AN- Another prompt from Iwik.
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Creepy vs. Sweet
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The last of her boxes were finally unpacked, everything was put away in its new home and Ginny threw herself down on her comfortable sofa and lay there for a moment, letting the relaxation take her over now that the job was done.
This was her third flat she'd moved into in the span of two years.
That was a lot of moving.
And this was the last time, she was determined now that if her stalker found her at this location then she wasn't going to budge, they'd just have to show up at her door with a knife and stab her. It would be less painful than attempting to find a new flat in her price range again and re-box up all of her belongings.
That's right, she had a stalker; one with an unhealthy obsession with her (obviously), terrible grammar, and one who's 'charming' gifts would begin showing up at progressively nearer intervals once they found her at each new place she called home.
Like, what the fuck?
She didn't get it. In this day and age who had a stalker? He wasn't even sending deranged gifts like taxidermy animals with notes requesting her used knickers be sent to him, he would send flowers and take away to her door.
She shouldn't automatically assume it was a 'he' since she had no idea if the person was a he or she, or if it was a Muggle either. All the gifts would 'magically' appear, yet none of them showed indication of whether they appeared by magic or the person simply had them delivered at times when she didn't notice them being dropped off.
Her parents and brothers were worried about it, and she had been too, but now she was just annoyed. She wanted to concentrate on her work and her social life, not check her closet and under her bed every night to see if her Boogeyman stalker was there hiding.
Bill, her oldest brother, had found this newest flat and put himself down as a reference so she could get it. It was pretty nice too; open floorplan, loft style with high ceilings, wasn't very large but it had everything she needed. He'd even helped her transport the first load of her things and put spells on the windows so that she could see out but no one could see in and he put a ward around her flat, one that she didn't quite understand the point of since it was supposed to keep out people wanting to do her harm, yet her stalker had yet to harm her; so what was the point.
Ginny stretched her arms above her head and gave a large yawn before relaxing back against the cushions of the sofa. She knew what she needed to do next and wiggled her shoulders and hips as though to shake out some excess tension before doing it.
One moment she was Ginny Weasley, human woman stretched out on the sofa, then next she was a Golden Labradoodle rolling over to do a downward dog pose on the floor as she continued to stretch.
Becoming an Animagus had been her primary focus in her last year of schooling at Hogwarts and her Transfiguration Professor had been there to help walk her through the steps.
Everyone had thought she would wind up being a Quidditch player, and that had been her dream before the war, but dreams change, and life events change them.
All around her when she'd been at school for the last stretch, students, loved ones, strangers that she saw on the streets in Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade, everyone was dealing with the trauma they'd experienced during the war and she wanted to help heal them. Being a Healer though, that wasn't the kind of helping she wanted to do. She didn't want to deal with spell damage or stupidity, and she certainly didn't want to deal with anything that required Ministry Bureaucracy. So, she spent the summer after the war with her friend Luna and they talked about what they wanted to do once they were done with Hogwarts, and Luna was the one to show her a Muggle article about PTSD and support animals.
Luna assisted her with researching all she could about the training of support animals, the way Muggle's did it, and that was what inspired Ginny to become an Animagus.
Her animal being a dog was a delight to her since they were an obvious choice of support animal. Communicating with other dogs, and even cats, was so easy when she was in dog form as well that training was a synch.
After Hogwarts she and Luna both did internships as Magizooligists, Luna continued with the program but after a year Ginny felt she'd learned what she needed to and moved on to do an internship with a Mind Healer that had their own office that partnered with St. Mungo's.
She was twenty-five now and had been operating her own branch of Mind-Healing with therapy animals with that same Mind Healer, Rudolph Freeman, for three years now. She had four animals that lived at the office part-time between patients and one cat that lived with her permanently; Dairy was the first cat that she'd connected with in her dog form and Dairy had been just a kitten when they'd met; he was loyal and independent and loved to wake her up in the middle of the night by nibbling on her ear before purring loudly on the pillow beside her head.
He was also an excellent introductory animal to bring with her to meet with new clients. He would start off being aloof while Ginny would start talking with the clients and then he'd move closer and closer until he was in the clients lap and they were absently petting him and starting to talk more.
As her Labradoodle self she could have rudimentary conversations with Dairy and learned that animals would act like an emotional shield for humans; by sitting in a clients lap Dairy, or other animals, would give enough comfort so the person could start talking about their issues and not feel they were going to be judged or criticized for what they were going through.
Another thing that animals could do better than humans was sense out potential threats and pick up on smells, which was why she turned into her dog form to go sniffing around her new flat.
There had been pets living in this flat before, she could smell the spots that they'd likely had their beds or spent time laying on the floor in a sunbeam. There was a faint scent of Indian food in the kitchen that made her want to do up a curry for dinner. There had been a lot of cleaner used in the bathroom, so that was nice to know, and in the bedroom there was the lingering scent of sex in the air that she hadn't picked up on in her own body. Over by the door that led to the hallway she picked up on a men's body wash that smelled heavenly and she wasn't able to resist the urge to roll on her back and scratch it against the base of the door.
It was funny how many impulses she couldn't resist that were obviously canine when she was in her dog form; like when she got excited and needed to tear in circles around a room. It wasn't unlike when she was a human, regularly her emotions would get a bit too much for her and she'd have to let them out by having a cry or jumping up and down with excitement.
No, it wasn't very surprising that her Animagus form was a lovable dog, and everyone said so.
She managed to pull herself away from the door mat and went back into the sitting room where Dairy was staring at her from his perch on the windowsill, asking if she was satisfied using only his intense gaze. She changed out of her dog form and rushed over to Dairy before he could do any more than widen his eyes with surprise and picked him up for a cuddle that he wasn't entirely invested in. "Does that mean you're happy with our new home too?" she cooed at him patronizingly. He pushed against her chest with his paws and she let him go, chuckling to herself, then fell once more onto the sofa thinking about what she might have in her pantry that she could make a decent curry out of.
It was one month of comfortably adjusting to her new location in the city of London, of figuring out the quirks of her new flat, like how long it took for the water to run hot, of how the oven required her to shove a wooden spoon in it so it would stay shut when it was hot, all the little Muggle things she needed to deal with because she wanted to use as little magic as possible when she was home since it required her to burn off more energy instead of simply being lazy and waving her wand about to get things done. One full month she had that went by before she stepped out of her flat and into the hallway and accidentally knocked over a vase full of flowers that was sitting on the other side of the door.
Ginny stared down at the vase and the flowers that were now on their side with water spilling out on the carpet. They were the familiar orange Cali lilies that she'd had delivered to her several times before.
She closed her eyes and rested her head against her closed door with a sigh.
They'd found her already.
"For the love of Merlin," she muttered under her breath before crouching down and righting the vase.
The door across the hall from her opened, the one that belonged to the amazing smelling body wash owner. She hadn't met any of her neighbors on this floor yet, they all kept to themselves. There had been a few times she'd passed people on the stairway and given the courtesy nod and smile, but that was it.
She picked up the vase and stood up, turning to the person to give that same courtesy nod and smile and paused halfway through it.
He was her age, and he was damn cute.
"You didn't happen to forget these outside my door, did you?" she joked.
His eyes travelled from her face down to the flowers and back again. "No, I probably wouldn't have picked out a color that wasn't the same as your hair."
Her eyebrows went up in surprise. "You saying I can't pull off orange? Or do you just not like gingers? We do get a bad rap."
"My mother was a ginger, I've got nothing against them," he answered, sounding completely unaffected by her jest.
"Ah, so you're actually one of us under all that dark hair and unfreckled skin."
It was hard to tell if he was amused by the comment because he didn't smile, he just stayed standing where he was and pulled the door closed behind him and she heard the automatic click of his lock.
"So… you don't happen to know if there is any surveillance in this building that would tell me who put these here?" she asked politely.
"Unwanted attention?" he questioned.
"Very," she nodded.
There was a small twitch in his upper left cheek. It was hard to tell if it was irritation or humor. "I thought women liked receiving flowers."
"They might when they know who they're coming from. However, when said woman has moved several times because of the anonymously sent gifts it can be quite irritating."
She watched as his eyes grew more attentive and focused. He stood up straighter and took a step towards her. "These were sent by a secret admirer that you are trying to avoid? How did they get in the building? This is supposed to be a secure residence." He took the vase out of her hands and started looking it over as though some clue would appear about who sent them.
It was nice that he was taking it seriously that someone had got the flowers into the building, but his reaction was more than she'd anticipated. "Maybe carrier pigeons brought them in through the window," she joked, trying to make light of it. She always tried to make light of it and could tell that it annoyed her parents and worried her friends and brothers. This wasn't the first time she'd tried to rationalize a serious situation.
Then again, three years of anonymous doting attention was a lot different than being possessed and trying to shrug off finding rooster feathers and blood on her robes with no idea how they got there, or how she got to where she wound up in the castle of her school.
She stood there watching as her cute neighbor looked all over the vase and then to the window at the end of the hall, like he took her carrier pigeon theory seriously. Which he couldn't possibly have… unless.
"Muggle," Ginny said out loud.
His eyes snapped to hers and she now noticed how brilliantly green they were behind his glasses. "Say that again?"
"Er… smuggle? Maybe they smuggled it in somehow?" she lied.
He stared at her a moment more and she could feel him scrutinizing her. "You said 'Muggle' the first time."
This was a Muggle building she was living in, she knew that. She'd been glad to be moving into a Muggle building.
But Bill had been the one to find it for her, and there was likely a reason that Bill would have recommended it to her. Could that be because she wouldn't be the only person with magic in her blood that would be living there? It would be just like him to somehow trick her into thinking something was a great idea that was actually something that was for her protection; like the necklace he pointed out in a shop after her possession that had a charm on it to give her pleasant dreams, or the bracelet that was a portkey he'd gifted her with one Christmas that he activated when the Battle of Hogwarts happened that sent her to the middle of Ottery St. Catchpole so she wouldn't be able to participate in the fight.
Her shoulders sagged and she leaned back against her door. "You're a fucking wizard, aren't you?"
His reaction was to show he was equally discontented knowing she too was magical. "You're a witch?"
"I am going to murder my brother for recommending this place," she grumbled and took the vase from him before turning around and unlocking her door.
"Wait, you're going to take that into your flat?!" He snatched it back out of her hand. "There could be a tracker or something on it. At least run a spell or two before bringing it in. That's entirely dangerous and stupid of you."
As if she needed another person on top of the hoard she already had telling her what she could or couldn't do, Ginny huffed internally.
"You're right," she grinned falsely at him. "Shall I do that in the corridor? Maybe run it down to the storage room where anyone could walk in? Or will you be volunteering your flat for me to run a few charms over it?" She turned back to her door. "And you call me stupid."
She got the door open and walked in, placing the vase on the nearest table. "Dairy!" she called out and he came prancing towards her. She gutted her thumb at the vase. "Do your thing." He leapt up on the table and walked around the vase a few times, giving it a sniff and drawing nearer each time.
"Your cat can sense magic, can it?" her neighbor asked.
"Oh, by all means, let yourself in," Ginny rolled her eyes, not looking at him. "And yes, he can."
"And how does he communicate if he does sense danger? Pat the ground three times?" he mocked.
Ginny turned around and gave him a glare, grabbing her wand to flick it at the door so it would close behind him and block any other potential onlookers from seeing them.
Dairy jumped down from the table and stood in front of her, then she turned into her dog form and they both walked around the table, pausing here and there, Dairy stopping her to point something out; a fingerprint, a scent that didn't belong to the flowers. There wasn't any magic coming off the vase though.
She turned back into herself and pointed her wand at the flowers. "Incendio," she cast, and they burst into flames then she transfigured the vase into a simple glass ball and tossed it in the garbage. "And that," she turned back to her neighbor, "is how I deal with that."
"I guess you do have this under control," he admitted with no sign of apology.
"Yeah, I do. Now, next time you come across Bill Weasley, tell him that, would you?"
"Bill Weasley?" he cocked his head with interest. "Is that your brother?"
"One of."
"Hmm. I like him. He's smart, doesn't beat around the bush."
"I agree. He's also a protective pain in the arse." She came back to stand near him in her entry way and extended her hand, "Ginny."
"Harry," he nodded and took her hand, giving it a single shake up and down.
"Well… good to meet you I guess."
"And you," he nodded. "Cute, by the way."
Her brow furrowed in confusion then. "Well… I try." She fought to keep the blush off of her face from the compliment.
His composure broke and he smiled, letting out an abrupt laugh. "I meant your Animagus form."
"Oh!" She'd heard that a lot. "So, you don't think I'm cute then?" she challenged him with a smirk.
He didn't rise to the bait. "I believe you were on your way out somewhere?" he said, pulling open the door again and holding it open for her with a wave of his hand gesturing that she be the one to go through first.
Once she'd locked up her door in the corridor, they both headed for the stairwell, and the walk to the main floor was heavy with silence the whole way. It was like an awkward conversational shield had been raised between them that stopped either from being able to come up with a single thing to chat about between the fourth and first floor.
It was a relief once they'd finally made it to the lobby. In order to insure they didn't exit at the same time and somehow wind-up heading in the same direction down the street she stopped to check her mailbox, letting him exit the building first. Once he had walked past the window, she let out a low breath and took her time extracting all of the flyers from her mailbox and tossing them into the recycling bin one by one.
Ginny shook her head.
Of course, Bill would manufacture this situation. She just didn't know how many of her brothers might have been in on it.
Days and then weeks passed before Ginny saw Harry in passing again. They kept to the polite single nod and false smile, like she did with all the other tenants.
Then she got her next gift from her admirer; take-away food.
It was like they just knew when she was hungry too. That, or the food that they always had delivered just smelled so freaking incredible that it made her ravenous. Either way though, she wasn't going to eat it. She never did.
This time it was Thai food too.
She'd smelled it wafting under her door and poked her head out into the hallway because it was such a potent and delicious smell. And there it was, a white plastic bag with a receipt stapled to it, containing a few Styrofoam containers that had what could have been her next meal.
Her stomach rumbled at the scent and her mouth started producing a bit of extra saliva.
She closed the door on it, knowing that she needed to have something in her mouth and stomach before dealing with it.
Whoever it was that was sending these things to her, they might be crap at sending her flowers, but the food! Merlin, the food always smelled incredible!
Heading straight for her cupboard she pulled from her emergency stash of peanut butter cups and jammed one in her mouth, holding another for back-up, then went back to the door and picked up the plastic bag to take it to the trash chute.
As her door closed she heard the click of the lock.
"Fuck!" she stomped her foot.
Her dead bolt kept turning by itself if she didn't have it completely turned to the right. And right now, she was only armed with a peanut butter cup, no keys, no wand.
And she was only wearing her pyjamas.
Getting the delivery dealt with was the first problem though, so she kept on going to the trash chute room, dropped it down the hole and listened as the container bounced off the metal sides a few times on the way down, then went back to her flat door and tried the handle, which turned, but the door wouldn't budge.
Her wandless magic was entirely limited to becoming an Animagus too, and that wasn't going to help her here.
Ginny turned around and rested her back against the door, which left her facing the door of someone who could get her into her flat.
With no other option coming to mind, she took the three steps forward and knocked on his door. While she waited and listened for the sound of movement inside the flat she stared down at the treat in her hand and mulled over whether she should eat it now, or hold off and let it be her celebration treat for getting back into her flat.
The door opened so abruptly that she felt the air around her get pulled into the flat and caused her to sway forwards a bit.
Harry was standing there, also dressed in his pyjamas; flannel full-length bottoms and a plain cotton t-shirt. He looked… cuddly. And warm.
"Hi," she got out. "I'm… erm, locked out. I hoped you could take pity on me and, er, help me back into my flat?"
He stared at her for a moment, then she noticed he was taking in her entire appearance; from her messy hair that was hastily pulled up into a ponytail to her ratty pink tank top and down to her feet that were mostly covered by her own cotton pyjama bottoms.
"Is that supposed to be code for something?" he asked.
There was a particular note to his voice that sounded like he was questioning if she was coming onto him. Which made her realize she didn't have a bra on.
The image of him letting her back into her flat and then the two of them winding up horizontal on her sofa all tangled up together made her grow noticeably aroused considering there was only that small piece of fabric covering her breasts.
Hastily, she crossed her arms in front of her chest and felt the warm blush come to her cheeks. "No, that is not code for something. I am legitimately locked out of my flat and without my… wand," she muted the last word.
"Oh," he nodded and moved around her, his wand already in his hand.
"You just always have it on you?" she questioned.
"And you clearly don't. Look how that turned out." He made quick work of getting her into the flat. "Smells like you had something good for dinner."
"Thank you," she said about opening her door. "And no, it was another surprise on my doormat that I took to the garbage chute. That's why I forgot my… key."
"Another one?"
She offered him a shrug. "Yeah, I average about one a month."
"And you've no idea who's been sending them?"
"Nope."
"Have you tried looking into it?" he asked her patronizingly.
She resisted the urge to roll her eyes at him. "Huh, I should probably get on that. Anyhow, thanks for this. Sorry I interrupted your evening."
He was still standing there, propping her door open with his foot as he stood in the doorway, and staring at her.
The way he was scrutinizing her, it made her feel off. "Peanut butter cup?" she offered and held it up for him.
He took it but didn't leave, he just held in his hand. "Three years you say you've been getting these tokens?"
"Yeah, three years."
"So, you were how old when they started? Twenty-three?"
"Twenty-two, why?"
"And what is it you do for a living?"
"A specialized branch of Mind Healing, why?" her annoyance at the questions growing obvious in her tone.
"Then you've checked with all of your patients from then and before and already ruled them out," he stated succinctly. "What about old boyfriends? Any of them go through a life event back then?"
"Look," she held up her hand, "I really don't need you to start investigating this. Thank you for letting me into my flat, sorry I interrupted your evening." She moved towards him, the movement was supposed to indicate to him that he start backing out towards the hallway. He didn't though, instead he let the door close behind him so he was once again standing completely in her flat, now only a few inches away from her and their proximity was making her skin feel a little tingly.
She really needed to find someone to go on a date with. Harry was her neighbor, being attracted to him would get complicated.
"I would imagine that Bill has already tried figuring out who it is that keeps sending you these things?"
"You know, there's being neighborly and then there's putting your nose where it doesn't belong," Ginny pointed out to him.
"Except that these little gifts you keep getting are now showing up directly across the hall from me, and I'm not very happy about finding out someone is getting into our apartment building. Right now it's flowers and food, what's to stop them from escalating things and starting to send you something a little more hazardous? I've worked hard to keep my address from becoming public knowledge and I don't fancy someone from our world recognizing me when they're already deranged."
"Recognizing you?" she scoffed. "Sounds like you're a little miffed you don't have your own stalker."
From the puzzled look on his face she knew she was missing something.
"What is it you do for work?" Ginny asked him. He knew Bill, that was about the summation of what she knew about him. Thus, she'd assumed he worked for Gringotts.
"I deal with dark artifacts."
"Hunting them, selling them, stealing them?" she listed off, clearly asking him to elaborate. "Are you on some wanted list up there with Mundungus Fletcher?"
"You know Dung as well?" He appeared amused by her familiarity with the smelly crook.
"Is that why you were such a prick about me bringing in the vase last time?"
"And picking it up in the first place," he deadpanned. "You shouldn't touch things without checking them out first."
She gave him another looking up and down, wishing she didn't find his form attractive, because his superiority complex was not.
"What are you doing?"
"Checking you out before I push you out the door."
He scoffed at her. "Seriously, now that I know you've got a stalker and the gifts really aren't a one time thing, I intend to look into this and try and figure out who it is. It isn't safe!" Then he walked around her and went into her sitting room, finding a pad and paper and setting himself up on her sofa.
"Excuse me! I had big plans to do nothing and then go to bed!"
"Then you should have figured out who it is before you moved here and dealt with it already."
"Who the fuck are you?!"
"I've experience with stalkers, except mine was the 'deranged and trying to kill you' kind. You'll excuse me if I don't respond to this as cheerily as you do."
She was not expecting that as a response. "So… how did you deal with yours?"
"Killed him."
"Him?" she asked first, immediately realizing she had focused on the wrong part of that. "Wait! Killed? You killed someone because they were stalking you?"
He gave her another quizzical look before the corner of his mouth ticked upwards in amusement. "To be fair, he was a menace and terrorizing people everywhere, so it wasn't just the stalking bit I had a problem with. I'm sure you're happy he's gone."
Harry was leaning forward and writing on the pad of paper on his knee and Ginny just stared at him. She started walking around her coffee table, continuing to stare at him, then got down onto her knees so she could see his face better.
Then he tilted his head up so he could look directly back at her.
"You're Harry Potter," she said, coming to the conclusion.
"You haven't bothered talking to Bill about me then either? I thought you were going to murder him for tricking you into living across the hall from me," he teased.
"I got busy with work and forgot," she dismissed. It earned her another half-smile from him that went away as quickly as it came.
"Three years ago," he held up the pad of paper. "Where were you?"
Ginny rolled her eyes and gave in. He was instrumental in saving the wizarding world after all, she may as well give him thanks in the form of letting him hunt down her stalker.
"I was starting to work as an intern for Rudolph Freeman, the Mind Healer that's got an office near St. Mungo's." She got up off the floor. "Do you want a beer? Or wine?"
"Got any red?"
He stayed at her place for two hours that evening, writing down all the places she frequented, the names of her ex-boyfriends, the gifts that she could remember receiving and at what intervals. Dairy wandered into the room at one point and jumped into her lap, turning around three times before laying down on her. Then slowly, Dairy started moving towards the other side of the couch and wound up in Harry's lap. Ginny tried not to show how amusing she found it that Harry started talking more freely about things when he had one hand absently petting Dairy. The conversation wasn't solely about gifts she received and when once Dairy settled on his lap, he was interjecting stories of his own about food preferences or when the last time it was that he had gone to some part of town she mentioned.
Ginny learned a lot about him that night. Mainly that he wasn't actually that cocky at all, he was in fact very pleasant company.
And he still smelled incredibly good.
She'd moved around the room a few times trying to get comfortable and maintain a casual distance from him; she'd sat on the other side of the coffee table on the floor, on the other side of the sofa from him, lain down on the floor and stretched out after getting a crick in her neck from being turned to look at him.
He however had seemed perfectly content in his seat on her sofa, resting back against the cushion and petting Dairy with one hand while making notes with the other.
He looked good there.
Then he left.
The next night she saw just how much he had learned about her too, because he knocked on her door at six thirty in the evening and set up a few boards in her sitting room that mapped out all that she'd told him, including follow up information on what her ex-boyfriends were up to now and completely ruling them out.
Learning that it couldn't possibly be any of her old boyfriends gave her mixed feelings; on the one hand she was glad that they had moved on because she had as well, on the other hand though, did that mean that Harry had discovered that there was no chance they ever thought about her and the time they'd spent together?
She had still thought about them from time to time. Not in a longing way, but a reminiscence.
"Ready to tell me anything about your patients from around then?" Harry called to her from the sitting room while she was in the kitchen, begrudgingly getting a few nibbles for them. The invasion of privacy that he was doing right now she had mixed feelings about; on the one hand, he was Harry Potter, if you wanted anyone trying to take care of a situation for you, it was Harry Potter. On the other hand, he was Harry Potter, and his insight into her personal life was now well more than any stalker might have found out about.
And she was attracted to him. That was another issue for another time.
"No. Patient confidentiality."
"You don't have to give me names, just descriptions of personalities and what kind of issues they were having."
"All my patients have the same issues from then and now; PTSD from the war. It was what started me into the field and I wanted to get the most experience with that." She came back into the sitting room and set the food down on the coffee table. "Don't you have an actual job you should be doing rather than playing detective?"
"I told you, I'm not comfortable having packages that weren't requested delivered by unknown means to the flat across from mine. And no, I'm between jobs right now and bored."
"So, no one hired you to look into this," she asked him seriously.
Harry made a point of looking her directly in the eyes as he answered. "No, Bill did not hire me."
At least he knew what she was really asking.
"Well, all of my patients from when it all started I was just assisting with. They rarely talked directly to me, I was just another person in the room. And," she blushed, "sometimes not. They may not have entirely known I was… me."
He turned around to stare at her and she held her wine glass up to her face in an attempt to hide most of it.
"You were a dog then?" he grinned at her.
"I was trying to work out how best to get the animals trained for assisting with mind healing, what better way than to be the animal and discover what was needed?" she admitted. "The fact that they may have another person in their sessions was in the paperwork, they likely just skimmed over it."
"And I'll hazard a guess that it didn't mention anything about the person being an Animagus."
"I'm registered with the Ministry. It might have been a small slight, but not broaching any confidentiality issues."
"Mhmm."
"Whatever, I don't need you judging me," she gave him a glare.
He put his hands up. "It isn't like I haven't done anything questionable with my job. Back to this though. You said you were delivered food last night. Any idea what restaurant it might have come from?"
"A Thai food place. I didn't look very closely at the receipt."
That caught his full attention. "Receipt?! If there was a receipt on it then there was an address, then we might have a time stamp too. You tossed it in the garbage?" he thought for a minute. "Garbage pick-up is tomorrow," he announced and stood up abruptly.
As Harry made for the door and Ginny set her wine glass down and followed him. "You're proposing we go dumpster diving?"
"The restaurant would have surveillance cameras and a form of payment. Muggles pay for things with cards that have their names on them rather than using cash sometimes."
She pulled on her trainers and followed him down the stairs to the back of the building. "You seem to be getting a thrill out of this," she brought up as they started moving garbage bags.
"I may have been a little bored as of late. I'm used to being on the move and having a few items that need to be checked out for the bank or a private party. Right now, I don't have anything waiting. I was getting restless."
"Having down time is a not a luxury for you?" She found a white plastic bag, but it wasn't one containing her Thai food. "Wish I could afford that luxury. Even if I could though, someone would have to look after the animals at the office and I would have to make enough to cover their salary as well."
"I would have thought you'd be busy with your line of work and our emotional climate after the war, even though it's been several years now." He chucked a few garbage bags over the side of the bin.
"I'm busy enough, just not run off my feet. There are only so many patients I can see at a time."
"And if you expanded?"
"I'd need the right candidate for that job. Someone I can trust."
"Sounds like you and I have a bit more in common than I thought," he told her.
"Guess I can understand why you aren't the trusting sort. Ever tried to work through that?"
"I don't need a session, thanks. Pretty sure the only kind of therapy I need you don't provide," he muttered just loud enough for her to hear.
Ginny chuckled, catching his inference. "No, that kind of therapy I wouldn't charge for," she told him as she too pulled a garbage bag out of the bin and kept on sifting.
She didn't catch that he had paused to give her an interested look.
"There it is!" She spotted it poking out under a black bag in the middle of the bin. "Give us a boost?"
There was a moment of hesitation from him as she stood before him, then his hands went to her waist and he helped lift her over the side and she stretched out, catching the bag with her finger and tugging it towards them. It came free from the weight of the bag on top of it and she tugged just the receipt free.
"Got it!"
Harry let her back down. "You know, we could have just levitated the bag off and got the right one out of there." She was still standing directly in front of him and his mouth was so close to her ear, his chest so close to her back, that it was a bit distracting.
She hadn't thought about using magic to retrieve it. "Well, in that case, we could have just summoned the receipt."
She made a point of moving away from him and held the paper up to the light as the words printed on it were wearing off and she couldn't read it properly unless the light was shining through it and she squinted. "Pho Thai Fusion on Suffolk."
Harry took the receipt and looked near the bottom. "Around 7:30 last night is when it was purchased. When did it arrive at your door?"
"Near eight I'd reckon?"
"There's no way it got there by Muggle means then." Suffolk was easily nearer an hour away, no matter what type of Muggle transport someone used.
"Okay. Well, that narrows it down."
"Care to go or some Thai food?" he asked, offering her his hand.
Ginny stared at him a moment, thinking it over. She would like to know who was sending her these things, but the way that he'd asked her that, for a moment she wondered what she would say if there hadn't been this purpose for the trip.
Upon their first meeting he called her cute, then he just mentioned sex therapy and now a minute later he was asking her to dinner.
Except he wasn't asking her to dinner.
They were playing detective.
"It did smell really good when it showed up last night," she said, taking the opportunity to see if there might be something more that could be between them than living across the hall from each other. It had been ages since she'd been on a date too.
His back straightened up so he was standing at his full height. "Eating there first would give me some time to see what sort of surveillance system they have and potentially sweet talk the servers into telling us who ordered the food," he responded carefully.
Too carefully.
She could take the hint.
"Okay then," she said in a friendly manner. "I'll assume you're holding your hand out to Apparate us there?" she checked to make sure.
"Yes," he said quickly.
Ginny didn't let her disappointment show. "Okay." She took his hand and a moment later they were standing near a different dumpster in a different area of London. This one had wonderful scents wafting out of the kitchen vents close by. "So glad I get to actually taste the food this time. It smelled incredible yesterday, that's why I had the emergency chocolate on me." She took her hand out of his and headed for the street.
Harry was looking around at the buildings and posts on the corners. "There are some cameras outside the other businesses. Might be able to check their feed if we get nothing here."
"Cool." The scent of lemongrass and coconut milk was making her mouth water. "Oh, look! They do sushi too."
"You are more interested in food than finding out who this person is, aren't you?"
She'd grown hungry assembling the snacks for them back at her flat and hadn't had the opportunity to eat any of them. "Right now, yeah. Once I've got a full stomach, then I'll be more invested."
Harry shook his head at her.
"If you think I'm bad, you should meet my youngest brother. He doesn't care about anything but food. Can't get him to focus on anything but his next meal and how the Cannon's are playing." She opened the door to the restaurant and looked around. All the tables were filled and there was a line of people waiting along the wall for take-away pick up.
A server spotted them and came over. "For two?" she asked. "All the tables are taken, did you want to wait?"
"What about along the bar?" Ginny asked, gesturing towards the two stools that were available beside each other.
"If you like, it isn't very romantic," the woman pointed out.
"We're not on a date," Ginny assured her, watching for Harry's reaction to that out of the corner of her eye. He only looked around at the other customers.
The server waved them towards the stools and handed them each a menu.
"Think it's always this busy here?" Ginny asked Harry once they were seated.
"I'd imagine so. The take-away line is long enough." He was looking around. "I see two cameras, but I don't reckon they'd let us take a look at them unless things die down in here. They're all too busy."
"What if we show them the receipt and mention there was a problem with the food? Or just hand it over and ask for the exact same dishes that were on it."
He considered that for a minute. "We should just order and hope that the take-away line dies down by the time we go to pay."
"Sure, you're the expert." She perused the menu. "Want to each order something and then share? I really want the Pad Thai, but I also want the sushi."
"Okay. I'm not really familiar with either."
Ginny shut her menu then and looked up at him. "What?! You've never had either of them? What about Indian food?" He shook his head 'no'. "Ethiopian?" Again, it was a no. "Lebanese?"
"That'd be Shawarma, right? That one I've had."
"You sure it wasn't a Gyro? They're similar, yet completely different. One is Greek."
He shook his head at her once more with a smile on his face. "You are really into food."
The server came back and Ginny ordered for both of them.
"So, do you not get out much?" She asked, hoping they could chat about something that was safe for their surrounding audience to eavesdrop on.
"I'm rarely home actually. I just don't go out to restaurants very often. Too busy with work and whatnot to be concerned about tasting all the cuisines of the world."
"I grew up on roast and potatoes, which was really good, but once I was out on my own I had to try every type of food I could. My best friend travels a lot and is up for a little gastro-adventure or two. I think we've been through every type of Anglicized culinary option there is in the UK."
"Anglicized?"
"Yeah, my friend claims the food all tastes entirely different when you are in the country of origin."
"That would likely be the proximity to the fresh ingredients needed for the dishes."
"Probably. If it's true, then I really need to go on some kind of around the world adventure to try food everywhere."
Their dishes arrived quickly and Ginny talked him through how to eat the sushi with the chopsticks and enjoyed watching the look on his face when he swallowed his first piece of a sushi roll down.
"Slimy, yet satisfying," he told her with a look of appreciation.
"Just wait until we get to the Pad Thai," she promised.
The food was as delicious as it had smelled yesterday and by the time they were done the take-away line was no more. Ginny pulled out her wallet to find some Muggle money to pay for the dinner but Harry stopped her.
"Wait here." He then went to the front to pay and talk to the person at the counter.
Ginny watched as he showed the receipt from the previous evening and then gestured at her. The cashier person turned around and Ginny gave him a small, confused, wave, then the cashier turned back to Harry and they continued talking.
A minute later he came back and sat down next to her.
"The cameras don't actually record, they're just for show. The cashier remembers this order though, said it was the one that 'went missing' yesterday. Apparently someone wearing 'funny clothes' ordered it, then it was brought out and put on the counter, but by the time the person distributing the take-away got to the man in the funny clothes, it had disappeared, and they had to make it again."
"So, it is a man then. Any more description of him offered besides that he wore 'funny clothes'?"
"It's a generic description I was given; about my height, white, brown hair, not too fat, not too thin, and he couldn't remember anything about the man's accent. Apparently, the guy could have been anywhere between twenty and thirty-five years old."
"Well, at least that is two unknowns that we've discovered with this outing; male and a… one of us." She was about to say 'wizard'. The 'funny clothes' description gave that away. "I still don't get why he would be sending me food and flowers all the time instead of just coming up and talking to me. It's weird."
"Maybe he finds you intimidating."
"Me? Seriously? I don't see it." She wasn't trying to be self deprecating, it was just that there were much more intimidating women out there. She was certainly not one. Ginny knew how people described her; nice, friendly, stubborn. Intimidating was never something associated with her.
They both stood up and headed for the door.
"Or maybe they have just built you up in their head for so long, and have been sending you things for so long, that they're just too shy to face you anymore."
That was the more likely scenario. "It's a little sad if that is the case. I mean, it isn't like I know who the guy is, so why doesn't he just arrange a chance introduction and never admit to the fact that he was the one sending me things. I mean, if he's somewhere between twenty to thirty-five and I'm in my mid-twenties, it isn't like we're school children and he should be ashamed of fancying someone."
Harry said nothing in response to this. She felt like he was pointedly not looking at her and was instead looking at the camera's outside the restaurant, particularly the one that was closest to the alley they had Apparated to.
"Are you at least of the same opinion as me now that this guy is likely harmless?"
Now he turned to face her.
"I still don't like that he's getting into our building uninvited."
That was all the response that she was going to get from him, she knew it. For someone that was prying so hard into her life, he hadn't told her much about his own. He must have had his fair share of admirers over the years after his role with Tom Riddle, he can't have known who all the people were that were sending him things. Had that bothered him?
"I'm going to jot down the camera number on this one. Looks like I'll have to speak to someone in the Muggle Law Enforcement to try and get the footage. I have a contact there though so it won't be difficult."
"Bully," she said and rested back against a lamp post, crossing her arms and waiting for him to be done.
Harry looked back at her. "You really don't care about this, do you."
"I did for the first year. It bothered me enough for the second year that I moved again. I told my self the day I moved into our building though, if he found me again I'd just keep tossing the gifts and if he showed up in person then he'd just have to stab me or something. Because no, I don't care anymore. But you do, and this is new for you, so go right on ahead."
"It isn't safe," he stated, like he was providing her with new information.
"Three years, Harry. Am I supposed to have been wracked with anxiety about this the whole time?"
"It could turn into him showing up at your flat with his wand in your face, or a knife." He stepped closer to her as he said it so that people walking past them might not overhear.
Ginny put her hand on his shoulder and gave him a placating look. "Let's put some perspective on this; you were the one with the deranged stalker that was looking to kill you. I've got someone sending me flowers and take-away."
He did no more than purse his lovely lips at her, then they went back to their building after that and Harry said goodnight to her in the hallway, then showed up at her door at the exact same time again the next night.
"I saw the footage," he announced.
"The what?" She wasn't sure what that meant at all. She'd gone from reading a tabloid and eating crackers to having her hot neighbor talking about the age of feet and couldn't get her brain to switch gears fast enough to make sense of it.
"The camera, from the alley from last night. I saw what was on it and have a picture of the man." He then held out a piece of paper for her that had a picture on it like what she saw in her History of Magic text books. It was a still picture with incredible detail, yet in black and white. On it she saw the alley and she saw a man that was about their age, maybe a bit older, in mid-stride with a bag of takeaway food.
He looked familiar to her, but she couldn't place him.
"This is him then?"
"That's him. I checked all the footage from a half hour before to a half hour after. He's the only one that goes into the alley. It's got to be him."
There was that word again; foot age.
Ginny kept staring down at the picture in her hands, looking over every minor detail she saw in the mans appearance. A cold chill ran through her and her heart rate started picking up pace. The longer she looked at the picture the harder it came for her to breathe or figure out exactly how she was feeling about having an identity, named or not, to the mystery gifts.
"Ginny?"
She couldn't tear her eyes away. He hadn't been anyone she'd had sessions with. He might have been someone she'd known from school though. Clearly not someone she'd known very well since she couldn't put a name to his image.
"Ginny?"
Maybe he was using a glamour because he knew about things like the Muggle camera's that would take a picture of him using an alley.
Now she didn't know why she hadn't tried to talk to any of her Muggleborn friends about this. They would know about things like receipts and time stamps, even if her father didn't. Her father was fascinated with Muggles, but he wouldn't have known how to read the numbers or addresses on the receipts.
Harry took the picture out of her hands and it made her finally look up at him.
"What?" she asked.
"I've said your name a few times. Are you alright?"
She opened and closed her mouth a few times as she tried to get a grip on her emotions. "I think I could use a drink." She turned and went into the kitchen and he let himself into her place and followed behind her.
"Still no idea who he is then?"
She poured herself a glass of white wine and took a sip before answering. "None. He's no one on that list you've made in there." She gestured towards her sitting room that still had his boards up.
"Then the only other way I can think of how he found out about where you keep moving to is if he works somewhere in the Ministry."
"What?! How did you come to that conclusion?"
He gave her a look of exasperation, which she mockingly returned.
"You had to inform someone there of your moving, didn't you? Bill was the one that did all the warding around your place, but the Ministry needs to be informed of when a witch or wizard moves so that they don't start issuing Improper Use of Magic letters to Muggle addresses when there is a witch or wizard of legal age there using their magic in the private of their own home." He looked towards the sitting room. "I mean, you aren't set up for Floo here, are you? So that leaves one department."
Her shoulders slumped.
Now that he'd lain it all out for her, she wondered how she could have been so stupid not to think of that.
Her past boyfriends and clients wouldn't have been able to find out where she lived, it had just been friends and family, and the Ministry.
"Can I see that photo again?" With that connection it just occurred to her why he looked so familiar.
Harry handed the photo over and Ginny stared at the mans face and tried to picture what he would look like seated behind the counter at the Ministry where the clerks were on level six.
"Got it!" she announced. "He does work at the Ministry! He's one of the guys that reports to my brother Percy actually!"
"How sure are you?"
"Pretty sure. The first time I remember dealing with him was when I first moved out of The Burrow, my family home. There was this man in front of me and he was screaming at the clerk about something or other. I recognized the colours the screaming man was wearing, his cloak colour, it meant that he worked in the Undersecretary's office, so I pulled out my Deloris Umbridge impression of her clearing her throat and it made him turn white and shut up real quick thinking she was behind him. I don't know if you ever met Umbridge, but she was the Undersecretary for Fudge and was a real piece of work. Anyhow, I said something to him about minding him manners and he apologized to the clerk and buggered off."
"And that's the only time you remember meeting him?"
"I think so. He might have been there the last two times I went to submit my change of address papers. I've had lunch at the Ministry cafeteria a few times so he might have noticed me there too." She looked down at his picture again and frowned. "There must be more to it than this. He can't have just started sending me things because I stopped one person from yelling at him."
"The Ministry was not a nice place to be working near the end of the war. Maybe you were the first person to speak out against verbal abuse there in a long time and it stuck with him. Being attractive on top of that certainly helps." He said that and then took the paper back from her to give the guy another look, as though he hadn't just complimented her again.
She could not get a read on Harry at all. Was he even interested in women?
"Well," he continued, and set the paper down on her counter. "Now we have an explanation for how he's getting your address. That makes me feel a lot better. And we know where he works, so you can go charging down there tomorrow and yell at him to either cut it out or ask you out."
Ginny's brow furrowed at those options he'd given her, as though they were the only two options.
"Oh, Harry. No," she said and shook her head. "No, that's not how we Weasley's deal with something like this at all."
She stepped towards him and gave him a pat on the head, the scent of his body wash wafting into her nose as she did so. It was only a second that her hand was touching his hair, but it was long enough to appreciate just how soft the unruly locks of his were.
Before their proximity to each other made things awkward for either of them, she refilled her wine glass and went into the sitting room.
"You can't hurt him," Harry called out to her as she had moved into the other room.
"I never said anything about hurting him," she smirked as she pulled down the boards around her sitting room.
"Well, since he's abused his position to stalk you, you could bring it to his superiors. Him knowing it was you that would lead to him losing his position though would also mean you might have to move again."
Ginny laughed at that. "I'm not moving. You're stuck with me as a neighbor for the foreseeable future and you'll just have to deal with that."
"I don't want you to move. That's why I wanted to point that option out."
"Does that mean you like having me as your neighbor?" she teased.
To her surprise, he blushed. "Yes." They stared at each other for a moment before he continued. "Don't get me wrong, you being so dismissive about this situation makes me think you're a bit bonkers, and the forgetfulness will get on my nerves."
"Forgetfulness?" she cut in.
"You locked yourself out of your flat; no wand, no key," he explained.
"That was one time!"
"That I know of, and I've only known you for about a month. Who knows when the next time will be that you come knocking on my door after dark for the same reason?"
He had her there. At least that time she had the excuse of trying to be quick about throwing away questionable take away, it wasn't too uncommon for her to have three things of a to-do list and only remember two of them in the moment though.
"But," he continued, "it's kind of nice to have a witch living right across the hall. I really wanted to live in a Muggle building because… well, because. Having someone else that knows magic is more than what we see on Disney around has been nice."
He lost her on the Disney reference, she gathered it was a Muggle thing and took it as a compliment.
"Well, it's nice for me to know that there is at least one wizard in the building too. Maybe I won't be giving Bill a hard time when I see him next."
Harry started playing with the fabric on the back of her sofa as he was standing behind it. "So then, what are you going to do about him? What is the Weasley way of dealing with it?"
"Pranks," she told him succinctly.
"Pranks," he echoed in question.
"I'll figure out his name by asking my friend Luna to go into his department after showing her the picture, then I'll start sending him things."
"What kinds of things?"
"Have you ever heard of a confetti bomb?"
She had been able to tell from the expression he was giving her that he thought she was crazy. Over the next week she'd discovered his name, Leonard Warren, and sent him one confetti bomb, one stink sap plant, four moldy oranges, and a box of Hagrid's rock cakes before she'd finally gone into the clerks office and confronted him, having to let two people go ahead of her in line until his station was available.
The look on his face when she'd walked up to him that Friday afternoon; like he'd have liked nothing more than to burrow into the ground and hide out there until she left.
"Mister Warren," she greeted him, sounding as pleasant as she could.
"Miss Weasley," he greeted her back, his voice was so low it was barely audible.
She still didn't recognize him from school, though from the look of him they must have gone to Hogwarts at the same time for a year or two. He couldn't be more than five years older than her.
"Did you receive my gifts this week?" she asked nicely.
He shifted in his chair.
"Did you manage to figure out who they were from before I showed up today?" He didn't answer, just shifted his gaze to the ceiling, then down to the paper in front of him like he was going to start filling out some paperwork for her. "Was it a bit off putting to have them sent to you? Maybe even a little creepy?" Still he said nothing. "Three years," she stated. "And I've moved twice because of you."
"Sorry," he whispered.
"Is it just me? Are there others that you're sending these gifts to? Because it has to stop. It isn't flattering, it's creepy and annoying. There was a lot of delicious food thrown out."
"You didn't even eat it?" he asked at a reasonable volume.
"Did you eat the oranges or the rock cakes?"
"Well, no. The oranges were moldy and the rock cakes were… rock cakes."
"And I had no idea what had been done to the food or the flowers that you sent me. I burned the flowers and threw out the vases and food."
He blushed again and looked shyly down at his hands. "You were just… you were so nice to me that day. I'd been really depressed because I found out my ex had moved on, then that guy you told off, he was the fifth person that day to come in here and scream at me as though it was my fault personally that he was having his issue. You told him off and then everyone behind you was so nice too. And you were, are, just… really beautiful."
"Well… thank you. But no more. I've a few friends now that know who you are and if I receive one more surprise from you I'll start letting my family know. Like Percy Weasley, for instance," she impressed.
He gave a big sigh and nodded. "I don't know why I kept doing it," he shook his head. "I read a book once about a guy who kept sending a girl he fancied anonymous gifts and when she found out it was him," he blushed really hard then and couldn't find it in himself to go on.
Ginny reached across the desk and took his hand. He looked up at her and she could see a sparkle of hope glimmer in his eye.
Which she shut down immediately.
"That book was crap. The gifts were creepy, and three years is a hell of a long time to keep it up," she told him straight. She took her hand away from his. "Next time you fancy a girl, just man up and ask her out. You have officially burned this bridge."
It was the nicest way she could let him down.
With that, she left.
She went back to her flat after and slipped a note under Harry's door about it because he hadn't answered to her knocks.
The next morning she'd found a note slipped under her door from Harry letting her know that he was glad it was dealt with, and that he was off on a new job assignment for the next week. Ginny had frowned at the note.
Playing detective with him had turned out to be kind of thrilling, especially because they found out who Leonard was. Chatting with him over the last few evenings, even if it had mostly been her talking, had been nice. Going out to dinner with him had been nice.
"Do you think he's interested in me at all?" she asked Dairy, who was stretched out on the sofa.
Dairy responded by rolling onto his back more and exposing his belly.
Not really the answer she as hoping for.
For a the next week, every time she passed his door in the hallway she would wonder if she was just becoming some sappy sentimentalist and reading too much into something that wasn't there.
She fancied him, sure, but she needed to get him out of her head.
A few days later she sent an owl to Luna asking her to set up a date for her with a guy in the Magizoology Department that Luna had mentioned was single and interested.
()()()
Ginny was standing outside his door again. She probably shouldn't be here. She knew she shouldn't be here, but her date was just so disappointing. Her hopes for it hadn't been incredibly high or anything, but she'd hoped that some kind of spark would ignite in her.
Three weeks it had been since she'd seen Harry. He'd only been gone for one of those weeks, or so the note he'd sent her had said. Yet he hadn't stopped by for so much as a cup of sugar or a 'hello'. She didn't know if he was back yet actually, and it was bugging her.
So, that's why she was here.
Just to see if he was here.
Not because her date had been a dud, but because she was just… curious.
And by dud, it was a huge dud; she'd nodded a goodnight to him down the street from her place and stopped in at a corner store to grab a bottle of red, then had been extra classy and started drinking it on the way home.
Now here she was with three quarters of a bottle of wine and standing in front of his door.
She didn't even knock before the door opened.
"You know, I have a little alarm that goes off when anyone is standing on my mat," he greeted her in his familiar half-bored tone.
"Huh," she looked down at her feet. "That's wise."
"You're all dressed up." There was a definite sound of appreciation for her appearance.
"Very astute of you. I had a date. It sucked. Do you want to have a drink with me?" She held up the wine bottle.
His appreciative look was gone, now he didn't look at all thrilled that she was standing there. "You just finished having a date?"
"Yeah, and it sucked. So… wine?"
He leaned against the door frame. "You sure you don't want to wallow about the bad date and spill wine all down your front in your flat by yourself?"
He was teasing her. She narrowed her eyes at him in the hopes that would be warning enough for him to not continue. It didn't work though. He opened his mouth to say something else but she cut him off by stepping forward and kissing him.
She had to.
For three weeks she'd wondered if the attraction was one sided. Next thing she'd know it would be three years down the road and too awkward to make a move then.
The three drinks she'd had on her dud of a date, plus the wine she drank on the way home, that was all the encouragement she needed to make her move.
He could push her away if he wanted to. He could say they were just friends. He could even invite her into her bed and shag her like mad and then say it was a mistake in the morning.
She just needed to do something. To hear something from him about whether this was reciprocated.
In this moment it certainly was starting to feel reciprocated. His lips were nice, his hands on her hips were steady and strong.
And he was kissing her back.
They were standing in his entry way with the door open and snogging while she clutched a wine bottle to her chest with one hand.
"Is this the way it's going to work then?" he asked when they came up for air. "You go out on a bad date and then come to mine for a goodnight kiss?"
"No, the bad date before coming to kiss you is going to be a one-time thing. I just needed the liquid courage to give it a try."
"Why, do you find me intimidating?" he smirked, his thumbs tracing circles at her hips.
"No, I find you really bloody hard to read."
Harry leaned down to kiss her then. It was better than the first one and had her lightheaded and swaying by the time he pulled back.
"I'd like to be your next date. You've got a lot more of the world of cuisine to introduce me to."
She grinned widely at him. "How about we start with something Italian?" she suggested and held up the bottle. Then squinted at the label. "Or Portuguese."
Harry chuckled and took the bottle from her before taking her hand and leading her into his flat.
()()()