FIREBIRD
When angry, count to four.
When very angry, swear.
&&&
Things had been going quite well for Ginny Weasley, if you didn't count the horrendous break-up between her and Harry, nor the disastrous results of Percy and his new wife Penelope's wedding. Apart from the fact that her mother thought she needed to go and see a psychiatrist (and had, since the wedding, been trying to persuade Kingsley Shacklebolt to give her anger management sessions within the Ministry), life was going splendidly for the Auror.
She was currently filling out an incident report, one of many that seemed to be clogging up her desk. Scratching at the parchment with obvious boredom on her face, the redhead exhaled thinly and then put down her quill before she banged her head on the desk exactly two times. Halfway through killing more brain cells and hitting her head for the third time, a voice interrupted her and she froze, sighing loudly and raising her head.
"Did you know that every time you bang your head, you lose a million brain cells?" Colin Creevey stated wryly as he entered the office with yet more incident reports, dropping them on top of the one that his partner had already started to fill out.
She glared at him, narrowing her eyes and breathing out slowly. "Thanks for that information," she responded simply, watching him sink into the chair behind his desk and stretch his arms. "Anyway, why would I care about losing a million brain cells per head bang?"
"Because," Colin retorted, glancing up at her from where he'd started writing something, "Once you lose three million cells, the Ministry has no use for you. You are, as the saying goes, brain-dead and useless to them."
Ginny scoffed, snorting in a way that Hermione would be proud of and folding her arms across her chest. "What about that woman - oh, what was her name? - Deidre Walker who's in the office next to us? I hear her banging her head on the wall at least once every two hours—"
"Yes, well—" And there was a pause as Colin cleared his throat and stood up, brushing his robes as he did so, before he strolled over to the redhead's desk and perched on it, winking at her. "That's why she's not there any more." He shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly, scratching the back of his head with a grin on his face. "And please don't tell me that you actually thought that those noises were actually her banging her—"
The Auror stared at her partner for a moment, noting his grin and the otherwise-calm expression on his face. "Well, yeah, but I have to admit that she did seem to like banging her head an awful lot…" She trailed off after a moment, a suspicious look suddenly appearing on her face. "Hang on, are you implying what I think you're implying?"
Colin blinked innocently and stood up, shrugging his shoulders again. "Well, I don't know—what are you thinking, Miss Weasley?"
He leant over her desk and reached for the stash of chocolate biscuits she had next to her cup of tea, but a sharp smack around the head made him rethink the move, and he pulled back, rubbing the back of his head gingerly. "Ow," he whined, glaring at her. "What was that for?"
"Serves you right," Ginny snapped, smirking at him, "For trying to nick my biscuits." She picked up the report she'd been doing and shoved it in one of her drawers, grabbing the stack of other incident forms and doing the same with them. When that was done, the woman smoothed out her desk and sighed happily. "Anyway, back to what we were talking about. Was she having sex or something?"
Her partner nodded slowly. He then covered his ears, not expecting the loud shriek of horror that fell from Ginny's mouth after she saw him confirm it.
"Ugh!" she cried, jumping out of her chair and running to inspect the wall. "That is disgusting!" Putting her face close to the wallpaper, she seemed to be examining it for any signs of dents that Auror Walker's activities could have caused.
Colin watched her, an amused expression on his face. He crossed over to where she was, placing a hand on her shoulder and shaking her lightly. "You know, whilst we were out on patrols, she could have very well—"
He didn't get a chance to finish. Ginny whirled around and slapped him, a horrified look on her face at the sheer thought of what he was insinuating.
"You're so… ugh!" Throwing her arms up into the air, she stalked past him and returned to her desk, grabbing a chocolate biscuit from her stash and munching on it thoughtfully whilst her partner rubbed his cheek, which now bore Ginny's red handprint right across it.
"Yes, and you're so violent," Colin retorted simply, scurrying over to his desk and ducking quickly to avoid being hit by the chocolate biscuit that she threw at him. Instead, he scrambled after the biscuit and promptly snapped it in half, stuffing one section of it into his mouth and grinning wickedly at her.
Ginny glared icily at him, tempted to hex him with her favourite Bat-Bogey Hex, but then Shacklebolt would have to give into her mother's pestering and sign her up for some anger management sessions. Inwardly, she shuddered, thus refraining from hitting her partner. Anger management sessions didn't bear thinking about.
Whilst she was thinking about whether to hex him or not, he had apparently said something to her, but she hadn't heard. The next thing she knew was that a shoe came flying towards her, and she shrieked in outrage as she moved to avoid it. The shoe collided with the side of her face, and a now-furious Ginny whipped out her wand, aimed it at Colin and screeched the first spell that came into her head.
"Incendio!"
Fire leapt from her wand, narrowly missing Colin as he ducked. Instead, it hit the curtains behind him and both the Aurors watched in horror as flames heartily began to eat up the rather expensive, velvet curtains. Scrabbling over towards them, both Ginny and her partner hastily put them out with a swiftly-uttered "Aguamenti," and then stood there for a moment, gazing at each other uncertainly.
"Well," Colin said eventually, eyeing Ginny with some mistrust, "Unless you plan on hexing me again, I suggest that we move this desk so Shacklebolt doesn't see the curtains."
Ginny nodded in agreement. "I'm not violent," she retorted simply, moving towards one side of the desk and starting to push it, "You're just disgusting sometimes."
The other Auror grabbed the opposite end of his desk and lifted it as well, the two of them working together to half-drag, half-carry it a few inches to the left. "That's not the point," he replied between breaths, "Shacklebolt loves these curtains. If he sees that something's happened to them—"
"Auror Weasley and Auror Creevey, what are you doing?"
The voice of the aforementioned Auror (who was now head of the department), Kingsley Shacklebolt, forced them to freeze, and in doing so, Ginny accidentally dropped her end of the desk, which caused Colin's eyes to widen in pain as there was now more strain for his muscles than there was for Ginny's. Putting his end of the desk on the floor as well, he turned around and stepped neatly to his left in order to hide one of the singed areas on the curtain, smiling broadly at their superior, whilst Ginny stood there and stared blankly at him for a moment before she snapped into action.
"Us? We're… we're rearranging the furniture!" she exclaimed, giving the desk a forceful push with her arm as Colin nodded, still smiling.
Standing in the doorway, Kingsley Shacklebolt frowned at them, folding his arms across his chest and shaking his head in a disbelieving manner. "And why, Auror Weasley, would you want to do that?"
"Because I'm sick of having to look at Ginny," Colin supplied with vigour. "I mean, yesterday," he inhaled and Ginny found herself praying that he didn't tell Shacklebolt about her turning pins invisible and placing them on his chair, "Well, yesterday was just horrible! She had her hair up and it showed her grey roots; I nearly threw up!"
Inhaling sharply, Ginny turned to glare at him, silently clenching her fists. She was twenty-two, therefore she did not have grey hair—not even one—and if she did, she'd blame him quite happily! Narrowing her eyes at her partner, she started to count to four, remembering a mantra that her equally-short tempered mother had taught her. 'When angry, count to four.' One…
Shaking his head again, Kingsley walked into their office, leaving one hand on the doorframe as he surveyed the surroundings. Inwardly thanking Merlin that she'd hidden all her unfinished (or, rather, not-even-started) reports in one of her drawer, Ginny quietly eyed the stack of papers that Colin had left on his desk, but the senior Auror said nothing about it. Mentally huffing, she reminded herself that she needed to kick her partner later—if she had left papers on her desk that hadn't been completed, Shacklebolt would have reprimanded her five times over!
Clearing his throat, the Head of Department gave the two Aurors a once-over and then straightened his posture, gesturing towards the door with one hand. "I'd like to welcome your new team member."
From behind Shacklebolt, a rather young-looking man entered the room, his swagger being the first thing that Ginny noticed. Short, dark brown hair fell into sharp blue eyes, and there was a cocky smirk on his lips that she instantly disliked. The fact that it looked like he was eyeing her up didn't help either, and she made another note to tell Ron that she had a stalker. That would send him crazy, and the redhead grinned at the thought of her older brother hexing this new Auror into oblivion. Sometimes it was good to be the only girl in the family.
Next to her, she saw Colin studying the male with similar interest, and Ginny thought about asking him if he was gay. But he wasn't, because—well—she'd caught him with one of the Ministry's receptionist, Tara Perkins, a few times, and that definitely meant that he wasn't gay. Returning her attention to Shacklebolt, both her and her partner exchanged glances, and Ginny had the distinct feeling that she knew the man from somewhere. Unable to proper think about it, because the new Auror had started speaking, her eyes flickered back to him as she started to listen to what he had to say.
"Hey," the male said breezily, and Ginny almost physically flinched. He'd said it in such a cheesy manner—she almost wanted to grab the thickest book on Auror training she could find and hit him with it repeatedly. That would destroy his brain cells and then she wouldn't have to suffer the cheesiness anymore! "I'm Justin Finch-Fletchley. We went to Hogwarts together, but I was in Harry's year."
A light switched on in Ginny's head and she smiled widely at Justin, stepping across the room and holding her hand out to him. Behind her, she felt Colin's eyes on her, wondering what he was thinking for a brief second before Finch-Fletchley shook her hand and smiled back at her.
"Hi, I'm Ginny Weasley," she responded with a fake-happy voice. "I remember you; weren't you that Hufflepuff who was so obsessed with Herbology that everyone else thought you and Professor Sprout were getting it on?" Her smile widened, and she heard Colin snort.
Justin's face betrayed a flicker of annoyance, before he masked it with a smile that reminded Ginny of Gilderoy Lochkart's 'award-winning smile'. Ugh. If he reminded her of that insanely awful man, he obviously wasn't good news.
"That's me," he replied in good-natured tones, surprising her a little. "And you must be the Gryffindor that Harry Potter dumped in my sixth year, right? Apparently you cried for days, but I don't blame him for dumping you. After all, you are ginger."
Ginny instantly stiffened, yanking her hand out of his grasp as Colin came up next to her and glowered at the ex-Hufflepuff. How dare he talk about her break-up with Harry like that? Well, at least he didn't know that they'd broken up again. Why, she ought to Crucio him and watch him die painfully for bringing that up! Sensing tension, Shacklebolt stepped in, just as Ginny thought that Colin was going to punch Justin.
"Weasley, Finch-Fletchley," he warned in dangerous tones, staring at them both. "I don't want any disputes. We are a team here—and Weasley, Creevey, I want you two to show Justin the ropes. He transferred from the Irish Ministry of Magic, and we do things differently to them."
The redhead's face showed a picture of misery, and she opened her mouth to complain, but Colin interrupted her before she could.
"Don't worry," he said quickly, giving Kingsley his best smile. "We'll make sure Justin fits in perfectly fine!"
Ginny gave him a withering look, and he elbowed her sharply, causing her to wince. Apparently satisfied, Shacklebolt gave a nod of approval and then left the room behind Justin, pausing for a moment to turn back to the duo.
"Just so you know, he's in the office next to you. I expect both of you—" Cue glares, "—to behave appropriately to him. Good day."
Shacklebolt vanished and then Ginny turned on Colin, prodding him in the chest with her finger and standing on tiptoes so that she could reach his height. "What—" prod, "—did you say that—" prod, "—for—" yet another prod, "—Creevey?"
He grabbed her hand just as she was about to prod him again, holding it firmly as he grinned at her. "Because, dear Ginny," Colin responded with obvious mirth, "We'll make him cock up so many times that everyone will hate him."
Realisation dawned on her face and she shuffled a few steps away from her partner, nodding slowly. "Oh," she breathed before grinning in triumph. "Colin, you're a genius!"
There was a muffled thud as Creevey hit the floor, having not expected Ginny to throw herself at him and hug him so forcefully that he thought she was trying to strangle him.
The Leaky Cauldron was, as usual, full of life as Ginny pushed through the crowd, searching for the two people she'd arranged to meet up with. At her usual table, near the back of the pub, she saw Neville and Luna waving frantically at her. Hurrying over to them, she sunk into one of the chairs, grinning at the Neville whilst Luna vanished into the throng of people, presumably to get more drinks.
"Evening, Gin," Neville grinned, relaxing in his chair and stretching in a manner that reminded the redhead of a cat. "How was the Ministry?"
"Crap," she replied, a gloomy expression appearing on her face as Luna returned with three Butterbeers. There was a slight pause as she took her drink and thanked her friend for it, taking a sip of the glass and sighing happily before setting it down and yawning.
"What happened?" Luna inquired, wiping her face with her hand to get rid of the foamy moustache that had appeared around her lips as a result of the Butterbeer. "Did Kingsley fire you?"
A snort from Ginny. "No, not yet." She took another swig from her glass and continued. "Colin annoyed me so I hexed him, but he ducked and I ended up setting the curtains on fire, so we had to move his desk to hide it. Of course," and here the woman's face shifted into a look of pure irritation, "Shacklebolt had to come along and find us moving the desk. He asked us what we were doing, I told him we were rearranging the furniture—"
Neville snorted whilst Luna remained deadly serious. "It's not funny, Neville," the ex-Ravenclaw stated plainly, shaking her head at him. "Curtains have feelings too, you know."
The two former Gryffindors stared at her and she blinked at them silently, before Ginny decided to continue with her story.
"Anyway. He asked why and Colin was like 'Because I can't stand looking at Ginny's grey hair,' which got me really mad because I don't have grey hair. So Shacklebolt's just like 'Whatever,' and then he introduces Justin Finch-Fletchley to us. He came in all 'I'm the best,' so I went up to him like 'Hey, I'm Ginny Weasley. Aren't you that kid who was getting it on with Professor Sprout back at Hogwarts?' and then he just insulted me!"
Neville reached out and patted her hand in a sympathetic manner. "Well, to be honest, you did deserve it," he said slowly, ignoring the death glare that she sent him.
"He's right," Luna added softly, finishing her Butterbeer. "Perhaps you shouldn't be so quick to judge. Besides, it's two weeks until Christmas—maybe you could give him another chance? He seemed quite nice back at school…"
Ginny scowled, gulping down the rest of her drink and sighing haughtily. "Yeah, but he's an arrogant twat now. He thinks he owns everything, and anyway, he was transferred from the Irish Ministry of Magic, and there's not much you can say about them." She stared at her glass for a second, brows furrowed in thought. "I'm not giving him a second chance," she added, as if it was an afterthought, "Because he brought up the subject of Harry and I."
"Ah," Neville breathed, shaking his head. "Ah. Doesn't he know that you two went—"
"No, he doesn't," she snapped back in response, and Luna rose from her chair.
"I'm going," she mused aloud, waving at them. The two glanced up and said their goodbyes, watching the former Ravenclaw vanish into the crowd before they returned their attention to the matter at hand.
"Then why don't you tell him?"
"Because," Ginny half-whined, "He'd make my life hell and rub it in my face!"
"So?" Neville shrugged, downing his drink and placing it back on the table. "When people made my life hell, you always told me to stick up for myself—why can't you do that now?"
Ginny shrugged, muttering something under her breath that Neville couldn't quite make out.
"Pardon?"
She narrowed her eyes at him and huffed loudly. "He'd tell Shacklebolt I was bullying him or something." She pulled a face, scowling darkly. "Then old Wacky Shacky would be on my case again."
Her co-worker raised an eyebrow at Ginny's nickname for the Head of Department, and the corners of his mouth twitched slightly. Although he wasn't an Auror, Neville still worked in the Ministry, but in a different section. Ginny could never remember where he worked, only that he was obviously doing something very boring, because she always switched off when he started talking about his job.
"Want me to have a word with him for you?"
The redhead glared at him again. "Look, I don't want you getting involved—"
"—I owe you a favour anyway," he interrupted plainly, matching her stare.
There was a pause. Ginny sighed and ran a hand through her hair, scowling at him and resting her head on her hand. "Fine. But don't make me seem as if I can't fight my own battles—"
"—If you don't want to look like that, why don't you fight your own battles?" Neville teased, grinning at her. "I was only going to tell him that you can't do anything by yourself—"
"What?!" Ginny's eyes widened in indignation and she went to hit him, but he pushed his chair away from her and laughed.
"I'm only joking, Gin."
"You'd better be," she snapped, eyeing him dangerously. "I'm a Weasley—I can handle myself!"
"Mhm." Neville chuckled again, before he glanced at his wristwatch and then at Ginny. "Ah—I have to get going. Early start tomorrow."
Rising from where he sat, Ginny grabbed his arm and stopped him from leaving. "What exactly is it that you do again?" She smiled sweetly at him and he sighed, shaking his head.
"I work in the Department of International Magical Cooperation," he responded flatly. Seeing that she was going to ask another question, he hurriedly added, "That means I work with people from other Ministries—"
"—Ooh, did you ever work with Justin?"
"No, I didn't." Neville sighed in an exasperated manner and made to leave again, but Ginny still had hold of his arm.
"Can you do me a favour? Please?"
He looked at her suspiciously, pinching the bridge of his nose and exhaling air in a reluctant manner. "What is it?"
"Can you dig around for some dirt on Finch-Fletchley for me?"
Neville groaned and pinched his nose harder. Ginny noticed that it was turning white. "I don't want to get involved—"
"—Just this," she pleaded quickly. "Just this, Nev!"
"Fine," he stated through gritted teeth. "Just this once. And you owe me one."
"Great! Have it on my desk tomorrow; thank you!" She patted his arm and watched him merge with the crowd, before going up to the bar and ordering a Firewhiskey.
As of tomorrow, Justin Finch-Fletchley was going down, Weasley-style.
Author's Notes: This story is inspired by SkoosiePants's Otherwise. The characters all belong to J. K. Rowling, and I own none of them, apart from Tara Perkins, who was only briefly mentioned, anyway. She might make an appearance later; watch out. Anyway, reviews are welcome, and this is the first time I've written about these characters before, so any pointers would be great. Cheers!