Ginny gasped for breath as her legs finally began to give out on her. She was exhausted. Her sides ached. Her vest clung to her back. Sweat trickled down her spine. She heaved in deep breaths as she slowed her pace and began walking towards her destination.
Knowing that she looked dishevelled, Ginny tried to control her panting as she entered the deceptively small building. Two rows of fireplaces lined the walls of a long corridor. In front of her, a long desk with three cashiers barred her way. She joined the short queue and noisily rumpled the letter that she still held in her hand.
“Next!”
Stepping forward to the youngest of the cashiers, Ginny nodded politely to him. “I’d like to make a reverse-charges journey, please.”
He shuffled papers importantly. Ginny sighed impatiently, drawing an annoyed glance from the young man. He slipped a pink form in front of her and gestured towards the quill on her side of the desk.
“Fill this in, please.”
Ginny looked at the nib of the quill in annoyance. Why are ‘complimentary quills’ always so rubbish? After filling in her destination and contact details, Ginny handed the form back to the young man. He glanced over her form quickly and nodded to her, stepping out from behind his desk and accompanying her to a vacant fireplace. He sprinkled a little Floo Powder into the flames and bent down onto his knees. When the flames turned green, he leaned forward into the fire.
“Professor Granger?” she heard him ask. “Will you accept a reverse-charges journey from Ginevra Weasley?” She saw his shoulders move as he nodded and breathed a sigh of relief, glad that Hermione had been in her office. Saturday afternoons were relatively free for her, and she could have been anywhere. Ginny had suspected Hermione would be in her office marking work rather than spending time with her fiancé. Ginny was glad she had been right.
The young wizard stood up and dusted off his knees impatiently. “Go ahead, Miss Weasley.” He nodded curtly to her before returning to his station behind the desk.
“What’s wrong?” Hermione asked as her guest appeared in a flash of green light.
“I’ve had a reply from Percy,” Ginny said. She stepped out of the flames and thrust the envelope towards her.
“Oh! Heavens, Ginny! I thought there was something wrong!”
Ginny shrugged and brushed the implied question aside, plonking herself down on the sofa. Last time she had sat here…
“Ginny? Are you listening?”
Ginny closed her eyes with a sharp sigh. “I’m sorry, Hermione. I lost myself there. What were you saying?”
“I said that you’re looking rather… Well. You can go next door and use my shower if you want, while I look over this letter. You’ll feel much better when you get out, I promise. I’m sure you’ll smell better too,” Hermione teased, wearing a grin.
“Oh, thanks!” Ginny laughed. She stood up and followed Hermione out of the office and into the corridor. They stopped in front of a large painting in a dark wood frame. A tall blonde woman stood proudly, a shining helmet balanced on the top of her spear and a breast plate guarding her body. She nodded to Hermione, evoking a hoot from the owl that rested on her shoulder.
Hermione looked over her shoulders to check that they were alone in the corridor. “Hogwarts: A History,” she whispered to the woman in the picture. Pallas Athene inclined her head again and smiled at Ginny.
The painting swung inwards and Ginny followed Hermione into her personal rooms. Her living room was small, but felt bigger from the inside. A battered looking yellow sofa stretched along one wall, and was flanked by two tidy bookcases. A large window let in a lot of light, and the net curtains in front of it fluttered gently in the breeze. Ginny realised that the window must be enchanted; from this position in the castle there was no way Hermione could have a real window in her rooms.
Her bedroom was reached through a door towards the right, and the en suite bathroom was small but also felt very light and airy. Hermione showed Ginny where the towels were kept and gestured towards her wardrobe, telling Ginny to help herself to clean clothes.
When Hermione had left, Ginny stretched her arms up to the ceiling and sighed. Her back and shoulders clicked loudly and she dropped her arms. They suddenly felt very heavy. She began to strip off her clothes and rolled her head around her shoulders. Perhaps running for so long hadn’t been the best idea. Nonetheless, Ginny welcomed her exhaustion. She reached into the shower and turned on the hot water. She was too tired to let herself worry anymore. Enough was enough.
The hot water pounded onto her shoulders and began to wash away the stress. Steam rose all around her and dragged her spirits with it. The tension melted away. Ginny braced one arm against the surprisingly cold wall tiles and began to laugh. She threw back her head and let the water dash onto her face. Her eyes were screwed up and her laughter began to gurgle. She thumped her hand against the wall and screamed her exhilaration.
Not really understanding what was so funny, but cherishing the carefree pleasure she felt, Ginny revelled in her liquid enchantment. When the water began to cool, she gave a quiet moan and turned off the taps. She wrapped a soft, fluffy towel around her body and pressed strong and vigorous footsteps onto the floor.
A trail of damp prints let to Hermione’s full wardrobe. Ginny spread a few items around on the bed as she chose what to wear, and settled for a knee length navy blue skirt. It was surprisingly girly for Hermione’s tastes, and had a trim of lace around the bottom. The full skirt flared around her thighs as she pulled on a thin polo-neck jumper. The light blue matched the skirt wonderfully and hugged her closely. After quickly sweeping Hermione’s hair brush through her wet locks, she pinned them back haphazardly and slipped her trainers back on. Oh well, she thought. I almost look good.
Hermione closed her office door behind her and let out a breath she didn’t know she had been holding. She patted her hand against her stomach gently and sat down behind her desk. When that young man had popped his head through the fire, Hermione’s heart had leapt into her throat. His terse manner didn’t worry her itself, but it wasn’t like Ginny to ask for monetary help. She knew that her friend kept little wizarding money to hand, but also knew that Ginny was too proud to ask for help if she didn’t really need it.
This letter must have something special in it, Hermione thought, sliding the parchment out of the envelope. She read it carefully, slowly taking in everything Percy had said.
Was this all that brought her here? Hermione quickly read the letter again to see if she had missed anything, and laid it down on her desk in confusion. It was great that Ginny had some more information. The location of Fletcher was something that had eluded Hermione no matter how much she had researched, no matter where she had looked for her information. This isn’t enough to make her ask for money, Hermione thought. She could have told me this by owl.
A bout of laughing radiated through the wall between Ginny and herself, raising a smile to Hermione’s lips. She knew how Ginny was feeling. Bless the day I discovered that Perbeatus Charm. There was nothing quite like coming out of the shower set up for the day, even if it was an induced mood.
Foraging around in the one untidy drawer of her desk, Hermione pulled out her personal notepaper and a quill. She scribbled a quick note and pushed the parchment into an envelope. Her writing took its usual elegant form as she wrote the name on the envelope and strode out of her office.
“Louise?” she asked, catching the attention of a seventh year Hufflepuff. “Would you take this note to the Owlery for me, please? As quickly as you can.”
“Certainly, Professor.” The girl nodded as she took the envelope from Hermione’s hand. Hermione saw Louise’s eyes glance over the name on the front. She suppressed a smile as she began to turn away and noticed the girl’s eyes be drawn back to the name for another look. No doubt another round of rumours about her schooldays with Harry would be whirling around the Great Hall before the day was over.
Returning to her office, she stretched her legs out and leaned back in her chair. This was hardly the most scholarly or dignified of reposes, but perhaps the most suitable. She was stumped. Other than now knowing a possible location for Mundungus Fletcher, they knew nothing helpful. There had been few sightings of him, mostly due to the fact that he was old news. As long as Fletcher kept himself to himself, people weren’t interested in him.
Hermione had methodically gone through all of her contacts to pool as much information about Fletcher as she could. Her problem was that she had been out of the loop for too long. Since the fall of Voldemort, the Order of the Phoenix had gradually become less and less active until Hermione no longer knew where to go to get the information she sought.
Most of her leads brought up dead ends or trails gone cold. It was infinitely frustrating, but she was at a loss as to what else to do. There was no one else to ask. Thankful that Percy had managed to come up with something that could help, she now had some idea of what to do. Watch him. It was as simple as that. What else could they do? Watch him, and wait to see if he slipped up.
Of course, that would put Harry in danger. Holding back and waiting for Fletcher to make a move was hardly going to help him immediately, but Hermione could think of nothing more proactive that they could do. There was always the possibility that Fletcher wasn’t the culprit, but she had wracked her brain for days and could think of no one else who could have got into Harry’s house and had a reason for wanting to hurt him.
Fletcher was the only person that she could think of that had a motive, and it was tenuous at that. Chasing after Harry ten years after Harry had made a complaint against Fletcher to the authorities? Tenuous seemed too strong a word for it, but who knew what happened to the mind after a decade in Azkaban?
Hermione suppressed a shudder. She had felt the effect that Dementors had. She had felt the happiness and the hope draining out of her. She had heard the rattle of a Dementor’s breath and had imagined her happy memories being sucked in with it. After just a few brief exposures to a Dementor, Hermione had suffered from occasional nightmares for years. She couldn’t begin to imagine how awful a decade in their presence would be. She didn’t want to.
Perhaps his decade of torture was reason enough for Fletcher to go after Harry. Although he hadn’t been sent to Azkaban for stealing from Harry directly, Hermione remembered Harry explaining that he had made a complaint about Fletcher stealing Black family heirlooms.
Charged with impersonating an Inferius during a burglary, Fletcher ought to have no real problem with Harry. It wasn’t Harry he had been stealing from when he was caught. It wasn’t Harry who pressed charges. While Hermione did wonder who was at the cause of his arrest, she knew that Harry wasn’t it. It was possible that Fletcher didn’t know that, of course. He knew that he had been caught by Harry, and he had run. Perhaps he had assumed that he was being charged with that theft.
Wouldn’t he have been told what he was charged with at his trial, though? I clearly have some more digging to do, Hermione thought, tapping her fingers against her desk.
After a brief knock, Ginny let herself into Hermione’s office. The young woman sat behind her desk, drumming a tattoo with her fingernails. She looked troubled, and was so absorbed in her thoughts that she didn’t notice her friend’s entrance.
“Are you okay?” Ginny asked.
Hermione’s head snapped up to look at her, and her expression lightened considerably when she smiled. “I love that skirt,” she said. “I don’t wear it often though.”
“It’s lovely,” Ginny said, smoothing her hands down over the soft material.
“Let me fix those for you.”
Hermione pointed her wand at Ginny’s feet and murmured a quiet spell. Ginny’s white trainers were transfigured into low black pumps that flattered her outfit.
“Thanks!” Ginny said, surprised at how comfortable the shoes remained. “Are you okay? You had a pretty pensive look on your face when I came in there.”
“I’m just thinking about all this Fletcher stuff. I can’t figure it out yet. We’re missing something.”
“I know the feeling,” Ginny said.
“It’s getting you down too?”
“Among other things.” She nodded and sat down on the comfortable sofa at the back of the room. “Things are just up in the air at the moment, you know?”
“You mean with Harry?”
Ginny opened her mouth to speak, but paused. Now isn’t the right time. She smiled and nodded shyly. “Yeah. With Harry.”
“Just spend time with him. It’ll turn out right, just give it time.”
“I don’t know how it’s going to turn out. There are other factors now.”
“This Fletcher thing isn’t going to last forever, Ginny. We’ll get him; it’ll stop.”
“Yeah.” Ginny sighed. She began to fidget uncomfortably as a moment of silence followed. She didn’t know how to break it.
“I have some good news for you,” Hermione said quietly, moving away from her desk to sit next to Ginny on the sofa. “I think it’s good news anyway.”
“Have you found out something else?”
“No…Your brother and I…We may be getting married a lot sooner than we had planned.”
Ginny laughed happily. “Won the Lottery?”
“Er, no. You’re going to be an auntie again.”
Ginny’s jaw dropped. “You’re pregnant?”
“Yes!” Hermione said, tapping her stomach as she grinned. “I’m about seven weeks along, we think. I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, so don’t let on to Ron that you know yet.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Ginny said, unsure which one of the myriad emotions that ran through her she should voice.
“Be pleased!” Hermione laughed. “Little Willow will have a cousin to play with as she grows up!”
Ginny blanched. Fred’s wife had given birth to their daughter a few days ago. She hadn’t been to visit the new family yet, but knew that Hermione had. Little Willow may have two cousins to play with as she grew up.
Ginny paled. Oh god, Hermione thought, she’s not happy.
Hermione’s face clouded over. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Ginny said, pushing a smile onto her face.
“No, what’s wrong, Ginny?”
“It’s nothing,” Ginny said. “Really. I’m so happy for you, Hermione!”
The young red-haired woman leaned forward to hug her friend.
That look wasn’t for nothing, Hermione realised as she wrapped her arms around her friend and gave a relieved laugh. At least Ginny isn’t upset about my pregnancy, she thought, although Hermione knew that ‘nothing’ wasn’t what had worried her friend. Something is wrong.
“We ought to celebrate! I guess champagne and Butterbeer are out of the question now!”
Hermione laughed. “They certainly are! Are you sure you’re okay with this, Ginny?”
Ginny nodded, her smile finally reaching her eyes. She was thrilled for Ron and Hermione. She knew that they wanted this, even if it was slightly earlier than they had planned. Our children are going to be in the same year at Hogwarts, she realised, giving a quiet laugh. They’re going to be in the same House. Oh, god. What if it’s a Slytherin?
Ginny’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m happy for you, Hermione. But…I could use a friend.”
A hot tear raced down Ginny’s cheek when she closed her eyes. She could feel her teeth beginning to chatter with the intensity of her emotion, and she struggled to contain the outburst that hovered unwelcome behind her defences.
“Ginny?” Hermione’s voice was flooded with concern. When Ginny leaned forward and rested her head in her hands, Hermione laid a hand gently on her friend’s back. “What is it?”
Racked with sobs, Ginny drew in a slow breath, calming herself down. She lifted her head from her hands and looked at Hermione, making eye contact. She saw distress and worry in Hermione’s eyes. No backing out now.
“Hermione,” Ginny said, “I’m pregnant.”
Ginny saw the shock in Hermione’s eyes. Her eyebrows lifted fractionally and her lips parted. Tears trickled down Ginny’s face as she waited for a spoken reaction. Her stomach churned. She felt sick.
“Ginny”” Hermione said. “Are you okay?”
“No,” Ginny said, giving a tight and bitter laugh. “No, I’m not.”
“Is this…? I mean, are you…?” Hermione struggled to find the right words. “Merlin!”
“Yeah. That’s how I feel.”
“When did you find out?”
“A few hours ago. I’ve been sick for a while, my period is late. I just didn’t put two and two together.”
“I’m surprised David didn’t say anything to you,” Hermione said. “He’s usually pretty on the ball.”
“He did,” Ginny said, smiling faintly. “Otherwise I’d still be in ignorant bliss.”
Hermione nodded. “And this is definitely…Malfoy?”
“Definitely Draco.”
“Poor Ginny,” Hermione said, leaning forward to hug her friend. Ginny relaxed against Hermione slightly, letting the woman take some of stress out of herself. “I don’t really know what to say.”
“I feel the same way myself,” Ginny said, smiling a little. She sat back up and wiped her eyes on her wrists. “I don’t know what to say, I don’t know what to feel. I’m a mess.”
“I take it this wasn’t planned?”
Ginny laughed. “No.”
“Just checking,” Hermione explained. “And you haven’t told Malfoy?”
“No one other than you and David knows.”
Hermione nodded. Ginny could see so many emotions written across her face. Hermione was shocked, she was disappointed on Ginny’s behalf, and she was full of sympathy for her. “You haven’t had long to think about it, Ginny. No one would expect you to have your thoughts in order by now.”
“I know,” Ginny said. “I just… I never thought that anything like this would be an issue. I didn’t think I was stupid enough to get myself pregnant. I don’t really know how it happened. I never forget to take my pill.”
“Could you have forgotten it even once?” Hermione asked.
“I never forget,” Ginny said with a shake of her head.
“Well, it doesn’t always work, I suppose. Only ninety-eight per cent effective, isn’t it?”
Ginny nodded minutely. She knew all of this. She knew that is was possible to get pregnant while taking the Pill, but had never prepared herself for it to happen. Ginny was convinced she hadn’t forgotten to take it.
“I’ll be here for you,” Hermione said kindly. “I’ll do everything for you that I can. Do you know how pregnant you are?”
“Five weeks,” Ginny said flatly. “At least.”
“Well, you have time to make up your mind.”
Ginny nodded, surprised to feel herself beginning to numb. A few moments ago emotion had raged around her body. She had been shivering and sobbing. Now, her breathing had calmed and she began to stare off into space. Ginny had reached her emotional limit for now. She couldn’t cry anymore.
Hermione laughed gently. “You’ve had enough, haven’t you? Your eyes just glazed over a bit.”
Ginny smiled. “I just can’t think about it anymore. Everything changes now.”
“Yeah.” Hermione returned Ginny’s smile warmly, lightly touching her own stomach. “Tell me about it. I know it’s not quite the same… We’re in very different positions. But at least we’re in it together.”
Ginny nodded, not knowing what to say. “You won’t tell Ron, will you?”
Hermione smiled. “Yeah, that’s likely. He’d take the news so well.”
“Don’t remind me,” Ginny said with a groan. “If you can’t keep it from him without lying or something, that’s fine. Saves me the trouble of telling him, I suppose. But just do your best to make sure he doesn’t tell anyone else. I’d better get off home. I’m pretty exhausted now. Although that shower doesn’t half pep you up!”
“Perbeatus Charm,” Hermione explained. “I’ll show you how to do it if you like, another time.”
Ginny stood up and moved towards the fireplace, taking a handful of Floo Powder. “Thanks, Hermione.” She smiled.
“You can come to me anytime, Ginny. Reverse the charges. If you can’t get hold of me, try Minerva. She’s in her office quite a lot these days.”
Ginny hugged Hermione closely. “Thanks. I will. You’re a great friend, Hermione.”
“Anytime.” Hermione smiled as Ginny threw the Floo Powder into the fireplace and disappeared in a green whirl.
A/N: Hope you're still enjoying reading, there's more to come!
Those Beautiful Green Eyes. by Aurenna
Chapter Notes: In which secrets are shared between two close friends. Many thanks to Colores, my wonderful beta!