Hiding in Plain Sight (A Hinny Fanfiction)

This Ginny, That Ginny

Harry was sitting on a series of steps leading up to the Trevi Fountain watching Ginny with an amused expression on his face. She was standing, holding a black and white photo to her view and turning herself around in a circle. When she nearly toppled into a family of tourists Harry chuckled, then apologized to the family. They thought he was making fun of them.

"Having a good time?" she asked with an upturned corner of her mouth. Harry nodded. "You know, this is important. If we can figure out where Riddle was sitting and in what direction he was looking, maybe we get a clue about these two artifacts."

After they had destroyed the Horcrux in the Shroud of Turin, they explained the basics of the magic they had performed to an emotional Archbishop Santorini. He practically begged them to stay in Turin and demonstrate more. Both Harry and Ginny wanted to. They remembered how fulfilled they are from sharing their love of magic, dating back to Dumbledore's Army, and they could see how their little demonstration had affected the older man. But it simply wasn't possible. Voldemort was waiting.

Both of them had trouble sleeping, expecting another vision of Tom Riddle making another Horcrux, just as they had received of the Shroud earlier in their trip. Perhaps because of that, no such vision came.

They spent one last frustrated morning in Turin plotting their next step and returning to the store from which Ginny emailed Kingsley at the Prime Minister's office. Adding to their despondency, the reply they received simply read "OK".

Regulus had identified two potential Horcrux candidates in Rome. Between that and the picture of Riddle at the world's most famous fountain, they hopped on the next train. Both exhausted travelers fell asleep, nearly missing their station. After another nap at their hotel, they decided to trace the dark wizard's steps while being bombarded by another gorgeous Italian city at sunset.

"Maybe he just wanted some gelato," Harry mused, dipping a small plastic spoon into a dish of mint chocolate chip.

"Speaking of which, gimme some," Ginny demanded as she strode up to him and held her mouth open. Harry held out the spoon and smeared the frozen cream across the top of her nose.

"Prat!"

"Oh, sorry. I'm still fatigued from yesterday. Can't see straight," he said with a grin. Then he leaned forward and cleaned up his "mistake" with a kiss before taking another scoop and holding it out for her. This time she swiped the spoon for herself.

"I don't trust you," she explained, then stuck out her tongue. She walked back and started again inspecting the photo against the backdrop of the square full of people. She took two steps to her left and turned 45 degrees.

"Go up three steps." Already on thin ice. Harry did as he was told. "OK, turn your head in... that direction," she said as she pointed toward a series of balconies aligned with the sun. Harry squinted. Ginny's jaw slackened and she fell to a squatting position. Harry dropped his ice cream and lept to her side.

"l'm fine. It was just a flashback, you know?"

Harry nodded slowly. "Yeah, I do. Want to talk about it?"

She returned to her feet. He took her by the elbow and guided her to his previous seat, avoiding the gathering pool of gelato, before taking the seat next to her with his hand on her knee.

"It was just one of the.. . conversations I had with the diary. I wrote about some time when you ignored me at lunch or something and how sad I was. Tom wrote that not noticing me might be just as evil as a curse. And I agreed with him! We joked that maybe you were a dark wizard, too. How stupid was I, huh?" she asked rhetorically with a shake of her head. Harry reached out and held her face still.