Well, I received an e-mail notification of a review of the last chapter but it doesn't seem to be on the site. Thanks to the person who wrote it anyway. This does end up as a minor blood bath: Not quite Deathly Hallows levels but getting that way...

CHAPTER ELEVEN: Hard Choices

Professor McGonagall's body had been laid out in her room at Hogwarts. Harry stood looking down at her. Another person dead because he'd made the wrong choices. He only hoped it was just the one, that none of the five missing children had shared her fate. The only thing in their favour was that no more bodies had been found. He kept telling himself that if they'd been killed they'd have been left where they'd fallen, as McGonagall had been.

Slughorn was with Harry. Harry had been surprised when his old Potions Master had greeted him on his arrival at the school, until he'd remembered that Slughorn had been McGonagall's deputy. That meant he was now headmaster of Hogwarts, at least until a permanent decision could be made.

"It's a bad business, Harry,"Slughorn sighed. "I was going to inform the Ministry but your friends Neville and Ernie insisted I contact you directly. I hope I did the right thing."

"You did, Professor,"Harry confirmed. "I've spoken with Kingsley and we both agree this should be kept as quiet as possible for now."

"The students will have to be informed,"Slughorn pointed out.

"Well…I'll leave you to handle that." Harry headed for the door, knowing there were people he needed to talk to.

"Yes, of course,"Slughorn replied, sounding slightly blustered. "My staff are ready to assist in any way possible, just say the word. Harry…" – and suddenly he seemed to become more serious – "…I did tell you that Minerva's message mentioned Death Eaters, didn't I?"

Harry paused in the doorway and looked back at him. "Yes, Professor, you did."

"It…it can't be starting again, can it?"

"Not if I can help it,"Harry replied. Yet he had a nagging feeling that it already had.

Since he was now acting head, Slughorn had allowed Harry the use of his usual office. A group of concerned parents were waiting when he arrived there: Ron, Hermione, Neville…and Draco Malfoy. Harry would have been happy if he could have avoided informing Draco of what had happened but given that he was Scorpius' father, it hadn't really been an option. All the same, Draco's reaction on seeing him confirmed his first thoughts.

"At last,"Draco snapped testily. "You've got half a brain, Potter, do you mind sparing the time to tell me what's going on?"

"He's been paying his respects to Professor McGonagall,"Neville reminded him.

"Yeah and it's a shame she's dead and everything but what about Scorpius?"

Harry looked hard at Draco. Although he had long accepted that Draco's actions in Voldemort's service had been motivated more by fear than genuine malevolence, the fact remained that Draco had been a Death Eater and his family were still fairly outspoken on the subject of pureblood superiority. It made trusting him rather difficult.

Then again, Snape had been a Death Eater and Harry had never trusted him because of it. He sometimes wondered how many lives might have been saved if they'd worked together instead of constantly seeing the worst in each other.

"You heard about what happened to Ginny?"Harry asked.

Draco snorted. "Are you kidding? There was nothing else in the papers for a week."

"Well, we think it's linked to a lot of other disappearances and to some incidents at Hogwarts. It seems that our children took it upon themselves to investigate and stumbled upon the culprits. Which, so far as we can tell, are a group of former Death Eaters."

Draco blanched slightly but he soon got his spirit back. "What was Scorpius doing mixed up with your lot?"

It was Hermione that answered. "Rose has talked about him a lot in her letters recently. She said he was a good friend to her after Ginny died."

Draco rolled his eyes. "Oh wonderful. Great new world you've created, Potter. Scorpius should know better than to hang out with the likes of your children. Look how he's ended up as a result."

"Don't pretend you care, Malfoy, it doesn't suit you,"Ron snapped at him.

Draco squared up to him, despite being noticeably shorter. "Oh, what, only Gryffindors care about their chidren? Well, let me tell you something, you pathetic Muggle-lover…"

"Stop it, both of you!"Hermione shouting, her voice breaking as she did so. Harry hadn't realised how close to tears she was. "Your children are missing and you're still having the same old arguments!" She ran out of the room.

There was an embarrassed silence for a few moments. Ron looked at Harry. "Can you see how she is? Whenever I try to talk to her when she's like this, I seem to end up with her wand pointed in my face."

Harry nodded in agreement. As he left the office, he spoke quietly to Neville. "Try and stop them killing each other until I get back."

Harry found Hermione in one of the empty classrooms. She had her back to him but he could tell she was crying. He walked up to her and put his hands on her shoulders. "Are you all right?"

Hermione reached up and placed one of her hands over one of his, as if drawing strength from the connection. After a few moments, she turned to him. "They're going to be all right, aren't they? Rose and…and James and Albus and the others?"

"Of course they are,"Harry replied soothingly. "We'll make sure they are." He gently wiped the tears from her face and she rewarded him with a smile. He stroked her hair and then, as if responding to some unknown impulse, he softly kissed her.

For a moment, he thought Hermione was going to push him away or slap him. But then she started to kiss him back. The kiss seemed to go on for several seconds, their touch pleasing to both of them, until slowly they both stopped. They looked each other in the eye, as if making a silent agreement not to mention what had just happened.

"We should get back,"Harry said.

Hermione nodded. "You go on, I'll catch you up."

Once Harry was out of the office, Hermione let out a long breath. She'd just kissed Harry. A real, proper grown-up kiss. And it occurred to her that, for the first time in over twenty years, Harry was available, free to start a relationship with whoever he wanted.

But she wasn't, she reminded herself. She had a husband, she had two children, one of whom was missing and probably in danger. However right kissing Harry had felt, it had been wrong. Yet however much the rational part of her mind told her that, she couldn't quite block out the voice that said it would be nice to kiss Harry again.

Harry tried hard to keep the smile off his face as he headed back to the office. In his life, he had kissed surprisingly few people. There had been Cho, of course, a few fumbling kisses back in their school years. And then, from the age of sixteen, the only person he'd kissed had been Ginny. Until now, when suddenly the last person he'd kissed was Hermione. He should probably feel guilty about that but somehow he didn't.

Then he saw Ron, deep in conversation with Neville while Draco looked on gloweringly, and suddenly he did feel guilty. Hermione was Ron's wife; Ron, who he loved like a brother. He'd had no right kissing her the way he had. He felt her presence behind him and wanted to turn and look at her but forced himself not to, to concentrate on the job in hand.

Hermione felt a pang of disappointment at Harry ignoring her then chided herself for the feeling. The important thing was getting the children back safe and sound, not going into a childish sulk because a boy hadn't noticed her.

"Well, Potter, have you got any ideas?"Draco asked.

Harry was about to admit that he hadn't when Neville spoke up. "We could talk to Professor Suovren."

"Who?"Harry asked.

"Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. Been here five years, pretty much a record. Whatever his faults, he definitely knows his stuff."

Professor Suovren, when they found him in a classroom checking the results of his students' last wand practise, turned out to be a small and slightly nervy man. Of the rather undistinguished line of DADA teachers that Harry had had at Hogwarts, the one he most closely resembled was Professor Quirrell, a fact that had Harry constantly checking the back of Suovren's head to make sure he didn't have a Dark Wizard sticking out of it.

"It seems to me your problem is the forest,"Suovren remarked, still paying more attention to various broken wands scattered around than anything else. "Dear, dear, a misused Disarming Charm can be so expensive…"

"What about the forest?"Harry interrupted.

"Well, you know something's going on there but finding out what is so hazardous. As your missing children have discovered and poor Professor McGonagall."

"Is this guy really the best you can find?"Draco asked.

"Trust me,"Neville assured him. "He'll get there in the end."

"So what do you suggest?"Harry asked the professor.

"You need to have advance warning of exactly where and when someone is going to be,"Suovren explained. "In short, you need an Apparition Detection Charm."

"Apparition Detection?"Hermione repeated. "I've never heard of those."

"Well, of course not, they're a closely guarded secret. They work on a similar principle to the magical defences that prevent people Apparating into Hogwarts. Cast one of them over an area and anyone Apparating into it will set off a silent alarm, which can only be heard by those the spellcaster chooses."

"So, how do we do that?"Ron asked.

Souvren pointed his wand in the air for a moment, then touched its tip to the forehead of all five of them. "It's done."

Harry wasn't sure what it was that directed him when he decided to take a walk in the Hogwarts grounds but somehow he automatically found himself at Hagrid's shack. He pushed the door open and went inside. The place was empty, yet despite the damage done to it by the Death Eaters the night Dumbledore had died, it somehow managed to look exactly as he remembered from his youth.

"Blimey, Harry!"exclaimed a voice behind him and Harry turned to find the shack's owner standing there. "For a moment there I thought I'd gone back twenty years. From behind, you looked just like you did when you were a student here. Mind you, when you first came here, yer didn't even come up to ma waist, do ya remember?"

Perhaps it was some nostalgic impulse but Harry stepped forward and hugged the half-giant. "Don't you ever change, Hagrid, you hear me?"

"Oh, I reckon it'd be too late for me t'do that now even if I wanted to." Hagrid wiped a tear from his eye. "I was sorry to hear about Ginny, Harry. She was a special sort of lady."

Harry nodded. "Yes, she was."

"Tea?"

"Er, no, thank you." Harry recalled that Hagrid's tea making skills often failed to match his enthusiasm.

"Oh, okay." Hagrid sat down gesturing for Harry to do the same. "I have your three popping in here to see me quite a bit. And the Weasley kids. Nice to be popular again. Especially your James. Guess it's on account of him being a bit lonely."

"Lonely?"Harry repeated. "James was always so…boisterous."

"Oh, yeah, but that don't mean he ain't lonely. Take young Sirius Black. Always in trouble he was when he was here, not a week when he wasn't in Dumbledore's office, but I reckon that was only because he felt a bit out of place in that family of his. Not that I'm comparing your family to that no good lot, you understand."

Harry sat in silence, thinking. He'd never really considered why James was the way he was. Now that he did, he was finding it rather uncomfortable.

"It's a shame he's missing. Shame they all are."

Harry stood up and clapped Hagrid on the shoulder. "We'll get them back, Hagrid. All of them."