Five for Fighting

Part Two

Ginny, Egypt

Ginny Weasley was seventeen years old, and tired of doing nothing.

This week had been one of the busiest of her life. First leaving school, and all that was associated with that - placating her poor mother, who was of course afraid that she'd follow in the twins' footsteps -

No. That was not for her. Not what she wanted to do. Ginny Weasley would not. It was that simple, saying no. Something she wished she'd learned before.

Almost as soon as she had Apparated to Egypt, before she was even able to find Bill, she had run into her old schoolteacher and family friend - and also a friend of Harry's. Remus Lupin had made her an offer that she could not resist, and then she had, without preamble, been given an assignment.

She was supposed to recruit another man she had met, this one not nearly so friendly.

Next in her adventures, she found Igor Karkaroff's wand at her throat, and between explanations had to repel several very nasty hexes that she was sure the Ministry would not approve of.

But who gave a damn what the Ministry approved of, in any case?

She convinced him, although it took a couple of hours and a very solid Leg- Locker curse, and then almost undid her work by laughing at the sheer absurdity of what happened next.

He, Igor Karkaroff, asked her what he should do.

This was how she found herself climbing up a dusty set of stairs in the middle of an Egyptian pyramid with a very ragged ex-Death Eater behind her, muttering something that sounded like Russian.

It was very dark, and her torch was starting to go out.

There was a muffled thump from behind her and then a horribly familiar voice growling, "Filthy - bastard - leave my - sister - alone -"

"Sorry," Ginny said to Karkaroff, without bothering to drag Bill off of him. "My brother. He's a little overprotective."

Bill looked up at her with wide eyes and slowly moved back. Karkaroff straightened with as much dignity as he could muster.

"Now?" Ginny said to Bill, a request for explanation.

"Well, you are four hours late for meeting me," her brother said angrily. "And when I used the map, it said you were down this wing. You were alone. And so when I come up and find a scraggly-looking ex-convict behind you with his wand out -"

"You had your wand out?" Ginny cut him off, turning to Karkaroff, who was looking rather enraged.

"Your torch was going out," he said stiffly.

Ginny shrugged and turned back to Bill.

"I'm terribly sorry for not meeting you, Bill," she said. "Only I've got into a spot of employment and I've not much time."

"You're working for him?"

"No, quite the other way around. I can grab lunch with you tomorrow, but then I think we'll be headed out."

She left him standing in the dark, positively flummoxed...effectively brushing him off.

By the time she found Lupin again, it was midnight and he was accompanied by another old acquaintance, Mundungus Fletcher.

Lupin

Dung had changed, and Lupin hadn't known that. Hell, they'd all changed in one way or another.

Ginny! My God! He had remembered her as little more than a child. A Weasley and a Gryffindor, so very brave, and he knew a bit of her story, but - she was far from a girl now, no matter her age.

Karkaroff's beard had grown out, tangled and whited so that he was almost unrecognizable.

But Dung had changed. Dung had changed.

He was clean-shaven, and from all accounts (and Remus John Lupin believed them, oh, he did) had been sober since Sirius died.

God. It still hurts to say that.

He looked like any other man - like any other wizard - like any other friend of the Order. He looked neat and stern and Remus didn't recognize him at first, hadn't known who he was when Dung had approached him on the terrace in front of Grimmauld Place.

And so they had five.

Rather, they would have five. But Remus had counted them all. He knew where there was another who would join them.

He had gone over his options. Tried to figure it out. And then he remembered Dumbledore speaking of a centaur...

Firenze had sent a message back, but he had put charms on it for coding, so that no one but its intended recipient could read it.

The four of them - Karkaroff, Dung, Remus, and Ginny - sat down in a small room and Remus pulled out the letter and set it on the table.

Mundungus

They all stared at the paper for a moment before Ginny took it and unrolled it carefully, looking down at it with a frown.

"Simple charm," she said. "It needs a password."

"How do you know?" Karkaroff asked in a hoarse voice.

"Because that's what it is," she said simply, meeting his eyes. He looked down.

"You're the only one who knows him, Ginny," Remus said. "What would be something that he would guess we would guess?"

Ginny stared at the paper as if she hadn't heard him, and drew out her wand.

"Hagrid," she said softly.

Spiderwebbing out from where her wand had touched, the letters across the paper turned from gibberish to English.

Remus stared at her and the paper for a moment. She drew back her wand and looked away.

Dung pulled the scroll over to his side of the table and read aloud;

"Remus Lupin,

My answer is yes. I will rendezvous with you on Wednesday of next week, at half past eleven at night, at the Hogsmeade station. Confirm with the same password.

Firenze"

Remus blinked and nodded. Karkaroff shifted in his seat.

"Who is this Firenze?" he asked.

"A centaur," Ginny said. "He works for Dumbledore."

The man stiffened and she shot him a withering look.

Karkaroff

It was difficult for him to take; the concept that these would be the people he would work with. Probably until he died. But this was work which he knew he had to do.

The Remus Lupin fellow, he knew of through his work in The Circle. He could deal with the man. A reputation for being quiet but sharp.

The girl was fierce, and not as defenseless as she looked. But she wouldn't get in his way, wouldn't scorn him. She was smart as well.

And the other man...Mundungus Fletcher...Karkaroff found himself almost afraid of the him. But at the same time...he had the dark aura that had always interested and lured him. He was....not the kind of man Karkaroff wanted to get on the bad side of.

The three of them, and a centaur.

He would die in decent company, then.

It was obvious that the other two men felt protective of the girl. But neither of them had fought her, and had her convince them to die for a cause.

She hadn't directly asked him to die, but he knew that was what the job entailed.

It was fighting, though. It was making a stand. He wasn't a moral man, wasn't a man with a hard concience. But he knew the difference between good and evil, and he knew he was evil.

Karkaroff did not want to live a life of cowardice any longer.

And more than that, he wanted to avenge his brother. But that was far in the past. An underlying motive, perhaps, that he was sure none of them knew of.

That girl had convinced him to live a life of honor once more. To come out of the shadows. And for that, he respected her. And he knew that she needed no protection from the others.

If anything, knowing what they would be plunging into, Karkaroff thought they might need her protection.

Author's Note: Thank you to my reviewers so far. I hope that this will be a fic updated one to two parts a week, but due to the number of fics I have written/am writing (this is the 58th fic on my ff.net page), I make no promises.