"Allie! Allie!" James shouted, running towards us with a feather clutched in his hand. I intercepted him before he could crash into the pram that held his infant brother, sweeping him up into my arms and plucking the somewhat raggedy feather from his fist.
"Oh, it's beautiful, love! I'll keep it safe in my pocket, all right?" I made a show of carefully putting the sad thing in my jacket pocket, James watching carefully the whole time. I set him back down on the ground and he patted the spot where the feather hid, hazel eyes serious.
"Keep safe," he admonished before charging off to find another treasure. He took his treasures seriously, insisting on showing Harry what he'd found when we got home. One time I'd thrown away a receipt he'd found before he could show it off and he'd been inconsolable until we put him in the bath.
I checked on Allie in the pram, making sure he was still wrapped up. Late October in San Francisco could be unpredictable and he was a squirmer, somehow managing to get out of the most secure swaddling we could devise. His arms were flung above his head, but he was still covered and asleep. I was really looking forward to when the two of them could run around together.
Making sure that James was still in the sandbox, I reached into the pram and took out a thick manila folder of papers. After being a stay-at-home mum for the last few years, I'd begun feeling the itch to go back to work. Vijay at SF Thaumaturgical had practically jumped at the opportunity to have me start working for him, even on a part-time basis.
Today I had some papers to review on the efficacy of magically-charmed acupuncture needles and before too long, I was completely engrossed. I had anchored a Proximity Charm between the frog on the front of James's overalls and my tattoo, so I wasn't worried about him getting too far away from me. Unlike some other children, he wasn't apt to take off his clothes in public and run around like a miniature streaker.
I was about halfway through my file when I felt a tingle in my tattoo and I looked up, searching for James's dark hair. I found him playing with another little boy in the sandbox. They were apparently in a hole-digging competition and having a brisk conversation about it. "Which one is yours?" a voice next to me said, startling me so I nearly dropped my papers.
I turned to see an old man wrapped in a brightly-colored blanket sitting next to me on the bench. His white hair was in two neat braids, a startling contrast to his dark, mahogany-colored skin. "Oh, you surprised me! He's the little dark-haired one over there," I said, gesturing to where James was now industriously filling in the hole he'd dug.
"Handsome boy. And another one?" he asked, peering into the pram. Allie had woken up and looked back at him, his big green eyes curious. The man reached in, dangling a strip of leather with some beads strung on it for Allie to grab at. I kept a sharp eye on him, my hand already on my wand in case he tried anything strange. A moment later, he handed me the bit of leather. "Keep it. He likes it."
"Thank you. Can I give you anything for it?" I asked, tucking it in my pocket with James's feather. I looked down, noticing that his feet were bare, but they seemed to be in fine shape and he looked clean and well-kept. I wondered if he had a place to stay.
"No, I don't need anything at the moment, thank you." He wrapped his blanket more tightly around himself as the sun went behind a cloud, seeming content to sit on my bench and watch the children play. It occurred to me that I should find his presence strange, but I felt nothing of the sort and the thought gave me pause.
Should I Summon Harry? He's just an old man here at the park. I'm a witch and I can have me and the boys back at home in two seconds. I dismissed my thoughts as motherly paranoia and checked on Allie again in the pram. Now that there was no fun strip of leather being dandled in front of him, he'd gone back to sleep. James was still engaged in the sandbox, so I went back to my papers, resolving to read for only another fifteen minutes.
"What do you have there?" the old man said, holding a hand out as James toddled up to him, a rock held in his outstretched hand. I'd nearly forgotten about him and watched as James gravely handed him the rock and waited while he examined it. "Quartz. Very nice," the old man said, looking at my son with a serious expression. "This is a good rock to keep around. You never know when you'll need a good rock." He handed it back to him and James gave him a brilliant smile, the corner of his mouth curving up the exact same way Harry's did.
"Mum! Rock!" James crowed, handing it to me. I looked at it, making a show of admiring it for him, but it really was quite pretty; nearly perfectly round and clear except for a cloudy whiteness at the center.
"Oh, James this is beautiful. Daddy will love it!" I exclaimed, putting it in my pocket with the other treasures of the day.
"Daddy!" he shouted, lifting his arms toward me. I picked him up, holding his warm body close to mine and inhaling the clean smell of his hair. He always smelled fresh, like the wind coming off the sea.
"Are you done playing? Ready to go home?" He nodded stoutly, sticking a finger in his mouth. "All right, let Mummy put away her papers and we'll go." I knew Allie would be getting hungry and I felt my body start to respond to the baby's anticipated demands.
I stood up from the bench, putting one of James's hands on the handle of the pram. "Well, it was nice chatting with you," I said to the old man who was also standing. "Are you sure you don't need anything?"
He settled his blanket more securely around his shoulders and smiled at me, his eyes nearly disappearing in the deep creases around them. "I thank you for your kindness, Ginny Weasley, but I have everything I need at the moment," he said, his voice reminding me of the people we had met on our trips to the Grand Canyon.
It took me a moment to register that he'd said my name, but by the time I'd gathered my wits to say something, he was far enough away that if I'd shouted, it would have looked very strange in a park full of mothers and children. I shook my head as if to clear my ears and looked at my children, making sure they were still there and I hadn't stepped into some strange dream. James looked up at me as if to ask why we were still standing here. "Daddy!" he commanded, giving the pram a little push.
I looked again and didn't see the man or his blanket and I shook my head. "Come on, crew. Let's see what Daddy's cooked us for dinner," I said, heading out of the park and towards home.
XXXX
He watched the red-headed woman as she wheeled the pram into the park, heading toward her usual bench. The dark-haired little boy trailed behind her, shouting nonsense and waving a stick that he'd picked up somewhere. It was a San Francisco-perfect Indian summer day and it was warm enough for the red-headed woman to take off the little boy's jumper as she released him to play.
The little boy ran over to the climbing structure with a slide, leaving the woman with the pram. Unnoticed by all but him, she took out her wand and made a gesture at it before sliding it back to wherever she'd taken it from and turning her back on the pram, joined the little boy at the climbing structure. He wished he dared to go closer as the woman helped the little boy climb and waited for him at the bottom of the slide, but he'd discovered the woman was very observant and wary. Besides, this was just a little scouting mission to confirm what he already thought was true.
Habits can be so tricky, he thought as he watched the little boy slide down and the woman catch him at the bottom. Reassuring, but dangerous. Same time, same park, same bench … opening yourself up to anyone that wants to follow.
Continuing to watch the woman and the boy, his thoughts turned to the dark-haired man, a burst of hatred blooming in his gut. There lies danger for sure. Best to take him with surprise, but not until I am certain of my advantage. Lost in his thoughts about the man, he realized that the woman and the boy had stopped playing together and now she was on the bench next to the pram, leaving the boy to root around in the sandbox. She was reading a thick folder of papers, looking completely engaged with them rather than her surroundings. Stupid.
As he watched, he saw an old man wrapped up in a brightly-colored blanket sit down next to her and start talking to her. He curled his lip when the old man stuck his head into the pram, dandling something at the baby. Ugh, babies. Squalling, needy things. Losing himself in his thoughts again, he observed their interaction when the little boy brought some bit of trash he'd found to the old man who made much of it.
Right on schedule, he thought as the woman wrapped up the park visit, exchanging inane pleasantries with the old man. As he watched, he experienced a frisson of shock when the old man seemed to meet his eyes for a split second. Impossible, just random occurrence.
He allowed the woman to leave the park, proud of his skill when she walked right past him without even realizing he was there. Letting her get several yards ahead, he released the spell keeping him hidden and followed them, careful to match their slow pace as the dark-haired little boy was distracted by everything around him.
Their route took them up one of San Francisco's famous hills and the woman challenged the little boy to a race, jogging slowly up it until they came to a charming, wrought-iron garden gate, the boy giving a happy shout of "Daddy!" when the woman opened it. He knew that if he touched that gate he might get a nasty shock, so he made sure to stay well away, tapping his fingers on his thigh as he watched the woman and two children go inside.
Yes, habits are hard to break … and so easy to exploit, he thought as he turned away from the house with the wrought-iron gate, walking away back down the hill.
XXXX
"Hey, how was the park?" Harry asked, picking James up and nuzzling his cheek, making him giggle and screech in delight. "Did you bring me something nice?"
"Rock!" James said, reaching his hand out to me imperiously. I dutifully placed the piece of quartz in his hand and he showed it to Harry.
"Oh, that's very nice. Good job. Go put it with your others, all right?" Harry set him down and James trundled off to the shelf in the lounge that held his box of special treasures. I carefully picked up Allie out of the pram, turning to kiss Harry as he wrapped his arms around us both. "That's very nice, too," he murmured against my lips. He had Fleetwood Mac on as his cooking music and he put his hands on my hips, swaying the three of us to the sound of You Make Loving Fun.
"Daddy! Dance me!" James commanded, arms upraised. Harry complied, hauling him up and settling him on his hip. The four of us did the best we could, making crazy circles in the lounge until the song was over and James squirmed out of Harry's grasp.
"You're getting so big you're going to have to learn to dance on your own two feet," Harry said, flexing his arm. James just ignored him, choosing to chase after Stuart the cat. "Everything all right?" he asked me, rolling the pram into the mudroom before shrinking it down to a more manageable size.
"Yeah, fine. Got some work done. I'll need to go into the office sometime this week, but it shouldn't be too terrible." Allie started to fuss and I felt my milk begin to let down. "Can you watch James? I need to feed Allie."
Harry whipped the kitchen towel off of his shoulder and gave me a sharp salute, striding over to James and waving the towel at him as if he were a matador in the ring with a very ornery bull, coaxing him into the kitchen. "Come on, Jamie-boy, help your old dad with the veg, yeah?"
Old dad. Hardly, I thought as I went into the nursery with Allie. A bit more gray at the temples, maybe, but still quite fit. Like a lot of dark-haired men, Harry had started going gray by his mid-twenties and sometimes he got a bit of an ego about it. "I'm sure I have a few grays of my own lurking around, too," I'd said one evening when I'd caught him checking himself over in the bathroom mirror before bed.
"Never," he said, turning away from the mirror, favoring me with what I privately thought of as his 'knicker-dropping' smile.
Refusing to fall for it, I leaned against the sink and folded my arms. "Would you even tell me if you saw one?"
Raising an eyebrow, Harry stalked toward me until he had me cornered. "I like my life very much. Why would I ruin it by telling my lovely, beautiful wife, mother of my child, that she has exactly one gray hair right there," he said, touching the top of my head next to my natural part.
"I do not!" I said, pushing him out of the way to take my turn examining my head for the offending strand of gray while Harry laughed his fool head off behind me. Failing to find it, I settled for pinching his nipple, setting off a short wrestling match that ended up with the both of us sweaty and sated after some very excellent sex.
I looked down at the baby latched onto my breast, wondering if that was the night that we made him. Thank goodness he was easier, I thought as I rocked quietly in the dim room, memories of dashed hopes before Marella came to our rescue for James flitting through my mind. And I wonder exactly what that has wrought? We can hardly keep him out of the water. I shook my head, making a mental note to look up when the next Mummy and Me swim sessions started. Though he hardly needs me anymore, the wee little water bug.
Through the closed door, I could hear Harry singing along to Hotel California, James doing his best to screech along with him. The only thing missing is Teddy, I thought. Our godson was well and truly ensconced in Auror training, living with Duncan at the Academy over by the Presidio and having the time of his life when he wasn't grumbling about coursework. We both wished he would come around more often but understood that he needed to break away from us and become his own person. It didn't stop me from embarrassing him with kisses whenever I got hold of him.
Allie gradually slowed the furious pace of his nursing, transitioning from hungry baby to food coma baby in the blink of an eye. After a thunderous belch, I put him down in his cot to sleep it off, running my finger down his soft cheek, smiling when he turned his head as the rooting reflex took over. "Well, time to see how my other boys are doing," I said softly as I left the room.
XXXX
"Watch now, this is how you hold a knife when you want to chop up a courgette," Harry said, demonstrating the correct knife-handling technique and quickly chopping up said vegetable. James sat on the expansive worktop, mimicking his movements with a wooden spoon. "And when you want to really give it to a bloke, you hold it like this." He shifted his grip to one more suited for slicing another person and took a half step away from the worktop, slipping into an easy, bent-kneed stance.
James waved his wooden spoon in front of him, chortling with glee as Harry bounced around on the balls of his feet in front of him. He heard the nursery door open and he quit his playacting, picking up another courgette and quickly cutting it in half and then slicing it evenly. "Don't tell your mum, all right?" he said, giving his son a conspiratorial look.
Ginny came into the kitchen and picked James up off the counter, setting him down on the floor. "I wish you wouldn't let him sit up there," she said as he opened a cabinet and pulled out a pot, banging on it with his wooden spoon. The racket he made competed with the music still playing.
"Why not? He likes to watch me cook. Might be a chef one day." Harry popped a slice of courgette in his mouth and gave her a cheeky grin as she rolled her eyes, taking a seltzer water out of the refrigerator.
"Children don't belong on the worktop. It's a bad habit and what if he falls?" she asked, hopping up onto the worktop in the exact space James had been.
Harry favored her with a raised eyebrow and continued chopping vegetables. "Just in case you haven't noticed, I'm a wizard with exceptional reaction times."
"Exceptional? You hear that, James? Someone thinks awfully highly of himself." Ginny grinned at him and drank more of her water, swinging her sock-clad feet so that her heels gently hit the cabinet door.
Harry slid the chopped courgette into the pan and gave it a stir in the olive oil just as he heard the swish-thunk sound of a letter dropping into the wizarding mail slot. "Oh, what's that?" Ginny asked, hopping off the worktop and landing lightly on her feet.
"Mail!" James shouted, following her into the lounge.
"It's from Ron," she said, taking the letter out and giving the envelope to James. He pretended to read it and then started gnawing on the corner.
"Yeah? What's he have to say?" Harry asked, turning down the music. He checked the pasta and decided it was done, dumping it carefully into a colander in the sink. "Damn things," he said, taking off his fogged-up glasses.
"Hm, how are you … Hermione … blah blah, Hugo … Mum and Dad … Rose … oh, this is odd." Ginny looked up at me and frowned. "Why does Hyperion McGinn sound familiar?"
Harry's heart stuttered in his chest and he took a deep breath. "You remember? That bloke that we nabbed was doing all the Muggles?" he said, trying to sound casual.
Ginny snorted. "Which one?"
"The one that was doing the hikers? Then mutilating?"
"Oh, that's right," she said, wrinkling her nose. "Nasty piece of work. Well, he's dead." She handed him the letter and he put his glasses back on, quickly skipping over the family news.
I thought you'd want to know that Hyperion McGinn has finally popped his clogs. I got an owl from the department about it yesterday and they asked if I'd pass the news on to you. He hung on longer than any of us thought he would, not that he deserved any extra years at all. If it were up to me, I'd have shoved his arse through the Veil as soon as we laid hands on him, but it wasn't up to me. Anyway, good riddance to bad rubbish.
Bad rubbish indeed, Harry thought, setting the letter aside. He became aware of Ginny looking at him with an expression he hadn't seen in some time. "It's fine," he said with what he hoped was a reassuring smile.
"Is he the one that you …?" she said, clearly unwilling to finish the sentence.
"Yeah." Harry turned to the skillet and gave the courgette another stir. Dipping his pinky in the simmering red sauce for a taste, he asked Ginny to set the table, determined to not let the specter of Hyperion McGinn ruin his evening with his family. He ruined too many lives already. No need for him to ruin mine.
XXXX
"You ready, mate?"
Harry looked up from the file he was reading, seeing Ron standing in the doorway of his cubicle. He was practically bouncing on his feet with eagerness and Harry grinned at his infectious enthusiasm and closed the file with a snap. "Yeah, let's go."
The two of them headed through the Auror department, chatting quietly. It was very late in the evening and the place was practically deserted, most of the Aurors having the good sense to go home. They walked through the echoing Atrium, the Floo fireplaces quiet and came to the bank of lifts. Ron pressed the call button. "Level 9, yeah?"
"Yeah." Harry suppressed a feeling of dread in his stomach at the thought of entering the Department of Mysteries. He'd been in and out several times in the course of his Auror training, but memories still intruded. Neither can live while the other survives …
"What d'you reckon is going to happen?" Ron asked, breaking in on his thoughts as the lift slowly descended.
"Dunno. Never seen it. I suppose it'll be about like we think." Ron shuddered and clasped his hands behind his back, looking up at the numbers above the lift doors. The rest of the ride was silent and the doors opened with a soft ding, announcing that they had reached the ninth level, but not what was housed on the level.
Two Unspeakables stood on either side of an ornate door, their faces blank masks. Harry had met them a couple of times and thought the one on the right was called Ross, but he didn't feel it would be appropriate to walk up to the man with his hand out, saying, "Hallo! Ross, is it?" so he didn't say anything.
The two men nodded to them, the one he thought was Ross silently handing each of them an entire chocolate bar. Ron opened it and broke off a piece, quickly chewing and swallowing it down. Harry followed suit when the Unspeakables made no move to open the door until they were certain he'd eaten a piece of the chocolate. He didn't need much coaxing, to be honest. He could already feel the chill emanating from the Dementor on the other side of the door. His mother's voice screamed faintly in the back of his mind.
Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all, he thought as the Unspeakable that wasn't Ross opened the door. "Should have brought a jumper," Ron muttered as the temperature dropped further. God, how can he joke? What does he hear when those bloody things are nearby? After a split second of thought, Harry knew exactly what Ron heard and for a moment he was back in the basement of Malfoy Manor, trapped with a dying old man and truculent goblin, Ron going mad as Hermione screamed out her torture. He shoved another square of chocolate in his mouth, letting the sweetness on his tongue dull the voices in his head.
Once they were in the room, Harry realized that they were the last to arrive, apart from the condemned. The heads of the Aurors, Unspeakables and Wizengamot were all present, along with a rather mousy-looking witch seated at a small writing desk. In the middle of the room, not too far from the archway with the oddly fluttering black cloth floated a Dementor, looking like a malevolent black cloud. It was now so cold in the room, that Harry's breath frosted white in front of him. He ate another square of chocolate.
"Ah, Potter, Weasley. Very good," said Thomas Hill, the current head of the Auror Department. "I think we're ready to start then?"
The Supreme Mugwump nodded, and made a sweeping gesture causing Harry's Auror tattoo to tingle when a door on the far side of the room opened without a sound. Two more Unspeakables entered, bigger and burlier than the ones at the door. Between them was Hyperion McGinn, bound with thick, black spell-ropes. His cold blue eyes took in the assemblage, settling on each one of them in turn and staring for several seconds before moving on. Harry met him head on, refusing to look away, certain that he could see a little extra hate for him in the other man's eyes.
He was a little surprised to see that McGinn wasn't under the Full Body Bind, but he supposed that being Silenced and wandless, there wasn't a lot he could do in a room full of wizards and one aimlessly floating Dementor. Thinking of the creature made his mother's screaming voice in his head stronger, so he ate another square of chocolate.
The Supreme Mugwump nodded and the witch at the desk started reading from her parchment. "Hear ye, hear ye, we are assembled today to pass a sentence of the Dementor's Kiss on Hyperion William McGinn for thirty counts of murder and desecration of a corpse. He has been tried in a fair court of magical law and found guilty. Are there any here who would ask mercy for this man?"
One by one, each person said, "Nay." Next to him, Ron practically yelled it and when the Supreme Mugwump looked at him, Harry felt his throat constrict and he cleared it, looking straight at the condemned man when he said, "Nay" in a strong voice.
The mousy witch gave a single nod. "No witnesses have begged mercy on behalf of the condemned. Hyperion William McGinn, you are sentenced to the Dementor's Kiss," she pronounced, the sound of her voice seeming to fill the room. Across from them, secure between the two Unspeakables, Hyperion McGinn snarled soundlessly, his face a mask of hatred underneath curtains of gray, stringy hair.
Harry looked over at Ron, wondering what was coming next. Ron looked back and shrugged, eating another square of chocolate. They'd both eaten half of their bars by now. Harry nearly jumped when Head Auror Hill put his hand on his shoulder. "You've never seen one of these, have you?" he asked, sounding like they were out for an afternoon Quidditch match.
"No, sir. I mean, I've seen Dementors, of course," Harry said, glad he hadn't actually twitched a muscle.
"Ah yes. I recall now that you were brought up in front of the Wizengamot for defending yourself and your … cousin?"
"Yes, sir." Harry was uncomfortably reminded of when he was in disguise at Bill and Fleur's wedding and had people he didn't know chatting to him. "So, what comes next?"
"The last kiss McGinn will ever get," Hill said, a touch of savage glee in his voice. "You boys did well, bringing him in alive."
I don't know that he'd thank us for that, Harry thought, watching as the Unspeakables maneuvered the condemned man closer to the center of the room. It'd be more humane to push him through that veil. Unbidden, the memory of Sirius falling through the archway came to him and he shook his head, willing it away.
The Dementor started to drift toward the trio and Harry saw sweat breaking out on the foreheads of the Unspeakables, even though the temperature had dipped down even more. They let go of him and took several steps back; Harry was astonished that McGinn didn't simply collapse then and there. The Dementor came closer and Harry was soon chilled through, his stomach trembling and his breath coming out thick and white.
Horrified, yet helpless to look away, Harry could only stare as the Dementor came closer, moving its head like a dog trying to pin down an interesting scent. He devoured half of his remaining chocolate in one bite, desperately hoping to banish the sounds of his parents dying over and over in his mind. Eyes wide, he watched as the Dementor lowered its ragged hood, revealing a mottled-gray face completely featureless save for a leech-like mouth that seemed to quiver in anticipation.
Finally, McGinn showed something other than hatred. His blue eyes seemed to ice over with fear and he trembled, nearly falling over where he stood. The Supreme Mugwump calmly extended his wand, keeping him upright to receive his punishment. Extending its long-fingered hands, the Dementor cradled McGinn's face, almost like that of a lover and slowly, inexorably brought its face to his. There was a sound almost like a sigh and Harry's ears popped.
Losing all interest in the human before him, the Dementor's hands fell away from McGinn's face and it drifted away. Harry got a glimpse of the emptiness in the formerly hatred-filled blue eyes and his gorge rose, filling the back of his mouth with the taste of half-digested chocolate. He looked at Ron, noticing that the fair-skinned redhead was pasty white, eyes flitting between the freely floating Dementor and the soulless man standing passively in the center of the room.
Harry had a crazy impulse to barrel into McGinn and knock him through the Veil to end his suffering, but he stuffed it down. Is he suffering? Does he even know what's happened to him? The man's eyes continued to stare blankly forward, taking in nothing of his surroundings.
Beside him, Auror Hill took out his wand and Harry realized that everyone else, including the mousy witch that had read the pronouncement had theirs out as well. At a nudge from his commander, Harry took his out, too, not sure what was going to happen next. "Patronuses," the Supreme Mugwump said, moving his wand in the familiar circular motion. A silvery cat sprang from his wand, soon joined by a horse, an owl, an eagle and a ferret. A moment later, Ron's terrier joined the throng and Harry steeled himself, shutting out his parents and the horror he'd just witnessed, focusing instead on Ginny and how they had chased each other around on brooms just last Sunday at the Burrow and fallen into her bed together that same night. His stag burst from his wand, leaping toward the Dementor.
Faced with the silvery Patronuses, the Dementor backed away and Harry realized it was being herded towards … the Veil! They mean to put it through the Veil! But why? Incapable of sound, the Dementor slid noiselessly through the archway and into … oblivion.
Heart pounding, Harry wiped cold sweat from his brow, nearly dropping his wand from nerveless fingers. None of the others seemed affected by what they'd just seen and done. The two Unspeakables were chatting quietly about meeting up at the pub and Harry suffered a moment of cognitive dissonance until he looked at Ron, sharing a shell-shocked glance.
"Potter, Weasley," Head Auror Hill said quietly, "thank you for coming and volunteering your witness. If you could sign the declaration of sentencing on your way out?"
"Yeah, all right," Harry said, moving towards the small desk as if his feet were weighed down by concrete. He scribbled something that might have been his signature and fled the room, Ron hot on his heels. They made it out of the room, past the Unspeakables that guarded the door and into the lift where they rode in complete silence to their floor. Halfway across the Atrium, Harry veered to one side and vomited until he dry-heaved into a potted plant. He could hear Ron doing something similar not too far away.
After what seemed like an eternity, he stood up on shaky legs, feeling not one bit better and wiped his mouth, Vanishing the mess he'd made. "All right, mate?" Ron asked, still looking pasty white but with a bright red nose.
"Never better."
XXXX
Harry's eyes snapped open and he swept the blankets off his body, rolling out of bed and landing in a crouch, heart beating crazily in his chest. His wand was in his hand and a dizziness swept over him as he realized that he wasn't in the Department of Mysteries, but in his own bedroom, the moonlight through the curtains illuminating the sleeping form of his wife.
He sat down with a thump, the chill of the wood floor through his boxers helping him come back to himself and he wiped the sweat from his brow, slowing his breathing. Oh, God, a dream. That's all, just a dream. Hyperion McGinn is finally gone. I'd say God rest his soul, but … The memory of the Dementor being herded through the Veil, sending McGinn's soul beyond any hope of recovery came back to him along with a heavy dose of guilt.
It wasn't my decision to make. I just did my job and caught the bloke. He blew out a shaky breath and lifted his head to see if he'd disturbed Ginny, but she seemed like she was still asleep. Quietly standing up, Harry left the bedroom, padding out to the upstairs hallway in his bare feet. He looked at the door to James's bedroom, listening for any sounds before going in, quiet as a ghost. They kept a night light for him and Harry stood next to his cot, looking down at his hard-won son. Sound asleep, the boy was curled up into a little ball as usual and Harry smiled fondly, setting his hand on top of the thick, dark hair, smoothing it away from his cheek. Safe.
And now for the other one. Harry entered Allie's nursery, not really surprised to see the baby wide awake, but quiet. A glance at the clock showed him that it was getting close to five in the morning and he bent over the cot, picking up his son and placing a soft kiss on his cheek. "Mummy won't be too upset if you have breakfast a bit early, will she?" he whispered, checking the baby's nappy. "Oh, she definitely won't mind help with that."
After getting him clean and changed, Harry carried Allie downstairs and into the kitchen after checking Teddy's room. It was empty as expected, but they'd been surprised before when he'd joined them for breakfast on occasion. In the refrigerator, he found one of the packets of milk Ginny had pumped, complaining about feeling like a barnyard animal the first few times.
"Look at this ridiculous contraption," she'd grumbled when she'd taken it out of the box. "I feel like I ought to be chewing a cud while this thing does its work."
Harry raised an eyebrow as he picked up the empty box. This unit touted itself as being hands-free and showed a woman sitting at a keyboard as she wore what looked like some sort of tube top with suction cups and little bottles attached. "You know you don't have to go back to work, Gin," he said, putting the box back down as Ginny untangled tubes and wires.
Ginny sighed as she finally freed one of the suction devices and set it aside. "Harry, I have to do something. It's been nearly three years since I went on leave with James and sometimes I feel like I'm going crazy. Vijay says I'll only need to go into the office a couple of times a week for meetings and things."
Harry snorted at the sound of Vijay Malhotra's name. "He's worse than a stalker."
"He's hardly a stalker."
"He sent you flowers on James's first birthday and a card that asked if you were ready to come work for him yet." Ginny raised her eyebrow at him and he made an effort to calm the jealous monster in his chest. "I'm just saying if you don't want to do it, tell him to shove off."
"But I do. Harry, I'm a fully-qualified Healer and Muggle physician. I have to do more with that knowledge than diagnose childhood sniffles." She gave him what he thought of as her 'instant erection' smile, raising one of the pumping devices to a covered breast. "Besides, if I have milk easily available, then I can sleep in and you can feed the sprog."
Balancing Allie in the crook of his arm, Harry efficiently warmed the milk, still irked that he had to use his wand to do it. Ginny could do it wandlessly since it came from her, but she rarely had to use it. A few minutes later, they were in his favorite recliner, the nursing baby warm against his bare chest. Soothed by the sounds of Allie industriously sucking milk out of the bottle, Harry closed his eyes, working through his dream.
Or nightmare, more like. Hands down the most awful thing I'd ever seen until that time with Gin … Another image, this one of Ginny in a beautiful dress falling backwards down stone steps assaulted him and he opened his eyes, blowing out a long breath. He thought about Ron's letter and what he'd said about McGinn. Popped his clogs. Oh, Ron. Sometimes he just has a way with words.
He didn't doubt that his friend's turn of phrase was meant to soften the blow somewhat; what had happened that night and their part in it had affected them both deeply. Harry remembered going to Ginny and waking her out of a sound sleep to shiver in her arms like a lost child. And Ron got roaring drunk and started a fight in a Muggle pub and got arrested for his trouble. He shook his head, wondering what had happened to the stupid kids they used to be.
"All done?" he murmured quietly when Allie turned his head away from the bottle and started fussing, waving his arms around and nearly knocking Harry in the eye with a balled-up fist. He was in the middle of coaxing a belch from him when Ginny came down the stairs, looking at them with narrowed eyes. "He just finished. Sorry."
Ginny sighed and stretched out on the sofa. "I guess I'll just have to chew my cud. What got you up?" Harry shrugged, not really wanting to say the wretched man's name out loud in the presence of his family and she nodded. "I figured. You want to talk about it?"
"Not really." Allie let out the desired belch and Harry wished he had a cloth on his shoulder as he felt the results slide down his bare skin.
"Suit yourself. I'm going to go take care of business since someone has already had breakfast." She got up from the sofa, nuzzling Allie and then Harry in turn, leaving him with a soft kiss. Having a sleepy, warm baby on his chest made Harry sleepy in turn and he leaned the recliner further back, closing his eyes and slipping into a thankfully dreamless sleep.