Part Two, Chapter Twenty-One
Barty did call on Gwen after work, as promised, but it was only after much deliberation. He had two options: report back to Bella and Rodolphus first, and get caught up explaining everything that had happened and not having chance to get away again; or go and see Gwen first and face Bella's wrath later when he came back immensely late. In the end, he'd decided on the latter. If he got chance to talk to Gwen about what had happened earlier that day, then at least he'd be able to tell the Lestranges he'd found out something useful. He wanted to get chance to ask Gwen more about the snake, but was still worried that whatever it was she wanted to talk to him about would dominate the conversation. He didn't want to have to lie to her again, but he had a feeling it was going to be necessary.
When Barty arrived just before seven o' clock he went to the front door, and it felt a little strange to him to be knocking when last time he'd snuck in through the back window. He was glad when it was Gwen who answered – he'd rather not have to face up to her father if possible, given his own father's close working relationship with John Coulthard. She gave him a warm smile as she opened the door and he grinned back. He was quite surprised to see she'd changed into jeans and a pale blue t-shirt, not what he was used to seeing her in at all. Maybe this was the kind of thing she wore around the house on her days off.
"Hey," he greeted her.
"Hey," she said back, before stepping away from the door to allow him inside. "Come on in. It's just me; Mum seems to live at the Ministry at the moment and Dad's gone back to work."
"Gone back to work?" he asked in a quizzical tone as he stepped into the hallway and shrugged off his work robes.
"Yeah," she said as she took his robes off him and hung them up on a coat peg. "He, um, he was at the Ministry earlier. I went to see Mum before I went home and he was with her, and when I told him what had happened he sort of flipped out a bit. But then he realised everything was alright and calmed down so he brought me home, and now he's gone back to work. I expect he'll probably be out until at least eight, what with everything going on at the moment."
"What was he doing at the Ministry?" he asked as she led him into the living room.
"Oh, um…" She seemed to be a little reluctant to tell him. "I think he was meeting with your father, actually." Noticing the scowl that was beginning to form on his face she quickly continued before he had chance to say anything. "But don't worry, I'm sure it wasn't about you. Something to do with the bank's security I think."
"Well," he said sulkily as they both sat down in the squashy brown sofa, "I'm pretty sure the subject of me will have come up at some point."
She sighed, "Don't worry about it, Barty. My Dad's not the kind of person who'll decide he dislikes you just because of what your father says to him."
He continued to scowl. "Well, we'll see when he gets home, won't we?"
She looked at him with a slight frown on her face. "Don't be like that."
He seemed to make an effort to cheer up and put on a smile. "Sorry," he said, before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a purple cardboard packet. "Here. A chocolate frog, like I promised."
She smiled as she took it off him. "Thanks," she said and she looked like she was about to open it, but then sighed and set it down on the coffee table. "I'll eat it later. I think we best have that talk first."
This was the part he'd been dreading. He found his mouth had suddenly become rather dry when he dried to speak. "What did you want to ask?"
She looked at him and he watched her chew her lip nervously for a few seconds before saying something. "Barty, you know this…project you said you were involved in? Exactly how far did your involvement in dark magic go?"
He was going to have to answer carefully. He didn't know how far he could stretch the lie without it becoming unconvincing. "Why are you asking?" he asked cautiously.
She sighed and looked like she didn't really want to be having this conversation, but knew she couldn't avoid it. "Well, if we're going out with each other I don't think it's unreasonable for me to know to what extent you were involved in something like this? What if it's had some kind of effect on you or something? Don't you think it's something I should know about?"
He shook his head thoughtfully. "No, that's not what I meant. I meant what's brought this on? What's prompted you to ask this? When I told you last week you seemed fine with it. You seemed to accept it, but now you want to know more. Gwen, I'm really supposed to tell you anything, but if I knew why you were asking…"
She looked away from him and glanced down at the floor. "I, uh…" He noticed her face was reddening. "Well, I have this sort of…well, not sort of, I have this dark detector and I realised it had gone off last week after we, you know…" She turned to look at him again, and noticing the worried expression on his face her sentence quickly changed direction. "Please don't be mad at me. Don't think…oh, Barty, I'm sorry if this comes across as me being really unfair on you and not trusting you, but I just wish I knew what was going on. I know you probably aren't supposed to tell me anything, but I just can't stand being left in the dark anymore. I'm supposed to be your girlfriend but it feels like I don't even know you when there's all this stuff going on I don't understand."
He didn't say anything straight away, just sat up straighter and licked his lips rather nervously as he tried to work out how to respond. "What kind of dark detector?" he asked after a couple of moments.
"A, um, sort of sneakoscope," she replied, "Why does that matter?"
"Well, depending on what kind of magic was used to make the dark detector it might be affected by some of the stuff we used in the project," he offered as an explanation.
"Oh, right…" she said, still looking uncertain.
"I'd have to see it to be sure," he said, beginning to feel more confident in the lie now, "Show me."
She nodded. "Alright. Wait here, I won't be a moment." She got up off the sofa and left the room to head upstairs.
As she left the room he sighed and leant back into the sofa, shutting his eyes and feeling his stomach squirm uncomfortably. He didn't like having to lie to her, but he knew he'd only hurt her more if he told her the truth. He couldn't do that: not yet at any rate. Maybe not ever? He didn't even want to have to think about that. He'd rather deal with one problem at a time and not think too far into the future until it came to it. Which reminded him there was one more problem he had to be worrying about right now, thinking about the Ministry document he had in the inner pocket of his robes. Bellatrix and Rodolphus wouldn't be happy when they heard about that. Nor would any of the Death Eaters, Rookwood in particular. It was worrying what might happen to him as a result of it, but even more than that Barty was worried for himself. What if…
That thought was abruptly cut off by Gwen returning to the room and sitting down next to him. She held out her hand so he could see the spinning top-shaped object shape she was holding. "This is it," she said, but she was frowning at it, looking uncertain.
He looked at it and then at her. "Well, it's not doing anything now."
Her frown deepened. "No, it's not," she said thoughtfully, and then looked apologetic. "I guess…I guess I just overreacted. But I suppose there was something you did that could have set it off, right?"
He shrugged, trying to look nonchalant, but inwardly he was just as confused as she was. Not that he wasn't grateful for the fact the sneakoscope seemed to be broken, but he knew full well that it ought to be going off. The fact that it wasn't only threw him out even further when it came to trying to think of an explanation. "Well, I guess so. Residual magic could have set it off earlier, I suppose."
She put the sneakoscope down next to the chocolate frog and then turned to look at him. "I'm sorry. The stupid thing's most likely just faulty, I don't think it's done a reliable thing since I've had it. I don't even know why I paid any attention to it. I'm probably just worrying too much about everything at the moment. Mum keeps telling me to be extra cautious but I really don't know what I was expecting you to say other than what you've just told me."
She seemed to be really upset with herself, and he put a comforting arm round her. "Don't worry about it. I think you've got every reason to be extra cautious given what happened to you today." Even though he knew the entire basis of this was a lie he still liked being able to make her feel better.
"Yeah, I guess," she said, leaning against him as they both settled further down into the sofa.
"What exactly happened?" he asked, concerned.
"Well, I just went to the shop, there was this creepy shopkeeper guy there with a giant snake, the snake tried to attack me and then Martijn showed up. That's all that happened really."
He looked down at her, wondering how she could be so calm about it. "What did the snake look like?" He was asking partly because he wanted something to be able to tell Bella, but mostly because he was genuinely worried about how much danger Gwen had been in.
"I don't know," she said, moving her left arm to wrap it round his waist. "Snakelike? It was scaly, and sort of browny-greenish, and big."
"How big?"
"Big enough to eat someone," she replied in a tone that suggested he didn't even want to know how she knew that.
She was somehow managing to remain calm while she talked about it, but it seemed to Barty like she was just trying to prevent herself from getting upset. He used the arm he had wrapped around her to pull her closer to him, and with his other hand he reached out to tilt her chin up to look at him. She watched him with wide grey eyes, waiting for him to speak.
"Gwen," he said sincerely, "Are you alright?"
"Yes," she said flatly.
He continued to look at her with concern. "Really? You don't seem it."
"I'll be fine," she replied. "I just had a bit of a rough day, that's all."
"You can say that again," he said with a hint of amusement in his voice.
"Yeah, I did," she said looking up at him. "You know, I was so glad you were the first person I saw when they brought me into the Ministry."
He smiled down at her, feeling a rather pleasant sensation spread over him as she said those words. "You mean that?"
"Yeah, of course. It was good to know there'd be somebody there who actually cares about me but wouldn't flip out completely. And, well, I know it probably didn't seem this way with everything I was saying earlier, but I do really like you, Barty."
He couldn't help but smirk a little at that. "I really like you too, Gwen."
She seemed to notice he was teasing her and gave a small smile. "Oh, shut up," she said, before leaning in to kiss him.
The kiss was gentle at first, their lips just touching softly for a few seconds before he put both of his hands in her hair to press her closer to him and parted his lips. She responded with a slight gasp and moved her own hands to the back of his neck as they continued to kiss. It had only been going on for a few seconds before they were interrupted by the sound of someone knocking insistently at the door.
They broke off the kiss, but continued to stare into each other's eyes with their foreheads touching for a few more seconds. Barty couldn't help but feel an ache of disappointment as the knocking continued. He was tempted to tell her to just ignore it so they could carry on, but just as the thought crossed his mind she pulled away from him. "I'd better get that," she said before getting up from the sofa and going to answer the door, leaving Barty feeling nothing but resentment for whoever it was who was calling.
The feeling was only exacerbated as he heard the door open and a Dutch accent speak from outside. "Gwen, are you alright?"