[a/n: i don't update my fics on ffn as frequently as i do on ao3 – my ao3 and tumblr are both lanaturnergetup, come catch up with me on there! xx]
When Freddie was around four years old, his granddad – his mum's dad – fell ill. He was too young to understand what was happening, but his mum and dad had taken him to St. Mungo's to see him.
Freddie didn't remember the details. He remembered that his granddad was back home and fine within a couple of days, and that his mum was pregnant with Roxanne at the time. And Mungo's. He remembered being terrified of Mungo's.
Now, as he walked in with James, he felt like he's back to being four, scared of a seemingly huge, endless hospital. It was ridiculous, because he knew Mungo's. His mum used to work there. Victoire worked there, too. He'd been there countless times before, and yet. He always felt uneasy when he was here. No matter what.
That might explain why he was oddly nervous about this. Well. It was one of many reasons why he was nervous about it.
Uncle Harry said that he wasn't in any trouble. The old man – Benjamin Thomas – had absolved him of any blame entirely. But he still had the ring he'd basically stolen from him – or he had the ring, because now he was pretty sure Anna had it – and talking to him at Mungo's felt like the most daunting task in the world. Why hadn't he reported to the Aurors that he had a ring in his possession that mysteriously vanished when? What did it all mean?
Next to him, James nudged him. "You good?" he asked, in the quiet way James sometimes got, when he was too serious for teasing or banter.
"Yeah," Freddie said. "Fine."
James didn't seem too convinced. "We don't have to do this, you know," he said.
"No," Freddie said, "we do, mate." He wanted answers; he needed answers. But why was he terrified of getting them? "Although you don't have to come, if you don't want to."
James snorted, and slung his arm around Freddie's shoulders. "Don't be stupid. Which room is he in?"
"I've got no idea," Freddie admitted.
James grinned. "Alright. So which of us should try and charm the answer out of the receptionist?"
Freddie peered at the reception desk. "I don't think either of us will have much luck."
"Not with that attitude," James said, and clapped Freddie on the shoulder before he walked to the reception desk.
Freddie watched, amused, as James spoke earnestly to the witch at the desk, and returned in five minutes' time. "She said I seem like a sweet boy," he said.
"Well," Freddie said. "Looks can be deceiving, can't they?"
"Too right you are," James said. "Come on, I know which room he's in."
There were two Aurors stationed outside the door, two women who glanced suspiciously at them.
"What are you doing here?" the older one asked. She was looking at James.
Freddie supposed he shouldn't have been surprised; James had an uncanny knack of recognising everyone, and being recognised by everyone.
"Just paying a friend a visit, Auror Wright," James said, the picture of innocence.
The younger woman snorted. "We can't let you in."
"Just for a few minutes?" Freddie said. "I really want to talk to him."
Auror Wright glanced at him. "I'm sorry," she said, not unsympathetically. "Visitors aren't allowed in at the moment. It's still an active investigation."
"It is?" Freddie asked.
"It was your shop, wasn't it?" the younger woman asked Freddie, narrowing her eyes. "Where he was found?"
"Yeah," said Freddie. "Well, my dad's, technically."
"And you were the one who found him?"
"Me and – yes, it was me," Freddie said, deciding on the spur of the moment to leave Dani out of… whatever this was.
"Why do you want to see him?"
Freddie felt like he was being interrogated, but he'd gotten into enough trouble at school – with McGonagall, who was far more terrifying than any Auror could be – that he knew how to stand his ground. "Well, because it seems like he's a bit too ill to catch up with some tea at my flat."
"It's the least we can do to bring the party to him," James, always willing to play along, put in.
"We're very generous people," Freddie said.
"Magnanimous, really."
"Oh, yeah. We were hoping he'd tell us the latest gossip."
"It's faster than waiting for Rita Skeeter's column," James said. "She's taking her time these days. How am I meant to know whether Celestina Warbeck's making a comeback or not?"
"Yes, exactly. What other reason would we have to visit a man who I found unconscious in the shop?" Freddie said. "Definitely not to ask about his health and if he was feeling better. That would be insane."
"Absolutely mental," James said.
"We can't let you in," the other woman reiterated, but she had a tiny smile playing on the corner of her lips.
"We'll tell him you asked after him, when he's awake," Wright said, looking amused.
Freddie sighed. "Alright," he muttered.
"Have a good one," James said.
"Should've known, MacLeod," Wright said, as Freddie and James turned around to walk back to the lift in defeat, "You can never get a straight answer out of those two."
They Apparated back to Hogsmeade, instead of taking the Floo or anything else, arriving at the Apparition Point right outside the village. It was properly dark by the time they got there, and what Freddie wanted more than anything else was to lie down and think about everything that had happened over the last twenty four hours.
"I'm knackered," James said, echoing his thoughts. He checked his watch. "God, it's so much later in Sri Lanka. No wonder I feel like I might pass out."
"You didn't have to come back, you know," Freddie said.
James glanced at him for a moment. "You were off seeing her, weren't you?" he said.
It was a non sequitur, but Freddie couldn't blame him for asking "Who?" he said.
James rolled his eyes. "I didn't know you were back together."
"We're not," Freddie said, dropping the act, "not really. I went to see her to ask her something."
James waited. When Freddie didn't say anything, he said, "Well?"
"Well, what?"
"Well, did you get your answer?"
Freddie sighed. "I haven't got any answers. Just more questions."
James grinned. "Good to know you're as dramatic as ever. Do you want to get a drink?"
"Thought you were knackered," Freddie said.
"Never too knackered for a pint," James countered.
"That's a good point," Freddie said. "A pint does sound nice."
"Yes, doesn't it?" James said. "Let me just go to the flat first, I want to grab a jumper. It's fucking freezing. It wasn't as cold in –"
"In Sri Lanka?" Freddie said. "Why, did you go there? You haven't mentioned."
"Fuck off," James said good-naturedly.
They fell into companionable step next to each other, James muffling a yawn every now and then as they walked down the road to the shop.
"It's weird, isn't it?" James said.
Freddie's hands were numb from the cold, which made fumbling in his pocket for his keys a more arduous task than it otherwise would have been. "What is?" he said, distracted.
"This," James said. "All of this. And here I was thinking life after Hogwarts would be calm."
Freddie grinned at him. "Leah's going to train to be a cursebreaker and you're going to be an Auror. What made you think life would be calm?"
James laughed. "I don't know about being an Auror."
"Really? I thought that was the plan," Freddie said.
James shrugged. "I don't know. I'm not good with plans."
"Well, the whole point of a gap year is not to have a plan, I suppose," Freddie said.
"Really? I thought it was solving a murder mystery with your best mate," James said without missing a beat.
"No one died, to be fair."
"Yeah, but – what are you doing here?"
This last part was directed not at Freddie, but at the front door of the joke shop, which they had just reached. Waiting by the front door, visible in the moonlight, was Aunt Ginny, leaning against the door with her arms crossed. "You both," she said, "have a lot of explaining to do. Come on. Let's go inside."
James hadn't thought about what he was doing when he and Leah cut the trip short. It'd been the world's easiest decision: Freddie and Dani were in trouble, so they needed to come back home. And now that he knew that Anna Selwyn was somehow involved – even if he didn't know how – he was all the more confident that he'd done the right thing.
It was hard to be confident, though, when his mum was in the flat with them, glaring at them in a way that made him feel quite guilty.
"What were you thinking, going off like that?" Mum demanded.
She had a way of sorting everything out even as she scolded them; James didn't know how she did it. She bustled through the small flat, pointing her wand at different corners of the room. James watched as another bed appeared in Freddie's bedroom and the living room tidied itself up.
"We just went to see him at Mungo's," Freddie said. "We wanted to check on him."
Mum snorted. "Yes, I'm sure it was very innocent."
James grinned. "You know us, Mum."
"It's an active crime investigation, Jamie," Mum said, "not a mystery for you to solve."
"Not with that attitude," James muttered.
"Besides," Mum continued, "you're both asking for trouble, going and getting involved like that." There was a pause, and then she said, with a sigh, "Oh, Merlin. I sound like my mother, don't I?"
"A bit," James said.
"I like Nan, though," Freddie said. "You could do a lot worse, Aunt Gin."
Mum sat down on the sofa, and pushed a hand through her hair. "You two are going to give me a heart attack one of these days," she said.
"Us? How about Al? He's the trouble child," James said indignantly.
Mum muttered something that sounded like, "You're all trouble children."
"Do you want a cup of tea?" James offered.
"I want you both to come home and let the Aurors deal with all of this," Mum said.
"The Aurors are really Dad, though," James said. "So it's going to stay in the family either way."
"May as well be us," Freddie said, but he looked distracted. He walked to the window, the one that overlooked the street, and looked out at it, frowning.
"Absolutely not," Mum said.
James sat down next to her, let her tug him into a hug. "At least you don't have to be upset about me being on the other end of the world anymore," he said.
"At least you stayed out of trouble in India," Mum countered.
"Sri Lanka," James corrected.
Mum rolled her eyes.
"I'll keep Freddie out of trouble," James said. "Don't worry."
Mum smiled. "Impossible not to worry with you," she said, but it was fond.
"I'm going to go for a walk," Freddie announced, apropos of nothing.
James looked at Freddie, at the slightly pale way he looked, how he kept half-looking out of the window. "A walk," he repeated.
"Helps clear the mind," Freddie said.
"Does it?" James said suspiciously.
"I'll be back soon," Freddie said, and waved at them. He set off, closing the door behind him.
James stood up, and walked to the window. He could indeed see Freddie walking down the street, and then, at the end of the street, meeting up with a familiar figure with blonde hair, a figure who held Freddie's hand and said something earnestly to him.
"Why did he go in such a hurry?" Mum said.
James didn't know where he went, or why. All he knew was that Anna Selwyn had something to do with it, and he was determined to find out what was going on.
