Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, and no profit is being made from the publication of this fic.
Summary: See Previous Chapters

CHAPTER FOUR

Things had been going fairly peacefully (as peacefully as possible with an insatiably curious two-year-old around), and Harry was nearing his Third birthday.

Natasja knew that it couldn't last, and wondered if having someone intrude or attack during the fortnight surrounding Harry's birthday was some kind of ritual, as something always seemed to happen. Last year it had been Dumbledore's first attempt, trying to take Harry away for a completely idiotic reason. Now it was some random witch, who had become offended when Natasja had informed her to "Get out of my house before I kick your backside all the way to the North Pole," and pronounced herself a notorious Serial Killer and supporter of the Dark Lord, who would happily kill her baby just to teach Natasja a lesson.

The attempted murder didn't work out as the witch had probably expected. Since her previous two successes, Natasja had made a point of figuring out how to use everyday objects as weapons. As such, a witch unused to her non-magical victims putting up a fight, found herself facing off against a pissed off mother surrounded by an entire room of potential weapons.

The witch lost.

She ducked a meat-cleaver, and then straightened, only to dive to the side to avoid a bar-b-que scraper aimed at her throat. "Hey, watch it, you little – eek!"

The witch wasn't quite fast enough to avoid the toasting fork that pinned her wand hand to the wall, or the breadknife that barely missed her head. A baking sheet wasn't as effective as a pot or skillet, and required a few extra whacks, but since a toasting fork had temporarily caused her to drop her wand, it worked.

Unfortunately, the DMLE had been on the lookout for the Killer-Witch's magical signature, and she had managed to get one spell off, which had shattered the rosemary pot on the window sill when Natasja ducked, which brought them down like a ton of bricks. Actually, a ton of bricks that forgot to fall for about an hour, at which point Henry had discreetly snapped her wand, and confiscated any back-up escape items, and the station was already taking care of it.

For some reason, the DMLE didn't believe Henry when he insisted that, yes, a witch high up on the Ministry's "Most Wanted" list had, in fact, been taken down by several well-aimed cooking implements. When he refused to change his story, the formidable Head of Department, Madam Amelia Bones, had decided to come over to question the Witch for her version of events. As it had been her day off, she had been forced to bring her niece with her.

This action had been met with an indignant "Do we look like a day-care centre?" from the on-duty officers, who didn't like having the DMLE around in the first place. Unfortunately, the MLE didn't seem to care about the inconvenience of a three-year-old running underfoot in a building that happened to contain an armoury and the occasional criminal. (Harry was the exception, as he would pick a random officer, usually Henry, for the day, and stick close to them, and therefore out of trouble.) Fortunately, Natasja wasn't going anywhere that day, and a quick phone call provided relief, and Harry was spending the day with little Miss Susan Bones.

Natasja had been slightly reluctant to take Susan, after the events of that morning, but accepted in order to get the whole thing over with. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. After dosing the witch with some kind of truth-potion, and getting the same account that Henry had given, the MLE had come up with an idea that Natasja was convinced was just another bit of proof that most magical people were idiots.

Rather than accept that yes, it was possible for a Muggle to defend herself with no more than the contents of her kitchen, especially since it tended to be the last thing her attacker would expect. Despite the tales Henry had told of self-stirring cauldrons and such, and Natasja being the guardian of a magical child, the MLE decided that he must have enchanted the implements, and brought in someone from the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Department to check things over and decide how much Henry should be fined.

Natasja probably would have been a lot nicer if they had bothered to ask or tell her they were coming in advance, or if the person they sent, Mr Weasley, hadn't taken one look and declared "But you're a Muggle!" in the delighted tone of one seeing a particularly rare and fascinating zoo exhibit. He then spent nearly an hour grilling her about the function of perfectly ordinary items like cough syrup (honestly, it said 'cough syrup' on the label, didn't that make it obvious?), the telephone and her computer.

She could understand the computer, as they weren't exactly a household object, but enough of Natasja's marking had to go into an electronic database, and she didn't want to have to leave Harry alone for hours while she went into work every day to use the computer there. Even so, the constant questions about how most of her electrical possessions worked (did she look like the local repairman?), and the comments such as "Muggles are so quaint, I simply don't know how you get along without Magic" and "Of course, a Pepper-Up Potion would be better, but I suppose you make do as best you can" (though in Natasja's opinion, a quick trip to the local Pharmacist and written directions was better than the hours it took to brew a pepper-up potion and trying to gauge how much to use by ear) started to get on her nerves very quickly.

Gritting her teeth at the condescending attitude (and starting to get a much better understanding of why Henry had left the Wizarding World as soon as possible) Natasja had endured it for another hour, before snapping when he tried to take a lamp apart to see how it worked. The lamp was a hand painted antique from mid-19th century Japan, a going-away gift from her father, and Natasja had been fixing Harry and Susan an afternoon snack, and was therefore too far away to do anything when the light bulb switched on and he dropped it in surprise. Barely resisting the urge to scream, and quickly putting the shattered pieces aside before Mr Weasley could just Vanish them, in the hope that Henry could repair it later, Natasja restrained herself to telling him to either finish his investigation or get out of her house.

She started fantasizing about using the fireplace poker as a demonstration of non-magical defense when Mr Weasley told her there was no need to be rude over a few harmless questions, and started poking around her kitchen instead. As Natasja knew for a fact that he had been told she had only used knives, a baking sheet and a toasting fork, which he had inspected and cleared with a few waves of his wand, she doubted that he really needed to examine the plug and cord of her toaster in such close detail.

Natasja's hand was starting to twitch toward a carving knife by the time Madam Bones arrived to pick up Susan, caught the near-homicidal glint in her eyes, and demanded to know why a simple investigation had taken nearly five hours. If Madam Bones hadn't been responsible for sending him there in the first place, forcing her to keep an eye on both him and two under-four-year-olds, Natasja would have actually hugged her.

Henry was surprised when he came by that evening, just as Natasja had finished giving Harry a bath and changing him into his pyjamas, and a simple "How was your day?" managed to have his girlfriend dissolving into tears. While Natasja tended to be very calm and self-composed, that also meant that on the odd occasion when she was driven past her limit, it tended to be worse than could be solved by a few tissues and a cup of calming tea.

"We were attacked, and instead of being able to just sit down and cuddle Harry for a few hours, I get dumped with another child who started crying when the toys didn't move, and a condescending jerk who was more interested in dismantling my house than actually doing his job! He smashed dad's vase, and nearly electrocuted himself of I don't know how many different occasions, and I had to spend more time making sure he didn't accidentally kill himself than keeping an eye on the kids! Half the time he didn't' even get the names right, and he's supposed to be the leading authority?"

Harry had been engrossed in his train set, but looked up at the sound of his mother crying, and ran over to climb onto the couch and hug her. Natasja settled him into her lap, holding her adopted son close as she tried to get herself under control and Henry tried to assess the damage.

That wasn't good. Arthur Weasley had always been obsessed with Muggles, which was why he had accepted the low-paying job in the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts, rather than the much more beneficial position in the Investigative sub-section of the DMLE. Still, Henry would have thought that the man would have the decency to confine his interest to his own home and Muggle Studies reference books, rather than practically ransacking a Muggle woman's home. Spotting the dustpan with the lamp shards, Henry quickly repaired it, and went back to being a sympathetic ear.

"I mean, the fact that I'm not magical does not give him the right to treat me as though I'm from some ancient community that has barely mastered the use of communication or of fire in cooking! It was like I was one of the refugees from a poverty-stricken country, like I barely spoke English and 'get along the best you can, I suppose'! I'm a properly-raised girl from a decent family, not some imbecile who barely knows how to function in everyday life! I – I – "

She burst into a fresh flood, and Henry winced as he pulled her into a hug, resolving to tell Mrs Creevy a highly-edited version of events first thing tomorrow morning. The Creevys sometimes dealt with a similar attitude because Mr Creevy was a milkman in a neighbourhood where most families boasted of being highly-ranked accountants, businessmen, or such. Natasja could use a talk with a friend who understood.

Sometimes, Henry wasn't sure who was worse. There were the Pureblood Bigots, who treated the Muggle Born like second-class citizens, and Muggles even lower, and that was bad enough. Then there were the "Progressive" pro-Muggle sort. While Henry supposed that most of them had good intentions, the patronizing attitude that most of them held probably did more damage than any amount of anti-Muggle insults or propaganda.

Arthur Weasley, in particular, had the habit of treating Muggles like small, adorable children not yet old enough to understand what was going on around them. There was a reason that, despite being the Head of the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Department, (and despite the longstanding opinion of anyone with an actual Muggle background that he needed to be replaced by a Muggle Born or Half-Blood who actually knew what they were talking about) he was no longer allowed to deliver reports to Muggle Authorities. Honestly, Henry sometimes suspected that Arthur was so good at disenchanting Muggle items because he played around with them in his spare time, which, really, was the height of hypocrisy.

Actually… "I know what you mean. Weasley has a friendly sort of personality, but very limited social skills, and a tendency to cause trouble through misunderstandings. He's Head of his Department because no one else wanted the job, and if there had been any other choice or someone hadn't pulled favours, he probably would have been sacked after the accidental arrests."

That certainly caught her attention. "Accidental arrests."

Yet another person Mr Weasley had offended enough for them to be happy about the thought of any misfortune befalling him. Someone needed to sit down and have a talk with him about that, or maybe a quiet word to Madam Bones…

Henry had been one of the investigating officers during the incidents in question, and would probably never manage to forget it. "Some Ministry bigwig decided that the departments needed a crash course in whatever they were supposed to be doing. Arthur wasn't in the Muggle World for half an hour before he was being arrested for accosting a private citizen, meddling with public property with potential to cause a public disturbance, and deliberate racially-motivated harassment."

Natasja blinked, wiping her eyes and tossing the tissue in the bin. "How in the name of all things sacred did that happen?"

Henry had spent three hours trying to get the statements of eight very offended Muggles, the report of the non-magically-aware police officers who had been on scene and thought 'Muggles', 'felly tone', and 'eleictrikity' were some kind of code words, and had been seconds away from alerting MI-5. A discreet silencing spell that, while getting Arthur into a bit of trouble for refusing to answer questions and "disrespecting an officer of the law" by only mouthing words, was possibly the only thing that managed to stop him from breaking the statute of secrecy entirely.

As a result, Henry's recollection of the incident (and the two-day headache he suffered afterward) was very clear. "There were a few bizarre fashions going on at the time, and Arthur 'couldn't think of the best way to introduce himself', so he just caught a random passer-by by the arm. She didn't appreciate it, kicked him in the shin, and ran for a constable."

Natasja was starting to get an idea of where this was going, and bit back a smile, finding it very hard to be sympathetic. "The 'meddling with public property' was trying to take apart a fire hydrant or some such, I suppose?"

Henry grinned, relieved that she wasn't crying anymore. "Yes. In front of witnesses, too. Then he went up to a group of Oriental and Indian tourists, addressed them as Muggles and started questioning them much like you described earlier. They appreciated the constant questioning and condescending attitude even less than you did, and he only made matters worse by following them when they tried to just walk away."

Natasja let out a sigh and leaned against him. "Thanks for that, I needed a laugh. How are things on your end?"

Henry shrugged. "Shacklebolt reminded them of his report about Snape and the Skillet, and Dumbledore and the Rolling Pin, which gave us a bit of credence. Then Madam Bones came back with the news that nothing was enchanted, so there was nothing to charge me for. I think a couple of them were disappointed, since they've been trying to catch the woman for months, and there is no way this is going to remain secret forever, especially when the station lodge a complaint about the DMLE stirring up a fuss over nothing."

In Natasja's opinion, the semi-public embarrassment would serve them right, but she refrained from saying so, wanting to just get the entire thing out of her mind. Henry paused, then pulled something out of his pocket. "It probably isn't the best time, but I've been planning for today for weeks, even if those plans were shot to hell. A year ago, you asked me to wait, and you always insist that there is never an absolutely perfect moment for anything. So, I'm asking again: Will you marry me?"

Henry's original proposal speech had been a lot more flowery, and had the entire station either falling asleep or laughing when he tried to practice. Finally, the Sargent had given him some quiet advice, saying to just speak from the heart, and the words would come.

Apparently, it was good advice, as Natasja smiled and kissed him, forgoing her usual descriptiveness. "Yes."

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A/N: To clarify, I am not bashing anyone, but one reader wanted to know what would happen if Arthur Weasley ever had to actually operate in the Muggle World without the help of Obliviators. Look back at his various interactions with Muggles, and tell me it wouldn't have been a disaster from start to finish.

So, Harry has met someone from the Wizarding World, and next chapter should actually get things moving. As always, constructive criticism is appreciated, but flames are laughed at. Also, check out my other Harry Potter chaptered story, 'The Dursley Witch'.

Thanks, Nat