The H key on my keyboard isn't working very well, so if I've missed any critical letters tat may be wy... :) Thank you for some very kind reviews over the past few chapters!


Waking up next to Narcissa, Lucius smiled. Her face was slightly flushed, no longer in intense pallor, and as he stirred she did too, showing a return to life. She opened her eyes and smiled back at him, and in that moment it was almost as if he didn't see flashes of copper when he blinked.

"I've missed you," she said, closing her hand around his wrist.

"I've been here," he replied, leaning to kiss her.

"But I haven't, not really."

"Then I'm glad to see you."

Lucius laid back on his side of the bed, but her hand tightened again.

"More," she whispered, and he felt like they were 17 again.


Ginny told Draco to come to her apartment the next day when she could think more clearly. They left the café with a friendly if not somewhat awkward handshake, and she went upstairs to fall into sound, satiated sleep.

Morning hit her hard, but not quite so hard as the day before. She was able to get up and throw the windows open, and eat a scone she had had the good sense to buy the night before. Then she wrote off a few letters, letting people she was back in town, including one to the office saying she would cut her vacation short and return the next day. By the time Draco was due to arrive, she was showered and fresh, and she almost believed that she was better off with this whole turn of events.

Draco came banging on the door with his arms full of groceries; she had agreed to see him on the condition that he replenished her pantry.

"I think the groceries were overkill," he grumbled, although she noticed he began to put them up straight away without being asked, and he seemed to know instinctively where everything went.

"Maybe," she said, sipping tea and delighting in his domesticity, "but it's quite a big thing you're asking of me."

He had no response to that, and she moved to the living room while he finished his task. When he came to join her minutes later, her heart lurched to see him carrying the box which contained the diary.

"How'd you get your hands on it?" she asked, trying her best to be nonchalant.

"Went over this morning to check up on Mother, and just summoned it when his back was turned. Too easy, really. If he thinks it's secure, he's wrong."

"And how is Mother?" Ginny hated the sarcasm that edged her voice, but could do nothing to stop it.

"It seems that she truly might be getting better. She even ate with us downstairs. But you don't want to talk about her."

He was right, of course, but she said nothing in response.

"So what exactly shall I say to him?" she asked instead, eyeing the box.

"Whatever you need to get someone looking into the case, really. I don't believe him for a second that he's exhausted every possible resource for finding a countercurse. With the Ministry involved, I think we can cure her." Draco slid the box across the coffee table towards her, and she shuffled back in her seat, just a little. His eyebrows went up.

"Are you going to be able to do this?" he asked.

"Are you calling me weak?" she shot back, suddenly brave enough to reach out and snatch the box fully into her lap.

"Wouldn't dare," he said, and looking at him, she could tell he meant it.


In the morning, Ginny organized her work bag around the diary in its box, which meant it was crammed almost to bursting. As she stared down into the odd arrangement all the quills and files had taken, she considered for a moment if Lucius would take her back into his safe, sheltered world. Facing the office seemed impossibly frightening, full of people who would ask after her vacation, wanting details she didn't have. But her eyes focused on the polished wood, and tossing the misshapen tote over her shoulder, she found the strength to step into the fireplace.

At work, she told everyone she had been in the south of France, but that she had gotten bored with relaxing and decided to save some vacation days for another time. People swallowed this story easily, and she was able to relax into a familiar rhythm as the day moved towards lunch. And then, at 11:50, she took a deep breath and pulled the box from her bag. It was heavy in her arms as she wound through the Auror office's cluttered halls, and she had to shift it onto her hip to knock on the door when she arrived at his office.

"Come in," Harry called, and she could already hear the distraction in his voice.


He was standing when she came in, clearly looking for something on a desk overrun with parchment. He glanced up through his glasses and a shock of hair, and froze when his eyes met hers.

"Gin," he muttered, suddenly losing the confident air of a busy Head Auror. He scrambled around the desk, just missing a tipping over a box of what looked like household junk. Ginny knew better, it was most likely his "filing system" for random objects he found during raids.

I could just tip this in there, she thought as he cleared a chair for her, and tell him good luck.

"You should keep these things neater," she said as she sat in the offered place. "Some of them are quiet dangerous, aren't they?"

"All the really bad stuff is downstairs," he said, scurrying back to his side of the desk and trying desperately to fix his hair. He almost wished Aunt Petunia were there to do it for him; she was the only person who had ever had any success with such an endeavor, not matter how briefly the results lasted. "In the Department of Mysteries."

"Right." It was awkward and silent between them, and Ginny was losing herself in thought about the Department of Mysteries, and encountering Lucius there, all that time ago…

Somewhere, a muffled alarm began to ring. Harry cursed and threw open a desk drawer, pulling out an old fashioned alarm clock and silencing it.

"Ron did that, thought it would be hysterical to remind me of lunch every day. Only problem is that neither of us can undo it to save our lives, and we don't want Hermione to tease us if we ask for help."

"Wait, is it a spell?"

He blushed, looking sheepish.

"No, just the regular Muggle alarm. Silly, really."

She smiled. He was right, but it was sweet to picture the two of them puzzling over something so simple. Not that she had any idea what to do with it either.

"Well, if it's lunchtime, I guess we may as well have the discussion I came here for over lunch," she said, leaning out to put the box on his desk. "But you had better lock that in a drawer."

"Really?" A slow smile spread across his face, and she felt momentary guilt for manipulating him. But it would make him happy to go to lunch with her; to be seen, even just in the halls of the Ministry, with her, and she did want him to be happy.

"Really, truly."