Catching Fire (catching_fire) wrote in afic, @ 2011-09-19 00:20:00 |
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Entry tags: | character: ginny weasley, character: harry potter, player: jo, player: kaia, player: phi |
Smiling, nodding and pretending to care about light fixtures
Who: Ginny Weasley, Harry Potter (NPC), Nancy Plink (also NPC)
What: Ginny and Harry stake out the safehouse where McGonagall is held
Where: The lovely town of Chipping Clodbury
When: Backdated to Thursday the 15th of September 2005
Rating: Low
Status: More or less complete
The idea of staking out the safehouse Ron had found the address for at work had seemed like a good one at first. Hermione had come up with the brilliant idea of pretending to go house hunting - apparently there was a house for sale just across the road - and Ginny had been all for the idea. Until Ron got called into work and she’d been left with Harry.
Harry fucking Potter. Of all people.
Ginny wasn’t entirely sure why she disliked him so much. Still. After all these years. It was rather irrational, once might say. Sure, once upon a time he had broken her heart seventeen times over, spending years hardly even noticing she existed. Then he’d realised, and like a faithful puppy she’d come running as soon as he showed the least bit of interest. Pathetic, that bit. It still made her long for a huge drink, thinking about the way she’d been back then.
Then there’d been heartbreak number eighteen and for the stupidest reason ever, followed by Fred’s death and so much time that passed in a haze, although she thought she might’ve hurt him, somewhere along the way. Driving him away. Saying things. Making her hate him. And probably the reverse too.
It hadn’t been his grief, though. She’d had no desire to make him feel good about himself, when she could hardly remember how to breathe.
There had been that one time, somewhere in that haze. He’d tried to play the gentleman, to tell her he didn’t want to take advantage of her, when it was the other way around. She fucked him seven ways to Sunday, kicked him out and when she sobered up...
Yeah. It hadn’t been pretty.
He’d come to apologise, later on. It had only made her angrier. She still didn’t know why. She was crazy. Actually out of her mind batshit crazy. That had to be it. Why else would she still resent him? Her best friend was his best friend and her brother was... well. Also his best friend. Life would be so much easier if they could just get along.
But they couldn’t.
As they Apparated to Chipping Clodbury she was already stewing. “Honey,” she said as they walked up the driveway towards the house. “If you don’t take your hand off my arse I will cheerfully kick you headfirst into a toilet.”
====
It was probably really stupid of him, but Harry was kind of glad that Ron had been called away and that he'd now be the one doing the mission with Ginny. They rarely spent any time together anymore. Unsurprisingly, since they were exes, but Harry still liked her and he didn't have any sort of bad feelings towards her.
Their relationship had never really been built on solid foundations. Picking it up after the war and his year on the run hadn't allowed for them to rebuild it properly either. She'd been quite badly affected by Fred's death, understandably so, but Harry knew that he could never completely empathise with how she had been suffering, never losing a sibling or someone so close as one. If Ron or Hermione were to ever have died, Merlin forbid, he would probably have been the same mess.
And then the distance that had been created between he and Ginny had broken something that was already unsteadily held together by expectance from their friends and family, the childish fancies they might have had when they were younger, when Voldemort had been a looming threat. In the cold light of day after their victory, they didn't work. They never would.
But pretending they were married for a couple of hours couldn't be too hard, Harry supposed, though he jerked his hand away from Ginny at her words. "It was on your lower back, that's an accepted place for a bloke to put a hand on his wife," he whispered back as they neared the front door of the house. "What a lovely neighbourhood, darling!" he said aloud, glancing behind them and across the street at the house they had really come to look at, before meeting the gaze of the estate agent with a polite smile. Harry felt like he was channelling a nicer version of his Uncle Dursley, his chest inexplicably puffed and his walk straight and pronounced. "Good afternoon, madam!"
====
He could call it lower back all he wanted, Ginny knew the truth. Or so she told herself. She put her hands deep into her pockets and walked up towards the agent waiting for them.
“I’m so sorry we’re late,” she said, pasting on a smile. “Someone had to check out the primary school over that way. It’ll be years until we need to worry about that, but you know how they are.” She shook her head. “Men. You’re seven weeks pregnant and they start talking about schools and cricket for the little ones.”
She shook the agent’s hand. “So, tell us about the house.”
====
Nancy Plink was all smiles and hairspray, the picture of friendly professional even as she sized up the couple coming up the drive with a shrewd eye honed through fifteen years experience. "Welcome!" she called, and she laughed a knowing little chuckle at Ginny's excuse as she extended her hand to each in turn. "Oh, the schools here are excellent, don't worry!"
Nancy smiled her most ingratiating smile, as if nothing pleased her more than telling them about the house. "Well, it's three bedrooms, perfect for a family, lots of natural light, and - a real treat - a wood-burning stove in the lounge!" She held up and jingled a set of keys. "Let's take a look, shall we?" She opened and held the door for them, leading into a small entry area with the stairs and the aforementioned lounge just beyond.
====
Harry dipped his head, smiling apologetically for his entire gender as well as his persona's actions, though he didn't find anything wrong with a soon-to-be Muggle father checking out the local primary schools in an area he would be moving to. Or perhaps he was thinking too much about it. "There's nothing wrong with being prepared, dear." He faced the estate agent, lifting his hand too to greet with a shake. "I do hear they are tremendous," he said, agreeing, inwardly cringing at using the word tremendous and sneaking a peek at Ginny to grin as the agent began to tell them about the house.
He nodded along as she described the place; it was all irrelevant really, they were here to stake out the house across the street, but it all felt wonderfully normal to be doing this. And Harry appreciated normal, after the life he'd lead. It may or may not have been a dream in the short months (weeks?) he and Ginny had struggled through after the war, that eventually they would end up buying a house and having the three children that they'd send away to Hogwarts with Ron and Hermione's two, be the proud dad and husband... Yeah.
"A wood-burning stove in the lounge?" he repeated enthusiastically, though he was already growing tired of being so ridiculously upbeat and his face ached from smiling so widely. "Ladies first," he said, sweeping his hand to allow Ginny to enter the house before him, and taking the opportunity to look out to the house, the Ministry safehouse, as he waited to step inside. Auror-trained eyes ran along the building, counted the entryways, the windows and doors, the distance between it and the neighbouring buildings, it and the street. He tried to gauge how far the wards extended from the house; they surely didn't reach beyond the garden wall that separated the front yard from the footpath as Muggles passed by unhindered, no wards or alarms being tripped by their presence.
His reconnaissance was cut short as he had to follow Ginny, stepping in and closing the front door behind him.
====
“I always dreamed of having a fireplace!” Ginny exclaimed, walking with Plink into the lounge. She spoke animatedly about the lights and the windows and the aforementioned wood-burning stove, giving Harry a moment to look over the house on the other side.
“How’s the neighbourhood?” she asked as he came to join them. “Lots of kids? Not too many cars? It’s a long time until we have to worry about that, of course, but when we buy I rather think we’d like to stay for many years to come.”
====
As Ginny chirped on about the lounge, quite convincingly actually, he noted with a smirk, Harry 'inspected' the double glazing windows that looked out across the front, eyes once again focusing on the access points across the road. It was a normal detached house, possibly the same layout of the house they were currently in judging by the similarity of the architecture. He glanced at the hallway of this house, the way it fed through to the stairs, the lounge and the kitchen out the back - if the houses were built the same, there was a real probability that this would be what they'd find inside the Ministry safehouse.
Eyes back to the window, he noticed that the upstairs rooms had blinds at the windows, closed which was somewhat unusual for the time of day. Perhaps that was where McGonagall was being kept.
He tuned back into the conversation as the estate agent began to talk about the neighbourhood, hoping that she would be able to give them some information that might be helpful to their mission. He couldn't come right out and ask whether anything strange happened, whether people with robes often frequented the house across the street, but he might be able to pick up something.
====
“A stove is even better, in my opinion, because it keeps the heat better, and look, so charming!” Nancy gushed as she showed Ginny around the lounge. The husband was over at the window, no doubt trying to look like he knew a thing or two about structure and heat loss. Thankfully the wife asked about the neighbourhood, something that was clearly important considering they’d already been to see the school. Nancy was glad; if she could sell them on this they might overlook the atrocious lino in the kitchen.
“It’s very safe, definitely, and this is strictly a residential area, so there’s not much traffic, even on the road up to the high street.” Which was a bit of a stretch, maybe, but compared to a city this place was practically deserted. “There are offers in on several of the nearby properties, as well, so it’s a booming area. It’s smart to get in where you can these days.”
====
“Oh really?” Ginny said, staring at the stove in what would possibly be considered a thoughtful manner. If thoughtful was squinting and wondering what was so special about it. “So, lots of families moving in and out? We wouldn’t want there to be too much of that, would we, sweetie?”
She turned towards Plink again. “My husband doesn’t care for change,” she said. “Once he settles in he’s... settled. Likes things to stay the same, see?”
Well, it wasn’t a complete lie. As far as she was concerned Harry hadn’t changed a bit since he was fifteen. Sometimes she wished she could say the same for herself.
“We just want a safe and stable environment for our children,” she said, nodding and smiling. “You know how it is.”
====
Not much traffic would mean it would be easier to keep the rescue mission more covert, had the advantage that they would have less Muggles to circumnavigate and, if it came to it, Obliviate if they saw something they shouldn't. "Many empty properties then?" he asked, a look of middle-aged and middle-class concern on his face, eyebrows clearly drawn at the thought of squatters or something similarly unsavoury. There was obviously some difficulty in asking questions of a woman who would answer in only the most optimistic way to make sure the house was sold, but it didn’t hurt to try.
"I don't like change, no," he said, agreeing with his 'wife'. "I had quite a lot of excitement during my youth, you see," he confided in Miss Plink with a hint of embarrassment, "I'm ready to settle down now." It was a shame that wizarding Britain was in such a mess right now, and that he was in hiding and all. It meant he couldn't very well venture out and find a nice girl to get married to and have the kids that Ginny was hypothetically discussing.
Ah well. There'd be time eventually.
"Central heating, double glazing, light fixtures staying with the house, are they?" Harry said, moving the tour on smoothly - having read up on a 'Buying a House' checklist on the internet down at a Muggle library near the Resistance's safehouse. He'd left Luna to wander amongst the aisles of books, somewhat safe in the knowledge that she wouldn't ask too many strange questions about the Dewey Decimal System, and logged on to a library computer to make sure he could convincingly pass off as a house buyer.
====
Nancy was already shaking her head before her clients had finished expressing concern over the empty houses. “Not at all,” she said. “These are new builds and just coming on the market now. Like I said, it’s a growing area, and the older houses are being snatched up as well. This neighbourhood is a safe, family area. If you want peace and stability, you’ll find that here.”
The husband was ready with the usual questions, which Nancy answered affirmatively with a smile and a compliment on his preparedness. “The kitchen appliances are also included. Shall we take a look?” Nancy gestured to the lounge door, affecting an expression of (mild) mischievous excitement.
====
Peace and stability. Boring, predictable, lifeless. The perfect place to hide a safehouse, really. Nobody would think to look in the Muggle suburbs, and if it was fairly empty, with people just now moving in, there’d be less nosy neighbours following your every move.
You could say a lot about the Ministry, but this one they had thought through. It seemed like it, anyway.
“I’d love to see the kitchen,” Ginny said, attempting to sound as excited as the Plinky-Plonk sounded. “You have to excuse my husband. I’m sure he’d prefer to stare at these light fixtures and windows all day long.”
They moved on to the kitchen, which, incidentally, also faced the houses across the road. You could see a lot more of the yard from here, and Ginny walked up to the window. “I think we’d have to put up a fence,” she said, peering outside. “You can see everything from the street, it seems like. Maybe a hedge of some sort...”
She pretended to think this one over while memorising the layout of the garden. No fence, no gate to get through, but probably wards, several of them. There was a door to the back of the house, and the flowerpots put out was likely more than just decoration. She really wished they’d been able to bring Hermione; she would know.
“Honey?” she said to Harry, only just joining them from the other room. “What do you think? A fence? A hedge? Or am I just being silly?
She turned to the agent once more. “So, tell me more.”