If you wish for peace, prepare for war.

"Stop groaning." Theo hissed. "I'm trying to sleep."

She groaned again in response. "I'm in pain, Theo. That woman is insane."

"Then be in pain quietly! You're the one who agreed to this!"

Well, she couldn't argue that one. A little over a week ago, when Celeste had wordlessly stood above Ginny as she lay in bed, blonde hair hanging around her like a poor imitation of a halo, Ginny had thought the girl had decided to just cut to the chase and murder her right then and there. Instead, Celeste had invited- well, almost ordered- Ginny to come jogging with her around the Quidditch pitch at the crack of dawn. In the spirit of finding out more about the French sisters, and since Ginny usually didn't sleep much anyways, she'd accepted.

Ginny considered herself fit. Once upon a time, when she'd entertained the thought of making a career out of Quidditch, she'd held a strict morning regiment of flying exercises. When the war came, there was spent so much time running and fighting that everyone was in somewhat decent shape.

This, however, was something else. Celeste ran and ran and ran like someone was chasing her, for hours. Sometimes she'd slow down and jog a part of the way with Ginny, before getting antsy and bolting forward again. If she ever had the energy to count the distance (she didn't), Ginny was pretty sure they were running small marathons every morning.

A part of her suspected that Celeste had been ordered to keep an eye on her. It was just like Riddle to slither his spies around her at the most inconvenient hours. Another wondered if it wasn't an odd sort of silent camaraderie that came from them having mutually destructive information about each other.

Regardless, Ginny ran with Celeste every morning, even though Professor Beery had her spend most of her evenings in the Greenhouse tending to the Madrakes as punishment for forgetting to harvest her Fluxweed plant during the full moon.

It meant that she was always sore, and always exhausted.

Theodore was exhausted too, though mostly due to his nightmares. They slipped away at lunch every few days to nap and scheme together in the Room of Requirement. It was hardly enough though, and the sleep deprivation was catching up on both of them. Especially Theodore, who spent his days smooth-talking his way around Riddle's cohorts, planting seeds of doubt through every conversation.

They were both increasingly jittery and were just a hair's breadth away from making a mistake that would ruin them. Ginny in particular was finding it difficult to maintain a facade of normalcy with Riddle prowling around. She'd had already received two detentions for cursing a student who'd startled her.

Thank Merlin she was in a house that respected aggressivity.

"We have to be up soon anyway, we've got Defense in twenty."

It was Theodore now who groaned, rolling his face into the pillow.

"I can't, I'm either going to fall asleep in class or I'm going to Avada myself when I have to listen to Zabini talk about his fiance for another hour."

"Funny, and here I thought Abraxas was keeping you distracted."

Theo turned over to glare at her. "Hilarious."

"I have to say, he's a lot better looking than Malfoy junior, even though the whole thing is a little too close to incestuous for my tastes-"

"Don't get to comfortable up there in your glass house, Weasley." He scowled.

Ginny laughed and reached over and ran her fingers through his silky hair. Theodore sighed. Really, he should sleep. His pale skin had a strange tinge to it, like milk gone bad. She'd tell Whitehorn that Theo wasn't feeling well.

"Sleep, Theo." She murmured, pressing a kiss to his temple. "I'll cover for you."

He swatted her away irritably. "As if, woman. Someone needs to woo the great and noble vaults of Malfoy to our great and noble cause."

She made an affronted noise and slapped his hand back down. Sometimes, Merlin knows how, she forgot about Theodore's substantial ego. The boy liked to pretend he'd done all those missions alone, as if Ginny hadn't been the one to save his ass on more than one occasion.

"Bulgaria." Theo deadpanned, following her train of thought.

Ginny wrinkled her nose. Shit. That had been a bad one, with Theodore apparating them out of the burning ministry with just seconds to spare.

Still, she thought stubbornly, they'd only had those seconds because Ginny had single-handedly fought off two Death Eaters as Theodore sprinted around, disabling the wards. And that wasn't the only time Ginny had nearly lost appendages to buy Theo some time to do whatever it was they were there to do...

"Greenwich." She countered triumphantly.

He narrowed his eyes and looked away pointedly. She smirked.

"Anyways," He drawled, annoyed, "You've got to deal with Riddle tonight, I think that's more than enough work for one human being to handle."

Eurgh, she had forgotten about that.

Ever since joining Whitehorn's little group, she had the pleasure of meeting with Riddle twice a week on top of regular class hours. Because fate seemed to personally have it in for her, Whitehorn had partnered her and Riddle together while allowing Theo to work alone, his reasoning being that they would infiltrate Germany under the guise of being young lovers looking to prove themselves to Grindelwald.

("I think Theodore would be better suited to this role than I, professor." She had suggested in cheerful horror, smiling rather maniacally as the word lovers sank in deep, like a large boot grinding into her skull.

"I think not." Theodore replied caustically.)

She shook the thoughts away.

"I can manage it."

It was the truth. For the most part, she ignored Riddle unless absolutely necessary, and apparently being immortal at the ripe old age of seventeen gave Tom Riddle the patience of a saint to enact whatever plans he had in mind for her. (Because, no matter what his polite exterior showed, she wouldn't be surprised if he'd refined a special Crucio curse to rip apart her mind until he discovered the answers he was looking for. He was just… waiting.)

Theo heaved himself up from the bed with a dramatic moan.

"Regardless, Ginevra, Abraxas is both gay and engaged, therefore I have no idea how you think you could possibly maneuver yourself around him-"


"So you see, if you strengthen your defenses here and here-" She circled two spots on the shoddily drawn quidditch pitch they were both bent over, "Then your chasers will be free to make a beeline for the hoops here." She punctuated her sentence with a sharp scratch of the quill across the pitch.

Abraxas rubbed at his jaw, utterly enthralled and totally ignoring the lesson going on in front of them.

"If we have this brilliant of a strategy every game, we'll win the cup for sure!" He was almost panting with excitement. Abruptly, he turned and grasped her shoulders.

"Prewett." He intoned solemnly.

"Malfoy?"

"I'm drafting you. From now on, you are part of the Slytherin Quidditch team."

Ginny's eyes flickered back and forth wildly before remembering Theodore was out cold in the Room of Requirement. No one was coming to her rescue.

"Um. Malfoy. Abraxas. You haven't even seen me fly-"

And Merlin, did Ginny love flying, she just didn't have any time for it.

He waved her concerns away. "We already have a full roster. I'm drafting you as our strategist. We'll meet on Sundays at dawn, you can watch our practices and we'll group after to discuss the holes in our strategy."

Ginny opened her mouth to protest, but she felt herself deflate before she could even form an argument.

"Sure, Malfoy. I'll be there."

"Of course you will. I'll have you and Theodore over for Yule as well, after Clem and I return from France. We're visiting Baptiste, of course,"

Malfoy chattered on excitedly while Ginny "hmm'd" in all the right places. Inside her mind, her thoughts were churning. Baptiste, France, D'Auvignon- something was tugging at a corner of her memory, begging her to unravel it.

The man was enormous, almost as wide as he was tall. He was entertaining a circle of guests in the far left corner of the opulent ballroom. Ginny grimaced at her bad luck. She needed to get him drunk and alone, preferably before the night was over so she could grab Theo and start the long journey home.

She turned to survey the room and snatched a champagne flute off a floating tray. Politicians, social climbers and journalists flitted about the room, smiling and joking with each other, posing gamely for photos. A woman was flirting with a man a few feet away from her, batting her eyelashes coyly. Diamonds glittered on her hand, catching the light every time she moved.

Ginny thought of the houses stuffed with refugees back home, the proud and the poor all stuffed together under one roof, all running from the same monsters.

She hated these people.

These naive, protected people who'd not lifted a finger during Voldemort's rise and didn't lift a finger now. These people who held fundraisers for refugees but didn't allow them in their own borders. These people that declared their war an internal affair yet were to thick to realize that someone in their government had a financial interest in the war, that someone had been steadily financing the Death Eaters for the better part of the year.

Who though? She was here to find out.

Something- someone- across the room caught her eye. He was tall, dark, wavy hair spilling past his ears-

Harry...

No. As he came closer, his dark, strong features came into the light. He wasn't from here, she could tell by the way he carried himself among the guests. An outsider, like her.

She studied him as he made his way through the throngs of socialites, flirting and complimenting all the right people. He was roguishly handsome, carrying himself with a confident swagger. As he came closer, she caught something in the air around him, a sort of thick and cloying smell that set Ginny's teeth on edge. She was far too familiar with that scent, having encountered it more times than she was willing to count.

The man was a necromancer.

Ginny composed herself and turned her attention away from the wizard. He wasn't why she was here tonight. She turned her attention back to her target, searching out the large man. He was still entertaining his circle of guests, loudly voicing his opinion on some immigration policy or another- she couldn't quite make out the details, her french wasn't that good- but from volume alone, she knew he would be drunk enough for her to act soon.

"He won't be interested in you." A heavily accented voice murmured into her ear. Ginny whipped around, barely controlling the urge to scream, coming face to face with the wizard she had noticed earlier. He was terribly close, his breath fanning on her face.

"Can I help you?" She asked sarcastically, eyeing him. He wasn't threatening, at least not yet- his arms were open, relaxed. Ginny's fingers switched over her wand reflexively.

"English." He noted, ignoring her defensive stance. His dark eyes flicked downwards to hers, holding them for a moment. "I'm truly sorry about your situation."

And he did sound sincerely sorry, putting more genuine emotion into one phrase than any of the attendees here had put into their entire speeches. Ginny still didn't move her hand away from her wand.

"As am I." She said dryly. "And while I appreciate the sentiment, your going to find yourself in a very painful situation if you don't explain your rather sudden apparition immediately."

"So tense, Miss…?"

She didn't have time for these games. She whipped out her wand and dug it firmly into his ribs. "Weasley." Ginny all but hissed.

He held up his hands in surrender, smiling. "Charmed, Miss Weasley, please call me Syphax. I have my own business here, for my own country." Ginny raised a dubious eyebrow.

"We do not have a quarrel with the English, only the French." His lip twitched as he continued. "For now. Regardless, I believe we can be of some use to each other tonight, and perhaps in the future. The man you are hoping to pry information out of will not be easily swayed by a little girl like yourself. You don't look a day above eighteen."

"Sixteen." She corrected. "Not that it matters. No other man has refused me before." She shot back somewhat arrogantly.

He hummed in disapproval. "You have been- ah, how to say...lucky to find men with no morals." He looked around the ballroom briefly in disgust before meeting her gaze again, his demeanor softening somewhat. "Your country has no shame, sending its children to war."

Her mind unwittingly flashed to Harry- Harry at all of seventeen, standing in front of an army. She shook her head to clear her thoughts and snapped her attention back to Syphax.

"We don't have the luxury of shame. You had a proposal for me?"

He considered her for a moment before moving swiftly to her side, taking her arm in his and leading her around the room. To any outsider, they would look like a couple flirting their way around the rest of the guests. Ginny followed his lead, leaning into him.

" will not fall for the charms of a girl-child. He may look soft and pliable on the outside, when really he is anything but. He is, however, very amenable to fear."

Well, he certainly had her attention now. She made a gesture indicating for him to go on.

"However, I am here to collect 's grandson. We find ourselves with a need for… collateral."

Here he stopped them, placing himself in front of Ginny and taking the champagne flute from her hands.

"To your right, the boy with the blonde hair." He took a sip from her glass.

He was indeed a boy, Ginny noted, taking stock of Syphax's target. Not much older than her, if she had to hazard a guess, and with a paleness that reminded her somewhat of Draco.

"Alright, so cut to the chase. You're offering to deal with Vachon, and I… what? Kidnap this boy so you can murder him?"

Syphax chuckled darkly. "You English are so vulgar. We aren't planning to kill him, Miss Weasley. His grandfather- well, his whole family really, they're lawmakers. And their new laws are spilling into our borders. We just need to have a chat with to inform him how unacceptable this is. I'm sure he'll be more than willing to see his errors once we sit down with him. His grandson is merely...insurance."

"I would rather not make a mess tonight, and the boy has been eyeing you for quite some time now. You get him out of here, and meanwhile, I can get to reveal whatever it is you're looking for. We meet at midnight to trade the boy for the information. Do we have a deal?"

Ginny pursed her lips. On one hand, Syphax could fail to deliver. But she was more than confident that she wouldn't, and if it came to a fight she was confident that she could withhold the youngest Baptiste from him.

She eyed the boy again. He laughed uproariously at something, spilling wine on his robes. Ginny felt her stomach recoil.

These people were responsible for writing the laws that stripped the United Kingdom of all its international portkeys to France, the laws that closed their Floo Networks and Embassy to the pleas of the United Kingdom.

She turned to Syphax. "We do. Shall we shake on it?"


"Are you listening?"

She was thrust back to the present by the annoying sound of Malfoy's impatient voice. She made a vague noise of inquiry, completely lost to the conversation. Abraxas sighed dramatically.

"I want you and Theodore to come to Malfoy Manor for Yule. I've invited Riddle and Elias as well, and Clem and Celeste will be there too…"

Ginny tuned him out, noting wryly that he hadn't really invited her, more ordered her to arrive on his doorstep. Gods above give her patience, it looked like she was going to be spending her entire holiday with the devil incarnate and his merry band of misfits.

There was one thing Theodore would be pleased about though- the D'Auvignon girls were linked to Baptiste, somehow. And that meant they were more important than she had originally thought.

It was time for Ginny to make use of her morning jogging sessions.


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Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, I cannot put into words how lovely it was to receive your kind words. Hope this one lives up to your expectations, I did make it longer as a small apology for the last one being so short. As always, reviews are always appreciated!

(Tom will be present in the next chapters!)