Conversation With A Shadow-Woman

"Hello, Harry."

He sat down, carefully reaching for his chair before and making sure it was actually there before he sat. The room was dark, lit only by a single, shaded lightbulb, and it was directing all the light away from her face.

"Hello," he answered uncertainly.

"It's quite alright, Harry," she replied, her voice dripping with poisoned sweetness. "I'm not going to hurt you - not now, anyway."

"You really are Ginny Weasley?"

"Depends what you mean by 'Ginny Weasley,'" she said, and leaned forward over the table, into the light.

Harry Potter was an Auror; he had seen his fair share of awful things in the four years he had spent at the Ministry. There was nothing - or at least, there should have been nothing - awful about her.

Her red hair - trademark Weasley color - was thick and wavy around her shoulders, her skin was a creamy pale against the dark black of her clothes, her lips a darkish red that reminded him eerily of blood.

She was pretty. So what seemed so appalling about her?

"No freckles, Harry," she said lightly, her voice twisting with cynicism. "The Ginny you knew had freckles and tan skin and long straight hair and loved the sun.

"This one haunts the night, because the daylight burns her skin and strips away the illusions. . . Though I walk in the shadows, I do not work with the Death Eater remnants, or the New Blood Order, or any of the others. I work alone, Harry. I don't trust anyone, don't believe in anything but myself.

"And the funny thing is. . . The Order of the Pheonix taught me that."

Harry stared into the darkness where he knew her face was.

"Ginny. . . We never meant. . ."

"Oh yeah?"

She leaned forward, all of her previous calm demeanor gone. "You never meant to hurt me? You never meant to make me run away? You never meant for Molly's baby girl to turn into the Shadow Woman?"

Harry leaned away from her, involuntarily, away from the wrath that she held for them.

"No. . . "

She laughed, a cold, knife-sharp laugh that dug into his soul the way a blade would tear his gut. "Tom only possessed me once, Harry, but he used me twice. He knew that when I started acting funny, you would think it was him, not me. He thought I would crack, give in and give him information. But I'd grown older and stronger, and I suffered and everyone lost."

Then she calmed again. Harry sat up straight in his chair, no longer needing to be afraid of her anger.

In a sweet voice, not the same falsely sweet one she had used before, she asked him, "So, now that the personal business is taken care of--what does the Ministry want with me?"

Harry's throat tightened. But she was a danger.

Then he vaulted over the table.

Ginny dodged his spell with practiced ease - Stupefy? They thought they could get me with Stupefy? - and whirled around again, used to the darkness, used to the room. Harry was standing on her chair - the light was glimmering off his clothing. She leapt past the chair, grabbing one of Harry's arms.

Now he was where she wanted him to be.

Harry felt the cold press of metal against his temple. She had his arms pinned to his sides - she wasn't quite big enough to hold him down and threaten him, so he was jammed into corner.

Damn, this is uncomfortable.

Then he realized that Ginny did not have a wand.

"Ginny, where did you get the gun?"

He could almost hear the shrug in her voice. "Muggle London. Wonderful things, Muggle firearms. Exactly what every pureblood - and most everybody else, too - isn't expecting."

Something clicked. "So you're the one behind the gun murders in Diagon Alley?" The Ministry had thought it was a discontent part-blood.

"I do the dirty work for a lot of people. Being an assassin isn't such a bad business. So, the Ministry wants to kill me?"

"Yes."

"Why you? Did you get the short straw, or are they drawing names out of hats?"

"I volunteered."

"Why, Harry?"

"Because I knew you once, Ginny."

She released him. He moved away from the wall, not sure where he was going, rubbing his sore arm.

"Tell you what, Harry. I'll let you go this time."

He couldn't see her face in the darkness, but he looked at the direction of her voice. "We'll find you, Ginny, and they'll send someone else."

She laughed again. "I'm called the Shadow Woman for a reason! If I don't want to be found, they'll never see me again - alive, at the very least."

Her hand grabbed his shoulder and guided him through the room. She opened the door.

Standing half in the shadows, half bathed in starlight, she looked very much like she could have killed him back there. Her face was expressionless.

Harry started to walk away, but stopped when he heard her call.

"What?" he answered, turning around.

"At the Ministry, they have records of everyone, of their birth of death, and a picture, right?"

Harry nodded.

"When you get back. . . Look up Ginevra Molly Weasley."

She turned and walked back into the darkness.

***

In the Records Room, Harry went through the file folders until he found the one with her name on it.

Opening it, he saw a picture of her at about fifteen, smiling and happy. Before she ran away. The girl in the picture ducked her face at first when he opened her file.

But it wasn't the picture that drew his attention. It was something else.

Born: August 11^th, 1980

Died: July 17^th, 1996