Twenty-Four Hours

Ginny woke up the next morning with the mixed feelings of misery and dread. She now had just over twenty-four hours to completely prepare for her meeting with You-Know-Who and his most faithful Death Eaters. Not only would they have the home-court advantage and outnumber her by about ten to one, she was also going to knowingly lie to their faces and try to infiltrate their ranks enough that she would be permitted to hear sensitive information, like when their next attack would be, who was the target, how You-Know-Who planned to get his hands on Harry, etc.

She got out of the cozy bed, not really remembering how she ended up getting into the bed, and was pleased to find that there was a tray of breakfast pastries on her bedside table. Though she wasn't particularly hungry, she decided to give a chocolate croissant a try. After her first bite of the croissant, (it was delicious) Ginny was startled to hear light snores coming from across the room. She walked over to investigate and found a sleeping Draco Malfoy, breathing in through a wide open mouth and breathing out through his nose, which Ginny supposed must have been congested in order to cause the snores. She giggled.

Draco opened one eye, realized how closely Ginny was standing to him, and sat straight up in bed.

"Morning," said Ginny through a mouthful of pastry.

"Morning," replied Draco, rubbing his eyes. "Where did you get the—"

Ginny pointed at a tray that was resting on his bedside table.

"Thanks." Draco picked up a currant scone. "How did you sleep?"

"Okay," said Ginny, nerves setting in much more intensely now that her stomach was full. "I'm not feeling so good now though." In fact, she looked as if she might vomit.

"You're just nervous," said Draco, finishing his scone and reaching for a second. "Oh! That reminds me. You can't be too nervous. A little nervous is okay, like how you might feel before a quidditch game. That's to be expected. After all, this is your first time meeting the Dark Lord in this form. But super nervous, like wavering voice and shaky hands, that's definitely not allowed. If you're too nervous it'll be apparent that you're lying."

Ginny nodded and noticed that the room was changing before their eyes. The two beds were replaced by two long couches arranged around a fireplace, (their trays of food remained however, and were placed on a narrow coffee table). Behind the couches was a large open area that looked equipped for a duel. "Guess it's trying to give us a little bit of anything we might need, huh?" Ginny laughed hollowly.

"I don't know what to practice with you today, Ginny. There isn't really anything else essential that I can think of," said Draco, taking a seat on one of the leather couches.

Ginny sat down next to him. "Let me see if I've got it all. First, don't steal the Dark Lord's seat. Wait for him to tell me that I am allowed to sit. Second, don't think about anything except the fact that I want to help the Dark Lord, else he will know that I'm lying and kill me. Third, be ready to be tortured and not get upset about it, because that is simply the Dark Lord's way of greeting outsiders. Fourth, accept the fact that the Dark Lord is going to threaten everybody whom I love and believe that I would not care if he killed each and every one of them." Ginny paused. "Is that it?"

"I think so, yeah. Remember that you have to be conscious at every moment of the thoughts that are going through your head. The problem is that we haven't even started discussing what you're actually going to say to him."

Ginny slouched down and folded her legs into her chest. "Why did I think I could do this?" she moaned.

"Because you're strong, and you're brave, and you believe in your cause!" said Draco. "The Order is going to benefit very much from the information that you're going to collect, and I will help you as much as I can. I've changed my mind from earlier, Ginny. If you are brave enough to walk into my house and pretend to want to be a Death Eater while really learning everything you can about the enemy, then I am too. I'm not going to be a coward anymore."

Ginny leapt off the couch and into an unsuspecting Draco's arms. "You don't know how happy I am to hear that, Draco!"

Draco hugged Ginny tight, taking in the smoothness of her hair against his cheek and the curves of her body pressed against his. "If anything goes wrong, I won't let them hurt you," he whispered into her ear.

Ginny felt as if a great weight had been lifted off of her chest. Now at least one of them knew the drill firsthand and was prepared for the upcoming meeting. "Draco?" She pulled out of his arms and sat down on the couch next to him. "If you're so willing to help the Order out now, do you have any information that we could send them before we go meet with the Dark Lord?"

Draco thought for a moment. "I don't think I have anything helpful. All of my information is really outdated, and like I told you earlier, I tried not to be home much this summer so I missed a lot of the meetings. Except the one where the Dark Lord asked me the favor."

"Oh," Ginny's voice fell. "Well, we should hopefully have something in a day or so, if everything goes as planned."

Neither of them wanted to think about what might happen if things didn't go as planned.

"Maybe we should write to the Order and tell them about what we're going to do," suggested Draco.

"No!" Ginny shrieked. "I mean, my mother will kill me when she finds out. I think we should delay it as long as possible." She crossed her arms.

"But Ginny…if something does go wrong, someone needs to know where we are. Can we at least tell whoever assigned you your task? We don't have to announce it to your whole family, but we should tell at least one person."

Ginny looked at him and realized his logic. If something happened to them and the Order didn't know about it, they would simply go on a list of missing persons and no one would ever find them. Or, even worse, their bodies would be used to taunt the Order and to entice brash actions. Ginny definitely didn't want that to happen. Not that anything bad was going to happen. But if it did, she definitely wouldn't want to leave her body in the hands of the Death Eaters. "I suppose it would be a good idea to contact Lupin," she conceded.

"Good," said Draco. "What's your preferred method of contact with him?"

"Well, I would like to try to vary it, because owls are so noticeable. That's what we've been using for the most part though. I don't really trust the floo network because there are so many Death Eaters working at the ministry who can monitor it, so I don't really have any other ways of communication."

"Okay then. Owl it is. I don't know any other way to get him a message quickly and moderately safely either." He fetched a small piece of scroll and a quill from his bookbag and set them on the coffee table for Ginny, who sat down on the floor and started writing.

Lupin—

Draco has agreed to gather information for the Order. Unfortunately, because of other circumstances, I will be soon joining him at Malfoy Manor in order to talk to You-Know-Who and discover other information for myself. We will be out of contact for as long as we are at the manor, but when we return to Hogwarts, we will pass on any information that we learn. I think it would be unwise for anyone in the Order to try to contact me within the next week, as it could possibly blow my cover.

Ginny

Draco reached for the letter when he saw that Ginny was finished writing it. He nodded. "Good idea to tell them not to contact you. Do you think that Lupin is going to show this to the whole Order?"

Ginny shrugged. "Dunno. I guess he'll have to tell them something since they're not allowed to get in touch with me for a week." She was starting to feel nervous again. "Draco, I don't know if I can do this. It's like walking into a snake pit, and knowing that it's a snake pit and that it's full of poisonous snakes, and choosing not to take any defensive measures."

Draco raised his eyebrows at the comparison. "Ginny," he said, sitting down on the floor next to her and looking into her eyes, "you are going to do fantastic. As long as you remember everything we've rehearsed, nothing is going to go wrong."

"Boy do I hope you're right," Ginny replied. "Let's go mail this owl and get some lunch. I'm starving!"

They walked arm and arm out of the Room of Requirement and headed for the owlery. As classes were in session, not a soul walked the hallway and they made it to the owlery without being interrupted. Ginny picked out a small brown owl (whose nametag said he was called Brutus) for the job and sent him on his way. "Let's head for the kitchens now?" she asked.

"Gladly," Draco responded as his stomach rumbled.

Unfortunately, they didn't make it to the kitchen unscathed. They were stopped by none other than Professor McGonagall who ushered the pair into her office and sternly asked them why they hadn't been in their classes for the previous two days.

Ginny watched as Draco turned bright red. "Well, you see Professor, I don't usually just skip classes out of the blue, but this week I've been feeling a little out of it and—"

"We're doing something for the Order, Professor. It's of utmost importance," interrupted Ginny.

"Oh, I see," said McGonagall. "Well, take as long as you need to perform your task, but I fully expect both of you to catch up on your coursework as soon as you're done. I will keep you here during winter break if I have to!"

"Yes ma'am," they both replied and hurried out of the office, heading for the kitchens.

The rest of the day passed slowly for Ginny. She was increasingly nervous and anxious, asking Draco if it would be better for them to get to Malfoy Manor a night early, to which he replied 'no' every time. Eventually she gave up pestering him and stared moodily at the fire, lost deep in her thoughts. What am I going to say? What if everything goes wrong? I don't think I can look You-Know-Who in the eye and lie to him. What if I die? What if Draco dies? The last thought was one that sort of surprised her. Any other year and she practically would've leapt for joy at the death of Draco Malfoy, but now that was definitely not the case. She had grown pretty fond of him. That was obvious from their short attempt at dating previously in the year. But even since then, her feelings had gotten stronger.

Her musings were interrupted by the pecking of an owl at a window. She let it in and removed the letter from around its ankle.

Ginny-

I don't know what circumstances have led you to believe that you must also attempt to gain information from the Death Eaters, but this is very foolish of you. You are very young and inexperienced, and this is a very dangerous mission. Unfortunately, I know of the stubbornness that runs through your veins and I will not try to dissuade you from the course that you have chosen to take. I say only this: be careful and tread lightly. I will be awaiting your word by owl within a week.

Lupin

Ginny snorted, not liking the fact that Lupin had essentially called her childish. "We've got the go ahead from the Order," she called to Draco.

"Not like anything would've stopped you from proceeding anyways," was Draco's reply.

"No," she said, feeling all the more determined to succeed.

Ginny showered and went to sleep early, not having anything better to do, and hoped that a good night's sleep would calm her nerves. Draco stayed awake on one of the couches, reading about the Belgian quidditch team and seeming completely unbothered about what they planned to do the next day. Of course, Draco always had had the ability to hide his true feelings, for behind his perfectly composed facial expression, he was feeling all the same nervousness that Ginny was, but for the most part he wasn't worried about himself, but worried about her. He had every faith in Ginny's ability to follow his instructions to a T, but if anything unexpected were to happen, everything could be lost. We'll find out tomorrow, Draco thought before drifting off to sleep.

Morning came early for Ginny, who awoke to the fluttery dance of the butterflies in her stomach. She felt nauseous. She didn't dare put any food into her mouth out of the fear that she might vomit, and paced the room until Draco woke up twenty minutes later.

He stared at her, amused at her antics. "Is that helping?"

"Yes," she huffed.

"Are you ready?"

"Not at all."

"Let's take a walk." Draco escorted Ginny out of the castle and beyond the Hogwarts grounds into Hogsmeade. He held out his arm to her. "Grab on," he instructed.

With a little pop, they disappeared.

Thanks to those who reviewed. Please, may I have s'more?