Much Ado About Draco

Chapter 3: Of Gingerbread doors and Shortbread walls

"We are alone..." Ginny repeated, staring to where she believed the sky would be the sky if the trees hadn't blocked her vision.

Draco sighed. "You know, we're not at the theatre, Weasley," he said. "You don't have to try to be dramatical."

"What do you suggest I should say? That I am sitting alone in a dark, creepy forest which is inhabited by monster-spiders, werewolves, Draco Malfoy and other figures you can find in a Muggle theme park?" she replied testily.

Draco cast her a glance that would have caused the ocean to retreat from the beach, but as it was too dark to see anything Ginny didn't notice it.

"You know, I don't think that we will get out of here by mere sitting around," Draco pointed out.

"No, we certainly won't. I've been thinking. You want to know what I think?"

"No, I don't. Sentences like 'If Harry Potter was you now, he would take me in his arms and...' -ugh, see, what I mean, these things usually cause me to vomit!"

"Why should I think of Harry sitting beside me now? Not that I enjoyed your presence, but he threatened to kill anyone who tried to spoil his date with Cho tonight. In that case I don't want to be that 'anyone', so I have to put up with you."

"Notice that I am near killing you now, too."

"I don't want to destroy your dreams, but may I ask how? You've only got your left hand for use. That could turn out to be a problem!"

Instead of an answer Draco drew his wand and murmured softly, "Avada Kedavra's a nice little spell, you know." He heard her gasp with shock beside him. "But then I guess it would be better if I´d just gotten rid of that...what's that anyway?"

Ginny also drew her wand and muttered, "Lumos." They both looked at the white rope-like thing that was binding them tightly.

Draco carefully poked his wand at it, and the white stuff began to fume soundlessly and finally started to melt, turning green and brown eventually.

"Ew, it looks like it's molding," Ginny said with disgust. "Put your wand away immediately..."

"Would you please stop complaining? You should be glad that monster didn't eat you!"

"Well, but look at this! I hate mould! Maybe I would have preferred being eaten by it!"

"Are you crazy? That thing would have drooled all over my Jean-Pierre sweater!"

"How horrible. I guess that would have been the last action in it's life. I just don't know whether I would have stopped you chopping it's body into pieces with your bare hands and then throwing them into every imaginable direction."

"Haha, very funny! This sweater is maybe as expensive as all your clothes together!"

"Then why don't you just wear normal stuff? It looks the same and is a lot cheaper."

"Looks the same? You think a Jean-Pierre sweater or Domenica Scarlatti pants or Giorgino boxershorts look the same as other clothes?"

"Okay, the boxershorts might look different sometimes. But, although I have to admit that I have no sense for fashion, I believe that bright green is not in at the moment."

"I don't possess any bright green boxershorts..."

"...if it hadn't been for Snape."

Draco felt his cheeks go pink. How does she know?

Ginny looked at him with interest. She had never seen Draco blush. Well, he hadn't really blushed, but he went slightly pink. She cast him an amused smile and cocked an eyebrow mockingly.

By then they had gotten their hands free again. Draco looked at Ginny as if to ask her what she intended to do now, but she didn't notice it because she was staring at the sky, lost in thought.

But all of a sudden she turned to him and said: "You know what I think?"

"You already asked me that five minutes ago."

"Really. Well, I think that we should go into the direction we came from."

"Sure. Firstly I don't know which direction we actually came from as everything around here looks pretty much the same to me and secondly I don't think it would be a good idea to pay those nice little spiders another visit," Draco said sarcastically.

"But didn't you think it was strange that those spiders avoided this way? It almost seemed as if they were afraid of it. You have seen them. Would you like to see something even they are afraid of?"

"Nonsense. They weren't afraid of anything. We'll go right into..." he looked around and finally pointed towards their left "...this direction"

"And why do we do that? I'm going alone because then the danger of being murdered by the third-nastiest thing in this forest would be banned," Ginny said firmly, while getting up and turning towards their right.

"You will go nowhere alone."

"Why? Are you afraid?"

"No, but I don't want Dumbledore to kill me if I get back to Hogwarts and tell him that you are still running around in that forest or maybe just being digested by a big, ugly, hairy,..."

"Spider with a serious lack of fashion sense. Okay, I'll go with you, but only because I don't want to tell Hagrid that there was this poor blind spider suffering of a bad stomach upset because it had eaten some indigestible student. Hagrid would kill me for the poor animal's sake."

"Okay, we'll take this way," Draco pointed to their left.

"Oh no, we take that way," Ginny started to their right.

"Left way."

"Right way."

"Left way."

"Right way."

"Left way, basta, finito."

"Right way."

"Left way. See that plant there? It's called morphelia bride and it's a bad omen. Anyone who takes a way where morphelia brides grow will die the terrible death of...erm I guess it was drowning, wasn't it?"

Ginny cocked an eyebrow. "Drowning? Here, in the forest? Oh my, you are a great diviner. I guess if I´d let you read my future out of a teacup you will tell me that I will die of cancer of the prostate? Oh, and besides, that plant you were talking about, it was a forget-me-not."

"Oh, erm, sure I...I knew that..."

"Sure," Ginny drawled.

"We'll take the left way."

"Oh-kay. Stop being so childish"

"I'm not childish, I just know that we have to take that way."

Ginny resigned and slowly followed Draco, who had already turned around and had gone. "Boys!" she sighed, while shaking her head and rolling her eyes.

After half an hour of walking the forest got creepier and creepier with every step they took. There were hardly any animals and the only existing noise was caused by their feet. I knew it. We should have taken the right way, but no, your Childishness thought it was better to take the left one, Ginny mused.

A few kilometres of walking quietly side by side later, they reached another clearing. There was some sort of altar standing in its middle and on its surface there was a candle that had immediately lit up the moment they had stepped onto the clearing. The altar seemed to be carved out of a single block of marble, and it showed some people who were haunted by demons on its sides. They were apparently screaming and trying to run away, but there was nowhere to go.

"Creepy," Ginny muttered, slowly advancing the altar. "What is that?"

When she finally reached it she noticed that the candle wasn't the only thing lying on it. There was also a rather old book that lay open on the left and a knife with an ivory handle with another demon carved on it.

"Seems to be a sacrificial altar, if you ask me," Draco, who was standing beside her, said. He cautiously reached for the book and drew it closer to him as not to break it, because it seemed rather old. He examined the page the book was opened on.

"Thou takest the knife with thy left hand and reachest for the bowl, placed at thy right with thy other hand. The others, standing in a circle around thee will call thy name, thrice, and then thou cuttest thy thumb and let the blood run down into the bowl, where it is mixed with the..."

"Okay, stop it. I don't want to hear it. How weird do you have to be to write such stuff, or actually even do it. I mean look at that knife. I bet you would get tetanus if you really cut your finger with it" She picked up the knife and looked at it closely.

Draco put a hand on her arm and was just about to tell her to put that down, when he felt a strange feeling in his stomach, and the forest around them began to blur. Then they were lifted into the air by something as if they were feathers and the scenery seemed to spin around them, until it came to a halt all of a sudden.

Draco, who had been clutching Ginny's arm for the couple of seconds that had passed, hit the ground hard and knocked her over, falling on top of her. Suddenly he felt a searing pain in his left hand and inhaled sharply, rolling over so he was lying beside Ginny.

He pressed his right hand on his left and felt something warm and wet running down his arm. Ginny's wand about three feet away, but it was still bright enough for him to see that he was bleeding. She must have cut him with the knife when they were falling.

"Dammit," Draco swore, watching the blood running down his arm in little streams.

"Weasley?"

"Huh?"

"Did you do that intentionally?"

"What?"

"How about you turn around and look at my hand?"

Ginny, who hadn't moved until now slowly turned her head and looked at Draco's hand.

"Ew, how did you do that?"

"I didn't do that. You cut me with that damned knife. By the way, d'you reckon that was some sort of levitation charm?"

"Levitation Charm?" Ginny snickered contemptuously. "Not a Levitation Charm. Look around you fool, it was a Portkey!"

Draco, who had previously been too occupied with his bleeding hand hadn't noticed that their surroundings had changed. In fact they hadn't changed much, they were still in some sort of clearing, but instead of the altar there was a huge statue standing in the middle and in front of it there was a tablet with some strangely familiar letters on it.

When Draco recognised what they were he groaned. They were runes. Draco didn't have many subjects at school he wasn't good in, in fact there were only three: Divination, Herbology and Rune Studies, although his bad marks in the first two subjects were caused by a strong lack of interest and dislike for plants and strangely odored rooms.

"Show me your hand" Ginny demanded, interrupting his fit of self-pity.

"You good at Healing Magic?"

"Erm...well, not as good as others maybe...but...I guess I'm better than you are. C'mon, give me your hand"

"I've heard rumours about you from some 6^th year Slytherins. I do hope they are not true."

"I'm afraid they are, although I don't know what they say. But I can give it a try."

With that she took his hand and looked at it for some time. "I guess Asclepio will do in this case. Although I have to get rid of the blood somehow..."

Draco, who had heard enough about her healing qualities paled as she said that. He thought her capable of getting rid of all his blood, not only the little part of it that was covering his arm.

"Hey, I'm not that bad. I guess I can fix it, things like that are rather easy. Please?"

"Okay, but if you kill me I will kill you...oh, well, in case I survive, I mean, erm, if you make it worse, I will kill you."

"Okay," Much to Draco's relief she really managed to fix his hand, but it still hurt a bit, and he didn't know whether she had found a spell to prevent tetanus or something like that.

When she was finished she looked even more relieved than he was, which told quite a lot about her healing skills.

Having his arm not bleeding anymore Draco allowed himself to look at his surroundings a little closer. They were sitting in the middle of a clearing, but the trees around them had changed a bit. He didn't know how they were called , but they looked slightly different from those in the Forbidden Forest, although he couldn't tell why.

But the trees weren't interesting for Draco. He didn't like trees and plants, because he thought they were boring and that only pathetic and sentimental persons liked them.

"Hey look at those trees!" Ginny exclaimed excitedly.

Draco rolled his eyes. "Yes, I can see them. Big, brown and green objects, standing everywhere. I nearly can't see the forest because there are too many of them, in fact." He said, not trying to hide his disinterest on the topic.

"Take a look at them!" she said.

Draco glanced at the trees out of the corner of his eye, then looked at Ginny, cocking an eyebrow and not saying anything.

"Can't you see it?" she said unbelievingly. "Look at them. Oh, I can't believe this. I am sitting god-knows-where talking to a mole. Those.Trees.Are.Not.Trees.But.They.Are.Stones," she said as if she was talking to someone who was either extremely deaf or extremely dumb.

"Yes, so? There are some people who like to decorate their gardens with obscure obstacles. I myself don't even think they are that obscure in fact. I think they look rather real. Whoever made them, he did a good job!"

"Like with that guy over there!" Ginny said, looking at the statue. "I have my own idea what happened to this place, but if you think this is the handiwork of an extremely gifted and patient stonemason..." she shrugged.

"Jesus, what should have 'happened'? Do you think that someone came and just petrified this whole place? That's ridiculous. Then the floor would have to be stone too, and see, it's all dusty and muddy." He kicked some of the dust into the air to show Ginny he was right.

Instead of an answer she knelt down and began to remove all the dust, revealing that the layer of dust was only about 3 inches thick, and underneath there was solid stone.

"I would say that we should take a look at that inscription on the tablet" she said, not waiting for him to say anything.

Draco groaned, stayed silent, and just went over to the statue and sat down in front of it. Then he began reading out what was written on it, having quite a lot of difficulties with the vowels, and when he couldn't decipher something Ginny supplemented the matching word. In the end they translated the inscription like that:

To those, who will read this, be aware,

there will come great harm to the world

is the secret revealed

which lies over this peaceful place

darkness will fall,

and only the ones who bring it,

may also ban it,

although it will never be banned

for eternity,

death is to come, for that is sure

if wakened is the fateful spirit of this place,

evil it is, and dark, so what the darkness will bring,

the light shall destroy

Albus Dumbledore, 13.2.1945

"So he has gone completely nuts. 'What the darkness will bring, the light shall destroy' now really, not very original. And besides, I doubt that Dumbledore was ever that handsome. I think he just put his name under the statue of a rather good-looking man so everybody would have thought it was him...although that guy looks a bit feminine to me." Draco said, more to himself than to Ginny.

"I guess that's because he wears so much jewellery. I mean, all those silly necklaces and bracelets" Ginny shook her head disapprovingly. "I think they were never fashionable, not even in 1945."

Draco's head jerked up when she mentioned the bracelets and necklaces. Somewhere in his mind something made click, and he had the feeling that he had just solved a riddle. But unfortunately it seemed as if he needed another click, because he didn't know any more than he had before.

He just knew that these necklaces were important, and that he had heard something about that sort of thing before. But where?

He looked at the statue more closely. It looked rather strange, because the man was carved out of stone, just his eyes were big shining emeralds. In fact they weren't shining, but they were...glowing.

Draco groaned. He had made some rather embarrassing experiences with glowing things lately, and he still didn't like the sight of glowing things, especially if they weren't supposed to glow.

He nudged Ginny with the elbow and said: "Hey, Weasley, his eyes are glowing"

She grinned lopsidedly and said "Well, no surprise you figured that out, seeing that you are an expert concerning things like that, aren't you?"

He grunted, while he was doing so a thought occurred to him.

"Weasley?"

"Huh?"

"That inscription there says, da da da, so what the darkness will bring... d'you reckon you have to darken those emeralds?"

"Sounds rather silly to me."

Draco shook his head, lifted his hand and covered the emeralds, so that they couldn't send out any light. Just the moment he had done that, the world exploded.

At least it seemed so. In fact, it didn't explode, there was just a veeeery loud bang and a lot of light coming from the statue, not more. But for Draco and Ginny it was enough to make them believe the world would explode, so they let themselves fall on the ground, covering their heads with their hands, screaming out loud.

After about twenty seconds the light had vanished.

"Good day, you two, I must say you just did me a great favour!"

Ginny winced. Where had that voice come from? She turned around and looked at the statue. And gasped.

"Malfoy, you should look at this..." she said, still not being able to believe her eyes.

Draco, who had still been lying on the ground, now got to an erect position, turned around and gasped too.

"Okay, do you see what I see, or have I gone mad?"

"To your first question: that depends on what you see, to the second: yes, definitely." Ginny, who had already managed to get herself under control again said.

"I see a very thin, very funny looking man who is in fact looking like he was breathing and...oh my god, he moved his eyes, and-hey, his eyes are blue."

"Erm, yes."

"And his hair is blond."

"Yup."

"And his clothes, they are coloured too"

"Correct. Your assumption?"

"That's no statue."

"Malfoy, you got the very worrying tendency to develop into a fast thinker."

By that time Draco had gained his composure again and was now looking at the man, trying to hide his curiosity.

"Is it just me or does he really wear pink robes?" he finally asked.

"He does wear pink robes."

"D'you reckon he's gay?"

At this the man who had watched them all the time moved.

"I don't know weser it's common in Great Britain to talk about people when sey are standing in front of you, but where I come from, it is not."

"And where would that be, where you are coming from?" Ginny asked.

"Not se UK"

Ginny raised an eyebrow. That much had been obvious by his horrible pronunciation.

"Munich, Germany." The man said politely.

Draco wondered why darkness should fall if this man was revived. Besides, who was this?

"Who are you?" Ginny asked in the same moment as Draco was thinking that.

"Herbert Grindelwald, at your service"

Grindelwald? Something in the back of Ginny's mind told her that she should know this name. Grindelwald, Herbert Grindelwald...she had heard that name before, ...Herbert...something bad, something horrible...then realisation hit her like a Bludger.

"You're that horrible German singer, are you?" she shouted, glad to have found out from where she knew the name.

But her happiness was soon destroyed by Draco, who waved his hand dismissively and said: "Sorry to disappoint you girl, but that'd be Herbert Groenemayer!"

"Oh, yeah, right." She said sheepishly, noticing that she was rather relieved that he wasn't the singer the whole school had nightmares of. (They had an exchange student from Germany in her fourth year, and he was a fan of Herbert Groenemayer. He had sung his songs all the time he was at Hogwarts and had even sent Sheila a Groenemayer-tape in the holidays. When she had put it into her cassette recorder and actually played it her mother had threatened to disown her if she didn't turn if off at once)

At this point, Herbert Grindelwald, the funny man in the even funnier clothes thought that it was best to interfere.

"Herbert Grindelwald, most feared Dark Wizard during second world war"

"You? A Dark Wizard? Nice joke. Now, seriously, I know your name, what did you do, are you sure you're not something like a pop star?"

"I told you I was a Dark Wizard. Which reminds me... I have to get rid of you. You're the only ones who can kill me," he said, in a voice that couldn't be described with an other word than 'bored'.

Ginny looked at him, confused, not believing what she had just heard. This man standing in front of her couldn't possibly be a Dark wizard, could he? She looked at Draco, expecting him to look as astonished as she was, but his face was expressionless, if you didn't count the sneer it was wearing all the time.

She was just about to say something, when Grindelwald, who had been so polite, calm and nice before suddenly changed his behaviour.

His rather naive-looking face twisted into a cruel sneer, and his eyes began sparkling dangerously. "Get rid of you. Unfortunately, I can't kill you now, because I haven't got a wand. But I will send you to where I have spent the last half of the century. It's going to be like hell,..." then he began laughing diabolically.

"Now really, don't you think that's a tiny little bit cliché?" Draco asked, showing that he wasn't scared by the terrible laugh at all.

Ginny on the other side was rather impressed, because she had always imagined that only the bad guys in Disney films laughed that way. It was a laugh that could be described as a mixture of Cruella de Vil and Snow White's stepmother. (Ginny had seen quite a lot of Disney films when she was younger. She had always been the defenceless victim of her father's attempts to understand TV sets. He reckoned it was fun so she had seen 'Sleeping Beauty' and 'Snow White' with both tone and pictures, 'Sleeping Beauty', 'Snow White', 'Lion King', 'Aladdin', 'Toy Story' 'Jungle Book', 'Arielle' and 'Pinocchio' without sound and 'Dumbo' without picture, which wasn't very entertaining because all you heard was singing and something that sounded like a trumpeting elephant. But she wasn't sure about that.)

Meanwhile Draco had to fight back the urge to laugh, because it sounded so ridiculous. He bit his lips so hard that he thought they had to start bleeding soon.

When Grindelwald noticed how weird he was laughing he stopped abruptly, cleared his throat and took off the necklaces and bracelets he was still wearing.

Draco looked at them closely, still wondering why something in the back of his mind kept telling him that they were important. They looked really ridiculous. Most of them were just plain golden chains, but some held strange amulets that looked like suns, moons, and mythic runes. One of the necklaces was even covered with animal teeth, the combination with a silver chain making it seem rather ridiculous. Altogether it looked as if he was wearing the jewellery of about 15 different people, some of them surely being Crocodile Dundee, King Louis XIV of France and Morgain le Fay.

When Grindelwald had gotten rid of them he took a step forward and reached out for Ginny with one hand, the other one holding more than a dozen of necklaces.

Ginny backed away, starting to wonder whether she should be afraid of this man or not. He seemed rather harmless to her, plus he hadn't got a wand. He was even less intimidating than Neville Longbottom! (Although Neville could be dangerous sometimes, involuntarily)

Draco had meanwhile taken a step forward and was now standing beside Ginny. His face was expressionless, and he just stood there and looked at the dark sky. He didn't seem to notice anything going on around him. Perhaps he was thinking.

He was, indeed. His mind was racing. Necklaces, necklaces... he knew they were important, but why?

Ginny looked at Draco, trying to figure out what he was up to, ignoring Grindelwald.

When I'm home, nobody will believe me that I found a guy, running around in pink robes, and claiming he was a powerful Dark wizard. He would make a good team with Gilderoy Lockhart in a freak show..., she mused

Girl, as much as I love to argue with you, but maybe you should focus on reality right now. Ginny's conscious piped up

Why should I? Maybe I should see to it that they were travelling around the country faking fights... -oooh, I am se powerful Dark wizard Grindelwald, and I will kill you alllllll

-Stop it there, I will not let you kill them, as long as I live

-Huh? What kind of clown are you?

-I am the powerful Auror Gilderoy Lock...

Virginia Weasley, stop those silly thoughts, NOW! That Grindelwald guy is covering you and Malfoy with necklaces!

What????

Ginny snapped back into reality just as Grindelwald had finished pulling the last necklace over her head.

"Hey, what are you doing? Jesus, this stuff sure is ugly!" Ginny looked down at all the gold covering her.

"But I told you I would get rid of you. Didn't you listen?" Grindelwald looked offended.

"How do you think are you going to do it? I mean, this stuff does look horrible on me, but I don't think it will kill me"

Grindelwald shook his head. "It is going to be like hell." He rubbed his hands. "Ooooh, I would like to watch! I am kind of a sadist. Always was. But sis place...can do sings to you... you heard me laugh...oh, I'm turning into one of sem...shoulda sent you sere right away. Look at me now! Standing here actually explaining sings to you! Like the bad guys do in all those Muggle books...now, good bye..." he grinned a cruel grin.

That seemed somehow wrong to Ginny. This man shouldn't be grinning evil grins. He was supposed to grin stupid grins.

She turned to look at Draco. He was still staring into the sky. But suddenly he moved.

"Ha, I knew it was important!" he shouted just in the moment Grindelwald started reciting something that sounded suspiciously like an incantation. His voice was no longer sounding nice or polite, it was now deep and full. He had his eyes closed and was concentrating hard on what he was doing.

"Lords of Grimm, I, Herbert Grindelwald, speak to you, so you will listen and obey. I will give you two souls, as you have suffered se loss of one. Fire and ice, light and darkness I send to you, keep sem safe in your hands, don't let sem escape your powerful embrace. Only sey shall be returned, if loved ones to each one of sem, and enemies, unite to free their suffering souls. Blood wants blood, soul wants soul, and only what is given can be taken. Now take sem, welcome sem, make seir lives hell..." he finished his speech, which had seemed as if it would never end at first.

As soon as Grindelwald had spoken the first word, Ginny and Draco froze in the middle of their movements, and had to watch as their feet began to feel heavier and turned grey. As the speech proceeded the heaviness and greyness slowly made his way up their bodies, and Ginny realised in horror that she was turning to stone. As she couldn't move her eyes she wasn't able to see what happened to Draco, but she was sure that he was turning to stone too.

When Grindelwald was finally finished, she felt a sudden pain in her whole body. It felt as if she was being torn apart, as if her soul was being ripped from her body. The horrible feeling lasted for only two seconds, but those seconds seemed like ages to Ginny. She tried to scream, but she couldn't.

Finally the pain ebbed away, and Ginny was left with a feeling of nausea coming over her, followed by a sudden fit of dizziness. She toppled and finally fell to the ground, breathing hard.

A minute later these feelings vanished too, and Ginny opened the eyes she couldn't remember to have closed. She saw something silvery and green above her, but her vision was blurred, and she couldn't figure out what it was.

Green! Silver! Oh my god. He said it was going to be like hell... am I in Slytherin common room?she thought. If she had spoken it out, her voice would have certainly sounded panicky.

"Hello, Weasley? Knock-knock, anyone at home? Stop staring at me as if I had two heads. SNAP THE HELL OUT OF IT OR I WILL DO SOMETHING WITH MY WAND THAT WOULD MAKE YOU THINK OF A PROCTOLOGIC EXAMINATION AS PARADISE. Well, I guess I'd better take your wand for that..."a voice said, screamed and said these things, making Ginny wish to bang the head of whoever was making so much noise. (That person obviously had a rich imagination concerning doing unpleasant things to others)

She moaned and closed her eyes, only to open them again after a couple of seconds. Slowly, very slowly her surroundings began to come into clearer focus, and after a while she saw that she wasn't in the Slytherin common room, but was lying somewhere in a forest, (that was the green thing she had seen) and Malfoy was standing above her, looking very irritated.

"Oh it's just you," she said, relieved. If that Grindelwald guy had thought that her hell would include Draco Malfoy he had been wrong.

She sat up and finally even managed to stand, but her knees felt like jelly, and her movements seemed rather uncoordinated altogether.

"I should have known," Draco said irritated. "Exitus Incantation. Makes a person go somewhere...can't remember where though. Wandless magic, needs a very powerful magical place...and lots of jewellery to be performed. Should have known instantly. With all the stone and stuff...oh, this is stupid!" he seemed to talk to himself rather than to Ginny. In fact he seemed to have forgotten her presence which wasn't a bad thing considering his current mood.

"Where the hell does this send you?" he continued his thoughts. Suddenly he noticed Ginny, spun around and asked her, like a shot "Weasley, where does an Exitus Incantation send you?"

"Exitus Incantation? Sounds like death to me...," Ginny guessed, shuddering at the thought that she might be dead right now and this place was where you ended up in your afterlife.

"Bollocks! Exitus means just that you have gone away. The thing with exitus meaning death is just used because your soul exited your corps. Where are we?" Draco said, while a look of superiority crossed his face and replaced the usual sneer for a moment.

Yeah, where are we? Good question. Ginny looked around and saw that they were in the middle of a forest, but there was a house standing not too far away from where they were standing. Ginny wasn't good at guessing distances so she didn't even bother to try.

It looked rather familiar to Ginny. Its walls were made of biscuits, the flowers in the garden were lollis, the roof and the chimney were made of chocolate bars, and so it went for the windows (sugar), windowsills (Brownies) and the rest of the house.

"Oh dear, I know where we are!" she shouted excitedly, running towards the house.

Draco, who had been lost in thoughts until then, looked up surprised and then followed her.

When she arrived at the front door of the house (it was made of Gingerbread) Ginny suddenly felt how hungry she was. She pulled out one of the biscuits building the wall and took a bite.

"Oooooh, shortbread!" She squealed delightedly.

Draco stood in front of the house, looking at it, confused. "Weasley, would you be so kind as to tell me what this is all about?" he finally asked, irritated because she seemed to know something he didn't. And Draco Malfoy hated it if someone else knew something he didn't.

Ginny grinned. "Malfoy?" she finally asked. "Has your mother ever told you any fairy tales?"