Author's note: As always, characters and places mentioned belong to JKR and Warner Bros. with the small exception of Glin, Sadie, Tracy, Marigold, Sheridan and a few others. Thanks to my loyal reviewers, and if you like this, please join the discussion group! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WAiSaD Guesses as to final pairings may be posted there, as may questions for clarification. ~TGP
The four humans and one cat had gathered around the circular oak table in Remus's breakfast nook. Tracy sat in the center, with Remus and Sadie on either side of her, with McGonagall sitting next to Remus, and Charlie sitting next to Sadie.
They'd been through a large stack of the photographs, and were dividing them into piles of "unknown," "dark arts," and "harmless."
The image Tracy had just put in front of them was of a light blue sphere. It looked kind of like a crystal ball, only opaque rather than clear.
"This one has us baffled. It appears to be under some sort of enchantment, but we're not entirely sure what." She pointed to the sphere in the photograph. "See here, it appears to glow, but it's not under any sort of illumination charm. After a few minutes in the dark, the glow fades away."
Lupin leaned over the cat to look more closely at the image. "It's phosphorescent calcite," he told her matter-of-factly. "It glows bluish-white?"
"Yup," Tracy replied, not showing her astonishment. "But what's its purpose?"
"Let me look at the picture," Charlie said, mysteriously. Taking it from Tracy, he gazed at the image for a few minutes before proclaiming, "it's an Orb of Valhalla. They were used by the ancient Norse wizards to distract dragons. They were wholly unreliable, thus their use was discontinued." Curiosity was plain on all of their faces, and he delved further into his explanation. "The glow distracts the dragon, while a mild sedative aura is given off. It's not Dark Arts. I tried to secure one for the museum but they're extremely hard to come by."
"Right," Knight nodded, taking the picture back. "I'd ask Malfoy for the donation then, as you appear to be the only one in all of Europe who knows what one is." She flipped to the next photograph. "It appears to be just a bit of branch, but the magical readings on it are through the roof."
McGonagall gave a little gasp, or as much of a gasp as a cat can give anyway. "Owl the Ministry immediately. That needs to go under immediate protection and wards."
"Why? Is it really all that important?" Tracy asked, confused.
"It's an eighth of the Staff of the Sun. If all the pieces were ever reunited then it would destroy all magic. Is that important enough?" She asked sarcastically.
"Right." Tracy nodded. "Sadie, go owl Law and tell her all that."
Sadie muttered something, and pushed her chair out from the table.
"Gods, I love pissing her off," Tracy smiled evilly as soon as Sadie was out of hearing distance.
"Hmm?" Draco looked distractedly at Ginny.
Ginny rolled her eyes. He hadn't been listening to a thing she said. The best way to keep his mind off of Marigold's return was to keep him busy, she imagined. "I'm thirsty. Would you make me a cup of peppermint tea?"
"Sure, Love." He smiled indulgently, secretly glad to have something to take his mind off of his daughters imminent return. "Biscuit too?"
"That'd be lovely."
Draco hurried out of the room and to the kitchen, inordinately pleased that peppermint tea could take a great deal of time to prepare, if he really wanted it to.
Fifteen minutes later, re returned to the study, and the sight which greeted him made his heart leap into his throat. Marigold was there, sitting on Ginny's lap as if it were the one place in the world she truly belonged. She was wearing the little silver wizard robes Ginny'd helped him pick out before her departure, and he realized how much he'd missed sharing the magical world with his daughter.
"Ahem." Dumbledore coughed from his seat in one of the armchairs.
Marigold looked up from the conversation she'd been having with Ginny and noticed her father in the doorway. "Hello, Papa." She smiled, and he felt as if a great weight had been lifted off his shoulders. She looked happy. Truly and utterly happy without any of the dark shadows he'd seen so often lingering in her eyes. "I was just telling Ginny that Headmaster Dumbledore said I could go to Hogwarts and learn magic in a few years. He says I have loads of talent." She was practically beaming.
"Quite right, my dear," Dumbledore chuckled. "Now give your father a kiss and unpack your things so I can discuss grown-up things with Ginny and your father."
Marigold rolled her eyes and slipped off Ginny's lap. She kissed her father on the cheek and walked out the door.
"Now, then, let me tell you what I think quickly so you can get back to your reunion." Dumbledore told Draco. "Marigold is a very smart girl, and very magically adept. Children with great magical prowess often don't show any signs of it in infancy, and when they do, it's very abrupt. Her biggest problem is going to be control. You've heard the phrase 'power corrupts?'"
Draco nodded gravely.
"It's not necessarily true, but if she doesn't learn some magical discipline, she could very easily become corrupted. I'd suggest sending her to a magical elementary school, then to Hogwarts a few years early." He smiled. "On an upnote, it seems she's smart enough to distance herself from Miss Parkinson. She doesn't ever refer to her in any sort of familiar way, and I suspect she doesn't even really think of her as her mother. Normally, a child in Marigold's situation would develop attachment problems, but Marigold is a very resilient little girl. She seems to have a normal relationship with you, Draco, and is quite fond of Ginny. I suspect a marriage wouldn't bother her a bit."
Ginny's shoulders relaxed. She hadn't even realized that had been worrying her.
"I'll leave you now. I've promised to have dinner with Remus and Minerva." They all stood, and he gave Ginny a kiss on the cheek. "Take care, Minister."
She'd planned her dinner with Carlos as a celebration of her getting a modeling contract. It was supposed to be a good thing.
Somehow, Ron didn't agree. "Why can't you just be happy being a wealthy socialite?" He grumbled.
"Ron, I've just landed a modeling contract that every woman on earth would die for. I'm going to be getting paid outrageous sums of money to do something I love to do. Why is that a problem for you?"
"Because, you're mine, and I don't want all the world looking at you."
"That's always going to be the problem, isn't it," she sighed, wrapping her kimono closer around herself. "You can't seem to get it through your thick skull that I'm not a piece of property. I belong to me, no one else. People looking at me doesn't take anything away from you."
"But-"
"No buts, Ron." She went to rake her hands through her hair then thought better of it. She grabbed a mascara wand and began to darken her lashes. "We just don't work."
"What are you talking about," he said, exasperated.
She fished for a way to make it more clear to him. "It's like...it's like we're washers at a laundromat."
Ron stared at her blankly.
She put down the pot of lip dye she'd been about to apply. "At muggle laundromats there're all these washers. And there's always one or two of them that, rather than rumble around like a normal machine, do this spastic sort of shimmy. And everyone in the laundromat is staring at you like, 'that's the girl, the one who broke the washer,' and you want to explain to them. 'It wasn't me, it always does this,' but your clothes get clean, so you really don't mind overmuch. And then one day someone comes in and their washer does the same thing, and your not alone, but pretty soon, you are alone, because they've done their wash and they'll remember not to use that one again. Only you use the spastic washer time and time again, because there's nothing wrong with it, it's just different. D'you see?"
"Not so much," Ron said helplessly.
"It's a metaphor, Ron," she said jadedly, beginning to apply eye shadow.
"Are we the people, or the washers?" Ron queried. "Ooh- are we the clothes?"
"We're the people, Ron," she said tiredly. "I've finished my load, and I'm leaving the laundromat."
"Why do I have to have the spastic washer for the rest of my life?"
"It's irrelevant."
"But-"
"FINE! I'll take the spastic washer. You leave. It doesn't matter either way."
"When I'm left with the spastic washer it matters," he grumbled.
At this point, Glin made a loud, nonsensical, exasperated noise, clueing Ron into the fact that it was probably time to leave.
He looked out over the city from the tinted windows of the office's high rise, at the tiny people bustling about their business below. The office was positioned in a muggle portion of town. Things were better that way, better if the people walking past the big steel building didn't read too much into the symbolism of a man who lived and worked at the top of a black tower.
Antonio gave a contented sigh, and leaned back in his chair, folding his hands behind his head. Things were going much better than he'd hoped. His existence in this world, her world, hadn't been questioned at all. She not only accepted him, she respected him, which would make things harder in the long run, he supposed. But watching her illusions about the world become shattered as she learned to obey him without question...it was going to be fantastic.
He'd heard about her temper from Fleur, had expected her to snarl when he provoked her. She had, which wasn't terribly surprising. It was the heat of her anger that astonished him. The way her cheeks and neck became ever-so-delicately flushed as adrenaline worked its way though her body. The way her deep, blue eyes flashed at him, communicating her rage. The way her pale gold locks fanned out as she spun her heel and turned away from him. The way she stood, with her head slightly tilted upwards, because she knew her own worth. It made his mouth water just to think about her...
"Mario," he said telepathically. "I'm feeling absolutely famished. Send in something rare."
"Harry, you don't have any qualms about going with a vest/tie rather than a cumber bund/bowtie, do you?" Padma asked as she directed a tape measure around Hermione's almost nude form.
"No, I don't think so," Harry replied distractedly as he watch the measuring device zip up Hermione's thigh.
"Good Hermione and I much prefer them to the bow tie scenario," Padma explained. "Vests are so much more sophisticated and I can't even fathom how much trouble bowties would cause for the lot of you."
"Mhmm..." Harry continued eyeing the wily tape measure. It was currently zipping towards...
Padma's hand. How unutterably disappointing.
"Your turn," Hermione said, jumping down from the stool she'd been standing on.
Harry laughed. "Very funny."
Both women looked at him curiously.
"You've got to be kidding me! I'm not going to have some magical measuring tape running all over my nearly naked body..." The didn't seem to be swayed. "It's inhumane! Degrading! A violation of the very worst kind!"
"And it's my wedding," Hermione barked. "Take off your robes!"
"Can't I just measure myself?" He whined.
"Really Harry," Padma said with a shake of her head. "You've only got three months. You can't avoid this much longer."
"Three?" Harry squeaked.
"We had six months from our engagement. You proposed Christmas day in the ice cream store. Today is March 25th, so we've got three months left exactly," Hermione explained. She smiled indulgently, the same way one would smile at a stubborn child. "Now Harry, won't you please do it for me?"
"I guess," he grumbled, unfastening his robes.
Leaning over, Ginny brushed a small kiss over Marigold's cheek. The girl stirred slightly in her sleep before snuggling deeper into her pillow. Ginny had decided to check in on the child before crawling into bed with Draco. He'd retired earlier because it had been a long day, what with moving back into the Manor and Marigold returning.
A pair of arms curled around her from behind, and a voice husky with sleep whispered in her ear. "Come to bed."
She settled back into Draco's warmth, but continued to watch Marigold sleeping.
"Did you ever think about having another child?" She asked, the words tumbling out of her mouth before she even thought them.
"After Marigold... No." He replied brusquely.
"Oh," she replied, her heart skipping a beat as her body tensed slightly.
"Not with Pansy," he responded hastily.
"Oh," she said, understanding dawning upon her as they walked down the long hallway to his bedroom. "And what about with someone else?"
He took her in his arms when they entered the room. "No."
"Oh."
His nose brushed against hers in an Eskimo kiss. "There's no one else but you. Ever. Only you." He kissed her softly, punctuating the words. "Only with you."
Charlie had just settled down onto the leather couch in his office with dinner.
"Dinner" was a cup of vegetable soup. He'd planned to just eat when he'd returned to his flat, but at around seven, lo-and-behold, his stomach had started to protest. The day had been spent making an inventory card for every item in the museum. He'd had a couple of the newer Hogwarts graduates interested in dragon-keeping help him do it, and the whole task had taken only around twelve hours.
Now came the time to organize the inventory cards, and being the understanding fellow that he was, he'd sent the interns home. It wasn't fair to expect them to spend 18 hours working on what was, perhaps, the least interesting aspect of dragon-keeping, ranking even below dung shoveling.
A knock came on the door. He stood to answer, then stopped when he realized that there was something more than a little odd about someone knocking on his office door after the museum had closed for the night.
Setting his soup down, he grabbed a weapon and flung the door open.
"What, you were going to brain me with the lamp?" Tracy said in disbelief.
Charlie looked at the lamp in his hand. It had looked much more menacing when he was being attacked by some faceless Death Eater, not Tracy Knight. She was standing in his doorway, wearing an outfit that appeared to be comprised entirely of black spandex and utility belts.
"Erm..." He set the lamp on the table. "How did you get in here?"
"A. I'm an Auror," she said condescendingly. "B. You think I wear a grappling hook for fun?" She motioned to the coiled rope and hook that were on the utility belt.
"Oh," said Charlie, hopelessly confused. "I suppose not. Why're you here?"
"Well 'hello' to you to Mr. Manners," she chastised. "Malfoy says you can have this." She pulled the Orb of Valhalla out of her knapsack and tossed it to him. "Heads up!"
Charlie grabbed the ball out of midair. "This is a very expensive artifact. What if I hadn't caught it?"
"Please," she said derisively. "You act like we're mere acquaintances. I know everything about you, Charlie Weasley. Every embarrassing little detail. I wouldn't trust you if I didn't."
"What exactly do you mean by 'every embarrassing little detail?'" Charlie asked, his cheeks flushing.
"I know you had a terrible crush on Elizabeth Montgomery who was a class ahead of you and didn't even know you existed. I know you asked her to the 6th years prefects ball. And I know you were turned down."
"That was ages ago," Charlie remembered.
"'Ages ago...' Sounds kind of like your last date..."
"Were you thinking of fixing that for me?" Charlie queried shyly.
Tracy leaned over and captured his mouth with hers.
The four humans and one cat had gathered around the circular oak table in Remus's breakfast nook. Tracy sat in the center, with Remus and Sadie on either side of her, with McGonagall sitting next to Remus, and Charlie sitting next to Sadie.
They'd been through a large stack of the photographs, and were dividing them into piles of "unknown," "dark arts," and "harmless."
The image Tracy had just put in front of them was of a light blue sphere. It looked kind of like a crystal ball, only opaque rather than clear.
"This one has us baffled. It appears to be under some sort of enchantment, but we're not entirely sure what." She pointed to the sphere in the photograph. "See here, it appears to glow, but it's not under any sort of illumination charm. After a few minutes in the dark, the glow fades away."
Lupin leaned over the cat to look more closely at the image. "It's phosphorescent calcite," he told her matter-of-factly. "It glows bluish-white?"
"Yup," Tracy replied, not showing her astonishment. "But what's its purpose?"
"Let me look at the picture," Charlie said, mysteriously. Taking it from Tracy, he gazed at the image for a few minutes before proclaiming, "it's an Orb of Valhalla. They were used by the ancient Norse wizards to distract dragons. They were wholly unreliable, thus their use was discontinued." Curiosity was plain on all of their faces, and he delved further into his explanation. "The glow distracts the dragon, while a mild sedative aura is given off. It's not Dark Arts. I tried to secure one for the museum but they're extremely hard to come by."
"Right," Knight nodded, taking the picture back. "I'd ask Malfoy for the donation then, as you appear to be the only one in all of Europe who knows what one is." She flipped to the next photograph. "It appears to be just a bit of branch, but the magical readings on it are through the roof."
McGonagall gave a little gasp, or as much of a gasp as a cat can give anyway. "Owl the Ministry immediately. That needs to go under immediate protection and wards."
"Why? Is it really all that important?" Tracy asked, confused.
"It's an eighth of the Staff of the Sun. If all the pieces were ever reunited then it would destroy all magic. Is that important enough?" She asked sarcastically.
"Right." Tracy nodded. "Sadie, go owl Law and tell her all that."
Sadie muttered something, and pushed her chair out from the table.
"Gods, I love pissing her off," Tracy smiled evilly as soon as Sadie was out of hearing distance.
"Hmm?" Draco looked distractedly at Ginny.
Ginny rolled her eyes. He hadn't been listening to a thing she said. The best way to keep his mind off of Marigold's return was to keep him busy, she imagined. "I'm thirsty. Would you make me a cup of peppermint tea?"
"Sure, Love." He smiled indulgently, secretly glad to have something to take his mind off of his daughters imminent return. "Biscuit too?"
"That'd be lovely."
Draco hurried out of the room and to the kitchen, inordinately pleased that peppermint tea could take a great deal of time to prepare, if he really wanted it to.
Fifteen minutes later, re returned to the study, and the sight which greeted him made his heart leap into his throat. Marigold was there, sitting on Ginny's lap as if it were the one place in the world she truly belonged. She was wearing the little silver wizard robes Ginny'd helped him pick out before her departure, and he realized how much he'd missed sharing the magical world with his daughter.
"Ahem." Dumbledore coughed from his seat in one of the armchairs.
Marigold looked up from the conversation she'd been having with Ginny and noticed her father in the doorway. "Hello, Papa." She smiled, and he felt as if a great weight had been lifted off his shoulders. She looked happy. Truly and utterly happy without any of the dark shadows he'd seen so often lingering in her eyes. "I was just telling Ginny that Headmaster Dumbledore said I could go to Hogwarts and learn magic in a few years. He says I have loads of talent." She was practically beaming.
"Quite right, my dear," Dumbledore chuckled. "Now give your father a kiss and unpack your things so I can discuss grown-up things with Ginny and your father."
Marigold rolled her eyes and slipped off Ginny's lap. She kissed her father on the cheek and walked out the door.
"Now, then, let me tell you what I think quickly so you can get back to your reunion." Dumbledore told Draco. "Marigold is a very smart girl, and very magically adept. Children with great magical prowess often don't show any signs of it in infancy, and when they do, it's very abrupt. Her biggest problem is going to be control. You've heard the phrase 'power corrupts?'"
Draco nodded gravely.
"It's not necessarily true, but if she doesn't learn some magical discipline, she could very easily become corrupted. I'd suggest sending her to a magical elementary school, then to Hogwarts a few years early." He smiled. "On an upnote, it seems she's smart enough to distance herself from Miss Parkinson. She doesn't ever refer to her in any sort of familiar way, and I suspect she doesn't even really think of her as her mother. Normally, a child in Marigold's situation would develop attachment problems, but Marigold is a very resilient little girl. She seems to have a normal relationship with you, Draco, and is quite fond of Ginny. I suspect a marriage wouldn't bother her a bit."
Ginny's shoulders relaxed. She hadn't even realized that had been worrying her.
"I'll leave you now. I've promised to have dinner with Remus and Minerva." They all stood, and he gave Ginny a kiss on the cheek. "Take care, Minister."
She'd planned her dinner with Carlos as a celebration of her getting a modeling contract. It was supposed to be a good thing.
Somehow, Ron didn't agree. "Why can't you just be happy being a wealthy socialite?" He grumbled.
"Ron, I've just landed a modeling contract that every woman on earth would die for. I'm going to be getting paid outrageous sums of money to do something I love to do. Why is that a problem for you?"
"Because, you're mine, and I don't want all the world looking at you."
"That's always going to be the problem, isn't it," she sighed, wrapping her kimono closer around herself. "You can't seem to get it through your thick skull that I'm not a piece of property. I belong to me, no one else. People looking at me doesn't take anything away from you."
"But-"
"No buts, Ron." She went to rake her hands through her hair then thought better of it. She grabbed a mascara wand and began to darken her lashes. "We just don't work."
"What are you talking about," he said, exasperated.
She fished for a way to make it more clear to him. "It's like...it's like we're washers at a laundromat."
Ron stared at her blankly.
She put down the pot of lip dye she'd been about to apply. "At muggle laundromats there're all these washers. And there's always one or two of them that, rather than rumble around like a normal machine, do this spastic sort of shimmy. And everyone in the laundromat is staring at you like, 'that's the girl, the one who broke the washer,' and you want to explain to them. 'It wasn't me, it always does this,' but your clothes get clean, so you really don't mind overmuch. And then one day someone comes in and their washer does the same thing, and your not alone, but pretty soon, you are alone, because they've done their wash and they'll remember not to use that one again. Only you use the spastic washer time and time again, because there's nothing wrong with it, it's just different. D'you see?"
"Not so much," Ron said helplessly.
"It's a metaphor, Ron," she said jadedly, beginning to apply eye shadow.
"Are we the people, or the washers?" Ron queried. "Ooh- are we the clothes?"
"We're the people, Ron," she said tiredly. "I've finished my load, and I'm leaving the laundromat."
"Why do I have to have the spastic washer for the rest of my life?"
"It's irrelevant."
"But-"
"FINE! I'll take the spastic washer. You leave. It doesn't matter either way."
"When I'm left with the spastic washer it matters," he grumbled.
At this point, Glin made a loud, nonsensical, exasperated noise, clueing Ron into the fact that it was probably time to leave.
He looked out over the city from the tinted windows of the office's high rise, at the tiny people bustling about their business below. The office was positioned in a muggle portion of town. Things were better that way, better if the people walking past the big steel building didn't read too much into the symbolism of a man who lived and worked at the top of a black tower.
Antonio gave a contented sigh, and leaned back in his chair, folding his hands behind his head. Things were going much better than he'd hoped. His existence in this world, her world, hadn't been questioned at all. She not only accepted him, she respected him, which would make things harder in the long run, he supposed. But watching her illusions about the world become shattered as she learned to obey him without question...it was going to be fantastic.
He'd heard about her temper from Fleur, had expected her to snarl when he provoked her. She had, which wasn't terribly surprising. It was the heat of her anger that astonished him. The way her cheeks and neck became ever-so-delicately flushed as adrenaline worked its way though her body. The way her deep, blue eyes flashed at him, communicating her rage. The way her pale gold locks fanned out as she spun her heel and turned away from him. The way she stood, with her head slightly tilted upwards, because she knew her own worth. It made his mouth water just to think about her...
"Mario," he said telepathically. "I'm feeling absolutely famished. Send in something rare."
"Harry, you don't have any qualms about going with a vest/tie rather than a cumber bund/bowtie, do you?" Padma asked as she directed a tape measure around Hermione's almost nude form.
"No, I don't think so," Harry replied distractedly as he watch the measuring device zip up Hermione's thigh.
"Good Hermione and I much prefer them to the bow tie scenario," Padma explained. "Vests are so much more sophisticated and I can't even fathom how much trouble bowties would cause for the lot of you."
"Mhmm..." Harry continued eyeing the wily tape measure. It was currently zipping towards...
Padma's hand. How unutterably disappointing.
"Your turn," Hermione said, jumping down from the stool she'd been standing on.
Harry laughed. "Very funny."
Both women looked at him curiously.
"You've got to be kidding me! I'm not going to have some magical measuring tape running all over my nearly naked body..." The didn't seem to be swayed. "It's inhumane! Degrading! A violation of the very worst kind!"
"And it's my wedding," Hermione barked. "Take off your robes!"
"Can't I just measure myself?" He whined.
"Really Harry," Padma said with a shake of her head. "You've only got three months. You can't avoid this much longer."
"Three?" Harry squeaked.
"We had six months from our engagement. You proposed Christmas day in the ice cream store. Today is March 25th, so we've got three months left exactly," Hermione explained. She smiled indulgently, the same way one would smile at a stubborn child. "Now Harry, won't you please do it for me?"
"I guess," he grumbled, unfastening his robes.
Leaning over, Ginny brushed a small kiss over Marigold's cheek. The girl stirred slightly in her sleep before snuggling deeper into her pillow. Ginny had decided to check in on the child before crawling into bed with Draco. He'd retired earlier because it had been a long day, what with moving back into the Manor and Marigold returning.
A pair of arms curled around her from behind, and a voice husky with sleep whispered in her ear. "Come to bed."
She settled back into Draco's warmth, but continued to watch Marigold sleeping.
"Did you ever think about having another child?" She asked, the words tumbling out of her mouth before she even thought them.
"After Marigold... No." He replied brusquely.
"Oh," she replied, her heart skipping a beat as her body tensed slightly.
"Not with Pansy," he responded hastily.
"Oh," she said, understanding dawning upon her as they walked down the long hallway to his bedroom. "And what about with someone else?"
He took her in his arms when they entered the room. "No."
"Oh."
His nose brushed against hers in an Eskimo kiss. "There's no one else but you. Ever. Only you." He kissed her softly, punctuating the words. "Only with you."
Charlie had just settled down onto the leather couch in his office with dinner.
"Dinner" was a cup of vegetable soup. He'd planned to just eat when he'd returned to his flat, but at around seven, lo-and-behold, his stomach had started to protest. The day had been spent making an inventory card for every item in the museum. He'd had a couple of the newer Hogwarts graduates interested in dragon-keeping help him do it, and the whole task had taken only around twelve hours.
Now came the time to organize the inventory cards, and being the understanding fellow that he was, he'd sent the interns home. It wasn't fair to expect them to spend 18 hours working on what was, perhaps, the least interesting aspect of dragon-keeping, ranking even below dung shoveling.
A knock came on the door. He stood to answer, then stopped when he realized that there was something more than a little odd about someone knocking on his office door after the museum had closed for the night.
Setting his soup down, he grabbed a weapon and flung the door open.
"What, you were going to brain me with the lamp?" Tracy said in disbelief.
Charlie looked at the lamp in his hand. It had looked much more menacing when he was being attacked by some faceless Death Eater, not Tracy Knight. She was standing in his doorway, wearing an outfit that appeared to be comprised entirely of black spandex and utility belts.
"Erm..." He set the lamp on the table. "How did you get in here?"
"A. I'm an Auror," she said condescendingly. "B. You think I wear a grappling hook for fun?" She motioned to the coiled rope and hook that were on the utility belt.
"Oh," said Charlie, hopelessly confused. "I suppose not. Why're you here?"
"Well 'hello' to you to Mr. Manners," she chastised. "Malfoy says you can have this." She pulled the Orb of Valhalla out of her knapsack and tossed it to him. "Heads up!"
Charlie grabbed the ball out of midair. "This is a very expensive artifact. What if I hadn't caught it?"
"Please," she said derisively. "You act like we're mere acquaintances. I know everything about you, Charlie Weasley. Every embarrassing little detail. I wouldn't trust you if I didn't."
"What exactly do you mean by 'every embarrassing little detail?'" Charlie asked, his cheeks flushing.
"I know you had a terrible crush on Elizabeth Montgomery who was a class ahead of you and didn't even know you existed. I know you asked her to the 6th years prefects ball. And I know you were turned down."
"That was ages ago," Charlie remembered.
"'Ages ago...' Sounds kind of like your last date..."
"Were you thinking of fixing that for me?" Charlie queried shyly.
Tracy leaned over and captured his mouth with hers.
