Ginny stretched languidly, enjoying her Saturday morning lie-in. Lazily opening one eye, she noted the positioning of her alarm clock's hands and smiled to herself. It was 9:30; she could spend a few more minutes in bed -- not more than thirty though, because once the hour hand swerved into the double digits the whole day would officially be shot.
After falling back asleep and then snoring herself awake, Ginny rolled herself out of bed at precisely one minute to ten, her feet sliding automatically into the worn, furry yellow slippers on the floor, and lumbered to the bathroom. Halfway through brushing her teeth, she remembered that she had a lunch date with George later that day. Heading back into the bedroom, she used her free hand to grab the handbag she had used the day before and dumped its contents out, intending to transfer some of the more essential items into a different tote, when her eye fell upon a piece of parchment with the Ministry seal on it.
"Oh, hell," Ginny said around her toothbrush, her eyes raking over the information on the paper, which stated that, in addition to the pardon, the Minister was overturning the decision that had resulted in the government seizing the Malfoys' domestic bank accounts and most of their assets, and that all funds and property were to be returned to Draco immediately, with interest.
She groaned, obviously having forgotten to give Draco the document when she'd sprung him from jail, and without it, Gringotts wouldn't let him touch any of his own money. Ginny weighed her options for a moment, and then huffed at her own moral fortitude when she decided that it would be irresponsible, unprofessional and just plain rotten of her to let him go around without any means of monetary support, especially since it was her fault. She groaned again, louder this time, when she remembered that he'd chosen not to live at Malfoy Manor and had not deigned to inform her of his whereabouts thereafter. Not that he had been obligated to, by any means, but it would have been nice to have the information at hand.
Instead, she would have to go to her office and trace the owl that had come in the day before with his letter to Trench. Muttering somewhat disdainful things about herself, Ginny rushed through the rest of her morning routine, hastily put an outfit together and popped over to the Ministry.
It being the weekend, the place was quiet and dark, and the squeak of her trainers along the polished marble floors of the Atrium announced her presence rather adamantly. She was somewhat less tense, then, when she reached her floor, her shoes hushed on the patterned carpeting. She bypassed several dozens of desks on the way to her own; the Minister had quite a large number of support departments, but each sector only had a small handful of staff, so they all ended up clustered on one floor in an open space divided only by cubicle walls. The official reason for this design was that it kept the lines of communication open between all the staff of each department, though Ginny, who was chummy with the girls from Finance, privately assumed that their rather shoddy collective workspace had less to do with interdepartmental relations than a scanty budget and a few freewheeling department heads, who had their own offices and cared little about their underlings' work environment.
She rooted around the mess on top of her desk, trying to remember where she had put Draco's letter -- if she had saved the thing at all. As she pushed papers around and grunted in frustration, she heard a soft click coming from somewhere behind her. Straightening quickly, Ginny spun around to see who else was on the floor.
"Oh, hey, it's you," Ginny said, catching sight of her supervisor coming out of one of the department heads' offices. "Er, what are you doing here?"
"Oh, I just took some work home yesterday but forgot a file, so I had to come back for it," Brigid replied breezily, holding said file up.
"From Martin's office?" Ginny asked, surprised. Their department didn't often work with that of Policy Management and Research.
"Er, no," Brigid said, her face giving her away as well. "All right, I suppose if you must know, I was nicking one of his quills."
Ginny laughed. "Miss Brennan, I'm ashamed of you!"
"I know, but he always gets such nice ones, and the rest of us have to use the Ministry-approved kind that fall apart after a week," she complained good-naturedly. "Don't follow my example, by the way. I'm a terrible role model. Why're you here?"
"Because I'm an idiot and forgot to give Malfoy a very important document yesterday, so now I've to find out where he is, so I can give it to him. And I told you yesterday, didn't I, that he refused to live at the Manor?"
"Yeah, what a nut; it's a mansion, for god's sake! Who doesn't want to live in a mansion?"
"Exactly. Anyway, I don't know where he's gone now, so I have to trace his owl. And, of course, it's one of those confidential documents, so I have to then physically track the man down and hand it to him instead of just owling."
Brigid made a noise of disgust and sympathy. "Well, I'd help, but I'm meeting someone downtown in a few minutes, so I can't stay. Good luck," she called over her shoulder as she headed towards the exit.
"Thanks," Ginny said, smiling, and returned to her search. Seeing a corner of it peek out at her from underneath a dangerously tall stack of blue folders, she grabbed the parchment with a triumphant cry and flattened its creases out. In the top right corner was the information she sought: the delivery owl's registration number. With that number she'd easily be able to track the letter back to where it had come from, and from the looks of the combination of letters and numerals, the owl's owner lived in the London area. She shoved the letter into her pocket, silently thanking the Ministry mailroom protocol that never allowed any mail into the rest of the building before it was checked for security threats and tagged with a valid means for tracing its source, whether it was an owl number or return address. Quickly finding the Owl Registration Directory for London, Greater London and Surrounding Areas from a large shelf across the room, Ginny squatted on the floor while she flipped hurriedly through the thick log. Her finger landed on the name Blaise Zabini.
"Oh, balls," she said.
Ginny rapped her knuckles sharply on Blaise's door, and checked her watch. If Draco was around and neither of the boys gave her any trouble, she could still probably get back home in time to change and make it for lunch with her brother. With one foot mid-tap, she was suddenly faced with an open door and a house elf.
"Yes, Miss?" said the elf.
"Oh, hey. Er, is Draco Malfoy in there?"
"What is the Miss' business?" asked the elf. Her tone was not unfriendly, but she had obviously been properly trained in receiving and turning away uninvited guests.
"I'm from the Ministry; I've something to give him."
"Miss does not look like she is from the Ministry," said the elf, taking in Ginny's sweatshirt, tatty jeans and trainers.
"That's because it's Saturday, and they don't pay me enough to wear their puce-coloured robes on a Saturday," Ginny said, getting impatient. She wasn't in the habit of tackling reticent house elves, but habits always had to start somewhere, right? "Look, is he here or not? I just have to give him this thing, and then I'll be out of your hair and we'll never have to see each other again."
"Miss may leave any gifts with Elba."
Ginny blew a puff of air through her lips, wondering whether sweetness or threats would work better in this situation.
Meanwhile, Blaise, who had been sitting and reading in the living room just a few feet away from the door, was starting to get curious. Getting up to investigate, he waved Elba away and, upon seeing who was at the door, raised his eyebrows. "Sorry, we're all out of alms today."
Ginny was glad she had saved her strength for tackling this jerk instead. "Stuff it. Is Malfoy here or not?"
"That depends," Blaise said, leaning a shoulder casually into the doorframe, one hand propped against the opposite jamb, effectively barring her entrance. She wouldn't be able to get past the wards anyway, but he liked making himself clear. "What do you want him for?"
"I forgot to give him something yesterday, and it's important that he receives it personally. So, no, I cannot entrust it to the elf, or, worse, to you. Now, go get him, or tell me where he is, so I don't have to waste any more time on you."
Blaise sucked in a bit of air through his teeth, making as though he was wounded. "I say, Weasley. For someone who works in the Minister's Office of Communications --"
"Yes, I know. I'm very surly," Ginny interrupted. "Would it make a difference as to whether or not you'd fetch Malfoy to the door for me if I were unerringly polite?"
"No, I doubt it."
"Well, I'm glad I didn't make the effort, then. Here's the deal, Zabini," she said, taking a step forward. "Without me, Malfoy won't be able to get his hands on any of his seized money, so unless you're planning on pushing him into immediate poverty or supporting him until he does something as menial as get a real job -- his current vocation as Massive Prat notwithstanding -- you'd do well to produce him as soon as possible."
"Oh, there's money to be had, is there? Well, why didn't you just say so?" Blaise asked, a smile lighting his face. He turned around briefly to instruct Elba to fetch Draco. Facing Ginny again, he smiled at her as though they hadn't just had a mild altercation. Now that she had said her piece and had nothing else to do but wait and try to deflect his grin, she shifted her feet uneasily, which Blaise was pleased to note was the intended effect.
Shortly, Draco came into view, looking over Blaise's shoulder. "Oh," he said, taking his friend's place at the door. "It's you again. Didn't get your fill of me yesterday?"
"Yes, that must be it," said Ginny. "Look, I'm here because I forgot to give you something rather important yesterday. Before I do, let's make sure you're actually Draco Malfoy. What was the first spell you cast upon your release?"
"Wingardium Leviosa," he replied, and then called over his shoulder into the apartment to Blaise. "That's how it's done, Zabini."
Ginny heard a dismissive "Whatever" from the interior. Handing off the document to Draco, she noted, "You'll have to present it at Gringotts before you go through with any transactions, but it'll just be the one time. If you run into any trouble with the goblins, let me know and I'll sort it."
He uttered a nondescript sound that suggested he was listening to what she was saying, while he looked the parchment over. She had shoved her hands into the pockets of her sweatshirt, waiting for any further remarks, and Draco begrudgingly recognised her efforts to find him on her day off. "Thank you," he said, the words somewhat strangled as they emerged from his throat.
"Yeah," she said, thrown off. "You're welcome. Any questions?"
"No."
"Okay. Good. See ya." She turned to leave.
"Hey. Wait," Draco said suddenly. "How did you find me?"
Ginny gave him a lopsided smile. "We're the government; we know everything."
"Right," Draco said to her retreating figure, searching the recesses of his mind for the exact definition of irony. He shut the door and slid into an armchair, facing Blaise, who had been openly eavesdropping. "I'm rich again."
"Oh, good. Dinner's on you."
After falling back asleep and then snoring herself awake, Ginny rolled herself out of bed at precisely one minute to ten, her feet sliding automatically into the worn, furry yellow slippers on the floor, and lumbered to the bathroom. Halfway through brushing her teeth, she remembered that she had a lunch date with George later that day. Heading back into the bedroom, she used her free hand to grab the handbag she had used the day before and dumped its contents out, intending to transfer some of the more essential items into a different tote, when her eye fell upon a piece of parchment with the Ministry seal on it.
"Oh, hell," Ginny said around her toothbrush, her eyes raking over the information on the paper, which stated that, in addition to the pardon, the Minister was overturning the decision that had resulted in the government seizing the Malfoys' domestic bank accounts and most of their assets, and that all funds and property were to be returned to Draco immediately, with interest.
She groaned, obviously having forgotten to give Draco the document when she'd sprung him from jail, and without it, Gringotts wouldn't let him touch any of his own money. Ginny weighed her options for a moment, and then huffed at her own moral fortitude when she decided that it would be irresponsible, unprofessional and just plain rotten of her to let him go around without any means of monetary support, especially since it was her fault. She groaned again, louder this time, when she remembered that he'd chosen not to live at Malfoy Manor and had not deigned to inform her of his whereabouts thereafter. Not that he had been obligated to, by any means, but it would have been nice to have the information at hand.
Instead, she would have to go to her office and trace the owl that had come in the day before with his letter to Trench. Muttering somewhat disdainful things about herself, Ginny rushed through the rest of her morning routine, hastily put an outfit together and popped over to the Ministry.
It being the weekend, the place was quiet and dark, and the squeak of her trainers along the polished marble floors of the Atrium announced her presence rather adamantly. She was somewhat less tense, then, when she reached her floor, her shoes hushed on the patterned carpeting. She bypassed several dozens of desks on the way to her own; the Minister had quite a large number of support departments, but each sector only had a small handful of staff, so they all ended up clustered on one floor in an open space divided only by cubicle walls. The official reason for this design was that it kept the lines of communication open between all the staff of each department, though Ginny, who was chummy with the girls from Finance, privately assumed that their rather shoddy collective workspace had less to do with interdepartmental relations than a scanty budget and a few freewheeling department heads, who had their own offices and cared little about their underlings' work environment.
She rooted around the mess on top of her desk, trying to remember where she had put Draco's letter -- if she had saved the thing at all. As she pushed papers around and grunted in frustration, she heard a soft click coming from somewhere behind her. Straightening quickly, Ginny spun around to see who else was on the floor.
"Oh, hey, it's you," Ginny said, catching sight of her supervisor coming out of one of the department heads' offices. "Er, what are you doing here?"
"Oh, I just took some work home yesterday but forgot a file, so I had to come back for it," Brigid replied breezily, holding said file up.
"From Martin's office?" Ginny asked, surprised. Their department didn't often work with that of Policy Management and Research.
"Er, no," Brigid said, her face giving her away as well. "All right, I suppose if you must know, I was nicking one of his quills."
Ginny laughed. "Miss Brennan, I'm ashamed of you!"
"I know, but he always gets such nice ones, and the rest of us have to use the Ministry-approved kind that fall apart after a week," she complained good-naturedly. "Don't follow my example, by the way. I'm a terrible role model. Why're you here?"
"Because I'm an idiot and forgot to give Malfoy a very important document yesterday, so now I've to find out where he is, so I can give it to him. And I told you yesterday, didn't I, that he refused to live at the Manor?"
"Yeah, what a nut; it's a mansion, for god's sake! Who doesn't want to live in a mansion?"
"Exactly. Anyway, I don't know where he's gone now, so I have to trace his owl. And, of course, it's one of those confidential documents, so I have to then physically track the man down and hand it to him instead of just owling."
Brigid made a noise of disgust and sympathy. "Well, I'd help, but I'm meeting someone downtown in a few minutes, so I can't stay. Good luck," she called over her shoulder as she headed towards the exit.
"Thanks," Ginny said, smiling, and returned to her search. Seeing a corner of it peek out at her from underneath a dangerously tall stack of blue folders, she grabbed the parchment with a triumphant cry and flattened its creases out. In the top right corner was the information she sought: the delivery owl's registration number. With that number she'd easily be able to track the letter back to where it had come from, and from the looks of the combination of letters and numerals, the owl's owner lived in the London area. She shoved the letter into her pocket, silently thanking the Ministry mailroom protocol that never allowed any mail into the rest of the building before it was checked for security threats and tagged with a valid means for tracing its source, whether it was an owl number or return address. Quickly finding the Owl Registration Directory for London, Greater London and Surrounding Areas from a large shelf across the room, Ginny squatted on the floor while she flipped hurriedly through the thick log. Her finger landed on the name Blaise Zabini.
"Oh, balls," she said.
Ginny rapped her knuckles sharply on Blaise's door, and checked her watch. If Draco was around and neither of the boys gave her any trouble, she could still probably get back home in time to change and make it for lunch with her brother. With one foot mid-tap, she was suddenly faced with an open door and a house elf.
"Yes, Miss?" said the elf.
"Oh, hey. Er, is Draco Malfoy in there?"
"What is the Miss' business?" asked the elf. Her tone was not unfriendly, but she had obviously been properly trained in receiving and turning away uninvited guests.
"I'm from the Ministry; I've something to give him."
"Miss does not look like she is from the Ministry," said the elf, taking in Ginny's sweatshirt, tatty jeans and trainers.
"That's because it's Saturday, and they don't pay me enough to wear their puce-coloured robes on a Saturday," Ginny said, getting impatient. She wasn't in the habit of tackling reticent house elves, but habits always had to start somewhere, right? "Look, is he here or not? I just have to give him this thing, and then I'll be out of your hair and we'll never have to see each other again."
"Miss may leave any gifts with Elba."
Ginny blew a puff of air through her lips, wondering whether sweetness or threats would work better in this situation.
Meanwhile, Blaise, who had been sitting and reading in the living room just a few feet away from the door, was starting to get curious. Getting up to investigate, he waved Elba away and, upon seeing who was at the door, raised his eyebrows. "Sorry, we're all out of alms today."
Ginny was glad she had saved her strength for tackling this jerk instead. "Stuff it. Is Malfoy here or not?"
"That depends," Blaise said, leaning a shoulder casually into the doorframe, one hand propped against the opposite jamb, effectively barring her entrance. She wouldn't be able to get past the wards anyway, but he liked making himself clear. "What do you want him for?"
"I forgot to give him something yesterday, and it's important that he receives it personally. So, no, I cannot entrust it to the elf, or, worse, to you. Now, go get him, or tell me where he is, so I don't have to waste any more time on you."
Blaise sucked in a bit of air through his teeth, making as though he was wounded. "I say, Weasley. For someone who works in the Minister's Office of Communications --"
"Yes, I know. I'm very surly," Ginny interrupted. "Would it make a difference as to whether or not you'd fetch Malfoy to the door for me if I were unerringly polite?"
"No, I doubt it."
"Well, I'm glad I didn't make the effort, then. Here's the deal, Zabini," she said, taking a step forward. "Without me, Malfoy won't be able to get his hands on any of his seized money, so unless you're planning on pushing him into immediate poverty or supporting him until he does something as menial as get a real job -- his current vocation as Massive Prat notwithstanding -- you'd do well to produce him as soon as possible."
"Oh, there's money to be had, is there? Well, why didn't you just say so?" Blaise asked, a smile lighting his face. He turned around briefly to instruct Elba to fetch Draco. Facing Ginny again, he smiled at her as though they hadn't just had a mild altercation. Now that she had said her piece and had nothing else to do but wait and try to deflect his grin, she shifted her feet uneasily, which Blaise was pleased to note was the intended effect.
Shortly, Draco came into view, looking over Blaise's shoulder. "Oh," he said, taking his friend's place at the door. "It's you again. Didn't get your fill of me yesterday?"
"Yes, that must be it," said Ginny. "Look, I'm here because I forgot to give you something rather important yesterday. Before I do, let's make sure you're actually Draco Malfoy. What was the first spell you cast upon your release?"
"Wingardium Leviosa," he replied, and then called over his shoulder into the apartment to Blaise. "That's how it's done, Zabini."
Ginny heard a dismissive "Whatever" from the interior. Handing off the document to Draco, she noted, "You'll have to present it at Gringotts before you go through with any transactions, but it'll just be the one time. If you run into any trouble with the goblins, let me know and I'll sort it."
He uttered a nondescript sound that suggested he was listening to what she was saying, while he looked the parchment over. She had shoved her hands into the pockets of her sweatshirt, waiting for any further remarks, and Draco begrudgingly recognised her efforts to find him on her day off. "Thank you," he said, the words somewhat strangled as they emerged from his throat.
"Yeah," she said, thrown off. "You're welcome. Any questions?"
"No."
"Okay. Good. See ya." She turned to leave.
"Hey. Wait," Draco said suddenly. "How did you find me?"
Ginny gave him a lopsided smile. "We're the government; we know everything."
"Right," Draco said to her retreating figure, searching the recesses of his mind for the exact definition of irony. He shut the door and slid into an armchair, facing Blaise, who had been openly eavesdropping. "I'm rich again."
"Oh, good. Dinner's on you."
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