Harry Potter and the Unlikely Gryffindor

“Ginny!”

Feet thundered up and down stair cases, her name shouted into the shadows, cabinets, drawers and even inside chamber pots; in the kitchen, dining room, upstairs study, the cellar. But silence was the only answer.

“Ginny!”

It had taken the twins several hours to realize that their little sister was not in the house. There were so many rooms, and the fact that Ginny liked to roam, lost in her thoughts had made it hard to determine if she was even in the house or not. But when none of the girls seemed able to find the littlest Weasley, the twins had set about looking for her themselves. And now they were forced to come to the conclusion that she had left.

She had been acting strangely after she had gotten that locket. She would spend many nights wandering the halls, almost not sure where she was, like she was constantly floating in and out of herself. Both Fred and George had attributed her restlessness to recent events. She wasn't even able to go to her own parents funeral in the fear that she would be spotted, and thrown into Azkaban. And they both knew that alone had torn Ginny apart inside more than anything else. Even the simple act of saying goodbye was impossible. In short, her world was falling apart around her ears.

Both young men cursed themselves for not watching her closer. They had no choice, they had to contact McGonagall. Fred paced behind his twin, pressing his forefinger and thumb on either side of the bridge of his nose, his head suddenly threatening to explode. Even with having to outsmart Umbridge in their sixth year, neither Weasley had ever been so on edge. But never before had either young man ever thought that anything could ever ever happen like the events of the past weeks.

“What do you mean 'the floo isn't working',” Fred asked, kneeling down beside the fire. This was the absolute last thing he could think of going wrong today. He had always relied on communicating with his family and friends and not having that ability was suddenly more terrifying than facing an entire legion of Death Eaters.

“The operator told me that Hogwarts has been cut off from the network.” George had just pulled his head out of the fireplace, brushing soot off of his nose. “I don't get it,” he sat back on his knees, running his hand through his long hair.

“But we have to find Ginny,” Fred exclaimed, falling into a chair around the dining room table, his head in his hands. It was getting difficult to maintain their jovial natures when life kept throwing tragedies at them at every turn.

“Maybe she will come back,” Fred looked over at his brother still kneeling in front of the now empty fireplace. He had the look of a man who was faced with reality and desperately wanted to go back to sleep and dream the wonderful dreams of an innocent mind.

“I hope so, mate. I hope so,” but deep inside, George, like his brother, knew that this was only the beginning. The beginning of what, he was not quite sure. But if the past few hours were any indication, it was nothing good at all.

****

His scent was everywhere. In her hair, in her clothes, embedded in her very cells. His stink permeated the intimate places she had dreamed would be touched only by the man she chose, not to be plundered by this dark wizard, this Lich.

Hera had 'woken' just as Voldemort placed a parting kiss on her lips. She had felt him withdraw, but what had gone on she could not remember. She had been too afraid to move as realization dawned, and just lay there, staring at the silken dividers that shrouded the bed, listening to her own breathing. She had then been led back to her chambers by her uncle, tracking bloody footprints all throughout the the halls as her feet landed in still wet puddles of blood. But she did not see them.

Only when she was sure she was alone, she fell to the floor and wept. She had stayed curled up in that ball, shaking with her grief for hours, her eyes tightly closed against the memory of the triumphant smile Voldemort had given her when he had allowed her to awaken. How could one man be so evil? How could these people follow him without question and not take pause at his machinations? What was wrong with the world if someone like that could murder as many people as he wanted, and the one man who had tried to protect her was persecuted for the Dark Lord's crimes?

How would she face that one man who had pulled her from His grasp? How would he ever look at her without seeing the hand prints of the Dark Lord? She had begun to develop a respect for the man called Severus Snape. He was shrewd, yes; calculating, absolutely; and even haughty. But he was also intelligent, confident, and a gentleman. Now he would never look at her with that hint of a smile behind his dark eyes. She would never hear that deep chuckle when she sought to annoy him senseless with her terms of endearment. The only thing that she could imagine being on his face, was pity.

She hated pity. Pity was the first expression she remembered seeing after His attack had temporarily blinded her as a child. She hated it even then. She had lashed out with anything she could when met with that expression; her feet, hands, with biting words. So many people took pity on her that it was sickening. She was not some dog one finds on the side of the road after a careless motorist leaves it for dead. She was not some lame horse that could no longer walk and had to be put to sleep. She was a human being!

But right now, she felt so much less than human. She felt like that animal, wounded and scared. She felt that the world was filled with darkness, that nothing would ever be light again. There was no joy left, nothing to laugh about. No reason to dance, to throw her arms in the air and let the rhythm of life take her where it would. She could see death in every shadow now. Her death, the deaths of her friends, of everything that had ever come to matter to her in just the few months she had spent in her fellow wizards' company.

Hera levered herself up on all fours, and crawled into the wash room, heaving into the loo. Slowly made her way to the claw-foot tub. “Hot,” she commanded the faucet, and it opened, pouring steaming water into the tub. She remembered this was where Severus had bathed her after the ceremony. His hands had felt so comforting, holding her head out of the water. She remembered him washing her. Even though she was unconscious, she could still remember the feeling of security that act had conveyed.

She lowered herself into the steaming water, hissing as her skin prickled with the heat. Despite the pain, she lowered her entire body into the tub until only her shoulders were above the water. She found a rag, and some soap, and began to clean herself. She scrubbed herself until she was red and raw, and it hurt to sit. Every inch of her skin was scoured by the rag as she scrubbed herself for nearly an hour, trying to get the feeling of his hands off of her skin. But no matter what she did, she could always hear him laughing in the back of her mind, could feel his hands caressing her as a lover's should have.

She did not get out of the tub until the water had cooled. Her skin was an angry red, welting in places where she had scrubbed too hard. She let the water drain as she pulled on a gown, wringing her hair out as best she could, leaving it down. The air was cold on her wet skin, but she didn't care. She couldn't feel anything except the pain of her scrubbing, and somehow that comforted her. At least she couldn't feel his hands on her any more.

Hera sat on the bed, looking down at her hands, illuminated by the waining moon. She suddenly had an odd feeling. As though of their own volition, her hands pressed themselves against her lower abdomen. She could not feel anything physically, but she some how knew that something was different. Hermione, reading from her healer's textbook, told her that most Witches knew they were pregnant long before any real tests could be done. They could sense it through the energies that flowed through all magic users.

Rather than fill her with joy, the realization that a child had been conceived brought forth a ragged sob from her throat. Hera feared that she would heave again, but there was nothing left. She had realized then that she had not eaten in nearly three days. And to make matters worse, it was the day after her birthday. She had promised Luna that she would look through her scrapbooks today.

She felt like she were breaking all the promises she had made to everyone by getting captured again. She knew that this was somehow her fault. One way or another, she could have prevented all this. She loved her friends dearly, but she began to regret ever responding to the letter. If she had just minded her own business, and stayed out of affairs that were none of her concern, then this would not have happened.

She could almost hear Molly in the back of her mind, gently admonishing her for having such thoughts. 'The last time I checked, young lady, you didn't have the ability to divine your own future,' despite herself, that brought a smile to Hera's face. But it still didn't make her feel any better about her predicament. How was she going to escape? 'Ugh! You still have your wand, girl,' she could almost feel Molly thumping her on the side of her head. Who knew the Weasley matron would have such a powerful presence in her life, or her head?

Certainly not Hera. And again despite herself, she felt a little better. She wiped her eyes and went to the door, putting her ear to it. Hermione was one of the only reasons that Hera was passing Charms. The girl had more knowledge in her little finger than Hera, Harry, and Ron had if they could mush their brains together. And what the Head Girl had taught her about thinking her way around charms without using a counter-charm would probably have made Flitwick bristle.

'You know when there is an Imperturbable charm on a door when it repels everything you throw at it,' so Hera picked up her shoe, and threw it at the door. It stopped just short of hitting the door itself, and acted like it had had just landed on a trampoline and bounced right off. “Thanks Hermie,” Hera whispered, taking her wand in her hand and pointing it at the door. “Finite Incantatem,” and the shoe hit the door when Hera threw it again.

Another little known use for Imperturbable charms was that they usually were used to cover up 'noisy' wards. And putting her hand to the door, she could feel that 'noise' through her skin. The door literally vibrated with all the protection spells on it, and the lock was surely charmed as well. There was no real way to nullify the wards and not have their caster know about it. But there was a way around this too.

Most warding charms had two things in common: 1. They alerted the caster when someone tried to dispel them, and 2. they were rather specific as to what they protected against. In the case of these wards, they most likely would protect against tampering, and if someone tried to pick the lock. But Hera had not become who she was today if she didn't know a thing or two about getting around locked doors.

Magic locks were somewhat like their Muggle counterparts in that they were aggravatingly tamper-proof. But they had the same weakness; if you separated them from the door itself, their usefulness was moot. Hera placed he tip of her wand on the door's edge, “Diffindo,” she repeated the charm until she had just about separated a crescent shaped piece of the wood around the lock, from the door, securing this to the frame with a sticking charm before completing the cut.

The door swung open with no protest, the wards still active as though the door were closed. Hera kept her wand close to her as she stepped outside into the hallway. The walls and floors had been cleaned and repaired, though the smell of stale blood still hung in the air. Hera wrinkled her nose in displeasure. She was halfway down what she thought was the hallway leading to the foyer, when she was jerked out of the hallway and into a side room. “Don't scream...”

Hera recognized that voice, and she twisted around to wrap her arms around Ginny, grateful for any familiar face. “Cock-a-doodle-do,” Ginny whispered, sending Hera into a fit of sobbing giggles.

“How did you get here,” she inquired, suddenly suspicious of Ginny's sudden and almost too convenient appearance. Not to mention the horrid pastel avocado old house coat and fuzzy slippers she was wearing. No matter what, you had to be under the Imperious Curse to wear something like that.. What was it with Death Eaters and their pajamas?

Ginny stepped back when Hera began to loose her nerve. It was the first time Ginny had really understood how lost Hera was in this strange world she herself had taken for granted for her entire life. “I think one of them put me under the Imperious Curse,” she started, noticing Hera had taken another step back toward the hallway. “but I snapped myself out of it when he started groping me,” it was the first time that Hera had noticed another person in the same room.

A very under dressed Lucius Malfoy was sitting against the wall, wrapped in rope so tightly, every movement cut his skin. She also noticed that Ginny had placed a Silencing Charm on her uncle. He was mouthing what Hera was sure were explicatives that were quite unfit for a Wizard of his status. Hera laughed cruelly, narrowing her eyes at her uncle. Revenge was a sweet thought, but she didn't want to spend any more time in this place than was necessary.

Fortunately for them, most of the other Death Eaters were absent for some reason, though they did have to dive for cover when Wormtail came around the corner with a bowl of Chocolate Cockroaches as a mid-night snack. When the rat-faced Death Eater disappeared around a corner, Hera and Ginny ran as fast as they could down the hall into the large greeting area of the mansion. They made their way across the large room and out the huge double doors, and into the cold night.

They ran out of the portcullis, looking around every corner in case one of Voldemort's followers was patrolling the grounds. There against an old Weeping Willow, were three broomsticks. One of them, was a Firebolt, an old steely gray Hippogriff feather hanging off the middle of the broom. “Harry was here,” Ginny asked as she picked the broom up, holding it tightly in her hands.

Hera nodded. “They rescued me the first time around,” she sighed as she picked up Ron's new Cleansweep 11, which his parents had bought for him with the money Hera had given them as payment for room and board. Ron had smiled so big that his cheeks were beet red from the exercise. “I just hope this is the last time I ever see this place,” she looked back at the mansion as both her and Ginny mounted the brooms. Though it was made quite difficult with their sleeping gowns, but being lady like was not among the long list of their concerns at the moment.

Each kicked off the ground, and soared into the night sky, though Hera had some trouble keeping herself from panicking. This was why she hated flying class, she was afraid of heights.

****

Cecilia and Harold held each other as they watched the children huddling into small groups. The Hogwarts students were being kept inside one of the large court chambers inside the Ministry of Magic. In fact, this was the first time in all its centuries of existence that Muggles had seen the inside and not been Obliviated on the spot. It had been nearly time for dinner when some of the students came rushing into the Great Hall, screaming something about Giants attacking the school.

Surely it was all the product of over active imaginations, was what Cecilia had thought. But not until she felt the first shudders did she realize that there were things that would make even people who could do magic go pale. She had been equally mortified when some of the students themselves were planning on going out into the rain and fighting Giants. When one of the younger students described a Giant to her, she nearly feinted. And children younger than her Hera were going to fight them?

Where was the justice? Where did people like these Death Eaters get the idea that they could just attack any where they wanted to? What the hell gave them the right to attack a school? When she had confronted the secretary about this, all she got in response was, “We're doin' everythin' we can.”

Well that wasn't good enough! Somebody's babies were fighting those awful things! Somebody's babies were dying out there and all they can do is talk! If this was at an American school, this would not be happening. And that thought gave Cecilia an idea. She went back to the secretary and demanded that he teach her how to make a Floo call. When faced with an angry mother, his will was nothing compared to hers, and he told her how, quickly making his exit out of reach of her hands. His left ear was still sore from where she had grabbed him and drug him to the lobby.

Within a few minutes, Cecilia grabbed a hand full of the green powder, and threw it into the fire, watching as the flame turned bright green. “Theresa Mathers, 1807 Maple Wood Lane, Houston, Texas,” the full address was required for international calls, and in front of her astonished husband, she stuck her head into the emerald flames.

****

The door to the potions class room open softly, the squeaking of ungreased hinges seemed louder in the silence as the door was closed again. “Lumos!” With her wand raised high, Luna Lovegood started down the stairs that descended to the teaching floor, her large eyes scanning the room around her. She began digging through dusty book shelves. Though her search was tinged with desperation as she literally threw the contents of Slughorn's cabinet onto the floor and began sifting through them. Finely, after what had seemed like forever, she found what she had been looking for.

At the very bottom of the cabinet, under stacks of potion notations, was a book so old it's pages crackled when they were turned. Every Potions Professor worth his job had a master book of potions he could fall back on if the situation called for it. With hasty patience Luna gently flipped through the pages, trailing a long finger down its contents before moving on to the next. She was looking for something specific that had only been hinted at in the textbooks. She kept herself focused as she searched the book, her wand held over the pages to provide herself light.

Each recipe Luna read carefully, committing them to memory in case she would need them later. She knew what she was doing was against several dozen school rules, enough to get expelled and banned from ever attending Hogwarts again. But there was a time for following rules, and a time for breaking them. True wisdom, her father had once said, came from knowing the difference. Luna was not going to hide behind rules, not now. She was a passive person most of the time, but there was a certain point that every person reached when they would not sit back any longer. Luna had reached that point when she had watched Neville streaking through the air on his broom at near break neck speed to avoid being hit by the Killing Curse.

She could take anything done to herself without retaliating. But when those that she loved were forced to fight when they themselves were not old enough to be called a full fledged wizard, that was where Luna drew the line. As she turned to the next to last page, her grim expression broke out into a grin that fit her sorting into Ravenclaw. She read down the recipe for the potion, smiling. It was a simple potion, so simple in fact, that for thousands of years after it's use in the Trojan wars, it's method manufacture was a mystery. Fire that could burn flesh and bone to dust, and even burn in the middle of the ocean.

Greek Fire.