arms around the broad shoulders and wailed into his chest, letting loose all the screams that had been building up inside of her since…

Ginny didn't know how long it was that Bill comforted her, but finally it seemed that all her tears had dried up. She tugged away from him and wiped her face, not seeing his offered handkerchief until she already had snot and saliva and tears all over her hand anyway.

"It'll be okay, Gin," said Bill, her eldest brother. Ginny had always been firmly attached to Bill, had always looked up to him more than any of the others. She clutched his side as he led her to the pile of robes. It was only when he disentangled himself from her that Ginny realized how hard she'd been clutching to him. Her face flushed in shame.

"I'm s-sorry, Bill," she said, also taking a good look at his borrowed Slytherin robes, which were drenched. She looked up and met his eyes, warm and comforting and blue as her mother's. Ginny had decided a long time ago that the scars from Fenrir Greyback's attack on his face only made him look more endearing, and had learned to respect Fleur, his wife, just a little more every time she proclaimed, "My husband is brave," in that annoying accent of hers.

"Don't apologize, little sis," he said, turning around so that Ginny could change quickly. She chose Slytherin robes as well, to match Bill's. His voice seemed more hollow than she remembered, but then, so did everybody's lately. Ginny thought back to what Hermione had said about some people already celebrating. I don't believe it, she thought. Nobody could celebrate, not yet. Not possibly.

After getting dressed, Bill lead Ginny out of the Hospital Wing into the hall where… There was a black scorch mark in the floor, and a metal plaque had already been placed on it that read, "Here is where Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, destroyed the Dark Lord Voldemort on August 9, 1999." There was more, but Ginny didn't want to read it. Instead, her eyes travelled to the part of the wall where she'd cowered while all the fighting was going on. She blanched, and at that moment she realized that Bill had stopped walking. And so had she.

She hadn't meant to. She looked up at Bill, meeting his grave eyes, and wondered if he'd been fighting here when it happened. He was looking at the piece of wall Ginny had just been looking at, and with a jolt she realized that he had. And not only had he been fighting here, but he had seen Ginny.

Ginny flushed and looked down at the floor. It was a good thing all her tears had been cried, she thought, for now at least, because the lump in her throat was back again. "I'm sorry I'm such a coward, Bill," she said.

Bill's hand reached over and tugged at her chin, forcing her to look up into his eyes. "You're no coward, Gin," he promised. "You're one of the bravest girls I know. What happened and how you reacted to it, well, a lot of people would have acted the same way. It's okay to be afraid sometimes."

Ginny didn't want to yell at her brother. She didn't want to feel the anger she felt rising in her chest, clamping at her lungs and making her mind feel fuzzy again. She shook her head and turned, walking away so that she wouldn't have to face being angry at her brother who she was so very grateful to see alive.

To her relief, Bill didn't push the issue. She wondered where they were going, after a brief while, when Bill had caught up to her and wrapped his arm protectively around her shoulder again. All over the walls, the floors, and even the ceiling, there were black scorch marks in the stone, and stains that Ginny didn't want to think about. Chunks of stone appeared to have been used as weapons, tossed with magic across the corridors.

How many people were crushed? Ginny wondered, before scolding herself for thinking such morbid thoughts when she already had enough on her mind.

They finally came to a door that lead, presumably, to just another empty classroom. Ginny had looked into a few at first, only to find chairs and desks splintered and ripped apart. After the first three rooms she'd decided she couldn't stand it anymore and huddled closer to Bill, her only form of protection against grief and rage.

Bill opened the door and Ginny flinched in expectation. But instead of turned-over chairs and pieces of desk exploded all over the place, Ginny was met with a blurry image of red hair and a shriek so loud that she didn't understand what it had said. Then it felt like the air was being squeezed out of her lungs and Ginny started to choke.

"M-mum!" she gasped, but even then wrapped her arms around the shaking shoulders. She hadn't thought about her mother, who had been the first to find George's body. She hadn't thought about how horrified she would be and…and…

Wonderful. More guilt.

"Oh Ginny, I'm so glad you're okay! Oh Ginny, Ginny, Ginny, GinnyGinnyGinnyGinnyGinnyGinnyGinny!" Ginny looked up over her mother's shoulder across the room. Her whole family was there, all of them pale-faced. Except George. Fred was crying, much to Ginny's horror and surprise, wrapped in their father's arms. Charlie was leaning against a wall with one knee perched against it as well, his face buried in one of his hands and the other arm wrapped protectively around his torso.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione were huddled into a corner together. Harry and Hermione seemed to be taking turns trying to comfort Ron. Ginny wasn't surprised to see that it didn't appear to be working. Percy stood rigidly beside the only desk in the room, making Ginny wonder if he had been comforting their mother before Ginny had entered.

Finally, Ginny managed to extract herself from her mother's fierce embrace, trading her to Bill who took her with grace and walked her over to where Percy stood. Ginny heard the door close behind her and whirled around, ready to grab for her wand (only to realize that she didn't have it), until she saw who it was.

Headmistress McGonagall looked just like everybody else, thin and pale with slightly puffy eyes. The only sound in the room was of Ginny's mother, still sobbing her heart out, and Fred's sniffles. Professor McGonagall sighed heavily.

"You have been arranged to go to Madam Malkin's to buy dress robes before the funeral," she said quietly, obviously trying to sound professional and calm but failing rather miserably because her voice trembled. Ginny felt the blood drain from her face.

Funeral?

Oh please Merlin, no.

A/N: Wow! Thanks for the positive feedback, Moogle and Kiiraena. I really appreciate it and hope you liked this chapter as much as the prologue!