Coming Back Later

Bexis

Rating: PG13
Genres: Drama, Romance
Relationships: Harry & Hermione
Book: Harry & Hermione, Books 1 - 7
Published: 12/03/2014
Last Updated: 29/11/2014
Status: in_progress

Unconsented-to, but unobjected-to continuation of Paracelsus' masterpiece "Coming Back Late." Begins with aftermath of Draco Malfoy's suicidal effort to avoid being sent back to Azkaban when Harry and Ron unravel his plot to blackmail Hermione on behalf of the cartel.

Chapters

1. Chapter 47 - A Will, A Way, And A Were

2. Chapter 48 - Breaks In The Case

3. Chapter 49 - Announced Mate

1. Chapter 47 - A Will, A Way, And A Were

Coming Back Later

(A/N: I'm uncomfortable doing this, but I've tried to contact the rightful owner of the “Coming Back Late” fic, Paracelsus, repeatedly over the course of several months - always unsuccessfully. As noted in Chapter 46 of “Late,” I had agreed to beta Paracelsus, since I thought “Late” was one of the best in progress fics on Portkey. I didn't want it to be abandoned. As time went on, I even undertook to write a version of Chapter 47 that I hoped Paracelsus could edit to his taste. I sent it to him months ago, but never received a response.

I continue to believe that “Coming Back Late” is simply too good a fic to be abandoned. So after much thought, I have decided to post this - written by Bexis, not Paracelsus - version of Chapter 47. If Paracelsus wants me to take it down, I will. You, also, can tell me whether my effort is worth continuing. So without further ado:

Chapter 47 - A Will, A Way, And A Were

Any time she met with Blaise Zabini, Hermione was on her guard. This meeting, though, was worse than uncomfortable. Shortly before it began, her necklace - which she now wore religiously whenever she left home - began feeling strangely cold to the touch. She tried rubbing it, then added a Warming Charm, but nothing helped. The meeting was too important to cancel, and she had called it, but throughout its duration the necklace's exquisite frigidity threatened to distract her.

With this wizard, Hermione could not afford distractions. She needed Blaise to parry feelers from several continental Ministries seeking to reschedule the International Conference on crime that Minister Shacklebolt's (not to mention her own) death had aborted. However much Hermione preferred to reconvene without delay, it was essential to maintain her pretense of compliance with the Cartel's blackmail, until the plot against Rose was traced to its origins - which may well include present company.

A brisk rap on the conference room door ended the meeting early. Without waiting for acknowledgment, a pasty-faced Gawain Robards entered. Ignoring Blaise, he directed his words to the Minister. “Madame Granger, we've had a serious magical incident in a Muggle area. There's at least one death, other serious injuries, and a Muggle power failure. Obliviators are on the scene, but I think you will agree that the Muggleworthy Excuse Committee needs to be convened immediately to deal with this.”

As Minister, Hermione chaired that committee, unless she chose to delegate that responsibility. Faced with the first external crisis of her Ministry, she unhesitatingly took charge.

“Blaise, can I count on you to keep the ICW situation on hold for the time being, until our own house is in order?”

“Absolutely,” Blaise agreed, suppressing pleasure at the continuing fruits of his agent's efforts. “As unfortunate as this latest incident undoubtedly is, I should be able to use it to our advantage.”

Hermione hurried out, Robards following in her wake.

Instead of proceeding directly to the Excuse Committee's normal meeting room, Robards motioned Hermione into a nearby alcove and incanted “Mulffliato.” He began, “Madame Granger, you will recall that a short while ago you informed me confidentially that circumstances required you to run a secret operation on what is ordinarily considered my department's turf. Well, unfortunately there's been….”

“This has to do with Harry Potter, doesn't it?” Hermione cut him short.

“Umm … yes, in part.”

“What's happened?”

“As best we can tell, Mister Potter and your ex-husband….”

“Oh, Merlin, Ron, too? Are they all right?”

“No, Madame Minister, they are both at St. Mungo's,” Robards struggled to get a word in.

“Let's go to my office,” a visibly upset Minister directed, starting off at a brisk clip. “Tell me on the way.”

“The two of them took it upon themselves to invade some sort of illegal potions-making operation,” Robards revealed as he hurried to keep up. “That operation was also under surveillance by a DME agent, who if he wasn't working for you, has gone rogue.”

“Dennis Creevey.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes, I thought so,” Robards confirmed. “He was with a Ministry elf who has been in your … detailed to you.”

“Yes, Canby.”

“Canby saved Creevey's and Weasley's lives by taking them to St. Mungo's,” Robards observed. “He wasn't affected by whatever….”

Suddenly Hermione could barely breathe. She stopped in her tracks, with one hand resting on the corridor wall. Robards had to dodge to avoid running into her. “Please, tell me that Harry's not dead,” she whispered.

“No, Madame Minister, he is not,” came the blessed response. “He was badly injured in a magical explosion. Canby told the healers it was a reaction between two potions smashed together.”

Hermione breathed a bit easier. “Thank Merlin. I'm sorry, Gawain, but after my own recent close call, I don't think I could take anymore. What two potions…?”

“I'm not sure, Madame,” Robards confessed as Hermione started moving again. “But please do not misunderstand me. My information is that Mister Potter was very badly injured. He may not survive the night….”

“Oh, God!” Hermione shrieked in a most un-Ministerial fashion. She took off for her office at a dead run.

Sheryl leapt to her feet when an out of breath Hermione Granger stumbled into her office. “Merlin, what happened, Hermione….” Just then Robards poked his head in the door. “…I mean, Madame Minister….”

“I can't stay! I have to leave for St. Mungo's - immediately. I don't know for how long!” a red-faced Hermione panted. “I need you to get those packets - all of them - from the special cabinet! Quickly, Harry's been hurt…!”

Sheryl stood there, perplexed, watching but not hearing her plainly frantic boss give orders she could not follow. Robards figured things out before anyone else. “Finite!” He ended the Muffliato.

“…You'll have to tell the press … oh, blast it! Just tell them that I've gone to St. Mungo's because Harry Potter has been badly hurt - along with Ron and….”

She stopped as she saw Sheryl's jaw drop. “What!?”

“Hermione, what do you want me to do?”

“I just told you!”

“You'll have to tell me again, you were under some sort of silencing spell.”

Hermione did, and repeated much of what Robards had told her. While repeating the information, she realized that a critical piece of information was still lacking. Turning back to her most loyal department head, the Minister asked, “Gawain, you mentioned a death. Who was killed in the incident?”

“The operator of the potions laboratory, Robards answered. “You're well acquainted with him - Draco Malfoy.”

Draco Malfoy? So Harry was right after all….

Suddenly, the walls seemed to be closing in. Like a dragon's claw, cold tendrils of guilt tightened around Hermione's heart. She had gone too far - she knew it. Her too-clever-by-a-half lawyer's ploy to obtain evidence (never used) that Jack Swivingham had been murdered was solely and totally responsible for this … for Harry fighting for his life.

Her deal had sprung Draco Malfoy from Azkaban and put him back on the streets of the wizarding world. That deal, she now knew, had endangered the lives of the only two people in this world that she truly loved, her only daughter and … Harry….

No - Hermione could not allow herself to fall to pieces at this of all times.

Her powerful mind lurched wildly, the makings of a desperate plan beginning to gel. The vials of antidote locked in a cabinet in her office…. Her notes, in the same place…. The deathly cold of her necklace, reflecting Harry's perilous condition…. Something Harry had once said about what happened in the Chamber of Secrets all those years ago….

Hermione recalled something else Harry had said - much more recently. In an emotional moment, one of unguarded candor, he had let slip his true motives for going through the veil. Harry had not cared a “rat's ass” about his own survival, he had declared, if she had died.

In a moment of similar clarity, Hermione now realized that she felt exactly the same way.

Then, Harry had been an exile; thought by almost everyone to have been dead for well over a decade.

Hermione Granger was Minister for Magic.

“All right,” Hermione snapped to her two-person audience. “Wait here. I'll be right back.

Striding purposefully into her inner office, Hermione removed the security spells from a nondescript gray metal filing cabinet. She scooped up the contents of the top drawer.

“Sheryl, please make me four copies of these notes, and two copies of this file - and get someone trustworthy from the Board of Potions Regulation and Control up here on the double.”

Her assistant grabbed the copying and bolted for the door.

“Gawaine, as you know, I authorized an extraordinary investigation. I apologize for intruding on your department's turf, but this is exactly what it was about. Someone, whom we now know was Draco Malfoy, attempted to poison my daughter with synergistic and extremely deadly potions. I strongly suspect that the reaction between larger quantities of those same potions caused today's explosion.”

“Malfoy was working for the Cartel, that's obvious. While nothing actually happened to my daughter thanks to a lucky accident, we played along to try to draw the perpetrators out. Sure enough, within days of the attempt, I was the target of a blackmail demand that I cease cooperation with the ICW's investigation of the Cartel. The antidote for the potions has been serving as both the Cartel's carrot and stick.”

“Hence, the secret investigation to uncover the blackmailers while at the same time feigning compliance…. It's all in my notes, which Sheryl is copying for you. Since today's incident blows everything sky high, forget about secrecy. I want your department to put everything you have into investigating this and catching the remaining conspirators. I want that potions lab turned inside out….”

Sheryl's return with the copies only momentarily distracted Hermione.

“…Here, one complete set for your Aurors. This other set is for the ICW. Follow the money. I want to know how and by whom this was funded. Malfoy was less than two weeks….”

Hermione paused, her mind working furiously.

“Minister, should I…?”

“Like I was saying, Malfoy was fresh out of Azkaban. Practically penniless and out of touch with wizarding society for fourteen years…. Gawain, I'm not trying to run your investigation, but I strongly recommend that you focus on anyone we know with Cartel ties who also might have known Malfoy - to whom he might have gone so early. Ask lots of questions, and get specific answers … starting with whether they've been to the Crowned Hart lately….”

The Minister's implication was unmistakable. It did not need to be made explicit.

“Sheryl, here is a sample of the antidote. It's small, but I can't afford to part with anymore. Harry needs the rest.” Hermione handed her a half-empty vial. “I've run some tests. The results are in my notes. I want the Board to make this its highest priority. The sooner we can duplicate this antidote, the better - it will save lives, particularly if the Cartel tries using this again.”

“Madame Granger,” Robards interrupted, “one last thing … the Muggleworthy Excuse Committee does need to meet about this.”

“You'll have to chair it, Gawain,” Hermione replied. “I'm going to St. Mungo's the moment I'm done here. Be creative…. I think … an illegal drug lab gone wrong sounds closest to the truth. Illegal, jerry-rigged power hookups can explain the outage. Can you take it from there?”

“Yes ma'am.” Clutching documents that promised to be the starting point for a great deal of DMLE activity over the coming weeks, Robards left.

“Minister … Hermione, please be careful,” Sheryl pleaded when they were alone.

“I can't help it. I have to try to save him,” Hermione declared, but her voice sounded almost pleading, and her eyes were rimmed with barely unshed tears. “I have to. I only have two doses of antidote. I doubt that's enough. If it's not…. If I hadn't released Malfoy….”

“No. Blame the Cartel. They started this, not you.”

“True, but irrelevant,” Hermione shrugged. She grabbed her traveling cloak. “I love him and I don't want to have to live without him.”

“Okay, but what do we tell the press? You know they'll go crazy when they learn where you've gone and why. I have to tell them. The Minister can't just vanish.”

“Blast the press. At this point, I'm past caring,” Hermione spat. “I'm leaving. Just tell them the truth, I suppose. If this costs me my position, so be it. I didn't ask to be Minister anyway.”

“Canby!” Hermione called.

It only took an instant for the elf to appear. He looked mortified, as if he blamed himself for the recent catastrophic events.

If she noticed, Hermione did not let on. “Take me to him,” she ordered.

* * * *

Bedlam had descended on St. Mungo's when three elves had popped in bearing serious casualties from a sting operation gone awry. Canby, wearing a Ministry tunic, was first, arriving with Dennis Creevey in tow. The Enforcer was barely conscious.

As bystanders rushed to aid this wounded wizard, a few seconds later an almost dazed elf in a red tunic emblazoned with a bright gold lightning bolt arrived. She dragged with her a wizard with hair almost as red as her clothing. Ronald Weasley was barely breathing.

A third elf, also in red, popped in before onlookers had a chance to react. She brought with her the inert form of perhaps the most famous wizard in the world. Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived Again, was barely alive.

Those with merely “serious” injuries were whisked away to be treated in the Potion Poisoning wing. As so often with Harry Potter, matters were extraordinary - both his condition and his notoriety. His condition was beyond grave. Judging him too precarious to be moved, St. Mungo's critical care healers commandeered the nearest available large space, the waiting room. In that location they brought to bear everything in their armamentarium in a desperate attempt at saving the life of the Boy Who Lived Again.

As for Harry's notoriety, within ten minutes someone had tipped off the Prophet that the very same Boy Who Lived Again was at the hospital, teetering precariously on the edge between life and death.

When the Minister for Magic added her personal presence to the madhouse, perhaps half an hour later, the healers feared they were losing their battle. Harry was on both magical and physical life support. Some forty percent of his skin - from mid chest to his knees - had simply vanished in the explosion of two large flasks of synergistic potions.

While that injury alone would not be fatal, since magical means of dermal and epidermal regeneration existed, Harry's condition was such that his body could no longer interact with these means. The magical consequences of the explosion were worse. The shock had severed Harry's innate links to the magical forces that pervaded the world.

Harry was cut off from magic.

For a wizard, magical isolation, if not remedied, was invariably fatal. Irrevocable destruction of magical connections powered the Killing Curse. Although a number of combinations of spellwork and potions could - at least theoretically - counteract at least some incidents of magical dissociation, the healers at St. Mungo's were proceeding blindly. They were completely in the dark about the etiology of Harry's precarious condition.

That changed when Hermione arrived on the scene.

“Minister Granger, our apologies, but as you can see we're rather overwhelmed right now,” stammered the first St. Mungo's staffer who noticed Hermione's presence.

“I must see Harry Potter, and the healers treating him, immediately,” she demanded. Canby, having delivered his boss to where she needed to be, discreetly shrunk to the side and moved to join two other elves forlornly huddled between two emptied and abandoned magical crash trollies.

“I'm sorry, but that's impossible, Madam Minister. He's fighting for….”

“Sorry doesn't begin to describe what you'll be if I don't meet them immediately,” Hermione snapped, in no mood for niceties. “I know what happened to Harry, and I have the antidote.” Not waiting for an answer, she pushed past the dumfounded staffer and stalked towards where she sensed the most activity.

The crowd parted before her commanding figure - save one. “Madam Minister, about Mister Potter, do you have a statement for the record? Report….”

“Silencio! And get out of my way!” Hermione dealt with the impertinent interruption.

Several healers, in their distinctive pea-green robes, were actively working on Harry. Their patient was almost completely blocked from view by a thicket of tubes, talismans, charms and crystals. Hermione buttonholed the most important-looking healer not so occupied.

“I'm the Minister for Magic,” Hermione briskly introduced herself - as if any were necessary. “Harry was working undercover for me when he was injured. These notes contain the formulae for the two potions that exploded.” She thrust a copy of her notes at the astonished healer. “And these vials contain two doses of the antidote for their synergistic combination.” She pressed the precious vials upon a healer's assistant who happened to be listening in. “Please save his life.”

“Umm … yes,” the healer paused, needing a moment to process the potentially life-saving information that had just appeared, as if by magic, from such an unlikely source. But after the recent Prophet stories, was it really so unlikely?

Recovering, he grabbed the proffered parchments and gave them a hurried once over, his trained eye focusing on the important facts, and omissions.

“Minister Granger, I cannot thank you enough for this critical information. But have you any estimate of the magnitude of Mister Potter's exposure to these potions?”

Hermione's face fell. “No, I'm afraid….” Then she remembered. She had an eyewitness! Spotting her target slumped miserably with Brillig and Ayesha between the emptied trollies, she called, “Canby!”

In an instant the loyal elf was at the Minister's side, anxiously wringing his hands. “Do you know how much potion exploded?”

The elf's ears twitched as he thought hard. “Yes, there were two flasks, each about the size of … of a Quaffle, ma'am.”

While Hermione interrogated her elf, the healer reread her notes. “A Quaffle's worth each? That's impossible. The release of that much iocane, particularly in an enclosed space, would have instantly killed every wizard at the site, and probably poisoned a large number of nearby Muggles. Surely, something else….”

Canby was ordinarily most deferential to wizards - it was ingrained behavior. But now he sensed Hermione's growing distress. Whether or not bound in law, he was undeniably bonded to her in fact. “That's not how it happened,” he interrupted. “The wizard Malfoy wasn't being allowed to add the iocane. We was arresting him for possessing it. We took it away from him first….”

The healer nodded, but his stony expression did not lift. “Madame Minister, ordinarily at this juncture I would only discuss a patient's condition with his authorized next of kin, but Mister Potter's well-known history…. He has no next of kin. This antidote … I doubt those vials hold more then twenty CCs. That's far too little to counter an exposure of this evident magnitude, even under ordinary circumstances….”

Again sensing Hermione's distress, Canby did the only thing he could think of. He reached out and took her hand before it started shaking.

“…But Mister Potter's condition is such that no amount of antidote would likely be effective. This patient's innate connections to the surrounding magical environment were forcibly severed….”

Hermione's head started spinning. She knew as well as anyone the bleak prognosis for what the healer was describing.

“…so Mister Potter has been placed on magical life support. But his condition has continued to deteriorate. Unless a miracle happens, he is unlikely to survive the night.”

No! This could not be happening! It was too soon, the bitterest of ironies. After more than fourteen years of wandering in an emotional desert, she had only been reunited with her soulmate for six short weeks. Less than a month ago had they discovered, and been able to act upon, what they truly felt for one another. Fate could not be this cruel - colder than the necklace that at that moment hung icily at her throat.

She had no choice.

“Then I insist that I use my magic in interposition,” Hermione declared loudly enough that everyone in the area stopped to listen. She drew herself defiantly to full height, expecting resistance.

Resistance she received. “Madame Minister, I cannot allow that. While interposition has occasionally been used as a cure between wizards of exceptional affinity, it can't possibly succeed here….”

“I refuse to accept that without trying,” Hermione almost shouted. “This necklace…” She pulled it from beneath her jumper and displayed it to the reluctant healer. “…it has been specially charmed - profoundly - by probably the most powerful wizard of our time, to link me personally to Harry.”

She deliberately left her implication vague. If Dumbledore came to anyone's mind, so much the better. If forced, she would tell the truth, even if that would blow Harry's carefully constructed cover story sky high. Nothing mattered now but his survival. Everything else, even the office she held, had faded into the background.

“Madame Minister,” the healer protested, as all other conversation, indeed, activity, ceased - save for the muffled wheezing of Harry's life support charms. “Did you not hear what I just told you? He's been cut off, severed, isolated. Tragically, he's gone. I can't be more blunt than that. You can't reach him. Even assuming you're close enough to Harry to interpose successfully, you'd be dumping your magic into space. It's a futile gesture, however well and sincerely meant, but it could kill you. Forget wish fulfillment; think about your position….”

“Brillig! Ayesha!” In what seemed like a complete non sequitur, Hermione turned and addressed the two grieving elves.

“Y-y-yes, Mistress Hermione?”

“Can you still feel Harry? I know how you found him before.”

Bonded house-elves could always feel the presence of their masters. While Hermione had played along with the charade that allowed all concerned to deny that bonding had occurred, another convenient fiction fell in the face of in extremis circumstances.

“He's … he's a-flickering,” Brillig halting answered, mortified at being the centre of everyone's rapt attention - with Master Harry's life hanging in the balance. Ayesha, even more terrified, mutely but furiously nodded her head in agreement.

“That settles it, Hermione declared, simultaneously shedding her traveling cloak and thus revealing her sash of office (she had arrived directly from the Ministry).

“Even if your charms can't detect it, Harry's magical links are not completely gone. His elves still feel him. We can't wait any longer, and I don't do wish fulfillment, as you call it. I have to act for Harry - not me! I will exercise my plenipotentiary emergency powers to order it, if you force me to!”

For an agonizingly long moment, one could have heard an owl's feather drop.

“Minister Granger,” another healer spoke. I am Hippocrates Smethwyck, Head Healer on Duty. Ordinarily I would not countenance such a perilous course of action, but everything is about as far from ordinary as I can imagine. You may proceed, but I must insist on contacting the next of kin.”

“Harry's only living relative, magically, is his godson, Ted Lupin, a student at Hogwarts.” Hermione felt profoundly empty as she spoke those words. “But he is a minor….”

“No, Minister Granger,” the Head Healer corrected, “I mean your next of kin. I have authorized you to proceed. I did not say I would allow even you to commit suicide in a futile act. If Mister Potter's condition is indeed hopeless, there must be someone empowered to act in your best interests while you are incapable of so doing. That is the law, as I'm sure you know, counselor.”

The Head Healer's words - each one absolutely true - hit Hermione with another hammer blow. Aside from Rose, who was only eleven, she had no legal next of magical kin. She had divorced Ron, and unprecedented but undeniable act of will, and in any event he was somewhere else in the same hospital, incapacitated by his own injuries.

Her parents? Hermione had never fully reconciled with them in the wake of her Obliviating them during the War. Mum and Dad had never accepted what they saw as her invasion - however necessary - of their mental integrity. Thus they had chosen to stay in Australia.

As Minister, Hermione surely had the power to grant a medical power of attorney to anyone she designated, but to whom? She and Harry had deliberately kept their budding romance secret from everyone, even their closest friends. Whom could she depend on to appreciate exactly how much Harry really meant to her … that his life meant more to her at this moment than her own?

Who could appreciate that she loved Harry more than she had ever loved anything, or almost anyone, in her life…?

* * * *

Very few Gryffindors remained in the common room; most having retired for the evening. Ted Lupin and Tori Weasley occupied the same remote corner that they had claimed as their own since that memorable night Ted had invited Tori to use his wand.

That memory was not foremost in Tori's mind at the moment. She was far more concerned with the lack of any tangible progress in cracking their latest case. “Ted, we need to review everything,” she whispered insistently. “Face it, Rose won't be able to keep up her end much longer. She's not patient enough. She doesn't like being cooped up pretending she's sick. Sooner or later, and probably sooner, she'll give up the game. And then what? They'll try something worse.”

“So?” Ted replied, unconvinced. “I'm sure that your idol, and our new Minister, is more than a match for anything those creeps can throw at her.”

“Teddy,” Tori hissed, deliberately using the childish version of his name, “you know that's not true. You said yourself that your discovering that book was mostly luck.”

Ted winced. Luck had been involved, but less than he had let on. Quailing before his girlfriend's angrily flashing eyes, he retreated. “All right,” he signed. “It sounds like you've been plotting….”

A smile returned to Tori's face. “I have. Answer this - Why have we been maintaining this charade in the first place?”

“Easy - so the blackmailers don't know that they've failed.”

“Precisely,” Tori nodded. “And how would they know that?”

“Aaahh…,” Ted muttered, his realization growing as her Socratic exercise continued. “They must have someone on the inside here at Hogwarts. I'll bet it's a Slytherin.”

“If your godfather's right that Draco Malfoy is involved, then that's not much of a bet,” Tori agreed, keeping her voice down. “And I'm willing to bet that it's a student. Professor Shingleton hasn't shown the slightest interest in Rose's `affliction,' and besides he doesn't have Rose in any of his classes, since he only teaches Arithmancy and Ancient Runes.”

“We can certainly check,” Ted agreed. “Don't forget, I have that map. When Rose `falls ill' again, starting tomorrow, we can see if he goes anywhere near her.”

“Probably a waste of time, but I suppose useful,” Tori shrugged. She stole a kiss, more to make sure nobody was watching them than to pursue anything more. Ted could be skittish.

Ted was unhappy at having his suggestion dismissed so quickly. “I suppose you have a better idea?” he asked, suspecting her answer.

She did not disappoint. “You suppose correctly, mon cher,” she said, running her finger along Ted's collar. “Assume, as I do, that they've somehow recruited a student here. As you say, that person is almost certainly in Slytherin. Further, I'd be willing to bet that the spy is in at least one class with Rose. That limits our universe of prime suspects to Slytherin first years.”

Ted was impressed, if rather distracted by her closeness. Tori's reasoning, while not infallible, had logically reduced their list of possible culprits to no more than a dozen - and class lists were freely available. “So you're saying we should track Slytherin first years, as well as Shingleton, tomorrow with the Map? We'll need to work in shifts, since we have classes, and they could spy on Rose practically anywhere she goes, before being `confined' to the Hospital Wing.”

“The Map will be a big help, but we can narrow things down a bit more,” Tori continued. “A first year can't have a broom, or go to Hogsmeade like you did. If we keep watch on the Owlery….”

A look of satisfaction crossed Ted's face. “Now, I can do you one better, genius that you are,” he hissed. “There's a broom closet with a trapdoor leading to the Owlery's rafters. Back in third year, when I got detentions for that incident with the Weasley's Wheezes Technicolor whoopee cushion, I used it when assigned to clean the perches. It's locked, but I `inherited' a penknife that opens doors. One of the blades is damaged, but still more than a match for any broom closet.”

“We could hang Extendible Ears,” Tori added, shifting herself still closer to him. “We could overhear our quarry's delivery instructions.”

“I could even hide out up there,” Ted offered, forgetting about classes. “I know some spells that might intercept the owl. That would be progress.”

“I said we,” Tori insisted. “We're in this together.” She watched him closely.

“But … you'd miss classes…. And it'd be boring, cooped up in that closet. Who knows how long…?”

“Not with you, I wouldn't,” Tori replied, batting her eyelashes seductively and giving his thigh a squeeze. “I'm sure that, between us, we could figure out something to occupy ourselves while we waited.”

Tori was concerned. Ever since they had gotten together, Ted had been surprisingly reluctant to advance the physical side of their relationship. His idea of “the next level” seemed limited to snogging sessions. Again, she saw that flash of anxiety, even fear, in her boyfriend's eyes. There must be something he was scared to let her see, or perhaps to feel. Why wouldn't he tell her…?”

“Umm … well, I think we ought to check with … with Harry … before we … well … do this,” Ted stammered. “After all, we wouldn't want to compromise…. Oh my….”

Suddenly, Ted was looking well beyond her. From merely avoiding her eyes, he had now focused on something behind her - something that caused his jaw to drop. Tori turned and looked.

Only on rare occasions did Gryffindor's Head of House venture into the common room. Like now….

Professor Longbottom had just finished climbing through the portrait hole. His stern mien indicated that this was no social call.

Tori's eyes widened as Headmistress McGonagall herself entered. The Headmistress' lips were so thin as to be invisible. Someone must be in a great deal of trouble. Someone….

Tori shot a look at Ted. He looked just as surprised as she - but not guilty. Still, he was a master at disguising his emotions. Had there been…?

Her own father entered, his face as pale as she had ever seen it.

Now Tori could hardly breathe. She had done nothing to warrant this.

Oh mon dieu! Had something happened to maman? Tori held her breath, waiting for the inevitable summons.

After scanning the common room, Professor Longbottom's eyes landed on her. Tori braced herself, poised to respond….

“Will Ted Lupin come here?” It was not a question. Already half out of her seat at the sound of his voice, Tori fell back with a thud.

“Ted,” the professor repeated. “Now - it's urgent.” Tori watched with morbid fascination as Ted left her side and robotically approached the three adults, like a man about to be executed for something he did not do.

What could Ted possibly have done? Why was papa here? Had someone lied about them … their relationship? Mostly due to Ted's reluctance, they had not done anything - well, very little - that could warrant papa's intervention.

Tori strained to listen in, but almost immediately Headmistress McGonagall cast some sort of spell that filled her ears with a buzzing sound when she tried eavesdropping. Tori could do nothing but watch as Professor Longbottom gravely informed Ted of some recent event, probably calamitous. For an instant, Tori thought she saw Ted's hair start to curl and darken, but then - suddenly - his face went white, his jaw slack, and his hair abruptly turned ashy gray.

Tori could stand it no longer. Some tragedy had surely occurred. Ted needed her!

Impetuously, Tori nearly sprinted past the few other thoroughly confused Gryffindors still in the common room. Reaching Ted's side, she grabbed his hand and declared, “Ted, whatever it is, we'll get through this together.”

But the buzzing in her ears only increased. Ted almost jumped at being touched. Tori saw his face. He was sobbing. She had never seen Ted cry before. The adults, taken aback by her sudden intervention, had stopped talking and were glancing questioningly at one another. After a long moment, Bill finally nodded.

Headmistress McGonagall lifted her spell. That terrible buzzing stopped. Then she reapplied it with Tori on the inside.

“Ted! What happened? Is your grand-maman…?”

“No, it's Harry,” Ted choked out, his voice lifeless, “and Hermione…”

“What!?” Tori clutched Ted's limp arm like both of their lives depended on it.

“As I was saying,” Professor Longbottom summarized for her benefit, “Harry was right about Draco Malfoy, but his taking matters into his own hands may well cost him his life. He's on dual life support at St. Mungo's, cut off from the magical forces that sustain us all. Hermione … er, the Minister, is at this moment doing something to try to save…. I'm not exactly sure what…. She's put her own life at risk … she could die, too….”

Even Professor Longbottom was too choked up to continue. Tori was emphatically reminded that those two were probably the professor's closest friends from school. Tori felt Ted slump into her side.

Headmistress McGonagall, fighting back her own tears, took up the narrative. “Mister … I assume that since you're Mister … Harry's godson, he's mentioned to you, that is, well, that you're his only magically recognized relative. Even though you're still a minor, you need to be involved in any decision … decision, well, to end things….”

“Oh, Merlin,” Ted moaned. Tori almost stumbled as Ted's legs went wobbly and he leaned heavily into her, no longer able to support himself. She felt Bill's strong arms steady them both.

“…Because Ted is a minor, Professor Longbottom, as his Head of House, may assist as needed in loco parentis. The Minister … Hermione, has insisted in interposing her own magic in a last ditch effort to save Harry's life…. It's quite … possible that she could … perish … in the attempt….”

With each portentous word, Ted and Tori clung to one another more desperately.

“That's why I'm here,” Bill muttered, his tight voice almost squeaking as he tried to hold himself together. “Hermione designated Fleur, that's right, your mother, as her effective next of kin. I've come to collect Rose, as this involves both her parents…. Ron went with Harry, and was also badly injured - but he'll live,” he quickly added.

“Miss Weasley-Major, can you wake Rose Weasley - gently - and get her down here as quickly as possible?” Professor Longbottom asked. It was a request, not an order. “Every minute counts.”

“Can … can I come, too?” Tori haltingly made her own request.

“I think…. I think I'll leave that to Ted,” the Headmistress responded.

Tori could feel Ted's breath on her neck. “Yes, I think I'd like that.”

* * * *

In an uncharmed bed, Ted tossed fitfully. Since he, Tori, and an almost catatonic Rose had arrived at St. Mungo's in the wee hours of the morning, he and his girlfriend had taken turns trying to sleep in the room they - not that way - had been assigned. Those attempts had been mostly unsuccessful.

When not lying awake, Ted had spent most of his time cooling his heels in a drab institutional waiting room, praying nothing would happen. He had been ushered in to see Harry - and Hermione, for the time being they were one in the same - only once. For about ten minutes he had watched Hermione's unmistakable and unmoving bushy mane through a maze of tubes and talismans. Ted was not sure if he saw Harry at all.

But most of the time he sat, staring at a closed, battleship gray door, knowing that somewhere on the other side his godfather and his godfather's best friend/lover lay together in a life-sustaining embrace. Somehow she was using her magic to try re-tethering Harry to this world. Ted did not know what “interposition” meant, but more than once he had overheard healers discussing it in hushed, awestruck tones.

Ted dreaded that waiting room. At any minute a healer could emerge from that door with news that Hermione's effort had failed, and he would now have to make the most awful decision imaginable.

So far, so good. The moment of truth had yet to arrive.

Ted solemnly resolved that he would never say - never even think - anything unflattering about Hermione Granger ever again.

When not lying awake, Tori spent most of her time trying to console her cousin Rose, who virtually shut down emotionally on the news of both her father's and her mother's fates.

Tori also found herself comforting maman, also on the verge of cracking under the strain. Maman had the responsibility, voluntarily assumed at Hermione Granger's express and earnest request, to call a halt to Hermione's effort to save Harry's life by utilizing their apparently unique connection to one another to pump her magic into him - or so maman had been informed by the healers.

The situation led mother and daughter into a lengthy conversation about the meaning of love. Maman was convinced that deep and abiding love drove Hermione's actions, and that Hermione would rather perish in her attempt than live to see it fail. Knowing this, Hermione had appointed maman to the role of guardian of her best interests, not to let that happen - even though the woman in question might personally disagree with the result.

In the end, Hermione's responsibilities as Minister for Magic had overridden her personal desires - but only because she knew that Harry would want it that way.

Tori ultimately agreed with maman, but remained profoundly relieved at not having that cup before her. Could she ever do the same…?

When Tori returned to check on Ted, a new idea had come to her.

“Ted?”

“Hi, Tori.”

“Did you sleep at all?”

“Not really. Spent the time dreading some healer coming for me.” Ted's stomach growled audibly.

“Would you like me to get us something to eat?”

He smiled wanly. “Thanks, but I had quite enough of hospital food overnight.”

“I could try to sneak out and find something better,” Tori offered. “You always have to be reachable, not me.”

Ted winced at the reminder, true though it was. “Are they still out there?”

Tori stepped to the window and drew back the curtain. “If anything, more are there now than when we arrived.”

Once it became clear that Hermione would not be leaving St. Mungo's anytime soon, Aurors had arrived and raised security wards around the hospital. To gain access, the group from Hogwarts had to pass through a subdued crowd of onlookers. As news spread of what was happening inside, witches and wizards spontaneously gathered to keep silent vigil within view of the building.

A free special edition of the Prophet had been distributed minutes before Ted and Tori arrived. A copy of the extra now lay on a side table, with recent magical pictures of Harry and Hermione staring longingly in each other's direction. Below the pictures, a headline screamed: STARCROSSED? MINISTER OFFERS HER LIFE FOR THE BOY WHO LIVED(?).

“I'll pass, then, at least for now,” Ted declined her offer.

Tori stared at the Prophet for several seconds before turning back to Ted.

“Every minute that passes, I have to think, makes the worst less likely.”

“Merlin, I hope so,” Ted sighed. “I don't know … know if I could do that. I'd rather kill myself.”

Tori gasped in shock. “Ted, don't say that! Don't even think that! Think about … the rest of us! Anyway, I'm constantly more optimistic that it won't happen, so I have an idea - it involves you.”

“Gah!” Ted flopped back on the hard mattress. “So tell me … Merlin knows I could use to think about something that's not morbid, for a change.”

“Okay. You've never exactly told me, but I gather that after Harry did his runner, you `inherited,' if that's the right word, his personal effects.” She waited for Ted to confirm this.

Ted did. “Well, yeah, I got that kind of stuff. Most of it's still in my gran's vault, though. I'd rather give it back, but Harry has told me several times to keep it - although that might more for the benefit of Gringotts' goblins than anything else.”

“Can you get one thing out,” Tori asked, “for my sake, if not yours?”

“Umm, sure. What do you want?”

“I have this idea - if she succeeds in saving him. I mean, it's been going on quite long enough….”

“What is it?”

“Harry's mother's wedding ring.”

At the mention of that, Ted's heart started beating almost out of his chest. All he could think was she couldn't mean…. Harry had told him, more than once, that he had to come clean with her, but he had been too … scared, ashamed, cowardly, whatever, to reveal his darkest secret to the woman he believed he loved. Now she was….

“Tori, why?” Ted choked out, his throat suddenly dry as a totally new terror beset him.

“I want you to give it back to Harry,” Tori declared. “And if he doesn't understand what to do with it, then we'll bien sûr lay it out for him. They've gone on long enough. But she'll never ask him; she's too self-conscious about looking twice his age, for one thing.”

Ted found he could breathe again. “You … you want to play matchmaker between the Minister for Magic and the Boy Who Lived Again?” Her proposal was more audacious, if less personal, than he had thought. Still, he was profoundly relieved at having dodged a bullet Tori had not fired.

“Why not?” Tori retorted, her eyes defiant. “I think it's beautiful. After all they've been through, they deserve a little happiness, don't you think. I know Harry's your hero - I admit that Hermione's mine - but they're just not romantics at heart.”

Harry? Not a romantic? If Harry was a failure at love, than what was he?

Then and there, Ted decided he did not want to dodge that bullet after all.

“All right, I'll do it,” Ted agreed. “But can you sit down? There's something I want to talk about, too. Something I need to tell you. Harry would want me to.”

“Ted?”

His face had flushed red, in dramatic contrast to a minute or so earlier. “Just … please.” Ted motioned to the shabby gray-green plastic scoop chair near the bed in which he was still laying.

Tori sat. Her flawless blue eyes, which had never looked larger than right now, bore into him. Unasked questions danced in them, but her expression was … hopeful.

“There's something you should know. I need to tell you now, before anything goes any further….”

“Ted…” Her voice fairly caressed his name.

“I'm…. I'm a werewolf,” Ted blurted it out and tightly closed his eyes.

She was on her feet, Ted could hear it.

He expected the next sound would be the door slamming, but….

Suddenly she was on top of him, her lips pressed passionately against his, her tongue demanding entrance.

Ted had envisioned a variety of reactions from Tori when she learned of his great congenital affliction - revulsion, fear, pity, betrayal - but in his wildest dreams he had never expected, not for an instant, that her response would be to snog him senseless.

It all felt so wonderful; he suppressed his surprise and let her carry on.

Eventually, they came up for air.

“Umm … Tori, did you hear what I said?”

“Yes.”

“I said I'm a werewolf. I have been since birth.”

“I know.”

“You - what - you know?”

“I figured it out a while ago. That's something else you can thank Hermione for.”

“But…. If you knew, why didn't you say something?”

“Because you hadn't - and now you have.” She leaned in and once again took possession of his lips, forcefully.

Another break in the action. Another question.

“When did you, you know, figure it out?”

“Shortly before you first let me use your wand, after Hermione explained why werewolves can't have children.”

“And you let me go ahead? How could you? How can a witch like you love a werewolf?”

Tori drew back and looked him straight in the eye. “I don't love a werewolf. I love one Theodore J. Lupin, who happens to be both a werewolf and a metamorphmagus. And now, at last, I can let myself believe that you really love me, too.”

Needless to say, another physical demonstration of that fact followed.

“How did you know? I mean, I do, of course but….”

“You finally passed the test - the sincerity test.”

The penny dropped in Ted's mind. “Which was telling you the truth about being a werewolf.”

“Precisely,” Tori confirmed. “Until you could tell me that, despite all the implications it undoubtedly has, I couldn't be sure - absolutely sure - you were serious about our relationship.”

By now, she was practically sitting in his lap. They were both in the same bed.

“Well, you obviously know the worst of those implications - that werewolves can't have children.”

“No, I most certainly don't know that,” Tori protested. “You're here, aren't you?”

“Yes, but my mum….”

“…was also a metamorphmagus,” Tori finished his sentence for him, putting a finger against Ted's lips to silence him. “She must have done that super-cell-deep metamorphosis, the one you used to fool the Castle's wards, every full moon throughout her pregnancy with you. That's the only way you could have been born.”

Sometimes there were distinct advantages to associating with super-geniuses - especially falling in love with one.

He would have to remind Harry.

“But you're not a metamorphmagus,” Ted pointed out. More than the press of Tori's magnificent body against his was leaving him breathless. The turn of their conversation presumed that they would….

“But you are,” Tori replied, with certainty enough to leave no doubt that, this too, she had figured out in advance. “When the time comes, you can do the same supermorph, but into your human side. We'll have to test my theory, of course, but I'm personally convinced that the morph will affect your sperm - just like every other cell in your body.”

Tori had just made that assumption explicit. “M-m-my … sperm?”

“Of course, but we'll have to test it - not now, of course.”

She rolled full on top of Ted and proceeded to snog him within an inch of his life - until….

“Theodore Lupin! Just what in hell do you think you're doing with my daughter!?” Bill Weasley's harsh voice rang from the doorway.

In a flurry of arms and legs, Ted and Tori jumped apart and futilely tried to pretend as if nothing had been happening.

“Well?” Bill's face was just as stern as his voice.

“What did it look like? We were snogging.” Tori answered, her words expressing all of the defiance of a teenager in love.

“Well, you'd best put a stop to it,” Bill growled.

With the teens bracing for the worst, Bill's features lightened almost immediately. “I've just been told that they're out of mortal danger. Hermione did it. Harry's reconnected to his magic. He'll live, as will she.”

Ted could have floated out of the room. “Can … can I see them?” he asked.

“Not now,” Bill shook his head. “He's still in a deep coma. His recovery will be long and difficult. It could take weeks. But I'm assured that he will recover. The healers showed Fleur and me his restored aura.”

32

C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\HP & The Fifth Element.ch51 Padfoot's legacy.doc 10/12/2013

Document created with wvWare/wvWare version 1.2.7

-->

2. Chapter 48 - Breaks In The Case

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

C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\HP & The Fifth Element.ch51 Padfoot's legacy.doc 10/12/2013

Document created with wvWare/wvWare version 1.2.7

-->

3. Chapter 49 - Announced Mate

Coming Back Later

Here is the third 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 only one more chapter to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion.

Chapter 49 - Announced Mate

The black velvet curtain of unconsciousness slowly retreated across Harry's mind. The first thing he noticed was feeling stiff. Stiffness was certainly an improvement from blinding sheets of pain, but it was still worrisome. From all too much personal experience, Harry knew that stiffness signified long-term muscular inactivity.

That, and bruises … lots of bruises.

But he was breathing. That counted for something.

Harry's other noticeable sensation was heaviness, as in weight…. He felt heavy, another sign of lengthy muscle nonuse, possibly long enough for atrophy to set in.

Hard-earned experience also told Harry knew that heaviness meant that his consciousness - or his soul, if you will, was firmly tethered to his body.

In short, Harry knew he remained alive.

That counted for a lot.

When last conscious, Harry had not expected to experience a next time.

While he doubted he had ever been unconscious this long before, Harry had plenty of experience in unconsciousness. He knew how to go about regaining consciousness.

First things first. Inventory all available body parts. Harry certainly hoped everything was still present, but that had been one hell of an explosion. If not he would have to live with it. But he would be living.

Let's see…. Right leg and foot? Check. Harry repeated the process, successfully, on all four limbs.

Even that had been exhausting. Harry rested, readying himself for the next hurdle. He tried opening his eyes. He succeeded, but the light was so damn bright. Harry could not help groaning as he slumped down, back into something soft. He was in some sort of….

“Blimey, Harry … is that really you, mate? You're finally awake?”

Ron.

Harry heard something, large and flat by the sound of it, hit the ground. Ron must have leapt to his feet. His heavy footfalls quickly approached his bedside. Trying to call Ron's name, Harry managed only an unintelligible gasping gurgle.

Harry felt Ron grab him clumsily about the neck and try to pull him into a sitting position.

“Oh, shit, I forgot…. Sorry mate!”

Ron released him, and Harry flopped back onto a bed which Harry had yet actually to see. Again he tried opening his eyes, but they were unused to the light. He might have caught a glimpse of Ron running in the opposite direction.

Ron returned apace. “Right, Hermione said you needed this.”

At his mention of her name, memories of their last semi-encounter flooded back. It might have been a dream, but deep down Harry knew it was more.

Hermione had faced down Death for him. Harry knew, from personal experience, that such encounters often did not end well. He could not recall if Hermione had escaped….

Hearing Ron mention her name so casually filled Harry with hope. She must be alive, and at least reasonably well otherwise Ron….

His aforementioned male best friend interrupted Harry's train of thought - grabbing him, cursing, releasing and dropping him, then shifting to the other side of the bed. Ron grunted as he lifted Harry back up.

“Here, mate, drink this,” Ron urged as he pushed a goblet to Harry's lips.

Groaning, Harry tried, but his disused swallowing reflex was loath to cooperate. Whatever potion Ron was offering slopped down Harry's chest as Harry tried his best to drink it.

“Oh, bugger all! Sorry, Harry.”

Harry nearly gagged at the first swallow, but unlike most potions, this one tasted wonderful, like warm honey, spiced with cinnamon and a just a dash of pepper. Each swallow made the next one easier.

“That's right, Harry. Drink up. It's Hermione's special blend of Pepper-Up.”

Harry soon downed the entire offering, save for what decorated his pyjamas. The fog cleared from his mind, perhaps emerging through his ears, as the potion worked its magic.

Harry's first coherent sentence sought confirmation. “Ron - Hermione, how is she?”

With Ron still supporting him, Harry felt him sigh. “Not near as well as she will be, once she learns you're finally awake.”

“She's okay? She didn't, umm, die?”

“Not bloody likely,” Ron chuckled rather ruefully. “I just reckon she returned your favor. She….”

POP-POP!

Two ecstatic house-elves appeared in the room.

“Oh, Master Harry, youse finally being awake!” Ayesha babbled as she bounced on her toes.

“Mister Harry has come back,” Brillig pointedly corrected. Mistress Hermy will be so happy. Me's fearing she's been a-working too hard. Trying not to show she's worried.”

“She's always worked too hard,” Ron commented. “Nothing new there.”

Harry was instantly interested in what these elves could tell him about Hermione. As happy as he was to wake up in Ron's company, his first choice was - and would always be - Hermione. “How is Hermione?” he inquired, sounding a bit worried.

“Don't worry, Mate,” Ron responded first. “She'll be fine now.”

The question was really directed to Brillig, who had mentioned Hermione. As elves often do, she took the question literally. “Miz Hermy is … very busy right now, in a secret meeting….”

“A meeting so secret we isn't even allowed to tell you,” Ayesha added.

Brillig looked scandalized. “Shouldn't we be telling Master Harry whatever he wants to know?”

“But Miz Hermy, she was sayin' that nobody can find out….”

“But Mr. Harry wants to know….”

“No, that's all right,” Harry brought the elves' attention back to him. “If it's that big of a secret that Hermione might not even want me to know, let it go. Can you at least tell her that I'm awake, I sure she'd like to know that.”

Before either of the two elves could hasten to obey, another elven voice echoed from the next room. “Canby would be honored to so inform the Minister, Mr. Potter, sir. You two should make ready,” he addressed Harry's elves. “There are certain to be many visitors tomorrow.”

Each was more than happy to do as Canby asked. Brillig and Ayesha scampered off after batting their eyelashes at the newcomer. Brillig stopped just an instant to gather up a large pizza box from the floor where Ron had dropped it.

“Bloody hell!” Ron swore as Brillig made off with what was supposed to be his dinner.

“Canby, I apologize,” Harry cut in, intensely aware that Canby had been caught in his Malfoy debacle. “I should have trusted that Hermione would have matters in hand. I hope you weren't badly injured.”

The effect of his apology on Canby surprised Harry. The elf was struggling to hold back tears. The free Ministry elf was behaving almost like Dobby used to.

“It's nothing, Harry Potter, sir. It is your friend to whom you should apologize. May I be excused?” the overwrought elf requested. “I should organize the Minister's office before I leave to inform her of your recovery.”

Canby stayed rooted to the spot until Harry dismissed him.

Shooting Ron a quizzical look, Harry wondered what was going on.

“I think he means this,” Ron responded with a resigned grimace. Pulling back his right sleeve Ron revealed … nothing.

“Merlin, Ron what happened?” Harry gawked. “No, it couldn't…. Was it?”

“I'm afraid so,” Ron replied. “The same blast that damn near killed you took my wand hand.”

Harry instantly felt guilty. He had recruited Ron for his vigilante effort against Malfoy (may he burn in Hell), and everyone paid a steep price for his miscalculation. “How?” Harry needed to know.

“Turns out, all kinds of nasty, black-arts stuff was stored there,” Ron shook his head. “Consensus seems to be it was Snape's former house. During the explosion something cursed and really sharp skewered my wrist. Never did find out what. They had to cut off my hand to stop the curse from spreading.”

Shaken, and recalling what had happened to Dumbledore, Harry said softly, “I'm sorry, Ron.”

“Not half as sorry as I am,” Ron shot back, somewhat, but not wholly, joking. “Nothing I can do about it now, though, and I'd do it again, since that bastard was trying to hurt Rosie. Anyway, I've still got hope, thanks to Her Majesty….”

Harry was stunned. “What? Who?”

Ron realized that might be too much, with Harry just revived and still disoriented. “Relax, Harry,” Ron tried soothing his friend. “I just meant our fearless leader, the Minister Who Can Do No Wrong.”

“Hermione?” Harry caught on. “What can she do?”

“What can't she do?” Ron chuckled before being more specific. “As for me? Well, like I said they found all sorts of things in that old place, most of them Dark. According to her, one thing that turned up was the instructions for whatever spell Voldemort used to give Ratface Pettigrew that replacement hand. She's having the Unspeakables check that spell out. If it's not Dark, she's promised that I'll be first in line for a replacement of my own.”

“What did you mean when you said she can do no wrong?”

“Right now, she's everybody's golden girl,” Ron smirked. “Everything's fallen her way in the weeks since your accident - except you - and now you're back!”

Harry stared at Ron incredulously. “Weeks? Ron, how long have I been out?”

“Today's November third,” Ron revealed. You've been out of it for almost three weeks. After the first week, once St. Mungo's gave the okay for her to move you, she brought you here.”

That was something else Harry had not thought about. “Where's here?”

“It's called `The Ossuary',” Ron informed him. “You rented it, remember. Hermione - sorry, Minister Granger - has a temporary office through that door.” Ron pointed across the room. “Unless she has to be away for some official business, like last week's Halloween remembrance or tonight's hush-hush whatever, she tries to stay right here to watch over you. She even kips in a foldaway right next to you.”

Harry was worried. While the most important reason they had kept their budding relationship secret was its possible effect on Rosie, public appearances were also a factor. She was thirty-two, he looked seventeen. Accusations that she was “robbing the cradle” could have political implications.

Harry had his own deep-seated and long-standing aversion to having his personal affairs aired in public. “So the secret's out,” he declared grimly. It was not a question. “Has it hurt her much?”

That drew a chortle from Ron. “Hurt her? Are you kidding? Didn't you hear when I said she can do no wrong? Turns out that just about everybody, witch or wizard, is a sucker for a good love story.”

Harry blinked. Hermione was almost always right, but apparently she had been wrong about the public's reaction to their romantic entanglement. That changed things, potentially quite a bit.

“That's the second time you said that,” Harry commented. “What do you mean do no wrong?”

“Hah!” Ron burst out. “How much sympathy do you think came her way when it turned out that she was the victim of a nefarious plot against her little girl? Then she charges into St. Mungo's and nearly dies….”

“Oh, Merlin!”

“…That's what the papers said, anyway. Ready to sacrifice her magic and her life to save the Boy Who Lived Again when all the healers thought it was hopeless. Saves him, they say, by mixing their magic or something like that. According to the papers, and from what I've seen, it's bloody well true.”

“What's bloody well true?”

“Mixing magic,” Ron repeated, not sounding as cheerful as before. Harry was all too familiar with the new jealous tone seeping into his voice.

“Maybe you don't know, but that's how traditional wizard marriages are cemented,” Ron continued. “Husband and wife mix their magic and become one. In all the time we were married, Hermione never did that with me. Instead we had some Muggle ceremony….”

“Ron,” Harry interrupted. “Please don't go that way. Don't try comparing your marriage with my relationship. You wanted the divorce.”

Ron deflated. “Yeah, I suppose that's true, and there's nothing I can do about it anyway. But what I just said is true, too. You saw how those elves reacted. Your pair now obeys Hermione, and that Ministry Elf of hers….”

“He's Canby.”

“Well, he sure acted like he's now bonded to you. So without even being married, your magicks are mixed. Anyway, everybody loves a good love story, and it's done wonders for Hermione's popularity. But that's not all.

“What.”

“Starting right after you were hurt, the Confederation, with information Hermione provided, smashes a massive international crime ring. Political opposition collapses. That bastard Zabini's in Azkaban….”

`So she figured that out, too,' Harry thought.

“…because it turns out Malfoy was his bloody tool to go after Rosie. He was trying to blackmail Hermione to help out that crime ring. Hell, they caught one of its leaders right in Zabini's….” Ron's voice trailed off and his enthusiasm abruptly dissipated. “Oh, hell….”

Harry had been distracted. That was not why Harry thought Zabini would wind up in Azkaban. Hearing Ron falter, Harry surrendered those thoughts and focused on Ron's crestfallen countenance. “What, Ron.”

“Ginny was…. Ginny is…. She's in the long-term spell damage wing at St. Mungo's, and probably always will be.”

“Oh, no,” Harry whispered. “What now?”

“One of the crime ringleaders was caught - with Zabini - at Zabini's own manor. But not before he used some evil Memory Charm that … that destroyed Ginny's mind. Zabini claimed he was in love with her, but I always knew he'd only hurt her…. I had no idea how badly.”

Harry was seething. “When I'm back to one hundred percent,” he hissed through clenched teeth, “I think I ought to pay that low-life scum a visit.”

“I had the same thought at first,” Ron commented. “But he's in Azkaban already. Let them have him. I don't see how his life could get much worse. Fuck him.”

On one level, Harry agreed with Ron. Zabini was being punished much more thoroughly and lengthily than anything he, Harry, could do. On another level, however, Harry thought things could get worse for the despicable Slytherin. Hermione knew a lot, but apparently had not yet discovered the depths of that wizard's depravity.

Speak of the devil.

“Harry!” a familiar voice called from several rooms away. “Are you awake? Canby said you were, and I'm so sorry I took this long to get back.”

Harry could not help himself. He broke into a huge, excited grin.

“Well, mate,” Ron slapped Harry on the back with his remaining hand. “This is my cue to get off. If it's all the same to you, I'd just as soon not stay for your reunion with my ex-wife.”

* * * *

The moment Canby stealthily slipped into the room, Hermione suspected what might be afoot. House elves, even in Ministry employ, could not just “pop in” to Gringotts. To reach her had to have taken considerable effort. Although a free elf, Canby still utilized his almost preternatural elfin capability for inconspicuity.

It served them both well. Hermione's personally conducted top-secret negotiations with the goblins were at a delicate stage. Success would mark a watershed in goblin-wizard relations.

The dizzying fall of Blaise Zabini, coinciding with her sudden and wholly unexpected surge in popularity had created an auspicious political environment. Traditionalist opposition was disheartened and leaderless after exposure of Zabini's attempted blackmail plot. Revulsion against targeting Hermione's eleven-year-old daughter for poisoning crossed the political spectrum. Everyone had children. Zabini's fall discredited, at least for a while, opposition from the conservatives.

Hermione intended to take full advantage of this unexpected political opening. She had already raised eyebrows. Not only had she invited Muggle and goblin representatives to last week's annual Halloween memorial celebration at the Ministry, but they sat with her at the high table.

Unbeknownst to all but a few trusted supporters, her initiative was far more ambitious. She had offered both - and the centaurs, who showed no interest - formal diplomatic recognition. The Muggles were immediately amenable. Relations of a sort already existed between the Minister for Magic and the Muggle Prime Minister. Formalizing them would only require some tweaking of the Statute of Secrecy. However, the status of the Muggle United Kingdom as an independent political entity was never in question.

The goblins were much different. Before Voldemort's fall, for centuries the goblins had been treated as “magical creatures,” meaning sub-human, barely more than beasts. Goblins had been useful for certain things, but not entitled to wizard political rights. The most controversial aspect of Kingsley's ministry reforms had been giving goblins a voice in wizard affairs. Most notably three goblin seats had been added to the Wizengamot. Kingsley's approach had been to incorporate goblins as citizens of the wizard world.

Hermione was proposing something altogether different. To her way of thinking, goblins should be treated as members of a wholly independent nation state, equal in every way with both the Muggles and her own Ministry. The goblins, naturally suspicious, were ill-inclined to surrender their Wizengamot seats, but they were even more intrigued at the prospect of complete elimination of discriminatory legislation. With independence, if they wanted to possess wands, they could.

The goblins had reserved the recognition question. Their leadership would mull that among themselves. Hermione was in the process of nuts-and-bolts negotiations when Canby brought her good news about Harry. Suppressing an urge to drop everything and depart, Hermione continued with her advocacy.

She offered another carrot to induce a favorable outcome - diplomatic immunity. If the goblins located their embassy within Gringotts, the bank (although not its depositors) could operate without interference by wizard law. Gringotts had been chafing under certain wizard regulations for as long as Hermione could remember. Using immunity in this fashion significantly sweetened the pot.

The extra incentive was needed. Never in goblin-recorded history had any wizard entered goblin territory, except as an armed invader. Hermione's proposal would require that several wizards be in residence permanently, and in a facility likewise entitled to diplomatic immunity and exempt from goblin law.

The goblins trusted this Minister more than any of her predecessors, but that hardly meant much. An agonizing half hour passed before a compromise on the exchange of embassies was hammered out - something each side could present without embarrassment.

Fortunately, goblins did not value chitchat. They did not expect their guest to linger after the negotiating session. As quickly as was politic, Hermione gathered her papers and departed. Urgently she summoned Jason Moore, commander of her personal security detail. “Home! Immediately!” she ordered in a hissing whisper, her need for speed almost overcoming her desire for confidentiality. “I understand that Harry's finally awake - thank Merlin - and asking for me.”

Apparating to the Ossuary, Hermione had orders for the Aurors responsible for her safety. “When everyone finds out Harry's back, it will be pandemonium. Let me have an hour alone with him, first….”

“I can guess how much this means to you, Minister, but be reasonable. He needs a Healer's immediate attention,” Moore resisted.

“After what I've been through, nobody cares more about Harry's safety,” Hermione huffed. “Canby's note didn't indicate any distress. I swear, at the slightest sign of a medical issue, my Patronus will be on its way to St. Mungo's before you could do anything.”

Minister Granger was his superior, so Moore agreed. Still, his choice would have been to call the Healers first.

But he was not in love with Harry Potter.

Finally free of her many duties, Hermione trotted up the Ossuary's grand marble staircase She passed the master bedroom she had converted into a home office and from which she had, more often than not, run her Ministry for the past several weeks. Most nights she slept in Harry's sickroom in the guest bedroom just down the hall, if “slept” was the word. Every two hours she would wake - partly in atonement, partly because Harry's elves were inexperienced - to cast spells that turned Harry's body and prevented bedsores.

Fatigue helped drive away memories of her last conversation with Harry.

At last he was awake. It would no longer be their last conversation.

Hermione's pace quickened the closer she came to Harry. “Harry, are you there?” she cried as she burst into her room. “Ron, is Harry…?”

Time came to a halt. The rest of the universe faded into insignificance. There sat Harry, propped up by some pillows, a weak smile on his face. His eyes - those green eyes sublime that she had, at times, almost despaired of ever seeing again, stared back at her. Both his love, and a thousand questions, danced in those eyes.

“Oh, Harry, thank Merlin you're alive,” Hermione wailed, unable to hold back tears any longer. Happy tears fell as a wave of relief swept away any attempt she might have made at a more eloquent reunion.

“Hermione,” Harry rasped, his voice sounding uncharacteristically weak. “I'm glad, too. I'm sorry, but I had to try.”

Only with him did she need not try to be Minister Granger, still thought of by most as the Witch Who Won. Only with Harry could she still let her very real frailties show.

Of course, some of these frailties only involved Harry Potter.

Hopefully, Harry shimmied to one side and patted the vacated spot on the mattress, indicating that he wanted Hermione to be with him.

Hermione carefully slipped onto the bed next to Harry. No enthusiastic hugs - not until Harry passed a physical - or anything more intimate. “Please, Harry, never again,” she murmured curling up next to him. I don't think I can take it. They said you would die…. All of them. That there was nothing anyone could do…! I can't do this again…!”

Harry held her as Hermione sobbed her entreaties. How could he have been so daft as to risk everything he had with the most wonderful witch - no, the most wonderful person - he had ever known.

“…I know you meant well. I know it's part of your nature,” Hermione continued. “But you don't have to be a savior, or a hero, anymore. Voldemort's gone, Harry … even Zabini's in Azkaban….”

Hermione's words stirred the doubts Harry felt about himself. His great moments were in the past - hers were just beginning. The bit about Zabini also piqued his interest, but before he could ask….

“…Don't be a hero, Harry, not anymore. Don't play the fool with your life, not again….”

Harry stiffened. He had spent fourteen years as a Muggle, long stretches with only a radio for company. What would Hermione say next?

How did he feel about that?

Expectant - not at all apprehensive, he realized.

“…So please be careful. If you make me go through this again, I'll go crazy….”

No, Hermione was not going there. So Harry went somewhere else.

“Hermione, what did you do?”

It was Hermione's turn to stiffen. His capacity for unjustifiably assumed guilt was greater than anyone she had ever met - greater even than her own.

Barely audibly, she questioned his question. “Do you really want to know? Isn't it enough that I saved your life without losing mine?”

Harry knew the answer to that. “Yes, I think I do,” he whispered in her ear. “It's like you said. I know I've done things that I think are right, but I've hurt you so badly they can't be. For both of us, I need to stop doing them. You nearly died before because of my saving people thing. Then I abandoned you. For my own sake, and yours, I need to exactly how badly I cocked up my latest adventure.”

Ouch. Even after promising no more secrets, and demanding the same from him, Hermione had never told him how exactly how close she had come to dying that night in the Department of Mysteries.

It took little convincing for Hermione to agree that Harry was right. It would be cathartic just to get what had happened off of her chest.

“All, right, Harry, I'll tell you, but it isn't pretty.”

“I have no illusions.”

“I used a little-known magical technique called `Interposition'.”

“And … none of the healers at St. Mungo's could do this better than you?”

“Only a couple had even heard of it, and they thought it was impossible for me to use it to save your life.”

“Impossible? Nothing's impossible for you.”

“For interposition to work, an intensely personal affinity must exist between the affected persons. All prior known successes involved spouses or immediate blood relatives,” Hermione informed him, unwittingly corroborating what Ron had said. “I had neither, but I did have the pendant. I had to trust that it would be enough, and in the end it was.”

Harry recalled that Ron had compared what she did to mixing their magic. “Nobody believed you?” he asked.

“Not a soul,” Hermione hissed, biting back bitterness. “Everyone, every Healer at St. Mungo's, thought you were a hopeless case. Malfoy's synergistic potions exploded right in your gut…. Oh Merlin, they said your viscera had been destroyed. They wouldn't let me see your front side, and I didn't want to…. I'm sure I would have lost it.”

Hermione's words shocked Harry enough to instinctively feel his midsection - to be sure it was still there. “I would have kept you away, too,” Harry sighed, stroking her hair to keep her as calm as possible.

“They told me that magic, only magic, could regenerate your organs, but something, maybe the blast or maybe your injuries, had also separated you from your magic…. That's when I demanded to try Interposition. That's what it can fix.”

“You're not a healer. What gave you that idea?”

“It was important for one of my early cases,” Hermione revealed. “I was assigned to prosecute a mid-level Death Eater. He had killed an Unspeakable's wife and done unspeakable things to the poor man's two children. Like you, the children were magically marooned, and dying, when the Unspeakable arrived home. In desperation he attempted Interposition to save his children. Regrettably, he lacked sufficient magical reserves to revive them both, and he refused to choose. As a result, all three died. I researched Interposition because I had to decide whether the Death Eater could be prosecuted for murdering the Unspeakable himself, in addition to his family.”

“Knowing you, you did.”

“No, I didn't,” Hermione admitted. “I determined that Interposition was sufficiently dangerous to the user that a murder conviction for his death was questionable. My opponent's barristers would have asserted a rather persuasive suicide defense. I decided that I had enough charges that were sure things that it wouldn't have made any difference at sentencing.”

“Hermione, you could have died - and you knew it.”

She shrugged. “That didn't matter. If I didn't do it, you would surely have died.”

“But it should have,” Harry whispered in her ear, holding her close. “Hermione, you're Minister for Magic. You have everything, amazing opportunities, ahead of you. The whole country is depending on you. When push comes to shove, I'm a has-been. My future is past, ever since I fulfilled my prophecy. I'm not worth your life … not anymore. It's….”

Hermione backed away from Harry and practically screamed, “RAT'S ASS!”

“What?” Harry was too stunned at Hermione's outburst to say anything more.

“Rat's ass,” Hermione repeated. “It's just like you said, when you went through the veil to save me. You said you didn't care a rat's ass whether you lived, if I didn't. Well, it just so happens that I feel the same way. A life without you in it, frankly, doesn't hold that much appeal to me.”

“But, you're Minister for Magic,” Harry reminded her.

“Yes,” she admitted. “And there are times that I hate my job for what it forces me to do. I had nightmares ever since that I would never have another chance just to do this. I felt utterly miserable and worthless for the better part of two weeks knowing that the last time we might ever have spoken was when I was deliberately hurtful to you because of my job….”

Harry remembered their last conversation well. “It's okay, Hermione,” he reassured. “I knew that you were faking being mad at me because you had an audience.”

“I thought what you had done was brilliant, but for bloody political reasons I had to act angry and humiliate you before that audience,” Hermione confirmed through clenched teeth. “You did what you did for me and my daughter, and I deliberately played the ingrate.”

“Hermione did what you did hurt?”

“It tore me up inside, but I had to do it or my enemies would have accused me of hypocrisy. Nobody had proof….”

“No, I meant this Interposition thing,” Harry clarified.

A look of genuine surprise on her face, Hermione paused. “Umm … no, not physical pain. I was unconscious throughout. You needed my magic more than I did. The worst thing was having to name a next of kin. Since my parents won't have much to do with me….” She halted. This was something else she had never told Harry.

She sighed. “Yes, my parents never really forgave me for altering their memories. They never came back from Australia. I picked Fleur as my next of kin.”

Once again, Hermione was on the edge of tears. Harry reached over and gathered her in his arms and aimlessly rubbed her back. “We should go talk to them,” he declared. “And we will. You're Minister for Magic now. They should be bloody proud of you for all you've accomplished.”

“I doubt it,” Hermione shook her head. “They don't want anything more to do with magic.”

Harry remembered something. “But they came back - at least I think they did - when you and Ron were married.”

“Yes, and hated almost every minute of it,” Hermione sighed. “They were not terribly impressed with Ron, and they had nothing whatever in common with his family. They were going to spend a week in Britain, but changed their plans to leave immediately after the wedding. They haven't been back since, and I haven't even heard from them in over a year. They don't know about you, for one thing.”

“They will,” Harry affirmed, pulling Hermione closer. “Because we're going to tell them - even if we have to go all the way to Australia to do it.”

Hermione regarded him seriously. “What exactly would we tell them, Harry?”

To Harry the answer was obvious. “The truth. Ron says that after what you did everybody knows about us anyway. Frankly, I like it better that way.”

“He's right,” Hermione admitted. “When I learned you were on the edge of death, I didn't have the time or inclination to deny the obvious any longer. As it turned out, there was never any reason to. Beforehand, I never would have believed it, but I couldn't have made a better move politically. It seems everyone likes a love story.”

“That's what Ron said, although he wasn't nearly as pleased with it,” Harry grinned. “I gather that, from a political perspective, what happened to me was just what the doctor ordered, so to speak.”

Hermione pulled away and looked at him, scandalized. “Don't you ever - ever - say that again! Politics was the farthest thing from my mind. YOU! You were all that mattered. Anything, everything, else was just … just….”

“Noise?”

“That'll do, Harry,” Hermione smiled at him.

“I know the feeling,” he responded.

“Harry, I know that for practically all your life you've measured your worth by what you've done, or have to do. It's time to stop that. You have intrinsic worth. To me, you're everything. Politics is nothing, nothing, by comparison. It … it … sucks. I might be on top now, but half those bastards will stick a knife in my back the first chance they get….”

“Like Blaise Zabini?” Harry interrupted Hermione's rant.

“Him, at least I'm well shot of,” Hermione replied. “He'll die in Azkaban for what he did.”

“So you figured that out, too, while I was out,” Harry commented. “Congratulations. That son-of-a-witch deserved whatever he got.”

“I quite agree,” Hermione huffed. “Putting an innocent child's life at risk in service of his Cartel lords. While I wouldn't wish what happened to Ginny on anyone - even her - that's more fitting punishment for Zabini than anything we could do to him.”

Harry was gawking at his bedmate before she finished. “What? What exactly happened while I was out? I heard some of it from Ron, but not all this….”

Hermione filled him with the details of Ginny's unfortunate fate at the hands of Ibn al Afrit, and about how Zabini again feigned cooperation with the ICW after that event. This time, however, the result was different, and Zabini was caught red-handed.

“…We tracked the owls that Malfoy used for intelligence about what was happening to Rosie. They delivered their messages to a Fidelus-protected post box. We discovered that the box had been prepaid for many years by none other than our old friend, Edwin Lovinett. The Cartel's sequestration of Lovinett's memories, however, only extended to activities involving them. This owlpost box was let several years before the Cartel ever set foot in Britain. A little Veritaserum and Lovinett spilled the beans. He had originally rented the box on Zabini's behalf when Zabini thought he might be in touch with Death Eater remnants.”

Harry clenched his fists in anger. “So Malfoy really was working for Zabini when he went after Rosie?”

“Exactly,” Hermione pronounced. “All of his promised cooperation was phony. When he was caught out at last, he knew we could charge him, not only with that, but with everything he had dodged with his earlier agreements. Rather than have the entire sordid mess play out in public, he signed a confession and accepted a life sentence.”

“Why would he do that” Harry asked. “What did he have to lose by standing trial?”

“He probably thought that by sacrificing himself, he could limit damage to his so-called `Fire Party',” Hermione surmised. “That didn't turn out the way he thought, either. Whatever the public's political inclinations, making little Rosie a pawn in his game totally discredited Zabini and everything he stood for. That's the second reason I'm in a politically advantageous position right now. Personal sympathy. Organized opposition to my programme has collapsed … for the moment, anyway.”

Harry could hardly believe it. Ron was right. Zabini's imprisonment was entirely unrelated to the incident he had expected Hermione to uncover. She was still unaware of how truly perfidious Blaise Zabini really was. She needed to know, even if Zabini was already serving the maximum sentence allowed under current wizard law.

“Umm, Hermione,” Harry slowly began. “There's more, about Zabini, I mean….”

“Not for me,” she shrugged. “I could care less about him any longer.”

“He killed you, Hermione,” Harry blurted, “in cold blood - I've seen it.”

She was shocked. “What? How could you? You weren't there. Thank Merlin, you were busy in the Department of Mysteries.”

“I saw what happened in a Pensieve,” Harry told her. “I never had a chance to tell you before … everything happened so fast. I wanted to see for myself, and I thought asking you would be too traumatic, so I asked your - bodyguard, I guess - Jason Moore. He let me borrow his memory, and now I'm sure Zabini cast the spell that suffocated you.”

“Oh, Merlin,” Hermione snorted. “That sleazy, slippery little bastard! If we hadn't abolished the death penalty, I might even….”

A loud gong sounded, signifying that Harry and Hermione had visitors.

“Who's at the door this time of night?” Harry asked, moments before he had his answer.

A Patronus Charm in the form of a snake appeared. It bowed to them both, or at least to Hermione, who was still enmeshed in Harry's arms. “Madame Minister, I must regretfully inform you that your hour has elapsed. For the sake of his own well-being, I must request that my healers conduct a thorough physical examination of Mister Potter. I assure you that, as soon as he is confirmed to be in acceptable medical condition, he will be allowed to return….”

“Hermione, what happens now?” Harry asked, his earlier uncertainty returning.

“You have a date at St. Mungo's for a thorough physical examination,” she told him. “After what you've been through it was all I could do, even as Minister, to have you to myself even for an hour.”

“My office will make the necessary announcement - as low-key as possible - that you have recovered and are being examined by the healers.”

“After that, assuming all goes well, you can Floo or Portkey back here, or anywhere else you want. But you, of all people, I don't need to tell how much attention you're likely to receive if you venture out in public.

“I just want to come back here, or to you if you're somewhere else,” Harry decided. “I'm not ready for the rest of the world yet.”

“But you will be,” Hermione encouraged. “Where do you want to start?”

Harry thought about that for a moment. Other than Hermione, the closest thing he had to family was

Teddy; strike that, Ted. “Hogwarts,” Harry answered. “I need to talk to Teddy before doing anything else.”

* * * *

Things took a bit longer at St. Mungo's than initially thought. Although trying on Hermione's patience - at one point the Minister almost descended on the wizard hospital once again - that was actually a good thing. The magical regeneration of most of Harry's digestive tract and related organs was further advanced than the healers had expected. Therefore, in addition to the soft-food test they had planned, the healers were able to call in Harry's elves (even he admitted to that now) and have them prepare Harry's favorite foods.

Harry entertained himself while waiting for the test results by reading back issues of the Daily Prophet helpfully supplied by the fawning St. Mungo's staff. His eyes watered, and Harry realized his Clayman-era optometrist's prescription needed updating. He had worse vision at physical age seventeen. One more thing to do.

Harry was able to report to Hermione that his digestive tract was, by every measure the Healers could measure, back to normal. Renal function, flora, potion metabolism through the magical aspect of his liver - all were back to normal.

Hermione ended up being most pleased.

Still, Harry did not tell Hermione everything. Fairly early during his stay he asked the healers for a urological consult. A healer named Dummitt explained that the explosion had at least spared that portion of Harry's anatomy, save for minor cystologic damage that had been easily rectified.

That pretext dispensed with, Harry requested a motility test. Given what he was considering he had to be sure. He received similarly positive results on that score. Although he kept those results religiously to himself, they mollified one nagging doubt he had about his accident.

He and Hermione celebrated his clean bill of health that evening at Enthalpy House - very privately, very enthusiastically, and very physically. It helped that Hermione had obtained an automatic feeding station for Crookshanks. No more annoyed Kneazle on the morning after.

Hermione was always a planner.

Once she convinced herself (which did not take long) that he would not break off in her hands, their lovemaking achieved a frenzied quality, at least from her side of the festivities. She wanted - needed - him badly.

All of him. As much as possible. As quickly as possible.

Ordinarily Hermione adored foreplay, a half an hour or more of gentle petting and rubbing. She was the quintessential cat person.

But not that night. At least not until well after midnight, after several intense, sessions during which Harry even thought she might have accidentally imbued him with a temporary, wandless Engorgio Charm.

The next morning, Harry sought Hermione's counsel before she left for the Ministry. “What do you want us to do, Hermione?”

“I have to go back to work” she rattled away. “I've been conducting most business out of the Ossuary since you were released from St. Mungo's ten days ago. Some matters, however, must be handled at the Ministry itself, and those have piled up. You - you're certainly fit enough - so you're free to do anything you want. But remember that you'll attract a crowd. Now, if…”

Throughout Hermione's monologue, Harry's frustrations built. Was she being deliberately obtuse? Finally, he spoke over her. “I mean us, Hermione. What do you want to do about us?”

Abruptly, she stopped in mid-ramble. “Us?”

“Yes, us,” he repeated. “You and me. You're Minister, after all. People are going to talk.”

“Let them talk, then,” Hermione huffed. “They already are, anyway.”

“Hermione!”

“I mean it, Harry,” she reiterated. “I dropped all pretenses that we weren't involved the moment I learned about your injuries. It doesn't matter anymore. Like I've told you, the public is fine with `us,' and even if they weren't, I wouldn't care. Just because I'm Minister, doesn't mean that you have to do anything you don't want to do.”

“Well, it matters to me,” Harry declared.

Hermione's breath caught audibly in her throat. “Harry, what are you trying to say?” Inside she quivered with anticipation. Ron had sprung his on her totally unexpectedly, and in public.

Harry's insides quivered as well. That blurt-out was too much, too soon. He was completely unprepared, and was afraid of insulting the witch that, he now knew unequivocally, loved him every bit as much as he loved her. “Umm … I need to talk to Ted,” he retreated. “After all, I can't very well take you home to meet my parents, can I?”

Hermione hoped she had hidden her disappointment. Until he had finally rid himself of the Deathly Hallows, Harry's entire life had been lived according to what others demanded or what Harry selflessly thought was best for others. She was determined not to push him. For once in his life, Harry would be able to choose what he wanted to do - not what she or anybody else wanted him to do.

“Sure, that makes sense,” she told him. “You can Floo-call the Castle and make arrangements.

She trusted Harry to do the right thing, always and forever.

* * * *

Harry Flooed to Hogwarts two days later. It had taken somewhat longer to organize a simple visit than he had expected. Ted had also wanted to speak to him, but needed a more time to prepare something that he promised to show him when they met. Neville - Professor Longbottom - also wanted to get together.

Neville was waiting for Harry when he arrived at the main Floo in the staffroom. To Harry, he looked uncharacteristically stiff. “Morning, Nev, I know you wanted to see me, but you didn't have to meet me here - I know the way to your office.”

“Umm … that's what I needed to discuss with you,” Neville replied, trying to sound professorial. “I have instructions from the Headmistress not to allow you to roam the Castle unaccompanied. She's had second thoughts about our arrangements.”

If Harry had known about Neville's view of these “arrangements,” he would also have had second thoughts. As it were, he was simply gobsmacked. “What happened?”

“You and the Ministry … that is, Hermione, undertook to conduct a sting operation out of Hogwarts. One of her students was bait….”

“That `bait' was also Hermione's daughter, and she was a knowing and willing participant,” Harry broke in to point out.

“True enough, but so what?” Neville conceded. “It wasn't my decision. Headmistress McGonagall was livid that such an operation went on for so long and involved not only students, but certain members of the staff - all without her knowing. Add to that Hermione being the Minister for Magic and … you know Minerva's had strong views about Ministry interference at Hogwarts ever since we were students.”

Harry nearly gagged as Dolores Umbridge's toadlike image waddled through his memory. While it saddened him that someone he had known as long as Minerva McGonagall now evidently viewed him as less than trustworthy, he could understand her perspective. Besides, he had never been terribly keen about subbing as a DADA instructor. Nor did Neville any longer have anything to coerce him with, since Hermione had already figured out the whole Witch-Who-Won business.

“So, what you're telling me is that McGonagall doesn't want me on staff any longer?” Harry faked indignation.

“That's right,” Neville confirmed, looking pained.

“Well then, here's my staff badge,” Harry handed it over. “I'm certainly not interested in being where I'm not wanted.”

“I'm sorry, Harry. I really am,” Neville said sadly. “But I was able to make some provision for your future, if you're interested.”

“What's that?” This offer was unexpected and perhaps intriguing.

“I checked. You can sit for any N.E.W.T. you want, whether you graduate Hogwarts or not. If you decide to do that, I've polled the entire teaching staff. To a wizard, they will be pleased to provide individualized instruction in whatever N.E.W.T. subjects you choose to pursue.”

Harry had little background in wizard history, but knew enough to suspect this was an unprecedented offer - as well as a veiled slap at Headmistress McGonagall for discharging him. Hermione would certainly want him to take advantage of it.

His discussions complete, Neville escorted Harry to the anteroom off the main hall, where Harry could meet privately with Ted. Harry recognized it immediately, even though never having used this particular entrance. He had waited here First Year, before the Sorting. He has also endured the initial post-Goblet of Fire madness in this place.

He hoped that the third time would be more pleasant.

Neville left through the door to the Great Hall, and Ted entered through that door moments later.

Ted rushed to hug Harry, whom he had not seen since a brief viewing in St. Mungo's on that horrible night several weeks earlier - when he could see nothing save the tops of his and Hermione's heads. They had been very close to one another then, and Ted hoped even closer now.

That was one reason he had asked to see Harry, the reason he had discussed repeatedly with Tori. For that, they had devised a plan and already put it into motion.

But Ted had another reason - one he had emphatically not mentioned to Tori.

After their emotional embrace, Harry and Ted sat in soft Dumbledore-style chairs across a low table. Before they had even finished getting comfortable, chips, salsa, and butterbeer seemed to sprout from the table.

Harry attempted small talk. “How's Rosie?”

Ted did not interpret that as small talk. “She was upset at first, but after she had time to think, she's accepted your relationship with her mum.”

“Oh.” Harry had completely forgotten about Rose Weasley having had a crush on him. That's okay, I guess.”

“I guess.”

Silence stretched out between them until both interrupted it simultaneously.

“I have decided something you need to know about….”

“I've done what you suggested, but not exactly….”

After an awkward pause, with a wave of his hand Harry invited Ted to go first.

“I've done a lot of thinking about some of the things we talked about before … well you know…. I've decided that, for my own safety if nothing else, I should assume the Black head of house. But only as Black-Lupin,” he hastened to add. “Nothing I've learned since Draco Malfoy almost killed you and tried using those same potions on me, suggests any involvement by Narcissa Malfoy. But to neutralize her, and who knows how many other questionable Black relatives further removed, I think I ought to do it.”

“Not to mention, if something happened to Narcissa and your grandmother, who knows who would be the next Black in line after you to inherit,” Harry added. “So you're assuming the mantle probably leaves them both in a safer position, as well as you.”

“I hadn't thought of that,” Ted admitted.

“Neither had I,” Harry shook his head, “but I've done a lot of thinking about life and death over the past few days - including my own.”

“So have I,” Ted replied, now looking a bit green, as if what was coming next would be unpleasant. “I've also decided to make out a will.”

“I've already told you that I think that's a good idea,” Harry observed. “Why the long face?”

Ted gulped. “Don't take this the wrong way, Harry. I know we'd discussed it, but after your latest brush with death I've decided not to name you as the primary beneficiary of my will.”

Briefly, Harry was surprised. Upon reflection, though, he understood. He did have a knack for attracting trouble, and Ted was right. “Can't blame you,” Harry replied before the silence greeting Ted's announcement became too oppressive. “It's your inheritance and your life. I suppose it ought to depend on someone with prospects more reliable than mine.”

Ted heaved a sigh of relief. “Thanks for being so understanding, Harry. You're still what the solicitor called a `contingent beneficiary,' and in the event of the worst, you wouldn't be left wanting anything - not that I think you'll need….”

“Congratulations,” Harry interrupted. “Did you tell her?”

“What?” Ted was getting to that, but he had not expected Harry to leap so quickly to the ultimate conclusion. Perhaps all that mixing of magic with Hermione, assuming the Prophet had printed the truth for once, had sharpened his mental acuity.

“It has to be Tori you've selected,” Harry explained. “Picking anybody older than I would have defeated the purpose, and beyond that, you're like me. You don't have much to choose from in the relative department.”

Ted told Harry, “You're getting almost as insufferable as Hermione, you know that?”

“Thanks for the compliment,” Harry nodded. “So I believe congratulations are in order, because you would never have named Tori unless you're now in a committed relationship. For the sake of that relationship, I just hope you've been honest with her about your furry little problem.”

Ted smiled broadly. “You won't believe it, but telling her is what made everything finally click.”

It was Harry's turn to respond with a dumfounded “What?”

“Like I've told you before, Tori's an honest-to-Merlin genius - the Hermione of this generation,” Ted explained. “She'd figured it all out, knowing mom was a metamorphmagus, after Hermione told her why werewolves can't have children. She was waiting for me to tell her. She called it a `sincerity test.' And since I passed it…. Well, I shouldn't kiss and tell.”

“When was that?”

From the distressed look immediately spreading over Ted's face, Harry had a good idea of that answer before his godson said a word. “Umm … It was the night after you were hurt. I was called away from Hogwarts to St. Mungo's and Tori, well she simply refused to stay behind. Waiting for news about you, we had plenty of time to talk. You'd been telling me I had to, so in your honor I did it. I fully expected that she'd never speak to me again. But the exact opposite happened, and we haven't looked back since…. Sort of like you and Hermione, I guess. That reminds me, Harry, there's one more thing I need to ask….”

“Could I cut in?” Harry asked facetiously before turning serious. “There's something I have to discuss with you.”

Ted almost quailed under Harry's intense stare. “Of course. I hope I haven't been wasting your time….”

“Never, Ted,” Harry tried to reassure him. “I want you to know, right up front, that nothing that happens will change our relationship. You'll always be my godson. You'll always be important to me. It's just that I need to do this. I can't go on the way things are without….”

“Oh, hell, Harry. Please tell me you're not going to leave again,” Ted started to plead.

Harry stopped and looked crossways at Ted. Then he did the last thing in the world Ted would have expected. Harry started to laugh. Not a polite snigger either. Harry had not had a genuine belly laugh in quite some time - until now.

Harry's chuckles subsided while Ted gawked at him. “No…. Not at all,” he gasped. I'm not leaving. Not now; not ever. What I was trying to tell you … not very well, obviously, is that I….” He straightened up and turned serious again.

“I wanted you to know before I did it, that I intend to ask Hermione to marry me. I was hoping….”

“Brilliant, Harry!” Ted shouted as he lunged for his godfather. “Congratulations to you! I'm sure she'll accept.”

“Down, Ted,” Harry reacted as he gradually extricated himself. “It's not that time of the month…. And don't be so sure about that. I know she loves me, but enough to marry me? Hell, she's Minister for Magic. I don't even have a steady job.”

“You're job is to keep her sane and centered,” Ted responded, as he stood and walked to the anteroom's door with the Great Hall. “Everything I've seen, heard, and read tells me she's crazy about you. She'll accept in seconds, I'm sure. No more time than it takes that fantastic brain of hers to process your proposal.”

“Where are you going?”

“To get Tori in here,” Ted replied as he reached the door. “The last thing I was planning to discuss with you was that exact same thing. We were going to recommend - strongly - that you propose to Hermione. She'll be thrilled, and I don't mean just Tori.”

Tori wafted in. After the ritual hugs, they returned to the table where she deftly solved the problem of three people and only two chairs by sitting in Ted's lap.

Tori gushed for a while about “how wonderful” it was that Harry had reached the same conclusion they had about his matrimonial prospects. After some inconsequential discussion of wedding arrangements, Ted returned to the concern that Harry had expressed earlier.

“Harry, about not having a steady job. Don't worry about how much it would cost to….”

“Ted, I'm sure the Ministry will be more than happy to pay for the cost of the wedding. If Hermione's right about everybody loving a love story, it will be a political bonanza for her, and they'll find galleons in the budget somewhere. That, and I'm sure she already has a wedding dress.”

Tori broke in. “Actually, what Ted had in mind was before the wedding. You'll need a ring for your proposal.”

“I have some money saved up from working as a Muggle,” Harry responded. “I can get her something.”

“But this is not just `something',” Tori declared as she reached into her robes and produced an elegant ring box, covered in Tyrian purple velvet. She handed it to Ted, who popped it open, revealing a bridal set that Harry knew was worth more than his entire life savings. The platinum, rope-patterned wedding ring band bore a blue-white brilliant-cut diamond, of at least two carats. Lustrous pearls flanked it on either side.

Harry raised his hands, palms flat. “I - I can't take that,” he protested. “I can't possibly afford it.”

“But it's yours,” Ted told him firmly.

Harry's face was paling rapidly. “No, it's not. I've never owned anything like that.”

“That was your mother's,” Tori almost yelled at him. “Just because you never had the chance to see the Potter vault before you … umm … vanished doesn't mean it was empty. Except for your will being executed before you were actually dead, this should rightfully belong to you. So take it!”

“And give it to Hermione,” Ted added.

Ultimately they convinced Harry to do precisely that.

* * * *

With a ring worthy of Hermione Granger burning a hole in his pocket, Harry Apparated back to the Ossuary. It was late afternoon, and Hermione was nowhere to be found. He did not want to ask Brillig or Ayesha, for fear of upsetting them. Remembering what Ron had said about elves, Harry played a hunch.

“Canby!”

Within five seconds, Hermione's personal Ministry Elf popped into view.

“Mister Harry Potter's wanting Canby, sir?”

“Actually, Harry's wanting Hermione,” Harry informed the elf, trying again to dispense with formalities. “Harry thought Canby might know where she is.”

“Minister Hermione is still at the Ministry,” Canby told Harry. “She was leaving a note for you at Enthalpy House. She has to work late, but she was asking you to come to her office.” Canby snapped his fingers, and a bright yellow card with an embossed gold seal appeared in his hands. “You'll be needing this.”

The card read “Summons from the Minister for Magic.”

Harry took advantage of one of Hermione's useful innovations since becoming Minister - designated, secure Apparition points inside the Ministry building itself. Arriving, he flashed the yellow summons at the Auror controlling the Apparition point's wards.

The Auror instantly recognized Harry without need for the card, and twisted an artefact on the wall behind her. The wards glowed, parted, and a cascade of water appeared in the gap. Harry passed through it, experienced a brief icy chill, and was instantly dry again.

It felt exactly like the Thief's Downfall at Gringotts. Somewhere in the stack of Prophets he had read at St. Mungo's Harry remembered reading about Hermione seeking closer collaboration with the goblins.

“Mister Potter, I can't tell you how relieved I am that you're finally safe,” the Auror gushed as he passed by.

“Umm … thanks.”

Try as he might, Harry would not be able to avoid attracting attention at the Ministry, or probably anywhere else in the Wizarding World. He was coming to accept that. He would be garnering more, soon, no doubt.

The upside of fame is that everyone was happy to assist Harry with directions. Soon he received a personal escort from no less than a Department Head, Amos Diggory.

Jason Moore, standing guard at the Minister's office, likewise recognized Harry on sight. He stood aside and waved Harry through, as the door opened of its own accord.

At least Cheryl, Hermione's personal secretary, did not make a point of fawning over him. She made Harry take his turn behind three other people cooling their heels, all waiting for an audience with the Minister.

She did, however, write his name on a small paper airplane and sent it flying into the Minister's inner office. Two of the three wizards ahead of him made their excuses and left. In about fifteen minutes, Harry was ushered in.

“Harry, I'm so glad you could make it,” Hermione said as she rushed to him and gave him a warm hug. “It's been so hectic, with all the preparations.”

“Preparations for what?”

“Umm … sorry, Harry, but I can't tell even you yet,” Hermione looked pained. “Let's just say, we're on the verge of a major diplomatic break through. Please take a seat; I have something I want you to review.”

Harry sat, as Hermione circled back to her desk and picked up a quill and parchment. Harry recognized the cute way she furrowed her forehead when she was thinking hard. That had not changed since Hogwarts. Harry had just been blind to his feelings.

She wrote something, stopped, and thought some more, still staring at the parchment. Without looking up, she began, “I did make time, however, to check Jason's memories of the day I died.”

“I was right, wasn't I,” Harry replied, not really wanting to think about that.

Hermione wrote something more, stopped, and raised her eyes to meet his. “Absolutely. That bastard faked breaking his wand. He fell to his non-wand side. It was ridiculously obvious once anyone bothered to look.”

Harry winced. He had reviewed Jason's memory twice and not noticed that. “You could see him mouth the spell, too,” Harry mentioned. “His silent magic wasn't that good, I suppose.”

Hermione scribbled something else while Harry spoke.

“That, too,” Hermione added. “But I also saw something that explained another worry I had about this…” - she pushed her blouse aside slightly to reveal that she was wearing his necklace - “…ever since that happened. Did you ever wonder why it didn't prevent Zabini's spell from killing me?”

“Umm … no - but I probably should have thought about that,” Harry fretted. “You're right. It should have stopped it. And why not Kingsley's as well? No, wait, I charmed it to prevent any magic from harming you. Kingsley intended no harm.”

While Harry talked, Hermione erased something and replaced it with what seemed to be a longer phrase.

“But Zabini certainly did.”

“Damn right. The son-of-a-witch.”

“Well, I saw in Jason's memory that rope tendrils from Kingsley's last charm had slipped under the necklace and pushed it over my head.”

“Yeah, that would cancel the protection,” Harry grumbled, unhappy that his mistake had allowed Zabini to cast what would have been a fatal spell, but for Harry's dumb luck - being near the arch when Hermione's soul passed through. “I'm sorry for screwing up, Hermione.”

Hermione looked up after adding what looked like the finishing touches to the parchment with a flourish of her quill. “Oh, Harry don't be.” She gave him a piercing look. “Don't blame yourself, or else I'll have to blame myself for not stopping you when I knew you were going to go after Malfoy somehow.”

“Oh, all right,” Harry agreed, remembering what he intended to do as soon as he found the right moment - not likely while she was busy being Minister. “All's well that ends well, I guess.”

“Yes, and speaking of that, please review this.” She banished the parchment she had been revising to him. “This is the full announcement I intend for the Ministry to make about your recovery and our arrangements going forward. As I told you before, I'm not keeping you a secret any longer.”

Harry started reading, and then pulled the document closer. His nearsightedness was definitely worse, now that he was younger. After a few seconds, he smiled.

“Can I edit this?”

Hermione did not look particularly happy at that - probably because Harry had found her work less than perfect. “Of course,” she shrugged, and a quill from her inkstand floated to him.

Struggling successfully to keep a straight face, Harry changed a word here and a word there until he arrived at the phrase he had spotted earlier. He scratched it out and wrote in something else. Continuing, Harry made a few more revisions.

Finished, he rose and delivered his edited draft Ministry announcement to his intended (although she did not know that, yet) personally.

Her quill poised, Hermione began reviewing Harry's changes. As she did, Harry dropped down beside her to follow along, mumbling that he needed to see better.

She gasped at one of his interlineations. “Living together as wife and husband?!?”

Shocked she turned to Harry, kneeling by her side - now with the ring box, open, in his hand.

“That's exactly what I mean,” Harry answered, his voice shaky. “Will you marry me? I can't see ever wanting to be anywhere else, or with anyone else - only right here by your side.”

“Oh, Merlin, YES!” she squealed. The parchment forgotten, Hermione hurled herself out of her chair and into his arms. She overbalanced him, and they both went sprawling - but neither cared.

They were still horizontal on the floor, kissing each other passionately, when Sheryl walked in, having heard an odd noise (Hermione's chair slamming into her desk).

“Well, well - something I should know about?” she asked sardonically, her eyebrows almost disappearing into her hairline.

Hermione disengaged her lips from Harry's long enough to announce, “Yes, we're getting married!”

Sheryl shrieked with joy.

The announcement that issued from the Ministry that evening utterly eclipsed the next day's news of a treaty being put before the Wizengamot that would establish full diplomatic relations with the Muggles and the goblins, including an exchange of ambassadors.

A few traditionalists muttered that the timing was intentional. Nobody else cared.

13

C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\HP & The Fifth Element.ch51 Padfoot's legacy.doc 11/30/2014

Document created with wvWare/wvWare version 1.2.7

-->