The Prophecy of Valeo

"They're going to save us!" Ginny squealed in delight. "They're almost to the portal!" she grabbed Harry's hands happily. "Harry, do you know what this means? We're going to be alive again!"

"How long do you think we've been here?" he asked her quietly. She shrugged.

"Two weeks, maybe three." He shook his head, watching her.

"Try four days," he said. Her mouth opened in disbelief.

"Time must be different here," she said. "It must be slowed down, somehow. No one's meant to stay here, so time doesn't stretch for anyone else."

"I've been through weirder things in these four days," Harry said, "than time slowing down. Narcissa being inhuman and unrelated to Malfoy, Me dying and being partially restored by my powers, meeting Bella; so something as small as time doesn't really make a difference to me now."

"I'm scared, though," she said quietly. "If time slows down, I think I might go mad. I've already killed Draco, and it makes me wonder if maybe I really am evil. Maybe it's not just a curse that was put on me. Maybe I'll kill you."

"Gin," Harry said, grabbing her and pulling her into his arms. "I've never met a better person than you. It was a spell; nothing more. And everything's done now that you've died. There's nothing to worry about, unless you kiss Malfoy again."

Ginny knew that he was joking and even laughed with him a little, but deep down she knew that it wasn't a funny situation. She knew that, no matter how bad or how much of a self-centered git he was, no matter how different Harry and he were, she was in twisted, demented love with Draco Malfoy.

* * *

"There it is!" Hermione called, running to an enormous hole filed with a silver-looking liquid. "The portal!"

They all caught up with her and dropped to the side of the pool. Bella dipped her hands inside of it, but nothing watered down her skin.

"Amazing!" she said. "What is it?" she asked, turning to Draco. He shrugged.

"A potion, maybe. A charm. What's really important it that it's the entrance to where Potter and Ginny are. Give me a rock," he demanded, holding out his hand. A heavy lump fell into it in response. He dropped it quickly into the hole and heard nothing.

"I sure hope that's good," Ron said.

"It is," Draco answered, rolling up his sleeve once more and shoving it into the misty liquid. It cleared quickly, and no one could speak as the images of the two appeared, one head red and one head jet black. "Give me the ring and the book," he said, holding out his hand again, his eyes glued to Ginny the whole time time.

Bella took the chain and ring off of her own neck and handed it to him, along with the Prophecy. Everyone stayed silent as he dropped the objects through, and a rippling motion took place, like he'd thrown a pebble into a still pond as the objects entered the underworld.

They watched as the book flew into the red speck's lap, the ring in the black speck's, and waited.

In a blinding flash of motion and color, the portal disappeared, reappeared again, and two bright white figured burst through the quiet hole. They flew high into the air for a moment before diving headfirst into the two bodies lying on the ground. And everyone waited once more, until Ginny eyes popped open as if she'd been only been sleeping.

Her lungs slowly began to rise and fall, and her heart beat in a regular pattern. Draco could only stare.

"Draco," she whispered, reaching out for him, unaware of the others standing behind him. He quickly began to run over to her, wanted to feel her lips against his. He would kill for the feeling.

But before he could reach her, a pair of arms wrapped around her swiftly; Harry's. He held her in a tight embrace. She hugged back, but the entire time she could do nothing but stare longingly at Draco over her boyfriend's shoulder.

***

The rest of the trek to the mansion wasn't quite as hard as they had expected. True, they had run into a few ugly charms, but the worst thing that had happened so far was that Harry was blasted in the face with a severing curse, and they'd scrambled for fifteen minutes trying to catch his nose, which kept running around wildly like a garden gnome.

Draco thought it was rather funny, the whole scene; Hermione, Ron, and Bella crawled through the grass on all fours as Harry just held his face and screamed, jumping up and down. It was quite a thing, having he and Ginny back in their midst. But for some reason, Ginny seemed drained, tired. Harry wasn't anything of the sort.

She had bags underneath her piercing amber eyes which were slightly dulled, and when she talked it was slow and unheard by herself. She walked in no hurry, almost reluctant, and altogether Draco concluded that she almost looked as if she were trying to hold something back, and it was taking up all of her energy to do so.

He hoped he knew what it was. Even in the face of pure evil, he couldn't stop thinking about what might have happened if he'd reached her when she'd first been brought back to life. He mentally shook himself, and decided to strike up a conversation with her.

"So, er... do you still have your powers, then?" he asked. Her cheeks reddened noticeably, but her voice was calm.

"What do you mean?" she said.

"I think Lucius and Lily drained the two of us from our powers, but since you were dead when it took hold, maybe... oh, sorry, you don't know about Lily do you?"

She nodded, looking at the ground.

"When I was down there my powers weren't gone; they must have only gotten stronger, because every few hours I had a vision of what you were doing at the moment. I saw you with the photo. You're an amazing dancer, by the way."

He smiled slightly.

I shouldn't have messed around like that. We had to save you and I screwed up. I'm sorry, he thought, wondering if Harry could hear up front. Maybe if he was careful he could block him off his mind for awhile.

But then the truth hit him. He couldn't talk through brainwaves anymore. His powers were drained. But... He also had his chain and dagger, which were said to hold a fraction of what magic was inside him, so he wondered if she really could hear him, after all.

She turned to look at him, slightly confused.

"What was that?" she asked. "I only heard about every third word or so. It sounded like you said I messed, like had you screwed, sorry. I have a feeling that you were implying something else entirely."

"You were right," he said, hoping Harry wasn't watching. "Just never mind what I said before. I want you to try something for me. I have two powers, right? One has to do with earth and the other with spirit. I want you to punch me."

"What the..." she began, looking at him like he was insane. "I'm not going to punch you, Draco."

"Fine," he said, shrugging and quickly swiping a long, hot kiss on her thankfully warm lips. When he backed away, she stared at him in fury for a moment before laying a mad uppercut on his nose. She realized that she had hit him so hard, her wrist stung.

Immediately, a loud clap of thunder sounded from close by and clouds gathered.

"No one kisses me first!" she hissed as he doubled over in pain, groaning. Not only had she just hit him, but she had taken some energy from him as well, and she now looked fully healthy and her grogginess evaporated. "I'm always the one who makes the first move!"

The rain began to pour down on them as if someone had taken the ocean and turned it upside down.

"I said hit me," he said, his vision red. "Not murder my poor face!"

***

"Wonderful!" Bella screamed much louder than everyone thought was possible for a woman to yell as she suddenly became drenched. Harry thought that she was overreacting just a bit.

"Hey!" he said, and jogged to stand beside her. He touched her arm and she screamed again, nearly shattering his glasses, and shook off his arm violently. He began to think that maybe she wasn't as perfect as everyone had thought.

And suddenly, she started to cry. No one else seemed to notice this; Ron and Hermione were ahead of them, tailed by Ginny and Draco, which made him slightly nervous. But he ignored this feeling, however, when Bella rolled up her sleeve, and showed him something that froze his entire body.

An enormous, pitch black bruise had appeared on her shoulder.

"How did that happen?" he asked, squinting his eyes through his water-stained glasses. She half-sighed, half gasped.

"I didn't think it would get this bad so fast," she said. "Maybe a year or two before it really kicked in..."

"What?" he asked.

She closed her eyes. He had a feeling that whatever news was coming was either very bad, very soap-opera-ish, or both.

"It's...It's impossible for three different species to inbreed without consequences. The DNA starts to deteriorate, and eat itself, making the body vulnerable and, the mind slowly goes. There're two things that could happen to me if an antidote isn't made... I'll either die, or become a..."

"A shell," Harry finished, feeling that was exactly what he was at the particular moment upon hearing her words.

"Don't tell anyone," she pleaded, putting her sleeve quickly in place. "I can keep myself in good health for a long while. Just... please don't tell."

"I won't," he promised, the rain partly drowning his words. They were quiet for awhile as he half dragged her down the path to the Mansion. Maybe half a mile or so to go. They were quiet for a long time, listening to the storm pour on.

"And we'll find a way to stop it. I promise," he added. She sniffed.

"You know, you're really good," she said simply. "I always used to think that evil was really sexy, but you've sort of changed my perspective on things a little bit. You know?" Harry let her walk on her own now, listening to what she had to say intently. "I mean, Draco's really hot. I mean, really. Like, I just want to grab him and..."

"I get the point," Harry interrupted.

"Oh, right. So anyway, There's just something about you that... I don't know. It's just... oh, forget it. I never said anything. And thank you for not telling anyone about... what I told you."

"I won't," he promised, but felt that soon someone would have to know what she'd said. He felt a little guilty for betraying her, but knew he had to do so if he wanted to save her; that is, if things got worse.

Ginny laughed from behind everyone.

"What the hell's so funny about this?!" Draco yelled, holding his face in his hands. "Aaaahhhhh!"

"If you've somehow forgotten, master of the idiots, I can heal."

He stopped wrestling his body around furiously long enough to look at her in a typical I-knew-that look before standing upright. She had to keep from giggling again, as he struggled to looked refined, even when he was such a mess.

And for a moment, she was reminded of their earlier bickering, from when she believed him to be a prat (which he still was, really, but in a good way). She smiled at how far they'd come since she slammed the door in his face as he lay crumpled on her porch.

"Are you going to help me or not?" he asked. She rolled her eyes and reached out to him, placing two slender fingers on his crooked nose and closed her eyes, which gave Draco a few blissful moments to admire her beauty without her knowing.

But before he could comprehend what had happened, his nose was healed and her eyes snapped open to find him staring. And she stared back until she realized fully what was going on, and continued to walk briskly up the path without him as the rain immediately thinned and clouds peered menacingly over them, trying their best to produce more water.

"What was that about?" asked Ron, scratching his head as Hermione tapped her wand absentmindedly on her elbow, her arms crossed, blinking up at the sky thoughtfully. A good excuse to look away from the mansion, which was towering over them a hundred feet away, one massive gathering of evil.

"Maybe we should just go now," Ron said nervously, his face turning a pasty gray. "It's not to late to just... you know...turn back, is it?"

"Well," interrupted Draco, who was jogging to catch up to everyone else with Ginny beside him. She stopped next to Harry and Draco walked beside Bella. "Besides the fact that we're going to destroy the world's biggest, craziest evil lord on the planet that has clearly gone off his mickey, but that giant Nundu back there in the woods didn't look too happy with us when I sliced off its ear."

Ginny stared at him with a look of pure astonishment on his face, and Harry just scowled lamely.

"You cut off a Nundu's ear?" she said disbelievingly. "But, those things are, like, the epitome of dangerous! They're totally uncontainable- that is unless..."

"Unless the owner can be checked off in the history books for being the most powerful in history," he finished for her. Harry's scowl deepened.

"That's right," piped in Hermione from in front of them. "The only person to have ever tamed one is Merlin, that I know of. They aren't very common to find in the wilderness, either."

As the mansion grew nearer, Draco grew quieter. A feeling in the pit of his stomach began to tense his walk as the others talked on without him. At first it was just a spasm of annoyance at everyone, but it grew quickly into the feeling he always got at Hogwarts before he'd met Ginny... loathing.

He suddenly remembered everything awful that had happened to him... everything seemed to lead back to the conclusion that it was their fault. Somehow every miserable feeling in his life was placed there by the people standing around him.

It was their fault...

They did it all...

But Ginny, no, not her... she didn't do it... it was the others... The lot of them...They're plotting against me...

He realized that he wasn't thinking the least bit rationally, and he knew perfectly well that being on his own family grounds was casting a spell over him. He knew that is was most definitely his father who was doing it, but it was so hard to fight when he partly believed it himself.

Lucius, however, could not rip him away from Ginny. No matter how hard he tried, for some reason his son knew that the bond between them was sealing her from his hatred and the curse.

This thought was pushed into the back of his mind as fast as it had entered, and his sizzling hatred of them suddenly caused something to rupture inside him, like a volcano or some sort of nasty boil that he had pictured looking something like Weasley's face.

"SHUT UP!" he bellowed at them all, panting heavily as his eyes filled with white-hot, angry tears. The expressions on all of their faces were almost comical as they stopped in mid-sentence.

Hermione looked stunned, and hurt. Bella stood aghast, with her mouth partly opened in frozen terror. Harry was looking as if he were doing his best at not shouting back, Ron simply looked as if he wanted to thump him over the head, and he could see every speck of human emotion in Ginny's eyes.

But he went on raging all the same, no matter what she was feeling about him.

"I've had to deal with all of you prats for longer than you can imagine, holding in every awful thing I've wanted to throw in your face, pretending to be all chummy with you while the only thing I really wanted to do was curse the hell out of my father. Do you have any idea how hard it is for me, waking up and knowing that I've resorted to working with you... you... gits, just so I can throw him a good curse when he's not expecting it? DO YOU HAVE ANY OF THE SLIGHTEST IDEA WHAT IT FEELS LIKE WHEN I WORK WITH THE PEOPLE I HATE?!"

"YEAH, I DO!" shouted Harry back, "BECAUSE I'M WORKING WITH HIM RIGHT NOW!"

And Draco did what he had wanted to do since he had first entered the Weasley home.

He hit Harry Potter as hard a he could, knocking him over onto the ground and pummeling in his face. He wanted to kill him. He wanted to beat the love for Ginny out of him. And he most certainly would have done so, if Ron and Hermione hadn't peeled him off of his enemy.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU PLAYING AT?!!" screamed Ron so loud that bits of spit hit him in the face. Draco faintly noticed Ginny and Bella trying to revive Harry, who he had beaten unconscious.

He didn't feel the need to answer, and when Ron's question was ignored, the redhead made a beeline straight for Draco, and if Ginny wouldn't have grabbed his ankle from the ground he was quite certain to have crushed his nose into his skull.

"Everyone!" she said in a voice that was hushed and loud at the same time. They stopped arguing at once and looked at her. Her eyes were glued on Draco, and he could see the fragments of her soul, which he had crushed as he punched her boyfriend, who was slowly revived by the magical healing power in her hand.

She nodded in front of them, and as they all turned to look, even Harry, they realized that the castle stairs were directly in front of them, not even five feet away. In the brawl everyone had missed it.

"We're here."

It was one of the oddest things Draco had ever experienced. A burning rage was fighting to consume him, to take control of him, but something was holding it back. Maybe it was his own strength. He'd like to think so, but he knew that something was binding him to Ginny and, thought try as he might to deny it, maybe even to Potter.

He remembered how Ginny had said something about the three of them being tied together so strongly, so deep and internally that nothing could penetrate it. Maybe it was because he and Harry were the heirs of Godric and Salazar, but why was Ginny entwined in the two? As far as he knew, she wasn't like the others. Her own colors, royal purple and bright white, weren't even connected to Hogwarts as far as he knew. But then he remembered the prophecy and what it said about the Regina.

But if the heirs were bound, why wasn't Bella a part of it? If she truly was the heir of Hufflepuff, then why wasn't she as strongly tied with the three?

He had a strong instinct that he must read the book to find out, but his mind couldn't seem to function right at the moment and he couldn't reach for Ginny, who had the prophecy in her pocket. She wouldn't have heard him anyway. They were all still transfixed by the castle and what to do.

"So I guess this is the part...," Ron gulped, his face pure white. "This is the part where we go in, then?"

Ginny allowed her eyes to wander over to Draco when Harry wasn't looking, and her face was filled with a mixture of furtiveness and a hint of angry sadness. As much as he hated to admit it, it almost made his own angst crumble into pieces.

"Yeah," he said, gulping the lump in his throat. "Yeah, I guess so."

He rose to his feet, the others following, and stepped slowly over the stone stairs to the door. Knowing there wasn't any point in making a dramatic and long entering, he abruptly swung the doors to his old home open and stood in a magnificently decorated mansion. He heard a gasp from one of the girls behind him.

Suddenly, he became quickly aware of the Slytherin-colored chain sliding on his neck, and felt more powerful, yet still battling his hatred.

He suddenly realized that they were just standing there wasting time, and he turned on his heel to face Hermione, who was behind him. Ron, Ginny, Bella and Harry watched.

"There's no point in waiting for dramatic thriller music, people," he said. "Just get a move on. We can split into twos to look for them. Potter and Bella can go upstairs. Ron and Hermione can take the basement. Ginny and I'll search the main floor."

"Oh no you don't," Said Harry ferociously. Bella grabbed his arm to keep him from going after Draco. "I'm not that dense, Malfoy!"

"Oh, really?" Draco drawled. "Because the last time I checked you were somewhere in between Crabbe and Goyle on the quick list."

Harry's face seemed to boil.

Ginny's eyes widened as if something had just hit her square between the eyes. She wheeled around to face her boyfriend.

"Harry," she said loudly. "Can you trust me?"

"Well," he said, fighting for an excuse to take her instead of Bella with him. "Yeah, but...,"

"But nothing," Ginny said briskly. "You said it yourself. You can trust me alone with Draco."

"Call him Malfoy, for Christ's sake!" Ron hissed. "He may be on our side now, but our families are still mortal enemies!"

Everyone ignored his comment.

"But Ginny, Let me come with you," Harry pleaded.

"Then you'll leave Bella alone!" Ginny said. She could tell that Bella was quite fine on her own by the gleam in her eyes, but something told her that the short-haired blonde was willing to play along. She had an important piece of information she needed to share with Draco and Draco alone, and somehow Bella knew that. "You can't come with us, Harry. I'm sorry," she added, stepping closer and kissing him.

Was it just his imagination, or did he see her flinch?

"Fine," Harry finally gave in. "Fine, I'm fully aware that you can take car of yourself. And what is it exactly that we're looking for here?"

"A few things," Draco sneered bitterly. "Number one, your brain. Number two, my off-his-rocker father. Number three, your brain, once we've found it and you've lost it again."

Harry made a move as to strangle him, but decided at the last second not to.

"Let's just go, shall we?" Hermione cut in. There was a pause before Harry and Bella slowly climbed the stairs a few yards from them, stopping to take a last look at the others. Hermione and Ron followed Ginny and Draco down the hallways to be face to face with the other two.

"Well what are you doing?" Draco asked as if he was merrily in a traffic jam.

"How will you know if one of us get hurt or something?" Hermione said.

"I have a very strong feeling that one of us will know." He waited for the others to nod in agreement, but they all just stared at him blankly. He sighed exasperatedly. "Oh, I forgot. You guys have never been in a Slytherin home, have you? We're cunning folk, you know."

"Some would like to say evil," Harry snorted.

"Excuse me, we are Alternative, Potter, and what I mean is that every room is connected by a sound barrier or secret passage of some sort, or other cool stuff that any other family envies. And some would like to say that Gryffindors are big stupid morons." He didn't realize how childish "big stupid morons" sounded until it was too late. But he really didn't care now.

"Well that was mature," Bella said, rolling her eyes.

"You know what?" he said, slapping her shin blandly because that was all that he could reach. "We are all about to die horrible deaths anyway, so I take it as my duty to be as goddam childish as I want to be."

"Alright," Ron said, grabbing Hermione's hand and dragging her around the corner. "Let's go before he starts picking his nose and throwing temper tantrums," they heard his voice call from somewhere far off.

Harry and Bella traveled the rest of the stairs and Ginny could hear their footsteps along a corridor before they trailed off and left her alone with Draco. He cleared his throat, and a long time passed where they said nothing. And then...

"You don't know how to get to the basement, do you?" he called.

"Bingo," she heard Ron say.

Draco grabbed Ginny's hand and led her down the hall, whipping around the corner and coming face to face with Hermione and her brother, who were looking around at the old living room they were standing in.

"Here," Draco said, letting go of her hand and walking over to a large door on the other side of the home in what looked like an ancient kitchen. He flung it open and a large cloud of flour and dust hit him in the face. He coughed, shaking the powder from his hair and swiping at his face. "Pantry. I forgot. I haven't been here in awhile, mind you."

"He looked down and smiled icily.

"No, I guess I haven't completely forgot my old ways," he said, and walked into the food closet and out of sight. A few moments later they heard a clanking and a bang, and he emerged covered head to toe in soot and baking ingredients. It was rather comical.

"A trap door," he said. Hermione and Ron pushed past a magnificent looking dining table and peered down where Draco had pointed.

"Don't worry," he said. "It's nicer down there than you think."

Ron was first to go part way down the stairs, and then Hermione. Ron smiled nervously and waved at Ginny.

"If I don't come back..."

"I'll be ecstatic," Draco finished, throwing the cement door closed.

Ginny could hear her brother cursing at Malfoy, but he merrily walked in the other direction and she was left with no choice but to follow him. The muffled yelling died the further they went down the splendid but creepy hall.

"So what did you want to talk about?" he asked.

"I- hey, wait a minute, I didn't tell you I needed to talk to you," Ginny said. He shrugged.

"Well why else would you want to search the house with me?"

"Good point," she muttered quietly in response. "I just...When we both died... well, you know the curse that was put on the both of us, so we couldn't...?" she trailed off.

"No," he said sarcastically. "And I also don't remember the fact that when I bleed, I bleed black, which basically means I'm supposed to be evil, which also means that if we find my father I might have a reason to join back up with him. But yes, I do remember the stupid damn curse that keeps us apart. What's your point, do you want to rub it in that I can never touch you, or what?"

"What I wanted to tell you," she said, ignoring all of his comments for a moment, "is that when we died, the curse might have been lifted."

"What the hell are you playing at?!" He asked exasperatedly, throwing his hands into the air.

"I'm playing at this," she answered, grabbing the knife from his pocket and slicing it across his outstretched wrist.

"ah," he breathed in, cradling his wrist in his hand, blood dripping on the carpet and staining his wrist red.

"Red blood," said Ginny triumphantly. "When you killed yourself, you killed the curse as well."

They stopped at the nearest door and pushed it open to find the Malfoy Library; no doubt dripping with the dark arts in every one of its pages. Draco doubted that they would find Lucius reading up on his magic skills about now, but they had to search every room and that's what they would do.

"I don't believe it," he said as they stopped in a long isle, listed "deadly magical weapons" to "how to keep your hair looking naturally sleek and shiny with just one simple spell".

"The only problem is when we find your father, the curse might come back," she said as she pushed two long, slender fingers into the cut and watched it heal.

"Well then," he said, looking up at her and knowing he was probably going to make the biggest mistake of his life, "let's get cracking."

"What do you mea...," she started, and suddenly realized what his words were implying as she looked him square in his silver-blue eyes, her own cinnamon ones large as dinner plates. "Oh, no, we can't...do that... it could put us all in...," but she never finished her sentence, and she didn't want to, because at that moment Draco stopped her short by pressing his lips so hard against her own she was afraid that he would break her skin.

He grabbed the back of her head and ran his pale fingers through her hair, feeling passionate tears spill down her face and wet his own cheeks. He had wanted to do this for so long that when it was finally happening, he felt numb.

The familiar smell of smoke and spices filled his lungs, even though he hadn't taken in a breath in what seemed like hours.

How could I have let this happen? Ginny thought. How could I have managed to fall in love with...the enemy?

But she didn't want her question answered. She didn't want to think about Harry, or Ron, or anyone else. All she wanted to do was grab Draco and never, ever let go.

She couldn't breath. Her mind was clouding, and her brain wouldn't let her grab hold of any real thought.

But when she felt his hands slide down her back and push her against a bookshelf, she forgot about breathing at all.