The Darkness Presides

When Ginny opened her eyes, she couldn't believe that she couldn't believe what was in front of her. Oh, it made perfect sense, of course. It was Ginny's disbelief that didn't make sense. After all, when she'd found out that Draco Malfoy was her contact, it was the first thing that jumped into her mind. But she'd doubted herself, put her trust in the Ministry and dug in for the long run.

The true meaning of irony is a weighty thing.

"Merlin, I'm stupid," she said, more to be saying something than any other reason. The goons and their ringleader looked up from what appeared to be a very serious discussion.

"Do you mind?" Draco asked. "We're trying to have a conversation here."

"Of course I mind you daft loon, I'm tied to a chair in what appears to be your living room. You'd mind too in my position."

"I wouldn't be so chatty about it," he said indignantly.

"Nothing on God's green Earth would shut you up would be a better way to put it. Now what do you want, Malfoy, I run a tight schedule. No time for the meddling of mice or men, but especially not the former."

She was nervous, terrified, and with a bleak outlook on her life expectancy. It was only making her mouthier, a common Weasley trait. Well, except for Ron, he just sort of stuttered and made foul faces. But the rest of them fought back, damn it all! Well, except for Percy, he just...never mind that now anyway, the point is this: The more insanely dark the situation looked, the greater the capacity for sarcasm Ginny took on.

"I'm beside myself with laughter, Virginia. Do be quiet now, we have business to discuss that doesn't concern you."

"Excuse me? Are you serious? Business to discu...Good Merlin, is your shirt open again? Honestly, don't you have people to dress you properly? Lord knows you could afford it." She went on like that for quite some time, and indeed would have continued if Draco hadn't tipped her chair over and quit the room, cronies in tow.

Ginny had dealt with setbacks before, however, and didn't consider this one of them. Good riddance to him. More time for her to plot her escape route and subsequent backup plans. She was in luck as far as her captivity went, or so she thought. She was just tied to a chair was all. She'd learned to break out of most knots known to man by the time she was six. Lazy babysitting twins and a dark room will do that to you.

She put her skills to work. It took a bit more effort than she expected, but then, with the Malfoy money, it was likely Draco had been in a rather advanced version of Wizarding Scouts. Still, there were only so many knots in the world, and Ginny had freed her hands and legs in a moment's time.

Her wand was gone; that was a given. She picked up the chair, looked to the window, and grinned in a sadistic manner. She was going to enjoy smashing the diamond paned masterpiece. With a free looping throw, quite an achievement for a small girl and a big chair, she whipped the chair into the glass. It made a delightful shattering noise that would bring the whole house running. She dropped the chair out the hole the glass had covered moments ago.

The only thing dampening her spirits was the prolonged silence before the crack of wood meeting a grisly end met her ears. Surely it didn't take that long for a chair that heavy to hit the ground? She poked her head out the opening, numbly registering the sound of pounding feet on stairs in the background.

Five stories down. Five. One thing you could say for the Malfoys was that they sure knew how to live. Namely in excess. Lots of excess.

"That was a fifteenth century antique, Weasley," growled a voice behind her. Without hesitation she slipped out the window, latching onto the overdone gothic ledges and using some of the equally distasteful carvings for a foothold. She shuffled over out of Malfoy's immediate reach. Now...to get down to the next level...then the next, then the next. Stupid Malfoys and their stupid archaic mansions.

Draco stuck his head out the window and pointed his wand at her. "Accio, Virginia Weasley." Ginny braced herself and dug her fingers into the gap between carving and outer wall. The spell would have to pry her stiff fingers free first. Golden light surrounded her and...disappeared. Nothing happened. She didn't even feel a slight tug. Shaking herself, she lowered her body a few inches until her feet just rested on the next carving. It would be interesting to see what the wedding cake of a house would look like when she finally reached the bottom. Ginny glanced up. Draco was still staring, agape. Good.

"So you are what they say you are!"

Ginny chose not to respond, for two reasons. The first was she simply wasn't in the mood to care what he meant. The second was that she was still hoping he might just forget her presence altogether. She inched herself into a crouching position, careful to maintain her balance, and flipped her feet out from under her. With groping hands she caught the carving she'd been standing on on the way down.

"Do you even know how lucky you are, Virginia?" he crowed, and had he not said her name she would have been sure he was talking to himself. "You're Protected. And I'll bet you thought that garbage you call a family would never come to any use!"

"That's what you thought, Malfoy, and unless you shut your mouth about my family, I'll come up there and strangle you myself," she said dangerously. "Half of one of them is twice what you'll ever be, you sodding Death Eater." Her feet met the next carving.

"Look, you, I don't care what you think. If only you knew what your seven stupid brothers have done to you! All of them, cast a Life Line Spell on you!" He seemed a little hysterical, in a deliriously happy way.

"I've got six bro-"

"I counted Potter." She huffed. Now she was three carvings' distance below the window. She looked down - a little less than four stories left. "So what is this they've supposedly cursed me with?"

"A Life Line Spell, Weasley. Anyway, they've each bound you to their life force. I suppose they were thinking to save you from the ravages of war, or something equally dramatic." he continued, seemingly talking more to himself than to her. "Potter was probably having a guilty fit again, the specky bugger. God knows what the others were thinking though, you're bloody annoying enough."

"Get to the point," she ground out, "or I swear I'll jump to my death just to get rid of you." Three stories left.

"Go ahead, Virginia," he drawled. "The impact can only spread through one channel at a time. I'll enjoy reading that Peter has dropped dead in his tracks. Or the Weasel. Or Potter. Or one of those daft twins. Or-"

"It's Per - what are you talking about?"

"They bound you to their life force. Are you even paying attention? It's what good ickle heroes do for their little sisters. You have eight lives, Virginia. And somewhere, one of your freckled kin just slammed into a wall."

"'Accio,'" she whispered. Ginny raised a hand to her mouth, forgetting for a moment where she was...and lost her balance. "NO!" she shrieked, as her hands clawed desperately for the support of the ornate stone decoration.

And somewhere, one of your freckled kin just slammed into a wall.

A wall.

The ground was an awfully big wall.

But suddenly Draco was beneath her on a broomstick, his arms around her, and she wasn't falling anymore. She had a death grip around his neck in an instant.

"Don't you dare dump me from higher." A rough sob caught in her throat. "I won't let you kill one of them. I won't."

"Don't worry, Virginia. We have plans for you."

"I'm sure you do," she said quietly. Her arms tightened until Draco was having a rough time breathing. "I'm sure you do."

~****~

"Fine."

"See how nicely things go when you cooperate?"

"Yes, it's amazing what you can accomplish when you leave people no other choice." Ginny's mind was reeling; the weight of what Draco had told her to do was immense. It would mean fighting every basic instinct she'd acquired since birth, and some of the ones that had developed beforehand.

She would become a spy. A spy for the Death Eaters. And she knew only too well that even should she escape (unlikely), her family would be sentenced to an early grave.

"What's the use of someone like me?" she found herself asking. "You could blackmail anyone with threats. And it obviously doesn't matter to you whether I live or die, so what's the advantage of being Protected?"

"Ah, but you see, any ordinary spy would be difficult to get under complete control. They could find ways to contact their family, even under my close watch. Truly selfless people, like you, tend to do stupid, noble things like that. Then we're exposed and out a spy. You on the other hand would never do such a thing because when I found out - and I would, keep that in mind - I could kill off your entire family and leave you alive to go to the funerals without so much as sounding the alarm. Death Eaters have other things to do besides tramp around killing everyone who crosses them you know. The list is just too long. Have to spare some time to work towards world domination."

"Bastard," said Ginny, dazed. She stared out the window...well...hole, wondering just how much worse the day could get.

"Although given your financial state, there may be only one. A large piece of rock for a tombstone and a mass grave. We'll just throw them in on top of each other, it's not as if it'd make any diff-"

The lingering silence underneath his voice was shattered when Ginny's fist made abrupt contact with his face. Fire rose in his eyes, but the look in hers must have been enough to stop him from saying whatever he was going to say. She would not back down on this issue, and he could not waste a life so soon.

"Tomorrow we go to Hogwarts. As you may have heard, I teach Defence Against the Dark Arts there. You'll pose as my teaching assistant, and...er...fiancé."

"Your what?"

"Fiancé, Virginia, it's a fairly simply concept," he snapped. "We. Need. To. Share. A. Room."

"Why couldn't I just have been terminally ill and in need of a nurse?"

"And that's believable because...?"

"Oh, and I suppose our being engaged makes worlds of sense."

"Well, it makes sense that we wouldn't have told anyone."

"That's certainly true," she said, raking her eyes along him most rudely. "To admit such stupidity could be fatal."

"Oh please, when this gets out mothers and daughters everywhere will retire to cry in their rooms."

"Your arrogance is disgusting."

"The truth is often disgusting, and lies are seldom unpleasant. It's the way of the world, Virginia."

Ginny fell silent, and after a long pause, Draco left. A draft from the broken window swept across her shoulders, leaving her shivering and uncomfortable, painfully aware of her situation.