Chapter 49

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or NCIS or any of their characters. I do however own this story, I wrote it and I do NOT give permission for anyone to post it anywhere else. If you want to share it post a link.

-o0o-

Hermione wiped the sweat of her face and grimaced as Rose woke from her nap and started to cry. There was another thirteen minutes before she could safely put the potion in stasis and she couldn't afford to vanish it and start again. Rose would just have to wait. The baby continued to cry, and Hermione continued to try to finish this stage of the potion but her concentration wavered. It ended up taking an extra eight minutes and some expensive ingredients to counter the mistake she made. Finally able to put the potion in stasis, she collapse on to a kitchen chair for a moment before wearily going into the nursery to get her daughter.

"Why couldn't you sleep just a couple more minutes" Hermione asked the baby petulantly as she picked her up and changed her nappy.

The baby continued to grizzle so once she was clean and dressed Hermione sat in the rocking chair and started to feed, wincing as Rose's first tooth grazed her already sore breast. "You know if I could afford formula, you wouldn't be getting this, so make the most of it. Of all the things you could inherit from your father, you would get his never ending appetite" she grumbled. She closed her eyes and in spite of the discomfort was drifting off to sleep by the time Rose pulled off and resumed her grizzling. Hermione stirred and listlessly moved the baby to her shoulder and started rubbing her back. Rose burped loudly. "You get that from your father too" Hermione said kissing the side of Rose's head. "I love you baby girl but Mummy's got to finish that potion before George gets here to collect it and then get everything put away in time to make dinner for Daddy."

She got up tiredly and put the baby in the playpen under the hanging toy one of her aunts had bought her. Ron hadn't liked the idea of his child playing with muggle toys but he hadn't seen this one yet so hadn't told her to get rid of it and it kept Rose entertained better than anything else at the moment. She removed the stasis from the potion and had just finished pouring it into the vials when George arrived.

"You look dead on your feet Hermione, you should take tomorrow off" he said gently, putting the list of potions he had wanted for the next day back into his pocket.

"You need the potions and I need to earn the money" Hermione replied.

"Yes, and you'll have to take a lot more than one day off if you get rundown and make yourself ill" George retorted. "I can make the potions that I really need tonight and you are to spend the day resting."

He looked around the house, "And I mean resting not cooking and cleaning and shopping. I'll ask Mum to come and look after little Rose."

"George, no. I spend so little time with her as it is" Hermione protested.

"Hermione, seriously, you'll make yourself ill, and then Rose could get sick too. You need to spend some time looking after yourself.

-o0o-

Hadrian soon got used to juggling work and children helped by liberal use of his time turner. In fact, he even found time to enrol in college, Auror Clancy helping him to get into Georgetown to study muggle and magical law and runes. He'd found he enjoyed studying, especially now that he'd reached a level where he didn't feel ashamed of not already know the information.

Clancy was a little concerned about premature ageing with how much he was using the time turner but Hadrian reassured him that he still barely looked eighteen even though he was chronologically twenty-four and probably at least a year older than that due to his excessive time turner use since arriving in America. Tim was so much older than him and wizarding lifespans were so much longer than muggles that he didn't need to worry about it. He wondered whether having his magic bound affected Tim's life expectancy. He hadn't heard of American non-magicals living to be more than a few years over a hundred so he had to assume it did.

Teddy settled into kinder and made friends, most of the other parents accepted he and Tim as Teddy's parents though he'd had a couple of other mothers question how old he was and whether he was Teddy's brother. Thankfully nobody had assumed he was Tim's biological son. They'd received some strange looks when they revealed their true relationship but once people were convinced Hadrian was an independent adult and not being taken advantage off most people were happy to keep their curiosity to themselves.

Teddy's best mates, Troy and Ethan didn't even seem to notice anything odd in Teddy having two male parents. Ethan had a stepfather and stepmother himself though he did mention that he wished his two dads could be good friends like Teddy's dads were. Troy just thought it unfair that Teddy had two dads home so much of the time when his own dad was often only home late at night and on weekends. Both boys were impressed by the indoor play gym and the huge yard Teddy had to play in. Their parents were more impressed by the obvious signs of understated wealth indicated in the large immaculately maintained house and garden so they were happy to let their sons go to play.

Tim and Hadrian liked both the boys and were happy that their son had made friends though it meant being careful that no sign of magic could be found on the ground floor of the house and the elves had to stay out of the way and let Hadrian or Tim fetch the boys their afternoon snacks.

Hadrian and Tim found Troy's mother and Ethan's mother and stepfather to be friendly, they didn't meet the other parents for some time and when they did they weren't impressed. Ethan's stepmother became obviously uneasy when she heard that Hadrian and Tim were both federal agents though she tried to pass it off as concern for the safety of her stepson, and Troy's father was overly impressed with the house and basically ignored Hadrian, trying to cosy up with Tim until Tim laughingly informed him that Hadrian was the one with the money.

Tim subtly had Ethan's stepmother investigated but didn't find anything other than the fact she'd been questioned and cleared of involvement when her father and uncle were arrested for racketeering. Nothing to make them wary of Teddy and Ethan's friendship. Tim and Hadrian preferred that the children met in places that could be under their control, the other mothers were grateful for the extra time off and Barbara was happy to supervise three boys for a couple of hours in the park or at their house so the friendship progressed well.

-o0o-

Over the next couple of weeks in his free time, Tim did what computer searches he could to investigate what was going on in PGC's south London offices to result in the drop in profits Gringotts was reporting. He didn't find anything. There was no rise in maintenance or other expenses listed, the buildings were reported to be very close to full occupancy with a surprisingly small turn around between one tenant leaving and the next moving in, though there was less movement than Tim would have expected from the experiences he'd had leasing apartments himself. The building managers all reported things were going well and their receipt books indicated that the rents were still being paid. In fact, Tim noticed when comparing the rent receipts and expense claims that even before the goblin's noticed the drop in deposits there seemed to be money going missing somewhere before being deposited in Hadrian's account at Gringotts though the amount had suddenly increased just over two months ago.

Hadrian called Quincy who identified which elves helped with the maintenance on the buildings in south London and they confirmed that there were no unusual problems with any of the buildings. Hadrian was relieved to see that normal maintenance was still being carried out on schedule and the housing was in good condition. None of the elves had noticed anything wrong, though that didn't mean much in terms of the thefts because the elves didn't handle the money.

"At least the tenants haven't been affected" he said to Tim.

"No but if the thefts continue to escalate it will only be a matter of time before the South London PGC account doesn't have the funds to cover a major repair if anything does go wrong" Tim replied. "I think we have a year or two before it reaches that stage though, I'll keep an eye on it but I think you're going to have to go to Britain to get any further. I could put a block on the transfers but I'd rather not do that until we're there to catch the guy when he tries to fix it. That's the thing about thieves once they get comfortable and start thinking that nobody has noticed the thefts they start getting greedy and taking more and more believing they'll never be caught just because they weren't caught straight away."

"Thanks Tim" Hadrian replied smiling at his husband gratefully. He booked them into a nice but child and infant friendly motel in London for a month from now when hopefully Teddy would be settled enough in kinder that taking him out for a week wouldn't do much harm. Both Hadrian and Tim knew that eventually they would both be busy on cases that required them to travel at the same time, they didn't want to leave him or Rosie at home without at least one of them unless it absolutely couldn't be avoided.

-o0o-

Gibbs grumbled about giving Tim the week off, especially when he'd recently had leave and the others were all nearing use it or lose it status on their comp time but Tim did have the leave available and the director had approved it. In fact, the director had stood the whole team down for the week forcing them all to take time off.

Abby immediately started making plans for the week off, begging everyone except Tim to volunteer some days to the new habitat for humanity project. Tim noticed the omission but wasn't bothered by it. Even if he hadn't had plans to go to London he would prefer to spend his time off with his family.

Gibbs and Tony noticed and both gave the woman the cold shoulder for trying to play games. She should have known better. The bullying and harassment lectures they'd all been forced to sit through because of her actions would have labelled the behaviour 'bullying by exclusion' and as such was technically a breach of her probation. Gibbs, Tony and Ducky all carefully sounded out Tim to make sure he genuinely wasn't upset by the technical analyst's behaviour. If he had shown them even the slightest hurt, they would have reported her to Vance. Instead Tim was glad not to be harassed into helping out with the project, he'd enjoyed doing so in the past but he had no desire to spend out of work hours with the overly cheerful goth and he was grateful not to be punished by her for already having plans and turning her down. Having confirmed that Tim wouldn't be hurt if he did help out, Gibbs agreed to spend a couple of days helping out with the carpentry tasks in the building, Tony on the other hand took the opportunity to catch up with a couple of Frat buddies he hadn't been able to visit in a while and Ziva elected to extend her leave and go home to Israel for two weeks.

-o0o-

Hadrian had offered to take Barbara with them to England but Barbara declined, happy to have the time off to visit her family. Instead Tollie and the elves would come and look after Teddy and Rosie. He hadn't wanted to risk staying in any of the Potter or Black properties for fear that someone had set up notification wards to alert them if he visited. So they'd booked into a hotel and arranged for Quincy to check out each property and make a list of what wards needed updating and what maintenance needed doing urgently as well as to provide memories of the houses so they could choose one to update for personal use and which if any they wanted to turn into apartments to rent. Hadrian was all for totally gutting Grimmauld place and turning it into muggle apartments. Sirius had hated the place so much and he would have loved the idea of sticking it to his ancestors by turning it into a muggle house.

They settled into the hotel and left the children to sleep off the portkey. Casting glamours on himself and Tim he showed him Diagon Alley.

Tim loved the look of the olde worlde shopping district and they spent a couple of hours exploring the shops before heading to Gringotts. They met Sharprock in his office and he gave them what little extra information he had managed to collect. The one thing he had managed to confirm for them was that the money want being deposited in any other Gringotts account or vault. It was going missing in the muggle world and apparently it was staying there. Hadrian thanked Sharprock for his assistance and the two men headed back to the hotel not noticing that the wards on Gringotts had negated some of their glamours, just enough to be recognised by someone who knew them very well.

Hermione noticed the man who looked and moved a lot like Harry walking towards the leaky cauldron as she stepped out of the apothecary. She wanted to follow but reminded herself that Rose was alone at home sleeping and that she needed to finish the potions before Fred came to pick them up. She attempted to cast a tracking charm, but watched it miss hitting a nearby man and cursed to herself. Still looking at the two of them laughing together she realised the man knew Harry and might know where he was.

Hadrian didn't notice the tracking charm hit Tim but he had already warded the motel room against them anyway and they reached the apparition point and apparated back to the motel. They debated going out for dinner somewhere but Rosie was still grizzly and unsettled from the portkey so they ended up calling room service and having an early night. The room had a great view of London and after the children were sleeping again Hadrian cast warming charms on himself and his husband and they cuddled up on the swing chair out on the balcony talking quietly.

"I see what you mean about being hundreds of years behind" Tim said amused. "Even the historical villages in the US seem modern by comparison. I see why you weren't that interested in them."

Hadrian laughed. "Yeah, they were a bit too self-consciously theatrical too."

"What I don't understand is that Diagon Alley is in the middle of London, how do people not notice witches and wizards coming and going. There were a lot of children running around, they couldn't have apparated could they? When you told me the wizarding world was hidden I thought it would be in the middle of nowhere?"

"The British have another system of transport called a floo. It connects fireplaces and turns them into a sort of portal. Most of the people in the Alley today have never gone through the Leaky Cauldron into the rest of London" Hadrian explained. "And to be honest the Alley was probably in the middle of nowhere when it was built."

"Why would they isolate themselves like that? When it's so easy to walk from one world to the other" Tim asked.

"They're told that there's nothing worthwhile in the muggle world and there's stories about how frightening the muggle world is. The road outside the cauldron is busy and for someone who's never seen a car or lorry before let alone have any understanding of road rules it is a very dangerous place. It only takes one person coming back with a story about nearly getting killed for whole families never to go out again. Besides you've met Hannah and Neville, other than what Neville was forced to learn about the non-magical world for work neither of them had any interest in it."

That sort of lack of curiosity was surprising to Tim, that a whole community was happy to ignore the outside world was totally incomprehensible. Even the Amish knew that curiosity needed to be satisfied and sent their young adults out to experience the world for a year before coming back to commit themselves to the Amish community, but the wizarding world had managed to stifle that curiosity for generations. He wondered how they'd done it. Had they somehow succeeded in breeding out curiosity and risk taking behaviour? Unlikely since Hadrian seemed to have both of those traits in spades. From what he said though his curious nature had come from his mother whose parents weren't magical, and he spoke of his friend Hermione as the brightest witch of their generation and she hadn't been born to magical parents either.

"How do they stop the kids and teenagers from trying to get out and seeing what they're missing?" Tim asked.

"You know, I don't know?" Hadrian said thoughtfully. "I would have thought that more students would want to, but it was the same with the forbidden forest at school, very few students ever went in there until the war. We weren't even given details why we shouldn't only that it was too dangerous."

"And was it dangerous?" Tim asked.

"Well it was mostly the Acromantula, the man-eating spiders the size of a lorry that are the real problem" Hadrian said grinning. "If you know enough to stay away from them and not to insult the centaurs it was probably safe enough except on the full moon."

"Let me guess, you weren't one of the vast majority that did what they were told and stayed out of the forest" Tim deadpanned.

"What can I say. If it helps, I always had a good reason" Hadrian replied.

Tim laughed ruefully. "Do you think that curiosity has been bred out of them?" he asked.

"Perhaps but the Weasley twins would have to be the two most curious individuals on the planet and they're purebloods. "Hermione used to say she was sure that basic common sense and logic were absent from the thought process of most witches and wizards. They never seemed to realise that just because they could do something with magic didn't automatically mean that they should. Magic prevents them from a lot of the consequences for their actions too so long as they don't actually kill themselves, so between that and the fact they aren't taught any form of critical thinking or evaluation and judgement at school most wizards don't learn to question what they're told.

"Other than Sarah, is there anyone you want to visit while we're here?" Hadrian asked.

"No, last time I was here was for a book tour, I didn't have time to make friends" Tim replied. "We are still on for dinner with Sarah tomorrow night?"

"Yes, I would have made it today so you could spend as much time as possible with her but I was worried about how the kids would cope with the portkey" Hadrian replied.

"Yeah, good decision" Tim said looking through the glass door to the two children sound asleep in the hotel room. Hadrian had cast stasis spells on their uneaten dinner.

Hadrian laughed.

"I wouldn't mind catching up with Neville" Tim said. "Get him to show me some of his world."

Hadrian smiled. "I'd like that too but maybe right before we leave. Once Hannah knows we're here then everybody and their dog will know."

Tim laughed. "You don't have enough faith in her, she was horrified when she realised you were in hiding for my protection and she promised not to even try to find out where we were living,"

"Yeah because even she doesn't trust herself to keep it secret" Hadrian countered.

"I'd also like to see Hogwarts if that's possible" Tim said.

Hadrian frowned thoughtfully, "We could go to Hogsmeade and you could see it from a distance. I don't know if the wards will let us into the castle grounds without informing the professors."

Tim nodded. "Is there anyone else you want to see?"

"I wouldn't mind catching up with Hermione" Hadrian replied. "I'd rather go while Ron's at work because I'm not sure how he'll react. We probably should leave that until we're ready to leave the country too."

"Before or after seeing Neville and Hannah?" Tim asked.

"After it will take more time for Hannah to spread the news than Hermione to tell her husband and him to tell his family" Hadrian replied. "Quincy also wants to meet me a couple of places to make some decisions about non-essential maintenance of the properties I don't currently lease out."

"Are there many?" Tim asked surprised. "I thought you had converted the house you live in into flats and leased them."

"Yes, though I kept the top floor for personal use, which considering that I was afraid to take you and the kids there in case someone had warded the area to alert them to my presence now seems a bit silly" Hadrian replied. "But apparently there's a couple of other houses that have come from other lines of the family that have been closed up for a couple of decades that need some work."

-o0o-

Tim and Hadrian arrived at the PGC East London office and were greeted with some surprise and wariness which quickly turned into welcoming grins when Hadrian explained that they were having trouble with one of the other offices and wanted to see exactly how a well run office did things before meeting with the manager in question. They happily showed Tim through their computer records while the manager showed Hadrian the map of what properties were managed and their condition and occupancy reports.

-o0o-

Hermione was ignoring her crying baby and rushing to get through the potions that Fred had told her were the most urgent so she could try to find Harry. She'd warned Fred she was taking the afternoon off and had arranged to leave Rose with Molly. She only hoped that Harry was actually with the man she managed to hit with the tracking charm and it hadn't just been a friendly conversation with a new acquaintance who had no idea where Harry was staying. Finally finished the potions she packed them up, grabbed the small vial of truth potion she'd managed to brew and headed out. It wasn't Veritaserum but it should work on most wizards and it wasn't like she was going to try to use it on Harry. She expected that it should be enough to get the other wizard to tell her where Harry was.

She apparated to the Burrow and tried to calm down the now screaming baby, she checked her quickly to make sure she hadn't been splinched but she was okay just upset by the sensation so she cuddled her into her shoulder and rubbed her back trying to calm her, cringing when Rose threw up all the way down her back.

"Hermione?" Molly came rushing out. "Why on earth didn't you use the floo?"

"We didn't have and floo powder" Hermione admitted blushing. "Besides that usually makes her throw up too."

"Yes, but it is much less dangerous than apparating with a baby" Molly scolded. "If you'd floo called I'd have sent some through to you, or you could have used the public floo at the Leaky Cauldron."

Molly took the baby and Hermione spelled the two of them clean. "Thanks for having her this afternoon" she said to her mother-in-law.

"No problem, she's such a little darling and so quiet" Molly replied. "You know it would be no trouble for me to have her more often."

"I know" Hermione replied non-committedly. "I'll pick her up before six."

"You and Ron should come for dinner" Molly countered. "I see so little of you all lately. And you're both so thin, you need a good feeding up."

'What I need is a husband who earns enough money on his own that I don't have to spend all day brewing potions and then half the night sneaking about to catch up with the housework. And money for formula so I can wean the baby' Hermione thought to herself sourly. "Okay then I'll see you tonight" she agreed. At least it was one meal she didn't have to buy or cook though the constant criticism she expected from Molly about the way she treated the woman's son was a high price to pay for a night off."

A/N: Thank you to Guest, Kourtney Uzu Yato, Guest, julschristine975, Kaorilamb, charm13insomnia, lia (Guest), redstickbonbon, Maben00, GenkaiFan, ABreathAwayFromWhereYouAre, Rori Potter, DarkRavie, lilly-flower15, xDarklightx, .9, mithrilandtj, Love life and Have fun, Keedra2173, madnessdownunder2, Fallow53 (Guest), buterflypuss, flying chrissy 1976, DS2010, acherongoddess, Firehedgehog, Village-Mystic, serenityselena, sifshadowheart, Silvermane1, Reader Ethiriel, MageVicky, KarisTasogare, gabrieljuarezl, NightshadeDreams, dobbys-stinger, Merlenyn, Sahara83, Thunderfran, becstar152000, Booksbear, ttchmelancon1993, angelswords, sammimcintosh98, kurlz, Inoue Orihime15, Asher's Angel, kalira100, EUREKA STRIKER ALPHA, Sway132073, Kami0110c, dwamena2012, Erinyen, BeepKeeper, , nanami9097, fbeast79, dragonfox123, Hammenterprises, Waiting ON a wish, Rychu I guess, sugaraddict99, anathimakapela, tammarahfowler1, RiderAlex, julesa66, green-eyed storywriter, animexyaoi, PurpleWitch25565, HoneyOrchid, A Chilly Panda, mephistopholes, Sulamithe, She Who Cannot Be Turned, , Pheonixs1518, Twin Kats, Beyond the Shadows Edge, thaliasama, Mangy, Orlliv, FlameLover2, Yyy66y, MamaB, LUVStomfelton, 1999, KarisTasogare, GentryGreen, AshidaReiko, Nobuyuki27, Usaka, aria9627, WolifQueen, tigerkisa, K8 Bee and Zyrieen for your support.