Life As We Know It

Sitting at her desk, Ginny glanced down at the full Ministry team list. She was pleased to see a number of familiar names from her years at Hogwarts. Not surprisingly, Harry and Ron had been paired together for tactical work. They worked quite well together, and Ron especially had a mind for tactical maneuvers, likely from his years of playing chess. Likewise, Hermione was working with the team assigned to devising new spells to combat the dark uprising. It would involve books and research. Hermione would be in her element.

What did surprise her was that she had been the task force member assigned to Harry and Ron's team. She fully expected to be separated from them, Ron being her brother and all. Perhaps they thought as his sister, she'd be able to keep him in line.

"Fat chance," she said to the empty room.

"Hmm?" came a voice. She wasn't quite alone. Harry was standing in her doorway, a blank expression on his face.

She laughed. "Hey, Harry, I didn't know you were there. Come on in," she said, motioning to the chair across from her. "What's up?"

He sat down, placing his elbows on his knees and resting his head in his hands before running his fingers through his hair, causing it to stand on end even more than normal. He glanced up at her. "Shouldn't I be asking you the same question, Gin?" he said seriously.

Ginny's mood had lightened when she saw Harry in her doorway, but his tone and expression brought her back down again. "What do you mean?"

Harry looked around the office and gestured to the page she was reading. "This. This uprising, the new Ministry push..." He paused. "You working on a task force to research all of this. I just can't believe it, Gin. I had no idea."

Ginny felt her heart drop. "Harry, I'm sorry. You know I couldn't tell you anything."

He shook his head. "I know. I'm just... I don't know," he replied, slightly angrily. His head fell back into his hands. "I don't like not knowing what's going on, Gin, you know that. Especially with you. I hate that you've been doing such important work and you couldn't even share it with me."

"Harry, we couldn't resist it leaking, you know how the Ministry works. We were barely allowed to talk about it here! And you had to know I was doing something important. You knew my security clearance. You knew I wasn't allowed to talk about anything. Of course I was doing important work!"

"I don't understand why it's you. Why are they putting you in the line of fire? Why didn't any of the aurors know? We should have been protecting you from day one."

"I can very obviously protect myself, thank you very much, or I think the Ministry would have provided me with outside protection long ago," she said with increasing frustration. Noting the pained look on his face, she stood up and walked around her desk, leaning against the front of it to sit in front of Harry. With a sigh, she let the frustration flow away. She placed her hand on his shoulder, not really understanding what was bothering him. "I'm sorry Harry. Not even Hermione knew. I couldn't tell anyone. I was following orders."

"Well, we all know Hermione's preoccupied with something else, even if she's hiding that too."

Ginny mentally questioned why Harry would choose now to bring that up, but rather than press him further, she rubbed her thumb lightly against Harry's collarbone and shook her head. "I don't know what to tell you."

He stood up suddenly, causing her hand to fall to her side. "Then don't say anything at all, Gin," he said as he walked out.

She stared after him in complete bewilderment. Her secretive position had never bothered him before now, at least as far as she knew. What was going on with Harry? And why?