By the Pricking of my Thumbs

"By the Pricking of my Thumbs"

By Penpusher

Chapter Six: "... but never doubt that I love?"

"Ellen, I'm sorry, I really am."

Ginny was squirming with embarrassment, twisting her red hair frantically around her fingers.

"Hermione as good as promised she would be moving back into the house for the duration. Now she's chickened out and says she'll stay over 'a couple of times, just to make sure you're being a good girl', if you ever heard anything so pathetic."

Ginny raised the pitch of her voice and adopted a hectoring tone, meant to denote Hermione at her most bossy. She then paused to draw breath and to take a firmer hold on her hair.

"If I'd only known that earlier," she pleaded, "I'd have been able to offer you her old room. It's so much bigger and it has a private ensuite bathroom as well. There's a lovely view of the garden from the balcony too, but now you've done all that work on the attic room, well ..."

If Ginny were to be totally honest, she would have to admit to Ellen that the confusion was largely her fault. From the beginning, she had realised Hermione's reluctance to take a retrograde step, although she knew her friend's loyalty would prevent her from backing out completely. However, once Hermione had got wind of the plan to take on a new housemate, she had felt quite justified in crying off, citing pressure of work and conviction that Ginny would get on like a house on fire with 'the new girl'. Strangely, it looked as though that might well be the case. Pausing at the foot of the stairs to readjust a rather heavy cardboard box, Ellen swiped a strand of blonde hair out of her eyes and fixed Ginny with a measuring, but not unfriendly look.

"Why are you worrying?" she asked, in genuine surprise. "If I hadn't liked the room, I wouldn't have agreed to move in. Where's the problem?"

Ginny frowned.

"The problem is the stairs," she sighed. "And, if I'm honest, the crossed wires with Harry. That seems to be happening a lot lately."

"The stairs, or the crossed wires?"

Ginny made a sound halfway between a sigh and a laugh.

"I wish I knew."

"Do you miss him?"

The Scots girl's face was sympathetic, but without overdoing it. Ginny looked up surprised, but answered anyway.

"Yes I do - far more than I thought I would," she admitted. "Things haven't been exactly, well, peaceful between us right from the start."

Ginny paused, remembering the events of the summer, and started, realising that Ellen was waiting politely for her to continue. She also remembered that she hardly knew the girl.

"But that's all in the past now," Ginny continued hurriedly, "and you certainly don't want to hear chapter and verse on my private life. Let me help you with this lot."

She slid her wand from her pocket and aimed it at a large box.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" she declaimed, frowning as the box wobbled unsteadily in the air.

"Gracious! What have you got here, Ellen?" she muttered, fighting to keep the unruly package steady as she followed it up the stairs. Ellen shrugged.

"Oh, this and that," she replied diffidently, flicking her own wand deftly at a pile of suitcases. As she did so, the door of the study opened and Lee poked his head around it. Seeing the new girl, he smiled and came out into the hall.

"Just what we need: a big strong man to levitate all this stuff up to the attic!"

Ellen was laughing at him he knew, but it was a challenge nonetheless.

"Anything you say, ma'am," Lee replied, touching his hand to an imaginary cap.

The three housemates set to the removal work with a will that, in Ginny's case at least, rapidly faded on the third ascent of the stairs.

"Phew!" she exhaled, sinking down on the hall carpet. "I'm obviously totally unfit. I'm also late. I promised Ernie I'd get stuck into the editing backlog today."

"Coward!" shouted Lee with what little breath he had left, as she beat a hasty retreat out of the front door. He exchanged a rueful glance with Ellen.

"Never mind," she said soothingly. "We've nearly finished. I'll make us a cup of coffee just as soon as we've shifted these last few boxes."

Coffee, thought Lee, leaning back luxuriously into the kitchen sofa, has never tasted so good. Or is it just the company?

He sneaked a quick glance at the blonde witch sipping at her mug with obvious enjoyment. She caught his eye and he flushed, looking away. He sensed she was trying to hide her amusement at having caught him out and felt a sudden surge of courage.

"This is great coffee," he began mildly. She smiled.

"Thank you," she said.

"And good company."

"Flattery, eh? Always a good path to tread."

"Alright then. How would you like to grab a pizza with me later this evening?"

There was silence for a couple of heartbeats then Ellen sighed.

"Much as I would like to, Lee, I have to work tonight."

"Tonight? You're joking."

She shook her head seriously.

"You forget I don't work in the wizard world, or even in government. My company keeps ticking over twenty-four hours a day."

"But it's Saturday!"

She shrugged.

"Some staff even come in regularly on Sundays," she told him soberly.

Lee subsided feeling crushed, and after finishing his coffee, returned to his study alone. Presently, he threw an assortment of discs and scribbled notes into a bag and left for the Ministry of Magic. Lee Jordan was not a vain man, and his estimation of his own appeal was not high enough for him even to consider that Ellen might be telling the truth.

~oOo~

"...'Ee always could sing in tune, see? Never a duff note between us since I got 'im, all them years ago in Diagon Alley. Wassat? Speak up, young man. No, course I'm not deaf! Trouble wiv young wizards these days - always mumblin' and mutterin'. Nah, always been me familiar, 'ee 'as. Never 'ad another one - couldn't afford it. Me family was never well-off, see? Got sent to work as a Curse-breaker's apprentice when I was knee-high to a grasshopper ..."

Ginny pulled off her headphones and leaned her forehead against the cool plastic of the console, grinding her teeth against a silent scream. She was not sure which she found more unendurable: the witch's interminable monologue or the occasional ear-splitting yowls of her very definitely tone-deaf cat.

"Never a duff note, my left foot!" she muttered, reaching for her wand to cast a swift splicing spell. "Most of this garbage belongs on the cutting room floor. Honestly, what was Ernie thinking of to be taken in by an opera-singing cat!"

Her eyes on the Echosphere before her, Ginny scrabbled at the surface of the desk with her nails, trying to grasp her wand before she lost track of her customised spell. The thin, wooden rod proved elusive, springing away from her fingers to land with a clatter on the floor.

"Blast!" she said, frowning. Impatiently, she lifted her hand, fingers spread, quickly muttering the spell before she forgot it. Nothing seemed to happen. She shrugged.

"Ah, well," she sighed. "It was worth a try."

She grovelled under her chair to locate her wand, and then re-fixed her headphones, re-setting the edit once more. Nothing happened. She cast the spell again with the same result, and then she frowned in puzzlement at the Echosphere.

"Ernie," she called over her shoulder, still staring intently at the sophisticated piece of magical equipment. Ernie MacMillan, who was bawling out a junior technician at the other side of the studio, paused in his rant.

"What is it?" he replied, coming over to her. "Got a problem, Gin?"

The girl shook her head, still frowning.

"There's something wrong here," she told him, gesturing to the Echosphere. "Either I've bogged up the spell three times running or there's something seriously amiss with the equipment."

"There's nothing wrong with these Echospheres," protested Ernie loudly. "They're the best money can buy - cost me an arm and a leg. What have you done to it, woman?"

"I told you, nothing!" Ginny protested, but her boss was taking a closer look. His expression of irritated puzzlement gave way to something more like wonderment.

"That shouldn't happen," he said in quiet amazement.

Ernie extended a huge arm and engulfed the offending piece of equipment in a hand the size and shape of a mechanical grab. He held it up to the light and squinted. It was then that Ginny noticed: the swirling coloured smoke that habitually writhed and danced to the pattern of the various sound frequencies recorded into the Echosphere was completely motionless; flat and solid. Dead.

"That shouldn't happen," repeated Ernie in a firmer tone. "These things are proofed against feedback of that kind." He looked at Ginny. She backed off, shaking her head.

"I didn't do anything!" she protested. Ernie shook his head.

"No, no," he replied. "Of course you didn't. How could you? This sort of damage would take far more energy than any one wizard could generate; you'd need at least three people working in tandem to produce the levels of magical power necessary to overload this thing's safety systems. The whole thing's burnt out: caput, finito."

To illustrate his point, Ernie unscrewed the base of the Echosphere and removed the glass sphere. Wisps of lazy, white smoke drifted into the air with a faint smell of electrical shorting. Ernie tossed the remains down on the desk with a clatter.

"Only six months old!" he exclaimed bitterly. "I'll get on to the suppliers right now; I can't be running this radio station with faulty equipment. They'd better have a reasonable explanation for this, and fast!"

Ernie stormed away in search of quill, parchment and an owl, in that order. Ginny stared at the broken piece of equipment, shifted her gaze to her hand then back to the ruined Echosphere.

"I can't have..." she whispered uncertainly. "I haven't the power, surely?"

~oOo~

Several hours later, at a small, out-of-the-way workstation at the Ministry, Lee raised his head from the keyboard and exhaled in a gust of frustration. He had achieved nothing further of any note and was now simply going round in circles, chasing his own tail. For lack of any other option, he had now run every test he knew of, plus several he had concocted himself, on the central server. The results had often been interesting but completely off the point. Well, one thing was now certain: there was no way anyone was hacking into the Ministry systems, magically or otherwise. That left more mundane options.

Lee sighed. He knew there was an inconsistency somewhere, but he just couldn't put his finger on it - and no form of logic was going to explain away the prickling feeling he got every time he considered the information regarding Leandra's Ewer.

"Paralysis by analysis," he muttered, massaging his eyes. "Come on, Jordan. You've been trying to crack this one ever since the stuff arrived. Don't you think it's time you bit the bullet and faced up to the fact that this time you're being paranoid?"

After all, no one else was the slightest bit interested in the vague suspicious of a computer geek. Why on earth should they be? All he seemed to be doing was trying to throw spokes into what was a very nicely turning wheel, thank you very much. Percy Weasley had made that much very clear when, on a colleague-to-colleague basis, Lee had approached him with the problem.

"But what have you got to go on, Lee?" Percy had said, smiling importantly, "Show me some concrete evidence of interference and I'll back you to the hilt, but until then - well, I'm afraid we'll just have to let sleeping dogs lie."

And Lee had gone away feeling blocked on all sides, a sentiment he found neither pleasant nor familiar.

Letting out an unusually vehement expletive, Lee thrust his swivel chair back from the table, grabbed his leather jacket and made for the Portkey home. Materialising behind a thick bank of trees, he trudged wearily up the drive to the front door, for once not bothering to snarl at the lion doorknocker. Throwing his jacket at the coat rack and slamming the door of the study, Lee flung himself down on the sofa, head in hands.

What was the matter with him? At Hogwarts, he had never lacked the self-assurance to get his own way, however unpromising the situation. Surely he hadn't become a total wimp in those few short years. He shook his head irritably as a nasty little inner voice whispered debilitating things about life as a sidekick to the infamous Weasley twins. No, he wasn't going there; he was worth more than that, of course he was!

Lee sighed. If he only had something to go on, some piece of real evidence, however small. Then he'd wipe the self-satisfied smile off that ass Percy Weasley's face with a vengeance. He sighed again, weary with the ache caused by beating his head against the brick wall that was the Ministry of Magic.

"Give up, Jordan," he murmured. "It's not as if you haven't got anything better to do. There's a ton of reports out there just waiting to be evaluated. Face it. You've got the jitters, Fred's infected you with his unexplained paranoia, you're working too hard, drinking too much coffee, not getting out enough, yadda yadda yadda."

Any or all of the above could be the cause; Lee knew that. Nevertheless, this nameless worry kept niggling around the edges of his brilliant mind, eating away at his concentration. He knew it would not let him rest until he had tracked down the inconsistency. There was a soft knock at the door and he raised his head.

"Come in," he responded, wondering who was at home.

Ellen's blonde head leaned around the door.

"I heard you come in," she said, gently. "Is everything alright?"

Lee stared at her, surprised at her kindness, then sighed heavily.

"I'll cope with it," he replied, and then relented when he saw she was about to go away. "No, come in if you're at a loose end. I could do with another analytical mind just to reassure me that I truly am just suffering from overwork."

Ellen smiled and edged round the door. When he saw what she was carrying, he was even more grateful that he had been gentlemanly enough to invite her in. Deftly clearing several CDs, a book and a sheaf of handwritten notes from the coffee table, Ellen deposited a tray containing two cups, a pot of tea, milk in a jug and a plate of cake that looked homemade.

"My mother's," she explained, indicating the cake. "Made from an old family recipe, but you needn't worry." She grinned, mischievously. "Poisons were a Medici family specialty, the MacBeths favoured swords, daggers or anything else sharp. So watch out for the cake knife!"

She giggled as Lee reflexively glanced towards the wicked-looking blade, and then flushed slightly at having been caught out twice in one day. He smiled at her and suddenly felt himself relax for the first time in weeks. She poured the tea and smiled encouragingly.

"So," she began lightly, "had a hard day at the office?"

Lee looked at her sympathetic face, thinking almost absently how like spun silk her hair seemed when the light fell on it. Taking a breath, he told her as much as he could about his work and his current worries. He mentioned no names and no specific details, but she seemed to understand his dilemma. She frowned, drumming her fingers on the knees of her blue denim jeans.

"Who is your immediate superior, Lee?" she asked. He shrugged.

"Well, technically I answer directly to Minister Fudge," Lee replied, "but he's so - uh, busy at the moment there's no way I'm going to get to see him."

"Is there anyone else in your department you could approach?"

"Not really. You see I'm still a bit of an experiment." He smiled wryly. "They don't yet know quite what to make of me, or what to do with me. All they know is that I'm getting results. There are a couple of others, technicians really, who keep the machines going, but there's no one else who does this kind of work in the same manner."

"What about the people who analyse the information in the good old fashioned way? Who are they?"

Lee stared.

"Well, they're the operatives themselves," he told her. "People like Fred and George. They don't just gather the information; they interpret and evaluate it too. There are a number of them, but they tend to play their cards very close to the chest. The twins are the only ones with whom I have any meaningful contact."

"Have you spoken to Fred?"

Lee shifted uneasily.

"No, I haven't."

There was a pause while Lee tried to articulate his reluctance.

"Fred's - well, worse than I am at the moment," Lee explained haltingly. "He's seeing shadows around every corner, boggarts in every wardrobe, intrigue everywhere. Frankly, I think he's worried he's burning out. You know - becoming obsessive." He scratched his head. "Trouble is, he could be right; I can't tell. Now, if I take my own suspicions to him, I'd be no better off, don't you see? If he's really off-balance at the moment, the last thing he needs is for me to add more fuel to the fire. And even if he does dismiss my suspicions as so much eyewash, I still won't be convinced he's being impartial."

Ellen nodded slowly, frowning in concentration. Suddenly she glanced at her watch and looked up at him.

"It's seven-thirty," she said smiling. "I phoned work and told them they could do without me this evening. Are you still on for that pizza?"

Lee's eyes lit up so brightly that Ellen blushed faintly.

"Am I ever!" He leaped to his feet with a broad grin. "Come on - let's get to Giovanni's before the crush."

Laughing good-humouredly, they threw on jackets and left the house on foot. Without thinking, Lee took her hand as they walked, and his mobile mouth lifted into a grin fit to split his face in two when her fingers curled warmly around his.

~oo0oo~

"The balance is totally wrong for this song. There's hardly any brightness or contrast until we get to the chorus."

Marcus was pacing around scowling as usual. Ginny raised an eyebrow at Justin but otherwise just let them get on with it. She was deep in thought when she realised, with a shock, that her opinion was being sought.

"Sorry," she said, shaking her head slightly, "I was miles away."

She bit her tongue furiously at having given Marcus such an open invitation for a sexist, chauvinist, elitist or just plain nasty remark, but to her surprise he didn't rise to it.

"Justin and I were discussing the possibility of you taking a more prominent role in this song," he told her, gravely. "At the moment, you're really functioning as backing for the chorus, but I can't help thinking that the sound would be lightened considerably if you sang it and I backed you."

Ginny's jaw dropped, but her mind was racing. What was the blonde bombshell going to get out of this? She swallowed then stared back defiantly.

"What's this, Marcus? Have I actually done something you approve of for once?" she flung at him in amazement. "I must say I'm astonished you would rate anyone as being better than you in any way, much less little old me."

The blonde man shrugged impassively.

"Nothing personal, Ginny," he replied equably. "I just give credit where credit is due."

He turned and wandered back to berate the sound wizards about adjustment to accommodate the new vocal tone. Ginny was completely nonplussed.

"Did you just hear...?" she said to Justin, who was standing at her side. He looked at her meaningfully.

"I had a few well-chosen words with Marcus after the 'bimbo' incident," he said grimly. "I think he realises how much of a destructive influence he has been."

Ginny shook her head.

"This is more confusing than ever," she remarked. "At least when he was being obnoxious I knew where I stood."

The group began the song again, noting that Marcus had indeed been right about the balance. What had previously been merely run of the mill now had a completely new drive and direction. They worked on it for a while, tried a couple of takes, then took a break while the sound wizards went into a huddle about technical matters.

Ginny went to refill her water bottle, deep in contemplation. Now she came to think of it, Marcus had been considerably more bearable since Justin had bawled him out, and now he was being positively gallant. What was it with him? Irrationally annoyed, she walked back towards the studio, glass in hand, and peered in through the swing doors. Justin and Charles were talking to the sound wizards and Animal was practising some clever technique involving brushes and a metal wastepaper bin. Marcus was nowhere to be seen. Restlessly, Ginny wandered down the stairs and out into the courtyard, happening upon the very man before she had totally composed herself.

Skidding to a halt, she observed Marcus as he leaned against a wall, legs crossed, smoking a cigarette. Ginny had seen people smoking before, but had never known anyone who actually pursued the habit. He turned, sensing her presence, and smiled at the obvious disgust on her face, raising his eyebrows in query.

"I didn't know you smoked," she remarked irrelevantly, wrinkling her nose. He shrugged.

"There's a lot you don't know about me," he countered, tossing the half-smoked stick to the floor and grinding it out with his heel. He flipped the remains into the waste bin and put his hands in his pockets.

"Time to get back to the grind?" he queried. Ginny shook her head.

"Still in conference with the sound guys," she told him, eyeing the still-smouldering tobacco.

"Why do you do that?" she couldn't help asking. "You're a serious singer. You must know the heat and the tar ruin the vocal chords, not to mention the risk of disease."

Marcus gave a dry chuckle.

"I don't smoke often," he admitted. "Only when I'm rattled."

"And are you rattled now?"

He didn't answer.

"Marcus, what's got into you?"

The question burst out of her before she was ready to ask it.

"From the very first time we met," she continued in mild exasperation, "you seem to have done nothing but slag me off. Now you've turned full circle. What kind of game are you playing here?"

Still he did not answer, seeming to ignore her, gazing off unseeingly across the courtyard. Ginny ground her teeth.

"Whatever's behind this, you're not only messing with my self-confidence, you're playing around with the stability of the band," she told him hotly, and then hissed with exasperation. "Great Merlin, what is it with you?"

It was a while before he spoke. Slowly, he turned to face her, giving her the full benefit of that laser-blue gaze.

"What I said before was true," he began slowly. "I didn't like the idea of you right from the start. I thought you were some good-looking bimbo, shacked up with a famous wizard, with a little bit of talent, but nothing deserving of any special attention. I was angry when Justin decided the band needed some skirt - sorry, a female lead. I was jealous of your success as a solo artist. If you don't believe that, then that's your lookout; it's the best I can do."

"Frankly, I'm amazed." Ginny stared at him. "And I'm tempted not to believe you."

Marcus shrugged.

"Suit yourself," he replied. "The fact is that we're stuck with each other and if we don't accept that, the band is going to fall apart."

There was a long pause.

"Marcus, why were you smoking?"

"I've told you - I was rattled."

"What rattled you?"

He didn't answer. Instead, he made as if to go back into the building, but stopped as he passed her, irresolute. His hard blue gaze softened and fingers, calloused from guitar strings, caught her lightly under the chin, raising her eyes to his. She shivered, although the air was warm.

"Marcus," she began warningly, her voice unsteady. His hand moved slowly to her cheek and thence to brush a wayward strand of hair away from her face. His touch left a tingling trail over her skin.

"Marcus," she tried again, more urgently this time, but he stilled her quivering lips with a light index finger.

"I was not expecting you to be like this," he said softly, enigmatically.

He gave her no time to ponder his meaning as his soft, sensuous mouth fastened over her lips in a kiss as light as it was strangely intense. She could taste the lingering tang of cigarette smoke on his breath, only heightening the strangeness of the unexpected contact.

And Ginny's mind exploded in a bewildering rush of desire that pierced through her like a knife. She gasped, stepping away from him, hugging herself against a swathe of raw emotion so powerful it was scarcely less than pain.

"What have you done to me?" she whispered, but the courtyard was empty. Only the sound of the swing doors penetrated the quietness.

~oo0oo~

Fred Weasley was not a happy man.

He had spent the whole day in his office at the Ministry, something he did rarely because it always made him feel as though he was serving a ten-year prison sentence - with no remission for good conduct. However, it had been necessary for him to clear a backlog of work dating back at least two months. Fred had an adequate system of dealing with paperwork, but even he had to put his back into it every once in a while.

In addition to the mountain of administrative detail, word got around the building. Every person who had failed to get an answer to his or her memo/email/letter/report in the past six months, arrived on his doorstep at some stage during the day. All in all, Fred was decidedly unhappy by the time he muttered the password to his front door. He was tired, hungry and it was 11.30pm.

Sagging in weariness, he waved his wand at the curtains and the lights, muttering the appropriate charms, and wandered into the kitchen to set some coffee on to boil. Suddenly he stiffened, the hairs on the back of his neck reacting to the possible presence of another person in the flat. At the same moment, his eyes fell upon a visiting broomstick propped neatly in the corner and he smiled.

"Very good," he remarked conversationally, without turning round. "I really don't think you missed anything this time, I'm impressed."

He went back to the kitchen door and stood nonchalantly looking into the living room. Slowly, noiselessly the swivel armchair facing the balcony turned to reveal a blonde female occupant. She smiled easily and climbed out of the chair, moving familiarly into the kitchen.

"I've been waiting half an hour for you."

"Oh?" His eyebrows lifted interrogatively. "And what was your excuse for going out so late?" She shrugged and smiled, hands occupied in conjuring the coffee.

"No one's my keeper," she told him, "and I remarked before I moved in how good the balcony was for broomstick take-off and landing."

Fred smiled.

"How did you shake Lee?"

She looked at him sharply.

"Lee? How did you...?"

She bit her lip as he waggled a finger at her, all the while grinning broadly.

"Fell into that one, I'm afraid. Pride before a fall."

She shrugged.

"You win some, you lose some."

Fred shook his head.

"Ellen, I freely admit, in all the time we've been together, you've rarely lost any at all."

The blonde girl smiled and opened the fridge, inspecting its contents with a shudder.

"Pasta and tomato sauce, I think," she announced, firmly closing the door on the chaos within and making for the cupboards. She turned to look at him critically and shook her head.

"You're almost transparent with hunger. I bet you haven't eaten all day."

He smiled and spread his hands.

"Too much to do, too little time to do it in," he yawned, then grinned slyly. "And I've got an early start in the morning. Perhaps you'd better act as my alarm clock."

She poked a finger at him, unerringly finding a sensitive spot in his ribs. He jumped slightly.

"It was you, remember, who found me a new place to live with lots of new companions," she teased him, "It's only polite to at least have breakfast with them the morning after I move in."

With a small smirk, she bent to her cooking. She looked at him over her shoulder.

"Well, the least you can do is pour me a drink."

Fred smiled sardonically and bowed.

"Madam, your wish is my command."