Hey, everyone! Thanks for the great reviews, keep 'em coming! I just wanted to let you know that I've come back to the real world, and my real job, so I can't spend my entire days just sitting and writing, but I'll still post regularly (maybe one a day?) until I see this through.

Enjoy!

Harry and Ginny both frowned at the same time. Harry looked at her out of the corner of his eye. She was slowly turning red and avoiding his gaze.

"No." She spat out, focusing hard on the plate in front of her. In the doorway, Seamus flinched as a loud, male voice rang out.

"I heard that! Ginny, I know you're in there. I need to see you. I've been trying to call you for weeks." The man, presumably Dean, sounded genuinely worried and just a bit desperate.

"I can't stand it, Gin. Not after the way we left things." Harry watched as a man tried to force his way around Seamus, peeking around the door. Seamus looked in panic at Harry. His job was to stop people from entering, but Dean was already about half-way in, and in their positions, Seamus would have to have done some serious bodily harm to stop the man.

Harry gave the guard a reassuring nod. If anyone was going to hurt Dean Thomas, it was going to be him.

"The way you left things, Dean!" Ginny hissed, turning a bright crimson and still glaring at a piece of tomato on the edge of their plate. That's right. Their plate.

Harry sat back in the chair, folding his arms and making the best of his well-worn guardian's position. He'd practically had whole classes about it at the academy: How to Look As Intimidating As Possible By Just Sitting There 101.

It worked. Dean took a look at him and his eyes widened a fraction before he stepped around Seamus, who was giving him a similar look to Harry's. He crossed the living room and reached for Ginny.

Harry rose suddenly and twisted Dean's arm, pining it behind his back and leveraging their weight so that he smashed Dean into the kitchen table. The cups rattled and Ginny jumped at the suddenness of the action.

"Hey…Hey, I'm sorry. I just need to talk-" Dean wheezed. Harry thought that maybe the breath had gone out of him, but didn't particularly care.

"Talking doesn't involve touching, does it? It's my job to make sure she's safe. Keep your hands off of her."

"Yes! Yes, o-of course." Dean grimaced. Harry tugged, sending an extra ounce of pressure into the guy's shoulder socket. Just a bit more and he could dislocate the whole damn arm…

He let Dean go, pushing him slightly away from Ginny, who was gaping at them both. Dean rubbed his shoulder and looked down at her, a pitiful look on his face.

"Gin-"

"Don't!" She said, standing and tearing her eyes away from Harry to glare at Dean. "I don't want to hear it! What you-" She broke off, eyeing Harry. He was pretty sure that he looked like he was about to murder her ex-boyfriend, and he had a sneaking suspicion that he wouldn't have even needed a class to do it. This one was pure instinct.

"Can we…" Dean cleared his throat, standing up straighter. "We need privacy." He told Harry, who said nothing and kept his face still.

"He's not leaving. He can't. That's his job, Dean. He's a bodyguard?" She sneered at him. "Maybe you haven't been paying attention to the media, but I have some things going on right now."

"I have been! Ginny, I've been so worried-"

"Yes! So worried!" She turned to Harry, sarcastically serious. "He's been so worried that he waited over a month after the threats kept coming to check up on me! I'm so lucky, to have such a valiant white knight at my side." She picked up the plate and crossed the kitchen, shoving it in the sink.

Harry had to step in front of Dean when he tried to get to her, and the idiot went pale and stepped back hurriedly. Harry had to resist the urge to sneer at him. He didn't know what this guy had done to Ginny, but she was hurt by it. As her bodyguard, he was paid to prevent her pain.

Harry had half a mind to reach over and really break his arm.

"There's no need to take that tone, Ginny. You know I care for-"

"You don't 'care for' me, Dean! You left me for no reason!" She snarled, nearly baring her teeth at him.

"It was surprising news, Ginny! When I found out what you did to-"

"Shut up!" Ginny shrieked, pounding her fists on the counter. "It didn't happen! Why don't you believe me?"

"Well, it's not as if your track record doesn't show me everything I need to know. You use sex to get everything else, why not a top spot on your team? Why not your position at the magazine?"

Harry slid to the left, slightly, to avoid the spatula that Ginny had just thrown. Dean, unfortunately, managed to avoid it to.

"But that's not what I'm here about, Ginny!" He said, his hands in front of him, braced for another attack. "I…I can forgive your past. I've missed you so much and…I can overlook what you did before we met." He looked at her seriously.

Harry had a pretty clear idea of what the two were talking about, and felt like he should throw something of his own.

"You…you can forgive my past?" She asked, her voice going eerily calm. Dean nodded, lowering his hands.

"Yes. For you, Ginny. Anything for you." He looked hopeful, and Harry almost felt sorry for him. Almost. He clearly didn't know Ginny very well. Harry could have told Dean that this was not going to fly, but he figured the idiot would figure it out on his own pretty soon.

"Get out." She said, darkly. There it is. Harry could feel her seething behind him, but kept his eyes on the idiot, who blinked. Like an idiot.

"But-"

"Harry. Please, get him out." She didn't have to ask twice. Harry stepped forward and grabbed Dean around his shoulders, putting extra pressure on the one he'd already injured. Dean's face contorted and he seethed.

"You have no idea what you're doing, Ginny! Do you even know who I work for? The contacts I have-"

Harry had reached the door, opened it, and unceremoniously thrust Dean through it, shoving hard enough that the idiot tripped down several stairs before catching himself on the banister. He sneered back at both him and Seamus, who was standing next to Harry, arms crossed.

"Ha!" Dean scoffed. "She's already got you wrapped around her little fucking finger. She's probably already seduced you both. You know what? Fine. She can have her sick little games. I'm done. But before you both just hand over whatever she wants, ask her how she got first string on her precious little team." Dean sneered and turned to walk down the stairs.

"Ask her what she did with Draco Malfoy that just made him so eager to put her in a starting position." He yelled over his shoulder. Harry and Seamus held their ground as he disappeared down the steps. The both relaxed when they heard the door to the apartment complex slam closed. Seamus spoke up.

"I don't feel particularly seduced by Miss Weasley." He told Harry, still glaring after Dean. Harry shook his head.

"No." He agreed, because even though he had been seduced by Miss Weasley, Seamus hadn't, and they could agree on that fact. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and looked after Dean as well, less fiercely, and more musingly. He was turning Dean's comments over in his head, one by one. All the things he'd said inside the apartment and out.

Seamus cleared his throat, looking at Harry sheepishly.

"I might be a bit wrapped around her finger, though." He said, softly, and Harry understood. It was just how Ginny was. He clapped Seamus on the shoulder.

"Then, that would make both of us." Harry said seriously. Then, just because he had to make sure, "How's Lavender?" He felt some small relief when Seamus blushed and broke into a boyish grin.

Yeah, this kid's heart lay elsewhere.

"I've been thinking about asking her to move in with me." He admitted, shrugging, but obviously pleased. Harry grinned.

"You should. Never let a girl like that get away." He said, taking his hand off the younger man's shoulder. He turned to move back into the apartment, but was stopped by Seamus's soft voice.

"Agent Potter?" He asked, "Do you think that Dean might be the…" He tilted his head towards Ginny's door. Harry understood.

"Dean's not our stalker." He told Seamus grimly. "Whoever it is, their name starts with an 'M'." He nodded to the guard and slid inside the door, locking it behind him.

Ginny was sitting at the table, scowling down at the patterns in the wood.

"I suppose you'll leave now, too?" She asked, angrily. "Now that you know what a whore I am?" her frown deepened. She looked up, surprised, when Harry gave a little laugh.

"It's going to take a little more than some ancient history to get rid of me, babe. I think I'll stick this one out." He assured her, plopping into the chair beside her and reaching his hand out to rub the back of her neck.

He smiled, grateful that he was able to touch her like this, speak to her candidly, even if it was all taboo in a professional sense. He brushed his thumb across the fine, light hairs behind her ear and watched her shiver, enjoying being able to get the reaction out of her. He'd been hiding behind professionalism too long.

"So…You don't believe him? He was saying that I'd slept with-"

"Yeah, I know what he was saying, Gin." He looked dryly at her. "And that's clearly the first thing that I think when I think of you: huge, opportunistic slut."

She smacked his chest, but there was no power behind it. He caught her hand and pulled her to him, into his lap.

"If he really thinks that you'd sleep with Draco Malfoy to get ahead, then he doesn't know you very well." He said simply, holding her gaze.

She looked very happy, suddenly, and just a tad emotional, and smiled gently at him.

"You like me." She accused.

"I am guilty of that, yes."

"You like me, and you got very angry at him."

Harry paused, watching as a sparkle reached into her eyes. "Yes." He said, lowering his voice to a "that's the end of this discussion" pitch. But when had Ginny ever listened to him?

"You got very angry!" She said again. "You growled at him and almost snapped his arm off." She was smirking at him, playing, but Harry grew serious.

"Gin, if anyone was trying to hurt you, I'd do a hell of a lot more than just snap their arm off." He reached up to brush a lock of hair away from her face. "That goes beyond physical hurt, as well."

Her smile softened as she leaned in to kiss him. Harry let himself relax into the chair and just feel her. This had been such a bizarre morning. From waking up next to her, to having her in his arms, moaning. Then her ex had shown up, and now they were back to the in his arms, moaning part, which he didn't mind one bit.

She pulled back, slowly, and blinked her eyes open.

"You don't know how many guys I've lost just because of what they think I've done." She whispered, and for a second, he could see the hurt flicker across her face. How many years of lost relationships had she endured because of rumors and fodder for the tabloids?

"Pictures and papers can lie, Gin. I saw the article on you and Colin. It wasn't true." He ran his hands down her back, comforting as best he could and wishing he could make up all the idiots that had left her before. She smiled and nodded, kissing him once more before sliding off his lap to turn on the sink and rinse their plate.

"I heard you say to Seamus, the stalker's name starts with an 'm'?" She asked, frowning at the sink and reaching for a dirty pan.

"Mmm." He agreed, taking a sip of coffee, frowning when it was cold. "In the letters, when he uses the word "me", he always capitalizes it. It implies a sense of habit when writing of the letter M, especially in conjunction with personal pronouns and identification words." He rose to refill his cup.

"When did the labs come back?" She asked, pulling the scrubber from behind a mug in the sink.

"What labs?" He asked, coming behind her to wrap an arm around her waist, using the other arm to drink his coffee.

"The labs from the letters. The handwriting." She said, leaning into him and tilting her neck to give him access.

"There were no labs." He murmured, kissing her neck obligingly and wondering why she was so interested in pointless conversations about made-up lab results when they could be doing other more interesting things. She shut off the water and turned her body to face him.

"Then how do you know about the M thing?" She asked, frowning. He frowned back.

"I can read, can't I?" He set his mug down on the counter behind her.

"You mean you just…made that assumption by just looking at the letters?" She sounded incredulous, which kind of offended him.

"Not assumptions, observations." He corrected, trying to kiss her and frowning deeper when she pulled back.

"You…you just looked at it and could figure out the first letter of the guy's name?" She sounded disbelieving, still. He sighed.

"Yes, Ginny. I've had training. Criminal profiler and all that."

She shook her head at him and he watched a grin slowly spread across his face.

"You really are good at everything aren't you?" She asked, allowing him to pull her in, this time. He nuzzled her neck and kissed up to her lips.

"Everything." He agreed, sweeping her up in his arms and heading towards the bedroom.