The Road To Nowhere

Disclaimer: Same old sh**t. I don´t own any of it. You can take it all if you want it.

Author´s Note: My little sis has been begging me to dedicate one of my original characters to her and so I gave her a choice among my very unorthodox originals: a mysterious Slytherin girl, a Malfoy or a Dursley and she´s picked the Malfoy. Crazy girl!

Anyway, Lucy Malfoy is now officially dedicated to Andria (aka Revere for President).

Chapter Twelve

Puccini and the Paris Opera House

"So why ya gotta stand there

Looking like the answer now?

It seems to me you´d come around

I need you now

Do you think you can cope?

You figured me out--I´m lost and I´m hopeless

Bleeding and broken--though I´ve never spoken

I´ve come undone in this mad season..."

Matchbox Twenty: `Mad Season´

Ginny walked slowly back to her apartment, doubting very much if Bill had beat her home, he was usually at the bank late. School had been hell and work even worse than that. She had to hold her breath and count to ten to calm herself down after the bitchy cappuccino lady had nearly gotten her fired. If it weren´t for the incredibly relaxing weekend she´d spent on the coast, the bitch would probably be wearing her decaf, skinny, no-foam, not-a-real-cappuccino-if-there-isn´t-any-foam cappuccino. Most of the time Ginny thought that these people were more interested in buying the image rather than a drink. With a heavy sigh she climbed the dark stairs to her flat.

The couch looked inviting but she ignored the urge to pour herself into it and pass out. It was her turn to make dinner tonight.

Chopping peppers in the kitchen with the tap running, Ginny barely heard the knock on the door. She twisted the knob that shut the water off and heard the knock again.

"I´m coming," she shouted, dropping the pepper she´d been chopping. It was probably Bill. Forgotten his key as usual. "Don´t get your knickers in a twist. I´m coming, Bi--You´re not Bill," she stammered as the door swung back to reveal a messenger with a large package.

"No I´m not," the boy said, eyeing her large kitchen knife in one hand with apprehension. "Are you Virginia Weasley?" he asked reading off of a card.

"Yes I am," she answered with furrowed brows. What was this? She wondered who´d sent her such a large parcel via muggle delivery, as she took it and thanked the boy, fishing for some kind of a tip in her pocket. She shut the door and eyed the box with suspicion before giving in to curiosity and ripping into it.

She gasped in surprise and dropped her knife, missing her toe by mere inches. She wouldn´t have noticed even if it had severed an appendage or two, she was stunned.

Placing the box unsteadily on the sofa, she removed its contents with wide eyes.

Deep green lengths of satin and the most delicate of stitching, it looked expensively tailored.

Ginny did what any normal girl would do. She began to rip her clothes off even before she´d reached her bedroom and closed the door. She examined the dress in the mirror by the window, doing a ridiculous, cheesy spin to shake the wrinkles out of it. It was breathtaking, empire waist, straight full-length skirt of deep forest. It looked well with her hair--a color she´d never liked but apparently the gift giver had chosen the color of the dress to off set her fiery strands purposely.

A thought crossed her mind and caused her heart to beat rapidly. Where was the note? There had to be a note along with the dress. It couldn´t have been from Draco, could it? No straight guy had this sort of fashion sense. She was almost positive that it couldn´t have been from him. Lucy helped him perhaps.

Sod it! Where was the note?

She searched her room frantically. No note.

She opened the door to check the sofa where the box still lay and rushed out into the front room. Bill was standing beside the sofa, note in hand. He looked up, shock paralyzing his features.

"Wow," he stammered, "Ginny, you look beautiful." He seemed sincere, but Ginny was more interested in that note he was holding that his compliments.

"Shut up, Bill. Give me that, would you?"

He turned his attention to the note and continued reading. She lunged for the piece of paper to no avail. He was taller and held it out of reach.

"You don´t have time to play games with me, dear. Prince Charming will be here in forty-five minutes. And your hair does look like crap if you want my honest opinion."

She shot him a venomous look and read the note he´d tossed in her direction on the way to the kitchen. It was from Draco.

Puccini´s Turnadot, tonight

Lucy and I will pick you up at seven.

Draco

"Is that Draco, as in Draco Malfoy?" Bill asked from the kitchen.

Ginny was dreading this moment. The moment her family became involved in this friendship. She was sure her mother and Ron would disapprove. She was fairly certain Hermione would follow suit. She didn´t even have the capacity to guess what Harry might feel about it, but Bill was still a wild card. He might not care, one way or the other.

"Yes. Is there something wrong with him?" Ginny asked, picking up the discarded knife and brought it into the kitchen, feeling awkward and inelegant in the designer dress as Bill leveled a scrutinizing gaze at her.

"No," he said, finishing her job with the pepper, apparently resigned to cook for himself tonight.

"His father is a real bastard, but I have nothing against him. That is, I don´t have anything against him as long as he treats you right."

Ginny rolled her eyes. She knew he meant well and would leave it at that.

"Go," he urged, "time´s a wastin´, dear."

"Thanks for being so cool, Bill," Ginny pushed herself away from the counter to kiss her brother´s cheek and he leaned down to receive it.

"No problem, you should have fun tonight. You deserve it, Gin." He went back to the peppers and Ginny ran to the bathroom to make sense of her hair.

"Who´s this other chic? Lucy?" Bill asked, playfully suspicious.

"His sister," Ginny shouted back with emphasis on the sister bit, in case he´d gotten any weird ideas.

Draco showed up precisely when he said he would, looking rather amazing in a black tuxedo, impeccably tailored to fit his tall and elegant frame. Ginny would remember the way he looked tonight for a long time after the night had passed. And after a rather peaceful first meeting with Bill, Draco had whisked her out of the flat and into his car where Lucy had stayed to wait for them.

***

"So you two have been busy, you and Ginny, haven´t you?" Harry said, thoroughly unimpressed with Hermione´s story of age-old deceit, immortality, and three chosen saviors. He was with Ron in believing that Hermione had gone stark raving mad.

She was becoming impatient with the two of them. This thing was already causing serious problems, particularly with Ginny. Hermione wasn´t sure, but she had good reason to believe that it was the ability of the seer that Ginny possessed that had driven her to attempt suicide twice.

But, tell that to Ron or Harry and they would turn on her faster than a pair of goblins, she was sure of it. She should have a look in Ginny´s computer to be absolutely sure what was going on. Ginny wasn´t exactly a forthcoming person herself. She loved hording her secrets. But Hermione couldn´t justify such an invasion of privacy. She would have to wait.

But in the meanwhile, she would just have to do some more digging, regarding these Founders and their chosen ones.

She got up and stalked out of the room as Ron and Harry exchanged a series of glances that loosely interpreted to, "she definitely gone `round the bend."

***

"Oh, that was priceless! I wish you could have seen it, Lucy," Draco laughed, recalling the time in second year that Harry was chased down by a dwarf in angel wings and sung a Valentine written by Ginny, "I remember that like it was yesterday," he continued with a wistful, far-off look. Turning to Ginny whose arms were crossed in front of her, and unappreciative scowl on her face, " You will be proud to know that you were the hero of Slytherin House for nearly a month, people still talk about that, you know."

"I´m so glad that it continues to amuse you, Draco, five years later. At least someone appreciates my work," she said as her scowl began to twitch into a smile. Draco was really evil to bring up something that embarrassing from so long ago. She´d nearly forgotten about that. She´d hoped Harry had.

"I think he´s a sweet person and you should stop poking fun at him, Draco," came Lucy´s protests from the backseat.

"How do you know Potter?" Draco asked, surprised at her comment.

Lucy shrugged. Draco shot a curious glance at her from the rearview mirror. "I met him at the hospital once," she answered with a smile.

That would annoy Draco to no end, Ginny thought, starting to agree with him that Lucy enjoyed antagonizing people--as sweet as she was. Her knowing Harry at all would rub him the wrong way.

"What was he doing at the hospital?" Draco asked, not concerned in the least, just prying information from his sister in his normal fashion. "Did he fall off of his broom attempting some idiotic Quidditch pass? Injure himself playing the hero to some kittens caught in a tree?"

"He was visiting a friend, that´s all he told me," Lucy said in a less playful tone, as if the conversation were closed. She didn´t want her brother asking the wrong questions. He was at the hospital that day visiting Ginny, who probably didn´t want the subject of her attempted suicide brought out all over again. "Just leave the poor thing alone, Draco."

"Poor thing?" Draco repeated incredulously, "Lucy, stay away from him," Draco ordered her, but she was no longer listening to him. Ginny had turned around in her seat and was talking to her. He caught something about adorably messy hair and cringed as Lucy giggled at Ginny´s comment, "he´d mentioned something to me about a cute blond at the hospital. I didn´t realize that he was talking about you."

"Oh, would you look at that!" Draco interrupted sarcastically, "we´re here and none too soon, I might add." He flipped the key to the valet and bent to help Lucy out of the car as the valet attended to Ginny. She laughed as he intermittently shot her venomous looks between fussing over his sister. She knew her cheap shot now. He didn´t like his sister being even remotely mixed up with low class Harry Potter. She would use that to her advantage if he teased her again.

Ginny had often passed the grand building that housed one of the greatest companies of operatic actors in the world. But she had never had the opportunity to see it from the inside. The sight was breathtaking--so many grand staircases and elegantly dressed people. Ginny felt like a wide-eyed street urchin among the society she now found herself in the midst of. "I look like a fish out of water," she half breathed to herself, watching Lucy in her dress of baby blue that matched her eyes, mingling comfortably with the crowd. She´d stopped to talk with a handsome man with dark hair and even darker eyes. They appeared to know each other well.

"You light up the room," Draco whispered in her ear as he took her hand and led her to the stage right balcony, trusting Lucy to catch up when she was finished conversing with her first chair cellist friend whom, Draco informed her, would be performing at a benefit concert coming up that Lucy was eager to attend.

"He´s very talented," Lucy said as she turned her opera glasses on the orchestra pit, "and quite good-looking as well," she added with a devious smile that she knew very well made Draco scowl. Ginny laughed and reached across him to have a peek at the cellist Don Juan that Lucy was so infatuated with. She handed over the glasses eager for Ginny´s opinion once she´d seen him.

"What´s his name again?" Ginny asked, searching for the dark, tall man she´d seen Lucy talking to earlier.

Draco shook his head. Visibly uncomfortable with the girl talk he´d wound up in the middle of. He pretended to read the program and ignore the two of them. Lucy knew how difficult it must have been for him to act, it was hard for anyone to ignore an ebullient presence like Ginny´s.

"Vasily Nabakov," Lucy answered.

"Cute," Ginny smiled, still scoping the cellist with the glasses. Her vision made a cursory scan of the audience in general. There she caught the eye of an incredibly handsome older man, dark haired and hazel eyed. His smile made her blood run cold.

Tom Riddle.

Ginny´s hands shook. She struggled to calm their terrified movements as she handed the glasses back to Lucy. She apologized and stood, making an excuse that she wanted to go to the washroom before the curtain went up.

"Would you like for me to come with you?" Lucy asked good-naturedly.

Ginny shook her head immediately. She needed to go quickly. She felt his eyes on her, causing a sick feeling to rise in her stomach. She realized with embarrassment, what a scene she must be causing.

"Are you feeling alright? You look pale all of a sudden," Draco asked, eyeing her with concern.

"No, I´m quite alright. I won´t be too long," she assured him in a labored tone. Her heart was beating so fast that her breaths were becoming short and constricted.

She exited the balcony swiftly, Draco and Lucy looking after her momentarily before exchanging questioning looks with each other.

She felt ridiculous and paranoid and ran to the ladies room as quickly as possible before her mascara began to run-- if that happened, then all would be lost.

***

Hermione knew what she had to do and she would have to do it without the help of her trusted friends, you know, the ones who are supposed to be behind you no matter what.

She ran up the stairs to Ginny´s room at the top of the landing and threw all of the books she´d collected on the Founders, all rain soaked from her earlier display in London, on Ginny´s bed.

She flipped through the pages of one large book and stopped when she´d come to a picture of Rowena Ravenclaw. Her chosen one was the very person Hermione knew the least about, out of all of them. Rowena was smiling up from the pages with the delicate pendant in the shape of the fleur-de-lis with sapphires encrusted on its tips on a chain around her neck.

Find that pendant and find the chosen one. That´s what she had to do. Each chosen one was given a trinket of some meaning--perhaps they were more than just trinkets. Ginny´s had turned out to be a Pensieve. Maybe this pendant had other purposes lying just under its polished surface.

The sword that belonged to Gryffindor was easily located. Hermione knew that it lay in a case in the Headmaster´s office. The hard part would be to get the sword out without him knowing it. Forget counting on her friends for help in that area as well. She wished Ginny were here, she was the only expert in this field that Hermione could think of. If you could filch something from the Louvre, Dumbledore´s office would be a walk in the park.

She was on her own here. She strove hard to come up with a workable plan, to get into Dumbledore´s office. It would be difficult as school would not be in session for another few weeks. Was he even at the school? Who was there that she could rely on, if only for a look out? It took her a moment to think and then the obvious choice hit her like lightening.

Dobby the house elf, of course. Mention the fact that Harry needed him and Dobby would be more than willing to help Hermione steal from the Headmaster.

A plan was already blossoming in her mind. She reached for a quill and some ink. This needed some serious thought invested in it. It was wild, but it just might do the trick.

***

The evening passed perfectly enough. Ginny had composed herself and returned to the balcony. She had almost forgotten her distress completely, lost in the story even though she didn´t know a scrap of Italian. She was almost thankful for her ignorance. She liked the way Draco translated it for her, leaning a little closer than necessary to tell her the major points of the tenor´s soliloquy.

She was glad to leave the opera house, only to be away from the place she´d seen Tom--or, at least thought she´d seen Tom. But, she didn´t want the night to end, it was altogether enchanting, right up until the moment she saw him again. Standing on the steps of her building, Draco had seen her to the door and she turned to kiss him lightly on the cheek--a bold move for her, but right for the moment. She felt his eyes on her, rather than saw them. But there he was, standing on the opposite side of the street under a large elm, smiling at her. Once again her blood went cold and the color drained from her face.

Draco had seen it this time, but said nothing. He followed her eyes as she stared over his shoulder, but Tom had already gone.

He looked back to her quickly to ask what was bothering her.

Not wishing to go into detail and definitely not wanting him to think she was a lunatic, she thanked him for a lovely evening, waved to Lucy and hurried up to her flat, leaving Draco on the step to think that her reaction was all to do with him.

Ginny shut the door behind her and bolted it. Already, fear and frustration induced tears broke the dam. She couldn´t have one entirely perfect evening to herself. She´d nearly forgotten he was after her and he´d showed up when she´d finally thought he was gone for good.

She kicked her shoes off with fierce determination and trampled straight into her room where she found a note on her bed in Bill´s handwriting, wishing her a goodnight and telling her not to wait up for him, he didn´t expect to be home tonight. She balled the note up and flung it across the room. She was alone and tired and frightened and hunted.

Ginny dropped to her knees and fished under her bed for the bronze cup. "Please tell me something encouraging," she prayed with puffy eyes and trembling hands as she set the Pensieve in her lap, falling into its depths in hopes that it would reassure her that everything was alright and she was just hallucinating as a result of too little sleep.

She found herself kneeling on the cold, stone floor of a medieval bedchamber, Helga´s, she imagined. For the older of the two occupants was the same jovial blond woman in deep council with her stepdaughter, Ginny´s own ancestor, Azria.

"Eowyn knows, I tell you. Mungo told me that she´d uttered the most curious turn of phrase when he´d mentioned her father´s experiments. She said, `Try as anyone might, my father´s teachings will endure. You will all die and your pathetic assurances with you, but we will remain.´ I tell you, she knows of the chosen. They will surely combat us with dark magic."

"Are you afraid for yourself child, for the other chosen? Faramir can handle himself and Maren is well protected, as are you. Fear nothing and do not be afraid for your heirs. When the time comes, they will have all that is needed to even the fight. All will be provided, some by the Dark side itself. It will tip the balances. One side will win out in this battle. There will be no draw. One will prevail. I have seen it." Helga´s eyes glazed over with a far-off stare.

Ginny, crouching, wrinkling her dress, hair falling wildly out of its elegant twist gave her a more crazed appearance than she could have imagined. She wanted desperately to throw something at the stoic woman who talked of her as if she were a machine, guaranteed for its parts and promised to perform. She had no idea how futile it all was. She was too young, all alone, not credible in the least. Who would believe her that the end of the world was literally at hand? Where was her other two chosen comrades? Who was there to back her up?

Add to all of that doubt the fact that the Slytherin line was aware of the entire scheme to combat his last heir and all seemed hopeless. She knew that she´d made a promise to do what she could, but she was sinking fast with no lifeline to speak of.

She wanted out, but not in this dress. It was too good for her. She was a coward and cowards died in bathrobes not beautiful evening gowns.

So, in her terrycloth robe, she padded to the kitchen to raid her hiding spot, a niche above the fridge where she´d hid half a bottle of Smirnoff and a vile of fast acting sleeping pills she´d lifted from the hospital where she was interning in a desperate attempt to have a peaceful nights sleep for a change. What a way to go. She only prayed that it would work this time, but you know what they say: the third time´s the charm.

***

Driving fast, back to Ginny´s flat, Draco hoped that he was overreacting. Lucy had seen what she thought might have spooked Ginny and he was very suspicious. He had to go back after Lucy was safe at home--just to make sure Ginny was all right. Lucy thought it might have been that same person that she remembered from plenty of meetings of her father´s that she´d spied in on. Tom Riddle, a disguise used by Lord Voldemort. It sounded too fantastic at first, but Ginny had been acting very oddly all night long and he had seen the way Voldemort had preyed upon her specifically at the end of his fifth year, in Azkaban.

He raced up the steps to her building and was let in by an inhabitant that was on his way out. At Ginny´s door he knocked a few times before growing impatient and brandished his wand. Screw the Ministry and their asinine rules--he would use magic if it were important.

Panic hit him like the proverbial ton of bricks as he saw her passed out on the rug behind the sofa, vodka bottle on the coffee table, an empty prescription bottle of some serious sleeping pills clasped in her hand, no protective older brother anywhere. "Holy shit!" he exclaimed ineloquently and dropped to her side to check her pulse, noting her scarred wrists absently. She needed a doctor right away or there would be no hope for her.

He tried to rouse her, shaking her shoulders, slapping her cheeks--nothing.

Her lips where bluish in color and he was sick to think that she might be beyond hope already.