Be Careful
65: Who You Turn Your Back On
By Anne B. Walsh
The first Hogsmeade day of the new term dawned clear and cold, sending students digging through their trunks for extra socks and charming their scarves to heat the air around their faces. Ginny watched the rest of Gryffindor Tower getting ready to go and hoped her expression looked wistful. In truth, she was scared out of her socks. What she was going to attempt today was a task sufficient to daunt even the bravest of Gryffindors.
Think it through, Ginny, her mother’s voice admonished in the back of her mind. Make sure every step makes sense.
Ginny thought as directed, tapping at different places on the table in front of her as though she were explaining a Quidditch play to someone who’d never seen it done. For the sake of the war, Harry needed the sword of Gryffindor. For the sake of her own sanity, Ginny needed to show the world she would not be cowed. For the sake of her nerve endings, she would rather it was Snape she provoked.
Even if it was Malfoy who suggested it.
Snape had taken the sword away from his office and hidden it somewhere. Ginny didn’t know where and had no idea how to start finding out. But neither had anyone for hundreds of years, and that hadn’t stopped Harry using the sword to kill the basilisk.
And I’d say he needs it as much now as he did then.
So her plan was set. She knew what she was going to steal, who she would send it to, and what she would ask them to do with it.
I don’t know how much trouble I’ll get in, but I can guess.
Lots and lots and lots.
But I’m a Weasley and a Gryffindor. What else did you expect?
She walked down to the entrance hall with Neville, where they shook hands. “Have a good day,” she said.
“You too.” Good luck, he mouthed silently, giving her hand an extra squeeze before letting go.
“Thanks,” Ginny said to both comments, and stood back as Filch checked over the lines of students before opening the huge doors to let them go out into the watery winter sunshine.
Several faces from the usual Slytherin crowd were missing, Ginny noticed as most of the school walked past her. Malfoy and his goons seemed to have decided on a day indoors, as well as Zabini, though Theodore Nott had Daphne Greengrass on his arm and was laughing uproariously at something she’d just told him. A girl a year or two younger than Ginny with a strong resemblance to Daphne gave them a disgusted look before stalking out the door.
Yeah, I think I’d be pretty disgusted too if my sister had decided the best bet in her year was some rabbit-faced Junior Death Eater.
The thought made her smile, but close on its heels were thoughts of dating in general, thoughts about love, and that led her inexorably to the one place she didn’t want to be.
Ye gods, Harry, I miss you. Where are you today? Are you in one of your moods, the sort not even Hermione can pull you out of like I can? Ron said you were all right, but was he just trying to make us feel better? What does “close call Christmas Eve” mean?
And over and over, the most irrational and least eradicable question in her life beat against the walls of her brain.
Why not me? Why couldn’t you take me? Why could you take Ron and Hermione with you, but not me? Am I not worth enough? Do I not matter to you?
If she thought about it, Ginny knew the answer to that. She mattered to Harry so much that he wanted her to be safe, not taking the risks he took. Besides, she was still underage, where Ron and Hermione had both turned seventeen long since. She’d be under the Trace until August, which would render her unable to do magic without being found and therefore a liability rather than an asset.
But I’m not safe here. Not the way we all thought I would be. And it isn’t magic you need me for. It’s taking your blinders off. You get so fixated on whatever you’re after that you forget to look around you, you forget other people exist, you forget we can help you. I can break through that for you. I can remind you about the rest of us.
Or I could, if I were there.
She shook herself, breaking her melancholy mood. She might not be able to be with Harry in person, but she was with him in spirit, and about to do something that would help him.
I hope.
After one more look around the entrance hall—it might be the last time for a while she’d see it by daylight—Ginny started up the stairs. The current password to Snape’s office, she’d learned yesterday from another mysterious note in her own writing, was “Derwent”. What was more, Snape himself was out in Hogsmeade today, as were the Carrows. She’d never have a better opportunity.
“Hello there, Weasley girl,” said a voice from a cross-corridor as she passed it.
Ginny drew her wand before turning to answer. “Hello, Zabini. Not going to Hogsmeade?”
“No, I have a project I need to finish.” The Slytherin seventh-year smiled coldly down at her. “And you’re it. Now, boys.”
Ginny barely had time to realize he’d shifted his gaze to look over her shoulder when strong arms wrapped her in a bear hug and a smelly bag descended over her head. She screamed, but heard the sound die away as it passed through the cloth. Her wand was wrenched from her hand, her feet left the ground, and the last thing she heard was a satisfied chuckle, underlying the word “Stupefy!”
“Oh dear God that’s so wrong,” Ron muttered. “That is so utterly wrong.”
“Yes, we’ve established that it’s wrong,” said Hermione testily. “Can we move on now?”
“Ah!” Ron covered his eyes with his hands. “Do you think they can hear you?”
“I hope not,” said Harry. “Come on, they’re busy snogging, we’ll never get a better chance. On three... one, two—”
“Stupefy,” said Ron and Hermione together. The Slytherin pair in front of them froze in unison, then toppled over together, one’s tongue coming out of the other’s mouth as they fell.
“That’s sick,” Ron said, ducking out from under the Invisibility Cloak. “That is really sick.”
“Look on the bright side,” Harry pointed out, holding up the Cloak to let Hermione emerge, then dropping it back over himself. “At least no one will be surprised to see you two together.”
Least of all me.
Harry was glad Ron had finally realized that Hermione was not only a girl but a girl worth kissing, and that Hermione returned the sentiment so wholeheartedly. It had made Ron’s return to them far less strained than it could have been. As if in exchange, though, it had altered the balance of relations within their tiny world, so much so that Harry sometimes felt like an outsider on his own quest.
I wish I could convince them that what they have now is too valuable to risk. That they should go home, keep fighting from undercover, and let me do this alone. Maybe, if they decide to get a butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks, I can find Neville and leave him a note for them, and get back to the tent and away before they know I’m gone. Have to get Ron’s Deluminator, though, or he’ll just use it to find his way back like he did before...
“I think we’re ready,” said Hermione, breaking into Harry’s thoughts. She had two bundles of clothes in her arms, and Ron was just dragging their Slytherin yearmate, clothed in only his underwear, into the woods, the shimmer of a warming spell hovering around him. Harry could see his girlfriend’s bare feet poking out of the snow-covered undergrowth already. “Shall we go get changed, then?”
In the tent, which they’d erected and protected a few hundred yards from the village, Ron shucked out of most of his clothes, striking a few poses to make Hermione blush, and swallowed his pale tan Polyjuice. Hermione conjured a folding screen behind which she disappeared and returned a few moments later with a different face, fastening her green-lined winter cloak as Ron swung his around him.
“Ready?” Harry said, picking up the Invisibility Cloak.
“No,” said Ron, grimacing at the sound of his thin voice. “Let’s go anyway.”
“After you,” said Hermione, holding open the tent flap.
“No, after you.” Ron bowed to her.
“Everybody, after me,” said Harry, striding out the open flap.
It would have been far more effective had he not tripped on the tent’s threshold and fallen flat on his face.
Some days you just can’t win for losing.
Neville checked his watch as he came out of Honeydukes. I hope Ginny’s doing all right. She ought to be out of Snape’s office by now and headed up to the Owlery.
“Thanks for letting me have that box, Padma,” he said, remembering. “I used mine for something else, because I didn’t think they’d all break down like that.”
“It’s not a problem,” said the slender Ravenclaw, pulling her cloak tighter around her. “Someone should really tell Fred and George their spell-checking quills stop working after a few months.”
Parvati shook her head. “They probably know,” she said. “It’s the kind of thing they’d think was funny.”
“Or good business,” added Seamus. “Keeps people coming back, buying repairs or new ones.”
“And it is funny,” said Hannah Abbott, smiling shyly at Neville. “I’ve never seen Professor McGonagall laugh so hard as she did when she read that Transfiguration essay of yours aloud.”
Neville smiled back, conscious of an odd feeling in his midsection, rather like the effect of having one’s ribs turn into several dozen butterflies.
And I should know.
He was just about to try to make the feeling go away or get stronger, and for the life of him he wasn’t sure which, when—
“Hell-o, Longbottom,” said a boy’s whining voice from behind him, as a hand dropped onto his shoulder.
“Fancy meeting you here!” added a girl’s, with a giggle that smacked of hair-tossing.
Neville turned slowly. “Nott,” he said, stepping away from the Slytherin’s hand. “Greengrass.”
“Oh, you know our names,” Daphne said, clasping her hands under her chin. “Isn’t that sweet.”
“I’ll make it simple, Longbottom,” said Nott, drawing his wand. “You’re coming with us to see the boss. Got that?”
“What if I say no?” Neville asked, hearing his friends behind him start to reach for their own wands.
“Then I’ll do what I did in first year,” said Daphne, staring at him. “And this time, it won’t win you the House Cup.”
Neville stared for an instant, then held up his right hand, stopping Seamus in the middle of casting his first spell. “I’ll fight you,” he said to the Slytherins, making a fist where they could see it with his left.
Daphne sighed. “Neville, I’m really, really sorry about this,” she said, raising her wand.
“You don’t have to do that,” Neville said hastily. “I’ll come.”
“No!” Hannah cried, running forward. “Don’t hurt him! Take me!”
“We’re not going to hurt him,” said Nott in a bored tone. “Not unless he’s stupid. The boss just wants to see him, talk to him for a little while. You’ll get him back all in one piece.”
“House honor on it,” Daphne added.
“From you, I trust that,” said Neville, and saw a familiar smile break across Daphne’s face.
He turned to face the DA. “I’ll be all right,” he told them. “I should be back in about an hour. Meet me at the Hog’s Head?”
Nodding heads answered him, though Hannah still looked frightened. Neville held out his hand, and felt another little rush of excitement through his stomach when she took it. “I promise I’ll be all right,” he said. “House honor on it.”
“From you, I trust that,” Hannah whispered. “I’ll see you in an hour.”
“See you.” Neville squeezed her hand and let it go, then turned to face the Slytherins. “Take me to your leader,” he said.
Someday I’m going to have to ask her why that’s funny.
Probably a Muggle thing.
Ginny awakened all at once in darkness. Her head hurt, her mouth tasted sour, and her wrists were tied together behind her.
“I’m going to kill you, Blaise Zabini,” she said aloud.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” said a voice nearby, and the bag over her head was whisked off, allowing her to see her surroundings.
It was a small, low-ceilinged room of stone, windowless and with only one door. She lay on a moldering twin bed, the only furnishing in the room besides the tiny, steaming cauldron over which Zabini was bending. Crabbe stood by the door, arms folded, and Goyle—Ginny craned her neck to see—was behind her, crumpling the bag in his big hands. Her wand stuck out of his right-hand pocket.
“No, you won’t kill me,” Zabini repeated, sniffing warily at the steam from the cauldron, then returning to stirring it. “Not after you have a sip of what’s in here.”
“What makes you think I’ll drink anything you give me?” Ginny shot back, getting her legs over the edge of the bed and sitting up stiffly.
“You won’t have a choice, my dear little Gryffindor. You’ll be under the Imperius.” Zabini smirked at her through the steam. “But that’s the last time I’ll ever need to use it on you. Once you’ve tasted what I have here, you’ll be only too happy to do whatever I say. Forever.” He scooped up a bit on the end of his stirring stick and let it splash back into the cauldron. “How delightful that your own brothers sold the love potion that gave me the base for this charming little concoction...”
Author Notes:
I told you the good stuff was coming. Hope you’ve enjoyed this. More to come! Encouragement is gratefully accepted!