Author's Note: Ugh. I got into a car accident today. I'm alright but my car is probably totaled. This chapter was just to release pent up frustration. It's also quite a bit shorter than the others, but you will see why it needed to end where it did. Thanks iwasbotwp for your review, I really appreciate your thoughts and input.

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"I'm glad you felt the urge to return."

"I have some more questions for my brother regarding the goblin case I'm working on," Ron explained, feeling his ears go red.

Gabrielle was wearing a short sundress today and no shoes. There was something beautiful even about her naked feet. Her hair was wrapped in braids around her head again, like a crown. She was positively ethereal.

"It's really nice to see you again, so soon," she said softly, taking his hand in hers and guiding him gently to the sitting room. "Bill, Fleur, and Victoire are upstairs, putting some last minute touches on the new baby's room."

"It's, er, really nice for you to stay here and help them," Ron managed to stutter out. He was desperately trying to get a grip, reminding himself that she was part veela, just like Fleur, which was why he felt such a pull to her. Think of Hermione, he told himself stoutly, trying to clear his head.

"It does get lonely sometimes," she murmured.

Ron – who by his own admission, was a perfectly oblivious person – noticed her making eyes at him. What had he done to deserve the attention of a young woman this beautiful? No, he stopped himself there, she's part veela, which is the only reason you're noticing her – and you have Hermione. Still, it was hard for him to ignore the nineteen-year-old batting her long, dark eyelashes at him, finding excuses to touch his arm…

"I'll just go upstairs and see him, then," Ron announced, standing from his seat in the sitting room, his voice slightly cracking.

Ron forced himself up the stairwell toward the sound of his brother's voice, but not before he noticed the disappointed look on Gabrielle's face.

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"Teddy! No Teddy, don't…!" cried Harry, catching one of Andromeda Tonks's vases in the nick of time. Really, if he didn't have the reflexes of a Seeker, the vase would have broken.

"Thanks, Harry," Andromeda said gratefully, taking the vase and setting it on the dinner table.

Blue-haired Teddy ran though the room, screaming and wearing nothing but his bedsheet. Andromeda grabbed her grandson around the waist and hoisted him up onto her shoulder, where he shrieked with delight and laughed.

"Little scamp," she muttered fondly.

Harry visited Teddy and Andromeda most days. Andromeda had become very attached to Harry as she got to know him over the past three years. Teddy kept her head and her heart busy, making him indispensible to her following the loss of her husband, daughter, and son-in-law. While she hadn't spoken to either of her sisters in decades, their deaths were still painful to her, despite the relief she also felt in Bellatrix's case. Teddy was full of buoyancy; despite the hardships life had thrust on her, Andromeda could still laugh because of him.

"Harry!" Teddy exclaimed, reaching out to his godfather.

Andromeda passed her grandson to Harry, who took him happily. Teddy ripped Harry's glasses from his face and put them on, himself. Harry chuckled.

"Staying for dinner, Harry?"

"Thank you, I'd love to get away from wedding business for a little bit," Harry answered in the affirmative, tickling Teddy furiously. The little boy laughed loudly and attempted very unsuccessfully to fend off his godfather. "Ginny is swamped with wedding plans. That's partially why I'm here: I came here to see about Teddy acting as Ringbearer… and on another matter."

"Where Ginny?" Teddy demanded, the bedsheet falling completely off and leaving him nude.

"She's at home, you little exhibitionist," Andromeda retorted. "Now go find your drawing to show Harry. He will want to see it."

Teddy's eyes lit up and he raced, still nude, from the room. They could hear him tinkering with things in his playroom in search of something.

"You don't need to ask about Teddy being in your wedding, you're like a father to him," Andromeda said warmly. "You've watched him grow up while growing up yourself. But what is this other matter?"

"It's a difficult one to discuss," Harry admitted, "because it's about a time in your life I know you've tried to forget. I need to know if you can think of anyone that would have wanted your sister killed."

"I can only assume you mean Narcissa. Half the wizarding world wanted Bellatrix dead."

"I do. We still haven't caught Narcissa's killer. I now have reason to believe there is someone trying to harm her son."

Andromeda's brow furrowed, "It's hard for me to say. As you know, I was disowned by my family when I married Ted. It was dishonorable in the extreme for a pureblood to lower themselves to marry a Muggle."

"I know," Harry apologized. "I wouldn't be asking if I had any other leads. It's a cold case, as she's been dead for over two years, but someone killed her in such a way as it would be most likely for her son to find her body, which he did…"

"Draco found Narcissa first?" Andromeda demanded sharply.

"He did."

Just then Teddy came racing back into the room with the drawing he had done earlier that day, to show his godfather. His hair was a bright orange now. He'd inherited his ability to change his features from his Metamorphmagus mother.

"That's great, Teddy," Harry praised, genuinely meaning it. It was very clearly a three-year-old version of Teddy himself and his grandmother. "You know, I think you could be an artist someday."

Teddy occupied Harry and Andromeda for a few more moments before they were able to resume their conversation. "I never knew Draco was the one to find his mother's body."

"Yes. One of the house elves notified the proper authorities. The Auror office was called in because Draco originally refused to release her body for examination."

"Oh dear…"

"It was clear she was murdered. It wasn't the work of the Avada, either. I wasn't on the case then since I was only a rookie, but whoever had done it, did it the Muggle way."

Andromeda's eyes went wide. "You mean… they…"

"Stabbed her to death, yes," Harry confirmed. His green eyes flashed in concern, "Does it bother you to hear?"

"It does bother me," admitted Andromeda, "but I will listen. I need to know more now you've begun telling me."

Harry nodded. "She was murdered in her bedroom. There was a clear sign of a struggle, but the killer was clever and left no trace of their identity that could be discovered by magical means. It was clearly premeditated. They…" Harry paused here, clearly at the part of the tale that most disgusted him, "they cut her throat and used her blood to write a word on the mirror in the room: justice."

"Justice," repeated Andromeda sadly. The pair were silent for a moment before she wondered, "But justice for what?"

"That's the question. The Malfoys were never what anyone would consider to be an innocent family... but none of the other murders committed by those attempting to avenge their loved ones on Death Eaters' families were ever so brutal. We had suffocations, spells, and the occasional poisoning. This was an entirely new level, clearly committed by someone with a thirst for violence."

"Poor Draco," murmured Andromeda. She'd never spoken to her nephew, but she could imagine how he must have felt upon finding his mother's destroyed body in his own home.

Harry nodded in agreement, despite his rocky past with Malfoy. "No one deserves to come home to that."

"As you said, it could be related to War crimes," Andromeda began slowly.

Harry had come to know Andromeda very well over the past few years of visiting with Teddy, so he noticed the speculation in her voice that another might have passed over. "But there is something else you're thinking about as well."

"Well…" she began, "don't you put too much stock in this, mind. I doubt if either Lucius or Draco ever knew this about Narcissa, but when she was a teenager she entered into a relationship with a boy her age, unbeknownst to our parents. I was the only one she ever told; Bellatrix was never able to keep a secret. When I ran off with Ted, the boy convinced Narcissa that it was the perfect opportunity to tell her parents of their intended union. Narcissa didn't know she'd already been promised to Lucius Malfoy."

"What happened?"

"Well, if there's something you need to understand about pureblood marriages, it's that they're binding in more ways than just legally. It's a magically binding agreement as well. You can't just back out because you're in love with someone else. She had no choice but to break it off with him and marry Lucius."

"That must have been decades ago. What made you think of him now?" Harry wondered.

"Because Perseus Lestrange is exactly the type of man to wait decades for revenge."