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Author: Mangykneazle Story: There and Back Again Lane Rating: Teens Setting: AU Status: WIP Warning: Language Reviews: 3 Words: 87,756
A/N: Especial thanks to my tireless beta, Happydog, for suffering through my many mistakes, long-windedness, and other painful foibles. Any remaining errors are, needless to say, mine. ~~~***~~~ If it were done when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well It were done quickly. If th’ assassination Could trammel up the consequence, and catch, With his surcease, success; that but this blow Might be the be-all and end-all - here, But here, upon this bank and shoal of time, we’d jump the life to come. --William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act I, scene vii ~~~***~~~ Haseltoun-under-Calton-Hill, Edinburgh ---(Ginny’s POV)--- We are drenched to the bone but laughter warms us, as does Tonks’s glowering. The roads begin to fill with all manner of wizarding folk and creatures. As the crowds bustle onto the roads we receive sneers from those who jostle our sodden persons. Resigned to the chastisement of the more fortunate townsfolk, my boss merely shakes her head while Harry and I grumble at their cheek. Honestly, if one doesn’t want to risk getting a little moist from people in damp clothes, one should learn to walk with greater care. All very simple. One set of people has no objection to our soggy apparel. Female selkies, with their deep black within black eyes, gaze longingly at Harry. Jealously, protectively, I wrap my arms around his torso and pull him closer to me, the pair of us still trembling with good humour. At least his legs are working now. With a finger to my chin, he guides me to face him. His gaze is loving, sweet, and a little conceited upon realising the reason for my rib-breaking hold on him, though that last emotion is tempered by a gentle yet chiding grin informing me I needn’t worry so. Noting his attention to me and his polite but firm dismissal of their interest in him, the sea-maidens turn their attentions to other, more pliant young men. Unfortunately for the poor lasses, the men of Haseltoun are well-accustomed to selkie ways, as Tonks and I are to the male of the species. My revenge comes soon enough as the seal-men notice Tonks and I emerging from the throngs, their avid eyes and lecherous leers following us as we wind our way down the road. Harry’s arm swiftly snakes around my shoulders, returning my tight, possessive embrace while he glares menacingly as the contenders for my affections. They laugh sardonically, feigning indifference as they melt back into the crowds. It’s strangely comforting that I can still make him jealous. Seeking to distract him from the mad notion I’d leave the lad I’d fancied since I was ten – though admittedly he doesn’t know that – for a one-off with a selkie, I pinch his bum. He yelps and jumps in surprise before peering at the cause of his distress. Shame at his behaviour and astonishment at mine combine on his face as I affect the model of perfect innocence, all fluttering eyelids and beatific smile. Distracted by the brilliance of my own act, I fail to notice his arm has slid down my back until he grabs my bum for a quick squeeze for the second time in as many days. The dirty old man has the temerity to look bewildered as I gasp and start forward in shock. When I glare at him, however, he can’t stifle a guffaw, earning him a glare from Tonks that I return with an out-thrust tongue. So much for keeping a low profile. Harry gawks with wonder at the multitudes that have joined us on the pavement. Desperately, he tries not to be so obvious but curiosity and awe have taken hold of his senses. As we career down Gramash Road, even I’m astonished by the variety of people on the roads. Young runners prang into us as they skitter along running errands for merchants and artisans, sporadically jabbing us with their elbows and parcels, sometimes with an apology but more often not. A glower here and there leads the pickpockets to avoid us and seek easier marks. Mums hold onto their young children and the shopping while dads scamper after the more mischievous sprogs. The eminent couples in brocaded robes trail well-groomed crups on dragonhide leads that nip at the runners and the occasional beggars as they scurry into the few available nooks and crannies provided by shops abandoned since the War. For their inconvenience, the indigents might receive a few knuts, though generally admonishments are more forthcoming. There is, of course, a lighter albeit more debauched side to life in Haseltoun. Labourers, artisans, and apprentices of both sexes cheerfully and colourfully abuse passers-by with inventive insults and lewd invitations. Young women shopping with their parents behave modestly, blushing as if scandalised, although a few look back should the caller prove handsome. When accompanied by their friends and co-conspirators, they might embark on casual flirtation while casting a wary eye for parents or like-minded elders. For their part, young men dispense with the charade of manners and either sneer or leer in accordance with their desires, only to receive a slap from mum or a cuff from dad. Within packs of their mates, they might reply with their own sly suggestions. Or they might simply be prodded forward with a well-timed shove. Rarely did anything result from these forays, but the threat something would is enough to keep the local plod busy. A gently squeezed hand provides a comforting break from the routine of gauging the threat posed the denizens as we pass through them. Harry has opened his mouth to speak, but the words refuse to issue forth. His brow creases with frustration as I note the black shape of the Millies’ tower emerging over the buildings opposite site. When he turns to ask his question, he notes the determined look on my face and joins me in observing the centre of our potential opposition. Peering up the road, I see Tonks signalling me to follow her into a shop. Wondering what my boss is planning, I tug Harry along. Buggering hell, I can’t afford this! ‘Lakshmi Prem, Clothier and Laundress,’ the sign declares above the shop windows. The toast of local society, especially after the War, with her ability to resurrect the most tattered rags and restore damaged robes to pristine condition. Her own selection of robes, dresses and other garments would make Madam Malkin reconsider her career as a clothier. A Scottish wizarding institution since 1953, the Prem family secured a place of honour in the hearts of those with the galleons to afford their services, which leaves me definitively off her list of customers. Harry acknowledges my slumped shoulders by pulling me closer to question me. When I don’t answer, he sighs in frustration realising from my expression that this is one of those times pressing me for a reply will only turn my anger in his direction. Yet when we enter the shop, I’m gobsmacked. Tonks is arguing with one of Madam Prem’s daughters, or grand-daughters, about food. ‘You said you’d bring back four pounds of Brie when you returned from France,’ Miss Prem bellows in a heavy Glaswegian accent. ‘But you bring us only two…’ ‘You know how the Department for International Magical Co-operation is about cheese,’ Tonks interrupts in a pleading tone. ‘And no bloody baguettes!’ Miss Prem continues. ‘You knew we couldn’t make those sandwiches without the right bread and cheese. We were the laughing stock of Haseltoun for a good week after that party!’ ‘I told you that prat…’ ‘I don’t want to hear any more bloody excuses! It’s bad enough you make us look like fools in public, but you still can’t even brew a proper pot of tea even after I’ve spent three bleeding months trying to teach you to cook!’ Miss Prem has graduated to screaming now. ‘How will you ever get a decent man if you can’t cook!’ ‘Er, I did.’ With that interruption their eyes swiftly shift to me. A modest lie. Tonks’s posture exudes utter and undying gratitude for the brief respite from the castigator’s tongue while Miss Prem casts me a scathing look of sheer disgust. But only for a moment. ‘Ginny Weasley?’ Oh bugger. ‘My word it’s pleasure to see you in our shop!’ she declares, bouncing over gleefully. ‘And who’s this charming man?’ Double bugger, we forgot to name him. At least Tonks is panicking with me… ‘David Southam,’ Harry swiftly replies holding out his hand. How did he come up with that name so quickly? Gingerly, she accepts the proffered hand, which the cad next to me summarily kisses. I cast a sidelong glower that seems to have no effect, until he wraps an arm tightly round my waist. ‘And to whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?’ If I didn’t know his intonations better, I’d say he was flirting with her. My scowl deepens, but she’s taken in completely. No sex for a week, I swear by all that’s holy, even if I have to drown myself in cold showers to ensure it… ‘Sunita Prem.’ Her smile is perfect. She’s beautiful, rich, and probably fairly pleasant if you’re on her good side. Bugger abstinence, I’ll kill him just for enjoying this so much. Tonks, witnessing my temper mount and Harry’s apparent obliviousness to his impending distress, politely coughs to regain Sunita’s attention, though it takes a while for Miss Prem to detach herself from his smile. Once she turns to face my boss and I ready myself to quietly berate the cretin next to me, the little bugger tickles me. My shriek unpleasantly brings me back to the two women’s attention. He’s pure evil... ‘Do you have mice?’ Harry asks innocently, seeking the immaculate, well-polished pine floor for possible rodents. The comment catches me in mid-snarl. When I look up, Tonks mirrors my gape-mouthed perplexity. ‘Never!’ Sunita avers. ‘Miss Bennett there,’ pointing proudly to a slightly obese grey kneazle raising her head to acknowledge her name with the look of permanent hunger and boredom engrained on her face, ‘ensures that.’ Harry humbly apologises for his mistake, rakishly running a hand through his cutely ruffled hair, though not without making the glaring error of saying Ms rather than Miss Prem. ‘A Muggle, Miss Weasley, here in Haseltoun?’ Sunita is terrified, her doe eyes expanding with worry, fearing the immediate appearance of Ministry ordinances for breaking the Statute of Secrecy punishable by the possible requisition of the shop. But none come. ‘Muggle-born, Miss Prem,’ I assure her, smiling as I punch Harry hard on the arm. Tonks is barely able to contain a bout of laughter as her hair turns a violent shade of crimson while he rubs the sore spot. ‘Some habits are harder to break than others.’ It’s sheer pleasure to see Harry scowl back at me. ‘Men will always be boys,’ Sunita sneers profoundly before rounding on Tonks once more. Harry, recognising it’s three against one, quickly finds a chair and stays quiet, albeit not without glaring at me in mock supercilious disgust. Realising I’ve been dismissed as well, I drift toward him. His regard is inquisitive but puzzled. I decide to pre-empt his questions with a simple one of my own. ‘Whence did you get that name?’ ‘Bloke I knew at University. Bit of a prat, really.’ He smirks then fixes me with an anxious stare, patting the space beside him for me to sit. ‘Ginny,’ he begins, taking my hand in his as he admires the floor, ‘why were those four men after us?’ Why ask a simple question, Mr Potter? ‘I don’t know.’ I look directly into his eyes to prove my honesty. ‘I think they were just sent to observe m–, er, us.’ Shit. ‘Why you, not us?’ Time again for the Muggle plaster solution. ‘You remember that Tonks didn’t recognise you until you announced yourself?’ ‘Is it part of the reason I can’t remember my past?’ Why couldn’t he be thick like Ron? Then again, there were a number of times I suspected my brother’s dimness was merely a ruse... ‘The effects are connected.’ ‘Bloody hell,’ he huffs. ‘Could this get more confusing?’ ‘Unfortunately, yes.’ I hug him tightly, thinking mistakenly that’s his last question. Instead, he uses my proximity against me. ‘Were the same people responsible?’ ‘No.’ Please don’t ask, please don’t ask... He must have sensed me tensing as he takes another route, asking about the spell itself. Since it’s a technical question and one on which I’m not altogether clear, my reluctance vanishes. I explain in general terms what’s involved in memory modification. As expected, his face darkens as I describe the effects of Memory Charms. ‘It’s like sodding 1984,’ he growls. ‘Doubleplusgood memories brought to you by the Thought Police.’ My face furrows in bafflement as I try to understand what he’s going on about. His muscles tense as he struggles with the temptation to pace about. Eventually, he settles for pulling away from me. He frowns in suspicion, leading me to wonder how much he truly trusts me. ‘What was I, some dissident or something?’ Shit shit shit. I so want to tell him, but like as not the truth would make him doubt me more. ‘Not at all...’ ‘If this Ministry is sending people after you because somebody deduces I’m with you, that someone must have been involved in erasing my past.’ He’s still on safe territory; a healthy distrust of the Ministry’s motives is warranted and advisable. ‘That someone tried to have you killed.’ At least that gives me one reason why he still believes me. ‘And it’s altogether possible he or she might want me dead...’ His voice falters as he blanches realising the precariousness of his position. ‘Why was it so important that people couldn’t recognise me?’ Well, Harry, you were the saviour of the wizarding world, a veritable St George slaying the dragon to secure the safety of Great Britain and Ireland, if not the world, an English St Patrick sending some scrawny, weedy snake-man off this mortal coil. Would he believe me? I wouldn’t in his place. You were a celebrity in our world, girls and young women fell at your feet as you stammered through blushing introductions, ducked demands for interviews as they rained down in torrents, your every deed became the subject of gossip. Even better, dearie… If you thought people were trying to kill you now, well, five years ago… If I dig myself a hole deep enough I’ll be cavorting with wallabies. Observing that my lip’s about to gush blood, Harry changes tack. His face scrunches painfully as he considers the next question. ‘But how did they know you’re living with me?’ I’d pondered that myself and admit as much. ‘You didn’t tell anybody, did you?’ ‘Only Hermione.’ Oh bugger. She wouldn’t have knowingly told anyone, but Perkins might have had someone keep her under close observation to make sure no one else ever learned of Harry’s survival and Obliviation. ‘But she wouldn’t...’ ‘Never,’ I state unequivocally. ‘At least not intentionally.’ OK, not so unequivocally… ‘Nineteen-bloody-eighty-four,’ he grunts. ‘What’s the fascination about that year?’ ‘It’s a book by George Orwell about totalitarian government, specifically Stalinist Russia,’ he mutters. That explains ever so much. He sees my quizzical gaze. ‘Stalin was a nasty brute of a man who ordered the deaths of millions, sometimes on the merest suspicion of dissent, occasionally for no reason at all.’ He embraces me as the horror of his words overwhelms me. ‘Sort of like your Tom.’ In shock, I pull away violently and fall with a loud thump onto the floor. Tonks and Sunita stare in our direction in mid-haggle. Noting my situation and assuming the worst, they move towards me but I wave them off. Except for a slightly raised eyebrow, Harry’s face is entirely blank, which only terrifies me more. ‘Who is he exactly?’ He cautiously moves to sit next to me on the floor, yet fixes me with an inquisitorial stare. I can’t answer that. It’s probably the weakest point in his treatment, the one most likely to cause a relapse if not discussed in a careful manner or without sufficient preparation. But I can’t just leave him begging for an answer either. Time for the Janet and John bit. ‘He’s like that Stalin you mentioned,’ I babble, ‘seriously evil.’ ‘I’m aware of that, but who is, was, he?’ So he knows Tom’s dead. ‘Why did I kill him?’ he hisses, gazing towards the other two to see whether they were eavesdropping. ‘I want to tell you,’ I plead, ‘really I do, but I can’t.’ His face becomes blank again as he shakes his head. ‘Why?’ A direct answer playing on his desire to avoid unnecessary pain comes to mind. ‘Do you want another migraine?’ ‘Good point,’ he says smirking, helping me back onto the chair. But he hasn’t finished with his questions. ‘So, why did you back away from me on the bed this morning?’ ‘Same reason,’ I grin. ‘Not entirely.’ Is he a Legilimens? Should I risk a relapse or wait until Hermione discovers a way to restore his memory so he can dispel her sodding Fidelius charm? Who knows; being the clever bugger she believes herself to be, perhaps she engineered the means of removing the charm without requiring the secret-keeper’s involvement. Sod it. ‘For a second, Harry,’ I whisper, ‘you reminded me of him, as well.’ ‘How?’ It’s amazing that a simple one-word question can require volumes to explain. I can see Tom emerging from that diary, his eyes burning with undisguised malevolence, a ravisher’s glare, dissecting me to glean what would give me the greatest pain and him the most pleasure, his black hair similarly unruly and jaw tensing with rage. Harry’s rants in my fourth year were no less explosive, and were only less cruel because of his inexperience. Yet I had coped with outbursts from Lord High-Bastard himself; Harry’s tantrums were comparatively easy to control. I go for a quelling look, but it’s half-hearted. He won’t be dissuaded. ‘What did he do to you?’ He places my hands in his as he searches for my eyes. But I can’t bear to tell him. Not yet. So I make my own inquiry. ‘What do you have against Tonks?’ He becomes fascinated with a mirror angled to offer a view of passers-by. I nudge his leg with a knee seeking some sort of response but he’s as stubborn as me. ‘It’s difficult getting used to someone who can change their appearance as easily as that,’ he finally mutters. Now who’s speaking in half-truths. ‘I trust her, Harry.’ ‘I know you do, Ginny,’ he replies, ‘but you’ve known her longer.’ I can’t hide my disappointment with that comment, discerning there’s something else. ‘You’re suspicious of our robes, aren’t you?’ He nods. ‘What did you see in your dream?’ A chill runs through me as he relates his duel with Tom the night of the third Triwizard task. Harry had told me the story before, but the unreality of the situation to him now makes its retelling much more terrifying. The images hordes of men in black robes roaming cemeteries in the wee hours, led by that gangly serpent-faced git with delusions of godhood, are so clear in my mind now I’m back at the last battle, the sights, smells, and sounds threatening to crush me. Yet he’s there as well. I hear of his last few conscious moments as a citizen of our world, of the final battle with Voldemort. ‘An Empathy Charm?’ I murmur. They never expected him to survive. The bastards led him forward, the proverbial lamb to the slaughter, to fight and lose to Tom so Voldemort would be human enough for them to finally kill. Who in the Order knew about this? Did Hermione and Ron know? Harry certainly did. ‘You bastard…’ I mumble as the grief I’d suffered all those years ago resurfaces, transfiguring swiftly to fury. ‘You fucking bastard!’ Harry’s horrified as I shove him brutally from the chair. At the back of my mind, I know my Harry is ignorant of that suicide plot, but that voice is drowned out by the blood pumping through my ears. Distantly, Tonks and Sunita are coming to investigate the cause of this latest explosion, Miss Prem reproving me for swearing in her shop. Faintly, I feel my face burning, evaporating the tears slowly streaming down my cheeks. Advancing towards him, I cock my fist threateningly. He scrambles to his feet to gain some space to appease my rage. ‘You told me none of this! You knew you were going to die!’ Buggering shit! ~~~***~~~ ---(Harry’s POV)--- That explains a few things, but leaves me with a host of new questions. Her hand latches to her mouth, her legs mechanically but inefficiently treading backward, missing a step causing her to stumble. I’m caught between guilt-laden uncertainty and the desperate need to learn more. Noting Tonks and Ms Prem advance in our direction with a sidelong glance, I ready myself for the inevitable accusations unwilling for them to stop me from making my own. Ms, Miss Prem, gawps open-mouthed between Ginny and me. Sunita’s glances in my direction seem to foretell me rampaging through her lovely boutique feasting on, or at least biting everyone in sight. Towards Ginny, one witnesses the threat of scandal in her furrowed brow, the hatred brought by righteous indignation against the immoral and unclean finds evidence in the burning glare, while her otherwise gentle jaw looks fit to tear my beloved to pieces. Tonks, on the other hand, is ashamed and appears apologetic. She tries to restrain Sunita with little success. Mind, I doubt it would be very on to cause physical harm to someone from whom we were seeking assistance. Growling and scowling, I set myself in front of Ginny, who’s uncharacteristically wimpering against the wall. I take my best hard man pose – legs apart, head cocked nonchalantly to one side, arms at the ready – and stare Miss Prem down. ‘Leave her be,’ I grunt. ‘Leave my shop,’ she retorts with equal menace, pulling out her wand. I bluff. ‘Don’t you remember who you have in this boutique? Toss her out,’ motioning towards Ginny with a nod, ‘and see how society reacts.’ Miss Prem stands firm. Her eyes squint as she considers my threat. ‘Think of what you’ll have to gain by helping her,’ speculating wildly to improve our bargaining position. Tonks seems even more nervous. ‘Such as?’ A name overheard from Tonks and Ginny’s conversations comes to mind. ‘Perkins.’ Tonks slumps in what I hope is relief, an assumption I’m glad to find is correct. ‘How?’ ‘Plans within plans,’ I intone. ‘The less you know, Miss Prem, the better. You know how Perkins is.’ Is Perkins a man or a woman? Let’s hope she doesn’t ask, eh? Sunita grimaces in recognition, before ordering me from the store. Tonks assures me she will look after Ginny while I’m gone. I peer at my fiancée but she’s determinedly looking outside through the shop window from her seat against the wall. Her eyes are red from crying and a quivering hand is still clamped over her mouth. It takes all my willpower, and a guiding arm from Tonks, not to comfort her and leave the clothier’s quietly. With the familiar tap on the head to alter my appearance once more and an admonishment not to stray too far, I depart only to turn immediately towards the window to catch Ginny’s attention. But Tonks is kneeling in front of her, distracting her. Meddlesome... I know I shouldn’t be so harsh to Tonks. She’s only trying to help and none of this is really her fault. Unfortunately, she has as much success in pacifying Ginny as I did. Through clenched teeth, Ginny appears to tell her boss off, springing away. Tonks looks shattered and appalled, frowning as she sees me through the window. Somehow, I manage a sympathetic smile that she thankfully returns. This brief moment of reconciliation ends abruptly as Ginny herself barrels through the door, charging up to me, her face contorting under the influence of a welter of emotions. ‘Don’t say anything,’ she utters still not daring to look at me, ‘not here.’ Her hand grabs my cloak as she leads me like a recalcitrant primary school student through the shop into the back room, ignoring Tonks’s half-hearted pleas and Sunita’s shouted warnings. A few muttered words unlock the store-room door then lock it behind us, upon which Ginny finally releases me. ‘I’m so sorry, Harry,’ she tells the polished pine once the banging on the other side of the door ceases. Her back is to me so all I see is scraggly brown hair and hunched shoulders. Surprisingly, that’s what annoying me most at the moment. ‘Can we get rid of these bloody disguises for a second?’ When she faces me, I can’t tell whether she’s relieved or disappointed by my request. She complies none the less. Back to red hair, brown eyes, and re-emerging freckles, a face I know better than my own. ‘Right,’ which seems like the right thing to say, ‘right. So, I died.’ ‘R-right,’ she mutters. ‘At least, I thought you did.’ I’m tempted to tell her to look at me instead of her hands and the shelves, but this situation is tenuous enough as it is. ‘So, my time in hospital was when...’ I trail off prompting her to continue the story. ‘...Your memory was modified,’ she eventually replies. ‘So.’ I note the monotone creeping into my voice to cover my exasperation. ‘Will you look at me, please?’ She’s gnawing on her lip for sustenance, her eyes are drowning in unshed tears. I take her in a squelching embrace before she loses that lovely lower lip. She sobs briefly as she firmly clutches the front of my robes, wringing the rain from them. I hold her closer to me. ‘Some bloody Auror I am,’ I hear her mumble into my shoulder. ‘Well, you took care of those other three well enough,’ I answer supportively. ‘I did, didn’t I,’ she admits with a chuckle. ‘Three-nil’s a decent result,’ I add. ‘A hat-trick, even.’ She becomes sombre again. What have I done wrong now? ‘You won’t interfere next time, will you,’ she asks. Remembering the lectures she gave me on Clerk Street and at the Tron Kirk, I nod and swear I won’t. ‘You said I knew I was going to die.’ ‘Er, yeah.’ I feel her tensing for impact. ‘Why?’ ‘I recognised the spell you used against him,’ she says, spitting the last word. ‘It’s not a combat spell, but a very old one, almost forgotten. Long ago, it was cast by couples about to be married to ensure they were compatible.’ She relaxes a little, her arms falling to circle my waist. ‘Doesn’t sound that dangerous at all.’ ‘It was if you found out your intended was marrying you for ulterior motives,’ she scoffs. ‘The charm’s use was outlawed in 1851 after a spectacularly brutal engagement party that left six dead, eight gravely injured, and a further five permanent residents at St Mungo’s.’ Seeing my confusion, she continues. ‘It’s our largest hospital. Any road, supposedly the bride was plotting to poison the ’groom to elope with his best friend.’ ‘Plus ça change...’ ‘Quite.’ ‘Why was I using that spell against that Tom thing?’ ‘I don’t know.’ She’s lying. Having come this far, well, it’s a start. ‘Considering your reaction earlier, we must have been seeing one another by that point.’ ‘Yes,’ she squeaks. ‘I am still alive, you know.’ She pinches my arse, with both hands, causing me to scoot closer to her. ‘Just making sure,’ she assures me. ‘There are easier ways,’ I chide in mock disgust. ‘I don’t think we have time for that, though,’ she states. ‘And you’re too noisy.’ ‘Me?’ I gasp with incredulity. ‘Mm-hmm,’ she affirms, pulling away slightly, her lips pulled tightly to contain her amusement, her eyes moist from the effort. Giving her my best scowl, I distract her long enough to give her a proper tickle. The banging on the door recommences as the store-room erupts with Ginny’s throaty laugh. She opens the door to Tonks’s bemused expression. ‘Seeing that you’re still fully clothed and not breathless, you must have resolved some issues,’ Ginny’s boss chunters. ‘I’ve resolved our clothing problem while you two have been fannying about. Hopefully, not literally.’ ~*~ Tonks informs us she and Sunita had been schoolmates. There’s a hint of something more. Either Tonks feels it’s too complicated for me to understand or that it will make me more suspicious of her. Her avoidance of the subject deepens the doubts I have. Whispering my concerns to Ginny, I learn that the two must have been members of an organisation that fought Tom. The Order of the Phoenix. The name sends shivers down my spine despite what Ginny says. Yet a vague feeling of familiarity follows, a confused play of irritation and belonging, almost like one would have to a mildly dysfunctional family. Ginny’s treating me as if I’m fragile again. She’s constantly giving me worried sidelong glances. It’s dead annoying. She must be concerned that I’ll have another episode. Since that dream in which I witnessed my own death, or dying, or whatever the bugger it was, my illness has gradually ebbed away. As long as someone doesn’t blurt out another major revelation, I’ll not have any more migraines. Until it’s time, that is. I tell Ginny my hypothesis about the correlation between learning about my past and the headaches, but she isn’t quite convinced. I thought she would’ve believed me, at least. We are a pair of worriers. To escape her pitying gaze for a moment, I survey the shop. Even knowing little of fashion, and less of wizarding styles, I see why Ginny was so reluctant to enter the shop. Just one of the dresses would require all my wages and most of my weekly stipend. I doubt Miss Prem is so nostalgic of her old school days, or Tonks after that argument, to lend us even a piece of these clothes. Tonks reveals to us I’m half-right. Wisely, Ginny’s boss convinced Sunita to offer us more commonplace garments. So drab we wouldn’t have looked out of place during the Commonwealth. In other words, ideal. I give Tonks a genuine smile. She looks positively shocked, but returns it none the less. A relieved sigh from beside me and a glance at Ginny shows she’s utterly relieved. Squeezing her hand, I smile at her as well. Happily, she responds in kind. Tonks insists we all dress separately. Too clever by half, sending me off first to the store-room so she can confer privately with Ginny. I can only imagine the substance of their discussion. As I guiltily drop my wet clothes onto the elegant floors, raised but unintelligible voices pierce the door. Whatever the subject of the latest argument might have been, Ginny’s face bears the signs of defeat as she passes me. She merely shakes her head when I try to stop her. I shoot a menacing glare in Tonks’s direction, but Ginny’s boss is unimpressed. When I make to interrogate her, she interrupts with the declaration Ginny will lead us the rest of the way. My love’s behaviour throughout our walking tour of this town has been decidedly unprofessional. Tonks doesn’t bother to conceal my complete responsibility for her charge’s failure. A pat on the arm tells me it’s a sympathetic accusation, though. Meagre consolation. ~~~***~~~ ---(Ginny’s POV)--- She’s right, of course. Doesn’t make me any happier about it. Sod it all. Changing quickly, I dry our clothes. Even with my wand’s signature on file they won’t take a second glance at a simple drying charm performed here. Pity it doesn’t work very well on dragonhide. I never managed to get my head round the theory for that spell, despite Charlie and Hermione’s explanations. Charlie. If we were transporting him instead of Harry I don’t doubt she would be the one being dressed down. Truthfully, Sunita would be reprimanding the both of us; Tonks and Charlie would be mauling each other endlessly while I’d be berating him. Indeed, only Harry’s present misgivings of my dear boss are preventing a similar, albeit reversed, situation here. Let us be thankful for small mercies. Departing the store-room with our dry clothes on my shoulders and my still sodden dragonhide gear in my hands, I run into Sunita. She immediately chides me for doing her part in this job and scoffs at my inability to dry the rest, snatching my boots, vest, and gloves from me and storming off in a feigned huff into the store-room and the laundry room behind. As I stand in the middle of the aisle nonplussed and gape-mouthed, Tonks passes shaking her head and snickering. Oh, thank you so very bloody much, Nymphadora. Harry’s staring sullenly at Tonks’s back before a wave attracts his attention. A fleeting smile comes to his face on taut lips, demonstrating he’s irritated about something. I hope he’s pissed off at the same thing I am. ‘Well, Miss Moses, I hear you’re going to lead us to the promised land.’ I frown at the reference but I’m pleased to find I was correct. He asks whether my row with Tonks was as nasty as it sounded in the store-room. Shame keeps my mouth shut save for a terse, ‘Yes.’ He comforts me with a hug and the lie it will be over soon enough. Then again, I think he just means our current jaunt. Tonks returns after a short discussion with Sunita with our gear in non-descript shopping bags. Harry takes charge of my kit bag while Tonks and I play sisters. About time he did some work on this trip, I muse with a smirk. A raised eyebrow indicates he caught the unspoken jibe yet deigned to respond somewhat maturely. Sunita performs the Metamorphosis Charms this time, with great success. We look as dull and uninteresting as our borrowed clothes. After familiarising ourselves with our new appearances, we depart, but not before our host extracts from Tonks a promise to continue with her culinary studies and from me to return, without my boorish boyfriend. I succeed in concealing my annoyance at the suggestion of Harry’s bad behaviour while he shrugs off the comment without the slightest care. Except a slight grin. If only they both knew who he was… I’ll wait until then before returning. The route to Bogle Wynd is much more pleasant now that we aren’t squishing our way through heavy crowds. People are still engaged in afternoon shopping, but from the throngs of a little while ago they’ve dwindled down to a few ragged packs. Without Harry next to me, I am much more cautious and conscious of our surroundings. I glance back at Tonks and him occasionally with the hand mirror but restrain from making it an habitual occurrence. Which is fortunate as we are nearly bumped by four patrols from the local plod. Fortunately, they don’t seem to be on the look-out for anyone specific, nor are they traveling in groups larger than three. Still, it’s worrisome that their numbers have increased so near Gringotts. If Miss Prem wasn’t a member of the Order, I’d suspect she had denounced us. Reaching the corner of Gramash Road and Bogle Wynd, I glance down at the hand mirror to see where the other two are. Suddenly, a figure collides into me. For a second, I’m unsure how I should act. Should I treat it as an accident and hope that I’m not recognised, or should I behave in accordance with my training and incapacitate the individual? I opt for a poor compromise between both and stagger with the impact. I clamp my fingers around the mirror before it falls from my grasp and thrust it inside one of the robes pockets as I stumble. My other hand finds my wand. My hat, however, tumbles off my head to roll down the road before being trampled by a small child. To my surprise, my assailant is a member of the Millies, Owen Lloyd, recognisable without looking by his cursing in a blurred and burring Welsh accent. We worked together a fair bit after I moved north. A good man, though a bit too focused at times. Like the present. When I peer surreptitiously at his face, brown eyes puffy from lack of sleep, thick black eyebrows and bushy black hair, sturdy jaw, I suspect he can’t identify me. The suspicion becomes a certainty when he flirts with me after apologising. It takes all my self-control not to give him the same scowl that stopped him the first time round. This time I thump his shin with my shopping bag, giving him such a talking to he likely hasn’t received since he was in short pants. Owen excuses himself with proper professional courtesy, though I catch a few select muttered insults as he collects my ruined hat. That’s two apologies I’ll have to make… Tonks and Harry arrive soon after Owen leaves with a final apology and tug of his hat-brim, red-faced from withholding their laughter at my improvisation. ‘You’re evil, you know that,’ she finally splutters as Harry contorts his face to avoid causing a worse scene. I roll my eyes at the pair of them. Above us, the sun disk traversing the dome is shifting slowly from gold to bronze. A – hopefully imperceptible – shudder of panic passes through me. There are still several hours of daylight remaining, but we should have been moving quicker. Perkins must have learned about the failure of the Special Section team by now, and I can’t be certain that whoever’s controlling the rats doesn’t have a few of them following us. Without a word, I advance down the road doing my best to appear absolutely casual. Glimpsing at the mirror, the other two seem to be following me well enough. They’ve even begun to space themselves out, with Harry taking the centre. He looks bored, but a few things are simply too fascinating for him to avoid gawking at them. Tonks has taken to being disgusted, rolling her eyes while huffing at her heavy load. She’s a far better actress than I’d previously thought. We pass another set of Millies without bothering to conceal ourselves, or they to recognise us. They haven’t even set up checkpoints or barricades, either. I motion for Tonks to enter a small café a short distance away from Gringotts as I wait for Harry outside a shop selling Quidditch jerseys and gear. Despite the burning desire to window shop, I peer out forlornly at the road as if I’m waiting for my fool boyfriend or son to leave the shop. He’s puzzled when she passes by him muttering oaths about the young men of today, approaching me with a bemused look as I gesture for him to continue past me, whispering that he should stay in the shop until one of us comes for him. Other than sighing and grumbling about ‘this cloak and dagger shite,’ he does as he’s told. I must remind myself to give him a biscuit and a scratch behind the ears once this is all over. Silly git. The café would be an ideal place to while away a day, reading the Daily Prophet, drinking tea, and gaining about twenty pounds on pasties and sweets. The place modestly combines the old stone architecture with Muggle furnishings from the 1950s. Harry would love this place. The pair at the coffee bar engages in light conversation with the regulars. The man shares Quidditch results and predictions while the woman offers style advice to some of the female customers until one prediction catches her ear. ‘Puddlemere? Are you daft? They’ve some decent players but the Harpies will win the League this year.’ The debate continues long after I find Tonks. ‘I didn’t know you knew about the Silver Knut,’ she whispers as I sit next to her at the bar. She laughs when I admit my earlier ignorance. ‘Well, now you know.’ She loses her good humour when I inform her of my concerns. As expected, she’s similarly anxious. In the window display full of sandwiches, the reflection of a rat peers in, wiggles its whiskers, and wanders off. I’m about to warn my boss when the front window implodes as a squad of Millies bursts in. Bloody hell. Tonks and I roll off our seats and scramble for cover. To our surprise, the staff and customers have joined us in the hunt for hiding spots. Well, the war wasn’t that long ago… I perform an Impediment jinx on one of the squad’s ankles, sending him crashing to the floor before hurling myself across the floor flinging a string of jinxes and curses at the four that have been so kind as to silhouette themselves in front of the gaping window frame. Happily, I recognise none of them. Tonks stuns another, rolling just before receiving the same herself while my flailing takes down another one. The other three Millies plough through tables and chairs to find us, only to receive a blasting curse from Tonks, throwing him back out the way whence he came. Strangely, the last two seem to have taken heart with the loss of their four colleagues. A Reductor Curse demolishes the table behind which I’d been hiding, flinging me against the side wall despite the shield charm I’d cast. Tonks launches an Immobulus jinx at my attacker who deflects it with a Refraction Charm towards me. Unfortunately for him, I’d seen this trick before and use a Reflection Charm with a Blasting Curse of my own knocking him stiffly into one of the few tables still standing. The last squaddie wisely decides to retreat and wait for reinforcements. Thoughtfully, my boss catches him with a stunning spell just as he was leaving. We don’t hesitate to scarper either. Tonks guards my back from just outside of the shop while I race to get Harry. The roads have emptied again and shutters have been drawn to protect the inhabitants against flying debris from another battle. My daft prat of a boyfriend, however, is heading in our direction. He might as well just shout out. ‘I’m an outsider!’ but it does simplify the task of finding him. Grabbing his arm we begin running, chasing Tonks to Gringotts, all pretence of a clandestine approach gone. Black shapes emerge from the Millies’ barracks in tune with the wailing klaxon. Buggering hell! Stunners and Impediment jinxes blast the cobblestones as we scramble towards Gringotts’s white marble steps. When we finally begin climbing towards the entrance, the Millies alight from their brooms halfway up the steps, wands drawn, ready for the worst. And it is. Tonks and I recognise all four of them. None of us is eager to curse or jinx their presumed opponents. Only the arrival of a contingent from the bank’s security guards – including a number of snarling, biting Red Caps – led by the resident managing director saves both sides from an unfortunate tragedy. ‘Those three,’ declared Managing Director Dergspruan, pointing at us with a very sharp nail, ‘are under the protection of the Goblin Minister and His Majesty, Filius. Should any harm come to them, you know very well what will happen!’ ~~~***~~~ ---(Harry’s POV)--- Here I stand and, as Martin Luther reputedly said, I can do no other. Difference is that his mouth wasn’t gaping wide with astonishment and exhaustion at the time, nor were his eyes blinking in disbelief at a pack of rudely crafted midgets and their demented garden gnome-like pets on leads. I’ve no desire to know what the red-capped beasties eat. Their sharp little gnashing teeth and grasping claws are reason enough to avoid them. But the whatever-they-are ordered the gits on sticks to leave us be, so they mustn’t be that horrid, eh? Tonks is unfazed by our mad dash to and up the steps. Ginny, however, is uncharacteristically winded, gasping as if suffering an asthma attack. When I move forward to see if she’s OK, both of them gesture for me to stay back. After a while, Ginny appears to master her laboured breathing, though the slight shaking of her clenched left fist reveals otherwise. The four on the steps before us, above us, whatever, scarcely acknowledge the host gathering behind them. As these four people had come from that fire-blackened tower that Ginny had informed me is the wizard’s police barracks, I guess we’re now Bonnie and Clyde, except without the concomitant Serge Gainsbourg theme song. Pity, that. The wizard constables still hold their wands menacingly, yet the uncertainty that had been plaguing them - written in bold on their pained faces - has been erased, replaced by the conflicting emotions of discomfiture and relief. The head whatsit repeats his(?) ultimatum while those handling the red-capped beasties give the leads more play that their charges seek to exploit to the fullest, snapping and clawing at the air between them and the four, eyes bulging with hatred and hunger. The senior officer stands closest to us. He squares his shoulders, disguising to the three behind him the unease that’s all too visible on his face. The sole woman in the group straightens her hat in an effort to appear unconcerned by the new dilemma. The two men on the flanks move in closer to the other two for safety and comfort. They know us, or at least Ginny and Tonks. An eternity passes before our pursuers stow their wands in their robes and clamber back onto their broomsticks to soar off to the blackened tower. The sound of hobnail boots on cobblestones storming into the distance behind us announces the departure of our earthbound tormentors. Only then do Ginny and Tonks return their wands to their robes as we climb to meet our rescuers. Tonks motions for us to stop a few feet from the top of the stairs as she advances towards our defenders. She curtseys - odd sight - to their leader before parlaying with him in some foreign language that Ginny informs me is Gobbledegook. My face creases in disbelief, but she explains that goblins talk Gobbledegook just as Merpeople speak Mermish. When the look of bemusement fails to withdraw, she pats my arm stating I’ll remember this one day. Will it make any more sense then than it does now? Some of the goblins are, I must say, very well dressed. In their silk waistcoats, ties, dress jackets, gold watchfobs, and gaberdine trousers, they wouldn’t look out of place at a Victorian dinner party if they were taller and hadn’t such pointed features, or teeth. They’d fit in perfectly in the City, though. The other goblins, sporting steel cuirasses, must be guards. They look like deranged extras from a Kurosawa samurai film or an historical drama on the Beeb. This second lot forms a cordon around us reining in the Red Caps (I’m becoming accustomed to being astonished), swatting the beasties that come too close to us with wooden truncheons. The more elegant set of goblins advances towards us, Tonks following a step or two behind the leader. She introduces us to Managing Director Dergspruan. Ginny curtseys as well - oddity number two - while I try my best at a polite bow. To my surprise, I see a small, clawed hand held out before me. Gingerly, I shake it - surprisingly warm, that hand - noting a peculiar hint of recognition in his eyes. His brow furrows, and he searches for some familiar feature on my face as Ginny had two years ago. So much for being David Southam. We follow the well-dressed goblins inside the white marble structure, our escort making certain no one molests us any further. Ginny stays close to my side. For some reason, I think she intends to ensure I don’t commit some horrible breach of protocol, or tell anyone my true name. The look on her face seems to confirm that suspicion. Guiding me by the arm as if I’d been blinded, she leads me inside. ‘It’s a bank,’ I murmur. Brilliant deduction, Mr University Graduate. Ginny rolls her eyes in amusement - at least, I hope it’s that - and prompts me to move along. Despite the size of the building, I’m amazed not to be confronted with a forest of load-bearing pillars. Those there are bear etchings reminiscent of Roman victory columns. Instead of relating a tales of battlefield triumphs, they reveal grief, betrayal, and resurgence, this last particularly prominent at the average goblin’s eye-level. The intricate depiction is repeated at least one more time as the pillars rise up to the beautiful vaulted ceiling. Light streams in through high, thin stained glass windows that remain free of grime in spite of all the candles within and the fires outwith. The windows begin with the comparatively cheery tale of the establishment’s business. The last set of windows resembles the rosette behind the high altar at Notre Dame in Paris or Chartres cathedral, although the story the one here portrays deals less with redemption than retribution. Mildly disgusted by the tales of woe of those who’d wronged the bank, I stare fixedly at the floor. It’s a mixture of black and white marble tile arranged in a chess-board pattern - I assume to reinforce that this is indeed a financial establishment - broken by the occasional mosaic with the bank’s name and motto in three languages, the most prominent of which I assume is Gobbledegook. Gringotts. I run that word a few times through my mind, hoping it would trigger a memory, but all I feel is an awkward shame, if not complete embarrassment. Ginny peeks at me expectantly, possibly concerned I’d taken her feigned annoyance at face value, especially now that my face is screwed up in concentration. Squeezing her hand I smile quickly back at her. She looks done in, wheezing slightly. It’s my turn to look anxious and stricken. ‘Might have a broken rib,’ she replies to my unasked question. ‘The shop with the missing windows?’ She nods and coughs a little, but thankfully there’s no blood on her lips. When I move to find us somewhere to sit, she wraps an arm around me and tells me to follow Tonks. Ginny’s boss is busy conversing - in English - with the managing director as we traverse the great hall towards the rosette. The clerks are arranged along the hall in a horseshoe, seated behind enormous cherry wood desks that dwarf not only the clerks, but their clients as well. From this superb vantage point, a galaxy of bright beady eyes watches our every move as only four other non-goblins are still in the bank at this late hour. Beside every fourth desk is another of those pillars. Obviously, goblins are not a forgiving lot. We eventually reach where Tonks and Mr Dergspruan are waiting near the end of the hall. Ginny’s face is a little flushed and her breathing is heavier than usual but she seems well enough to continue at the moment. Mind, if her leg was broken she’d likely either hop or drag herself the entire way to wherever it is we’re going. The managing director’s tapping his foot with impatience as Tonks seeks to distract him with questions about the bank’s architecture while casting worried looks in Ginny’s direction. The Guv gives me a brief smile as I gingerly prop up her charge once more, albeit not without a couple of laboured huffs. I peer at Ginny’s lips again and see only a little clear spittle. Her face is no more flushed than before. Two good signs; how long will this last? The corridor to Mr Dergspruan’s office is immaculate, so much so I’m afraid of skating accidentally across the polished parquet floor. The paneling is an elegant stained maple adorned with portraits of what I assume are former directors. And they’re moving. The directors, that is. I whisper this to Ginny only to receive a glare of utter incredulity until she remembers how new these things are to me now, or again. I’m going to do my own head in soon enough. The subjects in the portraits do not appear at all pleased to see us, their contempt evident in snarls, glowering, and even cursing. I find myself trying to remember when I last had a drink... Once inside, I carefully lower Ginny onto one of the high backed chairs. The managing director is seated behind a large bureau upon which lay several parchment broadsheets filled with minute Elizabethan (I think) calligraphy. Though I can read upside down - marvelous learning experience, university - none of the words are decipherable. Neither Tonks nor Mr Dergspruan suffer from my inability. ‘Standard contract,’ he intones pulling out a mahogany pointer tipped by a small ivory or whalebone goblin’s hand to indicate the relevant clauses. ‘Sign here,’ tapping the contract with the hand, ‘here, and here.’ To Mr Dergspruan’s dismay, Tonks takes the time to read the enormous document. ‘You are not getting my firstborn should we fail to keep this secret,’ she declares, scratching out that clause. Keep what secret? ‘And I see that paragraph wasn’t in the contract Professor Flitwick signed.’ The little git behind the desk groans and grumbles that it ought to have been. ‘What about theirs?’ he inquires expectantly. None of our firstborn are at issue,’ she returns. He grumbles a bit further before finally deciding to have her simply sign under that professor’s name while muttering about ‘bloody wizards.’ ‘You lot have always been trouble, meddling in things far beyond your piddling comprehension,’ he grunts. ‘Ever since the house-elves, there’s never been a witch or wizard who could be trusted.’ ‘I think you are forgetting who tried to fool whom here,’ Tonks muttered. ‘So it’s perfectly fine for some daft troll of a wizard to breed a more accommodating sort of goblin, eh?’ Tonks motions to the three of us. ‘Do we look like the sort who would do such a thing?’ ‘No,’ he answers. ‘But neither did he.’ The debate, insofar as Mr Dergspruan is concerned, had just concluded. ‘But the Prince wills it so we must obey,’ he states tapping the countersigned contract once with the mahogany rod, whereupon it swiftly rolls itself up and vanishes. Hopping off his chair he wanders to the door. ‘Well, follow me.’ Ginny mutters a few oaths to which I add a smattering of my own as I assist her from the chair. During the discussion, I had tried to discern whether she had broken a rib or two, but she batted my hand away each time I attempted even a superficial examination. Tonks waits for us by the door with the faintest of grins. ‘Nearly there, children.’ The fatigued woman beside me considers uttering a few more curses at that, her mouth fidgeting to find the words, but decides against delaying us further. It’s a regrettably long trip down bare torchlit stone staircases to our eventual destination. Ginny shudders as we enter the dark octagonal room, a reaction I know has nothing to do with her injuries. She holds me tighter and seems to have lost about ten years. Tonks and I have to coax her into the room. Other than us, only Mr Dergspruan and another goblin are in the room, standing in the centre. The other goblin holds a book, The Accidental Tourist of all things, in his hands. ‘Come on,’ Mr Dergspruan bellows (insofar as he is capable), ‘there are only five minutes before the Portkey activates. The goblin with the book holds it out for us to grasp, or so I realise after Ginny and Tonks latch onto it. For another three minutes we stand around like idiots holding a bloody book until... I think I’m going to spew... ~~~***~~~ Ministry of Magic, London Permanent Secretary Babbage’s Office ---(Babbage’s POV)--- The Weasley woman’s file makes unpleasant nocturnal reading. So many skeletons rattling in cupboards, all threatening to tumble out now. If it hadn’t been for Minister Bones’s personal interest in the girl we could have dismissed her application to the Aurors citing mental instability - plenty of witnesses to support that - or that she was simply too recognisable. The Potter excuse. We could have kept her safely away from the Ministry, hived her away somewhere, maybe playing Quidditch, being a Healer, a mother, who knows what, and made everyone’s life a little easier. Instead, my bureau is littered with a host of notes from the Haseltoun MLES barracks announcing not only did the two escape the patrols, but that they were assisted by a third, which was somewhat expected. There are, however, a further six operatives from the Dark Arts Response Team are in hospital, and the local plod had managed to irritate the goblins. Would the Wizengamot truly convict me if I turned Minister Perkins into a newt and mistakenly dropped her in a boiling cauldron? (Purely hypothetically, of course.) Shacklebolt might even start asking questions. Nothing’s more frightening in politics than a question to which one’s interlocutor already knows the answer. He would begin with something suitably innocuous at first, such as, ‘Why do members of the Magical Law Enforcement Squad have Aurors under surveillance?’ only to follow it with, ‘Why are those MLES members attacking those same Aurors?’ We could contrive a reasonable explanation, say that an Auror with a history of mental instability - again, the blessed records from St Mungo’s, witnesses from school and Auror training, and last, the secret surveillance transcripts - had gone rogue. She even kidnapped a Muggle and modified his memory to make him believe he was Harry Potter, her lifelong obsession. It might work, especially after the administrative order for Potter’s Obliviation has been conveniently misplaced. Or should I say, ‘placed under consideration.’ Ah, there’s Rutherford. Without the order. Bugger. ‘Where is it, Rutherford,’ I demand, certain my fury is evident through my measured tone. ‘She’s pissed, sir,’ he groans excitedly. ‘She’s sitting in dark corner singing about centaurs and their enormous...’ Hammering my open palms upon my bureau, my subordinate’s brief description of Mistress Clarke’s folk song repertoire ceases abruptly. Clutching his elbow, we hurry through the Ministry to the Archives wasting no time for idle chit-chat or the flock of inter-office memos that have taken to fluttering about my head. ‘Sir...’ A glower silences Rutherford immediately. Minister Perkins is drowning in it and seeks to take me with her. I’m going to do my level best to ensure that’s not the case. With those bloody memos still winging about me, I drag my underling to the wellspring of dread. I have always hated the Ministerial Archives ever since I was a ickle clerk in Records. Elspeth Clarke was the Mistress of Rolls then, and no less unpleasant. As were the Archives. Leaving the flock of pink missives behind, we enter the catacombs. The faint glow of the lanterns lighting shelves and cabinets of various woods - oak, teak, mahogany, cherry - provides just enough light to see the occasional spider scutter after silverfish or other spiders, or away from rats, themselves the prey of cats and kneazles. Despite the scant illumination, the scrolls and tomes crowding the shelves had yellowed with age, or perhaps it was the Conservation Charms the old crone placed on everything. A few missed kicks at some mewling miscreants later, we stood before the hag herself, tongue lolling in her tan-toothed maw, three-quarters empty bottle clutched firmly to her withered chest, swishing in time with her breathing. When I find out who put her in this state, I shall murder them slowly for encumbering my memory with that image. ‘Mistress Clarke, you vile harridan, wake up!’ ‘Sod off, Blether-breeks!’ A swift glower told Rutherford if ever he repeated that moniker he’d be off on the South Georgia penguin census detail quicker than he could say ‘inkpot.’ ‘You wretched harpy, rise from your stupor before I force you from it!’ I bellow, holding my wand outstretched. Feeling far happier in semi-sobriety than under complete detoxification, Mistress Clarke staggers her way back into the vertical plane. ‘What do you want, Babbage?’ she grunts as she lights the pungent tobacco in her clay pipe. ‘Administrative Order XIX-L2/JOS/98/312e,’ I hiss in an effort to convey the need for secrecy. Rutherford knows the reference, but not its contents. Let’s hope the demented crone can understand subtlety. ‘Potter?’ Hell and buggery. I nod curtly and order Rutherford from the room. ‘Just a minute,’ she grumbles, spits, and shuffles away. At least she knows where it is. Wait a moment. Drink and her remembering what that order covers so swiftly. Can’t be... Someone must have recently researched the Arcane Records and found a reference to the order. It must have been that bloody Granger woman. We’ll have to put her under surveillance again, maybe send over a little frightener. When Mistress Clarke returns with the order, she has an odd look on her face. Snatching the document from her grasp, I perform the decryption charm, scan it line by line, poring over the paper for some indication of tampering, but I see nothing. The page even bears the ministerial watermark. ‘It’s a copy,’ she announces after I’d exhausted my limited knowledge of such matters. ‘A very good one, but a facsimile none the less.’ ‘Who gave you that bottle?’ I demand. ‘That would be telling.’ ‘Who?’ Rather than responding, she let her tongue explore the far reaches of her mouth while her bleary, bloodshot, and jaundiced dark brown eyes stare apathetically into mine. ‘I can have you for being drunk on duty,’ I warn only to receive a scoffing huff. ‘I’m not one of your lackeys, Burblage,’ her voice scrapes out. ‘Besides, I’m the only one who understands the Archives,’ she sneers, ‘so try and replace me, you wretched little grindylow.’ I grimace in disgust and discomfort as I feel the point of her sharp claw through four layers of clothing as she pokes at my chest. The foul creature smirks. ‘You’re not that irreplaceable,’ I protest. ‘After all, you’ve allowed, perhaps even conspired, in the theft an arcane document. Not even Minister Bones could overlook such misbehaviour.’ Aren’t I the kneazle amongst the gnomes? Mistress Clarke ponders my words for a few moments. Scowling in her struggle to gauge the potency of my threat, she grunts and trundles to her bureau, removing a pewter goblet from one of the drawers. ‘I don’t think I need to worry so much about Minister Bones’s opinion in the matter.’ I can feel the indentation of her teeth on my skin as she grins. Buggery. Emerging from the Archives with the copy of the order in hand (and those sodding memos once more clamouring for attention), I clap a strong arm on Rutherford. I press him into the lift and inform him in no uncertain terms that discussing these events to any other entity will result in an expeditious transfer to the Orkneys. He chunters an affirmation to his shoes. As we travel to the second level, only the anxious shuffling of his feet reveal he’s still nearby. It’s good to have such able underlings. Another sight awaits me when I enter Minister Perkins’s domain. An expression of disgust reigns on her face as she gazes out the window at the torrential showers Magical Maintenance routinely gives her whenever she seeks a cross breeze. The memos hovering above me, believing their task complete, incinerate themselves to circle me in faint ash. Since the Minister has long been accustomed to this churlish game, some sundry other quandary must be affecting her. ‘I know.’ The resignation in her voice makes any further explanation unnecessary. She continues none the less. ‘The devil himself told me.’ Ah, the Goblin Minister must have informed her about the incident outside of Gringotts’s Haseltoun branch. My new information about the order boils away her irritation leaving only distilled panic and a host of oaths behind. ‘What of Shacklebolt?’ I enquire. ‘Nothing so far,’ she mutters, stomping to her bureau. ‘But it’s only a matter of time. Ideas?’ ‘Why did you have the Haseltoun Magical Law Enforcement Squad chase after those three after that Weasley woman sent the first lot to hospital?’ Scolding Madam Perkins has become an annoyingly regular occurrence. ‘Couldn’t they simply have observed the subjects discreetly?’ Deep blue eyes peer fixedly at her steepled hands. The words linger on her lips before finally crashing to earth. ‘It was a Dark Arts Response Team.’ Hit wizards. Brilliant. What else will she throw at that woman? ‘The Town Council sent them after the local plod found Catesby.’ ‘And why would the Council do that, Minister?’ I reprove. ‘We didn’t want them to know with whom they were dealing, did we?’ she reminds me. ‘After Catesby, the Council had no idea what they were facing and called out the heavies. Dudson was called in to assist. He left the Council and the team leader with the impression they were dealing with Death Eaters, so the situation isn’t entirely irreparable there.’ My eyebrow rises involuntarily. I’m surprised anyone could possibly be that gullible. Though, if they believed they were dealing with Death Eaters, why hadn’t they called in the Aurors? When I voice my concerns, Madam Perkins fails or pretends not to notice; sometimes, it’s very difficult to discern the difference. ‘In any case, the team leader contacted the Office through Dudson saying they had the perfect opportunity to capture Weasley and Tonks.’ She places deliberate stress on that word ‘capture,’ reinforcing her policy shift as if I am as dim as she. ‘Six against two,’ she insists, ‘with the two in an enclosed space. Capture them, modify their memories, send them on some distant assignment - say, Belize - for a few years or simply lose them and all would be perfect.’ Honestly, I can understand the temptation to do something and why Madam Perkins believed the hit wizards. ‘But why send in the local plod afterward?’ ‘Well, seeing six hit wizards pummeled and that café demolished, the Council believed Tonks and Weasley truly were Death Eaters. I think the locals simply became caught up in the chase.’ A pause as dangerous as a mother dragon guarding her eggs hangs ominously in the air. ‘And?’ I finally ask. ‘It seems some of the MLES recognised Weasley and Tonks through their foe glasses,’ she murmurs to her ink blotter. Damn. ‘Does the Town Council know?’ The scent of ash and the earlier mental image of a maternally enraged pyropteraped weigh heavily on my thoughts. ‘I don’t believe so,’ she havers, eyes widening as the creaky cogs start to mesh within. ‘Just to be sure, we should have the offending members debriefed by a couple loyal Obliviators,’ but Perkins shakes her head. We lost those that modified Potter’s memory in a spate of Death Eater ambushes shortly after the Ministry shipped him off to that Muggle hospital. The others are so obnoxiously concerned about the moral implications of their work. What happened to loyalty and love of one’s community? ‘Or send them on a fact-finding mission to New Zealand. You know, somewhere lovely yet distant.’ The Minister ferrets about her bureau for a quill that hadn’t been nibbled and gnawed to the nib and scratches out a brief word to the Haseltoun Millies superintendent. The grimace of terrified befuddlement still hasn’t left her quavering visage. ‘What about the goblins and that bloody woman?’ Good question. The wind and rain beating against the window pane give me an idea. I explain to Madam Perkins that the three have no means of leaving Gringotts save through the front entrance. All we would have to do is wait for them to leave goblin territory and they are ours. But the why worries me. The gates weren’t especially well protected by the time they had encountered Catesby. Weasley and Tonks must have suspected that in view of the local plod’s distaste for my Minister. Still, those two had favoured rushing to the centre of town and toward the MLES barracks. Did the two women have someone there actively assisting them? Somehow I don’t think so. Furthermore, the Gringotts managing director announced the goblin prince had vouchsafed for their safety. Despite the protection Professor Flitwick’s name offers them there, Dergspruan’s hospitality won’t be longstanding. His hatred of wizardkind is far too old and strong. Indeed, I doubt that it will last the day. So, why would they head there rather than towards one of the gates? What could they secure there, other than funds, that they couldn’t anywhere else? Tonks and Weasley’s savings from their Auror’s wages and Potter’s weekly stipend - from what I remember of the latter (the order neglects that point since it was outside of the Department’s purview) - aren’t large enough to warrant wasting the opportunity to have flown from Haseltoun to who-knows-where. Then there is the question of Headmaster Flitwick. How much does he know? ‘Minister, we should have someone watch over the Weasleys’ Floo connections.’ For the first time in days, a true smile graces her simple face. ‘It’s being done as we speak.’ Dear me, she’s actually beginning to learn. ~~~***~~~ Diagon Alley, London Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes ---(Remus’s POV)--- Charmed candlelight provides steady illumination over the sordid details of ministerial corruption as I sit reading the administrative order for Harry’s Obliviation in the backroom of the establishment I now call home. The cramped, spiked bureaucratic scrawl reveals the panic of those days despite the precision of the writing itself. Indeed, the scribe was almost too precise. Unlike many ministerial documents I’ve had the misfortune to run across during my life, this order is positively disorganised. Sections cover the troubles faced by the Department from the remaining Death Eaters and the loss of so many important members of the magical community, Harry’s treatment such as it was, and a brief discussion of his rantings. I’d witnessed only a few of his explosions, and though the potions I’d been taking deadened some of the force and volume of his words, it should have been obvious to me then what the Healers and Ministry officials were pressing us to accept was wrong. Not that I blame Hermione. The Ministry tended to ignore me - while the executor of Harry’s godfather’s will, I was a werewolf - and placed all of its considerable weight on her narrow shoulders. Ron was too busy battling with the Healers concerning his sister’s care - a task in itself - and coping with the deaths of so many family members to be by Hermione’s side all the time. Perkins and her minions always lurked about until an emergency sent Ron away before badgering his girlfriend with queries and entreaties. The Ministry denied Hermione any contact with her parents or anyone else in the world outside of that ward in St Mungo’s. Cut off and progressively cut down, it amazes me she resisted so long. Faced with the Ministry’s report on Harry’s ranting, it’s not surprising Hermione kept his survival a secret from Ginny. Initially, it seemed as if he despised the youngest Weasley, that he blamed her for his state. Perkins and a few pliant Healers made certain that Harry was sufficiently incoherent whenever Hermione visited, a process to which the order refers in veiled terms. The scribe does, however, attempt to legitimise these antics by stressing the mutual danger Harry and Ginny would have put on the Ministry, their families, and themselves had Hermione not been pressurised into agreeing to Perkins and Babbage’s scheme. Ah, Babbage. The little swine has managed to keep his name out of this dossier as much as possible. It will be an incomparable pleasure to let Rita loose upon him when the time comes. One can almost see her mandibles at work as she demolishes the troll’s schemes. We kept our stay in the Archives as brief as possible. A beetle by nature, Rita was terribly skittish about being in an environment so dominated by arachnids, while it was too close to my last metamorphosis not to reel from Mistress Clarke’s reek. Once the Quick Quote Quills had performed sterling service transcribing the order, I secreted four copies and the original along with one of the goblets, hiding them within my rolled surcoat. The other goblet I gave to Miss Skeeter in lieu of liquid payment by Galleons and Sickles. For Mistress Clarke, I left a promise to return with two similar goblets should she abide by our arrangement. If the old crone accepts those terms, which I’m certain she will, she’ll be bound by a magical contract and will be unable to reveal our deal to Perkins, Babbage, or anyone else. Sickened by the stench of perspired drink, foul pipe tobacco, and the preserving agents on the collection that reinforced the Conservation Charms, Rita and I left Mistress Clarke to a blessedly egregious hangover, God willing. We slipped from the Archives into a pair of Magical Maintenance boiler suits hidden in the lift in a satchel of tools by one of our two contacts for the operation. My contact has done very well for us in the past, having furnished us with Minister Bones and Madam Hopkirk’s signatures to release the administrative order into our possession. Familiar with the intricacies of the bureaucracy, he’s managed to keep Amelia Bones apprised of our needs without compromising the rest of us, saving both her and the rest of us from immediate discovery in case of failure. I daresay Madam Bones shares her late niece’s fondness for Harry, though I doubt it goes so far as the desire for an April-September romance. One never knows, though. Her odd silence in the face of our efforts to recover him is worrisome, even to Hermione. Does she, like Fred, resent Harry for her loss? If he had cared for Susan more, perhaps they would have remained together. Yet it was evident to anyone with eyes that he was far too gone on Ginny by that ill-fated Christmas. Molly and Arthur thought he was still grieving for Sirius. Harry was, but his gaze wasn’t altogether haunted by the death of his beloved godfather and my dear friend. There was a fresh pain in his eyes, one which he wasn’t able to hide completely behind that wall Occlumency and stubborn guilt had built, whenever he looked at the youngest Weasley. Ron and Hermione were too busy arguing - Hermione in bitter, anxious frustration while Ron persisted in his confused substitute for foreplay - to notice. I wagered with the Twins that when their brother finally clued in we’d need a blizzard to pull that couple apart. As for Ginny, I don’t know what had taken hold of her that year. She could talk to Harry, but rarely looked at him straight on unless there were others to distract her. On several occasions, his jaw clenched as he bit back his irritation at her behaviour. I confronted him with my observations, but he baldly lied that it was only the constant throbbing of his scar and nightmares of Sirius that were making him tetchy. The little bastard knew I didn’t believe him. He’d grown so accustomed to lying to himself about his feelings by then he could no longer distinguish the difference. And Minister Bones? She knew the burden her niece had consciously assumed by taking such a prominent position in Harry’s camp. In my heart, I doubt Madam Bones condemns Harry for Susan’s demise. Though Madam Bones has stayed mute, she has carefully and quietly assisted us when and where possible. That must count for something. Our other contact, Horace Whitlow, provided us with the Magical Maintenance coveralls. He’s Rita’s old schoolmate. More importantly, he’s the Magical Maintenance’s shop steward. A mixture of Rita’s flattery and his animosity towards Minister Perkins secured for us a twenty-minute window after we depart, during which it will be impossible to Disapparate from the Ministry. Something about the need ‘to reinforce the existing wards against unauthorised egress or ingress.’ Perkins’s reward for being the chief negotiator of Magical Maintenance’s last contract. Arthur loved that story about the month of nightmarish weather they visited upon Fudge’s ministry through the enchanted windows, especially as he hadn’t had to experience any of it himself. Invisible in the commonplace orange boiler suits despite the clanging satchel that held our robes, we travelled leisurely through the corridors. The work order that protruded from my chest pocket would be enough to dissuade any officious prat who sought to stop our progress. Blithely wandering through Level Two, we visited Kingsley Shacklebolt’s empty office. Ostensibly, we were there to repair the inflammability ward on a wall lamp. Fenchurch, the old git, stopped us at Kingsley’s door. Knowing full well who we were and why we were there, he peered intently at our work order through his bifocal foe spectacles before permitting us to proceed. Rita, in a moment of sheer inspiration, trod on his foot and elbowed him in the midst of apologising for her first offence. As he left us in a wake of curses, I hid the original of the administrative order for Harry’s Obliviation in Kingsley’s filing cabinet, having furnished the Archives with one of the reasonable Quick Quotes Quill-rendered facsimiles. The fates for the other four copies were already arranged. I kept one and Ron and Hermione, Fred and Angelina, and Tonks will each receive a copy. I’d agreed to share mine with Miss Skeeter in accordance with the terms of our contract. Ron and Hermione will reserve theirs for Harry and Ginny if and when they arrive. The other two, the ones that sent me on this dreadful expedition, will use theirs to prepare the solicitors once Harry regains his memory. Tonks is our second reserve after Kingsley. She will likely keep her copy at Gringotts. We doffed the coveralls at our Apparition point inside a school that had closed for the night to garb ourselves in Muggle clothes hidden in its basement. Carefully exiting the school, ever wary of any potential minders, we charted a diversionary course through the Underground. Finally above ground, Rita and I strolled - well apart, I must stress - the London pavement taking a circuitous route to Diagon Alley. I hate to admit it, but Rita made a disturbingly convincing Muggle. She even dressed sensibly rather than audaciously in court shoes and a proper dress suit. The year-long probation Hermione gave her seems to have had some positive effect after all. Yet Rita’s eyes still leapt from their sockets upon learning about Harry’s survival. I can tell she desired to publish that information to the waiting world, but our magical contract constrained her. Even so, I was tempted to Obliviate her to ensure her silence. Pity that it would have caused more problems than it would have solved. Rita’s grey jacket and skirt were jovial next to my sombre black suit. I seem to have just attended a funeral, or a disinterment. Scanning the order as the Quills scratched their way along the rolls of parchment, I may as well have. Seated alone in the backroom of Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes while Fred and his assistant - Dennis Creevey of all people - are joyfully tormenting the clientele with new products, I plod through the document, the bile threatening to burst from within me. From the screams and squeals of delight, Fred’s creative energies are stronger than ever. This exultant atmosphere sweetly counters the wickedness written within the order. I had thought Hermione had told me all of the circumstances surrounding Harry’s Obliviation, but she couldn’t have been aware of what was written within the Ministry’s files. I had witnessed many varieties of bureaucratic perfidy performed within England in my time, but Fudge and his cronies surpassed the folly of the Ministry during Voldemort’s first rising. Fudge was not entirely at fault for the corruption bred during his administration, though he was guilty of allowing it to fester and propagate. Such is the lot of government in times of restoration. Minister Bones is having more success in restraining most of the ambitious power-seekers, but some - like Perkins, inherited from the old administration - have slipped through. Much as Rita and I had glided through the Ministry’s defenses. Fortunately for Harry and all who love him, Hermione’s time with he and Ron gave her a healthy suspicion of authority. Had she not, Ginny would never have found him and he would likely have been dead either from complications in hospital or a post-release ‘accident,’ such as forgetting to hold onto broomstick on his ride home. Perkins may have allowed him a sort of half-life. If Harry was lucky, he might have been living in some dreadful council flat on a dismal estate somewhere, Salford maybe. Hermione’s involvement, along with the Weasley name and a sadly pre-occupied Professor Flitwick, gave Harry a happier past and the chance of a respectable future, his parents’ legacy safely held for his use rather than the Ministry’s. Fred comes in sporting a devilish grin at his cleverness. When he sees the reading material before me, the smirk becomes a grimace. Nausea washes across his face. ‘Did you have to bring that down here?’ he moans. For a day - it feels like an eternity - I’ve been reading this drivel, seeking to make sense of the wickedness therein, but all I see are dark hearts and fouler minds. ‘What do you have against Harry anyway?’ I had previously heard the tale, but it never made much sense to me. Molly died protecting her family while arguing with Harry as to whether she or Harry ought to go through the Floo first. Harry collapsed completely after that, having lost the only maternal figure he’d ever known. She was one of the few remaining connections he had with the wizarding side of his family, Lily having been the daughter of that accountant second cousin the Weasleys never mentioned. Ginny was kept ignorant of that piece of the family drama, though it’s doubtful she would have repudiated Harry after learning she was his second cousin, who knows how many times removed, especially considering how quickly Harry recovered from the realisation. He’d never known how closely related wizarding families could be until his fifth year when Sirius described the sordid histories of pure blood families. Fred gathers the strength to answer. ‘He’d always brought misfortune on the Weasley women, whether it was Ginny, Mum, or Hermione.’ My brow furrows as I seek to divine his reasoning. ‘Because of Harry, Malfoy slipped Ginny the Great Git’s diary. Harry perpetually sent Mum into a tizzy about how dreadful he was being treated by the Dursleys and then by acting like a right prat to her since his fifth year after she’d loved him like one of her own.’ Knowing what Dumbledore had told me and what Arthur later confirmed, I can’t agree to Fred’s first assertion. Lucius’s motives were fiendishly political. The second, however, is all true, all very true, yet it’s surprising he avoids the obvious explanation. Perhaps it’s still too painful a memory to relive. ‘Hermione - whatever her faults - always did what she thought was best for him. Saved him from that Cho’s evil clutches, first off.’ I remember Cho Chang well from when I was a professor at Hogwarts. She was a very nice and fairly bright girl. ‘OK, she was pretty and, to be honest, a decent Quidditch player, but compared to Ginny...’ Fred declares. ‘I thought you said Harry was wrong for Ginny.’ Fred ignores my comment. ‘Harry was responsible for that brief rift between Mum and Hermione in our, my sixth year. Mum thought Hermione was playing with ickle Harrykin’s heart, the poor sod.’ He stands before me now, eyes squinting and mouth drawn from the stress of reliving the memories of those days. ‘And,’ he leans towards me, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, ‘he was the cause of Hermione’s miscarriage.’ My God, she only recently told me she was pregnant. ‘She hasn’t...’ ‘It was about four years ago, when Ron and Hermione separated.’ That explains quite a bit, though why they had kept this from me, I’ve no idea. ‘Ginny demanded that Ange and I not tell anyone. We weren’t supposed to know, either.’ ‘Harry never intended any of that, you know.’ ‘Yet...’ Yet. If Harry hadn’t delayed that night, Molly would still be with us, with who knows how many other Weasleys. Arthur might have survived to become a junior minister, Bill and Fleur might be plaguing Europe with a horde of fair-haired heartbreakers. Charlie might even have made it back from Romania that fateful year. And George might be here still inventing alongside his brother, the Twins against the Filches and Umbridges of the world, raining chaos upon the self-righteous and humourless. As it should have been... ‘You remember how Ginny was...’ I begin. The shelves distract Fred for a moment as he recalls the past. He gathers some fresh stock for the front, placing the merchandise carefully on my table. ‘Better than most, if you remember.’ Hermione had told me of the scene at St Mungo’s after Harry’s funeral. ‘She could barely speak to him after her first year for fear of what he thought of her. Never even thought of asking her to the Yule Ball after Cho turned him down. Not to say she would have gone back on going with Neville any road, just that it would have been thoughtful for him to have considered her, right? And how she defended and supported him in her fourth year. She didn’t have to, did she?’ Though I dislike to think it, I’m becoming increasingly appalled by the indifference of my friend’s son. Fred pulls up a stool and sits across from me. ‘So, what’s in there will improve my opinion of him?’ ‘It might make you more sympathetic.’ ‘Ange and I asked you to find that didn’t we?’ he grumbles tapping the scroll. ‘I’m not so daft as you obviously think.’ He glares straight into my eyes daring me to contradict him. ‘Remus, for years I believed Harry was an arrogant little shit who thought he had a monopoly on grief. I despised him for how he blamed himself for Mum’s death, how he scurried away from Ron and Ginny like he was the only one suffering.’ His eyes still fixed me to my stool. The intensity of his gaze, usually so fleeting as it sought targets for barbs and pranks or avenues of escape, was discomfiting, if not frightening. ‘Not that I didn’t blame him myself. He could have Flooed from Grimmauld Place when Mum told him. Perhaps she would have died a little sooner. He should have simply forced her to go, but she never would have allowed that.’ He smirks at the memory of his mother’s iron resolve. Grumbling, he grabs the merchandise from the table. ‘I know he wanted Mum to leave before him that day. Maybe by that point he thought only the Great Git could kill him.’ He can no longer look me in the eye as his face reddens in anger at the memory. The colour slowly fades and he breathes a heavy sigh. ‘But Mum would never leave one of her kids behind, no matter how much Harry fought with her. Like any good mum she could be a fool where her children were concerned.’ His steps are leaden as he ventures back out to the front. ‘At least he had the balls to tell Dad what happened.’ With that he leaves me alone with my own unhappy reminiscences and dreams of a world in which other paths had been taken. Neither Molly nor Fred knew of the prophecy. Even if they had, it’s unlikely anything would have changed. Though as any teenager, Harry had grown to resent Molly’s mothering, he never would have willingly left her side. His collapse after her death was complete. Only the deaths of Ron, Hermione, or Ginny would have affected him more then. Confronting Ginny’s grief forced Harry back into the present and gave him the desire to train harder. By the end, he was willing to die or even kill to protect the Weasleys. Death continued to devour them, to feast on his soul until there was nothing left save the faintest hope at least one member of his adopted family would survive the war. In the end, Harry believed he could no longer even rely on that pale dream. He died thinking he had lost everything and everyone. That he was once again and forever alone, unloved, and cursed. Is it right to thrust that world, our world, back on him? ~~~***~~~ Diagon Alley, London Gringotts ---(Ron’s POV)--- Two hours late. Days like these drive a man to drink. Then again, after last night... Oh, God, how things’ve gone wrong. How were we to know back then, so many years ago, how things would turn out? Ginny was barely ten weeks old the first time Harry and his mum defeated You-Know-Who. (OK, Voldemort. Shudder. Satisfied?) Now she’s ready to take on the world for that damn fool. Harry. Who would have thought twelve years ago on that train to Hogwarts what a curse he’d bring on our family. Then, there were nine of us Weasleys. What are we going to do with Ginny? Her falling for Harry was adorable when she was eleven, but it rapidly became a bloody curse. By then, though, supporting Harry was a Weasley tradition - the sole one I’d started, if you exclude Fred and George introducing me - one that I thought the Department of Mysteries and Harry’s prattish behaviour that year had cured. I should’ve realised that second year - when the elder Malfoy planted Riddle’s diary for Ginny to find - being near Harry was dangerous. Or our fifth year when Harry saw that snake attack Dad. Fred and George knew. I remained pig-ignorant, up until the end. No, that’s unfair. It’s not his fault, really. We, the Weasleys, were the target for Malfoy’s little plot. Ginny’s infatuation for Harry was merely an optional extra, as Dumbledore revealed. I look down at my arms and swear that I can see the marks from the brain through my robes and clothes. All those bloody potions I’d taken in the Infirmary after the night Sirius died could only work so well. Still, the occasional uncharacteristic thought burrows its way through now and then. Like when I broke my hand on the door jamb after Hermione told me about Harry... What a cock-up. Don’t get me wrong. It was great seeing Harry again. Despite what had been done to him - what we’d done to him - he hadn’t changed much. More relaxed, carefree maybe. Even Fred thought so. If he approves of Harry, there may be some hope. Yet since Ginny brought Harry to London, everything’s gone pear-shaped. Hermione’s on edge, though she won’t say why. Ange nearly murdered Fred. (According to Fred; she probably just gave him a good bollocking.) What we’d done to them. What I’d done to them. To Harry, to Ginny... and to Hermione. But then there were but three Weasleys. (Won’t bother to count Percy. He’d buggered off to God knows where, the git.) Not that any of us were able to deal with much of anything at the time. Fred was no longer the gregarious sort. Lee [Jordan] and Dennis [Creevey] kept him out of the shop after he nearly bit the head off of some student. That left him having to muddle through the family’s affairs with me and a potion-addled Remus. Not that either of them was around much. Remus was in hospital more often than not. Fred was busy with the funeral arrangements, absolutely refusing to have anyone save Ange help him. Ginny, of course, was in and out of consciousness. Leaving me to deal with the solicitors, the Ministry, the Healers, and Harry. Though in truth, it was Hermione who was burdened with Harry’s problems. And Ginny’s. The Ministry had embarked on a campaign of divide and conquer. Flinging difficulties with Dad’s pension my way - as well as with the legacies of the rest of the family and some of our friends - all requiring urgent meetings with the solicitors, Gringotts, that shit Perkins, and with other little pricks from the Ministry. Keeping me away from Hermione, and her away from her family. ‘The importance of keeping the wizarding community’s secrets safe from the Muggles,’ was their excuse. Being family, that didn’t matter, but the Ministry officials didn’t listen, no matter how much she begged them. They seemed congenial when I was around, not that I trusted them. But something would always come up to drag me away... Hermione was drowning in it by the end. She was having no success in getting the Healers to decrease the doses they gave Ginny. They inundated Hermione with reports on Death Eater attacks and pleas to accept the Ministry’s scheme for Harry. She was in tears when she’d told me what they’d planned. She wanted to wait, at least until he was cogent. But the pressure was simply too great. I couldn’t bear what was being done to her, and Harry didn’t seem likely to recover. In the end, I begged her to accept the Ministry’s findings, if only for her own sanity. Yet later I hadn’t the courage to stand by her when she discovered all of St Mungo’s and the Ministry’s lies. We lost our baby... How could I have done that to Hermione? And to our child. To this day, I don’t know why I stormed out of our flat. I reckon I couldn’t bear being reminded of my complicity in Harry’s ‘surrogate death,’ as Remus terms it. It wasn’t Hermione I was furious with, but me. Now we’re right back where we started. So here I sit in a private office at Gringotts reading a copy of the Ministry’s secret file on Harry’s ‘treatment’ growing sicker with each and every page. But only after having to re-read each passage four times to understand any of it. I thought Remus said he’d decoded this... The report’s as unintelligible as ever. The Ministry must employ a special committee of goblin and wizarding solicitors to write this rubbish. Remus rang early this morning - bloody fellytones - about the order covering Harry’s treatment without being too direct. Needless to say, at six in the morning with a pregnant wife (sleep being at a dreadful premium), a bit of directness wouldn’t have hurt, but knowing him it must have been an emergency. We met at a coffee bar in Hammersmith, far enough from anything to dissuade any ministerial interest, where we obliquely discussed several issues involving the Wizarding Wheezes. Intellectual property rights and the like, as if I know anything about that bollocks. During which he passed me the dossier now before me, affixed to which was one of those Muggle sticky-notes reminding me to keep it safe. Scanning the first page after returning home and seeing the name ‘POTTER’ I immediately knew why. Yet the strange occurrences for the day didn’t end there. Reading the report - order, whatever - I was puzzled for what to do. I mean, I was certainly going to put it into my and Hermione’s vault at Gringotts. Then the message from Tonks came, spat up from that silly small cauldron on the bureau. Ginny was with her in Edinburgh, in Haseltoun, and with Harry. No bad news there, except... Except Tonks reported that Ginny and Harry had run-ins with three gits who must have been sent by that prat Perkins. Tonks’s own concerns of further encounters were evident in the short missive. Just then, Hermione woke calling my name. Taking this as an omen - she’s never been able to understand my superstitious ways - I rushed to the bed in a panic. She was mildly distraught as well, though one would have to know her well to tell; a slight downward twist at the right corner of her mouth. When she saw the anxiety on my face and what I was holding, her concern became more apparent. We conferred and decided to contact Kingsley since neither of us wanted to risk the baby and I was far too recognisable - we are third in the League, you know - to swan off to Haseltoun. Besides, if I didn’t attend today’s practice, the manager would shunt me off to the reserves. And, to be honest, I let my worries about losing Ginny and Harry again take precedence over the need for discretion or the likelihood my sister would again shun us. Shacklebolt was furious that Ginny hadn’t sought to inform him that Harry was with her. ‘Indiscreet, unsafe, insane,’ scribbled in a shaky hand was all he could manage other than an order to Apparate immediately to the Ministry (‘Ministry, NOW.’). It’s unnerving when someone as unflappable and erudite as Kingsley can only respond in such a curt fashion. When I arrived, he thrust a book in my hand and ordered me to do whatever it took - beg, plead, whatever - to convince Ginny to leave Harry with Tonks for the time being. Ginny was to discreetly return to their flat to await a disciplinary hearing, though he wouldn’t say why. As I began to protest, he assured me the hearing was merely a formality and that the worst she’d receive would be a desk job at Auror HQ. He could tell I didn’t believe him, but he refused to accept my whinging about Quidditch practice or my insistence that she’d find him more convincing these days. Or that since he already knew about Harry, why couldn’t he go? After his ten-minute explanation how Fidelius Charms operate (you see if your eyes don’t cross after someone tells you, ‘Just because I know where he is doesn’t mean that I know where he is,’ several times), I resolved to take his word for it and was thrust northward. In the end, Tonks’s sedative and Harry’s illness rendered my worries and Kingsley’s planning academic. I wonder how Kingsley’s taking it... Yet the day’s strangeness didn’t end there. Midway through a scrimmage - during which I made several spectacular saves and only let in one shot - I was called down for an urgent message. Hughes, the manager, wasn’t well pleased. Back to being a substitute, his glare declared. The prick. The messenger, however, looked impressed, which could only mean disaster. It was only a standard parchment envelope with florid green writing with the Hogwarts crest emblazoned on the purple wax seal. Purple seal’ I tossed a couple Galleons to the lad and hastily carried the letter into the changing rooms as if it was a Howler sent by Mum. I needn’t have worried so, as Professor Flitwick merely informed me that I was to meet Ginny, Harry, and Tonks at Gringotts, inconspicuously sneak them to somewhere safe, and win the League Cup single-handed. OK, so that last request was a bit of a stretch, but not far off. Ginny’s likely still furious about Kingsley finding out. There’s nothing I need less than further aggro from my not-so-little sister after a six-hour Quidditch practice and only two hours of sleep. That said, it will be good to see her again, especially after how distant we’ve become. What a family we Weasleys are these days. Before, we couldn’t be separated despite how large a brood we were, excepting that git Percy, of course. Though Charlie was in Romania and Bill in Egypt, the family always managed to keep in touch, always close. Now, though, we’re separated only by a stretch of road or rail but see each other irregularly. Ginny hasn’t really visited us in years. Fred only comes because Angelina insists, and they only come on alternate Christmases, spending time with her family the other times. Hermione’s not taking it well at all. You’d think being an only child, and a swotty one at that, that she’d be used to being alone. But losing Ginny nearly sent her round the twist. Hermione knows she tends to mother Ginny now and then, but she can’t help feeling protective of her sister-in-law after what happened in our seventh year. Their absence is driving me mad, as well. As I slowly fall asleep in this private office with my cure for insomnia open before me, I reflect on the bizarre influence our family name now holds over the wizarding world. Long ago, I wondered what Harry must have felt like, especially in those early years before he’d truly grown accustomed to the prevailing sense of idiocy that surrounded him from being the Boy-Who-Lived. I now know why he despised the attention, the fawning. I just want to go home, hug my wife and child-to-be, spend time with them, and forget the rest of the world. But nothing’s ever so simple. Still, there are some benefits. Such as being able to wait in an office rather than out in the open, and receiving the sincere regrets of a senior manager of Gringotts. All Bill’s doing, really. Those years of curse-breaking in Egypt and the rest of the Near East, filling the coffers of Gringotts with gold and furthering the bank’s own schemes for protecting its vaults. He was one of the foremost in the field, though he never let on. I admit, in spite of Bill’s coaching - nagging, really - of how to behave around goblins, I was dead nervous when the Managing Director, of all people, came to greet me. He politely held out his hand with a welcoming toothy sneer I assume was meant to put me at ease. Graciously - I hope - I bowed and shook his claw, trying all the while to still the discomfort as his long fingers encircled my hand for the second time. Placing a small but firm palm on my lower back, he guided me gravely to the back offices of the senior management. At first I was terrified that Professor Flitwick was unable to convince Gringotts to accept Tonks and Ginny’s scheme. Then I panicked that they were going to renounce the terms of my and Hermione’s mortgage. I had forgotten how odd the day had already been. ‘Mr Weasley,’ Managing Director Fogruk snarled after shutting the door to the empty office behind him. ‘I offer my most sincere apology for Director Dergspruan’s rudeness. Had we known about that second contract earlier, it would never have been inflicted upon your family.’ I’d never seen a goblin so embarrassed before, and I hope never to see another in such a state again. If goblins could blush, his face would be bright red. The snorting as well as his twitching ears, squinting eyes, and gnashing teeth made an even worse sight. For any goblin, the act of acknowledging a mistake to a wizard is tantamount to an admission of servitude. Bill taught me that important lesson. If wasn’t for him and his work for Gringotts over the years, I’m certain I never would have heard about Dergspruan’s machinations, Professor Flitwick or not. I duly accepted the Managing Director’s regrets with the proper dignity, wincing as I lower myself onto knees sore from hours of Quidditch practice to shake his claw and address him being to being. I, of course, had no idea what he meant about a second contract. But when in Gringotts... ‘I am humbled by your honesty, sir.’ I must remember to find Hagrid’s recipe for treacle and send that little worm Dergspruan a batch. I’m reminded of Harry’s version of how Hermione used the centaurs to dispense with Umbridge that fateful day. It was the summer before our sixth year and we’d recently received our OWLs. A hideous bit of summer reading that was. Sick of seeing her go off on one of her self-righteous tirades about how we ought to have paid more attention in class if we’d wanted more bloody OWLs, and worried that I might forget how fond I was - and am (married her, didn’t I?) - of her, he brought up the centaurs. ‘Yes,’ he said arching his brow, ‘and who was it who forgot how proud centaurs are?’ I’ve only seen Hermione that discomfited four times in my life as she suddenly remembered about needing to find Ginny for something. Part of me wanted to grin with him, while another urged me to knock that smirk off his smug git face. My opinion of him didn’t improve when he gave me a shove. ‘Well, go on then,’ he chortled, nodding in the direction she’d scarpered. My ears burned with the realisation of how obvious my affection for Hermione was. Still, it took the threat of her spending the Christmas of our sixth year with Viktor that finally prompted me to act. (Upon reflection, I’m happy to say Hermione’s ploy worked, especially after that horrible Christmas.) Thinking back on how Hermione ridded us of that pustule Umbridge reminds me I’ve no idea how to sneak the four of us out of here. And no secure means of contacting anyone who might be able to help. Bugger. I wonder if the Managing Director has any ideas. Speak of the pointy-eared angel... Director Fogruk re-enters the office trailing a pair of disgruntled underlings behind him. ‘Mr Weasley, being that humans, even those so cognizant of our ways as you, tend to forget certain necessities of our trade, I’ve taken the liberty of arranging a safe means of transport.’ Well, I understood the last bit. I think. ‘And what might that be?’ I enquire. ‘How would you feel about advertising our new education savings account for young parents?’ My stomach plummets to my kidneys and considers going further. ‘Er...’ ‘We’ve run it through your club,’ he announces with a new toothy grimace that I suspect is intended as an encouraging smile. ‘They loved the idea.’ I’m sure they did. ‘Now...’ The cunning little devil interrupts me. ‘This isn’t gratis, Mr Weasley,’ he adds ostentatiously, index claw in air. ‘No, no. You will receive the going rate,’ a pittance, ‘as well as an initial investment of,’ here he fails to suppress a shudder, ‘five hundred Galleons in your son or daughter’s plan.’ Slapping his hands loudly behind his back, he awaits my decision. ‘Hmm?’ Not very patiently, obviously. At the back of my mind, a tiny voice starts shrieking something, but another question bursts to the fore. ‘How will this help us leave?’ I wonder. I never thought I’d ever compare a goblin to Hermione, or vice versa, but the way he rolls his eyes... ‘Because,’ he bites off an insult just in time, ‘we’ve arranged a press conference for you.’ During which Ginny, Harry, and Tonks might escape unseen. ‘Are you sure this will work?’ It has been five years since Voldemort’s fall and I was in the first seven only four times last year, despite performing better than Rathbone, our starting Keeper, each time. (Sodding manager.) And that stern glower... I always thought Mum learned that particular talent from Nan, or Professor McGonagall. Well, it might work. ‘I still want to see them beforehand,’ I demand. ‘They should be arriving forthwith,’ Fogruk grins. His usual scowling self is much easier to stomach. The two underlings usher the three welcome travellers into the office. Tonks comes in first, calmly but her robes are askew and certainly not in accordance with Ministry Rules and Regulations. She smiles broadly none the less, unsettling me even more. Ginny and Harry follow next. The way they’re glaring at each other reveals they’re in the midst of an argument. Since she’s consented to his arm resting along her side and he her arm across his shoulders, it mustn’t be a serious one. ‘You really should let me examine you,’ Harry insists. ‘I do have a first aid certificate.’ ‘We’ll wait until we see Hermione,’ Ginny grumbles. ‘Ginny,’ Tonks pleads, sick of the sniping, ‘just let him look. What could it hurt?’ ‘Me,’ my sister quips, ‘a lot.’ Concern and fury start to seep through my thick skull. ‘OK, what happened?’ A faint cough reminds all of us that Director Fogruk is still in the room. ‘Briefly,’ he grunts gazing at his pocket watch, ‘these two ladies had another run-in with the law.’ Groaning at my goggle-eyed and gormless reaction, he continues. ‘And Miss Weasley here seems to have broken a rib or two. Can we get a move on?’ Fogruk merely shrugs as we gaze at him in complete disbelief. ‘Well, you lot want to leave, don’t you?’ Very well. On with the dog and pony show...
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