A/N: Eight days postpartum at the time of writing this! Our little Winifred is sheer perfection, even if she doesn't like to sleep in her bassinet and instead insists on keeping her father and I up in shifts to hold her. (We're working on it. Safe sleep standards and all that). Forgive me my periodic updates on how motherhood is going, I never imagined I'd get to tell anyone, and this is as close to a time-capsule as I get. (Also, by the time this is posted she'll likely be considerably older). I wrote all of the Christmas chapters in December of 2021 (as I felt like I needed the actual spirit of Christmas to do it, and given that they were 30k words long combined, and absolutely pivotal in the plot, I wanted to get it right). Wendy was born in mid-late January of 2022 :)

This chapter is probably going to be short. It's a bit of an intermission from the action in Waldweirness, and after the last three behemoth chapters, I needed the ability to write something to speed the plot along into January, given that I don't use scene breaks.

"We never decided to become dissidents... We have been transformed into them, without quite knowing how, sometimes we have ended up in prison without precisely knowing how. We simply went ahead and did certain things that we felt we ought to do, and that seemed to us decent to do, nothing more nor less."

Václav Havel

It was remarkable how quickly a mental fog could set in after an enjoyable Christmas season. Hell, even their sojourn to Spain had not been enough to keep at bay the crushing ennui that Harry Potter felt upon his return to the office in early January.

Not that he'd ever left for such a long period of time, of course. He was, still, called in periodically to deal with drunken rows in Knockturn Alley pubs, and there had been some minor trouble with enchanted items making their way into muggle hands that he'd quickly fobbed off onto the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts office (a common occurrence that seemed to happen every Christmas season), and some few minor crimes scattered hither and thither throughout the intervening weeks. Even so, his short sabbatical from the office that he was granted seemed fleeting and, if anything, when he'd returned in a full capacity, he felt more drained than he thought he might have had he taken no additional time away at all.

Ginny seemed to feel the same, even after having come back from maternity leave, their short trip to Ibiza, and the holiday.

Harry didn't blame her. Besides the intensity of her job coaching the English National Quidditch team, there were additional stressors making themselves felt.

By now, George Weasley was no longer the only member of the family facing scrutiny in the form of questionable audits. Ron and Hannah had been fingered by Harry's department as well. No matter how many inquiries he was able to make as Deputy, he'd found it nigh on impossible to ferret out why they were under suspicion of having committed tax fraud.

He was only aware of the Auror's identity assigned to the case because Ron had made sure to note with whom he had spoken—the Departmental Head had otherwise refused to tell him. It was a younger recruit again. Someone more recently trained and whom Harry only felt he knew in passing.

Neither was it only the entrepreneurs of the Weasley family who had faced difficulties: Arthur had been forced into an early retirement, having been told, in no uncertain terms, that it was inappropriate for the head of the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts department to be a pureblooded wizard. Percy had been systematically demoted month to month despite maintaining an impeccable record of service, and Harry had his suspicions that his own wife may not have maintained her position as Head Coach had it not been for his own illustrious identity: she had been pulled into several interviews with big wigs from the Department of Magical Games and Sports that had no identifiable cause, though she had been quick to relate to him that they had seemed intent on questioning whether she didn't want to quit.

Didn't she enjoy motherhood? Wasn't her marriage to Harry worth devoting all of her time to? Couldn't there be a third, a fourth, or more Potter children? Was she sure? No? Truly?

Well—suit yourself I suppose, Mrs. Potter.

She had left the meetings feeling harried and bewildered. The team's record under her coaching had brought them closer to the world cup than they had been in some fifty years—why on earth should they be looking to press her into an early retirement?

He shouldn't have found it surprising, therefore, when Ginny had announced days into the new year that she had been discussing it with the other Weasley ladies, and that they had come to the ultimate decision that they were in need of a girl's trip over an extended weekend. Nothing that would cause her to take much more time off, but perhaps one Friday, and then over the weekend. A little shopping in France's Place Cachée, a little sight-seeing in Muggle Paris. Fleur had planned the entire excursion and was intent on treating her sisters-in-law and her mother-in-law, yearning, in her words, 'for a bit of culture.'

Unfortunately, that left Harry without a place to put James and Albus for the day on Friday, and after a bit of protracted negotiations between husband and wife, Ginny had agreed to let him ask Hermione, yet again.

"What about the crèche?" his wife begged, somewhat desperately.

Harry shook his head a bit ruefully. "I keep hearing bits of nonsense about that place—a week ago it was closed for a bout of dragon pox, and one of my junior Auror's told me that his daughter was bitten by one of the older boys and keeps getting picked on—the ladies meant to be watching them just brushed him off when he complained. I'm not sure that's where we want to put the kids, Gin."

"She'll have them at work, you realize—"

"I'm aware, Gin, but you really haven't left us many options here. Your mum is going to be going with you, and Arthur's already agreed to watch all of the older kids, James and Albus on top of that would be a bit overwhelming."

His wife sighed regretfully. "I guess it would be a bit much to ask him to watch the babies too."

Harry nodded. "I think so. Hermione and James get on great, he really enjoyed his time with her,"

"Al is so young though, Harry. Do you think she'd be able to keep track of both of them? It's one thing to entertain a toddler who can walk and talk. Albus is still too young."

Harry regarded his wife for several moments, deep in thought. "I might have a solution, though I doubt you'll like it much... and, mind you, I'd have to ask 'Mione first if it's even possible."

"Not—"

"Yeah, Gin. Snape's mum."

His wife grimaced. Harry was well aware that Ginny hadn't been thrilled that James had been left with the taciturn woman the first time it had happened.

"She did a fair job of watching Jamie, you've got to admit. He still talks about it. And she's at least had a baby. I'm not sure whether Hermione's even aware which side is up when it comes to a kid Al's age."

Ginny's lips twitched. "Hard to picture Snape as a baby. I imagine he came out barking orders and was born swaddled in black robes,"

Harry chuffed out a laugh, "Yeah, I know. I saw some of his memories though, Gin. She wasn't able to protect him from his father, that's true, but he was a kid just like Jamie was, and she seemed to love him enough, you know? When I spoke to her—I mean, you'd know if you had been there, Gin. She spoke about him the way your mum speaks about any of you lot. She's a mother."

"I suppose—"

"And I'm not exactly sure what the alternative could be. Hermione can't call off the way we can. She's not exactly at liberty to take any time away."

Ginny looked somewhat regretful and also thoughtful. "Who'd have thought that, eh? Us in the positions we're in and Hermione working there. And at that level... I always thought she'd have been made Minister or something by now—"

Harry shook his head ruefully. "I think we all did. I'm not entirely sure what it is she wants, but she... she isn't who she was at Hogwarts. I think somewhere along the way her priorities must have changed."

"Do you think she's happy?" His wife asked, her face showing a bit of concern. "I'd invite her to go with us to take a bit of a load off herself, but... well..."

"You know your mum still considers her a Weasley in all but name—even if it didn't ever go anywhere with Ron after the war,"

"That's not the issue," Ginny protested, waving her hand through the air dismissively. "I think she'd feel pressured to say yes but wouldn't actually want to. I'd prefer not to put her in that position."

Harry hummed low in his throat while he considered this. "She's not much of a 'shopping in Paris' type girl, is she?"

"No, not exactly." She chuckled as she said it, but his wife's eyes were still looking a bit sad. "Anyway, do you think she's happy? You didn't say,"

The boy—well, man—who-lived heaved a troubled sigh. "I couldn't possibly say. I think she likes her job a lot, and I think it... it does something for her. And she seems to really enjoy hanging out with Snape's mum, for whatever that's worth—"

"Strange thought, that. Absolutely barmy,"

Harry chuckled, "Right? Bit of an odd couple, but they seem like they're good for each other. Hermione seems to get something out of that friendship that she maybe... maybe can't with us."

Ginny leaned back in her armchair, staring at the flames coming from the fireplace, "Why do you think that is?"

Her husband shrugged inelegantly, reminding her of the boy she'd met at ten in King's Cross for a moment. "Dunno. They both lost a lot in the war—then again, so did we. But I think it's really because they're both so alone."

"How do you mean? Hermione has us, and she managed to restore her parent's memories—"

"Have you ever met 'Mione's parents, Gin?"

Ginny faltered, her brow furrowing slightly. "No,"

"They're a bit on the... the cold side, I guess." Harry finished. "Just like in the magical world there are people who are a bit more preoccupied with—I dunno," he struggled for a moment, "propriety, I think would be the word." He finished, thinking of his Aunt and Uncle.

"Now, Wizards and Muggles are a bit different about how they go about such things, but—I suspect there's a reason why our Hermione has always been so driven to prove herself to everyone else around, except herself."

"She's a bit of a people pleaser," Ginny agreed.

"That's putting it mildly." Harry was deep in thought now. "Maybe that's what's changed."

"How do you mean?"

"I mean, she still serves other people in her job now but... she's not trying to please everyone anymore. It seems to me that she wants to serve people who she thinks need it and are deserving of help, rather than, you know, making her parents proud, or impressing her teachers, or trying to prove to everyone around that she's the best at everything,"

His wife hummed as she considered his words. "That doesn't seem like such a bad change,"

"I don't think it is. I think it's quite good of her, really. Though I expect that's precisely beside the point, so I suggest you not mention to her that I said so: the whole thing seems to be that she's trying not to give a toss what anyone says about what she's choosing to do with herself."

Ginny looked regretful for a moment, "I know she's heard enough of that from Professor McGonagall. Last time we spoke she was pressing me about her. She seems quite concerned about her wasted potential—"

"Exactly," Harry nodded. "And I'm sure the professor isn't the only person Hermione's hearing that from. I guess potential can bring freedom to do anything or can be a prison trapping you into something you're good at but hate: I think our girl's made her choice." He finished with a small, fond smile.

His wife considered him for a long moment, her freckled cheek cushioned on one milky-pale hand. "You've grown a lot, Harry Potter. I'm proud to be married to you."

He laughed merrily, his green eyes shining. "You're sure it's not just because you bagged your first crush? Hell of an accomplishment, that—"

She shook her head, her own brown eyes were somber. "You're not who I had a crush on, you're so much more than that. And you're not the boy I started seeing in fifth year, you're much bigger than him.

"You're so far from the boy who I followed on a thestral to the Department of Mysteries in fourth year: you've learned the weight of responsibility. You're not even the man who fought in the Battle of Hogwarts: you had to leave so much of the anger—the hurt—driving you to fight aside afterwards to build what we have together now...

"Honestly, I don't know who the hell 'Harry Potter' is," she said, making air quotes with her fingers, "But my husband is a man to be proud of, who's grown beyond what I ever expected or thought to expect."

Harry beamed at her, his cheeks reddening with a bit of embarrassment. Even from his own wife he wasn't in the habit of accepting praise. It had taken years to learn that denying how she felt about him only hurt her, and that persisting in his self-effacing humility did nothing but frustrate Ginny when she was looking to pay him a compliment. Now, some eight to nine years later he was finally able to smile and nod, and say 'thank you' in the quietest voice he could manage.

Ginny peered at him shrewdly, clearly expecting him to reject it, and when he didn't she beamed back.

It was a small moment of respite after several stressful weeks.

Even Christmas, after Hermione had left, had been tense for Harry Potter. He was well aware that his red-headed family were feeling the squeeze from all of the new policies being enacted, and that, though they'd never ask him directly, they wondered at his position in the Aurory, and how much he knew—how much he did or didn't have control over.

In reality he controlled nothing.

He doubted, at this point, that his place as Deputy Head was anything more than a vanity appointment, given to him in order to keep him satisfied and shut up about anything more important.

That, perhaps, would have worked for a man like Percy Weasley. In Harry Potter it didn't seem that they knew what they were asking, nor knew the man himself enough to understand his priorities and principals.

Harry was on the razor's edge, teeter-tottering back and forth on taking further action, unsanctioned and irrespective of any official investigations. Something in the Ministry reeked of such an off-odour that he imagined it could be smelled even in Hogsmeade.

He had begun to make some modest inquiries. Just small things—anything he thought he could get away with. For instance, flirting with some of the ladies who did the filing would produce a report or two. It always made him feel dirty, and as a consequence, Ginny came home to several bouquets of flowers that he bought her out of feelings of guilt for the modest indiscretion of winking and smiling at other witches, but otherwise he may not have gotten his hands on the internal earnings report he'd procured just that month for the previous year.

As it happened, in 2006, the Ministry had frozen the pay for all of the standard positions and Heads of the departments. Harry knew from his own department that no one had earned a raise that calendar year, himself included—though under normal circumstances, raises were granted commensurate with one's years on the force, and under extraordinary circumstances, bonuses were allocated to Aurors who either outperformed, or achieved some sort of extraordinary take down of a dark wizard or a break in a difficult case.

No bonus was awarded in the previous year. Not a single one.

Where no existing positions had received a pay raise in the past year, some five positions had opened up that were compensated at greater rates than actual Departmental Heads. These were for training staff, whose sole mission it was to disseminate the new rules and regulations decided upon by the Wizengamot and the Minister's office.

Most of the names for the training staff weren't familiar, but one had stuck out: Dennis Creevey.

Poor Denny had had a difficult time after the final battle. He wasn't alone in that fact, but that didn't really matter, to each his own pain, to each his own suffering, Harry had come to realise.

Dennis, as far as Harry could find, had disappeared from the wizarding world for a year or two, before he published a column in the Daily Prophet around the turn of the millennium about his time in a muggle programme for drug rehabilitation. He hadn't finished Hogwarts, but he did manage to secure a permanent paid position at the Prophet following his well-received column about his journey through his own trauma.

For the first year, he published opinion pieces while also acting in the capacity of official photographer. He was never much of a paparazzo, like his elder brother Colin was, but he was gifted with staging photographs for important pieces, and Harry himself had been occasioned to have to put up with Dennis' lens being pushed in his face a time or two for official stories written on the Aurory early in his career.

Sometime around 2002, Dennis had become a fully-fledged member of the Prophet's editorial team, and he regularly published bits of fluff in the opinion section of the paper, though throughout his four years at his post, they gradually worked their way closer and closer to the front page, and eventually were a more permanent fixture of page one.

He didn't quite have the same flair for the salacious as Rita Skeeter had, and that was surely a blessing. Rita had been pushed out not in some glorious coup, but through falling reader engagement, and had summarily ended up writing her virulent gossip in a tiny, half-page insert that rested at the back of each issue of Witch Weekly.

Dennis' commentary was incisive. He drew upon the past twenty-five years of warfare whenever and wherever he could in order to make his points—though Harry had found that at times his associations between subjects could be tenuous at best (even Harry thought it rather absurd to suggest that anyone who took the position that Wizarding kind should not have to hide itself from the world was a mere step away from the likes of Voldemort himself). After all, 'Magic is Might' was but one possible permutation that might result from the two worlds becoming exposed to one another—another possibility was peaceable cohabitation or even cooperation, even if Harry did think it unlikely.

None of this seemed to matter to Dennis, however. The mere fact that one might hold the position that he or she resented hiding himself or herself from muggles was enough to suggest, Dennis asserted, that the wizard or witch in question harboured deep feelings of resentment and malice toward muggle-kind.

Indeed, the only witches and wizards that could be trusted to go amongst the muggles were muggleborns, who likely wouldn't find fault with their muggle communities of origin or at least wouldn't 'interfere' with them (whether with the aim of helping or hindering them, as the case might have been). Even half-bloods' motives were suspect: after all, wasn't Voldemort a half-blood? Hadn't he chosen allegiance to his one magical parent over and above his muggle heritage? Wasn't it to such a degree that he had murdered his own father? Never again could such a circumstance be enabled.

These were the questions Dennis had asked his readers, as well as his final conclusion.

The column had been well received, it seemed, from the conversation that Harry heard flowing in the aftermath, as well as subsequent columns, from Dennis and other commentators, who had used it as a jumping-off point of sorts in order to spin off new takes, yet Harry himself remained unconvinced.

What should be done with a half-blood, by that logic? Should he be thrust more firmly into the muggle world or the magical? Should such marriages be discouraged for fear of producing children who turned toward feelings of resentment? Pureblooded marriage had already been abolished. If any of them married now, they'd produce only halfblooded offspring, for the most part... what world would their children be more or most entitled to occupy?

Harry knew that Snape's story was similar: a muggle man for a father who had abused his wife and son horrifically... but what about Seamus Finnegan's father? From what Harry could remember, Mr. Finnegan was an affable man who loved his wife and son dearly. Surely, Dennis should remember that... Colin would have.

In any case, Dennis hadn't gone so far as to call for dictating who could marry whom, but he did advise in his words 'conscientious couplings' of mixed blood status, and had gone so far as to suggest that unions where blood disparities hadn't been considered or addressed were ripe for summary dissolution, if not by law, then at least by virtue of the lack of such conscientiousness.

Harry wasn't sure how to make heads or tails of such a proscription, or even what a term like 'conscientious coupling' could actually mean, but that particular article had been thoroughly fêted in the opinion columns of most wizarding publications for months afterward as being a 'compassionate' and 'broad-minded' solution to the issue of intermarriage, and, from what Harry could gather, made up a portion of what Dennis was being paid to train Ministry employees on for 3,000 galleons a year.

Things had begun to get very weird, indeed. Particularly when he'd been asked by one of the witches he'd flirted with for information if it wasn't he and Ginny's different blood statuses, or at least a lack of acknowledgement over the disparity, that had him winking and ruffling his hair at her on occasion.

Harry hadn't bothered with her again. Then again, she didn't have much in the way of relevant information anyway.

He glanced down where Ginny's orange hair was catching the light from the dying fire underneath his chin.

He was a lucky man indeed that she felt so secure with him. He hadn't kept his activities from her, it would have felt too much like a real indiscretion, and worse, had the gossip gotten back to her he'd have had hell to pay.

Still, the very fact that he had to go skulking around the Ministry looking for breadcrumbs leading to Merlin-knew-what was enough to discomfit him. His mouth twisted in frustration as he pulled his wife closer.

After asking around one too many times he'd been taken off of the audits all-together, and was now leading up the team investigating the werewolf gangs and the bands of Little Death Eaters, as they were being called. Specifically, anyone who was probably not an original member...

He still thought there were far too many for it to entirely make sense.

Yet, he enjoyed his work as a lead investigator. It had always been what he'd enjoyed most: following a yarn until he found where it began to unravel—revealing its secrets to him at last.

Harry was so committed to his investigations (and so distrustful of his own comrades in the MLE), that he had begun to purchase muggle disposable cameras that he deployed at the crime scenes after hours, or when his partners had departed.

Sitting in a muggle filing cabinet in the study was a sizable folio with photos far too gruesome for his wife or sons to lay eyes on. Too gruesome for the other Aurors to want to fuss with, even. It seemed that it was enough for them to record a victim's name, when it came to the increasing werewolf attacks, and status as deceased or infected, as the case may have been, than to record any of the details about what the attack entailed.

Harry knew that this was because there were no preventative efforts being made. They were like a single, small plaster on a wound that was haemorrhaging life-blood. He'd made the mistake once of including a photo of the point-of-entry for the scene of the crime in the report he'd made and had been roundly taken to task for it, the reason cited being that he was revealing privileged information on an official report that could be requisitioned by any interested party such as the press (notwithstanding that the reports were often redacted by order of a subcommittee anyway).

He hadn't made the same mistake again. He certainly hadn't made the mistake of revealing the contents of his second folder.

It was full of Dark Marks. At least fifteen by his last count and growing by the month. He made certain to photograph each and every Little Death Eater they booked. The witch or wizard's face and arm, both. It was either that or lose record of them completely once they had been sentenced and summarily executed. He couldn't know how many exactly had gone unrecorded before he began using his muggle camera.

Harry had spent more hours than he cared to admit staring at the motionless photos of the Death Eaters, and the stark black brands marring the flesh of their inner arms. He couldn't put his finger on it, but there was something strange about its appearance. Something that didn't quite square with his memories from the war eight years before... but he'd quickly put those suspicions to rest and had buried them under his pillow so to speak.

It was hard enough trying to sleep with everything else he knew and the growing pall cast by all the things of which he couldn't be sure.

"... the intellectuals are more totalitarian in outlook than the common people. On the whole the English intelligentsia have opposed Hitler, but only at the price of accepting Stalin. Most of them are perfectly ready for dictatorial methods, secret police, systematic falsification of history etc. so long as they feel that it is on 'our' side."

George Orwell