Save Me by JulietteFox16



Summary: Evan Dursley is a mild mannered reporter working for the Daily Prophet. Harry Potter is a legend throughout the wizarding world as a hero, and a mystery since all anyone knows about him is that he shows up when people need help. Not even star reporter for the Daily Prophet Ginny Weasley can tell that they're actually the same person.
Rating: PG-13 starstarstarstar
Categories: Alternate Universe, Post-Hogwarts
Characters: None
Genres: None
Warnings: None
Challenges: None
Series: None
Published: 2008.12.31
Updated: 2009.03.16


Save Me by JulietteFox16
Chapter 2: Dinner and Partners
Author's Notes:

Evan looked up and smiled as he saw who had just entered his new flat. “Well, what do you think Luna? Is it good enough now that I’ve got my stuff in here?”

“Yes. I think there’s even an infestation of nargles in the ceiling,” Luna said with complete seriousness. “You’ll have to let me look into that one of these days, it’ll make for a great story for the Quibbler.”

Evan laughed in response. Luna was always working on something for her father’s magazine. She was one of the best reporters he had ever met and could have easily gotten a job elsewhere but she refused to work anywhere but at the Quibbler. In fact, she was such an avid reporter that she had started a newspaper and made him one of her reporters, which is what had gotten him into journalism in the first place. She was his best friend and influenced so many aspects of his life.

“I don’t know, Lu. I think I like my privacy a bit too much to let you do that. Besides, I only just moved in and I don’t want all your fanatics coming into my new flat. Now, can you continue helping me unpack the kitchen,” Evan told her in a stern tone as he opened a box of pots and pans. “Everyone will be here in a few hours and I want everything to be ready.”

Luna giggled but started to sort out a box of cooking utensils. “Oh, I don’t think you care so much about Ron, Hermione, Fred, or George coming over. I think what you really care about is a certain redhead girl known as Ginny.”

“Luna!” Evan yelled and threw a dish towel in her direction, which she caught, much to his annoyance. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I know I used to fancy Ginny while I was at Hogwarts, but it’s been over a year since I graduated and I’ve hardly seen her at all. I’ve gotten over it. Now pick up the pace, we’ve got three more boxes to do in here, then we just have to set up the common area and we’ll be done with the unpacking.”

“Look, Harry-“ She stopped at Evan’s warning glare. “Sorry, Evan. I know you think you’re over her but the last time you saw her you weren’t and I honestly don’t think you’re ever going to get over her until you find someone else.” Her serious tone and complete lack of dreaminess made Evan stop taking apart the box he had just finished unpacking and turn to look at her. “It’s not something you want to hear, I know, but I think you need to hear it. You didn’t get over Cho until you started to really notice Ginny and I think that’s how you’ll get over Ginny, by finding another girl to obsess over.”

“I do not obsess over her!” Evan cried indignantly.

“Sure, sure. Whatever you say Ev,” Luna said with a wave of her hand and a smirk as she started to put the plates away in the cabinet. “By the way, how’s the Daily Prophet these days? I’ve noticed that they’ve stopped printing those bullshit stories about the Ministry being great and them having contact with ‘Harry Potter’ and all that. It’s printing the truth now, even about the war.”

Evan grinned, he was proud of the way his newspaper was now reporting the news. “There’s a new editor and she’s great! Allison White prints only the truth, or as close to the truth as she can get. After all, there’s still a society column in the paper and not everything in there is really verifiable.” He and Luna laughed at that, well aware of some of the stuff that had been printed in the society column, including the fact that Draco Malfoy had once been dating Hermione Granger (Which was completely untrue because even in sixth year she had been pining after Ron).

The conversation lulled for a moment as the two finished taking apart the boxes that they had finished unpacking and stacked them with the other empty boxes. Once that was finished they continued on into the common area where everything was sitting on the floor, waiting to be arranged. Luna turned to Evan and raised an eyebrow at this.

“You took everything out of the boxes but couldn’t be bothered to put it away?” she asked in a tone that made him blush.

“I was distracted.”

“You were distracted enough to completely forget about all of this in here? Evan, there’s stuff everywhere!” She said in amazement. “How in the name of Merlin do you expect us to finish all of this and still make dinner for the seven of us?”

“My mum made dinner, it’s in the fridge, we just have to heat it up for it to be ready,” he responded defensively, “’sides this won’t take too long.”

She gave him a Look that all women seemed to have mastered (or at least all the competent ones) that made men feel extremely small. “That’s what you think.” She sighed and began to set up all of the pictures in a stack on the floor while Evan started to pick up the cushions and blankets waiting to be put away. “Honestly, didn’t your mother teach you any better?”

“Watch it, Lu, you’re starting to sound like Mione. Pretty soon you won’t even believe in nargles or crumple horned snorkacks,” Evan warned her and she laughed in response. “I’m serious! Next thing you know you’ll be campaigning for SPEW!”

“I think the feezles have been messing with your brain, Evan. Better be careful, you wouldn’t want to infect Ginny, would you?” She laughed until the cushion he threw at her hit her in the face. She stood there in complete surprise while he began laughing until she chucked the cushion back at his head.

“Hey!” he yelled in protest.

She simply smirked and continued to straighten up the room, which between the two of them and their constant distractions took them almost two hours to do so. They’d just finished when Evan glanced up at the clock and saw the time.

“Bloody hell!” he exclaimed, “I’ve got to start heating everything up, they’ll be here in a few minutes! Lu, can you set the table?” he called as he ran into the kitchenette and began to pull covered dishes from the fridge.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got it covered. Besides, you know that only Hermione’s going to be here on time. The entire Weasley clan suffers from chronic lateness syndrome.” Her only answer was Evan’s laughter as she began to set out the flatware.

Only minutes later the flames in the fireplace and Hermione stepped through, brushing off a bit of soot from her jeans. “Mmm, it smells wonderful in here. Did your mother do the cooking, Evan?” She asked as she walked into the kitchenette. “Hello Lu, Evan. This place looks great, I can’t believe what you’ve done with it!”

“Hey, Mione. I thought you were coming here directly from work, what’s with the jeans?” Luna asked as she hugged the older girl.

“Oh, I decided to stop in at home first because those Ministry appropriate robes really aren’t all that comfortable. Besides, I wanted to make sure that Ron didn’t just pass out after practice and be super late tonight.” They all laughed, knowing that Ron often passed out after Quidditch practice. He was the new keeper for the Chudley Cannons and worked hard to do the best he could for his team. “Honestly, that boyfriend of mine! He was asleep, but I woke him and he’ll be along in a few minutes.”

At that moment the twins decided to enter with a loud bang as they flung the door open. “Hey Evan, old chap, how’s it going?” George said as he sprang into the room, followed by his even louder twin.

“Evan, old boy! How nice to see you! When are you coming ‘round the store for that interview you were so keen on?” The three already in the flat looked at each other and burst out laughing, knowing they were meant to be startled by the two bursting in to the flat.

“Honestly, you two. Can’t you tone it down a little? Evan’s neighbors will start complaining,” Hermione scolded them and they did their best to look appropriately chastised, which was actually quite hard for them to do. “One of these days you two will have to grow up a bit.”

The twins looked at each other in horror before looking back at Hermione. “Never!” they shouted in unison before they were each hit upside the head by the girl walking in the door they had left open behind them.

“Oh shut up, the both of you. I could hear you from two floors down,” Ginny told them with a roll of her eyes before dropping her very large purse next to the door and shutting it. “Evan, Hermione! I haven’t seen you two in ages! I can’t understand how you always manage to not be there while I’m at the Prophet, Evan! Our desks are across from each other and I haven’t seen you in almost three weeks!” She announced as she hugged the two of them and Luna.

While Ginny was hugging Hermione, Luna gave Evan a look that said she knew exactly why Ginny never saw Evan and it had nothing to do with having a lot of work to do. “I still can’t believe that Luna managed to turn both you and Evan into reporters. You were always so set on Quidditch and then all of a sudden you were interning at the Daily Prophet and now you’re working there and already making headlines!” Hermione exclaimed while the two girls hugged.

Ginny laughed and turned to hug Luna as well. “Well, we always knew you would work in the ministry, Ron would play Quidditch, and the twins would have their joke shop. Somebody had to be a surprise. Besides, Evan was a born reporter. Somehow he always manages to get somewhere the second Harry Potter shows up. How do you manage it?” she asked in wonderment.

“How does who manage what?” Ron asked as he too appeared from the fireplace. He greeted Hermione with a kiss on the cheek and then turned to his sister and repeated his question.

“We were just talking about our jobs and I was wondering how Evan always knows when Harry Potter is going to appear. Do you have a Potter Radar or something?” she joked and everyone laughed, although Evan’s and Luna’s laughs were a bit forced. Then the timer went off and Evan began to pull the food out of the oven and everyone was too distracted by the wonderful smells of Petunia Dursley’s cooking to care about the unanswered question that Ginny had posed.

PAGEBREAK PAGEBREAK PAGEBREAK PAGEBREAK

Evan walked into the main offices of the Daily Prophet in London the next morning feeling quite content. He even stopped for some coffee along the way, remembering to get an extra for Ginny because if he didn’t then she would just steal his. Entering the lobby he stopped to chat with the security guard for a few moments before continuing up to his office on the 17th floor. Well, not really his office since only the editors got offices, but it was his desk. As he walked into the large room he dodged around the people to get to his desk and wasn’t at all surprised to see Ginny already hard at work at the desk across from his.

Without saying a word he placed her coffee next to her and then sat down at his desk. As he pulled up the article he had begun the day before he remembered once more all the reasons why he was so grateful that the old editor, Robert Benitt, had been replaced with Allison White, who he, and pretty much the rest of the staff at the Daily Prophet, viewed as a godsend. After seeing the archaic ways being used in the offices she had wasted no time in getting computers, magically-enhanced of course, for all those who needed them.

Returning his thoughts to his work he diligently began to correct the mistakes in his article about some new discoveries in the field of healing. It was an interesting topic and much better than all of the tales of death and destruction that flooded the news these days with the war going on. Just as he was putting on the finishing touches he was jolted out of his single-minded focus on his article by a shout from behind him.

“Dursley! Weasley! Get in here now!” He sighed and saved his article before closing it and looking up to find Ginny waiting for him.

“Come on, let’s go see what the chief has in store for us now.” He grinned in response and followed her to the office that was a few desks behind him.

“I still don’t get why you call her that, you know it just annoys her,” Evan said as they walked. “Besides, I think she’s a great editor, much better than Benitt was.”

Ginny rolled her eyes in response. “I call her that cause she is the chief. She dictates everything around here because she’s the editor in chief so I don’t find anything wrong with calling her chief. Other people call her that too.”

“They only call me that because you insist on doing so and it’s catching on.” Evan tried to hide his smile at the frustrated tone in his editor’s voice. “So quit doing it before I fire you.”

Both of them knew this was an empty threat and Ginny rolled her eyes. They stepped into the office to find Allison White standing in front of her desk next to a young man. White, as she was always called because almost everyone was afraid of calling her by her first name, was a small woman. Standing only five feet in height and looking rather delicate she did not give the impression that she was one of the most influential people in Magical Britain. She had just turned 23 and was already in charge of the largest newspaper in the country. Her looks made her seem rather sweet and innocent but underneath that was a mind of steel and a woman who knew exactly what she wanted and how to get it.

After being the assistant editor at the Daily Prophet for three years she had become the editor in chief when the old one had been fired for printing false news and various other misdemeanors the year before. A single mother of a little boy, she never let anything slip by her and treated everyone who worked at the Prophet as her children, even those much older than her.

Evan relaxed when he saw her smiling, her temper could be quite nasty, and continued into the office, shutting the door behind him when White motioned for him to do so. “Dursley, Weasley, I want you to meet Colin Creevey. He’s going to be our new photographer so I want the two of you to show him around and he’ll be your photographer for whenever you two need him. Oh, and I’m making the two of you partners. Now get out of here.”

Ginny wasted no time in protesting this new development and Evan wasn’t quite sure whether or not to be happy about it. “Chief, we don’t need partners! Evan’s worked here for over a year, why does he need a partner now? I’ve already had headliners and I’ve only worked here for two months and I was interning here before that! So why do we need to be partners all of a sudden?”

“Because I said so Weasley, now get back to work.” Ginny opened her mouth to protest some more when an owl zoomed into the room and dropped a piece of parchment into White’s hands. “Bloody hell, there’s a death eater attack in Diagon Alley, you two are covering it! Now get the hell out there and bring Creevey with you!” White didn’t wait for a response and moved to sit back down at her desk while the three of them rushed out of her office, intent on reaching Diagon Alley.

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