The Arcs of Destiny

Chapter VII:

Happy Together

'Me and you and you and me

No matter how they toss the dice, it has to be

The only one for me is you, and you for me

So happy together '

-The Turtles, Happy Together

As Molly entered Merlin's Convience Store, she found that the store was crowded with people trying to stock up on groceries. There was a long line-up at the cash register where one lone cashier stood, frantically trying to help his customers through all their complaints and groceries. Other store workers were busy trying to separate witches and wizards that were duelling over food. Molly sighed and went down the long aisle, keeping to herself. She looked on her list every few seconds for anything she might need. As soon as everything on her list was picked up including the milk and she had successfully avoided angering other customers, Molly made her way to the lineup and waited.

It was the longest wait Molly felt that she had ever had to take in her life. As soon as got to the cash register, she unloaded her groceries onto the counter while the cashier bagged them and totalled them up. The amount for the groceries came out of thin air in ribbony words. Molly paid for her groceries and quickly walked out of the store, passing by two wizards hexing each other over the last can of Dumbell's Hearty Chicken soup.

Molly stepped out onto the cobblestone street, happy to finally be out of there. As she turned down the street however, a person stepped out of the shadows of the alley and stepped in front of her.

"Ron?" Molly tried to ask. The tall red-haired boy nodded. "Why are you here?"

"I wanted to help you home," Ron mouthed to her. He gestured the alley by the store. "Shortcut."

Molly nodded, a tad confused. Why would Ron use a shortcut? She shrugged her shoulders though and followed her youngest son into the alley. He gestured for her to go in front of him and she did, smiling awkwardly. The alley seemed to keep stretching on and Molly couldn't help but feel uneasy about this. She could feel that something was wrong. As she was about to turn to Ron to try and tell him this, she suddenly heard him speak clearly, as if he was not affected by whatever had happened to the town's voices.

"By the way, Mrs. Weasley," Ron said, giving her a smile as she turned to look at him, "sorry about this."

Molly felt a bump on her head and pain sear to the spot where she had been hit. The world began to blacken and she felt herself fall, face down, onto the ground where the world came to a swirling halt.

****

As soon as Ginny found the large blackboard in the utility closet, she dragged it upstairs and into the living room. She gathered all the boys (except Percy, who probably was still sleeping since there was a 'Do Not Disturb' sign on his door) into the living room and explained to them about the dream she had the morning she nearly drowned by writing it on the blackboard in chalk. She left out the part where she had kissed Draco so as to spare him from Ron's wrath though. Then she explained about what Hermione said in her letter.

When she was done, Draco held up his hand. Ginny nodded to him and he wrote something down on the pad of paper he had with him. When he finished, he held it up for everyone to see.

"Do you remember what the book looked like?" it read. Ginny thought for a moment and then nodded. Draco got up and went into Ginny's room for a few minutes before coming out with a book in his hands. It was an almost light blue, and the edges of the book were scuffed so badly that the cover was starting to peel off. Draco held the book out to her and she took it, sliding her hand along the cover, almost in a mystified trance. She opened the cover as Draco sat down, waiting. The title of the book was the 'Arcs of the Unknown'. It seemed familiar to Ginny and she remembered seeing the little girl holding a book that looked like this. Ginny closed the book up and looked at the bottom where she realized that this was the book the girl held.

The book suddenly opened and the pages started to flip. Startled, everyone watched as the pages flipped open to a particular page. Ginny knelt down by the coffee table and put the book on it. Everyone knelt down on the ground to look at the pages that were open.

'To Take Away Someone's Voice' was the title of the first page. It listed the instructions for the spell. Ginny grabbed a pad of paper and wrote them down to send to Hermione. Ginny always counted on Hermione to help her out with anything magical or otherwise. She was about to look for Pigwidgeon to mail her letter off to Hermione when the pages started to flip again. The page that the book opened to listed instructions to quick-mailing.

Ginny looked at Draco. He nodded and she began to write these instructions on the paper along with Hermione's name and address and then got some sugar and poured it over the address. The letter slowly dissolved from the spot where the sugar had touched and Ginny leaned back against the couch uneasily.

**

The day drifted by slowly. After television started to get boring, Ginny decided to go out for a walk. Staying in the house was making her feel like a little bird that is caged in and she hated feeling that way. She felt she would explode if she didn't get outside so she went into her bedroom and found a light blue fall jacket to wear over her t-shirt. She pulled her hair up into a ponytail and made her way to the front door. She put on her running shoes when she noticed Draco leaning against the wall.

"Want to come with me?" she mouthed to him.

"If it's alright," he mouthed back. She nodded and he grabbed a sweater from the closet and put on his own shoes. Ginny opened the door and they stepped outside together.

The sun was bright but the air was surprisingly cool for late August. The first thing that Ginny learned when she had gotten here was that you never could trust the weather. Some days it would be extremely hot and then suddenly the temperatures would dip. There could be a long dry spell and then it could rain for days, on and off. Even the thunderstorms were unpredictable. There was one thunderstorm where there was practically no lightning and another where there was a lot of lightning, but only a few feeble rumbles of thunder, but we shouldn't be talking about that.

Ginny and Draco walked down the front steps and down the path to the driveway. They walked side by side down the quiet suburban street and onto 69th Concession, heading towards the lake. They went into the forest, wary of low branches and tree roots. The sunlight filtered through the tree branches to the ground below where the pair weaved around small bushes, tall grass, and puddles of marshy water. The forest around the Southern part of the lake was more marshy than the northern part and Ginny scolded herself for not taking that part to avoid getting their shoes wet.

By the time the pair made it to drier ground, their shoes were wet at the front. They kept making their way through the forest until they got to the stony beach. Ginny could feel Draco watching her uneasily, as if unsure on if they should be there so soon after the near-drowning. She turned and smiled reassuringly at him and walked slowly closer to the water's edge. The waves lapped at her feet, making her shoes even more soggy than they already felt.

She didn't know what she had expected to see. Somehow she felt that the water would come rushing up to her and swallow her whole, but it did nothing like that. She heard the gravel behind her crunch and could feel Draco's presence before she turned around to look at him quizzically. She didn't know what she would've done if it hadn't of been Draco behind her. He put an arm around her shoulders and gently guided her away from the water. They walked along the beach and soon ended up on the other side of the lake. Ginny stopped and look along the opposite beach for the rock she had slept on two nights ago. Sighing when she couldn't find it, she turned back to Draco who nodded his head towards the forest. She nodded and they went inside the trees together.

It felt strange to be so close to someone you have hated all your life. She knew he was destined to go to the evil side and become a Death Eater, but a part of her told her that it wouldn't happen and she felt that if it didn't happen, then the world would end. One half of her told her that he would turn on her later on at school, but another half told her to stick with him. It felt even more strange to feel like she had known this guy her whole life and that they were friends too. She felt safe with him for some reason, as well. She had all these emotions and she couldn't place where they were coming from. She looked at him then. He seemed to be concentrating on the path ahead. Why would he follow her on a walk to a lake?

Suddenly, the ground beneath them gave way and Ginny felt Draco grab her hand. A short way down, she felt a hard floor against her back. Draco fell on top of her, a little too close for comfort. He rolled off of her, still holding her hand and pulled her up.

"Are you alright?" he mouthed to her. She nodded and looked at their intertwined hands while he looked around. She wasn't sure what to do about it so she looked around with him.

It looked like they were in some type of cave. The walls and the floor were made of a smooth reddish rock. The cave was poorly lit with only torches in brackets on the walls for light. It led to another chamber that was also deserted.

Curious, Ginny started forward but Draco kept back. She turned to face him and he shook his head. She walked back to him, a pleading look on her face.

"It might be dangerous," he mouthed to her.

"Might," she mouthed back. He still shook his head, his eyes worried but his face giving none of his feelings away. "Since when did you become worrying man? There is no one there. It couldn't hurt to look around, now could it?"

Draco took out his wand with his left hand and Ginny took out her own with her right, smiling. They crept into the next room, still hand in hand. The air was chilly and eerily quiet as they passed through the chamber and into another, larger chamber.

They heard voices up ahead as they came into the next chamber. Panicking, Ginny and Draco pressed themselves against the wall in the shadows as two hooded figures drifted by.

"This is the second time that this has happened," the first figure said. He was carrying a large book that Ginny recognized as the Arcs of the Unknown. "The last time it happened, that red-haired Rune was carrying the woman that the Master had wanted captured. Rune nearly broke his neck and the woman's."

"Who cares about Rune's neck?" the second asked. "He's just a creation."

"A creation that the Master wants kept alive," the first told him. They passed into the next chamber, apparently on their way to the cave where Ginny and Draco had just fallen into.

"Oh, excuse me," the second retorted. "So, when does the Master want the spell to end?"

"The Voices' Spell?" the first asked. His voice became lower as he muttered something uninteligible. "It seems that he doesn't really care. The spell was only to freak the wizards. I think it has worked because Rune came back with a report on the state of the witches and wizards in Mellowside. He says that they have resorted to violence. The entire town is falling into disarray."

"That's good news," the second commented.

"Yes, I suppose it is," the first agreed. The pair came back into the chamber where Ginny and Draco were hiding and they pressed themsleves up against the wall even further. "I should expect for the spell to be ending pretty soon after the successful kidnapping of that Ministry of Magic wife. The Master has her locked up in the dungeons right now. She's about to be made into a demon. The Master says that it's quicker and easier to get her to talk if she's a demon. But, I will miss the fights at Merlin's Convience Store over a can of soup when this is all over."

Soon' the two demons were out of hearing and Ginny relaxed. She noticed that Draco's body hadn't relaxed yet. He pulled her out of the chamber and back into the cave where they fell in. There, they found that the ceiling had been repaired. Draco tried to mutter a spell as he pointed his wand at the ceiling and it was blasted away. He picked up Ginny by the waist and, without warning, threw her up out of the hole in the ceiling. Ginny grabbed at the edge of the hole as gravity started to pull her back down. She crawled onto solid ground, out of breath, as Draco jumped up and grabbed at the edge as well. Ginny crawled back to the hole and grabbed his arms, helping him up. As soon as he was fully over the edge, he collapsed on the ground and Ginny collapsed beside him, their breathing coming in ragged gasps.

Ginny looked at Draco out of the corner of her eye. His cheeks were rosy and the sunshine glittered off his blonde hair. He looked at her and they shared eye contact. Ginny turned over so that she could look at him better and they kept eye contact for a few seconds. Without warning, Draco reached over and pushed back a strand of hair that had fallen out from behind her ear and then the eye contact was broken. He started to get up and she immediately noticed that his body was still tense. She got up too and watched as Draco pulled off another spell to bring the ceiling of the cave back into repair so that the demons wouldn't notice it was damaged again and suspect a trespasser, or two. He turned and headed down the path. They weren't hand in hand anymore.

It was growing dark as they walked back home. Ron and Harry were downstairs playing pool and watching television when they came back. Ginny's parents and the twins weren't back yet while Percy was still in his bedroom. Ginny began to cook supper for her and Draco and for the rest of the evening, she swore she could feel Draco's eyes on her.

****

Ginny began to make dinner in the kitchen and Draco followed, although he wasn't sure why. He sat on the kitchen stool at the counter and watched her move around the kitchen, cooking dinner for the two of them. She moved gracefully, getting the plates, warming up the dinner, and so on. It seemed to Draco that she was dancing her part in a ballet, without all those pirouettes. The rosy cheeks did her justice, especially when she was out of breath. Draco felt an odd feeling that he was saying this about a Weasley. He shrugged it off, thinking he must be losing his mind.

All through dinner, he felt his eyes wander over to Ginny. She was eating very quickly as if she hadn't eaten for days. He smiled as he concentrated on eating his own food. He had to admit that the food was very delicious and that she could've made a fine cook. He looked at her again. Strands of her hair were starting to fall in front of her eyes again and Draco had to keep himself from pushing them back like he had done last time. It was just on instinct that he had done that, but why did it feel so right?

Suddenly, "Why?" Ginny asked. Draco felt as if he were in a dream where they were talking again. He shook his head and looked at her and noticed that she was as shocked as he was that she was talking.

"Why what?" Draco asked softly.

"We're talking again!" Ginny said excitedly. Draco had the feeling that she was changing the subject.

"Why what?" Draco asked again.

Ginny suddenly calmed down. She looked down at her plate before asking, "Why were you so worried that we would get caught? That isn't like you, is it?"

Draco sighed. "It was a very tight situation. Really, I don't know what has happened to me. I feel all mushy inside."

Ginny looked at him then, confused. "Draco Malfoy can be mushy inside? I thought it was everyone else's job to be mushy for you."

Draco laughed. Before he could say anything, thundering footsteps sounded on the stairway as Ron and Harry made their way into the kitchen.

"Did you guys speak?" Harry asked.

"Yep," Ginny answered, smiling triumphantly, as if she were the one responsible for this.

"Oh, this is unbelievable!" Ron shouted.

"Keep you voice down!" Ginny scolded.

"I don't think Percy is even sleeping anymore," Ron said. "If he is, he must of taken a sleeping draught. Either way, he hasn't come down yet."

"Yeah, why is that?" Harry asked, suspiciously.

"Dunno," Ron replied. "He's usually working...on cauldron thicknesses."

As a group, they all turned to look at the stairs that led upwards very suspiciously, as if the stairs ate Percy. Ron and Harry started up them first while Ginny came next and, as usual, Draco came last. He wasn't the type to start detective work with his enemies, or ex-enemies. He would rather be a spectator. They all went up the stairway and across the hall to Percy's door where the 'Do Not Disturb' sign still hung. Ron knocked on the door, but no answer came. Ron knocked again. Still no answer. He tried to open the door.

"It's stuck," Ron said.

"Or it's locked," Ginny reminded him. "Remember that a lock coupled with a stuck door is very good at keeping the twins out." She turned to Harry and Draco and told them, "This door sticks sometimes, one of the reasons why Percy wanted it in the first place."

"I wanted it first, but Percy insisted that the twins would go into his room and turn it into a disaster area if he were on the first floor, so naturally, he got it," Ron said, turning the knob. "Percy! Open up!"

Ginny got out her wand and muttered, "Alohomora," at the lock in the doorknob. There was a tiny but audible click and Ron gave the door a hard shove which brought it open. They all held their breath as the door slowly opened and they all released their breath as one.

"Where is he?" Ron asked as the group looked around the empty room.

***

Next time on Arcs of Destiny: Harry looked back inside the house and said, "I think you guys better come and have a look at this."

Ginny watched her brother and Harry as they went out the door, not taking her with them.

//A large building loomed out of a crowd of trees.\