Chapter Nine: Game-tree Complexity

No. 12 Grimmauld Place
15th December 2009, 7.56am

"What happened to you?" Ron asked as soon as Harry wrenched open the door the next morning.

"Get inside, it's freezing," Harry said grouchily, ignoring the question to turn away and head back towards the hub of warmth that was the kitchen.

"Oh hi, yeah I'm fine thanks," he heard Ron yelling, before the sound of the door slamming shut echoed down the hall, followed by two muffled thumps as Ron threw his boots onto the shoe rack.

"Seriously, Harry," Ron said, appearing in the doorway to the kitchen. "What's with the -" He gestured vaguely at his own nose.

"I got dragged into a minor disagreement at the Bat and Broomstick last night," Harry said, moving his jaw gingerly as he lifted the lid of the saucepan that sat, bubbling quietly, on the hob. The unmistakable fennel-and-rosemary scent of pain potion filled the room, and he turned to look at Ron. "Coffee?"

"What do you mean a 'minor disagreement'?" Ron said. "And why the hell were you at the Bat and Broomstick? Isn't that Marcus Flint's pub?"

"I go there when I want to have a drink in peace," Harry sighed, turning off the heat under the pan with a tap of his wand. Snape would have been horrified to see him brewing potions like this, but he didn't really give a toss.

"Doesn't look very peaceful," Ron snorted. "Is your nose actually broken or -"

"Not any more," Harry said. "Marcus fixed it after they got rid of the cyclops."

"There was a cy-" Ron held up his hands. "You know what, I don't want to know."

Harry shrugged and went to pass Ron a coffee. "Why, though?" Ron burst out, and Harry rolled his eyes. "Why did you get into a fight with a cyclops?"

"Great question," Harry nodded. "Really good. Excellent."

"And the answer?" Ron prompted him.

"Well…" Harry trailed away. He'd been trying his best not to think about it, and to be entirely fair, getting half-cut in a rough pub and then fighting with a cyclops had been fairly effective. "I was - I was in a bit of a bad mood."

"You don't say," Ron deadpanned. "Why were you in a bad mood?"

"I -" Harry frowned, then crossed his arms. "I sort of had a fight with Hermione."

"What?" Ron wrinkled his nose, brow furrowing in confusion. "Over what?"

"I don't - it's - over Theo Nott."

"What?" Ron now looked completely nonplussed. "Why would you two be fighting about Theo Nott?"

"I don't know!" Harry yelped, gesturing to one side and nearly slopping coffee everywhere. "Why don't you ask her? The two of them are always giggling together and it's - I got back here yesterday and she was telling him about the Polyjuice Potion in second year! He was sitting in my chair and drinking out of my cups and what are you laughing at me for ?"

Ron sobered abruptly, though he couldn't quite suppress a smirk. "It sounds like you're jealous, mate."

"Jealous?" Harry demanded. "Of what? Some smarmy posh twat lawyer? It's not me being jealous to recognise that Hermione's patently too good for him."

"I'm just saying," Ron sipped his coffee mildly, watching as Harry decanted the pain potion into a mug, "that's how it sounds."

"I'm not fucking jealous," Harry muttered, taking a swig of potion and grimacing. "Ugh. Merlin's beard, this stuff is disgusting."

"So how did it start, this fight with Hermione?" Ron asked, pulling out one of the mismatched kitchen chairs and apparently settling in.

"Well, after I kicked him out she -"

"Ah," Ron nodded. "They're friends, right? You can sort of see how that might have rubbed her up the wrong way."

"He was the one who said I'm even stupider than I look." Harry scowled down at the dregs of pain potion and then downed the contents of the mug, shuddering as the acrid taste burned down his throat.

"My mum flavours pain potion with chamomile," Ron offered helpfully.

"I know," Harry said. "So does Hermione, except -"

"So she's the one usually brewing you pain potions, is she?" Ron raised his eyebrows. "And how often do you need those?"

"Not this again," Harry huffed. "I'd rather talk about Theo than have another argument with you about -"

"Fine," Ron shrugged amiably. "Why did he say you were stupider than you look?"

"Well," Harry frowned. "First he said that I was handsome when I'm angry."

"Did he now?"

Harry could see a muscle working in Ron's cheek, and knew that he was struggling not to start laughing again. "What?"

"I don't know," Ron said. "You're the one who's supposed to be a detective. Maybe he was trying to give you a clue about something?"

"How is him saying I'm handsome supposed to be a clue?" Harry groused, then frowned as something occurred to him. "Wait a minute, is Nott -"

"Yup," Ron nodded. "Very much so, from what I hear."

"Shit," Harry said, staring at his bruised knuckles. "Well, it doesn't change the fact that he's a twat."

"I'm not disagreeing with you," Ron said mildly.

Harry stared at the wall for a moment, trying to work out why this revelation about Theo had left him feeling both better and much, much worse, before something occurred to him. "Why are you here, again?"

Ron smiled grimly and pulled a small packet from his pocket, quickly expanding it with a tap of his wand. "Coroner's report on the goblins," he said. "I figured since you're already knee-deep in this one, you might have some insights. Straightforward Avada , as we thought, with evidence of extremely precise torture prior to death." He passed the report to Harry, who scanned it quickly, before looking at Ron over the top of the parchment.

"This says -"

"Same magical signature as Haringey," he nodded. "Justin doesn't think they're using their own wand, otherwise he'd be able to be more precise. Probably a family wand they've inherited, he reckons."

"Which would fit with the pureblood angle," Harry mused. "I wish Ollivander was still around, he'd know. Any clue as to what they were after?"

"Trail goes cold at the Fawley vault," Ron said.

"Fawley?" Harry repeated. "As in Emilius's mum?"

"Exactly," Ron said. "So we were wondering, is there any chance he might have hidden something there before he died?"

"I don't know," Harry shook his head, which made the throbbing in his nose worse. "But he asked me to meet him at the warehouse the night he -" Harry swallowed hard "- the night he died. Said he had something he needed to tell me."

"Selwyn was already dead by then, right?"

"Yeah," Harry said. "We found his body that morning, when Emilius was already missing."

Ron stared into the middle distance. "So what if whoever's behind this gets Ogden with the Invocation, has him kill Selwyn in order to get something, and then gets distracted long enough for Ogden to stash whatever it is -"

"Gringotts is the safest place in the world for anything you want to keep safe," Harry murmured, remembering Hagrid saying it to him all those years before.

"Yeah," Ron said darkly. "Look where that got them."

"Why wait?" Harry asked quietly. "It's been two years - why go in all guns blazing now?"

"Guns?" Ron barked. "There weren't any -"

"Muggle expression," Harry said with a wave of his hand. "I meant: why wait so long to make all this noise?"

"No idea," Ron sighed. "What do you think?"

"I don't know what I think." Harry looked away. "I know some of the pieces are there, but there aren't enough of them for me to see how they go together yet."

"Bloody hell," Ron pushed his chair back. "I need to be at the office. What are you doing today?"

Harry's eyes went to the clock on the wall, whose single hand, showing his own portrait, had remained firmly stuck on In Disgrace since the previous afternoon. "I think I need to go and apologise."

A/N: Sorry team, only one chapter today. But there's always tomorrow!