Chapter 4 – What are friends for.

Ginny used her big toe to turn the tap and cold water flooded in to the bath. She sighed contentedly, music thundered from the player on the floor and the scent of apples assaulted her nose as steam rose from the soothing bath. She took great pleasure in not thinking about the pile of work still piled on her desk, or of the meeting she probably should be arranging, tonight she wasn't a God Mother, Auntie, sister, daughter, best-friend, Owner or Medi-Witch. Tonight she was Ginny, relaxing in her bathtub with her favourite CD, a bottle of red Wine, a book and her rubber duck. Well actually it was Amy's rubber duck, on loan to her, in case she got lonely in the bathtub, (Amy's word not hers.)

For almost a week now, she'd tried in vain to arrange a time for the owners to get together for a meeting. Unfortunately, this had been a rather hectic week, they'd had some new arrivals at Silver Birch, two women had gone in to labour - one had been premature and Ginny had spent the last week battling to keep the tiny little boy alive. His mother had left Silver Birch, against Ginny's wishing as soon as she was able to; the small child was a reminder of too much pain, however innocent his part.

Ginny was very much in need of a holiday, she was quite stressed, not only of the small baby but with the potential safety of Silver Birch. She couldn't help feeling, as she looked at the small boy, that she might have endangered his life. After all if it hadn't been for her, Snape wouldn't know about Silver Birch – Dumbledore wouldn't know about Silver Birch. After All, Snape had already broken one agreement by telling Dumbledore, even if it was Dumbledore – how many more people might he tell? Dumbledore might trust Snape, Ginny however was not so sure. He had at one time been a Death Eater after all – what could possibly have changed to cause his radical turn about?

Ginny groaned and sunk her head under the water, her thought's had once again gone full circle – if she thought about it anymore she'd start screaming in frustration. And, as Cassie kept reminding her, the stress would do her recovery no good. Ginny was loath to admit it, but Cassie was right, her shoulder was once again, very painful

* * *

A further three days later, Ginny dressed in her comfortable green robes and a thick warm cloak. She picked up her wand, a bundle of keys and a small wooden box, and turning all the lights out went in to her bathroom. As the identity of the Owners was secret, Ginny had to hold the meeting in a secret chamber in the attic. Only the Owners had access to it, as they did most rooms and passageways; however, some of them were for the whole house to use.

In her bathroom was a secret passageway, it was found directly under the bath, and was a short cut to most places in the house, which is quite useful in emergencies. By turning the hot tap on and twisting the left tap around the wrong way, the bath tub would jump up onto its four legs and scuffle out the way. In its place was a huge entryway with stone steps leading down into darkness.  

As she entered the narrow passageway, the bath scampered back into his resting space, blocking off what little light had been offered by the moon. She cautiously felt her way down the stairs, before a torch on the wall burst into flames, chasing away the blackness. As she moved into a narrow tunnel, the torch floating behind her, she thought about Blaise.  Although Blaise kept informing Ginny that she was fine, she looked troubled. She was always staring out the window with a dreamy expression on her face and she seemed to spend an awfully long amount of her time in her room or in the gym. She was starting to get as bad as Cassie – who worked, ate and slept in her potions lab until Ginny dragged her out.

What was wrong with her friends, she wondered. Sometimes she felt that both of them were on another planet, Ginny knew how easy it was to be caught up with work but they were both boarding on obsession

Ginny took a sharp left and almost walked into Blaise, who was quietly walking down the steps from her room. Blaise was obviously taken by surprise to, because before Ginny knew it, there was a  very sharp knife pressed against her throat.

"Oh, sorry Ginny," muttered Blaise stepping back.

"No problem… I think," Ginny answered, rubbing her neck. Blaise gave Ginny a halfhearted smile, and started walking in the direction of the attic.  "So have you heard from Nick?"

"No not really," answered Blaise.

"Is that a no or a yes?" asked Ginny.

"He left a few messages about accidental muggle breaches, but that was all," said Blaise.

Ginny resigned to the fact that any conversation she would be having, would not be including Blaise.

After climbing a ridiculous number of cold, twisting stairways, they came into a short passageway, found at the top of the house.

This corridor had no decorations, no fineries; it was a plain empty corridor. Its only oddity was that at the end of it, sat two pillars with two small stone dragons atop of them, in front of a solid stonewall.

"Noswaith dda Miss Weasley," (Good Evening Miss Weasley,) said the one on the left in welsh, who was currently cleaning its huge teeth with a toothpick.

"Good Evening Owen," she replied, she nodded her head toward the other sleeping dragon, "You'd better not let Percy catch him sleeping."

The dragon stopped what it was doing to look at Ginny.

"Percy!" it said delighted switching to english, "Glenn, wake up you lazy git, Percy's coming!" The other dragon snuffled awake, and looked sleepily at its partner.

"Dioch yn fawr, Miss Weasley!" (Thank you very much Miss Weasley,) said Owen, jumping up and down on his pillar. Ginny smiled fondly at the excited little dragon, she turned towards Blaise, who was looking on, uninterested.

"Noswaith dda, Miss Zabini," said Owen.

"Umm? Oh, Hi Owen," said Blaise.

 They walked through the wall that the stone dragons guarded, (the wall was a lot like the gateway to Platform 9,) and entered into a long chamber, which looked more like a museum than a central office. It was cluttered with odd artefacts, and old bits and pieces that were mostly covered in dust. They had yet to work out what any of them actually did and the few that they had worked out how to use, seemed drained of magic or broken.

There were plenty of pictures of Silver Birch around the room, which Ginny had first thought were merely for decorative purposes. Until the picture of Cadi the Calm had told her off for staring at the huge picture of Silver Birch above the fireplace – "It ain't there for you to ogle at it all day, yuh daft twit!"

There were three pictures containing witches decorating the room, Cadi the Calm as mentioned, who was usually anything but Calm (unless you started talking about War.) Vortigen the vicious, who was a very friendly, tiny little witch, (said to be get very scary if you insulted her cooking.) And Marged the Maiden, who was no maiden, (she delighted in making Vortigen blush with lurid comments.)

When she had first started working at the house, Ginny had discovered, with various prodding and guessing, that all the pictures in the room had a purpose. They were designed to show the inside of Silver Birch, like the muggle security cameras she had learned about in Muggle Studies. The large one over the fire, had been the hardest to solve, and the most useful, it was a map of Silver Birch. It was Ginny's favourite, because whilst it was out of operation, it showed a beautiful painting of the front of the House, the only other one like it was found in the ballroom.

The picture, currently had five different coloured stars on it, Ginny was symbolised by a green star, and was currently in the Attic. Blaise was red, and was currently making her way down the corridor towards the attic, Percy was yellow and was just leaving his room, Neville was light blue and was moving quickly across the field. At the gates of Silver Birch, was a dark blue star, which was stationary – as Nicholas McNair was currently in France on business. However, it didn't just show the owners of Silver Birch, it could show other people if you asked it, as long as they were on silver birch ground of course, if not they just stood at the gate.

She heard footsteps behind her and turned to see Neville looking slightly puzzled.

"What are those two so excited about?" he asked, indicating the dragons and noting the wide grin that spread across Ginny's face, smiled knowingly. "Honestly, you're worse than a kid sometimes."

"What! Me?" exclaimed Ginny playfully.

"Yes – You!" replied Neville in the same tone, before giving her an assessing look, "How's the shoulder?"

"Oh, fine," replied Ginny turning away from Blaise and Neville to search though the open box on the table, hoping they would drop the subject, because Ginny was sick and tired of people asking her how she was.

"Ginny!" yelled Percy's indignant voice, "You told them I was coming!"

"Umm, I might of mentioned it…" she said turning to look at her brother, but she couldn't find the energy to torment Percy.

"You know very well that they keep solidifying the wall when I try to go through it!" he answered crossly, rubbing his nose, which was slightly pink.

"Hmmm" she replied noncommittally, wondering why she hadn't saved herself the hassle and not told Owen and Glenn of his imminent arrival.

"It's not my fault they're lax at their job," he kept on.

"I don't know about that, they seem to do a pretty good job of keeping you out," Ginny huffed, hoping he would take the hint and drop the subject.

"You look a little pale – how are you feeling?" he asked concerned, the question took her by surprise for an instant, before annoyance kicked in.

"I'm fine Percy, I just wish every one would stop asking me if I was okay!" she replied crossly while wondering if she really looked that pale.

"It's only coz we love you," said Neville, giving her a boyish grin.

"Let's get on to business," said Ginny as all three of them were now watching her closely.

Everyone took a seat at the table, and pulled out parchment and quills, from her box Ginny pulled out the two letters she received.

"First things first, I want to make sure that everyone is clear on the circumstances surrounding Ginny's injury," began Blaise, before Ginny could start.

"Umm, I think so… you arrived at Ginny's with Snape, who had helped you escape from the Death Eaters…" said Neville hesitantly. 

"What I don't understand, is why you had to escape," interrupted Percy, Ginny glared at him for his tactlessness, but Blaise appeared to have been expecting it.

"My cover was blown," she answered, Ginny was watching her closely and she could see Blaise was hoping to brush over the subject. She also knew that Percy would not let her.

"So you decided to endanger Ginny's as well?" accused Percy.

"No! I had nowhere else to go – Snape would not leave me alone! I had been on the run for three weeks already and I was tired and had had enough!" she said

"Why didn't you just contact us?" asked Ginny.

"I couldn't, I was being tracked," she said mournfully.

"Blaise – What happened?" demanded Percy.

"I told you!"

"You call that an answer? Whom are you protecting? Why was Snape with you? How where you discovered? Who discovered you!" he yelled.

"Go ahead and say you don't trust me Percy! I just risk my life for fun! Really I get kicks out of seeing helpless people murdered and tortured, didn't you know?" she said equally as loud, getting to her feet, where Percy shortly joined her.

"Look guys! Calm down!" said Ginny calmly.

"You pig-headed…"started Blaise

"You could have killed my…" started Percy

"Guys calm down!" bellowed Neville. This effectively caused them all to stop in surprise, as Neville very rarely, if ever, raised his voice and if he did, you stopped and listened.

"We are to protect the people at Silver Birch, which is our main focus – not to squabble like five year olds. If you want to argue, do it in your own time," he said firmly.

"We didn't come here to argue," Ginny agreed, "The reason I called the meeting was to tell you that Snape has told Dumbledore!" said Ginny. Both Blaise and Percy who had been giving each other dirty looks, looked at Ginny in surprise.

"He did what!" said Percy.

"He told Dumbledore, who has invited me and, or an associate to Hogwarts," supplied Ginny.

"What for?" asked Neville, looking nervous again.

"To get the full story obviously," answered Blaise, "Shit! – I told Cassie Snape couldn't be trusted, but she was adamant that he could be…I shouldn't have listened." Guilt was written all over her face.

"It wasn't your fault! You made a decision, I should have been on guard," said Ginny squeezing Blaise's arm.

"Don't tell them anything," said Percy firmly.

"You don't think we can trust Dumbledore?" queried Neville.

"I don't know – I mean, if push came to shove, what would his prime concern be?" he paused looking at the attentive expressions, "The protection of Hogwarts or the protection of Silver Birch?"

"I don't think we need to worry about Dumbledore Perc, I think it's Snape we need to be worried about," said Neville.

"He has already betrayed us once after all," said Ginny.

"I still don't think we owe any explanation to anyone – I'm extremely grateful to Snape for saving Ginny's life but…" said Percy.

"He told the Slytherins about Remus Lupin against Dumbledore's wishes," stated Neville.

"But that doesn't mean we can't trust Dumbledore," pointed out Ginny.

"I agree with you all," said Blaise quietly, "I think that Dumbledore already has had enough information via Snape. They know enough, they can't ever get to Silver Birch again anyway with out our help, I think even Snape can be trusted with this information – I don't know why, but I think we should leave it as it is."

"I'll go to Hogwarts, get Dumbledore's word, make sure that Snape will keep his trap shut and in the process not tell them anything more…" said Ginny firmly, "Okay, I can do that."

"You'll go?" queried Percy doubtfully.

"My shoulder is fine, I'll take Cassie or something, it's about time she got out more," said Ginny cheerfully.

"I don't know…," said Neville.

"I'll even take two of Nick's staff," said Ginny.

This appeared to satisfy them all, so she passed the letters around the group – starting with Blaise, who became instantly very pale.

Ginny reached across and put her hand on Blaise's arm,

"Needless to say - He's not getting you," she said fervently. Blaise didn't reply nor did she look Ginny in the eye. Ginny was really starting to worry over Blaise, she was not herself. While Blaise was very friendly, she was not immediately trusting and she tended to act very reserved when she was in unknown company. Ginny supposed this was why no body found it surprising that she was a Death Eater. First impressions of Blaise's tended not to be good ones. Indeed, Ginny knew that at first she hadn't trusted Blaise, if it hadn't been for her saving a little girls life she wouldn't have given her the time of day. But eventually, Blaise and she had become extremely close and started working closely. When Blaise was away Ginny found herself continually anxious for her safe return – if it hadn't been for Cassie's friendship she might have gone mad.

And right now, she was extremely worried about Blaise's mental state rather than her overall safety. She had the feeling that something had happened during the months she was away, whether to Blaise herself or someone close, she didn't know. All Blaise would tell them was that she'd been discovered gathering information and that her cover was blown, that she's barely escaped with her life, that Professor Snape had helped her.

Cassie, herself was a rather unusual girl, she was loud and sarcastic, and yet very friendly and extremely protective. She sort of reminded Ginny of a friendlier, a more open Snape – the female version, she looked like him too, now that she thought about. Except for the eyes, which where a violet colour. It hadn't taken her long to trust Cassie, she was so open and forth right that she never left you in any doubt of her thoughts and feelings, making it was hard to see how you couldn't trust her.

Neville nudged her back to reality and away from her worrying over Blaise. He handed her the death eater letter back, giving her a thoughtful smile. His hair, which had started to grow long again as he very really got it cut, fell forward into his eyes and he brushed it out of the way with a muddy hand. Neville constantly had bits of leaves stuck to him coupled with smudges of mud. He'd long ago given up on wearing trainers, so was usually spotted sporting a pair of Wellingtons and shabby, mud covered robes.

His honest brown eyes were watching her closely, and while Percy attempted to draw Blaise into answering a few of his questions he leaned over close and keeping his voice low, asked – " are you alright? You look abit pale – is it your shoulder?"

"No, I'm fine really." She answered.

"Anything I can help with?" he asked.

"Um – No. I'm just worried about… It doesn't matter."

His eyes followed her glance towards Blaise,

"Do you think she'll be alright?"

"I hope so."

* * *

Author's note –

I know this chapter is a lot shorter but Chapter 5 is already more or less finished!! I'm hoping to bring Mr. Potter in to the story soon!