The Dark Lady (Severus x OC)

11. A strange alliance

Ginny opened her eyes, stunned. She felt very dizzy, and her head hurt.

"Look around you, find out where you are."

"Hermione?" she asked out loud. She had heard her friend's voice but couldn't see her.

"Shhh," another girl said. "Don't speak loudly, or they will come for you."

"But-"

"Obey, you must remain silent."

"I must be going crazy," she thought. "I hear Hermione's voice inside my head."

"That's because I'm inside you."

Ginny looked around. She was in a circular stone room closed by imposing dark doors, and there were more girls like her, sitting on the floor.

"How can you be inside me?"

"I don't know. I left my body when I looked at that light on the wall, and I couldn't get back to it, so I joined the first living being I could find."

"But... Are you alive?"

"I think so. If it weren't like that, I could have left. My body is still alive."

Ginny looked at the other girls. They were younger than her and she didn't know them at all, but from their appearance she guessed that they were muggles.

"Do you know where we are?"

"No. I see the same things as you. We'll have to wait for something to happen."

They didn't have to wait long, because a few minutes later, the doors opened, and some men entered. Or at least, they looked like men.

"Why are they acting so strange?"

"I don't know," Hermione's voice wavered. "Ginny, I don't think they're human."

Ginny instinctively reached for her wand to defend herself, but it had been taken from her. She had to obey as they forced her to her feet and dragged her out of the room. Strangely, she didn't feel as scared as she should. Having two Gryffindors inside her head had to help.

The strange men took them into a gigantic cavern, whose bell-shaped roof was supported by numerous stone columns.

"The Department of Mysteries!" both recognized the place by the drawing of the columns.

Spread across the cavern floor, they could see many more girls, sitting in groups. Some were very young, under ten years old. The guardian guiding them pushed them next to a small group of girls dressed in Hogwarts uniforms, and Ginny recognized a Hufflepuff student.

"Are you Weasley?"

"And you Abbot?"

"Quiet!" the man's shout silenced them, although some of the younger girls continued crying.

"My name is Susan," the girl whispered.

"I'm Ginny, do you know how many people are here?" Ginny looked around, trying to get an idea of how many girls were in the cave, but the columns blocked her view.

"I don't know, they barely let us move. I've only seen girls, both muggles and witches. Those girls over there are from a muggle school," Susan pointed to one of the largest groups, made up of fifteen girls, who were sitting near them. "They were attacked a few days ago, but they say the guards separated them and left the boys behind."

"What do they want us for?"

"No idea. I've seen that sometimes they take a girl through those other doors over there" Susan pointed to another pair of doors that stood menacingly at the other end of the cavern. "But those who leave never return."