Chapter One
Draco Malfoy. In Ginny's apartment. Just sitting there, starring at her with flinty eyes, fiddling with a lock of the platinum hair.
After an eternity she breathed, "How did you get in here?"
He smirked. How perfectly fitting.
"You forgot to put out the fire before you left, and I knew where to look for you. I flooed," he said disdainfully, throwing the long hair over his shoulder.
"Why didn't you just apparate?" Her face hardened. "Never mind. Why were you looking for me?"
"Right to business, then. I have a proposition for you."
He waited to see her reaction, which she carefully kept hidden behind a guarded face.
"I work for a covert division of the Order of the Phoenix. Not many people know about us, and the people who do wish they didn't. We do the dirty work that the goody-two-shoes can't handle. As good-hearted as the Order is, they can't accomplish all of their goals through charity work. This secret branch has no real name. The few people who do realize there is a shadow behind the light simple refer to us as Spooks."
"This has all been very interesting. You working for the Light. Care to get to the point?" Ginny snapped, settling down onto her couch.
Again with the smirk. "I want you to work for me. Or rather, with me. My boss thinks I need a partner to balance me out, and sent me after you. He said if I was really as good of a Spook as I was rumored to be, I could find the elusive Ginevra Weasley all by myself without any leads and request her work."
"Thanks, but I'm through with the hole 'let's save the world' thing," she said, once again standing. "Now, if you wouldn't mind going away?" She motioned to the door.
"Being a clandestine part of a very prestigious group, we are paid very well to keep our mouths shut." He mentioned a number. A number Ginny had to work hard not to whistle at. She had been paid more, but not much.
However, she was not able to keep the surprise, and then suspicion, off her face. "Who pays us and how did they get so much money?"
Draco expertly dodged the question. "You'll come then? I'll warn you, there is a very vigorous ability-testing and intelligence program. Everyone who comes in has to be already trained so that we aren't wasting time. And they test to see if you will be loyal. Can't have any moles sneaking in."
Ginny sighed. "I'm a mercenary, Malfoy. I'll be loyal unless someone else offers me more money. I don't care about this fight anymore." She shivered in her black turtleneck, and folded her arms. "Does Dumbledore head it?"
Malfoy gave an empty grin. "No. He is aware that we are out there somewhere and often gives the Director tip-offs through a contact. But the whole dirty work thing is too much for the righteous old coot."
She frowned, thinking. Finally, she nodded. "I'll do it."
"Great." He said, and before she could ask 'what next,' he was standing beside her and had a hold on her upper arm. Then he had apparated her away, she presumed to the Spooks' headquarters.
When the world righted itself again, Ginny found herself standing in an ordinary lobby.
"I could have appartated myself. I assume this is the place?" she asked the blonde man next to her.
"How did you ever guess," he said sarcastically.
It was…just a lobby. It could have been any non-descript lobby. The tiled floor was an off-white color with brown flecks. There were little lanterns all along the off-white walls that gave the room enough light to make the room blaze. The lanterns were like miniscule fires contained in glass bulbs sitting in bronze sconces. The desk off to one side was some medium colored wood.
"Follow me," Draco said, heading down one of many hallways.
As she walked beside him, Draco studied her out of the corner of his eye. The freckles and vibrant hair were the same as he remembered them. She was still almost a foot shorter than him.
But the eyes were different.
He had heard about what had happened to her family, and heard how she had reacted to it. Completely shunned the wizarding world, shut out her old life.
She strode confidently enough, but he still saw it in her eyes. Her family's death had killed something in her also. She couldn't get around their deaths, and so couldn't be completely whole. He saw it there- no closure. Couldn't be good for her sanity.
He turned his attention back to the hallway, stopping at a door near the other end. On it was a brass plaque with the word 'Director' etched into it. He gave two smart knocks to the door and then opened it without waiting for a response.
Ginny once again sat in the Director's office, how many hours later from the first time she didn't know. She was wet, tired, and really hungry.
"Well, it looks like you passed all of the 'qualification exams,' as we like to call them," the Director sat behind his sturdy desk. He had brown hair, brown eyes, and was of a medium height. Nothing extraordinary, just like the building. Ginny didn't understand how someone so boring-looking could become the director of such a supposedly deadly organization.
"Let's set some ground rules, then," he began.
"Um, excuse me, sir, but could I know your name?" Ginny interrupted.
The ordinary man gave a surprisingly empty smile. "That would be the first rule. No names. You will only refer to me as the Director, inside or outside of this building. When talking to Agent 02-23 here," he motioned to Draco, "inside the building you refer to him as that. Talking on the street, however, you may call him by his name. This is to insure that any eavesdroppers will not learn the names of our agents. You are Agent 07-16. Remember it."
Ginny nodded. The whole number thing made sense. She slid her gaze to Malfoy who was slumped in a chair beside hers intently watching the conversation like a tennis match.
"As for your rank, usually new recruits are put under a senior agent and then are gradually given harder missions. But, being who you are, what you are capable of, and what you have already done, I am skipping that and partnering you with Agent 02-23, who also happens to be one of my best agents."
Ginny turned surprised eyes on Draco's intense ones. He slowly lifted a pristine eyebrow. How stereotypical.
Again the Director spoke. "From now on, you two will be a pair, all the way down to living with each other. That won't be a problem, will it? I have heard stories about you two's reputation."
"I have an extra bedroom in my apartment," Draco spoke for the first time.
Nobody commented on the 'reputation' part.
After a short pause where the Director waited for Ginny to nod, he continued. "That brings me to my last point. First, Agent 07-16, you have to sign these forms."
He gave a swish of his wand and a stack of papers appeared on his tidy desk.
Ginny read carefully through each one, from the health form to the salary, signing each one. The only form she hesitated on was the last one, the loyalty form.
Her quill hovered over the parchment as she read and re-read the script. This was it. If she signed it, she would officially be part of the wizarding world again. What's more, she would be on the Light side. Ginny didn't know if she could do it, stand it. They had killed her family.
She let out a puff of air in deep concentration, not realizing the two men in the room were carefully watching her with bated breath.
Ginny gave one last look to what her salary would be, and signed the loyalty form. They were offering her more money than what Draco had mentioned, than what she had ever been offered, and that's saying something.
She laid down the quill and pushed the pile of papers back to the Director.
"Excellent," he said. "Lastly, the Crest. Sorry to be stereotypical, but it's exactly like the Dark Mark. It's burnt into your skin on the right hip and very small, much more inconspicuous than the Mark. But it works the same way. When we need you, it'll let you know."
Ginny sighed. "Great."
Then she gave a gigantic yawn. "Sorry. It's been a long night."
The Director gave one of his empty smiles again. "Well, if you two will follow me, we can go ahead and give you the Crest. Then I suggest you two head on home. Who knows when you'll get your next assignment."
"And he means that," Draco murmured to Ginny as he followed her out of the Director's office. She, in turn, was following the Director.
"Where are going, anyways?" she whispered back suspiciously. "You know, I'm doing an awful lot of this on good faith that you're all just not psychos."
"The Director has other things to do than brand everyone," he said in a flat voice.
"Do you have the Crest?"
"Yes," he replied. Then smirked suddenly. "Want to see?"
Ginny shot him a withering glare without answering. Who did he think he was?
The trio stopped in front of one of the other plain wooden doors. The Director knocked twice then entered, just as Draco had done earlier.
"This is Agent 01-06's office. He's been around long enough that this is about all he still has to do." Ginny thought the Director was saying this in a joking manner, but couldn't be sure. There was something off about him.
The Director waited for Ginny and Draco to enter, then exited the room and closed the door.
"Was he serious?" she asked Draco once they were alone again.
"No. Agent 01-06 is head of the agency's personal hospital."
Right then another man came striding quickly out of a side door. He came to stand near them. He was over six feet tall and very thin, almost emaciated. He had straight, black hair, black eyes behind square wire-rimmed glasses, and an olive complexion. He gave them an empty smile.
Hey, empty smiles all around today, Ginny thought. What is wrong with these people?
"Ah, Agent 02-23. Nice to see you so well again," he shook Draco's hand. "And you are…"
He held out his hand to Ginny.
"Agent 07-16," she said, gripping him tightly.
"It's been awhile since a woman passed through those doors," the man said almost wistfully and definitely oddly. Ginny's eyebrows shot up. Was he talking about for the Crest, or what?
Snapping back to the present, he led her over to a couch next to a wall. It had a small table sitting next to it with various first-aid supplies on it.
"If you would bare your right hip, please. You should try and get comfortable, because this may hurt."
Translation: hold on, because this is gonna sting like H – E – Double hockey sticks. That was okay with her though, she had always been good with pain. At least, that's what she liked to think.
Ginny giggled at her own humor, and Draco eyed her oddly. She unbuttoned and unzipped her pants just enough so that they could slide down and show her hip, and kind of half-laid, half-sat on the couch.
"Ready?" Agent 01-06 asked, taking out his wand. Before she could say anything or nod, he was murmuring the spell and pointing at her hip.
There was a moment of brilliant white pain that burst over her, like a little, hot pokers sizzling against her skin, then the feeling died down to a heated simmer. It was like getting a tattoo where all the needle pricks hit you at once.
She looked down at her newly marred hip. There was a little trickle of blood and the skin around the black was red. The Light Crest, ironically, was in the shape of a very small sun with sharp little rays. The whole thing was about the size of the pad of Ginny's thumb.
Ginny moved to sit up put a small burst of pain surprised her.
"Hold still." Agent 01-06 commanded. From the table next to the couch he picked up a small bottle of clear liquid and poured some of it over the tender wound. Ginny swallowed the pain. Then he took a small gauze square and taped it over.
"Thanks," Ginny said to both him and Draco as the latter offered her a hand. She gave another deep yawn.
"Go home. Get some sleep, or something more. One of us ought to," again Agent 01-06 had the far-off voice. Ginny ignored the 'or something more' part as she followed a once-again smirking Draco out of the building. Jeez.
The sky was just starting to turn that lighter blue of pre-dawn and Ginny could see the surrounding landscape. The building was sitting at the top of a high hill. But there was no grass, no vegetation of any kind. It was like a barren gray wasteland with a modern building in the middle of it.
"Come on. We can apparate back to my flat and get some sleep. Then, tomorrow, we can go and get whatever stuff you need from wherever," Draco held his hand out.
Ginny looked at it, almost said something about not needing his help, then decided she was too tired to get into it right now. Taking his hand, she let him lead her away.
