A/N - This story was nominated in six categories in the 2011 D/G fic exchange, winner of Best Minor Character.
This version has an additional chapter that was not posted as part of the fic exchange. As a result, this version is an "M" rated story, where the one in the exchange was only a "PG". If you prefer the PG version. The "M" rated chapter will be chapter 3.
Ginny Weasley wiped the blood and sweat from her eyes after she ducked behind the fallen tree. For more than two days, she'd been in the same clothing, running, hiding, fighting. Soon, it would come to some sort of conclusion, and a part of her had hungered for and craved this moment. All she had to do now was wait.
The adrenaline surged through her veins and she forced herself to remain calm. Despite the hardship, she welcomed what was about to happen. For the first time in months, she felt that she was finally in control. Despite the chaos and uncertainty, a part of her knew, with profound certainty, that this moment had been building inside her for a long time. She wondered if perhaps it had been something that she'd been seeking from the moment that Tom Riddle had overtaken her mind so many years ago.
Funny how having so little sleep and running on a surge of adrenaline could make a person see things so much more clearly.
While she waited, watching the opening of the cave from her hiding spot, she found herself recounting everything in her life that, ultimately, had brought her to this rather unlikely location.
She'd certainly had enough events that had shaped her personality, both good and bad, but, as she thought about what choices had brought her to this point, she realized that the Battle of Hogwarts had been the worst, the most defining.
She hated that day more than any other. Other events had been bad, but manageable: the diary, the battle at the Ministry, the death of Professor Dumbledore. They'd been traumatic and, certainly, each event had hardened her young soul just a little bit. But the battle had been a culmination of everything that had gone before. It had marked the end of her innocence in the worst way. It had brought with it the death of her beloved brother, Fred.
That day had driven her from her family and now, standing alone, she suddenly realized that she missed them. That moment had been burned into her memory, with unfair clarity, despite her best attempts to avoid thinking about it. It felt like a raw wound yet, somehow, she suddenly understood that it was the very reason that she was currently crouched behind the moss covered log.
She had closed her eyes when her mother had told her the news, unwilling to turn and look at the body lying on the floor of the Great Hall. Somehow, seeing him there would make the news real, and she couldn't face that.
With all her heart, she had wanted to collapse into a ball, streaming endless tears over the death of the brother that she'd loved, but the situation made that impossible. The Battle of Hogwarts still raged, and she had people who needed her, so she cast aside her feelings and diverted her attention to those who were still alive and needed her help.
Eventually, the battle came to a merciful end and, as the day dawned on the morning after Voldemort's demise, Ginny Weasely watched the blood red dawn and realized that something within her had changed irrevocably. Amidst the mixed feelings of celebration and loss, she realized that a part of herself had died alongside her brother.
It had been a horrible epiphany.
Strangely enough, the world seemed to continue after that day and Ginny watched the people around her continue along with it. Over the long, sad summer, she watched as Harry and the rest of her family eventually put aside the shock and pain and, with the exception of George, put aside the grief to continue with their lives.
At first, Ginny attempted to do the same. She managed to return to her daily routine, and attempted to fit in with whatever the others were doing, but she found herself growing more and more angry as each day passed. Society was slowly flowing back to the pace that had existed before Voldemort, as if he'd never existed, and Ginny felt something about that was unbelievably wrong.
It felt as if everyone had gone mad.
She could not understand how anything or anyone could go back to normal when so many had died in an unjust war. Forgetting about it had not been enough. She couldn't forget. She coudn't accept that life could simply go on.
As the weeks wore on, she distanced herself from her family, unable to tolerate how they could pretend that things were getting better. She became obsessed with following the news, watching the world with a new perspective that the rest of her family either failed to see, or outright ignored.
Behind the hopeful headlines that told of a Ministry that was working to rebuild, she found less publicized stories of violence and murder. Even the suspicious death of the once-prominent Lucius Malfoy was barely mentioned in a small story in the back of the Daily Prophet.
Yet, nobody seemed to care. The world was tired of fighting and people desperately wanted to go back to what was left of their lives and pretend that everything was all right.
But it wasn't all right, and it seemed that only Ginny seemed to care that the demise of Voldemort did not seem to bring an end to his followers.
Then, something profound happened that brought her hope.
Alastor "Mad Eye" Moody was found alive.
For over a year, it was believed that the staunch, gruff, former Auror had been killed while transporting a decoy for Harry Potter. But, as it turned out, the man had been resourceful to his last breath. He'd been brutally injured, and his attackers had stripped him of all his magical devices and left him for dead, but they'd underestimated the level of sheer grit and determination that had defined the wizard.
It was only by chance that he'd been discovered in a Muggle hospital, recovering from multiple injuries, and still confused as a result of some of the many spells that had been cast upon him.
After only a week in St. Mungo's, the resilient wizard was back on his feet. Upon his release, he did two things: the first was to contact his old friend and ally, Kingsley Shacklebolt, to arrange returning to work, and the second was to visit, without exception, the grave of every member of the Order of the Phoenix who had died during the Battle of Hogwarts.
That fall, with determination and a bit of raw nerve, Ginny Weasley slipped out of the Magical section of King's Cross train station and away from her family and went straight to the Ministry in search of a job.
Having little other option, since she hadn't finished her schooling, she resorted to begging for a favor from the acting Minister and longstanding family friend, Kingsley Shacklebolt, who seemed determined to convince her to go back to school. She'd refused. After a long discussion, where she made clear that she had no intention of going back, the new Minister finally relented.
She was assigned a temporary position, in the newly formed Office of Investigation Archives, run by none other than the infamous Alastor Moody.
Moody's office was in one of the more obscure sections, located in one of the lowest levels of the building. It was a stark room, with only a minimal amount of furniture and office items in the waiting area. A weathered and beaten old desk was placed in one corner, with an ancient typewriter sitting on it, covered in dust. Nothing graced the walls, although there were some patches where the dull paint was lighter in color, showing where wall hangings had once adorned the area. On one side, a door was located to another room, looking just as beaten and battered as the rest of the place. She presumed that the door led to an inner office.
Without warning, the old Auror emerged from that door, wand drawn and apparently ready to battle. He stopped upon recognizing the visitor, his wand remaining on guard as he carefully looked her over.
"Ginny Weasley," he stated, looking just as gruff as she'd ever seen. She nodded, but his harsh expression didn't change. He looked her over carefully, his Magical eye rolling wildly.
"Where did we first meet?" he asked abruptly, raising his chin and his wand in challenge.
She smiled slightly, realizing that she was glad that the grizzled man hadn't seemed to change in the slightest. "Grimmauld Place. Three summers ago," she responded firmly, then, knowing that he expected the same sort of greeting, she challenged him in return. "Tell me who you arrived with," she demanded in kind.
The older man's scarred face twisted into a satisfied smile. "Dumbledore, himself, God rest him," he returned. "Good girl. Now, that we've got that settled, what brings ye here?"
She presented the paperwork that Shacklebolt's assistant had given her. "Job. Mr. Shacklebolt seems to feel that you need an assistant." She glanced at the dusty, unused typewriter in the corner with some trepidation. "He mentioned something about turning in paperwork."
Moody's magical eyepiece spun around, looking over the papers and he gave a grunt that might have been annoyance. "Hmmph," he mumbled, "Kingsley's been on at me about that. Damn accountants and such seem to feel I need to justify my work. Worthless bureaucrats."
He looked back up at her, his real eye squinting slightly. "I'll take ye, if ye feel ye've got the stomach fer it."
She nodded, unsure. "What exactly do you do here, Sir, if you don't mind me asking?"
He gave her look that was a mixture of bitterness, pride and determination. "I'm looking for every last bastard that was hooked in with Voldemort. Now that he's dead, the little cockroaches are hiding under every legal loophole and respectable job they can find. The Auror Department is too full of blithering idiots and proper procedures to do what needs to be done to find them. That's where I come in."
She nodded, meeting his determined gaze firmly to let him know that she wasn't afraid of such work. He grunted again, apparently not quite satisfied. "They don't like to talk about me, girl. That's why I'm stuck down here, where they prefer to forget about me, that is, until I haul one of those spineless tossers in front of the Wizengamot."
Ginny looked at the man, with his magical eye, his scars and battered and twisted limbs; a man more tough and determined than any human-being she'd ever known. She thought of her beloved brother, three months dead because of those barbarians that Moody was seeking out. She lifted her chin. Kingsley had thought Moody would frighten her off, that she'd see what was offered to her and it would give her incentive to go right back to school. Instead, he'd given her exactly what she'd been hoping to find. She was more than glad to respond, "I'd be honored to help, Sir."
It took her a week to clear the dust from the waiting area and set up files for Mad-Eye. She borrowed forms and letterhead from the Auror Department, hoping to at least make the reports she filed look as official as possible. Most of the work, however, involved setting up and maintaining security spells to protect the office's information from any unauthorized individuals.
"Kind of ridiculous," the old Auror groused as he taught her yet another spell. "They make us waste time writing it all down, and then we have to waste time making sure that it doesn't fall into the wrong hands, and then they make us file reports to justify all the time we spend because we don't have time left to do the real work."
"Yes, Sir," she responded dutifully, although she was starting to understand enough about bureaucracy to agree with him.
Over the next few weeks, she saw little of her boss. He was tracking a half-dozen supposedly respectable citizens, therefore he was frequently out of the office gathering information. However, whenever he was there, he made certain to teach her a new spell for defense and ordered her to practice it diligently.
When she wasn't practicing, Ginny spent her days working on trying to get her ancient typewriter to accept Moody's notes without complaining. Unfortunately, the device apparently had some sort of propriety spell on it. It refused to type out the wording properly. Every time she used any sort of foul language, of which there was quite a bit in Moody's notes, the typewriter would alter the wording to something that was more socially and politically correct.
It also seemed to have moods, where some days it was more particular about holding to propriety than others. This day it seemed to be more snippity than usual. She gave a deep sigh.
A loud popping noise in the waiting area distracted her from the useless antique. She looked up to see Moody hauling forward a reedy-looking man, his wand steadily trained on the man's throat.
Unsure of how to react, Ginny froze in her seat and watched Moody as he hauled the man forward, shoving him against the wall, keeping his wand ready. "Now, you're going to tell me who was involved in bringing the giants to the battle."
Giants. Ginny felt her heart race. Giants had been responsible for ripping apart the castle where Fred had been standing. Her blood ran cold.
The man sneered back at Moody. "I told you, I never spoke to the filthy beasts!"
"Aye, but ye know who did and I want their names," Moody responded coldly.
The man broke away from Moody, staring at him angrily, an almost self-righteous look on his face. "I told you, I had nothing to do with them!"
Moody grabbed the man's wrist and viciously ripped his shirtsleeve up to reveal the faded remains of the Dark Mark on his inner forearm. "Then, what's this? Last I heard, ye don't get a mark like that fer deliverin' flowers."
The man wrenched his arm out of Moody's grasp and sneered. "I was at Hogwarts, but I didn't kill nobody there."
"No, but sixteen children died in that castle when the beasts tore into it," Moody said accusingly. "I know ye were involved with that lot, but I'm guessin' you weren't smart enough to be the one to convince them to join up. Tell me who yer workin' fer now."
"I work for the Ministry, you worthless old..."
"I wouldn't finish that statement," Moody interrupted.
The man ripped his arm out of Moody's grasp, then made a seemingly harmless gesture, as if he was brushing dust from his sleeve where Moody had touched him. But the gesture released some sort of dust. Moody, ever watchful, noticed the substance and stepped away, but it distracted him for a second or so, long enough for the thin man to snatch the old Auror's wand and turn it against him.
"Now, old man, I'm not going to tell you a thing."
Ginny, having watched from the beginning, found herself ready to react. She whipped out her wand, aiming it in the general direction of the pair, although she was shaking so badly that it wasn't clear which of the two she was focusing toward. She didn't give the appearance of someone ready to act, and the reedy man sneered, turning back to Moody, obviously ready to fire a curse.
That was when he was struck by a ball of flames, squarely in the middle of his back.
"Arggh!" he screeched, dropping to the floor and rolling in an attempt to extinguish the flames, Moody's wand clattering as it left his hand.
Moody grabbed the item, once again ready to defend himself, only to look up to see his young office assistant standing over the suspect, an angry glare on her face.
"I believe Mr. Moody asked you a question," she growled harshly, ignoring the man's obvious pain. "I suggest you answer."
He looked at the pair incredulously. "You're both nutters! You can't do this! I have rights!"
But Ginny felt nothing in that moment. He'd been involved at Hogwarts, and just moments ago, he'd attacked Mad-Eye Moody. Her anger overtook her and she realized that she wanted this man to suffer.
Moody said nothing, although his magical eye swiveled between the girl and the suspect quickly. Then, he moved forward, taunting the man. "Oh, this is nothing. It can be healed once we get you to the med wing in Azkaban, but I'm sensing that, by the time we get you there, you might have some other injuries that won't be so easily repaired. For example, how do you feel about keeping your left foot?"
The man attempted to crawl away, clearly terrified that he was serious. "You're mad!"
Moody's magical eye swiveled between Ginny and the suspect, as if he were sizing each of them up. He nodded at her, pointing to the suspect's foot. She sucked in a breath, realizing what he was asking her to do, but then, oddly enough, he winked. Something in her then understood that it was part of how the game was played. With all the anger surging inside her, it wasn't difficult to want to play along.
"Incendio!" she said with venom, aiming her wand and lighting his shoe on fire.
"Stop!" he wailed in fear and pain, beating at the flames before they did too much damage.
"I'll start working my way up the rest of your leg, piece by piece, until you give Mr. Moody the information," she said angrily. Clearly he was injured, but not all that seriously, making her wonder how he had managed to become a Death Eater.
He cowered on the ground, whimpering. Then, he looked up at Moody, hoping to see some shred of decency or compassion, but Moody's face was devoid of any emotion. Ginny tried to appear just as cold.
Defeated, he mumbled, "They'll kill me if I talk. Just like they killed Malfoy. None of them wants to go to Azkaban."
Moody gave an ironic chuckle. "And, I think the girl will kill ye if you don't talk. Your choice."
So, he talked, but the information was sparse, and not entirely useful. Obliviated and Confunded, the man was sent to the holding cells on the lower level, with a vague story about being in a magical accident.
When Moody returned, he walked up to her desk, his real eye studying her thoughtfully. She prepared herself for some sort of reprimand for her unethical action against the man. Instead, Moody looked at her a bit sadly, then, he tapped his finger to his temple near his real eye and said, "There's some things this eye sees better, girl."
She looked at him, confused.
"You want answers," he said gruffly.
She thought for a moment. She'd just attacked a man, granted, he'd been threatening Moody, but she'd gone beyond that, and she felt no remorse, only a release of some of her endless anger, and somehow Moody seemed to understand. Looking at the haggard old Auror, she nodded.
His magical eye wobbled furiously in its socket, scanning over her in a frenzied manner and, for the hundredth time since she'd started the job, she wondered what the device actually did.
Regardless of the eye's function, after a moment of contemplation, the old Auror seemed satisfied with something he'd seen. "Alright then. We start tomorrow morning. Dress properly," he ordered, motioning with distaste at her skirt and shoes. "None of those useless dress shoes. You'll need to be able to move around quickly if ye expect to defend yerself."
Shocked at his willingness to teach her, she nodded mutely, then got back to her typewriter. She'd expected him to ask why, and she was prepared to tell him, but he didn't ask. He just knew.
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