Disclaimer: All characters, places etc. belong to JK Rowling, apart from my own characters

Chapter 11 – Harry Potter - Auror

Harry quickly settled in to life as an Auror. To his great surprise, Pearson turned out to be a friendly outgoing person. Apparently his gruff demeanour was an act he put on when encountering suspects, informants or new recruits. It turned out that he had a wife and two daughters. During the war and especially the takeover of the Ministry he sent them away while he himself contrived to be "in the field", aiding the resistance where he could.

On the fifth day Pearson walked into the office he shared with Harry, Ron, Dean, Neville and two other Aurors called Williams and Franklin. He was carrying four small envelopes. "Good morning gentlemen." he said.

They all wished him good morning in return. Harry noticed that Pearson was a bit more sombre this morning.

"Is everything ok Pearson?" he asked.

"Yes everything's fine. In fact your final bit of paperwork has just come through." Pearson distributed the envelopes to the new Aurors. Harry looked at his. It had no other markings other than his name and what he presumed was a registration number. He opened the envelope. Inside was a small, stiff piece of parchment. On it was printed his picture, his name and his date of joining the Aurors. In the bottom right-hand corner he saw three tick boxes. Before he could examine them closer Pearson spoke.

"As you have probably guessed, these are your official Auror licenses. As with your other Auror equipment, you are to keep these with you at all times. You will find that your longcoats have a special compartment for these." Pearson paused for breath.

Was there anything the Auror longcoats couldn't do? Harry wondered. Pearson carried on.

"You have probably noticed by now the small section on the bottom right of your licenses. As you know our job is to uphold the law, however there are occasions when the law requires some... flexibility. This is a fact of the job." Harry remembered a couple of occasions the previous year when he had been forced to use the Imperius and Cruciatus curses. He had felt sick afterwards though. Pearson's voice brought him back. "As I'm sure you remember from school, there are three unforgivable curses. I don't need to tell you what they are. I will say this though. As Aurors you are expected to make use of all available resources as and when necessary." He paused.

Neville put his hand up. "Do you mean we might have to use the unforgivable curses ourselves? Isn't that illegal?"

Pearson nodded. "The Ministry is well aware of the terrible power these spells have. As such the laws governing reasonable use contain a stipulation that only those who have personally experienced one of the curses themselves can use such curses, and only the particular curse they experienced can be used. Even then you would be expected to give proper justification for doing so."

Harry looked over at Ron's license. He could see only one of the three boxes ticked. The box was marked with an 'I'. Looking over at Neville's, Harry saw that 'I' and 'C' were ticked. He looked down at his own license.

All three were ticked. 'I', 'C' and the bottom one was marked 'AK'.

Harry looked up to see Pearson looking at him steadily.

"Congratulations Potter. You are the first Auror in the Ministry's history to be licensed to use Avada Kedavra, the killing curse."

Harry shook his head. "But I'd never..." Pearson interrupted him.

"I sincerely hope you never do but no-one knows what circumstances may arise." His tone of voice seemed to indicate a story from his past but Harry guessed that now was not the time to ask personal questions.

Harry felt the others' eyes on him and hastily stuffed his new license into his pocket. "So what have we got on today?" he asked, trying to change the subject. Pearson smiled and handed out the day's tasks.

...

Over the weeks that followed Harry found that there were two sides to an Auror's work. Long periods of poring over documents and interviewing suspects looking for that one detail which would lead to the frantic bouts of action as yet another Death Eater was captured and sent to Azkaban.

Harry loved it, every minute of it. There was something about finding that one small line in a long roll of parchment or one element of a story that didn't quite add up that gave him a huge buzz, which only made the final payoff as a criminal was caught more rewarding. He had not yet needed to exercise his license to use the three unforgivable curses, actively seeking other ways to resolve situations, and he tried not to think about the situation which would inevitably arise when he would have to use the killing curse, let alone the other two.

The most satisfying case Pearson's team investigated, at least from Harry's point of view, was when they finally tracked down Dolores Umbridge, who had gone into hiding when Tom Riddle finally fell. Harry would never forget the look on her face when he blasted down the door of the small house she was living in and disarmed her with the merest flick of his wand. Where's your Defensive Magical Theory now? he wanted to shout in her face but restrained himself, knowing that he would have all the opportunity in the world to gloat when it came to her trial. The scars on his hand - "I must not tell lies" - were still visible even now.

One thing which the others noticed about Harry was that, no matter who they were chasing, no matter how evil or how ruthless their target, Harry always gave one chance to come quietly where others might have used force first. When, as inevitably happened, the targets in question refused, often sending their refusal via a powerful spell, Harry showed no mercy, disarming, stunning and body-binding.

The others also had their moments in the spotlight. Neville manage to pull off a particularly intricate capture using a few well placed cactuses and an ivy plant that was growing on the side of the house in question. He still beamed at the thought of it.

Ron, on the other hand, found his niche in stakeouts. He somehow had a knack of finding exactly the right spell needed to eavesdrop on a suspect's house, meeting or other situation. Many of their captures were due to Ron hearing something important at the right time. Harry saw that Ron always carried the Deluminator that Dumbledore had left to him, and it became his most versatile tool.

Dean showed a surprising ability to get leads from informants. He mostly worked with Pearson, working the wizarding underworld and, in some cases, even obtaining information from muggle sources, mostly homeless people who saw things that others wouldn't think to see or remember.

All in all, they were a fantastic team and quickly established themselves as one of the most effective Auror departments in recent history. There was nothing Harry would rather have been doing and nowhere he would rather be.

...

Actually there was.

Harry and Ginny wrote to each other at least once a day. When that wasn't possible due to work or tiredness, they always made up for it in the next letter. Whenever Harry felt lonely or tense or pressured he squeezed his phoenix pendant and felt the warmth from Ginny's in return. Fawkes willingly ferried letters and parcels back and forth between the two of them and Harry sometimes wondered if somewhere in all that bird's fire was a romantic spark.

Harry and Ron also made time to go and see every Holyhead Harpies game. After their defeat on the first game of the season they bounced back with a vengeance and were now seen as a serious contender for the league cup, having landed a place in the top three league teams for the first time in eighty years.

There was one potentially sticky moment though when the Harpies played the Chudley Cannons, who were still Ron's favourite team. The Cannons were thoroughly thrashed by the Harpies, helped somewhat by the fact that Ginny had been put in the Seeker position. Harry was transfixed by the sight of her red hair streaming behind her as she dodged and wove through the other players, and he cheered louder than anyone else as her hands finally closed around the Snitch. The Cannon's seeker had barely left his starting position.

Harry saw that Ron wasn't cheering. "What's wrong?"

Ron's head was in his hands. "370-10! What sort of scoreline is that?"

Harry chuckled. "That's your own fault for teaching her to fly a broom before she could even walk properly."

"Whatever." Ron said sulkily.

Harry always looked forward to the games, but he looked forward to the after-game celebrations even more. Ginny would let him know where the Harpies would be going for after-match drinks and food and Harry always made sure he got there first, ready for her to rush into his arms. Those times were always painfully brief but Harry treasured them even more because of it and he always came away with a couple of good memories.

The first time Harry brought Teddy to a game he caused quite a stir. As soon as the girls saw him they immediately started cooing over him. Ginny was the most smitten, snatching him from Harry as soon as she could. Teddy looked thoughtfully at her hair and extended a pudgy hand to stroke it. Then he screwed up his face in concentration and his own hair suddenly changed colour to match Ginny's. Ginny and the other girls immediately gave a cry of "Awwwww" and Ginny held him closer. Teddy responded by snuggling into her neck.

Harry's mouth had dropped open. For a moment he saw Ginny cradling their own child, then he shook his head. There was no rush for that. After all they had forever. It was definitely something he wanted someday though. Instead he grinned at them.

"I think he likes you." he said, indicating Teddy.

"Well I like him." Ginny said, smiling. "He's a good judge of character. Must have had a good teacher."

Harry didn't respond, instead he just smiled and wallowed in his daydream a little longer. All too soon, however, it was time to go. Ginny gave Teddy a quick kiss and Harry a much longer kiss which resulted in whistles and catcalls from the rest of the team.

...

Autumn slowly gave way to winter and as it did so Death Eater activity began to dwindle. Pearson warned them all to be constantly vigilant and Harry was reminded of a certain other Auror with a magical false eye who had once said something similar. Eventually though even Pearson was forced to admit that there were no more apparent threats to security for the time being. He even started to allow them more and more time off, on the provision that they would have their Auror longcoats to hand at all times.

Harry used this time to put some of his own personal affairs in order. Sirius's old house at Grimmauld Place had now not been occupied for over a year and Harry certainly had no desire to continue keeping it. Instead he donated it to a wizard organisation looking to rehouse those who had lost their homes during the last months of the war, hoping that it would finally be able to do some good instead of being a den of hatred and loathing.

There was also the matter of his parents' house at Godric's Hollow, or at least what was left of it. Harry had recently received a letter informing him that now he was of age he was the legal owner of everything his parents owned. He laughed as he imagined a great Potter legacy, with a manor with wing after wing of rooms and an army of house elves ready to serve. No, he didn't need any of that. Everything he wanted was right here in the Burrow, apart from the one person that currently resided in North Wales.

Harry resolved to go back to Godric's Hollow when the opportunity presented itself. He needed to spend more time there as his last visit had been rather brief. At the very least he wanted to find out as much as he could about his parents.

As December began Harry's thoughts were turning more and more to Christmas. This would be the first Christmas as a member of the Weasley family rather than as a guest and he wanted to make it a good one. Most of the family were easy to buy for but he wanted to find something really special for Ginny. He knew that she would say he didn't need to as he was all she wanted but he still felt that it would be the right thing to do. He still had no idea how he would top the phoenix pendants though. He could feel it getting warm beneath his shirt and his hand strayed to it to squeeze it in response.

Harry also kept himself up to date about what was happening at Hogwarts, especially with Arthur and Lucius. He had been very surprised to learn recently that the two of them were fast becoming good friends. At the start Lucius had kept very much to himself, aware of his past and what everyone thought of him, but gradually Arthur managed to bring him out of his shell, having decided that what was done was in the past. Harry had nearly died of laughter when he read that Arthur and Lucius had gotten drunk in the Three Broomsticks one night and tried to enchant a dog's bone to work like a "fellytone" as Arthur called it. Harry shook his head. The future really was nothing like he could ever have imagined.

There was more good news. Pearson informed them that, owing to the lack of cases which required investigation, they could have two weeks off over Christmas and New Year. He did impress on them the need for constant vigilance however, and Harry was again reminded of Mad-Eye Moody. Pearson himself would be taking his family away on holiday, having decided that he could leave the security of the wizarding world in very capable hands.

That night, as Harry and Ron sat down with Molly and Hermione to dinner, the fireplace flamed into life and Fawkes flew out, circling the room and landing on Harry's shoulder. He was carrying an envelope bearing the handwriting that Harry never tired of seeing. He ripped open the letter and nearly whooped with delight.

Ginny had been given time off from the Harpies. She would be arriving by train that weekend. Harry was nearly overcome with joy.

Ginny was coming home for Christmas.

A/N: After I wrote this I noticed that I'd unintentionally put in a little cockney rhyming slang joke. See if you can spot it.

Next Chapter: Harpy Christmas