I paced the flat incessantly for the next two hours. Equaling about three thousand up-and-down trips. It wasn't spacious. Cozy, maybe, if you were blind and had no sense of smell, taste, or touch. And if you were deaf.
So I had the dirt on Pansy Malfoy and Blaise Zabini. At least enough to get some kind of stipend. A nasty look and a drawn wand weren't enough to close the case, but at least Malfoy ought to cough up a few Knuts to keep things going. I wondered briefly why I hadn't gotten my up-front as usual, but chalked it up to scotch.
Scotch. Always a good idea. I poured myself another glass and stood by the window. The storm had passed and miracle of miracles, a breath of cool, fresh air was making itself welcome in the flat. If only my head were that clear. I tried to focus on the few stars I could make out through the smog and city lights, but I couldn't stop seeing that face. Her face. What was she doing there? How could she?
I realized the ice cubes were clinking. There wasn't any more thunder. It must be me. I looked down and sure enough my hand was shaking to beat the band. I drained the glass but all it did was make the shaking worse. It made her face clearer. As if I needed any help with that. I set the glass down on the table maybe a little harder than was necessary if the sudden profusion of ice cubes littering the papers was any indication. I took a deep breath and swept my wand across the rapidly-dampening pages, siphoning the ice and water back into the tumbler.
It hadn't been long since I'd seen her but a day away from that face was like an eternity.
But what had she been doing at Zabini's, of all places? She'd never gone in for the rough trade. Sure the years had been hard, they'd been hard on all of us. But for her to end up somewhere like that, it wasn't right.
I crossed the four steps to the liquor cabinet and knelt down, poking around for a fresh bottle. Supplies were running low. I'd have to talk to Malfoy tomorrow. Hopefully he'd left his contact information in the dossier, otherwise I had no idea how to get ahold of him. I leaned in, reaching for a bottle I saw lurking near the back. My head was fully inside the cabinet, that's why I didn't see the door swing open.
"I always liked you from this angle."
It was her.
I jerked up, banging my head hard on the cabinet. "Merlin's beard!"
"Nice hello," Ginny said.
I stood up, rubbing the rapidly-swelling spot on the back of my head.
She stood in the doorway, the thin light from the hall spilling around her body. I remembered it well. The body, not the hallway. The hallway I couldn't care less about.
"Aren't you going to invite me in?" she asked. I had been waiting years to hear that. From her. But I didn't seem to be able to make my mouth move. I waved the scotch bottle I had unconsciously grabbed in a vague sort of semicircle. She smiled—I guessed, since it was still dark—and stepped into the room.
I've always been good at first impressions. It's essential for this business. But my first impressions have generally been of lowlifes, thugs, swindlers, and whores. As far as I could tell, Ginny wasn't any of those things. Though that could've just been the power of my conviction about her. At any rate, I couldn't get a clear view of her. It wasn't the thick air, though the air certainly seemed to have gotten thicker in the few seconds she stood in it. It wasn't the dimness, since so many working nights had accustomed my eyes to the dark. It wasn't the liquor, which generally made things clearer. It was the gauzy sort of curtain that had always wrapped around her, at least in my eyes. She wasn't the kind of girl a gauzy curtain generally wrapped around, though. It must've been love. It must be love, or else I had a concussion.
"I see business is booming," she said. "Mind if I sit?" I shook my head, dazed. She stepped gracefully over a stack of sodden Prophets and perched on the edge of my desk. The streetlamp had relighted itself and I managed to shake off a little of my haze to get a proper look at her. The stripes of watery yellowish light did nothing for her, but in my experience nothing needed to be done. Her face was still porcelain-smooth, a smattering of freckles across her thin nose, her bright eyes luminous in the half-light. She grinned, her lips parting. I remembered that for sure.
"Hi," I said finally. Not one of my better lines.
"Hi," she replied playfully.
I suddenly had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I couldn't tell if it was lust or danger or both. Probably both.
"So . . ." I was on a roll. I realized I was still holding the bottle and used the excuse of my glass to cross to the desk. The nearer I got to her the shakier my step became. She smelled delicious, like expensive perfume and cheap wine. Her lips were ruby red. Her hair was too. I managed to uncap the bottle without making a complete ass of myself and poured a generous measure into the tumbler. Ginny raised her eyebrow and took the glass before I could get my hands on it. She tossed half of it back in a single swallow. It was definitely love.
"I saw you tonight," she said. "At Zabini's. I knew it was you right away."
"Did you?" I said, trying to regain my footing. I glanced around for another glass before giving up and taking a long pull from the bottle. The scotch steadied me a little. "I thought I saw you but I didn't believe it."
"Have I changed that much?" she asked teasingly.
Had she changed? It had been nearly two years since I'd seen her, and she'd grown into herself admirably. She was still lean and muscular but there was a softness. The sensual kind. The dangerous kind.
"Your hair's different," I said. Another zinger.
"Is it?" She flipped it behind her gracefully. I was hit with a waft of her perfume and it nearly knocked me over. "I suppose. What were you doing at the club?"
"What were you doing there?" I replied. "I know what I was doing there, and it involved getting in and getting out as quickly as possible. But you looked like you were there for the company."
"Now Hermione," she pouted slightly. "Don't say things like that. It's not like I was enjoying myself."
"So what were you doing there?" I felt myself getting angry. I was starting to remember everything. Starting to remember why I hadn't seen her in two years. Why I had gotten involved in this business in the first place. Why I was living in a roach-infested shithole, and most of the whys could be answered by the face of the girl in front of me.
"I was talking to someone," she said evasively.
"Talking to someone in a cocktail dress?" I said. "Nice cut, by the way." It was. It looked painted on.
"Thanks," Ginny said tensely. "I can leave if you want."
"No," I said quickly. Maybe too quickly. This could be very bad. Ginny Weasley was bad news. So I told myself. Firmly.
"It's why I came to see you," she said finally.
"Not just for the pleasure of my company?"
She sighed and finished her drink. She always could hold her liquor.
"I need some help."
My resolve crumbled. I looked at her again and I thought I could make out a faint worry line creasing her smooth forehead. Against my better judgment I saw myself reaching out and brushing away that line. Fortunately my hand was clamped firmly around the neck of the bottle.
"What kind of help?"
"It's about Harry," she said softly. My grip tightened. Of course. It was always about Harry.
"What about him?" I said, trying to control my voice. If there was anything I didn't need it was to get mixed up with Harry Potter again. Sure it had been glamorous for a while, but it had cost me a lot more than it had gotten me when you added up the bodies.
"He's missing."
"You sure he's not just hiding under his Invisibility Cloak?" I asked nastily. Ginny looked away. I felt bad. This was the second time I'd felt bad in one night, and I didn't like it.
"He's been gone for two weeks." She flipped a cigarette out of the pack on my desk. I didn't know she smoked. "I don't usually," she said. I checked myself. It's never good for a shamus to show surprise, but I'd never been able to hide anything from her. "Only when I'm under pressure." She fit the cigarette between her lips and looked at me half-expectantly. I fumbled for my wand and lit the end, making sure I didn't scatter sparks all over her little black dress.
"Under pressure?"
She took a deep drag and let the smoke drift out of her mouth. I know, it'll kill you, but something about the way she handled that exhale made me certain the sinking feeling in my stomach was definitely lust.
"I got a note," she said. She reached inside her dress and withdrew a sheet of parchment from between her breasts.
"Nice pocket," I managed to choke out.
"I don't have a purse that goes with this outfit," she said, a smile playing at her lips. She handed me the paper. Still warm. Merlin.
I unfolded the note and glanced at it. Just what I had been dreading. Ransom. Like he was the teenage daughter of a Ministry official. Of course it wouldn't be Harry Potter without some sort of price on his head.
"Well, there's some good news," I said after a minute. Ginny looked skeptical. "They don't say they'll kill him. That's good."
"Is it?" she said. Something in her tone struck me as odd. She had meant it as a question, but it rang slightly false.
"Yeah," I said, trying to keep the sudden suspicion out of my own voice. "All it says is ten thousand Galleons and the briefcase he keeps behind the portrait of Albus Dumbledore. What's in the briefcase, Ginny?"
She blinked and looked slightly away. My inner Sneakoscope began whirling. "I don't know," she said.
"Ginny," I said calmly, "I can't lie to you. You know that. But you also know," I fished my own cigarette out, "that you can't lie to me."
Her eyes filled with tears. Any trace of hardass I might have managed to cultivate vanished. I was always a sucker for a dame with tears in her eyes. Especially this one.
"I really don't know," she said quietly. "All I know is it's very valuable."
"So give it to whoever wants it, and get your husband back. It's not like you don't have the money, either."
"I can't," she said, the tears gathering in earnest. I was quickly getting in a bad way. I ought to tell her to get out, her and her gorgeous eyes and ruby lips and perfect body. I ought to tell her to go to hell for what she's done to me. But those gorgeous eyes and ruby lips and perfect body were much more powerful magic than I was able to defend myself from. "I can't, Hermione. Harry told me I wasn't ever to give it to anybody, that's the only thing he ever said about it."
"What could possibly be so important? More important than his life?"
"You said they wouldn't kill him!" she cried, tears streaming down her cheeks.
"I said they don't say they'll kill him. But what do I know?"
"Oh Hermione," Ginny moaned. "Please help me." She threw herself across the desk and landed in my arms. It wasn't the alcohol that made me stumble at that moment, I knew that for sure.
"Ginny," I mumbled, trying to get my bearings. It was damned difficult, what with an armful of trembling, warm, delicious-smelling her.
"Please," she whispered.
"I don't know what you want me to do about this," I said weakly.
"I want you to help me find him. To get him back." She shifted her position so she wasn't spread quite so awkwardly across the desk. I figured getting my wand out of her side was part of it. Her arms held tight around my neck. Her face pressed against my chest, her tears hot on my skin.
"What were you doing at Zabini's?" I asked. It was a low trick to take advantage of her emotional state, but I figured it'd be pretty damned difficult getting it out of her later.
"I was talking to some friends of Malfoy's," she sniffled. "They're the ones who delivered the note."
Malfoy?
"What were you talking about?" My brain was moving a thousand miles a second. It felt like being in school, working over runes.
"They told me Harry was still alive. That he's okay, for now."
"Well, that's good."
"Is it?" The same off note. I couldn't place it and it was making me crazy. Something about her conviction. It was the wrong kind. It wasn't the desperate clinging-at-straws kind when the love of your life is in mortal peril. Even if the love of your life is a stupid prat who has an undeniable knack for getting himself and everyone around him into trouble. She said it like it was its own death sentence.
"It's good," I said again. She clung to me even more tightly. I was getting dizzy.
"Oh Hermione," she whispered. Bad news. Definitely bad news. If I was going to do this, and of course I was, for her, I had a feeling I would have to brush up on my defensive spells.
Suddenly it hit me. Like a pile of books.
"Ginny, you don't even love him."
"How do you know?" she sniffled.
"Just a guess," I said, and it was, but I hoped it'd pan out, "but you still love me." And I kissed her.
I was in a lot of trouble.
