Finding Color
By Mell8

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Part One:

Ginny always knew there was something wrong with her eyes. Ever since she was young she worried about what would happen when her eyes finally stopped working. She had almost grown used to the odd flashes when everything she saw suddenly went to black and white. Or when she could only see things out of her peripheral vision.

Her mother had always passed the problems off as either a bump on the head that would go away soon enough, or too much time playing with Fred and George. The curse of an active childhood with many equally active older brothers, Ginny supposed, was that minor scrapes and more serious scrapes tended to be lumped together and that all of it could be healed with a kiss.

Tom Riddle had laughed at her description of her vision problems, telling her that there was no cure. She had been born with a birth defect and magic could only cure things that happened to the body after birth. She had took him at his word; why would he bother to lie about that?; and never bothered to go to Madam Pomfrey for help. Further exploration in the library proved that Riddle hadn’t been lying about this and Ginny began to wonder what else he hadn’t lied about only to have those truths buried underneath Gryffindor obstinacy.

The symptoms came and went at their own whims, but Ginny knew that someday her vision would abandon her completely. With that in mind she practiced not seeing. She put a blindness spell on herself for two weeks once, and learned how to use other senses besides sight, touch and hearing mostly, to get around.

She also learned that her magic could be used as another sense. Being blinded gave Ginny a better sense of what was inside of her, rather than what was around her, and through that she discovered that her magic wasn’t constrained by silly things like spells and wand movement. It was a deep pool that existed inside of every being. The magic inside of humans could be molded and directed to a specific use. Wands and spells gave wizards and witches the ability to concentrate those powers into a weaker, more malleable stream.

Inside of Ginny was a magic pool that she could wield as she wished, now that she knew it was there. She could create much more powerful spells without the use of her wand, if she wished, but she could also send her magic outside of her body to come in contact with everything around her.

Everything, from a human to a chair to the pebble in her shoe, had magic flowing inside of it. When Ginny’s magic encountered these other magics she received a picture in her head of these pools of magic and the general shape they took. After three years of practicing with this form of magic she knew that everything had a flavor to their magic, something that could distinguish one pool of magic from another’s.

Each human’s flavor was specific to that human. From Ron she felt recklessness, temper, love, and a myriad of other little things that set him apart from Harry’s flavor of bravery, ambition, and responsibility, or Hermione’s learning, intelligence, and friendship.

Ginny mastered the use of her magic as quickly as she could. She could walk around a chair and know if it was an armchair or a desk chair and know who was sitting in it and what they were doing at the time. She could cast spells without a wand, words, or hand motions and they were more powerful than anything she could have done with her wand. Sometimes this magic sense was even stronger than regular sight because now she knew whenever a Slytherin with bad intentions was lurking behind a blind corner, waiting to harass her.

In fact, the only thing she couldn’t do with her magic was read. She could hold a book and know that it was a book that contained spells versus histories, but she couldn’t read what was written inside.

As her wonky vision grew worse, the most recent of which had been large black spots dancing across her eyes, she took her schoolbooks and papers to an abandoned classroom down an equally abandoned hallway and put spells on the books to read themselves aloud and spells on her quills to write what she dictated. It wasn’t easy, but it got her homework done in the end.


Her vision finally went for good in the middle of her fifth year. Christmas break had ended and she had returned to school with everyone else. Ginny remembered the brilliant scarlet hangings around her bed as she went to sleep that night. When she woke up her eyes only saw blackness.

No mater how many spells she tried or how many times she rubbed her eyes hopelessly, the colors never rose back to the surface, the light never shone inside her eyes. She cried then, at the futility of trying to bring back something that was permanently gone. She had arranged for this, studied and practiced, but nothing could have prepared Ginny for the desolation losing her sight instilled inside her.

She would have cried for a week straight if it hadn’t been for her clock chirping out, “you’re late!”, in a voice fairly reminiscent of Molly Weasley’s. Ginny jumped to her feet and smiled as her magic immediately snapped into place. She could still see, just not in the conventional sense. She would muddle through somehow.

She expected everyone to notice at breakfast that morning, as if there was a giant sign above her head that glittered and shone, telling the whole world that she was blind. But there was the half-blood prince to worry about, and apparition lessons, and what Draco Malfoy was up to, and Voldemort, and school work, and so many other things that no one had the time to specifically look at Ginny to see that something might be different.
She wasn’t running into things or screaming hysterically, as a newly blinded person might. Instead she sure-footedly made her way over to the Gryffindor table, said her usual hello’s and ate her breakfast, exactly as she had done every day previous for the last five years.

The year progressed. Ginny got her OWL’s completed with a discrete spell that read the test questions aloud specifically to a small piece of cotton stuffed in her ear, and suddenly Ron was running by, shoving Felix Felicis into her hands, and babbling about Malfoy and the Dark Mark.

Death Eaters were everywhere; Ginny could feel them by the sheer malevolence their magic exuded. She fought them with everything she had. The Felix Felicis wasn’t lucky enough to bring her sight back, but she didn’t need sight to stop a couple of Death Eaters from killing everyone around her.

Every Death Eater that saw her face that night knew there was something different about her, but before they could figure out what, she had disabled them and moved on to her next prey.

Then she heard yelling so she turned to see if there was something she could do.

Color returned in a bright flash that almost blinded her worse than being blind was. She nearly clapped a hand to her eyes but stopped at the last minute just so she could see what red looked like again, or green as Draco Malfoy rushed by, followed by Snape and, distantly, Harry.

Then Malfoy was past her and gone down the hallway and the color vanished again.

Finding Color
By Mell8

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Part Two:

Sixth year at Hogwarts was going to be terrible; Ginny just knew it. She sat next to Luna Lovegood on the train, leaning to the side with her eyes closed so she could pretend she was sleeping. Luna was reading a magazine, the Quibbler, Ginny assumed because she certainly couldn’t read the title, and was happy to leave Ginny to her nap.

Ginny let her magic spread out along the train so she could “see” what was going on. Everyone on board was a Pureblood or a Halfblood. No Muggleborns had dared to return to school, not with Voldemort in control of the Ministry and the hunts going out to search for those who dared to “steal” magic from more deserving wizards and witches.

Ginny could feel the presence of Death Eaters on the train. Some were young, students most like, but there were a couple older ones around to allegedly keep the peace. Ginny had felt a couple people being forced to leave the train already because they were Muggleborn or their parents had been Muggleborn. Ginny was waiting for the Death Eaters to get to their compartment to deal with Ginny and Luna, two Pureblooded blood traitors.

She heard the door to the compartment slide open and knew that it was Draco Malfoy before she sat up and opened her eyes. He had his usual scowl on his face, but he looked drawn and worn and quite a bit downtrodden.

Ginny had come up with a theory over the long summer about why she had suddenly gotten and subsequently lost her sight during the Battle as Draco Malfoy rushed by. It had come to her that there was something about Draco Malfoy that forced her eyes to see. Something about him that pushed whatever was wrong with her eyes back, making light and color return whenever he was near.

He was in the room now and she could certainly see him with enough clarity to know that he hadn’t been eating right and that the worry lines on his face were going to become permanent if this war didn’t end soon.

She took the time to look around the compartment. The seats were grayish brown and she marveled at the color, as if something so ugly looking was the most amazing thing she had seen in a long time. She looked at what Luna was reading, the Quibbler, of course, and at the smiling picture of Harry on the cover. She realized that he didn’t have that cute upturn to the end of his nose or the scrumptious little curve to his eyebrows when he smiled that she had imagined while putting a face to the boy who was kissing her. In reality, he really was just an ordinary boy with bad hair, ugly glasses, and an excellent personality. Malfoy was handsomer than Harry.

“Lovegood,” an oily, slimy voice called as Malfoy was pushed out of the way. A man who reeked of Death Eater power and of unwashed stench sauntered into the room, cruel black eyes on Luna for the moment. This must be Amycus Carrow, the man and his sister Ginny’s mother had warned her about before allowing her daughter onto the train.

“Lovegood,” the man repeated with a lopsided leer. “Ten points from Gryffindor for reading radical, rebellious trash. Any further sign of this rag will lead you to detention.” The man tore the magazine out of Luna’s hands and flicked his wand so that it burst into flames.

He turned to see who else was in the compartment and his eyes widened with horrible glee when he saw Ginny.

“A Weasley? I had hoped you were all dead,” he laughed. “I’ll be keeping a special eye on you. One blood traitor comment or action and I’ll have you in detention with me for a month!” His cold laughter echoed behind him as he shoved past Malfoy to get out of the compartment.

Malfoy turned to go with a sense of dread around him like a cloud and Ginny almost panicked. This was the first time she had really seen anything in nearly a year and now her only link to sight was leaving.

“I’m surprised they let you back, Malfoy,” Ginny said with a snort to hide how much she wanted him to stay for just a few more seconds. “You helped kill an innocent man,” Malfoy flinched, “and you botched your mission for the Dark Lord. I would have thought they might have locked you up.”

“And I would have thought they might have put you into St. Mungo’s to get your head checked,” Malfoy sneered. Ginny was alarmed for a moment because she thought Malfoy knew about her eyes before he continued, making Ginny realize he was just being rude instead of pointed. “Being a blood traitor automatically means there’s something wrong with your head. You should be getting your brain rearranged so that you can think correctly, rather than going to school.”

“Just make sure Carrow doesn’t rape you, Malfoy,” Luna said suddenly. “I’ve heard he likes young blond boys.”

Malfoy’s already pale face went white.

“Malfoy! Where the hell did you go?” Carrow’s voice echoed down the hallway and into the open compartment door. Malfoy winced and threw the door shut. He climbed underneath the bench as Carrow’s footsteps sounded outside the door.

“I’m not here,” Malfoy said almost desperately to Ginny since Luna had gone back to aimlessly humming to herself.

“You’ll owe me,” Ginny snapped as the compartment door slid open. Malfoy nodded before huddling deeper into the shadows.

“You seen Malfoy?” Carrow snapped as he glanced around the room quickly.

“Bathroom, I think,” Ginny said dismissively. Carrow left and Malfoy climbed out and sat down on the bench across from her.

“He and his sister both like blonds,” Malfoy confirmed with a shudder. “They always torture the blond Muggles they capture the worst. I’ve just been waiting,” he trailed off and shook his head with a grimace of pain.

“That’s horrible,” Ginny whispered. “You have to do something!”

“There’s nothing to do,” Malfoy snapped.

“Fight them!” Ginny gasped. “Don’t let them win this horrible war and they’ll never be able to touch you.”

Malfoy just sneered. “You have no idea what you’re talking about, Weasley. Now, what do you want from me?”

Ginny hadn’t thought that Malfoy would agree to her terms so was taken aback for a second before she got excited about the prospects of what she could get Malfoy to promise to.

She could get him to promise something impossible, like protecting her family from all harm in this war, or something dangerous, like spying. But neither would get her anything she wanted. Ginny just wanted to see and Malfoy could give her that.

“Your time,” Ginny said softly. “Once a week I want to spend an evening with you. Just so I can see.”

“What?” Malfoy gaped. “See? What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

“She’s blind, you know,” Luna piped up suddenly. “Ginny can’t see anything except around you.”

“How?” Ginny asked Luna. How could she possibly know? Ginny hadn’t told anyone and no one had ever noticed before.

“You always walk so carefully,” Luna said with a smile. “As if the slightest wrong movement would send you careening into everything around you. But you can see now so I’m guessing Malfoy has something to do with this.”

Ginny sometimes forgot how perceptive Luna could be behind her looniness. She wasn’t sure if she was glad that Luna had figured it out or whether it would be a problem. Luna had already told Malfoy.

“Blind?” Malfoy laughed. “She’s looking at me right now! She’s hardly blind.”

“I am,” Ginny said softly. “Only, for some reason I can see whenever you’re around.”

“And I’m supposed to believe that?” Malfoy sneered and stood to leave.

“One evening a week,” Ginny said pointedly as Malfoy left. “Send me a note for which one is best for you.”

Malfoy sneered and left so Ginny turned to look at Luna while she still had a little sight left.

“I won’t tell anyone else,” Luna said, as if reading her mind. Ginny nodded thankfully as her sight flickered from clear to blurry to black and the colors abandoned her again.


III


Draco Malfoy refused to believe that Ginny Weasley was blind. She had looked right at him as she had told him and there was nothing wrong with her eyes. Still, for the past week he had been keeping a closer watch on the Weasley girl than he normally would have and he had come to the conclusion that there was something wrong with her.

She never walked into anything or anyone, not even on accident. When he walked down the halls, Draco accidentally brushed against people all the time. She never, ever, did. It was almost as if she could see where they were going to move before they moved and was able to get out of the way before someone could touch her.

Sometimes she walked down the hallway with her eyes closed, as if it was too much of a bother to open them. Yet, even with her eyes closed she still walked as unerringly as when they were open.

Then, whenever he would get close to her, her eyes would open and he could watch as they went from unfocused to focused as she immediately looked right at him. Her walking style would change then, as if using her eyes was different then how she usually saw her way down the hall. The further and further away from him she got, the more she returned to relying on whatever other sense she used to navigate.

Unfortunately, Draco didn’t have as much time to watch her as he would like. His father had demands that any good Death Eater’s son must answer. Had there been any sign of Undesirable Number One? Had any of the Order loving traitors made a move? Were the Carrows properly punishing those blood traitors? Draco answered all he could, spying around the school for his father so that Lucius could report his nosiness back to the Dark Lord to earn some favor.

But that meant that by spending his time spying on other people, he still hadn’t figured out what was so odd about Ginevra Weasley. On Saturday afternoon he finally sent her a note.

She didn’t reply, but that night he went to the abandoned classroom he had designated on the letter anyway. He purposefully arrived five minutes late just so she would have time to settle in and feel comfortable and unwary. He put a Disillusionment Charm on himself before he reached the hallway the classroom was located on and crept into the room on silent feet…only to find that she wasn’t there yet.

Draco snarled to himself and settled into a corner to wait. He would catch her in this act of hers even if she came in after him. His plan wasn’t ruined just yet.

He waited and waited until nearly a half hour had gone by without any sign of her. Draco began to wonder if she were coming at all when he heard a scraping sound from the hallway. He quickly stood alert and silent in the corner and watched as the door slid open and Ginny walked in.

“Do you know how much trouble this meeting is?” she asked as she walked into the room. She spoke as if she already knew he was there even though he was camouflaged with the wall and, as her head turned unerringly to where he was standing, Draco could see that her eyes were closed again.

“First I had to find a completely private place where I could put a spell on your parchment so it would read itself to me.” She took her cloak off and flung it at one of the old desks in the center of the room. A wind picked up the cloak halfway there and carried it all the way over where the cloak draped itself over the desk. Draco couldn’t help wondering how a wind had gotten into a classroom without any windows and had picked up the cloak so perfectly.

“Then I had to sneak out of the Common Room, which wasn’t that hard, but finding classroom ten when I can’t read? That was hard. It was lucky I felt you in here or I probably never would have found it.”

She opened her eyes then and blinked at the blank space where Draco should be standing. “Please take the spell off. I can finally see and I don’t want to feel like I’m talking to myself even though I know you’re here.”

Draco blinked at her once, surprised beyond all belief. He had crept into the Carrows’ offices under this Charm and had ruffled through their papers while the Death Eater had been sitting right there. This girl who professed to be blind could find him under this spell when a seasoned and evil Death Eater could not. It was amazing and very curious.

Draco took the spell off and walked over towards her. “How did you know I was here?” he asked as he joined her.

“I knew I was going blind,” Ginny explained as she conjured a couch to sit on. Draco wondered why he couldn’t see her wand when she cast the spell. He also wondered why she was glancing around the room as if it were the most marvelous thing she had seen all week.

“So I practiced. I didn’t want to be helpless, especially since my Mum would lock me away in a carefully padded room for the rest of my life so I would never hurt myself by not being able to see. I inadvertently discovered a way of seeing that doesn’t require eyes and, now that I’m totally blind, it means that I can get around easily.”

“But you can see just fine now,” Draco shook his head in disbelief.

Ginny just smiled happily and began digging through her bag for her schoolwork. “I can, and no, I don’t know why. All I know is that I can see when I’m around you and it’s wonderful.”

Wonderful? Draco mused. No one had ever said that about him before. Her explanation still made no sense but for now he would accept it. It was probably the best one he would get and, it seemed, it was the only answer she herself knew.

Draco settled himself down on the couch next to her and pulled out his own schoolwork. “So you want one evening a week with me because I give you back your ability to see?” he asked curiously as she settled back into the cushions with her potions book on her lap.

“Exactly,” she answered with a smile. “Do you know how difficult it is to do homework when your book has to read itself aloud to you? Or when you have to dictate everything to a quill so that you can get your essays done? It’s horrid. If I can get all my homework for the week done tonight I won’t have to do that again for a while.”

She sounded so happy and so sincere about this that Draco began to wonder. He had never heard someone speak so descriptively about a problem without having firsthand knowledge of it. Something inside of him began to soften at her words. Maybe her story was true and she was blind everywhere except around him. There was no possible way for him to prove it. All he could do was take her at her word.

“What about tests?” Draco asked curiously. If she had this much trouble with homework then how did she hide her condition in class?

Ginny told him about her trick with the cotton ball and he couldn’t help thinking that she was very smart and resilient. He wouldn’t have done half as well as her if he had been blind. Just the fact that she had found some way to see without needing her eyes was enough to make him shake his head in awe.

Draco paused in his thoughts for a second and reviewed what he had been thinking. With a start he realized that he had been thinking along the lines that she really was blind, as if deep in his heart he believed her unbelievable story.

They sat in companionable silence for the rest of the evening, then went their separate ways for the rest of the week. They met up in that abandoned classroom every Saturday night for the next two months to do homework. Ginny seemed pleased with this arrangement and Draco certainly didn’t mind. It was odd for him to be doing something for someone else, even if it wasn’t anything more than being present.

At the end of the two months Ginny declared Draco’s debt paid.

“I know it’s not really pleasant for you to have to sit here with me. Covering for you to keep the Carrow bastard away from you couldn’t cost more than eight meetings.” Ginny smiled sadly at him as she gathered her books together for what would be the last time.

Draco looked up at her in surprise as she announced that. She was willing to give up her only time to see just because his debt had been paid. Anyone Draco knew would have milked the debt for all they could. He wouldn’t have been wrong to expect years of meetings like this if he had been indebted to a Slytherin.

Then he thought about what she was really saying. He wouldn’t be able to spend Saturday evening with her anymore. Her company wasn’t unpleasant and her magic was more than impressive. He hadn’t seen her use her wand once despite all the advanced spells she performed when practicing for her next class. She also wasn’t ugly with her thin body and well sized assets, and with her long beautiful hair. He had watched as whatever magic she was using slowly changed her body, something she probably couldn’t notice without her sight. She grew skinnier and more muscular. Her hair, eyes, and skin began to grow paler as if the magic were taking all the color out of her body as it put a semblance of sight back into her. The changes were infinitesimal and he only noticed them because he was looking. Draco doubted that anyone else would bother to notice.

Draco realized suddenly that he would miss her company, miss looking for her changes, and would even miss riling her about her lack of sight. He didn’t really want their meetings to end.

“I’ll still be here next week,” Draco said without looking at her. “Regardless of whether you come or not,” he added quickly so she wouldn’t think he was doing it just for her. “I’ve found studying like this is good for my grades and it gets a lot of homework done.”

Despite his attempt to throw her off, she smiled beautifully anyway, as if she knew that she was the real reason he was staying. Then again, she could know. That magic of hers was powerful and the only thing it absolutely couldn’t show her was written words and colors. Maybe she could read emotions or thoughts. The idea was startling, but Draco knew that she wouldn’t abuse such power so he left her to it.


Yet, when next week rolled around, Draco found himself running nearly an hour late. He had been searching McGonagall’s office for any information and had forgotten that the old woman was part cat. She had smelled him in her room so he had to spend a lot of time and energy making sure that she couldn’t catch him as he ran away and making an alibi so when she confronted him about it he could prove that it wasn’t him.

When he reached the outside of the classroom he heard the disembodied voice of a book reading itself and couldn’t help feeling bad that he had left Ginny alone to muddle through her homework for so long.

The book stopped reading when he entered the room and Ginny looked up in surprise.

“I thought you weren’t coming,” she mumbled.

Draco gaped at how sad she sounded. It was almost as if she enjoyed his company just as much as he enjoyed hers. Could it be that she liked him?

He found himself explaining about the McGonagall fiasco and about what his father was having him do, all the spying and searching just so Lucius could get ahead in the Dark world.

“I’d ask if you were with me to get information about Harry,” she said wryly, “but you haven’t even mentioned him in all the time we’ve been meeting.”

“I never crossed my mind,” Draco said honestly. He knew she could read lying from truth with her strange sight so he didn’t bother trying to disseminate.

“Good,” Ginny said thoughtfully. She turned her head to look at him and her eyes were closed as she studied him. Draco knew she was searching him with her power for something and waited patiently for her to tell him what was happening.

“You don’t have the same stench as most Death Eaters,” she said finally.

“I bathe,” Draco replied, somewhat affronted but still in a joking manner.

“No, no. I mean to their magic. You don’t have that sense of death and darkness to you. Every other Death Eater I’ve ever encountered reeked.” Ginny opened her eyes. “You’ve never killed someone,” she went on. “You’ve never tortured someone. Yet you still profess to want to be a Death Eater.”

Draco grimaced. “My father wants me to be a Death Eater. I’d prefer to just be left alone.” He pulled up his sleeve to show her his Dark Mark. “But I’ve got this so I don’t really have a choice, do I?”

Ginny tentatively reached out and touched it. “There’s a bit of evil surrounding it,” she said as she caressed the mark. “But that’s more of an afterimage of Voldemort than anything you’ve done. It will fade in time.”

“Not in enough time to save me from servitude and death,” Draco replied sharply. Didn’t she know what the Dark Mark meant? He was indentured to Voldemort for the rest of the bastard’s unnatural life. If the Dark Lord won he would be a servant for the rest of his life. If the Dark Lord lost the Order and the Ministry would send him to Azkaban. His life was over anyway.

“So do something about it!” Ginny snapped, reminding Draco of the time on the train when she had yelled, ‘Fight them!’ in much the same manner. “You’ve just told me you’re good at spying, so spy on the Death Eaters. Send information to the Order to help them win. Then, when the Order destroys Voldemort you’ll be free.”

“It’s not that easy,” Draco shook his head. He turned his head away from her to signal the end to the conversation and focused back on his homework.

They never brought the subject up again but it circled through his mind. Spying on the Death Eaters. Helping the Order of the Phoenix. It would certainly solve his problem, unless the Dark Lord or his father discovered what Draco was doing. It was something to think about, at least.


III


The rest of the year passed quickly without many problems. Ginny never heard from Harry, not even once, and began to wonder if the boy ever even thought of her while he was out searching for something, something that he wouldn’t tell anyone about. No one had heard from Harry, Hermione, or Ron, to tell the truth. Her mother was constantly in hysterics and the rest of the Order hadn’t been in much better shape when Ginny went home for the Christmas Holidays.

Draco, on the other hand, had a habit of popping up outside her classrooms when he knew she had tests, just to give her five minutes to look over her answers. When she, Luna, and Neville had gotten that detention in the Forbidden Forest for trying to steal Gryffindor’s sword from Snape’s office he had been waiting for her, which was a good thing because the forest was supersaturated with magic and her senses were struggling to focus by the time the detention finished. She might not have been able to make it back to the castle relying on just her magic. Having the use of her eyes saved her that night and she thanked Draco for it profusely.

He had been on the train home when the Death Eaters had taken Luna as retribution for what her father was publishing. Ginny had been crying when Draco found her. He promised that he would do everything he could to keep Luna alive while he was home.

Then, on the train back to school, Draco had found her to tell her about seeing the trio and how Luna had been rescued. Ginny had kissed him then, too excited to realize what exactly she was doing. Still, Draco kissed her back and Ginny couldn’t stop the warm fuzzy feelings that burst in her stomach at the contact.

Their meetings resumed and every once in a while they would kiss, but they never spoke about their feelings or whether this was something more than comfort.

The year came to a close very benignly. Harry was still out doing whatever he was doing. Voldemort was still at large. And Ginny and Draco met one last time the night before the train home.

Draco’s NEWT’s had gone well and Ginny’s end of the year tests were finally over. They met up just to relax. Ginny knew that this would probably be that last time she would ever see again so she treasured the moment.

“What are you going to be doing now that you’ve graduated?” Ginny asked as she laid her head on his shoulder.

“Go work next to my father like a good puppet,” Draco sighed.

“Have you,” Ginny paused because she was bringing up a delicate conversation. “Have you thought about what I said earlier, about spying?”

Draco shook his head. “I don’t know if I can. If I get caught…” he groaned. “It’s too dangerous.”

“I don’t want to lose you,” Ginny said quickly. She wasn’t sure if she didn’t want to lose his friendship, his drugging kisses, or the fact that she could see around him. All three were wonderful, but she couldn’t say which one was more important to her.

Draco shook his head and laughed. “Either way you lose me. I’m going to be working for the Dark Lord. If I spy and they catch me, I’m dead. If I spy and the Order loses, I’m dead. If I don’t spy and the Order wins, I’m dead. I don’t have that many options for living.”

“Oh Draco,” Ginny sighed. “Sometimes you have to take some risks.”

He bent his head and kissed her. “There, I’ve taken a risk. Do you know how many people would kill me if they knew I had kissed you?”

Ginny giggled. “I’d be just as dead.”

That sobered Draco up really quickly. “The only way neither of us would be dead would be if I were an Order member or if you were a Death Eater.” He laughed. “If I joined the Order, my father would still kill us both. If you joined the Death Eaters, your family would abandon you.”

“How about we stop talking about this and just enjoy our last evening together,” Ginny said, felling guilty about bringing up such a serious subject on the last night she and Draco would ever spend together.

“I like that idea,” Draco said before bending down to kiss her again.


They spent as much time together on the train as they could, but Draco had to go placate the Death Eaters he was subservient to and couldn’t be seen with a blood traitor, so they couldn’t be together long.

The train came into the station and Draco went over to his father while Ginny found her own father and quickly left to escape all the Death Eaters who were glaring at them.

Her last sight was of Draco nodding politely to his father even as his grey eyes searched her out for one last look of his own. Then Ginny was through the barrier behind her father and the colors abandoned her again.

Finding Color
By Mell8

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Part Three:

Harry, Ron and Hermione arrived later that week to much crying and sobbing on Molly Weasley’s part. They were scratched, scathed, and hurt, but still alive, and were almost killed again when Molly strangled them in her arms.

Ginny smiled happily with everyone else but stayed out of their way. She couldn’t see where they were injured, so she couldn’t offer help healing them. She also couldn’t remember any of their faces.

Ron’s she had a vague idea of: long nose, freckles, and red hair. She remembered Hermione’s bushy brown hair, but the rest of the girl escaped Ginny’s memories. Did she have buckteeth or had those mysteriously vanished one year?

And Harry, beloved Harry, she couldn’t remember at all.
She knew his hair was a mess and that he had a scar somewhere on his forehead, but that was all.

When he kissed her the first time she missed his lips entirely, thinking that he was taller than he really was. Draco’s lips were at the height she reached for, but Harry was smaller with less muscular shoulders and a much more rounded face, Ginny felt, as he slobbered and sucked until she felt sick.

Ginny found herself missing the cool assuredness of Draco’s arms. She missed how his lips found hers so unerringly and how any wetness that ensued was from his tongue purposefully gliding along her lips before delving into her open mouth.

Harry’s kiss left her wanting a sponge to wipe up the drool and slobber, like a dog, when his lips tried to find hers. Maybe it was inexperience on Harry’s part and he would improve with practice, but Ginny found that she didn’t want to be the one Harry practiced on.

She gently broke up with him three nights into his stay at the Burrow.

The Order had taken refuge at the Burrow now that the trio had completely given away Grimmauld Place to the Ministry during their travels, and, now that Snape had defected and no doubt told Voldemort everything, they doubly didn’t want to go anywhere the Death Eaters might suspect.

The Burrow was their way of hiding in plain sight; only there were enough wards around the Weasley’s house to keep anything unfriendly away. They had added another floor that circumvented the ghoul in the attic with three rooms for anyone who needed to say over.

The best thing about the Order being at the Burrow was the fact that they couldn’t exclude Ginny from their meetings any longer. Ginny went right up to her mum and point blank told her that she could hear the meetings from anywhere in the house so she might as well be included.

Arthur had agreed, saying Ginny was certainly old enough, now that she was seventeen and could make her own decisions according to the Ministry. Molly had very reluctantly allowed her youngest into the meetings.

And nobody noticed that Ginny never looked them in the eye, or even that she rarely opened her eyes at all. Luna had noticed easily and Draco had come to his own conclusions eventually. But her family, who should have known her best of all, noticed nothing.

“We’ve gotten all the Horcruxes,” Harry reiterated for the fifth time in just this meeting. A month ago he had finally broken down and explained what the hell he, Ron, and Hermione had been doing for an entire year. “There’s just Nagini, Voldemort’s snake, and Voldemort himself.”

“Yeah,” Mad-Eye Moody snarled. “But we can’t get close to him. We’ve got no idea where he is or even what he’s doing. Now that we’ve lost our spy, we’re completely blinded.”

“And it’s safe to assume that You-Know-Who has a spy on us somewhere, so he’s not blind at all to our movements,” Arthur added in.

“If only there was someone we could-” Molly began but was interrupted by Mad-Eye.

“There isn’t, Molly. He’s got all his Death Eater scum locked away somewhere and is still managing to control the Ministry, Hogwarts, and just about the entirety of Wizarding Britain from his hiding spot.”

“We can’t get anyone to infiltrate?” Charlie asked as he leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “Ron, you don’t have any Slytherin friends who you could ask for help?”

Ron snorted. “Of course not. They’re scum. Why would I make friends with them?”

The conversation continued on, circling around the same problems, all of which could be solved with a spy inside Voldemort’s inner circle. Ginny sat in her seat, squished on the couch between her mother and Professor McGonagall, and thought about Draco Malfoy.

His grey eyes still burned in her memory as they had searched her out on the train platform one last time, but he had disappeared after that. She hadn’t gotten any correspondence from him at all and the Order hadn’t heard anything about the young Malfoy. He had simply vanished.

And now the Order needed someone inside Voldemort’s inner circle, right where Draco was. She wondered if he remembered her words about spying and fighting back against Voldemort. She certainly remembered his about the probability of his death if he tried.

Yet, one thing stood out in her mind from their conversation. “The only way neither of us would be dead would be if I were an Order member or if you were a Death Eater.” He laughed. “If I joined the Order, Voldemort would still kill us both. If you joined the Death Eaters, your family would abandon you.”

Draco was clearly not about to join the Order and in the weeks since she had last seen him, he had certainly not stooped to spying. But she could become a Death Eater, couldn’t she? And if her family knew about it, they certainly wouldn’t abandon her. Of course, that was only if they allowed her to do it in the first place. This would take some delicacy.

“What if,” Ginny began, breaking through the argument between Bill and Mad-Eye about capturing and interrogating any possible known Death Eater for information.

“What if I told you that I might have a way to get you that information you needed?” she continued once everyone’s eyes were on her. She didn’t look up from her hands so they wouldn’t notice that her eyes were closed as she spoke.

“I would wonder why you haven’t told us this before,” Moody snapped.

“Because I would have to leave,” Ginny said and her mum gasped out a “no”. “I would have to go and speak with him, face to face, and I probably wouldn’t be able to return home until this war was over.”

“Absolutely not!” Molly snapped.

“This is the chance we need!” Moody snapped. “We could finally win this war if we got this information.”

“Molly,” Arthur added in a pained voice as he looked at his daughter’s bowed head and clasped hands. “Ginny is a perfectly capable witch and she didn’t say anything about her being hurt. If she can get us this information we can end the war quickly and bring her back home.”

“I don’t like it!” Molly snapped.

“You don’t have to like it,” McGonagall chimed in. “Like Arthur and Alastor said, if she can get us the information, then we should let her go.”

None of the Weasley’s were happy about this idea. Ginny could see their magic angrily swirling in their bodies.

“Can you do this and get us the information we need without killing yourself?” Lupin spoke up for the first time this meeting. Sitting next to him was Tonks who was nodding in agreement.

“I can,” Ginny said with absolute conviction in her voice.

“Then do it,” Lupin replied.

“No!” Molly wailed, but Ginny ignored her and stood from her seat.

“Give me a few weeks before you get worried,” Ginny said to Lupin before turning and leaving the room.

She went up to her room and packed a small bag of things like underwear, things she knew she wouldn’t find where she was going. She hoisted her bag onto her back, called on her magic, and vanished from her childhood home.

She reappeared in Wiltshire, just outside of the gates to Malfoy Manor. She cloaked herself in her magic and sat down on a nearby rock to wait.

The white peacocks grazing on the front lawn were beautiful, Ginny mused as she sat and waited for a couple hours. The magic inside of them was so pure. She couldn’t help laughing at the irony of such purity being a part of the Malfoy family home.

And then, she felt it. Winging its way through the air like a siren call of doom, came the dark call of Lord Voldemort. It impacted with two people inside of the Manor. Ginny felt Draco’s wince but he didn’t move to go anywhere. The call must not be for him.

Lucius Malfoy, on the other hand, immediately stood and reached for his Death Eater robes and mask. Ginny let out a lasso of magic that she wrapped around the eldest Malfoy. When he Apparated away, her lasso dragged her along with him. She was pulled to outside the gates of a run down old mansion in Little Hangleton.

Ginny let her lasso of magic go before Malfoy noticed it and felt his presence join a large number of other dark magic users, Voldemort among them. It was now or never for her.

Ginny’s magic let her walk through the wards without tripping them. She walked right up to the house, let herself in, and walked to the largest drawing room, all without anyone noticing her.

She took a deep, steadying breath outside the door before reaching up and knocking. The voices inside the room were silenced in surprise as Ginny waited for someone to open the door.

“Enter!” came the high, cold voice of Lord Voldemort himself. Ginny reached out, grasped the doorknob, and pushed open the door. She walked into the room amid gasps of horror and pleasure at having someone new to torture.

“A Weasley!” Voldemort crowed, sounding excited at the prospect of all she would tell him under duress. “Do come in.”

“Hello,” Ginny said amicably as she stopped in front of Voldemort’s chair. She conjured up a chair of her own and gracefully sat down across from him.

“And what,” Voldemort hissed, “can I help you with, Miss Weasley?”

“I have come to offer my services to your cause,” she said with a smirk at him.

“Your services?” a woman laughed cruelly. “Crucio!” she screamed through her laughter. The spell flew towards Ginny and dissipated the second it came in contact with her magic. Nothing dark could ever touch her, be it a spell or a creature; her magic wouldn’t allow it.

“Now, now, Bella,” Voldemort said calmly, as if young girls calmly walked into a meeting of the most dangerous people in the world and then brushed aside one of the most painful spells ever created as if it all were nothing. “She is offering her aid to us freely.”

“Not entirely,” Ginny corrected as she leaned back in her chair. This was going exactly as she had hoped.

Voldemort picked up on her conditions and frowned. “Meaning?”

“I have power. A lot of power,” Ginny began.

“And it’s being squandered with the Order, isn’t it,” Voldemort laughed, as if he heard this all the time.

“No,” Ginny shook her head emphatically. “I don’t want to use it at all, and you can give me that.”

“Don’t want to use power?” Bella laughed and Voldemort let out a chuckle of his own. If he had power, he used it, but this little girl with the clasped hands and bowed head wanted him to get rid of it for her. Well, he would gladly take that power from her.

“Of course I don’t,” Ginny laughed. Then she slowly lifted her head to look at Voldemort and opened her eyes.

Voldemort gasped and bent forward in his chair. He reached out one finger and brushed it just under her eye. Ginny refused to flinch at the cold slimy sensation of Voldemort’s finger touching her as he examined her blind eyes. She refused to let her magic zap the Dark creature touching her either.

“Your power removes your sight?” Voldemort guessed.

“I lost my sight a long time ago,” Ginny disagreed. “My magic gives me back a semblance of sight. It’s why dark magic can’t touch me. What I want is my sight back.”

“By taking your power I give you sight back?” Voldemort guessed again.

Ginny laughed. “No. You have in your employ a person whose presence negates my blindness. If you give me that person then I’ll give you what knowledge I have left to give.”

“A person?” Voldemort said skeptically.

“Yes,” Ginny stood. She turned to the back of the room and looked directly at Lucius Malfoy as she said, “I want Draco Malfoy.”


III


Draco was sleeping, dreaming about Ginny, when his arm began to burn. Voldemort was calling, but he was calling for his inner circle. Draco was not invited so he rolled back over and tried to go back to sleep.

Her eyes, once a dark brown but now a light tan color, looking after him as her father guided her out of the train station, haunted him. He wanted to go after her, tell her how much he missed her, but that was impossible. He wanted to spy as she had asked, but that was impossible as well. Instead he wallowed in misery, caught between his love for her and his duty to his father.

He was just drifting back off to sleep when the door to his room slammed open. His father stood in the doorway, looking incensed and worried.

“I don’t know what you did to her, Draco,” Lucius said as he ripped the covers off his son, “but she’s requested your presence and the Dark Lord has seconded it. Hurry, and get dressed.”

“Who wants me?” Draco asked, utterly confused, as he rushed to find clothing. His father didn’t answer and instead focused his wand to fix Draco’s sleep mussed hair.

When Draco was dressed, Lucius took his son’s arm and Apparated them to Voldemort’s meeting room in the old Riddle house.

“My Lord,” Lucius stepped forward and bent into a bow. “I have brought him.”

“Bring the boy forward,” Voldemort snapped.

Draco couldn’t stop the shiver that went down his back at that hateful voice. It was the same voice that had threatened the lives of his family if he didn’t kill Dumbledore. It was the same voice that had punished him when Snape had to accomplish the task for him. Draco hated that voice as much as he had ever hated anything.

His father’s strong hand on his arm was the only thing that got his feet moving. Draco shuffled forwards.

“Draco!”

Her voice rang through the room and Draco’s head snapped up in absolute shock. What was she doing here? She was standing behind an armchair that had her magical signature all over it with Voldemort hovering menacingly over her.

She looked up at him with her eyes open and he gasped. They were milky white, all color leached from them, but as he neared, he, and everyone else watching her eyes, could see the pupil suddenly open, as if it had two lids to close itself with. Suddenly she had one small black spot at the center of each ball of white.

“Incredible,” Voldemort murmured to himself.

“Ginny? What are you doing here? Are you okay?” Draco’s voice might have sounded worried, but it was forgotten as he gave up all sense of propriety and rushed over to her.

She eagerly tucked herself into his arms as they circled her.

“I wanted to see again,” she said in a voice loud enough to project through the room. Draco could tell she was lying, but only because he knew her so well. “You give me that, so I came here.”

“You silly girl,” he said in a slightly quieter voice, giving the illusion to everyone listening in to their conversation that he was trying to say something private. “You didn’t have to come here and endanger yourself.”

“She has offered her powers to me in return for you, Malfoy,” Voldemort hissed, interrupting their conversation.

Ginny pulled herself free of Draco’s arms and laughed. “I most certainly did not! I offered you my services and when you did not agree to take them, I offered you what knowledge I have left to give instead. My powers were never offered, only spoken about,” Ginny smiled up at Voldemort as he seethed. “You have given me Draco, so, when you ask, I will give you knowledge.”

“It’s too bad for you, Miss Weasley,” Voldemort hissed, angry that he had been duped and that he was about to lose taking her powers for himself. His wand rose to menacingly point at her before he continued. “That you are here, under my power. You will do as I tell you or you will perish.”

Draco thought that Ginny willingly backed into his arms, but knew that it wasn’t for comfort. It was almost as if she were protecting him. Her eyes were closed and her skin gave off a pale white glow that let Draco know she was using her magic. He closed his hands on her shoulders.

“I came here under my own power and I will leave here under my own power,” Ginny snapped. “When you want what I have offered, call Draco to you and I will come as well.”

Draco felt a pulling sensation, much like when traveling by Portkey, and when his eyes focused again they were inside his bedroom in Malfoy Manor.

“He’s going to kill you, you know,” Draco said as he guided her over to sit on his bed.

“He won’t be able to,” Ginny said, although her voice didn’t sound nearly as steady as it had a few seconds ago. She was shaking so Draco quickly joined her on the bed and wrapped his arms comfortingly around her.

“Gods, what are you doing here?” Draco moaned as she crawled into his lap.

“Saving your life,” she said into his neck. “Spying for the Order, since you certainly can’t. Using you so I can see again. Take your pick.”

“Endangering your life. Scaring me half to death. Take your pick,” Draco echoed with a worried snarl.

He could tell that she was afraid. Who wouldn’t be after coming face-to-face with Voldemort and surviving the encounter? The aftershocks of what she had done were shaking her body so much that he was afraid his arms wouldn’t hold her.

“Calm down, Ginny,” Draco said. He was worried that she might hurt himself if she didn’t relax.

Her magic was also flaring along her body, giving off little flashes of light that made Draco want to close his eyes from the sudden glare.

“Shh,” Draco whispered as he began to rock her in his arms. “I’ve got you. It’s okay.”

Slowly, ever so slowly, she calmed down. By the time Lucius Malfoy came storming into the room she was asleep, happily snuggled in his arms.

“Draco!” Lucius snapped.

Draco held up his hand to forestall his father before the man could yell anything else and wake up Ginny.

“Don’t wake her up,” Draco whispered.

“What the hell’s going on?” Lucius snarled in a slightly quieter voice.

“Ginny and I found out that I give her back her colors,” Draco said to stay in keeping with the story Ginny was using. “Our relationship stems from there.”

“Relationship?” Lucius sniffed. “With a Weasley?”

“With a witch who can use wandless magic like it was a child’s toy,” Draco corrected, although he gave Ginny a discrete squeeze just in case she was listening.

“Wandless magic,” Lucius scoffed. “Impossible.”

“She lost her wand sometime in her fifth year at school,” Draco said sharply as he felt Ginny stir in his arms. “Since she doesn’t need it, she never went looking for it.”

“You’re telling me she conjured a chair, deflected an Unforgivable Curse, and Apparated out of a room covered in anti-apparition wards, all without a wand?”

“I did,” Ginny spoke up as she lifted her head from Draco’s shoulder. “And now I’m tired. Please go away.”

Lucius Malfoy spluttered. “You are in my house and have effectively kidnapped my son from me. How dare you speak to me like this!”

Ginny sighed and pulled herself from Draco’s comforting arms. She got off the bed and stood, staring defiantly at Draco’s father.

“I don’t really care what you think,” she sighed out. “I am here for a reason and the fact that the reason includes your son, which therefore has you terribly worried for his safety, does not mean that you have the right to yell at me.”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Draco sighed and rolled over so he wouldn’t have to watch his father go through Ginny’s inspection.

“You enjoy having power over others,” she said in that echoing voice of hers that lifted the hairs on Draco’s neck. “You enjoy watching others come to you asking for mercy. However, you do not enjoy it when you can’t grant that mercy on your own terms. You joined Voldemort for the illusion of the power he said he could give you. Now you’re stuck, powerless and sick of killing those who used to grudgingly come to you for aid.”

“And you know all of this how?” Lucius sneered, trying to pretend that her words hadn’t rattled him.

“The same way I know that Draco doesn’t hate you for dragging him into this,” Ginny replied with a sad smile as she finally opened her eyes. “Now, if we’re done with the power play, I really am tired.”

She turned away from Draco’s father and Draco rolled back over to let her climb back into his arms. She had clearly been up late before making her entrance to the Death Eaters and then she used enough magic to seriously deplete her stores. Draco had been woken up in the middle of the night to come collect her, so he was just as tired.

Lucius Malfoy left and it wasn’t long before they were both asleep.

Finding Color
By Mell8

----------------

Part Four:

The morning came, resplendent with chirping birds and sunshine in their faces, so Ginny decided to get up. She left Draco sleeping as she explored the rooms he called his own.

One door in his room led to a sitting room with a fireplace, a couch, and two comfortable looking armchairs. The other door in Draco’s bedroom led to a bathroom. Ginny decided to save exploring that for later.

In the sitting room were bookshelves upon bookshelves. Now Ginny knew what Draco did in his spare time and, judging by the amount of books in the room, he had a lot of spare time. Another door in the sitting room led to a study where Ginny found all of Draco’s schoolbooks lying haphazardly across an oak desk. She also found a piece of parchment and a quill.

Ginny took her time writing out the names of every Death Eater she recognized from last night. Some she could guess names of because she recognized their magic, Snape for instance. Most, however, she had to guess based on similarities in their magic to people she already knew. Bellatrix Lestrange had a magic signature similar to her close relative, Tonks. Another similar signature to Bella, Rodolphus Lestrange, her husband, led her to Rabastan Lestrange, Rodolphus’ brother.

She made sure to indicate which names she was guessing and which she was sure on, before signing the paper and rolling it up. She borrowed some of Draco’s wax and stamped the Weasley family crest into the wax with a bit of magic. Now no one except a Weasley could open the scroll.

Ginny reached out a glowing finger and touched the parchment. It vanished and Ginny knew that it would reappear on the kitchen table at the Burrow where everyone was no doubt having breakfast right now.

“What’re you doing?” came a tired voice from the doorway.

Ginny turned around with a smile for Draco. “Do you remember the train ride back?” she asked. “You said you couldn’t spy because you’d be killed and I couldn’t spy because my family would hate me. But my family knows I’m up to something, so they won’t hate me, which means I can spy all I want.”

“Just, be careful, okay?” Draco sighed. Ginny nodded and smiled at him.

“So, what do I have to do to get some breakfast around here?” she asked.

Draco laughed. “Put some fresh clothes on and I’ll show you the way downstairs.”


Breakfast at the Malfoy’s was certainly not the Weasley family free-for-all Ginny had grown up in. The three Malfoys sat with their backs straight and their elbows off the table as the house elves carefully set filled plates in front of them.

Ginny emulated the Malfoys as best she could. She kept her back straight and her elbows off the table and pretended to know which fork was which. Draco seemed to sense her confusion and winked at her. She glowered back at him.

“Miss Weasley,” Narcissa Malfoy finally spoke. It seemed that conversation was allowed at the breakfast table despite the silence that they had been sitting in for the past five minutes.

“Yes?” Ginny asked as politely as she could.
“What are you doing here?”

Draco stifled a gasp of laughter with his napkin at his mother’s rather rude question. Both Ginny and Narcissa gave Draco the look, which had Lucius hiding a small grin in his cup of coffee.

“I am now in the employ of the Dark Lord,” Ginny said with a smile. “He granted me your son in return.”

“He gave away Draco!” she gasped.

“You could say that,” Lucius said in a placating voice to his wife. “Ginevra has an interesting condition which Draco alleviates. I, however, am not as positive as the Dark Lord that she is telling the truth.”

“I am blind,” Ginny retorted.

“Yes, that has been proven without a doubt. I’m speaking of your wishes for Draco,” Lucius said with a piercing look right at Ginny.

“He lets me see-” she began.

“I saw the way he was holding you last night,” Lucius snapped, fed up with her roundabout words. “I know that you feel something for him besides simple need.”

“Father!” Draco grumbled.

“No, Draco,” Narcissa jumped in. “I want to know this too. Are you in a relationship with this girl? The truth, Draco.”

“Fine,” Ginny grumbled. “Yes, I like your son very much.” Ginny sighed and told the Malfoys about how blackmailing Draco had gone from an obligation to a pleasure. She told them that seeing had gone from a desperate wish to a happy time.

Draco nodded along with everything she said and gently nudged her hand to the right fork when they started eating their breakfasts during the conversation.

“And, Draco,” Narcissa said in a much gentler voice than she had used to speak to Ginny. “What are your feelings towards this…girl?”

Ginny didn’t miss the hesitation and neither did Draco. Narcissa had probably meant to say “blood traitor”, but Ginny wasn’t a blood traitor any more because she was working for the Death Eaters so Narcissa had been forced to change her wording.

“Ginny and I are in a relationship,” Draco agreed. “I enjoy spending time with her,” he added at his mother’s skeptical look.

“Narcissa,” Lucius broke in as he put his fork down. “I saw them last night. I believe it is safe to say that they have something between them.”

Narcissa put down her silverware as if something in her breakfast tasted terrible. She carefully dabbed at her lips with a napkin and took a deep breath.

“Where did Ginevra sleep last night?” she asked with apparent calmness.

“In Draco’s bed,” Lucius replied with a sigh. “But,” he added when Narcissa went white. “I had a house elf monitor them the entire night. If anything untoward occurred, I would have been notified immediately.”

The house elves cleared away breakfast as Narcissa contemplated the best course of action. It was clear that Ginny needed to stay; the Dark Lord had given Draco to her no matter how much Narcissa wished it weren’t true. But, she refused to believe that Draco was in a relationship with a girl not picked out by his father. Draco had dated Pansy Parkinson through school because at the time Lucius thought it might be a beneficial relationship for the Malfoy family. Once Narcissa had met that idiot girl, however, things changed.

It was Narcissa’s belief that Astoria Greengrass would have served well as Draco’s bride and had been contemplating mentioning it to Lucius. Now with this Weasley girl here, she needed to rethink her plans. Only by getting rid of Ginevra, both from her house and from Draco’s affections, could Narcissa retake her hold on Draco’s relationships with potential brides.

Narcissa gasped as Ginny opened her eyes and gave the older woman a knowing smile. Ginny stood and walked around the table to wait by Narcissa’s chair.

“The men don’t need us around right now,” Ginny said to Mrs. Malfoy. “I’m going to be here a while and I’m assuming that staying in Draco’s bed the whole time wouldn’t be a good idea. Why don’t you show me a room I can stay in that won’t upset propriety?” Ginny asked.

Narcissa nodded, eager to get the girl alone for a little bit, and stood as well.

Ginny walked away from Draco with her eyes closed. She didn’t want to experience the sight of everything vanishing until the colors became nonexistent this time. Especially since she knew that any time she wanted she could easily find Draco and she could see again.

By the time they were out in the main hallways of the Manor, Ginny was guiding herself down the halls with magic and Narcissa was watching her with a hawk’s eye.

“Do you really expect me to believe that you are sightless?” Narcissa said scornfully. “I don’t know how you managed to dupe my husband and my son, but I will end this.”

“You will try,” Ginny agreed. She lifted up her head so Narcissa could see that her eyes were closed as she unerringly followed the Malfoy matron up the stairs and down the hall.

Mrs. Malfoy guided Ginny to the exact opposite side of the house from where Draco’s rooms were located. Ginny sighed, knowing that there was probably an empty room right next to Draco’s that she could have, and followed the woman into the deepest, most unreachable corner of the Manor. What the Malfoy Matron didn’t know was that Ginny could use her magic and will herself into Draco’s room any time she wanted. Distance and silly things like wards couldn’t stop her and therefore neither would any of Narcissa’s machinations.

The room they entered was threadbare and covered with dust. There was an old bed in the corner with a nightstand beside it that was missing a leg. Along one wall were two mismatched dressers for clothing with a cracked mirror lying lopsided on top of one. This had to be the room where the house elves stored all the broken furniture they were planning on refurbishing as soon as they had time, meaning never.

Narcissa hid a smirk as Ginny stood in the doorway. There was only one room, unlike Draco’s suite of rooms, and an attached bathroom. Ginny hoped there would be running water in the bathroom so she didn’t have to disrupt the Manor’s spells too much when she fixed the place up.

Ginny took a step into the room and a gust of wind blew through the room before her, apparently from the windowless hallway she had just left. All the dust was picked up in the room and blown out the small bedroom window that opened itself as the wind neared.

The covers on the bed lifted themselves as Ginny took another step into the room. The moth holes in the fabric sewed artful patches of fabric over themselves, fabric that appeared from some unknown source, and a family of doxies ran, shrieking, for the curtains.

Narcissa watched as the nightstand grew a new leg, the mirror liquefied and re-solidified, whole and unblemished, and the ragged, fire spotted carpet brushed itself to a new shine.

Ginny took a third step into the room and smiled even though her eyes were still closed. Narcissa had noticed that the girl hadn’t opened them yet.

The ripped wallpaper glued itself back on the walls while the broken hinges on the bathroom door found their missing screws and refastened themselves correctly.

By the time the wind died down the room looked habitable. It was certainly not the best room Malfoy Manor could offer, but it was more than serviceable for even a respected guest to stay in.

“Do I need to rescue the bathroom too?” Ginny asked as she turned her face towards where Narcissa was standing, eyes still closed.

“That was you?” Narcissa gasped. She had been watching the magic as it somehow fixed the room, but had certainly not being ignoring Ginny. The girl hadn’t moved a finger and was certainly not holding a wand, yet she professed to have accomplished something so impossible that Narcissa hardly believed it had just happened despite seeing it herself. Just what powers did this girl have?
“It was,” Ginny said with a smirk. She ignored Narcissa’s shocked and disbelieving silence and walked into the bathroom. There was running water, but the pipes were so rusted and the sink, bathtub, and toilet so cracked, that running water might destroy the room rather than save it. Ginny got to work.


Narcissa Malfoy stood out in the middle of the bedroom, mouth agape. She couldn’t believe what she had just seen. That little girl had used wandless magic to fix the room, something Narcissa wasn’t sure she could do with a wand.

She looked around the room, trying to find evidence that maybe the Manor had done something odd and Weasley was just taking credit, but could find no signs. She did find something peculiar however. The nightstand leg that had re-grown was the wrong color. The piece was of a rich, dark wood while the new leg was a pale tan.

The carpet was a pale blue that matched the wallpaper and the bedspread, but the new bits of shag were brown. In fact, Narcissa felt it would be safe to say that everything that had just been fixed had been fixed in the wrong color. It was almost as if whoever did the fixing couldn’t see the colors to match them.

Someone with enough power to re-grow wood or carpet should easily be able to match the colors in the process. Only a blind person would make such a mistake.

Only a blind person…

Narcissa gasped.


“So now you understand?” Ginny said as she walked back into the room from a sparkling bathroom. Her eyes were open and Narcissa winced at the colorless white that greeted her. “I am blind and through that blindness I have great power. Since I prefer sight and your son, I willingly abandon that power.”

“You can’t use your power when you’re around Draco?” Narcissa asked, curious despite her dislike of the girl.

“I can use my powers whenever I like,” Ginny said with a smile. “I just prefer to use my eyes while I have them available to me.”

Narcissa sniffed. “We dress for dinner,” she snapped before turning and sweeping from the room. Ginny couldn’t help smiling as the defeated woman left.


III


Ginny used her magic to send her to the dining room when she felt all three Malfoys gather there.

A house elf had brought her lunch while Ginny had spent the day “reading”. She had recently discovered a Muggle invention called Braille and was busy teaching herself to read the bumps and dots. She was tired of being forced to listen to a disembodied voice every time she wanted to fall into a good book. This was a much better way.


Draco was the only one who didn’t jump when she appeared next to him. Lucius and Narcissa had to scramble to hide their surprise. Ginny just opened her eyes and gazed at Draco.

He was dressed smartly in slacks and a blue collared shirt. Ginny really liked the blue on him, especially since his hair and eyes matched so well with it. Blue was a very pretty color to see, Ginny thought.

She was wearing a green dress, similar to Narcissa’s, that was fitted but not revealing. It was a simple dress, nice enough that none of the Malfoy’s could complain but not so nice that Ginny would feel awkward eating in it.

“Where’d you get that dress?” Draco asked, his eyes on her body as he went a little slack jawed.

Ginny laughed and reached out to pull Draco’s head up until he was looking at her face. She closed his mouth and patted his reddened cheek.

“I made it out of a handkerchief I stole from you,” she answered with a smile, waiting for his outburst. She wasn’t disappointed.

“You’re wearing my handkerchief?”

“Well, I made it a little bigger, but, yeah, I am.”
Ginny guided Draco over to the table and waited while he pulled her chair out for her.

“Why are you wearing my handkerchief?” Draco asked as he carefully pushed her chair in.

“I only brought a few changes of clothes with me. I certainly couldn’t bring a dress.” Ginny shrugged.

Narcissa’s disparaging sniff brought conversation to a close for dinner and they ate in silence as the house elves brought them plates of food. No one dared breach the Malfoy matriarch’s smothering quiet.

When dinner ended Ginny and Draco rose and returned to Draco’s office. As soon as they were out of Narcissa’s sight Ginny sighed in relief. Her dress began to melt off as she walked and was quickly replaced by the clothes she had been wearing earlier that day.

When they reached Draco’s rooms, Ginny handed him a small green handkerchief with a smile.

“Ginny,” Draco groaned. His cheeks were pink as he held the piece of cloth between two fingers. Then he signed and kissed Ginny on the lips.

She responded eagerly and they fell against the door with a thump. The door, probably thinking its master couldn’t get in by turning the handle for some reason, opened itself, sending the teens sprawling onto the floor.

Ginny laughed and sat up while Draco glowered at the door. He stood first and gave Ginny a hand up. Together they walked into the office and began to plot.


“I need names,” Ginny explained to Draco. “We think there might be a spy and only by listing off the names of all the Death Eaters will the rest of the Order be able to find out who is both a Death Eater and an Order member.”

Draco looked pensive as he tapped the feathery end of a quill against his lips in thought.

“You’ll want the unmarked informants then,” a voice came from the doorway.

Both Ginny and Draco spun around to face Lucius Malfoy. Draco was clearly frightened now that they had been discovered. Ginny slowly closed her eyes and dropped into her magic in preparation of stopping the elder Malfoy from doing something that might hurt her or Draco.

“Draco,” Lucius snapped. “Leave. I need to speak with Miss Weasley for a moment.

Draco shivered at the cold tone in his father’s voice and glanced at Ginny worriedly. When he saw that he eyes were already closed and that her pale pinkish-red hair was glowing slightly, he stood and walked from the room. Draco knew that Ginny was more than capable of taking care of herself and that he would get in the way when she unleashed her magic because she would expend extra energy protecting him from her. Instead he walked out into his sitting room and settled into a couch to wait for the backlash.


Lucius closed the door once Draco left and turned towards Ginny. He had noticed her closed eyes and glowing hair because Draco had taken the extra time to look for it. He knew he was treading on thin ice and that Ginny’s unknown power could destroy him, depending on what he said first.

“I suspect we can come to a compromise,” Lucius said carefully.

“What sort of compromise?” Ginny replied calmly. He magic didn’t spark once as she spoke, showing her complete control over it.

Lucius shivered at the sheer power this little girl represented but gathered his courage around him to continue speaking.

“I will help you and my son. In return you will ensure that my family does not go to Azkaban.”

“I can keep you, your wife, and Draco out of Azkaban,” Ginny said thoughtfully. “But extended family like the Lestranges will go to Azkaban regardless of what I say.”

“Draco, Narcissa, and myself,” Lucius agreed. “In return I will help you gather information for your order and I will help you not to die when the Dark Lord overcomes his ego and calls you to him again.”

Ginny slowly opened her eyes and a shiver went through Lucius.

“You magic will remember this promise even if you yourself forget,” she said ominously.

Lucius nodded and wet to the door to get Draco. “I will remember,” he replied.

Finding Color
Part Five
By Mell8

--------------------


The notes continued to appear. Sometimes there were two or three in a day, sometimes none for a week. But they always appeared without an owl or a trace of magic.

Moody had refused to believe any of the information written there at first, but then he had seen the Weasley seal and had tried to open the message himself instead of allowing a Weasley to do it. His hand was still burnt.

Sometimes the notes contained lists of Death Eaters or lists of places where specific Death Eaters had attacked. When they caught those fiends they would have specific information to throw down in front of a judge instead of just speculation and pointed fingers, which is what allowed so many Death Eaters to walk free after the first war.

Sometimes there was a date and a place written and that’s it. Sending a contingent of fighters to that place at that time would yield over a dozen Death Eaters. Thousands of innocent Muggle, Muggleborn, and halfblood lives had been saved. Dozens of Death Eaters had been captured and were waiting for the end of the war for sentencing.

And everyone in the Order wanted to know how Ginny was doing it.

All she had said before vanishing without affecting the copious wards around the building was that she had a contact within the Death Eaters who could get them the information they needed.

Clearly she had been speaking the truth, because there was so much information.

Except, she never sent any information about herself. Molly Weasley was going spare, thinking that her daughter must be in trouble despite the fact that the notes continued to appear.

Arthur Wesley looked haggard from wondering just what Ginny had to do to get such detailed information. Could she possibly be one of the few Death Eaters that escaped despite the Order’s careful spell work at each ambush site? Did she have to give her body over to some dirty Death Eater in return for information? Was she being tortured, abused, or hated?

Every letter from her was opened and the report ignored as the Weasley with the letter in his hands looked first for information on the health of their sister or daughter. Only once they were sure she hadn’t written anything did they look at the list or the time actually written there.


“There must be some way we can contact her!” Molly snapped at the Order meeting that week discussing the lists of known and possible Death Eaters Ginny had been sending them. So far a spy hadn’t been found.

A star was placed beside the names of the Death Eaters they had in custody and everyone was glad to see the names on the list slowly whittle away. They may not have been fighting against Voldemort to end the war for good, but they were certainly destroying his power base.

“How?” Moody snapped. “Those letters just appear out of thin air as if brought here by magic, yet we can’t trace any magic off of those letters.”

“What if we write a letter with her name on it and leave it where she usually leaves the letters?” Tonks asked. “Maybe she’ll notice it?”

“Impossible,” Moody snapped. “As long as she keeps sending us information she’s fine. Let’s move on to the attack in Aberdeen this weekend. Ginny’s promised us that Rabastan Lestrange is leading the attack. Capturing one of the inner circle would be a huge blow against Voldemort.”


The meeting ended some minutes later and Molly and Tonks went to get some parchment and a quill. Molly wrote the letter to her daughter, asking after her health and wellbeing, before sealing it with some wax with the Weasley seal stamped into it.

They waited for two days, Molly barely taking her eyes off the letter the entire time, before they had a result.

A new letter appeared from Ginny and the letter Molly had written rose into the air and unrolled itself.

“Arthur!” Molly screamed. Everyone in the vicinity came running and saw the floating letter.

The letter slowly returned to the table and the quill rose into the air instead. The quill dipped itself in the inkbottle that opened itself before writing on the bottom of the parchment.

“I am fine,” the quill wrote. “I am healthy, safe, and in a sane mind. Please don’t worry over me.”

The quill returned to the table.

“Impossible,” Moody snapped. “There is no way someone not in this room right now could have done this.”

“It is possible,” the words said as they appeared on the bottom of the parchment without the aid of ink or a quill. “I can easily manipulate all that I cannot see just as easily as you manipulate all that you can see. Defeat Voldemort and I will explain more—if you are willing to listen.”

A glow faded from the letter and everyone somehow knew she was gone. Molly clutched the letter to her chest and sobbed.

Moody reached for the letter Ginny had sent and handed it to a Weasley who was not crying to open.

The letter read:


Voldemort: Riddle House, Little Hangleton


Ginny had found the final bit of information they needed in order to end the war.

Moody read the letter over and nodded. “We take out Lestrange this weekend to get rid of a couple more Death Eaters and then we attack. Gather everyone, we need to start planning now.”


III


“Ginny,” Draco read from the floating letter Ginny had conjured. She had felt the intent of the letter and called a copy of it to her. She couldn’t read it from the kitchen in the Burrow, her magic still couldn’t discern letters or colors, but she could bring it here for Draco to read to her.

“We don’t know if you will be able to get this letter or if writing this is pointless. We just want to know how you are, dear. Everyone is worried over your health and it would make us feel a lot better to know that you weren’t in any danger.”

Draco scoffed and brushed his fingers through the image, dissipating it. “The rest of the letter is the same stuff. They’re worried that you’re killing yourself to get this information.”

Ginny sighed. “They would worry about that. Alright…” She bit her lip and concentrated on her magic. She formed the letters in her mind and traced them onto the bottom of the parchment back in the Burrow, hoping that she was tracing them correctly because she couldn’t see what she was writing beyond the fact that it was with ink.

“Impossible!” echoed through the study. Ginny grimaced and concentrated on forming the letters needed to reply to Moody. She didn’t realize that the quill was gone, only that the ink was forming where she needed it.

Draco stood next to her and held her hand. Ginny’s magic melded with Draco’s so he could watch what she did with her magic. He couldn’t help marveling at the sheer control she had over the powers that surrounded them.

Draco looked away from Ginny for a moment and looked at everything surrounding them instead. Everything had magic in it. His desk chair, the candle, even he himself were all filled with magic.

Maybe… He reached out with the pool of magic he felt inside himself and touched the candle. The flame flared and ate the wax at a much faster speed as his magic fed the magic in the fire. It was beautiful.

He slowly withdrew from the candle and focused back on Ginny. This was how she saw everything; pools of magic filling existing shapes. She didn’t see a chair and know it was a chair, she saw the magic filling that shape of a chair. Now that Draco knew how to do this form of magic he thought that with practice he should be able to do it without Ginny’s aid.

“What is going on here?” Narcissa Malfoy snapped from the doorway. “I go to speak with my son and I find disembodied voices and candles bursting into flame. How could you influence my son so badly!” she snarled at Ginny. “I will have you from my house, Dark Lord’s orders regardless, if you harm Draco.”

Ginny laughed. “Jealousy is unbecoming in a woman your age,” she answered.

Draco choked and quickly backed away from both women. He didn’t want to be in the middle of the fight that was about to ensue.

“How dare you!” Narcissa growled. “He is my son and I will not have some hussy filling his mind with filth.”

“He is your son and he will always be your son,” Ginny agreed. “But he is old enough to make his own decisions and mistakes; he is long past old enough. All you are doing is trying to keep his little baby hands tangled in your motherly skirts for fear of the outside world. It’s time to let him go out and live his own life. If that life happens to include me, then as his mother you should support us.”

Narcissa sniffed. “Parkinson was not right for him; I made him see that eventually. He will see that you are not right for him soon enough!”


She swept out of the room without even a peck for her son’s cheek, intent on finding Lucius and bringing up the idea of marriage to Astoria Greengrass again.

It shocked her to no end when Lucius flatly said no. How dare that girl steal not only her son, but her husband as well! Narcissa would see her pay even if she had to go to the Dark Lord himself for vengeance.


“There’s nothing more to give them,” Ginny sighed once Narcissa was gone from the room. “The Order now has every scrap of information we have and it’s up to them what to do with it.”

“So what do we do now?” Draco asked as he led Ginny to the couch in his sitting room.

“I don’t know,” Ginny sighed. “I would like to go home, but I won’t without you and I can’t without ensuring your family’s safety as well. I promised your father that much at least.

“So stay with me,” Draco said as he gently threw his arm over her shoulder and drew her into his chest. “I love you, Ginny, and would really like it if you would spend the rest of your life with me.”

“Are you asking me to marry you, Draco?” Ginny asked as she looked up into his clear grey eyes to gauge his emotions.

Draco nodded. “I don’t have a ring right now. It’s in Gringotts so I can get to it as soon as the war’s over.

Ginny looked at him solemnly. “When you have the ring, ask me again. I’ll say yes then too.”

Draco smiled and drew her into a kiss.


III


The Order captured Rabastan Lestrange. It certainly wasn’t easy, as the old Death Eater had prepared for an ambush of sorts after seeing so many similar Death Eater raids fall to ruin. But Charlie would regain use of his left arm eventually and Rabastan unhappily inhabited the cell right next to his brother Rodolphus in the Order-hidden prison. The empty cell nearby that was saved for the last Lestrange, Bellatrix, would not remain empty for long if the Order had their way.

Once the captured Death Eaters had been safely put away and the injured Order members were under hospital care, the Order gathered together to begin planning their final attack against Lord Voldemort.


Far away from the Burrow, Narcissa Malfoy pulled on her traveling cloak with a snarl on her face. Draco had announced his intentions to marry the Weasley girl at dinner that night when he had asked Lucius for the key to the vault the ring was kept in.

Narcissa would have none of it. She had removed herself from dinner with a snarl and was now heading towards Little Hangleton to have a discussion with the Dark Lord about her theory that Ginny Weasley was the reason why so many recent Death Eater plans had been foiled.

The dirty spy would be dead and Draco would be hers again.

Finding Color
Part Six
By Mell8

--------------------


Draco woke up early in the morning when his arm began burning and cursed. The birds weren’t chirping and the moon still shone through his bedroom window despite the fact that it was morning. Why the hell was he being called now?

He snapped his fingers and waited for a house elf to appear as he found his robes and pulled them on.

“Sir?” the elf bowed once it appeared.

“Wake Ginny,” Draco told the diminutive creature. “Tell her we are being summoned by the Dark Lord.”

The elf bowed again and vanished.

Draco found a pair of socks and was busy pulling on his boots when Ginny appeared at his side.

“The Dark Lord’s finally willing to forgo the blow I handed his ego?” Ginny asked with a giggle that Draco knew hid her nerves. Ginny might have powerful magic at her side, but she wasn’t invincible. Dark Magic might refuse to touch her, but there were spells that weren’t Dark that could do damage too.

“Hopefully it’s only information he wants,” Draco sighed. “I’d have thought the Order might have finished it by now.”

“They took out Lestrange and have probably been planning ever since,” Ginny replied knowingly. Draco guessed she had spied on an Order meeting herself in order to find out why it was taking them so long.

“It doesn’t take this long to plan an offensive,” Draco grumbled as he pulled the last lace tight on his shoe and gave his hand to Ginny.

“This is their only chance,” Ginny replied. “If the Order botches this, Voldemort wins. They’re not going to jump in without exploring every eventuality.” She took Draco’s hand and pulled on their magic, vanishing from Malfoy Manor without even a pop.

They reappeared in the middle of Voldemort’s meeting room where an entire contingent of Death Eaters was waiting for them.

“So,” Voldemort hissed when he caught sight of them.

Ginny and Draco walked to the center of the room and the center of the circle of the Death Eaters.

Voldemort waited for them to take their place with a cruel smirk curling his lips.

“So,” he repeated. “You came quickly enough for Order spies.”

Ginny snorted and let out a small laugh. “Just because I originally came from the Order doesn’t mean I’m your spy.”

“Fine then,” Voldemort said with a cold smile. “Where are the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix?”

“The Burrow,” Ginny answered immediately. “But I have no idea what the wards are around it, so don’t bother asking if I can get you in.”

“Potter is there?”

“I haven’t been back since the first time you and I spoke,” Ginny answered, telling the truth while still skirting around the entire truth. “Potter could be there or he could still be out hunting for you.”

“And how is the Order learning so many of my plans?” Voldemort hissed pointedly at her.

“Obviously you have a spy. Have you spoken with Snape?” Ginny’s grin was mocking and only served to incense Voldemort’s temper.

“I have information from a reliable source that you are the spy, Miss Weasley,” Voldemort hissed with a laugh. “But I can hardly believe that you could possibly be able to gather so much information when you haven’t been to one single Death Eater gathering or planning meeting.”

“Then I can’t be your spy, can I?” Ginny asked, grin still in place.

“And yet my source insists that you have the power to see my meetings without being in this room. Narcissa?”

Narcissa Malfoy stepped forward from where she had been hiding behind a pillar. She glared hatefully at Ginny before giving her son a loving look that said, “I will make it all better soon, love”.

“My Lord,” she whispered with a low bow to Voldemort.

“You have told me that you believe Miss Weasley has been gathering information to use against me?”

“I did,” she answered. “I saw her use her magic to speak to her family. They answered her in the form of a disembodied voice. I heard Mad-Eye Moody, my Lord, but he certainly wasn’t in my home.”

Voldemort nodded and watched Ginny closely to see her reaction. The mocking grin never left her lips.

“I will admit that my magic does amazing things,” Ginny agreed. “But poor Narcissa is so stressed from this war. I would hate to think she’s hearing voices. Insanity is as unbecoming as jealousy, dear.”

Narcissa snarled and dove for her wand.

“Petrificus Totalus,” Voldemort said with a lazy wave of his wand. Narcissa’s body stiffened and fell to the ground. Her glaring face was focused on Ginny even as she impacted with the hard wooden floor.

Draco winced but made no move towards his mother. She had betrayed them to Voldemort and Draco preferred to stand at Ginny’s side than go to his traitorous mother.

“I only believe part of her story,” Voldemort said thoughtfully as he twirled his wand in his fingers. “I believe that you may have the ability to speak with your family over long distances. I believe that your power might give you the ability to spy on a meeting where you are not in attendance. However, I do not believe you were acting on your own.”

Ginny tilted her head to the side. “That would be a foolish conclusion,” she said with that same grin. “I came and offered my knowledge to you alone and I work alone now.”

Voldemort shook his head. “Yet I still don’t believe you.”

The room was silent as everyone watched Voldemort and Ginny hash out their argument. Ginny felt their eyes on her and knew by the roiling of their magic that they would kill her in a heartbeat whether or not she was the spy.

There was a shiver to the magic in the room as Voldemort continued to twirl his wand through his fingers. Ginny couldn’t easily pinpoint the magic, but she dearly wished she had made the effort when she thought back on the night.

Seconds after that shiver Ginny realized what Voldemort had done, but by then it was too late.

The Invisibility Spell wore off right in front of Draco and the Severing Charm became visible for the half second it was still in the air.

Before Ginny could send any magic out to stop the spell, it impacted exactly where Voldemort intended it too.

Draco fell to the ground with a yelp, clutching at his bleeding eyes with his hands. Seconds later he was unconscious from shock.

The blood was bright red and it was all Ginny could see as the darkness began to encroach on her eyes.

Red: brilliant and shining.

Red: pain and death.

Draco, beautiful blond and green Draco: red.

And then everything was black.


III


Ron looked out into the blighted graveyard just down the hill from the Riddle House and sighed. They were waiting for the recon team to return from scouting the area for traps and wards before they could move forward. Either there had been a lot of traps to avoid or the team had been captured and their plan was in ruins before it even began.

The coin in his hand warmed suddenly. Ron hissed with excitement as he read what the coin had to say.

Proceed to station 1

“Let’s go,” Ron quietly called to the group of six under his command. Harry and Hermione were at his back, but Harry was hidden under his invisibility cloak pretending he wasn’t there until the opportune moment so Ron was left in charge.

They crept between the broken slabs of graveyard stone and up the hill to the House. The back door wasn’t guarded. Apparently Voldemort felt safe in his father’s ancestral home and saw no need for human protection.

Hermione disabled the wards easily and their group was inside, as planned.

Moody was entering the front door with his group while Lupin’s airborne group was flying into the second floor windows. The second wave of troops would be entering in exactly two minutes.

Ron’s coin warmed again.

Station 2

They inched forward, wands at the ready, as they made their way to the first doorway along their hallway. The room proved to be empty and they moved on.

They reached a T-junction in the hallway, just as the blueprints had said, and Ron gave the signal to split. Harry and Hermione stayed with him as they went right while the other three turned left.

There was a large door at the end of the hallway that Ron was purposefully making his way towards. The blueprints had showed the room to be the only one in the building large enough to house a Death Eater meeting and all the teams would eventually make their way here. Harry was sent directly to make sure he was there to challenge Voldemort when the fighting broke out.

Laughter and screaming echoed down the hallway through the door, which let the trio know they had the right place.

Their back up, led by Bill, arrived at the same time that Moody’s group rounded the far corner. The Order converged together for a few more moments until Shacklebolt, Moody’s back up group leader, and his company joined them.

Their wands were out and suddenly the door was gone with a wave of Moody’s wand. The Order entered the room in droves, wands waving at the unsuspecting Death Eaters.

Ron rushed in alongside his friends and shot off a few spells before taking in exactly what was happening. Voldemort was standing on a dais, screaming orders to his followers as Harry advanced on him. The masked and robed Death Eaters were scrambling for their wands before the battle became a rout.

And Ginny was in the middle of it all.

She was on her knees on the floor clutching at her eyes. On the ground beside her was a body that looked suspiciously like Draco Malfoy, only there was a red, bleeding slash where his eyes and upper nose should have been.

Ron’s eyes were pulled from the struggling Narcissa Malfoy, apparently magically bound at Voldemort’s feet, to a Death Eater throwing off his mask to show the face of Lucius Malfoy as he sank to his knees at Ginny’s side so they both hovered over Draco’s body.

Then Ron was back to flinging Stunning Spells at every Death Eater he saw in order to end this battle before any casualties could occur.

Harry finally made his way up to Voldemort and the snake, Nagini. Fiendfyre took care of the unsuspecting snake before Voldemort ever realized that Harry was there under his invisibility cloak. Harry threw the cloak off so he could engage with Voldemort directly.

Voldemort turned, wand raised, towards Harry with a snarl on his face.


The most agonizing scream ever heard by anyone in the room, even Voldemort, rent the air. The fighting stopped as the scream went on and on. A pulse of magic went through the room, making everyone jump, and then the scream stopped.

Ginny had vanished with Draco and Lucius Malfoy.

Finding Color
Part Seven
My Mell8

------------------


Ginny felt Voldemort die only as an afterthought. Draco was dying and something as important a Voldemort’s death couldn’t bring Ginny away from Draco’s side.

She was pouring her magic into Draco’s body, fighting not only to fix his eyes and nose, but also to keep him alive. She had used her magic to force his body to make new blood to replace what had been lost. She used her magic to rebuild the broken flesh of his eyes and face.

But she couldn’t give him his sight back and she couldn’t wake him from his coma.

For three days Ginny sat at Draco’s bedside, pouring more and more of her magic into him. She didn’t eat or sleep or do anything to replenish her magic.

At the end of the third day she fainted and Lucius Malfoy was left alone with his comatose son and soon to be daughter.

Lucius gently tucked her into bed with his son and sighed. He needed to take both of them to St. Mungo’s for healing, but to do that he needed to be able to go out into the world without the threat of capture and being tossed into Azkaban. Ginny was the only one who had proof of his aid in her spying mission and she was unconscious.

Still, Draco was dying and Ginny was killing herself trying to heal him. It was up to Lucius to get them the help they needed, and to do that he needed to speak with the Weasleys.

Lucius pulled on his robes and left his wand in his office. The Portkey he created was set to go off in a few seconds so he held onto the little crystal tightly. There was a pull just below his navel and Lucius left his office.

He reappeared just outside the wards protecting the Burrow and was gratified to see movement inside the ramshackle building. Lucius took a deep breath and crossed over the wards.

He kept his hands in the air to show he was unarmed as the door was flung open and witches and wizards with their wands drawn rushed towards him.

“I know where Ginny is!” he yelled before the stunning spell hit him directly in the chest.


III


Moody stalked along the hallways of the Burrow with his magical eye roving in all directions. The Weasley’s were going crazy searching for their sister and Moody wasn’t in the mood to be accosted by another red-haired nutter asking if he had thought of another way to find the missing girl.

Ron had described what he had seen of Ginny during that brief time he had to focus on other things besides battling. Everyone had heard the scream she let out before vanishing.

The general consensus was that Malfoy had done something to her, but Moody didn’t believe that. According to Ron’s description, the young Malfoy, Draco, had been severely injured and Ginny had been hovering hopelessly over him.

Moody also wasn’t a fool. After discovering that Ginny seemed to have some connection with Draco Malfoy, he had gone over all the missives sent by her to the Order. None of them had any information incriminating any of the Malfoys.

With that clue in mind, Moody had gone to meet with Narcissa Malfoy in her jail cell.

The Malfoy Matriarch had told him quite a lot of interesting information. Apparently Ginny had been staying at the Malfoy’s for all of the long months she had been gone. Apparently Ginny and Draco were planning on marrying. Narcissa had even mentioned that she was sure that “Weasley brat” was spying and that her husband and Draco had been in on it.

Veritaserum had proved the validity of Mrs. Malfoy’s statements. Moody wanted to know whether Ginny’s reports were as true. If she were in love with the Malfoy boy, her bias could hide his crimes from the Order.

All Moody had to do was find her and, if his suspicions were correct, she was probably at Malfoy Manor. The problem was figuring a way to get her out.

Everyone in the Burrow felt the wards trip. Moody jumped and dashed with everyone else out to see whom the intruder was.

It was clear the Weasley’s were hoping for Ginny’s return. Moody doubted it was her, because when she had left she hadn’t tripped the wards. She certainly wouldn’t trip them on her return.

Moody was almost surprised to see Lucius Malfoy standing there with his hands up in the air. Almost, because he didn’t think Lucius had the courage to blatantly step into dangerous Order territory, but Moody also knew that his son was probably severely injured and needed the help of the Order. Someone would have come eventually, Moody just hadn’t been sure if it would be Lucius himself.

“I know where Ginny is!” Malfoy yelled right before a Weasley’s stunner hit him right in the chest.

“Fred!” Molly snapped at the son who had thrown the curse. “He has information on Ginny!”

“He’s still a Death Eater,” Fred snarled and was echoed my many nods of agreement around him.

“That is un-debatable,” Moody agreed as he made his way over to where they were securing Lucius Malfoy. “However, I have to wonder what his role in Ginny’s spying mission was.”

“What?” Fred gasped. “Malfoy’s a Death Eater. He wouldn’t spy on his own kind.”

“Yet,” Moody said loudly to forestall any further yelling. He waited until everyone was listening before he continued. “Yet, Ginny was hovering protectively over his bleeding son in the middle of the battle. I have been investigating this thoroughly and have come to the indisputable conclusion that Ginny went to the Malfoy’s for help in spying.”

“No!” Arthur snapped. “The Malfoys would torture her.”

“Not according to Narcissa Malfoy,” Moody snapped. He whipped his wand through the air in a complicated spell that showed all the magical items on Malfoy’s person. All he could find was the fading Portkey spell Malfoy had used to transport himself here.

“No wand,” Moody commented so everyone could hear. “He must have come with only the intent to share information.” Moody dug into his pocket and found the bottle filled with the remainder of Veritaserum left after his interrogation of Narcissa Malfoy. “Someone open his mouth,” Moody grunted and waited while Bill pulled Lucius’ mouth open before putting two drops of the Truth Potion onto his tongue.

“Incarcerous,” Bill said once Moody was done with the potion. Ropes shot out of his wand and around Lucius, tying the man up so he couldn’t move.

“Enervate,” Moody snapped.

Lucius Malfoy carefully sat up, moving as much as he could while bound.

“You know where Ginny Weasley is?” Moody asked.

“I do. She’s at Malfoy Manor and I need to take both her and my son to St. Mungo’s,” Malfoy said immediately.

“Ginny’s hurt?” Molly gasped.

“Not physically,” Lucius answered. “She’s been awake for three days trying to heal my son. She passed out from magic loss and has joined my son in a coma.”

“What did you do to her to force her to heal your son like that?” Lupin asked from behind Moody.

“She probably doesn’t want to marry a corpse,” Moody answered.

“What!” Molly screeched. She turned to glare at Lucius. “You’re forcing her to marry your son?”

“They’ve been together for a year,” Lucius snapped back, furious that the woman would immediately jump to such a terrible conclusion. “I didn’t even know until she showed up at a Death Eater meeting demanding Draco.”

Molly Weasley went white and had to be helped to the ground where she could sit. “But, Harry?” she whispered.

“We broke up,” Harry said with a shrug.

“She did say she had a reliable source for the information,” Moody sighed. “Having a boyfriend who would protect her as well as feed her information is probably what she meant.”

“She told me that she would ensure Draco’s and my own safety after the war if we fed her information,” Lucius called into the shocked crowd. “I don’t expect you to hand that to me,” he added when he was glared at. “But I thought you might want to get Ginny to the hospital before she dies…”

The reaction was to that statement was immediate. Molly and Arthur had their wands out, preparing to apparate to Malfoy Manor. The Weasley boys all went to their parents, pulling out their wands to apparate away too.

Lupin and Tonks, Kingsley and McGonagall, and all the rest of the Order members present all ran to do something they clearly thought was productive at that moment.

Moody groaned and would have slapped himself except he was already in enough pain from watching the idiots he was supposed to be allied with run around like chickens with their heads cut off.

He saw Malfoy roll his eyes in exasperation and the shared camaraderie they felt when their eyes caught let Moody know that Malfoy was no threat.

The ropes falling off Malfoy as the blond stood was enough to alert the flustered Order members that something aside from going after Ginny was amiss.

“You are all fools,” Malfoy snapped. “You have wards around your house; I have wards around mine. The difference is, my wards only allow family to cross. None of you idiots would ever make it through.” He looked around for a moment as everyone gaped at him. “Except Nymphadora,” he added. “She’s blood related to Narcissa.”

“Wait,” Moody said, worried at this suddenly revelation. “Anyone blood related can cross?”

“Yes,” Malfoy snapped. “Which means I just need an assurance that I won’t be killed on sight when I try to bring Draco and Ginny to St. Mungo’s before I go and get them.”

“Bellatrix Lestrange can get through your wards?” Moody asked dangerously. “Because if she can, she’ll be intent on killing the spies who allowed her master to be killed.”

Malfoy went white and looked pleadingly at Moody. Moody dangled his wand in his fingers and didn’t try to stop the frightened father when Lucius snatched away the wand and vanished with a pop.

Finding Color
Part Eight
By Mell8

---------------------


Draco woke slowly and opened his eyes. He felt his eyelids and lashes brush against some sort of bandage, but he knew that the soft gauze didn’t cause the blackness he saw.

He remembered Voldemort and the spell appearing out of thin air. He remembered Ginny screaming at him, and he vaguely remembered magic pouring into his body as Ginny cried tears over his bleeding eyes.

Ginny’s hand tightened in his, but Draco could tell it was only a reaction from something in her sleep. He could feel her exhaustion beating on the link between them, a link built of Ginny’s magic and his, created when she tried to heal him.

Ginny had expended all her magic on trying to heal him. He could breathe through his nose, so somehow she had managed to reconstruct the sliced flesh, cartilage, and bone destroyed when the upper part of his nose was blasted away. He had eyelids and eyelashes to blink with and he could feel his eyeballs moving inside eye sockets, so Ginny had reconstructed all of the mangled flesh ruined by Voldemort’s cruel spell.

But Ginny couldn’t see, so how could she give someone back something she herself didn’t have?

Draco felt that the loss of his sight was a small price to pay to be able to be at Ginny’s side, alive, right now. Besides, Ginny had lost her sight and she had gotten so much power in return.

The adage that losing one sense made all the others stronger was clearly true, and Draco could feel his magical sense growing as he fought to see.

Ginny had showed him how she saw the world that one day in his study. Draco had known then that he could do that sort of magic himself, if he had to. Now he had no choice; his magic was flowing outside of his body at its own behest.

Slowly a picture of the room appeared. It was colorless and almost formless, but magic took up the shape of whatever it resided in, so it wasn’t long before he could distinguish a chair from a desk or Ginny’s body from the bedspread she was tucked under.

When the door opened he was prepared.

*******
“Hello, Draco,” Bellatrix hissed. “Or should I say traitor?”

“Hello, Aunt Bella,” Draco said as he turned his bandaged head towards his Aunt.

“You destroyed everything!” she snarled. “Don’t call me family ever again.”

He saw her wand as she raised it to point right at him. He saw her magic swirling inside her body in a mixture of rage and insanity. Draco saw everything his Aunt was just by looking at her magic, and was glad he had made the decision to join Ginny’s spying.

His Aunt’s madness was partly related to her time in Azkaban, but most of it was caused by all of her time spent in the company of the maddest wizard of them all: Lord Voldemort. Draco could have become like her, crazy, angry, and vengeful, with no thought in his head beyond serving the one who owned him. He was glad he had escaped that horrible fate; a fate that had been waiting for him all his life until one little blind girl spoke to him.

Ginny had saved him from all that, but nothing would save Bellatrix now. He could see her intent to destroy Ginny first, and Draco would not allow that.

Draco concentrated on her wand. The magic inside of it was dark and hateful because of all the horrible curses it had been forced to create. Draco gathered up that magic and forced it to change into cleansing fire.

Bella shrieked as her wand erupted into black flames that coldly ate up the wood of the wand and then continued to eat up the hand that was holding the wand. Black fire crawled up Bella’s arm, to her shoulder, and then began moving down her torso to her equally black heart.

Once the darkness was destroyed, Draco saw a flash of light as the cleaned magic left to become something wonderful.


****************
Lucius Malfoy entered his son’s room just as the fire encompassing his wife’s sister killed her. Draco was sitting up in bed, looking at the burned husk that had been his Aunt with eyes that couldn’t see.

“Draco?” Lucius asked.

“She was going to hurt Ginny,” Draco whispered, as tears gathered in his eyes and began to wet the gauze covering his face. “I’ve never killed anyone before,” Draco added, when his father didn’t say anything.

“You cleaned up the magic,” Ginny’s soft voice said from where she was lying at his side. “Fire kills, but it also cleans and renews. Her magic can go to someone else who needs it now, rather than continuing to create something awful.” Ginny slowly sat up and Draco felt her open her eyes. “You didn’t kill her, you saved her.”

Draco felt her hands at his head as she slowly began to unwind the bandage covering his eyes.

Draco didn’t know why he felt expectant, but as one loop of gauze came off and the blackness didn’t move he felt his heart drop.

The second loop of bandage coming off made his eyes twitch in his head, as if they should be seeing something, but weren’t, and were confused by the mixed signals.

The third and last loop came off and Ginny’s hands gently covered his eyes.

“Draco, look at me,” she said softly.

“I can’t, Ginny,” he whispered. “You tried, but nothing can give me my sight back.”

“How about a kiss? Would that work?” she said cheekily.

He grumbled at her. “This isn’t a fairy tale.”

“Trust me,” Ginny giggled. She bent forward and touched her lips to his in a chaste kiss that was made all the more sweet by the fact that Draco was supposed to be dead right now.

He expected to feel her magic coursing into him at the contact, but Ginny was still drained and exhausted. All she sent down their newly established link was her love.

Her hands slowly moved from his eyes, caressing down his cheeks and neck until she left them resting comfortably on his shoulders.

Draco opened his eyes and the first color he saw was red.


Red: the brilliant, wonderful, lovely color of her hair.


Draco decided right then that he loved the color red.

They pulled away and Draco studied Ginny just as she studied him. Her eyes were the same milky shade of white with the black pupil in the center that appeared whenever she was around him. Her skin was still magically bleached white too. But her hair was back to its vibrant red shade that he detested in her brothers but loved so much on her. All the magical bleach had been wiped out when she drained her magic to heal him.

She was beautiful and she was his.


************
Ginny studied Draco too. He didn’t look any different from her memories, his hair was still pale blond, his skin still pale peach, but she hesitated to look at his eyes for fear of what she would see.

She found the courage somewhere and looked up at his eyes where a great big, bleeding red slash had been the last time she was able to see.

There was no scar and no disfigurement. His flesh was healed. It was his eyes, though, that made Ginny gasp in wonder.

Before this disaster his eyes had been a deep blue-gray sort of color, but all that was gone now. Her attempt to restore his eyes had failed in such a way that the silvery color of his eyes had taken over even the white until all that was left were two mercury pools gently looking at her.

“I guess this is a fairy tale,” Draco said softly as his hand moved to caress her red hair.

A pop behind them signaled that Lucius had left and the lack of a burnt smell let them know that he had taken Bellatrix’s remains with him.

Draco and Ginny hardly noticed as they stared at each other in wonder.

Draco slowly bent forward and captured her lips even as Ginny’s body molded itself to his. Their eyes closed, because sight is superfluous when all that is needed is touch.


III


Lucius Malfoy reappeared at the Burrow barely five minutes after he left. Moody was still getting yelled at for letting Malfoy get away with his wand, the Weasleys were still panicking, and there were still people running about as if they were chickens with their heads cut off.

Lucius couldn’t help wondering just how a group of such idiots had managed to plan such a strong offensive that they defeated Voldemort in his own Headquarters.

“He’s back!” one of the Weasley creatures yelled.

Suddenly it was silent as everyone turned to focus on the invader in their midst.

Lucius walked up to Moody and handed him the wand that was levitating what was left of Bellatrix Lestrange.

“Autopsy will say that her magic decided to burn her alive,” Lucius said loudly enough for everyone to hear.

“Oh?” Moody said sardonically. “Her magic just decided to erupt and start burning?”

“She was like that when I got there,” Lucius shrugged.

“But what about Ginny?” Molly snapped. “You said she was dying.”

“I may have overreacted…” Lucius mumbled. “It’s a father’s right to overreact when his children are in danger,” he added to justify himself. He hated the fact that Arthur Weasley smiled at this comment.

“So Ginny’s alright then?” Arthur asked with a small, questioning smile on his face as he moved to calm his wife with a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“Yes,” Lucius answered. “I’m sure they’ll be along…” he grimaced as he thought of the scene he had just left and of how much Narcissa was going to yell when she found out “…eventually,” he finished.

“So,” Moody called when it looked like Molly was about to start yelling again. “We have to decide what our next move is.”

“What do you mean?” Lupin asked. “We’ve killed Voldemort and the Ministry is busy being fixed now that Shacklebolt’s interim Minister. What’s left to do?”

“Well, what do we do with Malfoy, for starters?” Moody said, as he gestured towards Lucius. “He brought us Bellatrix Lestrange and he says that he saved Ginny and kept her safe throughout the war.”

“I also helped her spy,” Lucius added. “Most of the information you have is from me.”

“He’s still a Death Eater,” Fred grumbled.

“And he still killed people,” George echoed.

“I say we keep him here until his story can be proven,” Lupin said slowly. “If he’s the main source of our information, then he’s the reason we won the war. I don’t think it would be right of us to condemn a man for doing a good deed.”

“Like the Ministry did with Sirius,” Harry added, although he couldn’t believe he was sticking up for a Malfoy.

“So we wait for Ginny before we decide if we’re going to toss him in jail with his wife?” Moody asked.

Lucius watched as a democratic vote went around the Order members who were in the yard and smiled. This is what had been missing with Voldemort: sanity and organization. Lucius thought he might like this new world the Order was going to create… at least, he would like it, if it included him living and not being behind bars for the rest of his life.

“Agreed,” Moody said. “We wait for Ginny.” Moody herded them towards the house and watched as Molly immediately went to her kitchen to start tea and cookies.

Lucius was brought to the shabby sitting room and given an armchair to himself. Moody took another armchair while Lupin and two Weasleys took the couch.

“My wife wasn’t a Death Eater,” Lucius said to Moody. “She just made a mistake.”

“She’s an interesting case,” Moody said. “I won’t talk about it until we hear from Ginny.”

“Well, I guess it’s good that we’re here then,” Ginny’s voice said as she and Draco slowly materialized, hand in hand, in the middle of the sitting room.

Just as Moody had guessed, the wards didn’t go off. It was only when Bill yelled that the rest of the Order came running.

Finding Color
Part Nine
By Mell8

-------------------


“I love my son,” Narcissa Malfoy said from where she was sitting in the middle of the courtroom in front of the Wizengamot. The chains on her chair had bound her in place, but they hadn’t bound her tightly.

She was there on charges of aiding the Death Eaters and You-Know-Who in hurting and killing so many innocents.

“I love my son,” she reiterated. “Your Ministry and your Order of the Phoenix would have taken him and thrown him to the wolves if I had gone to you for help getting him away from that shameless hussy. I did what I had to do to save my son from ruining his life.”

“So you went to Lord Voldemort for aid by trading information about the Order’s spy for your son’s safety?” the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot asked with an incredulous look. “If Voldemort was someone who you expected to provide safety, then you deserved watching your son be blinded,” he laughed coldly.

“At least now she’ll stay away from my son,” Narcissa said haughtily. “Two blind people cannot coexist.”

“They’re still together,” Lucius said with a shake of his head. He was standing next to his wife and was the only one present in the courtroom willing to defend her. His defense was that the only time she had ever been in the presence of the Dark Lord was when she was betraying Ginny.

“And that’s why my son isn’t here, defending me,” Narcissa snarled. “He’s off learning plebeian ways and means in order to lick her shoes just the way that bitch wants.”

“Actually,” Arthur Weasley stood from his newly appointed seat on the Wizengamot. “Ginny and your son, Draco, are still in St. Mungo’s. We won’t allow them to be released until whatever caused their sight loss is fixed.”

Narcissa laughed. “You are all fools! Your daughter came to us already blinded. She has been blind for years!”

“We would have noticed something horrible like that happening to her!” Molly Weasley cried from her place in the spectators’ stands. “We know you did something to her.”

“We did nothing,” Narcissa snapped. “You didn’t notice because you were worried about other things. You have six sons and all of them are hooligans. Why would you have the time or energy to check out every little injury she had, especially since this one doesn’t effect her daily life at all?” Narcissa looked pained for a minute before she continued. “I was too busy worrying about my husband and whether the Dark Lord would destroy my family to ever notice that my son was busy with your horrible daughter.”

“I love my daughter,” Molly snarled. “I would have noticed.”

“I love my son!” Narcissa hissed. She would have stood if the chains hadn’t barred her way. “I love my son and I didn’t notice until it was too late.”

“Ginny will be healed,” Molly said desperately.

“She sees better with her eyes closed than she does with them open,” Lucius interjected. “She doesn’t need healing.”

“They can’t heal something I’ve had since birth, Mum,” Ginny added as she slowly materialized on the floor of the Wizengamot. “I’m not going back to the hospital.”

“Miss Weasley!” the Chief Warlock snapped as he finally did his job and tried to get order in the courtroom. “You do not have the authorization to be here!”

“I am the reason there is even a court left at all,” Ginny snapped and turned her blind white eyes to look at the Warlock. “You will let me say my piece.”

The Warlock gulped when he saw her eyes and nodded.

Ginny closed her eyes and turned her head to look at Narcissa. “Narcissa Malfoy has never killed anyone. She’s never tortured for fun or reveled in someone else’s death. She has never carried the Dark Mark and has never sworn allegiance to a Dark being. Her only mistake in life is loving her son and trying to control him so that the only woman he would ever love would be her. His wife would come in second to his mother, as would any female friends and lovers. I ruined this dream for her by causing Draco to fall in love with me, so she ruined her life by trying to remove me in the only way she knew how.”

Ginny opened her eyes and looked at the Chief Warlock. “I say publicly reprimand her. Give her a monetary fine and a certain time period of community service helping those whose homes and lives were destroyed by the war and by the Dark Lord who she believed would save her son’s love for his mother.”

“You have only circumstantial evidence pointing to her guilt as a Death Eater and you have a well respected member of our community,” Lucius gestured to Ginny, “who testifies of her innocence. I agree with her proposed sentence.”

The Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot nodded his head slowly. “Very well. We will reconvene in half an hour for sentencing. The Wizengamot will deliberate and return with a verdict.”

As the Wizengamot filed out Ginny smiled to Lucius before leaving the courtroom herself. She walked to the waiting area where her family was waiting. The hallway that led to where she was going was filled with twists and turns as it wound past other courtrooms.

Ginny navigated the hallway as perfectly as if she had working eyes, and was pleased to see that Charlie and Bill, who had been sent by Molly to guide their poor blind sister because she couldn’t see any more, followed along behind her. First they followed with their hands carefully out so they could rush forward if she began to run into anything. Then they followed in disbelief because not only did Ginny never head towards the walls, but she also turned the corner without needing to be told.

She was blind; Bill and Charlie knew that because the doctor had confirmed it. But the way she walked so unerringly towards wherever she was going convinced both of her brothers that, even if her eyes weren’t working, she still had some semblance of sight.

Ginny’s hand unerringly reached for the doorknob and she pulled open the door and walked into the waiting room.
Ginny walked directly up to her mother before the older woman could say anything and sighed.

“Mum, you need to stop,” Ginny said softly. “I know you’re only trying to take care of me, but micromanaging my life just because you think I’m helpless is getting very annoying.”

“You’re blind!” Molly gasped. “You need my help, poor baby.”

“This is why I didn’t tell you sooner,” Ginny snapped. “My fifth year in school is when I lost my sight. Almost two years ago,” Ginny explained. “And I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to be wrapped up in padding and put into a padded room where nothing could hurt me. I am fine on my own.”

Ginny sat down in midair and used her magic to make a chair materialize underneath her.

“How did you do that?” McGonagall asked.

“Compared to me, you lot are blind,” Ginny explained as the chair grew and became a couch. Draco walked into the room a second later and joined Ginny.

“Everything has magic inside of it. Wizards and witches have the ability to manipulate the magic inside of us, which is what sets us apart from Muggles,” Ginny explained as McGonagall’s old, wrinkled face came into focus.

“Yes, I know that,” McGonagall said impatiently. “That’s basic magical theory.”

“Normal wizards and witches use a wand for magic. The wand is able to connect to the magic inside the witch or wizard and expel it outward. The intent to which that expelled magic is focused on connects with the magic of another being.” Ginny pointed to the chair across the room. “You could use your wand to change that chair into a desk.

“I can see the magic in everything when my eyes are closed,” Ginny finished. “Since I can see the magic inside myself, I don’t need a wand to connect with it. I touch my magic and use it to influence the magic of another being.” She waved her hand dramatically and the chair became a desk.

“You could do anything with that,” McGonagall gasped. “Unlimited power!”

“I’m not a god,” Ginny laughed. “I have a limited amount of magic inside of me and it is still the intent to which I put that magic that influences things around me. What you can do with a wand, I can do without, but what you can’t do with a wand, I can’t do either. I can’t bring the dead back to life or cure blindness,” She gripped Draco’s hand as she said the last.

Draco bent over and kissed the top of her head gently. He stood and held a hand out to Ginny.

“The Wizengamot is reconvening,” he said to everyone in the room. He and Ginny led the way back down the twisting hallway to the courtroom.

Draco and Ginny went to Narcissa’s side as the Wizengamot filed back into their seats. Draco bent down and kissed his mother’s cheek and nodded politely to his father.
The Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot stood and cleared his throat. He held a scroll in his hands that no doubt had Narcissa’s sentence on it, but he didn’t unroll it just yet.

“Mr. Draco Malfoy,” he said coldly. “I could have you debarred from this hearing entirely for entering so late. Please move to a seat with the rest of the spectators.”

“I’m family,” Draco snapped. “I have every right to be here.”

“You should have been here at the start of the trial!” the Chief Warlock snapped. “Remove yourself from this courtroom or I will have you removed.”

Draco sighed, annoyed. “Just because the goblins in Gringotts take forever is no reason to keep me from my mother’s trial,” Draco hissed.

“What does that have to do with anything? Leave, now!” the Warlock snarled.

Narcissa Malfoy gasped and whimpered. “No, I won’t allow it!” she yelled.

“You are the accused and have no say in this courtroom!” the Warlock yelled back, spittle flying from his mouth as his anger escalated.

“You are not marrying her, Draco!” Narcissa continued, ignoring the Chief Warlock. “You are not allowed to marry her!”

“Marriage?” Molly Weasley snapped as she stood in her seat in the stands. “My Ginny marrying a Malfoy? Impossible!”

“They’re engaged you stupid woman!” Narcissa snapped at Molly. “I tried to stop them and that’s why I’m here right now!”

“Ginny having a short relationship with your son, I can allow. But you are not to marry him, Ginny! We’ll talk about this when you return to the hospital!”

“Damn it,” Ginny sighed. She looked at Draco who was grimacing for letting the cat out of the bag. He didn’t know how his mother had known that him going to Gringotts meant he had gotten the family ring that was now in his pocket out of the vault. He shrugged helplessly to Ginny and hoped that after all this insanity was over she would still accept the ring.

The two mothers continued to bicker, although if they ever stopped to listen to themselves, they might have realized they were on the same side of the argument: completely against the marriage of their children.

“That’s enough!” the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot screamed. “Silence!”

Narcissa and Molly sniffed coldly at each other before turning and glaring at the Chief Warlock.

Once there was silence the Warlock continued. “Well,” he snapped. “Since it seems that the impending marriage between Draco Malfoy and Ginevra Weasley is the focus of the issue here, let me alleviate your problems.”

He turned to where Draco and Ginny were standing together, hand in hand, and gave them both a hard look.

“Draco Malfoy, are you willing to marry this girl?”

“Yes,” Draco answered convincingly. He wasn’t sure where this conversation was going, but he did know that he loved Ginny.

“Wonderful,” the Warlock snapped. “Ginevra Weasley, are you willing to marry this boy?”

“Yes,” Ginny replied with the same amount of conviction as Draco.

“Then, in front of all these witnesses and with the power invested in me as the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, I now pronounce you husband and wife. Kiss so we can get on with the trial.”

Molly Weasley fainted and Narcissa Malfoy savagely bruised herself trying to break free of her chains to attack someone, either Ginny or the Chief Warlock, no one was sure, and had to be sedated.

But none of that mattered because Ginevra Molly Malfoy nee Weasley was in her husband’s arms getting the best snog of her life.

Finding Color

Epilogue

By Mell8

---------------------

Narcissa Malfoy Apparated home with a tired sigh. She had just finished a long day at work and was very glad to be home. She handed her cloak to the waiting House Elf and headed to the nearest sitting room to have a cup of tea and to wait for her pride and joy to come say good night to her before his bedtime.

Five years ago, Narcissa had started working in the form of community service. She had no choice, the courts would have jailed her if she failed to comply, and she knew, even before she stepped into the battle strewn neighborhood on her first day, that she would hate it.

Only, she hadn’t hated it nearly as much as she thought.

For two years Narcissa had worked in various neighborhoods hit by Voldemort’s wrath. In the very beginning the best-case scenario was when she was just helping a family rebuild their destroyed home. The worst-case scenario was always when she was helping to locate the dead body of someone’s loved one.

She also gave a hand in the hospital, helping those cursed by the Death Eaters to recover enough that they could live without the need for constant aid. Sometimes she was even the shoulder that was cried on when someone died.

She learned that she didn’t hate community service and decided to continue when her court mandated time limit elapsed. It wasn’t because she finally felt she was doing something good for the community. Nor was it because she felt she needed to lend a hand to those in need. She was doing this for purely selfish reasons.

The most recent Witch Weekly cover article had been about Narcissa. When she was interviewed and asked why she did so much for the war torn community, she had answered the truth.

“I aided the Dark Lord because of love, but it was a misplaced love. Now I give aid to the community because of love. And this time I will not make the same mistake.”

Because she had seen some horrible things as she helped people ravaged by the war. Homes destroyed, family killed or permanently injured, and much, much worse, and then she would return home to her family and wonder what sort of pain they had to endure.

Her home was still intact, as was the Malfoy fortune. Her husband and son were still alive. Draco had been injured, but being blind wasn’t a hindrance to him. There were hardly any visible signs in the Malfoy household of the pain caused by Voldemort, which meant that the devastation and destruction must all be internal. Her son and her husband, and yes, even her daughter-in-law, must have some of the worst internal injuries Narcissa had ever seen. She hoped that maybe, just maybe, by helping other families get back on their feet, she could heal her own family. So she worked every day.

The sound of small feet in the hall outside perked Narcissa up from her dark musings. A small four-year-old boy dashed into the room and climbed into her lap.

“Hi Grandmother,” he said with a bright smile.

“Hello,” she replied as she gave him a hug. “How was your day?”

He perked up immediately at the question. “Well, first me and Mommy went to play Quidditch,” Narcissa winced at the poor grammar but let her grandson continue, “and then Daddy came to get us for lunch…”

He continued on, going into excruciating detail about his day. Narcissa held him in her lap, content to stroke his strawberry blond curls and listen to his high-pitched child’s voice.

His mother was just as boisterous, with a strength that had enticed Draco and was mirrored in her son. Ginevra had gone on to play professional Quidditch after the war, much to her own mother’s horror, and, despite any limitations she might have from her blindness, had quickly become a star on a broom.

Draco’s nose peeked out from under the fringe of hair that covered her grandson’s eyes and Abraxas’s chin jutted out stubbornly as the story of running off to play with the kittens in the pet shop was unfurled.

“…and then I came to see you!” he finished with a flourish. “Can you read me a story now?”

Narcissa laughed. “Of course. Did you bring a book?”

He hopped down off her lap to reach for something on the ground. The book chosen was about dragons and Narcissa sighed when she realized that she would have to read it…again.

Her grandson carefully put his fingers on the line of raised dots just under where the actual words were located on the page and moved his hand along as she read. Ginny had used a quill to poke the Braille into the picture book so her son could enjoy dragons just as much as her older brother had.

Such things were necessary, because the boy was as blind as his parents. His eyes were milky white and they glowed with the magic he used to allow him to get around normally. He was a wonderful child, but he had never seen color and had never seen a written word. Narcissa held him closer at those thoughts and wistfully hoped for the best.

They finished the book together and cuddled on the couch for a little longer before Draco or Ginny would come to find their son for a bath and bed.

“Grandmother?” he asked softly. “Do you think I’ll ever see what a dragon looks like?”

“We can go to a dragon reserve,” Narcissa said immediately, surprised that his thoughts were so closely mirrored to her own.

“No. I want to see a dragon. Mommy says I will some day; that I just have to find the person who will give me my color.”

Narcissa sighed and rested her head on her grandson’s, thinking of Draco and Ginny desperately holding hands in the courtroom five years ago. “It will be okay,” Narcissa replied softly. “Everyone finds their color someday. You will too.”