The rain pelted down onto the roof of an old and shabby shed in the middle of a forest which contained all sorts of dangerous magical creatures. The roof was leaking and the rain was dripping in, soaking the man who was lying on the floor covered with an old and filthy sack. The man was very thin, as though he had not had a decent meal in weeks. His long silver blond hair was dirty and greasy; it badly needed to be washed. It was messy and it fell across his face covering his closed eyes. He was the kind of man you could tell would be handsome if he had a decent meal inside of him and if he was cleaned up. His face was muddy and there was still a faint trace of a scar down his right cheek. He was dressed in a long dark green robe with silver stitching. The cloak was now torn, covered in dirt and several inches too short but the colour was still recognisable and it was obvious that it had been very expensive when brought new. There was a clap of thunder and a flash of lightning which lit up the tiny shed, awakening the man from his troubled sleep. He swore loudly as he stood up and smacked his head on the ceiling.
“I can’t believe it has been 6 years,” muttered Hermione as she read through The Daily Prophet. She munched on her toast and spilt crumbs all down her top. “It seems so long ago, yet also like it happened only yesterday.”
“I know.” said Ron as he wrapped his arm around her. “So much has happened since then, but I still remember everything so clearly.”
They both sighed. It had been 6 years since the night Deatheaters had been let into the castle and 6 years since Snape had murdered Dumbledore. 6 years and still the Wizarding World was still not back to normal, memories still haunted the minds of everyone who had fought in the war or played some part in it. Many lives had been lost, including that of Harry Potter. Ron and Hermione still suffered from terrible nightmares about that night that their best friend had lost his life. They had both been there at his side at the final battle as Voldemort fell. At first they thought they had succeeded but it hadn’t been long before Harry fell down dead. It seems that although his scar was not a horcrux he still had a connection with Voldemort through his scar and once Voldemort had been destroyed, he had taken Harry to the death with him. At least Harry is with his parents and Sirius now, Hermione would often say to herself when her thoughts were plagued with images of Harry. No one had been more affected than Ginny, she barely spoke anymore and this saddened her friends, back before Dumbledore had died, she had been as lively as her vibrant red hair and was always up for a laugh but now she rarely cracked a smile. She put all her effort into her job as a healer at St Mungos. Everyone believed the cause of this was to do with her first love Harry dying, but really it was something else. Something she could not confide in anyone about. If they knew, they would disown her and she would bring shame to the family.
“At least we still have each other.” Hermione smiled weakly as she turned to kiss Ron.
“Poor Ginny though, she has lost Harry too. Harry had even said he’d marry her after he defeated Voldemort, even though he broke up with her at Dumbledore’s funeral. She was heartbroken when she learnt of his death. I know we miss Harry too but still. I always thought Ginny and Harry would get married and have a huge family and live happily ever after. I just wish there was something I could do to cheer her up and get her back to the way I remember her, I want things back the way they were.”
“Well things will never be back the way they were before. The best thing you can do for me is leave me alone. I don’t need your sympathy. I am 21 years old; I think I can take care of myself. There are just some things you will never understand.” Ron turned to face his sister who had appeared at the kitchen door. Her face had gone red, matching her hair and there were tears forming in her puffy eyes which were the result of many sleepless nights. She marched over to Ron and slapped him hard across the face before turning and storming out of the room and up the stairs. She reached her room and collapsed onto her bed, tears streaming down her face. She picked up the newspaper clipping she kept under her pillow.
June 30th 1998.
It has been confirmed that the last of the Malfoys is dead. He is believed to have been murdered by he-who-must-not-be-named as the result of his failure to complete the task he was set, which was to kill Albus Dumbledore. As everyone knows, Mr Malfoy was cleared of all charges relating to that incident as it was proved that the murderer was Severus Snape, thought to be an ex-deatheater. There had been a letter written by Dumbledore before his death proving Mr. Malfoy’s innocence. It has been a year since he fled the castle and he has not been seen or heard from since. We have found no body but it is reasonable to come to the conclusion that he is dead based on what is thought to be he-who-must-not-be-named policy towards people who fail him. Mr. Lucius Malfoy and Mrs. Narcissa Black Malfoy have also been confirmed dead which leads on to the problem of what will happen to the large Malfoy estate and bank vaults…
There was a picture of Draco taken back in happier days, before he had been given his task. His eyes were silver orbs and his silver blond shone in the sun.
“There are some things you will never understand.” She whispered, before putting her face down on her pillow and crying herself into a restless sleep.
Chapter Two.
When she woke up mid-afternoon she found that the house was empty. Ron and Hermione had gone back to their flat and she guessed that her mother had gone with them as Hermione had mentioned to Molly that she should come over for dinner sometime. Her father was most likely still at work, the twins at their joke shop in Diagon Alley and Charlie was back in Romania working with dragons. Bill was in France with Fleur visiting the Delacour family and Percy… well he wasn’t spoken of in the family anymore. This suited Ginny just fine, all she wanted right now was to be alone; she didn’t need various members of her family asking her if she was okay every few minutes. They seemed to think that because it was approaching the anniversary of Harry’s death that she needed smothering. She had never loved Harry, no more than a brother. She realised that now. Back when she was eleven years old she had thought that she loved him and that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him, as the years went on though she found out that her feelings were purely that of how a sister loves her brother. Harry was practically part of the family. In her fifth year she went out with him, which she realised was a mistake. Looking back on it, it was wrong, but at the time she had just broken up with her boyfriend of nearly a year, Dean Thomas and Harry had taken her by surprise. She had found out at Dumbledore’s funeral that Harry never really cared about her, if he did he would have never have broken things off with her. If he felt anything he would have stuck with her – what a crap time to break it off as well. It was supposedly to ‘protect’ her, bull shit, she didn’t need protecting and he knew that. I mean who was the one who was at the Department of Mysteries with them, fighting Death Eaters the night Dumbledore died, she was not the eleven year old she once was who poured her heart and soul into a diary. She sighed. No one was ever going to let her forget her mistake. Not that she would be able to anyway, memories of the chamber of secrets still haunted her dreams at night, only occasionally, but they were still there.
Draco had been different. They had never officially gone out, but they had an understanding. It was an accident that night she came across him crying in the toilets with only Moaning Myrtle for company. She had been shocked, who would have thought it? Draco Malfoy was crying, yes the same Draco Malfoy who could supposedly show no emotion. Her heart went out for him as it would have done for anyone who was that upset. It just really proved that he was a human being as well. She hid and listened in to the conversation. She knew it was wrong but she was curious. What could have possibly upset him so much that he had resulted to crying in the toilets when she had never seen him show any emotion before in all the time that she had been attending Hogwarts?
“I’m… s-so worried,” sobbed Draco, tears streaming down his face, “If I don’t do it, he’ll… he’ll kill them.”
Ginny was shocked, all she wanted to do was run up to the crying boy and hug him and the only thing stopping her from doing that was the reminder of the fact that he was a Malfoy who treated her family like something unpleasant that he had stepped in and was now squashed on the sole of his shoe. She wanted to listen some more, maybe she could get some important information which she could then pass on to the order. She knew it was wrong to eavesdrop but this could be important. Harry had been going on for months now about Malfoy working for Voldemort and being up to something all year. Harry was convinced that he had received the Dark Mark over the summer and had been behind the attack on Katie Bell at the first Hogsmeade weekend 2 weeks ago. Ginny wasn’t too sure though, was this crying sixteen year old really a Death Eater?
“I won’t have my mother die… I must do this, but… I don’t… I don’t know if I can do this…” he trailed off as Myrtle tried to pat him reassuringly on the shoulder, forgetting that she was dead until her hand passed right through him. He shuddered. Ginny didn’t blame him; it was an uncomfortable feeling when a ghost passes through you.
“I thought I could do this, I was so proud when I first heard. I didn’t think it would be a problem and then my parents would be safe, but now my times running out… and… and I’m nowhere near… What can I do?”
Ginny tried to stop herself from sneezing but she couldn’t hold it in. She stayed very still, hoping that Malfoy hadn’t heard. No such luck. He spun around quickly, his wand held out ready to attack the intruder.
“Well, well if it isn’t the weaselette.” He lowered his wand.
“Not going to hex me then?” She gripped her wand in her hand. “But then you know what it’s like to get on the wrong end of my wand don’t you, Malfoy?”
“I don’t hex girls, doesn’t matter if they are filth, I just don’t hex them.”
Ginny stopped and stared. Was Malfoy being almost civil to her? “I don’t know what you heard…” he continued.
“I heard enough,” she replied, but seeing the look of horror on his face she added, “but don’t worry I won’t tell anyone. I just want to help.”
“You want to help me?” he sneered, “and why would you want to do that? I mean, I’m a Malfoy and you are a Weasley.”
“Well, I unlike you can see past a name. Besides, I can’t stand to see someone so upset, you may be a Malfoy but you are still a human being, no matter how horrible a person you are. Talking can help. I’m a good listener.” She stood there with concern in her eyes.
Draco thought for a moment, it might help him see clearer if he let out everything that had been building up inside of him for months. Besides he could always kill her if she even thought about breathing a word.
“You aren’t going to like it…”
Ginny had been horrified when she had first learned of his task, but she also learnt quickly that Draco’s heart just wasn’t in his task. Sure, he may have acted like he didn’t care about Dumbledore and that he could easily kill him, but she knew in her heart that he was not a killer, and although he may act all hard he still had a certain amount of respect for Dumbledore. She was proved right the night of Dumbledore’s death, Draco hadn’t been able to kill him and Snape had to stand in. When she first heard the news, she was devastated and so mad at Draco, but then when she saw the letter that Dumbledore had written a few days before his death she realised that it had all been planned. She was mad at Dumbledore for allowing it to happen when he was needed alive, but it had needed to be done. She would have liked to believe that Snape was an evil and slimy bastard and a cold blooded killer, but it had been necessary so that Snape could continue being a spy for the order. If Snape hadn’t have killed Dumbledore then it would have been proved that he was working for the light side, Draco would be dead and so would Snape because he would have broken the Unbreakable Vow he made with Narcissa back in Spinners End before Draco returned to Hogwarts for his sixth year.
Ginny was not a liar though, and she kept to her word and never told anyone of anything Draco told her. Each time they met, he would open up more and more until eventually, he was able to tell her anything. She always listened and offered comfort when it was needed. She had originally figured that it would be good training for the future as she wanted to be a councilor. She was almost ashamed to admit it, but as the time went on she began to enjoy Draco’s company. He wasn’t the cold hearted git that she had once known; he was a complex human being. As soon as you peeled away one layer, there was another one revealed just as complicated as the one before.
Ginny sighed loudly, for five years she had hoped and prayed that he was alive and would come back to her. It was just under a year ago that she finally came to accept that he was gone and she wouldn’t see him again. All she had were those memories. She brushed away a red curl from her face and stood up. She had to get out of here, she had an idea of where to go and somewhere she hadn’t been to in years. The place she used to go to when she was a little girl and had had a fight with one of her brothers, usually Ron. She grabbed a jacket and left the house.
The man sat in the corner of the small shed. It was small and cramped, but he had learned to accept it as his home. He couldn’t go back to where he had lived before he came here, he was a wanted man. He had done some terrible things in his past, some which he didn’t regret, but most of them he did. He would have to live here forever; he could surely never go back. They’d have him killed – or worse. His life wasn’t exactly the best, far from it, but he certainly did not want to die just yet. The truth was that death scared him. He chuckled to himself. Who would have thought it? He was supposed to be fearless for crying out loud. It was the way he had been brought up, it had been drilled into him from an early age. He often found himself thinking about the past and people he loved and today was no exception. He wondered what his mother was doing, he tried to convince himself that she was still alive but he knew deep down in his heart that she was dead. How could he expect her to still be alive after what he did? He supposed his father was dead too, it wouldn’t be such a great loss if he was. He had never been a good father. It was then that his thoughts went back to her. She was the one that had kept him going when he was seriously thinking of giving up, she saved him... it was painful to think of her. He wondered if she was married now, she probably was married to that complete and utter git she went out with. How he’d like to kill him right now. He squashed a stray spider with his fist.
Ginny shivered, it was getting cold now the sun had gone behind the clouds. Still not much further to go and at least she’d be in peace where she could sit and remember. Six years since he had gone missing, five years since he was confirmed dead. She wiped away the tears that were threatening to escape.
“Stop it, Ginny,” she scolded herself, “There’s no use dwelling on the past. Things happen and there’s nothing you can do about it. Bad things happen to good people.”
She looked up at the grey clouds in the sky above which were threatening to burst and pelt out water any minute now. She was nearly there though; she could see it in the distance. It was her little hideaway, her safe place. She approached and reached out to open the door. Something wasn’t right, she could feel it. She quickly brushed those thoughts away and opened the door. She stood frozen to the spot for a few moments before letting out a scream and fainting.