this is a disclaimer.
AN: was not meant to be this long! grownup!Harry/Ginny case!fic with intrepid reporters and girl detectives, the problems inherent in having Weasley babies, picnics and pints and best mates and general happiness occasionally touched but never overshadowed by bad memories; title from Patrick Wolf.
your losses or your arrears
It started out as being about Quidditch, really it did. There was an accusation in the Quibbler one week that Cerberus Chaliss had illegally doctored his broom with Speeding Charms and various and sundry other little enhancements which you might get away with during Hogwarts House matches, but definitely not in a professional game. Ginny didn't take much notice; Luna was off somewhere on the Indian-Pakistani border looking for a type of bug those lifespan was limited to the monsoon season, something about obscure Potions ingredients, and if Luna wasn't around there was a good chance that Xenophilius was writing utter codswallop.
"Harsh," said Neville cheerfully.
"I don't like him," Ginny admitted. "Don't tell Lu."
Nev cocked an eyebrow at her. "D'you not like him because he's a bit off the wall or because he sold Harry to the Death Eaters once?"
Ginny shifted in her chair and pulled a face at him.
"Tell me you wouldn't do it for James and I'll call you a liar."
At the sound of his name, Baby opened his eyes and waved a fist at Nev, who - much to Ginny's amusement - cooed at him. At just gone seven months, James Sirius Potter was an ill-tempered, demanding little hellspawn, doted on by his extended family (in particular his godfather-cum-uncle Ron), slavishly adored by his father, and regarded with some small - with a certain amount of - oh, all right, with great affection by his mother, who had but recently calculated that it had now been a triumphant thirteen months since the last time she had broken a bone, and it was all James' fault.
(Her mother's insistence upon the superior merits of lengthy breastfeeding was the obvious and inevitable downside.)
No, she would not tell Nev that she wouldn't do it for James. Ginny was not scrupulously honest, but she was too honest for that.
Anyway, it started with the Quibbler and didn't want to stop. Poor Cerbi was dragged through every wizarding tabloid from Hogwarts to Honolulu, and finally the International Quidditch Supervisory Authority got involved. Ginny went to the press conference, James enthusiastically sucking his dummy in the pram beside her, Quick Quotes Quill scribbling as she looked around: "Details, Baby, details," she told her son. "On the pitch and off it." But the IQSA spokeswitch had barely gotten halfway through her opening salvo - public pressure has compelled this enquiry, rather than founded accusation - before the doors opened with a scuffle. A dozen journalists looked round. Cerbi, perched by the IQSA witch with a face like death warmed over, went even paler.
Ginny tapped her fingers against James' pram and began to grin as her husband and her brother came into the room.
"Cerberus Chaliss," said Ron, stepping over the Witch Weekly woman and reaching the dais, "you've been requested to appear at the Auror's office three times in the last fortnight -"
There was an explosion of scribbling and a rush of hissing whispers like (Nagini, curled at his feet scarce two yards from Harry's corpse) wind in the grass.
"- and having ignored each request and summons are hereby arrested under section -"
Harry was watching the journalists with that look he got - the Quidditch Captain Look, Ginny used to call it - cross me and die. Several of them were studiously avoiding his eye; the IQSA witch was not so sensible.
"I demand to know -"
"Auror business," said Harry smoothly while Ron got a hold of Cerbi.
"He has been cleared -"
"I'm sure we're all very happy for the Wimbourne Wasps."
Several people tittered. Ginny was still grinning. "Auror Potter, the public has a right to know," she called.
Harry caught her eye. The Witch Weekly woman looked from him to her and back and then got the most beatific smile imaginable.
Ginny's grin became a smirk; if he refused to tell her now, the tragic story of the breakup of their marriage would be all over the gossip rags by tomorrow noon. She watched Harry's eyes go from journalists to Ron back to her, then he sighed, tucking his hands into the pockets of his jeans, and addressed himself to her specifically and alone. She made a point of refusing to meet Ron's glare.
"It's not a charge per se. Mr Chaliss has been linked with a person suspected of Dark Magic; the Auror's office has reason to believe he may, unknowingly, be in possession of valuable information."
"And that," said Ron, "is all anyone in this room is getting." He and Harry proceeded to march the hapless Cerbi out of the room.
Ginny sat back in her chair and sighed contentedly as the room exploded around her. James dropped his dummy in his blankets and scrunched his face up in preparation for a cry; she leaned over and lifted him out of the pram.
"Baby's first arrest," she said to him. "Your Daddy and I should have taken pictures."
When she got home, Ginny put James down for a nap, cast Muffliato on their bedroom, and waited. Harry wasn't far behind her; she heard the creak of his footstep on the stair, the pause at James' room to look in on their son, and then he appeared in the doorway. She gestured him inside, nodding.
He stepped into the spell and yanked his jacket off.
"You wanker!"
"You harpy!"
"You knew I was going to that press conference -"
"There was absolutely no need to put me on the spot in front of all the journalists in wizarding Britain!"
"I'm not asking you to divulge classified information, but would a simple hint - I wouldn't have taken James!"
"Don't you think if I'd thought there was the slightest chance of anything happening to James I'd've told you everything!"
True; that hadn't been fair. She changed tack, easily and instantly.
"... all over the office that not even Ginny Potter knew -"
"... a little consideration really too much to ask?"
Into the shouting came the snuffle of a child moving, a sort of gurgling yawn. Harry and Ginny - practically in each other's faces - both froze. James kicked at his blankets and gave a burpy little sigh; then - beat, beat, beat - silence.
Harry's shirt was rumpled, his hair was a mess, and he smelled of all the things she loved best in the world: broom polish, wind and rain, leather and apples. She tilted her head, looking from the wall of James' room back up at him. Then he had his hands at her elbows, yanking her flush against his chest, and the forever-irritating quandary of whether to take his glasses or his shirt off first was put aside for now when he kissed her, bruisingly fierce. She bit at his lower lip in triumph and started dragging at his belt buckle.
Later, lying on Harry's chest with her chin resting on her folded arms, Ginny said, "So what about this case then?"
Caught in the middle of a yawn, Harry gave a choked laugh. "Don't you ever - oh, never mind, I know the answer." He folded his arms behind his head and blinked at her, a little owlishly. Trial and experimentation had shown her just how little he truly saw without his glasses. Harry had always shrugged and said something about seeing better than he used to, which Ginny took as a comment on Aunt Petunia's changing care (once Sirius had come into Harry's life) in the selection of Muggle eye-healers rather than any actual improvement in his eyesight.
She had a feeling it was not a thought that had yet occurred to Harry himself.
"No answer forthcoming?" she said, and kissed his chest.
"Not now," Harry said. "I'm half asleep."
"Don't say things like that. You'll wake Baby."
"Baby," he said, gleeful and self-satisfied. "I still can't believe we did that, you know. Made a baby."
Ginny smiled. She could be cynical at Nev - he thought it was funny, and was still just that little bit shocked by it - but there was no point pretending here. "James Sirius," she said, "after two of the finest men I can think of that he should have had in his life."
Harry's own smile grew crooked. "He'll manage," he said softly.
"He has his Dad."
Blaze of delight across Harry's face. He pulled a hand out from behind his head and tangled it in her hair; she was leaning up to kiss him again when the baby in question started to cry.
So much for blessings!
Next morning Hermione came over.
"...said he'd have liked to hex you then and there," she said cheerfully, rocking James on her lap. "I told him to stay out of it - I mean, honestly. And I've known you and Harry to fight like -"
"Mmmmmm," said Ginny throatily. "Yes."
"Ron's not here, and it doesn't bother me," Hermione said dryly.
Ginny laughed. "How's the sprog?"
"Not showing yet," Hermione said. "Every time I so much as hint at Ron that maybe we could tell your Mum sooner he goes white."
"I don't blame him," Ginny said feelingly. "You know how she gets. Every grandchild is greeted by excessive sobbing and even more cake."
Hermione actually looked amused - two years of marriage apparently having cured her of the lingering need to be forever nice about her mother-in-law. Ginny loved her Mum, but she considered it an essential aspect of her overall health and mental well-being to be naffed off at her at least once a week.
"Yes, but -"
"But Baby here had six different parties thrown for him when he was still minus-that-many months old, Hermione. Trust me - do. Keep it to yourself for a bit longer. Get your head round the idea on your own time before Mum makes you."
Hermione sighed, thoughtful, calm. She looked down at James, bushy hair shadowing her face, but Ginny thought she saw her smile, slowly. Just a bit.
"How come you're over here on a weekday anyway?" she asked, curious.
"Oh, I meant to ask you to come shopping with me. You know. Cribs and such."
Ginny couldn't help it: she started to laugh. "Seven months in advance?"
"Better safe than sorry," Hermione said briskly, and Ginny saw again a glimpse of that calm forward-planning that had been one-third of the saving of the wizarding world; the fact that Hermione Granger was now applying it to cribs and bibs instead of Horcruxes and Hallows struck her as delightful and wonderful and ridiculous all at once. Hermione shifted James a little, sat up straighter, crossed her legs, got a sudden grin.
"Of course, if what Harry told you about Chaliss is more interesting..."
"He didn't tell me anything," said Ginny disgustedly. "The sneaky git escaped the house before I was even out of bed. Fed James and changed him and everything. Not that he wouldn't have otherwise, but you know."
"Interesting," said Hermione. "You know, I hear he has a boyfriend."
"Who, Harry? I don't know where you heard that, but I guarantee you it's bollocks."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Chaliss, Gin."
Ginny looked at her sideways, bit down on her bottom lip. "Are you thinking -"
Hermione sniffed. "I'm thinking if I have to sit through one more rendition of auror business sorry love can't really tell you over dinner there will be murder done."
"- what I'm thinking," said Ginny. "You are! Let us go forth, forsooth, and conquer. We'll leave Baby at my Mum's. Bloody spooks," she added, "who needs 'em? Ginny Weasley, intrepid reporter, and Hermione Granger, girl detective, will crack the case!"
The girl detective was laughing delightedly. "James, your Mum's lost it," she declared.
"She never had it in the first place," said Ginny. "James is perfectly well aware of that. Aren't you, Baby?"
James made a noise that might well have meant yes and made grabby hands at his Mum.
Mum surveyed them both with a gimlet eye.
"You shouldn't go getting involved -"
"We're not getting involved with anything," said Ginny patiently. "I'm doing my job, Mum - exclusive interview with Julian Hunt, on the accusations against his life-partner and the prosecution by the Auror's office."
Mum was not placated. "Mrs Potter," she said, "your husband and your brother -"
"Ms Weasley," said Ginny flatly. "Don't you start about my obligations of loyalty, Mum. Harry's not stupid enough to think I'm not going to follow up on this, and besides, he's adorable when he's angry."
That one had Mum flummoxed. Ginny took the opportunity to present the (as yet) youngest Weasley grandchild in all his glory. "Besides, Jamie wants to stay at the Burrow and see Grandad Weasley and bake biscuits with Granma, don't you, sweetheart?"
Right on cue, James spotted a gnome dancing around a distant bush over Mum's shoulder and clapped his pudgy hands in glee. Mum absolutely melted, and Ginny was so proud of the little rugrat she thought she'd burst.
Julian Hunt turned out to be a pleasant-faced bloke who, at that particular moment, looked a bit consumptive frankly and had an apparent fondness for a type of Muggle coffee that had caramel in it and whipped cream liberally strewn with chocolate sprinkles on the top. Ginny's training-diet-accustomed stomach shrivelled up and cried at the thought; her pregnancy craving-memories were delighted.
Hermione went with the weak tea option, looking very slightly green around the gills. She hadn't said anything about morning sickness, but Ginny patted her hand in sympathy just the same.
"The Aurors had been coming by all week," said Julian. "And you know, the IQSA lawyers just kept saying don't talk to anyone, don't talk to anyone. Fair enough. So I didn't, and then Cerbi got himself a hotel room in Muggle London and sort of hid there until the night before the press conference."
"Sensible," said Ginny. "I'da done it."
He looked at her curiously. "Is it true you went to France to have your baby to get away from the reporters?"
She laughed. "No. But we went to DMLE and got a press injunction while I was in St Mungo's."
"Sensible," he repeated, smiling crookedly.
"And of course," said Hermione, "there was no truth to the accusations."
"None!" Julian spooned a wobbling mountain of whipped cream into his mouth - apparently to stop himself from letting loose with a good few swearwords in a public space - and glared hard at everything he could. "Cerbi's just that good. And the broom is excellently manufactured - spent nearly a year making it, everything to Cerbi's specifications, yes, but completely within the R and R's. You played a Firebolt in that match against Puddlemere, didn't you?" To Ginny.
"Yeah, Merlin, that was a while ago. Oliver Wood and I had this bet on - you know, he plays Keeper and, well, there was Harry's Firebolt." She grinned. "So I nicked it."
"Handle like they say?" Julian asked eagerly.
"Dream," said Ginny promptly. "Harry's lilts left, he leans that way - but gorgeous, really gorgeous."
"And did you win the bet?"
Hermione grinned. "The independent arbitrator determined the use of the Firebolt was rampant and unrestrained cheating," she said.
"And she calls herself my sister-in-law," said Ginny, disgusted.
Julian laughed aloud.
"But this business with knowing Dark wizards is obviously just as much bollocks," she added, poking at her own coffee and watching Julian's face darken at the same time: darken, and close down a little.
"Well, yes."
"You don't seem as unhesitatingly convinced as you do about the Quidditch accusations," said Hermione bluntly.
Julian's hands twitched. "It was -" he said. "Look. Cerbi's not even a pure-blood."
"There were always circumstances under which that needn't have meant a thing," said Hermione. Ginny eyed her sideways; she knew Hermione's DMLE Official Voice, and her Dealing With Family Voice, and her Prefect Voice, of course. But she wasn't sure she knew this one - low, firm, trembling on the edge of discovery. She thought, suddenly, it was her Trio voice, the one Harry and Ron must have heard so often over the years.
It felt strangely good to get to hear it too.
They waited in the sunlight as around them people moved and orders were taken and chairs squeaked across the floor. Finally, Julian said, "There was this bloke."
"What bloke?"
"Cerbi's ex."
"And..."
"Well, he was a year above him at Hogwarts. And in Slytherin. And I heard once that he was... you know. During the war. So they're probably trying to track him down. But that's all I know about him, and I'm fairly sure it's all Cerbi knows, too."
But as it turned out in the newsroom that evening, the Aurors had already tracked Cerberus Chaliss' ex down. They had found him, in point of fact, lying in a ditch outside a village in rural Wales - entirely unhurt, but very, very dead.
"The Killing Curse," said Ginny.
Harry's arms tightened around their son as if he meant never to allow James out of arm's reach again.
"Yes."
"When was the last?"
"Death? Six months ago - longest without a Dark Magic death we've gone since the war. Since the last actual Killing Curse, nearly two years."
"When did you know?"
"Not until today. It was a department joke - Cerberus Chaliss, possible D.E. intel - everyone was in fits. And he, Chaliss, wasn't taking it seriously either. Never answered a summons. Got to the point where it annoyed Robards so much he flung his hands up and told us to just go arrest the little idiot. Not the way I would have done it."
Choppy sentences, couldn't stop looking at their son. Their son, their precious little boy, and never had Ginny felt so close to her mother-in-law as she did in that moment. I'll keep them safe, she thought to Lily Potter's shade. I will.
"Got the report that Cerbi's friend was missing this morning," said Harry. "We hadn't got a damn thing on him except an unpleasant temper and a tendency to make nasty remarks in public places. Thrown out of the Cauldron alone at least twice for calling someone a Mudblood."
Ginny sat down, finally, rubbed at her eyes. "How did he come to your attention?"
Tomorrow morning, after sleep and rest and checking all the wards on the house and holding his son for half the night, Harry would not tell her this. Some small part of her felt guilty for using his buried fear so ruthlessly, but - on the other hand - she knew he sometimes needed to talk. He just didn't always know how to start.
"Rosmerta, actually. Called him out for using filthy language in the pub and then becoming violent when she asked him to leave. She sent his description into the office with a hint that he'd been in before with Cerbi Chaliss. So the whole department roars with laughter, and that was that until Robards got fed up. And then it turns out the bloke's gone missing, and now he's dead."
"A logical progression," said Ginny.
Harry shook his head. "Don't joke. Please don't joke. What the hell possessed me, anyway - living in the house they died in?"
Ginny went to him at last, clutched at his hands, kissed their son, kissed him. "You told me once that you wanted a different kind of memorial for them."
"Nice memorial," he said. "Wallowing in -"
"What, bad karma?" Ginny's temper snapped. "Sod off, Potter. It wasn't Voldemort left mystic traces in this house - it was your Dad, trying to fight him without so much as a wand in his hand so you could live; it was your Mum, dying so you wouldn't have to - so that one day, there'd be us. Us and James."
She felt, rather triumphantly, that there was no arguing with that. Harry bent his head over James' and couldn't look at her for a moment.
"I'm being a prat," he said at last.
"You're afraid," said Ginny bluntly. "Well, so am I. It was a joke this morning, like you said. Hermione and I went and talked to Julian Hunt and then went shopping for cribs afterwards. It's not a joke anymore. Precious few Dark wizards are stupid enough to show themselves so openly by using the Killing Curse - you think I don't know that? You think I'm not quaking in my boots, wondering who's next and why? Well, screw him - or her - whoever they are. They're not Voldemort; he's dead, you beat him, and if you can do that, what's a boot-licking Death Eater with a grudge? And even if they were I'd die the way your Mum did without a moment's hesitation. And so would you. The upshot of which is - no matter what way you wrangle it, James will be safe."
He smiled, faintly, scarred hand cradling James' dark head close. "So -"
"So yes, you're being a prat," said Ginny.
"Hmm."
"James agrees with me."
"James' first word will be Dad. Just you wait."
Ginny smiled in spite of herself. "Mine was Charlie," she said.
But Harry's green eyes had suddenly narrowed. "Hang on - who's Julian Hunt?" he asked.
Yesterday's clouds had been blown away overnight; the sky was clear and palest blue, and the hills in the distance stood out starkly against it, green and lovely. Ginny and Hermione were sitting on the bench at Rowan Hill with sandwiches and a thermos of tea between them. James was asleep in his pram; below them Godric's Hollow dreamed its way through the late summer in greens and blues, slowly turning red and gold at the curling edges.
"Does he even have a name yet?" Hermione asked briskly. "The corpse I mean?"
"Felix Anmar," said Ginny. "I told Harry about our chat with Julian, he's gone to question him, I expect."
Hermione pursed her lips. "Hmm."
"I know."
"And that place in Wales they found him – Anmar, I mean..."
Ginny swallowed a large bite of a cheddar sandwich and shrugged her shoulders. "God alone knows. Harry said something, but frankly it came out as a bit of a strangled gurgle and I thought it sounded more like Parseltongue than any human language."
Hermione shook her heard at her. "You're awful. D'you know, Evans is a Welsh name. Harry's Mum's family might have been Welsh."
Doubtfully, "He never said she had a Welsh accent."
"Would you not make fun of the place names if she had?" Hermione laughed.
Ginny grinned at her. "Actually, I'd probably be worse." She crossed her legs with a casually exaggerated swing and bounced her foot up and down, looking obnoxious. "That's why we get along so well."
"Because you remind her of her husband."
"D'you think?"
Hermione grinned a bit. "I'm almost certain."
"Hmm." Ginny polished off her sandwich and crumpled the paper in her fist. Hermione shrugged, licking at one buttery finger.
"It's the sort of day that makes you want to run shouting down a slope somewhere, or fly on a swing, or something," she said.
"It is, isn't it. Autumn's my favourite time of year."
Hermione grinned. "Mine, too. Actually that was usually because of September first."
"Good to get to go home," solemnly.
"Yes."
They sat in silence with the tea flask for a few minutes, drinking and knocking their shoulders together and feeling warm and comfortable and happy. Then Ginny said, "So what are we going to do about Chaliss?"
Hermione sighed. "Oh, I don't know," she said. "I suppose we need to find a connection, between Anmar and Chaliss?"
"Well, Anmar was Cerbi's ex according to Julian."
"So he's a suspect anyway."
"I suppose. Although, do we really know that's how they're connected, or do we just know that that's what Chaliss told Julian?"
"Sneaky," said Ginny, checking her watch. "Point. Next step? No, wait, I know this one. When in doubt –"
Hermione laughed out loud. "Go to the library."
"Exactly. Listen, not to sound like Ron, but would you mind covering this bit on your own? I've got to churn out an article for Una by this evening and I can't get the last couple paragraphs to work."
"Course not. I'll come by this evening?"
"Love to have you."
Hermione stopped at home on the way in and found Ron poking through her purchases from the other day.
"Blue," he said, holding up a blanket triumphantly. "So you do think it's a boy!"
"There's a yellow one as well," said Hermione.
"Hmm."
"Listen – are you off today or something?"
"Nah," he said cheerfully, and came to kiss her cheek. "Pen Clearwater's off her head looking for a certain book that'll help identify the poison that killed that poor bloke up in Bristol, and it occurred to me – surely my wonderful wife might have a copy?"
Hermione planted her hands on her hips. "Your wonderful wife might," she said. "What's the title?"
Ron grinned, looking hugely delighted. "Moste Potente Potions," he said.
Hermione couldn't help it; she burst out laughing, and kept it up all the way through the house to the library in the attic. The book in question was old and water-stained and read Property of Hogwarts Library on the back flap. Hermione tapped a finger against it as she passed it to Ron.
"God, we were idiots," she said.
"Hmm?"
"Trying to solve everything ourselves."
Ron smiled at her, a bit soft, a bit wistful, perfectly happy. "Hermione," he said, "I don't know if it escaped your notice, but we kind of did solve everything ourselves."
She came to stand beside him then, and he put an arm around her shoulders.
"Everything's different, but nothing's changed."
"We still talking about the three of us? Cos, no, we haven't changed."
"Yes and no."
"Harry said something about you going to talk to Julian Hunt."
Hermione shifted. "I'm a bit sick of getting the Auror business line," she said bluntly. Watching Harry and Gin had given her a whole new appreciation of blunt when it came to relationships.
"Then I'll invent another one," said Ron cheerfully. "Hey, just be careful, yeah? We're not always at our best when we take off on our own." He segued into rueful on the last sentence, and Hermione stretched up to kiss his jaw: offence long-forgiven, at least by her. She knew some part of Ron had never quite forgiven himself, especially after Fred died – Fred who'd never changed his course in his life.
"It'll be all right," she promised.
"The baby'll look after you."
Instinctively, Hermione dropped her hands to her belly. Still flat, idiot.
Ron put the book down and covered them with his own.
"Just... give it a week," he said. "We'll tell Mum. On Sunday, if you want."
"No, it's OK," said Hermione. "I sort of get it. And I suppose if we tell your Mum and Dad we'll have to tell mine and I have no idea how that'll go over."
"It'll go over fine, because –"
"They love me?"
Ron rolled his eyes. "You can love someone without understanding them, Hermione. Managed it through school, didn't we?"
She kissed him for that.
Harry was home for a belated lunch, cheerfully attacking the remnants of the sandwich-making that Ginny and Hermione had indulged in before they left for Rowan Hill.
"Pen Clearwater's after a book," he said. "Moste Potente Potions. The Polyjuice one."
Ginny grinned. "And Hermione's got it?"
"Almost certainly. Here, there's a package come from Charlie."
"Ooooh, what's he sent?"
"I don't know, greedy. But it's not for you."
"Whaddaya mean, it's not for me?" Ginny swooped down on in indignantly; it was a slightly battered box of not inconsiderable size, but interestingly not very heavy.
"Check the address," said Harry, abandoning his sandwich for his son.
Ginny turned the package over curiously and burst out laughing. "James Sirius Potter, Holly Lane, Godric's Hollow – look at that, Baby's first mail. It's from Uncle Charlie, sweetheart, shall we open it for you?"
"Meh!" said James, and clapped his little hands eagerly as he wriggled in his father's arms. Ginny put the package down on the table and ripped it open: paper, a taped-up cardboard box, more paper, a note from Charlie that said three guesses what the name is. Love, C.
And finally, a bright green stuffed dragon, twice as tall as James, with an orange bow round his neck.
James pounced on it, tiny fingers struggling for purchase in the soft plush, while his parents staggered into seats at the table and whooped with laughter.
"Norbert the Norwegian Ridgeback!"
"It looks more like that Horntail," said Harry, trying hard for critical and failing miserably; he was laughing so hard he was crying.
"Ah, but that didn't have a name."
Harry pressed his lips together, shaking. "Horace!"
Ginny collapsed over the table. "Oh God," she managed. "Go, go, get out. I have to work. Shoo! Get out."
Harry staggered to his feet with James in one hand and Norbert in the other. "All right, all right. I'm going. Hey – found anything about Chaliss?"
She looked up. He was grinning at her.
"I'll let you know, Auror Potter," she said, and put her nose in the air.
"I'd appreciate that," Harry said with aplomb and then chuckled again. "Horace the Hungarian –"
"Oh, GET OUT!" Ginny yelled; her laugh echoed after him as he carried James upstairs.
Meanwhile the turn of the conversation with Ron stayed with Hermione after they'd both left the cottage and Floo'd up to London again. Telling the Weasleys meant a huge fuss – but a loving one. Telling her Mum and Dad meant potential for a row, probably started by a petty-minded little question such as will the baby go to a proper school then, and plunging downhill from there.
Anyway, Hermione Granger had come to understand, over the course of twenty-five odd years in the world, that there were few troubles she faced which could not be soothed by an hour or two in the sort of large, dimly lit and predominantly silent room that held more stacks of paper than the Amazon rainforest had trees.
Not that she didn't want the baby. She did, oh my yes. Gin had thrown a fit when she'd found out about James - Harry, after the initial delighted whoop, had thrown a fit as well - but, well, they'd been younger, and not even married yet, and both of them had always been the type of person who understood what they didn't want better than what they did.
Hermione, on the other hand...
Still, no amount of forward-planning could make the prospect of a baby less scary when actually, physically confronted with the reality of it. Ron was fairly complacent about the entire business - we'll be brilliant parents, you wait, also, Harry's godfather - as if that last had ever been in question! – except, as had been demonstrated, when it came to telling his Mum and making it a Family Thing instead of an Us Thing. Ginny was like that about lots of things as well. Harry thought it was a sort of generic younger-siblings-of-large-family thing. Hermione agreed in principle, but wasn't sure there was a damn thing about it that you could call generic.
Nearly three years in the shop with George had made Ron careful about differentiating between himself and his siblings. Always before there had been an element of him bringing Harry and Hermione into the bosom of the Weasley family... now they made their own unit.
Hermione poked through another file with a desultory sigh. Remembering Ginny's fiercely gritted teeth whenever her mother had tried to give her advice about her pregnancy with James would have been good for a grin if Hermione weren't about to come in for the same treatment. On the other hand, she'd be downright lucky to get that sort of thing from Mum, who still liked to bring up the Australian Year when she'd had a few and Hermione hadn't rung her in a couple weeks. Oh, Hermione, it's been so long since we've talked I'd almost forgotten I had a daughter...
At least Dad had the good grace to wince whenever she said -
THERE. Cerberus Chaliss...
- that.
Hermione flicked the parchment back and brought it to the light. Where - somewhere in the middle of the page, the name had jumped out at her, scratched in bright red ink.
... brought in nine thirty nine (9:39) by Cerberus Chaliss, Felix Anmar, Duncan Temple, Marissa Thatcher, stripped of stolen wand...
Something lurched in her stomach; almost against her will she looked, for the first time, at the title of the document she'd found.
Detention forms, Undesirables...
Her hands were shaking, and there was blood on the snow and Ron was yelling and Bellatrix Lestrange curled her fingers in her hair and yanked her head back and said Crucio but Bellatrix Lestrange was dead and this is a library, pull yourself together Hermione Granger.
Cerberus Chaliss had been a Snatcher.
But it was another day before Hermione and Gin got a chance to talk.
Ginny bent over the parchment curiously, hair bright in the evening sunlight. It felt horribly out of place in Hermione's cluttered little kitchen, as if death and suffering had been bound into it with the ink and never come out again. Hermione didn't like to look at it. It had burned a hole in her bag all the way home from the archives and then through the night while she and Ron slept, safe in their bed with nightmares batting at the window-panes.
She shook herself angrily at the unaccustomed flight of fancy and cuddled James closer.
At last Ginny propped her chin in her hands and said, "And if you ask me, stopping that information from getting out is the sort of thing even a cowardly collaborator like Chaliss would kill for."
"Yes," said Hermione. "Unfortunately, I agree with you. I looked up the other two on the list this afternoon? Temple killed himself the other year after constant persecution from anyone and everyone who found out what he'd done in the war, and Thatcher's living as a Muggle on the continent, probably to escape the same fate."
She came to sit down at the kitchen table again.
"So," said Ginny. "Four arsehole collaborators who have a history of kidnapping, torture and murder. Two are dead, one's in hiding, and one apparently is an internationally famous Quidditch player for the Wimbourne Wasps, slated for the England team at the next World Cup. Does Julian know?"
"I doubt it," said Hermione quietly.
"Poor sod," said Ginny.
They fell silent for a short while after that.
"So do we tell the boys?"
"I think it's getting to that point," Hermione admitted. "Intrepid girl detective reporters are all very well..."
"... but we can't actually arrest him."
"No."
"Hah. Frustrating, isn't it."
"We're adults now," said Hermione. "We're past the age where we could go running around solving mysteries and dealing with the outcome by ourselves and getting praised for it. We're supposed to stick to the rules."
Ginny sighed. "Hermione, we were always supposed to stick to the rules. The fact that you and Harry and Ron were no more capable of that than of - of becoming Death Eaters, I don't know, was just coincidence.
Hermione smiled in spite of herself. "If we'd all been a bit less self-reliant," she said, "a lot of things might have been different."
"Thank God you weren't then. Come on, this is morbid. Let's go to the Leaky and have dinner with Nev. Hannah's on shift tonight as well."
They went to the Leaky and had dinner with Nev. God, Merlin and Gawain Robards alone knew where the boys were, but they were used to that by now. Ginny settled in at the outer seat on the corner table and put James prominently and proudly on display, which inevitably had a chorus-line of well-wishers passing their table while Nev and Hermione exchanged irritated looks over their respective steak and kidney pie and baked potato.
"I hope," said Hermione into her tea, "I don't end up doing that with mine."
"You will," Ginny said serenely over her shoulder. "Hallo, Dedalus. Yes, he is, isn't he? Perfect darling. No, not green, definitely not green. To be honest I have a feeling he'll grow up looking like his namesake... oh, he'd better have the hair. I'm rather fond of the hair, to tell you the truth."
She said this with a pitch in her voice that implied goings on that would have curled Rita Skeeter's hair for her, and Dedalus Diggle, deciding that discretion was the better part of valour, fled. Hannah seized this brief lull in the chorus-line to come over with an extra pot of gravy and Nev's second pint.
"Show-off," she said.
"Immensely," Ginny said promptly. "To be honest with you Hannah, what with the late nights and the breastfeeding and the near-two-month long dry spell and the sheer agony of labour and the giving up my job, the only thing I'm actually getting out of the entire arrangement is the social capital of having given birth to Harry Potter's son, so I'm going to milk it, thank you very kindly."
Hannah laughed at her. Hermione rolled her eyes, and Nev went red and laughed at once. James Sirius planted fat little hands palm down on the table top and made a noise that might, with practice, become a word that sounded like "mama".
"Did you really take him with you to that press conference?" Hannah asked.
"Well, yes," Ginny said. "Baby's first arrest, I'm sure he was awfully proud of his papa and his uncle Ron, weren't you, Baby? Yes, you were. Mummy can tell. You oooh'ed and ahhh'ed in all the right places and dropped your dummy in your blankets and then slept like an angel afterwards while Mummy and Daddy thrashed it out." She grinned at her friends.
"Please, Gin, spare me," begged Neville.
"Spare us all," said Hannah. "You're - what's the word - irrepressible, I think."
"Enjoying the fruits of my labours," said Ginny. "Heh. Labours."
"Oh, don't," Hermione said, looking faintly horrified. "I might have to get a Cesarean."
"Is that where they cut you open and take the baby out with a giant scoopy thing?" Ginny asked interestedly. The table exploded in a chorus of horror, and she tucked James close and laughed at them, delighted.
"Anyway, I was going to say," said Hannah said, grinning widely. "That Chaliss was in here the other night, you know - really late, actually. Almost the only person in the bar."
"Oh, really?" Hermione looked up, interested. "What for?"
"Drink, of course," said Hannah, amused. "He drank like a fish and staggered out around four-ish - and ladies and gents, when I say staggered, I mean practically crawled."
"Well," said Nev, doubtfully. "I suppose it happens to the best of us. Sometimes. Except not me, because of Gran. Had he just found out about the broom accusations, or something?"
Hannah shook her head firmly. "Definitely not. Look, you know I'm not much of a one for Quidditch - sorry, Ginny! But I'm not. And I wouldn't have recognised him if he hadn't been all over the papers the next day - it was the press conference."
Ginny looked up. Hermione put her cutlery down and drew a breath. "You mean -"
"Cerbi Chaliss was in here the night before the press conference, drinking himself half to death?"
Hannah looked puzzled. "Isn't that what I just said?"
"But Julian said -"
"I know!"
"And we assumed - but when exactly did Anmar die?"
"Wait a minute," said Neville very sharply, in the old DA voice. "You mean -"
"Right," said Ginny. "We're checking time of death with St Mungos tomorrow morning. And then we're taking this straight to the boys."
Hermione nodded.
"D'you need me to testify?" Hannah asked quietly.
Ginny nodded. "Harry might," she said.
"All right. Well, he knows how to get hold of me."
"Chaliss is lying," said Ginny.
"Hallo, love, how's your day been?" Harry asked cheerfully, looking up from his desk.
"Frustrating - I don't like being lied to."
"Well, who does?"
"Only fools and fairground tricksters who claim they can always spot when someone's fibbing. Chaliss's alibi for Anmar's murder is shite, Harry. Hannah said he was in the Leaky way after midnight with his trousers covered in mud, drinking Firewhiskey like it was going out of fashion."
Harry sat forwards, looking interested. "Maybe he didn't - nah, that's bollocks. You can't cast Avada Kedavra without meaning it."
Ginny perched on the edge of his desk and crossed her legs at the knee. "You already knew."
"The neighbour saw him leaving the apartment at ten."
Pause. "The neighbour."
"Yep."
Ginny drummed her fingers on the desktop. "The neighbour."
"What's your problem with the neighbour?"
"Neighbours are so - so prosaic."
"You went for a pint with your best mate and happened to mention this bloke to his girlfriend in passing, and you think that's more exciting."
She sniffed. "You have no idea under what circumstances I met Hannah."
Harry laughed at her, leaning back in his chair and propping a foot on the edge of his desk. "Oh, course. You arranged a meeting in a darkened dim and dingy underground car park and both of you wore trenchcoats and hats pulled over your eyes, spoke in code and kept your hands in your pockets."
"You what?" said Ginny. "We might have met on a moonlit moor -"
"A drum, a drum, Macbeth doth come!"
She uncrossed her legs and kicked at his chair. He toppled with a curse and scrambled to land on his feet, coming up still grinning at her.
"Touched a nerve."
"You're touched, in various places," she said. "Chiefly the head."
"Ten years later, you bloody Prophet people still won't let it go," he said, mock-exasperated.
"Funny turns all over the place. Falling off your chairs -"
"Oi, that was my wife's fault. Which... was not meant to sound sort of dirty."
"- falling off your chairs in classes and exams and offices left right and centre..."
Ginny finished on a squeak when Harry righted his chair, stepped forwards and angled his torso towards her so no one would see him slide a hand between her knees. She crossed her legs again and trapped it there, warm between her thighs. He splayed his fingers, row of knuckles against the inseam of her jeans, pressure and a promise.
"Cheating," she said.
"Would you like," Harry asked calmly, "to come along when I leave in about three hours to arrest Chaliss? If he's hiding at Hunt's, well, Hunt is more likely to let you in than me."
Ginny pursed her lips. "Hmm. Baby?"
They both looked down at James, wriggling in his bassinet and one small hand clamped determinedly around Norbert's bright green tail.
"Ron," said Ginny.
"Already left."
"Hermione?"
"Already left."
"Stop at the shop on the way."
"Unload him on George and Angelina like unwanted baggage at the train station that you leave in a locker."
"Family," said Ginny. "What else is it for?"
"Now I know what Dumbledore was thinking when he left me at the Dursleys'."
"With the not insignificant difference that George isn't prone to locking people in cupboards."
Harry raised his eyebrows. "Except for that one time with Montague and the Vanishing Cabinet."
They looked at each other.
"There's no one we can trust," said Ginny. "Everywhere, a danger."
Harry shrugged. "We'll take him to Andromeda's. Teddy might as well learn to endure him early on."
"He'll toss him in the duck pond," said Ginny scornfully. "Couldn't always blame him, in fact."
"Ach, come on. He's been sleeping really well lately."
"No wonder I've been feeling so giddy and suffused with well-being."
But she snatched James out of his bassinet, Norbert and all, and carried him up to the Floo stations pressed tight against her heart.
They Apparated into a small copse of trees on the other side of the park to Julian Hunt's apartment block; stamped through dead leaves and crisp packets and empty, rattling beer cans and bottles. Late evening sunshine slanted through the scruffy bushes, the thin, starved-looking trees with their crooked branches angling like broken limbs. If Ginny tilted her head just so, it was almost beautiful.
Until one of the DMLE lot stumbled over a log and put one booted foot into a large and noisy pile of empty beer cans half-buried in a drift of leaves.
Harry sighed.
Beside him, Ginny found herself grinning.
"Fecking dimly hits," said her husband. "Need a Marauder's Map just to find their way to the third-floor office bathrooms and couldn't sneak past Sir bloody Cadogan."
"Inter-office snobbery," said Ginny. "You've picked it up so quickly, I'm terribly proud."
"It's easy once you realise it's all true," he said glumly.
They might have stooped to illegal Muggle lock-picking to get into the apartment building.
Halfway up the stairs it occurred to her that she hadn't actually told Harry about Chaliss' past yet.
"Motive?" she asked, wondering if he already knew.
"Secondary," said Harry. "It's not why, it's how."
Their footsteps scritched on up the fake marble steps. Most memorable thing about the neat little halls and stairwell was the occasional pair of trainers or wellies outside someone's door, or an umbrella propped against the wall. "That's crap," Ginny said at last.
Harry sighed. "Anmar was having money problems in the weeks leading up to his death."
She frowned. "Anmar was having money problems?" That didn't fit – unless he'd gone to Chaliss for help and Cerbi had said no and they'd had a fight...
"For the first time in almost three years of being only sporadically employed. Gringotts was clear that he was making regular payments into his vault even when he wasn't working that we know of. Then the payments stopped, Anmar got money problems, and a few short weeks later, Chaliss is up in front of the wizarding world being accused of cheating at Quidditch."
Ah. Anmar had been blackmailing Cerbi, then.
They reached Julian's floor. Harry stopped at the top of the steps, still as all Seekers knew how to be still when they have to, to wait at the edges of a game and watch the spaces while everyone else stares at the players. Ginny wanted to stretch up on tiptoe and curl her fingers in his impossibly messy hair.
She settled for resting her palm at the small of his back. Something in his hand, sliding silver-grey over his fingers, down his leg.
"See if he'll talk to you," Harry said, flinging the Invisibility Cloak over his shoulders.
Julian Hunt opened the front door in answer to Ginny's insistent knocking attired in a flush and a dressing-gown.
"Yes, what - oh, hello Ginny. Did you not get my owl about the interview?"
"Hi, Julian. No, she arrived all right. I just, well, I wanted to ask about the other night again. Seems there's - a bit of a mix-up."
No, it was not the most pleasant of places to be - standing in a puddle of light in an otherwise darkening and nearly deserted corridor, lying to the face of another human being who mostly trusted her; pretending the man he loved was not about to get arrested by - well, the man she loved.
It was beginning to dawn on Ginny that real-life criminal cases might start out, but didn't usually end, being as much fun as fictional ones.
Julian was frowning at her. "What sort of a mix-up?"
Oh, she was no good at talking in circles and hiding her meanings. Her strengths as a writer were clarity and simplicity and directness; she would make them her strengths as an investigator as well.
"Julian, Cerbi wasn't here that night, was he?" she asked gently. "He left, and didn't come home until well after dawn; and when he did, his clothes were muddy, though I suspect he was so drunk he never realised."
Julian's flush had not simply retreated; it had backpeddled so far it was in the minus now and had become a sheen of pallor.
"You - he was here -"
"He was here, but he's not now?" Ginny asked. "I think it's the other way round, Julian. And I don't think it's the press he's hiding from."
"You have no idea - you've got no right -"
Ginny stepped to the side and looked past his shoulder. "Cerbi! Cerbi, quick -"
"No -"
Too late. At Ginny's call, Cerberus Chaliss had appeared in the doorway of one of the rooms branching off the hall of Julian's apartment. He was dressed but barefoot, and his hands jerked, jumpy, frightened.
"What, what is - Julian, who is this?"
Julian looked from Chaliss to Ginny and back, helpless for an instant. Then his look hardened. "Ginny Potter," he said. "The Auror's wife, you know."
Chaliss grew as pale as Julian. "What do you want?" he demanded roughly.
Heartbeat during which they could have all walked away.
"Did you kill Felix Anmar?" Ginny asked bluntly.
"Of course he didn't!" Julian shouted.
Chaliss shouted something considerably ruder. "You scheming bitch!" Hands in his pockets, searching for his wand, but Harry was quicker - Harry, Ginny had long been convinced, could move faster than anyone else she'd ever known, when he absolutely had to, an agility born of dodging Dursleys long before Bludgers or curses or even Tom himself. He'd moved past Ginny when she'd stepped to the side and was now standing between Julian and Chaliss, wand pointed at the latter's face. The Cloak slithered to the ground at his feet.
"You! How -"
"Cerberus Chaliss," Harry said quietly, "you're under arrest under suspicion of the murder of Felix Anmar; in particular you are charged with the use of Dark Magic in bringing about the death of a fellow sentient; furthermore, you stand accused of the use of an Unforgiveable Curse. You will be brought to trial before the full Wizengamot."
Chaliss didn't seem capable of answering him. Ginny shivered in spite of herself; poor Cerbi. How many times had she seen him play? He was brilliant, she and Harry and Ron had long been agreed on that, and now here he was, being arrested for murder.
Well, even Quidditch players could be vile little boils on the face of humanity. Look at Malfoy.
Julian spun to face her when he heard the tread of the DMLE officers coming up the stairs. She raised her chin, watching him - watching, over his shoulder, as Harry bound Chaliss, went to find his wand.
"This," said Julian, white and furious, "is all your fault."
"Or your boyfriend could have just tried not killing people," flashed Ginny. It was late (not really) and she was tired (not really) and having her illusions about being an intrepid reporter who ran around solving crimes her Auror husband couldn't shattered by the reality that she'd just ruined the lives of at least two people was not the most pleasant thing ever to happen to her.
OK, OK, so she was making this about her instead of about the bloke whose trust she'd just more or less betrayed. It was called 'poor impulse control'.
Apparently Julian thought it was just called 'being an insufferable vicious bitch', because he promptly socked her in the face.
Harry positively roared with laughter all the way back to the Ministry, over to Andromeda's and then back home with James. Not even the grubby reality of locking Cerbi Chaliss in a holding cell could stop him.
"You git," said Ginny, seething. "You wanker. You arsehole."
"Your face!" Harry whooped. "Gotta bit of news for you, Gin. People don't like it when you arrest their boyfriends and then get shirty about it."
"Charge him with assault and divorce you," said Ginny, holding an ice cube wrapped in a tea towel to her sore jaw. "Not in that order..."
"How are you even still talking?" Harry demanded.
Ginny grunted. "Bludger's worse."
Harry snorted again. Tomorrow morning Ginny was sure she'd consider it an improvement on over-protective supposedly noble chivalrously sexist seventeen-year-old bollocks. Now she was just feeling annoyed.
"Lack of what a Healer would call bedside manner," he said.
"Bedside manner!"
"Professionalism, then," and appeared to have gone quite abruptly serious. "The first thing you do when you write Quidditch commentary is not to open the article by roundly insulting both the Captains, the ref and the organisers, is it?"
Ginny glared at him.
"Look, I love you," said Harry. "And I sort of – I understand I messed up when I was seventeen, even if it did turn out mostly all right in the end. But this isn't fun. I mean, it is, but it's also people's lives - real people."
She sighed. "I wasn't not taking it seriously."
"I know - I didn't mean it like that. And I'm sort of glad you helped. Just -"
"Don't do it again?"
"Don't be a prat about it," he said.
"All right," she said. "You're right. I promise."
He grinned at her. "Went down like a sack of potatoes," he said gleefully.
"Get over here and kiss me before I decide to hex you into a pretzel."
Harry did.
She dropped the ice cube down the back of his trousers.
The next morning they met in Ron's office and told the boys everything.
"So you see," said Hermione, and tried not to look at the evidence on the desktop as she spoke, "it was blackmail all along."
"Chaliss must've paid for years, since the end of the war," said Ron. "All the Gringotts payments were from him."
"He gets famous right after the war," Harry said, "and Anmar makes him pay and pay until..."
"Ran out of money?"
"He gets around the same salary I did," Ginny said. "No way he's running out of anything but patience."
What with the substantial amount of money Ron himself had made in the shop with George, the remark didn't make him wince the way it once would have.
"He gets tired of paying, tells Anmar it's over..."
"Anmar accuses him of fixing his broom," Harry picked up the thread. "Just to show off what he's capable of. If an untrue but relatively harmless accusation like that can destroy Chaliss' reputation, imagine what a true one would do to him, and especially a true one like that."
"So he goes to meet Anmar in Wales and they have a fight about it. Chaliss is furious, Anmar's smug, the whole thing gets out of hand..."
"Increasingly Chaliss is standing there thinking how much easier his life would be if Anmar just weren't in it anymore," Hermione put in, "and - avada." She shivered.
Ron caught sight of it and looked at her questioningly. She mustered up a smile.
"Bad memories."
He came round the desk to put an arm around her.
"Don't we all," Harry said quietly. Ginny was pressing her shoulder against his.
They sat in gloomy silence for a moment until, in the bassinet on the other side of Hermione's office, James began to cry. After that there was a parental scramble to get to him, a certain amount of cooing and a lot of fiddling with Norbert the Norwegian Ridgeback.
Hermione adored her nephew, but she was damned if his new cousin was going to be permitted to have a favourite toy that was twice the size of themselves and named after a very failed and embarrassing episode in their mother's past that had led to detention in the Forbidden Forest and the loss of a hundred and fifty points for Gryffindor.
Harry and Gin had the strangest sense of humour about some things.
Harry testified to Chaliss' guilt and presented the evidence Hermione had found the next day. Ginny crowded into the Ministry with a score of other reporters as Ron read out the official statement, answered questions briefly, kept his cool.
"Blackmail over something like that?" said a reporter from the States on the way out. Ginny hated his silly little goatee on sight and with a fervency that she usually reserved for Carrow-collaborators and Aunt Muriel. "It was unpleasant of course, but I really think - I mean, have you seen the way the guy plays Quidditch? Talent like that don't come along every day."
Some damn rag that specialised in pure-blood rights and the Oppression of the Elite of the Wizarding World, probably. Ginny half-turned, juggling pen and notebook and James and James' bag, and accidentally-on-purpose tripped him up.
The bastard went sprawling.
That evening Baby was unusually quiet and perfectly happy to fall asleep as soon as he possibly could. Ginny watched him for a little - the curl of his fingers, the way he sucked on his dummy, the fat, contented wriggle he gave every now and then, the plump little legs.
Loud, messy, depriving-of-sleep, a filthy nuisance when it came to work; and yet she'd turned Gwenog down for another contract after his birth, and she hated it when he wasn't close; there was no better thing in the world than to get to cart him around for a day and present him to people going my son James isn't he gorgeous.
Usually they didn't think so, but that wasn't her problem.
Harry had come in so silently she didn't notice him till he put his hands on her hips. She leant backwards against his chest and felt his breath on her ear, the side of her neck.
"You OK?"
They said it together, and laughed at each other, and then laughed again when they both said, "Yes," at once. Harry reached past her to lay a hand gently on his son's chest, I must not tell lies clear against his skin in the glow of the nightlight (just as blood traitor ran along her own left arm, blurred and obscured by half a dozen other lines they'd made her write, capturing her blood on parchment in the shape of lies and betrayals).
James snuffled a little, kicked with his right leg. Ginny could feel Harry's smile against her.
She turned her head and felt her hair catch in his stubble.
"Let's have another one."
They said that together, too.