A Dark Time For The Light

Title: A Dark Time For the Light

Author: Squigglesquared

Rating NC-17

Main Pairings: Harry/Draco, Severus/Remus, Ron/Blaise, Hermione/Ginny, H/D/S, H/D/S/R

Minor Pairings: Harry/Severus, Draco/Ginny, Colin/Dean, Minerva/OFC, George/OFC

Warnings: Magical AU. Non-Magical AU, Anal, Oral, Rim, Threesomes/Moresomes, Bestiality (1 chapter – well warned in advance), Drug Use/Abuse, Post-Hogwarts, slight suggestion of Mpreg

Summary: In Harry’s seventh year the Final Battle is joined. Voldemort wins.

The magical world fractures, it’s denizens fleeing it to hide in the world of muggles as best they can. Some run with little more than the clothes on their backs. A year after assuming power, Voldemort passes a rigidly enforced Magical Embargo where no cast magic is to be used save by those who are allied with the Dark. But all is not lost. Nationwide, an Underground is forming……

Will the magical world ever find the Light again? What of Harry and the Prophecy? What is the fate of Hogwarts school? How do magicals survive in the muggle world with only a magical education? Who is the mysterious witch that claims a lineage older than the Malfoys? And can magical people ever be a whole and complete community again? Intrigued? Read on and see!

Spoilers: Possibly up to and including book 5. This was written before the sixth book came out, so is AU after book 5.

This novel is completed and has all been posted

Author’s Note: This piece was such fun to write, it pretty much wrote itself. Written in five months between March and July of 2006, this tale is a hair over 236,000 words containing 100 chapters and a 3-part epilogue.

All of the locations actually exist

This piece has not been beta-read but has been through several drafts and error-checks.. Please read and review. Thank you. S2


A/N added 301210 - this tale has been extensively revised and now all the correct coding is in place. This means that all the glitches, half-chapters, etc., have now all been fixed and can now be read in the correct order.

Enjoy. S2



A Dark Time for the Light

1

Ginny Malfoy stood at the window gazing out forlornly into the rain. A noise below her alerted her and she resumed rocking the cradle in a desultory fashion. Tears poured down her face. She wanted to die.

She wiped at her face as the door opened behind her. She whipped around ready to snarl at the entrant, then saw who it was and her tense shoulders relaxed, “Oh, it’s you”, she muttered as she resumed her vigil by the window. Her young husband came up behind her and folded his arms around her shoulders, she sighed and allowed her head to drop back to his shoulder, reaching up and holding his joined hands, “I just can’t do this any more, Draco. I miss her too much”.

He held her tight and dropped a kiss into her hair and whispered, “Me either, but we’re nearly there, sweetpea. Old Snodgrass is being an arse about the money, but he’s too bloody senile to understand the new World Order, so he’s the only one I can trust. How’s your end of things?”. She smiled wanly into her husband’s eyes, then glanced down at the sleeping form of their son, “He’s on two solid feeds a day now. He still takes milk morning and night, but he’s sleeping through now”.

They were interrupted by a loud knock, then the door swung wide to admit Lucius, a fatuous smile on his face. “Well, how are my young love-birds today?”, he advanced into the room, hair and robes flying behind him and went straight to the cradle, lifting the sleeping baby out and holding him at arm’s length, “Let me look at you, my fine, strong grandson”, he boomed, then nuzzled the baby’s face with his own. Whereupon, the child awoke and started to cry lustily.

“Fine pair of lungs on him”, he thrust the screaming child into Ginny’s arms. “I want you both presentable for tomorrow night. He is to meet my new heir and Mark you two”, he sneered at Draco’s wince and strode from the room.

Ginny calmed her son and laid him back in his cradle, then slid an arm around Draco’s waist. He said, “There’s not a day goes by, that I don’t think of him, you know”. Ginny nodded and laid her head on his shoulder, “I know. Same for me. I’ll never stop missing her. How soon can we go, Draco?”.

Another knock, softer, announced Narcissa. She threw open the door with a haughty sneer making a loud comment as she entered, “No, no. Don’t pick him up like that, you doltish girl”, as the door closed behind her. She changed as wood hit hole and scurried towards them, her eyes frightened. From under her robes she pulled out a small sack that jingled. Money. Then pressed a Remembrall into Ginny’s hands. “I’ll open the wards between two and three tomorrow morning. Here’s the portkey”. On an impulse, she drew them both towards her for a hug, “You must leave tonight, or be Marked tomorrow. Take care of each other. I know neither of you wanted this”, she paused and looked down at the cradle, “Or him. I’ll look after him. I’ll be a Mother to him, but if you take him, you know He will kill you all”

Her son and his wife nodded. Narcissa looked at the desperate pair before her, and blinked back tears, “Go and find them. The one’s you really love. At least you two seem as if you like each other at any rate. I wasn’t sure how you would react to each other when the Imperius was lifted. It was I who insisted on that. You’d done what was required of you. I saw no point in extending your agonies. You were under that Curse for over a year, any longer and you would have been under His sway forever. I must go now, but know this, my son, I will always love you and will miss you, and, you, Ginny, I wish we had met under more favourable circumstances. You’re a good girl and a credit to your family. I’m so sorry that things turned out this way”. With that she turned and left, throwing a barbed comment over her shoulder as she exited.

Ginny huffed out a long breath as the door closed and gazed at the trinket in her hand, “I suppose that answers my question”, she smiled shyly at her husband and inclined her head at the bag he still held, “How much is in there?”.

Draco came out of his daze and opened the strings of the pouch, tipping the contents onto a nearby table. A selection of notes and coins that he’d never seen before. Ginny extended a cautious hand, riffling the pile of notes. “Muggle money. Pounds Sterling. About 2 grand. Some Euros too. I suppose for if we have to leave Britain. And some US Dollars, about 3 grand’s worth, plus about 50 Galleons, give or take a knut”, she scooped the money back into the bag. “You’d better Owl Snodgrass. Have him send Owls to Hogsmeade Post Office. It’s the only place I know of in Wizard World that can receive Muggle Mail”.

Draco smiled admiringly at his wife, “She taught you all of this, didn’t she?”. Ginny nodded, remembering happier times. He continued, “To my shame, I always let Harry deal with money stuff, thinking in my usual git-like way, that such things were beneath me”. Ginny chuckled softly, “Well, I’m glad you haven’t been a git to me, anyway. Thanks for that. These last few days would have been a lot harder otherwise”.

The last few days had involved them being taken out from under an Imperius curse to be told they were now married, had had a child and that Ginny’s parents were languishing in Azkaban. Oh!, and that Voldemort now ruled the Wizarding World.

Harry Potter and Hermione Granger were on the Missing-Presumed-Dead list. The Large-Reward-If-Apprehended list. They had completely disappeared. As Muggle-trained, they could vanish into the fabric of the alternative world, leaving nary a ripple. They could truly be anywhere.

Draco held his wife gently, resting his chin on the top of her head, “I know you had the biggest shocks of the two of us. Learning you were married to me must have been bad enough. Only to discover you’d borne a child. Oh, gods, Ginny. You’re strong. You know more about Muggle things. I like you. Help me”. She felt him tremble in her arms, then weep freely. She joined him and they clung to each other.

Two-o-one a.m. found them dressed in jeans, sweatshirts and trainers with small rucksacks on their backs. Draco carried the money. They joined all four hands together over the Remembrall and felt that disgusting lurching sensation as they were both dragged off their feet.

Fighting down nausea, they sat up. They were in a large open space, mist lay just above ground-level. At the edge of what appeared to be a field, trees marched away in serried ranks. Ginny consulted her watch, “For some reason, it’s now nearly 4 o’clock and the dawn is just about to rise. I haven’t a fucking clue where we are”.

Draco simply looked at her and shrugged, “Me, either, sweetpea. I suggest that you lead here”. They clambered slowly to their feet. Ginny looked to the lower edge of the field, a shiny silvery line; a river. Then upwards. A gap between fence and the hedge beyond. A road.

They were headed along the tarmac when a tractor hove to. “If you’re looking fer the main road, see, then this road, goin’ this way like, leastways only leads to the Gibbon farm, you need t’be goin’ th’other way t’get t’the main road. ‘Bout two miles yonder”.

They thanked the man and turned. It was full daylight by the time they found the main road. Ginny read the sign at the crossroads. Witney one way, Oxford, the other. “She was applying for a College here, before... before.. everything. It’s as good a place as any to start”. They set off. A quarter hour later, Ginny could hear a fast car approach behind them. On impulse she stuck out her thumb and the car screeched to a halt before them. She giggled at Draco, “We’ve got a lift. Let’s go find our true loves”.

They were dropped off in Oxford as it began to wake to the sound of bells. Ginny’s heart sank as she realised how many Colleges there were. She made use of the Tourist Information Office and had a list of the Colleges a short while later.

Then began the slog, from College to College, asking politely for the woman who meant more to her than life itself. Equally polite rebuttals. Ginny sagged in Draco’s arms as they sat at a table outside a riverside pub. “It doesn’t look like she’s here, does it?”, she wailed. Draco stroked her hair. “Were there any other Colleges she applied to?”. Ginny thought a moment and nodded. “London. Somewhere called LSE”. Draco grinned at her, “London it is, then. But you need to rest now. You look all in. I took the liberty of booking us into this hotel”. She grinned back and let her head fall onto her folded arms.

Eventually he got her to bed and she collapsed against her pillows, exhausted.