A few weeks later

Harry knocked on the window of a plain gray car. Ron, struggling somewhat to work the buttons, rolled it down.

"Can I get in?"

"Sure," Ron said, none-too-pleased with the idea.

"What are you doing, Ron?"

"Sitting."

"Sitting," Harry repeated.

"Yeah."

"In a car. Outside of restaurant that Draco Malfoy happens to be in."

"And?"

"You've been drinking," Harry said with a sigh.

"I have a right to be suspicious of him. He's a death eater. And a werewolf. I'm just doing my job."

"He hasn't done anything to cause suspicion, Ron. If anything, the fact that Hermione was going there once a month makes him less suspicious. He let her search the house. Hell, you searched the house."

"I'm sure if they searched it thoroughly enough they'd turn up something."

"Actually, now that you mention it, there was a very dark item. A knife. One of a set of six. Apparently it was made specifically for the Malfoy family."

Ron looked over. "Really?"

"Yeah." Harry stared out the passenger's side window, watched a mother and her young son cross the street. "The weird thing was, Malfoy turned it in right after he took possession of the house. Apparently he's actually on fairly good terms with the guys in the Dark Artifacts Office. Used to come in regularly, since he kept finding new stashes of dangerous items."

Ron shrugged. "Doesn't seem that weird."

"The weird part was that he turned it in again a few weeks ago. Apparently he found it while cleaning up his house. He said it was lucky you'd searched the place, or he might not have noticed it had reappeared. It could have gotten him into loads of trouble." Harry watched the mother stoop to tie the boy's shoe. "He asked if they could check it for spells that might cause it to return to a specific place. Said he figured that was the only explanation that made sense."

"There's no explaining Dark Artifacts," Ron said eventually.

"Yeah."

"Ginny's probably waiting for you."

"Yeah. Listen, you should come back with me. Have dinner. You can stay the night if you want. We've got the guest bedroom all made up."

"No, thanks." Ron sighed. "I should get home."

Harry reached over, squeezed his shoulder. "It'll get better, Ron. Just give it time."