Disclaimer: In this particular chappie, I own only the "little tart (Madhavi) and Liz Longbottom (who fleetingly appears), and Honorius Jigger. The rest belong to the great JK Rowling. Enjoy!
Knowing Albus' aversion to being fussed over, Harry pitied him a bit as Ginny swooped in on him. He had waited until Albus had fallen asleep again after an hour arguing back and forth about, for lack of a better description, trusting people. Knowing that Ginny would already be cross with him for not flooing the minute Albus woke up, he flooed her at the hotel. She had rushed over in her night gown, her hair mussed and dark circles under her eyes. She had hovered like a vulture over their son's sleeping form, ready to swoop in the minute he came to. He did too, fairly soon in fact; perhaps it had something to do with Ginny hovering so close to him, breathing down his neck. As soon as his eyes flickered open, Ginny launched herself upon him. She pulled him into an impossibly tight embrace murmuring tearfully: "Oh Albus, my darling, my baby, we thought we'd lost you." She kissed him on the top of his head. Albus' face was beet red.
"Mum, Mum please, you're strangling me." She let go and took his face in both of her hands.
"You listen here Albus Severus Potter," she said in a voice that made Harry shiver. She sounded so much like Mrs. Weasley it was scary. "Never ever scare me like that again. Do you understand me?"
"Mum! I didn't mean to get cursed. Believe me; that's the last thing I wanted. I hate hospitals and being fussed over and-"
"Get used to it because I'm not leaving," Ginny interrupted. Albus groaned. Harry could sympathize, having been in his fair share of hospitals.
"You both can go back to England now; I'll be there in just a couple of months-"
"What?" Harry asked suddenly, interrupting Albus' reassurances.
"I'll just be here a couple more months. I'll be back by June, remember?" Albus explained, albeit a bit nervously. It didn't sound like his father was going to cooperate with his plans.
Harry bit back a groan. He hadn't expected Albus to stay in Mumbai. Thinking about it now, he knew he should have expected it. Albus wouldn't want to leave his precious potions books just because of a pesky thing like threats on his life. "Albus," Harry began slowly, massaging his eyes under his glasses.
"Dad, please don't say what you're about to say," Albus pleaded. Harry could see his son was getting worked up and sighed. He couldn't have Albus lapsing back into a coma . . . or worse. Despite what the nineteen-year-old might think, he was still in a bad way. "I'm nineteen, of age if you've forgotten, and you can't very well force me to go back home with you. I'm a big boy and I can make my own decisions."
"Oh, you think you being of age is going to stop me protecting you?" Harry asked, his temper getting the best of him.
"I'm not your child anymore! For fuck's sake Dad, by the time you were nineteen-"
"That makes no difference whatsoever. I did what I had to do and it's not something anyone should have to face so young."
"If your father and I want to take you back to England there's not much you or anyone else could do to stop us," Ginny put in, giving Albus a piercing look. "And don't use that type of language." Albus groaned again, banging his head against the headboard. Ginny and Harry leapt forward.
"Don't do that! You're still very weak," Harry exclaimed. Things were quickly getting out of hand.
"What this?" Albus asked, glaring at his father. He banged his head against the headboard again. Then he pushed himself up and attempted to get out of the bed. Before Harry or Ginny could stop him, he had swung his legs over the side of the bed. He attempted to stand but crumbled to the ground immediately, his face turning white as a sheet. Harry caught him under the arms and with Ginny's help, got him back into bed.
"If you attempt to move so much as a muscle, so help me, I will place a full body bind on you faster than you can say "Quidditch"," Harry hissed through gritted teeth, pulling himself up to full height. Albus didn't say anything but turned his face to the wall, set on sulking. The healer came in a few minutes later and gave Albus a gamut of potions that knocked him out quickly. Harry and Ginny sat in silence for a while, just looking at him.
Harry couldn't remember the last time he had been so scared. The thought of anything happening to any of his children was unbearable; it was a fear he combated everyday, seeing them in every victim, every dead body, every person he had ever saved. "He's changed," Ginny stated simply after ten minutes of introspection. Harry nodded. They had started to notice it a couple of months before. His letters were less warm, less full of detail. He sounded more brusque. "I think it's that little tart who has done it." Harry snorted and looked at his wife. She had a very ugly look on her face, like she had just had garbage waved under her nose.
"Little tart?"
"You saw her Harry; she was barely wearing anything. It's a hospital for pity's sake, not a strip club!"
"She wasn't all that bad," Harry reasoned, resting a hand on her shoulder. She had never taken very kindly to James' girlfriends either.
"Harry Potter! You are not aloud to have a crush on little, little-"
"Tarts?" Harry ventured. Ginny glared at him.
"Yes."
"Stop talking about tarts; its making me hungry." Ginny glared at him again and crossed her arms. "Dear, he's growing up. We knew it was going to happen eventually."
"Harry, you know it's more than that. I expected a bit of change but he's just not acting like himself."
"Ginny, you knew he wasn't going to want us around all the time. He's nineteen."
"It's not that Harry. He was never overly clingy or anything. Merlin, you wouldn't have wanted anyone fussing over you. I just have, I don't know, a hunch."
"So you're aloud to have hunches but not me?" Harry asked half jokingly. Ginny gave him a withering look. "No, please, answer me this, why is it so ridiculous to believe that it wasn't a curse from a book that got him?"
"Because Harry, you always jump to the worst possible conclusion. You always assume that there must be some master plan. You always brush away the most logical, simple explanation. We knew that Albus' work was more dangerous that dissecting Flobberworms. There's a reason why these books haven't been researched thoroughly."
"Yes but Ginny, I trained Albus myself. He's better at curse breaking and detection than I am. I had him train with my best auror. I just don't buy it."
"Well she said that he was preoccupied. He might have just been so excited about reading the book that he was careless. There are a thousand explanations."
"My hunches are seldom wrong Ginny, you know that. Albus just isn't the type of person who would do that. He knows that now it will be months before they can look at that collection again. He wouldn't risk that and he knows that he's going to be fussed over for months after this little episode."
"He might not have been like that before but he's changed. Maybe this new Albus is the type of person who would make an error." Ginny looked back at her second child, watching as his chest rose and fell.
"I don't think so."
"I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree then," Ginny sighed and took her husband's hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. With his constant worrying and self-deprecation, it must be very tiring to be Harry Potter.
"You know we can't force him to come back," Harry stated softly.
"Why ever not? We're his parents."
"He's of age. Legally, he can make his own decisions. Ginny, he can't stay here. I know you don't believe me but I know in my bones someone is trying to kill him. He is not safe here."
"Harry, if there is indeed a person who is trying to hurt him, they wouldn't be stupid enough to try it again would they? I mean, it would just be so . . . risky. I want him home as much as you do but I don't think he's at risk of being murdered if he stays. You could ask his supervisor to take him away from direct contact with the books, make sure he's not hurt again. Heaven knows he won't be up to any really strenuous work for a while."
"If my hunch is correct, this person is desperate enough to try again. I don't think they'll fear trying again and I don't think they will fail twice."
"You can't possibly think this as anything to do with, with Death Eaters do you? You don't think they're after you." Harry pinched the bridge of his nose.
"I think that's exactly who they're after. As for Death Eaters, there are still some at large and, more importantly, there are families of Death Eaters who would like nothing more than to harm me and there is no better way than to target my children. I've got my fair share of enemies besides."
Ginny was silent for a moment, digesting the information but Harry noticed a definite worry in her eyes. "Isn't there any way of forcing him home?" Harry thought for a second.
"I suppose I could talk to his supervisor, old friend. I did him a bit of a favor when his son was going through Auror training." Truth be told "favor" was a bit of a stretch. He had done no more for Honorius Jigger than he would have done for any other promising student. Of course, Arsenius didn't need to know that.
An hour later, Harry had left the belligerent Albus to his mother and was sitting in the make-shift office of Arsenius Jigger. He remembered Albus rushing into his office, the parchment with the mission details gripped in his hand. He had on a look of such elation that Harry mistakenly assumed that Liz Longbottom, his long time crush, had agreed to go out for tea. "Dad!" he exclaimed, breathless with excitement.
"What is it Albus? Hot date?" Albus shook his head dismissively, his dopy grin not fading a bit.
"Arsenius Jigger is going to my supervisor. Can you believe it? He's probably the best known Potions expert in Britain and he's going to be my supervisor!"
"I'm very happy for you," Harry chuckled. Albus had stayed on a complete high for a week afterward, pouring through his old Potions books, set on knowing everything in their well-worn pages. James was so thoroughly disgusted that he didn't talk to Albus until the day before he left for Mumbai.
Now the aged man was sitting in front of him. A rickety card table stood between them. As it was set directly on the rocky ground, it shifted at the slightest touch. They were in a magically expanded tent on one of the dig sites. "I don't feel good about this Harry."
"I know Arsenius. I wouldn't ask except I'm desperate. You must know how I feel. You've got Honorius. Wouldn't you do the same?"
"I just don't know why you're so convinced that there's foul play. These books are extremely volatile at times. Albus knew that going into it. He could have just been careless or it could have been a stronger curse than we thought." To Harry's satisfaction, Arsenius looked skeptical even at his own words. Harry was getting tired of explaining what seemed so painfully obvious to him.
"You and I both know how good Albus is with curses Arsenius. We know perhaps better than anyone. Plus, he wasn't the only one who scanned them. Didn't anyone already research some in that collection?" Arsenius nodded slowly, massaging his temples.
"He's one of my best researchers. I know he's young but-"
"That's exactly right. He is young; he's altogether too trusting. I need to know that he is safe and the only way to do that is bring him back to England. Now, that's where you come in. He can give me cheek all the way to Sunday but you, he worships you Arsenius." Harry gazed imploringly at his old friend. He had joined the Ministry right after the war, working to train the aurors about dangerous potions. He had also become the head of the Historical Records Department. More importantly, this was the man who had been a friend and mentor to Harry at seventeen when he had felt so out of sorts as a new auror. Harry knew him to be a man of infinitely high ethics but he hoped, this once, he would slip a bit.
There was an internal battle behind his guarded expression. "Well," he began slowly and Harry knew he had won. "We do need someone back in England to organize and record our findings. I was going to ask Dawkins but as Albus has gotten hurt, maybe it's best to desk him. Plus, as an added bonus, I'll know the job will get done right." Harry grinned as Arsenius rationalized. He knew Albus would be upset and that he would guess that Harry was behind it but he didn't care. Albus would, at the very least, be safe.
A/N: Okay, I was planning on updating tomorrow but I got a snow day so here it is! I hope you like it and really hope that I get more reviews (though I am very happy with the two I got). I happen to know that a couple of you have favorited the fic without reviewing . . . you know who you are. All I'm going to say is that it would make my day if you reviewed. So long!