Summary: Gin is fire… glowing, vibrant and full of life.

Harry Potter is ice… cool, distant and difficult to reach.

Harry knows that Gin is the last woman he would fall for. After all, apart from her beautiful eyes, what else does she have going for her? For her part, Gin hates the handsome man who has destroyed everything that made her happy. Then fate intervenes and Harry finds himself fathoms deep in love with the mysterious Ginevra Raven, but Ginevra seems to be the only woman who is immune to the irresistible Potter charm…

Chapter nine

Tom left the small suburban house belonging to the Green Vermont's official treasurer with a sense of relief. It had been a very long day. He found touring schools to try to get the green message across to kids both boring and frustrating, since apathy was rife, and handing out leaflets on streets alone made him feel vulnerably exposed. Looking around nervously, Tom glanced at every parked car. It paid to be careful. He knew Harry had not called off the army of private detectives he'd hired to track him down. A ten-minute walk took him twenty five but when he gave the secret knock on the battered blue garage door, he was sure no one had followed him. Severus let him in.

The garage was empty, but signs of occupancy were everywhere. Deep Green so far had only four members, but those four were worth a thousand of those that made up the respectable face of the society. The table in the centre of the garage was full of equipment – wires, metal, tubing, boxes and a small, grey-blue lump of what looked like plasticine, but most definitely wasn't.

"How did it go?"

"Fine" Tom said wearily. He had more important matters to think about. "Now, how's the real work going?"

Severus smiled. "Fine. I told you, no problems." He looked at his old friend, his monkey-like face a curious mixture of fond amusement and weary impatience. They had met at the hospital, of course. Tom, tall, handsome, Tom, had attracted the small, wiry, ugly little man from Arkansas with all the ease that a magnet attracts metal filings. He'd been so strong, so angry, that Severus had instinctively known that Tom was the man to follow. he'd told the tall Vermontian all about the little fires he'd set and all about the Navy, and the ay they'd spent years training him before throwing him on the scrap heap and wasting all those good tax-payers money.

"Take it easy Severus," Tom said softly. He'd become adept at watching Severus; keeping an eye on the volatile little man had become as natural as breathing. He knew all the signs. The little tic at the corner of the mouth. The wilder look in his dark tunnel eyes. "We're not in the dungeon, now, remember." He said softly, using the special word for the hospital.

Severus instantly relaxed. "No," he said softly. "I know we ain't thanks to you."

Tom smiled. "You don't have to keep thanking me," he said, glancing at the equipment scattered all over the table. "You just keep on doing what you're doing," he added softly.

Tom looked at him knowingly. "You're thinking of him ain't ya? I can always tell."

Tom glanced at Severus sharply, and then looked away. In a rare moment of extreme weakness, he'd confined to Severus just what had been done to him, and who'd done it. During those dark years, in those rare moments of lucidity when his body had begun to combat the old drugs, and before they'd noticed and started putting him on new drugs, the days had been very long. And he'd needed somebody to talk to. So he'd whispered in Severus' ears tales of Harry Potter. Tales of horror. But he needn't worry that Severus would ever betray him. Severus worshipped him slavishly.

Moving to the roll of plans resting on the sideboard, Tom opened them out. Inside were the blueprints of the new Potter project currently being built on the outskirts of town. A beautiful, luxurious hotel for the idle rich. The way Harry was rich. But e hadn't always been that way. No, Harry had known what it was like too live with cockroaches and despair. But Harry had crawled out of that hole years ago, while he…

"I'm going to destroy him Sev," Tom said softly. "Slowly, so that he can feel every wound. Carefully. Bit by bit. I'm going to tear down all that that greedy, treacherous son of a bitch had built. I'm going to take it all away." He glanced quickly at Severus. "And you're going to help me. Aren't you?"

"Sure Tom, sure." Severus said eagerly, the adrenalin rushing to his head, making veins pop out on is temples. He could see the building in flames. Lovely red, orange, yellow flames. Tom nodded, his eyes looking beyond Severus to the brick wall behind him.

"I'll have you Harry," he said softly. "If it's the last thing I ever do."

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New York

In a city made up of skyscrapers, there was still the odd mansion or two shuffled in among the monsters – houses that had been built courtesy of generations of Vanderbilts, Astors, Rockefellers and Gettys. The Granger Mansion was such a house. Set in six acres of exquisitely tended gardens, it had ivy climbing to almost every inch of its walls. Inside, every carpet was oriental; the sculptures were Brancusi, Moore or Rodin, the glass Lalique and the furniture by the English masters. Hermione did not look out of place in all the splendour. The dress she was wearing was an apricot silk De Florentino, her shoes by Maud Frizon. And yet, for all that, she was just a girl, having dinner in her father's house.

Accepting her starter a delicious French onion soup, she glanced yet again at the man sitting at the head of the table. He looked better than he had at Matthew's funeral.

"Daddy… I… thank you for inviting me over. I don't get to socialise much these days."

"You shouldn't have divorced your husband," Leslie said bluntly. "Yours is the first divorce – "

"In the family for seventy-five years. Yes, I know, daddy," she interrupted angrily. "I've heard it all before."

"Don't take that tone of voice with me!" Leslie snapped, his whiplash voice making Hermione jump. Knowing he was waiting for an apology, Hermione found herself unable to give him one. Instead she looked at him steadily.

"My divorce is my business," she said crisply.

Leslie flushed angrily, and then shrugged, turning back to his food, his cold displeasure so apparent that even Poppy felt herself shiver in the icy atmosphere. "Howe are things at work Hermione?" she asked pleasantly, hoping to clear the air.

"Fine. No, actually, not so fine." Hermione admitted, taking advantage of the opening. "Its every hard to try to take in everything at once."

"You think there's no merit in learning how Granger Industries is structured?" Leslie asked silkily, sensing criticism.

"of course there is," Hermione quickly sensed the trap and sought to divert it. "But I don't think going through mounds of paper and chasing accountants who do everything they can o to be obstructive is the best way of going about it."

"Is it getting on top of you already?" Leslie asked snidely.

Hermione flushed angrily, but only when she had her temper totally under control did she speak. "All I'm saying daddy is that I can't be expected to learn all the intricacies of Granger Industries by studying mounds of paper."

Leslie leaned slowly back in his chair. She didn't know it, but he approved thoroughly of her self-control. Anyone who lost their temper had already lost the argument. Although, he would never admit it, Leslie was pleased and yes, a little surprised by the abilities Hermione had displayed so far. She had understood more about Granger's inner workings in the last, month than Matthew had picked up on in a year. He was beginning to wonder if perhaps, just perhaps, he had an heir after all.

"If you want to run Granger Industries one day, Hermione, you'll have to know all the ins and outs of every single company," he stabbed his finger on the table as he talked, empathising each word. "You'll have to know what every single company is doing any single day. You'll have to know who's in charge of what, when and where, and how every profit or loss has been made. You'll have to understand the nuts and bolts of every single piece of machinery in the Granger Corporation. I do."

Hermione nodded, a little paler now, but totally composed. She sensed they'd reached a turning point in their battle and it was crucial that she didn't falter now. "I know you do, daddy, but then, you've built the company from scratch. You know all that you know because you've had fifty years to learn. When you started out you began with Granger Real estate right?" Hermione ploughed on, knowing that she had his full attention now and determined to make the most of it. Her very future depended upon it.

Leslie nodded, his eyes narrowing, trying to figure out which way his daughter's mind was leaning.

"And you learned about it as you went along. You made mistakes, you learned by them, and you never made them again. You actually sold the real estate along with the salesman you employed. You learned your market as you went along, you learned to read people and how to anticipate what they needed. It took three years, and only then did you start Granger mining. Be honest, daddy. Have I ever shown myself to be a total idiot? Have I given up, as everyone expected me to? Or have I proved I have the ability to do the job? I think I've proved to you and the rest of them at Granger that I'm not in over my head, although you've done your best to push me under. But I can't learn the business from the top down. What I need to do is what you did. Start with one thing. Be in charge of one thing and see it through. That way I lean a little of everything and what they mean in a practical way."

"You have a point," Leslie admitted, almost reluctantly. It had been so long since he'd started the company that he'd almost forgotten those early days, when he had indeed had to learn as he went along. He looked at his daughter, a new respect beginning to form deep down in his gut. "But there's more to the job than just knowledge." He warned, his voice deepening. "The man… person who sits in the chairman's seat has to have guts too. He has to make a hundred and one decisions that would make most people blanch. He has to sack people when times get tough, and not get a bleeding heart abut it. He has to patrol the stock markets with a killer's instinct that would make a shark feel envious. Do you understand what I'm saying girl?" he snapped, watching her closely.

Hermione nodded. She didn't approve of some of her father's business methods, and certainly wouldn't advocate them once she was chairman, but she had no intention of telling him that now. There would be time, later on, to show him that compassion and good business sense could go hand in hand.

Leslie's eyes narrowed suspiciously. He didn't for one moment believe that Hermione agreed with his cut throat philosophy. But dammit, it was a jungle out there, and her competitors would rip her to pieces unless she got tough. If she was to stand a chance, it was up to him to make sure she knew how to play the game. And the only way to play it was fast and dirty. He nodded.

Hermione saw the slight movement and tensed. He was up to something. She could feel it.

"When Matthew… before… he died," Leslie forced the words out like venom-coated pebbles, "I'd given him the task of taking over a company called Potter Leisure Corporation. Have you heard of it?"

Hermione felt her heart rip with excitement. She'd done it. She'd convinced him. "I think so, yes. They specialise mainly in the winter skiing trade, don't they?" they were building a new hotel in Stowe, where she had a winter villa. No, where Draco had a villa. It was part of his pre-nup.

"That's right," Leslie said, surprised but pleased that she was so observant. "It's a small company by our standards, it only has ten million annual turnover, but it's expanding rapidly. More important, it's already started to spread out into Europe. I want it. But be careful. Harry Potter is a very clever man." He said thoughtfully. "You could learn a lot from him. But that's all the advice I'm going to give you. The rest is up to you."

Hermione stared at him, suddenly realising just how well he had set her up. "You mean… you want me to handle the take over?" she asked quietly. "A hostile takeover? You want me to… steal this man's company from him?"

"That's exactly what I mean," Leslie Granger said gruffly, forcing himself to ignore the shock in her eyes. "You want to prove you're capable of taking over Granger Industries? Bring me the Potter Leisure Corporation".

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Gin shivered at the edge of the large, gaping hole. It was raining, and so it should be. The flowers that lined the edge of the gravel looked bruised but colourful, and suddenly the simile reminded her so much of Katy that she felt a sob rise up from her soul and shake her body. On either side of her, both her father and her cousin took an instinctive step closer to her. The vicar intoned the familiar words of supposed comfort, but Gin couldn't take her eyes of the simple, wooden coffin.

Katy.

She looked up at the grey sky, and the raindrops landed on her glasses, obscuring the view. She was glad. She didn't want to see her sister being lowered into the ground for ever. It was too hard.

Too final.

Too desperate.

Because Katy had done it to herself. Katy had bought herself to this place, at this time. She had killed herself. But how could anyone feel so despairing, so without hope, that they'd want to do that to themselves? Gin still didn't know. So she thought about something she did know. She thought about what she was going to do.

Harry Potter. The man who had forced Katy into killing herself. If it hadn't been for him, robbing them of everything they loved and cherished, Katy would still be alive. It was really he who had killed her sister… she could see him, even now.

Tall…

Handsome…

Rich…

So utterly desirable.

The bastard!

How she hated him.

The rain slackened its pace and eventually drizzled to a stop. The vicar shut his bible and lowered his head. Everyone was quiet. Everyone was thinking of Katy. Except Gin. She was thinking only of how to make Harry Potter suffer. Suffer as her father was doing now. Suffer how Katy must have suffered in those dark hours before she took all those pills.

She didn't know how she would bring him to his knees.

She only knew she would.

Or die trying…