Okay so here goes the second chapter. Please review guys so that I know what I'm doing wrong/right and I can better the story. Thanks.
The wind whipped across Ginny's face as she glided slowly into an alley in the heart of London. She had to be discrete, it may be almost 3 o'clock in the morning but people were still around. Leaving her broom propped against a wall in the alleyway she began to make her way along the narrow space. Ginny was dressed in all black muggle sweatpants and hoodie, the effect of which both making her fit in as she made her way down several streets but it also made people almost not notice her in the darkness. The ones who did notice her seemed to think she was some kind of hooligan and avoided her.
Nearing her destination Ginny pulled out a large plastic bag from her backpack and stuck her head around the next corner. She could see the telephone box that Harry led them to in her fourth year but let's just say that they'd tightened security since Voldemort had taken over. Two figures stood outside the phone box, bored expressions on their face. They were trying to appear casual in case any muggles were to pass by but just ended up looking even sketchier. Ginny could tell that these were no death eaters, and obviously not ministry officials. If she had to guess, Ginny would probably say that these were death-eater-wannabees. This job had probably been pawned off on them when others thought they were too good for it. Oh well, this would only make her job easier.
Out of her back pack she now pull a very crudely made and fragile cloak. It had loose threads all over it and was obviously not going to last much longer. Ginny did not need it to last more than two hours tops. It was made of about 20 of Fred and George's invisible hats all sewn together. For all intents and purposes, she now owned a very rubbish cloak of invisibility. She put it on and crept down the street.
When next to the men and the phone box, Ginny opened her plastic carrier bag which was full to the brim with Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes' products. That's right people, she was planning on getting into the ministry with a homemade invisibility cloak and a bag of pranks. Out of the bag she pulled a hand-full of small capsules that were from the muggle tricks section. They read "Fart Bombs" and Ginny had already used one a few weeks ago… let's just say she nearly vomited.
Careful not to make any noise at all, she crept up to the men until she could literally feel their body heat and then placed all of the little pellets on the ground next to them and taking a deep breath, she broke them all and then hurriedly back away.
The effect was almost instantaneous from the men "Fwooaah! Have you shit yourself?" one said fanning the air around him, trying to clear the smell away.
The other man was too busy gagging at first to reply, "M-ME?! This wasn't me!" by now they were both plugging their noses and moving away.
"It obviously was, and you've been eating something spicy by the smell of that one." The first figure said trying to diffuse the tension.
"I'm gonna be sick." The other replied, "Our shift is nearly over, let's just go. You clearly need to go to the bloody toilet anyway."
And with that they both began walking off, both denying their guilt with statements like "Whoever smelt it, dealt it." And "you denied it, so you supplied it."
Rolling her eyes Ginny quickly got into the telephone box and followed the instructions, conscious of the fact that the people on the next shift could be here any second. When the box started to descend she both breathed a sigh of relief at having gotten this far and gripped her cloak tighter at the thought that what lay beyond was unknown.
The phone box clattered, hazardously to the floor making a racket of noise in the open atrium. Ginny made quick work of getting out and starting towards where she knew the elevators were but when she heard voices from behind her she quickly ducked into one of the empty fireplaces used for flooing. She wasn't taking any chances tonight, cloak or not.
"What do you think it's doing down here?" an obviously female voice asked. They must have seen the phone box before it had chance to go back.
"It will just be one of those idiots on guard up there playing a joke or something." A deeper voice replied, exasperation clear in their tone.
"I don't know…. Maybe we should go tell someone just in case…" the girl said.
"Come on, if someone had come through, they'd have had to get past those two upstairs. They may be dumb as doorknobs but I doubt even they'd be stupid enough to not notice someone walking right past them." The male replied obviously bored now. With that the two walked off. Ginny waited until she could no longer here their footsteps and then began towards the elevators again.
Once inside one, she promptly began the descent down to the department of mysteries, all the way wishing that the elevator could be any quieter. As Ginny crept along the hall of the department, she wondered why there was such little security on the most important floor, it was only when she was a few metres away from the door that she needed to go through that she realised why this was. No one wanted to share the space with a dementor. Understandable really… it had been only a few days since the ministry fell, and already Voldemort had managed to get a dementor into the Ministry of Magic. Imagine what he would do in a few weeks, or months….
It was at almost the exact same moment that she noticed it that the creature noticed her. Or rather, since it couldn't actually see her, it noticed her soul, and boy did it look hungry. Ginny took one step back, the dementor lunged forward and…. The door it was guarding flew open.
Both Ginny and the monster turned to look at the intruders just in time to see Lucius Malfoy throw up his patronus. A hyena shot out from the end of his wand and charged towards the dementor, which quickly threw Ginny what she could only describe as a look of longing, for what could have been its dinner, and then took off away from the patronus.
Lucius did not even break stride as this happened, just kept walking, not looking back to see if his companions were following. As they passed by Ginny hugged the wall. One of them even stumbled a little on a particularly long part of the invisibility cloak which was sticking out, but did not even stop to question it as they scurried after their leader.
Ginny sighed taking a moment to collect herself after that close call. Then she steadied her mind and went through the door.
7 doors, 4 times nearly being caught and 23 minutes later, Ginny was in the room. THE room, at least she thought this was it. The one where they create the trace. Admittedly it was a bit of a let-down, a giant room holding thousands of clocks which slightly resembled the one her mother kept in the kitchen. Except these literally only had initials on the hands from what she could tell and only had two settings: 12 years old and 17 years old on opposite sides of the clock face. Ginny had no clue what happened when someone's trace ran out, like did the initials change to someone else's or what? Either way, she totally understood why this room was left completely unattended, it would take a person years to find someone's name with only initials to go on.
Ginny was definitely going to have to rethink her plan. She had an idea of what she could do but didn't know whether it would work. It could help not only her, but a lot of muggle-borns on the run as well. She doubted anybody would even know that the trace was broken if she succeeded, the daily prophet surely wouldn't print something like that. Not unless they wanted to end up dead. No, Voldemort wouldn't want that getting out. But underage witches and wizards who were in hiding would be able to actually use magic without getting tracked down for it.
Ginny decided to give it a try and hurriedly opened both her bag of her brothers' merchandise and her backpack, pulling several bottles of potions out of the latter. She confirmed that they were the right potions from the labels and then pulled out 6 long tubes from the bag that read 'Whizz-bangs'. Ginny nearly laughed at the memory of the Whizz-bang fireworks chasing Umbridge around Hogwarts. Nearly.
She quickly set the fireworks around the room and then set Acid potions next to five of them. Ginny had felt bad stealing these from Mad-Eye's suitcase, but she was pretty sure that if he was still alive, he'd be the only one who supported her decision. The Acid potions had a description on them that told Ginny that they were extremely potent and could burn through almost any object, it also said they reacted terribly with fire and not to ever mix the two, but right now she was kind of hoping for the bad reaction, to make sure that every single clock was broken.
The last firework was left unpaired with a potion and was closest to the door, but far enough away that Ginny would probably be unharmed by the blast. She also, in her hand held a different potion which was an explosive one, this would hopefully set off the chain reaction that she was counting on. Thank God that she had good aim as a quidditch chaser.
When she deemed everything to be in as good a place as it could be, she took aim at the first firework and threw the bottle and… nothing at first. The potion exploded but the firework didn't start. It was only when Ginny started getting concerned and walked halfway over to it that all at once the room was lit up with colour. Being quite close, Ginny could feel the heat of it on her skin and immediately backed up. The explosions were so loud that she had to put her hands over her ears which did little to help. Still, she waited, to see what would happen when the other fireworks were ignited and the acid potions came into play.
Let's just say, a lot more that she expected. Once the first one reacted the potion began to multiply and then was propelled out in all directions, barely missing Ginny, once the acid found a surface, it caught fire and then a dozen other explosions went off. By the time all the vials of liquid had done this, it was a complete miracle that the only injuries Ginny had were on here arms and legs, with just one minor scratch on her face from one of the firework creatures getting too close.
She decided that now was probably the time to go, she had done all she could do, the clocks were looking quite damaged and the fire was only just taking hold. It was when she bent down the pic up her back pack that Ginny was thrown sideways and into the door by a massive explosion. Searing pain went up her arm facing the heat and she looked down to see her hoodie ripped with her skin already blistering. Studying the room Ginny saw that on the very furthest was away from her a clock was split in two, and as she looked up another one close to it exploded as well. This was obviously the cause of the force that flung her like a rag doll, she decided as another wave of heat and kinetic energy prevented her from standing up. The clocks themselves seemed to be erupting with magic as they died.
Good thing: she knew the plan was working.
Bad things: 1) she had to get out of there before the rest exploded, and the force each time only seemed to increase. AND 2) there was no way that these blasts had gone unheard, they had shaken the whole room.
People were definitely on their way and Ginny couldn't be here when they arrived. She grabbed her bag and reach for the cloak only to see that it had been covered in acid and was now literally a rag. Fear gripped her heart as she realised she would have to leave without a wand or way of concealing her presence. A third and even more powerful explosion from a clock broke her from her thoughts as she stumbled to her feet, breathing heavily and ripped open the door. She closed it behind her, hoping that it was magically charmed to prevent the spread of the fire, but knowing that if people didn't get down here soon this fire could take out the whole building. How was she supposed to know that the trace was so temperamental?
Running as fast as she could with her lack of oxygen and various injuries, she saw a figure up ahead coming towards her. As they drew closer Ginny saw that it was a fairly young boy, maybe a year older than her and he was running straight towards her. She thought that it was all over and she would be in Azkaban, if not dead within the hour until he said.
"Oh my god are you okay?" with genuine concern on his face. "I heard blasts?!"
He must think that she was like him, some lap dog for the death eaters. She was wearing all black after all. "There's a fire…. I-I couldn't put it out and then things started exploding…" Ginny replied, thinking on her feet. As if on cue, the door she had come out of blew off its hinges and smoke began billowing out of the room.
The boys eyes widened in shock and he began backing away, "Right come on we have to get out of here." They both started making their way back. They had come through 2 doors when they reached what looked like an empty classroom. Voices could be heard shouting nearby. "Oh good, it looks like someone's he—"
The boy didn't get to finish his sentence as Ginny hurriedly picked up a paper weight and smacked him over the head. She then checked his pockets and found herself a wand. Dragging the boy's unconscious body over to a dark corner, she made short work of erasing everything about her from his memory. She left him with all the other details though, including the fact that someone else was with him and that they knocked him out. Ginny didn't want this naïve kid getting tortured because of her but if it happened, they would not be able to tell anyone who she was or what she looked like.
Casting a very quick disillusionment charm on herself Ginny took off through several more doors happy in the knowledge that she had actually helped people tonight.
Now that Ginny had a wand, and she could use it without fear, she made very short work of getting back to elevators. It's amazing what you can do when you don't feel completely vulnerable. As she reach the elevators, though roughly 20 people all piled out of one. Death eaters, teenagers, ministry officials alike, all with grim faces hurried off towards the source of the vibrations rumbling through the building. If any of them had been paying attention they would have been able to see the outline of Ginny Weasley pressed against the wall as they ran past.
Quickly slipping into the elevator as the last person exited, she continued the rest of her journey with incident. Nobody paid an 'empty' lift any notice when there was an emergency downstairs. It was only when Ginny was back in the atrium that she had another close encounter, a very unexpected one. She was heading to walk into one of the fireplaces, when out of the exact one she was about to use, came the newly appointed Minister of Magic himself. Ginny literally swerved out of the way as Pius Thicknesse walked out surrounded by other ministry officials, all looking tired and had grim faces.
"No," Thicknesse said to a man who seemed to be writing down notes, "You will not report the fire in the trace room, we cannot have that broadcast. Put the news about that Weasley girl's death down instead, a sob story for the nation. Yes I think that will do." The man writing nodded and continued to scrawl down notes. After this was said, the conversation lost all interest to Ginny because something else caught her attention. Her brother, her stupid, dick head brother Percy, was crying at the back of the pack. Not in a way that people would notice, but silently, the tears running down his cheeks as he walked after the rest. He and the rest of them had muddy shoes and it suddenly hit Ginny why. The minister had just mentioned her death, they must have just come from inspecting the body. And now Percy was crying… She ached to be able to hug him, but held herself back. This was necessary, he may feel sad now, but he would definitely tell the ministry if she ever told him that it was a trick.
Ginevra Weasley was now officially a dead girl walking, and only people who were on the light side for certain could know about her lie. It was only her, Dean and Charlie right now, until Charlie told her parents.
A massive explosion from below rallied both the group of officials and Ginny and while the group all took off in one direction, Ginny ran straight into the flames knowing that from now on, nothing was certain….
Please, please, please review. The story from now on will be faster paced, I just needed to set down the foundations of this AU so that it doesn't differ much from the end result of Deathly Hallows. Should update soon.
