Chapter Eighteen: Advantage

No. 12 Grimmauld Place
21st December 2009, 9.36am

Andromeda dropped Teddy off at Grimmauld Place on the morning of the Yule celebration. Harry had agreed to take him shopping for last-minute supplies, though he suspected the list of errands that Andromeda had owled him was as much a ruse to keep Teddy (and perhaps Harry too) out from underfoot as anything else.

"Now, be good," Andromeda was telling Teddy as Harry came into the parlour. From what he could see, the boy would be hard-pressed to do anything so onerous as make mischief, seeing as he was half-buried underneath what looked to be most of his winter wardrobe.

Teddy nodded earnestly up at his grandmother, his serious expression belied by his hair, which was turning bubblegum-pink at the tips.

"Need to work on your poker face there, kiddo," Harry remarked, leaning in to kiss Andromeda's cheek.

"What's poker?" Teddy asked, wrinkling his nose.

"It's a Mug- you know what? Doesn't matter, and anyway it's actually really boring and I don't even remember what I was talking about," Harry garbled, as Andromeda narrowed her eyes at him.

"I think that's a new record for irresponsible behaviour," she sighed, before looking down at Teddy again. "Forget what I said about being good," she said, "since it's clearly a lost cause. Just don't be troublesome."

"Yes, Granny," Teddy nodded. He made his eyes impossibly large, so that he looked like a character from one of the Japanese cartoons Harry remembered Dudley watching during the summer holidays when they were teenagers.

"Stop that," Andromeda said, though the corners of her eyes had crinkled into a familiar pattern of smile-lines. Sometimes Harry was astonished that he had ever mistaken her for Bellatrix.

Teddy grinned, and let his eyes return to normal. The pink had shot through his blonde curls, giving his hair a raspberry-ripple effect as he submitted to Andromeda's tight hug.

Harry watched as she whispered something in Teddy's ear, before she straightened to her full height, and fixed him with an implacable glare that made him remember exactly why he had confused her with her older sister.

"Merry meet this Yuletide, Harry Potter," she said, and Harry, caught off guard, stuttered his reply.

"Yes, er - Merry - that one."

Andromeda rolled her eyes. "Sometimes I don't know why I bother," she huffed, before tossing a handful of Floo Powder onto the fire.

"I will see both of you at sunset precisely ," she said, in a tone that brooked no disagreement, before she stepped into the roaring Emerald flames and called, "The Black Riding!"

"She could probably have made that sound less ominous," Harry remarked, looking down at Teddy.

"The Black Riding!" the boy replied in an exaggeratedly spooky voice, his hair briefly turning into a pile of dark curls like his grandmother's, as he waved his hands in the air. Harry tried and failed to stop himself from smirking, but he managed to compose his face before he shook a finger at Teddy.

"That's unfair, and you know it," he said.

"You started it," Teddy retorted.

"Entirely beside the point," Harry said. "I'm a grown-up, so I can do what I -"

The flames blazed upwards once more, and the tall, pale-haired figure of Draco Malfoy stepped out of the grate. His eyes slid past Harry without even a hint of acknowledgement before he turned his gaze around the room, peeling off his dragonhide gloves as he did so.

"Can't say I love what you've done with the place," he drawled, "though I'm sure it could be decidedly worse."

Harry's first thought was that he should have listened to Hermione about leaving the Floo open.

His second was that his godson was a devious little toerag.

"Teddy," he demanded, between gritted teeth. "Why is Uncle Draco in my house?"

"Because I asked him to meet us here before we all go shopping," Teddy replied innocently. "Why else?"

Harry attempted to glower at him. "You and I will be having words later, young man."

"Since it was my understanding that all concerned parties were aware I would be joining you for today's outing, Edward," Draco sniffed pointedly, "you and I will also be having words later." He paused long enough to offer Teddy a smirk. "Though you may rest assured that most of them will be too advanced for your uncle Harry's vocabulary. Now," he continued, finally looking Harry in the eye, and allowing his expression to edge dangerously close to good-humoured. "My mother's given me a list of things we need to bring this evening that's longer than my arm, so I suggest we get a move on."

"You've got to be fu-ha-hudging kidding me," Harry grumbled, only just catching himself.

Teddy grinned up at him. "No one's fucking kidding!" he trilled, reaching for the Floo powder on the mantelpiece.

"Teddy!" Harry scolded. "For fu- fudge - oh damn Jesus bloody Christ - stop laughing!" he growled, rounding on Draco, whose eyes were sparkling with mirth, though he hadn't actually made a sound.

"Merlin's beard, Potter," he said. "You're an astonishingly bad example. No wonder he's swearing like a -

"I didn't teach him that," Harry barked unthinkingly, yanking his scarf around his neck so tightly that he almost throttled himself.

"Well, given that display, I'm hardly going to believe -"

"It's true, actually," Teddy nodded. "Auntie Hermione taught me to say 'fuck' and 'shit' and 'co-"

"Enough!" Harry said quickly. "Thanks, Ted, we get the picture."

"Granger," Draco said, shaking his head slowly. "I should have known."

"Excuse me," Harry protested. "What, exactly, is that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, don't get your knickers in a twist." Draco placed a hand on Teddy's shoulder and turning him towards the fireplace. "She's more trouble than you and Weasley put together, and you know it. Now," he said to Teddy, "where do you want to start?"

Teddy gave Draco a look that was worryingly sly. "Maybe the Magical Menagerie," he said. "I heard they have ferrets there now."

"Did you?" Draco asked, his voice impressively controlled. "And from whom might you have heard that?"

"Auntie Daphne," Teddy said, before grinning broadly at Draco's appalled expression.

"It would seem we have both been betrayed by the women we love best, Potter," he lamented, after a momentary pause.

"I - what?" Harry spluttered. "The woman I - no - that's -"

"Surely it cannot have escaped your notice that Theodore is my best friend," Draco sighed, rolling his eyes. "Now," he said, jerking his head towards the flames. "Get in, Potter, we're going shopping."

oOo

The Ministry of Magic
21st December 2009, 3.13pm

The Department had been steadily emptying out all day, as the skeleton staff of Aurors who had been re-admitted following the Ministry lockdown gradually peeled away to their various Yuletide celebrations.

Dean had poked his head in about twenty minutes ago to ask if he needed him for anything else, and Ron had waved him away, chewing on the end of his quill as he contemplated the messy spider diagram spread out on his desk.

The problem was they just didn't have enough leads , he thought, as he scratched out Ogden's name from Suspects and rewrote it with Marcus and Pansy's under Victims.

There had been another four bodies to add to the total count after the Ministry Christmas party, but nothing in the six days since, and Ron just couldn't make sense of the quiet. Haringey, Gringotts and the Ministry were all linked by their sheer audacity, and so this lull was deeply worrying.

He had sat up late in his office on the evening that Dudley had taken Pansy to his Muggle party, half-expecting to receive an owl with news of another attack, but nothing of the like had arrived, and Ron had decided to be grateful for the small mercy of Pansy apparently still being well-hidden enough that whoever was behind all this hadn't identified the Muggles as targets.

Except they had, he remembered, because there was that police officer, Fitz-whatsit, who'd gone missing and then turned up in Wales…

Ron grimaced, and pinched the skin between his eyebrows. His eyes fell on the pile of torn parchment that he'd pushed to one side, and he smiled ruefully. He'd received the first note at about ten that morning, and had been worried for a moment when he'd read I'D LIKE TO REPORT A CRIME, before realising that it was just Harry complaining about having to spend the day with Malfoy.

He'd received updates about the progress of the outing at regular intervals ("Save me, I beg you") over the past few hours ("Spending this long looking at robes cannot be legal") and found himself mildly jealous of what sounded like a rather fun day ("Who eats ice-cream in winter?"). Despite the obvious improvements since they'd left school, Draco's superior manner never failed to get on Ron's nerves, but Harry actually seemed to get on quite well with him, for all that the two of them still pretended to loathe one another.

A flick of his wand told him that he really should be getting packed up if he wanted to make it to the Black Riding on time (and honestly, what sort of family had an entire region of Yorkshire made unplottable?) and Ron was just starting to shuffle his papers into order when there was a soft knock at his door.

"Oh," he said, looking up. "Hey, Neville."

"Hi," Neville gave him a quick smile. "Not disturbing you, am I?"

"Nah," Ron said. "To be honest I think I've been banging my head against a brick wall for the past hour or so."

"Right," Neville nodded. "Yeah." He turned and looked back over his shoulder at the empty bullpen. "Just you left?"

"Everyone's cleared off for Yule." Ron yawned, and scratched his ear. "I was about to do the same, to be honest. Sounds like Andy and Narcissa are being pretty strict about this sunset thing."

"Of course," Neville said, before holding up a bottle. "Still, time for a quick nip before we head up, wouldn't you say?"

"Ah," Ron smiled. "Twist my arm." He rummaged in his desk before producing two chipped mugs. "Sorry I don't have anything better."

"Nah," Neville waved a hand. He'd rolled up his sleeves, and there was a smudge of ink on his arm. "They'll do fine."

"So how's the nursery?" Ron asked, as Neville poured a generous slosh of Firewhiskey into each mug.

After his grandmother's death, Neville had inherited Longbottom Manor, and had set about converting the grounds into a haven of magical horticulture. He'd even won a couple of grants for the protection of rare species, and regularly consulted for the DRMC in cases involving sentient or semi-sentient plants.

"Can't complain," Neville smiled as he handed Ron one of the mugs. "And I get to spend a fair amount of time here, which is always interesting."

"A bit too interesting at the moment," Ron grumbled, taking the mug from Neville and lifting it towards him. "Anyway, happy Yule. Here's to catching this bastard before Christmas"

"To everything being sorted by Christmas," Neville nodded, sipping his whiskey.

"Blimey Nev," Ron said, having taken a mouthful and staring appreciatively into his mug. "Where did this come from?"

"The cellars at home," Neville shrugged, picking up the bottle to give Ron a better look. "Uncle Algie liked a drink."

Ron couldn't say how it happened. He was reaching for the bottle one moment, and the next it had dropped onto the desktop, smashing across his papers.

"Shit," he said, reaching unthinkingly to try and sweep broken glass off his notes. "Oh, bollocks, this is -"

"Whoops," Neville said softly. "Silly me. Always so clumsy."

"Yeah," Ron said absently, "it's fine, don't worry Nev, can you just - oh balls."

He stared in shock at the line of bright red welling across his palm, before Neville reached out and grasped him tightly by the hand. The smudge of ink on his arm wasn't a smudge at all, Ron realised, but the tail of a snake, the body disappearing up Neville's sleeve.

He jerked his head up in time to see that Neville had drawn his wand. "What are you doing?" Ron barked, trying to jerk his hand free of his friend's iron grip. "Nev - what -"

"Conpellare pollicere fidele," Neville whispered, and there was a flash of light above their joined hands.