Heavenly Creatures

A/N: To recap, since I went a while without updating and it can be confusing when that's the case. These chapters from summer 1995 are all flashbacks; 1997 Ginny is still in the forest with Loki. That 1995 time period was just before OotP picks up with Harry's POV, when he comes to Twelve Grimmauld Place late in the evening of August 6^th. So this chapter is set three days before Harry shows up. Yes. Ginny is fourteen. No. Sirius is not a pedophile. There's a missing piece to the mystery of why they have both been so attracted to each other, and it will be revealed after the flashbacks are over. Somebody wondered if Sirius was remembering Lily (the girl who used to rub his head when he had headaches.) Nope. As in JotH, it was Narcissa.

August 3rd, 1995.

It is two days before the feast of Lughnasa, the celebration of the first fruits of the harvest.

The house seems utterly deserted as Ginny sweeps the uneven stone floor of the basement kitchen. It is mid-afternoon, deepening into the long summer hours before dusk and another unbearably hot night. Her mother and father are out on mysterious business that may have something to do with Bill, and may have something to do with the plan to rescue Harry. She thinks it is the former, although she cannot be sure. The few Aurors that are in London held a long conference in an upper room that morning, and Hermione said she was fairly sure that she heard Bill's name through one of the last remaining Extendable Ears. But there are so very many mysteries swirling around this house, now. Sirius has been closeted upstairs all day. There is still no sign of Remus. Fred and George argued with their parents for over an hour before storming off somewhere by themselves, apparently because neither of them was allowed to go along with the adults. Ginny has put up a block in her mind against thoughts of her oldest brother, and of Harry as well. It is all she can bear to do, since there seems to be no way of getting any more information about either one of them. She sings quietly while she works.

"Tam Lin went a-walking one bright morning
Across the hills so green
And he cared nothing for where he'd go
Nor nothing for where he'd been."

Her voice seems to want to grow louder on its own, but she controls it. Even Muggles can sense that certain houses have personalities of their own; wizarding houses definitely do, and this one is old enough to have built up a sinister persona, layer upon layer radiating out from its dark core. It wants to be left to itself, she often feels, wants to brood over the centuries of Blacks it has known with only the mumbling, shuffling presence of Kreacher to disturb its silence. It almost seems a sacrilege to make any noise at all, which is why she sings, defiantly.

"And he's passed over the little foot bridge
And down to Carterhall
With steps so wide he passes by
you'd think he owned it all."

Ron and Hermione retreated upstairs an hour ago, glaring at each other, lips tightly pressed together against the angry words that both were obviously longing to say. "What--" Ginny had whispered as Hermione brushed past her.

"Later," Hermione had replied out of one corner of her mouth. "I'll tell you later, Ginny."

She had nodded reluctantly. That morning, another owl had come to her room by mistake with a letter for Hermione. Ginny had not read this one. But she recognized Colin Creevey's spiky, agitated hand on the outside of the rolled parchment.

She swishes the broom back and forth and wonders if they are going to celebrate Lughnasa at Twelve Grimmauld Place. Likely not. She doubts anybody will even acknowledge that it has passed. It is one of the old holy days that has fallen away from modern magic, fallen into disuse.

At home, at the edges of the fields of Ottery-St. Catchpole, there used to be a huge festival on this day for all the wizarding folk in the surrounding country, with bonfires and orange witchlights and magical fireworks, music and dancing and wine. Ginny's parents always took their children home early, but she heard rumors about what happened when the night deepened and the stars burned brightly over the dimming fire rings. The Weasleys haven't been to the Lughnasa celebration for years, now, and she isn't sure that it even still takes place. The summer Ginny was eleven was the last time they all went. She was still a child, then. By the next year, she was not.

When she was twelve and a half, at the next midsummer, her breasts were budding, her hips rounding, her legs lengthening and curving, losing their coltish look. The boys would have stolen surreptitious glances at her as soon as she'd arrived at the festivities, and as the evening progressed, the thefts would have gone considerably further. The Weasleys did not follow the oldest ways, and they would certainly not have permitted their daughter to succumb to the tides of magic and lie with a young wizard in the fields at Lughnasa. But that was not the only reason why she was no longer permitted to attend.

At the great festivals of love and fertility, Beltane and Lughnasa, in the lush bursting of spring and the ripe fullness of autumn, they soon learned that Ginny had to be locked in her room. She tore at her face and hair, fell into hysterical crying. At first, she often tried to beat her head against a wall or scrape long tracks down the inside of her arms. Nothing less, it seemed, could quell the mad rushing tide in her blood. At the Lughnasa when Ginny was thirteen, after she tried to jump out the attic window, a mediwitch came from St. Mungo's to see her. In a soft, calm voice, Goody Grimalkin explained that Ginny needed to learn control.

Ginny had listened, half sulky, half crazed with the feelings running amok under her skin. She knew that the wizarding world considered her too young to give in to her desires yet; these weren't the old days. There wasn't quite the stigma attached to teenage sex that the Muggle world supposedly harbored, but witches and wizards also understood what Muggles did not. Women's sexuality held extraordinary force; the veelas were proof of that, but they were only the most extreme example of a potential power every witch had. So it was rare for anyone to begin having sex before the age of fifteen or sixteen, as it was now considered risky to unleash the power too soon. As Ginny struggled to pay attention, however, she began to understand that in her case, something more was going on.

Tom Riddle had awakened her mind into a too-early sensuality, and had shaped that sensual power to his own hands over the many months when she wrote in the diary and he controlled her body. But then, in the Chamber of Secrets, he had not been able to achieve corporeal form. Over the years, Ginny came to understand what would have happened if he had done, although it was certainly never explained to her in so many words. Whenever her mother told the story to a friend of the family in low whispers at the kitchen table late at night, long after Ginny herself was supposed to be in bed, there would be a silent shrug at the end, an expressive shake of the head, a tightening of the lips. Hiding on the stairs behind a door that was just slightly ajar, Ginny saw it all, all the subtle, unspoken messages. She was lucky, the poor dear. She escaped the worst. Nothing dreadful truly happened to her, when all's said and done. She'll find a nice boy one day, and go on with her life... Ginny always had to bite her lip to keep from screaming, then. But with a dawning sense of horror, she started to see, on this hot lush day at summer's end, that everything was even worse than she had thought, that her rescue had not ended her ordeal.

"Almost nothing is known about magical seduction by incubus. Especially when the... act... was incomplete." The mediwitch hesitated. "Nobody knows what the consequences might be when, and if, it is eventually completed with... someone else."

Ginny had turned from the window then, where she had been staring blindly out at the great willow tree, its lush green branches moving like a woman's hair. The soft spring air came in the partially opened window, and it pierced her with an actual, physical ache. "What are you saying?" she'd asked in a shaky voice. "You mean, I can't ever--with a boy--or a man--"

"This is asking a great deal of you, I know," said Goody Grimalkin in her soft, low voice, a trained mediwitch's voice that would stay smooth and even if the very sky fell in on their heads. "But you must remember that it is only for now. New advances are made every day. I fully expect that by the time you have reached the age of sixteen, you will be... free to do as you choose."

Ginny swallowed. "And until then?"

"There are techniques you may learn. Relaxation... meditation..." The mediwitch had turned to go. But before she opened the door, she laid a hand on Ginny's shoulder. "Try not to think about it too much."

Ginny had raged, and cried, and kicked at the locked door for half an hour. The Burrow was as silent as a tomb around her fury. Then she sank to the floor and sobbed. When she finally raised her head, her eyes were dry and expressionless. Try not to think about it too much. The knowledge that her body was not hers to share with any other human being, that a sort of time bomb might be locked in her flesh, planted by Tom Riddle, had sunk to the bottom of her mind like a stone into the sea.

From that day on, she had not thought about it at all. For long periods of time, Ginny was capable of forgetting that she had learned anything on that day. She never knew if her parents or brothers were aware of exactly what the mediwitch had told her; they never asked, and she never answered. She allowed Neville Longbottom to kiss her at the Yule Ball six months later, and flirted with Michael Corner, knowing that they would probably start dating in the fall, after she returned to Hogwarts. There was an invisible barrier in her mind, as nearly as possible unknown even to herself. She knew that she would allow these boys, and any other boys that she might date in future, to go so far, and no farther.

It was only on the nights of Beltane and Lughnasa that she sobbed and dug her fingernails into her palms and kicked the wall near her bed, touching herself restlessly, frantically, already knowing that no amount of solitary pleasure would ease the terrible craving within her.

And now, it is two days before Lughnasa. The holiday follows the cycle of moon and stars, and it falls very early in the calendar, this year.

"So swiftly did the waters flow
as he came down beside
And you must go and greet him there
for now's no time to hide--"

Ginny breaks off singing, abruptly. She heard another sound under the thin thread of melody, a hissing and a whispering. It is coming from the second floor bedrooms. She creeps up the stairs and tiptoes along the passageway. The sound of low, furious voices drifts down the hall. Yes. It comes from Hermione's room, the one she has been pestering Ginny to share with her since they all arrived. So she can keep an eye on me, Ginny had thought resentfully every time the subject came up. But perhaps I should move in, things are different now. Aren't they? A bit, at least? They'll tell me everything soon, I know they will. She must wait patiently for the explanations as to what Ron and Hermione have been doing. Her blood feels as if stinging red ants are crawling through it, but she must be patient. Sooner or later, Hermione, at least, will tell her. But there can't be any harm in learning something now. A little something. Probably nothing important, anyway... just another one of their stupid arguments... Ginny crouches down and presses her ear to the door, leaning her broom against the wall.

"We have to go on with the plan. You're the one who said that it can only work today, and that we can't use it to get anywhere else."

"Look, all I'm trying to say is that it's dangerous."

"Are you afraid?" asks Ron. "I'll go by myself, if you are."

"I am not--" begins Hermione indignantly.

"Shh! Keep your voice down. Ginny's about somewhere--and Kreacher. The less that elf hears, the better."

Ginny claps a hand over her mouth and tries to breathe as lightly as she can.

"I'm only saying that maybe only one of us ought to go," says Hermione, her voice muffled by the closed door. "It would be so much safer. We don't really know how well this is going to work, and--"

"Oh, and which one of us? You?"

"Well--if it can only be one--yes. I'm the one who built--"

"You really think I'd stay here and let you go? How thick are you?" Ron's voice starts to take on an ugly tone. Ginny realizes that she has stumbled upon an argument of long standing. "He's not your brother," he continues. "You stay here if you like. I'll find what we need to--"

"On your own? Oh, that's a laugh, it really is! You couldn't find your own bum with both hands and a wand!" Her voice grows shrill.

They are not talking about Harry, Ginny realizes. That was what she had thought, at first. There is a silence, and then a rustling of clothing from within the room, as if they have moved to stand closer together.

"I'm sorry," Hermione says. "I am, Ron. But it was unworthy of you, what you said. That I didn't care about what's happened to Bill." Her voice trembles.

Ginny is glad that her hand is already covering her mouth, because otherwise she is fairly sure that her gasp would have given her away.

"Come on, then," says Ron. "I know it's late and we're taking a risk, but if we don't do it now we never will. Take my hand. I'll go first."

Another pause.

"No," says Hermione. Her voice is very low, but resolute. "No."

A massive impact slams into the door hard enough to fling it open, cracking the plaster on the opposite wall. Ginny scrambles out of the way, stumbling into the room. Her brother and Hermione stare at her with shocked eyes. Ron cradles one hand to his chest; he has clearly smashed it into the door out of sheer frustration, and with such force that the oak frame is still trembling. Hermione's eyes are very bright, and she chews on her lower lip. Nobody says anything for a moment.

"What the bloody hell are you doing here?" Ron finally manages to say. His face is very red, as if he is barely suppressing some awful outpouring of emotion and will soon fail in the attempt. "No! Don't tell me! I know. You were listening at the door!"

She turns to face her brother, squarely, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. "Yes. I was listening at the door, Ron! Because nobody will tell me anything. Where are you going? What are you doing? Why is it dangerous? Why--"

"Get out. Out!" Ron shoves her towards the door, roughly. Ginny is too shocked to react, at first. None of her brothers has ever laid a hand on her. But then as he is pushing her out into the hall, she grabs at the door frame and plants her feet; he tries to pull her away; she holds on even harder; Hermione is shrieking something, and then Ginny hears a ripping sound. Ron has torn her summer robes half off her shoulder. He stares down at the piece of fabric in his large hands, breathing heavily.

"I'm sorry," he says, looking down at the bit of lavender-coloured cotton, then back up at his sister. "I didn't mean to--"

"'Sall right," she mumbles, trying to move Ron's hands away her from her blouse. He pulled at her with such force that there is a slight tear in the bodice as well, and he is only making it worse as he struggles to put it to rights. "Ron, please don't, it's my favorite."

"Sorry," he repeats. "Sorry." He blinks down at her. "Ginny, you have to leave. Please. Please, just go."

"Ron," she says quickly, before she loses all her nerve. "I'm not a child. And I'm not a fool; I already know more than you think--"

He flushes, and does not look at her. "You really do need to leave, Ginny." He tries to turn away, back towards the middle of the room, but she has him fast.

"When are you planning to explain things to me, Ron?"

He does not answer her. She sees, now, that a map of London is lying on Hermione's bed, the one away from the window. It is beginning to hum, and to give off a glow. "You made a Portkey," says Ginny as comprehension dawns. "The two of you can't just leave anymore, because Mum's watching your every move now. So you built a Portkey! But how? The magic in this house is so odd, it surely must've interfered--"

"Ron," Hermione breaks in, urgently. "If somebody doesn't go now, nobody can go at all. This can only work once! And Ginny--"

"Take me with you," she begs. "Please. Please."

But the other two are already shaking their heads, not looking at her, moving towards the bed. "Why not?" Ginny bursts out, following them. The door is still open. She is sure that her agitated words will cause the painting of Hesta Black to begin screeching, but strangely enough they do not.

Ron cups his sister's chin, staring into her eyes desperately. "Stay in the house," he says in a low, intense voice. "I'm glad, so glad, that you've been safe here. Protected. You have no idea of what's out there, and I thank all the gods for it."

"Safe! Protected! Is that what you--"

"So glad," he repeats for a third time, again not quite looking at her. She wonders if he even sees her at all. "Ginny, Ginny. Stay here for me."

It is an unanswerable argument. Her hand drops from her brother's arm. She will let him go. The chains of his love weigh heavier on her than he can ever know, but she will let him go without her, because she must.

Ginny would have sworn that she didn't mean to do what she did next. All three of them are crouching against the bed by then, and Hermione has already seized the map. When her own hand falls, she feels it brush against the parchment. As if by instinct, her fingers grab onto it. She hears Ron's startled yelp. And then she feels the sudden, violent tug just behind her navel.

Ginny falls onto her knees, the stones of the floor scraping at her skin. Behind her, she hears Hermione choking and coughing. She sits up, shaking her head dizzily. They are in a narrow dark corridor lit by crystal bubbles full of candles that float up on the ceiling, looking like giant soapsuds. Huge dingy portraits in gold frames line the walls. "Where--where are we?" Ginny asks in a quavering voice.

Hermione stands, swaying against the wall briefly. "There's no point in not telling you now," she says. Her face is very white in the dim light. "We're at St. Mungo's."

"But why--" Ginny scampered to catch up with the other girl, who is turning down the corridor.

"I'm taking you to see your brother," Hermione says briskly. "Bill."

"You mean he's here?" Ginny asks. "But how--what's happened to him, is he badly hurt, is he--"

"We'll have to hurry. We don't have much time." Hermione picks up her pace.

"You mean you're not going to explain--"

She stops at a small oak door and turns to face Ginny. "You have to go by yourself," she says. "The door's Keyed to Weasleys only. I'll come for you in half an hour; we don't dare take any longer than that."

"But--"

Hermione has already turned away, and is hurrying down the corridor in the other direction. Slowly, Ginny turns the door handle and steps inside. She is in a smaller corridor, scarcely large enough to allow the passage of one person, and it is filled with a dead silence. She lifts her hand to the silver doorknob on the oak door at the other end.

A shock splinters through her arm, like a bee sting. Ginny pulls her hand back, sucking on her fingers. Tentatively, she tries again, moving more slowly this time. A silver halo surrounds the knob, and, as she moves her hand up and down, the entire door. I might have guessed. The door is Keyed, all right, but not to all Weasleys. She crouches down and tries to peek through the keyhole without getting her head too close, but she sees only darkness. She droops back to the floor, struggling to keep from crying. It has all been for nothing.

Quick, light footsteps approach her, and she hears them too late. A Healer, or maybe an orderly--and they're going to catch me here! She scrambles to her feet, knowing that there is nowhere to hide. Her mind race with excuses, none of which sound convincing. Wildly, she glances at a portrait of a witch with long red-gold hair on the opposite wall. The witch looks impassively back at her, and then turns away. A web of painted citrines woven into a headdress winks briefly in the dim light. She disappears. No hope of any help there. Ginny could change her appearance with a Concealing spell, but there is no time to even reach her wand. Ducking under the Healer's arm and racing down the corridor would only make everything look worse, surely it would--

The footsteps stop in front of her. She looks up into the startled, sherry-brown eyes of her brother Percy.

A thousand thoughts race through her head. She had all sorts of plans for what she was going to do when she finally saw Percy again. All sorts of scenarios worked out for how she'd let him know her contempt for him, her anger, her aching confusion over why he'd cut off contact with his family. She can remember none of them.

"What are you doing here?" she asks stupidly.

"I came to see Bill," he says awkwardly.

Her breath catches. "Could you? Did you?" she asks eagerly, forgetting, for the moment, how angry she is with him.

"No. The door's Keyed to our parents only, I think." He clears his throat. "How are you, Ginny?"

She stares at Percy, not answering. She hasn't seen him in months, not since before his break with all the Weasleys--the shouting, the dreadful final argument, and then the complete silence. He wears tailored navy blue robes, very well-cut and correct, the shirt collar just visible beneath them crackling with starch. His hair is precisely trimmed, and he holds his head in the same rigid position as always. But his eyes are still on her, holding the emotion that his face and body and manner try to deny. They are large and sorrowful behind his horn-rimmed glasses, somehow a warmer brown colour than those of anyone else in the family, and it is difficult to think of a single harsh word as long as she is held in that gaze.

"I'm all right, I suppose," she says.

"I haven't seen you here before." He sits in one of two little chairs pushed against the wall, stiffly, and motions towards the other. Ginny would rather not sit down, but she does.

"I haven't been here before," she says.

"I've tried a few times. I've never been able to get in to see Bill, though. Did you come with--er--our parents? They must be expecting you rather soon, if so. They're downstairs. I--ah--happened to catch a glimpse of them, not ten minutes ago."

Ginny gasps involuntarily, and makes a move to leap up.

"So you didn't come with them." His face hardens. "I rather thought not. How did you get here, Ginny? By yourself? It isn't safe to wander about London alone--"

"Much you care," she says.

Percy rubs the side of his nose, stiffly. "That's hardly fair."

Ginny does feel a little anger now, the emotion she wished she could summon up towards Percy before. It is almost comforting. "Right," she snorts. "That's why I've seen you so many times since the week after end of term."

"I would have contacted you if I felt it was wise to do so, but it's impossible while you're still living at home." His voice has definitely begun to take on the pompous tone that she has always loathed.

"You could have at least sent me an owl!"

Percy tries to smile at her. It is the insufferably superior smile that fools so many people, but never her. Seeing it now makes Ginny want to explode with rage. "You don't understand, Ginny." He reaches out and pats her hand. "Perhaps when you're a bit older, then we can--"

"What don't I understand, Percy?" she asks through clenched teeth. "Share your wisdom with me, if I'm really as thick as all that! When you called Dad an idiot? When you called our parents traitors? When you said you didn't belong to our family anymore? Are those the things I don't understand?"

Red patches creep up his immaculate shirt collar, staining his neck and cheekbones. She is the only person who has ever been able to bring that colour to his face, she knows. "You don't know anything at all about what really went on," he says. His composure is beginning to crack a little. Deliberately, she goads him.

"You were surprised to see me here, weren't you? And now that you've found me, I'm sure you'd like me to just shut up again. But I'm not going to."

"I didn't come here in order to--"

"To hear anything another Weasley might have to say? I'm sure you didn't! I'm sure you've been sneaking about, avoiding Mum and Dad on their visits. But I'm a bit too clever for you, aren't I, Percy? I've caught you! And now you're going to listen--"

He turns from her and begins to make his way down the corridor in the other direction. She hangs onto his arm like an angry wasp, her words as stinging as she can make them.

"You're a coward, Percy! You don't want to believe that--that You-Know-Who is back because admitting the truth would be too frightening, and so you don't want to believe Mum and Dad when they say he's returned. And you've said a lot of dreadful things to Dad that I can't believe you really mean, and you've cut off the rest of us as well!"

"Is that actually what you think?"

"Yes!" Ginny says recklessly.

He whirls on her, truly angry at last. Now that she sees him so, Ginny is a little afraid of what she has unleashed. Everyone has always believed that the Weasley temper skipped Percy, leaving him slightly priggish, a bit fussy, but safely calm and tranquil. Ginny thinks that she may be the only one who knows how untrue this is.

"I don't believe any of that rubbish," he says through clenched teeth, "because it's all a load of shite concocted by Potter, beginning to end. He's round the bend; probably always has been, ought to be in a padded room on a back ward at St. Mungo's, and instead Dumbledore is hanging on every word he says and trying to get the rest of us to believe it. The loonies in the idiotic Order of the Phoenix are dragging innocent people into it all and putting them in deadly danger without so much as a second thought. And our parents are busily marching in lockstep with the madness. If you want proof, Ginny--" he sweeps a hand across the corridor, pointing at the mute oak door "--there's Bill. Our brother, lying in a locked ward at St. Mungo's. Merlin knows what's happened to him after being sent on one of their bloody missions. And we can't even see him."

She is going to cry. Ginny realizes the fact with horror. No! Not now--not in front of Percy--But it is too late; she sinks to the floor and breaks down in tears, although she is not sure why. Maybe for Bill, who lies so mysteriously behind the impenetrable door; maybe for the horrible rift between Percy and her parents; maybe, most of all, for herself. The sobs are astonishingly painful, as if wrenched out by their roots from within her very heart. She feels Percy's arms go around her. Shh, shh. He makes little soothing noises, strokes her hair, pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and wipes her eyes with it. She smiles faintly. It is starched and ironed, and his initials are neatly embroidered on the corner. Only Percy. She makes a final effort to hold onto her anger, which seems to have washed away.

"I can't forgive you," she says.

"That's your privilege, I suppose. Here. Blow." He holds the handkerchief to her nose.

"You didn't explain anything to me at all before you went."

"I didn't," he agrees.

"You left without a single word to me."

"I did." He sighs deeply. "I do regret that, Ginny."

"Nothing else? Just that?"

"Just that," says Percy, and his words have a finality to them that, at last, oddly calms her. She rubs her nose with the handkerchief.

"I don't understand," she admits quietly. "Why Bill is here, what he's been doing, why we can't see him. None of it."

"It's nothing you should know."

Ginny thinks that to anyone else, her words would seem to have no link with what they had been talking about before. Certainly, none of her other brothers would have grasped the connection. But Percy understood. She had known that he would.

She sits up. "But I have to know, Percy. If--if you want me to understand anything at all. You have to tell me. Nobody else tells me anything." But you will, she thought. Percy, the only one in the family--perhaps the only one in all the world--who had ever respected her mind. Except for Sirius, perhaps. Strange, that she should think of that now.

"All right. " Percy sighs deeply, settling his arms on his crossed knees, and begins to speak.

"I don't pretend to know everything there is to know about this. But I'll tell you what I do know. Did you travel with someone; are they returning for you?"

Ginny nods. "Hermione Granger. And yes, I suppose she is. I don't know how long I've been here."

"Good." Percy looks pleased. "She's very sensible. It eases my mind considerably to know you're with her. Well, I'll make this as quick as I can... have you ever heard of a piece of magical jewelry known as the Locket of Rhiannon?"

"I don't think so," Ginny says slowly. "Or at least--oh, wait! No, I have done. But it was only a mention at an exhibit in the wizarding section of the British Museum. It said--" She thinks hard. "It said that the locket had been stolen, and was no longer available for display."

"Too right, it's not." Percy gives a restrained little laugh that is somehow bitter. "But what they didn't say was that there were two of them, a matched pair. Neither of which we managed to get... I'd better start at the beginning, I suppose." He took both of Ginny's hands in one of his.

"Bill's a Cursebreaker for Gringott's, of course; you know that. And they've sent him on some risky missions, no doubt about it. But from what I've heard, something about this one was off from the start. All they told him was that a rogue splinter group of goblins had stolen a magical item and was planning to sell it to some dark wizard or other. That set off the alarm among the Order, of course, as the first thing they thought of was that it was some sort of plot on the part of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. So Bill volunteered for the job. Well, it turned out that they hadn't told him everything at Gringott's; in fact, they'd told him very little, and the deeper he went into the matter, the worse it got." Percy hesitates. "You've heard of what sorts of things he usually retrieves, I suppose?"

"Yes, a bit about them at least," says Ginny. "He showed me a charmed faience necklace he got from an Egyptian tombs, and a ruby poison ring from a Lithuanian castle."

"Well, then I imagine Bill's also told you something about the things that guard them. Mummies... veelas... vampires, sphinxes, dragons, and so forth. Magical creatures, to be sure, but the guardians of the Lockets of Rhiannon are something altogether different. And he didn't have the slightest idea how different it all really was until it was far too late to back out."

Ginny feels a tremor of alarm. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," says Percy, "that a mummy or a vampire is a preternatural creature, but it is still a part of our world. The guardians of the Lockets... are not. I don't pretend to know a great deal about them. It's all rather too mystical for me, and you know that was never my forte, Ginny. " He props his hand on his chin, staring into space. "There is a... spirit... I suppose you'd say, that lives in the Forbidden Forest outside Hogwarts. Her name is Rhiannon, although she also has a masculine manifestation known as Lemankynn. And the lockets are hers, or are tied up somehow with her queenship over the old ways, and the Old People. She is one of the Immortals, like the Three Fates, Lucifer, and the Endless. I don't pretend to understand any more than that. The lockets were protected by her. The rogue goblin group had already stolen the one kept at the museum when Bill managed to find them, despite the massive protective spells on it."

"Did the curse strike them?" whispers Ginny.

"Apparently not. Oh, I'm sure the more respectable goblins of Gringott's would never have tried such a thing, but you must remember that none of them are susceptible to curses in the way that humans are. They sold the locket immediately, as well."

"To who?"

Percy's jaw tightens. "Anyway, Bill came too late to get the locket back from the goblins, and he had no idea whatsoever of the sort of danger he was really in." He closes his eyes briefly. "He tried to take the other locket from Rhiannon's kingdom. He didn't know how angry she was that the first one had already been stolen. She had permitted it to be in the mortal world for a brief time, which I'm sure she came to bitterly regret."

"Did he actually succeed in getting the second locket?"

"He claims he did."

"But I thought you couldn't get in to see him! How do you know that, then?"

"I may not be able to get into the room, but I've heard things. Through the Ministry, mostly. Mr. Fudge knows how worried I am--he finds out everything he can, and passes the information on to me. I don't know what I would have done otherwise. He's done so much for me. He's such a good man; if you knew him, Ginny, you'd like him--" Percy passes a hand over his eyes, clearly struggling to contain himself. "Bill has been saying that he did obtain the second locket," he continued in a calmer voice. "In his more lucid moments, anyway. But he's been checked thoroughly by everyone they can think of, from Healers to mediwizards to other cursebreakers, and there's no locket. But what they don't understand, then, is why the curse seems to be lingering. It makes no sense."

"Will he be all right?" Ginny asks. "He will, won't he?"

Percy gets up, standing very close to her. He avoids her eyes. "Yesterday, a Healer informed Mr. Fudge that Bill is in a holding pattern. It could break at any moment, you know. These sorts of curses can lift very suddenly, with no warning at all, and they generally leave no trace behind once they do disappear."

"So he's going to be all right then. Isn't he?"

Percy does not answer. He reaches down to pull her up. "It's been half an hour. You ought to find Hermione."

They start down the little corridor. Before they reach the end of it, Percy puts up a hand for her to stop, his face serious. "Do you understand now, Ginny?"

"Why you can't forgive our parents, you mean?" She gives a noncommittal little shrug of the shoulder. "Yes. I suppose so."

"I don't expect you to feel as I feel about it. But there's one more thing that I'll say to you--that I must say to you." He takes a deep breath. "They allowed our brother to walk into danger, Ginny. And they're doing the same to you. To everyone in the family. Nobody should be at Twelve Grimmauld Place, especially not with Sirius Black in the house. Yes, I know he's there. My conscience isn't easy about it, but I won't tell anyone. Don't worry about that."

Ginny's temper flares suddenly and fully, spilling over the détente that had sprung up between them. "What are you trying to say--that he's a murderer? Well, he's most certainly not! If you're thinking of how all those Muggles got killed, that was Peter Pettigrew. We're just waiting for an opportunity to clear his--"

"That's not the point! And at any rate, I've heard that story already. Maybe it's true, and maybe it isn't. Certainly Cornelius Fudge doesn't believe that--"

"It is true--"

"All right." Percy holds up a manicured hand. "Perhaps he really didn't murder those Muggles twelve years ago. I'll concede that possibility if you'd like, and if it'll make you listen to me! But he's dangerous, Ginny, dangerous. He was a lifer in Azkaban. Think of that." Percy looks intently into her eyes, and his own are very serious. "I'm going to ask you a question, and I want you to tell me the truth. Are you ever alone with him in that house, Ginny?"

"No," she mumbles, looking away, sure that he would be able to see the lie in her eyes. Percy has always had a way of seeing through her; she could fool any of her other brothers throughout her childhood, but not him.

"I see," he says. His eyes harden. "I see. Does he speak to you? Does he look at you? Does he try to get you alone?"

"Of course he speaks to me," protests Ginny, deciding to ignore the other two questions. "He's frightfully intelligent, and he's had so many interesting experiences. We talk all the time. He tells me about things he's done, and I love to listen. It's so boring at that house, you can't imagine, and it helps to pass the time. Just the other night we were at the table in the basement kitchen, and he was telling me about the time he travelled to--"

"Were you alone with him?"

"Uh--yes." Ginny commands herself not to blush. She feels heat moving up her face anyway.

Percy swears something under his breath. He grasps her chin in one hand, turning her face up to his. "Has he touched you, Ginny?"

"I don't know what you--"

"You know exactly what I mean! Has Black laid so much as a finger on you?"

"No! No."

He drops her chin and looks away. "That house on Grimmauld Place is a terribly dangerous place to be, full stop," he says in a somewhat calmer tone. "It's absolutely packed with magic of the darkest kind. You're being exposed to dangers every minute of every day. And Dumbledore's going right along with it. More than that! He's spearheading the entire mad enterprise. And it's all for Potter's sake; everyone's positively falling over themselves to believe a story Potter told, with no other proof available. Don't you ever think that's a bit odd?"

"What do you mean?" Ginny asks falteringly.

"You're all being sacrificed for that boy. Or you would be, if it ever became necessary. To hell with the rest of you; Potter's safety is all that matters--"

"It's not his fault!" Ginny bursts out. "It's not as if he ever asked for any of it."

Percy's mouth compresses into a thin line. "Maybe he didn't," he says grimly. "But that's not the point, Ginny, and I know damn well that you're clever enough to see it even if nobody else at that house is. Potter carries around danger with him wherever he goes. He attracts it. He embodies it. I don't want you caught up in that. Or the rest of the family either, Merlin knows, but I don't think I can do anything about them. Perhaps there's some hope for Ron. But he's so thick with Potter--and he just doesn't see--"

"Harry's his friend. Mine too. We can't just desert him."

Percy drums his fingers on the little end table. "Your friend, is he? Is that all?"

"That's all," says Ginny firmly. "I know perfectly well what you're thinking, Perce. You knew I had that silly crush on Harry for so long, even if nobody else in the family ever realized it. I don't anymore. But he's still my friend, and he always will be."

"Does that mean you'd sacrifice yourself for him?"

Ginny looks down at her interlocked fingers. "It's not--it'll never come to that."

"Oh, won't it?" Percy mutters. He grasps her hands and looks into her eyes earnestly. "Ginny, come away with me! Now. Today. Before it's too late."

"Come away--whatever do you mean?"

"I have a little flat near the Ministry," he says in a rush. "Not much, but there's a sitting room with a sleeper in it I could take, and you could have my bedroom. I could introduce you to a few influential people--it would be tremendously helpful for later jobs, if you decide to go into civil service. If you stay home--I'm sorry to say it, but you'll be tainted with the same brush as the rest of them. You could avoid all of that. And as soon as term starts again, you can go back to Hogwarts directly from my flat; I'd drive you to King's Cross. You'd like it there, over the summer. You could do just as you pleased all day, and then we could have supper, and talk in the evenings, as we used to do. Perhaps Ron can visit you, or Fred and George if they start behaving more sensibly than they have done. " His eyes grow wistful. She realizes that he sounds exactly as if he has rehearsed every word he has just said, over and over and over. "I've been, well--a bit lonely, I suppose you could say. All by myself. Please come with me, Ginny, do."

"I can't," she says simply.

He sighs deeply. "I suppose you can't. I suppose I knew that, really. There's only one more thing, then." He looks intently into her eyes. "You shouldn't leave the house again."

She snatches her hands away. Not Percy, too!

"No, listen to me. Listen. It's just too dangerous. And--this is going to sound odd--but you need to be on the lookout for the Malfoys, and whatever you do, stay away from them."

Ginny swallows. She wonders uneasily if her brother knows about her meeting with Draco Malfoy in London a few days before, that afternoon when she'd followed Hermione. How silly! Of course he doesn't. And it wasn't important anyway. "Why would I have any chance of seeing them? Their manor's out in the country somewhere, isn't it? And anyway none of them would ever speak to me."

"I hope you're right."

"What's this all about?"

"Nobody knows. But I do hear quite a few things, and if I think I can help you in any way, or protect you from danger..." Percy does not finish the sentence. He takes her head in his two hands, and leans down to kiss her brow. "Goodbye, Ginny," he says.

Ginny stares after the closed door for a long time.

She is sure that Hermione must be frantically searching for her by this point; she's certainly been longer than half an hour. But she sees the other girl at the very end of the larger corridor, back turned, earnestly whispering to someone. She clears her throat. Hermione jumps and turns around. Behind her, Ginny recognizes Colin Creevey.

Hermione runs a hand through her hair. "I have to go," she tells Colin. He nods, his eyes still on her, and she takes Ginny's hand and pulls the younger girl through another door.

"I suppose you're wondering what all that was about," Hermione says, without preamble.

Actually, thinks Ginny, she is in no position to wonder about much of anything. Her mind feels too full with everything that has already happened. "Don't we have to get back?"

Hermione folds her arms across her chest. "A few more minutes won't make any difference now."

Inwardly, Ginny sighs. She doesn't know why the idea fails to excite her very much. She has longed for this moment of truth-sharing to come, and now that it has, she only wants to go home and lie down and be quiet.

"Does this have anything to do with that owl that came to me by mistake this morning?" she asks

"Yes," says Hermione. "It was from Colin. He wanted to meet me today, at St. Mungo's."

"I suppose that's also why you didn't want Ron to come with you."

Hermione looks down at her hands. "Was I so obvious?"

"Not to Ron, believe me," says Ginny dryly.

"I felt dreadful about it. We'd planned it all together, and Bill is his brother, not mine, but he's always been so unreasonable about Colin. I suppose I was glad in a way really that you ended up coming with me, because now you can tell Ron that Bill's all right. He is all right, isn't he?"

"Er--I think so." Ginny prays that no further explanations will be required. Hermione heaves a sigh of relief.

"Good. I was so worried, and nobody would tell us anything. We knew a bit about the locket, but nothing more."

"I'll tell you everything later," says Ginny, belatedly aware that she is echoing Hermione's very words from earlier. "But now, can't we just--"

"But I have to tell you about Colin," says Hermione urgently. "I've got to tell someone, Ginny. I've simply got to." Her cheeks are very pale, and her eyes very bright, as with unshed tears. "His mother's dying."

"Oh," says Ginny faintly.

"It's a Muggle disease--a cancer that metastisised, I suppose you don't know what that is. Wizards and witches don't suffer from it. She has a year to live, or a year and a half. He made me swear not to tell anyone, to keep it a secret. But he wants..." Hermione takes a deep breath. "He wants me to find a magical cure."

Ginny's brow furrows. "Is that even possible?"

Hermione shakes her head. "Only magical folk have that sort of immunity. I've told him over and over. But he won't listen."

"Oh," repeats Ginny.

"He thinks I can come up with some sort of solution. And he won't listen to me when I explain that I can't." Hermione shivers. "I don't know how to get through to him. He's starting to frighten me a bit. But Ginny--please, please don't tell anyone else. Especially not Ron."

"I--I won't," promises Ginny. "I swear I won't. You do believe me, don't you?"

"Of course I do." Hermione tries to smile. "You're trustworthy, Ginny."

"Then why would you never tell me anything before?" Ginny asks wearily. "About what you and Ron have been doing, I mean?"

Hermione does smile then, crookedly. "It doesn't matter now, does it? You've already discovered the secret."

"You mean it was about Bill?"

The other girl nods. "That's why we kept going to the British Museum, and the library. We were trying to learn about the Lockets of Rhiannon. Sometimes we followed Fred and George, or even your father, and we--well, learned things. We found out that Bill was here, and that your parents weren't going to allow Ron or you to see him, because they didn't feel that it was safe. They didn't even want you to know about it--it was tied up with so many secrets having to do with the Order, you see. The Gringotts goblins sent him off to--"

Ginny holds up a hand. "I know everything about that. I met Percy in the corridor, and he told me."

"Oh." Hermione looks a bit nonplussed. "Well, what are you going to do now?"

"I don't know," Ginny said tiredly.

"Did you get in to see Bill?"

"No."

Hermione sucks in her breath sharply. "But--he is all right, or he will be?"

"Yes... I suppose so... that's what Percy thought..." She cannot remember ever feeling quite so exhausted in all her life.

Hermione makes a move forward, as if she wants to take Ginny in her arms. But she is not the sort of girl who does those kinds of things. "The Portkey can take us back now," she says, awkwardly.

The journey back to Twelve Grimmauld Place seems to take a very long time. Normally, a trip by Portkey ought to be almost instantaneous, but this one is not. They seem to hover in a sort of void for hours. A thousand thoughts pass through Ginny's head, each one fizzling out to no conclusion. She wonders if Hermione has really told her all the secrets behind what she and Ron have been doing together for months, without her. But she no longer thinks she wants to know. She wants to retreat into ignorance like a turtle burrowing into its shell, and she is sure that she can never do that again. She remembers the nights Percy sat with her at the kitchen table in the Burrow over the Christmas holidays last year, their two red heads bent together over her perplexing Arithmancy homework. Only he had ever been able to explain any of it so that it made the least bit of sense. She thinks of how distant Ron has seemed all this summer, as if he is holding himself apart from her. And at last, the ordinary world of time and space returns in one great, crashing blow. Ginny skids across a wooden floor, gasping for breath. She sits up, shaking her head. Hermione is coughing behind her.

"That's the worst Portkey trip I've ever taken in my life," Ginny says. She squints up at the window at the far end of the hall, recognizing it as the one on the third floor of the house. "I think it really did take hours. Look at how dark it is outside."

"I wonder why that happened," says Hermione thoughtfully. "It's almost as if this Portkey expanded time--and I know they're not supposed to have that power. I'll have to remember that." She picks herself up. "Let's find Ron."

"Won't that be fun," Ginny says gloomily.

"Well, yes, I'm not looking forward to his reaction," Hermione admits. "But at least you'll have good news to share, about Bill."

Ginny nods. She wonders how convincing her lies to Ron on the subject will be. He isn't as oblivious as usual these days, and his anger at her over taking the Portkey with Hermione will likely sharpen his perceptions even further. She wonders if she will tell him about her meeting with Percy. She takes a deep breath, and follows Hermione down the hall.

He is crouching on the second floor landing with Fred and George, their three heads pressed together in a riot of scarlet and auburn and orange. He looks up when he sees the two girls.

"Oh, hello," he says, his voice elaborately casual. George mumbles something inaudible. Fred is completely absorbed in dipping flesh-coloured strings into a series of beakers that contain various liquids, and does not seem entirely aware that anyone has joined the group.

"We're, uh..." Hermione clears her throat. "Back."

"Yeah. I see." Ron turns away from her, fingering the end of one of the Extendable Ears.

"Don't you want to know--" Hermione's voice is beginning to rise.

"Shh, keep the dulcet tones down," says Fred abstractedly. "We don't want them to hear us." He unrolls one of the strings and lets it flop limply down to the floor outside the door to the basement kitchen.

"There's an Impenetrable charm on it," George informs his twin.

"I thought Mum didn't want anybody to use any magic in this house...." Fred snaps his fingers. "I knew it! I knew this meeting had to be bloody important." His eyes are alight with excitement. "More supplies. That's what we need. If you'll excuse us... or even if you won't..." He drags George to his feet and down the hall, hissing something in his twin's ear in a way that sounds rather like a malfunctioning teakettle.

"Wouldn't you like to hear about Bill?" Ginny asks Ron quietly, once Fred and George are gone.

"I doubt you got in to see him, at St. Mungo's," says Ron.

"Well--no, as a matter of fact I didn't. But how did you know?"

"Fred and George told me the door of the room was Keyed only to Mum and Dad," says Ron flatly. "They told me all they know, once they found out the pair of you had gone. It's about as much as I knew before. They've been trying to negotiate with the goblins, but they haven't got far. At Gringott's, they keep saying that they don't have any control at all over the rogue splinter group. But I suppose you don't even know what I'm talking about."

"Hermione told me." Ginny gets up, brushing off her robes. She wants nothing more than to go to her room and lie down.