The Pensieve

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"Madame Pomphrey- what's happening to her?!" Mrs Weasley suddenly shrieked, pointing at her daughter with trembling fingers.

"She's writhing, choking, I need... I need..." Madame Pomphrey muttered to herself, as she raced to her emergency cabinet. "This should do it..."

A steaming bottle of steel-grey potion was poured down Ginny's wretching  throat, which

made

everything

go

dark.


She had awoken, two days later, in a strange room. Far from the sterilised appearance of the Hospital Wing, the room Ginny was accommodating was a deep turquoise, and was filled with interesting curios.

"Draco" was the first word on her pale lips. Rising unsteadily, Ginny clutched her stomach when a strange feeling enveloped her, an icy waterfall in the depths of her stomach as she remembered what had happened.

Feeling her eyes water, Ginny suddenly stood up straight, to face a full length mirror. Her eyes, once a rich dark cocoa, were dull and dark. Did pigment wash away with tears? Her skin, usually alabaster and dusted with freckles, was dotted with blemishes and raised bumps were she had unintentionally scratched herself. Her scarlet locks were matted and mud-like, and her thick, hourglass figure had thinned into a boyish body. She was lifeless.

"Merlin, what happened to me?" Ginny whispered. The death of Draco Malfoy had stripped her of everything she ever had. Without him, she was nothing but a ghost of a lost girl.

Before she could break down in tears again, Ginny turned away from her reflection. Frowning at a peculiar object, she walked towards a strange, shallow basin. Filled with a glowing, ethereal substance, the basin beckoned her. Staring into the fluid  as though in a daze, Ginny gasped as Draco's face swam to the surface. Without thinking, Ginny plunged her hand  into the pool. 

Her cry was lost in the wind as she tumbled through the universe.

Silence. As she rose uneasily on her feet, Ginny found herself in the middle of a conversation between Severus Snape and Albus Dumbledore, walking along the corridoor of disused classrooms. Instinctively, Ginny knew she was in somebody's memory; the situation was not unlike the many time she had tumbled through Riddle's diary in her first year.

"Of course it makes sense," Dumbledore's quiet voice murmured. Seething, Severus froze in the hallway, directly in front of Ginny. Knowing she was invisible to them, Ginny idly stepped aside to get a better view of the scene. She tried to shake off the itching sense of de-ja-vu. Tom isn't here, Ginny told herself firmly.

"It's Potter!  You've always told me that it was Potter! If it isn't then why have I wasted six years of my life treating him as if he wasn't a good-for-nothing-"

"Severus." Dumbledore's gentle but firm tone brought Snape's rant to a close. "That time was not wasted. Moreover, Harry is not his father. You forget this."

Seething, Snape exclaimed, "That's besides the point! As I was saying, it does not make sense. Draco is not the Chosen One."

Dumbledore giggled, a sound which seemed to infuriate the Potions Master even further. "Alas, Severus. Who is  the Chosen One? In a sense, yes, only Harry can perform the killing curse on Voldemort, much like Voldemort did to his parents. But prophecies, my dear man, are not set in stone. Agreed, one cannot live while the other survives. But who on Earth claimed that the prophesy was only regarding Harry Potter and Tom Riddle? It wasn't."

"Then... who?"

"The prophecy spoke vaguely, Severus. It spoke of the heir of Gryffindoor, and the heir of Slytherin - who we both know to be Harry and Voldemort. But the prophecy... it also spoke of two others. Two others who had inherited the Founder's powers, whose powers, incidentally, were supposed to have been inherited by the heirs. Somehow, the heirs of the Founders did not correlate with the two magical families with the purest blood. A common error," Dumbledore sighed, "which was evident even then. Pure blood is meaningless when in relation to capacity of magic ability."

"But.. I don't understand. You say that there are two students, in Hogwarts, who have inherited the Founder's magic. That their power is what would defeat the Dark Lord. That only Potter, the heir, not the inheritor, can actually perform the Killing Curse. That these students would be in the two most prestigious, purest bloodlines. So- Draco, for Salazar's power, seeing as the Malfoys are the obvious family. But for Gryffindoor..."

Snape froze. "Not... the Weasley girl?!"

Dumbledore beamed and beckoned Snape forward, and they both continued with their slow walk. "Yes, Severus, the youngest Weasley. Ginevra Weasley, alone, has the healing powers of Godric Gryffindoor. Combined, they both will, essentially, destroy Voldemort. Their combined power is unimaginable."

"How could you possibly know this?"

Dumbledore stopped in his tracks, and gave Snape a blazing look. Then, he sighed, and stared blankly. Ginny distinctively felt the atmosphere relax suddenly, which led her to realise that Dumbledore had lowered his mental defences for Snape to pursue. Frustrated, Ginny bit her tongue and waited.

"You discovered the knowledge in Godric's Hollow? That seems reasonable. but.. why did you even think to go there?"

Dumbledore resumed his walk. "I owed a visit to some... friends," he said airily. For some unknown reason, Ginny detected that Dumbledore wasn't being entirely truthful. She shrugged off this notion as unimportant as the two Professors turned a corner into a strangely-familiar corridor.

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