Unofficial Portkey Archive

It was 9:37 on Draco's wristwatch when the clock in the office finally showed that Ginny was "traveling." She normally prided herself on arriving before him, looking as though she had been working industriously for hours when he "sauntered in" at the "lazy" hour of 8 am. Her appearance was consistently neat and professional, and her disposition was nearly always cheerful, a trait that was particularly appalling in the mornings before he'd had his chocolate croissant.

The clock now showed that Ginny was "at work," meaning she had Apparated successfully into the Ministry's front lobby, and presently the door to their office swung open, admitting a Ginny that was the antithesis of everything she usually was. His partner staggered inside, wearing dark sunglasses, no makeup, and robes that needed a good ironing job. She closed the door behind her, and judging from the look on her face when it shut loudly, immediately regretted it.

Draco casually swung his legs up onto his desk, eyeing her thoughtfully as she tossed her bag onto her chair before teetering about the room. "Looking for something?" he asked.

"Coffee," she croaked.

He raised an eyebrow. "I haven't moved anything since Friday. You'll find it in the same place. To your right -- no, Gin, your other right."

Ginny located the coffeemaker, then muttered an incantation that had the pot pouring coffee into her mug as she looked on, swaying slightly on her feet. She took the steaming mug gratefully and headed not very steadily back to her desk.

"Want to make it Irish?" Draco asked innocently, snapping his fingers so that a hidden bottle of Ogden's Old Firewhiskey floated down from its hidden place on a nearby shelf. He noted with satisfaction that Ginny's skin suddenly took on a green tinge. "I knew it," he said with an equal measure of amusement and irritation. "You're sloshed."

Ginny sipped her coffee gingerly, sunglasses still in place. "No," she corrected, "Last night, I was sloshed. This morning, I'm dying."

Draco suspected that something had happened with Jim -- Tim -- Bim? -- which explained his partner's current state. He had to approach this with a certain amount of tact. "Dim Jim tossed you over, did he?"

He could feel her glare even through the sunglasses. "His. Name. Is. Peter," she said through gritted teeth. "Why do you persist in thinking they're all named Jim?"

"Nothing rhymes with 'Peter.' Anyway, it's probably because you were seeing a bloke named Jim when we first started working together."

"His name was Joshua!" She winced and rubbed her forehead. "Just ... shut up, Malfoy."

"But did something happen?" he persisted.

Ginny growled. "Yes, all right? We broke up. Happy now?"

"Maybe just a little. He was a git. So why'd he do it?"

Ginny huffed. "You're just like Harry. Why do you assume he did the breaking off and not me?"

"Did you do the breaking off?"

Silence.

"Did you?"

"Whether I did or didn't is not the point!"

Draco wisely did not say anything in response, having already gotten his answer. Instead, he focused in on the one detail she had let slip. "You've spoken to Potter?"

"I owled him after it happened. Well, I needed someone to get drunk with, didn't I?" she said crabbily. "Luckily, I haven't reached the point in my life yet where getting good and drunk on my own holds any appeal."

"So you called Potter?" He hadn't meant to inject that much contempt into his voice, but oh well.

"Who else would I have called? You? Ha!"

Draco was vaguely insulted that Ginny didn't think he would be a good drinking partner, but was also glad he hadn't had to watch her get into her cups and hear her bemoan the loss of right prat like Tim. Still, that it was Potter who had witnessed these things and been there for her chafed. "I can drink Potter under the table."

"I know," Ginny said darkly. "Not my idea of a good time. You'd just sit there being all sober and sorry for me. Needed a lightweight like Harry to join in the fun."

"I see. And I suppose the two of you were too far gone to brew an anti-intoxication potion?" Sobriety potions only worked if the intended recipient took the potion within a certain window of time after getting inebriated. Wait too long and the damage would be done; nothing cured full-blown hangovers except time and a lot of water. Of course, most people needing sobriety potions were rarely rational enough to realize they needed one (not to mention that it really wasn't very enjoyable to go from drunk to sober in ten seconds, particularly if one was drowning sorrows of some kind in the first place), so the number of wizards suffering from hangovers was comparable to that of the Muggle population.

"It's all Harry's fault, that attention hog. Wasted all that time ... told him not to do that encore ..." she muttered. "Anyway, where were we going to get cockatrice spit at that hour?"

Again, Draco was perturbed at being so easily dismissed, and by the habit she had of mumbling her way out of responsibility. "You know I have a fully functioning potions lab."

Ginny -- it could only be described as such -- sneered. "Oh, right, as if I'd dream of interrupting you and Fancy Knickers."

Draco ignored the not-so-flattering nickname Ginny had bestowed upon his latest "conquest," as she put it. Ginny had taken an immediate dislike to Fanny Knight, heiress to the Knight Bus fortune, after their first meeting a scant two weeks ago, when Draco had first started seeing Fanny. It seemed there was an incident when Fanny had accidentally dropped a letter or a magazine ("Accidentally on purpose," said Ginny) as Draco was following her out of the office and, according to Ginny, bent down in the most provocative way possible to retrieve the item, exposing a pair of white thong knickers that appeared to have real diamonds sewn on them.

Draco himself did not recall the incident (or the knickers), but Ginny was unrelenting in her scorn for the other woman. Not that she'd liked any of the other women he'd dated, but on those occasions when she had found herself in their company, she'd simply pursed her lips in disapproval and stayed silent. Fanny was the first Ginny had actively disparaged, which Draco thought was odd, because other than her wealth, Fanny was much like Ginny herself -- smart without wearing her intelligence like a banner (unlike some annoying Prophet reporters he could name); beautiful but not ostentatious; funny; genuinely nice. Well, as near as Draco could tell. After all, the women he dated were always nice to him.

"I wasn't with Fanny this weekend."

"Why? What has Fancy Knickers done to earn disfavor with someone as easily pleased and undemanding as you?"

"Fancy -- Fanny hasn't done anything," said Draco, annoyed by her sarcasm. "I simply didn't feel like seeing her. I need my space."

"Which really means 'I wanted to shag someone else,'" Ginny interpreted, wrinkling her pert little nose in distaste. "Really, men are such disgusting creatures. So who was it?"

"There wasn't anyone else," said Draco. "I spent the weekend on my own. So you see, you and your inebriated sot of a friend could have stopped by for a bit of cockatrice spit, and you might not be feeling quite so vile this morning."

"You spent it on your own?"

She sounded so amazed that Draco was immediately defensive (and irritated with himself for letting her provoke him like this). "May I ask why that is so difficult to believe?" he fairly snarled.

Ginny threw up her hands as if to ward him off. "You are, after all, Great Britain's contender for the Bedroom Olympics. I'm sure you'll appreciate how difficult I find it to--"

"Shut it, Weasley. Don't you think it's time you got to work, as the rest of us have been doing all morning long?" He tossed a couple of file folders in her direction, which landed on her desk with a satisfying *thwap*.

Ginny flipped one of them open. "What is this, your bloodwork? Clean as a whistle, Malfoy?"

"Actually, I did recently have a physical -- I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear that I'm in perfect shape -- but no, sorry to disappoint, that's not what it is."

"Hmm ... two deaths," Ginny said, taking off her sunglasses. "Murders?"

" I think they are."

She looked at him sharply. "So this wasn't assigned to us by Division, then."

"Not exactly ..."

"Malfoy! So our normal workload isn't enough for you. You have to go and create more for us. Again." Ginny crossed her arms.

Draco had to admit her ire wasn't entirely unjustified. More than once, suspicious circumstances had roused his natural intuition -- honed throughout the years to go off whenever something unsavory was afoot -- and warranted their investigative expertise. He hadn't been wrong so far, but after the last time (a harrowing kidnapping case involving an abusive mother and a desperate father), Ginny had made him swear to restrict their casework to assignments specifically delegated by Skinman rather than pursuing unsanctioned cases on their own. Draco had promised to try.

He knew that her appeal wasn't because Ginny thought the work wasn't worthwhile; it stemmed from the fact that most of their self-pursued cases had involved uphill battles with Division heads, trying to convince them that they were worth investigating in the first place. It made their jobs ten times harder, not the least of which was because since these were not officially approved cases, they were an additional burden on Ginny and Draco's already full-to-overflowing caseload.

"Tell your intuition to work on cases we can easily green flag with the bigwigs," Ginny had said in exasperation.

"They only green flag cases that are obvious," Draco had replied with no little disdain. "If it's obvious, it's not intuition, is it? By the time they all get their bureaucratic arses together and agree that a case is worth investigating, it's already too late."

Ginny hadn't said anything, but he knew she agreed.

"... this is exactly the sort of thing Peter was talking about," he thought he heard her mumble, but decided it was best not to test those waters again, and let it pass without comment.

Draco had tried playing by the rules, but it suited him like an ill-fitting shoe. It wasn't his fault that this had jumped out at him over the weekend, was it? Anticipating Ginny's disapproval, he had even gone to Skinman first thing this morning to feel their boss out on whether he could get this investigation officially stamped with a go-ahead. Skinman -- who wasn't as bad as some of those other play-by-the-book quill-pushers -- had told him off the record that if he and Ginny could definitively tie the murders (if they were, in fact, murders) together, it was as good as done. Draco told this to Ginny.

"What makes you so sure they're connected?" she asked.

"Murder weapon," he replied.

"What murder weapon? Neither had a scratch on them. Suicide hasn't been ruled out."

"I've ruled it out."

Ginny sighed and rubbed her temples. "Okay, Malfoy -- I have a headache the size of that mausoleum you live in, and clearly am not up to challenging your mental prowess, so can we skip the entire scene where I try to shoot down your burgeoning hypothesis and you provide reasonable answers for every argument I have, implying all the while that I'm clearly not half as clever or educated as you--"

"But that's the best part," Draco whined.

"--and just get to where you finally open up and tell me exactly what you're thinking?" Ginny finished, ignoring him.

Oh, what the hell. He was dying to. "Ballycastle Bats, Kenmare Kestrels."

Ginny blinked. "Are you chanting?"

"Quidditch teams, Weasley," said Draco impatiently. "Those were the Quidditch teams the murder victims played for."

"So they were both Quidditch players. And you don't think that's just a coincidence."

"Hell, no. And what's more ..."

"What?"

"It's an inside job."

"What? Where are you getting all this?" Her words and her voice were skeptical, but he could tell he had her intrigued. This was the best part; convincing Ginny that what he was proposing wasn't preposterous conjecture, but sound and viable theories.

"Oh, nothing I can prove yet," Draco said, unconcerned. "So far, it's just circumstantial. But ..."

"What?"

"If my instincts prove correct, these acts would prove to be fairly vicious."

"Murder tends to be, yes."

"The kind of viciousness that can typically be attributed to ... a personal vendetta."

"I can tell you're trying to get at something, so just spit it out, Malfoy."

"Your drinking buddy last night..."

"What about him?" Ginny asked, suspicion tingeing her voice.

"He played Quidditch for five years, didn't he, before getting thrown out of the league?" Draco asked, leaning casually back in his chair. "How upset do you think that made him?"

"Hermione."

It was a harsh whisper that managed to carry across the four desks that separated the Daily Prophet's Sports beat from the Current Events area. There was a haggardness to his voice that sounded as though he'd finally reached the end of his tether. However, this was not the first time he had adopted such a tone, and she decided she would ignore him today.

"Hermione."

Louder this time, and she sighed, because he was obviously in one of those "I will not be ignored. I spent the first half of my life being ignored, and as God as my witness, I shall never be ignored again" moods.

Harry was actually a bit more dramatic than the general public gave him credit for.

"Granger!"

"What?!" she hissed as several heads turned at Harry's no-longer-quiet tone.

"I need help," he whined.

"That's your fault, isn't it, for coming into work looking half dead." There was a time when she might have been more concerned about his appearance, but the fact that today was a Monday and she knew him so very well merely led her to believe he'd gone out drinking the past weekend and perhaps mistook Sunday night for Saturday.

"Yes, yes, I'm as incredibly irresponsible as I ever was," he said, gesturing with a hand that he wanted to get on with it. "The fact remains that you are my best friend, you're incredibly good at being there exactly when I need you, and Hermione, I swear, I have never needed you more."

She rolled her eyes.

"It's the truth!" he insisted. He left his desk and walked carefully over to hers. She noticed he was trying not to look directly at anyone and seemed to be expending an inordinate amount of energy trying not to bump into people or furniture. And was it her imagination, or was the tip of his nose slightly discolored?

"I've no doubt that it's the truth," she said tiredly. "It's just that you can't keep doing this, Harry. You can't shirk your responsibilities--"

"When have I ever shirked my responsibilities?" Harry looked perturbed. "You make it sound as if I do this every day."

"You do," she said, exasperated. "Maybe not every day, but certainly every time a story's due. It's always, 'Hermione, can you just glance at this before I send it off to Lee?' and 'Hermione, do you suppose this font works better?' and 'Hermione, I forgot there was a game last week -- d'you happen to know who won?' Frankly, I'm sick of it, Harry."

He held her gaze for a few beats, sizing her up. She made certain she stared at the scar on his forehead rather than his bespectacled green eyes. There was just no way she'd be able to keep it up if she looked in his eyes. He knew her far too well for that.

"Ha," he said after a moment. "No go, Herm, though a nice effort."

"Damn!" She threw the quill she'd been writing with aside in a fit of frustration. "What gave me away?"

"The font thing," Harry replied. "You live to decide on which font fits which story better. Besides, you're always trying to get me back for all the pranks Ron and I have played on you over the years. Really, if my head didn't hurt so much, I would have seen through it immediately."

"What do you need help with now?" she grumbled affectionately. "And why must you insist on going out drinking when you know you've got work in the morning?"

"Ginny was having a rough weekend," he explained with a sigh as he pulled a chair up to her desk. In his hand, he carried a parchment she hadn't noticed before.

"Cut another one loose, has she?" Hermione grinned, well familiar by now with Ginny's long line of disposable suitors.

"I suspect this one might have cut her loose, actually," Harry confided. He sent a half smile Hermione's way. "But if Ginny asks, I never said that. I would never imply such a thing were even possible."

"Your secret's safe with me," Hermione said. "All of them, for that matter."

"Merlin knows," Harry agreed. "And now, to earn your keep as my best friend -- did you happen to catch the game yesterday? I thought for sure it'd go on 'til at least this afternoon, but Cho was totally off her game and Bulstrode caught the damned Snitch ages before anyone thought he would. Must be hard on poor Cho -- Bulstrode's brand new to the Bats."

"Yes, poor Cho," Hermione said, though she didn't examine too closely the tiny spark of irritation she felt at the other woman's name. "An exciting game overall, though."

"Really?" Harry began to look absurdly hopeful. "You really saw it?"

Hermione shook her head. "No. Gotcha. Can't pull pranks on you, my arse."

"I hate you. Ron's my favorite best friend now."

"Always has been, really," Hermione grinned. "I made my peace with it ages ago." Across the room, Lavender Brown opened the blinds, and Harry winced as bright, natural sunlight flooded the room. Hermione sighed at him. "If you insist on getting so spectacularly drunk, why don't you simply brew a sobriety potion beforehand?"

"You know me," Harry said with a shrug, sounding resigned. "If I'm going to do the crime, I'd best be willing to do the time. If I'm going to go out stupidly drinking, I'll pay for it in the morning, thank you very much."

Hermione raised an eyebrow at him. "Missed the window again, did you?"

"Yes, bugger it," Harry muttered. "Not to mention -- and I'm not totally clear on this part -- I remember standing on a table and being very popular. Then, this morning, I woke up with my pants on inside out, there was a smear of orange paint on my face--"

"Yes, you missed a bit of it. Just there." Hermione tapped the left side of her nose.

"Huh," Harry said dispassionately as he took a swipe at his nose. He missed the paint. Hermione was sure he didn't really care and decided to let it go. "Anyway, I can't quite remember how I got home."

"Harry," she said slowly; kindly.

"Yes?"

"If, somehow, in the distant or not-so-distant future, you should ever discover the truth of what went on last night, I only ask that you do me this one small favor; a pittance, really, if you look at the scope of our friendship."

He looked at her expectantly.

"Never tell me," she said flatly.

"Promise," he grinned. "Though it would serve you right if I did. You should know by now I need you to watch all the games just in case. I mean, if you don't, who am I supposed to ruthlessly extort information from for my column?"

"Have you thought of owling Ron?" she suggested. "He was supposed to be watching the game to scout out the Bats' new Seeker, after all, so he might have been paying some attention."

"Tried and failed," Harry said. "You see, I don't always bother you first. Puddlemere United is already en route to their next game and they've taken their Keeper with them. Poor Hedwig came back with my letter after several fruitless hours; nearly pecked me to death before a few bits of chocolate persuaded her to forgive me."

"What would you do without me?" Hermione wondered aloud.

"Wither and die, Hermione," Harry said.

He sounded awfully sincere. She decided to take pity on him. "Colin!"

A pale man with strawberry blond hair at a nearby desk looked in their direction, brightening when he saw Harry.

"Have you got those pictures of last night's game yet?"

"You bet!" Colin picked up a thick file from his desk and brought it over to Hermione. "Cho Chang looked really gorgeous, too. Wouldn't pose for any pictures after, of course -- never does, that one -- but the shots I got of her in flight -- wow." Colin turned enthusiastically toward Harry. "You used to fancy her, didn't you, Harry? So you can imagine how it feels to look up at her from the stands, flying through the air like a goddess."

"Yes, imagine that," Harry muttered, picking the photos up from Hermione's desk.

She watched Harry closely, saw him flip through the moving photographs until he found a pattern to them and could discern the chronology of each one. He absentmindedly began rearranging the pictures on her desk, searching for the shot that would spark his story to life. Colin's predisposition for taking far too many pictures assured him the position of the Prophet's top photographer, and at the moment, Hermione was sure he was about to save Harry's column.

When they'd been at Hogwarts, Hermione had been a bit bowled over by how naturally Quidditch came to Harry. Loads of wizards could play it, but few could truly breathe it the way Harry could. When he took flight as Gryffindor's Seeker, it was as though he'd finally found a place where he belonged -- up in the clouds, seated on his broom, scanning the skies for a tiny gold ball that held no more significance to the world than the quill she wrote with every day.

It was the ordinary cloaked in the extraordinary, Harry had told her once. Everyone had always spent so much time watching him, and the only time he didn't mind was when he was flying, searching for the Snitch. Because they weren't looking at him, Harry, then -- they were merely watching one arm of the Gryffindor team, hoping it would align with the rest of the players and assure victory. He could give them something then; give them a bit of the Boy Who Lived without sacrificing himself at that boy's altar.

Once again, Hermione allowed herself a moment to be impressed with Harry's almost eerie connection to Quidditch -- the photographs he'd arranged on her desk now painted a very accurate picture of every pivotal (and a few not so pivotal -- Colin never stopped clicking away at his camera) moment in the entire game. It was no coincidence that the last several were nearly exclusively of Cho Chang, a grim, sewn-on-smile curving her lips.

"Looks like Bulstrode was fantastic," Harry noted.

"Oh, he was," Colin gushed. "Best Seeker Ballycastle's had in an age. Everyone was chanting his name. Bulstrode, of course, not Philip, because Bulstrode can be chanted, but have you ever tried to chant Philip? It's an awfully inconvenient name to chant."

"Hmm," Harry grunted.

There it was, Hermione thought. He was gone now. Harry no longer belonged to this world. He was practically up in the sky, piecing together the details of a game he hadn't even witnessed first hand. Sometimes she worried that one day, he would go off to wherever it was he went when his eyes grew clouded and he clearly wasn't listening to them any longer. He would go to that place and forget how to come back.

But then he smiled at her, or winked, or looked at her a certain way, and she forgot her worries, because he was Harry and Harry could never be lost forever.

"Good show," Harry murmured appreciatively as he studied the photos. A few moments passed, and finally, he picked up a handful of them -- individual shots of Cho and the new Ballycastle Seeker, Philip Bulstrode -- and hurried back to his desk, a "Don't mind if I borrow these for a few, do you, Colin?" thrown over his shoulder.

"No," Colin said finally, long after Harry had gone, "I don't mind."

Hermione stifled a laugh.

Sarea: Thanks to those of you who are following "The Slow Autumn." Most of the next chapter is done, but I've decided to hold off on posting until after the release of OotP. Since it's so close, it seems silly not to wait so I can incorporate any new canon into the story.

Jade: I've decided to write as much fic as possible before OotP is released to prove that I have no fear of being wrong. Thank you.

Sarea: You bitch.

Jade: You whore, I can't believe you called me a bitch in our authors' notes. I can't believe I wanted to write a fic with you so bad.

Sarea: Yeah, that day and a half we spent desperately hammering away at the outline really seems kind of pointless in retrospect.

Jade: Even though this conversation has completely destroyed our friendship, I think we should continue writing. For the people.

Sarea: Fine.