The lunch hour was almost over, and the agents looked around the room sadly.

Ginny patted her pockets. It was a habit to constantly reassure yourself your tools were there. Until you were in action mode, and then, they just were there or they weren't when you reached for them. And sometimes that meant somebody lived or died or got their nose broken. Or sometimes your nose got broken just sitting back at H.Q. sparring with your partner.

Both their eyes rested on a bloodstain on the wall that Magical Mess Remover couldn't remove. "Sorry about that," Snake told her. "It was dead funny though."

"You weren't supposed to duck." She laughed. "How pathetic is this, standing around all weepy, 'There's where I did a front handspring into the wall where your face wasn't.'"

"And there's where I dumped buckets of ice water on Ducky until he cried," Agent D joined in the reminiscence.

"It was Ringo we initiated here."

"Who said anything about initiation?" He coughed politely. "He had naked pictures of you."

"Oh yeah, over there's where I posed for Ducky's art homework," Ginny said nonchalantly, looking over at Snake out of the corner of her eye.

"What?" He could have done a spit take.

"Ever ask if they were consensual naked paintings? Honestly. It was only my back, anyway."

Snake smirked. "That's not what it looks like now."

Agent V shrugged, suddenly conscious of how that made her body move. "Paintings move. It's not me." She moved over to the trap door. "It's nice to know how you feel, though."

He sniffed. "I'm protective of my partner."

She looked at him critically. "I think 'possessive' might be a better word."

He was about to retort when she held up a hand. Bloody hell. Someone was fiddling with the lock. Since when had super-secret headquarters turned into an open house?

She motioned wildly at Snake when she couldn't find the bowl by the door. 'Fairy dust?' she mouthed.

'You.' he pointed at her pocket.

She grimaced. 'Damn.' There were so many tiny things in her pocket that weren't what they seemed. It was no use looking.

He took off his shirt and tossed it to her, slowly walking over to the entrance with his wand out. 'One, two . . . Three.'

Ginny unlocked the door with her foot. A head immediately popped through, which she covered with the shirt. Agent D yelled "Stupefy!" and the head went back through the hatch. Seamless.

Agent D dropped through the hatch and retrieved his shirt, which was covered in dirt. "Hell."

"Toss it up here, I'll do a scrubbing charm." Ginny shook her head at stupid boys who refused to learn how to clean.

"Uh, Red?" Snake's voice came up from the hole in the floor.

"What?"

"Come down here."

She hopped down through the trap. Snake was holding a limp body, trying to position it so that he could carry it. For a moment Ginny was transfixed by the mark on his chest. She barely noticed her own, she barely ever checked out the small of her own back, but he had put his right out front, where he had to stare at it every morning in the mirror. Is that why he'd put hers back there? Had he taken pity on her?

He shifted and Ginny saw who he was holding.

"Hermione," she said dully.

"Yeah. Do you want me to . . ."

Ginny shook her head. This was her responsibility. It was weighing upon her like lead. "Do you know the featherlight charm or something?"

"Yeah." He did the charm and she levitated Hermione in front of her. It was surprising that there had never been need to knock out one of the trio before, and she was in a little shock. Agent D recognized it. "Stay sharp, Red. Go back up into the room and look behind the tapestry. There's a door there, you have to say the word and it'll pop right up. Take her through there, up a set of stairs and you'll come out behind another tapestry on the third floor. From there it's a straight shot down the stairs and across the balcony to Gryffindor tower."

She stared at him in disbelief. "You've been hiding that from me?"

"We're all on a need to know basis, Agent V." He wouldn't meet her eye.

She shifted on her feet uncomfortably. "Yeah. Yeah, I know."

"Up you go, then." She hopped back up through the trap door, and Snake pushed the lightened Hermione up after her. "Take care, Red."

Ginny nodded, then flipped the door closed with her toe. There were things to be taken care of.

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Hermione had her after lunch class with Ron and Harry, so Ginny knew that as soon as that class was over, they would come rushing to her rescue. In the meantime, she had to figure out what Hermione thought she knew and attempt to change it.

"What happened?" Hermione was groggily waking up on the couch in the Gryffindor common room.

"I don't know. What do you remember?"

"I was-- I was going somewhere."

"Do you remember where?"

"Harry and Ron are going to kill me, but I was going to that tunnel, you know, where Killian and Lucy were attacked."

"Then what happened?" You couldn't prompt. You had to just draw what they knew out of them.

"I was fooling with the lock in the dark, then the door suddenly came open, but it was bright above the door so I couldn't see. And then there was something over my head. And someone stupefied me." Hermione looked at Ginny. "Where did you find me?"

Ginny swallowed. "I found you out in the hall. I forgot my books so I had to come back."

"Lucky me," Hermione said tiredly.

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On the weekend, Ginny stood outside, somewhere in between the lake and the castle, waiting. It had been a few days since she had seen Snake, and there was a tiny niggle of anticipation as a beautiful dark owl swooped down at her, alighting on her arm as she took the letter from him.

The message was unreadable. She tapped it with her wand. "Agent D is the greatest." She rolled her eyes as the words unscrambled themselves.

V. Found new location. Fourth floor storage. Third door on the left after the crooked staircase from second story. Hidden ladder behind bookshelf. New passcodes in separate letter. Secrecy, Sorcery, Solidarity. D.

He was still going to make her wait. The fact that they hadn't spoken since the Hermione incident hurt. He must have prepared reports and documented the incidents with Killian, Lucy, and Hermione, and submitted summaries of the initiation alone. He was setting up a new office without her. Maybe he didn't trust her anymore.

Or maybe it was all in her head. He hadn't come to her last night, and her sleep was fitful. The S.P. should lay low for a while, when the spotlight was on what had happened with the Hufflepuffs. Hermione, thankfully, hadn't reported her own incident.

Word in the halls was that the Hufflepuffs' parents were going to be allowed to visit them. That made Ginny uneasy. Any new set of eyes on campus was unnerving. What if they had their glasses tinted just the right way to see? She wanted to talk to Snake about it.

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Author's Note: Last time I totally forgot X files. Duh. Cool witty tall agent teamed with short smart red-headed agent.

Definite emotional storyline being set up here. External conflicts in the infant stages.

Let me know what you think of Agent V.