Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-One: Reversal of Fortune

Daphne and Ginny made their way back down in silence, after putting the diary back in its box and closing it again. They sat on the couch, not speaking, each still absorbed in her own thoughts. Even though the war had been going on for two years already — although only one year openly — the realities of it hadn't yet hit Daphne as much as they'd done just now.

Yes, her own life had been in danger, but while that had shocked her, it hadn't truly reached her. Even the deaths of Cedric and Moody hadn't, because she hadn't been there when those things happened. And with Dumbledore's death, she'd known ahead of time that it would happen, and she even knew that if Snape hadn't killed him, the curse would have.

And yet, seeing this sixteen-year-old diary entry from the previous war managed to do what all those other hardships could not: impress on her the true weight of mortality itself. It was probably mostly because Daphne knew that Petunia didn't like talking about her sister, and was cold and callous when she did so, and yet that one diary entry had shown that, two days after her death, she'd mourned for her. It was such a personal thing that it hit like a punch to the face. She couldn't imagine having to write something like that, let alone saying it at a funeral.

"I hope Mundungus will know where to find Bill," Ginny said. "I want to do something. Anything but sitting around."

Daphne checked her watch. It was still early, so it would most likely be a while before anyone came by. She wasn't really in any mood to keep on snooping through the house, however; the diary had taken away that desire.

"I hope so too," she replied, unsure of what else to say.

She wanted to hug Ginny again, but they were sitting just too far apart to be able to do it with a single movement, and Daphne wasn't sure if Ginny would want her to, now that the first shock of what they'd read had passed. She was probably still angry, anyway, but Daphne knew there wasn't much she could do about it now. Like Ginny had said, it would take some time to rebuild the level of trust they'd had before.

"I can almost feel you overthinking things," Ginny said with a faint smile.

Daphne smiled back a bit sheepishly. "That's just how I am, I guess," she said.

"So what are you thinking about?" Ginny asked.

Daphne thought Ginny probably knew already, but she said, "About, y'know, you."

Ginny nodded slowly. "And what kind of things are going through your head right now?"

Daphne shrugged. "I don't know," she said with a sigh. "I…I want to hug you, but I don't know if I should. If you want me to. If…" She made a frustrated sound. "That," she finished with a shake of her head.

Ginny responded by sliding over closer to Daphne.

"You idiot," she said softly, but there was no sting behind the words. "Just because I'm angry at what you did doesn't mean I love you any less. The separate beds in the hotel? That was never meant to be something that would last for an arbitrarily long time. That's just because right then, I was upset and you were the reason for it, so I couldn't, like I normally would, find comfort with you."

"So…aren't you upset anymore now, then?" Daphne asked.

"I am," Ginny said, "but with everything going on now…I just want you close to me. I want Harry close to me as well, as soon as we can find him. I know you didn't mean to hurt me. I don't think you'll do it again in the near future, either, but you just happened to pick something that runs really, really deep for me. And I'm sure that at some point, I'll do something like this to you. And we'll definitely have at least one of these things with Harry, too, sometime. That's just how these things go. I've heard Mum and Dad have some pretty big arguments in my life, but I don't think they'd ever split up. They love each other too much. Your parents must've fought sometime too, right?"

Daphne nodded. "They have, but they usually made sure I wouldn't hear it. And the few times I did, they explained what was going on — and in the process, usually cleared up whatever thing they were arguing about because they calmly explained their positions to me. Sometimes they even asked me to come over for a moment so they could do that on purpose," she said.

Ginny chuckled. "That works too, I guess. With my parents, my dad usually ends up apologizing. In fairness, if Mum's angry with him it's usually because he's been tinkering with Muggle devices again. The few times he was mad at Mum, I think she did actually end up apologizing to him. That's really rare, though."

"I wonder how the Dursleys handled it," Daphne said. "Having an argument, I mean."

"Going by Harry's stories, they were mostly united against him, I think," Ginny said.

"I suppose that works, too," Daphne said with a small frown.

"Hey, he's rid of them now, and we searched their house. I think we win, in the end," Ginny said.

Daphne grinned at her. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

She stretched out and leaned back into the back rest. "Should we watch some TV, or something?" she asked. "I mean, not like we can go anywhere."

Ginny shrugged. "Yeah, why not. It'll at least give us some fun stories to tell Dad later."

Daphne stood up, grabbed the remote control from next to the TV, and sat back down again. The remote had a lot of buttons on it, and Daphne tried to remember which one was the power button.

"I think it's that one in the corner there," Ginny said. "The circle with the line."

Daphne pointed the remote at the TV and pressed the button Ginny indicated. Indeed, it turned on.

"You paid more attention than I did, clearly," Daphne said.

The TV showed a woman with a fake smile, who was talking about some kind of machine to squash oranges. A bar at the bottom of the screen said the machine was on sale for only a hundred pounds, and to call the number on display to buy it.

"Pressing oranges isn't exactly hard even without magic," Ginny said. "Why would you ever need something like this?"

"Well, it's not like a lot of the junk in Diagon Alley is particularly useful," Daphne said.

"Fair enough. But is this really all there is? Because if so, I don't get the appeal of TV," Ginny said.

"Well, this thing has more buttons. Let's…press a few and see what happens," Daphne said. She pressed the 1 on the remote, and the advertisement was replaced by a news program.

"…identity of the killer has not yet been determined. Authorities are baffled as to the motive…"

The screen showed footage of a house surrounded by police cars, and a header that said, "PRESTON HOLMES (41) FOUND EVISCERATED IN HOME."

"I know that name," Daphne said, feeling a chill running down her spine. "He worked at the Ministry. I think he was with the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. The Department of Mysteries sometimes needed their help when their experiments went a bit wrong."

"Eviscerated, though? D'you think it was Greyback?" Ginny asked.

"Him, another werewolf, or some horrible creature we don't even know yet," Daphne said. "Could've been an Inferius, too, I suppose."

"I wonder what he did to anger the Death Eaters," Ginny said.

Daphne scoffed. "Probably just cleaned up a mess they caused. They don't want things to be smoothed over and hidden, because then no one is going to be afraid of them."

She stared blankly at the news report for a few seconds more, before saying, "I think I've had enough TV for a while. You?"

Ginny nodded, so Daphne turned the TV off again and checked her watch. Still quite a bit of time left.

"Hey, d'you think they'll bother ringing the doorbell?" Daphne asked.

Ginny shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe? Why?"

"Because there's nothing to do and I'm tired because I didn't sleep that well last night, so I thought I'd go and take a nap," Daphne said.

Ginny got up from the couch. "Sounds like a plan to me. We'll be up again long before they're here, anyway…"

"You're okay with being in the same bed again?" Daphne asked tentatively.

Ginny nodded. "Yeah. After what we've just seen, both in the diary and on TV…I don't want any regrets if everything goes wrong."

Daphne smiled faintly. "Me neither," she said softly.

A harsh ringing sound made Daphne jump out of the bed and draw her wand. Ginny, who'd been closest to the wall, simply sat up with her wand out. It took Daphne a second to recognize the sound as the doorbell.

She checked her watch. It had only been about forty minutes since they'd lain down. Had Mundungus really come by that early?

Daphne exchanged a glance with Ginny, and then both of them snuck toward the stairs. The doorbell rang again, and Daphne went downstairs, while Ginny remained at the top, wand pointed down.

"Who's there?" Daphne asked.

"I am Bill Weasley, curse-breaker, married to Fleur Delacour and scarred by Fenrir Greyback, and I once told you how to get in touch with someone who can break a curse of misfortune," a voice from the other side of the door said.

Daphne looked up the stairs.

Ginny stared back in shock and quickly came down the stairs. "Bill, is it really you?" she asked.

"It certainly is. Do you want me to prove it to you, too? Because I've got a few stories…Like that one time when you were seven–"

"Shut up or I'm cursing you through the door!" Ginny said, turning bright red.

Bill laughed, and Daphne accepted that it was probably the real Bill. She opened the door and Bill, scarred but grinning, stepped into the Dursleys' house and hugged Ginny.

"I'm so glad to see you," Ginny said softly. "How are Mum and Dad? Are they safe?"

Bill nodded. "They're worried about you and Ron…but I heard you were trying to find me?" he said.

Daphne nodded. "Let's go to the living room. Bit more comfortable than standing in the hallway," she said.

They went back into the living room. Daphne and Ginny sat down on the couch again, Bill on one of the chairs next to it.

"How did you get here so quickly?" Ginny asked. "We thought Mundungus wouldn't come by for hours."

"Normally he wouldn't. But a Ministry employee has been murdered–"

"Preston Holmes?" Daphne interrupted. "We saw it on the Muggle news just now."

Bill nodded. "Yes. That happened just last night, and Mr. Holmes lived relatively close to here; a bit closer to London proper but still in this direction, so the Order wanted to let Mrs. Figg know as soon as possible, and Mum had told Dung to keep an eye out for you, so when Mrs. Figg told him the two of you were here he immediately dropped by the Burrow, and I was there to pick up some things…"

"Did someone take Felix Felicis recently?" Daphne asked with a shake of her head.

Bill grinned. "I've occasionally suspected Dung of using it when he needs to lie low. He gets caught often enough, but when things get really tricky, he usually slips through the authorities' fingers. Anyway, I don't suppose you were looking for me to come back home?" he asked Ginny.

Ginny shook her head. "No…we're…trying to break my Trace, actually," she said.

Bill cocked his head. "I'm pretty good with charms, but I don't know if I can break a Trace," he said. "It's not a curse, after all."

"We were actually hoping you'd know if Valentina Barese is in the country," Daphne said.

"I'm not sure if I should be insulted that you didn't even consider I might be able to do it too, but since I just told you I can't, I'll let it slide," Bill said. "In any case, yes, she is still in Britain. She was at Dumbledore's funeral and she spent some time in Scotland after that, and I believe she intended to go to Ireland, but then the Ministry fell and traveling became harder. She was looking into some Gaelic types of curses, like the geis, and how they differ between regions. I don't know if even she can break a Trace, however, although knowing her she'll certainly try."

"So…do you know where we can find her?" Ginny asked.

"Not right now, but it won't take me long to find out," Bill said. "Give me two hours and you'll know." He looked at Ginny with a sad look. "I'd feel better if you didn't do this, but I know you too well to know you won't back down until you've at least tried. I'll tell Mum you're doing well, anyway."

He got up and said, "Alright, I'll get going right away. The sooner you get this done, the better, and if it's possible, Valentina can probably do it."

He walked out of the room, and a moment later, Daphne heard the front door close.

She looked at Ginny. "We can finally get it done," she said excitedly.

"Hopefully, yes," Ginny said. She grinned. "I'm still angry, but if this works, it'll be a lot less."

Daphne grinned back. She was confident Bill would be able to find Valentina. Finally, they'd be able to join the fight for real.

Shorter than yesterday, some 'maybe magic, maybe mundane contrived coincidences', but whatever, the show must go on.