Harry Potter and the True Blood Brotherhood

Harry Potter was staring at his hands, something that he often found himself doing when nothing was going on around him or if, as was the case this time, no one was watching. It would be hard to classify the savior of the wizard world as shy, but in exactly that same way it would be hard to classify him as anything other. If one were to be completely truthful in any description of Harry Potter it would have to be remarked that he was indeed both, depending entirely on the occasion and the company. Actually if one were to be completely truthful in any description of Harry Potter it would have to begin as it almost always does when the rare few who have not seen his picture are told what he looks like; He's average height, average build, that is to say he is six foot one and no more, he is broad but not truly muscular. He has black hair, which despite everyone's best efforts seems totally unshakable in it's desire to appear as if someone had shaken him. He has emerald green eyes, which he has been told endlessly are exactly like his mother's. He possess a pair of spectacles, which he only takes off when he sleeps, or more accurately when he remembers to take them off to sleep. And all of this is wonderfully accurate a description of the man, but misses the most unique and oft mentioned thing about him and that is his forehead. On his forehead there is a scar, which is shaped curiously like a bolt of lightening. No one knows why it is has that particular shape, and mostly no one cares, because the reason it is there is far more important than it's shape. And that reason has been the basis of just about his entire life. That is, until now.

Last year Harry succeeded in besting, and ultimately killing the most powerful dark wizard ever known. He did this through steadfast determination, hope, courage, quick thinking, a lot of luck and much more help than the wizard news would lead one to believe. He firmly believes that attention he is receiving for having done this grave deed is unwanted, undeserved, and realistically far too short sighted. It was through the efforts of Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix that Voldemort's weakness were discovered, it was through the efforts of his best friends that he survived long enough to do anything about those very same weaknesses, and it was through the efforts of the students and staff of Hogwarts that he was able to act on these weaknesses at all. However, the headline of every wizarding newspaper did not read, “Heroes save world from You-Know-Who!”, they instead read, “Harry Potter: The-Boy-Who-Won!”

Which is why Harry Potter, The-Boy-With-Help, finds himself at a great celebratory banquet in the Great Hall of Hogwarts thrown totally in his honor and is, in fact, staring at his hands. To one side of him sits Ron, his tall, lanky red headed best friend, who seems entirely content to bask in the food presented and step from the spotlight. To his other side is Hermione. To understand Hermione, in a descriptive sense one has to understand that there are two approaches to this. There is the straight forward: Hermione has bushy brown hair, fair skin, is average height for a woman, and has pale brown eyes. Then there is the way that Harry sees her, which is: Hermione Granger is beautiful. Which basically sums it up.

Harry continues to stare at his hands. He does this because no one is watching him, they are instead watching a play about him. He doesn't much care for the play, he feels that it glorifies what happened, also he feels that the ending is flat. He feels this way because it is true. The play paints Harry as a wizard without peer, who at no point in the story seems challenged in any way by the events transpiring or indeed by the climatic battle with Voldemort, who seems to be being played out mostly in satire for laughs. The ending of the play unfolds in this way: Harry Potter beats Voldemort through what can only be ascertained is rather snappy dressing, he then gleefully runs off into the happy ending with Ginny Weasely. At no point in the play does it mention any death toll on the Heroes side, with the exception of Dumbledore who dies and is “mourned” some time in the beginning of act three. Dobby makes no appearance whatsoever.

The whole thing disgusts Harry. Almost as much as the cutesy faces that Ron and Hermione keep making at one another when they think Harry is not looking. He doesn't see why they aren't upset about what is transpiring on the stage, about the gross inaccuracies being stated as fact. All of this eventually worked itself into a boiling point and Harry got up quietly and walked outside.

He eventually ended up in what would have been the shade of his favorite tree overlooking the lake, if not for the fact that it was night time and the tree was, of course, not casting any shade. He sat there taking slow measured breathes until he heard the grass behind him making soft crunching noises as someone tread on it. He felt certain that he knew who it was so he didn't bother to look. When Ginny sat down in front of him he was, naturally, not surprised.

“Are you okay, Harry?”

“Is there a stronger word for no?” He cast his eyes to the lake, and away from her.

“Is it the play? Is that what's bothering you?” Ginny tried to put her hand on top of Harry's but he merely moved his own hand away.

“Of course the play bothers me. Merlin! How is it not bothering you?”

“It's kind of fun.” She shrugged and smiled lightly.

“It's kind of stupid.”

“Why are you so mad lately? It's over now, you get to have a normal life.”

“Run that by me again?”

“It's over...” She lowered her head.

“Ginny, you're sweet, and I don't want you to think that I'm being melodramatic here, but there is never going to be a point in my life that will qualify as normal. There is a play going on in there that has an actor playing lead as me.” He pointed to himself, he then pointed to the world around him, “That's what they all think right now. That the guy on that stage in there is who I am. That I'm an unbeatable wizard prodigy, which I am so not. Not hardly.”

“You are an amazing wizard, Harry!”

“I'm actually a pretty average wizard, Gin. I always have been.”

“But you cast a patronis at such a young age!”

“Yeah, I did a lot of things at a young age, but never anything that was really of the same caliber of magic that Dumbledore used, or even Voldemort for that matter.”

“What do you mean?”

“Gin, come on, you know me. I didn't beat Voldemort because I had unstoppable magical powers, I beat him the same way I always beat him: Dumb luck, and quick thinking. If the people in there had half of my dumb luck they would all be wizard icons.”

“You remember that time I told you that you sell yourself short too often?”

“Not really.”

“Well, you do. You're a git. It can't be helped, I suppose but it's still true. Git.”

“Lovely, smashing job, Ginny, really couldn't feel better about myself. I guess I am the greatest wizard who ever lived.” He said flatly.

“I didn't come out here to call you a git, Harry. You made me call you a git because you're acting like such a git.”

“Yeah, maybe. Why did you come out here?”

“Because it's all over now, and you never answered my owl.”

“Ah.” Harry said nervously.

Ginny's owl, upon which she had of course put a letter addressed to Harry Potter, had arrived at the small London flat that Harry was renting exactly eleven months ago, almost to the day. Because he was fairly certain what the letter entailed it had gone unread for a grand total of five more months. When finally he got up the gumption to thumb through it he had read the first line and then remembered that he had to by more milk and was off to the corner store in almost the same instant. The letter then went unread for an additional four months. One day as he was packing up some of his old school trinkets he came upon the letter on top of a pile of post that he had yet to read. He glanced at it, felt badly for putting it off for so long, then promptly put it off yet again for two more months. He did finally get around to reading it the morning prior to the event he found himself at that night.

The letter, which was a rambling and only semi coherent fourteen pages could basically be summed up in a single sentence. That sentence would be:

Harry,

Now that the war is over and the danger is passed, am I going to be your girlfriend again?

-Ginny

“I read through it.” Harry answered.

“And?” Ginny leaned in closely, anxious for the answer.

“Uhm.” Harry said intelligently.

“Yes?”

“Gin, that's a tough one.” Harry smiled a convincing smile.

Ginny was not convinced, and if one were to be truthful in a description of Harry Potter they would have to include the fact that he too, did not seemed convinced.

Chapter One.

Harry was twenty-three today. It was a balmy ninety-eight degrees outside his small London flat, which had an air conditioning unit that was still not working at one hundred percent and was today packed with twenty of his closet friends and what he had in lieu of family. Harry was sweating so profusely that even his hair was a little matted down. His guests were frequently stepping outside to cool down, a thing which Harry envied. Dean was sitting on the couch making a valiant attempt at flirting with one of Harry's co-workers. His co-worker, Abby, was in no way interested in Dean, or Seamus before him. Abby was twenty-one, dark haired, blue eyes, completely stunning and crashing the party. She had come because she had, for some years, wanted to be Mrs. Harry Potter. Harry of course preferred Mr. Potter to be without a shared last name.

Mrs. Weasley was in the kitchen whipping up course after course, Mr. Weasely was walking around amiably striking up conversations with Harry's other guests. Ron was standing across the room from Hermione pretending to be interested in the conversation he was allegedly having with Neville and not the conversation that Hermione was having with Fleur. He was doing this because they had recently had a row that went so badly that it had become common knowledge that Ron was once more staying with his parents. The rest of the surviving Weasleys were throughout the apartment doing various things and chatting with various people. Harry on the other hand was doing none of these things.

He was just trying to escape the crush of the crowd in his apartment and hoping that everyone would eventually see themselves out so he could lock his door and hide until fall. He was tired of opening presents, tired of talking to people about what he and, what he suspected the sole purpose for the initial question was, what they were doing. Harry had not meant to become jaded by his fame, he just had. It hadn't happened over night, and it wasn't something he liked about himself, but he was now tired, most of all, of talking to people about anything. It always, without fail and often without warning, seemed to turn into either an interview or the opposite part attempting to impress him. It drove him crazy, no one seemed to just act like themselves around him. In this vein no one was a bigger offender than Ginny.

She spent her time around him either trying to look as ravishing as possible or parading an seemingly limitless number of pretty boys in front of him. He couldn't figure out if the message she was sending was that she wanted him desperately or that she was totally over him, and more so he really couldn't force himself to care. The only person he wanted to talk to, and the one person who seemed not to try to impress him, was the one person he was too afraid to talk to.

Hermione was always herself around Harry. He loved that about her. She didn't over embellish her life or her job, she was a professor at Hogwarts. She didn't make any effort to dress her best, or over apply makeup. She didn't bother to tame her wild hair. She was just Hermione, the girl he had always known. He wanted badly to catch up with her, but dared not to. Ever since her and Ron started to fall apart earlier in the year Harry had avoided getting involved. He remembered how bad it was when Neville and Luna had broken up, so bad in fact that Luna had decided not to come to his party but had instead invited him over to her place for a Neville free celebration. Harry did not want to pick sides in what was likely to be the biggest breakup in the group, and really he wouldn't know what side to pick anyway. They were both his best friends.

But more than any other reason it was because of how he had felt about Hermione in the last few years that he was so terrified to speak to her. As much as he disliked the idea of her confirming that her and Ron were on the outs, he loathed the notion that she might tell him they weren't. He had only felt this conflicted once before, and that was because he was staring down the fact that he would have to murder someone before he turned eighteen. The fear bubbling up inside him currently was exactly like that fear and also totally different. They both had far reaching ramifications. Just like there are still former Death Eaters that attack him at weird hours and after long months of planning, he didn't want Ron added to their numbers. He really couldn't bear the thought of Ron not being his Best friend, still he was having an absurd amount of trouble baring the thought of not talking to Hermione.

After a few hours of internal dissonance had passed Harry went into his bed room, moved the coats from atop his bed to the floor and sat down. He began, as he oft does, to stare at his hands. He felt into his back pocket for his wand. It was a quick movement, the same kind he used to make sure his wallet was still on his person. He laid back in his bed and looked at the ceiling. He was just about to close his eyes and slip into a very short coma, only about a dozen or so years, when he heard an explosion in the living room. Followed by twenty screams beginning at the same time and some ending far before others.

He jumped to his feet, whipped the wand from his back pocket and raced for the door to his room. When there he threw it open and surveyed the scene with a glance. Everyone seemed to be okay, apart from most of them being off their feet. Nothing more than superficial cuts and bruises. Where Ron had formerly been standing, he was now laying with his feet poking out of the kitchen door, there was a hole in the side of the building. It allowed for what would have been, had the hole not been in the side of his apartment, a lovely view of Diagon Alley. Floating just outside the new subtraction from the architecture were four people in dark cloaks on broomstick. They were wearing masks which were unmistakably those of Death Eaters. They were laughing, high reedy laughs.

Harry Launched himself behind his over turned couch, only to bump his head into Abby's. She gasped, noted it was Harry who had bumped into her and not Dean or Seamus and began to shiver with fear into him rather than the upholstery. Harry put a had on each of her shoulders and pushed her back to face him. She had small cuts miring her naturally stunning features. She looked up at him expectantly, though what she expected was unclear to both of them. She had her eyes half closed as if hoping to kiss him and her mouth half open as if waiting to scream again. Instead of letting either thing happen Harry spoke to her.

“You need to stay behind this couch, do you understand?”

“What?”

“Stay behind this couch, if you move I can't guarantee your safety. Stay near me.”

“O..Okay.”

“But if you crowd me, so help me I will throw you out to those Death Eaters myself. Clear?”

“Yes.”

Harry stood up and fired off four stunning spells. The Death Eaters fired off spells of their own, all unforgivable curses and all but the killing curse. In the confusion Harry only landed one spell causing one of the Death Eaters to fall from his broom. Harry sprang from behind the couch and yelled for someone to provide cover fire. He skidded almost completely to the lip of the hole in his apartment, pointed his wand down and shouted, “Mobilicorpus!” The stunned body of the Death Eater floated to ground unharmed. Harry breathed a sigh of relief.

He got into a crouch and headed back into the flat for cover, the spells of what had turned out to be Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Neville, and Mr. And Mrs. Weasley flew past his head and at the broom bound Death Eaters. Hermione managed to get one confounded enough that he was blasting leg locker curses at his mates. Ron Had managed to take control of a third Death Eater's broomstick and was repeatedly flying him into a wall adjacent Harry's place. Neville had been hit with what looked to be a pretty nasty, but sloppily cast Petrificus spell, he was on his belly but both of his arms were still mobile. Once behind cover Harry put his quick thinking to work on a solid plan.

“Everyone get to cover!” He shouted.

Within the space of seconds everyone had obeyed his command. The Death Eater's were beginning to recover. Ron's victim had even managed to regain control of his broom. They fired into the apartment for several seconds before it seemed to dawn that they had no available targets. Harry finally got the opportunity he was hoping for. He looked over at Hermione, she was looking directly at him, in a way she had never looked at him before. The concern was the same, but the pride seemed brand new. He would have been at serious risk of his pants bursting into flame if he didn't say that he liked the look. He looked back at the kitchen and let out a sigh. He stood up quickly and waved his arms so the Death Eaters would see him. He heard loud protests from his friends at his actions, but if he had had time to explain every facet of his plan he was pretty sure it wouldn't work anyway.

The Death Eaters snapped to attention and all brought up their wands at him. Harry had noticed before that they didn't seem to be casting the killing curse, he hoped that this meant that they were either unwilling to because this was a warning or that they were unable to because this attack was not something they had really sat down and took time to think out. As soon as the first syllable of a spell that Harry knew was going to be Crucio was uttered he raised his wand at the hole in his apartment and internally hoped his plan was as stupid or crazy as it seemed. He then yelled.

“PROTEGO!”

A blue shield of light glistened into place in the spot where once a wall stood. It shimmered like holograms in exceptionally expensive science fiction movies. For half a second Harry worried that it wouldn't stay, that it was too large a shield to maintain at all. But it stayed. The Death Eaters, who were now in the process of casting their curses, were unable to cancel their magic and watched as balls of electric red light collided with Harry's spell. The Protego charm did exactly as it was intended to, and more precisely exactly as Harry hoped it would. The Crucio curses collided with it and instead of dissipating they bounced back to their senders.

The three remaining Death Eaters were hit squarely by their own harmful curses and writhed for a few seconds before rider and broomstick plummeted to Earth amid screams and howls of pain. Hermione, Ron and Neville raced forward, exactly as Harry had only seconds before and rescued the Death Eaters from particularly bad descent related deaths. Harry let down his charm and called for his broom, which soared into the living room and squared off in front of him. Once mounted he bolted for the ground below.

The Death Eaters had, in that short amount of time, gathered up their unconscious comrade, mounted their own brooms and took off. Harry, who was at one time a pretty talented seeker, tore after them at top speed. His own broom, which was the best that money could buy only three years ago, was unable to match the top speed of the brooms of the Death Eaters. Failing to over take them in speed he tried to out maneuver them. He raced up into the clouds, miles above his quarry and angled his broom for a diagonal shot. He raced at top speed, the wind flying past him and nearly deafening him, he had not gone this fast in the air in some time.

The Death Eaters had apparently not seen him shoot up into the sky behind them and seemed to be of the mistaken idea that they had simply lost him on their superior brooms. Soon Harry rocketed into the group, slamming into the rider in front. The Death Eater lost his balance and fell from his broom. Harry had not expected him to topple so easily, he turned downward and raced after the falling Death Eater. When he was only inches from him Harry extended his arm to try and catch the robes of the man in free fall, physics be damned.

However in those seconds the Death Eater had regained his senses and had shouted, “Accio Broom!” with his wand extended. Harry had to veer violently to the left to avoid being side swiped by the wildly incoming broom shaped missile. The Death Eater Caught hold of his broom and raced off with the rest of his pose. Harry tried again to out maneuver them, but they would not fall for the same tricks. They launched spell after spell, slowing down Harry's progress and increasing their already, faster broom aided, lead. Eventually Harry had to admit defeat. He paused in midair to shout swear words after the specks on the horizon which at one time had been clearly visible adversaries. Before turning his broom around and heading home.

He tried to fly back in through the same hole in his wall he had flown out of, but one of his guests had already repaired the damage with spells. So Harry flew down to the street and did a quick sweep for clues. He found nothing but street trash. Some crumpled newspapers, a balled up invitation to an open house for a new shop, some wizard trading cards that one might find in their candy. He picked one of the cards up randomly. As luck would have it the face on the card turned out to be his own. His face looked out at him with tired green eyes, a half hearted smile and his unmistakable scar. The back of the card had a short biography, listing his accomplishments. Besting Voldermort, Team Seeker and later Capitan for his house Quidditch team, Lead investigator and Auror for the Minsitry. It had some statistics too, but Harry didn't really care. He dropped the card to the floor and took the stairs back up to his flat. The street below had seemingly been a bust, he had hoped to find a wand or some tattered robe or something.

He climbed the stairs two at a time trying to get the cards out of his mind. He couldn't understand why they were lingering there. Normally when he dismissed a clue it had the good sense to stay dismissed. He thought that perhaps he just didn't really care for the fact that his face was now greeting the same card set that he had once bonded with his best friend over at the tender age of eleven. He shook his head and walked into his apartment. His guests were putting everything back that they could and magically repairing the rest.

When she saw him Hermione rushed over to see if he was okay, but also to see if he had learned anything. Harry told her that they had outrun him and that they had left nothing behind. Hermione put him on the couch next to Abby and went into the kitchen with Mrs. Weasley to make some tea for the more shaken guest, and a something for Harry for being “So brave.”

Abby looked over at Harry with the customary longing she always had, mixed with the customary hero worship he got when the department forced him out to Hogwarts to tell the kids about his job. Ron squeezed in between the two and turned to face Abby.

“Anne, right?” Ron began.

“Abby.” She corrected.

“Oh, look I'm terrible sorry.”

“No problem.”

“Abby then.” He continued sweetly.

“Yes?”

“Shit off will you.” He demanded.

“Well excuse me!” She huffed.

“I'm trying to.”

She left the couch offended, ranting about how manners were clearly lost on men nowadays. Harry stifled a laugh as Ron turned and smiled at him.

“What happened out there?”

“With the Death Eaters? Nothing. They got away.”

“Are you okay?”

“Well, honestly I got to tell you mate, I feel like I should be practicing on the old broom a lot more often.”

“That embarrassing was it?”

“They out paced me like I was standing still. It's not the sort of thing that makes you feel heroic, you know.”

“I hear that.” Ron sighed, “Bill and Fleur's kid out raced me a few weeks back. I've never, mind you never felt the need to call someone a whipper snapper before, but boy did I ever that day.”

Harry and Ron laughed and reminisced for awhile, like they used to before the world started thinking of Harry as more than a sob story. Before long Hermione joined them, with Harry between her and Ron as subtly as she could. Mr Weasley began to excuse the party guests and then himself and his wife in order to alert the Ministry of this latest attack, until finally it was the three old friends, again for the first time in a long time, sitting in a room by themselves. At which point silence prevailed. The three just sat uncomfortably, the recent attack, and the recent developments in their friendships and relationships once more placing the weight of the world squarely on their shoulders. Finally Hermione broke the horrible quiet.

“Does.. uhm... Does this sort of thing happen often?”

“This? Are you kidding, Harry throws the best parties.” Ron smiled until a challenging look from Hermione sent deep into the couch and deeper into angry muttering about how she never got his sense of humor anyway.

“No. Well, yes and no.” Harry finally answered.

“Yes and no?” Her eyebrow shot up.

“I've been attacked before, but never at my flat. The location of this place is a ministry secret. Usually it's just poison in my food at restaurants and packages containing really mad hexes and such at work. This sort of thing is brand new.”

“Wait, people are attacking you on a regular basis?” Ron sat forward, “But you're the savior of wizard kind!”

“Not everyone was happy to see Voldemort go, Ron.” Hermione lowered her brows and stared ice cold death at Ron. Harry shivered, “There have always been pockets of subversives out there that believe the Dark Arts are the birth right of pure blood wizards.”

“We can clean up the aftermath of their attacks on muggles and muggle borns, but we can't clean up their dirty thoughts, mate.” Harry opined.

“Merlin.” Ron put his hand to his forehead, “Some people are so backwards.”

“Why don't you have a guard or something?” Hermione leaned close to Harry, too close for proper friendly if you were to ask him, but where Hermione was concerned too close was about a block away by owl some days. Especially if she smelled as good as she did then.

“Well, like I...uh..like I said, they've never attacked me at home.”

“And you didn't get anything substantial off them at all?”

My god, Harry thought, Have her eyes always been so amazing? He shook his head once to get rid of the thoughts of her, then had to shake it again because the wizard trading cards resurfaced. This time though the shake didn't work. He knew something about those cards had bothered him, it had just taken awhile for it stir around correctly in the back of his mind.

Something about the trading cards was off. For example, why should they be there? Children's collectibles seemed out of place, at his end of Diagon Alley. Sure he would see the occasional candy wrapper or some graffiti magiced into life against the wall of his building from time to time, as anyone would wherever they may be, but his area of Diagon Alley had only the book store and the wand shop at any close distance, and it was summer. Kids, regardless of how studious they may be, were not likely to be back to school shopping yet. When this piece fell into place other seemingly small things did. Fast brooms. Both Harry and Ron were Quidditch enthusiasts. They both loved racing brooms, they both owned racing brooms, and at this point in their lives, Ron a successful Auror as well as Harry they could both afford to spend a little extra on their similar interest. Yet they both owned brooms that were a few years old and no longer top of the line.

And moreover, something didn't sound right to Harry about their laughs. It took him a few seconds to realize that the laughs, those high reedy laughs were familiar, but not in the sense that they sounded like voices he recognized. More they were familiar in that everyone has heard the sounds of children laughing.

“Oh hell.” Harry said aloud, “I think we have a bigger problem.”

Harry's boss was a patient witch, she had been an Auror for twenty-five years and had seen bright young witches and wizards come and go from her department in that time, but none had ever been Harry Potter. He was famous, which came in handy for recruiting and for the occasional nod to the press that a case was closed rather than ongoing. But that fame came with a heavy price, privacy was almost impossible, and more so, she felt embarrassed when she happened to fail him in any way.

She felt embarrassed now. Somehow the location of his apartment had been leaked to the Death Eaters. She had spent all morning setting up task forces and sending her best investigators, save Harry, to track down leads and try to follow through on anything they could. She was trying her best to make it up to Potter, she couldn't help but feel that somehow all of this was her fault. It had been her to make sure that Potter's residence stayed a Ministry secret. She was on her third cup of coffee and sixth regenerative concoction when she straightened her robes and headed for interrogation.

They had one of her people there, and she was there by her own orders. The head Auror walked into the room where her men were looking in on the young women in the interrogation room. There were two men inside. Peters, a tall and skinny man with ramshackle robes and spots of gray in what hair he had left and his partner Addington, short, squat, mustached and angry at the way that fated had played havoc with his genes. She had made them partners as a secret joke. Tall, thin and pleasant Peters, short, plump and angry Addington. The joke had worn thin over all these years, and she was now ashamed to admit the reason she had made them partners in the first place. She had decided to chalk it up to youth, she was young once. Peter's inclined his head when she entered.

“Mabel.” He greeted.

“What's she said?” Mable asked.

“Nothing yet. We're waiting for clearance to come down from the inquisition department to talk to her.” Angry little Addington spoke angry and little.

“Clearance? Why are we waiting for clearance? She's been sitting there a half an hour!” Mabel roared.

“Mab, it's more complicated than it seems.” Peters shrugged.

“We went in there to talk to her when some hotshot in slick robes with one of those fucking twenty galleon smiles rolls in, slick as anything, and tells us that she's a person of note.”

“Person of note?”

“It seems she's the daughter of a member of the Wizengamot.”

“Hot holy hell.” Mabel slammed her hand on the sturdy little table between the two Aurors, “Well, when are we to expect notification?”

“It's already been this long. We'll probably be goddamn waiting here for hours!”

“I don't like this, I don't like this one bit. I'm going to Shaklebolt.” Mabel nodded her head and walked out, leaving the two Aurors inside to sigh and shrugg, and throw a loud temper tantrum respectively.

Mabel took the service elevator, newly installed to hasten rate of travel between the seven proper departments and the Minister himself, who was exactly who Mabel was on her way to see. When she got into outer office she pulled a page from Potter's play book and stormed past the secretary, throwing the double doors open and staring eye to eye with the tall dark and solid Kingsly Shaklebolt, Minister of Magic.

“Something I can help you with Mabel?”

“Don't be so calm with me!”

“Okay. You're clearly upset. What's going on?”

“I have Abby Slanton in my interrogation room.”

“Slanton? As in Reginald Slanton?”

“Yeah, and you know what she's doing in there?”

“Being interrogated?” He gave her a slow and confident, but confused smile.

“Actually she's sitting there.”

“Well, why is she just-”

“She's sitting there, waiting to be interrogated, but we can't because goddamn AI won't let us at her until they clear it with her father!”

“Auror Inquisition in a important branch, I can't have you in my office complaining about that branch every other week.”

“She knew the address of Harry Potter flat! She crashed his birthday party there last night!”

“Last night? You mean when the attack-”

“Yes! We need to know how she learned a Ministry secret so we can either confirm or rule her out as a suspect.”

“If she goes to the press we won't be able to keep the attack from going public any longer.” Shacklebolt protested, “Do you have anything you can hold her on?”

“Nothing.” She shook her head, “Which is why she's in interrogation and not a holding cell.”

“Merlin.” He put his hand to his head and leaned back wearily in his chair.

“My thoughts exactly.”

“I'll she what I can do to lift the inquisition. In the meantime, I need to know where Harry is now.”

“He's being relocated to a safe house.”

“The Burrow?”

“No. Too public.”

“Then where?”

“Sir, I'm sure you appreciate that I can't tell you that.”

“Yes, yes. Of course. It's only that I worry. I've known the boy for a very long time.”

“We all have, sir. One way or another.” And with that Mabel was on her way back to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and the Aurors offices from there.

* * *

Harry was finished putting his belongings away at the safe house, a tiny little place that had likely seen it's share of squatters before he had shown up to claim it as a temporary home as well. The place was small, always seemed to be damp, and smelled badly of rotting Indian food, and these were it's charming features. Harry sat down at the little desk next to the bed and tried twice to turn on the desk lamp before he realized that the lamp was so far gone it had come back and left again. He lit the tip of his wand and set it on the desk before pulling out a quill and his notebook.

The idea that people younger than Harry were Death Eaters was troubling him. While it wouldn't be impossible to say that some of the first years that he knew when he was leaving Hogwarts were Death Eaters then, it wasn't what his gut was telling him. These kids seemed too young even for that. Which lead him to the conclusion that somehow the Death Eaters were recruiting again, and recruiting young. However with Voldemort dead and gone they couldn't truly be Death Eaters, could they? Could they still be loyal to a dead man?

Harry supposed that the Death Eaters had likely come to view Voldemort as a martyr rather than a sad old fool, and if that were the case they had acquired something that could possibly make them even more dangerous. They had turned their fear of a powerful wizard into a faith, as once Bella LeStrange had done. He shuddered at the thought of dozens of LeStranges running around. And here he hit his dead end. He had nothing left to go on. When he had owled Mabel earlier to ask that Abby be interrogated he had hoped he would have a response within the hour. The response was either late coming or the interrogation was being held up.

He decided it was going to do him no good to sit around and think himself into a stupor. He gathered his things and vanished. He reappeared in the public toilets that he had come to favor as his entrance into the Ministry. As soon as he was inside he headed straight for the Aurors offices, and from there to his desk.

Harry's desk was a mess. Not a fun mess, and certainly not a productive mess. He had piles of half done paperwork he had lost once and redone, turned in and come back only to find the old paperwork somehow mysteriously at the bottom of a stack of paperwork. He had pictures hung up on his cubicle walls and obscured forever by old case notes he had tacked up over them. He had mostly eaten lunches and dinners laying devil may care about here and there, some of which had become fuzzy, but thanks to certain spells left no smell in their unpleasant wake.

It was in the midst of this absolute mess that Harry was searching for a pen. He knew he had a few of them, tucked away in the maddening crevices and nooks, of his remarkably load baring desk. Of course he couldn't find any. He headed over to the Improper use of Magic Department, and to Hermione's exceptionally organized desk. He saw that she wasn't sitting there so he grabbed one of her pens and headed back to the Auror's offices. Once there he made a bee line for Mabel's office, rushing past her secretary and slamming open her door. She was sitting there looking completely flustered and exhausted.

“What going on with the Abby thing?”

“We're waiting for approval.” She muttered, “Did you know her father is on the Wizengamot?”

“No, why would I know that?”

“Eh, curious.”

“So, hey, Boss.” Harry began.

“No.”

“I haven't even asked.” Harry said pretending to be offended.

“I don't care. Whenever you call me boss, it's because you want something.”

“And in the interest of keeping the streak alive, I want something. Fancy that.”

“What, Potter?”

“I want to be put on this case.”

“This case is about you. That's not just a conflict of interests it's irresponsible.”

“Yeah, maybe. Who cares. I want it. It's interesting.”

“Well, you can't have it.”

“Come on! What's it going to take?”

“You'll have to have a partner.”

“But I don't like having partners.”

“This is my problem exactly how?”

“You love me, Mab, you always have.”

“Potter.”

“I think it's my dimples, but who can tell?”

“Potter.”

“Fine, I'll take the stupid partner.”

“That's more like it.”

“This is a one time thing though, yes?”

“We'll see.”

“So, who's my new go-for?”

“Weasley.”

“I take it back, you hate me and my stupid dimples.”

“Oh, Harry.”Mabel jested, “According to Witch World Weekly, no one hates your stupid dimples.”

“Well, at least there's that.”

“Are you wondering yet why it was so easy to be put on this case?”

“Not at all, we established your love of my dimples.”

“Seriously, you're on this because if your name is heading the newspapers we'll get a little more leeway to explore.”

“Yeah, I figured. How much longer can we hold Abby?”

“Honestly? An hour, two tops. We have no grounds to hold her, and if we don't get allowance to talk to her we have to let her go.”

“I'll work on it.” Harry grinned.

“Potter. Don't make a mess of this.”

“Yeah, yeah. Rules and all that. Right there with you.”

* * *

Ron was sitting at his desk, sneaking a second lunch between breaks when Harry sat down on his desk. Ron looked up and smiled his knowing smile before he swallowed what he was still chewing, with more than a little difficulty.

“So.” Ron began, “What brings you to my neck of the woods, partner?”

“You've heard, then.” Harry shrugged, “Of course how you manage to stay a step ahead of me in inter office politics and still barely chew eight meals a day is beyond me.”

“It's a talent. I have others, but really when am I going to have to juggle chainsaws while standing on my head in polite company?”

“That is a conundrum.”

“Whelp, partner. I guess we better dig into what we have on this already.”

“Wouldn't help, we're dead ended.”

“Then your visit isn't entirely social?”

“Well, I mean if you want I can leave some money behind when you do this favor for me, you know if you don't want to feel all used.”

“Fifteen galleons isn't a lot to ask.”

“Done.” Harry reached into his wallet and fished out the money, “I need you to distract Peters and Addington for a few minutes.”

“Do I really want to know?”

“Merlin, no.”

“Okay, I'm in.”

Harry got up and raced back to his desk. It took him several moments to remember what drawer he kept his cloak in, but eventually he found it and wrapped himself. Totally invisible he walked into the interrogation room and had a seat. He waited to hear the door to the viewing room open and close before he spoke.

“Abby, it's Harry. Don't panic.”

“Where are you?”

“Doesn't matter. I have some questions I need you to answer.”

“Do you ever need anything else. A girl gets the feeling that you're not interested.”

“You know, out of context that's a really weird thing to say when you're visibly alone in a room.”

“Noted. So, what did you want to know?”

“How did you get my address?”

“It wasn't anything sneaky or anything. I just posted the question on the bulletin board in front of the break room.”

“Someone told you? Who?”

“I don't know. I was never approached. I just found a letter on my desk yesterday.”

“And this didn't seem odd to you?”

“Everything seems odd to me, I make it a habit to just roll with the punches.”

“Hmm.” Harry debated the pros and cons of his next question carefully before he asked it, “Do you know where Draco Malfoy is?”

“Draco Malfoy? He disappeared years ago.” Abby gave the air in the direction she imagined him to be a quizzical look.

“Three years and eight months.”

“Why would I know where he is?”

“He disappears in the middle of starting a pure blood revolution, years later you get a letter with my address after asking in the least productive way possible and the day you arrive at my flat we all get attacked by Death Eaters. The coincidence has merit.”

“Regardless, and really, Harry that is a stretch, I never even met Draco Malfoy before he vanished. I'm certainly not going over to his secret lair and paying wizard chess with him.”

“Maybe. I'll look into it.”

“Was there anything else?”

“Yeah, just one more. When everything went down you panicked and hid behind the couch.”

“Seems like a pretty normal response from fear to me.”

“It is, except that you've had Auror training. You know how to control fear in battle. Why did you fall apart?”

“Do you want the real truth or a convenient lie?”

“I don't have much use for lies at this stage.”

“I wanted you to think you had to protect me. That seems to be what you go for in women. All the girls you've dated, and I read the tabloids, haven't got clue one in their pretty little blond heads.”

“Just out of curiosity, what would the lie have been?”

“You just moved too quickly for me to get my bearings, gosh you're amazing.” She feigned starry eyed admiration.

“Right. That's rubbish. Okay. I'm done here.”

Harry got up and left. He went back to his desk and stored his cloak. He then went to Mabel to tell her she might as well release Abby, being vague about the why this was something sensible to do now when it hadn't been fifteen minutes ago. He then grabbed Ron from what seemed to be a thrilling conversation about the Quidditch world cup with Peters and Addington and dragged his new partner to the unsolved case lock up. He pulled the file on Draco Malfoy and dropped it with a heavy, and dust filled, thud on the table in the cold case room.

“Malfoy?” Ron seemed confused.

“I don't know why, but I have a feeling he plays into this somehow.”

And with that Harry and Ron began to re-examine to file, and to piece together one the wizard worlds greatest mysteries.

Ron had the first Malfoy file open on his lap, a half eaten sandwich on the table next to him, and his younger sister arguing with his mother for background noise. This had become somewhat common place for him in the last few months, which was not to say that he enjoyed it, but simply to say that he was accustomed to it. There was a time when he was living with Hermione, when he could do his work at home in relative peace. Depending on how one were to define the word peace at any rate. There was always the constant arguments then too, though the contenders had been himself and his girlfriend.

When Hermione had asked him to move out one night it had not come as a great surprise, nor had it been earth shattering at the time. It had become both in the intervening weeks since. Though they had kept it a pretty big secret throughout their relationship, Ron had spent many nights sleeping on the couch, or at some cheap muggle hotel. Fighting had been all but the staple that had kept them a couple for so many years. Ron had been fairly convinced most of the time that they only stayed together as a method of keeping score of the victor for their many repeated arguments.

Which is not to say that they were unhappy. At the heart of it, their relationship was built on mutual attraction and love. They were best friends after all. The one portion of their coupling which was, is and always, as far as he could tell, been lacking was trust. For whatever reason they never seemed to trust the other, in both big and small ways. Ron felt he could at this point write the worlds most informative dissertation on the destructive tendencies of couples the world over.

He sighed and got to his feet. He put his work into his bag and made for the front door, passing what had the makings of an all night row between Ginny and his mom about whether or not her “friend” could spend the night. He disapparated in the garden and reappeared in London. He walked through Diagon Alley, looking for a nice quiet place to read the now ancient, by law enforcement standards, reports on the mysterious disappearance of Draco Malfoy. When he finally did, he found a bench roughly adjacent to Harry's now deserted flat. He pulled the paper work from his bag and began, in earnest, to pour himself into it.

According to the paper work Draco had undergone, a sudden and immense change. He had always been a huge pure blood supported, but any kind of violence was a stretch for him. The case was at the time being handled by Harry. The notes included by Harry seemed to indicate that he felt Draco was possibly under some kind of outside influence, though the exact kind was unknown. Draco had disappeared from his bedroom, with no sign of damage. He was not reported missing until four days after he had vanished. He was presumed gone without a trace, however Harry had made some very hastily written remarks that this was not an accurate description considering the testimony of Anthony Ridgemond, the janitor for a small wizard book shop in central London.

Ron pulled another file out, in order to look deeper into the mention testimonial. According to the reports taken Anthony claims to have seen Draco attempting to enter the shop after closing hours, only to give up and run off in another direction. The shop is located hundreds of miles from the place that Draco had been staying at the time, and occurred at eighteen past ten at night, when the testimony of one of Draco's former peers puts him still in the company of a girlfriend he had been seeing at the time. The conclusion as written by Mabel says that the story is unlikely to have actually occurred and was likely an attempt by Ridgemond to make the newspapers. In Harry's cramped handwriting at the bottom of the report Ron read the words, “Alohomora” and “Speak with Agnes Agnew.”

Ron knew that Agnes was the girlfriend Draco was known to have had before his vanishing act. Ron closed the files, stuffed them back into his bag and let out a tremendous sigh. This thing seemed to be nothing more than a wild goose chase, the Malfoy case had been closed for a reason. It was presumed that Draco was likely murdered by one of his followers and this fact concealed exceptionally well. However, this wasn't the first time Harry had dragged this case out of the cold files. Ron had looked into it. The Malfoy case one on of Harry's pet projects, he had tried to connect it to a dozen other cases in the past all so that he could take another legitimate stab at solving it once and for all. This newest attempt, which is how Ron was beginning to see it, was the thinest attempt yet.

Ron got up and walked to the post. He rented an owl and sent his nightly letter to Hermione. He then went home and slept through the row in the downstairs room.

* * *

Hermione,

This is stupid. You are being stupid. We aren't working as a couple, I get that, but really if you're going to end it, end it. If not; let me move back in. Living with my parents is the worst kind of punishment. As always, not that you ever respond, let me know.

-Ron.

* * *

Ron's letter was laying on the kitchen table, with the rest of his letters. Hermione had read them all, watched as they began apologetic for the fight, turned into begging to come home, became from there anger at how childish she was being. Now, with this latest letter she was watching the burgeoning of a new prevailing attitude, indifference. He was no longer fighting for their relationship, he seemed to just want to know if he should put a down payment on a new flat or not.

She wished she could be upset about it, but she wasn't. She just felt numb most days. To a point she was waiting for her excuse to move on with her life, and wrestling with her guilt for feeling that way. She loved Ron, she always would. He was one of her best friends, he was one of the main reasons she got through the war to begin with. But what ever it was that had been there was gone now. She had been attracted to his loyalty, to his bravery, but mostly, even she knew, she had been attracted mostly to the fact that he was attracted to her. In recent years that was no longer a justifiable reason to stay together, but in spite of the years they had been together, she couldn't view the lack of that feeling as a justifiable reason to throw away everything.

She wished she could talk to Harry about it, but he had been avoiding her for so long now that she was beginning to think that he had grown out of their friendship. It would make sense. Harry had reinvented himself after the war. Never wanting to be the person the world saw him as he had become something else. He dated, but never seriously, he hardly ever went out to have fun, he had become an Auror, through and through. If he wasn't on a case for work, he could be found looking through the unsolved case files. He only ever showed up at parties for holidays, and birthdays. His yearly birthday party being the only event he ever actually threw, and even during that rare occasion he seemed disconnected.

Hermione removed a piece of parchment and a quill from her desk. On it she wrote the following;

Harry,

It's been a long time since we actually talked. I could really use a friend right now, with everything that's been going on. I don't know if you even can, but if it wouldn't be a problem for you, I would like to get together. Just to talk. I just need to talk. Please respond.

-Love, Hermione.

* * *

Harry was just about to start banging his head on the wall. He was having trouble digging up the current location of Agnes Agnew, even with exhausting work on it. He had finally given up trying to find her and in desperation he had turned to the owl system's ability to get mail to anyone anywhere. He had sent her a short letter, asking only to talk about the Malfoy case. Now it was the waiting that was driving him insane. He knew it was silly to expect an immediate response, but he did anyway. He had taken to pacing the rundown one room safe house he was staying in. When pacing stopped making the time pass quickly enough he stared at his hands. When that did nothing he went back to pacing. Then he danced, alone and by himself to no music. Then he started to draw, a talent he did not possess. When everything else failed he decided to crack up for an hour or so.

He had given insanity a fair shot, he really had, but after and hour of attempting to be crazy he was still finding himself having rational thoughts. He had to abandon insanity, finding it both hard to pull off and incredibly tiring. He then tried for a nap, but couldn't seem to get comfortable, so he was going back over his copy of the Malfoy case work when the owl with Hermione's letter arrived. He gave the owl a head pat while he read the missive. Truth told he was at first disappointed that it was not from Agnes. That was soon replaced with other, more complex emotions.

There was, with the desperation in her words, the state he imagined her in, the state of undress he often imagined her in as well, and the sound of water dripping somewhere in his shitty living space, a rising feeling of dread as he finally put the letter down. He found himself wishing that the letter had arrived earlier, when he was trying to force himself into insanity, as he felt that the letter would have tipped the scales nicely. He stood up and looked at the owl. It was waiting expectantly for a response to be tied to his leg. Harry went to the mini fridge in the safe house and took out some raw ground beef. He tore a little of it off and feed it to the owl.

“There you go.” He said. The owl hooted appreciatively, “You wouldn't happen to know what I'm meant to do right now would you?”

The owl cocked it's head to the side. It knew that Harry was talking to it, but being an owl had no real notion what about or what for. Harry smiled.

“At least you tried.” He patted the owl's stomach, which the owl did understand, and enjoyed. The owl made a mental note to always cock it's head to the side when spoken to.

“Okay. Okay.” Harry spoke to himself, completely missing the fact that the owl had cocked it's head once more, “Okay. I'm a world famous champion and Auror. I can totally do this. Okay.”

Harry patted the owl's stomach again, he had after all always liked owls quite a bit. The owl closed it's eyes and was thankful that once more the head cocking maneuver had payed off. The owl had been, for a few seconds, afraid, or as afraid as owls are likely to get, that the head cocking thing was a one off treat he would not be getting again. Harry dismissed the owl and it flew off into the night, content with it's new knowledge on how to have it's belly rubbed.

Harry went to the sticky mirror above the bed and, using the dim light present, straightened his hair, as well as he could, which is to say not very well at all. He breathed into his cupped hand to check his breath, then he shook his head to suggest to himself that he was being stupid. He then disappeared and reappeared on the street outside the flat that, until only a few months ago, was shared by Ron and Hermione. He took the stairs two at a time, and while he didn't notice it, he was all the while humming sappy love songs to himself. The dread in his stomach was gone, replaced by the feeling of eager anticipation one associates with theme park rides and knocking on a pretty girl's door, which is what he was doing.

When the door opened his theme park, door knocking eagerness was once more replaced, with the old pit of his stomach dread he'd picked up reading the letter that had brought him here. He didn't know it, but the sappy love songs he had been humming were now just awkward silence, though he knew about the awkward silence part. Hermione looked like Hermione had always looked in recent months, only more so. The evident guilt was there, but more guiltily, the eyes tired from crying were also still there, only now more tired. She looked like an artists interpretation of herself.

“Hello.” He said lamely.

“Harry!” Harry had never seen some actually light up until that moment. The artist rendering was gone, replaced with the old vision of beauty he had always known her as.

“The very same.”

“Come in.”

She moved aside to let him by, which he did with great care, not wanting to brush any part of herself with himself. When he was inside she brought him over to the couch in the living room and sat with him. She took his hands in her own and smiled the kind of smile that would make a man crush a mountain to gravel then eat the gravel before asking if there were any other odd jobs about she would like him to take a stab at.

“It's been absolutely ages.” She gushed, “How have you been?”

“Uhm...” He shook his many and varied thoughts until they blended into a coherent line of thought, “You saw me the other day... at the party. You know, before all the screaming and running about and such.”

“I didn't really see you, though. We never talk anymore.”

“Right. Sorry.”

“So, really, how have you been?”

“Oh, you know. Well, super bust mostly.”

“Any interesting cases?”

“Just the party attack, and the Malfoy case.”

“You've opened that again have you?”

“I have. Oh!” He grabbed for his pant pocket only to have it turn up empty, “I, uhm.. I borrowed a pen, from you desk. At work, not here. I don't have it with me, but yeah... I burrowed it.”

“Are you feeling alright?”

“No. Absolutely not, not even the slightest way. Nope.” He smiled.

“What's wrong?”

“You, me. All of this.”

“Are you... do you still feel...”

“Yeeeeaah.”

“I didn't know.”

“It doesn't go away, nothing like that.”

“Well, this is comfortable.” She dead panned.

“Okay. Sorry, you need a friend. That's me; Harry Potter. Friend.”

“Harry, if I had known that you still felt that way about us I would never have-”

“Yeah, you would. It's no big deal.”

“It is a big deal, that you think I would put you through something like this on purpose.”

“I'm your friend. It happens.”

“Harry. I'm sorry. It's just, well, you've been dating again and everything...”

“Have I? I suppose I have.”

He swayed forward and looked intently at his hands, wrapped up in her hands. She let go, blushing. The two sat there. In silence, waiting for either the other to say something or the world to implode, whichever would have been more convenient. Hermione played with her hair, as she always did when she was embarrassed.

“It's not that I don't think about you like that now and again. I do.”

“If we could maybe avoid having this conversation.”

“Avoid for how long, Harry?”

“My funeral. That would be a great time to discuss this, and you are welcome to.”

“We're going to have to talk about it some time!” She insisted.

“Then, let me just sum it up for you then.” Harry cleared his throat and began to speak in a high voice, “Harry, you're wonderful, I mean that because I'm Hermione and I never lie. But you're not my wonderful person. Me and Ron, we have so much history together. I'm sorry.”

“I...” Hermione sat in silence.

“I know. I know.” He waved his hand, “I'm rubbish at impressions. But I think that's the gist of it, no?”

Hermione didn't know what to say. She fought her brain for the correct jumble of information to express. She searched throughout her massive stores of intellect for the right combination of words to launch, like a counter spell, to destroy the argument Harry had made, in what had to be said was a less than flattering falsetto version of her voice. When nothing presented itself immediately she ended up blushing and looking for all the world like a lost child in a super market. Harry nodded his head conclusively and got to his feet.

“Well, I'll be seeing you around, Hermione.” He had made it almost out of the living room when her voice peaked behind him, with a strength that surprised him.

“No.”

“What?” He turned to face her.

“No, that isn't the gist of it.”

Harry sighed, hung his head slightly before raising his hand and asking, very much like the Auror he is, “Then what is the gist of it, ma'am?”

“Don't you play copper with me, Harry Potter.” She said gravely.

“Fine.” He threw his arms in the air, “What, Hermione? What's the story?”

“You're impulsive, dangerous, some times cruel, and unable to control your anger when it counts.”

“Those are my better points, yes. You have a point in all this critique?”

“A year ago, for no reason and out of the blue you tell me that you have feelings for me. That you have for years.”

“Yeah.”

“Where was that when we were in school, Harry? Where was that when we were in the war?”

“It was still developing!” He pointed to his chest, “This stuff doesn't come easy for me, I spent most of my life locked in a cupboard under the stairs at night. I can't turn on the translator in my head that helps me understand my own feelings.”

“You only wanted me when you couldn't have me, that's how it looks from my side.”

“Well, then your side is short sighted!”

“I loved you back then!”

“What?” Harry recoiled in shock.

“That kiss on the cheek, at the train station when we were kids. I loved you then.”

“I didn't-”

“No you didn't. You didn't notice or care and eventually I got over my silly little crush and found someone who did care about me.”

“That's-”

“That's how it is, Harry. Ron was there, emotionally, for me when you couldn't be or worse yet, wouldn't be. You don't have the right to dangle could've beens in my face all those years later. It isn't fair!”

“I'm sorry, I didn't know.” He said softly.

“No offense, but of course you didn't. Unless someone tells you what's happening to them, you never pick up on it. Unless it's one of your stupid cases.”

“I'm sorry.”

“That's you all over, Harry.” She pointed at him, “You abandon me for a troll in the bathroom and you've been abandoning me since. First for Cho, then for Ginny, then for a war, and lately for your stupid cases. You just can never be around when I need you, and when you are around you're only there to heroically save the day.”

“How was I supposed to know you felt that way?”

“You could have asked.”

“So, you what? You hate me now?”

Hermione crossed the room in four quick strides and put her hand to Harry's cheek before giving him a kiss on his forehead. Harry stood confused and feeling the warm tears from her face run down his.

“I could never hate you, Harry. Never ever.”

“I deeply do not understand what is happening right now.” He confessed.

“Me either.” She smiled, “I just know that I needed to see you tonight.”

“I'm sorry about, well everything essentially.”

Hermione put her head on his chest and her arms around him, “But you came over, at least you came.”

Harry wrapped his arms around her shoulders and gave her a hug while she rocked against him. He figured this was what she needed, someone to just let her be miserable about everything for a change. After a few minutes of hugging they found themselves once more on the couch. Harry patted her knee as she leaned into him.

“Is everything okay with you and Ron?” He asked, understanding now that she needed to talk about it.

“No, Harry. No it's not.”

“What's going on?”

“In truth? We're probably going to break up.”

“What happened?”

“It was never really just one thing. That's the way it is for long term relationships. It's a whole bunch of little idiosyncrasies and arguments, that over time all get jumbled together into one enormous problem.”

“I wouldn't know.”

“I suppose not.” She sighed, “We fight all the time.”

“You always did.”

“That's not really healthy though. Sure, every couple fights, it's part of being a couple. An important part, no less. But we don't talk, we just fight. And the fight never ends. We've stared skipping greetings and just get down to fighting.”

“Merlin.”

“We don't kiss anymore, we don't make love anymore, we don't communicate at all. Everything is falling apart, we've tried to fix it. We did these arranged date nights, but we would always argue about what to eat or what to watch or where to go, and before we knew it we had to be in bed for work and we never had our date.”

“So why'd you kick him out?”

“I came home and saw his socks stuffed into his shoes.”

“What?”

“It's, I don't really know how to explain this.”

“Try.”

“When we gather our laundry together at the end of each week he always complains that he's short a few socks, so he goes out and buys more. Every week, without fail. I always tell him that it's because he stuffs them into his shoes and forgets about them. He says that I'm just being needlessly scrutinizing in order to start a fight. I came home and saw, for what must be the hundred millionth time his socks crammed into his fucking shoes and I just couldn't take it anymore.”

“Did you fight?”

“No. I walked into the living room and told him to leave. He went to the closet where he keeps a bag packed and left. I've only seen him since at your party.”

“Wow. Socks.”

“I know it sounds stupid, I know that. But it's not about the socks, Harry. It really isn't. It was about everything. All the stupid little things. And maybe mostly, I'm just so tired of fighting with him. We were both supposed to grow, together, as a couple. But he doesn't change. He refuses to or doesn't know how.”

“I see.”

“You're sweet to say so.” She kissed him on the cheek, “I'm surprised you showed up.”

“Me too. I chalk it up to good timing. I was trying to go insane not two hours before your letter arrived.”

“That sounds fun.”

“It turns out that it isn't, in fact.”

“Well, I'm surprised you came all the same. You've been avoiding me lately.”

“Yeah.”

“He admits it?” She gave him an amused look.

“I mean: I totally have not. You are imaging things, you imaginative slightly crazy sock hating person.” He smiled.

“Thank you, Harry.” She hugged him about the mid section, “I really needed a friend tonight.”

“Well,” Harry said, restraining the defeat from his voice, “Like I said, Harry Potter. Friend.”

* * *

Draco woke up. He had woken as he often did, from the pressure of his restraints keeping his unconscious body from rolling onto it's side. He didn't know why he had ever thought he would get used to sleeping in restraints, he very clearly wasn't. He used to be taken outside, for a few hours every week, he missed that. He missed the fresh air in the garden, the warmth of the sun, the smell of cement after rain. He even missed the dim feeling of freedom. His life was now bondage, and the four filthy walls surround the table on which he spent fourteen hours a day strapped to.

Sometimes from above he could hear voices. His nameless and faceless captures. His prison guards. The hands that would shove meals under his door and push the button to release his restraints. Sometimes the voices above spoke of their plans. They didn't think he could understand them, but over his years there Draco had learned to translate muffled voices. He knew they were moving against Potter, he knew that the True Blood Brotherhood was growing restless, he knew that they were fighting within themselves. Sometimes he would laugh as loud as he could. Just to confuse them.

Now he simply stared at the wall. A few months back he had decided to try a new track. His escape attempts had failed him a hundred times before, always he ended up with his memory wiped of his escape attempt and back in his cage. They left the failed plan intact in his mind, as if to let him know that that plan wouldn't work again. When finally he had stopped trying to escape they thought he had finally given up. They couldn't have been more wrong. He merely started to think better.

He had learned, many years ago, and after several months of effort, to resist the Imperio curse. It had been an uphill battle, while he watched himself start a cult of Death Eaters not of his own free will. When finally he could resist, remembering that Potter had once done it, and knowing that it was only a matter of will power, he had made his first escape attempt. They caught him as he was trying to get into a book store, he was trying to find any information on the dark force they were, even now, trying to bring to life. From there he had ended up here. In a dark, cold room. The floor littered with his own excrement and all manner of other horrible things. He continued to stare at the wall, feeling the power welling up inside himself. Waiting. Always waiting.

Harry felt smart and proactive right up until he got to his desk that morning. He had been confident that leaving early in the morning, on only two hours of sleep, had been a wise choice. On his walk through the Ministry he had congratulated himself for having the forethought to not wake Hermione when he left. He rewarded himself mentally for stepping directly out of the middle of a gigantic mess of a breakup by avoiding both parties, and Hermione in particular. No sir, Harry was not about to be shackled to that sinking ship. He was much too smart for that.

Then he got to his desk. Sitting on top of his desk was a cup of coffee. Standing beside the desk and, by virtue of available space, the coffee was Ron. Harry kicked himself mentally for managing to forget that one of the people involved in the sinking ship, H.M.S. Romione, was Ron, his partner. He then remembered the still vivid events of the latest attempt on his life, and that they required the manipulation of the Floo Network. He gave his mental self a blackened eye and a fat lip for forgetting that he had asked for Hermione's help in getting the back logs to look into the Floo Network oddity. All in all, for it being so early in the morning, Harry was not pleased with himself.

“Good morning partner.” Ron said cheerfully, too cheerfully for a man just broken up with his long term girlfriend if one were to ask Harry. Harry carefully sat down and put the cellphone on his desk.

“Morning.”

“I brought you coffee.”

“I noticed this.”
“Any idea what we're going to do today?”
“Not a one, you got an idea?”
“I may have one or two, yeah.”
“Okay, where do you want to start?”
“How about with this.” Ron dropped a file on Harry's desk.

The file was from Lavender and had the name Harris Podwell highlighted from list of under-aged people who had used magic during the date and time of Harry's now infamous birthday party. He was highlighted because the occurrence of his unauthorized use of magic was both repeated and at the location of Harry's abandoned flat.

“Why do you have this?”
“Lavender came round my desk this morning and asked if I could get it to you.”
“Boy does she ever have a big mouth.” Harry grinned, “Also, I can explain.”
“Can you? Because this doesn't seem like working together to me. This seems like you bypassing our partnership, for one, and the law of this land for another.”
“Well, yeah, but, you know,I looked dashing while I did it.”
“Why have I been chasing down dead leads on the Malfoy case when you're actually doing the work on the case we were assigned? Was the Malfoy thing a distraction? Keep me busy so I don't get in the way?”
“No.” Harry shook his head, “The Malfoy case is connected. I can feel it.”
“It's your ridiculous hunch, why am I the one doing it?”
“I wanted to spare you having to see Lavender?” Harry offered up.
“Bullshit.”
“Totally.”
“What's going on, Harry? Are you kicking me to the curb?”
“No. Not really. I just...” He smiled what he hoped was a winning smile, “I just tend to do better on my own.”
“I don't give a rat's balls what you do better on! This is our case!”
“I know, I know. You're right.”

“I bloody damn well know I'm right.”
“Look, from here on out you're involved in every step of this investigation.”
“That's all I wanted.”
“Good. Great. Now then. Thank you for the coffee.”
Ron eased up and pulled a chair, seemingly from nowhere, up and had a seat next to Harry, “So, any new developments?”
“Nope.” Harry lied, “But I'll let you know if there are.” He lied further.
“Okay. Well, I'll be at my desk.”

“Super. See you in a bit.”
Ron got up and dragged the chair back over to his desk. Harry, now alone again, let out a great relieved sigh. He enjoyed his last few minutes of relatively headache free time before he grabbed his coffee and left the Auror offices. He walked up to Hermione's desk, found it empty, and sat in her chair to wait for her. He was only in the chair for a few minutes before she showed up, looking like she had skipped her morning shower, meal and grooming regimen. She indicated that Harry get out of her chair. He got up, let her sit down and plopped the coffee in front of her.
“I got you a coffee.” He added another to his pile of lies.
“Thanks, where were you this morning?”
“I was out getting this coffee.”
“Well, it's much appreciated. I feel like hell warmed over.”
“You look great.”
“Thanks.” She took a sip of the coffee and looked slightly more alive, “So about last night-”
“You make any headway on that paper work?”
“Yeah, I finished it before I came in.” She handed him a sheet of paper, rolled up and tied with a red and blue ribbon.
“You're the best.” He started to walk off, but was stopped when Hermione's hand made its way around his forearm.
“Harry.”
He swallowed the lump in his throat and turned to face her, “Yeah?”
“You're in an awful hurry. Stay awhile. I was hoping to chat about everything we said last night.”
“I'm actually pretty busy, later perhaps?”
“Please, just a few minutes?”
“Okay, fine. But let's keep it down.”
“Okay, great.”

Harry sat down on top of her desk and leaned forward so he could speak in conspiratorial tones, “What did you want to ask?”
“Did you mean what you said last night. That you feel that way about me?”
“How many times do I have to tell you?” he answered nervously.
“At the very least once more.”
“Yeah. I meant every word. I have for some time. But you knew that.”
“I know, it's just... Everything is different now.”
“Did you mean what you said? Are you hoping to give us a shot?”
“Oh, Harry. Absolutely. I've been waiting for this since I was eleven.”
“Are you sure?”
“Why do you sound so... I don't know, accusatory isn't the right word.”
“I'm just a careful kind of guy.”
“There is a limit to careful. Paranoia shares a border with careful.”
“So it does. Look we don't have to make any decisions right this second. Let's talk later.”
“How's tonight?” She sat forward in her chair eagerly.
“Let me get back to you, this case and everything.”
“Uh...”
“Don't worry. I'll let you know.”
He sprang up and raced off, away from her and the unanswered questions lingering there. He played the conversation back in his head, brief though it was. He had told her that tonight might not be doable, in as many words and for a second her eye line faltered. He suspected she was disappointed, he just didn't know about what. It could easily be that she was telling him the truth, that she really did care for him the way he did for her, that she was confused by his sudden brush off. However it could easily be that she was hoping to strike while the iron was hot to make Ron upset. Sure it didn't seem like the Hermione sort of thing to do, but when Luna and Neville called it quits she cast a spell that had him smelling like skunk for a week. That seemed very un-Luna-like at the time as well. Harry knew that heartbreak did weird things to people. He also knew that regardless of the answer, he was still undecided as to whether or not he wanted to involve himself. He was leaning in the direction of not.
He rounded a corner, lost completely in his own thoughts, and plowed headlong into someone. He went down, the rolled up forged documents clutched tightly in his hand. Opposite him he saw a flash of red hair, and long thin legs. He stood up and offered a hand to help up the woman he had attacked.
“Well, if it isn't Ginny Weasely. Returned from the where-are-they-now category.” He joked as she got to her feet.
“If it isn't Harry Potter, the Boy-who-lets-his-sense-of-humor-do-the-talking-these-days” She chimed back.
“What brings you down to the Ministry?” He wondered aloud before he remembered he was headed somewhere, “You know what, hold that thought. I'm actually on the run here. Sorry for knocking you down.” He set off once more in his previous direction, only to realize that Ginny was following him.
“Where are you headed?”
“On or off the record?”
“I'm not a journalist all the time.” She winked, “Sometimes I catch up with old friends.”
“But you're a journalist right now, yeah?”
“You caught me. I came to see Ron, actually. I heard he was working the Potter Birthday Attack case.”
“He is. Right man for the job and all that.”
“So are you enjoying having a partner, Mr. Potter?”
“Inquiring minds want to know.”
“Come on, Harry. Give me a short interview. For old times’ sake.”
“The last time I gave you something for old times’ sake you called me a prancing buffoon in print.”
“I was eighteen. Cut a girl some slack.”
“So at twenty-two you're much more mature?”
“I am, thank you very much. Look at us, having a civil, if strained, conversation. No one is calling the other names, no one is throwing out hexes.”
“I never hexed you.”
“Fine, I'm not throwing out hexes. I've grown.”
“Yeah, perhaps you are.” He stopped walking, not wanting to give her any ammunition for the Quibbler, “Look I'm in a pretty big hurry, Ron is down at his desk.”
“Ron is nice, but Harry Potter on record is better. You haven't released a single statement to the press about this so far. Did you know that?”
“Really? I could've sworn I threw a press conference.” He pretended for a minute to think, “No wait, I didn't, you're right. I confused a press conference with having my teeth pulled again. I must stop doing that.”
“Why are you being so evasive today, Mr. Potter?”
“Ginny, must we? Right this minute? You're going to give me a brain tumor.”
“Are you confirming the existence of a brain tumor?”
“Yup. I'm a goner. Any second now could be my last. I just want all the readers out there to know that my last thoughts were good and noble and about chocolate chip biscuits.”
“You know, the Harry Potter I knew didn't crack wise all the time. He was a serious crusader for justice.”
“I'm an Auror. How am I not crusading for justice?”
“Why not let the people know?”
“A man gets secretive when he has a fatal brain tumor.”
“Are you going to at least pretend to answer one of my questions?”
“Look, are you going to run the brain tumor story?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Then I'm wasting my time here. Have a nice day.”
“Harry, wait-” But he couldn't hear her, he had taken off at a flat run.
He ran straight for the elevator, turned on the spot once inside and hit the “close door” button just in time to see Ginny safely behind the doors when they closed. He then hit the appropriate button for the floor he wanted, and got out amidst several floating paper airplanes, each with their own destinations. He walked into Neville's office and sat down in the chair in front of the desk. Neville looked up at Harry over a late breakfast and watched him throw the scroll on top of the desk.
“What is this?” Neville asked after swallowing some of his egg sandwich.
“Divorce papers, would you sign them so I can just get on with my life?”
Neville unrolled the scroll and read over it quickly, “You want the back logs on the Floo Network?”
“Is that what these are?” Harry snatched the paper and looked over it, “Well then, the last two or so months should do nicely.”
“Whatever for?”
“I like a little light reading while I use the Loo.”
“Well, okay then, I guess. I'll have them sent to your desk.”
“Make sure they come to my desk. Not Ron's, not Mabel's, Mine.”
“Okay, yeah. Sure. Is this about the attack on your flat?”
“We're looking into all possibilities right now.”
“I run a tight ship here, Harry. I assure you.”
“And I believe that. I don't even want these, it's just a formality.”
“Of course. You'll get them.”
“Thanks, Neville. You're a pal.”
“No problem, Harry.”
When Harry got out of Neville's office he found Ginny waiting for him. He sighed audibly.
“Why are you following me?”
“What did you need with the Head of Magical Transportation?”

“My brain tumor is contagious, we shared a sandwich. He's awful broken up about it.”
“A contagious brain tumor, this really is news. I can see the story already, “ She put both arms out, “Potter case takes sudden twist as lead Auror on the case, Harry Potter (23), seems to believe that the Floo Network was somehow involved. Mr. Potter was not available for comment.”
“And this is why no one likes journalists.” Harry nodded as though confirming a hunch, “You're all a bunch of self serving wankers.”
“Be that as it may, you give me an exclusive interview for the Quibbler and the 'Brain Tumor' story never runs. What do you say?”
“Fine, but I have full editorial rights about anything pertaining to the case. Got it?”
“Done and done, Mr. Potter.”
“Ginny, quick question, just as friends.”
“Sure, Harry. What's up?”
“How's Ron doing? I heard through the grape vine that something went down last night.”
“That's a good grape vine. Where might I find such a reliable grape vine?”
“Work in law enforcement, we have the best grape vines.”
“Well, he seemed alright this morning, but who can tell with him? He does little more than sulk and work his cases lately. Why do you ask?”
“He's my best friend.”
“True, but why do you really ask?”
“This is how you talk to your friends?”
“My friends are secretive.”
“I'm an open book, Ginny. I always have been.”
“Maybe so, but you're written in Korean.”
“Yeah, but it's a handsome language.” He shrugged, “Well, I'm off.”
“Harry, that interview? My place, tonight?”
“Yeah, sounds fine.”
Harry turned on the spot and took the lift back down. He was never excited about having to deal with the press, but at least this made for a good excuse not to visit Hermione that evening. He shook his head slowly and thought about how hard relationships were to maintain. He was at least amicable with Ginny, but he wasn't exactly on the best of terms with her. In fact, most of the time he was fighting off the urge to seal his head in an iron box and pretend she didn't exist. She made a bad habit of sending mixed signals. He was never sure if she was over him or not and his time with her was a chapter that he wanted desperately to close.
He was still debating the virtues of being single when the elevator doors opened. He walked to the Auror offices, taking a slight detour to look around the Floo Chimneys. He didn't expect to find anything, but at least he looked. He made a mental note to see if the janitorial crew had found anything of interest in the area that morning. Knowing that he was incapable of remembering to do anything unless he wrote it out he turned and headed for his desk.
When he got there he saw a crowd of Aurors huddled around it. In the lead was Mabel, Ron right behind her. There were digitized musical notes rising from his desk. He walked closer and Ron turned to him.
“What is that?” He pointed at the cell phone, lit up and shaking about in place on Harry's desk, “And why is it making that noise?”
“It's a phone, and it's ringing.” He answered.
“That doesn't look like a phone.” Mabel said, “When I took muggle studies all the phones had cords and such.”
“The world is a fast changing place.” Harry mused as he picked up the phone, “Harry Potter.” He voiced into the phone.
“Mr Potter.” Came the voice on the other end, “My name is Inspector Wainwright. I understand that you inquired about Agnes Agnew?”
“Yeah, I did. Has she turned up?”

“In a manner of speaking. She's dead I'm afraid.” The line went silent. Harry grabbed a pen and bit of paper.”
“Oh my God. When? How?”
“We found her last night. Her prints just came back this morning. It looks like she jumped off a building.”
“Oh Jesus.” Harry said as he jotted down the information, “I don't suppose you lot could be mistaken?”
“Afraid not. Sorry, sir. We were hoping you could come down this afternoon. We have a few questions we'd like to ask, just a formality.”
“Of course. I'll be in around two. Thank you, sir.”
Harry ended the call, he turned to face Ron and Mabel and held up the bit of paper covered in his illegible scribble, “The Muggle authorities just found Agnes Agnew.”
“Where is she?” Ron blurted.
“Agnes Agnew?” Mabel questioned.
“She's in the city morgue.” Harry answered Ron.
“We need one of our teams to look at her.” Mabel said, “Muggle police won't know what to look for.”
“Yeah. I've got a plan for that.” Harry grinned, “Mab, put in a word with Shacklebolt. We need a cover.”
“What cover?”
“Me and Ron are going to have to be in Her Majesty's Secret Service.”
“Okay. Stand by, I'll be back in a bit.”

* * *

Mabel was sitting in a chair in Shacklebolt's office, staring a hole into the book case flanking her. He had been gone for nearly a half an hour before finally the bookcase rotated on a hinge and he walked through. He sat as his desk and handed her some paper work.
“The muggle Prime Minister has cleared it with his people. Those are the documents and whatnot Harry and Ron will need.”
“Thanks, Minister.”
“Not at all. Let's get the ball rolling on this.”
“Will do.”
Mabel stood and walked, at a brisk enough pace to gather sweat, back down to the Auror offices . Harry and Ron were standing by Potter's desk, Harry appeared to be explaining to Ron how guns worked, as they would both have to carry what Harry informed her was called a sidearm. She put the paperwork down on Harry's desk.
“Okay, boys. These are your badges and paperwork. One of you,” She held up one of the badges, “Will be Alexander Thorchstone, the other,” she held up the other, “Will be Yancy Dirvelgoth.”
“I call Thorchstone.” Ron shouted ahead of Harry.
“Damn.” Harry kicked something imaginary at his feet.
“You know where to go, you know what to say?” Mabel asked.
“Yeah. Ron's thick about muggles, so I'll be doing the talking. We'll have Agnew's body in custody in no time.”
“Great. Once that's done you'll need to stay undercover.” Mabel paused, but when no arguments were leveled against her she continued, “We need to find out why this girl disappeared for three years and then suddenly turned up dead.”
“Also, we may want to find out why a pure blood cult leader was known to publicly date a muggle.” Ron tilted his head.
“Truer words. Good luck, boys. Bring Mommy home something interesting.”
“On it.”

* * *

Harry and Ron stood next to the muggle car the Ministry felt would approximate a Secret Service Agent. What frustrated Harry, more than the fact that the Ministry believed that that car should be a VW bus circa the seventies, was how Ron didn't see a problem with it.
“This simply won't do.”
“What's the matter with it?”

“Well, for starters it's a van.”
“What's wrong with a van?”
“It's a van, Ron. What's not wrong with a van?”

“Is there a difference?”
“To you and me? No. To muggle law enforcement? Oh, Merlin. Yes.”
“Well, I think it's wonderful.”
“Ron, explain to me the purpose of an ignition key.”
“Does it.. ignite things?”
“Yeah, Ron. It's a real fire starter.”
“Great.” Ron smiled.

“We need something two door and black.” Harry scrutinized, “Does the Ministry have anything like that?”
“Not right now. This is it.”
“Then we need to make a stop.”
“Where?”
“An automotive dealership.”
“What are we going to do there?”
“Bluff.”
Harry and Ron got into the car. Since their near-death adventure with the formerly flying car Ron's father used to own, Harry had taken some classes on driving. He liked to be ready for any kind of situation. Which is why, without blowing up or hitting anything at outrageous speeds, he managed to get them from the Ministry parking lot to a car dealership. He got out of the van, grimaced at its lime green and white paint job and told Ron to stay put for a bit. He then went inside the dealership.
Ron sat and watched Harry speaking with a man in a plaid suit through the giant glass window of the dealership. The conversation seemed to go well. Apparently the sleek black suit Harry was wearing gained him some form of prestige in the muggle world. In a few moments Harry came out with a set of keys in his hands. He opened the door and told Ron he had gotten them a car.
“What happened?” Ron asked.
“We have to leave the van behind.”
“Why?”
“I told the guy that I was rich, and that my luxury vehicle was in the shop. I asked if I could get a car as a loner until mine was out of shop.”
“And he just agreed?”
“I may have told him that you were royalty.”
“Well, that's good for me.”
“Sure is buddy.” Harry took the van keys and raised them in the air so the man in the plaid suit could see them before he squeezed them under the driver side front tire, “We're leaving the van as collateral.”
“It is a nice van.” Ron agreed.
“It most certainly is not, but I told the guy that we had picked it up for cheap.”
“So why does he believe we'll return for it?”
“Well that's when it all fell apart. I flashed my new badge, he didn't want to get hauled in for hindering an active investigation. How many more questions have you got?” Harry had lead them to a two-door, black sedan.
“About a dozen. I don't get out in the muggle world much.”
“Just get in the damn car.”
“Why is this a car and that a van?”
“Because the car has girl parts and the van has boy parts.”
“Ah.”
Harry got behind the driver seat, turned the key and sped out of the lot. They arrived at the local police station just before one in the afternoon. Harry lead the way through the place, flashing his fake badge and demanding at the front desk to speak with the head officer of the homicide division. They were then lead through many offices, which Ron noted didn't look that much different than the ones he and Harry worked out of, before being brought into the office of a tired looking black man in his late forties.
“How can I help you, agents?” He said in his tall tired way.
“We're going to need to confiscate all of your files on the Agnew slaying. Also, we'll need the body.”
“Why, might I ask?”
“You might.”
“Let's say I am.”
“You are.”
“Why is your branch talking interest in this case? She was nothing more than a homeless girl. Sad to say, but they end up dead with surprising regularity.”
“Look, mate. I just do the job. I don't ask questions.”
“I can understand that.” The detective sighed, “Okay. I can give you all the file work now, but we have to drop off the body. What location would you like us to that?”
“Nothing to worry about. We'll take care of it.” Harry nodded at Ron, “Have someone show my colleague where Ms. Agnew is being kept.”
“Okay. Fine. Less paper work, at least.”
“We could all do with less of that.” Harry smiled. He then whispered in Ron's ear, “Try to pop up in the van, I'll be around shortly there after.” Ron nodded and soon another cop was there to escort him to the morgue.
“Okay, agent...?”
“Dirvelgoth. Yancy Dirvelgoth.” Harry smiled.
“Okay, Agent Dirvelgoth, the file work will be collected and brought to us shortly.”
“Wonderful.”
“Have a seat.”
“Sure, thanks.” Harry sat, as did the Detective.
“So,” The detective began after an uncomfortable pause, “you know anything about the Thames strangulations?”
“Nothing really, I would be speculating.”
“I don't mind. Could use all the help we can get on that one.”
“We don't like to speculate. Sorry.”
After several more attempts made by the Detective at small talk, a young man came into the room with a box full of paperwork labeled “Agnew” in red marker along the right edge. He gave it to Harry. Harry said good day to the police and left the building. He drove back to the dealership, returned the car, retrieved the keys from the van and climbed inside. Ron was sitting in the back with a large black bag, zipper up the front of it, which undoubtedly contained the remains of Agnes Agnew. Harry started the car and headed back to the Ministry.
“How'd it go?” Ron asked.
“It went well.”
“Why did we need to be Secret Service Agents?”
“Because, Ron, muggle or wizard all people respond to one thing.”
“That is?”
“The authority of a person higher up on the chain of command.”
“You have a pleasant outlook on the world. Anyone ever mentioned that to you?”
“Sure they do.”
“And you ignore them?”
“I have a selective memory.”

“How does that help?”
“Good question, I'm glad you asked it.” Harry paused, “What were we talking about?”
“Ah. Right there with you know.” Ron smiled, “Let's give Mommy an early birthday present.”
“She does love her decaying human bodies.”
“Really, who doesn't. Excellent throw rugs they make.”
“They do at that.”
Harry turned into the Ministry parking lot. He pulled some scrap paper from the glove box and wrote a note to Mabel, letting her know they were back. He folded it into a paper airplane and cast a charm on it. With in minutes of it's disappearing toward the upper levels a team came down to move the body. Harry and Ron grabbed the box filled with police files and headed for their desks. When Harry arrived at his desk he saw a file with a note attached to it sitting on his desk. The note was from Neville. He tucked both quickly into a drawer before Ron could see it.
Ron returned from his desk with his chair and the two began to tear through the paperwork on Agnes Agnew, making a time line of events for her life between her disappearance from the wizarding world to her death in muggle London. They worked well into the night, until an owl came for Harry. The missive was from Ginny. It said, “You're late. My place. Now. -Ginny.”

COLOR="#000000">It was supposed to be over, Ron.”

“Shh. I know, I know.”

“It's not over. It's never going to be over.”

“It's okay, I'm here.” He narrowed his eyes, “We have to get everyone out of this house.”

She nodded, set her jaw, and resumed the persona of a girl that once fought a war, and won. They rounded up their parents and fled from the Burrow. Grabbing tents and bedding down for the night in a heavily wooded area, miles away from Ottery Saint Catchpole.

* * *

Draco could hear the muffled voices above him. They were confirming that the letters had been sent, that the Potter boy would die before months end, that the world would be cleansed of muggle kind within the year, and further more that the ancient being they worshiped would rise once more. He felt a fresh wave of sick float up his windpipe. He swallowed it back down. Chastised himself for succumbing to weakness and redoubled his efforts. He stared at the wall. Waiting as ever he did. But not for much longer.

* * *

Harry woke up the following morning to smell he didn't recognize and didn't care for. He shifted around trying to decide if they had installed a waste treatment plant over night and chose to burn it down for laughs, or if some malevolent spirit had eaten nothing but curry and taken up residence in his nose. When his eyes adjusted he realized that neither of those, totally plausible, options were fact. It had just been the smell of the safe house he had forgotten he was stashed away in. He took a quick shower, partially because the space was cramped and partially because hot water had not flowed from those pipes in lifetimes, though he would have preferred a much longer one. He dressed, looked at his hair in the mirror, decided not to bother and went to his window. He opened it, hoping to air it out, and discovered a letter sitting there.

He grabbed the letter, hoping it wasn't from Hermione complaining about his absence last night, Ron complaining about his presence, Lavender inviting him over for some of both in repeated order, or more fan mail. He hated fan mail. He didn't like reading it, he didn't like responding to it, and he was uncomfortable with the sheer number of women offering to bear him striking young sons. He unrolled the parchment and examined it. All at once he felt his brain go numb.

The handwriting was terrible, as though written in the dark with only the vaguest idea of the shapes of letters. The ink was the color of old blood, though he was certain that it was ink, as it didn't pool before it dried the way blood does. The missive was short.

Harry Potter,

I will kill/destroy everything you love. Then I will watch you beg to die. And you will. Die, but first I will ruin you.

~The True Blood Brotherhood

Harry crumpled the letter up and threw it beside his bed. It wasn't the first time he had gotten death threats of this type. It was the most gruesome looking he had ever received, but wholly unoriginal. While the name True Blood Brotherhood was a new one, the intent was all too familiar. Sometimes, in the early days of his death threats, he would investigate them, track down the senders. It usually turned out to be old Death Eaters, unable to handle the changing world, but with no real power to do anything about it or Harry, himself. A few times it had ended up being sent by kids looking to make a name for themselves by putting a fright into the great Harry Potter. But it had always been benign, nothing to concern himself over, and eventually he stopped looking into the letters, in favor of disposing them. He would have dismissed this one entirely, and in fact in that moment he did with only a few words. However in the moment, as a method of clearing his mind of the nastiness aimed at him, he said simply;

“How in the world does someone 'Kill/Destroy' something anyway?”

`$A`$A`$`$aHIHH$H$HH$H$H0H$H$HH@IHpQHP`IH@haIHQHP8HpQHH@8LX8HpQHH@8H@PaH|pQH%'QH?H?H 'QHA,QH*!.HCH$H$tH$H$@BH$bH$L$ID$8M H'QH O&QH5&QL+QaHC0H4H 4H5 .LdCH$H$tH$H$@BH$bH$H$@L$IE8IL-&QL5%QL=)QH%QH$L%QHv%QL z*QLc%QbH O*QHL$H (QLD%QH$L`0L-V8L5.L=V8L$L%.L .H4L :L84Ll$L-:H V8LN4i aH`nQHYnQ@ `HKnQH@XH=nQHH@8f@HH)nQH"nQ@B H nQ'H!J*bHH@8HHmQHH@8H@PaHmQHa$QH*?H;?^ HH <$QL $QL)QL&QL;$Qb'HJH ?H?L m4L:LU8L.HH #QLb&QL #Q/b 'HmJH ?H?LU8L .HH #QH5(QL(QL (Q0'aH4JH?H ?H5;L.L CH$H$tH$H$@BH$b@H$L$IF8 H#QH 'QL"QL "Q;bHC0HT8H D4Lm4L .HHkQH x"QLI"QL z"Q@'L~"QL'QaH5;JH ?H?L>4L ?H?L.LCH$H$tH$H$@BH$bH$L$IG8}H"QH !QH5!QL&QaHC0H4H 4H5C.LCH$H$tH$H$@BH$bH$HH$HB8H"QH !!QL %QL #!QbHC0H^S8H .LS8L .HH QH5%QP'aHJH~?H ~?H5 C0H$H$tH$H$@BH$bAHH$H$HA8IL !QL%QLQHQH QH QXbMD$0L R8Lp4L4H .H+.H 4`'aHiQHiQ@ `H iQH@XHhQHH@8f@H5HhQHhQ@BHhQHH@8HHW$QH$QH $QHZ4H;H CH$H$tH$H$@BH$bAH$ H$HC8IH,?*H=%?*L%"QL-wQLQHQHpH YQLjQL "QLQ'Mw0L%Q8L-4L.Ho|?H|?H 4L.L K;LAnd here I was, thinking you would support my lifestyle choices.� He smiled.

�How can you joke around at a time like this?� A tear made its way from her eye to her cheek before she wiped it away, �This isn't the time for jokes.�

�No such creature.� He contended, �Besides, everyone knows that women like scars.�

�Yeah? How have your other ones worked out for you?� Ron said darkly.

�I have the most famous scar ever, Ron.� Harry grinned.

�We're your best mates, you�re a damned fool if you can't be afraid in front of us.�

�Ron, it's not like that.� Harry tried to explain.

�Then what is it like, Harry?� Hermione cut in, �Because for the last few years you've been Mr. Quick Wit, and we're all wondering what happened to Harry Potter.�

�She's got a point, mate.� Ron added, �I love that you�re a bundle of laughs, I do. But there are these other, darker changes. You insist on working alone, you hide things from us, you flat out lied to me before, twice.�

�Look, this is how I cope now.� Harry pulled away from Hermione's embrace, �I'm not going to be the kind of guy that falls apart because he's scared. I'm a Gryffindor.�

�There's a difference between courage and foolishness.� Ron answered, �Trust me, few people like a good joke more than me.�

�Well, glad we could have this intervention, guys. Smashing job, really cracking.� He pulled out his chair and had a seat, �But if it's all the same to you, I think I'll save my panic attack for when I get home.�

�Okay.� Hermione said first, �I'm sorry, you have to understand our point of view-�

He raised his hand and cut her off, �You're scared and worried for me, and it seems like my being so non-plussed by it all is dismissive of your feelings.�

�Well, yeah.� She looked dumbfounded.

�Well, rest assured then. The fact that you guys care so much about my well being means the world to me.� He looked at each of them in turn, �They grow up so fast.�

Ron and Hermione blinked at one another, turned to look once more at Harry, who had begun flipping his wand up and down and humming.

�I don't know if you're brilliant or totally bonkers.� Ron began, �But at the very least you're consistent.�

�Well, I have to get points for that.� He spun his chair around to face his desk, �Now you two get some chairs and nestle up to Papa. We've got work to do.�

Hermione and Ron grabbed chairs from around the office and sat on either side of Harry. Hermione could see over his shoulder that he was composing a list of some sort. She smiled to herself when she realized that he was using one of the pens she had bought for him. Ron, on the other hand, smiled to himself when he noticed that Harry had misspelled 'under aged'.

�Okay.� Harry said, I've got different notes and time lines here.� He moved some things around on the desk, �You know, somewhere.�

�Where should we start?� Hermione stepped into the situation despite Harry's disorder.

�We need to try and get a hurry put on the Pensieve me and Ron ordered. I can't for the life of me remember that kid's name from Lavender's report.�

�Harris Podwell.� Ron said aloud. Harry stared at him, �What?�

�You've been holding on to that gem, why?�

�I didn't know you didn't know the kid�s name.� Ron shrugged, �How am I supposed to know that?�

�You read the file?� Harry asked.

�Well, they dropped it on my desk.�

�What if it had been personal?� Hermione asked, making a mental note not to leave notes laying on Harry's desk in the future.

�I would've been utterly discrete, kept the taunting to an absolute minimum. Twice, three times at most... you know, per day.�

�Okay, anyway. That's one lead.� Harry forced them back on track, �Ron how did you do with digging up dirt on Slanton?�

�Wasn't much there that isn't public record.�

�You're going to make me read the trade journal again, aren't you?� Harry winced.

�Fine.� Ron flung his arms in the air, �He had a spot of minor fame in 1989 when he invented a cure for a particularly nasty memory jinx. He didn't become a wildly recognized name until he began publishing essays in trade journals. These essays were, as well as being documentation of exploration in the field of jinxes and charms affecting the mind, pretty openly negative about Gilderoy Lockhart. He often cited him as a charlatan with less than passable skills as a thespian.�

�Ouch. I hate agreeing with people I don't like.� Harry said.

�He drew unfavorable public attention in 1992 when he criticized Dumbledore for hiring Lockhart to teach. His exact words were along the lines of, 'clearly the man is suffering the mental maladies of old age. He is quite senile if he expects anyone to actually learn under the tutelage of that two-bit grifter.�

�And now, like magic, I feel better.� Harry commented, �Anything else?�

�Not really, he's a scholar, widower, one child.� Ron shook his head, �He was one of the vocal minorities who were anti-Voldemort in the 70s and 80s. Slytherin house, who didn't see that coming?�

�What house was Abby in?� Hermione asked.

�I don't know. Why would I know? She was only barely in school with us.� Ron shrugged.

�Okay, we also need to look into this Thames Strangler. There's a weird connection there, I need to understand it enough to work with it or dismiss it. For now I say we divide these tasks among the three of us. We're losing time.�

�Okay.� Hermione agreed, �Who gets what?�

�Well, no offense, Hermione, but Ron and I are the only field agents here.�

�You're going to stick me with reading up on Slanton aren't you?�

�I am. Treat it like a homework assignment. Overkill the shit out of it.� Harry suggested.

�Ron, I'm going to give you What's his face Podsomething to look into.�

�Harris Podwell.� Hermione corrected.

�That kid then.�

�And you get the serial killer part why?� Ron complained.

�It's the only part directly related to the Malfoy case. I thought you didn't want to work the Malfoy case.�

�That was before it got interesting.�

�Shoot you for it?�

�Deal.�

The boys engaged in a bitterly fought three rounds of rock paper scissors, of which Harry emerged the victor.

�Next time it'll be thumb war.� Ron whined.

�Okay, team Potter-�

�We are not going to be team Potter.� Hermione interjected.

�Why not?� Harry asked, �It has a nice ring to it.�

�How about, since Ron lost the fun case we let him name our team?� She suggested..

�Oh alright, Mother.� Harry sat back in his chair, �What's it going to be, Ron?�

Making plans to meet up at start of shift the next morning the trio, now called Ron's Awesome Squad, departed the Ministry for their safe houses.

* * *

Love is defined by science as the right balance of a specific number of chemicals in the brain for a sustained period of time. Among the things listed that are believed to cause this mixture are, symmetrical anatomy, olfactory senses, and the right factors of location, age, and eye color. Under this clinical examination love is believed to be a psychological byproduct of the natural human instinct to propagate the species.

It is defined in many different ways by philosophy, but can be summarized thusly; Love is both passion and pain; both pleasure and heartache; both finite and infinite; both joy and disappointment, and all in equal parts. It is held among the topmost reasons for one's being born, and is believed to be chief among them by many people. Love is, as defined by philosophy, the touch of God in the lives of man.

Furthermore it is defined as, �An intense feeling of deep affection� by The Oxford English dictionary.

It is also defined as, �A battlefield� by Pat Benatar.

It was with these definitions, with the possible exception of Pat Benatar, that Harry was trying to extrapolate an idea of what love meant to him. He was sitting on his bed, the sound of running water coming from behind the closed door of the bathroom, where Hermione was struggling not to die of hypothermia under the water which refused to run at any temperature other than Arctic. Using the water to mask the sound of himself, he was trying to find the correct combination of words to change his world.

�Hermione,� He began exactly as he had the last dozen times, �Love is this thing that glows on the inside, sort of like a night light. Love is a night light, you know? Rubbish.� He took a breath, �Hermione, love is...� He smiled to himself, �it's mad. Totally mental, is what it is. It can make the most rational of people do the most idiotic things and, worse over, be proud they did them. It's like being caught on a roller coaster that won't switch off. It's so much fun, in one sense you're so glad it won't end. After awhile though it just leaves you bored, or making sick somewhere your friends won't laugh at you for it.�

Harry shook his head, �That's not quite right, either. Why is this so hard?�

�It's not meant to be.� He heard over the shower still running, �I can totally hear you by the way.�

�Wonderful.�

�I liked the night light bit. It was going somewhere, I think.�

�Can we not talk while you're standing in there naked?�

�Does it make you uncomfortable?�

�Not at all, I always ask that people stop doing things I consider awesome. No, sir. I couldn't possibly accept yet another paid year of vacation time on your island made of cheesecake.� He said dryly.

�Be that as it may, we're flat mates now. You're going to have to get used to the occasional uncomfortable moment.�

�We're only flat mates until I solve this case.� He pointed out.

�Oh? Think you'll solve it tonight?�

�No.� He confessed.

�Well then, will you order something in for dinner, flat mate?�

�Yeah. What do you want?�

�Hold on.�

�Why?� He asked, then he heard the water stop.

Emerging from the bathroom with wet hair and wrapped in a bath towel Hermione sat on her bed. She opened the drawer between them, �I grabbed a bunch of carry out menus on the way home tonight. I like to have options. I'm trying to watch my figure.�

�I think I do more than enough watching your figure for the both of us.�

�Aren't we bold tonight.� She blushed.

�You're only wearing a towel. My mind has just put a down payment on a lovely gutter property.�

�I see. Turn your back, then.� She began to slowly open the towel, �Harry. Turn around.�

�Right. I was just getting to that.�

�Yeah, I'll bet.�

Harry turned around, he could hear the sounds of her changing behind him. A very large part of his brain noted that she was naked in the same room as him, �So.� He said to distract himself, �What's got you worried about your weight?�

�Is being a woman not enough?�

�No, sure. I guess. I think you look fine as you are.�

�You'll forgive a girl if she shoots for something a little higher than 'fine', won't you?�

�Fine was the wrong word.� He answered.

�What word were--hold on.� He heard her pull an article of clothing over her head, �What word were you looking for?�

�Something in the family of fantastic.�

�Well, that's sweet of you. You can turn around again, I'm dressed.� Harry swiveled around to face her. She was wearing sweat pants and a tee shirt, Harry was disappointed. She continued, �I'm looking for something in the family of ravishing. Thus the dieting.�

�I think you're ravishing.� He said softly.

She pulled her shirt up to reveal her stomach. She gathered what little spare tire she possessed from her belly and shook it in her hands, �You don't see this kind of thing on ravishing.�

�I would beg to disagree.� He moved a pillow over his lap.

�Did you do that for comic effect, or are you seriously getting turned on by my gross stomach fat?�

�I like a little meat on my women.�

�Be that as it may,� She put her shirt down, though the pillow on his lap remained, �Thin is in.�

�Count me out.� He waved his hand dismissively.

�Like you have room to talk. You're fit.�

�I have my drawbacks.�

�Do you now?� She raised an eyebrow, �Off with the shirt. Let's evaluate these drawbacks.�

�Hermione, I don't think that's a great idea.�

�I'm not really giving you an option.�

�Fine, but you asked for it.�

Harry stood up and removed his shirt. He was fit, muscles defined, but not in a way that left his skin leathery looking. However, the drawback that he mentioned stood out like a sore thumb. Hermione raised her hands to her face.

�Oh my god, Harry. What happened?�

It began less than an inch under his right nipple and stretched to where his hip bone protruded slightly on his left side. The scar looked to be a burn. It was made up of dozens of light, crisscrossing, white lines. At its largest point it was about the length of her hand wide. Upon closer examination she noticed that this was just the most prominent scar. He had other, albeit quite smaller, ones scattered around his chest like a Pollock painting.

�I was hit by an out of control incendio.� He said, �I had only been an Auror for a few months.� He said, �It hurt like hell, but that's the life we lead.�

�I've... I never knew.�

�I'm sure Ron has his share of scars.� He shrugged and reached for his shirt.

Hermione crossed the room and put her hand to Harry's chest, over his scar, �Wait.�

�What?�

�Don't put it on yet, your shirt.�

�Uhm... I feel a little exposed.� He put his fingers over his nipples, �There, that�s better.�

�Harry, it's a part of you.� She bent down and placed her lips delicately on his scar, �I love every part of you.�

�Well...� He blinked, �No, never mind. I'm actually pretty speechless.�

�You don't care that I'm not some super thin supermodel.�

�I'd actually prefer you not be.�

�Well, I like mine a little bit battle-scarred.�

She looked up at him, her eyes great brown saucer plates. His skin felt like it had gotten too tight. He swallowed hard, but found no saliva to push his heart back into his chest. This is it. He thought, we're having a moment.

He opened his mouth, put his pointer finger in the air, and with a voice that rang with rehearsal he said, �Hermione, love is the ability to see the faults of another person as less of a-�

He had meant to finish his sentence, he had actually been pretty proud of where it was going. But she had closed her eyes, pushed up on her tip-toes, and kissed him. Which, all things considered, was the kind of interruption that he didn't mind.

When their lips parted, partially because he couldn't think of anything else to say, he cracked wise, �If you like that, I've got this great scar on my knee. I didn't get it fighting a bear or anything cool. Actually, I just cracked it off the filing cabinet last spring. Don't ever let anyone tell you that a filing cabinet can't be dangerous.�

�Did you now?�

�Oh yeah. It's sort of shaped like Wales.�

�Harry?�

�Yes, that's me.�

�I don't care.� She put her hands around the back of his neck and pulled his face to her own for another kiss. When they parted again he looked down at her, smiled and dropped his tee shirt.

�Yeah, It's a stupid scar anyway.� He kissed her back.

* * *

An hour later the two had found themselves sleeping in the same bed. Hermione slept peacefully, nestled into him. They had not done anything more than kiss, but to her it had been the moment that changed everything. She intended to speak with him in the morning, to have a proper relationship talk. Harry, on the other hand, was unable to sleep. He was staring at the back of her head, trying to imagine a way that he could have done a better job of screwing up.

She had told him that she loved him, she hadn't used those exact words, but it was what she had said. He wasn't ready for love. What he had been trying to tell her before the snogging had started was that love was something that grew between two people and, if they could just take the relationship slowly, he believed that what would grow between them would be the most remarkable kind of love there is. He knew that they could actually foster true love between the two of them. He had instead bungled his way into his normal Harry Potter relationship.

His relationships were hot, heavy, and sudden. They always had been. The problem with that, no matter what any one might think, is that that kind of love burns itself out. Now he had little hope of being anything other than a rebound. The next guy (what was his name again?) she saw after Ron. What he was now building between the two of them, a fate he had wanted to avoid, was the couple version of a cover band. It sounded great, it preformed well, but it's a pale shade of the original.

Harry blinked. It was an odd kind of blink, not that he had special blinking powers. His blinks could not leap tall building or out pace trains. His blinks could fight. They could fight with the best of them. He had prize fighter eyelids. What they were, at that moment, failing to fight back were tears. With everything else, what was ahead of him the next day, and some crazed cult out to kill him, Harry was overwhelmed. He swore softly through his tears.

* * *

�Today�s the day, mate.� Ron said solemnly, �How are you feeling?�

�The day?�

�Yeah. After work today, mate.�

�Merlin, right. The whipping.�

Harry shook his head. He had slept next to Ron's recently ex-girlfriend the night before. This was a fact that Ron didn't know. It seemed that the more Harry let his best friend in on the case, the more he kept quiet about what was building between him and Hermione.

�Yeah.� Ron moved his head back and raised his eyebrows with concern, �Are you alright, Harry?�

�Yeah. I'm great. Just preoccupied.�

�Wow. Must be a big deal, makes a man forget that he's going to be publicly tortured.�

�It is. It's the biggest thing ever.�

�The case? You got a hot lead?�

�No. Nothing like that.�

�What's up?�

�It's personal.�

�Okay. Touchy.� Ron raised his hands in the universal symbol of defeat, �Where's Hermione?�

�Why?� Harry asked, much too quickly.

�We're supposed to meet. Remember? To tell each other how we're going to go bout looking into our leads.�

�Right. Sorry.�

�You need a minute? Compose yourself?�

�Yeah. I could do.� He confessed.

�Alright. You sit at your desk, breathe in the disorganized smell of it. I'll be back in a bit.�

�Fair. Thanks, mate.�

Harry sat back in his chair, his mind absently searching for some kind of order in what he had before him. His case was going nowhere fast. He had dead-end leads, suspicions he couldn't make pan out, and worst of all he was grounded by his boss. He was all of a sudden too high profile to hit the streets and get some real investigation under his belt. He didn't know how much longer he could even hang on to the case before he had to turn it over to another Auror. He had similar concerns for his sanity, but that was a battle for another day.

He took six long steadying breaths. He stared down at the wasteland of his desk. He hated to admit it, but Ron had been right. He found the chaos comforting. Everything else in his life was much more organized. His flat was neat, if not dusty, his bank vault was tidy, his glasses clean. The things that he loved, the few things in his life he longed for, were all out of order. His relationship, if that's what it was, with Hermione was so messed up he often felt like screaming, but he lived for it. His best friend was complicated, as he was both his greatest ally and his sole competition, yet he could ask for no one better to fill the spot. And of course, his desk. He loved his desk.

Harry wrote down a quick letter, folded it up into an airplane and sent it off. He waited a few minutes for Ron to come back over with a chair and sit at his desk, holding the airplane he had just sent.

�I thought you didn't trust these.� Ron put the letter down on Harry's desk.

�I trust you.�

�I see.� Ron sat back in his desk, �This is your version of trust? I have to fight just to be included in this case.�

�Well.� Harry shrugged.

�Yeah. I'll take what I can get.�

�Glad to hear it.�

�You feel better?�

�I don't feel worse.�

�Good enough.� Ron put his feet up on Harry's desk, �So... How do you want to get around the whole we're not allowed to leave the office thing?�

�I honestly hadn't thought of it.�

�You could always fire off another Dark Mark.� Ron smiled.

�I'll get right on that.� Harry put his feet up as well, �You make any progress last night?�

�Harris Podwell is fifteen.� Ron removed a notebook from his jacket, �He's, let's see, he's a Hufflepuff, of all things. He lives out in Leeds with his family. Mother and Father, pure bloodline, no surprises there. Not much else. He's on his house Quidditch team.�

�Sounds a likely suspect, apart from the Hufflepuff thing.�

�He out flew the living hell out of you.�

�He had a faster broom.�

�Excuses, old man.� Ron winked.

�It would be great if we could just go see him.�

�There is a slight drawback.� Ron winced.

�Yeah?�

�He'll have started school by the time we're able to leave this office.�

�Shit.�

�So, you make any progress?�

�Nope. I had a weird night.�

Ron removed his feet from the desk, kicked back his chair and let his hands fall onto Harry shoulders. More impressively, he did it all in one fluid movement, �Did they attack you again?�

�No, nothing like that. Just... Uncomfortable safe house.�

�Yeah, I hear that.� Ron eased back into his chair, �I'm still with Ginny and the Parents. Joy. Joy.�

�Sorry, mate.� Harry smiled, �Could be worse. You could be getting whipped later today.�

�Fair point.� Ron shrugged, �So, are you okay with all that? You want to talk or something?�

�I'm not sure.� Harry looked thoughtful, �You happen to know a way to make it so I won't feel it?�

�No. There'll be wards in place for that.�

�Of course there will.� Harry rolled his eyes, �We need to get some dirt on Slanton. If for nothing but payback.�

�That's Hermione's job. Guess we'll have to see if she got anywhere.�

�Yeah. Guess so.� Harry said guiltily.

�Until then, what do you want to do?�

�We could try to weasel information out of Abby about that mystery bulletin board.� He suggested.

�I don't think I'm going to have any luck there.�

�Damn.�

�Whoa.� Ron held his hands up to indicate that his thought was unfinished, �I said I would have no luck. She wants you bad, Harry. You've got an outside shot.�

�What?�

�Ask her out. You can totally get that information out of her. Over dinner, or on your back.�

�Lovely.� Harry said sarcastically.

�Look, mate. It's a fair point.�

�What's a fair point?� Hermione had come up behind them with her office chair, planted herself next to Harry as casually as she could manage, �I hope this is polite conversation.�

�It's not.� Harry assured her.

�He's being a wimp.� Ron said matter-of-factly, �A big, scared wimp.�

�About what?� Her eyebrow went up.

�Ron wants me to ask out Abby to drill her for information.�

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|91.207.5.139|prepared ipcc http://community.energy-speakers.com/members/Buy-Viagra-_2D00_-Online-Pharmacy.aspx||1272356395|wattsdansb|wattsdansb@spu.;What are you going to do?� She asked.

�Well, I can't ask her out.�

�You could try just asking.� She smiled half-heartedly.

�No, Ron's got the right idea about one thing.� Harry shook his head, �If she lets her guard down she might actually tell me the truth.�

�Oh Harry.� Hermione whispered, �I don't think I could handle that. I'm not strong enough to handle that.�

�I know. Yesterday I was living through 'Jesse's Girl' and today I'm in the middle of 'Long cool Woman', this is too much.�

�Where did you ever learn about a Rick Springfield song?� She moved one hand to his desk and the other to her hip.

�Where did you?�

�Fair point.� She shrugged

�You know what I miss about being a muggle?�

�You miss something? Is it the smell of the cupboard?�

�It was the simplicity.� He said with a smile, �I lived in a room after awhile, you know.�

�I know, but the cupboard is iconic.� She waved her hand, �All of your biographers spend inordinate amounts of time explaining how horrid it was for you.�

�You read my biographies?� He raised an eyebrow.

�Shut up. I didn't say that.� She blushed.

�You're blushing. That looks like guilt to me, of course what do I know. I'm just a professional investigator.�

�What was simple about being a muggle?� She tried to change topics.

�I'll tell you, I absolutely will. Once you admit to reading my biographies like an obsessed stalker.�

�Fine. I may have thumbed through a couple of them, but it wasn't like that. I was just curious.�

�About what?� He almost laughed, �I have green eyes, you could've just asked.�

�You're loving this too much.�

�Everyone likes to know that pretty girls are thinking about them.�

�You're incredible.� She shook her head.

�Don't forget, adorable. That's my favorite.�

�So, what do you mean by simple?�

Harry smiled and leaned back in his chair, �I did what I was told, and if someone was out to get me I knew who it was. Simple.�

�We had frighteningly different childhoods.�

�Yeah?�

�Sure. I have a wonderful family. I was a bit ostracized in school, I was rather bookish. But, much more happy then yours at least.�

�You don't have to get the idea that my childhood was totally miserable.� He came back to face her, �It just didn't become amazing until I met you.�

�Are you...� She blushed, �Was that meant as a compliment?�

�I... Yes. Did I do it badly?�

�No, you didn't.� She smiled the kind of smile that made Harry's heart beat faster, �I just... You're wonderful. That's why I don't want you to ask out Abby. Call it selfish, but I only want you to be this way for me. Even if you're just pretending with her.�

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�Thank you, Potter.� He looked at Harry for a long time, �In another life, we could've been friends.�

�We could be friends now.�

�Do you really think so?�

�Yes.�

Draco sank back into the couch, let out some air and smiled, �Then as a friend, will you help me?�

�I'll look into it.�

* * *

Four years ago Harry found himself outside the Malfoy estate. The place had mixed memories for him. He had been held here during the war. However it was also here, over the course of an entire year, that he and Draco had become friends discussing leads, life, love and everything else in private meetings organized so that the world wouldn't know that either of them were meeting. Harry remembered making Draco laugh so hard that the house elf had checked to make sure that the boys were alright. Harry and Draco had not intended to become friends, if either had been told that would be the outcome they would've laughed it off as nonsense; surely they couldn't befriend their enemy, but become friends they did.

A few weeks before Harry found himself at the gates of Malfoy Manor, some strange rumors had been spreading throughout the wizarding world. There was talk that Malfoy had started a pure-blood revival. Harry dismissed them, these people didn't know the progress Draco had made, they didn't know how stupid it was to say he would lead a new order of Death Eaters. Draco had been quiet about it, but Harry had managed to figure out that he was seeing someone, romantically, who was either not of pure blood or at the very least a squib. Harry knew that Draco had changed, he felt it in his bones.

He pushed open the gates and walked up the path. The lawn was out of sorts, it had been for months. Draco's mother had passed away. They couldn't prove it had been murder but both Draco and Harry felt sure that it was. Since then Draco had receded into the manor and come out for nothing. He had dismissed all his hired help, stopped owling, and locked up his house. Harry understood that he needed time to recover, that he had to mourn.

Harry felt like garbage walking through the lawn. Mabel, his boss, had ordered him out to the manor to look into the allegations about Draco. Harry knocked on the door, waited. When no response came he knocked more assertively. The door swung open, exposing the entry hall of the manor. Harry could see Draco coming down the stairs, wand extended from having opened the door. Draco was in a bathrobe, with a glass of whiskey in his hand.

�Harry!� Draco greeted him with his usual boisterousness.

�Draco� Harry smiled, �You're looking well.�

�I feel well!� Draco closed the gap between them and shook Harry's hand, �Come in, we'll talk in the sitting room.�

�Great.�

Draco sat Harry in a large, comfortable arm chair, facing away from the window. He walked over to the mini bar against the far wall and made a drink for his guest. He handed the drink to Harry and pulled a chair across the room to sit in. They sat together, as they had hundreds of times, and Harry held up the glass.

�Thanks.�

�Not at all.� Draco smiled, �What brings you round?�

�Well, as much as I would like to say that I've just come to see you, I'm on the clock.�

�Ah. I imagine you're here to ask about the rumors.�

�Yeah. Basically.� Harry shrugged, �Not that I think there's much to them.�

�Ah. Well by all means, ask away.�

�Have you started a pure-blood social club?�

�Yes.� Draco smiled.

�I'm sorry, what?� Harry set his drink aside.

�I have. The cult of Slytherin.�

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There were two things in the world that totally unnerved Harry Potter, being told he was about to be whipped in public, and teenagers. He thought it had something to do with their chewing bubble gum menacingly, or that they seemed to believe that they knew everything, but they put him out regardless. He was standing in a room with three teenagers thinking that this week was largely about him facing these challenges head on. Ron gave him a confident smile, though Harry knew that confidence was basically impossible for his partner at that moment. Ron had been dealing with some things that week himself.

Harry composed himself and sat down in front of the teenagers. He dropped a file next to him, which Ron picked up and thumbed through. The file was empty, but the kids didn't know that. Ron smiled and pointed to one of the blank pages, Harry leaned back and looked at the spot Ron's finger was resting on, he smiled too. Ron put the file down and leaned against the wall behind Harry. Harry put his hands on the table and moved in closely.

“The True Blood Brotherhood.” He said.

The kids all went pale, the girl turned to her brother and gave him a look, her brother nodded. None of them spoke. Ron walked forward and slammed his hand down on the table.

“The Brotherhood. Talk.”

The kids all began talking at once, from what Harry and Ron could hear they were all saying that they knew nothing about anything like that. Harry raised a hand to silence them. He stood up, indicated that Ron follow him and they both started toward the door.

“Azkaban for this lot.” Harry said, Ron grunted his agreement, “Almost definitely going to have their wands snapped, kicked from school.” Ron nodded along.

“Serves them right, ask me.”

From behind them, as Harry opened the door with his free hand , a small female voice sounded, “They came to us.”

“Who?” Harry asked.

“Shut up.” Thomas scolded his sister.

“I'm not about to live out my days in prison, or as a squib.” Ella protested.

“I got a cousin, what's a squib.” Godfrey nodded, “She's right.”

“Then talk.” Ron crossed his arms and closed the door with his foot, “Because it'll be squibbing it up in Azkaban for the lot of you if we don't hear what we want.”

“The Brotherhood came to us, while we were in school last year.” Godfrey began.

“We're in different houses, but we all grew up together.” Ella added.

“Right, and like I was saying they came to us. We don't know much about them, but they said we could belong, like we could have a proper family, if we joined up.”

“So you joined? Rough for you at home?”

“Our father is never around, and our mum drinks.” Ella said quietly.

“Same story.” Godfrey agreed.

“Did they ask you to attack me?” Harry asked.

“Not exactly, no.” Godfrey said.

“Thomas thought that we might get to be respected members if we moved ahead the agenda.” Ella pointed out. Thomas scowled at the two of them and said nothing.

“What agenda?” Harry pressed.

“We..er... They are big on the Pure Blood movement. They want to take out all muggles, and you.” Godfrey pointed at Harry.

“Why me?”

“You're a fucking traitor.” Thomas spit out.

“Why?” Ron leaned in.

“He's descended from greatness, but acts like a filthy fucking muggle lover.” Thomas looked Harry straight in the eye, “You belong to Slytherin, like it or not. It's your birth right.”

“What?” Harry recoiled, “I'm not related to Slytherin.”

“Yes, you are.” Ella corrected.

“I am?”

“Yeah.” Godfrey said cautiously.

“Huh. Fancy that.” Harry looked over at Ron.

“Yeah. Explain to me why that matters?” Ron raised an eyebrow at Ella, she was the most talkative.

“We worship the bloodline of Salazar Slytherin.” She said, “It's the truest bloodline left, we believe that it retains the most magical properties, and makes descendants in that line more powerful wizards. Voldemort was descended from Slytherin.”

“Blimey.” Ron pulled up a chair and sat down, “You people are completely insane.”

“Hey!” Godfrey and Ella said at once.

“Man has a point.” Harry shrugged, “There are loads of really powerful wizards that aren't descended from Slytherin.”

“Yet the two most powerful wizards of all time are.” Godfrey said, “It makes a kind of sense. Even you should see that, traitor or not.”

“You kids are absolutely pickledy. You realize this yes?” Ron leaned in, “You've been brainwashed into a cult that believe that Salazar Slytherin's bloodline is the be all end all, and to make nice with this cult you attacked a blood member of that line. Where exactly does this become sanity to you?”

“It... all seemed to make sense at the time.” Ella hung her head.

“Well, that's lovely.” Harry stood up, “Ron?”

“Yeah. Let's get the hell away from these kids.” Ron shook his head and followed Harry to the door.

“What's going to happen to us?” Thomas said.

“Assuming all of this helps our investigation, we'll see.” Ron walked out the door after Harry, closing it behind him.

* * *

“You should find this interesting.” Hermione pointed at the desk where she had dropped a file.

Harry looked down at the file, smiled as he opened it up. The smell of her was intoxicating, he was having trouble concentrating, which didn't help him get through the file at all. He focused as much as he could, acknowledging that the file pertained to Slanton, before he began to imagine situations in which he could get away with giving Hermione a quick kiss. When several moments had passed Hermione cleared her throat. Harry looked up at her, blinked twice, remembered that he was meant to agree with her statement.

“Yes. Very interesting.” He said

“Did you even read it?”

“Not a word.” He shook his head, “You smell wonderful, did you know that?”

“Harry, they've killed people to get to you. They're trying to kill you.”

“This effects my sense of smell, how?”

“Less flirting with me, more putting this Brotherhood behind bars.”

“I don't really want to stop flirting with you. Is there a middle ground here we can suss out? I'm okay with compromise. I'll flirt with you for another few hours, then I'll heroically knock on doors.”

“I don't think so. Read the file.”

“Or you could explain it to me.” He smiled, “I like to watch you talk.”

“I can leave if I'm too distracting.”

“I'm reading!” He looked at the file, “See, reading.”

The file wasn't really about Slanton proper, but about Abby. It seemed to be a record of her hiring from the Ministry personnel archives. Harry skimmed through it, trying to decide why he was meant to find it interesting. He tried squinting at it, tried to turn it on an angle, tried to read some of it backwards and struck nothing.

“I give up.” He looked at her over the file, “Why is this interesting?”

“Because she wasn't recommended for this job by her father.”

“Yeah, it says he was opposed.” Harry pointed out.

“She was recommended by Adam Tennent.”

“The head of the Department?”

“One and the same.”

“That is odd, why is it interesting? He recommends a lot of people every year. It's his department.”

“Yeah but how often does he willingly fight another member of the Wizengamot?”

Harry tugged on his chin thoughtfully, “I liked this conversation a lot better when it was about how good you smelled.”

“You know what this might mean. She could be a plant, that means that Tennent could be a member of the-”

“Yeah I got that.” He cut her off, “This is not a line of thought that makes for good prospects on career advancement.”

“Since when did you care about that?” She smiled.

“I don't.” He confessed, “But you and Ron do.”

“I'm with you, no matter what.” She put her hand on his shoulder, “You know that. I'm sure Ron will be too.”

“Yes, I do know. That's why this is dangerous for you guys.” He put his hand on top of her hand, “What do you want to do about this?”

“Well, we have to at least look into it.”

“I know. I know.” Harry pushed his glasses up and rubbed his eyes, “Merlin. This whole thing is insane.”

“That's true, but it isn't going to just go away, body count is getting too high.”

“Yeah. I know. Shit.” He straightened himself on, “Okay. I'll look into this bit.”

“What are me and Ron supposed to do?”

“For now, keep out of it. Plausible deniability.”

“You're going to have to stop protecting me.”

“Why? Is it too misogynistic?”

“No, it's sweet. But you're going to dig yourself a hole even you couldn't talk your way out of.”

“Maybe.” He shook his head, “I'll just have to pick up a shovel. Also I've been thinking about hiring a publicist.”

“Couldn't hurt.”

* * *

Ron wasn't used to doing all the leg work on this case, but with Harry still hurt from his whipping that had fallen on him. He wished it hadn't. He was still reeling from the Sam thing. He tried not to show it, but he had really connected with her, having her turn up dead because of him had been a shock he wasn't able to completely recover from. He spent his time waiting around, wishing he was someone else, or simply wishing that he could move time forward or backward. Time turners never seemed to turn up when he needed them, he wondered if that was the manufacturers desire, Harry and Hermione had used one, but he never would, it had to be because the distributors for the product secretly hated him.

In the meantime Ron had managed to make his way out to the site where Sam's body had been found. According to her autopsy reports there was a small burn mark on the beck of her neck, no doubt the killing curse used on her as well before she had been made to look like she was strangled. The pedestrian bridge she had been found on was closed to the general public, but Ron still had his secret service paperwork and managed to get beyond the cordon.

The scene was mildly disturbing if only for it's normalcy. He could clearly see that Sam had not been killed there, only dumped. This did little to help his disposition that morning. When he was finished looking around, having determined that he couldn't find anything pertinent on the bridge, he waved to the police officers and left. He was halfway to the Ministry phone box when he was struck by a sudden idea. He walked into a disused alleyway and apparated.

He appeared in Hogsmeade. He had not been there in a long time, something about the proximity to Hogwarts unnerved him. He walked up the lonely stretch of road to the castle. It's high towers and charming grounds swelled memories in him that he wished he could forget, and some that he wouldn't trade for the world. He laughed when he saw the branches of the Whomping Willow moving slightly in the breeze. He opened the great doors and walked the flights of stairs up to the Head Master's office.

Hogwarts had not officially opened for the school year, but the one thing you could always count on was that Head Mistress McGonagal would be in, reviewing the submissions and sending out late letters of acceptance to the soon-to-be first year students. Ron went through the gargoyle, and emerged at the top of the stairs. McGonagal's office was very much unlike Dumbledore's. It was neat and in order, if a little on the sparse side. It looked like she had just recently moved into the place. Ron looked around but couldn't spot her. He decided to sit around and wait. He wondered what had happened to all the trinkets that had once been on the desk.

The trinkets not being on the desk made the whole place different. It was like the difference between his own and Harry's desk. They were the exact same model, but the clutter made them unique. Ron smiled sadly as he fought back another wave of memories. It was once his biggest fear to have to sit in this room, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Now he sat with authority, the law on his side, and yet was still humbled by the space around him. This was the highest honor academia could offer. Hermione dreamed of one day becoming Head Mistress. It had driven him nuts, he could never understand the allure.

He got up and sat on the other side of the desk. From McGonagal's chair the room seemed no different to him. He shook his head and chuckled. He still didn't understand the allure. He made a mental note to tell Hermione about it, then dashed it off just as quickly. He wasn't angry with her, he wasn't in love with her romantically anymore, she just bothered him. She always had, but before she hadn't been so irritating. Like an itch that can't be reached. He got up and looked down at the empty chair he had vacated. Some days he was glad he had decided to be an Auror. Just then the door opened and the Head Mistress stepped in.

“Weasley?” She smiled, “How wonderful to see you.”

“Minerva.” He tried out using her first name, which it turned out he didn't feel super comfortable with and decided not to do it again, “How are you?”

“I'm just fine, admiring my chair were you?” She pointed to the chair next to him.

“Just sorta feeling it out.”

“Missing school?” She sat down and offered him some biscuits she had conjured.

Taking a handful of the sweets he sat down, “Wish I could say that this is a social visit.”

“Business is it? What could the Auror Office want with Hogwarts?”

“We just had a break in our case. Turns out it was four of your students that attacked Harry on his birthday.”

“Oh dear.” She gave a stern look at her desk, Ron wondered if she was practicing for when she spoke with the kids, “What would you like from us?”

“The usual in this type of situation. We need a list of close friends, class schedule for last year, boarding arrangements. We just need to shift through it all.”

“I imagine they'll be forbidden from magic, the seriousness of the incident and all.”

“Harry wants to cut them a deal. Let them stay on as wizards.”

“Whatever for?”

“The True Blood Brotherhood is who he's really after.”

“Ah yes, nasty business, that.”

“Yeah it sure-” He dropped the biscuit he was eating on his desk, “What do you mean? You know about them?”

“I should hope. I was the one that disbanded the club.”

“Club?”

“Yes, they're, or rather they were, an unofficial club here at the school last year. Held meetings in the room of requirement, much like you did as children.”

“They were an extra circular?” Ron's mouth dropped.

“Certainly not.” She shook her head, “They held their little meetings and made trouble. Problematic when all was said and done, but it's all broken up now. They attacked a muggle born, did you know?”

“No way.”

* * *

Harry found it difficult to use the urinals with his cane. He had tried to tuck the cane under his arm, but the end of it would hit the stall doors behind him. He tried to lean it against the sink, but he would always accidentally leave it behind. Finally he decided to balance it against his leg while he pissed. It was not an elegant solution, but no solution made in bathrooms are. He kept a watchful eye on the door, thinking it would not be wonderful if someone walked in to see how dignified he looked.

When he was through he washed his hands, the cane shoved roughly on top of the sink. He made his way slowly back to his desk and sat down. Hermione was waiting for him, she was casually flipping through the pages of the daily prophet. She set it down in front of him and pointed to the interview he had given Ginny.

“When did you give that?” She smiled, “You sound like an absolute git.”

“My charm is difficult to read in print.”

“Was all the flirting strictly necessary?”

“That's how interviews work.” He shrugged, “It's a goddamn nightmare, but what can you do?”

“Dare to be different?”

“They'll just twist your words around anyway. Not worth the effort.”

“Why did you tell the world that you lounge about your flat all day?”

“It was a poorly constructed trap.”

“You really think you ought to be luring the brotherhood to you? They seem to do fine as is. Three attacks and counting speak to it.”

“Two and half at best.” He smirked, “The birthday attack was pathetic.”

“Didn't seem so at the time.” She frowned.

“Well, that's only because you're not used to it anymore.”

“Used to what?”

“The brilliant, bloody life and death of it all.” He leaned his head back and smiled, “The quickness of it, blink an eye and it could all be over, the sheer heart pounding adrenaline of it all!”

“Oh my god, you love it don't you?” She stared at him, “The battle, the hunt, you're loving this.”

“Love is a strong word.” He shrugged, “It drives me up a wall, makes me paranoid, but I would be lying if I said that there wasn't something about it I enjoyed.”

“What is there to enjoy about people wanting to kill you?”

“See, you're not getting it. It's not the people wanting to kill me part that I enjoy, it's the other stuff.” Harry looked off wistfully, “The broom chases, the tracking leads, that feeling you get when you know, just know in your bones, that you're hot on the trail of something vital. I feel alive in this line of work.”

“Aren't you afraid?”

“Of course, but that's all part of it.” He indicated his back, “Some times you have to take your lumps if you're going to make your life spectacular.”

“It could be argued that your life was already pretty spectacular.”

“Yeah, to the historians.”

“How do you mean?”

“After I'm dead and gone, which reminds me: Huge monument, it's not much to ask.”

“Duly noted.” She chuckled.

“After I'm gone my life will seem interesting to the people who read about it. But right here, in the present, if I sat back on my laurels, that wouldn't feel like anything spectacular to me. Running about and helping people, that's spectacular.”

“There will be whole libraries devoted to your history at this rate.”

“Consider it my gift to you, you always did like to bury your nose in a book.”

“Please.” She smiled, “I think you'll have to try a lot harder when you look for gifts for me, Mr. Potter.”

“Challenge accepted.”

Hermione leaned in and all of a sudden she was serious, “Harry, living the way you do, not to say it's a bad way to live or anything, but that was fine in the then.”

“What now?”

“It matters to me, now more than ever, whether you live or die chasing your saving people thrill.”

“You want me to quit?” He balked.

“Not at all. I want you to be more careful the next time you think about throwing yourself into the line of fire. I love you, Harry. You're not just living for yourself anymore. Because in that library containing your history, I hope very much to be an important figure.”

“I...” He looked at the floor, “I hadn't thought of that.”

“What if the roles were reversed?”

“I don't think I can live without you.” He shook his head, “I just never really thought that you would.... I mean I knew, in my heart I knew, but I never thought about it.”

“Well, I hope you will from here on out. Because it kills me to see you walking with that cane, to see the lashes across your back, and to know that one day you're just going to do it all to yourself again.”

“What was it you said?” Harry put a thumb on his chin, “We have to grow together.”

“I may have said something like that.” She smiled.

“You've got a bit of a head start on me, but I swear I'll catch up.”

“And you'll be more careful?”

“I will.”

“Thank you.”

* * *

Draco ran for what felt like hours. He ran over forest bed, over stone covered ground, through creeks and finally on hard tar roads. He always kept a weathered eye behind him, searching for the dark robes and especially for the green medallions. Finally, at the end of his endurance, he came to a hotel. It was a squat and shabby little building, with red brick everything. He climbed up to a second floor window, hoping against hope that it was not occupied. He used his forearm to pry it open and crawled inside. He made it two feet from the window before he passed out.

It was fortunate that Draco had picked that particular room, because it was destined to not be occupied on that night. A few minutes before his arrival at the squat red bricked hovel two young lovers were in the check in room about to rent that very room. They had gotten in a heated argument and broken up, deciding to avoid the room, and each other. Two additional weeks would go by before, while drunk and desperate, the gentleman would call her to apologize. They would then make up, get married, produce a single child and divorce a year later when she called his mother a bitch. However, they would make up six weeks later in the bathroom at the end of the hall in the courtroom where the single child's custody would be decided.

None of this mattered to Draco, who simply slept, freed from his restraints for the first time in many years.

* * *

Harry was standing in the break room sipping from a coffee mug and watching the heads peeking out of cubicles around his office when he saw Ron run in. Ron was making a mad dash for Harry's desk, disregarding the normal courtesy of walking in the tight space. Harry called out to get Ron's attention. Ron turned his head, saw Harry and tried to turn to run toward him.

However, when Ron moved his right leg toward Harry the rest of his body seemed to have lost the memo. His waist twisted and Harry winced as he saw Ron's body disappear behind the wall of cubicles. Harry moved forward at his hobbling pace to check on Ron, but didn't even make it two steps when Ron's head shot up above the cubicle walls and he resumed sprinting toward Harry. When Ron arrived he placed his hand on the edge of the door jam and proceeded to pant as thought his lungs had only just begun working again.

“Getting old.” Harry said empathetically.

“Big news. Serious. Shit. Going. Down.” Ron waved his free hand frantically, “Water. Need.”

Harry walked back to the sink and poured Ron a glass of water. Once Ron had the glass he gulped it's contents down in a single sip and wiped his forehead as he stood up.

“Feel better?” Harry asked.

“Loads.”

“So, why the running?”

“Last year there was a secret club run out of the Room of Requirements at Hogwarts, called the True Blood Brotherhood.”

“How very after school special.”

“My sentiments exactly, however, where there's a club there's a roaster.”

Harry blinked twice before he smiled his slow smile, “You're a genius.”

“I've been called worse.” Ron returned his smile.

Harry patted Ron on the back and the two exchanged glances of unrestrained happiness. Hermione walked into the kitchen, curious as to why Ron had suddenly taken up indoor cardio. She watched as the boys congratulated each other non-verbally before she spoke.

“What are you two so happy about?”

“Ron's finally asked me to marry him.”

“I'm thinking it should be a small ceremony.” Ron added.

“As long as we write our own vows.” Harry shook his finger.

“There is something deeply troubling about how quickly that came to the two of you.”

“There's something deeply troubling about you still not asking to see the ring.” Harry put his hand on his hip.

“I did pay a lot of money for it.” Ron smiled.

“So.” Hermione blew out some air, “What's really going on?”

“Ron may have found a break in our case.”

“That's wonderful!”

Harry looked behind her, at the door to the interrogation room. Behind it were the kids who had his answers, he only needed a plan for how to ask. He smiled, a glint in his eye, he had a plan.

“Give me an hour and meet me in the mirror room.”

* * *

A good interrogation requires a plan of action. A good partner comes up with one and shares it. Harry was not a good partner, and Ron didn't expect him to suddenly become one, which is why Ron was staring over the wall of his cubicle and waiting for Harry to pop up, brilliant idea formed. Ron planned to rush him, just run over and hit him with the first million questions that came to mind. He was on his knees, in his chair, his arms thrown over the wall of his cubicle. To an outside observer he looked like an eager child, but in Ron's mind he was a tiger, stalking his prey.

The added benefit of being proactive about Harry's lapses in teamwork skill was that it was a wonderful distraction. Ron's mind was focused on the hunt with the intensity of a laser beam, leaving no room for other, darker thoughts. The clock, placed on the wall just high enough to look down on Ron's cubicle, had become his greatest enemy. It was ticking away the long moments between work, his bastion, and home. When he was off duty he would be alone with his thoughts, and the horrible nagging feeling that he was incomplete. Divided in ways he wasn't mentally prepared to cope with.

Ron, for all of his wonderful attributes, was not okay with the blood on his hands. Sam had been a one in a million kind of woman, and he believed it was his fault she was gone. He wanted, and to some degree needed, to not have her float into his mind. He felt that if he could ignore the pain, it would just shrivel up and fall away. He could finally stop imagining the life they could have shared, stop trying to remember the sound of her laughter, the way that hair would fall over her eyes when she smiled. And mostly he could stop trying to figure out if falling in love with a dead woman was sick or just pathetic.

* * *

Mabel hated this case. She had searched for other, stronger and more accurate terms, but there was none. She hated it. She hated the paperwork she had to read, she hated what it had done to Potter, she hated what it was doing to Weasley, she hated smell of fear that still lingered in her office from the families that had taken up temporary respite there. Right at that moment however she hated the parents of the children she was holding.

On her desk there were two dozen different threats from these four kids parents about Auror harassment, battery, and her own alleged misuse of authority. This was on top of the complaints from the concerned citizens. Some praising her actions, but most condemning them. She had a headache brewing that she was positive could decimate the population of a medium sized city were it weaponized. She glanced at her desk clock and sighed. Five more hours until she could go home, cuddle up next to her husband and slip into a well deserved eighteen year coma.

She had sent Potter an interoffice memo, asking how much longer he had intended to hold the kids, and his response had not brought a lot of joy to her day. He made some comment about the length of their natural lives, and signed it with a scribble of a heart. In the heart were his initials and her own. Below that was a post script which asked her if she thought monkeys could be taught to ride a broom effectively, and if it might just be a good idea for them to try and teach them.

Mabel was used to Harry's eccentricities, she had expected him to not take the question seriously, and she loved him for it, but it was still not anything she could use to answer the hate mail piling up on her desk. Somewhere in the back of her mind she wondered how far off retirement was. She also wondered about monkey's riding brooms, and try as she might she could not force the questions away.

* * *

Draco had relocated. He was now standing roughly adjacent to the Ministry. Watching the entrance carefully and waiting for Harry to emerge. Harry was his only shot at help, and he wanted nothing more than to get started as quickly as possible. He had toyed with the idea of just walking in, announcing himself and requesting Harry, but he knew that the Brotherhood had people on the inside. He just didn't know who they were, and no matter how he played it, he couldn't see him surviving long enough in that building to make his case to Harry. So he waited. He was a patient man.

* * *

“How do you want to handle this?” Ron asked, “Should we divide them up?”

They were standing in the room next to the interrogation room. It was technically called the viewing room, but most Auror's just called it the mirror room, and for some reason beyond explanation they all believed themselves clever for it. Through the glass they could see the four kids. Thomas, whom Harry had singled out as their leader, was sitting perfectly still. He was staring at the glass, as though he could see them. The other two boys seemed to be making awkward attempts to flirt with Ella, Thomas' sister. Harry smiled despite himself at the way that teenagers, no matter the circumstances, were always just teenagers.

“No, keep them together.” Harry answered.

“What's the plan?”

Ron had not managed to snag Harry on the way to the interrogation room. He had been distracted when another Auror had walked over to ask him what he was doing hanging off his cubicle like a little boy and Harry had just walked to the viewing room. Ron noticed Hermione standing outside the door and made a bee line for the squat the room.

“Thomas seems to be the leader.” Harry answered.

“You want to focus on him?”

“No. The opposite.”

“What?”

“Don't pay any attention to him.” Harry started toward the door, “We have to make him want to talk.”

“You want to play lead on this one?”

“Don't I always?”

“Point.” Ron rushed forward and held the door open for Harry, “After you, my lead.”

“Well thank you, good sir.”

The two men walked out of the viewing room and turned toward the interrogation room's door. Harry gave Hermione a very discreet smile on his way. Once inside Harry played up his injuries. He walked with tremendous effort and sat down slowly. He rested his cane on the desk. Ron stood behind the Harry, crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. Harry pulled open a file to a blank page and pointed to something half way down, Ron looked over his shoulder and nodded. Harry looked at all of the kids in turn, except Thomas.

“So, Ella?” He began, “What can you tell me about this?”

He reached into the bag he had brought with him and produced pictures of the muggle crime scenes. In each picture was a woman, laying dead, with strangulation marks. Ella glanced down, fear growing in her eyes. She got skittish, rocking slightly in the chair. She looked over at Thomas and he looked down at the pictures.

“She doesn't know anything about that.” Thomas said, “We weren't involved in-”

“Thomas, was it?” Harry began.

“Yeah.”

“I'm not asking you.” Harry waved him off and refocused on Ella, “You've more than proven that you know nothing about what's going on. Now Ella, can you tell me why the Brotherhood would want to kill these young women?”

“I told you that she doesn't know.” Thomas moved forward, an edge in his voice.

“Last time I'm going to tell you, little boy, interrupt again and I'll have you removed.”

“This is bullshit!” Thomas shouted.

Ron rushed forward and slammed his hands down on the table, “You want me to see this little shit out?”

Harry seemed to consider the offer. Thomas began to stare at the Ron, a mixture of defiance and fear. Harry finally leaned forward, “No. Let's hear what he has to say.”

“Fine.” Ron snorted, “But he doesn't know anything.”

“I know the most!” Thomas outraged, “They wouldn't have even been involved if I didn't pick them!”

“Why these women?”

“We weren't involved in that. I was only vaguely aware that it was going on.” Thomas answered.

Harry's eyes glazed over, he smiled sadly at the boy before turning his attention to another of the kids, “Harris? What do you know about it?”

“Me?” Harris seemed alarmed. He looked at Thomas quickly then back at Harry, “I wasn't... I was only involved with the attack.”

“How big is the Brotherhood?” Harry folded his finger together, “That so much could go on unnoticed by you, Harris?”

“I don't know.” He looked down at his feet.

“Of course he doesn't know!” Thomas burst out, “I already told you they don't know anything!”

“Shut the fuck up!” Ron threw his finger in Thomas' face, “You're only here because you make your sister more comfortable!”

“What!” Thomas shouted.

“He's right.” Harry smiled his sad smile, “We've already determined that you weren't involved in any of this.”

“I'm in charge!”

“Do we really need this right now, Harry?” Ron asked.

“Thomas, it's very good of you to try to take the blame for your sister. I commend you for it, but it isn't helpful to this investigation.” Harry nodded to Ron.

Ron grabbed Thomas by the arm and lifted him to his feet. Against the boy's protests he began to escort him from the room. Harry turned back to Harris.

“How do you identify the members of the Brotherhood if it's so large?”

“I.. I ..” Harris stuttered, unsure what to do or say.

“We have pendants!” Thomas cried out from the door jam.

“That's enough young man.” Ron said.

“Wait.” Harry held up his hand, “Ron, bring him back over here.”

Ron stood Thomas before Harry. Thomas smiled, a small and cruel smile, “We're issued pendants.” He reached into his shirt and pulled out a flat green disk from a string around his neck. He undid the clasp and handed Harry the pendant.

“What is this?”

“It's how we know.” Thomas grinned, “We were given them last year, when we joined the Brotherhood at school.”

The disk was three coins thick, roughly as wide as Harry's palm, and mostly round. It had a raised engraving on the front, that looked like a serpent winding around a man's arm. Around the outer edge were various symbols, and below the engraving a Latin phrase, which Harry assumed was the club motto, scrolled out. Harry ran his finger over the motto.

“Per verum quod dolosus , nos constructum in a maior preteritus , nos opus obviam Licentia , nos pervenio pro divum.” Harry read aloud, “What does that mean?”

“I don't know.” Thomas shrugged, “I don't speak Latin.”

“And every member of the Brotherhood wears one?”

“Yes.” Thomas nodded, “Each of the symbols along the outer edge means something. They tell us the rank of the person wearing it.”

Thomas leaned down and pointed to an apple on his pendent, “This one means that I'm one of the junior members, all us kids have that symbol, but this one hear, the snake eyes, means that I'm a member of the leadership. The other's pendents don't have that mark.”

“So you do this rather than keep names?” Ron asked.

“A lot more effective than a tattoo on the forearm.” Thomas said darkly.

“That it is.” Harry stood up, showing no sign of the trouble he had entering the room, “Alright Ron, let's go.”

Ron nodded and walked with Harry toward the door. When they opened it they heard Ella speak up behind them, “What happens to us now?”

Harry turned around and looked at her, like a puzzle he couldn't figure out, like he had only just seen her there, “I don't care.”

The two left the room, the children sat inside, a general feeling of dread prevailing.

* * *

Ron walked back to his desk, back to the clock hanging over his desk, and back to the impending fear of letting his mind wander unchecked. It was a fear in two parts, the first part was largely mental. He was afraid that he was going to cry. Crying, while perfectly natural, was not something that grown human beings just did at work. Much like owning pictures of your cat/replacement for the whole in your life left by either not having children or having had your children leave home, crying at work was not something that Ron felt an adult should do. It was obnoxious, distracting, utterly useless, and tended to attract the kind of people that would attempt to relate to you. Ron hated few things in the world than other human beings deciding that your bad luck was an opportunity to shed light on their own sob story.

Most people tended to be self serving, rarely altruistic, and capable of great lengths to invade your sorrow with poorly aimed “good” intentions. That being the case Ron was certain of the probable outcome of his bawling like a baby at his desk. That outcome was violence. Someone would walk over, touch their hand to his back and try to comfort with hollow and redundant platitudes before dropping the pretense altogether to unload their issues in a futile attempt to bond. Ron would have no recourse left but to punch them in the face until it stopped resembling a face. If there was one thing less professional than crying at work, it was assault and battery, regardless of how justified it was.

The second of his two part fear was mostly physical. Ron could simply not break anything at his place of work, and by Merlin he would want to destroy something either beautiful or functional in order to feel better. Destruction is a very typical human response to death. Some people would want to have sex, or risk their life or money to feel alive in the face of the finality of death, but most people just wanted to break shit. Punch walls, throw complicated machines from parking structures, burn books of poetry, anything that was breakable, just to feel some measure of control in an uncontrollable world. Ron was a pretty typical person in this regard. He wanted to just decimate something, and he was fairly certain it would be the clock above his desk.

* * *

When Harry got back to his desk he didn't feel like breaking anything, but he didn't feel wonderful either. He played the part of the jaded Auror to such perfection that even he sometimes believed that he was that person. It was all a lie. Deep down he did care what happened to those kids in the interrogation room. They were mixed up, they were dangerous, they were competent that their actions were bad, but they were lost kids looking for a family. What could be more human than wanting to feel like one belonged?

Harry wanted them to receive a punishment unequal to their crime. He wanted them to walk away with a warning and a deeper understanding. He wanted them to be taught to respect all life no matter what conditions that life was born into. He didn't want them locked away, forbidden to use magic, he just wanted them set straight.

Of course that wasn't the man he was meant to be, that wasn't the man that the world felt he should be, and therefore that wasn't the man he could be. He felt sick, guilty, used and useless. He felt like a monster. No matter what he did he couldn't shake Ella's face from his mind. He couldn't forget the way her eyes pleaded, the hope resting there, the misplaced trust in a fair world and in him.

When he was young he had been forced to lead a kid away from the school yard during recess so that Dudley and his retarded friends could pummel him away from the prying eyes of the teachers. The kid was called Andrew. Andrew was a small, sensitive kid. He was so coddled by his parents that he didn't know how to react to bullies. When he was insulted he would just give the person a goofy grin and stare at them, unsure how to react or how to feel. Harry didn't know Andrew that well, Harry didn't know most kids that well. Like Andrew, Harry was an outsider, often picked on.

Dudley had promised to lay off of Harry for a month if he would lure Andrew away for the beating that he assured Harry the boy deserved. In desperation Harry had agreed. He had found Andrew playing with a set of cards on the steps, avoiding the children who hated him for reasons he couldn't understand. Harry had talked to him, asked him if he wanted to see something really cool. Andrew had few friends, and even fewer interactions with other children. It was impossible for Andrew to detect Harry's ingeniousness offer, he just assumed that Harry wanted to be his first friend.

Andrew smiled and laughed, and shared small, unobtrusive secrets with Harry. Told him about his collection of cricket memorabilia, and offered to invite him over for dinner. Harry could feel the lump rising, the hatred for himself bubbling just below his stomach. Harry knew what the future held for Andrew, and the fact that Andrew was happy in the moments leading up to it killed Harry inside. Harry would never betray someone like that again, he would never be bullied into accepting a fate for another. He would also never forget how much he hated himself in that moment.

When they arrived, and Dudley and his gang sprang out Andrew's face turned toward cautious curiosity. He looked at Harry for an answer, but Harry just ran away, too disgusted with himself to watch what he knew was coming, and too scared of being beaten himself to stop it from happening.

Sitting at his desk, picturing Ella's face, Harry could feel all those things bubbling up again. There were three things that totally unnerved Harry Potter; Being told he was to be publicly whipped, teenagers, and betraying people that trusted him.

The problem, Draco had decided, with waiting for something wasn't the mounting anticipation, although he didn't care for that either, it was the annoying way that everyone could tell that he was waiting. He had relocated from the damnable bus stop filled with memories of a brighter life to a filthy alley across from one of the main entrances to the Ministry. At first he just stood there, waiting and watching, until people began to point. He then tried to sit, but people only pointed more. He was afraid of blowing what little cover he had, so he walked down to a coffee shop and ask for a cup of water.

He drained the contents of the cup on his walk back to his disgusting alley and propped the cup between his feet. He drew his hood up to cover his eyes and pretended to sleep. Fewer people pointed at the homeless. He knew that this had it's origin in a deep seated anthropological condition. The vagrant served as a cautionary tale, it was not the aim of parents to have their children regard these people with anything less than indifference and nothing more than contempt. The most obvious way to illustrate this point was to ignore the presence of the homeless entirely. It sent the right subtle message that they were less than people, undeserving of attention. Draco smiled at his own cleverness.

He then realized that his cleverness had a ring of truth to it. Since he could not feasible return to his own home, and he certainly didn't know anyone other than Harry who might put him up, he was in a very true sense homeless. He ruminated briefly on the rise and fall of Draco Malfoy, aged 23, before he tried to refocus his mind on something a bit more pleasant. Which he could not do.

The problem with captivity and torture was that it effectively robbed a person of untainted memories. It served as a pitiful kind of post script to every pleasant thought. It sure was great playing quidditch as a kid, then there was the torture, oh that wacky torture! Draco would have leaned on a defense mechanism to prevent himself from wallowing in guilt, but he was a spoiled rich boy masking his issues with his father behind years of cruelty to others. Cruelty is not a good defense mechanism for lifting one's spirits.

Draco leaned back and wished he had developed Harry and Ron's propensity for joking around instead of his own for hating joking around. In school he had kept a tack board hanging beside his bed. On this board he hung up quotes that he thought to be particularly wise or deep. One of these swirled up in his head, it wasn't from a known author, it wasn't from a teacher, it was instead from his father. The quote read; “Wasting time is the apex of your generations abilities, why don't you do something productive for a change?”

Draco smiled. If only his father could see him now, sitting in borrowed clothes, having recently escaped from a cult of crazy monsters and with no idea how to waste time. Wouldn't the old man be proud of him, or as proud as the callous on his soul would allow him to be, which is to say not at all.

* * *

Harry threw his hands up, sending a cascade of papers flying up into to air. They slowly fell about him as he covered his temples with his hands and planted his forehead on his desk. Hermione couldn't be sure, as she had little experience with children, but it looked very much like Harry was having himself a good old fashioned tantrum. She inched her chair forward and put her hand on his shoulder.

“What's wrong, Harry?”

He turned to face her, he didn't look angry. That shocked her, she didn't know why she had expected him to be angry, but she had. She didn't expect him to have a distraught look plastered on his face, she didn't expect him to be so pale, to have eyes that searched her faces for an answer they weren't sure what was.

“Harry?” She was concerned.

“I hate this.” He confessed.

“What?”

“This goddamn case.” He pointed to the papers he had thrown around, “I feel like I'm just being reactionary, and I am. I have no idea what's going to happen next! How can I stop them if they're so much smarter than I am?”

“I didn't know it bothered you so much, sweetie.” She caressed his cheek, but immediately withdrew her hand when she heard the sounds of people moving about the office, “All police work is reactionary, though. Isn't it?”

“Yeah.” He dropped his head, “But at what point does that go away? It should, at some point in this case. I should have a lead so promising that I can follow it to a source, to the head of this.”

“Maybe it's time we looked into the Abby Slanton angle.”

“I can't let you guys do that. I told you that.”

“So are you going to?”

“I'm not in any great hurry to throw my boss' boss into the suspect pool, no.”

“I know, Harry. I know.” She bit her lip and looked carefully into his eyes, “Perhaps Ron was onto something when he suggested that you pursue the dating angle with Abby.”

“Oh he was.” Harry smiled, “It was an excellent idea. I'm just not going to do it.”

“Thank Merlin.” She let out a breath she didn't know she had been holding in.

“Do you not get it, Hermione?”

“Get what?”

“When I say that you matter to me, I mean that.”

“I know.”

“I couldn't go pretend to be with another woman and not want to be with you.”

“Harry, you don't have to-”

“I do. I send mixed signals, I act like an asshole because I'm so fucked up inside that even I don't know how to just be a human being sometimes.” He put his hand on the side of her face, ignoring the world around him, “You are what I want out of life. I thought it was something else, I thought it was so many other stupid things. I never thought, not for an instant, that it would be as simple as this.”

“Harry.” She put her hand over his, “You don't need to tell me these things. I get it. I know that being you isn't always the easiest thing in the world, I knew it was going to be hard at first.”

“That's my point.” He smiled at her, “The challenge I've been looking for my entire adult life was you. I became an Auror because I thought that the challenge of it would make me feel complete, but it doesn't not all the way. I would go home and feel empty. I don't feel that way anymore. I don't know why I was so scared of this, for so long.”

“Because you're a dumb boy.”

“All boys are dumb. I was retarded.”

“I wish I could just kiss you.”

“I know. Me too.” He turned abruptly back to his desk, “Okay, now that I'm through embarrassing myself I better get back to work.”

Hermione reached out and turned his chair toward her. She leaned forward and kissed him. It was a chaste kiss, but it wouldn't have mattered if she had undressed him, the signal was clear. She didn't care that people knew. She didn't care that people saw. She loved him. Harry, for his part, was happy to be on the receiving end of that love.

* * *

Draco had no way to keep time. He was aware that it was getting late because the sun was going down, and more and more people were vacating the Ministry. He figured that less than a third lived close enough to the Ministry to use the physical entrances, so he guessed that most of the employees were gone but had used the floo network. He knew Harry would use the physical exit, he remembered Harry telling him, in Draco's other life as a functional human man, that the Floo Network freaked the hell out of him. Harry hardly ever used the Floo if he could help it.

So Draco sat and watched the entrance, occasionally jingling his cup, now filled with several muggle pounds worth of loose coins and bills. Draco was glad he had thought to try his hand at panhandling. He now had enough to afford to get a bite to eat tonight. He could feel his stomach complain with every additional second he spent sitting on the cold cement. He also knew he couldn't leave until he spotted Harry, that was the only way to stay safe.

He had thought about just walking into the Ministry and announcing himself, if only to put an end to the waiting. However he knew that the Brotherhood had spies in the Ministry, and knew that course of action would likely be more deadly than useful. It occurred to him once more how few people in the world he could actually trust. He pulled his hood down a little lower and fell back against the wall. He waited.

* * *

Andrew was nobody. The son of a security guard and nothing more. He would never be anything more. His father was more shell than man since Andrew's mother had died. It had torn a hole in what had been a pretty happy family. At a loss for anything else to do Andrew had begun to rebel, but he had nothing to really rebel against. His father didn't care where he was, didn't notice when he wasn't around. He just sat in the living room of their small home and cried every night at a portrait of his late wife.

The old man made Andrew sick. Some nights he would sit on the edge of his bed and seethe. Fantasizing about walking into the living room, yanking the picture from his father and demanding that he grow up and be a parent again, like he used to be. He never did though. As much as Andrew was angry at his father, as many times as he had thought about saying something, he would always back down and go to sit silently in his room.

Because more than sick, his old man made him nervous. Uncomfortable. He didn't know how he was supposed to handle a man so broken by grief, he didn't know what he could say that would make it better, that would even get through. So he gave up trying. He fell in with a crowd of kids at school, they hated people of muggle descent. Andrew had never had any real problem with the muggle born, he hadn't thought of them as anything but people. Classmates, sometimes friends. Though all of his old friends had abandoned him. He knew why. He would feel that sick, nervous feeling in his stomach when he looked at his father and he knew why his friends stopped talking to him.

So he made nice with his new friends. They were always there with a kind word, with a helping hand, with the right joke, the right gift, the right sense of family. A family he didn't realize he had missed so much until he'd had it again. He could never lose his new family. They meant the world to him, and he was certain that he meant the world to them. He belonged.

He shifted his weight as the broom handle behind him twisted into his back. He focused on what he had to do. Visualized it. Practiced what he would say in his head. What he would do. He ignored it when the broom moved again, poking him lightly in the ribs. He thought about his family. Not the old man and is sad photograph, but the family that loved him. The family that didn't need blood to connect them, that didn't need death to remind them, that didn't need excuses to love him. He set his jaw, drew his wand and began to control his breathing. He was ready. He had only to wait for his opportunity.

* * *

Ron had gotten tired of the clock, tired of his thoughts and tired of the growing fear of getting off work. He decided that the best way to cure these problems was with the old Weasley standby for troubling times. He was standing in front of the vending machine, inserting coin after coin, and purchasing one of most things, two of others. He gathered up his motley collection of junk food and walked back to his desk. He placed everything on his desk and began sank his teeth into a Jaffa cake, then a few biscuits, bags of crisps, candy bars, mints, gum, and everything else.

He knew that his stomach would not be kind to him later, his age causing his metabolism to begin what would become a lifetime of protests against his eating habits. He also knew that he had effectively killed an hour and a half without having to think much of anything beyond taste sensation and forcing things into his full stomach. That was more than enough to be thankful for.

Still time was the enemy to him that day. He knew how important the case was, he knew what was at stake should he or Harry falter in their work. He also knew that working on the case was killing him. He would move between horrible depression and blood curdling rage at a moments notice, depending on what he was looking at. He didn't want to be the ring that these two emotions were fighting in. He looked around his desk at the empty wrappers, he felt a cold emptiness welling up in his stomach, pushing the indigestion from his mind.

He didn't even have a picture of Sam. Not a single photograph, wizard or otherwise, was looking at him from on his desk. There was such a horrible finality to that. She would never exist beyond what he could remember, and regardless of what her life and death meant to him he would be lying if he said he could really accurately remember her face. He remembered things about it, glimpses, little nuances, but he couldn't jumble them into a coherent picture anymore.

A part of him was afraid to try, another part of him hated his own cowardice. Still another part wanted vengeance more than it wanted life. It was making him insane. He couldn't make himself concentrate on anything, he couldn't distract himself effectively, he felt small, tired and useless. He decided that there was little he could do in his condition to help the case.

He walked over to Harry's desk and told him to tell Mabel that he was going to be leaving work early, for personal reasons. Harry nodded and Ron walked away. He took the pay phone exit out to the London Streets, made it as far as the tavern on the far corner, walked inside, crawled into a bottle of something with a high proof, and dissolved there over night.

* * *

Draco watched as Weasley left the Ministry, he had even considered walking up to him, hoping that the friendship they shared with Harry would be enough to convince Weasley of his innocence. He quickly dismissed the idea, him and Weasley had never had any measure of trust between them, and with his life as the gamble it was a risky bet to make that he could form a bond that quickly with the man. Instead Draco watched as he sulked away to a bar and didn't come back out.

He turned his attention back to the Ministry itself, waiting for Harry. Knowing that any minute the one man that could save him would come strolling out, with his confident swagger. Draco saved the image in his mind, and felt the growing anticipation begin to turn into an uneasy kind of hope. But hope is a strange thing, and means different things to different people. Draco's hope was of salvation. A kind of hope that wells and soars inside you.

Ron's hope was one of desperation. He needed himself to forget the things that haunted him, he needed to not be the man he woke up as every morning. The man in pain. The man he had been for so long it didn't matter anymore what he had been before.

Hermione's hope on the other hand, was a completely different kind. She hoped out of love. She hoped for peace. She pictured a world wherein she and Harry could laugh together at the stupid inside jokes couples develop, communicate in the unspoken language of understanding, sleep beside each other in the comfortable places they would discover after months of sleeping together. She hoped for the day when she stepped in the scale and knew that she had gained the fifteen pounds that come at the beginning of every good relationship. Hermione hoped for life, and more so for a shared life.

Harry hoped for something other than failure. So much was riding on how he handled this case. He could stop a powerful Dark Arts movement before it gained the kind of steam that would incite war, he could clear the name of a friend he feared lost for too many years, he could make his best friend vindicated in the wake of a senseless tragedy, and he could make the world at large a safer place for the woman he loved. He just had to concentrate on not failing.

Andrew Bertham, a nobody kid hiding in a broom closet just off the main hall of the Ministry hoped for something much darker. He hoped for proof of his dedication to a group of people who made him feel like he belonged, like he was loved, like he was wanted. But he had failed them once before, he couldn't fail them again. He needed them to understand how committed he was, how much he believed, and to what lengths he would go for those beliefs. So he waited, as Draco did, for his chance to prove himself.

Hope is not always a beautiful thing. Often it is just the means that keep a human being from madness.

* * *

Hermione leaned over Harry's shoulder an peered at the notes he was looking over. She pointed to the spot where he had written down the Latin from the pendant, “That Latin is complete gibberish.”

“What?” He looked back at her.

“It's just random words, it looks like. Something about building the past, and license and then a vague reference to the sky.”

“You speak Latin?”

“No, I read Latin.” She smiled, “It is often used as the primary root language for our spells, understanding it helps me to understand what it is I'm telling the magic to do.”

“Of course you know Latin.” He chuckled.

“Most people who invent new spells and whatnot have at least a cursory knowledge of Latin.”

“So why is this just gibberish?”

“It reads like someone was looking up English words in Latin and just used the direct translations.”

“That makes it gibberish?”

“Sure. Latin is the base language that the Romance languages came from. Each word in a sentence changes the words around it in subtle ways.”

“That's not how English works.”

“English isn't a Romance language. It isn't derived from Latin. The feminine and masculine words in English are nuanced more by subtle body language and pronunciation than spelling.”

“Why do you know this?” He shook his head, “Never mind, you probably have an answer for that.”

“I do.”

“Figures.” Harry tacked the notes onto his cubicle wall, “So this means what?”

“It means that the True Blood Brotherhood is likely composed mostly of school children. Like I said, most serious students of wizardry know Latin well enough to form a motto in the language.”

“Kids?”

“I don't see why that would be so surprising.” She put her hand on her hip, “Voldemort started his uprising within the boundaries of Hogwarts, so did you, matter of fact.”

“Yeah, I guess. So much for the idea that I'm special.”

“What does this mean for your case?”

“Among other things, it means that School is about to be postponed.”

“What?”

“These kids start back up in a few weeks, once their at Hogwarts we won't be able to keep tabs on them. Their magic use won't be tracked if used during the school year.”

“Does this office have the power to postpone a school year?”

“No.” Harry shook his head, “But I might. I need to talk to McGonagall.” He sprang to his feet, grabbed his cane and began to shuffle quickly from his desk, talking the whole way to the main entrance, “We need to get out to Hogwarts, talk to McGonagall and convince her to postpone opening the school. It's the only hope we have!”

“But Harry, what will we tell her? She won't believe that it's children responsible for all of this!”

“She went to school with Tom Riddle, she taught while we attended, I think that woman is more than wise enough to have figured out the potential of children!”

“How do you intend to get there?”

“We'll take the Floo Network to Hogsmeade!”

“That's a long walk in your condition!” She protested, reaching out and grabbing him. They spun to a stop, her staring into the determined eyes of, no longer the wise cracking Auror she had come to know in the last several years, but into the dangerous Emerald eyes of The Boy-Who-Lived, “Harry, I can't let you hurt yourself this way. Look the Ministry is closed up, everyone's gone home. Let's refocus in the morning. Okay?”

“No time!” His shout reverberated off the walls, “Theres no time, Hermione. We have to do this now.” He spoke more softly, “Every second we waste is one more second that gives them a chance.”

“That's not a reason to throw yourself around like this. You're going to kill yourself, Harry.” She put her hand to the side of his face, “Don't you understand? While we still live there is always hope.”

Harry sighed, but the danger lurking behind his eyes only intensified, “I'm not after hope, Hermione.”

“You're being reckless.”

“Yeah. But I'm right, and you know it.”

“I know.”

Harry turned back around, clutched her hand with his own and set off once more. He only got three steps when a great chunk if the marble floor before him exploded. The shock wave knocked the two down, and from the smoke they could see a boy walking toward them, his wand drawn.

“You.” Harry said.

The boy was fourteen if he was a day, he had light brown hair, an acne outbreak, and a row of like brown freckles on his nose. He had a cruel smile, too cruel for his age, “You should have listened to your little girlfriend.”

“You're the kid that killed the Healer, the one that attacked me.”

“One and the same.” He made a slight bow, “My dad works here, runs security. It's easy for me to come and go as I please. It was supposed to be easy, last time, but you're just so full of surprises.”

Hermione lifted her wand and pointed it at the boy, “Not another step!” She screamed.

“Sectum Sempra.” He said.

A gash ripped across Hermione's forehead, blood gushed onto Harry's shoulder. He stared at her in abstract horror unsure of how he was supposed to feel. His jaw set.

“So full of surprises, but not today.” The boy pointed his wand at Harry, “Avada-”

Harry leveled his cane at the boy, “Expelliarmus!”

The end of Harry's cane shot a red line that knocked the boy's wand to the floor. He looked from Harry to Harry's cane, before he suddenly put it together.

“You transfigured your wand.” He mused.

“Full of surprises.” Harry muttered. He threw his cane down and charged.

He hit the boy in the stomach with his shoulder. The wind was knocked from his opponent's lungs and they went down hard. He sat up on the prone body of the child and began to punch him. Again and again. His knuckles covered with cuts, his own blood mingling with that of his victim. Harry had lost any semblance of control. Hermione lay bleeding a few feet behind him as he wailed on the child, anger clouding his thoughts, fear choking his throat.

“I am so fucking tired of this bullshit! So fucking tired. You want a goddamn fight, you little shit! You fucking got it!”

Hermione rose slowly from the floor, clutching her forehead to keep the wound closed up. She saw Harry, mad with rage, sitting on top of the boy who had attacked them. He was hitting him, beating him senseless, not aiming his fists in any particular direction but down. Hitting the boy over and over, rarely in the same spot, up and down his head and neck. He was striking mostly glancing blows, but the ones that connected completely were devastating.

“Beg me for your life! You fucking beg for it! You bastard!”

“Stop, please!” The boy shouted, scared to death of the anger he had unleashed.

“Why! Did you stop! Did you even fucking care! Did you!” But the boy couldn't answer. Harry had beaten him unconscious, and continued hitting him, his temper out of control. Hermione could see that Harry wasn't going to stop, that he might kill this boy.

“Harry!” She screamed, covering her mouth with her hand.

Harry's head jerked back. His eyes focused on Hermione, she could see the murder in them for a split second before they glazed over. He blinked a few times, as if he had forgotten where he was, what he was doing. As if he had forgotten himself. He turned back to the boy. He looked down and gasped. The boy's face looked more like raw meat than skin. He crawled off of the boy and back to his cane, which he clutched to his chest. He kept looking at the boy, as though he was trying to decide what he had done, if he had indeed done it, and if he ought to feel bad about having done it.

Hermione walked over to the boy, checked to be sure that his pulse was strong and then sat down next to Harry. She put her arm around him, still holding closed the wound on her forehead.

“Are you okay?” She asked.

Harry shook his head slowly, “I didn't realize I was so upset about all of this. It just crept up on me.”

“I know.” She said quietly, holding him as best she could, “What do we do now?”

Harry smiled weakly, nodded and began the gears of his mind again, “Get him to St. Mungo's. I'll go to Hogwarts. Then I need to talk to Ginny.”

“Why Ginny?”

“He knew the spell the Half Blood Prince created. That's what he used on you.”

“I see.”

Harry got up slowly from the floor and started toward the Floo chimneys. Hermione stopped him with her hand.

“Why did you transfigure your wand?”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“I guess it was.”

“Go.” He turned around, “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

With that the two parted ways.

* * *

Draco saw Hermione run out with the beaten boy cradled in her arms. For one horrible second he thought it was Harry, but when he looked closer he realized that the boy had light hair. He felt the adrenaline pumping in his veins. He felt the surge of power in his stiff legs, the electric snap that raised the hair on the back of his neck. He didn't know if it was that, or the look of terror on Hermione's face, but he found himself sprinting across the street to her. When he was close enough he shouted.

“What happened!”

She spun around, maybe she recognized the voice, maybe she was just so in need of help, he would never know. Her eyes lit up, he saw her jaw drop, her skin pale, her eyes widen.

“Draco?”

“Is Harry okay!” He demanded.

“Harry?”

“Is he okay?”

“You're dead.”

“I assure you that I very much am not, Granger.” He put his hands on her shoulders, “Where is Harry?”

“Hogwarts.” She shook her head, “He's going to Hogwarts.”

“What happened?”

“This kid attacked us. He must have been with the True Blood Brotherhood.” She blinked, “Where have you been.”

“I'll fill you in on the way. Where are we going?”

“To St. Mungo's.”

“Okay.” He nodded, weighing his options, “Okay. I'll stick close to you and keep my head down.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I need to see Harry. He's the only one who can help me.”

“I certainly hope you're right.” She said darkly, “Let's go.”

With that the three of them were gone, leaving only an empty street behind them.

* * *

Harry Was in Hogsmeade in seconds after he parted ways with Hermione. He was racing as fast as he could toward Hogwarts castle. He could feel the electricity in the air as he rushed forward, he knew how little time he had to waste. The sky was dark with oncoming night and storm clouds. He had survived yet another attempt on his life, he was tired, weak from the strain he was putting on his injuries, and upset with himself.

How had he made so many mistakes. They cascaded around his mind, bumping into one another. He could see them all. Pushing Hermione away, denying to be put under protection, letting all those innocent people get killed, talking back in court, lying to Ron, lying to Hermione, betraying those children. He had messed everything up so badly he could barely contain his own rage. The very same rage that had taken him over so suddenly, so completely. He had not been that mad about anything in a very long time, and he hoped he never would be again.

Even then he could feel it. The mask he had carefully crafted over many long years. It was slipping. He wasn't the carefree wise cracking confident detective he was supposed to be. He was something else, something darker, something more ruthless. He knew, somewhere in the back of his mind that he would need that ruthlessness for what was to come. He knew it. But he hated it all the same. He hated the way it crawled around in his stomach, colored the edges of his vision.

He stumbled when his cane hit a patch of rough brambles. He looked ahead of him. The gates toward the castle were only a few yards away, but in his condition it would take forever to get up there. He cursed himself for sending Hermione with the boy, she would be able to get to the castle faster. But he couldn't look at him anymore. He couldn't stand what he had done. What he was becoming.

Hermione had a bandage around her head as she sat in a private waiting room at St. Mungo's. The room was reserved for officials from the Ministry, and with Draco Malfoy, the disgraced wizard turned missing person, in tow behind her she thought it best to stay out of view. It had turned out to be a wise choice. He told her about his relationship with Harry, about his time in captivity in some dungeon of the Brotherhood's, and reluctantly, and with a lot of pauses to compose himself, he told her about Agnes Agnew. When he was done he fell silent. He leaned against the back wall and waited to see how she would react to everything that had been said.

“Wow.” She uttered.

“I know.”

“You'll understand that it's a little hard to believe.”

“I do.”

“So give me one good reason I should believe you, at all.”

“I don't really know what to say.”

Hermione stood up and pushed out the flimsy chair she had been sitting on. It slid across the polished tile floor and collided violently with the wall next to Draco. She rushed forward while he was off guard, grabbed him by his collar and yanked him to his feet. His knees bent so that their eyes evened out she stared at him with a cold kind of menace.

“You better think really fucking quick about what to say, Malfoy. You show up out of nowhere right in the middle of Harry being attacked by some crazy little kid every time he draws a deep breath, with your thin story, your unacceptable history of bigotry, and an unexplainable desire to come face to face with Harry.”

“I understand why you would be upset, he's an important person.” Draco tried to explain.

“You understand nothing!” She shook him violently, “I love him! I love him way more than I care about whether or not you live or die, do you understand me? Make me believe what you're saying or I'll kill you here and now, and not think twice about it later.”

“Granger... Hermione.” His eyes softened, “That's wonderful news. He's been crazy about you forever. We used to talk about it, me and him. He said that you were perfect. That you made him feel like he had a purpose.”

Hermione tightened her grip, “You're lying. You were always such a good liar, Malfoy.”

“I'm not! I told him, I said that he needed to tell you that he felt this way. He just shook his head and said he wasn't the type that caught lightening in a bottle.”

Hermione's eyes went wide, she released Draco and he crashed to the floor. He was upset until he saw her hit her knees in front of him, shocked beyond any reason that she should be. Draco inched backward toward the wall, he didn't know why, but something about how she had reacted, the hate in her eyes. It scared him. She scared him.

* * *

One year ago Harry stood with her, in the pouring rain. Ron was asleep upstairs, sleeping off the buzz he had worked up over the course of Liberation day. Harry glanced up at the window she knew was her bedroom window. He asked her to come with him, to get away from the house. She didn't know he wanted to be out of Ron's earshot, away from prying eyes. She didn't know anything. He had showed up at her flat just after Ron had passed out, she was putting away the food Molly had brought over for the party she hadn't wanted to have, the party that Harry couldn't be bothered to show up at. When all of a sudden the doorbell rang. Harry stood soaking wet at her door, a dumb, hopeless smile on his face.

She had invited him in, but he refused. “Come out into the rain with me.” He had told her. He insisted it was beautiful, that she would love it. She put on a rain parka and followed him out. He looked up into the sky, drops of rain running down his glasses, his face, his clothing. He smiled his sad, world weary smile. The smile she had grown to hate in the last few years. The smile that meant he was resigned to his own hopelessness. Her heart ached a little for him. Still, she didn't know what was going on. She knew that he hated Liberation day, but he had never done anything like this, he seemed excited, joyous and utterly sad and pathetic all at once.

“Are you sure you want to talk out here? You'll catch cold.” She bit her lip.

“You're right.” He eyed the window, “There's this little café. Let's go there.”

“Okay. Sure.”

She followed him as he walked, at first quickly but the farther from the flat they got the more he slowed down. Finally they arrived at a little building squeezed between two much larger ones. It was closed, but it had a kind of outdoor patio with tables and chairs, the large sun umbrellas on every other table. He sat down beneath one and invited her to do the same.

“This must be a nice place when it's open.” She commented.

“It's okay.” He said flatly, “I'm not into designer coffee so much.”

“So... what's all this about?”

“I don't know how else to say this, I don't know how much longer I can keep it all from bursting out. I wish I was the kind of guy that could write clever little poems, but I'm not.”

“What is it, Harry?” She put her hand on his.

He played with her fingers gently, smiling at the contact. She began to feel uncomfortable, but he didn't seem to notice, “I'm in love with you, Hermione.”

“What?” She pulled her hand away.

“I know. It's stupid. I know that.”

“You're not in love with me, Harry. You're confused.”

“No.” He shook his head and smiled his sad little smile, “I'm not.”

“What is this?”

“This is me telling you how I feel.”

“And what exactly am I supposed to do with that information?”

“I don't know.”

“I have a life, Harry. A life with Ron. Am I supposed to just abandon that because you suddenly decide to be in love with me?”

“No. I'm not asking you to do that. I just had to tell you.”

“No, you didn't. No one ever tells anyone they love them, because they have to. They want something.”

“I don't. And I didn't just decide to love you. I couldn't help it. It's how I feel. I didn't wake up this morning and say to myself, 'Harry?' Yes self? 'Go do something to ruin your life today' Okay, self. You got it.”

“Then why?”

“Because I can't just look at you and think you're just some girl anymore. I can't sit next to you and be okay with just that. I can't. It's killing me.”

“You need to stop.” She pushed her chair back, “You need to stop playing whatever game this is, just knock it off.”

“It isn't a game.”

“You're being selfish.”

“I'm being honest.”

“I can't believe you would do this! I'm with Ron! He's your best friend! Why would you do this!”

“I can't stand you not knowing!”

“Try harder!”

“What do you want me to do? Deny it?”

“I don't know, Harry. I don't. But whatever it is, do it.”

“I didn't come here to win you over. I didn't come here to catch lightening in a bottle. I'm not that guy, I can't do that.”

“What?”

“You're my storm, Hermione. You wash away all the muck that's built up, you make me clean and clear. But you have lightening, like any storm. It's dangerous to love you. I don't want to capture you.”

“Then what do you want?”

“You to know that you've captured me.”

Hermione recoiled. He had been so genuine, so honest, so painfully honest. She could see the pain behind his eyes, the pleading. She hated him then, for making her feel this way, for putting this terrible truth out there.

“You're being selfish.”

“It's how I feel.”

“Go away, Harry. I can't stand to be around you right now.”

“Fine.”

He got up to go, but something in her, and she didn't know what, felt like she hadn't said enough, “The world doesn't revolve around you, you know. Nothing comes crashing down because you feel a certain way.”

He turned back and gave her his tired, sad smile once more, “I've been saying that for years.”

“Goddamn you, Harry.” She stood up, not completely in control of her own volume, “You son of a bitch! How dare you say these things to me! How dare you! What gives you the right!”

“I don't know. I really don't. I just had to say it.”

“Go to hell! You self absorbed, selfish bastard! Go to hell! You can't just show up and put this on me! I have other things in my life beside your pathetic little break down!”

“I know.”

“Go. Get out of my sight before I do something I'll regret.”

Harry slumped into himself. Glanced at the raging storm around him, put his hand out and waited for the lightening to rip across the sky. When it did he closed his fingers around it, turned his hand to Hermione and opened it, showing her that it was empty. His eyes looked far away and he vanished.

She sat alone, feeling betrayed, hurt, angry, and sad. Sad for him, for feeling the things he was feeling. Sad for herself because of the feelings inside her that had never gone away. Sad that the rain would stop soon, and her tears would be visible. She hung her head.

“You're such and idiot.” She said, but she didn't know who she meant, she still didn't.

* * *

Harry was sitting in Head Mistress McGonagall'a office, feeling very much like he had when he had sat in her little office during his school years. She stared down at him in the same way, as if composing the perfect series of sentences to express how disappointed she was with his behavior. He couldn't help but let a slight grin blossom on his face, despite the dire circumstances.

“You want me to close the school, what? Indefinitely? Based on a hunch that some of my students have been murdering muggles in London? That could cause a panic, not to mention incur the ire of many parents.”

“When you say it like that, it sounds unreasonable.”

“Wipe that smirk off your face, young man.”

“You got it.”

“It is unreasonable, Harry. I can't deny these children an education based on a very flimsy feeling you have.”

“There is evidence. I explained a lot of it.”

“It all sounds like he said she said sort of nonsense to me.”

“These kids are dangerous.” His eyes narrowed, “They've killed before, and now that they have do think they're likely to stop?”

“Mr. Potter.” She went wide eyed, “They're children.”

“Don't say that. Not you.” He put his hands on her desk, “You were attending Hogwarts the first time the Chamber of Secrets opened, tell me you thought it was all a big nothing because you were all just kids.”

“I understand your point, Harry.” Her voice softened, the unpleasant memory swirling around in her brain, “But that was a different time.”

“History has a nasty habit of repeating.” He said gravely.

“Harry, there is a time for caution, but do you really think it will take you a month to solve this case?”

“I don't know.” He confessed, angry at himself and angry at her, “This hasn't been the world's most open and shut case. Every time we get a little bit ahead, even a little bit, it seems like we only discover how little we actually know.”

“I have faith in you Harry. You were always a fine detective.”

“Now I'm a fine detective with a dead line.”

“We all have a dead line, Mr. Potter.”

* * *

Hermione just sat on the floor, staring off into space. Draco was alarmed, and pleased, and also still a little afraid of her. He wanted to try and shake her out of her daze, but didn't know how she would respond. Luckily for him she snapped back. Her eyes refocused, her jawline set, and her head found it's way back to his face. She was beautiful, in a frightening way, like a tiger, nothing but fluid, deadly grace and ruthless, intelligent eyes.

“Tell me everything you know about the Brotherhood.”

“I don't know much.” Draco confessed, “And most of what I do know they've already done.”

“How many are children?”

“Oh wow. You guys are hot on this one.” He smiled, “More than I thought before this morning.”

“How do you mean?”

“When they grabbed me it was mostly people our age, a few much older, but virtually no one was younger. I kind of knew their voices, but I couldn't always remember their faces. Then this morning I got attacked by some teenagers in Diagon Alley.”

“Why couldn't you remember their faces?”

“Best I can figure is memory charms. Every time I tried to escape I would wake up in the dungeon and be unable to remember huge chunks of time.”

“Not a bad plan, on their part. They would only have to keep thwarting the same escape over and over.”

“Some of it stopped taking.” He said.

“What?”

“After awhile I would start to remember certain things, like they had erased it so often that it was impossible to keep doing it. I could remember parts of my escape, only in bits and pieces.”

“Any faces?” She looked at him hopefully.

“Just one, but I don't know who he is. After that, they started wearing masks.” He shifted nervously, “Death Eater masks, actually. I think they think it's funny.”

“Could be a mislead. They could actually be former Death Eaters.”

“Or they could be new people, posing as former Death Eaters to throw me off.”

“Damn.”

“I know that they have at least one person inside the Ministry, maybe more.”

“Harry figured the same.”

“Smart as a whip, our Harry.” He smiled, “Almost saved me before all this went down.”

“He did?”

“Yeah. He came to my house, to check up on me. He knew something was wrong the minute he sat down. Nothing concrete though.”

“Why are they after him?”

“I don't really know. In Diagon Alley the girl said that he was dangerous to them, They've been talking about getting rid of him for awhile now. I don't really know why.”

“Guess.”

“They're scared of him. They believe him to be the most powerful living wizard. They think he's capable of magic that most of us only dream of.”

“Harry?”

“I know.”

“He's a wonderful wizard, but aside from some vague instances of wandless magic, I mean, being a powerful wizard was never really on his to do list.”

“I suppose not. Earthy kind of guy.”

“We have to find him.”

She moved to get up but Draco held her arm gently. He looked into her eyes, “What did Harry do to that boy?”

“Something horrible.”

“Is he alright?”

“The healers say...” She dropped the pretense when Draco shook his head, and answered the question honestly, “He's shaken up a little. I don't think he was aware that he was capable of that kind of violence.”

“Violence has been such a huge part of his life.” Draco said sadly, “He has always hated it. He used to tell me that... but he's inconsistent.”

“I know.” She smiled at him, “He loves to hate it. He has this scar on his chest. It's terrible. When he showed it to me I wanted to cry for him. But I think there's a part of him that's proud of it.”

“You really do love him.”

“I really do.” She shook her head, “Don't tell anyone.”

“So where do we go from here?”

“We find Harry. We save the day.”

“And vengeance. For Agnes.”

“And vengeance.” She nodded, “For so many reasons.”

* * *

Ron was passed out on the floor of the small room he called his own in the safe house. His dreams were uneasy, haunted by images of smiling women and fire. Especially fire. His eyes snapped open, his face was pressed up against one of his shoes. He had discarded it when he entered the room. He could feel it's mate on his foot. His mouth felt like cotton, his eyes burned, and his hands felt oddly weak. He moved his hands to push himself from the floor. On the second try he managed it.

He walked to his bathroom and began to brush his teeth. The dream all but forgotten, just a lingering felling of inadequacy. From the bathroom window he could see that it was still dark out, but that was irrelevant. It could be early morning or late at night, neither was going to rid the incessant buzzing from his eardrums. He staggered to his toilet and relived his bladder before he shuffled into his bedroom once more. On his floor he could see the remnants of his botched attempt to shallow away his growing fears.

There was vomit in the corner of his room, that he hoped dearly was his own. There was a body slowly breathing under the covers on his bed. The outline suggested male. It was likely the poor sod he had met the night before. The man's family had left him, bitter divorce. They had lamented their woes together, and later on stumbled off into the night, suddenly very good friends. Ron was pleased that even in a drunken stupor he was host enough to give the man the bed. Ron crept from the room and indeed from the house altogether.

He found himself sitting on a park bench several minutes later. Staring at the rising sun, recounting his last few days of failure.

“Shit.” He said quietly, so no one would hear it.

* * *

Harry had not slept. He had bags under his eyes, a bad taste in his mouth, and he felt like he had to pee every few half hour. His body was up in arms at the treatment, but he didn't have time to stop for a nap. He was a driven man. He had waded through defeat and half truth every step of the way on this case, and he was fed up with it. He was on his way to Saint Mungo's, his cane tapping out a harried beat in his wake. School aged children were running around the streets, eking out the last few weeks of summer break.

Harry turned down an empty street corner, leaned against the wall and made a quick mental note of everything he had learned up to that point. As preposterous as it seemed, the Brotherhood was apparently made up of teenagers. He didn't find that completely likely, but the evidence was leading him that way. It stuck in his gut. It seemed too obvious. Too easily figured out. There were too many vague hints that the Brotherhood had adult members running the show. One of which was Tennant, his boss's boss. Slanton perhaps, either one really.

He shook his head and forced his tired feet to Saint Mungo's. He passed the receptionist on his way to the ward he knew they would have put the boy in. The ward that he would find Hermione waiting for him. He threw open the door to the private waiting room. His eyes bulged. He wiped the sleep from them, the crumbs of crap that gathered there regardless of his lack of sleep. He couldn't really believe what he was seeing.

Sitting on the floor, conspiring between each other was Hermione and Draco Malfoy. Impossibly Draco Malfoy. He shook his head, sat down hard and fast on a chair and let out a huge breath of air. Draco turned his head, his face lit up and he jumped to his feet.

“Harry!” He shouted.

“Harry.” Hermione smiled, “How did it go?”

“I... Draco?”

Draco put his arms at his sides nervously, looked at the floor and smiled, “Yeah. Long time.”

Harry let his head fall back against the cold stone wall. He didn't know that it had happened at first, not until he was sitting alone in a classroom which was also both his bedroom and a high ceiling cathedral with impossible looking stained glass windows. He knew then that he had fallen asleep. He fought against it. Tried to wake up. Sent commands to his body to stir, but he didn't. He just sat in his lonely three part room.

He also snored. In the private waiting room of Saint Mungo's as Hermione and Draco looked on with curious faces, Harry Potter snored.

* * *

In Andrew's dreams there were moments, fleeting but there, wherein he was accepted by his father, where his mother was not dead but right there loving him with all her heart, where he was being honored with awards and fancy dress ceremonies for his achievements. Mostly though it was just darkness. Not the empty darkness of a dreamless sleep, but instead a darkness of another kind. The absolute kind. He would try to find a way out, but couldn't see himself, couldn't see the room, couldn't see the goal. He was aware of himself in that place. He knew when he moved his feet or waved his arm, he knew when he screamed for help, or just sobbed over his inability to navigate his confines. But he couldn't see it, and he could barely hear himself. He was miles away from his own voice, and that pained him in a way he would never be able to articulate.

* * *

Ron was staring at a bagel. He didn't intend to buy the thing, he didn't care for how chewy they were, but he was staring at it. He wasn't totally sure why, he didn't find it charming or soothing, he didn't gather any unfathomable insight about his world or his isolation from it. It was round, it was plain and it smelled, like all bagels do, mostly like a shoe just before it has been broken in, but after the new smell has worn off. Staring at that bagel was a wonderful distraction.

Soon enough he had to leave the coffee shop and head into work. When he arrived, a little on the late side because he had to convince his new drinking buddy that it was time to vacate the safe house, he noticed that Harry's desk was empty. He found that odd, in part because he knew how important this case was to Harry, and in part because Hermione would drag a man kicking and screaming to a place if there were appointments to be kept. Being late to work was out of the question as long as she was his appointed guardian.

Maybe it was because he was hung over and his thoughts were sluggish, and maybe he was a good detective in spite of that, but for whatever reason Ron paused to consider something. He stood, halfway between his own desk and Harry's and was struggling to remember when Hermione had been appointed to Harry, and who had done it. He knew that some people in the ministry had had to buddy up on the safe houses after the panic caused by the letter fiasco, he wondered if that was why they were together so often. Had they just been paired up at the same safe house?

He felt that it was something richer and far more complex than that, he suspected that they may be richer and more complex than that. Ron blinked twice, trying to wrap his poor afflicted mind around that probability. He looked around. His eyes searching out every crevice, every desk, every person sitting patiently working, every paper airplane circling the office floor, every corner of every cubical. It was all the same. Every detail exactly as it had always been.

He was sure that the world should have cracked open, or burst into flame. Instead it was the same. He looked at his hands. They too had remained the same despite the dawning revelation swelling up inside of him. He wasn't totally sure how he felt about that. He knew that he should be upset. That he should be hurt. That at the very least he ought to feel a little numb. But he didn't. He just felt like himself, a hungover iteration of himself, but himself nonetheless.

As he sat down and began to pour over the notes he had made the day prior he was also trying to decide if his response to the idea that his best friend and his ex-girlfriend becoming item was a sign that he had grown, or that he had just changed irreversibly. He was also trying to decide which he would prefer.

* * *

The sun was cresting through the window of the private waiting room of Saint Mungo's when Harry began to stir. When he looked over and saw Hermione and Draco speaking in conspiratorial tones he assumed that he was still asleep. It was the dull throbbing from his injured back that reminded him that he couldn't be dreaming. His droopy eyelids sprang open, his neck snapped up and his hand itched for his wand/cane.

“Draco!” He sputtered, his mouth still half dried out from sleeping with his mouth open.

Hermione jumped from her chair and raced to his side, planting kisses along his forehead and cheek, “I was so worried about you!”

“Draco?”

Draco nodded slowly, the ghost of a smile lingering on his face, his pale, taut skin wrinkled at his glassy eyes, “I'm really here, Harry.”

Harry's mind raced. So many questions to ask, so many responses that could be made, “You've looked better.” He finally said.

“You too.” Draco walked over and extended his hand.

Harry looked at the hand for a beat, confused about what to do, and how to feel. Eventually he smiled, grabbed Draco's hand and shook it vigorously.

“I've missed you, Harry.”

“And I you.”

“Draco has a pretty amazing story to tell.” Hermione announced.

“I suppose he does.” Harry nodded.

“I suppose I do.”

Draco sat down next to Harry, next to the lifeline he had so hoped to grab onto to, and began, in slow measured tones, to tell his story.