A/N: The "group project" mentioned in this chapter is the basis on Chemistry's storyline, for anyone that hasn't read it. (And if you haven't, I don't blame you—it wasn't great. My writing has improved a lot over the past year.)

Chapter Four: A Plan is Made

Blackmail, I thought as I laid awake in my bed that night.

That was the only possible explanation.

Or Ginny was working with Pansy's organization, but that seemed doubtful for a few reasons.

First, she and Pansy were never seen together.

Second, the way Pansy had mentioned protecting her, how that wasn't one of the things she had initially been tasked with doing, made it seem like Ginny wasn't originally part of the operation. Ginny could, of course, have also just joined later, but she had been part of the Death Eaters before that, so she had to have had a different reason for initially joining Voldemort's ranks.

That reason, I figured, must be blackmail. It seemed the only reasonable solution. How could someone fake such a sunny disposition for so long, clearly be against what Voldemort had been preaching all those years, and then turn around and join them? Unless I was missing a major part of the story, it didn't seem that plausible.

But that still left one major hole in this whole thing—why did they want her to be a part of them? If I was right about everything, they had wanted her badly enough to do quite a bit to get her.

Why?

If they wanted her as a spy, they really could have used anyone else. Even if they wanted someone young, Draco Malfoy or Pansy Parkinson were both children of Death Eaters and were both plenty smart enough. They could have easily done the job. Why not one of them? Obviously Pansy hadn't believed in them enough to stick with them and had been turned easily. So perhaps they didn't trust one of their own to be loyal enough.

After all, I couldn't help but feel like growing up in their ranks wouldn't have been the greatest thing.

But Malfoy and his lackeys definitely seemed loyal enough, and so had Pansy, even if she later proved not to. So that didn't seem like a good enough answer.

But then still—why Ginny?

What did she have that they wanted?

A father that was part of the government? Being in a close position to Dumbledore? She was one of his favorites, after all.

But that didn't seem like enough, did it? There were plenty of people who met both of those requirements. So why not choose someone less likely to turn on them than her, if they had to blackmail her?

What was I missing?

I was careful after that.

I consciously made an effort not to talk to Pansy any more than I had before so as not to draw any unwanted attention to her. That meant that the only updates I got were from Luna when we were completely alone—which wasn't very often.

I didn't follow Ginny outside of school, but I did keep an eye on her—she was in some deep shit and I wanted her to be okay.

Over the past few weeks, I'd learned a lot about her. And instead of making me want to run, it made me want to be closer to her.

But regardless, I didn't pressure her about giving me the whole story—she was scared, I could tell that much, and I didn't want her to feel like she couldn't tell me anything. If she wanted to talk, she could when it was best for her.

As the new trimester came around, I ended up with a few more classes with her, and I started to notice that she seemed more down. I hadn't been sitting with her as much, but when I did, I could tell that there were discrepancies between when she was in class and when she was with her friends. She seemed more down and depressed—and scarily more real—in her classes. With her friends, she seemed… normal. And that worried me.

Maybe it was because when she was in class she didn't have all her friends watching her constantly.

But she was definitely down. Something was wrong—obviously—but it was becoming more clear in her everyday actions. That concerned me.

She wasn't going to be able to keep doing this much longer—I wouldn't have been, either—but I had no idea what to do to help her.

And, of course, Pansy kept telling me not to get involved, that it was being handled, that my meddling would only make things worse, but sometimes I wondered how true that was.

Would my meddling really make things worse? If Ginny didn't make it out because she was kept in a place she shouldn't have been in to begin with, then maybe meddling was required, especially if no one else was going to do it.

But I understood, at least, that being involved in this would be dangerous to me, too, and to Ginny. Not to mention that I didn't know the whole story—I could easily screw something up.

I wanted to help, though.

So, for a short-term solution, I just kept hanging out with Ginny, tried to be a supportive friend. Sometimes we'd share secret, meaningful glances. Her eyes would seem to ask me not to tell anyone, and I would try to tell her back that I wouldn't.

Like the event in the library, we never spoke about it out loud after that moment in the hallway. She avoided me for a while after that, but then drifted back, like she wanted to be near someone that understood what she was going through.

We still didn't talk about it, though. Nor did I with anyone else. I didn't even mention anything to Harry or Ron, as I didn't want them to do something stupid like I knew they probably would. One inexperienced idiot in this whole mess was enough. The two of them added to the whole thing would be an ugly trainwreck that Pansy would—and rightfully so—blame entirely on me. I didn't want to deal with that.

Besides, I was pretty sure that Harry had some crush problems of his own—although I was willing to bet that they weren't quite as bad as mine. I was pretty sure he was secretly falling for Draco Malfoy, which was annoying and he probably felt like it would be frowned upon, but at least he didn't have to deal with all the shadows and spies that I did.

Now, not only that, but to make matters, worse, I slipped up and told the two of them that I was in love with Ginny.

"I wish I had a girlfriend," Ron had said.

"Man, me too," I responded without thinking.

"What?" Ron said.

"What?" I said back, realizing what I'd implied.

Harry let out a slight snort. "Er… 'Mione?"

"Er. Right." I felt my face heat.

"Did you mean…?" Ron trailed off.

I was silent.

"Well, I mean, that's fine," Ron said. "We don't care if you're… gay."

"Yeah, I didn't think you would. Well, I knew Harry wouldn't. I wasn't sure about you."

Harry coughed. "What?"

"Oh. Sorry, I thought you were, too."

"No!" he said quickly.

I raised an eyebrow that was an utter lie.

"No," he said again. "We all like girls here."

I smiled. "Alright. Sure. Still have a crush on Ginny, then?"

"Yeah. What's your point?" he asked.

"Nothing. I'm just saying she doesn't really seem like your type."

"Hey, she's nice, pretty, smart! What's not to like?"

"Nothing. I'm not saying she's not hot or anything."

It was Ron's turn to snort.

"Sorry," I said. "Anyway, I'm just saying that you're never… I don't know, awkward around her, watching her, doing little things for her, trying to hang out with her."

"What, like you are?" Harry asked, seeming smug until he realized what he'd said. "Wait. Do you have a crush on her?"

"Mm… I'm unable to comment at this time." I offered a small smile as I picked up my books. "I'll see you guys later in chemistry."

"Don't remind me," Harry groaned—we had a huge group project coming up and he had to work with Malfoy, which he wasn't particularly thrilled about. Well, he made a huge deal about it, anyway, but as I said before—I had theories of my own.

I walked to class, a slight smile on my face.

My heart was pounding, blood rushing past my eyes. I hadn't been nervous in the moment, but now it was catching up with me. I was happy, though. I knew I shouldn't have been worried about telling Harry and Ron. I had always known they would love me no matter what—we had been friends for a few years now, even though I had just moved to this school last December, and I knew that they wouldn't give up on me.

But it's the sort of thing you can never guarantee. Sometimes the people closest to you don't support you for something you can't change, and you have to accept that. And I was worried that that would be me—left by my only friends. I didn't want it to be.

I sat down in chemistry, let out a breath, leaned back, and decided that I was going to talk to Ginny after school.

"Are you okay?"

"Why do you care? I'm just a lost cause. Give up on me, already, Hermione. I don't want you involved in this, so just leave me be."

"You don't want to be a part of all of this." It wasn't a question. I already knew the answer. "I want to help you."

She met my eyes and I saw something in her's that I hadn't seen before—fear.

"You need to stay away."

"I want to help," I whispered.

"Why? Up until a few months ago, we'd never even spoken to each other besides a few quick greetings."

"We're friends now, aren't we?"

"But we weren't before. Why?"

She was smart. It was one of the things I liked about her.

"I've always liked you, Ginny."

"Why?"

"Can you stop asking why and just accept it?"

"I'm in a really difficult spot," she whispered. "I don't know who I can trust." Her voice wobbled. "I don't want to die, Hermione, and I don't want him to hurt my family. I have to be so, so careful."

I wrapped my arms around her as she started to cry. I stroked her long, soft hair, whispering that it would be alright, that it would turn out fine, but both of us knew I could never truly promise any of it.

Finally, I had to ask about what she'd said.

"Did he threaten your family?"

"Yeah," she whispered.

We had taken to sitting against the wall. We probably weren't supposed to be out this late, but no one had come to scold us just yet.

"Why?" I asked what I'd been wondering for a while now.

She didn't respond, leaving me to only speculate, to continue wondering as before.

"He wouldn't be pleased to find out that someone knows. Please don't mention this to anyone," she murmured.

"Okay," I said into her hair. It smelled like vanilla and mint.

"We should go to bed," Ginny said. She sounded reluctant. "All of my roommates are gone," she then said. At first, I wasn't sure why, but then I realized she didn't want to be alone and was hoping for me to offer for her to…

"Stay in my dorm tonight. Two of my dorm mates have already left for winter break, so there are some empty beds, and I'm sure that the others wouldn't mind if you stayed in there for tonight."

Ginny nodded. "That might be nice," she said as I wrapped an arm around her shoulders and we headed up the stairs.

Over the past few weeks, I think I had become one of her best friends. She wasn't very close to many people, which made me happy to be able to be there for her—even with all of the shit we were suddenly dealing with.

"We're making a move soon," Pansy told me. We were alone in a classroom.

"I think that a lot of people in there don't want to be. With the Death Eaters, I mean," I said.

"I know. We've taken that into account."

"I talked to Ginny yesterday. I don't think she's in a good place."

"Mentally or in this whole mess?"

"Both."

Pansy nodded. "I'm talking to Dumbledore about this later today. He's been helping with the case for a few months now, being the one who originally took down Voldemort. You could come."

"He's been helping?" I asked, shocked.

"Yeah," Pansy said. "Why do you sound so surprised?"

"I just… I've been talking to him about this for ages, and he keeps telling me that there's nothing he can do."

Pansy frowned. "Well, I doubt he would ever let someone your age handle something like this all by them self. When did you start talking to him about this? And what did you say?"

"At the beginning of the school year, I told him I thought that something was up with Ginny. Later I went to him and said that I thought she could be involved with the Death Eaters and that I didn't think she would just do something like that."

"Well, we didn't involve him until a little after that. My bosses didn't want to have to ask for help from a guy who's about 150. I'm pretty sure that he was the one who came to us about helping. It was probably around mid-November."

I nodded silently. I had thought that he hadn't wanted to help, hadn't believed me—but he had. I wasn't sure why I'd been so stupid as to think he wouldn't investigate on his own. As he's said before, most rumors have a base.

"Anyway," she said, "I think you've been a pretty big part of this. You could come with me, and I'm sure it would be fine."

I nodded again. "I don't think that Ginny will want me saying much."

"What is her deal, anyway?"

"She's been forced to be one of them. I don't know why though, and she doesn't want me to tell anyone."

"Well, you're gonna have to. I don't want her to get caught up in all of this, be blamed for something she never wanted to do or be. She's just a kid. She shouldn't go to prison for something that isn't her fault."

"You'll be safe soon," I murmured into Ginny's hair. Sometimes I hated the way that being friends with girls meant you could cuddle whenever you wanted—being a girl myself, it meant that it was always viewed as platonic.

"Hm?" she responded.

We were laying on my bed where I'd been helping her with her homework. We were alone and would be for a little while longer—my roommates liked to stay out much later than I did.

"Pansy and her people are making a move soon, and they're going to work to keep you safe."

She frowned. "Did you tell them about me?" She sounded angry. A reasonable inference, even considering that she'd been working with them.

"I—I had to, Ginny, and it's going to help keep you safe."

"You had no right to do that," she said, frustration in her voice.

I felt guilty all of the sudden. "It's to keep you safe," I said for the third or fourth time, sitting up.

"Well, you could have landed me in a lot of trouble! This could still get me in a lot of trouble. I can't believe you," she snapped, getting up, grabbing her jacket, and marching to the door.

"Come on," I said. "Where are you going?"

"Out."

"Wait, I'm sorry, Ginny," I said hurriedly, but she didn't look back, leaving me with a terrible sinking feeling that this was not going to end well. Everything was definitely heading to an end, though, that was for sure. I wasn't sure how I knew; I could just feel that screeching halt hurtling toward us all. Something bad had begun to fall into motion.

Chapter Release Date: January 2, 2019

A/N: Happy New Year, everyone! I'll see you next week for the last chapter! Also, so sorry for not posting last night—I totally spaced! My New Year's resolution: stop being so forgetful. =)