A Living Nightmare

"Ginny," he said, breathless from chasing down shadows for the past ten minutes. "There you are. Are you all right?"

Ginny turned to see a tall caped figure striding quickly towards her, carrying a small object in his hand. As she looked, he reached up and pulled off his hood and mask, revealing a pale, pointed face and a shock of blonde hair, luminous in the pale lights. She smiled. "Hello, Draco. Yes, I'm fine. Nothing happened to me."

"Are you..." he trailed off, trying to find the right words to ask. It was a very difficult question to phrase diplomatically, without offending Ginny - or anyone else who may have been listening in.

She smiled slightly, knowing, despite his inarticulacy, exactly what he wanted to know. "A Death Eater? No." He let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. "I don't think I'm... important enough," she continued, the corners of her mouth turning up a bit. She'd been instrumental in carrying out the Dark Lord's latest end-of-school-plot, but as it had failed, she wasn't regarded highly at the moment.

Draco attempted to conceal his relief, but they both knew he was glad she hadn't been inducted. Although Draco had been the one to bring her over to His side in the first place, neither of them were comfortable with how interested the Dark Lord had been, and continued to be in her. "When he summoned you, I thought..."

He drew up closer to her side, and she willingly sunk into the embrace he offered. She rested her head against his shoulder, murmuring, "Me too... but he only wanted a report... he wasn't angry..."

"With you," continued Draco, leaving the rest unspoken. Ginny knew what he was thinking however, and shivered a little. "No, not with me... I wouldn't want to be one of the Death Eaters who went on that mission, though..."

They had gotten to the subject Draco was most anxious to discuss, once he saw that Ginny was unharmed. "What... happened to them?" His voice was soft with hesitancy, something Ginny wasn't used to hearing in it.

She sighed, turned her head, and looked up at his face, drawn with tension. "Most were... compromised," she said softly, her voice barely carrying to his ears, only a few inches away. The worry on his face heightened. She continued, "He came into the Ministry Himself... everything went wrong from there. Fudge..." They both knew Fudge owed his job to the Malfoy family, but Draco knew such a connection would only go so far. "It will be in the Daily Prophet," Ginny said, changing the subject.

He knew then the news was bad. "Ginny, tell me what happened. Please..."

She closed her eyes. Why did she have to be the one to tell him? "They were arrested, Draco."

"All of them?" His voice was tight, a sign that an explosion was close to the surface. Ginny opened her eyes then, pleading with him to keep calm.

"Only Lestrange escaped..." she said slowly, carefully.

Draco's face fell into an expressionless mask, and he slowly sucked in his breath. A soft syllable escaped his lips, and he went still. "Damn..."

As she slid back and pulled away from him, he grabbed her wildly and buried his face in her shoulder, muttering "No" again and again. After a while, he pulled back and looked up, his face set in stone. "So my father is in Azkaban."

She nodded, once, lightly. He frowned, drawing his brows together, giving his stony expression a menacing quality. "Why? How did it go wrong?"

Ginny shrugged. "They don't know... we - that is, the children and I - were losing predictably badly, when - when Dumbledore and his cronies showed up..."

Draco suddenly looked furious, his expression losing every bit of its former implacability. "How?" he hissed. "Who told them?"

Ginny shrugged again. "They don't know," she repeated. "He will find out, though," Ginny assured Draco. "His Lordship won't rest until he does."

Draco thought furiously back to that scene in Umbridge's office. Potter and his friends had no time, no time to tip anyone off... with the exception of Ginny, they hadn't even known what was waiting for them...

Then a horrible thought occurred to him. "He doesn't suspect you, does he?" he demanded.

Ginny shook her head unsmilingly. "No. I would hardly be 'fine' if he does. He did ask me, but he knows I can't lie to him... Besides, it would be implicating myself, against my own self-interest, to go to Dumbledore in a situation like that."

Draco looked seriously alarmed now. "But Dumbledore'd forgive you... everyone forgave you after your first year..." His mouth twisted sourly. "He forgave Snape..."

"Dumbledore is a fool," said Ginny simply. Then, sharply, she added, "Draco, you can't believe I betrayed us. Betrayed your father."

But Draco had suddenly received an illuminating and uncomforting thought. Preoccupied, he glanced down and murmured, "Of course not..."

'He forgave Snape...' Snape! Snape had been in there, in Umbridge's office, had spoken to Potter...

"'He's got Padfoot!' he shouted. 'He's got Padfoot at the place where it's hidden!'"

Snape...

His revengeful musings were interrupted when Ginny looked down at what he had been carrying: a small, black book. She recognized it instantly, and sucked in her breath. "Draco! What do you have that for?"

Caught off guard, he glanced down at the book. "Oh, that... Father wanted you to have it again."

He held out the small, harmless-looking book with a date etched on the cover, and Ginny took it gingerly. "Why?" she said, half-whispering. "He's gone..."

And indeed, when she took it in her own small hand and stared at it as though it were to explode any second, she felt none of the warmth it had usually held... warmth from him... She never realized just how much she'd always wanted this again...

She straightened up suddenly and thrust it back at him, frightened but trying not to seem so. "I don't want it."

Draco raised an eyebrow and didn't take the diary back. "Father said for you to have it, Gin."

"It's just a book," she said, her hand almost trembling. With an effort, she took a deep breath and kept her voice steady. "There's nothing in it. I can't see why he wanted-"

She stopped abruptly as a third hand, previously unnoticed, reached out to take the diary from her. She found herself staring into the disconcerting gaze of the Dark Lord himself.

"I wanted you to have it. He is not gone. He cannot go until his work is completed."

Dazed, she managed to repeat, "His work...?"

"To purge the school of all who are unworthy to study magic," Voldemort recited, and laughed a little. "What did you think you were doing, Virginia? Killing random people?"

She winced slightly, and his laughter became more pronounced, higher, colder. "Keep it, and put it away against the day when another opportunity comes for him. Only when his purpose is fulfilled will he be truly gone."

To her credit, she managed to resist the impulse to shiver. All semblance of resistance evaporated, she gingerly took the book from his outstretched hand and stowed it away in her own cloak, then stared at the ground with a queasy feeling in her stomach. When she'd agreed with Draco to spy for the Dark Lord, she'd done it to prove that she had control over her own actions, that she was nobody's pawn, that was much more than the youngest Dumbledore-supporting Muggle-loving Weasley; but each day, she felt more and more of her control, and her very life, slipping away from her. She'd joined him to rid herself of Tom's ghost, but instead acquired a living nightmare.

Never had this seemed more real and pronounced as he gently gripped her chin and found her lips with his own. Gasping involuntarily, she was drawn to look into his eyes, glittering, hypnotic, powerful, red eyes. He'd kissed her once before - the first time she'd met him, weeks after telling Draco she would spy for the Dark Lord. That kiss had been utterly unexpected, short, and completely unromantic. It had been his way of leaving a mark on her - and it had been over before she could realize what had happened.

This time, he was kissing her deeply, satiating a need hidden within the depths of his eyes - eyes that were captivating Ginny, rooting her to the spot. Oh, she'd imagined kissing Tom - even longed for it - but Tom was the nice boy who let her share her fears and secrets, but this! Never, in her wildest dreams, could she have imagined You-Know-Who kissing her - or she kissing him back.

But she was, she couldn't help herself, his tongue and his lips and his mouth were all inviting her - no, pulling her into him, and she found she couldn't pull away. Surrendering - although she had never had a chance to fight - was the only thing she was capable of doing - melting into him, wilting against him, drowning under him. His hand left her chin and his arms were around her, all around her, surrounding and enclosing her. Breathing was the last thing on her mind, Draco was the last thing on her mind, even Tom was the last thing on her mind as she submitted to his invasion of her mouth.

It seemed to be an eternity, but she found she wasn't ready for it to end when he broke off and loosed his grip on her. Seeing that she was for the moment unable to support herself, he gently untangled her and set her in Draco's near but stiff and rather unwilling arms. Without a further word to either of them, Voldemort turned and left as he had come.

Ginny managed to remember that breathing was necessary for living, and took several deep breaths in quick succession. Mortified at falling in Draco's arms after something like that, she pushed him away and attempted to support herself. It didn't work, euphoria still clouding her judgment and balance, and Draco caught her arm in a steel grip.

After a moment, she dared to look up at his face. His mouth was set in a thin line and his face was expressionless, stonily not looking at her. Ginny felt something gnaw at the pit of her stomach, and she realized Draco couldn't be too happy with her.

"Draco..." she began softly, and he glanced over at her. "I'm sorry," she said softly. "I- I didn't mean-"

Draco softened a little around the edges when he realized she was telling the complete truth. "No, you hardly had a choice," he agreed dryly. Ginny nodded, looking at the ground again, and he moved his arm to around her waist.

"Let's get back to school before they miss us."