Getting Closer to Fine

Mary Caroline

Rating: R
Genres: Romance, Mystery
Relationships: Harry & Hermione
Book: Harry & Hermione, Books 1 - 5
Published: 08/04/2004
Last Updated: 23/09/2008
Status: in_progress

After Hogwarts, Harry deals with life, love, and loss - with a little help from the rest of the trio. [R rating for language.]

Chapters

1. One

2. Two

3. Three

4. Four

5. Five

6. Six

7. Seven

8. Eight

9. Nine

10. Ten

11. Eleven

12. Twelve

13. Thirteen

14. Fourteen

15. Fifteen

16. Sixteen

17. Seventeen

1. One

Disclaimer: Not mine, JKR's.

A/N: I've been writing this story for a long time. It was begun in that canon-space between Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix, and that shows in lots of ways. The characters I use, for one. Post-ootp, I revised the story to comply with canon, but didn't make any major changes to plot, theme, or characters. It goes cheerfully AU with Half-Blood Prince, not because of the shipping, but because there's just no room for the revelations of that book in the plot of this story.

I think there will be eighteen chapters, in the end. And I promise I'll finish it one of these days.

One

*

Harry leaned his head against the train window and watched raindrops splatter against the glass. It was a grey, dreary September afternoon, and it suited his mood nicely. As did the train; it was the perfect place for him at the moment. A place where no-one knew him, where he could be still and quiet before he had to reintroduce himself to Aunt Petunia for the hundredth time.

The Little Whinging station drew nearer, and Harry made his way to the exit, swaying in time with the train. The platform was nearly empty on this commuter-free Saturday. It smelled like wet concrete, old cigarette butts, and something only identifiable as stink. Harry hurried out of the station, putting up his old black umbrella as he made it out into the fresh, albeit wet, air.

It was a damp quarter of an hour's walk to the residential home. The lobby was overly warm, as always, and Harry half-expected steam to rise from his wet clothes. He suppressed a shudder at the desperately cheerful pink carpet, pastel walls, and floral couches, and forced a smile instead for the benefit of the room's white-haired occupants.

He had to wait only a moment at reception. "Harry Potter to see Petunia Dursley, please."

"Right this way," the young nurse said, bustling out from behind the desk. "Your aunt's having quite a good day. We're always so pleased to see her showing signs of improvement."

"Yes," Harry said, swallowing. "Yes, that's always good news."

They found Aunt Petunia in a small sitting room at the end of the corridor. There were only two or three people sitting quietly inside, and Harry was grateful for that. His conversations with Aunt Petunia often turned rather testy, and the fewer witnesses, the better. Harry walked over to his aunt, who was hunched down in an armchair and peering beadily at the other residents.

"Hello, Aunt Petunia."

She focused on him, and after a beat, asked, "Well? Who are you?"

So much for improvement. Not that he'd thought it possible, anyhow, not unless there had been some sort of unprecedented magical miracle.

Harry sighed and settled down in a nearby chair, resigned to half an hour or so of giving the same old answers to the same old questions: I'm your nephew, my mum was your sister, no, she can't come visit you. . . .

He thought that one day he'd be able to do this on autopilot, simply turn off his brain and let the words flow. But that wasn't today, and he wished they were in her tiny bedroom with the telly as a distraction. He would much prefer trying to explain what the talking heads were on about than have this conversation again.

"I'm your nephew. Could we talk in your room?"

She narrowed her eyes. "You? In my room? Do I look mad?" Aunt Petunia stood and, brushing Harry aside, walked away. At the door, she turned and offered a parting shot: "And if you really are my nephew, you could at least do something with that hair!"

One good day, ruined single-handedly in under a minute. Harry made his own way out of the room, voices rising in his wake. He wondered if he was being judged as a horrible boy for upsetting his poor sad aunt, or if these people who had to live with her day in and day out were perhaps cheering him on.

It would be nice if just one of these visits would go well. It seemed that Aunt Petunia had been able to cling to just enough memory to feel loss when she thought of her sister, and bitterness when faced with her nephew. Harry supposed he should be pleased that his aunt had been able to hold onto something.

Ron and Hermione always offered to make the trip down to Surrey with him, and Harry always refused. This was his problem. His aunt. His responsibility.

*

Ron wandered about aimlessly, moving a paper here, opening a cupboard there. The London flat he and Harry shared was small, and his legs were long; there just wasn't enough room for a good spot of pacing. His only company was Hedwig, and her head was tucked firmly under a downy wing. Ron briefly considered waking her just to hear some disgruntled hooting. All in all, the quiet was driving him mad. It wasn't his fault; Weasleys didn't do solitude well. They weren't made for it.

A long Saturday evening stretched out ahead of him, dreary and unexciting. Ron heaved a sigh. Experience suggested that even when Harry returned, the quiet would remain.

There was one solution to the problem, and he reached for it, in the form of the fellytone-thing on the kitchen counter.

It rang for a long time. Ron had just decided that Hermione wasn't home or he'd done the dialing thing all wrong when, finally, she answered.

"Hello?"

"Hermione! You're home!"

"Good one, Ron," she said. "Your observational powers astound me."

"Very funny. Would you like to come over for dinner?" Once upon a time, such words from him would have held a whole different meaning, would have been part of their on-again off-again courtship dance. But years had passed since then, and Ron had no ulterior motives. He valued his sanity too much to start any of that again, and didn't need to be skilled at Legilimency to know Hermione felt the same way.

Hermione sighed. "Ron, term just began. I have a thousand things to do before Monday. I have reading for three classes, two response papers to write, plus I want to do a bit of extra background research. . . ."

Some men might have been daunted, but Ron was both determined and experienced at dealing with book-mad witches. "Hermione, you have to eat. Your brain needs, erm, nutritional input to keep working at optimal studying levels. All your old famous Muggle thinkers ate a lot. I've seen the pictures."

Another sigh. "Why don't you get Harry to eat with you?"

"Because he's in Surrey. And you know what he's like when he gets back from there."

"Yes," Hermione said. "I do." She was quiet for a moment. "All right. I'll be there in a minute."

Ron hung up the felly-tone and pumped his fist into the air. He was going to have company, someone to laugh with and tease with, and hopefully cheer Harry up with. And he had convinced Hermione to do something she didn't want to do - always a bonus.

He dropped his arm. He was going to have company. Girl company. The type that would complain if there wasn't a space on the couch large enough to sit down. And the type that would probably demand a clear spot on the floor for her feet. Ron sighed, unpocketed his wand, and set to work.

She was as good as her word. Ron had only managed to unearth a section of the couch and coffee table before she popped into the flat. Hermione, on the other hand, had apparently had time to pack half the contents of her bookshelf into the bag she carried over her shoulder. "You brought work?"

"Of course," Hermione said, settling on the couch. "I told you I was busy."

Groaning, Ron slumped into the armchair beside her and picked up a Quidditch magazine he'd read twice already. He watched Hermione over the top of the pages as she wrote in one of the thickest school planners he'd ever seen. Ron had always suspected that Hermione was off her nut, but this Muggle university thing made it official. He and Harry had been thrilled to walk away from classes and note-taking in all forms a year ago. Only Hermione could have found a way to study even more.

The scritch scritch of Hermione's quill was a soothing sort of sound, and as the afternoon wore on and the light grew dim, Ron's magazine travelled from his lap to over his eyes, where it acquired a tent-like shape. Things were all quite cosy and comfortable - until the poking started.

Ron twitched. "Wha - what?"

"Didn't you promise me food?" Hermione asked, withdrawing her hand.

"Oh. Right." Ron stood, stretching. "Don't you want to help?" he asked hopefully.

"Not really," Hermione said. She meant it, too: she was already writing again.

"But I might get it all wrong. I need supervision."

"I certainly can't argue with that," she said, "but luckily, I can see you just fine from here."

That was quite true, given the size of their home. Flats in London didn't come cheap, and as Ron insisted on paying exactly half of the monthly rent, they weren't swanning around on Harry's inheritance. The tiny kitchen was separated from the lounge only by a stretch of countertop, currently buried under dirty plates, cups, and a tin of Owl Treats. Ron shoved enough aside to create a workspace, then pulled out enough noodles and canned sauce to make spaghetti for three.

There were leftovers that night.

*

An owl landed on Harry's shoulder before he made it out of the residence home's carpark. Brown and large, with fierce eyes and scraggly feathers, the bird could only belong to one person: his boss.

Harry had joined the Aurors shortly after his eighteenth birthday. He'd spent most of the summer after Voldemort's defeat in St. Mungo's; on the morning of his discharge, he'd been met in the hospital lobby by a representative of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. It seemed experience in the field carried more weight than N.E.W.T. results, and the Aurors were very interested indeed in having Harry Potter embark on a crash training course. Since then, he'd learned that the job wasn't nearly as glamorous as he and Ron had once imagined. The hours were long and unpredictable; the paperwork staggering; and his immediate supervisor was an odd old man with a strange eye who stood for very few excuses.

Harry removed the message from the owl's leg, read it, checked his surroundings - good, no Muggles in sight – and set it on fire with his wand. He took out the handkerchief-sized square of cloth that was his Invisibility Cloak after a good shrinking charm. In a moment, he was ready to Apparate to the prescribed coordinates - in another moment, he arrived at the rear of a shop in Knockturn Alley. He knew that his partner, Dean Thomas, was watching the front of the same establishment, or would be very shortly.

A Saturday night behind the dustbins - and not his first, either. Nope, no glamour here.

When he'd signed his name in blood that warm summer morning, Harry had expected to spend a lot of time tracking down Death Eaters who had wiggled off the hook. Expected it, and looked forward to it. But while that was an important part of his job, much of Harry's work involved enterprising groups of wizards whose activities had little to do with pureblood supremacy or avenging Voldemort and everything to do with breaking the law. Harry wasn't certain which category tonight's assignment fell in, but from Moody's insistence that he and Dean were to observe only, not get involved an any way, he suspected that whatever was going on inside this shop was serious indeed.

He wished it weren't still raining.

Footsteps on cobblestones. Harry strained his eyes in the early evening gloom to see a figure in a head-to-toe cloak walking his way. At the shop's door, the person knocked in an offbeat rhythm. The door swung open, and Harry was left alone. He considered entering the building, but decided against it. He hadn't had time to check the building for warning spells - who knew what kind of magical alarms would go off if he made it inside? Instead, Harry cast amplifying and recording charms, strained his ears, and listened.

With the spell, the voices weren't hard to hear, but the words were indecipherable. That meant a distortion charm - standard practice for all conversations of a suspicious and secretive nature. Harry swore under his breath, positioning himself for a better view of the shop's door; the best he could hope for today was a glimpse of the visitor's face.

The door opened and the figure (it was impossible to tell if it was a man or a woman or even human under all that dark, heavy cloth) began walking away. Harry kept his eyes peeled. He needed to catch some idiosyncratic detail, something, anything that could lead to an identification.

No luck. He swore again, then went round to the front of the shop to collect Dean and Apparate back to headquarters.

*

The Ministry's artificially airy underground home was destroyed during the war. Stone and metal and spelled illusions all cracked and crumbled, leaving behind a hole in the earth filled with rubble and strange little pockets where the sun shone or thunderstorms raged. Now sections of the Ministry were scattered across wizarding London. Most were in old houses and shops, although the Department of Magical Law Enforcement had found for itself a large, solid stone building.

Harry and Dean climbed the stairs, their boots echoing on the flagstones. "I don't need to go in there, do I?" Dean asked. "I don't have anything to say. Everything was quiet on my end. You could tell him that as easily as I could."

"I suppose," Harry said. "But a right-thinking person would come anyway to show his solidarity."

"A right-thinking person would realise that West Ham is on the telly tonight, and cover for his partner."

Harry rolled his eyes, although he knew that if the sport in question were Quidditch, he would be much the same. "Go on, then." Dean grinned, turned, and took off down the stairs two at a time.

Moody's office door was open, and Harry entered to find the old Auror peering into one of the newest, strongest Foe Glasses on the market. Harry fidgeted politely in front of the desk until his boss looked up.

"Do you have one of these, sonny?" Moody asked, tapping the glass with a yellowed fingernail.

"No. No, I don't."

"You need two, at the very least. One for the wall beside your front door, and one beside your fireplace - ah, but you don't have a fireplace, do you? Smart lad, the less entrances to guard the better." He curled his lips into a crooked smile. "Put that second one over your bed then, so you can check it when you first wake up. Comes in handy when you're not so clear on what you brought home the night before, eh?"

Harry responded with a smile, although he wasn't certain Moody was entirely joking. "Ready for my report, sir?"

Moody nodded, hmmed, and made notes as Harry spoke and the recording played over and over. Finally, he asked, "Do you recognise the voice?"

Harry had been turning that over in his mind for an hour now. "It does seem a bit familiar. Like I've met him, heard him talk before." He shrugged. "But I can't put a name to it."

"Try." Moody waved a hand towards the door. "Go home, and try. Let me know something tomorrow."

"Yes, sir."

*

The lights were on, there were plates on the table and books scattered across the couch, but the flat Harry came home to was empty. He shrugged off his cloak, wondering where Ron (and Hermione, he assumed by the books) had gone, and why they'd been in a hurry. En route to a cold drink, Harry found a clue, in the form of a note on the refrigerator door.

Don't worry, mate. We're taking care of it.

Oh, that was helpful.

Harry removed the magnet, hoping there was more written on the back, but the parchment didn't budge. Someone hadn't trusted the yellow smiley face to do its job, apparently, and had added a sticking charm for good measure.

Before too many curse words could be uttered, Harry spotted the blinking light on the answerphone. The message played twice, and then, with a pop, Harry was gone.

It was disorienting, Apparating so fast, and Harry rushed through the nursing home´s front door with his head spinning. Catching his breath, he walked over to the reception desk, where Hermione was speaking to a nurse.

"I'm sorry miss, we need a blood relative's permission to transport her to hospital."

"That may not be necessary," Harry said, stepping up beside Hermione. "Could I see her alone for a second, first? I'm her nephew."

The nurse frowned. "We really shouldn't waste any more time--"

"We won't," Harry promised, already walking away. This was one thing he was better qualified to handle than any Muggle doctor. They called it a seizure, and shook their heads because no medicine they knew worked quite as it should. He called it a side-effect of being too long under the Cruciatus Curse, and had been taught a charm that took care of things almost instantly.

Harry had become an expert in getting from Aunt Petunia's side to the corridor outside her room during the span of that 'almost´.

He returned to the lobby a few minutes later, leaving behind a pleased, if slightly confused nurse. Hermione was sitting alone on one of the couches; Ron was across the room, busily chatting up a girl about their age.

"Trust Ron to find the only female under fifty in this place," Harry said, joining Hermione on the sofa.

"I don't think he realizes how much trouble he's going to get into! How does he think he's going to pass for a Muggle?"

"That's the trouble," Harry nodded wisely, "the thinking part." He gave Hermione a sidelong glance. She didn't seem as amused as he was, and Harry wondered if she was truly worried about the implications for wizard-Muggle relations, or if there was something more to it altogether.

"Hmph. Hope you've been practicing your memory charms."

Harry couldn't help flinching.

"Sorry," Hermione said quickly, "sorry, I wasn't thinking--"

"It's okay," Harry said.

"Harry?" Hermione began hesitantly, "do you think. . .well, what happened today. . . ."

"I'm not putting her back in St. Mungo's," Harry interrupted. "What I mean is," he added, amending his tone, "she's happier here. She always cared so much about things being normal." He traced his fingers over a flower on the couch cushion. He didn't add that merely walking through the doors of any wizarding medical facility made him feel ill. The smell was something unique, something horrible, a mixture of antiseptic charms and cauldrons bubbling with medicinal potions that conjured up too many memories of time spent as patient, and even worse, as visitor.

Hermione placed her hand on Harry's, stilling his fingers. "You're right," she said quietly, "and we're always glad to help out, you know that."

Harry squeezed her hand, a quick, grateful gesture. "Think I should go check on Ron?"

"You'd better," Hermione said. "Tell him to get her phone number already."

He stood, smiling. "I might have to remind him what one is, first."

*

By the time they returned home, ate, and teased Ron appropriately, Harry was in no mood to do anything that resembled work. The next morning found him awake early, sitting at the table in the flat's little dining nook, coffee in one hand and wand in the other. Harry played the recording repeatedly, quietly, careful not to attract the attention of a still-sleeping Ron.

He was very still as he listened. Harry thought of every Death Eater and suspected Death Eater he possibly could - even people who were by all accounts dead. He tried to focus only on voices, to filter out words that had been said or atrocities that had been committed when he'd seen each person. Harry tried to organise little columns in his mind, like Hermione would, full of 'yes's and 'no's and 'maybe's. It would have worked, too, if the 'yes' one hadn't stubbornly remained empty.

Bang. Bangbangbang. Harry didn't pause to think, canceling the charm and pointing his wand toward the sound in a heartbeat. When he realised it was just an over-enthusiastic guest, he rose, checked the peephole, and let Dean in. "Couldn't wait to see me this morning?"

Dean brushed past him, heading straight for the table. "Got any more of that?" he asked, gesturing towards the abandoned coffee cup.

"In the pot," Harry said. He walked into the kitchen and fetched Dean a beaker. "Seamus make a cock-up of the shopping again?"

"Bastard," Dean said, trailing behind him. "How hard is it? I ask you, how hard is it? You go to the grocer's, you pick up a tin of coffee with caffeine. A child could do it. Ron could do it, for God's sake."

"He does, sometimes," Harry remarked. "And sometimes he goes to the grocer's and comes home with strange powdered things I wouldn't quite classify as food. He gets excited by all the insta-stuff in little packets."

Dean was too involved with his coffee to continue the conversation. Harry smiled, watching him. He was lucky to have a partner that he'd known for so long, that he felt at ease with. Not only that, but they complemented each other well, too. Dean had rivaled Ron for tallest Gryffindor in their year back at Hogwarts, and he'd grown, at nineteen, into someone imposing. His mere physical presence had been known to make suspects nervous, and the fact that his first instincts were often towards physical rather than magical methods of attack only added to the effect.

Harry didn't think of himself as scrawny anymore, although sometimes he felt that way beside Dean. He'd never exactly learned how to put on weight, but training in hand-to-hand combat had given him muscles he was rather proud of. But while Dean was about physical strength, Harry was about quick reflexes, quick thinking, and sheer magical power. All in all, they worked well together.

Dean finally lowered his mug. "How'd it go with the old man yesterday?"

"Well, I made a recording of the bloke's voice. I need to be able to identify him for Moody in precisely," he checked his watch, "forty-eight minutes."

"You don't have any idea?"

He shrugged. "Not really. The more I think about it, the more I get people's voices mixed up in my head."

"Go on," Dean said, "give us a listen."

Harry played the recording up to the moment he heard Ron begin thumping around in his room. "So what do you think?" he asked Dean quietly.

Dean shrugged. "I don't know. I do think that if it was someone important, we'd be able to recognise them, though."

Harry thought that Dean had a good point. But as he dropped his cup in the sink and buttoned up his cloak against the morning chill, he also thought that Moody would expect a more useful answer.

*

A/N: Many thanks to lightgetsin and hiddenhibiscus for beta.

2. Two

Two

And if I stay lucky then my tongue will stay tied, and I won't betray the things that I hide. --Seven Mary Three

*

Harry put down his well-worn copy of Quidditch Through the Ages with a sigh. "Hurry up, Ron!" he yelled in the direction of the loo. "We were supposed to be at the restaurant fifteen minutes ago!"

The loo did not respond. Harry sighed again, stretching his legs out on the couch. Disaster was looming, he was sure of it - Ron had arranged a date with the girl he'd met at the nursing home and had enlisted Harry and Hermione to come along and keep him out of trouble. Hopefully.

Ron finally emerged from the toilet, circling like a dog chasing its tail. "Did I get them all?"

"Er - all what?"

"All Pig's bloody feathers! I've one clean jumper that's not maroon, and Pig just had to go roost in it."

"Well, stand still and let me check." Harry summoned the feathers off Ron's back - there really weren't that many - and sent them flying through the air toward the bin. "You could have done that yourself, you know."

"Shut it," Ron said. "I'm practising thinking like a Muggle. Been doing it all day."

"Oh," Harry said, trying to keep a straight face. "And - has it been going this well all day?"

"Shut it," Ron repeated, "I reckon we'd better go."

In a blink and a pop!, the pair arrived in the alley behind the restaurant. Harry silently thanked the unknown genius of a wizard who'd developed the first Apparition spell. It was a wonder he and Ron had ever gotten to class on time without it.

Harry began walking, but Ron pulled him to a halt.

"Wait - what is it I want to order again?"

"Crispy duck. Ron, you've had Chinese food before--"

"Not while pretending to be Muggle!"

Clearly, it was time for a pep talk. "Look," Harry said, "you've already made it through one conversation with her, right?"

Ron nodded.

"You did just fine then, obviously, or she wouldn't be going out with you. And with your friends that she's barely laid eyes on."

"True."

"And you've had a crash course in Muggle life since then. And you have me, and Hermione, right?"

Ron was still, apparently gathering his courage one final time. "Okay," he said finally. "Let's go."

When they rounded the corner of the building, Harry spotted Hermione at once. She and Ron's date, Sarah, were smiling and talking companionably - a good sign. Perhaps he and Ron wouldn't pay too dearly for their lateness. On the other hand, both girls had wrapped their jackets tightly around them to keep out the early October chill - not so good.

"Hullo, boys," Hermione said. "Sarah and I have had lots of time to talk about you."

Oh Merlin, was that an evil grin?

Ron must have noticed it too, because he jumped in with, "Sorry we're late - Harry's bloody slow, sometimes."

"Me? You -"

"I spoke to the hostess already," Hermione said, cutting him off, "so we should have a table soon."

Ron gallantly held the door for everyone, and Harry made certain to step on his friend's fat foot on the way inside.

*

Ron fiddled with his napkin.

Harry snuck glances at Sarah - she looked familiar, somehow. Maybe she had a brother or sister at Hogwarts? That would certainly make things easier. . . .

Ron fiddled with his chopsticks.

Hermione cleared her throat. "Sarah, you're at university, right?"

"Yeah. Just one more year before I can get out there and become the next Bill Gates." She grinned. "Or, more accurately, one of his minions."

Harry knew enough to smile in response; Ron looked ready to make a run for it; and Hermione actually beamed.

"You know computers! I think they're fascinating. Imagine, two clicks can do an hour's worth of searching indexes and library shelves. It's amazing."

"Wha - What?" The look on Ron's face was priceless; he was obviously computing the amount of time that could have been spent laying about or practising Quidditch if only there'd been a puter-thing at Hogwarts.

Both girls frowned; Hermione in warning, Sarah in confusion.

Luckily, Hermione rescued them again. "Sarah, do you think I could get your email address? My mum gave me her old computer, and I mostly know how to work it, but sometimes...."

"Sure," Sarah replied, and waited while Hermione dug a piece of paper out of her handbag. "It's Polkiss, that's p-o-l-k-i-s-s, at. . . ."

But Harry didn't hear the rest of her sentence. He didn't need to. Sarah Polkiss. Piers' older sister. He didn't really remember her, just vague impressions: Long brown hair and a smile on the doorstep of Number Four, taking her little brother home for tea. Arms just long enough and strong enough to pull Piers off him in the schoolyard, Harry's spectacles a second from being broken for the hundredth time. Sarah Polkiss.

Harry flattened his hair over his scar with an unsteady hand. How long until she recognized him? What had Piers told her about him? Should he just leave?

"Harry!" Hermione whispered. "Are you ill? You've gone all white."

"Er," he said, "er, no?"

"We'll be right back," Hermione announced. She grabbed Harry's arm and half-dragged him out of the booth. Harry briefly registered the look of pure terror on Ron's face before being escorted across the restaurant to the alcove by the toilets.

"Sit," Hermione said, pointing at a chair by the payphone. When he didn't move, she reached up to feel his forehead for a temperature.

Harry grabbed her hand. "I'm not sick. It's just. . .that's Sarah Polkiss."

"Yes, I caught the name," Hermione said slowly.

He looked away. "Sarah Polkiss. Sister of Piers Polkiss, Dudley's best mate."

"Oh! But - when did you see her last? Before Hogwarts? She's not likely to remember you. And if she does, what's the harm?"

"What's the harm?" Harry asked. "Who knows what Piers told her about me? He was there when I set that boa constrictor free from the zoo, you know. And when I Apparated onto the school roof to escape a fight. And when I Transfigured our teacher's wig blue--"

He glared at Hermione, who was trying rather unsuccessfully not to laugh. "It's not funny, Hermione! Because even if she doesn't know about all that--" Harry stopped as a man passed by them to enter the toilet. "Even if she doesn't know about that stuff," he continued quietly, "she will have certainly heard about what happened to the Dursleys. And I don't want to talk about it."

"Oh, Harry," Hermione whispered. Harry stared off over her head at a fascinating poster of China. "Harry, look at me," she said more firmly.

The wizards who built that Great Wall certainly were bold, he thought. Harry wondered if he would like China. The food was tasty, and he'd always had a bit of a thing for Asian women. It would only take a couple of quick Apparitions for him to find out. . . .

"Harry," Hermione said, putting her hand on his neck and forcing his head downward until he looked in her eyes, "she's on a first date tonight. Only someone with less tact than Ron would bring any of that up on a first date. Now, if she and Ron get serious, he's going to have to talk with her about some things, and you may have to talk with her about some things. But there's no sense in getting all wound up now. All right?"

It really was remarkable how often Hermione was right. Not that Harry had any intention of letting her know that, of course. "All right," he said. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it." Hermione smiled up at him, but didn't move - she seemed not to realise that her hand was still very much cupping his neck.

"Erm," Harry said, suddenly feeling a little funny after all, "we'd better go take care of Ron."

"Right." Turning away, she led him back up the corridor and across the restaurant.

*

Ron seemed to be doing all right without them. The food had arrived, and Sarah was leaning close to Ron, guiding his hands with hers as he battled with a set of chopsticks. Ron's ears were, of course, red.

"Sorry about that," Hermione said as they settled back into the booth. "Just remembered we needed to ring someone."

"No problem," Sarah said.

Harry examined the utensil options before him. While he liked the set of wizard's chopsticks Hermione had given him for his birthday - she'd charmed them to pick all the water chestnuts out of any dish they encountered- he wasn't sure he was up to trying the Muggle ones.Particularly with the luck Ron was having.

"Hermione," Sarah said, "Ron tells me you're at university as well?"

"Yes, I'm studying law -"

Finally deciding on a fork, Harry focused on his food and let the rest of Hermione's words flow over him. He'd heard more times than he could count about Hermione's plan to become an expert in Muggle law, particularly the rights of minority groups, and use her knowledge to influence the wizarding legal system. And, being Hermione she was already on her way to achieving them - along with her classes, she had a mini-pupilage with an extremely ancient wizard barrister. Hopefully, hopefully, Hermione wouldn't get carried away and start going on about oppressed house-elves or werewolves in front of Sarah.

Worrying about himself might have been a better idea, but he couldn't be expected to see the future, now could he?

"And what about you, Harry? What do you do?"

"Er," Harry said intelligently. "Erm, well. . ." Every good Auror had a cover story, but it was of course a wizarding cover story.

"He's in security," Hermione put in.

Harry smiled, full of gratitude. Crisis averted.

"If he told you, he'd have to kill you," Ron added helpfully, looking quite proud of his Mugglism.

Crisis back on.

*

Two hours later, Harry and Ron were stretched out in their flat, Ron comfortably on the couch, Harry less so on the floor nearby. They had Butterbeer, and there was a post-match show playing on WWN, but Harry wasn't content. He knew he needed to tell Ron about recognising Sarah; he'd noticed her eyeing him a time or two and thought it was only a matter of time before she made the connection. But knowing and wanting were two completely different things.

"Harry?"

"Yeah?"

"You remember when I walked Sarah up to her flat, and left you and Hermione out on the pavement?"

"Yes, I remember," Harry said. "It was an entire half-hour ago, after all."

"Oh, sod off," Ron mumbled half-heartedly. "Listen, she mentioned wanting to see a play that's opening next weekend. And. . . I said that we'd all love to go Saturday night."

Harry sat up immediately. "Ron! I'm no expert, but if she wanted Hermione and me to go, wouldn't she have mentioned the play in front of us?"

"Well, she did look a bit disappointed. But I said. . . I said that you were too shy to ask Hermione out on your own, and me being such a good mate and all, I wanted to help out as much as I could. . . . "

Harry flopped back down, groaning. "I love how you keep assigning your problems to me. But it's no good - I'm supposed to be working out of town." He took a deep breath. "Actually, that's probably a good thing."

"Why's that?"

"Because Sarah's brother was Dudley's best friend, and when she recognises me I doubt you'll be able to dodge the wizard issue any longer."

"Bloody hell!" Ron exclaimed, causing hooting and wing-rustling from Hedwig and Pig. "You could have mentioned this earlier!"

"No, I bloody well couldn't, because I didn't know until I heard her full name tonight!" It felt good to shout, even though Harry didn't really want to be angry with Ron. He understood that attraction was rather uncontrollable, but life certainly would have been easier for both of them if Ron had decided to stick to witches.

"Look, Ron," Harry began more gently, "it's not like you can keep this up much longer anyway. I'm sure she already thinks we're sort of odd. How are you planning to tell her?"

"Speak for yourself, mate," Ron said automatically, then began shaking his head gloomily. "I don't know. Transfigure something? Apparate? I'm just not ready yet. I want her to get to know me before I scare her to pieces."

"You'll think of something," Harry said, settling back down on his cushion. "And if you don't, Hermione will."

*

Working out of town meant a change of scenery, of a sort. It was an anonymous tip that led Harry and Dean to Edinburgh, and lurking behind Scottish dustbins in the Scottish rain. Still working the same case, but with a different plan - when the suspect appeared, they'd stun, bind, and search him (or her or it) for contraband items. Then they'd all Apparate back to London, to headquarters.

Harry pictured Hermione's reaction to this. "People should be innocent until proven guilty, Harry," she'd surely say, her brow all creased. "Even if you think this is the same man, you can't arrest him for a crime he hasn't committed yet!"

And while Harry of course agreed in principle, he didn't want to wait around for goods to actually exchange hands today. He wanted to get his hands on whatever their suspect was selling; to see it, hold it, and feel for himself if it was indeed something that had once belonged to Voldemort. The last thing Harry wanted was for the artifact to get damaged in the scuffle, or hidden amongst other items in the shop.

God, Scottish rain really wasn't any drier than the English sort.

"Oi," Dean whispered.

"Oi what?"

"It was good of you to set Seamus up with Hermione," Dean said. "Boy's been in dire need of feminine company, lately."

"It's not supposed to be a date," Harry whispered, aware that this really wasn't the time for chit-chat, but going along anyway. "He's just doing Ron a favour."

"More like the other way around," Dean said. "And, hell, I bet you could've got several Galleons off him for the privilege of seeing Ronald Weasley, Smarmy Muggle."

"Think I still - look!"

They had company at last, cloaked and hooded and every bit suspicious. Pointing their wands, Harry and Dean chorused, "Stupefy!"

Thunk. Harry aimed a binding spell, while Dean quickly dragged the inert figure to their hiding place between the dustbins and the alley wall. Dean knelt near the suspect's feet, as Harry stationed himself at the head; each now had a view of the supine figure and a different portion of the alley.

Harry pulled back the hood and sucked in a breath.

"Do you know him?" Dean whispered.

"I think so," Harry said. "I think - yes, yes it did sound like him, now that I think about it - I think it's Avery." He looked up. "Am I remembering right? Didn't Avery talk his way out of Azkaban?"

Dean was searching the man's robes for magically concealed pockets. He shrugged, and kept on searching. "There!" He pulled out a small jade figurine, shaped like a snake. "Think this is what we're after?"

Harry took the little snake and turned it over in his hands. Suddenly, a tongue flicked out, tasting the air, and Harry said, "Yes."

From Dean's expression, he knew he had not spoken English.

The little statue appeared to know it too. The tongue flicked again, and with a hiss that echoed like stone, it said, "The enemy shall not outlive the master. The master remains. He shall always remain."

Harry repeated the snake's words for Dean; his partner swore.

"I'll second that. We should take this bloke in--"

"Do you think that thing is sentient?"

Harry blinked. "I don't know. Maybe. Or it could've been charmed just to say that."

"Well, ask it something else, while it's in the mood to talk," Dean said. "I've got things under control here." He gestured towards their captive, and the alley.

"Right," Harry said. He focused again on the figurine, and on turning his mind into something not quite human. "Who is the master?"

If there was a response, he missed it. Instead his ears were filled with Dean's expelliarmus!, and immediately Harry trained his wand on their prisoner - who was still out cold. Realising he'd misjudged the threat, Harry stood and spun to face the attacker head-on, but before he could do anything else found himself physically lifted and thrown face-first into the brick wall behind.

Harry heard a few sickening cracks and felt something warm and sticky on his face; then the blackness took over and he lost contact with his surroundings altogether.

*

A/N: Many thanks to Hiddenhibiscus and Cynthia Black for beta, and to everyone who was kind enough to review.

3. Three

Three

'Cause there's a monster living under my bed, whispering in my ear. --Santana

*

He was being shaken, and it hurt. Hurt a lot and Harry wanted it to stop, wanted to be left alone in the nice comfortable darkness where his head didn't ache and his nose didn't feel five times too large for his face. "Sod off," he mumbled, or tried to.

The shaking didn't stop; if anything, it intensified. And now someone was whispering. "Come on, Harry, we need to go!"

Go? He didn't want to go anywhere. His wand was still in his hand, cool and strong, so Harry lifted his arm -

"Oh, no you don't." His wand slid out from between his fingers.

Damn. Now he had to open his eyes.

Harry blinked a few times; okay, so Dean was the ruthless wand-stealing people-shaking bastard, and as Harry took in the surroundings he realised it was for good reason. Now Dean was kneeling over him, holding - was that a sock? Dear Merlin, please let it not be a sock - to his nose.

"Finally," Dean breathed. "You all right?"

"Yeah," Harry muttered, struggling to sit up. "What happened?"

"Bloke came out of the shop. I disarmed him, but he didn't seem to care - just kept coming. You dropped that snake when he threw you into the wall -"

"Shit."

"- he grabbed it, and Disapparated." Dean turned toward the building, frowning. "Question is, was he the shopkeeper? Or somebody else?"

Harry wiped his mouth on the back of his hand; he was tasting blood. "Pretty stupid of him, if he owns the shop. We could have his name in no time."

"I'll go check the place out." Dean hesitated. "Do the sensor spell for me? It'll be stronger if you do it."

Harry held out a hand for his wand. They didn't deal in false modesties, he and Dean; when it came down to doing the job and staying alive, there simply wasn't room for them.

He said the words and closed his eyes, following the magic, letting it pull him in. It was a sound-spell with a twist or two; his head buzzed with the rush of noise and data and still-sharp pain -

"There's one person in there," Harry said, opening his eyes. "One person, two mice, and a lot of bugs. And the person - his heart, his breathing is slow. I'd say he's been stunned."

"Okay. Be right back."

Harry watched Avery - it was easiest to think of their prisoner as Avery, whether he actually was or not - the alley, the rain, and the patch of red spreading on what was, in fact, his sock. Then Dean was back.

"There was a little old man in there - like you said, somebody'd stunned him, although he didn't know it. He thought he'd just fallen. Kept begging me not to tell his granddaughter about it, said she'd make him give up the shop, poor old thing."

Harry nodded. "Lot of Dark stuff for sale in there, could you tell?"

"Eh. I saw a couple of Morth-wyrthan orbs that aren't entirely legal, but he's no Borgin."

"So somebody's using these shops, these shopkeepers, to get want they want." Harry pulled himself to his feet. "Right. So now, we take this bloke in and get ourselves chewed out for losing that statue."

"I'll get chewed out. You're going to the hospital wing."

Harry started to shake his head, then stopped. Ouch. "No. All I really need is a staunching spell -"

"- already done one -"

"- another staunching spell, and something for pain. We'll report together."

Dean looked enticed by the thought of company, but not quite convinced. He just needed a little push. . . "Hermione can take care of the rest. She's patched up worse before. I'll go to her flat straight afterwards."

Dean hesitated. "All right."

After Dean's quick go at healing, Harry revived their bound prisoner. Then Dean pulled the man upright and pushed him against the wall. "It's called forced Apparition," Dean said. "We hold onto your arms. We already have your wand. You Apparate with us to Auror headquarters in London, or find yourself splinched into a hundred little tied-up pieces. Got it?"

A silent nod; Harry and Dean took their positions, and the group Disapparated.

*

Their prisoner was in a cell, awaiting interrogation. Harry and Dean were themselves done with being interrogated for the night - although actually, it hadn't been too bad. Moody had been pleased with their arrest, and recognised the man at once; it was Avery, he said, or possibly some other wizard got up to look like Avery. Only time, and the wearing off of possible charms and potions, would tell.

And, happily, Moody had been fairly calm about the loss of the carved snake. Harry suspected his battered face had something to do with that; he was sure Moody had a odd sort of respect for blood and disfigurement.

"You really should go to the hospital wing, Harry."

"Sorry. Hey, I held up my end of the deal. And Moody didn't make it an order, now did he?"

Dean snorted. "But you know what he's like - hell, just look at him. Probably never let a nurse near him." They walked the corridor in silence for a moment. "Look, I'm going to Hermione's with you. Can't risk you going home and doing numbing charms on yourself all night."

Bugger. Dean was right not to trust him to go on his own. A worried Hermione, that was nearly as bad as hospital, her concerned face asking what happened? and then saying seriously, Harry, perhaps a different job. . . . No, Harry didn't want to go to Hermione's, even though it was only five o'clock, even though she wouldn't be out for the evening yet, even though she could heal him in less than two minutes.

Dean grabbed his arm, and Harry jumped. "It's called forced Apparition, Potter."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Yes, I've heard of it." He sighed, resigned to facing an upset Hermione. "Okay. Let's go."

*

And Hermione was upset. She didn't let them in at first, but joined Harry and Dean in the corridor, closing the door behind them. She stared at Harry for a long moment, then turned to Dean.

"Going to explain?" she asked, jerking her head towards Harry.

"Can't."

"What I thought."

Hermione held Dean's eyes, and Harry got the feeling they were still talking, silently treading a conversational path they'd been down many times before. Harry frowned. If they were going to talk about him, it should at least be out loud where he could get a word in edgewise.

"Well," Hermione said, shrugging slightly, "come on, then. But you two better take off those robes before you come in. I've got company."

Harry spoke for the first time. "You don't mean -"

Hermione nodded. "Yes. Everyone met here to decide about dinner before we go to the play."

"Right, well," Harry said. "I'll see you -"

"If you Disapparate, I will follow you and hex you into next week."

Harry couldn't help backing up a step at her tone. No question, he believed her.

"I'm ready," Dean said casually, as if he'd been so busy altering his own appearance he hadn't taken in Harry and Hermione's little standoff. Harry didn't believe that for a minute.

"Fine," Harry sighed. He removed his robes more slowly than Dean, discovering a twinge in his left shoulder that he hadn't even noticed before. When his shrunken robes were stored away in his a pocket, he said, "Okay."

Hermione latched onto Harry's arm as the door swung open. Her flat was a masterpiece in Disillusionment Charms: there were no quills, no spellbooks, and all the wizard photographs were perfectly still. Harry exchanged hellos with Ron, Sarah, and Seamus with his face averted as Hermione pulled him off to her bedroom.

The door closed behind them with a click. Harry tried a joke. "Why Miss Granger, whatever will people think?"

"That I'm some sort of scarlet woman, I expect," Hermione said. They both grinned at the reminder of Ron's old-fashioned quirks of vocabulary. "And it's always your fault, isn't it?" she added, pulling out her wand. "Now get on the bed, and hold still."

Harry burst out laughing - whether she'd meant to channel a dominatrix or not, she'd done a fabulous job - then put a hand to his face. "Ow."

"Sit," Hermione said, then removed his glasses and cupped his chin in her hand. "Now close your eyes."

Harry did as he'd been told. His skin tingled, hot and cold and hot again, as Hermione murmured charms to close his cuts and heal his bruises.

"You're lucky you didn't break this, you know," she said finally, running a finger over his back-to-normal nose.

"I know," Harry said, or at least thought, before her finger moved on to tracing the curve of his lip and his brain threatened to blank out altogether.

They'd spent eight years touching, whether it be passing quills or sharing books or huddling under the invisibility cloak. Hermione had even given him his very first hug - at least, the first one that counted, the first he could remember, once upon a time.

But this was different. This was intimate, this was deliberate and Harry wondered if some kind of time-magic was making her touch him like this, over and over again, it couldn't possibly be on purpose -

"Better?" she whispered.

"Yea -" he cleared his throat. "Yeah."

"Oi!"

Spell broken, Harry opened his eyes and Hermione jerked away. There was an insistent pounding on the door; Hermione wrenched it open.

"Are we eating tonight or what?" Ron asked, leaning against the doorframe. "Harry, mate, you don't look at all well. You're all -"

"Yes, Ron, we're eating," Hermione cut in. She turned to Harry. "Do you want to come?"

"Erm, no. Bit knackered, really." True enough, but not the whole story; he had no desire to spend another evening on edge, waiting for Sarah to realise who he was. And now there was this strange Hermione-thing. . . no, he was just fine where he was. "Is Dean going?"

"He's going to dinner with us. We don't have an extra ticket for the play, though." Ron paused. "I think he's rather disappointed."

"I bet he is," Harry said. Dean and Seamus were going to have so much fun with this. . . Harry felt sorry for Ron. He snuck a glance at Hermione. Well, almost.

They left him then, Hermione insisting that he sleep in her bed, Ron promising to bring home something tasty from the restaurant. Harry kicked off his shoes, tucked his wand under his pillow, and removed his glasses. He was tired. . . .

Unfortunately, his dreams gave him no rest.

*

"Harry!"

He was curled around himself, shaking and sweaty; Hermione's hand was on his shoulder and although he couldn't see her face, he could imagine her expression.

"Sorry," Harry mumbled, still not looking at her. "Sorry." He straightened out slowly, rubbing his forehead more out of long habit than any need, and began fumbling around for his glasses.

"Harry, stop." Hermione grabbed his arm and pulled on him gently until he was flat on his back, looking up at her. "Please, tell me about it."

"It was nothing," he said, blinking up at her blurry face. "Nothing new, anyway."

An almost-truth. It had been Voldemort, it had been green light and ear-splitting screams and blinding pain, it had been the oldest of dreams; but it had also been words he'd just heard that day, ominous words said with a hiss.

"I should go, I'm in your bed." He sat up, and resumed his fumbling. Where the bloody hell -?

"You're not going anywhere," Hermione said, sounding very pleased with herself. "I've got your glasses and your wand."

Harry reached under the pillow and realised at once that she was telling the truth. He opened his mouth to say something cutting, something that would make her leave him be - perhaps that he was nineteen, and didn't need a mother, and could take care of himself, thank you very much. . . .

A picture flashed into his mind: the two of them, several hours before, in this room. Hmm. There was a teeny possibility that being taken care of wasn't always a bad thing.

"Well," Harry said, flopping onto his back in mock defeat, "I reckon I'm stuck, then."

Hermione laughed, relief in her voice, and stretched out beside him, propping up on her elbow.

"Harry . . . does your scar hurt? You were holding it. . . ."

"No," he said reassuringly, "I was dreaming that it hurt, if that makes sense."

"Yes, it does." She paused. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Let's talk about something else," he said, rolling onto his side and mirroring her posture. "Tell me about your night. How did Ron do? Did he blow his cover?"

"Not quite," Hermione answered, beginning a play-by-play account of the evening that ended with Harry falling into a contented, and dreamless, sleep.

*

Lying on her side, Hermione watched him in the dim light. She had left one candle burning so that she could see Harry properly, so that she would know immediately if the nightmares came back.

She inched her hand along the pillow, slow, stealthy, stopping as soon as she felt a bit of his black hair brushing against her fingers.

She loved him.

Hermione couldn't say when that had begun, what moment it had started; but she did remember, very clearly, the instant she'd realised. It was seventh year and one of those tricks of fate - of Voldemort - had left her alone, and safe, with both her boys in danger. And during those agonizing hours it had hit her, full-on, in a tidal wave kind of way - so hard and so strong she was amazed she hadn't seen it before.

She would grieve if Ron didn't return. She would cry, and she would mourn. But if Harry didn't come back. . . if Harry was gone, she would never be able mourn, because she would never accept the loss.

She loved him, and she couldn't tell him.

Hermione was a lot of things. Clever, kind, a walking encyclopaedia - and practical. She didn't think in metaphor and would never have thought of the perfect one on her own. Ginny had done that, after the younger girl and Harry had had a month or two of holding hands and sharing kisses and nothing else.

"He's a caterpillar, Hermione," Ginny had said, sitting with her legs crossed on Hermione's Hogwarts bed, the curtains pulled around them for privacy. "He's completely wrapped himself up in a cocoon. He doesn't want to feel. He's all. . .walls."

And Hermione had nodded and patted Ginny's hand and made sympathetic noises. And, practically, explained why she thought Harry needed his walls, after all he had lost, and all he still stood to lose. And felt terribly sorry for Ginny while agreeing completely that it was useless to carry on a relationship with someone in a cocoon.

She had no idea, then, that time would see their positions reverse.

And now, Hermione thought, he's still in there. Although I think he's getting closer to breaking out every day. . . . But I'm not going to rush him, I'm not going to try until he's ready. Because when I try, I plan to succeed.

Hermione looked at Harry for another long moment; he seemed completely at peace. She carefully moved her free arm, the one not distracted by the feel of soft black hair, until it was hovering over his side. She closed her eyes and steadied her breathing, doing her best imitation of sleep. And with the same boldness that had overtaken her earlier that night she lowered her arm, gently, gently, until she was holding Harry against her, warm and solid and real.

Nothing wrong with a little nudge. . . .

*

Harry blinked his eyes against the sunlight streaming in the room. His body responded before his mind did to the fact that there was an arm around him and a distinctly feminine presence in the bed beside him. As his mind caught up, he realised that it was Hermione's arm wrapped around him, and Hermione who was snuggled up against his back. Hermione, one of his best friends. And for some reason, he had an urge to roll over and put his arms around her, an urge he couldn't quite explain. . . .

But the more his brain woke up, the more he knew that was a bad idea, a very bad idea. Last night's strange little slip aside, he and Hermione were friends. We-might-as-well-be-siblings sort of friends. And they couldn't, shouldn't, be any more than that. He was in no way what she needed, or deserved, or probably even wanted in the first place.

Harry suddenly felt the need to get out of her bed before he found himself doing something he shouldn't. He sat up and began squinting, trying to figure out what Hermione had done with his glasses.

"Mmph?"

"Go back to sleep," he said softly.

"Where are you going?"

Out of this room before I make a decidedly un-friend-like move? No, bad answer. He peered at her alarm clock. "It's nearly ten o'clock. I have to go in soon, we've a suspect to question." That was true, actually. And hopefully he could get back to his flat before Ron woke up and discovered his absence. He wasn't in the mood for any winks or nudges.

"Oh." Hermione sat up, smoothing out a few wrinkles in the dress she was still wearing from the previous evening. Was she disappointed?

"You want to have dinner tonight?" he blurted. Crap. That wasn't what he'd meant to say.

"I'd like that." Her face was still a blur, but Harry thought she might be smiling.

"Well. . .I'll ring you after work, then. Can I have my wand and glasses back now?"

"Of course. Now close your eyes," she said. "My secret hiding places are my secret."

Harry complied, his mind full of secrets of his own.

*

A/N: Morth-wyrtha is an Old English word meaning worshipper of the dead. Many thanks to Calliope and Cynthia Black for beta, and to everyone who was kind enough to review.

4. Four

Four

*

The day passed very slowly. Moody questioned Avery on and off for hours, with Harry and Dean sitting in, but the suspect refused to speak. Didn't answer any questions, didn't ask for legal counsel, didn't even ask to go to the loo. Harry had rather hoped Avery would fall all over himself in a hurry to confess - he remembered the man throwing himself on Voldemort's mercy, years and years before - but had ended up sorely disappointed.

The only progress they'd made had been in identification. Tests proved Avery wasn't under any concealment or disguise spell, and there'd been more than enough time for any Polyjuice to wear off. Progress, yes; exciting, no.

On his way out, Harry dropped off a request for Veritaserum with the Potions specialist. He'd spent nearly an hour filling out the parchment, feet and feet of it, and triple-checked for mistakes. Because of the cost, it was tough to get Veritaserum, but that was only one reason the Aurors didn't like to use it. While suspects on the drug spoke the truth, it was a truth only as complete as the interrogator's questions. A desperate confession was much more useful, not to mention more satisfying.

Well, Harry thought optimistically as he Disapparated, maybe they'd get one of those tomorrow.

Harry was trained to notice things, and the very first thing he noticed in the dark flat was that it wasn't dark, not entirely. Something was glowing on the dining table where glowing things did not belong. He tiptoed forward, wand at the ready, focusing on a shadowy form behind the mystery light -

Is that. . . Harry pushed his glasses up on his nose. Oh sweet Merlin it is. . . .

"Ron! You're using a computer!"

Ron lurched in his chair like one of Fred and George's Extra-High Jumping Beans. "Bloody hell, could you make noise when you come in, like a normal person? Or at least say 'I'm home' or something?"

"You're lucky I didn't keel over from shock," Harry said. "Where'd that come from?"

"It's Hermione's. She called it a loptop, or something. She did things," Ron waved his hand vaguely at the computer, "and told me to use it, that it would help me understand what Sarah does at university."

Moving behind Ron, Harry gained his first clear view of the screen - and exactly what was happening on it. "Somehow, I don't think this is what Sarah does at university."

It was amazing how many shades of red Ron could turn, and how visible they were even in a dark room. "Well. I wondered. Not that I would - well."

"Okay," Harry said, holding up a hand, "no details, please. But you'd better clean that up before you give it back to Hermione. You know it keeps a list of everything you look at on the Internet, right?"

Ron gaped, and began scrambling for his wand. "What do you reckon? Vanishing spell?"

"Nah," Harry said. "I'll fix it." He took the mouse and began clicking, Ron looking on anxiously. "There. All done."

"Thanks, mate," Ron said fervently. "I'm glad you - oi! How'd you know what to do, anyway?" Ron's narrowed eyes seemed to be accusing Harry of all manner of unspeakable evils, like having one of these porn machines and keeping it all to himself.

"Let's just say - Dudley enjoyed technology. And I preferred cleaning up after him to getting blamed when Aunt Petunia found something she didn't like."

"Well," Ron said, still looking a tad suspicious, "all right, then." Then, more gently, "Are you going to Surrey tonight?"

"No, tomorrow." Harry frowned. He needed to ring Hermione, he had promised her dinner; but Ron would probably want to come along, and Harry didn't know how to stop him without making it into a big deal. . . .

"Good. I told Hermione that I wanted to take you two out to eat tonight, you know, to thank you for helping with Sarah and everything."

Harry was still a moment. "What, er, what did she say?"

"Yes, of course, although I sort of had to talk her into it. Probably planning to study all night, you know how she is."

"Yeah." Harry couldn't decide how he felt. Relieved? Disappointed? Content, he decided. Because really, when spending time with friends, the more the merrier. "Ready in a minute," he added, and headed down the corridor towards his room.

*

Harry picked olives off his pizza and tried to ignore the bickering. He would've thought it impossible to have an impassioned debate about Malaclaws, for God's sake, but apparently he had underestimated Ron and Hermione.

"Honestly, Ron! First of all, there is no such thing as bad luck; secondly, even if there was, it would be medically impossible to get it from being bitten by a crustacean!"

"It doesn't have to be medically possible! It's a magical fact, and that's what bloody well counts!"

Harry sighed and returned to his picking. The problem wasn't so much tuning Ron and Hermione out - he'd had half a lifetime's worth of practice at doing that - but that left to its own devices, his mind only seemed to want to wander to uncomfortable places.

There was Voldemort. Bloody Voldemort. No, fucking Voldemort.

Harry wasn't much for betting, but he would have put money - lots of it - and yes, even his Firebolt on the fact that Voldemort was dead. Completely, totally, not coming back as a ghost or a snake or an anything dead. He'd been there, after all, and it had looked pretty bloody final from where he'd been standing.

But yesterday his confidence had been shaken, and last night he'd dreamed, and while it was all probably nothing, his imagination was running away with the idea that it meant something.

But then - Harry sighed again - at least he knew how he felt about Voldemort.

He looked over at Hermione; her face was all red, and she was waving her fork at Ron while making what was surely an inarguably logical point. She didn't seem to mind that the dinner he had offered had become a group outing. Not at all. In fact, she was probably enjoying herself more than she would have done with just him.

Harry turned back to his plate, and his little olive mountain. He'd thought for some time that Hermione and Ron must really like their disputes; otherwise, the two would have declared a truce or stopped associating with each other altogether. He didn't understand it himself, but had come to the conclusion it was just their way.

Not that he cared if Hermione had more fun with Ron. Not at all.

Harry heaved a final sigh, took a bite of his rather mangled pizza slice, and turned his attention back to the Malaclaw debate.

*

Since leaving home, Sarah had found that keeping touch with relatives was best done on a regular schedule.

Holidays. Birthdays. When she wanted something.

Leaning back in her chair, she contemplated an email she'd just typed:

Hi Piers,

Did a boy called Harry go to secondary school with you? Black hair, glasses, kind of on the short side? There's this bloke I know and when I saw him with a bloody nose for some reason it reminded me of you. . . .

It fell a little too obviously into the third category - she should work on that - but if she made it too long, Sarah knew Piers wouldn't be arsed to read it. It was probably a wasted effort anyway, but curiosity was getting the better of her. Sarah found it very odd that she had met so many of Ron's school friends but learned next to nothing about their school days.

Very odd indeed.

*

It appeared that nothing - not Moody's questions, not the whirring of his magical eye, not the power of Harry's positive thinking - was going to induce Avery to talk on Monday. Moody led the examination, always pacing, the thump of his wooden leg blending seamlessly with his voice as the hours crept by. By the end of the day, Dean was muttering about thumbscrews, Harry was going quietly insane, and Moody was making arrangements for days of solitary confinement for their prisoner.

Solitary was a common procedure in this sort of situation: leave a suspect alone for days, out of the loop, wondering what had been found out or whether he'd been forgotten entirely. It was proven to be good at loosening lips; plus, it allowed the Aurors to get on with other cases needed their attention.

This time around, it also turned out to be quite good at making Harry broody, testy, and an all-around pain in the arse to live with.

Those were Ron's exact words at dinner Wednesday night. They took Harry completely by surprise, busy as he was with moving food around his plate and saying 'hm' or 'you don't say?' whenever it seemed appropriate.

Swallowing his immediate, less-than-polite response at being told off, Harry stared at his friend. Ron's eyes were all glittery, and he was holding his fork like not stabbing Harry with it was taking every bit of effort he could muster.

Harry suspected he had just seriously misjudged 'appropriate.'

"Well. . . you might be right."

"Might?" Ron asked.

"It's a possibility, yeah." Harry grinned and, to his relief, Ron did as well. Now that he was tuned in to the world around him, Harry noticed that Ron's plate too was largely untouched. He doubted his own bad attitude was enough to put Ron off his food - if so, it was surely a first. "Er. . . everything else all right?"

"Could be better." Ron shifted in his chair, obviously debating whether to say more. "Can I ask you something? About Muggles?"

"Oh?" Harry couldn't help teasing a little. "Any Muggle in particular?"

"Yeah, you, you prat," Ron said. "What did you think when Hagrid told you about. . . everything? Did you believe him at once, or did you think he was mental?"

Harry frowned. "I'm probably not the best one to ask. I was rather desperate to believe him, actually."

"Fair enough." Ron paused. "But if you weren't you, and someone told you about wizards. . .?"

"Look, Ron, if you like Sarah, just tell her. You can prove it pretty easily - do enough spells and she'll have to believe you. And if she's open-minded," and nothing like her brother, "it'll be no problem."

Ron sighed and poked at his food. "Easy for you to say. But she's worth it, I reckon. Smart and pretty and funny and. . . ."

"No flaws, then? You have got it bad."

He earned a glare for that one. "Well," Ron said, "if I ever knew what she was thinking, that'd be nice."

"I think that's a girl thing," Harry muttered.

"And I swear, Harry, I think she notices everything. I bet she's got a little list running with every odd thing I've done, and one of these days she's going to ambush me with it."

"So - do what Gryffindors do."

"Ambush her first?"

"That's one way to put it, yeah."

Ron sighed, so loudly and so expressively that Harry couldn't help but wonder why his friend hadn't ended up on stage. "Maybe later." He leaned his head to the side. "Now your turn."

"What?"

"Your turn. What's got you all worked up?"

Harry looked away. He could just say work, and be done with it, but he felt like he owed Ron more than that for putting up with him the past several days. He supposed it was lucky he had something else he could say. "It's Aunt Petunia."

"She's worse, then?"

"They think she is. See, this ninety-year-old bloke tried to chat her up. She didn't like him, apparently, because she took off her shoe and hit him over the head with it. And yes, I'm aware that it's funny."

Swallowing his laughter, Ron asked, "Is he okay?"

"Yeah, but if she keeps this up, they'll want to move her to a wing where they can watch her all the time. They say it's a sign that she's no longer able to cognitively process social interactions."

Ron scratched his head. "Is there anything you can do to, you know, get her cogitatinating or whatever? I bet Hermione could find a charm. . . ."

"She's processing interactions just fine. In fact, she's probably doing a little better." Harry grimaced, remembering all the times he'd ducked something swung at him by his aunt. "This is classic Aunt Petunia behaviour, actually."

"So that's good, then."

Aunt Petunia deserved her mind back. Deserved her memories, all of them, even the ones that would leave her screaming, crying, and doing who knew what to Harry. He knew that.

"Yeah. It's great."

*

Ron looked out the window. Just over there - well, if there was five streets and a world away - was the pub where he and Sarah were having dinner directly after work.

Alone. Dinner alone. No Harry, no Hermione, no-one to help him out if - make that when - he got in over his head.

The last time he'd been this nervous, he'd literally thought he was going to die.

"Weasley! File. Now."

Ron shook himself and hurried across the room to his boss, who was impatiently clicking long fingernails on the desk. He didn't make any excuses, didn't apologise - his goblin employers didn't care a whole lot for human chatter. Sometimes Ron felt like he would burst from keeping all his words in; Harry usually got his ears talked off, those evenings.

Not that there weren't plenty of opportunities for on-the-job conversation. That was why the goblins had hired Ron in the first place - when witches and wizards were considering investing hard-earned Galleons through Gringotts bank, they liked to talk to a friendly face, not one with rows and rows of scary teeth.

Ron waited helpfully nearby as Gulan skimmed the parchment, making a variety of goblin-noises. Suddenly, he found himself on the receiving end of a very beady, you're-invading-my-space glare.

He backed up a step.

The goblins usually gave the impression of barely tolerating his presence, which, according to Bill, meant they thought rather well of him. Ron hoped that was true. He loved his job, despite all the time he spent mentally cursing the goblins and their ways. He loved it and was still surprised sometimes to remember that he had it - he'd wake up in the morning, have a shower, pick up his good black robes and think, Bloody hell. Me. A banker.

It had been Bill's idea - his brother had seen the household budget Ron had drawn up for him and Harry, complete with savings plans - and Bill's connections that had carried Ron to the first interview. But no further, Ron knew; it would take more magic than Merlin himself possessed to get the goblins to hire someone they didn't want.

Gulan turned to face Ron again; this time, his expression plainly said, "Well? What did your feeble mind come up with?"

"I thought we should advise the client to place some capital into diamonds. Since that new area in South Africa was just made Unplottable."

Wrong answer. There was hissing and swearing and a tiny part of Ron's brain stored the words away for future use. These days, when Hermione said "Language, Ron!" he could switch into Gobbledegook and continue swearing. It was really quite fun, especially when he followed it up with, "But Hermione, I thought you wanted me to embrace other cultures!"

"Pyramids?"

Oh, hell. That was right, one had just been opened in Abusir, and Egyptian artifacts were looking very good these days. "That too," Ron added hastily.

The last client of the week arrived then, just in time, in Ron's view. But the older gentleman turned out to be quite talkative, and once he learned Ron had once been to Egypt, far too full of questions for Ron's taste. Minutes passed and Ron fidgeted in his chair and more minutes passed and then finally, finally, the client signed the papers and left.

Ron burst out of the front door of Gringott's five minutes later, patting his hair down and adjusting his completely ordinary shirt and tie. Things would be fine. He was late, but not too late, and if he moved a little bit faster, Sarah wouldn't think he'd stood her up. . .

Things would be fine.

*

A/N: Many thanks to Cynthia Black and Paracelsus for beta, and to everyone who was kind enough to review. Also, death was first described as "pretty bloody final" by Basil Fawlty. :)

5. Five

Five

You performed your story: Noiselessly across the floor, dancing at the funeral party. - The Cure

*

Ron was drowning. That had to be it. He couldn't catch his breath; there were white spots dancing behind his eyelids; something - one of the giant squid's tentacles, perhaps? - was increasing pressure on his neck with every gasp for air he made.

He opened his eyes, resolved to face death head-on - and blinked.

Okay, maybe not drowning.

But definitely in deep. Very, very deep.

His current companion was not the giant squid, but instead a rather short, thin girl, with long brown hair and brown eyes that were usually quite beautiful. Right now, though, the eyes were assessing. Cataloguing. And waiting for an answer.

"Er. . .what was the question again?"

"What. Kind. Of. Coin. Is. This?" Sarah held a Knut between two fingers.

"It's. . .foreign." Ron dug in, removed the entire contents of his pockets, and added them to the few coins he had already laid out on the table. Lint. Wizarding coins of every denomination. A few suspicious-looking Every Flavour Beans that he planned to have Harry taste-test. And that was all. Nothing suitable for paying his pub bill.

"What country? That looks like Latin writing on it," Sarah said.

Ron inserted a finger between his neck and the collar of his shirt and tugged. "Er. I don't really know. One of my brothers gave it to me. I meant to change it before I left work." Really, really, really meant to. Ron took a deep breath before making a final, painful admission. "And it's all I've got on me."

Sarah was still staring at the Knut, her brow furrowed. "You know, I took Latin a few years ago. I bet I can translate this. . . . "

Ron opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Which was a good thing, because his internal monologue was something along the lines of Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh I'm so fucked. . . .

"Okay," Ron said, when he finally regained use of his voice, "okay, look, I'll tell you all about it, please can we go back to my flat first?"

"All right," Sarah said slowly. "Shall I pay, then?"

"Yes, please," Ron said distractedly. He was eyeing the solid wooden table, wondering if he could possibly slam his head into it hard enough to knock himself out. If only he were Harry, he would know exactly what part of the head to aim for, to do the most damage.

*

Sarah stood alone in the corridor outside Ron's flat. He'd asked for a minute to tidy before she entered, and knowing how disgusting twenty-something males could be when living on their own, she'd gladly granted it. But there were very strange bangs and thuds coming from the other side of the door, and she was getting twitchier by the second.

Curiosity was going to be her undoing, one day - and today might just be that day. Being here was a bad idea for too many reasons, like how weird Ron had acted in the pub, those mysterious noises, and the fact that none of her friends knew this address in case she turned up missing.

And then, too, there was the wrinkled bit of paper in her handbag. She didn't need to pull it out to remember what it said:

Sarah,

STAY AWAY FROM HARRY POTTER.

Point 1: He is a freak.
Things I have seen him do with my own eyes:
Talk to a snake!!
Make this huge pane of glass disappear, letting a gigantic snake loose on me and his cousin.
Turn a teacher's wig blue (from across the room).
Many, many, more.

Point 2: He is dangerous.
You want to know where he went to school? St. Brutus' Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys.
I have more to say about #2. But, Malcolm just brought in the beer.

Piers

PS RING ME

PPS Would ring you. But, do not have money for long distance. Give us a hand?

Sarah shook her head. It's just his way of getting you on the phone so he can beg for cash. It's just his -

The door swung open. "Sorry it took so long," Ron said, ushering her inside.

This was presentable? The room she stepped into was a sea of take-away cartons and boy-clothes, with furniture that had definitely seen better days. Not so different, then, from half the dormitory rooms she'd ever been in - although where was the really big telly, the Playstation, and the computer?

"Erm - why don't you sit?"

Sarah did, rearranging a few couch cushions and a jumper in the process. "Huh," she said, pointing at a pile of small brown feathers she'd unearthed. "I didn't take you for the bird type."

"Well -" Ron was pacing, now. "Okay, here goes. The thing is. . . . " And, apparently giving up on verbal communication, he walked over to the wall and began banging his head against it.

"Ron!" Sarah lost most of her nervousness at the complete misery on his face. She got up, grabbed Ron's hand, and dragged him over to the couch. "Just. . .tell me. It'll be fine, whatever it is."

"You say that now," Ron muttered. He took a deep breath. "Right. I reckon you think that some of the things I've done are. . .odd."

"Oh - well -" Sarah was torn between honesty, and trying to make Ron look less wretched. "Maybe a few things."

"Like the money?"

"Yeah."

Ron looked away. "Bloody hell, this is hard."

Sarah wondered if grabbing Ron by the shoulders and shaking very hard would make the words fall out. She decided to try a verbal earthquake instead. "It looks pretty simple from where I'm sitting," she said. "Either you're a thief, a counterfeiter, or both."

"What? Where did that come from?"

"Well - you work at a bank and probably run into all different sorts of currency, all the time, but you're being very strange about this money, like you're not supposed to have it." A happy thought struck her then, and she smiled. "But if you are a criminal, you're really kind of crap at the sneaking and lying, aren't you?"

"I promise," Ron said, hand over his heart, "I'm not a criminal. At least, I haven't broken any laws that weren't stupid."

"Fair enough," Sarah said. "So. . .hypothetically, if someone were to say that you and Harry went to a school for criminal boys, that someone would be lying?"

"Huh - oh. I forgot that was the story."

That had to be one of the least reassuring sentences Sarah had ever heard.

Ron pulled a few coins out of his pockets and handed them over. "What do you think they say?"

Sarah tilted her hand so the coins caught the light. It was easier to see the tiny lettering here than it had been in the pub. "Well, Knut, Sickle, and Galleon seem English enough. Are those are the different denominations? Now magus, that's got to mean magic, I'm sure, and aes signatum - is that money?"

Ron's voice was tight. "Go back to magus. That's the important one."

"Magic?" Sarah asked, and Piers' words raced through her mind - snake - wig - blue - snake -

"Er, yeah." Ron's eyes were serious, and she clenched the coins, heavy in her hand. "Me and Harry - and Hermione, Dean, and Seamus - we're all wizards. Well, Hermione's a witch, obviously."

"Ah," Sarah said faintly, "obviously." She took a deep breath. "Okay, then. You're a wizard. Let's see some magic."

Ron disappeared.

Sarah spun in her seat, looking right, left, and over her shoulder. Then she bent down to look under the couch.

No Ron.

"Oi! Can I come back in?"

Ah. He was out in the corridor. Because he had done magic. Of course.

Sarah walked to the door, which, she noted, was still latched on the inside by a security chain. "Is that you, Ron?"

"Of course it's me!" She spun round again, because this time the voice didn't come from the corridor - it came from the couch.

"Bloody hell!"

"Sorry," Ron said, looking anything but. "That's called Apparition. Very difficult, that is."

Sarah sank down onto the floor, not trusting her legs anymore. "So it's true, then."

"Yup." Ron crossed the room to sit on the floor beside her. He pulled a polished stick out of his pocket. "Want to see me do something else?"

Sarah closed her eyes. "Not just yet." She opened one eye and looked at Ron carefully. "What is that? A magic wand?"

"Yup."

Sarah squeezed her eyes shut, pinched herself, and opened them again. Ron and his wand were still there. "So. Where do wizards go to school?"

*

Harry's Friday night didn't involve a date or a pint or even a meal, just a confiscated dragon egg or two. Back at headquarters, eggs safe in the care of the resident magical creatures specialist, he filled out post-arrest paperwork and tried not to fall asleep in his chair.

He'd just scrawled Harry J. Potter on the last dotted line when Dean stepped into the office, looking none too pleased.

"Something up?"

"Moody's going make Avery talk," Dean said.

"He is, huh? What's going to be different this time, from all the other times we tried?"

Dean shrugged. "Reckon we'll find out when we get there."

Harry was already standing. "Let's go - where are we going?"

"Room four."

That was the first difference. Room four reminded Harry of an interrogation chamber from a television police drama, with an illusion charm and some complicated sound spells in place of the one-way glass. It meant one-on-one, no witnesses, at least from Avery's point of view, and while Harry didn't doubt Moody could appear pretty threatening in that sort of situation, he wasn't so sure it was going to be enough to do the trick.

Moody and Avery were already present when Harry and Dean slipped into the room, on the other side of the illusion. Both men were seated, Moody comfortably, Avery secured at the wrists and ankles by a chain that hummed quietly with magic. Harry gave a short nod after readying the dictation quill; Moody, watching with his magical eye, returned it, then turned his full attention to the matter at hand.

"Tell me about Edinburgh."

No response.

"You're going to, you know," Moody said, rising from his chair. "You see, I have this." He held up a small vial that Harry knew must contain Veritaserum. "And I'm going to find out, one way or another. And if I have to use this," Moody bent down so that his face was inches from Avery's, "I'm not going to be very happy." Moody leaned even closer, and Harry could only imagine exactly how the Auror was elaborating on that threat.

If that eye was whirring and spinning that close to his face, Harry reckoned he'd give up almost anything.

"Okay," Avery said, "I'll tell you what I know. But you have to keep me safe. They'll hurt me for telling, I know they will."

"We'll see about that," Moody said, straightening, "after you talk."

Harry's quill was soon furiously scratching, making a list of all the things Avery didn't know. He didn't know if the items were Voldemort's. He didn't know what they could be used for. Yes, okay, he knew where he'd got them - from the elder Vincent Crabbe, who'd also supplied dates, times, and plans for the transactions. Oh, no, he'd didn't know where Crabbe lived, or how to get in touch. Crabbe had simply appeared at his home one morning with a proposition.

Ten minutes, and it was all over. Well - a week, and ten minutes.

After feeding him a few drops of Veritaserum and re-confirming his story, Moody led Avery out of the room. Harry and Dean joined them in the corridor, and helped escort Avery to a group cell where, as Moody pointed out cheerfully, he would be quite safe from his ex-partners in crime.

Back in the office, Moody read through the transcript while Dean swallowed his yawns and Harry tried not to check his watch. "Well, then," Moody said, looking up, "what do your young minds make of this?"

It was Dean who replied, finally. "It's a bit like a Python sketch, isn't it? Two bumbling evil henchmen, one scared, one stupid, wandering around selling their evil wares in broad daylight."

That was a refreshing point of view, Harry thought. "It is a little absurd," he said.

"Absurd," Moody echoed. "Yes. Perhaps. But never forget, the weak will always be puppets for the strong. And if you are still, and quiet, and keep your eyes open long enough, you may just make out the shadow of the man pulling the strings."

*

Every October morning was a little wetter, every night a little darker. Harry hated being at work, doing tedious surveillance and studying reports on Crabbe's movements, and he hated being at home, where his flatmate was coming perilously close to driving him mad. Things had gone well with Sarah; Harry could tell by the humming, the singing, and the hours Ron spent attached to the telephone.

Mr. Weasley would, Harry thought, be proud of his son's new proficiency with Muggle technology. Hermione would say pleased things about cross-cultural understandings and, possibly, add metaphors involving crumbling walls. But all Harry could think was that he wanted to know exactly what Ron had said to Sarah about the Dursleys, without having to ask - or preferably, without even being part of the conversation. And, oh yes, that the singing needed to stop.

The dreary march of days went on until one morning, one particular morning, Harry left the flat at the regular work-time but went somewhere else entirely.

He stood on a cliff above the sea, breathing in cool, salty air. There was no nostalgia in it for him, no bucket-and-spade memories, but he liked it, liked the freshness of it all. There was something, too, about the sheer vastness of the sea that appealed to Harry, as it stretched out to meet the horizon, something that made him feel tiny, unimportant.

His eyes lingered on the magical line where sea and sky met, grey on grey, until he found himself picturing a completely different place, a completely different time. Sunshine, amusement rides, ice lollies, and Hermione, her sticky fingers entwined with his.

Not a real time, not a real place. Harry gave his head a firm shake, and turned away.

Behind him lay the reason for this trip. The cemetery was small, but open, with no trees to break the wind whipping through the gravestones. Harry trod quietly and carefully, not wishing to rouse any lurking ghosts. He came at last to a simple stone, its two names and single date a permanent reminder of his parents' lives, and of the hand he'd been dealt, the one he'd been playing for the last eighteen years.

Harry knelt there, pushing wayward hair out of his face. He hadn't brought anything. Flowers would seem wrong, somehow, splashes of cheerful happy colour that didn't belong in these bleak surroundings, or suit his mood. Placing flowers here would mean that this was fine, that he was fine, and it wasn't, he wasn't, and couldn't be.

No matter what people seemed to expect. It was there in the smiles of strangers and the throwaway remarks of friends, the assumption that watching Voldemort die had somehow made up for the losses, balanced the columns.

People, Harry thought, were clueless. Clueless, and damn lucky to be that way.

Sitting back on the coarse grass, he closed his eyes and let the sound and smell of the sea surround him. London, Little Whinging, work - it was all a world away.Here it was just him, and his family.

*

Hermione opened the door quickly upon hearing the knock. "Hi, Harry - oh, what happened?"

"Rain happened," he said, wiping his muddy feet on the mat.

"Apparently! Shoo, go drip in the kitchen while I get a towel."

Hermione bustled off down the hall as Harry squelched his way onto the lino floor. "I'm sorry to just pop in," he called. "But I Apparated into an Olympic-caliber snogging session at our flat. . . ."

"No problem," she said, returning with a fluffy yellow towel. "I'm glad you came." She hesitated a moment, then decided to go for broke. "Now, take off your glasses."

Harry blinked, and Hermione held her breath. If he so much as mumbled the words "drying charm," she would make a joke about her so-called Muggle instincts, and let it go. . . . But he was removing the glasses, now, and closing his eyes, ready to submit himself to the hands-on approach.

Hermione rubbed Harry's face gently with the towel, willing it to say things she wasn't sure he was ready to hear. . .Or maybe he is, she thought with a thrill, as he leaned his face into her hand.

She looped the towel behind his head, and used both hands to rub his hair carefully, creating black spikes that pointed in all directions. His eyes were still closed, his face leaning towards hers. . .it was a perfect moment, and in a romance novel, their lips would have met in the best of first kisses.

Instead, Harry turned his head and sneezed.

"Bless you," Hermione said, keeping all cursing to herself.

"Thanks," he said, peering at her myopically. "I should probably get out of this wet jumper before I catch cold, huh?"

"Colds are caused by germs, not by weather," she began automatically, stepping back and lowering the towel. She watched as Harry flailed his arms about, sodden jumper stuck around his neck, damp T-shirt plastered to his chest, then reached up and to help him remove the jumper completely.

"Thanks," Harry said, putting his glasses back on. "Er - do you want to go get something to eat, maybe?"

"Sounds good."

Harry gestured towards the loo. "May I?"

"Of course," Hermione sighed, watching as Harry retreated down the corridor, already unpocketing his wand to no doubt finish the job with a little magic.

*

Harry sipped his pre-dinner drink and listened while Hermione talked about anything and everything. He was grateful to her for that. He had a strong feeling that she somehow knew exactly where he'd been all day, maybe even had been waiting for him to get back, but she hadn't mentioned it and he didn't think that she would. Somewhere along the way Hermione had got amazingly good at reading his moods, at knowing when a little prodding would make him talk and when it would make him clam up altogether. Maybe it came with the territory of knowing someone for eight years.

They were digging into their chips when a voice from over Harry's shoulder said, "So this is what you stood us up for, Hermione."

Hermione turned a little red as someone Harry vaguely recognized came into view. "Roger! Er. Well, sort of, I suppose. I mean -"

Roger Whoever-he-was grinned and cut her off. "Oh, I'm just winding you up. Don't know whose idea it was to have a meeting on Halloween anyway. . . ." He waved a goodbye and headed towards the back of the pub.

Harry felt uncomfortable, for a variety of reasons. He chose to focus on the guilt. "I'm sorry, Hermione. I shouldn't have just shown up like that."

"Oh, stop. That meeting was long over by the time you came by. I chose to miss it all by myself. Okay?"

"Okay. If you say so." Harry poked at a chip. "Who was that, anyway?"

"Roger Davies. You remember - a few years ahead of us at school, Ravenclaw Quidditch Captain."

Harry nodded. "Right. What kind of meeting was it?"

Hermione leaned forward on her elbows. "Well. You've heard of the Muggle Human Rights Act, of course?"

"Er. . .no."

She rolled her eyes. "You really should keep up with Muggle life more. Parliament passed it a couple of years ago. It covers the most basic rights, like the right to life, freedom from torture or slavery, freedom of expression, fair trial procedures. . . ."

"I get it," Harry said hastily. "So you and Roger want a wizard version of this?"

"Not just me and Roger. There's a whole group of us working on it. And ideally, our act would protect beings and many beasts as well as wizards."

Harry scratched his head. "So what are you all doing, exactly? I thought laws were written by Ministry officials. Like Ron's dad and his Muggle Protection Act."

"Too true," Hermione said, waving a chip about dangerously, "and that's a whole other problem. We have no say in our government, in who our leaders even are, or what laws they write."

"It's terrible," Harry agreed, scooting back in his chair to avoid death by potato. "But - I still don't understand what you lot are actually doing."

"At first, it was a lot of reading." She grinned. "Yep, I know you're shocked. Government histories, magical and Muggle political developments - the Australian wizarding community is doing some fascinating things - and then we started writing. Coming up with a dream law, so to speak."

She took a breath. "But now, we're working on public relations strategies. We're scheduled to be published in a small magazine. It's not the Daily Prophet, yet, but it's a start. If we can get everyday witches and wizards behind us, some Ministry official will jump at the chance to author the law. It would be a huge career boost."

Harry stared at her. "Wow." His head was spinning, although he wasn't sure why he was so surprised. It was Hermione, after all, and when she wanted something, she went for it. Maybe it was just that he didn't know anything about this, something so important to her, something she'd been working on for a long time. He felt hurt, and unreasonably angry with Roger Davies for knowing when he didn't.

"Hermione? Why didn't you ever tell me and Ron about this?"

She sniffed. "You two haven't exactly been supportive of my political endeavours in the past, now have you? And I know this is a pretty ambitious thing, and the odds are pretty high we're going to fail. I didn't need you two telling me that I was wasting my time, that it couldn't be done." Hermione's chin was held high, and Harry was strongly reminded of the thirteen-year-old with the Time Turner.

She was right. That was exactly what would have happened. He was a horrible friend.

But he was still annoyed with Roger Davies. No question about it.

*

Notes: Many thanks to Cynthia Black and Paracelsus for betaing, and to Stacy for betaing the original version, once upon a time. Thanks also to everyone who was nice enough to review - now that I've learned of the 'reply' feature, I promise to use it! :) The Human Rights Act was passed in the UK in 1998.

6. Six

Six

I was a superman, the looks are deceiving. -- Stone Temple Pilots

*

"Please tell me those are the last ones."

Harry created a minor dust storm by thumping a box filled with intelligence reports down onto the table. "Nearly," he said with a sneeze.

Dean groaned and reached for a rolled parchment labelled Crabbe, Vincent, Sr in spidery handwriting. Following suit, Harry pushed his glasses up on his nose and began to wade through the minute details of Crabbe's life. Reading had never, ever, been one of his favorite pastimes, and today's work was certainly doing nothing to alter that outlook.

He wished, not for the first time, that Magical Law Enforcement could employ an army of Hermiones to read and research and organise everything important into a nice neat package for him. But it was never going to happen. Besides the department's general lack of funds, letting more people into their investigation - even (or maybe especially) Ministry people - would break about a dozen of Moody's cardinal rules.

Harry was so busy feeling sorry for himself that he didn't hear footsteps approaching. His mind registered the presence behind him about a second before his reading material was lifted from his hands.

"Are you two making progress?"

Harry jumped. He knew that voice - it belonged to Moody's boss, otherwise known as the department's Deputy Head, otherwise known as the wizard only slightly less terrifyingly important than Madam Bones.

"Yes, sir." Harry wriggled in his chair, trying to find a dignified way to turn and look Mr. Cavel in the eye. Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be one; he did manage to get an up-close view of the man's not-so-small stomach by looking over his shoulder. "We've gone through nearly all the reports on Crabbe we can find, checking for interactions with other hot-listed persons."

Silence. Harry glanced at Dean to see if he might be about to chime in helpfully, but his partner was focusing intently on his fingernails.

"And," Harry went on, "we've some surveillance planned for tonight that should be productive." We hope.

"Ah, excellent. Carry on, then."

The parchment was returned to his hands; Harry coughed, sputtered, and sneezed as dust rose once more.

"Is he gone?" Dean asked.

"Yeah."

"What do you think that was about?"

Harry shrugged.

"I could count on one hand the number of times I've ever even seen that man," Dean continued. "And now he's coming to see us. . . ." He eyed Harry speculatively.

Harry looked away. He felt lucky, most of the time, to have the partner he did: someone who'd lived with him for seven years, who came closer to knowing him than anyone else in the department. Chances were good he'd be miserable working so closely with any other Auror. Some thought he was all fame and no substance, others believed every single heroic tale about him they'd ever heard and expected him to be, well, Superwizard. And Dean, Dean should know better, but just now it seemed like maybe he didn't.

Harry was supposed to know and understand, because he was Harry Potter. But he didn't know, could only guess, and anything he might guess would sound too ridiculous or too real here in the daylight.

A rustling broke the silence, indicating that Dean had gone back to his parchment. Harry sighed and returned to his own.

*

Harry and Dean moved through the crowded street off of Knockturn Alley casually, trying to look as if they belonged. They had each had a little Polyjuice before leaving headquarters - there was always some bubbling away in the Potions Department, made from the hairs of witches and wizards with unmemorable appearances. Currently, Harry was tall, freckled, and sandy-haired, while Dean was short, for once, and blond.

Harry was trying to look as if he was enjoying the throngs of people, the creepy shop window displays, and the pervasive prickly feeling of dark magic in the night air. Knockturn Alley on a Friday night was certainly. . .educational. But he and Dean had to look perfectly at home, as if they had grown up strolling these streets, window-shopping for shrunken heads and human bones. They couldn't appear at all disturbed by the gaunt, green faces of the banshees that glided by in the crowd, or the noisy groups of hags scoffing down raw meat from takeaway cartons tinged pink by bloody juices. Successful surveillance was all about attitude. A brilliant disguise meant nothing if you blew it in the delivery - something Harry and Ron had learned when they were twelve.

Harry did find himself enjoying something: the unusual sensation of being able to see over people's heads. It was somewhat disconcerting to look down on people, to see above the crowd rather than through it.

With his new height and quick eyes, Harry spotted their quarry first, and gave Dean an inconspicuous poke. Crabbe was standing not five metres away from them on the pavement, his lumpy profile clearly visible at the edge of a small group of wizards. Luckily, they were all distracted, clustered around a hag whose fierce teeth flashed as she enthusiastically made what appeared to be a sales pitch. Harry suspected he didn't really want to know what the old dark wizards were in the market for.

Dean tilted his head in acknowledgment, then casually walked toward the men. Harry feigned interest in a shop window that, with a little help from his wand, provided a good reflection of the scene. He couldn't see exactly what Dean was doing - his partner was too well-trained for that - but Harry knew that when Dean was finished a pair of earplugs would record and transmit everything the men said.

At length, Dean returned to Harry's side, and they contemplated the shop window together. "Any trouble?" Dean asked lightly, pressing a plug into Harry's hand.

"Nah. Not that I could see."

"Good." Dean slid a plug into his ear on the pretence of scratching his head, and Harry followed suit. "Want to know what they're buying?"

"No. But I'm sure you're going to tell me."

"You know how a torture rack works, right? Well, this is a miniature version - fits like a very tight glove, pulls the hand in one direction and the fingernails in another. The old hag says they're efficient, portable, and effective. Brilliant for those times when an Unforgivable just isn't the right touch."

"Lovely advert," Harry muttered. He leaned back against the wall, careful to stay in the shadows, and Dean followed suit. Just two blokes out people-watching - or, more accurately, witch-watching - no different from anyone else.

They were silent now, listening intently. Harry wasn't surprised in the slightest to see the elder Goyle in the group, although he didn't recognize the faces or voices of the other three wizards in tow. That cheered him, a bit. Harry was pretty sure that he had personally met the best and brightest of Voldemort's followers in the not-so-distant past. Then again. . . a Death Eater big shot could be standing there, right now, Polyjuiced just like he and Dean were. They needed to watch like hawks for over half an hour, at the very least - anyone who took a drink of anything during that time would immediately gain a prominent place on the suspect list.

"Oi!" one of the men called out. "Want to take a ride on my broomstick?"

"Oh, that's original," Harry said, rubbing his now-ringing ear.

Dean nodded towards the passing witch, who hadn't even turned her head. "You've got to agree with the old bastard's sentiment, at least."

"If you go for the type," Harry replied, taking in the tight, slinky robes and the flirtatious walk.

"Oh? And what would you go for, then? The innocent, modest, bookwormy type?"

"Not - not necessarily."

"Oh, well, if you insist," Dean said cheerfully.

"Don't you think it's easier to listen if we're quiet?"

Dean mouthed something rude in reply. Harry ignored him, and they fell silent again. The hag had moved on, and one of the wizards Harry didn't recognize was showing off his brand-new implement of torture.

Harry and Dean slouched and listened and heard nothing important for a good quarter of an hour. There was something to be said for spying on old fogies, Harry decided - they didn't move around much.

"It's time, isn't it?" Dean asked finally.

"Yeah," Harry agreed, checking his watch. "You're right, it is. I'll go first." He palmed a miniscule vial out of his pocket and downed the Polyjuice in a nose-scratching manoeuvre.

"Oh, really attractive."

"Sod off. Let's see you do better."

"Right." Dean launched into a hacking cough, covering his mouth with his hand. Harry rolled his eyes.

"I've got just the thing for that cough, dearie." An elderly witch with a large tray of drinks materialised at Dean's side.

Harry stepped back. "No, no, he's fine."

"Only four Sickles," the woman said. She brandished a goblet containing a fiercely bubbling red liquid at Dean. "Bloody Medusa. My speciality."

"Okay," Dean said, rummaging in his pocket for change. "We'll take two."

Her face creased into a toothless smile as she accepted the payment and handed over the goblets. Harry waited until she was gone before turning to Dean. "Going to tell me why?"

"Look around." Dean waved his arm. "It seems to be a popular drink."

Harry scanned the crowd and took Dean's point. Everyone else was buying, so they needed to do so as well. But that didn't mean he was going to drink it. It could be poisoned in any number of ways, or it could contain enough alcohol to knock them for six. Besides, its seriously unpleasant odour was doing his already-jittery stomach no good at all, and he was deeply afraid the colour had nothing whatsoever to do with tomato juice.

Crabbe and his friends began to drift down the pavement, pushing their way through other pedestrians. After waiting a beat, Harry and Dean followed, feigning sips from their goblets every now and then. The old wizards' talk began to take a more interesting turn, and Harry gave it his full attention.

"Well, I helped feed his snake."

A deep laugh came echoing through Harry's earpiece. "Nearly got fed to it, more like. I helped with that map, the one that displayed the exact location of all the Mudbloods in southern England."

"Oh?" another voice sneered. "And what happened to that rat you worked with, eh? I imagine the Dark Lord had little use for you after that escapade."

The deep voice spoke again. "Well, compared to these two -"

"I was the most loyal, dedicated - " Crabbe began.

"I've given my entire life to the Dark Arts -" added Goyle.

"I've had enough of this." With those words, one of the men peeled away from the group. The others slowed their steps and, after a moment, the entire party disbanded.

"Damn," Dean said, as their targets faded into the crowd. "Do you think we should follow anyone?"

Harry shrugged. "Which one would you pick? No single one seemed more suspicious than the rest, and I didn't hear anything close to a lead." He paused, considering. "I think we should just go back to headquarters."

Dean nodded. "All right. But I want to go to the toilet first."

"What? Here?"

"Not here, I'm not a bloody exhibitionist! No, a proper loo." There was a pub a few doors down, and Dean strode towards it.

"What are you, five? Can't you wait?"

Dean gave a long-suffering sigh. "We've been over this before. Apparating on a full bladder can make it burst, or bring on a nasty accident at the very least."

"You pay too much attention to Seamus," Harry said, following Dean into the pub. He took both goblets and went on a search for a bin, while his partner headed for the toilet.

Harry soon discovered that finding a bin was no easy task. The pub, like the street outside, was extremely busy. The clientele was nearly all male, and nearly all unpleasant. There were wizards playing cards, wizards drinking themselves under the table, and wizards huddled in corners with hunched shoulders and furtive looks that practically screamed, "shady dealing!" Harry finally decided just to leave the glasses on the edge of the bar, and made his way back through the crowd to meet Dean at the door.

"Ready?"

"Yeah. Brought you something."

Harry accepted the folded bit of paper cautiously. He opened it to read "For a good time, owl. . . ."

"Messalina? Myrrha? Alcina? No, th - " Harry stopped abruptly.

"What is it?" Dean asked, not turning his head.

"One of Crabbe's mates," Harry replied, barely moving his lips. "Having a drink at the bar. I don't think he's seen us."

"Anyone with him?"

"Doesn't look that way," Harry said, casually stuffing the paper in his pocket.

"Then I say we stick with Plan A," Dean said, "and leave. Last thing we want to do is make him suspicious for no reason."

Harry nodded, and without another word they walked into the street and Disapparated.

*

When Harry arrived home half an hour later, he found Ron and Sarah standing in the sitting room. Ron was wearing a clean, featherless jumper, and every red hair had been carefully smoothed into place. Harry wondered how long it would take before on-his-best-dating-behaviour-Ron disappeared and regular, everyday Ron took his place.

Harry tried to exchange pleasantries and beat a hasty retreat back to his room, but Sarah stopped him. "Have you eaten?"

"Er, no."

"Well, we were just going out. Why don't you ring Hermione? The two of you could come with us." Sarah smiled a pleased, matchmaker's smile.

Harry glanced at Ron, and found himself on the receiving end of a look. "Oh, I'd slow you down, I'd need a shower and everything. Maybe next time."

"Oh, go on. We can wait." Sarah stepped closer to him and lowered her voice. "And I'm sure she'll say yes."

"Okay," Harry said. When Ron turned an interesting shade of purple, Harry shot him a look that said, Well, it was your idea for me to be wet and pathetic, now wasn't it?

Harry was smiling as he dialed Hermione's number a moment later. He was going out with his best friends and a girl he didn't have to feel uncomfortable around anymore. Nothing too terribly sinister had happened at work, and he had a free weekend ahead.

His good spirits began to take a downturn, though, as Harry realised he'd been listening to Hermione's phone ring for quite a while.

Ring. . . .

Where is she?

Ring. . . .

The library's surely closed by now.

Ring. . . .

Roger Davies is a tall fuckwit.

"Hullo?"

"Where were you?"

"Harry?"

"Yeah."

"Well, hello, Harry. I was in the bath, you icon of politeness, you."

Harry swallowed. "Ron and Sarah are going out to eat, and invited us to go. Do you want to?"

"Sure. Can you give me half an hour?"

"Yeah, I reckon."

Harry rang off, filled Ron and Sarah in, and headed to his room. A scrap of paper fluttered out of his pocket when he removed his robes - Dean's list. Harry rolled his eyes and promptly banished it to the bin.

He hummed a little as he moved about the room, gathering up a change of clothes. The sound of the wireless came through the wall; Ron had apparently decided to show his discontent with the change in plans by subjecting Sarah to a Quidditch broadcast. Shaking his head, Harry stepped into the corridor - and froze, struck by a thought. Doubling back to his room, he stood over the bin and disposed of all its contents with a quick, quiet Incendio.

*

This attempt at a group night out was, so far, going much better than the last. Ron seemed to have forgiven Harry and Hermione for their presence; Sarah had made no mention of Little Whinging; and Hermione had found no reason be disturbed by anything Ron said. The evening was definitely looking up, Harry thought, and if his mind persisted in putting a label on the proceedings - an alliterative label beginning with the letters D.D. - he could still ignore it.

Ron and Sarah were definitely cozier this time around; with the meal finished, they sat very close together in the booth, Ron's arm slung about Sarah's shoulders.

"He's going to take me to see the gnomes next week," Sarah said, eyes alight.

"Goblins," Ron said, punctuating the correction with a poke to her side.

"There's a difference?"

Ron banged his head onto the table in theatrical disbelief, leading Sarah to contribute a poke of her own.

A mini-wrestling match broke out on the opposite side of the table, and Harry looked down at his plate, uncomfortable. It wasn't the public affection that bothered him; seven years at boarding school had left him with immunity to that sort of thing. The standard response to such a display had always been an eye roll and a muttered, "Get a cupboard," shared with whichever best friend was closest at hand. But tonight, Harry was finding it strangely impossible to play his part. His face was too hot and his brain was too busy estimating the amount of personal space present on his and Hermione's side of the booth.

"Er, Harry? We can get you another menu, if you want."

Apparently he'd been contemplating his empty plate for too long; three pairs of eyes were now staring at him.

"No, no." Noticing that Ron was shrugging on his coat, Harry added, "I'm ready to go."

As they stepped out onto the pavement, Ron drew him aside. "Look, er, I don't know what you and Hermione were thinking of doing now. . . ."

"But we're not welcome at the flat," Harry finished for him.

"Right. Nothing personal, of course."

Harry had to grin at Ron's expression, an interesting mix of relief and excitement. "So how long am I homeless for, then? All night?"

"No, we're not there, yet." Ron looked rather wistful. "Couple of hours, say."

"Okay." Harry made his way over to the girls, and pulled Hermione away for a conference.

"Let me guess," she said at once. "You're not allowed home."

"That's about the size of it."

"We can go back to my flat, if you want."

There was no reason that offer should make a little tingle go up his spine, no reason at all. There were no parallels here between Ron and Sarah and himself and Hermione, and it was time for his body to start remembering that. "I - I'm not - wouldn't you like to go to one of those all-night bookshops instead? You like those, right?"

Hermione looked at him with raised eyebrows. "Yes, I do," she said slowly. "I didn't think you did, though."

Harry nodded to show how very much he liked large shops filled with books and earnest book-loving people.

"Okay, then. I'll tell Ron."

And as the two couples turned to go their separate ways, Harry thought - but couldn't quite be sure - that Sarah winked at him.

*

Harry held the door open for Hermione, then followed her into the bustling bookshop off Kensington High Street. This place was so far removed from Knockturn Alley, he was finding it hard to remember that they existed in the same city. This shop was all bright fluorescent light and clean, carefully arranged stock; its windows weren't lined with vicious screaming books, and its display stands did not include dingy encyclopaedias of poisons. The air was thick with a wonderful aroma of coffee mingled with chocolate. Harry closed his eyes for a moment, just to take it all in, to let it wipe away all traces of malodorous herbs and bloody alcohol.

"Come on," Hermione said, tugging at his coat, "you're blocking the door."

He trailed behind, smiling, as she made a beeline for the political section. Maybe this wasn't exactly his natural habitat, but Harry was content with his surroundings tonight. He was in no danger, here; there was no chance of making a mistake, of moving out onto a limb that Hermione could cut out from under him with a single word or glance.

He watched with amusement as she pulled book after book from a shelf, muttering at indexes and tables of contents, replacing volumes with a sigh or adding them to a teetering pile on the floor. One thing was certainly true about Hermione; when she was interested in something, she was involved. She put so much of herself into everything she did. . . .

"Harry!" He blinked. "You're. . .hovering."

"Oh, sorry." He took two steps to the right.

Hermione sighed. "Why don't you find something to read? Or a table for us? Or both?"

"Okay." He stood for a moment, considering. This shop was every bit as far from Diagon Alley as Knockturn Alley; he couldn't catch up on current events that mattered to him here, nor was there any chance of flipping open a book and discovering a useful new spell. So Harry shoved his hands in his pockets and wandered off in search of manly things, like sports magazines and football books and sports sections in newspapers. Football wasn't Quidditch, and never would be, but it would have to do.

He didn't have a whole lot of luck at first. Every aisle he walked down seemed to contain books on feminist studies, scary Muggle diseases, or cookery. When he finally spotted a group of men about his age at the magazine stand, Harry hurried over - then turned away quickly when he recognised the subject matter that held their attention. Not that he was opposed to such literature, of course; it just didn't seem like the best place to be found by Hermione.

He finally settled down at a table with two football magazines and a Times. He turned to an article about West Ham, deciding to try and match some faces to the names Dean went on about on a regular basis. He was just memorizing their win-loss record when Hermione appeared, toting a stack of books that reached up to her chin.

"Ugh," she said, dumping them onto the table. "Changing sports?"

Harry grinned and pulled his magazine closer, away from the sliding pile of books. "Nah. But it's required reading for anyone spending time with Dean."

"Like Ron and that Flying with the Cannons book?"

"Exactly."

Hermione pulled a pen and paper out of her bag, opened a book, and began to read. Harry watched over the top of his magazine as she fluctuated between distressed clucking, furious scribbling, and heavy silences punctuated only by the flick of turning pages. It was hard to read upside down, but he could make out words like petitions and rallies and right-wing backlash.

Finally, Harry couldn't watch anymore. "Hermione, why don't you take a break?"

She looked up, but didn't stop writing. "In a little while."

What Harry considered to be a little while came and went, with Hermione still working. "Will you stop now?" he asked, in his best pouty voice.

"Okay," Hermione said, with a sigh. She put down her pen. "What do you want to talk about?"

"Erm, I don't know." Harry cast about for something to say, now that he had her attention. Unfortunately, all he could come up with was, "You work too hard."

As soon as Hermione began sputtering, Harry realised his mistake. "You - Harry - you! What do I say to you all the time?"

"Er. . . ."

"And what do you say to me? I'm fine, Hermione. Don't worry about me, Hermione. I don't want to talk about it, Hermione."

Harry began to slink down in his chair, trying to shield as much of his body as possible from her glare. Then he remembered something, and straightened back up. "I'm breaking now," he pointed out reasonably.

Hermione opened her mouth, closed it, and let out a slow breath.

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yes." She stood up and headed for the magazine stand, returning a few minutes later with a decorating magazine that Aunt Petunia had once studied religiously.

Harry raised his eyebrows. "I didn't know you read that."

"Not usually, no. But I do enjoy the Christmas issues." She sighed. "My mum has always done such an amazing job on our house. My flat just seemed so depressing in comparison, last year."

Harry nodded understandingly, but most of his mind was preoccupied with the word Christmas. He spread his fingers out under the table, and began to count.

He had five weeks. Plenty of time to find an appropriate best friend-ish present for Hermione. . .which suddenly seemed like a much bigger challenge than it ever had before.

*

Notes: Many many thanks to Cynthia Black and Paracelsus for beta, and to Stacy and E.E. Beck for help with the original version. And thanks to everyone who's taken the time to review!

7. Seven

Seven

We're only making plans for Nigel; we only want what's best for him. -- XTC

*

Aunt Petunia was being difficult.

It was fitting that his aunt was shaping up to be the one blot on his free weekend. Harry suspected handling Aunt Petunia was rather like handling a small child - managing mood swings, distractions, petty squabbles, and the all-important feeding times. And he'd fallen down on the job today. Slept too late, hung out with Ron too long, and forgotten all about that focal point of life in a nursing home - the evening meal.

His aunt was glaring at him now, standing in the corridor outside her room, wearing an expression he'd seen countless times before. Contempt and displeasure twisted up features that could have been pleasant, that were pleasant when their owner was asleep or unconscious.

The fact that he and his only blood relative got on best when she was in some way incapacitated was one of those things Harry tried not to think about.

Convincing his aunt to postpone her supper was clearly impossible, so Harry reached for the doorknob. "I'll just wait here until you get back, okay?"

The slap that his hand received answered that question fairly conclusively.

"I'm not sure who you think you are," she said icily, "but you will not be permitted in my room unattended. You can come with me or you can go back to wherever you came from."

Deep breaths. They were essential. Deep breaths while he reminded himself that the woman in front of him was, in a word, pitiful. Because of what she'd become, a helpless shadow that never would have existed if she hadn't been the aunt of Harry Potter. Pitiful because of what she'd always been, a person who'd let jealousy run her life.

Sharp fingernails dug into either side of his earlobe, wiping all charitable thoughts out of Harry's mind. "Did you hear me? Or are you deaf as well as stupid?"

Surprise, anger, and training took over, and Harry acted on his instincts, grabbing his aunt's wrist with an exact pressure meant to numb her fingers. "You do not touch me," he said, his voice dangerously low. "You are not allowed to touch me. I will go with you, you will have dinner, and you will not touch me."

Aunt Petunia nodded, eyes wide. Harry dropped her wrist and marched up the corridor, keeping his eyes up, over the heads of any shocked little old ladies he passed. He knew his aunt was following him; her footsteps were easy to isolate, much sharper and quicker any of the others in the hallway.

As he reached the dining hall, Harry slowed and let his aunt overtake him. He had wanted to stay in her room for a very particular reason - if there was someone here that Sarah came to visit, there was every chance Piers would someday turn up as well. And that was definitely a reunion Harry could do without.

He scanned the tables carefully, looking for brown hair and a rat face amongst the sea of white and wrinkles. Satisfied that the dining hall was safe, he then followed Aunt Petunia to a table along the wall. Not surprisingly, they had a very good view of all the comings and goings in the room. It made Harry wonder, not for the first time, just how things worked in his aunt's mind; she might not be able to remember names or faces or the days of the week, but she still felt quite strongly about him - and about keeping an eye on everyone around her.

They sat in stiff silence while Aunt Petunia took what looked vaguely like shepherd's pie from a cafeteria worker, and Harry accepted a glass of water. He took a few sips, wishing that he had some aspirin or something to go with it - there was a headache building over his eye, thanks to his aunt.

"I saw you looking at my plate," she said sharply. "If you want something to eat, you'll have to get your own." She pulled her plate and glass as far away from him as possible.

"I wasn't -" Harry sighed. "Never mind."

*

Ron sat on the couch, stabbing a fork into the pot of noodles in his lap. Not that he was cross, because he wasn't, he absolutely wasn't. Harry had just come back from Surrey, and anyone who had been in that place visiting that woman had a bloody right to be antisocial. So the fact that they had barely exchanged two words before Harry had slipped off to his room didn't bother Ron in the least. Nor did the fact that Sarah was off somewhere doing whatever it was groups of Muggle females did.

He was going to spend some quality time with himself, that's what he was going to do. Because he could be thinky and deep, he had interests and pastimes, he didn't need people around to keep him occupied -

And he wasn't walking to the phone right now, he absolutely wasn't.

Ring. . . ring. . . .

"Hello?"

"Hullo, Hermione? You busy?"

"Oh, yes. I'm working on. . . ."

Ron watched the tap drip while he let her talk for what seemed to be an appropriate amount of time. "Okay, so, do you want to come over?"

"Did I give the impression that I have time to come over? Because I certainly didn't mean to. And I didn't even mention the two hundred pages I need to read, or -"

Ron sighed, quietly. Maybe he should've tried Sarah instead - maybe she was back early. . . .

No. Bad idea. Because even if he was being a recluse, Harry was home, and while Sarah was taking the magic thing well, there were still things she didn't know. Things about Harry, things about Voldemort, things about the Dursleys. . . .

He had been thinking of her, of course, when he'd pared down his story. Hadn't wanted to overwhelm her with so much information, all at once. Considerate, that's what he was.

Full of crap, yes, that too.

Part of him simply didn't feel like talking about things that he preferred not to think about. And then part of him, that part he tried to pretend didn't exist anymore, was enjoying the fact that to Sarah, Harry was nobody special. He wasn't famous, wasn't rich, wasn't a hero. . . hell, she hadn't even looked at his scar twice.

". . . so I'll do that, and see you in a few minutes," Hermione said, cutting into Ron's contemplation.

There was a click, and Ron hung up the receiver in disbelief. If he'd just heard correctly, Hermione had given in, agreed to do what he wanted rather than what she wanted, and he'd completely missed out on how that had happened. He hadn't even begun his counter-attack yet.

Still, a victory was a victory, and he hummed as he went back to his noodles.

*

Hermione wrinkled up her nose automatically upon arriving in the boys' flat. The lounge was, as always, awash in clothes and books and cups and all matter of indeterminate stuff.

It was Ron's fault, Hermione felt certain. Harry had always been careful with his things. Every time she'd visited the boys' dorm, she'd been struck by the sight of his bed, trunk, and cabinet. Except for when he was in an undiagnosed state of clinical depression (i.e, most of their fifth year), his corner of the dorm had been a little island of neatness and order in the midst of chaos, and the same was true today of his little bedroom in the flat. Harry always offered to help with the chores at her house and the Burrow, and if he spilled something, or broke something, he dealt with it quietly, carefully, immediately. It had been years before she'd understood why - and it was probably a good thing that Harry kept her far away from his aunt.

Ron waved cheerily at her from the couch, where he was slurping something out of a pot. She smiled back and headed for the wooden table shoved against the room's far wall. On the way she couldn't help but notice that the light was off in Harry's room. Huh. And he'd had the audacity to tell her that she worked too hard.

"Want some?" Ron stood up and walked over to her, pot outstretched.

Hermione raised her eyebrows. "Thank you, but you finish it. Really."

She pushed a Quidditch magazine aside and set her bookbag down on the table. She'd agreed to a change of scenery, yes, but not to abandoning her work. Hermione fished around in her bag a little, then sat down with a stack of parchment and a quill.

The slurping sounds began advancing. Hermione rolled her eyes. Either Ron was completely daft at reading body language, or completely determined to get his own way. Doing her best to ignore him, Hermione turned to the article she had promised to edit for Sally-Ann Perks, an exposé of the paltry legal status the wizarding world offered to most beings and beasts.

She was able to work in near-silence for an entire two minutes before Ron plopped down beside her and waved his fork into her field of vision. "What's all this, then?"

"I told you over the phone," Hermione said, trying and failing to control her temper. "Do I speak a different language? Have you been hexed to only comprehend speech that is about you?"

Ron opened his mouth, then, amazingly, closed it without saying anything rude. "Tell me again?"

"Well. . ." Hermione launched into somewhat shortened version of what she'd explained to Harry the previous week. To give Ron credit, he seemed to be listening; at least, his eyes were open and he nodded in most of the right places.

Most of them.

"You want to give beasts the same rights as wizards? Are you mad? Colonies of Acromantula storming the Ministry and proclaiming their right to eat young, tasty, good-looking humans for dinner?"

"Honestly, Ron. You could exaggerate for a living, you know that? We're not talking about all beasts. And don't think I missed that little reference to yourself, there. Once again, it's all about you."

"It's not about me! It's about you being out of your bloody mind! Once again!"

"Just shove off, Ron. Just shove off!"

Hermione flung her chair back and marched out of the room and down the hallway. The world had that fuzziness around the edges it always got when she was too busy arguing to breathe or focus her eyes properly; so maybe it wasn't surprising that the door she burst through led her into Harry's room, instead of the loo as she'd intended.

"Well, this proves Dean wrong," said a muffled voice.

"What? Harry?"

"There's a woman in my bedroom on a Saturday night. And it didn't cost a single Knut."

She made her way over to the bed and plopped down beside the supine figure with a pillow over its face. "Did you hear. . .all that?"

"I think they heard you in Scotland."

"You don't. . . " Hermione bit her lip. "You don't agree with him, do you?"

"No. I think it's bloody brilliant, really."

Hermione flushed, pleased, and tried to ignore the little voice popping up in the back of her mind, telling her how very much Harry's words - I think it's brilliant - might mean to many witches and wizards. This is your best friend, she told herself firmly. He hates being famous. And it would be a betrayal to ask him to cash in on it for you.

"Why am I talking to a pillow, anyway?" she asked, twitching it aside. Harry winced, his eyes closed.

Hermione's antennae went up at once. "What's wrong? What did you do to yourself this time?" She scanned him as critically as the light spilling in from the corridor would allow, looking for gashes and swellings and extra limbs.

"Nothing. Nothing, just a headache."

"Uh-huh." She knew what Harry's nothings usually meant. Concussion, probably, in this case. She reached into her pocket stealthily and drew out her wand.

"Put it away," Harry said, through closed eyelids.

She cursed inwardly at that intuitive - and sometimes eerie - sense of movement that was such a part of Harry. It had kept him alive and in one piece for years, won numerous Quidditch matches for Gryffindor, and got on her nerves on more than one occasion. "If you'll just let me-"

"No, Hermione." His hand circled her wrist, making proper wand-flicking impossible. "It's just a headache, courtesy of Aunt Petunia. Perfectly normal."

She bit her lip. "Can I get you painkilling potion, then? I've some in my bag. . . . "

He shook his head, gingerly. "No, thanks. I've had aspirin, and I don't want to put any magic on top of that."

Hermione nodded. He was right about that - magic that affected the bloodstream was rather tricky, and using it on one that had been altered in any way was even more so.

He was also still holding her wrist, although the way a few fingers had crept up towards her palm, it could almost be called holding her hand.

She leaned back against the headboard, settling in. Ron didn't deserve her company anyway.

*

Monday morning found Harry and Dean standing respectfully in Moody's office, hands idle at their sides, while their boss thumped around the room and made thoughtful noises. Dean's eyes kept sliding closed, and Harry helpfully elbowed him at intervals. Moody dealt with inattention quickly, magically, and thoroughly.

Harry had learned that the hard way, because his attention often wandered in this office, even when he was properly awake. The walls were lined floor-to-ceiling with shelves, and on them were a great many objects that attracted the eye by whirring and buzzing and blinking multi-coloured lights. Crouch Jr.'s Hogwarts office had been well-stocked with Dark Detectors, but in comparison, his quarters had been those of a man just a twinge concerned with issues of safety and secrecy.

Moody's office was filled Sneakoscopes and Secrecy Sensors of various sizes, tucked in and amongst gauges marked with all sorts of unusual symbols, a giant barometer, and something that bore a close resemblance to the weathervane at Number 4 Privet Drive. Any space on the shelves not taken up by magical items contained books on topics so dark and disturbing - know thy enemy - Harry doubted Madam Pince would even place them in the Restricted Section.

Moody was muttering now. "They give us one with no balls and one with no brain. They shove them in our faces. If they think I'm going to chase those ignorant gits around the sandbox, they've forgotten who they're dealing with."

Harry nodded. He was sure, too, that whatever was going on was being organised by someone else, someone both evil and intelligent. Crabbe and his friends weren't known for their minds, and they definitely hadn't given off criminal mastermind vibes the other night in Knockturn Alley.

Moody sat down heavily at his desk. "Here's the plan, boys. We will not apprehend Crabbe, at least, not yet. I'm going to continue to have the copies of the Apparition records for Crabbe and his buddies sent straight to me. We'll know where he goes, when he goes, and if he meets up with anyone else while he's there. If anything interesting does happen, you two must be ready at a moment's notice."

"Yes, sir."

"Yes, sir."

"Here-" Moody thrust a stack of records in their direction. "Get busy. Try to determine a pattern of his activities."

Harry and Dean nodded and settled down at the table in a corner window and began to work silently, while Moody rustled parchment at his desk and grunted intermittently. Apparition records certainly saved the Aurors a lot of legwork, for which Harry was grateful, but they also made him nervous. He didn't like the fact that someone sitting in an office could track his comings and goings, could watch dates, times, and places inscribe themselves on the ever-lengthening parchment of his Apparition license.

Because it was all in the license, a bit of fine print that most seventeen-year-olds were entirely unaware of. The license wasn't just a legal permit, and the test wasn't just an assessment of a wizard's ability to Apparate; the Ministry captured a wizard's magical signature during that exam, a perfect copy of him doing the spell. Harry wasn't sure what that looked like, because his world was completely black during each split-second of Apparition. But in his imagination, it was very much like one of Priori Incantatem's ghostly echoes - shadow-Harry embedded in the license parchment along with temporal and locator spells. And that was enough to put a queasy, unsettled feeling in his stomach every time he really thought about the whole process.

A sharp elbow jabbed into his side, and Harry jerked his head up, blinking, to meet Dean's eyes. "All right?" his partner mouthed.

Harry nodded and turned back to his work, determined to focus this time. Really, Dean and Hermione are starting to have a lot in common, he thought somewhat petulantly. Maybe they should get together sometime. . . .

Or maybe not. Harry smiled to himself, remembering how nice it had felt on Saturday night, to have her sit with him and talk quietly with him, and distract him from the fact that his head threatened to throb right off his neck. He'd fallen asleep with her sitting beside him, propped up against the headboard, and woken vaguely lonely and disappointed in a sunny, empty room.

Of course - Harry turned a sheet of parchment more vigorously than was strictly necessary - he'd just been a last resort, a haven from bickering and conflict.

And being alone was underrated anyway.

*

Harry poured a bit of Mrs. Skower's Magical Mess Remover onto a cloth, tucked his head and shoulders into the grimy interior of his oven, and tried to forget about work. For the past week, he and Dean had been in a holding pattern of waiting, watching, and working on other cases that seemed small in comparison to the schemes of Death Eaters and the threats uttered by carved snakes.

Harry attacked the splatters and splotches of burnt-on food, remnants of one of Ron's experiments at combining magic and Muggle appliances. It felt good to be doing something, to be straining his muscles, wiping sweat off his forehead, and, above all, making a problem disappear.

He worked contentedly for some time, ignoring the stains multiplying on his shirt and the fumes filling the flat. He was just aiming his wand at a particularly nasty spot when he heard a telltale popping sound behind him. "Hullo!" he called over his shoulder, before muttering a blasting charm.

The resulting explosion made the cooker rock forward on its base, and Harry dove out and across the kitchen floor, landing in a heap at his guest's feet.

"Hey," he said, blinking up at Hermione. He re-settled his glasses, paying no attention to her knee-length skirt, or the black stockings that disappeared into it.

"Hullo," she replied. "Is there evil lurking in the cooker? Did it attack you?"

Harry grinned. "Nah. Although you can never be too careful, you know. First rule of vanquishing evil." He wiped a hand off on his shirt. "Give us a hand?"

"Sure." Hermione pulled him up and held onto his arm as he wobbled, his head suddenly fuzzy.

"You all right?"

"Yeah." Harry rubbed his forehead. "Yeah, just the fumes, I reckon. What's in that stuff, anyway?" He gestured towards the bottle beside the oven.

Hermione looked shocked. "Harry! That was first year! Twelve uses of dragon's blood, remember?"

"Oh, right. But they were never very specific, you know. A cleaner, an incendiary, a preservative. . . ."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "You mean you and Ron only memorised the bare bones of what you needed for the exam."

"Something like that." Harry leaned on the counter, hoping that he looked casual. His head was pounding, and a sick feeling was growing in his stomach.

"Harry?"

Damn. Didn't work.

"Be right back." He headed for the loo, stumbling a bit as he moved rather more quickly than his head would have liked. When the door closed behind him, he sank to the floor, putting his head down between his knees in an attempt to stop the swirling and the dots before his eyes, a position he'd learned in years when sudden head pains had been more common and inherently more worrying.

When his world stopped turning and his stomach settled, Harry stood and faced himself in the mirror. He was pale, and he was dirty. Not a fit sort of company for Hermione - assuming she had come over to visit him in the first place.

A little soap, water, and wand work later, Harry left the loo to find Hermione hovering in the corridor. "I'm fine, really."

"Good," she said, looking skeptical.

"What brings you over, anyway? I think Ron's still at work." He looked away as soon as the words came out of his mouth. He hadn't meant to say that, he hadn't meant to be whiny, there was nothing whatsoever for him to be whiny about. . . .

"I came over to see you, actually," she replied, sounding a bit hurt. "I wanted to show you something. But I think we should get you out of here."

"Okay. How about a walk?"

*

Ron was examining his teeth in the mirror when he heard the knock at the door. Unless the old bat next door had grown even more unreasonable about appropriate volume levels for his wireless, it had to be Sarah. With one final check at his reflection, Ron went to the door to meet his date.

"What is that awful smell?" Sarah asked, standing on tiptoes to give him a peck on the cheek.

"Harry was cleaning, I reckon." Ron made a face to demonstrate how very much a waste of time he considered such an activity to be.

"More power to him. Are you ready to go?"

"Nearly. Just need to grab a coat."

Sarah followed Ron back to back to his room, petting Pig while he sorted through a heap of clothes at the foot of his bed. "Shouldn't you let your owl out? The air in here can't be good for his little brain."

Ron snorted at the accuracy of her description. "He can get out if he wants." He pointed towards the top corner of his window, where the glass had been replaced with a small flap. "He's just nuts."

He tugged his Muggle coat out of the pile and slid it on, stuffing his hands in the pockets. "Oh, thank Merlin," he muttered, pulling out three tenners.

Sarah laughed. "Hey, when do I get to go to your bank, anyway? I'm not going to believe in these goblins until I see them, you know."

"Well. . .see, I'm working nearly every minute that they're open. And you wouldn't be able to get there - or back, probably - without me. And I don't think the goblins would like it if you stayed with me all day. They can be nasty buggers."

Her face creased up in disappointment. "But Harry or Hermione could bring you by," he added hastily. "Harry'd be best, probably."

"Why Harry?"

Because he's the saviour of the known world, and even the bloody goblins respect that. "He's a really good customer. Has a big account."

"Oh." She linked her arm through his, seemingly unfazed by the concept of a well-off Harry. "That'd be brilliant. Are you ready now?"

"Yeah." It's a start.

*

Harry and Hermione were walking side-by-side towards the Long Water in Kensington Gardens. The night was cold, but nothing compared to November in Scotland; Harry amused himself by making clouds with his breath until he caught sight of Hermione's how-old-are-you-again? expression. It was still early, just gone six o'clock, so there were still a good number of people strolling the lamp-lit walkway. It didn't seem the right sort of setting for muggers, or worse, but Harry scanned each passer-by carefully just in case.

They reached a well-lit bench near the lake, and Hermione sat and tugged Harry down beside her. She rustled in her bag a moment, then handed over a copy of Witch Weekly. "There. Page fourteen."

Harry grinned as he took in the title of the article: Burdened Beasts. "That's fantastic, Hermione. Right near the beginning of the magazine and everything." He studied the page a bit more. "And - should I know Sally-Ann Perks? Her name sounds familiar."

"She was in our year - Hufflepuff, I think. She's a brilliant writer. I was flattered when she asked me to help with this."

"Well, why wouldn't she ask the cleverest witch in our year? Makes sense to me."

Hermione punched his arm lightly. "I just - you don't have to read the whole thing. I just wanted you to see it."

"I want to read it. All of it. But - not in the dark."

"Well, of course not."

They sat quietly for a moment. Harry watched the artificial light and the moonlight reflect off the water; there were twinkling Christmas lights up in the trees already, and the dancing bright spots made the scene truly charming. Still, there was something sad, or maybe just mundane, about watching a lake with no giant squid to reach out and tickle you with its tentacles. . . .

"Harry."

He turned his head to look at Hermione. She had scooted up quite close to him, cold, probably, and he dropped an arm around her shoulders without thinking. "Yeah?"

"Is everything. . . .okay, lately? It's just. . . ." She gestured helplessly, and Harry turned away slightly, suddenly resenting her proximity, and her adeptness at reading his face.

"Things are fine."

"Are you sure? Work, and your aunt, and. . . everything?"

"Yes."

It wasn't a lie if she didn't ask for a precise definition of fine.

*

Notes: Many many thanks to Cynthia Black and Paracelsus for beta, and to Stacy for help with the original version. And thanks to everyone who's taken the time to review!

8. Eight

Eight

There's a progress we have found, a way to talk around the problem. --R.E.M.

*

On Saturday morning, Harry woke up and immediately tried to burrow back under his blankets. His head hurt. There was pain on the inside, a lot of it, all concentrated right over his eye. There was also pain on the outside, all sharp and pointy, which didn't make any sense at all. Either someone had thoughtfully added nails to his bed linens, or. . . .

. . .Or he had an owl that thought it perfectly appropriate to sharpen her claws on his scalp.

"Okay, okay, Hedwig," Harry grumbled, struggling to sit and take the post from her. It took a full minute before he realised why it was so terribly blurry. After popping on his glasses, Harry made another attempt, and found it to be a note from Hermione. He began groaning before he even reached second line. "Ron!"

A faint voice drifted in from the bedroom across the hall. "Wha-?"

"We're supposed to go to your parents' today. For lunch, remember? Hermione's going to be here in an hour."

Harry heard muffled swearing. "Tell her it's off."

"Ron." Harry put every ounce of finality he could into the word.

"Fine." Ron changed tack immediately. "Don't you want to shower first?" he called plaintively. "The chance to enjoy a loo completely free of ginger hair?"

"Yeah, fine." Harry slid to his feet and rubbed his forehead. That pain didn't make a lot of sense, either. True, he and Ron had stayed up fairly late the previous night, after he'd got home from his walk and dinner with Hermione, and Ron had returned from his date. There'd been Quidditch on the wireless, and Butterbeer - at least, Harry thought there'd only been Butterbeer. Perhaps Ron had made a few enhancements. In slow motion so as not to make things worse, he fished a fresh pair of pants out of his dresser and headed for the shower.

When Hermione popped into the living room exactly one hour later, Harry was clean, dressed, and stretched out on the couch. She grinned at him. "Am I to deduce by the splashing sounds that Mr. Weasley is not yet ready to leave?"

"Got it in one." Harry smiled back. It was good to see Hermione taking a day off; she looked casual and happy in jeans and a dark red pullover, a heavy coat tossed over her arm. He suddenly felt eager to join in her good mood. "Although," Harry added, "his inspired rendition of Some Witches Are Bigger Than Others should've also been a clue."

She laughed. "What you call inspired, I call wailing." Harry shifted his feet, and Hermione settled in on the end of the couch. She patted her lap. "Go on, put your feet back up. Your socks look clean."

Harry grinned to himself as he swung his feet onto her lap. That was Hermione all right - kind, yet infinitely practical. She leaned forward to peer into his face, and he instinctively moved away, back into the cushions. He knew there were shadows under his eyes, he'd seen them in the bathroom mirror. "How late did you two stay up last night?" she asked. "You look knackered."

Harry shrugged. "Don't remember. We were listening to the Cannons."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "There are plenty of other programmes you could listen to, if you refuse to sleep at night like a sensible person," she said, poking his foot for emphasis. "Programmes that enlighten and educate, that examine the issues of modern wizarding society. . . ."

"Oh, bloody hell." Ron appeared in the doorway, wearing jeans and rubbing his hair with a towel. "It's not even noon, and she's already started! It's indecent, that's what it is!"

"I was talking to Harry," Hermione said icily. "If someone addresses you, do feel free to contribute an opinion. Until then, shut it!"

Harry groaned and inched a cushion over his face in an attempt to become one with the couch. Last week's row was evidently still fresh in both his friends' minds, and he knew what was coming next: a tug-of-war match, with his support as top prize. And even though Harry knew where he stood, it wasn't something he felt like being dragged into at the moment.

It was rather nice under the pillow, he thought. Dark and quiet. Actually. . . it seemed rather quiet outside his little nest as well. The only noise he heard sounded like retreating footsteps.

Harry peeked out from under the cushion. "Is it safe to come out?"

"For now," Hermione said ominously. Her eyes flashed one last time toward the spot Ron had vacated, then softened into concern as they focused on him. Harry sighed quietly. One way or another, it looked like it was going to be a long day.

*

Twenty minutes later, Harry shrugged off his coat inside the front door of the Burrow. It was still his very favourite house in the wizarding world, even after so many years. The Weasleys had done so much to make him feel wanted, loved, part of a family; being friendly and social when he didn't quite feel like it was a very small thing to do in return. And there was a silver lining - the buzz of activity definitely promised to overshadow Ron and Hermione's continuing glares and frosty politeness. For that, he was grateful.

It was less than a minute before their presence was noted, and they were descended upon by a variety of happy Weasleys. Mrs. Weasley rushed forward and hugged them all about the neck relentlessly; when she was done, Percy stepped forward and shook their hands in his patented pompous way. Fred and George jumped into the fray at once, trading fake punches and manly slappy hugs with Ron. Harry backed away slightly, so as not to be injured by wayward arms.

Mrs. Weasley tutted at her sons, then reached for Hermione's hand. "Will you come into the kitchen, dear? Ginny and I could use your help." Hermione smiled and nodded politely, but gave a properly put-out feminist scowl the moment Mrs. Weasley's back was turned. Harry snickered as she left the room.

Unfortunately, his amusement did not go unnoticed. Fred elbowed George, and the twins shared meaningful looks.

"Is he laughing at us? Us?"

"It certainly appears that way-"

"No, no, I wasn't, really," Harry said hastily, backing away from the dual gleams in their eyes.

"You know what that means-"

In a flurry of red hair and grins, Harry was bear-hugged and mock-punched; his sides were tickled and his hair was ruffled by not two, but three Weasleys at once.

"Ron," Harry sputtered, "remember who cleans! And lets you borrow his clothes!"

Ron shrugged, then put him in a headlock.

When they all finally let go, Harry found himself wondering if he'd ever get completely used to the Weasleys' uninhibited, hands-on approach towards him and each other. He rather hoped so. Although today it wasn't necessarily the best day for it. Instead of following Ron and the twins into the kitchen to forage for snacks, Harry sneaked off upstairs, in search of the loo and a pain-killing potion for his headache.

Harry paused at the foot of the stairs a few minutes later, unsure where to go. There was a great deal of noise emanating from the kitchen; from the feminine squeaking, he reckoned that Fred and George's raid might have been successful. Harry turned and went into the living room instead, which was quiet, and proved to be occupied by only Mr. Weasley.

"Hullo, Harry." Mr. Weasley was seated in a chair before the fireplace, carefully sorting little bits of wire into an old tackle box. "Just the person I wanted to see."

"Hullo, sir."

"Do me a favour, boy, will you? Squirt a bit more of that on the fire." He gestured towards a dingy bottle on the hearth. Harry picked up the bottle; its cap reminded him of a creature's head, although it was impossible to say what kind, due to a thick coat of grease and grime. He squeezed, and a stream of liquid shot out through what looked like teeth and onto the flames.

"Thank you, Harry. We need a really roaring blaze. It's so cold today." Mr. Weasley closed his box with a loud, metallic clang. "Now, sit down, sit down. I wanted to ask you about something."

Harry sat down on the floor in front of him, his back to the hearth. "Yes, sir?"

Mr. Weasley looked left, then right. "I heard a rumour," he whispered, leaning forward. "Is it true? Ron's got himself a Muggle girlfriend?"

"Er. . .Where did you hear that?"

"Colleen Finnegan - your friend Seamus's mother - was in the office the other day. Slight problem with her Muggle in-laws and an enchanted ice-pick."

Harry blinked, opened his mouth, and closed it quickly. It was probably best not to ask for details.

"Now, is it true?"

Harry nodded. "But. . . I'm not sure Ron's quite ready to tell everyone, just yet."

Mr. Weasley nodded knowingly. "Oh, don't worry about me, boy. I can keep a secret as good as any of you - spies, is it?"

Harry grinned. "Right."

Mr. Weasley turned back to his work, measuring wires against each other with painstaking care before placing in them in appropriate slots of his tackle box. Harry closed his eyes and leaned back, basking in the glow of the fire. Maybe, if he was lucky, no-one would come looking for him until it was time to eat. Maybe he could get a good solid kip in, and wake up rejuvenated and refreshed and ready to join in the Weasley family fun. Maybe....

"Ah, there you are, Harry!"

. . .Maybe Trelawney had been right all along. Maybe he was the most ill-fated being on two legs.

Harry cracked open his eyes. "Oh, hallo, Percy."

Percy looked a bit miffed that Harry didn't hop up and embark on a second round of handshaking, but recovered quickly enough. "How are things in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement these days?"

"Fine, fine." Percy continued to hover in front of him, and Harry resigned himself to observing the social niceties. "And you? How are things in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office?"

Percy rubbed his hands eagerly. "Absolutely smashing," he began. "In a time when both our societies are expanding, it is imperative that we wizards respect the culture of our fellow humans; that we. . . ."

It was funny, Harry noted, how very less effective someone's pontificating was when you were in a position to look up their nose. Harry reckoned by the deliberate way Percy was projecting his words that he would very much like for Harry to stand - it would, of course, be entirely too undignified for Percy to join him on the floor. But Harry had no intention of standing at all. His headache had begun shifting; it was becoming less a throbbing and more an unpleasant, worrisome fuzziness. His stomach wasn't too happy either, and instinct told him that standing would be a very bad idea.

"Without a doubt," Percy was saying when Harry tuned back in, "going to work with Father was truly one of the most inspired decisions I've ever made."

Harry gave something between a snort and a cough. The way he'd understood it, Percy hadn't had a great deal of choice in the matter. There wasn't exactly a booming job market for those who'd once defended the Ministry's old guard and supported men like Barty Crouch, Sr. and Cornelius Fudge. Percy owed his second chance at a career to his father, and as Harry understood it, his second chance with the family as well. It had been Mr. Weasley who had made certain, in his quiet way, that when the time came and Percy was ready to come home, there was a welcome waiting.

Harry shot a glance towards Mr. Weasley, humming happily over his box of wires. He had to wonder just how well those two personalities meshed day after day in that little office.

"Well, Harry, it's been perfectly splendid speaking with you," Percy said. "But if you'll excuse me, I must go see if Hermione is free. She made a most interesting comment about her current legal activities earlier. I should like to discuss it with her further."

Harry waved a vague goodbye to Percy and let his eyes slide closed again. Maybe, just maybe, he'd be able to get in some sleep. . .and maybe the potion would work its magic on his fuzzy head and increasingly unsettled stomach before lunch made it to the table.

*

Harry's luck, or lack of it, held up through the meal. Like all good Weasley gatherings, it was a bright, happy, boisterous affair, with more food than Harry could bear to look at, much less smell, heaped upon his plate. The moment it seemed polite for him to do so, Harry excused himself from the table and slipped out the kitchen door. It was a typical English winter day, the air cold, the sky dark and heavy with the threat of cold rain. Harry sank down onto the Burrow's back stoop, drew his knees up to his chest and made a bony pillow out of his arms. He buried his head in it gratefully and concentrated on taking long, slow breaths.

Harry wasn't sure how long he sat like that, enjoying the cold, clean air, blessedly free of any sort of food-related smell. The sound of his breathing and the wind in the trees was finally broken by a voice saying, "You're ill."

He lifted his head enough to see Hermione, shivering and rocking on her heels, arms crossed over her chest. Harry opened his mouth to say, "Am not," realised it would lead them quickly into school playground territory ("Am not!" "Are too!"), and thought the better of it. "Maybe a little."

Hermione sat down beside him. "Same as last night?"

Harry bit his lip, considering. "Yeah, I reckon. Just - more so."

Hermione's eyes searched his face; Harry could practically hear her brain proposing and rejecting one diagnosis after another. "It's nothing to worry about, Hermione," he said. "Look." He clasped her hand and pressed the back of it to his forehead, pushing his hair out of the way. "See? No fever."

She furrowed her brow doubtfully. Harry was actually a bit doubtful as well; it was wonderfully cool everywhere her skin met his. That probably wasn't normal. He began to drop his hand, and she did too; somehow, they stayed connected, lying on the frigid cement between them.

"You were doing shrinking charms on your roast, weren't you?"

"Bugger," Harry said. "Did anyone else notice?"

She shook her head. "No. Not as far as I could tell. How were you doing it, anyway? I never saw your wand."

"You won't tell?"

"Promise."

"You sure? This is a top-level Auror secret, this is."

"I'm sure."

He leaned close to her. "Wand up my sleeve," he whispered.

Hermione smiled, and it lit up her face. She nudged his shoulder with hers. "Now why don't I believe you?"

Harry blinked innocently. "I'm sure I don't know." He moved to nudge her back, but suddenly, didn't feel as if he could. He plunged his head down between his knees instead.

"Harry?"

Hermione's voice seemed to come from a long way away, like he was deep underwater and she was calling down to him from the surface. Harry wanted to tell her that he was fine, not to worry, but he didn't trust himself to open his mouth right then. He closed his eyes and concentrated on not passing out, or throwing up, or both.

When he felt able, Harry lifted his head slightly and looked at Hermione out of the corner of his eye. She was biting her lip, and shivering, and he gave himself a mental slap for not registering her lack of a coat before. He'd come out here so he wouldn't worry anyone, and here he was, worrying Hermione. And turning her into an icicle at the same time. "You should go in. I'm fine."

She shook her head stubbornly. "I'm not going to leave you out here by yourself."

"Hermione-" Harry closed his eyes and tried to will the nausea away. "Hermione, if I do lose my lunch here, I really don't want you to see it."

"Harry-"

"Just go. Please."

He was prepared for her to get up and leave, in one quick, silent motion; he was prepared for her to take her fingers away when she did. He wasn't prepared to miss them, to feel oddly incomplete.

Harry sighed. He didn't know what to do next. He wanted to Apparate straight home to bed, but he couldn't do that without at least telling someone first. But that would mean going inside, something he didn't feel like doing at all.

At that moment, Ron appeared on the stoop behind him with a biscuit in each hand, in the manner of an overgrown, continually snacking guardian angel. "Well, you look horrid," he said conversationally. "What's wrong? Did Fred show you what he's growing in the garage?"

Harry shuddered. "No. No, just feeling a bit off, is all."

Ron plopped down beside him and took a bite. "Sorry about that, mate," he said around a mouthful of cookie. "Hey, what'd you do to Hermione? Her eyes were all red, when she came in. I thought if anybody'd make her cry today, it'd be me."

Harry groaned. "Never mind. . . Look, do something for me, will you? Tell her I'm sorry, and that I had to go home. And tell her I want to talk to her later, if she'll talk to me. Okay?"

Ron, clearly dying of curiosity, stopped the biscuit en route to his mouth. "Okay. You going to tell me why?"

"Nope. And - tell your mum thanks for everything, all right?"

Ron nodded. "All right, I'll deliver your messages. But," he drew himself up to his full height, "I should just like to point out that I have neither feathers, nor a beak, nor claws. And I cannot be mollified with those foul owl treats."

"Duly noted. Thanks, mate." Harry closed his eyes, concentrated, and was gone a second later.

*

"Well!" Ron popped into the flat a few hours later, with Hermione close on his heels. "Somebody must be feeling better!"

Harry nodded vaguely, most of his attention fixed upon Hermione. Her face was set in a cold mask, one he had seen before - usually when Ron had pushed her too far in one direction or another. Harry wasn't used to being the cause himself, though, and he felt a slight panic coming on. This was going to be harder than he'd thought.

Harry put the sandwich he'd been devouring down and shifted his attention to Ron. "Yeah, I am," he said. "It just went away, an hour ago. Just like that."

"Hmpfh," Ron grumbled. "Sounds like a right convenient illness to me. Sounds like your Inner Eye told you that mum was going to ask us boys to do all the dishes."

Hermione sighed loudly. Harry knew it was just her knee-jerk reaction to the mere mention of Inner Eyes and other assorted Divination nonsense; still, it was discouraging.

"Ron?" Harry asked quietly. "Can you give us a minute?"

"Huh? Oh." Ron took off his coat and dropped it on a chair. "Right, going to feed Pig now," he proclaimed loudly, then swiftly exited the room.

Harry turned to Hermione at once. "Hermione? Will you sit down?" He patted the couch beside him. She did so, but stiffly, and made no move to take off her coat. Harry chewed on his lip thoughtfully. He needed something to say, something that would get them back to the easy camaraderie they'd shared this morning, right on this very spot. An abject apology seemed the way to go.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For. . . being so rude?"

"No need to be sorry," Hermione said coolly. "You were ill. It's hard to be perfectly polite when you're ill. I understand."

But Harry could tell by the look on her face that the words I understand did not, in this case, mean it's okay. He felt like he was missing something, something important.

"Hermione-"

"And you explained already," she said, her voice strained but calm. "You don't want anyone to see you like that, to see you lose control. Anyone. I understand."

"Hermione-"

"In fact, there's no reason for us to still be talking about this." Her hands shook slightly in her lap, belying the control in her voice. "Ron!" she shouted. "You can come out now!"

Ron appeared in less than a second and dropped down into the armchair. Hermione pulled off her coat and turned in her seat so that her back was to Harry. As she and Ron began talking, Harry returned to his sandwich, not paying any attention to what they were saying. He tried to think through what had happened at the Burrow logically, step by step, but he just couldn't see what he'd done that had been so wrong. Harry knew he hadn't been terribly nice, and he was sorry about that; but he'd been thinking of her, and that couldn't be wrong. Could it?

He shrugged. Witches were strange, he decided. Strange and unusual. And it probably wasn't just witches, either; probably Muggle females were every bit as unfathomable as well. Which reminded him. . . .

"Ron! Your dad knows about Sarah. Seamus's mum told him."

Ron gaped, speechless, for a moment. "Bloody buggery fuck!"

"Ron!" Hermione leaned over and smacked his arm. "What's so awful about that? You did plan on introducing them at some point, didn't you?"

"Yes, but. . ." Ron shook his head. "Never mind. You're right." To Harry's surprise, Ron was still visibly shaken, his face paler than usual, with his freckles standing out sharply. Harry didn't know much about the whole introducing-your-girlfriend-to-the-family thing personally, but he wouldn't have thought it to be so bad. Although with Fred and George around, maybe Ron did have reason to worry.

Ron seemed to draw himself together. "Right. Harry, are you going to be really busy at work this week?"

Harry blinked, startled by the change of subject. "Probably not," he said resignedly. Downtime was all very well and good, but right now it only served to remind him of how in the dark he and Dean and Moody were. . . that they knew nothing more about that bloody snake and Crabbe and Avery than they had weeks ago.

"Do you think you could get some time off to come to Diagon Alley? And bring Sarah with you, so she can visit me at work?"

"Most likely," Harry replied. "I'll ask Moody on Monday."

"Brilliant," Ron muttered. "I think."

*

Ron hovered outside Sarah's flat on Monday evening, holding a few takeaway cartons and trying to talk his hand into knocking on the door. Between Seamus's mum and his own bloody brilliant suggestion about Diagon Alley, he was quite firmly painted into a corner. There was only one way out: he had to tell Sarah everything he hadn't told her yet about the wizarding world, and he had to do it tonight. Because if his dad knew about Sarah, chances were good more Weasleys would know sooner rather than later, and if Harry accompanied Sarah to Diagon Alley tomorrow, chances were even better that he would be recognized and that some sort of Boy Who Lived comment would be made.

Ron had a tight deadline, thanks to Moody, who had given Harry time off for the very next day. Unfortunately, his Gryffindor courage seemed to have taken a holiday, leaving him with only a long list of fears: Sarah would be angry at him for keeping more secrets. . .she would be afraid of wizards once she learned about Dark ones. . . she would turn into a Boy Who Lived fan.

After earning a curious stare or two from people coming and going in the corridor, Ron balanced the curry boxes in one hand and knocked on Sarah's door with the other. Better to face Sarah than the Muggle police on loitering charges.

She let him in, and her eyes flicked to the cartons in surprise. "You brought food? I thought we were going out."

"Well. . ." Ron dumped his armload onto her oddly immaculate dining table. "I thought this would be more intimate." She raised her eyebrows, and his ears burned in response. He hadn't meant it like that. . . unless, of course, she didn't mind him meaning it like that. "For conversation, I mean."

"Oh, that's fine. It's sort of wet and icky out, anyway. Help me set the table?"

It was intimate, Ron decided a few minutes later. The room was lit by just one lamp, rather than the overhead light, and Sarah had put some sort of soft Muggle music on the stereo. Ron hoped he'd remember to try this again, someday. . . a day when his brain wasn't too numb to carry on conversation, and his stomach was calm enough to actually allow him to eat.

"Hermione came by today."

"Oh?"

"She lent me some robes and a cloak to wear tomorrow. She says I'll feel more comfortable if I blend in."

Ron swallowed. "Yeah, she's probably right."

"She also said something about you being a self-centred prat."

Ron took a deep breath, stared at his plate, and dove in. "She's probably right about that too. But not for the reason she thinks." He couldn't stop himself from muttering, "I'm still right about the bloody beasts."

Sarah gave a small, uncertain laugh. "Ron? What's wrong? You're not going to start banging your head into things again, are you?"

"No. No, I'm not." He looked up to meet her eyes. "It's just - there are a few more things you should probably know about wizards, before tomorrow. And I should have told you sooner, and I'm sorry."

She reached across the table and grabbed his hand. "That's okay, Ron. The way I see it, the fact that I know about magic at all. . . I mean, it's a pretty huge thing, and you've trusted me with it. That means a lot."

Oh, how brilliant. How absolutely bloody brilliant. Sarah could have given Dumbledore lessons on killing with kindness.

He offered up a weak smile. "Okay. Here goes. Um. . . wizards are people, right? And some people are good, and some people are sort of okay, and some people are just diabolically evil?"

Sarah nodded. "Sure. There's Mother Teresa, and then there's the rest of us, and then there's Hitler."

"Right. Well, there was a wizard like Hitler, until a year or so ago." Ron looked away, not sure what to say next. How do you tell someone that they had been the target of genocide, without even knowing it? How do you say, Some of my people wanted you dead?

"Was there a war?" Sarah whispered.

Ron nodded.

"Were you in it?"

He nodded again. Before he could say anything else, Sarah darted out of her seat and around the table. She threw herself in his lap and buried her face in his shoulder. "You don't have to tell me," she said. "You don't have to tell me anything that's too hard."

Ron considered that. What could he say that wasn't too hard? Not just for him to talk about, but for her to hear?

Not a whole hell of a lot, Ron decided. She didn't need to know about the power of green light, or creatures that could eat your soul, or words that could set every nerve in your body on fire. She simply didn't need to know.

"I was really lucky," he said finally, into her hair. "My whole family survived. Pretty surprising, considering how many of us there are." He took a deep breath. "And my two best friends survived. . .I didn't expect that, either. After fourth year, I was so sure that Harry. . .Some nights, I'd make sure that the curtains were open on both our beds, so I could see him, all night, and know that he was okay. But some nights, he'd be sleeping on his back, perfectly still, and all I could think was, That's how he'll look in his coffin. And I'd get up and close them, and try to pretend I'd never had a friend called Harry Potter. Just so I could sleep." He paused, and wiped at his eyes. "See, I told you I was a prat."

"You're not," Sarah said quietly. "Not at all."

She stroked the back of his neck and Ron found that he couldn't say any more. It had been a good while since he'd let himself truly think about their last few years at school, to slip into those days and feel them again. It wasn't pleasant.

But then Sarah's lips were on his cheek, softly, and then on his mouth; Ron seized the distraction, the opportunity to let go, and kissed her back appreciatively.

Some time passed quite pleasantly, before Ron remembered one thing he absolutely had to say. He moved his lips away, just a centimetre, and said, "Oh yeah - Harry's a war hero."

Sarah placed her mouth back on his. "Okay," she said against his lips.

It tasted wonderful.

*

At quarter of ten the next morning, Sarah huddled under her umbrella just outside the entrance to the Charing Cross Underground station. It was miserable weather, cold but not cold enough for snow, and she had to squint through the rain and mist to try and spot Harry.

Sarah was practically beside herself with excitement, and if truth be told, a little fear. She had been surprised last night at Ron's revelations, but in retrospect, she shouldn't have been. Ron had been exactly right: wizards were people. And, unfortunately, death and destruction were things that some people did.

And one person had done them well, if the pain in Ron's eyes last night was anything to go on. She'd set out to cheer him up, to wipe that expression off his face, and she'd succeeded. And in doing so, she had also managed to quiet a little voice in her head, one that had said over and over, You don't want to know, you don't want to know. . . .

But Ron had promised that she would be as safe in wizarding London as anywhere in the city. Especially with Harry, he had said. And the more she thought about it, the more she believed him. Harry was a wizard policeman, and, apparently, a war hero. She didn't feel like she knew him very well; he was much more reserved than Ron, and she simply hadn't been around him as often. She would feel more comfortable if Ron was here now, she knew that. But it would be ages before they could work it out, he'd said, and her curiosity was definitely getting the better of her.

"Sorry I'm late," came a deep voice from just over her shoulder.

Sarah jumped slightly. Wizards really did have an unfair advantage at sneaking up on people unawares. "You're fine, right on time."

She was relieved to see that he was dressed in Muggle clothes as well. She had Hermione's robes folded up in her backpack, ready to slip on when the time was right. She looked Harry over critically, wondering where his robes were hidden. Special magical pockets? Invisible backpack? Maybe he would just tap his clothes with his magic wand and they would change instantly. The possibilities seemed endless.

"Want to share my brolly?" he asked. "I've made a few, er, enhancements."

"That'd be brilliant, thanks," she said, moving over to take him up on his offer.

"Plus," Harry added quietly as they started off down the pavement, "when we get there, you're going to need to hold onto me. I don't think you'll be able to see the entrance on your own - although I'm not quite sure. I should've asked Hermione how it was for her parents."

"That's right, they're Muggles too, aren't they?"

"Right."

"Huh." Sarah thought about it for a minute as they squished along. "That must happen fairly often, then. Wizards in Muggle families. I mean, your aunt -" She broke off, noticing that Harry was gripping the umbrella handle more tightly than strictly necessary.

"Fairly often." His voice was strained, but polite, and Sarah got the message that his family was off-limits for discussion. Which was okay, because hers rather was too.

After a few more minutes of walking in silence, Harry stopped on the pavement, right between a bookshop and a record shop. "Do you see a pub?" he whispered.

"No, should I?"

Harry shook his head. "Nah. Just hold onto my arm. You might want to close your eyes, so you don't see yourself walking into a wall."

Sarah determinedly ignored the squirming in her stomach, where excited butterflies were fighting with scared ones for the upper hand. She hung onto Harry and walked forward with her eyes squeezed shut. She heard him fumble with a knob, and the sounds of the street melted away as they stepped through a doorway.

"Mr. Potter!"

"Hullo, Tom," Harry said.

Sarah opened her eyes slowly. They were in a very small, very grubby, very empty pub. At first glance, it looked much as any pub would during off-hours, and Sarah felt a stab of disappointment. A bald, ancient man in a faded brown robe began shuffling out from behind the counter.

Harry took a few quick strides forward. "Good to see you, Tom," he said, shaking the old man's hand. "But we mustn't stop. Lots to do today."

Sarah let Harry hustle her out through the back of the pub, into a small courtyard. She surveyed the wet brick walls and the grungy dustbins skeptically. "What now?"

"First, we should change." Harry brought a little folded square of cloth out of his pocket, took out his wand, muttered something, and was suddenly holding long black robes and a cloak. Sarah pulled off her backpack and rustled out Hermione's dark blue ones. She had tried it on in front of the mirror last night, so she knew how she looked. Different. Blending in with the witches and wizards was a good idea, but it was also faintly unsettling.

When they were both changed, Harry studied the wall for a moment, took out his wand, and tapped a brick three times. Sarah sucked in her breath as the bricks began to move and shift, every twist enlarging her view of a very different world beyond. "Oh," she said quietly.

Harry grinned at her. "Yeah. Amazing, isn't it?"

Sarah nodded and pulled up the hood on Hermione's warm winter cloak, shielding her face from the rain. It was amazing. It was every Dickens novel she'd never finished, and every fantasy one she had, tossed together and brought to life in full colour. The street was quiet, with only a few witches and wizards scurrying about under cloaks. But the shop windows told the story - shiny cauldrons and polished broomsticks, spell books and bottles of potions. . . .

"Ready?" Harry asking, still grinning at her amazement.

They set off down the alley, Sarah twisting her neck left, then right, furiously snapping mental pictures to pore over later. "Is it always this quiet here?"

Harry laughed. "Not at all. It's the rain, for one. Plus, this time of day, most people are at work. That's one reason Ron picked it. He didn't want you to be overwhelmed."

They drew closer to a white building at the end of the street that loomed over the others.

"There. That's Gringotts."

"Wow."

As they approached the bank's great silver doors, coherent speech left Sarah entirely. A short creepy thing let them in; she couldn't help staring at its face, its ears, its teeth. Inside the hushed marble hall, there were more of them - she assumed they had to be goblins - along with wizards and witches and some creatures she couldn't even begin to classify. Getting a good look at them all simply wasn't possible, but she gave it a go anyway.

Sarah noted vaguely that she had attached herself to Harry's arm again. He didn't seem to mind; he smiled as he propelled her toward one of goblins seated behind a high counter, where he plunked down a stack of heavy coins. "Harry Potter. Need to change this for Muggle money, please." Money was exchanged, normal, everyday pounds and pence looking incongruous in wrinkled goblin hands. When the transaction was completed, Harry added, "And we'd like to see Ron Weasley, if at all possible. I have a few investment questions."

The goblin looked at them closely, and Sarah shivered at the scrutiny. Finally, it nodded. "You may, Mr. Potter."

A few minutes later, Sarah and Harry were ushered into an office that was mercifully free of goblins. Ron jumped up from behind a small desk in the corner. "Brilliant! You made it!"

They settled into chairs in front of the desk. "Thanks, mate," Ron said.

"Oh, it was nothing. I needed to get some Muggle money for the rent, anyway."

Sarah scooted forward, and began to relate every sight and sound she'd experienced in an animated whisper. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Harry politely burying himself in an assortment of financial-looking parchments. The time flew by; Sarah had no idea how long they'd been talking when a goblin appeared in the doorway and fixed them all with a powerful stare.

"Right," Harry said loudly, laying the parchments on the desk. "Investing in dragon's blood seems like a good idea. These import figures are truly staggering."

Ron mouthed a silent thank-you.

"We'll get back to you on the details," Harry added, rising to his feet. Sarah followed, giving Ron a tiny, undetectable wave with her fingers. She hoped the incomprehensible goblin noises that followed them out into the corridor were happy ones.

*

Hermione watched the rain fall outside a window in Harry and Ron's flat, ignoring the books spread out on the table around her. She'd come over to the boys' flat because she was in a mood to be distracted from her work (something she would never, ever admit aloud) and because she had hoped Harry might drop by after he was done in Diagon Alley. She needed a chance to see him, to talk to him casually one-on-one and prove that everything was completely normal and best friend-like between them.

"Because it would be," she muttered angrily, "if I weren't wandering around like some lovesick fourth year, taking it personally when a bloke wants to throw up alone!"

Hedwig, perched on the back of a chair, hooted her agreement.

"Thanks," Hermione said sourly.

Hedwig hooted again, but this time it was because Harry had appeared in the middle of the room. He was shaking water out of his hair like some sort of disheveled, black-furred animal, and holding what was unmistakably a Flourish and Blotts bag in one hand. It took less than five seconds for him to tense up, slip a hand inside his pocket, then visibly relax as he recognized his visitor.

"I hope you don't mind," Hermione said quickly, uncomfortably aware that if the room had been any darker, she would have probably been hexed into the new year. "I just - well," she shrugged, "it gets quiet at home."

"Don't mind at all," Harry said. Hermione couldn't help but watch, smiling, as he made a pathetic attempt to hide the shopping bag behind his back.

Harry followed her eyes and blushed. "You might as well see," he mumbled, walking over to the table and dumping the bag down on top of it. "I got it for you. I was thinking Christmas, but - I don't know. I always get you a book for Christmas."

Hermione looked up into his face, which was rather adorably pink. "Harry! You didn't have to - and anyway, save it for Christmas."

"No." Harry shrugged off his cloak and sat down at the table beside her. "Go ahead. I want you to."

Hermione slid a heavy book out of the bag and gasped. "Oh Harry, it's beautiful!" A shimmering, magnificent dragon blew smoke and breathed fire underneath the title: A Compendium of Creatures (That Can Kill You If You're Not Careful).

"You think so?" Harry asked eagerly, sliding his chair over. "And - I know how important they are to you - it's even got an index." He flipped rapidly to the back of the book. "There," he said proudly.

Hermione beamed. "Perfect," she said. "Cross-references and everything."

She began to browse her new book, impressed with the intricate illustrations and the sheer wealth of information provided on each creature. Harry read along over her shoulder, his breath warm on her neck as he pointed out the entry on hippogriffs, or laughed at the drawing of a gnome fiercely attached to an old wizard's ear. Hermione knew - knew - that reading out of the same book did not strictly require two people to sit so closely. She'd shared books with plenty of study partners at uni, and never had a shoulder pressed against her back, or her leg outlined by the warmth of another's.

She tilted her head at Hedwig, the closest thing to a girlfriend in the room, as if to say, "Do you see it? Have you been seeing it?" But Hedwig chose to be maddeningly, owlishly enigmatic, and refused to even blink her eyes in reply.

Hermione was so busy shooting her best glare back at Hedwig that it was a moment or two before she realised that Harry had gone completely still, and possibly even stopped breathing. She turned her head and sucked in a breath at the sight of his face, pale and frozen, eyes wide behind his glasses. "Everything all right?" she asked quietly.

He started at the sound of her voice. "Yeah," he said quickly. "Fine."

Hermione didn't believe him in the slightest, but was determined not to push, this time. "Okay." She turned back to the book in an attempt to demonstrate just how non-pushy she could be, and was treated to the barest glimpse of a giant snake before the volume was closed abruptly.

"I should go to work, I think," Harry said, standing. "Before Dean gets all shirty about me getting too much time off."

"Okay," she repeated, watching his back as he put on his cloak.

He might be fine, and she might not be pushy. . . but she was going to read every last word of that serpent entry, the minute he popped out of the building.

No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

*

Notes: Many thanks to Cynthia Black and Paracelsus for betaing this version, and to Stacy for plowing through the original. And thanks to everyone who's taken the time to review! Song title in the first scene shamelessly stolen from The Smiths's Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others.

9. Nine

Nine

Even though I watched you come and go, how was I to know you'd steal the show? -- Foo Fighters

*

The hour was late, but the old stone building hummed with activity. Unfortunately for the Aurors' sleeping schedules and social lives, people did insist on stealing things and hexing each other at the oddest hours of the night. The atmosphere was remarkably like that of Muggle police stations scattered across the city: people came and went quickly here, the guilty and the innocent, those charged with disturbing the peace and those sworn to protect it.

There were differences between the two institutions, of course, worlds of difference, and in a small room on the third floor, Harry sat at a well-worn table and wished for a small bit of Muggle life - fluorescent lights. Because fluorescent lights were everything oil lamps were not: clean and crisp and capable of illuminating all parts of an entire sheet of parchment equally. It was easier for Harry to blame the lamp than his own weariness, bad eyesight, or tendency towards repression for the strange tricks the words in front of him were playing. One minute he was looking at the dry, dull language of an Apparition report; the next, a serpent poised to strike, a blade glinting in the moonlight, or a red, dripping stone. Harry took off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes, determined as always to bury those images in the past where they belonged - where they would be tonight, if not for that book he'd bought Hermione.

The door behind him opened with a loud creak. "Go home, Potter."

Harry shoved his glasses on and whipped round in his chair. His boss was slowly walking across the office, the heavy drag of his wooden leg betraying his weariness. "But sir - I missed so much earlier today -"

Moody lifted the Apparition record from the table. "Have you found anything?"

"No, sir."

Moody grunted and threw down the parchment. "As I expected. Unfortunate, to be sure, but as I expected." He leaned heavily on the table beside Harry and the ancient wood groaned in protest. "Our Deputy Head has just informed me that we are wasting time and resources with our current course of action. We must either apprehend Crabbe or suspend the case."

"But - but - sir!" Harry took a deep breath, determined to collect himself. Aurors didn't throw wobblers. "You said it yourself - if we bring him in, we show our hand. Whoever's running him will know exactly how much we know! And what good would it do? Crabbe probably doesn't know anything. He's not the sort of person you'd clue in to your master plan."

Moody nodded slowly, the lamplight throwing dark shadows on his shaggy white hair.

"And we can't just stop," Harry continued breathlessly. "These are the first of Voldemort's possessions we've seen in over a year! We can't ignore that. And then there's that snake. . . No-one's had any luck locating that snake, have they?"

"No. We've had eyes on all of the usual shops, using a sketch Thomas made, but there have been no sightings. Apparently whoever took it wanted it for a private collection." Moody gazed at Harry steadily, piercingly. "You are quite correct in everything you say, Potter. But I think more will be gained if we continue this discussion after a good night's sleep." With a flick of his wand, Moody banished the Apparition record into a drawer. "So go home and come in tomorrow ready to help plan our new strategy."

"Yes, sir," Harry said dutifully. He rose to fetch his things from the towering mahogany rack behind the door. As he shrugged on his cloak, Harry watched Moody begin his nightly round of security charms. "Want any help, sir?"

"No, Potter. Good night."

"Good night, sir."

The flat was dark when Harry Apparated in a moment later. He tossed his cloak on the table he and Hermione had occupied earlier, now empty of her books and papers. Harry moved on down the hall, knocking a hello on the lav door as he passed. The crooning coming from within could only mean Ron was showering - that, or an Augurey had taken up residence for the winter.

Harry didn't bother to turn on a light in his room. He undressed slowly, tossing clothes on the floor in a messy pile. He should really go to bed, Harry knew, for it was well after eleven. But he had no desire to lie awake in the dark for hours, slumberless and uneasy, present worries twisting around shadows from the past. So he took his time, patting Hedwig and meticulously adjusting the heating charms before climbing into bed. Something crinkled under his ear when his head finally hit the pillow, and Harry picked it up with one hand and pulled his wand out from under the pillow with the other. He popped on his glasses. "Lumos!"

< p>

Thank you again for the book. I hope you didn't have to work too terribly late.

Love from,

Hermione

Harry sighed. He'd acted such an idiot when he'd stumbled across that entry in Hermione's book, and she was sure to have noticed. Not just noticed, but read and memorised every word, and found at least six other sources on the topic. He wasn't even sure why it was affecting him so much. It wasn't as if there weren't other, more frequent, reminders of the night in question. And he wouldn't even rank it as the worst night of his life. In the top five, yes, certainly, but there were plenty of other things his brain could've picked to obsess over. . . Maybe he was just tired, or stressed from work, or still a little ill. Or a combination of the three.

Harry tucked the note and wand back under his pillow, then laid his glasses on the bedside table. He stretched out, watching the fuzzy patterns the streetlights made on the ceiling, and resigned himself to a long night.

*

There were a few advantages to sleepless nights, Harry had to admit. They gave him plenty of time to think, and given five or six hours, he occasionally had a good idea. Or recalled someone else's. Sometime in the hours before dawn, he remembered Hermione's great Polyjuice scheme from second year. It was a little risky, maybe, but Harry thought something similar might be the perfect solution to their Crabbe problem. A way to question Crabbe and escape detection, a way to appease the powers-that-be and maintain secrecy.

Moody and Dean finally agreed (although it took some time for Dean to get over the shock of learning that Hermione had made Polyjuice when she was twelve). Harry and Dean spent some time studying Apparition records, and discovered that Crabbes Junior and Senior liked to meet at a Knockturn Alley pub on a fairly regular basis. At least once a fortnight, and always on a Tuesday.

"What do you want to bet," Dean remarked, "that Tuesday is ladies' night?"

That had been hours ago, and now Harry was walking home from work, the smell of exhaust on the night air making it perfectly clear that he had passed through the Leaky Cauldron into the Muggle world. He wasn't entirely certain why he'd decided to walk tonight, but it felt good to be doing it, especially now that he'd left the wizarding alleys. The Muggle streets were, arguably, less exciting than the twisting ones he'd just left; for starters, fairy lights without real fairies in them hadn't twinkled properly to Harry in years. But it was a wonderful thing to be one average bloke in a crowd of hundreds, in a city of millions, and Harry took his time, window-shopping as he went. It was December now, after all, and the number of presents required for the Weasley clan alone was seriously daunting. And then there was Remus. Harry flinched, trying to remember the last time he'd owled the man, much less visited. His Christmas gift would have to make up for that, somehow. And then there was Dean, and Hermione. . . .

When Harry entered the flat an hour later, he was halfway through with his one purchase of the evening, a bar of Christmas-tree-shaped chocolate. He checked the answerphone, and was relieved not to see any blinking lights. He carried a slight dread with him always, that Aunt Petunia would do something, something that would get her locked up in one of the special wings of the residential home for good. And there was that niggling worry for her safety, even though he had long ago covered her room with protection spells. As all seemed quiet tonight, Harry flipped on a lamp and stretched out on the couch with the Prophet and the remnants of his snack. Before long, his restless night caught up with him, and sleep won out over earnest articles about the tax rate.

He didn't hear Ron come in, but woke with a start when the phone rang. Harry eavesdropped shamelessly as he struggled out from the depths of the newspaper and readjusted his glasses.

"Yeah, he's here, but he's asleep. . . yeah, pretty late, and he left early this morning too. . . No, I don't know how well he slept, because I was asleep too, wasn't I?"

Harry lunged across the room and took the phone away from Ron, who gave it up with a shrug. He had a pretty good idea who the caller was. "Hermione?"

"Oh, you're up!" she said, somehow managing to sound both contrite and delighted. "Did I wake you?"

"Yes," Harry yawned, "but don't worry about it."

"Okay, I won't." She drew in a breath. "Harry - I need to talk to you. I need to ask you a favour - well, I say favour, but you wouldn't have to do much, it would be me doing the actual work, that's assuming he agrees of course -"

"Slow down," Harry interrupted. There were several things that got Hermione this excited - Arithmancy, house-elves, library cataloguing systems, just for starters - and Harry was fairly certain that this conversation would be best continued on a full stomach. "Why don't you come over here and tell me about it? We could do Chinese takeaway or something."

"No," she said immediately. "No, not if Ron's staying in. It's about. . . well, you know. And I don't want to have to listen to his nonsense. Will you come here instead?"

"All right," Harry agreed, wondering exactly how he was going to stop Ron from coming. Food was a Ron magnet.

As expected, his flatmate was bouncing on the balls of his feet, thrilled by the prospect of food, when Harry rang off a moment later. It took a reminder that Sarah might ring, a hint that Hermione's flat just might be harbouring a giant spider, and a promise to bring home any and all leftovers for Harry to be allowed to Apparate away on his own.

*

Hermione was setting the table when he popped into her little flat, his arms full of white cardboard cartons. "Wow," Harry said. "You've been busy." And she had. Two tall, slim red candles flickered in the middle of the table. Their bases were ringed by dark holly, its berries matching the colour of the candles perfectly. An impossibly small living Christmas tree stood in front of the window, covered in miniature white lights and delicate wooden ornaments. Underneath it - Harry gulped - rested a pile of perfectly wrapped gifts.

Hermione smiled. "Oh, I'm not done yet," she said, helping him set the boxes on the table. "Do you like the tree? I used a really interesting charm on it. Sort of a shrinking charm, but it magnifies all of the subject's other characteristics at the same time."

Harry sniffed appreciatively. "It does smell extra-foresty."

She beamed. "And it'll get more so as we get closer to Christmas, not less. There's a fascinating temporal dimension to the charm, but it only works if you apply it at just the right moment in the downward swish. . . ."

"Fascinating," Harry agreed politely, fumbling with the nearest carton. "Are you ready to eat?" He sat down across from her at the table and began heaping bits of everything onto his plate. For a while, the only sound was the clicking of their chopsticks.

"So, this favour," Hermione said.

Harry nodded encouragingly, his mouth full of chow mein.

"Will you take me to see Remus, the next time you go?"

Harry coughed, sputtered, and dropped his chopsticks with a clatter. "What? Why?"

"We had a meeting today," Hermione said excitedly. "Witch Weekly has promised us some more space. And Roger and Sally-Ann think a series of interviews would be really effective - you know, what it's like to be a vampire in today's society, or a giant, or a werewolf. . . ."

"Ah," Harry said faintly. "And they want you to interview Remus."

"Yes," she said. "Do you think he'd do it? It could be anonymous, even. It'd be brilliant if he would - I'm the only one who's in touch with a werewolf at all, you see."

Harry nodded. He did see. And he didn't see how he could say no. Of course Hermione had no way of knowing what the thought of visiting Remus was doing to his insides; it wasn't sensible for him to still be like this, years after Sirius's death, and so it never would have crossed her mind.

Looking across the table at Hermione's bright, hopeful eyes, he sighed. "I'm sure he will," Harry said, folding up the napkin in his lap, eating no longer seeming like an attractive option. "I'll owl him tonight."

Harry waited until Ron went to bed to keep his word. Before long, he was lobbing piece after piece of parchment at the bin, and Hedwig was hooting in reproach or impatience. "Oh, belt up," he said. "You'll get your letter when I'm good and done, and not a minute before." Harry refilled his quill and stared at another sheet of parchment, ignoring the stray drops of ink speckling its edges, and waited for inspiration to strike.

Remus would be pleased to hear from him, Harry told himself firmly. He'd be proud of Hermione and ready to support her and glad to have them come out for a visit. And Hermione would take care of all the awkward pauses; she would talk and talk and there would be no room for any other words to float in the silent spaces between them.

Harry told himself that, and he wished he could believe it.

*

Hedwig had flown away with Harry's final draft and returned with Remus's pleased reply by the end of the week. Harry was mulling it over in his mind on Friday as he and Dean left work on foot, heading for what was supposed to be a night of food, drink, and fun. Dean accepted his silence good-naturedly as they walked down Charing Cross Road, headed for a pub halfway between the Leaky Cauldron and the Underground station.

The place was busy when they arrived, and it was a lucky thing that Hermione and Sarah had already claimed a small corner booth for them. Harry slid in beside Hermione, who placed her fizzy lemon on the table and helped him out of his coat. He became uncomfortably aware as she did so that his day's work had left him smelling of sweat, grime, and dragon slobber. Harry shifted away as unobtrusively as he could, deciding it would be a good idea to keep his arms as close to his sides as possible for the rest of the evening. Watching from across the table, Dean grinned widely.

"Ron's on his way," Harry said, ignoring Dean. "Pig attacked us in the middle of Diagon Alley."

"It's been said before, but I'll say it again," Dean remarked. "That bird is a menace."

Sarah checked her watch. "I hope he gets here soon," she said. "I've got schoolwork to do tonight."

Hermione gave Sarah an approving sort of look, then frowned as she caught sight of Dean's bandaged hand, resting on the tabletop. "Dean! What happened?"

"Oh, nothing much," Dean said carelessly. "We were confiscating some dragon eggs, and one hatched on us. Bugger bit me."

Hermione sucked in a breath. "Did you go to the infirmary? Dragon bites can get nasty - remember Harry, what happened to Ron?"

"Oh yeah," Dean nodded, "you don't have to worry about me. I've got sense. Now that one over there-"

"Why don't you go get us a couple of pints, Dean?" Harry interrupted, pulling his left sleeve down over his wrist in an attempt to hide a few tell-tale claw marks. Scratches weren't as dangerous as bites, he was fairly certain, although he doubted Hermione would see it that way.

"All right," Dean said affably. As Dean left, Sarah leaned forward and saved Harry from any further scrutiny. "So dragons are illegal, then? I thought Ron said his brother worked with them?"

"They're mainly kept in colonies now, sort of like zoos. Or they live way out in the wild. Ron's brother works at one of the colonies," Harry explained. He scanned the room out of habit as he spoke, but no-one seemed untowardly interested in their conversation. A hectic London pub was, Harry thought, one of the best places in the world for sharing things that were rather secret and having them attract no attention at all. Which was another reason his and Dean's plans for Crabbe would hopefully go off without a hitch.

"They're so large, it's very hard to keep them from Muggles. That's the main reason it's illegal for private individuals to own them," Dean said, appearing at Harry's elbow and handing over a brimming glass. "And they're dead fierce," he added, settling back into the booth. "Takes loads of trained wizards to handle just one grown dragon."

"Plus, they're powerfully magical," Hermione said. "From their hides to their blood to their heartstrings. So if someone can manage to raise one to adulthood, or at least adolescence - which only takes a few months, really - they stand to make a pretty steep profit."

"Oh, that's so sad," Sarah said, frowning. "They're so beautiful - wait, at least, I suppose they are. If they look anything like what you see on telly."

"Basically, yeah," Dean replied. "Muggles use ancient drawings as their sources, and those were based on the real thing. But there are some differences, here, let me show you-" Dean grabbed a napkin, Sarah handed him a pen, and he began outlining a Hungarian Horntail with quick, fluid strokes.

Harry turned to Hermione and said, very quietly, "We're on. We're to go down tomorrow afternoon, and stay the night."

"Tomorrow?" She looked suddenly, feverishly delighted. "But - I'm not ready - I have to sort out all my questions - I have to pack-"

"You only need one change of clothes, and I'm sure you've written down plenty of questions already."

"Well, of course - but that's just a draft - oh, Harry, there's so much to do!"

"It'll be fine," Harry said reassuringly. He meant it - he knew she would be fine, even if he had no such guarantees about himself.

"What'll be fine?" Ron arrived at the end of their table.

"Er, something for school. You wouldn't be interested," Hermione said quickly.

Dean rose to let Ron into the booth beside Sarah, but she slid out as well. He shrugged and sat back down.

"I'm sorry, Ron," Sarah said, grabbing his hand, "but I've got to go. I'm meeting a girl from my class about our networking project."

"Now? It's Friday bloody night!"

"I know," Sarah said, "but this is the only time she could do it. And it'll leave me the rest of the weekend free."

"Well, all right then," Ron said grudgingly. "All weekend?"

She stepped closer, flushing a little, and repeated deliberately, "All weekend."

"I'd better go as well," Hermione said, picking up her parka. Harry stood obediently to let her out. "I've lots to do. You boys stay out of trouble." She squeezed Harry's shoulder in farewell.

Ron watched with a dazed expression as the girls wove their way through the pub. "Do you think," he began, sinking down in the booth and nearly squashing Dean, "do you think that means nights, too?"

*

Harry got up and padded into the kitchen early the next morning (before ten, anyway), and fetched himself some cereal and juice. He settled down on the couch to eat, choosing a patch sun-warmed patch and being careful not to spill. He made quiet, quick work of his breakfast.

Hermione hadn't wanted him to tell Ron about their trip, Harry knew, and thanks to Sarah he didn't have to. Ron had been a bundle of nervous energy since her comment the night before, and he'd just got more hyper when he found out that Harry was going out of town for the weekend and leaving the flat to him and the owls. There had been no questions, and no pouting. And if Sarah had meant what Ron was hoping she meant, Harry doubted they had to worry about Ron trying to ring Hermione for company, either.

Harry had finished his breakfast and was shoving a final pair of socks in his duffle bag when Ron stumbled in, his hair looking rather like it had on that unforgettable day when his curiosity about electrical outlets had got the better of him. "Mumph," Ron said, staggering towards the teakettle. "You off, then?"

"Yeah. See you."

"See you."

Harry spent a few hours in Surrey with Aunt Petunia, who alternated between sniping and ignoring him entirely, stopped for a late lunch, and then turned up at Hermione's. He knocked on the door, even though the security spells had been designed to allow him to Apparate straight in. Girls and privacy went hand-in-hand, in his experience.

The door swung open, and Harry grinned as he caught sight of Hermione's bag, which was leaking bits of paper and threatening to burst at the seams. "Are you ready?" he asked.

"Nearly," Hermione said, struggling with the zip. "How do we get there? It's been simply ages since I went, and I think we had a Portkey that time."

"Well. . . we can't Apparate right to his front door. Not if we value our appendages." Harry wasn't sure if that was completely true, but he also didn't like the idea of the coordinates to Remus's house being marked down on their Apparition licences. "So we could fly," he grinned at Hermione's shudder, "or we could Apparate to the little Muggle village and walk from there. It's not too far."

"Sounds perfect."

After some discussion over who would carry what bags (Harry was eventually allowed to carry them all, but only after Hermione had lightened them with a spell) and Crookshanks's food supply was double-checked, they Disapparated. They appeared a few seconds later on the outskirts of a tiny borough in East Anglia. The town was quaint, but when they turned their back on it and set off down the winding country road, a wild, flat, lonely landscape stretched out before them. Harry wasn't sure if he liked it or not.

"It's so. . . still," Hermione murmured, gesturing at the fields surrounding them, lying brown and dormant for the winter. The only variations on the scenery were deep canals punctuating the fields, and far-off trees rimming the edges of the farmland.

"Yeah," Harry said. "I think that's why Remus likes it here. Solitary. Peaceful."

"Are you sure you know the way?"

"Positive. We follow this road until we get to the big oak tree." Hermione raised her eyebrows at him, conveying effectively with one look something women have thought about men and directions for generations. "That's not as silly as it sounds," Harry protested. "It's huge, and it's right in the middle of a field. Look around. Do you see anything like that?"

"Well, no."

"Right. So trust me, you won't be able to miss it when we get there."

They hiked on in silence, old, crumbling asphalt crunching under their feet. Harry listened to all the quiet outdoorsy sounds he never was able to hear in London, and found himself wishing he knew how to identify birds by their calls, or exactly what animal was lurking in the ditches by the way the dry grass rustled.

"Are you sure Remus is all right with this?"

"Absolutely," Harry said. "Although I do think he'd like to stay anonymous. But he thinks you're brilliant, you know. He's always thought so."

Hermione's cheeks turned pink.

The sun was low on the horizon when Harry and Hermione spotted the massive oak, standing tall in the centre of a field, silhouetted against a reddening sky. Harry jumped over the ditch at the side of the road, then reached for Hermione's hand to help her do the same. Her legs weren't quite as long as his, but she made it across with room to spare. They struck out across the field, heading directly for the tree.

Travelling cross-country wasn't exactly easy, Harry learned quickly. He and Hermione discovered that there was a trick to it, but only after a bit of stumbling and the acquisition of some glorious mud stains. They tried to measure their strides so that they hit the troughs in between the rows of winter wheat, holding onto each other's arms and laughing at their missteps.

As they drew closer, the outline of a little cottage became visible just beyond the oak. To their eyes, it was small and snug, with a thatch roof and curls of smoke drifting out of the chimney. Harry supposed it looked like a rundown shack to the person who owned the land, and that the farmer suddenly remembered he'd left the kettle on any time he happened to wander too close.

When they arrived at the cottage's front door, Harry took a deep breath, then knocked. As he stepped back to stand beside Hermione, he noticed that Remus had done a bit of Christmas decorating himself; there were large clumps of holly hanging on the windows and the door. Just then, the door opened, and Harry found himself face to face with Remus, looking a little bit older and a little bit more worn than the last time they'd met. For a moment, the three of them stood there, looking at each other. If Sirius had been there, he would have rushed forward, trapped Harry in a bear hug, ruffled his hair, and said something to make them all laugh. That knowledge hung in the air between them, in one frozen moment; then Remus reached forward and clasped Harry's hand in both of his own. "It's wonderful to see you," he said. It sounded like he meant it.

"Yeah," Harry said, relaxing a little, "you too." Remus turned to greet Hermione, then ushered them inside. The narrow hallway was as bare as Harry remembered, one small table, one coat rack, one faded rug on the floor. Remus didn't have many trinkets and knickknacks of his own; he'd spent too many years moving from one job to another to acquire a lot of things.

"Harry, you know where the spare room is. Why don't you drop your bags in there, then meet us in the kitchen for dinner? Just sandwiches, I'm afraid. . . ."

"Sandwiches are perfect." Harry hung his coat on the rack, then went down the corridor while Remus and Hermione turned into the little kitchen. He stopped short when he stepped into the bedroom, which contained an old wardrobe, a night table, and just one big bed. He'd forgotten about that. Harry dropped their bags onto it a trifle uneasily and went to the kitchen, where their host was setting out tea, sandwiches, and biscuits. He snagged a chocolate biscuit and popped it in his mouth at once. Walking was hungry work.

"How are things in London?" Remus asked, pouring the tea.

"Busy," Hermione said, and Harry nodded his agreement, mouth still full. "We're all running round in different directions," Hermione went on. "Harry's got work, and Ron's got his new girlfriend, and I've got exams coming up. . . ."

"Like you haven't been revising since the first day of term," Harry said, eyeing the sandwich plate.

"Well, yes, but that's just common sense. It's high time I stepped up my schedule, now."

Harry rolled his eyes.

"Sugar?" Remus asked.

"Yes, please. Two lumps." Harry stirred them in, then reached for a large sandwich. They drifted into a silence that was almost, but not quite, companionable. Harry supposed, uncomfortably, that it was his turn to talk, to share some of his day-to-day life with Remus. He put down his sandwich abruptly and turned to Hermione. "Tell Remus about what you and your friends are doing. You can explain far better than I did."

Hermione took the opening and ran with it, very enthusiastically. Harry sighed in quiet relief and let his eyes wander around the kitchen. It was nothing like his and Ron's, that was for certain. There were no open tins scattered on the counter, no stacks of dirty dishes threatening to reach the ceiling. Remus's kitchen was a room Aunt Petunia would have appreciated, Harry thought as he looked around. Neat, clean, organised. Although she probably could have done without the newts splashing happily in a tank on the window ledge, or the cauldron tucked into the corner by the Aga stove.

"More tea, Harry?"

"Yes, thanks."

Remus refilled their cups. "Hermione, what sort of responses have you lot received?"

"We've had some really thoughtful, really nice letters of support." Hermione shifted in her chair. "But not all the letters have been so nice."

"What do you mean, not so nice?" Harry's voice was sharp.

"It's not a big deal, Harry," Hermione said. "I never - we never - expected everyone to agree with us. Look at Ron, for goodness' sake."

"But that's - that's just Ron," Harry said. "Name me something you two have ever wholeheartedly agreed on. You can't. And besides, I think he's with you on lots of things. Fair trial procedures and freedom of expression and all that. The beast part just - shook him up a little."

Remus nodded and set down his cup. "Exactly. And I'd be quite surprised if Ron was the only one. Hermione's talking about changing the world most wizards and witches grew up in. That's not always easy for people to accept."

"We knew that," Hermione said, nodding. "But we thought, it's as good a time to try as any. Maybe even better than most, with Voldemort gone. The world's already just changed, for the better, and we thought with everyone being all optimistic these days. . . ."

"You may be right," Remus said. He went on to say something else, but Harry had tuned out again. His mind was consumed with the image of Hermione's fifteen-year-old hands, red and raw and swollen from contact with bubotuber pus. The Auror in him knew that a lot more dangerous things than that could be concealed in just a single sheet of parchment. He'd been far too busy worrying about his own problems lately; he hadn't stopped to think that not everyone would consider Hermione and her friends as brilliant as he did.

When the last biscuit had disappeared, Hermione excused herself for a moment. Harry took his dirty dishes to the sink and reached for the dishwashing soap. "You don't have to do that, Harry," Remus said, appearing at his elbow.

Harry shrugged. "I don't mind," he said.

"We'll do it together, then."

They began the rhythms of washing up silently, Harry lathering the dishes with soap, and scrubbing them with flicks of his wand, Remus rinsing and drying.

"You're worried about Hermione," Remus said, finally.

"Yeah," Harry admitted, eyes fixed on the plate in front of him.

"Hermione's clever," Remus said quietly. "And she knows that old prejudices die hard. She knows it first-hand."

"Yeah." Harry remembered a pale, pointy boy, standing in a grove of trees on a night when the Dark Mark lit up the sky, and then again on a train, hurtling towards London. He had warned them of what Hermione might face, both times, and he had been proven right, in the months and years that followed. "But," Harry said finally, "I don't think she knows how much sympathy for Voldemort is still out there. Not really."

Remus placed the last dish in the rack to dry, and shooting Harry a keen look, delivered one of those parting remarks he'd always been so good at: "And if she knew, she'd have to be a lot more worried about you, wouldn't she?"

Alone in the kitchen, Harry wiped down the countertop, first with force, and then more slowly. He listened to the sounds of the house - those thuds were Remus, adding logs to the fire, and those footsteps were Hermione, coming down the hall. Then voices, and after a moment or two Harry hung the damp rag over the tap and went to join them in the lounge.

The three of them sat in front of the fire and talked in a desultory way for some time longer. Remus was the first to turn in, and after he left, Harry found himself with a tough job. Deciding to sleep on the couch had been easy; it was proper, and safer, for a variety of reasons, only one of which was related to the unsettling dreams he'd had off and on all week. But getting Hermione to accept the idea was much more difficult. It was his bed, she protested, and if anyone belonged on the couch, it was her. Harry found taking hostages of three textbooks she'd simply had to bring along for the weekend to be a winning manoeuvre.

With the battle won, Harry brushed his teeth, changed into pyjama pants and a long-sleeved t-shirt. He poked his head into the spare room and said goodnight to Hermione, who was sitting up in bed and reading an incredibly thick, boring-looking book. Harry grabbed a pillow off her bed and a wool blanket from the closet, stretched out on the couch with them, and tried to sleep.

Sleep came slowly, and when it did come, it wasn't pleasant.

*

Hermione was still awake, her attention divided between the book propped on her knees and the papers scattered on the bed, when she heard soft noises outside her room. She was inclined to write them off at first, maybe to the dying fire hissing and spitting in the grate, but after a moment she rose and tiptoed down the hall to make certain. She opened the lounge door noiselessly and paused, a chill running up and down her spine. Harry was twisting and turning on the couch, wrestling desperately with a pillow and making sounds that weren't truly human. It frightened and worried her, hearing him upset in a language she couldn't understand. Hermione rushed across the room in stocking feet to shake his shoulder, first gently, then more soundly, until his eyes flew open and he bolted upright. "It's all right, Harry," she whispered, perching beside him on the couch.

He nodded, gulping air, and Hermione put an arm around his shoulders, pushed sweaty hair off his forehead. His face was hot under her hand. "Do you want some water?" she asked, a little alarmed. "I'll get some for you -"

Harry shook his head. "No," he said, his voice rough. He looked at her for the first time, squinting without his glasses. "Hermione, I'm sor -"

"Stop it," she cut in firmly.

"Yes ma'am," he said, with a faint grin. His shoulders relaxed slightly, and Hermione leaned back into the cushions, pulling him with her, settling his head on her shoulder. She crossed her arms over his chest, feeling its rise and fall slowly return to normal. Finally, Hermione asked quietly, "Tell me about it?"

She heard his intake of breath, felt him flinch, and was certain his next word would be no, just as she'd expected his earlier apology. Hermione lifted her arms, to let him get away - she would not be pushy - but Harry grabbed her hand with warm fingers. "No, don't go," he said.

"All right," Hermione said, curling her fingers around his.

"I always do that, don't I? Like last weekend. I don't know why."

Hermione caught her breath. I know why, she wanted to say. It's called conditioning, and I'll never tell you this, but I hope that uncle of yours is rotting in hell for it. "It's all right," she whispered.

"It's not, really," Harry said. He turned his face away from her then, although it wasn't like she could see it anyway; with his head level at her chin, her best view was of tufts and spikes of dark hair. "I was just - remembering something from the summer before seventh year."

Hermione nodded, held him a little tighter. She remembered the beginning of seventh year. She remembered how Harry had come back to Hogwarts pale and closed-off, with a dead uncle, a dead cousin, and a batty aunt. He'll speak of it when he's ready, Dumbledore had told them, but Harry had never been ready. Hermione hadn't been surprised. His family had always been something removed from their relationship, set apart, something he mentioned on occasion but she and Ron hardly dared to.

"Did it - did it have to do with a snake?"

He nodded, his hair tickling her cheek. "Yeah. Nagini. Voldemort's snake."

Hermione had never seen Nagini, but she'd heard about her. She pictured a massive snake, like the one in her book, strangling a fat blonde boy, or maybe swallowing him whole. . . But Harry blew that image out of her mind with his next words. "I killed her. He made me kill her."She made a small, surprised noise.

"It wasn't easy. He made me slit her throat. . . but it wasn't as hard as the basilisk, either."

"No, I suppose not," Hermione said, befuddled. Why on earth? She flicked her mind back to her new book. There had been something in there, a vague, half-explained legend about snakes with stones in their throats. . . .

"And then he killed Dudley." His voice trembled, his shoulders as well. "There was blood everywhere, so much blood. . . " He was shaking openly now, and Hermione squeezed him tight, held him as close to her as she could, as if she could banish whatever horrid images were replaying in his mind.

"I'm sorry," he said, finally.

"Don't be." She smoothed down his hair, fingers brushing against his forehead. "You're so hot," she murmured, worriedly.

"Was hot in my dream."

"Still." She thought for a moment. "And I'm not helping, am I?"

He rolled toward her, shifting in her arms, shaking his head. "No, you're all right."

"Okay." He went quiet then, and she let him, hoping he would be able to sleep, peacefully. His hair was soft on her cheek, his breath warm on her neck, and she tried to keep her mind focused on those things, rather than let it try to visualise exactly what had happened, years ago. It bothered her more than she would ever admit, the gaps in her knowledge of Harry: of the places he'd been, the things he'd seen, the ways he'd found to deal with it all. The boys laughed at her and got exasperated with her sometimes, and mocked her need to know everything, but to Hermione, that desire was natural and right and not funny at all.

When his breath came even and deep, Hermione closed her eyes, and tried to join him in sleep.

*

When Harry woke, he froze. He sensed the unfamiliarity of the place, the strangeness of arms around him, holding him down, and very nearly panicked.

Then he cracked his eyes open, and realised whose arms they were.

Her face was very close to his, close enough for him to see perfectly, even in the darkened room, even without his glasses. She looked worried in her sleep, little wrinkles creasing her forehead, her lips pressed together in a frown.

Without pausing for thought, Harry shut his eyes and closed the gap between them, brushing her lips with his own. She didn't respond. He hovered there, barely a millimetre from her mouth, hardly daring to breathe, until he couldn't stop himself from leaning in and meeting her lips again.

He kept his eyes firmly closed. If she woke, if she was shocked, if she was disgusted, he could pass it off as an aberration of sleep. Nothing more. Just one of those things that happens, sometimes.

And then - and then it almost seemed as if she were kissing him back. She didn't make a sound or show any overt sign, but there was pressure there, now, that hadn't been there before. Slight and silent and wonderful. Harry's body was tense with the effort of not moving, of keeping up the illusion of sleep, but his heart pounding so that he was sure she could hear it, could feel it through his chest. He drew back, finally, astounded at himself and his own daring.

He was excited and terrified and quite possibly mad. He had kissed Hermione Granger.

He wondered if he'd ever have the nerve to do it again.

*

A/N: Lots and lots of thanks to Cynthia Black, Dorotea, E. E. Beck, Paracelsus, and Stacy for betaing various incarnations of this chapter. And thanks so much to everyone who's taken the time to review!

10. Ten

Ten

Can't keep my eyes from the circling skies; tongue-tied and twisted just an earth-bound misfit, I. --Pink Floyd

*

The next time Harry woke he was alone, weak winter sunlight pressing through the windowpanes, the air full of the appetizing smell of frying bacon. He stretched slowly, sleepily. His legs and back were incredibly cramped; for some reason he seemed to have restricted himself to the smallest sleeping space possible, right up against the back of the couch.

He stretched again, brushing away a long, wavy hair that was tickling his neck. Oh. That was why. He frowned, wondering when she had left.

Harry closed his eyes, picturing a variety of possible scenarios. Hermione had stayed with him until morning, getting up only when she heard Remus stir. Hermione had stayed until he had snored or drooled or done something else embarrassing that had driven her away. Or - Harry could see this one most clearly of all - Hermione had been awake when he'd done, well, what he'd done, and then put as much distance between them as possible the moment he'd fallen back asleep.

Getting off the couch was looking like an unattractive option.

Harry had finally worked up the momentum to reach for his glasses and wand when the lounge door creaked open.

"Oh good, you're awake," Hermione said softly, from the doorway. "Breakfast?"

"All right," Harry croaked. He was still holding his glasses, and he didn't put them on. Easier not to see her face. "I'll be ready in a minute."

He dawdled in the lavatory. First he decided it was absolutely necessary to brush his teeth, even though it would assuredly make his breakfast pumpkin juice taste terrible. Then he decided that he simply had to be dressed and clean before joining Remus and Hermione, despite the number of times in his life they'd seen him in his pyjamas.

He was flattening his damp hair for the fifth time when the mirror grew tired of looking at him. "Other people might want to use the bathroom at some point," it remarked. "Politeness is a virtue, they say, something you might want to keep in mind. . . ."

Harry glared at it, which proved supremely unsatisfactory, as it translated into glaring at himself.

"Ooh," it said, and Harry could somehow hear it rolling its nonexistent eyes. "Ooh, I'm scared, I am."

"Sod off," Harry muttered. He scooped up his dirty clothes and gave the mirror one final glare before stepping into the hall, closing the door with a nice pointed bang.

He hovered in the kitchen doorway a moment later, watching Hermione set the table, and bacon and eggs shuffle around a frying pan in time to flicks of Remus's wand. He wished that he felt like talking to either of them.

"You're just in time," Hermione said, shooting him a smile.

He tried to smile back, but it was a feeble attempt. "How can I help?"

"By sitting here," Hermione said, steering him to a chair, "and eating a lot."

"Pretend I'm Ron, you mean?"

"Exactly."

Harry tried, he really did, but he found it very difficult to concentrate on breakfast or conversation or anything at all with Hermione sitting right beside him. She and Remus carried on a conversation, but he didn't really pay attention. He vaguely heard them settle on doing the interview for Witch Weekly right after breakfast.

When everyone else was through eating, Harry banished his half-full plate to land on the counter beside Hermione's empty one. She frowned, but didn't comment, and then left to gather up her notes.

Harry turned on the tap, thinking he'd pass the time washing up while Remus and Hermione talked. But Remus waved his wand, and the water stopped. "Enough of that," he said. "Come on."

Harry followed curiously into the hall, where Remus opened a narrow cupboard door. "Thought you might prefer flying," he said casually.

Harry grinned, a real, true, spontaneous expression. "Brilliant," he said, and Remus laughed.

There were three brooms to choose from, hanging neatly on a rack. One had belonged to Sirius; Harry had first seen it in the attic at Grimmauld Place, when they'd sent him up there 'to see if there was anything he wanted.' He couldn't take anything then and he couldn't use that broom now, and Harry turned away from it to consider the other brooms. Both had the initials R.J.L. carved into the handle. Harry hesitated over the newer, sleeker model, before grasping a dusty Cleansweep that he felt sure dated back to Remus's school days.

He was just summoning his coat from down the hall when Hermione re-appeared, holding several rolls of parchment and two quills. "Cheers, Remus," Harry said. "Have fun, Hermione." He gave her a little wave, then turned and banged out the front door.

It was a cold, brilliantly clear day, and Harry quickly pulled on his coat. He muttered a quick Disillusionment Charm as well. He didn't run a great of a risk of being seen - Remus lived too far from most other people for that - but if a Muggle did happen to spot him, he would most likely be mistaken for a very large, fast bird.

He was smiling when he kicked off the ground a moment later. It was wonderful to be flying for the sheer pleasure of it again; he couldn't quite remember the last time it had been just him, a broom, and clear blue sky. He sped up as Remus's cottage grew small beneath him, testing the old broom's limits for speed as he passed over one field, and then another. It wasn't as fast as his own, but Harry found he didn't mind. There were fewer charms on this broom, less between him and his skill and flight itself, and he threw himself into it, concentrating on dives and turns and loops instead of the lingering nightmares and worries waiting on the ground.

Harry flew until he was hot and sweaty and all the turning, flipping, and squinting into the sun made his head spin. He hung in midair for a moment, catching his breath. There was something so peaceful about the world from up here, high above the trees, and it was with reluctance that Harry performed a Four Point spell and turned back towards the cottage.

He landed outside the front door with a thump. Harry entered quietly, not wanting to disturb Remus and Hermione, and tucked the broom back in the cupboard. He could hear Remus's voice from where he stood, describing an inspection by the Werewolf Registry. Walking on tiptoe, Harry peeked around the open lounge door. Hermione was sitting on the couch, parchments spread out all around her, quill skidding furiously over a sheet in her lap. Harry could only see her profile but it was enough; she was wearing an expression of righteous outrage that he had seen on a healthy number of occasions.

Harry sighed, watching her. He was no longer certain that this interview - this everything - was a good idea, now that he knew how some people were reacting to what Hermione and her friends were trying to do. But Hermione looked more determined than ever, and he knew from experience how difficult getting between Hermione and something she'd set her mind on could be.

Filing that worry away for later, Harry went to the kitchen to begin the washing up. He hadn't gotten far when a creak of the floorboards made him turn.

Remus crossed the room. "Hermione's doing a bit of writing, while things are fresh in her mind."

"Oh, okay," Harry said, turning back to the sink.

"Did you enjoy yourself?"

"Very much," Harry said. "I don't get much chance to get out and fly like that in London. It was wonderful."

"Good."

Harry cast a few drying charms on freshly scrubbed dishes. He could feel Remus watching him for a moment, then the older man reached into the sink and began working on a frying pan.

Harry searched for small talk, but he couldn't think of anything. He didn't know what to say to Remus, hadn't for about two years now. He'd said it all, once: It's my fault, go ahead, stop pretending, tell me you hate me! And Remus had been kind but unflinchingly honest in return, one of the few people in the world who allowed Harry to own his share of the blame.

Harry smiled, thinly. All the time he'd spent raging because no-one was honest with him, and here he was in a house with two people who were exceptionally good at being just that, and not a clue what to say to either of them. Fair enough. He rubbed his forehead with wet, soapy fingers.

"You're always welcome to come out here and fly," Remus said, almost - but not quite - casually.

Harry looked out the window. But it's not easy, he thought. Standing here in the little silent house, it struck him how inadequate, childish, and entirely selfish those words were.

"I know," he said, finally. "I've been really busy lately." He cringed at how weak the excuse sounded.

"Yes, Hermione mentioned that."

The words contained no rancour, just a gentle curiosity that Harry recognised as an invitation to speak, to confess his worries, to perhaps gain some advice. "I might get some time off at Christmas," he blurted. "If you'd like company?"

"Of course," Remus said, with a smile.

Harry watched the newts splashing happily in their windowsill tank while resisting the urge to smack himself on the head. Avoiding conversation by promising the opportunity for more conversation was not, perhaps, the most brilliant of plans.

He was sure that the newts were laughing at him.

Harry might have said something hurtful to the slimy little creatures - a comment upon the versatility of newts' eyes in modern potion-making, perhaps - but was distracted by the coffee pot, which chose that moment to lurch down the counter and plunge itself into the sink in front of Remus.

There was something indisputably funny about watching an older, more distinguished sort of person get an unexpected bath. Harry looked at Remus, who was dripping with suds, water, and the remnants of that morning's coffee, and tried to stop laughing long enough to perform a drying charm. "It thought you had forgotten it," Harry managed, gasping and waving his wand.

A slightly drier Remus reached into the sink and held the pot aloft by its handle. "Stupid bugger," he growled. "I don't know why I put up with you. I should have smashed you ages ago."

Hermione poked her head around the door, grinning. "Everything all right?"

"Yep," Harry said.

"It will be soon," Remus said, the pot twitching and jumping in his hand.

"You're not going to hurt it, are you?" Hermione stepped closer to Remus, tilting her head to examine the coffee pot. "It's still fascinating to me, we give them a sort of life with our animation charms, but the personalities. . . we don't plan for them but they happen anyway."

Rights for coffee pots, Harry thought, smiling. He could see it now. . . As he watched Hermione and Remus talk, Harry's thoughts turned back to that night, to Kreacher, to Voldemort knows you, Harry. . . .

He put a hand on the countertop. There was no reason to suspect he wasn't alone in his own head again, absolutely none. His scar hadn't hurt, every bad dream had had a real-life trigger and anyway, they were scenes from the past, his past, it was all him.

It had to be.

*

It was dark when they popped into Hermione's flat, and she was frustrated.

Harry had never been the chattiest friend a witch could have - if she wanted non-stop conversation, she simply turned to one Ronald Weasley - but today he had been so quiet she couldn't help but be worried, and just a twinge annoyed.

She had given up on trying to get him to talk. Hermione supposed he felt uncomfortable, after sharing so much the night before. She'd been very careful not to mention it, to show she wasn't going to pry, and had spent their walk back to the Apparition point talking about other things, but he had barely responded.

She flipped on the light, then bent down to pet Crookshanks, who was fussy at having been left.

"I'd better ring and see if Ron's ready for me to come home," Harry said.

Hermione nodded and shrugged off her coat as Harry made his way across her tiny kitchen to the telephone. "No answer," he said a minute later.

"Do you think he's out?"

Harry shrugged. "Maybe."

She watched as he fiddled with the strap of his duffle. Hermione was sure he would disappear any second, but she didn't want him to leave, not until they'd somehow regained the closeness they'd shared last night. She thought about going over and putting her arms around him, a friendly thank-you-for-taking-me hug, but the fear that he would just stand there like a statue stopped her.

"Does Ron know where we went?" she tried instead.

Harry shook his head. "No. I know I shouldn't have kept it from him, but -"

"But you wanted some peace," she finished for him. "I understand."

When he popped out of sight just a few moments later, Hermione was left with a squalling cat and the lingering, depressing thought that peace was one of the last things Harry ever seemed to have.

*

Harry was mindlessly listening to the wireless, trying not to dwell on his day with Remus and Hermione, when Ron came home.

"Have a good trip?" Ron asked. He took off his coat and dropped it onto a chair.

Harry shrugged. "About as good as I expected." He sat up to make room for Ron on the couch. "How was your weekend?" he asked, eager to change the subject.

"Good."

"Just good?" Harry asked, noting the flush creeping up Ron's neck.

"Er, really good."

Harry grinned, wishing Dean and Seamus were here to do the thing properly. They had an inimitable way of extracting juicy private details, honed over the years in the Gryffindor dormitories. He would never be able to do this justice.

His friend was frowning. "Harry," Ron began slowly, "you have more experience with Muggles than I do, right?"

"Depends on what you mean by exper-" Harry broke off, realising that Ron wasn't in a joking mood. "Yes, I'd have to say so."

Ron glared at the carpet. "Sarah made me wear this - this thing," he said. "To prevent - you know. And I told her that I knew a spell that would take care of all that, but she wouldn't let me use it."

"Considering how many Weasleys there are," Harry said, trying not to smile, "I really can't blame her."

Ron stopped glaring at the carpet and started glaring at Harry.

"Besides," Harry went on, "no matter how okay she is with magic and everything, the idea of having it performed on her - that's different, I think."

Ron nodded. "True. Yeah, I can see it might be scary for her." He sighed pathetically. "It was awful, though. Suffocating. There I was, trying to do my business, and all I could think was that it was going to wither and die!"

Harry howled. "Thanks, Ron," he sputtered finally, tears streaming down his face. "I needed a good laugh."

"I don't know how you can," Ron grumbled. "Have you used one of those things?"

"No -" never had a reason to "- but I caught Dudley practising with one once."

Ron looked horrified.

Harry collapsed further into hysterics. "On a cucumber! On a cucumber!"

*

It was dark outside, dark and cold and cheerless. There were few holiday decorations in this tiny slice of the city; here wreaths and fairy lights were trappings of another way of life, one that too many people here still saw as inferior and, when they would admit it, dangerous.

It was warm inside, with a roaring fire and wall torches punctuating the gloom, but Harry looked around the pub with distaste. It hadn't changed much since the first time he'd visited, a month ago. It was still smoky, still crowded, still loud, and he still felt very much out of place.

He looked like he belonged, though. Harry was at this moment the spitting image of Vincent Crabbe, Jr., down to his extremely chubby knuckles and pudding-bowl fringe. The wizard had, as per his custom, arrived at the pub well before his father in order to take full advantage of happy hour. He had been Stunned rather abruptly on his first trip to the loo, and was now lying on the sticky floor of a stall, out cold, with Dean's wand trained on him.

Harry checked his watch casually. It had been ten minutes since he'd drunk the Polyjuice, and Crabbe the elder still hadn't shown up. He swallowed, still feeling queasy; Polyjuice was one of the most stomach-turning potions known to wizardkind.

Another few minutes, and Crabbe Sr. finally appeared in the pub's doorway, flinging back the hood of a heavy cloak. Harry waved in what he hoped was a Crabbe-like manner to hail the man over to his table. As he lowered his hand, he checked the earplug link to Dean with a quick, inconspicuous motion. It was secure.

"What, no drinks?" The older man slapped Harry on the back in greeting.

"Sorry. . . father." The words felt strange in his mouth. "I'll do that now." He began to rise, but Crabbe waved him back into his seat and headed to the bar himself.

Harry tried not to wrinkle up his nose a few minutes later when he was presented with the same nasty-looking drink he'd encountered on his earlier visit to Knockturn Alley.

"So." Crabbe set his goblet down on the table. "Tell me you've done something useful since I last saw you. Tell me you've gotten a job."

"Well. . . ."

Crabbe snorted. "What I thought. You and that Goyle, you sit around all day. . . if his father weren't such a soft touch, you two would've starved to death by now."

"I do stuff," Harry muttered rebelliously. He hoped Crabbe wouldn't ask him what sort of stuff. He couldn't imagine what Vincent got up to all day, barring eating, sleeping, and scratching himself.

"Right. Of course you do."

They lapsed into silence. Harry tried not to be too obvious about the fact that he wasn't drinking anything, or that he was keeping a close eye on his watch. He had decided to say as little as possible - because Vincent had never really seemed the talkative type, and because the more he spoke, the more likely he was to say something suspicious.

Crabbe scooted his chair closer to Harry's. "You're about to do more stuff," he said. "I have a job for you."

Harry swallowed. "You do?"

"Yes. Do you good to get off that arse once in a while."

"What do you want me to do?" Harry asked.

"I've been collecting something for - for a friend, and you're going to help me."

Harry tried very hard to look annoyed by this interruption in his busy schedule. It was hard, because his heart was pounding. For a friend. He hoped the recording charm on his earplug was catching everything.

"What is it, then?" he asked grumpily.

"Buy as much of this as you can find. Bring it over to the house." The old wizard reached into the pocket of his cloak, pulled out a dirty glass bottle, and pressed it into Harry's hand. Harry ran his finger over the picture on the cap, memorising the detail of fangs and scales. When he handed it back to Crabbe, something as red and nasty as the untouched drink in front of him clung to his fingers.

Harry curled his fingers up, not wanting to lose a drop that could be analysed at the Auror headquarters. He furrowed Crabbe, Jr.'s large forehead. "Why?"

For a moment, his companion looked eerily like Uncle Vernon, as if he'd like nothing better than to cuff Harry about the head. He scanned the crowd slowly, then leaned over to speak in Harry's ear. "I've told you before, boy - when you get a parchment signed with that mark, you don't ask questions. You do what it says."

Harry decided to push his luck. "Like last time?"

Confusion passed over Crabbe's face. "Oh, you mean Avery, that old bastard." He laughed unpleasantly. "Yes. Merlin, that was fun." He drained his drink and stood up. "I'm going for a refill. Do you need one?"

"No." Harry waited until the man had joined the throng at the bar, then pulled a flask out of his pocket and forced himself to drink another dose of the sludge-like potion, even though the hour wasn't quite up yet. He resolutely ignored the unpleasant way his insides were churning.

Thankfully, he was nearly done here. Crabbe appeared to be a man who knew his orders and nothing more, as Harry had suspected, and the interview needed only a memory charm to complete it. Harry had hoped that wouldn't be necessary - he had been planning on casting a quick Confundus, just enough to blur the conversation in the man's mind - but now that Crabbe had assigned a task his son knew nothing about, he had no choice.

Harry sat quietly, waiting for Crabbe to return, and the potion to settle. The moment the wizard sank into his chair, Harry rose. "I need to use the loo."

Crabbe grunted. Harry crossed behind him, carefully gesturing with his arm - his wand was strapped to it, underneath his sleeve - and whispered, "Obliviate."

Harry walked unsteadily across the pub. He breathed a sigh of relief when the door of the lavatory closed behind him. He saw feet he hoped were Dean's peeking out from under the farthest stall.

"Dean?" he said quietly, tapping on the door.

"Yeah," his partner answered. It took Harry a second to realise why his voice was so loud. He quickly removed the plug from his ear, then squeezed inside the stall.

He'd never really wished for being short and thin before, but he was seeing things a bit differently, crammed into such a small space with Dean, who was built for football (and American football at that) and Crabbe, Jr., who was slumped on the toilet and taking up a great deal of space.

"You look like hell," Dean remarked.

"I'm him, what do you expect?" Harry said half-heartedly, leaning against the wall. Dean and Crabbe and the grey tile walls were swimming in and out of focus.

Then his legs gave out.

"Harry?"

"Will you Obliviate him for me?" Harry asked, vaguely aware that his cheek was pressed to a grimy tile floor. If he didn't move, he might not be sick. And the black spots might not take over his vision completely.

"Of - of course," Dean replied. "But -"

"Do it," Harry said, closing his eyes. He listened to the rustling, grunting, and whispered spell that meant Dean was taking care of their companion.

"Okay, he's gone," Dean said, kneeling down beside Harry. "What the hell happened? Can't hold your liquor?"

"Didn't drink anything," Harry mumbled. "Well - the Polyjuice."

"That wouldn't. . . Never mind, let's get out of here. Can you Apparate?"

"Of course," Harry said.

"There's no of course about it," Dean said, grabbing his arm. "Are you certain?"

"Yes."

"All right," Dean replied.

And in the blink of an eye, they were gone.

*

It was a good thing Dean held onto his arm.

Harry woke up on a different floor. He blinked a few times and realised, fuzzily, that he was in Moody's office. Dean was still kneeling at his side, but was now running his wand over Harry as if scanning for curses, while Moody stood nearby. Harry wasn't sure how long he'd been out, but it must have been less than an hour; a large mound of stomach stopped him from seeing all the way to his - make that Crabbe's - feet. He struggled to sit.

"Stay down, Potter," Moody said at once. Harry complied.

"Thomas says you didn't eat or drink anything, is that correct?"

"Yes, sir. Just Polyjuice."

"We need to focus on curses rather than poisons, then. Continue scanning, Thomas."

"Sir-"

"Yes, Potter?"

Harry took a breath. "It's not a curse. It's just. . . me. I think I have a virus or something, this has happened before -"

Moody was never particularly light-hearted, but now his face was fiercely grave. He spoke in a whisper. "You knew you were ill?"

"Well -"

"And you jeopardised this operation?"

Harry knew it was no good to make excuses. "Yes, sir."

"You may stop, Thomas," Moody stayed sharply. Dean dropped his wand to his side.

Moody was silent, and Harry held his breath. He wished Dean would leave.

"There will be consequences."

Harry nodded. He wanted to sit up now - the indignities of being chastised while lying on a dusty floor were legion - but was afraid of angering Moody further.

"It would not be fair for me to amend your punishment in any way because you managed to carry out the operation successfully. There was every chance you would fail, and that failure could have easily been prevented.

"Nor would it be fair to adjust your punishment because you are the only Parselmouth on our staff. Or because that mark on your forehead means that if our dearly departed Dark Lord manages to resurrect himself once again, you may be the first to know and the best to deal with him.

"But," Moody gave a twisted, humourless smile, "it has well been established that life is not fair. So your punishment is this. You will go to the hospital wing and take whatever medication the nurse gives you. You will take every dose she prescribes, and you will not come back to work until you have done so."

"Yes, sir."

"Thomas, take him to the hospital wing."

*

The hospital wing was hopping. There was only one nurse on duty, and she was rushed off her feet, tending to some Aurors that had caught nasty hexes during a raid. Harry gave Dean a we'll-just-be-in-the-way sort of look, but Dean was having none of it. He made Harry lead the way into the ward.

The fact that Harry looked like a suspected Death Eater triggered no comment as he and Dean sat down to wait on hard wooden chairs. Harry's chair was nearly too small for Crabbe's large rear; he thought, with half a smile, that the older man had been right in suggesting his son get off his arse every now and then.

It did cause some discussion when Harry began slowly changing back into himself. He distinctly heard a "Fucking hell" as he slid on his glasses. Dean took advantage of the attention they'd gained and strode over to speak to the nurse, while Harry rolled up the sleeves of his now tent-like robe. After she heard his symptoms, the nurse thrust a potion bottle at Harry, watched him drink a dose, and sent them on their way.

Harry didn't argue when Dean insisted on accompanying him home, as well. The potion wasn't working yet, as far as he could tell, and he felt unsteady on his feet as they walked out of the building.

Dean wouldn't let him Apparate for fear of splinching. Harry knew that he was damn lucky to be in one piece after his last attempt, so he didn't complain. Floo powder was out of the question, since the flat didn't have a fireplace, so Dean steered him out to Charing Cross Road and bundled him into a taxi.

Harry let himself float along, not quite there, not quite not, the world a blurry, swirling place. Streetlights and headlights merged together until he closed his eyes, and before he knew it they were in the flat. He leaned against a wall while Dean woke Ron up and told him how much potion Harry should take and when. He let himself be led to the bed, where Ron pulled off his boots and glasses before turning off the light.

Ron left the door open, and Harry listened as Ron tried, unsuccessfully, to make a stealthy telephone call.

"Hermione?" Ron said, in what he obviously thought was a whisper.

No, thought Harry. No, no, no.

"Dean just brought Harry home from work," he continued. "He's this awful grey colour, and Dean said he passed out on the job -"

Harry turned over miserably. She was going to come over, and he couldn't face her. He just couldn't.

There was a long silence from the other room, and Harry held his breath. Finally Ron said, "All right. Probably is just best to leave him be, for now." He was quiet a moment. "I'll ring you tomorrow, then. Good night."

She couldn't face him. Not in a darkened bedroom, not after Saturday night.

Harry was sure of it.

*

A/N: Many, many thanks to Calliope, Cynthia Black, Dorotea, Paracelsus, and Stacy for betaing this chapter in its various forms. And thank you so much to everyone who's been kind enough to review!

11. Eleven

Eleven

Then I remember you're mine and I have a world that's fine. --They Might Be Giants

*

"Harry?"

He blinked out of sleep, wondering muzzily what time it was. It was impossible to tell; the curtains were drawn and the room was grey and full of shadows. It could have been the start of a gloomy day, or nearly dinnertime.

"Harry?"

He recognised the voice, of course. Harry took a moment to wish he'd slept hidden from the world underneath his invisibility cloak. He might have avoided this, being found by one of the last people he felt like being alone with. Although it did cheer him to know she didn't mind being alone with him. Perhaps she really didn't know what he'd done that night at Remus's place, or maybe she was willing to pretend it had never happened. "Hi, Hermione," Harry croaked, rolling over towards the sound. Her very blurry face peeped around his bedroom door.

"Hello," she replied. Her voice was soft, and worried. Harry struggled to sit, ignoring the way his head swam, and rummaged around on the bedside table for his glasses.

"I'm sorry I woke you up," Hermione said. She crossed the room and plucked his spectacles off the table easily, then pressed them into his hand. Harry slid them on and flinched: she was sitting very close to him. "But I have to go to class soon," Hermione continued, "and it seemed like you were going to sleep forever."

"How long have you been here?"

"Oh - just the morning. Ron will be here soon, we didn't like to leave you alone." She tilted her head, studying his face. "Silly to wake you, I know. I just. . . couldn't leave without knowing how you were."

Harry shrugged. He was painfully aware that she was clean and neatly dressed, while he was sporting day-old rumpled clothes, bad hair, and worse breath. He scooted away from her and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. "Back in a moment." He sorted out as many of those problems as he could in the loo, wobbling only slightly on his way there and back. A huge improvement over yesterday, he thought optimistically.

Hermione, however, seemed less impressed. She watched, frowning, as he settled back onto the bed. "You're not going back to work for a while." It was clearly a statement of fact, not a question.

"No," Harry said. "Moody won't let me until I finish that." He pointed to a nearly-full potion bottle on his beside table.

"Good," Hermione said. She was still eyeing him closely, and Harry looked away, uncomfortable. He wasn't sure what she was looking for in his face, but he was unreasonably afraid that she'd find it. He cleared his throat, ready to politely suggest that she be on her way, so she wouldn't be late for school.

But Hermione took him by surprise then, flinging her arms about his shoulders and knocking his glasses askew. "I worry about you," she said. Her breath was warm against his neck, and her voice was doing something funny to his spine. "I know it annoys you and I'm sorry, but I've been doing it since we were eleven and I don't think I'll be stopping anytime soon."

"I -" His throat was tight, and his words came out as a whisper. "I don't mind."

"Yes, you do," she said promptly. "I know you, Harry Potter, and you do not take well to being fussed over."

"Well," Harry said, absently wondering when he'd begun running his hands over her back, "well, I can learn."

She lifted her head a little, just enough that he could see her smile, then pressed her lips to his cheek. Harry bent his head. He meant to reciprocate, only reciprocate, but whatever had taken over his hands and was making his heart pound so finally captured his mouth too, and what was supposed to be a peck on the cheek became an unmistakable kiss on the lips.

Hermione froze, then pulled away. "I've - we've -" Her voice was small, bewildered. "We've done that before, haven't we?"

Harry closed his eyes. The answer was written in his face, he could feel it, red-hot. There was nothing left to do but nod.

"I thought it was a dream."

He thought about saying sorry, or it was a mistake, it won't happen again, but before he could say anything at all, she was kissing him once more. It was tentative, soft and sweet - then suddenly it wasn't, and her mouth was open against his and she was pushing him back against the headboard and his hands were tangled in her hair. And the room that had been tilting in a low-key way was now officially spinning, and his glasses had fallen off and were probably being crushed to bits beneath them; but it didn't matter, he didn't care.

Harry could feel nothing but her; she was everything.

*

She left too soon, though whether it was after half an hour or five minutes, Harry couldn't be sure. He liked the thought of her rushing into class late, sliding into a seat on the back row, for once, her hair wilder than usual and her lips swollen and it being all his fault.

She'd let him make her late to class. Harry smiled, savouring the thought. It had definitely meant something, then.

Of course it did, he chided himself. Do you really think Hermione's the type to get. . . friendly with just anyone?

Harry lay back and contemplated the ceiling. The answer to that question was an unhesitating no, but. . . there was nothing stopping her from regretting it any moment now. He let himself ponder that unhappy thought for some time, imagining how she would look, the way she would bite her lip and toe the ground as she said Harry, I'm truly, truly sorry, but we really shouldn't, not again. . . .

Pushing that aside, Harry finally sat up and reached for the potion bottle. He poured the liquid into the little measuring cap carefully, wrinkling up his nose. The potion was green and smelled like something Hagrid would have probably found delicious. It tasted as bad as it smelled, and Harry shuddered as he drank. It made no sense to Harry: thousands of years of magical knowledge at their disposal, a hundred different ways of fooling the senses at their fingertips, and potion-brewers invariably turned out foul draughts that no Muggle pharmaceutical company would even dream of marketing.

"And that's not just my love of Potions talking, either," he said aloud, setting the bottle down.

He stood, gripping the cool wood of the bedside table. Harry made his way to the toilet by holding onto things - the chest of drawers, the walls, the basin. He sank down onto the fluffy mat beside the tub, letting his head fall to his knees. "Bath instead of shower, I think," he muttered.

It was probably a bad idea, Harry reflected a little later, lying in a tub full of water when he could feel unconsciousness trying to sneak up on him. He could see the Daily Prophet now: Boy Who Lived Drowned in Bath. Rumours of Evil Taps Remain Unproven. Besides, even though there were no bubbles in sight, his masculine dignity was taking a direct hit with every moment. He dragged himself out, threw on jeans and a faded t-shirt, and headed for the couch.

In the quiet, dim flat, it took little time for Harry to fall asleep. His dreams were dark things, full of snakes and blood, and the loud banging that woke him was startling, yet also a relief. Someone was knocking on the door, and after stumbling over and checking the peephole, Harry undid the latch and let Dean in.

"Still alive, then," his partner said, looking him over.

"Yep," Harry said, returning to sit on the couch. "And ready to have my wand back, thank you very much."

"Oh, right." Dean sorted through his cloak pockets, and then tossed it over.

Harry caught it easily. He ran his fingers over the familiar wood before tucking it onto the cushion beside him. It felt good to have it there, close by and at the ready. It had been gone less than twenty-four hours, most of which he'd been asleep, but that still was enough to have left him feeling uncomfortably vulnerable.

"We listened to your recording," Dean went on, taking off his cloak. He shoved a stack of Quidditch magazines aside and settled into the armchair. "And did a test on that residue from your hand. Crabbe wanted you to buy dragon's blood?"

Harry blinked. That had been his first guess, upon seeing the bottle, but he'd immediately rejected it on the grounds of not being evil enough. "I suppose so," he replied.

"Nothing illegal about that." Dean scratched his head. "Although I'm sure there are plenty of less-than-friendly ways they can use it."

"I'm sure." Harry rubbed his forehead, thinking. Moody often said that the trouble with most Aurors (and Harry was sure that referred to every last one but the old man himself) was that they didn't have a criminal imagination. He usually followed that up with a profound phrase such as Thinking like slime is the first step to catching slime, or It takes a mouth-breathing piece of filth to know one.

It would be a frightening, frightening day in the wizarding world if Moody ever decided to take up writing inspirational literature.

"Cloning!" Dean yelled.

Harry jumped. "What?"

"Magical cloning! Maybe they're trying to create their own dragons. Could have something to do with all the egg trading that's been going on, too."

"Hmm." Harry mulled that over. "Maybe you're right." He closed his eyes, considering. Everything to do with dragons was so magically powerful, and so incredibly expensive, that he could definitely see the logic behind Dean's theory.

"You still look like hell, you know," Dean said conversationally.

Harry opened one eye. "Do I?"

"Yes." Dean frowned at him in concern. "I should go. You let the old man and I do the worrying for awhile."

"All right."

Dean stood and pulled on his cloak. "Magazines okay on the floor, or do you want them back in the chair?"

"Doesn't mat-" Harry broke off; Ron had popped into the room, and he looked furious.

The redhead rounded on Dean. "He's supposed to be in bed. You know that. You told me that, for Merlin's sake."

Dean held up his hands in a placating gesture. "I know, I know, I was just leaving."

"Too right," Ron agreed.

Normally Harry would have been annoyed at Ron for being in overprotective mode, and would've said something. But today he was content to simply wave goodbye to Dean as the other man popped out of sight. Ron dropped into the chair Dean had vacated, leather workbag in his lap, black work robes pooling around him. Harry tried to remember when his friend had become a complete grownup, and wondered if there was a wizarding term for 'yuppie.'

"Do you feel like eating?" Ron asked. "I bought tins of chicken soup on the way home. My mum used to always make soup, when we were ill."

"I'm not sure," Harry admitted. He eyed Ron's bag thoughtfully, a memory surfacing in his mind. "Ron - can I ask you something?"

"Sure," Ron said. "But do me a favour, lie down first, will you?"

"Fine," Harry said, in a mock-grumble. He stretched out obligingly, pulling a fuzzy orange blanket over him. "Better?" On Ron's nod, he continued, "So, when I was in your office a while back, there was a paper on your desk with import figures for all sorts of things."

"Yeah, probably, there usually is."

"Where do - or I suppose I mean, how do you lot come up with those?"

Ron opened and closed his mouth several times, then said, "I could give you a crash course in goblin-style economics, or you could just tell me what you need to know."

Harry hesitated. He needed to ask, wanted to ask; Ron's expertise could be invaluable. But he was about to break the promise he'd made to himself - that he'd keep his friends uninvolved - not to mention the vow of secrecy he'd sworn for his job. After a long, quiet moment he said, "Okay. I need to know how long the import figures for dragon's blood have been abnormally high. And I need to know the names of the merchants who've done the most trading in it."

"The first is easy enough, it's a matter of public record. People track stuff like that to help them make investment decisions. I just get paid to analyse it." Ron thought for a moment. "The second - I'm sure it's on file somewhere in the department. It's not what you'd call conventional information to keep, but the goblins pride themselves on their detailed records." Ron looked at him intently. "Is this - are you asking me - are you and Dean going to come down and talk to the goblins about this all official-like, or are you asking me to take a snoop through our files?"

Harry pinched the bridge of his nose. "I don't know," he said. "You tell me. How likely are the goblins to tell me what I want to know?"

"Not very. They don't feel that human laws apply to them, exactly."

"Then, could you? I'll understand if you say no."

"Of course I will," Ron said. "I'm - we're - always glad to help you, Harry. You know that."

"Yeah," Harry said. "I do."

*

The following days passed in a blur of potions and dreams and Hermione. Harry slept for long stretches of time; when he woke the covers were usually in disarray, tied up and twisted, and once both they and he were on the floor. He'd been alone in the flat that time, and glad of it. Usually, though, Hermione was there when he woke, curled up in the sitting room with a thick book or her laptop computer. He liked it best when she was too busy working to spot him leaning in the doorway. It gave him a long moment to study her, to notice how her forehead wrinkled when she was thinking hard, or the way she absentmindedly tucked her hair behind her ears as she read, over and over again. And any spark of irritation he felt at needing a nursemaid melted away the instant she raised her head and smiled at him.

It was easy for Harry to think this was the dream, in moments like this one when she pulled him down into the chair beside her and greeted him with kisses to his forehead, cheeks, and mouth. Everything was a little mixed-up, a little off-balance, and Harry was half-waiting for a sharp pinch to bring him back to reality.

"How are you feeling today?" she asked, drawing back slightly.

Harry made a noncommittal noise.

"What I thought," Hermione said. She leaned over the arm of the chair and, after rummaging about, came up with two little pillboxes. "From the chemist's," she said. "Will you try them?"

"Hey, thanks," he said, taking the boxes. "It can't taste any worse, that's for sure. Need to wait 'til this dose wears off, though."

She nodded. "It really was quite funny, talking to the chemist. He wanted to know all about what you'd been taking, and I kept having to put him off. We got there in the end, though."

Harry smiled and leaned into her, resting his head on her shoulder. There wasn't really enough room in his chair for two, and while that could be easily solved with a wave of a wand, he had no inclination to do so. He was happy, excited, sick, worried, and nervous, very nervous. If today was like yesterday and the day before, they would sit together in silence, or perhaps talk about ordinary things. Hermione's school, what Ron wanted for Christmas, the relative merits of strawberry and grape jam. What they wouldn't talk about was the way their fingers twined about one another's at every possible opportunity, or the way Harry kept leaning his head close to hers and breathing her in.

He was smelling people now. This was new.

Not-talking was perfectly okay, because Harry didn't want to talk about those things. He didn't think he could, actually, although he might just be able to manage looking at the floor and saying 'er' while she spoke. But he couldn't get too comfortable; even if Hermione wasn't talking, she was surely thinking. And even though he and Ron had sat through countless "This is how girls operate" Hermione-lectures over the years, Harry felt wholly incapable of determining what she was thinking about. Ron had been right; she should have written a book, with a chapter dedicated exclusively to explaining herself.

Hermione quietly reached for her wand and flicked on the wireless. The familiar Christmas melodies washed over Harry, warm and comfortable. On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me. . . . It was funny, how with one line he was back in the cupboard at Privet Drive, watching through a keyhole as the Aunt Petunia placed the fanciest decorations she could buy just so. But then the next could remind him of nowhere but Hogwarts. . . a snidget in a squill tree.

"What are you smiling about?"

"Our first Christmases at Hogwarts," he said. "Singing armour and Weasley jumpers and real live fairy lights. . . ."

Hermione laughed, softly. "A different world." She smiled to herself. "I almost thought there would be a Father Christmas. I really almost did. Everything else completely unbelievable was suddenly true. . . Silly, isn't it."

"No. Not at all."

"But you didn't think it. You always were just a little quicker to fit in than I was."

He shook his head. "That's not it."

"No, I don't suppose it is, entirely," she said, and he could tell from her eyes she was being very careful not to speak ill of the dead. "But it is true."

*

Hermione was thinking, as it happened.

She sat close to Harry as he drifted off to sleep, and thought. Her world had shifted in the past few days. The change was certainly a pleasant one, but it had left her with a lot to sort through, to hold up and examine and try to understand. So just as if she were dealing with a question of legal precedent or a tricky bit of Transfiguration, Hermione took refuge in a nice list. Circumstances required her to compose it mentally, but she organised it neatly nonetheless, numbering and annotating each point:

1. Finally. Two and half years of waiting. Nine hundred and some days. Twenty one thousand, six hundred plus hours. And finally.

2. Waiting had been the right thing to do. There'd been times when it had seemed wrong, too passive and non-independent-woman-ish. Mum would have been unimpressed, if she'd known, and probably would have handed over an assortment of feminist texts for light reading. Which was why Hermione hadn't told her.

3. But it hadn't really been passive, anyway. It had been an active choice not to pursue a relationship until the time was right. Yes. Absolutely.

4. The right time was proving to be an odd time, with one-half of the equation germy and ill and generally non-functioning.

5. That was nothing to be fussed about. Normalcy was for other people.

6. Trying to talk about what they were doing or where things were going was just not on. Harry was not about words. Harry was about action, and if she wanted to know what he thought or felt that was where she would have to look. And right now, things were looking pretty good.

7. Six was rather an unwieldy number on which to end a list. Seven wasn't much better, but it would have to do.

Hermione nodded in a satisfied way and began humming "I Saw Three Brooms" along with the wireless. She still worried about Harry, no question; but above and beyond and around that, she was utterly content.

*

Ron had to admit it wasn't so bad, having Hermione practically living in the flat. She hadn't tidied up - they were grown men, she said, and perfectly free to live in squalor if they so chose (although the sniff she gave when she said it made Ron doubt the sincerity of her words.) At any rate, he was glad she'd left things alone. He knew his piles of clothes and papers and books inside out, and he didn't need her mucking about with them. She had made a few small touches in the flat, but he didn't mind them so much. Thanks to her there were dark green leafy things strung above the sitting room window, and a little mistletoe ball hanging in the doorway. But best of all, what he really didn't mind was that whenever Hermione cooked a little something for herself, she prepared enough for him and Harry too. And when Harry turned the offer of food down, as he had all week, Ron ended up with seconds. He smiled around the table. This was something he could get used to.

"Pass the salt, please," Hermione said.

Ron did, handing it first to Harry, who was sitting between them. He was pleased to note that tonight, Harry's usual tea and crackers were supplemented by a small bowl of soup. He hesitated, then said, "Harry, mate, I've found out some of what you wanted." Actually, he'd already had the information for two days, but hadn't been willing to say until Harry seemed better.

"You're being all mysterious, Ron," Hermione said. "Is it a secret? A Christmas secret?"

"Nah," Ron replied. He looked at Hermione as he spoke, thus missing the expression on his other best friend's face. "Just information. I'm unofficially assisting the Aurors with their inquiries."

"Oh?"

Harry sighed as if succumbing to the inevitable, then briefly outlined the situation.

"I don't have any names for you yet," Ron went on, "but there's a definite upward sales trend visible in the October mid-term report. Which means the phenomenon most likely began sometime in September."

"September," Harry muttered. "Of course."

Ron scooped up a forkful of pasta, rather pleased at being useful. Granted, he hadn't done much yet, but it was a nice feeling, being the expert at something, the one with the answers. Thus occupied, he didn't notice the stormclouds in Hermione's face until she exploded.

"Harry Potter! You can't imprison people because your friend who happens to have access to all their private financial information gives you their names! You need, you need a warrant or something! You know that."

Harry set down his teacup. "I'm not going to imprison them, Hermione. I'm interested in who's been buying from these shopkeepers, not the merchants themselves. All I want to do is question them."

"And anyway, aren't warrants Muggle things?" Ron pointed out. It was quite fun, watching Hermione get hold of the wrong end of the stick.

"Yes, they are," Hermione said evenly. "Even more reason that Harry should know how important they are, in principle if nothing else."

"Hermione?" Harry said softly, laying a hand on her arm. "I do know. Really."

She smiled at Harry then, and there was something very familiar, yet so very not, in that look. Ron studied the curve of her lips, the soft light in her eyes, trying to pick it out, pin it down. But before he could, the moment was gone; Harry was reaching for his tea, and Hermione was returning complacently to her vegetables.

"That reminds me," Hermione said. "Ron, your brother's coming over to talk to me in a bit. I hope you two don't mind that I asked him to meet me here?"

Harry shrugged, apparently unperturbed. Ron stared at Hermione with deep suspicion. "Which brother?"

"Percy."

"Oh, fucking hell, Hermione! Why? What did I do to you?"

"Nothing," she said. "He and I have a few things to discuss, that's all. Things you've made quite clear are of absolutely no interest to you."

Ron sighed. He wasn't altogether sure what she was on about, and quite frankly, didn't feel like finding out. And now that he thought about it, a little unscheduled visit to Sarah's flat tonight could keep that from happening. Of course, teasing Hermione was still required, as a matter of principle. "Time to hide the booze and the naked women, Harry."

Harry grinned. "Okay. My room, you think? There's plenty of room in my bed. . . ."

"Oh, like you have naked women in the flat, Ron," Hermione said.

Ron was enjoying himself thoroughly. "They're hypothetical naked women, Hermione. They are all around us, existing in a land of sweet possibility. The point is, they could have easily chosen tonight to make themselves visible, and you didn't know that before you invited the stuffiest stuffed shirt in wizardom along!"

Harry was laughing helplessly, head down on the table. Hermione had opened her mouth to retort, but instead broke into a smile, huge and happy. Ron knew what she was thinking, because when he looked at Harry's cheeks, tinged with colour, and the nearly-empty soup bowl, he thought it too: Thank Merlin. It's about time.

*

A/N: The squill is really a lily, not a tree, but we're going to pretend that wizarding versions grow differently, okay? :) I've credited the Giants for the lyrics at the start because their version of We've Got a World That Swings spins in my car, but I don't know who sang the original. Also, as sort of a progress report - I'd promised myself I wouldn't post this chapter here 'til I was half-done with the next one. I managed to hold out to about the three-fourths mark. :)

And as always, lots and lots of thanks to Cynthia Black, Paracelsus, and Stacy for beta, and to everyone who's taken the time to review!

12. Twelve

Twelve

You said "I'm feeling fine" but it didn't really rhyme. --They Might Be Giants

*

"I'm going for another. Sure you don't want one?"

"No thanks, this is fine," Harry said, indicating his club soda. He took a sip as Ron headed back to the bar. He felt well enough, but there was no sense tempting fate; this was, after all, the first time he'd been out of the flat in days.

"I'm still not sure why we let Hermione and Percy take over our home," Ron said, upon returning. "Aren't you upset? Isn't it a bloody great injustice?"

"It's not like they threw us out by force," Harry said reasonably. "They're only 'taking it over' because you didn't want to stay."

"If we'd stayed, we would be number one, bored," Ron began ticking points off on his fingers, "number two, roped into doing something, number three, very bored."

"You make a good case," Harry said. "Really though, I don't mind. This civil-rights stuff is awfully important to Hermione."

"I know." Ron ran his finger around the rim of his glass. "I just think - she gets carried away. It's like S.P.E.W, you know? Except. . ." Ron shrugged, out of words.

Harry blew out a breath. But not all the letters have been so nice. . . . "Except that was school. Yeah."

He wished he knew what was being said back in their flat. Was Percy promising his support? Probably. Percy was smart enough to look at this Beings' Rights Act, or whatever Hermione and her friends were calling it, and see it for the good idea it was - not to mention clever enough to realise what it could do for his career. He'd have a completely new name for himself. . . .

Harry took a long drink from his glass. It was probably just as well he wasn't there right now. It would be hard to display the kind of enthusiasm he'd once had for Hermione's project, and too, Ron might very well be right. As things moved from the planning stage to the action stage, Hermione was likely to find jobs for them. He pictured himself and Ron standing on a corner in Diagon Alley, forcing leaflets on passers-by.

But of course - Harry grew cold at the thought - that wasn't really what they'd want from him. There was a much more obvious, public role for the Boy Who Lived to play, and if Hermione asked, how could he say no?

He must have groaned, or possibly moaned, because Ron turned to him then with an expression of concern. "All right?"

Harry endeavoured to look all right. "Yeah."

Ron drank more quickly after that, though, and before too much longer his glass was empty. He caught Harry's eye, Harry nodded, and the two rose from their seats and began shrugging on their coats. Sometimes words weren't necessary when you'd known each other forever.

Then again. . . . They'd walked to the pub, as it was just two blocks from the flat, and as they exited the pub Harry set off down the pavement, assuming they'd walk back as well. Ron appeared to have a different plan; he grabbed Harry's arm and pulled him into the shadows behind a nearby telephone booth.

"We could Apparate."

"We could," Harry said, with a grin. The word 'lazy' was on the tip of his tongue, but he bit it back.

"But we wouldn't want to just show up in the lounge - might interrupt them, you know Hermione wouldn't appreciate that."

"Ah," said Harry, catching on. "My room, then? Quietly?"

"See you there," Ron said, and blinked out of sight.

Harry arrived in the bedroom a beat behind Ron, who immediately went to the door and pressed his ear against it. Harry was just reaching for the lamp when Ron turned round and made a slashing motion with his hand. "They're still at it," he whispered.

Swallowing a laugh - Ron was now crossing the room on careful tiptoes - Harry sat down on the edge of the bed and untied his shoes. 'No' didn't, as a rule, take very long to say, and the fact that Percy and Hermione were still talking meant odds were extremely good that he was on board. Harry sighed, and scooted back on the bed. If Ron weren't here, he'd go to the mirror and practise his pleased excited face until it was perfect. Perhaps he could do it anyway, sans mirror, as ridiculously dark as the room was. . . .

"Did someone just knock on the door?"

Harry considered this. "Out there? Maybe."

"Oh, Merlin, I bet it's Sarah," Ron said, jumping to his feet. He took two steps toward the bedroom door, then dithered. "If I don't go out there, maybe Percy'll just think she's a friend of Hermione's. Or yours."

"Mmm," Harry said supportively.

Ron put his ear to the door. "I think - yes, it is. Damn. I tried to ring her before we went out, why couldn't she've just been home then?"

Harry decided to offer practical advice rather than comment on the likelihood of women being where you wanted them to be at any given point in time. "If you're going out there, remember, you'd better Apparate."

"Right. We're still at the pub. Thanks, ma-"

Tapping on the bedroom door. Ron shot a frantic look at Harry before pulling it open.

"Hi," said a befuddled-looking Sarah. "Er - why are you two hanging around in the dark?"

"Ah - the light hurts Harry's eyes?"

Harry, who was in the process of flipping the switch on the lamp, winced convincingly.

"How'd you know we were here?" Ron asked, ushering Sarah in and closing the door behind her.

"Hermione said it was worth a try," she replied. She perched on the foot of the bed. "I met your brother. He's very. . . polite."

"Good word," Harry said.

"Did he show any signs of leaving?" Ron asked.

"Erm. . . ."

"Told you, Harry. Taking over."

Harry sighed, defeated.

Sarah gave Harry a look of such deep sympathy that he blinked in confusion. Then he twigged on. No, don't worry, Ron's brother isn't stealing my girlfriend - and then, girlfriend? Yes, he thought, and no, because the word was too small somehow, but all the bigger ones weren't the sort he'd ever been good with at all.

"Percy invited me to one of your mum's Sunday dinners," Sarah said. "At least, I think that's what he did. You know, I have a university education and he used some words I don't think I've ever heard before."

"Oh God," Ron said, putting a hand to his head, "that's brilliant. That's just brilliant. And shut it, Harry."

"What?" Harry asked, chortling. "I haven't said anything. . . ."

"I don't have to go, Ron, it's not a big deal," Sarah said, and Harry was sure she was thinking of her own family - he doubted she was in a hurry to introduce him to her own brother, and while he didn't really know her parents, he pictured them as larger, older, more opinionated versions of Piers. At the same time, he had sense enough to know that Ron was teetering on the edge of making a serious mistake here. Sarah was probably already wondering if he was ashamed of her.

Luckily, Ron seemed to know it, too. "They're just really overwhelming," he said quickly. "Tell her, Harry."

Harry nodded. "It's true. I'm still afraid to be alone with his twin brothers."

"Hey," Ron said, mock-indignantly, "at least I don't have to take her home to a werewolf."

Sarah's eyes got very big and round. "A werewolf?" she squeaked. "As in - werewolf?"

*

Harry entered the office to find Dean there alone, a dusty book open in front of him and several more piled on the floor nearby. They exchanged nods, the most greeting they tended to manage at this hour of the morning, and Harry set about the business of removing his cloak, fishing a wrapped-up piece of toast out of his pocket, and generally getting ready for the day.

"He around?" Harry asked, jerking his head towards Moody's desk.

"Yeah," Dean said, "at a meeting."

Harry took a moment to hope it was a very thorough, very long meeting, as he was in no hurry to see his boss again, considering the dressing-down he'd received at their last encounter. He pulled out a chair and sat down beside Dean. "What're you doing?"

"Looking for potions and things that use dragon's blood. Trouble is, there's too bloody many of them."

"Ah. Fun." Harry pulled a book off the pile, opened it to the table of contents, and joined in. He was uncomfortably aware that Dean had probably been doing this all week, in moments between other cases, while he'd been lying around snogging. And dealing with blinding headaches and nausea and. . . Still.

But he was back now. And while he wasn't going to be sick or pass out anytime soon, the headaches had never really gone away, and there was something not right about that. And when he put the headaches beside the dreams, Harry was becoming more and more afraid that it totaled up to something very not right.

It had been three a.m., this time, when he'd woken from the same dream he'd been having for what felt like forever. He'd spent the hours before dawn trying to clear his mind, trying to turn it into a blank slate, an empty shell, a nothing. But it was extremely hard when his thoughts kept circling back to the fact that only one person in the world had ever, could ever manipulate his mind from a distance.

But why in the world Voldemort would return from the almost-certainly-dead to have him to relive that night, with Nagini and the Dursleys and everything, Harry couldn't imagine. And the fact that it made no bloody sense was nearly enough to convince him that it wasn't happening at all.

Pages rustled; after a while, Dean spoke. "So - ah - you all right, now?"

Harry looked up. "Yeah."

"Good." Dean was still looking down at his book, but Harry could tell he wasn't done - and that whatever he had left to say, he really didn't want to say. "On that last job," he said finally, "you didn't tell me everything. And if you had, you know," he turned his hand palm-up, flat on the table, "ten minutes earlier, I would've reacted as if you'd been poisoned. Which would've meant considerable unnecessary risk for both of us."

Not to mention, Harry thought, if you'd run into any sort of trouble whilst doing surveillance, I'd have been completely useless to you. "Er, yeah." He, too, stared at the book in front of him. "It won't happen again."

"'kay."

Pushing guilt aside, Harry flipped a few more pages. It was an impossible task, trying to guess the what when they didn't know the who or the why. Unless someone really knew how Death Eaters thought, and knew potions inside-out, going at things from this angle was just taking stabs in the dark. Harry realised he'd just come awfully close to wishing Snape were still alive, and resisted the urge to bury his face in the book and moan.

"I can't help but think," Dean said, "there's no sign they're up to anything hugely nasty, is there? I mean, Voldemort's things, yes, and Crabbe mentioned the Dark Mark, but. . . no sign of any major players, and, it's been months and nothing's actually happened."

Harry wished he could join in this bout of positive thinking. "I hope you're right," he said.

Both Dean and Harry were nodding off over their books when Moody came in, and both started in their seats at the door-slamming, owl-chittering, and roaring that accompanied his return.

"What in Merlin's name is this?"

"Er," Harry said, "that's my friend's owl."

"Yes," Moody said dangerously, "I know it's young Weasley's owl. I remember him most specifically, as he chose to roost in my pocket once during the middle of an extremely secret Order meeting." He glared at Pigwidgeon, clenched in his fist. "This bird should be contained. Risky enough to let it fly all over Black's house, but to send it here?"

"I'm sure he didn't exactly send it here," Harry said. "I think I, ah, let him think I was staying home a day or so longer."

Moody gave him a look which managed to convey very clearly that he had better be well enough to be back at work, because if he as much as sneezed Moody wouldn't be responsible for the consequences.

Harry swallowed, and put out a hand. "May I have him?"

Moody let go, and Pigwidgeon flew over to Harry and, after dropping a letter in his lap, began nibbling cheerfully upon the earpiece of his glasses. Harry unfolded the parchment and read the three words there, then read them again, and again. Complete and utter puzzlement gave way to foreboding as Ron's attempt at a cryptogram began to make sense.

MASSIVE QUANTITY BERK

Fingers suddenly a little clumsy, Harry re-folded the note and tucked it in his pocket. He would tell Moody later, when he'd decided on how to explain Ron's involvement in their case without sending the man into a state of paranoid cardiac arrest.

Dean wanted a sign, Harry thought, and now they had one.

*

Hermione loved her little flat. She had two very small rooms and a bath near the top of an old terraced house, which meant things like hardwood floors, ancient appliances, and a good view of a street full of similar houses from her windows. Her downstairs neighbours had a yappy dog, which she didn't like and Crookshanks didn't like, but a few soundproofing charms let them pretend it didn't exist.

She liked to get up late on Sunday mornings - but not too late, nine-thirty was just about right - make some tea, then pad back to bed in her pyjamas and surround herself with books and a purring cat. This morning she was deep into Goblins and E.T.: How Failed Memory Charms Influence Muggle Science Fiction when the peace was disturbed by a very loud crash and a "Bugger!" from the next room.

Hermione grabbed her wand, even though she was fairly certain she recognised the voice, and went to see what was going on. She stood in the doorway to the lounge for a moment and stared, then said, "Why, hello there, Father Christmas. Brought me a present?"

"Oh -" Ron unfolded his top half from the fireplace, and turned, still kneeling on the hearth. "Hi, Hermione, does this thing work?"

"Of course."

"Oh. Good." He stood and dusted soot off himself and onto her nice clean floor.

She crossed her arms over her chest. Her winter pyjamas weren't at all on the skimpy side, but still, they were pyjamas. "I have a phone, you know."

"Oh right, can I use it to ring Sarah?"

"Yes," she said, "but, and this is just a thought, you could've rung me, too."

He smiled, that really annoying, disarming Ron smile. "Didn't want to wake you."

She threw up her hands and sputtered. "Nice of you," she finally managed, "would you mind telling me what this is all about?"

"Going to take Sarah to the Burrow this afternoon," he explained. "I thought Floo Powder was the best way to go."

Hermione frowned. "Hmm. I would've thought a Portkey, no risk of her getting off at the wrong stop - could your dad not get you one?"

Ron shuffled a bit. "Ah. Well. They don't know she's coming."

"Oh, Ron, that's not fair to your mum, she needs to know!"

"It'll be all right. She always does plenty of food on Sundays, because she never knows who's going to show. And I figure if Fred and George don't know Sarah's going to be there -"

"They won't have time to come up with too much," she finished. "Is Harry going?"

"Think so. He went to work an hour ago, but he said it would only be for a little while. I asked him to meet me here."

"I bet he knocks." Hermione gave Ron a final Look, then said, "I'll go get ready - you make yourself at home. There's tea in the kitchen."

"Ta, Hermione," Ron said, and she left him to it.

She took a hot shower, washed and dried her hair, and put on a dab of perfume. Then it was time to decide on clothes, and for the first time in a long time she found herself actively considering what Harry might think of each top as she pulled it out of the drawer. She'd got so used to thinking he'd never notice, but she was pretty sure that wasn't the case now. . . . She ended up with dark blue jeans and an orangey-brown v-neck jumper that wasn't revealing or attention-seeking (nothing Hermione owned could be described as 'attention-seeking'), but it wasn't shapeless, either.

Satisfied, Hermione headed for the bedroom door. She paused with her hand on the knob: Harry was speaking in the other room.

". . . told him that we met in St. James's Park, and that I checked all the bushes for listening devices and the ducks for Animagi before you came, and that after you gave me the information, I memory-charmed you."

"Was he satisfied with that?" Ron asked, laughing.

"I think. But if you ever happen to see him again, remember, you know nothing. I wouldn't put it past him to try and test you."

"Gotcha." Ron paused. "So - ah - was it helpful?"

Harry's voice was a little muffled; Hermione thought he might be running a hand over his face. "Very. Now that we know Burke's been playing middleman with those large shipments of dragon's blood, we've a much better shot at figuring out where it's going." Harry paused. "And here I thought Burke was packing it in. Since Borgin died, that shop's been closed more days than not."

"You going to interrogate him? Veritaserum?" There was a trace of wistfulness to Ron's words, and Hermione wondered if Harry heard it. Being an Auror would always be a little bit cool to those boys, she thought, no matter how happy and successful Ron was at his own job, no matter how much Harry's took out of him.

"Probably not. We'll start with surveillance, see what he does when the next load comes in. See who comes to buy it."

Hermione leaned against the door. It'd been days since she'd found out, but she hadn't got over it yet. Harry had confided in Ron, asked for his help, told him something he wasn't supposed to tell a soul. He'd been right to do it, too: Ron had found the answer. She couldn't have.

It was so completely and perfectly logical she could cry.

*

When faced with a roaring fire and told that she was going to have to step into it, Sarah didn't back away or protest or question anyone's sanity. She was, Hermione had noticed, a person who expressed a lot of things with her eyes, and as she stood and stared at the flames they grew very large indeed. Hermione tried to think of something helpful to say.

"If you keep your eyes closed, you probably won't throw up."

That wasn't it. Hermione shot Harry a frown over her shoulder.

Sarah gave Harry a wobbly smile, then looked up at Ron. "You're going with me, right?"

"Of course," Ron said, in a voice so strong and reassuring that Hermione wondered where the idiot who'd broken into her flat that morning had gone. He took Sarah's hand. "Whenever you're ready."

Sarah took a deep breath and squeezed her eyes closed. "Okay."

Ron tossed the powder on. When the flames were high and brilliant green he hugged Sarah to his chest, then carefully walked them both into the fireplace. "The Burrow!" he said, and in a whoosh they were gone.

Hermione let out a breath. She'd never actually seen a Muggle travel by Floo before, and in the back of her mind had been muttering dousing charms, just in case. "She really trusts him," she said quietly.

"Yeah," Harry said, and she felt him move closer. "Hi."

She turned and greeted him properly. "We should go," she said finally, reluctantly.

"Suppose so," Harry said, but he didn't move his hands from her waist, or his head from where it rested alongside hers. As they stood there, not moving, just breathing, Hermione had the sudden, frightening feeling that she was the only thing holding him up.

And then he stepped away, and that was that. "Shall I put the fire out?"

"Yes, thanks," Hermione said. "And I'll just go check Crookshanks' food dish -"

When they arrived at the Burrow, Hermione and Harry found everyone gathered in the kitchen. Mrs. Weasley seemed to be winding down from a flustered state; she was busy telling Ron what a bad idea it had been to bring Sarah by Floo. Fred, George, and Ginny were hovering in the background, wearing delighted grins, while Mr. Weasley was looking after Sarah in his quiet way, bringing her a glass of water.

"Harry! Hermione!" Ron said, in a tone of a man being thrown a life preserver. "Well, now that there's so many of us here, we really should get out of your way, eh Mum?"

"Capital idea, little brother," said one of the twins, with a wicked smile. "Lead on!"

Hermione followed the tide of younger Weasleys and guests to the sitting room. Ron had a protective arm around Sarah, as if to warn his brothers that they would have to come through him first. Hermione thought, or maybe she hoped, that his fears were misplaced - if she knew the twins, they would be nothing but gracious to Sarah, and completely merciless toward their brother.

Harry had been walking ahead of her, but as everyone settled on various couches and chairs, he held back a little awkwardly. Hermione couldn't help but flush as she realised he was waiting to see where she chose to sit. She chose a puffy footstool, and moment later, he sat there as well, facing the opposite way.

"So, Sarah," Ginny said brightly, "I'd like to say we've heard so much about you, but. . . ."

"Oh, that's rich," Ron said. "Coming from little Miss Secret Parade of Boyfriends."

And they were off. Harry's back was warm against hers and Hermione leaned into him, content to enjoy the show.

*

Lunch was wonderful, and the largest meal he'd eaten in a long time; Harry was afraid he was in danger of exploding. What he really wanted to do was lie on his back somewhere and play dead, but he followed the twins and Ron out to the garden dutifully. Fred and George had something they wanted to show him - meaning there really was a possibility of little bits of Harry being strewn all over the lawn before the day was over.

"In here," George said, pushing at the door of the garden shed. They all filed in, blinking against the gloom. Harry and Ron hovered near the doorway out of an instinctive self-preservation, while Fred lit an old lantern.

"Here's Sweetie," George said, gesturing. Sweetie appeared to be a pair of gleaming metal scissors, hanging from a peg on the wall amongst shovels and rakes and Muggle television aerials.

"Nice," Harry said politely. He couldn't help but notice that the scissors' blades were bound together with metal twine.

Beside him, Ron took a step backwards.

"Sweetie's a bit of an experiment in the Home Hygiene line."

"Why go to a barbershop -"

"Or your mother's house -"

"Or pester your girlfriend -" (This last was accompanied by a significant look at Ron.)

"When Sweetie can give you a perfect haircut in minutes?"

"Because I like my ears?" Ron offered.

The twins laughed. "Silly boy, I can't imagine why."

"Erm," Harry said, as George lifted Sweetie off the wall, "if she's for hair, why is she all tied up in a shed?"

"Ah. Well, you see, this model is a tad. . . zealous. She's proven herself a bit much for normal hair."

"Great on hedges, though."

"And you, Harry Potter, have hair that. . . well. Has anyone ever used the word normal to describe those locks of yours?"

"Oh no," Harry said, one hand already scrabbling for the doorknob.

"You needn't be alarmed - see here, Fred's already got his looks back -" George pointed reassuringly at a spot on the side of his brother's head.

Just then, the door opened with a loud, long creak. "What ho, Percy!" Fred said. "We missed you at lunch."

"Yes, well, some hooligan thought it would be funny to plant lager bottles in a Muggle pub that were charmed to whisper abusive statements to the person drinking them. You can, I'm sure, imagine the fracas that resulted on a Saturday night. I've been dealing with things since about one o'clock this morning," Percy drew himself up importantly, "thus allowing our father to have a proper Sunday's rest."

"That's a shame," George said, trying and failing not to look amused. "Now that you're here, need a trim?" Sweetie's blades clicked ominously against their restraints.

"No, thank you," Percy said, frowning. "I'd like to speak with Harry a moment, if I may."

"Oh, sweet Merlin, yes. Absolutely," Harry said.

He followed Percy out into the winter sunshine. The garden was dreary at this time of year, trees bare, grass a dull brown, no gnomes in sight. He hugged his arms to himself.

Percy cleared his throat. "Hermione mentioned that your work has been keeping you quite busy of late. More so than usual."

Crap.

"I don't know if that's true," Harry said carefully. "I always work a lot."

Percy held up a hand. "I realise your profession requires you to maintain the highest levels of secrecy. I am not asking - would not ask - you to break a trust. I'd just like to hear your opinion as a member of law-enforcement, especially after what I've just witnessed. . . . Are there a great number of people in our society today who are not as enlightened and forward-thinking as we would hope?"

"Lots of Voldemort-sympathizers?" Harry said, when he had processed all that. "Sure. Well, maybe not 'lots'. . . I don't know. But yeah. They're out there."

"Thank you, Harry. It's important that I have the clearest possible picture of the socio-political landscape if I am to be involved in re-shaping it in any significant way."

It wasn't a conscious thought. Something - a snake-whisper from a dream, pain that had never really gone away, a dozen other thoughts and fears, something - made Harry stop Percy as he turned to go back to the house. "Listen," he said, "if it was me, I'd. . . take my time with things. I just would."

Percy looked at him intently, then gave a short nod. "Thank you," he said again, and left.

*

After the washing-up, the girls settled down at the kitchen table with mugs of mulled cider and second helpings of pie. Ginny and Sarah were getting along famously; Ginny had been telling embarrassing childhood stories about Ron for some time and was, Hermione suspected, about one step away from pulling out the photo albums.

Hermione was sipping her coffee and thinking her own thoughts, when suddenly -

"So, how long's it been going on, Hermione?"

"It? What?"

"You know what," Ginny said. "Or should I say, who."

"I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about," she said in her most business-like voice. And then, at the looks on their faces, conceded, "Two weeks, more or less." She could estimate down to the hour, but that would just be pathetic.

Sarah and Ginny made twin excited noises.

There was no escaping this conversation, so Hermione plunged in, willing her cheeks to stop burning. "How'd you two know?"

"Well," Ginny said, "first off, there was all the smiling."

"What smiling?"

"Oh," Sarah said, "there's been smiling."

"And then," Ginny continued, "we have the seating arrangements in the lounge, earlier."

"And at lunch, he refilled your pumpkin juice when you were getting low - twice."

"That's just good manners," Hermione protested.

"He's a boy," Sarah returned.

"He's Harry," Ginny added.

"So why aren't you two, you know, public?" Sarah asked.

That was the big question, and Hermione didn't answer. Ginny did, after a moment. "Because he's Harry, and he's as emotionally savvy as, as -"

"As a toothpick?" Hermione said with a slight smile. "No - maybe - I don't know." That was probably part of it, Harry's part of it, but her own reticence was slightly different. Fourteen days was no time at all; they could fall apart next week, they could fall apart tonight.

She didn't want the world to know if they didn't make it. She'd have a hard enough time showing her face to Harry again.

"Maybe it's that," she said, pointing at Ginny. "What you just did. We'd have to tell Ron first, and when they're alone in that flat of theirs he'd be rude about me."

Ginny cocked her head to the side and Hermione was afraid, for a moment, that she might have taken offence. "He would," Ginny said. "He might not do it on purpose, but yeah, the last thing you need is his perceptions of you as a girlfriend colouring Harry's."

Hermione pushed her hair off her face and looked at Sarah. There was an awful lot of shared boy-history around this table, and candor, she felt, was the way forward. "I was seventeen when Ron and I dated. I wasn't at my best. Not that he was, either," she added.

"No-one's at their best at seventeen," Sarah said diplomatically. "Wait, how old are you?" she asked Ginny.

"Eighteen," Ginny said with a grin. "So that's all right, then."

"You'll just have to lay down the law with Ron," Sarah said. "When you're ready. Tell him he's not allowed to say or do or think anything when it comes to you and Harry. Or," she smiled, "or I can."

"And tell him I'll hex him if he does," Ginny put in.

Hermione smiled at them both. "Thanks, you two. I may take you up on that." One of these days.

*

A/N: I can't thank Cynthia Black and Paracelsus enough for helping me through revising my old chapters (not to mention the beta work they did on this one!); I very seriously doubt this would be here right now without them. But I'll try - a hundred million thanks to you! And to Dorotea and Hiddenhibiscus for their betaing and tremendous support as well, and to everyone who's been nice enough to review.

Credit where credit's due: Hermione's book Goblins and E.T. belongs to Paracelsus. The hair scissors of doom belong to Hiddenhibiscus. The ducks of St. James's Park don't actually belong to Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, but I wouldn't have thought to mention them if it weren't for Good Omens.

This was sort of the last bit of calm before the storm. . . excitement ahead! And some twists, I promise. Hope to see you there. :)

13. Thirteen

A/N: Hi. So it's been a while, hasn't it. And um, last time I promised excitement, didn't I? Turns out we have to get through some talking, first. Sorry 'bout that.

Thirteen

It was the same but it was also different, every time. It never unfolded like a play, curtain up on the Death Eaters taking their places on Aunt Petunia's front lawn, curtain down on twin flashes of green light. He wished it would: then it would have a beginning, and an end, he would know how long it would last, he might even remember something solid when he woke. Some detail that would prove important, make him say aha!, explain the recurring show.

But instead, things would go from last to first to middle and back again, following a dream-logic that made perfect sense, but meant nothing with eyes open. Or sight and sound would fade away and the night become nothing more than its essence, a haze of fear and blood and pain.

Harry kicked back the covers, sweaty and hot, and stared up at the dark blur of the ceiling. All he had were dots, and no idea where to draw the line connecting them. Headaches. Dreams. A bit of flu. And a plot involving known Death Eaters, the Dark Mark, blood from the most powerfully magic creatures known to wizardkind, and, mustn't forget, a little jade snake with something to say.

Dean would say he couldn't draw the line because there wasn't one to be drawn; just Dark wizards to catch and a doctor or - Harry shuddered - a therapist to see.

Not that it mattered what Dean would say, now.

Yesterday at the Burrow, Harry hadn't thought, he hadn't rationalised, he hadn't considered the implications. He'd simply opened his mouth, spoken two sentences, and very neatly sabotaged everything Hermione had been working for.

That was yesterday.

Harry wondered how long it would be before she found out, before she hated him, before she was gone. Today Harry was sorry, but she was safer, and if someone threw a Time-Turner around his neck and spun the glass he knew he'd do the same thing all over again.

Today, he'd had enough.

Harry got out of bed and put on trackpants and a sweatshirt. The sky was lightening, grey instead of black, and even if he thought he could, it would be pointless trying to go back to sleep. Instead, a jog through early-morning streets, a shower, and then work, where he would do something about this, finally.

He made it to Headquarters earlier than usual, before Dean, but not before Moody. Harry wasn't sure that arriving before Moody was even possible; he was quite willing to believe that his boss slept somewhere in the office, perhaps in his chair, or under his desk.

Harry walked up to Moody's desk and said, "Sir."

"Is that you here already, Potter?" Moody pushed aside a scroll and focused his attention on Harry. "Should I put you to some kind of test to make sure you really are Potter, and not someone else in disguise? I think maybe I should."

Harry did not doubt for an instant that the man was completely serious. "It's really me," Harry said. "I wanted to have a word."

Moody regarded him for a moment, magic eye whirring. "If we were Muggles, how would I prove your identity?"

"Fingerprints, sir," Harry said, holding up his hands, palm out.

"Really?" Moody pulled a piece of parchment to him, and scribbled this down. "Interesting. And how would I remove them? A small, sharp knife?"

"No, sir!" Harry hastily stuffed his hands into his pockets. Leaving computer technology out altogether - they were already wasting too much time - he explained about inkpads, and about keeping the prints of known criminals on file. "And you would've taken my fingerprints when I first joined up here, so you could easily check."

"Mmm," Moody said, still writing. "Fascinating, thank you." A twitch of his wand, and a chair slid across the floor to stop in front of his desk. "Sit, sit."

Harry did, taking a deep breath. "Sir," he began, "I want to ask you about some things, but I don't really want to talk about why I want to know. I just. . . want to know."

Moody nodded approvingly. "Tell nothing you do not need to tell. Very wise, boy, very wise. Ask, and I will answer what I am able."

Harry felt something in him unwind. Moody had been the right person to come to. He understood wanting to keep a secret, and he would not consider Harry paranoid - well, he might, but it wouldn't be a problem. To Moody, paranoia was a perfectly rational state of mind.

"Voldemort's body," Harry said. "I know what was done with it, but I'd like to hear exactly how things went, from the moment he and I. . . I'd like to hear it from someone who was there. And you were, weren't you?"

"That I was. I did not see what happened between the two of you - and I don't know that anyone who did see understands what they saw." Moody looked at him steadily. "You have kept that close, as you should. But you're asking about afterwards. . . ."

There was a silence, and as it stretched, Harry became afraid the old man was editing the story down to something he felt it safe to share. He said, "If anyone has a right to know everything, it's me. And it'll go no further, I promise. I've kept bigger secrets than this."

"Yes," Moody said, "I suppose you have." He pinned Harry with that look again, and for some reason that magical eye was more disconcerting when it was still and intent. "Everyone was worried about his soul, or what passed for one. It was understood that the body was his own creation, and that if he had created one, he could create another. There were so-called experts from the Spirit Division combing the area -"

"And at St. Mungo's, doing tests on me." The things they'd done when he'd woken up had been bad enough; Harry didn't like to imagine how invasive they'd been while he'd been out of it.

"And doing tests on you. And they found nothing, anywhere. We can only hope that was because there was nothing to find." The old man's look was sharp and Harry thought, Of course he's still not sure of me.

"I know the body was burned with a torch lit on Fawkes's burning day," Harry said. "But how long until that happened?"

"Three days."

"And was the body moved around at all, during that time?"

"By that lot?" Moody snorted, shaking his head. "None of them wanted to touch him. They stood around and argued and scratched their arses. Didn't know what to do, didn't want to be responsible for doing it. And then that bird of Dumbledore's showed up and burst into flames, and they all said 'jolly good,' and that was that."

Harry could picture it: no Dumbledore to take things in hand, the Ministry a wreck, the members of the Order who were still alive and conscious doing their best and being thwarted more often than not. He was rather glad he'd been out of it in a hospital bed. It would've been left to him to step into Dumbledore's place, and he hadn't been ready for that. Still wasn't. "Good for Fawkes," he said.

"Perhaps," Moody said. "Don't know about letting birds make decisions for me, myself. Still, I suppose what's done is done."

Didn't move the body at all, Harry thought. "So - who was there? Do you remember?"

Moody grunted. "Too many damn people, flit-flit-flitting around. What was left of us - Arthur Weasley, and some of his boys. Lupin, when he wasn't off checking on you. Shacklebolt. Minerva McGonagall. And Magical Law Enforcement, of course, Aurors and Hit Wizards and administrative paper-pushers all over the place. Can't tell you who all was in the Ministry crowd, but the Minister was there, obviously. Healers. Those bloody spirit experts."

Moody was right: too many damn people. The more people, the more noise, the more chaos, the more opportunity. Anyone could've been there. Done anything they liked. Taken anything they liked.

"Were there guards posted over the body?"

"Yes, Aurors, in shifts. The other Order members stuck as close as they could, but not having any official capacity, they were asked to leave after a while." Moody smiled his twisted-up smile. "I didn't have any official capacity either, not at first. It's a wonder how quickly you can get sworn back in as an Auror when you draw your wand and tell 'em to move you if they can."

Harry smiled at that. "So you were there the entire time? Was anyone else?"

Moody tapped two fingers on the table as he thought. "No," he said finally. "Not that I remember. Shacklebolt came close - he didn't take the breaks he was offered - but he still had reports to file and superiors to meet with and all that rubbish." He harrumphed. "There's a time for fooling with the Ministry and Headquarters and reports," Moody waved a piece of parchment for emphasis, "and there's a time for staying put. Wouldn't you say, Potter?"

Harry nodded. What he needed to know was if anyone had acted suspiciously, but Moody's answer to that question would likely involve everyone and everything within a five-kilometre radius. What he really needed was to stop relying on secondhand accounts, and see for himself. . . "Sir? You wouldn't happen to use a Pensieve, ever, would you?"

That was, based on Moody's expression, the stupidest question he'd ever been asked. "You know how those things work, don't you boy? Take a thought out of your head, where it's relatively safe, and put it in a bowl where anyone can get at it? Madness!"

"Yes, sir," Harry said, and sighed. He could go find Kingsley Shacklebolt, and ask him the same question, but there would be gaps in Kingsley's account, and what he needed was certainty. Not to mention the issue of getting hold of a Pensieve.

"An observation, Potter," Moody said. "These are questions that would have been well-asked a year and a half ago."

But he'd been certain then. He'd told the Minister and the Aurors and the Quibbler (in his one and only official interview) that it was because he was confident of the magic. And that was true enough - it was a good spell, the one that three of them had come up with, and he'd had no doubt that it had done what it was supposed to do.

But what he hadn't said, not to anyone but Ron and Hermione, was what it had felt like inside his head at the moment in question. He'd been alone, and massive pain aside, it'd been the best he'd felt in a long, long time.

It's like this, he'd told them: when you have a houseguest that you don't want, one that sticks around for years, you know when they've finally buggered off. There's simply no doubt.

And if they worm their way back in slowly, one visit at a time, how long before you realise they've moved back in?

"I expect you're right, sir," Harry said.

*

The Monday morning zombie that was Dean stumbled in just after nine. Harry took one look at him and went off in search of coffee. There was a surveillance operation to organise, and he wanted someone with functioning brain cells to help him organise it.

Dean made an attempt at stringing together sentences about midway through the first cup.

"That," swallow, "Knockturn Alley. Map."

"Yes," Harry said.

Swallow. "You've got a map, there."

"Drink faster," Harry said.

Dean applied himself as directed while Harry studied the map. They needed a secure location from which to watch Burke's shop, to see who came to pick up the dragon's blood. . . "Oh, bollocks."

"Mmm?"

"I'm going at this wrong," Harry said, rolling up the map with a snap. "We don't know that Burke has a shipment in, and in fact, he probably doesn't - that's why they've got Crabbe running round buying bottles. We should be watching Crabbe's house. Should've been watching Crabbe's house."

Dean shook his head. "Nah," he said, putting down his cup. "I went round last week to check things out. He's just got four bottles of dragon's blood, down on a table in his cellar. We didn't reckon anyone would risk coming in person to pick up that."

"Just four bottles?" Harry contemplated this. "He hasn't made much of an effort, has he?"

"Just enough to show willing," Dean said. "And here he calls his son lazy."

"You're right, of course," Harry said. "They're not going to let Crabbe see them. They probably think. . ." What did they probably think? That Avery had never cracked, so the Aurors had never got on to Crabbe? That the Aurors had sniffed Crabbe out, but when no more of Voldemort's artifacts had appeared, had gone on to other things? Did they suspect that Aurors might be watching him still, but need the dragon's blood so badly that it didn't matter? Harry slammed his hand on the table. "I don't know what they think, that's the problem."

"Hey," Dean said, "hey. It doesn't really matter, does it? They're still using him, so we still use him. Yeah?"

"Yeah," Harry said, reluctantly, "okay. They'll send an owl for those bottles, don't you think?"

"Most likely. We could capture it, put a trace on it, but-"

"But we'd probably just end up getting it killed, and spooking them in the process."

"So, back to the map?" Dean asked.

"Back to the map," Harry said, unrolling it. Back to a person they knew was bad news, through and through. The one person that they'd found on their own, that they hadn't been taken by the hand and led to.

"It'll be a big shipment, and Burke'll expect to be paid," Dean said, "so they might show up personally for that."

"Or send a representative." Harry studied the street in front of him. They needed somewhere close to the shop, somewhere a little more secure than the usual dustbins. And considering the neighborhood, they didn't just have to worry about Burke spotting them. . . anyone who noticed them hanging about was liable to take offence. Violent offence.

"That building there," Dean said, pointing to one behind the shop, "probably gives a good view from one of the upper storeys, or from the roof."

Harry nodded. "And this one," he said, tapping a square on the map, "would do the same for the front."

"Shall we go scout them out? And try to see if Burke has a load in already?"

They both looked across the room instinctively. "Yes," Moody said, from his desk, "but not yet. Wait until lunchtime. The streets will be busier, and it's less likely that you'll be noticed, or remembered."

Harry and Dean exchanged glances. That was fair enough, and if that was the only objection Moody had to their plan, they were doing well indeed. Harry said, "And until then?"

Moody indicated the stack of books they'd been using to research spells that involved dragon's blood. "This, of course, or," he gave Harry a significant look, "if any of your own affairs are pressing, this might be the time to deal with them. I do not know when you will have a better chance."

Harry felt a rush of warmth for the man, but restricted himself to a quick nod. Dean was busy trying not to look delighted, and Harry could guess what his partner was thinking - something about the pressing importance of more coffee, and perhaps the acquisition of a sweet roll or two.

"See that you're back by noon," Moody said. Harry checked his watch: ten-fifteen. It would be enough time. It would have to be.

*

Dean went downstairs, and Harry went up. There might not be any good, quick, complete way of seeing those first days after Voldemort, but there was something he could see, something real and solid. And Moody, who made it his business to know things he wasn't meant to know, had told Harry how to go about doing that.

The sign said MAGICAL LAW ENFORCEMENT, ADMINISTRATION. The door was open, and Harry walked into the small outer office and up to the desk.

"Harry Potter. I need to see Madam Bones. Or Mr. Caval." Not I want, not may I: if he didn't ask, it made it that much harder for her to say no.

"You've an appointment?" The witch behind the reception desk looked through thick glasses at her schedule-book. "I don't see the name. . ."

"Don't have one," Harry said, and let his tone say the rest for him: don't need one. "I just need a minute from either of them, that's all."

He smiled and stood his ground. The witch looked at the book, at him, at the closed doors either side of her desk, back to him. . . finally, she said, "I'll just see, shall I?"

"Thank you."

She took out a small, light-green parchment square and wrote upon it, then turned it into an airplane and sent it flying through a flap built into one of the doors. They waited. Harry listened to the tick of the clock on the wall and thought that he'd made a mistake. He didn't like this entitled-hero persona, and she surely didn't either - and who knew if she'd written anything at all helpful on that paper. . . .

The green airplane returned, landing gently on the desk. After reading it and depositing it neatly in the bin, the witch said, "She'll fit you in as soon as her schedule allows. Wait over there."

"And Mr. Caval?"

The witch repeated the process, wordlessly making it quite clear just how much he was asking of her. When the paper returned, she read it, then gestured again toward a chair along the wall. This time, Harry took it.

Harry waited. The chair was soft and squashy, but he sat up straight in it, jiggling his leg. The clock ticked and tocked, and Harry found himself digging his fingers into the chair arms in order to keep from getting up and pacing round the room.

Ten-thirty-eight. It was too much to hope that he could get things sorted before Percy spoke to Hermione. Or was it? Percy would take his words seriously, that was a given, because the days when he would've believed the exact opposite of whatever Harry said were gone. But what would he do? Would he really pull out of Hermione's project altogether?

No, Harry decided. Percy might see the risk of it now, but that didn't mean he'd stopped seeing the opportunity. And that opportunity in the hands of someone else. . . no, Percy Weasley would not like the look of that at all.

So Percy would stall, then. He would continue working with Hermione, keep the wheels in motion, but turn them at his own pace - that of a bureaucratic snail.

And Hermione, Hermione would still realise that something was wrong, of course. And she would work out his part in it, because she was brilliant, and because Percy was not always subtle.

She was going to be so unhappy.

It was definitely time that he did this.

Ten-forty-three. A door opened, the one on the right, marked DEPUTY HEAD. Mr. Caval stepped out and had a brief conversation with the witch at reception, in the course of which Harry learned several things: that her name was Miss Callendar, that Mr. Caval's wife like to owl a lot, and that his ten-forty-five appointment would be rather late, as security had found a suspect handkerchief, perhaps dangerously enchanted, in her handbag. Harry wondered if he had Moody to thank for that as well.

"Potter," Mr. Caval said, inclining his head toward his open door.

They went into the inner office, Mr. Caval closing the door behind them. Harry sat in the chair he was offered. He was suddenly exponentially more nervous than he had been before talking to Moody; he had little idea how Mr. Caval would react to his request. It might have been better if he'd got Madam Bones. She might be busier and scarier (partly because she was his absolute boss and partly because he'd never forgot being up before her in the Wizengamot at age fifteen), but he knew, at least, that she'd hear what he had to say.

Although he didn't want to say much at all, so maybe things had worked out for the best. . . .

Mr. Caval sat at his desk, folding his hands and giving Harry his full attention. "You wanted to see me?"

You know this much about him - don't waste his time. "Yes, sir. I know you're very busy, and I'm sorry to interrupt. If I could do it by myself I would." He took a breath. "Could we go to Gringotts? Vault eight forty-two?"

The older man's posture didn't change, but his eyes went interested. "Ah," he said. "When?"

In for a penny. . . "Now?"

"Mm. Any particular reason?"

"Not exactly," Harry lied, "it's just something I feel I should do. Should do regularly, in fact, perhaps we could go ahead and schedule in this same time next year?"

Mr. Caval smiled, a brief flash of teeth. "How can I say no? Do you know why we hired you, Potter?"

Because you wanted to keep an eye on me? Because you thought the best way to make people feel safe was to let them know Harry Potter was still taking care of them? Because I asked you to?

He shook his head.

"I shan't speak for Amelia, but this," he gestured between them, "this is why I wanted you here. Precisely this." Mr. Caval stood, and a cloak drifted across the room to come to rest on his shoulders. "No matter how this world of ours may change, Potter, I know I can count on you to never forget where we've been."

*

The main hall of Gringotts was mostly empty, and their footsteps echoed on the marble floor. Mr. Caval conferred briefly with a goblin at the high counter, and in no time they were off in one of the rickety carts, heading down.

"I expect you're wondering why we chose Gringotts? Entrusted something like this to non-wizards?"

Harry wasn't, actually. He hadn't thought too much of it, found himself nodding when Moody had told him, in fact. Gringotts had done for Dumbledore, and Hagrid had had absolute faith in the goblins, and that was plenty good enough for Harry.

Mr. Caval went on, "They may not think like us or play by our rules, but no-one does security better than these fellows. No-one. No point in trying to reinvent the wand, eh?"

Harry shook his head no. He was holding onto his glasses with one hand, because they were moving very fast and very deep, and he didn't want to lose them to an underground ravine. This trip was such a strange echo of his first visit here with Hagrid, all those years ago; back then he had known nothing of this world, and been tremendously excited and only very slightly scared. Now he knew too much and not enough, all at once. Now, today, he was afraid.

"None of you can come here without me. Right?" Harry said, pitching his voice over the click-click-click of the wheels.

"That's correct," Mr. Caval said. "The only people cleared for access are myself, Amelia, and the Minister. And none of us can open the vault without you."

Harry hesitated, casting a glance at the goblin in the front of the cart. Could he hear them? Did it matter? "But we've not come here before, just to check on things."

Mr. Caval said, after a moment, "The Minister didn't want it. He wouldn't like us coming here today, in fact. While I may not exactly be a public figure, you are, and people will see. See, and talk."

"He doesn't want people to know what's here? But they'd never manage to get hold of it, not ever."

"I don't believe that's the issue," Mr. Caval said. "It's my understanding that the Minister wants to usher in a brand-new era. Peace and prosperity -"

"And no-one frightened if he can help it," Harry said. "I get it." He was quiet a moment. "Me, I'd rather be scared than in the dark."

Mr. Caval smiled, that flash of teeth again. "I'd have to agree with you."

Harry was shivering now, and he didn't know whether it was the cold or the anticipation or, as they went over a particularly stomach-dropping bump, if he was about to be nastily sick. He could only hope that it wasn't the latter.

They stopped, finally. There was a door cut into the rock up ahead of their cart; Harry could just see it behind the bloody great dragon that stood before them. He pulled the neck of his robes up over his nose like a five-year-old and breathed through it, trying to filter out the terrible brimstone smell. He rather hoped that goblins were secretly skilled dragon-tamers, because he didn't fancy trying to run past it or under it in order to get to the vault.

The goblin climbed out of the cart and onto the rock ledge. It stood before the dragon, tiny and confident, and raised a hand. The dragon snorted once, then backed away.

Harry scrambled out of the cart, and Mr. Caval followed, a little more slowly. They followed the goblin up to the vault door. Mr. Caval raised his hand to the door and hovered his palm there, careful to not actually touch it. At his look, Harry followed suit. The goblin stepped between them, and at the moment his fingernail touched the lock, they pressed their hands to the door. At once the solid rock door was gone. The goblin stood back, and they entered the vault alone.

It was a very simple little room, just like all the other Gringotts vaults Harry had seen inside. A stone jar sat very unceremoniously in the middle of the floor. Harry stepped towards it, then hesitated. "Are there any other protections on it?"

"We didn't think it necessary," came Mr. Caval's voice from behind him. "But if you wish to put some more in place before you leave, feel free."

Harry crossed the room, heart thumping painfully. It wasn't the ashes that he was here to see. He was not so foolish to think that Voldemort needed the remains of this body to create another one. He was here to see what kept showing up in his dreams, and it should be here. Surely even Fawkes's fire couldn't melt stone.

He stood with his hand on the lid of the jar, thinking. There was a possibility he couldn't ignore. Did Voldemort want him to open this container? Was that the point of all this? He couldn't rule it out.

It must be heaven to be everyone else, to know that right or wrong, your decisions were your own and no-one else's. To have a mind that wasn't a homicidal madman's personal playground.

"This should've ended when you died," he said quietly.

Harry crouched down and ran his wand over the jar. There was magic inside, so much that it rocked him back on his heels, but he felt nothing dark, nothing malevolent. Fawkes, Harry thought, and removed the lid.

Dark ash, filling the jar about halfway. Harry didn't know why he'd thought there would be more; he knew that he was looking at what had once been bone, that everything else had burned away completely.

Hopefully not everything else. That was the point of this, after all.

"Accio stone!" Harry said, quietly but clearly. Nothing happened. He tried again. Nothing.

He took his wand and put it inside the jar, running it around and about, back and forth. It met no resistance. Finally, desperately, he put his hand in, and did the same.

Still nothing.

So I'm not going mad, Harry thought, staring into the container of ash, and only ash. Well, that's something.

*

The main hall of the bank was busier when they left, the start of the lunch rush, and the streets were busier too. Harry was a little surprised when Mr. Caval showed no signs of wanting to Apparate back to Headquarters, settling instead for a brisk walk. He was probably being watched, he realised, his reactions monitored; Mr. Caval hadn't asked any questions about what Harry had done, but the man had to be curious.

Harry didn't like the idea of being under scrutiny. He picked up the pace.

"You've spotted her, then? I thought you probably had."

Harry had done nothing of the sort, but he wasn't about to admit it. He gave a quick look over his shoulder. It was enough. "The blonde? She's being so obvious, it's hard to imagine her a threat."

The girl really was following them, and she really was being very obvious. She didn't seem to have the nerves for this sort of work at all; she'd actually stumbled in her haste to look away when Harry had glanced at her.

"Probably just can't keep her eyes off the Boy Who Lived. Tell me, is this often a problem when you're out on the job?"

"No sir," Harry said quickly.

"Certain of that?"

Mr. Caval was frowning, undoubtedly thinking up new, stringent disguise protocols for him to follow. Harry groaned.

"Absolutely. Anyhow, it's not that often I'm out here amongst the general public when I'm working. It's usually more, Knockturn Alley, people who aren't going to be pleased to see me." He grinned a bit, thinking of criminals who'd hit the ground immediately, hands behind their backs, when they'd realised it was Harry Potter who'd come to sort them out. Might not have happened often, but it had happened. "Sometimes it's rather an asset, being recognised."

"Mm," Mr. Caval said, which Harry thought might count as acceptance. They kept walking, and she kept following.

Two more blocks to go, and Harry didn't need this girl getting her courage up and coming over to embarrass him in front of his boss. "If you'll excuse me," he said, "I'll just go speak to her for a second. Probably the best thing to do."

"All right," Mr. Caval said, and he continued on towards Headquarters while Harry turned back.

Harry didn't plan on actually speaking to her. He thought that, as nervous as the girl seemed to be, just the act of him walking towards her would probably fluster her so much that she'd just walk right past him, and that would be that. He was wrong, though; as he drew closer, her steps faltered, and she kept giving him quick little looks while she fiddled with her handbag. Oh, bollocks, Harry thought, she's going to try and kill me, and she's going to do a really bung job of it, and I'm going to have to take her down in front of all these people, and please Merlin, has Mr. Caval made it to the next street yet?

He walked straight up to the girl, and she stopped short, eyes wide. "Hi. Listen. Don't do anything silly, and nothing bad will happen, all right? Just take your hands off your bag, and keep them where I can see them - that's right - now -"

"Am - am I being arrested?" she asked. She'd done as he asked, and her hands were shaking as she held them up between them. "I wasn't stalking you, really I wasn't. Well, I suppose I was, but -"

Harry looked her over. "Why were you doing that?"

"I just wanted to ask you some questions. It was a bad idea, obviously, I'm very sorry. . . ."

"And what's in the bag?"

"My notebook," she said. "With the questions."

"Ah," Harry said, "a journalist. My favourite sort of person." He didn't shift his stance in the slightest.

"Not exactly," she said. "I mean, I would like to write up what you say, but I don't work for the Prophet or anything and I don't care how you take your tea or who you went down the pub with last night." She took a breath. "May I start over? My name's Sally-Ann Perks, we were at school together, and I'm working with a friend of yours, Hermione Granger -"

"Oh!" Harry said. "One of Hermione's lot." He waved at her hands, and she put them down, looking fractionally less terrified. "Sorry about all," he fluttered a hand, "that. Thought you were trying to off me, there."

She stared. "What? Oh my God, no, I'm so sorry -"

"It's all right," Harry interrupted, "it happens. Don't worry about it."

One of Hermione's lot. Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks.

"Listen," he said, "I know what you want, but I can't give it to you. Not right now." She opened her mouth, but he forestalled her with a hand. "And not if we arrange to meet later, either. I -" Give her a reason, give her a reason, Hermione won't see through it but this girl might, and maybe all of this will go no further - "I'm an employee of Magical Law Enforcement, that's no real secret, and as such I can't give an interview about anything without it going through about a hundred official channels. I'm sorry."

"I understand," Sally-Ann said. She looked like she did. She also looked like he'd taken away her very favourite Puffskein. "I suppose that's why Hermione's never interviewed you herself. I thought she just didn't want you to feel obliged, you being so close and everything."

Harry swallowed.

"I'll let you go, then," she said. She smiled. "Sorry about all the stalking."

He forced a smile back. Thanks to her stalking, he'd gone from Hermione, he asked my opinion and I gave it, he made his own choice, didn't he?, to Hermione, I think your law is great and all, but I don't want to help you out with it right now. Brilliant.

"It's forgiven," Harry said.

Not hard words to say at all. Hopefully Hermione would find them that way, too.

*

A/N: If you got through all that, you deserve a treat, you really do. There's chocolate chip cake at my lj (significantowl). . . well, the recipe for it, at least. :)

Many many thanks to Hiddenhibiscus, Dorotea, Cynthia Black, Sahiya, and Paracelsus for beta. And they've got the next chapter now, so, see you all in a couple weeks?

14. Fourteen

Fourteen

*

Hermione's arms were full of groceries when she Apparated into Harry's flat, but they didn't block her view of the startled look on his face. "I thought you might be hungry," she said, smiling. She put her bags down on the kitchen counter and went over to the lounge side of the room. Harry had been sprawled in a chair, but now he was standing, and she leaned up to give him a kiss.

"How was your day?"

"Ah. Erm. Long?"

"Mine too." She went back to the kitchen. "You would think things at work would slack off this close to the holiday, but you would be wrong."

"Tell me about it," she heard him mutter.

Hermione started emptying the bags. She'd got some chicken, a spice mixture to rub it in, two jacket potatoes, and some sprouts. She wasn't sure how Harry was going to take to the sprouts, but she knew how to cook them, and that was the main thing.

It had been research keeping her busy in the barrister's office that afternoon, which was quiet work, but absorbing; research plus one visitor, who had not come to see the old wizard she clerked for.

Harry had followed her into the kitchen, and was standing there awkwardly. "You don't have to cook," he said.

"I know," she said. "That's why I want to."

"Er, okay," Harry said, looking completely befuddled.

She smiled to herself. "Where's your baking dish?"

"Ah. . ." While Harry began opening cupboards and rattling around in them, she set to washing the chicken.

It was normal, Hermione supposed, to want to spread embarrassment and apologies around; told enough times a story loses its sting and becomes just that, a story. And that was why Sally-Ann Perks had come round to Hermione's work that afternoon. She'd told Hermione all about seeing Harry on the street, about asking him for an interview and making him think she was out to kill him in the process. Then she'd fretted for a good quarter of an hour over whether he thought her mad or presumptuous or a bit of an idiot or all of the above.

Hermione had reassured her, sent her on her way, and been distracted for the rest of the day.

Not just distracted; also piqued, perturbed, and very slightly cross. Harry had told her he thought what she was doing was brilliant, acted like they were exactly of the same mind, and then, when given the chance, he hadn't helped. From which followed the all-too-logical deduction that he didn't care about it as much as she did, because if so, he would have jumped at the chance.

She wasn't sure what bothered her more - the idea that he might have been pretending, humouring her all along; or the fact that they weren't of the same mind, that they weren't standing together and seeing the same thing when they looked out on the world.

No, she knew. It was the second one.

But that was illogical of her, and she'd told herself that quickly. They were two different people, with two different brain chemistries and two different sets of experiences. She should expect them to look at the world differently. It was just that everything was that much better, felt that much more right when they didn't.

And of course it came down to experiences, here. There was a reason she'd not ever asked Harry that question herself, after all; she'd felt it was just too much, asking him to voluntarily put himself in the spotlight right now. Obviously, she'd been right.

By the time she'd left the office, she was simply relieved that it had been Sally-Ann to ask and Sally-Ann to be rejected. The other girl had saved them no end of awkwardness. It would've been uncomfortable enough if Hermione had asked and Harry had said no; it would've been worse, she was certain, if she'd asked and he'd said yes because he felt he had to.

Hermione didn't like admitting it, but a small part of her was dead curious to know whether he would have done it for her.

It was that relief that had propelled Hermione to the grocer's. She'd wanted them to have a very ordinary, very nice evening because they could. She couldn't help but smile a bit while she scrubbed the potatoes. Harry was so obviously ill at ease, silently hovering near the stove. Hermione felt a little magnanimous: she got to understand and absolve without him even knowing. It wasn't a bad feeling.

She was putting the sprouts on to boil when the owl came. She assumed at first that it would be for Harry, something from Moody, most likely, that would take him away tonight. But the bird wanted her.

Hermione read her letter through twice before looking up. Harry was watching her. "What's wrong?" he asked. Two simple words, words anyone might say considering what was surely on her face, but there was something about the way he said them that suggested he was very, very afraid that he already knew the answer.

She handed the letter over, bitter disappointment twisting her stomach. Harry's eyes slid down the page, taking in the signature first, and right then, in the second before his face became blank, Hermione had her own answer.

Not looking at her, he said, "Hermione, I'm so sorry."

Through a rush of anger, Hermione took the letter out of his hand, placed it on the counter, and went back to the stove. Her hands were shaking. He'd known this was coming. He'd been talking to Percy yesterday, and walked away from that conversation knowing, and hadn't told her. And right now she wanted so much to turn to him, let him hold her up, but she couldn't.

It was very quiet in the kitchen; she could hear the chicken sizzling in the oven. "It's just a couple months' setback, right?" Harry said finally. "I mean, Percy's got to work on this exploding popcorn thing right now, but as soon as he's got that sorted. . . can't have microwaves blowing up all over the city. . . ."

Hermione was silent, pushing the sprouts around the pot with a wooden spoon. It wasn't about exploding popcorn and it wasn't just a couple months' delay, and Harry knew that. If this law was going to be written, it would be without Percy.

Who in the world were they going to ask instead?

She would think this through rationally, and she would answer that question. This was only defeat if she allowed it.

She still hadn't spoken, and she was sure that was making Harry nervous; she didn't look at him, but she could picture him running a hand over his head, spiking that hair up, fiddling with those glasses.

Her silence wasn't for him, though, it wasn't some kind of punishment. It was for her. It was the only thing keeping her from crying.

"Tell me something," she managed finally. "You two were talking at the Burrow yesterday, I saw you through the window. What did he say?"

Harry answered after a pause, in the tone of someone being asked to dig his own grave. "He'd been dealing with some Muggle-baiting at work, and it got him worrying. He asked me if I thought there were a lot of Voldemort sympathisers still around."

"And you said?"

He gave a short, sharp sigh. "What I thought. Yes."

"Oh." She squeezed her eyes closed.

"Hermione. . . I really am sorry. I know how much this means to you. But when he asked me. . . well, honestly, I think it's only right that Percy have an idea of what he's getting into. I wasn't going to lie to him."

"No," Hermione said, her voice shaky. She drew in a breath. "No, I wouldn't expect you to."

"I didn't tell him that you lot had been getting threatening letters," Harry said.

She considered that a moment, and turned around to face him. "Are you saying that because you think it'll make me happy, or because you're insinuating that I should have told him?"

Harry shrugged.

"Both?" she asked.

"Yeah, suppose so."

"I'm not trying to keep it from him," she said, and was she trying to convince herself, too? "I suppose I don't see them as a threat so much as proof that what we're doing needs doing. With that kind of prejudice out there. . . ."

"Exactly," Harry said. "Please don't underestimate it, Hermione."

"Wait until it's safe to do the right thing, you mean?" She laughed bitterly. "Where would we be now if we'd always done that?" Before Harry could answer - or shrug - Hermione went on, "And how many werewolves will find themselves passed over for a job or thrown out of their flats before then? And how many people will find themselves wrongfully imprisoned because your lot don't have time for things like innocent until proven guilty?"

"I don't know," Harry said. "And of course I think that stuff is wrong." He stepped closer to her, but didn't touch her; just stood there in her space. He said quietly, intensely, "But I'm more worried about something happening to you than any of it."

"Oh, now that's not fair," Hermione burst out, and there came the tears. "You go to work and risk yourself for other people every single day, and I'm not allowed to think that!"

Harry said nothing; his jaw was clenched tight. Hermione hugged her arms around herself. "I try so hard not to make a fuss. I try so hard not to think about it. But there it is, every day." She reached out then, put her arms around his waist, pulled them together. "I wish you did something else," she said, her voice muffled against him, "but I understand why you do it."

Differences, that's what she'd been fretting over earlier in the day. How silly. They were more the same than anything.

Maybe that was what needed worrying about.

Harry was holding her now, too, but loosely, as if he expected her to try and get away at any moment. He cleared his throat. "What are you going to do now?"

"Well," she said, leaning her head against his shoulder, "first, talk to Roger and everyone. We'll decide who else in the Ministry to approach, and make certain, this time, that whoever we work with has the stomach for it."

"Of course," Harry murmured. A minute later, he said, "Isn't your term about done?"

"Yes," Hermione said, a bit wrong-footed by this sudden turn in the conversation. "I just have two exams left."

Harry nodded, his head bumping hers a little. "When you're done, why don't you come stay here?"

Something spread through her, warm and tingling. She'd practically been living in the last week or so, because she'd been worried about Harry, but there was a qualifier in that sentence, and it was important. Practically meant nights on couches and grabbing showers at her place and no-one asking her to leave, but no-one asking her to stay, either. This. . . this was an official invitation, and while she hadn't expected it yet - there were things that, to be honest, she'd thought they would say and do first - she knew she was ready to accept.

Hermione looked up. His face was too close to really see, but the tension was still there in the way he held himself, in the line of his chin. Afraid she would say no, she thought, and she was opening her mouth to say yes when she thought of something else.

"What have you told Ron?"

"Er, well. Nothing."

"Do you think we should do it together?"

"Ah -"

Hermione pulled away so that she could see Harry properly. She knew that look: he was gobsmacked, and Hermione realised he hadn't even considered that Ron would have to know about them, because this wasn't the invitation she'd thought it was.

He hadn't asked her to stay because he wanted to come home to her every day, because he was happier when she was there, because he wanted to begin and end every day with her, because he wanted her in his bed. He'd asked her for some other reason, and Hermione had a pretty good idea what it was.

He'd asked her to stay so he could keep an eye on her.

"Hm," Harry said.

She turned back to the stove, a solid, heavy cold where the warmth had been. Wiping her eyes, Hermione bustled unnecessarily: she peeked in on the chicken, prodded the potatoes with a fork, pushed the sprouts around in the pot.

"How about this," Hermione said finally. "I'll ignore the fact that you just made an offer that you didn't entirely mean to make, and are obviously conflicted over whether you're really ready to take things further, and I won't fuss or say we need to talk about it, if you'll tell me just one thing. And tell me the truth."

She turned to look at Harry then, and it hurt. His eyes were on the floor and his lips were pressed tight, and she wanted to slap him and hug him all at once.

She reached out, put her fingers under his chin, and forced it up so that he was looking into her eyes. "What are you protecting me from?"

*

It was a weekday afternoon, and the train was crowded, packed with people heading home from their jobs. Sarah had wanted to travel this way, and Ron was completely willing. He had not the slightest desire to use a quicker, faster, more efficient wizarding mode of transport. They would get there soon enough.

It was inevitable, of course, and something he really should have seen coming. It was almost Christmas, and this was what people did at Christmas: they visited family. Whether they wanted to or not.

But he had a feeling yesterday's trip to the Burrow was directly to blame for what they were doing right now, today. She'd probably been thinking about it for a while, but hadn't felt comfortable bringing it up until he had.

"I'm glad you were up for this," Sarah was saying. "It's better we do it now, before it gets any closer to the holiday, and there's aunts and uncles and cousins to deal with."

"Hmm," Ron said. He wasn't so sure about that. He could get lost among aunts and uncles and cousins. But today, just him and Sarah and Sarah's parents, staring at each other over tea and little cakes. . . something was going to go wrong. Horribly. Ron just knew it.

"Is your brother going to be there?" he asked, somewhat hopefully. But only somewhat.

"No, I don't think so," Sarah said. "He likes to keep to his digs until the last possible moment. There aren't too many birds to pull in Little Whinging, you know."

"Oh, I don't know about that," Ron said, giving her a lewd grin. When she grinned back, he leaned in and kissed her. The lady across the aisle rustled her Times reproachfully.

A while later, Ron asked thoughtfully, "Does Piers really date a lot of women?"

"God, no. But he likes to try."

They walked down the street hand-in-hand. Sarah had suggested a cab, as her house was two miles away, but Ron had rejected that, saying that it was a nice day - well, not actually raining - and that the walk would do them good.

Sarah had given him an 'I know exactly what you're trying to do' look, buttoned up her coat, and they were off.

Ron swung her hand and looked around at the neighborhood. The narrow streets, the perfect gardens and perfect houses, the same-same-bloody-sameness of it all. It wasn't natural. He wondered if he would recognise the Dursleys' old house if he saw it. He'd been there enough times, yeah, but never approached it like this. Never seen it as just one among many.

He started wondering, then, if there were quiet hells like Harry's lying behind any of these doors, up these perfectly groomed garden paths. It's not a question of 'if', he thought a minute later. It's a question of how many.

He gave Sarah's hand a squeeze, hoping she hadn't lived one of them. He knew she didn't exactly get on with her parents - 'They're very, very Tory,' she'd said once, and while he wasn't sure exactly what that meant, her tone led him to think it wasn't a good thing. But there was not getting on and then there was not getting on. . . .

"So your job's the same, you're an investment banker. I'm not sure where you should work - if you want to pick somewhere they'd like," Ron nodded vigorously, "we should go with somewhere a bit prestigious, Barclay's, somewhere like that. Same for school, let's go with the LSE - London School of Economics - they'll be impressed, but it's safe because they don't know anything about it really. You live with your best friend who works for the CID -"

"What if they ask me about up-and-coming stocks, that sort of thing?" Ron interrupted. "I don't know anything about your exchange. . . ."

"Easy. You're not at liberty to discuss it. And I'll cut in and imply that it's rude of them to try and get free investment advice from a guest. And that'll end it, trust me."

"Okay." Ron took a breath. "We're almost there, aren't we?"

"We are." Sarah gave him a reassuring smile, and tucked her arm through his. "It'll be fine. Just don't magic anything, and it'll be fine."

"You're not worried?"

"Nope." A broad grin. "Terrified. Come on, here's our gate."

*

He had got this so wrong. He'd known a row was coming, he'd been formulating his defences, but he might as well throw them all away. Trust her to see past everything to the one thing that mattered.

What are you protecting me from?

And there was the choice, right there, right in front of him. Tell her, and keep her, and drag her into all of this? Tell her, take her by the hand, and pull her back into the darkness?

On trial for secrets, truth the only route to the mercy of the court. . . And she would have to know everything, and she would have to help, and she would have to get her law made at the same time, no matter how much of the world was dead bloody set against her.

Right and easy. Right hurts, sometimes. Protection is pain, sometimes.

And he'd done enough worrying about the people he loved for a lifetime.

Harry stepped away, and her hand fell. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said.

"Of course you don't," Hermione said. "Of course you don't." She was shaking with anger and blinking back tears. She turned her back to him, and gave the pot on the stove one last, furious stir. "These are ready, and the chicken and potatoes should be ready to eat in ten more minutes." She propped the spoon against the rim of the pot. "As you can imagine, I've suddenly got things to do."

And she was gone.

*

"See, that wasn't so bad."

"No," Ron said thoughtfully, "it wasn't. How about that." He considered. "I think maybe they liked me."

"No," Sarah said, and she kissed his cheek, taking the sting away. "They didn't. They were just being pathologically polite."

"Oh. I'm sorry." And he was, he realised. He wanted to be approved of. "But they didn't figure out the wizard thing, did they?"

Sarah laughed. "No. They just think you're odd. Never in a million years would it cross their minds that you're," she waved a hand, "magic."

They reached Ron's building and took the stairs to the flat. It was quiet in the corridor, and there was no sound coming from inside, not the low hum of noise from the wireless, or the rise and fall of voices, or anything that would suggest that it was occupied. Ron unlocked the door with his wand and let them in.

The flat wasn't empty, though. Harry was sitting at the table, just sitting there. The room was too dark, even though the lights were on, and there was a horrible burnt smell.

Something was wrong. Ron dropped Sarah's hand and crossed the room, slowing down as he approached Harry. Ron didn't want to make a big deal of it, especially not in front of Sarah - Harry wouldn't thank him for that - but if he was sick again. . . .

"All right, Harry?"

"Yeah," Harry said, not looking at Ron, "fine." He pushed himself up from the chair, and Ron reckoned he was on his way out of the room.

"Listen, mate," Ron said, shifting position a bit - not blocking Harry in or anything, but making it just a little harder for Harry to walk away from him. "If there's something I can do -"

There was a noise at the door. It wasn't a polite knock. Harry and Ron exchanged glances, and both began moving; Ron managed to get there first. He looked through the peephole. The person out there was vaguely familiar -

"Let me in, you freaks, I want to talk to my sister."

Ah. Ron looked back at Sarah. Red was creeping up her face. "Do you want to see him?" Ron asked quietly.

"No, but I should. I will." She gestured helplessly. "I'm so sorry."

"Hey," Ron said, "it's okay." He reached out a hand and she came and took it, and was there at his side when he opened the door.

"What do you want, Piers?" Sarah was suddenly every inch the older sister.

"Mum rang to tell me who'd been round," he said. "Imagine how surprised I was. Here I thought we had an understanding."

"I don't know where you got that idea," Sarah said. "You told me what you thought. I didn't agree. End of story."

"You didn't tell me you didn't agree," Piers said.

Sarah shrugged. "Didn't see a reason." Piers opened his mouth, but she overrode him. "So what did you do, Piers? Go round to my flat, and when we weren't there, bully Mai Li into giving you my boyfriend's address? Class, Piers, really class. If you were really so concerned about me, you could've rung me sometime in the past three months - oh, but you'd forgot all about it til you talked to Mum, hadn't you?"

"Listen, Sarah," he said, his gaze flicking to Ron, "why don't we go somewhere and talk-"

"No thanks," she said. "I don't think we need to. I think I have a much better idea of who my friends are than you do. But I do think you should go."

Piers stared for a minute, his little eyes going comically wide. His mouth fell open. "Did they make you one of them? They did, didn't they? Oh my God -"

Sarah sighed. "No, Piers."

"Aha!" he yelled. "You just admitted it. You know what freaks they are."

"Like I said," Sarah returned, "I know more about my friends than you do."

Piers folded his arms, and addressed Ron for the first time. "Tell her everything, then? Tell her how my best friend died?"

Silence. The loud, echoing kind. Ron hadn't, of course. He'd never got that far.

"He did." That was Harry, who thought he had, because Ron had let him think it. He stepped forward, and Ron realised that the open door had been blocking him from Piers's sight. "But if you want to talk about it, you should talk to me."

There was fear and fury on Piers's face, and Ron could see it was bravado that let him step forward, towards Harry, crossing the threshold into their flat for the first time. "Potter."

"He was your friend, and you do deserve to know what happened," Harry said. His words were quiet and calm, but Ron knew his face, knew he was stretched so, so tight. Instinctively, Ron slid and arm around Sarah, but she was stiff against him. Maybe from fear, maybe from anger, maybe both.

"The wizard who killed my parents never stopped coming after me," Harry went on. "He took Dudley and my uncle because he thought he could get me to do something for him that way. I did it, he killed them anyway." His face closed. "Your sister would be safer if she didn't know me. You're right about that."

"Liar," Piers said. Then, more loudly, "You're lying, oh, think you're so special, don't you? Bad wizards chasing you, your whole life! Oh no, it wasn't me, it was that evil man that follows me around that no-one ever sees!"

"Piers," Ron said, because someone had to stop this.

He thought something cracked, somewhere.

But Piers didn't listen, didn't hear Ron, didn't hear anything. Ron remembered that Dudley and his friends used to beat Harry up, and he wondered if Piers had slipped back into feeling he had some power over Harry, that he was in control; or maybe he just thought that if he yelled loud enough, someone would come and take Harry away.

"You set a snake on us when we were kids, could've killed us then, and you get away with it, scot-free! Then you get a little older, learn a few more freak tricks, and you set a monster on him! He nearly died in that alley, and what happens to you? Nothing!

"They knew what you were, and you hated them. You killed them, and you as good as killed your aunt, and -"

Ron saw it in Harry's face a second before it happened; he pushed Sarah behind him, between him and the wall, and closed his eyes.

It was the light fixtures that went. When Ron opened his eyes, the flat was dark, illuminated only by reflections of the city shining through the window. Piers was gone. In the silence, Ron thought he heard the door to the staircase slam.

"Lumos," Ron said, and then was suddenly unsure that magic was what he should have done just then. Sarah hadn't stirred from behind him. Ron could hear Harry trying to slow his breathing; in the wand-light, it was almost like he was vibrating along the edges.

Harry stood there a second longer. He caught Ron's eyes, but Ron couldn't read the look he gave him - was it anger? was it apology? - and then he, too, was gone.

Sarah stepped out from behind Ron, her footsteps crunching on glass. She was unscratched, thank Merlin.

"Sarah -"

"Piers talks a good talk, but you see who he's worried about in the end, don't you?" She gestured toward the empty space where he'd stood.

"Sarah -"

She held up a hand. "Not right now, please. What we need to do right now is find my brother, and shut him up. Hopefully before he thinks to pull out his mobile. And then we can sit down and you can talk all you want. I daresay you'll have plenty to tell me."

*

The rooftop was cold, but that was fine. Good, even. Harry was early, but that was all right. No-one could see him, even if there were still people in the building who had not yet gone home for the night; and the more he watched, the more he saw, the more he would learn.

He was in one of the surveillance locations he and Dean had scouted out that afternoon, tucked against a chimney, wearing his Invisibility Cloak. He had chosen the building behind Burke's shop, because if there were a delivery tonight, it would surely come in through the back. And if any interesting customers happened to drop in, there was a very good chance they'd choose the back door over the front.

Harry watched, trying to focus on nothing but the job at hand, trying to let the darkness and the chill of brick against his back root him to this place. Someone three doors down popped out long enough to shove something into a rubbish bin. Someone four doors down got an owl. People walked through the alley occasionally, but didn't stop off anywhere; Harry had to strain his eyes to see some of them, moving only in shadows.

Trying to focus, but not particularly succeeding. . . .

Hermione was furious with him. Ron probably was too. Harry reckoned he deserved it, but why couldn't Ron have picked another girl? Why did he have to throw himself into a relationship that was sure to be complicated and messy from the very beginning?

Why couldn't Hermione let the world be, for once?

People are who they are, Harry. And now. . . now they're remembering who you are.

Dean showed up, bang on time. "Harry? You there?"

Harry pulled the cloak away from his head.

"Cold up here, isn't it?"

Harry nodded. Dean was busily warming his coat and shoes and gloves with charms.

"Seen anything?"

"No." Harry pushed off the chimney, stretched, and turned to Dean. "You want to go watch the front?"

"Okay." Dean fitted in an earpiece, and Harry did the same. A moment later, Dean was out of sight, and speaking to him through it. "Okay, I'm in position. All quiet this side - looks like he's closed up for the night."

"He always looks closed, these days," Harry pointed out.

"True."

They watched. By the laws of things, there should have been nights of this, weeks of this. But luck decided to pay them a visit, for once, and there were only hours.

It was shortly after midnight when Harry saw the owl, gliding down to a window ledge on the first floor of Burke's shop. He imagined it tapping its beak on the glass. A light went on upstairs; a minute later, there was light downstairs. And then the owl and its package were let inside.

"He's got something," Harry told Dean.

"What?"

"Don't know. But the window's open and I'm going to find out."

"Harry. . . ."

"Going silent now. I'll report when I can. Stay put until you hear from me."

Harry Apparated down to the alley, still wearing his cloak. He went to the window, his feet carefully quiet, and looked inside. The package was on the floor in the middle of the room, a much larger box, now - it had been shrunk for transport, obviously. Burke was kneeling in front of it, checking through the contents; Harry couldn't see the interior of it at all. A minute later, Burke, apparently satisfied, pulled an envelope out of his pocket and held it out for the owl.

The opportunity would be gone, very shortly. He Disillusioned himself, just in case Burke had means of seeing through Invisibility Cloaks. Then, willing himself silent, Harry hoisted himself up and through the window.

His feet met the floor without a thump, thankfully. Keeping against the wall - he was less likely to be bumped into accidentally that way - Harry got as close to the box as he could. In the box were plain bottles, filled with something very dark red. Yes.

When the delivery owl left, Burke snapped his fingers, and his own bird appeared. He went over to a desk - Harry held his breath as he passed close by - and wrote something on a piece of parchment. A note telling the buyer his goods were here, probably, and hopefully encouraging him to pick them up immediately.

Burke's owl left, and the window closed. Harry settled in to wait.

It was a good sign that Burke went back to his desk, rather than back to bed; it meant chances were good he was expecting more company tonight. But Harry wished he would've found somewhere else to wait. There were boxes stacked all around the room, and interesting-looking bottles on the shelves; Harry wanted to see what was in them all. Dragon's blood might be legal, but how many things in this room weren't? He toyed with the idea of knocking Burke out and having a good snoop, but decided against it. Whoever showed up for the transaction needed to see Burke there, needed to think things were perfectly normal and be given the chance to talk perfectly normally - and, maybe, give something away.

The only sound in the room was the scritch-scratch of Burke's quill on parchment, and Harry was growing light-headed from the effort of keeping his breathing shallow and silent. The room was strangely, oppressively hot, particularly for December, and Harry felt almost as if he were swimming in the air. He was too close to Burke's desk, but he was afraid to move, afraid to make the slightest sound. Burke might be old, but that meant he had been around a long, long time.

A crack, and then a deferential, "Mister Burke, sir?"

"Ah, yes." Burke rose from his chair and came forward, towering over his visitor. "This is it," he said, indicating the box. "You have the payment?"

"Yes, sir. It is here, sir."

Burke spread the contents of a little bag out on his desk and counted them. "Thank you. You may take the merchandise to your master."

Bollocks. It was over, over that fast, and Harry had learnt absolutely nothing - it was now or never - "Dean," he whispered, and then, pointing his wand at Burke, "Stupefy!"

Burke fell, and Harry ripped off his cloak and trained his wand on Burke's visitor. In an instant, Dean was there and doing exactly the same thing.

"Shite," Dean said. "An elf."

Harry nodded grimly. There wasn't much they could do with an elf. A house-elf couldn't be bullied, couldn't be bought. . . no matter what he and Dean said or did, the elf couldn't rat out its master. It was magically impossible. Of course, if the elf wanted to, it could give hints, but Harry had met precious few elves willing to work against their families. Dobby was the exception to every rule. There was really only one thing they could hope to get.

"Who are you working for?" Dean asked.

There was a chance they were facing that one-in-a-million disloyal elf, or even a free one. There were more of those about these days, and some chose to turn their freedom to criminal purpose, but Harry doubted that this was one. People who used the Dark Mark had no use for servants that could give them away.

"Misters is knowing better! Misters is knowing elf is not being able to answer!"

Harry and Dean exchanged glances. Right. Not a free elf, and not new to this game, either.

"Let's try another one," Dean said. "Where are you taking this?"

The elf shook its head from side to side. Its eyes were huge and wide, yes, but Harry could tell: it was not terrified.

Dean kept up the questions. "Have you been here before?"

"Do you know what this is?"

"What does your master want with it?"

Finally: "Do you want to go up before Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures? Do you?"

"Misters cannot! Misters is knowing better! Elf is invited into shop, is buying legal goods! Misters is having no cause!"

"Very aware of his rights, isn't he?" Dean said quietly.

Harry pushed ahead of Dean and knelt down in front of the elf. "Hello," he said. "We've never met, but you've heard of me, I expect. I'm Harry Potter. Oh good," he went on, as the elf shrunk back, "you have."

He didn't have to fake the edge to his voice; it was there, hard and dangerous. "You know I've done a lot of things that were supposed to be impossible, then. You know how I got this scar? Killing curse. And you know why Voldemort isn't around anymore, I'm sure. And there's something else I bet you've heard, but maybe you've forgot - I freed a house elf who wasn't mine." He waited while that sunk in. Now those eyes were terrified. "His name's Dobby, I'm sure you've heard of him. The elf who gets paid?"

The elf threw itself at Harry's feet, banging its head on the floor. "Please sir, please! Tarky is not a bad elf! Tarky does what he is told! Tarky does not deserve freedom!"

"Maybe not," Harry said. "Maybe not. But if you don't want it, you've got to keep a secret for us. You can't tell your master we were here tonight. And if you ever see us again, somewhere else, you can't run off and warn master. Got it?"

"Yes sir! Yes sir!" The elf was calmer, but still lying prostrate, still trembling.

"Get up," Harry said, "and do what you came to do."

The elf scrambled to its - his - feet, ran over to the box of dragon's blood, and gripped the corner of it with his little hand. With a crack!, he and the box were gone.

"Well," Harry said, "we did what we could. We got the elf's name."

"I could've slipped a tracking amulet in that box, while he was flipping out," Dean said.

"And he'd have ended up dead."

And here was another reason Harry liked working with Dean: there were too many Aurors who would've shrugged the life of a house-elf off, but Dean said, "Yeah. You're right. Bad idea."

Harry leaned back against a table, taking deep breaths in, slow breaths out. Part of him had wanted to shake that elf until he told - or bully him into beating himself up. Part of him still wished he had.

He realised, with a sort of detachment he didn't often manage, that he was beginning to crack along the stress lines.

"Shall we have a quick look-round?" Dean didn't wait for an answer, but began opening cupboards and poking through boxes. "This place smells awful, what do you reckon it is?"

"I'm going to guess that he mixes up potions in his spare time," Harry said, "strong ones. Dark ones. Who knows what we're breathing in."

Dean shuddered, and kept snooping. Harry still didn't join him, because he was beginning to realise that it wasn't just stress that had his body on edge.

This job was about to nosedive in the same way that their last one had.
He couldn't do that to Dean again. And he couldn't be forced into rest and recuperation again, or worse, into a hospital bed, or even worse, into some sort of heavy-going observation/hunt for pernicious magical influences. Not right now. He didn't have time.

Harry gave up on the deep breathing. "Dean, will you be in charge of finding out who Tarky belongs to? You could go talk to Dobby - if he doesn't know, he could probably find out."

Dean turned to look at him, obviously surprised. "Yeah, okay. . ."

"And you'll owl me?"

"Why -?"

"There's something I need take care of," Harry said. "And you'll be better off on your own."

Dean, who was a very good Auror, studied Harry. "All right," he said finally.

"Thanks," Harry said, and left while he still could.

*

A/N: Many thanks to Cynthia Black, Dorotea, Paracelsus, and Sahiya for beta.

15. Fifteen

Fifteen

*

Tom was a very good innkeeper, Harry discovered. When famous guests appeared at his establishment in the wee hours with no luggage and looking distinctly worse for the wear, he asked no questions and offered no comments. He simply handled what needed to be handled, and managed to seem both friendly and completely uninterested whilst doing it.

Harry followed Tom up the creaky old stairs to a room on the second floor. It had been a bad idea to Apparate here, considering the state of his head, the kind of bad idea that could have taken him miles off-course, and brought about interestingly rearranged appendages. But he'd been tired and sick and unhappy and hadn't particularly cared. Now that he'd made it here, Harry was beginning to feel glad that he had made it here, with all parts in place and accounted for, even.

He leaned against the wall, only half watching as Tom readied the room, lighting lamps, turning down the bed, even starting a fire in the grate. The moment the door had closed behind Tom, Harry crossed to the bed and let himself fall across it. This was what he was here for - he'd wanted a bed, but hadn't wanted to go back to the flat. Ron might be there, and they would have to talk, and he wasn't up to that right now.

Hermione definitely wouldn't be there. For the first time in days, she wouldn't be there. He wasn't ready for that, either.

Harry took off his glasses, and, moving only an arm, put them as far from him on the bed as he could manage. He would sleep for eight hours - that magic number - and then he would get up, whether he felt like it or whether he didn't, and he would get on with things.

He went to sleep, and as had become usual, he didn't sleep well.

At some point in the night Harry got under the covers, but he never took off his shoes and he never turned out the lamp burning beside the bed. Which was good, because sometime in the night he woke up from a dream, bolt upright and sweating, and if the room had been dark it would've been that much worse until he'd realised where he was.

His body and his mind gave in, finally switching off and staying off for a sight more than eight hours.

*

The elves were in the kitchens. It was just after breakfast, and the huge room was full of small little bodies moving left, right, and everywhere. Dean stood in the doorway and thought mainly about sausages. Some of the best meals of his life had come out of this room. . . . He closed his eyes, breathing in. It would be unprofessional, wouldn't it, for his first words to Dobby to be on the subject of leftovers? Terribly unprofessional. But if he waited and brought it up at the end of the interview, surely everything would be cleared away. . . . With the feeling that this, indeed, was what it meant to be a grown-up, Dean shut the wonderful sizzly smell out of his brain and began looking intently at the elves, to see which was Dobby.

It didn't take very long. Dobby was the one wearing all the clothes, and oh, what clothes. Dean's eyes were dazzled by clashes of texture and colour and pattern. He crossed the room. "Dobby?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Hi. I'm Dean Thomas. I was in Gryffindor a couple years ago." Dobby nodded vigorously, as if he remembered. Dean was surprised, and a little pleased. "I'm an Auror now, I work with Harry Potter."

Dobby's entire body perked up at the name. "You is working with Master Harry?" The elf looked round Dean, as if hoping to find Harry hidden behind him.

"Yes. We need some information, and he told me you were just the elf to come to."

Dobby was obviously tremendously flattered, and - Dean would've thought it impossible - drew himself up even more. "Anything for Harry Potter and the associate of Harry Potter, sir."

Dean looked around. "Is there somewhere we can talk quietly?"

"Yes, sir!" Dobby indicated that Dean should follow him, and Dean did. They crossed the kitchen, busy elves navigating smoothly around them as they did so, and went out a door to the right of the great hearth. Dean had made his fair share of midnight food raids over the years, so he was familiar with the main kitchen, but now they were in a part of the house-elves' domain that he had never seen. The corridor was narrow and twisty, but well-lit by torches, and they passed a lot of closed doors, a room with alpine heaps of laundry, and finally went up a flight of stairs and out a small stone door.

Grey winter sky overhead, and beautiful spring-like warmth all around: Dobby had led him to a greenhouse.

"Is this suiting, sir?"

"It's perfect," Dean said, even though it wasn't. He would have preferred a smaller room, where he could see all four walls and be certain beyond a doubt that he and Dobby were alone. Here tomato plants and asparagus stalks grew tall enough to shadow a man, much less a house-elf - hell, one of those raspberry bushes could conceal a house-elf. "Thank you. I'll just do a distortion charm, too, to cover our conversation in case anyone happens to walk in."

Dobby nodded, his giant green eyes solemn, while Dean performed the charm. He re-pocketed his wand, and snagged a small, dirty stool to sit on, so he wouldn't have to keep looking so far down to look the elf in the eyes.

"Can I get you a seat as well, Dobby?"

Dobby hesitated. "Dobby. . . Dobby will sit, sir, but Dobby will get his own seat." He bustled over to a stool that was easily as big as he was, brought it close to Dean, and climbed up on it.

Dean planned to take Dobby into full confidence, because Harry trusted Dobby unreservedly. That sort of trust from Harry was hard to come by, and worth something. He wondered if he would ever have it; if he and Harry would ever be that kind of team, if Harry would ever put himself utterly in Dean's hands.

He himself did the reverse every day, of course. Even when it didn't feel right, it somehow did, because Harry was Harry and it really couldn't be any other way. Like right now, today, when Harry was obviously sick, possibly poisoned, and off doing something outside of orders and surely dangerous, here Dean was, doing his part.

And Dobby was waiting. "There's an elf mixed up in some business that isn't very nice," Dean said. "We don't want any harm to come to him; we just want to know who he's working for."

"Many masters is using house-elves for bad things," Dobby said. He sighed, and his ears drooped. "And many house-elves is not caring."

"Because they love their masters?"

"Yes," Dobby said, nodding, his eyes sad and his squeaky little voice serious. "But some house-elves is too good at doing what they is told. And they is not seeing why they should care."

Dean understood. Every elf might have a master (well, almost), but every elf also had its own mind, and some elves were good and kind and some were not. Dean knew how much Dobby loved freedom; he thought, looking at him now, that the elf might love goodness even more. "We don't want any harm to come to this elf," Dean said. "We just want to know who he's working for. If I tell you his name, can you find out who his master is?"

"Dobby will find out," the elf said.

*

Dean had never been in this room back when it had been Dumbledore's office, but he felt safe in assuming there hadn't been quite this much plaid about the place then. But perhaps nothing else had changed; there were all sorts of shiny silvery gadgets around the room that didn't make him think of Professor McGonagall, somehow, and the wall was covered in paintings that had surely been there forever.

He settled into a tartan-upholstered chair. "Thank you for seeing me, Professor McGonagall," he said. "And for allowing me to see Dobby."

She waved a hand. "Not at all. It makes me happy to see my former students gainfully employed. Biscuit?"

"Thanks," Dean said, reaching a hand into the tin. The house-elves had indeed cleared breakfast away by the time he and Dobby had got done talking, and while Dobby had pressed food on him afterward, it had just been tea and scones, and who could fill up properly without at least a little protein? Of course this wasn't a sausage either, but it was food, and how many people kept sausages in their offices?

Not enough, he decided, nearly cracking a tooth on a Ginger Newt.

Pleased to see him or not, the Headmistress wasn't one for spending a lot of time on chit-chat. "What can I do for you, Mr. Thomas?"

Dean hesitated. He'd come up here on a whim. He wanted to speak with the Care of Magical Creatures teacher, or the Potions Master, or the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. . . at least, he thought he did. He didn't know who any of those people even were, anymore. Professor McGonagall could see to introductions, of course, but still. . . a person wasn't trustworthy just by virtue of working at Hogwarts. That was a fact.

But it couldn't hurt to at least find out. . . ."Professor?" he asked. "Who's teaching Care of Magical Creatures now?"

McGonagall sighed. "Well that you should ask that question, Thomas. After Professor Grubbly-Plank was taken from us so suddenly -"

"Oh no," Dean said. He remembered her, she'd been an all right sort. "Was it one of the animals?"

"No, no," the professor shook her head, "a friend of hers came into some money, I believe, and they've gone to the West Indies to study the effects of Shrake on local fishing or some such."

Or the effects of fruity rum drinks and steel band music on elderly witches, Dean thought with a grin.

"As I was saying, we were left with a vacancy that's only just been filled. I suspect his family doesn't even know yet." The Headmistress smiled. "Our newest member of faculty is another Gryffindor - Charlie Weasley."

*

Bundled up, Dean crossed the grounds to the caretaker's cottage with a bounce in his step. This was the best sort of coincidence, the sort that only happened occasionally in this job but made you feel like things were really falling into place when it did. He'd never actually met Charlie Weasley, but it was hard to share a House with Ron and Ginny and Fred and George and Percy without feeling like you knew all of the Weasleys quite well.

Dean knew a few things about Charlie: he was a good Quidditch player, he knew a lot about dragons, and Ron worshipped him just a little bit less than he did his brother Bill. (This last bit he'd got from Ginny.) He was as trustworthy a magical creatures expert as Dean could hope to find, then, and if Dean weren't a six-foot-something grown-up, he might just have found himself skipping on his way across the grass.

It wasn't until after Dean knocked on the cottage door that he thought, oh Christ. He'd got so used to being around Ron, whom Ginny had thoroughly schooled into staying out of her love life, that he'd forgot her other brothers might see him first and foremost as someone who'd dated their little sister, and not made her terribly happy.

But that was okay. That was what made his luck here today real, and kept all of this from being the sort of thing he'd shortly wake up from.

The person who opened the door was one-hundred-percent Weasley, hair and freckles and all. Dean introduced himself, mentioning his name, his job, Harry Potter, Gryffindor, and Charlie's youngest brother, and leaving Charlie's sister completely out of it.

"Nice to meet you," Charlie said. "Step over the Diricawl, and come on in."

The room was littered with boxes. Charlie said that he had a teakettle, somewhere, he was sure, but Dean told him not to worry about it. "I only need a minute, really, I'd just like to get your opinion on something."

Charlie gave him a 'go on' gesture.

"Dragon's blood has come up lately in a case we're on, and I was wondering - if someone had a lot of it, I mean a lot of it, what would you guess they'd want to do with it?"

"Hmmm," Charlie said, tapping table with a finger. "There's tonnes of things they might want it for, I should think."

Dean nodded. "Yeah, that's the problem. We've looked through all these books, and the possibilities just go on and on. That's why I thought, if I could just ask someone knowledgeable, get their opinion, you know, gut reaction, maybe it would help."

"No pressure, eh? Let's see then. . . my first thought is, someone could use it to kick off an explosion. A big one. Or they could power any of a thousand spells, make 'em self-sustaining, even." Charlie thought a bit more, tapping that finger again. "I don't think there's a creature alive with more magic in it. Those dragons back in Romania probably have more magic in their front claws than we could ever dream of." He gave Dean a lopsided grin. "Well, me and you, anyway. That partner of yours, now. . . ."

"Yeah," Dean said, smiling a little back.

"It doesn't generally take a lot of dragon's blood to do anything. So I think. . . I think you need to be thinking big."

Something cold skittered up Dean's spine. When he left a few minutes later, he was in no danger of skipping.

*

Harry had never seen the village by the light of day, but he didn't have any trouble finding his way. There was no chance of mistaking the house; it sat on its hill, still lofty and imposing, despite all the work done by time and decay. And he knew where the church and its graveyard would be, just at the bottom of that hill, so Harry began to walk, letting the dead house guide him.

It would be dusk, soon.

He had Apparated from one pub to another - or technically, to a spot behind another - because he knew that magic would only get him so close. The Ministry owned the house now, and while the graves in their yard were still the property of the Church of England, he knew that they too would be well protected.

As they should be. If Voldemort had will and means, if he had created or borrowed flesh, if he was a spirit on the air, he would come to this place, sooner or later. And if he had what Harry was afraid he had, the stone that had once been Nagini's (and if Voldemort didn't have it, where was it? Not in the jar where it should have been, and Harry couldn't make himself believe that phoenix flame could turn rock to ash, he simply couldn't), he would come here to try to work one of his perverted miracles. Again.

Harry didn't have a strategy and he hadn't worked out any tactics, but that was all right; he'd got by without them before. Often. His life had allowed for very little in terms of forward planning. And this time, at least, he wasn't dragging anyone else into anything. No-one would get hurt if things went wrong.

He curled his hands in his pockets. No, he did have a plan, and it was clear and succinct. Go, see if anyone's been mucking about, deal with it if they have.

No outline points, no charts, no timetables, no diagrams. She might not count it a plan, but it was good enough for him.

He reached the foot of the hill, and the church. It was small, stone, and old. It seemed larger in his memory, but maybe that was just an illusion brought on by fear and dark and shadow. Harry walked around the building, through the gravelled, empty carpark, and stepped out onto short winter grass. The cemetery was bare and almost golden in the late afternoon sun; the yew trees were still there, still dark and forbidding, but the grass and the vines that had been tall and thick were now dead and dry.

It made it easier. It was a graveyard, but it no longer looked liked a place where someone had died.

He opened the heavy, rusty gate and stepped through. It closed behind him with a clank, and something moved at the back of his mind, an urgent insistent little thought that wanted to push itself to the front and take up all the space in his brain, if only he'd let it. You don't want to be here. You want to be somewhere else.

Harry pushed it aside, and kept walking. That belonged to the Ministry, he was sure.

It was easy to spot the Riddles' headstones. Theirs were the tallest, six feet of solid marble each, and by far the most ostentatious. Harry walked towards them quickly, weaving around graves, and then it hit him.

He'd been expecting something else, he'd known that Ministry mind-trick wouldn't be all, but still, it took him by surprise. Not a tickle this time, but a pounding, and not just his head, but everywhere, his blood, his limbs, his heart. . . . He had to go. Ron needed him, needed him right now. He had to go. Hermione needed him. . . .

Harry shook his head, hard. He'd actually started to leave - he'd taken himself almost to the gate. He would have to do better than this. Back to Tom Riddle, Sr's grave he went, slowly this time, shouting down the thoughts that didn't belong inside his head until they were simply quiet background chatter, indecipherable and able to be ignored. Beside the headstone, Harry pushed himself to his knees. It was a little like moving through water.

Time to think. What else would the Ministry have done? Probably not much, Harry decided, at least, not much aimed at the general public. They wouldn't need to. He knew what he was dealing with, and how to handle it, and he was still having to actively push down the desire to get the hell out of here. Anything more - anything really enthusiastic - would be more specific, more targeted. Probably triggered only by a Dark Mark.

All the same, Harry was careful to stay just outside the imaginary line running from headstone to footstone. He wouldn't physically cross onto the grave itself unless he absolutely had to.

He didn't expect to find evidence of a great bloody cauldron being dragged about, because nothing ever really happened the same way twice. But then when it came right down to it, he probably wasn't going to find so much as a muddy bootprint - spirits tended not to leave those, and figments of his paranoid imagination definitely didn't.

And that's what he should want this to be, wasn't it? That's what he should want to find. Nothing. Nothing physical, nothing magical, nothing at all. He should be hoping against hope for it, but if he didn't find anything, what would he do? Keep on going, keep on looking, wherever he could think to look?

Probably. That was the problem with things that were all in your head. There was no way to know when to stop.

"Lovely day, isn't it?"

Harry whipped his head round. Standing at the cemetery gate was an old man with thick, white hair and a long, black coat. Slowly, warily, a hand curling around the wand in his pocket, Harry stood.

"Yes," he said, and then added feelingly, "but cold."

"We get very few visitors," the man said, and even though he wasn't close enough to read his expression, Harry could hear the curiosity plain in his voice, "it's good to see someone paying their respects."

The only reply Harry could think of was an 'mmm,' but it was fairly impossible to make that carry halfway across a graveyard. He didn't want to move, and run the risk of undoing the work he'd done in getting here; neither was the man was making any effort to open the gate and come closer. Because he knew better, knew the cemetery would mess with his head? Harry would have thought Muggles wouldn't consciously recognise the effects of the Ministry's spells, and would therefore never realise the need to be wary.

"I'm just on my way to open up the church - I'm the vicar, forgot to say - you're welcome to come inside and warm up, if you like." There was a pause. "When you're ready, of course."

"Thank you," Harry said, polite and noncommittal. The man waved a hand in farewell, and headed down the short path towards the church.

Maybe he was the vicar, and maybe he wasn't. Harry supposed that if any Muggle would realise there was something funny about the place, it would be the man in charge of it. But even if he really was the vicar, that didn't necessarily mean he was in possession of his own mind. . . . Didn't vicars usually go around quoting scripture? Didn't they mention God at least once in every conversation? Harry hadn't met all that many, but he thought they probably did.

Harry turned back to the grave, wondering if he were being spied on through stained glass. He knelt, the ground cold through his jeans, and began searching the ground with eyes only, not touching anything. He moved along the outside of the grave, from head to foot, looking, looking, looking -

There was nothing to see. Nothing but dead winter grass, brown and ugly.

Harry rocked back on his heels. So, on to stage two. Ha. Stage two: maybe he did have outline points, after all. There were a few ways of testing for evidence of magic that were standard practise among Aurors; he was partial to a particular sensing spell, one he knew to be thorough.

Keeping his wand in his pocket, out of sight, Harry closed his eyes, and did the spell. Inside his head was a steady loud hum of information; there was nothing in the world for him but this plot of earth and the things that moved on it, within it, through it. Insects, worms, the occasional small animal. . . .

And nothing that didn't belong. Harry did the spell again.

And again.

Nothing.

Harry steadied himself, slowed his breathing, and said the words and waved his wand one last time. He put everything he had into it; when he stopped, he felt like a twisted-out dishrag, and he couldn't see anything but stars.

But he didn't have to see to know. There was something there, and it was ugly.

Of course there is, Harry thought, stamping down on the little thrill running through him. Some pretty unpleasant Dark Magic had been worked on this spot, seven or eight years ago. That was the one thing he should've been expecting to find a trace of today. All those years had simply made it very hard to sense.

Or was this something else, something newer? Something made so hard to sense by being very well hidden?

Tired, very, very tired, Harry leaned back against a neighboring stone. After a moment he shifted, bringing his head to his knees. So which was it? Clue, or red herring?

In his head, a voice that wasn't his said very sensibly, Well, Harry, maybe it would help to think about the reasons you're here, and whether they're good ones.

All right, he thought back, all right.

So why was he here?

Because a stone snake had spoken to him, and told him that what was supposed to be over wasn't over.

Because idiots were wandering around with things that had once belonged to someone very dangerous, and somebody smart had wanted them caught and out of their hair.

Because people were buying something powerfully magical in the name of the Dark Mark, and he had no idea why.

Because he didn't feel right in his head these days, and if he'd learned one thing in his life, it was that when things didn't feel right, they usually weren't.

Right.

Harry clambered to his feet, one hand on a tombstone for balance. To the voice in his head, he thought, Thanks.

*

Hermione had very definite views on when it was and was not acceptable for one's friends to enter one's place of employment. If one's friend was bearing a missive from the Queen, the Prime Minister, the Minister for Magic, or one's mother?

Acceptable.

If one's friend wandered in with no apparent purpose, sat upon one's desk, and inexpertly began turning one's inkwell into a pepperpot?

Unacceptable, obviously.

Hermione made an annoyed sound, and moved various parchments to safety. Ron elevated the pepperpot, and shook pepper out into his hand. It squelched.

"What do you want, Ron?" She was only allowing his continued presence because it was five-thirty, and her boss had gone home. But she was meeting Roger and Sally-Ann and everyone at six, for a dinner-and-work session that would probably last well into hours of the night when she ought to be in bed, so if Ron actually had a point, it was time he got to it.

"Oh, that's friendly," Ron said.

"But apt," Hermione said. "What is it?"

"Harry," he said. "Is he at your place?"

Hermione schooled her face, keeping it very normal and very, very uninterested. "Why would he be?" Bother, she didn't do nearly as well with her voice - too high, too much emphasis on the 'why.'

Unsurprisingly, though, really, Ron didn't seem to notice. "Because I was hoping he was kipping down with you."

"Excuse me?" Hermione said, higher still, as her world spun crazily and tried to settle itself into one where Ron wanted she and Harry sharing a bed. If she hadn't been a bit sensitive on the subject at the moment, she would've realised that wasn't exactly what he meant.

Ron sighed. "I haven't seen him in two days, and he didn't leave under the best circumstances." He put down her new pepperpot, and wiped his hands on his trousers, leaving two dark smudges. "So if he's not with you -"

"What do you mean, not the best circumstances?"

Ron told her.

"Oh, no," Hermione whispered. Everything felt tight, too tight, and her hands shook with it. She'd spent the past two days pointedly not dialing their flat, pointedly not stopping by, and - with a little less success - pointedly not waiting for her own phone to ring or for Hedwig to swoop through her window. And this, what she'd missed was this.

She wanted to blame Ron, for being with Sarah and setting the whole thing in motion - and he looked like he expected her to, like he blamed himself. But that wasn't fair, and she wouldn't.

She wouldn't blame herself, either, for fighting with Harry earlier on that day. She wouldn't accuse herself of lighting the touchpaper. She wouldn't.

"Piers Polkiss," she said, "is a prat of the first order."

Ron made no argument.

"And the way the Ministry handles Muggle relations, the way it sweeps every mess under the rug -" Hermione stopped, unable to focus long enough to say everything that could be said on that. She looked up at Ron; he was looking down at his hands, one thumb fiddling against the other. "Ron?" She hesitated: this was her other best friend, she could tell him why Harry hadn't been at her place, why he hadn't contacted her and why he wouldn't. She could tell him, and she probably should if they were going to do anything about this, develop any sort of plan . . . .

"Ron, is Sarah all right?"

Ron didn't look up, didn't meet her eyes. "Yeah. We found Piers down at his pub, and she took care of everything. I couldn't decide whether a memory charm would be the best thing I could do or the absolute worst. . . didn't know what she was thinking. . . . But Sarah knew what to do." He smiled briefly. "She told Piers exactly what she would tell their parents about him if he so much as looked like he was going to open his mouth, and what she would tell his flatmate, too. And then she pointed at me and said that I had my own ideas, and she nodded at me, like, 'go ahead, pull out your wand,' and Piers just crumpled. I didn't even have my hand in my pocket yet."

"Good," Hermione said, "that's good."

"Yeah," Ron said, still not looking at her.

He was keeping something back, too, and she wondered what it was. Hermione didn't ask if he and Sarah were all right, because that was not her business (even if sometimes - like now - she had to remind herself that things did not necessarily become her business merely by involving Ron or Harry in some way). Hermione didn't ask if it had all come as a shock to Sarah, or if he had prepared her as he should have, because that wasn't her business either. She asked, instead, a question she very much wished she knew how to answer herself.

"What do we do about Harry?"

"You haven't seen him either? At all?"

Hermione shook her head.

Ron shrugged. "Reckon he's at work?"

"For forty-eight hours straight?"

"It's possible," Ron pointed out.

It was, very. Hermione sighed. And how would he do his job in that frame of mind? How much attention would he pay to trying to keep himself safe? What would he do when it was time to stop, time to pull back, time to rest? Keep going, and going, and going?

"He's got Dean," Ron said.

"He does," Hermione said, and felt a bit better.

*

Ron climbed the stairs of Sarah's building, one nervous foot after another. He and Sarah had sorted out Piers together, yes, they had, but when Piers had gone. . . . They'd stood on the pavement outside the pub, the city noisy and fast around them. She'd been quiet and he'd been quiet, and finally, Ron had said, "Where do you want. . .?"

And Sarah had her arms hugged round herself, and kept them there as she said, "My place. But not tonight. Is that all right?"

"Whatever you want," he'd said.

So now, two days later, Sarah was making dinner, and Ron was bringing wine. And truth. He hoped that he had right amounts and the right sorts of each to turn this into a good evening.

Outside Sarah's door, Ron knocked straight away. No hanging about. He'd had two days of that, two days of waiting and worrying and wondering what he should do, and what he should say, and whether or not he had cocked this up beyond all hope of repair. And while he wished to Merlin he could be doing anything else right now, he didn't want another minute to go by with this left undone.

As the door swung open Ron realized that that, in and of itself, was something pretty extraordinary.

Their hellos were awkward. Ron had decided, earlier, that he would greet her with a kiss on the cheek. Quicker than a hug, assuming less than a kiss on the lips, it offered less opportunity for uncomfortableness all round. He felt large and clumsy as he leaned in, but she didn't pull away, and that was good.

In the kitchen, dinner was in the early, unrecognisable stages, just a little row of spice jars, a heap of vegetables, and a cutting board. Ron deposited the two bottles of red he'd brought on the counter (nine pounds each; going by price and taking current pound-to-Galleon conversion rates into effect, twice as good as any wine he'd ever purchased in his life), and looked consideringly at the bright pink plastic cups in the dish drain.

Sarah followed his eyes, opened a cupboard, and pulled down two wineglasses. "No telling where the corkscrew is," she said, her tone almost-but-not-quite casual. "You'll have to take care of it."

It took a second, but Ron got the point, and he liked it. "No problem," he said, and uncorked the wine with a spell. He poured them each a half-glass. "What're we eating?"

Sarah nodded towards a cookbook on the counter. "It's one of Jamie Oliver's."

Ron reached around Sarah and picked it up. The cover promised an intriguing blend of food and pornography, but, upon further investigation, the book did not deliver. The pork chops looked dead tasty, though.

Leaning against the counter, Sarah sipped the wine and, to Ron's relief, didn't make a face. "How's Harry?" she asked.

"He's. . ." Ron didn't know what to say. After your brother accused him of murder and he lost control and exploded all our lights, he did a runner and hasn't been seen since. But don't worry, he's really innocent, and not violent or dangerous or insane, and you're safe being around us, honest? But editing truth had got them into this mess in the first place. "I don't know," Ron said. "He hasn't been home."

"Has Hermione-"

"Nope."

"Right," Sarah said, with a decisive nod, "Piers is really for it now."

"So. . . you believe Harry, and all?"

"Of course," Sarah said. Putting her wineglass down, she turned to the cutting board, and started on a pepper. "I've no doubt Piers has hold of the wrong end of the stick. He's very, very good at believing only what he wants to. Then, that's easy to do, isn't it, when you only have part of the story."

She said it lightly, without accusation, but Ron knew what she meant. He was getting good - no, not good, but at least fair-to-middling at this stuff.

"Sarah -"

"Do you remember before?" she interrupted. "When I said that you didn't have to tell me anything that was too hard?" Ron nodded, even though she couldn't see it with her back to him. "That was meant to make me sound understanding, and respectful of your personal space," Sarah went on. She shot him a grin over her shoulder. "How'd I do?"

"Very well," Ron assured her.

"Ta," she said. She went quiet, and Ron wondered if it was his turn. He was afraid to take it, if it was; with her in charge of the conversation, things were going better than he'd expected. "But of course," Sarah said, after a moment of silence, "it was pretty self-serving, too."

She was slicing some leafy herb into thin, neat strips, and Ron watched her for a minute. Her hair was tied back in a neat brown ponytail, and her eyes were firmly on her work. "Because you didn't really want to know?" he asked.

"Right." Sarah sighed. "I think it's brilliant that you can do magic. That there's really such a thing as magic, that you lot have this world right beside ours that I get to see."

But, Ron thought.

"But it's scary, thinking about people being able to do things that I can't. All kinds of things, things I probably can't even imagine. Not you," she said, waving her knife briefly in his direction, "but people I don't know." She sighed, and he watched her shoulders rise and fall. "So yeah. You didn't want to say it, and I didn't want to hear it. Can't be too cross with you, can I?"

Ron liked the sound of that, he very much did. He realised that he'd just assumed this would be a fight. Probably because if it had been he and Hermione, they would have turned it into a shouting match days ago.

"I should've told you anyway," Ron said. "I knew -" he hesitated. "Well. I knew that you really needed to know."

"You knew that I knew people who'd died." Sarah said the words calmly, matter-of-factly. She was chopping something else now, still with her back to him, and he wished he could've seen her face, seen how well it matched her voice. This was what mattered more than anything: if she felt safe enough to stay.

"Yes," he said quietly. He took a breath. "I should start at the beginning-"

"No, skip to the end, please." She turned to face him then, her eyes very intent. "Is everything over?"

"Yes," Ron said. "The war's been over more than a year now, and He's gone." He realised she didn't know what he meant by that, and clarified, "No-one's after Harry anymore."

"Good," she said. She took a breath, looked away. "Good."

"Sarah -" He stepped forward and took her hands. "Nobody's going to hurt you. I promise you."

"I'm not worried about me," she said, moving closer. "Well, okay, a little. But it's you I've been worrying about."

"Me?"

"You're Harry's family," she pointed out.

And he wouldn't have it any other way. "Yeah," Ron said.

They stood there together, her head on his chest, his cheek on her hair, and as the seconds ticked by Ron let himself believe for the first time in days that things were going to be all right.

Sarah spoke, after a while. "So the wizard who was after Harry," she said, "was he just. . .somebody on the other side?"

"Erm. He. . . he sort of was the other side."

"Okay," Sarah said, with nervous laugh, "okay. I reckon you can go back to the beginning now."

Ron took a breath, and did.

*

16. Sixteen

Sixteen

*

"Mother of God!"

The flat was small and Dean's legs were long, so he made it to the scene in no time. There was Seamus, a spatula in one hand; there was a cheese toastie, cheese-side-down on the kitchen floor; and there was the small, big-eyed, big-eared, frettingly apologetic creature that Dean had last seen a few hours before and hadn't expected to see again for several days at least.

He had to give it to Dobby. The elf worked fast.

"Hello, Dobby," said Dean, grinning. "Got something for me?"

"Yes, sir! Dobby is reporting, sir!"

"Seamus, would you mind?" Dean nodded towards the back of the flat.

"Oh, no, of course not. Be glad to go starve in my room. You'll give me a nice funeral, won't you?"

"Yeah, I'll hire the mourners and all," Dean called after Seamus. After adjusting the heat on the stove so as not to end up burning the flat down around them, he gestured towards the tiny little table.

When they were both seated, Dean quietly asked, "What have you found out?"

"The elf is working for the Nott family, sir."

"Nott?" Dean turned the name over in his head. There had been a Nott in their year, a Slytherin. Dean could picture him hazily, but very little about him jumped to mind. . . had Nott's father been arrested as a Death Eater while they were in school? Maybe. Or maybe Dean was making that leap because he'd worn green and silver. Hard to say.

"There is the Mistress Nott and the young Master Nott, sir," Dobby said.

"Ah," Dean said. "So the old Master is dead?"

"Dobby is thinking Master Nott is dying in Azkaban," the elf said, "but he is not knowing for certain."

"That's all right, I can find out if I need to," Dean said. Shouldn't be too hard at all, he thought. "Thank you very much, Dobby," he added with feeling. "And Harry thanks you too."

Dobby's cheeks darkened proudly. "Sir and Harry Potter is being most welcome." And with a loud crack, he was gone.

Dean put some fresh bread in the pan, adding a slice for himself this time, reached for the cheese, and yelled for Seamus.

*

The gate was hung with massive chains and secured with a padlock, but it was also rusting off the hinges, and squeezing through was no trouble at all. As soon as Harry did, he was hit again by that insistent, pounding desire - no, need - to rush away from this place, but he was learning to anticipate these efforts by the Ministry, and his footsteps barely faltered.

But there was a voice in the back of his head that was harder to shake. It whispered leave, leave now, leave while you still can, and Harry didn't know whether it belonged to him or the Ministry or someone else.

The drive that led to the Riddle House was hemmed in by bushes. Some were green and some were bare, but Harry imagined that in summer they were all thick and wild and overgrown. Underneath his feet, the path was littered with branches left strewn and scattered from summers of wind and winters of ice. No car would be able to pass along here, not anymore. Not that it mattered. It had been a very long time since this had been a place where automobiles might be welcome.

Harry stepped carefully. Between his Invisibility Cloak and the debris, it would be very easy to trip and fall on his face. Very easy, and very bad for stealth. It would be nice if he could light his wand, but Harry didn't dare, out here where anyone might be watching. His eyes would just have to adjust to the fast-falling dark.

He had seen the house that afternoon, from further down the hill, through the bare winter trees. Harry was glad of that. He could fill in the shadows and the dark spaces of the building that rose ahead of him, map onto it from his memory; it helped.

Harry had never been to the house itself before, never been any closer than the graveyard, even though he had glimpsed inside once, in a dream. He knew that it hadn't been a real base of operations for Voldemort and his Death Eaters, but a place that he used to when he wished to carry out more. . . personal operations. The sort of place Voldemort would come to when he'd nowhere else to go.

And a place where he'd rebuilt himself once before. Harry would never have any trouble remembering that.

There was no point in trying the door. It and all the other entrances would be spell-locked tight, and Harry didn't fancy the possible consequences of attempting the wrong counter-charm. He had a feeling Alohomora wouldn't cut it. So when he drew close enough, Harry scrabbled along the ground for a rock, then threw it at a window.

It vanished, mid-arc.

Harry walked around and tossed a few more rocks. None aimed at windows or doors reached their mark, but all those aimed at blank wall did.

Something along the lines of an Imperturable Charm mixed with a Portkey, he decided; unwelcome visitors - all visitors - were promptly sent away, wherever 'away' might be. Harry was fairly certain he could lift the spell if he had to, but doing that kind of magic might raise an alarm, and not necessarily one monitored by Ministry officials.

But there was one entrance to the house that might possibly have been overlooked. . . . shame he didn't have his broom handy, but there were other ways of getting there.

The Invisibility Cloak would only trip him up, so Harry replaced it with a Disillusionment Charm, shivering as the tell-tale prickles made their way through him. He followed that with a few spells on his boots and gloves. Then, feeling rather like Spider-Man, and enjoying it, Harry made his way up an ivy-covered wall to the roof.

It was deep dark, now. Harry stood looking out at a view that would make most people's legs shake, even when wearing Spider-Man shoes. The little church was lit warmly against the night, probably for evening services, which made Harry more inclined to think it really had been a vicar that he'd spoken with, earlier. Away down the hill, the lights of the village winked, and above, there were the tiny cold lights of stars. He looked up at those the longest.

Then he crossed the roof, climbed a little bit higher, and looked down into much blacker, more threatening darkness. He'd pocketed a rock earlier and now he threw it down the hole, straining to hear a clunk.

He heard. . . something. Maybe it was the rock hitting brick, and maybe it was the snap of a spell as it was transported away. He thought it was the first one, hoped it was the first one, but he really couldn't be certain.

Harry took one last deep breath. This would either work, or it wouldn't.

If it didn't, he hoped he didn't end up in too many pieces.

*

Even in the dark, Dean could see that the house had seen better days. He tended to judge other people's homes by the flat he'd grown up in; this was four of them, stacked up two by two, and let go in a way his mother would never allow.

He'd come alone. Dean hadn't heard a thing from Harry, had no idea where he was, what he was up to, or how in the world to get in touch with him. Dean had thought through his options over toasties: (a), go in and give Moody a full report, and, after the yelling stopped, be assigned someone new to work with on this case (and probably many, many future cases, because who knew when Harry would be allowed active duty again). That was assuming Moody didn't yank him off the job as well, for conspicuously neglecting to mention Harry's absence earlier. Or (b), just go on and do what Moody would expect he and Harry to do, and hope to God that he didn't bollocks it up. And that Harry turned up by morning.

So here Dean was, across the street from the Nott's house, settled on a branch of a large, evergreen tree, waiting to see if anything would happen. Not the most comfortable place he'd ever lurked, but he didn't want to cross the property line yet - depending what kind of defensive spells the Notts had up, that could easily be enough to give the game away. His Omnioculars were special Auror issue, with a built-in heat-sensing spell that made them excellent night-vision goggles. He could count three yellow-orange blobs in the house, two people sized, one house-elf-sized. None of which were moving around a whole lot.

Without the Omnioculars, Dean could see the soft yellow of lamp-light. At first, it flickered downstairs; then, as the night wore slowly and uncomfortably on, upstairs; finally, it flickered out altogether.

Looked like they'd gone to bed. Sensible of them. And good for his purposes, because it would mean that he'd got through the job without incident and learned at least one useful bit of information - that the suspects were still living at their last known address.

But Aurors were used to looks being deceiving, and Dean knew that someone in that house might be very much awake.

Dean sighed, letting his head thump back against the tree-trunk. Only one way to find out, and it meant sitting in this tree for the rest of the night. For a brief, heartfelt moment, Dean wished that he was a Muggle D.C. A Muggle D.C. in a car with cushioned seats, and doors to keep out the cold, and a place to settle a cup of coffee. . . . And, oh yeah, surveillance cameras, those too. What kind of spells would it take to magic a regular old-fashioned wizard's camera up to take photographs at regular intervals? Be a hundred times easier just to use a video camera, but God, imagine trying to get somewhere with evidence on VHS tape in a wizarding legal proceeding. . . .

Resigned, Dean shifted about for a more comfortable position on his limb, put his Ominoculars to his eyes again - and sucked in a breath.

Four blobs. There were four blobs, instead of three.

One was upstairs, completely stationary - in bed, presumably. Another was in the kitchen - that was the small one, the house-elf. And in the front room, there was not one adult human-sized blob. . . but two.

Someone had a visitor.

Together, the two blobs moved through the house, and then - Dean squinted - yes, they went down. Below the house there must be a cellar, or a hidden room, or a secret passageway. . . .

And here he was, pressed right up into a corner. If he walked away from this now, it would have to be to go to Moody to ask for backup. And that might lead to the man himself coming out here. . . a frightening, frightening thought, perhaps even more frightening than the inevitable effects upon his and Harry's careers.

But it would be utterly insane for him to go in alone. Even if Harry had said that he'd be better off doing things that way. Even if, looking at him that night, Dean had known in his gut that his partner was right.

Quietly, Dean slid down from his tree, stumbling a bit, his legs cramped and unhelpful. At the road, he ended the Disillusionment charm on himself, and walked straight up the Notts' garden path. A family's protective spells were likely to be weakest at the spots where legitimate visitors might enter, such as the chimney, or the front door.

It was well past the hour when such legitimate guests might normally drop by, but Dean wasn't fussed. It was almost certain that this door would be answered by the house-elf - everyone else was otherwise engaged, and besides, that was something house-elves did. A house-elf on the other side of this door would suit his needs perfectly.

And if, for some reason, someone else answered his knock, well, Dean just might get a step closer to figuring out another useful bit of information: Who was asleep in bed, and who was up and awake and busily meeting with visitors? Mother, or son? And he could get away with it, because there was one thing Dean Thomas could do that Harry Potter couldn't, at least not without a very good disguise: stand on someone's doorstep and pretend to be someone he wasn't.

Dean's knock on the door was carefully judged, not too loud, but a little rough, a little unsteady. Depending on who opened the door, he would be Dean Thomas, Auror. . . or he'd flip up his hood and be some drunk in search of his mates who'd just happened to stumble to the wrong house.

The door swung open, and there was Tarky, alone on the other side.

"Hi," Dean said, very quiet and very firm. "Remember me? My friend and I had a few words with you, a few days ago."

The elf's eyes were wide and afraid, and he looked round Dean, ask if expecting to find Harry back there somewhere. Dean was getting used to elves doing this. Not wanting this one to get too comfortable when it became clear he was alone, Dean took his voice from firm to coffin-nail hard. "You remember making a promise to Harry Potter?"

It was obvious that the answer was yes: the elf began to shake.

Dean waited until Tarky had managed a nod, and said, "Good. I'm here to collect on it. I need to come inside, right now, without anyone knowing." Already towering over the elf, Dean stepped closer, pressing his advantage. "Harry wants me to, very much. He'll be awfully upset if that doesn't happen."

"Not wishing to displease Harry Potter, no, not wishing to displease Harry Potter, Tarky is not wish -" The elf's voice was spiralling higher and higher in his fright, and Dean fought the urge to clamp a hand over his mouth.

He interrupted instead. "Good," Dean said. "Now, what have your master and mistress ordered you to do with uninvited guests?"

"Tarky is to be telling Master and Mistress right away. He is not to be wasting any time." The elf looked back into the house, then back at Dean, his eyes even larger now, as if he had forgotten to fear his masters in the midst of his other terror.

"Then," Dean smiled, showing teeth, "you'd better invite me in."

*

It was a proper cellar, not a trap-door-hole-in-the-ground sort of arrangement, which was good, as far as Dean was concerned. He sat in the shadows, as far down the staircase as he dared descend, cloaked by another Disillusionment charm. There wasn't much he could see from here, just a sliver of junky basement, but he could hear.

And smell. This place reeked with the salty-sweet-sick smell of animals. Animals, and Dark magic.

"This one's made it a week now," a voice said, after a while. It was male, deepish and youngish.

"Yeah?" Another young male, this one a baritone. The son, Dean thought, the son, and a friend. "Is it exhibiting behaviours appropriate to its species?"

"You mean, is it twitching its whiskers and that? Yeah. Hasn't eaten any cheese, though."

"One thing at a time," the baritone said. "Self-motivated ingestion doesn't have to happen right away. A full life can be lived without it, so long as there's this."

There was a clang of metal - a cage being opened? and a quiet little scuffle. Intensely curious, Dean slid down the steps just a bit further and eased himself forward. He was almost able to see around the corner -

And, upstairs, the noise started. There were crashes. Bangs. Things falling, things breaking. The sort of racket unfussy burglars might make, or a gang of unhappy toddlers.

It was, Dean realised, something he should have seen coming. It was the sound of a house-elf beating himself up.

Dean went for the top of the stairs as fast as he could, not worrying about the sound of his feet - Tarky was masking that quite effectively. He had to go out this way - he didn't dare Apparate from inside this house. There could be all kinds of anti-Apparition spells in effect, and he certainly didn't want to find out the hard way.

Of course, the people in the basement headed for the stairs as well. And Disillusionment charms were all very well and good until you got knocked over like a bowling pin.

Dean's first thought was, Shite.

The second was, When the Dark magic starts flying, I'm going to wish Harry were here.

The third was, Good thing I'm not a D.C. after all. I'd be done for breaking and entering and no mistake.

D.C. or not, though, this was still pretty worst-case scenario stuff.

It took both of them, but they managed to strong-arm Dean and march him down into the cellar. Pulling free, throwing some punches, and getting the hell out of the house were incredibly appealing ideas. It'd be all right, if it stayed a physical fight: he was bigger than either of these blokes, and they wouldn't be able to see the blows coming. But the last thing he wanted to do was encourage a couple of Dark Arts practitioners to get spell-happy.

And if he were to leave this place, these two would do the very same thing: neither they nor their operation would be here when the Aurors came calling. And it would be his fault, and his alone. He'd made all his own choices since Harry had left that night, and he could get sent down for any one of them.

Dean's wand arm was twisted up behind his back, but he was able to move it enough. He lifted the charm and made himself perfectly visible, then stood, tall and confident, as two wands were immediately trained on his chest. He would get as much information as he could, and if he couldn't get himself out, he could probably get a message out. He had an ally in this house, after all - an unwilling, fairly unhinged ally, but an ally all the same.

"Dean Thomas," he said, "Auror. We're," and that was a small lie, but who could blame him? Never a great idea to admit you were alone - "here to have a look around."

The introduction was, he suspected, completely unnecessary. Dean knew both of the people on the other ends of those wands; they'd gone to school together. Different houses, different friends, but the wizarding world was a bloody small place, when it came down to it.

There was a pause. A long one.

"So formal, Thomas," the skinny one - that was Nott - said finally, letting his wand drop. Dean was careful not to breathe a visible sigh of relief. "Now, you want a look at what, exactly?"

"Everything," Dean said, trying to make it sound as if he actually knew what the hell he was talking about.

"After you," the other one - Carmichael, Eddie Carmichael, Ravenclaw - replied, all smiles and politeness.

The room was like the office of a veterinarian - a back-alley, evil veterinarian. Against the far wall were cages filled with mice and rats. Some animals were held singly, some in pairs, and one cage was teeming with squirming bodies. There were cauldrons. Books. On the table, there were bottles of dark red liquid which had to be dragon's blood, and a steaming cauldron behind them. When Dean peeked in one of the boxes stacked in a corner, he saw many, many more bottles.

"Anything else?" Carmichael asked.

Friendly, welcoming, so-bloody-sure of themselves suspects had always got right under his skin. Dean turned away from the boxes and stared these two down. "Yeah. Couple questions for you. What are you doing to these animals?"

"You were Gryffindor, weren't you, Thomas?" That was Nott. Less polite than his mate, but Dean didn't care for his casual insolence either. It felt like the real thing, not like bravado, which worried him. And it kind of made him regret not getting a punch in earlier.

"Yeah. Now -"

"You know what you can always count on with Gryffindors?" Nott went on. "You can count on them to think the worst."

"True," Carmichael said. "But be fair, Theo, sometimes they're right."

"So what's this then?" Dean asked, moving quickly over to the cauldron on the table, hoping to unsettle them, make them nervous with his proximity to their little experiment. "If it's not the worst?"

"This," Carmichael said proudly, "is innovation in action. Take one of the most potent, powerful substances in nature; do some very clever magic with it; and let blood does what it does best." He smiled. "Bring life."

"Necromancy." Dean's insides went cold. Harry had been right, oh fucking hell, had he been right. . . . "You're doing necromancy."

"Listen at how he says it," said Nott, and this time, that cocky voice made Dean shiver. "As if it's a bad thing. Life from death."

"Muggles do it all the time, don't they?" Carmichael said. Still so friendly, trying to pull Dean in with his logic and his smile. "With their machines and their medicines. Why should we be any different?"

"You can say what you like about the Dark Lord," said Nott. "Merlin knows I won't stop you. But you have to admit he got one thing right - why should we have to accept death as the end?" He spread his arms wide, taking in the room and everything in it. "What else is magic for?"

Dean watched Nott carefully, watched his eyes. A father dead in Azkaban. Maybe these two really weren't trying to work their way from mice to a risen Lord. Maybe. But that didn't matter. There were plenty of people who would be glad to jump right in and do it instead, once they had the means.

Under Dean's gaze, Nott crossed the room, reached into the cage full of mice, and pulled one out by its tail. Dean knew what was coming next, and he swallowed, but didn't look away. Nott didn't wring its neck, as Dean had expected; instead he clamped his hand around the mouse's mouth and nose, and held it until it didn't move any more.

"This is from our most recent batch," Carmichael said, stirring the cauldron twice with a silver spoon. "We start with a base of pure dragon's blood, then temper it with our own special spells."

"We won't be telling you what those are," Nott said.

"They're still in a state of flux, we're making changes with every experiment," Carmichael said smoothly. He slid on a pair of thick dragonhide gloves, took the dead mouse from Nott, and gently, so as not to splash, slid it into the cauldron.

"Skin is so greedy," he said. "Takes on moisture for days after death. We're just putting nature to good use." He moved his wand sharply. "Anima!"

Inside the cauldron, ripples appeared in the liquid, becoming large and frantic. With his hands still protected by gloves, Carmichael reached in and pulled a twitching, squeaking, living mouse out.

"My God," Dean said. This was all wrong, horribly, unbelievably wrong, but he couldn't look away - it wasn't a trick, that mouse had been dead, dead and gone -

Nott grinned widely. "Sure you still need Him?"

- but was it even really a mouse, did it think like a mouse, would it live like a mouse, or was it some horror-movie pits-of-hell zombie now? What would it do? What would a person like this do?

"So what are you going to do now?" Carmichael asked. "There's no law against resurrecting mice. There's not even one against killing them."

"No swag in this house, either," Nott said. He spread his hands wide. "Search it if you want. Knock yourself out."

Dean forced his mind back to the details. "Suppose that's because you sold it all already," he said. "Had to raise funds for this little venture, and all."

Nott shrugged. "I don't remember doing anything like that. Do you, Eddie?"

"Using fear and manipulation, you engineered the sales of numerous-"

"Let's get real here, Thomas," Nott said. "You'll never prove that we possessed or sold anything illegal. You can put a circumstantial case together, if you want, but it won't stick and you know it. I'll tell you what will happen, though." He grinned unpleasantly. "It'll be in the papers, what we're doing, and people'll be all over us like you wouldn't believe. They'll offer us money. They'll want to give their poor dead the treatment - they'll be signing up to be our first human test cases! They'll get on waiting lists for after their own deaths. So go on. It'll be brilliant."

Dean looked away, realised he was looking to trade glances with Harry, to see what his partner thought, and wrenched his eyes back to the pair. Carmichael was smiling, an apologetic he's-right-old-chap smile that was more annoying than Nott's grin, and every bit as threatening.

"Not sure what to do?" Nott asked. "That's all right. We understand. Go on, think about it." He gestured toward the stairs. "We'll be right here if you decide it's worth coming back."

*

It worked.

Down the chimney Harry went, like a skinny, bespectacled Father Christmas. He emptied out into a large kitchen that time had long since forgot. The Aga was rusting, its door falling off. Two of the table legs had rotted and collapsed, leaving it partially held up by the other two. Great huge spiderwebs hung all around. Everything smelled of damp and decay, and Harry was careful with every step where he placed his feet - he didn't trust the floorboards.

Harry left the kitchen for the front hall, trying to get a feel for the layout of the house. It was a wide, open room, with four doors on each side and a sweeping staircase at the back. Kitchen, dining room, library, plus three more rooms that probably had very specific names, but Harry could only guess as to which might be what. Drawing room, morning room, parlour. . . . just how many rooms had the Riddles needed for sitting around in, anyway?

Lighting his wand but keeping it dim, Harry began going through the rooms properly, looking for footprints in the dust, signs of life, any indications of use at all. The house had definitely been turned over, that became obvious, but it looked to have been some time ago. Probably, Harry thought, by the Ministry, at the time when they'd taken possession. Or just before, by Voldemort's followers, scavenging everything they could, taking artefacts for the power in them, or the Galleons they would fetch. . . Harry wished he could believe that was all that little snake statue was, a money-making venture for someone. If it hadn't led to so many other things, one after another after another, and eventually to this. To him being right here, right now. . . .

If he was lucky, if fate or fortune or one of those things he didn't care to believe in smiled on him, he'd find an artefact in this place himself. Something very precious to Voldemort; something that couldn't have turned to ash in Fawkes's flames. Something that could grant Voldemort Nagini's centuries, all over again. . . . If he could find that, find her stone, then it almost wouldn't matter what Dean found out, or where all that dragons' blood was, because he would be holding the most valuable half of the unanswered equation in his hands.

And Voldemort, or whoever was organising all this on Voldemort's behalf, would have to come through him to get it.

It felt cold in the dining room, even colder than outside, or maybe that was just him. Harry was still shivering from the chill of the Disillusionment Charm, occasionally violently. He wished he could stop. But that was nothing, really, compared to the other things he'd like to stop; and so he pushed the shivering aside, with the headache, and the dizzy spells, and the tiredness that had come in waves since the graveyard, pulling at him slowly, threatening to drag him down. Far, far down.

He heard something, something very soft, behind a door just to his left. For the first time inside this house, Harry heard a sound that he himself had not made.

Carefully, so, so, so carefully, Harry reached out and cracked open the door.

He heard a rustle. He didn't see anything at all.

Harry made a slow pass with his wand, trying to see into the corners of the little room. It was a butler's pantry, with dusty dishes, rusty tins, and blackened pieces of silver jumbled on the shelves and floor.

It could have been a mouse, Harry thought, a mouse dragging something back to its hole. Could have very easily been a mouse.

He wished he had seen it, and not just to ease his mind. It would simply have been nice to have seen something living and breathing and normal and alive in this house.

Harry left the dining room and finished his inspection of the ground floor. He didn't hear anything else, and what he saw was the same in every room. There was dirt, there was dust, and underneath it all there were nice things gone to ruin. But nothing else; no footprints on the floorboards, no sign of books being read in the library, or chairs sat on in any of the sitting-around rooms, or fires kindled in the hearths. Nothing to see, not even the squiggle-slide of snake tracks.

But if feelings counted for anything. . . the longer Harry spent in this house, the longer he moved through the silent rooms, the more he felt like he wasn't alone.

The front hall was more than any other a room of shadows, thanks to the high ceiling, and here Harry held up his wand, trying to catch a glimpse of what was above. He could see dark panelling, and carved moulding, intricate and elaborate. They seemed to be very ordinary carvings, though, just pretty designs, nothing fantastical, nothing magical, nothing dangerous.

But that was the thing about this house. There was a feeling of wrongness about it, to be sure, but it wasn't because of anything that could be seen; it just hung in the air, waiting.

He crept up the steps, placing his feet carefully. The staircase was stone, marble probably, and his footsteps sounded far too loud. Harry felt exposed, and not just because of the complete openness of the curving staircase, or the fact that anything might be waiting in the darkness of the landing above. It was more the feeling that something was right there, behind him, just over his shoulder. Something that didn't want to be seen.

Or someone?

Harry's heart thudded faster as he reached the upstairs hallway, and not as a result of the climb. Maybe it was because these were the bedrooms - private rooms - rooms of secrets and hidden things - that did it, that made his body feel it was on the verge of discovering something. Or maybe it was because of the shadow he had gained, which should perhaps make him afraid, but it didn't really, it just made him feel he was getting somewhere, finally getting somewhere. . . .

He reached for the first doorknob, and for the first time in this house found himself holding his breath. He knew why: one of these doors would open onto a room he'd seen before, a long time ago. And on the one hand it was silly to think history might repeat itself, and Voldemort might be sitting in front of a fire somewhere on this floor, waiting; on the other, didn't he himself tend to sit in the same chair every night, and sleep on the same side of the bed? Weren't people creatures of habit, even people who weren't really people anymore?

The room was a bedroom; and yes, it had a fireplace, and yes, there was a large, high-backed chair in front of it. But the chair was empty, he could see that from here, even by wand-light. And he couldn't have said if it were the same room or not; it was so many years now, and only the memory of a dream then.

The next room was empty, too. And the next. And the next.

Except for his shadow, which lurked cold and close, not quite solid, but definitely there and taking up space behind him. He spun on his heel, once, but saw nothing, not even out of the corner of his eye; he stuck out a hand and felt the chill. Whatever it was, it wasn't exactly hiding, but it wasn't interested in being seen either.

Harry reached for the last doorknob and paused, his hand shaking on the worn metal. He heard his heart in his ears, and his head felt unsteady. Spinning out of control of himself, that's what he was doing; he knew it, and he couldn't stop.

In the very last room there was furniture; there was himself; and there, closer than ever, just right there, was his shadow.

And Harry spun, and spun, and finally let go.

"Is that you? Show yourself. Tell me you're there. I know you can do that, even if you don't have a body to show. Do it."

"I'm going to find it, you know that, don't you? I'm going to destroy everything you need. I'm going to find your rock and throw it into the sea. I'm going to dig up your father's bones and blast them into a million pieces and dissolve them in acid. I'm going to finish you."

When Harry stopped he was shivering, and panting; his blood was boiling and he was freezing all over. The dark room and his shadow answered him with silence. He was tired of silence.

The closest solid thing to him was a chest of drawers; he reached out, grabbed a drawer, and threw it hard against the wall. Old wood splintered and moth-eaten clothes scattered across the floor. He kicked through them, his feet meeting nothing but fabric. The lamp on top of the dresser was next; it smashed easily into pieces, pieces that hid nothing.

He kept going. Harry threw and smashed and swore and broke and destroyed a room long dead, his shadow watching, watching. It was on the mantel that his hand caught something sharp; the fresh, biting pain was what stopped him, finally. He held his cut left hand in his right and stood still, looking at the blood springing up and listening to it sing in his ears.

He was so tired.

There was a sensible way to do this.

He might only get one chance before his shadow adapted, or attacked. It would count. Squaring his shoulders, Harry whipped round shouted and with every bit of magic in him, yelled, "Revelio!"

He saw nothing but darkness; and the darkness took him.

*

Hermione was frustrated and unsettled, and she didn't like it. With Percy out of the picture, the group needed a new partner at the Ministry, and they weren't able to decide on who to approach. No-one said that perhaps the time wasn't right yet, that maybe they should wait a little while before contacting anyone else. . . but Hermione knew what some people were thinking, and it didn't help when Sally-Ann, still looking embarrassed, reported that Harry Potter had declined to give her an interview. She spoke of time-consuming Ministry regulations, but everyone heard something more like the truth: Harry Potter didn't want to do this right now.

Hermione could feel the room grow colder at that moment; she could feel the energy slip out of it.

The other thing no-one said was that they blamed Hermione for anything. . . but she was the one that had done the most work with Percy, and she was the one that knew Harry Potter, and oh, she knew what they were thinking.

Frustrated, unsettled, and angry too; by the time Hermione went home, everything she'd felt as she'd walked away from Harry had been rekindled, and was burning high.

Her flat was cold and quiet, and Hermione poured herself a glass of water, and drank it with her eyes closed. Harry Potter could do anything, she thought. He could tear everything down around her because he thought it was right, and because he thought there was safety in the destruction. He could take the explanation, the why, the knowledge away from her, and lock it away, just out of sight, just behind his eyes.

Where she still couldn't reach.

Hermione placed her glass on the counter. No message on the answerphone. No owl waiting. Harry hadn't been home yet, or Ron would have let her know.

So a grown man who'd had a falling out with his friends has been away for a couple of days, she thought, being reasonable, trying not to care. How unusual is that? Silly to worry. Just silly.

She gathered up Crookshanks and went to bed, put her head on the pillow, and turned out the light. And there in the dark, something waited: the knowledge that Harry had been gone from them too many times, for too many terrible reasons, for any worry for him to ever be silly.

And it wasn't just her own worry that waited. The worry he'd shown for her, that was there as well; whatever the cause, his fear was a virus and she was catching it, the strain thriving in the gaps in her understanding, growing, threatening to consume her if she didn't find out where he was and why he was gone as soon as possible.

Hermione closed her eyes, because her mother had once told her that lying still and resting was just as good as sleeping. She believed it now just as much as she'd done then, eight years old and panicky with insomnia.

Not at all, in other words, but it was a fiction that wore well in the night.

Hermione left her bed at five; she left her flat at six. She could do this by phone, and should do, really, but it was too early still and she needed to feel busy. She walked, then took the Underground, then stopped off at a little bakery and bought a bag of pastries, both to using up more time and giving her an offering. Not so much for Ron (for one thing, his early-morning fireplace inspection was still fresh in her mind), but for Sarah, because Ron's nights didn't just belong to him any more, and neither did his mornings.

Ron answered her knock with bleary eyes and morning hair. He didn't ask what she was doing there, or make a fuss about the earliness of the hour. He just said, "Haven't heard anything," and threw himself onto the sweet buns.

"I was thinking you could send Pig -"

"Yeah, he's on his way to Dean and Seamus's right now," Ron said, chewing enthusiastically.

Hermione closed her eyes briefly against his manners. "Good," she said. "I'll feel better if we know Dean hasn't been home either."

"Today's the last day of work for me before the holidays. What about you? Could you stick around for Pig? Or so we'll know if Harry gets in?"

No, I couldn't, I really, really couldn't, Hermione thought. She wanted to see that Harry was okay, but she wasn't ready to see him yet, especially not on her own.

"Oh, hey - you done with the shower?"

Hermione blinked at this, realised Ron obviously wasn't talking to her, and turned round. Sarah had come into the room, looking ready for the day in jeans and a jumper.

"Yeah, your turn." Sarah walked over to Ron, stretched up on tiptoe as if to kiss his cheek, then seemed to rethink things at the sight of Ron's furious jaw-work. She dropped down off her toes, and patted him on the arm.

So they are all right. Hermione suddenly felt absurdly proud of Ron, and smiled.

Ron grabbed one last bun, waved it at Hermione and Sarah, and disappeared into the back of the flat.

"Sorry about this," Hermione said, uncomfortable, partly because she was as in the way as she'd feared she'd be, and partly because Ron and Sarah's easy domesticity pricked at her. A reminder of what she had lost, not when Harry took off, but before, when they'd argued. Or more accurately, of something she'd never truly had. . . . "I'm intruding on your morning."

"Oh, not at all," Sarah said, moving to the refrigerator and opening the door. "I'm glad you came. Ron hated for no-one to be here, that's why we came over last night, but he can't get out of work today and neither can I. Not that I would be much good, really. Ew, that milk's awful. Wonder how old the juice is?"

"Sarah -" Hermione broke off, uncertain how much she could say - how much Sarah really knew - or what she even wanted to say.

Sarah closed the refrigerator. "Sorry, I'm babbling," she said, turning to Hermione. "But. . . I didn't realise it was possible to feel worse about this than I did, 'til I saw you."

"Don't," said Hermione. "It's not your fault."

Sarah shrugged. "He's my brother."

There was a noise at the door, someone knocking, sharp and loud. And even though her mind was very logically aware that Harry wouldn't knock on the door of his own flat, Hermione's heart jumped.

She swallowed against all her nerves, against the God-I-hope-it's-him's and the God-I-hope-it-isn't's, and went to the peephole. The person outside the door was Dean, and he was alone.

Hermione wrenched the door open. "Do you know where Harry is? What's going on? Is he all right?"

"Hell," Dean said, moving past her into the flat, "I was planning to ask you all those questions. Every single one."

"I'll go get Ron," Sarah said, already halfway out of the room.

Hermione pinned her attention on Dean. Facts, time to gather facts. "When did you last see Harry?"

"Two nights ago. Well, guess you'd say mornings ago, it was well after midnight. We were finishing up an operation, and instead of coming back to Headquarters with me, he said he had to go take care of some things." Dean shrugged. "Then he left."

"What was he like when you last saw him?"

Dean paused. "Not good. If Moody had seen him, he'd be on leave again."

"What's going on?" That was Ron, half-shaven and mostly-dressed.

Hermione spoke before Dean could. "Short version, Harry ran out on him as well. Dean, where do you think he went?"

Dean hesitated, his eyes flickering around the room.

"I'm going to go," Sarah said, into that silence. "Ron -" she went over and kissed his cheek - "be careful for me. Hermione -" she reached out, squeezed Hermione's hand, and dropped it, "try not to worry too much. From what Ron's told me, Harry can take care of himself."

"Then Ron's not telling it right," Hermione said, shaking her head. And he shouldn't have to.

Hermione blinked once, hard, as the door closed behind Sarah. She and Ron and Dean instinctively drew closer together in the grey morning light, getting down to business. Dean spoke first. "I've no idea where he went," he said. "I hoped you'd know. Reckon you two can guess better than me, at least. You know the inside of his head a lot better than I do."

"Yeah, maybe," Ron said. "But I have the feeling you know a lot more about whatever it is that's bothering him these days than we do."

"He thinks Voldemort's back," Hermione said.

She wasn't looking at any one or anything particular when she said the words, just the cut-stone certainty in the back of her mind. Because Dean was right: he might know all the ins and outs, mysteries and clues and players, but she and Ron knew Harry.

She looked at her friends now. Dean was nodding, agreeing; Ron's face was blotched red and white. She couldn't help taking that as a little victory. Harry had told him more than he'd told her, but Ron was still the one to be surprised.

"Now he hasn't said that -" Dean began.

"Oh, he wouldn't say," Hermione murmured.

Dean visibly took a breath. "But if you're right - then he's wrong," he said. "Had a breakthrough in a case last night, and learned some stuff, and yeah. I think he's wrong."

"You're certain?" Ron asked sharply.

"Well." Dean shrugged. "I'm almost positive. But Harry's the expert, isn't he?"

Ron was nodding, still looking shell-shocked. "If Harry Potter thinks he's back," he said quietly, almost to himself, "how can the rest of the world not?"

"He's right about one thing," Dean said. "This thing that's going on, it has the potential to be bad. Very, very bad. I need to go tell Moody what I've learned, but I don't fancy going without Harry." He shuddered. "Really don't."

"Do you think he went looking for him?" Ron asked.

Couldn't turn to you, couldn't turn to me, couldn't turn to work. "Yes," Hermione said.

"Okay," Ron said, swallowing, "okay, where would he look?"

Dean looked at the two of them, hope and desperation in his eyes. "Please tell me you have some ideas."

"I have a few," said Hermione.

*

17. Seventeen

A/N: Hello Portkey, long time no see! Thanks very much to everyone who puts up with my snail-like updating, plus a special thanks to Cynthia Black, Dorotea, Lightgetsin, and Paracelsus for being wonderful betas.

*

Seventeen

*

"He's not here," Ron said. "And everything looks normal." He shuddered. "Creepy, but normal."

"Did I say he would be here?" Hermione said. She was cold, she was worried, and she was not in the mood for Ron to start telling her she'd got things wrong. "We're a day behind Harry at the least. The idea is to figure out if he's been here."

"I know that, I was just saying -"

But Dean had swung open the cemetery gate, and they had followed him inside.

There was a thought in Hermione's head that didn't belong. It was a loud thought, insistent, very determined to be heard, but Hermione knew it didn't belong because it wanted her to leave, and that was at odds with every other thought she'd had before stepping through that gate. Closing her eyes, Hermione very firmly told the thought to go away. It did.

She opened her eyes just in time to see Dean do the same. Ron's lips were moving silently; a second later he shook his head, hard, and opened his eyes as well. For a moment they were silent, looking at each other. "That's a Ministry spell," Dean said, "perimeter defence."

Hermione and Ron nodded, and they all walked on.

Some of the gravestones seemed fairly new, their marble shining in the sunlight, but most were old, darkened, and beginning to crumble. The Riddles' headstones were the largest, and stood out from the rest. Hermione's footsteps slowed. This was where Harry, younger and smaller, had been tied up; this was where he'd been cut; this was where Voldemort had killed Cedric in front of him and forced him to duel. And it was where Harry had reminded Voldemort that young and small had never meant weak.

Hermione began to understand what Ron had meant. It was creepy here, but not for the obvious reasons, the reminders of death. It was the history, the things they didn't see as they stood in this place, but had glimpsed time and time again as they looked at their friend. And that was the reason she'd insisted they try Little Hangleton first.

She had almost reached the spot.

What happened next was an invasion. No other word would do. For a few terrifying moments Hermione didn't have control of her mind or her body, that all belonged to the screaming inside her head - Harry needs you, leave here right now, Harry needs you! - it wasn't until she was all the way out of the graveyard that she was able to shout it down - But that doesn't make sense! That's why I'm here!

Hermione slowed her breaths, counting them, as her head pounded along with her heart and her hands shook. She'd thought, in an intellectual, abstract way, that she understood why Harry hated Occulmancy so much; she'd thought, too, that it was just something he needed to get past, that if he'd only try properly he couldn't possibly fail.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Ron was almost as far as the church, and still walking. Hermione yelled for him, then turned to Dean, who was standing nearby and looking a little like he'd been hit by a lorry. "The Ministry has no right to invade people's heads like that, whether or not it's for the public good," she said. "They need to find other ways."

Dean shrugged. "It's not like they could put up a wall. The Muggles would notice."

"Not," Hermione said tersely, "if it was invisible. It just takes a little -"

"Can we go look for clues, please?" That was Ron, back at her side, and he had a point.

It took far more effort than it should have to cross back over to those graves, and seemed to take far longer, too. Hermione's head felt thick and she had to work to think. She didn't like that at all.

"Shame it's so cold," Ron said. "Ground's too hard for footprints."

"Magical ones," Hermione said, "we need to be thinking about magical ones."

"On it," Dean said. He pointed his wand, murmured two words, and closed his eyes. There was a moment of quiet, of wind-noise and bird-chatter, during which Hermione held her breath. "Someone's done magic here, very recently," Dean said, looking at them again. "Not Dark magic. Just magic."

"Harry?" Ron asked.

Dean shrugged, slipping his wand back in his pocket. "Could be. It's a very strong trace. If it wasn't Harry, it was someone else with some real power behind them."

"I want to think about this out there," Hermione said abruptly. Dean and Ron nodded their agreement, and the three of them walked silently across the graveyard - so much easier to walk away - and back out the gate.

"I still think Hogwarts," Ron said. "It's the last place Harry met him, and all."

"Yes, Ron, we know what you think," Hermione said, closing her eyes, the click of her own thoughts now comfortably fast. If someone had been at those graves very recently, doing magic that wasn't Dark magic, what were the chances it had been Harry, doing the exact same spell Dean had done? And if Harry had been there, what had he found? Nothing? Or something?

"And there's the Chamber of Secrets," Ron went on. "And the time with the Philosopher's Stone. It's like, Harry and Voldemort and Hogwarts, they go together."

Hermione winced at his wording. "How can you say -"

"That's true, though," Dean said thoughtfully.

"We're not done here yet!"

"But Harry is, if he was even here to begin with, and isn't the idea to catch up?" Ron asked.

"But we need more information -"

"I'll give the church a quick look," Dean broke in. "See if I can learn anything."

"Good idea," Hermione said, feeling a little tension slip out of her. They couldn't leave yet, they couldn't. Harry might be here somewhere, they couldn't just assume otherwise and walk away. And even if he wasn't here, they needed to know everywhere Harry had been, what he'd done. She needed to know.

Besides, were they really going to walk into Hogwarts and say, 'Hello, we seem to have lost Harry Potter, have you seen him lately?'

Dean walked away, his shadow long in the early-morning light. Hermione resisted the urge to go with him; Dean knew what he was doing, and it would seem less suspicious if he did it alone.

"I still-"

"Honestly, Ron," Hermione snapped, "do you have no sense of self-preservation at all?"

They stood in silence after that, which was finally broken by the crunch of gravel as Dean walked back across the carpark, hands in his pockets. "I talked to the vicar," he said on reaching them. "Did a little fishing. Harry - or somebody who looked exactly like Harry - was here yesterday evening, around dusk. He remembers because it was the first stranger he's seen here in ages."

Hermione was looking at the house on the hill, falling to bits behind the bare trees. She turned back to Ron and Dean, making sure to give Ron a clear 'I told you so' with her eyes. "Well, come on!"

Together, the three of them went.

*

Hermione was starting to feel seriously aggrieved with her government. She could feel the words of a scathing letter to the editor building inside her, just waiting to get out. Another one of the Ministry's insidious bits of perimeter defence had kicked in when they squeezed through the gate onto the Riddle property.

As they walked, Dean fell into step with Hermione, leaving Ron a little ways behind. "Moody went spare before," he said quietly. "That night Harry took ill when we were out on the case. He could've blown the whole thing, and it wasn't like he'd been cursed or poisoned or something. He was sick and he knew it."

Looking at Dean, Hermione thought, And you were angry too, because it wasn't just the case he was risking.

"That's why he's done this," Dean went on. "He knew Moody'd lose it, and he said - he said that I'd be better off on my own." He shrugged a little, looking down at Hermione. "Just felt like you should know."

"Thank you," Hermione said, and wondered exactly what Dean saw when he looked at her and Harry.

They reached the top of the hill. The morning light was weak, especially in the shadow of the huge, crumbling house, but it was much, much better than the alternative. It wasn't just the look of the place, every bit the haunted house on the hill, that made Hermione glad not to be here after dark. Very logically, all looks and feelings and cultural wiring aside, she knew this house might actually be out to get them. The Ministry's games might be just the beginning. . . . She shivered a little, thinking of the traps that might lie inside, waiting.

She could only hope that nothing had caught Harry.

Dean's thoughts weren't far from her own. "Do you think. . . ."

"Think what?" Ron said.

Dean looked uncomfortable. "Well. I think that Harry's wrong about all this, but what do you two think?" He gestured at the house. "Is it empty, or is there someone in there that we'd really rather not see?"

Hermione wanted to say, You're right, Dean, and Harry's wrong. Voldemort's not here, he's not back, and there's no chance of us meeting the most evil wizard of our time this morning, none at all. But how could she? Harry was keeping things from her, important things, and Dean was too. . . She didn't know what breakthrough he'd made in the case that made him so almost-certain that Harry was wrong, she barely even knew what the case was. . . . For a moment, Hermione was blindingly furious at Harry and Dean both, for expecting her to think and act in the dark.

"I don't know," Ron said, "but it doesn't matter."

Dean glanced back and forth between them, frowning.

"If we think Voldemort is inside," Hermione explained, "then we've got no choice but to get in there as well."

She looked at the two of them, her partners in this. She already trusted Ron with her life; that was easy. She'd have to trust Dean, now. It shouldn't be too hard. Didn't Harry, every day?

"Right," Dean said, swallowing. "Of course. Okay then."

It soon became obvious that the doors and windows of the house were protected by some sort of translocation spell, spiriting away anything that touched them. Hermione wasn't surprised, but it didn't make her feel any less like screaming.

Dean craned his neck, scanning the upper storeys. "If we do manage to get past the spells on the entrances, the Ministry'll know. They'll come crashing down on us." He was quiet a moment. "'Course, if Harry's the one who's right, maybe the Ministry showing up wouldn't be such a bad thing."

"Actually," Hermione said, "it's not true that the Ministry would know."

Dean said, "Listen, Hermione, I think I know about -"

"I'm sure they'd be alerted if we broke the spell," Hermione interrupted. "But you said 'get past it', which doesn't mean the same thing, now does it? We got past a spell already, at the property line. We didn't break it. Same thing for the ones in the graveyard."

"If Harry went in, we have to reckon he did it without the Ministry knowing," Ron said. "If they'd caught him up, Dean would've heard, wouldn't you Dean?"

"Yeah," Dean said, "okay, you're right, you're both right. Question is, how do we 'get past it'?"

"If we can't get through any of the doors or windows," Ron said, forehead wrinkled, "then we. . . make our own door?"

"In a manner of speaking," Hermione said, drawing her wand.

"You're just going to blast a hole in the wall?" Dean said, looking as if she'd lost her mind. "Can't imagine that going unnoticed."

"No." Hermione turned the wand on Ron first. "Conficio!"

"Oi!" Ron said. Then, a second later, "Oh! Cool! I can walk through walls now?"

"Only ones built by Muggles," Hermione said. "If the foundation's laid with magic, forget it. But yes, you can. And now Dean can -" She waved her wand again. "And now -" one more flick - "I can."

Getting through the wall wasn't easy, though. There was a second when Hermione nearly panicked, afraid that whatever magic had been cast on parts of the house was enough to keep them trapped inside the wall forever, even though the book she'd read the spell in had been disgustingly proud of the fact that a foundation laid by Muggle means was always penetrable. But she made it, pushing her way, and so did Ron and Dean, and Hermione smiled a little to herself as she lifted the charm. She'd spent the past year living such a normal life, work and classes and books and friends. No sneaking around, no life-or-death. It was good to know she remembered how to do this sort of thing when she had to.

As if by previous agreement, none of them spoke, beyond Hermione's whispered Finite Incantatem. She realised they should have already discussed what sort of magic they'd allow themselves to do, what might be safe and what might alert the Ministry - or worse - to their presence. Once again, she and Dean turned out to be thinking along the same lines. He held up his wand meaningfully, then mimed putting it away. Hermione nodded, agreeing. Better to search with eyes and ears first; leave magic as a last resort, or until they knew what they were dealing with.

She took in her surroundings. They'd come out in a library, heavy with dirt and dust and the smell of old pages, the books strewn and flung about in a way that tore at some deep part of Hermione's heart. And nothing had happened, no jinx, no booby-trap, no sudden thundering arrival of Ministry officials. They searched silently for a while, through the clutter, until suddenly Dean stabbed a finger toward the floor.

Hermione and Ron gathered around. There were marks on the floor, cutting through the thick dust, some scuffed and incomplete, one very definitely a footprint. Careful not to disturb anything, Ron put his foot down beside the print. It was slightly smaller than his shoe.

Harry?, Hermione mouthed.

Ron gestured as if to say, Maybe.

They continued through the downstairs rooms. All were in a similar state of disarray and sported similar scuffs and prints here and there. Hermione might not be Sherlock Holmes and able to piece together a complete history from a footprint, but based on the amount of dust and grime everywhere else she knew that these must be fairly fresh, and she felt certain that they were Harry's, that he had walked these floors in the past day.

But he had to be gone by now. Like Ron had said, Harry was ahead of them, and this was a game of catch-up. Besides, if he were still here, he would certainly know by now that they were also, no matter how quiet they were being. He was good at that kind of thing.

Hermione pictured him for a second, standing just across the room, underneath the Invisibility Cloak, watching in silence because the last thing he wanted to do was speak.

She took a moment to be very, very jealous of the Harry in her imagination. If she could see that he was safe and sound without being seen, without having to say a word to him. . . .

They were in the front hall now, the ground floor completed without incident. Dean was already on his way up the stairs. Hermione thought that he was getting impatient, and that he probably had good reason to be. He should've told their boss straight away that Harry had gone off on his own, but he hadn't. He was risking his own job, right now, out of loyalty to Harry. She felt a sudden strong warmth towards Dean as she put a foot on the stairs behind him.

The steps were smooth, hard marble, and could easily be a death-trap if someone wanted them to be. Hermione kept a careful hand on the rail as she climbed. Either there was nothing in this house to harm them, or it was all waiting upstairs. . . .

By the time Hermione reached the landing, Dean was turning the knob of the first door along the corridor. She made to follow, Ron at her heels, but Dean shook his head and pointed at the next door down. Hermione understood, and nodded. She knew that Dean largely made the suggestion because he wanted to speed things up, but these rooms were smaller and closer together than those downstairs. As long as they were careful to move in a group, sticking to adjacent rooms, back up would never be far away.

She poked through one mouldy old bedroom after another and, like Dean, as each one seemed to be more of the same, began to find herself hurrying, her brain less and less concerned about the clues or dangers this house offered and more and more focused on what next? Ron was right, Harry would have gone on to Hogwarts if a search here proved fruitless, but did that mean that they should do the same? If Dean truly was right, and Harry was wrong, then maybe Harry was back in London by now. . . even hanging round Dean's flat, perhaps, wanting to see Dean before reporting back to work just as much as Dean wanted to see him.

And they would go back to work, Dean and Harry, and things would be back to normal, and the patterns would wear the same. This would be over; everything would be over. Except that nothing would ever really be over between her and Harry, not as long as she heard his voice, saw his face, said his name.

Hermione slipped through the door at the end of the hall.

Her heart nearly stopped.

The room was in a terrible state, even compared to the rest of the house, but that wasn't important, her brain threw the data away almost as fast as it registered. Because there, on the floor, amidst the clothes and knickknacks and upturned furniture, lay all that mattered.

Two people. Harry, and Ron.

Hermione made a sound that she tried to swallow. She dropped to the floor. Calling for help means attracting attention, you don't want attention - They were lying face-up, their eyes wide, glassy, staring, their skin cold. Whatever happened to your boys happened in this room, it's probably about to happen to you, whether you shout or not -

Hermione heard something. She turned, her knuckles white around her wand. If she were lucky, really, really lucky, it would be Dean. . . .

It wasn't. It was Ron.

Or, at least, something wearing Ron's face.

Hermione whipped her head back around, and now, instead of Ron and Harry, she saw something massive and black, something many-legged and many-eyed and many-teethed. She squeaked, scooting away, her heart pounding like mad even though she knew now what they were dealing with.

She and Ron yelled "Riddikulus!", almost as one. The boggart-spider exploded, becoming wisps of smoke on the air.

"Ha!" Ron said, looking pale and pleased. "We showed him!"

"Yes, and blew our cover as well," Hermione said, picking herself up. "Oh well, I suppose we're about finished searching the house anyw -"

"Hermione?" Ron said, into the silence.

She'd put her hand down for balance as she'd begun to stand, but there wasn't dusty wood floor under her fingers. She felt cloth and something solid, and as she looked closely she realised she wasn't just seeing old floorboards beneath her hand, but something made to look like old floorboards. She kept her left hand in place, pointed her wand with her right, and after a Finite Incantatem, there was Harry and she knew, this time, he was real.

Ron was saying something, but she wasn't listening. Pulse, thank God Harry had a pulse.

"- come round now that the boggart's gone?"

It was slow, but it was strong. Hermione counted it under her breath.

"It would've been a Dementor, right?" Ron stuck a hand in his pocket and began rummaging. "Good job I'm prepared. . . ." He must have looked at her face, because then he said, "What, you don't think a boggart would turn into a Dementor for him any more?"

"I don't know," Hermione said, "but I'm not sure this is as simple as a boggart."

"But what else could it be?" Ron said. "We've been all over this house and there's no-one here besides us and the boggart."

"Well, hurry up and find that chocolate, why don't you," Hermione snapped. She couldn't fault his logic and she couldn't agree with him either. A boggart was too easy. A boggart only answered the one question - why Harry was unconscious. And there were so many more that needed answering.

"Aha!" Ron displayed a mushed bit of foil triumphantly, then dropped to his knees at Harry's side. He peeled back the edges and waved the melted contents of the foil under Harry's nose.

It did about as much good as Hermione suspected it would.

"Stop," she said, after a moment, a long moment of looking at Harry's still face, "just stop, it's not working. Get Dean, and we'll get him out of here."

When they were alone, she and Harry, Hermione reached out and touched his cheek, briefly, then dropped her hand. Her head buzzed with a thousand worries and questions and fears, but a part that was deeper and more certain saw in front of her an unravelling, and knew only a very quiet triumph.

It wasn't nice and it wasn't pretty, but maybe that was what made it love.

*

Harry sat straight up, breaking the first rule of returning to consciousness (Be careful how much you move your head: it's probably going to hurt) as well as the second (Do not broadcast the fact that you've come round: it's never a good idea).

"Ron! Why're you -" soft pillows, clean sheets, cat fur - "why am I here?" Trying to think back was like trying to find his way through fog, all confusion and fuzzy edges. Had he Apparated here on instinct, then blacked out? Merlin, he hoped not.

"Brought you here, didn't we? There was a pub in the village, the Pointy Hat or something, and we borrowed their Floo."

"You were there? At the house?" Harry's head felt fat and thick and unimportant. "Hermione?"

"Don't worry, she's okay," Ron said. "We're all okay."

"But there was -"

"It was a boggart. Not a Dementor. A boggart."

"A boggart," Harry said dully. He had gone from sitting to propping himself up without noticing; his elbows shook now with the effort of keeping him upright. He gave up, trying not to make it look like a collapse, and fell back on the pillows. He remembered these pillows. That wasn't fuzzy at all, even though it had been so long ago now, months ago. . . . He'd woken up, and Hermione had been there, and something had started, then.

Harry gave himself a mental shake, focused. So who had levitated him? Kept him up like a puppet, all the way through the village? Who had dug the Cloak out of his pocket, who had been in charge of making sure it didn't slip?

"Yeah, a boggart, but don't feel embarrassed or anything. Hermione reckons there's something really wrong with you."

"Does she? Great."

"She went to see Remus. She should be back soon, expect she'll explain then."

"She went to see Remus," Harry repeated.

She really was still angry.

And so was he. Angry at Hermione for not letting him keep her safe, for taking that choice away from him. For finding him like she did. For proving he would never have been able to carry out that choice anyway.

"Listen, Harry," Ron said. His voice was shatteringly sincere, and Harry forced himself to pay attention. "I'm really sorry, okay? About Piers and everything. I should've known he'd turn up. And Sarah is too, she told me to tell you, but really it's just me who should be. If I had told her everything I should have -"

"Forget it," Harry said. Shutting up Ron, shutting up the voice in his head that heard those words and thought immediately of Hermione, and shutting up the most dangerous voice of all, the one that was saying, He'd help you leave if you asked him, you know he would, even if he knew Hermione would kill him afterwards.

It was so tempting, but Harry couldn't do that, and not just because it wouldn't be fair on Ron. There always came a time when standing up and dealing with things was all there was to do, and this, now, was it.

Or sitting up and dealing, Harry thought, and couldn't help laughing at himself a little. What did it say about him, that lying here and waiting to have a conversation was turning his insides over and over in ways walking into Voldemort's house had not?

"You okay?" Ron asked, his voice nervous, probably because Harry had done his laughing out loud.

Harry started to reply, but just then the door opened, letting in a whirlwind of brown hair and brisk determination.

"Ron, we need a glass. Dean, the first potion. Harry -" The first time he'd heard Hermione say his name in days, it did something to every one of his nerve-endings, and she wasn't even looking at him as she said it - "sit up."

Harry sat up. Hermione stood at the foot of the bed, and Harry looked beyond her, toward the doorway. Dean was in her wake - not all that surprising - but he appeared to be the only person there. No Remus. Harry didn't know whether to think that was Remus's idea of mercy, a little gift of dignity, or a sign that Harry had badly damaged yet another relationship in the past few days.

"Tell us about the potion," Hermione said.

She was looking at Dean, and so Harry focused on him as well. In Dean's hand was a bottle capped by a glass stopper. Something they'd got from Remus, Harry supposed, or maybe a fresh bottle of the potion he'd been given the last time he'd collapsed on the job. The problem there, of course, was that he hadn't been on the job this time around, and if Magical Law Enforcement had supplied the potion then chances were good that he didn't even have a job anymore.

Dean cleared his throat, and spoke as if he were stating something for the record. "Soothing Solution, purchased from Jenkins's Apothecary." He shot Harry a glance. "It's a lot like Pepto."

"Thank you," Hermione said. "Now, Harry," she went on, turning towards him, but looking somewhere over his head, "on a scale of one to ten, ten being the highest and one being the lowest, tell us how you're feeling right now."

Very, very, very low, if they were talking mentally as well as physically. Here he was surrounded by people he had walked away from - all supposedly to some degree or another for their own good - who had banded together, followed him, and rescued him. He knew he should feel sorry for the choices he'd made; he knew he should realise how futile it had all been; but part of him still refused to believe that wanting to keep these people safe was wrong, and the fact that the words I'm sorry didn't feel right in his mouth yet made everything that much worse.

Not to mention, it was all pretty bloody embarrassing.

"Er," Harry said. "Four?"

Hermione gave him a quick, sharp glance. "Four?" She'd probably thought he would inflate the number, try and say that he felt better than he actually did. He'd surprised her, in a good way, and he liked it.

He shrugged. "Worse than average."

"All right," Hermione said. "Four. Now, based on your current condition, what effect would you expect this potion to have on that number?"

Seeing as his insides felt full of squirming things, Harry said, "Make it go up?"

Dean stepped up to the bed. He looked straight at Harry, steady and strong, and Harry found that he couldn't return that look, couldn't keep his own eyes from sliding away. He focused instead on the bottle in Dean's hands, the bottle that did not contain the potion from work, which meant it was possible that Dean had covered his absence up. . . Had he? Had he withheld information from their superiors, even out-and-out lied? Harry swallowed. He hadn't meant to ask that of Dean. . . except for the part of him that had, the part of him that had left Knockturn Alley that night thinking that maybe, just maybe, he could do this and no-one would ever know. . . .

"Will you have a dose?" Dean asked.

Harry reached out a hand, granting permission without hesitation. Dean poured carefully, then gave Harry a glass one-fourth full of something brownish-orange. It went down thick and sweet, and Harry could feel it spreading through his body, faster than any Muggle medicine. He gave the glass back to Dean, knowing both Hermione and Dean were watching his hand as he did so. He mentally told it not to shake, but it didn't really listen.

"Number, Harry?"

He swallowed hard. "Three and a half."

Hermione had expected that, Harry could tell. "Ron?" she said. "The potion to your left? Over on the chest of drawers?"

Ron picked up the bottle and brought it over to the bed, turning it around in his hands. "Looks like headache potion, Harry," he said. "Two good chugs, that's what I usually give it."

"Charming," Hermione said. "Yes, it's headache potion, which is often taken in conjunction with Soothing Solution -"

"Yeah, especially after a good night out," Ron said.

"So," Hermione said, teeth slightly gritted, "there shouldn't be any complications strictly thanks to the interaction of the two."

But she did think there would be complications, Harry realised. Why? What kind? Complications could mean anything when magic was involved, from knocking him out to giving him spots to making him speak in Hungarian for a week. Harry looked at Hermione for a long moment, at the way her chin was raised, the way her mouth was set. Whatever she was doing, she was doing it for a reason. She was doing it because she thought it had to be done.

He knew her, and he knew that, and it was enough.

Harry reached out a hand towards Dean, and took back the glass. From Ron he took the bottle, and poured out what he supposed equalled two good chugs' worth. He knocked them back, swallowed, closed his eyes. Kept them closed until his head was done doing tricks.

"Three," he said then, unprompted.

Hermione didn't miss a beat. "Ron? Empty your pockets, please."

"What?"

"Do I really have to repeat myself?"

Ron screwed up his face and silently mimicked Hermione, like a student behind the teacher's back, but he followed directions too. Plundering his pockets, he threw all manner of stuff on the bed, some of it landing on Harry's legs. His wand, four pieces of chocolate, six Galleons, a mashed bit of sandwich, something in a yellow foil wrapper. . . .

"That," Hermione said.

Ron paused, hand half-stuffed in his pocket. "That? Why?"

Hermione opened her mouth, possibly to explain, possibly to bite Ron's head off, but Dean spoke first. "Because it's not medicine," he said. "Just magic."

Harry glanced at Hermione again, and this time, he caught her looking at him. He saw the worry in her eyes before they flicked away, and more than anything else, that made him reach out and take what she wanted him to have.

He unwrapped the thing with fingers that felt a little clumsy, a little disconnected. As the Soothing Solution had not soothed his stomach at all, it took will for him to put it in his mouth, chew and swallow.

Harry felt himself grow feathers, which was always a very strange feeling indeed; then he felt the world go spotty; then he didn't feel much at all.

*

It had been daylight, but it was night now. They were alone, just he and Hermione, in a yellow-white pool of light surrounded by dark. She was sitting in a chair by the bed, and as Harry blinked awake, she said, "Number?"

Her voice was quieter, now that it was meant for just him, and just her. Not quite softer, or more gentle either, but quieter, and definitely more hers. Except, of course, for the distance still in it; that was his, he'd put that there. Just like the space between them in feet and inches, between bed and chair, that was down to him too. He'd put some of it there when he'd scared Percy off her project, more - much, much more - when she'd asked a question (What are you protecting me from?), and he'd thrown up a wall. And left it up, and walked away. . . So much distance, and it wasn't something he could make disappear with a wand and a word. It was something to be crossed, carefully.

Harry sat up, and turned his mind to her question. His throat felt like it had been gouged, one long raw strip, all the way down. That wasn't good. But his head, oh, even sitting up his head was great, the lack of any pain or tension in it an exquisite shock. "Seven," he said. It came out as a croak, but that didn't matter. "No - eight."

"You're sure?" Hermione said, but Harry didn't reply. His eyes lit on a glass of water on the nightstand, and he grabbed it and gulped. It was wet and cold and perfect.

Hermione took a deep breath. "All right," she said, her hands tightening in her lap. "I think it's time I told you what we did. I think it's fair."

Yes, it was. Very, very fair that she should tell him now, when it - whatever it was - was done.

"But it would be best if you had another of these first. Will you?" Hermione held out her hand, another Canary Cream on her palm, showing the tell-tale signs of time spent in Ron's pocket - smushed in the centre, torn foil at the edges. Harry reached out, took it, and in the taking their fingertips brushed, and he felt her for the first time in forever.

A few minutes later, the feathers were disappearing, the yellow was fading, and Harry still felt pretty bloody good.

"Still eight?" Hermione asked, watching him closely.

"Yeah."

"Good," she said, and Harry saw the rush of open relief hit her, just for a second, as if he were peeking through a crack in a closing door. Relief and maybe something else - satisfaction? Pride? She deserved to be proud; looked like she'd fixed him. Saved him from something he couldn't even see, because she was Hermione and she was good at that. She continued, "We tested you for poison. You failed."

"What? Are you -?" Harry bit off his question, because there was no need to ask it. This was Hermione, and she was announcing something as fact. She was sure. Instead, he started thinking - amazing how much easier it was to do that all of a sudden, now that his head wasn't stuffed with pain. "You gave me a bezoar," he said, realising now why his throat knifed him every time he spoke, every time he swallowed, "and I got better, so I must have been poisoned?"

"That's the short version, yes."

He needed to hear the long version, needed to hear it right now, but he couldn't sound as if he was rushing her; he felt like every step had to be taken in her time if they were to get anywhere at all. But he could sound pleading. That would be okay. More than okay.

"And the rest of it? Please?"

Hermione leaned forward in her chair, shifting into explanation-mode. "Your body was working against magic used on it, like an allergic reaction. We proved that by giving you minor magical substances that should have been beneficial, which you indicated were just the opposite. Then we gave you a more complex substance that caused you to undergo a fairly large magical transformation. You reacted even more adversely to that one." She paused, letting him take it in. "So the options were, you suddenly developed an allergy to magic all on your own, or someone saw to it that you did. Thus, the bezoar."

"But where did the poison come from? The house?" Harry had to admit, that sounded better than the alternative - that he'd fainted from dealing with a boggart. "How? Was it in the air? Or something I touched? I didn't eat or drink anything. . . ."

"No," Hermione said. "Not the house."

He blinked. "Then. . ."

"Oh, think about it, Harry! Doesn't the pattern stretch further back than that? Dean told me that you'd had Polyjuice the night you got so sick at work. And it was when you'd stopped taking your potion and started with Muggle medicine that you really seemed to get better. That's right," she said, catching his expression, "I was paying attention. And remember that night you were cleaning the oven, and there were magical fumes everywhere? From dragon's blood, to be precise, which I know you've been dealing with at work lately, so no wonder you've been ill all the time. So you tell me, Harry. When did all this really start? Where did the poison come from?"

"I -" He should be thinking back, trying to connect a magical trigger to every time he'd felt sick to his stomach or nearly passed out or had a headache. He should be trying to find that very first time, so he could put a ring round it on a calendar, stand back and see what it told him. But looking at the past few months felt like looking at a house of cards; Hermione had just placed a new one, right at the very top, and now everything was a breath away from fluttering down. "I'm having a hard time with this, sorry."

Hermione frowned. "Like something's affected your memory?" She leaned forward a bit more, eyes searching as if examining an interesting specimen.

"No. Just. . . I've been thinking it was Voldemort." The words sounded strangely smaller out loud than they had living inside his head. Interesting, a detached part of him thought, has the name become something less powerful spoken than unspoken? "Everything that's been wrong for months now, I've been thinking was because of Voldemort. And it could still be, I reckon, I don't know. But this," he flapped a hand vaguely, "I never even thought of something like this, because I was too busy thinking about that."

There was a faint surprise on Hermione's face; at what he had said, or at the fact that he'd been honest enough to say it? The second one, he realised immediately, she'd gone to the Riddle House, she knew where his head had been. And she already knew how deep tunnel vision could take him, sometimes.

Harry looked at her, and suddenly saw her much, much younger; the two of them were far beneath Hogwarts, she'd just solved a logic-puzzle he never could have managed, won him a potion that would take him through black fire. In the room beyond he was expecting to find the Philosopher's Stone, and - he'd been so very certain, and so very wrong - Snape, the person trying to steal it. . . .

"More important things," he said. "That's what you said."

Her forehead knit in confusion. "What?"

She'd been taller than him, he remembered that, and he'd accidentally tasted her hair and the whole thing had been startling and suffocating, but in the best way, a way that had given him warmth when the ice-potion had brought the cold. . . .

"Never mind," he said. Too soon to follow that thought; he was still facing a roadblock on that path, and she would be too, from the other side.

"Well," Hermione said, after a pause, "Dean seems to think you're wrong about Voldemort. He's pretty desperate to talk to you, actually. I should -"

But Harry wasn't listening; he was busy marvelling at the way her brain worked. She had found him flat on the floor, a boggart in the room - a boggart that had never resolved itself into any form or any shape for him, wasn't that nice and psychological? - and she'd gone from there to poison, somehow, and she'd figured out exactly what the poison had been doing, devised a test, and proved it. "Why poison? I mean, what made you think of it?"

"Well - like I said, I've been paying attention, these past couple of months." Harry thought he caught a pinkness in her cheeks, at that. "So I started searching for a way to link together everything I'd seen without bringing Voldemort into it. And Dean sort of handed me the idea - while we were out looking for you, he happened to say something about it not being like you'd been poisoned or anything, and the more I thought about it, the more I realised it was exactly like that. Unexplained reoccuring bouts of illness that - well, neither Ron nor I have shown the first symptom," oh yes, she was definitely going pink now, "so it really can't have been down to a virus or bacteria."

"And Remus, he agreed?" Harry was probing now, to try and find out how much Remus knew about everything.

"He thought it was a valid theory," Hermione said. "He gave us the bezoar. I thought. . . I thought you'd rather we got it from him than if Dean got it from the Aurors."

Suddenly unable to look at her, Harry studied his hands instead. Here she was, after everything, still trying to save his job for him.

"I really should send Dean in now." Hermione got to her feet. "I promised him I'd only take a few minutes."

"Hermione. . ."

She stood by the bed with her face carefully unreadable. "Yes?"

And - he couldn't quite say it, couldn't quite push that block out of the way. Because didn't saying sorry mean he intended never to do it again? How could he say that, how could he promise that? He was sorry he'd hurt her but he wasn't sorry he'd tried to keep her safe, he wasn't. The fact that she meant more to him than maybe ever just meant that it was doubly, tripley, quadruplely his job now, and how could he be sorry for doing that?

"I'm glad you came." Because that was true, and it was a hard-fought truth inside him; he had not felt glad, when he had first awoken here. "Not just that you came, that you knew where to find me."

By her eyes, she understood just how deep that ran; she heard the That you know me that well, even if he hadn't formed the words. "Me too," she said quietly. They looked at each other for one moment more, and Harry couldn't quite breathe, and then she was at the door, her hand on the knob, turning.

Dean was there, waiting, on his way in as soon as the door began swinging open, but Harry didn't care. "Hermione," he said, before she could disappear, "I want to fix this."

A smile stole across her face, so real and true that Harry's heart flipped over. "Good," she said. "I'd like that."