Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. I just had an . . . interesting idea.
Author's Note: This fic is pre-HBP. Also, I'm working on a long version, so if you're curious enough after you've read this to want to know more of what happened, the long version of Doing My Duty is schedualed for release after Seven Pointed Star.
"So you're the stalker."
Ginevra Weasley scowled at the Magical Law Enforcement officer across the table from her. "It's not like that," she said shortly. "I wasn't stalking him; I was guarding him!"
The short, pudgy man laughed. "Guarding Harry Potter? Why? I mean, I heard rumors that the Order of the Phoenix set guards on him back when You-Know-Who first returned, and that's ridiculous enough! He's Harry Potter, for Merlin's sake! With You-Know-Who gone, what could happen to him?"
Ginevra sighed. "You want the full story?"
"Well, Ginny, that sounds like a good idea. The more you tell me, the less you get forced out of you."
"I haven't gone by 'Ginny' since Hogwarts," Ginevra said a little irritably. "I go by Ginevra, my full first name." She pushed an errant lock of dyed black hair out of her eyes. "I assume that Harry's listening, and so that's a good place to start. That's the beginning, anyway. You see, I was a year below Harry at school, and I changed quite a bit, physically speaking, in the year after he graduated."
Harry was hard off that year, what with the Dursleys kicking him out and no Hogwarts to go to. His parents' home had been destroyed when he was a baby, and the Evans' home was sold and the profit split between Lily and Petunia when they died. There was his familial home, the Potter's manor, but he didn't know about that yet. He had to focus on finding and defeating Voldemort--now that he could use magic freely and had reached his full potential, or near enough to scare Voldemort, the Dark Lord wasn't about to come to him--and so he wound up living on his inheritance in a flat in London that he shared with my brother, Ron, and Neville Longbottom. Hermione wanted to be close, but she had a sense of propriety that wouldn't let her move in with Ron and Harry, so she rented the room across the hall from the boys. When Luna and I graduated, the plan was that we would move in with Hermione.
You know of Luna, of course. Potter, now, but then it was Lovegood. She was in my year. The girl had always been batty and a little ratty, but she blossomed during our sixth year, just after she and Harry started going out. Her hair, her skin, the way she held herself, the way she dressed--gods, there were some people who would have sworn she had Veela blood all of a sudden. It was part growing up, and part having Harry, I think, but that year she changed from the strange girl she'd been into the beautiful and mysterious woman that everyone knows. I was still gawky and freckled at that point.
You're not interested in our last two years at Hogwarts, though. Suffice it to say that after Harry left Hogwarts, I finally changed into myself. It's more dramatic a change than Luna's in its way. I'm still freckled and not particularly pretty, but I look completely different. My hair changed shades, for one thing, from the well-known 'Weasley Red' to something more fiery. My eyes went several shades darker, and I gained just enough weight to change from stick-thin to feminine. Add that to the complete wardrobe change I managed, and I look just enough different to look like Ginny without looking like Ginny, if you know what I mean. Like a stranger you meet on the street that looks like someone you know, almost, but then you look again and you're sure that it couldn't be the same person.
Dumbledore noticed. He needed someone from the Order to keep an eye on Harry, but wanted someone that he wouldn't recognize. I was the answer to his prayers, so to speak, suddenly looking just enough not like myself that I could hide in plain view. When I graduated, he approached me about joining the Order and watching over Harry. I agreed, of course. Luna, the only one of the other five who would recognize me, was sworn to secrecy. I wrote Hermione and the boys, telling them that I was changing plans, and wouldn't be moving in with Hermione and Luna. I don't remember the story I gave them. Some cock-and-bull thing about apprenticing myself to Bill and learning to be a Curse Breaker. Whatever Dumbledore made up for me, it was good enough that even Hermione believed me.
First thing was to train me for my role, but that didn't take long. Within a month I was living in a flat down the hall from Harry and calling myself Freya Alexander. Dumbledore picked the name. Said he liked the meaning. "Noble woman" and "helper and defender of mankind." Of course, he's not the one who had to live with the name Freya. I reported directly to Dumbledore, and no one else saw me. When I was mentioned, it was as Ginevra. Just Ginevra, no last name. My parents and most of my older brothers could put two with two, but if Ron ever realized that I was the Ginevra they were talking about, he never mentioned it to Harry.
I'm getting off topic again. You know, you really should stop me if I do. On second thought, don't do that. Some things do need a little explaining, after all.
Well, Freya Alexander moved in down the hall, and no one but Luna recognized me. Not even my own brother. Freya was a Muggle with too much inheritance working freelance for some rag--I forget which one--because it had been her life-long dream to be a journalist and without much in the way of brains. A vapid thing with no attention span to speak of unless the topic was something that might get her paid. Luna suggested they invite me over to welcome me and somehow got Hermione to back her. That was the easy part.
The next step was to make friends with one of my friends. Except not as Ginny Weasly, or even Ginevra, but as Freya. This is where Freya's one hobby came into play. Neville, as you know, is an amazing Herbologist. Freya loved flowers and had some finicky roses thriving in her window box. Thank Merlin for magical fertilizer, or I would never have been able to pull that off at first! Well, these flowers came up in Freya's chattering, and by the end of the evening Neville had invited her back to talk plants. Freya's talks with Neville became a regular occurrence, and while she didn't notice a thing going on around her, Ginevra did.
So, I was spying on Harry. Easy enough, right? Well . . . complications came up. When Harry married Luna and moved to his ancestral home with the others, Freya was invited. I wanted to go! For the first time since I was given my cover, I wanted it to be the truth with all my heart. It wasn't supposed to happen that way! Freya was just supposed to be a cover. No one watches someone who obviously doesn't take in anything, and so I could take in everything. I was jealous of my cover, so I did what any jealous bitch would do. I made sure that she couldn't have what I wanted. Stupid, seeing as I probably could have had it when I surfaced. He would have understood, I'm sure. We all did things during the War that aren't easily explained away.
But I didn't go with them, even though that would have been best for my mission. I refused. I broke his heart, and I'll never forgive myself for it. I disguised myself instead, using Muggle methods. I dyed my hair, covered my freckles with makeup, and used these clever things called color contacts to change my eye color. Freya Alexander was dead and gone, as far as I was concerned. This time I chose my name. Lilly White. This time I was a witch who had just graduated, and so was three years younger than I really am. I got a job at a local diner, one that Harry and his friends frequented. Lilly was every bit as stupid as Freya, too cheerful to be allowed, and in awe of getting to serve the great Harry Potter. Needless to say, no one was surprised when the little witch managed to serve them every time. Harry just smiled and put up with it. Luna might have known it was me; I haven't asked. I haven't been in touch with her for the duration.
Anyway. That's really all there is to it. When the War ended, I didn't really know what to do with myself. I'd been in the business of Watching Harry for five years. So I stuck around as Lilly White for a while. I didn't know what else to do. As you know, a month's gone by. Tonight I didn't put in the contacts or do my makeup. I'd finally realized what I really wanted, what I wouldn't admit to myself, and gone to try and get it. I got cold feet. Harry found me skulking around, trying to get the courage to knock on the door. He recognized me as Freya Alexander, and with my hair still dyed he recognized me as Lilly White, too. He knew that I'd been following him for the last five years, and jumped to the conclusion that I was some crazy fan stalking him. He brought me into the foyer at wand-point and called you people. That, of course, is where you come in.
"So that's your story," the man said incredulously.
Ginevra nodded. "The abbreviated version, anyway. It was five years, after all. Three as Freya, two as Lilly. I should go into acting; I've gotten very good at it. If you don't believe me, ask Harry how it meshes. I'd say ask Dumbledore, but since he died . . . well, all I did after that was wait to give the alarm when Harry went off to face Voldemort. My contact was Remus Lupin, but he didn't know what I was doing, really. Just that if Ginevra sent him a message that lightening was striking, he'd better rally the Order and get them to Harry to hold off the Death Eaters while he faced Voldemort. My parents had a locator charm tuned to Ron; that's how everybody knew where to go." She shrugged. "In this case, it's my word against his, and I think that with everything explained, he'll probably drop the charges. I was only doing my duty."