Finding Color

Part Three

"Give me a few weeks before you get worried," Ginny said to Lupin before turning and leaving the room.

She went up to her room and packed a small bag of things like underwear, things she knew she wouldn't find where she was going. She hoisted her bag onto her back, called on her magic, and vanished from her childhood home.

She reappeared in Wiltshire, just outside of the gates to Malfoy Manor. She cloaked herself in her magic and sat down on a nearby rock to wait.

The white peacocks grazing on the front lawn were beautiful, Ginny mused as she sat and waited for a couple hours. The magic inside of them was so pure. She couldn't help laughing at the irony of such purity being a part of the Malfoy family home.

And then, she felt it. Winging its way through the air like a siren call of doom, came the dark call of Lord Voldemort. It impacted with two people inside of the Manor. Ginny felt Draco's wince but he didn't move to go anywhere. The call must not be for him.

Lucius Malfoy, on the other hand, immediately stood and reached for his Death Eater robes and mask. Ginny let out a lasso of magic that she wrapped around the eldest Malfoy. When he Apparated away, her lasso dragged her along with him. She was pulled to outside the gates of a run down old mansion in Little Hangleton.

Ginny let her lasso of magic go before Malfoy noticed it and felt his presence join a large number of other dark magic users, Voldemort among them. It was now or never for her.

Ginny's magic let her walk through the wards without tripping them. She walked right up to the house, let herself in, and walked to the largest drawing room, all without anyone noticing her.

She took a deep, steadying breath outside the door before reaching up and knocking. The voices inside the room were silenced in surprise as Ginny waited for someone to open the door.

"Enter!" came the high, cold voice of Lord Voldemort himself. Ginny reached out, grasped the doorknob, and pushed open the door. She walked into the room amid gasps of horror and pleasure at having someone new to torture.

"A Weasley!" Voldemort crowed, sounding excited at the prospect of all she would tell him under duress. "Do come in."

"Hello," Ginny said amicably as she stopped in front of Voldemort's chair. She conjured up a chair of her own and gracefully sat down across from him.

"And what," Voldemort hissed, "can I help you with, Miss Weasley?"

"I have come to offer my services to your cause," she said with a smirk at him.

"Your services?" a woman laughed cruelly. "Crucio!" she screamed through her laughter. The spell flew towards Ginny and dissipated the second it came in contact with her magic. Nothing dark could ever touch her, be it a spell or a creature; her magic wouldn't allow it.

"Now, now, Bella," Voldemort said calmly, as if young girls calmly walked into a meeting of the most dangerous people in the world and then brushed aside one of the most painful spells ever created as if it all were nothing. "She is offering her aid to us freely."

"Not entirely," Ginny corrected as she leaned back in her chair. This was going exactly as she had hoped.

Voldemort picked up on her conditions and frowned. "Meaning?"

"I have power. A lot of power," Ginny began.

"And it's being squandered with the Order, isn't it," Voldemort laughed, as if he heard this all the time.

"No," Ginny shook her head emphatically. "I don't want to use it at all, and you can give me that."

"Don't want to use power?" Bella laughed and Voldemort let out a chuckle of his own. If he had power, he used it, but this little girl with the clasped hands and bowed head wanted him to get rid of it for her. Well, he would gladly take that power from her.