A/N: Wow, absolutely NO reviews for the last chapter. Probably tells me something, but I'm not sure what. Oh, well. I'll just keep plugging on. I find the story interesting, at least. And I hope the non-reviewers do, too. Shout-outs go to Leslie and Guerry…because they're cool. Hi, guys!
Disclaimer: I don't own the Davenports, Bear, the Chaser twins, or Tad and Frank, but I'd appreciate if you didn't steal them. Melinda Warren is a direct tribute to Charmed, and everything you recognize belongs to the wonderful JKR who is a nice lady to let all of us fanfic authors play in her realm.
Chapter Three: A Gaze of Emeralds
Harry stood outside the emergency ward at St. Mungo's, nursing his jaw and fighting the desire to pace. He'd lost his gear somewhere; was too tired to care where it had gone. Maybe Ron or Fred had taken it. He didn't particularly care.
The onslaught of Weasleys into the hospital hadn't been easy. It had started with Ron and Hermione, who had met them there. Ron had been the hardest—or at least his punch had. "Why didn't you protect her?!" he had roared on arrival. It had taken Bill, Fred, and Hermione to calm him down enough to do anything but yell, but Harry had received an earful before they were done. None of the other brothers were too happy that Harry had let her fall, but they understood that it couldn't be helped.
Now Ron was off finding ice for his sore hand (try a sore jaw, Harry thought very ungratefully in his friend's direction) and the rest of the Weasleys were in the waiting room, either pacing or pretending to read a magazine. Ginny had been in magical surgery for over two hours now, and they were all getting crankier by the second. Harry was debating going to find a drink just to avoid any explosions when he caught Hermione looking at him very pointedly. He sighed and sat down next to her. "What is it?"
Hermione sighed. Calming Ron had taken its toll and she looked as though she wanted nothing more than to sleep. However, worry for Ginny fuelled her, as it did the rest of them. "Ulysses Davenport is outside. He's demanding to know what happened."
Harry had been dreading that. "What did you tell him?"
"A freak accident--and that you're now roommates with Gin--I mean, Amy Mason. Your agent's trying to calm him down and give him the story I fed him. As far as I know, they're buying it. We can't have people prying into the Shrieking Shack, though. Some villagers were bound to hear the floor breaking."
"Just get a couple of agents in there telling ghost stories. Everybody'll think it's ghosts. And get the floor fixed tomorrow when nobody's expecting it." Harry rubbed his forehead and saw Hermione's eyes flick towards his scar. "Did we at least send somebody to get the Galleons? I'm going to be furious if she fell for no reason at all."
To their left, Charlie and George joined Bill and Fred in pacing. Percy's hands tightened around a day-old edition of The Daily Prophet. Hermione watched this with another hearty sigh. "Scotty picked them up over an hour ago. They're on their way to the Gringotts in Romania."
The sound of the doors swinging open made everybody in the room look up. There was a long pause as Ginny, tired, pale, and near the point of exhausted tears, stared back at them. She was leaning heavily on a cane, but she was alive, and walking. Almost everybody in the room rushed to her, surrounding her. Harry and Hermione merely watched the fray. They were part of the family, but in a way they were responsible for the accident. Hermione cast an apologetic look at Harry as she stood and joined the crowd, which was now trying to convince Ginny to sit down although she looked as though the only thing she wanted was to lie down and sleep for maybe a decade.
Harry alone stood back even after Ron had come back in and given Ginny a hug. Everybody was firing questions at Ginny so rapidly that she would be occupied for at least half an hour just assuring her family that she was fine. Expression stormy, Harry slipped out of the room, not even noticing that Ginny watched him go out of the corner of her eye.
*
"Mr. Weasley?" Seven redheaded men raised their heads from the huddle about the youngest Weasley to look at the hospital attendant that had ventured rather timidly into the room. Befuddled, the hospital attendant continued, "Mr. Ron Weasley?"
"That's me," Ron said, detaching himself from the group. He shrugged at their inquisitive glances and drew Bill aside. "Take her to the Hutch. She can stay in my room and avoid the press for a couple of days while she recovers." Bill nodded and headed back into the fray, while Ron politely followed the attendant to the private Floo. Harry's head sat in the flames, the expression impatient. As Ron settled himself into the chair that St. Mungo's provided, he frowned. He hadn't even noticed that Harry had left the waiting room. "What's up, mate?"
"So I'm 'mate' now?" Harry's hand sneaked into view as he rubbed his jaw. Ron felt the first twinge of guilt. "Look, get over here. I've just been going over table diagrams, and you're not going to like it."
When Harry wore that expression, Ron knew something a little more than serious was going on. He dropped two Knuts into the Floo dish, received a handful of Floo powder and said, "Make way, mate." Harry's head disappeared from the flames and Ron threw the Floo powder in, shouting, "Fish and Chips!" Harry was standing by the planning table when he tumbled from the proper hearth; the Boy-Who-Lived didn't even bother to look up as he crossed the room. "What's going on?"
"Just going over some floor plans, that's all," Harry said, still not looking at Ron. The Tunnel Director studied the projected image, recognising it to be the layout of the second floor of the Shrieking Shack. "Now, imagine if you will, that I am here, and Ginny is here, holding the Galleons." His wand tip left two green dots on the layout. Pink smears showed where the protecting hexes had been placed. "I've just programmed the table to show the stability of the areas I've indicated. The most stable is a dark green, and the least stable is red." He set his palm flat against the table, and the layout lit with a myriad of reds and greens. Ron's eyes scanned the area that the two brighter green dots still convened upon.
"What am I supposed to be looking for?" he asked after a minute.
"Right here." Harry pointed at the green dot in the hallway, himself. The floor underneath was glowing a very dangerous red. "Now, look here." He indicated the Ginny dot, which was standing on a green plane. "Look suspicious to you?"
"If you're saying that the floor had no reason to collapse, then yes it does." Ron frowned and placed both hands on the edge of the table. "Show all recent magical activities."
Streaks of light spread about around the board, causing the frowns of both men to deepen. "We managed to avoid this cluster here, but if you'll look here…" He rubbed a finger over the Ginny dot. "There was a hex cast right before she fell, it looks like. I didn't cast anything but a spell to push the door in and quiet the creaking floorboards. You can check my wand, if you want."
"No, I trust you." Ron shook his head. "So you're saying that somebody was in the house with you? Somebody knew you were even going to be there?" His frown looked permanently etched into his face at the moment. "The only ones who knew about this mission were Hermione, me, and…Scotty…"
Now Harry's face echoed the worry. "Dispatch an agent to Scotty's flat," he ordered, not bothering to care whether it was the Tunnel Director or not. "I don't think that was Scotty we were talking to at all. Polyjuice?"
"Polyjuice," Ron confirmed grimly. It took only a few fire-calls and soon he had two agents breaking into Scotty's house to check out the situation. Neither of the two men knew to hope; if somebody under Polyjuice could fool them that well…Scotty probably wasn't alive. How long somebody had been masquerading as the Scottish young man, nobody would know, but the last thing Ron wanted to do was show up on his parents' doorstep with a hat in his hand and the words, "Mr. and Mrs. Darrow? I'm afraid I have some bad news…"
They waited in silence on either end of the table for the news to report back for a good twenty minutes before Ron sighed heavily and said, "You should probably get back to the Hutch. I had Bill take Ginny there so that she could avoid the press."
If anything, that was a sign that he had been forgiven. Ginny could have spent the night at any number of places, given that nobody from the press really knew that she was a Weasley, but Ron had specifically chosen the Hutch. Maybe it was a challenge to protect her; Harry wasn't going to let them down this time. He nodded and thumped the side of his fist down on the planning table to clear it. On the way to the fire, he stopped and turned. "Who invented that table?"
"Hm?" Ron, already looking through a clipboard he kept in the basement, looked up and followed Harry's line of sight. "Oh, that was invented by Hermione and the twins. They're brilliant when they put their heads together."
"So we're the only division that has one of these, then?" he asked with some surprise.
Ron had thought that this was pretty common knowledge. "Yes. Although France has been trying to get their greasy paws on it for over two years by way of Fleur." Ron rolled his eyes at the quarter-Veela and Harry gave him a ghost of a smile. Bill's wife had mellowed after the birth of their first child "I can see the idea percolating in your head, so just call tomorrow morning or owl me. Right now your priority is Ginny."
"Right." Harry threw a fistful of Floo powder into the fire and shouted, "The Hutch!" to be taken up a swirl of colour. Ron watched him go and turned back to the paperwork, sighing. It was supposed to be a simple mission, but one of his agents had nearly been mortally wounded and another was even at this moment presumed deceased. It was a heavy load to carry if nothing else, and some days he just hated his job.
*
When Ginny woke, her first thought was of confusion, her second thought was of discomfort, and her third thought was, "Wait, where am I again?" This was not such an unfamiliar thought, as Ginny had woken in a lot of strange places over the years, mostly due to sleepwalking. Of course, some cases she had worked on required odd sleeping hours, and the main effect that had on her was to make her forget where she had gone to sleep.
She studied the room without moving anything but her eyes, not even letting herself stiffen to show that she was awake. It was one of those random things she had picked up in the field, even though it hadn't come in handy yet. Still, old habits died hard and she let herself scan the darkened corners of the room—a masculine affair done in rich mahogany tones and dark green. The paintings on the wall were of stills in famous Quidditch games, done in earthy colours to match the room. The dresser was cluttered with various odds and ends—she was clearly in somebody's room, and by the lack of warmth behind her, she was pretty sure she hadn't slept with anyone, or he had already left the bed. Fearful that that might be the case, Ginny slowly turned her head to where she could see the other half of the room and scanned the walls. A closet door, an open door leading to the rest of the house, a small bedside table filled with knickknacks…Harry in an armchair, looking dead to the world.
At this, Ginny sat up straight. This must be Harry's room, or at least his house. That was the scent of his cologne on the air. Why hadn't she noticed it before? What was going on? How had she ended up here? The last thing she could remember was opening the door for Harry—she paled. Had she actually slept with Harry? She would never live that down!
As though he somehow sensed that her thoughts were about him, he raised his head and looked over at her, shaking sleepiness off like a cloak. "'Morning," he greeted in a warm, cracking voice that would have made any woman happy to hear in the middle of the night. "I trust you slept well. They gave you enough to knock out an elephant and all you did was act drunk for a long time."
Ginny only looked at him blankly. He chuckled and pushed his hands into his forehead and through his hair, taking his time to stretch after that. She might have been annoyed if the pain hadn't chosen that exact time to assault her middle, making her wince.
A warm hand pressured her shoulder for a brief moment as Ginny sucked air through her teeth. A thousand hooks were pulling at her rib cage, making her want to scream. Harry's voice was sympathetic. "Try not to move so much. You dislocated a rib when you fell—I shouldn't wonder if it hurts." Seeming to know that he was about to receive a death glare, Harry disappeared from the room and reappeared less than ten seconds later, holding a goblet of something that smoked and smelled quite unpleasant. If the all-encompassing pain in her ribcage wasn't making simple things like speaking and insulting difficult, Ginny would have hexed him. Instead, she took the drink he offered and he ordered, "Drink it all and then I might make you breakfast. If you're nice to me and promise not to run away."
He was a Tunnel agent. There would be anti-Apparation shields for at least half a mile around his apartment. She didn't think that actual running was possible in her state, but she could hardly tell him that. Glaring at him to show his humour was unappreciated, she quaffed the drink and nearly gagged it back up. "What do they use for this?" she demanded. "Aardvark bogies?"
Harry grimaced. "I'm not even going to ask how you came up with that." He smiled and Ginny felt herself relax as the pain gave way into numbness. "Shall I go cook breakfast, then?"
"As long as it's not cold pizza." Ginny closed her eyes and sighed, knowing that she would have to take it easy the next couple of days and not liking that one bit. She had never quite learned the same inner stillness that several of her fellow agents celebrated, so she was usually a whirl of energy that flitted from one place to another without pause. Distracted, she ran a hand through her hair and winced; it was positively grimy, and her skin felt as though it had acquired a thick film of grease.
The bed shook as Harry dropped a satchel—one of hers—onto the end. "Tara packed some clothes for you. Shower's down the hall, why don't you go get changed and get ready for the day? I told Ulysses that you would be at the afternoon practice to work out some logistics." He walked out with his hands in his pockets, way too awake for it to be such an early morning. Either that, or he was a morning person, and Ginny didn't exactly remember that from Hogwarts. She had seen him at far too many breakfasts, trying not to nod off into the cereal.
By the time she had showered and changed (inwardly thanking Tara for not including the hideous shirt the girl had been threatening to make her wear for years), Harry had managed to come up with a full breakfast, minus the tinned tomatoes. The dining room, living room, and kitchen were all one large room, an open, airy space that was quite neat, much to Ginny's surprise. She had expected the Hutch to be messy, but the little clutter that there was only made it look tastefully lived in. Harry had set the smallish dining room table with fancy plates. "Pulling out all the stops?" Ginny asked as she sat down.
She was determined to figure out what was going on without letting on that her memory was patchy. A loose memory was a weakness in her field, and while she was more content to lean on her brothers in the times where she was low, Harry had never fitted into that category. She had barely seen the guy in five years, excepting their rather interesting excursion to Tony's. That had ended badly, she thought darkly. After Dermot left, she had barely been able to say a coherent word. Surely Harry had noticed her checking over her shoulder every other minute. Of course, she had recovered by the time that the Typhoon started meeting, but that didn't erase the memories.
"Making sure you eat something." Harry shrugged in answer to her question and handed her a glass of orange juice.
Ginny didn't really like orange juice, but she drank it anyway. She had learned long before to choose her battles, and this wasn't a battle she particularly wanted to fight. "Is this your way of making sure I stay healthy, then? Did my brothers put you up to this?"
"Call it a trade. I make you breakfast, keep you from killing yourself by working too hard, you give me information and let me help you solve the case." Harry took a glass of orange juice for himself and sat down in the seat across from her.
That was her main problem with family. They all wanted into the business in her life. Up until the night before, Harry had merely been a friend on the outskirts. Of course, whatever had happened last night (curse her, she still couldn't remember) had changed all of that in some way. She wasn't about to let that happen, bad memory or not. "No."
"Why not?" Harry dug into the scrambled eggs sprinkled with pieces of bacon, bell peppers, and cheese. He was completely nonchalant, and for that Ginny wanted to smack him upside the head. Instead, she focused on sampling her own breakfast. "I spent awhile going over the paperwork, logistics, and staring at the Glass Table." Ginny nodded; on her return to England, she had been introduced to the Glass Table, a mapping device. Harry had probably had a hand in making it.
"I haven't actually seen that work," she said conversationally.
His fork paused between his mouth and the plate. "Ginny, Ron used it to show us the Shack."
"The Shack?" She sighed again and gave into it—there was just no way she was going to get the fact that she was weak because she couldn't remember past Harry. "I'm sorry, I'm not sure what exactly is going on." Like why there was a huge scar running across her midriff or why she had even needed a pain potion. "Okay, I can't remember anything past you showing up at my house. Whatever happened—you're going to have to explain it all to me."
Now the fork fell, clattering against the edge of the plate and dropping farther onto the floor. "You don't remember? That's odd." A line appeared between Harry's eyebrows as he collected the fork from the floor and wiped it on his shirt. Normally, Ginny would have wrinkled her nose at this crass display, but she was focusing on her food rather than the reality that something might be wrong with her. "What day is it to you?"
She shook her head. "It should be Saturday…?"
"Actually, it's Monday. You've been sedated all weekend to help your side heal." Harry smiled apologetically at her outrage. "You came around for a few minutes last night—enough to play some poker with your brothers and I." He scratched his head. "I guess the medicine's been affecting your memory. The short version of it is that Ron interrupted our dinner to ask us to go fetch some Galleons in the Shrieking Shack."
"The haunted place in the middle of Hogsmeade?" Ginny could not resist a grin at that. "Lark about school had it that Malfoy saw your disembodied head there. Colin saw him—got a picture of him covered in mud."
"Really?" Harry's eyebrows went up. "I'd like a copy of that one. My mantle's been looking empty as of late. Anyway, truth is, it's not haunted. It's where Remus went during the full moons when he was at Hogwarts. And my disembodied head did have a body. Malfoy just couldn't see it."
"Uh-huh." Ginny nodded and decided that she would rather not know. "So, what does that have to do with the fact that I felt somebody had my liver on a fish-hook when I woke up this morning?"
"Well, it turns out that the Shack is a 'hotbed for dark activity,' as Ron likes to put it, so we were both sent in."
"Oh. I can imagine that I didn't like that. I don't work well with others."
Harry rolled his eyes emphatically and she grinned at him, unapologetic. She had done it before and would probably do it again if the situation called for it. Unpredictability was her thing. "Of course. You told Ron and I you were going to get your helmet and Apparated directly to the site. I stopped you before you could do anything stupid, but that turned out useless. The floor collapsed under you on the second floor. You impaled yourself on a broken beam and basically hit, ruptured, or just damaged every important thing in your middle. I read the medical report—you're almost a modern miracle."
No wonder she had felt like her stomach was on fire. Ginny winced and looked down at her eggs. She was almost afraid to ask. "What did my brothers do?"
"The nurses were able to mend my broken jaw without any problem, and I'm not touching anything that's been within five miles of Fred and George, if that gives you any perspective."
Ginny groaned and closed her eyes. Her brothers could be a right pain in the neck when they wanted to be. Attacking Harry was out of line even for them. He was obviously upset that he hadn't been able to save her—hadn't they seen that? "I'll talk to them."
"No need. Your mum read them the riot act after the first eight times I turned into a chicken yesterday." Amusement glittered in the green eyes that looked at her over an orange juice glass. "They were just frustrated that I couldn't save you. Even if I don't quite agree with their methods, I understand how they feel."
"Still, it's not fair what they did to you."
"It's not, but I don't really care." Harry shrugged and looked at her sincerely. "I'm not afraid of your family. The fact that they're willing to throw a punch at me and then sit next to me in a waiting room more than tells me I'm accepted into the family—and better me than the next nurse to walk out of the emergency room without news." He took a bite of egg, his tone all too light-hearted for what he was saying. Ginny frowned at him as she finally decided to eat. "Quit giving me that look. You'll get wrinkles."
Either way, she decided, she was going to talk to Ron, for there was no doubt in her mind that Ron had thrown the punch. He could be rational when he was angry—unless she was hurt. Then he became irrational all too quickly. It had been one of the reasons she had taken the internship in Prague and then transferred out to Alabama. Ron didn't know the dangerous stunts she pulled that way. Well, occasionally he did, but he could usually be placated through a fire-call or something of that nature. "You can't tell me you really enjoyed getting that broken jaw."
"If by enjoyed you mean, I hated it and him for a good ten minutes, then yes, of course I did." Harry's grin was way too cheerful to be natural, she decided. "Eat some breakfast. Ron and Hermione should be here soon with the whole line of questioning you probably don't want to answer."
"Can't you tell them I'm asleep?"
"And risk another punch? I think not. Eat up."
Hermione and Ron trundled into the Hutch twenty minutes later, just as Harry was collecting the dishes to be put in the sink and Ginny was headed back into the room she had left her things in to collect them. To her surprise, they held two suitcases. "These are yours," Hermione told her once she had tutted and Ron had hugged Ginny long enough to make sure that she was not going to wilt away on them. "We've got the final analysis of the mission done, and you're not going to like it."
"If it were up to me, I'd ship you to a safe house in Madagascar," Ron grumbled, taking the mug of coffee that Harry passed his way. Hermione took her own coffee and settled on one of the wing-back chairs, indicating that the others should be seated as well. Ginny and Harry took the couch, a plush, blue affair, leaving the other wing-back chair to Ron. "We found Agent Darrow today—alive and in the cellar of an abandoned house in Hogsmeade. His report confirms it. Dermot was behind all of this." Ginny felt her blood ice over at her brother's words. Surely, Dermot hadn't managed to sneak into the European Tunnel, too? He'd followed her to Australia—now it was starting to become terrifying. Soon Ron would be forced to take protective measures. Who knew when she would get her life back then? She was on enough of a leash now. "He planted the Galleons, laid the trap. I think Harry's presence threw him from using a direct Killing Curse."
I'm going to be sick, thought Ginny rather distantly. I'm going to throw up all over Hermione's buckle-shoes. She didn't particularly want to be sick all over the shoes, for she remembered that Hermione really liked them, but the fear that overwhelmed her was having none of it.
"He cast the spell to weaken the floor, not realising that we would be able to detect it through the Glass Table," Ron continued. "He was Polyjuiced as Scotty Darrow, the agent we had on the scene. The whole thing was a giant trap and we walked into it like a bunch of first-years."
"What does this mean for the Tunnel, then?" Ginny asked, still staring at Hermione's shoes with a morbid fascination not to be sick all over them.
"Changes are underway. This is the first time this morning that Hermione and I have managed to escape the meetings long enough to deliver your things." Ron caught the expression on Ginny's face before she could voice her thoughts and held up a finger. "Everybody who has authorisation for the information concerning Dermot has had a say in this case and they all believe Harry would be the best protection for you until we can get Dermot into custody."
When Ginny opened her mouth to protest that they had no right to do this, Harry reached over and slapped a hand over the lower half of her face. She glared at him and tried to grab his wrist, but he lowered the hand on his own and said, "The Australian and American Directors have already sent documentation that they wish you to be under protective custody until the threat is removed. Your only other choice but to comply would be to leave the Tunnel." He said it gently, but Ginny still felt the impact of the situation hit her like a broomstick handle to the stomach. "So you're going to have a bodyguard for the next few weeks."
"Well, never let it be said that I ever disagreed with the Dream Team, then. Fine, stick a bodyguard on my case. It'll delay Dermot maybe a week, if we're lucky." Ginny sighed and stood, glad that nobody stopped her as she left the room, collecting her suitcases as she left. Harry had her situated in the guest bedroom, so she threw the suitcases onto the bed and sat down in the desk chair, dropping her head into her hands as she rubbed her temples. Her day was already turning out to look hellish, and it wasn't even noon yet. She heard quiet chatter in the living area and chose to ignore it instead of eavesdropping, suddenly feeling way too weary for her own good.
*
"So what are these rumours I hear about you and pretty Miss Mason?" Bear asked, grinning broadly as he and Harry stopped at the cooler balanced on one of the stands to grab a drink. The air might have cooled them a bit, but it was still a hot day and Dave was definitely not one of the coaches that relied on natural skill. He had drilled them nearly to the point of death in the morning practice, and now that the afternoon practice had rolled around, he was looking to finish the job. Every time Harry felt his attention wander, Dave would throw something at him to keep him on his toes.
Harry swallowed a long drink of water and dribbled some on his forehead. "Rumours," he said simply. "Amy Mason would hardly look my direction twice, much less snog me in an empty broom cupboard." He needed to hunt down whoever had started that rumour and beat them over the head with a stick. They had gone with the story that they were flatmates, but romantic entanglements were almost too much for him to handle. She didn't like it much—and neither did he, for that matter—but there wasn't much that could be done about it. "'Sides, I don't think she likes me very much at the moment." Well, that much was true. She had been on the verge of hitting him all day.
"She doesn't like you? Well, that's news." Bear laughed, a deep, rumbling laugh that made Harry wonder at the source of his nickname. "Have you not seen the way she looks at you? Man, you are one lucky bloke."
Harry lowered the water glass to gape at his teammate. Ginny had given him the cold shoulder the second that they had left for the practice, and had spent a good deal of time glaring at him. "Bear—have you had your eyes checked recently?"
"Something's going on. She's always looked at you like this." And Bear gave him a look that was such a poor mockery of a smitten expression that Harry splashed the rest of his water at the Keeper. "Whatever you said to her, it must have been bad."
Ginny was in the stands on the other side of the field, a thick notebook open on her lap as she dictated words to her quill. Her darker hair did not have quite the glimmer in the sun, but it was still very easy to pick her out of the occasional fan there to check out the new team. Sensing the attention of the two men by the cooler, she looked up and glared before going back to her notes. "Unfortunately," Harry sighed, "I haven't said anything." Yet, he added mentally. Hermione and Ron had interrupted what he had hoped would be a good morning for the two of them to work out some details. He knew they were just doing their jobs, but a part of him wished they would back off and let him do his. "Look, I'm going to go work out whatever this is while we're on break."
Bear laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. Harry winced; the Keeper may have been lanky, but he was strong, too. And almost unaware of that strength, unfortunately. "Ask her to come drinking with us."
"Why would I do that? She hates me. Did you not see the glare she just sent our way?"
A glimmer of amusement shone in Bear's eyes. "Tracy says that she'll pay for the rounds tonight if you convince Miss Mason to go with us. And a proper gentleman knows not to turn down a free drink—especially if a lady's paying!"
Laughing, Harry waved him off and flew away. His laughter disappeared as he neared Ginny, however. She had not been happy when they Floo'd to work and he doubted that her mood had changed much since. Her agenda had already included a meeting with Ulysses Davenport, and Harry knew that she had been forced to collaborate with Simon Bates several times already. The man was detestable enough, but put a calendar in front of him and it made Harry want to slug him. He could only imagine how Ginny felt.
He took his time dismounting and smiled at her. "What are you working on?"
She didn't look up. "Reservations at various inns. I'm lucky there are only seven of you—plus the reserves—and not like twenty eight or twenty nine." She sighed and rolled her shoulders, finally looking up. Weariness clouded into every line on her face, nearly punching him with its obviousness. "I can't wait until this day is over."
"Ron and Hermione wanted to come over for dinner," Harry offered, knowing that would make her wince, "but I told them to stay out for a couple of days. We both need some space to deal with the new arrangements."
She looked far more grateful than he had expected. "Imagine what Mum would say if she found out I were moving in with an unmarried man." Shielding her eyes, she looked up at the field, where the team could be found doing various activities. The Chasers were pulling off simple passes while the Beaters played catch with their bats. Bear hovered above the ground, chatting amiably with Dave Davenport and Simon Bates. "So what are you doing over here?"
There were several ways to go about this, and Harry knew that playing the clumsy fool wasn't the way to do it. "Asking you out for drinks."
"Harry, you know that—"
"Let me put it this way: I want to go out and have drinks with the team, but I can't do that without you being there. And Tracy says she'll pay if I manage to convince you to come." Harry ducked down so that his face was close to hers and gave her his most charming grin, knowing that both the grin and the closeness would fluster her. She reddened slightly, but raised an eyebrow at him. "What?"
"We're not going to Tony's, are we?"
"And be voted off the team? I think we'll just go to a normal pub. He sent flowers, you know." They were sitting in a vase atop his table—at first he had thought that they were Bill's addition, but a scrawled card had Tony's name on it. The guy was just a big softie inside, despite the fact that he ran the most dangerous pub on this side of the Channel.
"I know. I saw them." Ginny sighed to herself and looked down at her paperwork. "A pub, Harry? Are you trying to make Ron angry? This is a sure-fire way to go about it. He wants me on House Arrest the whole time, doesn't he?"
The Tunnel Director had said several things to that nature, but Harry chose to selectively forget them. "Either way, I'm your bodyguard, not him. Besides, it's kind of important that you get to know the team. That's your job, too, and letting Dermot keep you from that is letting him win." He shrugged lightly, mounted his broom again. Half a field away, the Chasers looked to be setting up for an inverted Hawkshead Formation, and that always meant that practice was starting again. "Try to stay near the team?" he asked as he prepared to fly away.
Ginny rolled her eyes. "Are you going to be this paranoid the whole time?"
Instead of answering, Harry put a hand on her side and looked at her seriously when she winced. She had been keeping the strain from her face, but he knew that she hadn't been taking it as easily as he had requested earlier. He frowned. She was going to run herself into a high fever if she kept this up. "I meant what I said earlier. Take it easy, or I will listen to Ron and put you on house arrest. Understand me?"
Before she could spin a retort, he was off and flying towards where Bear was discussing tactics with Tad and Frank.
*
Harry towelled his hair with his free hand, not really caring that it stuck up in damp tufts like a messy crown around his head. To that effect, he was clad only in an old pair of sweatpants and socks, for there was nobody around to see him in his current state. Ginny had stumbled into her room so tiredly that Harry knew she would be out until morning. And Ron preferred to use the telephone and not the fire, so he didn't have to worry about keeping up appearances.
"No, we weren't avoiding the phone when you called," Harry told his best friend now, his voice perfectly affable. Between the six of them, the Weasley brothers had left thirty messages on his answering machine. Even Percy had come down from his high horse long enough to check in, although his message was rather pompous, making Harry glad that he listened to it after Ginny had gone to bed. She didn't need to hear her brother being so high-handed when she already felt pushed around by everybody in her life. "We just weren't here."
"What?!"
"You heard me. We went out for drinks." Harry slung the towel over his shoulders and opened the icebox to check inside. Hermione had done him a favour and had gone grocery shopping for him. Now that he wasn't exactly living the life of the bachelor set apart, he needed to survive on a little more than takeout and omelettes. He selected a tube of yoghurt and opened that, shovelling a spoonful into his mouth before Ron's tirade began.
"You ignore her for six years at Hogwarts and then for five years after, and now that she's got a deranged stalker on her trail, you're interested in taking her out for drinks?! Harry—that's just—"
"Just what?" Harry's voice was dangerously soft.
"Are you daft, mate? What, do you only fall for girls with issues?" Genuine frustration entered Ron's voice, and Harry wasn't sure if it was because he was interested in Ron's sister or if his friend was looking out for his sake. Either way, Harry gritted his teeth and squared his stance, unconsciously preparing himself for a fight. "First that mess with Cho and then all of those meaningless dates, and now my sister?"
That was too far. Ron had not only crossed the line, but he had turned around and spit on it. Harry opened his mouth to tell him exactly where Ron could stuff that idea, but a hand closed over the bottom of the phone. Before he could whirl around, Ginny crowded into the space in front of him. Any traces of sleepiness had dissipated into confusion and concern. Brow furrowed, she looked from Harry to the phone that she was holding between them. "It's Ron," Harry muttered, none too happy that she had cut his rant off before it had even had a chance to start. "He's not happy that we went out for drinks."
"Let me talk to him."
"I don't think you want to do tha—" But she had already snatched the phone from him and was holding to against the side of her face. Left with no other choice but to surrender gracefully, he shrugged and took a bite of yoghurt. "Okay, then."
"Just what do you think you're doing, Ronald?" Ginny demanded into the phone with such acidity that for one amusing moment, Harry thought he saw a glimpse of her mother's temper in her. He was also incredibly glad that that temper was not directed at him. "Uh-uh! Don't you 'Now, Ginny' me. Listen, I've had it up to here with you and your bloody overprotective self! I don't know where you got the idea that I'm still young and naïve from, but you can stuff that idea up that arrogant bum of yours!"
Harry took a seat at the table to watch the spectacle unfold. He wondered idly if he should make popcorn or something to that nature, and then decided that he would rather not face Ginny's wrath at all. Staying out of the way seemed to be a really good idea at that point.
Ginny, meanwhile, was getting more and more fed up with whatever it was that Ron had to say on the other end of the line. To Harry's amusement, she actually stomped her foot at him. "Whether or not you're trying to 'protect' me, Ron, is a moot point right now! Now shut up and listen! Harry is a very good at his job, and if you'd let him do it for once, you would see the same thing I see! He hasn't let me out of his sights all day, and don't you for one minute think that he was anything but a gentleman the whole time! The next time you see him, you will apologise to him for punching him in the hospital. Honestly, I thought you were more grown up than that. I chose to go on that mission, and I accepted the consequences when they came. It wasn't Harry's fault and you bloody well knew that!"
Harry took another bite of yoghurt, relieved that he was on this end of the phone line.
When Ginny hung up the phone five minutes later, she looked ironically serene, as though she hadn't just finished ripping her brother to pieces. She sat down at the small kitchen table after retrieving her own yoghurt, and the two ate in a companionable silence for a minute, not really sure if they wanted to discuss the phone call. Finally, Ginny's gaze zeroed in on Harry's face. "What was he saying to you before I came in here?"
"It was nothing."
"You looked like you were ready to kill him. Given the relationship you and Ron have, that's not nothing."
Well, nobody could ever claim that Ginny Weasley was not perceptive, Harry thought to himself as he hid a wince. He bought himself a minute by contemplating a heaping spoonful of yoghurt. With a sigh, he set it down. "It wasn't that big of a deal."
"Nuh-uh. I just spent five minutes tearing my brother a new one. I at least want to hear what he said to get my rant started." Ginny pointed her spoon at him and took another bite of her own yoghurt. Talking around that, she informed him, "It's only fair, you know."
Harry very much wanted to say that life wasn't fair, but decided against it. "He was just going on about my…dating habits." He shrugged, hoping to leave it at that, but Ginny was too smart to be waylaid by indifference. She narrowed her eyes at him and he sighed. "All right. He thought we went on a date. I certainly didn't inform him otherwise. That got him started on how I apparently only 'go after' girls with issues. There was Cho, my stint with the airheads of society—although I will argue that the twins set me up on each and every one of those dates until I am blue in the face and cold in my grave—and now you. You've got a stalker, so apparently that makes you attractive to me."
Ginny let out an almighty groan. "My brother may be the British Tunnel Director, but he's clearly not the brightest flamingo in the yard when it comes to romance."
"I'll say. Remember that horrid plant he got Hermione for her eighteenth birthday? I don't care what anybody says—that thing liked blood, not plant food."
"I still can't forget that awful perfume."
"She still has that, you know. Only I don't think she wears it. She keeps it in this little bottle on her vanity. I saw it one time when I went over to their apartment." With the yoghurt gone, Harry began balancing pieces of the plastic fruit they kept in a bowl for decoration on the end of his spoon handle. He then tried to launch them, but his first attempt rolled off and failed miserably. He tried again.
"So. When were you going to tell me that they're married?"
Harry looked up so quickly that he was certain there would be a cramp in his neck come morning. "How did you find out?" He and Ron guarded that information with a tenacity that surprised Hermione—they did it for the Tunnel, and for Hermione's job in the Department of Mysteries, but Hermione was more lackadaisical about keeping the whole thing a secret. Harry inwardly thought that she just wanted the marriage to be public altogether. In time, they would hold an actual ceremony, but for now the hurried vows exchanged at a courthouse in London would have to do.
"Dragged it out of Hermione while you were in the bathroom at dinner." For Hermione, masquerading as one of Amy Mason's friends, had showed up at the practice field and gushed over Harry so much that he laughingly invited them both to dinner before the team went out for drinks. Now Ginny shrugged and mimicked Harry's actions with her own spoon and a plastic pear. Her attempt sailed into the air and bounced off of Harry's elbow. "It wasn't that hard, actually. I'm sensing that there are some issues between her and Ron about this."
"You're right, then." Harry bent to retrieve a rogue grape. "The situation is basically to protect each other. They're both high in the Tunnel ranks, and Hermione is an Unspeakable to boot. If they remain boyfriend and girlfriend to the public eye, it's not as serious and it might save them from being a negotiating tool against each other. I tell them constantly that they're both mad, but they're too paranoid to listen to me."
"Haven't changed a bit." Ginny shook her head. "So how does Mum feel about their living in sin?"
This made Harry smile. Keeping the whole thing from Molly Weasley was one of the things Ron worked hardest at, and the near-misses, while exhilaratingly frightening, were always the subject of much ribbing between Ron, the twins, and Harry for weeks at a time. Hermione always tutted at them for it, but Harry suspected that she was too relieved about their knowing to be too mad at the lot of them. "She doesn't know about it. She thinks Ron and I are still flatmates. In fact, she keeps bothering him about getting a ring."
This provoked a smile. "That must be annoying."
"Oh, downright exasperating. He's even stopped turning red, although I suspect he's quickly running out of excuses."
Ginny regarded her spoon with an interest that Harry recognised to be hiding amusement. "So, only you and the twins know?"
"Bill does. And Angelina. They needed a woman, and while they wanted to wait for you, you were still in Australia and nobody was willing to patch Ron through, even with his security clearance. So Angelina was the next-best choice, and to get her to do it, we had to tell the twins, too."
"Angelina and Hermione aren't all that close, are they?"
"No—which is why I get to hear every side of every argument they have." Harry rolled his eyes and then gave her a look when she started giggling at her. "Seriously, do you know how annoying it is to be the sole dumping grounds for a newly married couple? It's no picnic, let me tell you."
Ginny grinned and laid a hand on his arm. The contact, while simple, was enough to draw all of his attention. He had grown used to Hermione's tactile ways over the years, but Ginny's touch brought out a new flush of feelings that Harry wasn't sure he had ever felt before. Luckily, his poker face had improved or he would be in seriously hot water right now. "Harry, I organise events like weddings for a living—sort of. I know that feeling all too well."
He focused his attention in launching two grapes at her at once. "Sometimes I think that they're just hesitant to plan a big wedding. It'd have to be a society wedding, almost, with all of the people that they know."
"Why not throw them a surprise wedding, then?" Ginny offered. "You have the right connections to pull that sort of thing off—as well as your very own wedding planner." She tilted her head and almost beamed at him. Harry stared at her, the concept of doing something like that for his best friends swirling about in his mind in discombobulated patterns. The idea had never even crossed his mind before. But now that Ginny had mentioned it, it was already starting to germinate and wrap roots of steel around the entirety of his mind. He frowned slightly as smaller ideas fell from the original and jumbled together. "Harry? Feeling okay over there? I didn't give you a heart attack, did I?"
"What? No—no, I'm fine." He mentally composed himself to let the more coherent ideas break through the shock. "Would that work? Us throwing them a surprise wedding?"
"Us?"
"Naturally, us. He's your brother, isn't he? And you know what Hermione likes better than I do." Excited now, Harry ignored the mess of plastic fruit on the table and crossed the kitchen, yanking a sheaf of parchment out of one of the drawers, dumping it and two quills on the table. Ginny hurried to clear some of the clutter out of the way, and each grabbed a quill. "I think I can afford this if you're willing to help me out."
Ginny grabbed one of the quills and smiled over at him, amusement making her eyes shimmer so brightly that he beamed back at her through his distraction. "Twenty minutes ago, you were ready to murder him, and now you're planning his wedding?"
"Smarter people have claimed me to be bipolar. Sometimes I even agree with them." Harry began writing figures down on the parchment in front of him and whistled lowly. Seeing the amounts of his fortune written down on paper always amazed him. "Although I don't think they're going to get Christmas presents for at least a decade, if not more, unless they like complimentary tickets to my matches." He grinned and slid the sheet across to her. "Do you think I can afford it?"
She looked a bit dazed at the sum written there. "As long as the plates aren't made out of pure gold, I think you should be able to, actually."
A knock at the door made both of them jump. Ginny looked sheepish, but Harry reached for his wand and motioned her to stay put, an alert mask sliding in place. Without a second glance, he headed to the front door of the Hutch, pausing only to scoop up a discarded shirt from the back of the couch and shove that over his head. A quick spell at the door turned it green—indicating that one or both of the twins was standing on the other side. Relief was visible as he opened the door. "Hey, Fred, George. Bit late even for you, isn't it?"
"Harry! Don't tell me you forgot about the game tonight!" George clapped him on the shoulder as both of them shouldered past him, obviously intent to make sure that Ginny was all right. Harry smiled at their backs before turning to shut the door behind them. A flash of white in the corner of his eye made him pause before closing the door, and he poked his head into the corridor, wand out. Both of his neighbours had retired for the evening, he confirmed with a glance at the other two doors in the hallway. The single bulb flickered a couple of times as he took the time to check for any foreign presence with a spell. It came up clear.
He was about to shut the door when he saw it—a small quarter of Muggle paper was lying on the plastic doormat Hermione had purchased as a housewarming present for her two best friends. It was folded over several times and had marks from the twins' shoes atop it. A muttered charm proved it to be free of any sort of magic, dangerous or not. Curious, Harry picked it up and unfolded it. There were no words, to his consternation. Instead, somebody had taken a thick black marker and had slashed bold lines across the entirety of the page. Although it was obvious that the person who had drawn this was no artist, the lines were drawn with a sureness that indicated the sender was very confident in his message. This was no child's drawing, dropped on the way to or from another flat. This was a deliberate strike.
Across the page was the very likeness of a cat chasing a mouse. The sinking pit in Harry's stomach told him that he knew exactly who the mouse was. He stood there with one hand on the doorknob and the other holding the paper for a long time, debating whether or not to show this to Ginny. On the one hand, she would be furious if he kept it from her, but if she never found out, he wouldn't have to worry about it. However, she was perceptive enough not to take that risk. He would have to show her after the twins left, he decided heavily.
He returned to the kitchen to find Ginny and the twins leaning over a the same sheet of parchment, muttering back and forth as though afraid to be overheard. He dropped the drawing into a drawer and collected bottles of Butterbeer from the cold larder, setting those on the table as he sat down. "So, what are the plans?"
"It's brilliant," Fred commented. "Our younger brother may be a bit daft, but throwing him a wedding would be absolutely perfect. 'Sides, Ginny's already promised us a few pranks—"
"Minor ones," Ginny interjected without looking up from the list she was scribbling.
"—If we help out," George finished for his brother. He waved a piece of parchment, his grin wider than a Cheshire Cat's. "We even have that in writing."
Fred took the sheet from his brother and pretended to blow on the ink, smirking widely. He pocketed it and then looked at her expectantly. "So—what are your thoughts on this, then? Can we pull it off, even with my wedding coming up?"
"Ballpark figure…" Ginny finally looked away from her work. "Why don't we plan it for next summer? With the autumn wedding you're having, Fred, that would give Mum plenty of time between weddings. Plus, it'd be a lot easier to hold a wedding outside in these circumstances. It would have to be Muggle attire—Hermione's Muggle-born."
"Can we keep it a secret that long?" George wondered. "I mean, Fred and I are good at secrets, but you two…?" He moved to elbow Ginny, but pulled back just in time, remembering the fact that she had nearly been gutted like a fish a few days before. Only Harry caught the brief look of guilt that crossed his face.
"Hush, you." Ginny narrowed her eyes at her older brother, who recovered and smugly readjusted the robin's egg blue fedora he had worn over to the Hutch. "A year would be ideal—it would give Harry and I time to adjust to our new jobs with the Typhoon, you two would have more time to develop the pranks you feel you need for this momentous occasion, it would be enough time to get all of the others prepared and get everybody into town on the same day. Plus, Hermione told me that she's always wanted a spring wedding, and we just can't throw this type of thing together properly in a month."
Harry retrieved a day-planner from the end table in the living room and flipped to the April of the next year. "How about April seventh?" he asked, contemplating the calendar. "That's a nice number, seven. Like the number of years we were at Hogwarts."
"Works for me." Ginny inked in the date on her list. "So the wedding should be on April seventh of next year. Where should we hold it?"
"The Burrow." It was Harry that suggested it, and both of the twins nodded emphatically in agreement. "Hermione loves the house, and we could set up the proper wards there without worrying about stepping on any toes."
"That field behind the house would work perfectly," Fred pointed out. "You know—the one where we play Quidditch."
"Ron would love that. Remember that one time he flew into that tree when he tried to block that goal?"
"Should have known he was a star Keeper from that move alone. Oh—remember the time we dyed his hair green in the middle of a match?"
"Took him three hours to notice it. Even Mum played along for that one."
By the time the twins bid their adieus nearly two hours later, they had Ginny and Harry in stitches from all of the memories they had dredged up of Ron, and even a few of Hermione. Wedding plans quickly dissolved into nostalgia as the four swapped amusing stories of the two's relationship, covering everything from the baked Quaffle incident to their very first meeting, compliments of Harry. It was Ginny who laughingly suggested they give Trevor the Toad, long cold in a shoe box buried behind Hagrid's hut, a seat of honour at the head table. Fred and George offered to help spring for the bill, insisting that Harry shouldn't shoulder all of the burden. They seemed positive that even Percy would want to contribute to the fund, and Harry found himself being relieved despite himself.
Ginny gathered up their notes while Harry moved to clean up the empty bottles of Butterbeer and scattered pieces of fruit. "We need a code word," she decided, flipping through the sheaf. The twins had been bursting with suggestions, and some of them had been quite good.
"Hmm?"
"A code word for—Oh, never mind." Ginny broke off to give him a funny look. "Harry, is something wrong? Ever since the twins arrived, you've been kind of…out of it."
He didn't bother to stumble over himself or try to hide the fact that he was hiding something. Instead, he wordlessly crossed to the drawer and collected the cat and mouse drawing. "Your ex has been by. He saw fit to leave us this lovely little likeness."
Some people might have paled, but Ginny just glanced at the sheet and said, "Throw it away. He's trying to stake his territory by letting you know that he knows I'm here." She sounded so much like she was talking about maybe a piece of junk mail that Harry stared. "What?"
"Just throw it away? Ginny, if this guy knows where you are—"
"He's probably known where am I before I was even here." Ginny reached out and pried the paper from his hand, crumpling it up and tossing it cleanly into the trash bin. "Relax, Harry. He won't touch me while I'm here. That's not the way he operates."
She seemed to be taking this too calmly. Harry narrowed his eyes in reply to her statement and stepped forward, purposely crowding her space so that she would be forced to meet his gaze. His half-year of Auror training had taught him this trick, and now he finally had a chance to use it. Right now he wasn't interested in celebrating—he was worried, and the fact that Ginny was so nonchalant about this whole ordeal was just intensifying the anxiety. He was supposed to be protecting her, but he couldn't do that if he didn't know what he was protecting her from. "Then how does he operate?" he asked pointedly.
His proximity didn't seem to hold any power over her. Instead, she just squinted at him for a second, and then slipped around him to finish cleaning up the kitchen. "You're my bodyguard, for all intents and purposes. Haven't you read the file?" she asked innocently. "He used to be a Tunnel agent. My partner, in fact."
"I would have read the file had it not disappeared from the American Tunnel Headquarters the same day you transferred to Australia." Harry turned and crossed his arms at her, not intending to let her innocent air slip anything past him. "As it is, I had to settle on profiles of the Ladykiller, none of which they had bothered to connect with the name Dermot Raine. I know for a fact that those files are at your flat."
"Would you be willing to place your life on that?"
"Yes, because I've got the duplicates in the safe in my room. Tara was happy to oblige, once I explained the whole situation to her."
Because he was specifically watching her face, he got a close view of the emotions that flitted across the expanse before she got a hold of herself. "So Tara was the weak link in my chain, then," she observed, her voice betraying none of the hurt that had shown on her face just instants earlier.
"No, Tara wants to protect you. As it is, I had to give her accounts of five different tales of your Hogwarts days, name all of your brothers, and dance a jig before she could hand over the duplicates." As he had hoped, the last chore drew a ghost of a smile across her face. "I could have read them at any time this weekend, but I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt. I want you to tell me yourself." To trust me, he wanted to add, but he knew better. He and Ginny had just met eight days before after five years of being apart. Even with the chemistry that was evident between them, saying something like that would just ruin all chances they had of developing any further rapport. Trust was earned, not gained.
She paused, wavering on the subject. Finally, a relenting light came into her eyes. "Give me until tomorrow to smooth out the rough edges?"
A glance at the clock told him it was nearly three a.m. Morning practice had been cancelled, but afternoon practice would still be terrible unless he got some sleep soon. "Over dinner? I think I can swing for takeout, since going out again will give Ron a coronary. I'm afraid our social calendars will be severely cut soon."
Her smile revealed just how much exhaustion she was fighting. She was a pretty good actress to have him (and the twins) fooled the entire time. For the first time that evening, she actually swayed on her feet. "Deal."
"Great." Harry gave her a push towards her room. "Now go get some sleep. I'll finish up in here. Good night, Ginny."
"G'night."
----- ------ ------
A/N the Second: Should I just give up on this story or are you all actually interested? Let me know!
