I Really still own nothing...
Chapter 3 What the Hell Were You Thinking, Agent Weasley?
***********************Ginny Weasley's Flat, London***********************
3:25 am
In a large, crimson and gold decorated, four-poster, a fire-haired witch tossed and turned. Despite the cool breeze coming in the cracked open window, her hair was dark with sweat and plastered to her head. She rolled and moaned a word, possibly a name. Next to her bed on a carved, oak night table, the only adornments were a matched communication crystal and a secure muggle cell phone; magic resistant thanks to the Granger technology protection charm, a well used, but well taken care of ash wand and a color wizarding photograph.
The photo was framed in ash, and showed her and Neville sitting under the beech tree at the edge of the Hogwarts Lake. In the background, the squid would occasionally stick a tentacle up as if waving to the camera, while her and Neville just sat more or less motionless, his arms around her, she looking tiny in his arms. That picture had been taken the day of Neville's graduation and of the double wedding of the Potters and the Weasleys. Hermione had snapped the picture while she was on the run from Molly's ministrations. A second photo showed a young boy, somewhere around five or so, with fire-red hair but otherwise mostly Neville's features riding a toy broom.
"NO...NEVILLE, RUN DAMMIT...." She screamed as her thoughts flashed back almost four years.
******************Hogsmeade, The Three Broomsticks************************
Six years prior
August 28, 2006
"Ginny toss me a beer" her brother cried as he came in the door to the tavern, his new wife on his arm. She smiled and threw a pair across the room to Ron's waiting hands. He caught them easily; he had been the star Gryffindor keeper after all. She turned away from Ron, the grin still in place. Happy to see him, as she unlike most of those here, knew where Ron had been. She was quite aware that Ron had not been delayed by some random accident, but that his job, however real at Hogwarts, was just a cover and that infamous Gryffindor Trio continued their fight against the Death Eaters. However these days it was just clean up duty more or less. Voldemort was dead. His soul rended by Ginny, his body burnt, his head on a pike in front of the Ministry after Draco had filled a formal request with the Ministry, "to get the damn thing out of his parlor, it scared the house elves."
Harry had used Voldemort's head as a bargaining chip with a group of Death Eaters during an arrest soon after Voldemort's death. The vast majority of the Death Eaters, including the elder Malfoys had gone into hiding soon after Voldemort's death, popping up occasionally to cause havoc before going underground once again.
Glancing around the room, she saw Draco dancing closely with Padma Patil. Amazingly after he had secretly turned to the side of the 'angels' just in time, then publicly against Voldemort and his father in Great Hall at Hogwarts, much of the suspicion of the Gryffindors had vanished. Though Ron did glare at him every so often just to keep in practice. It was as if as soon as he proved his honor and courage, that they just accepted him, just like Godric did when he founded the house. Padma was seemingly taken with him, though deep inside Ginny suspected that it was nothing more than a fling for Draco.
Edging though the crowd, Ginny stopped and talked to Seamus, Lavender, Dean and Padma's sister Pavarti for a moment before she moved on, back to her fiancée and in two days, husband. Dumbledore, had come down like the Wrath of God on the Board of Governors, and hammered through in succession, the appointments of Harry, Hermione and Ron, as the DADA, Transfiguration and Flying instructors respectively, the accommodation for Luna being married to Ron, she wasn't taking flying anyway. And finally, the appointment of Neville as the new Herbology Professor, replacing Madame Sprout, who had retired to warmer, more peaceful climes, and to let Ginny live as his wife in Professor's accommodations while she was in school. In the final analysis the point was moot, she was on an Auror track and did not have Herbology, so Dumbledore had his way without a great deal of trouble. Though after rubbing the board's face in their incompetence and falling for Malfoy's lies a myriad of times, among other things, he was untouchable.
Ron's appointment as flying instructor after Madame Hooch left to coach the Kent Widgets wasn't actually that difficult either. It was Harry and Hermione's appointments to fill the ever-vacant DADA slot, and an assistant Transfiguration professorship, respectively that caused the hang up. It was only after they both had been forced to perform any spell that the regents could think up that they agreed to their appointments. Not that it would matter in the long run, Hermione had already confided that she was already working on a doctorate in Advanced Transfiguration and Arithmatic theory, and that she had made Harry get his in DADA to keep her company. Just exactly how Hermione thought they would pull that one off with their schedules Ginny didn't know. She did feel sorry for Harry however, even though she privately thought that Stonehenge U should just give Harry the damn degree, his practicum had certainly earned it.
Looking around she noticed that neither her relatively new sister or her even newer brother-in-law had showed yet, but she wasn't worried. Finally Ginny made it though the crowd, and with a great grin plastered on her face, she reached up and pulled Neville down onto her lips to the accompaniment of the catcalls of her twin brothers at the side of the room. She flung them a rude gesture that Molly would never have approved of as she deepened the kiss. Finally breaking for air, she looked up and smiled at Neville. "Having fun, Nev?" Ginny asked, chuckling.
"Yeah sweetheart, I hope that Harry and Hermione show up soon, I mean, knowing those two they are probably out snogging somewhere..." Neville replied with a laugh. And as his hand rested lightly on her stomach, he whispered, "and how is junior?"
"Annoying." Ginny replied, then glanced around guiltily, "Neville, love, I know that I was the one who wanted to keep secret, but I'm going to tell everyone tonight, Mum will be peeved, but she'll get over it. Harry, Hermione, Ron and Luna already know anyway."
Neville bent down and kissed the top of her head, and pulled her in tight, "whatever you want luv, I'll be there"
"I know Neville..." With a shock, Ginny broke off as a desperately familiar feeling settled on the bar. Her breath clouded in front of her as the room was suddenly freezing in the end of August. Around the room, more than one guest looked up suddenly and reached for a wand. That feeling was familiar. Too familiar. With a bang, the door to the Three Broomsticks snapped open, and a stream of dark, cloaked figures moved silently into the room...the figures, looked just like Dementors, except they weren't floating, and it was impossible to see under the hoods.
With a snarl, Seamus snapped his wand up, "EXPECTO PATRONUM," a very hairy, shaggy glowing dog, leaped from his wand towards the Dementors, if that's what they were, with absolutely no effect.
Then one of the figures, it was impossible to tell which one; did something no mere Dementor had ever done in known history, it spoke. "Foolish boy, we are not our fallen cousins, we are the, #%^@# (an unintelligible noise) and tonight you will die." The middle figure snapped its hand up, scaled palm facing Seamus, and a green bolt hissed across the room. Seamus went flying, hit the far wall with a pop and didn't get up. Instantly at least ten stunners snapped out from the partygoers but to no use. The X'Sheen just soaked up the stunners as if they were merely stinging hexes cast by a first year.
"REDUCTO" Ron cried as he and Luna dove behind a table, as the X'Sheen started returning odd magical bolts of some form. The middle X'Sheen was hit and knocked spinning into the far wall. It hit and slid down, and did not move, much. At least they could be hurt, but as Ron looked up, horrified, Lavender took a spell and fell as well. Ron dug into a pocket, whipped out a communication crystal and screamed into it. "HARRY, HERMIONE. HELP. WE NEED BACKUP."
After a second, a soft "we're on our way" crackled out of the crystal, but Ron had already dropped it. He and Luna were too busy fighting the X'Sheen to answer. So far it looked as if stunners and jinxes didn't work, but physics did, and spells that used physics did too. Reductors, severing charms, and magically propelled items managed to stop many of them but it generally took multiple hits to do so and the numbers weren't on their side tonight. With a quick count Ron guessed there were at least forty and there were only fifteen partygoers at the start.
"PADMA" Luna howled, Ron's head snapped around to see Padma fall from another of the green curses, then Draco who had been trying to fight off several, turned to see her fall. A look of horror bloomed on his face, but before he could utter a counter spell, he fell victim to a putrid yellow curse, similar to a Cruciatus judging from the effects. Across the room, the twins SHIFTED and the resulting pair of panthers tore another two down, but two more took their place instantly and the twins were suddenly too busy to fight except for their lives.
The final victim came as a shock; Ron glanced around the room to see Ginny and Neville running for cover behind the bar. He watched in helpless terror as Ginny tripped and sprawled across the floor, and an X'Sheen came slowly, inexorably for her. Neville ran back at a sprint. "NO...NEVILLE, RUN DAMMIT...." Ginny screamed from the floor, but it was too late. With a prodigious leap Neville jumped in front of the curse meant for his love, passing in front of her just as an odd, ultraviolet beam reached him. He fell to floor at her feet, and she screamed in horror.
His attacker didn't survive long. With a thunderous CRACK, the blue glowing blade of the Sword of Gryffindor snapped though the thing's neck and it fell to the ground with a loud pop, the body instantly vanishing in a flare of dark purple fire. Harry's eyes snapped around to her, they were glowing with the blue fire of magic; he turned back and flung his free hand in a wave across the front of the enemy ranks. Five of the X'Sheen were instantly flung backwards though the wall, crashing though onto the street beyond.
Behind him, Hermione snapped her also glowing blade across one then another of the X'Sheen, and in an eerie, utterly cold voice not entirely her own, her soprano hissed an incantation, "LAFLARMARE, DRACONUS PROJECTUS." She snapped her free hand into a fist, and flung it open at the X'Sheen. Three balls of blue-white fire, oddly similar to those yielded by the guardian dragon of Hogwarts, Norbert, shot out from her hand, each hitting and engulfing an X'Sheen, each instantly erupted into a pillar of fire, only to vanish into a pile of ashes an instant later.
Harry topped her a moment later, flicking the Gryffindor sword like a large wand, he mouthed an unintelligible spell, and lightning snapped out from the tip of the blade, striking and almost instantly evaporating a X'Sheen, the lightning bounded to three more in turn before it died out. For an instant, the pair stood silent, panting. Their eyes casting the majority of the light in the room as most of the torches and both fires had gone out in the bar when the X'Sheen had appeared.
In another instant, a third, taller presence appeared behind them. Standing a good six inches taller than Harry, and a good foot, if you counted the starred wizard hat, wore over bright crimson robes, Dumbledore glared at the X'Sheen, his eyes blazing white. As the survivors watched, amazed despite their horror, Dumbledore held his hand up, palm held as to cup a ball, and instantly a sphere of pure, blazing, hissing energy appeared in his hand. The X'Sheen rightly took that as a signal, and as one vanished instantly in a series of loud tearing sounds, like a giant bedsheet being torn in two. Dumbledore slowly closed his hand over the ball of energy, reabsorbing it and channeling it away. With a deep breath his eyes faded to their normal blue, though very little twinkle was home this night.
Immediately, Harry knelt next to Neville. Laying his fingers on Neville's throat, Harry felt the faintest of pulses. Ginny pushed past Hermione, crawling to Neville on all fours. She shook his shoulders, her tears falling in streams from her pain-filled brown eyes, "NEVILLE WAKE UP DAMN IT, WAKE UP..." Tears blossomed in Hermione's eyes as Harry's arms encircled her from behind. In front of them, her adoptive sister was crying into Neville's barely moving chest.
*****************************Ginny's Flat********************************
Present
With a soft gasp, Ginny snapped awake and sat up abruptly. The nightmare or rather memory, for it was both, had come again. For a long moment she sat motionless, her head cradled in her hands, her breath coming in gulps. She reached down to the floor next to the bed, grabbed a towel and levered herself up and out. As she walked to the bathroom, she peeled off the sweat-soaked t-shirt she had been wearing, and dropped it carelessly to the floor.
The cool night air hit her bare skin and she shivered as she bent over the sink and splashed water over her face. A simple gold chain dangled down between her breasts with a pair of matching golden rings threaded through it. Just as she stood up she heard a slight scratching at her window. Seeing nothing there, she fully opened the window and heard a rustling of quiet wings flutter into her room.
Grabbing her wand, not bothering with a shirt, she pointed her wand at her desk, "Finite." Instantly, a large snow-white owl faded into view head first, a note tied to her leg. Hedwig hooted softly as she extended her leg to make it easy for Ginny to retrieve her message. Taking the note, Ginny conjured a bowl of water and a small pile of owl treats for the bird. With a grateful hoot, Hedwig tucked in.
Ginny tapped the noted with her wand and it opened:
Agent Ginerva Weasley, as per SOP, pending investigation of the events of 23 June, you are suspended from field assignments. Please report to Ministry medical services at your earliest convenience for the standard physiological and physical testing. Reinstatement to field assignments is determinate on passage of these tests, and the outcome of the post-operational debriefing, which will be held at Group One headquarters, on 24 June at 9:00 am.
Signed
Sir Harry James Potter, Lieutenant Commander, Special Auror Group One
Order of Merlin, First Class
Countersigned
Dame Hermione Jane Potter, Lieutenant Commander, Special Auror Group One
Order of Merlin, First Class
As she watched, amused despite herself, the parchment erupted into flames, just like her life. Ginny looked over at Hedwig, who raised her head as if looking Ginny over. "I guess I'm in trouble, huh?" Hedwig didn't answer, but did give a remarkable impression of a shrug.
Ginny glanced at the owl once more and muttered, "fuck it," Crossing the room in three strides, she flung open a drawer and pulled on a pair of black BDU pants and a long-sleeved, gray T-shirt with a emblem of a Phoenix in flames in subdued colors with the letters SG-1 overlaid over the bird. She strapped a pair of Tevas on her bare feet, pulled her hair into a long tail, and reaching under a pillow, slid a holster that already contained a flat-black pistol behind her hip. She slipped her wand into her left sleeve and grabbed a light jacket from a chair. With a soft CRACK, she vanished. In the silence left behind, Hedwig let out a mournful, "HOOT" and closed her eyes to take a nap.
**************Secret Ministry Medical Facility, Location Unknown**************
With a CRACK, Ginny appeared in an otherwise barren room. The floors were white and featureless, as was the ceiling and three of the four walls. The forth wall was different, it was glass from the waist up, with a barred steel door set into it. Behind the half-shelf, an alert looking wizard sat, his hand hovering over a large red button. He looked at her with a nod. "Agent Weasley hold for the identification protocols." She nodded, and carefully did not move. He flicked a wand with his other hand, and the colors in the room inverted for an instant, red became blue, black, white before they reverted to their normal appearance. Beams of golden light reached out from the top corners of the room and scanned her body. The wizard's eyes glanced unseen to Ginny to a crystal screen. After a moment he nodded and took his hand away from the big red button. He flicked his wand again and the door clicked.
"Go ahead Ginny" the wizard said in a suddenly understanding tone.
She gave him a small smile and nodded, "thanks Eric" She opened the door. "I won't be long...I have to go in, I'm in trouble again."
"I heard." He replied with the air of someone who had been there before. She didn't take it bad; Eric Sanders had indeed been there. In fact if it were not for the urgent need for qualified personnel he probably would have been sacked, if not in Azkaban, after he took it on himself to chase down the Death Eaters that had attacked his sister in the sacking of Gryffindor Tower. It had been Harry who had heard of the impeding verdict of the Auror bureaucracy and had had the wizard quietly transferred to his new Special Group.
Leaving the entryway behind, Ginny walked cat-like down the hall, passing several open doors along the way. In at least half of those she passed, patients were sleeping. This hidden hospital was an even more heavily guarded secret than the existence of the Special Groups. It was another of the Potter Duo's brainchildren. Soon after the Battle of Hogwarts, and the attack on the Gryffindors months later, they had realized that there was no truly secure place where wounded and injured personnel and their families could be treated.
It was also where those who could not be healed, or those for whom no cure could be found, were housed. With that dark thought Ginny passed through a pair of swinging doors into a brightly painted room. Several doors led off the central room, which was centered on a large central desk. A dozen, large crystal balls showed the status of the patients held here in the long-term ward.
It was only six years of hard experience that kept Ginny from shedding a tear at the three orbs set side by side, labeled "Longbottom, F, Longbottom, A. and Longbottom, N." Neville's parents were conscious, even occasionally almost lucid, but they had not really progressed in any measurable manner since Ginny had first seen them in their closed ward in St. Mungo's on that long ago Christmas. Soon after the attacks, Harry had had them moved to this facility as it was more protected than St Mungo's ever could be. Once a week an operative meet Gran Longbottom with a clandestine Portkey that brought her here to visit her son and his wife and her grandson.
"Hi Alice" Ginny said softly to the nurse sitting the desk. The nurse had a sad look as she waved as Ginny entered the room directly in front of her.
Ginny walked into a dim room, the only lights; the gentle glow of displays of Neville's vitals. A shelf of several glowing crystal balls was hung above the head of the bed, in them; glowing green text floated showing Neville's heartbeat, respiration, magical energy level and other vital statistics.
She sat in an armchair next to his bed and took his hand. It was limp. "Hi honey," Ginny whispered. "I'm in trouble again with Harry and Hermione. Seems that I don't think before I act or I tend to actually kill the fucking bastards, or something..." Her eyes were wet, "I'm sorry I haven't been here luv, they've had me off on assignment. Hell, I'm probably not supposed to be here now." She squeezed his hand, "Elliot is growing so fast Neville, he looks just like you; your Gran says so anyway. I love him, I just can't always be with him...he reminds me of you so much it breaks my heart." She leaned forward and kissed his forehead. "I know the healers don't know what's up and Harry and Hermione and Dumbledore have all tried to reach you...but I know you're there...come home to me Neville. I...I don't think I can do this much longer, not without you."
In the dark room, Ginny's fiery head fell to Neville's chest. Her silent sobs shook the bed as her tears soaked his pajamas.
**************************Hogwarts Dungeon*****************************
June 24, 2012
8:45 am
"So Ginny are you sacked or headed to Azkaban?" Draco said quietly, a chuckle in his voice, but she had been his partner, for too long to think he meant it. He was an arse, he knew it, and had accepted that fact long ago. The pair of them continued past Snape's old classroom, now Draco's while school was in secession, and only stopped when they reached a seemingly blank stretch of wall. Torches had only lighted the corridor sparsely. In this cul-de-sac however, it was almost pitch black, the nearest torch twenty yards away down the hall. An observer, a very close observer mind you, would be quite impressed how the two of them, seemingly disappeared into the shadows without any conscious effort, an casual observer would have lost them long before.
Denied an answer Draco sighed and using his wand, he touched the stones of the wall in a curious, seemingly random pattern. For a long instant, both of them felt something inspecting them intently. Then as if they had passed some invisible sentry, the wall creaked and folded, a dark archway appeared, and they walked through it.
Behind them, the stones ground slightly as the wall restored itself, and with a huff, the room they had just entered became almost as bright as day. At the end of the room a heavy oaken door, carved with a phoenix was closed, several suits of armor lined the walls, and a slightly glowing circle was situated on the floor in the center of the room. Together, Ginny and Draco walked to the circle and stopped. The suits of armor had turned to follow them the entire way. Suddenly the room filled with a red/white flash, all colors inverted themselves and just as quickly everything was normal. The suits of armor all shuffled to face forward again and the door at the end of the room opened silently. The pair passed through the door into a new room, and the door closed behind them.
Unlike the previous rooms, there was life here. Desks sat haphazardly around a large open room, with several side doors opening off the main room. The desks were about half full, at one, Sean Asten, the Auror who had basically been drafted on Harry, Ron and Hermione's first official mission, was sitting talking to someone on a crystal ball. Ginny could just see the shape of a female head with long, black hair.
At another, her brother Ron was bent over talking to a blond witch, periodically pointing to something in a file on her desk. His back was to them, so he didn't see them come in. As he straightened up he turned slightly and catching sight, waved them over. "See if we can get that info from Bristol, Sam. If so toss it on my desk" Ron ordered quietly, and the blonde nodded and grabbing a cloak got up and headed for a back door to the room, slipping a wand into a holster at the small of her back as she went.
"Hey bro" Ginny muttered as they came up to him. Ron looked down at her and ran a hand over his chin. Since Hogwarts, Ron had decided to go Bill one better and had not only grown his hair long, and had it pulled back into a fiery tail, but he had also grown a goatee, he had seen someone wearing one in Muggle London and had liked it. When Hermione had first seen it, she had muttered something to Harry about "Ming the Merciless," he had laughed and Ron, thinking they were referring to a wizard that he hadn't heard of, had just grinned. Two years later, neither of them had explained yet. But since Luna liked it, he was cool. The habit of rubbing his hand over the goatee, had developed during a chess tournament in the finals, and he had kept it ever since.
"Ginny. They pulled you from the field right?" Ron asked, though it wasn't a question, he already knew. She nodded mutely, and he gave her a half-smile, and pointed, "it'll be fine, they're waiting."
Ginny shrugged uncaringly and headed towards an open door at the end of the room. Looking back she motioned to the door with her hand "Coming?"
Ron shook his head, "no I have to get going, we might have a lead on Goyle in London, and I'm taking Draco here with me as backup." Behind Ron, Draco shrugged; she nodded to him, turned and headed to the open office. Entering it, she closed the door behind her and sat without asking in a comfortable armchair in front of a scarred old oak desk that looked as if it had been found in the dungeons when they moved in. Behind the desk, Harry sat, his feet up, a file folder in his lap. To his left Hermione was leaning on the wall and looking down over his shoulder reading what ever was in the file.
Slowly Harry looked up at her, he closed the file and tossed it on the desk. Hermione leaned back and crossed her arms with a small yawn; she had been up at three this morning also. "What the hell were you thinking, Agent Weasley?" Harry said quietly, without any real heat to his words. "Is that what you were expecting Ginny?" With a sudden movement, Harry swept his legs from the desk, and plopped them on the ground. Leaning forward, he regarded her silently for a moment, and when she didn't say anything he continued.
"That is what certain bureaucrats were screaming at me this morning in London, more or less, except they substituted Potter of course. I was asked pointedly, in a closed session of the Wizengamot, just why I chose to use such an unstable agent. An agent that has earned the reputation of hexing first and answering the corpse questions later." Ginny's eyes flared at that statement but she still didn't respond. Bloody hell, Mione she won't even fight. Harry thought desperately to his partner at his elbow.
She doesn't care, Harry Hermione replied with equal desperation. "Ginny...oh bloody hell, damn it Ginny say something."
Ginny glared at her, before speaking flatly, "What Hermione? Let that fucker rape me? I'm sorry that I really didn't want to. I'm so sorry I killed him. I should have pulled that kick. Is that what you want to hear?" The tiny redhead snarled and sat back in her chair with a "humph."
"No damn it," Harry growled, a touch of fire igniting in his voice. "I really don't care that another Hamilton is in a body bag, though honestly I prefer the head on a pike approach. I do however care that we still don't have any real leads on Lucius. That's why you are here." Harry paused, and flicked his wand over a green glass orb set on a little stand in the center of his desk. A small image of a witch appeared, she had black hair, a decent figure and a face that had to be due to magic, and since everyone here knew the person in question, they knew it had been. Pansy Parkinson had had her "pug-like" looks magically altered sometime before their sixth year.
Hermione looked down at the witch in the projection and frowned, "Honestly Ginny, we are annoyed, as we were hoping to get the info on Lucius without this step. Since Albert isn't talking to anyone, we have to find another means of getting into the inner circle. Hence Pansy here, she's about the first of the new crop of Death Eaters that escaped Hogwarts with Malfoy, who have popped up. She was seen in muggle Sheffield last week, doing something. Luckily an undercover MLE officer saw her and had the sense to just report her instead of trying to take her down. He very well might have been able to, but she is usually escorted about by Crabbe and Goyle, the younger pair."
"That's where you come in, Ginny." Harry took it up. "We will be snatching Pansy, and replacing her with you, under polyjuice of course. The new stuff only has to be renewed every twenty-four hours, so you won't have to be like Barty Crouch, Jr., sipping every few minutes, but you still will be in great danger. There has been some information crop up, from a Death Eater that we grabbed last week in Edinburgh, that Pansy is being brought into Lucius' inner circle." Harry paused and glanced back at Hermione, "we think that she wants to be Bellatrix to his Voldemort, basically."
**********************London, Near Diagon Alley**************************
June 24, 2012
6:00pm
"Can I help you?" The host asked Draco as he came into Alexander's. This was the type of restaurant that he had not visited much since his graduation from Hogwarts. Not that he couldn't afford it, Draco was independently wealthy, even with the loss of funds that his father had siphoned off from the family vault before Draco could stop him. But ever since the battle at Hogwarts, and the raid that reclaimed his house, the old Malfoy manor from Death Eaters three days later, he had been far more likely to be eating a pizza from some muggle joint than to eat at a spot that had been known in recent history to exclude muggle-borns with occasional extreme prejudice.
"Yes," Draco replied warily glancing around the room. "I am meeting someone."
The host nodded sagely and straightened his robes. "I see, this way then." The host led Draco to a secluded booth. Draco could feel the protective charms surrounding the booth as he walked closer. The waiter left and Draco sat down, across from him a wizard was sitting, his hood drawn forward, stray wisps of Platinum blond hair escaping its confinement.
"What do you want, Lucius?" Draco snarled, his drawl thick with annoyance.
"Is that a way to greet your father? Your new friends have taught you too much disrespect." Lucius' slightly deeper drawl responded, and with a sigh, took a deep sip of his wine. "It is fitting that you hold the Potions position at Hogwarts, the last Professor in that job was a traitor also."
Draco was sorely tempted to try and stun his father, but he had a strange feeling that unlike six years ago at Hogwarts, it would not work. This close he could feel the energy coming off him, familiar in its intensity, but twisted. With a sudden shock and a carefully concealed gasp, he knew exactly where the feeling was familiar from. It was the same feeling that Harry, Hermione or Dumbledore gave off when they did not manage to damp off the presence of their powers. But these emissions seemed dark and twisted. Keeping his shock to himself, "am I here to listen to insults, or shall I leave...father?" the snarl when he said the last carefully insulting. "I never liked this restaurant when we came here when I was a child."
Lucius shook his head sadly, "yes, I came here to give you one more chance. Return to me, leave that fool Dumbledore's service, renounce Potter and his mudblood. I can reward you beyond belief, power, wealth. My spies report you have been seen with that mudblood-loving Weasley girl. Return to me and she will be your plaything, to do with as you will."
Draco glared at him, then with a sudden lurch stood up abruptly. "You never did get it, did you father? I woke up from that nightmare, years ago, but I guess you were stuck there. So plebian. I am going to walk out of this restaurant and the Death Eaters that have wands pointed at me will let me leave. Yes I can feel your power, but even you do not want to start anything so close to the Ministry. Not even in this place, with its shall we say, selective history on admission of patrons."
Lucius did not look up and the hood stayed in place, "Very well then, the next time we meet we will be enemies."
"We already were, for almost twenty years now, it just took me a while to wake up to that fact." Draco replied as if giving a deposition. Then with a swirl of his cape, he walked briskly out of the restaurant almost knocking down the host in the process.
A/N: Ok there we are, your fix ;-) Next Chapter Ginny goes to work, The twins have watched too many episodes of Alias and James Bond and think they are Marshall or Q, or both. And some other stuff. Oh and Fenris, if you are reading this, I managed to put the green bikini from Intervention into the story, later on hope you don't mind :). Think Dr. No.