Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or anything concerning Harry Potter, I am not making a profit out of this.

Firestarter

Author's Note: Some of you may recognize this story (word for word, I may add). The original name it was posted under is Clear Candles, but certain things like a forgotten password and deleted email address stopped me from being able to access my old account so… I'm reposting with the intention of continuing.

1: Trespassing

Ginny Weasley stared intently at her computer screen. She sat in the middle of technical chaos, in an orange chair. All around her were computer towers, a mess of floppy disks lying in a pile, and burned CDs. She was the computer genius of her family, and probably the only one in the magic world. The room was dark and the only source of light was her alarm clock which read 11:05 pm, and the flat screen plasma monitor before her.

How did computers arrive on the Wizarding World? After the end of the Great War between Voldemort and the boy-who-lived, Muggle technology wormed its way into the Wizarding world, capturing the attention of the many occupants of the magical world. The way computers work fascinated Ginny, and several other people, including her father, to no end, and finally came her hobby of hacking into her brother's easy Dell.

Smiling, she looked to the corkscrew board that was in her plain view and she studied the Daily Prophet's bold, blinking headline of two days ago.

FIRESTARTER: The New Threat.

A computer hacker, alias the name of Firestarter, has become the new terrorist threat of computers in our world, and the Muggle world. The offender destroys the computer's hard drive, making the computer useless and unfixable. No software has been able to stop the hacker, and how the computers are being destroyed is unknown, but the notorious Firestarter leaves a simple message: "Firestarter, Find the Heat of the Core" in front of an animated file of flames and a pair of bright Dragon's eyes. The Ministry is using all technology, but the attacker cannot be traced. We advice everyone to use Malfoy System Protection for temporary safety.

Ginny rocked back and smiled. Everyone she knew was buying Internet security programs, but she always broke through. A few slowed her down but she always managed to worm in their records. She watched at the computer flashed, and the word Processing… appeared, and then she was in. The screen filled itself with several portals, and she quickly got into the Ministry of Magic's records. "Ooh. Let's see. Wow, Harry you're the top Auror for next month, and the month after. Congratulations, buddy." she said her voice dripping with sarcasm. She went through a couple of screens before breaking into Gringotts. She checked every account and the map that had moving dots, people, which were labeled by name, and by vault number. She spied Hermione at Harry's vault, taking fifty galleons.

"Hermione, you thief. I bet that's probably for Harry, right?" Ginny murmured, smiling evilly. Her wrist worked hard as she closed all the windows and she leaned forward, and hesitated before typing. Should I? She wondered, idly.

She hesitated for only another second before she began to type furiously, slithering her way past several systems, and breaking into Malfoy System Protection. It was the largest security system in the Wizarding world. Security and firewall for computers, homes and Gringotts were protected by it. And it was the only system that had ever managed to stop her. Her foot began to jiggle up and down with anticipation, and nervousness. She always expected someone to jump out at her from her closet, and demand why she was breaking into every system she could find. She hit the enter key with a sharp jab and watched the screen.

Accessing….

Processing…/User name not valid: Login Denied.

"Damn," Ginny cursed, but leaned forward clicked twice on a bright red portal, and started typing furiously again, only this time, to Ginny's delight, her screen read:

Correct Password/Login Name

Welcome to Malfoy Bank and Computer Security Systems. Ginny stared at the screen and a wide smile splitting her features. She swiveled her chair and pulled a black, sticker covered binder from under an Apple laptop. It had over one hundred pages of but she had only used fifty, and all they were scribbled with Ginny's messy scrawl that tried to pass for writing, all the places she's hacked into. Her hair brushed the page and she saw that her last entry was: IP Cornelius Fudge, Password: pinstripes.

She gripped the pencil hard and wrote down Malfoy's company, the router, the proxy, and portal and added, 'easy as pie' and without bothering to close it, threw the binder to the floor. She tucked her pencil, a habit she' always wanted to break, in her ear and turned back to the wide screen.

The screen showed over sixty camera angles in sharp images of every turn of that underground vaults of Gringotts and she saw the account number and password of every individual person registered with Malfoy Security. She licked her lips when she leaned forward and bent over her computer and typed an address quickly on her customized Run command. The screen stayed how it was for a couple of seconds before going black and then she entered the very core of the program. She chuckled evilly and leaned back, and watched as the computer analyzed the make up of the program and planted a few minor bugs in its server.

She closed her eyes and let herself fall into the monotone hum and of her computer. Her sudden, loud ring tone of her cell phone that was buried under all her technology jerked her out of her peaceful state and she jolted as if she had just been shocked. Her feet kicked out and connected with a stiff object before every blacked out. She had hit the plug on the wall, and disconnected the cords. She scrambled under the old desk, banging her knees on the floor when she slid down the chair and twisted under her desk, she felt for the main plug while the back-up batteries hummed to life and she slid the cord into its socked and held it there until she heard the beep and, risking a cracked head, she shot upwards, barely avoiding the edge of the desk, she peered over the desk to the screen and froze.

On the screen was a message in omimous red letters, with an exclamation mark flashing in the middle.

Computer has been disconnected. All data will be erased; all programs accessed will be deleted.

"Oh, no, no, no!" she moaned, slid back to her chair and typed furiously, watched everything she typed and prayed that she would have time and at the exact moment when she hit enter, the screen went blank. She held her breath, her heart beating in her ears. Oh man, Ginny thought, it said all programs will be erased; my signature always comes automatically, that means that Malfoy has no data. NO DATA. No data means, no security, no security means, anyone can access anyone's vault, if anyone can do that, then… Ginny stared at the screen and let head fall when a clean desktop appeared in front of her as of the computer was never touched.

"Ah, piece of shit." she cursed and leaned forward and proceeded to do clean up her main computer. The computer was wiped clean of any data whatsoever, so she leaned back her head hanging over the chair.

"Well, Ginny. You've done it this time." She muttered.

"Mr. Malfoy! Welcome, are you ready for the presentation?" A burly man, with brown hair, Jack Salmon, shook hands with Draco Malfoy, as he smiled and nodded.

"Yes, Jack, has there been any progress on the Firestarter?" he asked leaning closer to the man, who shook his head.

"We've tried to track down by IP, by hardware purchase, but nothing. All we came up with that Ginevra Weasley purchased over fifteen towers. Just two computer screens, eighteen towers, sixty-four of the fastest processors, and a lot of media accessories; we couldn't really put her on the look out list because owns her own online and actual shop and people usually buy that amount of equipment when they own a shop."

Draco nodded. He had been to the Ginny's shop. His mother loved it. Ginny's shop was purely based on vintage clothing and accessories. She had expanded it, recently, to be a bookstore that rivaled the very famous Flourish and Blott's and Borders, as well as a coffee shop.

He had seen the weasel in the back of shop when he was purchasing a gift for his mother. She had been sitting in a bright purple chair, her feet propped on the counter, concentration written all over her features. When he had ventured closer, her eyes had flicked to him, then back to her iBook without a second glance or trace of recognition. He remembered she had worn a bright, disgustingly pink, silk button up top that clashed horribly with her hair but didn't look so bad on her body, and a black pinstriped skirt. She had been shoeless.

He also remembered that she was beautiful; her skin glowing in the light on the screen, and she the tilt of her head was fascinating as she shook her mane of red hair.

"I'll see you after the meeting," he said to Jack as he walked into the boardroom, carrying his laptop.

For a moment he lost his nerve in front of the ten people from the biggest security company in the world. He nodded pleasantly, and he hoped they would buy his program so he can finally retire and live at home. He broke out into a friendly smile and opened the laptop. He made it face the ten executives and broke out into a speech.

"Since the fall of the Dark Lord, we have found ourselves flooded with Muggle technology, good technology, we have had many improvements, but there made ah… snags. One is the Firestarter. Though their identity has been rather hard to discover, they have proved to be very strong and very talented in the computer technology, and although Malfoy Security has slowed the individual down, we, all of England, need the protection of In-Lab Security, and tracking systems. Our programs, as you can see-." he stopped, bile building in his throat. He glanced up and quickly back down when he saw the confused looks in the eyes of the executives, and stared down at the screen. Not possible, was his first thought.

His skin froze cold as his hope to finally sell Malfoy Security and no longer deal with it fell away. The screen was white and, as if it was almost real, the "page" burned away and in bold red letters, there was one word. Firestarter.

"You-," someone began.

"I'd like to re-schedule the meeting." Draco said, snapped his laptop shut and walked out of the room as fast as his legs, which seemed to have turned to lead, would take him. His stomach had just turned to stone and he swallowed the bile that had just climbed up his throat.

"What-?" Jack asked, but the pale look on Draco's face just answered his question. He felt a cold chill come over him as they both walked into Draco's office.

"The Firestarter is going to regret ever taking his first breath." Draco growled when Jack tried to pull up the main core of the System but just saw a tiny, burning animated flame that grew every second. Jack grew pale as he logged into every account and only saw a burning flame on every empty file.

"We- do we have back-up files?" Jack asked weakly and kept trying.

"No. We emptied out most of the files when they were taking up too much space. I don't what we did with them." No Malfoy Security, meant no program, that meant, no people wanting the best Security, that meant no money, that meant his company would be gone, and then meant that his was going bankrupt. For a very long second, he panicked, and closed his eyes.

"We still have the programs, we can recreated them out them." Draco said, jumping up, a tiny glimmer of hope in a dark tunnel. A plan was already being hatched inside his mind. He could report to the executives. No- he could warn them about this fiend that was able to break though Malfoy's very own firewalls.

"Draco, that could take months!" Jack said, but Draco wasn't paying attention. His face was drawn and the look in his eyes meant that Jack was going to have to stay up a lot for the next couple of months.

"Listen, Malfoy Security is every thing in these boxes, that's all it is, programs, and if we can blend them together, fill in some blanks from the original files we can recreate it." Draco calculated. "We would need to communicate with the executives that the Firestarter's not to be ah… underestimated."

Jack looked slightly doubtful but he could do it. Draco had already walked out of the office, hearing all the cries of confusion when every time one of his workers tried to log in, but found a burning flame. He sat on a bench outside his office building in Diagon Alley, with his head in his hands; he just couldn't help but to think. His foundation was gone, and it had to be re-created by scraps of what programs they had developed.

Unbeknownst to him, Ginny was walking to his office, clutching the strap of a messenger bag. In just the few seconds that Ginny Weasley kicked the power cord and destroyed Draco's company. How ironic.

Ginny was beyond nervous as she got closer to the old building that held Draco's company. She stopped when she saw Draco, sitting on the pretty concrete bench, his head in his hands. She subconsciously, started to turn around and head back home. She knew they couldn't find her, they'd have a contingency plan to recreate the software, but she was responsible. She squared her shoulders. It was either a win-win situation, or a lose-lose situation. She knew which one she preferred.

"Malfoy?" A small voice made him lift his head out of his hands. His eyes stayed carefully blank as he recognized her.

"I- Um. I have to talk to you." She stuttered. When he didn't move she swallowed. What if they already knew? "Its about your … company." Or what's left of it, she thought grimly. His eyes flashed, and she was tempted to take a step back.

Your mess, Ginny.