Part 2: In which Ginny cooks dinner, and Dorcas and Terry have a bipolar conversation.

"I don't care what you think. Mint chocolate chip ice cream is far superior to Treacle Tart! I don't even know why Florean serves that! I have a strong suspicion it has to do with you, I'll have you know."

"Shh, you'll wake the portrait."

They both slowly turned to look at the portrait in question. Surprisingly enough, Mrs. Black remained silent.

"That's a miracle," Ginny sighed in relief. "She almost never shuts up. Anyway, since Teddy's at his grandmother's for the weekend, we'll have a bit of a respite. Let's go down to the kitchen. I need to get dinner started anyway. Hermione and my brother are coming over. I invited Luna over as well, and I think she's bringing her boyfriend."

"Luna has a boyfriend?"

They started down the stairs. "I haven't met him yet," replied Ginny, "but she said over the phone that he's really sweet. Apparently, her father approves as well."

Harry tried to imagine what it was like for Luna's boyfriend to meet Xenophilius Lovegood. There was probably lots of hugging, and involved Mr. Lovegood swinging his daughter around by the arms. Harry was glad he wasn't there to experience it.

"Anyone else?"

"I think Luna said she's bringing a friend over. Gemma White? She graduated last year. She's a Gryffindor, and I believe she was in the DA with us."

"Your parents aren't coming, are they?"

"No, thank Merlin. I don't think Luna's boyfriend would be able to handle meeting too much of the extended family."

Ginny started getting dinner ready. Harry plopped down at the table, and got out some paperwork that needed to be done by Monday.

"More work? But it's Saturday night. Can't you take the weekend off?"

"The paperwork an Auror has to go through, even one in training, is never ending."

The fireplace flared up, and two people stumbled out of it. The first, with bright blue hair and a contagious smile, made a beeline straight to Harry.

"Hawy!"

"Hey, squirt!" Harry abandoned his paperwork and scooped his godson up onto his lap. "I thought you were staying with your grandmother this weekend."

"Oops. My bad." This came from the second person, a very tall blonde woman who looked vaguely familiar. "Andy sent me over." She tilted her head a bit, and looked at Harry for a few moments, scrutinising him. A look of realisation crossed her face. "Oh! You must be Harry! Andy said you looked like James, but Merlin! You're practically a carbon copy!" She had somehow, without Harry noticing, gotten very close to him. Teddy didn't seem to mind. "And you have Lily's eyes, too! Andy wasn't kidding!" She pulled back, smiling disarmingly.

Ginny had paused in her dinner preparations, and was now wielding both her wand and a ladle rather threateningly. "Who are you?"

"Oh, right! Stupid me!" The woman smacked her forehead. "You'd think I'd remember this sort of thing. I'm Dorcas. Dorcas Meadowes. Former Auror." She smiled widely.

Ginny looked skeptical, but slowly lowered her wand. She kept the ladle at ready, though. Harry examined Meadowes, confused, trying to remember where he had heard that name before.

Meadowes noticed their confusion. "I was friends with James, Lily, Siri-kins, Moony, Peter, Fabian, Gideon, Frank, Alice, you know. The whole crew." Harry only recognised four of those names, although if he had to guess, Siri-kins probably referred to Sirius. Meadowes continued, "I went to school with your parents, kiddo."

"Hey! I'm nineteen, I'll have you know," Harry replied indignantly.

"You also totally pwned Tommy, kid. So you're pretty awesome."

Someone else entered the kitchen, this time from upstairs. Ginny had her wand out again, and Harry subtly moved to hide Teddy.

"Reggie! I knew Andy sent me to the right place! Have you met the people who live here yet?"

The aforementioned 'Reggie' shook his head, and started staring at Harry, making him mildly uncomfortable. Harry noticed that Kreacher was holding the man's hand, looking rather conflicted.

"Well, Reggie, this is Harry! James and Lily's kid! And this lovely lady," Meadowes gestured towards Ginny, who was still wielding her wand and ladle, "if I'm not mistaken, would be the great and terrifying Molly Prewett's daughter!"

Ginny shifted her gaze to Meadowes, and glared. "I have a name, you know. It's Ginny." She slowly lowered her wand and ladle again.

The man in the doorway coughed. "The 'great and terrifying' was referring to Molly, I believe," he said. "I'm Terry White. I'm sorry for intruding. Dorcas, we should probably—"

"Reggie! You married a White? Why didn't you tell me?"

White dragged a hand over his face. "Please refrain from calling me Reggie, Dorcas. It's confusing the owners of this house. We should—"

"Sorry, Terry!" interjected Meadowes, interrupting White again. "Hey, what's Terry short for? Is it Tyrannosaurus? It would be so cool if you were named after a dinosaur! Or is it one of those weird constellation names?"

White sighed, and glared at Meadowes. "It's Antares, if you must know," he muttered. "Now, please repress your inner kangaroo; it's freaking the child out." White reached down and carefully pried Kreacher's fingers off of his hand, sending the house elf a pointed look. Kreacher nodded back, and smiled.

Harry was dumbstruck.

Kreacher had smiled.

Kreacher had smiled at a complete stranger.

Kreacher had smiled at a complete stranger who was friends with the crazy, hyperactive, easily distracted, self-proclaimed former Auror Meadowes.

Ginny whacked the back of his head with her ladle. At some point, she had decided to ignore the craziness and resume cooking. It was apparently dinner for eleven now, instead of eight. Ron could eat enough for two people, sometimes, and if she made too much, they could always have the leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

"Quit gaping. You'll catch flies." Harry quickly snapped his jaw shut. Kreacher went back upstairs.

Teddy had been watching the banter back and forth with some interest. Now that the two had paused, he turned to Harry. "Hawy! Dorcath is fun! We played wescue the dwagon! She made a good dwagon out of my blanky!"

Harry smiled down at his two-year-old godson. "Did she really?" It was Harry's personal opinion that he had gotten very good at handling young children. Ginny did not share his view.

"Isn't that what 'Dora used to make us play whenever Andy asked us to babysit?" wondered White.

"No, silly," said Meadowes, "we played 'Save the Princess'. If I remember correctly, when you babysat, Nymphie made you the sidekick, and she was the prince."

Well. That was a rather strange way to play.

"And you, the original guitarist of the Hobgoblins, were in your punk phase at the time. I think you had your hair dyed blue. According to Andy, she was not happy when Nymphie started using her metamorphmagus talents to turn her hair outrageous colors. She didn't want her emulating you."

"I was a teenage Death Eater at the time, Dorcas. I wouldn't have wanted 'Dora to emulate me either."

"Well, she didn't know that. She was a little kid. Besides, whenever I babysat, I was the dragon. Nymphie said I made a better dragon than Siri-kins."

"Anyone would have been a better dragon than Sirius. Besides, didn't he usually transfigure something else to be the dragon?"

"You're forgetting the time that all of the Marauders babysat. Remus was the prince, James was the useless bard, Peter was the horse, and Sirius was the dragon. That was the only time that Nymphie was the princess. Oh! Nymphie then turned Sirius back into her 'useless older cousin who was stupid enough to annoy [her] evil Aunt Sauron.'"

Harry guessed that 'evil Aunt Sauron' was referring to Bellatrix. He doubted it was Narcissa, as she wasn't 'evil' exactly.

"Wasn't that the time 'Dora asked Remus to marry her?"

"Yes! He defeated the evil lord, so Nymphie proposed!"

This was definitely one of the strangest conversations that Harry had ever been privy to. This included the time he and Malfoy had been arguing whether or not Dean and Seamus were going out. Which they were, much to Ron's despair, as he had lost that particular bet.

There was a slight pause. Then Meadowes went completely off topic. "Hey, did Doctor Who get rebooted?"

Harry resumed doing his paperwork, only half listening to their conversation. Teddy was still watching them intently, not wanting to miss a single piece of quality entertainment, while Ginny cooked dinner.

"No, Dorcas. There was a movie about the Eighth Doctor that came out in '95, though. I think it's available on tape now."

"Buy it for me? Please?" Meadowes gave White the puppy dog eyes.

White sighed. "I have it at home. You can borrow it. I'll call Vesta later, but I'm going to ask her to send over all the books on Eight as well. You will read them, as the movie is the only piece of media Eight is in. I'll let you borrow the audio recordings as well, but you have to return them once you're finished. All of them. Am I clear?"

"Crystal." There was another pause. "Hey, is it true that in sixth year you and Barty really—"

White quickly cut her off. "Yes," he gritted out, "but we broke up at the end of the year. Don't talk about this stuff in front of . . ." White looked at Teddy, whose hair had changed from bright blue to neon green. ". . . 'Dora's kid. That is 'Dora's kid, right?"

"Mm-hm!" Meadowes nodded her head enthusiastically. "Nymphie managed to woo Moony into becoming un-porridge-like. From what Andy told me, it was quite the accomplishment." Her face fell. "Unfortunately, Nymphie and Moony fell to Death Eaters at the Battle of Hogwarts."

White unconsciously gripped his left forearm. "Oh. Did they fight to the end, at least?"

"Yes. They did."

"Good." White finally moved out of the doorway and sat opposite Harry and Teddy, his back to the table. Meadowes sat on the floor. "Anyone left?"

"Not that I know of. Well, unless you count your cousins, of course. And Molly, obviously. Andy says," Meadowes gulped, "that Bellatrix put Frank and Alice in St. Mungo's, and Barty allegedly got the Dementor's Kiss. Bella's dead, though. Molly killed her."

White let out an audible sigh of relief. Harry assumed it was about Bellatrix.

"And Lucy's alive. Although I don't think he ever counted. Too pompous and obsessed with his hair."

It took Harry a moment to realise that 'Lucy' referred to Lucius Malfoy. He stifled a chuckle. Meadowes gave some pretty hilarious nicknames.

"Sev . . . He's dead?"

Harry looked up from his paperwork, and although the question had been directed at Meadowes, answered, "Yeah. I watched Voldemort kill him."

This brought a sad smile to White's face, as he turned to face Harry. "Good for him. I knew Sev had it in him to offend the Dark Lord."

Harry now assumed that White was a former Death Eater, but had betrayed the cause in the first war. He decided not to mention that Voldemort had killed Snape not because he offended him, but because he thought Snape was the wielder of the Elder Wand. The memories showed that Snape was a good guy, and Harry supposed that he had technically betrayed Voldemort by working for Dumbledore.

"He became Headmaster after Dumbledore died." Oops. He hadn't meant for that to slip out.

White looked him in the eye. "Sev killed him, didn't he." It wasn't a question. Harry gulped. "He took someone else's place. Who was it?"

"Draco Malfoy," said Ginny. Dinner was in the oven, and on the stove, and otherwise ready, so she joined Harry at the table.

"Cissy's kid?" asked Meadowes. "Wait . . . this wasn't part of some elaborate scheme formulated years before where Dumbledore told Snape to kill him so the true owner of the Elder Wand would be Draco who wouldn't know about it and then Tommy would think that Snape was, and kill him for it, was it?"

Both Harry and Ginny resisted the overwhelming urge to gape. White simply turned around to look at Meadowes. "Only you would have the nerve to call the Dark Lord Tommy, Dorcas."

She grinned in response.