Author's Notes: I am entering my worst, absolutely worst, work weeks. Think tax seasons for accountants. I'm still working and writing, but scheduling may be a little off. I'm enjoying the two part chapters as it's easier to get them out faster, so I hope you are, as well. Theoretically I will be able to post part one of chapter 78 by the end of the month, but it may go into the beginning of November.

Thank you Arnel for beta'ing!

If you want to see more from me, please check out my pa treon account. Sarah Jaune
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter

"Dad!" Nat squealed with delight as she threw her arms around her father and held on tight as he lifted her into the air.

"My girl," he said with very obvious affection.

It made something squeeze tight in Harry's chest to watch the two interact. His own girl was younger than Nat, and already having her own baby. He didn't get to pick her up and swing her about anymore. He didn't get to do a lot of things he thought he'd be able to do with her. He had hoped to have a lot more time with her as his little girl. Instead, he'd needed to hand her over to Scorpius to keep her safe, to keep her whole. It had been the right decision and he didn't regret it for a single moment, but he had pangs, now and then… alright, more often than he wanted to admit. He didn't have his baby girl anymore.

Yes, he had granddaughters now and they were an absolute joy. He had more of them on the way, as well. He was going to be surrounded by a lot of little girls who even now run to him and throw themselves in his arms. But it wasn't the same as his own little girl. "Well," he said, pasting on a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, "Let's get dinner and talk through everything."

Harry had spoken to Curtis earlier and they decided they had to get Nat's help on looking at the virus, to confirm it wasn't magically made. "We're going to take you to the hospital tomorrow," Harry explained to Nat. "Audrey has a sample of the virus separated and we need to make sure there isn't any magical tampering in it."

"What will you do if it is magical?" Nat asked him curiously as she cut into her steak. "I mean, you can't find her or stop her."

"It's a good question," Curtis said, turning to him. He thanked Ginny for the glass of wine before she sat next to Harry. "How do you handle it if you figure out it's a magically made virus?"

Harry took his wife's hand under the table and ran his thumb along the back of her hand. He wasn't sure if he was trying to sooth her or himself, but it was probably a combination of both. "If it's magically made, then we can intervene," Harry told them carefully. "With what Crabbe is doing to women, it's mostly magical women, so we don't have as many hoops to jump through. There are stricter laws to intervention in the Muggle world. We have cures to diseases they have but we can't offer them up because the cure is magical. That kind of thing just isn't done. It puts us at risk for exposure, which is something we do not take a chance on." He took a deep breath and studied the ceiling for a moment. "However, if she's doing this and we can prove it's a magical virus, then we have a chance to intervene. We can work on a cure and if we can make that cure look enough like a Muggle medicine then we can get it out to the world."

"You don't seem convinced," Curtis said thoughtfully.

"He doesn't know how to prove it's a magical virus without me," Nat told her father and Harry nodded. Nat's sigh spoke volumes to what had been going on the last few years. "They need to protect me and we can't have it seen as though they have an insider source of knowledge on magic that otherwise wouldn't be detectable."

"Ah," Curtis said shortly. Harry knew he understood and appreciated Harry's reticence on exposing Nat. "This is quite the dilemma," he said after a moment. "We have millions of people dying and likely to die from this virus, but if we expose Nat, she dies."

"I'm willing to take the risk," Nat told him honestly, "But if she goes hard after me, I'm likely to be dead soon and then they'd have no way of healing the women who are being poisoned."

"We've had this argument before, many times," Harry assured Curtis. "She's an adult and has control over her own life, but her abilities make her literally irreplaceable."

"Not to mention," Ginny said with a short kick to his shin, "That we love Natalie and want her to be safe."

"That goes without saying," Harry told his wife with a grin. "But there are some practicalities that have to be put aside when we're dealing with family. I have to send Teddy out into the world constantly where his life is at risk. I don't want to, because I love him, but it's his job. I will have to do the same thing for Al in a few years. It's all about weighing the risk verses the rewards."

Ginny rolled her eyes and grabbed her glass of wine, taking a large swallow. "I know you're right, but I don't like it."

"No one likes it," Nat told her earnestly. "I don't like it."

Harry went to bed that night with Ginny in his arms and wondering what, exactly, the next day was going to bring.

It brought a dour Hermione who met them in the private area of the hospital that Audrey had set aside so Nat didn't have to remain hidden. Even though the area was supposed to be secure, he still brought Teddy along with them. He didn't know how Hermione had learned about what they were doing, but she simply shook her head when she saw him and didn't say a word.

"I have the sample set up with a Muggle microscope," Audrey explained to Nat. "We have it isolated so you can see it."

"Alright," Nat said as they all walked into the room with the virus. The microscope, itself, was inside of a magical bubble that Harry knew was used to keep Muggle contaminants isolated from the room. But they eye pieces for the microscope were sticking out of the bubble.

It looked odd; very, very odd.

Nat must have thought so because she let out a small giggle before moving over to see into the eye pieces.

Harry held his breath and felt like Curtis was doing the same at his place next to Harry.

Nat straightened and turned to them with a grimace. "It's magical."

"Damn it!" Audrey exclaimed at the same time Hermione said, "Seriously?!"

Teddy, who was standing by the door keeping an eye out, let out a long sigh. "Does that mean it can infect magical people?"

That was a very good question, but when Harry turned to Audrey, she was shaking her head. "We've tested it. It isn't jumping to magical humans. We observed it first in people we knew were accidentally exposed, and then when that failed to net any results, we tested it on a few volunteers. It's been repeated all over the world. If you're magical, you can't catch it. I only have it in that bubble because Curtis is here and he's at risk."

"I appreciate that," Curtis assured her. "But this opens up a whole other can of worms."

Harry crossed his arms and stared down at the floor and tried to think of what they could do, but Audrey didn't seem as stuck as he was at the moment.

"How magical is it?" Audrey asked Nat as she went to study the sample herself.

"It's very subtle," Nat assured her. "I don't know much about viruses, but I've seen them on slides before and I've never seen them with magic in them. This one has something. I can't even begin to tell you what it would make the virus do."

It was Hermione who responded. "That's not on you, Nat. We have to figure out, now, how to tell the world it's magical. We have to figure out how we figured it out without you."

"Then we figure out what it's doing and how to stop it," Audrey assured her. "The fact that you can see it's magical is more than the rest of us can see." She turned back to Hermione. "I wonder if we ran it through…"

She kept going but it was too technical and as often happened with his sisters, he tuned them out. They had to come up with something for them to go on. Harry's job was the implementation.

"We could just come at it from a Muggle perspective," Teddy told Harry thoughtfully. He glanced over to Curtis. "Maybe we can come up with something that would pass under their notice for the oddities."

"You clearly don't know the internet," Curtis said with a short laugh. "Nothing gets by people. If there is an irregularity, the internet sleuths will sus it out."

Nat shook her head but grinned. "He's right. You two don't know the internet. It has to look absolute legitimate or the Muggles won't buy into it. We need them to accept what we're saying at face value."

"That doesn't leave us with many options," Harry pointed out. "We need the magical world on board so we can get a cure made quickly. If we have the entire world working on the cure, we have a good shot of getting something done and made quickly."

"Yes, releasing it to the magical world makes sense," Nat agreed. "And just tell them you know it without saying how if you don't want to. You're already doing that with the poisoned women."

By the end of the day, they didn't have to say anything. Harry contacted the head Auror in America, Louis Kingston, who had the young man there with Nat's same ability look at the virus. He saw the magic, as well, and the Americans announced to the world that the virus was magical and they needed to figure out a way to cure the Muggles.

It should have been as simple as that, but within hours of the Americans announcement, they had to move the young man, Patrick Hassel, to a safehouse. He was attacked at school and managed to kill three of Crabbe's henchmen, or men they assumed were her henchmen, but it was deemed to be unsafe for him to remain at the school.

The school was primarily concerned for the safety of the other students, and not Hassel's welfare. He had handled himself admirably. Auror Kingston admitted Hassel to the Aurors early, waving the requirements for school, and said they would start his training now.

"We have another Dumbledore," Teddy said with a whistle as he read the report Kingston sent over to them.

"It appears we do," Harry agreed with a grin. "Hopefully, he's just as wise as Dumbledore."

"You have to make a lot of stupid mistakes before you can get there," Teddy reminded him. "Lots and lots of stupid mistakes… but still, having someone else that powerful will only aid us."

People had thought, at one point, that Harry might be like Dumbledore. Right after the war they'd looked to him to be the same type of leadership and power. But Harry had never been that powerful and he never would be that powerful. He was only an ordinary man with a lot of tenacity and a decent amount of power in defense. At one time he'd wanted to have that level of power. He'd, naively, thought it would make everything easier to be awed and revered for that power. He'd have been able to stop every bad person who came through their world.

But as everyone always said, with great power came great responsibility and in the end that had the potential to lead to more problems. Dumbledore had had his share of problems and his great power hadn't stopped him from being harassed by the likes of the Ministry during Harry's fifth year. It had kept people either in awe of him or afraid of him or jealous of him… sometimes all three at once.

"I'm glad it isn't me," Teddy told him, echoing the exact thoughts that Harry, himself, was having. "But I would like to meet him."

"I was having the same thought," Harry admitted and pondered that for several days while the most brilliant minds in the magical world came together to figure out just how a virus had been turned magical and better still, what they could do to solve it. By the end of the first week, they had many dead in the Muggle world and no good answers.

The virus could be obliterated with magic by relatively simple means. It only needed fire and it was gone or alcohol to kill it with Muggle forms of purification. But that didn't help them, in the slightest, when it came to curing the actual body of the virus or stopping it in its tracks.

"She's going to be coming up with a vaccine," Curtis explained as they continued to try to work through the problem. "If she's going after the money, and we have to assume that she is, then a vaccine sold for every person is going to be the way to go about it. There are untold amounts to be made from it and since people are losing their children, they're going to be willing to pay anything to get the cure to keep them safe. If she has the vaccine already, then it couldn't have been too difficult."

"I think our biggest problem is that we don't have vaccines, as it were," Harry admitted grimly. "So none of our best thinkers really has an understanding of them unless they were Muggle-born."

They were sitting around a conference room in the Ministry with a few of the older witches and wizards who had retired and were brought back in to help brainstorm. Hermione was coordinating with many of the other ministries across the globe and everyone was trying to get there. In a situation like this, it could have been very easy for the person who came up with the cure to hoard their knowledge and try to claim riches or credit. It was something they'd all worried about that first day, but the magical community had absolutely astonished Harry in the cooperative effort that each and every person was bringing to the table.

It was possible, even probable, that someone was hiding what they were doing, but a network had been set up by a Swiss chap to facilitate communications between everyone, which meant sharing any ideas or breakthrough that came their way. The parchment was practically steaming with all the notes that were being scrolled through for the researchers.

It wasn't hard to see why. By now everyone had seen the Muggle papers and now even the magical papers reporting on all of the dead… especially the children. It wasn't something any good, decent human being could stomach with any kind of conscience. Ministries and governments had given their staff full leave to ignore other projects to focus on this problem and many different private companies had done the same. If there was a person who had ability but no resources to research, the funding was found.

"We still have nothing," Nat said later that night as she read through what all had been done. "We still don't know how to cure the people or prevent it from spreading."

"We don't, yet," Harry agreed as he tried valiantly to hide his bitterness. He wanted there to be fast, reliable answers to all of their problems and for them to have a solution before millions of children, all over the world, had to die. He thought of his grandchildren and what it would do to him to lose them to an illness he couldn't see or fight. It was a helpless, enraging sensation and he wanted to stop it for everyone.

He knew what it was like to live in fear for his children. He knew what it was like to lay in bed and stare up at the ceiling, unsure of what the next day might bring and if someone was going to harm his kids.

He knew what it was like to have his child harmed, targeted… it was the worst feeling in the world, absolutely beyond description. He didn't want anyone else to feel that way.

But there simply wasn't much he could do at that moment.

The next day brought something rather unexpected. Daniel knocked at his office door and told him he had a visitor and in walked Louis Kingston, the American Head Auror, followed by a beefy youth. He was about six feet tall but probably a good fifteen stone of solid muscle. His hair was brown and cut short and his eyes were a piercing blue that reminded Harry vividly of Dumbledore's gaze. But it wasn't his appearance that had Harry taking note. The power that radiated off of the young man was palpable. He'd only been in the presence of magic that intense when he'd known Dumbledore and it hadn't made the impression on Harry when he was younger that it did today.

This kid was… unbelievable.

"Louis," Harry said holding out his hand to shake. "It's good to see you again. I take it this is Patrick," he said turning to the young man and holding out his hand. It practically vibrated from the power radiating off of the young man's skin.

Patrick's grip was firm and solid as he met Harry's eyes. "It's Rick, sir. It's nice to meet you."

"Rick," Harry agreed. "It's good to meet you, as well. Please have a seat," he offered to the two as he also resumed his seat. "What can I do for you two?"

Kingston suddenly looked decidedly nervous. "Recruit Hassel requested this meeting with you," Kingston explained slowly.

Powerful, or not. Well-connected or not… it was not actually done for a magical recruit anywhere to request, and be granted, an audience with a Head Auror from another country. Harry knew Kingston knew this and saw the man's discomfort. Why had he brought him? He'd have had to jump through more than one hoop to get Rick Hassel here and for what? Why had he agreed to the young man's request?

Hopefully, this wasn't a sign of bad things to come. If Kingston was already cowering under Hassel's obvious power, there were going to be major problems for the young man in the future. He needed to have boundaries, respect, and the ability to stay in the lines of proper society. Hadn't Voldemort, himself, been someone who flouted the rules, time and time again, and thought that the world's edicts were beneath him? What if they had another one just like that on their hands and Harry could already tell they would have one hell of a time trying to control him.

Kingston needed to say no…

Rick's next words stunned him into silence. "I saw a picture of your girl who is just like me."

Oh.

Suddenly, Kingston's clear anxiety made a lot of sense. He'd asked Kingston not to tell anyone about Nat or her abilities and here he was, bringing Hassel to see him because Rick had figured it out. Yes, that would make anyone uncomfortable.

"I want to meet her," Rick said carefully. "I think if she and I work together, we can enhance the virus to make it easier for our researchers to come up with a cure."

Harry let out a long sigh and sat back as he studied the young man. "Do you understand what you're asking of me?"

Rick glanced to his boss and then back to Harry. "I saw a picture of her in a paper. It was from your niece's wedding. The magic is something I can see in the mirror and it comes out of the page, even in a Muggle photo. I don't know if she can do that, but I can. I could see it and I brought it to Auror Kingston, asking him for this meeting. I think, maybe together, we can make it work."

Harry shook his head. "That's not what I mean," he explained carefully. "She's not like you. She's not able to defend herself."

A small look of irritation flicked over the young man's face. "I do not want her harmed! I will keep her secret and guard it with my life. I want to work with her. It's possible that, together, we can do what needs to be done."

Harry studied the man across from him, his still youthful face, his beard which didn't quite need to be shaved daily yet, and the obvious power… he wondered if he had the brains that Dumbledore did, or simply the power, and he didn't know; not yet anyway.

But he believed him. "I'm trusting you with her life," Harry said, pointing at him, "which means we do this my way."