Chapter
One
The Crime
With every breath Ginny Weasley took, she had to fight
back tears. They threatened to spill over any moment, and she did not want them
to. She had done enough crying in the past month to last her the rest of her
life.
It was July. Ginny had turned eighteen two months
earlier. So much had happened since then it was hard to believe there had been a
time when she was happy and carefree.
At
the moment, she was on a sort of Knight Bus. But it was very different from any
Knight Bus she had ever been on because it didn’t have any beds – instead, it
had individual cells. Sort of like a dungeon. And each cell held one female,
taking them to the place they would probably never make it out of alive or
sane.
Ginny
was going to Azkaban.
She
sat in her cell, staring miserably out the window. It was dark out, but she
could tell that the clouds they were flying through were gray.
Resting
her forehead against the surprisingly cool glass, she bit her quivering lower
lip as a tear managed to escape down her cheek. Bitterly, she wiped it away and
took a deep breath.
Don’t
cry,
she commanded herself. It won’t do you any good. You’ve cried from the
beginning and you’re still on your way to jail.
There
was a loud, sudden rattling noise that made her jump. She turned and looked out
into the aisle of the bus, the narrow walkway between cells, and saw another
girl in her own compartment, just a few years older than Ginny, holding the bars
of the door and shaking them violently.
“I
didn’t do it!” the girl screeched, and Ginny tried not to groan. That same girl
had been claiming that for the past three hours. “I swear, it wasn’t me! Why
don’t you listen?”
Ginny
smirked, and looked up towards the front of the bus. The only people that
weren’t convicts were the driver, a guard, and one Dementor. Why would they
listen? The driver was old and frail and looked as if he hadn’t eaten anything
of real nutrition in ten years. The guard was a tall, thick man with biceps as
big as Ginny’s neck, holding some sort of weapon he could use to crash over
someone’s head to knock them out. And the Dementor . . . like it would really
listen to anything anybody had to say?
No
one that could help the girl was listening. Instead, another woman, around
thirty who sat in a cell across from her, snapped, “Ain’t nobody listenin’ to
you, bitch, so just shut up.”
The
girl tilted her head back and let out the loudest wail Ginny had ever heard in
her life. It went on for a straight minute before the guard finally stood up and
poked his weapon threateningly through the bars.
“If
you don’t shut your mouth I’m going to let this Dementor suck the life out of
you right here and now,” he growled.
Two
months ago, Ginny would’ve pitied the poor girl who looked as if she had
suddenly gone back thirteen years and was five, and someone had just told her
there would be no more Christmases. But it wasn’t two months ago, and Ginny had
hardened. She had finally learned that the world was cruel and unfair. And she
felt nothing but relief and almost gratitude for the guard who made the girl be
silent, because she was getting rather annoying.
“How
long until we get there?” another woman asked timidly.
“Two
hours,” the driver replied gruffly.
Two hours. Two more hours before she would be
locked in Azkaban for the rest of her life.
Ginny
was cold. She wore a black jumpsuit, courtesy of the “Cell Bus” as she’d come to
call it, and a pair of cheap sneakers. But she had no socks and no bra, and
wondered when the next time would come when she would be able to wear them
again.
She
turned back to the window and saw the person staring back at her. Two months
ago, her skin had been as smooth as silk and pale, dotted with many tiny
freckles. Now even her freckles seemed to have faded, and the flesh under her
eyes remained a constant purplish-black. Her hair had once been healthy, wavy,
and bouncy, a deep red color, and probably her best trait. Now it hung limply
around her shoulders, even though Ginny had just washed it that morning. Her
eyes, which had normally been full of life and happiness, a rich, dark chocolate
shade, were now full of worry and anger.
Sighing,
she closed her eyelids. It seemed every time she closed her eyes, the crime
flashed back before her. She had nightmares about it, and had gotten so she was
terrified to sleep.
At
the moment, everything came flooding back to her, as if it had just happened
moments ago . . .
Two
months ago
“Ginny!
I can’t believe you’re even looking at those. Honestly, we can’t afford new
robes for you right now. Why don’t you get a job and pay for them
yourself?”
Ginny sighed and turned towards her mother,
letting the dark blue silk fabric of the latest style robes slip from her
fingers. “A girl can dream, can’t she?”
Mrs.
Weasley rolled her eyes. “C’mon, we’re supposed to meet Ron, Harry, and Hermione
for lunch in fifteen minutes. We’ll be late.”
Ginny’s
crush on Harry had ended the year he left Hogwarts, which was the previous year.
Instead of looking forward to seeing only Harry, she was looking forward to
seeing Hermione and her brother, too. Hermione, of course, had landed a stable
job about a minute after she graduated. She was now the Transfiguration teacher
at Hogwarts, Professor McGonagall having retired the year Hermione had left.
Ron, however, was still looking for a consistent job and was working in George
and Fred’s joke shop for a little while, paying for a place of his own. And
Harry, of course, was an Auror.
Lunch
had been fun. Ginny had laughed a lot, mostly at how Hermione and Ron still
bickered with each other when Hermione had the engagement ring on her finger
from him. The wedding was planned for December, on Christmas
day.
Afterwards,
the five of them decided to shop around for a little while. Ginny followed her
brother and his fiancé and best friend around for a little while, then grew
bored of how even though they were nearly adults, they still ignored her. So she
went off to find her mother and perhaps manage to talk a few Galleons out of her
to buy the robes she wanted.
But
she couldn’t find her, and when she passed by Madam Malkin’s Robes for All
Occasions she couldn’t help but go back inside and look at the dark blue silk
robes once more.
Biggest
mistake of her life.
The
shop was very busy. “Be with you in a minute, dear,” Madam Malkin said in an
exasperated voice, as she tried the sizes for an upcoming first-year who wanted
to get an early start on his school year, even though the previous one had just
barely ended.
Ginny
nodded absently and admired the robes she wanted for nearly ten minutes. Then
she decided to look for something else, perhaps something she could afford, and
moved towards the back of the shop where the sale racks
were.
That’s
when she heard it.
“What
are you doing?” someone cried loudly.
Ginny
wondered where it was coming from. She paused from searching the rack. It seemed
to be coming from behind
the clothes, from the shelf where she was looking. Glancing around, she saw that
no one was around. Whoever had spoken seemed panicked, as if something bad was
about to happen.
Ginny
pushed the robes aside and peeked through. To her surprise, there was a whole
other room behind the rack of clothes. She had never known about it, because it
was invisible when the robes were in the way.
And
then the screams started.
The
horrible screams that seemed to echo throughout the whole store. Without even
thinking Ginny scrambled through the robes into the hidden room, and saw someone
on the floor, shouting wildly and twitching as if they were being tortured by
the Cruciatus Curse. And that was exactly what was
happening.
The
instant Ginny saw it, the screaming went on for a few more moments. Then the
person stopped moving, and she was able to see that it was Lucius
Malfoy.
Movement
out of the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she jerked her head to
the right. A figure, wearing all black, turned and disappeared through a hallway
in the back. Whoever it was had been torturing Lucius.
That’s
when everyone in the shop came in.
Several
people hurried to Lucius’s side, and helped him sit up. He was sweating and
breathing hard, his eyes glaring angrily at everything that he looked
at.
“The
Cruciatus Curse,” Lucius sputtered out.
“Who
did this to you?” one man asked, helping him to his
feet.
And then Lucius looked directly and Ginny, and
pointed an accusing finger at her. “She did it,” he said softly and venomously.
“That girl did it.”
Of
course, everyone believed Lucius. No matter how badly Ginny protested, no one
believed her. But finally, her father insisted they use a truth potion on her. A
very strong dose was made, one that no one could lie through, and she drank
it.
“Did
you use the Cruciatus Curse on Lucius Malfoy?” Cornelius Fudge asked
her.
And
she had answered, “Yes.”
After
that, even her mother wouldn’t look at her without shame and pain in her eyes.
But Ginny hadn’t done it. Why the truth potion had made her say the
biggest lie in her life she never knew, and had a feeling she never
would.
“If
you didn’t, then who did?” people asked her. Witnesses had seen her there before
anyone else had arrived.
“A
man in black,” Ginny had tried to explain. “I saw him leaving before anyone else
came.”
Lucius
said that was a lie. He said he watched as she pulled her wand out on him and
said the deadly words.
It
took nearly two months for everything to happen, but finally, Cornelius Fudge
looked Ginny straight in the eye, disappointment showing visibly, and said, “You
will serve a life term in Azkaban for the use of an Unforgivable Curse on
another person.”
I
didn’t do it,
Ginny thought now, very bitterly. As much as I hate Lucius Malfoy, I did not
use an Unforgivable Curse on him. I would never do that to anyone, never.
Someone had set her up. She hadn’t even been there
when Lucius had started screaming.
I was in the wrong place at the wrong
time.
A/N: Please review and tell
me if you like it or not! I LOVE reviews, please, please, please write something
in the box below!!! Thanx :)
* * *
Review This Story
