"Try again, Neville," Harry said.

They were well past the point where Ron or Hermione would have told him to accept they weren't getting anywhere and to bugger off, but Neville nodded, and began to walk up and down outside the Room of Requirement again.

"Make sure you're thinking of him as Tom Riddle," Harry couldn't help saying again.

"I am," Neville said, mild rebellion. "I need to find what Tom Riddle has hidden. I need to find what Tom Riddle has hidden. I need to find what Tom Riddle has hidden."

No door appeared, just as no door had appeared the last fourteen times he'd tried.

"Is there a better way to ask?" Harry said. "You know the Room better than anyone, Neville, you've always had a brilliant knack for it."

"I've tried everything!" Neville looked miserable. "I'm sorry, Harry. If it's in there, it's not hidden, and it's not left there, and it's not placed there, by old Tom or by Voldemort either. I even tried all the variations I could think of for cursed objects, in case the Room doesn't think it belongs to him now he's dead, and —" He gestured to the blank wall.

Harry sighed. "Yeah. Thanks, Neville. I thought it had to be worth a try, since we know this is definitely one of the places he went, when he came asking Dumbledore for a job."

"I'm sorry I couldn't help."

"You did." Harry clapped Neville on the shoulder. "If you can't find it in the Room of Requirement, it's not here. That's helpful."

Neville still had a hang-dog expression as they turned towards the stairs. "If I think of anything else likely, I'll tell you, Harry."

"Tell me even if it's unlikely," Harry said.

"It's that bad?"

Harry paused to let a gaggle of Gryffindors bolt past on their way to breakfast. "I got the feel for how old Tom thought, that last year hunting Horcruxes. The kind of things he thought were important, you know?" They followed the students down the stairs to the ground floor. "Just imagine you have delusions of grandeur and an obsession with your own self-importance and go from there."

"Some lost Defence Against the Dark Arts trophy, or something?" Neville suggested.

Harry shook his head. "I think it has to be something teachers come into contact with, or at least come near. So it can't be lost, and I don't know how you could guarantee the D.A.D.A teacher would run across a trophy kept somewhere else in the school."

"Sure you could," Neville said. "Everyone walks rounds, right?"

"Not me," Harry said. "Or Ron. Minerva said since we were already spending the nights on split-watch, we'd be let off."

"Usually, though, everyone does — including the D.A.D.A teacher. There's loads of places you could put something that every teacher would have to pass, sooner or later. Near any of the dormitories, for one."

"Neville, that's brilliant," Harry said. "When are you next supposed to be patrolling?"

They reached the Great Hall and Neville shooed a couple of loitering students inside with a gesture. "Day after tomorrow."

"Mind if I come with you?"

"Mind?" Neville grinned. "It's bloody boring, Harry, I'd be dead chuffed to have company."

"It's a date, then," Harry said as they reached the teacher's table.

"Something you've been meaning to tell me?" Ginny asked, buttering her toast.

Harry took the seat next to her and stole a piece of her toast. "I'm sorry, darling, but Neville and I and the mandrakes are getting married. It's not you — it's me."

"It's definitely you," Ginny agreed. "Or the mandrakes. I never did trust them, sexy little things."

Harry inhaled toast, coughed, and sprayed crumbs across the table. Ginny pushed her glass of pumpkin juice towards him and he drank gratefully. "I don't know why I even try," he said when he could speak.

"I don't know either," Ginny said cheerfully. "The triumph of hope over experience? What are you up to with Neville?"

"Walking teacher's patrol." Harry surveyed the table and settled on kippers. "He had the bloody brilliant idea that Tom Riddle hid something in one of the places where any teacher on night duty would have to pass it."

"West side upper corridor," Ginny suggested. "It's where everyone goes to snog. Which we still haven't done, not that I feel disappointed and let down or anything."

"I've had a bit on!" Harry protested.

"Dark curses, decade-old jinxes, seven years' worth of students to teach — excuses, excuses."

Harry spotted Hermione hurrying into the Great Hall at a rapid, if still marginally dignified, clip. "Maybe you should be the one looking into mandrakes."

"Maybe you should break the D.A.D.A jinx before I have to."

"He's changed his mind," Hermione said, reaching them.

"He?" Harry said, and she nodded. "Why, do you know? When did he tell you?"

"When I was marking." She sat down on his other side. "I don't know why. We weren't even talking about it, he just blurted it out when I was leaving."

Harry raised his eyebrows. "Blurted? We are talking about the same person here, aren't we?"

Hermione served herself scrambled eggs. "Said, then. Out of the blue."

"Good," Harry said, with an immense feeling of relief that told him just how much he'd been dreading breaching Severus Snape's privacy. "We just need to find Patience, then."

"If she's a witch, there might be alumni records in the Library," Hermione said. "I won't have time to look until lunch, though."

"I'll look," Harry said. "Ron's got the fifth years doing Stupefy, and then the third years doing dangerous creatures, this morning."

Hermione poured herself tea, and held the teapot in the direction of Harry's cup with a raised eyebrow. "Shouldn't you be spending the time on the D.A.D.A jinx?"

"That's what I said," Ginny put in.

Harry nodded, and watch Hermione pour tea into his cup as well. "I'm going to check the teachers' patrol routes with Neville day after tomorrow," Harry said. "Apart from that I'm out of ideas. I'm hoping inspiration will strike at some point, but apart from going over everything we've already checked and getting the same result, I'm not sure what to do."

Hermione bit her lip, a small upright line between her eyebrows. "Neville couldn't get anything from the Room of Requirement?"

"Not a thing." Harry shrugged. "Which means at least we've ruled it out."

"I'll make a list," Hermione said. "Of all the places that the D.A.D.A teacher would be bound to go, because they're a teacher, not because of Defence Against the Dark Arts."

"You can rule out the main gates, the Hogsmeade gate, and various doors," Harry said. "And the staff room. Ron and I evicted everyone and spent five hours going over it one evening."

"The Floo network, somehow?" Hermione suggested. "I mean, it's a pretty sure bet that every teacher Floos in or out or to someone else's office, sooner or later."

"I think the Ministry would have noticed," Harry said, "but I'll ask the Department of Magical Transportation."

"If you're talking to the Ministry, there's something else." Hermione rubbed her forearm. "That knife. The one … you know the one."

Harry remembered the way she'd almost flinched from him when he'd tried to see her scar, the way she'd flinched and Severus Snape's words after Hermione had fled back to the dungeon corridor.

"Leave it, Potter." Snape's voice is absent its usual mockery, but there's a note of warning in it that Harry knows he'd be a fool not to heed. "You'll do more harm than good."

Harry glances toward the corridor. "It's a curse of some sort, isn't it? Laid on her not to tell?"

"Something like that." Snape pauses. "How could you not notice? It's been five years."

"I have to do something."

"For once in your life, Potter, leave something to those more suited and more qualified."

Harry put his hand over Hermione's, and she stopped rubbing her arm. "Bellatrix's knife?" She nodded. Well, perhaps Snape was right to tell me to leave it to him. "As far as I know it's still in the Ministry. There's a list as long as both my arms and both Hagrid's of Death eater artifacts that need to be checked before they can be sent to the heirs, and an even longer list of things that need the curse-breakers before they can be let out of the vault. Why?"

"S— someone told me that my — my scar, it's actually a sort of curse." Hermione looked away from him, at her plate, and Harry squeezed the cold fingers beneath his own. "And that it would be easier to break it if we had the knife."

"Then I'll get hold of the knife," Harry said promptly. "I should have noticed, Hermione, I'm sorry."

Hermione pulled away from him. "Why would you have noticed? Is it so obvious, then?"

"I was thinking about it last night, and I realised I haven't seen you in short sleeves since the war," Harry said. "That might not be obvious, but it's something I should have noticed. A friend should have noticed."

Looking down at her plate, Hermione said on a single hard breath, "I didn't want you to."

"Hermione …"

"I think that's part of it. I never thought about it. I didn't want to."

"I'll find that knife," Harry promised her. "If I have to turn the Ministry upside down, single-handed, I'll find that knife."

It got a smile from Hermione, a real smile, like the Hermione he remembered from school. "Thanks, Harry. Honestly, it's just been a sort of white noise — but now I know …"

"It's not getting worse, is it?"

She shook her head. "Actually, what with the salve and the potion from … someone, it's better than ever. But I feel it, now."

What with one thing and another, Harry Floo'd to the Ministry straight after breakfast.

He used the general employee's Floo, sliding out of one of the huge fireplaces lining the entrance and joining the shuffling throng of peak hour commuters. He might be on leave, but he was Harry Potter and the wizard on the reception desk barely glanced at his badge.

Harry got in the lift, grinning to himself to remember how he'd demanded to be treated just like everyone else when he'd first started as an Auror. He hadn't been, of course: he'd just made everyone horrendously uncomfortable by insisting that his identification be checked and verified each time. Ron had settled into celebrity much more easily, perhaps because he'd never really had it before, but it had taken a frank talk from Ginny for Harry to accept that he wasn't going to be, now or ever, an anonymous Auror. If you were just like everybody else, she'd said,we could go out for a drink without you being asked for an autograph. But we can't. So think of that as the price that buys not having to prove who you are every time you go in to work.

He went first to the Department of Magical Transportation, where he put Percy Weasley in a minor flap by suggesting there might be a problem with the Floo connections in Hogwarts. Harry was grinning when he left the office. Percy had improved out-of-sight since the end of the Wizarding War, but one thing that hadn't changed was his absolute dedication to his job, and how seriously he took it.

In fact, an absolute blizzard of memos overtook Harry before he reached the lift. He had to bat them away to keep them out of his face as the lift jerked up, sideways, and then shot off towards the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

At least five of Percy's memos followed him out into the warren of cubicles and shot off to find their recipients. At this time of day, the office was nearly empty: the Aurors on operations in the small hours of the morning would still be on watch, and the ones who'd worked late the previous evening were catching up on sleep. Harry felt a small pang when he noticed that his old cubicle now clearly had a new occupant — a fan of the Falmouth Falcons, from the pennant pinned to the cubicle wall, and an absent-minded one, judging from the number of notes on various files that started DON'T FORGET.

There was a squeak of wheels, and Andy Aggerton rolled into view at the end of the row of cubicle, desk chair balanced precariously on its three working wheels. "Harry!"

"Hello, Andy." Harry made his way down to him. "They keeping you busy?"

"As a Niffler in a jewellery store." Andy scratched his head, sending his greying hair into disarray. "It seems that five years is just about the right amount of time for people to forget what a bad idea messing around with Dark magic is."

Harry leaned against Andy's desk. "What's the word? Anything big?" Like Aurors using Death Curses?

Andy shook his head. "Small stuff still, thank Merlin. But the volume has definitely ticked up. And Robards wants everything documented in triplicate, like always." He thumbed through a thick pile of parchment on his desk. "I don't half envy you, off breaking an old Voldy jinx."

"And teaching twelve-year-olds about Grindylows," Harry pointed out. "Not to mention sharing living quarters with my girlfriend's brother, while she's bunked in with one of my best friends."

"That is cruel and unusual," Andy agreed cheerfully. "So you've come to ask for your leave to be cut short?"

"No, actually, I'm looking for something — one of the artifacts from the war. A knife." He shrugged. "I know it came in here, because I brought it myself, but I don't know what happened to it after that."

"And?" Andy raised his eyebrows.

"And I need to borrow it."

"Borrow," Andy said slowly. "Because?"

"Well, not to bloody use it on someone. It's got a curse of some kind on it, or it works in tandem with a curse, and I need it to find out which." Not entirely true, but Harry didn't feel it would be right to talk about Hermione, even to another Auror. Not to mention getting into just who pointed it out to me, and that's a conversation I need to have with Kingsley first, if I have to have it at all.

"Who'd it belong to?"

"Bellatrix Lestrange," Harry said, unable to keep the grimness out of his voice. Dobby is happy to be with his friend …

"Let's have a look at the catalogue, then."

It had been a while since Harry had been in the file room. As soon as had been reasonably possible after he'd finished his training and become a fully-fledged Auror, he and Ron had come to the mutual agreement that paperwork was better kept to a minimum. Fortunately, there were plenty of Aurors willing to fill in forms in triplicate or hunt through file-cards if it meant they got to share credit for an arrest, or a confiscation.

Harry stopped in the doorway as Andy started down the long row of cabinets. "Merlin's ancient arse."

The room was at least four times larger than when he'd last seen it, and every wall was covered from floor to ceiling in tiny card drawers. Cabinets ran the length of the room as well, in rows, also with thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of drawers — each of which would hold hundreds of index cards.

He followed Andy deeper into the room. "We have this many Dark artifacts?"

"Over there's verified incidents." Andy waved at the left wall. "And back near the door is suspect-not-verified. But all the rest, yeah. I mean, not that it's all Fenrir Greyback's favourite flea-comb or something. Some of it wouldn't do more than raise a pimple on a Muggle, but it's all got to be rounded up, filed, and stored until the curse-breakers are done with it." He stopped at the rear wall. "It'll be back here, if it's a War artifact. Rosier … Macnair … Lestrange, here we are." He reached up and pulled a long drawer out.

Harry drew his wand and cast a quick Wingardium Leviosa. The drawer floated free and down to waist height. Andy flipped through cards. "Lestrange, Rabastan, Rabastan, Rabastan …" He tried the middle of the drawer. "Lestrange, Rodolphus, Rodolphus, Rodolphus … They certainly do over-represent, don't they?"

"What do you get the well-dressed Death Eater who has everything?"

"Yet another Dark artifact. Here she is. Lestrange, Bellatrix, wood box. Lestrange, Bellatrix, shoes. Lestrange, Bellatrix, necklace. Lestrange, Bellatrix, necklace. Necklace, necklace, necklace — was she a Mooncalf or something?" He flipped forward again. "Lestrange, Bellatrix, knife. Steel, nineteen inches — more of a sword really —"

Harry shook his head. "The one I'm after is silver, and much smaller."

"Knife, knife, knife …" Andy muttered to himself as he went through the cards, before pulling one out that had promise. "Knife, Silver, three inches, tendered to Ministry by Harry Potter."

"That's the one."

"Item V.E.S Ninety seven —"

Harry swore. Very Extremely Secure. It would take Kingsley Shacklebolt's personal intervention to get Bellatrix's knife released.

"Bad luck," Andy said, levitating the drawer back into place. "Still, you are mates with the Minister. Bat your great big green eyes at him, rub your scar, that ought to do it."

Harry laughed, leading the way back out of the file room. "He's known me since I was about fourteen. Any 'Chosen One' awe is pretty well-tempered by 'irritating adolescent' annoyance." A thought occurred to him. Hogwarts might have the addresses of some alumni, but the Aurors knew how to locate absolutely everybody. "Hey, can I have a quick look at your Floo-book before I go?"

"Sure." Andy yanked open a drawer of his desk and tossed the well-thumbed book to Harry.

"Thanks." Harry turned quickly to 'M' and ran his finger down the page. Monkshod, Patience.

Floo: Care of the Ministry for Magic, Level Two, Section S.

"Something wrong?" Andy asked, and Harry realised he was frowning.

"No." He tossed the book back. "Just looking up the family of an old teacher of mine, but they're not on the Floo."

Or at least, not on the Floo to anyone not in the part of the Auror Department in charge of relocating and protecting people in danger.

He'd have more luck just Flooing to random locations than getting the Section S to reveal the address of one of their charges.

Trying to persuade himself that succeeding in setting Percy Weasley onto investigating the possibility Tom Riddle had somehow embedded a jinx in the Hogwarts Floo was enough to compensate for coming up blank on his two most important missions, Harry made his way back down to the entrance and then by Floo to Hogwarts.

Dusting himself off in the D.A.D.A teacher's quarters, he could hear Ron out in the classroom talking about Hinkypunks. "They might not look like much, but they can give you a nasty burn if you get too close. Who can tell me how to deal with a Hinkypunk?"

By Harry's watch, the lesson was due to end soon. Rather than interrupting it by going through the classroom, he spent the time tidying up the room — or at least, tidying up his own belongings and heaping Ron's in a pile on his bed.

He'd just finished when Ron said from the doorway, "You know there are house elves for that, don't you?"

"We talked about that," Harry reminded him. "No house elves in here until we can be sure the jinx won't activate in some way that hurts them."

Ron sauntered across the room and pushed the heap from his bed to the floor. "Did you think it would take this long, when we started?"

Harry shook his head. "I really thought it would be on something people had just overlooked. The doorknob, or something."

"Well, it is, isn't it?" Ron pointed out. "Except we're overlooking it as well. How did you go at the Ministry?"

"If there's something wrong with the Hogwarts Floo system, Percy will find it. But no luck on Patience Monkshod — or Bellatrix Lestrange's knife." He gave Ron a brief account of Hermione's problem, and his efforts that morning. "So I can't think how to find her, unless there's something of hers here in Hogwarts that we can use to start a locater spell." He flopped onto his bed and let his head thump down on the pillow. "Which I suppose is possible, if she sent a letter to Professor Burbage, and if it's somehow stuck in a drawer in the Muggle Studies office —"

"Harry, you berk," Ron said. "Are you a Professor or what?"

Harry lifted his head and stared at him in puzzlement.

Ron rolled his eyes. "She's a bloody parent, isn't she? Of a student at this school? Just use Hogwarts stationery and write her a note asking to come to tea. Hogwarts stationery. That gets to the addressee no matter where they are?"

Harry sat up. "Ron, that's brilliant."

Ron grinned. "Always the tone of surprise."

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Author's note: Dobby's death is different in the movie and the book, I've gone with the movie.

Section S is my own invention, as is Very Extremely Secure

Thank you to everyone who's read this far, and especially to those who have left feedback! If you haven't, please consider it — it's the only payment I get.