Title: Nonexistent Hope
Chapter: Engagement Rings, Alternate Universes, and Knee-High Stiletto Boots
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Right. Lights! Camera! Action!
Apocalypse: Uh... Uh... Draco is really hot/This disclaimer has no plot/Evil lawyers stay away/Or I'll steal your socks someday. (Cut to Standard Disclaimer! No! The button southwest of the red-and-white knob! Good job! Imbecile...)
Summary: See title. Five youths wake up and find themselves... In another universe.
***
Harry closed his eyes. It was the middle of the day, the sun was shining in his eyes, and he had Quidditch practice in fifteen minutes. He was currently trying to evolve ear-lids so he could shut out the constant chatter that was continuously flowing into his tortured ears. Mandy Brocklehurst, a Ravenclaw in his year, had been his girlfriend for the past two weeks and he was definitely considering breaking it off.
Mandy was a very good kisser. She was the only girl he had ever known who didn't trip and crash into him when snogging in a broom closet. Mandy had chestnut curls, jade-green eyes, lips as soft and pink as rose petals, and a figure to die for. She got eighty-five to ninety percent on everything, and was pretty smart. She could not, however, hold an intelligent conversation, give him an honest opinion, or remain in his presence for any length of time without pouncing on him and snogging him into oblivion.
Harry knew that Mandy had never-and would never-love him for being Harry. She liked him for being Harry Potter, for being the Boy-Who-Lived. She liked him for being famous and rich and handsome-which were all pretty good reasons to like someone, but not very good reasons to have any sort of long-term relationship with.
"Harry? Are you awake? Oh-you're sleeping. You must be tired from all those Quidditch practices... Did you know how cute you are when you're sleeping? You look so darling..." Mandy's husky voice-a deep alto when talking, a mezzo-soprano when singing-interrupted his thoughts. "Could anyone by more handsome then you? Rhetorical question, of course. You tie with Drake as the handsomest-and best-est- person it the school!" She half-sighed, half-squeaked the last sentence.
Harry nearly made a face, but remembered to keep up his sleeping façade. Mandy thought that the only person 'as gorgeous' as Harry was Draco-'Drake'-Malfoy. Harry knew that Malfoy detested Mandy for starting his nickname, but Mandy hadn't noticed yet.
The girl didn't seem to have any concept of grammar, either. For a Ravenclaw, Mandy was unusually air-headed. She used words like best-est, added an 'ie' sound onto everything she thought was cute, (Crup-ie, Kneazl-ie, Drakie) and invented nicknames for everyone. (Harry's name was already short, but sometimes she just referred to him as 'ry. Ron was Ronnie, and Hermione was Hermie. Neither of his friends liked Mandy very much.)
"Your scar is the cutest part of you. Drakie doesn't have a scar, so that's why I'm dating you, cutie." Harry rolled his eyes behind the closed lids. Dear god. He really had to break it off before she started to name his glasses and start referring to his scar as 'Jimmy'. "I can't wait until the Daily Prophet does another article on you. I can pose with you! Oh, won't that be such fun, posing for the newspaper. I want to be a model for Gladrags, you know."
Harry sat up. That was enough. He was fed up with her prattling on and on 'Harry Potter-this' and 'Harry Potter-that'. He was fed up with Harry Bloody Potter, and he told her so. He told her about her only caring about him because he was famous. He informed her that she wouldn't spare him a second glance if his name was Nick or Ben or Scott. He ranted on and on about how it was over. He informed her that the relationship had, in fact, been over before they had even kissed for the first time.
He stood up so abruptly he knocked his chair over, and turned his back on the weeping girl. She cried very prettily. She laughed very prettily, too. But that was where her qualities ended. If you had chestnut curls, jade-green eyes, lips as soft and pink as rose petals, and a figure to die for, you didn't need brains.
Harry was half-way out of the Library when the spell hit him. He crumpled as the blackness engulfed him. The last thing he heard was Mandy's hysterical scream.
***
"Paral Reelei!"
***
Hermione was sleeping. Well, actually, her eyes were still open and she was sitting upright. She was trying to study for the charms quiz (Which she already knew by heart, but she wanted to know the background information on every spell in the quiz too.) and it wasn't working. She hadn't got any sleep last night, what with Parvati and Lavender holding their monthly Slumber Party.
Hermione really detested the two girls she shared her dorm with. They jabbered long after lights-out, tried to force make-up on her, and constantly interrupted her study time. They only talked to her when she was reading, and they held their Slumber the week before a test.
She had tried to explain that she needed her sleep to them. All they had said was, 'Hermione, it's Spring Break. There's nothing happening. Flitwick's test isn't for five more days, and you're worrying about sleep now?'
Hermione had very curtly informed them that, yes, she was worried about sleep. Even if they didn't have an approaching test, it was important to get a healthy period of sound sleep every day. She had reminded them caustically that you never knew when Harry and Ron would drag you into another evil-conquering adventure.
Neither of the girls had cared about any of these points and had simply proceeded with their party preparations. Girls from the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff houses had shown up, toting make-up kits in suitcases built to maul on their shoulders.
And that had been last night: A sleepless nightmare of hysterically giggling girls and murderous eye-shadow. Currently, the disheveled bookworm appeared to be studying her book. Her eyes were fixed firmly on the elongated words and rambling sentences, but if you had watched her closely, you would notice that she had been reading the same line repetitively for the past half-hour.
Slowly, ever so slowly. Her eyelids began their journey downward so sedately you wouldn't have noticed until they had shut themselves. Millimeter by millimeter. Fraction by fraction. Hermione's eyes drifted closed and her mind found peace at last. She drifted off to a peaceful sleep.
And, a few minutes later, into a less peaceful sleep in another universe.
***
"Paral Reelei!"
***
"... Check!" The sandy-haired teenager informed the red-head sitting across from him.
Ron let the grin that had been struggling to surface for the last fifteen minutes show. Seamus had sacrificed three quarters of his army to get into this position-which might have, had Ron been a three year old, resulted in the Irish boy's victory.
Ron, contrary to popular belief, was not a three-year-old. He was a very capable seventh year and was just about to take Seamus' queen. "Got you, you slimy bugger." He muttered under his breath as he knocked the queen over with his own knight. The aforementioned queen had been giving him some trouble-it had taken two pawns and a bishop.
Seamus slammed his hands down on the table. He had no chance of winning now. His remaining pieces consisted of a handful of pawns, the king, and a rook which was currently in mortal peril. In his haste to save the castle, Seamus sacrificed a pawn and got the rook into an even more desperate situation then before.
Five more turns and the game was over. Ron had methodically taken out every last piece before easily cornering the errant king. The redhead flicked his finger against his thumb and knocked over his opponent's king over.
Seamus gave him a rather nasty look which was somewhat ruined by his abundance of light freckles that seemed to stick out when he scrunched up his nose. After making a royal fool of himself facially, the sandy-haired seventeen-year-old marched over and sat on the couch in his most sulky manner. Ron almost applauded before reminding himself that Chess was a game played by gentlemen and he should accept his victory by not ridiculing the loser.
Instead, the champion cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled to Dean, who was seated at the other end of the common room, "Oy! Thomas! Fancy a game?"
The school soccer champion glanced up and shook his head. "No! You'll win again-everybody knows that. What's the fun of playing a game when there's no chance? I know I'll
lose."
"Please? I'll let you play white?" Dean shook his head.
"I'll handicap myself?"
Shake.
"You get two queens?"
Pause. Shake
"You get two queens and I get none?"
Long pause. Hesitant shake.
"Come on, Dean! Fine... You get two queens, I get none, you play white, and you get to move your king anywhere on the board for the first check I get you into-only the first check, mind you. Don't say no! I'm too young to die of boredom!"
Uncertain silence.
"Please? Please? I'm cutting my own throat, you can't resist this! You're going to win-not even I can capture a king under those terms!"
Long pause. Hesitant nod.
"Thank you! Thank you! All right, come on and play! You get the opening moves, but I..."
Ron's voice faded in mid sentence. He slumped forward and knocked the pieces all over the floor, scattering knights and bishops across the carpet.
***
"Paral Reelei!"
***
Ginny had been napping when it hit her. She had been splayed out across crimson sheets, her arms encircling a gold-fringed pillow.
Well, she still was splayed out across sheets, and her arms were still encircling a pillow, but... Well, they weren't the same sheets. It wasn't the same pillow. She was now splayed out across charcoal-black sheets, and her arms encircled a silver-fringed pillow.
Unaware of these mysterious and highly suspicious changes to her bedroom frippery, Ginny stood up. Eyes still clouded by sleep and blinded by light, she didn't even notice her vastly different room as she stumbled over to a full length mirror which hadn't been there twelve seconds ago.
Her eyes adjusted and then she did notice. She was wearing a dress that looked as if it had been painted onto her skin by Leonardo De Vinci. Her hair had floated down to rib-level in violent scarlet waves. Her lips had been charmed blood-red, her nails were long, black, and had a silver slivers at their tops. The masterpiece-dress ended about an inch below her knees, but knee-high five inch stiletto boots covered the rest of her legs. Ginny was showing more chest than she had with all the Hogwarts Balls put together.
She was beautiful.
She looked liked she belonged in the Knockturn Ally pub, The Lethifold, as a dancing girl. She made a face at her reflection before the significance of the change sank in.
Ginny whirled. Some hidden vestige of uncommon sense made her expect to see the Gryffindor sixth-year girl's dormitory. What met her eyes was very different. And considerably more glamorous. (Of course, this didn't take much. The girl's dormitory was rather weathered-though even it was better than Ginny's room at the Burrow.)
The room was black. There was no other way to say it. There were no shades. It was completely, totally, and absolutely black. Only the occasional vein of silver kept the room from swallowing itself. Ginny thought absently that it looked a bit like a crypt.
Ginny had invulnerable walls of common sense, (Well, maybe not invulnerable. A missionary from the temple of uncommon sense-as mentioned above-sometimes burrowed its way in. But that isn't to be mentioned.) so the first thing she did was to turn back toward the mirror. She decided that something very strange had happened and she wasn’t going to satisfy her curiosity by collapsing in a pitiful heap at the foot of the bed.
That's when she noticed it. The ring. On her ring finger. On her marriage hand. It was, of course, silver with a black onyx stone. 'I'm sixteen.' She thought, 'At least, I think I am. Well, if I am sixteen I'll be turning seventeen in a week and a half, but still! Married? I'm married? Or am I just engaged? It wouldn't be so abnormal if I was just engaged. What the bloody hell is happening?
The door burst open and a familiar, if slightly detested, face appeared.
***
Draco had been very vaguely briefed on what the world would be like. He had counted on the Mistress (as Draco mockingly referred to him) changing a few significant things just to spite him, but nothing like this.
A stunningly beautiful redhead in highly unusual attire stood in front of him. She was wearing a dress that probably took three people to get her into, a cape that fell around her shoulders without covering too much flesh, and knee-high stiletto boots. It was the boots that did it. Draco nearly drooled over the floor.
Every person has a fantasy piece of clothing. Some people prefer leather pants, others argue over silk or velvet. Some go for simplicity with 'tight jeans'. My personal dreams are alternately a fluffy green towel and black-with-silver-dragon-print-boxers. But Draco's was, coincidentally, knee-high stiletto boots.
The unknown female stared at him. "Malfoy?" she asked skeptically.
And that was when Draco knew who she was. If she had been from this reality she would have used his first name and she wouldn't have asked. The red hair helped to tip him off.
What the hell had Voldemort the Insane been thinking, putting the youngest Weasley in his room?
"Virginia." He acknowledged. "I suppose you're wondering what's happening?" The Dark Lord had given him specific instructions to reveal his identity. Of course, this meant that His Evilness was trying to use reverse psychology on the young Malfoy. But Draco was so good at being rebellious he would go out of his way to keep from obeying an order. He was an expert at slicing apart even the most twisted of logic. The Supreme Evil Lord and Muggle Mass Murderer (T'SEL or MMM) wasn't really as difficult as you might think him to be. He actually had a fairly simple mind.
Her eyes widened. "You know! Tell me now." He nearly laughed at her demanding manner. She did have a certain commanding air about her.
"Have you ever heard of alternate universes, Virginia? We're in one. One in which you're a Death Eater-check your left forearm, my dear. I'm one too, by the way, as is your precious Potter. The Mudblood, I believe, is rotting in some cell, and your brother is in the torture cells as far as I know." He informed her nonchalantly.
"Right." She confirmed, seemingly unfazed. "Now explain this ring." She held out her hand to be examined.
Curious, he reached out to touch it. He caught sight of ring on his own hand-a wide silver band with a flat onyx stone embedded in it. It matched the girl's.
They both made the connection at the same moment, yanked their rings off the fingers they had previously been perched on, and flipped them over. On the back of both their rings 'Virginia & Draco Malfoy 5/1/98' had been engraved.
Their heads whipped around simultaneously to look at the calendar. By the slender red X marks, the calendar (which was illustrated with pictures of grotesque monsters) revealed that it was April twenty-eighth, 1998. The same date it had been in their original universe.
Memories that had not existed five minutes ago burst into being in Draco's rather rattled brain. "I was buying my wedding ring and had tried it on to see if it fit. You are wearing your engagement ring. We are to be married in three days before the Dark Lord. The wedding will be followed by a raid on a troublesome muggle rebel group." He recited mechanically.
They stared at each other.
"Ooooooooooooooh Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiit." They groaned as one.
***
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Draco and Ginny belong to JK Rowling, Bloomsbury, Scholastic, Warner Bros and various other corporations. They are being used here without permission and/or affiliation with the above. None of the authors listed here make any profit from these stories.