Be Careful
67: How You Defend Yourself
By Anne B. Walsh
Ginny leaned against the stone wall, panting. Her heart pounded as she pointed the wand in her awkward grasp first at Crabbe, then at Goyle, trying to keep them both covered where they stood smirking at opposite ends of the hallway they’d trapped her in.
This had better work.
Crabbe pounced first. "Got it!" he shouted, snatching the wand from Ginny’s left hand while it was pointed at Goyle. "Now Blaise will love me!"
"No!" Goyle pounded in and caught Ginny’s wrist in his enormous, sweaty hand. "He wanted her, not her wand! I have her and he will love me!"
Ginny brought her knee up fast and hard, and Goyle’s gleeful expression was replaced by shock, then, very slowly, by pain. He released her and staggered back against the other wall, whimpering.
Crabbe laughed and snapped the wand he still held between his hands easily. "There, now you can’t take it back," he said, dropping the pieces and reaching for his own wand. "Be good and I won’t hurt you too much..."
Ginny demonstrated the draw that had won her four duels out of five in DA days. "Petrificus Totalus," she hissed, and Crabbe’s hand went rigid around his wand before he could get it out. He teetered for a moment, then started to fall. Ginny, feeling charitable, caught him with a quick "Wingardium Leviosa" and lowered him to the flagstones.
"That was Zabini’s wand you broke," she said, Stunning Goyle as he began to take an interest in the world outside his own personal agony. "I don’t think he’ll love you much now. And for future reference, I’m right-handed."
She turned on her heel and marched away, making each step loud and deliberate to conceal how much her knees were shaking. If she could just find a landmark, the Potions classroom for preference, or a stairway, any stairway, providing it went up...
Rough hands against her back sent her flying, her wand clattering away down the corridor as she lost her grip. She couldn’t hold back a little cry of pain when her knees and wrists hit the stone floor.
"That’s right," hissed a voice from behind her, and Zabini stalked into view, hands fisted and eyes blazing. "Crawl and whine like the little bitch you are. Not so proud now, are you? Not so high and mighty? You’ll come to heel when I’m through with you. They all do. You’re no different, not really—"
Ginny launched herself forward, slamming her full weight against Zabini’s legs. They fell together in a tangle of robes and limbs, flailing at one another. A heavy blow to the back of the head made Ginny’s eyes blur for a moment, but she kicked back and heard a grunt of pain. Another kick and she was momentarily free, free to snatch up her wand and point it back at Zabini, but he was close enough to shove it away or grab it before she could get a spell out, and his hand was coming around to do just that—
A loud whipcrack, a sound like an explosion, and Zabini shot backwards away from her until he crashed into the wall at the end of the corridor, fifty feet away.
Did I do that?
Warmth blossomed on the back of her left hand, and the world went black and closed in on her, squeezing her in a merciless grip. She tried to shriek, but there was no air, no sound, nothing—
And then everything came back, and she gasped in a breath and started to scream, but a tiny hand covered her mouth before she could.
"We must be quiet, mistress," said a croaking voice. "You are not safe yet."
Ginny nodded slightly, and the hand was taken away. Moving deliberately, she straightened her hair, repaired the rip in her robes, and slid her wand away, all the time never turning her head to look at her rescuer.
I think I’m hoping it isn’t who I know it is.
Finally, it couldn’t be put off any longer. Ginny turned.
Wearing a plain white tea towel for a kilt and an ornate locket around his neck, far cleaner than she had ever seen him—
And calling me ‘mistress’ for some reason—
Standing beside her in this nondescript stretch of Hogwarts corridor was Kreacher, the Blacks’ mad house-elf.
Though he doesn’t look quite so mad anymore...
Harry relaxed all at once, closing his eyes and even managing a small grin. "It worked," he said. "I wasn’t sure if it would."
"Who’s..." Neville craned his neck to read the label on the dot beside Ginny’s. "Kreacher?"
"My house-elf. He was my godfather’s, got left to me, hated me for a while, but we sorted it out over the summer. I guess he went to Hogwarts when we had to run for it after the Ministry."
Neville nodded as if he understood this, making a mental note that there were several stories here he’d have to ask for when the war was over. "That message was to him?"
"Right. Ordering him to protect Ginny, keep her safe. Take her somewhere out of harm’s way." Harry’s eyes opened and fixed on Neville. "So. How long has this been happening?"
"How long has what been happening?"
"Don’t play stupid. That." Harry slapped at the Map, now showing the dungeons again, Crabbe, Goyle, and Zabini motionless, one human and one house-elf moving swiftly through the corridors nearby. "And don’t try to tell me you don’t know or this is the first time. I won’t buy it."
Neville considered lying anyway, but he’d never been any good at it. "It started the second day of fall term," he said. "Snape stopped it from ever going this far before, but he can’t stop them from talking. And he’s out of the castle today. Zabini must’ve figured, if it was already done by the time Snape got back..."
Harry tightened his grip on Neville’s wand. Neville couldn’t stop his faint noise of protest, and Harry’s shoulders sagged. "Sorry." He opened his fingers carefully, releasing the wand, and passed it back with his left hand. "I just..."
"Don’t like seeing your girlfriend get chased by Slytherins?" Neville suggested.
"Ex-girlfriend," Harry corrected half-heartedly. "We broke up."
Neville snorted. "Yeah, you broke up. Maybe Crabbe and Goyle believed it, Harry. Nobody else did."
Harry rubbed the fingers of his right hand along the line of his scar, shutting his eyes again. "Was it that obvious?"
"Yes."
The left hand joined the right. "I don’t know what to do," Harry said in a monotone. "I know what I want to do, but it’s a terrible idea, and I know what I’m supposed to do, but I don’t know how..."
Neville listened in silence. I thought you had the answers, he made himself not say. I thought you knew what was going on. I thought Dumbledore had left you some great plan, a roadmap or a list of directions or something. I didn’t think you were just as confused and frustrated and scared as I am.
"But I know what I have to do." Harry let his hands fall to his lap and opened his eyes once more. "I have to keep going. We all do."
"Because if we don’t..." Neville let the end of the sentence go unsaid.
Because if we don’t, You-Know-Who gets to win.
I’m not ready to let him.
Looks like Harry isn’t either.
"Thanks for the Map," he said, drawing his wand. "What’s the password again to turn it off?"
"Mischief managed," Harry recited. "But don’t blank it yet, I want to make sure—hey, where’d they go?"
"What?" Neville looked down. Ginny and Kreacher had indeed vanished.
"Show me where they are," Harry commanded, putting a hand on the corner of the Map.
Lines blurred and reformed to show the outline of a small, almost-circular room, with a spiral staircase outside it. Ginny’s dot was moving forward in tiny steps. Kreacher’s was motionless behind it.
"Does this thing ever show vertical lines?" Neville asked as a suspicion crept over him.
"I don’t know." Harry looked down at the Map. "Do you?"
The green lines on the paper sprang upwards, forming a three-dimensional drawing of—
"The Head’s office?" Harry stared at the miniature Ginny, climbing down a ladder with a bulge at the side of her robes. "What’s that she’s got?"
"About that." Neville watched Ginny kneel beside Kreacher and hold out her hand. "You won’t know this, but back in October, we tried to steal—"
"The sword of Gryffindor, yeah, we heard," Harry interrupted. "Never mind how right now. Snape sent it off to Gringotts, didn’t he? What’s it got to do with anything?"
"Well, Ginny had this idea—"
Girl and house-elf vanished from the picture, which melted back into the lines of ink on the Map. As the last speck disappeared, there was a loud double crack, like two doors slamming a second apart.
"It’s never done sound before," said Harry, frowning at the parchment. "I hope it isn’t—"
"That wasn’t the Map," Neville said, staring over Harry’s shoulder.
Harry turned to follow his line of sight.
Hermione was gaping like a Muggleborn first year, an even more impressive expression on Daphne Greengrass’ face. A snowball fell unthrown from Ron’s hand. "What are you doing here?" he demanded in Theodore Nott’s voice. "I thought you weren’t allowed in Hogsmeade anymore!"
A good house-elf, Kreacher considered, should always know what his master truly wanted, as well as listening to what he said. Anticipating needs was the best way to make any master happy, and a happy master, in the long run, made for guests, parties, and big families, which was the best way to make any house-elf happy.
Master Harry, judging by the things he’d said in his sleep at the House, truly wanted the Weasley girl. From what Kreacher had heard and seen at Hogwarts, the Weasley girl wanted Master Harry as well. Kreacher knew his old mistress would have considered the girl a blood traitor, not fit to cross her doorstep, but he also knew that Master Harry was a good master and deserved happiness. Besides, times had changed and Master Harry’s family would be safe no matter what.
That was, if Master Harry himself survived the war.
Helping his master survive had become Kreacher’s highest priority. It was for that reason he had hidden when the Death Eaters came to the House, for that reason he had gone to Hogwarts and made his peace with Dobby. It had taken some fast talking before Dobby was convinced of Kreacher’s change of heart, but once it was established, the two elves had forged a sturdy alliance. The other house-elves, bound though they were to support the Headmaster, were nonetheless disgusted by what they saw happening to the students in their charge, and brought news from all corners of the castle to Kreacher and Dobby.
And then the Malfoy boy came along with his plots and plans, and now the portrait of the old Headmaster plans and plots as well, oh yes, oh yes indeed...
Kreacher peered out from among the trees where he was now standing. His mistress-to-be was staring at two people she thought were her enemies, but Kreacher had directed his Apparition to the place where his master was and suspected these two were the Weasley boy and the Muggleborn girl in disguise. The master must be nearby, hiding under his magical cloak.
The mistress-to-be is a smart girl. Thinking to ask Kreacher if he could take her up to the Headmaster’s office, so that she could steal as she had planned. But she did not know that Kreacher was ordered by his master to take her out of harm’s way... and from today it is quite clear that the Malfoy boy and the old Headmaster were right in what they said, that she is in harm’s way anywhere in the castle, so to be out of harm’s way she must leave it altogether...
Kreacher did love it when desire and duty came together.
The mistress-to-be spun around and raced away. Simultaneously, Kreacher heard the bang of another house-elf Apparating, some distance off.
Now the Malfoy boy will be able to say that he could not have arranged for Professor Slughorn to find the foolish Slytherins and the remains of the dark boy’s potion, for of course Draco Malfoy left the castle with the other students this morning—how else could he have come here to Hogsmeade, where clearly he is now? He cackled to himself, muffling the noise in his tea-towel kilt. Wizards can be so blind.
The disguised friends of the master were chasing after the mistress-to-be, and Kreacher could feel his master’s sense moving further away, following invisibly. He longed to follow, but Master Harry had a mission and an old house-elf would be a distraction, not a help.
Besides, the master cannot live in a proper House while the war is happening. He must live in...
Kreacher shuddered and could not finish the thought. It was a disgrace, but the war would soon be over. Then the master could return to the House and all would be well again.
And perhaps, with Kreacher’s small help of today, soon will be sooner.
Ginny pounded through the back alleys of Hogsmeade, hearing Nott and Daphne Greengrass shouting something behind her but not stopping to listen. Here and there a spell shot towards her as students ran to see what the noise was. She dodged and ducked, clinging desperately to the lump of fabric under her left arm.
Stupid house-elf—I should have known better than to trust him, no matter what he said about Harry...
A pair of Slytherin girls her own age darted out from an adjoining alley to cut her off. Ginny skidded to a halt, reaching for her wand, but it was too late. Both girls had theirs out and pointed already, and the one on the right was grinning meanly. "Try," she said over her friend’s sniggering. "Just try."
Can this get any worse?
Alecto Carrow’s wheezing laugh rang out, and Ginny’s heart sank through the bottoms of her shoes.
I had to ask.
"Got you this time, girly!" the Muggle Studies professor cackled. "Off school grounds without permission, and won’t we just have fun getting you to tell us how you did it!"
"She’s got something, Professor," said the girl who’d been laughing, pointing at the lump under Ginny’s robes. "I bet she stole it."
"Another charge, another punishment!" Alecto was beaming all over her face as Ginny turned to look at her, incidentally putting her back towards one of the alley’s walls. Behind the professor, Nott and Greengrass had their own wands out, but their faces looked—
Worried?
Why would they care about me?
Ginny pushed the thought aside and concentrated on the moment. She was a Gryffindor. She tried every day to be worthy. And now she was in trouble, and needed help as much as Harry ever had against the basilisk.
If this is ever going to work, it needs to be now...
The cloth against her side grew heavy with a familiar shape. In one swift motion, Ginny drew the sword of Gryffindor from the Sorting Hat and brought the silver blade up to guard position.
"Come and get me," she said.
Author Notes:
Well done, all who guessed it was the Sorting Hat Ginny was after. Hmm, I wonder what might happen now... mwahaha. The evil, and the canon-twisting, are just beginning! Review to make it more likely that they will continue soon!