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Elemental Force	By : aikakone Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 3427 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 6
- 7
- 8
CHAPTER 7:

The Search Begins
Don't stand around like friends at a funeral, eyes to the ground.

It could've been you. Why do you weep?

~Neil Finn

When he came down from his room, Remus chose to call the Weasleys from the fireplace in the kitchen. He threw a fistful of powder into the Floo, and after contacting the Burrow he shouted, "Molly! Arthur! Are you there?"
He couldn't see any one immediately, so he shouted again. Finally, Molly came into view, and her face was red and puffy from copious amounts of tears.
"Arthur's at the Ministry trying to find out anything he can," she said automatically.
"How are you doing?" he asked sincerely, though he knew the question sounded inane.
At first Molly didn't answer. "It's the clock, Remus!" she eventually said to him cryptically as she wrung her hands.
Not already knowing about the special Weasley clock, he asked, "What clock?"
"Our clock! It doesn't show me where she is. It shows absolutely nothing, not even that she's somewhere in danger!" Molly sobbed miserably after getting out those difficult words.
"Molly, may I come over?" he asked softly in a comforting voice.
She sniffled and then simply nodded. After seeing Molly's assent, Remus used another handful of Floo powder and went to the Burrow to be with her in person.
"Do you want some tea?" she asked in a rush as Remus was dusting the soot off his robes and shoes.
In truth, he didn't want any tea, but he agreed as he knew it would be of more comfort to Molly than himself. She immediately began preparing it.
After a long silence in the house, Remus finally spoke. "Moody and Tonks have gone to Hogsmeade to gather information there."
"That's good," she said without conviction.
"I will consult location spells and maps. I have a talent with maps," he smiled softly.
"Do you?" she asked distractedly, trying to hold her composure. By this time the tea was done, and she motioned for them to sit.
Remus was respectfully quiet, trying to somehow be of comfort to Molly. She made a few comments here and there, but was constrained by her grief. Most of the tea drinking was done in near perfect silence.
The time ticked away in the room, and Remus watched the Weasley clock so accurately displaying the locations of the other members of the family. All others were safe in known locations, but not Ginny, whose lack of presence on the clock was singularly conspicuous. The clock's notice of "Mortal Peril" wasn't even indicated, which should have been a small comfort to her parents. In every other way, it was as if the girl had simply disappeared or ceased to exist.
"Do you have any personal items of hers that you can give me? It will help for some location spells," he requested after their tea had gotten cold.
Mrs. Weasley nodded. "Let's go to her room. I'll find something."
Together they walked up the winding stairs to the small room that was Ginny's. Spying a small vanity mirror on the bedside table, Molly grasped it and said, "Take this."
"It's a lovely mirror," Remus commented.
Indeed, it was. The Weasleys were not rich, and none of them seemed particularly vain. This mirror had golden scrollwork on the edges and a blue-green fairy on the back. It was delicate and very girlish.
"We got it for her after the last time," she said to him enigmatically.
When he raised his eyebrow in inquiry, she further explained, "After Ginny came back from the Chamber of Secrets."
No one talked anymore of the time that the shade of Tom Riddle had taken Ginny and tried to kill her. He suspected it took great effort just then for Molly to speak openly about it.
Remus wrapped the mirror in the cloth that was also on Ginny's bedside table and put it in his pocket for safe keeping.
"Let's go," he suggested and gently pulled at her arm. "Staying here won't help us find her, and it will only make you feel the worse for her absence."
Molly nodded and let him guide her down the stairs to the main floor of her home. Once there, she said to him, "You know, Remus, you have always been kind to me and my family. You are a good man. Thank you for helping us."
After her statement, she burst into new tears, letting her pain flow.
"I'm sorry, Molly. You know I'll try my best to find her," he consoled the weeping Mrs. Weasley.
She protested the profound sense of loss. "That's my only daughter! You have to save her."
Something in the words about saving her reminded Remus of something he had heard earlier, but he didn't remember exactly what it was.
"I will do my absolute best," he said as he took her hand in assurance.
Molly laughed hollowly and questioned him, "Do you know what yesterday was?"
"Yes, I do," Remus answered, thinking again of the deaths of James and Lily sixteen years ago.
"That's right. It was my baby's birthday," Molly said with hardness and irony. "Happy sixteenth birthday, Ginny."
Ginny's birthday! If she was born on Halloween, that could only mean one thing. Remus quickly schooled his features to show nothing, but the number of years matched too closely for him not to ask his next question.
"You said she's sixteen now?"
Molly nodded and daubed her eyes with her handkerchief. "We waited so long for a girl, and we finally got one. It was a difficult birth. I went into labor soon after midnight and was in pains for almost twenty-four hours."
She paused, and he watched with interest. "You would think by the time I had her it would have been easy, but it wasn't. She's a fighter, though."
"When was she actually born?" he asked to satisfy his raging curiosity.
"Ginny was born at 11:23 at night," Molly answered.
So she was born two hours after Lily was murdered. He wasn't sure why he was compelled to know the time of Ginny's birth, but it seemed important for him to know. After satisfying his curiosity, Remus prepared to depart.
"You will know the instant I learn something," he promised Molly before leaving by Floo.
~*~*~*~
While Lupin was busy with Molly Weasley, Alastor Moody and Nymphadora Tonks were busy with their own part of the mission. The pair of Aurors Apparated to the edge of Hogsmeade and walked in slowly, surveying every detail that they could see. They had agreed to go to the edge of the village instead of directly to a Floo in case there were other pieces of information to be found in the terrain.
Moody gruffly warned Tonks before they could get started, "Dora, lass, let me walk ahead. I'd rather not have you trample on any clues."
She might have been annoyed at him because of the implications of his comment, but in the seriousness of the situation, she refrained from argument. It seemed a wise choice as her partner almost immediately took notice of something she hoped could be important.
Moody kneeled closer to the ground to examine the footprints in the dirt. The action reminded Tonks of the stories of the Indian trackers in the American west. While he was not one of those, perhaps his eye could sort out details of the footprints and which ones belonged to whom. It might be possible because she wasn't rightly sure what the extent of his skill with the eye entailed. When his assessment of the footprints was over, he got up and started walking forward.
"Have you spoken with the boy yet?" asked Moody without indicating what he thought he found in the dust. The mystery of "the boy" was immediately solved as both of them knew he was Harry.
"Not yet," Tonks replied softly. When he pointedly said nothing, she quickly replied, "I'll Floo him right away."
Moody nodded in approval of her bending to his subtle manipulation. "A wise idea."
The first place they stopped was the Three Broomsticks because it was a favorite place for the students and a center for gossip. Madam Rosemerta looked up from the bar when they entered, and the witch immediately knew the purpose of their visit. Speculation about Ginny's disappearance had had been buzzing all over the small Wizarding community.
Even knowing the true reason for their visit, the witch grimaced at the sight of Alastor Moody. Madam Rosemerta had never grown to like Moody. It was an after-effect of the time Barty Crouch, Jr., had been impersonating him at Hogwarts. With a reasonable bit of assurance after the fact, she was told that the real Moody would not have acted all that much differently in regards to his eating and drinking habits. Those assurances were not a comfort to her because as a business owner, she preferred to have a spending customer rather than one who drank from his own hip flask while at her establishment.
"Good afternoon, Rosemerta!" Tonks said with a wide smile, trying to create an air of friendliness.
The older witch inclined her head graciously. "Would you be having anything to drink while you're here?"
Before Moody could have the chance to scoff, Tonks redirected the woman. "You know we can't drink anything inappropriate while on official business, but a cup of tea would be lovely. Thank you."
Quickly she placed a steaming cup in front of the Metamorphmagus. Then she asked Moody, "And you?"
He was about to refuse, but Tonks sent him furious looks of warning. She mouthed, "Take it! Take it!"
With a sigh, the Auror said, "Tea." After another sharp look from Tonks he grudgingly though politely amended, "Please. Thank you."
That satisfied Madam Rosemerta, who served them with a much happier demeanor than she had when they walked into her pub.
After finishing her cup, Tonks confided, "I'm sure you know why we are here."
Rosemerta nodded. "I just saw her yesterday. She was here with her friends. It's so hard to believe she was taken."
"Yes, well," Tonks said, looking away from her, "we need your help. Please let me use your Floo to contact Hogwarts. In our rush to get here, I forgot to call them."
Moody noticed that Tonks had the appropriate embarrassed blush as she spoke. He wasn't sure if it was a real blush or the girl perfecting her morphing skills on a deeper level. Either way, it gained Rosemerta's favor, and he approved.
"Of course! It's no trouble at all," she answered while patting the witch's hand.
"Oh, thank you!" Tonks said back to her, looking truly thankful. "While I am doing that, would you please let Moody ask a few questions? I've promised to make him behave," she said conspiratorially.
The other witch laughed. "That's not possible!"
"I think it is. Thank you for letting me use your Floo," she repeated
She was waived off by the bar mistress who addressed Moody. "So what are your questions then?"
Before she left the room, Tonks touched Moody's shoulder. "Be nice," she admonished meaningfully.
With both his eyes he narrowed an indignant look at her and then stepped away to take statements from Rosemerta and the customers in the pub.
~*~*~*~
Tonks walked into the private room behind the bar to use the Floo. She thought it best to talk to one of the students directly in hopes of getting a clear answer to her questions from people who were actually with Ginny instead of asking professors who weren't. Her best bet was Harry, as Moody had reminded her.
When Tonks called Gryffindor tower in hopes of talking with him, however, he was nowhere to be found. Instead, the call was answered by a very shaken Hermione Granger.
"How are you, Hermione?" Tonks asked matter-of-factly.
The girl laughed nervously. "As good as can be expected." After a short pause, she admitted, "I'm not well at all."
Tonks nodded solemnly. "Is Harry there?"
"No!" Hermione shrieked with a rising pitch in her voice.
Immediately alarmed, Tonks asked, "Where is he? What happened?"
"He's with the Headmaster," Hermione said, looking to her side and sighing. "He's been fighting with almost all of Slytherin house. He accused Malfoy of having his father kidnap Ginny. I think Harry broke his nose!"
"I'm sorry," Tonks said, though she didn't indicate if she was sorry for Draco's nose or Harry's anger. As gently as she could, she tried to make Hermione focus. "We want to find Ginny as soon as possible, but to do that you have to tell me what you know."
"I don't know anything! No one does," she confided with wide eyes.
"Think, Hermione!" she encouraged.
"It could be Death Eaters. I read about them in the Daily Prophet, and that seems to be more reliable this time."
"If it's not, and she was taken by someone else, we will live to regret it, but Ginny may not," Tonks said. Then to herself at such a morbid comment, she mumbled, "I've been with Lupin too long."
Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, Tonks started again. "Tell me what you did yesterday, everything to the minutest detail. You don't know what can help us."
Hermione took a deep breath and began to recount the itinerary of everything that happened. She included the trip down to the village with the other students, the separation from the boys to go to the dress shop, and then meeting them again in the Three Broomsticks. She lastly mentioned the time they left the pub and that right before they were completely gone Ginny separated from Harry to go get a surprise of some sort.
"Do you know what she could have been after?" Tonks probed.
Shaking her head, Hermione said, "No. We got everything we needed at Madam Stone's shop, so I couldn't think she'd go back there."
"I'll check there anyway. You never know if she forgot something and went back to find it," the Auror stated softly.
She looked at Hermione more closely after getting the basic interview over, and she could see the great worry that surrounded her. "What is it?" Tonks asked. Maybe talking would help the girl.
"This is… this is different. It's much worse than facing a mountain troll when I was a first year." Hermione swiped at her eyes. Then she spoke so softly Tonks almost didn't hear her. "It's almost worse than Ginny being lost in the Chamber."
Tonks only knew vague rumors of Ginny having been in the Chamber of Secrets. What the Weasleys, or specifically Molly, didn't want to acknowledge, they pretended had simply never happened.
Hermione continued to talk, trying to give a voice to the hurt she was feeling. "Harry and Ron went and got her. Just like that! But now… they can't. Harry's looking for answers, but we don't have any."
"It can't be easy on Harry, not after losing Sirius," Tonks said understandingly. "We will do our best to find her. You have to believe that."
"I do," Hermione said simply with tears running down her face.
Tonks said her goodbyes to the young witch and left Madam Rosemerta's room to relate to Moody all that she had learned during the call.
~*~*~*~
Tonks found Alastor in the corner of the pub speaking with a small wizard. She waited until he finished instead of interrupting him.
"Did you learn anything useful from Potter?" he asked gruffly.
"No. He wasn't there, but I did speak to Hermione Granger. We should go to Stone's Sartorial Sensations," she advised.
Moody nodded to her, and they departed from Madam Rosemerta's pub.
"She and Hermione were dress shopping here yesterday. I know how teenage girls behave, and I think she might have gone to get back for something," she clarified.
"Of course you know. You're still a teenager," he deadpanned as he walked ahead of her in his uneven stride.
"Moody! Did you just make a joke?" she blinked in surprise.
"Of course not," he denied and changed the subject. "I have some other leads after that."
"Good," she said hopefully.
Madam Stone's dress shop was less busy on Saturday than the previous Friday when it was full of students. While there were a few customers, they were subdued adults and not noisy students getting ready for a dance.
Tonks was momentarily distracted by the frilly garments. They were pretty things she'd not likely have an occasion to wear. She just didn't do girly things. While she was looking, though, it was Moody who spoke to the owner.
"Yes, she stopped by yesterday afternoon when the students were leaving," Stone conferred.
The pink-haired Auror sharply inhaled at the new information. This was the missing piece after she'd left her friends.
"What time would that have been?" Moody asked methodically.
When the witch answered, he followed up with the question, "Was she with anyone? Did you see which way she went?"
"The dear left right away, headed back to Hogwarts, no doubt. She'd bought some hair combs for a friend of hers," she supplied.
"Combs?" Tonks questioned. "What kind?"
When the other woman gave the description, Tonks whispered to Moody. "Do you think you and your magical eye would recognize that?" He nodded slightly in confirmation.
They thanked the shop owner for her information and then left to find the trail that Ginny might have taken. They determined that it was the last known place that Ginny had been seen, and logically, after buying her trinkets she would have headed back to the school. From all accounts the girl had been planning on attending the dance. It was the moments after this where her abductors would have made their move.
"If I were Ginny walking back to Hogwarts, where would have I gone from here?" Tonks pondered out loud.
"The most direct way possible," Moody said as he looked at the streets around them and pointed at her potential path.
Tonks looked at the streets that led into the worst part of the village. "Ginny, how could you be so stupid?"
~*~*~*~
The Auror team worked hard to make sure all ground was covered for any signs of the missing Ginny. It included minutia like possible footprints that might have been hers from the previous day to scraps of clothing that caught on nails. The work was exhausting and not necessarily fruitful until Moody held up his hand to pause Tonks on her work.
Alastor's eye turned wildly in his head. He said in a dangerously low voice, "I found something."
"What is it?" Tonks asked in a whispered voice.
"Behind that building. I think I found a comb," he said before both of his blue eyes focused on her.
The pair rounded the corner to find a perfectly formed comb in an alley between buildings and a broken one near it.
Tonks pulled at his arm. "Look there!" Her gesture pointed at a tavern and inn. It was definitely not the same caliber as the Three Broomsticks. It could have even made the Hogshead Inn look innocent by comparison.
"Logical," Moody appraised. "Good."
They went inside the establishment to ask yet another group of people if they knew the whereabouts of the youngest Weasley. By that time, Tonks was feeling a bit touchy, and so was her companion.
He held up a wizard photograph of Ginny to the bartender and customers inside. "Have you seen the girl? She looks like this."
None of the customers had any information to offer, and it wasn't the place where people often spoke freely. When the bartender refused comment, Tonks intruded.
"Alastor, don't bludgeon those people. You're as clumsy with your people skills as I am clumsy with everything else." Not liking to be corrected however rhetorically by Tonks, Moody complained alone to himself.
"I am sure you would help us if there was any way possible," she stated and flashed something metallic on the table before him. "Try to remember! The girl looks like this," Tonks said as she morphed herself into the very visage of Ginny Weasley.
The man pocketed the coin that Tonks had given to him and said, "No, I haven't seen her."
The sneak-o-scope that Moody had did not sound in alarm, so while the man certainly could have been hiding something, it wasn't anything in relation to Ginny.
"Thank you," Tonks said as she reverted back to her more common appearance of short pink spiky hair.
She walked out of the inn and tried to hide the disappointment on her face from Moody who came behind her.
"What next, Alastor?" she asked tiredly.
For many seconds there was silence as he didn't answer. "Let's return to headquarters and see if Lupin has learned anything."
She sighed before signaling her acceptance of his idea. As one, they Apparated away from the wizard village.
~*~*~*~
The Neil Finn quote in this chapter is from "Never Be the Same" by Crowded House on the album Temple of Low Men.
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Elemental Force