Christmas was always a time for remembrance and cheer. How the two fit together probably only made sense to Harry. He knew it was silly, but he wanted the next time he went there on Christmas Eve—or in this case, the afternoon—to be when he could call her Mrs. Potter, or Granger-Potter, he didn't care much for what she would decide on naming herself. Marriage had been on his mind since her birthday, but things had been so busy and would still be busy for a long time.
So he had wished his colleagues at the AD and Adolph at the lobby happy holidays and apparated to Godric's Hollow alone. He still needed the alone time once in a while to organise his thoughts. He wondered how the Weasleys would take their relationship. Ginny was still not happy with it, but the others would understand. No point in hiding any longer what would come out anyway.
He left the plaza for the sparsely populated streets where a couple with two children entered an ancient looking tavern, taking shelter from the cold. The cold didn't bother Harry too much, he was well dressed for it. His turtleneck and enchanted Auror cloak protected him from the worst of it. And he enjoyed the crunching of the two day old snow under his feet, almost slipping with every step.
After a short walk, he was nearing the church. Passing it, he saw the pastor sitting on a bench with a sandwich and a thermos. The man waved at him and he raised his hand in acknowledgement. Harry wasn't sure if the pastor remembered him coming here every year, but he'd like to think he did. He never went inside the church, having never been in contact with religion with the non-practising Dursleys, or the heretics of the world he called home.
He stopped at the kissing gate, hearing a new set of footsteps behind him. Well played from her, he didn't expect Ginny to follow him here. Fine, if she wanted to talk, the dead could listen. He had no intention of making a scene in the streets. He stopped a good distance inside the cemetery, waiting for her to meet him. He knew he should be more understanding, every social instinct told him to, but as she had so eloquently put it, he couldn't give her what she wanted. Even if he could go back to how he was before, he didn't want to.
Her red hair looked foreign among the frost. She stopped a few feet from him, her eyes small to protect herself from the freezing wind.
"Why are you here?" he asked, impatient after a moment.
She turned against the wind and wrapped her mittens around her arms. "I don't know why I came," she sighed. "Out of habit, maybe? Thinking that you'd change your mind if I kept at it for long enough. Not happening, is it?"
It wasn't really a question, but he still faintly shook his head in response.
"It's the curse that changed you, isn't it? Aren't you curious what it is? Have you even tried to find out?"
"We have," he answered, "but even so, I see no reason to change things back to how they were. Not that we know that's possible, so I try not to think about it. I know you're not happy with how things turned out, but I am."
"How very selfish of you," she said with a wry smile. She shifted and took a package out of her coat. It was brown and thick. She handed it to him. "I guess I don't need those any more. It was a spur of the moment thing—or habit, as I said—those pictures. I just can't look at them and I don't want to know more."
Harry opened the envelope and saw the pictures she took of them, naked that day, and the negatives. "You could've made copies, duplicated the negatives."
"Believe what you want," she answered.
He did believe her. It seemed like a thing for her to do, come clean of her blackmail. She must think she was safe, having made herself useful. She was, for now. He vanished the envelope, sending it back to the void. "All right, then. So… is this a fresh start or something? Is this really about revenge?"
"That, and you being you, I wouldn't feel better keeping away."
Perhaps he had been unfair to her. If not for their history they might have naturally become allies. And it was Christmas tomorrow, a time of forgiveness. Still, he wondered.
"Can I ask how you did it? You said you had taken precautions, like what?"
She grinned. "I was mostly bluffing—or not. I told Lea if something happened to me she should check my locker. I'd hidden the pictures there with a note to send them to the press. It's not foolproof, but… I figured you wouldn't take the risk."
"You figured right. Walk with me, then," he said nodding further ahead at the cemetery. "You've never been here?"
"No," she remarked, "I knew you came every Christmas Eve, I just thought it was something you had to do alone."
"Probably was my lowest moment, when I first came here," he said, remembering the fateful night of the war. "Ever since, I've come every year. Clean the grave, leave some flowers. I'll catch them up next time, when Hermione is here."
They arrived at the headstone. Ginny was frowning, probably at the inscription: 'The last enemy that shall be defeated is death.' Harry started to clean the headstone with his wand.
"It's from the bible. I have no idea whose idea it was to put it there, but it apparently means eternal life. As in eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven, after death."
"Isn't it the other one you should worry about? The one with the lake of fire and the cursed, eternally burning?"
Harry smiled as he finished using a polishing spell on the stone. "I don't know what you're talking about. I'm clearly blessed, as God has seen fit to see me rise from the dead."
"At least your sense of humour hasn't changed," she said with a chuckle.
He concentrated to conjure a wreath of roses against the gravestone. They both watched as the flowers materialised with a flick of his wand. A tricky spell, one that required his undivided attention.
It was smart on their part, to wait for the usually so careful Auror to be distracted to strike. Just from behind him, he heard the rustle before he saw the stunners coming his way. They had laid in ambush around him, facing towards the headstone behind Harry's back. He managed to dodge the first, but the second caught him in the stomach.
With a sense of dread, he saw Ginny go down before his vision turned blurry.
#
He woke up with a throbbing in his side. His first thought was that he had been stupid to oversleep and he would be late for Christmas Eve dinner at the Burrow. His eyes adjusted to the low light and he saw Ginny strapped to a chair, and he remembered what had happened. Stupid, to get caught in the open, but he wasn't going to sequester himself like the cowards of the Wizengamot.
He looked around. Wherever he was, it was damp, dark and smelled of mould. Ginny's head was slumped forward, her hair hanging over her face. He tested his bindings, iron latches just tight enough to make escape impossible, around his legs too.
There were three men that he knew attacked him. They had come from under their invisibility cloaks and started casting their spells. They wore masks, he remembered. At least that was encouraging. They would be less likely to do anything permanent if their identities weren't compromised. Whoever they were, they had means. Invisibility cloaks were notoriously hard to get a hold of. There was his, and two others he knew of. One belonging to an Unspeakable, and one to Kingsley.
He tried to make out where he was, but it seemed impossible. There were no windows. They could be underground for all he knew.
"Hngh…"
Ginny stirred, from how groggy she seemed, she had taken a stunner directly to the back of her head. They probably took her to make him talk more easily. Fortunately, they had the wrong witch to achieve that. It would be a shame if she died here, but it would be better than to give whoever captured them the upper hand. He would have to survive at any cost.
"Hey," he said quietly.
"What happened?"
Harry remembered that she had been taken by surprise, not even spotting their assailants. "We've been captured, we were attacked by three people, they threw stunners at us."
He watched her struggle with her bindings for a bit, and realising their situation, she looked horrified. "Who? What do they want?"
"Something I'd like to know as well," he said.
There was a dripping of something behind him and he felt increasingly stupid for getting caught.
"Is there anything behind me?" he asked.
"Just a dripping faucet and a bucket," she answered. "What are they going to do to us?"
"Also not something I know," he said, even though he had many ideas floating around in his head. Hopefully their captors weren't as imaginative. "The door is behind you, by the way, the corner to your right."
She twisted her neck, but couldn't make it out. "Why did I have to follow you?" she lamented.
He debated giving her a crash course on resisting interrogation, but thought better of it. Not only did they probably not have time, but there was a possibility they would listen in on them. It felt like an eternity before the door opened and a masked person came through. They were simple masks, brass with two eye holes, curving to cover the entire face. He walked up to Harry's chair and Ginny tensed when he stopped.
"How did you get the pictures," said the muffled voice behind the mask.
"Which pictures?" Harry said with a smile.
The man brought down a fist on his face, surprising Harry as the hit stung at his cheek.
"Answer."
Harry was taken aback for a second. It wasn't usual for wizards to go hurting people the muggle method. He sat silently and watched, until the man pulled back his arm for another punch. Might as well start with information they already knew. "Fine! I got them from Barnton, obviously."
The man relaxed his arm. "How?"
Harry snorted. "Why does it matter? You want to know how? You just want them gone, don't you? Or at least your employers do. I didn't remember Greengrass or Yaxley being that good with their wands."
Harry got punched in the nose at that answer. However, if he was ever going to get somewhere with his captors, staying silent wouldn't do. "The Frilly Escape was mighty helpful, is what I mean," he said, snorting to get the pain out of his nose.
"That doesn't explain how you took the photographs."
There was just a hint in his voice that the man was trying to hide, but Harry recognised it. The man was American. That brought with it so many other questions, but it did make sense. All talent willing to commit crimes had been imprisoned or killed during the war. Anyone willing to face the punishments of the Ministry of Magic must either be very confident or very stupid.
But he could use it. "You seem like a smart fellow, and you already hit the safehouse, so figure it out."
"Where are the girls?"
"Now that, I'm not telling."
Harry couldn't tell, but by the tone of his voice, his captor seemed like he was smiling. "Maybe I'll just ask your wife, ex-wife is it? But still."
Good. Anything to stall him. Harry had to find out more. He put on his best worried face as the man stalked towards Ginny.
"Are you going to be more cooperative?" he asked her.
"I don't know anything, you moron," she answered.
"We'll see about that," he said, moving back behind Harry.
He could hear the sound of a bucket being filled with water and wondered what the hell he was doing. He could just as easily conjure some water. He dropped the bucket near Ginny and finally used his wand. The chair flipped backwards, leaving Ginny hanging upside-down and the man produced a piece of cloth from his robes. Finally it dawned on Harry what the man was doing. He really was American.
"Let's see how you like the feeling of drowning," he said, putting the rag over her face.
Harry had only heard of it in recent times. Waterboarding, or the practice of forcing water down someone's airways to produce the feeling of being drowned. It wasn't very popular in Britain, with the Cruciatus being what was historically used as torture.
But it being a muggle method meant it would be allowed by Aurors under the Magical Congress of the United States. Was he an American Auror, or ex-Auror?
The man did not use legilimency, and Ginny drowned in the steady stream of water from the man's wand. It made Harry wonder about the bucket again. Just when she was catching her breath, clearly in distress from the awful feeling being forced on her, he tossed the bucket on her, making her gasp and sputter.
"Now, do you feel like talking?"
"Go to hell!" she shouted angrily.
"I bet someone's already looking for us," Harry said. "Won't take long for them to find us. Lots of smart people on our side."
The man laughed. "Nobody will find you here. Even your little beacon," he said, jingling Harry's beacon amulet, "won't work down here."
"Then why take it off me?" he said, grinning. "They'll find us."
"The Ministry hasn't found this place, even though it was right under their noses." He approached Harry and bent closer to his face. "Fitting, I think, to have you spill your secrets where you got your secrets from."
Harry smiled inside as he once again tried to look horrified. "We're at the Frilly Escape?"
"Why don't you tell me everything?" the man continued. "I'll make sure to be gentle when I wipe your memories of this."
The man was a talker, which was lucky for Harry. So he knew where he was, and he knew they weren't out to kill him. Also the man was most likely an American with Auror experience. He'd gotten what he wanted so far, so he shut up. It was entirely possible the man was telling the truth and they wouldn't be found, but he wasn't about to give up and spill all his secrets.
Before he could make up his mind about anything, the door opened again and two more masked men stepped in.
"The hell are you doing, Blue?" one of them said.
"Working," Blue answered. "I was about to get them to talk."
"Well, I brought Suds to help. No way your muggle tactics are any good."
"It's working, Crane," Blue answered.
"No, no, no," Suds answered. "See, this is how you do it. Crucio!"
Harry winced seeing Ginny spasm wildly in the chair. He knew the pain of the Cruciatus, and while he didn't like how straightforward it was, the pain it inflicted was tremendous. Blue turned the chair back in its upward position. Ginny trembled in the aftershock of the curse. Crane walked around the chair and up to her, forcefully twisting her head to look at her.
"Phew, even better looking in the flesh. Wouldn't mind having a go at this one."
"Get off me!" she spat.
"That's not why we're here," Blue said.
"Says who—Suds, why is the new guy talking? Weren't you told to keep your mouth shut and follow our lead?"
"We were told not to go too far."
"Shut your mouth and let us do the work, Blue," said Crane.
Blue didn't talk back, and Crane approached Harry and took a fistful of his hair, pushing him back. "Easy game, Harry Potter. You tell us what we want, or we have some fun with Weasley over there."
He had to believe they didn't want him dead. So, he was caught between a rock and a hard place. All he knew is that he felt anger rise up in him at the thought of anyone beside him harming Ginny. That was his prerogative. He turned his head and looked down, feigning shame. "Better her than me," he whispered.
Crane seemed to have bought it, chuckling to himself and standing back up. "Did you hear that, Suds? Potter doesn't mind if we hurt the girl." He stepped up to Ginny. "Bad blood here? Tough divorce?"
Ginny looked towards him. It was no use reassuring her or cluing her in, she was still too rattled from the curse, so he looked away again. He heard her sob.
"Should've just left her," Crane said. "But hey, the evening's still young, might come in handy."
The next moment, Harry felt like every nerve in his body was on fire. A familiar feeling, a feeling you'd do anything to get rid of. Unspeakable pain. Relentless agony. An eternity later, he came out of it, hazy and confused. The trick to resisting the Cruciatus was the exit, to stop from losing all will as the pain abated, phantom stings still wracking across his body.
"You, little miss, where is he hiding the girls?"
"I don't know!" she sobbed. "Please let us go."
Harry couldn't be sure she was acting or not, but he had to assume she had already snapped. Luckily for him, all she could attest to was the adultery.
"Blue, come with us. We need to talk how to proceed, I just got word from the boss."
They left and Harry was thankful for the time to recover. Coming out of the Cruciatus felt like a slowly receding fever. He shook and breathed in slowly. There had to be a way to escape. He checked his bindings again, wondering if he couldn't get enough motion to wandlessly cast a spell. No use.
"We have to get out of here," Ginny said. There was little left of the pleading girl from before. "I know what you did," she warned. "Thank you… but it's not going to last."
Well, if they had monitored the room, the cat was out of the bag.
"They must not have a good legilimens on hand, or they must think they can't break through to me, which they probably would have trouble with. They don't seem to have Veritaserum either. So, we should stall them."
"Until what?"
"I don't know," he sighed. "Until our friends figure out where we are or I find a way out."
"They're going to lose patience."
"I know."
"And if they do… I'm expendable."
"Hopefully they're not in a rush."
To Harry's displeasure, they returned quickly. A new round of torture was applied through the Cruciatus. Twice on him, and once on Ginny. They kept asking the same questions. They wanted to know how they got their hands on the blackmail. This repeated two more times, and they got more aggravated when Harry wouldn't talk. He could feel his mind slipping further and further, and Ginny was looking worse too.
There was something inside him fighting, wanting to get out. He thought of Hermione and what would happen when his captors would lose patience even more. He couldn't let them kill him, or worse, irreparably harm him. He wanted to see her. He wasn't supposed to be in this dark damp place on Christmas Eve. He was supposed to be with her. "Hermione," he whispered.
It stirred. From his bowels he could feel the magic that bound them oscillate, hearing his wish. He composed the message in his mind, letting the words be absorbed in his breath, and let out a long, cold exhalation imbued with his message. He watched the frosty magic make its way to the door and slip under it. It would find her, he knew that much.
Side-effects. Lucky that he should find one now. It reminded him of something, of the runes he had painted in blood on Hermione. There was a way out of this, but he had no way to do it. He was tightly bound to the chair, its soft wood devoid of edges. Nothing to draw blood.
"Ginny," he said, "if I happen to find a way out, help any way you can."
She nodded faintly.
They returned too soon and too brash for his comfort. One of them was carrying a meat cleaver.
"We've just decided to take the next step, Potter. No time to dilly-dally any more."
It was Suds, Harry recognised, and he stepped towards him. "How much do you like your fingers, huh?"
Harry stared at the knife, transfixed, and beyond it, he saw something that gave him hope. It was the tip of his phoenix feather wand sticking out from the man's robes.
"How about we start with your left hand? Let you think about if you want to lose the other one?"
He waited patiently and struggled as Suds took a hold of three of his fingers, bending the others back. "Well?" Suds asked, waiting for him to talk. He kept silent. Harry felt the cold of the blade before he felt the pain, but he could see three of his fingers lie on the floor, and the blood spurting from his stumps. He grunted.
"You're a quiet one, are you?" He turned back to laugh with the others and Harry took his chance. He twisted his index finger and traced the rune on the latch binding his arm, and whispered a few arcane words. It glowed, and he felt adrenaline rush through him, turning away. The latch exploded into two pieces and Harry lunged for the man's robes, grabbing his wand and—before he turned around, Suds was petrified.
Harry pulled the rigid body to block the view of the others and as he undid the latch of his right arm saw two stunners come his way—being blocked by Suds. In a flash, he undid the latches at his legs and continued using Suds as a meat shield. He had his wand arm now and looked for an opportunity.
"Fuck!" Blue cried. He tried to dash behind Ginny, but was taken out by Harry's stunner.
"Bombarda!"
Harry ducked from behind Suds' body and threw another stunner at Crane. His body hit the cold stone floor with a thud, sending a tremor to his mangled hand. He did it. He won. And soon, Hermione would be here. Now feeling the full pain of his severed fingers, he was lightheaded as he walked over to Ginny and undid her own bindings. When she was freed, she buried her face into his shoulder and started to cry.
"I got a message to Hermione, they'll be here soon."
"Your fingers," she said, looking pale.
He walked back beside his chair, stepping over Suds' mangled body and found his three fingers. He took the bucket and filled it with ice cubes he conjured and place his three fingers in the rag Blue was using so they wouldn't freeeze. "I'll be fine."
He took Ginny by the hand and when they heard a commotion, seemingly coming from upstairs, they put their back against the wall. They heard footsteps come down and the door flew open, Mathilda ducking before she turned and saw Harry. Hermione and Alfred were right behind her.
"Fuck!" she said, seeing his hand.
Alfred paled and Hermione got an angry look in her eyes.
"Hey," Harry said. "Is the place clear?"
"Yeah," Alfred said, looking over to Ginny. "What the hell happened?"
"I'll tell you later."
Hermione came up to him and surprised him with a slow, needy kiss. The fragrance of her lips banished the dank smell of the basement.
"What did they do to you?"
He sighed happily, forgetting all about his severed digits. "I'm fine, really. Just—well, this is kind of a mess." He shook his head. "This," moving his bloody hand, "just happened. Mathilda, I need you to find Dennis Creevey and bring him here. Tell him he needs to fix my fingers."
"Why don't we just bring you there?" Alfred asked.
"Because we need to find out who's really behind this," Harry said. "I don't want to go through court and risk our safety or freedom any more than is necessary."
"I'll get him," Mathilda said, and disappeared back upstairs.
Harry felt dizzy again, and sat down on the floor. "I need a moment."
Hermione got some gauze and bandages from her bag and helped stop the bleeding, sitting with him with a worried look on her face. Ginny had gone over to the two unconscious masked men and found her wand. Alfred was with her, asking her what happened. She said they used the Cruciatus, but was being very silent. Alfred rubbed her back and came back to Harry and Hermione.
"So, what now?" he asked.
"We need to find out who they work for," Harry said.
"And after?"
Harry and Hermione shared a look. Before he could think of anything to say, he was interrupted by cries from Ginny.
"Diffindo! Diffindo! Diffindo!"
The curses rang through the basement and Harry sprung up and ran over. It was too late. There was a large puddle of blood under what used to be Blue's neck. She'd used so many cutting curses she had severed his head. As if to finish her outburst, she kicked the head away from the body and it rolled a few feet.
"Ginny!" Alfred shouted. "What did you do!"
Ginny was smiling, her eyes closing, satisfied at her retribution. Harry felt overtaken by an immense amount of pride. This evening was getting more interesting every minute. Now, there really was no choice. "We'll get rid of them," he said, "but first I'll interrogate the remaining one."
"But…" Alfred protested. He couldn't continue his statement, looking at Ginny and back at Harry, his mentor.
"Just help me get him up."
They put the unconscious 'Crane', on the chair Harry had been sitting in and Hermione conjured a rope with which to bind him. Harry revived him. Beneath the mask, he didn't look like anything special. Brown hair, mid-thirties. He could be anyone.
"Hey there," Harry said, waving his injured hand. "What's up with not using legilimency, huh? No training?"
Crane looked over to Blue and his eyes widened. "Who the bloody hell are you!"
"Just your friendly neighbourhood heroes. So, who are you working for? Greengrass? Someone else?"
"I want to see a solicitor," he said nervously.
Harry smiled back at Hermione, who laughed at the request, and looked at the two others beyond. "Too many people involved already, mate. Should I pry open your mind instead? The Cruciatus is bad enough but we can be more inventive, like you tried. What do you say?"
He said nothing. Harry pointed his wand at him and started to read his mind. His attempts to obfuscate were admirable, but Harry had finally taken a course with a teacher worth a damn once he became an Auror. So even through Crane's clumsy occlumency, he could make out what was real and what was a diversion. He made sure to leave no corner of Crane's mind untouched. When he got out, he was drained, but Crane looked worse.
Mathilda had come down again by the time he was done. "I told Dennis to wait upstairs," she said, curiously eyeing the severed head. "Thinking that was probably for the best."
"Thanks," he said, and walked upstairs with Hermione, who was holding the bucket with his fingers. He stopped beside Alfred, suddenly having a brilliant idea. "You take care of him," he said, "or Ginny might do it for you."
Alfred was a good man, but still conscientious. Knowing what he knew now, it was indeed a shame he didn't learn what the American was doing with those thugs, but involving Alfred was a fine exchange in return. He stopped as they neared the top of the stairs and looked at Hermione. "It's Anthony Burke. He's the one who ran this place, who blackmailed the Wizengamot before, who let them indulge in their urges."
"Burke?" she asked. "He hasn't said a word during our Wizengamot sessions."
"He didn't need to, and he was smart enough never to show up here without polyjuice. He just gave orders to Crane, here. He and the guy who got blasted before you got here worked for him. Dammit… I think Borgin knew too, their families are close. I think he wanted me to find out about Barnton."
"Later," Hermione said. "First we take care of you."
He got upstairs, and followed to an open door into a parlour of some kind. Dennis ran over to him when he spotted them.
"Harry! Oh, God. I was so confused, but I know you and Mathilda are close—just, let me take care of that."
"Hey Dennis," he said. "Sorry about dragging you here, but… well, things are rather complicated."
"Any time," he said, shaking his head. He took out four vials from his pocket and lined them up on the table in the parlour while Harry and Hermione sat down. "This is going to be painful."
"You can do this, right?" Harry asked.
"Piece of cake. Mending limbs is introductory material for a healer."
Harry nodded and held out his hand. Dennis carefully removed the bandages, revealing the fingers, still seeping blood. He took the first digit and with a brush, applied some of the first potion to the bone on the severed finger. "First we have to mend the bone. Unfortunately it wasn't cut off at the joint." He placed the finger bones together and Harry felt a sharp sting.
This was repeated twice. He then took out the second vial and poured a little over each finger. "To regrow the nerves." It burned like his finger had been dropped into boiling oil. He finished with some dittany and murtlap essence. When he was finished, the only evidence of his fingers ever having been cut was the soreness and a slight red tint.
"Thank you, Dennis," Hermione said. "You're a life-saver."
"Yeah," Harry agreed. "Thanks a lot. Do you need one of us to get you back?"
"It's fine… Look, if you need me to help, whatever it is you're doing…"
Oh, how Harry would love to include Dennis, but he wasn't ready, and Harry wasn't sure he would ever be. After all, he had chosen to work a profession of healing, not hurting people. "Thanks Dennis, but I think it's best if you know as little as possible. No offence."
Dennis nodded and put his jacket back on. He looked at his watch, and Harry became aware that he hadn't looked at the time. "Ah—almost seven. I get off at ten today. You take care okay?" He looked and smiled a last time towards Hermione and took off.
They were alone for the first time today and he relaxed.
"I think he has a crush on me," she said.
"I noticed," Harry chuckled. "I just didn't think it was a good idea to tell him off while he was reattaching my fingers."
"Yes," she laughed.
She hugged him. Stress drifted from his body as he smelled her fragrant shampoo and smiled. Even if it was only for a few hours, it wasn't exactly a normal kind of separation. He had missed her terribly, being locked up in this basement.
"Cherry," he whispered, remembering what he had tasted when she kissed him. "I like it."
#
What was only clear as they got back into the basement, was that Alfred had not expected to spend Christmas Eve killing someone in cold blood. He stood unblinking before lifeless Crane, clutching his wand tightly. Ginny glanced at Harry and back at Alfred. It was a shame they weren't there to see what happened, but they were on a schedule. No one could be the wiser as to what happened here, and that meant quick cleanup and back to the Burrow.
Harry cleared his throat. "Alfred," he said, and the young Auror turned to him. "This has turned out rather complicated, but I'd like your help, if you're willing to give it. I promise," he said to all of them, "that everything will be explained. But we're out of time. Anthony Burke, a lord on the Wizengamot, has been controlling the court with blackmail he got in this very place. Fourteen lords we know of and nineteen officials, all under his control."
"We have turned that against them," he said, looking at Hermione. "And now we need to find Burke and end it. I want all of you to be there when we do."
Mathilda walked over to him, a soft look in her eyes for Hermione. "Always, partner."
Ginny came over too, looking worse for wear from their ordeal. She looked at Harry for a moment and nodded.
Alfred closed his eyes and finally his hand loosened from the vice grip he had on his wand. He looked over Harry, Hermione, Mathilda, and finally with his eyes on Ginny, he spoke. "I'll help you," he said. "Bigby is covering for me… I need to check in, I'm supposed to finish at eight. What now?"
"Come to the Burrow with us," Ginny said. "I need to go home to change, but come by afterwards."
"Yeah, good idea," Harry said. "I think we all need a little time to recover. You all go ahead, tell them we're fine."
"What do we tell them?" Ginny asked.
"Nothing. We talked. Everything's fine. Hermione and I will deal with…" He looked at the three corpses. "We'll take care of this."
"All right," Alfred sighed. "All right."
"Go ahead," Mathilda said. "We won't be long."
Alfred and Ginny left.
Mathilda was smiling. The honesty of her joy and relief impossibly brightened up the dank basement. She jostled Hermione with a hand on her shoulder and pulled Harry into a one-armed hug, laughing in a way Hermione would never have guessed the stoic Auror could. "Really glad you're okay, Harry."
"Really glad I could count on you," he answered.
He looked happy at the turn of events, and once all was said and done, so did Hermione. Not rivals, not enemies, but allies, bound by the blood spilled in this unholy place.
Vanishing a whole human being is something even the greatest witches or wizards would be hard pressed to do. So the bodies would have to be partitioned with cutting spells. It was new and exciting to have someone beside them engaging in what anyone else would consider gruesome and nauseating. Mathilda's innocent appearance only made it more strange, but she was skilled at it.
Once separated into smaller pieces, Hermione went around vanishing the giblets. They cleaned the blood as to leave no other evidence. It was half past seven, already quite late, when they reappeared at the Burrow. Harry had stashed his Auror robes in Hermione's bag. They were greeted by the Weasleys, and Alfred who had gotten off early. Ginny and Alfred must have done some good lying, because they didn't ask much about what had happened.
"So what did you talk about?" Bill asked.
It was an easy in for them. Hermione stepped forward, taking Harry's hand. "We… kind of planned to tell you all tonight." Eyebrows raised, seeing the way she looked at Harry, and the way he looked back at her. "We've started dating."
A few of the wide eyes turned to Ginny. She was standing closely with Alfred.
"I hope you're both happy," Arthur said, raising his beer. The chorus of approval from the rest of the family was mixed. Andromeda seemed the happiest of all hearing the news, and Teddy didn't seem to know what the big deal was, asking about dinner again.
They ate the food Molly had expertly prepared, turkey, mashed potatoes, oven baked pears—it was a feast much needed by the five partners in crime, especially Ginny. Some colour came back into her face at the taste of caramelised baked pear, and Alfred relaxed as well with a cold beer. Having three Aurors at the table meant they could share their stories with the Weasleys, and it was lively.
Whenever any of the five of them's eyes met, there was an implicit understanding that only they could share. From that moment on, they stopped being a collection of relations past and present or acquaintances, and became something more. There are some things you can't share without growing closer, and butchering three hired thugs in the basement of a whorehouse is one of them.
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AN: Next chapter will reveal a lot. I just couldn't resist the last bit of twisting canon phrasing.
