บท 364: Camping at the Edge of the World

"What's this supposed to mean?" Daphne said, looking questioningly at Ginny. She shook the slip of paper that the other girl had just handed her. "This little piece of parchment is what that Auror wanted you to take from his pocket? How can we be sure this isn't a trap?"

The Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, London.

"Because," Ginny explained, "that Auror's name is Kingsley Shacklebolt, and he's on Dumbledore's side. I'm guessing that Dumbledore probably foresaw that something like this would happen during his trial, so he must have found a way to communicate to Kingsley some sort of plan to free us during transport."

"Then why did you have us fight all those Aurors!?" Daphne asked in dismay.

Ginny's eyes grew dull for a moment, as she gazed into the vast emptiness of the Scottish countryside. The despair of being trapped in darkness for years, with no end in sight… It was enough to render anyone mad. If there was any chance that her freedom would be restricted again…

Never again.

"I just don't like being stuck in one place for too long, is all," Ginny said monotonously. "I don't suspect anyone does, but what's done is done."

The pair continued walking in silence for a few minutes. The village of Hogsmeade was beginning to fade into the distance as they continued making their way southwards, through a fen.

"I don't know about you," Ginny said after a while, "but I'll need some provisions for the journey to London. I'm going to pop into a nearby Muggle town to buy some supplies. You know the location of the headquarters now, so you could go to London without me, but I wouldn't recommend it."

Daphne shook her head; she wouldn't leave Ginny, since there was strength in numbers. Nevertheless, she was still slightly unsettled by how nonchalant her partner in crime was being about this whole situation. Ginny was younger than her by a year, but she didn't even seem to care that they were currently public enemy numbers two and three!

(Sirius Black was still Undesirable No. 1.)

"Will you be long?" she asked. "Where exactly will you be going, in case I need to go look for you?"

"Stirling, which is nearabout Hogsmeade… give or take a hundred miles," said Ginny vaguely. "It's not a walkable distance."

Their final destination would be London, not Stirling, but there were a few reasons why the two girls weren't going there directly via Apparition or Tree-Portation:

Apparition was a no-go because Ginny was only fourteen; at her age, it was already considered extremely impressive to even be capable of using Side-Along Apparition to travel more than a few dozen miles, while dragging along a passenger. (It was also illegal to Apparate without a licence, but that was beside the point.) Disapparating in Scotland and Apparating in London would require traveling the entire length of the island of Great Britain, which was an immense distance. Only the most powerful of Wizards would even dare to attempt such a feat in one leap.

On the other hand, a properly prepared Tree-Portation Galdr would be powerful enough to cover such a distance, but the real problem was Daphne's Trace. If she tried to use magic outside of Hogwarts, the Ministry would immediately be made aware of her location, and they would be surrounded by Aurors upon their arrival.

Which was why Ginny had had no choice but to Apparate to Hogsmeade first, instead of in the middle of nowhere. Since the Trace wouldn't alert the Ministry of underage magic as long as an adult Wizard was nearby, Ginny was forced to choose the village full of adult Wizards and Witches as her first destination, in order to avoid getting swarmed.

If the Aurors were smart, or if they figured out that she could Disapparate, they would realize this sooner than later, which meant that they would probably be arriving in Hogsmeade any minute now.

Which reminded her…

"Right, I nearly forgot," Ginny said hurriedly. "Daphne, don't forget that you mustn't use magic under any circumstance. You've still got the Trace on you, so you'd immediately be found. Don't accept any letters from owls you don't recognize while I'm gone, either."

Daphne was growing more and more suspicious about Ginny. When the red-headed girl had been in her second year, she'd already been much stronger than most of the people Daphne had ever met. And now, she was basically telling her that she could defeat the Ministry's ultimate tracking magic…

She then watched as the younger girl walked about thirty feet away from her, before Disapparating without even making a popping sound. This told her two things:

The first was that Ginny had perfectly mastered Disapparition.

The second was that Ginny had found a way suppress her own Trace's tracking, but that she was unable to do the same for another person; which was why she had moved away from Daphne, before using her magic.

Ginny could block her own Trace, but if she used magic near Daphne, she would still end up triggering the other girl's Trace, since they were both underage!

================================================================

Ginny's first stop would not be at any of Stirling's fine Sainsbury's. And it wasn't because the entire Weasley family had received a lifetime ban from Sainsbury's after Arthur Weasley's first and last unfortunate attempt at grocery shopping at their local Muggle grocery store in Ottery St Catchpole.

No, she would be going grocery shopping later! She had no idea if getting banned at one of the store's locations would get her recognized at any of the other branches, so it would have to be a Tesco's, just to be on the safe side.

But for now, Ginny had other plans in mind: she first Apparated to her one and only subordinate's hiding place. Unfortunately for her, she found that her underling wasn't currently at home, so she simply left a gift on his desk: the Horcrux that she had managed to unearth from the Room of Requirement, along with a short, handwritten note that explained how to make use of it.

Hopefully, the idiot would get parasitized by the soul in the diadem, and then she'd be able to test if he could resist the main body's control, and if she'd be able to control him, even with part of Voldemort inside of him. There was no way of knowing without experimentation, and Ginny absolutely needed to know if Horcruxes that had more soul volume in them than the original could effectively rebel, in order to guide her future decisions…