In the core of the Ministry of Magic, there's a very muggle room: boring nude walls, dressing room with metallic lockers, mattresses; all in black and grey, all dusty. Not a single wand anywhere. Not a cloak, nor a tunic.

There's where Harry stands now, glassless, legs spread, hands clasped behind his waist; outfitted all in black, with clothes that cling to his muscled shape, he truly looks military. Before him, eleven new recruits, equally uniformed. Just a difference between mentor and trainees, apart from age: the magic bracelet near his left shoulder, barely noticeable as it's now part of his skin.

As usual, the young wizards remind him of his friends at their age –a team, really-, but at the same time, they don't. 'Did Ron look that clueless at age 20?' he thinks, frowning slightly as his gaze goes from a face to the other, instantly deciding that no member of DA did. By then, Ron had sacrificed himself to a magic chess to conquer the philosopher's stone, entered the chamber of secrets, been dragged by an enormous dog only to discover that his rat was an evil wizard… and as usual Harry can't understand why isn't his mate with the senior aurors now. But he has already gone through the same thread of thought for several years, so he's barely distracted by it.

"Your auror training requires physical skills as well" he states in potent voice. "Who can tell me why?"

A hand shoots to the ceiling, and warm memories from long ago fill him as he stares at the young female recruit in the first row. Her hair is swept into a ponytail so it won't get into her eyes, but it's undoubtedly bushy. The un-girlish expression is so familiar that he looks back and forth to his partner, quietly standing in the same posture as him a step closer than the recruits. For the first time he notices the passing of time: Hermione is fully flourished, elegantly so, settled in the eerie, ageless look witches are envied for, while the trainee's face is closer to that of a blooming teen; she reminds him more of the Hermione that was at his wedding, than Hermione herself. Not that the difference is all that noticeable, witches do live more than muggles.

"Auror…?"

"Granger" the girl completes. "We need physical skills so we won't be helpless once disarmed. Much like policemen train physically even if they have guns…"

Most of the recruits look confused at the comparison. They didn't grow up in a muggle environment.

And with that, Harry confirms her identity. Duham. Hermione's baby sister. (Their parents have a gift for names, apparently.)

"Very well" he refrains the urge to offer 'ten points to Gryffindor'. "I assume you have trained before."

The recruit smiles self-assuredly.

"I earned some medals fighting the muggle way."

"Maybe you should come here and show us."

The young witch walks confidently to stand beside him and they both adopt their fighting stances. Hers is pretty good. 'I thought she would last more' he thinks a second later, having her immobilized and panting between his body and the mattress. He notices her hair is a rainbow of tones of brown, just like Hermione's. Her smell is, also, very similar to that of her sister –treacle tart and leather, with a touch of pumpkin, and something flowery underneath-; the leather part evokes book covers and libraries and wisdom. A sort of tenderness makes him smile as he stands and offers his hand to her. She looks rather pissed. She probably thought she would last some more, too.

Deviating his gaze to Hermione, he extends his magic to touch her gently, feeling her as just a partner can. It's a question. He asked sooner, but still… She was pretty injured just yesterday. But she projects her own powers decidedly. No way she'll let him pamper her.

"Now my partner and I will give you a demonstration" he announces as Hermione walks towards him, a professional expression in her eyes.

They adopt their fighting stances. The corners of his mouth move slightly upward as he looks into her warm eyes; ashamed as he feels every time she beats him in front of the new trainees, It's always a rush to try to fight her. And though she's wearing her best mask, he can see her own smile too, her expression of know-it-all, not that different once adapted to fit a combat. The silvery scars now tainting her face –result of a lifetime of fighting dark magic- don't spoil the effect. They move at the same time. He tries to punch her, but she evades; attempts to grab her, but she slides from his hands. Not once she beats him, even moving always to his right, favoring his left leg –the one injured during a mission years ago-. Yet, suddenly he feels that kick behind his other knee and is falling, and next thing he knows, she's sitting on his thighs, immobilizing his hands behind his back, all of her weight efficiently used so he can't move a muscle. He's aware of her slightly disheveled hair, her blushing cheeks and her panting, and of his own half-arousal –which he swiftly attributes to the adrenaline pumping through his veins–, before she stands and steps back, allowing him to breath. He doesn't wonder why he hasn't been able to breathe easily before, if she didn't put her weight on his chest. It's like that every time. He stands to face his trainees, which now whisper to each other and eye him dismissively; he has the distinct impression that they look down on him because he was beaten by a woman. As if that was an issue. Like each time, he demands:

"Next, all of you will come and try to beat me."

"At the same time" Duham confirms.

"Yeah."

After a moment's hesitation, all eleven of the new trainees fall on him.

He leaves out of combat each one of them quickly.

Hurt mainly in their pride, they stand again. A red-headed trainee rubs the back of his neck. A boy that physically reminds him of Neville, is privileging the right leg. Nothing a good night of sleep can't cure.

"That's the reason why you all will be here tomorrow at seven, and every day after that. You must have at least two hours of training before joining your mentors in their own assignments." He must raise his voice from the first sentence, as the general protest gets louder. "We'll all take turns at teaching and assessing your abilities. It'll still be a while before you join the Force as full trained aurors."

He stops paying attention, having just noticed the cloaked figure outstanding in his training chamber.

"Auror Potter" Luna's dreamily voice calls. "Auror Granger. May I interrupt?"

"Chief" he smiles. "The class is all yours."

Luna floats to the front.

"Now all of you will be assigned to a senior auror" the blond witch indicates, and starts reading the list.

Not one of the recruits make a comment. They all have heard about quiet water, and about Chief Lovegood's skills in battle. Harry no longer wonders what their class at Hogwarts would have thought of Luna's career.

He only pays attention once his name is mentioned. His look at Hermione is easy to interpret, and she rolls her eyes, aware that he hasn't heard why he has been named. She gazes at her sister meaningfully, a flash of pain in her eyes that don't have quite a lot to do with the present circumstances; he feels it in her soul, too, in the way her magic waves and turns blue under his gaze. The trainee has a big smile plastered in her face.

As Luna walks towards the exit, and before Harry speaks another word, she tilts her head one side, obviously listening to someone only she can, and turns.

"Buckbeack" she calls. The duet so named turns to her –Harry, straightening, as Hermione reaches his side- and waits for the order. Luna has extracted a piece of parchment and whispers 'Portus" pointing to it, before adding "Murder, two wizards and a witch, unknown responsible, rest of the team already there, perimeter assured, you may take the trainee if you want and she has the stomach". The blond woman eyes him before whispering: "there is a child, too". Harry's stomach turns, though this isn't new to them. Aurors fight dark wizards, and they tend to be less than nice.

Duham already stands by her mentor, her gaze daring them to tell her to stay, though Hermione can see also fear and thrill in her eyes. As soon as they all touch the portkey, the hook grasps them.

The place is lightened and dark –lightened by the morning sunlight, that as soon as goes through the French doors, is disfigured by a dark magic so thick that some of the personnel filling the scene is using lumos-. Cloaked technicians busily walk past them without as much as a gaze, others are levitating evidence into small isolating bubbles. Harry is mildly surprise of not having found himself in a dark alley somewhere, as usual. This must be one of the most beautiful manors he has ever seen. Art surrounds them in a twirl of classy history and bright colors. They all –commons- seem decidedly out of place here. And it reminds him of Malfoy Manor. Earthly and empathic senses extend instinctively to touch Hermione where she stands –right behind his elbow-. She feels as pale as she looks, but nods at him, and swallows. Behind her, Duham looks around, wide eyed and seeming too young and naïve to simply stay alive. She has never seen a real investigation from this close.

As he finds someone able to provide further information, he feels Hermione walking away, and almost reaches out for her. A worried gaze follow her to where she crouches, beside a sheet that visibly shelters several bodies. The darkness of the magic used on them makes his stomach turn, even from this far; he scratches his front distractedly as he wonders how young was the child, that the murder radiates so much sorrow.

"Two male and one female purebloods found dead this morning around 7" the officer informs, "as the house-elf readied the house for sale. Eviscerated alive. Spell unknown. All of them were supposed to be on Spain, where the man was moving with his family."

"Wealthy family."

The officer eyed him briefly.

"Everyone knows the Lefaye."

Harry nods. His lack of knowledge regarding the Wizarding World still lets itself be known at the worst possible moments.

"Signs of struggle?"

"Everything's clean and in order. As if an isolating spell had been used. There should be much more blood, I'd say. At minimum they used a tergeo. There's no bloodstains beyond the bodies' area."

"So no vodoo"

With dark magic dolls, almost anything can be done, but Harry has seen those scenes: the one responsible is generally not closeby for damage control.

"As far as we know… if there was a doll, she was taken. Or she's somewhere else in the manor. This place is enormous."

That doesn't say much. If the author was far, the doll was, too.

"Point of entrance?"

"Windows and doors, locked. And magical protections stand, no apparitions"

"Footprints?"

"The carpet is self-cleaning."

'Stupid fashion' Harry curses. 'If wizards knew how easy it is to kill someone over one of these and go off the hook…

"They might as well have left a suicide note" the officer goes on, obviously thinking in the same line, "but they weren't that nice"

"Who saw them alive for the last time?"

"We haven't found anyone having exchanged with them a word in weeks. They were a bit paranoic?

"Anything else?"

The man shakes his head. He looks almost green in the eerie light, and maybe because of the nausea. Harry notices his too-short nails on the small notebook.

"Come on, there must be something else"

"The house seemed abandoned, sir. No one saw anything. The specialists are still trying to determine magical signature, without results, but it's still soon"

"Heirs?"

"Besides the baby?" the passive-aggressive comment, made casually, makes his stomach switch. "We keep looking"

"The elf…?"

"Half dead beside his masters. Self-flagelation, you know… Still unconscious"

"Have you looked the muggle way? Hairs? Something?"

The officer seems a bit greener as he shakes his head. He also seems upset. Harry would scold him about pragmatism and rejection of muggle methods that might have help catch so many dark wizards, but it's not the first time and frankly it already makes him feel weary and discouraged, they never listen; wizard customs are way too rooted.

The medipathologist goes away, and his partner is starting to levitate the sheet.

With a warning look to the officer and a whispered: "work on it", Harry walks at last towards her, crouches slightly behind her and looks dispassionately to the bodies. After having seen so many of his own, die, few things shock him, even images like this one. Hermione is different. She has that expression, the one she wears when she sees something that is simply too much to endure. Talented as she is, she isn't cut for this sometimes. It tires her. It weighs on her. She seems a hundred years older.

"They made them swallow it"

"Wha…?"

"Their wands are in their bodies. The medipathologist saw the wood through the sectioned throats"

Pale, she stretches her lips in a line. His hand itches to hold hers. But she won't appreciate being pampered. His hand closes in a fist, and stays where it is. Yet his magic surrounds her, sheltering her from the dark one as much as he can. He hears her breath and whisper:

"I don't want her to see this."

Dumbfounded for a second, he finally spots Duham coming close, and understands.

"If she is to be an auror, you can't protect her from this, Hermione."

She seems about to say something, but just swallows. Her hands are trembling. She has just spotted the smallest body, skin turned over itself, nothing but a pound of meat.

Harry intercepts Duham before she reaches them, forces her to look at him and speaks quietly to her, prepares her. When she sees the bodies, she is ready to endure it as her sister does.

"So how was their first day?" Ron asks, tossing over a butterbeer that Harry catches easily.

His best mate's smile isn't as careless as it used to be. Today has been a long day, to all of them. The political side of the Ministery of Magic can't be pleasant, either. The worst part: he can't comment. Harry would think the rest of the continuous and pointless chitchat is to overcompensate, if he hadn't known Ron way before that. Happy of having turned down that offer, Harry opens the butterbeer and looks around.

"Who" he asks.

"Hermione's sister. They told me you've got her."

A flash of pain lightens in Harry's eyes, an echo of what he saw in Hermione's earlier, as they assigned the trainees.

"How is Hermione doing?" he whispers.

Ron shrugs.

"You are supposed to feel it better than I do."

"You are still her husband."

Curiously, both are trying to keep the bitterness out of their voices. Harry is grateful for small mercies. Ron drinks some from his beer and licks his lips before answering:

"There's no way around it. It has been a while since she lost her trainee. Eventually, one of you would be responsible for some other newbie."

"Yeah, but she just got to Parkinson yesterday. And couldn't even take her down. They should have waited some more."

"I would have pushed, had I had some jurisdiction there" Ron says gravely.

He has always been protective with his wife; in Ron's world, no one can hurt Hermione, but Ron himself. Harry deviates his attention to the door behind which Hermione is drowning her sorrow in books, her usual way of coping. There must be nothing else to say. He struggles to remember their previous subject.

"Well, she is tough" the black-haired wizard shrugs. "She stood in front of a murdered baby, in a room so thick with dark magic that you could cut it with a knife, and she didn't throw up. Same expression Hermione wore seeing Colin's body, I swear. Wonder how the adoption center found a match like that."

Harry's gaze caresses the rest of the house. He hasn't been here often, all he knows is that it's in a muggle neighborhood and that the witch bought it for her parents when they came back from Australia.

"This place is nice" he comments, "I'm glad you didn't sell it."

"Hermione wouldn't even hear of it. Merlin knows we could have used the money… But it was occupied anyway. Duham grew up here. Her parents moved just recently."

"I reckon they haven't redecorated in ages. I remember furniture being in the same places."

Ron eyes him briefly.

"I didn't know you had been here that much."

Harry tries to remember, and ends up shrugging. He keeps getting that warm feeling in his gut when he comes here, especially in her kitchen or her living room, or the guest room where he'll sleep from now on. As if it came from memories of her that he can't quite place. Being here, makes him think of Hermione in a very vivid and yet idealized way. As if she was shining. It also reminds him strongly of her younger self, so similar to someone he has met just recently.

"Duham seems to be very much like her sister. She even knows all her answers" he laughs. "It's eerie. I'd thought they shared blood."

"I'm her godfather, you know" Ron ads. "Though I'm not as close as I should be. Nothing like you and Teddy."

"Well, Hermione kept her away from the Wizarding World long enough. It was hard for me to recognize her."

The door opens and Hermione comes out, her nose stuck in a book. She's wearing worn-out pajamas, and her hair is a mess, but Harry smiles slightly at the view.

"Do you like her?" Ron asked suddenly.

Harry's alarmed gaze goes from Ron to Hermione in a "what?" gesture that Ron overlooks.

"Duham" he points out. "Do you like her?"

"No! No, it isn't like that at all" Harry's voice sounds vehement. "Merlin, Ron. She is almost James' age. Hell, she could be my daughter. I held her as a baby…"

"… and rarely met her ever since" Ron finishes for him. "And she's beautiful, like… well, like Hermione. At the best age…"

"Hermione isn't old!"

"I'm not old."

They both spoke at once and their eyes meet as Ron apologized profusely, looking decididely confused: in the world he was raised in no one is considered old until past a hundred and thirty, so he doesn't even know why they heard that in his speech.

Even from the other side of the room, Harry sees the golden spots in her irises, how they dance in the changing light. He drinks the rest of his beer without breathing, and surely without thinking 'hell, I'd change anyone for her anytime'.

"You know I didn't mean it like that!" Ron was saying. "It's just that she is malleable, no extra complications such as ex or kids. It would be understandable of you..."

"And a little clichéd, don't you think?" Hermione scolds him.

Harry feels something weird in her, something very similar to fear. He's about to ask, then decides maybe she doesn't want anyone to know. Cradling the empty bottle in his hand, he changes topics finding another argument.

"And I have a wife…"

"Had, Harry" Ron corrects in a whisper, eyeing Hermione warily.

"… and no wish to replace her!"

Turning around, he notices Hermione is eyeing them carefully over the thick book. All of a sudden, he remembers his body's reaction to today's training, and he can almost hear her comment: 'Well, your body doesn't agree, does it?'

"Merlin, Ron. Where do you get those ideas?!"

"Please tell me you aren't the one matchmaking" her voice sounds, as she stares at Ron, pursing her lips before and after the question.

Ron raises his hands at once, looking slightly scared of his own wife.

"Nothing to do with me, swear. I'm not even close to the auror departament. It's actually good to know."

The woman eyes him suspiciously but doesn't make another comment before going into the room again.

"She's very protective with her sis'" Ron comments and chuckles: "Even more than with us."

Harry nods, remembering all those times when Hermione would leave work early to babysit.

"I don't envy the girl's boyfriend. He won't know what hit him."

Preview:

She tried not to admire the view of him cut against the grey sky. She was honestly trying not to see how his head leaned forth in a thinking posture that made him look poetic yet real, his male scarred hands grasping the stony ledge, his green eyes almost grey as they took in the view. She wondered how the wizard of the story had managed to get out his own heart. She kind of needed the same spell right now.

Author's note: Hell I loved that first scene.

The best thing about an auror fic is that there's physical contact.

How did you feel about their practice? ;D

I'm not one to introduce new characters to the fics, but Duham was necessary, and she soon became a favorite of mine. What to say? She's Hermione all over again, and she's fresh and funny.

I hope the detective scene was realistic enough.

Reviews, please. (Even if it's just to tell me that you hated someone's tunic)