Once and for All

Chapter 17

"Explain. Now," was the first command out of Dean's mouth after they all stumbled into Neville's living room. It was larger than Ginny had imagined, with plush furniture and navy blue walls hung with portraits. A musty, strange smell of cats filled the air, and the house was dark save for a large window in the hallway. Clearly, his grandma was elsewhere, but Ginny barely took notice of these details as she watched Dean's face. He was staring at Seamus with a kind of severity that was extremely unlike him.
      "Easy there, mate, he's just been tortured," Neville said, eyeing him cautiously.
        "Well, he'd better talk fast, because he doesn't have much time to prove whether he's a traitor or not."
         "You know I'm not," Seamus muttered, still white from the curse. "They tricked me."
         "How?" asked Ginny as Luna started to wander down the hallway, looking at pictures.
        "I was in Diagon Alley the other day, applying for a job at that broomstore, and then I noticed the Malfoys and some other Death Eaters skulking around, looking mighty suspicious, ya' know? Anyway, they kept whispering amongst themselves, and one was hiding something in their cloak. Well, I followed them, and sure enough they went into Borgin and Burke's. Now I knew for a fact that shop was shut down a week ago by the ministry, so I had to figure out what they were up to. Next thing I know, I'm stupefied the minute I walk in by someone hiding outside the door, and they take me to this weird house-I'm not sure who's, but it was super old."
      "The Malfoys?" Dean asked curiously.
        "Naw, it wasn't a rich house. Anyway, they kept me in their for a few days, and every day this same Death Eater would come in to interrogate me. He wanted to know about the DA, the Order, and where you all lived. Course I wouldn't tell, and he...he didn't like that much." For the first time, Ginny saw fear flicker through his eyes. "They tried torturing me to get the information out-I've had it done before, but never for that long. They just left me for hours and hours like that-I just wanted to die. And from the sounds of the other prisoners, they wanted to too."
    He glanced at a picture of Neville's smiling parents next to him, and suddenly Ginny understood. He didn't want to end up like them-existing without really living, losing his mind, himself, for the rest of his life.
       "They really wanted to know about you, though," he added in a low voice, looking at Ginny, who immediately stiffened. "Kept asking where you usually went, what other jobs you had, how long you've been in the DA and Order."
     "Why would they be so interested in her?" Dean asked indignantly, and Ginny tried not to feel insulted at the tone in his voice.
      "Dunno. They said something about she knows something they don't, which doesn't make any sense to me," Seamus admitted. "He said you found something, and you're the only one who has access to that thing."
     "Uh, Ginny..." Neville asked, confused.
     "I don't know," she muttered, her head spinning once again. "The guy interrogating you...what was his name?"
     "Well, he gave me one but it didn't sound real," Seamus admitted. "It sounded more like a nickname."
      "What was it?" She asked, her heart pounding. "Tell me."
     "Bluffer," He said, seemingly surprised by her reaction and more surprised by her next expression. "Do you know him?"
     "Finish your story and I'll tell you," she said grimly.
      Giving her a skeptical glance, Seamus continued, "They found the Galleon too after they searched me. I dunno how they did it, but they somehow knew that it wasn't real, and they knew about the dates. I didn't want to, but I made a meeting at Luna's house, cause I remembered Harry telling us how her dad betrayed them, and that was the best place I could think of to send a warning. Plus Luna's brilliant, so I figured she must have known."
        "You bumped the closet door on purpose, then," Luna concluded from down the hall.
       "Yeah, glad you caught that."
        "How come it only called us four?" Neville asked, confused. "The coins, I mean."
         "I doubt anyone else was looking at them,"  Seamus said. "I'm surprised you all were paying enough attention to notice." He turned to the rest mournfully. "Look, I know you all have no reason to trust me after that, but just believe me when I say there's a leak in the DA. We need to figure out how he knew about the coins, and we need to do it fast, or they're going to take you." He looked at Ginny specifically, as if it wasn't already obvious.
      "What were they planning on doing?" Dean asked. "Killing us, then taking her?"
      "Extremely slowly, yes."
       "So they wanted to send a message by killing you and then take me because I guess I have information they don't," Ginny muttered. If this guy really was Bluffer, he must be really used to people not taking his name seriously. "How would you describe Bluffer?"
       Seamus shrugged helplessly. "Tall bloke, with brown slicked-back hair, but he wasn't old-maybe in his thirties. Oh, and he had weird eyes too-one was brown and the other was blue. He was a real slimy sort of fellow-kept grinning at me every time he tortured me-like he was enjoying it."
      "Sounds like a maniac," Neville replied, and Seamus nodded.
     "I wonder if he was ever in the Daily Prophet," Ginny muttered, lost in thought. "For some kind of crime-we could use that to track him." If he was, Ginny felt like they would have heard about it. Unless he appeared in another newspaper, one that was not as popular...
    Ginny called over her shoulder, "Luna, has your dad ever heard of a bloke named Bluffer?"
       When no one answered, she turned to find the hallway empty. "Luna?"
        "Dang it," Neville muttered, hurrying down the hall.
        "Every time," Dean muttered in annoyance. "You'd think a Ravenclaw girl would know better."
        "She's curious," Ginny snapped without meaning to. "And she wants to find answers. That's not a crime, is it?"
      "No, but it sure make things a lot easier if she stayed in one place," Dean replied, oblivious to her annoyance. Idiot. "It's hard enough keeping up with everything she says."
    "Found her," Neville called in obvious relief. "We're in the kitchen."
       The three exchanged relieved glances  as they headed over to the other room. They found Neville first, who then pointed up to the tall ceiling, where Luna was using her wand to hover above five feet above them, inspecting the corners of the ceiling and moving her other hand in slow, circular motions.
      "Barking mad," Dean muttered, and Ginny ignored him. 
        "You know, you're probably just as weird to the Nargles as they are to you," Luna said casually, effectively shutting him up.
        Ginny stifled a laugh. "Luna?" She  turned in response, expectant. It was a long shot, but Ginny asked anyway. "Did your dad ever cover an article on a guy named Bluffer?"
      "No," she replied, causing Ginny's stomach to drop in disappointment. It would've been too strange of a coincidence anyway. "But Bluffer did want him to publish a strange article, and daddy refused because it seemed to suspicious."
       "What was it about?" Ginny insisted, her heart hammering as she prayed it had nothing to do with Goblins being cooked into pies or any other crazy tale.
      "It was something about a union forming for those who worked in the Department of Mysteries-to protest about wages and whatnot. But Dad has friends in the Ministry now, and they all said that the whole Department secretly swore an oath against unions, because they were sworn to secrecy about their jobs and the public couldn't ever know. Plus Dad specifically asked if there was a Bluffer in that Department, and they told him no one worked there under that name."
        "Well if he doesn't work there, why would he care about a union meeting?" Dean asked, frustrated.
       "Unless it wasn't really a union," Luna said. "Dad thought it was a trap for those who did work there-that Bluffer was trying to get them fired."
       "Or maybe," Ginny said, the words tumbling out of her. "It wasn't a union meeting at all-maybe it was another interrogation like yours, Seamus. You said you weren't the only one being interrogated, right?"
      "No, there were other people screaming." Seamus said, looking surprised.
       "Did you see any of them?"
       "Just one-it was this lady in Ministry robes being dragged past my door. Couldn't hear much of what they said, except for unspeakables being stubborn-"
      "Unspeakables work in the Department of Mysteries," Ginny interrupted, and Seamus's eyes widened.
       "So let me get this straight," Dean interjected skeptically. "Your saying that Bluffer's been kidnapping Department of Mystery workers and torturing them for information?"
      "It's possible," Ginny insisted. "We have Luna's dad as a witness and Seamus as a victim. That counts as something, right?"
     "I'm not sure Looneybin's dad is entirely reliable," Dean muttered, eyeing Luna as she hovered higher into the ceiling, spinning around like a ballerina while staring up at the ceiling and humming. With her bright yellow robe, she sort of reminded Ginny of a large, happy bee. She fought back the urge to laugh and instead added, "Well, either way something's up. We need to call Harry and the others fast."
      "But we have a snitch, remember?" Seamus asked. "How do we know who we can trust?"
     "We don't," Ginny said. "But either way, it's time we told Harry about this. After all, if we can't trust him, we can't trust anybody. Can we at least agree on that?"
     He nodded reluctantly. "Great, a step we never reached in our relationship. Let's call him."

   Hey everyone, I know this story's kind of taking a dark turn and there's not as many cute fanfic scenes buuut... what do you think Ginny knows??
    
    Also, random question: what's your favorite movie/show(besides Harry Potter)?

Aaaand one last thing: If anyone still wants that Teddy Lupin story, let me know

That's all I got. Thanks for coming to my Ted talk(jk)  ;)