Disclaimer- I do not own Harry Potter.
Muggle AU
Also posted on AO3 as part of Ginuary Big Bang with other works submitted by the wonderful writers in the Ginny Lovers Discord group.
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Corporate Espionage
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His heart was racing in his chest, but he was trying his best to maintain the façade of calmness as he stood in the cafeteria and surveyed the many people that he worked with taking their lunch breaks.
One of them was responsible for stealing his work.
His months and years of research, his testing that he'd done over and over again, tweaking and finding out what wouldn't work.
He knew it would be sought after. Knew that someone would want to try and replicate it, possibly based on the idea alone.
There were investors in the company that had known exactly what he was working on, and the other potential uses there could be for it.
He'd been promoted up the company enough that he now had a seat at the table and a say in who the investors would be, and he'd made it abundantly clear to everyone else on the board that he wanted nothing to do with any military backing. It didn't matter if he wound up putting his own portion of the family fortune towards the project to make up the difference, he was not going to be selling his creation to be used to attack other countries.
Now all that progress and research, which was almost done, was gone.
Everyone kept a hard copy of what they were working on, just in case something happened that wiped all the computers and servers. Well, that 'something' had occurred three nights ago. There was an incident, another person's project at the company had sent off a wave of energy that completely wiped all electronically stored information.
Even the little USB storage things he kept in his top drawer beside his pens were erased.
It was a devastating loss to the company, but even more so to Harry, because his notebook had turned up missing as well.
All 250 pages in that green bound notebook that he'd been recording absolutely everything in; gone.
This experiment he was working on, there were several applications for it. He'd constructed it with the intention of marketing the technology to DeBeers for mining or a large construction enterprise. It would make normal explosives a thing of the past. No more C4. And no more needing to spend so much time and fuel hauling rubble and rocks from the site to some landfill where it would require more fossil fuels to be burned to process adding to the depletion of the ozone layer.
His experiment, once it was perfected, it would liquify rock. And liquified rock takes up much less space than solid, and then when it converts back to a solid state, it becomes even more compressed and solid.
Imagine using this product at a construction site and being able to build bricks out of it to become the foundation of whatever you were working on or creating a smooth parking lot without the need of asphalt or other hazardous and nauseous materials!
On the other hand, imagine the military getting their hands on it and turning a bustling city into a solid heap of wasteland that entombed innocent civilians that were just trying to carry on with their lives, ruled by dictators that simply didn't get along with another country because of something petty.
It could fall into the hands of some comic book like villain that wanted to use it to bury their enemy too.
At this moment Harry had a much better understanding of why Howard Stark would have hidden some of his inventions, deeming them too dangerous for the world.
Though, there was a chance he was a bit of a comic book nerd. All he did was work and read, still loving the DC and Marvel universes he would lose himself in before bed as a child.
That, and Marvel had been making a lot of television lately that he found it easy to decompress from his day and fall asleep to after an episode.
Back to his notebook though, it had been kept in the second drawer of his desk. That drawer had been locked. There were some other notebooks in that drawer that contained other projects he'd worked on that hadn't been completed yet, those were still there, and those weren't as dangerous being leaked to the public or falling into the wrong hands. Those designs had been more pet projects or simple creations to be sold as toys to keep the funding coming in; the new Fidget Spinners, if you will.
Whoever had taken the notebook, they must have known what they had in their possession.
Finding out who had been near his desk was going to be a major issue too because the surveillance footage had been wiped along with everything else.
Harry had yet to report this. He wasn't sure who he could trust.
Right now, looking around the cafeteria at all those that might have had access to his workspace, he wasn't sure he knew any of them well enough to gauge who might have done it, why, or how they'd been convinced to do it.
He knew the primary reason someone would want their hands on his work, obviously, but any one of these people could be bought off.
If he was going to track down a list of suspects, then he would need someone he could trust to help him. Someone that also would know everyone at the company, and possibly knew more about their personal lives, not just professional.
He had someone in mind, and that person was here as well.
Ginevra Weasley. She'd been working at the company for a while, first as a contracted receptionist, then worked her way up to be a high-level administrative assistant. She helped him with submitting all of his paperwork, if he needed the name or a number of a contact, she was who he went to. He'd jokingly referred to her as his 'Miss Moneypenny' in his head. He'd never say that out loud to her though.
She was sweet, nice, could carry on a conversation with anyone about anything, and he regularly saw her doing so with several of the other staff members.
He didn't know her overly well but felt he could trust her, much more than any other of the people on the testing and development side of the business anyhow.
Harry collected a tray of food for his lunch, not paying much attention to what he was putting on his tray, and headed for the cash, making sure to keep an eye on Miss Weasley to catch if she got up to leave.
"Strange choice of lunch for you," the cashier commented. "Normally just a plain sandwich and an apple, innit?"
Only then did Harry look down and see he'd picked up some sort of lumpy, grey casserole and a piece of chocolate cake as well as a prepackaged scone that was rather smushed. He glanced up at the cashier, a lady pushing fifty with dyed black hair and a customer service smile, and he was at a loss for words.
"Er, guess I'm a bit distracted," he finally managed.
He was also a touch baffled that she knew what he normally ate for lunch. Was she always the regular cashier here? Did she remember what everyone normally chose?
This was the problem; his interpersonal skills were almost nil. This is why he needed to talk to Miss Weasley. She would have the answer to that question.
In fact, that would be a great opening question to discover if Miss Weasley was the right person to assist him with this.
"It's your stomach," the cashier shrugged. "That'll be fifteen pound eighty-five."
'For this goop?' Harry cringed internally. Then he simply brought out his debit card and tapped the machine.
His timing was perfect getting over to his destined corner of the cafeteria, as Miss Weasley's lunch companion had just gotten up. It looked like Miss Weasley was close to following suit though, so he hurried over and put his tray down.
"Mind if I join you?" he asked. "I was hoping to ask you something."
She looked up at him in surprise with how abruptly he'd appeared, her face colored slightly and she blinked rapidly before answering with a slightly confused head nod.
He took up in the seat and caught her exchanging a look with her friend, an exchange he couldn't quite understand. Perhaps it was because he was on the board of directors, or that he'd never sat down with them before. Either way, it was irrelevant.
He took the lid off his casserole dish and gave a cautious smell of it. It really didn't look that edible.
"Er, what was it you were looking to ask me?" she wondered at him politely.
He paused and adjusted his plastic dish on the tray, wondering if he ought to actually give it a taste, then decided against it. "That cashier there," he gestured with his fork.
"Dorothy, yes. What about her?"
His brow furrowed as he gave a quick look at Miss Weasley before turning to look at the cashier and squinting to see if there was a nametag he had missed. "How do you know her name?" he wondered.
Miss Weasley's brow furrowed in response to him and seemed bewildered. "She's worked her longer than I have, and I see her four out of five days a week. Why wouldn't I know her name?"
"She's worked here that long?!" he wondered and looked back at Dorothy, trying for the life of him to think of another time he'd noticed her. He too ate here at least three out of the five workdays for lunch.
Miss Weasley gave a laugh. It was a light and happy sound. "Don't feel bad. Everyone's noticed that your only observations are about scientific discovery."
"Everyone?" he repeated. Had everyone been discussing him? Was that a thing people did?
At that thought he rolled his eyes internally. Of course people talked about him, and everyone else. It was office gossip. He, on the other hand, only noticed people that he had to interact with and were good resources for him, like Miss Weasley here.
He thought he'd known a good chunk of the names of the people that worked for the company but considering Dorothy was someone he interacted with regularly and he hadn't recognized her, that just showed he would be out of his element trying to figure out who in the company might have stolen his notebook.
"Don't worry," Miss Weasley shook her head, laying her hand on his arm in a gesture meant to assure him, "everyone holds great respect for you. There's nothing bad being said. That I've heard anyhow," she shrugged and took a sip of her coffee.
"Right," he dragged out the word and wondered how to move forward from here to broach the subject he needed to. "Erm, speaking of, um, things being said around the office. I would assume there is quite a lot of speculation over what happened with the computers and the back-up servers."
Miss Weasley gave a groan and flexed her fingers. "Of course there is. There are a lot of us that are working overtime now because of that. This is my third cup of coffee today because I'm trying to stay alert enough to not fall asleep at the scanner. Who would have foreseen that the EMP device, or whatever it was called, would wipe out the entire buildings electronic data? I had thought it was ridiculous before that we kept everything in paper form and saved on the computer. Glad I never voiced my opinion about it before. Now we're saving it all to two hard drives, one off site."
Right. She was very busy already.
He should have known that.
She may not have time to assist him with all the information he needed to know.
Harry opened his mouth again to ask her what she knew of the night of the blackout, but then two new people joined them at the table.
"Dr. Potter," one grinned broadly. This one Harry did know the name of, Mr. McLaggen. He had a clean shave and a square jaw as well as an aristocratic nose. McLaggen was also an insufferable brown noser. Unfortunately, he was also a very good assistant to Dr. Snape who headed up the Chemical Research Department, so there was no getting around socializing with him. "How are you doing with your experiments?" McLaggen continued. "Any delays, assistance needed? It seems that I've got Dr. Snape back in working order now, could lend you a hand as well."
'I'd rather chew off my own hand than have you yammering away beside me with that pretentious smile,' Harry thought to himself. "Thank you for your offer, but-"
"I'm sure Dr. Potter has other assistants he can call on for his division," the other man said in a haughty tone. "Wouldn't want to put in for a transfer and have it rejected. That might be seen as a black mark on your record."
Harry raised his eyebrow in question at this other individual. The man had shockingly blonde hair for a someone of his age, it was almost white. He also looked like he was smelling something foul. He reminded him of someone though and it was nagging at the back of his mind.
This man made eye contact then and gave a false smile that was the trigger to bring back the memory.
"Mal…foy?" Harry guessed at the man's name. "It's Malfoy, correct?"
It if were possible for there to be less of an enthusiastic light to shine in the pale blue eyes of Mr. Malfoy, Harry was now looking at it.
"Correct. We've only met six or seven-teen times," he drawled. It was a rather spot on impression of Dr. Snape actually. Dr. Snape didn't like him either.
"How have you been doing, Ginny?" Mr. McLaggen asked to try and change the subject.
'Ginny?', Harry wondered. He looked over at Miss Weasley who was looking uncomfortable being at the table with the three of them now. Ginny would be a nickname for Ginevra he supposed. If he were to have given her a nickname he probably would have gone with just 'Ginger'.
"Been exhausted, just like everyone else around here I expect. Just doing what we can and logging extra hours until we're all back on track," she told him. There wasn't the vibrance in her voice that there had been when it was only she and him talking though.
"Once we are all back on track I think everyone will be in the mood for a celebratory drink," Mr. McLaggen raised his cup and gave a gesture of a toast. "I think by Friday we'll all be in the mood to tie one on, wouldn't you?" he asked her specifically.
"Burning more energy is not really what I'm going to be in the mood for then, I'd imagine," she told him. It sounded like a very polite rebuff to spending time with the man. She had very good people skills.
McLaggen didn't seem deterred by that at all, and Harry had no ambition to sit here and listen to him talk any more.
"It appears I've chosen my lunch poorly today, and you were about to leave before I sat down," Harry told her. "Do you mind if I walk you back to your office? I have a few questions about contact information that I'm needing again now that my spreadsheet for that has been wiped."
"Yes, so long as we can pass by the coffee machine on the way," she said instantly, as though she too was happy for a way out of talking to McLaggen.
Harry stood and gave a nod of farewell to Mr. McLaggen before turning to Malfoy. "Good to meet you," he said without thinking. "Er, again," he added hastily.
He followed Ginny to the coffee machine and noticed that she was biting her lip and smiling, though trying to stop herself. "Something funny?" he asked her in confusion.
"Yes. You," she told him, freeing her lip from her teeth and giving him a big smile, her warm brown eyes twinkling with amusement. "You've no idea who Draco Malfoy is, do you?"
"Should I?" he asked.
"He's interviewed to be a part of your team three times and you've rejected him. When he came to work here his resume had shown him to be an ideal candidate and yet you were the only one who voted no. He hates you. Not that he's got that many fans himself, but with how you just spoke to him. Well, it'd be one thing if you were pretending you didn't know who he was, but the fact that you actually can't remember him." She stopped talking then, still smiling, and shook her head. "In my opinion the pompous ass needs to have his head deflated like that every once in a while, so you've done us all a favor actually."
"Is he someone of importance? I really don't remember him. It was the expression on his face that triggered my recalling his name. 'Mal' means bad in French, and there had been something about him, on his resume or maybe it was his personality, it just read to me like he'd be a bad fit."
Ginny resealed the lid on her coffee cup and started towards the hallway. "He's smart, has almost got his doctorate. He'd been groomed since infancy to be something great, and his parents have yet to let him hear the end of it for taking two years off after college to travel and lay about before he went on to university. His mother's family are heavily involved with the British Council and had some involvement in the development of some kind of motor or something. He was given all kinds of internships to beef up his resume."
She really was a wealth of knowledge.
"What about McLaggen?" he wondered.
"What about him?" she asked. "You seemed to remember who he is," she teased.
He felt the back of his neck heat up from that gentle ribbing. He really needed to work on his interpersonal skills.
"What do you know of his background, or what is the office gossip on him?"
"Well, as you've just seen, he's a terrible flirt."
"That was flirting?" he asked, perplexed at that. There had only been the mention of after work drinks on Friday. It wasn't like he'd been laying it on thick… or maybe he had? Was there some kind of inflection in his voice when he'd spoken to her?
"Well, it was very tame for him, but yes. I'm pretty sure he's trying to make his way through all of the eligible women in the office. He's got five notches on his belt from this building that I've heard of. Now I guess he's trying to make it six," she said nonchalantly.
He gathered that meant that Miss Weasley was single. It was a wonder that she was though. As he followed along beside her, he gave her a once over and came to the startling realization that she was rather attractive. He'd only ever known that she was competent, thus he was glad to have her as part of the team.
There was something in his brain that immediately disassociated work and social life, like the two of them could not and would not cross. The only time they ever had was when he'd been at a conference and run into a former schoolmate that he'd been going toe to toe with all through school. He'd enjoyed the challenge in school and even then it had taken a long while to realize that she was rather pretty, and it turned out that through school she'd been viewing their challenges as a form of foreplay. That relationship hadn't lasted very long, but it had been fun while it had. Fun at his flat anyhow, he hadn't been sure how to interact with her when she'd been partnered with him for a collaboration project and they had to interact in the lab.
Now here was Miss Weasley; pretty and single and full of the office personnel intel that he was in need of.
They got back to her office, and he saw that it was full of stack upon stack of file boxes. "They have you scanning all this and downloading it to two servers?" It would most certainly take her longer than three days to get through all this.
"Yes," she huffed. "And there are more boxes yet to come, they simply couldn't all fit in here right now, not with this guy in here too," she said and tapped the scanner. It was a full office sized printer that was now tucked behind her desk and hooked up to her computer.
There were no windows in this office, Harry noticed. It wasn't wonderfully lit either. He wondered how she felt being locked up in a dingy office all day, five days a week.
That was not the reason that he'd walked her to her office though.
"Sorry you've been tasked with this. I'm sure we'd be dedicating more people to this particular task if we knew for sure that this event hadn't been intentional."
Miss Weasley paused at that and stared at him. "Come again?"
He went to close the door, but turned back to her first, his hand on the knob. "Are you okay if I close this?" There was a chance she didn't feel safe alone with him, he was essentially a stranger to her after all.
"Yeah, that's fine," she dismissed.
He closed the door and stepped closer to her desk. "I didn't actually walk you back here to get a contact list from you. I mean, I will need one, but that's not what my primary objective is right now."
"You think the server wipe out, the EMP thing, that was done on purpose? To what end? To give the competition a leg up?" she asked.
"That, or it was to cover up what was taken. Look around you, there are boxes after boxes of hard copy files that need to be scanned back into the system. How long is it going to take us to find out if something is missing?"
"These are accounting records," she pointed out. "You think that it might have been money syphoned out?"
He pursed his lips and wondered how to proceed with this delicate matter. "I'm not as bothered about these particular files as I am about the projects that were in the works. Each of the projects had data stored to the server, but we also had a top-notch IT Security team that took great care to make sure nothing would get hacked and taken that way. Passwords are updated every other month, failed attempts are logged. Computers weren't the only way these projects were recorded though."
She was listening with rapt attention, her eyes looked so big now, their color looking so much darker under these lights.
"There was a project in the works that could do serious damage if it made its way into the wrong hands." He took a beat to allow that to sink in with her. "Miss Weasley, the reason I'm here is to find out, from you, who you think might have been persuaded to cause this EMP to have wiped out our data. Because there is something that has gone missing, and it is dangerous."
He felt like there were several moments that passed by before she was able to speak.
"How dangerous exactly?" The question came out almost as a squeak.
He cringed. "Like World War III type dangerous. As in, I'm now regretting the decision to go ahead with the project development."
"W-why would-"
"Because it could be entirely beneficial to the world as well," he assured her. "The application for the project is about sustainability and eliminating the need for excessive use of fossil fuels. This project could do so much good for the world," he told her, and he believed it. Unfortunately, he also believed this next part. "It could also be incredibly dangerous if it wound up in the wrong hands."
"And nobody thought about that part?" she panicked.
He ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. "Look," he started pacing and wracking his brain for a comparison to their current world, "look at guns. They were created for hunting. They're incredibly more efficient for hunting game than anything else, yet they also kill hundreds or thousands of people a year. I'm pretty sure the inventor of the gun didn't develop the mechanics for it thinking that one day there would be a version of it in the hands of nearly every person in America!"
"Right," she said slowly. "Then again, we've come a long way since the 10th century and every comic book, cartoon and moron with a smart phone has shown us that if there is a potentially dangerous application for something, it will be used for that purpose. Look at the Tide Pod challenge for proof."
"The what?" he didn't follow that.
She shook her head, "a bunch of idiot kids eating laundry detergent and posting videos of it."
"Why would anyone do that?" he asked, completely flummoxed at the idea.
"Because teenagers will do anything for attention," she stated as though it was obvious.
"There must have been deaths from that."
"Yeah, there were." She gave him a look of disbelief, "you really don't do anything but work, do you? That was all over the news."
He stared at her and wondered how they'd gotten so far off topic. "Look, I know that this is a dangerous project I've worked on and I'm sorry for putting this on you, but I need your help. As you can tell, I'm bloody oblivious to the world around me and can't remember most people's names. I do know your name and you've been a great asset to me since you started here. You seem to have had your ear to the ground and know who is who at the company. I see you have a lot of your plate, but I'm desperate. Please, please help me. And I must ask you not to let anyone know about this."
He was definitely putting himself out there by begging her like this, but he had to.
Her expression softened and there she went chewing that bottom lip of hers again. It was such an innocent look. Kind of… sexy too.
Stop that, he chided himself.
"What exactly are you asking me to do?"
His whole body relaxed. That question meant that she was on board to help him.
"I know you can't be seen as slacking off by your superiors, so for right now, if you've got a company directory laying around, just jot down whatever you can think of about that person, even your personal opinions of them. I'll do the same, but in more of a… background checking capacity. Are you okay if we meet up later? After work?"
She nodded.
"Okay." He pulled out his phone. "What's your number?" She gave it to him, and he sent her a text. "There's my address. I'll be home from six this evening onwards. I don't care what time you stop by, midnight, three in the morning, whenever. Just… please."
"I will," she assured him earnestly.
"Thank you," he breathed out. "Just… thank you."
()()()
His dining table was completely covered in pages of paper, notebooks and two opened laptops; one which had the company directory, one that was being used to look up criminal history of those on the company directory.
He'd been at it all day.
Initially he'd thought it wasn't necessarily someone inside the company that had stolen the notebook. The device that wiped the servers could have been timed to go off and then it was some corporate spy or mechanical repair man, or anyone that could have snuck into the building and found his office.
Although, they would have had to know where his office was, find his notebook in the locked drawer, known what they were looking at and how that notebook differed from the other notebooks in there. So, that would really rule out anyone from outside the office.
For that reason, one of the pages on the desk he had written a few of the names of those that had been in his meetings where the project was discussed. The fact that he was shit with names and faces meant that the list basically contained people only showing on the top of the company directory, and there most certainly were other people that had been sitting in on those meetings, benefactors and interested parties and the likes as well. It wasn't just his project that had been discussed at those meetings either, so someone attending for another project may have found interest in his project and decided on pulling a little espionage.
By the time there was a knock at his door he'd been running through every scenario he'd been able to think of several times over.
Harry went to the door feeling like his mind was completely blank from overuse. Opening the door to see Miss Weasley on the other side holding a bag of some delicious smelling food, it was only then that he remembered he had told her to come over. Begged actually, he'd begged her to come over.
He also realized he hadn't eaten anything since breakfast because his lunch had been so disgusting, and his stomach had been too tied up in knots to consider food since then.
At the smell of her take away wafted up his nose, his stomach let out a loud rumble.
"Don't you look… dashing," she said, biting her lip and fighting back a laugh.
There was a mirror on the wall on the other side of the open door and he leaned back a bit to give himself a once over. He did look very worn down with a touch of crazy-eyes, his button down was untucked and wrinkled with a few buttons undone and his hair was in much more disarray than usual.
Then his stomach gave another rumble.
"I brought enough for two," she told him. "I was going to eat it all myself, but I suppose I could share. It's chicken pad thai, so if you haven't got a nut allergy," she offered.
His mouth watered and he instantly forgot to be concerned with his presentation, or his manners at all really. He took the bag from her and went straight to the kitchen. "Is this from that place around the corner?"
Harry could hear her closing the door and taking off her shoes before following behind him through to the kitchen where he was pulling out a plate and a pair of chopsticks. He was too hungry though, so forgetting the plate, he pried the container open and dug his chopsticks into it, attempting to shovel as much food into his mouth at once and groaning at the taste hitting his tongue.
He was on his third mouthful before he remembered that this was her dinner.
He looked up to see her leaning against the wall of his cabinets with her arm crossed and staring at him. There wasn't the usual twinkle in her eye that he'd seen earlier in the day. She looked tired and unamused.
Still pretty though.
And her hair was down.
Had her hair been down all day? It was really nice. It wasn't overly coiffed or straightened like he normally saw on girls with long hair. There was a sense of disarray about it, like she'd just pulled it out of her hair tie and shook it as tame as it would go.
He swallowed what was in his mouth and blushed. "I'll just… get you a plate."
"Thanks," she deadpanned.
"Sorry if I'm a bit of a mess," he started awkwardly.
"Can you apologize after I've eaten?" Her tone indicated tiredness more than anything. "Don't mean to be rude but I'm a bit of a bitch when I'm hungry and I was suffering through smelling that delicious dish longer than you were."
He quickly portioned out a bit more than half for her and handed it over with the restaurant supplied chop sticks. She then sat at his kitchen table and nearly inhaled her food. It was almost impressive how quickly she ate it. It made him feel a bit better about how rude he'd just been to her.
Finishing up his own he went to the cupboard and got two glasses to get water for each of them to wash down their dinner.
She took a few sips of water and then gave a big sigh before taking her empty plate to the sink.
"Alright. Now that that's done, tell me what you needed me here for," she prompted, in a much more pleasant-sounding tone.
"Right," he nodded. "Okay, so I've been through the company directory and managed to get a copy of the guards logs for the day of and the day before and now I'm running background checks on everyone."
"Anyone jumping out at you?" she asked as they headed back into his main room with the dining table-turned work surface.
"No," he sighed hopelessly.
"And who do you think would be most interested in stealing it?" she asked.
That was the big question though, wasn't it? And the answer scared him.
"I'm hoping not the Military," he told her cautiously.
She stared at him pensively for a long while. "Have you been approached by someone from the Military that has shown interest in this?"
There was something about the way she was asking the question that sounded as though she knew something of how the Ministry protocol would go.
"No," he told her honestly. "I was very adamant before I started working on the project that I wasn't going to sell it to the Military, was even going to offer to help with funding in order to avoid it."
Her eyes went wide at that and she took another glance around at his flat. He followed her gaze, not sure what she was looking at, or for. "What?" he asked. It was a standard flat, two bedrooms, one bath, in Zone 2 London. A great find in a decent area and he'd snatched it up right away when it came available four years ago.
She shook her head, disregarding his question. "Have you created a working unit? Done any demonstrations?" she continued.
"I'm a few steps away from that," he told her quickly. "There are only a few more calculations needed and then it will be ready to produce. Those calculations aren't entirely difficult either, it would just be a matter of-"
But she cut him off from carrying on further. "The Military, or any branch of the government really, wouldn't go after something like this without there already being proof that it worked. They most certainly would have already reached out if they were interested, requested to be kept apprised of developments with the project at least. If no interest had been shown by them, then we can cross them off your list of suspects."
"How do you know this?" he asked her, astounded.
"One of my brothers works high up in an administrative branch of the government and another joined up for the Armed Forces and rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel before he retired from the service. That isn't how they would do things."
"Retired?" he wondered aloud.
"Retired from the military," she clarified, "he still works, just not for them." He stared at her for a bit longer, lost in thought about how old she was, only about twenty-six or so, and how old her siblings could possibly be, which she cottoned on to. "There are ten years between he and I," she answered his unasked question in amusement.
"Right," he blinked. "Not important, is it? Okay, that's a bit of a load off. So, next then would be another Innovation and Tech company called Riddle Emprises. They've been known to try and steal new technology and patent it before it is properly developed but is close enough to the correct design. They've collaborated with a few questionable leaders of countries or movements as well."
Her eyebrows went up at the company he named, like she was familiar with them as well. She went over to the table and looked down at his notes he'd been making. "I think you would be right in thinking that this had to be an inside job." She took a seat at the computer and scrolled up to the top of the directory and started listing off names.
Harry felt a weight lift off his shoulders with her being there to help him. He took a seat next to her as she began writing down the names of those she knew worked with him.
"Who's that?" he asked when she read off the name Lavender Brown and then wrote it down as someone he'd worked with.
"She was working in the office two down from yours with Justin Finch-Fletchley and McLaggen for several months before being transferred to Dr. Snapes division," she told him. At his vacant expression she continued, "about 5'6, long blond hair, curly, Caucasian." Still, he couldn't picture her. Then she drew out her phone and turned to the girls Facebook page and Harry still couldn't picture her anywhere in the labs. That led Miss Weasley to scoff. "How do you not know who she is? She has great big breasts and giggles constantly."
"Oh!" it all dawned on him. "The giggling girl. My God, was she ever annoying. She's been transferred? I hadn't noticed. Though, I guess it has been quieter."
Miss Weasley lay a hand on his arm and said seriously, "Dr. Potter, if you have 'attention to detail' on your resume, I suggest you remove it."
He was surprised by that, and the fact that she was laying her hand on his arm. It was the second time she'd touched him today. There was a tick of a smile at the corner of her mouth. "You're teasing me."
"Very good, Doctor. Shall we move on?" she smirked.
"Harry," he told her. "Call me Harry."
She gave him a proper smile then. "Ginny."
It had been just after one in the morning when Harry had looked over his shoulder and found her asleep on the sofa. She'd been incredibly helpful all evening and she had already put in a full day's work before coming over to his to help sort out this mystery he'd found himself with. She'd known nearly every name that was on the company directory and had actual stories and interactions with several of them. And when they'd gone over the directory they'd found for Riddle Emprises she'd been helpful there too.
Harry was astounded at the line's she'd been able to draw between people from their company and Riddle's. He wouldn't have had the first clue that this person and that person had been together in college, or who had been working towards being on a team with someone. He really wouldn't have known anything about which of them all might be susceptible to bribes or gestures to the other company in order for a better position.
And for her to have simply come over to help him, just because he'd asked.
It had been several minutes he'd stared at her laying there before his own eyes started to close and his body gave a jerk, startling him back awake. Then he decided he'd best get some sleep as well.
Letting her be, he closed the laptops and left the papers as they were, strewn across the table and some on the floor, then he made his way to his bedroom to change out of his clothes and lay in his own bed. Just a few hours of shut eye and then he could get back at it.
()()()
It was a noise in the living room that had woken him up. Harry felt like he'd just closed his eyes and now suddenly it was morning and he only had an hour and a half before he needed to be in the office.
The same was true for Ginny.
Shit, Ginny!
He bolted out of bed and pulled open the door silently to see her seated on the couch and giving a stretch. Her back was to him, but as she turned slightly this way and that with her arms over her head he noticed that in the morning light there was a lovely silhouette of her breasts visible through the fabric of her shirt.
She must have woken at some point in the night and removed her bra.
As she craned her neck backwards and forwards he was given the chance to appreciate all of her body that he could see.
He gave a dry swallow, his lower half sending a message to his brain telling him off for not having carried her to bed last night. It was an interesting thought. She certainly had several qualities that he really liked, the appearance of her only being one small factor.
Looking down, he made sure it wasn't showing how arousing he found this morning display.
"Sorry for not waking you last night," he said, announcing his presence.
She turned to look at him over her shoulder, situating herself in a way that her front was now partially obscured by the couch back and her arm. She did look much more refreshed now than she had when she arrived last night. There was a vibrance about her, and her hair color looked lovely in the morning sunlight.
"Don't worry about it. It was good for my back to stay on the couch. Thanks for not waking me."
He shrugged and moved towards the kitchen. "I still feel a bit bad. I mean, I have a guestroom."
"You do?" She then let out a bit of a scoff. "Well then you should have woken me, I was just being polite before. My neck is killing me."
That made him pause and turn to her. He was pretty sure she wasn't actually mad at him, but he felt he should be trying to make it up to her still. "How about I put some coffee on? And breakfast. I, er, I don't know how close by you live but, if you need to freshen up, I've got good water pressure and a steamer that could sort out your clothes."
She checked the time on her phone. "I will have to take you up on that. There's no way I'd make it home and back before I need to be into the office."
He wished she would stop moving so much. His view of her was no longer obstructed from this angle and her nipples were showing through the shirt, he was having trouble averting his eyes. It was like she didn't even realize.
"Right then. Erm, towels are in the cupboard in the bathroom then. Make yourself at home." He then hurried off to the kitchen at as normal a pace as he could manage, letting out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding in when he heard the bathroom door close.
How long had they worked together? Why was he only just now realizing that she was damned sexy!
He could picture how his Godfather would be yelling at him for not immediately asking her out. If his dad saw her too, he'd have already started instigating something between them.
Those two men had something that Harry did not though: game.
Even after thirty years of marriage his father still treated his mother like they had just started going out and was telling her she was beautiful and bought her little surprise gifts all the time, to the point that she merely rolled her eyes and told him she loved him too in the most exasperated voice. Then of course she'd smile and get this sappy look in her eye.
Sirius, his Godfather, had been telling him to find a good woman, or several of them, over and over again, then he'd demonstrate how by picking up a woman for himself.
Harry had not been any good at that, too focused on his work. His romantic needs had been suppressed.
Well, not completely suppressed. He did have needs, generally a morning wank to put his mind right. And normally that occurred in the shower that Ginny Weasley was likely standing naked in right now.
Oh bollocks, now he couldn't help but bring that image to mind.
Trying to distract himself, he started getting some breakfast ready. He wasn't sure how long she was going to need in the shower, his last girlfriend could have been in there all day. Ginny though, he hadn't even finished with the toast before she appeared in the kitchen, looking sheepish and with only a towel wrapped around her.
He'd just taken a piece of toast for himself when she walked in, it had been hanging in his mouth, his one hand holding a cup of coffee, the other grabbing a butter knife. When he saw her only covered up like that his jaw dropped just enough that the toast fell to the floor.
"Where exactly was that steamer you mentioned?" she asked with a blush. A blush that had her chest coloring as well. "The steam from the shower wasn't enough to get some of the wrinkles out of my clothes."
He wasn't listening though. He just saw the shimmer of water that was yet to be properly dried off of her and flesh. Her freckles were everywhere and he had the insane urge to start counting them with his tongue. She had said 'steam' twice though. The word triggered the insane thought of wondering if there ever might be an instance where they might need to go into a sauna together.
"Dr.- Harry," she said, capturing his attention.
"Sorry!" he said loudly. "Sorry. Uh, not… not used to having company. In the morning," he added. Quickly, he went around her and to the closet in the hallway and pulled out a stand steamer. "Here you are."
"You just happened to have this?! For your day to day?" she wondered at the contraption.
Harry rolled his eyes. "My presence is requested at a lot of functions that I don't really want to go to. This has come in handy for when I forget to get a suit pressed or dry cleaned."
She took it with her back into the bathroom and he bolted back to the kitchen, picking up his toast off the floor and tossing it in the bin. Surely, he would be able to work with her and not make a complete idiot out of himself like that again. She was just a person, a competent and resourceful person.
He sat down with his new toast and chewed on it slowly between sips of coffee. It felt like a long while had passed before she came back into the kitchen, in her clothes this time.
"I've had a thought," she announced as she went for the toaster. "You said you were worried about them trying to submit a patent for the machine, right?"
"Yes."
"Well, I've got a friend at the Patent Office. I'm not super close with her, she's one of my brother's ex-girlfriends. We got on while they were going out though. I can reach out and see if she can keep an eye out."
"How is it you can keep so many details about people in your head?" he wondered.
She threw a smirk at him, "how is it that you can design experiments that can melt rock?"
His stomach gave a bit of a funny flutter at that smirk she gave him. He cleared his throat and brought his cup back to the counter to pour more coffee. "That would be great if you could reach out to her. It might be against her company policy to share that information though."
"No. Pretty sure I remember that information being open to the public, otherwise all that Patent Infringement shit would be too hard to prove."
Her laisse-faire use of profanity was a nice change from the usual polite conversation he carried on. He quite liked it.
"You know, I really appreciate all this," he told her earnestly.
"Do you think you'll appreciate it enough to remember my name after we've got this issue of yours sorted?" she teased.
"I knew your name," he rolled his eyes. "I just didn't know everyone shortened your first name to 'Ginny'. I would have thought 'Ginger' was more appropriate. Though, normally I just thought of you as my personal-" he cut himself off right there and felt his face heat up.
She'd been about to take a bite out of her toast and stopped, her eyes locking on his and a single eyebrow raising. "Your personal what?"
He felt a fluttering of embarrassment in his stomach and decided he may as well finish the sentence, lest she think he was going to say something worse. "Miss Moneypenny."
Her own face colored at that, hers in amusement though. She nodded her head at him, tears of mirth beginning to make her eyes glisten. "Oh, Mr. Bond, the things you have me do for you," she said and began to chuckle.
He grinned at her and excused himself to get himself ready for the day.
This was an interesting situation he found himself in. He would normally wake up, have a wee, shower and a wank, then get his coffee and breakfast before dressing then off to work.
He was in the shower now and his body, so used to that routine, was eagerly telling him to get on with it. It didn't feel right though. It seemed pervy that he be only one room away from her and taking himself in hand. And he knew damned well that the images he'd be pulling to mind would be of her in here as she had been only a few minutes before. The air was even still warm around him from the shower she'd taken.
Then again, if he didn't take care of himself, he'd be regretting it all day.
Resolved, his hand went to the shower ledge and he pumped out one squirt of the lotion he kept there, then braced his hand against the tile while his other started working himself over beneath the spray from the shower head.
Sure enough, the image of her naked in his shower came to mind. The water cascading over her hair and dripping down her back, of her taking his soap in hand and rubbing it all over her breasts and then down between her legs. She might have been taking the edge off in here too. He pictured her grasping his detachable shower head and lowering that between her spread legs while she leaned back against these tiles and played with her clit.
His hand moved faster and faster as he pictured her fingers working faster over her own sex, her breasts heaving in pace with how worked up she would get. Finally, he pictured the expression she would have as she came, those pink lips of hers parting in a silent scream with her head thrown back and the rush of red to her cheeks.
That image pushed him over the edge and he bit his lip hard to stop from making any noise.
His hand calmed until his erection waned enough that he let go and took up his soap in the other hand to start washing himself down.
It was only as he went to put a ten-sized dollop of shampoo in his hand that he realized that his lotion bottle was right beside the shampoo, and his eyes went wide.
There was only one reason that a man would have lotion in the shower.
"Buggering fuck!" he exclaimed quietly to himself.
There was a very high probability that she knew exactly what he got up to in here. He may as well have told her he was off for a Triple W; Wee, Wank and Wash.
With that shame settling in he finished washing himself off and tried to suppress his embarrassment.
By the time he'd shaved and brushed his teeth in front of the mirror Harry felt like he looked passably normal. Now he just had to get dressed and then they could head into the office.
Which lead to another question.
Wrapping the towel around his lower half, he opened the bathroom door and saw she was at the table looking over the documents again.
"Are we supposed to stagger our arrival time into the office?" he asked her.
She turned around paused, her mouth falling open slightly. Subtle queues might be lost on him, but in this instance, he caught it; she was checking him out. Not only that, but she was appreciating the sight of him in a towel as well.
Now he didn't feel so bad about how he'd stared at her earlier.
"I, erm," she swallowed, "I could grab a tea on the way in. Maybe leave a few minutes before you."
He nodded. "Right, okay. And would you be okay coming back here tonight? I find it's helpful having someone I could bounce ideas and theories off. That, or working up a sweat help, maybe do both."
She gave him that look he often received, one that indicated he'd said something that could be construed a different way. Quickly, he thought over what he'd just said. He'd invited her back to his place tonight to assist him again, how could that be construed as something else?
Oh, bollocks!
"I mean, not that you have to work up a sweat. That wasn't how I meant, er, what I meant. I mean, I would like to. Er, exercise! That's what I meant. I'd like to exercise. With you. Er, if you wanted to join me, I'd be keen on that."
The whole time he was fumbling over his words she was staring at him in amusement, and something else.
"And would this exercise involve a gym?" she asked, sounding innocent.
His room was just in his peripheral vision, and he couldn't help noticing how close it was. His bed was only just there.
She was teasing though, because smart as he was, and he knew he was, he was also a bumbling idiot.
"There is a gym, and a pool, and a sauna. This time, I promise, I will show you the guest room before you pass out on the couch."
"Well, I guess this time I'll have to remember to bring food and spare clothes."
()()()
Back at the office he'd been able to focus once more. Harry rarely received interruptions through out the day, the people he'd hired were mostly independent workers and he made sure to cycle through them for progress reports at least once a week, paying more attention to the project than the people.
In this instance, he was glad that everyone left him alone.
With his work computer being hooked up to the work server, there wasn't much that he could do in the way of researching the individuals left on his list to check out so instead he focused on recreating the notebook and remembering all the configurations he'd needed.
The prototype that was built had its control boards fried and the programming needed to be built from scratch once more, so that required a lot of his attention too.
Around noon he was given the lovely surprise of Ginny walking into his office, carrying a piece of paper in one hand and a sandwich in the other. He was slightly shocked with how delighted he was to see her there.
"I have that directory list you asked for a hard copy of," she told him from the doorway, coming into his office properly and placing it on his desk, then shifting the paper to show him there was an extra piece of paper there for him to see. She then lowered her voice, "I also noticed you hadn't bothered with bringing lunch or going to the cafeteria today." With that she placed the sandwich on his desk and walked back out.
Harry was glad he didn't have glass walls because he knew he'd stared after her, watching her walk away then staring at the space she'd occupied, for far longer than he would for just any colleague. He then looked down at the roast beef sandwich and smiled, peeling back the plastic wrap before taking a look at the piece of paper that was under the directory she'd done up for him again. It was something from the Patent Office, a letter stating that there was no patent pending for anything like what his invention would do. The Miss Hermione Granger that Ginny had corresponded with encouraged them to get a Patent filed right away so they would claim rights to it once the invention was done, even if there wasn't a working prototype done yet because the base design and final expected result would be enough to stop someone else from trying to claim it as their own.
Quickly as he could without choking, he ate the sandwich, then took his new notebook to head to Ginny's office and get the forms he would need in order to submit the patent. He usually gave that job to one of the other administrative staff to take care of.
He hurried down the halls and to her office and heard her voice before he saw her, still at her scanner surrounded by dozens of bankers boxes.
"You did?! When? Who? Are you able to tell me that?" Then silence. "Are you sure?" she asked in a silently desperate voice. "No, no. It's… well, it's not fine, but I'll just have to… I don't know." She shook her head. "How long do we have to submit a competing patent?"
Harry's heart jumped up into his throat.
He stepped into her office and came up beside her in an instant. Ginny jumped at finding him there so suddenly, her eyes telling him exactly what he thought was going on was true. 'Who?' he mouthed.
'Riddle,' she mouthed back. "Hermione, are you able to send us over their design submittal?"
"Courier," Harry said immediately. "Tell her we'll send a courier to get them. Not electronically."
"Did you catch that?" Ginny asked the girl on the phone. "Wonderful. I'm calling for one now. I've got your business address. Please mark it 'private and confidential'. And for my sake, don't let him know I've asked you for this, please."
Harry's brow furrowed at that last request of hers. She ended her call and gave him a pained look. "We'll just have to wait for the documents to get here. In the meantime, you need to get that patent ready to submit to counter this."
"Yeah, yeah, already on my to do list, it's why I'm here," he disregarded. "'Him' though, who is this 'him'?"
"What?"
"You said 'for my sake, don't let him know'," Harry repeated.
Ginny bit her lip and he could read the worry coming off of her. "I may have intentionally left off my own connection to Riddle Emprises when we were going over information last night," she said in barely a whisper.
Harry took a step back from her in surprise. "What?"
She ran a hand through her hair and looked to the door as though gauging how quickly she could make a fast exit. "Um… so when I first started working here as a temp I met a guy in a pub. Thought it was a complete 'meet cute' moment and me being young and stupid I kind of fell in with him hard and fast." She gave a hard swallow. "It was a few months later that I found out he was just using me to try and get information on his competition. Which I never gave him," she said in a hurry. "Any time I talked about work it was all just office gossip. I swear, I never had any inside knowledge working the reception desk, and I never let him in the building."
"Months?" Harry repeated.
She'd had her eyes cast down and took a deep breath before looking up again, staring him dead in the eyes as though in defiance. "He was using me and trying to manipulate me, he ended it before I properly cottoned on. It was only after that that I realized the lengths some people will go to in this industry. I've done everything I can to make myself indispensable here, partly to spite him, partly to prove that I'm worth more than he made me feel like I was, a means to an end."
He could see she'd been really hurt by her history with this guy. "Who?" he asked again.
"Tom Riddle," she admitted. "The Third."
"Wow," he blew out in a breath. "So, he wasn't just someone at the company, it's his legacy."
Her gaze shifted away from him then and he caught a bit more reflection off the light off her eyes than he should have. She was close to tears talking about this.
"Ginny, you've proven yourself here. If you're worried I think you're a spy or something, then don't. It's not your fault you fell for him. I'd certainly believe someone would want to do the whole hearts and flowers thing for you. Just look at McLaggen yesterday," he added, trying to lighten the room.
It didn't have the affect he was hoping for, instead her eyes narrowed. "I don't need coddling. I just don't like talking about it or remembering it."
He swallowed his tongue a bit then and tried to switch back to the business at hand rather than give in to his overwhelming feelings of needing to make her feel better. "That would be why you knew so much about the people on their company directory as well," he realized. She had been quick with the social connections between their staff and Riddles, it wasn't something he'd realized at the time, but now it was standing out at him.
"Yeah," she said and took another piece of paper to put face down on the scanner. "There were plenty of 'functions' I had to attend on his arm back then. Never went so far as to purchase a steamer though."
A sense of relief at that glib comment allowed him to relax.
"So, moving on then," he encouraged. "They've submitted a patent, which is what I came here to get started on."
She looked to have relaxed as well at his change of conversation. "Why is it you hadn't submitted one before now?"
"I wanted to get the prototype close to functioning properly first. Didn't want to give the opportunity to another company to try and knock it off before we had a working model. I guess that's all shot to shit now," he frowned.
"That makes sense," she nodded. "Okay, I'll get all the forms we need. Did you want to fill them out in here or your office?"
He took a look around her office and its lack of seating, lack of windows and mountains of work that was waiting for her. "Mine."
It took two hours for the courier that Miss Granger had promised to come over. She'd assured Ginny that they would have until tomorrow morning before she had to log that someone was looking over the patent and Riddle Emprises would be informed.
In that hour they'd completed all the forms needed, now it was just the designs that had to be included.
Ginny wasn't going to be able to help with that bit, so she went back to her office to keep at her own work while he drew out and printed off page after page, the whole time having a nagging feeling in his stomach that was telling him his time would be better spent getting the prototype to actually work.
It was like the space race, except that in this case they needed the unit to work before being able to claim ownership of the design and stop Riddle Emprises from potentially selling it to the wrong people.
Before long he'd entered all his design components and had fifty pages including the forms for the patent submittal, and it was quitting time in the office.
The stack of papers in his hand, he went to Ginny's office so he could copy all the pages and have back-up to lock in his desk. On his way there he made an effort to check in all the laboratories and offices on the way there, nodding at the people working inside if they made eye contact.
There was part of the building that had a sort of skywalk that looked down over multiple work surfaces and he paused there to take in all the projects being worked on. That was when he noticed the impossibly blonde man from lunch yesterday that was walking at a leisurely pace from one station to the next, looking down at his phone and tapping the screen. It might have looked as though he wasn't paying attention to what he was doing, but it also could have been a deception. Because the places that he paused as he walked around happened to have a clear shot of the work stations if he were trying to take a picture on his phone.
Harry stood there for a full two minutes, simply watching him.
Most of the others had already gone home, there were only four or so people down there in the work area, plus the blonde man.
He'd seen enough. Walking at a quick pace, he continued to Ginny's office.
She was still there, standing at the scanner. He stepped into the office and closed the door behind him, abruptly enough to make her jump from the sound of it.
"The guy at lunch the other day, what was his name again?"
She spun around to face him. "What? McLaggen, you mean?"
"No, the other one. Bad- something or other."
She looked very close to rolling her eyes at him but stopped herself. "Malfoy. His name is Draco Malfoy. He's got his Masters and is on his way to his Doctorate. We talked about him quite a bit already."
"I don't think we talked about him enough though. I just saw him going through the testing floor on his phone, it looked like he might be taking pictures of the projects."
"Are you sure?"
"No," he admitted. "He may have been texting someone, but the way he was pacing and pausing, it was convincing enough that I want to check him out thoroughly and see if there is any link between him and Riddle Emprises." Some of what she'd told him about Malfoy was coming back to him. "You said his family worked on a motor project? Do you know if any of them work there or are investors or something?"
"You are giving me way too much credit if you think I can just pull that information out of thin air."
Harry heaved an impatient sigh, not directed at her, just because he wanted to know right away but had to wait until he was back at his flat. He closed his eyes for a moment to will his pulse to slow down. "Can I use your copier?" he asked, holding up his fifty-page document.
()()()
"Alright, so, there are some society pages on social showing that the Malfoy's and the Riddle's run in the same circles; Not-for-profit's, charities, political support events, yadda yadda. I don't see any pictures of the Riddle's and Malfoy's together. They could be contacts though, like how they are both influential names," Ginny was telling him as they sat once more at his dining/worktable. "I'm going to check out Draco's list of friends on Facebook and LinkedIn and see if there are any names that jump out at me."
Again, he was overwhelmingly grateful that she was here with him to help navigate the world of Social Networking. He was busy going over the designs that were submitted by Riddle Emprises and comparing them to his own.
The drawing of their design was close to his own, but the internal components were nothing alike in spec. There was no data included on tests done or the projected outcome. It was similar, but theirs would be ineffective.
"Zabini," Ginny announced.
Harry looked up at her in confusion. "Bless you?"
Now she did roll her eyes at him. "Blaise Zabini. That is how they are linked. Both families are very close to Bella Zabini. She is best friends with Narcissa Malfoy and the supposed mistress of Tom Riddle Junior. Blaise works for Riddle Emprises and he and Draco Malfoy roomed together at boarding school!" she told him excitedly. "I bet that Draco Malfoy got tired of hitting roadblocks at our company and is now looking to trade our secrets for a better job and getting a step closer to his Doctorate by having a more willing backer at Riddle Emprises and has been giving the information to Blaise."
He grinned at her, then that turned to a bit of a grimace. "Now we have to prove it though."
"Yes," she frowned. "But that's what you do, isn't it? Every time you decide to create something you look at what the end result will be and then work your ass off to make it come true. We've figured out the connection and the mole now, our next step is to get your patent handed over, get an injunction started, and I'm going to steal Draco's phone."
The last part gave him pause.
"Come again?"
"I'm going to steal his phone," she repeated and stood up, pulling the elastic out of her hair and fanning it out and taking a tube out of her purse and applying some lipstick to her lips.
"I… what, right now?!"
She pointed at the screen of the laptop. "He's just posted that he's at the Star and Sailor two blocks from here. I'm going to bump into him and get the sim card out of his phone."
"Won't he notice that it's missing?" Harry asked, getting to his feet to follow her to the door and watching her pull on her jacket and slip on her shoes. She was being so quick about this that he was having a hard time switching gears to keep up.
"Not right away," she shrugged. "He'll just assume that his phone has malfunctioned or something. It will remove his photos and such, but it will still show him the time and let his alarm ring off in the morning."
"But…" he wasn't sure what his next protest was supposed to be. It didn't feel right letting her do this. What if she got caught and Malfoy did something to her in anger? He'd never forgive himself if she got hurt.
"Don't worry. One of my brothers was a pick pocket, he taught me some tricks," she grinned and gave him a wink before she left.
He grabbed the doorknob before it closed and stepped into the hallway. "The military one or the administrative one?" he asked.
"Awe, you were listening," she grinned as she turned to walk backwards towards the lift and pressed the call button. The door dinged. "And neither. I've got another brother that always tends to get himself in one kind of trouble or another."
"You will be careful, right?" he asked, but she was already on the lift then.
He went back into his apartment and started pacing around it restlessly. He should have followed her, he could have been her backup or lookout or something. They could have played up that there was some inter-office romance they were involved in. That would have been a good way to test the waters and see if she was receptive to the idea.
He'd been thrown to learn that she'd had a relationship with Tom Riddle, the youngest one. And he was surprised that Riddle had felt like he could use her like that. She was such a strong person, it didn't seem to him like she would fall for tricks like that when it came to men, she certainly didn't blush at the interest she received from McLaggen. Maybe she'd just learned from her experience though.
It was amazing to him how he'd started his day yesterday all tied up in knots about his missing notebook and so much had happened since then with the patent and finding out about a potential spy, yet right now all he was really upset about was that if she managed to get the sim card and they found out it had been Malfoy, then he wouldn't have an excuse to get Ginny to stay over at his again.
Even tonight she might opt to go home.
If she came back with the card and they knew for sure that it was Malfoy, then what more did they have to go over until she was too tired to make the journey to wherever she lived?
It was taking her a while.
She'd left thirty minutes ago now; the pub was only two blocks away and at her standard walking pace that would take maybe three to five minutes per block. Getting into the pub and finding a reason to sit near Malfoy, that would be another ten minutes of chatting and such. He didn't know how long it could take to remove a sim card and put the phone back together and get it back in Malfoy's pocket though.
Harry took out his own phone and sat down at the table to try and pop off the backing of it to show where the card was. It didn't take long.
She had to be inconspicuous about it. So, maybe she stayed for a drink? That would be another 10-20 minutes at least, right?
Then and he started playing some worst-case scenarios through his head of Malfoy, or whoever he was with at the pub, catching her and figuring out what she was doing. Maybe they were in on it too and decided to take her out back of the pub and rough her up or take her to Riddle Emprises and tie her to a chair to ask repeatedly who she was working for.
At that panicked thought he jumped up and pulled on his shoes and jacket, rushing to the lift and dancing on the spot as the carriage got to his floor, continuing his impatient dance down to the lobby.
The door dinged open and there she was, her eyes wide with excitement and smiling brightly at him. "I got it!"
He was so relieved to see her he didn't think through his next move, he just grabbed her by the front of her jacket and pulled her into the carriage with him, dipping his head and kissing her full on the mouth. She gave a squeak of surprise but then she was kissing him back, just as enthusiastically.
The door closed again and they didn't acknowledge it, she took charge and backed him up against the wall, her fingers fisting into his hair to keep his mouth as tightly against hers as was possible. His hands started off grasping at her hips and then began to wander, one going up her back, the other going lower to grasp at her lovely bum.
He wasn't sure how long they stood there in the lift losing themselves in each other and he didn't care.
It was several minutes later when the carriage gave a lurch and they jumped apart as the momentum of being pulled upwards startled them.
He looked over towards the panel on the wall and jabbed his floor number.
When the door dinged open again they were at his floor and one of his neighbors was standing there waiting, giving them both an appraising look and a smirk. Ginny ignored the neighbor and took his hand and pulled him down the hall to his flat.
Once they were inside, she wasted no time kissing him again and pulling at his jacket.
"Are you," their shoes came off, "sure about this?" he asked. Her hand was now at his belt and made quick work of unbuckling it.
"You have no idea how long I've fancied you," she told him, whipping off the belt and undoing the button on his trouser.
"You have?!" he asked in astonishment, his hands untucking her shirt from her skirt.
Ginny gave a deep and sexy chuckle, her mouth going to his neck as she started undoing his shirt, her lips kissing along the length of it upwards towards his earlobe. "You are so unobservant Doctor Potter."
His eyes rolled back at the sensation her lips on his earlobe gave him. Her calling him 'Doctor Potter' in that tone was doing something to him as well. He felt like giving a snarl and throwing her over his shoulder to carry her into the bedroom.
Before long they'd made it to his room, clothes coming off along the way and being tossed here and there, both of them falling onto his mattress and working up that sweat he'd mentioned needing that morning.
He woke up very early in the morning, about five a.m., and gave a stretch, feeling incredibly well rested and satisfied. He grinned as the memories of last night ran through his head. Ginny hadn't been shy about making it known what she wanted from him, and how. It was encouraging and incredibly sexy to have her telling him how much harder she wanted it and the sounds she made when it felt really good for her.
He was getting aroused again just from the thought of it.
Ginny must have felt him shifting, she rolled over and cuddled up against his side. "You okay with this?"
He brought his arm around her shoulder. "More than," he assured her and gave a kiss to her forehead. It felt really good to have her nestled in against him, her naked body pressed against his own under the sheets.
Inevitably, his mind went back to work and the sim card that Ginny had somewhere on her when she showed back up at his building. He didn't know how them sleeping together was going to affect their work dynamics, or if she wanted it to be a few shags and that was it. He also didn't know how they were going to play it with Malfoy once they'd looked at the photos on his sim card and had the proof that he'd done it.
There was something nagging at him too; if Malfoy was the one that was a mole and had gotten pictures and his notebook to Riddle Emprises, then why didn't the internal components on their model look anything like what he had designed?
"I can hear you thinking," Ginny muttered against his chest.
He chuckled at that. "There is a lot to think about."
"Someone told me once that it was helpful to have someone to voice things off to."
He grinned in the darkness and decided she was right. "What do you want us to be?"
"More than shagging buddies," she told him straight.
"A couple then?" he asked.
"An exclusive couple," she replied.
"That goes out on dates and tells everyone we're together? Gets HR involved?"
"Oh bugger. The work angle," she groaned. "Or a secretly exclusive couple that doesn't make it look like I'm trying to sleep my way to the top."
"You don't want anyone at work to know?"
"Harry, you didn't know what I go by as a first name until two days ago. I think we need to test drive this car before we lease it."
That was a fair point.
"And don't say you're sorry," she stated, taking the words right out of his mouth. Ginny came up onto her elbow and there was just enough light in the room that he could see her face looking down at him. "I know what you're like Harry, and I like that you can't remember people's names, you forget to stop for lunch, you're singular minded, and I really like that you think of me as your 'Moneypenny'," she ribbed him. "Although Bond never shagged Moneypenny."
"He should have. It was brilliant."
"Glad you think so," she said and gave him a chaste kiss. "And now that that is sorted. I know the rest of what's on your mind revolves around what is on that little microchip in my jacket pocket. So, I'm going to pop in the shower and freshen up while you make coffee and we'll take a look, yeah?"
"Can I join you in the shower instead?"
Twenty minutes later and the sun still hadn't risen, but they were seated with coffee mugs in hand in front of a laptop scrolling through the photos on Malfoy's sim card. Some of them were selfies, some of them were pornographic, a lot of them were of nearly every project that was in the works at their company, including his own project and a picture of the outline for it from meeting minutes.
"I guess that seals it," Harry sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. This next step was to take this to the Board and let the chips fall where they lay. "I still don't know why this design," he pointed at the Riddle Emprises Patent, "and mine differ so much with the internal components."
"And you think that it was him that stole your notebook?" she asked. "You've looked everywhere in your office?"
"Yes. It isn't in any of the drawers in my desk and I absolutely put it in there. I never bring it home with me."
Ginny gave him a looking over and he could see the gears turning in her head.
"You don't think he took it?" he asked, guessing at her expression.
"I believe that you believe you are saying the truth. Would you be offended if I asked to have a look in your office to double check?"
He figured it was worth a second set of eyes looking.
They got to work early that morning, Harry having sent a private message to all the board members about an emergency meeting that needed to happen first thing, and Ginny having submitted his competing patent for his design after scanning it and calling her friend to make sure it made it to the right channels. They went from her office to his so that she could double check his drawers.
Then he watched in amazement as she pulled the bottom drawer of his desk out completely from it and did a sweep of everything that had accumulated there over the years; four pens, multiple paper clips, a calculator, and his green notebook with all his designs for this project.
Harry stared at it, dumbstruck. "How… what." He was at a complete loss for words.
"Did you know that there is this spot in front load washers between the drum and the door that tends to trap odd socks and knickers and such?" she asked him then gestured at his desk with her thumb. "Desks tend to have that minor malfunction to their design as well."
He got over his shock a bit and looked back into her proud face. "What would I do without you?"
"Flounder," she said in tease with a nonchalant shrug of her shoulder. "You did still catch a corporate spy," she pointed out.
"And I would still be floundering about if it wasn't for you." He would have gone in for a kiss then if there weren't all these windows in his office overlooking people coming in from outside to start their work day.
"Then I guess it was lucky for both of us that this happened," she smirked. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to find a way to put Malfoy's sim card back into his phone without him noticing again."
"Be careful," he warned. "I didn't get a chance to tell you all the crazy scenarios I had playing through my head when you were gone to get that yesterday."
"You did seem quite relieved to see me when I got back."
"I was a pretty easy read there, was I?" he grinned.
She started towards the door. "No, but somewhere between being swept up into your arms and having you snog the daylights out of me I cottoned on that you might have been worried for me."
By the lunch hour there had been a team of lawyers called and a subpoena for Draco Malfoy's phone that resulted in him being fired with charges pending and Riddle Emprises was being sued for corporate espionage, their patent was officially put under review and Harry was confident it was going to turn out in their favor.
At the end of the day he'd felt like he'd accomplished so much and was still ready to take on more.
'How about I visit your place to night? Let you get a proper change of clothes instead of having to purchase some,' he texted to Ginny as he walked out of the building.
'We could, but I share a flat with one of my brothers and I don't think you'd be interested in meeting him after one night together,' she replied.
'Jesus, how many brothers do you have again?'
'Again? What 'again', that's the first time you've asked.'
'Are you evading the question for a reason?'
'Yes.'
'Because?'
'How about I run home after work, get a change of clothes and a swimsuit, then you can show me that pool you bragged about in your building?'
He grinned at that response. 'Sauna too?'
'Sauna too. Then we can 'work up a sweat' 😉'
'Done… so, how many brothers?'
'6. And I'm the youngest and only girl.'
"Oh fuck!" Harry exclaimed out loud. "That's a lot of gingers."
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