Ginny's Ghost

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- Chapter Six - Haunted

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(A/N: A little note, the following epitaph I found in a book somewhere, a looong time ago, and just had to copy it down, though I already knew it by heart. I don't know who wrote it, so that's why it's not credited).

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"Do not stand at my grave and weep;

I am not there, I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow,

I am the diamond glints on snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain,

I am the gentle autumn's rain.

When you wake in the morning's hush,

I am the swift, uplifting rush of quite birds in circled flight.

I am the soft star that shines at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry;

I am not there, I did not die."

Draco Malfoy stood before the well-known vault in the Malfoy family crypt, and again let his eyes drift over the epitaph he'd memorized long ago.

Alaraby Malfoy – his father's twin brother, his little mentioned uncle, who'd died at the young age of seventeen – just a little under a year younger than Draco was now.

The lucky bastard.

Draco took a drink out of the bottle he held in his hand, a small smile curling his lips as he thought of what his father would say if he could see him. Lucius had always been after him about his fascination with death, with dead people, dead things – ghosts. He'd long ago ordered him to stay away from the crypt, and Draco had always thought it very odd that his father actually cared – he never complained about whatever else he did, or how he spent his time otherwise, as long he made high marks, and practiced playing Quidditch. The fact that his father had always forbid him to go down into the crypt had only made him like the cold, dark, dusty stone place even more.

It had seemed to him, even as a small boy, that his father had been trying to hide something down there – he'd only just found out recently, that he'd been feeling a bit of guilt – not very much, to be sure, but enough to make any reminder of the wrong he'd committed make him a bit…testy…and Draco continually going down to the crypt always made him remember.

Draco had been at one of his father's death eater meetings – he'd always managed to avoid them before, but that night he had been 'obliged' to attend.

His father had gotten drunk, which had been an unprecedented event since before the – permanent – fall of the dark lord, and he'd begun blathering on in a very unwise manner. He'd had found out that Lucius had had a hand in murdering his own twin brother. His only brother. His only sibling, in truth…

So here he was, eyeing the bitterly cold black granite stone with his uncle's name carved in into it, and wondering exactly what the other boy had done that was so wrong his own brother had helped Voldemort to murder him.

He tilted his head slightly, and leaned back against his great grandmother's resting place. On second thought, he didn't suppose it would have taken very much to cause his father to fly into one of his rages, and practically hand his own brother over to the power hungry heir of Slytherin. No, it probably hadn't taken very much at all. After all, he himself carried the marks as a result of several of those rages, and also the knowledge that the only reason he was alive was because his father had been rendered incapable of begetting another heir, not long after he had been born.

It had been made very clear to Draco, on many occasions as he'd been growing up, that he was considered to be a less than satisfactory son, and a terrible disappointment – especially those times during his schooling years that he'd failed to beat Harry Potterat Quidditch.

Draco took another drink, wincing at the raw, rough taste of the whiskey, and welcomed the chill of the stone that invaded the skin on his back through the thin white shirt and black cloak and robes he wore. It was helping remind him that he ought to remain sober. He had places to go, and people to see that night, and if he attempted to disapparate with his head not on right, he'd most probably end up splinching himself, just like Crabbe had done that time just after the Commencement ceremonies at Hogwarts the previous year.

Now that had been a bloody mess…just the memory of seeing the huge oaf disappear, leaving the greater portion of his lower abdomen and legs behind, made Draco hastily recap the bottle of Ogden's, and tuck it back into his deep robe pocket -

"Draco! Are you down there, boy?"

- and just in time, apparently.

He could have disapparated without his father ever having known he was there, but where was the fun in that?

A perverse smirk crossed his lips as he calmly called out. "Yes, I'm here, father."

Heavy footfalls on the ancient stone steps echoed through the crypt, and shortly, Lucius Malfoy made his imposing appearance.

Draco didn't bother straightening from his relaxed pose against the stone vault. "Were you looking for me?" he asked with a deliberate yawn.

"Don't you give me that cheek, boy, I'll carve my response into it with a dull blade – how many times do I have to tell, this…place, is off limits?" Pale silver eyes flickered about the torch-lit walls almost nervously.

"Oh, I apologize, father – I only came to visit mother," Draco drawled easily, which was an outright lie. His mother's vault was on the far, opposite side of the crypt – and he was within arms reach of Alaraby's.

The slowly building rage in Lucius's face made Draco suppress a snide chuckle.

"I don't see why you hate this place, so, father," he said in a bored voice. "I mean, it's supposed to be a place of eternal peace. It's supposed to be…restful." He cast a meaningful look at the elaborately carved stone vault which held his deceased uncle, and then looked back at his father thoughtfully.

"Although…there is a bit of unease in the air, just here…I wonder, why is that?"

"I've killed men for lesser things, Draco – don't push me," Lucius rasped, eyes narrowed, one hand fisting against his chest as if he were in extreme pain. The other hand steadied him against the wall. The elder Malfoy looked weak in that moment, as if the place of death was sapping his strength.

Draco shrugged, unconcerned, and stood from his leaning position, crossing his arms. "Didn't mean to offend, father. I was just commenting that there seems to be a rather heavy stench of guilt upon the air, suddenly – "

Lucius had his wand in his hand in an instant, and he pointed it at his son, speaking through his clenched white teeth. "Insolent, ungrateful brat! You know nothing!"

Draco rolled his eyes expressively, wondering obstinately if he could indeed enrage his father to the point that he'd attempt to murder him. "If you're going to kill me, for god's sake, just get it over with, will you? I'd love thing better than to oblige you by dying an untimely death and ending crammed in a box with one of my esteemed ancestors to rot, but if you aren't going to do it, I'm afraid I'll have to say goodnight. I do have other obligations, other places to be."

Lucius dropped his wand with a soft snort, some of his anger seeming to leave him. "What manner of son are you, Draco, asking for death, provoking me? You know very well I can't kill you."

Giving a short, mocking bow from his waist, the younger man smiled benevolently, but his maliciousness glittered in his gray eyes. "Terribly sorry to inconvenience you, father. Here's a thought – perhaps you should marry me off to some deliciously leggy ice-princess, from a Wizarding family of good name of course, wait for me to beget an heir on her, and then have me take an expedient swan dive from some god-forsaken high tower – "

"Silence! By Slytherin's serpent, I swear, you push me too far! To think I was actually proud of you, once, that I promoted that fiendish arrogance of yours!"

"Fiendish, really?" Draco arched a brow calmly.

"Do you fear nothing, boy?"

"I think it's safe to say you beat any fear I might have felt out of me long ago," he responded lightly. "What is there to be afraid of, anyway, father? Death? Life is too long, in my opinion…I'll go most happily, when the time comes, I'm sure."

Lucius regarded him in disbelief. "If you start spouting off about killing yourself, I'll have you locked up – "

"Put away the chains, father, I have no intentions of killing myself – if I did that, could you imagine the satisfaction the likes of Potter would feel?" Draco walked forward, past his father, to stand in the cold winter air pouring down the steps above, from the entrance to the crypt. "No, suicide is not bloody likely." He started up the steps, not bothering to draw his cloak closed against the freezing elements.

"Where do you think you're going, boy? I have a task, for you." His father all but snarled behind him.

"A task?" Draco looked back over his shoulder with very little interest. Lucius had an odd, fevered look in his crystalline eyes, his skin a pallid, sallow shade, drawn tight over his sharp cheekbones. The crypt was getting to him, as it always did when he strayed into its depths, which wasn't often at all.

"Why else would I come down here myself to find you?" The older blonde put away his wand, and cast a contemptuous glance around, before shrugging his shoulders more comfortably within the confines of his heavy black coat, and ascending the steps behind his son.

Draco waited until his father drew even with him, and then continued up the well-worn, snow-dusted steps beside him.

"Well? What kind of task is it? Something appropriately wicked, I trust?"

He knew something odd was going on when he watched his father smile form the corner of his eye as they reached the ground level. The transformation that overcame the man was as they exited the crypt into the night air was distinctive. The tight, corpse-like appearance disappeared almost immediately, and the eyes that had been slightly sunken, and wide, burning with hellfire and brimstone, returned to their cold, heavily hooded state – imperturbable, unaffected.

"Not at all wicked, Draco…I've been out, and I recently overheard some disturbing news. I just want you to go somewhere, see if there is any truth in the …rumor."

No stranger to acting on his father's behalf, Draco gave an exaggerated, uninterested sigh. "And where might that be?" He withdrew his gloves from an interior pocket, and drew them on lazily.

Lucius came to a halt on the frost-laden gravel garden path, and turned to face him, his long mane of silver hair shimmering with a ghostly glow in the full moonlight.

"How do you feel about…teaching?"

That gave Draco pause. He looked up from a regretful rip in the palm of one of his gloves, and fixed his father with a sour look. "Me? Teaching? You must be joking. Just where the hell is this 'place' you want me to go?"

The former Death Eater's smile turned malevolent in an instant, perfect, sharp white teeth glinting shark like in the near darkness.

"Hogwarts."

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Ginny thought she was seeing things one late March morning as she was headed to double potions – through the crowds of black robed students, hurrying about the dungeon corridors, she kept catching a glimpse of familiar, sleek blond hair.

Her nerves were all but screaming by the time she made it to Snape's classroom. She was seeing things, she had to be…Draco Malfoy was not at Hogwarts, he had no reason to be! But how else could she explain that distinguishing shade? The boy she'd seen only from behind, and from a great distance, but even she could recognize that hair color, and the height had been far too advanced for him to be a new first year…she tried to convince herself that it must be an exchange student.

Her false hopes fell flat as soon as she took her usual seat in the front row, and a too recognizable, pale young man exited the entrance into Snape's office, a fiercely frowning Professor directly behind him.

An excited chatter started in on the Slytherin side of the classroom, while several of the sixth year Gryffindors groaned out loud.

Tiffany Fortin, another sixth year whom Ginny had befriended at the beginning of the first term, made a rude noise from next to her. She leaned over to her ear, letting her long, honey-brown curls fall forward to hide her face.

"Bloody hell, I thought we'd gotten rid of that git for good last year," she hissed, sounding unrepentantly annoyed.

Feeling the blood drain from her face, and her stomach lurch, Ginny could only manage a slight nod in return – her mind was whirling in a hundred different directions at once. Why was Malfoy here? Of all places – her troubled discussion with Hagrid weeks earlier leapt to mind with horrifying clarity. She stared straight ahead as Professor Snape announced in his usual sour manner, that Malfoy would be his teaching assistant for the next three weeks, in preparation for his final examinations to receive his professor's degree.

Another long-suffering, loud groan rose in unison from the Gryffindors, while the Slytherin's cheered and gloated – they had had the added bonus of two Slytherin biased teachers, instead of just the one – it was a banner day for their house. It may as well have guaranteed a house cup win for them this year.

Feeling as if she were stuck in some nightmare, Ginny felt a drop of perspiration run from the hair at her temple. The winner of the house cup was the least of her worries at the moment. She had to do something, she didn't know what, but her panic was overtaking her – what if Draco had found out about Alaraby through Hagrid? What if Lucius knew? Who knew what the man might do – oh, god, it was all her fault – everyone knew poor Hagrid just couldn't keep a secret!

Tiffany nudged her shoulder. "Hey…are you okay? You look like you're going to throw up, or something. Not that I blame you – just looking at that slimy, smarmy lot over there makes me feel more than a bit queasy myself."

Ginny swallowed, her mouth dry as she stared at the hem of Draco Malfoy's long black robes. She fought to keep the tremble she felt in her chest out of her voice as she shook her head, and took up her feather quill. "I'm fine, really. This just…it's a surprise," she answered faintly, and Tiffany snorted.

"Surprise? I'd describe it more as being a ruddy ambush. Honestly, what a craptacular way to end our last year – too bad Harry isn't still around the place."

Ginny suddenly wished that he was, too, as she inadvertently locked eyes with Malfoy. God, it was like staring at an evil version of Alaraby. The dark mirror image of the boy she'd come to fall completely and utterly in love with – and could never have. It was unsettling in the extreme…

Malfoy hadn't changed a bit since the previous year – he was a bit taller, broader through the chest and shoulders, but his faintly bored, 'I'm-going-to-get-you' expression was exactly the same. With his monochromatic coloring, he looked as if he'd been carved from unyielding ice – and his glinting, silvery eyes resembled diamond-hard bits of the clearest crystal.

She found herself unable to break the gaze. She couldn't help but see Alaraby standing in his place, see him in the curve of his jaw, the familiar, brooding brow, the graceful length of his pale hands and fingers…Alaraby in the flesh, living, breathing…able to touch her.

Malfoy smirked at her as Professor Snape began his usual pre-lesson oratory, and the spell was thankfully broken – Draco was not Alaraby.

Ginny dropped her eyes to her notes, and clenched her jaw against the hot sting of tears.

Draco wasn't anything like Alaraby – and she didn't want him to be.

Her fingers clutched her quill convulsively, and the fragile thing snapped in her hand.

"Clumsy, Weasley – look what you've done to your quill," a chilly voice suddenly murmured in her ear, and Ginny jumped, her head snapping up and around to find Malfoy bending over her, one hand resting flat on the edge of her desk. His eyes slowly traveled over her face, and then he smiled – not in a nice way, either. The way his sensuous, pale pink lips curved was positively cruel.

She felt her heart skid to a painful stop as he used his cool fingers to pry hers apart, and take the two pieces of her quill into his – in a quick sleight of hand, he replaced it, once again whole, on the parchment before her.

Ginny gave a shudder that Malfoy actually seemed to feel. He adopted a false look of concern, and patted her arm, and she was dismayed to feel her skin both burn and crawl beneath her sleeve.

"What ever is wrong, Miss Weasley?" he asked in low drawl. "You look as if you were a child seeing her first…ghost."

She stared as his eyes narrowed into wicked slits, and he moved away to assist Snape with the lesson.

"What was that all about?" Tiffany whispered in confusion, obviously feeling the tension fouling the air.

"He…he knows," was all Ginny could choke out, breathless with anxiety. "Sweet Merlin…he knows."

This was why Alarby was hiding, wasn't it? Was he worried his brother would find out he was still here, and do something even worse then death to him? If it was the case, Ginny had just ruined everything.

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It was nearly midnight before Ginny snuck out of her dorm to go and see Alaraby in the astronomy tower.

She'd noticed all day long, that Malfoy had been showing up at the most inopportune times, that he'd been as good as stalking her, watching her casually, with sharp eyes that missed nothing.

It had been hellish, trying to move through the day, wanting to run to Alaraby, but wise enough to know she'd only be giving herself away.

So she'd waited, every minute ticking away painfully slow – and now the darkness was her advantage.

Ginny let herself out of the grumpily sleepy portrait of the Fat Lady, and hurried down the corridor, pausing at the slightest noise, going out of her way to stay in the shadows.

She was nearly crying by the time she reached the entrance to the astronomy tower, and almost slipped and broke her neck on the curving stairs as she ran up them, mindless to her own safety.

Bursting through the door into the classroom, she nearly collapsed in relief when she saw Alaraby waiting for her, in the shadows.

"Thank Merlin! Alaraby, I'm sorry I'm late, but I had to wait. I have so much to tell you… it's all my fault – "

"What's wrong, Ginny?" he asked softly, his eyes glittering strangely.

"Alaraby, I-I've given you away, I – Draco, he's here, he knows!" Unable to stand, she sank into a heap on the floor, burying her face in her hands.

A swishing noise caught her ears, but she was too upset to notice Alaraby suddenly making noise as he moved over to her.

"Don't fret, Ginny, darling…everything will be all right." A cold hand suddenly made contact with her heated cheek, and she looked up with a gasp.

"You!"

"Get your bloody hands off her, you twitchy little ferret, before I take you apart!"

Ginny stumbled to her feet, backing away as Alaraby suddenly made an appearance, a soft, nearly solid image that glowed in the darkness, and left a cool but comforting draft in his wake as he darted in front of her, hands fisted.

Draco, clad entirely in black, walked out of the shadows to stand in a spot of moonlight coming through the balcony.

"So it's true, then," he commented with a smug crossing of his arms over his chest. His pale eyes examined Ginny closely; too closely. "Little Ginny Weasley, all grown up – and cavorting with the ghost of my deceased uncle – and, what the devil! He looks just like me, as well...well, me with a nasty disfiguring scar, that is. How astonishingly disconcerting…"

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"One may smile and smile, and still be a villain." - Unknown

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TBC!

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