Unofficial Portkey Archive

Coming Back Later

Here is the second chapter in my continuation of "Coming Back Late," the epic fic that Paracelsus, the rightful author, apparently abandoned. After this one, I think I need two more chapters to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion.

Chapter 48 - Breaks in the Case

Relieved to be home, on friendly and familiar turf, a preoccupied Blaise Zabini stepped from out of the fireplace in his private quarters. Flooing, like so many other things in the magical world, came naturally to him. So had navigating the Ministry - until Granger had become Minister. Today had been his worst day yet.

"Ginny, I'm home," he announced, loudly enough that she would certainly hear, but not so loudly to betray that anything was amiss. "You won't believe the chaos at the Ministry today!"

No response.

Blaise shrugged. Ginny's practice must have run long. Whatever was delaying her could not possibly match today's bizarre and unsettling events. The largest magical catastrophe in years - and Harry Potter, not to mention Ginny's oafish brother, was at the heart of it.

After receiving word from the Minister's office that his meeting with Minister Granger would not be resumed, Blaise diligently worked his extensive network of contacts to ascertain what was transpiring.

He quickly learned that some sort of major magical accident had occurred - for once living up to the rather overwrought term "catastrophe." The first hint Blaise had of possible trouble followed shortly thereafter, when his Auror office contacts proved uncustomarily reticent to disclose anything of substance to him.

Blaise, however, had cultivated sources throughout the Ministry. From an acquaintance in the DMAC he discovered what he immediately concluded was the true reason that his meeting with the Minister had been abruptly truncated.

Although the precise nature and circumstances of this particular magical catastrophe remained maddeningly unclear, one thing was. One of the injured wizards, and evidently quite badly injured indeed, was the Boy Who Lived Again - Harry Potter.

With that information in hand, Blaise had slithered through several Ministry offices making veiled, but sharp-edged, comments about the nature of the relationship between the youthful Minister and the Fountain-of-Youthful Potter. The Prophet's puff piece had been clear enough about probable romantic involvement. While somewhat surprised by the Minister's candor, Blaise had certainly not missed the implications of her refusal to employ the usual "just friends" dodge.

As always, Blaise took care to temper his humor exquisitely to fall just shy of insulting - unless he perceived his audience was receptive. In that event, Blaise had prepared a number of scathing, off-color comments.

He never had the chance to use them.

To a wizard, everyone he encountered - even long-time Fire Party attendees - seemed unusually sympathetic to the Minister's pre-occupation with Harry Potter's condition.

As for that condition, the reports Blaise received concerning Potter's injuries grew more extreme with each inquiry he made.

Amazingly, as tip followed tip, it seemed increasingly likely that The Boy Who Lived Again was well on his way to checking out permanently.

Granger was at his bedside at St. Mungo's. The Minister's office announced that late in the day. The announcement was honest, no longer even pretending to deny that her presence at the wizard hospital was anything other than personal in nature.

Blaise's St. Mungo's contacts soon yielded additional details. The Minister's notoriously thick-skulled ex-husband - if anyone deserved the dubious distinction of being the first wizard in history to be successfully divorced by his wife, it was Ronald Weasley - had also been injured in event … some sort of magically-powered explosion, apparently in a Muggle area.

Whatever had happened was plainly a Potter-Weasley production - surely a recipe for disaster ever since those two had been housemates at Hogwarts.

A DMLE investigator, Dennis Creevey, was also hospitalized at St. Mungo's in connection with the incident. Creevey's reputation among Blaise's contacts was as one of the Minister's personal gofers….

This combination made Blaise distinctly uneasy. If the Minister were behind what had happened, it could more important than anyone suspected.

His unease was only heightened the longer that the precise nature of the incident remained maddening obscure. The DMLE had seized control of the scene and none of Blaise's usual sources was able - or willing, result was the same - to provide any details of their investigation.

Several hours later, he received news that made his already cold blood run even colder. A trusted source in the Floo Network informed him that some hit wizards had just carried a corpse through the floo.

Not just any corpse.

His source had managed to overhear enough of the hit wizards' conversation to determine that the battered and almost unrecognizable body being delivered to the Ministry's mortuary was that of Draco Malfoy.

Malfoy!

Blaise's immediate reaction had been to thank Merlin that the former aristocrat turned Azkaban refugee had been killed. Dead wizards tell no tales.

His second reaction was fear - fear of whatever Potter, Weasley, and Creevey knew that put them on the path to an evidently very violent encounter with Malfoy. Had the dead wizard been acting implicitly on his behalf in…. Blaise did not even want to think about what Malfoy had actually been up to.

Such speculation was worse than futile; it could be downright dangerous. The implications were unmistakable. Malfoy's activities had not been nearly as discreet as that overconfident git had boasted. Those failings had cost him his life, and could yet cost Blaise nearly as much. The three (as yet) non-fatal casualties of the incident, whatever it was, all shared one obvious connection….

Granger.

Granger … and by extension, whatever Malfoy had been up to. What that might be, Blaise could, of course, only speculate. Malfoy was boastful blowhard, and always had been.

At once Blaise realized that he might - indeed, probably would - face questioning about Malfoy's activities. Given that berk's braggadocio, Malfoy might well have presumed he was blackmailing the Minister on behalf of the Cartel. Malfoy had certainly alluded to that possibility at their first, chance meeting at Ollivanders.

There had been witnesses to that meeting.

To stop Malfoy from pestering him - yes, that was it - Blaise had given Malfoy some names of former Cartel contacts. But Blaise could truthfully say that he had no idea if anything had come of it. The Cartel had fallen on tough times recently. Blaise was no longer in contact with any of the people he had named.

Also, Blaise could truthfully state that he had not provided Malfoy with any material assistance. No money - not one Knut. No supplies. No information about Granger, or Merlin forbid, her family.

Truthfully, but just barely.

Blaise Zabini had been careful, as always. He had maintained plausible deniability.

For a second time, he thanked Merlin, and his own lucky star, that Malfoy was dead.

Still, Blaise needed to think things through. His deal with DMLE obligated him to answer all questions any investigators might ask him about Cartel matters. Malfoy could well be viewed as working for the Cartel, or at least free-lancing on its behalf. If Blaise lied, he was looking at, probably, life in Azkaban. He had to sit down that review matters thoroughly to ensure that he stayed on the right side of the truth.

The Ministry became more and more of a mad house as the afternoon wore on. Wild facts - and even wilder rumors - were circulating. Everyone was swapping gossip about the day's stunning developments.

Potter was near death, suffering some sort of traumatic magical disconnect.

Granger had caused a huge scene at St. Mungo's and all but forced the healers there to let her risk her own life in some obscure last-ditch effort intended to try to save Potter.

Weasley might lose his wand hand; no great loss.

Creevey was unconscious from magical exhaustion and severe burns.

Perhaps worst of all, everyone seemed to think what Granger was attempting was so insufferably romantic….

Blaise had to get away and calmly consider his options, limited though they were. As soon as he could, without acting abruptly or otherwise drawing suspicion upon himself, Blaise flooed to the sanctuary of his home.

He was not particularly disappointed that Ginny was still at practice. Alone time was better for sorting things out. Although Ginny had displayed considerable political acumen, this situation was beyond her.

Nor was her absence unexpected. Ever since Potter had embarrassed her in front of her teammates, she had been pushing her already stellar play to greater heights. Blaise minded not one bit. He much preferred having Ginny all to himself … someday soon he would make that permanent.

More unusual than Ginny's absence was Virgil's failure to greet him as his elf ordinarily did. Virgil usually had his favorite cuppa waiting the moment Blaise exited the fireplace in his personal suite. Blaise could not recall, after the day's turbulent events, whether Virgil had told him about any errands he had to run. Blaise was home rather earlier than usual, but Virgil retained the bound elf's ability always to know exactly where his master was.

Blaise shrugged. He could fend for himself a while.

Hanging up his own traveling cloak, Blaise strode to his study. His favorite chair awaited him. He would sink into it and think things through systematically. He needed to decide precisely how to phrase delicate answers to the questions he anticipated having to answer about Malfoy. If he was careful, Blaise was sure….

"Good evening Mr. Zabini. We meet again…."

Blaise stopped in his tracks. There, in his study, in his house, occupying his favorite chair, sipping aromatic tea, lounged a rather paunchy wizard, dressed in loose white robes, but without his usual turban. Fixing Blaise with piercing dark eyes, the wizard gently set his cup of tea down - atop the head of Blaise's elf, Virgil, who appeared totally petrified. The wizard's florid face, hawk-like nose and neatly pointed goatee leant a decidedly Mephistophelean air to his distinctly forced smile….

"Ibn al-Afrit, how … unexpected a pleasure it is to have you again in my humble abode."

"The pleasure is all mine, my dear Blaise," the Cartel lord replied, choosing his words carefully, as always. "There are matters that I thought best to discuss with you in person, but your elf - free, I suppose - foolishly seemed to take offense…. I do not suffer fools, human or elf."

With one hand, Ibn al-Afrit plucked his teacup off Virgil's head and lazily waved his wand with the other. Instantly, Virgil's freedom of movement was restored. Virgil started to slink off, but Blaise halted him with a look.

"Then we shall talk," Blaise said to the Arab. "Some hospitality, first? Perhaps some of those dates and cashews you enjoyed during your last visit?"

"For the moment, I'll pass," Ibn al-Afrit declined, so Blaise waved Virgil away. "Such items are plentiful at home. And speaking of home, the first matter I wish to discuss concerns my elf, Ayesha. I believe you mentioned the last time we spoke that she recently met an unfortunate end. Please explain."

"It was a regrettable necessity," Blaise began. "I'll be happy to pay you compensation for the loss of your elf." From there, Blaise launched into an explanation of how Ayesha had appeared suddenly in the Ministry to support Granger's public accusations that he had been suborned by the Cartel.

When Blaise finished, Ibn al-Afrit regarded him thoughtfully, but said nothing.

The silence became oppressive. "Is there a problem? I apologize for killing your elf, but neither of us could risk what she might have said."

"I sense that you believe this story," Ibn al-Afrit observed. "The only problem is that it is a fabrication - one hundred percent. My Ayesha was with me constantly until the ICW raided my residence in Gehrra. That happened within days after my agents lamentably failed to remove Madame Granger from the scene…."

"I saw that elf in the Ministry with my own eyes," Blaise maintained.

"I surmise that, in actuality, you encountered her sister," came the Arab's tart response. "I dispatched her to Swivingham last year to improve the skills of his `working elves.' She would have been in Ministry custody. I rather suspect that someone has played you for a fool, Zabini."

Beneath his cool demeanor, Zabini suddenly became hot under the collar. "Granger," he muttered.

"My conclusion, exactly," Ibn al-Afrit scowled. "Just as she did with my team in Greece and with your examination. Which returns us to my original concern - Ayesha."

"Do you think she is here, in England?"

"Of that, I am certain," the Arab declared, his voice threatening. "After my elf was seized from me, she was emancipated. Under the current administration, England seems to have become a haven for such abominations."

"What makes you so sure?"

"My associates inform me of additional ICW raids within the last few days. The locations should have been secure, as they were known to only a limited number of wizards. My Ayesha, however, accompanied me while in my service. My organization's security requires her … repatriation."

"Is that really necessary?" Blaise questioned. "We are no longer cooperating with the ICW on such matters. I have been dealing with the diplomatic fallout myself. I was present personally when Granger gave the order…."

"So you have informed us," Ibn al-Afrit sounded unimpressed. "I agree with you that, sometimes, a threat against a family member is more effective than a threat against one's person, but … such indirect measures are also more complicated to carry out. Perhaps you have once again been played for a fool…."

"But…." Suddenly, the potential import of today's events became clear. "Granger again," Zabini growled angrily.

Ibn al-Afrit nodded. "I may be forced to take you up on your prior offer to have Granger dealt with permanently…."

"There is recent - disturbing - news of which you are probably unaware," Zabini broke in. "Draco Malfoy was killed today. The circumstances…."

A new voice echoed down the hallway. "Blaise, dear, I'm home! Sorry I'm late but, after practice … all these wild rumors."

Blaise looked almost pleadingly at Ibn al-Afrit. "I'd prefer to keep her out of this. She's already been Obliviated … as you no doubt know."

"I believe that when we first met the lovely Flame, you confided that your intent was to make arrangements permanent. Is that still true, despite her possible indiscretion?"

"It is," Blaise confirmed.

"Then perhaps it would be best that Flame appreciate what she is becoming involved with," Ibn al-Afrit smiled knowingly. "In any event, she can be re-Obliviated if necessary. It is my own special skill, personally taught to my operatives."

Blaise found himself in an uncomfortable and unusual position. He was unable to refuse something he felt was against his better judgment.

"Blaise?"

"In here, Ginny."

The staccato clacking of Ginny's heels preceded her. "You must know - you seem to know everything. Did something happen to Harry today? Oh! My apologies. I didn't know you had company."

"My lovely flame; we meet again."

After instinctively displaying her social smile, Ginny quickly flashed Blaise a "who's this" look.

"Ginny, this is Ibn al-Afrit," Blaise introduced, "an important business associate of mine. You met him at our last Fire Party, which unfortunately, you have no memory of."

"My pleasure." She bobbed an abbreviated curtsey. At Ibn al-Afrit's gesture to sit, Ginny dutifully plopped into a nearby chair, curiosity glinting in her eyes.

"So, my dear Blaise, please continue," Ibn al-Afrit prompted. "You were about to tell me the latest about your friend, Draco Malfoy."

At the mention of that name, Ginny visibly stiffened. During the last year of the war she had seen that miserable Death Eater spawn at his worst - strutting around Hogwarts like he owned the place.

"I learned today that he has been killed - also today," Blaise revealed. "I don't know the details, but he was in some altercation with Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley, the current and former love interests of our new Minister for Magic."

Ginny nearly fell out of her chair. While dressing after practice, she had heard a Wizard Wireless report that Harry had somehow been badly injured. But that was all. In a fight with Draco Malfoy? It sounded like Hogwarts all over again.

"From this, I can only conclude that Malfoy had been pursuing the perilous course that he suggested…."

The lights suddenly flickered. A ring on Ibn al-Afrit's left hand flashed red. He jumped to his feet, wand out.

"Anti-Apparition wards! What is the meaning of this, Zabini?"

Zabini's eyes narrowed when he saw Ibn al-Afrit's wand pointed, not at him, but at Ginny. He remembered the Arab's recent observation - "a threat against a family member is more effective."

"Calm yourself, Afrit," he warned, showing emotion for the first time. "You took this risk when you chose to arrive without advance warning. As you know, since your last visit, events have required me to cooperate with the Ministry concerning certain matters. As a condition of my cooperation, I had to agree to installation of wards that could be activated should I ever be considered a flight risk…."

"And the floo?" a visibly nervous Ibn al-Afrit asked.

"Also shut down. And Portkeys deactivated."

Virgil interrupted their hurried conversation to announce that several Aurors were at the front door.

Ibn al-Afrit's affect abruptly turned cold and hard. "I suppose, Zabini, that your callers are here to question you about today's events."

"I suppose."

"Get up," he ordered Ginny at wandpoint. "We'll wait in the next room - and take the opportunity to listen into what you have to say about these matters."

Ibn al-Afrit prodded an extremely pale and agitated Ginny Weasley into an adjacent loo. The door clicked shut only seconds before Virgil led three uniformed visitors into Blaise's study. Two wore blue Auror robes; the third Blaise knew was Jason Moore, an Enforcer with close ties to Granger.

The most senior Auror, Montagu, had been involved in Blaise's earlier debriefings. The other Auror Blaise recognized only vaguely from interdepartmental liaison functions. Neither had ever attended a Fire Party.

Montagu began, "I apologize, Mister Zabini, for the abrupt meeting, but rapid and serious developments left me no choice, and we could not take any chances…."

With a very agitated Cartel Lord holding his future wife at wandpoint in the next room, Blaise badly wanted this questioning over with as quickly as possible. He resolved to move things along.

"Yes, I understand. My sources tell me that Draco Malfoy was killed today. I assume you have some questions you need to ask me about him."

Blaise noted with satisfaction that his interlocutors seemed taken aback by his forthrightness. That was good. It could only help to make the harder questions easier.

"Yes," Montagu agreed. "We have good reason to believe that Malfoy was working with the Cartel. For someone so recently released from Azkaban to be in that position, particularly in the Cartel's current, reduced state, seems remarkable. Very few wizards would be situated to make such an introduction. You are high on that list, since you and Malfoy were members of the same Slytherin class at Hogwarts."

Their logic was indubitable. Blaise emitted an exaggerated sigh and admitted what was obvious - and some of what was not.

"That's true, Auror Montagu. More than you know. Since before I began cooperating with the Ministry, I have no means of contacting the Cartel, although, I suppose they could contact me." That was true; far truer than his questioners knew.

"I met Draco Malfoy at Ollivanders," Blaise volunteered, with an expression that showed great distaste for his former classmate. "He had just been released - big mistake, I think - and was getting a new wand. He was always a blowhard and a big talker in school. He had been reading the Prophet, and knew about, or at least suspected, my deal with the Ministry. He wanted me to put him in contact with `my cartel,' as he annoyingly put it. He kept hinting at certain big plans. To get rid of him, I gave him a couple of names. At the time I did not know whether they still worked with the Cartel or not. I wanted to be rid of Malfoy."

Again, all true, if somewhat incomplete. The wording of Blaise's agreement with the Ministry did not demand completeness - as long he was volunteering information, rather than answering direct questions.

"So, you admit putting Malfoy in touch with the Cartel?" Montague paraphrased. His voice and expression was hard, confirming for Blaise that this matter was quite serious, indeed.

"I admit giving him names to contact," Blaise clarified. "I don't know what he did, although I can speculate."

That bit of additional information increased his questioners' interest further. "All right, what do you speculate?"

"Again, Malfoy was a blowhard, and I can be sure of nothing," Blaise carefully clarified. "Can I ask you a clarifying question?"

"Umm … yes," Montagu responded, not expecting that response.

"My understanding of today's events is that Malfoy was killed in a wandfight of some sort that involved Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley, in addition to Dennis Creevey. Is that right?"

"Yes. Your sources are well informed."

"Then I think that Malfoy actually did manage to pursue one of those `big plans' he was bragging about, since all three of them were probably acting on behalf of Minister Granger. That plan - which I thought was so much hot air when he described it - was to suborn the Minister, he hoped on behalf of the Cartel, through some sort of threat to the Minister's daughter, Rose Weasley…."

Blaise noted with satisfaction the looks that passed between his three guests.

"…I deeply regret not bringing this up before, but until your confirmation I thought it was so much dragon dung."

"Yes," Montagu replied, "I can see why, but I need to know exactly what you and Malfoy…."

Suddenly, harsh thumping sounds came from the next room, interrupting Montagu's question. It sounded like bodies slamming against walls. Everyone whirled around to look in that direction.

A woman's voice Blaise recognized instantly shrieked out a curse. A man's voice did the same, in a language Blaise did not understand. The woman's voice followed with a high, inhuman scream.

"Ginny!" Blaise shouted, leaping to his feet, with his three official guests a split second behind. The Ministry representatives hesitated a bit in confusion. Blaise did not. His wand was out instantly and he knew where to point it. "Reducto!"

The door to the restroom disintegrated, revealing Ibn al-Afrit, rolling on the floor in agony, being attacked by large bats that emerged every few seconds from his own nose.

Slumped on the floor, not far away, was Ginny. Her unmoving eyes were wide and unblinking, and she wore a blank expression on her face.

Moore was the quickest to regain his wits after this unexpected turn of events. "Who is that?" he demanded.

"That," Blaise growled, "is Ibn al-Afrit, one of the Cartel lords. He was lying in wait for me when I came home. He was searching for an elf of his that he thought was betraying Cartel secrets, and demanded my help. When you arrived, he took Ginny, my poor Ginny, hostage."

Blaise thought it an appropriate time to lose his renowned Zabini cool. Crying Ginny's name he knelt beside her, he temporarily left the Ministry Aurors to deal with Ibn al-Afrit.

One close look at Ginny, and Blaise's heart sank. He had feared the worst from the first moment, and it was so. Previously, when the Aurors had questioned him, one topic they had thoroughly covered was Sabas Doukas, since DMLE hoped Blaise might know something about Cartel methods. Ginny looked exactly as the Aurors had described Doukas. The Cartel Lord, a self-proclaimed expert in memory-related spells, had wiped Ginny's mind completely, and undoubtedly just as irretrievably as Doukas' had been, from all accounts.

Blaise instantly understood, to his horror, that he could do nothing for Ginny now. The only woman he had ever allowed himself to love was hardly better off than after a Dementor's Kiss.

He might, however, still be able to save himself. Blaise knew, from things that the Cartel Lords had intimated previously, that Ibn al-Afrit had undoubtedly sequestered his own Cartel-related memories. Assuming the Arab was a proficient as he boasted, Blaise doubted that the Ministry could break the sequestration. He understood that Peasgood's group had not had any success with Edwin Lovinett.

He had to convince these Aurors that he was innocent of anything more than unwittingly assisting Malfoy. If he failed in that, Blaise knew he was looking at a very long stay at Azkaban.

Act One was about to begin.

"That son of a witch hurt my Ginny!" Blaise roared, with every bit of rage and pain that his still reeling mind could muster. He sprung to his feet, wand in hand and pointed at the still writhing Cartel Lord. "Avada Ke…."

"Stupefy!"

"Petrificus totalus!"

The Auror's spells incapacitated Blaise before he could complete the Killing Curse - just as he expected would happen.

When the Aurors saw fit to Enervate Blaise some time later, both Ibn al-Afrit and Ginny had been taken away.

"We understand why you reacted that way, and we'll give you a pass on it - this once, since no harm was done," Montagu confided. All three had been briefed on Zabini's affair with Ginny Weasley before being dispatched to interview him. "Now, in light of those events, would you like us to return later? We regret it, but we still have to ask you quite a few questions about this."

The Auror sounded sympathetic, just as Zabini had hoped.

"No," Zabini growled raggedly, while clenching his teeth. "I still haven't told you everything I can about Draco-bloody-Malfoy."

* * * *

Headmistress McGonagall could not remember the last time, had there ever been one, that she had been angry with Hermione Granger. Until now her favorite student had only succeeded in making the aging witch proud, and that pride had only grown with every step of with Hermione's ascent.

But now she knew that over the past few weeks the Minister had presumed to run what amounted to a DMLE sting operation out of McGonagall's Hogwarts bailiwick. That alone, the Headmistress might have tolerated. What made her angry is that the Minister had presumed to trespass on her turf without so much as a by your leave.

Only this morning had she learned what exactly had transpired. Two of her most trusted staff, Madame Pomfrey and Professor Longbottom, solemnly informed her in a private meeting. Both had participated in the Minister's undercover gambit,

Why would Miss Granger - no longer Mrs. Granger-Weasley, and not yet Mrs. Someone-else-she-could name - trust them more than she trusted her?

Trust. That more than anything else explained her anger. She had superintended the Castle faithfully for a decade and a half. Why had the Minister not trusted her with this secret?

In any event, Headmistress McGonagall learned the whole sordid tale early that morning, after the previous day's events eliminated any need to preserve said secret or to maintain the façade of Rose Weasley's periodic "illnesses" any longer.

For her part, the Headmistress immediately deemed it necessary formally to inform the entire school, at breakfast, about the plot by outsiders to endanger a student within the Castle's walls. At the very least, the event was a stark reminder to everyone of the imperative to maintain the Castle's security. After so many years of blessed peace, everyone - staff and students alike - had becoming excessively lax in observing the rules.

Headmistress McGonagall did precisely that.

She had just finished giving perhaps the most unusual breakfast announcement of her long Hogwarts tenure. She looked forward to a nap, and prayed for good news about Harry Potter's dire situation, after a long, largely sleepless night.

"A word, if I could, Minerva."

The Headmistress sighed as she had to determine what her Arithmancy professor, Cal Shingleton, wanted this time. While she appreciated his efforts to keep her informed, she often found his lack of initiative grating - now being a prime example. Ever since being promoted to Head of Slytherin House two terms ago, he seemed unwilling to make the slightest move concerning his House without first obtaining her approval.

"Is there a problem?"

"Perhaps. If so, I'm trying to nip it in the bud," he averred, looking somewhat shifty. "This has to do with the striking episode about which you just informed all of us…." The professor slipped in a sly reference to the staff having no forewarning of what the Headmistress had just revealed to the school.

Knowing full well that his last comment garnered him McGonagall's full attention, Shingleton dallied a bit before continuing. "…One of my firsties just told me that she thinks she might have been involved, unwittingly of course."

Headmistress McGonagall looked at him sternly. "Really? Bring her to my office in five minutes, then." With Harry Potter by all accounts near death, and Hermione - no, Minister Granger - putting her own life at risk to try and save his, Shingleton had best be right. Consequential events such as these were not matters to be trifled with.

The Headmistress had barely prepared herself when Professor Shingleton arrived precisely on time. He had in tow a terrified-looking young witch whose name McGonagall was unable to remember without prompting.

She forced a smile onto her face. "Why are you here, Ms…?"

"Lapis Flint, ma'am. I'm here because I'm afraid … afraid that…. Oh, Merlin, am I going to be expelled?"

"If you tell the truth, I doubt it," the Headmistress responded. Until she knew exactly what had happened, she would not offer any ironclad assurances, even to a first year.

"I-I-I got a letter from Witch Weekly, somebody named Prewett, offering me five galleons per report … to tell them whatever I saw about Rose," Flint confessed. "I sent in the note sheets every few days…. I started wondering when I never saw the column that the letter promised would be printed, but … I guess I liked the money too much. After what you told us this morning…. Oh Merlin, there was a health box on the note sheets, and I wrote about what you said. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt Rose … or anybody."

Tricking a classmate into reporting to the perpetrator exactly how well his potion poisoning attempt was working! The Headmistress was disgusted - but not at Lapis Flint - and reluctantly impressed.

But what the girl just said…. Could it have larger importance?

"Those note sheets, how did you return them?" McGonagall asked sternly.

It did not occur to the frightened Slytherin first year to use this information to negotiate her fate. "They came with pre-addressed envelopes … and I simply used the school owls. It all seemed very ordinary."

"How many of these envelopes and note sheets do you have left?"

"Four note sheets," Flint answered immediately, before adding, "and about a half-dozen of the envelopes."

Headmistress McGonagall turned to Lapis Flint's head of house. "Calvert, in all likelihood Miss Flint received this stationery from one of the conspirators. Might you accompany Miss Flint to wherever she is has it stored, and bring all of it back here to me, posthaste?"

It was not really a question.

* * * *

His final, haunting vision of Draco Malfoy's demented visage had long since faded into a murky fog. Mercifully, so had the blinding sheet of pain that enveloped Harry when the mad Slytherin had ignited some sort of magical explosion….

Synergistic potions, just as Hermione had suspected.

Hermione. She would be so disappointed in him. She would have reminded him that, if Draco Malfoy was indeed capable of doing what Harry had suspected, they should have treated him like a dangerous criminal. They should have left things to professionals, rather than freelancing.

But Hermione's disappointment counted for little now. Harry felt that same eerie sensation he had experienced fifteen and a half years earlier. He no longer felt his body. He seemed to be floating, divorced from his physical self, almost at one with the fog that surrounded him.

How long Harry meandered will-o'-the-wisp-like through the fog he could not determine. It could have been minutes. It could have been days.

Finally, the fog started to lift a bit. Harry could tell he was in a wooded area. He could vaguely make out quite a few large, ancient trees, all swathed in moss and vines. They had the look of a forest primeval.

Harry wandered further, uncertain where he was, where he had been, and where he was going. Gradually, the mist cleared, and Harry finally recognized his location.

"This is the Forbidden Forest - where Voldemort first killed me," Harry realized.

"It seems appropriate," came an all-too-familiar voice from behind.

Harry whirled around, or at least did the best approximation of a whirl that his all-too-light form permitted. His suspicion was confirmed. "You, again."

"No, you again," the distinctive young woman in black observed. "This is your nightmare, not mine. I think you know what's up, even if you may be somewhat slow to admit it."

Harry did. Standing beside him was Death - or his conception of Death - still looking like some Goth version of his younger sister. Check that, his older sister, with his altered physical age.

But that age, evidently, no longer mattered. Death had finally come for The Boy Who Lived Again.

"No Hogwarts Express this time?" Harry asked nervously. While he had never feared death, neither was she, or it, at the top of his to-do list. Instinctively, he was playing for whatever little time he might have, even though there was probably no way out.

"No need," Death almost laughed, whilst shaking her tangled black locks. "This is a command performance. No other souls involved, so no choices have to be made. When your name popped up, so soon after our last meeting, I had to find out for myself what had happened and why."

"So, I don't get a choice," Harry grumbled, trying to act affronted.

"No choice that you'd care to make, I reckon," Death shot back, apprising him carefully. "Harry, I haven't encountered anyone as selfless and just plain, nauseatingly good as you in decades, and that includes Mother Theresa and Gandhi. I'm afraid you've punched a one-way ticket to Valhalla, buster. You'll see your parents again, Dumbledore, and eventually Sirius Black - he has some purgation to endure, first."

"But not Hermione," Harry recognized.

"No, not Hermione," Death confirmed. "That is, unless your regrets are so profound that you're determined to try for ghost status - which I definitely do not recommend." Death shook her head, "no," to underscore her warning.

Death, or perhaps Harry's imagination, had let her hair grow since their last encounter. Her raven locks' bushiness rivaled Hermione's hair before she treated it. He realized how his death would devastate Hermione. Would his return as a ghost, as pathetic as such an existence would be, help Hermione or just make matters worse?

"I don't recommend it," Death reiterated. "Ghost status is permanent. You'll only see her die, and deprive both of you of any chance of ever being together in my realm. You don't see the ghosts of paired lovers cavorting about, and if it weren't forbidden, you surely would."

"I suppose," Harry grumbled, still resisting his end. "Five hundred years from now, long after everybody I ever knew was dead, I'd probably be rather lonely."

"Nor are your regrets strong enough, I suspect," Death commented. "You acted to prevent a child from being victimized by an extortionist. That the effort went pear-shaped in its execution hardly justifies the depth of misgiving necessary to stick around as a ghost."

"No, I suppose not," Harry replied, sighing. "It's more about what I never managed to do…. You're right. It's not like a lot of innocent people ended up dead. Malfoy deserved it."

"Quite true - you wouldn't want to be having what he having just about now," Death winked naughtily.

"That's for sure," Harry agreed, imagining Malfoy experiencing the same fate as Jack Swivingham.

Maledictus in aeternitam. Swivingham's sins paled in comparison to Malfoy's.

Death was pleased. Contemplating Malfoy's fate was helping Harry accept his fate. "Tell you what. I'll give the former master of the Deathly Hallows one last consideration. You can help me compose the threnodies' lyrics." Death waved her right arm, and Harry found himself enveloped in a swarm of tiny moth-like creatures.

"I'll start," Death decided. "Death's Hallows he earned, the Chosen One…."

"I think that's quite enough."

They both spun about at the sound of a new, but hardly unknown, voice.

At first an indistinct glow was all that was visible. Harry wondered if he, being in extremis, was simply hearing what he wanted to hear. But Death was also staring at the strange glow.

"Harry, the living world isn't done with you yet - I'm not done with you yet. It's time for you to come home … to come home to me."

Harry's psyche put two and two together. The glow resolved into Hermione's image, albeit surrounded by an ethereal shimmering light. Hermione wore a set of dark blue traveling robes that Harry remembered well. These were the robes she had worn the night she initially tracked him down, through Teddy's - no, Ted's - cell phone signal.

That night had been anything but a joyous reunion, but it had started the process that had brought him back, the process that had led to this….

"But, this is highly irregular - no, impossible!" Death spluttered. "He, his magic, they were being totally disconnected. It's in my report."

"Not totally, at least not anymore," Hermione declared, looking every inch the insufferable know-it-all. Her brown eyes blazed, as they had that night, only this time not with anger but with determination. "That doesn't matter, in any event. Right now I'm his connection - my magic."

"But you can't," Death stomped her feet petulantly, looking even younger than Harry's prior manifestation. "It can't be done, or at least it hasn't … not in living memory."

"It's been done before, so it has again," Hermione stated, her voice low and steady.

"Then you should have been on my list, too."

"But I'm not, it appears," Hermione shifted to command mode. She looked dangerous - only not to Harry. "If you force me, I'll fight you for him. Put me on your list and leave, Harry. You should have had me the last time."

"Hermione, don't," Harry broke in. "The world needs you more than it needs me. Everyone did just fine without me for fifteen years."

Hermione turned on him. "Dammit, Harry! Don't you see? I didn't. I need you. The rest of the world can go hang, for once." She took two steps towards him. Harry briefly wondered if in this twilight environment Hermione could slug him again.

But no, she shouldered herself past Harry and stood arms tightly crossed over her chest, between him and Death - a human shield.

"Do your worst," Hermione dared. "I'm not on your list; Harry is - big bloody deal! I know you can change your list. Dumbledore's portrait told me as much, about Harry's first, temporary death…."

With Hermione's attention elsewhere, Harry tried to leap back between her and Death. He lunged, but found himself yanked backwards as if bound by elastic.

"…And you changed your list before, to take me off, when Harry restored the Hallows to you," she finished as Harry tried leapt again. The same thing happened.

"Harry, just stop," Hermione ordered, her image starting to strobe. "Right now, you are connected to me. You are not an independent actor. That will change as you heal, but for now, let me handle this."

Hermione looked daggers at Death, interposing herself immovably between Harry's anthropomorphic construct and Harry himself. Death returned Hermione's gaze, glower for glower. Harry metaphorically held his breath, fearing that at any moment Death would strike down the most amazing person he had ever known.

Finally, Death offered what it considered a compromise.

"Ms. Granger, you know I cannot take you now, as you are not on my list. Between the artefact and your mastery of interposition, you will survive - this time. As you no doubt realize, even for a metaphysical abstraction, I am very busy. I am now seriously behind schedule. If you step aside and let me do my business, I will provide you with the Hallow of your choice."

"I want no Hallows. I hate them. They ruined fifteen years of my life," Hermione refused. Death's offer only made her surer of her position. "I came for Harry. I have reconnected him to his magic, and therefore to life. I want him back," she stated implacably.

Death did not reply, but soon began to fidget.

Finally, the exasperated young woman in black threw up her hands. "All right, this is becoming altogether more trouble than it's worth. I'll change my notation for Potter to a temporary death - you're both familiar with the concept - and release him with time served."

Everything went black.

* * * *

The two Aurors watched the Ministry owl flutter away. "I don't like doing this, Gregg. That owl will never trust us again."

"I agree with you, Scott," his partner Gregg Halston replied. "But we've been over this. We only have two more sheets of this stuff left, and after our first two attempts both went arse over tit, we have no choice - particularly since the Minister herself first suggested the possibility."

"The Minister may be rather too close to the situation to assess it logically," Auror Scott Markus shrugged. "I know I would be, if it had been my son."

"In either event, the result will be the same. Going ahead with this experiment is the quickest way to test the Minister's suspicions. Either she's right, or she's wrong, about what it means that the first two owls veered off course, disappeared, and then reappeared having made their deliveries."

"And your point is?"

"This Minister is very rarely wrong."

"Point well taken."

Time passed.

"Well, so far it's the same as before," Markus reported, his eyes glued to the modified Foeglass that traced the owl's course. "The Tracking Charm has the owl on the same course, towards the Witches' Weekly Diagon Alley premises."

"Which none of the owls has ever reached, before or after Little Miss Flint's confession," Halston added.

"Or so that rather smarmy editor claims."

"Under Veritaserum."

A few minutes later, Markus called out, "Owl's at the point where the previous two turned!"

"Is the pursuit rider ready?"

"Been ready."

"Okay, you call the signal."

The modified Foeglass displayed the same abrupt turn to the northwest.

"Owl's made the turn. Pursuit's after it."

"How long until the point where the previous owls disappeared.

"Ten … fifteen minutes maximum."

"We'll set off the Stunning pellet in ten, then. Be sure. Err on the conservative side. I don't want another disappearance."

The ten minutes passed with the errant owl tracking a steady flight in a northwesterly direction.

"…four, three, two, one…. Stunning pellet detonated."

"Yes! The owl's still on the screen."

"Stopped moving, too. I think we were successful. How much longer until pursuit arrives?"

"Maybe two minutes."

Less than two minutes later, Auror Halston's mirror started vibrating. The downed owl had been retrieved.

Both Aurors huddled over the mirror. The next questions would determine whether they had cracked the case - or whether it was back to square one.

"Jason, have you found the owl's delivery?" Jason Moore, the Enforcer in charge of the Minister's personal security, had volunteered for pursuit duty.

"Yes, and I do believe that the Witch Who Won is also the Witch Who Wasn't Wrong."

"Bloody Hell," Halston muttered. "We've had too much suspense as it is. What's the envelope say, then?"

"Delivery is to be made to owlpost Box #8, Isle of Skye office," Moore replied over the mirror. "I take it that's not what the envelope read originally."

"Nope, they were all pre-addressed to `Francine Prewett,' a nonexistent supposed staffer at Witch Weekly," Auror Markus answered. "Something triggered a charm - perhaps the sealing of the envelope - and at a preset moment, the new address appeared."

"Just as Minister Granger hypothesized," Moore, pointed out, respect bordering on awe tingeing his voice. "A pre-programmed note designed to ensure the bearer's admission through a Fidelius Charm."

"You'd best get to the Isle of Skye owl post office immediately," Auror Markus stated, reluctant to issue an outright order. Although Aurors outranked Enforcers, this particular Enforcer was in the Minister's personal employ and obviously enjoyed her confidence.

He did not have to. "I'm on it," Moore replied as the mirror went blank.

* * * *

The rotund wizard postmaster for the Isle of Skye was perplexed. Until this young Enforcer showed up, he was unaware that there even was a box eight. He had been assigned to this position for a decade, and had always believed that his little, out-of-the-way station had only seven private rental boxes.

But sure enough, the Enforcer was correct. There were indeed eight, with one of them subject to a Fidelius charm throughout his tenure.

"I need to know who's been paying for that box," Enforcer Moore insisted.

"You're welcome to check through all the records in this place," the postmaster offered. "But I doubt you'll see anything I haven't. I've been here since 2004. I know all the records like the back of my hand, and I can tell you there's nothing in there about box eight.

The postmaster was wrong. The same Fidelius Charm that hid box eight from the view of the uninitiated also concealed the records of its rental.

Jason Moore instantly recognized the name of the wizard who had paid a lump sum over twenty years ago to rent box eight for life.

Edwin Lovinett.

31

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