CHAPTER FOUR - Going on With Life
He knew each of the faces, each of the names. He thought he knew each of the people, knew their hearts, their minds. He needed to, after all, to discern their loyalty.
But Albus Dumbledore could not say with certainty that none of the Order had killed Tiberius Flint. As much as he would have liked to state it without doubt, he could not. There were many who had their reasons, he supposed, for hating the Death Eaters, for going after them subversively.
The whole point of the Order, however, was just that-order. And rogues, people who took life into their own hands, risked the danger of being vulnerable to the very things, the very points that drew Death Eaters in. Power, revenge, a twisted sense of justice.
He did not know who had done it.
Albus pushed back his hat and rubbed his forehead, trying more to ease his mind than to bring any sort of thought to the forefront. A blank mind would be a blessing, if only for a moment, but he knew that was not to be.
At the moment, what was to be was his DADA professor in the adjacent corridor arguing with the young man on whose shoulders fate rested. A baby gurgled happily in the background, and Dumbledore wondered if Hermione was carrying Harmony in that clever little backstrap contraption she often wore. He would not listen to their argument, however, for it was not his to listen to, and so he threw a muffling barrier around his office.
"You're not helping," Harry said. "Blast, Hermione, listen to me. For once in my life, I'm not being selfish-"
"You're not being selfish?!" Hermione blustered. "Oh, well, certainly sheltering me to the point of asphyxiation is for my own good. I know you're worried about losing someone else you love, Harry, but sacrifices must be made, and if I am to be one of them, then so it is."
Harry winced and felt his stomach plummet. No matter what her accusation, his sheltering had nothing to do with her, with them-but her words certainly did not help. He couldn't imagine life without her, without their little girl. "Hermione, please," he said quietly, knowing Hogwarts was full of ears.
"Please what? Please listen to a man who loves me so much he can protect me but doesn't love me enough to wed me?" Hermione's voice grew shrill. "Bloody hell, Harry, not even our daughter has your last name." As though in response to the statement, Harmony's gurgle turned into a hitching hiccup, a precursor to a sob.
Harry felt as though someone had twisted a knife in his stomach. He knew she was under an immense amount of pressure, and he knew she wanted to take on even more. He knew it colored her rationale and tinted her statements. But it didn't change the hurt.
"You know she can't be legally mine, Hermione, nor can you. If he finds out-"
"I'm sick of our lives being ruled by the decisions he makes. Almighty He Who Cannot Be Named. He can't be named, but he can rule our entire existence." She shoved her hands through her thick hair, making it wild. "We may as well fucking surrender, because he's already won," she said, pushing past Harry as their daughter kicked her legs and waved chubby hands at her da.
"I love you, Hermione," Harry said, knowing at times like this, there was little else he had to offer her. A ring given in private, a promise whispered in secrecy, a child born out of union. He'd given her all those things, but at times like these, they hardly mattered to a woman pushed past her mental means. "I love you," he repeated more softly as she walked away from him.
Her words floated back to him over Harmony's babble.
"I know."
~~~
Monday morning had to be a morning like any other morning. There could be no pauses, no stutters. She could not look as though she'd been up most of the past two days running messages for the Order, and she certainly could not look as though she'd spent the rest of the night crying in her own bed, missing the man she loved, worrying about where he'd been while she had been warring in the only way she knew.
Ginny knew most of the people at the Ministry were good people, people who would choose the right side when it came time to choose. But it was difficult and ill-advised to trust everyone implicitly.
It wasn't as though she was new to keeping secrets in the workplace. She'd been doing it for months, since the first moment she'd started working for the Ministry. Of every witch and wizard who worked there, only Percy and Arthur knew she was with Draco, and she intended to keep it that way.
She sorted through the contents that had been stacked in her owlbox, ignoring the general Ministry announcements that would undoubtedly be posted all over the place, anyway. She had one from Hermione, who was hardly allowed out of the castle these days, and one from Luna, who was off reporting with the Quibbler. Ginny decided she'd leave that one for last; it was sure to be full of incomplete sentences and random words Luna had included in the margins, and Ginny knew she'd need a laugh after reading through the rest of her things.
Head down, she continued down the corridor, her hair sliding down over her shoulders and obscuring her peripheral vision for just a moment. She passed one person, two, and then a long-fingered hand slipped into her field of vision, depositing a sealed parchment on the top of her pile.
She didn't have to turn to see who had given it to her, no matter how much she wanted to see him, to see his facial expression. She wanted, needed, to know he was all right. There had been blood, that much she remembered.
Ginny didn't think she could bear it if he wasn't okay. But she didn't think she had it in her to find out what had happened.
She dumped the post on the tiny desk she'd been given, toppling a tea mug to the floor. She managed to stop it in midair just a moment before the inevitable crash, letting it down gently as she tore open the black wax seal he'd put on the parchment.
The parchment was blank for a moment, then words spread across it, making her stomach turn a bit. It reminded her too much of a diary long ago, of writing words to have them answered in phantom text.
You need to be careful, it said. I want you safe.
She traced her fingers over the black ink, sighing as it withdrew the minute she touched it.
"I want you safe, too," she whispered.
"Because that's your job," Percy said brightly behind her, clapping his sister on the shoulder in an awkward, affectionate way. "Keeping all of us safe. But talking to yourself's a bad sign, love." He looked around.
She crumpled the parchment though it was already blank and dropped it into the waste bin. "Just giving myself the Ministry Security pep talk," she said brightly, leaning forward to kiss him on the cheek. As always, he turned red, looked around as though he thought someone was going to pop out of a door and reprimand him for being unprofessional, and scurried away.
"Ginevra!" The hoarse bark of her supervisor made Ginny wince, and before she could respond, the witch rasped out an order as she usually did, without waiting for any sort of acknowledgment. "All of my quills are missing. Be a good girl and scare some up."
On second thought, Ginny thought, scowling at the wall between her desk and her supervisor's, maybe all Ministry people weren't good.
She had barely stepped into the supply closet when the door slammed shut and she was pulled up hard against a body she knew well.
Draco kissed her before he said anything, letting the handful of quills he'd nicked fall to the floor. "Took you long enough," he whispered, putting his hands to the sides of her face just to feel her, just to make certain she was there. He'd had dreams in the little sleep he'd gotten, dreams about her standing before the Dark Lord, familiar with him as she once had been.
Ginny pushed him a little, her heart pounding in her chest, and she nuzzled into his neck, not giving a hang that they were in the Ministry's closet and could be caught. She'd wanted to be with him, couldn't sleep without him.
At what point had she started needing him to function?
"Promise me you're careful," Draco said, kissing her temple, her cheek, the spot behind her ear. His hands slid from her face to her shoulders to her arms, where he held tight and gave her a little shake. "Promise me."
His eyes were fierce, icy, and Ginny shivered. "I promise," she said, tilting her head. "Draco, what's gotten into you?"
He'd been thinking about it too much, and the dreams…
They'd been so real.
"You could leave," he said. "I have enough money to send you somewhere until it's all over."
And oh, how good it sounded. How tempting, and how fitting for him to tempt her. Hadn't he always?
But part of her remembered the wild-eyed witches and wizards she'd seen spilling into the streets the night before, and she steeled herself against the thoughts she had of abandoning. "Only if you come, as well," she said, and it was as though she'd slammed a door between them. He took his hands from her, shook his head, the fire suddenly gone.
"You know I can't-"
"And I can no more than you," Ginny said. "This isn't school any more, Draco. We can no longer skive off. It isn't that simple." She could have said more, would have, but he put his fingers to her lips.
"Stop," he said wearily. "Before you offend one or both of us." And the hell of it was, part of the reason he loved her so bloody much was because he'd known she would react just that way.
His noble princess.
"It was worth a try," he said, his lips smirking even though his eyes stayed sad. "I could have saved the time and just spent it snogging."
She wanted to weep, but didn't. She was at work, after all, and Weasleys were the utmost in dependable on the job. "I have to get back," she said, putting one hand to the back of his neck and kissing him fiercely, tracing over the bump in his tongue where he'd bitten it the night before. "I love you," she said, turning away from him and jerking open the door.
It was no wonder she was already exhausted when she got back to her desk.
She had wanted to stay in there all day.