Chapter Two
Ginny Weasley was a wreck; a grade A, first class mess. She hadn't slept in days, she leapt at every sound, and now it seemed like every creak that came from upstairs made her heart stop, and anyone saying her name practically sent her into seizures.
This couldn't go on, she knew, but she didn't have any ideas at the moment. Every possible solution that jumped into her head was discarded, cast aside in hopes that something better would come along, but nothing seemed to come to her. She kept waiting for something to strike her, kept waiting for the answer to just fall out of the sky and strike her on the head, but nothing happened.
What made this situation all the more frustrating was that in the week he had been living upstairs, making her life a living hell and putting job and-more importantly-her life in jeopardy, Ginny hadn't actually seen Draco. The only way of knowing if he was even still living above her would be to go up and see for herself-something she was most unwilling to do. She was strong-willed, hardheaded, and sometimes impulsive, a fact her brothers loved to remind her of daily, but she wasn't stupid. She knew he was eating because certain things had begun disappearing from the kitchen-a Yorkshire pudding one night, steak and kidney pies the next, and on more than one occasion, several bottles of whiskey. Ginny felt oddly comforted by the idea that even if he wasn't upstairs anymore, he was drunk and full somewhere.
She didn't know why that made her feel better. It shouldn't. The man was a felon, had faked his own death to avoid paying for the things he'd done, and he'd threatened to kill her and everyone she loved if she didn't do what he wanted her to. Yet she couldn't stop thinking about him. She couldn't stop wondering what he was doing, or if he was all right. If he had enough to eat, and if he was sleeping. She wanted him to be safe. And though she knew that it should cause her to worry, Ginny found herself more concerned with hiding her secret from everyone else than she was about him coming back for her.
Still, people had begun to notice her strange behavior. Her mother had said something about it that very morning at breakfast.
"Ginny, what's the matter with you? You haven't even touched your food! Are you sick?" Molly had been fretting, brushing her hand over her daughter's soft coppery hair as she passed. Ginny had felt a wave of guilt. She hated lying to her family. They were big, and loud, and noisy, and her brothers drove her crazy, and her mother was sometimes too much to handle, but she loved them all, and lying to them hurt her.
"No, Mum, I'm fine," she'd shaken her head and forced a bite of toast.
"You don't look fine," Molly had commented, "When was the last time you had a good night's sleep?"
Ginny shrugged, "I don't know; I'm probably just coming down with something."
"I think it's that job."
At this, the juice glass that she was raising to her lips slipped from her hands and crashed to the floor. "What about my job?"
Molly sighed and pointed her wand at the mess her daughter had just made. "I think you're working too many hours-it wouldn't kill you to take a night off every once in awhile."
"Oh," she visibly relaxed, "yeah…you're probably right. I'll talk to Tom about it later."
That had been the end of that conversation, though it had taken her mother leaving the house for her heart to slow down.
A creak from the stairs caused such a spasm that Ginny spilled an entire bottle of ink on the reservation book. Tom, the source of the creaking, looked curiously down at her. "Are you sure you're all right, Ginny?" he asked for the tenth time that day.
"Mmm hmm," she answered distractedly, waving her wand over the book to clean up the spill.
"Just a little jumpy, eh?"
"A little," she nodded, wishing very much that he would go away. After a moment, he did and she breathed a small sigh of relief.
No, this definitely couldn't go on.
***
"What are you reading?" Harry bent over the little figure curled in the corner of the sofa, running the edges of her quill along her cheek thoughtfully.
"Classes start in a couple of weeks." The pretty girl reminded him with a flash of sparkle in her brown eyes. She held up the book-one of their required texts for Auror training. Harry wasn't at all surprised.
He sank down beside her, and she glanced around, noting with some confusion the length of the shadows in the room. How long had she been lost in her own world? "Where's Ron?"
"He went for a walk." Harry confessed quietly. "I think this whole dream thing has still got him pretty shook up."
"I know it is." Hermione bit her lip, twirling a lock of hair around her finger. "I don't know
what to tell him, Harry." She said with a sigh. "We can't fix it for him. We don't know what's
going on any more than he does."
"No, we don't." Harry's nod held a hint of defeat.
She smiled, "As soon as they catch whoever's been doing this, it'll all be over." She promised, reaching to lay a comforting hand on his arm. "Maybe he's just sensitive to these kinds of things."
"It's never happened before." Her friend reminded her, shaking his head.
"No, but maybe this is something that's just manifested itself. Maybe he's got a gift of some kind. You know, I was reading the other day about something very similar to this. What was it..." She trailed off, a familiar thoughtful look covering her face, and Harry offered her a smile as he rose again.
"You keep working on that." He told her with a chuckle. "I'm going to see if he's back yet. Maybe a trip into town will make him feel better."
***
When she returned home from the market, she knew something was wrong. Something was terribly, terribly wrong. The front door had been broken open and the sitting room was a mess. Furniture kicked over, glass shattered…she took another step inside and set the bag of groceries down, fear coursing through her veins with each beat of her heart. The house was too quiet, she realized. For as many people who lived there, someone was always shouting or slamming a door, running up and down the steps or clanging dishes or pots and pans in the kitchen. The silence scared her more than anything else.
She drew her wand from her pocket and proceeded with caution down the hallway and into the kitchen. A scream caught in her throat and escaped as a strangled gasp at what she saw. Her mother, sisters, and brother were tied together-bound and gagged, in the center of the room.
"Mama!" she exclaimed, rushing toward them, barely noticing that her wand had flown out of her hand, rendering her just as helpless as the captives. She reached for her mother first, only to find her hand repelled a few inches from the gag in her mouth. She tried again.
"Ah, ah, ah!" a voice behind her said. "Mustn't touch, Sarah."
She whirled around quickly but found no one there. "Let them go!" she demanded, her heart pounding.
"No, I don't think I will," the voice responded, the sound coming from everywhere at once. "Not until I have what I came here for."
"We don't..." she looked helpless from her family around the room, "we don't have any money..."
"No..." the voice was beginning to sound annoyed. "I don't want money. I think you know what I'm here for."
"I don't," she cried. "I swear! Please, just let them go and I'll give you whatever you want."
"Well I know that, Sarah my sweet." There was a pause. "You're going to give it to me no matter what I do to them."
"Please..."
"Please...stop...don't..." the voice was sounding more and more bored as it continued. "It always the same." Sarah felt something brush past her, stirring the upset papers at her feet. "Where do you have it hidden, Sarah?"
"Where do I have what?" the young girl demanded. "I'm not hiding anything!"
The voice gave another heavy sigh. "This is boring. I'll find it myself."
Sarah only had time to turn toward her mother once more before she dropped to the ground; her throat opened, her blood spilling onto the floor. It left a trail as she was dragged by her hair out of the house, away from her family's screams.
"RON!" Harry's voice pulled him out of his nightmare, drenched in sweat and grabbing at his own throat. "Ron, wake up! It was a dream, it was just a dream."
He shook his head vehemently as Hermione burst into the room, hot on Harry's heels. "Is he all right?"
"I don't know," Harry answered truthfully as Ron struggled for breath. "These dreams of his are getting worse."
"She was-" he coughed and tried to swallow, "her whole family watching…I couldn't…I didn't…"
"Ron," Hermione's voice was soft and calming as she sat down next to him, "you're all right. It was just a bad dream."
"I couldn't see it," he rasped, his breathing beginning to return to normal. "She couldn't see it…it killed her and she couldn't even…"
"Ron, you're all right," Harry insisted, "you're safe here with us."
It was another few minutes before Ron had composed himself enough to accept the glass of water Hermione had fetched from the bathroom. "Thanks," he said quietly before gulping it down.
"You all right now?" she asked, maternally pushing back a lock of red hair from his damp forehead.
"Yeah," he nodded, looking embarrassed, "I'm sorry I woke you guys up."
"We thought something was happening to you," Harry said, watching his friend closely.
"Something was," Ron nodded, "I don't know what's going on with me."
"Maybe you should talk to someone about it," Harry suggested with a shrug.
"Or there's always a sleeping potion-dreamless sleep, guaranteed," Hermione added with a smile.
"I just want them to stop. I mean, a solid week of this."
"You're sure it's a different girl every night?" Harry asked.
"Trust me," Ron tapped his temple, "it's not something you forget, watching seven different women slaughtered in your mind's eye."
"They're just dreams," Hermione reminded, getting to her feet. "We should probably get some rest-all of us. Classes tomorrow."
Harry shook his head as he watched her leave the room, "Some things never change."
***
Ginny had made up her mind that day that she was going to tell someone about the Malfoy Situation. That's how she'd been referring to it in her mind: The Malfoy Situation. A top secret position that had been unwillingly thrust upon her. She was done protecting a known felon, a wanted murderer, a celebrated Death Eater. That was it-no more.
She'd resolved to tell Tom at the end of her shift, offer to resign and hope that after he'd called the Ministry, he'd understand why she'd done what she'd done and let her keep her job. Truth be told, she was qualified for very little else and was not yet old enough to train to be an Auror. This job was more or less all she had going for her and she would not let Draco Malfoy ruin it for her as he had ruined so many other things.
Midday, however, something happened she did not count on. Hermione came in for a visit over lunch. "You look terrible," she commented almost immediately. "Have you been sleeping?"
"Not very well," Ginny admitted truthfully, ignoring the bluntness of Hermione's observations.
"Must be a Weasley trait," she commented darkly.
"Ron still having nightmares?" Ginny asked incredulously; Ron had described his first nightmare to her in startling detail. If the dreams had continued like that for the past week, she couldn't imagine her brother ever wanting to sleep again.
"Every night," Hermione sighed. "And not that I'm not sympathetic-we've all had our share of bad dreams and memories since the war-but no one in the house has had a decent night's sleep since all this business started. It's impossible to sleep with him bellowing like that."
Ginny raised an eyebrow. "He bellows?"
"I picked him up a few different potions to try to simulate dreamlessness," she reached into her bag and removed several oddly shaped vials. "Let's hope something works." Hermione dropped the vials back into her school bag and looked up, catching Ginny in worried and distracted expression. "He'll be fine, I'm sure," she assured her, "these will do the trick."
"Mmm," Ginny nodded and began playing with the charm on her necklace. A noise from upstairs caused her companion to glance upwards, not missing the fact that Ginny had visibly twitched.
"All right, Gin, what's going on?"
Ginny swallowed hard-an idea came to her. Hermione! Of course! Telling Tom would definitely get her fired-possibly even arrested-no matter how much he liked her. But Hermione? What could she do but help? She would know what to do, who to call, how to keep Ginny's name out of it…Hermione was a genius. Ginny patted herself on the back for such a brilliant realization.
"All right," she began, "but you've got to swear you won't freak out."
"I swear."
"I've been…" Ginny stopped, trying to think of how to phrase this. I've been protecting and hiding one of my most hated enemies for a week or so. No, that was no good. Remember Malfoy? Well…he's not so much dead as the other thing… Rubbish.
"Yeah, Gin?" Hermione prompted with raised, expectant eyebrows.
"I've been…" her mind wandered back to the night he'd arrived. He was the one people should be telling looked terrible. Hungry, homeless, haunted…and she'd never seen anyone look more afraid in her life. That was it, she realized, the haunted look about his eyes wasn't the usual malignant glint she'd grown up with. It was fear. Draco Malfoy was terrified.
"Whatever it is, Gin, I promise I won't freak out."
"I've been seeing Dean Thomas again," she blurted out, wanting desperately to clamp a hand over her mouth for her lies.
Hermione blinked. "Oh. When did this start?"
"About a week ago," she continued, "he came in for a drink, we got to talking…you know how it is sometimes with old flames."
"Not…exactly…" Hermione eyed her suspiciously. "Well that's great, Ginny. It doesn't explain why you look like you haven't slept in…" she stopped herself, "well, I guess it could…"
"Don't mention it to Ron," Ginny rushed on, "you know how he gets sometimes."
Hermione rolled her eyes and glanced at her watch. "Don't worry," she said, sliding off the barstool, "Hey," she produced a vial of sleeping potion, "you sure you don't want me to leave you one of these? Slip a few drops to Dean and get a little sleep yourself?" she gave a wicked grin.
Ginny had the decency to blush-though not for any reason Hermione was suggesting-and laughed. "I'll think about it."
Hermione was down the street and headed back to the Ministry before Ginny let out the breath she'd been holding. She dropped her elbows to the counter and hung her head in her hands. What would her mother say if she heard all those lies? Ginny comforted herself with the fact that her mother would be much more upset that she'd been protecting a Death Eater than telling a few white lies.
She sighed and ran her hands over her face.
This was not good.
***
Hermione didn't like the feeling she got when she Apparated home that night after class. Upstairs, she heard the rise and fall of anxious voices; she dropped her books onto the chair by the door and took the stairs two at a time, following the voices down the hall to Ron's room. Harry was sitting on Ron's bed, watching as his best friend paced around the room, muttering to himself.
Harry caught her in the doorway. "We have a problem," he informed.
"I can see that," she said, crossing her arms. "What's wrong?"
"What's wrong?" Ron demanded, "I'm turning into a nutter, that's what's wrong! I'm bloody crazy!"
"Ron, you're not crazy," Harry insisted, sounding hopeless.
"Easy for you to say…you've had a nice long vacation from your dreams coming true, haven't you?"
"Could someone please tell me what's going on?" Hermione demanded wearily.
"I'll tell you what's going on! Someone's hacked into my head and they're making me see things! Wouldn't you be a little upset?"
Hermione looked at Harry for clarification. "His nightmares," Harry said quietly, "they're not…they're not nightmares." Without another word, he handed her The Daily Prophet next to him.
"SEVENTH DISAPPEARANCE IN SEVEN DAYS" read the headline, "MINISTRY FEARS THE WORST". Below the headline were seven pictures of young women-all looking to be no older than thirty.
Hermione's brow folded into its' favorite crease. "These are the women you've been dreaming about?"
"Yes!" Ron exclaimed, "I've been watching these girls get butchered every night and you're all telling me they're only dreams!"
"Ron, what else could we tell you?" Harry asked, getting to his feet, "We didn't know either!"
"Seven," Hermione said softly, reading the headline again. "Seven's a powerful number."
"Nine's stronger," Harry reminded.
"So we're supposed to wait to see if whoever's doing this kills two more people before we decide whether or not we have a problem?" Ron asked incredulously.
"No," Hermione sighed, "of course not."
"What are we going to do, then?"
"I…" she looked helplessly at Harry, "I don't know."
A/N: Reviews? Sharing is caring, after all.
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