Bill and Charlie
Ginny was a bit startled by Blaise’s sudden exit. They had been studying and she knew he was trying his best to get good grades this year. It was, after, his NEWT year and he seemed very determined to do well even though there was a lot going on. She abandoned her work on Regulus’s notes and slipped into his seat.
He hadn’t said anything when he left, but she had a feeling something was wrong. Of course something had just been mentioned on the radio about Nott taking refuge near his old home, but his mother had moved out already so that couldn’t be it. Could it?
She glanced over the books and files and then her gaze landed on a notebook, the same notebook she’d seen him scribbling in at the beginning of the year when she thought it was some way of communicating with Tom. Ginny hesitated, but then she convinced herself that something must be wrong and she had to find out what she could.
“Here goes,” she whispered to herself, “You’ll have to forgive me, Zabini.”
Her eyebrows rose up in the air as she read through what looked like a … conversation. But it had nothing to do with Tom, in fact most of it was lighthearted banter. A small knot began forming in her stomach, but then she came across two words: sister and orphanage. She scanned the paragraph again and again, but it didn’t make too much sense. Zabini did not have sisters and what did he have to do with an orphanage.
And then it clicked. Nott was hiding in an orphanage.
She jumped up and ran towards a particular spot in the gates. She knew there was no way she could get out alone and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. If there were hundreds of Ministry people and possibly Death Eaters then she couldn’t do this alone, and neither could Blaise.
“Hey!” a very familiar voice called to her, “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Stop!”
She obeyed immediately and waited for Bill to reach her, glad that the patrol shifts had not changed. Bill was the only one who could help her now, the only one she could confide in without seriously messing this up for herself and Zabini.
“I need your help, Bill!”
“Alright, sit down and we’ll-”
“No, no!” she said, “Listen, Zabini needs help. He’s trying to go after Nott by himself or something and I know there’ll be Aurors there and everything. I need you to get me there.”
“Hang on there,” Bill grabbed her shoulders, “How do you, or I, know that this Zabini isn’t a Death Eater and what exactly do you expect me to do?”
“Well, I don’t know what’s going on there, so I don’t know what I want you to do, but I expect he’ll need a safe place for…his family to stay if there’s trouble and he needs to be able to get back into Hogwarts and finish his NEWT year without trouble.”
Bill took a deep breath and Ginny felt his eyes on her, trying to read her. Suddenly a yell came from somewhere along the wall and someone came running towards them. Ginny could see Tonks’s vibrant pink hair in the light of her wand as she too began to run, but she was heading inside.
Her oldest brother nodded and raised his wand, muttering something under his breath. A wisp of smoke shot quickly out of his wand and flew away. He had sent some sort of message and Ginny was satisfied with that for now. It meant he’d made his decision.
“What is it?” the Auror had come up alongside them and stopped in his tracks, “This one trying to run away too?”
“No,” Bill said, “She came to alert me, who’s run away?”
The man took several deep breath before answering. “I’m not sure, but it was a Slytherin and he preformed some pretty impressive Magic. Maybe Scrimgeour had the right-”
“What is going on here?” McGonagall’s voice interrupted him, “Do any of you have any idea where Zabini has run off to, Tonks has just informed me that he’s run away!”
There was a long silence. Suddenly McGonagall turned to Tonks and the other Auror: “Get back to your posts in case this is some sort of set-up, I’ll find out what’s going on, but be extra careful!”
They walked back to their posts and then McGonagall turned to Ginny. “What are you doing out here?” she asked, “Do you know what’s going on?”
“He’s gone to get his sister out of that Orphanage,” Ginny decided that the notebook had made it very clear and that this sounded like a good story anyway, she’d just embellish it a little if she needed to, “You’re going to let him back in and protect him from the Ministry, right?”
“Ms. Weasley, he doesn’t have a sister and if he did why would she be in an Orphanage?”
“Don’t ask me,” Ginny said, thinking quickly, “Who knows how that crazy woman he calls a mother thinks anyway.”
“This is highly suspicious and if it were true I would still need to make sure for myself that he isn’t a Death Eater, but if he wants to come back then, yes, I will allow him back in.”
“He’s not a Death Eater,” Ginny said gritting her teeth.
“Your trust is admirable, but-”
“No!” Ginny said firmly, “It’s not just trust, I know for a fact that he’s not a Death Eater.”
“Ginny,” Bill interrupted, “Are you…going out with the bloke?”
She just glared at him through narrowed eyes. This was not what she needed right now.
“Can you provide any evidence for him if it comes to that, Ginny?” McGonagall asked.
“Yes,” she said through gritted teeth, looking around impatiently, “But it won’t because the Ministry won’t get him, right?”
McGonagall sighed and then nodded slowly. Suddenly Ginny was hit from behind and then she found herself being pulled onto a broom behind a stocky red-head. Charlie. She grinned.
“Well then, sister, where to?” Charlie asked, “Bill will take care of everything down below, you just tell me what’s going on?”
“I need to get to the Zabini place,” she yelled over the wind, “And I need you to help me think of somewhere we can hide someone from both Voldemort and the Ministry.”
“This wouldn’t be a boyfriend of yours would it?”
“No!”
“Alright, now I think I can get us to the Zabini Place in a few minutes, meanwhile, I want to know what you can do with that wand before I throw you into the crazy mess down there. Mum will have my head if something happens to you.”
“I know,” she yelled and then she began reciting the spells she knew for Charlie’s benefit. For a few moments it felt like she was a little girl again, proudly showing off to her family, and she thought this must be what it feels like for first years who don’t get possessed by the Dark Lord.
Finally, after circling the area Charlie insisted must be the place for a few minutes, they saw a large, fierce looking dragon zooming ahead. Charlie followed it with the skill of a man who’d been doing it for years. “Hang on, Ginny, this is the monster that was hovering over Malfoy Manor earlier. Now they can’t get me for abandoning my post!”
Ginny grinned and tightened her hold on Charlie’s stomach as he increased his speed and preformed some very sharp turns and dives, keeping close to the dragon, but doing his best not to disturb it.
They flew over a large mansion and then an open field and finally, they could see a small house below with several small figures standing around it. Ginny strained her eyes trying to see them more clearly, but she soon found that she didn’t have to. The dragon they were tailing suddenly made a dive and landed on a hill not far from the house. Ginny could now clearly see Blaise among the figures standing ahead.
She cringed and Charlie tried to stun the beast before it could endanger the group. Suddenly, it began to shrink and morph rapidly until it became a small ragged heap of black that got up quickly and kept running.
Ginny and Charlie both stopped in silent shock. The scene below was unbelievable. Blaise was standing beside a pretty girl, his wand still pointed at the spot that used to be the dragon’s neck and was now just thin air high above the head of Draco Malfoy. Behind them, in the doorway of the cottage were a stringy boy who had his own wand pointed at the doorframe of the cottage and a plump middle-aged woman whose eyes looked like they were going to pop out of their sockets. A muggle, Ginny guessed.
“What the hell, Draco?” Blaise broke the silence, but Draco did not seem to be listening. He took the girl’s hands in his own and dropped to his knees, his energy apparently spent.
“Come with me!” he said almost hysterically, “I’m a free man now. My mother is safe with Snape and thanks to him and his stupid plan I can finally transform prop- well almost properly.”
His left arm was still rather large and scaly. Ginny shuddered a little, but she found that her feet were glued to the floor. “Come with me,” Draco implored again, “We’ll go somewhere where no one can find us and I’ll take care of you, we’ll be free! I swear I’ll take care of her, Zabini, mate.”
The girl finally came out of her silent stupor and dropped to her knees before him, taking his broad shoulders into her tiny hands and smiling a bubbly smile. “A Dragon!” she laughed, “A Dragon was embarrassing!”
“Well,” Draco said in a more hushed tone, “The half-transformations were messy.”
Ginny turned to Blaise, his face was unreadable, but it was clear to Ginny now that although it made no sense this girl was his sister. They looked a lot alike.
“Come with me,” Draco said, “Let’s leave all this behind and just…”
“Damn Snape!” Blaise suddenly yelled, “What the hell was he on about leaving now? None of us are ready for this, Draco, what the hell are you going to do? Maybe you can eat rats in your Animagus form, but my sister is a bloody Muggle!”
“Who’s going to take care of the Orphanage?” the girl said suddenly, “I…I can’t just…”
Draco made a noise of frustration, but Nott’s voice suddenly broke into the conversation. He flourished his wand before him. “Theodore Nott at your service, my dear Celeste, did I not tell you when we met a few years ago that you had charmed me?” Ginny suppressed something that she knew would have come out as half a snort and half a giggle. “As it happens, I am on the run from both the Ministry and the Death Eaters and since they now know I spent a few summers here the whole Orphanage is in danger. I happen to have just as much interest in keeping this place safe as you do, my dear, and forgive me, but I’m a bit more experienced when it comes to magic.”
He gave her an elaborate bow and then waved his wand in a series of complicated movements, muttering strange spells all the while. A commotion somewhere behind them suggested that either the Ministry or the Death Eaters or both had arrived.
Nott moved in a large circle around the periphery of the cottage, including both Ginny and Charlie in the circle and bringing them into the spotlight. No one had time to question them before tens of ministry employees arrived on the scene.
“Now we have some fun!” Nott said aloud, but the Aurors seemed completely oblivious to his voice. They walked around and around the place, seemingly blind to the strange group of people and the house. For a few minutes they all watched with amusement as the Aurors stumbled around, but Ginny noticed that Blaise shot her a small searching look.
She turned her curious stare towards Blaise’s sister and Draco. They were now sitting beside each other, the large boy leaning on the small girl for support with his eyes closed and his face very peaceful and calm. Ginny tried to recall the hatred she had felt for the long six years since she had known the boy, but found herself unable to.
“We’re getting some food inside us before anything else!” the plump woman announced and Ginny saw that she had been hard at work preparing a light snack. Soon a flowery sheet was spread on the floor and the strange group found themselves sitting down for a picnic together and it was near midnight by now.
Blaise sat himself between Celeste and Draco rather firmly and the small girl took his hand in hers. The food did not rival Molly’s but Ginny thought it was good.
“Who cast the calming spell?” Charlie asked at length.
No one responded, but now that he’d mentioned it Ginny noticed that she was entirely too calm for the situation. Her heart should be racing at all these strange occurrences. It was very strange, she was sitting across from the boy who’d almost killed her own brother and Dumbledore and who had led that monster Greyback into Hogwarts and she wasn’t at all angry.
“Are you really a Muggle?” he finally asked the girl.
“No,” she replied softly, “I can do magic, but I never went to school. I…I think that must have been me.”
Ginny eyed the girl, placing her in Hufflepuff in her mind. Celeste was blushing like mad and Ginny noticed Malfoy staring at her very intently.
“If you can do that at will then I have a job for you,” Charlie said, “I came here to help my sister, and it seems she wanted for me to help your brother. I think he’ll like this arrangement.”
“What is it?” Blaise said, “I already told McGonagall I wasn’t taking orders from anyone, I can ensure my own family’s safety without help if I need to.”
“It’s just a job offer, Zabini,” Charlie said, “There hasn’t been a Dragon Animagus in ages and your sister seems to have skill with a calming spell at the very least. The pay will be enough to keep both of them alive and a few others with them as well. No one’s going to ask too many questions there as long as they behave themselves and you’ll be sure that your sister is looked after by all the other dragon keepers.”
…
Ginny was going to be killed. The guilt started seeping in when she looked at herself in the small mirror in a room in Romania and saw the clean, smiling reflection of a girl in a beautiful dress. Her mother was probably having a cow somewhere and plotting ways to kill her with McGonagall, but Charlie had insisted that they get the job done before going back just in case they were both put behind bars in the Dungeons of Hogwarts.
“Besides,” he said for the hundredth time, straightening his black robes, “Bill is taking care of it.”
“Or taken care of.” Ginny said grinning, “Let’s go, the food smells good!”
Ginny enjoyed this wedding a lot more than Bill’s wedding. It probably had something to do with the fact that Phlegm was not around, or the fact that the dress she was wearing wasn’t a horrible thing that had been forced on her so she could be the perfect little bridesmaid. She sat beside Charlie while the ceremony went on and they chatted in whispers, savoring the last few minutes they had together before the looming return to Hogwarts and the real world, the war, and Molly Weasley.
She watched as Draco Malfoy slipped the ring into the pretty girl’s finger, but turned away when he swept her into an embrace. That was a little too much; after all, he was still the amazing bouncing ferret she had hated up until a day ago. There were limits.
The gorgeous, well-dressed form of Mrs. Zabini even gave them a hug and a small gasp from Blaise as he came up beside her told Ginny that this was very uncharacteristic.
“Let’s go, Zabini,” Charlie said, “Bill’s not going to be able to stand my mother’s torture for much longer; he’ll crack eventually, if he hasn’t already.”
They walked slowly away to an Apparition point and Blaise took Ginny’s hand in his. “Thank you, Ginny,” he whispered so Charlie couldn’t hear.
Bill had apparently forced some sense into McGonagall because they found that she hadn’t called Molly Weasley or bitten his head off yet. As they were bombarded with millions of questions and chastised Bill gave them a nod and a wink.
All three categorically refused to tell McGonagall anything about what had happened except that Blaise’s sister had been placed in a secure home and their mission was a success. Finally, the headmistress gave up. She had, on Bill’s suggestion, searched the records from the year Blaise came to school and found a small line:
Celeste – M – Declined
She turned to Blaise and began. “Mr. Zabini,” she said, “I have had no reason to mistrust you, but I feel I must-”
“Professor,” Ginny said rolling up both of her sleeves one by one and showing her bare forearms to McGonagall, “Blaise is just as much a Death Eater as I am.”
McGonagall sighed. “Very well, I will reassign someone else to your evening rounds around the castle, Zabini, and I will be watching you, but otherwise you may resume your normal Hogwarts routine. Now get to your common rooms, both of you.”
