Heavenly Creatures

August 5, 1995

Ginny's eyes open. The very pale almost-sunlight that comes just at dawn spills in through the window and onto her bed. It is sharp and fresh and light, washing her thoughts clean. Cobwebs still cling to her from nightmares she cannot quite remember. A vague sludgy sense of unease. She pushes back the covers and looks out at the long grasses in the backyard. They move against each other in the light wind, their heads ripe and heavy. Harvest is nearly here. Then... Lughnasa. The day has come. The day that has been such a nightmare for her, since the summer she was twelve.

Yet now, whatever may lie ahead, Ginny feels strangely relaxed and free. Light, almost weightless, in the cool lemon early morning. The awful heat of the day has not yet descended. She stands up, tying her dressing gown at the waist, and goes downstairs.

She sips slowly from a cup of cool pumpkin juice, standing over the sink in the basement kitchen, oddly reluctant to sit down. The orange liquid swirls round and round in her cup, and she watches its smooth movements. No-one else is awake yet. Not even Kreacher. She has the house to herself, and somehow, on this cool light morning, even Twelve Grimmauld Place does not seem nearly as sinister as usual.

There is a sound of footsteps on the stairs, then of the door being opened. She turns, knowing who it is before she sees him, although she has not seen him in two days. He is the one person in this house whose presence does not intrude on her strange calm privacy, although she could never have said why that was the case.

"Sirius," she says.

He looks exhausted and drained; there are deep purple shadows under his eyes. But somehow, he appears to be at peace. More so that at any other time since she's come to stay at the house, anyway. His face is freshly shaven and he is dressed in neat, light robes of undyed linen. He smiles when he sees her, and the smile, weary as it is, transforms his face.

"Ginny," he says. "Come outside with me." He gestures towards the door, and it does not even occur to her to ask if going outside is a good idea. Everything is possible on this sweet sharp morning.

The back yard is much larger than Ginny noticed when she played Quidditch with her brothers a few days before. She thinks of asking him if the land is enchanted with a Telescoping charm, but she doesn't want to break the peaceful silence, punctuated only by the soft whistling of the wind. And she knows that the answer surely must be yes, anyway. A lot of these old wizarding estates located in cities have been designed to appear much smaller and more modest than they really are. They navigate a patch of waist-high dried grasses, and it seems the most natural thing in the world for Sirius to take her hand and lead her through. His skin feels smooth and hot against hers. On the other side of the field is a little orchard of apple trees.

"The inside is bigger than the outside, you see," Sirius says to her. He seems to have a trick of reading her thoughts. Not all of them, I hope, Ginny cannot help but think. She nods.

They stroll past the gnarled little trees. Their branches are heavy with early pink-cheeked apples--Cortland, Ginny thinks.

"Funny," Sirius says musingly. "This orchard looks exactly the same. Nothing else does, but this... it's as if time can't wither it, and it lives in an enchanted dream... I used to walk here with her so often, I remember, at the end of summer..." He is no longer quite talking to her, Ginny realizes. She clears her throat.

"I'm sorry," he tells her. "It's easy to be caught up in memories, here. Perhaps that's why I haven't come out here since I arrived. But this morning..." He turns to study her, and Ginny meets his dark eyes unblinkingly. "It just feels right. Do you know what I mean? You do, don't you?"

"I know," whispered Ginny. To speak too loudly in this place seemed wrong, somehow.

They reached a tree that was larger than the others, with one long low branch parallel to the ground. He sat near the trunk and patted the bark next to him. After only a moment's hesitation, Ginny sat as well. They looked out towards the horizon, where dawn was streaking the sky with pink and orange and rose and gold.

"You look better," Ginny said shyly.

Sirius leaned his head against the trunk of the apple tree, looking up into the sky. "I'm sure I do."

"Have you been..." Ginny fumbled for the right word. "Working?"

"All night." Sirius gave his short sharp bark of a laugh, but it seemed softened somehow. "But it's good to work, Ginny. Sitting about with nothing to do is the worst feeling in the world... I hope you never have to find that out. So yes, I've been working. Remus too... but I think we've got it done. I had a wash up a bit earlier, and when I go back upstairs I'll get some sleep, and then, tonight--"

Ginny's breath caught in her throat. "Professor Lupin--he's with you, up in the tower room?"

"Y--yes," Sirius said cautiously.

"Is he all right?"

"I don't think he'd care too much to be called by that name anymore, as he's no longer a professor. I'm not exactly sure what he'd like to be--"

"But he is all right, isn't he? It's just that we haven't seen him since he got back."

"There are questions I can't answer, Ginny," Sirius said. "But yes. He's--he will be all right. And you'll see him. Soon."

They sit in silence for a moment. The soft wind ruffles his dark hair, and she can feel that it is doing the same thing to her own. "But let's not talk about things like that, on a morning like this," he says at last.

"No," Ginny replies. "Let's not."

"On the high holidays," says Sirius in a musing tone of voice, "all cares were cast aside, weren't they? If only for that one day."

"I think so," Ginny replies. "I wish I could..." She closes her eyes, leaning against the bark of the tree. She wonders how long this weightless feeling will last.

"Then let's forget all our problems for now, just now," whispers Sirius. "For however long we have."

And they do.

The two of them sit on the branch of the apple tree for a long time, and they do not speak a word. He picks an apple from a branch and hands it to her. She eats it slowly. The taste is fresh and sharp. When he drops his hand, his fingers brush hers. He does not move them away. His skin touches hers so lightly that Ginny is not even sure Sirius feels it. The warmth of his skin pulses through her, and together they watch the sun rise all the way above the horizon.

"We should go back," he says at last, when the pale blue of early sunshine has changed to a rich warm yellow.

"Before we're missed," she agrees. That is not precisely what she means, though. Ginny wants to return before the awful ordeal lying ahead of her on this day has had a chance to pounce. She doesn't want Sirius to know. Suddenly, she wants him never to see her that way, the way she surely will be within a few hours, with a desire so fierce that it is almost like pain. However it is that he sees her now, she wants him to think of her so forever. She begins to slide off the branch, and slowly, lightly, their footsteps scarcely seeming to touch the earth, they walk back towards the house.

Many years later, Ginny will think of how they must have looked as they walked so closely together, not quite touching, not yet. The man who would always be a boy; the girl who had never been quite a child. She will think of how the early morning sun must have touched their two heads of hair as they walked; burnishing hers to flame, running along the glossy blue-black highlights of his. There will be nights when she cannot close her eyes, in future years, not even when she hears Ron's even, tense breathing beside her, and feels his protective arm slung over her waist in sleep, as it always is. And in the darkest hour of these nights, Ginny will think of this sunlit morning. It will always remain perfectly preserved in her mind and memory, like a deep pink crinkle of coral at the heart of a wavy glass paperweight.

"I'm always going to remember this," she says now, not knowing that she is making a prophecy (although perhaps, as she will think much later, she did know.) "No matter what happens." Then she realizes that she has spoken aloud. Sirius is looking at her curiously. She flushes. She had not meant to say so much. And he is still looking at her. Ginny's eyes drop to the ground as a sudden, horrible thought comes to her.

Maybe Sirius already knows what is going to happen to her on this day, this Lughnasa. Maybe, for some weird reason, Molly Weasley has already told the Order about what happens to her daughter today. Perhaps it was important to know about it for strategic reasons; something to do with all the dark magic in this house. Maybe it will be even worse than usual this year because she's in this strange, silent, brooding house, and maybe everyone already knows about it.

Ginny is never to know if she is right about any of this, or not. No matter how much time she spends thinking about this point, she can never be sure. But Sirius holds up a hand, as if to stop her. She does pause in her tracks. They are getting very close to the house, separated from it only by the field of long grasses. If they take even a few more steps, anybody looking out of the back door could see them.

"There's something you should know, Ginny," Sirius says. "Something I want to tell you before we get back."

"What is it?" she asks a little nervously.

He hesitates, and when he speaks again, he does not quite answer her. "Nobody else knows this," he says. "Nobody outside the Order, I mean."

"Oh." Ginny looks down at her hands. At that moment, she is sure that Sirius does know about everything she will have to struggle and suffer through today, and she thinks she understands why he's decided to tell her this secret, whatever it is. A secret for a secret, she thinks. A fair exchange. Do I even want to know? But what if it's something about Harry--or Bill--oh, Bill--"What is it?" she asks, her breath catching in her throat.

"We're bringing the Aurors back from Wiltshire, Remus and I," he said. "Tonight."

"For Harry?" Ginny guesses. "They're going to go to his uncle and aunt's house and get Harry tomorrow, aren't they?"

Sirius nods.

"But why were the Aurors there in the first place? And why can't they just come back on their own?"

"There are some things I really can't tell you, Ginny. But even the Aurors can't return by themselves; none of them could. They've been someplace that--well, it's a magical site of great power, and it isn't precisely in this world. We've created a spell that permits them to interface with our space-time continuum once more." He sighs deeply. "I doubt that it could have been done anywhere except in this house. There's so much dark magic here... anyway, that's another reason why we chose Twelve Grimmauld Place as headquarters for the Order. Dumbledore knew long ago that sooner or later, we'd have to do this."

"Will everyone know about this, once it happens?" It is all Ginny can think of to ask.

"Well, they'll certainly know that all the Aurors are back. But Molly thinks it isn't wise to let anyone know how, and I suppose I agree with her... for once. For the most part." Her smile is sardonic. Ginny feels her own lips twisting into an unwilling grin. "You won't tell Ron or Hermione, will you?" Sirius asks. "Or even Harry, once he's here?"

"Not if you don't want me to." The wind is growing warmer. It whispers through the waving grasses, and their scent is bright and hot. The first beads of sweat gather on Ginny's upper lip. "But how are you going to keep anyone else from knowing?" she adds. "You can't imagine how persistent Fred and George are, or how much they can piece together on their own from the slightest clue."

"We're using the Tempis Fugits spell. It's not the only one, of course. Have you learned what that is yet?"

"Last year," says Ginny. "Time will stand still, and the entire house will lie in enchanted sleep..." She can almost picture the words printed in her third-year Charms book. "It was the basis of the Muggle myth of Sleeping Beauty, I think."

"It was." Sirius turns and begins walking through the field of grass, restlessly. "We ought to be getting back... you know, I really don't know why I'm telling you this."

With those words, Ginny is suddenly sure that Sirius does not know about Lughnasa, Lughnasa and her. He can't, or he wouldn't say them. Surely he wouldn't. And yet...

At the very edge of the field, he stops. "I suppose it's because it's rather dangerous. Difficult. There's a chance it might not even work. And, well, if I know you know about it, at least..." His words trail off. "I don't even know what I mean." He is no longer speaking to her at all. She stands looking at him as he vanishes into whatever private reverie plays out behind his impassive face, and the sticky trail of sweat begins to creep down her spine. Then Sirius seems to come back to himself. He looks down at her.

"Do you pray to the gods, Ginny?"

She shrugs. "Not really."

"Not many wizards do, anymore."

Something warm encloses her clasped hands. She realizes that it is his own, much larger hand. The sensation sends a little jolt straight to the centre of her chest.

"But if you do," Sirius continues, "say a little prayer for me, will you, Ginny?"

"I will," she whispers.

The sudden, dazzling smile lights up his dark face. "Good girl."

Ginny walks through the field of grass very slowly, not quite keeping up with Sirius. He holds the back door open for her and she moves into the dark cool silence of the house. When the heavy door slams shut, it sends an aching pulse straight through her head. She sways slightly, holding onto the edge of the kitchen countertop.

"Are you all right?" he asks softly, turning back towards her. .

Ginny nods. Looking into his troubled face, she very nearly blurts out the truth. No. She doesn't want Sirius to know. I don't want anyone else to either, Merlin knows--but not him. I couldn't stand it if he knew. "I think I'll go upstairs for a bit," she whispers.

He takes her up to the landing. She guesses that he is going to the tower room. Just as they part ways, Ginny turning towards the corridor, he reaches back. He is standing above her on a step, and she tilts back her head to look at him.

He takes her head between her two hands, and bends down towards her. Then, before she can move or speak or even think, he kisses her forehead. It is a swift kiss, soft and warm and solid but over so quickly that she has scarcely begun to feel it before he has already started away from her, up the staircase. She stares after him, her head burning, burning, burning. It has begun.

Ginny can't get to her room. The awful pressure in her head throbs outwards with such force that she thinks her temples will explode; she tries to stumble down the corridor that contracts and expands like taffy gone horribly wrong, but the surface buckles under her and she is thrown to her knees. She begins to crawl, crying. Capable hands pick her up. Comforting arms enfold her. They smell of apples and baby powder, and a soft, low voice croons something in her ear.

Ssh, shh. It's all right. You'll be all right. Come to bed. Shh, Ginnydear, Ginnydear.

Molly Weasley guides her daughter into the little bedroom at the end of the empty corridor on the third floor, and dresses Ginny in a long white nightgown, and holds a glass filled with a powerful Calming draft to her lips, and tucks her into bed.

"You'll be all right," Molly says. She smooths Ginny's hair over her forehead. White, wild-eyed, Ginny stares silently past her mother's shoulder at the wall. The picture frame, as always, is empty.

The door closes quietly. They learned last year that Ginny needs to be alone, on this day. She can bear no-one near her.

The window has been sealed shut with both a charm, and a lock. Last year, Ginny tried to jump out, after all. A charm has been placed upon the glass panes as well, so that she can see nothing through it, only a vague impression of morning light. There is only the four-walled room, the empty, elaborately carved picture frame, the canopied bed, the wooden floor that she walks, and walks, and walks. The powerful soothing herbs are not working as well as they did last year. Their power has not really made the panic go away; the choking sensation is only imprisoned somewhere within Ginny's mind, and it rattles the bars of its cage.

Some time later, there is a rap at the door. Ginny halts her endless pacing. Now that she has stopped, she can feel that the long muscles of her legs are burning, and that her calves ache dreadfully. She glances suspiciously at the heavy oak door. How can she be sure that it's real, that it isn't just the beginning of some new madness... perhaps the very one she has been fearing all day long? No. The sound comes again, and it is, unmistakably, a real rap at the door. But who would do such a thing in this house? For a wild moment, Ginny is sure it has to be Sirius. She doesn't know whether to answer it, or to jump out the window so she doesn't have to face him. Lucky thing it's Charmed shut, after all!

"Ginny?" a voice whispers. Unmistakably female. "It's Hermione."

Ginny scrambles across the room and kneels by the door. "You shouldn't be here," she hisses in reply. "You should go, Hermione! You can't get in, anyway--" As soon as the words have left her mouth, Ginny knows that she should have known better than to say such a thing to Hermione, of all people.

"Alohamora... No. Patefacio," says Hermione, and the door swings open. She reaches out for Ginny, but her hand is stopped by the invisible barrier. She feels out the edges with her fingers, wincing when she gets too close. "Ginny?" she asks, almost fearfully. "Who shut you in with an Obex charm? And why? And why do you look so--so--"

Giiny bites her lip. She knows all too well how she must look. "My mother did it. And I need to be here. Don't ask me any more, Hermione--go away now, please, you really should--"

"I only have a few minutes," Hermione says urgently, as if she has not heard her. "Listen to me, Ginny! Something queer's going on in this house today; I can feel it! And it feels worse on this floor than anywhere else. It's like a spring wound so tightly that it's simply got to explode. I've been trying to find out what's going on but I haven't had any luck at all. And now I've found you, and you look like death warmed over, and you're locked in your room with powerful spells--"

"Hermione!" Ginny says desperately. "I'll explain everything later, but not now!"

The other girl presses her lips together. "If you're trying to get back at me for not telling you what Ron and I were doing--"

Ginny sinks to the floor, grasping at the barrier that separates her from her friend. Its magical surface sparks painfully at her hands, but she does not feel it. "It's going to hit, Hermione. I can feel it. It's going to hit harder than I can stand up under. I don't want you to see me when it hits. If we were ever friends--if you ever cared about me, even a little bit--go, just go!"

But Hermione has the mutinous expression on her face that Ginny knows all too well; her friend has got the bit between her teeth, and nothing can stop her from finding out the truth now. And she's so clever, Ginny thinks despairingly. Maybe she really will figure out how to break an Obex charm, and then she'll get in this room, and oh dear God that can't happen, not today, on this day of all days--

Then Ginny hears another voice, one she knows well. One she has never been so glad to hear in all her life.

"Get away from that bloody door now, Hermione!"

The other girl looks up, her dark brows knitted into a scowl. She opens her mouth to argue. But it is too late; Ron has dragged her back by the collar of her robes, and she kicks at him, legs flailing, her feet scuffling at the floor.

"I was only trying to find out--" Hermione begins.

"Will you stay away!" Ron slams the bedroom door without a backward glance, with such force that it bounces off the doorjamb and slides back open a little. Ginny scrambles behind the concealing door and tries to peer through the crack. The barrier shimmers in distorted patterns for several minutes, letting through only jagged bits of light and colour and sound. She can hear Ron and Hermione shouting at each other. With a twinge of alarm, she wonders if anyone downstairs will hear them--her mother and father, Fred and George, Sirius, the remaining Aurors? But then, they must be busy preparing the spell for tonight, the one Sirius told her about. And maybe the twins are too busy trying to spy on that. Ginny's view of the hall clears, the figures of Ron and Hermione coming into focus slowly. At first, she can only see that one is taller; one, shorter. They stand apart from each other, motionless. Then they merge together, and Ginny hears the sound of Hermione's bitter weeping. Ron stiffens for the briefest moment, and then strokes her curly brown hair gently, with one hand.

"Shh," he says. "It's all right, Hermione."

"I didn't know," she says. "I didn't, Ron."

He gives a grim little laugh. "I don't know much. What I've managed to figure out, that's all. Mum and Dad never talk about it."

"And-- and Ginny? Does she talk about it?"

He shakes his head. "We all try to forget about it, the rest of the year. You all right now?"

Hermione nods. But she does not leave the circle of his arms, and neither of them seems to notice the fact. "It's this house," she whispers. "And this day. I've felt like a string about to snap, ever since I woke up. Something's wrong, Ron, I know it is. And we've got to find out what it is!"

"We will. We'll try."

"No, we can't just try! We've got to--"

"I promise I'll help you, Hermione. I'll do my best. Fred and George too."

She lays her head on his chest, so that Ginny can see her friend's tearstained face. "I am so afraid," she says. "And I don't even know what I'm afraid of. Maybe it's for Bill--or for Ginny--or both of them together, I don't know."

"You care about my brother and my sister that much?" Ron asks.

Unable to speak, Hermione nods.

"You're so good," he says, still stroking her hair. "So good, Hermione."

She tips her head to look up at him. He bends down towards her. And as simply and naturally as if it could have happened no other way, their lips meet in a kiss.

Ginny gasps, and claps a hand over her mouth to muffle the sound. Something blossomed in the very air at that moment, something rich and red and heavy as a coming storm. Something between her brother and her friend that she had never truly guessed until that moment. Do they know? Hermione, maybe. But my brother... I don't think Ron knows. Not yet. But he will, and then... It is like a seed that had been planted and will grow, grow, grow, sending out roots, bursting into flower, breaking outward with crushing force and power and--

The thing hits Ginny then. The thing she had held off with all her strength and all her will. The sexual magic newborn between the two people in the hall has triggered it at last. It had been threatening her; she had seen the vague shape of it, but no more. She had known, though, somewhere within the secret part of herself, that it waited for her. And she had seen what shape it would take.

Ginny curls up on the bed, moaning, her hands running frantically over herself. But simply touching her own body will be like licking salt to quench thirst. She knows that right away. "Please," she sobs, not knowing what she begs for, or who she could possibly be asking. "Oh, please, please, please!"

She is considerably beyond shame when she realizes that this is why her mother locked her into her room with double and triple spells even Hermione could not breach. She cannot be let out. Ginny remembers the last Lughnasa, and how dangerous Goody Grimalkin, the mediwitch, had told her that it would be to lose her virginity. Or at least she knows the fact in an abstract way, as she might know the Arithmancy tables. But if she could get out now, there is nothing that could keep her from doing what she needs to do. Or if... or if only there were someone else in there with her. Any boy. Any man. She would do anything; she would permit him anything; she would spread herself for him in any way he chose if only he would take this unbearable burden from her. For the first time it occurs to her, almost calmly, that she may not get through this.

"Think, Ginny," she moans. Think. What can I do? There must be something I can do. There's got to be! She cannot get the pictures out of her head, the shameful, lustful images of what she wants so desperately.... Then it comes to her, in a flash. If there's no way to escape them... then I've got to use them. I can't go around them. I have to go through them. If she permits her mind free rein, it might exhaust itself. She closes her eyes and plunges in.

But there is another problem, and with horror she realizes what it is, instantly. Her mind demands someone specific to use in these uncontrollable fantasies. She needs a name she knows, a face and body she has seen. Oh, dear God, can this get any worse? Yes. If I don't do this, it can and it will. But who?

Harry? She sees him as clearly as if he stands before her, as she had last seen him on the train. His angular face swiftly losing the last traces of its childish roundness; his wild swirls of dark hair; his great green eyes staring out the train window unblinkingly, as if impressing the magical landscapes on his mind before he is forced to return to his summer exile in the Muggle world. As always, there is something utterly self-contained about him, as if his essential self could never truly be touched by any human being. He permits Ron and Hermione into himself a little way, but Ginny... never. No. She can't, won't think of Harry. He is too good for what she must endure this day, too pure. It is too horrible even to imagine dragging thoughts of him into this disgusting madness.

Sirius... No. Sirius is sacred. She guards fiercely the one shining morning they have shared, and she will never allow it to be sullied. But then, who else?

Ginny's mind runs panic-stricken over all the men she has known this summer, and all the boys she has thought of. Her brothers, of course, cannot be considered, thank all the gods. Even this madness seems bound by some natural limits. The Aurors she has met seem covered by the same ban; perhaps their magical powers protect them in some mysterious way. Michael Corner and Colin Creevey flit past her mind's eye like insubstantial ghosts. Impossible to grab hold of them. Ginny sobs, clenching her hands into fists until her fingernails break the skin of her palms. But even the pain does not stop her mind turning and running, turning and running as if in a labyrinth with a thousand blank stone walls and no exit.

If only she were not locked in this room. If only if she were free to run out the front door, down the square, through the streets of London with her hair rippling behind her like a consuming flame. To run and run until her legs give out and her strength fails, and she collapses into the arms of someone who will take her, who will take this terrible burden from her as he takes her virginity, whether roughly or gently she does not care, she wants only to wrap her legs around a narrow waist, fall back, retreat, and close her eyes, racked with pain and pleasure as he drives into her desperate body, as he leaches this poisonous weight from her flesh into his own, as his silver eyes reflect the madness in her golden ones, as his silver hair falls against the gold flame of her own head.

Halfway through this vision, when she has already fallen into a sort of near-insanity, Ginny realizes who it is that she sees clutched in her arms. She would have been horrified, had she been herself, and at any other time. But she is not herself, and it is the time of madness. And of all the men and boys she has met or even thought of in the past weeks, there is only one who is not forbidden to her, either by the laws of nature, or of her own private inalterable will. Only one whose memory she does not care about tainting, because he already lies beyond the pale.

Draco Malfoy.

So she surrenders, and allows her tortured mind to use him.

Her breathing grows slow, deep and even. She can feel her face pressing into the soft mattress, and can smell the clean crisp scent of the laundry charm used on the sheets. She's falling asleep. Finally. Her mind slips, and she lets it fall.

She tumbles through a formless space, drifting between worlds, unable to come to rest anywhere. A tall dark man drifts with her, standing motionless, arms crossed, and although he seems to have materialized out of nowhere, she is not surprised to see him. His long black robes swirl about him as they fall, and there are tongues of green flame in their folds. "Who are you?" she asks.

"Do you not know who I am, Ginevra?" he asks, in a voice made of darkness, and the space between sleep and waking.

Her gaze is dragged unwillingly up his handsome, immobile face, as utterly white as if carved of marble. His flesh does not look like human flesh. His hair is dark and jagged. His eyes are fathomless. She catches her breath when she finally meets them with her own. He's not human; she knows that in a flash. And then she knows who he is.

There was a book that Hermione tried to get out of the Restricted Section of the Hogwarts library, once. But unlike all the other forbidden books she tried to read, she could not even grasp hold of this one; it faded into dust. And despite Hermione's bottomless thirst for knowledge, Ginny was always convinced that there was tremendous relief in her friend's eyes when the book vanished. Hermione had taken her into the library in the middle of the night to serve as a lookout; the older girl knew how heavily guarded this particular book was, which had of course only made her more eager to read it. Ginny had heard her friend's gasp when she succeeded in opening the book, and she'd run back into the stacks to see if anything awful had happened, as she'd always been half convinced it would, during one of Hermione's midnight trips. And Ginny had seen the page of the book before it shimmered into nothingness with a puff of red smoke. And then there be the Seven Endless, the old-fashioned black lettering had read. Those who are, before ever the Gods were... There had been a hand-drawn picture as well, of seven figures, but Ginny had only remembered the last. The one who is looking at her now, with his steady, measureless gaze.

"You are Lord Morpheus," she says. "The King of Dreams."

He?--well, she can't imagine any other way to think of him, although he is no mortal man--inclines his dark head.

"Tell me, then, my Lord," she says. "Am I dreaming?"

He does not reply. Does a slight smile touch his lips? She does not dare to look at him too closely in order to find out. Ginny fuzzily remembers having heard that any close study of one of the Endless is bound to bring madness, in the end. And whatever I do, I can't let him touch me... I'm sure I've heard that. He reaches out his hand towards her. It is as white as new-fallen snow. And she sees that all its fingers are of the same length; for some reason, that frightens Ginny, as strange things do, in a dream. She shies away from him. And in her movement, some subtle equilibrium seems disturbed, and she tumbles all the way into dream at last.

Ginny blinks at the bright sunlight. She's standing on a sidewalk, next to a busy street; she can hear the rumble and thunder of Muggle traffic. It's all oddly familiar, and after a few seconds she realizes that she is in London, in exactly the same place she was a few days before after finding Hermione. Everything is the same. Eerily so. The black dog standing silently at her side; Hermione just behind her, the sun beating down on her head, the dizzy lightheaded feeling she had pounding just behind her temples... this isn't like any dream she's ever had.

Malfoy moves closer still to Ginny, until she can smell the sharp light lemon scent coming off him--is it from his hair, she wonders crazily, or his pale skin, or perhaps a Freshening charm cast on his clothing by the house-elves who launder on the Malfoy estate?

"You do like to touch the Weasleys, don't you, Granger?" he says softly. "Only you should keep your hands off, see? Mustn't have a Mudblood touching pureblooded witches and wizards--even the traitorous ones."

Hermione flushes red at last. "You're absolutely foul, Malfoy," she says evenly. "You always were. But you're worse now than you ever were before. And I'm sure you're going to be worse still, in the days to come. Don't think I don't know it."

"Is that so," says Draco. He still has not moved away, and Ginny realises for the first time that although he has been talking to Hermione, he has been looking at her. He catches her eyes on him, and for the first time, directly addresses her.

"Well, little Ginny Weasley," he says, "do you want to continue it... away from prying eyes?"

"Wh--what?" she stammers, mesmerized by his unblinking stare.

"Our conversation, of course."

She had squeezed her eyes tightly shut; Ginny remembers it clearly. She had said, "Get away," and he had gone. But now, she does not.

"Yes," she says. "I do."

"Do you know what this will mean?" he asks softly.

"No," Ginny says. "But still I will do it, because I must."

Malfoy holds out a long slender hand to her. "Then come away with me."

Ginny takes the hand in her own. His skin is hot and dry, and the feel of it sizzles through her. And they do go away. Or perhaps the world goes away. Whichever it is, she has gone, and so has he, and there is no-one else left in all the world.

Ginny is never sure how long the next part lasts, but it goes on a great deal longer than anything she ever thought her imagination would be capable of constructing in this line. After all, she knows so little. True, she has read snatches of books smuggled from the Restricted section of the Hogwarts library; she has sneaked looks at her older brothers' magazines stashed under their beds; she has heard the whispering and giggling of older girls in the Gryffindor common room, clustered round the fire, very late at night, and her mind cobbles it all together, but... but there must be something more going on, because it all feels so real.

Ginny does not take her ignorance into account-- not how inexperienced she really is, nor how awkward she will likely be, the first time she lies down with a boy and lets him do what he likes with her. Nor does she think of how much she has always hated Draco Malfoy, and how utterly impossible it is that she would let him get close enough to touch the fingers on her hand, much less... well, there is nothing that he does not do to her, now. Nothing that she does not allow him to do. Nothing, indeed, that she does not do to him. Her mind runs through a crazy kaleidoscope of positions, of sensations, of hands and mouths and tongues and gasps and cries and sweaty bodies, each one as separate and distinct as a wizarding photograph; each one vanishing into air as soon as she has finished with it, only to be replaced by another. Faster and faster they run, faster and faster until one is barely done before the next takes it place; they lap at each other in blurred overlay; she struggles for air, it is all moving too quickly; at last she collapses onto the bed or couch or carpet or whatever it is where all of this madness has been taking place. She sniffles unprettily, wiping at her nose. Tears run down each side of her face. Her hair sticks to her temples. She can feel each individual itchy strand. This is no dream, she thinks, panicked. This is happening. But it can't be. I'm lying in my bed at Twelve Grimmauld Place. What is it, then? Some sort of vision? Oh, God! Is Malfoy somehow sharing this; does he know it's happening?

Ginny wakes for a moment, clutching the white candlewicked bedcover to herself, glancing around the little bedroom with terrified eyes. Then the dream, or whatever it is, pulls her back under with lazily powerful force, like the paw of some gigantic cat that delights in batting her back and forth for its own amusement.

She is back with Malfoy, wherever he is, wherever they are. She is still crying. He sits next to her. A tentative hand reaches out, and wraps itself around her waist. His head bends down to hers, and she feels the light butterfly-like touches beneath each of her eyes as he kisses her tears away. She realizes that everything has now moved entirely beyond her control.

"No," Ginny snarls, struggling to--what? She can't force herself to wake up again. She is still trapped within the dream. But she will, she will have a measure of control, she decides furiously. She retrieves her clothing, strewn about the dark little room, and starts pulling it all back on. One of her feet gets caught in the hem of her shorts and she has to yank it free. If this is only a dream, then why can't I just think my robes back onto me? And why, oh why can't I get out of here? And where am I anyway? The room is small, but it has a strangely echoing quality, and she hears water dripping somewhere, faint and far-off. The walls are dark grey. When she brushes her hand along one of them, she feels the uneven surface of stone. At last, she is fully dressed, the collar of her light summer blouse neat, her hair straightened. As if nothing has happened between them.

"I'm done," she says.

"This is not done between us, Ginevra," says Malfoy. She is not surprised that he knows her real name. And she understands what he means without further explanation, and without knowing why she knows. As in a dream, which this, indeed, must be, things simply happen. Ginny knows what she must do. But she is determined to feel no more of this shameful pleasure.

She lies down without a word, silent as a sacrifice. When Malfoy tries to touch her face, then to gently push back her robes from her shoulders, she pulls away.

"Is this how it's to be, then?" he asks.

"Yes," she says.

"Then let it be so." He moves back, stands over her, and extends his wand along her prone body without another word. The fabric of her robes curls back with little hisses, sounding like a nest of snakes. She does not flinch. She feels closer to the surface of waking than she has done at any time throughout the entire long strange dream. He shoves her legs apart, falls upon her naked body, and takes her roughly, crudely, without a shred of ceremony. This is the first time that Ginny has imagined herself as the virgin she is, and the phantom pain of it sears through her. Yet it doesn't seem quite real enough. The real room, the one in Twelve Grimmauld Place, has been cleared of anything Ginny might use to hurt herself, or that pain, she knows, she would swiftly make real. But the flames of mental agony lick hotter than any physical pain could ever do, after all.

I can control this, she thinks. I can, and I do.

You're mine, Ginny. She does not know if Malfoy has whispered the words in her ear, or if his thoughts have somehow passed directly from his mind to hers.

"No," she replies, through clenched teeth. "No, no!"

It's too late for that... You've bled for me. You've suffered for me. You'll always be mine now.

His arms close around her like a cage. And then the monstrous explosion overwhelms her, rippling through every inch of her body. And although she knows that she is really lying on a bed in a room in Twelve Grimmauld Place, knows that she is touching herself, that only her own hands are upon her body, she knows, too, that she is clenched to the very heart of pleasure around him, beneath him, and because of him. Because of Draco Malfoy.

"Let me wake up," she whimpers, her hands scrabbling at nothingness. The room is gone, and Malfoy is gone, and the pleasure, thank God, is gone too. She is back in the formless space. Lord Morpheus looks at her, soberly. Maybe he has been waiting for her. Maybe he knows everything that she has done. This Immortal must surely have seen everything, in the dreams of all of the human beings that have ever lived on earth, but still the thought makes her want to shrivel up into nothingness and disappear. "Let me wake up," she repeats, hands over her face. As if that could hide her.

He stretches out his preternaturally white hand once more, and this time she does not flinch. "Wake," he says, and she is pulled suddenly through all the layers of sleep and into waking. They flash past her too fast to be really seen. Only once, oddly, she thinks she catches a glimpse of the little man from the tower room, the one whose arms are encircled by chains, and who seems to be falling eternally through fire. Although why he should be lurking anywhere in her dreams, she does not know.

Ginny blinks. She sits up, rubbing her eyes. The room at Twelve Grimmauld Place is almost entirely dark now. She pushes back the white coverlet and looks at her hands. They seem so small and soft with their raggedly bitten nails, so innocent. She remembers what those hands were doing to Draco Malfoy only a few minutes before. And it really doesn't seem to matter that it was only a dream.

Ginny curls up into a small ball in one corner of the room, shaking, wishing she could cry. She feels shamed. Soiled. Ineradicably dirtied. It's as if merely imagining herself with Malfoy means that he has stolen some essential innocence from her; no matter how untouched her body might be, she can never really feel like a virgin again, because of what has happened in her mind. At last, she sits up, rubbing her sore neck, her stiff shoulders. Every muscle in her entire body seems to ache, almost as if she'd truly done all the things she's only dreamed during that afternoon.

Outside, the sky is darkening fast, taking on the shade of evening. Yet it has grown no cooler. She hears the sullen crack of heat lightning in the distance. Supper will be served soon, if it hasn't been already. Dinner must have passed while she was locked in her selfish, sensual trance. Perhaps her mother had even brought up a tray. But Ginny knows that she can't eat anything, anyway. She has no appetite at all, not for food or anything else, and although Ginny would have thought that she'd be incredibly relieved to be done with her horrible desires that day, she is not. I don't even have that relief, she thinks, leaning her back against the wall. Not that I deserve it. She has been drained of everything that was in her today. But there was a sharp hook of guilt at the very bottom of the cauldron of awful emotions she felt before, it seems, and it winks painfully in her throat now.

So many of the people she loves are in trouble and danger. And she has not thought of any of them even once today. Harry. Sirius. Remus. Bill. Oh, Bill...Hermione thought of him, but I didn't...

The room is oppressive, the dark storm clouds outside seeming to press in upon the very windows with their monstrous heat, yet Ginny wraps her arms around herself and shivers.

"If I could only know what's happened to Bill," she whispers. "If I could only know--I'd do anything."

"Anything?" asks a calm voice somewhere above her.

Ginny nearly jumps out of her skin. No-one could've gotten into this room! "Who's there?" she asks.

The voice does not answer her directly. "No man should make such a vow," it says, musingly. "Nor woman, either." It is a woman's voice, Ginny can tell that now, very low and a little husky. It is touched with a very strange accent she cannot quite place.

"Where are you?" Ginny asks tensely, pulling her robe more closely about her. "How did you get in?"

The mysterious woman laughs. The sound is like the little ripples in a dark stream. "This house is mine, Ginevra. More surely than you could ever know."

"How do you know my name?" Ginny demands. She peers around the room.

"Do you wonder at that knowledge?"

Ginny can almost tell where the voice comes from, now. She looks suspiciously into the darkening corners. If the woman would just speak one more time...

"For you should not."

The words came from the wall, Ginny realizes. She looks slowly up, above her head.

The elaborate gilt portrait frame has always been empty, the entire time she's slept in this bed, this room. But now, it is not. The head of a woman looks back at Ginny, a faint, amused smile on her lovely pink mouth. She is all rose and red and gold; her shining apricot-coloured hair is caught up in a coronet of gold set with citrines; her brows and lashes shimmer gold; her slanty eyes glow gold and green.

"I saw you," Ginny whispers. "At St. Mungo's. There's a portrait of you there, too! But who are you? And why shouldn't I be surprised that you know who I am?"

The woman turns to her fully, and Ginny sees how very beautiful she is, how rich and sensual her face. "I am your far kinswoman, Gwenhyfar."

"My name is Ginevra. You just said it was, so I know you know it," says Ginny.

The woman gives a little shrug. "As it pleases you. Gwenhyfar. Ginevra. Guinevere. The names are all one. Whichever you may choose, you bear an old name still, child... the one that the wife of my sister's son bore before you."

"Who are you?" Ginny asks slowly.

The woman's eyes glimmer like emeralds as she smiles. It is a smile that holds secrets, Ginny decides. It puts her on her guard. "I am the foundress of the House of Black, Gwenhyfar. I am Morgause."

Ginny looks back at the painted portrait of Morgause of Lothian, onetime Queen of the Orkneys, whose sister's son was the once and future king of all Britain. She knows that she really ought to be mortified at the thought that Lady Morgause has probably seen all her madness that day. But there is no shame in Ginny anymore, only the cruel hook of guilt. And a faint sense of wonder, and curiousity. She sits up on the floor, crossing her legs, angling her head up so that she can see the portrait better.

"I've learned about you," she says. "In school. A little, at least."

Morgause smirks. "So they teach my story still, do they? Tell me, Gwenhyfar, what do they say of me?"

Ginny gulps, and tries to think of something to say. With the woman's eyes on her, she does not feel that she can lie. "Um... it said in the book that you were, ah, ambitious."

"True, true." Morgause nods. "And what else?"

"Um..." When Professor Binns had actually used the words "scarlet woman" to refer to Morgause, the entire class had perked up for an entire half-second. "Beautiful!" she blurted. "My professor said you were very beautiful."

Morgause throws her head back and laughs. The sound is like a stream rippling over bright emeralds. "That, I suppose, you must judge for yourself," she says at last. "But as for the rest, I can guess well enough. They told you I was a traitorous whore who betrayed Arthur Pendragon and plotted against his kingdom, and that my wily ways ensorcelled innocent men to their doom. The entire blame for the downfall of the legendary Camelot will have been laid at my door. Oh, with some fault left to spare for my sister Viviane, and my sister Igraine's daughter, Morgaine, as well. Tell me, child, is that not so?"

Ginny's blush is answer enough. "I'm awfully sorry," she manages to say.

Another shrug of the glimmering white shoulder, just visible beneath a rosy-coloured tunic. "I knew that I would be remembered so. It was what Lord Morpheus of the Endless told me when we struck our bargain, more than a thousand years hence."

Ginny sits bolt upright. "You've met Lord Morpheus?" she asks, astonished.

"Yes." Morgause says, and seems to sag back into herself, the surface of the painting growing darker. "But that is the end of my tale, not its beginning."

Ginny looks down at the interlocked fingers of her hands. "I'd--I'd like to hear it," she says shyly. "I was sure that what we all learned in History of Magic couldn't have possibly been the whole truth." She doesn't add that she remembers the portrait of Morgause in her textbook, now. When she had seen it, her first, fleeting thought was that the woman looked a bit like her. But she must be wrong. Morgause is so beautiful, and Ginny herself is so pale and small and freckled, with threadbare robes and bitten fingernails. Self-consciously, she tucks her hands under her knees. It takes her a few moments to realize that Morgause is looking down at her, appraisingly.

"Yes," she says. "I have told all my tale to few mortals indeed. But I should like to tell it to you, little Gwenhyfar, little cousin. It is long, and it takes many twists and turns. Would you hear it all?"

"I would," says Ginny, and she settles herself back to listen.

"It was a time so far before your own that few men remember it, now. Some say it was the stuff of legend only, and none of it ever truly happened. But they are wrong. The problem--" and here Morgause shrugged again "--is that our tale was never told, we women of Camelot's court. And now, only I remain, even in this strange form, not quite a ghost, not a spirit, but only a portrait. But I do remember." She hesitates for a moment. "I am not sure where to start."

Ginny tries to think. "I've always been confused by who was who and how they were all related. Tell me who everybody was in your family, to begin with. Will you--uh--Lady?"

"Call me by my name." The voice from the portrait is strangely soft. "We are of one blood, you and I. Call me Morgause."

"All right." Ginny trips over the unfamiliar name. "M--Morgause."

"They were known as the Fair Sisters of Avalon, Viviane and Igraine, the daughters of my mother, who was the Lady of the Lake in her time," Morgause begins. "Although only Igraine was really fair. She had the long silver-gilt hair of the Saxons, and Viviane took after the Fairy Folk, little and dark. Both far older than I. Long before my birth, Viviane took our mother's place, and Igraine was sent to marry Gorlois, the Duke of Cornwall."

"Who--" Ginny hesitates. "Who was their father, and yours?"

"Child, that is a question to which no-one knows the answer. No living man would claim to have fathered a child of the Lady of the Lake. They were the fruit of sacred ritual in Avalon, as was I, many years later. But I do not want to get ahead of my story. Igraine, as I said, was sent to Cornwall, and married to Gorlois. In due time their child was born. Morgaine, she who was later called Morgan le Fay, Morgaine of the Fairies."

Ginny catches her breath. "Oh! I've, uh.... heard of her," she lamely says.

"I doubt me much that what you have heard of Morgaine is better than what you have learned of me," Morgause says, dryly.

"Not really, no," says Ginny, abashed.

Morgause sighs. "When Morgaine had completed her fifth year, I was born. My mother was far too old for childbirth by then, and she died in labour. I remained at the Holy Isle of Avalon, as there was nowhere else to send me. I think Vivaine knew even then that the world was changing and shifting, and that Avalon was beginning to withdraw into the mists. Do you know what I mean, child?"

"Not really," Ginny admitted.

"The wizarding world thinks that it is separate, a thing apart. Unchangeable, and unchanged. Yet it was not always so. Your kind has changed more than it knows, and the change began in my day. You will understand better, I think, when I have done telling you my tale. At any rate, in that same year, Igraine married Uther the High King, and Gorlois died. Arthur was born one year later. And when Uther had his son--" here Morgause's voice hardened "--he sought to rid his household of Morgaine. He was a Christian king, and Morgaine's magic was strong, even then. She was a living reminder of the ancient magical power. He wanted none such in his kingdom. So she was sent to Viviane at Avalon when she was nine years old, and I, not yet five. We grew up together there."

"So...even though she was older, she was your niece?"

"That is what you now call a sister's daughter, so yes."

"Did you like her?" Ginny ventures to ask. She remembers the Arthurian legends she has learned, and she is very curious to try to piece together another explanation for the things she has always wondered about. Supposedly, Morgause and Morgaine had despised each other all their lives, and had only banded together in order to destroy Arthur.

"I loved Morgaine as I never loved living being on this earth," Morgause says simply. "She was mother to me, and sister, and beloved friend." She is silent for much longer than a simple pause in speech, and her face is immobile. Ginny wonders nervously if she ought to say something, but Morgause picks up the thread of the story again.

"The world was golden, during those years in Avalon. Little did I think that it would ever end. And for a long time--it seemed like a very long time, then--it did not end. But when I had turned seventeen--so I think me that Morgaine must have counted twenty-two years, or nearly so--she became full priestess. There was much talk of unrest in the kingdom then; even at Avalon, it reached us. Uther had died in battle. Rival factions supported little kinglets, each clamouring for their champion to step into the shoes of the High King of all Britain. Viviane loved power, always. And she knew that she could bring the full power of Avalon to bear in support of a king. 'Twould make the difference between winning and losing. So she supported Arthur--who had been fostered elsewhere, and did not know, himself, that he was Uther's son--and brought him in secret to the Isle to celebrate the Beltane ritual with Morgaine. He was then sixteen."

"Oh." Ginny looks down at the floor, momentarily embarrassed. She is beginning to piece together this part of the story now, although this is not the version she has always learned.

"Morgaine learned, too late, that she had bedded the brother she had not seen since he was three years old. And she found that she was with child. She swore never to forgive Viviane, and I stood with Morgaine as I had always done. I did not trust Viviane, either. But she was clever. So everything changed then, so suddenly that I scarce had a moment to draw breath before I had been sent to the ends of the earth to marry Lot of the Orkneys. But we outwitted Viviane, she and I." Morgause smiles grimly. "Morgaine fled to me, and I sheltered her, and fostered her son after he was born. Then she went to Camelot, and Mordred to Avalon, and it was many, many years before I saw either again."

There are a few moments of silence as Ginny thinks about everything she has heard, and struggles to assimilate it. How different it is from the story she has always been taught! Yet it has the ring of truth to it, and it certainly makes more sense than the version she is used to hearing--the one where Morgaine and Morgause had been the evil, scheming whores.

"There's something I've always wondered," Ginny says, finally. "I've heard about the next part, the part that happened twenty years later. But what about the time in between? What did everybody do?" She does not add that she has always wanted to know where the betrayal of Arthur came from, since it seemed rather to spring from thin air in the stories she has always read. Ginny hardly thinks that Morgause will deny she did it, but she wants to know why.

"Morgaine took her place at court as the king's honored sister. Mordred learned the druid's arts, and later, the warrior's. And I, I--what does any woman do? I gave birth to children, all sons. I longed for a daughter, but never bore one. I submitted to my husband Lot, until he died at the battle of Mount Baden, when Arthur defeated the Saxons. I sat at my spinning wheel, and wove at my loom, and plied the needle at my tapestry frame... But within me, I was the daughter of Avalon still. And there came a day when I remembered it." She looked very directly at Ginny, and her eyes, which had seemed such a bright grass-green, darkened. Ginny shivered.

"As part of the bargain for the power of his kingship, Arthur vowed to uphold the worship of the Great Goddess, and to protect those of us who worshipped her still, though the world was changing, I suppose, before ever he took the throne. He broke that vow when he carried the cross of the Christians into battle at Mount Baden." Morgause seemed to think for a moment. "To me, I suppose, it made little difference enough. I was at court then, and I remember it well. But to Morgaine, it was the greatest betrayal on earth. I saw her again on that day, when Arthur gained victory over the Saxons, and swore that he would ever after be a Christian king only, for Christ had given him the victory. I never knew Morgaine to cry; a priestess of Avalon never does so. But on that day, she cried in my arms, and I stroked her hair and whispered words of comfort, as she had done to me when I was a child in Avalon."

"So that's why," Ginny says slowly. "Morgaine really did plot against Arthur, but that was why! I knew there had to be more to it."

The green-gold eyes gleam with admiration. "You are very quick, child. She plotted to take the kingdom back from Arthur because he betrayed his vows to the Goddess. I do not know how all would have ended, but Arthur then decided that Viviane, and not Morgaine, was his true enemy. Viviane had come to Camelot in order to petition him to keep to his vows, you see. Arthur knew that there was a plot to assassinate her. He could have stopped the murderer he knew lay in wait for Viviane, but he did not. Morgaine learned very quickly of Arthur's guilt, for nothing of that nature can be kept from a priestess of Avalon. I never loved Viviane overmuch. I never forgave her for sending me to the ends of the earth with old Lot of the Orkneys. But my sister had been like a mother to Morgaine, and I believe she went half mad with grief, for a time."

Ginny had been listening half-entranced, as if Morgause's very words have caught her up in a spell of castles and mystical islands and knights in shining armor, but she remembers something else now, something that did not make sense. "But Mordred was on that Black family tapestry too," she says. "I can see why Arthur would've been if you were, since he was related to you, but why Arthur and Morgaine's son?"

Morgause's face clouds briefly. "I had not seen Mordred since he left the Orkneys as a babe in arms near twenty years before," she says, quietly. "I saw him again at Camelot. I did not know him... but he knew me. I had thought my heart dead within me. But I found... that it was not. He brought me back to life, back to power. And he became my lover."

"I, uh--I see." Ginny squirms. But the thought isn't really all that shocking, she supposes. Morgause and Mordred were only some sort of half-cousins, after all, and Merlin knew that pureblooded wizards of her own day married their cousins all the time, even now. "So, um--what happened then?"

"Morgaine lured Arthur to the Land of Fairy, the Castle Chariot, home of the Fairy Queen, Rhiannon."

That name sounds vaguely familiar. Ginny is not sure why.

"But then Morgaine struck too soon," Morgause continues. "She tried to take Excalibur, the sword that had become entangled with the very soul and spirit of his kingship. And Arthur thought to say the words that cause all enchantments to melt away. Morgaine was left defenseless, without magical help. Mordred was forced to fight Arthur too soon. And he was killed."

"I'm sorry," says Ginny, and she means it. "I'm so sorry..." She does not know why she feels the sting of this woman's loss. It is a tale out of legend, over a thousand years gone, after all. "What did he look like?" she blurts.

"Mordred? Nothing like his mother. Much like Arthur, and Igraine. Tall and slender, and very fair. Grey eyes." Morgause says nothing more, but she looks at Ginny so keenly that the younger girl starts to feel a bit nervous.

"I was just wondering," Ginny adds, after too much time has passed without a word. 'So what happened then?"

"Morgaine returned from her madness then, once she truly understood what her actions had wrought. I have often thought that it would have been better if she had not. Her guilt drove her beyond life and death alike, for she retreated into the fairy kingdom. So in the space of one day, I lost lover, sister, mother, and friend."

"And that's why you wanted revenge on Arthur, too," Ginny says. "It all makes sense! But I always read that Camelot fell because of Guinevere and Lancelot."

Morgause makes an impatient movement with her hand, as if casting off trash. "Those two weak and silly fools had nothing to do with it. The final fall of Camelot was by my hand alone, child."

"But how did you do it? I never understood that part."

"It is because the true tale has never been told. Before this day, no living being has ever heard it, Gwenhyfar. Would you be the first?"

The room seems to contract to a heartbeat then, and to the dark-bright eyes of Morgause, hanging above her on the wall. Ginny wonders if she really wants to know. But now, when she has come so far with this story, she must learns its end. "I would," she says.

"I swore revenge on Arthur Pendragon. I did not have the power to fulfill my vow, but I knew how to get it. I turned to the Dark Arts in order to do so." Morgause is as beautiful as ever as she speaks those words, Ginny thinks. But there is something savage about her beauty now, something pagan and ruthless. "I had studied them during the long and dreary years in Orkney," Morgause continues. "I began, I suppose, because Avalon had cast me off. So I cared nothing for its laws, any longer. I had never used them until then, but I knew that I could. I knew that the Vikings from the far north were threatening the shores of Britain, and I knew that my enemy's enemy was my friend. So I called up one of their Ancient Ones. Loki, the God of Chaos. I bargained with him. If he would pull Arthur's kingdom into ruin, I would... give him a future claim against me and mine."

Ginny has felt that all of Morgause's words, until now, have been the truth. These are the first ones that seem--well, not deceptive exactly, but evasive. The woman is not lying, but she isn't telling the whole truth, either.

"Immortals cannot lie," says Morgause. "But they may not tell all the truth they know. Britain itself was plunged into darkness and destruction, then. I did not, could not, regret my revenge, but I had not wanted it to happen that way. I knew then, too, that I carried Mordred's child, and that made my desire for revenge a little less. So I made a final bargain with Lord Morpheus of the Endless, the King of Dreams. It was that Arthur and Camelot would themselves pass into the fairy kingdom, into the shining mists of dream and legend, never to fade or grow stale. And so it was. But I paid a price." Morgause looks truly sad. "That way was barred to me forever. I returned to the world of mortal men, and bore my child, and founded the House of Black, for black were all my days and nights from that moment to this. And I never met my Morgaine again, in life or in death, in this world or any other."

"I am sorry," Ginny repeats. And even though she believes that Morgause has done dark things, perhaps evil things, she still means what she says.

"It is all long gone, done and over, forgiven and forgotten and not even much regretted anymore." Morgause's smile does not quite reach her slanting eyes. "But I thank you for hearing my tale, child. You have given me a great gift. Now what may I give you in return?"

"Oh," gasps Ginny, her hands flying to her face. "Oh. Uh... let me think..." If that question had been asked of her an hour before, she knows what the answer would have been, all right. Shame and pride alike would have been forgotten, and she would have begged Morgause to use her magic to bring Draco Malfoy here, locked into this room with her. Thank God that's over! But now what? And suddenly, she knows.

"I want to see my brother, Bill. He's at St. Mungo's and I couldn't get in, when I went before. But you can get me in, can't you, Morgause?" Ginny asks.

The lovely painted smile widens. Secrets dance in the woman's eyes, now. But Ginny does not notice, or care. "I can," she says. "But not in your body; only in spirit form, through my portrait that hangs there. Would you travel that path? It can be dangerous."

"Yes!" says Ginny recklessly.

Morgause holds up a slender white hand. "Then touch your fingers to mine, Gwenhyfar."

Ginny leans forward. Something seems to rush out of her palms with such force that it sends her entire body hurtling back on the floor. It feels a bit like a Portkey, but stronger! So much stronger! I don't know if I can stand it--I don't know if--

"Let go of your body," whispers Morgause. "Hold onto me."

Bill. This is the only way to see Bill. And Ginny, with a great effort, does let go, and presses her fingers against the white hand as hard as she can. She soars into the portrait. From its other side, her bedroom looks very small and oddly distorted, and she herself is crumpled onto the floor, looking very pale and ill. But I can't go back! If I do, I'll never have the nerve to try this again, or the chance. I have to go forward.

Ginny tucks her hand into Morgause's much larger one. The woman is very tall, and she can see now that she wears a flowing tunic of rose-coloured silk, and that her robes are floaty and green. She feels real. How odd. Morgause bends down to kiss Ginny on the forehead. "Now go, child, and return to me when I call you," she says. She bites her lip in a curiously uncertain gesture. "Remember, touch no living being in this vision!" she says abruptly. And with those words, Ginny feels herself dissolving like mist before the morning sun.

The corridor is very dark. Yet it does not seem to really seem to make any difference to her; it's as if she no longer needs light in order to see. She takes in the small space almost at a thought, without needing to glance around in order to know where she is. St. Mungo's. Ginny can hear the screams and shouts coming from behind an oak door at the other end of the corridor. Bill's door. I remember it! She doesn't exactly seem to walk or run towards it; she only moves, quick as thought. She slips through the keyhole before she even remembers that there should be no way to get in, and then she is in the high-ceilinged little room, and hovering above the small single bed.

The last time Ginny saw her oldest brother was six months before, just after Christmas, when all the Weasleys at Hogwarts had been permitted to go home for the day. He'd given her a necklace of turquoise set in silver, and he'd laughed as he put it around her neck with his strong tanned fingers. He'd come home from a long journey through a Mexican jungle where he'd obtained the lost treasure of Popocatlpetl for Gringott's, and he was brown and lean and merry, his blue eyes crinkling perpetually at the corners from all his laughter. He had ruffled her hair as they stood alone in the front hall, and told her that none of the boys would be able to resist her now. She had looked at him silently, troubled, unable to speak, wondering, as she occasionally did, just how much her brothers knew. He bent down to her and touched his forehead to hers. "It's all right," he'd said, his breath warm on her face. "It'll all be all right. Don't cry. Don't cry, Ginevra, dear lovely Ginevra." None of her brothers ever called her by her full name except for Bill, but it was never the same name twice. Sometimes she was Jennifer to him, sometimes Gwenhyfar, and sometimes Ginevra, as that was the one he liked best. Then he had held her close for a fleeting moment, and she had felt the wiry strength in his arms, and smelled the sun and wind and open air that always seemed soaked into his skin and clothing, even indoors, and felt the careless youth and health and vigor of him.

But that is not the Bill she sees now.

Two sturdy orderlies are struggling to subdue something that thrashes about on a bed, something that might be human or frenzied animal. They are tall, burly men with rocklike jaws and hamlike hands, bearing strong resemblances to older versions of Crabbe and Goyle, but the thing seems possessed of superhuman strength. Ginny catches quick glimpses of a worn thin arm as it fights to escape. Or perhaps she can see through the orderlies in some strange way, now. And there is the healed white mark from the attack of the guardian mummies in the secret chamber of Cheops, and the little scar from his duel with the Kokopelli that guarded the treasure of the Anasazi at Mesa Verde... Bill. Now she sees his face, clearly. He looks so exhausted and haggard that she is not sure she would have recognized him, a man who has carried an unbearably heavy burden beyond his strength, and he shouts and swears unintelligibly, his eyes crazed and wild. For a mad moment, Ginny is reminded of Sirius, although the two men look nothing alike. A plump, gray-haired mediwitch with a cairngorm pin at the neck of her sensible grey robes is frantically lighting something in a censer, the sort used to burn medicinal incense.

"I've nearly got it--hold him down, can't you--" she said breathlessly. "To have to work under conditions like these. But I suppose, considering where they found him, and what he went through--" She broke off sharply, giving an alarmed little cry, taking a step backwards. Bill has managed to wriggle away from his two captors. He lunges towards the mediwitch with outstretched hands and unseeing eyes.

"Take it," he begs in a hoarse, cracked thread of a voice, as if he has long since screamed his vocal cords raw. "Take it from me, won't you! The weight--the weight is too great for any human being to carry. I was a fool to ever try to steal it. Take it--before it's too late, take it--" But his splayed hands are empty. Ginny stuffs a fist in her mouth to keep back the cry of horror and fear.

The mediwitch advances with the censer, saying something in a firm, coaxing voice that Ginny cannot quite make out. The two mediwizards make a sudden, violent leap at her brother, and hold his mouth open, pinioning his flailing arms behind him. With a quick wave of her wand, the mediwitch conjures up trailing masks, which appear over the nose and mouth of the three. A billow of purplish-black smoke goes up from the metal oval on its chain. Bill gasps and falls backwards, choking slightly. Then, abruptly, he is silent, sagging against the two attendants.

They bring him back to the bed, and lay him down upon it, handling him as if he weighs nothing at all. He has worn away to nearly skin and bones. He lies unnaturally still as they tuck the sheets over him. The plump mediwitch looks down at him for several minutes.

"They say he was a sweet lad, before..." Her words trail off. "Ah, well."

One attendant clears his throat. "Taken bad, isn't he? Think he'll get through it?"

"Either we'll see it break in the next day or so, or else it never will." The mediwitch turns away. "Come. He'll rest easy now, for awhile at least." The three leave through the opposite door. Ginny hears the last thread of conversation drift back to her down the corridor.

"There are some on the long-term ward--at the very back, you know--- who've been in the same state for thirty years. I imagine they'll be there for the rest of their lives. A pity for such a fine-looking young man to be taken so. Yes, such a dreadful pity that would be..."

Then even the faint sound of their footsteps fades away. Perhaps she could hear more, if she wanted to, but she does not. The little room is almost silent. The dense cloud of purplish smoke thins and disappears, leaving only a musty, faintly unpleasant odour behind.

Ginny knows, now, why Molly and Arthur Weasley have kept them all from visiting Bill. She usually blocks the knowledge of St. Mungo's layout from her mind. She remembers all too well how she came by it, during that summer she was twelve, the one nobody in the family ever speaks about now. But she holds that knowledge still, and so she does know where they have placed her brother. Bill is in one of the wards at the very back of the fourth floor, the one reserved for the victims of severe spell injury. It's not good that he's been put in one of the hidden private rooms, and she knows that as well. These are reserved for patients so badly damaged that they must be kept in enchanted half-sleeps through the use of herbs, in order to keep the malevolent spells from spreading further. They may wake at any time, or slumber for a hundred years... Unbidden, a scrap of conversation she'd once heard between two Healers came back to her. But she still doesn't know why her parents told her nothing, why they've told Ron nothing, and why they've obviously explained as little as possible to Fred and George.

Slowly, she moves closer.

Her oldest brother lies motionless in the little bed. The room is much narrower than she thought, longer than it is wide, and there is barely enough space for the bed, a table, and two chairs at the far end. It is dim and rather dingy; the only window is narrow and set high in the wall facing the door. A few crystal bubbles are clustered in the middle of the ceiling, but they are nearly dark. Slowly, she approaches the bed.

Bill looks like a shadow of the strong, laughing brother she remembers, but at least he is calm and silent now. Ginny studies his hands, clutching at the coverlet; his lean, impassive face. She does not see any obvious wounds or injuries, aside from the scars he has borne for years. All of his wounds must be on the inside. She looks down at him and tries to collect her fragmented thoughts. Seeing him creates a thousand new mysteries and solves not a single one; it is like the answer to a question she does not know.

Tentatively, Ginny moves closer still, as close as she dares. She remembers Morgause's warning.

"It's me," she whispers. "Ginny." She wonders if he can hear her voice.

His eyelashes flutter, but the lids do not open. The faint, unearthly glow of trance surrounds his head. His pale lips part, briefly. "Ginevra..." he whispers in a thread of a voice.

"Yes, yes, it's me," she says, blinking back the sudden unearthly chill that rushes over her, whether of fear or simple tenderness she cannot say.

He still does not open his eyes, or give any other sign that he noticed her presence, but he obviously hears her "Gin, what are you doing here? You shouldn't be here. It isn't safe."

"But it's all right, Bill. We're both at St. Mungo's. They're taking care of you, you'll be well soon, and--"

"No, it isn't all right." His voice is urgent, yet oddly vacant. Ginny realizes that her brother has no idea of where he actually is. And perhaps, she realizes, that is why he can sense her in this strange spirit form. He is wandering far, very far, into madness or something like it. "You have to get out. Or can you? Is it too late for you as well? Have you touched it yet? Have you?"

"No, no," she says.

"I thought I knew something about cursed objects--magical talismans. I got the Rubies of Roscone from Nosferatu's castle in the mountains of Transylvania last year, did you know? Beautiful things, they were. But this. This. Made me realize I knew nothing at all. It is a thing no mortal was meant to touch. It belongs to the gods, to the Endless, to the fairy folk. Should've left it to them. But it's too late--too late. It's in the world of mortals now and so's the other one. Never were meant to be, but they are. And now we'll all have to pay the price--"

He is growing agitated again, and Ginny is genuinely afraid that she has made matters even worse. Then his eyes snap open, and she cannot help giving a little cry of fear at his desperate, searching stare. She had not believed that he would able to see her, but he clearly does. "The weight is too much," he says plaintively. "It's killing me, Gin. But I can't pass it on." She stares back at him, hopelessly confused.

"What is it, Bill? What are you talking about?"

"The silver locket. Can't you see it? It's right there--" he gestures to his chest "--how can you not see it? It burns like a chain of fire. It burns so hot that I should be burned to ash by now. But they keep telling me that it isn't there! They're all mad, Gin, but they're trying to make me think that I am. I'm not! You know I'm not, don't you?"

"I know," whispers Ginny. He is not speaking in delirium, she realizes with a kind of horror. That makes matters worse. She is staring at his open shirt and there is obviously no locket around his neck; she sees the pale, translucent skin that has lost its tan, a few curls of red-brown hair, the shape of his ribs under his terribly thin chest, but no--

"See," he says, and beckons with a hand, as trying to draw her closer.

And then, in a flash, she does see. For the space of a heartbeat--no more--she sees an intricately carved silver locket on a delicate chain. Its two halves are partially open, and within is a scrap of parchment set with tiny, glowing rubies.

"I can't hold it any longer," Bill whispers. "No mortal could. But they won't take it off me. They won't take it off me." His eyes meet hers, and she sees something terrible in their depths, something that is not her beloved oldest brother, that is eating away at him and will continue to do so until it has gorged itself on his life. And nobody at St. Mungo's will ever know what has happened, for this is a magic beyond their understanding. She sees it all as clearly as if a series of wizarding photographs were laid out in front of her eyes. Yet she herself still understands nothing about what is happening to Bill. Without thinking, desperate to ease his pain in some way, if she can, she brings her spectral hands up to his neck, laying both hers and his over the spot where the locket lay. She sees nothing. But something unbearably hot, or unendurably cold, sears all through her insubstantial body. She gives a startled cry, and jerks backwards like a bent bow. For an instant, an awful weight slams into her chest. Ginny looks down. All the agony on her brother's face has smoothed itself away. The silver locket shines around her own neck. Then it is gone.

I shouldn't have done that. But it's too late now. I'll pay whatever price I have to pay, I suppose.

Ginny is never sure how long she sat looking at Bill after that. Her brother falls silent again, subsiding back onto the narrow bed. The unnatural peace of an enchanted sleep has settled over him with the shining stillness of a dream. Already, they both seem to have moved years past the moment when she thought she took the locket from him. And even as she tries to remember clearly what had happened when she thought the jewelry passed from Bill's neck to her own, the memory fades into mist. Everything seems to be fading into mist. The figure of Bill on the bed is already growing indistinct. She feels the animal presence of her body lying motionless on the floor in the little bedroom at Twelve Grimmauld Place, pulling her back. She realizes just how much time has passed. There is no light from the window at all, and it is now night.

"Gwenhyfar," whispers a soft voice from somewhere. "Gwenhyfar, return..."

Morgause! It must be; she said I was supposed to wait until she called me. But... where is she? The billowing sheets of fog move in quickly, silently, until they surround Ginny completely. She can feel herself drifting away from the bed, away from her brother, from St. Mungo's, from anything the least bit normal or familiar. She blows through the cloud banks like a will o' the wisp, with no idea where she is going.

"Gwenhyfar," the voice continues to call. "Come to me, Gwenhyfar..."

There seems to be no power left in Ginny except the power to follow the sound of Morgause's voice. And as she does so, little by little, the mists begin to clear. She floats down a long, low, echoing passageway, roofed and floored in stone, its walls lined with portraits in heavy frames. Ginny frowns, or rather a sort of frown seems to ripple all through her insubstantial self. Her physical body pulls her still, but it does not feel anywhere close to where she is now. And she can still hear the sweet whispery sound of the voice, but...

This isn't Twelve Grimmauld Place!