Chapter 8 The Battle of the Dragon
Days passed uncounted and she tried her best to make them unremembered also, but the nasty things we witness have a way of haunting us for much longer than we expect. She stopped feeling followed, she stopped receiving “presents” from her mysterious Wizarding benefactor, and when she went to see Blaise and Theo one night she found their little cottage empty.
“Please…” Ginny whispered turning the house upside down and searching even in the drawers as if they would be hiding in one of them, “…please.”
In the end, after finding no sign of them she dropped to the ground beside the small table that their small model was settled on. “Theo,” she whispered, “Blaise…friend…”
Suddenly she found herself looking through the model as if into a memory. Three boys were sitting around the sickbed of a small wizard she recognized as her old charms professor, Flitwick. The room was grey and oppressive, she recognized the house.
Suddenly one of them got up and began to pace the room nervously, unblocking her view of the other two boys’ faces and giving her a better view of his profile.
Blaise was sitting on the chair on the opposite side of the bed and leaning over the sick man, muttering a healing spell with his eyes closed. It took her a long while to recognize the other boy, who was leaning with head close so he could observe the incantation, as Neville. He was so much thinner than before and had a haunted look about him. He had undoubtedly been doing his own share of fighting and suffering since the last time they’d met.
The third boy was, of course, Theo.
But what were they doing in the Black House…together? She was sure her two new friends could not have given up on their morals so easily, and of course – their pride.
“We need time, Longbottom,” Theo said finally, “He’s very gravely injured and we’re not exactly experts, there’s a reason he couldn’t be moved from this bed when your people moved out.”
“There’s also a reason professor Lupin spent so much time trying to get to you two,” Neville replied, “And I did warn you that your people might show up while you were here, that’s why the Order had to clear out in the first place.”
Theo hissed and turned away.
After a few seconds Blaise looked up and pulled his wand away from the injured man’s body tenderly. He tucked it into his pocket and stood up, pulling Neville with him and getting as far away from the bed as possible.
“Don’t you ever call them my people again, Longbottom, or it’ll be your arse I’ll be forced to kill.”
Neville looked terrified, but he had the sense to nod in agreement and Blaise finally let him go.
“You know,” Theo said, “There’s someone else out there I would rather be doing this for.”
“But professor Flitwick is the one dying,” Neville said, “And you’re not fighting unless the Death Eaters show up.”
“Which they will,” Blaise was always the more optimistic of the two, of course, “We’re not stupid, Gryffindor, we know this was part of some plan hatched by the only clever person in your group in order to confuse and defeat the Death Eaters. I’m doing it because that man’s life, and doing what I can to help him, mean more to me than they do to your precious Potter and-”
“Will you just shut up about Harry, please,” Neville said, “It’s not all about Harry you know.”
“The smartest thing you’ve said all day.”
Theo’s gaze suddenly connected with Ginny’s and she was shaken out of her vision - or whatever it was. She wondered if he had actually seen her or noticed her watching. Ginny smiled. The boys had finally been coaxed out of their hiding place. She just wondered how Neville and Professor Lupin had found them. Poking at the model with her wand did not help, but it was clear that Theo and Blaise had meant for her to know where they were going and a written note would have been too obvious and too dangerous. Only Ginny would pay attention to the small model from among all the other things in this house, Death Eaters certainly wouldn’t. It was a very clever way for them to communicate with her.
A small smile played on her face as she walked through the Muggle streets and for some strange reason the world seemed almost lighter. She dropped by Jill’s and ordered something to eat and then took some soup and bread to old Mrs. Brown’s because she knew no one else would remember to. The poor old woman had lost her entire family and she had a very hard time moving about, getting the things she needed. She also had a hard time finding any sort of cheer in life anymore.
Armed with her new knowledge that Blaise and Nott’s abilities were being put to good use helping someone and that maybe their dream of building that Healer Academy would come true quite soon, she thought she could handle an hour of trying to bring some hope to the old woman’s depressing home.
She was on the doorstep when three men accosted her roughly and, with three wands pointed at her throat, forced her into a tiny alleyway nearby. She noticed that one of them picked up her piece of bread when it fell on the floor and that gave her a small desperate hope.
They did not speak for a long time and one of them began to pace the alleyway. Watching him was making her dizzy.
Finally, after an agonizingly long time, he turned back to her and his features began to transform. This was something Ginny had become quite used to over the weeks since she’d done it herself in front of a mirror so often, so she just watched slowly as he turned into…Fred Weasley.
She yelled angrily and shoved the other two, who still had their wands to her neck, away.
“What’s the matter, little sister?” George said in a light airy tone as if he hadn’t just been holding a wand to her neck. Ginny studied her hands and pulled a lock of hair in front of her face so she could study it. It was still decidedly brown. But of course, the third man was Charlie so he must have spilled her secret. She glowered at him.
“Didn’t recognize us in our disguises?” Fred added.
“We were so enjoying it,” George said, his acting quite shoddy in his anger, “Thought it was very entertaining to watch everyone else miss us and suffer on our behalf. Didn’t even bother to drop by and tell our brothers a quick hello after we’d proved our complicated point.”
Charlie looked helpless, but she wasn’t about to forgive him - not that easily.
“How could you?” she yelled, “How could you tell them after you’d promised?”
“Tell us?” Fred laughed, “No, he didn’t tell us. Didn’t own up until he realized the final battle was going on at Hogwarts and he thought you should be there…the kind brother that he is.”
Ginny’s heart skipped a beat. The final battle - Tom - at Hogwarts? Could this war really be coming to an end?
George shoved a letter in her face and she sat down to read it. “We weren’t about to be fooled by fake writing again,” he explained as she tried to puzzle her way through the complex battle plans that were in a very bad imitation of her handwriting. They even had her signature on them.
“And we didn’t think even you would be stupid enough to get yourself in with Death Eaters until Remus decided he actually wanted to test it and invited that pretty-boy Zabini and the other stringy one into the castle.” Fred said.
Something about this wasn’t right. There was no one except her and the two boys who knew this much information about their whereabouts and their plans and they would certainly never send it in a letter to Remus. So who had sold them out and what was the point of this fake letter, addressed in her writing?
“Much to our chagrin,” George continued, “It seems that this person wasn’t lying about the Slytherins and they looked thoroughly put out by the whole affair and demanded to see the letter, which is when Charlie took them aside for a little chat. Naturally, we listened in on the heart to heart.”
“And…” Ginny gulped nervously. If her brothers didn’t kill her Theo and Blaise surely would.
“And nothing. They denied having ever met you and even said they were prepared to witness that they’d seen you get killed by Greyback that night. Even tried to mollify Charlie with stories about how bravely you’d fought and some other such nonsense. But our dearest most honest brother here told them to drop the act because he already knew you were as alive as they were even though all three of your bodies had been found.”
“And then you two came barging in and almost killed them before we could get anything out of them!” Charlie was clearly very annoyed now, and he seemed to be in a hurry too, looking around every few seconds. “Let’s just go back before the stupid battle starts-”
“No,” George said, “Not until we hear her confirm that those two worthless…”
“Don’t insult them!” Ginny finally snapped, “I wouldn’t have run away and deceived you all if you’d just let me fight in the first place, but you didn’t and I couldn’t let you know later on because Tom was after me to get at Harry, that’s why they attacked the house in the first place. Blaise and Theo helped me escape; they saved my life and taught me advanced spells to fight with.”
“And to hide your identity.”
“I didn’t write this bloody letter, either, so we’d better get back to Hogwarts and find out who it was. We’ll have this little heart to heart after the battle.”
“If there is a final-”
“Oh, there will be one,” Ginny said, her excitement mounting by the second, “I have a feeling I know who did this.”
“Who?” Fred demanded putting a heavy hand on her shoulder to stop her from leaving.
“The same person who sent a bagful of gold to an orphanage and a feast out to Jill’s that night and-”
“Who’s Jill?” George demanded.
“Later!” she shrugged him off and pulled out her own wand, taking a deep breath.
Charlie grabbed her hand, “Wait, don’t Apparate just anywhere, the battle might have already started; we wasted too much time finding you and even more time arguing.”
All three of her brothers closed their eyes and, after a few seconds of that horrible drowning sensation, in which she told herself she needed to find a better means of transportation, they fell to the ground in Madam Rosmerta’s back room.
No one was in and loud crashing and banging could be heard from outside. “Well,” George said, suddenly turning and eyeing her quite seriously - but as a brother not the bitter young man of a few moments before, “Show us what you can do, little sister.”
Ginny grinned.
The battle passed in a haze for Ginny. She wasn’t really as aware of what went on around her as she should be. She realized vaguely, that she wasn’t even all that interested in facing Tom and getting some sort of revenge. She just let the battle engulf her and she studied and admired every little detail of this orchestrated clash as if it was a pleasant chess game with one of her brothers on a sunny summer afternoon.
She kept getting glimpses of a tall, thrillingly familiar person she couldn’t recognize. He was heavily cloaked in fine robes and he was fierce in battle. She also noticed, once or twice that he would suddenly stop and look around, as if assessing the damage and making sure that everything was alright.
He wasn’t from the order; that much was for sure, and strangely enough, although he was clearly fighting on the side of the order and Hogwarts, more than one person, including Seamus, Dean, and Hermione lunged at him screaming curses before they were distracted by a spell shooting their way or restrained by someone else.
What was even more curious was that at one point during the battle she glimpsed this mysterious man’s unmistakable profile beside Ron, deep in conversation, before Ron limped back inside the castle. She cringed. Things had changed so much in the few weeks she had been gone. Hermione try to kill someone on their side and Ron, being quite calm. Ron limping.
She took down two Death Eaters with one particularly powerful stunner when she saw that he was close by, almost close enough to make out a profile, but as soon as she was free of the two he had disappeared in another direction and she pulled herself back to reality. If she didn’t live through this battle she would never get to see the intriguing, mysterious wizard that had been following her around in the Muggle World for quite some time and, she was sure, was responsible for orchestrating this entire battle and sending the forged letter to professor Lupin.
It was a slow battle, the few glimpses of him she caught etched into her memory – agonizingly slow. It was also fast in that everything between those moments seemed to go by extremely quickly and she couldn’t bring herself to pay much attention to it all.
Finally, after a series of painful injuries and when it seemed to Ginny that the whole world had gone red with the blood she found herself face to face with him. An agonizing shriek filled the air and she had a vague feeling she should be doing something about it, but she could not tear her eyes away from him. They stood there for a few moments, taking each other in calmly.
She felt strangely at peace with the revelation of his identity although she knew that only a week or two earlier she might not have been so calm about it. Suddenly she realized that, unbelievably, the sun was actually coming up!
His features were thrown into the light and he seemed to be shrinking away from it, shrinking back into himself self-consciously. She wondered how someone previously so hated could suddenly be so beautiful to her. Ginny smiled at him.
He blushed and they stepped closer to each other simultaneously. He reached out a hand for her wounds, but she couldn’t help interrupting it with her own and suddenly he threw his arms around her and drew her into him and they collapsed on the battlefield. It was all agonizingly painful, but Ginny had never felt quite so happy in her life.
He smelled nice; she noticed and allowed him to tighten his hold on her, waiting for him to say something. It appeared that he was unable to do this, but a Wizard did not have only one form of communication. She suddenly found her vision blurring as if she was falling into a dream – and maybe that was what it was – and a beautiful little house came into her line of view. Her disembodied vision seemed to be moving closer to the house and she noticed there was a little stream running in the backyard and a wood nearby.
The door seemed to vanish and she had a vague look inside, noticing the little kitchen table and a piece of paper sitting on it that had her name written on it next to his.
There was a study-room of some sort and it had a door that seemed to lead outside. The door began to open slowly of its own accord and she was sure that it was just his imagination causing it to open. Suddenly, she could see to the other side. A beautiful mountainous landscape with snow-capped peaks and much activity that didn’t make too much sense. Fires and shouting and… a dragon!
There was only one, flying overhead, and it looked startlingly similar to the Hungarian Horntail that had attacked Harry in the Triwizard Tournament. Actually, she could feel a very distinct childish pleasure coming through the vision and she almost glimpsed the flash of a broom…
Ginny laughed and broke the vision. “Does that door really open to Romania?”
“No,” Draco said, “But we can make it.”
She smiled and noticed that someone was tending to her wounds now.
“Unless of course, you prefer to work at some boring Ministry Office or something…”
“No, no,” Ginny whispered tiredly, “Romania’s lovely. I’m just about ready to settle down to a life of adventure.”
