author's note: Sorry about the months' long break! It was not for want of inspiration, but time IRL.

Playlist for this chapter:

Blue Blood by LAUREL

In Flames by Digital Daggers

Hostage by Billie Eilish

chapter 3: caliburnus

As they wandered the museum, Ginny could not shake the feeling of being watched. She tried to convince herself that it was because there were employees everywhere, posing as medieval witches and wizards in King Arthur's court. Still, as they explored the different exhibits, she was on high alert, skin tingling with anxiety.

"Oh, look, Morgana," Cicero pointed at an exhibit. "This one wasn't here last time I was here. Shall we go see it?"

Ginny watched Harry shrug, and agreed with the sentiment. She didn't think that there would be anything of use in an exhibit on Morgana, who, as far as the all accounts she had seen had said, was of little note beyond being an antagonist against Arthur and Merlin who never managed to succeed. Still, it couldn't hurt, she reasoned.

"Let's go," Ginny acquiesced.

The three curse-breakers followed the signs pointing them in the direction of the exhibit. As they got closer to the exhibit, the feeling of being watched intensified within Ginny. She glanced at Harry to see if he felt the same or noticed anything strange. As she took in his face, there were no lines of stress or hypervigilance—well, no more than the usual, for Harry, anyway. He was as relaxed as he ever truly was in public.

When they arrived at the exhibit, Ginny's anxiety turned into a feeling of cold dread within her belly.

You're being ridiculous, she tried to tell herself. She winced at herself, changing her thoughts. You're safe, she assured herself, now.

Unfortunately, Ginny didn't feel like what she was telling herself was true. It was a similar feeling to what she had experienced in the sky caves in Nepal as they'd attempted to escape the labyrinth of passages. The feeling also reminded her of something else—something she'd buried deep down and hadn't allowed herself to think of fully in so long. The Parisian catacombs, and the days leading up to Seneca Hopkirk's mental break, along with the deaths of her other team members, Freya and Martim.

No, Ginny assured herself again.

Even as she was trying to calm down her growing inner panic, she took stock of what she was seeing in front of her. The Morgana exhibit. The artwork on the walls within the small room reminded her of that first find they'd had in the catacombs, when they'd uncovered that room.

She was remembering more vividly now than she had in years the room with the sarcophagus. The artwork in that room had been so similar to this—if not the exact same.

"Erm, does it say on that placard which excavations uncovered these pieces of art?" she found herself asking, the knot of dread in her belly tightening.

Harry was the one who answered her, eyes moving as he scanned the informational sign. "It says that it was recovered in Paris in 2000."

He looked up from the sign, eyes meeting hers. "Why do you ask?"

Now Harry had that look on his face that she'd been looking for previously.

"It looks like something I found on my first excavation. And that's when I was there. It's just that no one ever ended up telling me who we had found or that it would go on exhibit."

Both Harry and Cicero were frowning now.

"I'm sure you could ask a docent or ask one if you might be able to speak to the curator for the exhibit," Cicero suggested.

Ginny forced herself to shrug. "I could. Maybe it's best I don't." A coldness was spreading within her, despite her words. Within her mind's eye, all she could see was that final chamber deep inside the catacombs, so many hundreds of feet underneath the streets of Paris. She'd done her research on what the other teams had uncovered there and had found that the magical network of the limestone tunnels burrowed even further beneath the city than the Muggle ones, which explained quite a bit. She tried to keep her mind on facts instead of what she had experienced.

"I don't see why you shouldn't," Harry told her softly. He placed a warm hand on her upper arm, the heat warming her skin, even through the material of her blouse.

Harry's touch was like a lighthouse, guiding her back to the present moment, away from that night, away from the cold sea of memory.

Ginny smiled at him weakly. "I probably should," she agreed, somewhat unsteadily.

"Are you alright?" he asked, concern written all over his face. She tried to remember if she'd ever told him about that first project of hers but could not recall. She only remembered so many failed attempts at writing after they'd parted ways, ultimately throwing almost all of her letters to him in the fire of Le Nid.

She wanted to be touched by his concern, but it was as if she was being blocked by something from doing so.

Struggling to find the words, she nodded, looking up into his deep, green eyes.

Harry didn't look convinced. She smiled at him now, trying to convince herself as much as she was trying to convince him.

Cicero interrupted, clearing his throat. "Erm, we can always come back to this, but I think you're right about there being nothing for our own project here."

Ginny found herself pulling away from Harry; like a bucket of ice water had been dumped over her head, she felt as if she had been startled awake into a frightening clarity that she hadn't experienced in so long.

Why did it feel as if she'd been asleep all day? she wondered.

She shook it off, now ignoring the cold feeling within her, and agreed verbally with Cicero.

They moved on from the exhibit, and the further they got from the room of artefacts for Morgana, the more Ginny was convinced that she'd been having a strange fit of anxiety.

She still felt cold inside, but the anxiety and dread were both gone, now.

They continued to wander the museum, finding, as Cicero had promised, many artefacts that were reportedly found by Michaelson on his hunt for the Holy Grail.

"You know what isn't in this museum?" Cicero asked, later in the day as they were nearing the end of their museum tour.

"What's that?" Harry inquired.

Ginny was barely paying attention. She felt as if she were floating through a dream again, and the cold was growing within her now, as if it were spreading through her very veins. It was all Ginny could do not to break out in shivers. She only attributed this to the jumper she was wearing.

"Caliburnus," Cicero answered.

Something within Ginny felt as if it had popped in her chest when she heard Cicero's answer.

"Excalibur?" she asked, raising an eyebrow interestedly.

Harry glanced at her, something like concern fleeting across his furrowed brow, but Ginny didn't allow herself to pay it any mind.

"Yeah. Excalibur has never been discovered in all of the excursions on the search for it or the Grail. What do we know about the sword?"

"A lot of Biblical scholars, including those who are witches and wizards, have speculated that Caliburnus is the Spear of Longinus," Ginny postulated. "Some even have suggested that it could have possessed powers, as what other kind of sword could be so pivotal in an empire such as Camelot?"

"You sound like you swallowed an encyclopaedia," Harry joked.

Ginny grinned at him. "Well, Ron was obsessed with Excalibur when we were children, much in the same way that I was obsessed with the story of the Boy-Who-Lived. Mum told many a story about Excalibur and Camelot, and I was curious while in my seventh-year studying to get into curse-breaker training, and so I looked into it."

"So, what kind of powers do they think Excalibur possesses?"

Ginny shrugged. "Really, whatever that particular scholar can dream up. None seemed credible, in terms of powers. Some said it controlled the destiny of the world—called it the Spear of Destiny, rather than the Spear of Longinus or Excalibur—and that was why it was so that Arthur was pre-destined to rule Camelot. Some said that it possessed some sort of life-saving elixir similar to the Elixir of Life created by the Philosopher's Stone. Some said it grants unimaginable power similar to the purported power of the Elder Wand of the Deathly Hallows legend."

Harry looked distinctly uncomfortable when Ginny mentioned this. She frowned internally, filing the information away for later.

"I say," Ginny continued, "That we tell the Society that we're looking for Caliburnus but leave out any mention of powers. Its historical origins are merit enough for the Society to see the value in finding it."

"I agree," Cicero said. "And everyone knows that Arthur's Knights were all over that portion of the world, as they were not able to mind their own bloody business, so it would be possible that it's over there."

"It seems we have the beginnings of a beautiful plan," Harry said, grinning.

Cicero and Ginny nodded.

As they neared the Morgana exhibit, Ginny felt a longing within herself. The cold was there, but there was an ache of sadness within the chill, almost like a physical knot within her chest. She turned away from the exhibit as they passed it—she couldn't think of her time in the Parisian catacombs. Even as she tried to reroute her thoughts, the images flashed through her mind.

Water on the ground, Seneca's eyes wide and frightened in the eerie candlelit cavern…

No, Ginny rebuked herself. She walked more quickly past the exhibit, and towards the exit for the museum. As she stepped into the bright autumn sunlight, she was momentarily blinded by the difference in the lighting.

Even with the brightness as her eyes adjusted and she saw that she was again on the viaduct bridge between the museum and its Apparition point, Ginny felt the cold seeping further into her bones. Involuntarily, she shivered.

Ginny wondered if she might be getting ill and took note to remember to stop by the apothecary on her way home from work to pick up Pepper-Up potion.

When they arrived back at the Society, Cicero departed to write up a preliminary request to contact the board regarding funding, while Harry and Ginny went to their office to work on putting together their so-called evidence for their presentation.

When the door to their office closed, Harry immediately turned towards her, a questioning look on his face.

"What?" she asked.

"You've been acting strangely all day," he explained. He moved towards her, his brow furrowed in that way she had come to know so well.

Despite herself, she shivered. Ginny didn't know if it was from the cold, or Harry's presence. She backed slowly towards her desk and felt it against the back of her thighs. She was cornered, and he was moving toward her still.

"I-I've just been s-so cold," Ginny stuttered. As Harry came ever closer to her, however, she noticed that the cold was lessening with each of his steps.

"Are you well?" Harry asked.

"B-besides the cold, I feel a-alright," she stuttered again. Her breath caught in her throat as he made one last step towards her, his body completely flush with hers. He was so warm, Ginny thought in wonder.

She looked up into his eyes, so full of concern and something else she had come to associate with Harry: passion. His eyes held so much passion—they always had.

Ginny tried to reason with herself, but she couldn't seem to convince herself of any reason why not to do what she truly wanted, with Harry so close to her.

She glanced lower, at his lips, then back up to his eyes, and then down at his Adam's apple as he swallowed. Before Ginny could stop herself, she was moving towards him. Or maybe Harry was moving towards her as he swept her into his arms and their lips finally met.

The cold within her was dissipating with each brush of his hands across her body. One of his hands caressed her back over her jumper before moving lower and playing with the hem of the jumper and then finally, finding its way to her skin, which now burned beneath Harry's touch.

Ginny moaned, opening her mouth for Harry. He obliged, his tongue tangling with hers in that way that only he had ever managed with her.

She found herself grinding down against his erection, so hard in his trousers. The hand that had been supporting her placed her down onto the desk, sliding down to the space of her thigh, so close to her center.

"Please, Harry," she pleaded.

He pulled away from her lips and grinned devilishly at her. "Please, what?"

"Please touch me."

He brought his lips back to hers gently, tongue sliding teasingly over her lips. His hand that had been touching her beneath her jumper moved to her breast, palming it gently. She moaned again, the fire in her center getting more intense.

Oh, Merlin, she needed—

Harry's thumb brushed against her clit and her hips bucked against him.

He chuckled against her lips.

"It's not funny," she whined, trying to elicit more friction against his hand or his hardness.

"Oh, I think it's quite pleasing for you to be begging me," he told her.

"Get over here, you," she said in response, pulling his lips back to hers and his hand back to her aching center.

He chuckled again until her free hand caressed his hard length in his trousers, then gasped at her touch.

"That's—what—I—thought," Ginny told him between her own gasps as he began to play with her clit.

She was so wet; she knew her knickers had to be absolutely ruined. She didn't care, though. All she cared about was Harry's warm touch and the feelings he was eliciting within her body. Oh, it had been so long…

Harry's lips began to move down her jaw, then her neck. He nipped teasingly at that place on her neck that he knew she loved, and moved up to her ear for a moment, letting out a terse breath before he gently bit her ear, too.

She gasped and she could almost feel his satisfied smile as he moved further down, to her collar bone, barely exposed by her jumper. His hands bunched her jumper up past her breasts and Harry placed a kiss on one breast through her bra, then moved to the other breast, biting down gently and sucking.

Ginny's hips bucked again, and she longed to feel him against her. He planted gentle kisses down her stomach, taking pause to nip at her hip before looking up at her for permission.

She realized his intention with a jolt of heat and nodded as he began to kneel, pushing her skirt up her hips. He pulled at her tights and his thumb burst through the thin material.

"Fuck," he cursed.

"Happens all the time," Ginny chuckled.

Harry nodded and planted his hand against her center, over her knickers. He rubbed her teasingly.

"Someone's wet," he commented.

"Oh, bugger off," she told him.

"In due time," he joked. Before she could respond, Harry placed a kiss over her knickers, right where she had been praying he would.

Her eyes rolled back in her head.

Harry nibbled gently on her clit through the thin, wet, material of her knickers and Ginny realized one more move on his part, and she'd be falling over the edge.

Finally, he pushed her knickers to the side and his tongue slid against her clit, caressing it that way he had learned so long ago that she liked.

The coil snapped within her, and Ginny found her legs tensing around Harry's head, her center pulsating for him as waves of pleasure blinded her and her body convulsed.

As she came back to earth, she could tell Harry was grinning against her folds.

"Like that?" he asked, voice muffled, but vibrations of his voice and mouth causing another shiver to run through her.

"I did," Ginny told him, voice husky, unable to find even a small shred of herself willing to joke in the moment.

Harry nodded, tongue sliding languidly from her clit to her still pulsating opening.

She gasped, fingers winding their way into Harry's dark hair.

Oh, the way his face looked, buried there, eyes dark with want as they met hers from his kneeling position.

"Oh, Harry," she groaned. "Please, I need you inside me."

Ginny tried to reach for his hard bulge but couldn't quite master the distance from where she was sat atop her desk.

"What the lady wants, she gets," he told her.

"Merlin, that was cheesy," she berated him, grinning. "But also, so sexy."

His smile was doing mysterious things to her as he stood up. She fumbled to undo his belt and unbutton his trousers, pulling them down as far as she could reach before moving her hand to his length, caressing it.

It was so velvet-soft and hard, all at the same time. Merlin, she loved Harry's cock. She'd not allowed herself to think of it since the last time she'd had him inside her, but now, as she played with it, and licked her lips, she admitted it to herself.

With her free hand, she moved her ruined knickers to the side for him again. He guided his cock to her center, and as he entered her, Ginny finally felt aching relief. Her eyes closed momentarily at the feeling of fullness and completion before they opened again as he began to move within her.

With each of his movements, she found herself getting closer and closer to the edge again, the tension in her belly growing.

"Oh, fuck, Harry."

His lips were on hers again, one hand finding its way to her breast and the other found purchase on the desk. She used both her hands to grab his arse and dragged him even closer, deeper within her.

She continued to curse until she finally came. As she pulsated around him, she felt him begin to twitch inside her.

She leaned forward and bit into Harry's shoulder gently.

They both stayed like that as they rode their highs, panting as they came down. She glanced into his eyes, his pupils now back to normal.

"Well, cleaning this up would be tricky if we were Muggles," she joked.

He chuckled. "Good thing we aren't then, Miss Weasley."

Ginny flushed. "Certainly. You ready?"

Harry nodded and pulled away and out of her. She felt the loss and the cold began to seep back in quickly. Ignoring it, she grabbed her wand from her bag and did a quick cleaning charm on both of them, as well as a freshening charm.

"That was…" she reached for the words, unable to find them.

"Yeah," Harry agreed. He looked at her seriously again, as he had before they'd begun. "Seriously, though, are you alright?"

"I think so," Ginny said. "I'm going to get some Pepper-Up potion, and now contraceptive potion, on my way home. I'm not sure if I'm catching something or if it was that exhibit…"

"The Morgana one?" he asked.

Ginny nodded. "That was my find—I know it. But that excavation…"

She trailed off, unable to form the words for what she'd experienced. She'd never been able to voice what had happened, the true horror of it all.

Harry nodded. "I understand. I've had some hard ones too. You don't have to tell me if you're not ready."

"Thank you," she said in relief. Ginny pulled her skirt and jumper back down, making sure her bra was placed correctly.

Her knickers were now unpleasantly chilly and wet against her nether regions. She pulled them off and shrunk them down, placing them in her briefcase. "I know that's gross, but they need a proper washing, and I can't have them just hanging where anyone can see."

"You were soaked," Harry agreed. "I don't blame you."

"One could blame you, though," Ginny joked.

Harry laughed. "Me? It was you who started that!"

"No, it was definitely you," Ginny argued, smiling.

She wanted the chill to go away. It was burrowing deep within her again, even as she lightheartedly joked back and forth with Harry.

She saw Harry glancing at the clock on the wall behind her.

"What time is it?" she asked.

"Past time to leave," he told her. "Can I walk you to the Apparition point?"

Ginny nodded, smiling. As they gathered their things, the silence between them seemed to whisper about what they'd done.

They left the office, finding there was hardly anyone left in the manor house, except the odd curse breaker or researcher here and there in the scattered pods in the common areas.

Their hands brushed against each other teasingly, warmth igniting again at Harry's touch against her hand.

They bid each other goodbye for the evening, and when Ginny walked into her flat after picking up her potions, she found she was exhausted and freezing.

She took a quick shower, then both potions (the potions master at the apothecary had assured her she could take them right after one another, with no interactions), steam still billowing from her ears as she fell into her bed, asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.

She drifted into a watery room. Cold light with a green sheen shone all around her, water dripping nearby into a bigger body of water that made Ginny feel incredibly uneasy.

She was lying on the cold, stone floor in a white nightdress that reminded her of what her mum had dressed her in when she was younger. A cold droplet of water fell onto her forehead, jolting her into a sitting position with a sense of fear and dread she hadn't felt since the war… and the Chamber of Secrets.

Ginny looked around, taking in the sights. It reminded her vaguely of the Chamber, but there was something else about it… something disturbingly familiar.

As if somebody's gaze was lingering on her, she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Ginny's head whipped around; she was sure she must be imagining things. Why did this room feel so familiar? It wasn't the Chamber of Secrets, but it was so… eerie.

Guinevere, she felt, more than heard, the name whispered against her skin, a cold breath of air causing gooseflesh to erupt.

A shiver raced up her spine and Ginny stood up now, realizing for the first time that she was barefoot. The floor was so cold, it hurt to stand on.

A figure cloaked in white rose up from the body of water, now. A pair of pale hands reached out from beneath the cloak, and she heard it again, watching as the breath moved through the cloak and into the chilled air. Guinevere.

Another shiver took over her body, and her muscles began to cramp from the chill.

"Who are you?" she finally got the nerve to ask, remembering herself.

Her voice echoed throughout the cavern.

"Guinevere," the voice said more clearly now. Ginny moved towards the white cloaked figure, hand moving to grasp her wand.

The pale hands reached out to her, clenching around empty air.

With a gasp, Ginny woke up, drenched in cold sweat.