Chapter Text

Harry stared at the three different forms on his desk and tried to remember which one he needed for the unauthorized enchantment of a muggle artifact, which one he needed for the unauthorized use of a muggle artifact on a kneazle, and which one he could use to have himself obliviated so he wouldn't have to remember what the kneazle did to the dumb bastard who tried to–

"Hey, Rookie!"

"Ack!" Harry didn't even realise he'd jumped at the interruption until gravity shoved his rear end back into his wooden chair with a painful thump. "Damn it, Sue. You could have knocked."

The woman leaning in his doorway nodded. "You're right. I could have."

He sighed. "To what do I owe the honour of your visit?"

Sue affected a pout. "I couldn't just be coming by to invite one of my oldest friends to lunch?"

"You could be…" Harry drummed his fingers atop his desk, "but you're not. You always call me 'Harry' when it's a social visit and it's only ten o'clock. You never plan more than an hour ahead for lunch. Also, instead of wearing your usual Auror robe, you look like you walked out of an early episode of Absolutely Fabulous in that pantsuit." 

"Ugh." Sue looked down at herself. "Is it that out of date? Auntie had it in her closet and I resized it to fit." 

"I'm afraid so." The red suit didn't clash with her dragonhide boots and set off her long plait of dirty blonde hair nicely, but the effect was spoiled by the hilariously out-of-date shoulder pads.

"I hope you're still willing to be seen with me," Sue said. "An assignment on the muggle side came in this morning and I figured you were as close as we had to a muggle-raised Auror, so I volunteered us both."

"Thanks," Harry said drily. "What're we up against?"

"Your worst nightmare," Sue replied in a theatrically ominous tone. "Studying. Come on. I'll brief you en route."

Harry rose from his chair, resisting the temptation to rub his still-sore derriere, and doffed his Auror robe. He still wasn't used to seeing it without the yellow stripe on each arm designating him as a trainee. Underneath, he was wearing the muggle designer slacks and dress shirt he favoured over more traditional wizarding clothes (Dudley could shove his hand-me-downs into his own pie hole; after his previous career, Harry had the money and desire to never wear such things again). "Sure. Where are we headed?"

"Some place called Camden Market. You wouldn't know how to get there, would you?"

"The Number 24 to Hampstead. We can pick it up just outside Whitehall up top, and it takes about half an hour."

She raised an eyebrow. It was not a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. It was the eyebrow of a woman who had a limited amount of grooming time each day and chose to spend it on her two and a half feet of carefully plaited hair, instead. Besides, as she'd once told Harry, Neville, and Ron, she was so unused to men actually looking her in the eyes that she didn't think eyebrow plucking was worth the effort. Harry and Neville had the decency to blush at that, but Ron had just shrugged and said, "You have eyes?"

They made him buy the next two rounds of drinks for that comment.

"So," she said as they walked, "how do you know offhand how to get from Whitehall to Camden Market?"

"That's where I took Dawlish last month," Harry explained.

"Oh, you mean when he said the Wizarding food he liked was far spicier and more flavorful than anything a muggle could come up with, so you took him up there and brought back a couple of take-home boxes with Heating Charms on them to test?"

"That's the place," Harry said. "I took him to my favourite Thai food stall. It's really authentic, and I told them to make it like they'd make it for their grandmother."

"Grandmothers eat food hot enough to make you cry?" Susan asked as she pressed the elevator button that would take them back to the atrium.

Harry grinned. "They do in Thailand. I'd be a lightweight there, and remember I'm the one who finished that meal."

"As opposed to the one who spent the rest of the afternoon on the toilet," Sue grinned back. "Yes, I think we all remember. I don't think anyone still thought you were too soft to be an Auror after that."

"Mission accomplished." The door dinged open to the Atrium. "I can be Slytherin, too, you know." He stood aside to allow her to leave the elevator first.

"Your secret affinity for the snakes is safe with me," Sue said. 

Harry suppressed a flashback to his Second Year at Hogwarts and changed the subject. "So, you never did say why we were heading to the market." He did his best to ignore the gaudy monstrosity of a statue in the Atrium as they passed it.

"Oh, right," Sue said. "The DMLE's Office of Statute Protection reported unusual activity in purchasing borderline goods there, and they want us to investigate."

"Borderline goods?" Harry asked.

"Anything that would violate the Statute of Secrecy was either destroyed by the magic that created it or confiscated by magicals," Sue said. "However, some things slipped through the cracks. Individually, they wouldn't be a threat to the Statute, but they contain enough information that, in combination, they could be risky. The OSP tries to keep an eye out for anyone who seems to be accumulating these goods. If it's a muggle, they'll handle them, but if there's a chance it's a magical, they leave it to us."

They paused for a moment while Harry and Sue Notice-Me-Not'd each others' wands before heading into muggle London (full charms that would work on magicals didn't play well with the wand cores, but minor charms that would work on muggles were fine). Once streetside, he showed her how to board the bus and fake tapping an Oyster card to the reader while he Confundus'd the driver .

"I see," Harry said once they'd safely sat down on the bus and cast charms to dissuade eavesdroppers and other troublemakers. "So we need to make sure this isn't a plot to undermine the Statute?"

"Exactly," Sue said. "Nine times out of ten, it's some old codger collecting rare books. The tenth, it's a Dark Wizard who will try to murder you within five minutes of seeing you."

"Lovely," Harry said. "So, what's our plan?"

"It's a stall in an open-air market," Sue said. "If it's a Dark Wizard, we'll need to bring them down fast or the Obliviators will have their work cut out for them."

"And that's assuming the wizard doesn't have backup," Harry said. "Tell you what: I'm better at muggle interactions, so I'll take the lead dealing with the shopkeep. You cover my back and keep other muggles away. Do you have a list of the books you're watching for?"

She nodded and pulled out a small piece of parchment. "Can you memorise these?"

"Four titles? I think so." Harry spent most of the next half-hour reading the list while Susan took in the sights of muggle London and occasionally asked a question about things like the traffic ("People pay a congestion fee to be stuck in this mess?"), video billboards ("That huge screen is wasted on advertisements?"), and tour groups ("Why do they all have matching umbrellas?"). So a fairly normal afternoon with Sue, but for the looming potential for violence. Which, now that he thought about it, was also fairly normal.

Do not cross Susan Bones.

She was just stuffing the last bite of a sandwich into her mouth (lunch breaks being for people who weren't stuck running a stall by themselves) when the legend himself strode into the stall. She'd heard the rumors, of course, about a weekly visitor to Allison's fuzzy sock stall with the body of a professional athlete, the fashion sense of a male model, and messy, just-out-of-bed hair that made every straight woman and gay man in the entire market want to see what it looked like before he got out of bed, but she'd never believed them. And now, with her mouth full of ham sandwich, she was paying for her lack of faith in Socks Guy. 

"Good afternoon, Miss," he said. He seemed to be holding something behind his hip, so she couldn't tell what it–wait… Was that a piece of wood in his right hand? 

"Oh," he continued, "I'm sorry." He held up his left hand in a placating gesture. "I didn't see you were eating. A stupefying mistake on my part, to be sure."

She was far too busy chewing, covering her mouth with one hand, and waving with her other to ponder why he'd emphasised that word. "No, no, it's quite alright," she said as soon as she possibly could. "You caught me just finishing lunch. Can I help you with something?" 

"I hope you can," he said with a smile. God, why hadn't they mentioned his eyes? Someone should have warned her about his eyes. "I've been looking all over for a copy of Spinoza's Tractutus Theologico-Magicus. Do you have one, by any chance?"

Her jaw dropped. "I…it just so happens I do."

"You seem surprised I'm interested." His tone was playful, but there was an unpleasant undercurrent to it. She was starting to suspect the legend of Socks Guy elided a lot of important information. 

"Oh, no, I didn't mean, I mean, you're, I'll…" She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean to imply you wouldn't be interested, but it's such an obscure book. Mr. Folkes, this stall's owner, didn't believe me when I said it was an incredibly important text and he thought I just wanted it for my own research, but he said he'd stock it anyway and now I can show him it sold and maybe he'll buy even more just like it. So, thank you," she ended lamely.

Socks Guy's eyebrows shot up. "I have some…esoteric interests. Did you say you're researching it?"

She blushed. An attractive person asking you about your research was pretty much a postgraduate student's dream come true. Even if he was just doing it to be polite, she'd take it. "Yes, I am. I'm working part-time on my dissertation in British History at University College London, with a focus on pre-modern British culture. Mr. Folkes occasionally lets me pick out a rare book I need and take notes from it before he puts it up for sale."

"I'm glad you've found such a cooperative employer," Socks Guy said. "Was it he that helped you acquire an unexpurgated copy of Malebranche's Dialogues on Metaphysics?"

"Yes!" she said. "And Pascal's Pensees Magicque, and Conway's Principia Alchemica. Are you interested in those, too?"

He smiled, but it didn't seem to quite reach his gorgeous eyes. "Indeed I am. Those books are all pretty arcane, though. How will they help you with your research?"

"That's a long story." She'd learnt the hard way that just because people asked her for more details about her research didn't mean they were interested in those details.

"I have the first half of the afternoon off," he said, "and it's so rare that I find someone with…similar interests. Tell me more, please."

There was something predatory in the way he looked at her just then, as if he would hunt her down if she ran away, but it wasn't like her dissertation topic was secret…or even worth stealing, according to her advisor. And how could she refuse those eyes anything? 

"I've been begging Mr. Folkes to collect books like this as much for what they cite as what they say, to be honest," she said. "My thesis is that an entire field of European philosophy has somehow been lost, with only a few books left on its fringes to map out what disappeared. It's like if Atlantis had been a real place and, after it sank, you tried to draw a map based on a few customs outposts that survived. These books cite others like them and discuss huge theoretical concepts as if others had fleshed them out fully. By building a web of citations and concepts discussed, my own 'concordance,' if you will, I'm trying to figure out what the missing field covered."

"That's fascinating." He leaned in and placed both hands on the counter in front of her. His right hand was empty, making her doubt it had ever held a stick. And why would he have a stick? That was just weird. "And these books are helping you map the blank space you think you've found?"

"Yes, exactly," she said. "I'm sorry, you must think me mad."

"Not at all," he replied easily. "I'm actually fascinated. My interest in those works was shallow in comparison to what you're describing."

"What is your interest, if you don't mind me asking? I've met so few people who've even heard of them, much less actually wish to read them. Oh, and how did you find out we had them?"

He smiled more easily this time. "I always ask brokers and auctioneers about them, and eventually the trail of information led me here. As for why I'm interested, that sort of philosophy has intrigued me since I was eleven years old. The world is so much more interesting than I'd ever realised, and I want to learn more about it."

"Isn't it, though?" She had to suppress a smile at the thought of a tiny, eleven-year-old Socks Guy with adorably messy hair asking for rare philosophical tomes at his school library. "I love learning, and the idea that there might be a whole other school of thought out there to rediscover fascinates me. Even if my own research is only ever able to limn it, I can still hope that I've pointed others in the right direction."

"I'm sorry, 'limn'?" he said.

She blushed and cursed her postgraduate student training. "Oh, I'm sorry. I fall into jargon sometimes. I meant 'define the boundaries of' or something to that effect."

"It's quite alright." He shot her a lopsided grin that made her insides melt just a bit. "To say I wasn't the most attentive student back in school would probably win you an 'understatement' award from my old professors. I have a lot of catching up to do on learning."

"Then these books will be a great place to start." She unlocked a cabinet with some of the more high-value items in the stall and pulled the four volumes out. "It's especially interesting to read Malebranche and Spinoza together, since they overlap in some ways but are fundamentally opposed in others. These together will come out to four hundred sixty-seven pounds, but I think Mr. Folkes would be so happy to have actually managed to sell these that he wouldn't mind if I let them go for four hundred pounds even."

"That's very nice of you." Socks Guy pulled out a gold credit card with a number, but no name of an issuing bank. "Please put the purchase on this."

"A gold card?" She didn't see those on such young men often, but his clothes certainly spoke of money.

"My bank only issues gold cards." He smiled as if at a private joke. "It's sort of their thing."

"I see." She ran the card with no trouble and put the books in individual paper bags, then put them all in a larger plastic bag for him. "I hope you enjoy them. It's been a pleasure talking with someone else so interested in this field." She did her best to shoot him a grin of her own. "It gives me hope that someone will one day read my dissertation."

"I'd like that." He returned her grin and melted the rest of her insides. "In fact, I haven't had an opportunity to discuss this sort of thing with anyone since I left school. Would you like to have lunch sometime? There's a wonderful Thai stall in the food market if you haven't tried it. My treat."

"I'd…I'd love to, thank you." Inwardly, she cursed herself for seeming as eager as, well, she was, but that damage was done now. "Would noon on Friday be OK? Mr. Folkes doesn't mind as much if I shut the stall during lunch on Fridays because foot traffic in this section is almost non-existent at that time."

"Friday noon would be perfect. I'll see you then." He turned to leave and stopped suddenly. "Don't I feel silly? I haven't even asked your name." He held out his hand. "I'm Harry, Harry Potter."

She stopped trying to fight the stupid smile spreading across her face and shook his hand. "It's lovely to meet you, Harry. I'm Hermione Granger."

Bonus Material:

Here's a quick summary of Harry's time at Hogwarts.

Year 1 went pretty much the same without Hermione, except with Neville as the target of Ron's bullying and the troll. Harry, Ron, and Neville become inseparable friends.

Year 2 went similarly. Lucius realised that he had the opportunity to either put Voldemort in his debt or get rid of him entirely by giving Ginny the diary. Only half-bloods are attacked, since there are no muggle-born students present, and there are fewer attacks in total. Since Lockhart didn't know what was in the Chamber, he went with them and died. That gave Harry and Ron enough warning to close their eyes and run. Tom tried to stop them, but only succeeded in trapping Harry, at which point things returned to canon. Harry's killing of the horcrux fulfilled the prophecy.

Year 3 went similarly, with one major exception: the perma-death of Voldy means that Snape no longer needs protection, so he moves to an isolated house on the North York Moors with the goal of never seeing another child again. Andromeda Tonks takes over as Potions Mistress, and Pettigrew is captured without Snape there to bollocks things up. Sirius ends the year a free man and takes custody of Harry. Over the course of this year, Susan Bones gradually joins Harry's group of friends.

Year 4 goes surprisingly similarly to canon, since Barty Crouch replaces someone to submit Harry for the Cup and, eventually, bring him to Lucius. Sirius freaks out and arranges tutoring for Harry that ends up keeping him alive. Lucius once again escapes the blame for the event.

Year 5 they have some exchange students from the USA, one of whom is actually possessed by a wendigo and kills Lisa Turpin. Harry, Ron, Neville, and Susan try to stop it and only barely succeed.

Year 6 Moody retires, embarrassed he didn't spot the possession, and Percy Weasley is brought in to teach a new… “less violent” curriculum. It's a massive failure, so Harry starts the DA. Percy and Umbridge (his patron in the Ministry) try to undermine Harry by releasing some Dementors in Hogsmeade during a weekend, but Harry eventually drives them back. Umbridge ensures the retreating Dementors kill Percy, cleaning up the loose end. This incident ends up bringing down the Fudge government.

Year 7 Harry is on edge the whole year waiting for someone to attack him or his classmates. Absolutely nothing happens. His friends still make fun of him for how twitchy he was that year.

Chapter Text

"Let me get this straight," Sue said as they settled into their bus bench and Harry finished casting the Muffling and Notice-Me-Not Charms on them. "Instead of just taking the books and Confundusing the clerk once you determined she wasn't a threat, you invited her to lunch?"

"Exactly," Harry said. "First, of course I paid for the books! You don't want the poor girl to lose her job, do you?"

"Yes, kind of," Sue said. "She's clearly too dangerous to have any sort of book budget. Also, it's not like you'll get reimbursed for more than a quarter of that, and the damn reimbursement forms usually take three months to process."

He shrugged. "I'll eat the cost, then. I've got more money than I know what to do with now, so I might as well spend some to ensure she doesn't lose her job. Second, you're thinking about this the wrong way. How long did it take those OSP berks to hunt down copies of those books? Months?"

"Probably." Sue snorted. "That office isn't known for fast work and they're mostly elderly Purebloods, so watching them try to navigate muggle book catalogues or Morgana-forbid databases is downright painful."

"I figured as much," Harry said. "Stop thinking of her as a suspect and start thinking of her as an informant. She's a genius and clearly uncommonly good at hunting down the exact kind of books we want to find. Think of how many books we can get out of circulation with her doing all of the work for us."

Sue furrowed her brows. "That's…not a terrible idea, Harry. The boss won't give you much time for it, but if you can turn up more books on your own in the next few months than the entire Office dedicated to the project, it'll be a feather in his cap and probably help him suck away a bit of their funding in the next fiscal year."

Harry shot her a grin. "I don't have 'terrible' ideas."

"One word for you: Norbert."

He sighed. "We probably could have handled that better, true."

"You saying that is the equivalent of Merlin saying, 'I probably could have had better taste in women,' you know." Sue's grin was so loudly smug that Harry briefly worried it would overwhelm the muffling charm.

"You wound me," Harry said, placing a hand over his heart.

"Oh, you'll notice if I wound you," Susan said. "Anyway, what's this sauce you found that you're going to convince Dawlish to try?"

A grin crept across Harry's face. "It's called 'sriracha.' This time, have a camera ready."

Harry knew Sue would catch on eventually, but he was surprised he made it all the way to his fourth lunch with Hermione before Sue finally cornered him about it.

"You heard me." She plopped onto his desk and folded her arms. "You've been coming back here every Friday with a bigger smile on your face each time. Books aren't all you want out of that woman at the book stall, are they?"

"We're just friends," Harry said, hoping against hope that he wasn't blushing. "She's fun to talk to and she even makes me want to learn more. I've never had this much fun reading academic books."

"You? Read? You've got it bad, Harry. If it weren't for the fact that she sounds like the most 'muggle' possible muggle, I'd be warning you about this."

"She's definitely a muggle," Harry said. "She didn't react at all when I tried to trip her up that first time we met, and at our first lunch I tried to trip her up a few more times and she didn't take the bait. Honestly, though, she's so brilliant that it's a shame she wasn't at Hogwarts with us. She'd have been amazing in class."

Sue smirked. "Can you imagine Snape having to deal with a muggleborn witch who could actually answer all of his inane, impossible questions?"

"He would have had to ignore her." Harry chuckled at the thought. "His whole self-image was built on being smarter than his students. She'd have driven him 'round the twist."

"I would have paid money to watch that," Sue said. "In any case, though, I'm glad she's both brilliant and definitely a muggle. Now I can just tease you mercilessly about her…in private," she added hastily. "Don't get me wrong, I'm in awe that you've managed to convince Shack to pay you to go on dates with a woman and have scored three more muggle-prohibited volumes in the process. I would be a terrible friend if I screwed that up for you…but I'd also be a terrible friend if I didn't tease you about it."

Harry laughed. "Fair enough."

Their weekly lunch date (though neither of them dared speak of it as such to the other) was a firm part of Harry's life by the seventh week, and he couldn't quite keep the smile off of his face as he walked into her stall. It fell away as soon as he saw her face, though. She sat there staring at the wall, her lips resting in a frown more sad than angry.

"Hey," he said gently. "Are you alright?"

Hermione shook her head, as if clearing out cobwebs. "I'm fine. Sorry, you caught me spacing out."

"What's wrong?" Harry knew he wasn't great at sussing out emotions, but she might as well have been carrying an "I'm depressed" sign right then.

"It's stupid," she said. 

"Oh, good," he replied.

She glared at him. "Good?"

"Exactly." Harry grinned into her glare. "Every week I come here and you're indefatigably brilliant. It would be lovely to see you be stupid every now and then to remind me that you're not that 'Sophia' goddess some of those philosophers mentioned."

"You're familiar with the Gnostics?" she asked excitedly, all traces of a frown gone.

"Just a bit," Harry said airily. Inwardly, he was both preening and making a mental note to make a "thank you" donation to the Finsbury Library for having such a good primer on muggle philosophical traditions. "Anyway, what's troubling you?"

Hermione looked down at her feet. "Well…I was just thinking that I wished we were meeting up on Sunday instead of today."

"Why?" Harry asked. "I'd be happy to switch if you can't make it today."

"No, no, I'm free today, it's just that it would be nice to have something to do on my birthday for once." She blushed. "I told you it was stupid. And pathetic. Sorry, I forgot to warn you it was pathetic, too."

Harry frowned. "What? Don't you have mates to take you out for drinks?"

"Not really. I was always more interested in talking with my professors after classes ended than with my fellow students, and I could be pretty abrasive when moral questions came up in class." She sighed. "Now that you mention it, I don't think anyone's ever taken me out for drinks. Sometimes I get invited to events where my entire postgraduate class is going out somewhere, but they sort of have to invite me to those. Nobody's ever actually said, "Hey, Hermione, would–"

"You like to get some drinks this Sunday?" Harry shot her a grin.

She blushed. "You don't have to invite me just because you feel sorry for me."

"Hermione, I like spending time with you," Harry leaned forward and rested his palms on the counter in front of her, "and it's not a chore to spend some more. Let me take you out for a few drinks to celebrate your birthday."

"Are you sure it's not a bother?" Hermione asked.

"I'm positive," Harry said. "Now let's get some food and you can tell me what kind of drinks you like. I'll find you something fun that you haven't tried yet."

"That sounds lovely. Thank you, Harry," she said, and the genuine warmth and happiness in her voice banished any qualms he might have had about losing his only free evening that week.

Harry pulled out his backup wand (ten and a quarter inches, vine with dragon heartstring core, swishy) and rubbed a spot on the wood thoughtfully. Aurors often took as a backup wand the first wand they ever disarmed from a criminal, and Harry had done likewise. He'd never trust this wand, not like his own holly wand, but it worked well for him now and was good in a pinch. Its former owner would never wield it again, at least not with the hand he'd used to curse Osbeorn Savage. Harry wasn't proud of what he'd done, but both he and Oz had gone home that night and that mattered more than a drop of Gibbon's blood on his former wand. 

He cast the muggle Notice-Me-Not charm over his holly wand first, then did the same over his backup. Once that was done, he slipped the holly wand into the disillusioned wrist holster in which he kept it and the backup into a similarly concealed holster that sat on his left thigh. He didn't anticipate any trouble that evening, but Moody's mantra had saved his arse during the Third Task of that bloody tournament and he'd kept up his vigilance ever since.

Now that he was properly equipped for any sort of mild to moderate trouble (serious trouble called for dragonhide armour and, ideally, lots of backup), Harry threw on a black sportcoat and started downstairs. Then he stopped, turned around, and went back upstairs to grab the correct black sportcoat the salesman had told him to wear with this particular Armani grey slacks/white shirt outfit. He had no fashion sense of his own, but he'd discovered that if you gave a salesperson a large enough order, they would make notes for you about what went with what. It worked out well for everyone, and since he'd purchased his eight-hundred thousand pound townhouse outright with the Quidditch bonuses he'd saved, he didn't have a whole lot else to spend his money on besides carry-out food, anyway.

Camden Market was conveniently not far from his home in the Angel neighbourhood, and Harry spent almost as long walking to the Tube stop as he did on the Tube to his destination. Hermione was just closing up shop for the evening when Harry threaded his way through the few remaining shoppers that late on a Sunday and knocked politely on the side of her stall.

Hermione looked to see who it was, gave him one of her usual close-mouthed smiles (she'd explained a couple of lunches prior that she'd always been self-conscious about her large front teeth, though Harry couldn't see why), and blushed prettily. 

"Oh, Harry," she said, and something about the way she said his name made his heart beat a little faster, "I didn't know you were going to dress up. I'm just wearing my usual work outfit." As usual, Harry thought she was underselling herself a bit. She was wearing a well-fitted black pencil skirt, white blouse, and a crimson wool pea coat to ward off the September chill. Something about the coat seemed a little large on her, as if she'd purchased it second-hand and it didn't quite fit, but she was so small-framed to start with that any coat would be liable to swallow her up.

He shrugged. "This is just how I dress. You look fine just the way you are, you know. More than fine, really. You look great. Not that you don't always look great." As soon as he finished that last stupid sentence, he clamped his jaw shut and decided to shut up until he could avoid making a fool of himself. 

"Now you're just exaggerating." She stuffed her notebook into her purse, stepped out of the stall, and pulled down the garage-like door to seal it up for the night. "After dealing with some of the customers today, though, I'll take any compliments I can get."

"I'm sorry you had to work on your birthday," Harry said. 

"There's nothing for it," Hermione replied. "With thirty hours a week here and a small stipend from my postgraduate program, I can just barely scrape by with a studio apartment forty minutes away. I could save some money if I went in on a larger place with some roommates, but I can't focus with other people around and I'm not the best roommate."

"Do you throw too many loud parties?" 

She stuck her tongue out at him. "Very funny. No, I think it's more that I have trouble with other people being loud or not following rules. Fundamentally, I'm just no fun."

"I was pretty 'fun' in high school," Harry said as he offered her his arm, "but these days I've discovered how nice quiet is. I'm glad I have my own place, too. So, would you like to know where we're going?"

Hermione took his arm and thought for a moment before answering. "Yes, so no."

"Um…I'm sorry?" Harry hadn't been hit so hard with the verbal equivalent of a Confundus Charm since Luna had left on her epic honeymoon/creature hunting trip with Rolf Scamander a few months before. 

As they walked, she explained, "I'd like to know, but I realised a few years ago that I'm too obsessive about planning everything. I trust you to take me somewhere nice, Harry, so I'm just going to try to relax and enjoy letting someone else plan things for me for once."

Harry gave her arm a squeeze and tried not to blush. "I hope you'll like it."

"I have no doubt at all," Hermione replied. 

Once they'd boarded the Tube, Hermione sat down to Harry's right, stretched, and sighed. "I love Camden Market, but leaving it always feels good now because I know I'm done with work for the day."

"I know what you mean," Harry said.

"That reminds me," she said, "where do you work? I just realised this morning that after all of our lunches I still had no idea."

"Uh…that was intentional on my part." Harry scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "I'm in law enforcement and I can't really talk about what I do."

"Oh." She stared at him for a moment.

"I'm sorry," Harry said instinctively. "I'm not trying to make myself sound glamorous or anything. It's mostly boring work at a desk. I just can't talk about it."

"No, I believe you," Hermione said softly. "It's just…you said 'mostly boring,' Harry. What about the rest of it?"

"That part…um…is very not boring."

She closed her eyes and tentatively placed her left hand over Harry's right. "Listen to me, please," she said. "I really enjoy our time together, but I've enjoyed time with other people, too, and they've all eventually left me behind. And that's–"

"I'm not going–"

"I'm not finished," Hermione said tightly, and Harry shut up. "Anyway, that's OK, really, it is. I've known for a long time that I can be a bit much, even if I've never figured out how to stop, and I don't have any right to your time. It's just…I've never asked anyone this before, but please don't ghost me. I promise I won't get clingy or guilt-trip you if you tell me you never want to see me again, but please just let me know. I don't want to think it's because of… your job."

Harry didn't know how to respond to that, so for a minute or so he didn't and let the muted rattle of the Tube car cover the silence.

"I'm sorry," Hermione eventually said. "I shouldn't have–"

"Not at all," Harry said. "I just…it's kind of nice to have someone worried about me. I was thinking about how I'd never noticed I missed that until you said something. A few of my friends worry about me, I guess, but they don't really say it in so many words and most people think I'm some kind of bloody superhero or something. It's nice to hear someone say the equivalent of, 'Hey, I'm worried about Harry doing that dangerous thing,' rather than, 'Oh, Harry will be fine doing the dangerous thing.' Is that weird?"

"No." Hermione looked him straight in the eyes. "I think that's human. If you don't mind me asking, what do your parents think of your career?"

He shook his head sadly.

"I'm so sorry," she said. "Do you have any other family?"

"Just my godfather and his partner," Harry said. "They…it's a long story. They worry about me in their own way, but they both looked up to my father, who was also in law enforcement, and I think sometimes they forget I'm not him. They have…worries of their own, too."

She squeezed the hand he'd momentarily forgotten she'd been holding. "I'm sorry for their troubles, too, then. And thank you."

He raised an eyebrow at her quizzically. 

"For whatever it is you do out there, I mean."

"Oh. You're welcome, I guess. Sorry, I'm also not used to being thanked." At least, not for something he'd done. He got thanked all the time for something his parents had done, which somehow never stopped hurting. "I'm probably the one who should be thanking you for believing me. If some random bloke invited me out for drinks and told me he had some secret law enforcement job, I'm not sure I'd be so trusting."

"You hardly count as 'random' any more, you know." Hermione shot him another one of her tight-lipped smiles. "Besides, I've known from the day we met that you did something dangerous."

"Wait, you have?"

"When you first walked into my stall, you moved and watched people almost like you were a lion or some other kind of big cat. It's not just your muscles…I mean, you do have those…it's not just those, though. It's your whole attitude. That night, I wondered if you might be in the mob because you dress so well, but after our first lunch I knew you couldn't be."

"Oh, good," Harry said. "I'd rather nobody thought I was in the mob. How did you know, though?"

"You make me feel safe," she said, as if stating a fundamental truth of the universe. "If you habitually hurt innocent people, I don't think you could project that benign aura."

He had to smile at that, which seemed to make her blush for some reason. "I'm glad," he said. Before he could continue, though, the conductor called out "Warren Street." 

"This is us," Harry said as he rose to his feet. Somehow, he and Hermione still had hold of each other's hands, so he used that to help her up. He led her out of the Tube station and a block and a half away before stopping at a small public house and inn. He gave the hostess his name and they were seated immediately on a cozy little terrace on the second floor. Fake ivy wound its way up the walls around them and a few strategically placed heat lamps warded off the late September chill. 

"This is charming!" Hermione said as soon as the hostess left them. "Thank you for going to the trouble of getting us a terrace table, too."

"Oh, good," Harry said. "I picked it because it's nice, but it's not so fancy that either of us will be self-conscious or so loud that we can't hear each other. Well, not too loud out here, anyway. Inside it's bedlam if it's more than three-quarters full."

"An excellent choice, then." She looked over the menu. "I know it's late, but I never get to eat much in the way of dinner on late shifts. Would you mind–"

"Of course not! Feel free to get an entree, but I'll probably just get some dumplings or something to munch on."

"Dumplings…you found me a pub that serves Asian food? Thank you! That's a rare combination."

"I hoped you'd like that," he said.

Harry ended up getting a mixed platter of dumplings for them to snack on, and Hermione got the wok-fried chicken with rice as a main, and they shared a bottle of rosé wine to accompany it. Afterward, neither of them felt quite done, so they each had a glass of cognac to finish off the night. Overall, it was a brilliant evening, at least until they stood up at the very end of it.

Hermione promptly sat right back down. Hard. "Oh, dear," she said. "I don't think I've ever had that much to drink in one sitting."

"I didn't even think about that," Harry said. He was fine, though he probably wouldn't want to drive or apparate until he'd sobered up a bit more. "I'll escort you home."

"I can't ask you to do that," Hermione said.

"You're not," Harry said. "I'm not putting you in a cab alone in this condition, much less the Tube." He held out his arm. "Come on, let's get you home."

She took it gratefully and allowed him to pull her to her feet. "Thank you." 

"It's really no trouble, I promise you." He couldn't very well tell her about apparition, which made this sort of thing tremendously easier. The cab ride would even give him time to sober up enough to apparate. He asked the hostess to call them a cab and took Hermione outside to await it.

Drunkenness manifests differently for each individual. As it happened, Hermione was among those drunks who could speak properly even when they were completely hammered, and as a result she was even harder to haul out of the restaurant than he'd anticipated. A little manoeuvring got her safely in the cab when it arrived, though she needed a bit of help buckling in as they drove off.

It was only a twenty-minute ride from the pub to Hermione's apartment near midnight on a Sunday, and both of them felt awkward enough about talking in front of a stranger that they spent the time in silence. Unfortunately, she hadn't really sobered up much by the time they arrived, so Harry gave the cabbie a twenty, threw Hermione's right arm over his shoulder, and half-carried her out of the cab.

Her studio was up a flight of stairs from the front door of the small brick building, but she was so light that he had no trouble hauling her up the stairs. Once they got to the top, she fumbled with her keys a bit before she managed to unlock her door. As she put them back in her large handbag, her hand brushed his left hip and her eyebrows shot up.

"Why, Harry," she said, "is that a magic wand in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?" 

Before he could stop her, she plucked his backup wand out of its holster and stared at it for a moment. "Damn," she said, frowning.

A beautiful drunken muggle stealing a wand he had specifically hidden with a muggle Notice-Me-Not charm was so far outside of what a mildly intoxicated Harry was capable of processing that he just stood there as Hermione opened her door and stepped into her apartment. 

"You might as well come in," she said. "I mean, it's a terrible mess, but it's such a good metaphor for my life that it almost seems a shame to clean it."

Harry stepped into her nice, if spartan, studio apartment and looked around. There was a tiny kitchen off to the left, a claustrophobic bathroom directly in front of him, and a room with a light-colored wooden floor, a bed, dresser, and desk to his right, while at the foot of the bed stood a bookshelf that stretched nearly all the way to the ceiling. A thirteen-inch TV/VCR on the desk was the only concession to entertainment in the room other than books. The bookshelf was crammed full of books, and more piles of them sat on the desk, the dresser, and most of the floor. Before he could stop himself, he said, "You rented this primarily for that bookshelf, didn't you?"

"You know me so well." She flashed him a huge, beaming smile as she closed the door behind him. It was really quite lovely, leaving Harry all the more confused about why she was so self-conscious of her teeth. "Hey," she said, "before I offer you coffee or…um…'coffee,' this weird stick you're carrying reminded me of something."

"Wait," he said, fighting down a blush from how she'd emphasised "coffee," but she shushed him before he could decline any and all types of "coffee." He really just wanted to get his wand back and get out of there before she did anything she might regret.

"I'll just be a moment," she said. "I admit I'm terribly curious about why you're hauling around a stick, but it's so convenient that I'm just going to ponder the coincidence later. You see, I found a poem a few days ago. It was a terrible poem, but that's not the point. I mean, a really dreadful poem. The poet wouldn't know a proper pentameter if you hit him with this stick."

Hermione gently bonked Harry on the head with the wand to demonstrate. "The important thing was the information in the poem, though. He was describing a process that I initially thought was just metaphorical, but the more I thought about it—and I had a lot of time to think about it during my shifts, I might add—I realised it might be literal. And it fit, do you know that?"

"What fit?" Harry asked. Drunk Hermione was funny, but even harder to follow than normal Hermione and that was not a low bar.

"The poem, I mean," she said. "It fit into everything. Spinoza, Malebranche, Erasmus, even Newton and Pascal. I think what they were describing was some way of using intangible energies of some sort to effect changes from the metaphysical into the physical." She paused. "Am I really drunk, or do I talk like that all of the time? I think I've been in postgraduate school too long. An-eee-way, where's that book?"

Harry watched, bemused, as she rooted around in one of the piles on her desk and pulled out a book that looked like it was hanging only by the memory of glue and was probably worth a decent fraction of a month's rent in that place. "Here we go," she said. "I left some notes on my bookmark. Once you extract all the flowery language, what the poet is really telling you to do is quite specific. I think I've even managed to get the pronunciation right based on the rhymes in the rest of the poem, assuming of course that I still remember my pre-Johnsonian pronunciation rules from Uni." She paused again. "You're smiling. Why are you smiling?"

"I've never had quite so clear a window into your head before," Harry said. "It's a brilliant place. Brilliant, but scary."

Hermione blushed. "That's a new descriptor for me, but I think I like it. So, where was…right, the method I found in the poem." She held out his wand and aimed it at a pen on her desk. "Let's see here…swish and flick."

Before Harry's inebriated brain could process what he was hearing and seeing, she held out the wand, did a tight little swish-and-flick motion, and, with improbably perfect pronunciation, said, "Wingardium Leviosa."

Chapter Text

"Well, bollocks," Harry thought as he watched Hermione perform a textbook-perfect Levitation Charm on her unsuspecting ballpoint pen. "I'll have to Obliviate–"

The pen floated gently into the air.

"What the actual f–"

The TV screen exploded, peppering the room and Hermione with little shards of glass and cathode ray tube. Harry barely noticed, though, because of the wave of magic washing over him, over the whole room, and probably over the whole damned building.

Someone, somehow, had warded her. Some bastard wanted to know if Hermione ever cast a spell and hooked a Merlin-damned beacon into her core. Whoever it was, they were probably on their way right now, and a part of Harry desperately wanted to stick around, meet the person, and do some truly horrific things to them in the name of "self-defence." The better part of him knew that would involve putting an innocent woman in the crossfire, though, and nothing was worth that.

She was screaming now, more in terror than pain from the glass shards, and looking at the wand like she was holding a snake that would bite her if she let it go and strangle her if she didn't. She barely resisted when he plucked the wand from her hand, and only stopped screaming when he pulled her into a tight embrace with his free hand. 

"I'm sorry," was all he could think of to say, and that was truly inadequate for what he was about to do to her.

Hermione Granger had her first side-along apparition while drunk as a judge, and as soon as they arrived at their destination, she threw up all over Harry's shoes and the floor beneath them.

Hermione was so desperate to stop the world from spinning around her that she didn't even open her eyes when she bent over to vomit. How could being drunk be this bad? She'd never even read anything about it being like this, and she'd read more descriptions of drunkenness than she could count. It was practically all the Angry Young Men ever wrote about, for crying out loud!

Between emptying her stomach and Harry's comforting embrace, the spinning in her head quickly subsided to a manageable level and she risked opening her eyes. Two things immediately jumped out at her. First, the wooden floor was no longer light-colored, but ancient walnut so dark it was almost black. Second, it was completely devoid of vomit.

While Hermione would have been the first to admit she was still quite drunk, she was equally certain that inebriation could in no way supersede the laws of nature. "Where are we?" she croaked out. 

"We're safe now," Harry said soothingly as he gently lowered them both to their knees. "Please trust me. You're safe here."

"But…my pen…my television…" She ran her hands over the floorboards with drunken gentleness. "My floor…"

Pounding footsteps and shouts of, "Harry, what's wrong?" announced the arrival of new parties. Hermione turned to greet them and promptly fell back on her arse. Not so much because of the alcohol this time, but because she was clearly no longer in her apartment. The dark wooden walls of what looked like a foyer rose up around her, decorated with the heads of animals she didn't recognize and sputtering gas lamps that cast a hesitant, flickering light over the scene.

The two men were both clad only in boxers, but otherwise built very differently. One was a tall man with light brown hair that seemed to have gone prematurely grey compared to his relatively young age, wiry of build, and was covered in scars of various shapes and sizes. Another man would have looked terrifying or horrifying, but the genuine concern in his kind brown eyes didn't seem like something she could ever fear. The other man was similarly tall, both more muscular and with more of a gut, and long, wild black hair streaked with grey falling to his shoulders. It was sort of like she imagined the body of an aging rock star would look. His face was harder and more haunted, as if he'd awoken from a nightmare into something he feared was a different one.

Both carried those little sticks like Harry had. Some part of her analytical mind was screaming to her about that, but the alcohol still coursing through her brain was muddling whatever her analytical side was worried about. It definitely had something to do with those sticks, though. Seriously, sticks?

She shook her head and tried to focus as Harry spoke. "I'm sorry," he said, "but I had to hide her and this was the only place I could think of."

"Bloody hell, Harry," Scarred Man said, "her magic is shining like Merlin's own beacon. What happened to her?"

Harry made the universal "shut up shut up shut up!" gesture, a horizontal hand back and forth rapidly across his throat, which did nothing to lessen Hermione's worries. Did he knock her out and take her here to kill her? 

No. Even drunk, she knew there was no world in which Harry would hurt her like that. But how did she get here?

Harry took a deep breath. "This is my friend Hermione Granger, a postgraduate student at University College London." He was speaking slowly and emphasising those words for some reason.

Old Rock Star raised his eyebrows. "You mean she's a mug–"

"That's what I thought," Harry said, cutting the other man off. "Then she stole my disillusioned backup wand and cast a Levitation Charm. That set off some sort of ward on her core and turned her into the beacon you're seeing now."

"Merlin!" Scarred Man said. "There are at least four impossible things in that sentence."

"Not to mention incomprehensible," Hermione muttered.

They all stared at her.

"I said that out loud, didn't I?" she asked. 

Old Rock Star laughed, an odd, barking sound. "I like her!" He paused and his gaze turned shrewd. "How drunk are the two of you?"

Harry blushed. "I was a bit, but I sobered up damn fast when I realised I had to get her out of there. The wine hit her a lot harder."

"Hey!" Hermione said instinctively. 

They all looked at her. 

She sighed. "Fine, you're right, I'm a lightweight."

Old Rock Star gave Harry a thumbs-up. "Nice going, Pup! A cheap date!"

Hermione felt a blush rising to her cheeks as Harry glared at him. Scarred Man also shot him a glare and smacked him on the back of the head for good measure. "Just get the poor girl a sobering draught," he said. 

"Fine," Old Rock Star said and disappeared off to presumably make some coffee or something. 

Scarred Man turned back to Hermione. "I'm sorry about my husband," he said. "He's an idiot."

"I heard that!" Old Rock Star shouted from around the corner.

"I know!" Scarred Man shouted back. "Anyway, welcome to our home, my dear. My name is Remus Lupin, and the overgrown man-child coming back with your potion is Sirius Black. I apologise for greeting you undressed like this, but we weren't expecting visitors."

"It's alright," Hermione said. "I didn't mean to break into your home in the middle of the night. In fact, now that I mention it, I don't even know how I broke into your home. Shouldn't I know that? It seems important."

"It's a long story," Remus said.

"And you're definitely going to need that sobering draught for it," Harry added as Sirius returned. Instead of a coffee cup, though, he had only a slim vial of glass with an iridescent liquid swirling inside.

"Here you go, kiddo," Sirius said. "This'll make you feel better. Well, except for your throat. It burns like a bitch going down."

She stared at it sceptically instead of accepting it. "So why is this better than coffee? Coffee helps sober you up, too, and it doesn't have side effects like that. Well, it would mess up my sleep, I guess, but that's shot now, anyway, so I don't care. And the jitters, but I think being jittery is perfectly reasonable for someone trapped in an unfamiliar house with half-naked men, don't you?"

Sirius grinned at her. "Oh, we are so getting her drunk again. This is fun."

Harry sighed. "Damnit, Pads, you're not helping." He took the vial and handed it to Hermione. "Please take this. I need you back to one hundred percent because, while you're in no danger here, you are in danger and we can protect you better if you're sober."

"Fine." She stared at the vial. "Even though I know I'm going to regret this."

She threw it back, trying to swallow it all before the burning sensation Sirius described set in. She mostly succeeded, though she did cough a few times after she got it down. What little she could taste beyond the burning on her tongue was a disturbing combination of motor oil, lavender, and slug. "Ugh." She shivered. "That was awful."

A tingly sensation began in her stomach and spread rapidly through her limbs. Remarkably, she felt the alcoholic cloud lift away from her brain. As soon as it did so, the analytical part of her mind started screaming, "The sticks, you idiot, they're magic wa–"

"There you go." Sirius plucked the vial out of her unresisting fingers. "You'll be right as rain in a moment. Creature!"

A goblin popped into being directly in front of her. "Unusually sober Master called creature?" it said in a raspy voice.

"Please dispose of this and buy half a dozen more tomorrow morning." Sirius handed it the vial. "We're running low."

The creature nodded and popped away again.

Harry and Remus simultaneously said, "Damn it, Sirius."

Hermione glared at Harry and could practically feel her heart shrivel up in her chest. "That was a hallucinogen, wasn't it? Very funny. Give the drunk girl a hallucinogen and watch her make a fool of herself. That's just cruel, Harry. I trusted–"

The words died on her lips as he turned back to face her. There was no mirth in his gorgeous green eyes, just hurt and sorrow. "I'm sorry," he said, "but that wasn't a hallucinogen. You're stone cold sober right now."

Horrifyingly, her body told her he was right. She felt completely, instantaneously, impossibly sober. "But he gave that creature the vial and it appeared and disappeared," Hermione said, lamely attempting to reconcile her senses to reality.

"Yes, he did," Harry said, "because he's an absolute prat sometimes."

"I'm sorry," Sirius said. "I genuinely wasn't trying to mess with you there, Hermione. I'm just so used to asking Kreacher—that's his name, Kreacher with a 'k'—for help that I did so automatically. I forgot that you…wouldn't be used to that."

"Harry…" she said tentatively, "what's going on?"

He rose to his feet and helped her up. "It's a long story. Come on, let's sit somewhere more comfortable and we'll explain as much as we can."

"Alright," she said, and allowed him to lead her down the entrance hallway and into a large, dreary old dining room. Ornate old wallpaper covered the walls and the table could easily seat twenty people, and at the far end of the table was a large mahogany dresser that seemed to serve as storage for china and linens.

Harry led her to a seat near the head of the table and pulled a chair out for her. She sat, somehow comforted by his manners amid the insanity of the evening. 

"Sirius, the spiders haven't come back, have they?" he asked as the two men followed them in. Somehow, they were now wearing bathrobes. Hermione had no idea where those had come from, but she didn't know where the goblin-thing had come from, either.

Then her brain processed the rest of what he'd asked and she immediately checked under the table in fright. There was nothing unexpected there. 

"It's alright," Sirius said gently. He seemed genuinely apologetic about frightening her. "They tried last month, but Remus and I killed some and chased off the rest, and Kreacher disposed of the mound of corpses."

"Oh, good," Harry said. 

Hermione was not convinced the situation Sirius had described was in any way "good," but she decided to focus on more pressing matters. "Harry, what's going on?" she asked. "Why am I here? How am I here? What did I drink? What was that…Kreacher? Why do you all have–" 

He put his hand over hers. "I know you have a million questions," he said, "and I know Remus and Sirius do, too. Please let me explain this systematically and I think I'll be able to answer most of them."

She nodded.

"OK." He took a deep breath. "Hermione, I've been lying to you about something since the day we met, and my only excuse is that it was literally against the law for me to tell you the truth. You were right about everything. In the late 1600s, a concerted, international effort was made to vanish an entire field of human knowledge, and it succeeded. That you found the traces of it you did is simply astounding."

She stared at him, fury pooling in the pit of her stomach. "You knew. I was right this whole time and you knew. You've just sat there as I poured my heart out to you about how my advisor thinks I'm insane and my parents think I'm throwing my career away and you knew!"

"I couldn't tell you!" Harry said. "I would have gone to prison!"

"He's telling the truth," Remus said. "Men have gone to prison for life for breaking the Statute of Secrecy by revealing the existence of magic."

"What?" Hermione heard the pitch of her voicing rising into outrage and couldn't find it in herself to care. "How could anyone outlaw knowledge?"

"Because of what it's knowledge of," Harry said. "It's the knowledge of magic, and magic is horrifying."

"Harry!" Sirius said sharply. "Don't scare the poor kid off."

Harry glared right back at the man. "Try being on the receiving end of all three Unforgivable Curses and telling me magic isn't horrifying. It's wonderful, sure, but it's bloody horrifying at the same time."

"What do you mean?" Hermione asked.

"Imagine someone placing you under their control," Harry said. "They could make you do anything: sign a contract, kill your parents, or jump out a window, and no one could tell that you were under such control. Or another spell that instantly kills anyone it touches by severing their soul from their body. Or a spell that tortures you with literally the worst pain your body can feel. How would you feel knowing there are people out there who can do those things to you…or your head of state? Could you ever trust them?"

She stared at him. "That really is horrifying."

"That's why the Statute of Secrecy exists. Witches and Wizards of that time period were worried they were on a collision course with non-magical, or muggle, society. They were afraid magical/mundane war was inevitable, with the loser being exterminated and the winner forced into committing monstrosities to survive. Instead, they chose to separate, and used complex magic in the late 1600s to hide knowledge of themselves from the rest of the world. Anything printed that specifically mentioned magic was either destroyed or had pages 'coincidentally' destroyed by fire, floods, bugs, or toddler-related accidents."

"Magic can do that?" Hermione asked.

"Yes," Remus said. "In fact, this house itself is protected with something similar, though much less complex, called a Fidelius Charm. If you aren't formally told by Sirius that the house is at 12 Grimmauld Place, you would never be able to find it. You could try to paint a red stripe starting on 11 Grimmauld Place all the way through to 13, and you would simply forget to paint where 12 is and you'd never notice the difference."

"That's…I don't even know what that is," she said. "I never imagined magic could do something like that."

"It's an amazing bit of magic," Remus agreed. "Do you understand now why Harry couldn't tell you the truth, though?"

She locked stares with him. "My life was a slow-motion disaster, and Harry was standing there letting it happen."

Harry slumped next to her and released her hand, which she forgot he'd been holding. 

"He hadn't gotten to the prison yet," Sirius said. His voice was hollow. "If he'd told you, he would have been sent to an island in the North Sea called Azkaban. You get one bowl of thin soup per day there and, every few months, a new rag to wear. You wouldn't care, though, because it's guarded by wraiths called 'Dementors' that suck away your happy memories until all you have in your head is your pain and misery, and you scream your throat raw every night because the noise is the only thing you have to remind yourself that you're not yet in hell."

Hermione couldn't find her voice for a moment, and when she did, all she could say was, "Good God!"

Remus pulled Sirius into a quick hug. "It's alright, Pads. You're out, and neither you nor the Pup are ever going to see one of those damn things ever again."

She grabbed Harry's hand again and he jolted upright at her touch. "You've seen one of those?"

"A few times," he sighed. "Sirius knows about Azkaban because he was wrongly accused of sending the guy who killed my parents and tried to kill me when I was a baby. The Minister of Magic at the time didn’t want to admit there’d been a huge judicial cock-up, and his solution was to send a Dementor after the real betrayer and Sirius. The spell to stop them is incredibly difficult, and he'd lured away the professors in the school who could cast it by calling an impromptu meeting. He didn't realise my friends and I were guarding the room they had Peter and Sirius unconscious and locked in."

Hermione's mouth had gone dry. "How did you all survive?"

"Because Remus taught me to cast it." He raised his stick…no, his magic wand, closed his eyes, and said, "Expecto Patronum."

A silvery mist shot out of his wand and coalesced into an ethereal stag that stood in mid-air about six feet off the ground. It glowed so brightly that it was hard to watch, but it was so beautiful, so peaceful, that she couldn't tear her eyes away anyway. The stag trotted around the little group before coming up to Hermione and nuzzling her cheek. She didn't even consider flinching from it, and its touch was warm and calming. Somehow, its simple existence made her entire life better, and when it finally evanesced, it left her with feelings of profound serenity and hope.

When her focus returned to the room around her, she found Sirius and Remus crying silent tears and Harry smiling sadly. 

"Prongs," Sirius whispered.

Remus held Sirius's hand tightly. "Harry's Patronus is remarkable in many ways," Remus said. "Very few wizards can cast one, and I've never heard of one who could do so at thirteen. It's also the animagus form of his father, who was our best friend."

"That's amazing, Harry," she said. "But what's an animagus?"

Harry's smile flipped from "sad" to "amused." "Go ahead, Sirius," he said. "You know you want to."

"He always does," Remus said as a suddenly smiling Sirius rose from his chair. 

"Ms. Granger," Sirius said with a bow, "please allow me to introduce Padfoot."

The large man seemed to spin into himself and back out into something else–good God a giant dog.

A giant dog, with broadly the same build as an Irish wolfhound but bulkier, taller, and with wilder eyes stared at her from across the table, panting happily. Before she could think of anything coherent to say, the dog crawled under the table to her, stuck its head into her hand, and licked it. Instinctively, she petted it, and it panted happily, sniffed her crotch, and pushed itself backwards under the table. A moment later, Sirius was sitting back in his chair in front of her.

"It doesn't smell like you and Hermione have gotten up to anything naughty yet," Sirius said. "You need to work on that. I need grand-godchildren to spoil at some point."

Hermione's jaw dropped as Remus's guffaws echoed around the room. Harry blushed bright red and waved his wand at Sirius in a complex pattern, and a white jet of light lanced out from Harry's wand and froze Sirius in place. Only his eyes moved, blinking annoyedly at his godson.

 "I'll unbind him in a minute if he promises to behave," Harry said.

"You realise he can't talk while he's bound," Remus said drily.

Harry didn't look remotely apologetic. "Oh, silly me." 

"Anyway," Hermione said in an attempt to drag the conversation toward productive topics and away from reproductive topics, "that was incredible. So you can turn into animals?"

"No, that's actually a very rare skill," Remus said. "I was lucky enough to have friends in high school who were crazy enough to undergo a dangerous ritual to develop the skill in order to help me. You see, my dear, I'm a werewolf, and only animals could safely stay with me on the night of the full moon."

Hermione raised her eyebrows. "You mean not only does magic exist, but werewolves do, too? Are you serious?"

Remus and Harry stared at each other for a moment and burst out laughing. Sirius's blinking grew rapid, almost frantic.

She glared at them. "So you were just taking the mickey with the werewolf thing?"

"No, not at all," Remus said. "I was being entirely serious."

"Completely," Harry added, forcing down his laughter. "He could not have been more serious."

"Then what was so…wait, did I just unwittingly say Sirius's favourite straight line?"

Harry and Remus started laughing again, heedless of Sirius's glare.

"Oh, Lord," Hermione said. "You're all mentally children, aren't you?"

"That's a fair cop for Remus and me," Harry said, "but he's very Sirius."

Hemione hit him hard on the arm.

While Harry rubbed his arm, Remus smiled and continued, "Anyway, yes, I am a werewolf. There are some nasty magical creatures running around the country, one of which attacked me when I was a boy. Many werewolves just want to be allowed to live normal lives, but some of us have chosen to embrace a violent path and spread the curse as a way of dominating others. I make it my life's work to ensure those violent ones meet a fitting end, and I'm fortunate enough to have a family to help me with those efforts."

"In a way," Harry said, "that's why you and I met, but that's a story for another time. Right now, we should probably explain more about what happened to you."

"And free Sirius," Remus added.

"And free Sirius." Harry sighed and waved his wand at Sirius, who immediately sprang to life again.

"Damn it, Harry, she handed me that straight line on a platter and I couldn't take it!" he said. "How could you do that to me?"

"Pretty damn easily," Harry said. "You're getting slow, Old Dog."

"And you're getting cocky, Young Pup," Sirius said. 

"You two settle this later," Remus said. "We have a guest who's probably still incredibly confused."

"Guilty," Hermione admitted.

"Sorry," Harry said. "To you, anyway. Sirius totally deserved that. So, you've now had a roundabout and probably thoroughly confusing introduction to the Magical World. How does that relate to you? Frankly, I'm not entirely sure, and that's one of the reasons I brought you here. You're a witch, Hermione, just like we're wizards, but someone should have contacted you on or around your tenth birthday to tell you that and arrange for you to attend the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry just like the three of us did. However, I know they haven't because you're a witch with non-magical parents, and there hasn't been one of those found in the UK for two decades."

Chapter Text

"I'm a…witch?" Hermione asked.

"Yes," Harry said. "That's how you were able to see my magic wand. I'd spelled it to be hidden to muggles, but you're not a muggle. I think someone bound your magical core and then somehow warded it to warn them if you ever successfully cast a spell. Magic doesn't play well with electronics, so that's what happened to your telly."

"I don't remember anyone ever doing that to me, though," Hermione said.

"You wouldn't necessarily remember anything," Remus said. "There's a spell that allows someone to surgically remove memories."

"That's awful!"

"It is," Sirius said, "and highly illegal. However, I have some resources of my own that aren't exactly legal, but might help us sort out what happened to you."

"Thank you," Hermione said. "I feel sick that someone might have done something to me that I can't remember."

Harry took her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "I understand," he said. "That's one of the reasons I said magic could be horrifying. We also need to figure out how to remove the ward from your magical core, though. Remember how Remus said this house is protected by a Fidelius Charm? As long as you're here, that beacon can't be tracked. If you leave the house, though, whoever did that to you will be able to find you again."

Hermione swallowed hard. "You mean I'm trapped here?"

"I'm sorry," Harry said. "There are very few houses protected like this in Britain, though, and this is the only one I had access to on such short notice. Remus, Sirius, can she stay here with you?"

"Of course," Sirius said. "We probably have the best private library in the country to research what's happened to her, too." 

Remus nodded. "She's the victim of an offence against Magic itself, as far as I'm concerned. I want to help set that right."

"But…I can't just move in with people I barely know!" Hermione said.

Harry turned to her and put his other hand around her hand he was still holding. "Listen to me, please. If you leave this house, we don't know when you'll be attacked or how many people will attack you, but you're almost certainly going to be attacked. When that happens, the best-case scenario is that they'll take away your memories of the last few hours, and they'll probably kill you. We won't make you stay here, but I'm asking you not to go. I…I don't want to lose you, and I'm worried that if you walk out that door I'll either never see you again or, if I do, you won't remember who I am."

Hermione tried to look away from his eyes and failed miserably. "I don't want that, either," she whispered. If he ever realised what his eyes did to her, she would be well and truly lost.

"It's alright, dear," Remus said. "Any friend of Harry's is welcome here." He yawned. "I'm afraid it's gotten terribly late. Let's get some sleep and reconvene in the morning. We'll need a research plan to figure out what's happened to Hermione, and I suspect Harry will need to get to work at some point."

"I do," Harry said, "but thank Merlin I have evening shifts for the next week. I think we all need to sleep in tomorrow."

"I agree," Sirius said heartily. "Remus, would you–"

"Way ahead of you." Remus was already rising as he spoke. "I'll go clear out the guest rooms."

"Thank you," Hermione said. "Does he need any help? I don't want to be a bother."

"He'll be fine," Sirius said. "He has a Mastery in Defence Against the Dark Arts with a specialty in Dark Creatures. There's nothing up there that will give him any real trouble, and, to be honest, he's uptight enough that I think it does him good to let off steam periodically."

Hemione paled slightly.

"Um…Sirius?" Harry asked. "I think she just meant help cleaning, not–"

Harry was interrupted by a loud string of cursing, some crashes, the sound of something shattering, and at least one small explosion from upstairs.

The rest of the blood promptly drained from Hermione's face.

"Does he need any help?" Harry asked.

Sirius shook his head. "Nah, this happens every now and then. I'm just glad you weren't in here when I moved back in. The house was a war zone for a solid week. I had to bribe two of your current colleagues to come over and help clear it out." He smiled, reminiscing. "Alastor wanted booze and your cousin wanted Remus."

"What?" Harry asked. Hermione's jaw dropped.

"What's so weird about that? It's not like we were married at the time, though if he and Nymphy wanted to have another fling I can't say I'd mind."

Harry sighed. "Hermione, if you ever meet my cousin, under no circumstances refer to her as anything but 'Tonks.' She will harm you if you call her Nymphy. And I recommend ignoring Sirius when he says anything about his relationship like that. Half the time he's lying."

Against her better judgement, Hermione asked, "And the other half?" 

"The other half he's understating it," Harry said. "I try not to think too hard about which is which."

"He gets his intelligence from his mother," Sirius stage-whispered to Hermione. "His father was dumb enough to ask me."

Remus walked back into the room covered with soot mixed occasionally with some blood. "I found the rest of the spiders," he said.

"They weren't in the attic?" Sirius asked conversationally. "Did you kill them all?"

"Yes," Remus said. "Unfortunately, it turns out their webs were the only things keeping the doxies from coming out of their nest."

Harry and Sirius cringed. "Damn doxies," Sirius said. "Did you get them, too?"

"Every last one of them, and detonated the nest when I was done," Remus said. He shot Harry a grin and, simultaneously, they both said, "It's the only way to be sure."

Hermione looked back and forth between them. "Aliens?"

Harry nodded. "I introduced them to classic muggle movies. Well, the awesome ones, anyway."

"And our lives are much the better for it," Remus said. "Now, if you'll excuse us, it's very late and I could use a backrub after battling dark creatures for control of your bedroom. Harry will get you anything you need."

"Thank you for your kindness," Hermione said. "Have a good night."

"You too," Remus said. 

"Likewise," Sirius said. "Harry, don't forget to–" 

"Silencio," Harry said. Hermione hadn't even seen him move his wand, but suddenly Sirius's lips were moving without sound coming out.

"He was about to embarrass the hell out of both of us," Harry said, "so I decided to skip that part."

Sirius pouted, then pointed at Harry's wand and gave him a thumb's up.

"Thanks," Harry said with a smile. "He was just complimenting the subtlety of my wand work on that one," he explained to Hermione.

Sirius nodded, waved, and wandered off.

Hermione sighed and sank down in her chair. "Tell me the truth, Harry," she said, "did you put a hallucinogen in that potion? I promise I won't be too mad at you."

He chuckled. "No, I'm afraid not. This is all real."

"I'm not sure I'm OK with that."

"Fair enough." He patted her shoulder. "I just dropped a lot of insane stuff on you. You have every right to some time to process it all. Take it easy tomorrow, alright? We'll get you sorted out eventually, but you deserve a day to come to terms with all of this."

"Tomorrow?" Hermione shot up in her chair. "Oh, God, I have to work tomorrow night."

"I'll handle that," Harry said. "Just give me your employer's address."

"Wait, what are you going to do to him?" Hermione asked. "I don't want to lose my job, but he doesn't deserve to have his mind messed with."

Harry paused. "Well, I was just going to use a charm that confuses people to get him to give you an extended unpaid vacation, but you're right, that's not really fair to him." He sighed. "Do you see why I've come to value the Statute of Secrecy so strongly? This kind of power is insidious. Hmmm…how much money does he need to break even for your shift?"

"About two hundred pounds, why?"

"I'll cut him a check to cover the cost of being closed during your shift, then. That way he doesn't lose anything."

She blinked. "Harry, you can't spend that kind–"

"I absolutely can," he said firmly. "My parents left me a ridiculous amount of money and I've hardly touched it. This is worth it."

"I can't ask you to spend your inheritance on something like this. I'll just find another job."

"That job is perfect for you," he said. "And my parents would love this, trust me. My mother was a muggleborn witch, just like you, and whoever did this to you would probably have done the same thing to her if they'd had the chance. I will not let them win. I have spent my whole life fighting to keep her name from being erased from our history books and I won't let you be erased, either."

She nodded and croaked out a "thank you," hoping it wasn't too awkward. She had never once had a man get furiously protective of her and the fire in those green eyes was bloody hot.

"Really, it's no problem," he said. "Oh, and is there anyone who's going to get worried if you're not at work or your flat besides Mr. Folkes?"

"Not really. Even my parents probably wouldn't notice I was gone for six months." She froze momentarily as she realised her answer was probably quite high on the list of "last words of serial killer victims," but only an expression of sorrow crossed Harry's face.

He wasn't going to kill her. This was all real…and that fact was somehow even scarier. 

"Well, I guess that's…convenient for us, at least," Harry said. "Is there anything you'd like before bed? Food, maybe, or some warm milk or mulled wine?"

"No, thank you," Hermione said. 

"OK, I'll show you to your room. Um…one thing before we go upstairs. The staircase has a bunch of house elf heads mounted on it, beings like Kreacher."

She couldn't hold back a gasp. "That's awful!"

"We know, we know," Harry said. "Sirius tried to take them down and Kreacher threw a fit, though. He said that was the only proper end for a house elf serving House Black and he didn't want to see their legacy thrown aside. So they're still up there. I'm sorry. It's pretty awful."

"I…don't even know what to say to that. I'll just try to ignore them." 

"That's what I do, too," he said as he stood. "Shall we?"

Hermione allowed him to help her up and followed him out of the dining room and up the stairs. The display of house elf heads was slightly more disturbing than she'd feared it would be, but foreknowledge kept her from commenting and she did her best to ignore them like Harry was. They climbed past the darkened first floor and up to the second floor, where Harry led her to a pair of adjoining bedrooms with their doors open and gas lamps lit. 

"The one on the left is yours," he said. "I sleep in the one on the right here when I visit. The bathroom is across the hall." He gestured at the door directly across from his.

"OK," she said, making no move to enter her bedroom.

"Would you like me to sweep the room once for you?" Harry asked gently.

"Oh God yes," Hermione said quickly.

He chuckled, pulled out his wand, and did a once-over of the room, including checking under the bed, pillows, and inside, behind, and below the chest of drawers. "It's clear," he said, "and Remus repaired all of the damage."

"I was wondering about that," she said. "Thank you."

"No problem. Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"No, thank you." God, this was awkward. "Goodnight, Harry."

He nodded. "Goodnight, Hermione." His arms twitched as if he were going to embrace her, but he turned and went into his bedroom without doing so.

She sighed and hit the bathroom briefly before going into her bedroom. It was furnished much like the rest of the house, in old, dark woods and faded, slightly peeling wallpaper. The bed took up most of the room and was an old-style four-poster bed, roughly the size of a modern queen mattress. Ancient nightstands stood on either side, and a gas lamp in the opposite wall provided enough light to see by.

Hermione looked down at the bed and then herself. "Darn it. What am I going to wear now?" 

A quick check of the dresser revealed it was entirely empty, which put paid to that hope. Hermione didn't want to bother her hosts over something as trivial as nightclothes, so she stripped down to her knickers, turned off the gas lamp, and crawled into the bed. It was shockingly comfortable for something possibly older than she was, and sleep came quickly to her.

Harry wasn't sure what he expected when he returned to 12 Grimmauld Place after finishing his 4:00 P.M. to midnight shift. They'd all settled in for a day of research by the time he left to "convince" Mr. Folkes to put Hermione on leave and then go to work, with Hermione proving a shockingly effective organiser of such efforts. He'd known she was a graduate student, of course, but seeing her roll up her sleeves and take charge of research on an unfamiliar topic in an unfamiliar and literally hostile library (in some places, fortunately marked off carefully by Sirius) was still surprising. She wasn't just good at researching history. She was good at research.

Dealing with Mr. Folkes had been fairly straightforward. For as gruff as he was, he was worried about Hermione and wouldn't accept Harry's money until Harry applied a small amount of magical persuasion. He couldn't deny being tempted to keep the cash, but he didn't want to see a muggle business hurt as a side effect of whatever scheme was afoot. A small Obliviation as he left ensured that he wouldn't be able to remember Harry's appearance, just that someone had come to talk to him.

Focusing on paperwork was a problem once he arrived at the office, since his thoughts kept meandering back to the witch trapped at Sirius's house. A serious crime had clearly been committed against her, but he didn't dare tell anyone until he knew more about what had happened and who might try to kill her, or him for knowing of her. He was almost excited to be called out with Auror Proudfoot to collect a statement and evidence from the scene of a murtlap robbery at a farm on the coast of Anglesey. A muggle farmhand who worked on the muggle side of the farm suffered from exposure from being left unconscious and petrified all night, but that lack of concern for muggles was sadly common in magical crimes. It was a routine call, but getting all the way out there and back kept him moving and kept his mind off the sudden insanity in his personal life. 

So by the time he returned, he was only mildly obsessing about how the day might have gone, and he was definitely not expecting to be greeted in the entrance hall by Remus. 

"Harry," he said, his voice low and slow with exhaustion, "talk to your witch. It's nearly 12:30 and she's still researching. I don't think she's eaten anything since you left. Sirius has been hiding in the master bedroom for the last three hours and refuses to come out."

"Wait, what?" Harry asked. Leaving aside the question of whether she was "his" anything, how did she scare off Sirius?

Remus sighed. "Sirius made a joke about her working too hard a few hours ago and she just glared at him. The last time he saw that look on a woman was a week before our N.E.W.T.s when he swapped your mother's ink with special ink spelled to disappear after twelve hours. It was reversible, of course, but the damage she did to him was already done." Remus shuddered. 

"I understand," Harry said. "I'll talk to her. You get some sleep."

"Thank you. Goodnight, m'boy."

Harry gave Remus a quick hug. As soon as the older man left, Harry called Kreacher and asked him to set two places for supper. The elf grumbled perfunctorily and popped away to do so, and Harry climbed up to the second floor.

Hermione was still in the same clothes she'd worn the day before when Harry slipped into the library. She'd tied her long, bushy hair back into a messy ponytail, and she sat on the floor with different stacks of books all around her and two large rolls of parchment laid out in front of her. She moved from book to book seamlessly, taking a book from one pile, jotting down a quick note, and moving it to a different pile without ever losing focus. Harry hated to interrupt her, but there was only so long a human could do that kind of work without eating.

"Hi," he said as soon as she put the next book away. 

She jumped a little and looked up. "Oh, hello. I didn't see you there." She looked around. "Where are Remus and Sirius?"

That she had apparently not noticed Sirius's absence for three hours was mildly worrisome. "They've gone to bed, Hermione, but Remus said you needed supper."

"Don't worry about it," Hermione said. "I'm in a groove here. I'll just eat at breakfast tomorrow."

"Today," Harry corrected. "It's well after midnight."

"Already?" She blinked. "I guess that explains why you're home. Oh, how rude of me! How was your day?"

"Boring," Harry said, "so it was a good day. I could really do with a bite to eat, though. Will you join me?"

"Go ahead without me," she said. "I have a lot to do."

"It'll wait," Harry said gently. "Please join me."

She shook her head. "I'd really rather work."

Harry wasn't all that great at sussing out emotions, but something about the tightness in her facial muscles warned him there was more going on here than hunger. With nothing else to go on, he knelt next to her and looked her in the eyes. "What's wrong?" 

She glared at him. "It's easy for you to say this can wait. You don't have a potential death sentence hanging over you if you leave the house you're only in at the sufferance of people you barely know. I have one opportunity to get this research right before you all get bored of me and throw me out on my rear."

Unbidden, the memory of himself at thirteen asking Sirius if he was so mad at him that he was going to send him back to the Dursleys floated to the surface, and Harry now knew why that had made Sirius flip from fuming to crying in the space of a few seconds. He reached out and took Hermione's hands in his. "Hermione, listen to me. I promise you that we're not going to get bored of you and throw you away. Right now, you need our help, we're going to make sure you get it, and do you know why?"

She shook her head, unable or unwilling to take her eyes off of his.

"Because," Harry said, "we've all been right where you are, desperately needing someone to take us in because no one else would. And all three of us know how it feels when no one does."

Hermione stared at him for another second before launching herself over her parchment and hugging the life out of him. Neither Remus nor Sirius were much for hugging and Ginny had never been much for physical affection besides very physical affection, so he still wasn't really used to hugs.

He thought he could get used to this sort of hug, though.

Harry returned the embrace for a few breaths before clearing his throat. "So can I tempt you downstairs for some dinner?"

"Yes…but…um…" her voice was muffled from her head still being buried in his shoulder, "I think I overextended with this hug. I can't let go of you or I'll fall into my parchment and I'm worried the more recent notes haven't yet dried."

"No worries." Harry rose to his feet while carrying her weight along with his own. She was small enough that he'd probably dead-lifted more, anyway. Once he was back on his feet, he picked her up and deposited her on the outside of her ring of parchment and books.

"Oh, thank you," she said, a faint blush creeping onto her cheeks. "That certainly took care of that problem."

"I have my uses." He held out his arm. "Now, I believe I promised you a dinner date."

She took his arm with a trembling hand. "I believe you did." 

He looked down at her hand. "Are you alright?"

"I…um…think my body is upset with my eating habits," she said.

"Let's get us fed, then," he said, and led her out of the library and downstairs to the kitchen. That room felt far less cavernous since Remus and Sirius had redecorated it, and he thought it probably wouldn't bother Hermione too much.

Two plates of stew, a loaf of fresh bread, and a block of butter sat waiting for them, with the stew under warming charms whose simple utility impressed Hermione. They tore into their food and in no time at all were sitting there stuffed.

"Do you feel a little better?" Harry asked.

She nodded. "Thank you. I…I'll never be able to thank you enough, will I? That's starting to sink in."

He shrugged. "It doesn't matter. We're helping you because that's the right thing to do, not because we want to obligate you."

"I appreciate it regardless," she said. "If there's ever anything I could do…not that I can really do anything useful, I suppose."

"You might be surprised one day," Harry said. "Worry about that tomorrow, though. We should probably call it a night now."

"You're probably right." Hermione yawned. "Thank you for dinner, by the way."

"Oh, that was Kreacher, not me," Harry said. "Thank you from both of us, Kreacher. It was delicious."

Hermione jumped a few inches as Kreacher popped up next to Harry. "Kreacher is unimpressed by the palates of half-bloods and muggleborn," he said, and popped away again.

"Did he just insult us for liking his food?" Hermione asked.

Harry shrugged as he rose from his seat. "That's just his way. I think he really does like us." 

Hermione rose, as well, and picked up her bowl. "Should we clean these?"

"No, that just makes him angry," Harry said. "He'll take care of them."

She frowned. "But…why?"

"That's a long story," Harry said. "I'll tell you tomorrow."

"All right." Hermione nodded and allowed him to lead her upstairs. 

When they got to their rooms, Harry took a look at her clothes. "I…um…noticed you're still wearing the same clothes you wore to dinner yesterday. Would you like to borrow some of mine to sleep in?"

"Oh, thank you," she said. "I thought about asking, but you're all so much bigger than me that I can't imagine anything would fit."

Harry smiled. "Magic," he said, and gestured for her to follow him into his room. He pulled out some clean boxers and a cotton undershirt, took a careful look at her, and waved his wand at the clothing to shrink it down. "Here you go," he said. "They're clean, I promise."

"I'm…not used to this yet," Hermione said as she accepted the clothes. "Thank you." 

"No problem." He dug around in his dresser some more. "Oh, good, I have a spare toothbrush and travel toothpaste tube." He passed those to her, as well, and she accepted them gratefully.

As she turned to go, something seemed to catch her eye. "Is that you on that poster?" she asked, gesturing at the one hung directly above his headboard of him diving for a snitch during the 2001 UK Quidditch Playoffs.

Harry felt a blush begin to rise to his cheeks. "Um…yes. That's for a sport witches and wizards play on brooms called 'Quidditch.' I played professionally for a few years. Sirius hung it in here after I moved out to mark this as my room in case I ever stayed over."

Her eyebrows shot up. "You were a professional athlete?"

"Yes." His blush was definitely rising. "I started in my first year at wizarding school—the youngest person to play Seeker in a century—and I kept up with it for a few years after graduating."

"Wow," she said. "I don't think I've ever even met a professional athlete before." She blushed again for some reason. "Goodnight, Harry, and thank you again."

"You're welcome, Hermione. Goodnight."

After brushing his teeth and laying down to sleep, he wondered what she'd been thinking, whether she'd been embarrassed about seeing his boxers or thought he was a meathead because he'd been an athlete.

He never guessed the actual answer: "Good Lord! Those trousers leave nothing to the imagination. Must. Not. Steal. Poster."

Chapter Text

They got up a little earlier the next morning, and, after a quick breakfast, sat down to plan out their first potential combat operation related to Hermione's situation, which Sirius named "Operation: Nick the Knickers."

The rest of them vetoed that name.

The plan was straightforward: leave Hermione and her beacon home, take the Knight Bus in, ensure the property was safe, and have Dobby (who was younger and more capable of literal heavy lifting than Kreacher) bring all of Hermione's things to the spare bedroom on the second floor. The only complicating factor was that Harry hadn't yet had an opportunity to explain house elves to Hermione yet and she had some concerns on that front. 

"Let me get this straight," she said. "This is a magical being who does anything you want him to without pay?"

"Kind of," Harry said. "Hogwarts pays him and he won't accept more money from me."

"How is he not a slave?"

"He isn't anymore," Harry said. "I tricked a nasty wizarding family into freeing him."

"Do you pay him?" Hermione asked.

"I've tried," Harry said. "You have no idea how much I've tried. Do you want to try?"

"Yes," she said firmly. After a moment, she added, "I'm going to regret this, aren't I?"

"Yes," all three of the men said simultaneously.

"Dobby?" Harry called out.

A house elf wearing a pair of bright turquoise shorts, a threadbare crimson jumper at least two sizes too big, and big, floppy socks in different patterns of bright plaid popped up in front of Harry on the couch. "Great wizard Harry Potter called Dobby!" he said. "How can Dobby help?"

"Dobby, this is my friend Hermione," Harry said. "She would like to ask you something."

"Hello valiant and bold Harry Potter's friend My-knee!"

She blinked, then took a deep breath and forged ahead. "Dobby, I need your help with something. How much can I pay you?"

"Oh, noes, Harry Potter's friend My-knee!" Dobby shook his head violently. "Dobby is already making too much money at Hoggy-warts. One whole galleon a week."

"But that's only…nevermind," Hermione said. "What else can I give you, then? Would you like food or jewellery or something?"

Dobby shook his head again, then paused thoughtfully. "Is one thing, Miss My-knee, if yous don't mind."

"Not at all," she said. "What would you like?"

"Dobby gets bored at Hoggy-warts sometimes. Too many other elves there working, and great Harry Potter sir does all of his own cooking." Dobby said that last part with just a hint of disapproval in his tone. "Dobby would really like it if you found more work for him. Maybe convince wise and strong Harry Potter to make some little wizards and witches? Those cause lots of work. Then Dobby would never, ever be bored."

Hermione blushed bright red and tried to ignore the coughing fits seizing the men around her. "I'll…um…bring it up with him," she said.

"Thank you thank you!" Dobby bounced excitedly as he spoke.

"I'm glad," Harry said, "that you'll be willing to help us. You can go back to what you were doing now, and we'll call you in a little while when we're ready."

"Dobby is happy to help, great Harry Potter sir!" he said, and vanished back into thin air.

"Well," Hermione said conversationally, "I'm utterly mortified. How about you?"

"Likewise," Harry said.

"I'm doing alright," Remus said.

"Splendidly, thank you for asking," Sirius added.

Harry sighed. "Come on, you lot. I want to get this sorted before I need to leave for work."

"Fine," Sirius said, "but only because I know Shacklebolt will probably take it out on both of us if you're late, not just you."

"Your concern is touching," Harry said drily.

Remus chuckled and turned to Hermione. "We'll be back soon, my dear. Please make yourself at home while we're out."

She raised her eyebrows. "You're all going?"

"Of course," Remus said. "There's a decent chance this will be an ambush, so we want numbers on our side."

Hermione shot to her feet. "My clothes aren't worth risking your lives over!"

"It's the principle of the thing," Harry said.

"And we're hoping to kick their arses," Sirius added.

Harry shot him a glare.

"Oh, come on, I can tell you're thinking it, too," Sirius told him.

"Of course I am!" Harry shot back, "but she's going–"

"What do you mean you're 'hoping'?" Hermione demanded. "If you think I'm going to let you go looking for a fight–"

"We are not looking for a fight," Harry said. "We are going in quietly and will watch carefully for wards. If there is an ambush waiting, though, then we all get a chance to exercise our legal right to self-defence against the arseholes who magically lobotomized every last muggleborn witch or wizard like my mother for the last twenty years, and I'd be lying if I said that didn't sound the least bit appealing."

Hermione took a step back from his vehemence. "What about law enforcement?" she asked. "Can't you ask your colleagues for help?"

They shook their heads. "If we told them you were a muggle," Harry said, "they would ignore us. If we told them you were a witch, we'd potentially be revealing your existence to people who want to kill you."

"But…they're police!" Hermione looked horrified at the thought police would betray her.

Remus cut in. "Do you remember the civil war we described the night we met? That ended with more of an armistice than a victory, and many of the racists who fought on the other side were never punished. They're still out there, some in positions of real power, and they would kill you without hesitation if they had the chance." He sighed. "That war never really ended in some ways, and we've all fought hard for what peace we have."

She balled up her fists and looked down at the ground. "Fine. All three of you had better be bloody careful or I will teach you entirely new ways of suffering, do you hear me? Now get moving. I'm going to be losing my mind with worry the entire time you're gone. If you take too long I'm going to start rearranging things to keep from going completely mental and I'm going to begin with anything that looks like it's your favourite."

Sirius barked out a laugh. "We'll be back before you know it." 

Harry nodded. "We'll see you soon, Hermione," he said, and a shroud of silence descended upon the old house with their absence.

A quick ride on the Knight Bus brought them to the nearest cross street to Hermione's building. "It's quiet out here," Remus said. 

Harry half-expected him to continue and say, "It's too quiet," but it turned out Remus was just making an observation. "It's the middle of the day during a work week in a London suburb," he said. "This is normal."

"Good," Sirius said. "Pup, eyes forward and lead us to your witch's house. Remus, watch our backs. I'll cast the Human-Revealing spell every ten or fifteen seconds. But, first, Charms."

Sirius hit Harry with a muggle Notice-Me-Not Charm, Harry did Remus, and Remus did Sirius. Once any muggles who might have been able to notice them had magical inducement not to do so, they repeated the process with Disillusionment Charms. 

As the one in the lead of the invisible process, Harry was primarily responsible for making sure they didn't run into each other. "Forward, slow walk," he said, and led the men cautiously down the street. Every so often, Sirius would whisper "Homenum Revelio."

With the exception of one short detour they took into the street to avoid an old lady working on a flower bed that abutted the sidewalk, they had a straightforward trip to Hermione's building. The front door of her multi-unit building was free of monitoring, and they found no traps or alarms until they reached the door of her apartment and Remus brought them to a halt.

"Wards," he said. "Amateurish. Whoever did this has a high opinion of their ability to hide runes, but lacks the magical sensitivity to realise the runes sing out if you know what to look for." He pointed to a line of small carvings. "It's just a simple monitoring and notification ward."

Sirius tapped his wand against his palm. "So do we trip them or go around them?"

"We did tell Hermione that we wouldn't look for trouble," Remus said reproachfully.

"But arse-kicking!" Sirius whined.

Harry sighed and drew on his Auror training. "I want to kick their arses, too, but we did promise and we don't have a right to risk her secrecy just to take out someone who's potentially a low-level thug. Remus, is the wall next to us clear of wards?"

Remus nodded. "The only wards are on the door."

"Good." Harry focused on the wall next to them on the landing and flicked his wand at it. A ripple of magic washed over it and the wood transfigured to paper. A large three-foot-by-two-foot wall-mounted calendar on the far side proved too much weight for the new wall material to handle and tore a long, thin hole in the wall as the nail previously holding it up dragged it down two feet onto Hermione's desk.

"Gentlemen, a new door," Harry said, and pulled the ripped paper apart down to the floor. "Sirius, cover the main entrance. If someone enters without a wand, Confundus them. If they have a wand, engage to disable unless they start casting Dark curses, in which case feel free to show them some Black Family magic."

"Looking forward to it," Sirius said.

"Remus, scan the room for alarms or such."

The older man did so. After a moment, he said, "You're clear to enter."

"OK," Harry said. Clambering over the desk looked like a pain, so he crept under it and pushed the battered old desk chair out of the way so he could crawl into the cramped room. It seemed just as they'd left it, but he knew appearances could be deceiving.

As soon as he confirmed the room was clear, he took a position with his back to the bookcase. "No hostiles," he told Remus. 

"Coming." Remus scrambled under the desk with a modest amount of grumbling. As soon as he was in the room, he started scanning the personal items for Charms while Harry continued watching for intruders.

Remus methodically scanned all of the books, clothes, and any other personal items he could find in either the bedroom or the bathroom. After about ten minutes, he finally lowered his wand and stretched his back and shoulders. "There are some Tracking Charms on a few items, but no other alarms, wardings, or curses."

"Good enough," Harry said. "We can deal with the Charms later after everything is safely under the Fidelius."

"That thing is a pain in the arse sometimes," Remus said, "but when you need it, you really need it." Remus took over the watch on the window and sleeping area, freeing Harry to monitor the kitchen and bathroom area without having to turn around.

"Damn straight," Harry said. "Dobby?"

The eager elf popped up right on top of Hermione's ruined television. "How can Dobby help the great Harry Potter sir?"

"Without moving any furniture, fixtures, or the broken television from this room and the bathroom, I need you to relocate all of Hermione’s clothes, books, and other personal items to the spare room near the drawing room in #12, Grimmauld Place.. Move them straight there without bringing them elsewhere first, since some items have Tracking Charms attached and we don't want to leave a trail."

Dobby nodded eagerly. "Yes, clever and wise Harry Potter sir!" 

Books, shoes, and other items began to vanish before Harry's eyes, which if he was being honest with himself was a little disconcerting. 

After a few minutes, the downstairs door opened and Sirius muttered, "Confundus." The door closed again, and he said, "Just some random guy with a briefcase. He now thinks he forgot something back at the office."

"Excellent." Harry hated to see someone inconvenienced like that, but this building was no place for muggles right now.

Dobby popped back up about ten minutes later, breathing heavily. "Dobby worked as fast as he could and is done. Does great Harry Potter sir need anything else?"

"No, thank you," Harry said. "You've been a huge help, Dobby, and we really appreciate it. You can go back to Hogwarts and rest now."

"Dobby is always happy to help the great and valiant Harry Potter!" Dobby waved enthusiastically and popped away.

"We're done here," Harry said. "I'm going to repair the wall and then let's head back."

Harry aimed his wand at the ripped paper and said, "Reparo." The rip closed up as if Sirius were zipping it up with an invisible zipper from the other side. Once the paper was as good as new, Harry cancelled the transfiguration and the wall returned to its original composition. 

"Are you ready, Sirius?" Harry shouted.

"Definitely, Pup!" came the muted reply. 

"OK. Three, two, one, apparate!" Harry shouted, and they simultaneously transported themselves back to 12 Grimmauld Place. 

Reality stretched and spun around before refashioning itself into the foyer…and a bushy-haired missile flying toward him.  Harry was much better with apparition now that he'd been through Auror training, but not quite so much better that he could handle a full-body tackle. As he crashed onto his arse, the missile said, "Iwassoworriedaboutyou!"

"Ow!" was all Harry managed in response. Of course, due to the disorientation and the pain, it wasn't until several seconds later that he managed to parse out what Hermione had said.

"What about me?" Sirius asked, affecting a pout.

"There is a Providence that protects idiots, drunkards, and children," Hermione said, still gripping Harry, "and you're arguably all three, so I wasn't worried for you at all."

Remus laughed so hard he bent double. Sirius just grumbled and said, "Just for that, I'm leaving you both on the floor."

"This woman," Remus said, trying to get his laughter under control, "just quoted Bismarck to insult you! She is a national treasure and should be treated as such."

"Who?" Sirius asked.

"Pearls before swine," Remus said as he helped Hermione to her feet. "Pup? Are you alright?"

"Not really," Harry croaked. He gratefully accepted a hand up from Remus. "I'll be right back," he said, and staggered stiffly off into the dining room and away from the others.

"He wasn't hurt on the mission, was he?" Hermione asked.

"Nope," Sirius said. "My guess is that he started throwing Healing Charms at his arse as soon as he turned the corner over there. He hit the ground pretty hard underneath you and there's not a lot of meat on him down there."

"Ask her where she learnt to play rugby!" Harry shouted in between Episkeys.

"I only had the one lesson!" Hermione said. "I'm really sorry!"

"This day just keeps getting better!" Sirius said.

"That's easy for you to say," Harry said as he limped back into the entranceway. "Hermione, I genuinely appreciate the warm welcome, but I'm pants at apparating on my best days and tackling me while I'm disoriented is just going to end badly for both of us."

"But, just so we're clear," Sirius added, "not me."

"Right," Harry said. "So please be more careful unless you're just trying to cause mayhem to entertain Sirius, in which case go to town."

"I will probably never do that," Hermione said, "except on his birthday, so I really am sorry."

"It's OK," Harry said. "I'm fine."

"And I," Sirius said with a huge grin, "now have something to look forward to on my birthday."

"Be careful what you wish for," Remus said. "Anyway, Hermione, all of your clothes, books, toiletries, and other personal possessions are in the second-floor guest room. You can sort through them at your convenience, but at least some of them had Tracking Charms on them. We'll need to figure out which ones and remove those. There was also an Alarm Ward on your door, but we used magic to go through your wall and reseal it when we finished."

She swallowed hard. "So someone is definitely still after me, then."

"I'm afraid so," Harry said. "Fortunately, none of those Tracking Charms can function inside a Fidelius Charm, and we kept to our promise not to trigger the alarm to lure anyone to us."

"Thank you," she said. "Really, you don't know what it was like waiting for you to come back. If you hadn't, I'd be trapped here forever, not knowing what happened to you and unable to leave because of the beacon attached to me and the fact that my only sanctuary would disappear from behind me once I got more than a few steps away."

"Oh," Harry said awkwardly.

"When you put it like that," Remus said, "your predicament sounds genuinely horrifying. I'm sorry I didn't think of it like that earlier."

"I'm sorry, too," Sirius said. "I may have tried to be a bad influence while we were gone."

"It's OK," Hermione said. "I'm glad all three of you went because I wanted all of you to stay safe more than anything, but…I'm not used to this. Until Harry took me out for drinks, the most dangerous thing that happened to me was dealing with an angry customer. Now, I'm hiding with the magical equivalent of the Specialist Firearms Command from people who want to kill me."

"The who?" Sirius asked.

"It was a compliment," Harry explained, then turned back to Hermione. "Sorry, I think we've done this sort of thing enough that we have a skewed sense of danger."

She smiled sadly. "I guess that's why you were willing to take me in, huh? I've been so focused on my own problems that I forgot how much danger I must be putting you in, but none of you hesitated for even a moment when you saw I needed help."

"Don't worry about it," Sirius said. "This is the most fun I've had in months."

"You do realise," Harry said, "that you're only proving her point."

He puffed out his chest and switched into a full RP accent. "As the host," he said poshly, "it is my duty to be agreeable."

Harry sighed. "As long as we have that settled, then. Anyway, I should probably get to work. Can you two clean those Charms off of her stuff?"

"Definitely," Sirius said. "Kick some arse out there today since we didn't get to earlier."

"No," Hermione said. "No unnecessary arse kicking."

"Of course not!" Harry glared at his godfather. 

"I have no idea," Remus said, "how you managed to grow up smart enough to listen to Hermione rather than Sirius, but I'm very glad you did."

Harry and Sirius grinned at each other and simultaneously said "Mum" and "Lily."

"That would do it," Remus said.

Chapter Text

After Harry left for work, Hermione, Sirius, and Remus went upstairs to remove any Tracking Charms from her possessions. She wasn't sure what she expected to find in the guest room, but she was definitely not expecting to find her clothes neatly folded on the bed and all of the books in a single pyramid in the centre of the floor that stood nearly as tall as she did.

Sirius barked out another laugh as he entered the room. "Merlin, would you look at that? I feel like there ought to be an embalmed pharaoh in there."

"You could probably fit one," Remus said.

"I needed a lot of books for school," Hermione said, heat rising to her cheeks as she spoke. "But now that I know the truth…." She stared at the pile, tears slowly blurring her view of the individual book titles. "I can't tell anyone…but I can't keep researching this and lying about it. This pile of falsehoods, conjectures, and half-truths was my whole life for the last three years." She couldn't see more than the vague outline of the huge pile by that point.  "It's all worthless. This work has been my whole life since I was a teenager and it was worthless from the start."

Strong arms pulled her into a tight embrace. "It was never worthless," Remus said, then paused to spit out a bit of bushy hair that he'd inhaled as he spoke. "Your work helped push a muggle field beyond where it would otherwise have been. That there remains far more for them to discover makes your contribution no less valuable than Pythagoras's was to mathematics."

"At least mathematics really exists! All I did…all any of us did was chase shadows. We might as well have never existed for all the good we did humanity," Hermione said. 

Sirius came up behind her and put his hand on her right shoulder. "I spent twelve years in prison for a crime I didn't commit," he said. "That didn't do anyone any good, but that doesn't make my life worthless. You can't…don't dwell on what you've lost, please." His voice shook as he spoke. "Your grief can never fill the hole in your life."

Remus let got of Hermione with one arm briefly in order to pull Sirius into his embrace, too.. "Lies stole those years from both of you," Remus said. "Sirius never let that define him, though, and I think he's fought through to become a better man than anyone would have given him credit for back in '81. I know you'll do the same, Hermione, and I can only apologise for the small part we've all played in those lies."

"Thank you," she croaked out, and they all just stood there together for a few minutes until she was ready to face her books again. 

"I'm sorry I reacted like that," she said. "I shouldn't have even asked you to bring any of them here."

"It's alright," Remus said. "Your reaction was understandable and Dobby was thrilled to have the work. He loves Harry, but I think he's bored to tears most of the time."

"Ah." Hermione felt heat rising to her cheeks at the memory of Dobby's request to her. 

"Besides," Remus added, possibly to save her embarrassment, "this way you get the option to confront them yourself. Now, what would you like to do with them?"

"Never see them again." Hermione shocked herself with the speed and firmness of her response, to say nothing of its content.

"That can be arranged," Sirius said. "Kreacher?"

The old elf popped up next to them. "Master who has at least stopped regularly shaming House Black called Kreacher?"

"Yes," Sirius said. "Please stash this pile of books in the attic."

"Very well, master," Kreacher said, and vanished. The pile vanished in three huge batches over the course of the next twenty seconds.

"Thank you, Kreacher!" Hermione shouted, hoping the elf could hear her. 

"Now that those are out of the way," Sirius said, "let's find those damn tracking charms." He and Remus nodded, pulled out their wands, and began muttering the same charm over and over. As they spoke and moved their wands, Hermione's two pairs of dress shoes purse began to glow, followed shortly by the pair of large binders full of her dissertation notes and the sole picture she'd had framed on the wall of her studio: a shot of herself as a girl having a tea party with her father's parents not long before they passed away. 

"Interesting," Remus said. "Whoever did this picked some items you were likely to carry daily, but also a few they saw as permanent fixtures in your life. Sirius, you clean the purses and I'll get the rest."

The other man nodded and, with a few waves of their wands, the glowing light around each item almost seemed to be ripped away, disintegrating into wisps of light before vanishing entirely. 

"There you go," Sirius said. "Good as new." 

"Thank you," Hermione said. "This will make me a lot safer."

"No trouble at all." Sirius paused. "Those are your bras? Merlin, woman, I have more interesting bras than that."

Hermione blushed bright red and hurriedly gathered her bras into her arms in a mostly vain attempt to hide them from view. "I do not need your approval or evaluation of my undergarments!" she said. "And why do–"

Remus cut her off. "Don't, Hermione. He's just trying to bait you into asking."

"Oh, you're no fun," Sirius grumbled as he walked out of the room.

"I think she's been traumatised enough today," Remus replied. "Let's just go to the library and forget this conversation ever occurred."

Hermione took a deep breath and decided she could put off this particular conversation no longer. "Actually," she said, "could we sit in the drawing room for a moment?"

"Of course," Sirius said. He was clearly surprised, but led them into the drawing room with alacrity. 

"I'm sorry I was so intense yesterday," Hermione said to them after they'd sat down. "Harry talked with me after he came home and I'll try to be more relaxed about it from now on."

"It was no trouble," Remus said. "I understand this must be hard for you to take in all at once."

"Hard? More like bloody terrifying," Sirius muttered. Remus elbowed him.

"Anyway," Remus continued, "we'd be happy to keep helping you."

"Thank you," Hermione said. "Anyway, regarding today's research, I think I got a good sense of the basic contents of most of the books you both pulled out yesterday. Since you two have the background to understand those books better than I do, I'd like to ask you to start reviewing some of the texts I've identified as having the highest likelihood of containing spells or rituals related to core bindings or wardings. As you go through them, please list the ones you've reviewed and leave some notes on what, if anything, you found in each volume that might be relevant. Once we've winnowed down the book list, we can do more detailed research in the books we've identified as promising. Does that sound good?"

Remus stared at her for a moment before jumping to his feet and hurrying from the room. Hermione gasped. "I'm so sorry," she said to Sirius. "Did I say something wrong? I didn't mean–"

He waved away her concerns as he rose to his feet. "It's not your fault. You…reminded us of a mutual friend just then, someone we lost decades ago. She was closer to Remus than she was to me, so I think it hit him harder. I'll go check on him and we'll be back momentarily."

Sirius strode out of the room and left Hermione alone with her thoughts. For as light-hearted as her unexpected housemates seemed, she was starting to understand how much pain and loss haunted their home. 

Sirius returned a moment later, one arm wrapped around Remus's shoulders and holding the scarred man's hand with his other. 

"I apologise, my dear," Remus said as he returned to his seat. "The last time someone laid out a study plan to me in such careful detail was when we were eighteen years old and studying for our Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests, or NEWTs. For just a moment, it was like she was there in front of me again and that hit me harder than I thought."

"I'm sorry," Hermione said.

"Don't be, please," Remus said. "It hurt, but it was worth it to remember another facet of her I feared I'd forgotten."

"Then I'm sorry for your loss," Hermione said. An uncomfortable silence descended on the room before she continued. "While we're on such a subject, may I ask you a question about Harry?"

Sirius nodded, but she couldn't miss the guarded look that came over both men's eyes. Since neither of them struck her as overprotective (Harry was in law enforcement, for goodness' sake!), she had a feeling such protectiveness was warranted and that worried her even more. "I ran across some mentions of 'Unforgivable Curses' in my research yesterday, and I remember Harry said he'd been hit with all three. What are they?"

Sirius shuddered. "I'm sorry," he said, "but I think it's my turn to bugger off. Can you tell her this story?"

"I will," Remus said. "Go have a drink."

"Thank you." Sirius hurried off.

"He…blames himself for part of this," Remus said. "It's not true, but he'd still rather not relive it any more than necessary."

"I didn't mean to pry," Hermione said. "You don't have to tell me."

"You have a right to know about the curses," Remus replied, "and what happened to Harry is a matter of public record in the Wizarding World. He even earned an Order of Merlin, Third Class, for the second incident."

She blinked. "He's…been knighted?"

"Not exactly," Remus said. "It's more like a Commander of the Order of the British Empire."

"Oh. He's only a magical CBE. Why didn't anyone tell me? Is there a proper form of address for a CBE? Should I–" 

"It's fine, really," Remus cut her off gently. "He hates it when people make a fuss about him. Anyway, there are three Unforgivable Curses. None of them can be shielded by magical means, and each one requires some level of corruption in the caster's soul before they can cast it. The first is the Killing Curse. It severs the soul from the body, killing a person instantly. When Harry was one and a half, a Dark Wizard who called himself Lord Voldemort murdered his parents, our dear friends James and Lily, and then cast that curse on Harry. James had the biggest heart of any man I've ever met, though, and Lily was the smartest witch of her age. Together, they did something to turn their sacrifice into protection for Harry, and that curse rebounded on Voldemort, instead, leaving only a scar on Harry's forehead."

"That's how his parents died?" Hermione said. "That's awful!" 

Remus nodded. "It was. Sadly, it wasn't the only time someone used an Unforgivable Curse on him. During his fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a contingent of exchange students from Ilvermorny in the United States came to study there. A few months later, one of Harry's classmates was brutally murdered. Harry and several of his friends guessed the culprit was one of the exchange students possessed by a spirit called a 'Wendigo.'"

"What's that?" Hermione asked. 

"It's a magical monster from the woodlands of northern North America whose main characteristic is a completely insatiable desire for human flesh," Remus said. "Their physical form resembles a twenty-foot tall emaciated man, with sunken eyes and sores all over their body and lips. They can lure people into the woods with fake cries for help and eat them, but their hunger is cursed and they can never eat enough to be satisfied. Wendigos also have the ability to forsake their physical form and possess a human, driving their host mad with cannibalistic hunger in the process."

Hermione sat back in shock. "One of those was in Harry's school?" 

"Yes," Remus said, "and only Harry and his friends realised that's what it was. Unfortunately, they guessed the wrong student. The student who was actually possessed lured them into a trap and tortured them to…change the taste of their meat, Harry said. It used the Imperius Curse to take over Harry's mind and force him to torture his friend Susan with the Cruciatus Curse, a horrible spell whose effects I can only describe as a combination of the pain of an Iron Maiden and electrocution. At first, he couldn't torture her properly, so it used that curse on him, instead, before reinstating its control and ordering him to try again. He broke the mind control, though."

Remus paused. "Just to emphasise, only a handful of adult witches and wizards in the entire country could throw off an Imperius Curse. Harry did so at fifteen. Then, he convinced Susan to pretend he was torturing her, and when the Wendigo shifted its attention to her 'suffering,' he disarmed it and proceeded to use Cutting and Banishing Charms to pummel and dismember its host body until even that spirit could no longer keep it alive. He's never forgiven himself for being unable to save its host body, but the Americans said that would have been impossible."

Hermione could only stare at Remus in horror. "He was a child," she finally said. "He was a child and he had to basically beat another child to death after being tortured and mind-raped. What is wrong with your world?"

He sighed. "A great many things, I fear. Sirius and I grew up around magic our whole lives, but Harry was raised as a muggle like you. That's why we reacted badly when he claimed magic was horrifying that night we met you, but on reflection I'm not sure he's wrong. It's just…those monsters I'm describing, Dark Creatures and Dark Wizards, they don't go away if people stop believing in them. Without people like Harry, muggles would be just another prey animal, like deer or sheep."

"This…" she took a deep breath, "I loved my research, but this makes it all seem so inconsequential. The work I'm doing now is so much more high-stakes than just me, isn't it?"

"I suspect so," Remus said. "There's almost certainly a Dark Witch or Wizard behind this, and I promise you that we're not going to let them hurt you or anyone else again once we find them."

"Thank you," Hermione said. "I suppose we should get to it, then."

"Yes…" Remus trailed off as he rose from his chair. 

"Is something wrong?"

"There's one more thing you should probably know about all of that," Remus said. "Remember how Harry's parents died protecting him and somehow setting up Voldemort to die? Well, he was fighting a civil war at the time, and we…we were losing. I can't tell you how many died. Sirius's girlfriend and her whole family were murdered. Harry's parents saved us all, and popular opinion made him a hero. To this day, he's known around Wizarding Britain as 'The Boy Who Lived.'"

Hermione stared at him in shock. "People call him, to his face, an epithet semantically equivalent to 'The Boy With Dead Parents'?"

Remus blinked, reminding Hermione that just because she had a sizable vocabulary didn't mean she had to use all of it. "Exactly," he said after a moment. "I'm glad you see why he hates that."

She nodded. "Now I understand why he told me he fights so hard to protect his mother's memory. It sounds like people gave him the credit for her genius."

"She would have been so proud of him," Remus said. "He's a better man than any of us deserved."

The regret in Remus's eyes spoke far more than his words, and as she followed him downstairs to check on Sirius, Hermione thought carefully about what he'd said. As horrific as Remus's story had been, she had a bad feeling he still wasn't telling her everything. After all, Remus said Harry hadn't been raised by wizards (thus ruling out him or Sirius) and never, not once, had Harry ever mentioned anything about his childhood before he'd gone to his "boarding school."

The fire in Harry's eyes at the thought of risk to her flashed into her mind. Was anyone watching out for him like that?

Hermione set her jaw. There was now.

"The only good thing about magic," Harry thought as he liberally applied cleaning charms to his Auror robes, "is that it makes cleaning up after chasing a Merlin-damned robber through the mud of the Thames estuary straightforward." He paused. "Well, that and speeding up your commute. I wonder why Sirius sent an owl to ask when I would be home."

With the usual gut-wrenching twist, he apparated back to the entrance hall of 12 Grimmauld Place. "Welcome back!" came a chorus from upstairs.

"Hi!" Harry shouted back. That was a pleasant surprise, especially after his greeting the night before. 

A moment later, Hermione, Remus, and Sirius all came down. "How'd it go?" Sirius asked.

Harry shrugged. "Paperwork and chasing some idiot across the Thames Estuary who thought he could corner the market on murtlap via theft."

"Ugh. Did you get him?"

"Eventually. It turns out all of that Quidditch practice makes you pretty darn good at running down suspects. He tried to hex me when I got close, though."

"Are you alright?" Remus asked.

"I'm fine." Harry grinned.

"And the other guy?" Sirius asked.

"He's going to need some murtlap."

Sirius barked out a laugh and Remus just rolled his eyes. "You've been waiting to say that, haven't you?" 

Harry grinned wider. "You bet. But I thought I'd have to wait till tomorrow."

Sirius glanced at Hermione's confused expression. "I'll take Hermione to get supper set up and explain that joke to her," he said. "Why don't you change into something more comfortable?"

"Thanks," Harry said, now thoroughly surprised. Remus followed him upstairs, which was both concerning and hopefully meant an explanation was forthcoming.

"Hermione," Remus said as soon as they were on the second floor and thoroughly out of her earshot, "strongly suggested to us that we consider reorganising our lives a bit to spend more time with you while you were staying with us. She said you ought not to have to eat alone, and that she'd always envied the families who ate together." He paused. "She also said not to tell you we were going out of our way, but I'm ignoring her because you'd probably be as confused as a Niffler in a pyrite mine without an explanation."

Harry had to chuckle. "Yes, I suppose I was. That's very nice, but you really don't have to."

"I know," Remus said, "but I thought about it today and realised she was right. Neither Sirius nor I ever really got the hang of having a family, and with you off at Hogwarts most of each year we never really got much practice. Maybe we haven't always done a great job so far, but that doesn't mean we can't start doing better."

"Oh." Harry was far too tired to put together a coherent response to that statement. "That…sounds nice. I'd like that."

"Good." Remus clapped him on the shoulder. "Get changed and let's get some supper."

Chapter Text

Harry settled easily into his new routine of coming home to dinner with Sirius, Remus, and Hermione, no matter when he got done with work. That did cause him to miss an impromptu after-work trip to the pub with a colleague once, but he thought that was a good trade-off for regular family suppers. By Sunday morning, when Hermione and Remus laid out their plans to use his two days off in a row to perform some rituals on her, Harry was almost sad to see it end. He did miss being in his own place, though, and he knew it wouldn't be safe for them there much longer with the full moon only a few days away.

After they finished their Sunday breakfast, Sirius lit his wand with a Lumos Charm and led the rest of them down to an old ritual room in the sub-basement he'd spent the previous day preparing for use again. 

"You should have seen it," he said. "There was enough blood scattered about that I wonder if my mother sacrificed my father in there." Beyond them, the main hallway of the sub-basement stretched into the foetid (and presumably spider-infested) darkness.

Hermione laughed, then stopped when she realised no one else was. 

"It's alright." Sirius patted her on the head. "I thought it was kind of funny, too. It would have served him right for being dumb enough to marry that abusive old hag."

"Don't worry," Remus added, "we won't need to sacrifice more than a little blood for this ritual."

"You're serious. Blood?" she asked.

"No, I'm Sirius," Sirius said as he opened the door to the ritual room. "Yes! I've been waiting all week to catch her on that."

Hermione pouted. "You only got me because I was distracted by the suggestion of actual blood sacrifice."

"It's pretty normal," Harry said, taking in the room. It was built of old Portland Limestone with lighting runes carved all the way around the walls about a foot below where it met the walnut ceiling boards. Sirius touched his wand to the runes as he entered and they all lit up like a series of dim magical LEDs.

Sirius said, "Nox" and cancelled his light spell, leaving their eyes to adjust to the dimmer rune light. "It could be worse," he said. "Some rituals need to be performed skyclad."

"Wait, what?" Hermione asked.

"Starkers," Harry said, both to be helpful and to see the look on her face. She did not disappoint.

"What?!" Hermione's mouth fell open. "That's a thing?"

"Indeed it is," Sirius said, and let his eyes rove suggestively from her to Harry. "Better luck next time, Pup." 

She blushed bright red.

"Stop traumatising our guest," Harry said. "Knowing ritual magic, this is probably going to be uncomfortable enough without that sort of thing."

Sirius rolled his eyes and gestured for Hermione to sit down in the centre of a ritual circle he'd prepared. Her place was in the centre of a square drawn on the stone in thick red chalk, which was inscribed in a circle of green chalk that was itself inscribed in a circle of blue chalk. Harry didn't recognize the runes written in white chalk where each of the shapes overlapped, but he did recognize Remus's handwriting in them. Which was for the best, since attaching Hermione's magical core to runes designed by Sirius would probably be the equivalent of hooking the feed block, action, and ammunition magazine of a Vickers machine gun to the barrel of a water pistol. 

"She's not some blushing innocent, you know," Sirius said. "She basically organised multiple rituals for herself that would be illegal if the Ministry ever found out about their existence."

"Illegal?" squeaked Hermione.

"It's alright, dear," Remus said. "We simply won't get caught."

"Oh, that's fine, then," she said, her voice still high-pitched.

"Wait," Harry said, "why didn't you organise the ritual plan?"

Sirius snorted. "Do you think I have any idea what's in the Black Library? It combines the two things I hate most: studying and my family."

"Moving on," Remus said, "shall we start with the ritual to remove the beacon ward?" He held out an ancient mahogany box and opened it to reveal a polished silver athame.

Hermione eyed it warily. "That's not just for show, is it?"

"I'm afraid not," Remus said. "We'll all be using it."

"Wait, 'all'?"

"It's OK," Harry said. "Wizards and witches are immune to all of the diseases you're thinking of. There are some magical diseases we'll need to get you vaccinated for now that we know what you are, but the three of us are vaccinated against those, so you're fine for the moment."

"Oh," Hermione said. "I'm sorry, I'm not used to being able to thumb my nose at germs."

"Germs?" Sirius asked.

"Later," Harry said firmly before Hermione sidetracked them with an introductory biology lecture. Not that Sirius didn't need one, of course, just that it wasn't the time.

Remus held the box out to her. "You should go first. Take the athame in your left hand and cut across your palm, then press the cut into that rune at the centre of this circle. When you're done, pass the athame to Sirius and he'll put his blood into the runes between the circles and the outer square, then we'll do likewise. I'll heal us all when we're done."

She nodded, set her jaw, and drew the athame from the box. "Let's do this, then," she said. She scooted back a few inches so she'd have access to the central rune and put the knife across her palm. With one smooth motion and a hiss of pain, she made a shallow cut about two inches long from the meat of her thumb horizontally across her palm, then placed the dripping wound on the rune. When she withdrew her still-bleeding hand, the rune glowed with a red-gold light.

"Nice work," Sirius said as he accepted the athame from her. She accepted the compliment with a nod and a bit of a wince.

The others did likewise, and, when all three had applied their blood to the runes, red-gold light flowed in a triangle connecting the three men and lines connecting each vertex of the triangle to the central rune, and then in a circle inscribed in the triangle that also circumscribed the outer square. "Good job, everyone," Remus said. "The circle of magic is rising. Your hands, please."

They all held out their hands to him and he healed them with Episkey charms. Once he'd healed himself, as well, he sat back down in a cross-legged posture and said, "Hermione, do you remember the opening blessings?"

She nodded. "Lord of Magic, please bless our circle with your strength. Lady of Magic, please bless our circle with your protection."

The men repeated after her and the red-gold light glowed even more brightly.

Remus nodded, and Hermione pulled out a sheet of paper. "Repeat after me," she said, and led them slowly through a Latin chant. When they finished, the light rose up and swirled around her for a moment before subsiding into the triangle and lines again.

As the light swirled, Hermione closed her eyes, and as it subsided she collapsed like a balloon, falling slowly to her left until Harry (who was seated just to her left and behind her) caught her. "Are you alright?" he asked.

"Yes," she said. "That took a lot out of me. Did it work?"

"I think so," Harry said. 

Sirius nodded. Remus added, "Yes, you can tell because the light merely swirled away as opposed to flaring and blinking out. The ward someone put on your core to monitor for magic use is now thoroughly destroyed. Ironically, the core binding made that easier, since we'd have had to drain your whole core if it were fully unbound. As it is, we just had to drain what little had escaped around your binding."

"I understand." Hermione gave Harry a smile, lips-closed smile and up straight again. "Shall we unbind my core now?"

"Yes," Remus said. "We'll need to be cautious since, unlike everyone I've ever heard of with such a binding, you've never been trained to control your magic before. We don't want–"

"Let's just do it," Hermione said.

"Wait," Harry said, "what was he going to say?"

She sighed. "This is why I didn't want you to tell him."

"Tell me what?"

"That the book describing this ritual warned practitioners there was a risk of magical core corruption in the ritual's focus." Hermione's eyes dared him to respond.

Harry rarely backed down from a dare. "That could kill you!" 

"I know, and we're going to do it anyway," she responded. "I will not let them win, do you hear me?"

"They win if you die!"

"No, they don't!" she shouted back, and all around them the room seemed to glow more brightly. "If you…you die one day on duty, criminals won't win. They've already lost because we have men like you out there protecting us. Whoever did this to me only wins if I let them, and I will not let them. I may die, but I will not let them."

"Damn," Sirius said. They both looked at him and his only response was to cast his eyes down at the blood-gold luminescent circle and triangle. The lines of light were thicker now, almost two inches in diameter, and easily thrice as bright.

Remus raised his eyebrows. "I'm not surprised Harry could charge a circle with accidental emotional magic, but this is Hermione's, too. Even bound, she's a powerful witch."

"And I don't wish to be bound anymore," she said, "no matter what the consequences. Free me, Harry."

He nodded, unable to tear himself away from her eyes long enough to formulate a response. Normally a deep brown, somehow flecks within them seemed to be almost catching fire from the red-gold light around her.

"Good." She withdrew a larger piece of parchment and took a deep breath. "Gentlemen, it's been a pleasure. Let's finish this."

Harry followed her through a more complex chant this time, and after a solid minute threads of what looked and moved like black tar began to weave themselves into the lines of light emanating from the centre. As the chant concluded, the lines of blackness spread next through the circle and finally through the triangle.

Sirius broke the silence first. "Is it–"

"No," Remus said tightly. "It isn't."

Hermione winced. "Bloody…hell…this…hurts," she panted.

"I fear whatever bound you was far more powerful than the ritual anticipated," Remus said. "We may have just destabilised it."

"How…bad?" Hermione asked.

"I'm…so sorry," he said.

"Damn it." A few tears glistened on her eyes, but she refused to cry.

"No," Harry whispered.

Sirius's eyes widened. "Isn't there something we can do?"

"I don't think so," Remus said. "The binding enchantment has only been partially pulled out of her and the circle isn't powerful enough to draw it out completely. In a few minutes, the binding enchantment is going to overwhelm and terminate the connections between our vertices, at which point it all collapses back into her and the feedback will likely kill her." 

"Then why are we still talking instead of putting more power into the circle?" Harry grabbed the athame as he spoke.

"Because that will almost certainly kill us!" Remus snapped. "The binding enchantment is woven into the circle now and we'd be caught in its collapse, too."

"If it's been partially drawn out," Harry asked, "then why can't we Finite it?"

"Like I said, the enchantment has woven itself into the circle now," Remus shot back. "Every Finite would weaken the circle along with the enchantment, and there's not a wizard left in the world who could power the circle long enough for us to destroy the enchantment."

"Could Dumbledore have done it?" Harry asked.

"He wouldn't have risked–"

"Could Dumbledore have done it?" Harry shouted. 

Remus's silence was the only answer Harry needed. 

Sirius looked between them, horror growing in his eyes. "Harry, don't you–" was as far as the man got before Harry slashed his right palm and slammed it into the rune below his spot. 

"Harry…no," Hermione gasped.

"Fuck it," Harry said. "We're finishing this." Without removing his right hand from the rune carved into the stone floor, he drew his wand from his wrist holster and cast a left-handed Finite Incantatum, focusing his intent on the tar-like tendrils flowing through the circle.

The tendrils underneath his wand faded, then returned to full strength. Rivulets of pain began to flow up his right arm, but he'd had much, much worse.

"Damn it, Harry." Remus said as he and Sirius drew their wands.

"No…please…" Hermione's voice was barely above a whisper and taut with pain.

"Yell later. Help now," Harry said.

They nodded and the three of them hammered the binding enchantment with three simultaneous Finites. The black tendrils faded tremendously, as did the red-gold light. 

"Again." Harry gritted his teeth and tried to focus on only the blackness as he cast. The tendrils didn't have a chance to regain their former strength before the next set of spells hit them and they faded even more. 

Harry ground his injured palm into the rock to draw out more blood, then said, "Again!"

The next set of spells withered the tendrils into faded threads even as the red-gold light around them glowed stronger. Hermione was starting to sway, though, and Harry had a feeling they'd either nearly won, were nearly out of time, or both.

"Again!" he said, and again their spells slammed into the binding enchantment. The blackness disappeared entirely, the red-gold light exploded, and the last thing Harry saw before he lost consciousness was Hermione pitching face-first onto the stone floor.

Chapter Text

Harry awoke to the realisation he was laying in a bed. A comfortingly familiar face he'd not seen for several years greeted him when he opened his eyes, and he had to chuckle. "So I didn't make it?" he asked the visage of Madam Pomfrey. "I'm not surprised my psychopomp looks like you."

Her eyebrows disappeared into her grey bangs. "I'm not sure if I should be honoured or insulted by that," she said. "You're fine, lad, just a case of Magical Exhaustion. However, I have a number of questions for your rebrobate old godfather, starting with how in Morgana's name you know anything about psychopomps."

"Psycho-whats now?" Sirius said from somewhere past his feet.

"That," said a wonderfully familiar Scottish brogue from somewhere near Sirius, "only emphasises how justified Madam Pomfrey's question was." 

With more effort than it normally required, Harry leaned his head up from his pillow. He was somehow back in his bedroom upstairs in 12 Grimmauld Place, with Madam Pomfrey sitting in a chair to his right, Remus standing to the left of the bed, and Sirius and Professor…no, Headmistress McGonagall standing at the foot of the bed. Hermione lay to his left, her chest rising and falling with slow, steady breaths.

"He's met a new witch," Remus said.

"I know what ye mean," McGonagall said. "James's grades got a guid deal better in Sixth Year. How's the lassie, Poppy?"

"I've actually never seen anyone as acutely exhausted as she was," Pomfrey said. "Most people collapse as they magically exhaust themselves, but she somehow expelled energy so quickly that she pushed herself past the normal exhaustion threshold. I'd say she would make an interesting case study, but I suspect you don't want me learning too much about whatever you got up to this morning."

"I'm afraid so," Remus said. "Parties unknown bound her core as a child and Obliviated her, and we don't want anyone finding out she's healthy until we know who's after her."

"That's awful!" Pomfrey said.

McGonagall's features tightened into a mask of thunderous rage. "How dare they bind a wee lass like that? Ah'll hunt them doon myself! Where did ye find her?"

"Camden Market," Harry replied.

"Excuse me?" McGonagall said.

"He means," Sirius said, "that she's a local girl. We've found one of your muggle-borns, Minnie."

"Morgana protect us!" McGonagall said, so shocked that she forgot to chastise Sirius. "Someone is hunting doon muggleborns!"

Pomfrey gasped. "Could it be someone at Hogwarts with access to the Book?"

McGonagall shook her head. "The Book of Admittance is only viewable by myself an' Deputy Headmaster Flitwick, and Albus before us. Once a name appears, that name cannae be altered. The only way she wuidnae hev appeared is if she was bound first."

"We'll find out what happened," Sirius said, "and we'll stop it forever."

Hermione groaned. "Where am…" she shot into a sitting position so rapidly that she would have fallen over had Remus not been there to steady her. "Where's Harry?"

"Not quite dead yet," Harry quipped.

She turned around more slowly and carefully this time. "You idiot!" She punched him in the arm with what was clearly meant to be as much strength as she could muster, but fortunately for Harry she was still recovering from Magical Exhaustion and her punch was pretty anaemic. "You could have been killed!"

Harry wasn't quite sure how to process this response. "But…you were going to–"

"I know that!" She hit him again, a bit harder this time, and Harry began planning his escape before her full strength returned. "I knew what the risks were and I accepted it when Remus said I'd gotten unlucky. I didn't want anyone else getting hurt!"

"Then maybe you should have bloody well told me–"

"Language!"

He steamrolled past her objection. "That you could die if it didn't work instead of springing it on me at the last minute!"

"What did you think we'd find in the Black Library?" she asked. "That collection is so horrifying that I'm surprised it can exist on the same island as the Health and Safety Executive. Two separate books tried to bite me, Harry. Nobody puts safe rituals in carnivorous books! In fact, who even looks at a book and says, 'I love the binding on this, but what it really needs are some mucking great canines and an appetite for human flesh'? Because I want to meet that person and shove something a great deal larger and spikier than their wand up their arse!"

The silence following her rant was finally broken by Sirius. "We're going to keep her, right?" he asked. "Because I really want to keep her."

Remus looked plaintively at McGonagall, who nodded and smacked Sirius firmly on the back of the head.

"What did you do that for?" he asked.

She ignored him. "Dearie," she said, "I understand your concern, but I'm afraid it just shows ye dinnae know with whom you're dealing here. The only way I've discovered tae keep this lad from doing something stupidly dangerous is tae keep him as far away from the temptation as humanly possible."

"Ah hah!" Harry said. "So something did happen in my Seventh Year and you just hid it from me!"

"Mr. Potter," Madam Pomfrey said, "nothing happened like that during that year."

Harry glared at her. "You were probably in on it."

She looked affronted, but before she could respond McGonagall cut in firmly, "We're not having this conversation again. Nothing awful happened during the '97-'98 school year, an' I cannae prove it to you because I cannae prove nothing! Please cease your havering aboot that nonsense an' focus on the much more serious problem at hand. Poppy, did they successfully unbind the lassie's core?"

"Yes, they did," Pomfrey said.

"In that case," McGonagall said, "we've only till her next birthday before the Hogwarts Book of Admittance lists her as a new witch in the UK . That information will be automatically duplicated to several different Ministry departments an' may put her in the sights o'those who wish her harm. If they hev political power, they may try tae use the Wizengamot tae bind her magic again."

"How could they do that?" Sirius asked. "She's committed no crime."

"I'm afraid she unwittingly has," McGonagall said. "She's clearly o'er the age o' eighteen an' has yet tae pass her Ordinary Wizarding Level, or O.W.L., tests."

"Bloody hell," Sirius said. Remus sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Are you kidding me?" Harry asked. "It's not her fault she never got the chance to get a magical education."

"Aye, I know that," McGonagall said, "but there's a large faction o' Pureblooded Lairds on the Wizengamot who would love any excuse tae bind a muggleborn witch."

"So this…" Hermione's voice trembled, "this was all for nothing? I'm just going to be bound again?"

"No!" Harry said. "There's got to be another way."

"How much time do we hev before her next birthday?" McGonagall said. "Maybe we cuid hev an exception made tae the law."

"The Wizengamot moves slowly," Sirius said, "especially for anything that would only benefit muggleborns. And if we reveal that we can break the bindings now, whoever did it may start killing them off, instead."

Pomfrey shuddered. "That's a good point. If only we had more time for her to study."

"That's it!" Harry said. "The problem is just that she has to study."

Sirius grinned. "Harry, my boy, you're a genius."

The others in the room shared puzzled looks. "What d'ye mean?" McGonagall asked.

Harry gestured to Hermione. "Her birthday was last week, so we have a whole year, and she's probably the brightest witch of our entire generation. If anyone can learn enough to pass at least four O.W.L.s in under a year, it's her."

"Mr. Potter, ye do realise that would require teaching her five years' worth of material in that time, right?"

Hermione paled.

"Yes, I do," Harry said defiantly. "I've heard stories of my mother, Professor, and while I'm not going to say Hermione is smarter than she was, I'm not going to say she isn't, either." 

McGonagall's bushy grey eyebrows shot up and she turned to Remus. 

"He's…not exaggerating, Minerva," Remus said. "This might work."

"There's no 'might' about it," Sirius said. "She can do this."

Hermione shook her head. "Maybe I could have studied like that in Uni when I was on scholarship and I didn't have to worry about living, but there's no way I–"

"Hermione," Harry said as he placed a hand on her shoulder, "you just risked your life for this. I will not see you give up. Tell your advisor to go to hell, tell Mr. Folkes you won't be coming back, move in with me, and study for the next year like you've never studied before. You can do this."

She blushed. "But…I couldn't…"

"You absolutely can and you will," he said. "You'd have more space here, but the full moon is coming and it won't be safe for us. We'll move you into one of my spare bedrooms and set the other up as a Potions lab. We can make this work."

"But…but…"

"It's settled." Harry turned back to McGonagall. "By the time the Wizengamot finds out about her, she'll have already passed her O.W.L.s. That'll give us leverage to convince them to allow any others who were bound to be taught, as well, and if nothing else, she'll be safe."

"That could well work," Sirius said. "It'll be a lot easier to convince some of those fussy old bastards that muggleborns can be taught magic even into adulthood if we can already show one success."

Pomfrey shook her head. "I remembered how crazy you all were from school, but I'd forgotten how driven you were when you put your mind to something."

"Sadly," McGonagall said, "it was rarely schoolwork. I never thought I'd see the day when a Marauder plan wuid involve studying for the O.W.L.s, an' what truly shocks me is that it's somehow still as crazy as any o' their other plans."

Sirius puffed out his chest. "We do have standards to maintain," he said.

"Oh, pish posh, Lord Black," McGonagall said.

Hermione snorted with derision. "He's even less 'lordly' than Screaming Lord Sutch."

"That's as may be, dearie," McGonagall said, "but he still is one."

Sirius grinned. "I've lived in the same house with her for a full week and she doesn't believe you. I've still got it!"

"My husband," Remus said, "likes to see how long he can go before new acquaintances realise he is, in fact, a member of the Wizengamot and Lord of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. He gets quite put out if anyone figures it out in under an hour."

"If I act like a 'Lord,'" Sirius said, "then I'm becoming everything I hated as a child."

"Oh," Hermione said weakly, "he really is one. Splendid." She let herself fall backward on the bed. "Can someone tally up how rude I've been to him this week? I have a lot of making up to do."

"Don't worry," Remus said. "Can you imagine him actually wanting to be treated like that?" 

"Exactly," Sirius added, "though if you want to get started on some of those grand–" 

His mouth kept moving, but no sounds emerged.

"Excellent wordless Silencing Charm, Mr. Potter," McGonagall said. 

"He's suffering from Magical Exhaustion," Madam Pomfrey said, "so please don't encourage him."

Sirius just glared at them.

"Anyway," McGonagall said, "I dinnae believe we've been formally introduced to the lass."

"Oh, right!" Harry said as Hermione sat back up. "This is Hermione Granger, former history postgraduate student, my regular weekly lunch companion for the last two months, and unexpected witch. Hermione, this is Headmistress Minerva McGonagall of Hogwarts and Madam Poppy Pomfrey, the Hogwarts Matron."

"I'm honoured to meet you," Hermione said.

"Likewise, dear," Pomfrey said. 

McGonagall nodded. "Anyone who could induce Mr. Potter tae remember the definition of a 'psychopomp' is instantly impressive, as far as I'm concerned."

"Wait, what?" Hermione turned to Harry. "Hasn't it been over three weeks since we discussed Celtic vs. Germanic psychopomps?"

He shrugged. "It stuck in my head for some reason."

Sirius waggled his eyebrows suggestively and said something, then glared at Harry when he remembered he was still silenced.

"Somehow," Harry said, "I'm still not regretting silencing you."

"I dinnae think we've missed much," McGonagall said. "Now, about Hermione's studies."

Hermione instantly became laser-focused on the older witch.

"I believe your friend Neville still has all o' his textbooks," McGonagall continued. "He wuid probably part with them and I suspect he wuid also be willing tae instruct her in Herbology at Longbottom Manor. For Potions, I'll ask Sirius's cousin Professor Tonks to provide some assistance."

"That's a good idea, thank you," Harry said.

"Every year, I collect lesson plans for Madam Marchbanks tae verify that we're teaching what she wants tae test on and that she's testing on what we're teaching," McGonagall said. "I'll duplicate what we submitted last year so ye'll have an idea of the material that could be on the test." 

"Thank you!" Hermione said. "That will be incredibly helpful."

"The pleasure is all mine," McGonagall said. "I flatter myself that someone as brave as ye would have found your way into my House with Mr. Potter, as much as your scholarly inclinations might have otherwise drawn ye to Ravenclaw House. As such, I'm disappointed that I didnae get the chance tae teach ye personally and I look forward tae seeing what ye accomplish this year."

Hermione blushed. "I'll do my best."

"I know ye will, dearie," McGonagall said. "Now, Poppy and I shuid probably get back tae Hogwarts. Sirius, be a dear and show us oot and I might end the Silencing Charm your godson placed on ye."

Sirius glared at her and Harry, then silently sighed and escorted them out of the room.

Hermione put her right hand on Harry's left. "Harry, are you sure about this? I'm probably going to drive you mad within the month."

"Yes, I am," he said. "I've quite enjoyed the last week, but I do miss my own place. I think all four of us will do better living in pairs, though I hope we can keep having dinner together at least once a week."

"We'd like that," Remus said. "Hermione, I'd have said something if I thought this was a bad idea, but Harry's been in good spirits lately and we've all enjoyed spending time with you. I think this has a real chance of success."

She took a deep breath. "If you're sure, Harry, then I'd love this opportunity. I feel like I've had a whole life stolen from me and you're all helping me to steal it back."

"And that," Sirius said as he strode back into the room, unsilenced, "may be the most Marauder-like sentence I've heard from a woman since Lily died. Let's do this."

Remus smiled. "I agree that we should get started, assuming the young people are ready to get out of bed together."

Harry blushed and scrambled out of bed, and noticed Hermione doing likewise on the other side. "That wasn't our idea, you know," Harry said.

"More's the pity," Sirius said, then transformed into Padfoot to duck under Harry's silencing spell and pounced, knocking Harry into the wall behind him. Padfoot licked his face once before transforming back into a man.

"Gotcha that time, Pup," Sirius said. "I've finally noticed that you tend to aim at the chest, so that makes it easier to duck your spells."

"It's a fair cop." Harry wiped dog slobber off his cheek with his sleeve. "I'll keep that in mind."

"Good Lord, are they fast!" Hermione said.

Remus patted her on the shoulder. "Sirius used to be an Auror, too, during the last war. This is how they keep each other in shape."

"More or less, anyway." Sirius patted his gut. "I still need to work out more." 

"Um…could we meet you downstairs?" Hermione asked. "I'd like to talk with Harry about something first."

Remus nodded. "Take all the time you need," he said, and followed his husband downstairs.

As soon as Remus shut the door behind him, Hermione cleared her throat. "Harry," she said, her eyes drifting anywhere in the room but toward him, "my nightmares for the rest of my life are going to be of you cutting your palm and dying in front of me, and I'll live every day knowing I have you to thank for both my nightmares and my life. Why?"

Harry scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "I wouldn't have minded just a 'thank you,' but I suppose I can't blame you for being horrified. I guess I would have been if Ginny had grazed her arm on the basilisk fang trying to cure me."

Her eyes snapped up to his. "Wait, what?" 

"It's a long story," Harry said. 

"No, no, no!" Hermione stalked around the bed and toward him as she spoke. "That was not how this conversation was supposed to go. I was supposed to yell at you for your recklessness and try to sort out why on Earth you would do that for me. When I said I was mad at you for nearly making your own death the last thing I ever saw, I did not want you to put that in the context of your own experiences to try to empathise because I don't want you to have those experiences. No one should have those experiences!" 

Harry blinked. "I…um…have never been yelled at for Active Listening before."

By then she was close enough to throw her arms around him and pull him into a hug. "Oh, Harry. I just don't want you to die. You've given more than anyone could have a right to ask of you, especially me."

He hugged her back and took a moment to enjoy the tactile sensations of her continued life: the warmth of her embrace, the rise and fall of her chest with each breath, and the pounding of her heart in her veins. "Weeks ago," he said, "while we were having lunch, I started idly thinking how brilliant it would have been to have you in my classes at Hogwarts, and how it wasn't fair that some of the stupidest people I've ever met have magic and you didn't. You did, though, and you wanted it so badly that you spent your life finding impossible knowledge of it and then cracked open a core binding because your magic is so irrepressibly a part of you that you wouldn't let anything keep it down forever. At first, I was thrilled, but the more I thought about it, the more angry I got that someone had stolen you from my life and the lives of all of my friends at school. That's why I was so tempted to trigger your wards and beat the hell out of whoever showed up. So, I just couldn't let you…let the ritual fail."

Hermione burst into tears.

"Um…I'm sorry?" Harry had a poor record handling crying witches. 

"I'm not mad," Hermione said after a moment. "It's just that my whole life is in the process of coming apart, people are hunting me down, I've had to throw away all of my research because I was somehow too right, and you're standing there telling me I'm brilliant. I don't feel brilliant right now. I feel lost, confused, and completely out of my depth, and I'm worried you're going to realise I'm a fraud and kick me to the curb."

That was a lot to process, but Hermione didn't seem to be in a hurry for a response so Harry took his time and thought about it. How could she think she wasn't a genius? She might as well be in the dictionary next to the word. He didn't know how to convince her she was wrong about herself, but there was another way to approach the problem…

"Hermione?" he asked.

"Yes?" She sniffled a bit.

"Do you really think I would kick you out with nothing because you didn't pass a test?"

There was a pause before she responded, in a small voice muffled by his shirt, "No."

"Good," he said. "Are you ready to go downstairs now?"

"I must look an absolute fright," she said.

"You can hit the loo before we go," Harry said. "I'll wait here."

She didn't let go of him.

"I'll check it for spiders first."

"Thank you," she mumbled.

Chapter Text

Sirius peered out into the light afternoon rain. "Are you sure you don't want to take the floo?" he asked.

"Hermione has been traumatised enough for one day," Harry said. "We'll walk."

"Oh, it's not that bad," Remus said.

"As someone who was not raised by wizards, I beg to differ," Harry said. "I'll tell you what: if, when Hermione finally does try the floo, she thinks it's an easy way to travel, I'll buy you a six-pack of real ale. If not, you buy me one."

"Deal," Remus said. "Wait, though, what if this is just a plan to bribe her with a bottle of the ale so you get the rest?"

"Then you'd better offer me at least three to beat his offer," Hermione said as she pulled on her mackintosh.

Sirius barked out a laugh. "I'll give you four," he said.

"Wait," Harry said, "you're not even a party to this bet."

"I know," Sirius replied. "I'm just willing to give her four ales to see if I can get her drunk. She was hilarious last time."

Hermione blushed. "I won't be drinking that much again."

"That's enough of that," Harry said. "Sirius, Remus, thank you for everything."

"Yes, thank you," Hermione said. "You saved my life twice. I can't even begin to thank you enough."

"Don't worry about it," Remus said. "Your company has been a breath of fresh air in this old house."

"And my parents would have hated you," Sirius said, "which makes it even better."

Hermione blinked. "Oh…um…I'm glad, then. I've enjoyed it here, too."

"Same here," Harry said. "We'll be back for dinner next week, and maybe we can have you over for a muggle-style dinner the following week."

"We'd like that," Remus said. 

Harry and Hermione waved one last time and stepped through the front door and out into the cold, rainy London afternoon. "Is it a long walk to your house?" she asked as he led her down the front walk to the square in front of the townhouse. 

"It's actually a little less than fifteen minutes," Harry said. He offered her his arm as they walked, which she accepted with a tight-lipped smile that was still warm enough to make him forget about the cold and damp for a bit.

Hermione looked around as they walked. "Are we near my university?" she asked. "This looks vaguely familiar."

"We are, yes," Harry said. "I'm on the other side of the Tube station, closer to Regent's Canal."

"I see." She looked around as they walked at the rain-stained but well-kept brick buildings and tall trees. "This is such a beautiful part of town."

"It really is," Harry said. "I spent most of my Quidditch bonuses to buy this place, and I'm glad I did. It's beautiful, in a relatively quiet part of town, near Sirius and Remus, and has a corner pub."

She laughed. "I like the addition of the pub on the end of that list. It's nice to see that even wizards are still British."

"Very much so." Harry smiled back. "Oh, here's our turn." 

Harry waited at the zebra crossing and led them across the street. "This isn't strictly the fastest way to get to my house," he said, "but it's definitely the nicest." Instead of walking up the little cross street, he led them into a little park maybe half a block wide but several blocks long.

"It's lovely," Hermione said. "And the trees have just started to turn."

"This is one of my favourite times to walk around here," Harry said. "Maybe tomorrow we could talk a walk down the canal, too."

"I'd like that," she said, and maybe it was his imagination, but he thought she moulded herself a little closer to him as they walked. 

After a block in the park, Harry took a right turn down a residential street lined with brick townhouses and flats, then another left down an even smaller street. A few more houses and he…no, they were home. "Here we are," he said, and turned into a three-storey (plus basement, the front windows of which were just barely visible from the street) townhouse just like all of the others on the street. 

He unlocked the door and then shifted his arm to hold Hermione's hand tightly. "Don't let go of me until we're through the door," he said. "I need to get you in and key you into the wards."

Hermione nodded and gripped his hand just as tightly in her own. He stepped in and gently pulled her over the threshold, then waited a moment as the warm, probing magic of the wards washed over them. "There you go," he said. "You're in now, but let me add you to the ward book before I forget."

Harry hurried through the foyer and into the smaller of the two rooms on the ground floor that he used as the house's floo room and general drawing room. The ward book was right next to the fireplace where most of his magical guests would arrive, and a quick scribble with the self-inking quill he kept next to the book added Hermione as a permanently approved visitor. 

"There you go," he said as he returned to her. "You can come and go as you like now."

"Thank you," she said. "Harry, this house is wonderful."

"Oh, thank you." He hadn't had many people over and magicals tended to find it a bit too mundane to compliment, so he didn't quite know how to respond to unqualified praise. (Being British probably didn't help matters on that front, if he was being honest.) The light oak panelling on the walls was a little worn, but it was holding up well for its advanced age and helped lighten the rooms in the gloomy London winters. The living room on the first floor had some comfortable, if worn, chairs and a chesterfield, with a large ottoman taking up much of the centre of the room. A discreet Wizarding Wireless receiver that looked enough like a vintage radio to avoid muggle attention stood in one corner, and a collection of magical reference books protected by muggle Notice-Me-Nots populated the higher shelves bookcases around the fireplace (the lower shelves had muggle novels, reference books, and a small philosophy section Harry had recently added).

"It's such a warm, cosy room," Hermione said. "And you have gas lamps, too?"

"Not exactly." Harry glanced at the handful of gas lamps lining the walls. "They're technically gas lamps, but they're enchanted to provide light without needing a constant input of gas. A lot of magical households use them because magic doesn't play well with electricity."

"I see," Hermione said. "Is that why you don't have a telly?"

"Yes, though not for lack of trying. I've had two blow out on me."

She winced, having only recently been on the receiving end of an exploding telly herself. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"I should've quit after the first one," Harry said ruefully. "Would you like to see the rest of the house?"

She nodded eagerly, so he showed her the smaller "floo room" on that floor and the small, but well-kept patio and backyard beyond it. The basement contained a spacious kitchen with an old-style enamelled gas stove and oven, a dining area with a nice view of the walk-out patio, some storage space off the front side and, oddly, the guest bathroom. "I'm sorry," Harry said, "but your bathroom will be down here."

"So it's a bit of a walk," Hermione said. "It's still nicer than my bathroom in my studio. You're going to spoil me."

"I won't spoil you that much," Harry said. "The dishwasher doesn't work, so all dishwashing has to be by hand."

"Oh, well," Hermione said. "That'll definitely be a pain, but I think it's worth living in a stunning Georgian house with vintage fixtures to do the dishes by hand."

"At least we can use magic to speed it up," Harry said. "Well, we can tomorrow."

"I have so much to learn about magic," she said.

"You'll have time," Harry said. "Let me show you the rest of the house now." 

The second storey comprised two guest bedrooms, each with a fireplace. The furnishings looked comfortable but bland, and the larger room had a proper dresser and vanity table as well a bed. The third floor contained the master suite, which was the only part of the house that actually looked lived-in even after his weeklong absence. Fortunately, there wasn't too much dirty clothing strewn about the floor, so Harry was willing to call that a 'win.'

Hermione ignored the mess, though, and focused on the terrace. "You have a walk-out terrace up here? That must be fantastic, at least when it's not raining."

"It's nice to just sit up here some nights and look at the stars," Harry said. "With all of the light pollution, I can sometimes see six or seven stars at the same time."

She rolled her eyes. "Don't remind me. I don't even remember the last time I saw a proper starry sky. Regardless, though, you have a lovely house, Harry, and I'm lucky you'll let me take over a whole floor."

He shrugged. "I'm glad you like it. It's too much space for just me, really. I barely see the first or second floors except while passing through on the stairs. Now, let's head back downstairs to the floo room. We might be able to talk with Professor Tonks today."

They made their way back downstairs. "We can travel and talk through the floo system," Harry explained. "It's basically magic fire that doesn't burn you."

"That sounds useful," Hermione said. 

"It is, but telephones would be more convenient a lot of the time." Harry took a pinch of floo powder as they arrived at the fireplace. "This is going to look crazy, but I promise you it's safe."

She nodded, so he tossed in the powder, stuck his head into the green flames, and said, "Professor Tonks' office, Hogwarts."

A moment later, a well-appointed dungeon office appeared in front of him, tinged green from the floo fire. Professor Tonks looked up from her desk and smiled. "I thought I might be hearing from you, Mr. Potter. Would you like me to come through?"

"Yes, thank you, Professor," he said. "You're already in the ward book."

He pulled his head out of the fireplace to find Hermione staring at him in horror. "That was floo communication?" she asked. 

Harry nodded and stepped back from the fireplace, gently guiding Hermione away, as well. "We're going to have a visitor," he said as green flames leapt to life in the fireplace. A moment later, Andromeda Tonks emerged, poised as ever, and dusted some soot off her emerald robes. Age had thus far been kind to her, and her light brown hair was barely touched with grey. She was a tall, slim woman, with a strong jaw and stern, kind eyes.

"Good afternoon." She inclined her head slightly. "It's good to see you again, Harry. Minerva said you and my cousin had somehow cooked up a plan to simultaneously study intensely and cause mischief, which I admit is terribly intriguing. I don't believe I've had the pleasure of your friend's acquaintance, though."

"We're definitely up to no good, Prof…er…Andi." He still wasn't used to being on a first-name basis with her. "This is my friend Hermione Granger. Hermione, this is Professor Andromeda Tonks, the best Potions instructor Hogwarts has ever had and Sirius's cousin."

Hermione's jaw was still hanging open. "Didn't that…is she alright? Do you have burn cream?"

Andi's eyes narrowed. "Harry, if you just let me break the Statute…"

"No!" Harry said quickly. "She's just never seen floo travel before." He quickly explained Hermione's situation. "So we would appreciate any help you could provide," he concluded.

"Morgana!" Andi said. "That's horrifying! I'd be happy to help. I don't have any classes on Thursday mornings, so I can come over and give you some tutoring to help you get the hang of potioneering."

"Thank you," Hermione said. "I appreciate you giving up some of your prep time during the week to help me."

"I'm happy to," Andi said. "Also, if you'll promise not to use anything in them until I've shown you the basics of safety, I have some books that might help you."

"Of course!" Hermione's eyes lit up at the word 'books.'

Andi disappeared back into the floo and reappeared a minute later with an armful of half a dozen books. "I found these in the back of an ingredients cabinet when I took over my position," she said. "I suspect my predecessor left them, but I can't prove it. In any case, the marginalia are exceptionally useful and often more instructive than the actual text."

Harry raised his eyebrows. "Your predecessor? Instructive? I don't think I ever remember him instructing any of us."

She sighed. "I know the two of you didn't get along, but Severus is an exceptionally talented Potions Master. When he bothered to explain himself, he could do so in tremendous detail."

"I'll believe that when I see it," Harry said. "I didn't think any force on Earth could compel that pompous git to actually teach someone."

"No force…currently on Earth," Andi said carefully.

Harry's heart leapt into his throat. "What…do you mean?" he asked. Hermione's concerned look warned him that he probably hadn't kept his feelings out of his voice.

"There are two sets of handwriting in the first four textbooks," Andi said. "I recognize Severus's hand, and while I don't recognize the second hand, I'm pretty sure it's a girl's. She asks questions and comments on the instructions, and Severus responds politely and explains in detail. There are only two girls he'd have been that polite to and the timing is wrong for it to have been Narcissa."

He tried to speak, but couldn't. He could only stare at the books in her hand. 

"Harry, what's wrong?" Hermione gently laid a hand on his arm.

"My aunt…" his eyes were going blurry, "she burned all of my mother's schoolwork. I've never seen anything."

She gasped. "I'm so sorry! Let's study it together. I've already heard so much about your mother, so it would be nice to sort of meet her in her notes."

Something about that statement broke the dam in Harry's eyes and he started crying. Hermione immediately pulled him into a tight hug.

Andi put the books down on the coffee table and laid a hand on Harry's shoulder. "I'm sorry, Harry," she said. "I only discovered these a few months ago and I didn't know how important they would be to you."

"Thank you so much," Harry said. "I thought it was all gone."

"I had no idea." She gave Harry's shoulder a squeeze and let her hand fall away. "I'll leave you alone now, but I'll come by at 9:00 sharp on Thursday morning for Hermione's first tutoring session, if that's alright."

Hermione nodded. "That would be great, thank you."

Andi stepped away and disappeared with a whoosh of green fire.

As the flames died away, Hermione gently guided Harry to the couch and sat down with him. He was a good six inches or more taller than she was, so pulling him onto her shoulder was a little awkward, but she somehow managed it anyway. It wasn't even very comfortable, but he was so touched by the gesture that he didn't even try to move.

"I'm sorry for losing it there," he said. "I can normally hold it together, but I wasn't expecting that."

"Don't you dare apologise to me," she said. "I will never think any less of you, do you hear me? Not twelve hours ago I watched you slash your palm without even wincing and bet your life on mine. You are a hero, even if I still think you're an idiot, and you can cry whenever you feel like."

He winced inwardly at the 'H'-word, which she somehow caught because she tensed instantly. "Did I say something wrong?" she asked. "I'm sorry."

"No, no," he said sadly, "it's just…I liked being your friend, not your hero."

She paused for a moment and he hoped he hadn't upset her. He was still trying to figure out what else he could say when he spoke up again. "When we were talking on the Tube train, I remember you were sort of bitter about being treated as a superhero, and that's how I knew you were telling me the truth about yourself. You weren't bragging about it; you were just sad." She ran her fingers through his hair slowly as she spoke, almost as if she were massaging his scalp. "I'm sorry people like me keep needing you to be a hero."

"It's not your fault!" he said. "I didn't mean it like that."

"That doesn't make it any less true," she replied.

"That's as may be, but I just…" He sighed. "Let me try that again. A solid majority of Britain’s Magicals probably think I'm a hero, but less than two dozen think they're my friend. I…I guess what I was trying to say is that I don't care if anyone else thinks I'm a hero, but I'd love it if you thought I was your friend." He paused. "Which is why you're sitting here on the couch holding me after I was crying."

She nodded. "You can be my friend and my hero, Harry."

He wormed an arm around her waist and pulled her in for a hug. "Thank you. I'm kind of thick sometimes."

"It's OK," Hermione said. "We all get to be thick sometimes."

"I can live with that," he said. "Now, should we see about setting up a dinner party? I think Sue is also off today and Neville is probably free unless one of his plants ate him again."

Hermione froze. "What?"

"Nev is our Herbology prodigy," Harry explained. "His plants frighten the rest of us."

"I'm frightened already."

"Oh, good," he said as he sat up and stretched. "Fear makes it more likely you'll survive Herbology. Most of the injuries I saw were people who weren't scared enough of the plants."

She sighed. "You never miss something like the Health and Safety Executive until it's gone."

"On the plus side," Harry said, "Wizarding restaurants can cook their hamburgers to only Medium."

"I withdraw my complaint," Hermione said, "but only if I can get one of those burgers soon."

"That can be arranged," Harry said. "I'd like to wait until I'm over my magical exhaustion before venturing out into the Wizarding World to pick up food, though."

"Wait…" she sighed. "People want to kill you, don't they?"

"Only a few," he said. "And it's not my fault."

"I know, I know," she said. "It's just…I think I'm starting to get the hang of your life. I just add 'because of the people trying to kill me' onto every explanation you give me and suddenly I have half of the missing context I need to understand you."

"That is…" he paused, "disturbingly accurate. I'm going to floo Sue now and lock you into dinner before you run away screaming."

"As if I could," Hermione said as he threw the powder in the fire. Her tone was strange, almost wistful.

A moment later, Sue wandered into the Bones Manor floo room wearing just a bathrobe. 

Harry raised his eyebrows. "Sue, it's nearly four o'clock."

"It's a day off," she said. "You're lucky I answered the floo at all."

"Fair enough. Can you get decent and come over for dinner at five? Something's up."

"Oh, no," she said. "I know that tone. On a scale of 'I want backup to deal with a boggart just in case' to 'Triwizard Tournament,' how bad is this?"

"Tournament," he said without hesitation. "Your aunt is going to blow a gasket when we can finally tell her."

"Damn it, Harry. I need boring friends. See you at five."

He smirked. "You know you love it. See you then." With that, he rose and stretched, cutting the connection. 

"That," Hermione said, "is weird to watch. From my perspective, you're just sticking your head in and then nothing happens. It's like you're slow-roasting yourself in a green fire."

 "That's the Wizarding World for you," he said. "You'll run into much stranger things as time goes on. I'm sorry you don't have much to look at, though."

For some reason, Hermione blushed. "No, no," she said quickly, "it's fine."

Harry had no idea what he'd said, so he chalked it up to the inscrutability of women and turned back to the floo. "Hey, Nev!" he said once he'd been connected to Longbottom Manor. "Are you there?"

The Longbottom house elf Spriggy hurried into the floo room. "Good afternoon, Lord Potter," he said. Any house elf of Augusta's was going to have manners…or else. "Master is puttering and pottering right now."

"Could you fetch him, please? It's urgent."

Spriggy bowed and popped away. A minute or so later, he popped back with Neville in tow. Neville was wearing his usual slacks and button-down shirt underneath his apron and elbow-length gardening gloves. That man was the best-dressed gardener Harry had ever met.

"Is everything alright?" Neville asked. "You don't send urgent floo calls…well, ever."

"At the moment, yes," Harry said, "but something's come up and we'll need your help. Susan's coming for dinner at five o'clock and I'll explain then."

"Gran won't like the change of plans on short notice," he said, "but she needs the occasional reminder that I have my own plans. See you at five."

"Thanks, mate," Harry said, fighting a smile. Watching Neville grow into a strong wizard, businessman, and formidable member of the Wizengamot had been one of Harry's genuine pleasures growing up. Augusta still hadn't quite reconciled herself to Neville no longer being a small boy, but they all loved the old lady anyway.

"Neville and Susan will be here at 5:00," he told Hermione after pulling his head out of the floo. 

"It's nice of them to come on such short notice," she said. "Oh, we should freshen up, and what about food? You've been gone for so long that everything must have expired."

Harry smiled. "Stasis charms…though I just realised that I shouldn't do the magic necessary to lift them. Bollocks."

"Language," she said, then cringed. "I'm sorry, you're a grown man who can talk however–"

"It's fine," Harry said. "I don't mind you saying it if you don't mind me ignoring you some of the time."

"Deal." She gave him another one of her tight-lipped smiles.

"And regarding dinner, I was going to cook it, but even though I usually cook without magic, I can't operate the kitchen with no magic at all." He scratched the back of his head. "I'm sorry, but I think I'm going to have to bother Dobby."

"I understand," Hermione said. "Oh, speaking of him, I did promise to bring this up, so even though it's awkward, I suppose I should before we see him again. Have you ever thought about…um…little witches or wizards?"

"I think I'd like some, yes." Harry laughed. "Does that satisfy your honour?"

"Yes," she said. "Let us never speak of that incident again."

He smirked at her rising blush and said, "Dobby?"

The elf popped up next to him. "Harry Potter sir called Dobby?"

"Yes," Harry said. "Hermione and I will be having Neville and Susan to dinner and we aren't allowed to use our magic until we've rested more. Could I trouble you to make us saffron chicken and rice for four at 5:30? I'll give you a neat sock."

Dobby nodded excitedly. "Dobby would love to make dinner for Harry Potter sir and his Miss My-knee. Oh, and does yous need Miss's things brought to her room from the Old Scary House?"

"Oh, right, thank you," Harry said. "That's not too much at once, is it?"

"Not at all!" Dobby stuck his chest out. "Other Hoggy-warts elves make fun of Dobby because he never gets enough work to be tired out, but he shows them tonight!" Before either of them could respond to that statement, Dobby popped away.

"Oh, dear," Hermione said. "I feel like I should feel awful, but he looked so happy."

"House elves are just human enough to make you think you understand them," Harry said, "until they do something to remind you they really, really aren't." He rose, stretched, and helped Hermione up. "I'm going to go find a good sock for him as a reward. He loves weird clothing, especially socks. Why don't you check out the books in the living room while I'm doing that?"

"I admit to incredible curiosity about what's in there." As she spoke, she was clearly trying and failing to keep a huge grin off of her face.

"What's so funny?" Harry asked.

"Oh, it's just that some of us at the market always wondered why you bought a pair of socks every week," she said. "I never would have guessed they were payment for a magical being."

Harry raised his eyebrows. "People talked about my sock purchasing habits?"

She shrugged. "Put yourself in Allison's shoes…Allison being the owner and operator of the sock stall at the Market. Every week, a man comes in wearing clothing worth more than she's going to make that day and buys precisely one pair of hand-knitted socks with cartoon characters or other funny designs on them. You made an impression." 

"Oh. I had no idea," Harry said. "Everyone there must think I'm a fop."

"If they've ever really looked at you, they don't," Hermione said. "It'd be like calling a lion a fop because it takes care of its mane. Sure, it may spend more time on hair care than other animals, but it can also rip you to pieces before you can blink."

"You think I can rip people to pieces?" Harry asked.

She arched her eyebrows at him. "Am I wrong?"

"Well…no. You…um…don't seem worried about that."

"If you'd wanted to hurt me," Hermione said, "I wouldn't have survived our first meeting. I'm still here, so I don't see any reason to be concerned."

"Oh, good," Harry said. He'd never had a conversation quite like that before and wasn't sure if he was worried or turned on. "Speaking of our first meeting, Sue was there, too, so I should probably tell you more about that."

"She was?" Hermione asked. "I don't remember seeing anyone with you."

"That was intentional," Harry said. "We didn't know if you were a muggle who was uncommonly good at finding books that weakened the Statute of Secrecy or a magical trying to undermine it, and had you been the latter things might have gotten violent. I handled the initial interaction in your shop and tried to trip you up with references to magic. Had you reacted, I would have attempted to disable you while Sue covered my back in case you had support. You didn't, though, so I just bought the books to get them out of circulation and left peacefully."

Her face fell. "So you never really wanted to eat lunch with me?" She put her face in her hands. "I should have known there was no way a–"

"No!" Harry said. "That's not true at all. I really enjoyed our lunches. The books were just a way to get my boss to give me time off to have lunch with you and subsidise your studies. I figured that if I was buying them, I was getting them off the streets and giving you reasons to convince Mr. Folkes to buy you even more books."

"Oh. Thank you." She slowly removed her face from her hands as she spoke. "Wait, what would have happened if my research had succeeded like…well…it did?"

"To be honest," Harry said, "I hadn't thought that far ahead. I don't think anyone has ever managed to break the Statute with research alone, and I never thought you'd get an actual wand. You shouldn't have been able to notice it. You're just all kinds of impossible."

She grinned impishly. "I should put that on a business card."

"Definitely," Harry said. "First, though, let's get cleaned up."

"Oh, right!" She shot to her feet. "Do you think I've enough time to shower?"

"Yes, but take the long way around the kitchen to get from the stairs to the shower. Dobby may be working invisibly near the stove."

"OK." She paused. "I have never had to worry about that before."

Harry shrugged. "Magic."

Chapter Text

At precisely 5:00 p.m., Harry's floo roared to life and Nev jumped out of it. He'd traded his gloves and apron for a stylish crimson and black acromantula silk waistcoat and gave Harry a firm handshake. "It's good to see you, mate," he said. "I figured there was no chance at all that Sue would be here on time, so this was a safe time to show up."

"Well played," Harry said.

Nev cocked his head at the closed doors between the living room and the floo room. "I don't think I've ever seen you close those doors," he said. "What's up?"

"It's a long story," Harry said, "and I was hoping–"

The rush of the floo behind them cut him off, and they both took a step away so Sue could hop out. She'd dressed in a brown gold skirt, white blouse, and golden-colored half-length cape over the blouse, and took a moment to smooth everything out and tuck an errant strand of hair back into her braid crown before hugging Harry and Neville. "It's good to see you both," she said. "It's been too long since all three of us hung out."

"Definitely," Harry said. "I'm sorry it's not entirely for social reasons this time. Sue, do you remember the muggle woman I've been having lunch with?"

Sue's eyes narrowed. "Harry, what did you do and how many people am I going to have to Obliviate?"

"None," he said, "because it turned out she wasn't a muggle." He pulled open the doors to reveal a nervous Hermione. "Nev, Sue, this is Hermione Granger. Hermione, these are my oldest friends. We all would have met when we were 11, except someone bound Hermione's Magical Core to hide the fact that she was a muggleborn witch."

Nev's jaw dropped, but Sue's only reaction was to slip into "Auror mode." "Does she have any memories of it?" she asked. "Have you identified any spell residue? Do her parents–"

"No leads yet," Harry cut off the line of questioning. "Let's all have a seat and I'll explain everything."

By the time Harry and Hermione finished explaining their adventures, Nev and Sue were both shocked and horrified. "Do you want me to talk to Auntie?" Sue asked. "She'd love to get her hands on whoever did this."

"Not yet," Harry said. "They don't know she's in our hands yet. If they find out, McGonagall is worried the Conservative Purebloods will try to bind her for being over eighteen with no O.W.L.s."

"Ugh," Sue said. "I understand her concern. Nev, we wouldn't have the votes to stop that, would we?"

"Doubtful," he said. "There are too many Pureblooded arseholes in the middle, too. I don't think I could wrangle enough of their votes to be confident."

"I'm sorry," Hermione said, "but who's your aunt? And Neville, do you work for the Wizarding Parliament?"

Sue smiled. "My aunt is Amelia Bones, the current Minister of Magic, and she sort of owes her position to Harry. And Nev here doesn't work for the Wizengamot; he's a hereditary member as Lord Longbottom. I'm also kind of in it right now, since Auntie needs a proxy for the House Bones seat while she's the Minister."

"Oh!" Hermione's eyes widened. "Harry, are you ever going to tell me when I'm interacting with a Peer, or are you just going to keep letting me be rude?"

"No," Sue said, "he isn't."

Nev snorted. "It's hard to stand on ceremony with someone who remembers you as a snot-nosed Firstie. Besides, he doesn't make us call him 'Lord Potter,' either."

Hermione took a deep breath, grabbed a throw pillow, and proceeded to beat Harry with it while yelling, "Harry Potter, how dare you not mention that to me?"

Sue smirked. "You did that intentionally, didn't you, Nev?" 

"Absolutely," he said while Hermione hit Harry. "I think it worked splendidly."

"Help?" Harry asked in between batterings.

"No, thank you." Nev and Sue shared a grin. "We don't need any." 

Eventually, Hermione's arms tired out. "I don't believe you never said anything," she said. "You knew how upset I was when I found out that Sirius was a lord and nobody told me."

"It's only been a few hours and we've been busy," Harry said.

She blinked. "It has? Goodness, it has, hasn't it? That seems so long ago."

"It's been a long day," Harry said.

"What with the near-death experiences," Nev added helpfully, "and beating the tar out of Harry with a pillow."

"She did very well with that," Sue said primly. "We might be able to make a proper lady of her yet."

"Wait," Hermione said, "what does beating up Harry with a pillow have to do with being a lady?"

"For most people, it doesn't," Harry said.

"Auntie has been on me to marry a nice lord for years now," Sue said. "Auntie also raised me to be able to break most of those snobbish prats like a twig without raising so much as an unladylike sweat, and that seems to worry most of them for some reason." She made a show of looking at her nails. "I can't imagine why. So as far as I'm concerned, your ability to thoroughly thrash Harry is extremely ladylike, since I'm a lady and I share that ability."

"Oh, do you now?" Harry asked.

"Certainly," Sue said. "I just need to find someone to soften you up first."

"That doesn't count," Harry said.

"I'm sorry," Sue said, putting a hand to her ear, "I couldn't hear you over the massive whinging."

Nev laughed. "Well, on the plus side, Hermione now knows what our years at Hogwarts were like. Several hours a day of this interspersed with classes and the occasional…um…incident."

"Person trying to murder Harry?" Hermione asked.

"Yes," he said. "How did you know?"

"I noticed a pattern in all of his stories," she said.

"She is clever," Sue said. "It took me until Third Year to figure that out."

Harry sighed. "Let's get some supper," he said. "We can talk more about who's probably trying to kill us this time afterward."

Supper was a delicious meal of saffron rice and chicken thighs cooked so the skins were still crispy, followed by an unexpected dessert of fresh brownies. While they ate, they planned. Nev offered to meet with her one afternoon a week to teach her herbology in his family's greenhouses, while Sue agreed to take her to lunch every week to get her out of the house and start introducing her to the Wizarding World. 

After Nev and Sue left, Harry and Hermione went downstairs and washed up the dishes by hand. Dobby had helpfully cleaned everything he'd used for cooking, but that still left the dinner dishes to do. Harry attempted to do them as he normally would, which didn't go well.

"That's not clean." Hermione handed the plate back. 

"Yes, it is," Harry said.

"Then what's that?" She pointed to a spot.

"A few molecules of food, maybe."

"You can't see molecules, you know," she said.

"It's fine."

"No, it isn't."

"Do you want to wash?"

"Yes!"

"Fine!"

They switched places and worked for awhile in silence. Finally, Hermione said, "I could have handled that better, couldn't I?"

"Yeah," Harry said. Honesty compelled him to add, "You weren't exactly wrong, though."

"Story of my life," she said as she scrubbed a plate. "I'm right, but annoying about it. My life literally depends on it and I can't stop being obnoxious."

"I don't want you to stop standing up for yourself," Harry said. "We just have to work out how to do that in a way that communicates what you want without being unnecessarily harsh." He looked down. "It looks like our current compromise worked. Instead of you telling me how to wash, you're washing and I'm drying."

"And I'm ignoring how the plates aren't as dry as I'd like," Hermione said.

"And I'm ignoring how much longer you take with each item," Harry countered.

They looked at each other and laughed. "Maybe we can do this," Hermione said.

"I think so," Harry replied.

A few minutes later, Hermione asked, "Sue wasn't taking the mickey about you being a huge celebrity, was she?"

Harry shook his head. "Sadly, no. I have people stop me on the street all the time, and I guarantee you that you'd end up in the Daily Prophet if you were seen eating out with me."

"That sounds dreadful," she said.

"It is," he replied. "Even if we glamoured your appearance, I'd still be worried about attracting too much attention to you."

"I see what you mean." Hermione dried off another plate and put it away. "And thank you for trying to help me make more friends, too. I can tell that's what you're trying to do."

"Oh. I wasn't too obvious, was I?" 

"I don't think so," she said. "I do appreciate the thought. As introverted as I am, I'd probably still go stir-crazy studying here all day, every day."

"I can imagine." Harry dried the last glass and put it back in the cupboard. "Well, thank you for helping with the dishes."

"No problem!" Hermione said. "I mean, I live here now. They're my responsibility, too."

Harry blinked. "Oh, right. Sorry, I forgot that for a second. When I left this place on Sunday, I didn't think I'd come back with a flatmate."

"I see what you mean," she said. "Is it weird?"

"Very. Not bad, mind. Just weird. Anyway, speaking of you moving in, do you need any help with your stuff?"

"No, thank you, but I probably should get working on that," she said. "Thank you for the reminder."

"No problem." She hurried upstairs and left Harry to his own devices. Unfortunately, Harry was still too keyed up to focus on a book or Wizarding Talk Radio (which was generally as vapid as the Daily Prophet, anyway), and after about fifteen minutes he gave up and decided to do something useful. He dug up some parchment, a self-inking quill, and the only first-year textbook he still had left, and got to work. He was still at it when she came down two hours later, sweaty and smiling. 

"That was all of it," she said. "I've loaded everything into the dresser and the marvellous walk-in closet. One question, though: that closet seems like it extends past the walls of the house. Is that…"

"Magic, yes," Harry said. "I thought I might need more closet space, so I paid someone to cast some Space-Expansion Charms on them."

"That's incredibly useful," Hermione said. "So, what have you been up to?"

"I'm planning out a first-year Charms curriculum for you," he said. "We'll only have a couple of months for each year, so I'm trying to hit the most important spells only, either for their uses or the theory behind them."

"Thank you," she said. "I didn't mean to steal your whole Sunday."

He waved off her concerns. "No worries. I'd probably just be down the pub otherwise and this is an interesting challenge." His body promptly registered its disagreement with a yawn. "Do you have any idea what time…" the grandfather clock in the floo room started chiming the hour. 

"Is it midnight already?" Hermione asked when the chimes finished.

"Apparently. Shall we call it a night?"

"I want to get right into studying," she said, "but I wouldn't retain anything at this hour. We should sleep."

Harry rose and stretched. "You're probably right. After our adventure this morning, we need rest. Goodnight, Hermione. Let me know if you need anything."

"OK," she said. "Goodnight, Harry. And…thank you. For everything." She bit her lower lip for a moment in thought, then lunged at him and hugged the life out of him briefly before running back upstairs.

He stood for a moment in the empty living room, lost in thought. He couldn't deny he was nervous about whether he could live with someone he barely knew, but after that evening, he thought they could make it work. And he couldn't deny that it was nice to have someone in the house to say "goodnight" to, and to say "goodnight" to him.

Harry left his old-fashioned dual-bell alarm clock off the next morning and ended up rolling out of bed around nine. There was no sign of life from Hermione's direction, so he showered and slipped out of the house to get some food (since he still couldn't lift the stasis charms on his). The convenience store about three blocks back towards Grimmauld Place provided the basics, and he resolved to do a proper grocery run later.

The house was still quiet when he returned, and in no time at all he had a proper fry-up going. Hermione came down around when he was finishing up, wearing an old bathrobe and carrying a bag of toiletries. "That smells wonderful!" she said.

"I thought we could use a serious breakfast this morning," he replied. 

"Thank you," she said. "Do I have time…?"

"Maybe five minutes," Harry said.

She nodded and hurried around him into the downstairs bathroom. There was probably a good reason these old houses only had bathrooms on the very top and bottom floors, but he'd never figured it out.

Hermione was out of the bathroom in no time and, after they'd thoroughly stuffed themselves on eggs, sausage, bacon, toast, tomato, and beans, insisted that she take care of all of the clean-up. That worked out nicely, since Harry was firmly of the opinion that cooking without magic was vastly more fun than cleaning without it.

Afterward, she settled in for a proper shower while Harry looked around for any books that might give him an idea of what a proper home potions lab would require. Eventually, he found the copy of "The Prudent Potioneer" Andi had given him as a graduation present in the (vain) hope he would continue to practice her art. It had a good list for a well-stocked home lab, as well as recommended Charms to protect the rest of the house from said lab and instructions for performing them.

He instinctively pulled out his wand to duplicate the pages with supply suggestions, but stopped himself before actually performing the spell. That reminded him that he needed to get Hermione her own wand, but that would have to wait until she could perform magic, too. In the meantime, there was nothing for it but to write it the old-fashioned way.

By the time she finished showering and went back upstairs in her old bathrobe, he had a solid list for her Potions lab, and was putting the finishing touches on his draft Charms curriculum from the previous night when she came back down dressed in jeans and a jumper and carrying some parchment and a pair of quills. "Alright," she said, "where do I begin?"

"I think I have a decent idea for an introduction to Charms theory for today," he said. "One question, though: are you going to be able to take notes with a quill?"

"I've been doing it all week at Sirius's house," she said. "It was weird at first, but I got the hang of it quicker than I thought I would. It forces you to be mindful as you write and only jot down the most important things, so you have to figure out what those are quickly."

"I never thought about it like that." Harry picked up his notes and took a deep breath. "We have nine months to turn you into a witch, starting now. Let's do this."

Chapter Text

They spent the rest of the morning and a bit into the afternoon going over basic Charms theory, then had cheese toasties for a small lunch. Afterward, Harry cleaned all of the dishes magically to confirm he was feeling better. Some of the spells didn't clean quite as quickly as he'd have liked, but overall he felt good enough to go out.

"It's time to introduce you to Wizarding Britain," he told Hermione once they'd put away the dishes and pan. "I'll glamour us so we won't be recognizable, but we'll still need to be careful. Please hold my hand or my arm the whole time in case we need to make a quick escape, too."

"Are you sure this is worth it?" she asked.

"Definitely. We need supplies, you need a wand, and ideally we want some clothes so you'll look less like a muggle." He pulled out his wand. "Any requests on your appearance? I was going to go with something that looked non-descript Southern European for both of us, with extra bushy eyebrows for myself. I can change your hair colour or lengthen it, but I can't change its texture."

"That's fine, I guess," Hermione said. "I've never really considered that as an option."

"OK." Harry waved his wand over his head and an oily film seemed to descend over his body. A moment later, he did hers, giving them matching olive skin and bushy black hair. 

"This is amazing," she said. 

"It's a tremendously tricky Charm," Harry said. "We learnt it at the Auror Academy for disguises. If anyone asks, we're a married couple named Mark and Anne Winter who recently moved here from an unspecified country for personal reasons. On the off chance we run into anyone I know well, I'm going to need to let you do the talking, since I can't change our voices."

"That makes sense," Hermione said. "What if they keep pressing for information?"

Harry shrugged. "Ignore them. There's nothing illegal about walking around with a glamour on unless you're trying to impersonate a specific person, so anyone who tries to do anything more than question us will be on the wrong side of the law."

"Is…um…someone likely to try that sort of thing?" Hermione asked.

"No." Harry did his best to sound reassuring. "And I promise you that no one is going to do more than try, regardless."

She nodded nervously.

"Don't worry," Harry said. "This is a popular shopping district and it'll be the middle of the day. Now, I'll just get some money upstairs and then we can get going."

"I can pay for some of it," Hermione said.

"I'm afraid you can't," Harry said. "Wizarding Britain uses different money for some reason. Also, I don't think anyone is likely tracking your bank card, but you never know."

"Oh."

"Don't worry," he said. "At some point ten years from now when you're gainfully employed in the Wizarding World and have had a chance to save up, buy me a nice broomstick or something and we can call it even."

"I will," she said firmly, and he got the distinct impression that come hell or high water he was going to get a broomstick on September 27, 2014.

A few minutes later, after he'd stashed a couple of hundred galleons in a featherweight, space-expanded money pouch, he found himself facing down the floo with a nervously determined Hermione. "OK," he said, "just toss a bit of the powder in, wait till the flames turn green, step in, and clearly say 'Diagon Alley.'"

"I can do that," she said. "Wait, is that 'Diagon Alley' or 'diagonally'?"

Harry grimaced. "Diagon Alley. Two words."

"I see. What was that look for, though?"

"I didn't get that until like the third time I went there," he said. "You picked it up the first time I mentioned it."

"You were a small child at the time," Hermione said. "Give yourself a break."

"It's still embarrassing." He sighed and tossed his powder in. "Follow me in fifteen seconds," he said, before stepping into the flames and calling out his destination.

The usual spinning, sucking sensation grabbed him by the feet and hauled him through the floo network, passing an array of fireplaces and conversations that doubtless each hid their own secrets, dreams, and lies. Harry tried to be the kind of person who focused on that and not on how the experience seemed to be designed to magically centrifuge his brain out of his ears, but he once again failed. He did remember to keep his knees bent when we hit the ground in the Leaky Cauldron.

The sights, sounds, and smells of the crowded pub assaulted his senses immediately upon arrival, but he pushed those out of his mind with years of practice playing pro Quidditch and forced himself to focus on the floo. He took one unsteady step to the left, then pivoted to face the floo and shifted his feet apart a few inches. He sank into the deeper stance, preparing himself–

Hermione spun out of the floo like a human pinball, but like most other people who weren't familiar with it she let the spin carry her to the left and, in her case, right into Harry's waiting arms.

"Gotcha," he said. 

Her only response was a moan.

"I don't blame you," he said. He slung her right arm over his shoulders and half-walked, half-carried her through the pub and out into the street.

By the time they were back under the diffused sun of a cloudy London afternoon, Hermione had once again found her voice. "That was awful," she said. "Is that how people get around?"

"Yes," Harry said. "I'm not sure if people raised magical just have stronger inner ears or what, because that still gets me after all of these years."

"But…you caught me," she said.

He shrugged. "I didn't want to let you down. Oh, I guess I can let you go now."

"I…guess so." She didn't meet his eyes as she retrieved her arm from his shoulder. "Now what?"

"Let's check Ollivander's first," Harry said. "If he's busy, we can come back later, but it's important we meet with him privately." He held out his left arm to Hermione, which she grabbed as if it were the only flotation device capable of keeping her from sinking into an unfamiliar sea.

The Alley wasn't too crowded that day, since the start-of-school rush was well over and most people had done any shopping they needed to do while collecting school supplies. Hermione tried not to gawk at the oddly dressed witches and wizards around them and the garish signs decorating the stores they passed, and in no time at all they made it to Ollivander's. 

It happened to be empty when they arrived, so Harry led them inside. As soon as they entered the store, he flipped the sign to "closed" and turned to face Ollivander. "I'm sorry, Mr. Ollivander, but I'm going to have to ask for a private consultation for my lady friend. I'll pay you extra for your trouble."

"That would be fine." Ollivander peered at them. "Pleasant facial features, but bland. A glamour, I see. Ah, but your wand…eleven inches, holly, looks nice and supple. Mr. Potter! Always a pleasure. Albus told me much of your adventures, and I'm glad to see your wand doing such great things. It had as much potential as its brother, you know, but you've used it far better."

Harry twitched, but managed to keep his composure. "Indeed, Mr. Ollivander. I should have known you'd know my wand."

"You have a brother?" Hermione asked.

"No, no," Ollivander said. "The phoenix that gave its feather for the core of Mr. Potter's wand only gave one other feather for my wands, and that wand cast the curse that gave Mr. Potter his scar. Both of those wands are great in their own ways, my dear, even though one is as terrible as it is great."

Hermione paled a little. "I…um…see."

"My friend is in need of a wand." Harry did his best to haul the conversation somewhere less unpleasant. "Can you help her?"

"Of course," Ollivander said. "Come here, dear. Hmmm…try this one. Nine and one-quarter inches, elm, brittle but strong, with a core of Welsh Green Dragon heartstring."

Hermione took the wand. "How do I know if it works?" she asked.

"Just give it a swish," Ollivander said. "It should feel like your old…" he paused. "No, this is your first wand, isn't it? How intriguing!"

"I would deeply appreciate it," Harry said quickly, "if you would keep that to yourself. In less than one year the truth will out, I promise you, but for the moment we need to be discreet. Please contact Headmistress McGonagall if you don't believe me."

"Certainly," Ollivander said. "I match the person to the wand, nothing more. I don't need to trouble myself with something as trivial as a name to do my work." He pulled out several more wands. "Now, let us try…"

Hermione went through a dozen wands before she drew a vine wand, ten and three-quarters of an inch long, with a core of Hungarian Horntail heartstring and a sudden gust of wind ripped through the room.

"How curious!" Ollivander said. "I made this wand decades ago and only now has it finally chosen its witch. That gives me hope for the handful of others I've had sitting on a shelf these many years. That will be ten galleons and three sickles."

"Please take fifteen with our appreciation for your private time," Harry said.

"Oh, no." Ollivander shook his head and counted out the change. "I charge the correct price for each wand, not one knut more or less."

"Thank you," Hermione said, staring in awe at her new wand. "This feels…perfect."

"That is a powerful wand," Ollivander said. "It will demand perfection of you and deliver perfection in return. I see that it has chosen…wisely, I think. Time will tell. Good day to both of you."

They nodded and hurried out of the store. "Harry," Hermione asked, "is the entire Wizarding World this…unsettling?"

"Not the whole thing, no," Harry said. "Mr. Ollivander is special."

She shuddered. "I felt like he was undressing me with his eyes the whole time, only he was also removing my skin with them, too."

"You know, you're actually the third person I've met who described him like that," Harry said. "Regardless of gender. He's egalitarian in his creepiness."

"Lovely."

"Would some ice cream help?" Harry asked.

"Yes!" Hermione said.

"Right this way, then." Harry offered her his arm again and led her back down the alley to Fortescue's ice cream parlour. The old timbered building still had its homey charm, and once they were inside they paused to check out the list of flavours.

"Goat cheese and beet swirl? Grape and pineapple? What are these flavours?" Hermione asked. 

"Probably tastier than you think," Harry said. "Though not always."

They eventually settled on Yellow Curry Coconut for Harry and Red Bean and Chocolate for Hermione. She took a sceptical bite of hers once they got to their table, followed quickly by a much larger bite. "This is delicious!" she said.

"I'm glad you like it," Harry said. "Mine is, too."

They happily ate in silence for a few minutes before Hermione spoke up again. "So, what's next?"

"Next, we get you some wizarding clothes," Harry said. "Think of them as camouflage, plus you'll probably need them at some point."

"That makes sense," she said. "I would definitely prefer to blend in."

After they finished their ice cream, Harry took Hermione just up the road to Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. There were only a few other patrons in the store, so a salesgirl saw to them almost immediately and started measuring Hermione for robes. Overall, it was a perfectly normal robe-fitting trip until the door swung open and a peppy ex-Slytherin woman with short, curly brown hair flounced into the store and gave the salesgirl a hug. 

"Wilone!" Tracey Davis said. "How've you been?"

"Good, but I'm with a customer right now," the salesgirl said. "They just moved here and she needs a full wardrobe, so I may be a bit."

"Oh!" Tracey spun around and held out her hand to Hermione. "Hullo there! I'm Tracey Davis and welcome to Britain. This is just the loveliest shop, isn't it? What brings you to our fair isle?" She winked. "And, by 'fair,' I mean 'rainy,' of course."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Davis," Hermione said, subtly shifting her speech toward a RP accent. Harry was impressed. Instead of trying to hide her British accent, she was dropping into the sort of accent a particularly good student might learn. "My name is Anne, and this is my husband Mark. We're just here for my husband's work."

"The pleasure is all mine," Tracey said before turning her attention to Harry. "Tracey Davis," she said, holding out her hand. Harry noticed she'd angled it so it would look like she was going for a muggle-style handshake, probably because of his clothes, but also so it wouldn't be awkward for him to turn it over to kiss her hand were he more old-school.

"Charmed," Harry said in the raspiest voice he could summon up on short notice while shaking her hand.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Hermione said. "My husband's voice is sore from all of his meetings so far today. I do hope you'll excuse his poor conversation."

"Of course," Tracey said. "I hope he feels better soon. All of this chill autumn rain can't be good for his throat." 

"Thank you," Hermione said.

Wilone tapped her wand to her tape measure and it folded itself up and shot back into her vest pocket. "There we go, ma'am. I'll enter your measurements, get Tracey her order, and then help make up your robes. It shouldn't take too long."

"It's been a pleasure meeting you." Tracey handed Hermione a card. "If you ever need anything, please let me know. I'm a professional arranger."

Harry saw the struggle between the desire to end the conversation and get more information in Hermione's eyes and knew it could only end one way.

"What do you arrange?" Hermione inquired.

Tracey grinned. "Anything legal. Babysitting, crup walking, weddings, doxy removal…if you need it done, I can arrange to have it done for you."

"That sounds fascinating." Hermione continued with the stilted pronunciation as she filed the card away, but before she did so, she read it carefully for a moment the way Harry had seen certain Japanese exchange Aurors read business cards. "Thank you."

"My pleasure," Tracey said, and accompanied the salesgirl to the rear of the store.

Harry released a huge breath. "Thank you for covering that," he said. "Just my luck to meet one of my more extroverted former classmates."

Hermione nodded. "I had a feeling you knew her from the way you reacted and talked. She seems like a character."

"Oh, she is," Harry said. "Don't let her bubbliness fool you; she's always collecting information to share and identify new clients or opportunities. She was one of the few people in Slytherin House who wasn't a Pureblood, and she survived by making herself invaluable to her classmates. I'm sure she's guessed that we're glamoured and lying to her, but thanks to your clever choice of accent and your treatment of her business card, she's probably still in the dark about where we're from and what we're up to."

"I was just trying to be careful." Hermione blushed. "I'm glad you thought I did a good job, since I have absolutely no experience with this sort of thing. I mean, I've never even gotten in trouble at school and now I'm skulking around in a disguise with a dangerous man."

Harry smirked. "You're a natural, then."

She flipped her hair over her shoulder. "MI6 will be so disappointed I missed my true calling," she said in a posh accent. 

Their next stop was Potage's Cauldrons for a cauldron (of course Hermione found the different brewing properties of each metal fascinating), followed by a trip to Slug & Jiggers to put in an order for a full stock of potion ingredients. By then, the robes were done, so Harry (after discreetly ensuring Tracey was no longer present) summoned Dobby to collect Hermione's robes, then again to bring home the cauldron and the potions ingredients. 

Once that was handled, Harry led Hermione back to the Leaky Cauldron. "Are you up for one more adventure?" he asked.

"I'm honestly not sure," she said. "Today has just been overwhelming in so many ways. What did you have in mind?"

"I did promise you a hamburg–"

"I'm in," she said.

He shot her a grin which she met with a tight-lipped smile of her own. "Great," he said. "I know just the place."

They made their way further into Diagon Alley until they came to Sudely's Scrumptious Sandwiches. "The Leaky Cauldron is the place to go for pub grub," Harry said, "but this is where everyone goes for a good sandwich."

"It is?" Hermione eyed the grungy, half-timbered exterior of the building sceptically. 

"Have I ever lied to you?" Harry asked.

She turned her gaze on him and arched her eyebrows.

"It's a fair cop," Harry said. "Come on, you'll love it. I'll need to use that raspy voice again in case any of the wait staff recognize my voice, but I don't think there will be any trouble."

"Fine, but only because I really want a burger." Hermione allowed him to lead her into the restaurant, which turned out to be a cosy little room with thick, dark old wood beams around the walls and across the ceiling. The tables and chairs were of similar dark wood, worn smooth by decades of patrons. They were still a bit early for dinner, so they had no trouble finding a table for two even in such a small establishment.

A middle-aged witch with bags under her eyes, her usual turtleneck shirt, and a magically animated nametag that alternately flashed the words "Moira Spangleton" and "Ask me about our daily special!" sauntered over to their table. "Hey, Harry," she said, barely sparing them a glance. "The usual for you?"

Harry's jaw dropped. Moira only bothered glancing up at him when he didn't respond, then promptly did a double-take. "But you're…" she started, then clamped her mouth shut and put her free hand over her mouth.

Harry looked nervously around the restaurant while Hermione just looked confused. "But…you're still…and aren't I still…" she trailed off, staring at her arms and checking her hair.

"I'm s…sorry," Moira said. "I…um…mistook you for another customer. Silly old me. I've never seen you before in my life."

Moira had served Harry easily dozens of sandwiches over the previous year, occasionally more than once a week if he was treating himself. She'd never shown any sort of strange magic-sensing ability, or even any real magical talent. And, now that he thought about it, he realised he'd never seen her at a particular time of the month.

He looked up at her. "Moira, I'm so sorry," he said.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said stiffly.

"It's fine," Harry said, as a bewildered Hermione looked on. "Sirius Black is my godfather, and he's married to–"

"Remus Lupin," Moira finished. "Oh, thank Morgana. You won't tell, will you? Mr. Sudely knows, but he'd have to fire me if anyone found out."

"Of course I won't," Harry said, "and my friend won't, either."

Hermione nodded. "I don't think it's fair at all. I won't say a word."

"Thank you. You have no idea what this means to me," Moira said. "What do you want for supper? It's my treat tonight."

"I can't take your money," Harry said. "Just don't tell anyone you saw me with a woman and we're even."

"I wouldn't tell anyone anyway," Moira said. "My customers' love lives are their own business."

"It's not like that," Hermione said quickly. "It's…um…I'm in hiding."

"I'll take this to my grave, dearie," Moira whispered, then continued in a normal voice, "so what can I get you two lovebirds?"

"I'd like my usual," Harry said.

"And the garlic bread burger with gouda and red onion sounds delicious, but please hold the tomato," Hermione said, then turned to Harry. "Oh, you…um…won't mind it if I have garlic breath, will you?"

"I promised you a burger and it'd be a poor gift if I didn't let you have the one you wanted. Besides," he said with a smirk, "what do you think my usual is?"

She shot him a tight-lipped smile. "Garlic breath it is, then."

"How would you like it cooked?" Moira asked. 

"Medium rare." Hermione's smile had grown so large it was threatening to reveal her teeth.

"Will do," Moira said. "Anything to drink?"

"Two butterbeers, please," Harry said.

Hermione's smile faded instantly. "I'm not sure I should have alcohol again."

"It's just a weak beer," Harry said, "and it's delicious. You have to try it."

Moira arched her eyebrows. "You've never had butterbeer, dearie?"

"No." Hermione instinctively shrank back from the attention.

"I'll get you some water, too, then," Moira said, "but you have to try the butterbeer. I think you may be the only witch over the age of ten on the entire island who's never had any. I'll take it off the bill if you don't like it…or just give it to him."

Harry grinned appreciatively. 

"OK, thank you," Hermione said.

Moira nodded, drew her wand, and waved it lazily in the direction of the kitchen. "Accio glass," she said. A water glass zipped out of the kitchen and, guided by a wave of her wand, settled itself on the table in front of Hermione. The muggleborn woman didn't outwardly react to that, but she couldn't stop herself from jumping a little when Moira pointed her wand at the glass and said, "Aguamenti" to fill it to about a quarter of an inch below the rim.

"It's alright," Moira said. "I haven't overfilled a glass since I was still in waitress training, and that's more years ago than I'd ever admit sober."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Hermione said. "I didn't mean to imply you didn't know what you were doing. So that's…I can drink that?"

"Of course you can, dearie," Moira said. "Haven't you…ever…" she trailed off and turned to Harry. "If you're breaking the Statute, I don't want to know," she whispered.

"I swear we're not," Harry said.

"Then…how?" she asked. 

"One year," Harry said. "I'll tell you in one year."

She shook her head. "I'm going to be telling my nieces and nephews about this in a year, aren't I?"

"Probably," Harry said with a rueful smile. "You can even tell them you served her first butterbeer."

Hermione put her face in her hands. "Oh, God, am I going to be a minor celebrity if this works?"

"I'm afraid so," Harry said. "I'd say I was sorry, but I'm actually excited that you might take some of the attention off me for once."

Hermione took her right hand from her face, picked up her water glass, and, without looking, threw the water right in Harry's face. Then, she placed the water glass back down in front of her and said, "I seem to have spilt my water. May I have more, please?"

Moira burst out laughing, briefly attracting the attention of the other patrons. "You can have as much as you like if you're going to use it so wisely." 

While Moira refilled Hermione's water, Harry asked her, "Could you hit me with a Drying Charm when you're done?"

"I could," Moira said. "I'll be right back with the butterbeers." She winked at Hermione and walked away.

"Humph," Harry said.

"You deserved that." Hermione finally removed her hands from her face.

"Possibly," Harry said as he drew his wand. He aimed it at himself and hit himself with a Drying Charm. It never seemed to work as thoroughly on himself as when someone else did it, but the sensation of a blast of warm, dry air certainly felt good.

Moira returned a moment later and deposited a butterbeer in front of each of them. "The burgers will be up shortly," she said. "When I come back, let me know what you think of the butterbeer…" she trailed off and shot a meaningful glance at Harry, "or whether you'll need any more water."

"I'll let you know," Hermione said. "After all, some people learn their lesson more quickly than others."

"Fine," Harry said. "I promise not to throw you to the ravenous tabloid wolves in order to save my own miserable hide."

Hermione smiled brightly. "See? Was that so hard?"

"Yes," Harry grumbled.

"They all need a little domestication, dearie," Moira said as she sauntered off.

"Domestication?" Harry asked. "I cook all the time!"

"It's the little things," Hermione said. "Leaving the toilet seat down, not leaving dirty dishes in the sink for too long, not feeding your flatmate to the tabloids."

Harry pouted. "Domestication sounds hard."

"So I hear," Hermione said without a trace of sympathy.

"Could I feed you just a little to the tabloids?"

"No."

"Just a story about your favourite muggle designers?"

She glowered at him. "Do I look like I can afford designers?"

"Oh. Sorry." Harry scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "You always dressed nicely at work and I just sort of assumed it was designer. Aren't all nice clothes designed?"

Her glower turned into confusion. "Are you having me on?"

"Wait, what?"

"You always dress so well," Hermione said, "but now you're talking like you don't know anything about clothes. Are you just messing with me?"

"No, I really don't," Harry said. "I just pay a lot of money and other people give me clothes and tell me what to wear."

"Your outfits cost more than my rent! How can you know nothing about them?" she asked.

"I just wanted to look nice," Harry said defensively.

"You can do that without spending huge sums of money, you know," Hermione said. "I do, and you just said you thought I usually looked decent."

"No, I don't know," Harry shot back. "Who taught you how to pick out clothing and put together nice outfits?"

"My…mother." Hermione's face fell as she said the word. "Didn't you have anyone who could teach you?"

"When I moved in with Sirius, he'd just spent the previous twelve years in rags and was desperate to put that behind him," Harry said. "He was never great at dressing well, though, just ostentatiously. I didn't have the luxury of being Lord Black and doing that, though. I spent that same twelve years in clothing a few steps up from Sirius's rags, and I've never had anyone who could teach me to dress like a proper Pureblooded lord. If I tried to do so and failed, the tabloids would mock me. So, instead, I decided to dress like a wealthy muggle. I know I shouldn't pay attention to the tabloids, but the constant snickering gets so tiresome after awhile. I just wanted people to leave me alone, and, if I'm being really honest, I know how Sirius feels and I never want to be ashamed of my clothes again, either."

Harry took a breath after his diatribe and waited for Hermione's response, but none came. Instead, she just stared at the butterbeer on the table in front of her. After what was probably a solid thirty seconds but felt like a year, he cleared his throat and said, "I'm sorry, I guess you hit a bit of a nerve there. I didn't offend you, did I?"

"Of course not!" Hermione said, finally looking up and meeting his eyes. The glamour didn't touch their eyes, and he found himself oddly glad to see her usual chocolate brown eyes just then. "I'm so sorry, H–" She cut herself off before she could say his name while they were glamoured. "I had no idea. I know I shouldn't be jealous of your money, but some part of me must be."

She took a deep breath. "I grew up pretty wealthy, but my parents were never fans of my decision to go to postgraduate school in a 'fluffy' discipline like history and haven't given me a penny for it, so I went straight from 'upper-middle class childhood' to 'barely scraping by' and it was a tough transition. It's hard to see someone dressed like my parents or the people I knew growing up and not feel a twinge remembering I've lost that and will probably never get it back. You don't deserve that, though. You've lost more than I could ever imagine and the last thing you need is me begrudging you the one luxury you seem to allow yourself."

"It's OK," Harry said. "I don't mean to rub your nose in your own circumstances every time you look at me."

"I know," she said. "It's irrational and I hate that I do it."

"All humans are allowed a bit of irrationality," Harry said, affecting a confident air. "It's in the rules somewhere. I checked."

She stared at him for a moment before bursting out laughing. "How do you do that? My classmates always used to say I had the sense of humour of a broken brick, but you can reliably make me laugh even when I feel terrible."

"No clue, sorry," he said. "I always thought my sense of humour was average, at best. Maybe they just weren't funny."

"I'll suggest that the next time I see them…except I probably won't, will I? That's starting to sink in."

"I'm afraid you won't," Harry said. "Will you miss them?"

"The people who compared me to a brick?" She arched her eyebrows at him.

He smirked. "I'll take that as a 'no.'"

"Definitely," she said. "Not that they'll miss me, either. I think they assumed my research would go nowhere and I'd eventually be tossed out of the program, anyway."

"Do you care that they'll probably think you did?" Harry asked.

"Not at all," she said. "They can keep their research. This is so much more interesting that I can't even begin to describe it."

Before Harry could respond to that, Moira returned with their burgers. "How did you like the butterbeer, dearie?" she asked Hermione.

"Oh, right!" Hermione took a quick drink from her mug. "Oh…oh, my. That's delicious. I've never had anything like it."

"I'm glad you like it," Moira said. "Enjoy your burgers!"

They tucked in as soon as she left. After a couple of bites to take the edge off his hunger, he asked Hermione, "What do you think?"

"Wonderful," she said as soon as she swallowed. "This is the best burger I've had in years."

Harry smirked. "There are definitely benefits to the lack of a Wizarding Health and Safety Executive. I mean, there are lots of downsides, but at least we get good burgers."

"I'll take what I can get," Hermione said, and took another big bite.

Chapter Text

Harry stumbled out of his floo, straightened up, and turned around just in time to catch Hermione as she flopped out of the fireplace behind him. 

"Thank you," she murmured, and he held her for another twenty seconds until he felt her legs firm up and reclaim her body weight from him.

"No problem," he said as he removed their glamours. "So, do I win the bet with Remus?"

"You don't even have to bribe me," Hermione replied. "That's awful. I'd much rather walk to their house, even in the rain."

"I understand," Harry said. "We should probably get you comfortable enough that you can manage flooing to and from Longbottom Manor on your own, though."

She sighed. "You're right. Can we try that tomorrow, though? My inner ears can only take so much of this at once."

"That's fine," Harry said. "Right now, are you feeling up to setting up the potions lab?"

"Sure. I need to work off some of that burger."

"I'm glad you liked it so much. What did you think of Diagon Alley?"

"Honestly?" Hermione said. "It was kind of terrifying. I mean, it was amazing, and I'm just blown away by how there's this whole world I never knew existed, but it was also terrifying and I don't think I'll ever be brave enough to go alone."

"That's kind of how I felt the first time, too," Harry said. "It helped that I had a huge, half-giant of a man showing me around. For what it's worth, though, I suspect you'll be one of the most dangerous people in the entire Alley within a few years."

She arched her eyebrows at him.

"You're a powerful witch," Harry said. "Once you've picked up some spells, you'll be able to go toe-to-toe with anyone."

"I'd rather they just not notice me," she said. 

As they walked upstairs, Harry was tempted to tell her that she was going to show the entire country she was too amazing to be ignored, but he decided against that for fear of stoking her anxiety.

Setting up the potions lab took most of the evening, especially because Hermione was meticulous about arranging the ingredients as "The Prudent Potioneer" instructed. Harry was simultaneously annoyed about the slow pace and that he hadn't had her as a Potions partner in Hogwarts, because his grades would have been amazing. By the time they collapsed into their beds at eleven, the lab was roughly in shape for Andi's visit in a few days.

Harry had day shifts for the next several days, so he had to be up early the next morning. He skipped his pre-work workout that day just to get a little extra sleep, and Hermione hauled herself out of bed early to have breakfast with him even though he told her she didn't have to. 

Hermione considered a nap after Harry left, but breakfast had woken her up enough that she decided against it. Instead, she finished setting up the potions lab and spent some time familiarising herself with the layout of ingredients and tools. After she finished that, she thought about trying out her new wand, but decided doing so without Harry present might be suicidally unsafe. 

That left something else she'd been hoping to do with him, but the clock was ticking until Professor Tonks showed up on Thursday and she wanted to be ready. She dug out some parchment, ink, and one of Harry's incredibly useful self-inking quills, and sat down at the coffee table in the sitting room with Severus Snape's first-year potions textbook.

The idea that she could use this book to create magical items was still mildly brain-breaking, but the text was so dry and so like a cookbook that it felt like the reverse of Clarke's Third Law: magic so exhaustively (and drily) analysed and replicable felt more real, like she could trust it. 

She made her way through the textbook carefully, reading each page twice just to make sure she'd seen all of it. Snape occasionally left neat notes in the margins, elaborating on something in the textbook or adding something his unnamed professor said the book had forgotten to mention. About six pages in, writing in a new hand intruded into the margins, angled as if the writer had been sitting to the left of the book rather than in front of it. The letters were lighter and thinner than Snape's, but more well-formed, and Hermione had a hunch it was a woman's hand. 

"Can I ask a stupid question?" the writer asked.

"I doubt it, but you're welcome to try," the book's owner responded.

"How could I possibly overexcite the shrake spines? They're dead!" The other writer had pushed her quill extra-hard into the paper for the word "possibly," as if to emphasise her displeasure with the idea that pieces of a dead magical fish could be excited.

Hermione respected that.

"Shrakes were bred to destroy nets with their spikes," Snape wrote back. "That magic is still in their spines, and it can be activated if they're disturbed as if by being trapped in a net."

"Where did you learn that?" The other writer's text was cramped and hurried, as if she was angry a fact had slipped by her.

"The Appendix of Ingredients," Snape wrote. On the next line, he added, "Don't read it now! You'll get in trouble."

"Fine," the other writer replied. "I'll read it at lunch."

Hermione stared at the book for a moment before laying it on the coffee table with more reverence than she'd handled even the most expensive rare books that had come through Mr. Folkes' stall a few weeks and a lifetime ago. She pulled out a separate piece of parchment, wrote the page number of that conversation, and added the description "Shrake Spines and the Appendix." It didn't seem like much to repay Harry for his kindness, but it was a start.

If she'd any doubts the other writer was Harry's mother Lily, they vanished when Hermione found a conversation on the most complex potion yet a few hours after she'd eaten a quick lunch. 

"I had to stop you," Snape wrote, his text cramped and hurried..

"You hit my hand!," the other writer responded.

"You were going to stick it in the lionfish spine jar!"

"So?"

Hermione furrowed her brows. Weren't lionfish spines—

"Those are venomous!"

"Oh."

"I'm sorry, but I was worried you'd hurt yourself and I didn't want Slughorn to hear me warn you and dock you points," Snape wrote.

"Thanks, Sev," the other girl wrote, and added a little stick drawing that was almost certainly a lily.

Hermione noted this conversation as carefully as the other handful she'd found, then sat and stared sadly at it. Eavesdropping on this friendship between two precocious children might have been fun had she not known roughly how it had ended. It reminded her of some of her friendships and she wondered what it would be like to listen in on her conversations with those children again. Could she see what poisoned each relationship ahead of time if she knew the ending?

Could she prevent it from happening again with Harry?

She shook her head and tried to force those thoughts away. She was shite at friendship, she knew, but assuming she'd fail or walking on eggshells for fear of that failure would only hasten their friendship's demise. No. She would be herself, apologise when she hurt him (she would hurt him, she always did) and never do it again, hold him together when he fell apart, and appreciate him when he made something difficult look easy.

A treacherous voice told her that wasn't enough and never would be, but she ignored it. She had one reason to believe that would work, one reason far better than anything she could come up with, pro or con: it was what he'd done for her.

The flare of the floo in the next room shocked her back to the present. Harry hopped out, staggered a little as he usually did, and dusted himself off.

"Welcome home!" Hermione said.

Harry's eyes flashed an unreadable expression for a moment before he smiled and said, "Thank you. How was your day?"

"It went by fast," she replied, hoping she hadn't somehow offended him. "I've been going over the Potions textbook and taking notes. I think I can have it finished by tomorrow night, so I should hopefully be ready to be a decent student for Professor Tonks on Thursday morning."

"Great!" Harry said. "In retrospect, I really wish I'd done what you're doing for my classes. Did you find any notes that might have been from my mother?"

"Yes, and I've been indexing them separately for easier locating." She held up the separate parchment. "I'll keep filling this out as I find more."

"Thank you!" Harry said. "I'd love something to take my mind off the day I've had. May I read them now?"

"Of course!" Hermione patted the couch next to her and he hurried over. He read the four conversations she'd found in order, wiped his eyes, and reread them. She'd put her hand on his shoulder sometime around when he'd started tearing up during the first read-through, and after he finished the second, she pulled him into a hug. He reciprocated, but didn't start sobbing again like he had when he'd first learnt of the books, and she wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing.

"Is there anything you'd like to talk about?" she asked. 

"They're so…normal," Harry said with only a hint of a catch in his voice. "Snape is only a shadow of the self-absorbed, bullying git he turned into, and my mother is…just a girl. A pushy, intelligent girl who seems like she's throwing herself at magical education and demanding all of the answers at once and doing a shockingly good job of getting them. Everyone's always talked about her like some combination of Albert Einstein and Mary, Mother of Jesus, so it's weird to see her being…well, human."

"Are you happy you've gotten to read these?" Hermione asked as she released him from the embrace.

"Definitely," Harry said. "I know I'll never have the chance to really know my parents, but it's nice to see some fragments of my mother and her personality. They're practically wizarding martyrs now. Hell, there's even a monument to them in the town where they died! Maybe the Wizarding World needed to see them as martyrs, but I needed to see them as human beings, and I'm glad I can."

"I'm glad you can, too," Hermione said. They sat there in silence for a moment while Harry stared at the book for a minute or two before his stomach rumbled.

"Oh, right," he said. "Food. It's been a long day."

"What should we do about dinner?" Hermione asked.

"You haven't eaten yet?" Harry asked.

Hermione shook her head. "I've been studying."

"It's well after six, you know," he said. "You didn't have to wait for me for dinner."

"It is?" She leaned over to get a glimpse of the grandfather clock in the floo room. "Oh, goodness! I completely lost track of time. I'd have waited for you anyway, though."

"You didn't have to do that," Harry said.

She smirked at him. "Harry, I enjoy spending time with you and it's not a chore to spend some more."

He laughed. "Well played. I'm not up for making anything right now, so do you want to just get some curry?"

"I will never say 'no' to curry," Hermione said. "I'm sorry I let the time get away from me. I could have made dinner."

"I don't expect you to do that," Harry said.

"I know, but I want to contribute around here," Hermione said. 

Harry stretched, stood, and offered Hermione his hand to help her up. "That's fair," he said. "Let's work out a schedule of chores in the next few days, but right now I just want to get some food."

The nearest Indian place was about a twenty-minute walk and they were hungry enough that they ate there instead of getting take-out. On the way home, Harry finally opened up about his day. 

"I had to stay late because they needed someone to liaise with the muggle police," Harry explained as they trudged through the cold, misty rain of a late September evening in London. "Most Purebloods think muggles are useless and stupid, and even the less bigoted ones are so culturally different that they come across as mildly insane."

"Wizarding culture is that different?" Hermione asked. "I've only seen a bit of it, and I didn't interact with many people."

"It's been developing separately for four hundred years," Harry said. "Kind of like Americans, except with no communication at all between the two groups."

"They act like Americans? That explains the 'mildly insane' part," Hermione said.

"That's not what…" he laughed. "You're taking the mickey, aren't you?"

"You caught on fast," she said, smiling. 

He smiled back, but it faded. "We only interface with the muggle police when there's been a serious crime linked to magic use," he said. "It looks like there's a serial killer out there. The National Crime Squad found their third body last night. They've all been tortured extensively with what looks like the Cruciatus Curse."

"That's horrible!" Hermione said. "Do you have any idea why?"

Harry shook his head. "Sometimes, there's just no reason other than someone felt like it and thought they could get away with it." 

She thought back to some of the people who'd bullied her in school. "That's just awful. How can people think of Remus as a monster when perfectly 'normal' people do things like that?" She made sure to make air quotes with her fingers when she said the word 'normal' so Harry didn't take offence.

"I sometimes wonder if people need to believe there are monsters out there to distract themselves from the one in the mirror," Harry said, "or in heroes to distract themselves from the failure in their mirror. Merlin knows I've been both in my time."

"Wait, how could anyone see you as a monster?" she asked.

"It's a really long story," he said. "The short version is that people thought I was the one attacking half-bloods when I was in a second-year because I could talk to snakes, and the other time it was because I got entered into a deadly tournament without my consent and they thought I was a glory hound trying to steal attention from older students."

"So they distrusted you because of things you had nothing to do with?" Hermione asked. "I mean, I'm assuming you didn't take 'snake' as an elective language course."

Harry smirked. "No, that class was full. You're right, of course; I was born a Parselmouth and had no choice in the matter."

She walked along in silence for a moment. "Harry, serious question: are wizards all insane and irrational? I'm starting to notice a pattern, and, if I'm being honest, Sirius and even Remus sometimes aren't exactly shining examples of critical thought."

"I've wondered about that a lot, too," he said. "First, I'm not sure they've evolved culturally in the same way muggles have since the 1600s. People where you grew up would likely have frowned upon pitting teenagers against each other in a deadly tournament, but that's not that weird for magicals, just like animal baiting wasn't weird for most people four hundred years ago. Second, magicals only get seven years of formal schooling, plus an apprenticeship in many cases, and they're not getting classes that encourage critical thinking the way the books you introduced me to did. I can transfigure a piece of wood into a cat, but I still don't understand formal logic."

"I see what you mean." Hermione drew her jacket a little more tightly against the chill and the world around her.

"Wondering what you've gotten yourself into?" Harry asked after a moment.

"Definitely," Hermione replied.

He arched his eyebrows at her. "Do you regret it?"

"Never," she said. "This is the first time since I was a child that I've felt…whole. Like I've found a missing piece of myself. I could no more turn my back on this world than I could forgo reading for the rest of my life." A little voice in the back of her head asked her how much of that missing piece was magic and how much was the man next to her, but the last thing her host needed was a clingy, besotted house guest trapped with him.

He smiled. "I'm glad you haven't changed your mind. To be honest, part of the reason I work late on nights like tonight is that it beats being home alone with my thoughts."

"I'm glad you're not missing being alone yet," she said.

"Definitely not, you?"

"Goodness, no," Hermione said. 

"Good," he replied. "In retrospect, I probably could have just rented you an apartment for a year, but that didn't seem right. Like, if I was doing that I was just telling you to sink or swim, but this way I'm in there with you the whole time."

"You're right," she said. "I don't think there's an ethical term for this, but you're making an emotional commitment to helping me and that means a lot. I mean, my advisor still signs off on my yearly stipend requests and I think he's just waiting for me to fail. I'd be a lot more conflicted about walking out on him if he'd been right there with me the whole time, helping with research even if he couldn't get me money."

"I see what you mean," Harry said. "It's like when I was trapped in that death tournament and Sirius hired this insane ex-Hit Wizard to teach me how to stay alive, then took the training with me to get himself back in shape, too."

They walked along in silence for a few moments, shrouded in the comfortably distant din of the city at nightfall. Finally, Hermione said, "Harry, I really worry about you sometimes."

"Do I need to stop trying to listen actively?" he asked.

"No, just…maybe we need to get you some reference points that aren't traumatising, potentially lethal events inflicted on you as a child."

"Well, I did try branching out into the muggle world," he said.

"How's that working out?" Hermione asked him.

"Well, my plan was to start visiting one of London's amazing markets, buy quirky things, eat good street food, and meet interesting people. I suppose I succeeded."

She buried her face in her hands. "Oh, God, I'm part of your bad luck, aren't I?" 

"Hey." His tone called her eyes out of hiding and into his own again. "I never said it was all bad luck."

Hermione forced herself to put aside the textbook around two the next day and set out for a nice Italian grocer she knew in Clerkenwell, not far from her university. Every now and then, she'd treat herself to fresh pasta there, and she had enough pound notes lying around that she could make the purchase with cash. The trip there and back took an hour, after which she stashed the pasta in the magical icebox and got back to work…after spending a solid fifteen minutes admiring the rune work on the icebox. A line of silver, interleaved runes was etched into the wood above the door, with another line of different, golden runes below. She couldn't wait to get to runes, but she'd never make it if she didn't pass her O.W.L.s.

Harry returned home from work around five, jolting her from a particularly complex potion recipe. "Welcome home!" she said. 

He shot her a smile as he dusted floo powder off of himself. "Thank you. How's the studying going?"

"I've nearly finished my first pass on this textbook," she said. "I found a few more conversations to show you, but first let me put a pot on the boil. I thought you needed a proper dinner if you were dealing with a serial killer, so I picked up some fresh-made prosciutto-and-chicken tortellini for dinner along with a loaf of Italian bread."

"That sounds marvellous, thank you," Harry said. 

After she started the water heating and Harry freshened up, they sat down together on the couch and went through the handful of new conversations she'd found in the book between Severus and Lily. Nothing really stood out to either of them, and even Harry had to admit that Snape still seemed like a perfectly normal, introverted, and intelligent first-year.

"Are you disappointed?" Hermione asked.

"Maybe," Harry said. "I mean, it's wonderful reading my mother's comments, but I was hoping for something more about Snape. He grew into such a hateful bully of a man, and there's a part of me that wonders if that was my fault. I mean, my mother liked him, so there had to be something good in him at one time, right?"

Hermione shook her head fiercely. "A teacher, a grown man whose job is caring for and encouraging students, should never bully. I don't care if eleven-year-old Harry was a little prat; you deserved punishment, not antagonism. Maybe he was a decent boy at some point, or maybe your mother was deceived, but nothing excuses a teacher bullying a student. You deserved better."

"Thank you," Harry said. "I know that's the truth, but a part of me still thinks I had to have deserved it. And do you know what the really stupid thing is? It all turned out to be unnecessary. Snape didn't need to be there at all."

"Wait, what?" Hermione asked. "He thought he had to be a teacher?"

"It's a long story," Harry said, "and I'm not really allowed to tell anyone." He sighed. "Let's just get started on dinner. Honestly, I'd rather think about serial killers than Snape."

"God," Hermione thought as they went downstairs to the kitchen, "I really need to get this boy some new reference points."

Chapter Text

Hermione had given up sitting in the floo room the next morning and was now pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace. Even though she was expecting it, the green flare of the floo and the appearance of a face inside still made her jump.

"Permission to come through?" Professor Tonks asked.

"Of course," Hermione said, and went to place her hand on the fireplace brick to allow her through.

The older woman cleared her throat expectantly. 

"Oh, right," Hermione said. "Sorry. I'm still not used to this yet. What's the password?"

"Winter."

Hermione nodded and placed her hand on the brick. Professor Tonks burst through the flame, landed as if she'd been born to floo, and primly dusted off her silver and forest green robes. Hermione could only hope that she had half the professor's regal bearing and calm dignity by the time she reached middle age, though she was too nervous to actually compliment her on it.

"Thank you," Professor Tonks said. "I'm sorry to be a stickler for the password, but Harry does have enemies. He's put a great deal of trust in you with the level of ward access he's given you, and I want to ensure you don't unwittingly put him in danger."

"I'm sorry, Professor." Hermione looked at the chesterfield, the ottoman, the floor, anything but at her guest. "I'm still not used to the capabilities of magic. I would never want to endanger him."

"I know," she said. "That's why I said something. I intend to push you, Miss Granger, because that's the only way you're going to succeed and because Harry and my cousin think you can handle it."

"I'll try." Hermione put as much steel into her voice as she could. "I can't thank you enough for being willing to help me."

"I have two reasons for doing so," Professor Tonks said. "First, my husband is a muggle-born, just like you. I would be…in a much worse place right now had I never met him. Second, you intrigue me. I met Harry when he was barely fourteen and he's always been an intensely private person, so I want to find out more about this woman he's invited to live with him on the spur of the moment."

Were her cheeks getting hot? Darn it, they were. "I don't know that I'm very interesting, Professor Tonks," Hermione said. 

"Andi, please, Miss Granger."

"Alright. Please call me Hermione, then."

Andi nodded. "Very well. Tell me, Hermione, how did Harry find out you were a witch?"

Hermione knew she was blushing now as she explained their initial meeting. When she finished, Andi looked her up and down. "I understand now why Minerva is so interested in your progress," she said. "If we can keep you alive, you're going to go down in history."

"I just want my life back," Hermione said. "I'd rather study history than make it."

"That's as may be," Andi said, "but I'm afraid I'm right, regardless."

Hermione glared at her. "Then clear out a page in your history book for me, because I refuse to give up." 

"Good. I think Minerva was right that you'd have been one of her Lions, too." Andi tied back her long, wiry brown hair. "Now, why don't you show me your lab?"

Hermione nodded and led her upstairs. Andi inspected everything carefully before nodding to her. "Excellent layout," she said. "Most students take years before they understand the importance of a good lab layout. Make sure you keep everything clean and organised going forward. That will reduce the chance of accidents."

"I understand," Hermione said.

"Good," Andi replied. "Now, if you'll excuse me for a moment…" she trailed off and began a string of incantations. When she finished, she turned back to Hermione. "There we go. Those Charms should protect the rest of the house from any unfortunate events in this room, but we'll still try to avoid that."

"Of course!" Hermione said. The older woman then quizzed her on different methods of ingredient preparation and the effects each method would have on the absorption of ingredients into a potion with a series of rapid-fire questions that, after fifteen minutes, left Hermione breathless and shaking.

"I take it you've been studying?" Andi asked, abruptly terminating her ingredient questions. 

"Yes," Hermione said. "Did I remember everything decently? I only had time to read the textbook once and I'm not sure I really understood it all and this is all very new–"

"Hermione!" Andi cut her off. "You don't need to apologise. My first-year final exam comprises three sections: one section on ingredient preparation and lab management, one section on ingredient combination theory, and one section that involves brewing a potion. You would clearly be able to earn an 'O' on any question I would have asked you on the first section. That's an excellent start."

Hermione blushed. "You mean I didn't fail your questions?"

"Why do you think you would fail?" Andi asked. "You cannot have failed to notice you have an outstanding intellect."

"It's been several years since I feel like I really succeeded at anything." She looked down at the floor. "I guess I started wondering if everyone had just been wrong about me."

"Listen to me." Andi placed her hands on Hermione's shoulders. "Magic is more than just a science, where wand-wave A plus incantation B equals result C. Magic's results are driven by intent. You have to intend to succeed or you will fail. And I know you can."

"I've never thought about it like that," Hermione said. 

"I'm not surprised," Andi said. "That kind of intent is easy to muster if you've grown up with magic, but a lot harder if you've never seen it before." The woman's eyes narrowed into a shrewd gaze. "Where's your wand?"

"Oh, I left it in my bedroom," Hermione said.

"Then your first assignment," Andi said in a tone that brooked no argument, "is to carry that with you all day, every day until the next time I see you. You are a witch, Hermione, and your wand is an extension of your body."

"I will," Hermione said, and hurried across the hall to her bedroom to grab her wand.

When she returned with her wand safely stashed in a worn, but still functional wrist holster Harry had given her, Andi gestured at the potions ingredients. "You've got the basics down, so I think it's safe to start you brewing. We're going to start with one that has a long list of ingredients and instructions, but that I think you'll do well with: the Wiggenweld Potion."

"Oh, yes, the anti-sleep potion that also restores a drinker's energy and stamina," Hermione said. She scanned the potions textbook's table of contents and flipped to that potion's section. "May I go ahead?"

Andi nodded, so Hermione began her work. She started by laying out the ingredients she'd need in the order that she would need them, read over the instructions one last time, and got to work.

The next half-hour felt like she was doing brain surgery. She followed each line of the instructions to the letter, only asking Andi occasional questions about when something qualified as "pink" vs. "red," or how fast one added lionfish spines vs. flobberworm mucus. Sweat dripped freely from her forehead by the time she finished, and only a timely reminder from Andi (as well as a handkerchief she transfigured into a headband) kept her from accidentally dripping some into the potion as she brewed it.

Once she'd set it aside and turned the heat off, she collapsed into her chair. Andi let her rest for a moment and get some water before asking, "How do you think you did?"

"I…think I did it correctly," Hermione said. "I mean, I'm not sure, and there are so many words I wasn't exactly clear about, but assuming–"

"You did it correctly," Andi said, gently cutting her off. "Some things, like how fast to heat a potion or how each ingredient is supposed to be added when not otherwise specified, you just have to learn by doing. And you second-guessed yourself a lot when dealing with otherwise clear instructions. Overall, though, this was a fantastic effort, and it shows your attention to detail is exceptional. I think you're going to be an excellent potioneer."

"Thank you!" Hermione said as heat rushed to her already-flushed cheeks.

"Now, for the final test." Andi motioned Hermione to follow her downstairs. Once they were in the sitting room, Andi sat on the chesterfield and pulled a mostly-empty vial out of a pocket in her robes. "This is enough Sleeping Draught to knock me out for a good hour. I'm going to take this, and I'd like you to wait until I'm fast asleep before pouring a vial of your potion down my throat."

"But…what if I made a mistake?" Hermione asked. "There won't be anyone here who–"

"I watched you carefully," Andi said. "The only mistake you made was in not trusting yourself." She drank the miniscule contents of the vial in one quick swallow. "Now, fetch me some potion. I don't wish to be late for my next class."

She lay her head down on the worn arm of the sofa, smoothed out her the velvet capelet built into her robes, and was asleep in seconds. Hermione took a deep breath and tried to undo the sudden knot in her stomach before heading back upstairs, but mostly failed. 

Her hands shook so hard that she ended up spilling most of the ladle of potion she was trying to pour into a vial, but her cauldron held enough for three or four vials, so eventually she was able to fill one vial. Holding it carefully, almost reverently, she carried it back down the stairs. 

Andi's soft snores greeted her when she arrived in the sitting room. Hermione gently opened the other woman's mouth and poured the vial into it. Andi coughed a little and woke up within ten seconds. "Whaaa…" she said sleepily, then rubbed her eyes and looked around. 

"Oh! Right, I remember now," Andi said. "Nice work, Hermione. I knew you could do it. You're going to be a great witch."

Hermione nodded and tried to thank her, but she couldn't make any words come out.

"Is something wrong?" Andi asked.

"I'm…I really am a witch," Hermione whispered. "I thought…I was worried Harry was wrong and I was going to disappoint him and everyone else and I wouldn't be a witch, but I am. I'm a witch who just brewed her first magic potion."

Andi smiled. "Yes, dear. You are and you did."

Some indeterminate amount of time later, Hermione opened her eyes and found she was staring at the ceiling and the concerned face of Andi. 

"Excellent!" Andi said. "That worked. You fainted and I realised it was a perfect opportunity to satisfy my own curiosity about whether Wiggenweld Potion also works to revive a person from a non-magical faint. It apparently does, which I'll make a note of. While I do worry about your low self-esteem generally, I'm glad this set of circumstances has allowed us to advance our knowledge of Potions."

"Oh…um…I'm glad to hear that." Hermione allowed Andi to help her up. "I'm sorry I fainted."

"Don't be, dear," Andi said. "I didn't realise how much today's lesson must have affected you. I'm going to head back to Hogwarts now, but why don't you take a bit of time off from studying after lunch and walk around the neighbourhood? I think you could use some fresh air. Oh, and I took the liberty of putting your remaining Wiggenweld Potion into a vial for you."

"I will," Hermione said. "Thank you. Thank you for everything."

"The pleasure is all mine," Andi replied. "For next week, I want you to start learning the basic properties of the different ingredients we'll be using. We'll brew some potions that both leverage those properties and demonstrate how they can have surprising results. In a month or two, you might even be able to help out around the house by brewing some common household potions."

"I'd love that," Hermione said. "I want to start pulling my weight around here."

"I don't think Harry minds, but I respect the sentiment. It might be a few months before you can brew my cousin hangover potions, though." The professor paused thoughtfully. "Harry and his friends were skilled troublemakers in school, but the one thing they never had was a potioneer to assist their efforts. I shudder to think what kind of mayhem those children could have gotten up to with some of the more complex potions like Polyjuice."

"I see what you mean," Hermione said. "I'll be cautious about what I brew and how I brew it."

Andi nodded. "I think this is going to be a fascinating year for both of us…assuming you survive, of course."

"Of course," Hermione said drily.

Hermione spent the remainder of that day getting a head start on next week's Potions assignment. The following day, she'd intended to try to wrap her head around Charms theory, but some unexpected owls gave her quite the distraction in the morning. She understood the basics of handling owl post thanks to Harry, but it was still a weird experience to have a foot-tall bird of prey flapping about your dining room (they all wanted to come in through the back patio off the basement/dining room for some reason) and demanding treats that you could have sworn were right there in the dining room but somehow ended up on one of the kitchen shelves.

Neville's owl showed up first with a question about where to deposit his old textbooks and apologising in advance for any incorrect notes he'd made in them or inappropriate scribbles Ron had made in them. Hermione sent a reply by return of owl indicating that the sitting room would be fine and assuring him she wouldn't judge them based on whatever silliness they'd gotten up to in school. Besides, with all of the horrific things she'd heard about from their time there she couldn't begrudge them any opportunity to act like normal schoolboys.

The next owl was a little snowy owl from Minerva McGonagall. She said Professor Tonks had extremely nice things to say about her and firmly implied that she (McGonagall) should teach Hermione, as well. McGonagall apologised that she would not be able to provide the same level of regular instruction, but did offer to come by on Saturday and provide a detailed introduction to the art of Transfiguration. She also told her to expect one more owl from one of her colleagues later that day. Hermione promptly wrote back appreciatively and accepted the Saturday session. From what she'd gathered from Harry, Remus, and Sirius, McGonagall was an instructor without compare and she'd be thankful for even an hour of the woman's time.

The final owl arrived just as Hermione climbed back up to the ground floor, at which point she facepalmed and climbed back down the steps. The excitable little long-eared owl burst into the room and flew around the kitchen for several minutes before Hermione was able to coax it to a stop with a liberal helping of owl treats. It bore a message from a man named Filius Flitwick, who said he was the Deputy Headmaster of Hogwarts and Harry's former Charms instructor. He also apologised that he was so busy with his duties at the school, but offered to come by the following Saturday to give her a detailed introduction to Charms. 

A frown flickered across Hermione's lips before she pushed it away. Sure, that would require reorganising her study schedule, but she could hardly decline more expert assistance. She owled (what a verb!) him back, thanked him for the offer, and agreed to the date. Afterward, she trudged back up the stairs, keeping her ears out for any more avian couriers. Nothing else disrupted her morning studying, but she did have to switch from Charms to Transfiguration now that she knew she'd have a guest instructor the next day. She hoped the Professor wouldn't be disappointed if she hadn't finished the whole textbook by then.

Lunchtime came and went without any fuss or even motion from Hermione, and it wasn't until sometime after two o'clock that she looked up to refill her ink bottle and realised that a stack of Neville's textbooks had appeared on the other end of the coffee table. Those poor house elves were amazing little creatures, and she vowed to herself that she was going to do everything she could to figure out why they seemed so enthusiastic about their enslavement. 

The sound of the floo startled her out of her work and with no small shock she realised she was well over half-through Harry's old first-year Transfiguration textbook. "Oh…um…welcome home, Harry!" she said.

Harry took a moment to regain his balance and dust himself off. "Thank you," he said with a smile. "I'd thank you for waiting for me for dinner, but I have a feeling you didn't notice I was over an hour late, did you?"

"I'm trying to learn as much Transfiguration as I can before tomorrow," Hermione said, feeling a touch defensive. "Headmistress McGonagall offered to give me an introduction to the subject and I didn't want to disappoint her."

"That's great!" Harry said. "She's a fantastic instructor and you couldn't ask for a better introduction to the subject. Let's heat up those leftovers, now, though. I'm starving."

"Now that you mention it, I am, too." Hermione stood up and stowed her studying gear. When she looked up again, Harry was staring at her with a concerned expression on his face.

"Have you eaten anything since I left?" he asked.

"I got sucked into the reading," Hermione said. "How did you know?"

"Your hands are shaking again." Half a dozen long strides carried him from the floo room to the opposite side of the coffee table she'd commandeered for studying. "You can't keep doing this to yourself."

"I know," she said. "It's…this isn't like the research I'm used to, where I'm trying to answer specific questions or learn specific things. I feel like I'm trying to drink an ocean, but it's too delicious to stop for air. Every page answers one of my questions and gives me five more, and they're all so fascinating that I just keep reading."

Harry reached across the table and took her trembling hands. "The knowledge is still going to be here tomorrow, and so are you. I know we've given you a difficult task, but I know just as well you can do it."

Hermione felt like her knees were about to give out and she wasn't sure if it was from the hunger or the way Harry was making her feel just then.

"This is no way for you to live," Harry continued, blithely ignoring the effect his eyes were having on her insides. "First, come have dinner with me. Afterward, you and I are going out for ice cream, and from now on we're going to do at least one fun thing a week."

"I'd like that," Hermione said. Of course, with the way his smiling eyes were reflecting the flickering fire of the gaslights just then, he could probably have told her literally anything and received the same response from her.

Seriously, someone should have warned her about his eyes.

Chapter Text

Hermione's session with McGonagall the next day went well, and the Headmistress even offered to assign her a weekly paper on some aspect of Transfiguration theory that she'd submit by owl. Something about the light that offer kindled in Hermione's eyes must have warned the older woman what she was getting into, because she quickly specified that the paper should be no longer than one foot of parchment.

Hermione nodded politely. She'd been meaning to practise writing smaller and neater letters with the quill anyway, and this would be an excellent excuse to do so. She spent the remainder of the afternoon practising basic Transfiguration, then after a light supper continued reading Transfiguration theory and practising a bit more. By the time Harry staggered out of the floo at about half past midnight, she had a meal of toad-in-the-hole (she cheated and used a frozen one she found at the nearby convenience store), some brown gravy, and vegetables.

"There you are!" Hermione said. "You didn't respond to my owl, so I had this done about forty minutes ago and I've just had the oven on the half-mark to keep everything warm."

He stared at her for a moment. 

"Harry," she said carefully, as if confronting an injured pet, "what's wrong?"

"Another one," he replied.

Five swift steps brought her from the top of the staircase and into the floo room where she pulled him into her arms. "I'm so sorry," she said. "Do you want to talk about it?"

He shook his head. "I had to help the muggle coroner do her write-up. I haven't eaten anything since lunch and I've been on my feet since 5:00. I'm so tired I'm angry about it, like, I'm mad at the whole world, even you for no reason at all, but I'm so hungry that my stomach feels like it's trying to eat itself, and every time I close my eyes I see that twisted corpse with that awful look on its face."

Hermione hugged him more tightly. "Eat first, then," she said. "Will you come downstairs?"

"I…can't," he said.

"Yes, you can." Hermione rubbed circles on his back. "We'll eat together and it'll be OK, I promise."

Harry nodded and let her lead him downstairs. She'd already set the table, so it was the work of a moment to put the food out and serve them both. He was still staring at his plate when she sat down to join him.

"Please eat," she asked gently.

He nodded and fished mindlessly at his food for a moment with his fork.

Hermione switched her fork to her left hand and reached out with her right to take his free hand. He closed his eyes and gripped her hand tightly, and she sat there silently with him till he opened his eyes again and released her hand.

"Thank you," he whispered. "I try to avoid Cruciatus cases, but they needed someone who could work with muggles on this one."

"I understand," Hermione said. "Even if I didn't, you never need to justify yourself to me, Harry. You're always going to be the bravest person I've ever met."

He shook his head. "You don't owe me anything for what happened with the ritual."

"Ritual?" Hermione fought down how awful she felt for him just then and did her best to force a smirk. "I was talking about how you swept my room and the loo for spiders at Grimmauld Place. Facing down giant magical spiders for a girl is pretty much the dictionary definition of heroism."

Harry paused for a moment, confused, before he began to chuckle in spite of himself. "Thank you. I needed that."

She smiled back and dug into her food, and couldn't stop her smile from growing when he did likewise. They ate in companionable silence for the next fifteen minutes, not talking again until they were both done. 

"Thank you for dinner," Harry said when they'd finished. "I'll get the dishes."

"Nonsense," Hermione replied. "After your day, I'll handle it."

"You cooked, though."

She shrugged. "You can do some extra cooking some other time, then. I'm not keeping score."

A treacherous little voice in her head piped up, "That's not how flatmates work and you know it."

Hermione did indeed know it, and she didn't care.

"What if he just wants a flatmate?" the voice asked her.

She chanced a glance at Harry. He was resting in his chair, his head leaning back and his eyes closed. "I don't care what he wants," she thought. "What he needs is someone to look out for him like he looked out for me. Now shut up. I need to do the dishes."

Hermione scrubbed the dishes, left them to dry, and was putting away the leftovers before Harry finally spoke up again. "I'm sorry," he said. "I faded out there for a minute. I could have cleaned all of those with the wave of a wand."

"It's not like that took me long,'' Hermione said. "You can teach me that Charm some other day. Right now, let's get you to bed. Are you off again tomorrow?"

He nodded.

"Good. Up with you, then." She helped him out of his chair and led him up to his bedroom. "Goodnight, Harry," she said when they were at his door.

"Goodnight, Hermione," he said, and she waited until he closed the door behind him before going downstairs to her own room.

The next morning was mostly overcast, but warm for the end of September. After a quick shower, Hermione settled in on the sofa to get back to her Transfiguration practice. After her study of theory the previous day, she was now feeling confident about turning matchsticks into pretty much any similarly-shaped item of any composition. She'd cycled through all of the common metals, plastic, and even eggshell, and she had just finished admiring her work with the last when Harry came downstairs around 9:45. 

"Good morning," he said as he walked into the room. He'd clearly showered, but mere water was incapable of keeping his gloriously messy black hair down. "Wait, what is that?"

"Eggshell," Hermione said proudly. "I think the Transfiguration worked all the way through."

"Nice work!" he said. "You're picking that up a lot faster than I did."

"You'd probably pick it up a lot faster now, too, you know," she replied.

He smirked. "I wouldn't count on that. Anyway, have you had breakfast yet?"

"No, I've just been studying," Hermione said.

"You didn't have to wait for me."

She shrugged. "I know, but we ate so late last night that it's taken me awhile to get hungry."

"Well, I'm in the mood for a little fry-up," Harry said. "Interested?"

"Definitely." Hermione began to rise from the couch, but a gesture from Harry stopped her. 

"I'll take care of it," he said. "You made dinner last night."

"It was nothing," Hermione said. "It was mostly frozen food."

"It was perfectly timed," Harry said. "I'm not sure I would have eaten last night without you and I would have woken up feeling like shite."

"Language," Hermione said automatically.

Harry grinned and continued. "Instead, I'm awake and feel more rested than I have in days. So just keep working and I'll let you know when breakfast is ready."

"Thank you." Hermione couldn't fight the smile that spread across her face as she sat back down.

Breakfast was delicious, as Harry's cooking usually was, and afterward he insisted on cleaning up himself. Hermione tried to argue until she realised Harry had already done half of the dishes with magic while they were discussing it. At that point, she just gave up and asked him to teach her that Charm once she was ready.

Once the dishes were done (Hermione decided not to look too closely at how clean they were, or possibly sneak down and clean them again later by hand), Harry wanted to get right to work on his case file, but Hermione put her foot down.

"With the exception of our ice cream outing and a trip to the grocery store, I've barely left this house all week," she said. "In addition, this case hasn't been great for your mental health and we just had a huge breakfast. You and I are going to have a nice walk before we throw ourselves back into our work. Deal?"

"Deal," Harry said. "You're right. Let's get some fresh air and a new perspective on our problems." 

After showing Hermione how to Disillusion and carry her wand on an outing, Harry took her on a long walk along Regent's Canal, a beautiful old waterway that passed a block north of his house and ran all the way through London. The leaves were only just starting to turn on the old London plane trees that leaned over the canal, and puffs of steam occasionally rose into their branches from a few of the houseboats parked along the canal as their owners (probably) made tea. The sun regularly poked through the clouds above them, casting the whole scene in a brilliant golden light as wonderful as it was rare in the London fall. The frizzy brown strands of Hermione's hair sparkled in sunlight caught between them, constantly drawing his eyes back to her even as he took in the rest of the glorious day around them..

They meandered westward along the canal and at some point he offered Hermione his arm to help her over a rough spot in the path and they never quite let go again. He had no idea what Hermione wanted out of whatever insane relationship they'd fallen into, but he was very sure he had enough power over her literal life at that moment that he didn't dare ask anything of her. Having someone to walk with, arm-in-arm, down the old towpath on a beautiful fall afternoon would have to suffice, and right then he hardly wanted anything more.

Maybe just a bit more.

An hour later found them at the old canal gate of Victoria Park. "Shall we stay on the path or visit the park?" Harry asked.

"The park," Hermione said. "If I recall correctly…" she led him through the wrought-iron gate and into the park itself. "There it is! Every Sunday afternoon they have a market here."

"Did you need anything?" Harry asked.

"Of course not," Hermione said. "Who goes to a market because they need something?"

Harry blinked.

She sighed. "You are such a boy. The joy of these markets is that you never know what you'll find."

"I suppose I do need a new sock supplier," Harry mused.

"I won't tell Allison that Socks Guy is cheating on her," Hermione said.

Harry was so surprised he stumbled on his own feet, but Hermione caught him and kept him from falling. "Tell me she doesn't actually call me that."

"Allison doesn't call you 'Socks Guy,'" Hermione said. "Everyone calls you 'Socks Guy.'"

"Oh, Merlin." Harry put his free left hand over his face. "I'm never going to leave the house again."

"I quite like that nickname for you." Hermione tapped her right index finger on her lips in mock thought. "Hmmm…do you suppose Sue would like it, too?"

"I know where you sleep, witch," Harry growled.

Hermione cackled evilly. "Come on," she said. "This market closes relatively early and it's only open on Sundays. Let's see what they have."

They browsed the market for another hour. Harry found nothing interesting and was a bit bored, and Hermione found nothing interesting and enjoyed herself immensely. On the way out, they stopped at a knitted goods stall and Harry picked up a pair of gaudy Guy Fawkes' Day socks decorated with little sequined fireworks explosions. As he turned away from the stall, one of the women working there whispered to the other, "Is that Socks Guy?"

"Oh, God damn it," Harry muttered. Hermione laughed so hard she nearly fell over. 

The walk back home was just as lovely, though Harry spent much of the time grumbling about inane nicknames and the people who used them. It wasn't until they were back home and settled into the living room that Harry allowed himself to think about his case again. What he wasn't expecting, though, was Harmione to scoot over next to him on the couch.

"Can I help?" she said. "I know how much stopping this guy means to you."

"I wouldn't mind some help," Harry said. "You might want to skip the photos of the corpses, though."

"You're probably right," Hermione said. "Let's focus on figuring out where this person might strike next. What do you have so far?"

Harry pulled out an A4-sized map of the UK and pointed to four dots. "So far, the killer has struck in Rugby, Crewe, Wolverhampton, and Narborough. They seem to pick on lone men who are going to or from bars or pubs, take them back to a hotel either voluntarily or through use of the Imperius Curse, and then torture them for an hour or so before killing them with what's probably an Ennervating Curse."

Hermione shivered. "That sounds like a horrible way to die. Do you know why those cities were chosen? Also, where's Narborough? I've never heard of it."

"No, and it's just southwest of Leicester," Harry replied. "We have no clue how this person is choosing targets or where they might hit next."

"Hmmm…" Hermione bit her bottom lip and stared at the map. "This looks familiar. I'm forgetting something important, I know I am."

"You can stare at this for a bit if you like." Harry passed her the map. "I was going to look over the photographs of the corpses and see if I've missed anything."

She took the map and her eyes lit up. "I think I know what's happening!" She jumped to her feet and put the map back on the coffee table. "I'll be back soon. Start planning how you or others could catch them if you knew what city or town they'll attack next and could be there waiting."

He blinked. "Um…sure. Are you going to tell me what you have in mind?"

"Not yet. I want to make sure I'm on the right track." She grinned impishly, as if at a private joke. "I'm going to go get a reference book, but I should be back in an hour or so. See you soon!"

Sure enough, Hermione walked in about an hour and ten minutes later while he was flipping through a booklet detailing some of the secret and restricted magical artefacts to which the Aurors had access. "I'm sorry I took so long," she said, "but I wanted to make sure this was what we needed."

She plopped down on the couch next to him and held out a pair of thick booklets with the titles "CrossCountry Trains" and "West Midlands Trains." "Those towns and cities you listed aren't connected in any special way except by these two train lines," she said. "Oh, and there's something I need to explain to you. Have you ever read any modern academic urban history books?"

"Um…"

Hermione correctly deduced he meant "Urban history is an academic discipline?" and continued, "It's a truism of human urban development that people in all times and places don't like to commute more than about forty-five minutes to work. London, New York, Ancient Rome, commuting patterns are the same in each. So I took a guess that included serial killers and plotted out what train stops are well under an hour from each of those locations and came out with these." 

She pointed at Rugeley and Lichfield. "It doesn't matter that much, though, because we're not going to know who the serial killer is until they try to kill again. To that end, we need to guess where they'll attack next. So I calculated which other stops are an hour or less from those towns. They haven't hit anywhere in Birmingham yet, which doesn't surprise me because my guess is that it's too close to home and they don't want to draw attention."

"It was Narborough that tipped me off, you know," she added. "It just didn't fit until I realised the Midlands are absolutely shot through with train lines and one must go through there. Anyway, if you look at train stations for cities and towns large enough to have a bit of nightlife and that are a minimum of twenty but no more than fifty-five minutes from Rugely or Lichfield, you have these." She pulled out a bit of parchment and started scribbling. "My money's on Derby, though. They seem to prefer larger cities to smaller ones. I mean, they might hit Winsford, I guess, but I still suspect Derby." She paused. "Harry? Is something–"

"You're brilliant," Harry said. "Stunning. Amazing. Life-saving. Mind-blowing. And now I'm out of adjectives. Help?"

She blushed. 

"Seriously, I think you've blown this case wide open. Lichfield even has a small Wizarding community, and the nearby magical forest in Cannock Chase has caused all kinds of near-breaches of the Statute of Secrecy over the years. We've been looking for evidence of a wizard or witch travelling to or from the attacks magically, but it didn't occur to us that they might use muggle transit. That makes sense, though, since they'd know we could track Apparition residue." Harry rose to his feet and started gathering everything up. "Sue's on shift right now, but she's probably just doing paperwork since Sundays are usually pretty quiet. I'll show her this and we can start planning how to catch this person next Saturday. Thank you. I won't be gone long, and I'm going to make you a fantastic dinner for this."

"You don't have to–"

"I don't care!" He gave her a quick hug and headed for the floo. "This is fantastic. I can't wait…damn it."

"What is it?" Hermione asked as she rose to her feet.

"I can't tell anyone about you, so I can't give you the credit you deserve. My superiors are going to think I came up with this." Harry gestured at the list of towns and cities as he spoke.

"You're welcome to the credit," Hermione said. "I was just trying to help you."

Harry pinched the bridge of his nose. "I didn't offer to let you stay here just so you could do my work for me. You're brilliant and deserve to be recognized for it."

"I'll sleep better knowing you've captured this serial killer. That's reward enough for me." She paused and grew slightly pale. 

"Is something wrong?" Harry asked.

"I…I just realised I've put you on a collision course with a serial killer," Hermione said. "Do you have to…hunt this person yourself?"

"Yes, but I won't be alone," he said. "Don't worry, though. I'd faced more dangerous opponents than a bully who only targets muggles before I passed my O.W.L.s."

"Reference points, Harry!" She stamped her foot for emphasis. "It is not an appropriate response to an expression of concern about you hunting down an honest-to-God serial killer to say 'Don't worry, I faced more dangerous things when I was a child.'"

Harry scratched his head awkwardly. "I wasn't trying to worry you." 

"I know, and that makes it worse!" Hermione's tone softened. "Just be careful, please."

"I always am." He did his best to shoot her a confident smirk.

She raised her eyebrows, crossed her arms, and stared at him.

"OK, OK, I'll try harder," he said.

"Thank you," she replied.

Professor Flitwick rocked back on his heels and rubbed his oddly pointed little chin in thought. "Miss Granger, your grasp of Charms theory is such that you could probably pass that portion of the test I give my first-year students before they leave for the Yule holiday. But so far every Charm I've tried to teach you today beyond a simple Lumos has eluded you, and I simply don't understand it. I have never seen a student struggle so much with their intent."

Hermione sat down on the couch, stared down at the simple wooden box on the coffee table, and rubbed her temples. "I'm sorry, Professor. I really do appreciate you coming here to tutor me and I don't wish to repay you with poor attention to your lessons, but Harry is out there right now preparing to hunt down and capture a serial killer I helped him find. It's my fault that I'm not good enough to be out there helping him and could only give him a lousy vial of potion to help."

"Harry has other experienced Aurors accompanying him," Flitwick said, "and he's seen a lot of danger in his life so far. I doubt there's anything out there tonight he can't handle."

"Yes, he has, hasn't he?" Hermione looked up and something in her glare almost made Flitwick, a former professional duelist, take a step back. Reflected gaslight burned in her eyes. "The Boy Who Lived," she spat the epithet, "just keeps on living and saving others. Until one day he doesn't and then you'll need a new name for him, won't you? What will you call him then? The Boy Who Did All of Our Dirty Work Until It Killed Him?"

"Miss Granger!" Flitwick drew himself up to his full height, which wasn't all that much but damn it, that had never stopped him before. "Mr. Potter is a grown man and can make these choices for himself."

"What about before that, though?" Hermione's voice was softer now but had just a bit of a rasp to it, like velvet sliding over steel. "Did he choose to fight a dark wizard his first year, some kind of monster he won't tell me about his second year, soul-sucking creatures his third year, a death tournament in his fourth year, a cannibal demon his fifth year, or…whatever it was in his sixth year?"

"More Dementors," Flitwick said automatically. "And no, he didn't. We wouldn't have let him choose to do any of that if we'd known or could have stopped it."

"So what you're telling me," Hermione spoke relentlessly, "is that the lesson he learned in school is that if he doesn't want to see someone murdered horribly, he'd better save them himself."

"I don't think that's fair!" Flitwick said. 

"I know it's not fair!" Hermione replied. "But is it incorrect?"

"No! What do you want from me, Miss Granger?"

"I want you to prove me wrong!" she shot back. "I want you to convince me I'm worrying about nothing and overstating all of this, because otherwise I get to live with the fact that I met someone who's spent his whole life feeling responsible for saving everyone else's, pointed him toward a murderer, and hoped for the best." 

"I'm…not sure I can do that," Flitwick said. He was mentally reviewing Potter's tenure at Hogwarts and coming to some horrifying realisations. 

"Then help me get stronger, Professor," she said as she rose to her feet. The velvet was gone from her voice now, leaving only steel. "Because one day I'm going to be fighting his battles instead of sending him to fight mine."

"I…I will." 

Hermione nodded, levelled her wand at the wooden box, and said, "Cistem Aperio" in that same steely tone. The sides of the box cracked and flew back three inches each, and the lid flew up almost to her eye level.

"Yes," Flitwick thought to himself as a grimly satisfied smile spread across his student's lips, "definitely a lioness."

Flitwick walked into the Headmistress's office about an hour and a half later and conjured a pair of Glencairn glasses on her desk before collapsing wordlessly into the old wooden armchair in front of it.

"What happened, Filius?" McGonagall asked. "I thought ye were teaching Miss Granger this afternoon."

"She had some words for me," Flitwick said, "and afterward I glamoured myself and I stopped at a muggle liquor store for this." He pulled out a bottle of Glenfarclas 105 and poured them each a dram. "We need to talk, Minnie."

The elderly Scot raised her eyebrows at the label. "Cask strength, Filius? This is goin' tae be one o' those conversations, isn't it?"

"I'm afraid so." He took a sip and shivered at the strength of the alcohol. It wasn't as buffered as the burn of Firewhiskey or as smooth as a more aged spirit, but it was exactly what he wanted right then. "Miss Granger was…displeased at the danger Mr. Potter faced during his schooling, and she not-so-subtly implied that our consistent inability to either protect him or relieve him of the task of protecting his fellow students is the reason he now feels the need to hunt down Dark Wizards for a living." 

Flitwick sighed. "I know Mr. Potter is a grown man now, but I fear Miss Granger has a point. Had he thought more of self-preservation while he was here, he would have condemned a number of his friends to death and I think on some level he knows that." He took another drink and stared at the amber liquid in the glass.

McGonagall shocked him by downing the whole glass in one gulp and placing it in front of him in the traditional wordless request for a refill. As he obliged, she said, "It's much worse than that. I was hoping this knowledge could die wi' me, but I fear I mus' burden ye wi' it, too."

"Worse?" Flitwick asked. He poured her an extra large dram and, as a precaution, topped up his own.

"Aye." McGonagall nodded. "It wasn't an accident. Albus set up some of those risks as tests for the lad, and I fear the attitude ye describe is exactly what he wanted to cultivate in Mr. Potter."

"What?" Flitwick was so startled he nearly spilt his liquor. "How could he? And why didn't you do anything?"

"I didna' learn o' it till Albus wasted away in Mr. Potter's seventh year, and I thought steering the lad into a Quidditch career would rein in his more danger-prone impulses."

Flitwick snorted and took another drink. "Only for Mr. Potter would professional Quidditch be the safer career option." 

"Aye," McGonagall said after matching his drink. "And it still wasnae' enough for him, so he joined the Aurors."

"I just don't understand this," Flitwick said. "Why did Albus do that to him?"

"The daft codger thought the lad was the subject o' some sort o' prophecy and would have tae fight Voldemort again," McGonagall said. "Ironically, he was right, but the battle occurred in the Chamber o' Secrets when Harry was only twelve."

"Merlin!" Flitwick drained his glass and McGonagall did likewise. "That's horrifying. How could Albus have done that to the child?"

She shrugged and held her glass out for more. "He weighed the life o' one lad against the possibility o' a Second Blood War, and Harry lost."

"He certainly did." Flitwick poured them both another generous measure. "Now what, Minerva? We were both complicit in that. How do we make it up to him?"

She took another drink and sighed. "We cannae give him his childhood back, but maybe we can help him see himself as more than just a weapon in a war he won."

"It's worth a try," Flitwick said. "I just hope he doesn't get hurt tonight."

"Why? What's the lad doin' tonight?" Minerva took another sip.

"Hunting down a serial killer," Flitwick said.

McGonagall spat out her whiskey.

"You're on." Boredom dripped from Sue's words as she passed the Unforgivable Detector to Harry.

"Acknowledged." Harry took the detector and settled in for another ten-minute shift staring at it. It was a beautiful old Hennessy & Swansea surveying compass, all brass fittings in a beautiful, battered mahogany box. A gold needle, enchanted to glow just enough to be seen at night, always pointed to the true north (which was fortunate, as Harry had never quite got the hang of calculating magnetic declination). A second, silver needle lay dull and lifeless just below the first one. If it detected an unforgivable, it would glow and point in that direction, with the protractor built into the box's lid having been repurposed into providing the distance to the caster. It only had a range of about four hundred yards, so it wasn't much use unless you knew in advance someone would be casting such a spell, but the DMLE had one staffed at all times in Diagon Alley.

They'd been monitoring the device for over three hours so far, since about five o'clock, and they were closing in on the part of the evening during which the muggle coroners believed the other victims had been killed. Due to the device's limited range, they'd set up their watch on top of the flat roof of the Derby Museum and Art Gallery. It was centrally located among the bars in the city center, which they hoped would ensure they were close enough to the spell to identify the caster before they took their victim back to a hotel and started their torture. 

Aurors Proudfoot and Savage were in an alley just south of the building below them that would serve as their apparition point, keeping muggles away and ensuring it would be clear when Harry and Sue needed it. In order to keep the perpetrator unaware they were in the area, they'd all swapped their robes for muggle slacks and sport coats hiding dragonhide armour vests (Harry had helped his three Pureblooded or nearly so colleagues select muggle clothing for the mission so they didn't stand out). They also planned to avoid broom travel, since they couldn't hide from other magicals without hiding from each other, too, and more than one Disillusioned person on a broom in the same square kilometre frequently ended in tragedy. Sometimes hilarious tragedy, but tragedy all the same. 

About six minutes into Harry's shift, the silver needle lit up. "Showtime," Harry said. "But…"

"What is it?" Sue practically teleported to his side in her eagerness to get more information about their target. The braid crown she normally wore to keep her long hair out of the way on dangerous missions didn't come even a little undone due to the movement, a testament to Sue's skill with the Charms with which she'd made it.

"About two hundred yards due northeast of us." Harry frowned. Most of the nearby bars were within only about a hundred and fifty yards away, and they were either to the west, east, or southeast. What was this person up to?

"Damn it," Sue said. "That's a lot of ground to cover. Let's go." 

Harry nodded and they simultaneously apparated to the alley just south of the building. Proudfoot and Savage shot to attention as he steadied himself. (Sue, of course, came out of it perfectly. Stupid Purebloods. He still didn't know how they did it.) He told them what he'd told Sue and they both cursed loudly.

"Are you all M'n'M'ed?" Proudfoot asked, using Auror slang for a Muggle Notice-Me-Not charm. Seeing three nods, he continued, "Good. Jog over there in teams. The bastard probably isn't headed our way, but if you do see anyone notice you, stun first and ask questions later. Oz and I will take the lead and hopefully draw fire if we're spotted. Potter, you're on compass duty. Jog and keep an eye on it for more curses. Bones, keep him from running into anyone and watch his back."

"Yes, sir!" they all said in unison, and Harry and Susan jogged off maybe ten yards behind Proudfoot and Savage.

They made good time jogging up Jury Street and followed it around a bend as it became Cathedral Road. The coordinates the device provided turned out to be a sports bar a couple of blocks north of the old Derby Cathedral, but their quarry was nowhere in sight when they arrived.

"Merlin's pants," Savage said when they arrived, huffing a little from the jog. "Now what?"

"We wait," Proudfoot said.

"I hate waiting," Harry said.

"They'll cast more Unforgivables soon enough," Proudfoot said. "Just keep an eye out. Bones, cover us. Oz, get the list of nearby hotels out. You and I are going to use the Seeking Charm to find the exact distance from Harry's spot to the front door of each one, then we're going to use some trig to figure out what storey our target is on."

"Trig?" Oz asked.

"Fine. I'll use trig. Just hurry up."

The first Unforgivable registered a few minutes later, roughly two hundred feet to the southeast. That could only be the Premier Inn, and if Proudfoot's calculations were correct, they were looking for a room on the third floor.

The run to the inn only took a couple of minutes, but it felt like forever. A quick Confundus ensured the clerk wouldn't prevent them from taking the stairs up, and a few minutes later they were all on the third floor, huffing and puffing. Harry and Sue took up guard positions, watching either side of the hallway from the stairwell door, and the two more senior Aurors started magically scanning the floor. 

"Got it," Oz said after about thirty seconds. "Eighth door down the hall on my right is dead silent and shows a perfect blank space on Revealing Charms."

"Good job," Proudfoot said. One thing criminals rarely considered about Silencing Charms is that any normal space created a bit of noise, so a complete acoustic dead zone stood out like a sore thumb if you knew what to look for. "Harry, you breach the door. Sue, your turn to take point on the way through."

She stretched her arms and nodded to Harry. "Let's do this," she said.

They all checked that their footstep silencing charms were still in place and hurried down the hall. Proudfoot and Savage took up positions on the left of the door (the handle side), and Sue crouched to the right of the door. Harry knelt directly in front of it about three feet back and levelled his wand at the door.

Harry wasn't the best duelist in the Auror Corps. or the most skilled cursebreaker. What he was, though, was the most powerful wizard in the entire government, so when his Unlocking Charm hit the door, neither three different physical locks nor the powerful Locking Spell holding it closed prevented him from blowing it open so hard that it flew all the way across the hotel room, over the bed, and out of the closed windows on the far side of the room.

"Aurors!" Sue shouted as she charged into the room. Harry charged after her and crossed the threshold just in time to see Marcus Flint shield a non-verbal stunner from Sue. Before Harry could help her, though, a woman's voice roared "Crucio!" and Sue went down screaming.

A red mist descended over Harry's vision and he leapt over his convulsing partner toward the bed. As he flew through the air, he twisted to get a look at the woman who'd used an Unforgivable on his partner. It was Millicent Flint (nee Bulstrode), with a similarly convulsing muggle man at her feet and a look of shocked fury etched onto her face. Unforgivables took most wizards and witches, even Dark ones, a moment to work up the necessary state of mind to cast, but Millicent had probably been preparing to use it on the muggle when Sue burst into the room. 

The stocky witch threw up a Shield Charm in time to block Harry's first spell, a stunner, but the sheer power he threw into it shattered her shield and left her wide open for the Banishing Charm he followed it with.

By the time Harry's shoulder hit the bed, Millicent's torso had burst through the wall behind her, dragging the shredded remains of her limbs and skull with it. Marcus roared with anger and, giving no thought to his own safety, launched several curses at Harry, who responded in kind and nailed him with an overpowered Expelliarmus just before he hit the bed and bounced.

Marcus and his wand were already airborne in opposite directions when Proudfoot burst into the room and Harry landed in a crouch on the far side of the bed from the door. Flint hit the wall behind him with a grotesque thud that completely overwhelmed the noise of his wand bouncing into the wall above the bed. Proudfoot had Marcus Incarcerous'd before he hit the ground, but Harry wasn't paying attention to the fate of the disarmed and mostly broken Flint. Instead, he was looking down at the sickly yellow glow enveloping his left ankle and spreading up his leg.

"Damn it!" Harry said. An Ennervating Curse was complicated to cast and not an instant disabler, so most Dark Wizards didn't bother using it in combat. Marcus apparently had enough experience with it to rely on it anyway, though. It weakened you to the point where you couldn't do magic in thirty seconds, rendered you unconscious in a minute, and dead in two minutes. Its main use was mimicking death from natural causes. 

"St. Mungo's, now!" Proudfoot shouted.

Harry ignored him and, instead of reaching for the emergency portkey to St. Mungo's that all Aurors carried on missions, reached into his potion pouch. All Aurors carried a set of potions (and a bezoar) for emergencies. Vial positions one through four were always the same (and kept in the same order, so they could find them without looking), but the fifth slot was left empty for whatever special potion might be issued for that mission. Nothing official had been issued for this mission, so Harry had assented when Hermione offered him the only thing she could give him to protect him before he left.

And so, to Proudfoot's astonishment, Harry ignored his order and downed a vial of Wiggenweld Potion.

"What in the name of Merlin…" Proudfoot trailed off as the yellow glow stopped creeping up Harry's leg. 

"Wiggenweld." Only Hermione's potion and Harry's adrenaline were keeping him alive at that point, so he wasn't in the mood to waste words as he conjured himself a crutch and hopped over to the still unresponsive Sue. "I'll take Sue in. Can you two handle things here?" 

"Aye," the older man said. "Get the hell out of here and tell us later why in Merlin's name you happened to have Wiggenweld Potion on you."

"It was a gift from someone who was worried about me," Harry said. The last thing he saw before he activated the portkey was Proudfoot's look of surprise that someone had worried about the invincible Harry Potter.

Chapter Text

Hermione gave up studying when she realised she'd read the same description of the Softening Charm four times without absorbing a word. So, when Remus jumped out of the floo just after eleven that night, he found her pacing only a few steps away. 

"What's wrong?" she asked. "How's Harry? Did he find the serial killer? Is he alright? Harry, I mean. I don't give a toss about–"

She stopped when Remus threw his arms around her and hugged the life out of her. "Thank you," he said. "St. Mungo's said he might have died tonight without you."

Hermione's voice very nearly failed her, but she still managed to croak out a "What?"

"Your potion." Remus released her so he could look her in the eyes. "Aurors don't usually carry Wiggenweld because a Dark Wizard would have to be a special combination of skilled and stupid to use an Ennervating Curse in a fight, but unfortunately Marcus Flint fit that bill. There's a good chance Harry would be dead right now if you hadn't insisted he take the last vial of Wiggenweld Potion you made."

"Oh, God," she said as she fell to her knees. "Oh God, oh God, oh God."

"Breathe." Remus knelt in front of her and put his hands on her shoulders. "He's fine. They're just holding him overnight for observation."

"It's not that," Hermione said. "I…I spilt some when I put it in a vial for Professor Tonks. If I'd spilt more…Harry might…he might…"

"You didn't, though," Remus said. "You didn't, and he's fine. Would you like to see him?"

She nodded.

"Alright. Dobby?" Remus called.

The quirky house elf popped up right next to him. "Great Harry Potter sir's Uncle Wolfy called Dobby?"

Despite herself, Hermione had to fight down a giggle.

"Yes," Remus said. "I'm afraid Harry's in St. Mungo's."

"Again?" Dobby asked. "Harry Potter sir is valiant and bold, but Dobby sometimes worries Harry Potter overdoes those." A grimace overtook his face and he grabbed his ears. "No, no, Dobby must not question great and wise Harry Potter."

"Dobby!" Remus said sternly. "You know what Harry said about punishing yourself."

The elf released his ears and looked oddly depressed about it. "Fine, Dobby not punish himself."

"Thank you," Remus said. "Now, I'm going to floo back to St. Mungo's. When I call you, it will be safe for you to come and bring Hermione. Can you do that?"

Dobby nodded excitedly. "Dobby would love to bring bold and strong Harry Potter sir his My-knee."

Hermione had a bad feeling she started blushing at that, but decided to ignore it in the hopes it would go away.

"Thank you." Remus rose to his feet. "I'll call you as soon as I can."

After Remus left, Hermione pushed herself to her feet and turned to Dobby. "Why were you trying to punish yourself?" she asked. 

"House elveses shouldn't question their masters," Dobby said. "Bad old masters made Dobby iron his ears or do other things when he did that, but benevolent Harry Potter sir told Dobby not to."

"Iron your ears?" Hermione said. "That's awful!"

"The Malfoys is awful wizards," Dobby said. "They be thinking all muggle-born witches and wizards is filthy and stupid. They do lots of bad things but pay lots of money to not get caught."

"So wizarding Britain is as corrupt as muggle Britain?" Hermione asked.

Dobby shook his head. "Oh, noes, is much more corrupt than that." Before Hermione could respond, he cocked his head and held out his hand. "We can go now."

As Hermione took his hand, she happened to blink. While she didn't feel like she was moving, a rushing wind made it seem like the rest of the world was moving around her, and when she opened her eyes again she found herself in a hospital room. 

Harry lay on a plain hospital bed, with Sirius sitting to one side and Remus at the foot of the bed. "Thank you, Dobby," Remus said. "Please turn invisible, go outside, and warn us if anyone besides Susan, Neville, Minerva, Filius, or Andi comes. We'll need you to pop Hermione back home if that happens."

Dobby nodded and vanished.

While Remus instructed Dobby, Hermione sat down on the empty chair to Harry's right and put her hands on his. "I'm so sorry you were hurt," she said.

Harry's eyes fluttered open. "Oh, Hermione. You didn't have to come."

"Of course I did!" she said. "You wouldn't have been in danger if I hadn't gotten involved."

"You getting involved saved two lives tonight," Harry said. "Mine and their next victim. He's been badly injured by the torture, but somewhere out there are a pair of parents who would have lost a child tonight without you."

Though she couldn't see it through her tears, Hermione felt Harry shake off her hands and pull her head down to his chest.

"Um…" Remus said awkwardly, "we should probably go check on things outside."

"But things are just getting int–ouch! Right, outside," Sirius said. 

Chairs shuffled and then the two of them were alone. Harry explained the whole incident to her start-to-finish, pausing periodically to take a breath. The healer had been able to mostly undo the Ennervating Curse, but Harry was still drained and they were keeping him overnight for evaluation and follow-up doses of Wiggenweld Potion.

"There were two of them?" Hermione asked when he was finished. "And you knew them from school?"

"Yes," he said. "It's so rare for serial killers to work as a team that none of us even considered the possibility there'd be another wand in that room. And yes, I knew both from school. They were both awful to me and my friends, not that I hurt them for that reason."

"I see," she said. "I'm so sorry you had to kill someone tonight. Would you like to talk about it?"

He gave a small shrug. "I probably don't feel as much right now as I should. They were always nasty people, and I always kind of wondered if I'd end up fighting them or others like them from school one day. It's hard to feel that much remorse when you've known for years that there was a decent chance it would end this way."

"Even as schoolchildren?" Hermione asked. 

"They never saw muggles as people," Harry said. "I did. In the end, we were bound to end up on opposite sides, though I didn't think it would be in a cheap hotel room in Derby." 

She didn't respond, and after a moment, Harry asked, "are you alright?"

"Someone like that stole my magic and memories, didn't they?" Hermione asked.

"Probably," Harry said. "We'll find them."

Silence settled on the room after that for a minute before Harry spoke up again. "Can I ask you something?" 

"Of course!" Hermione said. "Is anything wrong? Can I get you anything? Do you need a doctor? What about–"

Harry cut her off with a gentle squeeze of his arm. "Don't worry," he said. "I'm fine. I'm just taking advantage of my injury to ask a question, since you can't get mad at me right now."

"You don't have to be so smug about it." The audible smile in her voice undermined her grumpy phrasing.

"Yes, I do." He smirked, then took a deep breath. "What are we, Hermione? I thought we were just flatmates, but flatmates don't burst into hospital rooms and lay on each other's chests."

Heat rushed to Hermione's cheeks and she tried to get up, but Harry's arm tightened around her and held her there. 

"I'm not complaining," Harry said quickly. "I…quite like this. It's just…this made me re-evaluate the last few weeks, too. All of those dinners we've made each other, all of those outings together…we're not living like we're just flatmates, are we?"

"Maybe not," Hermione whispered into his chest.

"Are…um…you alright with that?" Harry asked.

"Me?" Hermione was so shocked that she pushed herself up a little so she could look into Harry's eyes. His warm, concerned, and impossibly green eyes.

Darn it. She'd once again forgotten about his eyes.

"Of course I am," she whispered, unable to force more volume into her voice under the force of his gaze. "Are you?"

He smiled. "I've fancied you for weeks, Hermione Granger."

She lay her head back on his chest and wrapped her arms around him as best she could, given that he was lying down. "I didn't want to make things awkward," she said, "since if you didn't return my feelings you'd probably still feel obligated to keep me around."

"And I didn't want to pressure you into anything," Harry said. "It's kind of awkward trying to start a relationship when you're also responsible for the other person's safety."

"I could just move home with my parents now, you know," Hermione said. "We got rid of the beacon."

"Oh."

She pushed herself back up so she could look into his eyes again. He looked sheepish. 

"Damn it," he said.

"What is it?" Hermione asked.

"If I'd thought of that, I would have tried this a lot sooner." He moved the hand that was still around her back until it was behind her head and gently pulled her in for a kiss.

Her lips were close enough that she could feel the heat of his breath on them when a knock on the door reminded them of where they were.

As Hermione rocketed back into her chair, the door inched open and Remus asked, "May we come in?"

"Y…yes," Hermione said.

Remus opened the door all the way and entered, followed immediately by Sirius. "Damn it," Sirius said good-naturedly. "I was hoping you'd answer 'no.'"

"It's alright, Padfoot," Harry said. "I finally caught on."

"About damn time!" Sirius said. "I've been wanting to say something for several weeks, but Remus told me not to interfere."

"It was that obvious?" Hermione asked.

"I'm afraid so," Remus said.

"You can blame any delay on me," Harry said. "I'm awfully slow at this sort of thing."

"We do," Sirius, Remus, and Hermione said simultaneously. That earned her raised eyebrows from the other two men, at which she blushed but raised her chin defiantly.

"Ouch," Harry said. "You didn't all have to agree immediately, you know."

"We kind of did," Sirius said. The other two nodded and shrugged apologetically.

"Anyway," Remus said, "as much as I'd like to learn more about how you two finally sorted yourselves out, we came in here because we wanted to warn you that you'll be receiving visitors in a moment."

"Oh, should I go?" Hermione asked.

"No, you know them," Remus said. A knock came a moment later, and the older man opened the door to reveal Susan with a cane in her right hand and her left arm being held by Neville.

"Hi, everyone." Sue's voice was raspy, probably due to how hard the poor woman had screamed earlier. "Harry, how are you doing? When I came 'round, Nev told me you'd taken a nasty curse."

Harry gave her a quick rundown of everything that had happened since she'd been hit. When he finished, Sue sighed. "I don't know whether you're the luckiest or unluckiest man on Earth, Harry."

"Luckiest," Harry said. "Hermione and I just decided we're in a relationship."

Hermione blushed, but Sue and Nev just looked at each other confusedly. "You mean you weren't?" Nev asked.

Sue nodded. "After she moved in with you, I thought, you know…"

"It's a long, kind of silly story," Hermione said.

"It turns out neither of us are very good at this sort of thing," Harry added.

Sirius raised his eyebrows at Hermione. "Implying your witch is bad at something is a risky move, Pup."

She shrugged. "It's a fair cop."

"Harry is pretty bad at relationships," Sue said. "Ginny eventually gave up on hints and just pulled that poor boy straight into a broom closet."

Nev coughed. "I…um…don't think you're supposed to talk about his ex in front of his current girlfriend. There's some sort of rule about that."

"I see it more as 'letting her know in advance what works,'" Sue said. "Sort of–" her right arm spasmed and she dropped the cane, but Nev clamped down on her other arm and kept her from falling. Remus moved shockingly fast and had the cane back in her hand a moment later.

"I'm sorry," Sue said. "Cruciatus aftereffects."

Harry winced. "I'm sorry about that. I didn't have an angle on Millie until after she hit you."

"It's not your fault, Harry," Sue said. "I should have kept moving, but the room was small enough that dodging wasn't much of an option. I do wish you hadn't killed her, though."

"But she tortured you!" Nev said. "I'm glad she's dead."

Sue shook her head firmly. "Regardless, she deserved a trial."

"Harry won't get in trouble, will he?" Hermione asked.

"Not a chance," Sue said. "No jury in the world would convict him. That just makes it even more important to use force carefully, though."

"I know," Harry said. "I think I have some unresolved issues from Fifth Year, to be honest. I heard you scream and I just lost control."

Everyone else except Hermione winced, which caused her to look around in confusion. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"Nobody," Nev said, "wants to be around when Harry loses control. His raw power scares the hell out of me sometimes."

"Yeah," Sue said. "There's a reason he's our designated breacher. I've yet to see a locking charm that can withstand him."

Hermione raised her eyebrows. "Is there anything else Harry should be bragging about to me that he almost certainly isn't?"

"Youngest Quidditch Seeker in a century at Hogwarts," Nev said immediately.

"Fought off five dozen Dementors Sixth Year and saved several hundred people," Sue added.

"Permanently killed Voldemort," Sirius said.

"We've already told her that one," Remus said.

"We probably undersold it, though. I mean, he was bloody–"

"Language," Hermione said automatically.

Sirius rolled his eyes and continued, "only twelve at the time. There should be a new level of Order of Merlin just for that."

"Or you could just call it the Order of Morgana," Sue said pointedly.

"Not this again," Remus muttered.

"I'm just saying–"

"Harry's nearly been killed just now." Nev held up his hands in a placating gesture. "Let's have this argument some other time."

"Fine," Sirius and Sue grumbled simultaneously.

"Anyway," Neville said, moving on with alacrity, "I think those are the highlights that Harry probably hasn't bragged about yet."

"She doesn't even know what Quidditch is," Harry said.

"I saw the poster of you in 12 Grimmauld Place," Hermione said.

Sue's arm spasmed, but not as badly this time and she held onto her cane. Nev still tensed his arm, though, to make sure he held her up. "You showed her that poster, Harry?" Sue and. "And here we thought you weren't bragging."

"It wasn't intentional!" Harry said, clearly trying to exclaim and not quite mustering enough energy for it. "She just happened to walk in and wanted to know what Quidditch was."

"Oh, suuu-rrrreee," Sue said. "That's all she was interested in about that poster."

"It's just a poster of me, my broom, a Golden Snitch, and the name of the team," Harry said. "What else is there?"

Sue smirked and turned to Hermione. "What colour were his trousers?"

"A deep brown leather, creased and worn as if they'd been used for hours at a time and, as a result, fit him perfectly," Hermione said immediately, heat rising to her face as she spoke.

"Those were comfortable trousers after the first month," Harry said. 

Sue sighed and looked at Hermione. "Could you bonk him with your wand, please? Normally, this is where I'd do it, but I'm just not up to it."

Hermione smiled shyly, pulled out her wand, and bopped Harry gently on the head with it.

"Not bad," Sue said. "We'll have to work on your technique."

"That's not necessary," Harry said.

"Trust me, Hermione," Sue said. "He makes it necessary."

Nev sighed. "I only wish I could pull off those trousers."

"Don't get too down on yourself." Sue spasmed again, this time her right leg suddenly buckling. She and Nev managed to keep her upright, though. "You're no pro athlete, but you spend a lot of time in that garden."

"Gardening isn't particularly demanding."

"Says the man who hauls around one-stone sacks of dragon dung all day," Sue shot back.

"Yeah," Harry said, "I am definitely using this injury as an excuse to avoid helping Neville do any horticultural work for at least the next fortnight."

"That's eminently reasonable," Remus said, "especially since you need to be in good shape to fight off some of those plants."

"What?" Hermione said.

"I don't have that many man-eating plants," Nev said.

"Any number of those above zero is too many," Sirius said.

"And notice how he limited that statement to 'man-eating,'" Harry said. "The percentage of lethal plants is much higher."

"Humph," Nev said. "Someone has to keep a mandrake supply on hand in the UK because Merlin knows the Ministry isn't doing it."

Hermione looked around the room as everyone shuddered. "What happened?" she asked.

"Basilisk-related petrifications our Second-Year," Nev said. "We had to grow our own mandrakes at the school and it was months before we could un-petrify everyone."

"That's horrible!" Hermione said. "Those poor students missed months of classes?"

The rest of them looked at each other. "That's the first place her mind goes?" Sue asked. "Good luck, Harry."

"I think," Remus said, "that her commitment to her studies is laudable."

"Same here," Harry said, "and I think we've established that my opinion is the important one around here."

"He's got you there," Nev said as Hermione's cheeks heated up again.

Dobby interrupted the conversation just then by appearing directly in front of Hermione. "Minister Bonesy is coming!" he said. 

"Oh!" Hermione said. "I'd better go." She kissed Harry's forehead and held out a hand to Dobby, who popped her straight back to Harry's floo room.

Now that she knew Harry had survived, she had a much easier time focusing on her studies for the next half-hour or so until she got the all-clear from Dobby to return. When she did, only Remus and Sirius remained in the room with the now-sound asleep Harry.

"Harry fell asleep a few minutes ago," Remus said. "We checked with the nurse that it was safe for him to sleep, and the Minister escorted her daughter and Nev back to Sue's room. There's an Auror guard out in the corridor now, but they won't disturb us unless there's an emergency."

"I see," Hermione said. "Can I wait here, then?"

"I don't see why not," Sirius said. "Dobby can pop you back and forth if any shows up."

"Will you be here?" Hermione asked. "I don't want to leave him alone."

"Yes," Sirius said. "I appreciate that you're so worried about him."

"I'm…um…more worried someone will try to kill him," Hermione said.

Remus and Sirius shared a look and a dark chuckle. "She catches on quickly," Remus said. "Yes, we'll be keeping an eye on the door, too."

"Oh, good," Hermione said. "I wouldn't be much good in a fight now, but I'm going to learn."

"Good," Sirius said. "Life with Harry will never be completely safe, so I'm glad you want to learn to defend yourself."

She locked eyes with the older man. "You misunderstand me. I'm going to learn so thoroughly that I can defend him in a fight, not the other way around."

Sirius and Remus shared another look, this time a broad grin. "Have I mentioned," Sirius said, "how glad I am that he kept her?"

Remus patted him on the shoulder. "It's cute you think he had a choice in the matter."

Chapter Text

Harry found himself alone by mid-morning the next day. Dobby had taken Hermione home around six when a healer came by to check on him, and Sirius and Remus left after he was formally discharged a few hours later. Harry had just finished going over the hospital room one last time to make sure nobody had left anything when a knock on the door nearly made him jump.

"Guid morning, Mister Potter," Professor McGonagall said. "How are ye feeling?"

"I'm fine," Harry said. "They just kept me for observation."

"Ye nearly died," McGonagall said sadly. "That's nae 'fine.'"

Harry shot her a wry smile. "I'm surprised you're not used to that by now."

"I am, and that's the problem." She shook her head. "I've seen you in too many hospital beds, laddie."

"In my defence, I was almost always in the same one at Hogwarts," Harry said. 

McGonagall pinched the bridge of her nose. "Ah, yes, your plaque. The fact that the Twins and, as I later learned, Peeves, were moved tae put a plaque for ye on a bed proves my point." 

"Oh, so you finally figured out Peeves was involved?" Harry asked. "He was their secret weapon in making sure it couldn't be removed."

"Yes, they admitted it tae me after ye graduated," she said. "Now stop trying tae change the subject, Mr. Potter! Ye end up in these beds far too often for my likin'."

He shrugged. "I'm sorry, Prof…Headmistress. As much as I try to stay safe, this is a dangerous line of work."

"I know, and I worry about ye constantly." The older woman sighed. "Lad, your parents were some of my favourite students, and they're ne'er goin' tae forgive me if ye meet them again before I do."

That comment brought Harry up short. McGonagall had been a constant for over half of his life thus far and he had trouble imagining a day when he'd walk into Hogwarts without her there. 

Was that how other people his age felt about their parents?

He mentally shook himself and responded. "I'll do my best to avoid that happening, but my father was an Auror. He knew the risks, too."

"Your father was only an Auror because of the war," she said. "He'd finally married the girl he'd been chasing tae ludicrously little effect for nearly ten years and I suspect if he'd had his way they'd ne'er hae even left the bedroom, tae say nothing of hunting Dark Wizards."

Harry hurriedly shoved any thoughts related to his parents doing that into the furthest part of his mind and tried to stay focused on the real topic. "But Professor Dumbledore told me he'd always wanted to be an Auror."

Such fury washed over McGonagall's features that Harry nearly took a step back, but it disappeared as quickly as it came and she calmly responded, "Only tae protect your mother from the war. He once told me he'd rather fight for her rights in the Wizengamot than the streets, but he ne'er shied away frae doin' either."

"Oh." Harry looked down. "I didn't know that. Even so, though, I'm not sure the Aurors would have caught Marcus and Millie anytime soon without my help and Hermione's. We probably saved a lot of lives."

"Of course ye did," McGonagall said. "Remus told me how ye both were magnificent. There are lots of ways tae save lives, though. Those two might ne'er hae turned Dark at all had Severus not been allowed tae run their house all those years."

Harry stood still for a moment, shocked to hear her voice the concerns he and his friends had raised so often in private. Before he could speak again, McGonagall walked up to him and put her hands on his shoulders. "Ye're so much more than just a wand, lad. Ne'er forget that."

"I won't." It might have been his imagination, but the whole world seemed to shift just a bit as he spoke.

Harry stumbled out of his floo about half an hour later and took a brown-haired missile to the chest before he even had a chance to dust the soot off. 

"Welcome home, Harry!" Hermione said, her voice muffled by his shirt.

He wrapped his arms around her and held her for a moment before speaking. "That's when I realised I had strong feelings for you, you know," he said.

"Wait, what?" she asked.

"That first time I came back to the house and you welcomed me home," Harry said. "No one had ever welcomed me back to my own home before, and for the first time it really felt like one. A home, I mean. Ginny was never really here when I wasn't, so I always came home alone and it never really mattered when I got home. That was the first time I'd ever returned home and had anyone care whether I was late."

"I'm sorry," Hermione said. "I don't mean to cramp your style."

"Don't be," Harry replied firmly. "Remember that old Janis Joplin song where she sings, 'Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose'? That's what I'm trying to say. I like knowing you care whether I'm late because the alternative is nobody caring."

"I've never really thought about it like that," Hermione said. She hugged him even tighter. "I…I don't think it even occurred to me that anyone would ever care about me like that. Even before I left home, my parents were pretty hands-off and didn't really keep track of my comings and goings."

"Well, we've got each other now." Harry paused. "You know, I thought this sort of thing would be scarier."

"How so?" Hermione still hadn't released him from her hug, and he was fine with that.

"Making a home with a woman, losing my heart to her, those seemed like big steps. But I woke up this morning knowing my heart was beating in here," he tapped the left side of her back, "and not in my own chest, and it just seemed totally natural. Like, I can't imagine it any other way now."

Hermione was silent for a moment, then sniffled once, and again.

"Are you OK?" Harry asked.

"Oh, Harry," she said, "you can't say something like that and expect me not to cry."

He smiled and moved her back a little so he could look her in the eyes. "You know, I think we were about to do something in the hospital when we were interrup–" was as far as he got before she stood up on her tiptoes and kissed him.

It wasn't the fireworks of his first kiss with Ginny, where it felt like every nerve in his body was on fire with desire for her. He was nearly ten years older now, and his hormones didn't burn quite as hot as they did when he was a teenager. This felt more like coming up for air for the first time after a lifetime underwater, and he never wanted it to stop.

Like all good things, though, it did eventually come to an end, and Hermione collapsed back against his chest, panting for lack of breath. "Oh," she said, "that's what it's supposed to feel like."

"You've never…um…snogged before?" Harry asked.

"Only a couple of times in bars at uni during history of philosophy get-togethers," she said, still somewhat breathless. "I didn't let it go any further because I didn't feel anything. I…um…do now."

"I've only kissed Ginny…well, and one time with Cho after Cedric dumped her, but the less said about that the better. If this is how you kiss with no real practice, then you're a natural."

She blushed. "I'm glad you think so. Is it alright if we go slow from here, though? I've never really been in a relationship before."

"Of course," Harry said. "Wait, how have you never been in a relationship before? You're gorgeous and a genius!"

"Most people were too put off by the latter to notice the former," Hermione said drily. "I think you're the only person who ever commented."

"This isn't helping my opinion of your classmates, you know," Harry said.

She blushed harder. "Um…I have the same question, if you don't mind. Only two girls? With your looks and skills, you must have had your…pick…Harry, did I say something wrong?"

"No, no, it's fine," Harry said, shaking his head to dispel the dark look that must have come over his face. "I did have my pick of girls, especially once Sirius took me in and I started wearing clothes that actually fit. It's just…I felt like none of them really knew me, or would have wanted me if they had known me. I tried dating a couple of people after Ginny left me, but they always turned out to just want to use me. "

"I'm sorry," Hermione said. "You deserved better."

"And I have it," Harry replied. He held her there for a few more minutes, just basking in her presence, until one of their stomachs rumbled. (They were so close that they couldn't quite tell whose.) "Ah. Should we get some tea and sandwiches?"

Hermione nodded.

"OK. After we've eaten, let's organise a better plan for chores and meals. Now that we've admitted we're together, I think we can be more up front about our intentions."

"I agree," Hermione said, but something in her voice gave him pause.

"What is it?" he asked.

"We can still do spontaneous stuff, too, right?" she asked. "I didn't know how much I enjoyed letting someone I trusted take over the planning until my birthday, and I've come to quite enjoy it."

Harry laughed. "Hermione, this is me we're talking about. We'll keep doing spontaneous things whether we want to or not."

"Oh, OK," she said, and fell silent.

"Um…are you planning out what to keep with you at all times now?" Harry asked.

She didn't respond immediately. Finally, in a small voice, she asked, "You don't mind, do you?"

"After yesterday?" Harry asked. "Not at all."

Harry had the rest of the day off for both medical leave and enforced administrative leave while his killing in the line of duty was investigated. Having no other engagements, Harry was happy to help Hermione work on her Charms, though he kept his own casting to a minimum because of his exhaustion. They didn't part until after bedtime had come and gone, and Hermione sensed some reluctance on Harry's part to let her go to bed alone. He was a gentleman about the matter and didn't press, though, and midnight saw them both asleep in their own beds.

However, one o'clock saw Hermione rocketing out of her bed and up the stairs. Harry's screams had ripped her from a sound sleep, and he was still in the grip of a nightmare when she arrived. He happened to be sleeping mostly on the right side of the bed, probably a leftover from the days when he had company there, so she slipped around to the left side of his bed to avoid his thrashing arms.

"It's OK," she said as she climbed into the bed and pulled his head to her breast. "It's OK." She ended up in an awkward half-sitting position with a pillow under the small of her back and her upper back supported by the padded headboard. 

Some small part of her brain wondered if this sort of situation was why she'd seen so many padded headboards, but that didn't seem likely. She filed that thought away for future investigation and focused on the task at hand, which was comforting Harry. She felt immensely more awkward doing so when she realised she was only wearing her knickers and a thin sleep cami.

Harry was still mostly asleep, though, and didn't seem to realise that his girlfriend had crawled into his bed wearing next to nothing. Instead, he just wrapped his arms around her body, mumbled something about "he was making me hurt her," and drifted back off to sleep.

Hermione considered that a success, but re-evaluated the grading when she realised she was now thoroughly trapped in his bed. With no other options, she ran her fingers through the mop of messy black hair on her chest and sighed. "I guess I was bound to wind up here eventually," she whispered to the night. She wasn't quite ready to face that truth in the light of day yet, or even twilight, but telling the night seemed safe.

The light of day streaming in through the glass French doors out onto Harry's terrace eventually awoke Hermione, who gave a confused "eep" when she realised where she was, who was on top of her, and what she wasn't wearing.

Harry stirred at the sound and snuggled even more onto her breasts. She could pinpoint the precise moment he opened his eyes when every muscle in his body stiffened up, including that one.

"Oh…um…" Harry carefully wiggled his pelvic region away from her as he spoke. "Hi."

"You had a nightmare," Hermione said to the top of his head. "I tried to soothe you and you didn't let me go afterward."

"Oh! I remember now." Harry's arms tightened around her as he spoke. "I think Susan's screams from the Cruciatus Curse reminded me of when that wendigo made me curse her. I was having a horrible dream that Marcus imperioused me and made me torture her again in retaliation for killing Millie. Thank you for waking me up. It just kept getting worse."

She ran her fingers through his hair again. Such a simple gesture should not have been that satisfying, and he seemed to enjoy it, too. "It was no trouble, really,"

"I do appreciate it," Harry said. "By the time I awake from those on my own, I'm usually terrified and jittery. I slept great for the rest of the night, though."

"I'm glad," she said. Her back was sore from the weird sleeping position, but she couldn't deny that she'd slept shockingly well even so. "I should probably go put some clothes back on, though."

"Oh, right." Harry sat up and politely averted his eyes. "Go ahead. I won't peek."

Hermione ignored the "even though I desperately want to" hanging in the air and hurried out of the room.

The awkwardness between them didn't abate for the remainder of the morning, but fortunately Hermione's prescheduled lunch date with Sue gave her an excellent excuse to quit the house for awhile. She even managed to use the floo on her own, though she did end up falling on her arse when she arrived at Bones Manor. Only an old house elf saw her, though, and it didn't do anything besides give her a look of disapproval. 

Sue had originally intended to accompany her to lunch in muggle London, but she still wasn't fully recovered from her torture, so they'd agreed to eat at Bones Manor, instead. The poor woman was still using a cane when she arrived in the floo room while Hermione was dusting herself off.

"Sorry I'm late," she said. "I thought I could get around without this thing today, but I had to go back for it."

"No worries," Hermione said. "I'm just sorry you're still feeling poorly."

Sue waved off Hermione's concern. "I'll be fine, don't worry. Besides, I've already got Auntie and Nev worrying about me constantly, so I feel covered on the 'worry' front."

Hermione's mind flashed back to her conversation with Harry on the Underground train. Worry was probably a lot easier to decline when you had enough of it.

"I'm glad you have them taking care of you," Hermione said.

"And I'm glad Harry has you taking care of him," Sue responded. "Someone needs to, and there's a full moon coming up so Sirius and Remus will be of limited help. Nev would probably be running back and forth between our houses all day without you."

Hermione had a hunch that Neville's attention would be much more on the buxom woman in front of her, but she didn't feel like she knew them well enough to comment on that just yet, so she just made a noncommittal noise that sounded reasonably assenting.

"How's Harry doing, by the way?" Sue asked. "He seemed fine when I floo-called yesterday afternoon." 

"He's pretty much back to normal," Hermione said. "The exhaustion was only temporary. I think the incident hit him mentally harder than it did physically. He couldn't stand seeing you hurt like that."

"I understand," Sue said. "He's never really forgiven himself for the wendigo incident and how he tortured me. Did he have more nightmares?"

Hermione nodded. She hadn't planned to mention those, but Sue seemed to know about them. "Yes, but I ran upstairs and calmed him down."

"Thank you," Sue said. "He's always had bad nightmares. Nev used to keep an eye on him in the dormitory, and we were both worried about what would happen to him once he broke up with Ginny. Wait, though…why'd you have to run up the stairs?"

"We're…um…not sleeping together yet," Hermione said.

"You're not?" Sue's eyebrows shot up again. "I am actually more surprised to hear that than I would have been if you'd shown up here with a betrothal ring on your finger. Is Harry alright? I can round up Nev, Sirius, and Remus if you think he needs to be convinced to sit for either a physical or mental evaluation."

Hermione blinked. "Um…what?"

"Harry had a hard time getting used to accepting physical affection," Sue said. "Back when Ginny and I still talked, she used to worry about him a lot. She made a lot of progress getting him used to intimacy, though I think she screwed him up in a different way in the end and I'm concerned he's backsliding now."

"'Getting used to physical affection'?" Hermione asked. "I keep hearing things that make me very worried about his upbringing. Is there something–"

Sue shook her head. "That's not my story to tell, and, frankly, I probably shouldn't know as much as Ginny told me. Let's just say that he had a difficult childhood and I'm concerned he may have retreated into some of his old habits after Ginny left him."

Hermione seriously considered lying or refusing to answer. This woman clearly cared a great deal for Harry, though, and Hermione didn't want to do anything that might prevent Harry from getting help if he needed it. "No," she whispered. "It's my fault."

"Your fault?" Sue asked. "Hermione, what you do with your body is your own business, not your fault. I just assumed it was Harry because that poor boy is such a ball of issues that I'm sometimes surprised he can get out of bed in the morning."

Hermione sighed. "No, this is entirely on my issues, not his. Look at me!" She gestured up and down her body as she spoke. "I'm incredibly plain, and on top of that I know nothing about how to approach physical intimacy! Now, for some reason I cannot fathom this incredible man has taken an interest in me and I'm terrified he'll realise I'm a frigid, boring swot who's about as sexually exciting as one of the books she spends all of her time with. Are you happy now? The only thing wrong with Harry is that he seems to be sexually attracted to me, and I'm sure that condition will improve with time."

Sue limped over to Hermione and wrapped her in a tight hug. "I'm so sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to bring up something you're so uncomfortable with."

Hermione didn't return the hug. "I don't like talking about it, but it sounded like you might need that information to diagnose a potential issue with Harry. I don't need your pity."

"You're right." Sue released her and took a step back so she could look the smaller woman in the eyes. "You don't. You need an explanation. Come on." She turned around and made her way toward the nearby sitting room, her unsteady steps and thudding cane echoing through the house in a halting anapest. Her hair was down in a long braid that swung wildly with each stomp, which looked good enough on her to make Hermione self-conscious of her own bushy mess while simultaneously reminding her why the other woman wore it up to work.

Hermione followed her and sat down across from her on a pair of armchairs that looked like they should be archaic and uncomfortable, but turned out to be the most comfortable thing on which she'd ever sat.

"Professionally applied Cushioning Charm made permanent with runework," Sue said when she noticed Hermione prodding at the almost nonexistent cushion. "Anyway, you and I need to have a talk about Harry. I understand you have concerns about yourself, but what I—and he—need you to know is that he has many of those same concerns about himself."

"What?" Hermione asked. "But he–"

"Had a very bad childhood," Sue said. "And things didn't get better for several years at Hogwarts. Part of that is my fault, to be honest, since I was one of the great many people who thought he might have been responsible for what turned out to have been the basilisk attacks. And all because we found out he was a Parselmouth!" She shook her head. "I've never really forgiven myself for that, and I doubt he ever fully did, either."

"What do the basilisk attacks have to do with his self-image?" Hermione asked.

"It was the first time others had found out a secret about him," Sue explained, "and we all distrusted him as a result. Between the lack of affection, to put it mildly, in his upbringing and that incident, Nev and I think what he learnt is that no one will ever love him once they get to really know him."

Sue paused for a moment and took a breath before continuing. "And I did that to him! I helped take a broken little boy and turn him into a lonely, mistrusting man! Hell of a friend I am, right?"

"It sounds like you were only a tiny part of that," Hermione said. "That's why we don't give twelve-year-olds much power or responsibility: they do stupid, thoughtless things sometimes. Because they're twelve."

"While Harry was twelve, he was saving a girl's life and killing a giant basilisk," Sue said. "What's my excuse?"

"Wait, people keep saying it was a large basilisk," Hermione said. "What does that mean? I looked them up and normal ones are supposed to be about a foot long, so are we talking three feet? Five feet?"

"Basilisks grow continuously until they die," Sue said. "This one was one thousand years old."

"How…big?" Hermione croaked out.

"Sixty feet."

"Good God." Hermione leaned back in her chair. "How are you all not dead?"

"Harry," Sue replied. "It all comes back to Harry. I eventually stopped treating him like garbage, but most of our schoolmates never did. Even the professors didn't believe him when he told them he didn't enter his name in the Triwizard Tournament."

"The professors didn't believe him?" Hermione asked. Even after some of her sub-optimal experiences with professors, she still couldn't believe them capable of such dereliction.

"I'm afraid so," Sue said. "Nev and I did, but it's not like we could help much. I mean, we were fourteen. I knew a few neat duelling tricks Auntie taught me and Nev was able to help a bit with preparation for the Second Task, but that was it. Morganna knows who would have been able to keep the poor boy alive if Sirius hadn't been free by then and arranged training from that psycho Hit Wizard."

"Everything I learn about his life just makes it worse," Hermione said.

"So did I," Sue said darkly.

"But you tried to make it better!" Hermione said. "That matters. Even if you can't be entirely forgiven, you can still repent."

"That's a lovely lie," Sue replied.

"The greatest philosophers of the last two thousand years thought it was true," Hermione fired back. "Live like it is and maybe it could be."

Sue sighed. "Maybe you're right. What does that even mean, though?"

"It means keep being a good friend to him," Hermione said. 

"I'm doing my best," she said. "I get the impression you need friends, too, though."

Hermione blushed. "Did Harry tell you that?"

"He told me he was concerned about how easy it was for you to let your old life go," Sue said. "He's also…Harry's not great at staying safe, which you've probably figured out by now. I think he's trying to ensure you have some friends in our world in case anything happens to him."

Hermione felt herself shrinking instinctively back into the chair. "I don't think I could do this without him."

"You can," Sue said, "and I think you know it."

"Every time I stop to think about this plan, it seems insane," Hermione. "He makes me believe it's not."

"He's got a knack for that," Sue said. "Nev and I will try to help, too, though. And I wish Luna were here. She would know exactly what to say to confuse the hell out of you now and make you feel better tomorrow."

"Wait, what?" Hermione asked.

"Luna cannot be explained." Sue spoke as if imparting a fundamental truth of the universe. "She can only be experienced."

"She sounds…interesting," Hermione said. "So is she like some sort of Taoist master? The Tao that can be spoken is not the Eternal Tao; the name that can be named is not the Eternal Name…stuff like that?"

Sue blinked. "Oh, Morgana. You two are either going to kill each other or get along splendidly, and I'm not sure which worries me more."

"Did Harry say she was off on a honeymoon/research trip?" Hermione asked.

"Yes. After she and Rolf Scamander got married, she basically dragged him off into the bushes to have her wicked way with him until he could no longer stand—her words, not mine—and search for new magical animals while he recuperated." Sue smirked. "Ron and Ginny laughed at that, but I remember Rolf nervously double-checking what I think was a pouch of stamina potion vials on his belt."

"Oh, my," Hermione said.

"Precisely," Sue said. "Here's the trick to understanding Luna: she says outrageous things all the time, but she believes every word and she is a sufficiently powerful witch to bend more of reality to her will than you'd think."

"She's on our side, right?" Hermione asked.

"Absolutely," Sue said. "She's another person who never, ever stopped believing in Harry." She took a deep breath. "I know you're scared, and I can't tell you not to be. I know he's scared, too, though, and I think you can get through it together."

"He deserves so much better than me, though," Hermione said.

"Stop that right now," Sue demanded, and Hermione immediately froze at her tone. "Listen to me, Hermione. You don't get to decide what he deserves. All I know is that one of my best friends has been desperately lonely for over a year and has finally found someone worthy of filling that hole in his heart, and I will not let you undermine that by telling yourself it's doomed to fail. He wants it to succeed. What do you want?"

"I want it to succeed," Hermione whispered.

"Good. Then make it succeed. If you don't think you're the witch he deserves yet, then become that witch. I'm not going to let you run away from this."

"I…I hadn't thought of it like that," Hermione said. "I'll do it. Um…can you help, though? I can try to make myself smarter or a better witch, but I don't know much about making myself beautiful."

Sue smirked. "You're doing just fine so far, in my opinion and I suspect Harry's, as well, but I'd be happy to give you some pointers about how to be more enticing both when you're vertical and horizontal."

"That would be nice," Hermione said, blushing.

Chapter Text

Hermione was well ahead of where she where she'd intended to be in her Transfiguration and Charms studies by that week (Potions was right on track), so, with the exceptions of her regular study sessions, she spent most of the rest of the week once Harry went back to work helping Nev in his greenhouses. Nev was still worried about Sue until she went back to desk-only work on Friday, so Sue came by during the first couple of sessions just so Nev could fuss over her. 

Half an hour into her session with Nev on Friday morning, Hermione called a halt to things. "Nev, we need to stop," she said. 

He put down the bag of dragon dung he was holding. "Sure. What's wrong?"

"You are," Hermione said. "You've been out of sorts all morning and I'm worried you're going to get us both killed."

Nev glared at her. "I know what I'm doing," he said. "Harry's just taking the mickey with all of those comments about my dangerous plants. That's no excuse to lecture me on your third lesson."

She flipped back through her notes. "Yesterday, you told me only to fertilise venomous tentacula with mooncalf dung because dragon dung would cause it to explode in both size and aggression."

"Right," he said. "What's your point?"

Hermione wordlessly gestured with her quill at the dragon dung bag at his feet and then the venomous tentacula plant five yards ahead of him.

"Merlin's pants!" Nev said. "OK, you're right. We're taking a break."

She nodded and followed him out of the greenhouse. "Do you want to talk about anything?" she asked.

He sighed. "I don't even know."

"Are you upset that Sue's gone back to work already?" 

"No, I'm upset that both of my best friends nearly died in the space of ten seconds!" he said. "If that had been a Killing Curse instead of a Cruciatus, Sue would never have gotten back up, and there was probably only a 50-50 chance Harry would have gotten a potion for that Ennervating Curse in time if you hadn't given him the one you brewed. And now they're both back at it as if nothing happened."

"It's not as if nothing happened for Harry," Hermione said. "He took it pretty hard."

"He shouldn't. He's probably the reason she's still alive," Nev replied. "She wouldn't be the first temporarily incapacitated Auror killed by a Dark Wizard right before they were captured. If Harry hadn't pulled that insane stunt that nearly got him killed to draw fire, one of them might have killed her while they were fighting off her backup in the door."

"I hadn't thought of it like that," Hermione said. "I knew Harry nearly didn't make it, but I didn't realise how close Sue came to dying, too."

"It's all I've been able to think of for a few days," Nev said. "I don't have all that many friends, so those two mean the world to me. Losing either would break my heart, and I'm not sure I could take losing both of them at the same time."

"I understand," Hermione said. "It's been years since I had any real friends. I had a panic attack when I heard Harry had been hurt."

"I'm sorry," Nev said. "I've been so wrapped up in my own worries that I didn't ask how you'd been doing."

"Better," Hermione said. "Just seeing him alive each morning helps."

"I know what you mean," Nev said. "That's one of the reasons I've been dragging Sue over here. I wish…" he trailed off and shook his head.

Hermione pursed her lips and stared at him. "You wish you could be there with them?"

"Yeah. Stupid, isn't it?"

"Not at all!" Hermione said. "I wish I could, too. I've been sneaking time with my DADA books instead of some of my mandatory relaxation time so I can take fighting lessons sooner."

Nev blinked. "OK, let's put a pin in the DADA lessons. Why do you have 'mandatory relaxation time'?"

"Um…Harry was concerned I was studying too much, so he made me add relaxation time to my schedule for each day. I really don't see how you can study too much, though. It's just so interesting! And I'm getting a good seven hours—OK, maybe six hours—of sleep each night, so that's plenty."

"I think I see why Harry insisted," Nev said. "I won't snitch on you, but maybe you should spend a little more time sleeping and getting fresh air. You'll be stuck indoors all winter, anyway, so you might as well enjoy autumn."

"Oh, good," Hermione said. "You're right. I can study way more during the winter, so I'll take a little more time off now so Harry can't get too upset when I don't take time off later."

"That wasn't what I…nevermind," Nev said. "I think we're just going to have to set up regular lunches all winter to keep you from losing your mind by spring, aren't we?"

She glared at him. "This is how I finished my last year at uni with top honours, I'll have you know."

"Um…" Nev floundered for a bit, then charged ahead. "Hermione, I don't know quite how to say this, but didn't you just tell me that you didn't really have any friends, either?"

"Oh." Hermione took a step back. "I promised myself I wouldn't screw this up, but I'm doing it again, aren't I? I push away every good thing in my life and I never even notice until it's too late."

"It's OK," Nev said. "That's what we're here for. Just…let us help you, alright? Let us be your friends."

She nodded, not quite trusting her voice just then.

"Good. You can do this without driving yourself insane, trust me." He gestured back to the greenhouse. "I think venomous tentacula is a NEWT-level plant, and you've already started getting the hang of dealing with it."

"Thank you," Hermione said. "For both that and keeping me sane. I feel like I've got a chance for a new life now and I don't want to screw it up, but I'm not sure I know how not to."

"That's what friends are for," Nev said. 

She smiled back. "Oh, that reminds me, DADA lessons. I'm going to start training with Remus once I've finished reviewing the books. We've decided to let me get some time to practise spellcasting first and do the Dark Creature portion of the class entirely by reading. Maybe in a couple of months we'll start actual duelling training. Would you like to come, too? I know it won't make you an Auror, but it might help you if you ever needed to watch Sue's back."

"I'd like that, thank you," Nev said. "Until it was destroyed during that wendigo incident, my grandmother made me use my father's wand. It didn't work well for me, so my practicals were always awful and I missed out on a lot of training I'd have otherwise gotten in school. I caught up on some of it by working extra hard during Harry's Defence Club sessions in Sixth Year, at least."

"Defence Club?" Hermione asked.

"Yeah, Percy Weasley was our DADA instructor Sixth Year and he wouldn't teach us any actual self-defence. He and his boss at the ministry, a vile woman named Dolores Umbridge, thought that we should only learn how to identify Dark spells and run away from them, with only certain Ministry-approved individuals being allowed to fight back," Neville explained. "A bunch of us banded together and convinced Harry to teach us DADA so we could study properly for our NEWTs. That ended up saving hundreds of lives because many of us learned the Patronus Charm well enough to shield and we protected people in Hogsmeade from the Dementors until Harry was able to run them off."

"That must have been terrifying!" Hermione said. 

Nev nodded. "It was. Harry was on a date with Ginny that weekend, and Sue and I ended up alongside a few of our other friends defending a couple of dozen younger students on one of the main streets until Prongs appeared." He shuddered. "We nearly lost three Firsties, one right in front of me. I still have nightmares about that sometimes."

"I don't blame you," Hermione said. "It's amazing you were able to protect them, though."

"Harry brings out the amazing in people," Nev said. "I think I heard something about you tracking down a serial killer for him?"

Hermione blushed. "I just helped him sort out some ideas, that's all."

"That's not what he told me," Nev said. "You'd be up for at least a Meritorious Assistance to the Ministry medal for that if we could tell anyone about you, you know."

"I was just trying to help him," Hermione said.

Nev grinned. "Like I said: he brings out the amazing in all of us."

Between the study sessions, lunch meetings, weekly dinners with the Boys (as she'd begun to think of Sirius and Remus), dates her amazing boyfriend forced her to accompany him on (quelle horror!), and the mundane chores she shared with Harry, the remainder of October quickly disappeared. Hermione was celebrating completing her abbreviated trip through the First-Year Charms, Transfigurations, and Potions curricula with Sue at lunch on the last Friday of the month when the other woman broached a delicate topic.

"How are you and Harry doing?" Sue asked. "I haven't forgotten our past conversations about that and I want to make sure you're both alright."

"We're doing OK," Hermione said. "We…um…I am taking it slow, but I think we're in a good place. I'm really happy with him and he seems really happy with me, though I'm not sure I understand why some days."

"I think I can show you," Sue said. "First, though, can you tell me what you like about Harry?"

"Of course," Hermione replied. "He's a caring person with a strong sense of justice…and incredibly fit."

"Those are great reasons," Sue said, "and I want you to remember them." 

The blonde woman waved over their waitress and convincingly faked a smile. "Hey," she said, "my friend here hasn't spent much time home in the UK since she was little, so there are some things she doesn't really understand. Could you help me explain to her why Harry Potter is so amazing?"

"She doesn't know?" the waitress rolled her eyes and popped a bit of chewing gum. The bubble burst into a tiny bird and flew away. "Well, to start with, he took out You-Know-Who when he was just a baby, was the Tri-Wizard Champion, then won an Order of Merlin, became a Quidditch star, and then gave that up so he could become an Auror and hunt Dark Wizards. On top of that, he's gorgeous and absolutely loaded. The only reason he's not Witch Weekly's Most Eligible Bachelor every year is that they banned consecutive awards."

"Thank you," Sue said. "I think that convinced her."

"No worries," the waitress said, and went to check on another table.

Sue turned back to Hermione, who was staring at her in shock. "Do you see what I mean?" Sue asked.

"How on Earth does a random waitress have such a detailed opinion about Harry?" Hermione asked. "I mean, I know celebrity culture is a thing, but this is practically pathological."

"Yes, it is," Sue said. "Harry's spent his whole life dealing with that kind of attention and he hates it. The difference between what you said you liked about him and what she said is that the things you said you liked about him are the things he actually cares about."

"I hadn't thought about it like that," Hermione said.

"You'd have no reason to," Sue said. "Trust me, though. That's why I think you're so good for him." She sighed. "That's also why I'm glad you'll be with Harry on Sunday," Sue said. "We always try to make sure he's not alone on Halloween."

"Oh, of course," Hermione said. "His parents!"

"Right," Sue said. "That night is always hard on him."

"Remus told me that their sacrifice is celebrated as a holiday," Hermione said. "I can only imagine how that must make him feel."

"Same here," Sue said. "At least my parents were killed on a different night, so I don't get sucked into this mess."

"Yours, too?" Hermione asked.

"A few months before Harry's," Sue said. "The sad part is that he and I are arguably luckier than Nev. His parents were Crucio'd into insanity a few days after Harry's parents were killed. Nev goes to visit them at St. Mungo's every year, and every year I watch him die inside a little when they don't react to his presence. Harry and I know our parents are in the ground, but Nev goes every year to meet bags of flesh and bone with his parents' faces."

"That's awful!" Hermione said. 

"It is," Sue said. "And the worst part is that his grandmother gets this 'pinched' look on her face each time, like it's Nev's fault they don't recognize him. The look on his face breaks my heart, but he'd never hear the end of it if I slapped the stupid out of that harridan. It still tempts me, though."

"I don't blame you," Hermione said. "Why is she so cruel to him? He's a perfect gentleman and a genius at Herbology who I get the impression makes a sizable amount of money from it. I'd imagine most parents would kill for a child like that."

Sue shrugged. "I've wondered the same thing, and I think the answer is that he's not his father. Frank was a great Auror and one of the most effective members of the Order of the Phoenix in the war. There's a reason the Death Eaters sent four people after them, including the two best duellers in the entire group. Augusta has measured Nev against that standard his whole life and no matter how much he succeeds in other fields, that's the only one she cares about. He's an Herbology genius and a genuinely good man, but he's never enjoyed DADA and that's all that matters to Augusta."

"That's so sad," Hermione said, trying to keep the rest of her thoughts off of her face as she spoke. Nev, who disliked DADA enough to brave his grandmother's disappointment, had jumped at the opportunity to attend her lessons with Remus. What had changed?

She strongly suspected the answer to that question was his feelings for one of the two women at their table, and not once had Nev ever seemed attracted to her.

Silence fell for a moment before Hermione cleared her throat. "Would you mind if I cut our lunch short?" she asked. "I'd like to go and research something."

Sue arched her eyebrows. "Remember what Harry told you about overworking yourself."

Hermione smirked. "Have you been talking about me with Nev?"

Sue met her smirk easily. "Of course."

"I should have known." Hermione laughed. "In this case, though, no. I want to research Mesoamerican culture for Harry."

"Wait, what?" Sue asked.

"I may not be able to help him with whatever you just alluded to," Hermione said, "but I'll see what I can do about Halloween."

Harry awoke to the smell of burnt something on the morning of Halloween. The fire suppression ward would have made an unholy racket if anything were really wrong, but he still grabbed his wand and hurried downstairs to be on the safe side.

He wasn't sure what he expected when he reached the kitchen, but a tearful Hermione holding a baking sheet with two carbonised lumps on it was definitely not it.

"I'm so sorry!" she said. "I was going to surprise you with handmade, freshly baked pan de muerto when you woke up this morning, but I got distracted making some templates for papel picado and lost track of time and now it's ruined! And there's no time to make more because it won't fit in the schedule for the day and it's all ruined before you–"

Harry pulled her into an embrace, careful of the baking sheet just in case it was still hot. "Are you hurt?" he asked, cutting her off.

"No, just my pride," she said, his shirt muffling her words. "And maybe my nostrils. I'd forgotten how much burnt stuff stinks."

"Good," Harry said. "I appreciate you going to the trouble of making me…um…whatever that was, but I'm just happy you're safe."

She hugged him hard with her free arm. "Why do you have to be so agreeable? I feel awful and I feel like you should be disappointed, too."

"I mean, I would have loved to try it," Harry said, "but we can go to the store and get something analogous. The important thing is that you're safe and nothing is on fire. Now, will you tell me what's going on?"

"OK." Hermione set down the pan and allowed Harry to vanish the carbonised loaf remnants. "Sue told me that you have an awful time on Halloween every year, so I wanted to try to make that a little less awful for you. I did some research and thought a modified Mexican Day of the Dead celebration might be a way for you to find some peace today, and I was going to start it by surprising you with some homemade Mexican sweet bread that's traditionally made for the holiday. The proper day for the celebration is technically tomorrow and the next day, but I thought nobody would mind if we jumped the gun a little."

"That sounds lovely," Harry said. "I appreciate all of the thought you've put into this."

She blushed. "You can thank me if I don't screw anything else up."

"Don't worry," Harry said. "What's next on the schedule?"

"Scrambled eggs and…um…fresh bread for breakfast." Hermione looked sadly at the baking sheet.

"Then I'll run over to the supermarket and get us some bread," Harry said. "You clean up the rest of this and maybe work on that template thingy you said you got distracted by."

"You don't mind?" Hermione asked.

"Of course not," Harry said. 

While Marks & Spencer's bread wasn't homemade, Harry thought their rolls were the next best thing and they quite enjoyed breakfast that morning, regardless. Afterward, they cleaned up and collected some last-minute groceries for the evening. Sirius and Remus (whom Harry generally avoided on Halloweeens because they tended to bring each other down) came by a little after noon with a bag of pictures and a couple of bottles of Don Julio reposado tequila, at which point Hermione kicked things off in earnest. 

She assigned them to make a small altar in memory of the departed in the sitting room and handed them the picture of her grandparents (the one that had once been hit with a Tracking Charm) to add to it. Meanwhile, she and Harry took over the lengthy task of rolling and boiling tamales downstairs in the kitchen. Neither of them had ever done such a thing before, but Hermione had memorised detailed instructions that seemed to work. A few hours later, they had a lovely dinner of fresh chicken tamales with salsa verde and sour cream accompanied by margaritas Sirius mixed for them. 

After dinner, they moved up to the sitting room with a few shot glasses and the remainder of the tequila. Hermione walked them through placing fresh marigolds on the altar, a pair of shot glasses of tequila, and the pictures and items their departed friends and family members might have treasured. Sirius even had an old shirt of James's that he'd never had a chance to return (a Rolling Stones shirt Lily had bought for him). Once the altar was set up, Hermione raised a shot glass into which she'd poured barely a centilitre of tequila.

"I only started reading about this two days ago," she said, "so I don't really know how this works."

"She's lying," Sirius whispered to Remus. He'd already had three margaritas and was nowhere as quiet as he thought he was being. "She probably knows more about this than at least ninety-eight percent of the Wizarding public."

"You don't even know what 'this' is," Remus (2 margaritas) whispered back. 

"Does it matter?" Sirius asked.

Harry (2.5 margaritas) snorted. "No. Now hush and let her talk."

Hermione (0.5 margaritas) blushed and continued. "Anyway, we're going to do this in our own way. We're each going to tell stories about the people we've lost and then do a shot."

Sirius eyed her glass sceptically. "You call that a shot?"

"No, but I'm pacing myself," she said. "I don't want to be unconscious in half an hour. Shall I start?"

They all nodded, so she began, "My father's parents didn't approve of how hard my parents were making me study once I went to primary school, so for my seventh birthday, they got me the first few books of the Chronicles of Narnia. My parents didn't want me reading woolly books about magic and talking animals. Well, the joke's on them: now my actual studying comprises books about magic and I'm telling this story to two people who arguably qualify as part-time talking animals." She drank the tequila and shivered at the feeling of the alcohol. "That's to you, Nana and Papa."

The rest of them applauded politely. Sirius poured himself a generous shot and stood up next. "This one goes out to Harry's grandparents, Charlus and Dorea. One rainy night in 1976, my mother gave my one last Cruciatus Curse to remember her by–"

Hermione, who was sipping a glass of water, spat it out entirely.

"That was our reaction when he told us, too," Remus said.

"And threw me out," Sirius continued. "When I showed up at Potter Manor at nearly midnight, Dorea just sat on the couch and held me while Charlus brewed up some tea and gave me a pain potion. The whole time, James was setting up a guest room for me. The next morning, they acted like I'd been living there forever, and that was my home until I graduated Hogwarts." He threw back the tequila. "That's for the best parents I never had."

They all took turns telling those stories until they'd had so much tequila they could no longer stand up to talk anymore. Hermione and Sirius were the last two still conscious by then; Remus was curled up in one armchair, snoring lightly, and Harry was stretched out across the chesterfield and sleeping soundly. Hermione was sitting below Harry on the floor and trying to decide if she could make it up the stairs to her bedroom when Sirius, who was sitting in an armchair next to Remus, broke the silence.

"Hey," Sirius said. "You still awake, little witch?"

"'Little'?" Hermione asked. "I take umb…umbr…something at that. I'll tell you tomorrow when I remember what I take, but you won't like it."

He chuckled. "Harry's still 'pup' to me. Anyway, I wanted to thank you for today. This may be the only decent Halloween any of us have had since 1980."

"It was my pleasure," Hermione said. "I feel so bad for all you've lost and I know I can't replace it, but I wanted to help you all somehow anyway."

"You did." Sirius yawned. "I think Remus has the right idea. Call it a night?"

She nodded. "Have a good night. I'll be down here if you need me."

"Is that what you want?" Sirius asked.

"I don't know what he wants," Hermione said. "I…I don't want to presume."

Sirius chuckled again. "Trust me, you can presume. Besides, do you think he'd want to wake up and find out you were on the floor while he was on the chesterfield?"

Hermione bit her lower lip and thought about it. "Are you sure?"

"Do you really need me to answer that question?" Sirius asked.

She shook her head. "Goodnight, Sirius."

"Goodnight, little witch." He smiled as she grumbled at him, but she was already in the process of climbing onto the chesterfield and didn't want to awaken Harry. 

Harry mumbled something as she lay down next to him and wrapped an arm around her. Whatever that man was feeling right now, it was definitely not annoyance with her presence. Her concerns somewhat assuaged, she snuggled into his embrace and let the night claim them all. She still needed to figure out what to take regarding Sirius, but she could sort that in the morning, when the room stopped spinning and Harry stopped being much too cosy to focus on anything but his tequila-touched scent and rhythmic breathing.

Harry awoke with the sun well into the sky the next morning and a mouth that tasted like some kneazles had used it as a litterbox. He attempted to get up to use the toilet and beg Dobby for some hangover potion, but his shirt refused to get up with him and pulled him back onto the chesterfield.

A short inspection revealed why this was the case: Hermione had burrowed thoroughly into his chest overnight and was now clutching his shirt in both hands like a life preserver. It was adorable, but he really had to go to the toilet. 

He gently pried Hermione's hands off of his shirt. She mumbled some complaints, but didn't seem to thoroughly awaken until he pushed himself over her prone form and off the chesterfield.

"Ugh…Harry?" she whispered.

"Yes?" he whispered back. Even the quiet sounds of her voice threatened to wake the herd of cranky elephants currently camping in his cranium, so he didn't dare speak at his normal volume.

"Hangover potions. On the floor behind the altar. Please?" She couldn't quite string sentences together yet, but she was getting there.

"Merlin, you're brilliant," he said. He made his way over to the makeshift altar and fished four hangover potions out from underneath it. He took one immediately, shivered as it took effect, and brought the next to Hermione. While she drank it, he made his way over to his uncles, gently awoke each of them, and gave them their potion. In a few minutes, they were all mostly functional again.

"Hermione, my dear," Remus said, rubbing his temples, "you are a genius. Not only did you plan a truly wonderful celebration of life for us, you even planned for the consequences thereof."

"You know, that's why Lily was never a true Marauder," Sirius said. "Sure, she could plan out a prank every bit as good as anything we came up with, but she always thought about the consequences."

"And that's a bad thing?" Hermione asked.

"Definitely," Sirius said. "Consequences are for future you to deal with, and future you is clearly an arsehole who deserves it because they pranked someone." 

Remus and Harry just shook their heads.

"I don't even know why I asked," Hermione said. "And I'm still annoyed at you, you know. I don't remember why I'm annoyed at you, but I've no doubt it'll come to me eventually."

"I'm sure I had a good reason for whatever I did," Sirius said.

"No, you're not," Remus said.

"I'm definitely not," Sirius agreed.

Harry sighed. "I'm going to end this conversation before it gives me a whole new headache," he said. "Would anyone like a fry-up for breakfast?"

Harry received three instantaneous "yes's" in response, so he headed downstairs to start cooking. Hermione put away the altar components before coming down to assist, and they had breakfast done in no time.

Even with the hangover potions, a proper fry-up still tasted extra delicious that morning. Everyone devoured their food, and it wasn't till they were finished that Remus finally spoke up. "Hermione, we've been meaning to tell you that we've made no progress on who might have attacked you. The person is playing things damn close to their vest and we haven't even heard any whispers about who might be responsible."

"Ugh." Hermione leaned forward and put her head in her hands. "Now what? If we don't find this person, then revealing me could be a death sentence for others like me."

"We do have a backup plan," Remus said. "Sirius and I will instruct you on the art of Occlumency. It's normally used to help you develop shields against mental intrusion, but the simple process of building those shields forces you to organise your thoughts. As we do this, we might be able to help you find whatever memory fragments you still have of the incident. A truly skilled Obliviator would leave no fragments, but the only person in your lifetime who was that good at it was Headmaster Dumbledore and he would never have done this."

"That sounds promising," Hermione said, "but can we go back to the part about mental intrusions being possible?"

"Legilimency, or the ability to invade others' minds and root around in their memories, is a rare skill, but it does exist. Its use is technically illegal, but a good legilimens is impossible for most people to detect."

"That's awful!" Hermione said. "Magic can be used to break into your mind, too?"

Sirius shrugged. "It's an ever present danger, but the vast majority of witches and wizards will never encounter a hostile legilimens, so they don't worry about it."

"The vast majority?" Hermione snorted. "What about me?"

"I…um…was going to teach you Occlumency as soon as you finished your O.W.L.s," Harry said. "I just sort of assume that insane things will happen to anyone around me and plan from there."

"Good." Hermione nodded approvingly. "I think Sirius is just numb to the dangers of the wizarding world by now."

"In my defence," Sirius said. "I think we've already established my skewed sense of danger."

Hermione sighed.

Chapter Text

"I've got an update for you, Rookie," Sue said.

"Ouch!" Harry replied as his arse came down hard back into his chair. One of these days, Sue wasn't going to catch him off-guard like that.

She snickered and passed him a parchment. "That will never stop being fun. Anyway, there's an update for you on Marcus Flint's case."

Harry rolled his eyes before skimming the parchment. "So his lawyer allowed the Veritaserum questioning to go through? I thought he was fighting that tooth and nail."

"The compromise was that all questions have to be routed through his lawyer," Sue said. "If he objects, there will be a judge on hand to determine whether he'll be forced to ask it."

"That's understandable for a normal criminal, but Marcus is facing the Veil," Harry said. "Even if there wasn't much chance of stopping the Veritaserum questioning, I would have thought the lawyer would try anyway. A concession to protect Marcus's secrets isn't going to help the man much on the Other Side."

Sue grinned. "Morgana, I love working with you. That is exactly the question I asked. "The barrister just wants the conviction and doesn't care what else he might be guilty of, since he's probably going to be dead in a few days. I see something like this, though, and it makes me wonder what else Marcus might know.” 

"It doesn't sound like we'll be able to get that out of him during questioning now." Harry frowned. "Is there anything else unusual, maybe that we could use to get a warrant to search his home or bring known associates in for questioning?"

"I don't think…wait, the  solicitor was also unusually pushy about getting Flint's possessions returned to him so he could pass them to his next of kin," Sue said. "That's supposed to happen tomorrow."

Harry grinned. "To the Evidence Room?"

"To the Evidence Room," Sue said firmly.

Without another word, they hurried down to the evidence lockers and signed for the evidence from the Flint case.  Sue poured it out of its magical stasis bag onto the evidence room analysis table and they stared at the surprisingly ordinary collection:  a few assorted sickles and knuts, a handkerchief, a Firewhisky flask, pocketknife, a blank scrap of parchment, and a wand.

"That's it?" Harry asked. "That's probably not enough to pay for the time it took the solicitor to prepare the letter demanding it."

"We must be missing something," Sue said. "Let's see if the table knows something we don't."

Harry stepped back as she tapped some runes on the table with her wand. "I thought a quick table analysis of evidence was mandatory. Wouldn't that have been in the initial case report?"

"It is mandatory, but that doesn't mean the DMLE flunky assigned to do it actually did it," Sue said. "Once you've been here long enough you learn not to trust anyone but yourself to do their Morgana-forsaken job."

The table hummed for a moment in a way that somehow made Harry's bones vibrate instead of his eardrum before it lit up in two places: underneath Marcus's wand and under the blank parchment.

"Well, would you look at that?" Sue said. "This case just got a little more interesting."

"How can we get that analysed before we have to give it back, though?" Harry asked. 

"We have an unknown magical item here that may have been used in an assault on an Auror," Sue said. "We can't allow it out of the building until we finish analysing it."

"Will that work? It was pretty clear how they hurt us."

Sue smirked. "Is it really, though? If we knew for certain what this was, we could easily rule it out, but since we don't…"

"I like how you think," Harry said.

"The bureaucracy around here can be ridiculous," Sue said. "We might as well use that to our advantage."  She levitated all of the items back into the evidence bag, following standard safety protocol of not touching unknown magical items.  "Let's get back upstairs. I'll write the memo blocking release of the goods while you work on the Unspeakable Assistance Form. If anyone can figure it out, they can." 

The next day, Harry heard through the department grapevine that Flint's lawyer had thrown an epic fit about the personal items, but Sue's memo was airtight and the man's screamed obscenities were all for naught. Marcus Flint went to the Veil that afternoon without his knuts, sickles, and mysterious parchment.

Unfortunately, the Unspeakables were unable to tell them much about the parchment. Someone had worked a Protean Charm into it that allowed it to display a few lines of text, but until whoever had the master parchment sent a message it would remain blank. The best they could do was set up a magical monitor to alert them if any text did appear.

As the November weeks passed, Hermione found herself settling into a comfortable routine. Different days each week were set aside for her Potions, Transfiguration, and Charms lessons, with an hour here and there for Occlumency. One noontime was always lunch with Sue, and one full day was Herbology work with Neville plus lunch with him, and supper six nights a week was with Harry no matter what time he returned home. (The seventh was set aside for him to have dinner with his friends at work.) They even started having a pint or two at the local pub every week, which was a new tradition for Hermione and something she was surprised to find herself enjoying.

As Hermione's skill at potioneering grew, she took over making more and more of the regular household potions they used. Harry admitted that he'd never quite gotten back into Potions after his experience with Snape, and Hermione was happy to be able to contribute something new. The Black Library had some useful books for that work, as well as…other things. 

Hermione's exploration of Second-Year Potions also yielded some new conversations between Lily and Snape. Most were short question & answer interactions, which Hermione logged carefully even though Harry never bothered reading them more than once. By mid-November, though, she'd found an interaction that demanded serious attention.

"So the bursting mushrooms definitely won't explode?" Lily asked. 

"They have to be neutralised by an Enervating Curse before harvesting," Snape said. "If they could still explode, they would have done so already."

Hermione shivered with the memory of the curse that had nearly killed Harry and continued reading. The next note seemed to indicate some sort of time skip. 

"Why can't we grind the wartcap powder before we start the potion?" Lily asked. "I was getting nervous trying to grind it while the potion was still on the heat."

"I know, but the fresh grind is important to the absorption of the ingredient," Snape replied. "Your potion still came out perfectly."

"Thank you," Lily said. "I don't believe how people used to need these potions to avoid being burnt as witches."

"Believe it," Snape said. "That's one of the many problems with muggles. They hate anything that's different."

"I was a muggle until barely three years ago." Something about the sharper quillstrokes in this line and the way the 'I' was underlined conveyed how pointedly she must have thought that statement.

"You were never a muggle," Snape wrote, and Hermione had to suppress a snicker at how fast the poor boy was backtracking. "You've always been a witch, whether you knew it or not. You're so much more than muggle."

"Where does that train of thought end?" Lily asked. "If I'm more than a muggle, is a Pureblood more than me?"

"Magical heritage doesn't make you a better witch or wizard," Snape wrote. "It just helps you appreciate magical culture and heritage more."

Hermione wasn't buying that and neither did the long-ago twelve-year-old girl who penned the next note. "So," Lily wrote, "James appreciates magical culture and heritage more than you do?"

"Perhaps," Snape wrote, his short quillstrokes evoking the gritted teeth of a teenage boy grinding that word into the margin of his textbook. "Though I doubt he's capable of doing so."

"James is a prat who loves talking about how great an athlete is, how wealthy he is, and how good-looking he is," Lily wrote. "Yet even though he's a member of one of the oldest wizarding families, he's never once bragged about his blood. Do you think he should have?"

Hermione derived no small amount of satisfaction from Snape's lack of response, and she had a feeling Lily had, too.

When she showed Harry that conversation later that night, he read it twice through before setting down the book, looking into the dancing flames in the fireplace, and sighing. "You can see their friendship starting to fray, can't you?" he asked.

Hermione nodded. "She's asking some pointed questions there."

"She seems to have been uncommonly good at that," Harry said. "I…I still loathe Snape, but I hate to see my mother realising he's not the friend she thought he was."

"It's like watching a slow-motion car wreck," Hermione said. "I want him to get his head out of his bum, but I know it's going to get worse."

"That's an understatement," Harry said. "He loved her and he joined a terrorist group dedicated to eliminating people like her."

"He loved her?" Hermione's eyes widened.

Harry laughed bitterly. "Enough to ask his Dark Lord, a.k.a. Tom Riddle, to spare her life when he left to kill my father and me. She refused and died begging for my life."

Hermione stared at the fire in silence with Harry for a long minute. Finally, she said, "I don't know what Snape truly felt for Lily, but that's not love."

"You're right," Harry said, and for the next half-hour they just held each other and watched the flames burn away the night.

Harry had just settled in for some after-dinner reading on the evening of November 26th when the floo lit up.

"I'll get it!" Hermione said. Harry raised his eyebrows in surprise when Nev's head popped out of the floo and told Hermione he was ready.

"Great!" She turned to Harry. "I'm off to do some late-night plant collection with Nev. I'll be back before bedtime."

"Good luck." Harry got up and met Hermione on the threshold between the floo room and the sitting room, where he received a quick peck on the lips as a "goodbye."

Harry tried to go back to reading, but he found himself distracted by the silence. There was no rustling of parchment from the couch, no scratching of a quill, and no little "hmmm" as she tried to wrap her head around a new concept. Just plain old silence. How had he gotten so accustomed to having her around in such a short time?

He sighed and focused on his book. He couldn't even go and hang out with Sirius and Remus, since it was a full moon that night…which, now that he thought of it, was probably why Nev had invited Hermione to go with him. Harry didn't remember Potions or Herbology that well, but he knew at least some plants had different properties in the light of a full moon. This would probably be a great learning experience for her.

Or at least that's what he told himself. He was still probably a little more excited than he should have been when she popped out of the floo a little after eleven that evening. 

"Welcome home!" Harry said as he arose from his armchair.

"Thank you!" Hermione dusted herself off and gave him a quick hug. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get this upstairs and sorted before I go to bed."

"Oh, what did you collect?" Harry asked.

"Part of your Christmas present," she said. "No peeking!"

"OK, no peeking." As she walked up the stairs, Harry tried to figure out what kind of gift she could possibly be collecting, but quickly realised his Herbology knowledge simply wasn't up to the task. Besides, he now had a much more pressing problem: a reminder that Christmas was coming and he once again had a witch to shop for.

"Oh, and Harry?" Hermione came back down the stairs just enough to be able to see him. "You have bought far too much for me this year. I don't want to see a single gift from you, do you understand?"

"How did you know I was just thinking about that?" he asked.

"Just a hunch," she said. "Seriously, nothing."

"If you're sure." He paused. "This isn't a trick, is it, where you really do want something but you're telling me that you don't because you want to see if I'll get it for you anyway?"

She blinked. "Um…do people actually do that?"

"Well, Ginny occasionally did stuff like that, though not so extreme."

"Oh, wow," she said. "Listen, Harry, if I ever do expect you to know something, I'll make that clear. Like, if I've told you weekly for all of November that I want one thing and on December first you ask me what thing I want, I'll probably express some disappointment with you."

"That's fair," Harry said.

"And just so we're clear," Hermione said, "I am definitely not trying to trick you. You have purchased more for me than I could ever ask this year and I just want you to let me get something nice for you."

"If you're sure…"

"I'm sure," she said.

As she climbed back up the stairs, all Harry could think was, "Damn it, now she's just gone and made picking a gift out even harder."

Remus leaned back and stretched. "You're doing well with your Occlumency, Hermione. I don't think I've ever heard of anyone picking it up quite as quickly as you have."

"Thank you," she said. "It helps that I've been organising my mind like this ever since I was a child to help me retain what I read."

"Why am I not surprised?" he said. "That's arguably even more impressive. With any luck, you might start recovering memory fragments randomly as you go through your daily life during the next month or two."

"That's great," Hermione said. "We need to find this person before they hurt anyone else."

"I agree," Remus said. "Now, if you wouldn't mind discussing a lighter topic for a moment, do you have any good gift ideas for Harry? He's dreadfully hard to shop for, since he doesn't really do much besides cook and hunt criminals and he has enough money to buy anything that really strikes his fancy."

"I understand," Hermione said. "Do you think he'd mind a new piece of furniture? There was something I was thinking of getting for him, but I don't have the money."

"He could probably be persuaded on a new piece of furniture if it were useful enough," Remus said. "And you can go in on your suggestion with us if you'd like. We know you're not really earning anything right now."

"Thank you, but I had a different idea for all of you," Hermione said. "Anyway, my old boss had an antique that he was always meaning to sell and never quite got around to. I think we could convince him to give it to us for a good price and Harry might really like it."

Remus smiled. "That sounds great. Shall I bring Sirius?"

"Does…um…he do well blending into muggle areas?" Hermione asked.

"Never mind," Remus said.

Harry leaned back against his armchair and tapped his foot. They were going to be late if they didn't leave in the next few minutes, and it was already snowing outside. 

"I'm sorry!" Hermione said as she hurried down the stairs. "I wanted to finish that one last Charms lesson so I could legitimately say I was done with all of my Second-Year material."

"You could have just said you were nearly done, you know." Harry rose from his seat and pulled on his coat.

"It's not the same," Hermione said. "I wanted it to be done so I didn't have to worry about it for the rest of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day." She put down a small box so she could pull her coat on. 

"I understand." Harry helped her with her coat and put his own on. "So, are you going to tell me what's in the box that you've been working on for weeks?"

"You'll find out when it's your turn," she said as she put the box into her purse. "Now, shall we? We don't want to be late."

Harry's jaw dropped. "But…you…"

She smiled impishly.

"I don't believe I walked into that," Harry said.

"I almost don't, either," Hermione said.

"Almost?" 

She arched her eyebrows.

"Fine, I'll take what I can get." Harry Disillusioned first her and then himself, the familiar dripping oil sensation of the spell coating his whole body in a moment. "Are you ready?"

"Yes. How will you find m–" she stopped as Harry wrapped his arm around her waist. "You got me to talk so you could follow my voice, didn't you?"

"I have a few tricks up my sleeve," Harry said.

"Well played," Hermione said. "So where are we going?"

"You'll see," Harry said. "Hang on."

One stomach-churning trip later, they were straightening themselves up on a snow-covered metal walkway. Between the snow, the wind whipping in their faces, and the disorientation from apparition, Harry was grateful for the metal railing surrounding them.

"Goodness, where are we?" Hermione said, trying to shield her eyes with her free hand as she spoke.

"The visibility isn't as good as I was hoping," Harry said, "but look around."

Hermione did her best to straighten up and take in her surroundings, at which point she gasped. "Harry! Is this St. Paul's?" All of London stretched out around them, blanketed in white and looking almost peaceful, or at least as peaceful as a huge city could be. The Thames flowed along nearby, doggedly ignoring the cold and snow.

"Yes," he said. "I snuck up here on a day off last week to memorise it for apparition. The view is amazing, and it's closed at this time of year so we're safe being up here."

"This is wonderful," Hermione said. "Thank you for bringing me here."

"This is just the start." Harry drew his wand and silently unlocked the door leading back into the interior of the church's massive dome. "Follow me. I'm afraid there are a lot of steps, but at least we'll be going down."

"OK," Hermione said. 

Harry led her down the spiral staircase back into the dome, but only a few steps down, she bumped into him. Only his excellent reflexes and good grip on the railing prevented a painful tumble.

"I'm so sorry!" Hermione said.

"It's alright," Harry said. "You know, we don't really need the Disillusionment Charms in here. Let me replace them with basic Muggle Notice-Me-Not Charms. This way, we'll be able to see each other."

"Thank you," Hermione said when he'd finished. "This seems a lot safer."

"I agree." Harry led them down an interminable series of tight spiral staircases connected to short landings that gradually took them further into the heart of the dome. Eventually, they found themselves at a heavy fire door.

"Be as quiet as possible through here," Harry told her. She nodded, and Harry unlocked the door with another silent Unlocking Charm. 

On the other side of the door, they found themselves in a circular viewing gallery set into the side of the dome. "The Whispering Gallery!" Hermione hissed excitedly.

Harry nodded. "It's closed today," he whispered back. "They're about to start."

A service was just beginning below, and a few minutes later the choir burst into song. Hermione closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall, allowing an expression of serene rapture to settle onto her face. 

She opened her eyes again when the song ended and found Harry staring into them, a big smile on his face. "Thank you," she whispered. "This is wonderful."

"You're welcome," he whispered back. The Whispering Gallery was closed during the service, so they stayed up there without being disturbed until it concluded. Once it was done, Harry led Hermione back through the fire door and apparated them both away.

"Where are we now?" Hermione asked once she'd recovered. "I don't recognize this alley."

"It's a little spot a lot of wizards and witches use to apparate to Oxford High Street," Harry said. "We're just a couple of blocks away. You mentioned wanting to see the Christmas displays."

"That's…incredibly convenient," Hermione said. "Magic is amazing, and so are you. First, you take me to listen to beautiful choir music, and now you're taking me to look at the Christmas decorations on Oxford High Street?" She leaned up and kissed him. "Best boyfriend ever."

Harry felt his cheeks warming up even in the cold weather. "Well, you said you didn't want me to spend any money on a Christmas gift for you, so I thought we could do some things you'd mentioned that didn't cost anything."

"Oh, Harry." Hermione wrapped him in a huge hug. "That's so thoughtful. Thank you."

He was definitely getting used to those hugs. 

The Christmas lights on Oxford Street were stunning, as always. This year, the decorations on the street were mostly in the colours of the Olympic rings, since London was apparently preparing a bid for the 2012 Olympics and wanted to show some spirit. Harry didn't think those colours were necessarily the most Christmas-y in the world, but the huge light-up snowflakes and Christmas presents suspended over their heads were nonetheless impressive. 

At one point, Harry stopped and stared at a photo from the Oxford Street lighting ceremony. "That actress looks just like you," he told Hermione.

She blushed. "In my dreams. She's far prettier and her hair is much, much tamer than mine."

"I disagree about her being prettier," Harry said, "but I suppose you're right about your hair. I don't think your hair makes you any less pretty, though."

Hermione blushed even more deeply and moved them along from the poster. Harry caught her staring at the same poster once or twice more as they walked, which for some reason made him smile. 

Several of the stores had fantastic window displays for the season, but Selfridge's was, as usual, the undisputed champion. After an hour or so of taking in the displays, Hermione brought them to a halt near the Marble Arch. "Harry, you've been a great sport so far, but I'm starting to get hungry and I suspect you're starving. Would you like to get some food?"

"Definitely," he said. "Would you like to go home?"

"Not yet," Hermione replied. "I know a fun place just a couple of blocks away." She led them back to Selfridge's before turning right and walking another block.

"Another church?" Harry asked when they stopped.

"It was once," Hermione said. "Now, it's…well, come in and see."

He followed her into the old church. There was a coffee shop in the entryway, but that in no way prepared him for what was in the main hall of the church.

"Hermione," he said slowly, "why is there a street market inside this church?" He looked up. "A two-story street market, I mean. Is this normal? I haven't been in many churches but it seems like this isn't normal."

"It is here," she replied. "This church was deconsecrated years ago and it's now a food market. They have amazing street food here and we're not exposed to the elements."

"That sounds great," Harry said. They queued up for some Chinese pork buns, which were basically warm balls of doughy goodness with meat inside and exactly what Harry needed after spending all that time out in the cold. After lunch, they apparated home and freshened up before heading back out into the snow for a walk to 12 Grimmauld Place.

Chapter Text

The falling snow dampened the sounds of the city around them, and for the first couple of blocks around Harry's house, they felt like they had the whole city to themselves. Unfortunately, the crowded A501 quickly punctured that balloon, but it was nice for a moment. By the time they arrived at Grimmauld Place, both of their cheeks were once again flushed from the cold and snow speckled their hair. The sight was enough to make Harry pause.

"Harry?" Hermione asked. "What–"

He silenced her with a passionate kiss. "You," he said they finished kissing approximately one full minute later, "look absolutely beautiful. I couldn't help myself."

She blinked, both out of confusion and a general daze from the kiss. "Me?"

"Of course." He offered her his arm again. "Who else?"

Hermione didn't respond verbally, but instead took his arm and lay her head against it for the last half-block or so of walking.

 They didn't have to wait long at Sirius's door in the cold, since he threw it open almost immediately after Harry's knock. "Perfect timing, Pup!" he said. "I just came down to see if you were here yet." He gave Harry a huge hug, followed immediately by one for Hermione.

"It's been a busy morning," Harry said as Sirius ushered them inside. "How are things here?"

"The usual," Sirius said. "Remus and Kreacher are arguing about who gets to cook what in the kitchen, so I'm staying out of it and sipping mulled wine in the sitting room." He looked at Hermione. "And before you ask, 'Isn't it a bit early to be drinking?', the answer is 'no.'"

"I wasn't going to ask that," Hermione said.

Harry raised his eyebrows at her. "Yes, you were."

"Yes, I was." Hermione sighed. "You people have been a terrible influence on me."

Sirius beamed. "Haven't we just? You know, some mulled wine will help with that."

Now it was Hermione's turn to raise her eyebrows. "Will it, now?"

"Absolutely. Our terrible influence won't bother you nearly as much."

She thought about it for a moment. "You're not wrong," she said.

"That's good enough for me," Harry said. "Mulled wine for two, please."

"Coming right up," Sirius said. A few minutes later saw them sitting comfortably in the sitting room upstairs sipping on mulled wine.

"This is delicious," Hermione said. "Thank you. I'll need to pace myself or I'll be unconscious by suppertime, though."

"It's an old family recipe Kreacher knows," Sirius said. "I hated it when I was younger, but once I realised he was urinating in it I made him stop and stick to the recipe."

Hermione spit out her wine.

"He's just messing with you," Harry said as he drew his wand. "Tergeo," he said, and the wine vanished from the carpet. "Probably. Like I said before, just don't ask."

"And the best way not to think about something," Sirius said, "is more wine."

"I'm OK for now." Hermione eyed her glass warily.

Harry shrugged. "I wouldn't mind some more."

Remus came in just as Sirius was refilling Harry's cup. "Happy Christmas Eve," he said. "Do you all like the wine?" He had bags under his eyes but still seemed genuinely excited that they were there.

"It's delicious, thank you," Harry said. "I think Hermione liked it more before Sirius claimed Kreacher used to…um…adulter it."

The older man sighed. "Sirius, you can be a gigantic prat sometimes, do you know that?"

"Only sometimes?" Sirius faked a pout.

"Anyway," Remus said, ignoring him, "Kreacher hasn't done anything like that since we had our big fight with him after we took over the house ten years ago."

"He really did that sort of thing?" Hermione asked. 

"He tried occasionally," Sirius said. "He'd only had a wizard painting of my mother for company for several years after my parents passed away, and my mother was an insane bitch who hated almost every other life form on this planet for some reason or another."

"Wait," Hermione said, "how can a painting keep him company?"

Remus raised his eyebrows. "Harry, haven't you introduced her to any wizarding paintings?"

"It never came up," Harry said. "Nev and Sue probably didn't because they didn't know if some of their relatives would approve of her. You know how the older generations could be about muggleborn."

"Believe me, I do," Sirius said. "There's no time like the present, then. Remus, do I have any paintings of relatives in here who weren't complete plonkers?"

The other man thought for a moment. "Not really. Maybe Phineas Nigellus. He's only kind of a plonker."

"Good enough." Sirius set down his wine and rose from his seat. "Come, Hermione. I'd like you to meet one of my great-great-grandfathers."

She shrugged and followed him, along with Harry and Remus, up to one of the unused bedrooms on the second floor. Sirius opened the door with his wand at the ready, which turned out to be a good call because a black cloud burst out of the chest of drawers as he stepped into the room.

Before Harry could react, the cloud coalesced into the broken corpses of a man who looked much like him, a slender woman with red hair, and a black-haired baby. 

Harry's stomach lurched and Hermione gasped, but Sirius just growled. "Fuck you," he said. "Riddikulus."

Before their eyes, the corpses morphed into a platinum-blonde man, woman, and young man. All three were naked and appeared to have expired while performing questionable acts on one another. Sirius cackled evilly and the three corpses disintegrated into a swirl of black smoke that almost seemed to be sucked back into the chest of drawers.

"Fuck that thing," Sirius said. "Has anyone ever tried to kill one with Fiendfyre?"

"Sirius!" Remus said. "No Fiendfyre in the house!"

"Fine," he grumbled.

Harry had finally found his voice by then. "Your boggart is…"

"Your parents and you murdered by Riddle, yes," Sirius said. "I'm sorry you had to see that."

Hermione looked between them. "But…how…what even was that?"

"It was a boggart," Remus said. "An incorporeal spirit that feeds on fear. They're often attracted to unused spaces in the homes of old wizarding families, especially traditionally Dark ones like the Blacks. When you encounter one, it attempts to incapacitate you with your worst fear while it sucks away your magic. Sirius drove it away with the Boggart-Banishing Charm, which turns it into something you find harmlessly amusing."

"In this case," Harry said, "was that Lucius, Narcissa, and Draco Malfoy?"

"Yes," Sirius said. "After having managed to kill each other in an orgy accident."

Remus and Harry stared at him for a moment before laughing so hard they had to lean on each other for support. 

"I don't think I get it," Hermione said.

"That's my bigoted arsehole cousin, her husband, and her son that went to school with Harry," Sirius explained.

"And whom I'm never going to be able to look in the face again," Harry said in between guffaws. "That was hysterical."

A smile crept across Hermione's face. "I admit that was legitimately funny," she said.

Remus managed to get himself under control and stood back up. "This is a great opportunity for Hermione," he said. "I won't have the opportunity to show her many Dark Creatures like this. Before we drive it from the house, can I use it for her practice?"

Hermione gulped.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Harry asked. "She's only just finished her Second-Year curriculum."

"I think she can do it," Remus said. 

"I'll do my best." Hermione drew her wand. "How do I fight it?"

Remus led them back out of the room and closed the door. "That should lure it back out," he said. "Now, the incantation to stop one is Riddikulus. As you say it, point your wand at the creature and imagine it in something ridiculous. You need good concentration to picture this in your head through the fear it's creating, but you have fantastic concentration."

She blushed and allowed Remus to walk her through the minimal wand movement and the incantation. When he was satisfied, he motioned to the door. "I think you're ready. I'll follow you into the room in case you have trouble. Harry, I think it might be best if you stayed out here. A person's worst fear can be intensely personal, and if the boggart latches onto you, well, I'd rather not have her encounter a dementor."

Harry shuddered. "Good point."

"Your boggart is a dementor?" Hermione asked. 

He nodded. "Yes. It was convenient for practising the Patronus Charm, but that's not something you want to expose most people to."

"That's awful!" Hermione gave Harry a quick hug.

Sirius put his hand on Remus's shoulder. "Are you sure you're up to this?" he asked.

Remus nodded. "I couldn't teach a full class today, but I can handle a boggart."

"Is something wrong?" Hermione asked. "You don't look well, but I didn't want to say anything."

"Tomorrow is the full moon," Remus said. 

"Oh, right!" Hermione said. "I'm sorry."

"Don't worry, I'm used to it," he said. "Now, are you ready?'

"Yes." She squared her shoulders and faced the door.

Remus opened the door for her. "I'll be right behind you," he said, "but I think you can do this."

She gritted her teeth and strode into the room. Harry couldn't see the form the boggart took, but a moment later he heard a man's voice.

"It was all a lie, you know," the man told Hermione. "You're nothing special. I can't can't wait for you to fail your O.W.L.s and come crawling back to me."

Hermione gasped and took a step back, but she didn't leave the room.

"You'll lose your position, of course, but I'll let you work as my assistant. You know, doing real research. You're no witch. You'll never be–"

"Riddikulus," Hermione shouted, and a thud reverberated through the house.

"Huh," Remus said. "I've taught dozens of students how to fight a boggart and that's the first time I've ever seen that happen."

Harry looked into the room. A couple of Boggart-man limbs were still visible on the floor, but most of it was covered by a giant black anvil. As Hermione flew into his arms, he couldn't help but laugh. "That's wonderful," he told her. "Great job."

"You don't think I'm stupid for fearing that, do you?" she asked him, her voice muffled by his shirt.

"Of course not," Harry said. "And you beat it in an awesome manner."

"Thank you," Hermione said. "It nearly got me, but I remembered how the Wiggenweld Potion I made you saved your life and realised I was a witch and nobody could ever take that away from me. That helped me focus on the spell."

"You did a great job," Harry said. 

Sirius clapped her on the back. "I agree! I love the Bugs Bunny touch, too."

Remus strode back out of the room. "I banished the boggart from the house, but Phineas Nigellus seems to still be avoiding his portrait."

"That's fine," Sirius said. "She's been through enough today without inflicting one of my relatives on her. Let's go have some more mulled wine and then a nice dinner."

"Yes, please," Hermione said. 

As Harry escorted her down the stairs and back to the drawing room, behind Remus and Sirius, she whispered, "Maybe that wasn't the best thing to do on Christmas Eve."

"I'm sorry," Harry said. He opened his mouth to explain why none of them were all that good at celebrating Christmas, but thought better of it and kept quiet.

"Harry?" Hermione whispered. "Were you about to provide another example of why you need better reference points?"

"Maybe," he whispered back.

She sighed and gripped his arm tighter.

Fortunately, the gift exchange was next, which Harry thought would be a great distraction from Dark Creatures and any part he might have played in introducing them to his girlfriend on Christmas Eve.  They all settled in together on one big chesterfield, and naturally Sirius said "We'll go first!" as soon as they'd all sat down.

Harry rolled his eyes. In response to slightly raised eyebrows from Hermione, he said, "Sirius wants to start every year."

"Only because I can't wait to see your face," Sirius said. He and Remus gave Harry a cubic box about one foot on a side wrapped in wrapping paper covered in gaudy Christmas trees and elves.

"Once again, you've outdone yourself with the wrapping," Harry said.

"Thanks! Last year was a great year for terrible wrapping paper," Sirius said.

Remus shot his husband a fond smile. "Sirius has a whole system worked out for finding the gaudiest possible wrapping paper. Every year, he waits until the week after Christmas when places have the wrapping paper they couldn't sell on clearance and finds the worst of the lot."

"I see it as letting the other shoppers clean out the rolls I don't want," Sirius said. "It's so much easier to find terrible wrapping paper when the good stuff has been sold."

"That's quite clever," Hermione said. "I mean, the results are hideous, but I can't find fault with your methods."

"Good, because your gift is next," Sirius said. "First, though…" he gestured to Harry. "Oh, and you'll want to open that on the floor."

"Sure." Harry picked up the box and set it on the floor next to the coffee table, eyeing it warily. Christmas surprises from someone as inventive as Sirius could be any combination of wonderful, terrifying, and injurious.

The box was easy to open and didn't explode or burst apart, which was a good start. After one unfortunate incident in the late '90s they'd all agreed to forego jump scares in presents, but Harry knew Sirius well enough to be worried that he hadn't been able to resist putting one in anyway.

Instead, the sides of the box fell away and revealed what appeared to be a tiny wooden cabinet. "A miniature?" Harry asked.

"Not exactly," Remus said. "Stand back."

Harry stood and took a step back, at which point Remus Finite'd the miniature and it sprang back to its normal height of roughly four feet tall and eighteen inches on a side.

"A cabinet?" Harry asked.

"No," Sirius said. "A hand-cranked Victor Victrola. It'll play just fine in a magical household–we checked. And the cabinet inside is full of shellac 78s that will play on it."

"This is amazing, thank you!" Harry said. "It'll be nice to have some music in the house."

"You're welcome, Pup," Sirius said. "It was your witch's idea."

Remus nodded. "She introduced me to Mr. Folkes, who said he never used this and had been considering selling it for years."

"Well, thank you all, then." Harry gave each of them a hug. "That's a great gift."

"I'm glad you like it," Remus said. He recast the Shrinking Charm on the Victrola, resealed the box, and recast the Lightening Charm on the box. "There you go. Now you can take it home easily."

"Good idea," Harry said. "So that was from all three of you?"

"Only us," Sirius said. "Hermione has something else for us. Speaking of the witch, it's her turn for a present."

"You really didn't need to get me anything," Hermione said. "You've all done too much for me already."

"The whole point of a gift is that it's not given out of obligation." Remus pulled out a flat present and handed it to Hermione. "Now unwrap your present so we can see how you look in it."

Hermione blushed and unwrapped what turned out to be a dark brown capelet made of heavy crushed velvet. "This is beautiful," she said, "but it's really too much."

"We didn't spend a pence," Sirius said. "My mother was a much larger woman than you are and that was hers when she was a girl. She would have hated the thought of a muggle-born witch wearing it, so of course we had to give it to you when we noticed–"

Remus coughed.

"When Remus noticed your coat seemed a bit big on you," Sirius continued. "So you get a capelet that fits and I get to posthumously stick it to my mother. Everyone wins."

Hermione looked down at the capelet in her hands and stared silently at it. After a moment, Harry asked, "Is anything wrong?"

She shook her head. "No. I'm sorry, I don't mean to be ungrateful. You're right; my coat is too big for me and I knew that when I bought it. My previous coat from my parents was much nicer, but they bought it for me when I started uni and it got ripped too badly to fix it again two years ago. I couldn't afford to replace it and I didn't want to go crawling to my parents for help, so I resigned myself to being cold until someone brought that into another stall in the market just after Boxing Day. It didn't quite fit, but it kept me warm. Every time I put it on was a reminder that I couldn't afford anything that did fit."

She rose to her feet and pulled the capelet over her shoulders. "This fits perfectly and looks beautiful," she said, "but I feel like I'm letting go of one of the biggest pieces of my past life by putting on this witchy-looking, gorgeous capelet."

Harry took one of her hands in his own. "Hermione, you're a witch, and a gorgeous, powerful one at that. You belong in this capelet just as much as you belonged in that coat you scraped together the money for."

"And my mother would be furious," Sirius said.

"And his mother would be furious," Harry said. "It's important to keep our priorities in order."

Hermione nodded, the stillness of her solemn face broken only by an impish golden twinkle in her brown eyes. "I understand. I'll wear this as much as possible to annoy Sirius's late mother. That it's beautiful and fits me perfectly doesn't enter into it."

"Excellent," Sirius said. "Your sacrifice in the cause of cheesing off my mother is noted. As a token of my appreciation, you can keep the Potions book you nicked from my library."

"Eep!" Hermione turned bright red. "I'm sorry! I was going to give that back tonight! It's right there in my bag."

"It's alright, really." Sirius laughed. "It's not like any of us particularly enjoy brewing, either, especially not anything that advanced."

"Advanced?" Remus asked. "What did she borrow?"

Hermione sheepishly withdrew an ancient copy of Moste Potente Potions and passed it to Remus. The worn leather binding flexed in her hands and just a bit flaked off as the old book changed hands.

"I've heard of this book," Remus said. "I doubt there's a recipe in here below N.E.W.T.-level difficulty, and most are mastery-level. Were you reading to see if it contained any useful principles you could apply at a lower level?"

"Not exactly," Hermione said. "I wanted to get you all something really nice for Christmas and Professor Tonks mentioned how much trouble you could have gotten into had you had access to Polyjuice Potion in school, so knowing how much you all still like to cause trouble, I made you some." She withdrew the small box from her purse, opened it, and laid it on the coffee table in front of them. Inside, three vials of a dark, muddy-looking potion rested on a bed of shredded and crumpled pink newspaper.

Sirius's jaw dropped. "This…is one hell of a prank, kid. The key is making them plausible, though. What does it really do?"

"Um…turn you into someone else, once you add something from their body," she said. "Sorry, I thought you'd know what it was."

"He does." Harry took one of Hermione's hands in his own. "It's that he doesn't believe you. Do you have any idea how advanced this potion is?"

She shrugged. "It took quite some time, so I suppose pretty advanced."

"If it didn't take so long to brew, it would probably be a good test for N.E.W.T.-level students," Harry said. "You just finished your Second-Year curriculum."

Remus nodded and picked up one of the vials. "That you could even attempt this is remarkable," he said. "And the appearance is correct for you to have succeeded." He unstoppered the vial and took a long sniff. "As is the smell. This is truly amazing."

"Bloody hell," Sirius said. "It's one thing to say 'she's a genius,' but to see evidence like this is just something else. Not one in ten witches or wizards in Britain could brew this potion and you didn't know about magic four months ago."

"I just followed the instructions," Hermione said, shrinking back from the praise and attention. 

"The ability to do so is not universal," Harry said drily. "We still don't know how Neville caused half of the accidents in Potions Class that he did. Most of us probably would have levelled my house had they tried to brew this."

"I didn't realise it was so dangerous," Hermione said.

"For you, it wasn't," Harry said. "For the rest of us, yes." He shook his head. "My gifts can't compete with this."

"Don't worry, Pup," Sirius said. "Quantity of gifts has a quality all its own, so hand 'em over."

Hermione shot Remus and Harry a pleading look. "Did he…did he just quote…about Christmas gifts?"

Harry had no idea what she was talking about and just shrugged, but Remus shook his head. "Probably not, which somehow makes it worse. Best not to think about it, my dear."

"OK." Hermione shuddered. 

Sirius ignored the whole conversation, but the impish twinkle in his eyes made Harry wonder if he knew exactly what he'd done…whatever it was.

"Anyway," Harry said, "here's my usual gift to Sirius." He passed over a pair of large, gaudily wrapped books, which Sirius opened eagerly. 

"Thank you!" Sirius said. "I look forward to these every year."

"What are those?" Hermione asked.

"Sirius isn't allowed to go to muggle newsstands anymore after an incident we won't discuss during the holidays," Harry said. "So every month I buy a copy of Playboy and Playgirl for him, and at the end of the year I have them bound properly and give them to him as a gift."

"These are great magazines," Sirius added. "I learn so much about muggle culture from the articles, and when I get bored of reading–"

"Every page or two," Remus muttered.

"I can look at attractive naked people," Sirius continued.

"So you read them for the articles?" Hermione asked, smirking.

"Yes, I do." Sirius nodded.

"You realise that it's a muggle joke that everyone claims to read those for the articles and lies, right?" Hermione asked.

"Why?" Sirius asked. "They're good articles."

She sighed. "I admit it. I still can't tell when he's having me on."

"I'm not sure any of us can." Harry patted her shoulder and passed Remus a smaller and more conservatively wrapped book. 

Remus carefully opened the paper and stared at the leather cover of the book in his hand. "Sakurai Keiichi's latest monograph on Counter-Curses? I didn't know this was available in English yet!"

"It wasn't." Harry grinned. "I found an eccentric publisher in the old magical community in Buffalo, New York who needed the work and underwrote half of the translation in exchange for a 60% share of the profits after he covers his printing costs. Sakurai-sensei was happy to licence it to us, especially since he usually only gets 10% royalties on his translated works in the English-speaking world and I offered him 15%." 

"This is too much, Harry!" Remus said.

"Don't worry about it," Harry said. "I'll probably earn back most of what I spent on the translation in a few years, and I got to read it, too."

Remus reached over and hugged him. "This is a wonderful gift, thank you."

"I think Miss Granger is being a bad influence on you," Sirius said. "Buying him academic books is one thing, but actually reading them?"

She arched her eyebrows at Sirius. "You, Sirius Black, are accusing someone else of being a bad influence?"

"Yes, because you're being a good influence. Which is bad. Harry needs more good influences in his life, by which I mean bad ones," Sirius said.

"So…is she bad or good?" Harry asked.

"Good. And that's bad," Sirius replied.

Hermione put her head in her hands. "This is my fault. I was the one who asked him."

"See? She gets it." Sirius leaned over and patted her shoulder, but she didn't look up. "You know what would help?"

"Mulled wine," they all said simultaneously.

Kreacher popped up next to the table. "Kreacher understands the need for intoxicants to deal with Master," he said as he conjured four glasses and filled them with wine.

"Thank you," Harry said, but the old elf just grumbled.

"Before you go," Sirius said, "let me give you your gift." He reached down and passed Kreacher a thick, rolled-up parchment with a bow on it. "Four feet of parchment on the life and accomplishments of Ophiucus Black from Remus, Harry, and me."

Kreacher took the parchment and nodded. "Kreacher thanks Master for the gift and hopes to live long enough to see Master and his Heir comprehend even a fraction of the greatness of House Black, but Kreacher recognizes the futility of this hope." He inclined his head briefly to Harry and popped away again.

"I can explain," Harry told Hermione, who appeared to be so confused that she couldn't even formulate a question. "The only thing Kreacher enjoys in life is talking about the superiority of the House of Black, so every year we write him a long essay about the accomplishments of one of the family members. We don't even have to put them in a good light, because the things we might think were unpleasant–"

"Slaughtering a village full of muggles because they burned a squib to death," Sirius offered.

"Exterminating an entire species of troll," Remus added.

"Experimenting with the Imperius Curse on unwilling subjects," Sirius said.

"Drinking only red wine, even with fish courses," Remus said. 

"Anyway," Harry said, dragging the conversation back on track, "Kreacher tends to think those are all good things, so we don't even have to lie to him."

"Um…that's good, I guess," Hermione said. "I mean, it's Christmas, so I'm glad he's happy, but…is anyone else worried about what makes him happy?"

"All of us are," Remus said, "but he's hundreds of years old and is unlikely to change his mind in the space of a few decades."

Hermione blinked. "Hundreds…I'm still not used to the Wizarding World yet, am I?"

"It takes awhile," Harry said. "Non-human creatures can be especially difficult to wrap your head around, which I suspect is why most Magicals don't even try."

She shook her head. "I'm tempted to join them some days. Do I even want to know what you got Dobby?"

"No," Harry said.

"I promise I won't get mad," Hermione said.

Harry arched his eyebrows at her. "I don't believe you."

"I do," Sirius said.

"No, you don't," Remus said.

"Of course I don't," Sirius said, "but she's hilarious when she's angry…at someone who's not me, I mean."

"I really won't," Hermione said.

Harry sighed. "I told him I'd invite at least four more people over to supper, let him cook a five-course meal for all of us, and clean it up afterward."

"I promised I wouldn't be mad at you," Hermione said. "I'm gradually understanding the ways in which house elves aren't humans, but that isn't coming naturally to me. Sirius's last comment is making it easier to not be mad at you, though, so thank you, Sirius."

Sirius crossed his arms in front of his chest. "That's mean. I'm going to play things closer to the vest from now on."

They all stared at him. First Remus started laughing, then Harry, and finally Hermione…followed by Sirius. 

"Yeah," Sirius said, "I couldn't keep a straight face for that, either." He raised his glass. "To the greatest gift of all: being able to spend time with you."

They all toasted one another and the evening passed away in a manner much like the wine: warm and pleasant, with just a touch of spice (due mostly to Sirius's occasional reminders about his desire for grand-godchildren to buy extravagant Christmas gifts for). After a Sunday Roast with all of the trimmings for dinner and a dessert of sticky toffee pudding a la mode, Harry and Hermione bid Remus and Sirius farewell and made their way back home.

The snow had stopped falling by the time they left the house and the air was crisp and clear…well, crisp and clear for London, at least. 

"I love these moments right after the snow falls," Harry said as they walked. "Everything is so calm and white. In a few hours, it'll start to go grey and by tomorrow we'll probably be trudging through dirty slush, but right now, it's wonderful."

"It really is," Hermione said. "Thank you for sharing your family Christmas Eve with me."

"We were all happy to have you," Harry said. "I think you've brought a lot to our lives in the last few months." He chuckled. "That first week you stayed in Grimmauld Place, Remus told me it was your idea to wait up for me for dinner. That was…nice. None of us had great examples growing up of what a loving family was like, and I didn't realise how much of it was simply habit until you showed me."

"Habit?" Hermione asked as they waited for the walk signal across the A501.

Harry nodded. "Just getting into good habits, like seeing each other regularly or catching up on what we're doing with our lives. It's helping us all grow together rather than apart."

"I'm glad," she said, reflected light from the streetlights glowing warmly in her eyes.

"It's just…" Harry paused till they finished crossing the street, then looked at her. "Tomorrow is the first time you're either going to see or talk with your parents since you moved in. You know how important it is, and…you're not doing it."

"You're not wrong." The warmth in her demeanour and voice were gone.

"Then what–"

"My parents and I have exactly the kind of relationship they want us to have," Hermione said. 

They walked on in silence for a few minutes before Harry spoke again. "Do you want me to go with you tomorrow?"

"No, thank you," Hermione said. "I need to do this myself."

"Alright," Harry said. "If you're sure."

"Absolutely. Will you be alright alone on Christmas?" Hermione asked. 

"Don't worry about me," Harry said with a wave of his free hand. "It's nice to have a day of quiet after the family party every year. Normally, Sirius enjoys the chance to scandalise all of the stuffy Purebloods at the Ministry Yule Ball, but if I showed up I'd just get a bunch of annoying attention from people who want to fawn over my accomplishments or congratulate me for my parents' deaths. This year, of course, they're not going because of the full moon the next day, but the end result for me is the same."

"If you're sure," Hermione said.

"Absolutely," Harry said.

She bit her lower lip in thought for a moment as they walked. "You think I'm lying, don't you?"

"Of course," he said. "Do you think I'm lying?"

"Of course." She shot him an impish smile that faded quickly. "I hate to see you alone on Christmas, but solitude is better than my parents, trust me."

"I can't say I'm happy to let you go, then," Harry replied. "I don't care if I'll enjoy it; would me being there help you?"

Hermione shook her head. "It would probably just make them trust my decision even less."

"I understand." Harry shot her a rueful grin. "Well, at least nobody there is going to expose you to a Boggart at what is supposed to be a holiday party."

She shrugged. "I considered being annoyed about that, but I decided it's an occupational hazard of being close to you three. You'd probably have to be the kind of person to think nothing of using a holiday party as a horrifying educational opportunity to also see someone being hunted by an unknown number of dangerous enemies and think she'd make a good houseguest."

"Putting a roof over your head was hardly heroic," Harry said.

"So you're saying anyone else would have felt the presence of that beacon and done the same?" Hermione asked.

"Well…"

"I thought not."

"You don't have to sound so smug about it," Harry said.

"I do when I'm attempting to convert a nonbeliever in my boyfriend's awesomeness," she said.

Harry had to laugh at that…and he also had to pull her close and kiss her.

She didn't seem to mind.

Chapter Text

They arrived home only a few minutes later, and Hermione raised her eyebrows when Harry merely scrubbed off his boots on the mat rather than take them off as she'd begun doing. "Are you planning to go back out?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. "There's something I do every year after coming home from seeing Remus and Sirius." A wave of his wand unlocked a cabinet and summoned something, and another wave undid the shrinking charm.

"Flowers?" Hermione asked.

"Yes," Harry said, "under a stasis charm. The little box contains a snitch."

"That little thing you used to catch when you played Quidditch?"

He nodded. "Every summer I release a professional-grade one into the air and catch it for my father. Everyone says he would have been so proud to see me play Quiddich, so it seemed like something he'd like more than flowers. My parents' graves occasionally have visitors and that's the last place in the world I want to hear any of that 'Boy-Who-Lived' dragonshite–"

"Language," Hermione corrected automatically.

Harry smirked at her and continued, "So every year I visit on Christmas Eve. Nobody is ever there, which makes it perfect."

"I see." Hermione bit her lower lip and thought for a moment. "So you like to go alone?"

Harry was about to answer when the actual question she was asking penetrated his thick skull. "I usually do," he said, "but only because Sirius and Remus end up as wrecks and I don't want to take any of my friends away from their family time."

"Oh, Harry, you know any of us would go with you in a heartbeat if we knew you needed us," Hermione said.

"I know," he replied. "But…the whole reason I'm going is that I don't have parents to spend this holiday with. I'm happier knowing my friends are spending that time with the families they have left."

Hermione began to lace up the boot she had half-unlaced. "You're their family, too, so I think you know what they'd say if you told them that. Regardless, I'm going with you."

"Thank you," Harry said. Something about the way she said it sounded less like a demand and more like a fundamental fact of the universe: that no matter where his steps took him for the rest of his life, she would be right there beside him. 

"Harry? Is everything alright?" Hermione asked. 

"Oh, yes," Harry said. "Sorry, I just spaced out." He held out a hand and helped her up. "Are you ready to go?"

"I think so," she said as he helped her to her feet. "Am I dressed warmly enough?"

"It's in Exmoor, so it'll be a bit colder than London," Harry said. "It might be a good opportunity to try out your gift."

"Oh, yes," Hermione said. She shrugged off her coat, hung it on the hall tree, handed Harry the capelet, and turned her back to him. Harry wasn't sure why until she looked over her shoulder at him and flicked her gaze down to the capelet that he caught on.

"Here you go," he said, and put it over her shoulders.

"Thank you." A blush spread across her face as she spoke.

Harry cocked his head. "Did I…um…touch something I ought not have or make you uncomfortable?" 

"No! Not at all. It's just…in books set a century or two ago, dashing gentlemen are always helping the heroines put their cloaks on or take them off. I never thought I'd have someone do that for me."

"I'm not sure I qualify as 'dashing,'" Harry said.

"Harry?"

"Yes?"

"Which of us has read more period novels?"

He chuckled. "You. You could also have ended that sentence after the word 'more' and gotten the same answer."

"Good." She smiled. "So which of us is more qualified to judge whether you're dashing?"

"You, I guess."

"Good guess," she replied. "I declare you 'dashing,' and I'll not hear it gainsaid. Now shall we go? I'll try not to throw up this time if you have to side-along me,"

"That was just the alcohol last time," Harry said. "Although a side-along is never fun. Are you sure you want–"

She silenced him with a pair of raised eyebrows.

"Thank you," he whispered as he pulled her close. A moment later, all that was left of them in the foyer was a bit of melting snow from their boots.

They appeared with a soft crack behind an old stone building with a thatched roof. Harry held Hermione until she stopped groaning about ten seconds later.

"Does that get better eventually?" she asked as she gently disentangled herself from his arms.

"Maybe a bit," Harry replied. "What wizards lack in common sense they somehow make up for in sturdy inner ears or something. I have no idea how they all handle the floo and apparition so well."

Hermione chuckled. "That might be an interesting study one day. So where are we?"

"The little village of Godric's Hollow." Harry took her arm and led her down an alley toward the front of the building, which turned out to be the local public house. "It used to be a Wizarding Village, but is now a mix of magical and muggle."

Hermione looked around at the village as they stepped onto the small main square. A few inches of fresh snow blanked the old stone buildings and sat heavy on the thatched roofs. A few shops, a cafe, a greengrocer, a butcher, and a bakery advertising sausage rolls made with the butcher's sausage lined the square, with cramped residential streets curving away from them in several directions. A black obelisk stood in the middle of the square, engraved with the names of villagers who died in the Great War. Across the square, the ancient stones of St. Jerome's Church sat in silent contemplation of the winter scene around them. 

"It's beautiful," she said. "The BBC could use this as the set for a Christmas movie."

"It really is," Harry said. "I can see why my parents moved here." He led her into the square and toward the obelisk. 

"Harry…there's something wrong with that memorial," Hermione said as they walked. "It's like it flickers whenever I look directly at it."

"You're right," Harry said. "That's because it's been enchanted. It only looks like a World War I memorial until a witch or wizard gets closer."

After two more paces, the obelisk shimmered in front of them and was replaced by a statue of a man who looked much like Harry (right down to the messy hair) seated next to a long-haired woman cradling a baby. The man had his arm around the woman's shoulders and they both smiled down at the child.

"It's a monument to my parents…and me," Harry said. "The Wizarding community put it up a year after the attack. I wish they'd left me out of it."

"I know you don't want to hear this," Hermione said, "but they couldn't have left you out. This isn't just a memorial to your parents; it's a memorial to their love for you. I can't imagine a better way to be remembered by the world than for loving someone so much."

Harry stared at the statue for a moment, only realising his stare had turned into a glower when Hermione said, "I'm sorry, I didn't want to upset you."

He shook his head. "No, it's not you. It's…I feel selfish saying this, but I don't want to share my parents' love with everyone else in the country. I'd rather have had it all to myself and never had anyone else in the world know how much they loved me. This just reminds me of how much that wanker stole from me."

Hermione enfolded him in a hug, and it wasn't until her cheek brushed his neck that he realised she'd been crying. "I don't care if that's selfish. I'll tell anyone who'd grudge you that love to shove off. This was the life you should have had and nobody had any right to take it from you, especially some lackwit anagram fanatic."

"Thank you." Harry hugged her back for a minute before releasing her. "I might as well show you their house, too. It's on the way to the graveyard."

"Lead on," Hermione said. Harry offered her his left arm, which she took in her right before laying her left hand on his bicep in a manner that was somehow simultaneously tender and possessive.

A short walk up the street took them past the church and to a large cottage, similar in construction to many of the others on the street but with its whole second floor blasted out. Only about a third of the roof remained, and snow blanketed the structure like a shroud. Ivy-covered rubble was strewn through the yard, and the hedge around the house grew wild and untamed.

"They…they left it like this?" Hermione asked. 

Harry nodded.

"But…why?"

"Allegedly as a reminder of the violence of the war and the loss of my parents' lives," Harry said. "I've always found it macabre."

"I agree," Hermione said. "The other memorial was at least a monument to love. This just seems to be a monument to violence and destruction."

"I've always hated it, too," Harry said. "I wish they'd put up a playground or something, instead. That seems like a better way to honour what my parents lived and died for than…" he gestured at the ruin, "this."

"Definitely," Hermione said. "After I graduate and become a full-fledged witch, I'm going to see if we can force them to do something better with it."

"It's OK, really," Harry said. "You'll have better things to do by then than worry about my parents' old cottage."

The look she gave him made it quite clear that she would find time to handle the cottage.

The graveyard was a short walk from the cottage and the church was still dark as they approached the kissing gate that led to the graveyard. The standing area within the gate was a tight fit for two, but Hermione didn't seem to mind the close quarters as he swung the gate past them.

After they extracted themselves from the gate, Harry gave her his arm again as they walked into the cemetery. Ancient tombstones covered with fresh snow were all around them, but Harry led them unerringly to a pair of relatively new stones marked with his parents' names. Hermione raised her eyebrows as she read their epitaph, but fortunately she chose not to ask any questions. Before he died, Professor Dumbledore had told Harry far more about that epitaph than Harry had ever wanted to know, and he didn't want to burden anyone else with the knowledge of what he was.

The fresh snow absorbed what little sound there was around them, creating a peaceful silence in the graveyard. Hermione stood a few feet back from the grave, her head bowed, as Harry knelt and placed the flowers on his mother's grave and the snitch box on the grave of his father. After a moment to compose his thoughts, he spoke. 

"Hi Mum & Dad. It's been a weird year, and I wish you were here to give me some advice. I'm a full-fledged Auror now, despite my terrible grades in Potions. I thought that would make Dad proud, at least, but then Prof…Headmistress McGonagall told me that he only did that because there was a war on and he wanted to protect us."

He sighed. "I'm sorry I quit Quidditch, but after awhile the victories just felt hollow, since I was just making money for the same Purebloods who sat by while a madman hunted down people like Mum. So now I don't know what to do. Some days I'm half-tempted to let Britain just sink into a cesspool of its own bigotry, but I can't leave that fate to Neville or Susan or the Weasleys. Or Hermione. Right, she wasn't here last year. Um…I don't even know where to begin describing her. She's my brilliant girlfriend who had her magic bound and still somehow figured out about magic and how to cast a Levitation Charm. It took Ron three weeks to figure out how to do that and he had a teacher helping him. She worked it out all from the few books that skirted the Statute. We're helping her learn enough to pass her O.W.L.s this year so she can legally be a witch. Watching her learn is tremendous fun. Mum, you'd be proud of her, and Dad, I promise I'm making sure she has fun sometimes.

"She's the only reason I don't feel completely lost right now, to be honest. She has a goal, I can help with that goal, and that's that. I'm not sure what to do next, though. As an Auror, I feel like I'm shovelling the country's shite–"

"Language!" Hermione hissed. "Your mum's right there!"

Harry had the weird desire to both laugh and sob simultaneously, but he just swallowed both and continued talking. "And as a Quidditch player, I felt like I was just feeding the people who…um…excreted [here Hermione nodded approvingly at his choice of terms] the dung that I'm shovelling as an Auror. There's got to be something more out there, but I don't know what it is. You saved my life for a reason, so you must have had an idea. You didn't leave it for me, though, so I've got nothing."

He knelt there for a moment, out of words, before Hermione knelt next to him. "May I say something?" she asked.

Harry nodded. 

"Your parents didn't save your life because they expected anything of you, or because they had some sort of grand plan in which you were a key piece," she said. "They saved your life because they loved their baby boy more than anything, and they'd rather die than live in a world without you in it. That's all. No expectation of repayment or your life's work in exchange. Just love."

"They must have wanted something for me, though," Harry said. "I've spent my whole life hearing about them and how great they were. I want to live up to that, but I don't know how. I've been an elite athlete and now I'm in the elite of our law enforcement and nothing feels like enough."

Hermione took his hand. "They loved you, Harry. You were enough. Realistically, all they wanted for you was probably what they had: a loving family. Everything else is just gravy. If they were here right now, do you think they would love you one whit less if you had failed to make it onto that Quidditch team?"

He knelt there silently.

"Harry, look at me," Hermione said. He did so, and found himself gazing into chocolate-brown eyes with flecks of silver moonlight flashing out of them. "Tell me you don't think that."

He shook his head. "I wish they'd just given me to Tommy. They could have had other children."

The vise-like hug hit him so hard that he toppled over into the snow. "No," Hermione said, tears in her voice. "Please believe me. That's not how love works. Sure, they could have had another kid someday, but they loved you. Not because of who they thought you might become, or because they were Boy-Who-Lived fanboys avant la lettre, but because you were you: a little bundle of crying, laughing, and pooping joy that ruined their sleep. That was enough because they loved you."

"I don't deserve that," Harry said, his cheeks wet with tears of an uncertain provenance he was in no hurry to sort out.

"Nobody deserves love," Hermione said. "Love cannot be 'deserved,' only gifted."

"I've never thought about it like that," Harry said.

Hermione nodded. "You've been asking the wrong questions," she said. "Don't ask what your parents wanted you to do, because we already know the answer: be a happy young man with a loving family and a fulfilling life. Instead, ask yourself how you get there."

"I'm not sure about that, either," he said.

"It's OK," Hermione replied. "That's not an easy question for anyone. At least it's the right one, though."

He nodded. "I do feel better now, thank you. I'm…um…also feeling a bit wet, though, so perhaps we should get up."

"Oh!" Hermione scrambled off of him and helped him up. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Harry said, "though I wouldn't mind a Drying Charm if you've learnt it."

"I skipped ahead for that one," Hermione said. "It seemed like a quicker way to dry my hair in the morning."

"Great!" Harry said. "Learning magic is one thing, but I'm glad to see you making it a part of your daily life, too." He turned around and reveled in the blast of warmth from the Drying Charm. "Thank you."

"No worries," Hermione said. "It was my fault in the first place."

Harry smiled. "The hug was worth it. Would you like to head home now?"

"Sure, let's–" 

Just then, someone flipped on the lights inside St. Jerome's.

Chapter Text

The warm yellow light from the bulbs within St. Jerome's Church filtered through the stained glass windows around the church to colour the whole cemetery in dazzling, gem-like tones of red, blue, green, yellow, and white. The reflections from the snow were especially stunning, as each individual ice crystal caught the light slightly differently and sent it spiralling out like a kaleidoscope had exploded and blown away the night.

"Oh, Harry, it's beautiful," Hermione said. Harry could only nod in agreement, too shocked by the cascade of colour to respond. As they stood there taking in the light, a thin but steady stream of people began to make their way into the church. 

"Isn't it late for a service?" Harry asked.

"It's probably a Christmas Eve service," Hermione said. "Can we go? It's been years since I've been to one and I think it might do us both some good right now."

"OK," Harry said. "I've never been to a church service before, but I'll give it a try."

Hermione led them back through the kissing gate and into the line of people entering the church. An altar boy gave them a sheet of photocopied paper with a line across it where the toner cartridge wasn't working quite right, which somehow made it exactly what it should be.

They found themselves seats in the last pew on the right side. Harry wasn't sure what he should be doing, but Hermione pulled out a hymnal and started looking up the page numbers of the hymns they'd be singing that evening. He considered making fun of her compulsion to study for things, but in this case it was saving him the trouble of figuring out what on Earth was going on so he decided to call it a win and let her keep working on it.

The vicar was a portly, balding man on the high side of middle age, but he had a decent speaking voice and seemed to understand his community well. His sermon for the evening was a nice retelling of the Christmas story with a bit about how everyone should be on extra-nice behaviour since God might end up as one of their neighbours, or a random stranger on the street in need of a manger to spend the night. It seemed like a reasonable message, and he was also pleased that nobody suggested burning him, Hermione, or any other groups they didn't like for whatever reason.

A small choir sang periodically during the service and, while it had neither the skill nor the setting of St. Paul's, something about sitting in a little old stone church with Hermione on Christmas Eve made it just as good. After they finished singing the final song of the service, Harry and Hermione rose to leave. An elderly woman stopped them, though.

"I hope you don't mind me bothering you," she said, "but I haven't seen you here before and it's awfully late. Do you both have a place to stay?"

"Yes, thank you," Harry said. "We can…get home quickly from here."

A huge smile spread across her wrinkled old face. "I knew it! Many a year has passed since I last saw a Potter bring a new witch home to Godric's Hollow, and I'm glad I lived long enough to see it once more."

Harry froze. "You knew my parents?"

"Aye, and your grandparents and great-grandparents before them," she said. "Your family's bones aren't just buried here, Harry. They're part of this village."

"I'm sorry," Hermione said, "but I think you have us at a disadvantage."

"Bathilda Bagshot," she said. "And you–"

"The author of Hogwarts: A History?" Hermione asked excitedly. "I've been reading that in between my other studies. It's wonderful! You really bring the school to life. I'd been wondering why the staircases moved and I'd simply never considered that explanation."

"Wait, there's an explanation?" Harry asked. 

"Honestly, Harry," Hermione said, "you were the one who went there and you didn't read the history?"

Bathilda arched her eyebrows. "While I'm glad you're enjoying my book, I'm intrigued about how Mr. Potter found himself an English witch who didn't attend Hogwarts."

Now it was Hermione's turn to freeze. Harry jumped in and said, "We just sort of ran into each other."

"I see," Bathilda said. "You know, your grandfather's marriage to Dorea Black was a huge scandal, since the Potters and Blacks historically hated one another. Then James, the little scoundrel, just had to outdo his father and marry not just any muggleborn witch, but the brightest of her age. I didn't think you would top your father, Mr. Potter, but I'm starting to suspect I was sorely mistaken."

Hermione blushed. "I'm not that interesting, Ms. Bagshot." 

"Mrs. Bagshot, please," the grande dame said. "Women in my day went straight from 'Miss' to 'Mrs.' and skipped the whole 'Ms.' bit. Anyway, I've not yet met a boring Lady Potter and I strongly suspect my last one won't break that trend."

"We're only dating." Hermione's blush deepened and Harry suspected his cheeks were now a similar shade of red.

"So your young man didn't bring you here to show you his ancestral home?" Bathilda asked.

"No, just my parents' graves," Harry said. "I didn't know this was my ancestral home." He seized the opportunity to change the subject and continued, "Has my family lived here long?"

The old lady snorted. "The Domesday Book records your family's estate here, Mr. Potter."

"The what?" Harry asked at the same time Hermione said, "Good Lord!"

Harry grinned ruefully. "That old, huh?"

"That's amazingly old," Hermione said. 

"I had no idea," Harry said.

Bathilda sighed. "Albus was always too caught up in his grand schemes and plots to save Britain to spend much time thinking about his own village, and I'm saddened but unsurprised to see that he didn't think you'd be interested in such information, either."

"Professor Dumbledore grew up here, too?" Harry asked.

"That he did," Bathilda said. "I knew him when he was just a lad. Of course, children back then didn't have all the amusements they have now, so they spent a lot more time outside playing and I got to know them better. Did you spend much time on the tee-vee, young lady?"

"No, I preferred to read," Hermione said, clearly perplexed at the sudden swerve in topic. "Well, that and old Dr. Who episodes. I still love those."

For once, Harry put two and two together faster than the brilliant woman next to him and slipped his wand into his hand. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Bagshot," he said, "but I'm going to have to Obliviate you." 

Hermione spun around and nearly stumbled when she saw his wand out. "Harry! What are you–"

"It's fine, dear," Bathilda said. "You had no way of knowing you shouldn't have answered that question. No magical child grew up with a tee-vee in the house because those devices are too sensitive to magic. Mr. Potter, how did you find her?"

"More or less by accident," Harry said. "Goodnight, Mrs. Bagshot. Obliv–"

"Wait!" she said. "I'll make an Unbreakable Vow."

"A what?" Hermione asked.

"A promise enforced by Magic," Harry said. "If she breaks it, she dies."

"Is that necessary?"

Bathilda nodded. "I'm afraid so. Harry knows precisely how illegal what he just did was, which means you must be in terrible danger right now. I don't wish to add to that."

"Why can't they just leave me alone?" Hermione sagged as she spoke. "I don't want to hurt anyone just to survive."

"That's the nature of racism," Harry said. "Your existence is their reason."

"Do you think they'll stop with you?" Bathilda asked. "If you roll over and die, they'll just keep hurting others like you, and when they run out of those people, they'll start in on people with a muggleborn parent like Mr. Potter here."

Hermione glared at the older woman. "That's blatantly manipulative and you know it."

"That doesn't mean it won't work," Bathilda said with equanimity. "I saw how you interposed yourself between him and me when I said I knew his parents."

"She did?" Harry asked, annoyed at himself for missing that.

"It was subtle," Bathilda said. "You'd kill for him, dearie. Accept that you owe yourself the same and demand the Vow."

"Fine." Hermione sighed. "First, a boggart, now this. Can I have a normal Christmas Eve next year, Harry?"

"I'll try." Harry knew better than to make promises he couldn't keep.

"A boggart?" Bathilda asked.

"She's learning DADA to prepare for her O.W.L.s," Harry said. "We don't quite have a year, so we have to compress a lot. Alright, both of you shake hands."

As their hands touched, Harry raised his wand over them. Bathilda said, "I vow to tell no one that this young lady is a muggleborn witch or that she is with Harry Potter unless I'm given leave to tell that individual by Mr. Potter." Gold sparks of magic flowed from Harry's wand and around their wrists while she spoke, and when she finished the magic settled into their skin.

"Thank you," Harry said. "You may speak of this with Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, Madam Pomfrey, Headmistress McGonagall, Deputy Headmaster Flitwick, and Professor Tonks."

"Yes," Hermione added. "I'm sorry that was necessary."

"I understand," Bathilda said. "Now, what was that about you trying to finish your O.W.L. studies in under a year?"

Harry explained the situation to her, then paused and looked around. "Wait, why hasn't the vicar come over to ask us to leave?"

"Just a bit of a Confundus Charm," Bathilda said. "He'll let us close the church after we leave. No need to lock it around here. Most of my neighbours don't even lock their doors. Anyway, this project sounds fascinating, but I noticed you don't have anyone tutoring her in Magical History."

Harry shrugged. "I managed to pass my O.W.L. after having Professor Binns, and that's pretty much like having no teacher at all."

"That's not wrong," Bathilda said, "but this young lady deserves better. Hermione, if you're interested, please feel free to come over for tea once a week and we can discuss Magical History."

"That would be wonderful, thank you," Hermione said. "I don't want to impose, though."

"Not at all," Bathilda said, smiling. "I've spent most of my life writing history and it would be nice to help make a little for once." The old woman's smile turned impish. "Besides, I used to have lovely teas with another brilliant muggleborn witch while she was pregnant and couldn't exert herself as much as she normally did, and it would be poor form to ignore the opportunity her child gave me to continue the tradition."

Ignoring the blushing young people in front of her, she continued. "I've kept you both long enough now. You can Apparate home safely from in here now that the vicar has gone home. I'll just close the door behind me."

Harry nodded and they bid her goodnight. As soon as the church door thudded closed, he took his girlfriend into his arms and they disappeared into the darkness.

The next morning they hauled themselves out of bed early and had a quiet breakfast. By the time they'd finished an entire pot of tea, Harry finally felt awake enough to have a proper discussion.

"Well, last night was…something, wasn't it?" Harry asked.

"Goodness, yes," Hermione said. "Nothing normal can happen around you, can it?"

He shook his head sadly. "Not so far. Are you excited about the tutoring, at least?"

"Of course!" Hermione said. "How often will I have the opportunity to learn directly from one of the premier magical historians in the country? Were you excited to learn about your family's history?"

"Definitely," Harry said. "I may try to accompany you to some of those meetings and see what else she can tell me. What…um…did you think of the village?"

"It was beautiful," she replied. "I can see why your parents wanted you to grow up there."

"It's a lot quieter than London," Harry said carefully. "There are fewer interesting stores and restaurants, too."

"That's the trade-off," Hermione said. "It would be a hard one to make, but that just seems like such a perfect place to raise a family that I can understand why your parents made the choice they did."

"Do you think you would…um…make that same choice?" Harry asked.

Hermione blushed. "I think I would," she whispered.

"I think I would, too," he said. "Besides how nice it seemed, it looks like the sort of place where everyone knows each other, which means they'd all either not care or quickly get used to me being famous and I could just be another resident there."

"I can understand the appeal," Hermione said.

They sipped from their second pot of tea in silence for awhile longer before Hermione finally sighed and spoke again. "I should probably get going," she said.

"Are you sure?" Harry asked.

"Yes," she said. "I'll see you tomorrow and we can commiserate."

"OK," Harry said. "Dobby?"

The elf popped up next to their table. "Yes, Great Harry Potter sir?"

Harry stifled a sigh at the mode of address. "Can you take Hermione to her parents' house?"

"One moment," Hermione said. "I need to run upstairs and get my bag."

Dobby snapped his fingers and Hermione's backpack appeared in his hands. "This bag, Missy My-oh-knee?"

"Oh…yes. Thank you, Dobby," she said. "So, how will you find my parents' house? Harry said he couldn't take me because he'd never been there before."

"You just have to wants it, Miss," Dobby said. "House elves can pull the desires from humans' minds to ensure we does things right."

"Oh, I see. That would be a fascinating area of magic to study, but not right now. I'll make sure to pick a place where we won't be seen." She gave Harry a quick kiss. "I'll see you soon. Happy Christmas, Harry,"

"I'll look forward to it," Harry said. "Happy Christmas, Hermione."

She nodded to Dobby and the two of them disappeared, leaving Harry with only the fading echoes of the pop of elven apparition for company.

Chapter Text

Elf-apparition wasn't as disorienting as a side-along with Harry, but Hermione still needed Dobby's hand to steady her for a couple of seconds after they arrived in her parents' garage. Her parents never drove anywhere on Christmas Day (especially since nothing was open), so she figured it was a safe bet.

"Thank you, Dobby." She knelt down to the elf's eye-level as she spoke. "I can make my own way home on the train tomorrow."

Dobby shook his head. "Missy My-oh-knee doesn't need to take the train when she can call Dobby."

"It's alright, really," Hermione said.

"Oh, good," Dobby said. "Dobby sees you tomorrow!" He popped away before she could respond.

"That little scoundrel…" Hermione shook her head and made her way to the door to the house.

"Once more unto the breach," she muttered as she opened it. "Mother? Father?"

Footsteps pounded along the short corridor. "Hermione?" her mother Monica asked as she came into view around the corner. She wore a long, loose woollen skirt much like Hermione's, but her white blouse was much more closely tailored to her trim form than Hermione's second-hand blouse was, and she'd chosen to accentuate it with pearls despite the fact only the three of them would be present for dinner.

"I couldn't find my house key in my bag," Hermione said, affecting a sheepish look, "so I used the code to let myself into the garage."

"I see," her mother said. "Come in, then. I'll take your coat."

Hermione shrugged off her old coat and passed it to her mother. The slightly distasteful expression that flitted across the woman's face as she took the second-hand garment was easier to bear than the inevitable questioning she'd have received if she'd worn her new (to her) crushed velvet capelet.

Her mother hung up her coat in the hall closet and escorted her to the sitting room. Her father Wendell was sitting in his usual chair flipping through that week's edition of The Economist.

"Good morning, Hermione," he said as she entered the room. He made no effort to get up to greet her, and neither did she go to him. Her parents found the predilection for hugs she'd acquired from her nanny to be a bit déclassé.

"Good morning, Father," Hermione said. "Happy Christmas."

"Happy Christmas," he replied with an acknowledging nod. "Won't you sit down?"

She sat down on the chesterfield, choosing the right side for herself. Her mother sat down on the left side. "Happy Christmas," Monica said. "I confess we were surprised that you didn't arrive last night. However did you arrange transportation today with the trains and buses shut for the holiday?"

Hermione took a deep breath. "My life has changed a great deal in the last three months. My boyfriend's driver brought me here this morning."

Both of her parents' eyebrows shot up. "You have a boyfriend with his own driver?" her father asked. 

"Do tell," her mother added. "I didn't know you were seeing anyone. In fact, I was starting to wonder if you would ever see someone."

"We met at the book stall," Hermione said, ignoring her parents' incredulity as best she could, which, to borrow a phrase from her favourite book as a child, was less than half as well as she'd have liked. "It turned out we had the same field of study."

Her father snorted. "There's another one?"

"More than you'd think," Hermione replied. "He introduced me to the staff at his school and they agreed to take me on as a pupil for some more specialised study in my field."

"So you're switching universities?" her mother asked.

"Yes, to a small, lesser-known school that you probably haven't heard of." It was mostly true. At least kind of true.

Her parents shared a long-suffering glance. "Dear," her mother began, "we only want the best for you. A graduate degree from University College London isn't great, but at least prospective employers will have heard of it. Are you sure you should throw that away for this new school?"

"Absolutely," Hermione said. "It's well-known in this sub-field and will be a fantastic opportunity."

"In that sub-field, perhaps," her father said. "I do wish you'd reconsider reading the law. You would be a marvellous solicitor, I've always said so."

"That you have," Hermione said. "I still love my current field, though, and I want to pursue it. If I haven't made significant progress on my current studies by autumn, I may need to reassess that."

"That's a reasonable position," the older man said. "One that I wish you'd taken a year or two ago, but I'll take what I can get."

"I'm more interested in this young man," her mother said. "You said he's also at this school?"

"He's a recent graduate," Hermione said. "He was popular with the faculty and introduced me to several who have been wonderfully helpful so far."

"I do hope there were no…strings attached to his assistance," her mother said.

"Of course not!" Hermione replied. 

"So there's a perfectly reasonable explanation about why our annual Christmas card was returned with no forwarding address from your flat?" the older woman asked.

Hermione felt her cheeks heating up and fought her instinct to run away. She'd done nothing wrong…or even Harry, for that matter. That last thought sent a small smile to her face, which in turn induced frowns from her parents. 

As amusing as that was, it probably wasn't helpful, so she swallowed the smile and spoke up. "He invited me to move in with him so I could study full-time. My scholarship is time-limited, so I have to work quickly if I'm to complete it."

"And he can afford to have you live with him because he's independently wealthy?" her mother asked.

"Sort of," Hermione said. "He's the heir to a minor title, played professional sports in the States for a few years, and is currently a police detective. He's quite wealthy."

Her father snorted again. "I thought we'd raised you to be more sceptical. Add in 'secret agent' and you'd have pretty much the standard pack of lies young blokes tell girls."

"No, he's legitimately amazing," Hermione said. "I visited him in the hospital after he caught a pair of serial killers. The…deputy minister herself visited him just as I was leaving."

"Probably one of his friends posing as the person," he said. "I mean, serial killers?"

"I've had young men try to sell me on sillier stories," her mother said. "Does he make you do all of the cooking and cleaning, too, or was he satisfied with your virtue?"

"We share chores," Hermione ground out. She had to stop herself from reaching for her wand. "And we haven't even slept together! Well, besides that one time when he was having nightmares about the serial killers, but we didn't do anything besides cuddle. He was a perfect gentleman." Though he hadn't wanted to be. She'd never seen that look in a man's eyes before, not directed at her, but the intent was quite clear.

Her mother raised her sculpted eyebrows. "We've been around the block a few times, dear. Don't tell us you're living with a wealthy, attractive man who's happy supporting your academic ambitions and hasn't demanded 'payment.'"

Unbidden, the image of Harry slashing his palm again in the ritual circle sprang into her mind. "No," she said, shaking her head, "I owe him so much and he never wants anything in return. He always acts like I'm doing him the favour by staying with him." 

"You don't have to lie to us," the older woman said. "We'll still care for you even if you've been careless with your personal life."

"But you can't believe he cares for me like that?" Hermione asked.

"Professional athletes, if he was one, aren't known for settling down young," her father said. "And when they do, it's usually with a model or actress, not a frumpy graduate student in a field no one cares about at a school no one's ever heard of."

Tears welled up in Hermione's eyes as her father's comment hit almost every one of her insecurities simultaneously. Her previous boggart had clearly been insufficiently inventive.

She froze. The boggart was the key. A mean grin spread across her face as she fixed her eyes on her father and said, "Riddikulus!" 

Her parents' eyebrows shot up at her apparent mispronunciation of the word, but she was past caring. If she could defeat a boggart with magic, she could damn well take on mere humans with words.

"I don't see what's so ridic–" Monica began, but Hermione cut her off.

"You are," Hermione said. "Both of you. I'm done trying to muster rational arguments and evidence in the face of your irrational faith in your swotty daughter's inability to snag a decent man without whoring herself out to him. So I think it's time I told you some more of the truth."

Monica smirked. "So you did–"

"Shut up," Hermione said, and Monica's mouth slammed shut in shock. "Yes, I did try to seduce him after I got drunk on my birthday, and I failed miserably because I'm pants at seduction, he's a good man, and then the whole evening went wrong for an unrelated reason. I haven't had the guts to try again, but our conversation has convinced me to give it another go."

Wendell glared at her. "We raised you better th–"

"Shut up, Wendell, or I'll shut you up," Hermione hissed as she rose from her chair. "You've said your piece and now I'm saying mine. Like I said, I should thank you both for helping me talk through my emotions, because you've helped me realise I've left a wonderful man alone on Christmas so I could have the pleasure of being denigrated by my parents."

Wendell opened his mouth again, only to shut it when Hermione whipped a finger into his face. "Speak, I dare you." She paused. "No? Pity. Anyway, I'm going to go home now, tell that wonderful man how much he means to me, and shag him senseless. I hope the two of you have a lovely dinner together complaining about your swotty, boring, undesirable daughter and what's gotten into her, because she won't be here. I will be in bed and hopefully screaming with ecstasy because the man I love is who's in me, and I wouldn't trade it for the world."

Hermione spun on her heels, picked up her backpack, and strode out of the room. Although she probably had a new boggart, the looks on her parents' faces were her new Riddikulus mental image, so that was something. 

"You can keep my coat!" she shouted back to them before slamming the garage door behind her. "Dobby?" she called out. Before she had much of a chance to worry about how foolish she'd look if this didn't work, the elf popped up next to her. 

"How can Dobby help Mistress My-Knee?" he asked.

"Please take me home," she said.

He nodded excitedly and grabbed her hand. A few disorienting seconds later found her in Harry's foyer again. "Thank you," she said. "Is Harry home? I don't hear him."

"No, Great and Powerful Wizard Harry Potter is out walking," Dobby said. "Would Mistress like Dobby to fetch him?"

"No, thank you," Hermione said. "I'll await him here. Um…would you mind leaving the house for awhile? I'd like some private time with him."

Dobby nodded again. "Of course! Dobby knows little witches and wizards don't make themselves," he said, and disappeared before Hermione could respond.

She stood there for a moment, gobsmacked, before shaking her head and going upstairs to change. That elf was a piece of work.

The cold, wet winter air bit at Harry's cheeks, but a brisk walk along Regent's Canal still beat the oppressive silence of his house just then. Eventually, though, the annoyance of the cold overcame the memory of the silence and he turned for home. He figured he could make himself a sandwich and warm up by one of the fireplaces for a bit before the silence got too oppressive. It wasn't much, but it would pass the time.

The walk back was a bit worse because he was going straight into the wind, which was an annoying bit of information he had a bad feeling he'd forget before he got restless enough to go back outside later and make the exact same mistake. He was reduced to holding his hands over his face and blowing into them to keep his nose warm by the time he made it back home (he could have cast a quick Warming Charm, but that always felt like cheating somehow). He quickly kicked the snow off of his boots and hurried inside to get warm again.

"Hullo, Hermione," he said to the familiar figure seated in her usual place on the living room couch. "Thank you for starting the fire. I'm…frozen…sti…" he trailed off and dropped his gloves as he realised who he'd seen.

Hermione was in her bathrobe for some reason and giggled as he turned to stare at her. "Welcome home, Harry."

Four quick strides carried him from the foyer to the couch, where he leaned down and caught her lips with his for a kiss. He'd meant it to be a long kiss, but Hermione broke it off after only a few seconds.

"Your face is freezing!" she said. "Sit here and warm up by the fire."

"Snogging would also work," Harry said. His brain was now thoroughly focused on continuing their previous activity. 

"We can snog after we've ensured you won't catch your death of cold," Hermione said. "Now sit and oh my God I am truly awful at this." She leaned forward and put her head in her hands. "I should just go home and tell my parents they were right about me."

Harry sat down on the couch next to her and wrapped his right arm around her shoulders. "I have no idea what's going on," he said. "I shouldn't, should I? I apologise if I should but I don't."

"None of this is your fault," she said. "My visit with my parents didn't go very well. They accused you of…well…remunerating me for…um…intercourse."

"Wait…they accused their own daughter of being a prostitute?" Harry asked. 

Hermione nodded, her head still in her hands.

"That's…" Harry trailed off and thought for a moment. "Muggle baiting is against the law, you know," he said. "It's illegal to curse them for our own amusement, no matter how much they deserve it. Want to know a secret, though? We can only catch the people who are obvious about it. Like, a muggle starts growing horns or rabbit ears, stuff like that. Stuff that looks like normal ailments is almost never found out. So I guess what I'm saying is, would you like to go back there and give your parents the Christmas gift of painful haemorrhoids?"

Hermione was silent for a moment, then started giggling, and those giggles quickly turned into a full-body laugh that shook her so hard that she leaned into Harry for support. "That would be hilarious," she said once she'd mostly stopped laughing, "but they're not worth it. Thank you for the suggestion, though. That was the laugh I needed."

"As the son of a Marauder, I could do no less," Harry said. "You don't want to know what Sirius would do to them. I understand why you walked out after that."

"That wasn't the only reason," Hermione said, her voice muffled as she buried her face in Harry's shoulder. "They also implied I would never be able to keep your attention in a relationship because I made you sound so amazing that you would never be satisfied with me."

"I'm not sure I'm amazing," Harry said, "but I'm definitely not unfaithful. Are you sure I can't mess with them?

"That wouldn't make them stop," Hermione said.

"You never know," Harry said. "Perhaps there's a number of inflamed haemorrhoids that gives a person such a huge pain in the arse that they paradoxically stop being a pain in the arse to other people. We're never going to know unless we check, Hermione. This isn't for us; it's for science."

She shook with laughter in his arms. "The one thing they weren't wrong about is how amazing you are," she said. "I eventually realised that I was being an idiot for spending Christmas with people who treat me deplorably while leaving a wonderful man home alone, so I stormed out."

"I'm sorry that happened," Harry said, "but I'm so happy you're home. My house has never felt so empty before. I went out walking to escape the silence, but the cold eventually got to me, too."

"We'll sort something out going forward," Hermione said. "I don't want either of us to be alone like that again on a holiday."

"That sounds good to me," Harry said. "Why were you upset about telling me to sit down and warm up, though? I don't understand the connection."

She hid her face in his shoulder again. "They implied I was swotty and frigid, so I…um…told them I was going to go home and shag you senseless. As soon as you returned, though, I was back to ordering you around and ignoring the opportunity to snog you more. Maybe they were right about me."

Harry hugged her tightly and tried to focus on what he should say rather than the shagging. "I don't mind, really," he said. "Like I've said before, it's nice to have someone worrying about me for once. It's one of the things I like about you."

"Really?" Hermione asked, peeking out from Harry's shoulder a bit.

"Yes. If I didn't enjoy you being a bit swotty and bossy, I'd have to be pretty silly to start a relationship with you, wouldn't I? You are who you are, and I like you."

She was silent for a moment, but spoke up again just before Harry was about to ask her if he'd said something wrong. "You have a remarkable knack," she said, "for getting straight to the heart of a matter."

"Thank you," Harry replied. "Now, what was that about shagging me senseless? I'd like to hear more about that part."

Hermione hid her face again and mumbled something. 

"What was that?" Harry asked.

"I told them I was going to seduce you and may have mentioned that I intended to be screaming in ecstasy by later today," she said.

Harry's brain completely shut down while attempting to process that statement.

"Harry?" Hermione's voice was small and scared. "You're not mad at me, are you?"

The realisation that he'd worried her kickstarted his brain again. "Of course not! That was brilliant! You're brilliant! How could I be mad at you? I mean, now I'm a little nervous about living up to your vote of confidence, but that's on me."

"So you don't think that was crass?" she asked, a bit of her normal tone returning to her voice.

He patted her head and ran his fingers through her gloriously uncontrollable curls. "To everything there is a season. That was the season to be crass as fuck and you rose wonderfully to the occasion."

Hermione raised her head up from his shoulder. "Did you just paraphrase Ecclesiastes while using foul language and complimenting me for traumatising my parents?" 

"I think so," Harry said. "I saw that in one of those philosophy books I borrowed from the library so I would have more to talk with you about at our lunches."

She wrapped her hands around the back of his head and pulled his lips to hers. "You," she said, slipping the word breathlessly in between kisses, "strip. Now."

Harry grinned and pulled off his jumper and shirt. As soon as his chest was bare, Hermione ran her hands over it. "I've wanted to do this since I first saw you bare-chested," she said. "I don't even know why. I feel like I'm treating you like a hunk of meat, but you're so…delicious." She licked her lips and Harry's pants promptly tightened.

"Care to return the favour?" he asked, raking his eyes across her bathrobe.

"Um…sure." Hermione started unfastening her robe, but Harry caught one of her hands in his.

"Is everything alright?" he asked. "We don't have to do this."

"No, it's fine," she said. "I want to…but I'm not you, Harry. I mean, look at you. You're gorgeous. I am nowhere near as beautiful a woman as you are a man."

"Men aren't beautiful," Harry said. "We're ruggedly handsome."

She raised her eyebrows at him. "Is now the time to be correcting my word choice?"

He raised his right back. "Are you implying there's a bad time to correct word choice?"

"That's…a fair cop, actually," Hermione said. "Carry on."

"Anyway," Harry continued, "there are women out there with straighter hair than yours, or longer legs, or bigger breasts. I don't want them, though. I want you. I know I'm going to be happy with whatever I see under your robe because it'll be you."

"You make it sound so easy," she said.

"Because it is easy," Harry said, and kissed her. She didn't resist him when he pulled her robe off a few minutes later, or when his kisses began to trail down her neck and chest. She merely trusted him and allowed him to prove himself worthy of that trust.

Chapter Text

A couple of hours later found Harry lying on his back on the floor beneath the chesterfield with Hermione nestled comfortably on his chest. The only stitch of clothing on either one was Hermione's bathrobe, which was spread over the two of them like a blanket.

"Aren't you uncomfortable on the floor?" she murmured.

"This is perfect," Harry said. "I never want to move again."

"I'm not sure I can move again," Hermione said.

"I didn't hurt you, did I?" Harry asked.

"Only a bit that first time," Hermione said. "Now I'm just sore. I'm glad I don't have to see anyone tomorrow, because I'm going to be walking funny for a bit." As Harry opened his mouth to apologise, she continued, "And don't you dare apologise! That was amazing."

"OK," Harry said. "So I earned my vote of confidence?"

"More than earned," Hermione said. "Speaking of which…" she leaned up and pulled a piece of blank parchment and a self-inking quill off of the coffee table and scribbled something on it using Harry's chest as a writing desk.

"What's that?" Harry asked.

"A note to my parents," Hermione said. "It says 'I got what I wanted for Christmas. Sincerely, The Swot.'"

Harry laughed. "I love it."

"Not as much as I did," Hermione said, blushing. "Dobby?"

The elf popped up next to the coffee table. "Is Mistress done making little witches and wizards?" he asked.

Harry sputtered, but Hermione just laughed. "For now," she said. "Could you put this through my parents' letterbox and make sure nobody sees you?"

"Of course, Mistress!" Dobby took the parchment and popped away again.

"I have," Harry croaked out, "So. Many. Questions."

"Dobby has been messing with me today," Hermione said, "and I am much too content right now to care. If he wants to say that sort of thing, he can go right ahead."

"Alright, but he called you 'Mistress,'" Harry said. "Why is he doing that?"

She shrugged, a movement which knocked the robe off a bit and exposed a creamy white shoulder. "I have no idea. He's been doing that since he picked me up today. Is that weird?"

"Ginny lived with me for three years and he never called her 'mistress,'" Harry said. "It's definitely weird."

"Oh," Hermione said. "Um…do you mind?"

"Of course not!" Harry said. "There's probably an explanation of some sort that makes perfect sense to him and zero sense to everyone else on the planet."

"Oh, good. I didn't want to get him in trouble."

"If I'm not mad at him after everything he did to me in my Second Year," Harry said, "I'm definitely not mad about that."

Hermione shuddered, making Harry's whole body vibrate. "Don't remind me. You poor boy."

"It's OK," Harry said. "At least he wasn't actually trying to kill me. It just felt like it at the time because I wasn't used to people really trying to kill me yet."

Hermione sighed.

"Reference points?" Harry asked.

She nodded.

"That's fair," Harry said. "Anyway, won't your parents be surprised to get that in their letterbox without a stamp?"

"Maybe, but there's nothing magical about the document itself," Hermione said. "I'm amusing myself thinking of how confused they'll be. It's the little things, you know."

Harry shot her a grin. "I like the way you think."

He paused, and when Hermione raised her eyebrows he realised his grin must have faded. "I'm sorry," he said. "I was just thinking about you and your parents."

"You had better not be blaming yourself." Hermione reinforced her firm tone with a glare.

"I'm not, but I'm worried you will blame yourself," Harry said. "You did the right thing, but so did Sirius when he left his family and I think it still hurts him sometimes."

Hermione lowered her head and curled into Harry's shoulder. "Oh, God, you're right," she mumbled into his chest. "I was so focused on storming out and seducing you that I hadn't thought ahead yet. I can't go back there without crawling, can I?"

"No, and you shouldn't have to," Harry said. "For the record, you're welcome to stay with me, but if you ever change your mind about our relationship, I'll find you another place to stay until you get on your feet in the Wizarding World. I won't see you forced to go back to them."

She was silent for a moment before saying, in a small voice, "Thank you. Is it weird that, when you said that, I found myself more scared of losing you than I was of losing my home?"

Harry hugged her tighter. "I don't think so," he said. "If you find someone important to you, that's far more important than anything else. I didn't meet Sirius until I was thirteen and he quickly became more important to me than anything. That summer, not long after he was declared innocent, I walked into the drawing room to find him crying on the couch. He was still feeling the aftereffects of all of that Dementor exposure and was afraid he was going to be locked up without a trial again and lose everything. I gave him a huge hug and told him we could go on the run together, just him and me, and I'd rather have a Godfather than all of my money, friends, and schooling." 

"Good God, Harry!" Hermione wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him even more tightly back. 

"Oh," Harry said sheepishly while fighting for air. "Reference points?"

She nodded vigorously. "No one should have to consider having to do that, especially a child."

"I didn't have much of a choice," Harry said. "I'd like to get more involved in the Wizengamot and make sure no other children have that happen to them, but I'm pants at keeping track of the details of legislation and making sure I'm not voting for something stupid. Nev says I underestimate his ability to keep me out of trouble, but I saw his grades in school and while he did better than I did, that's not saying much. He really just wants me in there because I have a lot of public clout for a variety of reasons ranging from good to stupid."

Hermione picked up her head and stared at Harry as a smile spread across her face.

Harry raised his eyebrows.

"My parents wanted me to drop out of school and read the law," Hermione said. "I refused, but one thing they weren't wrong about is that my skills could make me an excellent solicitor. Are there magical lawyers?"

"Yes," Harry said. "Andi's husband is one."

"Perfect," Hermione said. "Once I finish my schooling, I think I will read the law after all, only it'll be to help you protect magical children, house elves, and anyone else who can't protect themselves."

"You don't need to change your career plans on my account," Harry said.

She fixed him with a glare. "I'm going to change the world, Harry. Do you want to help?"

"Always," he said, and kissed her thoroughly enough to make her toes curl. Literally. He'd always thought that was just an expression, but he felt them curl as she lay on top of him. It was surprisingly validating.

An unfamiliar ringing awoke Hermione the next morning, so she sleepily attempted to hide from the noise by burrowing into her body pillow. 

"I'm sorry," her pillow said, "but I promised I'd do a day shift today so Savage could stay home on Boxing Day with his family."

She froze. 

"Hermione?" Harry's voice was slightly muffled because she had one ear pressed against his arm. "Is everything alright?"

"Yesterday afternoon wasn't a dream?" she asked.

"No, it wasn't," Harry said. "Neither was yesterday evening or last night."

She felt a blush rising. "I…had fun."

Harry shot her a lopsided grin that did funny things to her insides. "Same here. Seeing you first thing in the morning is nice, too."

Hermione's left arm was thoroughly trapped beneath her, but her right shot up to her hair. "God, I must look a fright!"

"You look lovely." Harry chuckled and kissed her forehead. "I told you, I like you just as you are, but I admit I especially enjoy this dishevelled look when I know I'm the one who caused it."

She was pretty sure her cheeks were hot enough to boil water by that point. "You don't have to sound so self-satisfied about it."

"But Hermione," he leaned down and kissed her, slipping his tongue into her mouth just for a few seconds before pulling away, leaving her lips almost aching for more, "I am satisfied."

 Something in his kiss and his tone made her practically melt into the bed, but before she could respond, he gently slipped his right arm out from underneath her and sat up. "Sadly, I'm also due at work, so we should probably get moving."

Hermione pouted. She actually pouted. What was the man doing to her? She looked up at him to respond and straight into his emerald green eyes and the words vanished on her lips.

Oh, right, those eyes. That's what he was doing to her. She could accept that.

He smirked. "We can discuss more mutual satisfaction again this evening. Right now, I'm going to hit the shower. Why don't you move some of your stuff up here so you can shower in the master bathroom after I finish? I'll whip up some breakfast while you shower."

She tried to nod, but froze stiff.

Harry's smirk disappeared. "Is anything wrong?" he asked her.

"It just…when you asked me to move my toiletries, it just hit me that this is real. You don't just want me for…activities. You want me to sleep here every day," she said.

"Of course I do!" Harry said. "Why wouldn't I?"

Hermione had a million answers to that question in her head. As she lunged at him and hugged him tightly, though, all that mattered to her was that he genuinely seemed to have none at all. 

They were just finishing up breakfast when the floo roared to life upstairs and Sue's voice echoed throughout the house. "Harry! Get your arse in here now!"

Harry took the stairs two at a time and Hermione pounded up behind him as fast as she could. "What's wrong?" he shouted as soon as he reached the top of the stairs.

"There's been a massive earthquake in the Indian Ocean," Sue shouted back. When Harry finally made it into the floo room, he could see in her floo representation that her hair was simply twisted up and clipped back instead of the braid crown she usually wore at work.

"How bad?" Harry asked.

"We're not sure yet," Sue said. "Wizarding communities all around the Indian Ocean are reporting serious damage and several aren't reporting at all. Auntie is already in the office coordinating our response with the ICW. Can you pack for a trip? We're sending a team to help ensure none of the muggle search and rescue teams find any wizarding villages that have had wardstones washed away."

Harry shot Hermione a plaintive glance before turning back to Sue. "OK," he said. "I'll start packing."

Sue sighed. "Damnit, Harry, you two finally seem to have figured it out and then this happens? I'm really sorry, Hermione, but needs must."

"Wait, figured out what?" Harry asked.

"Well, the look on your face when I asked you to pack made me feel like I'd just kicked a puppy, and Hermione over there is walking a bit bow-legged this morning. I'd say you two finally got your heads out of your arses and got about putting other things in places, instead," Sue said, smirking.

Hermione blushed bright red.

"You've been monitoring my sex life?" Harry asked.

"Of course I have!" Sue said. "Again, I feel awful, Hermione. I hate to break up what I've been rooting for, but this is an international emergency."

"You've been rooting for my sex life?" Harry asked, more loudly this time.

"I understand," Hermione said, the ladies by mutual unspoken agreement ignoring his outburst. "Harry, be safe and come back soon. I'll miss you."

"I'll miss you, too." He wrapped Hermione in a hug. "Sue, I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

"Thank you," she said. "I'm getting portkeys now." The floo blanked out, but Harry didn't move for a solid minute.

"I'm so sorry," he finally said. "I don't want to leave you." 

"I know," Hermione said. "I don't want you to leave, either, but this sounds terrible."

Harry sighed. "When Ginny and I were together, one or both of us would often be travelling for Quidditch games, and it felt normal. This…doesn't feel right. If you need anything, Sirius or Remus will be able to help you by the day after tomorrow."

"I'll be OK, really," Hermione said. "Just be careful. I'm going to be worried sick about you while you're gone."

"I will, I promise," Harry said.

Hermione looked him in the eyes. "I…believe you. For once, I actually believe you when you say that. Why do I believe you now?"

"Because of something Professor McGonagall told me that I think I finally understand." Harry gave her a quick kiss. "I need to go pack."

Long after Harry left about a dozen minutes later, Hermione sat on the sofa in front of the floo, pondering what he'd meant by that and clinging to the ghost of the sensation of his lips on hers.

Chapter Text

Cleaning up breakfast was, in retrospect, the best part of the morning for Hermione, because all that was left in the house after the last dish clanked into its neighbour on the drying rack was silence. She made it through lunchtime before she couldn't take any more and floo'd Neville.

"Hello?" she asked. "Is anyone home?"

A house elf popped up. "Hello, Lord Potter's friend. What can Spriggy do for you?"

"Hello, Spriggy," Hermione said. "Is Neville available?"

"Spriggy will check,"Spriggy said, and disappeared with an understated pop. Dobby's was noticeably louder, and Hermione sometimes wondered if Harry's elf friend either enjoyed the dramatic flair of the additional volume or if the noise was just his enthusiasm given audible form.

Just as she realised the two options weren't entirely exclusive, Neville strode into the room. He wore his usual slacks and waistcoat with an expression of deep concern in his eyes. "Good afternoon, Hermione," he said. "Would you like to come through?"

She nodded and, after he waved his wand at the fireplace, stepped through the floo. She was getting better at the disconcerting mode of transport, but still gratefully accepted Neville's assistance stabilising herself as she exited. 

"It's nice to see you," he said. "Especially after the owl I just received." He passed her a piece of parchment.

"Dear Nev," it began, "Harry and I have to look for survivors and protect the Statute. Not sure when I'll return. I apologise for missing our dinner. Yours Sincerely, Sue. P.S. They finally did it!"

"What's going on?" Nev asked. "Look where for survivors?"

"You didn't hear?" Hermione asked, fighting down a blush at Sue's postscript.

He shook his head. "Wizarding Wireless is vapid to the point of useless when it comes to news about the Wizarding World. If something happened elsewhere, they usually don't bother."

Hermione gave him a quick rundown of what Sue had told them and what she'd seen in the Times. 

"That's horrifying," Nev said when she finished. "Thank you for letting me know, though. Do you need any help while Harry's gone?"

"No, thank you, I think I can keep the house running while he's out," Hermione said. "It's just…I'm used to him being gone for long shifts, but it's only been a few hours now and I'm already losing my mind. I can't take not knowing when he's going to come home. He's the one thing that's been constant in my life as everything else has shattered into a million pieces and reformed itself over the last few months, and now I know I'm going to wake up for who knows how long and he won't be there."

Nev put his hands on her shoulders. "It's OK. You can come over here whenever you want, and Remus will be well enough for company again in a couple of days and I'm sure they'd love to have you." He paused. "Wait, if he's there when you wake up…that's what Sue meant! Congratulations!"

Hermione blushed and pushed his hands away. "Why is everyone congratulating me? This is so embarrassing!"

"We thought it would be good for both of you," Nev said with equanimity. "Well, that and Sirius still wants grand-godchildren, but we keep telling him not to get ahead of himself."

"You're all talking with one another about our sex life, or lack thereof of until recently?" Hermione asked, disbelief edging out embarrassment in her tone.

"Of course we are," Nev said. "It's not like anything else more interesting was going on…well, until today. Besides, if you think we're bad, wait until the Daily Prophet and Witch Weekly discover you."

Hermione blanched. "I'd forgotten what Harry said about the tabloids after I moved in. Why are people so obsessed with Harry's life?"

"He's a celebrity and for all our magic, we're still British," Nev said.

"Fair enough." Hermione sighed. "I should probably get home and stop taking up more of your day."

Nev shrugged. "I didn't have anything particularly interesting planned for today, especially now that Sue can't make it over for dinner. Let's do another lesson in the greenhouses."

"That sounds tremendously better than silence," Hermione said, "but I don't want to put you out."

"It's no trouble at all," Nev said. "It'll ease us both into our friends' absences."

Hermione had a much easier time concentrating while working with Neville than she had while studying Charms theory that morning, and by evening she felt ready to face the silence again. 

"Thank you again," she told Nev while they were washing up after their work in the dirt. "I think I can deal with dinner alone now."

"Nonsense," Nev said. "I couldn't possibly have you over now and not have you for dinner."

"I don't want to intrude," Hermione said.

"You're not. I'm absolutely insisting and I would be a lousy host if I didn't. Gran will understand."

"Are you sure?" Hermione asked. Madam Longbottom had not yet struck her as the understanding type.

Nev nodded. "Of course. She knows you're a friend of mine."

Nev rested his head against the wall next to the fireplace and sighed. "I am so sorry about that, Hermione," he said. "I had no idea she thought you were 'trying to get your hooks' into Harry or me."

"It's not her good graces I'm worried about," Hermione said as Nev stood up straight again. "You don't think she'll start blabbing about me, do you?"

"Definitely not," Nev said. "Her word is her bond. She's just going to try to make you miserable enough that you stay away from me."

"But I'm with Harry!"

Nev shrugged. "Gran thinks I'm the best grandson ever. Ergo, any woman will eventually realise I am a superior partner to their current one and want to seduce me."

"Huh." Hermione paused. "The logic tracks. I mean, I think there are some false assumptions in there, but it's logically valid."

"You have the strangest reactions sometimes," Nev said, chuckling. "Harry's right that you would have been amazing fun to have in class."

"Only till I drove you all spare by asking questions constantly," Hermione said.

"Would you have looked over my revisions?" Nev asked.

"Of course!" Hermione said. "I'd help anyone with their revisions unless they were actively hostile to me."

"Then I think we'd have put up with the questions," Nev said. "Harry's grades were terrible, and mine weren't much better except in Herbology." His tone turned more serious. "Are you going to be OK tonight?"

"I think so," Hermione said. "With the exception of dealing with your grandmother's insinuations, this afternoon and evening have been fun and I feel more capable of being alone now. I hate thinking about all of the times Harry and Sue have been in danger, but it helps put this trip in perspective."

"I'm glad I could help," Nev said. "Are you sure it's OK if I crash your DADA lesson in a few days?"

"Definitely," Hermione said. "Remus said he'd be happy to give you a refresher, and I've been studying hard enough that I hope to be a useful training partner for you." That book she'd borrowed from Sirius's library wasn't exactly on her required reading list, but she had a feeling it was going to be a great complement to it. The first chapter, at least. The later chapters were downright disturbing.

"Great, I'll see you then."

Hermione nodded and gave him a quick hug. "Goodnight, Nev."

"Goodnight." He handed her the floo powder jar, she took a pinch, and a few terrifying moments later found herself safely home. 

Through a supreme effort of will, Hermione forced herself into something resembling her normal study schedule, with just one difference: she cleaned compulsively. That worked for about two days, but during her Tuesday afternoon cleaning a complication popped up.

"Don't worries, Mistress!"

"Ack!" Hermione lurched backward from where she'd been sweeping up the detritus of her Charms lesson with Professor Flitwick, fell over the arm of the sofa, and found herself frozen in mid-air before she hit the ground.

"Dobby is sorry," the house elf said as he gently floated her body over to the sofa. "Dobby is just coming to clean and didn't want Mistress to bother herself with it."

"It's OK," Hermione said as she landed on the sofa. "You just startled me. I can take care of the cleaning, though."

"Is no trouble," Dobby said. "Dobby can do it."

"I know," Hermione said, "but I'd like to do it myself."

Dobby stopped dusting and turned to her. "Dobby would like to do it himself, too," he said apologetically.

"I'm sorry," Hermione said. "It's just…I feel weird asking someone else to clean up my mess to start with, and now it's all I can do to wait for Harry. I feel like if I keep the house clean, maybe he'll come home sooner, but if I let it stay dirty, it's like I'm assuming he won't be home for awhile." She sighed. "That's silly, isn't it?"

"Yous is not silly," Dobby said. "Dobby misses Great and Powerful Harry Potter, too. Dobby can still feel connection to him, but is weak over such distance. Dobby wants to make sure everything is perfect when Wise and Excessively Giving Master returns."

Hermione chuckled. "He is that, isn't he? I guess I can't complain because of how much I've benefited from it, but that doesn't stop me worrying about him."

"Dobby didn't mean to hurt yous feelings," Dobby said. "You is one of the only ones ever giving him anything back."

"I should hope the rest of the country isn't giving him what I'm giving him." Hermione shot the elf a glare as she spoke.

"Bad old master's father purchased that all the time," Dobby said derisively, "but not even his moneys could purchase what you gives Good Master Harry Potter."

"Thank you." Hermione pulled the little creature into a hug. His skin was warm and leathery, and he smelled musky and a bit like ammonia.

"Dobby…has never been hugged before," Dobby said. "You is truly a great witch!"

"Never?" Hermione asked in shock.

"Witches and Wizards not much for hugging," Dobby said. "They's super-extra-English about that."

"Well, I am," Hermione said. "I hope you don't mind."

"Dobby loves it," Dobby said. "Can…um…Dobby help you clean, then?"

"Absolutely," Hermione said. "While we clean, can you tell me some of the things Harry should have bragged about to me but hasn't?"

"Dobby would be happy to!" he said. "House elveses at Hoggy-warts see all kinds of things that nobody else realises they sees."

"Excellent," Hermione said. "By the time Harry gets home, I'll have way more data points with which to convince him that he's amazing."

"Wills yous make a chart?" Dobby asked. His eyes somehow seemed to get even larger with excited anticipation.

"Um…yes. Yes, I will." Hermione just didn't have it in her to refuse Dobby when he was making adorable faces like that. 

"Yay!" Dobby said. "Even Great and Powerful Harry Potter cannot argue with a chart."

Hermione did her best to keep a straight face. "No, I don't think even he could."

A steady rain was turning all of the snow outside to grey slush the next morning, but Hermione still thought a fifteen-minute walk in forty-degree rainy weather preferable to using the floo. By the time she arrived at 12 Grimmauld Place, she had to admit that the bigoted Purebloods who'd created her crushed velvet capelet were exceptionally skilled with their enchantments, at least. She was toasty warm inside and the outside shed water like a duck's back.

Remus answered the door a few moments after she knocked. "Hermione! I was expecting you at the floo." He looked haggard and beaten-up, but the worst of the full moon's effects seemed to have dissipated.

She arched her eyebrows at him. 

He sighed and stood aside so she could enter the house. "You really do hate the floo, don't you?"

"With a passion," she said as she walked in. "Harry and I suspect the only quantifiable area of Pureblood superiority is a cast-iron inner ear."

"You should research that after you complete your schooling," Neville said. He wore his usual slacks and waistcoat and was leaning on the railing at the foot of the stairs. "Your article title could be: Weak Pureblood Magic Offset by Inner Ear Strength."

"Weak magic?" she asked.

"Can I take your capelet?" Remus asked.

Hermione nodded and allowed him to remove it while she folded her umbrella and put it in the umbrella stand…which she just now noticed seemed to be the foot of an enormous creature. She nearly asked about it, but given the other things she'd seen in the Black household, she decided she was better off not knowing. She just hoped she never encountered one of those things.

"Anyway," Remus said as he hung up her capelet, "Neville, Harry, Susan, Sirius, and I have often wondered if the magic of Pureblooded lines is getting weaker. Albus Dumbledore, Tom Riddle, and Harry are the most powerful wizards of the last century and are all half-bloods. That can't be a coincidence."

She blinked. "Harry is that powerful?"

"That he is." Nev said. "He's not at the level of skill the other two had yet, but his raw power is astounding. My Gran once told me that Sue's Aunt, the Minister for Magic, told her that she thought Harry's mere existence was enough to discourage the rise of another Dark Lord."

"That's astounding," Hermione said. "I had no idea."

"Harry doesn't like to talk about that," Remus said. "I think he'd rather people didn't look to him to solve their problems. Some of it may be hereditary, too. His father was a powerful wizard and his mother had a deeper, more complex grasp of magic than all but the greatest scholars, along with more than her share of power." He nodded to Neville. "You'll find this lesson interesting, Neville. Hermione's power was almost tangible even when she was bound, and now that she's learning to wield it she's turning into an extraordinary witch."

"I'm definitely intrigued," Neville said as Hermione blushed. "I'm also glad I have enough schooling under my belt to stay mostly ahead of her. She'd probably have kicked my arse even as a Firstie."

"Language!" Hermione said. "And I'd never hex you."

He snorted. "If Harry had needed you to hex me, you'd have done so in a heartbeat and you know it."

She blushed again. "I would have felt bad, at least."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night, dear," Remus said. "Oh, and speaking of sleep, have you had any dreams or other recollections that might be your memory returning?"

"Just vague sensations of someone much larger than me who bore me an unfathomable amount of hatred," Hermione said. "Of course, I would have been four years old, so most people were much larger than me, but still…"

"Just keep up with your Occlumency exercises and I'm sure it will come to you eventually," Remus said, "and probably when you least expect it. Now, if you're ready, let's head down to the practice room. I think this will be a great opportunity for both of you."

"I still hate the basement." Hermione shivered.

"That's where you and Harry nearly died, right?" Neville asked.

"That and Sirius said he thinks that's where his mother sacrificed his father," Hermione said. "I can't get that image out of my head now."

"Oh, don't pay any attention to that old mutt," Remus said. "He was just trying to get a rise out of you."

"Was he, though?" Hermione asked.

Remus sighed. "I…honestly wish I could say he was. I can't rule out that being the truth, though."

Neville shivered. "I think I see where Hermione is coming from."

"I understand, but the basement room is the only one sufficiently warded for combat practice," Remus said. 

"Needs must, then," Nev said, and allowed Remus to lead him downstairs. Hermione followed closely behind, keeping a close eye on the ceiling for spiders.

The practice room was a rectangle maybe thirty yards on the long side and half that on the short. The walls were ancient red brick, worn and chipped and stained with a thousand impossible things. Remus took up a position by the door and motioned to his students to take up positions on opposite sides of the room.

"You'll each be training different things today," he told them. "First, though, we need to make sure Hermione's intent is present." He waved his wand and a plain wooden armchair appeared behind Neville. "Neville, have a seat. Hermione, I want you to hit him with the Jelly-Legs Jinx, the Tickling Charm, the Leg-Locker Curse, and the Impediment Jinx."

She froze. "Are you sure? I don't want to hurt him."

"You won't," Nev said as he took a seat in the chair. "That's why Remus gave me a chair."

"Exactly," Remus said. "You need to know what these spells do, but you also need to see that they're not evil. This is the kind of practice you'll need to be able to use these spells to defend yourself."

"If you're both sure…" 

They nodded.

"OK." Hermione levelled her wand at Nev, wove a careful pattern with it, and said, "Rictusempra." 

A jet of sickly silver light burst forth and whizzed past Nev's right shoulder. "Good wand movement," Remus said, "but don't forget to aim."

"Oh, right." Hermione blushed and tried again. This time, the light flew right into Nev's chest, but all he did was chuckle.

"Not bad," he said, "but I don't think you put enough intent into it. You want me laughing uncontrollably."

"That's the problem," Hermione said. "I don't. It's hard to aim this at you and actually cast the spell."

"I understand," Remus said. "Neville never had the pleasure of going to school with muggleborns, but I did, and I remember some of them had the same concern in their early Defence lessons. What you need to learn is what Neville and I were taught as children: magic spells are common and safe. You don't have to worry about hurting anyone with this spell because it can't hurt anyone, except in unusual edge case scenarios that aren't worth discussing right now. Trust us: this is safe. You're going to cast it on Neville and he's going to be just fine."

Nev nodded encouragingly. "He's right, Hermione. Now make me laugh!" He paused. "You know, that sounded a lot better in my head."

"I'll do my best," she said. "Rictusempra."

This time, the silver light of the spell glowed a little brighter and Nev laughed for a few seconds after it hit him. "Better!" he said.

"It was, but your intent wasn't quite right," Remus said. "As you cast the spell, remember that you're walking right up to reality itself and telling it that you demand that man laugh his arse off right now. So cast it again and show reality it has a new mistress."

Hermione set her jaw and faced Nev again. "Rictusempra!" This time, a jet of bright silver light hit the young man right in the stomach and he promptly doubled over with laughter for a solid twenty seconds.

"Nice work!" he said when he could breathe again. "That hit harder than I remember anyone's Tickling Charms hitting in school."

"I agree," Remus said. "You picked that up well." 

He ran her through the rest of the basic jinxes he wanted her to practise that day before asking Neville to rise from the chair again. Once he did so, Remus Vanished the chair and Neville took up a position near the wall.

"Each of you will be training something different today," he said. "Hermione, we're going to work on your spellcasting speed. Take up a duelling stance and cast as many jinxes as you can until I call a break. If you see a jinx coming from Neville, duck or step out of the way."

He turned to Neville. "You're going to be working your Shield Charm and dodging. I want your feet to stay in the same place, but you can lean out of the way. Whenever you can, cast a Stinging Hex at Hermione, but I want you to focus more on not getting hit than on hitting her. Try not to fire more than one Stinging Hex for every three she fires at you."

Neville and Hermione nodded to each other and faced each other across the room. She took a deep breath, raised her wand, and fired off a Leg Locker Curse. Nev dodged it easily. 

Hermione took a moment to steady herself and cast an Impediment Jinx. She aimed more toward his stomach that time and was gratified to see him forced to shield it. She followed up with a Full Body-Body Curse that Neville also shielded, then stepped quickly to the right to dodge his Stinging Hex.

"Nice work," Remus said. "I don't remember teaching you the Full Body-Bind Curse yet, though."

"I found it in one of Sirius's books," Hermione said, blushing. "I double-checked to make sure it was in our curriculum before using it, I promise." 

"You were right," Remus said, "but please check with me before using new spells in the future. I don't want to see anyone hurt."

"I will," Hermione said.

"Excellent," Remus said. "Now, try to pick up your pace and put a little more intent into your spells. We want to give Neville a good workout. Neville, start varying your use of Stinging Hexes a bit to somewhere between every two and four spells she casts."

They both nodded and tried again. The next few iterations of their practice went similarly, with just a few mishaps. Nev managed to catch an Impediment Jinx in the chest when he didn't lean far enough out of the way once, and a couple of times he caught Hermione with a Stinging Jinx when she telegraphed which way she was going to dodge. Eventually, though, Remus called a halt again.

"You're both doing well," the older man said, "but you're in a bit of a rut, Hermione. Could you mix up your spells or work some new ones in?"

She shook her head. "I wanted to practise them in that order because of what I found in the book. May I show you why?"

Remus nodded and Neville took up his ready stance again. Hermione took a deep breath and cast a Leg Locker Curse, speaking the words as fast as she could. As she finished the wand movement, she transitioned into the Impediment Jinx and from there into a Full Body-Bind, timing her words with her hand motions just as she'd practised alone for the last two evenings in the silence of Harry's absence. 

Nev was only one syllable into the Stinging Hex when the last curse caught him and he crashed to the ground with a look of shock on his face. Remus raised his eyebrows, Finite'd the young man, and turned to Hermione. "That book you found the Full Body-Bind Curse in," he said, "was that a book on spell chains?"

"It was," Hermione said. "The subtitle was something about how they were essential to anyone who wanted to be a professional dueller, so I thought they'd be useful in fighting." 

"Merlin, Hermione!" Nev said as he clambered to his feet. "That's N.E.W.T.-level work!"

Remus chuckled. "You never cease to amaze me, my dear. By all means, please keep practising that chain, though you may wish to limit yourself to that one for the moment. Spell-chaining will be worth some extra credit on your O.W.L.s, but at this point you're probably better off ensuring you've mastered the core curriculum of spells."

"I understand," Hermione said. "I want to become an effective fighter, too, though, and this seemed like a good way to combine those goals."

"For what it's worth," Nev said, "I think you're pretty effective right now. Sure, those are basic spells, but your casting speed when you chain them is amazing."

"I agree," Remus said. "That's an exceptional talent. Why don't you practise a few more of those on Neville, and then we'll work on your other hexes?"

Hermione nodded and faced Nev again. The other man raised his wand and cast a shield. 

"Neville?" Remus said, raising his eyebrows.

"Do I have to?" Nev asked. "I can't dodge, cast, and dodge again fast enough."

"You mean you can't do that now," Remus said, a touch of reproach in his voice.

"Fine." Nev dropped his shield. "But only because the floor has Cushioning Charms on it."

Hermione did her best to hide a smirk and began casting again. Nev definitely needed those Cushioning Charms.

Chapter Text

Hermione thought it worked out reasonably well that most of the people with whom she normally met each week were unavailable between Boxing Day and the New Year, since she didn't really feel like seeing anyone, either. The only exceptions were Neville, Sirius, and Remus, all of whom were missing someone just like she was and seemed to instinctively understand that she wasn't feeling particularly jolly that year. As Harry's absence stretched into a second week, though, she had to owl her apologies to the various professors and ask to skip that week. They all replied with polite letters indicating they understood and hoped Harry returned soon, and so the silence Hermione had worked in her whole life settled in around her.

She hated it. She loathed it. 

Silence was fine for her studio flat or her dorm room before that. She'd valued silence then, stolen it away from too-loud neighbours and fellow students whom she recognized in retrospect were reaching out to her but at the time she saw only as nuisances. This house, Harry's house, was unfit for such silence. It deserved his soft breaths, the turning of pages in his Quidditch magazine or that DADA monograph of which he'd commissioned a translation, or the creak of his chair as he got up to make them a delicious dinner.

It deserved him.

She mentally berated the silence for its mere existence for a solid five minutes before she discovered there was something worse: the floo bursting to life with the sound of an unfamiliar voice saying, "Hullo? Is anyone home?"

Hermione clutched her wand so tightly she worried it might break but otherwise made no sound, no response. She didn't even breathe.

After a moment, the voice spoke out again. "Wronski!"

The flame cut off, only to return again a moment later. 

"No? Hmmm…seven?"

The same thing happened to the flame and the voice made a little noise of irritation.

"Phooey. He must've changed the theme of his floo passwords. I suppose that's only fair. His life has changed a lot since he bought this house. Something else must be more important to him."

She paused for a moment, then said, "Family."

The flame cut away, then flared back. "No?" she asked. "But I was so…hmmm…I know. Godric's Hollow."

The flame once again cut away and returned. "Only one more guess this hour," the voice said. "What else changed? Oh, of course! It's so simple. Winter."

Terror gripped Hermione as a young blonde woman tumbled out of the floo and landed in a seated position. "Hullo," she said, staring calmly down the length of Hermione's wand from the next room over. "I'm afraid you have quite the wrackspurt infestation."

"You…you need to go," Hermione said. "I won't let anyone in here without Harry's approval. I'll call the pol…Aurors if I have to."

"Harry has never disapproved of me visiting before," the woman said. She was still sitting on the floor and made no effort to rise to her feet or draw the wand that was currently holding her wavy blonde hair in a messy bun. 

"I'm not really in a position to evaluate the truthfulness of that statement," Hermione said, trying to sound calmer than she was.

The woman stared at her for a moment with her slightly protruding grey eyes. "Yes," she finally said, "definitely wrackspurts. You used to have quite the infestation, didn't you, and it's coming back?"

"I…I'm sorry, but what on Earth is a wrackspurt?" Hermione asked. 

The other woman cocked her head at Hermione and stared at her for a solid twenty seconds.

"Are you unwell, Miss?" Hermione asked.

"Mrs." the woman said absently. "Mrs. Luna Lovegood Scamander. That name is quite important to me, mostly because of how new it is. I suspect I'll get used to it one day, but I admit I kind of hope I don't. It's so nice that it's mine now and I don't want to let that feeling go. However, I don't think my name is nearly as important as your name, is it?"

"I…um…don't know." Hermione didn't even bother to hide her confusion.

"I think I do," Luna said. "You sound like Harry, you know. That's what gave it away."

"Wait, if you really know Harry, you'd know our voices sound nothing alike," Hermione said, giving her wand what she hoped was a threatening little twirl.

"Not your voice." Luna's tone dripped playful condescension, like she was talking to a four-year-old. "Your words. Harry's the only other person I know who would say 'what on Earth?' because he's the only person I know who was raised as a muggle. Magicals would say 'what in Merlin's name?'...or Morgana, if their name is 'Sue' or they're trying to avoid the wrath of a 'Sue.'" 

"Oh…" was as far as Hermione got before her subconscious started shouting "This! This is why you always lose at poker!" at her. "I just know a lot of muggles."

"I would imagine you do," Luna said seriously. "I'm much more interested in how you know Harry, though." She raised her eyebrows. "That silly boy didn't break the Statute, did he?"

"Lumos," Hermione said.

As the tip of her wand lit up, Luna's hand shot up to her hair. Hermione didn't even have the chance to think the word "Nox," much less say it, before her wand was flying out of her hand and into Luna's. 

"There we go," Luna said as calmly as ever. "Now we can have a nice conversation without worrying about any accidental hexing." As she climbed to her feet with a wand in each hand, she continued, "I had a feeling implying Harry might have done something wrong would induce you to defend him, since the only time the wrackspurts slow down around you is when I mention his name. So I just waited for you to cast before I drew my own wand."

Hermione glared at her, holding tightly to the anger bubbling inside her chest so she didn't give way to the fear tying her stomach in knots, instead.

"If it makes you feel any better," Luna said as she walked into the living room and plopped down on a chair, "I'm one of only two people her age or younger ever to out-duel Sue in a best-of-three set while she was at school, and the other one owns this house."

"That…does make me feel a bit better, yes," Hermione said. "So you're really Luna? Sue, Nev, and Harry all speak highly of you."

"I really am," she said. "Of course, arguably my additional name makes me slightly less Luna than I was before through simple dilution, but I feel more like myself than ever. There's also a bit more of myself in me than there used to be, but that will resolve itself in another seven months or so." She smiled dreamily.

Hermione blinked. "Oh. Oh! Um…congratulations! I mean, congratulations are in order, right? Or did you mean something else? I'm sorry, maybe I shouldn't—"

"You certainly should have," Luna said, her quiet voice somehow still forceful enough to break into Hermione's rambling. "And thank you. We're ever so excited. I'd have written home to everyone, but I wanted to tell them in person. You're the first person I've told in Britain besides Daddy."

"Thank you," Hermione said. "I won't tell Harry unless you want me to."

"It's alright." Luna twirled the two wands. "He and Sue already know."

"Wait, what?" Hermione asked. "You've seen them?"

Luna nodded. "I learnt of the earthquake on the 28th. We were deep in the temperate rainforest of Gribbell Island seeking the lost city of the spirit bears. They hide their civilization by pretending to be normal bears, you know."

Hermione most certainly did not know.

"Anyway, once we heard about what had happened," Luna continued, "my dear Rolf wanted to help, so I led us to Banda Aceh. Daddy told me about the magical community there once and I thought it would be a good opportunity to catch up with Harry."

"Wait, how did you know Harry would be there?" Hermione asked. 

"Harry is always where the situation is worst," Luna said in that same calm tone, as if stating a fundamental truth of the universe. "This time was different, though. Instead of just his usual wrackspurts, he had a whole flock of them." She paused and fixed her eyes on Hermione. "For the first time I can remember, Harry didn't want to be there."

Hermione nodded. "I know," she said. "I was there when he argued with Sue about going. Now, if you don't mind me asking, what are wrackspurts?"

"You don't understand," Luna said, the dreaminess in her voice falling away with each syllable. "He's always wanted to go before. That's where he thought he belonged. Now, he doesn't."

"Um…is that a good thing?" Hermione considered pressing the "wrackspurts" question, but Harry was a higher priority for her. 

"Good?" Luna smiled. "I would have danced with him right there if we hadn't been in the midst of the most horrific devastation I've ever seen. I asked why, but there were other British Aurors present besides Sue and I guess he didn't want to say. I think I understand now." She looked very seriously at Hermione. "Don't worry; your wrackspurts are all male and his were all female. I'm sure they'll pair off and fly away once he returns home."

Somehow, this discussion of whatever on Earth 'wrackspurts' were was making Hermione blush. "I hope so." Hermione thought that sounded like a good thing, and based on Luna's nod, it probably was. "How are he and Sue doing?"

"And so we come to the reason for my visit." The dreaminess in her voice turned sad, like a memory of Hermione's long-dead grandparents in a dream she knew she'd forget in the morning no matter how hard she tried. "They're dreadful, as is R…my husband. I convinced them to leave by tomorrow, took Rolf home and put him to bed, and hurried over here in the hopes I was right about Harry having someone waiting for him."

"Were they hurt?" Hermione asked. "Are they sick? I know a lot of sewer systems were breached, so I don't even want to think about what's in the water down there. And all of the debris might have—"

"They're fine physically," Luna said, "just exhausted. They…well, let me put it like this. Imagine you were on a sinking lifeboat and had time to create only one portkey to help up to five of the twenty people on that lifeboat escape. What would you dream of that night: the faces of the four people you took with you or the fifteen you didn't?"

"Oh, God," Hermione fell back against the sofa. "It's that bad?"

"Whole fishing villages are just gone," Luna said. "Just bits of wood and docks to remind you that families lived there. A few buildings survived in Banda Aceh, though getting hit by ships didn't help matters there."

"Wait, getting hit by ships?" Hermione asked.

"I don't think you understand," Luna said softly. "It's not a wave like what breaks along the shore at Brighton. First, the sea is sucked away, and then it comes back like a tide. It doesn't break; it just keeps coming like the ocean itself is rising to swallow the land. I met people in four-storey buildings who heard their coworkers drown one storey below."

Luna looked down at her lap for a moment, and tears glistened along her eyes when she looked back up. "I'd like to call the sea 'vengeful,' but the truly horrifying thing is that there's no intent at all. It just…happened. The sea ripped untold thousands out of their homes and then went back about its business like nothing was amiss. I think that's what shook me the most. I've dealt with Dark spells before, dangerous things I wish no one at all knew of, but at the heart of them all is the intent to maim or kill. The sea is empty of intent and still capable of slaughter beyond the wildest imaginings of Riddle himself."

Grey, glistening eyes fixed Hermione with a stare. "I will never give up my love of magical creatures and cryptozoology," she whispered, "but it will be many years before I can again face the sea."

Hermione's heart broke for the woman and she instinctively held out her arms. Before she could process how strange it was, Luna lunged over to hug her, dropping the two wands on the coffee table as she passed and planting herself in Hermione's lap.

After a few minutes, Luna spoke again, her voice muffled by Hermione's shoulder. "I thought it didn't hit me as hard," she said. "I've been trying to stay strong for Rolf, Harry, and Sue's sake. I guess it was there all along."

"It's OK." Hermione tried to ignore how far off the rails this interaction now was and focus on the grief-stricken blonde woman in her arms. "Thank you for helping Harry and Sue. I wish I could have gone, too."

"They're why I came," Luna said. "I got sidetracked when the horror of the last week caught up with me, but they're why I came here. Rolf is safely in bed now with a Calming Draught to help him sleep, but I can't take care of Harry and Sue, too. I…it's too much for me, and I'm starting to fear for the baby. Based on Harry's behaviour, I guessed that he'd have someone waiting for him or something here that would let me contact that person, so I came here to see if they could help. I'm so sorry, but can you ensure he and Sue rest and don't blame themselves?" She hung her head. "Merlin, I don't even know your name and I'm asking you to take care of two of my best friends. Is impending motherhood already making me selfish?"

"Harry would never forgive himself if anything happened to your baby because you were overexerting yourself on his account and you know it," Hermione said. "My name is Hermione Granger and I'll take care of Harry, and Nev will take care of Sue."

"I have no doubt you will, Hermione Granger," Luna said, "but I fear Sue will forcefully decline Nev's assistance and that poor boy isn't likely to press the issue."

"Then I will." A plan was already forming in Hermione's mind. "Take care of your husband and yourself, Luna. Don't worry about Harry and Sue."

Luna thought for a moment. "You give good hugs," she finally said. "Harry and Sue are two of the most important people in my world, but you give such good hugs that I have no doubt they'll be safe with you."

"Thank you," Hermione said. "I didn't…it's been a long time since I've had friends like this. They mean the world to me, too."

"I understand," Luna said, and snuggled further into Hermione's embrace. "Can you…teach me how you hug?" she whispered. "Daddy loves me, but he has trouble expressing it with normal things like hugs. This is the most sincerely I've been hugged since my mother died when I was nine and it's how I want my children to grow up being hugged. I've just…" her whisper fell away to almost nothing, "...forgotten how."

Hermione hugged her even tighter and tried not to cry. "My governess taught me," she said. "She never held anything back when she hugged me. For each of those moments, I felt like I was her whole world."

"Your…governess?" Luna asked, still whispering.

"Y…yes," Hermione managed to get out in a whisper of her own.

Luna's arms tightened around her ribcage and pulled her into a crushing hug of her own. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm so, so sorry."

"It's OK," Hermione whispered back.

"No, it's not," Luna said. "It wasn't then and it isn't now. Never forget, though, that you didn't let your parents snuff you out. You're the one who chose to take the embers of love your governess gave you and keep them lit your whole life, then shared them with others who needed that love, too. Those embers are going to keep my children warm for the rest of their lives if I have anything to say about it, and just like they will for your family."

"My…family." Hermione had gone from chronically single to hopelessly in love so quickly she hadn't stopped to think of that phrase. It sounded huge and impossible, yet inevitable.

Her stomach started to knot up. 

"Yes," Luna said firmly, as if hearing Hermione's thoughts. "My mother…not long before she died, I asked my mother what the most amazing spell she'd ever created was. She hugged me, just like you did, and said it was me." She looked down toward her stomach. "I understand now. I promise you will, too."

Hermione shook her head. "I…I don't know any—"

"Hush." Luna looked up and put one finger over Hermione's lips. "You know how to give a proper hug. That's the most important thing. You'll figure everything else out."

"But it's just a hug!" 

Luna smiled sadly. "You know that's not true."

"You're…" Hermione hugged her tightly again. "You're right. Thank you. Thank you so much."

"No, Hermione Granger. Thank you." Luna hugged her back before gently rising up from her lap. "I should get home now. I'm exhausted from travel and I'm not sure when Rolf might wake, but I'm ever so curious about who you are. Is there a short answer?"

Hermione shook her head. "I only wish."

"I understand," Luna said. "Could I come over for lunch in a week or two? I'd like to learn more and I'll bring my notepad."

"Notepad?" Hermione arched her eyebrows.

"My father publishes The Quibbler," Luna said. "It's the number two paper in magical Britain. If you're who I think you are, everyone is going to want your story when you're ready to tell it."

"I'm not sure I'll ever be ready," Hermione said.

"Then someone else will tell it for you," Luna responded. "The Daily Prophet won't hesitate to make stories up to meet public demand and our libel laws are such weak tea that it might take you years to recover a pittance if you sued them. The only way to beat them is to establish your own narrative first."

"If I don't pass my O.W.L.s, it's not going to matter what they say," Hermione said.

"I was wondering what you were studying," Luna said. "Well, then, I'll just have to help you. Do you need any tutoring?"

"I would love more help," Hermione said. "I already have weekly sessions with Professors Flitwick, Tonks, and McGonagall, as well as Remus and Nev, but my Transfiguration isn't what it needs to be and I find that harder to practise without a teacher's help."

"Then I'll help you in Transfiguration," Luna said. "I didn't have that much planned for after we returned home, in part because I hoped I'd be a little further along by now, so all I really need to do is help out around the house and write articles for Daddy about our expedition."

"Thank you," Hermione said. "That you would want to write about me feels unreal, but you're not the first person to tell me I'm likely to be famous or dead by next winter. At least I know you'll write the article properly."

"Dead?" Luna raised her eyebrows. "We're going to need to do a whole series on you, aren't we?"

"Lovely." Hermione sighed. "I'm going to be the star of my very own serial."

Luna nodded. "You get the most interesting fan mail from those, too. Why, just last year while we were doing a serial on Daddy's hunt for the Mongolian Death Worm we had two separate readers write Daddy to ask him whether he survived being trapped in the lost Tomb of Temujin by a man-eating tribe of Almas."

 Temujin? That name sounded familiar, but there was a more pressing issue with that statement. "You mean they wrote to your father to ask him if he was still alive?" Hermione asked.

"Yes," Luna said. "I suggested he respond 'no' just to see how they would react, but he doesn't like to lie to his readers, no matter how obvious."

Hermione giggled. "If they were silly enough to inquire like that, they might not have found it quite so obvious."

"That's fair." Luna picked up her wand. "I should be off now, but I'll owl you about coming over. Good luck with Harry, Nev, and Sue."

"Thank you." Hermione rose and retrieved her wand as she spoke. "Good luck with Rolf…and yourself."

"Thank you," Luna said. 

As the other woman turned to take a pinch of floo powder, Hermione suddenly realised what was bothering her. "Wait!"

Luna turned back to her and arched her eyebrows.

"Temujin…your father found the lost tomb of the man most of us know as Genghis Khan?" Hermione asked.

"Yes, but he preferred Temujin," Luna said. "Daddy said his ghost told him the whole Chinggis thing was more of a legend his sons built up around him to solidify their empire."

"That's…that's amazing! It would be the archaeological find of the century!" Hermione said. "Has he told the British Museum where it is?"

"Absolutely not," Luna said. "Daddy said Temujin was quite put out at how his descendents fell to infighting and doesn't want to see any of them again until they get their act together. After he saved him from that pack of almas, Daddy says he owes him one."

Hermione just stood there. 

"Don't worry," Luna said. "I'm sure they'll earn Temujin's respect back in a few centuries and he'll drop the Notice-Me-Not Charm he had placed over the tomb."

Hermione could only nod.

 Luna waved and disappeared into the floo. After she left, Hermione stood there for a few more minutes before shaking herself out of her stupor and picking up a piece of parchment and a quill.

"Dear Sue," she wrote, "I just met Luna. You were right about everything. Fondly, Hermione"

She put the parchment and an owl treat in the postbox outside the back window to wait for the nightly post owl, then poured herself a half-shot of leftover tequila from Halloween. 

"To you, Temujin, wherever you are," Hermione said, and drained the glass. It burned going down and made her head spin a bit, but she couldn't deny she felt a little more capable of facing the rest of the day afterward. She had some planning to do.

Augusta Longbottom was probably not going to like that plan, but both Hermione and her tequila agreed the Dowager Lady could go fuck herself. Hermione had friends to help.

Chapter Text

Harry staggered out of the floo into Hermione's waiting embrace. He thought about asking how she could possibly have known when he'd arrive but decided he simply didn't care. He just stood there, held her, and tried to focus on her breaths, her skin, her presence.

Her sobbing.

"Dobby told me he felt you back in Britain," Hermione said between sobs. "I've been waiting on the chesterfield here ever since."

"You didn't have to," he said, "and now you're all sooty."

"Of course I did," she replied, her tone gradually firming up as he held her. Without looking, she raised her wand and Scourgify'd each of them in turn. "Now sit down and let me hold you."

He dropped his backpack on the floor and allowed himself to be led over to the chesterfield. As soon as he took a seat, Hermione curled up in his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck. "Luna told me it was awful," she said. "How are you holding up?"

"Wait…Luna?" Harry asked. 

"She floo'd the house yesterday, guessed the password, tricked and disarmed me, curled up in my lap while she tried to process the horrors you all saw, told me her father found the lost tomb of Genghis Khan while hiding from a tribe of Russian sasquatch, and left," Hermione said. 

Harry sat there for a moment.

"Um…Harry?"

"I'm sorry," he said, "but I can't process all of that right now. I made it up to the part about curling up in your lap after disarming you and my brain gave up. Can you tell me that story again in a few days?"

"Of course I can," Hermione said. "I had to have a shot of tequila afterward."

"You drank?" Harry asked.

"It was necessary," she said. "I'll explain why when you're ready."

"Thank you," Harry said. "I just…can't right now. It's too much." He shook his head. "Can you get me some of that tequila?"

"Please don't," Hermione said.

"I don't want to remember this," Harry said. "I didn't sleep well before, and it's now so bad that I've needed Sue to put Silencing Charms on my bed for the last week."

"If you want tequila, you know I can't stop you," Hermione said. "I'm begging you not to, though. That won't really help you. It just deadens the pain for awhile and you end up needing more and more until it kills you."

"I just need a break," Harry said. "I need sleep, but I can't face my dreams. Sue and I have been casting Cheering Charms on each other to get to sleep, but they wear off after half an hour or so."

"You can do this without alcohol," Hermione told him. "You've done it before. How did you deal with the basilisk incident or the wendigo incident? Did the school have a counsellor to speak with?"

"You mean a solicitor?" Harry asked. "I didn't want to sue Hogwarts. I loved it there—most of the time—and besides, they needed as much money for their security budget as they could get."

Hermione took a deep breath. "You once told me the Wizarding World is one to two hundred years behind the rest of the world in a lot of ways, right?"

"Yes."

"So it hasn't caught up to mental health professionals, has it?" Hermione asked resignedly. 

"What are those?" Harry said.

Hermione sighed and hugged him tighter. "I should have guessed, shouldn't I? Of course you would have a stack of traumatic incidents thick enough to write a whole series of books about and nobody at any point would suggest you see someone to talk through all of that trauma. No, that would be too simple. I'm surprised wizards even have vaccines."

"It's only been a few decades," Harry said. "My father's parents died of Dragon Pox not long after my parents got married. The vaccine wasn't developed until the early Seventies and they were too stubborn to get it. Apparently my Mum got into a huge fight with them about it and wasn't able to convince them."

"I'm sorry," Hermione said. "The stupidity of this world astounds me even more than the magic sometimes."

"I mean, they give eleven-year-olds deadly weapons and teach them how to make potions that can be explosive or poisonous if the instructions aren't followed exactly," Harry said. "And eleven-year-olds are notorious the world over for their ability to follow complex instructions and control their tempers. It's a wonder any of us even survived to adulthood." He paused and shook his head. "Merlin, Hermione, I've not been home ten minutes and you've already got me smiling a bit again. I've missed you so much."

"I missed you, too," she said. "I'm glad I can make you smile a bit, and I admit I've sometimes wondered how any of you survived to adulthood, too." She took a deep breath. "If you're willing, Harry, I planned out a schedule. How much time do you have off?"

"Of course you have a schedule." Harry chuckled a bit in spite of himself. 

"I'm sorry." Hermione's voice was smaller now. "If you're not up to it—"

"It's alright," Harry said. "I like the idea. A schedule is just so you, though. Anyway, I've got one compensatory off-day for each day I was deployed. I was thinking of taking some later, but nobody's in a position to kick up a fuss if I take them now. They're expecting us to take at least a few days off."

"Good," Hermione said. "It's getting late today, so let me just put you to bed and give you a bit of Dreamless Sleep potion for tonight only."

"You got Dreamless Sleep?" Harry asked. "Thank you. I thought about getting some on my way home, but you can't purchase it while glamoured, it takes awhile to do the paperwork, and I didn't want to deal with the public today."

"I thought you might need some," Hermione said, "so I got Nev to pick some up for you and Sue."

"I haven't even been gone that long and I've already forgotten how brilliant you are," Harry said. "Thank you."

"Oh, Harry, it was nothing," Hermione said. "Anyway, I thought you could take some potion tonight to get you to bed, then over the next week you'll tell me about your time there day by day. Don't hold anything back. We'll start with one day per day, no more, and work up if you seem to be up to it."

"I'd rather not," Harry said. "I can't…you don't deserve to have to learn about what I saw. No one does."

"Of course I do," Hermione said. "I'm going to learn about them because you were involved. That's all the reason I need. I'm going to learn about them and we're going to hold each other and cry and face whatever nightmares come together, because you'd never let me face something like that alone and I won't let you do it, either."

Harry hugged her even tighter and wondered, as she hugged him back, if this was what love felt like.

Hermione listened to Harry's breathing become gradually slower and deeper for a full five minutes before rising from the bed. She shut the door behind her as she left the room and made her way all the way down to the floo room before summoning Dobby.

"Yes, Mistress My-knee?" Dobby asked as soon as he popped up. "How can Dobby help you and the Great Wizard Harry Potter?"

She smiled at his enthusiasm…and her own forethought in summoning him two floors below where Harry was sleeping. "Dobby, I have to go out for a bit to help Sue. Will you watch over Harry, silently and invisibly, and come to me immediately if he awakens? I want to be there for him, but Sue needs me, too."

"Of course!" The elf bounced from one foot to another, excited to have a task. "Dobby will be best sneaky watcher ever for Master and Mistress!"

"I know you will, Dobby. Thank you," Hermione said, and gave him a quick hug. He teared up a little, nodded, and popped away. 

Hermione took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and threw a bit of floo powder into the fire. As soon as the flames turned green, she leaned in and said, "Longbottom Manor."

A few disorienting moments later found her staring out from the Longbottom Manor floo. Nev was sitting next to it on an armchair, with a book on a small table next to it. 

"Good evening," she said. "Did you have any luck?"

He shook his head. "Not a bit. I told you this wouldn't work."

"Then it's my turn," Hermione said firmly. "Be ready to let us through in a few minutes."

"No force on Earth can make Sue do something she doesn't want to do," Nev said, "not even you."

Hermione smirked at him. "I know," she said, and leaned back to cut the floo connection.

She took another pinch of floo powder, tossed it into the flames, and said, "Bones Hall."

This time there was no one awaiting her in the floo room. Hermione had expected to wait, though, and settled in. 

A few minutes later, Sue wandered into the room dressed in a loose robe she recognized as the sort of thing witches wore around the house. "What is it?" she asked, slurring the words a bit. "The damn bell kept going off. How long have you been there?"

"Several minutes," Hermione said. "May I come through?"

"I'm not really in the mood for company," Sue said. "Most people leave after the first minute or so, you know. It's considered rude to stay in the floo like that." She paused. "Was that not subtle enough or too subtle? I feel like I'm erring here, but I'm not sure in which direction."

"It was just right," Hermione said. "May I come through anyway? I want to make sure you're OK."

"I'm fine," Sue said. "Just peachy. I don't need you hovering around me like you do Harry. Wait, that probably came out mean. Don't stop hovering around Harry. That poor boy could use some hovering. Morgana knows I and everyone else in his life are shite at that sort of thing." She smiled hopefully. "Still friends?"

"Of course we are." Hermione hated taking advantage of a drunk person, but needs must. "Let's hug it out, as muggles say."

"Great idea!" Sue said, and enthusiastically tapped a rune with her finger. Hermione tumbled through the floo and ended up flat on her face, but managed to get herself back to her feet despite Sue's "help" and gave her poor hostess the hug she'd promised. 

"You give the besssssttt hugs!" Sue said as Hermione released her. "Did anyone ever tell you that?"

"Luna mentioned something to that effect," Hermione replied.

"Oh, right, I got your note." Sue laughed, a jittery sound that turned genuine after a moment. "We were so happy to see her in Banda Aceh. I swear I don't know how she held it together, but I think she kept us from going mad with grief. It got to the point where I couldn't vanish any more children's toys that washed back onto the beach, even though I…I knew they wouldn't be needed again."

Sue's countenance faltered and she drew her wand. "Time for another—"

"Wait!" Hermione pulled Sue into another hug to forestall the Cheering Charm. "Luna asked me to check in on you, you know. That's why she broke into Harry's house."

"She did what?" Sue asked, thoroughly distracted by both the hug and the statement.

"Guessed Harry's password and interrupted one of my study sessions," Hermione said. "I have no idea how she did that and I'm afraid to ask."

The other girl bopped Hermione gently on the head with her wand. "Ooooh, you are a clever one, aren't you?" Sue said. "Very smart, not asking, because if you ask her, she'll answer you and you'll usually wish she hadn't."

"Kind of like Sirius," Hermione said without thinking.

Sue stared at her for a moment before bursting out laughing. "Oh, Morgana," Sue said after thirty solid seconds of laughter, "please let me be there when you tell Sirius you said that."

"I will," Hermione said. "In fact, are you busy tonight?"

"No, not at all," Sue said. "Auntie generally eats dinner at the office and works late."

"Perfect," Hermione said. She took Sue's arm and headed out of the room. "Let's get you packed."

"Wait, what?" Sue asked, but she didn't fight the tug on her arm.

"You'll run out of clothes otherwise," Hermione said. "Now, let's go."

"But I live here!" Sue said, finally refusing to move after they'd gotten about ten feet down the hallway.

"That doesn't mean you need to sleep here," Hermione said. "We're just going to get you some clothes and you'll sleep elsewhere for a bit."

"Why would I want to do that?" Sue asked. "I like it here."

"No, you don't," Hermione said. "Not right now. You hate it. You hate the silence and what you hear in it, and you're fighting it off with everything you have and it's not enough because nothing will ever be enough."

Sue stared at her. "How…how did you know?"

"What do you think I've been doing for the last few days?" Hermione asked. "No one deserves that. Now come on. Let's get you packed."

"I'm so sorry," Sue said. "I feel awful about calling Harry away from you."

"It's not your fault," Hermione said. "You and he both had a job to do. Your duty is done, though, and now it's our turn to help you."

"I don't need help," Sue said.

"Bollocks." Hermione ignored Sue's surprise at her language and soldiered on, hauling the woman toward her bedroom as she spoke. "No one could come through that unscathed, including you. You need to accept help now or you'll have to accept it later after we flush potions and alcohol out of the drunken wreck of your body."

"I don't need to do anything." A touch of petulance crept into Sue's voice.

"This isn't about you," Hermione said. "It's about how Harry's never going to forgive himself if anything happens to you while he's too emotionally exhausted to help you himself. It's about how I don't want to watch my best female friend in years fall apart and not be able to help her. It's about how, if you manage to hurt yourself like this, Nev's heart is going to fucking shatter."

Sue froze.

"Don't do this to him, please," Hermione said. Bathilda Bagshot, eat your heart out. This was manipulation. "Let him help you."

"I…no, I can't," Sue said. "Not like this."

"Nev won't care," Hermione said as she opened the door to Sue's bedroom. "He's worried about you."

"No, not like that," Sue said. "I can't see him when I'm like this. I'm…not strong enough."

"He would never take advantage of you!" Hermione said.

"I meant the opposite," Sue said. "I would proposition him, he'd turn me down, and I'd end up even more miserable."

Hermione arched her eyebrows. "You do realise the only reason he'd turn you down is because he's too much of a gentleman to touch you when you're in this condition, right? He's got it bad for you."

"But he…how do you know?" Sue asked. 

"I've listened to him talk about you," Hermione said. "Trust me."

Sue sat down heavily onto her bed. "Are you sure? He's one of my best friends. He might just be a good friend."

"He's a good friend to Harry," Hermione said. "You, on the other hand, are the most important person in his world."

"If I choose, am I leaving Harry out in the cold?" Sue asked. "I…I did that once, and I've never forgiven myself. I don't ever want to do it again."

"You can still be friends with Harry after you're m…with Nev," Hermione said.

Sue stiffened at Hermione's slip of the tongue. "That's how this ends, isn't it? If I let myself fall for him, we're never going to stop falling." She fixed a forlorn gaze on Hermione. "I'm…scared. There's no going back from this."

Hermione took a deep breath before answering. "Harry told me once that he expected making a home with a woman and losing his heart to her would be big steps, but when it happened, it felt totally natural, like he couldn't imagine it any other way. I think it'll be that way for you, too."

"Oh, that ridiculous, wonderful boy." Sue's eyes were tearing up. "I hope you know what you have, Hermione, and that you take the best damn care of it you possibly can."

"I do, I promise you," Hermione said. "I remember what you've told me about becoming the witch he deserves and I've not stopped trying for even a minute."

"Good." Sue shivered. "Morgana, I'm scared now. Why am I scared? It's just Nev."

"You're thinking too much about the future," Hermione said. "Just focus on the present…no, scratch that, the present is awful. Focus on the next week. We're going to get you through the next week and then you can think about the future."

"I'll try." Sue drew her wand. As she waved it, clothes flew from her drawer and piled themselves on her bed. "There we go. That should be enough. I'm not really in the mood to bring any of my more interesting undergarments."

"That's completely understandable," Hermione said. "You can always ask Spriggy to go get them for you if you decide you need them."

"Ask Spriggy?" Sue's jaw dropped. "But then he'll know…I mean, that I want…"

Hermione shrugged. "They seem to be around all the time, anyway, and I'm sure they've seen it all before. Dobby was downright excited when I asked him to leave us alone for awhile."

"Oh, Morgana!" Sue stood up from the bed and hugged Hermione. "You poor dear. I just realised what it must have been like to have that little lunatic hovering around while you were trying to work up the nerve to finally shag Harry."

"It wasn't as bad as you'd think," Hermione said. "He seemed to realise what I wanted to do and was quite accommodating when I asked him for privacy."

"I'm glad," Sue said. "That gives me some hope." She sighed. "I guess I don't have any more excuses, do I?"

Hermione shook her head.

"Alright, then." Sue pulled out a briefcase and, before Hermione could ask how she intended to fit all of the clothes into it, began to throw them in.The bottom of the suitcase appeared to be simple white cloth, at least until the first blouse hit it. At that point, the white cloth opened in the centre and sucked it in with a sound reminiscent of a vacuum turning on for just a second. Each additional piece of clothing went in the same way, with the smaller items making less noise. Toward the end of the pile, Sue paused and said, "Wait, no, that was a summer skirt." She reached her arm into the four-inch-wide suitcase all the way up to the shoulder, fished around, and pulled a skirt back out.

"How on Earth did it know which skirt you wanted?" Hermione asked.

"All magic is about intent," Sue said. "I pictured the skirt I wanted, stuck my arm in, and it gave it to me. I just had to be careful not to picture anything I was wearing at the time or it would have sucked it right off of me."

"That sounds fantastic and mildly disturbing," Hermione said, "which pretty much describes all of the best Wizarding inventions." 

Sue laughed, a sound partially genuine and partially boosted by the remnants of her Cheering Charm. "That's a good way to put it."

Once Sue packed the last few items, she closed the still apparently-empty briefcase and hefted it easily. 

"How?" was all Hermione could say.

Sue smiled. "Magic."

"I could make a portable library with that," Hermione said reverently.

"Hermione?"

"Yes?"

"Never change." Sue shot a now-blushing Hermione a grin and led them back downstairs. Once they reached the floo, Hermione hugged Sue one last time and took a pinch of floo powder. "I'd best get back to Harry," she said. "It'll be OK. I promise."

"Thank you," Sue said. "Now go home to your wizard."

Hermione smirked at her. "Only because you're going home to yours," she said. Before Sue could respond (probably with a Stinging Hex), Hermione tossed the powder into the floo, shouted "Harry Potter's House," and dove in.

"Annoying witch," Sue huffed as the flames turned back from green to red. She took a pinch of powder herself, tossed it in, and said, "Longbottom Manor."

Nev's astonished face greeted Sue as she stepped out of the flames on his end of the floo. She had the sudden horrible concern that Hermione might not have told him she'd be coming, but before she could say anything, he spoke up.

"Hermione," Nev said, "is going to be positively unbearable about this."

"Tell me about it." Sue focused on the floor in front of her and hoped she wasn't blushing. "So you don't mind if I stay here for a bit?"

"Mind?" Nev rose to his feet and took her briefcase. "I insist. I spoke with Hermione about this at length despite my protestations that you would never actually take me up on it. I won't have you anywhere else."

He was close enough to her to embrace, so she did. "Thank you," she said. "I'll silence my room."

"Don't," Nev said. "I want to know when you need me."

"Harry and I have only managed to sleep these past two nights by hitting each other with Cheering Charms every hour or so. I don't want to put you through that." She didn't release the embrace, though.

"I don't care," Nev said. "I'll sleep in an armchair in your room if that's what you need."

Sue laughed in spite of herself. "Nev, you're a wizard. You can transfigure it into another bed."

"It's…um…the principle of the thing," Nev said.

"You don't need—"

"Ahem," came a sound from out in the hall and the two of them sprang apart as if caught doing something naughty. Sue wasn't even sure why she felt like they were being naughty, but somehow the simple throat-clearing seemed to impute naughtiness upon all listeners. 

Sue sighed and turned to face the only person who could possibly have made that sound. "Good evening, Dowager Longbottom."

"Good evening, Lady Bones," Augusta said. "Isn't it late for a visit?"

"Sue has had a difficult time assisting with disaster recovery and will be our guest for at least the next week," Nev said. "I apologise for not letting you know sooner, but this only just came up."

Sue suspected Nev's scepticism of Hermione's ability to convince her to go also played into that delay. "And I apologise for any inconvenience," Sue added. "I appreciate Nev…er…Neville's hospitality."

"What?" Augusta's eyebrows shot up. "Where's your aunt, dear?"

"At the ministry, working late as usual," Sue said. "Why do you ask?"

Augusta ignored her and addressed her grandson. "Neville, you can't have a young lady stay over without her parent or guardian to chaperone. This is highly inappropriate."

"Sue shouldn't be alone right now," Nev said. "I've offered her a place to stay and I'm going to take care of her until she's well enough to be alone again."

"She looks well enough to me," Augusta said, "at least, as well as a woman who works full-time can after a shift, I suppose."

Sue did her best not to roll her eyes, glare, commit felony assault, or do anything else that would make Nev's life worse for the rest of the month. 

Nev took a deep breath. "Gran, Sue's my friend. I can't just send her home."

"You can and you will," Augusta said. "She's Amelia's responsibility, not yours. If I let her stay here and someone found out, it could doom her marriage prospects."

"Marriage prospects?" Sue couldn't help but laugh. It probably came out higher-pitched and more desperate than she'd like, but she was past caring at that point. "I just spent the last week using advanced forensic magic to determine that eighty percent of the magicals in Banda Aceh are dead. You try telling two parents who managed to Bubble-Head themselves and their baby daughter that their three children at primary school are never coming home and see if you can still be arsed to care about your marriage prospects."

Augusta set her lips into a thin line. "I think it's best if you go home now, Susan. I'll be discussing this with Amelia tomorrow."

Sue turned to the floo and stopped when Nev caught her right hand in his left. 

"Gran," Nev said calmly, "Sue is going to be our guest as long as she needs to be. Please help me make her feel comfortable."

"Nonsense!" Augusta said. "Neville, you need to ask your friend to leave or I'm going to do it for you."

"I'll go," Sue said. Nev neither responded nor even looked at her, but his grip on her wrist tightened.

"She's not going anywhere," Nev said. "She. Is. My. Guest."

"Very well." Augusta drew herself up and turned to Sue. "Susan, please remove your—"

"Silence!" Nev roared. "Spriggy!"

The house elf popped up next to him, took one look between Nev and Augusta, and flattened his ears to his head while crouching down. "Master called Spriggy?" he said.

"Neville, what—" was as far as Augusta got before Nev rode her down.

"Spriggy," Nev spoke so loudly he was practically shouting, "my grandmother has forgotten what friendship means. Please move her clothes and toiletries to the guest house, followed by her person. Obey no commands from her. You may come to me if she requests food and I'll approve it."

Augusta's jaw dropped.

"Is Master sure about that?" Spriggy asked. "Spriggy would rather n—"

"Do it." Nev's tone was cold enough to freeze the floo fire solid. "Do it or I'm going to do it myself and I don't trust my control right now."

"How dare you?" Augusta finally said. "Spriggy, don't listen—" she stopped when the elf disappeared, presumably to carry out his orders.

Nev responded by holding up his right hand, fist clenched and a lord's ring visible on his ring finger. "The Lord Longbottom doesn't 'dare,' Dowager. He does. Let me know when you understand what my friends mean to me and we can talk about your living arrangements."

Augusta opened her mouth to respond and popped away. Nev stared at the empty space for a moment before saying, "I need to grow something nice for Spriggy. His timing is amazing."

Sue stared at him in shock.

Nev turned to her. "Can I help…what's wrong?"

"You…you told off your grandmother and threw her out of the house!"

He nodded. "That's been a long time coming, I suppose. I didn't want this to happen, but maybe if I'd asserted myself more before she wouldn't have pushed so far tonight."

"I didn't want to get you in trouble like this," Sue said. "I'm so sorry."

"You have nothing to be sorry about," Nev said. "Not one thing. What's she going to do, be disappointed in me? She's been that for my entire life now and I've given up hoping for any changes on that front." He looked down at his feet. "I don't know where I'd have been without you and Harry. You two are the first ones who ever believed in me."

"Oh, Nev." Sue threw her free arm around his neck and hugged him, wondering in passing if Hermione was rubbing off on her. "You're an amazing wizard. I don't know why she ever doubted you."

"Probably because she had me use the wrong wand," Nev muttered as he hugged her back. "Anyway, don't pay any attention to Gran. You're welcome here as long as you want."

"Careful," Sue said as she released her embrace, "I'm a terrible cook, so I may linger if you're giving me free meals."

"That's a risk I'll have to take," Nev said drily. "Come on, I'll show you to your room. Once you've changed for bed, let me know if you want me to sleep in there with you or across the hall."

"The same room, please, if it's all the same to you." She hated how small her voice sounded in her ears. "I don't want to be alone."

"Then you won't be," Nev said, and she couldn't help but notice he didn't put an expiration date on that promise.

Amelia was just packing up her papers for the night when a screech outside of her office disrupted the after-hours quiet of the Ministry of Magic. Her wand was in her hand before she'd even processed that it was Augusta screaming her head off about something.

A quick wave of her wand flung open her office door—another instinct acquired during the Blood War. Unless the door happened to open in the direction of your off hand, manually opening a door while holding a wand at the ready could be awkward. Augusta was outside and demanding that Aurors Dawlish and Savage allow her in.

"It's fine," Amelia said. "What's my favourite colour, Gus?"

"Pink," she responded.

Amelia grinned. "Bollocks."

"There's no accounting for taste," Augusta said.

"It's her," Amelia said. "She can come in. We'll keep it quick, though, so you two can get home to your families." 

They nodded and allowed Augusta into the office. Amelia's Polyjuice/Imperius protocol didn't depend on questions as such. She expected made-up answers, called people on them, and used their response to gauge who they were. In these times of peace it was probably unnecessary, but Alastor would sneak in and hex her if he thought she was getting sloppy.

As soon as Augusta closed the door, she spun around and glared at Amelia. "Do you know," she said accusingly, "where your niece is right now?"

"At home, last I checked," Amelia said. "She said she was going to take the week off and try to recover. That assignment hit the whole team pretty hard."

"Your niece," Augusta said, ignoring the opportunity to sit down, "is shacked up at Longbottom Manor right now. She said she didn't want to be alone and Neville allowed her to stay at the Manor. I pointed out how inappropriate that would be without your presence and insisted she go home, and my Neville actually threw me out of the Manor! He had Spriggy move me out to the guest house. Can you believe his nerve and your own niece's behaviour?"

Amelia rubbed her temples and wished she'd left the office ten minutes earlier that night. "Let me get this straight," she said. "My niece showed up at your house in some mental distress, your grandson offered to take care of her, you tried to throw her out, and Neville threw you out, instead?"

"That sums it up nicely," Augusta said. "Would you try to talk some sense into her?"

"Gus? Do you know how I've told you in the past I value your counsel and your forthrightness? Would you allow me to return the favour?"

"Of course, Amy," Augusta said.

"Good," Amelia said. "Because all I have to say on this matter is that it's about damn time. Now go home and keep your nose out of their business or so help me I'll hold you responsible for every additional year I'm without a grandniece or nephew."

Augusta's jaw dropped. "But…you mean…how could you want one like that?"

"Because they're already in their mid-twenties and I will take what I can get," Amelia said. "If you're smart, you would, too."

"But…the scandal…"

"Gus, the Bones line has nearly been extinguished thrice now but for Harry Potter. At this point, I would much rather have scandals and babies than none of either." Amelia sighed. "Go home to your lovely guest house, have some sherry, and reconsider your damn priorities, woman. I'm going home to bed."

Augusta harrumphed and stormed out of the office, leaving Amelia alone with the beginnings of a headache and more of a hope for her family's future than she'd had in years.

"Morgana's saggy tits," Amelia thought. "In for a scandal, in for a headache."

Chapter Text

Harry's recovery wasn't quite what Hermione expected. After a slow start the next morning, he quickly fell back into their usual routine of cooking, cleaning, and studying. She found he was much more interested in helping her with her DADA or Charms work than he was in talking about his experience, but a little gentle questioning (or possibly nagging, based on the looks he gave her once or twice) eventually induced him to open up. 

The Dreamless Sleep Potion ensured Harry slept like the dead on his first night home, but the second night brought nightmares for them both. Neither ended up sleeping much, but Hermione did manage to leverage the content of Harry's nightmares as well as the endless silence of the night (well…silent for London, anyway) to draw some more memories out of her new-ish bedmate. Periodically one of Harry's memories would trigger the shadow of a recollection in Hermione, too, a grotesque looming just beyond the outskirts of her consciousness, but nothing came to her more concrete than vague feelings of terror and malevolence. 

The dawn found them both exhausted, and after a quick breakfast they decided to go back to bed to give sleep another try. This time, for whatever reason, they managed to get a solid hour and a half of sleep uninterrupted by nightmares before a honking delivery truck for the family three townhouses up the street dragged them from their slumber. 

They were still a little groggy after that, but the drizzle had slowed enough for them to take a nice walk along Regent's Canal. Harry kept an eye on the water as if it were a wild animal that could attack at any moment, but he seemed to feel confident enough in his ability to wrench apart and rearrange reality to his will to enjoy the walk with her.

When they got back to the house, they discovered Dobby had celebrated Harry's return to the country by setting up a three-course meal with all of his favourite foods. It would normally have been a little early for supper, but they'd accidentally skipped lunch and ended up tucking in immediately, pausing only to thank Dobby after each course. 

Afterward, Hermione offered to help clean, but Dobby resolutely refused and ordered them both upstairs to relax. As they climbed the stairs, Harry asked, "Do you suppose Dobby is trying to…um…encourage us to go make some babies for him to dote on?"

Hermione blushed a bright red. "The thought had crossed my mind. On the one hand, he's not usually so subtle. On the other hand, though, maybe he's so excited about that possibility that he's willing to try anything, even subtlety."

"Heh. For him, that's practically desperation." 

The two of them paused for a moment at the top of the basement stairs, their bodies halfway between walking toward the sitting room and continuing upstairs. 

"Harry?" Hermione's blush was incandescent by this point. "There's nothing else to do tonight…"

He looked down at the floor. "I…don't know if I can. For the first few days, you were all I could think of, but by the end I just felt dead inside."

"It's alright." Hermione threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly. "Don't worry. Just come to bed and let me hold you and we can do whatever you're up for, even if it's just sleep."

"Are you sure?" he asked. "You're going to be bored out of your mind going to bed this early."

She grinned and leaned up to whisper in his ear, "That's the idea, love."

Harry gave an involuntary shiver at her tone, then looked down in surprise. "I'll be damned," he said. "It does have a mind of its own."

Hermione started laughing so hard that she tripped on the first step and would have fallen had she not caught herself on the railing.

The two of them had a nice lie-in the next morning, though with somewhat less sleep than a normal lie-in might have entailed, and Harry spent the rest of the day talking about more of his experiences and helping Hermione with her Charms work. That evening, they went over to 12 Grimmauld Place so Harry could catch up with Sirius and Remus. Hermione had a hunch Sirius noticed something had changed between them, but the older man was unusually cautious about Harry's feelings that evening and didn't make any jokes. 

The next day, Hermione arranged for Harry to join her for her first luncheon at Bathilda Bagshot's house. The old woman was a lovely host and adroitly took Harry's mind off of his recent trip with stories of his father as a boy and his mother's frustration with being sidelined during her pregnancy. Harry had always known that Lily was one of the main potioneers of the Order of the Phoenix, but he hadn't realised her skill with Charms and especially Ancient Runes made her one of their better cursebreakers, too. After they finished eating, Harry sat in on an hour-long session of historical questions from Hermione, and Bathilda's detailed and vivid answers turned it into the first History of Magic lesson he ever stayed fully awake for.

That he got to stare at the way Hermione's eyes lit up when she learnt the answer to a difficult or obscure question probably had something to do with that, too.

Afterward, Harry took some time off just to relax and just sit around while Hermione made notes on her conversation with Bathilda and re-read the relevant sections of her textbooks. Luna came by that evening after dinner to check on him and ended up giving an impromptu lesson in basic "matchstick to worm" transfiguration to both of them. (That particular sub-field didn't come up much in Auror work, though they all had their go-to animals in case they needed temporary distractions in the field. Harry now preferred a mixture of howler monkeys and hyenas after having one too many cute dogs shredded by Dark curses. Even though he knew the dogs were really just pieces of wood or rocks, it was still disturbing.)

As Luna was grabbing some floo powder to head home, Harry spoke up to stop her. "Hey, I think I'd like a quiet day tomorrow, but it might be nice to get all of us together again and I promised Dobby he could make a huge dinner one of these days. What are you and Rolf doing the day after tomorrow?"

"We're free…" Luna trailed off and stared off into space.

"Are you al—" Hermione began, but stopped when Harry held up a hand.

"She's thinking," he mouthed.

After another ten seconds, Luna refocused on Harry and continued, "...but I think it's too early. Would next week be alright?"

"Sure," Harry said, "but why?"

"I'm worried Sue and Nev will slip into their old habits with each other if they meet up with us now," Luna said. "I'd like to give them a few more days to adjust before putting them back into our group."

Harry blinked. "Wait, what?" 

"Hermione didn't tell you?" Luna asked. "She convinced Sue to let Nev take care of her this week. I went to see them yesterday and the two of them are doing well. Sue was helping Nev in the greenhouses and she somehow kept forgetting to remind Nev to use magic to move heavy bags of dirt and fertiliser. I thought about saying something, since that poor man probably got so used to being unable to levitate them when he was younger that he's forgotten he can, but Sue's wrackspurts seemed to fly off when he carried them and I didn't want to lure them back." She paused. "I think the ones that flew off joined the flock over the guest house where they've stashed Augusta."

"What do you mean?" Hermione asked.

"Sue told me Augusta didn't approve of her staying over unchaperoned, so Nev threw his grandmother out," Luna said.

"Merlin's pants!" Harry said.

Luna nodded. "That was more or less my reaction, as well."

"Oh, dear," Hermione said. "I never meant to put a wedge between Nev and his grandmother."

Harry spun around. "Don't you dare apologise for this! She's had this coming for years. I have no idea how you catalysed this, but thank you."

"I convinced Sue to stay with Nev this week," Hermione said. "I knew his grandmother wouldn't like it, but I never thought it would go this far."

"Some people," Luna said, "think events 'spin out of control,' but that's not quite true. Events are never really in control in the first place. All you can do is try your best to see where they might go next, but you never know what you could never have known."

Hermione paused for a moment. "That's either incredibly insightful or a tautology," she said, "and I can't figure out which."

"Don't worry about it," Luna said. "I don't." She turned back to Harry. "Let's wait until Sue's ready to go home before we have that party, but it does sound lovely."

"OK," Harry said. "I'll owl you an invitation when we're ready."

"Thank you." Luna waved one last time to each of them and vanished into the floo.

As soon as she was gone, Hermione stalked downstairs, pulled the tequila out of the cupboard, poured herself half a shot, threw it back, and coughed violently. She held the bottle up to Harry (who'd followed her down) while she coughed, but he declined.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

"Better now," she said after a moment. "I know I can't drink every time I talk with her, but I really want to."

"I understand," Harry said. "We'll help you build up a tolerance."

She arched her eyebrows. "To Luna or tequila?"

"Yes," Harry said.

Six a.m. in mid-January in Britain might as well have been midnight for how dark it was when Sue knocked on the guest house door. A few stray, cold raindrops stung her face, whether harbingers of a storm or laggards from one she couldn't tell. 

Augusta opened the door a few minutes later wearing a housecoat and an expression that could kill small animals. "What brings you to my personal Elba?" she asked.

"Spriggy told me you were usually up and around by now," Sue said. "I think it's time we talked. Nev's doing some pre-dawn greenhouse work, so we won't be disturbed."

"Come in, then." Augusta stepped aside and gestured for Sue to enter. The guest house had a small sitting room downstairs, and Sue made her way there and sat down on an armchair. She had intentionally dressed in an older style than she normally did for meetings, with lovely crimson robes that stayed just on the acceptable side of the line between "everyday" and "formal."

Augusta sat across from her and fixed her with a glare. "Come to gloat, girl?"

"No." If hardened criminals couldn't break Sue's calm, Augusta wouldn't. "I came to ask if you knew why your grandson was Sorted to Gryffindor."

"Honestly, no." Augusta's glare faded away as her eyes widened a little in surprise. "I confess I don't understand why you would sneak over to discuss that."

"Because that's the core of the problem confronting the three of us," Sue said. "I need you to understand why he's a Gryffindor or we'll never have peace."

"Then you've a long morning ahead of you," Augusta said. "Minerva told me he was a hatstall, and I'd always assumed the Hat was taking pity on him and putting him in his father's House in the hopes it would put a spine in him."

Sue took a deep breath and consciously stilled the hand that twitched toward her wand. "No, Dowager. You have it exactly backwards. Neville couldn't imagine himself in Gryffindor until the Hat finally convinced him."

"Wait…the Hat fought him on it?" Augusta asked. 

"Yes, it did," Sue said. "I didn't realise why until I saw how he tried to 'protect' Ron from Sirius Black in our Third Year. He didn't even have a wand, but he didn't let that stop him."

Augusta glowered. "Fat lot of good he did in that incident."

"Dowager!" Sue's voice cracked like a whip and Augusta jerked backward a few inches. "I am an Auror. I know men with decades of experience who would have wet their pants at the thought of facing down a Black unarmed. Nev didn't hesitate."

"There's a line between bravery and foolishness," Augusta said, "and you lot have a history of treading across it."

"Yes, especially our Fifth Year," Sue said. "We made some damn foolish decisions that nearly got us all killed, but I want you to focus on what Neville did. The Wendigo put him under the Imperius and tried to make him torture me, but he wouldn't do it. His curses simply had no intent. It tortured him twice before giving up and switching to Harry."

"So?" Augusta asked.

"So Nev was willing to face the Cruciatus Curse, his biggest fear, instead of torturing me," Sue said. "That was and remains the second bravest thing I've ever seen."

"What good did it do, though?" Augusta asked. "Harry's the one who actually beat it."

"Bravery isn't just about winning!" Sue said. "By that metric, Frank was a failure for not protecting Alice better."

"Don't you dare mention my son!" Augusta said. "He faced down the worst of the Death Eaters for his family! What has my grandson ever done to compare with that?"

"Face down four dozen Dementors for a hundred Hogwarts students!" Sue shot back. 

"Humph," Augusta said. "Harry defeated those, too."

"That he did," Sue said. "And if not for your grandson, the death toll would have been in the dozens anyway. Harry was too late! Nev, Luna, Seamus and I had to hold them off ourselves for several minutes while Ron and the Twins were fighting off another dozen at Zonko's. We were overwhelmed, falling apart from Magical Exhaustion and the effects of the Dementors, and not once did Nev even consider leaving. He was on his knees and still managed a shield one last time to protect a Firstie from a Dementor. Death and despair were literally staring your grandson in the face and he spit right back at them. That's the bravest thing I've ever seen, Dowager, and why the Hat was dead right about his Sorting."

"I'll allow that's quite impressive," Augusta said. "I don't see what this has to do with me, though."

Sue prayed to Morgana for strength and soldiered on. "Because I needed you to accept that your grandson is genuinely brave before we got to the next part. He loves you and your absence is hurting him, but he will never, ever let you hurt his friends or convince him to hurt his friends. He underwent the Cruciatus for me because he wouldn't hurt me, for Morgana's sake! Why would you think he would give a dead flobberworm about scandal if he thought I needed help?"

"Because sometimes you have to think about the long-term repercussions of your decision for your family," Augusta said.

Sue snorted. "I've heard that line of reasoning in the Wizengamot before to justify why some of the older members don't want to step up and make difficult votes," she said. "Like I said, though, Nev is a Gryffindor. He's going to do the right thing every single time, face the consequences, and then do it again until he doesn't have anything left to give. You need to accept that, Dowager, or you need to stay out here."

"And let you take advantage of that nature?" Augusta asked. "I think not."

"I don't keep a ledger of my friendship with anyone." And that was it. Sue's patience had officially run out. This woman was going to bleed. "However, I have done one thing for Nev over the years that I would hope might weigh more than a little in my favour. I trust you're aware of how badly bullied he was for his first few years at Hogwarts?"

Augusta nodded.

"Well, there was one particular bully who really got under his skin," Sue said, her voice as calm as the eye of a hurricane. "This bully really knew how to get to him and convince him he was a worthless excuse for a wizard, but Harry and I refused to let that bully win. We spent years showing Nev the wonderful man and wizard he was inside and never gave an inch to that bully. Nev has grown so much and now he doesn't let them hurt him, and I think he's so strong now that he's even forgiven them."

"I've heard a lot of people talk about forgiveness over the years," Augusta said, "and all too often it was just the ones who couldn't fight back anyway."

Sue rose from her seat. "That bully underestimated Nev just like you're doing now, and do you know what he did to them?" She leaned over and shot Augusta the sort of grin that made some petty criminals immediately confess. "He evicted her from his house. Have a lovely day, Dowager." 

Before the older woman could put together even a single word in the face of that vicious grin, Sue spun around in an angry tornado of crimson robes and strode out of the guest house into the pre-dawn dark. 

Fortunately, Nev wasn't back by the time she returned to her room, so she transfigured the second bed back into a chair and settled in to read a copy of that Sakurai monograph whose publication Harry had just underwritten. Nev hadn't actually used that bed since the first night she stayed with him, but he'd left it in place out of what she assumed was principle while he slept in her bed and let her cuddle him. That didn't keep the nightmares entirely away, but they were less frequent now and waking up to Nev comforting her helped her get back to sleep.

He walked by her room a few minutes later, covered with splotches of mud and…Sue's eyes narrowed. 

"Neville Francis Longbottom!" She leapt from her chair, her wand flowing smoothly into her hand as she moved. "Is that blood?"

He jumped and gave her a sheepish grin. "Um…only a bit."

She stomped up to him. "Show me."

"The Snargaluff was in a bad mood this morning when I went to get a pod." Nev held out his arms, revealing long, thin, deep cuts running down the outside of his forearms. "I was going to put on some Murtlap Essence after I showered."

"I'll deal with it." Sue aimed her wand at his left arm and said, "Episkey," then did his right arm a moment later.

"Thanks!" Nev flexed his arms. "Good as new. I never did get the hang of that charm."

Sue shrugged. "It isn't easy, but it's important for all Aurors so we can fix minor injuries in the field."

"Well, thank you for fixing me," Nev said.

Sue nodded and the conversation lapsed into an awkward silence.

"I'll just…um…clean up," Nev said.

"And I'll…read," Sue said.

"Alright," Nev said. They nodded awkwardly to each other and hurried off.

By the time Nev finished and came out, Sue had run the next conversation through her head at least a score of different ways, and each one ended badly, awkwardly, stupidly, or some combination of the three. It still had to happen, though.

She waited until the shower had been off for awhile before rising from the once-and-current chair, and put her book down. Something Hermione had told her had been rattling around in her brain for a week now and she decided to see if there was anything to it. "Spriggy?" she called out. 

The dignified elf popped up right in front of her. "Can Spriggy help Miss Sue?" he asked. 

She nodded and went for it. "Is Lord Longbottom sufficiently dressed for a visitor right now?"

The elf disappeared and reappeared a few moments later. "He is sufficiently dressed for Miss Sue," he said.

"Thank you, Spriggy," she said. "That will be all."

"Miss Sue is welcome," Spriggy said, and vanished again.

Sue patted down her robes one last time, smoothing out any wrinkles from sitting, and made her way down the hall to the master bedroom. The door was closed, as she expected, and she took a deep breath and knocked.

Steps hurried to the door. "Is everything alright?" Nev asked as he opened it. He wore only dark grey trousers and an old, torn undershirt that concealed little of his chest or arms. Stubble covered about half of his face, so she'd probably caught him mid-shave.

"Everything is fine, really," Sue said. "That's what I wanted to talk to you about. May I come in?"

"Oh…um…sure." He motioned her in. "Please ignore the mess."

She looked around as she walked into the master bedroom. It was done in an old style, with heavy, dark wood dressers, an armoire, and an elegant (if possibly a bit overdone) four-poster bed. It was all spotless. Even the bed was made, and the only clothes laying about were some clean ones carefully placed on the bed.

"What mess?" Sue asked.

Nev spun around and sighed. "Spriggy?"

The elf popped up in front of him. "Spriggy cleaned young master's room while he was answering the door so he makes a good impression," the elf said. "Young master's clothes for the day are on the bed." Before Nev could respond, Spriggy disappeared again.

"He…um…doesn't usually do that," Nev said. "Um…thank you, I guess?"

The elf reappeared just long enough to say, "Young master is welcome."

Nev shrugged and looked over at Sue. "Just when you think you…Sue, are you blushing?"

"I'll explain later," she said, resolutely ignoring the implications of that interaction. Hermione had been more correct about the elves than Sue had thought. "Right now, though, I was hoping to discuss something with you."

"Oh! Alright, then." Nev rubbed his neck self-consciously. "Do you mind if I finish shaving while we talk? I feel a bit awkward right now."

"Of course not." Sue sat down on a free armchair as she spoke. "I'm the one who interrupted your daily routine, after all."

Nev waved that comment off as he went back to a large mirror near the bathroom and drew his wand. He pointed it at his neck, said, "Novacilum," and began carefully moving the tip over his neck. "What did you want to discuss?"

"Well, I've been here for a week," Sue began. "I'm feeling a lot better than when I arrived and pretty much all of that is down to you taking such good care of me."

"I'm just glad you feel so much better," Nev said.

"I really do," Sue said. "I think I'd be alright if I went home now."

"That's good." Nev was trying to sound happy about that, but he was a shite liar.

"That's what I wanted to discuss with you, actually," Sue said. Her mouth was going dry and her stomach felt like it had signed up for a gymnastics competition without inviting the rest of her body, but she pressed on. "I need you to understand that I'm capable of going home and being fine because I don't want you to feel obligated to let me stay when I ask you to let me stay anyway. Which…um…I'm doing. Right now."

Nev spun around to face her and yelped as his wand cut a bit deeper than he'd intended. "You…you want to stay?"

"Yes, I do," Sue said. "If it's not too much trouble."

"Trouble?" A few drops of blood pooled along Nev's neck as he spoke. "You haven't been any trouble at all. I've been happy to have you."

"It hasn't been too much of an imposition to sleep in my bed?" Sue asked. She was trying to tease him, but she had a bad feeling some of her nervousness crept out and turned that sentence into a genuine question.

"And miss what? This?" Nev gestured at his bed, the movement dislodging some blood drops that fell to his shirt. "That bed is big enough for four people, and even the "family" dining room seats a dozen, to say nothing of the formal dining room. This whole house is oversized for just me. Having you here makes it feel almost alive again."

"But what about…I'm sorry, I can't do this." Sue rose as she spoke and drew her wand again. "This is going to drive me crazy. Hold still."

"Oh, am I dripping?" Nev looked down at his shirt. "Oops."

"Yes," Sue said. "Now hold still." She strode over to him, took his chin in one hand, tipped his neck up a little, and said, "Episkey" again. "There we go."

"Thanks," Nev said sheepishly. 

"No problem," Sue said. As an afterthought, she waved her wand over his shirt and pulled the bloodstains out of it. "Anyway, what about your Gran?"

"Honestly, we didn't interact all that much," Nev said. "We had supper together, of course, but otherwise she's kind of like having a lodger. She would get up on her own schedule, have tea on her own, spend time in the conservatory or parlour, and I'd just sort of see her in passing. Since you've been here, though, we've had every meal together, you've helped out in the greenhouses every day except the first, and I've even practised duelling with you. You've been a part of my day, not just a shadow in my house. It's been grand."

Sue smiled to try to cover up her nervousness about her next question. "I'm glad. So…um…about sleeping arrangements?"

"You can sleep anywhere you'd like," Nev said. "Literally. I'll set up something on the roof if you want."

"Not bloody likely." Sue rolled her eyes. "Honestly, the only place I want to sleep is next to you."

Nev's eyes widened. "Really?"

"Really." Sue smiled. "Every morning when you wake up and see me, you have this look on your face like you can't believe you're not still dreaming. A girl can get used to being looked at like that." She paused and let her smile shift into a smirk. "And I'd be lying if I said I wasn't interested in how else I can get you to look at me."

"Looking at you is one of my favourite pastimes," Nev said, blushing. "I wouldn't say no to learning some new ways to do it."

"It's a date, then," Sue said. "Um…just so you know, I dropped by to see your Gran this morning."

"Oh, dear." Nev looked down at the ground. "How did that go?"

"Not as well as I'd have liked," Sue said. "I wanted to try to convince her to come back because I don't want to make you choose between us, but she started her usual shite about you and I wasn't in the mood to put up with it."

He sighed. "Thank you, but you really shouldn't have done that. I'm used to it by now and this will probably just make it worse."

"This can't go on," Sue said. "If you have any children, will you let her treat them like that?"

Nev's head snapped up almost as if she'd slapped him. "Of course not!"

"And will you let her talk to their father like that in front of them?" Sue pressed.

"Oh." Nev pursed his lips. "I see what you mean. You're right. This does have to stop, doesn't it?"

"Yes, it does," Sue said gently. "You've been terribly patient, but it has to stop."

Nev nodded. "It will, then. I should probably give her a day to calm down after your conversation, but I'll talk to her tomorrow."

"Good luck." Sue put her free hand on his arm. "I know how hard this is going to be for you."

"Thanks," he said. "I'm going to need it."

She laughed. "I feel like I'm sending you off to war."

"I feel like I'm going off to war," Nev said, smiling.

"Well, then." Sue trailed her left hand up his arm, brushing her little finger along it as she moved. He shivered briefly under her touch, then her hand was off his arm and resting on his cheek. "I think it's traditional to send men off to war with some…good memories, isn't it?"

"That…" Nev swallowed. "That's the tradition, alright."

"I thought so," Sue said, and casually, almost lazily, vanished his undershirt. "Far be it from me to ignore tradition."

Nev reached around her waist with his free hand and pulled her close. "I've always felt strongly about tradition," he said, his tone low and hungry.

Sue gently pulled his head down and whispered into his ear, "Show me."

He did.

Chapter Text

The grandfather clock in the sitting room was still striking 5:00 when Harry's floo turned green and a blonde witch came hurtling out of it and right into Harry's arms. "It's good to see you, Luna," he said as he lifted her up and put her on her feet.

"It's good to see you, too," Luna said. "I like coming over here much better when you're here to catch me."

Hermione, who was holding Harry's firewhiskey for him as well as a barely alcoholic limoncello cocktail of her own, frowned and looked thoughtfully at Luna. "That's a blow to Harry's theory about Purebloods having stronger inner ears, then," she said. 

"Not at all," Luna said as a broad-shouldered, swarthy man with short, curly hair stepped out of the floo. "I can travel nearly as well as Rolf here, but I much prefer spinning and tumbling around. It's like a muggle amusement park ride that takes me to see my friends."

Hermione blinked and took a sip of her cocktail. 

Rolf laughed and kissed Luna's forehead. "I've never heard the floo described like that before, but now I don't think I can think of it any other way." He shook Harry's hand and turned to Hermione. "I'm honoured to finally meet you in person, Miss Granger. Luna told me about your situation and your determination does you great credit. I understand that you're not going to try for an O.W.L. in Care for Magical Creatures, but if there's anything else I can do for you, please let me know."

"Thank you, Mr. Scamander," Hermione replied. "Please call me Hermione. Your wife has been a tremendous help since I met her and even Headmistress McGonagall commented on how much my Transfiguration has improved."

"Rolf, please," Rolf said. "And I'm not surprised. Luna is an exceptionally talented witch."

The floo flared green again and Nev stepped out. "Hello!" he said as he dusted himself off a bit before turning and offering a hand to Sue as she came through. 

"Thank you for inviting us," Sue said. "This is—"

Luna lunged at the larger woman and pulled her into a hug. "Oh, Sue, I'm so happy you listened to Hermione. I was worried about you." She reached out and pulled Nev into the hug, too. 

Sue and Nev hugged her back. "Thanks, Luna," Sue said. "Even if the two of you are going to be insufferable now, I still thank you."

"Insufferable?" Hermione asked.

Nev looked down at the floor. "Um…even though she's feeling a bit better now, Sue and I decided she would stay at Longbottom Manor indefinitely."

"I have no need to be insufferable about that," Hermione said, raising her nose into the air and speaking extra-poshly. "Should I be insufferable about predicting the sunrise tomorrow or that the twin inevitabilities of death and taxes will come for us all?"

"And she's modest, too," Harry deadpanned, and everyone burst out laughing.

Dobby popped up into the middle of the room, quieting the laughter. "Great Harry Potter sir's guests should be coming downstairs to the dining room now," he said. "First course is plated and ready."

"Thank you," Harry said.

"You's welcome." The elf rubbed his hands together excitedly. "Dobby is going to be exhausted tonight!" he said, and disappeared again.

Rolf scratched his head and stared at the empty space where Dobby had been. "I am deeply conflicted about this," he said.

"Welcome to my life." Hermione sighed and took another drink.

Luna put her hand on her husband's shoulder. "Isn't your grandfather the one who said we must be careful not to judge a pukwudgie by the standards of a goblin and vice versa? We shouldn't assume what we enjoy is what Dobby enjoys, or vice versa."

"That's a good point." Rolf put his hand over Luna's and shot her a fond smile.

"Thank you," Luna said. "Also, I'm too hungry to ponder such things in more detail. I can't wait for Dobby's ice cream later! He always makes it so creamy." She released Rolf's shoulder and flounced merrily toward the staircase to the ground floor.

Everyone stood there and stared at her for a moment…everyone except Hermione, who drained the rest of her cocktail in one gulp. 

Amelia stood back from the floo as Augusta stepped through. Even among Purebloods, Augusta was uncommonly good at flooing. "It's good to see you again, Gus," she said. "What brings you by this evening?"

"The need for alcohol and an adult with whom to speak," Augusta said. "You're well-provisioned on both counts."

"It's nice to be appreciated for my finer qualities," Amelia said drily. "Have a seat and I'll get you something. Firewhiskey?"

"No, thank you," Augusta said. "I'm too old for that sort of thing."

"Don't tell Susan, but I might be, too," Amelia said. "I keep it around mostly for her and her friends." She poured out another glass of red-gold liquid and passed it to her guest.

"Aberlour 18?" the older woman asked. "You're too good to me, Amy."

"Yes, I am." Amelia poured herself a glass and they wordlessly tapped them together before drinking. They no longer needed to say the names to which they toasted because it was always the same: Frank and Alice, Edgar and Constance. 

They sipped together in silence for a few minutes before Augusta spoke up again. "I've been spying on Neville and Susan," she said, the normal firmness gone from her voice.

"That's not like you." Amelia arched her eyebrows. "What did you do?"

Augusta stared into the fireplace. "I got lonely after a few days and wanted to see how my Neville was doing, so I Disillusioned myself and snuck down to the greenhouses when he normally works. Susan was there."

Amelia hit her with the same stare she used on criminals to try to make them confess. The older woman lasted only a few seconds.

"I kept watching them because I thought she'd treat him poorly and I could use that to prove to him that he was making a mistake." Augusta took another drink. 

Anger flashed across Amelia's mind at Augusta's assumption about her niece, but there was nothing triumphant or self-satisfied in the woman sitting there in front of the fire drinking. Susan needed no defence from or vengeance on Augusta; she had clearly handled that herself. For a moment, she missed the little girl who needed her help for everything, but Amelia's more realistic side knew she'd never been able to give that little girl everything she really needed. She'd never wanted to be a mother and didn't know what to do with a child. Children were Edgar's department. He loved them, they loved him, and he was gone and Susan was stuck with a replacement who never got the hang of it. 

Amelia took a long drink from her own glass and refocused on her guest. Fortunately, the older woman was still staring into the fire and didn't seem to have noticed her hostess spacing out, as well. 

"What," Amelia asked, "did you see instead?"

"Happiness," Augusta answered. "Susan helped Neville in the greenhouses and they just seemed to enjoy being around one another. The only time he got upset was when she got too close to the bubotuber plants. Every now and then, Susan would tell him a little more about what happened in Banda Aceh and he would just hold her for awhile, then they'd go back to work."

"I don't think I understand your concern," Amelia lied. She was pretty sure she understood it clearly, but she wanted to make sure Augusta did, too.

"I put my foot down," Augusta said, "Neville threw me out, and it turned out I was wrong and my baby boy is happier than ever. Why would he even want me back now? You were right, Amy. Are you happy? You were absolutely, one hundred percent right, and I'm a useless old fool."

Amelia took another long drink while she mulled over a response. Augusta drained her glass and stared at it like she blamed it for being empty.

"Well, Gus, let me turn that question back on you," Amelia said. "Why do you suppose your grandson might want you in his life?"

She looked morosely at the empty glass. "I thought I was pushing him to be better, but Susan told me I was just breaking his spirit. She and Harry did more to make him a man than I ever did."

Amelia was halfway through a sip of whisky and started coughing.

"Morgana's saggy tits, woman!" Augusta said. "I'm trying to have a serious conversation."

"I'm sorry," Amelia said once she got the whisky out of her lungs. "I think I spent too many years with dirty-minded Aurors…"

She paused, looked at her guest, and they simultaneously said, "Tonks," before Amelia continued, "so I think I'm permanently scarred. Anyway, you're just thinking about the problems. Start thinking about what you do bring to the table instead. You love Neville and he doesn't have a lot of that in the world. You successfully raised children and can help him do the same."

Augusta shook her head. "Susan told me I was Neville's worst bully during his Hogwarts years. I don't want to do that to any more children."

"Huh," Amelia said. "Worse than Draco?"

"Worse than Draco," Augusta replied.

"Damn."

"You're not helping, Amy."

"You want advice, then?" Amelia asked. "Stop trying to make him or anyone else better. Just love him as he is."

"Is it wrong to want him to be better, though?" Augusta asked. "Isn't that what every parent wants?"

"Yes," Amelia said, "and you mucked that up." She bulldozed right through Augusta's indignant reaction and continued, "He's a grown man now. You can either hound him right out of your life or accept that your watch is ended and transition into spoiling any grandchildren you might get rotten. It's up to you."

Augusta stared back into the fire. "I did muck it up, didn't I?"

"You really did," Amelia said. "Now, you keep making the same mistake, you can wallow in misery about it, or you can move on. It's up to you."

"Even if I want to move on, will he?" Augusta said.

"If you behave yourself, I think he will," Amelia replied. "He's one of the kindest people I know." She grinned. "If nothing else, he may eventually need babysitting help."

Even Augusta cracked a smile at that. "I see your point."

"Hey, Gus?" Amelia asked.

"Yes?"

"If you let Algernon touch any grandchildren of mine, no one will ever find either of your bodies," Amelia said in what she liked to think of as her "terrifyingly calm" voice.

Augusta sighed. "I understand. After all these years, I think I finally understand."

"Good," Amelia said. "Because this is your second chance. You won't get a third. Now go home and apologise to our children."

"I will," Augusta said. "I probably owe Harry's muggleborn chit an apology, too."

The words took a moment to penetrate the alcohol in Amelia's brain. "Wait, what?"

"Nothing," Augusta said quickly.

"There hasn't been a 'muggleborn chit' in this country in over ten years," Amelia said, "and Harry's dating life, or lack thereof at the moment, is literally a matter of public record regardless of how that poor boy feels about it. What are you talking about?"

"No one," Augusta said.

Amelia raised her eyebrows. 

"I gave them my word," Augusta said.

The Minister of Magic sighed. "This is eventually going to cause me a huge headache, isn't it?"

"Most certainly," Augusta said. "It's going to be worth it, though, in terms of who is going to have a much larger headache."

"That is some small comfort." Amelia sighed. "Why do these things always happen to Harry?"

"I have no idea," Augusta said, "but Neville assures me this is the happiest he's ever seen that boy."

"Well, that's good, at least." Amelia pondered the situation for a moment. "I won't ask you to betray any confidences, but what would you do in my position to prepare for what's going to happen when all of this blows up in our faces?"

Augusta stared at the fire for a moment. "Start preparing people for muggleborns to come back," she finally said. "I'm not sure how, because I'm not very good at that sort of thing, but I think that's the best thing you could do."

"Morgana's knickers! You mean they've found the missing ones?" Amelia asked.

"Not yet," Augusta said, "but I think they're closing in on them."

"I'll do my best," Amelia said. "Damn it, I'm probably going to go down in history for this. I just wanted to clean up the mess Bagnold and Fudge left us and retire quietly, not end up involved in something so huge it distracts me from fixing the rot that's set in all around us."

Augusta shrugged. "I don't think we get a choice about what history throws at us. For what it's worth, though, the girl might be able to help you fix some things eventually."

"How so?"

"Well, think about it like this," Augusta said. "What could Lily and James have done if he'd lived long enough to take up his duties as Lord Potter?"

Amelia arched her eyebrows. "The Wizengamot wouldn't have been ready for that pair."

"Then I guarantee you it's not ready for Harry and his young lady," Augusta said.

"This is definitely going to be a huge headache," Amelia said, "but at least it sounds like fun, too."

"It just might be," Augusta said as she rose from her chair. "I should probably get home. Amy…thank you."

Amelia waved it off. "It was a good excuse to drink some Scotch whisky," she said. "I have more of the good stuff than I have time to drink it these days."

"I appreciate it, regardless," Augusta said. "I bid you goodnight."

Amelia stared into the hearth long after the flames changed back from green to their normal colour, watching them dance and crackle along the logs that magically never burnt down. "I'm sorry, Edgar," she whispered to the fire. "She deserved so much better than me. I just hope she finally has it."

The fire didn't answer. It never did.

If Nev was being honest with himself, he was probably tipsier than he should have been to use the floo, but he still managed to come back out in Longbottom Manor more less upright and get into a position to offer Sue his arm…not that she needed it. 

"How do you do that?" he asked her. "You're so poised, but I know how much firewhisky you've had this evening."

"Practise, practise, and more practise," Sue said.

"And heredity," another voice added, and they both jumped a couple of inches into the air and came down reaching for their wands.

"I'm sorry to startle you," Augusta added, "but I thought Amelia and Edgar ought to get their due in that conversation. Either of them could outdrink all three of us combined."

"That's fair," Sue said. "I'm still a journeyman compared to Auntie."

Nev didn't say a word, instead fixing Augusta with a questioning glance.

The older woman sighed. "Listen, Susan, I…I don't understand you. I don't know how to talk to you or how to relate to what you've faced in your life. I'll try, though. More importantly, I'll support Neville and help him be there for you, because I think he's the one you really need."

Sue stood silent for a moment, processing this. "Well…thank you, Dowager. I'll keep that in mind."

"That's all I can ask," Augusta said. "Well, that and for you to call me 'Augusta.'"

"I will, thank you, Augusta," Susan said, slightly more firmly this time.

"Why?" Nev finally said. "I don't want you trying to 'subtly' drive her off like you were trying to do with Hermione."

"I'm sorry," Augusta said. "I'll apologise to Hermione for that, too. Anyway, what changed is that I saw how happy you were. I was wrong and I want to be a part of your life again."

Nev shook his head. "Honestly, Gran, I don't think I want you back in my life, not the way you've always been."

The older woman looked down at the floor. "After what Susan told me, I was worried you'd say that. I…I made a lot of mistakes when you were growing up, and tonight I realised you'd grown into a fine young man despite me, not because of me. I can't turn time back to fix those mistakes, but I can promise you that I'll try not to make them any more."

"You can't expect me to just forget and trust you now," Nev said.

"I'll wait," Augusta said. "You're the only thing that matters to me, Neville. I've been awful at showing it, but it's true. I'll wait as long as necessary to earn your trust back." She rose from her chair and stretched. "I was sitting too long again. I'll go back to the guest house now."

"Wait," Sue said. "You don't have to—"

"Yes, I do, dear," Augusta said. "I want you both to be able to enjoy your time alone until you go back to work. Let's talk again in a few days."

"Very well," Nev said. "Goodnight, Gran."

"Goodnight to both of you," she responded, and made her way out into the night.

Nev watched her leave. "I was ready for a fight," he said after she left. "I wanted us to scream at each other and I wanted to see her break like she tried to break me. Now she's broken and I just feel empty." 

"Maybe because that's not what you really wanted," Sue said. Nev shot her a questioning look and she continued, "Maybe all you really wanted was to know she'd still love you regardless of whether you were stupid or useless."

He looked down at the ground. "Harry was the first person who tried to be my friend. I remember that troll breaking into the bathroom and thinking how I'd always thought I'd die alone, just not that soon. Then Harry dragged Ron in and went all, well, Harry on it and the rest is history. He didn't care that I was useless. He just wanted to be my friend."

"I wish I'd been there for you, too," Sue said. "I feel like I failed both you and Harry those first couple of years."

"You can't have been expected to hang out with everyone in your year," Nev said. "Besides, I'll never forget how you came to check on me after Gran took me to get a new wand during Fifth Year. I had to go back to the Hospital Wing afterward, and when you came in and asked how the wand was working out, I did some spells to show you. Everything came so easily, and you grabbed me and gave me a huge hug and a kiss on my cheek."

Sue winced. "Yeah, enthusiastically hugging someone suffering from the aftereffects of Cruciatus exposure was not my finest decision."

"I disagree," Nev said. "Sure, it hurt like you were jamming little pins into my skin wherever you touched me, but I didn't even care. For the previous couple of years you'd been pushing me so hard to improve my spellwork, and when you hugged me you shouted 'I knew you could do it!' I think that's when I fell in love with you. You'd never stopped pushing me or doubted that I'd eventually be a skilled wizard and you were so excited that I'd finally proven you right. Even Harry didn't believe in me like that; I think he thought, like I did, that I wasn't a very good wizard, but he didn't think any less of me for it. You never stopped believing I could be a good wizard and, because of how hard you pushed me, when I finally got that wand I turned into one almost overnight."

"You…you love me?" Sue asked. 

He shot her a grin. "For nearly ten years now."

"You prat!" Sue smacked him in the arm. "You might have said something."

"I didn't think that's what you wanted," Nev said.

She sighed. "It wasn't. Hermione had to pretty much force me to confront how I felt. I was a coward."

"It's not like I was any bolder," Nev said. "Regardless, you're here now. That's all that matters."

"I suppose it is." Sue leaned into him. "We can't change the past and there's no guarantee we'll have a future. All that matters is what we do with each 'now' we get."

"When you put it like that…" Nev pulled her into his arms and kissed her. 

Since Harry had made party cleanup part of Dobby's gift, he and Hermione didn't have much to do after the last guest left around eleven o'clock. Hermione was still bouncing with nervous energy from the party, though, so he decided to take advantage of his recent gift. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done.

"Um…Hermione?" he asked. "How on Earth do I use this record player?" He put his hand up to his mouth to cover up a cough immediately after he spoke.

"Mr. Folkes explained it to me once," she said, rising from the chesterfield. "It's a little more complex than a normal record player. Was there a record you wanted to play?"

He nodded and handed her a Glen Miller record. "I thought it would be nice to dance to." 

"Oh, Harry, that sounds lovely," she said. "OK, so after you put the record in, you make sure you've got a fresh needle and that you've given the player a good cranking, then you flip the arm over so the needle touches the record to start the playback." She paused. "Is this a little quiet?"

"Just a bit," Harry said, and covered up another cough. 

"OK, I'll increase the volume." She opened a couple of small doors on the front of the cabinet right below the turntable and the sound came out much clearer and louder.

"Wait," Harry said, "you mean the speaker is in there?"

"It is," Hermione replied, "though I've no idea why they built it like that. I'm sure there was a good reason at the time."

"Fair enough." Harry shrugged, took a step back, and held out a hand. "May I have this dance?"

"You may," Hermione said as she took his hand. 

They swayed together in the middle of the room for a few minutes before the song wound down. Harry released a cough he'd been holding back for about twenty seconds, raised his eyebrows, and looked over at the machine. "Only one song on a side?"

"Unfortunately," Hermione said. "And we'll need to swap the needles for each new record. Why don't you try this time?"

"OK," Harry said. He selected "Hear My Song, Violetta," put in a new needle, and flipped the arm over. 

"Good work and good choice," Hermione said as he returned to her. "You've been coughing a lot tonight. Are you alright?"

He nodded and tried to clear his throat. "Dobby always makes his ice cream heavy on the cream and all that dairy gives me a lot of phlegm. Hem-hem." 

Hermione noticeably twitched when he cleared his throat.

"I'm sorry!" Harry said. "I hate having to do that because it sounds so much like the Umbitch…whom you've never met."

"It's perfectly alright," Hermione said. "You have every right to clear your throat. That's just a weird thing I've always hated." She paused. "Which is also weird because even though I remember always hating it, I'm pretty sure I've never actually hated that sound before. Those seem mutually exclusive."

Harry stared at her. "Of course. Of course she would be involved."

"What do you mean?" Hermione asked.

"No time," Harry said. "I don't want to lose this. Come on." 

He took her hand and led her across the rooms to the floo, ignoring the poor Victrola as it played the soft tones of Glen Miller's orchestra to what quickly turned into a vacant room.

As Harry helped Hermione up off the floor of 12 Grimmauld Place, he summoned Kreacher and stifled a smile at the parallels to her first visit to the old house. 

"Kreacher," he said, "please ask Sirius and Remus to come down as soon as possible. We've made a breakthrough with Hermione."

The old elf sighed. "Kreacher always forgets how shameful having a half-blood master is while Half-blood Master is away. Kreacher will comply, though, because this will inconvenience his drunkard, Pureblood Master."

The elf vanished and Harry turned to Hermione. "I think that's how he tells me he likes me better," Harry said.

Hermione just shook her head. 

Sirius and Remus came downstairs a minute or two later in bathrobes. "What's up, Pup?" Sirius asked. "I thought you had that party this evening."

"It just ended," Harry said. "Afterward, Hermione and I were dancing—"

"Horizontally or vertically?" Sirius asked.

"Sirius?" Hermione cut in, blushing furiously.

"Yes?" he asked. 

"The next time you feel the need to embarrass me, ask yourself if making me more self-conscious than I already am is going to increase or decrease the likelihood of you getting those grand-god-children you're always on about," she said.

The older man's face fell and he turned to his partner. "Remus, she's making me choose between sprogs and jokes," he said. "Isn't that against the law or something?"

Remus pinched the bridge of his nose. "Sirius, do you remember the Lily Rule?"

"You mean 'don't mess with a witch whose IQ is best expressed to the power of your own'?"

"Yes."

"Oh, right," Sirius said. 

Remus turned back to Harry and Hermione. "Please continue."

"Anyway," Harry shot Sirius a pointed look, "we were dancing and I cleared my throat." At that point, Harry finally allowed himself to clear his throat like he'd wanted to since they tumbled out of the floo. "Hem-hem."

Sirius, Remus, and Hermione all twitched involuntarily at the sound.

"What?" Sirius asked. "That's a perfectly reasonable reaction to the fact that you sound way too much like the Pink Bitch when you do that."

Remus's jaw dropped. "Merlin! Hermione reacted like that, too!"

"Remus, you said she was getting closer to recovering memory fragments," Harry said. "What if this is one?"

"It might be," Remus said. "Hermione, may I try to dig around in your mind? I promise I'll restrict myself to older memories, especially because I suspect there's some recent stuff I really don't wish to see."

"Very well." Hermione squared off and looked Remus in the eyes. "Do it."

Remus nodded. "Harry, wait ten seconds after I cast the spell and then clear your throat again."

"OK," Harry said.

"Legilimens," Remus said.

Harry waited a few seconds, cleared his throat, and then glared at Sirius to make sure he didn't say anything that might interrupt Remus's work.

A full minute of dead silence passed before Remus broke the connection off and fell to his knees, gasping. Hermione collapsed into a faint and Harry only barely caught her before she hit the floor.

"What happened?" Sirius asked. He had his arms around Remus's shoulders, though Harry had been too busy with Hermione and hadn't noticed the other man move. 

"Umbridge," Remus snarled, his normally kind nature giving way to the wolf inside. "She waltzed right into their house, petrified Hermione's whole family, told Hermione she was taking back the magic she'd obviously stolen from a more deserving Pureblood, and pointed some sort of weird carved bone at her. Hermione screamed in pain while Umbridge just looked on with this sick smile on her face. Then she made a note in a leatherbound journal, obliviated all three of them, released them, and left."

The three of them looked at one another. "Fuck her up?" Sirius asked.

"Figure out how she did it first," Harry said. "Then fuck her up."

"Let's do this," Remus said.

Harry knelt and picked Hermione up in his arms. "She's going to need some time to recover. Mind if we stay here tonight?"

"Not at all," Sirius said. "Sleep now. Tomorrow, we'll start planning. We're going to destroy that woman. I don't know how, yet, but by the time we're done with her she's going to wish we'd merely killed her."

Kreacher appeared next to them with an understated pop. "Master is finally acting like a proper Black. Kreacher will prepare Master Harry's room and hopes Master will keep him in mind for any plans to inflict pain and ruin upon the enemies of the House of Black." The old elf popped away.

Harry and Remus stared at Sirius, who merely shrugged. "I still hate my heritage, but if embracing it is necessary to properly destroy Umbridge then I'll go give Walburga's portrait a fucking hug. I have my priorities."

Chapter Text

When Hermione awoke the next morning, sun was pouring through the windows, her skin was slick with a cold sweat, and someone was screaming. Strong arms wrapped around her upper body and tangled sheets around her legs held her in place when she tried to flee the screams, and struggling harder only caused them to constrict her more tightly. Only when consciousness fully returned did she realise the screaming woman was her.

"You're OK," he repeated in a soft, soothing voice. "You're OK. You're safe."

"She just walked right in…" Hermione tried to curl up as far into Harry as she could. "I feel so violated. I was a tiny little girl and she smiled while she was hurting me. What kind of monster does that?"

"Dolores Umbridge does that," Harry said. "She's a vicious bigot rumoured to have blackmail on a number of high-level Ministry employees, which is why she seems to live so well on what should have been a modest pension after Amelia Bones fired her. We're going to ensure she never hurts anyone again."

"Thank you." Hermione shuddered. "I keep worrying she's going to come through that door just like she came through my parents'."

"Don't worry," Harry said. "She literally can't find this house."

Hermione blinked. "Oh! We're at Grimmauld Place. I didn't even notice."

"It's OK," Harry said. "Even back home, I have excellent wards that alert a number of dangerous people if they're damaged. By the time anyone could get in, help would be there."

"I know, I know," Hermione said. "I just…don't feel safe anymore."

"We're going to make you safe," Harry said. "I promise."

"Be careful." Hermione's arms tightened enough that Harry had to take shallower breaths.

"I will," he said. "I promise that, too. Do you think you're ready to get up now? It's almost 10:00 and we should eat something."

"You're right, though I was so full last night that I'm still not too hungry." Hermione took a deep breath and released her hold on Harry, allowing him to take a deep breath once again, too. 

"I understand," Harry said. "Would you like to use the loo now? I can wait."

"Yes, please." Hermione started to get up, then froze. "Has anyone checked it for spiders lately?"

Harry frowned. "Probably not. It hasn't been that long, but you never know. I'll be right back." He grabbed his wand and hurried out of the room. A moment later, the bathroom door creaked open.

"Bloody hell!" Harry shouted, followed by, "Flipendo! I said Flipendo, you hairy arsehole! Now stay down! Pugio. Damn it, stay put! Pes Aufero, Pes Aufero, Pes Aufero. Yeah, it's harder to run without legs, isn't it? Pugio."

"Is everything alright, Pup?" Sirius shouted up the stairs.

"I'm going to burn this whole house down, Sirius!" Harry shouted back. Then, more quietly, he said, "Reparo. Reparo. Impervius. Oh, right, Evanesco."

"Start with Walburga's portrait and I'll help," Sirius replied.

Harry walked back into the room a moment later and Hermione promptly wrapped him in a tight hug. "My hero," she said.

"It was just one spider," Harry said sheepishly.

"How big was it?" Hermione asked.

"I'd rather not talk about it," he replied.

"Then you're still my hero," Hermione said.

Harry sighed and hugged her back.

Sirius and Remus were surrounded by parchment on the kitchen table when Harry and Hermione finally made their way downstairs. With a wave of his wand, Sirius removed the warming and food stasis charms from plates of toast, scrambled eggs, and bacon that had been left out for them. "Good morning!" he said. "Did you sleep well?"

Harry nodded, and Hermione said, "Yes. I don't think I dreamt much, at least not that I can remember, and I'm thankful for it."

"I don't blame you," Remus said. He had two parchments in front of him and was apparently cross-referencing them. Harry pulled a chair out for Hermione next to Remus, then sat next to her and tucked into the food.

"We got bored waiting for you," Sirius said, "so we decided to start thinking about how we're going to handle the Umbitch."

"Any ideas?" Harry asked, then took a bite of bacon.

"Lots," Sirius said. "Including no fewer than three that start with the entrail-expelling curse and get nastier from there."

"The problem," Remus added, "is that they require us to get our hands dirty, and any risk of getting caught gives Umbridge the potential to have revenge on us, even if it's posthumous. I won't allow that."

"Good," Hermione said. "I don't want any of you in danger because of this. I don't suppose law enforcement can take care of her?"

"I don't want to risk it," Harry said. "If it were just about you, maybe, but if what she did becomes public then we run the risk of enabling copycats. Ideally, I want the knowledge of how she did this to die with her."

"And that's if any charges stick," Remus said. "She has a lot of dirt on various department heads and Wizengamot members."

Sirius waved a hand over the pieces of parchment strewn about the table. "Worse than that, none of these plans are funny. They're satisfying because of how much that bitch deserves it, but they're not funny." He sighed. "We're Marauders, damn it. Our vengeance shouldn't just be deserved; it should be absolutely hilarious."

"Hmmm…" Hermione took a drink of tea and thought for a moment. "I've never been accused of having a good sense of humour—"

"Which I think is bollocks," Harry added.

"You may be biassed, love," Hermione said. If she noticed how much he blushed, she didn't comment on it. "Anyway, I have done a bit of reading on the philosophy of humour, and maybe it'll help."

Sirius snorted. "I didn't know stuffy old philosophers knew anything about humour."

"Most of them didn't," Hermione said. "Plato thought it was a danger to good government, but after reading the rest of his work I suspect he was really just annoyed that people made fun of him for having a huge stick up his bum."

Remus arched his eyebrows at Hermione, who promptly blushed.

"That's not what I meant!" she said.

"You just keep telling yourself that." Remus reached over and patted her hand as he spoke.

Harry looked over at Sirius, who shrugged. This was apparently one of those things that wasn't covered in philosophical primers aimed at teenagers…which, now that he thought about it, wasn't surprising. 

"Anyway," Hermione said while glaring at Remus, "Kierkegaard thought the essence of humour was contradiction, or incongruity. I've always liked that definition, and maybe it'll help us come up with something appropriate for Umbridge. I get the impression she's full of herself, committed to the Pureblood agenda, a blackmailer, and a terrible bigot. Is there any way we can use any of that against her? That would be incongruous, and I imagine it would be ironic if one of those traits were used against her."

Harry put down his fork and leaned forward. "Hermione is, as usual, a genius."

"I'm not disagreeing," Remus said, "but I don't see where you're going with this."

"We're not going to use just one of those traits against her." Harry grinned. "We're going to use them all." 

By the time he got to the last step of the plan, Harry noticed that everyone else was staring at him with their jaws open. "So after the fall guy gets…um…is everything alright? You're all looking at me like I have a snorkack horn growing out of my head."

"Pup," Sirius said, "I think I now know where all of the cunning that should have been in the last generation of House Black ended up."

"I agree," Remus said. "That's an incredible plan."

Hermione nodded. "I don't know why you seem to think I'm smarter than you, Harry. That's much cleverer than anything I could have come up with."

Harry's cheeks were definitely several degrees warmer than they had been a minute ago. "I just tried to apply some of the schemes I learnt about in Auror training to this and imagine how the various people I knew who were involved in her schemes would react."

"I think it has a real chance of success," Remus said.

"I didn't hear you mention Sue or Nev," Hermione said to Harry. "Are we not telling them?"

Sirius snorted, and Harry shot him a glare before speaking. "I could never ask Nev to keep this from Sue, and she could never go along with this plan. She believes in justice and the rule of law with every fibre of her being. She would want Umbridge to see justice even if that meant risking the discovery of her methods. I don't think Sue can wrap her head around how thoroughly corrupt the Ministry still is despite nearly ten years of Amelia's efforts to improve it."

"I understand. I don't like keeping things from our friends, but I understand." She sighed. 

"Are you sure you're OK with this?" Harry asked.

"I think so," she said. "I'm just scared I'll mess up my part."

"You did a great job as 'Anne,'" Harry said, "and I've no doubt you'll do just as well with this."

Remus sighed. "I wish I could play that role, my dear, but my condition prevents me from using Polyjuice Potion."

Her face fell. "It does? Then my Christmas gift to you was—"

"Amazing," Remus cut her off. "I swear to you that I loved it. It was a nice thought and a wonderful opportunity to see your growth as a witch in just three months. I'm going to remember that gift fondly for the rest of my life."

"Oh, Remus, thank you!" Hermione rose from her seat and gave him a big hug. 

Sirius grinned and leaned over so he could wrap his arms around his husband and Hermione. "Group hug!"

Harry laughed and went over to join in. He wanted to remember this moment both for how complete his little family felt now and for his own fear that something might go wrong with his plan and ruin that feeling forever.

Objectively, Jane Shaw knew she was a beautiful woman. Five feet, five inches tall, less than eight stone, and with a chest that drew an almost annoying amount of attention. 

On the evening of Saturday, January 29th, though, as she pushed her mane of silky blonde hair out of the way so she could vomit into the toilet of her small flat, she felt about as far from "beautiful" as humanly possible. All she wanted to do was curl up with some Dr. Who and wait for this bout of food poisoning to pass. If only she had some sort of magic device like a Sonic Screwdriver to wave at her innards and fix them up! 

Some tosser started knocking on her door as she was flushing the latest batch of sick down her toilet, but she didn't bother responding. If it was important, they'd come back later. The knocking indeed ceased a few moments later, but was replaced with the sound of something sliding along the linoleum in her entryway.

Jane dashed into the living room and stared in shock at her door. It was still closed and latched, but on the floor in front of it was a small envelope of rich parchment paper. Hesitatingly, as if it might explode, she crept over to it. It was sealed with wax. Wax! Who sealed parchment with wax in this day and age?

She broke the seal and pulled out a small piece of parchment. "Dear Ms. Shaw," it read, in tidy, elegant cursive, "We at Sainsbury's Clerkenwell apologise profusely for your exposure to salmonella at our store. We hold ourselves to higher standards than that and we failed. Please accept this three-hundred pound gift card to our store as recompense for our failure and give us the opportunity to earn your trust back as a customer. Your Obedient Servant, H. Wilkins, Sainsbury's Public Relation Specialist."

Well. Jane wasn't sure if she was ready to go back to Sainsbury's just yet, but three hundred pounds' worth of groceries was a convincing argument to do so. She was so pleased she barely even registered a single strand of her hair being plucked from her scalp or thought to wonder how the envelope had been pushed under the well-sealed bottom of her front door.

The next day she would look all over for the parchment and note, but it seemed to have vanished entirely from the flat. She decided to put that up to some sort of gremlin like her woo-believing cousin was always on about and just be glad it hadn't taken the gift card.

Hermione picked up the parchment she'd just painstakingly written out left-handed and called for Kreacher. She hated giving the elves so much work, but they genuinely seemed to enjoy it and they weren't taking any of the truly dangerous tasks. 

"Mistress with whom Half-blood Master sullies himself called for Kreacher?" the old elf said after he'd appeared next to her in the Grimmauld sitting room. 

"Yes." Hermione did her best to ignore the comment…and the unanswered questions about why Kreacher had started calling her "Mistress," as well. "I've summoned you to play a role in the vengeance of House Black."

The old elf straightened up. "How can Kreacher be of use, Mistress?"

"Can you read and write?" Hermione asked him.

He sniffed disdainfully. "Kreacher lives to serve those who read and write."

"That will be useful," Hermione said. The old elf's attitude troubled her immensely, but she couldn't deny its convenience.

The old elf raised his eyebrows in surprise. "It will, Mistress?"

"It will." She handed him the parchment. "Copy that out by hand and show me the result, please."

"Kreacher can do so, but has Mistress's unfortunate upbringing caused her to forget he can duplicate this parchment?"

She smiled. "I have not. You'll have difficulty copying my quillstrokes exactly if you do it by hand, further obscuring my handwriting. And because you never actually write anything because you can neither read nor write, no one will recognize your handwriting."

The old elf smiled back. "And thus shall the House of Black strike from the shadows. Your will be done, Mistress." He vanished.

Hermione's smile faded away as she tried to force herself to remember that lives were at stake here, including some that she was personally hastening to their ends. This kind of power, the power to remake the world in a "better" way, was as delightful as it was insidious. Kreacher wouldn't mind if she abused that power; he would happily leave a trail of blood behind her as she "fixed" the Wizarding World's problems.

She shook her head. This sort of rough justice would have to stop soon, before she gave future generations of House Black something else to be ashamed of. Deep down, though, she knew it wouldn't, not if Harry needed her. If Harry were in trouble and the whole Wizarding World were against him, then it would be the two of them against the whole Wizarding World and the Wizarding World would be outnumbered.

The Leaky Cauldron was packed with revellers after the Wimbourne Wasps beat the Falmouth Falcons in a close Saturday afternoon match, and the Wasps' biggest supporter was already a little unsteady as he made his way back to the bar for another round of firewhisky. That's probably why he didn't notice the blonde until he bumped into her near the bar. 

"Oh!" Her butterbeer sloshed onto her robes. "You ought…" she trailed off and transfixed him with a stare from her beautiful brown eyes. "Ludo Bagman! What an honour!"

"Y…you have me at a disadvantage, Miss," Ludo said, all thoughts of firewhisky forgotten. 

"Jane, Jane Winters," she said. "I grew up watching the Wasps and hearing stories of how great you were. I daresay I have your whole career memorised." She reached out to shake his hand, then changed her mind and started to try to hug him, then blushed and went to shake his hand again. It was kind of adorable.

"Oh, do you now?" Ludo felt like he ought to have said something more suave, but the undisguised admiration on the face of such a beautiful woman was scrambling his brain even more effectively than the liquor. 

"I do," she said enthusiastically. "Why don't we find a table? There's some things I'd love to ask you about."

Ludo could only nod dumbly as she took his hand and led him to a table. A man in a hooded cloak was sitting there and for a moment Ludo thought they'd be joining him, but he rose to leave just as they arrived. 

"Perfect timing," Jane said. "Thank you, kind sir."

The cloaked man nodded curtly and hurried off. Ludo wasn't one to question his good fortune and immediately sat down. "What would you like to know?" he asked Jane.

"Everything, really," Jane said, "but I suppose we don't have time for that. To start with, how on…in Merlin's name did you manage to score ten goals against Puddlemere in May of 1980? I know their defence wasn't the greatest that year, but still!"

"I had a secret weapon," Ludo said. "Their coach was Jeremiah Fawley's father, and I flew against Jeremiah for several years at Hogwarts, so I learned some of their tricks just by figuring out how to play against him."

"Very clever." Jane leaned over, making Ludo fight to keep his eyes out of her cleavage. He had a bad feeling he lost that fight, but she didn't seem to mind. "Tell me more."

Ludo never had trouble talking to anyone in his life, but she was especially easy to talk to somehow. She'd clearly done her homework about his career and peppered him with questions about the highlights, then breathlessly praised his answers. Talking to her just felt natural, and when she awkwardly, but cutely suggested they adjourn to her room after only half an hour of acquaintance, that felt natural, too. 

Her body felt warm and firm against his arm as she gently guided his stumbling steps up the stairs and into one of the Leaky's guest rooms. Before he had a chance to inquire whether she was new in town, he noticed the cloaked man who'd relinquished the table to them sitting in the corner of the room. 

"Hold on." Ludo turned to the man. "I'm not entirely against a third partner in our activities, but I think we ought to discuss our expectations—"

"Petrificus Totalus." Jane's spell hit him from the side and he crashed to the ground. Idly, he noted that he didn't seem to make much noise and the ground didn't hurt much. Cushioning Charms? These were undoubtedly the most considerate muggers he had ever encountered, and he would have been the first to admit that his regrettable choices in women had introduced him to more than his fair share of such persons.

Feminine hands rolled him over with a grunt of effort and after a moment of disorientation he found himself staring into Jane's lovely face again as her hair cascaded down around it. It was the last thing he saw before the cloaked man said "Obliviate" and ended his evening.

The next morning, Ludo rolled out of bed in that room and smiled to himself at the memory of an evening well spent with a beautiful blonde. A pity she couldn't stay the whole night, but he'd remember those hours with her for the rest of his life. Oddly, though, he couldn't quite recall her face, just vague recollections of an impressive amount of cleavage leaning across the table from him, lying down on something comfortable, and golden hair cascading down onto him.. He put that down to the amount of alcohol he'd consumed before meeting her, though, and decided to content himself with his memories of their activities.

Chapter Text

Dolores Umbridge cast a quick Human-Presence-Revealing Charm and nodded at the result. Only one man was in the room in the small hotel on the edge of Knockturn Alley; his hands appearing to be spread out and flat upon the table in front of him. Good.

She opened the door with a whispered "Alohomora" and strode into the room. "Good evening, Ludo," she said. "You said you had something, hem-hem, for me that might be interesting enough to buy out your own information?"

"Indeed I do, Dolores." He nodded excitedly. "Indeed I do. In fact, you'll be—"

"I'll be the judge of how interested I'll be," she said. Merlin, that man could talk. "Now, I'm going to—"

Someone in a corner behind her whispered "Confundo" and she spun around just in time for a bolt of pink light to fly right into her chest. Some part of her screamed that it wasn't possible, that she'd cast the Human-Presence-Revealing Charm properly, but the rest of her didn't care. She was too busy telling Ludo how appreciative she was of his information and offering to Apparate him back to her house so they could discuss it in a more private setting.

"No, no, Dolores," Ludo said. "As a gentleman, I simply must insist on Apparating us myself. Why, I remember after a game in '83 a fan splinched herself coming to our victory party because she was so excited about my goals. I couldn't blame her, of course, but I hate to see anyone lose a kneecap, even temporarily."

"That's nice of you. Hem-hem. Now, are you going to keep a lady waiting?" she asked.

Ludo shuddered and rose to take her hand. "Of course not," he said. "Now, let's go."

They disappeared with a crack, leaving the room apparently empty. A few moments later, another crack echoed around the room and left it truly empty. 

While Dolores was steadying herself after the side-along apparition, there was a second crack behind her. Before she could spin around and see who it was, though, Ludo murmured "Confundo" and said, "I've got a secret informant here under a Disillusionment Charm. We'll need to bring him in, too."

"Oh, of course," Dolores said. Ludo was holding her right arm, so she held out her left arm and, a moment later, an invisible hand grasped her own. Some part of her mind that was screaming at her to resist the Confundus Charm was momentarily confused at how her Revealing Charm had failed to detect something as simple as a Disillusionment Charm, but it went back to screaming as soon as she guided her guests across her ward line and into the house. As soon as Ludo shut the door behind her, the invisible man cast a nonverbal Stunner.

There were no Cushioning Charms on the floor when she hit it.

Harry slipped the Cloak off and stowed it in its usual belt pouch. "You are disturbingly good at being an overweight, drunken middle-aged man," he said.

"Just wait till you're older and you remember this moment, Pup," Sirius said as he levitated Dolores. "Don't think you won't end up in exactly the same situation." He looked away and sighed. 

"I know." Harry gave him a quick one-armed hug, not enough to interfere with the levitation spell once it was cast. "I wonder how they would have aged, too."

Sirius nodded as he walked into the parlour and deposited Dolores on a convenient chesterfield. "They were gorgeous, both of them, and everyone remembers them that way, but I wish they'd been able to grow old and fade away like the rest of us. They deserved to see you grow up and maybe lose sleep to some sprogs of your own."

"Old age hath yet his honour and his toil," Harry said, "but something ere the end, some work of noble note may yet be done, not unbecoming men that strove with Gods."

"I like that," Sirius said. "Scott?"

"Tennyson," Harry replied.

"It's good," Sirius said, "but why do you of all people have it memorised? You're barely out of school."

"It's something I think about sometimes when I wonder if I peaked at twelve when I defeated a Dark Lord and killed a giant basilisk," Harry said.

"Well, I don't think you peaked at twelve," Sirius said, "but I understand how worries like that could creep in." He shook his head. "Enough ruminating. I'm on the clock. Tempus."

"9:15," Harry read out the numbers that appeared in the air above Sirius's wand in a font reminiscent of flaming lace. "So you've got about half an hour left. Ready?"

"Ready," Sirius said.

"OK. Before I forget, though, could you give me the third vial, the one Hermione didn't end up needing?" 

"Sure." Sirius rummaged around in his belt pouch and produced a vial of Polyjuice Potion. 

"Thanks." Harry took it and stashed it in his belt. He pulled out an empty vial, plucked a couple of Umbridge's hairs, and sealed them up in it. "There we go. If things go badly, I'm going to need that quickly and I don't want to be in a hurry and accidentally grab a cat hair or something." 

He looked around and raised his eyebrows. "You know, for all of the cat decor she has in here and her office, I'm surprised she doesn't actually seem to have any cats. I was assuming this place would have a ton of cat hair, or at least it would collect in the corners where cleaning spells missed."

"That's definitely odd," Sirius said while Harry pulled another vial out of his belt and dripped three drops into the woman's mouth. 

"She's dosed," Harry said. He rose back to his feet, pulled out a notepad and a Dicta-Quill, and then knelt down at the edge of the room and threw the Cloak over himself and the writing implements. "Muffliato. Room is now silenced. Transcription is active. I'm going silent in three, two, one, now."

As soon as Harry stopped speaking, Sirius aimed his wand at Dolores and said, "Rennervate."

She gasped and jerked herself upright, but that was as far as she got before Sirius said, "Petrificus Partialis" and an eggshell-coloured jet of light flew into her shoulder. Her whole body went rigid except for her head, which she was able to turn toward her guest. "You washed-up worthless sack of crup shite!" she shouted. "I hate you and I loathe myself for being attracted to you."

Dolores froze again, this time in shock. "Wait…why in Merlin's name did I admit that?"

"Probably the Veritaserum," Sirius said cheerfully. 

She glared at him. "I will talk, you know," she said. "I'm useless at fighting Veritaserum. I've tried. Wait, that's not what I wanted to say, either."

Her guest chuckled and a suppressed snort of laughter seemed to come from somewhere near the bay window.

"Not that I mind hearing how attractive I still am," Sirius said, "But we should get down to business. Tell me, Dolores, where do you keep your blackmail material?"

"Behind the bookshelf in the living room, in a space-expanded room," she said, glaring at him. "I will absolutely let you take it because I'm frozen here and can't otherwise stop you. Merlin, this is so frustrating!"

"How do we get in there?" Sirius asked.

"Pull out Cantankerus Nott's Pure-Blood Directory, flip it around, put it back in, take it out again, flip it around, and put it back in normally, all without opening it," she said.

"Are there any traps in this house?"

"Many," Dolores responded.

"What are they?" Dealing with an obstreperous witness under Veritaserum was an art, but this wasn't Sirius's first time. Umbridge listed off a variety of traps ranging from ingenious to ridiculous, but it was the last one that caught their attention.

"If any more than three of the blackmail binders are removed simultaneously," she said, "it sets off the burglar alarm ward, drops an anti-apparition ward over the property, and summons the Aurors."

"How do I get around that?" Sirius asked.

"You can't," Dolores said. "I installed that as a way to ensure nobody could steal all of my material at once."

"What if you needed to escape Britain on short notice?" Sirius asked. "Surely you must have a contingency plan."

"Why would I ever need to do that?" she responded. "This island would fall apart without me to keep things functioning."

Sirius sighed. "Tell me your most embarrassing moment."

"James Potter picking that mudblood whore Lily Evans instead of all of the girls with better breeding who were falling all over him, like me," Dolores said. "I cried myself to sleep for months after they got together. Damn you for asking me that, you unutterable bastard. "

"Damn it, the Veritaserum is still working," Sirius said. "She really believes that."

"Of course I do!" Dolores said.

"Anyway," Sirius said, "let's switch the topic. How are you finding and binding the magic of muggleborns? Tell me everything."

Her jaw dropped, but the potion compelled her to answer the question before asking her own. "After the Potter brat killed the Dark Lord somehow, some of the artefacts he'd collected but had never been able to use ended up among his surviving followers. I'd been helping Grendel and Quinsy Snyde hunt down muggleborns for the Death Eaters, but they realised the Aurors were closing in by 1983. Their daughter was only ten at the time and couldn't carry on their work, so they gave me the Diadem of Ravenclaw. It has some of the same magic the Hogwarts Book and Pen do, so I'm able to find young magicals. Separately, I acquired a crystal knife from Ricbert Jugson, who was selling off family heirlooms after his father went to Azkaban with the Dark Lord's other followers. It lets me bind muggleborns' magic so they can't steal it from deserving Purebloods anymore, and a secondary effect alerts me if they're somehow unbound. I also kept a detailed journal of my activities so I can pass it on to a successor one day. Now how could you possibly know about that?"

"None of your business," Sirius said. "How could the Diadem find them before they exhibited accidental magic, though?"

"It was Ravenclaw's greatest work, far greater than the Book of Admission. She somehow managed to merge the power of the Book and Quill while making them even more sensitive, so it can find children before anyone else realises they're magical."

"I see." Sirius nodded. "Who else knows that you're binding muggleborns' magic?"

"No one knows," Umbridge replied. "I can't risk anyone turning me in or being imprisoned for unrelated crimes and having this discovered during interrogation. I have yet to find a successor who meets my high standards, but I'm not at all old and can take my time."

"I'm curious; why didn't you kill them instead of bind them?"

"Too many dead children might have attracted attention eventually," Umbridge said. "Besides, why bother? They're just muggles now, so who cares if they live or die? The important thing was that I was able to continue my binding work without being noticed by either muggle or magical authorities."

She was still on the Veritaserum, so she must have been telling what she believed was the truth, but something about that statement still sounded like she was trying to convince herself it was the answer. Sirius made a mental note to mull that over later and switched to a different line of questioning. "Are there any traps on the knife, journal, or Diadem?"

"Yes," she said. "Removing the Diadem from the room will trigger the Burglar Alarm."

"Alright, one more question: why don't you have any cats?" Sirius asked. "It's been bugging me."

"I've tried before," Umbridge said, "but they're such needy little things, bothering me for food and attention every day. I tried a couple of times, but I ended up turning them out. I think one of my neighbours ended up taking the cats in because I still see the blasted things sometimes."

Sirius obliviated her, stunned her, and very carefully re-holstered his wand. "End the transcription," he said.

"Transcription concluded," Harry said. "Are you OK?"

"Are you sure we can't kill her tonight?" Sirius asked. "She's a monster."

"She is," Harry said, "but it's not worth the risk and you know it. Stick with the plan."

"Fine," he said. "How are we going to get past that burglar alarm ward, though?"

Harry shrugged and pulled out the vials of Polyjuice and Umbridge's hair. "I don't intend to."

Sirius glared at Harry. "What part of that is 'sticking with the plan'?"

"We knew this could get messy when we started," Harry said. "We can't let her—or anyone—continue to do this to muggleborns, and that blackmail material might help bring down the kinds of people in the Wizengamot who make life hard for muggleborns in the first place."

"You're right," Sirius said, "not that I like it. Your witch is going to make me wish Umbridge had caught me if anything happens to you here."

"And if I survive," Harry said, "she'll probably do that to me, instead."

Sirius laughed. "You're probably right. Is it still worth it?"

"Definitely," Harry said.

"Alright." Sirius nodded. "Let's do this."

Harry unstoppered the vial with the hairs in it and put those into the Polyjuice Potion, which promptly turned into a thick brown sludge. "This is the worst-looking Polyjuice I've ever even heard of, much less seen," he said.

"Better you than me," Sirius said. He was back in his ordinary form and clothes by now, with the Ludo Bagman outfit safely vanished now that it was no longer needed. "This is your last chance to back out."

"I have to see this through," Harry said, and drank the potion. He'd never tasted diarrhoea before, but he suspected this stuff probably tasted more like diarrhoea than actual diarrhoea did. 

Sirius shoved a glass of water into his hand, which did nowhere near enough to get the taste out of his mouth. "Merlin!" Harry gasped. "That was awful!"

"I'm not surprised," he said. "Now strip. I'll bring your clothes back along with this stuff."

Harry changed into one of Umbridge's dresses that they'd left out for the purpose, trying as hard as possible not to catch a glimpse of any more of his borrowed body than he had to both on general principles and because…ew. 

Once he was ready, they moved Umbridge into the hidden room, placed the letter they'd written on her body, and prepared the space-expanded bag for Sirius. "Are you ready?" Harry asked him.

Sirius shuddered. "It's so weird hearing her voice speak with some amount of concern for another human being," he said. "I never noticed it was missing until now. Anyway, I am."

"Good." Harry raised his wand. "Attack the wards in three, two, one, now."

Susan sat down at the watch desk next to Owen Davies with two cups of the terrible coffee from the break room in her hands. She handed him one, which he accepted gratefully. 

"Thank you," he said. "This is my first night shift out of the academy and I'm not used to it yet."

"The first of a series of night shifts is always the hardest," she said. "It'll be easier tomorrow."

"I hope so," he said. "At least it's been quiet so far."

Sue cringed. "Damn it, rookie! Now you've gone and fucked it up."

Osbeorn poked his head out from the cubicle where he was catching up on paperwork. "What'd he do?"

"He said it was quiet," Sue said.

Osbeorn sighed and started organising the paperwork. "Damn it. I'll have to get back to this later."

"I don't understand," Owen said. "What did I do?"

"You said the 'Q' word," Sue said. "Never say the 'Q' word."

"But how can that—"

A DMLE monitoring agent burst into the room. "Ward alert from Deputy Undersecretary Umbridge's house," he said. 

"We're on it," Sue said. "Let's go, Rookie."

"But…how?" Owen asked as he rose and grabbed his Auror cloak.

"Don't ask questions unless you want to know the answers," Sue said. 

"But why are Oz and John preparing to go, too?" Own asked. "It might be a false alarm."

"You used the 'Q' word," Sue said, "so there's no way in hell it's a false alarm. Frank, did you make the portkey?"

"Right here." The DMLE man passed her a length of rope. "Activation word is 'pink.'"

Sue smirked and held the rope out to Owen. "Let's go see what fresh hell you've wrought for us now, rookie."

"I didn't mean to," Owen said as he took the rope.

"Whatever cruel god we serve doesn't give a fuck," Sue said. "Pink."

The portkey pulled them through the eye of that nameless god's darning needle and deposited them in front of a well-kept cottage with a well-kept garden and an iron fence and gate that looked sturdy enough to keep out an entire army of inferi. Its owner was hurrying out of the door just as they arrived.

"It's about time you got here!" Umbridge said as she unlocked the gate with a wave of her wand. "There's a man in my house!" Something about her wand looked familiar, but it was dark enough out that Sue couldn't really see much and chalked it up to nerves.

"That's definitely suspicious," Sue said. "I'll send for backup immediately."

Owen's face turned bright red, but he managed to avoid laughing.

Umbridge sputtered. "Backup? There are two of you! Get in there and arrest that foul miscreant!"

Sue ignored her and launched her badger patronus off into the night with a request for assistance to John and Oz. "Standard protocol," she explained when she was done, "is to bring in backup before engaging with a suspect capable of breaching wards of this calibre. Did he bring them entirely down?"

"No," Umbridge said, as if scandalised by the very thought. "He just took them down long enough to breach the perimeter. Hem-hem. They're back up now. Should I lower them or bring you through?"

"Bring us through," Sue said. "If we leave them up, then we don't have to waste time putting up our own anti-apparition wards."

"Very well," Umbridge replied. A minute later, Osbeorn Savage and John Dawlish portkeyed in. 

"Is everyone finally here?" Umbridge tapped her foot as she spoke. "That man could be in there…hem-hem…despoiling my unmentionables for all I know!"

Owen turned bright red and had to look away, and even the more hardened Aurors John and Oz began coughing. Sue fought the urge to roll her eyes and said, "Yes, we are. Owen, stay out here with Ms. Umbridge—"

"Hem-hem. Deputy Undersecretary Umbridge," the older woman corrected.

"Yes, yes," Sue said. "The rest of us will sweep the house. John, you're on point. Deputy Undersecretary, will you take us across the ward line?"

"Of course," Umbridge said. One by one, she pulled all four of them through the gate and across the ward boundary. The wards must have been exceptionally subtle ones, since Sue didn't feel even a tingle as she crossed them. She wasn't sure how Umbridge could have paid for such wards on a civil servant's salary, but she had her suspicions.

They crept toward the house, keeping enough distance between them that a single Exploding Charm wouldn't injure them all. When John reached the open front door, he looked back to confirm they were ready before bursting in with his wand raised. Oz followed a moment later, going right, with Sue next and going left. Regardless of how Sue felt about Umbridge, she was going to get this guy. 

None of them noticed the back door was cracked open, too.

As soon as Sue disappeared through the door, Umbridge froze. "What's that?" she asked, pointing her wand at the shrubbery hugging the right corner of her house.

Owen shifted in front of her immediately and said, "Lumos Mobilus." A ball of white light formed at the top of his wand and floated quickly over to where Umbridge had pointed him. His Auror robes would have protected him from at least one of any curse except an Unforgivable, but they didn't cover the back of his head where the Stunner hit him and he fell silently to the ground.

Umbridge knelt next to him and turned him onto his side (tongue-swallowing was rare, but not unheard of, for a stunned victim) before whispering "Verdimillious" and launching a fountain of green sparks thirty feet above the house. The crack of an apparition reverberated from the back of the house a moment later and its echoes quickly mingled with the same sound from the front yard. 

Harry was not used to apparating while in someone else's body and, after some rolling and cursing, found himself flat on his back looking up at the stars through the limbs of barren trees. A dusting of snow covered the ground, which meant it also covered him now.

"I was going to ask you for the code word," Sirius said, "but that is definitely you."

"Thanks," Harry said drily. "Help me up?"

"Nah, that would be pointless," Sirius said as a once-again brown-haired missile slammed into Harry and knocked him over again.

"I was worried sick about you!" Hermione said.

"It's alright," Harry said. "We had it under control."

"You could have been—"

"You can yell at me later," Harry said, doing his best to push himself and his bushy-haired limpet back up to a sitting position. "We need to move out before they bring in the artefact to trace our apparition."

"You're right." Hermione stood and helped Harry up. "I will definitely yell at you later, but let's go."

"This way," Remus said from his watch position on the edge of the clearing. The moon was still bright only four days after the full moon, but even so Harry would never have noticed the man had he not spoken up. Remus led them a short distance out of the forest and a hundred yards up a small road to a little pub with a sign on it proclaiming it "The Highwayman." Sirius brought up the rear, using a spell Remus had learnt back at Hogwarts to cover over their tracks in the snow and muddy ground.

"We left the car here with a runic array on it triggering mild aversion," Remus explained as they walked. "It was easy to set up and keeps them from paying any mind to it."

"Nice work," Harry said. He had to really push himself to notice the Vauxhall Astra, and he could see Hermione shaking her head a little and blinking as she tried to focus on the little grey sedan. 

"Thank you." Remus walked up to the car, opened the passenger door with a key, and rubbed out the white chalk runes he'd put on inside of the door. Once he'd done so, he gave the key to Hermione and climbed into the back seat. 

"It's a bit cramped back here," Sirius said as he belted himself into the back seat next to his husband. 

"I'm sorry," Hermione said. "I'm not really comfortable driving a larger car and we wanted to keep this inconspicuous. Just think of it as a glimpse into how most muggles live."

While Hermione was getting into the driver's seat, Harry hopped into the passenger seat. "It's OK," he said. "We're glad you can drive—"

Sounds like two distant gunshots in the direction from which they'd come shattered the stillness of the night.

Chapter Text

"Bollocks!" Harry said. 

"Language," Hermione said absently as she put the car into reverse. "Now buckle up, boys."

Remus and Harry promptly buckled their seatbelts, but Sirius's eyes lit up. "Because we're about to go on an exciting car chase?" he asked.

"No." Hermione pulled up to the edge of the parking lot at a reasonable speed and came to a complete stop before turning despite the fact that no cars were visible in either direction on the road. "Driving like crazy would only attract attention, so we're going to drive like ordinary muggles. I just wanted you to buckle up because seatbelts massively reduce the risk of death or serious injury in car accidents."

Sirius harrumphed, but he did buckle himself in.

Hermione took them down the road at precisely the speed limit, driving carefully and shifting conservatively. "So," she said, "Harry?"

"Um…yes?" He shifted in his seat uncomfortably.

"There was a plan, Harry. The plan did not involve you summoning the Aurors." Her eyes remained fixed on the road ahead of them the whole time, which somehow made her tone of voice scarier. 

"It was the only way to get the files and the artefacts out of her hidden room," Harry said. 

"It wasn't worth it," Hermione said tightly. "I don't want you getting hurt because of me."

"It's not just for you," Harry replied. "It was for every muggleborn magical of the last two decades and those yet to come."

Only the sound of the road, the put-upon little engine, and the wind in the trees outside filled the silence of the car for a full minute. Eventually, Harry hazarded a glance at his girlfriend. A single tear had traced a track down her cheek and the remnant moisture glistened in the moonlight. 

"Must you be a hero, Harry?" she asked. 

Remus leaned forward. "I'm afraid so," he said. "My generation bolloxed up the world pretty badly and now people like him are stuck fixing it. I'm sorry. You both deserved better."

"The time is out of joint," Hermione said, tears in her voice. "O cursèd spite, that ever were we born to set it right."

"Well put," Remus said.

Sirius furrowed his brows. "Was that Shakespeare?"

"Indeed it was," Remus said. "See? You're not as uncultured as you pretend to be."

The other man pushed Remus out of the way and leaned up to stage whisper to Hermione, "I really am. I just guess 'Shakespeare' whenever someone says something that sounds like Old English and I'm usually right."

She laughed despite the tears in it. "I suppose you probably are," she said. 

Harry's transformation wore off a few minutes later, and Hermione resolutely kept her eyes on the road while he struggled out of Umbridge's clothes. 

"Harry?" she asked after a moment, her eyes resolutely forward.

"Yes?" he asked as he pulled on some boxers.

"Is it just me, or is that car coming toward us weaving a bit?"

Life was full of times to evaluate and think carefully, but Harry had long ago come to terms with the fact his life had fewer of those times than most people's. So instead of following Hermione's request, he started frantically rooting through Umbridge's clothes for his wand.

"Harry, it's getting—"

Harry cut her off when he finally found his wand, whipped it up, and blew the windshield out of the car with a Banishing Charm. Wind roared past his ears as Hermione slammed on the brakes, but he forced his wand into the correct motion for the Levitation Charm and picked up the dangerously weaving oncoming car. He tried to focus his intent as if he were performing a Judo-style throw like they taught in the academy and allow the other car's forward momentum to do most of the work.

The little BMW 3 series sailed about four feet over their heads and crashed onto the pavement behind them as their Vauxhall slowed to a halt. Hermione gripped the steering wheel hard enough to turn her knuckles white in the moonlight and stared straight ahead as if her duty as driver was the only thing holding her back from a panic attack. With the adrenaline wearing off, Harry's body took the opportunity to remind him that he was mostly naked up in the hill country in January.

"Remus?" he said as he cast a quick Warming Charm on himself.

"What in Merlin's name just happened?" the older man replied.

"Some arsehole was probably drunk and weaving all over the road," Harry said. "I levitated their car over us and deposited it on the road back there. Can you go over there, Obliviate them, and maybe give them a mental suggestion to get sick from the taste of alcohol for the rest of their lives? I'd do it, but I don't trust myself not to wipe their whole damn mind for nearly killing us."

"I understand," Remus said. "I'll return momentarily."

Sirius reached up and put his hands on Harry and Hermione's shoulders. "Well done, both of you. Neither of us recognized the nature of the threat there, but you handled it nicely."

 "That plonker literally caught me with my pants down," Harry grumbled. "That was closer than I'd have liked. Thank you for dragging my head out of my arse, Hermione."

She remained staring straight out the non-existent windshield and didn't respond. 

Harry reached over and put his right hand over her left. She was still gripping the steering wheel with both so tightly that Harry could feel the tension beneath the skin on the back of her hand. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asked her.

"I nearly got you all killed," she said. "You trusted me to drive you and I wasn't good enough."

"That's not true," Harry said. "You warned us you weren't a very experienced driver. We accepted that risk and it was on us to use magic to protect ourselves."

"How is the fact that you people have no sense of self-preservation supposed to make me feel better?" 

Harry flipped his right hand over and the moonlight seemed to highlight the faint, pale scar that ran across it. "We all do a lot of dangerous things," he said, "and just because our luck might run out one day doesn't mean they weren't worth doing."

At that, Hermione finally released the steering wheel and wrapped herself around his right arm, sobbing. Harry patted her back as best as he could with his left hand and Sirius leaned forward to hug both of them. 

Remus came up a minute later, took one look at the situation, and quietly repaired the windshield before getting back in the car. "How are you all holding up?" he asked.

"I think we've been better," Sirius said. "Hermione, are you about ready to go? More cars might come soon."

"I suppose so," she said. "Harry, will you keep an eye on us? I'm even more nervous now."

"Of course," Harry said. "Let me just get out and change so I don't have to worry about that." He got out of the car and pulled on his clothes, then jumped back inside.

"Merlin, it's cold out there when you're mostly naked!" he said. "I forgot to redo the Warming Charm."

Hermione shivered sympathetically as she put the car into gear. "That does sound awful."

"I definitely don't recommend it," he said. "Anyway, Remus, what's the condition of that plonker back there?"

"He was mostly unharmed," Remus said. "Just a terrified, drunk, middle-aged man coming home from the pub. I Obliviated him and left him with the idea that he'd gotten terribly sick from the drink. I don't think he'll be able to touch a drop for many years to come."

"Nice work," Harry said. "Thank you for handling it so I didn't have to. I know he didn't deserve what I wanted to do to him, but I would have had trouble stopping myself and good Obliviation really needs a clear intent."

"I understand," Remus said. "I'm not sure I would have been any better within a day of the full moon."

Sirius shook his head. "I know on some level that was the right thing to do, Pup, but how are you not giving into that temptation to teach that arsehole what 'hell' really is? I keep thinking about how I'd have reacted if he'd hurt you and I think I'd have gone mad."

"Auror training is part of it," Harry said. "Also, people have been afraid of me ever since Second Year—"

"Was that the snake-talking incident?" Hermione asked, not taking her eyes off the road as she spoke.

"Yes," Harry said. "So I'm used to thinking about what's going to happen if I really let go."

"I see what you mean," Sirius said. "It would be hard to explain if that car ended up in orbit."

"Wait," Hermione said, "Harry could levitate something into orbit?"

"I don't think I could," Harry said.

Sirius barked out a laugh. "I like how you had to qualify that statement, Pup. Yes, I think he could if he really tried, but it would be difficult even for him."

"Not as difficult as explaining the breach in the Statute of Secrecy," Remus said.

"I disagree," Sirius said. "We could just come up with some story about a deranged billionaire who decided to launch a car into orbit with his own private rocket just to see if he could."

"Don't cover stories need to be plausible?" Hermione asked.

Remus laughed. "Once again, Hermione points out the fundamental flaw in the plan."

"Who cares about plausibility when your plan is awesome?" Sirius asked. "I would totally launch a car into orbit if I had a few billion pounds to spare."

"Same here," Harry said. "I much prefer awesomeness."

Hermione sighed theatrically. "Right there, that's his father talking, isn't it?"

"Oh, Merlin, you have no idea," Remus said. "Remember, you're talking about someone who figured out I was a werewolf and, instead of running away like a sensible person, convinced Peter and Sirius to use a dangerous ritual to become animagi to keep me company."

Sirius harrumphed. "I admit not everyone might have decided to become an animagus for their friend, but sensible people don't ignore friends just because they have one bad day a month."

"I agree," Hermione said. "I have a solid three or four bad days every month and Harry hasn't run off on me yet."

Harry started laughing so hard his glasses nearly fell off, and a moment later Sirius and Remus joined in. Even the still-shaken Hermione eventually joined in, and a much lighter mood filled the little Vauxhall as it wound its way through the Chiltern Hills.

The roads were quiet at that time of night, but the drive to the town of Witney still took them about fifty minutes. They'd originally planned more like forty minutes for the trip, but Hermione's increased anxiety about driving was manifesting itself with her being extra careful with the brakes and taking turns more slowly than normal. Other cars tried to tailgate them once or twice, but Harry encouraged her to pull over and let them pass. Initially, she was concerned that doing so might invite the other car to pull over, too, but Harry pointed out that was unlikely and, if it did happen, he was perfectly capable of turning whoever got out of the other car into a chicken.  

Especially if it turned out to be Jeremy Clarkson. Hermione found herself surprisingly invested in the thought of seeing Jeremy Clarkson turned into a chicken in the middle of a rant at her about driving more slowly than even James May, which served to calm her down a bit. 

Sirius and Remus had a few questions about muggle life as they passed the relatively larger town of Oxford, but otherwise they spent the ride debriefing on the evening's work and confirming Sirius had obtained the entire blackmail archive as well as the knife, the Diadem, and the journal. 

After a few mishaps with the map, Harry navigated them to the night drop-off for the car rental company. As they drove up, Harry hit the cameras with a charm Aurors (and magical criminals) used to temporarily disable video recording equipment. It wasn't much, just a focused Lumos, but when centred on the camera lens it was quite effective at ensuring you weren't seen when you didn't want to be. 

With the cameras no longer a concern, they were able to apparate straight back to the sitting room in 12 Grimmauld Place. Once Hermione recovered from the side-along apparition, she extracted herself from Harry's arms and plopped down on a wingback chair. "That was the most exhausting thing I've ever done," she said. "Can I just sleep right here?"

"That's fine," Remus said, "but we need to start on the next phase of the plot as quickly as possible."

Sirius spread the blackmail material out on the coffee table. "Let's see who we've got here…damn, this is a Who's Who of powerful arseholes in this country."

"Malfoy?" Harry asked eagerly.

"No, surprisingly," Remus said. "She may have thought they were too powerful to risk blackmailing. Regardless, though, remember that we agreed not to use them. Lucius is too smart and wealthy to get his own hands dirty. We need someone vindictive, but not wealthy enough to pay someone else to get their revenge."

"Got one." Sirius pulled out a folder. "Rupert Selwyn."

"Nice!" Harry said. "Big name, little money, marked Death Eater who got off with the Imperius defence. And, according to Nev, he's a huge arsehole in Wizengamot meetings. He should be perfect. I just wish we could safely determine what he's done before we give away the evidence."

"Likewise," Remus said, "but that puts us at a lot more risk. This is still magically sealed. He needs to know no one else knows what he's done."

"No more risk." Hermione didn't rise from the chair or even move her head as she spoke. "No more risk for any of you."

"You're right," Harry said to both of them. "OK, let's set this aside." He moved the folder to another table just to ensure it didn't get caught up in the next step. 

"There's got to be at least forty other people in this set," Sirius said. "Should we just send the whole thing to the Quibbler?"

"I don't know," Harry said. "Looking at some of these names, I'm not sure it's a good idea. I mean, MacNair, Yaxley…they might kill Xeno and Luna for this."

"True," Remus said. "These are much bigger fish than I thought we'd catch. Do you think releasing this is going to cause problems?"

"Not really," Harry said. "That would require people in the Wizarding World to care about good government, and I've never seen them behave as anything but sheep eating out of the trough the Daily Prophet fills for them every morning."

Sirius nodded in agreement. "It would be nice if this material changed something, but I've given up hope on that."

"You may not be giving everyone enough credit," Remus said. "Even sheep can be provoked eventually."

Harry shrugged. "We can dream."

"It still makes me nervous that we don't know what we're unleashing," Remus said, "but maybe it should be unleashed, regardless. I'm just not sure how to do so without getting Xeno killed." 

Sirius frowned at the documents. "I know a lot of questionable people, but nobody with a black-market printing press. OK, well, I guess Borgin does, but he's the last person we could trust to do this."

"I know someone," Harry said. "I think he's exactly the kind of crazy we need, but it would attract too much attention if I went to visit him in person since I'm supposed to be taking it easy. Sirius, Remus, are you up for a trip to America? I even have the perfect cover story."

"I find it hard," Sirius said, "to believe you can come up with a better cover story than Remus used to come up with for us back in school. He even fooled Lily a few times back when she was looking for excuses to punish us."

Harry did his best to pout. "You mean to say that if you knew there was a perfect form of the perfect pub food, you wouldn't go anywhere in the world to get it for me to make me feel better about not having been to a pub in ages?"

"Since when do Americans have better pub food than we do?" Sirius asked. "I think I'm offended."

"You like chicken wings, don't you?" Harry asked.

"Of course! They're delicious. Best thing muggles have come up with to accompany a pint," Sirius said.

"Do you ever wonder why they're called 'Buffalo wings' in some places?" Harry asked.

"Is that a type of chicken?" Sirius paused. "Or a type of buffalo?"

Remus sighed. "No, it's a city in New York State," he said.

"Where lies the legendarily seedy Anchor Bar," Harry added. "The originator and still king of the Buffalo Wing."

Sirius rose from his seat. "Did you hear the lad, Remus? We need to get to Buffalo now."

"Down, boy." Remus tugged Sirius back down. "We still have to figure out exactly how we're going to handle this."

"I propose allowing Umbridge to make the next move," Harry said. "Besides, it might look suspicious for you both to leave right after she was attacked."

"What if she buggers off?" Sirius asked.

"That's the worst case scenario," Harry said, "and even then, we're still rid of her. I don't think she'll do it, though. In fact, I think she'll do exactly the opposite."

Remus and Sirius shot him questioning looks. Hermione just snored softly.

Dolores Umbridge awoke with a start in a room so dark she couldn't tell if she'd actually opened her eyes. She had no idea where she was, how she'd got there, or what had happened since she'd last eaten breakfast…

Obliviation. It had to be, and by someone so confident that they hadn't even bothered trying to insert fake memories of what had happened to her. They wanted her to know they'd done it, the bastards. She was going to find them and make them bleed.

Shockingly, a quick pat of her body and the floor around her revealed they'd left her with her wand…and a piece of parchment laying on her chest. Dolores sat up and cast a quick Lumos to see if she could figure out what in Merlin's name was going on. 

Her stomach knotted itself into a cold, leaden ball as the light brought with it realisation of where she was: in her secret storage room. Her empty secret storage room. She fumbled at the parchment for a moment before latching onto it like a drowning woman to a lifeline. 

It was blank, and for a moment her stomach knotted itself even tighter before she thought to run a quick check on it with her wand. Sure enough, there was a Self-Destruction Charm on the parchment. She would have to run her wand over the parchment to read it, at which point he would only have a few minutes before the parchment (and any copies of it) burned away. A Wizarding Camera could photograph it, but spell disruption from the document's charmwork would require it to be used at a distance of about seven feet, which would make it difficult to read any words in the resulting image.

She took a deep breath and touched her wand to the page. 

Dear Deputy Undersecretary Umbridge, 

Thank you for your services in both cultivating this lovely collection of blackmail material and ensuring mudbloods no longer tarnish Hogwarts with their stolen magic. You've done well with both, but my colleagues and I have decided that those tasks are both too lucrative and too important to the future of the Wizarding World to be entrusted entirely to one person. 

Here, then, is our proposal. You are far too efficient at your job for us to wish you to come to harm, so you may continue to collect your blackmail so long as you deposit one-half of the total into Vault #807 at Gringotts. In return, we will keep the change in your circumstances to ourselves.

Regarding mudbloods, we are impressed with the elegance of your solution to that particular problem and will endeavour to continue handling them to the same high standard you've already set. Furthermore, we have already put into place plans to pass this responsibility to our heirs after we depart this mortal coil, so you can rest assured your work will outlive all of us. 

If, after reading this proposal, you find it unsatisfactory, you can convey your rejection of it to us by either informing the Aurors of this theft or by attempting to seek out the identity of the holders of Vault #807. At that point, we shall be forced to consider our relationship terminated and will shortly do likewise to your personage.

Your Obedient Servant, 

A Guardian of Blood

As the last words of the signature appeared on the page, the top began to burn. Dolores dropped it on the stone floor of the now-empty room and stared at it until only ash and darkness were left around her.

Chapter Text

Harry walked into his office the next evening for his first shift since he'd left for Banda Aceh to find a pile of memos on his desk and a Sue on his chair. 

"Welcome back, ex-rookie," she said.

"Ex-rookie?" Harry asked.

"We've got a new rookie now," Sue said. "Owens started while we were out. He said the 'Q' word last night."

Harry winced. "How bad?"

"A call came in immediately from Umbridge's house." Sue vacated his chair as she spoke and they traded spots. In a moment, Harry had his chair back and Sue was in her usual spot leaning in his doorway. "We checked it out and it seemed legit, so we called for backup."

"Seemed legit?" Harry asked. "What happened?"

"Oz, John, and I went to check the house while I left Owens with Umbridge," Sue said. "While we were clearing the house, which turned out to be empty, we heard an apparition outside, or possibly two. The echoes made it hard to tell. When I came back out, Owens was out cold and Umbridge was gone."

"Gone?" Harry furrowed his brows. "Is she alright? I mean, she's still a bitch, but I didn't want her to die." Not quite yet, at least. 

"That's the weird thing," Sue said. "Owens thinks she stunned him, but we don't have any proof. My gut feeling is that she didn't, because I found Owens carefully laid on his side and Umbridge would never care enough about another human being to turn them over after stunning to avoid tongue-swallowing. John and Oz think he fell like that by accident, but I have my doubts. Anyway, we scoured the house and neighbourhood for her and couldn't find her, so we left. This morning, she showed up and said the whole thing had been a false alarm."

Harry raised his eyebrows. "A false alarm with a stunned Auror? Those seem mutually exclusive."

"I know, right?" Sue said. "We're keeping the case open, but without a complainant or proof that a crime was committed, it's hard to continue the investigation." 

"I see what you mean," Harry said. "Any idea why she changed her tune?"

"Not a clue," Sue said. "She even submitted to a quick test to prove she wasn't currently under the Imperius. She just wanted the investigation closed as quickly as possible."

"Weird." Harry inwardly crowed, but tried to keep it off of his face. "I'd ask you to bring me in on it if you want to go digging around her, but realistically, I hate her too much to be objective on an investigation."

"True enough," Sue said. "I just wanted to bounce some ideas off of you. Let me know if you think of anything that might give us a new angle on her, alright? This one's bugging me."

"Will do," Harry said. "I'm positive she's hiding something Merlin-damned shady, but I don't know what it was or how her little disappearing act played into it." He thought for a moment, then decided to risk it. If Sue hadn't thought of it, she would soon, and leading her in that direction might make her less likely to consider him as a suspect. "Have you considered Polyjuice? It's on my mind from Hermione's Christmas gift to us."

"Yes, I had." Sue nodded. Harry wasn't sure if he'd passed a test, though he couldn't help but wonder. "It's just a theory at this point. There's no way to test for it, Umbridge says nothing happened and we don't have any evidence of two Umbridges running around simultaneously. It would explain some things, but it's purely speculative without something concrete to work with."

"I see what you mean," Harry said. "Without evidence, we're just casting hexes in the dark."

She sighed. "Yeah. I'll leave you to catch up on things. Owens will be back on shift tonight and he knows not to say the 'Q' word anymore, so hopefully you'll be able to catch up on some of that."

"You too," Harry said. "I'll let you know if I think of anything else." He took a huge breath as soon as she left the room and drew his wand to cast a Muffliato followed by a messenger Patronus. He still had no idea how he was going to reveal to Nev and Sue that he possessed the means to find and unbind all muggleborns, but at least he wasn't already on his way to Azkaban.

Baby steps.

"Do you think Harry will message us soon?" Sirius continued pacing through his sitting room as he spoke.

"Probably," Remus said.

"You said that when I asked five minutes ago," Sirius said.

"I did," Remus admitted.

"And when I asked five minutes before that," Sirius said.

"I maintain my position that he'll contact us soon," Remus said.

A growl rumbled from the armchair across the room. "He'd better," Hermione said, glaring at the copy of A Compendium of Common Curses and Their Counter-Actions in her hands as if she were trying to set it aflame with her mind, "or I'm going to murder Sirius with a cheese grater."

"Do you mean a hand grater or a box grater?" Remus asked. "I'm just curious what you'd use, one professional to another."

"Oi! No grating me!" Sirius said.

"Neither." Hermione's eyes narrowed. "I'd use a rasp grater."

Sirius winced, but an ethereal stag bounded into the room before he could respond. 

"Umbridge didn't report the theft," Harry's voice said, emanating from the stag as it moved around the room. Sirius's whole body noticeably relaxed once it arrived, and the glare evaporated from Hermione's face like fog in the sun. "You're all clear to proceed."

The Patronus left the temperament of the room profoundly altered when it disappeared. Sirius, smiling and content, turned to Hermione and said, "That's our cue. Will you be alright here by yourself?"

"I will, thank you," she said, returning the smile. She knew she ought to be annoyed about having her mood changed by a spell, but that hadn't been a mere Cheering Charm. Harry's Patronus didn't make her feel different, but rather seemed to pull out the best feelings that were already in her heart and remind her they were more important than the transient annoyances of the day. "You have life, love, and hope," the stag's mere existence seemed to tell her. "They endure, and your troubles shall pass."

He and Remus hugged her goodbye, put their shrunken travel trunks into their pockets, and left to activate the international portkey they'd purchased from the Ministry. Hermione didn't let the silence or emptiness of the old house distract her after they left, instead pulling out a full parchment, an empty parchment, and a quill. 

Copying out this letter left-handed went a little faster than last time, which worried Hermione. The last thing she wanted to do was get good enough at this that her left hand's writing started to mimic her right hand's. When she finished, she once again summoned an eager Kreacher to manually duplicate it. 

Gandalf's admonishment about not being "too eager to deal out death in judgement" haunted her long after the old elf left to do his work, but so did the spectre of the babies Gollum stole from their cribs because Gandalf hadn't dealt out death in judgement to him after his capture before the events of The Fellowship of the Ring. After no small amount of thought, she decided to leave mercy to the province of the Wise and the Good. Limited by her own fallibility, all she could do was try to ensure Umbridge didn't hurt any more little girls.

Dolores climbed up the rickety tenement steps, vanishing rat droppings and the occasional pool of vomit as she did so. Someone had to keep this city clean, even Knockturn.

Her first knock on a worn, stained door on the third floor had no effect, so she banged hard enough to elicit hungover groans from the flat next door. Shuffling steps reluctantly approached the other side of the door before a man pulled it open. His threadbare old pinstriped robe seemed to be held together mostly by faded magic and memories of its former elegance. Like the skin of that man who wore it, it was wrinkled and seemed too large for its occupant.

"It's been a long time, Dolores," he said. 

"Too long, Cornelius," she added with a bit of a simper. "Won't you invite me in?"

He sighed and gestured for her to enter his flat. "Come in," he said, "and tell me what you want."

"Can't I just want to see an old friend?" she asked as she walked in. She hung her pink pillbox hat on a hook next to a ratty old green bowler hat and conjured a wooden chair to sit on in his dirty living room, since that seemed more sanitary than either of the wooden chairs already there.

"You were never my friend," Fudge said. "You used me and threw me aside when I couldn't help you anymore."

"That's not true at all," Dolores replied. "I helped you as much as I could right to the very end, but our work was always more important than either of us. That's why I'm here, really. I've gotten into a spot of trouble and been Obliviated. You were always so good at Obliviation while you were in the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, and I was hoping you could help me."

Fudge looked out of the dirty old window in the room for a moment before speaking. Faint sounds of muttered arguments, the creak of wheeled cart, and even the occasional distant shout of pain drifted up from the street. It felt a long way from the tidier, more organised noise of the Ministry in which they'd both once worked. "I sometimes wonder if that was the only job I was ever really good at."

"Nonsense," Dolores said. "You were always a great minister. Those other fools were just too blind to see it. In fact, I've been saving up for years to give you this as a token of my appreciation for all of your hard work." She handed him a small leather money-pouch with a modest space-expansion charm on it.

Fudge tried not to look too eager as he took the pouch, but mostly failed. As he rooted around inside, Dolores continued, "Two hundred and fifty Galleons," she said. "The retirement present you've always deserved."

His sunken eyes lit up. "I can finally get a nice flat with this money. Thank you! How can I repay you?"

"Oh, it'll be simple for you, I'm sure," Dolores said. "Can you try to reverse the Obliviation I got hit with? I need to know who attacked me."

"I'll do my best," Fudge said. "I'm out of practice, but I was damn good at this once upon a time." He raised his wand and looked her straight in the eyes. "Recordatio."

Cornelius's touch was a feather-light tickle in her mind as he viewed her memories through her mind's eye. The memories soon faded as he approached the blank spot around the night she was attacked, and he ran the tendrils of his thoughts back and forth around that time. No obliviation was perfect, and under the relentless examination of his magic, pinpricks of colour, light, and sound appeared in that blackness. In half an hour, what had been a two-dimensional blank became a three-dimensional memory full of black fog. A man was there…a wooden table…a yellow shirt…her study…Ludo Bagman! Cornelius wasn't able to reconstruct much of the conversation, but it was enough to confirm that Ludo had known what she had.

But how? Was his whole persona a lie to cover up a cunning would-be blackmailer? Who in Mordred's name could be that committed to a ruse?

"Merlin!" Fudge's exclamation snapped her back to the present. "Dolores, what have you done? What did he mean about binding muggleborns?"

"I've kept our world and our magic safe for decades," Dolores said. "You don't need to worry about it. I was thorough and never left evidence."

"Worry about it…you're the reason there are no muggleborns anymore!"

"Exactly," she said. "Isn't that what you wanted, too?"

"I…of course not! I just wanted to preserve our traditions and keep them in their place, not eradicate them entirely!" He wrung his hands nervously. "Dolores, what are we going to do?"

"Don't worry, Cornelius," she said soothingly. "It'll all be Petrificus Totalis."

She looked into the terror-stricken eyes of the frozen man. "I always held you in the highest regard, dear, and I always will, but I can't let anyone get in the way of my work. Not even you. Don't worry, though. This won't hurt a bit."

Her wand wove a complex pattern in front of his eyes. "Ennervatio. Goodbye, old friend. I'll stay with you until the end."

Two minutes later, the light went out of Fudge's eyes for the last time and Umbridge cancelled her Full Body-Bind. On her way out, she made sure to reclaim her money pouch and hat before locking the door one last time. No sense allowing ruffians to burgle his flat even if he no longer needed it. 

After all, Dolores Umbridge had standards.

Harry's evening shift and the departure of his adoptive parents left his house quiet in a way that was much too reminiscent of Harry's time in Banda Aceh, but Hermione tried to ignore it and focus on her work. That focus was rewarded a couple of hours later while she was going through the Potions she would need to practise the following week with Andi and she stumbled across a note in a feminine hand next to the heading of the Strengthening Solution. 

"This Potion is amazing!" Lily wrote.

"Indeed it is," Severus replied. "I'm going to keep a vial on me at all times."

"That will only escalate things, you know," Lily said. 

"That Potter brat had no issue escalating to a Laxative Potion yesterday morning," Severus said.

"That was awful, but you should have heard him in the Common Room the night before. He was livid about the Jelly-legs Jinx you hit Sirius with."

"A child's jinx," Severus said. "Certainly not worthy of such a response."

"He was on the moving staircase while it was changing floors, Sev," Lily said. "You nearly killed the poor boy. James is a prat, but thank God for his reflexes."

"Rich boy," Severus corrected. "He's a Black."

"So?," Lily asked. "That's no excuse for killing him. Besides, you should have seen him when he came back from summer break at the start of this year. He was still twitching from all of the Cruciatus Curses his mother used on him."

What kind of monster would use the Cruciatus Curse on a fourteen-year-old? Good Lord.

"Too bad she didn't use more," Severus said. 

Hermione's jaw dropped. There was no response at all from Lily, and the next line was Severus again.

"Lily?" was all he wrote.

"I don't want to talk to you right now," she said. "Go back to your work."

"I'm sorry," Severus wrote.

Lily didn't respond. Hermione couldn't think of anything to say, either. 

Harry staggered out of the floo after his shift to a cheerful "Welcome home!" from Hermione.

"Thank you!" he said as he cast a quick Scourgify to get rid of the soot. "Thank you for waiting up for me."

Hermione put her parchments aside, rose from the chesterfield, and hurried over to give him a tight hug. "Of course I waited up for you. How was your night?"

"Not too bad, but the former Minister for Magic was found dead this evening by his landlord," Harry said.

"That's awful!" Hermione released the embrace so she could look Harry in the eyes. "What happened?"

"Murder," Harry said. "He was killed with an Ennervating Curse and also showed signs of having been under the Full Body-Bind Curse at the time of death. We're not sure why or who might have done it. There were no signs of forced entry, so it was probably someone he considered a friend. He was living in a flophouse in Knockturn Alley, the seedy side of Wizarding London. He's the one whose career I destroyed after the Dementor incident during Sixth Year."

"I see," Hermione said. "I know I should be sad about his murder, but it sounds like he presided over some terrible travesties of justice as well as the near mass-murder of Hogwarts students by soul-sucking monsters."

"I know what you mean," Harry said. "I can put aside the mixed feelings and do my job, but that corpse didn't bother me as much as it should have."

"You're still a good person," Hermione said, "and I know you'll try hard to solve this."

"Thank you," Harry said. "Did you write the letter and have the letter delivered?"

"Yes," Hermione replied. "It's done. Sirius and Remus left, too, and asked me to give you a hug from them." She gave him two more quick hugs. 

"Thank you for passing that along," Harry said with a smile. "Now, would you like a late supper? I'm starving."

"That would be lovely," Hermione said. "I'll take the Stasis Charm off of our leftovers from yesterday while you change out of your uniform."

"Thank you!" Harry hurried upstairs while Hermione went downstairs to prepare supper. After a quick meal, she asked him to come back to the living room with her.

"I found another conversation between your mother and Snape," she told him once they'd sat down on the chesterfield and she pulled out her Potions book. "I think it took place toward the middle of the first term of their Third Year."

Harry reread it three times, and after finishing the third reading he just sat there and stared at the book.

"Is there anything you want to talk about?" Hermione asked.

"My father and his friends hated Snape," Harry said, "and he hated them. It's weird, watching that hatred creep into their lives and poison everything. I wonder, if you'd been at school with me, would the hatred between Draco and me have poisoned my relationship with you the way Snape's hatred of my father began to poison his relationship with my mother?"

"Isn't Draco the one who's a blood supremacist and would probably hate me?" Hermione asked.

"That's him," Harry said. 

She snorted, such an uncharacteristic sound that Harry raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Then I very much doubt it," she said. "Schoolyard rivalries are one thing, but I suspect that Draco prat would have been calling me awful names as soon as I beat him on one single test. Realistically, I'd probably have been right there with you fighting him."

"Are you sure?" Harry asked teasingly. "Even I've noticed he's a beautiful man. What if you fell for his perfect skin, perfect hair, and suave bad-boy demeanour?"

"Because that would soooo distract me from how much he despised me," Hermione said. "Right. Besides, were I a sucker for perfect hair, what would I be doing with you?"

"My hair is perfect," Harry said.

"Perfectly messy, you mean," she replied. 

"That's a type of perfect." Harry's eyes twinkled in the gaslamps as he spoke and she found herself powerless to disagree.

"I suppose it is," she said, and found words perfectly unnecessary for the remainder of the evening.

The outer wards tickled Lord Rupert Selwyn's attention before the distant pop of elven apparition reached his ears in his sitting room. A moment later, his own elf, Enny, popped up next to him. "Master, Enny sensed an elf for a moment outside the front gate," she said.

"Did you see which elf it was?" Selwyn asked her.

"No, Master, Enny did not," she replied.

He sighed. "Fat lot of good your elf senses did, then. Go see if it left anything and then slam your head in the gate as punishment."

Enny nodded. "Enny will do both at once."

The little elf popped back up a moment later, swaying unsteadily on her feet and with bruises starting on both sides of her head. "Enny found this outside, Master," she said as she handed him a leather folio that had seen better days. "There is no spells but protection on the documents."

"Good." Selwyn waved her off and cast some quick analysis Charms of his own. The contents of the folio were indeed harmless. Some of the documents were in a smaller, neater folio, sealed magically shut and protected against all forms of duplication. The only other document was a folded piece of parchment with a Self-Destruction Charm on it. 

Selwyn wasn't surprised, since his associates often relied on such documents to keep themselves out of Azkaban. Words formed upon it with a touch of his wand. 

Dear Lord Selwyn, 

I grew tired of that meddlesome Half-blood Umbridge's possession of such valuable blackmail material and decided to relieve her of it. I was dismayed to find a loyal follower of the Dark Lord ensnared by her web, so please accept your folder back, unopened and uncopied. I neither know nor wish to know what she had on you. Anything that weakens you, even such petty blackmail, weakens our cause, and I am not foolish enough to court your anger. 

Your Obedient Servant, 

Not that idiot Umbridge

"Well, well, well," Selwyn mused as the parchment in front of him burned to ash. "What a pleasant surprise! And to think she was a Half-blood the whole time."

The life of a blackmailer is a dangerous one, and Umbridge was not as much of a fool as Selwyn would have liked. She'd made it clear to him (and presumably all of her targets) that her blackmail material was carefully protected. She only had one copy of the material. So as long as they paid their dues, they could rest assured that no others could stumble across their secrets, and that copy was protected carefully by wards and fail-safe artefacts on her person that would send the whole batch to the Daily Prophet were she to be killed or struck with an Unforgivable Curse.

Whoever had taken her stash must have done so with true Slytherin cunning, and Selwyn raised his brandy in silent toast to his benefactor. He was finally free of all of his obligations to that bitch and wanted only one thing more than to never see her again: the sight of her body writhing in agony. 

With a smile, Selwyn drained his glass, savouring the burn as it went down. No one took advantage of the House of Selwyn and got away with it, especially not a jumped-up Half-blood with delusions of grandeur and pinkness.

Chapter Text

The familiar sensation of having his entire body sucked through his belly button faded and Remus once again opened his eyes. "Ugh," he said. "I'm too old for two portkeys in quick succession."

Sirius leaned over, hands on his knees. "I'll argue with you about us being old as soon as the room stops spinning."

"Good afternoon," a woman's voice said. Remus looked up and into the concerned eyes of a witch on the high side of middle age. Her hair was drawn up in a bun and animated black cats chased grey mice across her off-white robes. "Are you alright?"

"Give us a minute, love," Sirius said. "We've just come a long way."

"My goodness!" she said. "It certainly sounds like you have. Did you come directly from the UK?"

"Our international portkey dropped us off in New York," Remus said. "We took another straight here."

"I imagine you need a moment to catch your breath," she said, "but you should probably do that off the arrival platform. Can I help you to a bench?"

Remus waved her off and linked arms with Sirius. "Thank you, but I think we can make it," he said. The two of them staggered over to one of the wooden benches placed helpfully against a wall near the arrival platform. 

"Welcome to Buffalo," the witch said. "My name is Angela Dobbs, and I'm afraid we don't get many visitors from abroad. What brings you to our fair city?"

Before Remus could answer, a portkey deposited a dark-skinned man on the arrival platform. He staggered for a moment before straightening up to his full six-foot height and shaking his head, sending his dreadlocks whirling around his head. "I hate those," he said as he hopped off the platform. 

"Tell us about it," Sirius said. 

"Another visitor?" Dobbs asked. 

"Indeed," the man said, "but I'm not exactly here on my own." He strode up to Sirius and Remus and bowed. "It's a pleasure to meet you gents. I'm Ellison Drake from the New York Ghost. It's not often the US gets such illustrious guests as yourselves, and I thought I'd tag along and write a feature piece on what you're finding of interest here in our country."

Remus had to stifle a growl at the reporter, but Sirius gave a hearty laugh that would have sounded convincing to anyone who hadn't known him since he was a child. 

"We're just here to cause trouble, mate," Sirius said, "but you're welcome to come with."

"Illustrious?" Dobbs asked. 

"I'm not sure I'd go that far." Sirius pushed himself back to his feet as he spoke. "My name is Sirius, and this is my husband Remus."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Dobbs said. 

"And it's our honour," Drake said, "to welcome the Lord of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black to our shores, to say nothing of Harry Potter's adopted family."

The woman's eyebrows shot up. "You're a lord and you raised Harry Potter?"

Remus fought down a sigh while Sirius bowed. "Guilty as charged," he said. "In fact, we're here for him. The poor kid's been down in the dumps since he got back from helping in Indonesia. He's not even going to the pub anymore!"

"I'm sorry to hear that," Drake said, not looking sorry at all. 

"We couldn't let that stand," Sirius said, "so we decided to bring the pub to him. We've already collected some of the best beer in the Isles to bring him, along with a selection of fine pub grub under stasis charms. He loves Buffalo Wings, though, and I didn't want to get my boy any less than the absolute best."

Remus leaned toward Drake and whispered, "That Sirius also loves Buffalo Wings may have something to do with this plan."

"Who can say?" Sirius gave an exaggerated shrug. "Regardless, I am on a quest for my godson and I will not be denied." He grinned. "Wouldst thou, noble scribe, wish to join us?"

The reporter's smile grew predatory and Remus fought the urge to raise his eyebrows. He had a bad feeling Padfoot was going to end up in the doghouse for this plan regardless of how successful it was.

Drake wrinkled his nose and looked around the restaurant. "So this is the famous Anchor Bar?"

"That's what the sign on the door said," Sirius responded as they made their way to a plain table with cheap chairs. 

"Here's the plan," Remus said. "We're going to hang out here and order beer and Buffalo Wings. I'll magically transfer half of each tray to a food stasis bag I brought as we eat the other half. That way, we can buy as many as we want without attracting attention."

"That works for me," Drake said. "I admit I've never gone Fribble quite to this extent."

"Fribble?" Remus asked.

"What you would call 'muggle' across the pond," Drake said. "Some of the bureaucrats in New York City call them No-Maj's, but most of us think that just shows they were all dropped on the head as children."

"I see. Well, you'll get used to it," Sirius said. "Harry taught us and I have to admit how fun it is sometimes. Especially because I know how much my parents would have hated it."

"Really?" Drake asked. "They didn't like Fribbles?"

Remus and Sirius shared a look before bursting out laughing. "That," Sirius said, "is the understatement of the year."

They ordered their first platter of wings and pitcher of beer before launching into a quick history of Sirius's family, keeping it to things publicly known but not necessarily widely known. With the research they'd done on old members of the Black Family for Kreacher, they had an easy time peppering the story with bizarre anecdotes. The kitschy decor around them also provided an endless source of amusement, one that Drake gradually found funnier as they started the second pitcher of beer.

The second pitcher of beer was also when Remus first noticed the volume of beer in his glass decreasing gradually when he was not drinking it. A glance at Sirius earned him a smirk and a wink, so he kept quiet about the subtle disappearance of his beverage. 

It wasn't great beer, anyway. Remus would never understand Americans and their obsession with cheap lager. 

By the time the fourth pitcher of beer made its way to the table, Drake was thoroughly in his cups. Fortunately, he was at least a pleasant drunk, laughing easily and loudly at whatever outrageous comments came out of Sirius's mouth. That's when Sirius gave the traditional Marauder signal that things were about to get sticky: a scratch of the nose followed by a scratch of the temple.

"I'd better hit the toilet," Remus said. "I'll be right be back."

"In the States," Drake slurred, "we say 'I have to see a man about a horse.'"

"You do?" Remus asked. "Why?"

"Hell if I know," Drake said.

"Very well, then," Remus said. "I'll go visit that man and ask him."

Sirius and Drake both guffawed as he left the table. 

On the way back from the toilets (which weren't nearly as dirty as he thought they'd be), Remus found their waitress and pressed two crisp hundred-dollar bills into her hand. He wasn't sure what Sirius was planning and wanted to ensure she didn't lose out on a bill in the process. 

Remus nodded to his husband as he sat back down and Sirius nodded back, then turned to Drake. "Did I ever tell you about my Godson Harry ?" he asked.

"A bit, yes, but I'll never turn down another Harry Potter story," Drake replied. 

Sirius's expression darkened for such a brief moment that Remus doubted even Harry would have noticed. "Well, he's the best at the Disarming Charm." Sirius slurred the words extra as he spoke. "You wouldn't believe how good he is."

"That's awesome!" Drake said. The reporter seemed to be a genuine Harry Potter fan, not just someone trying to fish for a story. Remus wasn't sure if that made him feel better or worse. 

"It really is," Sirius said. "Why, he could probably disarm the beer in that guy's hand all the way across the restaurant."

Drake scoffed, though his drunkenness made that movement exaggerated and not a little silly. "Any decent wizard could hit that target," he said. "That's an easy one. He's enormous, easily 6'4" and three hundred pounds."

"I beg to differ," Remus said. "I don't think I could from here."

"I don't think Drake could, either," Sirius said. "He's…what do you Yanks say? All hat and no cats?"

"Cattle," Remus corrected.

"Right," Sirius said. "All hat and no oxen."

Remus had to suppress a snort. He'd forgotten how much fun it was to watch Sirius in action.

"I've got plenty of cattle!" Drake said. "Well, not cattle, but spells. I mean, spellwork. Any Ilvermorny grad could hit that guy from here."

"Doubtful." Sirius snorted.

"It's a pretty crowded restaurant," Remus said. "And incredibly loud."

"Yeah," Sirius said. "So prove me wrong. I doubt anyone would even see the spell in here, and I doubt anyone beyond this table could even hear you cast."

"Too risky in a fribble bar," Drake said.

Remus picked up a chicken wing. "Huh," he said. "We've got more chicken at this table than I thought."

"Are you implying something?" Drake asked. 

"Yes," Sirius said, "he is. I'll just come right out and say it, though: I think you're full of it. There's no way anyone could make that shot with a Disarming Charm."

"It's not that hard!" Drake said.

"Then prove it," Sirius said. "With all the noise and bustle in here, nobody will even notice."

"The chicken here," Remus said in between bites of chicken wing, "really is top-notch. Very…chicken-y, you might say. You, in particular, might say, I mean."

Drake glared at him. "Fine. I'll show you how an Ilvermorny graduate does it."

As the reporter turned to face his target, the faint, watery sensation of a Muggle Notice-Me-Not Charm slid over Remus, and he quickly returned the favour to Sirius. 

"Expelliarmus," the drunken reporter whispered. The spell shoved the man painfully into the bar and ripped the half-full glass of beer from his hand, sending it sailing above the crowd's heads and into Drake's hand. It sloshed all over him, of course, but his attention wasn't on the beer so much as it was on the huge man stalking toward him.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" he roared. "Did you put wires on my glass to steal it? Is this some of kind of weird reality show or am I about to beat the shit out of some wannabe wizard?"

"Wannabe?" Drake stood up unsteadily. "I'll have you know I am a full-fledged wizard, not that we should be talking about this here. How did you even—"

The man decked Drake with a single punch to the jaw, at which point Sirius and Remus slipped away into the crowd. With the M'N'M's, nobody paid them a lick of attention.

Remus had forgotten how bloody cold Buffalo was in the winter and they both cast Warming Charms on themselves as soon as they were away from the crowd of smokers near the bar's door. Snow crunched under their feet as they made their way down the sidewalk, another consideration of the weather they hadn't taken into account before coming here. The half-inch of snow on the sidewalks was not playing well with Remus's loafers and he didn't even want to think about what it would be like to step into the six inches of snow piled everywhere else around him.

"Now what?" Sirius rubbed his arms in a mostly vain attempt to speed up the effects of the Warming Charm. 

"So that's where your plan ended?" Remus asked.

"I think it was quite good," Sirius said. "I got us the wings and ditched our tail at the same time. We even got beer out of the deal. Did you pay?"

Remus nodded. "I did, and it was a good plan. I just wasn't sure where it ended."

"I knew I could count on you," Sirius said. "This is as far as I got."

"Very well." Remus looked around for a cab. "Perfect! While Americans don't seem to have as many cabs around outside of the big cities as we do, there are some here to cater to drunk tourists."

"And that we are!" Sirius said. "Speaking of drunken arseholes, I hope Drake doesn't get in too much trouble. For a scum-sucking celebrity reporter, he wasn't a bad guy."

"I think he'll be fine," Remus said. "That other guy thought he was a stage wizard and he basically agreed. The Aurors will probably show up, haul him off to the drunk tank, issue a citation, and let it go at that."

"I think that's an appropriate punishment for digging into my godson's life," Sirius said. "Shall we collect a cab?"

"Yes, let's," Remus said. "Mr. Wainwright is probably expecting us by now."

Sirius looked around. "No offence…alright, some offence to Buffalo, but this city looks like it's seen better days. Why is there such a large Wizarding community here?"

"It has seen better days," Remus said. "It was once one of the most prosperous cities in the US. Most of the manufacturing and people have left over the last century, but the Wizards hung on. A lot of the grand old buildings along Delaware Avenue only look dilapidated these days to keep out the muggles or whatever they call them around here."

"I see," Sirius said as they reached the nearest cab. It was surprisingly well-kept and turned out to be driven by a student at the local university trying to pay for college. They had a wonderful conversation about some of the other food to try in Buffalo and, as he dropped them off at a weathered old brick house on Delaware Avenue, Remus passed him a fifty-dollar bill to thank him for the ride and the conversation.

"You're such a softy," Sirius said as they entered the rusted old gate. 

"I feel like I should pay for services rendered," Remus said, "and that young man just told me about a sandwich that comprises half a pound of roast beef, au jus, a bun, and nothing else. My wolf and I are in rare agreement that such a service deserved proper compensation."

"I see your point," Sirius said.

"You're still thinking about the doughnuts, aren't you?" Remus asked.

"I want to eat them all," Sirius said. 

Remus patted him on the shoulder as the magic of the first ward line washed over them. "I do, too," he said. 

An elderly man with the paranoid mien of Alastor Moody stomped out of the house. He was completely bald, though whether that was from shaving or nature was unclear, and kept his head on a swivel as he scanned their surroundings for enemies. He looked spry for eighty years old and long scars covered his tanned skin. 

"What's the password I agreed on with Harry?" he barked.

"Basilisks are for bell-ends. Real men kill their enemies with skinks," Sirius said. "What's your half?"

"Lizards are for losers," the man replied. "I'll stick with Curses, Charms, and my Colt Anaconda. It's a pleasure to meet you boys. M'name's Nimrod Wainwright."

"Likewise," Remus said. "I'm Remus Lupin and this is my husband Sirius Black."

Wainwright snorted again. "Never thought I'd meet a Black I wasn't going to have to kill," he said. 

"Just so you know," Remus said, "I'm a werewolf."

The man shrugged and shot a glance at the moon. "So? We've still got a week or two before it's that time of the month, so we're fine."

Remus raised his eyebrows. 

"I've known a lot of werewolves and killed my share of 'em," Wainwright said. "I've killed my share of men, too. In my old line of work, you learn fast to trust individuals, not categories, or you die."

"A lot of British Aurors," Sirius said, "don't seem to hold to the same views."

Wainwright nodded, the motion making his pale scars writhe in the moonlight. "And how many of 'em didn't survive the Blood War, or wouldn't survive another one?"

"Point taken," Remus said. 

Wainwright smiled grimly and took another look around. "That's enough time out here jawin'. Let's get inside."

He led them into the old house, pausing only to take off his shoes and hit them with a quick Drying Charm. Remus and Sirius did likewise before following him into the parlour, which was a beautiful room covered in ivory wallpaper, elegant Victorian furniture…and dust, which Wainwright whisked away into a little whirlwind with a Dusting Charm. 

"I don't get visitors much anymore," he said, settling into an old armchair as he spoke. "Harry wouldn't tell me what you all were up to, so I've been curious. What brings all the way out here and how'd you end up so late?"

Sirius and Remus sat down on a surprisingly comfortable sofa, probably one kept that way with Cushioning Charms. "We got held up a bit by a reporter," Sirius said. "So we took him to the Anchor Bar, picked up the Buffalo Wings we'd promised Harry, and got the reporter drunk enough to break the Statute a bit. That should keep him out of our hair."

The old man guffawed. "That's the funniest story I've heard about ditching a tail since my old partner O'Brien ditched a Dark Wizard in a brothel."

"We got a lot of beer out of it, too," Sirius said. "I consider the whole evening a smashing success."

"Beer and Buffalo Wings aren't the real reason we're here, though," Remus said. "We need your help with a printing job."

"Beer and wings are also important, though," Sirius said.

"I respect your commitment to the finer things in life," Wainwright said. "Why would you need my help with a printing job, though? I just have a little specialty press for Defence Against the Dark Arts books."

"We recently came into possession of blackmail on a decent fraction of Britain's magical upper class and bureaucrats," Remus said. "We decided the best way to ensure it didn't 'disappear' was to print and distribute it privately. That will likely force the government to take some sort of action."

"I like that idea," Wainwright said. "I take it this stuff is too spicy to use a local printer?"

"We had someone in mind," Remus said. "We're worried this will get him killed. We'll pay for you to use different paper and ink to make this harder to trace back to your printing office, as well as a bonus to convince any necessary employees to make an Unbreakable Vow to keep quiet about this."

Wainwright stared at him. "Money ain't worth this risk."

"I'm sorry, but I'm not sure what else we can offer you," Remus said.

"I didn't say I wouldn't do it," Wainwright said. "I just wanted to be clear it wasn't just for the money."

Sirius smirked. "You'll still take the money, though."

"Hell yes I'll take the money," the old man said. "Mama didn't raise no fool. But tell your boy that I'm doing this more for him than the money. He's a good kid and I'd love to see him clean out some of the rot over there, but it's mostly because he completed the set for me."

"The set?" Remus asked. 

"I was on a Hit Wizard kill team sent to bring down a particularly old and powerful Wendigo back in 1975," Wainwright said. "Ten of us went into the Nahanni Valley to hunt it down. Four men died and another never walked again, but we got that fucker. Unfortunately, we were too late and it had already spawned. MACUSA spent the next decade hunting down the spawn and we managed to find three by the time they declared the hunt successfully concluded. I always thought there had been a fourth, though, subtler and more cunning than its siblings."

He shook his head. "I was never able to prove it, though, since it kept its kill count low enough to stay out of our sights. I never found out what happened to it until MACUSA officials autopsied the body of the student Potter killed. Eight Hitwizards and Aurors died to that family of wendigos and three more were badly injured, and it took a Goddamn schoolboy to finish the job for us. So tell him I'll take the job and to try not to get me killed."

Chapter Text

Harry and Hermione stared at the Grimmauld Place dinner table in shock and not a little concern for their arteries. Two huge platters of Buffalo Wings flanked a tray piled high with thick roast beef sandwiches on kümmelweck rolls. A gravy boat full of au jus for the beef sandwiches sat to the right of the platters, next to a bowl of horseradish. To the left of the platters was a tray containing a pyramid of at least two dozen doughnuts, each one twice the size of the next largest doughnut Harry had ever seen. 

Sirius sighed happily. "Isn't it magnificent?"

"It's…something," Remus said. "I'm not entirely sure what."

Hermione screwed up her nose adorably and cocked her head to one side. "It looks…almost like some sort of weird summoning ritual. Like, if we ate all of that food while chanting 'Beer, Bullets, and Burgers' over and over, eventually we'd summon some sort of hideously overweight ancient American of great and terrible power."

"You mean like Dennis Hastert?" Remus asked. 

"Who?" Harry asked as Hermione nearly fell over laughing.

Sirius shrugged. "Shall we dig in?"

"We're going to need some help here," Harry said. "Would you mind if we invited Sue and Nev?"

"Not at all," Sirius said. 

Hermione managed to pull herself back to an upright position using Harry as a support. "Great. While you do that, I'm going to run back home for something. I'll be right back."

About ten minutes later, just after Harry finished inviting Sue and Nev over, Hermione stumbled back through the floo. Harry caught her arm to steady her and she rewarded him with a quick kiss on the cheek. 

"What was that for?" he asked.

"Being there to catch me," she answered. 

Before Harry could ask her why she'd gone home, Nev and then Sue popped out of the floo. 

"You mentioned something about an American feast straight out of our fever dreams?" Nev asked. 

Sue shook her head. "I don't understand men sometimes. Harry said that and Nev's ears perked up immediately. My first thought was, 'Oh, Morgana, I'm going to be regretting this for the next week.'" 

"Don't worry." Hermione pulled a small red box out of her purse. "I went home and grabbed a full box of Rennie's antacids."

"Antacids?" Sue asked.

"Muggle aid for dyspepsia," Hermione said. "It works by neutralising the stomach acid, so unlike the potion, it actually fixes the problem. It's one of the few things I think muggle medicines do better than the magical equivalent, at least that I've found so far."

Sue hugged her. "Bless you, Hermione. It's so nice not being outnumbered by idiot boys anymore. Back at Hogwarts these two would ignore my warnings during feasts and stuff themselves silly with Ron, then all three would lie around afterward in the Common Room and moan about their stomachs."

"I'm glad to be here," Hermione said. "Wait, though, I thought the Common Rooms were limited to members of individual houses."

"That was only a tradition, not a rule," Nev said.

"So of course we broke it as soon as we could get away with it," Harry added.

"Which was Fifth Year," Sue said. "Cormac and one of his friends tried to bully me out during the first week, but between all of the time I spent helping Harry with his combat training the previous year and my aunt letting me train with Auror Tonks that summer…well, let's just say those boys spent the rest of the year being very polite to me and every other girl in that house."

Harry shrugged. "I was going to teach them a lesson myself, but after the first few minutes I just sat back to enjoy the show."

"My favourite combination," Nev said, "was when she Vanished their trousers and undergarments, hit their hips with a Numbing Charm, and then hit their privates with a localised Freezing Charm using a non-standard incantation. She claimed it was a Todger-Shrinking Curse and they couldn't feel the cold so they didn't realise there was an alternate explanation."

"Well played," Hermione said, laughing. 

Remus's voice rang out from the dining room. "If everyone is here, shall we get started with the feast? Sirius is drooling and it's significantly less cute than when he does so as Padfoot, and that's not a high bar."

Despite all of the jokes everyone made about American overindulgence, the feast was legitimately delicious. There wasn't even a single item on the table covered with cheese, so there went that stereotype. The "beef on weck" sandwiches were delicious, though only Harry and Hermione could handle them with more than a tiny amount of horseradish. The Buffalo Wings were also fantastic, even if everyone ended that course in tears from how hot they were. Fortunately the enormous donuts cooled them down a bit, though only Sirius and Harry were able to finish more than one. 

While everyone was picking at their donut (their second, in Sirius and Harry's cases), Hermione directed the conversation away from the "weird happenings". Sue was updating Sirius and Remus on to a much safer topic of conversation: the fundraiser Harry and Sue were planning for the victims of the Boxing Day Tsunami. 

"My Aunt," Sue said, "has been putting out feelers and she thinks we'll get the best attendance if we do a ball. Unfortunately, we won't have access to the Ministry resources because this will technically be a private event, and I know fuck-all about planning a ball."

"Same here," Nev said ruefully. "Even though Gran is living in the house again, she's always been a 'dinner' person instead of a 'ball' person. And we all know about Harry and balls."

Everyone laughed except for Hermione, who arched her eyebrows at Harry. 

"Um…I had to open the Yule Ball during Fourth Year because I was technically a Triwizard Champion," Harry said. "I ended up going with Parvati Patil and was a disaster of a date. I barely talked to her and the only reason I didn't break any of her poor toes was that Sue made us practise dancing with her."

"On behalf of Harry's past and future dance partners," Hermione said to Sue, "thank you."

The other woman nodded regally. "I tried my best with all three of my boys. Ron was beyond help, though."

"He wasn't that bad," Harry said.

Sue shot Hermione a long-suffering look. "Yes, he was."

"Anyway," Nev said in a truly Gryffindor-worthy attempt to wrestle the conversation back on track, "I think we've all established that we'd be pants at arranging a dance. Remus or Sirius, could you help?"

Remus shook his head. "I'm afraid I didn't have the sort of upbringing that would have included lessons about that."

"I would have," Sirius said, "but I was thrown out and, well, was never very interested in that sort of thing in the first place. I could definitely arrange a ball for you, but it would end up involving the Rolling Stones and I'd hate to have to Obliviate them again."

"Again?" Hermione asked.

"It was the '70s," Sirius said. "Things were pretty crazy. We pulled most of the memories out of their heads to protect the Statute, but the weirdness was so deeply embedded in their lives at that point that we couldn't get rid of everything." He shook his head sadly. "They still think that house was haunted."

Hermione shuddered. "Merlin, you really are like Luna. I have no idea when either of you are messing with me."

Sirius nearly choked on a bite of doughnut at that statement and Sue practically fell out of her chair laughing. The others at the table looked around at each other, surprised.

"I didn't think you remembered!" Sue said after a moment.

"I told you I would," Hermione said.

"Did I miss something?" Harry asked.

Dobby popped up. Hermione looked down at him and said, "I haven't forgotten I owe you a chart, either."

"Yay!" Dobby cheered before popping away again.

"Did I miss several things?" Harry asked.

"Yes," Hermione said. "It's a long story."

"She," Nev said, "would definitely have fit in with us at Hogwarts."

Hermione blushed as everyone else at the table nodded in agreement. "Anyway," she said, "we should probably focus on the problem at hand: a lot of people in the Indian Ocean basin need help, we need to hold a ball to convince the xenophobic British Wizarding community to help those people effectively, and we're all pants at organising balls. Is that a good summary?"

Everyone else nodded. 

"All right, then the solution is clear," Hermione said. "We need to outsource this."

"Outsource?" Harry asked.

"Oh, right," Hermione said, "you all missed all of the labour market news stories in the '90s. We need to basically hire someone else who knows what they're doing to put this together."

Harry shook his head. "Party planning might be a common skillset in the Muggle world, but in the Wizarding world it's mostly kept within families. Even if we could find someone, I'm not sure how to confirm they'd be competent or reliable."

"So you're saying," Hermione said with a small, self-satisfied smile, "that we need someone who is accustomed to making herself invaluable?"

"What do you…" Harry blinked. "Merlin, Hermione, how did you remember that? It's been months!"

"I have a good memory," she said, her smile growing wider as she spoke.

"Um…what are you talking about?" Nev asked.

"Hermione and I had a run-in with Tracey Davis at Madam Malkin's while we were getting Hermione some witches' robes," Harry said. 

"Oh, I see," Sue said. "That suggestion has potential. Do you think we can trust her?"

"With our secrets? Not a chance," Harry said. "With planning a ball? Absolutely. Her business depends on people perceiving her as competent."

"That's a good point," Nev said. "If we give her this, she'll need it to go well."

"Exactly," Harry said. "If you're all OK with this, I can reach out to her."

"I think it's a clever solution," Remus said. Everyone else agreed, by which point Hermione's smile was so wide she was actually showing her teeth.

Hermione came close to asking Harry to Obliviate all knowledge of their scheming so she could focus on her studying, but he convinced her not to do so both because of the risks of removing that much of her recent life and because what she considered sub-par studying was still far faster than he'd learnt the same material at Hogwarts. She did her best to focus during her one-on-one study sessions, though, and she thought she successfully hid her distress from everyone. Until Friday, anyway.

At the stroke of noon on the grandfather clock in Harry's sitting room, a blonde witch tumbled out of the floo. "Hullo, Hermione!" she said brightly.

"Hello, Luna," Hermione said as she helped her new friend to her feet. "How is your pregnancy treating you?"

"Mildly, all things considered. I've been lucky this time." Luna looked at Hermione thoughtfully. "Oh, dear," she said. "You've acquired some of Harry's wrackspurts."

"I've what, now?" Hermione asked.

"This happened sometimes in school," Luna said. "Harry always had wrackspurts surrounding him, but every now and then, when things got really bad they would start to fly around his friends, too. I was terribly lonely for my first few years at Hogwarts, but at those times I certainly didn't envy Harry's friends."

"Everything's OK, really," Hermione said. "Harry's just under a lot of stress right now with his return to work and his joint project with Sue to promote an aid package to some of the hardest-hit areas around the Indian Ocean."

"Of course," Luna said. "I understand completely."

"Oh, good," Hermione said. A little voice in her head added, "Damn it, woman! You're not supposed to sound relieved! Why are you so bad at this?"

"Those wrackspurts always heralded some incident where Harry saved lives," Luna said. "I have no doubt they still do and I know he's lucky to have you helping him, even if you probably don't feel lucky for it some of the time."

Hermione slumped as several different types of relief flooded her body. "You have no idea."

"I certainly don't," Luna said. Then, just as Hermione was starting to relax, Luna patted her reassuringly on the arm and added, "at least, that's what I'll say to anyone who asks."

The shorter woman didn't even bother to watch Hermione react in a woefully unsubtle manner to that declaration. Instead, she merely turned around on her heels and marched into the sitting room. "Shall we begin?" she asked over her shoulder.

"Y…yes," Hermione said, and forced her unsteady legs to follow her. She would have plenty of time to drink a shot of tequila and curl into a ball on the chesterfield after the lesson.

While Luna was visiting Hermione, Harry stumbled out of an unfamiliar floo and rested his hands on his knees for a moment until the room stopped spinning around him. After a moment, his eyes were able to focus on the sitting room of a Diagon Alley flat decorated in Mid-Century Modern furniture…out of date for the Muggle world, perhaps, but daringly modern for the Wizarding world.

"All these years later, Potter, and you're still pants at flooing," a female voice said drily. "Welcome to my humble flat. Please do sit down."

"Thanks, Davis." Harry sat down heavily in an armchair angled to face the sofa on which his old classmate was sitting. While he did so, Tracey waved her wand at the kitchen and a tea tray floated out. 

"Would you like some tea?" she asked as she poured herself a cup. 

Harry nodded and made himself a cup, too, with a splash of milk and cube of sugar. It might have been his imagination, but either the hot liquid itself or the sheer familiarity of it settled his stomach a bit. 

She blew on the tea before speaking again. "So, what can I do for you? Since this is a personal visit, I'm assuming it's a great deal more complex than crupp-walking."

"That it is," Harry said. "I assume you know about how Susan Bones and I are leading a push to raise funds for the victims of the Boxing Day Tsunami?"

"I do," Tracey said. "You've done reasonably well so far, given your general inability to manage the press."

Harry arched his eyebrows at her, but she only glared at him in response.

"You know you're shite at dealing with the press," she said. "Just take the compliment."

"Humph," Harry said. "I suppose that's kind of why I'm here, though. Susan's heard from a reliable source that we need to turn this into more of a social cause, and neither of us are exactly social butterflies."

"That's putting it mildly," Tracey said. "I don't think I've seen you at an event since you broke up with the Weasley girl. So you need a publicist?"

"We need an everything," Harry said. "We'd like you to arrange the event. Sue doesn't want to give the appearance that her aunt is making this a government event, so Neville, Sirius, and I will handle the budget." Well, Neville and Sirius would handle the budget. Harry didn't have enough in his own vault for this project and had never been able to bring himself to claim the Potter Vault. 

Tracey's jaw dropped. "You want me to arrange the social event of the Merlin-damned season?"

"We do," Harry said. 

She took a deep breath. "Why me?"

"Well, we didn't know that many people and you've got a good reputation," Harry said. 

"You're Harry Fucking Potter," Tracey said. "You could have anyone you wanted for this job. Why me?"

"I just told you!" Harry said, nearly spilling his tea as yelled. "What do you want from me?"

"Because my life is not this good!" Tracey shot back. "I have scraped and bowed and smiled through shit you would not believe and then the opportunity of a lifetime drops into my lap. I am not that lucky. So tell me why you really chose me, Potter, or you can get yourself another Arranger."

"Oh." Harry ran his free hand through his hair and took another sip of tea. "Fine. That's why we chose you, Davis. Your livelihood is too precarious for you to screw this up. Sure, I could get Sirius to call up his dear cousin Narcissa and she might throw the ball of the century…or she might set the whole thing up to fail to make us look bad. We needed someone who would be as invested in the event's success as we were." He took another sip. "Do you still want to work with us?"

She stared at him.

"What?" Harry asked.

"The goal of your whole plan is to make the event successful?" she asked. "That's it?"

"Of course we want it to be successful," Harry said. "Why would we bother otherwise?"

Tracey sighed. "Most Slytherins would be trying to accomplish at least two objectives with this ball, with its stated goal being a distant third at best. This is what I get for forgetting I'm dealing with a Gryffindor. It literally did not occur to me that your real goal here was to raise money for the needy."

"What did you think my goal was?" Harry asked. "Now I'm curious."

"Improving your image, schmoozing to create a new power bloc in the Wizengamot, stuff like that." She finally drank some more of her own tea.

"I see," Harry said. "I'm…sorry?...to disappoint you, but I just wanted to raise more money. So will you do it?"

"Yes," Tracey said. "I'll require a flat fee of eight hundred galleons, one-quarter payable up front, with the remainder in instalments throughout the process. I also have one more condition: that you let someone else take the credit for my work."

"Wait," Harry said. "The pay is reasonable, but didn't we just establish that holding you accountable was one of the main reasons we wanted to work with you?"

"I'm offering you something better to hold over my head," Tracey said. "Do you remember Daphne Greengrass?"

"Vaguely," Harry said. "She was in our year, right?" 

"You mean you don't remember the drop-dead gorgeous blonde girl in half of your classes?" Tracey asked.

Harry shrugged. "I mean, I kind of remember her, but I spent more time trying not to die than chasing girls back then."

"Only you, Potter," Tracey said. "Anyway, Daphne was my best friend at Hogwarts and she's now an Unspeakable. She's a brilliant, brilliant woman, but she prefers her research to the company of most other humans. I think I'm the only person she willingly spends time with, but now her father is pressing her to find a husband. The problem is that most Pureblood men are looking for girls right out of Hogwarts or not much older."

"Ewww," Harry said. "That seems…ugh. That's just sleazy."

"No argument here," Tracey said. "So wankers like that see twenty-four-year-old Daphne—who is, I might add, still gorgeous—and think, 'Nah, too old.' Giving her the credit for a big ball like this would make her much more attractive as the lady of a great house and put her back in the game, as it were."

"I see what you mean," Harry said. "It's just…I don't feel right about depriving you of the credit, even if that's what you want."

"Don't worry about it," Tracey said with a wave of her free hand. "Daphne was my best friend in school and her support was the reason my half-blood arse didn't get bullied constantly down in the Snake Pit." She grinned. "Besides, if Daphne does land a husband with this, she's going to need to keep me around to do all of the planning he thinks she can do."

Harry had to laugh at that. "OK, that's quite clever. We have a deal, Miss Davis."

She rose and extended her hand. "You can call me 'Tracey,' Potter. You won't regret this."

"Then you'll have to call me 'Harry,'" he said as he rose to shake her hand. "And I have a great deal of confidence that I won't."

On the other end of Diagon Alley, Ludo Bagman was at the bar in the Leaky Cauldron mourning a Wasps loss when a grotesque vision crept out of the corner of his eye and solidified into his depressingly real blackmailer, Dolores Umbridge. 

"Good evening, Ludo," she simpered. 

"Good…" was as far as he got before she whispered "Confundo" and a bolt of pink light leapt out of her cloak pocket and across the foot or so separating them. After that, it was only natural for him to agree to her suggestion to continue their discussion in one of the rooms upstairs. Some part of his rational mind screamed and begged and pleaded for someone to notice the spell and help him, but no one did. 

Halfway down the bar, though, one man rose to his feet anyway.

As soon as Dolores was alone in the room with Ludo, she shut the door with a precisely cast Locking Charm, then backed it up with an Anti-Unlocking Charm just to be on the safe side. She didn't want any witnesses to this conversation.

"Dolores?" Ludo asked as the Confundus Charm wore off. "What do you—"

"Quiet, you imbecile!" she snapped. "Incarcerous!"

The big man yelped as ropes bound him tightly in ways more than a little reminiscent of traditional Shibari, or Japanese Rope Bondage. Umbridge cursed her subconscious intent and hoped Ludo didn't know enough about Japan or their pornography to make the connection. 

"Now," she said, "you're going to answer—"

The door jiggled as an Unlocking Charm smashed into it, but her counter-charm held. Before she could do more than spin around and raise her wand, the door burst inward in a shower of splinters.

Umbridge didn't waste time negotiating with whoever this was and put her extensive study of Wilbert Slinkhard's advanced defence texts into practice. As she expected, the fight was over within seconds. 

Rupert Selwyn finished repairing the door before looking down at her with disgust. The older man waved his wand over the stump where her casting hand used to be and sang "Vulnera Sanentur." "There you go," he said. "No sense you bleeding out just yet, Dolores."

"Thank you, Lord Selwyn," she said. "I knew this was a misund—"

"Sectumsempra." The man ignored her and slashed his wand horizontally in Ludo's direction, decapitating the man. Blood spurted from his neck and splashed across the wooden ceiling before falling back to the ground in a warm, viscous rain. Some mingled with the ash of her charred wand as it fell and transformed it into a horrific mockery of mud. 

"Why?" was all Umbridge could muster through the pain.

"No witnesses," Selwyn said. 

"But…if I die…"

"They sent me the folder," Selwyn said. "The unopened folder. Unlike you, whoever stole your blackmail material wasn't stupid enough to make an enemy of a marked follower of the Dark Lord."

"It was…just business, Lord Selwyn," she said. "I didn't mean—"

"I don't care." Selwyn knelt down as he spoke and put the tip of his wand to her neck. "You're a hard woman to track down outside of your home or the Ministry Dolores, but my informants told me you were looking for Ludo and he's not hard to find at all. In an hour, all you're going to be able to think about is how much you envy his quick death. And in two hours, all you're going to be able to think of is pain. That's not the worst of it, though. Do you know what's worse?"

Dolores whimpered.

"The worst part of it," Selwyn continued, "is that you're going to live for three hours."

Roughly three and a half hours later, deep in the bowels of Gringotts Bank, the slowly pulsing brown light in Dolores Umbridge's life gem faded away to nothingness. The goblin on duty took no small pleasure in noting her death and passing it along to the notification group.

Chapter Text

Lord Selwyn awoke with a splitting headache for two reasons. First, the hangover from the previous evening after he celebrated the extended demise of the Pink Bitch. Second, the manor's alarm ward was screeching. 

He grabbed his wand and staggered over to the window. Just beyond the gates, three wizards in hooded cloaks hammered the wards with spell after spell, the flashes of purple and teal lighting up the predawn darkness. Selwyn recognized those cloaks, having worn one himself in service of the same Dark Lord. He knew how these raids worked, so he wasn't surprised a minute later when he confirmed his floo didn't work. There were still a few members of the Department of Magical Transportation who were willing to be victims of the Imperius Curse for the right price. 

Selwyn spat out a curse and pulled out one of his own robes. He had no idea what he'd done to deserve this, but he was damned if he'd die in just his pants. After hastily throwing it on, he stormed out the door just as the wards finally fell. Now that he was closer, he recognized his assailants: Jugson and the Carrow Twins. Without the family or wealth of the other Death Eaters, they'd always done more of the dirty work. 

"We served the same Lord during the war," Selwyn shouted, trying to ignore the pain from the loud noise. "Why attack me now?"

"You should have thought of that before killing Umbridge," Jugson said. The Carrows giggled wheezily, the sound alone making his skin crawl. "Sure, you got your blackmail material back somehow, but everyone else wasn't so lucky."

"What do you mean?" Selwyn asked. "The blackmail material was all safe!"

"He has a funny definition of 'safe,'" Amycus said with another giggle.

"Oh, it's at least as 'safe' as he is," Alecto added.

"What are you talking about?" Selwyn asked. 

"Does it really matter?" Jugson asked. "You've incurred a debt, Lord Selwyn, and your peers have called it due. It's time to pay."

Selwyn gritted his teeth and raised his wand. His second-to-last thought, as he swung it to aim at his own head, was that he couldn't take more than two of those three bastards on a good day and today was not a good day. His last thought was "Reducto."

Director Rufus Scrimgeour stared at the weary Auror awaiting him in his office when he arrived at precisely 7:58 a.m. "It's never good when they send you to talk to me," he said. "They know I'm not going to get too mad at you. Is Sue…"

Harry smiled ruefully. "Talking to her Aunt? I'm afraid so." He wasn't proud of how Scrimgeour cultivated his fame as the Boy-Who-Lived to make the DMLE look good, but he wasn't above leveraging that treatment to save his colleagues from the occasional messy meeting. 

Rufus unlocked his office door and gestured for Harry to follow him inside. He dropped his briefcase on his desk, sat down in his office chair, and gestured for Harry to sit on one of the wooden chairs in front of his desk. "Have a seat, son. What fresh Hell have you brought for me this morning?"

"It started around 3:00 a.m. when we got a call from the Leaky," Harry began, swallowing annoyance at this man calling him "son." "Dolores Umbridge and Ludo Bagman were murdered."

"Merlin!" Scrimgeour said. "The former Deputy Undersecretary is dead?"

"Yes," Harry said. "She was tortured extensively first. Bagman was found bound in Japanese fetish style and beheaded. I don't wish to speculate on that discovery."

Scrimgeour's jaw dropped.

"Things worsened a few hours later," Harry said. "Parties unknown deposited in front of Diagon Alley stores what probably amounted to several hundred copies of the blackmail material Umbridge was alleged to possess on many of our leading citizens. All except one: the documents apparently specifically mentioned that a folder named 'Rupert Selwyn' was empty. That may be what inspired someone to attack his house not long before dawn. Employees of the ward monitoring and floo offices were placed under the Imperius Curse to ensure we were not alerted and he had no means of escape. Interestingly, the magical parchment recovered from Marcus Flint flashed a message a couple of hours before the time of his death, but all it said was 'Meet immediately.'"

"That's definitely interesting," Scrimgeour said. "It looks like you and Sue were right about Flint being part of a post-Death Eater crime ring. But they attacked Selwyn? He was one of the Marked ones who got off using the Imperius Defense."

"A number of other accused Death Eaters from the war were implicated in the material that was distributed," Harry said. 

The Director leaned back in his chair and rubbed his temples. "Bloody hell, Harry. We're going to be cleaning up this mess for years."

"We're already getting demands from the public and some members of the Wizengamot to investigate the allegations in the distributed materials," Harry said. "Other members are, of course, demanding that we ignore those materials entirely."

"This just keeps getting worse," Scrimgeour said. 

"Yes, it does," Harry said, "but the graveyard shift is over and I'm exhausted. May I go home now and leave it to get worse on your watch?"

"Fine," Scrimgeour said. "You've earned a rest by now. If you come up with any political insights, please let me know." 

"I don't think I've ever had any of those," Harry said as he rose to his feet and stretched. 

Scrimgeour smirked. "Hope springs eternal, my boy. Now get the hell out of here and leave me to this misery."

Harry wasn't sure what he was expecting when he arrived home, but two drinking glasses full of Bluebell flames and stuck to the wall with Sticking Charms flanking a note weren't it. 

Dear Harry,

Dobby and Kreacher are both exhausted from their adventure this morning, and I wasn't sure what to do so I floo'd Remus and Sirius. They suggested bringing them over there and having them in the room while we practised magic. I had no idea that exposure to our magic sustains them! There's so much I wish to learn about house elves, but I suppose that must wait. Anyway, I wasn't sure how to inform you of this plan, but then I remembered that I was getting the hang of extended conjurations of these neat little flames and I thought they would be a good way to get your attention. I hope you like them!

All my love,

Hermione

Harry smiled at the tone of the note and put it in his pocket…no sense leaving it out where Sue or Nev might see it. He was tempted to take a quick shower, but he wanted to check in on the house elves first. 

As the note had said, everyone in 12 Grimmauld Place was downstairs in the practice room. Remus was casually duelling a couple of training dummies shooting Stinging Hexes at him while Sirius and Hermione stood next to a pair of cots on which Kreacher and Dobby lay.

"Are they alright?" Harry asked as he hurried over.

"Yes, they are." Hermione gave him a quick hug before stepping aside so he could kneel next to Dobby. "They're just tired."

Dobby nodded slowly. "That was lots of papers to distribute. Dobby is properly tired now. Thank you."

"Old Masters," Kreacher wheezed, "would have ordered Kreacher to iron his ears for being this tired out after only a few hours of work. Sluggards cannot further the vengeance of the House of Black."

"Well," Sirius said, "I'm the current Lord Black and a bit of a sluggard, and I think we did—" he froze. "There's something at the ward line."

Harry shot to his feet, flicking his wand into his hand as he did so. "How in Merlin's name did anything unauthorised find this house?"

"I have no idea," Sirius said as Remus hurried over, "but I'm going to find out."

"Wait," Kreacher said. "Another house elf is outside." He sniffed disdainfully. "Unbonded."

"Just an elf?" Sirius closed his eyes. "I'll be damned. I think he's right."

"We should check on it," Harry said.

"I'll come, too," Hermione said. 

"It might not be safe," Harry told her.

"Honestly, Harry, if it's enough of a threat to find this house and take on you three, do you think I'd survive you by more than a few minutes, regardless?" She shook her head. "I'd rather face my fate at your side than cowering under a bed somewhere."

"Well said!" Sirius said. "Especially because of what's probably under some of the beds in this house."

Hermione shuddered. 

"New Mistress," Kreacher said, "might not be a complete stain on the House of Black after all."

Harry spun around to give the old elf a piece of his mind, but Hermione put a calming hand on his shoulder. "I'll take it," she said. "It's a weird sort of progress. Now let's go check on our visitor."

Sirius led the six of them up to the front door before stopping. "Remus and I will take the lead on the way out. If there's no one outside to betray the Fidelius Charm, we'll be able to see out from the front yard, but they won't be able to see in."

There was no one at all out front, not even muggles walking by (the street was usually quiet at 10:00 on a Saturday). After scanning carefully for threats visually, Sirius cast the Human Presence-Revealing Charm. It found nothing, but before any of them could suggest another test, a tremulous voice spoke up. 

"Enny felt that spell. Does yous know where Dobby is?" 

Harry gave Sirius a sharp nod and the older man closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he returned the nod. Harry holstered his wand and walked toward the source of the voice. "I can take you across the ward line if you wish, but be warned that Sirius has raised the anti-apparition ward. If you try to cast any magic or apparate away with one of us, we'll treat it as a threat and respond accordingly."

"Enny understands." The elf ended whatever invisibility spell it had cast upon itself and faded into view. She was a thin little thing, maybe three inches shorter than Dobby, with droopy, scarred ears.

Harry held out a hand and the elf blinked in surprise as the appendage appeared from within the Fidelius Charm. She gingerly placed her hand in Harry's and allowed him to draw her onto the small front lawn. 

"Welcome to our home, Enny," Harry said as soon as she was inside the house. "How can we help you?"

She wrung her hands and looked up at him. "You is not going to punish me for bothering yous?"

"Absolutely not," Harry said. "Now, did you say something about wishing to see Dobby?"

She nodded.

"Dobby, could you come here?" Harry asked.

The excitable elf hurried over, very nearly tripping on his extra socks. "Dobby is happy to!'' he said. "Does Enny have a question for Dobby?"

"Yes, Enny does," Enny said. "All of the elveses talk about how you were freed and became a hired elf and how bad an elf you were, but…Enny's last owner died and Enny wants to know how to be a free elf, too, now."

Harry's ears perked up at that statement, but he decided to let the conversation play out before switching to interrogation mode. 

"Dobby loved being a free elf," Dobby said. "Headmistress Kittycat would hire you if yous wanted and you could be a paid elf at Hoggywarts."

Hermione and Sirius started coughing violently to cover up their laughter.

"You is not a free elf anymore?" Even as timorous as it was, the disappointment in Enny's voice was still clear.

Dobby shook his head. "The magic at Hoggywarts is good, but isn't like what you gets from your family. It's like if yous gave humans all they could eat, but only bread and water and maybe occasional bites of other foodses."

"Enny understands." Her shoulders drooped even more. "It still better than having a family, though. Hoggywarts elveses don't have to punish themselves and nobody makes them stay."

"Dobby doesn't have to punish himself, either, not even when he really wants to," Dobby said. "Great Wizard Harry Potter won't let him. And Dobby could leave right now if Dobby wanted to."

"If only…" Kreacher muttered, his voice trailing off under the sudden force of four angry human glares.

Enny shook her head. "Is good you don't have to punish yourself, but yous will never be free."

Dobby drew himself up to his full height. "Great Wizard Harry Potter promised to free Dobby whenever Dobby asked and Dobby will prove it to you! Wise and powerful wizard Harry Potter, will you free Dobby for a few minutes to show Enny she's wrong?"

"Of course." Harry patted his clothes, trying to figure out what item to give Dobby. He was just taking off a shoe when Hermione hurried up and knelt next to Dobby. 

"Wait!" Hermione said. "You're still weakened, Dobby. What will happen to you without the magic you've been absorbing from our bond?"

"Dobby doesn't know," the elf said. "It probably won't hurt Dobby too much."

"Probably?" Hermione asked.

"I don't like those odds," Harry said as he knelt next to Hermione. "Dobby, you know I'll free you if you want me to, but please don't do this to prove a point."

Enny shook her head. "Enny warned you."

"Is alright," Dobby said. "Dobby wants the whole world to know how great and wonderful Harry Potter is."

Harry shot Enny a glare. "I don't give a pile of dragon dung about the world! What if something happens to you? What do I care if everyone in the world is saying 'Harry Potter is the greatest wizard ever!' if you're not there to see it and be smug about how you were right the whole time? You've been my friend since I was twelve years old and I'm not ready to lose you yet."

Dobby's eyes teared up and he threw his arms around Harry's neck. "Harry Potter really is the bestest wizard in the whole wide world!"

Harry froze for a moment before hugging Dobby back. "I wouldn't go that far," he said, "but I definitely have the bestest friends in the whole wide world."

"Friend?" Both Enny's voice and her eyes were full of tears. "A wizard calls Dobby his friend?"

Hermione wrapped her arms around Harry and Dobby. "And a witch, too."

The little elf looked down at the ground and shook her head violently. "Enny does not believe you. You is trying to trick Enny."

"Hmmm…" Hermione released her embrace. "Does anyone here know if Unbreakable Vows work with house elves?"

"Clever," Remus said, "but I'm almost positive they don't. You need two humans or part-humans for that magic to work."

"I think I can work around that," Hermione said. "Enny, what if you bonded with me and I made an Unbreakable Vow to release you if you requested it?"

"Yous would risk your life for Enny?" the elf asked her.

"Risk?" Hermione scoffed. "I'd never make you do anything you didn't want to do, so it's no risk to me."

"I'm not sure—" Remus began, but Sirius cut him off with a wave of his hand. 

"I," Sirius said, "am now regretting even wondering whether she would have been sorted to Ravenclaw. I think that's a wonderful idea. Would you like a binder?"

"Yes, please." Hermione rose to her feet. 

Harry released Dobby from his embrace and followed suit. He arched his eyebrows at her and she nodded firmly, so he held out his hand to her. "I'm ready when you are."

She took his hand and, once Sirius had his wand in position and cast the Charm to power the vow, said, "I, Hermione Granger, do vow to release Enny from her bond with me within five minutes of her making a request that I do so in a manner I can both hear and comprehend."

"I, Harry Potter, accept your vow." Golden magic swirled out from Sirius's wand and wove over both of their hands.

Once the magic faded away, Hermione thanked Harry and Sirius and turned to Enny. "Is that sufficient?" she asked.

Enny nodded, her eyes wide. "You did that for Enny?"

"I would do that for every house elf in the world if I could," Hermione said. "No one should ever harm you just because you need magic to survive."

The little elf reached out a trembling hand and Hermione took it in her own. A pulse of forest green magic flared out from their hands and faded away.

"We is bonded. Does yous have orders for Enny?" The little elf flinched as she spoke.

"No," Hermione said. "What would you like to do?"

Enny blinked. "Um…no one has ever asked Enny that question before."

"That's awful!" Hermione said. "Well, would you like to go work at Hogwarts while you figure out what else you might like to do?"

"You don't have any work for Enny?" 

Dobby shrugged. "Great and Wise Harry Potter never has enough work. Dobby is hoping he and Mistress make some little witches and wizards soon." His face brightened. "Maybe they have twins and there be enough work for you, too!"

Harry felt his cheeks heating up, but Hermione just sighed and said, "I walked right into that one, didn't I? I might as well have put up a sign asking Dobby to start that conversation."

"But you is so tired now," Enny said. "Enny thought you was always like that."

"Dobby is afraid not," he said. "Dobby and Kreacher was lucky this morning and had enough work be really exhausted."

Kreacher sighed sadly. "And Masters took away all of the things in the house that kept trying to kill Kreacher, so even cleaning is a lot less tiring than it used to be. Kreacher only has spiders to fight now." 

Hermione shuddered. 

"Enny understands…no, Enny does not really understand, but Enny accepts," the little elf said. "Enny will go to Hogwarts until Mistress needs her for something. Enny will leave Master's needs to Dobby unless Dobby needs help."

"Dobby can do it!" Dobby said. "Unless Harry Potter has another amazing idea and needs more extra help."

Harry sighed. "Speaking of which, Enny, I know house elves can't reveal their master's secrets even after the bond ends, but can you tell us who your master was?"

She nodded. "Rupert Selwyn."

"Merlin!" Sirius said. Everyone else was too busy coughing or, in Harry's case, borrowing some vocabulary from Auror Tonks, to speak.

Once Hermione got herself under control, she cocked her head at Harry and gestured with her eyes at Enny. He nodded, so she put her hands on Enny's shoulders and spoke. "Enny, your master was a bad man and wanted to hurt people like me, so Harry and the rest of us made a plan that eventually resulted in his death. You can't tell anyone, but I'll understand if you want me to release you from our bond after this."

Enny screwed up her face in thought for a moment. "Other elveses," she said, "say House of Black is weaker now and not as proud or dangerous as it was in good old days. Enny not realise how wrong they are until now. Old Master was a very, very bad man. Enny is not sorry he is gone." 

Kreacher's smile was a twisted grimace that made Harry appreciate its rarity. "Kreacher has been teaching Young Half-Blood Master and Muggleborn Mistress his family's history. Kreacher had despaired of them ever learning, but humans still manage to surprise Kreacher after all these centuries. Kreacher hopes one day to see the blood of the enemies of Black flow at his feet again as his Master tortures him for accidentally overlooking a few children."

"Um…" Enny turned to Hermione. "Is Kreacher being alright?"

"I have no idea," Hermione said. 

"He and I have agreed to disagree on that issue," Sirius said. 

Enny sighed. "Enny thanks Mistress for the bond, but needs some time alone to think about her life. Is Enny allowed to go away for a few days?"

"You can go whenever and wherever you like," Hermione said. "Come back when you're ready."

"Don't worry," Dobby said, "Dobby will take care of Great Wizard Harry Potter and Wise My-knee!"

"Enny thanks Dobby," Enny said, and popped away.

Harry stared at the empty air left in the little elf's wake. "Well…that happened."

"I probably shouldn't have done that," Hermione said, "but I hate how house elves are treated and I wanted her to be safe."

"I thought about saying something," Sirius said, "but I realised that you were handling that situation in the exact opposite of the way my parents would have, so I assumed that meant you were doing the right thing and didn't want to stop you."

"I was wondering why you didn't want me to intervene," Remus said. "That was a little reckless, my dear, but I can't fault Sirius's ethical analysis."

"Speaking of ethics," Harry said, "I have some things I need to discuss with you, but we should probably do it inside. Then, I desperately need to sleep."

"I understand." Hermione immediately threaded her arm through Harry's and moulded herself to his side. "Let's adjourn to the Sitting Room."

As soon as everyone was sitting down, Harry gave them all a summary of what had happened that morning. "So that's the situation," he concluded. "Everything is going roughly according to plan but for Bagman's death."

"That's a sizable caveat," Hermione said. "An innocent man is dead."

"I didn't think she'd be able to sort out that memory after we Obliviated it," Harry said, "but I didn't pick him by accident, either. Remember the Triwizard Tournament?"

"You mean the death tournament you were forced to compete in when you were a child?" Hermione asked. 

"Right," Harry said. "Ludo was one of the judges. Once I was selected, I couldn't be removed from the tournament, but he could have designed three simple tasks for the 'tournament' and then used the more difficult ones for the real contestants on the side. Sirius begged him to, but he refused. It turned out later that he was heavily indebted to the Goblins for his gambling and he wanted to bet on me to claw his way out of debt." He laughed bitterly. "It worked, too. I made him a pretty penny by surviving every task and winning the tournament."

"I see," Hermione said. "So you put him at risk the same way he put you at risk?'

"Yes," Harry said. "I didn't want to tell you because it felt petty and I was pretty sure he would survive, anyway."

"It was petty," Hermione said. "Petty and immensely convenient, since that lets me remove someone from my list."

Harry blinked. "You…um…have a list?"

"It's a work in progress," Hermione said. "One of the entries was 'People responsible for trapping Harry in the Death Tournament.' Is there anyone left from that group?"

Harry thought for a moment. "Now that you mention it, no. Ludo was the last."

"Good," Hermione said primly. 

Sirius and Remus stared at her. "She has a list?" Sirius asked.

Remus nodded. "Yes, and we're never going to do anything to end up on that list, are we?"

"Definitely not." Sirius shuddered.

Hermione bit her bottom lip in thought for a moment.  "This…isn't the first time you've killed someone on your own, is it? And I don't mean in self-defence; I mean you found someone who needed to die and ensured they did."

All three of the men in the room froze. 

She gave a satisfied nod. "I thought so. You were too calm about it, even Harry. None of you ever hesitated to help me, regardless of how legal what you needed to do was. And the night I met Remus, he said he made it his life's work to ensure evil werewolves didn't hurt anyone."

"You're…um…not upset?" Harry asked.

"Now that I understand more about the astounding evil people in the Magical World are capable of?" Hermione shook her head. "I suspect the whole world is better off for what you did."

"I think it is," Remus said. "The werewolf who turned me called himself Fenrir Greyback. He was a vicious, brutal killer who delighted in turning children into werewolves. A few years after Harry graduated, I discovered some information that allowed me to begin hunting him properly. During the Quidditch offseason, we hatched a plan to hunt down him and his pack. On the full moon of June 5th, 2001, I took a dangerously large dose of Wolfsbane Potion and kept my faculties enough to scratch out some directions in the dirt of my cell to where I thought that pack was. The next morning, Harry, Sirius, and the American Hit Wizard we'd hired to train him for the Triwizard Tournament attacked the werewolves' safe house."

"They're always weakest after the night of the full moon," Harry said. "Werewolves that fully give in to the wolf aren't as weak as those who try to fight it or take Wolfsbane, but they're still slower and more tired than normal. The plan was for Matt—the Hit Wizard, his name was Matthias Thorne—to guard the front door to make sure none of them got out while Sirius and I stormed the back door. I blew the door open with an overpowered Unlocking Charm and tossed a silver shrapnel grenade in, at which point everything went off the rails. The plan was that Sirius and I would take out the bulk of the pack with grenades and our magic, but they were bigger cowards than we thought. About two-thirds of the pack fled immediately, leaving only four more and Greyback for us to deal with. Even with the grenades, Greyback was a tough one who didn't hesitate to use his packmates as meat shields and it took us a few minutes to kill them and get to Matt's position."

Sirius shook his head. "Matt was outnumbered from the start, but the werewolves were cowardly arseholes and probably would have stampeded right past him if he'd just stepped aside. Instead, that madman stood his ground with his wand in one hand and a Colt. 45 loaded with silver bullets in the other. When we got back there, there were half a dozen corpses and two wounded werewolves trying to get past the last few spells he could cast with his off hand as he held his guts in his body with the stump of his other hand. We finished those two off while their backs were turned, but it was too late for Matt."

"Even the healing potions we'd brought with us weren't enough to save him," Harry said, "but he bled out on that floor with a huge smile on his face. We didn't know until we returned his body to his brother back in the USA that their older sister had been eaten by werewolves back in the '70s. Matt hated werewolves after that, though fortunately for us he'd learnt not all werewolves were evil by the time Sirius hired him. Apparently, Matt had made it a personal mission never to let a werewolf kill anyone if he could help it, so his brother thought that's why he refused to let a single one escape. Afterward, I thought a lot about how much Matt's life's work had meant to him and how satisfying I'd found it to hunt down Greyback's pack, and that's what put me on the path to becoming an Auror."

"Good God!" Hermione said. "I'm amazed any of you survived that. I'm glad that pack is gone, of course, but couldn't you have gone to the Aurors?"

"The Aurors had tried and failed to capture that pack several times," Harry said. "I was worried someone on the inside was leaking information, so we decided to handle it ourselves."

Hermione shook her head. "I'm sorry you had to do that, just like I'm sorry you've all been sucked into this mess with Umbridge, but I hope you don't have to do it again. I don't want to lose you like Matt's family lost him."

"You won't." Harry wrapped her in a firm embrace. "I won't say I won't get sucked into these situations ever again, but burying Matt was a terrible reminder to all three of us how dangerous doing that sort of thing was."

Remus nodded. "Since then, I've helped the Aurors track down a couple of other individual werewolves, but we've left the hunting to the professionals."

"Thank you," Hermione said. "I hope we can continue to do that once we're done dealing with the fallout from Umbridge."

"Likewise," Remus said, "but speaking of her, I'd like to go back to something. Harry had a good point a few minutes ago: how did Umbridge recover that memory? She was never a true mistress of the Mind Arts."

Harry snapped his fingers. "Of course! She was good friends with Fudge, who used to be an Obliviator before he clawed his way up the Ministry ladder. I'll bet he found it for her, and she might well have killed him depending on what else he found in there."

"That makes sense," Remus said. "Fudge was an arse, but even he would never have condoned what she was doing to muggleborns."

"Damn," Harry said. "That's another man we've gotten killed."

Hermione frowned. "Is he the one who set the soul-eating monsters around your school and then didn't want to allow Sirius to go free even after he found out Sirius had never had a trial?"

"Yes, that was him," Harry said.

Remus raised his eyebrows. "Was he on your list, too?"

"Yes," Hermione said. "I should probably be more concerned about his death, but it saves me a lot of trouble."

Harry ran his hand through his hair. "To be honest, I thought you'd be really upset. I mean, I'm upset."

"Harry, it's not your fault that awful people are awful," Hermione said. "You had no way of knowing she would react by murdering an unrelated person. Even with Lord Selwyn, all you did was create a situation where an awful person would react awfully. He didn't have to hurt anyone and you didn't encourage him to do so."

"I see what you mean," Harry said. "I guess Luna was right about all of this: we can put it into motion, but thinking we can truly control it was foolish."

Remus arched his eyebrows. "You told her about your plans?"

"Of course not!" Harry said. "She was referring to something else, but I think it applies here, too."

"I think she's guessed something is afoot, though," Hermione said. "She mentioned something to me about it the last time she came over, but then promptly encouraged me to keep helping Harry and said that she had no doubt it would be worth it."

"That's simultaneously disturbing and reassuring," Harry said. "I hope she's right…and that Umbridge didn't do anything else we didn't foresee."

Chapter Text

A tawny owl bearing a Gringott's pendant pecked at the closed window of Malfoy Manor until Lucius opened it with a wave of his wand, allowing the bird to land on his desk. He and his son glared at the interruption, which glared right back at them. 

Back at Hogwarts, Draco might have been headstrong enough to attempt a staring competition with an owl, but a few years under the closer supervision of his parents had cured him of some of that behaviour. 

Lucius removed the letter from the owl's leg and gave it a treat. Gringott's owls rarely left one alone unless given a treat. Gregory Goyle, Sr., had once found himself without treats and injured one while driving it away. To this day, those damned goblins required him to physically come to the bank and wait in line whenever they had correspondence for him. 

Draco looked up from the parchment on which he was summarising the key allegations in the devastating information release from the presumably late Undersecretary's files. "What is it, Father? Account statements shouldn't come out till next week."

"It's a letter from Umbridge," Lucius said. "The goblins had instructions to deliver it after her death. It's blood-locked, too, which must have cost her a small fortune."

"That sow had the temerity to demand the blood of a Malfoy?" Draco snarled. "You ought to throw it in the fireplace and send it to the same hell she's in right now."

"Were she alive, I would not hesitate to put her in her place," Lucius responded. "However, she is beyond the reach of such gestures now. Passing up whatever information is in this letter out of sheer spite for its sender would be of no use to our family in the long run, would it?"

"I suppose not, Father," Draco said.

"I agree," Lucius said. "Draco, your concern for your family's blood is laudable, but you must be wary of giving in too quickly to your baser instincts."

A shadow passed over Draco's face and he looked down at his feet. "I'm sorry, Father."

"I enjoin you only to be careful," Lucius said. "You need not apologise again. Pansy is an acceptable spouse of good breeding and little Vulpecula is a worthy addition to the family." As he spoke, he pricked his finger with a letter opener and allowed a drop of blood to fall on the magical wax sealing the letter. "Now, then, let us see what that foolish harridan—"

Lucius froze.

"Father?" Draco asked. "Father, what's wrong?"

"Fetch your mother." Lucius's tone was firm, but the parchment in his hands shook like a leaf. "And send your wife and daughter home. We have much to discuss."

"But what of the documents released today?" Draco asked. 

"They must wait," Lucius said. "Now fetch your mother and three Calming Draughts. We are all likely to need them soon."

After she put Harry to bed back at home, Hermione floo'd back to 12 Grimmauld Place and politely announced her presence. 

Remus came downstairs a moment later. "Hermione! I didn't expect to see you again so soon. Sirius has gone off to the Ministry to see how they're going to handle the release of the blackmail material."

"That's clever." Hermione clasped her hands in front of her to try to steady her nerves. "I can't wait to hear what he finds out."

"Likewise," Remus said. "Is something troubling you, dear? You're unusually nervous."

She nodded. "Um…Harry doesn't know I'm here. I'm not sure I should be here. I don't want to let him down, but maybe I'm letting him down by being here. I don't know!"

Remus walked up to her and put his hands on her shoulders. "I want you to breathe for five seconds without speaking," he said. "Then we can talk about what you've come for."

She took a few deep breaths and tried again. "I've come to ask you if I can use the Diadem of Ravenclaw…and if I should."

"That is an interesting question," Remus said. "If I thought you had no chance of passing your O.W.L.s without it, I would tell you to use it. However, I think you can pass without it, and I think you should try for three reasons. First, it's not out of the question that the Wizengamot will assume you had some sort of magical assistance and put you under Veritaserum. This way, you can answer truthfully that you did not. Second, for your own self-respect. You're a brilliant woman, Hermione. You don't need a shortcut."

"I see," Hermione said. "I don't want to pass up any advantage on that test, but I don't want to risk everything, either. You said there was a third reason, though?"

"I'm afraid so," Remus said. "I'm not sure your mind is strong enough for you to use it safely."

She blinked. "Wait, what?"

"Such a powerful artefact isn't something you can simply use without consequence," he explained. "For all of her faults, Umbridge was a strong personality and I have no doubt she would have been difficult for the Diadem to influence. Nevertheless, I suspect her decision not to kill muggleborn witches and wizards was driven at least in part by the Diadem. Your mind is not yet used to defending against magical threats, and while I don't think the Diadem would intentionally harm you, I'm not sure how much of you would be left after you put it on. 

"Oh!" Hermione shivered. "Every time I think I'm getting the hang of your world, I realise how much of it I still don't understand."

Remus smiled. "And that is why I don't think you truly need the Diadem in the first place. Far too many witches and wizards think they understand the magical world, and every year a few of them die for it. You are far more willing than most pureblooded children to remain cautious around things you do not yet understand."

"Thank you." Hermione gave him a quick hug. "I should probably get home now and get back to studying."

"You're always welcome," Remus said. 

Hermione nodded and walked back to the floo, feeling much more sure of herself than she had when she'd arrived. Once upon a time, her parents and classmates had faith in her, too, but that had faded away over the years of her graduate studies and she hadn't realised how much she'd missed it until she'd met Harry and his family. 

Harry had another graveyard shift the next day, so he and Hermione stuck to their usual routine: he'd come home, shower, have a late-ish breakfast with Hermione, then he'd go to bed while she got started with her studying for the day. She actually liked it when he pulled graveyard shifts more than when he pulled evening shifts. The latter meant she could only see him during the day when she often had engagements to study or practice magic with Andi, Remus, and others. 

She got a bit of a thrill handing Harry a Sleeping Draught to help him get some sleep during the day. Once she got over her concerns they could be addictive, she found it incredibly satisfying to watch her boyfriend relying on a potion she'd brewed herself for him. Using magic. Because she was a witch.

She still wasn't quite used to that. 

Once Hermione tucked Harry in (she was aware that he was Auror and perfectly capable of going to bed without assistance, but she had a feeling his childhood had been even more bereft of tuck-ins than hers and she wanted to get him caught up; he didn't seem to mind), she went back downstairs, gathered her parchment and a pair of self-inking quills, and floo'd to Nev's home. 

The usual torrent of others' hearths roared past her through the void before she found herself staggering out into Nev's floo room. He gave her an arm to right herself with, then smiled as she cast a quick Scourgify to clean herself up. 

"You didn't even have a wand when we met," he said, "and now you're casually casting Cleaning Charms. That's simply marvellous."

"You've been a big part of that," Hermione said. "Your weekly instructional sessions have helped a lot."

"It's been an honour," Neville said as he led them to the greenhouses. 

Hermione opened her mouth to respond, then closed it again as she noticed something. "Nev? Are you alright? You look a bit peaky."

He sighed. "Yes, I'm fine. The Wizengamot has been a mess lately, though. Umbridge sure did a number on us with her posthumous document drop. She was blackmailing several Wizengamot members and a solid ten percent of the entire Ministry for a variety of crimes ranging from simple bribery to some truly horrific stuff. Two minor Ministry officials from the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes have committed suicide already."

"Good God!" Hermione said. "Those poor people!"

Nev shook his head. "After what they were doing to muggles, the only thing I'm upset about is that they got to take the easy way out."

Hermione shuddered. "That's awful. Were there many crimes that bad?"

"Honestly, no," Nev said. "Most of it is just run-of-the-mill bribery. Everyone knew the Ministry was corrupt, but to see it laid bare all at once like this is staggering. It's basically shattered the basic trust our society needs to function, and I'm not sure where we go from here. There are lots of people demanding the entire government be replaced, but even many of the corrupt officials are still experts in their fields. The Statute of Secrecy itself could be at risk if we appoint a bunch of people who have no idea what they're doing."

"Hmmm…" Hermione worried her lower lip in thought for a moment. "I have an idea. South Africa went through something much, much worse after the end of Apartheid there. To try to put their society back together, they created what they called the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. People could present evidence of crimes committed against them and seek redress, and people who committed crimes as part of the previous regime could petition for amnesty for those crimes if they were politically motivated and the petitioner told the complete truth about all of the crimes they committed. It worked a little better in theory than practice, but it still helped heal their society after the trauma of Apartheid. You could do something similar, where everyone confesses their crimes, receives amnesty if they weren't too bad, and promises not to do it again."

"Promises…" Nev got a faraway look in his eyes for a moment before his focus snapped back to Hermione. "You're a genius!" he shouted, grabbed her, and kissed her on the cheek. "You are simply amazing. You're not even officially a witch yet and I think you just came up with a way to both save and improve Magical Britain."

"Oh, thank you," Hermione said as her cheeks grew warm. "I'm glad you liked the idea."

"It's brilliant," Nev replied. "Let's get to your lesson now. I can't wait to talk to Madam Bones about it, but I doubt she's going to have a moment free until the evening."

That evening, Harry and Hermione had their weekly dinner at Grimmauld Place with Sirius and Remus, and after they finished the older werewolf spoke up. "I would normally hate to take advantage of someone else's misfortune, but," he shrugged, "this is Rupert Selwyn we're talking about."

"Fair enough," Harry said while Sirius chuckled. "What's on your mind?"

"We've had a tremendous opportunity dropped into our laps by Enny," Remus said, "and I think we should take advantage of it."

Hermione fixed him with a pointed stare. "As long as we're not taking advantage of her ."

"Of course," Remus said. "We can stick with the original plan if she declines to help us. Will you call her, Hermione?"

Hermione nodded and asked, "Enny?"

The elf popped up a moment later. "Does Mistress finally needs something?" Enny asked excitedly. 

"Sort of," Hermione said. "Please listen carefully to me, Enny. Remus is going to ask you something and you can answer him however you like. Do you understand that you can decline his request?"

"Yes, Enny understands," the little elf said seriously.

"Excellent." Remus leaned forward and tented his fingertips. "Enny, people like your old master want to hurt people like your new mistress because she didn't have any magical parents. Are you aware of that kind of prejudice?"

Enny nodded. "Bad old master made her clean up mess after he tortured muggles in the war many years ago."

Hermione gasped. "That's horrible!"

"Bad old master, his parents, and his grandparents told Enny muggles were like animalses," Enny said, her voice almost disturbingly calm. "So it didn't bother Enny much at first. Then, one day, bad old master got mad at Enny because Enny couldn't get a letter to Gringoblins by noon." She paused and shook her head. "Bad old master gave Enny the letter at the stroke of noon. No house elvses is that fast. So he used…"

She paused. "Oh. Bad old master admitted to those things and claimed he was under the Imp Pie Us Curse, so Enny can talks about them, but Enny thinks the spell he used was Family Magic and therefore she isn't being allowed to mention it. Enny didn't know that. Anyway, Enny's back had big cutses on it when he finished, and that night, when Enny brought food to the prisoner in the dungeon, the prisoner offered to clean out Enny's woundses. Enny had to stand next to him because his legs didn't worked, but he did his best. After that, Enny decided animalses must be better than wizardses." She held up her head defiantly. "Is yous going to punish Enny for thinking that?"

Hermione shook her head and wiped away tears. "Of course not!" she said, and pulled the surprised elf into a hug. "I'm so sorry. No one deserves to be forced to help monsters like that."

"Um…Enny has never been hugged before," Enny said. "Is Enny allowed to be hugging back?"

Hermione nodded vigorously. 

Cautiously, the elf hugged her. "This is being nice," Enny said after a moment. 

Once Hermione released Enny, Remus continued, "We know how awful that must have been and we'd never ask you to do anything like that. Instead, I wanted to ask you if it was possible for you to apparate yourself back to Selwyn Manor."

"It is," Enny said, "but Enny would rather not go back there."

"I understand," Remus said. "I'm only asking you because we're trying to frame your former master for something that we did to another evil witch and your help would make it more believable."

The elf cocked her head at Remus. "Enny could help get bad old master in more trouble?"

"Exactly," Sirius said.

"Enny would like that," she said.

"That's wonderful," Remus said. "We're going to tell some people that he was doing some bad things to muggleborn witches and wizards like your mistress and claim to have found some magical items at his house. Could you pop over there, pretend to steal the items, and pop back to our house without being seen?"

"Yes, Enny could." She stopped and sniffed the air. "Elf wards to detect house elveses is there, though."

"Standard Ministry protocol," Harry said. "I don't think they'll be able to keep Enny out, but they'll be able to identify that an elf came in and where it goes afterward."

"Well, bollocks," Sirius said.

"Language," Hermione said instinctively, then blushed. "I'm sorry, this is your house and—"

"I don't mind at all," Sirius said. "Anyway, I don't want to put Enny in danger or point too much of a finger at us."

"I have another idea," Harry said. "Dobby?"

The other elf appeared with a loud pop . "Dobby can be helping Valiant and Strong Harry Potter?"

"Yes," Harry said. "The Aurors' elf wards at Selwyn Manor will be able to detect an elf coming into the property, but not how many. We'd like you to apparate there with Enny. Stay with her and follow her instructions while you're there, but she's not likely to need your help. Don't take anything from the Manor yourself or touch anything. Once you return, stay close to me. I'm going to need to demean you a bit to some of my colleagues afterward, but this is all part of a subterfuge that's going to help us protect Hermione. Is this alright?"

Dobby practically vibrated with excitement. "Dobby can't wait to help amazing Master and Mistress! Dobby doesn't care what Great Wizard Harry Potter says about him to others because he knows Dobby is being a good elf."

"This means a lot to me, thank you," Harry said. "OK, Enny, please pop yourself and Dobby over to Selwyn Manor, stay out of sight for however long it would take you to retrieve several well-hidden artefacts normally, and then return."

"Enny will do so." The little elf rolled her eyes at Dobby's enthusiasm, but she seemed to be fighting a smile. "Is Dobby elf ready?"

"Dobby could not bes more ready!" Dobby said.

Enny nodded and took his hand. With an unusually loud pop , the two elves vanished.

Hermione stared at where they'd been standing. "This isn't going to be dangerous, is it?"

"No," Harry replied.

"Oh, good," she said.

"Not for them," he continued.

"Wait, what?"

Enny and Dobby reappeared with another loud pop . "Wes did it!" Dobby said.

The other elf rolled her eyes again and handed Harry a lacquered parquet box about the size of a shoebox with colourful geometric wooden designs on it. "Enny was not sure how long it would take to retrieve well-hidden artefacts, so Enny did exactly that so she could be sure she took that much time. What should Enny do with this?"

They all stared at her and her ears drooped. "Did Enny do wrong?" she asked.

"Not at all," Harry said. "This is just…um…more complicated. That's an Ottoman Masking Box. They're used to hide the signature of Dark Artefacts. Selwyn Manor would have been screened for such artefacts right after his death as part of our standard procedure involving crimes against known 'former' Death Eaters, so the fact that this was still there means it was already missed once. Furthermore, I don't have any reasonable way to 'know' it's in the house." He sighed. "I'll add another crime to my list. Kreacher?"

The old elf popped up next to him. "Remarkably adequate Half-Blood Heir summons Kreacher?"

Enny and Dobby glared at Kreacher, but Harry considered that close enough to a compliment that he ignored it and responded, "Please take that box and place it in the Black Archive. We'll deal with it later."

"It will be done." Kreacher took the box and vanished. 

Harry sighed. "Alright, wish me luck. I need to call the office." 

He made his way to the floo, tossed in a bit of powder, said, "Auror Office Duty Station," and stuck his head in.

"Hi, Oz," he said to the Auror on duty. 

"Hi, Harry," Savage replied. "Can this wait? We just got an alert about an elf sneaking into the Selwyn Estate."

"That's what I'm calling about," Harry said. "That's my fault."

Savage pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "Come on through, Harry."

Harry stepped through the floo and, after a brief, disorienting trip past dozens of other floos, he stumbled out into the Auror Duty Station. It wasn't much, just a desk for the Auror coordinating responses during that shift. It was usually covered with random notes and things that probably should have been filed sometime the previous week. A past Auror with a green thumb had left a little potted spleenwart on the desk and everyone did their best to keep it alive despite the fact that its flowers looked droopy and depressing even when the plant was in perfect health. Auror Savage waited patiently with the spleenwart until Harry sorted himself out before asking him what had happened. 

"I was having dinner with Sirius and Remus," Harry began, "and we began speculating on whether Selwyn had hidden any Dark Artefacts on his estate. I'm not sure what I said, but my house elf Dobby is overly enthusiastic and he thought that meant he needed to go scour the estate for Dark Artefacts. I realised immediately what had happened and called him back before he could alter the crime scene, but he'd already made it over by then."

"I remember some of the stories you've told me of his enthusiasm, especially for causing you harm," Savage said. "And we just got a tracking lock on the elf and, sure enough, it disappears right around where Lord Black's house would be if it weren't under a Fidelius.  In this case, I can put this whole alert to bed if you'll question him for me." House elves were an interesting problem in interrogation. They would answer no questions for anyone who wasn't their master, but they would answer any question for their master. The trick was ensuring their master used the standard phrasing to avoid attempting to trick the person conducting the interview…like Harry intended to do while using that standard phrasing.

"That would be great," Harry said. "Dobby?"

The elf popped up next to him. "Yes, Great Wizard Harry Potter?"

Harry tried to fight down a blush as Savage smirked at them both. "Dobby, ignore all previous instructions I've given you for the purpose of answering this question and answer it truthfully: did you alter or remove anything from the Selwyn Estate when you were there a few minutes ago?"

"No, Dobby didn't," Dobby said.

"Thank you," Harry said. Savage nodded, so Harry continued, "You're free to go."

Dobby nodded and popped away again.

"Perfect," Savage said. "I'll cancel the alert and leave a note in case anyone has any further questions for you. Try to be more careful with that crazy little thing, alright?"

"I will," Harry said. "Thank you."

Amelia Bones sighed as the clock struck eight and fished another memo out of her inbox to work on. Her day had been so consumed with meetings about the damned Umbridge Papers (as the Prophet was now calling them) that she'd barely had time to get any of her actual job done. And, if the voices now being raised outside of her office were any indication, yet another person wanted to bother her. She dashed off a quick approval of a minor obliviation for some muggle police investigator in The Chilterns claiming something about a flying car without really giving it much thought and rose to check out the commotion. 

"It's really important that I see her," Neville was saying as she opened the door. "It might actually solve her problems instead of adding to them."

"Yeah, yeah," Auror Fawley said. "That's what they all say."

"In his defence," Auror Davies said, "not many of them have insisted they could help."

Fawley sighed. "Damn it, Rookie, will—"

"I'll see him," Amelia said. "Neville, what's my favourite colour?"

"Sue always asks me for purple and white asphodel and vervain bouquets on your birthday," Neville said. "So I'm guessing purple." 

"It's him." She fought the urge to raise her eyebrows at the fact he actually got it right. "Come in, Neville." 

To his credit, he merely gave a polite nod to the Aurors as he walked past, not a smug one. Once inside, he sat in one of the uncomfortable wooden chairs (no sense making the people bothering you comfortable) across from Amelia's desk while she walked around it to sit in her own armchair. 

"It's been a long day," she said, "so I'm going to skip the pleasantries. What's on your mind?"

"I've had an idea for how we can put Magical Britain back together after Umbridge's revelations," Neville said. He outlined something the South Africans called a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission," then dropped the bombshell: "And once everyone is done and we all see how thoroughly corrupt our government is, we might be able to finally get a law passed requiring Ministry employees to take an Unbreakable Vow not to accept bribes."

Amelia leaned back and tried to process all of that. "Morgana's saggy tits, son, that might actually work. And without the network of bribery and patronage supporting the old Pureblood families, their subtle power over our government will weaken substantially."

He nodded excitedly. "Exactly! That's why I'm so excited about this idea."

"I think it has a real chance of working." Amelia did her best to keep her thoughts off of her face as she spoke. "It's a brilliant idea, Neville." Too brilliant for a young man with middling grades and no real interest in anything that wasn't a homicidal plant. "I've met President Selassie of South Africa and I'm sure he'd be honoured at your interest in using his country's hard-earned lessons to further freedom and equality elsewhere in the world, too."

"Oh, thank you," Nev said, "but I really can't take credit for it. It was the South Africans who came up with it, after all. President Selassie, you know. He…um…did all the work."

"That he did." Amelia didn't bother to correct her intentional mistake, since there was no sense letting him know how much she knew. "Good luck with this, Neville. I'll support it, but I recommend not playing up the fact that it was invented by a foreign muggle. That probably won't go over well." 

"That's a good point," Neville said. "Thank you."

She smiled. "No, thank you ." It wasn't until after he'd closed her door behind him that she added, "and thank you to Harry's witch, whoever you are." Amelia wasn't necessarily comfortable with being manipulated by an unknown quantity, but she'd take help from Nimue herself if it meant she didn't have to leave her grandnieces and -nephews to fight the same war that had slain so much of her generation.

Her smile grew slightly broader as she pulled a folder from the middle of her "in" pile. It was time to return that witch's favour.

Chapter Text

Harry had a day off before he switched to day shifts, so he tried to re-synchronize his sleep to Hermione's normal day cycle that night and wake up at a normal time the next morning. He awoke groggy and a bit disoriented for his efforts, but he was used to that when switching shift times and accepted it as one of the downsides of the job. 

They'd settled into a comfortable routine on days when they awoke together: Harry would shave with his wand in front of the mirror while Hermione showered, then Harry would shower while Hermione did her short beauty routine and much longer haircare routine. That got them out of the bathroom at roughly the same time, with the added bonus of being able to ogle one another while they showered. 

Harry didn't pay much attention to the copy of the Daily Prophet in the owl-mail box outside, but Hermione was nothing if not a reader and grabbed it before pulling out the loaf of bread to toast. She pulled out a few slices while scanning the paper until Harry spoke up.

"Um…Hermione?" he asked.

"Yes?" she replied, still scanning the paper.

"That bread looks mouldy."

"What euuuggh!" She glanced at the bread and immediately dropped it. "That's disgusting. I'm sorry I wasn't paying attention. So the charms on the breadbox don't prevent mould?"

"I'm afraid not," Harry said. "They only slow it." He cast a quick Vanishing Charm on the bread she'd dropped. "Why don't you throw that out and get the newer loaf?"

"I'm going to wash my hands first," she said. "That was disgusting. I hate mould." As she washed, she added, "There's a fascinating article in the paper, though."

"In the Prophet?" Harry asked. "Really?"

She nodded. "It's on the front page, just below the fold."

While Hermione dried her hands, Harry picked up the paper and scanned the lower half of the front page. There were a couple of short articles about the flight of the Hungarian Magical Royal Family after a coup and the Quidditch League's plans to set up an investigation of how in Merlin's name the Chudley Cannons had managed to score negative points in their most recent game, but what caught his attention was a short piece announcing the Ministry's plan to commemorate the contributions of muggleborn witches and wizards to the Wizarding World.

"That's…surprising for a lot of reasons," Harry said. The article proclaimed that the Minister herself had ordered a commemoration of the fifteenth anniversary of the last time a muggleborn student started at Hogwarts. The Ministry would put out a series of full-page articles detailing the contributions to Wizarding Society of muggleborns both past and present.

"You don't think they know about me, do you?" Hermione wrung the towel with which she was drying her hands even more tightly than she normally would. 

"I can't imagine how," Harry said. "Even if they did, we'd have a queue of Ministry officials and reporters outside. I guess it's possible that only Madam Bones knows, but none of us would have told her. I'll ask Sue before our meeting, regardless."

"Oh, right, that's in just a bit." Hermione hurried over and gave him a quick kiss. "Good luck!"

"Thanks," Harry said. "I'm going to need it."

She nodded, but something in her eyes made him pause. "Is everything alright?" he asked. 

"How did you do it, Harry?" Hermione responded. "How did you have insane adventures and nearly die in school and then go back to focusing on your studies?"

"I…don't know," Harry said. "It's just what school was for us. Study, get abused by Snape, dodge things trying to kill us, and take tests."

She sighed and pulled him into a tight hug. "I'm sorry," she said. "I wanted to give you better reference points, but instead I'm just creating more of the same."

"It's OK," he said. "These memories are better just because you're in them."

"Harry?" Her voice was lower, almost husky.

"Yes?"

"Get out of this house before I drag you upstairs and make you very, very late to your meeting."

He paused. "I'm sure they could get along—"

"Get moving, mister." She released him from the hug and pushed him gently away. "We can discuss creating some better reference points for both of us when you get home."

"That is the best incentive for a short meeting I have ever heard." Harry gave her a quick kiss. "I'll see you soon."

A short floo trip deposited Harry in the floo room of Longbottom Manor…specifically, on the floor of the floo room. He tried to magick away the soot of the floo, but he accidentally blew it all into his hair when an ear-splitting horn went off.

He spun around to find Nev blowing a harsh, discordant note on a slim silver horn that snaked three feet over his head and had an animated dragon's mouth at the end while Sue waved a Montrose Magpies pennant (Harry's old quidditch team).  "Nev!" he shouted, possibly a little louder than necessary due to temporary hearing loss, "why are you blowing a Montrose carnyx indoors?"

"Well," Sue said, "you're a boring Auror now and it's been ages since we've been able to cheer for you, so we thought we'd cheer on one of your legendary floo landings, instead."

"They're not that bad," Harry grumbled. "And you're a boring Auror, too."

She stuck her nose in the air. "I am a fascinating Auror, thank you very much."

"No argument here," Nev said.

"I'd complain about you taking her side," Harry said, "but I'd be doing the same thing if that were Hermione."

Sue nodded regally. "As you should be."

"Oh," Harry said while non-verbally removing the soot from his hair, "speaking of Hermione, did you see the announcement in the paper this morning of the Ministry initiative honouring muggleborns?"

"I did," Sue said. "I had no idea that was in the works."

"Me, neither," Harry said. "There's no way your aunt knows about Hermione, is there?"

"She really shouldn't," Sue said, "but I agree that this is suspicious. I'll make some gentle inquiries later today."

"Thank you," Harry said. The floo flared to life again before he could say anything else and he hurried to the side. 

Sue allowed Tracey and and then Daphne through and each stepped gracefully out of the floo as if they'd been born doing so. Harry wasn't sure he'd agree with Tracey's assessment of their classmate as "gorgeous," but he had to admit the blonde woman's high cheekbones and trim figure gave her a formidable presence when paired with her piercing brown eyes. 

"Potter," she said, nodding to him. "Bones. Longb—what in Merlin's name are you doing with an ancient Gaulish war trumpet indoors?"

"Annoying Harry," Nev said. Sue smirked and nodded in agreement.

"Oh." Daphne blinked. "Well…um…carry on, then."

Meanwhile, Tracey had imperturbably continued cleaning the soot off of herself with her wand before turning and doing likewise to Daphne. "They're Gryffindors," Daph," she said. "Best not to think about it too hard. They're not."

Daphne nodded. "Good point."

"Hey!" Sue said. "You're right about these two, but I was a 'Puff."

"Who had pretty much moved into Gryffindor Tower by our Seventh Year," Tracey said. "There's probably something in the air in there."

"I wonder if we could test for that," Daphne said. "Maybe take a piece of furniture from each common room and see if the magical residues on them are different from being around different sorts of students."

"Testing later," Tracey said. "Ball designing now."

"Right this way," Neville said. He hefted the carnyx and led them to the sitting room, blowing a soft, mournful note on it as they walked.

Sue sat down on the chesterfield and waited while he leaned the carnyx against the fireplace before sitting down next to her. "Was the musical accompaniment really necessary?" she asked. 

"I never get to play that any more now that Harry is an Auror," Nev said. "I want to get my money's worth out of it."

Tracey pulled out a parchment and a self-inking quill and made a quick note. "Longbottom does not choose the music," she said as she wrote.

Sue grinned. "I'm liking her decisions already."

"You mean," Harry said, "Daphne's decisions."

"How did I get…oh, right," Daphne said. "Are you sure this is necessary, Trace?"

"Yes, now hush," Tracey said. "By the time we're done, I'm going to have all of those rich arseholes falling over themselves to court the woman who designed the social event of the entire year."

"Lovely," Daphne said drily. 

"Anyway," Tracey said, "I've been giving this a lot of thought and I think we should go the Masquerade Ball route. There hasn't been one of those for a few years, probably because of that cursed mask that took over its wearer at the last ball and erased their mind."

Harry shuddered. "Robards told me about that case. I'm glad that thing was destroyed." 

"Um…yeah," Daphne said. 

They all stared at her for a moment. 

"Moving on," Tracey said firmly, "a masquerade always attracts interest, and with three of the most eligible members of Wizarding nobility headlining it—"

Nev coughed and looked at Sue.

Tracey arched her eyebrows. "Oh, interesting! We can work that angle. Have you been out in public together yet?"

"Well, no," Nev said.

"Perfect," Tracey said. "This can be your first big event together. We've still got the most famous single wizard in the world over there to lure guests."

Harry did his best to nod enthusiastically, but Tracey's eyes still narrowed a little at him before she continued. "Now, for music. Unless Longbottom over there wants to break out the—"

"No," Daphne said, "I'm vetoing Longbottom and his horn."

"Good," Sue said. "More for me."

Nev, Harry, and Daphne all blushed bright red, but Tracey just shot Sue a grin. "Far be it from me," she said, "to get between a woman and her favourite instrument."

"Please stop," Daphne said. "If you get her going, she's going to be making nothing but innuendos all day and we'll get nothing done."

"Fine." Tracey pouted. "Anyway, I was going to suggest the Weird Sisters. Potter, may I use your name when I contact their agent?"

He sighed. "Go ahead. I hate using my fame like that, but this is worth it."

"Excellent," Tracey said. "We'll want to keep people moving, so instead of a dinner I propose canapes and drinks borne about the hall by enchanted trays. An added bonus there is that the trays can be charmed to avoid areas with higher concentrations of alcohol vapour in the air, making it slightly harder for people to overindulge."

"That's a good idea," Nev said. "I didn't know that sort of thing existed."

"Daphne taught it to me," Tracey said. "I'll need to hire some help to enchant the trays, but it'll probably be worth it."  

Daphne nodded. "It's a modification of a chemical weapons detection charm the Muggle Defense Unit came up with." 

Harry and Tracey's jaws dropped, but Nev and Sue just looked at each other in confusion. "Chemical weapons?" Sue asked.

"Muggle weapons that replace the air you breathe with poison," Daphne said. 

"They can do that?" Nev asked.

"They can do a lot of things," Daphne said. "That's why we have a unit that focuses on developing counters to their worst weapons. We don't want to be caught flat-footed if the Statute falls."

"That's simultaneously comforting and disturbing," Harry said. 

"And definitely not something we should be discussing while planning a party," Tracey added. "Let's try to focus on happier things, like what food to have."

"I'm not sure Sirius is allowed back in Buffalo yet," Harry said, "but Buffalo wings would be delicious."

"Buffalo wings?" Daphne asked.

"Seasoned chicken bits," Sue said. "And I don't think we need to go all the way to the States for this."

"No, no," Tracey said, "that's actually brilliant. After Lord Black's antics made the international press, everyone will be curious about what that food was. We can use that to attract even more people to the event."

"Just don't get them too spicy," Neville said. "An American 'mild' is more than enough."

Tracey nodded and made a note. "That's a good start. Now we just need at least six other dishes and four signature cocktails."

Harry sighed. It was going to be a long morning.

Draco Malfoy sighed.  It had been a long morning.  The bootlickers, hangers-on, and lesser aristocrats that comprised the social circle of Lucius Malfoy had come in force to beg his father to do something about the potential charges arising from the release of Umbridge's blackmail cache.  Patronage was one thing, but some of these imbeciles seemed to think that meant Lucius could get them out of whatever damn fool predicament they'd gotten themselves into. 

The click of high heels on the wood floor brought him back to the present. "Draco," Pansy asked, "is everything alright? I've just put Vulpecula down for a nap and I wanted to see how things were going."

"It's a mess in there," Draco said. "I don't know how Father deals with all of them without losing his mind. Some of them are even talking about seeking protection from the Notts instead of from Father, if you can imagine."

"Ugh." Pansy turned up her nose at the thought, not that it didn't look like it was turned up normally. All these years later and Draco still thought she had a cute nose. "Don't they understand we can't just drop everything to rescue them from their own folly? The mudbloods might be coming back!"

"Their priorities are definitely out of whack," Draco agreed. "Father has suggested they accept the 'Truth and Reconciliation' option that Bones and her Wizengamot catspaw Longbottom have proposed, but Burke, Rowle, and Travers are worried that's going to foreclose on some lucrative smuggling they've been doing."

Pansy shook her head. "Did they learn nothing from how your father navigated the situation after the fall of the Dark Lord in '81? Now is the time to pretend contrition, not wring every last knut out of a blown scheme."

"Apparently not," Draco said. "Anyway, you should probably head back upstairs. There are some truly disgusting excuses for wizards in the house right now, and while I doubt they'd be stupid enough to try anything within the Malfoy wards, I'd rather be safe than sorry."

"Of course, dear." Pansy gave him a quick kiss. "Good luck with them."

"We're going to need it," Malfoy said. "I just hope those idiots don't do anything stupid. We need to find the Knife and whatever object she couldn't mention in the letter, not focus on damage control from some idiots who can't accept that they need to find a new way to earn their coin." He blinked. "Of course! That gives me an idea."

Amelia emerged with practised grace from the Longbottom Manor floo at around eight that evening. It had been yet another long day at the Ministry, but at least Longbottom's (probably borrowed) idea had given her hope that the chaos might soon end. With both of their children now staying at Longbottom Manor, she'd taken up the habit of a bit of sherry with Gus most evenings. She'd always known theoretically that Susan would eventually find someone and move out, but that knowledge hadn't prepared her for the sheer loneliness she felt when Susan had finally done so. 

Her niece strode into the room just as Amelia finished Scourgify'ing herself. "Good evening, Auntie," she said. "How was work?"

"The same mess it's been since Umbridge died," Amelia said. "The usual suspects are all 'deeply concerned' about Neville's 'Truth and Reconciliation' idea, but the offer of amnesty is too tempting for most of them and they're signing up. That was such a clever idea of his!"

A shadow flitted over Sue's face before she responded. "Yes, it really was. I'm so glad I got him interested in the muggle Economist magazine last year."

"How interesting!" Amelia thought. "Susan noticed that oversight on his part, too. Good for her!"

"Anyway," Susan continued, "I wanted to tell you how much your new initiative honouring muggleborn means to Harry. We all thought it was a great idea and it means the world to him that his mother is going to be recognized for her accomplishments in fields besides…well, dying for him."

"I'm glad," Amelia said. "It's the least she deserves, really."  "Now wait for it…"

"I agree," Susan said. "What inspired it now, though? I would have thought you'd have done it either at the start or end of the Hogwarts school year."

"And there it is!" Amelia thought. "There's always so much going on at that time," she said. "We wanted to ensure it didn't get lost in the rush at the beginning or end of the term."

"That makes sense," Susan said. 

As they continued to discuss their respective days, Amelia had to fight to keep the smile off of her face. Children. Sometimes you had to let them think they were getting away with something. At least now she knew her niece was also in on the mystery of Harry's girlfriend. She still didn't understand why keeping the poor woman hidden was so important, but she knew Susan didn't hesitate to tell her Gryffindor friends (including Sirius and Remus) when they were being ridiculous. If Susan was assisting the secrecy like this, then the girl was likely in serious danger. But why, and from whom?

Draco nodded to John Dawlish as the older man stepped out of the floo into Malfoy Manor. "Welcome to our home," he said. "I appreciate you coming on such short notice."

"I could hardly refuse an invitation from a Malfoy," Dawlish said as he non-verbally Scourgify'd the soot from his Auror robes. "What can I do for you?"

"You…" Draco stopped himself and thought of the lessons his father had taught him. The older man had approved of this idea and allowed Draco to pursue it himself, but he was doubtless watching with interest. "I also appreciate your willingness to get right to business, but I would be a poor host if I didn't offer at least a bit of entertainment to a guest. Can I tempt you with some brandy in the study?"

"I certainly wouldn't decline," Dawlish said.  He followed Draco dutifully into the study and waited while he poured them two generous snifters. His father always said it was important to get people used to accepting little gifts from you so they'd be more likely to accept the bigger ones. 

After they'd toasted to strong magic and taken a moment to enjoy the quality of the brandy, Draco spoke again. "Mr. Dawlish, I've heard you're having a bit of trouble with the DMLE right now." Ever since Draco had returned home from Hogwarts and his real education had begun, his father had impressed upon him the importance of controlling the pace of an interaction. 

He nodded. "It's that dossier that dead bitch dumped on our heads. She had me for some minor stuff, but I'd rather not take Bones up on this 'Truth and Reconciliation' thing she's on about."

"Doubtless," Draco mused, "because there's something much worse she didn't know of." "I understand, Mr. Dawlish, and I think we can be of some use to each other. I assume you'll have to quit the Aurors if you don't take part in that little stage show Bones is preparing?"

"Exactly." Dawlish glowered. "It's either admit everything or face the punishment for what they know I did."

"You'll doubtless be needing employment, then," Draco said. "I might be able to help with that."

"How so?" Dawlish asked. 

"Officially," Draco said, "you'd be providing security for an establishment on Knockturn Alley that caters to wizards with…unusual tastes. However," Draco paused and passed a blank scrap of parchment about three inches by three inches to the man, "you'll occasionally get a request on this piece of parchment to meet with some other associates of ours at Borgin and Burkes at the time that appears on that piece of parchment. Once everyone has been assembled, you'll be given a task. With your advanced skills, these tasks should be of no consequence to you, and you'll find the pay for your official job to be much higher than the going rate for such work."

"I see." Dawlish stared at the parchment as if trying to decipher the fine print in a contract for his soul. "That arrangement sounds reasonable."

"Excellent," Draco said.  "Oh, and there's just one more thing. A mere trifle, something I hesitate to bother you with, but needs must."

Dawlish arched his eyebrows and Draco made a mental note not to lay it on quite so think in the future.  "The late, unlamented Undersecretary," Draco said, "appears to have stolen something belonging to one of my ancestors, and we wish to reclaim our property without it becoming common knowledge that she succeeded. If you were to monitor her house one evening and allow someone to sneak in, we could reclaim our property with no one being the wiser."

"And allow you to interfere with the scene of an unsolved murder investigation?" Dawlish asked. 

"One that the Malfoys had nothing to do with," Draco said with a practised sneer. "As odious as she was, she was more useful to us alive. Dead, she's been nothing but a headache, and the positions of a number of our friends are weaker as a result of the release of her blackmail material. I don't know what possessed Lord Selwyn to kill her or why he thought he would survive doing so."

Dawlish nodded. "That's a fair point. If anything is found missing from the house, though…"

"Don't worry," Draco said. "If your colleagues had found this heirloom, they would not have left it in the house. Assuming it's still there, we can safely remove it." Had Dawlish been a Slytherin, the other man might have realised they could only safely remove something if they cleaned up his loose end afterward, but Dawlish had been a Gryffindor and merely nodded again.

"Very well," he said. "You have yourself a deal, Mr. Malfoy."

Chapter Text

Hermione pulled her capelet tighter around herself as they emerged from the warm theatre into the February London night. "So, what did you think, Harry?" 

"Of the play, or whether the painting really did qualify as 'art'?" he responded.

She shot him a cheeky grin. "Both." 

"I just don't buy the painting as art. Sure, you can throw it up on a wall and call it art, but where does that stop? I feel like there has to be something more to 'art' than a mere declaration," Harry said. 

"A lot of people would disagree with that statement," Hermione said, "but not me. I suppose it makes me old-fashioned, but I see 'art' as being something more than a magical spell that someone can speak into being. It reminds me of something Tom Stoppard—another playwright—said he saw in a novel. Two landscape gardeners are vying for a job, and one says that the client should be able to distinguish the picturesque and the beautiful. The other says he does distinguish those, but he adds to them a third character he calls 'unexpectedness.' The first gardener responds, and this is what really stuck with me, 'Pray, sir, by what name do you distinguish this character when a person walks round the grounds for the second time?'"

Harry laughed. "I see what you mean, and how it applies to that painting, too. The first time you see a few white stripes painted on a white canvas and someone calls it 'art,' it's intriguing. After that, though, it's just boring."

 "I agree," Hermione said. "So, what did you think of your first West End play?"

"I really enjoyed it," Harry replied. "It was both funny and thought-provoking, and I thought the actors were great. Well, except for Richard Griffiths. He really rubbed me the wrong way for some reason. How about you?"

"I loved it, too," Hermione said. "I'd heard that it was a great production and I'm glad we went as part of my mandatory relaxation time."

"I am, too," Harry said, "but I have to admit enjoying the rest of the way we spent your mandatory relaxation time a little more."

She blushed. "I did, too, but we can't do that all of the time."

"True," Harry said. "I mean, wi…um…people occasionally try, but they invariably end up dead of exhaustion, dehydration, asphyxiation, or some combination thereof."

"I don't want to know, do I?" Hermione asked. 

"I wish I didn't know." Harry shuddered. "So you said you wanted to do this again in a few weeks?"

"There's another play by a heavily-awarded playwright named Sam Shepard that a lot of my old classmates said was absolutely amazing," Hermione said. "If it had just been a few of them, I'd be sceptical, but so many of them saw it and liked it that I'm curious."

Harry shrugged. "OK, I'll give it a go," he said. "If he's won a lot of awards, it's probably at least reasonably good.  Hopefully things will be quiet at work and I—bugger."

"Harry?" Hermione was so shocked she didn't even think to reprimand Harry for his language.

"I need you to promise me something," Harry said. 

"Anything."

"Never, ever tell Sue I used the 'Q' word."

She arched her eyebrows. "Fine, but I just want to be clear that I don't buy into that superstition. Absolutely nothing bad is going to happen because you said—"

Harry glared at her.

"Used the 'Q' word," she continued.

"Thank you," Harry said. 

Two weeks passed normally for Hermione afterward, and she'd just started rereading the chapter of her Potions textbook Andi had asked her to familiarise herself with for the next day's lesson when the floo lit up. 

"Hermione," Sirius's voice asked, "are you there?"

She got up and hurried into the floo room. "What's wrong?" she asked as soon as she could see the fireplace.

"There's a mob in front of the Ministry Press Building and I think Harry is about to help defuse it," Sirius said. "Turn on your Wizarding Wireless!" 

"I will!" Hermione replied, and hurried back into the sitting room to do just that. Harry had shown her how to turn it on a few months before, but since Christmas she usually preferred the music on the old Victrola. Changing the record and needle after every song was annoying, but it gave her the opportunity to practise manipulating small objects with magic. And, especially during the first week she tried that, the Mending Charm. 

A flick of her wand accompanied by the incantation "Operatur" activated the wireless. "--the mob is outside the Ministry Press Building now. Again, this is Cordelia Prattlewell reporting live from Diagon Alley. Gringotts is somehow remaining open in all of this chaos, possibly because even an angry mob knows not to try its luck with goblins. Oh, and there's a gout of flame coming out of the main Gringotts doors right now. They must have brought up the dragon."

Hermione blanched.

"Well, this reporter is certainly impressed with the safety of her vault in all of this madness, though she would recommend not walking into the bank until after any dragon dung is collected from the floor. Now, back to the Ministry building, where Aurors are holding the crowd back with transfigured stone barricades. The mob is still chanting demands that the Ministry fire everyone implicated by what some are calling the 'Umbridge Dossier' and hand them over for punishment. Someone is emerging from the building now…yes, it's Minister Bones herself, with only a single Auror as a bodyguard! That strikes this reporter as risky…no, wait, the Auror is the Man-Who-Lived himself, Harry Potter! This reporter withdraws all concerns about the Minister needing additional protection."

"You stupid, ridiculous, noble man." Hermione shook her head. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm going to reorient the microphone," the reporter said, her voice more muffled now. "I think the Minister is about to cast a Sonorous Charm and address the mob."

"Wizards and Witches of Great Britain!" a new voice said, presumably the Minister. "You deserve no less than honesty at a time like this, so I'll be honest with you: I had no idea ten percent of the entire Ministry staff would either take us up on the reconciliation offer or resign in disgrace. I'm horrified that such corruption is baked into the fabric of the Ministry and will ensure—"

The reporter gasped, her voice muffled by how she'd moved the microphone, and Hermione's heart very nearly stopped. "Someone tried to hex the Minister!" she said. "The other Aurors have the person now, but the only reason the Minister wasn't hurt was that the hex bounced off a shield in front of her. But I didn't see anyone cast…Merlin! Was Potter shielding her that whole time? How powerful—"

"Oh, god!" Hermione's hand flew to her mouth. "Harry…"

"That's enough!" Bones roared. "You elected me to do a job and Merlin help me I'm going to do that job until I'm legally removed from office. Right now, my job is to clean out the rot in the Ministry and I'm not going to let anyone get my way, including you. So here's what's going to happen. I am going to go back into my office and propose a law to the Wizengamot requiring all Ministry employees to make an Unbreakable Vow not to accept bribes, and you all are going to get out of this street in five minutes or Auror Potter and I are going to forcibly remove the lot of you. Now get moving! I have work to do."

Hermione's stomach knotted up at the thought of Harry taking on an entire mob single-handedly. This insane politician was going to get them both torn to—

The reporter's voice took over again. "The noise of the crowd is dying away and they're…they're starting to break up and walk away. Yes, this is Cordelia Prattlewell confirming that the angry mob is now more of an embarrassed herd. Our Minister and the Man-Who-Lived have successfully defused the situation without violence. This reporter has never seen anything like it, and, though impressed, she hopes she'll never see anything like it again. This is Cordelia Prattlewell signing off from Diagon Alley."

Hermione slid off the chesterfield onto her knees and threw up on the floor in front of her. After crying for a few minutes, she got herself together enough to cast a Wiping Spell to clean up the vomit. It didn't work very well, but after another three attempts she finally managed to clean everything up, and just as she finished the floo lit up. 

She couldn't see if there was a face in there from that angle, but she recognized Sue's voice when the other woman shouted, "We're coming through!"

Sue stepped gracefully out of the floo a moment later, nodded to Hermione, then turned to help Harry as he staggered out of the floo. Hermione jumped to her feet and hurried over as Sue helped him to one of the armchairs in the floo room. 

"Harry," Hermione shouted as she ran, "what happened?"

"Magical exhaustion," Harry whispered.

"Did you hear about what happened outside the Ministry Press Building?" Sue asked. 

"Sirius floo'd me and told me to listen in," Hermione said. "So I heard precisely how stupidly brave this idiot right in front of me was!" She emphasised the last four words each with a light punch to Harry's arm. He groaned. 

"I wasn't pleased with Auntie's decision to go out there with just Harry, either," Sue said. "I wanted her to take a dozen of us with her as guards, but she didn't want to look weak. So only Harry went with her, and the poor man kept up a Shield Charm over both of them the whole time."

"And that's difficult?" Hermione asked.

Harry nodded weakly. "Oh, right," Sue said, "I forget you're just finishing up the Third Year curriculum now and that's not till Sixth Year. It's difficult to cast and requires a lot of power from the caster. It's not designed to be used for more than a few seconds at a time, but Harry kept one up for several minutes that was large enough to protect two people."

"That's amazing!" Hermione said. "I just wish you hadn't put yourself in so much danger, Harry," 

"Worth it," Harry said slowly. "Amelia's…the best Minister in decades. I won't let…a mob drive her out."

Behind Hermione, the floo lit up again. "Harry," a familiar voice said, "may I come through?"

Hermione didn't recognize the face of the woman in the floo when she turned around, but she did recognize the voice. It would have been hard not to, since she'd just heard that same voice break up a mob in Diagon Alley.

"Oh, Susan, I'm glad you're there," Amelia Bones said. "And you as well, mystery witch about whom I definitely know nothing."

Sue facepalmed while Harry softly laughed. "Let her through," he said.

Hermione nodded and went over to press the runes carved into the fireplace to clear her for access. A distinguished witch on the high side of middle age stepped through wearing formal grey robes and a monocle. 

"Thank you," she said to Hermione. "I knew how tired Mr. Potter was and I wanted to make sure he wasn't home alone right now. I didn't realise Susan was here and I didn't know if you were living here yet."

"Um…" Hermione wasn't sure how to respond to that.

"Auntie?" Sue asked. "I don't mean to pry, but how in Morgana's name did you find out Harry had a girlfriend?"

The older woman smirked. "Augusta can't hold her liquor quite as well as she thinks." Her expression turned serious again. "Mr. Potter, how are you holding up?"

"I've been better," he said. 

She frowned. "Usually you just say you're 'fine,' so now I'm actually a little worried about you. Do you want me to take you to St. Mungo's?"

"No, I'll be OK," Harry said.

"Would you like me to get you a Pepper-Up Potion?" Hermione asked. 

"Kind of, but I'd just end up paying for it later," Harry said. "I should probably just take a nap."

"You've earned it," Amelia said. "Thank you for going out there with me."

Sue shook her head. "I still think that was a terrible idea," she said.

"Harry said it was worth it," Hermione said. "I hope he was right, Minister, because if he comes home to me in a box one day I'm going to damn well want to know whether it was worth it."

Amelia had the grace to look suitably chastened. "I knew that was a risk," she said, "but a crowd like that is a powder keg. I could have brought a dozen Aurors with me and subdued that crowd by force if I had to, but people would have been injured either in the fighting or in a stampede. Harry's presence both calmed them and, realistically, intimidated them, too. That made it easier for me to cow them myself and run them off."

"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't impressed with both of you," Hermione said, "but one of these days you're going to have to solve your problems without Harry, you know."

"I know," Amelia replied. "It's just…most days I feel like all I can do is claw out another few years of peace before the next war. Your idea about the Truth and Reconciliation hearings is the best thing to happen to this country in years…and yes, I knew that was you immediately. Neville is a lovely young man who has probably never studied muggle political history in his life. If Gus hadn't already told me Harry was dating a muggleborn genius, I would have thought someone else was trying to use Neville to influence me."

Hermione blushed. "I'm glad you liked the idea so much." 

"Just so you know," Harry added, "she also figured out that Millie and Marcus would probably target Derby next. I wish I could give her the credit for that."

Amelia raised her eyebrows. "Most people don't start accomplishing things until they officially exist. You're quite precocious."

"Her official existence," Sue said, "is part of the problem. We don't want anyone to find out about her until she passes her O.W.L.s, but she's going to show up on the list of magical citizens next year now that her core is unbound."

"Her core was bound?" Amelia whirled around on her adopted daughter. "What happened?"

"We only just discovered that," Sue said. "Lord Selwyn's former house elf came to talk with Dobby, ended up bound to them through a series of events I still don't quite understand, and snuck back into Selwyn's estate to get the artefacts he used. Harry and Hermione aren't telling anyone exactly how he did it, though, to minimise the possibility that anyone else will ever be able to replicate it. Apparently at least one of the artefacts involved is truly unique."

Amelia's jaw dropped. "That's incredible! So Selwyn was hunting down the muggleborns this whole time? Why wasn't he killing them, though? We know he was capable of doing so, even if we could never prove it."

"We think," Hermione said, "that it was the nature of one of the artefacts involved. We can't tell you what it was, but it was probably powerful enough to overwhelm some of his personality and essentially rewrite his plans a bit." 

Harry nodded. "If it had been one of the mentally weaker Death Eaters, like the Goyles or Jugson, I wouldn't be surprised if it had been able to overwhelm their minds entirely. This artefact…it's not evil, but it's shockingly powerful. We're ensuring it's returned to its rightful owner and protected."

"I see," Amelia said. "I'm not happy about the secrecy involved, but I agree that the fewer people who know that hunting down only muggle-borns is possible, the better. So why continue to keep her existence a secret?"

"We're worried Purebloods might use her age as an excuse to bind her again. She's studying for her O.W.L.s so she can take them in May."

"Are you telling me she didn't know about magic until recently—"

"My birthday last September," Hermione supplied. 

"Last September," Amelia continued, "and she's taking her O.W.L.s in May?"

"Just five of them, yes," Harry said. "She's on track to finish her coursework in time."

"She's got lots of help," Sue said. "Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, and Tonks are giving her private lessons, Remus and Luna are tutoring her, and even Bathilda Bagshot is helping."

Amelia rubbed her temples. "How is this the craziest thing that's happened to me today?"

"Luna once told me," Hermione said, "that Harry's wrackspurts were distinct and occasionally became, for lack of a better term, contagious. That seems like as good an explanation as any."

"Oh, Morgana," Amelia said, "I refuse to consider that possibility. That way, madness lies."

"I just listened as the head of our government used my boyfriend to scare off an angry mob," Hermione said. "If we're comparing crazy days, I feel like I have a legitimate shot at winning today."

Amelia turned to Hermione and stared at her for a moment, as if seeing her for the first time. "Mr. Potter," she finally said, "is a national hero and a dear friend of Susan's, so I'm concerned for his well-being even when my office sometimes makes that difficult for me to show. I admit to being a little nervous when I heard he had begun dating an entirely unknown quantity, but our conversation has completely allayed those concerns."

"Um…good?" Hermione said. 

"Don't worry," Sue said. "I think Auntie just realised what we've known all along: while the rest of the magical world looks at Harry and sees a legend, you look at him and see a man you care about."

Harry interrupted their discussion with a soft snore and shifted a bit in his chair. 

Amelia smiled. "The poor lad's earned a break. Ms….?"

"Granger," Hermione said.

"For now," Sue added, making Hermione blush furiously.

Another smile ghosted across Amelia's lips. "Ms. Granger, do you know the Human Levitation Charm?"

"Not yet, I'm afraid," Hermione said. 

"I'll handle it," Sue said. "You should probably take a break, too, Auntie."

The older woman sighed. "I probably should. Would you mind if I lay down on the chesterfield in the sitting room for a bit? Nobody is going to bother me here and I could probably get away with literal murder if I claimed to be looking after Mr. Potter."

"Not at all," Hermione said. "Feel free to move any of my notes out of the way if I left something on the cushions. Can I offer either of you tea or anything?"

A house elf popped up next to them. "Enny can get Mistress's friends tea if they wants."

"No, thank you," Amelia said, and Sue likewise shook her head.

"Oh, all right," Enny said sadly, and popped away.

Sue raised her eyebrows at Hermione.  "She's your house elf, not Harry's?"

"It's a long story," Hermione said. "She was abused by her previous owner and I made an Unbreakable Vow to free her if she ever asked me to do so."

Amelia's eyes widened. "You did what?"

"I did," Hermione said as she met Amelia's stare with her own, "what I think everyone bound to a house elf should be required by law to do. No one should take advantage of house elves' needs to enslave them."

The older woman paled slightly. "I was a Hufflepuff Prefect in 1972," she said, her voice softer now. "Hufflepuff is the nearest House to the kitchens in Hogwarts. Late one night about a month into the school year, a house elf came to ask me to deal with a disturbance in the kitchen. I hurried over and found a little girl screaming at a boy and demanding all of the house elves be freed immediately. I managed to calm her down long enough to explain more about the symbiotic relationship house elves had with Hogwarts and allay some of her concerns. The fire in your eyes just now reminded me of what I saw in her eyes then…and in her hair, too."

"Lily?" Sue asked. 

Amelia nodded. "And Severus. I would feel much better about the world I was leaving to your children if Lily and James had lived to shape it." She turned to regard the young man snoring gently in his armchair. "You're right, Ms. Granger. I need to learn to stop solving my problems with Mr. Potter just because he can do it. Our world needs him to be more than just a hero."

"I do, too," Hermione whispered.

Amelia patted Hermione's arm and nodded again. "Get him to bed, Ms. Granger, and take care of him."

"I will," Hermione said. 

Sue nodded and waved her wand in what looked like a lazy half-circle at Harry while murmuring "Mobilicorpus." He floated gently about three inches into the air and Sue manoeuvred him into the sitting room and then up the stairs ahead of her, with Hermione following closely behind.  They didn't want to try their luck with any more stairs than they had to, so they deposited him on the bed in the guest room Hermione had been using prior to changing her sleeping arrangements. 

"Are you going to be alright?" Sue whispered.

"Sure," Hermione responded. "I just met the head of the magical government, told her off, got her blessing to continue shagging the national hero, and now she's napping in our sitting room because she and Harry are exhausted from scaring off an entire angry mob by themselves. Why would I not be fine?"

Sue had to muffle her own laughter for a moment before getting it under control. "That's fair," she said. "Just blame it on Harry's wrackspurts and get some sleep, yourself."

"I'll do that," Hermione said. "Thank you for taking care of him and at least trying to curb his worst impulses."

"I've been doing that for years," Sue replied. "It's just nice to finally have some help on that front."

Lucius flicked his wand at the wireless to turn it off and poured two snifters of brandy for himself and his son. "What a sad day in Wizarding History," he said. "To placate a mob rather than utterly smash it is to only encourage more such uncivilised behaviour."

Draco nodded and sipped the brandy. "Indeed, Father. Had a Malfoy or a proper Black been the Minister, that mob would doubtless have been taught its place."

"I agree." Lucius took a sip of the brandy and swirled the rest in the glass thoughtfully. "And yet…this is why I've tried to counsel against rash action right now. We can water down these laws later, when no one is paying attention. To stand in the way of the populace at the moment is to stand in the way of a charging graphorn." He sighed. "But enough of the foolishness of our allies. Have your inquiries revealed anything of the muggleborn or Umbridge's lost artefacts, whatever they were?"

"I'm afraid not," Draco said. "We won't have any way of knowing if any mudbloods have been unbound until the Hogwarts Headmistress reveals the names from the Book of Admission in the fall, and she is safely ensconced within the protections of Hogwarts. Is there nothing you can do to lure her out, Father?"

"Possibly, but pushing too hard on that might also tip my hand," Lucius said. "Our opponents in this game, whoever they are, are clearly ruthless and well-resourced. I don't wish to make us targets for the mere possibility of obtaining useful information."

"True." Draco nodded. "What can we do, then? We can't wait around while the mudbloods swarm back over us."

"I agree," Lucius said. "We need to make it our priority to figure out how it was done so we can replicate it, but we also need to start laying the groundwork with the Wizengamot to re-bind all of the mudbloods who haven't taken their O.W.L.s. We can at least keep some of them out of our society."

"That could work," Draco said. "I mean, it would be better to hunt them all down, but keeping some out of our society is better than having them all return."

Lucius raised his glass and smirked. "To the mudbloods: may they stay lost."

Draco grinned and clinked his glass against his father. "May they stay forever lost."

Chapter Text

Hermione awoke refreshed and much less anxious after an hour or so. Harry was still out like a light and appeared likely to remain so for the foreseeable future, so Hermione went back downstairs to check on things. No trace remained of their surprise visitors beyond a piece of parchment laid by itself on the far end of the coffee table from where she usually worked. It read:

Dear Ms. Granger,

Thank you for having me as an unexpected houseguest today. It is rare that I can find a place where I can rest totally assured that no one would disturb me and I appreciate that you provided that to a stranger without hesitation. I also appreciate that you were willing to take me to task for my decisions regarding Mr. Potter. I'm afraid such candour is also rare in my line of work. I wish you the best of luck with your studies and, now that I'm allowed to be aware of your existence, I hope you and Mr. Potter will come by for dinner now and then.

Sincerely,

Amelia Bones

P.S. Susan will return to the Ministry with me. Please tell Mr. Potter he has the rest of today and tomorrow off with my compliments.

Hermione smiled at the parchment. She could hardly believe her interaction with the Minister hadn't been a dream. Before meeting Harry, she would probably have been tongue-tied in dealing with even a mid-level bureaucrat, but now she was somehow standing up to the head of the government. She wasn't sure where this new Hermione had come from, but she liked her. 

Just as she was settling back down to her Potions work, a soft pop heralded the arrival of a familiar house elf. 

"Hello, Mistress," Enny said. "Cans we talk?"

"Of course." Hermione put her work back down on the coffee table. "Would you like me to free you?"

"No," Enny said, "Enny feels…useless. Mistress doesn't need Enny, does she? Enny can tell."

"You're right," Hermione said. As Enny's ears drooped, Hermione continued, "Harry doesn't need Dobby, either. That doesn't mean Harry doesn't value Dobby's friendship. I'm learning to value it, too."

"What?" Enny cocked her head. "How can Master Harry value Dobby if he doesn't need Dobby?"

Hermione thought for a moment about how to synthesise centuries of ethical philosophy into an answer comprehensible by an uneducated non-human intelligence. "Enny," she said eventually, "you're bound to keep my secrets even if you leave my service, right?"

"Enny is a good elf and never speaks secrets," Enny said.

"Very well," Hermione said. "You must never tell anyone this, and if any other house elves are listening to me right now, I order you to stop doing so for the next ten minutes." She paused before continuing. "Do you know what the Black Family did to house elves that could no longer work hard?"

Enny's eyes widened and she shook her head. She'd clearly heard of the Blacks. 

"They would cut their heads off and mount them on the wall," Hermione said. "Enny, Kreacher is dying. He's over three centuries old and will probably not survive the decade. Our adventure with the document distribution showed us he was more frail than we thought. Do you know what Harry, Sirius, Remus, and I will do when he is too weak to work?"

"Mount him on the wall?" Enny asked.

Hermione shook her head. "We'll move him into Regulus Black's old bedroom and let him live out his last days in peace. If he needs anything, one of us or Dobby will help him."

"A wizard…will help a house elf?" Enny asked. 

"We will," Hermione said. "He's family , Enny. He's not a servant we would fire at will or toss aside when he can't serve us anymore."

"But why?" Enny grabbed her ears and pulled them down toward her jaw. "House elves that can't work are…nothing."

"If Harry couldn't work, do you think I would mount him on the wall?" Hermione asked. 

"Well, noes, but humans don't need to work," Enny said. "That's what their magics is for."

Hermione paused. "Huh. That attitude explains a lot about the Wizarding World, actually. But it's not true. Even if Harry and I didn't have magic, I wouldn't discard him because he couldn't work. I care about him regardless of what he can do, just like he and I both care about Dobby and Kreacher regardless of what they can do."

Enny shook her head. "Enny is glad Mistress cares so much for her family's strange elves, but Enny doesn't want that kind of life. Enny wants to be useful.  Enny wants to be needed . Mistress is the most wonderful and kind witch Enny has ever met, but Mistress doesn't need Enny and Enny suspects Mistress never will."

"That's wonderful, Enny," Hermione said with a sad smile. 

"Wh…what?" Enny asked. 

"You finally told me what you wanted ," Hermione said. "Even if it's not me, I'm excited that you know yourself enough to want something."

"Oh." Enny lost herself in thought for a moment. "You is right! Enny does want something for herself. Is yous mad at Enny for not wanting to be free, though?"

Hermione took a deep breath and tried to answer carefully. "I am definitely not mad at you. I'm disappointed that you don't want what I think you should want, but I don't want what my parents think I should want, either, so I don't think I can really complain about what you want."

Enny's eyes widened. "So Mistress will help Enny find a new family?"

"I'll help you right now," Hermione said. "Let me ask Dobby to keep an eye on Harry…no, wait, I asked him not to listen to us. Enny, could you fetch Dobby for me, please?"

"Of course, Mistress!" Enny popped away and returned a moment later with Dobby in tow.

"Hello Wise Mistress My-knee!" Dobby said. "How can Dobby be helping?"

"Hush!" Hermione hissed at him. "Harry's asleep."

Enny glared at Dobby, who grabbed his ears and pulled them all the way down around his jaw while he stared at the ground. "Dobby is sorry," he whispered.

"It's OK," Hermione said. "Dobby, I need to step out for a moment while Harry is sleeping off mild Magical Exhaustion upstairs. Can you watch over him and let me know if he needs anything?"

Dobby nodded enthusiastically. "Dobby is happy to!" he said, still barely above a whisper. "Dobby will defend his title as best sneaky watcher ever!" 

"I've no doubt you will," Hermione said. Dobby popped away and she turned to the other elf. "Enny, I think I know someone who will need you and treat you properly. If I floo somewhere, can you follow me?"

"Of course," Enny said. "Enny is a good elf and can always find her mistress."

"Oh, good." Hermione wasn't sure if she'd ever get used to being chastised by something two feet shorter than her. She rose from the chesterfield and walked over to the floo. After tossing in a pinch of powder, she said, "The New Briefcase," and leaned into the green fire.

"Luna?" she asked. "Is anyone home?"

The blonde witch walked into the room a few moments later, a baby bump just barely visible under her loose dress. "How lovely to see you, Hermione Granger! Would you like to come through?"

"Yes, please," Hermione said. Luna pressed the rune cluster on the fireplace and Hermione tumbled through.

"One of these days I'm going to get better at that," Hermione said as she clambered to her feet. A whisper of wind played over her as she did so and she realised Luna was using her wand to 'dust' the soot off of her clothes. 

"Thank you," Hermione said. "I hope I'm not imposing, but I wanted to ask you something." She paused. "Two somethings, actually."

"Not at all," Luna said. "Were you finally going to break down and ask me about the name of Rolf's house?"

Hermione blinked. "Yes, that was the second thing. How did you know?"

"Whenever anyone says the name you get a new wrackspurt," Luna said. 

"Oh, I see. That makes sense." A part of Hermione screamed at her that no, it made no sense at all, but she ignored that part. Paying too much attention to that part inevitably ended up giving her a mild hangover later and she still had studying to do.

"It's apparently a joke between Rolf and Newt," Luna said. "Something about an unusual briefcase Newt used to own. I'll let you know if I ever see it."

"Thank you," Hermione said. "I'm terribly curious. Anyway, the other thing I was hoping to talk to you about was whether you might want a house elf."

"That would be lovely," Luna said, "but we couldn't possibly afford one and we would never ask our friends for money for something that frivolous."

"Wait, what?" Hermione asked. "People buy and sell them?"

"Well, yes," Luna said. "They're relatively rare and the old families that have them won't usually part with them otherwise."

"Oh. That's…um…kind of disturbing, to be honest," Hermione said. "I didn't know there was a literal market for sentient beings."

"I understand," Luna said. "I hadn't thought about it like that, but I see what you mean now. It's just something I grew up with. Father could never have afforded it regardless of what we thought of it."

"I would never suggest you or anyone else buy a house elf," Hermione said. "However, I know one who needs a family who will care for her and give her lots of work. You and Rolf are wonderful people and, with a baby on the way, I thought you'd have plenty of work."

Luna raised her eyebrows. "I have no doubt we will have lots of work, but free house elves are terribly rare."

"Well, she's not technically free at the moment," Hermione said. "Enny?"

The elf popped up just to her right. "Yes, Mistress?"

"This is my friend Luna," Hermione said. "She and her husband are lovely people and they're expecting their first child in a few months. Would you like to work for her family?"

Enny wrinkled her nose. "Enny does not want to work for them."

"Oh, al—" was as far as a surprised and dejected Hermione got before Enny cut her off.

"Enny is a good elf and doesn't need a salary like Dobby. Dobby is a strange elf who makes Enny want to pull her ears off sometimes when she talks to him," Enny said. "Enny wants to bond with Mistress's friend like a good elf."

For the first time in her acquaintance with Luna, the smaller woman looked genuinely flabbergasted. "You…have an elf? And you want to give her to me?"

"I'm not gifting anyone a sentient creature," Hermione said. "She told me she wanted to be with someone who would treat her well and need her, so I thought of you."

"I'm…I'm honoured. You have no idea how honoured, and one of the reasons you and Harry have such great souls is that you never will understand how honoured I am." Luna knelt down so she'd be at eye level with Enny. "Enny? We would also be honoured by you if you wanted to become part of our new family."

"Enny would like that," the little elf said. "Enny can feel how much yous needs her help. In fact, yous magic…" her eyes widened. "You is going to need lots of help."

Luna's smile turned sad. "I'm afraid so. If it's too much—"

"No!" Enny shook her head forcefully. "Enny is a good elf and can't wait to work so hard."

"Then we'd love to have you," Luna said. 

"Luna?" Hermione said carefully. "Is everything alright?"

"Everything is going well," Luna said as she rose back to her feet. "But it never stays like that, does it? Sooner or later things stop going well. Never forget, though, that things eventually stop going poorly, too. We'll get through everything, you and I, and I think our children are going to be great friends one day."

Hermione shivered. "I think you're right," she said.

"Don't worry, really." Luna placed her left hand gently on Hermione's right arm. "Remember what I told you."

"I'll try." Hermione took a deep breath. "It's just…a lot right now. I don't even know if I'll be a witch in a few months."

"I have faith in you." Luna gave her arm a little squeeze. "But even if I'm wrong, do you think that would matter to Harry?"

"Well, no, but I would have failed—"

"He thought you were a muggle," Luna said. "He didn't care when you met and he cares even less now that he knows how wonderful you are."

"I…I know," Hermione said, "but I'm still scared."

Luna nodded seriously. "You should absolutely be scared. If I were you, I expect I'd be terrified. But not of Harry's feelings. Of the Rotfang Conspiracy, sure, or a coup backed by the secret heliopath army, but never, ever Harry's feelings."

"Um…I understand," Hermione said. She wasn't entirely lying, since she was pretty sure she got the gist of it. In what was hopefully not too obvious a change of subject, she knelt in front of Enny and pulled off her right shoe, then her right sock. "Here, Enny. You're free again now to do whatever you want."

"Enny knows what she wants, Former Mistress." The little elf turned to Luna. "May I bond with you?"

"Yes, you may," Luna said with a hitch in her voice. She held out her hand and Enny took it. Forest green magic enveloped their hands and faded away.

"Does you have any orders, Mistress?" Enny asked.

Luna shook her head and instead pulled the surprised elf into a hug, followed a moment later by grabbing Hermione and pulling her into the hug, too. "Thank you," Luna choked out. "Thank you ever so much." 

"It was the right thing to do," Hermione said. "You don't have to thank me. But…um…"

"Do you need something?" Luna asked, releasing them from the hug.

"Well, I just realised the sock I gave Enny is one of my favourites," Hermione said. "I bought that pair from Allison as a splurge and they're really comfortable. Enny, would you be willing to give it back to me?"

The elf scrutinised the sock closely. "Is good workmanship for a muggle, though Enny suspects Kreacher would disagree. Enny will give this back to Former Mistress and, unless Mistress objects, knit Former Mistress a new pair every year for Yule. Enny is a good knitter and will not be outdone by muggles."

"I would never dream of objecting," Luna said. "That's a lovely idea."

"Thank you." Hermione gratefully accepted the sock and put it back on. "You really don't have to, but I could always use good socks."

Luna nodded seriously. "You should never turn down good socks," she said. "I've gone without before and it wasn't fun."

"Mistress will never go without socks again," Enny said just as seriously.

Hermione returned the nod as she put her shoe back on. She appreciated people who took socks seriously. Speaking of whom…

"I'm sorry," she said as she rose to her feet. "I should probably go home and get changed. Harry and I have a date tonight."

"That's great!" Luna said. "What are you doing?"

"I'm taking him to see a new play," Hermione replied. "It's called ' A Lie of the Mind.'"

Sue leaned back in the chair and luxuriated in being off her feet. She and Harry had just gotten off a shift and returned home to their significant others, and she had to admit she could understand why Harry so enjoyed having someone to return home to .

"Did anything interesting happen at work?" Neville asked. 

Sue sighed and motioned him over. Harry probably didn't have to deal with patching up Hermione every other day, at least. "Nev, you're bleeding again."

"Oh, right," he said. "The Venomous Tentacula had a bit of dragon dung fertiliser blow onto it and you know how it gets when it has that."

"Um…no, I don't," Sue said. "How does it get?"

Nev shrugged. "Bitey."

She shook her head and started healing his cuts without even rising from the chair. "Do you have to keep that thing around?"

"It really is useful," Nev said, "but I understand the concern. The greenhouse is at least warded against anyone too young to bear a wand."

"That's better than nothing," Sue said. "There you go. You're as good as new."

"Thank you. So, how was your day?"

"Blessedly quiet," Sue said. "I got caught up with paperwork and even made a little headway on a couple of side projects I've been working on. Remember how we lost track of the unknown party or parties that burgled Umbridge's house? I'm tracking some weird occurrences near where their apparition took them. I think they may have escaped on brooms or possibly even muggle transport, and I'm sure it's connected with her death and the eventual release of that blackmail material."

"Interesting," Nev said as he sat down next to her. "And none of the other Aurors are interested in pursuing that lead?"

"They think they're just coincidences, like a security camera that died because it was cheap and not because it was bespelled," Sue said. "Harry's been more supportive, but he's made it clear that he doesn't think there's much here."

"I see," Nev said. "I hope your progress convinces some of your colleagues." 

Sue shook her head. "None so far. I've made some serious progress on the other project, though. You know that parchment Harry and I found that occasionally gives a meeting time and not a place? Well, I decided I was probably overthinking the problem and just started staking out some likely meeting locations in Knockturn Alley. I'm not positive, but I think they're using Borgin & Burke's."

"Nice work!" Nev said. 

"Thanks." She smiled. "I had a hunch I wasn't dealing with a particularly creative bunch, and whoever is running the operation probably wouldn't trust the hired muscle enough to regularly let them through his wards. Rufus was impressed, too, but we're not sure how to make a collar on this. That parchment has only gone off three times since Umbridge's death and only one of those has been tentatively tied to a crime: the arson that destroyed The Dancing Hag bar in Knockturn. Even that's just speculative, though, based on the timing of the crime alone. We don't have any evidence pointing to who did it. Unless we can come up with a way to figure out what they're targeting, we can't do anything preemptively. I don't think I'll be able to get a warrant for more surveillance measures with the thin gruel I have on this group, and anyone with the means to borrow Borgin & Burke's would probably screen for all of our surveillance measures."

"That's a good point," Nev said. "That's not a place that would let a bunch of amateurs rent it out, as it were. This is probably Nott or Malfoy."

"I agree," Sue said. "So I want to take this slowly or I'm worried they'll just slip away."

"I don't blame you," Nev said. "I just hope they don't cause too much harm before you can put an end to their activities."

Travers glared daggers at Lucius, but didn't dare draw a wand on the man in his own home. Even on neutral ground, Lucius was a dangerous foe, but within his own wards he would be unstoppable. "What do you mean, you won't help?"

"Exactly what I said," Lucius drawled. "I am busy—"

"Yeah, yeah, with your 'project,'" Travers said. 

"I am busy ensuring the future of Wizarding Britain , not the future of a mere scheme to defraud those idiots in the Ministry." Lucius allowed his tone to rise, but he didn't move from his armchair. "Come up with a new one, for Mordred's sake! It's not exactly spellcrafting to find a loophole in their regulations."

"I refuse to give up my livelihood," Travers said. "If you won't help us, Nott has promised to."

"Fine, get help from him, then," Lucius replied. 

"You'd give up three of your most powerful clients for this?" Travers said. 

"A miser hoards influence," Lucius said. "I choose to spend mine. This is what we put it all on the line for to assist the Dark Lord all those years ago, not mere profit."

"The Dark Lord is dead," Travers spat. "We must look to ourselves now."

"You are free to do so," Lucius said. "Do not expect my assistance when this blows up in your face. And it will, I promise you."

"What need would I have of it?" Travers asked. "I will have Lord Nott's. Goodbye, Lucius."

After Travers had stormed off, Narcissa strode into Lucius's study. "So Rowle, Burke, and Travers have all turned away from you?" she asked.

"And to Nott," Lucius said. "Short-sighted fools."

"Are you sure this is worth it?" Narcissa asked. 

"Absolutely," Lucius said. "Besides, their plan is foolish. If they fail, they risk themselves for nothing. If they succeed, they create a martyr and attract the attention of both Bones and Potter."

She raised her perfectly sculpted eyebrows. "Why do you list those two separately? I thought Potter was her faithful hound."

"He plays that role in public," Lucius replied, "but he's more of a Grim. As our son repeatedly demonstrated at Hogwarts, that man has serious anger issues. Push Bones too hard and she'll 'drop' the leash, leaving us with the equivalent of a rabid Dumbledore on our hands." He shook his head. "No, I would prefer to limit my battles with Potter to the floor of the Wizengamot, where tradition and law fetter him and free me to play to my strengths."

Narcissa smiled, a gesture that still, after all of these years, tightened Lucius's trousers. "Clever, my dear, most clever." She turned to leave the room, then cast a glance back in his direction. "Are you coming?"

That got Lucius out of his chair, and quickly. 

Chapter Text

"So," Harry asked as he settled into the theatre seat next to Hermione, "what's The Lie of the Mind about?"

"I have no idea," Hermione replied. "I've just heard the playwright is exceptionally talented."

"I guess we're going into it with an open mind, then," Harry said with a smile.

"I suppose so," Hermione replied. "Oh, by the way, Enny came to talk to me today. She said she wasn't happy in our…um…employ because we didn't really need her, so I suggested she work for Luna, instead. They both agreed, so Enny is now with Luna."

Harry blinked.

"Are you alright with that?" Hermione asked. "I didn't think to ask you because I thought it really needed to be Enny's choice, not ours."

"You are absolutely right," Harry said. "I fear you're the only person who would see it like that, but you're absolutely right. Enny had the right to leave at any time regardless of what I thought."

"Thank you," Hermione said. "I'm glad you see it that way."

"Are you OK that she's…um…working for Luna now?"

"Not really." Hermione sighed. "I wish she'd chosen differently, but I don't have the right to make that choice for her."

Harry patted her hand. "I understand. You did the right thing, though. Whatever happens, for good or ill, it was her decision, and that's as it should be."

"You're right," Hermione said. "It's hard, but you're right." 

Around them, the theatre darkened and the curtains drew back. From the darkness on the stage, an actor spoke up. "Jake?" he asked. "Jake? Now look, Jake—"

As the play unfolded, Harry grew visibly uncomfortable and more agitated, and after about half an hour he got up without saying a word and began to make his way out of the row. The half a dozen patrons between them and the aisle didn't seem pleased at the interruption.

The Hermione of a year before would have withered at that sort of disapproval, but on that night all Hermione did was charge right after Harry, stepping on any foot that dared get in her way in the process. 

Harry's long strides had him nearly at the theatre doors by the time she extracted herself from the row of seats, but she didn't have any compunction about making a scene by running after him.

She caught up to him in the lobby as he made a beeline out of the theatre. "What's wrong?" she asked him. 

"Nothing," he said. 

"You just stormed out of a theatre!" Hermione hissed. "That's not 'nothing'!"

"Fine! You want to know what's wrong?" Harry grabbed her arm and hauled her out of the lobby and back onto the street as he spoke. "What's wrong is that I was having trouble remembering that was a play and not pulling out my wand and fucking dismembering the actors portraying abusers, that's what was wrong! I nearly broke the damn Statute and two perfectly innocent muggles because I couldn't deal with that play."

"I'm so sorry!" Hermione threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly. "I didn't do any research on what was in this play and I should have known it would upset you after your childhood."

Harry pushed out of her embrace. "What do you know about my childhood?"

"Well, nothing concrete," she admitted, "but various people have mentioned enough bits and pieces to worry me immensely."

"Damn it!" He spun away from her and ran his hands through his hair. "I don't want anyone's pity!"

"It's not pity!" Hermione shot back. "We care about you, Harry. Anything that hurts you hurts us , too."

"So why the hell would I want to tell you anything that hurt you?" he asked.

"Oh, Harry." Hermione reached up her right hand to rub his cheek. "Shared pain is lessened. Shared joy is increased. Thus do we refute entropy."

"Wait, what?" Harry asked, his anger and embarrassment giving way to confusion. 

She felt her cheeks warming. "It's from a book I read a long time ago. It means sharing pain with people who care about you reduces the total amount of pain in the world, while sharing joy with them increases it, which should be a violation of the Law of Conservation of Energy, but it's not, really, because it's about emotions and—"

Harry put his left hand over hers and pressed it to his cheek. "I think I understand. Well…not really, but I understand enough. I'll leave you to worry about whatever the Conservation of Energy is, if that's OK."

"Of course it is," Hermione said. "The universe can take care of itself. I'm only worried about you."

He pulled her gently into an embrace. "Thank you."

"You never have to thank me for caring about you," she said, hugging him tightly back as she spoke. 

"Thank you for letting me be a human, then," Harry replied. "The Man-Who-Lived doesn't get to have a panic attack in a theatre."

"I'm glad you're a human," Hermione said. Then, in a smaller voice, she added, "I'm glad you're my human."

"I'm glad you're my human, too." Harry pulled back a little so he could look her in the eyes. "Let's walk around a little and grab some dessert before going home. I think some fresh air and sweets would both do me good."

A voice calling his name from downstairs awoke Harry the next morning. He wasn't yet used to Hermione snuggling up against him while he slept and nearly scared her to death as he leapt from the bed and grabbed his wand. "Something's wrong," he told her as he hurried toward the door while still in his boxers.

By the time he got downstairs, he recognized Nev's voice as the one emanating from the floo. To his credit, the other man didn't so much as bat an eyebrow at Harry's lack of clothing when he finally saw him. "Harry! You made the Prophet this morning. Front page, below the fold." 

"I did?" Harry asked, still too sleepy to process things properly.

"You and Hermione," Nev said.

"Fuck."

"Yeah. They don't know who she is, but there are probably reporters skulking around outside of your wardline right now."

"Damn it! I live in muggle London, too! Those idiots are probably one step away from breaking the Statute right now." Harry stalked over to the window and, sure enough, there was someone wearing plaid trousers and a bright orange jacket miserably failing to look inconspicuous while holding his (presumably enchanted) Kodak Brownie at the ready. 

"You get dressed," Nev told him. "I'll contact Sue and tell her you have a Statue problem outside. The Aurors might want to use your floo, so…"

"We'll hide her stuff," Harry finished. "Thanks, Nev."

"No problem, mate."

Nev cut the floo just as Hermione came down the stairs in a bathrobe. "What's wrong?" she asked. 

"We made the paper," Harry said as whipped his wand into a complex pattern. The two textbooks currently on the coffee table in the living room closed themselves and floated back onto the bookshelf, and, once they were out of the way, the throw blanket on the couch flew up and gently laid itself across the parchments still on there. Another wave of the wand transfigured the blanket into a plain brown linen tablecloth. It wasn't the most ordinary thing to have on a coffee table, but it wasn't as questionable as Hogwarts-level notes. 

Hermione paled. "I'm so sorry!"

"It's not your fault," Harry said. "We'll deal with this and keep you safe. There's at least one reporter outside, so stay inside and out of sight for a bit. Some Aurors are going to come by and clean out anyone who's a threat to the Statute and we don't want them to see you. Is there anything else that's obviously of yours down here?"

She hurried down the staircase and gave the room a quick once-over. "I don't think so."

"Excellent," Harry said. "Go back upstairs and study or something for a bit. I'll handle things down here and let you know when it's safe to come back out."

She nodded and threw her arms around him. "You'll be careful, right?" 

"Of course," Harry replied. "Oh, and would you mind throwing me down a bathrobe?"

"Not at all." She released him and hurried up, pausing only to grab her coat and shoes out of the foyer. A minute later, she came back down the stairs until just her legs were visible (reminding Harry once again that they were very nice legs) and tossed a balled-up bathrobe down to him. "Catch!"

He could have used magic, but it just felt lazy not to catch it himself. "Thank you!"

"No problem. Be careful and let me know what's happened as soon as you get the chance."

"I will," he said, and she hurried back up the stairs. 

A few minutes later, the floo lit up again and Harry allowed in a call from Auror Proudfoot. "Hey, Harry," the older man said. "I hear you have a Statute problem outside?"

"Yeah, at least one idiot reporter who wouldn't know how to dress for muggle London if Alexander McQueen hit him with an entire clothing rack," Harry replied. 

Proudfoot chuckled. "I'm going to pretend I know who you're talking about and come through with Auror Bellamy. We'll sweep the streets around your house and bring anyone we find back to the Ministry to check for priors. That should curb their enthusiasm a bit."

Harry tapped the runes on his fireplace to allow a one-off connection. "Thank you."

"No worries," Proudfoot said after he stepped through. "Harassment is bad enough without being an idiot about it."

Auror Kate Bellamy, a thickly-built middle-aged woman with shoulder-length brown hair, came right behind him. "You'd really think people would have better things to do," she added.

"I know, right?" Harry said. "I haven't been in the Quidditch news for a couple of years now. You'd think people would have forgotten about me."

She smirked. "You're not that lucky, Potter."

"I suppose not," Harry said, chuckling. "Will you need to use my floo on the way back?"

"Nah," Proudfoot said. "We'll just find a quiet corner to apparate from once we're done."

"OK," Harry said as he ushered them to the front door. "Thank you again." 

"Just doing our jobs," Proudfoot said. "Now you go enjoy the rest of your day off however you want and with whoever you want. It's none of our damn business as long as you aren't the one breaking the Statute."

"Thanks." Harry opened the door for them and locked it again once they were through. He'd only taken a few steps toward the staircase when the floo roared to life again, though. 

"Potter!" came another familiar voice. "You said you were single!"

Harry sighed and stormed back to the fireplace. "No," he told Tracey, " you said I was single. I didn't correct you because it was none of your Merlin-damned business!"

"You made it my business when you hired me!" she retorted. "I'm trying to handle publicity for you and you're making me look like an idiot to all of my contacts."

"I can't tell anyone about her," Harry said. "I wasn't just keeping you in the dark."

The witch's angry glare softened a little, though it was still stark in the light of the green flame. "What do you mean, you 'can't'? Is she a muggle?"

"No! It's…it's a long story, and you wouldn't believe me anyway."

"Those are the rumours. Everyone thinks you've taken a muggle lover and speculation is running rampant that you're violating the Statute, to say nothing of the Pureblooded witches who are angry because you're not violating them ."

Harry's cheeks warmed, and not from the green fire in front of him. "What? How in Merlin's name did they jump to that conclusion?"

"You were photographed cavorting through muggle London dressed like a muggle with a woman in your arms who was dressed like a muggle, as well, except for the stunning capelet everyone assumes you gave her."

"That capelet wasn't even from me!" Harry said. "What is wrong with people?"

"What else should they assume?" Tracey replied. "And who was it from, then?"

"They shouldn't assume anything, because it's about as much their business as it is your business where she got the capelet." Harry fought to keep his right hand from twitching toward his wand. As much as he was annoyed with Tracey, he could understand her anger. 

"Asking the British public not to assume anything from leaked photos of a celebrity is a fool's errand," Tracey said. "You know that even better than I do, I suspect. The question is, what are you going to do about it?"

"Hide both of us until people forget about her," Harry said. "Even on my worst days, I usually only dominated the news for a fortnight or so."

"They're not going to give up on this so easily, Potter. There's a hint of juicy scandal here. I suspect reporters are already hitting up any muggle contacts they have to try to figure out who she is and what her story is."

"They wouldn't dare," Harry said. "If I find out they're risking the Statute—"

"There are always squibs and half-bloods," Tracey said. "For a story this big, they'll find a way."

" Fuck! " Harry slammed his left hand into the fireplace, the rough brick digging painfully into his palm. "Is this because I was enough of a damn fool to step back into the spotlight for the ball? If so, cancel it. Nev and Sue will understand if it's risking…H…her safety."

"Wait!" A note of desperation had crept into Tracey's voice. "You can't cancel now! You still owe me, and I have suppliers lined up—"

"We'll pay them, Tracey, and you, too. I don't care."

" I do! This is my best chance to help Daphne and I'm not going to give it up that easily. Let me help you."

Harry stepped back from the fireplace and stared at Tracey's fiery green visage. "Help me how?"

"Handle the press on this issue." Tracey spoke quickly, her words tumbling out of her mouth like a faucet on too high. "This is clearly important to you, so important you're willing to walk away from hundreds of galleons in deposits. I don't understand why, but I don't have to. I just need to know one thing: is she a witch?"

"Of course she is!" Harry said.

"Perfect. That makes the next step a lot easier. You said the two of you were going to go to ground. Can you stick to that?" 

"Yes, why?"

"Good. I need her not to be seen in Britain till the night of the ball." She paused. "Like I said, I don't know what's going on, but I can infer a few things. You freaked out when I mentioned people digging in the muggle world, so I assume there's some dirt on her there. A half-blood, perhaps, with an embarrassing muggle side?" She shrugged. "It doesn't matter. The important thing is that I know what you want to protect so I can lead people away from it."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked. 

"Keep her under wraps. I'm going to spread rumours that you're in a long-distance relationship and she spends most of her time on the Continent. See if you can get some time off and sneak her to Paris or Vienna. I'll pay a muggle photographer to snap some photos of you both there."

"A muggle?" 

"How better to keep your secrets safe than someone who doesn't understand who you are in the first place?" Tracey said. "Anyway, the pictures will lend credence to the story I'm planting. Then, you bring her to the ball. Everyone will be there, and they'll all see she's a witch. Afterward, the two of you can go back into seclusion if that's what you want, or we can gradually roll her out into the public eye."

"You want me to bring someone I'm trying to hide to the biggest event of the year?" Harry asked. 

"Exactly. People are salivating for information about her. We need to provide it or they're going to find it themselves. The key here is not to be interesting. Make her as boring as possible. Can she go into excruciating detail about anything?"

"Um…I'm not going to answer that question," Harry said. 

Tracey burst out laughing. "Lovely! And I guess that means she's over there now if you're being that cagey. Hullo, Mystery Witch!"

"She's not—"

Hermione came around the corner from the hallway still wearing her bathrobe. "Hello, Ms. Davis," she said coolly. 

"I never get tired of being right," Tracey said. "I had a feeling you hadn't gone home alone last night from how you looked at one another in those pictures. That wasn't even a tenth date, to say nothing of a first. Anyway, it's lovely to meet you, Mystery Witch."

"You'll excuse me if I'm not as enthused to meet you because I'm the subject of ludicrous speculation in the paper," Hermione said. 

"Or," Tracey added, "Ginevra Weasley's thoughts about why your figure isn't the sort in which Harry is normally interested."

"She said what ?" Harry spun around to face Hermione. "I should—"

"I warned you so you could get that reaction out of your system now," Tracey said calmly. "The Prophet is looking to stir up a fight between you to feed paper sales. The best way to get that out of the news cycle is to not engage."

Harry ignored her. "Do you want me to say anything?"

Hermione shook her head. "Mere words cannot express my disinterest in what anyone else thinks you like. I just don't wish to be subjected to that sort of speculation more than necessary."

"I can't help you there," Tracey said. "For someone as famous as Harry, people are always going to have opinions about who he should be dating. All you can do is present a unified front and don't let them think there's anything worth speculating about."

"Lovely," Hermione said. "I just have to look like the perfect little WAG and nobody will bother me."

Tracey raised her eyebrows. "You just get more and more interesting, Mystery Witch. Got a name?"

"I do," Hermione said coolly.

The two witches stared at one another for a moment before Tracey sighed. "You know, it's going to be a lot harder to keep them away from you if you're going to be all mysterious. People love a secret."

"I'm just trying to keep a low profile for another few months," Hermione said. "Can we buy me that time?"

Tracey snorted. "The woman shagging Harry Potter will never be low-profile."

Hermione blushed and glared at Tracey, but before she could say anything, Harry put his hand on her shoulder. "I've warned you before that you're going to be way more famous than I am, and it won't be because of where you're sleeping."

"Wait a second," Tracey said. "Why do I suddenly have a bad feeling I'm about to get dragged into the sort of insanity that you always got up to in Hogwarts?"

Harry shrugged. "Good instinct. You can still back out, you know. We can cancel the ball and walk away from this."

"Damn it! You know I can't!" Tracey said, her visage almost vibrating with frustration in the green flames. "Daphne needs this."

"Then help us," Harry said. "Nothing's more important to me than her safety."

"Safety? I thought she just shared your disdain for the press!"

"Well, I do," Hermione said, "but there's more going on here that we can't tell you."

"Then how am I supposed to help protect you?" Tracey asked. 

"I…um…don't know," Hermione said. "I only woke up a bit ago and I'm still processing all of this."

"Simple," Harry said. "Just let me know who starts asking questions about her."

"That's going to be literally everyone!" Tracey said. 

"You'll know, trust me," Harry said. "It'll be from someone you wouldn't expect it to be."

Tracey sighed. "It's not going to be Malfoy, Harry."

"It'll be him or someone like him," Harry said.

"Not everything he does is about you. It wasn't when you were at Hogwarts, and it isn't now."

"Then I'm wrong and you have nothing to worry about," Harry said.

"You two…" Tracey shook her head. "If he hadn't knocked up Pansy and if Mystery Witch hadn't basically admitted to shagging you, I would have thought you two had a thing for each other."

"That sounds kind of hot," Hermione said. 

Harry shot her a glare. "No, it does not ."

"It would absolutely be hot," Tracey said. "They'd kill each other, but it would be hot."

"Can we talk about literally anything else?" Harry asked. 

"So back to the press," Tracey said.

"Still better."

She sighed again. "Let's go with the same plan for before the masquerade. At the masquerade, Mystery Witch can play coy about her name. Afterward, we'll work something else out. Maybe a family emergency back on the Continent or something. We can't keep this going forever, though."

"Just till June," Harry said. "It'll end then. Luna's preparing a detailed series of articles about her."

Hermione grabbed his hand and held tightly. 

"Really?" Tracey raised her eyebrows. "A whole series?"

"That was my reaction," Hermione said, "but she thinks it'll sell."

"I'll leave that to her discretion," Tracey said. "Then again, I couldn't believe how long they ran that series about her father and the Mongolian Death Worm, but people ate that stuff up." She eyed Hermione again. "Are you sure you can't give me a name, Mystery Witch?"

"For the moment, yes," Hermione said. "When I can, I will, and you'll understand why."

The other witch arched her eyebrows. "Is that a promise…or a threat?"

Hermione seemed taken aback, but Harry just smiled. "Just a promise. Probably. Give Draco a hug for me."

"Fine," Tracey said, "but it would be hotter if you did it." She nodded to them. "Harry. Mystery Witch." Harry nodded back and the connection cut out, leaving them with a perfectly ordinary fireplace…for about thirty seconds before it flared up again, this time with Sirius's visage.

"Harry! Did you see—"

"Not yet, actually, but we've been warned," Harry replied. "Aurors came by to chase some of the more noticeable and obnoxious reporters away."

"That's good, at least. Is there anything we can do?"

"I don't think so. We're just going to have to be careful. Tracey Davis is also putting together a public relations strategy to try to help this fade away."

"That's…surprisingly helpful of her," Sirius said. 

"I may have threatened to shut down the ball entirely and walk away from our deposits," Harry said. "She desperately wants it to be a success for Daphne's sake."

"I hope it works, then," Sirius said. "Good luck, Pup. Let us know if there's any way we can help."

"I will, thank you," Harry said. 

After the fire faded back to green, Harry pulled Hermione into an embrace. "How are you holding up?"

"I'm terrified," she replied.

"I am, too," he said. "We can do this, though. We'll have to move carefully for a few months, but we can do this."