Sunday, Bloody Sunday

Chapter Twelve – Phantom Faces at the Window

"Oh my friends, my friends

Don’t ask me what your sacrifice was for

Empty chairs at empty tables,

Now my friends will sing no more."

-Les Miserables, "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables"

Tuesday, November 4, 2003

George sat silently and stared contemplatively at the bruises on his knuckles. He was in McGonagall’s office, waiting for the new Headmistress to march through the door and proclaim his fate. His first day on the job, and he’d managed to lose it completely.

The door slammed open, and George glanced over to find himself eye to eye with Professor Snape. Stifling a moan, he slid down in his seat. "Mr. Weasley, I’m sure you’re quite familiar with the interior of this office?"

"How is it that, despite the fact I’m twenty-four years old and teaching at this school, you still treat me as if I were a first-year?" As soon as George finished, he regretted it. Snape’s scowl deepened to a full-blown glare of contempt. Having been at the receiving end dozens of times before, George cringed further into his chair, resigned to a long session of rants.

"Did you ever consider the possibility that if you acted as an adult, I’d treat you as one? You’ve hardly earned the designation. Traipsing around the hall drunk, punching guests – and no matter how much I’d enjoy slugging Potter, I’ve never done it. Do you think you were acting as an adult would? I’m sorry your brothers died, but that’s no excuse for the pitiful behavior you’ve shown since your arrival." Snape gave a snort of disgust.

"So I’m an overgrown child. I used to run a joke shop, I thought that was rather obvious already." George sighed. "I’ve made some mistakes, yes. I’m not going to plead to keep this job, because I obviously messed up rather horribly. I didn’t hurt Potter too badly, did I?"

Snape gave another snort, lowering himself into McGonagall’s chair. "Not badly enough. However, I think the blow was enough to snap him out of the shock. If I hit you, will it do the same, do you think?"

"Sorry if I’m not peppy enough for you, Professor. If you’re done with the lecture, should I go downstairs to clean out my quarters?" George pushed himself to his feet, waiting as politely as he could for Snape’s dismissal.

"You’ll do no such thing." George stopped cold, staring at the dark man in disbelief. "If you’ll promise not to hit McGonagall’s little celebrity another time, Minerva has been kind enough to allow you to stay on here."

George shook his head sharply, trying not to gape. "I don’t understand... I messed up on my first day, I didn’t even teach my first class -"

"We need a Transfiguration master. I tend to agree with Minerva that you’d be fine at the job – after all the skills you learned in your attempts to drive away my sanity, even I have to admit that I’m impressed with your abilities." Snape sneered, managing to make even the compliment less appealing.

He smiled anyway. After all, if SNAPE of all people thought him to be a good candidate for the job, he must be. Or perhaps he was the only one. Either way, he was the new professor of Transfiguration. "In that case, I have a class to teach."

"Headmistress McGonagall is going to cover that class today. Your father is in the hospital wing. I believe your mother has arrived safely as well."

The happiness fled from his face. He squeezed his eyes shut against the panic welling up. "My brothers? Ginny?"

The pause before Snape continued didn’t bode well. "Charlie returned to Romania, did he not? Ron is here, no doubt mooning over Potter. Ginny..." The pause, again. George sucked in a sharp breath before Snape continued. "Ginny is unaccounted for, since yesterday. According to your father, a brown-haired man grabbed her and Apparated her away from the mob, which overtook your father. We can only hope that this man wasn’t helping the mob."

George sunk back into his chair and buried his face in his hands, trying to compose himself. "What about the spies? Malfoy showed up at my brother’s funeral."

"We pull them out on Monday. That gives us a week to sort out plans, Secret Keepers, and hiding places. And you, George, are going to help me."

~

Ginny awoke curled up on a plush bed, tucked in among silken pillows and soft sheets. She allowed herself a languid stretch before opening her eyes and taking in the opulence of Blaise Zabini’s mansion. The room itself would probably cost the salaries of all the Weasleys living for an entire year – gauzy draperies floated around the giant bed and intricately carved tables and dressers filled the enormous room. Ginny let herself imagine living among such riches for only a moment before she slid out of the bed and her borrowed pyjamas and pulled on the same Muggle clothing and robe she’d worn the day before.

"If miss would follow me?" a house-elf murmured, startling her. She smiled to the little creature, following him through a maze of gilded corridors and richly carpeted rooms. They arrived moments later at a small sitting room, where Ginny tried in vain to make herself comfortable in a room easily more expensive than her entire house.

She waited only a little while before a woman garbed in robes of elegant emerald satin swept into the room, Draco Malfoy, in refined black, escorting her. "Virginia, I’m sure you remember Blaise? Duchess Zabini was a classmate of mine in Slytherin."

Ginny gaped, then attempted to cover it up. A Duchess? Her brother... and a Duchess...? "I... I’m afraid I don’t. But since I was in Gryffindor and a year younger -"

"It’s not surprising, Ginny," Blaise smiled, sweeping herself into a cushioned chair with a grace Ginny could only strive to meet. "Enough with this ridiculous formality. You don’t remember me, and I wouldn’t you, if not for Draco and Fred."

"Is it true?" she blurted, sparing a glance to Malfoy. "You and Fred...?"

Blaise too looked over to Draco. "What did you tell her?"

"Just that... you and Fred... I mean, I didn’t really say anything..." He trailed off under the cold gaze of the duchess. Ginny went back to gaping. The mere thought of Draco Malfoy backing down in front of anyone was almost too much to take in.

"Draco, would you go find the butler and have a meal be readied? Ginny and I have a few things to talk about, which I’m sure you’ll find less than interesting." Blaise, every inch proclaiming her nobility, lifted her hand daintily.

With a polite kiss to the back of her hand, Draco bowed. "Of course, Duchess." And with that, he disappeared down the hall.

Despite the rudeness, Ginny turned and sputtered. "Malfoy – he bowed? And he looked subservient?"

"He was in the presence of one who ranks above him." Blaise shrugged lightly. "I’m a duchess, he’s only a baron. Voldemort or no Voldemort, he owes me respect. Now, then about your brother -"

"Wait, Malfoy’s a BARON?"

Blaise made a non-committal sound. "Of course he is. They’ve been landed gentry in... France, I believe, since the thirteenth century. MY family has held land in England since there was a king. Really, Ginny, did you think that old wizarding families held no sway in the Muggle world? Why, until the act that separated the spheres of influence, most wizard families were up to their ears in Muggle intrigue!"

Speech failing her, Ginny merely shrugged and tried not to whimper. Somehow, in only a few sentences, the Slytherin woman had managed to unnerve her completely.

"Now, of course, none of it makes any difference. You’re here at my invitation. Soon, we’ll be forced into hiding. Despite what the mark on my arm suggests, I am less than loyal to that pathetic commoner. I refuse to allow him to rule over the land my family has lorded over for more than a thousand years." Blaise made an affronted noise and leaned back in her seat to start examining her perfectly manicured nails. "Draco made a terrible mistake in calling out your name, but it’s too late to try to fix that now, and while Draco’s chateau in France is too obvious a place for the lot of us to go into hiding, I’m sure Severus will find us an excellent -"

"Why are you assuming I’ll be going anywhere with the lot of you?" Ginny cut in. Chateaux, nobles, France... it was too much to take in.

Blaise let out a less than lady-like snort. "You really are intending to hide out at Hogwarts, then. Please, Ginny, think about all of this for a moment. While some of the enchantments on the castle are permanent, others were contingent upon Headmaster Dumbledore’s life. Until McGonagall repairs the wards and creates a new set to replace Dumbledore’s, Hogwarts is vulnerable to attack."

"I don’t want to go anywhere with Malfoy. I don’t care where I end up, so long as he’s no less than a thousand kilometers from me – preferably, somewhere he can’t Apparate out of. Like a prison cell." Ginny crossed her arms and leaned back, daring Blaise to respond.

She took the challenge. "Draco," she stressed his first name, giving Ginny a condescending glare, "is a fine gentleman. A baron, who made some bad choices as a youth, but – and I’ll quote him on this – he ‘met an angel in the midst of destruction,’ and this angel, I assume he means you, has haunted most of his thoughts for the past two years. You’re turning him into a ghost as he pines away over you."

Ginny scowled. "That’s ridiculous. He doesn’t even know who I am. How’s he supposed to fall madly in love with me if he doesn’t know I’m anything other than a slightly-attractive face?"

Blaise dodged the question swiftly. "You’re an echo of your brother, you know. All fire on the surface, and a hopeless romantic underneath. And George... he’s like a phantom face. Every time I look at the pictures your brother left to me, I see two faces staring back. It hurts to know that one remains alive while the other is gone – I hurt every time I long to show up on your doorstep and tell your mother the truth about your brother."

"What was the truth?" Ginny murmured, keeping her question filed away.

"Your brother wanted nothing more than to see the end of the war. His work was everything. He was amazing – after all, he was a spy for almost as long as Draco has been one, without a bit of suspicion." Blaise sighed. "I loved him. Seems an odd match, doesn’t it? A Slytherin and a Gryffindor, a noble and a commoner. Draco compared the both of us to Romeo and Juliet once. And now it’s true. He’s gone and left me with a gift of death."

Ginny shook her head at the last, frowning. "A gift of death? That doesn’t make sense."

"A gift of death, it makes perfect sense. As soon as the Dark Lord finds out that I was involved with a spy, my life is worthless. That’s why I must go into hiding with you and Draco." Blaise glanced down at her elegant hands, avoiding Ginny’s eyes just long enough to alert her to the seriousness of her next pronouncement. "If I don’t leave soon, the truth will become evident to Voldemort. You see, the next Duke Zabini of Gloucester will be of Weasley blood."

Ginny fell back on her traditional response and gaped openly in astonishment.