I will say this right now: I will not be nice to Ron and Ginny in this fic. If you do not like Ron or Ginny bashing, please leave now. For the rest of you, we're going to have some fun….
As usual, I don't own Harry Potter.
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Chapter 3 - Five Years After…
As Harry prepared for another day at MITCO, he could not help but reflect on the past five years, and how they had changed him.
When Harry and Hermione emptied their desks in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and claiming that they were being reassigned, Ron was understandably upset. However, after a stern discussion, otherwise known as Ron and Hermione shouting at each other while Harry did his best to act as mediator, he finally accepted it. Ron eventually forgot about it, and four months after the incident, he proposed to Hermione. Ron and Hermione eventually married a week after Harry and Ginny had.
However, the wedded bliss soon degenerated into a near-constant feud between the newlyweds. In the beginning, MITCO had little international influence, and the local peace meant that Harry and Hermione did not have to be called out too often, giving an image of normalcy. Therefore, Harry was often invited to have drinks at the pub with Ron and other members of the auror force. During these nights out, Harry also became the primary victim of Ron's rants. Many of the redhead's tirades focused on either Hermione's work and his frustration that she would not tell him about it, or the fact that they still had not had sex.
While Harry had no interest in hearing of his friends' sex lives, he could not help but find this tidbit of information surprising. The next day, he gently asked Hermione about it. The brunette witch sighed and pulled him into an empty room before talking. Hermione talked about how she had wanted to cast a contraceptive charm on their wedding night, but Ron had refused, wanting to start a family right away. This had lead to yet another argument between them, which eventually prompted Hermione to sleep on the couch, too frustrated to force her new husband out of the bed.
As time passed, the arguments escalated in frequency and intensity, until Harry was afraid that they would start throwing hexes at each other. As their marital spats began drawing them into the battles, Ginny had predictably immediately sided with her brother while Harry, despite his best efforts to remain neutral, ended up agreeing with Hermione most times, which only prompted difficulties within his own marriage, as well as drive a wedge into his friendship with Ron. The fighting eventually culminated in a bitter divorce just over two years after they had married. After the properties were divided and the final papers signed, Ron applied for reassignment, and refused to talk to either Harry or Hermione again.
Harry's own marriage was far from perfect either. While the "blissfully in love" part had lasted longer than Ron and Hermione's, it barely lasted their first year of marriage. At first, it was about how Harry would not talk to her about his work, no matter how much she insisted, conveniently forgetting that every time she did bring it up, he told her that he simply could not talk about it. Later, the arguments became about both Harry's increasingly longer and more frequent disappearances, as well as his siding with Hermione during his mediation sessions.
As Ron and Hermione's marriage continued to fall apart, Ginny suddenly began insisting on her and Harry having a child together. However, between their almost constant fights and the fact that as MITCO extended its influence across the world, he was called out to overseas missions more often, Harry felt that he was not ready for a child, which added yet another subject of argument to the flames. By the time that Ron and Hermione had divorced, Ginny and Harry had taken to sleeping in separate bedrooms, avoiding each other whenever possible.
Harry spared a glance at his bedside clock, which read twenty minutes to nine `o clock. Sighing, Harry quickly tied his shoes, activated the anonymity charm on his watch and disapparated with a crack, appearing in the Ministry Atrium. Harry sighed as he slid into the lift with several other people. One of the men pressed up next to Harry in the crowded lift turned around and looked at Harry.
"I don't think I've seen you here before," the random Ministry employee said.
"I've been here a while," Harry replied, internally smirking. The anonymity charm was still doing its job perfectly. "I'm just good at not being noticed." Bidding Harry good day, the man walked out of the lift, giving Harry some much desired personal space. I need to learn to go to work earlier, Harry thought to himself as he pressed the button to take him down to the Department of Mysteries. Being careful to make sure that no one was following behind him, Harry walked into the main entrance chamber of the Department of Mysteries. It was only after Harry had walked into MITCO headquarters and sat down at his desk did he feel safe enough to deactivate his anonymity charm.
"Rough morning?" an amused voice asked behind him. Harry turned around to see Hermione standing behind him, holding out a mug of coffee.
"You could say that," Harry replied dryly, taking the offered drink and taking a sip. "I need to learn to come into work earlier; I'm getting tired of getting my personal space invaded every day." Hermione chuckled lightly at his grumbling.
"That's why I show up early," she said, her eyes glittering with mirth.
"Yeah, yeah," Harry grumbled, continually drinking his hot coffee, "not everyone can operate on twelve-hour shifts like you, Hermione." Suddenly, a familiar monotonous voice rang over the intercom.
"Agent Potter, Agent Granger, report to presentation room ASAP," the female voice rang dully. Harry sighed and looked down at his half-drunk coffee.
"Couldn't the bastard have at least waited until I had finished my coffee?" Harry grumbled as he placed a warming charm on his mug before following his friend and unofficial partner to the presentation room, where Farlen was already waiting for them.
"Oh good, you're here," Farlen said. Without waiting for a response, he tapped a crystal sitting on a table with his wand, projecting a three-dimensional image of an older Caucasian man. "Philippe Savelour, a French-English pureblood born in 1928. When he was nine, his family moved to England and he attended Hogwarts a year behind Tom Riddle, a.k.a. Lord Voldemort," Farlen recited. "While never officially a member of Riddle's little schoolyard club, Salevour believed in their ideals, and considered himself an unofficial member of the pre-Death Eaters. After graduating, Savelour returned to France. During Voldemort's first reign, he seemed to be getting supplies from the continent, and Salevour was a suspect. However, investigations in France yielding nothing, and the British aurors couldn't obtain a warrant to question him here.
"After Voldemort's first fall, Salevour seemed to drop off the face of the Earth, not a single trace of him remaining." Farlen waved his wand, which showed a moving image of Salevour walking through a crowd. "Two days ago, he was sighted by our friends across the pond. Oahu, Hawaii to be exact, and we suspect that he may be up to something. We need you two to go undercover and try to figure out why Salevour, now operating under the alias `Phillip Savage,' has shown his face after all these years. On the one hand, he could just be an old man enjoying the sun and surf. On the other hand, he could be helping another terrorist regime. Either way, we can't let this go uninvestigated." Farlen drew out two small folders from his pocket and waved his wand over them, enlarging them before handing them to Harry and Hermione. "These are your mission briefings and all data on the aliases you two will be adopting on this mission. You will report here tomorrow at oh-five-thirty hours. Good luck to you both," he finished, saluting the two agents, who returned the gesture before returning to their desks. As they read their files, Hermione suddenly gasped in shock.
"Harry, they're making us pose as a married couple!" she gasped. Harry quickly looked in his own file, naming him "Benjamin Davis". Indeed, where the marital status was listed, it read: Alexandra Davis (alias of Agent Hermione Granger), wife of one year.
"Umm…" Harry hummed, unsure how to react to that small fact. "At least it's us, right?" he said weakly. Shrugging, Hermione sat down at her desk to continue reading her file. With a sigh, Harry repeated her action, both of them spending the remainder of the day studying their most recent identities.
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That night, when Harry returned home, he immediately went to his room, conjured a suitcase and began throwing clothes and other essentials into it haphazardly.
"Going somewhere?" a cool female voice asked behind him. He turned around to see his wife Ginny standing in the doorway, her arms crossed and her eyes sending a piercing glare at him.
"It's for work, so don't even bother asking about it," Harry said flatly, having gone through this scenario more times than he remembered.
"Seems like you're in an awful hurry for `work,'" she responded sarcastically, eyeing the crumpled clothes in his suitcase.
"Ginny, I really don't want to fight tonight, and I've got to get up early, so I'm just going to rent a room tonight," Harry said as he zipped up his suitcase and shrunk it, sliding it into his pocket. "I'll see you when I get back. Love you," he said as he pecked her on the cheek and disapparated, leaving her alone in the bedroom.
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Harry appeared in the Leaky Cauldron pub and inn, which seemed rather quiet tonight.
"Can I help you, Mister Potter?" the hunchbacked owner Tom asked as he wiped the bar.
"I'd like a room, and a wakeup call," Harry said.
"That'll be seven sickles," Tom replied, and Harry slid the money over the counter. "When do you want that wakeup call?" Harry sighed and gritted his teeth briefly before replying.
"Four thirty AM," Harry muttered. Tom's eyes widened slightly, but nodded anyway, handing Harry a key. After Harry was told his room number, he entered it, stripped off his clothes and collapsed onto the bed, intent on gathering as much sleep as possible before his undoubtedly unwelcome awakening the next morning.
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After Harry had been woken up and walked into MITCO headquarters muttering various profanities under his breath, he entered the presentation room with several minutes to spare and Hermione already waiting. When Farlen showed up, he began listing the various equipments that they would be using.
"The cauldron heads upstairs have managed to improve the polyjuice potion for a full eight hours, so you'll be given fifty doses each," Farlen began, pointing to two small boxes. "You'll have a cell phone that, in addition to acting as a regular phone, also acts as a wand holster-" he continued, opening the phone in a way that was not possible for a regular cellular phone and sliding his wand inside to demonstrate, "…and the screen acts as a secure two-way mirror to me. It's also programmed so that it only responds to you; anyone else that tries to use these will find that they don't work." He set the trick phones down and opened up a silver case showing several sheets of what looked like wax paper. He reached down and peeled off a nearly transparent circle off of the paper. "These are fully functioning audio and video surveillance device. Plant these somewhere, and the footage will be broadcasted onto the screen on the inside of the case. Your wedding bands have also been enchanted with charisma charms, which will help to get into Salevour's good graces. And finally, your standard interrogation kit," he continued, opening another silver case to show five hypodermic syringes. "Five syringes of sedative mixed with a bit of veritaserum." His inventory concluded, he also drew out two airplane tickets with their aliases printed on them. "You have one hour to get to the airport with the new security measures, so I suggest you two hurry up. Make me proud, agents," Farlen concluded, saluting them.
As they left, Harry looked at his ticket.
"Hey, at least it's first class," he said, impressed.
"You don't really think they'd place us in a twenty-hour flight on coach, do you?" Hermione asked, rolling her eyes.
"Yes, actually, I do," Harry responded with a straight face. When they exited the Ministry of Magic, they hailed a taxi and rode to the airport. Two and a half hours later, they were taking off towards a far away land of sun, surf and potential terrorists.
Just another day in the office for Harry and Hermione.
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There you go, chapter three.
Don't forget to read and review!
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go to bed.
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