Author's Note: After some time of being unable to log in to my account, I've managed to get back in. Chapter Seven is complete and will be posted as soon as I have time; Chapter Eight is nearing completion. Enjoy!

Augusta

Chapter Six: A Bundle of Letters

Hermione had said that Katherine Mendoza would be approaching Ron with her offers soon, but she hadn't defined what 'soon' was. It didn't take Ron long to find out. She came marching into the Burrow as if she owned it at six-thirty the next morning, before Ron was even properly awake. He thought that the Wizengamot wouldn't convict a man who murdered his lawyer when she came yelling at him while he was half-asleep, but he managed to keep himself from testing the theory. Barely.

"Hermione's going after you with every resource she has," Mendoza said flatly. "She's gotten Mary Kennedy as her lawyer."

"Who's Mary Kennedy?"

"My worst nightmare, in a courtroom."

"I thought you were the best at what you do." No one could have missed the challenge in those words. Mendoza certainly didn't. Her eyes flashed angrily.

"I am, Weasley," she said. "But Mary has one asset I don't. She's from an old pureblood family with powerful connections. I'm from a pureblood family, but the Mendoza name doesn't carry much weight here in England. In Spain and parts of America, yes. In London and Edinburgh, no. The Kennedy name will win half of the battle for her."

"I don't give a damn what your last name is or where it carries weight," Ron said, feeling the old frustration at pureblood name-tossing. It was stupid, all of it. "I want my kids and preferably a roof to live under. If you can do that for me, I don't care if you're a Mendoza or a cross-eyed Clabbert. Actually, I don't much care anyway, but you know what I'm talking about."

Mendoza picked up her briefcase and opened it. "Yes," she said, with astonishing bitterness. "I do. I know what you're talking about." She paused, as if to collect herself, and Ron couldn't help but wonder what lay in Mendoza's past that would make her react so. She didn't let whatever it was bother her long, though. "At any rate," she said stiffly, "Here's Hermione's offer." She threw an official-looking document in front of him. Ron looked at it, but it made no sense.

After a few minutes, he looked up at Mendoza. "I have no idea what this is saying." That admission was almost painful, but it had to be made. If he didn't know what the offer was, he couldn't negotiate around it.

To his amazement, Mendoza didn't mock his lack of knowledge about legal matters or make some biting comment about stupid men not understanding the most basic things. Instead, she actually smiled. This woman has passed 'weird' a long time ago and was on the verge of crossing the barrier out of 'strange' into 'outright loony'. "It's written in fancy legal language, but it's pretty straightforward," she said. "You retain the house and all lands. She's willing to settle for full custody of Helena and Nicolas. Sarah and Adam would be yours."

"Her name's not Sarah," he said automatically. "It's Chloe." He couldn't process what Mendoza had just said. "Sarah was Hermione's mother's name. Mrs. Granger was still alive when Chloe was christened, so we never called her Sarah. She's always been called by her middle name-Chloe." There was no way Hermione could be serious.

"Whatever." Mendoza clearly couldn't care less what one of the assets to be divided was called. If he wanted to call his second daughter Chloe, Sarah, or a tea kettle, it didn't matter to her. She was a businesswoman doing what she was being paid to do. This was just another case for her to try to work out. As long as she got her money, she didn't give a damn what happened to his kids. And she wasn't going to any pains to hide it, either. "It's in your best interests to settle now," she said. "If you try to strike another deal, you'll probably end up losing everything-the house, the kids, all of it. Those are the best terms you're going to get."

"Tell Hermione to go to hell the next time you see her, Mendoza. Has she lost her mind? We're not talking about the bank account. The bank account won't care if it's split neatly down the middle. Lena and Chloe and Adam and Nicky will. Hermione's a very smart woman, Mendoza. Unless she's finally lost her wits, she'll know that it would devastate the four of them to be split up. We're Weasleys-we stick together. And don't even get me started on what it would do to Chloe and Adam. Do you know how old they are, Mendoza?"

"No. What does that have to do with anything?" The woman was genuinely confused. She really didn't get it. Mendoza was like Hermione in that-all book intelligence and no feeling. He knew that was unfair, but he didn't care. Being fair to Katherine Mendoza and Hermione was not high on his list of priorities.

"Chloe's eight and Adam's seven. You look like you're about my age, so you should be able to remember being eight, at least. What would you have thought if your mother said out of a blue sky, 'oh, I want your sister but I don't want you.'?"

"It wouldn't bethe same thing," Mendoza said, sounding extremely defensive for some reason. "My mother wasn't mentally ill."

"Two things, Mendoza. First, it wouldn't matter if Hermione was completely out of her tree, not to an eight-year-old and a seven-year-old. They're not old enough to grasp the concept of being mentally ill. All they would understand is that their mum wants Lena and Nicky but not them. Second, do you really expect me to cheerfully hand over two of my children to someone a lawyer, a bona fide member of that politically correct secret society of automatons, describes as mentally ill?"

"Better than-" Mendoza began, but she was cut off as the door was flung open with such force it bounced off the wall and Ron felt sure it would come unhinged. A tall woman came all but running in. Ron had never laid eyes on her in his life, and she didn't seem to notice that he was even there.

"Thank God you told Eugenia where you were going, Kate," she said, sounding out of breath. "I might never have found you, and this can't wait."

Mendoza's eyebrows were trying to disappear into her hair. "It's going to have to," she said. "I'm in the middle of a meeting with a client."

"Yeah, Hermione's husband. Kate, listen to me.Anne and-" for the first time, the woman glanced at Ron and changed what she had been ready to say. "He married her," she said flatly. "No idea why. They finally tossed convention to the winds and got married. Private ceremony, only them and the priest and that Longbottom couple-Neville and that girl he married."

Mendoza stared. "No," she whispered, sounding stunned. "I thought it had been dealt with!"

"So did I. Come on, we have to see how much damage control we can do." She grabbed Mendoza by the arm and pulled her out the door before Ron could get as much as a word in.

"If that wasn't weird," he muttered finally, "I don't know what is." It was then he noticed that Mendoza had forgotten her briefcase. He started to close it, and that was when part of the backing fell out, sending a bundle of letters tied together with a faded ribbon tumbling out onto the table. They came to rest right-side-up, which was how he saw Hermione's handwriting. Why would Katherine Mendoza have letters from Hermione hidden in a secret compartment of her briefcase, especially letters that looked old?

They weren't all from Hermione, though. There were several handwritings he didn't recognize, some with Ginny's handwriting, three that looked like Amelia, and, at the very back, Harry's familiar cramped script. He was about to put them back where they had been when the word 'Weasley' jumped out at him from a scribbled note that fell out of the bundle:

Weasley twins dead. Potter alive, barely. Would finish job, but Gringotts is less guarded. All my fault. Tell M.K. I won't screw up again. E.M.

Weasley twins dead. He knew about that. Potter barely alive? That was something new. And what job? Who were M.K. and E.M. ? A fragment of his and Harry's last conversation came back to him.

'I had an...accident...a few years ago, all very covered up, no press. My memory's been messed up ever since.' If this note was anything to go by, it had been no accident. It had been a murder attempt. And, inexplicably, Fred and George seemed to have been targets as well.

People wanting to kill Harry was something Ron could get his head around. After all, people had been wanting Harry dead since he was born, if not before. But Fred and George? They were successful businessmen, admittedly, but not on the level where, at that time, murdering them would have been as important as murdering Harry in those circles where people found getting Harry out of the way to be important. It didn't make sense.

"Who are you, Mendoza?" Ron asked the kitchen table, old conspiracy theory instincts trying to resurface. "Who are you and what did you have to do with killing my brothers?" The table didn't answer, and neither did Katherine Mendoza. He sat down and untied the ribbon around the letters. To hell with laws and courtesy. If Mendoza was up to something or had been, he was going to find it out. He wasn't going to be the next one with a price on his head.