I do not own Harry Potter.
Author's note: I know some of you are quite sensitive to Harry and Ginny fighting so fair warning there is a fight between them at the end of this chapter.
Harry spent the next two weeks enacting Ron's plan for keeping the older witches safe. Hogwarts had sent all the kids home the day after the kidnappings and Harry himself had had to speak at many a press conference to update the public on the case. He was growing weary of the whole thing and was playing around with an idea in his head. He knew it was crazy but he was literally running out of options to find these girls. He braced himself before entering the Minister's office…
"Harry," the Minister nodded and motioned to the chair in front of his desk.
Harry was somewhat surprised by the terse greeting but he supposed the Minister must be under a tremendous amount of pressure to find all these girls.
"Sir, I had an idea of something we could try to find the girls. It's a long shot and it's out there, but I wanted to see what you thought."
The Minister sat back and looked at Harry severely before he said, "Well, let's hear it."
Harry took a deep breath before he began, "I want to go undercover. I want to try and set up a contract to purchase one of them."
The Minister chuckled before he asked, "Don't you think you might have a bit of a hard time, what with you being you and all?"
"I'd be disguised."
"Don't we already have Aurors undercover trying to do just this?"
"Yes, but…"
"But what? Harry, you need to be established as a certain type of wizard to break into this case undercover. You're better off just leaving it to the guys that are already undercover."
"I understand that Sir, but that's not the whole plan. I want to go undercover as an assistant to a Dark Wizard. Someone that has name recognition and will be able to break down these walls for us."
"Dare I ask who this Dark Wizard will be?"
"Lucius Malfoy."
"What? You can't be serious, Harry! Lucius Malfoy is still in Azkaban. In fact, you put him there over 25 years ago. He is not eligible for parole so how exactly do you think this is going to happen?"
"I know, just hear me out. We make a deal with him, his freedom in exchange for helping us find these girls. I'll stay with him 24/7 and act as his assistant. But the catch is that we make it appear he broke out of Azkaban. Because if he suddenly gets paroled no one will believe he's still dark. If he breaks out and is a fugitive that will work in our favor. Everyone knows the Malfoys still have tons of money so they'll know he has the money. Plus after all that time in Azkaban no one will be surprised when he starts asking around for a witch to occupy his time with."
The Minister gaped at Harry in shock for several minutes before he said, "It's a huge risk."
"Yes."
"There's no guarantee it will work."
"No, there's not."
"But it's so crazy that it just might …"
"Yeah, I reckon it might."
"How am I going to explain you disappearing from sight?"
"A variation of the truth. I wanted to spend more time following leads while staying close to my daughter at Hogwarts."
"Are you going to stay at Hogwarts?"
"Yes."
"Do you think Lucius will agree to this?"
"I'm going to do my best to convince him to."
The Minister sighed and looked at Harry for several minutes before he said, "Alright, go talk to Lucius and see if you can get him on board. I'll meet with my advisors and see how we can work this. Let's meet again tomorrow morning."
Harry smiled widely and stood, shaking the Minister's outstretched hand, "Thank you so much, Minister."
"I just hope it works Harry."
"Me too, Sir."
….
Harry spent most of the day trying to convince Lucius to agree but had no luck. Finally, having lost every shred of his patience he told Lucius to think on it overnight and left to go home. He was still deep in thought, as he took off his cloak and shoes in the front hallway of his house when he heard a very familiar screech, "HARRY JAMES POTTER, WHERE ARE YOU? HAVE YOU COMPLETELY LOST YOUR MIND?"
"Hermione?" questioned Harry, moving towards the floo in the living room.
"What's going on?" asked Ginny coming out of the kitchen, moving towards the living room.
Hermione stormed across the living room and actually pushed Harry back several steps as she ranted at him, "Are you bloody insane? What on earth are you thinking? Oh, never mind, you're not thinking! Well, are you going to answer me?"
Harry could hear the kids come running down the stairs and knew they were all standing there watching this. He sighed and asked, "I take it you heard my plan?"
"Heard about it? I've been trying to talk the Minister out of it all bloody day! But he seems to think it's the best idea we've had so far!"
"Well, it is!" snapped Harry, angrily.
Before Hermione could reply, Ginny interrupted and asked, "Would either of you care to explain to me what's going on? It seems only fair since you're in my home."
Hermione looked appropriately chastised and apologized, "Sorry, Gin."
Harry groaned and sat down on the couch heavily before he said, "I'm going undercover."
"Excuse me?" asked Ginny, absolutely gob smacked.
"I'm going undercover. When the kids go back to Hogwarts Monday, I'm going with them. I'll be staying at Hogwarts as much as I can and working undercover the rest of the time."
Ginny stared at him incredulously for several minutes before she asked, "That's it? You weren't even planning on asking me what I think? You're just going to go off undercover for who knows how long and you don't even bother to run it by your wife first?"
Harry squirmed under her gaze; she looked dangerous right now. She was clearly pissed off and in hindsight he probably should have talked to her about it first but he was going to do whatever it took to keep his daughter safe, no matter how upset it made his wife.
Hermione winced during Ginny's rant and decided to leave them alone. She grabbed some floo powder said a quick, "Got to go," and then flooed home.
Lily, James, Al, Scorpius and Hugo decided to retreat back up the stairs and out of sight, but remained in the hallway upstairs to see what transpired.
"Gin…"
"How long?"
"Excuse me?"
"How long do you plan on being undercover?"
"'I'm not sure."
"And it never crossed your mind to discuss this with me first?"
Harry looked away guiltily and said, "Gin, I'm sorry, but I'm doing everything I can to find these witches."
"And what about your own daughter? Who's going to protect her while you're off Merlin only knows where doing who knows what?"
Harry stood, angry at what she implied, "I told you I'm going to be staying at Hogwarts! Don't you dare imply that I'm not going to protect Lily! I will do whatever it takes to keep her safe!"
"So that's it then? Come Monday you're leaving with the kids and I won't see you again until this case is closed?"
There was something about how casual her tone was that made Harry's stomach drop, "Gin, don't be like this."
"Like what Harry?"
"Like I'm picking another woman over you. It's our daughter for Merlin's sake! Can't you see that I'm doing what needs to be done?"
Ginny snorted and said, "Please, Harry, I've put up with your other woman for the last 25 years. I've long ago given up on getting you to choose me."
"What the hell are you talking about?" asked Harry angrily.
Ginny rolled her eyes and ignored his question, instead asking, "How long am I supposed to be the good little wife Harry and wait for you? A year, like when we were kids? Two? Hmm?"
"I don't bloody know, Gin! Do you think I'm going to enjoy being away from everyone?"
"Not everyone! Just me! You're still going to see the kids at Hogwarts! And I bloody well know that you're going to still see Hermione!"
"What does that mean?"
Ginny snorted and turned and started walking towards the door.
"Where are you going?" demanded Harry, thoroughly pissed off.
"Out." snapped Ginny.
"Nice, Gin, real mature. We get into a fight and you're solution is to just leave?" snarled Harry.
"Don't you dare! You fucking hypocrite! I'm sick and tired of pretending you're not fucking her on the side! Sick and tired of acting like we have the perfect marriage!"
"Why do you keep saying that? I'm not fucking anyone on the side! Who do you think I'm fucking?"
"Don't insult me! I know you're fucking her! You've probably been fucking her since we were teenagers!" Ginny was in his face now, tears flying down her cheeks. "Why did you even marry me?"
Harry took a step back from her, completely horrified at what was happening, "Gin, I swear to you, I'm not sleeping with anyone else and I never have been with anyone else. You're my wife and I married you because I loved you."
Ginny wiped the tears off of her face and turned back towards the door, "Loved being the key word there, Harry. If you haven't been sleeping with her all this time, then I must not have been sleeping around all this time either." At that she opened the door and left, leaving Harry in complete shock.
The kids all stared at each other in silence for several minutes before Scorpius pulled Lily towards her room and the others followed.
"Are you alright?" asked Scorpius concerned.
Lily shook her head and said, "I don't know. Did that really just happen?"
"Yeah," replied Al, plopping down on the bed with a big sigh.
"Did Mum just tell Dad she was sleeping with other blokes?" asked James dumbfounded.
"I think she did," replied Lily horrified.
"Am I the only one that got the feeling Aunt Ginny was suggesting Uncle Harry was sleeping with my Mum," asked Hugo tentatively?
"I caught that as well," replied Rose quietly.
"But Dad told her he wasn't! He swore he wasn't sleeping with anyone else! Why would Mum assume he was and then sleep around instead of confronting him!" asked Lily, her voice rising in anger.
"This is completely mental!" said James.
"He could be lying," said Al quietly.
"What?" gasped Lily and Hugo at the same time.
Al shrugged and replied, "I'm just saying, he could be lying to Mum. Covering up and what not…"
"Al!" snapped James.
"He's not lying," added Lily vehemently.
"He's got a point," said Scorpius, wondering if he should continue, "I mean, what would admitting it do? Nothing, except make your Mum miserable. A Slytherin wouldn't admit it."
"My Dad's a Gryffindor, not a Slytherin!" snarled James.
"Actually…" said Al hesitantly.
They all looked at him curiously and he continued, "Dad told me the hat wanted to place him in Slytherin but he chose Gryffindor."
"What? You're joking? How come I never knew that?" asked James appalled.
"Because you were never worried about being sorted into Slytherin. First year, I was terrified I was going to get sorted into Slytherin and Dad told me about his sorting, told me if I really didn't want to be in Slytherin that the hat would let me choose. He said he had never told anyone about it except for Dumbledore."
"Wow." said Hugo.
Downstairs Harry stared at the door for several minutes unable to believe what his wife just said. He stumbled back towards the living room and poured himself a drink before collapsing on the couch. His thoughts were torn between why his wife was so adamant that he was sleeping around and whether or not she just told him she was. He kept replaying her words, since we were teenagers, in his head. Who was she referring to? He was close with many witches now but he was only close with two other witches when he was a teenager, Hermione and Luna. Harry snorted to himself, there's no way Ginny could think I'm sleeping with Luna, I mean I love the witch but she's not quite my type.
This left Hermione and here Harry paused thinking of a moment in a cold dreary tent in the middle of a forest during the war… the closest they had ever come to being more. Harry shook his head, but they weren't more. They had never been more. Even if sometimes I wished we were.
Harry immediately stood and refilled his drink. He realized he had been drinking quite a lot lately and wondered if he should be worried. Needing the distraction he finished his drink and tried to keep thoughts of what could have been out of his mind. The fact that he had never cheated on his wife and yet she thought he was carrying on an affair for the last 25 years was appalling. And what should he make of her departing words; I must not have been sleeping around all this time either? Was she just trying to get a rise out of him, trying to make him react a certain way? He wasn't sure. He sat back down and thought about the nights that Ginny had gone out without him. Was there anything unusual? Did she act differently? Were there excuses that didn't quite muster?
I'm the Head Auror for Merlin's sake, wouldn't I have been able to tell if my own wife was cheating? Frowning at that thought, he decided to move to his office, determined to make a list and scrutinize his memories until he knew one way or the other, no matter how long it took.