A/N: Hi guys! This story is part of a series of mine, but you don't have to read the others in the series if you don't want to—this can be read as a standalone. This takes place in a high school AU around Christmas a more 2017/18-ish world. In addition, this is going to be a Ginny/Hermione pairing, which brings me to my next segment:

Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Harry Potter world, nor will I ever.

Warnings:

* Girl x girl. Don't like? Don't read.

* Gangs

* Drugs (mentioned)

* Mild swearing

I don't have a beta yet for this story! If you'd like to help me out with that, feel free to PM me or leave a comment about it!

Finally, please give this story a shot before you stop reading—it takes until part way through chapter two to pick up pace and get better. I appreciate your patience! Also, definitely leave a review and tell me what you think, no matter your opinion. I always appreciate helpful criticism and pointers!

And, without further adieu, I present to you Shadows and Spies.

Chapter One: In Which Distant Relations Become Friends

Something was up with Ginny.

I just knew it.

It's one of those things that you can't quite explain, you just understand, which was why I knew no one would believe me. After all, I had no proof—she was doing just fine in all of her classes, charming as always, and seemed fine with her friends.

And, of course, as drop-dead gorgeous as ever.

With those flowing locks of beautiful, red hair, swirling around her as she hurled a dodgeball at a classmate across the room from her.

Goddamn.

I felt my heart squeeze as I watched her, my breath fluttering slightly.

I was pretty sure I was in love.

Scratch that, I'd been in love for years now, ever since I started school at Hogwarts Academy.

Ginny was a year younger than me—a sophomore, now—but I had transferred to this school during my own sophomore year, so we had been there for the same amount of time. That didn't mean we were the closest of friends, though.

The very little I had learned about Ginny—that she was smart, funny, and kind—was mostly from her older brother, Ron, one of my two best friends. I know—exactly the way every young woman wants to learn about the person she's got a crush on—though the person's overprotective brother that just so happens to also be her best friend.

Of course, I had had a few interactions with Ginny, but not enough to be properly considered a friend. Just an acquaintance, a distant relation.

Which, really, I was alright with. After all, how are you supposed to approach the sister of your best friend, who's good at everything you're good at, if not better? Not to mention prettier, more popular, more athletic, more—well, you get the point.

I guess there were probably a lot of braver people than I who would have been willing to give it a go, but personally, I wasn't sure where to start.

Like, not even a little bit.

Do you text something nice? Tell her her hair looked good this morning? Or go with something more casual, a general conversation starter, like asking her why her brother wasn't at school today?

It was hard for me to even begin to consider one of those options, despite how they sounded (in theory) like relatively low-stress, low-stakes options.

Just then a ball hit me in the face and I stumbled back, almost falling, suddenly jerked from my thoughts back to reality.

Harry sniggered next to me as I self-consciously rubbed my nose. (Say what you want—dodgeballs hurt when they're thrown by three-hundred-pound, seventeen-year-old bulldozers who could easily bench-press you in their sleep!)

"You're out, 'Mione," Ron told me gently.

I grumbled, embarrassed. "Right, sorry."

"Just pay more attention next time," Harry said. "I'm sure you'll do better."

"Right, yeah," I said hurriedly and shimmied over to the "out" bench.

Did Ginny see that? I wondered.

How humiliating.

A perfect SAT score last year and I get hit in the face by a dodgeball (and nearly fall over, no less), then have to be told that I'm out.

Wonderful.

I really hoped she wasn't looking.

My face burned with embarrassment, but I tried to hide it as I sat down and watched the others finish their game. At least, I reminded myself, I hadn't fallen flat on my ass. That would have been much worse.

It was just the start of the school year—two weeks in, actually—and the PE coach had already decided she couldn't be bothered to come up with anything substantial to do than a children's game.

Not that I minded, of course—anything was better than being forced to play basketball in groups of four for 73 minutes—but it was a little curious that she still had her job.

Oh well. I supposed she had only had it for a fortnight—the headmaster was probably just giving her some time, seeing if she could turn it around.

At least, I hoped so. She was our worst one yet, which was saying something. We'd gone through three of them in the past year alone, seeing as no one really wanted to try to make a pack of hormonally-charged, surly teens do push-ups and squats for several hours a day.

No matter, I watched Ginny and Harry, my other best friend, proceed to win the game for our team (everyone else cowered in the back and tried not to get hit) and then high-five each other after getting the last guy on the other team out.

That reminds me—wait, let me backtrack a little bit.

I suppose that the phrase "nothing had changed" with Ginny was probably a bit misleading. Ginny had seemed more cocky and confident lately. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but it was a drastic change from last year—she had been shy, unhappy, and quiet. Now it seemed like she was at the top of the world all the time. But that "top-of-the-world" attitude also had moments of seeming like a complete and utter lie, which was what had me worried.

Now, I know that there are all these theories about how you should "be the change you want to see" and all, but this was different—this wasn't her trying to get out of her shell and be happier with her life; this felt like her trying really hard to make it seem like nothing was wrong.

But, of course, I had no evidence to back up this theory.

So, I did the only logical thing I could think of: I kept an eye on Ginny.

I know it was bad of me to assume something was wrong like that, to get nosy, get into other people's business uninvited, but I was genuinely concerned for her safety—a lot of kids from our school had been getting into some risky behavior lately, especially since the old crime boss known as Voldemort had escaped from prison.

A lot of our classmates had families that were once affiliated with him, which meant that a lot of them went rushing to his ranks once he escaped. Family is a hard thing to say no to, even if they're trying to persuade you to join a known murderer.

And even for those of us not involved—we had suddenly gained a bunch of classmate dealers. It meant that a huge number of us were in some risky business.

Ginny's family never was a part of all that, but that didn't mean she wasn't wrapped up in something bad—with his return, there were a lot of things suddenly available for kids interested in darker-natured activities.

Not only that, but there were rumors that he was gaining followers—and not necessarily through their own consent. Not that anyone was surprised, of course—he had done things of the start during his first ascension.

The last time that he rose to power, it was through political speeches and rallies, but after evidence came out that he had been blackmailing, threatening, and even killing potential followers, he was (and rightly so) convicted and thrown in prison.

But now, fifteen years later, he was out once again, and not able to use the same recruitment methods as before—an open political campaign was (clearly) well out of the picture for him.

That meant that he got even meaner and more menacing, harder to disobey—or so the stories went.

Of course, rumors are often blown way up into something that they aren't, but most of the time, there is some sort of backing to them, even if it doesn't entirely translate into the story that unfolds from it.

Anyway, I was determined to find out what was wrong with Ginny and if Voldemort had anything to do with it.

Call it a stupid gut feeling if you like, but I've learned to trust my instincts over the years, and I felt like something was really wrong right then, and it's a good thing I did.

I didn't know then just how wrong things were, nor did I realize how much shit I was getting myself into when I decided to try to fix the problems of my best friend's sister who—oh, yeah—was also the girl I just so happened to be totally and completely in love with.

Enough with this whole "intro" crap. Here's where the story really begins.

Nevermind. Sorry. I lied.

The story didn't really start getting interesting for a little while—

At first, nothing happened, which was frustrating. I wanted to either be proven right or to be proven wrong and get it all over with. That seemed a lot nicer than waiting for something bad to happen to Ginny or for me to do something stupid.

But it seemed like everything was normal, which reminded me of those horror movies that start in the too-perfect towns where everything is just right, as if to put up a sign that reads, "Nothing Wrong Here. Why You Lookin' At Us Funny?"

Anyway, Ginny went to her classes, walked to her dorm, then went to dinner. Then she went back to her dorm and (presumably) went to bed. I didn't want to be a total creep about things, so, of course, I probably missed some things in there, but it wasn't like I was going to start spying on her while she slept.

It went on like this for a couple of weeks and eventually I decided it was probably pointless to keep watching out for any little tiny happenings in Ginny's daily routine—nothing was changing, so I shouldn't expect anything to do so in the future.

But, right as I was about to chalk it up to meaninglessness, to a pointless thought that my over-analytical mind came up with—and this is where the story begins—we ended up in the library together.

Unordinary, yes, I know, but only at first glance.

I figured that it would be unordinary, too, in the beginning. But that's not how it turned out.

It was about four weeks into school by then so Ginny, understandably, had a mountain of homework (and teachers act like they give reasonable amounts of homework—in my book, if one week's worth of homework weighs more than five pounds all printed out, it's way too much, and that's coming from someone who literally decides to study in her free time just for fun), and the library was a completely normal place to try to work something of the sort out.

But she was acting funny that day, so I watched her curiously as she sat down and opened her own computer, nervously glanced around herself, and logged onto a site I didn't recognize—not at first.

Then I did—I saw a logo—a federal logo—in the corner of her screen, at which point I stopped even pretending not to watch her.

Probably not the best move on my part, I know, but I wasn't really thinking too far into the future at the time. I just wanted to know what was going on.

Then she pulled out a jump drive, plugged it into the computer, and transferred many files onto it.

Now, I'm no computer expert, but what I can tell you is that they didn't look like files she should have. Every once and awhile she would seem to get scared, start typing faster. She had to jump through hoops to open the files and finally—after lots of coding and looking for loopholes and other computer stuff that I didn't really understand—she transferred the files to her jump drive and whipped them from the site.

Yeah. Probably not the most legal transaction, even from my non-expert point of view.

Afterward, I watched her obliterate her footsteps. That, at least, was something I that I understood how to do.

Finally, she opened a new site and sent all of three words.

I have it.

She stood up and glanced around again. Her eyes met mine for just a brief moment before she hurried out.

I couldn't even tell if she really saw me, or if it was just my imagination, the way her gaze lingered on me for that split second, but that was the start of my wondering why, something you'll hear a lot more of as I tell this story.

I got up, following her out. I wasn't sure what I was going to do, I just figured that I needed to talk to her about all of… whatever this all was.

"Ginny!" I called down the hallway as I flung the door open.

She looked over her shoulder, seeming for a second like a deer in the headlights. Then she composed herself and smiled. "Hermione. What's up?"

"What was that?" I asked, getting right to the point. Screw being in love with her, I wanted to know what was going on. I wanted to know she hadn't just committed a felony. My heart was pounding in my chest.

"What was what?" she asked innocently, but I could see her shifting uncomfortably, despite her clueless-sounding voice.

"In the library! What were you doing?" My voice rose a little. Was I wrong? Was I just standing here making a fool out of myself? But then—

"You mean on the computer?" she asked, looking annoyed. "I don't see how that's any of your business." She tucked her hair behind her ear in an obnoxiously adorable way.

"Well, it was if it was what I think it was." Words. I hated them then and I hate them now. But she understood what I was trying to say.

"Look, this doesn't concern you, alright?" she snapped back. "I need to get going." She turned to leave. I wondered if I'd just screwed everything up.

"Wait! Just give me an explanation. I don't want to believe what I'm thinking right now." Had that helped my case? I wasn't sure.

"You mean that I was doing something illegal?"

In hindsight, she definitely admitted it way too fast. I should have understood that it was a plea for help. But I didn't and instead, I lamely said, "Yeah."

"Do you want a believable answer or a clearly fake one?"

"Ginny…"

"Get out of my way," she said, pushing past me.

I watched her go. My heart sunk.

I was in love with a criminal. Great. What were my parents going to say?

And ignoring all that, why had she told me any of what she did? That was what I was the main thing left to wonder about, along with whether or not it was enough evidence that she was up to no good or in a bad situation.

I eventually decided that it did, indeed, present enough evidence to prove I was right. That, I felt, should have made me satisfied because showed I hadn't just been on some wild goose chase, but I didn't. I felt frustrated and worried and concerned for Ginny.

So, I guess that my real question at the end of all of that, was this:

What was Ginny involved in?

And, who was she working for? Who did she send that message to? Could it have been Voldemort? If so, why?

No matter who it was, she had to have been forced to do it, right? She wasn't the type of person who would just go and do something like that, something illegal, something totally uncalled for. Maybe there was a reason.

She was sweet and kind and nice and wonderful and she just wouldn't.

Right?

Chapter Release Date: December 11, 2018

A/N: Stick around for the next chapter—that's when it starts to pick up pace!