Chapter Two – Findings in the Snow
Finally, Ginny fell to her knees and found herself staring at a large silly-looking snowman that was wearing one of Percy’s school hats. It was Percy’s, of course; they only ever used Percy’s.
Although she had just Apparated for the second time in her life and the feeling was horribly painful, she could not help feeling strangely happy. Her hand came up to her heart automatically. She pulled out her locket, the one Bill had given her after her first year, and opened it to pull out a miniscule piece of cloth. She picked up her fallen wand and un-shrunk the dirtied, bloodied piece of cloth.
Suddenly, she remembered that someone had grabbed her halfway through her apparition and that it was not supposed to be snowing. She jumped to her knees and looked around, but, aside from the fact that the season had suddenly changed there was nothing too noteworthy. Even Tom couldn’t change the seasons.
She walked closer to her landmark, the snowman, and tried to piece everything together. The letter must have been a fake. Not only was Dad’s handwriting horribly messy, she also knew for a fact that the attackers had waited until Fred, George and Charlie had left the house. They had come for her. But why?
She reached up with her hand and touched the shawl they had wrapped around the snowman. Well, maybe Harry was right, they had come after her to get at him. At least she got something out of that relationship. She shook her head; thinking about Harry made her feel horrible. He had used her for a little while, with absolutely no regard for her feelings or her abilities, and then just shoved her aside to “protect her”. But now she was free and she had to finish the job.
“Tom?” a small voice said from behind her. Someone was walking towards her slowly. She hid quickly behind a tree and watched.
“Am I going mad?” she did not recognize the voice, it was somehow familiar, but at the same time it was completely off. “You can’t get me,” the little redhead that emerged said, staring at the snowman as if she was addressing him, “I’ll never let myself be weak again; I’ll always have something better than you, Tom.”
Suddenly, it all came crashing down on Ginny. She was in the right place. This was the exact same spot she always came to when stealing away for a ride on her broom. And the shawl was her own, one that Mum had made for her after that first year and her encounter with Tom. She fought the fear that threatened to grip her. That shawl had burnt a long time ago, and although the little redhead’s voice was very strange and hard to place she knew exactly where she had seen those features before: she was looking at her twelve year old self.
Her crying twelve year old self.
She gulped and watched with horror, trying to remember that day. It was over Christmas and she had stomped out of the house after Ron made some stupid comment and about gits who didn’t have friends. She had come out here to wail and feel sorry for herself. Suddenly, Ginny understood how…pathetic she must have seemed to everyone around her.
“I have friends,” her younger self whispered, “I will have friends. Luna looks nice and she doesn’t ask stupid questions…”
Ginny closed her eyes at the rambling. Something important had happened that day too. She remembered walking back home feeling good. Something had happened, but she couldn’t really recall except for that broom ride-
She looked down and fingered the piece of cloth in her hand with the two letters she had tried so many times to place: T and N.
“Don’t mope,” a brusque voice that sent shivers up her spine cut in to younger Ginny’s rambling, “You were made to fight.”
A black robed figure stepped out of the shadows of the trees and walked towards the twelve-year old Ginny. He was tall and stringy and he had to stoop to bring his eyes level with those of the twelve year old girl. “You be strong and teach yourself to be a fighter, Ginny Weasley, everyone is tainted by darkness and evil but that is not what determines who we are.”
Just like in the memory he ripped off his robe sleeve to expose a Marked left forearm.
Ginny closed her eyes and leaned against the tree trunk for support. The footsteps, crunching through the snow, came closer and closer until a hand descended on her shoulder. “Let’s go, I think we have the small matter of a battle to attend to.”
She took a deep breath and opened her eyes to come face to face with Theodore Nott.
“Unless, of course, you remember something else that we need to do here…”
She laughed and looked up at the now flying figure that was her younger self. “No, that’s it, any idea how to get back?”
“Well,” Nott said slowly, “Since you’re the one that preformed the interesting bit of magic that brought us here, I was hoping you’d know how to get back. That was some pretty impressive magic, you’re the seventh Weasley child and the only girl in the family for generations, is that right?”
She watched him mutely as he nodded in answer to his own question, satisfied, as if that explained everything.
Ginny tried to remember everything she had done in that horrible failed attempt at Apparition. Well, not failed exactly, but it had gone completely wrong. Except that it was meant to happen, because this was definitely not the first time those twinkling eyes stared down at her. She groaned.
“What have I got myself into?” she said, “I was only trying to Apparate here, well here, but not now, I mean…I was trying to Apparate to this same clearing but definitely not in the past.”
Nott was trying to bite back a laugh and she couldn’t blame him. “Well, I think I can manage a good image of my destination and I definitely have the Determination to get back to my own time. We’re going back to the exact same place, and time, we Apparated from looking back at your house; do you think you could help me?”
She took his outstretched hand and nodded. All she had to do was concentrate on that fleeting image of the Death Eater hanging out the window and it would work. After all, two magicians were better than one and she had done it the first time around.
She fought the feeling of being drowned again, but this time Nott’s familiar scent, the same one she had smelled as a twelve year old and a few minutes ago when she was trying to Apparate, made her feel much more calm.
“What the hell was that, Theo?” a voice hissed almost before they landed. She fell to her knees and someone pulled her up.
“What are you talking about, Blaise?” Nott replied looking completely natural in the lie. “I don’t see anything wrong, except our dear friends trashing the Weasley house; we really should do something about that soon.”
Ginny glared at Zabini suspiciously as he shook his head. “You’ll tell me the whole thing later, let’s get this over with.”
“Mirroiri Corpus!” Zabini hissed pointing his wand at one of the Death Eaters circling the house. The man’s features began twisting and he scabbed at his face, clearly in pain. Zabini’s wand was still held before him, but he looked like he was about to empty his stomach.
“Sectumsempra!” Nott said from beside Ginny and the writhing man began to bleed. He finally dropped to the floor looking for all the world like Zabini. Only he was dead and she was sure Zabini was right beside her. Nott spoke the curse two more times and two other Death Eaters dropped to the ground, dead. He repeated Zabini’s incantation and soon one of the other corpses looked exactly like a dead version of him.
“Go on, Weasley,” Zabini hissed, “I didn’t come here for no reason, it’s not a very difficult spell and I’m not leaving here until I know I’ve left a present for my master.”
He spat the last word as if it was poison. Nott took her hand in his and showed her the wand movement and she repeated it staring at the last dead Death Eater. Soon, a dead body that looked very much like Ginny Weasley was lying on the ground under the kitchen window.
Zabini turned and began walking away, but Nott lingered, holding his hand out for her once more. “It’s time to let it all go, Ginny; your family is safe and will be much safer with you dead. And you’ll be safe and free to do whatever you want.”
“Leave it; she’s too scared to come with two runaway Death Eaters.” Zabini said still not turning back to face them.
Ginny spared one last look at the house. She wasn’t done here. She held up her wand and pointed it towards the only home she had ever known. Trying hard to envision Greyback inside so that this would be easier for her to do she muttered “Incendio.”
