The Shrub Conspiracy

The wizarding world waited, with bated breath. And waited. And waited some more. But Voldemort took his sweet time in making another appearance and the bloat of the atmosphere was like that before an earth-shaking tempest. Everyone knew the storm would soon break upon them, but their nerves were stretched almost to the breaking point with anxiety and constant vigilance. They wanted a break.

So almost a decade later, when an old-school politician with the name of George Shrub reared his rich, white pretentious head in Ministry politics and ran for Minister of Magic, he won without a hitch in his campaign. It was definitely not his looks that won him the position (for he looked disturbingly un-evolved and had a distinctly simian face) and it wasn't his brains either (which, as shown by the speeches he made to the general public, matched his appearance) but he was most determined to have an dictatorially enforced zero-tolerance plan in dealing with Death-Eaters and the Dark Arts. He promised to take care of everything. Kill the bloody Death Eaters. Save the goddamn Muggles. And also, he blustered a lot, which somehow inspired confidence in even the most timid citizen of the wizarding world. "It's a war on terror... er, the Dark Arts, to protect the god-given rights of every wizard and witch! Oh, and them poor Muggles, too. A new age has arised! Er, arose... no! Arisen. A new age has arisen! And age of peace and prosperity. Oh, never mind, the economy's not doing too well either... But make no mistake about it, once we rid the world of those damn evil Death Eaters, You can bet the economy's going to be boomin' like a war cannon."

Ginny Weasley was very dizzy. She was beginning to think that perhaps she shouldn't have had that one extra shot of tequila. In any case, she knew she had been fine at seven. But after the eighth one went down, she found herself delicately draped across a crimson-colored, velvet-covered divan in Le Chat Bleu, trying not to vomit all over the floor. She was rubbing her stomach, trying to keep down the sourness and realized dimly that she had lost her sequined top, when suddenly, a man collapsed into the chair next to her.

Now Ginny was not one to pass up a readily available dance partner, even if she did feel slightly woozy. Giggling, she grabbed his arm and spun him out onto the dance floor. Ginny couldn't see what he looked like in the throbbing blue and violet lights; he was a spark of green here, a flash of sweat-glistening skin there. But he smelled like a mixture of bergamot, vodka, and silver coins, a scent that reminded her of something she was on the verge of discovering. He laughed and she laughed and she forgot all about her nausea as they spun together until everything was a blur of kaleidoscopic patterns.

The next morning Ginny woke up as the sunlight filtered through the shuttered blinds into a sparsely furnished room. She sat up, holding her aching head in her hands, eyes still half closed, when she realized that she didn't recognize the room she was in or the back of the man sprawled next to her on the bed.

"Oh. Fuck." Ginny leaped up and grabbed the sheets off the bed and wrapped it around her body, toga style. "I can't believe this happened again..." She stood there, trying desperately to remember what had happened the night before, when the unknown man stirred, flopping over onto his back to reveal a bare chest. He opened his eyes lazily. One side of his mouth twitched in a half hearted smile and Ginny gasped.

"You!"

He propped his pale blond head up on one hand and grinned, eyes hooded and puffy but still unmistakably Malfoy gray. "Lovely to see you again, Weasley."

"You..." Ginny stammered.

"A bit repetitive, don't you think? How about a refreshing good morning shag? That would break up the monotony a bit."

She threw a pillow at him. She missed. No surprise, since she was wildly trying to piece together the events of the previous night in her mind. Shot-glass of tequila. Dancing and more tequila... (Ginny face-palmed inwardly). A whiff of sweat and bile and a faint image of a pale face wavering above hers. A deliberate cough interrupted her frantic thoughts. She turned to him, impatient, and demanded crossly, "What?"

"I hate to disturb this little moment you're having here, but I have to go to work soon. So while I would love to stay and entertain, I have much more pressing things I need to attend to. Kindly get dressed and get out of here." He tossed Ginny her skirt.

"Work? Draco Malfoy, work?" Ginny scoffed as she pulled it on under her sheet.

"What about it?"

She was taken off guard by the straightforward question. She had expected anger- anything but this cool directness. It didn't fit Malfoy. At least the Malfoy she knew from Hogwarts. She looked at him suspiciously. "What happened to you?"

His eyes went dark for the barest moment. But he only retorted, "I think you should be a bit more worried about what happened to you."

He tossed back the remaining sheets, stood and stretched, the morning light illuminating the pale skin of his body. It was almost a boy's body with muscles so faint, Ginny noticed, that he looked slightly shrunken. She felt a slight urge to make a hearty Weasley breakfast for him. She shook away the semi-traitorous thought just as he caught her peeking. Ginny was not pleased to feel his amusement at her quickly-averted gaze. "Weasley, we're not at Hogwarts anymore. You seem to have gotten rid of the old blushing ingénue act. So why keep up the pretense of a House rivalry?"

Ginny heard her voice come out flinty. "It was never a pretense for you. And it wasn't for me either. I really did hate you."

He looked thoughtful for a moment. "You know, you're right. I hated you Weasleys, too. Though after a while, I realized that hate is such an exhausting emotion. It drains one's strength. Why should I waste such a costly emotion on the Weasleys?"

Ginny flinched inwardly despite her initial preparation for Malfoy's insults. She steeled herself and ignored the rhetorical question. Ginny unconsciously lifted her chin and Disapparated, still wearing his sheet and still without a clue as to exactly what happened to her the night before.

*******************************

Much, much later in the day, Ginny was walking to the old-fashioned little Diagon Alley restaurant where she usually had dinner alone. In the midst of cursing herself in all four of the languages she knew for sleeping with that bigot Malfoy, she saw a brown-haired woman staggering ahead of her with an armful of bags and parcels. The woman gave a huff of annoyance when a pertly wrapped box fell from the top of her pile. She set her packages down and bent over to pick up the box. Ginny grinned when she saw a glimpse of her face and realized who it was.

"Nice bum," she called out in a rather exaggerated masculine voice after letting loose a wolf whistle.

Hermione whirled around, looking harassed. But she laughed when she saw Ginny.

"Very funny, Gin. I didn't expect such a greeting from our resident man-hating feminist and condemner of male supremacists," Hermione teased.

"Oh, never fear, I still am. But the precise reason I chose to admire your arse so publicly is to demonstrate my understanding of the male psyche. Know thy enemy, I always say." Ginny pulled a dramatic pose. She dropped it and asked, "I've never seen you in this area before. What's with all the boxes?"

"Shopping," Hermione waved a hand. "I've got invitations, tablecloths, serviette-holders, everything you can imagine for a wedding. But if your lazy brother does not start helping me with preparations, there's not going to be one."

"I'll be sure to warn Ron when I go home tomorrow for dinner. And speaking of dinner, do you want to have some with me?" Ginny motioned to the cracked, wooden sign that read The Oily Oyster, dangling above their heads.

Hermione peered into the burgundy stained glass windows of the restaurant and said, "Absolutely. I'm starved. And I want to ask your opinion on the invitation stationery."

They pushed open the swinging oak doors and stepped into the warmth of the restaurant. The Oily Oyster was a shabby little bistro run by the grandparents of one of Ginny's school friends. It featured a one hundred fifty year old, all wood décor with two huge stone fireplaces that blazed and flickered with every customer that entered. They were the only source of light in the restaurant, because the old couple who owned the place believed that firelight was the most flattering type of lighting. It was true, because every patron, table and plate of food was illuminated with a becoming rosy glow.

While her soon-to-be sister-in-law was cheerfully chattering away about wedding plans and the problem of matching ecru serviettes and beige tablecloths, Ginny's head started to ache. Whether it was from the thought of Hermione and Ron's impending marriage and all the entailing chaos or from the... unfortunate episode she had recently gone through, she wasn't sure. She pressed two fingers to each temple.

"What's wrong, Gin? You look like you just got kicked in the head," Hermione said. She paused and raised a thick eyebrow. "You didn't stay out all night again, did you?"

Ginny started picking innocently at a fingernail and stared down at her plate of pasta.

Hermione jumped into lecture mode. "Gin, ever since you graduated from DCU, you've been drifting around aimlessly. I know I've no authority over you. But as your friend, I feel I should warn you that this lifestyle of yours is going to get you in trouble one of these days."

The younger girl sighed, irritation tingeing her voice. "You think I don't know that?" She ran a brisk hand through her long red hair, dark auburn because of the dim lighting. "Nee, I can handle it. I just don't feel like settling down to a quiet little life right now. You and Ron might be ready for it, but I'm not. And anyway, I am not drifting around. I have a job." As soon as she said it, Ginny felt a pang of something she couldn't identify. Envy? Defiance? She wasn't quite sure but knew it indicated a lie within herself. Some lie that she wasn't ready to face yet.

"But it's freelance translation. Couldn't you join a guild? That way you wouldn't have to worry about not having any work." Hermione saw Ginny's exasperated face and said hastily, "I'm sorry! I just want you to be happy and secure. But I'm sure you know what's best for yourself. Anyway, I must be going. Ron's expecting me at Madame Malkin's for a robe fitting." The corner of Hermione's mouth lifted in a lopsided smile. So familiar- yet Ginny felt a sudden surprise that her friend's teeth didn't show in this smile; a reaction that she hadn't had since her third year at Hogwarts, the first time she saw Hermione without buck teeth.

After Hermione left with her load of packages, Ginny contemplated her odd reaction over Hermione's teeth. Her friend hadn't had abnormally large teeth for eight years. What had made her recall so vividly that moment, that reaction? It was as if she had returned to eight years ago and to the common room decorated in the colors of a mother's womb, blood red and gold. She couldn't think, not with the dull throbbing inside her skull. Ginny tossed a few sickles on the table, paid, and left with a strange sensation of displacement.

**************************************

Ginny was on her way to the Burrow for the usual weekly dinner with her family. It was a custom her mother had started enforcing in Ginny's first year at university. Molly realized then that her children were all grown up and that if she didn't do something about it, she would never see any of them. At first, Molly felt assured that at least Ginny would visit her childhood home on a regular basis. However, a Christmas visit home from Hogwarts Ginny's 7^th year showed Molly that even her sweet, shy daughter had become independent like all her brothers. While she was relieved and pleased to know that her children had grown up well, she couldn't bear to be faced with an empty house with no more mischief and laughs. So she ordered all of her children home for dinner every Sunday. It wasn't the same as before, of course, but Molly could at least keep up on their doings, which was especially helpful when it came to Fred and George. She didn't want them off chasing some new, possibly dangerous-- possibly illegal-- idea without her at least knowing about it.

Ginny opened the door of the Burrow and stepped into the familiar surroundings. She was immediately knocked over by her now bald father and the twins kicking a black and white ball between two cherry wood end-tables. Dusting herself off, she felt a bit ashamed of herself that everything in her childhood home was still the same: threadbare and mismatching. She should be helping out with her parents' finances, but she barely made enough every month to cover her rent and necessities. The Burrow smelled safe and good, like meat pies cooking in the oven and newly knit wool jumpers. Ginny followed the aroma into the kitchen, the center of her mother's life. Molly did all the cleaning and cooking in the Weasley household. And much to Ginny's bewilderment, she actually enjoyed playing the role of traditional house-wife.

"Hello, Mum."

Mrs. Weasley turned around, sweat on her face and sauce on her apron. "Ginny! Dinner's ready. Go and tell your brothers and father." She put her hands on her hips and frowned slightly. "Now, I think Charlie and Percy are off in the garden getting some vegetables, Bill isn't here yet, Ron is in his old room, and the twins and your father are in the living room, doing... something destructive."

"Muggle football," Ginny said, just as Charlie and a dusty, glowering Percy walked in with their arms full of lettuce and turnips.

Dinner passed without anything extraordinary occurring, though Percy's self-righteous posturing was getting to be almost too much to bear. It seemed that the higher he rose in the ranks of the Ministry, the more authority he gave himself in planning the futures of his younger siblings.

After the meal, Ginny found herself with Ron supervising the dishcloth as it mopped up the kitchen. The Weasley matriarch insisted on two chaperones for the cleaning up ever since Fred decided one Sunday that it would be funny to follow in the footsteps of a Muggle cartoon character, Mickey Mouse in Fantasia. The mops and cloths still had a tendency to revert to their enchanted states when no one was watching. Ginny informed her brother of what Hermione had said the previous day.

Ron chuckled. "If I did go shopping with her, she would leave me even faster." He glanced at Ginny and grinned. "So are you going to be the maid of honor for Hermione, then?"

"No. She didn't ask me."

"Oh." Ron hit himself on the forehead. "Sorry, Gin."

The silence began to grow protracted. Ginny had never imagined that the sibling closeness they once shared would become so strained. What had made it change? Ginny asked herself. The idea that it wasn't only Ron's fault that their friendship had cooled nagged her. But she cleared her throat and ventured a question to clear the awkwardness, "So is Harry going to be your best man?"

Ron looked pained at the mention of Harry and nodded. Ginny felt a brief blast of frustration and annoyance shoot through her, like a fleeting but intense migraine. But it passed to a mild amusement. She knew that Ron still believed she liked Harry, even though her crush on The Boy Who Lived had long dissolved into wisps of memory in the back of her mind. And she knew that if she denied it, Ron would just hold even more stubbornly to that belief. Ginny thought it was like he needed to hold onto something about the old her, the sister he was closest to before he became friends with Harry and Hermione. It seemed to console him to believe that he still knew what was in her best interests.

"And how is Harry?" Ginny couldn't resist making Ron squirm with her questions about Harry. She felt guilty about it, but Ron was denser than a lead molecule and it was rather fun leading him around by the nose.

Her brother gave a weak smile. "Harry's well. He likes being an Auror. Gives him something to do and takes his mind off You-Know-Who's return."

"That's good." Ginny couldn't help adding, "And how does he like working for the new Minister for Magic?"

Ron beamed. He had finally found a place where he could change the topic. "I don't know what Harry thinks, but I think Minister Shrub is the best thing to come to Britain since the World Quidditch Cup."

Ginny frowned, crossed her arms and demanded, "So you think it's alright that he's locking up possibly innocent witches and wizards? Because, you know, Ron, he doesn't grant any of the accused the right to trial. All it takes are two witnesses to condemn them and they're off to Azkaban. For life. He's a bloody dictator."

Ron sighed and looked at her like she was recently the recipient of a lobotomy. "Ginny! He's our elected Minister for Magic so you shouldn't say that about him. And it's better to be safe than sorry about the Death Eaters... What was that? You didn't vote for him?" Ron looked scandalized.

"And you haven't been through what You-Know-Who has put Harry, Herm, and me through. You just don't understand how terrible it would be even if just one Death Eater escaped."

The acidic anger rose in Ginny, prickling her skin. She wanted to yell, to tell him that it wasn't true, that she knew perfectly well what the rise of Voldemort and his followers would represent for the people of the wizarding world and for her. Dumbledore's voice flashed in her mind, like a glimmer of scales flicking the surface of water, "There has been no lasting harm done, Ginny." Those words had once comforted her. But it wasn't true. She was irrevocably damaged from that year. When she had befriended and loved him, that eloquent, beautiful, evil boy. Time had not faded the scars. They were merely hidden until something would remind her of him. A line of fluid script, a blot of ink, the delicate brittleness of old parchment... Then, her old wounds would ache; the pain of recollection would claw her mind's eye until she bled silent, agonizing memories. She sometimes thought about how unfair it was. Harry's scar was a reminder of his mother's love, while her scars would always be a sign of her obsessive, destructive love for Tom. Ron had unwittingly laid them all bare with his offhand comments.

Ron, though not the most perceptive fellow, realized that something was not right with his sister. He gave her a quick hug around the shoulders and hurried out of the kitchen, despite Molly's rule of two chaperones, before she could detonate. Her temper had become more and more erratic as she got older and her family and friends had long learned to read her moods.

After what seemed like a slow, trickling eternity, the cloth gave a last defiant swipe of the dining table and she felt a guilty relief that she didn't have to talk to Ron anymore. After saying goodbye to the rest of her family, she Apparated home in a state of cross lethargy that was becoming increasingly typical for her.

**************************************

Ginny was browsing at Flourish and Blotts, looking for the most comprehensive Mermish dictionary in the store for her newest translation commission. Finally, she found one that she could afford without skipping lunch for two weeks. Even though this commission was a lucrative one, translating a set of schoolbooks from English to Mermish, it was also bound to be difficult because Mermish was Ginny's least fluent language. The redhead looked up from the clumsily bound volume, about to go pay, when she saw Draco Malfoy in tailored black pants and a forest green shirt, carrying two calf-skin bound books, poring through the musty stacks. She was, for a moment, too flustered to do anything. And in her moment of hesitation, his eyes flicked over to where she stood.

"It's you," she said tiredly.

"Why is it that every time you see me, you say the exact same thing?" He smiled, mocking exasperation. "Even a Gryffindor should have a vocabulary of more than two words."

Her left eyebrow shot up and she said archly, "I don't think you want to hear the full extent of my vocabulary. And I don't have time to talk to men who take advantage of people." She turned around to leave when she heard him laugh.

"It was your own fault you got drunk," Malfoy said good-naturedly. She stopped, feeling angry at herself about her weakness for tequila. Then his voice grew serious and Ginny couldn't quite tell if it was also sincere. "You know, we didn't do anything that night."

She decided it would be smarter to disbelieve everything he said. After all, her humiliation couldn't become greater if she simply resigned herself to the fact that she slept with the evil, narrow-minded git. It was dangerous to get her hopes up in believing otherwise. Her laugh was short. "You can't possibly think I believe you. You took advantage of me and you are a vile bastard. Come now, at least own up to your actions." But Ginny half-hoped he would deny it again.

He narrowed his eyes and stared at her for an indiscriminate amount of time. The dictionary slipped from her damp fingers and hit the floor with a thump but Draco still didn't look down. She was just beginning to feel unnerved when he broke eye contact and shrugged: a loose, easy movement of his shoulder. "Don't believe me then. I don't care." This time, it was he who turned away from her. He paused and added, his acerbic words cushioned in a layer of blandness. "I'd like my sheet back, by the way. I'm much too poor now to be giving my sheets away as souvenirs to every woman I fuck."

Ginny ignored the bait. All she wanted to do was get away from him. The summer heat in the stuffy bookstore was making her irritable and Draco Malfoy definitely was not helping her mood. "Whatever. You'll get your damned sheet back some way or the other." Without waiting for a reply, she stalked off.

It was only when Ginny was already halfway home when she realized that she had forgotten her dictionary.

"ARGH!"