Hope and Memory

Chapter 1: Let me explain

Remember me, when you're the one who's silver screened.

Remember me, when you're the one you've always dreamed.

Remember me, whenever noses start to bleed...

Placebo: Special Needs

***

Ginny was walking sedately to Potions, through a darkly lit and dank corridor. She was alone, which was not now an unusual occurrence, and she was walking slowly because she was deep in thought. Things at Hogwarts were changing, she mused, rubbing a bruise on her arm. Once everything had been simple, but now...

She glanced furtively around, then pulled up her sleeve and inspected the bruise. In the half-light it stood out like a stain on her pale skin. Ginny was not someone who tanned easily, although she prided herself on not being as pale as Draco Malfoy.

She was still walking as she did this, so did not see this same person come round the corner, he too alone. In fact, she almost walked right into him.

'Watch where you're going Weasley,' he said in a sour voice. It was a little without his usual sneer; he looked pale and bleak. She glared at him, her face burning, although she knew he couldn't see it.

Hurriedly pulling down her sleeve, Ginny hissed, 'Wanker!'

'Oh, the little girl knows a bad word,' said Malfoy quietly, a little distractedly, 'What will her brother have to say, hmm?'

'Shut up Malfoy,' hissed Ginny. She glared at him. How dare he be so... Had he seen...? Instead of fear she felt anger: a sudden desire to knock that smirk off his face. She remembered the bat-bogey curse and smiled viciously. 'You weren't so cocky when you were Mr. Bogey Face last year.'

He glared at her, his attention suddenly focused, point-like. 'And you won't be so cocky if I do this-' His hand shot out like a snake and grabbed her arm, fingers tight around the bruise.

With a cry Ginny jerked back, shocked. Malfoy rarely resorted to real violence, and it had shaken something deep in her core, bringing back memories of other things. 'Bloody hell Malfoy! What was that for?'

He smirked and shrugged, an elegant, fluid movement. 'What, is your brother going to beat me up, or something?' He paused, taking in her angrily horrified look. 'Look, it's none of my business. Perhaps I shouldn't have hurt you, but its done now. And it's not like I can change it. You can't change it, ever... Perhaps if he'd just... but no...'

Ginny frowned. He stood like a beacon in the dark, pale skin blurred into silvery hair. He seemed again distracted, staring at a spot on the wall about three feet to her left, as though he had forgotten she was there. He was drifting away from her again. Well, she knew what they said about Malfoy nowadays.

'Malfoy,' she said, waving her hand in front of his blank, grey eyes, 'shut up. You're talking nonsense.' She had done it purely out of need for reaction; people were always forgetting her, it seemed. He blinked and looked guardedly at her. She took a deep breath and said angrily, 'Malfoy, if you ever, ever, tell any-'

He smirked. 'Like I said, not my business. Now, if you don't mind, I'm horribly late for my Care of Magical Creatures lesson.' He turned to go, but, ever mindful of the last painful shot, he looked back after a couple of paces and said, 'If I were you though, I'd go and see Madame Pomfrey about those cuts.'

A second later he was gone, leaving Ginny alone, confused and late for Potions.

***

Memory #26

It is very dark. The sun set many hours ago and Draco's legs and arms ache as though they've been hit with hammers. He wants to move... he can't ever remember wanting anything so much as this. If he doesn't move his arms'll drop off, they hurt that much, and yet he doesn't move so much as a muscle.

It's so late his eyes are drooping. Draco stands against the wall, specially devised for his punishment. Why won't he just come and say to him 'enough'? How long has he been standing here? And what for? He has to move soon, he has to. But if he does...

The clock ticks slowly. And still his father does not come.

***

Draco Malfoy no longer held sway at the Slytherin table. After his father's arrest and subsequent disappearance he had found himself pushed from the limelight, no longer able to sit with his legs on the table, no longer able to bully the first years into giving up their seats, no longer able to trust the unquestioning loyalty of Crabbe and Goyle.

No, it was all Indigo, Indigo, Indigo now. Indigo Fallandre, son of Ellador Fallandre, the Dark Lord's most trusted female Death Eater, his right hand witch. Indigo Fallandre, rumoured to be the son of The Dark Lord himself.

He sat now with Crabbe one side and Blaise Zabini the other, feet on the table, drinking lazily from a goblet of Pumpkin juice. Breakfast, a few days after his conversation with Ginny Weasley, and Blaise's golden hair shimmered across the table at Draco who drank his milk bitterly. Goyle sat next to him, but even he was beginning to sway; he and Crabbe were having whispered arguments every evening about whom they should be guarding nowadays. Crabbe had always followed Goyle in the past but then he had suddenly struck out on his own, following Indigo like a large lovesick poodle.

Draco twisted his fork in his lap. Goyle was staring fixedly at Crabbe, face uglier than usual. Sitting next to him, Draco could feel him just itching to get up and go to the other end of the table, to join the laughter and the fun. The fork bent horribly, like some deformed and broken limb. Draco hated himself for not being able to keep Crabbe and Goyle here, for being so afraid of what might happen if Goyle also deserted him. He hated Goyle too - why didn't he just go over there if he wanted to so much? And he hated Crabbe for just leaving like that, suddenly ignoring Draco's commands and once even pushing him roughly over.

But most of all he hated those dark blue eyes and that jet-black hair; hair that was similar and yet different to that of Harry Potter's. Whilst Potter's often had the effect of making him look like he was wearing an alarmed longhaired guinea pig on his head, Indigo's was perfect, sleek and shiny, and in certain lights it almost appeared a tinge of purple. He had slept in Draco's dormitory for the last five years, yet Draco had hardly noticed him, probably because of Indigo's nature to hang back, allow others to do the talking, and Draco's nature to be first in line, to announce his superiority. Some illegitimate son-of-a-mudblood had been below Draco's line of vision. Until now, of course.

Indigo looked down the table and caught Draco's eye, smirking. Draco held his gaze, unblinking grey against pitch blue. Indigo was the first to look away.

***

Ginny walked alone, again, across the Hogwarts' grounds. It was a clear day, but the white sky showed signs of darkening. Breakfast that morning had been a strange affair. There were too many secrets flying around the Gryffindor table; everything was shifting. It was happening beneath, like the slow trickling of sand in an hourglass, affecting the surface in the subtlest ways.

Even the Slytherins had changed. Malfoy sat sullen without supporters whilst You Know Who's son ruled the roost. There were rumours that Malfoy had lost it since his fathers arrest, that he was going slowly mad, had been seen talking to himself, was losing all his fans to Fallandre.

Everything had changed. Everything was different now, it was all wrong. Things had always been the same: Harry, Ron and Hermione their own little gang, fighting evil and whatever, and Ginny with her friends. Now they deserted her. Perhaps they suspected something. But she was as much to blame, withdrawing herself from them, shutting them out when they wanted to help, to ask what the matter was. Because she couldn't tell them. She couldn't tell them about him.

The sun strove to break through the clouds for a moment, before being beaten back into murky obscurity. Ginny paused beneath a tall oak that stood solitary a little way from the forest, watching the sun's struggle. The sky was quickly darkening after all. Snow was threatening to fall. It had been late this year; December was marching on in mildness, but now it seemed like a storm was to break around them. To tell the truth, Ginny didn't really know where she was going or where she had been planning to go. She had just wandered aimlessly, drifting in and out of consciousness.

The night before had been good, been amazing... Urgh. Ginny shuddered at this stupid cliché. It sounded so...so stupid. Almost dirty, in a bad-novel way. She ran her finger up and down the bark of the tree without thinking. She had been doing this a lot lately, feeling things, textures on her skin: when she walked down a corridor she often found herself unconsciously running a hand along the wall as she walked.

Something hadn't been right though. She had been afraid that last night was going to be one of those nights. All the time she had been thinking, is he going to suddenly flip? Is he going to change? She still bore the bruises, his bruises; in the same way that the letter you receive belongs to the person who sent it. But the night before had been different; it had encapsulated everything she felt about him, the fear and the love mixed and churned together. But still she couldn't stop feeling that fear whenever she saw him, whether it be in private or in public. He would never do anything in public, of course. It was supposed to be secret. If anybody found out...

But Malfoy had seen. He had seen and understood. 'I'd go and see Madame Pomfrey about those cuts...' He knew, if not who, then at least what had happened. But Malfoy was going mad, would anybody believe him if he were to start spreading it around, stirring things up? Everyone knew the old reliabilities were falling, old strengths collapsing in the fear of the Second War. Did Malfoy have power still to work his old malice?

She sat down beneath the tree as fat flakes began to fall around it out of the grey sky. She was good at making plans, always had been. As a little girl, her older brothers had asked her opinions in anything they were plotting: she could spot a flaw a continent off. But she was getting tired now. She twirled her fingers in the damp earth under the tree, sheltered from the swirling snow. Malfoy knew... Malfoy must be prevented from telling... If he was really going mad... Could she reason with him? Threaten him? Was there anything that could scare Draco Malfoy?

The ground was deep in a white duvet before Ginny finally got up and left, leaving quickly filled footprints behind her.

***

He didn't know when he had devised the system. It made sense to him, however. He had discovered that bad memories crept up on you, spilling forth sometimes, dragging you under with their weight.

Draco filed his bad memories now. He thought of his mind like a cluttered office, with papers strewn on the floor. Everyday memories lay on top, the more distant memories buried beneath the others, but easy to find should he need them. But it didn't matter how deep some memories were buried, they shone brightly, blinding him... So now he filed them, numbered them and put them away. It was easier, he concluded, to forget about what was in the filing cabinet than stuff all over the floor.

Of course it didn't work. On a night like tonight he lay and didn't sleep, replaying the filed memories in his head, unable to stop them. After his father's disappearance they had become impossible to rule. There was no controlling things like that.

But sometimes it helped.

***

Hogwarts awoke in sleepy snow, but the school buzzed that Friday, itching to get out there. Teachers had little or no control over the rampaging students; Herbology lessons were a shambles and rumours abound that Hagrid had retreated into his hut under a storm of snowballs. People dashed through the corridors soaking and yelling; enchanted snowballs like small cannon balls rocketing through the air even inside.

Harry seemed a little detached from it all. There were fewer people at lunch than they had ever seen during term time. Every few moments a group of damp students, crowing and laughing happily, would dash in, wolf down some food and disappear as fast as if they had Apparated.

'Harry?' Hermione said, and he blinked and turned to her.

'Yeah?'

'Nothing, you just seem...' Hermione glanced back down the table to where Harry had been looking. Ginny Weasley sat alone, pushing food around her plate, reading a book.

'She's always alone at the moment,' said Harry softly, noticing where Hermione was looking.

'Lavender's little sister says she's been getting angry with her friends. She's depressed about something, but she's just pushing all her friends away.'

Harry glared at his plate. He didn't seem to want to talk about it anymore. Hermione resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Boys. They never wanted to discuss anything emotional. And if Ginny was apparently pushing her friends away, then what were Harry and Ron doing? They had both been acting strange lately, moody and unbalanced. But then, Harry had only lost Sirius a few months ago, and Ron... Perhaps Ron saw Harry's grief as a sign of the loss of his friend. After all, Harry hadn't been the same since Sirius' death. Hermione often felt like she was the only one left to hold the three of them together.

'And Malfoy's alone now too,' she said aloud.

Harry glanced up without much interest and said bitterly, 'You're always talking about Malfoy. What's so special about Malfoy?'

Hermione was surprised more by his tone than by his accusation. She said with dignity, 'I do not always talk about Malfoy.'

'Yes you do, the other night you wouldn't stop going on about how-'

'I was simply pointing out the sudden difference in the Slytherin hierarchy,' said Hermione perhaps a little primly, 'and Malfoy just happens to be at the centre of that difference.'

She looked over at the Slytherin table. Malfoy was indeed alone, sitting near the foot of the table. He, too, wasnt eating, but was chewing his fork meditatively. Indigo Fallandre sat like a prince at the other end of the table, Crabbe and Goyle flanking him as they used to Malfoy. His skin was much darker than Malfoy's - he had a Mediterranean look about him, as though he had spent his early years in some hot, faraway place. She had heard the rumours, of course, but Harry had said that Voldemort's skin was pale and white - 'like dead skin, not alive skin. Like pickled skin...'

Fallandre and his posse stood up and made to leave, as did most of the Slytherin table. Malfoy, however, stayed behind, glaring after the others. His grey eyes then swept the hall, resting for a second on Hermione's, forbidding her, daring her, to feel sorry for him. Not that she did - she could never feel sorry for Malfoy.

Ron arrived suddenly, and Hermione saw Harry stiffen a little. Ron had had detention with Snape and he was seething. 'Honestly!' he cried as he sat with a thump in a chair and threw his head into his hands. 'The world's gone mad and Snape still made me scrub the whole of the dungeons! My hands are killing me!' He held them forth for the others to see. Dean, who had just arrived from an apparently furious snowball fight with Seamus, leaned in to look before he grabbed a sandwich (the house elves seemed to have picked up on the current mood of the castle) and said, 'Looks bad mate - you should go up to the hospital wing.'

'Yeah, I think I will,' said Ron, inspecting his red palms.

'We're going out again,' said Seamus, also stuffing sandwiches into his bag. 'You lot coming?'

Harry and Ron made noncommittal noises. Hermione sighed. They had been spending too much time holed up in the castle recently. She said, 'Of course we are, aren't we?' She kicked Harry under the table, and he said, 'Yeah, ok. Ron?'

Ron shrugged and nodded. They all got to their feet, but before they left Hermione noticed that they both glanced down the table, where the only person sitting was Ginny. Who, Hermione now saw, was reading her book upside-down, eyes fixed on the Slytherin table. This was just odd. Hermione rolled her eyes with flair and left after the others.

***

Memory #8

There are three weeks until Christmas, and Draco's father solemnly hands him todays advent offering - a small silver bell. Draco is enchanted by it; he rings it and rings it over and over. Suddenly his father snatches it off him. 'I didn't give it to you to play with!' and throws it into the fire.

Draco waits until his father has swept from the room before darting to the fire, grabbing the silver bell and hiding it in his cloak. His hand is burnt but he has his trophy. He takes it secretly up to his room and night after night looks at it. He dares not ring it but he looks and looks until he knows its every detail. He strokes it, feeling its silky texture, he learns the tiny carvings by heart. Every night he sleeps well in the knowledge that it lies safe beneath his pillow.

And then one morning he wakes to find his father standing over him, the bell in his hands. It is not the punishment, but that moment that is most important. The moment when he sees his father's face.

***

Draco woke, sweating. His dream had been silver, laced with silver. He drew his hand across his face and opened his eyes, and saw before him a ghost.

Or was it a ghost? The apparition was pale and white in the darkness, stock still beside his bed. The faint light from the unclosed curtains, a little moonlight, shimmered in its hair. Draco sat up, and as his eyes adjusted to the light he saw that it wasn't, in fact, a ghost. It was a living person.

It was Ginny Weasley.

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