Hannah waited until Malaika, the kind nurse that had been taking care of her, was safely out of the room before she tiptoed to the filing cabinet and began to rummage around for her file. She had to know who had brought her here. She had to find, and thank, that kind person that had not only saved her life, but had also made her feel safe and unafraid for the first time in months. His beautiful voice still echoed inside her head as he sang his otherworldly song. She had been near death, so her mind had not comprehended any of the words or their meanings, but she had understood one thing. He had been trying to make her feel safe.
Finally, the file was in her hands. She stared down at her unmoving photograph and the name beside it: Susan MacMillan. Hannah was not sure why she had lied to the Muggle healers, especially Malaika who had now grown to be a friend, but one thing she did know was that she had left behind her old life and everything in it and that she would not return.
“Susan, dear, what are you doing?” It took Hannah a while to realize that she was the one being addressed.
“Er…”
Malaika placed a gentle hand on her shoulder and guided her back to her bed. “What is it that you want to see?” she asked. “You can ask about anything in your file and we’ll explain it to you, but it’s not good practice for us to allow people to look at our scribbles. The medical terms tend to scare people into thinking they’ve got a more serious problem than they actually do.”
“I’m not looking for stuff about my condition,” Hannah gave in. “I already know that I almost died, and like I keep telling you I’m alright now… I just…I need to know who it was that saved me.”
“We don’t know much about him,” Malaika said understandingly, allowing Hannah to continue examining her file. “He just brought you in and made sure that you were being helped and then he took off - didn’t even leave a name.”
“What did he look like?” Hannah asked, looking up at the nurse.
“Tall, wide shouldered bloke. Blond, I think, but he never took off the cap he wore on his head… that’s really all I remember. It was so busy in the Emergency Room that day.”
Hannah nodded and looked helplessly back at the file. She started to close it, but then something caught her eye. “Hey!” she said, looking back up at Malaika. “This says I can go home right away if I want to!”
Malaika nodded almost reluctantly. “It also says that you should come back in for check-ups every other day and that you should be advised to stay here for another week.”
“Other people need this bed more than I do,” Hannah said firmly. “There are so many other people you can save here. I need to go.”
“Do you have a place to stay, Susan?” Malaika’s look was penetrating. She knew that Hannah had no family. She would have noticed that Hannah never asked about anyone or tried to contact anyone.
Hannah stood up in response. “I’ve got to go…now.”
“But it’s midnight!” Mailaika protested.
“Isn’t it always…”
Hannah was halfway to the information desk, before Malaika caught up with her. “Wait,” the tall nurse said shoving a piece of paper into Hannah’s hands. “There’s a first aid course here next week. You can learn how to help people, to increase their chances of survival. The basic course is open to anyone, but I’ve put your name in for an advanced course, too, if you want it. Think about it.”
…
Ginny sat on the stool in the kitchen, sipping hot chocolate and staring at the clock. Mum had left in such a hurry that she had left it behind. Ginny’s grip on the mug tightened. Even Mum was out there helping people, fighting; it was only Ginny that was bullied into staying put, as if she was a child, as if she hadn’t felt the same pain when she heard the urgent Patronus message.
She tried to convince herself that they would be alright. Hagrid was strong and despite the desperate tone of his Patronus he would be alright. And the boy, the little Muggleborn boy that Bill had brought in… she closed her eyes and tried hard not to imagine him dead or injured. The poor boy had lost his parents and his eyesight in this war. He didn’t need to lose more. The Order should have been able to protect him.
One of the hands of the clock began to move and Ginny found herself drawn to it. It was Dad’s. It moved from Mortal Peril to Traveling and then back to Mortal peril again so quickly that he must have Apparated. All of the hands of the clock were pointing to Mortal Peril now, even Ginny’s. They could use every protective spell ever invented and keep her locked up, but that would not make her any safer. Not now.
She wondered if she could get Charlie to duel with her when he woke up. There were odd shadows moving outside, and a chill was creeping up Ginny’s spine the longer she stared at the enchanted clock, but she was not going to let Mum’s worries control her. She shook her head and drowned the last sip of her hot chocolate before pulling out her wand. She could practice on her own. There was too much dusty furniture in this safe-house anyway.
…
Jeremiah recognized the man from the wanted posters immediately. He was the only one of the gang members who wasn’t wearing a mask. There was also something hauntingly familiar about the madness in the man’s face. He was still shorter than Jeremiah, and despite the warnings in the wanted poster Jeremiah knew he could beat him if he played his moves right.
One of the masked figures cackled madly from a nearby alley. A child screamed long and painfully from a third floor window. “Please, please!” he heard several times. The gang members seemed to enjoy this. Jeremiah had encountered them several times now and he noticed that they never carried stolen goods out of the houses or seemed to be seeking revenge for something. Every single move they made suggested that they were causing havoc just for the fun of it, just because they could. Another lusty laugh echoed in his ears and he made his decision.
Sneaking up slowly on the man from the posters, who had killed three people already, Jeremiah picked up a rock from the rubble-strewn street.
He passed the first body, but noticed that, oddly enough, there did not seem to be any blood. Many of the attackers enjoyed drawing blood, torturing their victims before they killed them, but this one seemed to be hell bent on killing as many people as he could in the most efficient way possible.
Something inside Jeremiah’s insides began to roil. He almost threw up at the sight of the second body. It was a girl’s body, not old enough to really be a woman, but not young enough to be a school child, either; a young woman at the beginning of her life. A few months ago she probably had dreams and ambitions and a beautiful laugh. All that had been drained slowly out of her and now even her life had been cast aside as if it was worth nothing.
He was close to the cold blooded murderer now, so Jeremiah took a moment to control his emotions. He held his breath and pounced. With one, quick movement, the rock had bounced off the man’s head. He brought both his arms clamping down around the man’s arms and pinned him to a wall. A small wooden stick fell to the ground beneath them and rolled away.
Jeremiah sucked in a sharp breath. The eyes that stared back out at him were dead. There was no burning desire to survive behind them. No clear sense of identity and purpose. The man was like a cold piece of artillery that had been ordered to take up a certain position and was mindlessly following orders.
Looking into those eyes Jeremiah was transported to another time and place. The dust of battle flew up all around him. The familiar air of England was replaced by another unfamiliar scent. He was in uniform again, and he walked like a man who was proud of himself. Stepping between the bodies as if they were nothing out of the ordinary – for he had been desensitized to the sight of death long ago – Jeremiah looked for his own unit members. Something about the overwhelming presence of death did not allow him to call out for his friends. He walked silently on, checking a uniformed body now and then to see if he recognized it.
Suddenly, he was staring at the most beautiful creature he had ever laid eyes on. She lay in a pool of her own blood, her vice-like fingers gripping the body of a little boy old enough to be her child. And suddenly the enormity of what he was standing in the middle of, the enormity not of death, but of murder and destruction, came crashing down on him.
Jeremiah shook himself out of the painful memory. He had the strange feeling that the man who was still trapped against the wall had just seen the memory with him. There was an overwhelming denial behind those eyes now. Jeremiah opened his mouth to speak. “I’m not going to kill you because not long ago I was just like you. I didn’t understand… I didn’t see it; I didn’t feel the cold hand of death gripping at my heart. But if I ever see you attacking innocent people again you’ll wish you were never born.”
An arrogant sneer made its way to the other man’s lips, but Jeremiah was not frightened.
“That’s right,” he said seriously in what he knew to be an intimidating tone of voice. “I can and will kill you if I see you again. You can look down at me and the rest of these people all you want, but you aren’t any better than us. You aren’t any better than those people to throw their lives away as if they were worthless, as if yours is more precious. I was just like you once. I may not know how to kill people without leaving a single scar, like you do, but I was exactly like you.”
Jeremiah stepped back and threw the man, hard, so that he landed sprawling on the ground.
“If I see you hurt one more person I will personally hunt you down and kill you. You’ll probably be the only person I’ve killed in my life that actually deserved it.”
The empty looking eyes were not on Jeremiah anymore. The man seemed to be looking for something. Finally, his hands closed around a long, thin, piece of wood and he stood, raising it almost protectively before him. Jeremiah was about to say something about this odd behavior, but a look of absolute terror suddenly came over the man’s face.
He seemed to be looking not at Jeremiah, but through him. He let the arm with the piece of wood fall to his side limply and then turned and ran.
Jeremiah turned around to come face to face with a vaguely familiar young girl. He stared at her blond curls for a moment, trying to digest how she could have elicited such a look of fear when Jeremiah, intimidating as he was, had not seemed to make an impression on the man. He saw her tuck something into her pocket that looked strangely like the long, thin piece of wood the man had held. She could not be one of them. Suddenly, when a frown crossed her face, Jeremiah recognized her. She was the girl he had taken to the Hospital a few days back.
“You’re alright, then?”
The girl nodded, suddenly smiling. “Are you the one who saved me?” she asked, still looking doubtful. “Th-thank you.”
“I only took you to the hospital,” Jeremiah wasn’t sure why he was trying to deny himself her gratitude. “Mat was the one that found you and helped you out… he’s the one who told me to take you to the hospital.”
“Thank you,” she said again. “Do you know him… can you take me to see him?”
…
After about an hour of practice Ginny’s parents had still not returned and her feeling of unease had only grown. She threw herself on the couch and closed her eyes. She tried to concentrate on being calm and quiet, tried to let herself appear to be relaxed, but remain alert at the same time. Charlie told her that her own senses were the best secrecy sensor out there, that if there was something wrong her own body would be sending her signals; she just had to be alert enough to pick up on them.
An owl came crashing through the window. It was a tiny thing that reminded her of Pigwidgeon. She ran over and picked it up from the pile of shattered glass that it lay in. The owl did not allow her to tend to it. It stuck out its foot determinedly.
Ginny opened the letter in a hurry, but with the edge of her vision, as if from far away, she thought she could see shadows creeping closer, closing in around the house.
It was in Dad’s handwriting and it only said two words.
Help…hurry.
If Charlie had not chosen that moment to come down the stairs, stretching, Ginny would have left the house. He took the letter from her hand and stared at it for a few seconds. “Fred and George are still asleep?”
Ginny nodded, angry tears forming at the back of her eyes. They’d better be alright. Charlie had better save them.
“Be on the alert, Ginny!” he said in a hurry. “We need you here in case someone comes back… you remember how to make a Patronus?”
Ginny nodded again. Charlie ran out to the yard and stood in the tiny space that was the only spot from which you could Apparate into and out of this safe house. Ginny picked the letter back up and studied it carefully. She performed a revealing spell that she had learned last year. It was fine; it looked like it was genuinely written by her father, but Ginny was now sure that something was going on. Maybe the safe-house had been compromised or one of the protective spells needed renewing.
“Morning, sis!” George said cheerfully.
“And how-”
Ginny held out the letter, interrupting Fred and George’s cheerful banter. They read it three times before looking up at her. “We’ve got to go, Ginny!” Fred said. “Charlie’s still asleep… Go wake him and wait for a message from us!”
Ginny nodded silently, watching the twins dash madly out into the yard and Disapparate one after the other. It would only be a matter of seconds now. The letter might be genuine, but someone was waiting out there, waiting for her to be alone. She waited by the stairs with bated breath, looking out the window.
Suddenly, the protective charms fell. She saw a flash of light around the perimeter of the safe house. Death Eaters began to Apparate all around and they were closing in. The feelings of unease and fear were suddenly gone. She heard the mad, cackling laughter of Bellatrix Lestrange and the shed outside burst into flame. She saw Greyback’s face press in against the glass of the window. Their eyes connected and then Ginny flew, as fast as her feet could carry her, up the stairs. At the top of the first flight she sent a jelly legs curse at him. It missed, but her second one didn’t.
He roared angrily as he followed her up the stairs. “Is that the best you can do, little Weasel?” he laughed, stumbling and lagging behind. “Don’t worry, I won’t kill you. The Dark Lord wants you alive; we’re just going to have a little fun before we go visit him.”
They were always like this: stupid, so sure of their own wittiness and superiority. He really thought she was afraid of him. Ginny Weasley had been possessed by Tom Riddle in her first year at Hogwarts. She had been waiting for this moment since last June.
She stopped at the top of the third flight of stairs and sent another spell at him that would anger him and slow him down, but not impede him completely. This was her first real battle and Ginny was going to be the one to kill Fenrir Greyback. She hoped more Death Eaters were following him up the stairs now. She couldn’t hear anything over the crashing and banging that Greyback was causing. He was roaring in anger by the time Ginny reached the fifth floor.
Only one more flight of stairs left.
Greyback was still blundering about on the stairs between the third and fourth floor. She leaned over the railing and aimed her wand carefully, sending a strong stinging hex at his already ugly face.
BANG!
A window exploded beside her, sending Ginny sprawling on the floor. She pulled herself to her feet and a cold, sharp pain stabbed at her right arm, just below the shoulder. Ginny ran up the last flight of stairs clutching her bleeding, throbbing arm. She had to pull her hand away to open the attic door.
Her fingers were bleeding too. Ginny looked down at her injured arm and found a large piece of glass sticking out of it. She ran to the opposite side of the attic and turned around to face the door.
Gritting her teeth she looked down at the injury and pried the piece of glass out. Ginny yelled out in pain. At the very last moment, she remembered to lock the attic door.
Greyback went crashing into the wood. Muffled swear words floated through the door to Ginny’s ears. She took a deep breath and raised her wand higher.
The werewolf didn’t know what hit him. As he came crashing through the door a barrage of powerful hexes and curses assailed him. Ginny slashed her wand viciously up and down through the air, using every hex and curse she had ever learned. This time she did not hold back. Before long, he was writhing on the floor in pain. She sent a leg-locker curse at him. An animalistic growl escaped his lips.
“Levicorpus!” Ginny yelled.
Greyback was hoisted up by his ankles. His groans and growls were getting on her nerves. She sent a silencing charm at him before floating him into the very center of the attic and sending binding ropes at him. Now that Greyback was silent Ginny could hear more Death Eaters thundering up the stairs. She should have placed traps along the way. They would be here in less than two minutes.
Ginny sprang into action again, leaning out of each of the attic windows in turn and sending flames shooting out of her wand, straight at the ground floor doors and windows. They were trapped inside now and the fire would quickly eat the house up from bottom up, taking them all with it.
Howls of pain carried up to her ears, breaking her concentration. She closed her eyes, trying to focus on her destination. She would probably splinch herself. The fire was traveling too fast. She could already feel it closing in around her. She could already hear the roar of the flames as they licked at the sides of the house. Ginny took a deep breath and began to turn on the spot.
Powerful arms snaked around her, crushing the breath from her lungs.
…
A well-aimed severing charm hit Charlie in the stomach. The fabric of his clothes came undone and, beneath all the layers, so did the topmost layer of his skin. He gritted his teeth against the pain and sent a strong stunner back at his assailant. There were too many of them. Mum and Dad were fighting back to back up ahead, surrounded by five Death Eaters. Charlie had to get to them. At that moment he wished he had brought Ginny with him. She was a powerful little thing, and despite Mum’s fears he knew that she would have made the difference in this battle.
He shook his head and focused on the matter at hand.
One of the Death Eaters that he had stunned earlier was starting to stir. Charlie sent another stunner and then aimed a body-bind curse over his shoulder. A loud thud told him that he had not missed.
Suddenly, he heard two loud pops almost directly behind him. Charlie was too busy battling a rather quick Death Eater and could not look back. He hoped it was Bill or someone from the Order. He renewed the protective charm around himself and dodged a green flash of light. He was close enough now to send a protective charm around his parents.
“Go back and tell you-no-poo not to mess with the Weasleys!” Fred’s voice rang loud and clear from behind.
Charlie turned in shock to see George frowning and sending purple flashes of light at two approaching Death Eaters. Their eyes connected and George’s widened in shock. Something penetrated Charlie’s protective shield and stabbed painfully into his right shoulder. He had allowed himself to become distracted.
Fred pulled Charlie back up and opened his mouth to say something, but Charlie shook his head wildly. “I’m fine! I’ve got to go back for Ginny. You stay here!”
“I’ll cover you while you Apparate!” Fred agreed.
…
He did not rest. The battle raged around them, insane Death Eaters causing havoc and sending torture curses at anyone and everyone that got in their way. Fires broke out everywhere, the flames licking at people’s homes. People all around who had no visible injuries collapsed from the pain of losing loved ones, of seeing their homes destroyed. Little children ran and crawled towards their parents, begging piteously for them to wake up, to be ok. And through all this, he did not stop to rest for a moment.
The despair all around him seemed to feed his purpose, to increase his determination to help as many people as possible. He was so thin and feeble looking next the Death Eaters, so small and quiet as he pulled injured people into safe little alcoves and led children towards safe escape routes. And he had no weapon, except the old fashioned gas lamp that swung from his right arm, a beacon in the dark.
Hannah did not need him pointed out. She recognized his voice as he spoke calmingly to a middle aged woman who was in hysterics. She gasped as a Stinging Hex hit him in the leg, but he shrugged it off and continued to jump and weave through the Death Eaters’ fires and rubble and curses.
Suddenly a very familiar young face was staring directly back at Hannah from over his shoulder. He was carrying an injured little girl in his arms. She could not be more than six years old, but her face was almost identical to Malaika’s.
“Millie,” Hannah breathed, her legs suddenly leaping into action. She hurried over and helped him get Malaika’s little sister away from the center of the chaotic battle.
He did not smile or say anything, but she saw recognition in his eyes. “Wait here,” he said, “I’ll be right back and we’ll take her to hospital.”
Hannah nodded and whispered calming words to Millie, identifying herself as Malaika’s friend and reminding the little girl of the time they had met in the Hospital. “I remember you,” the girl finally said.
Moments later he returned with another child in his arms, a frightened looking father leading his own two boys in their wake. “This way,” Hannah’s savior said and they followed him immediately. He led them through back-alleys and out of the way paths, his gas lamp bobbing up and down and the child in his arms sobbing in pain.
The hospital was teeming with activity when they arrived. Tents had been set up around the entrance to the Emergency Room and distracted looking nurses and doctors were running back and forth, shouting orders and calling for help. The father led his children into the care of one of the nurses with a quick nod at the boy that had helped him. Hannah’s savior seemed to deflate and shrink inwards at the sight of so many doctors and nurses, but he followed Hannah as she wrestled her way through the crowds.
Finally, someone noticed the injured children and took charge. Hannah set Millie down and stood back a little to watch over her. People kept bumping into her and causing her to jump back and forth. Finally, Malaika came running. Hannah left the children in her charge and told the nurse that she would be across the street if they needed her.
She walked away to get out of the busy doctors’ hair, the young man falling into step with her.
“Thank you,” Hannah whispered, “for saving my life… what you did today…”
He shook his head and leaned against a wall. He set his lamp down and sat down on the ground bending to examine his own wound with an air of detached interest. “I’m glad you’re alright. There are so many people that I couldn’t help…so many people that died while I watched, helpless.”
“You can’t save everyone,” Hannah said forcefully.
He shook his head again in denial, looking up at her with wide, dark eyes. “Too many…”
Hannah sat down near him and they sat in silence for a few moments.
“I’m Mat –I mean, Mahmoud,” he offered.
“Hannah,” she replied truthfully. “Hannah Abbot.”
…
It was the first time Ginny came out of an Apparition without falling to her feet. The two strong hands still gripped her tightly, almost protectively, holding her up. There was snow all around and ahead she could see a very familiar snowman. It was way too late in the year for snow. A very familiar scent surrounded her and she knew it belonged to the person who was holding her.
Suddenly, a little red-haired girl came running over the hill and stood staring at the snowman with tears in her eyes. It was the weirdest thing Ginny had ever experienced, staring from a short distance at her distressed twelve year old self.
This was Christmas in Ginny’s second year at Hogwarts.
The snowman wore Percy’s hat and scarf – they always used Percy’s – and his mouth had a mischievous, lopsided smile that only Fred and George could make out of carrots and snow.
Ginny continued to stare at her younger self in horror, listening to the pathetic whining from across the years. She had never considered herself weak, but that was the only word she could use to describe the little girl she was watching now.
“Tom,” the twelve-year old Ginny Weasley said with obvious fear in her voice. “Am I going mad?”
Ginny closed her eyes against the next few words. She realized now how pathetic she must have seemed to everyone around her. “I have friends,” the little girl said, sobbing. “I will have friends. Luna looks nice and she doesn’t ask stupid questions."
The mysterious man loosened his hold on her, but Ginny could not tear her eyes away from her younger self. She had Apparated correctly, to the exact place she had wanted to go to: a field near the Burrow where she always went to escape and be alone, but she had somehow transported herself through time as well as space, traveling, she did not know how, into the past.
The young girl rubbed her left shoulder and Ginny’s hand went up reflexively to her own left shoulder. Suddenly, the twelve-year old girl’s tore her robes violently to reveal an angry red scar in the shape of a Dark Mark.
Ginny watched in fascination, but now she remembered – now she knew what was going to happen next. It must have been the man’s scent, as he gripped her tight, that had messed up her Apparition and led her into the past. The young, unmasked Death Eater walked around Ginny and, slowly, towards her younger self.
He had to kneel in the snow to come face to face with the weepy little girl. He ripped at his left sleeve, exposing his own, very real, Dark Mark.
Watching from a distance, Ginny’s hand flew to her pocket where she pulled out a small, torn piece of cloth. The same piece of cloth that she had just watched him tear off his robes. She traced the two letters that she had been trying to identify for five years now: T and N.
Finally, the young Ginny Weasley tore her eyes from the man’s Dark Mark and looked up into his eyes. He spoke to her seriously and respectfully, not in the condescending way some people spoke to children, or the annoyed way that she deserved in her weepy state.
“You be strong, Ginny Weasley. Everyone is tainted by the darkness, but that does not determine who we are. Teach yourself to be a fighter and one day we’ll meet again and we’ll fight the Dark Arts side-by-side.”
Her younger self nodded and picked up the torn piece of his robe. Theodore Nott stood and straightened, leaving the little girl and walking back to the older Ginny. He held out his hand. “I think we have the small matter of a battle to attend to.”
Ginny gripped it wordlessly and closed her eyes, focusing on the safe-house and hoping that, together, they would be able to travel back through the years to their own time. She was hit by a weak impediment jinx as soon as they got back, but it was just a stray curse, no one could see them from this distance. Ginny and Theo were standing in the cover of the nearby wood, watching the safe-house go up in flames.
Death Eaters were scattering now, Apparating away. Several corpses lay on the ground and Nott’s wand brought many more Death Eaters to their ends before they could escape. A sick-looking Zabini was sending nasty hexes and curses at the fleeing Death Eaters, but no killing curses.
Finally, the dust of the battle died down, and Ginny wanted to turn away and leave before someone came looking for her. Nott restrained her with a gentle touch to her shoulder and Zabini’s wand tapped her head, disillusioning her.
Once all three of them were under the chameleon-like invisibility the two boys stepped closer to the battlefield and aimed their wands carefully through the bushes.
“Mirroiri Corpus!” they said clearly and two of the corpses transformed, before Ginny’s disbelieving eyes into exact replicas of Nott and Zabini, except for the fact that they remained dead.
“Where the hell did you get that spell?” Ginny whispered in amazement.
“Blaise invented it,” Nott said hurriedly. “Your turn! Quick, before someone comes.”
Ginny copied their wand movements and said, confidently, “Mirroiri Corpus!”
Without waiting for her to breathe the boys each gripped one of her arms and they Apparated away, leaving behind three corpses that would be identified as the corpses of Theodore Nott, Blaise Zabini, and Ginny Weasley.
