Ginny almost walk against Tom the next morning. He was dressed and ready, looking fresh and sharp and glaring down at her like she didn't even deserve to be in his presence.
She ignored him.
Looking at the mirror, she could see why. With her hair pointing everywhere and her eyes red and puffed from crying most of the night. It went perfectly well with the dark circles under her eyes. And the red nose. She rubbed her eyes and sniffed, annoyed, he could as well as get used to see her like that, they were about to go in a lovely adventure in the middle of the bloody nowhere for who knew how long!
She took her time getting ready. Ginny knew she should hurry up, if they couldn't use magic then they had a long journey ahead and the faster they started it, the better, but she was dreading it, she didn't want to go and spend all that time alone with him. She still hadn't overcome the last time she had been alone with him for an extended period of time like this.
Last time it happened, he had almost killed.
Tom, was sitting in one of the corners of the table, a finger hovering over his mug moving in a small lazy circle, cooling his coffee as he read that day's Prophet, her family was sitting on the opposite side, trying to pretend they were eating while staring suspiciously at him.
He was completely out of his element there, it really was time to go and stop all of this nonsense. Maybe she could push him down the mountain the moment the bracelets were broken and solve a bigger problem than the one started by the bracelets.
The suitcase was by the door, next to the tent's bag, the portkey resting on top of the kitchen counter beside them.
"I am ready to go…" She announced softly, with a tired sigh. Tom didn't look up to her, or move, or gave any sign of acknowledge her presence there, but her family did. Arthur walked to her and pulled her into his arms for a tight hug.
"You came down just in time, another five minutes and the portkey is open." He said letting her go, caressing her cheek, reprimanding her despite because she could make himself say that he didn't want her to go with the Dark Wizard sitting in his kitchen, that he would go on her place to see the Goblins and make everything right, fix this. "You will get this solved." He told her, and she wanted to believe his words.
Her mother was the next one to hug her, and then her brothers and she almost hug Tom as he stood there, the wing of the tent's bag crossing over his chest and the suitcase in one hand as he extended the old book to her, shaking it slightly so that she would hold it as well.
The kitchen went under a heavy, awkward silence as they stood there, waiting for the time to pass and the enchantment in the paper activated and take them away from England.
It was dragging.
Next thing they were standing on a hill and it was raining, heavily. They pulled their wands, summoning an umbrella spell to protect them and started to walk down the path.
"You should have put the suitcase inside the tent." He said giving it to her.
"I forgot." She said, accepting the weight. "Where do we go from here? Do you know the way?" she asked.
"Not completely…"
"You don't know where we are?" she frowned, "We are lost and we haven't even started?" she questioned in disbelief.
"I know where we are, your father told me where the portkey would lead us." he said starting to walk, a slight annoyance in his voice, "And I have been in the village where we are going now before, the local pub his owned by a magic family and they sell some trail maps to the mounta-"
"Are you for real?" she caught up with him, "What are the odd of that?" She asked sarcastically.
"Life sometimes provides us with happy coincidences…" He replied rolling his eyes, deciding to keep to himself the fact that he had signed the forms to authorize the portkey when her father had brought them from the Ministry and sent a letter to Lucius Malfoy ordering him to check if this village still had the pub and if it was still run by wizards.
He had planned everything the best he could from the privacy of her guest room and she hadn't even noticed.
This was the witch he was going to get stuck with if he wasn't able to break the bracelet's spell.
She didn't reply immediately and he hoped that would shut her up, certainly there was no need for much to make satisfy her curiosity and divert her attention to something else that did not involve speaking.
"Are you sure that the pub is still run by that family?" She asked, making him sigh.
"We will find out once we get there." He said with a final intonation to his words that would welcome any more questions.
The hill where the portkey had taken them was less than half an hour and he was already tired of her company if it was going to be like this, her making noise with her stupid and unnecessary questions, it was going to be a long journey.
The village was a small picturesque, the church's tower was visible from afar and the dark wet roofs made it look a bit sinister and cold. Maybe not sinister, just melancholic, sad, the starting point of a horrible voyage… Ginny sighed, it was a lovely village, she simply couldn't make herself appreciate it.
There was no one around when they started to enter the village, it was just a couple of houses before the main street actually started. Tom pulled her to a small alley between a house and a high fence and pointed his wand at Ginny, startling her and making her hold her breath. He muttered something but nothing happened, he pointed the wand at himself and his hair turned blond. She pulled a tress of her own hair and it was light brown, very different from her usual colour.
"Good thinking!" She told him with a smirk, but Tom didn't bother to reply, walking away, pulling the strap over his shoulder to a different position so it would dig that much on his skin.
They walked for another ten minutes before he found the pub and they both entered. It was bright inside, the space lighted by fluorescent lamps and the design was rushed as if they had found the furniture on the side of the road after some days of being in the rain. It was very different from what she was used to see back home, she twisted her nose at the smell of alcohol.
She was looking at some photos on the wall when she caught what Tom was saying, maybe caught the strange sound of the words because she couldn't understand what he was saying to the middle-aged man on the other side of the counter.
After a minute or two he put the tent on the floor with a sigh of relief, massaging his shoulder, "I ordered us some breakfast, I noticed you haven't eaten anything today as well," he said sitting down on the nearest table, "I still think about the food here from time-to-time, I hope it's still as I remembered."
Ginny sat down as well, looking around, "I thought we were in a hurry," she said.
"We are, but things here are a bit different," he said, still rubbing his shoulder, "can you feel this?" He asked her, crossing his legs.
"I do, but I am not a delicate flower that needs to express its pain all the time." She snorted, making him roll his eyes and lean forward, resting his clasped hands on the table.
The breakfast came with the maps for the area and they continued to eat in silence. She couldn't understand a word of what was written on those maps which left her feeling uneasy; she did not like this level of dependency on Tom.
She tried to focus on the fact that he was not going to harm her and allow anything to happen to her since he would feel first-hand what she was feeling. That though lead her to remember she had the same obligations to him, if he knocked his head on a branch and fell unconscious, she was going to the ground with him.
Could she hate her life more?
Probably yes.
They finished their meal, Tom paid for the food and maps and they were on their way.
It had stopped raining and Tom pushed into another alley, opening one of the maps for a moment to look at one of the photos to have an orientation point to what he was about to do. "I am going to take us to the furthers point we can Apparate in the forest, ready?" He asked holding her arm and not really waiting for her reply.
They arrived next to a stone cross in a glade.
"What is going to happen from here?" She asked, putting the suitcase down and approaching the muggle cross.
"Now we walk to the mountain," Tom replied, "and hope for the best." He stood beside her, touching the rough stone, "This is the furthest the Muggles ventured, they sometimes come here but as it happens with Hogwarts, they always find something more interesting to explore and never remember this place very well."
"Do you think the Goblins will listen?" She asked, turning to him.
"Let's see…"
"That's not good." She said, following him with her eyes as he started to walk the path towards the trees.
"It's this or mate, what do you prefer?" He asked looking over his shoulder.
Ginny didn't reply, quivering at the sound of his words as he said out loud, for the first time since they knew what was the purpose of those bracelets, what was actually expected of them to do. She enchanted the suitcase and made it float beside her, trying to leave the awkward and disgusting feeling behind.
"That strap is really starting to hurt, Tom, can't you make the bag float?" She asked some time later.
"Can't you carry that thing by hand? I can feel the headache you are getting for forcing that spell." He replied coldly.
"Well…" She stopped and he stopped to look at her, vastly displeased with the tone of her voice.
"I did bring a broom." She said, a small smile on her lips.
"No." Was his simple answer to the question she was going to make next.
"Oh! Come on… Magic is still working! We could cover a lot if we flew!" She tried to plead. "I would ask you to fly us there, but you don't know how." She stated, pressing a couple of his buttons.
Tom didn't reply, despite her seeing that he was blaming her for that. They didn't walk more than a couple of hours after that, magic stopped to work and the suitcase fell to the ground. "I need to put this inside the tent." She announced as nothing special had just happened as if losing the ability to use magic was something that kind of happened regularly.
Tom let the tent bag fall to the ground as well and sat on a nearby tree root, rubbing his shoulder.
She smirked at him, and mentally crossed her fingers before pinching her arm as she walked to the bag, staring at Tom and being rewarded with a twitching muscle under his eye that meant that he had felt it.
Good sign! She thought, maybe the protections around the place only applied to wizards and not objects because she was not feeling like having to try to remember how to assemble a tent by hand. It had been ages since her dad had thought her and the predominant memory was that she had hated any minute of it, not how to actually do it.
She took the bag off, pulled the hook and fortunately the tent started to assemble itself.
"That was close, was it not?" Tom asked walking to her.
"I would have needed help, do you understand that, don't you?" She asked, entering the tent as it started to rain again. He followed her inside, brushing his air from his eyes. "Really?"
"What?" He looked at her with a raised eyebrow and she walked out to get the suitcase. She could be unpleasant too. "Are you ready to go?"
"No, I am not going anywhere before you tell me where we are going and what you plan to do once we get there." She told him, sitting down in the nearest bed, rubbing her head. "Think about it, ok?" She laid down and rolled on her side, turning her back to him, she really had overdone it with the levitation spell, her head felt huge.
"Are you joking?" He asked, dangerously, not believing what his eyes were seeing. "We don't have time for this! You know what is a-" Magic just happened to work inside the tent and she used it to it close the curtain.
When she later woke up, she found him reading at the table, he didn't look at her, he didn't acknowledge her and she didn't care.
He was pissed at her and she was hungry.
"What?" Ginny asked, noticing him look at her as she sat across from him with her plate full of eggs and bacon. "If you are thinking about me making you food, don't." She informed him, daring him to ask her. "You can help yourself to the food you took from my house, make yourself comfortable," she took a bite of her eggs to stop herself from laughing at his expression, he looked partially offended, partially something else, "pretend you are at home!" She told him with a big smile, making him sigh and roll his eyes.
"Look, I don't understand what is going on with you today, we just lost hours that we could have used in a more productive way, but I am honestly not going to ask you because I don't want to get angry." That made Ginny narrow her eyes at him and raise, walking to him.
"I know your head was hurting as much as mine, and I know your shoulder is a mess…" Before he could react she had pulled his shirt down, revealing the hunded skin and stepping away. "Your other version seemed to be a bit more aware of how close we actually are, try to remember that as well." She told him, as she invoked the first aid quit. She put it on the table and took a healing potion and a ball of cotton. "Let me see!"
"You must be delusional!"
Ginny opened her eyes at him, warning him. "I don't care about what you think! Let me see it because I don't want my arm to fall because you got an infection." She grabbed his sweater, trying to pull it down again but he grabbed her wrist. They struggled and fought and Ginny made her ancestors proud, but he was still stronger than her and she lost her balance and fell on him, sitting on his legs, her chest against his.
She straightened herself, her breathing catching up as she pressed her hands on him to balance herself, suddenly very aware of him, of his presence, of the places where their bodies touched, of his hand on her leg and the other on her hip.
They were too close and the time seemed to stop for a moment.
"The little scene you made today…" He said, raising his hand to touch a tress of her hair, still light brown, his voice dangerously low, and not in the threatening mode she expected to go with those words. "Don't do it again, we have to find those Goblins." He lowered his hand, releasing the red hairs and moved his other hand down, resting his hand on her knee, his fingers sliding behind it.
She smirked at him and pulled his clothes down, pressing the cotton down on his skin. "It wasn't so hard, was it?" She asked, ignoring what he was saying. He was right, of course, it was hard to catch him being wrong, but she was not going to allow him to boss her around as if she was eleven years old again.
She stood up and took care of her own hound, watching from the corner of her eye as he pulled his strengthen his clothes and pulled one of the maps to him, half shrugging, half shivering.
She also thought it had been intense.
She crossed the tent, to the rudimental bathroom where they stored the small kit. Resting her hips against the small metal sink she rolled the bracelet in her wrist, she sighed, what were they going to do if the Goblins didn't release them of the bracelets?
They should start speaking about it.
Ginny frowned, feeling a pattern under her fingertips. Raising her wrist to see the bracelet closer, she saw the intricate floral design. How had she not seen it before? It was half way around the bracelet like it was some a rudimental way of counting time.
"Tom?" She called, leaving the bathroom to go to him.
"I have noticed it too." He said, looking genuinely worried, nervous.
She had never seen him like that, it scared her.
