Unofficial Portkey Archive

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In the Red

Mei Queen

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Authoress' Note: It's been years. Literally. Years upon years (like racks on racks on racks, except slightly less funny but also easier to understand since the words mean what you think they mean…). I'm so sorry, guys. For reals.

Update on me - I live in the Silicon Valley now and write and create sales strategies and playbooks and occasionally write marketing campaigns and website copy for big tech companies. It's fun. But it's a lot of hours and a lot of work and I miss you all. Seriously. I do. Also, I play a lot of video games…if anyone wants to add me, please do (PSN: MissMeiberry, XboxLive: Meiberry).

And I've been thinking more and more about writing that YA book. I'm actually quite excited because I think I have a plot mapped out - random question: would any of you be willing to read chapters for me? I can't tell you how much it would mean. It's so weird, having it in your head and thinking it's great and brilliant but secretly wondering if it's the dumbest idea ever and if anyone in their right minds would ever want to read that business. If anyone seems down, I'll write out the first chapter and get it posted on FictionPress (and link it), so you guys can review.

Finally, today's chapter goes out to girlygirl456, who favorited me and "In the Red" on ff.net this week, even though I haven't posted at all in four years (and haven't updated this story in NINE YEARS!!!!). I really appreciate people who do that. I know I don't post much, but I want you all to know that I do see the notifications and really feel moved when you still favorite even though my posts are so ridiculously infrequent. It matters. You matter. You rock. Moving on.

To Nutmeg44: Yes, I've read "Can You Keep a Secret?" :) It's one of my absolute favs. I'm working on "Twenties Girl" now along with "I've Got Your Number"!

P.S. Boys suck and are the reason I'm drunk-writing right now. If any of you spot errors or inconsistencies, that's totes why and I'm super, uber-sorry. Don't boys suck? You all know they do, so I don't think anyone can blame me for the vodka writing. <3

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Mood Music: Rachel Platten, "Lone Ranger" (and freaking everything from "Wildfire - FOR REALS, GUYS, THIS IS THE BEST) - Kendrick Lamar, "Backseat Freestyle" - James Bay, "Hold Back the River"

Mood Book: The 5th Wave - Rick Yancey. The best. I'm not one to be effusive over "just OK" books, so I can promise you this isn't just OK. I just finished this last night and immediately bought the sequel on Kindle and read till 2 AM. Do yourself a favor, guys.

Mood Guru and Mood Absolutely Everything: Yoga with Adriene, "Yoga Boot Camp 2016" (it's on YouTube). Do it. You'll thank me later.

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RECAP: Draco offered Ginny a job during the week, just like Harry has offered her his assistant job for the weekends because there's a chance that all Weasley's Wizard Wheezes prank ideas were stolen during the break-in, which could mean havoc for the company. I would actually copy and paste, but this is a new computer and all my files are freaking lost. Seriously. The fan fiction authoress struggle is SO REAL.

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Chapter 5: Wherefore art thou Ginny Weasley?

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Draco's voice melted like chocolate through the plastic receiver, a seemingly perfectly-timed answer to all the anxiety she'd felt all morning. "Ginny? Ginny? Are you there? Did you hear what I said?"

For a second, she worried that Draco could hear her heartbeat through the phone. After all, the ba-bumps were so loud, she must not be the only one who could hear them.

But she couldn't respond. The idea of working for Harry had been fine, sure. He didn't have Charlotte on the weekends, anyway. Ginny wouldn't be displacing anyone and she'd be filling the gap in his life that he'd needed for so long. He'd actually be more efficient with her, and she might actually -dare we dream- have fun!

But Draco was different. Natalie was ruthlessly efficient, if her prompt meeting reminder emails were any indication. She simply did not deserve to lose her job, and Ginny refused to play any part in a plan that would cause Natalie to be unemployed.

Then, almost like it was choreographed, Ginny heard her mobile ping with an email and brought it up to check, her work phone receiver tucked neatly beneath her chin.

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FROM: Natalie Fisk

TO: Ginevra Weasley

CC: Draco Malfoy

RE: Reminder: Dinner with Draco this evening

MESSAGE

Hi Ginny,

It's Natalie. Just sending a quick reminder about your meeting this evening with Draco. Tonight's dinner will be at Chez Maurice at 8 PM. Please let me know if this time no longer works for you, and I'll go ahead and reschedule.

Best regards,

Natalie

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Goddamnit. How could you even dislike the girl, really? She's so ridiculously good at her job. Finally coming to her senses, she realized that Draco had been waiting at least a solid two minutes on her work line. "Oh…Draco?"

She thought she heard him exhale a sigh of relief on the other end of the line. "Yes, Ginny?"

"I'm not sure what I'd like to do yet," she replied. "Can we talk more about this tonight?"

He let out the breath he wasn't sure he'd been holding. "Yes. Absolutely. See you at eight."

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Draco set the receiver in the cradle with the care of a bomb squad member handling a possible explosive. He loved Natalie. She was so good at what she did. She was probably… no. She was the best assistant that he'd ever had. He was incredibly lucky to have her, and part of him felt traitorous even offering a position to Ginny.

But another, stronger, part of him felt a tie to Ginny that went beyond a planner/client relationship, one that made him feel an obligation to care for her and make sure everything would be ok. This part of him felt instinctual - he couldn't justify it or make sense of it, but somehow, he knew that men like him had been making decisions like this for thousands upon thousands of years.

Ginny hadn't made a choice, but, honestly, he hadn't expected her to. He knew enough about that fiery redhead to know that she would never displace anyone (i.e., Natalie) and would also never disrespect or compete with anyone (i.e., Harry, and the job offer he provided).

Draco knew that if he were to convince Ginny to take him up on his offer, he would have to make sure that 1) Natalie's job was safe, and 2) his job offer wouldn't compete with Harry's.

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Ginny shivered on the pavement outside Chez Maurice. The cab had dropped her off about five minutes ago, but she knew she was still early. She hadn't meant to be, but just when you think you've planned the extra time for London traffic, the streets were clear. There you were.

As she thought to herself outside the restaurant, a glossy black BMW pulled up. Draco exited the driver side door and tossed his keys smartly to the valet in one smooth motion. Ginny suddenly felt considerably less coordinated.

"Thanks, mate," he murmured as the young brunette male Muggle took the steering wheel. He turned to Ginny and offered him arm. "Shall we?"

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They made it through the bread course, appetizers, and salads rather uneventfully. Since Ginny knew tonight was on Gringotts, she may have been slightly more profligate in her menu choices. Draco, however, had made no comment when the orders were taken, ordering several courses himself.

He didn't think he could really admit it to himself, but… he liked her. He liked being around her. She was the biggest pain in his arse right now in terms of clients, but…he felt …lighter when he saw her name at the top of the file. He thought that he might actually feel his heart physically leaping when her name was in print on his desk. Sometimes, when he was alone, he thought that Ginny Weasley (if she weren't Ginny Weasley)… would be it for him.

What was it that Muggle said that time? Romeo. Wherefore art thou Romeo? He had always loved that line. So many people thought that Juliet was asking where Romeo was, but she was really asking why he was. Any other name would have worked. He could have been Romeo Smith, and then the whole Capulet family would have been okay with the arrangement. Romeo Jones, even. But he was Romeo Montague, and that simply didn't work.

When Draco was full of firewhisky and feeling his absolute most sentimental, sometimes he thought that about Ginny. She was gorgeous. That was just a fact. Sleek red hair with freckles and brown eyes, but not a murky brown. This was a chocolate brown that saw deep inside your soul and made the judgements that needed to be made about what was down there. Her eyes mirrored your very thoughts to you in a sort of jarring accuracy, so suddenly that left you feeling both naked and confused.

She was intelligent, the kind of whip-smart that responded to him in kind with biting cynicism that he wished he had at his command at her speed.

She was funny, which mildly irritated him, especially when he needed her to be taking her situation seriously.

Ginny. Wherefore art thou Ginny Weasley?

But no. Really.

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The entrees came, accompanied by the same familiar silence that had settled over their table since the bread course. Draco was waiting for her to break the silence in regard to his job offer. Ginny was waiting for him to make the dinner about her financial issues. They seemed to be at a stalemate.

Finally, Ginny chewed a big bit of her salmon, swallowed, and exhaled. "Okay."

Draco let out the breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. "Okay," he echoed.

"I appreciated your job offer," she continued thoughtfully.

"…but you're not going to take it," he replied dully.

"No, not if it puts Natalie out of a job. She's great at what she does. I can't do what she does better than her, and she doesn't deserve this, Draco."

He'd expected this, so hearing it didn't really hurt. "I wasn't planning to get rid of her."

Ginny's ears perked up. "Oh?" He's not going to get rid of Natalie? Now I feel like I can be actually interested. If she's not losing a job, but I'm just gaining one, that seems like a win/win for everybody, right?

Draco continued. "No. I think Natalie is perfect right where she is. I was actually planning to offer you a different position, and I should have been more explicit on the phone this afternoon. I wanted to make sure that it was really a position I could offer, though. However, I spoke to the head goblins this evening, and it seems to be. Ginny, I'm offering you the position of Head Buyer for Gringotts."

Her head felt like it was spinning. Suddenly, she felt dizzy, like she'd left one of those Muggle merry-go-rounds too soon, and that the solid floor was a rude awakening from the flying sensation she'd had only moments before. "Head…buyer? For Gringotts? That's a thing?"

He laughed as a friendly waiter came by and took their half-empty plates, preparing to serve the dessert course. "Well, apparently it is now. As you know, Gringotts is horribly old-fashioned, run by goblins who would proudly run the business into the ground along with their ancestors' created swords and metalworks if they could, but I think in my time there I've made one crucial point. Businesses must evolve. They hate it, absolutely loathe it, but they see my point. Gringotts simply cannot prosper based on its history in the past. To bring it into the future, we need to acquire other businesses, and that starts with a buyer."

Ginny shook her head, slowly. "But I don't know anything about buying businesses, Draco. At all."

He chuckled as the good-natured waiter slipped the creme brûlée in front of Ginny and the sticky toffee pudding in from of him. "Your credit card statements say otherwise. My only thoughts in getting you in this position are that you're smart, and you have a very good idea as to what businesses will actually be prospering, otherwise you wouldn't be contributing your hard-earned Galleons to their cause. It's really a job of researching, then sitting in a room with me and sharing your opinions on different businesses. Do you think you can do that?"

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An hour later, Ginny Weasley was neatly tucked into the passenger seat of Draco Malfoy's BMW, heading north to her flat. She'd tried several times to convince him to just let her get a cab, but to no avail.

"It's just more money," he'd growled at her playfully from the valet station. Though he told her that, she couldn't help thinking there was another reason he wanted to drive her home. She hadn't given him an answer yet on the job offer. That said, though, she couldn't think of anything in the world she'd like to do more. She was young when she took the job at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, more concerned with doing absolutely anything she could to help her family than she was with finding a job that she was actually good at. And, sure, she was decent at what she did at WWW, but she just didn't like it.

Did that make her a bad person? Maybe.

But Draco's job offer excited her in a way that she hadn't felt in…well, in maybe ever. It felt like a real career, not just a job, and that difference made all the difference in the world to Ginny right at that moment.

Draco's hand neatly shifted gears right near Ginny's left thigh, and she thought she could feel a response on the surface of her skin just from the proximity of his fingers, like her entire body was on edge, just waiting to see what he would do.

But I'm being silly, she chided herself. He's only giving me a ride home because he knows how expensive cabs are in the city. He would probably rather be anywhere else but here in this car with me.

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As the BMW rolled to a smooth stop outside of Ginny's flat, Draco found himself feeling a bit sad. He'd been looking forward to dinner with her all week, and now that it was over, he felt bereft, like he'd been suddenly deprived somehow.

He cleared his throat, suddenly nervous but not sure why. "I hope you'll think about that job offer."

She smiled at him in the darkness of the BMW's interior. "I will, thank you. I'll think about Harry's, too. Maybe I'll end up taking both."

For some reason, that answer made Draco's anger flare up irrationally, but he tried to keep that from showing in his expression. "Okay. That sounds good."

Ginny's hand closed on the door handle. "Thank you for the ride, Draco."

He smiled, a real smile this time. "Anytime, Red."

She chuckled and opened the door. She'd started to exit when she suddenly remembered something and turned back around. "Oh, hey, Draco - "

That was as far as she got before his lips were on hers.

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Authoress' Note: I did this all on a Sunday night in Pages because I still haven't bought Word for this laptop!! Feeling pretty proud of myself right now. It's the little things. Please review (and let me know if you would review if I posted a chapter of my YA book on FictionPress!!). <3 MQ

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