A/N: I'd like to thank IndiaInk and Joe for reviewing. I love reviews. They make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Even mean ones. It just means that at least someone is reading my stuff right?
Chapter 3: Grin"Absent in the things
I've done, for the real Revelations come to people so slow.
Frightening"
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Ginny woke up smiling. She didn't know the exact details, but she thought she had had a good dream. Also, there were no smells of burnt food coming from the kitchen this morning. Sitting up, Ginny breathed in deeply the smell of the breeze coming through her window. She loved the smell of summer, always so warm and alive. It made her feel the same way.
After a few more minutes of just enjoying the morning smells, Ginny got up and went downstairs. In the kitchen she found Hermione sitting and eating a bowl of cereal. Ginny smirked at her. "Aw Hermione, I was really hoping for toast." She gave a little fake pout and sat down.
"That is not amusing Ginny," Hermione admonished before smiling. "So seem in a good mood this morning."
"Yah I know. I'm not sure what it is, but I'm enjoying it. I think maybe the talk I had with Harry yesterday kind of got some stuff off my chest." She shook her head. "Whatever it was, I'm happy for it. Anyway, I have to go to Diagon Alley today to pick up a couple things. You want to come along?"
"No Ginny, I don't think so. You see, unlike someone I know, I have a job I have to attend to."
Ginny frowned. "I just haven't found anything I want to do yet. Plus, I have time. I still have all the money from after... you know. Anyway, I have to go get ready. I'll see you later right?"
"Yes, probably. Unless I happen to find a hot date and don't come home." Ginny laughed uproariously, walking out the door. "Hey, it could happen," Ginny could hear Hermione yelling as she walked back up the stairs.
Back in her room, still giggling, Ginny began hunting for clothes in her dresser and caught sight of the address Harry had given her the day before. "You know," he had said, "just in case you need to talk or something." Ginny smiled as an idea hit her. 'He could probably use some time out in the world,' she thought. So it was decided, she would invite Harry along for the day. It would be fun.
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Half and hour later, Ginny rolled out of Harry's fireplace on to his living room floor. Frowning, she stood up and dusted herself off.
"Hello, Harry? Are you home?" At this, she heard someone moving around upstairs. This gave Ginny a chance to look around. She noted interestedly that Harry owned a number of muggle items like one of those big black boxes that she knew from her father was called a tellervisor or something like that. He also seemed to have electric lights and a strange whitish box with a panel with a lot of buttons on it sitting in front of it. Curious, Ginny walked towards it. As she was staring at it, the picture on the big white box part changed from a big picture with a dozen little pictures along the side to a little symbol bouncing around on a black background. She immediately decided that this was some strange form of changing artwork. Walking up, she looked down at the panel with the buttons and pressed one of them. The picture instantly changed back to the one big one with the little ones. Perplexed, Ginny pressed more buttons, succeeding only in making the box to emit weird noises every time she pressed a button, not changing the picture like she thought it would. Losing interest and wondering what was taking Harry so long, Ginny walked over to the stairs across the room and yelled up, "Harry, are you up there?"
"Yah, just a second. I'm getting dressed. Is that you Ginny?"
"Yes it is. Now hurry up. I'm getting bored." At this, Ginny heard laughter from somewhere upstairs, and soon Harry appeared at the top of the stairs, still giggling.
"I'm sorry I've bored you, oh unexpected visitor."
"Hey now, you did give me your address. Was I supposed to just pretend I never saw it?"
Harry laughed again then just smiled. "I suppose not. So, what can I do for you?"
"Well," Ginny replied, "I was hoping you wouldn't mind coming to Diagon Alley with me today. I have a couple things to pick up, plus I read about this new shop. It called Muggle Huggles or something like that. I've wanted to go for a while, but I figured I would just get really confused. With you along, I would have someone to explain things to me. Pretty please?" Ginny put on a puppy dog face and looked at Harry beseechingly.
"Well, if you're going to make that face then I suppose I can't say no. So, as I am now fully dressed and ready to face the day, shall we go?"
Smiling, glad to get Harry out of his house, Ginny nodded. "Let's go!"
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Ginny's head was spinning as she walked out of Huggles for Muggles, as she found out it was actually called. She had spotted another one of those whitish picture boxes and Harry explained that it was a computron or some other thing that kind of sounded like that. Anyway, after walking through the whole store and having everything explained to her by Harry, she realized that muggles must be pretty smart because all that stuff was really complicated. She was really thrown by the video games, stunned by that fact that they were like interactive books made entirely of moving pictures; pictures that moved without magic even.
Harry speaking drew Ginny out of her thoughts. She missed it entirely. "I'm sorry, what did you say?"
"I said, why don't we get something to eat. We could go over to Hazel's. I hear the pumpkin soup is really good there. After nodding her assent, Ginny walked with Harry across the street and in to Hazel's.
"How about over there?" Ginny asked, motioning towards two rows of booths separated down the middle by a short dividing wall.
"Okay," Harry said, and led them towards one of the booths.
After ordering, Ginny and Harry fell in to easy conversation about their lives since they had graduated, carefully avoiding anything that had to do with the battle. Harry spoke of how hard it was to find an apartment where he could do magic without muggles noticing and still have electricity and cable. Ginny talked about Hermione's breakfast attempts and her complete lack of entertainment. "I tell you," she said conspiratorially, "Hermione doesn't have a single just for fun kind of book. Well, I suppose to Hermione all books are fun but not for the rest of the world. All she has are old dusty spell books that you can hardly read they're so faded. Other than that, she has her old school books and some random books written entirely in runes thrown in their for good measure." At this, Ginny and Harry both laughed. As the laughter died down, the waitress brought their food and their table was silent for the first time in about half an hour.
Ginny was about to ask Harry to pass the ketchup when she heard a piece of the conversation the people on the other side of the divider were having. "So, he just met some random girl in a field? That's weird. I guess he'll be easy picking for Orris then." To Ginny, this man sounded kind of dull.
"Yes, probably. Have you finished getting a list of his friends and family?" This man sounded kind of snooty.
"Not yet. So far I know that he lived with his muggle aunt uncle and cousin until he graduated Hogwarts, but he must not have liked them very much, because he got out as soon as he could." Nearly choking, Ginny realized they were talking about Harry. Looking over, Ginny caught Harry practically shoveling food in to his mouth, completely oblivious to what was going on at the table next to them. Before she could alert him, the men began to stand up to leave. Thinking quickly, Ginny ducked under the table. Reaching up, she yanked Harry's arms down from the table, then pulled him by his hands all the way under.
"Ginny!" Harry yelled, mouth full of food, "What are you doing?!"
"Shh Harry! Be quiet! They might hear you!"
"Who might hear me?" Harry asked still not being quiet enough for Ginny's liking.
"The guys from the table on the other side of the divider from us. Did you hear anything those men said Harry? They were talking about you. They said something about you being easy pickings for someone. If we had stayed up there they would have seen you" Ginny whispered all of this very urgently, then looked up as if she could see through the table, listening for the men to leave.
Harry felt like he should have been very worried, but he was a little distracted. Looking at Ginny, he really couldn't think of much of anything at all really. Nothing but how pretty she looked with her hair all ruffled from sliding down under the table, and how she was still holding his hands. Caught by a sudden urge, Harry leaned over quickly and placed a small kiss on Ginny's mouth.
Ginny instantly looked back down from the table, all thoughts of the other men erased from her mind. She switched instead to staring at Harry with a look of pure shock on her face. At this, Harry leaned forward and kissed her again, longer this time. Ginny was just getting in to it when she realized how crazy this was. Leaning back quickly, she pulled herself back up in to the booth, scooched out, and practically ran from the restaurant, barely noting that the two men were gone.
Harry just leaned slowly back against the seat, still on the floor. He felt pretty happy, but stupid at the same time. With Ginny gone, he could now think properly about what she had said. He saw now that that moment had not exactly been the appropriate kissing moment. That was a moment for frightened waiting and whispered conversation. He now desperately wanted to know what those men had actually said and who he would be easy pickings for. Pushing himself back up on to the seat, he shook his head. 'I'm a complete idiot,' he thought. Standing up, he decided to catch Ginny, apologize, and see if she could fill him in more on this new situation.
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Ginny stopped outside the restaurant, not sure what to do. She knew Harry should be told all of what she heard, but she really didn't want to talk to him right that second. She was too confused. But, he also seemed to be in some danger.
This decided it for Ginny. She would put her own confusion aside and wait by the door. Harry had to come out sometime, at which point she would fill him in on the situation. Sighing, she leaned against the wall a few feet to the right of the door to wait.
A few moments later, Harry came out looking around, probably for her. He quickly spotted her and walked over.
"Well," he said, "I'm glad you didn't run. I'm not as quick as I sued to be." The joke didn't lighten Ginny's mood at all, so Harry just kept on talking, more seriously this time. "Look, Ginny, I'm sor-"
"Not now Harry. We have something more important to talk about. Those guys seemed to be working for someone who is out to get you. We have to figure out who they are and why they want you."
"What exactly did they say?" Harry didn't want to forget the other conversation they needed to have completely, but he decided that this was more important.
"Nothing really important I guess. They're doing a background check on you, and they saw is in the field. The only real info I caught was that someone named Orris was after you. I don't know why, but he is."
"Did you catch what they looked like?"
"Not really. Just a little glimpse. One of them was quite a bit taller than the other. The tall one talked like he was pretty smart, but the shorter one seemed a little off. I didn't really get a good look at their faces. I really didn't want to either, or they would have seen us. Luckily, I pulled you under the table quick enough that they missed us."
Harry sighed, thoughts like 'why me?' and 'It's only been five years, can't I get a little bit longer vacation than that?' ran through his head. He shook his head to clear his thoughts and seized on the moment of silence to get in his apology. "Look, Ginny," he began again, "I'm really sorry about in there. That shouldn't have happened and I apologize."
This kind of hurt Ginny and she didn't quite know why. Frowning she said, "It's ok Harry. Already forgotten." This was a complete lie, but she figured she had to get this stuff out of the way so they could get their investigation started.
For some unknown reason, Harry didn't like the way she had phrased that last statement. 'Oh well' he thought. "Ok then, as long as you're ok with it. Now, let's get on with it shall we? I was thinking maybe we could ask some shop owners around here if they saw anyone different around here lately. It might help us get a better description of them.
"That sounds good," Ginny replied, thinking. Suddenly, she remembered something else. "Oh, Harry. This could help quite a bit. I think they were American."
"That would definitely be helpful. We could go to the ministry and ask Hermione if there have been any new arriving wizards from America." Harry smiled; glad they were already coming up with plans for how to deal with this. Hopefully, this Orris guy wouldn't turn out to be another Voldemort.
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Harry and Ginny split up, each of them taking a side of Diagon Alley, and asking all the store clerks on their side if they had noticed any strange American wizards matching Ginny's description around.
When they were finished, they met up at the door to the leaky cauldron and compared notes.
"Ok," Ginny started, "I got 'no' from basically everybody except the waitress at Hazel's who says that the short one was kind of pudgy with a kind of bulbous nose. She says the tall one had a goatee and huge eyebrows and really skinny lips."
Harry nodded. "Yah, I got mostly 'no's too, but the guy at Flourish a Blott's gave me basically the same description. He also said they bought a book there a couple days ago about scanning spells. I guess they're normally used by aurors when they're interrogating witnesses to get any basic information that the people wouldn't give up. They're apparently mildly difficult to cast, but easier than brewing veritaserum."
"Ok then" Ginny replied. "I guess we know how they got all that information about you. Now all we have to do is find out where they came from exactly."
"Off to visit Hermione then?"
"If we must." Ginny said with a sigh. They both laughed.
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Five minutes later, Ginny and Harry stepped in to the phone booth leading down in to the ministry. They were not really all that close together, but the short distance did remind Ginny of the table incident, so she tried to shove herself as far up against the side of the booth as possible.
It was the same for Harry, who just tried his best to not think about it and relax. He just didn't know why she affected him like she did. 'Well,' he thought, 'It could be because she's beautiful, charming, funny, great to talk to, she's ha-' Harry cut himself off mid-thought, shaking his head. Now was not the time.
At the bottom level, Ginny and Harry exited the booth and headed to she check in point. Stating that they were there to see "Hermione Granger in the Wizarding Immigration, Travel, and Customs Office" they were told to go to the fourth floor to the third door on the right and to have a nice day. Ginny frowned at that. 'That woman was hitting oh Harry' she thought. 'Not that I care' she admonished herself. Pushing those thoughts from her head, she concentrated on the little paper airplane letters that were floating above them in the elevator. Soon they were on the fourth floor and knocking on Hermione's office door.
"Come in!" She called.
Walking in, Ginny smiled. As per Hermione's nature, everything in the office was very organized in neat piles on her desk. She was currently writing what seemed to be a small not on a piece of parchment in front of her, then proceeding to fold it in to a paper airplane. After muttering a spell she said, "Hold the door please," and sent the paper airplane flying out of the office. Finally looking at Ginny and Harry, obviously glad to see them, Hermione said, "So what are you two doing here?"
Harry began, "We have something very important to talk to you about." After this, Harry told Hermione the whole tale of the men in the restaurant and the research they did in Diagon Alley, carefully omitting the kissing part.
By the end Hermione was frowning fiercely and looking through a stack of papers to her right. "Ah ha!" she called after a minute of two. "I've found it!" Holding up the paper, Ginny instantly recognized the two men from the restaurant from the descriptions her and Harry had both received.
"Excellent!" Ginny said. "Now, does it say where they came from?
"Oh yes. These are the copies that are always made of wizards' passports when they enter the country. They show their country of residence along with a picture, date of birth, their country of birth, and their current address. It says here that both men were born and raised in America, and currently reside in Los Angeles California. The tall one's name is Robert Kraft and the short one's name is Kyle Miller. According to our logs, they came in to the country one week ago. That's all the information this office gets when a wizard comes in to the country. I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help. I'm really worried about you Harry." This last statement was Hermione's first non-business one and Harry appreciated it. He had been feeling like he hadn't been best friends with this woman for the greater part of his existence.
"Don't worry about it," Harry said. "If you hear anything else about them around the building or remember something else you might have, just let us know ok? You really were a big help." Harry smiled and turned towards Ginny. "What do you think?'
"I think this is going pretty well for having just found out about this today. I just have one question for you Hermione."
"And that would be?"
"Did you find that hot date yet?" Hermione blushed at this and Harry just looked confused.
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A few minutes later, Harry and Ginny were outside the ministry building, ready to go their separate ways. It was late, had already been dark out for about an hour. They had both decided that the search would continue the next day.
"Well," Harry said.
"Yes, well," Ginny replied. For some reason the situation had just become really awkward. "I guess I'll call you tomorrow and we can see if we can find any more leads on these guys and their boss."
"Yah, that sounds good. See you tomorrow then?"
"Yup. Goodnight Harry."
"Goodnight Ginny." Before she could apparate out, Harry leaned over and gave Ginny a quick peck on the cheek. Before she could react, Harry apparated out leaving a stunned Ginny behind.
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End Chapter 3