Chapter 13: Mixed Media

The morning after the opening of the London location of Grey Swan Gallery found Gin fast asleep in her little Satterbourne house. She and Hugo had tentatively moved in, only the bare necessities, so the master bedroom only held a bed, which for some reason sat in the exact center of the room. The blue dress from the night before lay on the top of a box somewhere in the kitchen, her shoes on the in the hallway and Hugo's nice things in a heap on the floor. After opening her eyes and realizing that Hugo wasn't in bed she decided that more sleep was definitely needed, fluffed the pillow a bit and pulled the duvet over her, snuggling in, as it was still somewhat chilly in the house.

She was almost asleep when the banging of the front door brought her wide awake. Who the bloody hell would be banging on her door on a Sunday morning? And why hadn't Hugo let them in? She sat up, rubbed her eyes and sighed. Maybe if she waited they would go away. That was wishful thinking, as the banging continued. As she and Hugo weren't planning on spending the night in Satterbourne there were no boxes that contained clothing, so instead of putting on the blue dress she got up, picked up Hugo's shirt and put it on.

The banging was still going on and Hugo was nowhere to be found when she got to the door. The incessant noise was irritating her, so she flung the door open forcefully. "Holy hippogriffs, I heard you the first…Dad?"

Her father stood at her front door alongside the man in the Muggle suit from the gallery. The man's female partner was dressed in something that looked like a cross between a Goth and a motorcycle enthusiast. Thankfully she didn't have time to say anything as her father took over.

"Sorry to wake you up, Gin, but it's kind of important. Can we come in?"

"Sure." Gin opened the door and stepped back, watched them walk into her house and shut the door. "We'll have to conjure chairs, haven't done the furniture yet."

The man in the Muggle suit took out his wand and soon four upright wooden chairs sat in a semi-circle in what would eventually be the sitting room. As Gin sat down she quickly crossed her legs and tried to get Hugo's shirt to cover her legs, which didn't escape her father's notice.

"Like I said, Gin, I'm sorry we're here so early. We stopped by Mione's place but Mary Caroline said that you and Hugo decided to stay here last night. Is he here?"

Gin shook her head. "No. Maybe he had to go in early or something. Dunno."

"Right, well, Gin, this is Terry and Miranda Boot."

"Your gallery was right nice last night." Miranda nodded. "I wanted someone to buy something, but he's a stick in the mud."

Terry Boot just glanced at Miranda and turned to Gin. "Your father has contacted us on your behalf to investigate Chance Gilmore."

"Investigate? Gin scrunched up her nose in confusion and looked over to her Dad. "Harry said the Aurors are going to work with the AAB."

"Oh, we're not Aurors, love." Miranda smiled. "A little bit different."

"So you're private investigators then." Gin blinked several times and glanced at her father. "You hired detectives? Like in the Muggle movies?"

Her dad chuckled. "The movies have nothing on them. Gin, have you ever heard of the Invisibles?"

"Really?" She moved Hugo's shirt over her legs again. "I thought those were just rumors."

"No." Terry shook his head.

"You see, love, we do the things that the Aurors just wish they could do sometimes. We're not so hung up on all the rules and whatnot, so we just get things done. We're the Aurors' dirty little secret."

"Holy shit." Gin looked over at her father. "You didn't hire Sam Spade, you hired James Bond?"

"Pretty much. And I didn't hire them, I called in a favor." He tapped his foot somewhat nervously. "Um, Gin, your garden, can your neighbors see anything out there?"

Gin noticed her Dad tap slightly on the pocket of his jeans and she immediately guessed what was up. "No, Dad, you can smoke out there without being seen. Give me a minute and I'll join you." After heading back into the bedroom she rummaged through Hugo's pile of clothing and noticed that while his Auror robes were there his trousers, t-shirt and shoes were missing. He wasn't at work, then, but where was he? After putting the Auror robes on Gin walked out to the garden to find her guests lounging on conjured garden chairs. As expected her father was puffing on a cigarette.

She sat down next to her father and gave him an 'I'm not surprised' look. "I know Mum doesn't know about the smoking, or else that's what you think, but what about Mr. and Mrs. Boot? Does she know about them?"

"Just Terry and Miranda, love." Miranda put on a pair of sunglasses. "And if that was the Auror uniform I might have gone in for it. With a few modifications, of course."

"No." Her father turned to her and ashed his cigarette. "She doesn't know, but I'll tell her when I get home."

"Ok, then." Gin thought about it for a moment and then shrugged. "In for a Gnut in for a Galleon. Let me have one of those, Dad." She took the pack of cigarettes from her father and lit one with his Muggle lighter after several tries. "You need more fluid." After exhaling and savoring the taste she looked at everyone. "Now what?"

"We'll need all the details as soon as possible." Terry looked at her, somewhat hidden and definitely imposing behind his dark aviator sunglasses. "Written details. Don't send it by owl. Muggle mail. Here's the address." He handed her a small card that only held an address somewhere in London. "We'll expect it in the next few days."

"Gin? Where are you?" Hugo's voice could be heard in the house.

"That's our cue, then." Miranda stood up quickly. "We'll be in touch."

The two Invisibles Apparated away quickly, leaving Gin and her father alone in the garden, abruptly sitting on their butts. Once Miranda had Apparated out of the garden her conjured chairs no longer existed. Father and daughter stood up as fast as possible, realizing they'd done so just in time as Hugo walked out of the house and into the garden carrying two large cups of coffee in to-go containers.

"Polly, I brought…oh, hello Hank."

"Hugo." He nodded and then realized both he and Gin were smoking. "Um, sorry, my bad influence, you know…"

"Yeah No surprise there, Professor." Hugo looked over at Gin. "You too?"

"I needed one after last night." She winced. "Sorry."

Hugo handed Gin the tea. "Popped over to Mum and Dad's place for supplies and hit that little coffee shop as well. Sorry I don't have coffee for you, Hank."

"That's fine, Hugo." Hank looked over to Gin and back to Hugo. "Since your parents are up I think I'll go bother them for a while. Stop by Colony House soon, you two."

After Hank left Hugo looked over to Gin with a grin. "I know something's up for you to be standing out in the garden in my Auror robes talking to your father on a Sunday morning, but I'm just going to let it go. There's a reason you were in Slytherin and I wasn't."

"Smart boy." Gin gave him a kiss. "Guess what I'm wearing underneath your robes?"

"Bloody hell."

After having a nice, picnic style breakfast on their bed, the only piece of furniture in the house, Hugo cleared his throat. "Um, I'm going to need my Auror robe. Have a meeting at eleven."

"That's fine; I have some prep work to do before I meet with Franny Sawgrass." Gin took a sip of what was left of her coffee. "Figured it would be best if I wrote everything down. Its times like this that I almost wish I'd taken Dad up on his offer to teach me how to use his laptop years ago. It's going to take a good bit of writing."

Hugo nodded. "I'd offer to get you one but Satterbourne has too much magic, it's like Hogwarts. Mum tried to use some Muggle stuff before and said it just won't work." He leaned over on his elbow, stretching across the foot of the bed. "I have to say that I'm proud of you, you know."

"Whatever for?"

"For being brave. You know what's going to happen when everything comes out in court. You know it won't look good, but you're fighting it. Maybe a little Gryffindor has rubbed off on you."

"I was almost sorted there, so bin it. I went through enough before, and I'm not going to let some little twat like Chance ruin what we've got now. No way in bloody hell am I going to let that happen."

Gin gave Hugo his robe, put her dress back on and after kissing her fiancée goodbye she Apparated over to Forthingsgate. Luckily both Mione and Scorpius were out, but Mary Caroline was in, and she was immediately assaulted with questions. She answered most of her partner's questions to satisfaction but begged off; she had a task to do and not much time to do it. As she headed upstairs to her guest room she stopped on the stairs and looked back to Mary Caroline.

"Wait a tic, you never told me what happened with Finn. What happened?"

"I don't want to talk about it." Mary Caroline rolled her eyes. "Let's just say chameleon champagne has a bigger kick than I thought and leave it at that, ok?"

"Done." Gin had more on her mind than hearing about the blow-by-blow details of what happened with Finn; she'd save that for another time. As for now the only things she could think of were changing clothes and writing down everything. Instead of her father's wonderful ability to print out two copies of his text she had her wand, almost as good with the gemino spell. At least she'd only have to write it down once.

The sky had darkened considerably when Gin walked out of Franny Sawgrass' office. As she headed down the street towards a coffee shop the rain began to fall lightly, and a quick glance at the clouds indicated that it wasn't going to be long before the sky let loose with a torrent of rain. Hoping to avoid the mess, and without an umbrella, Gin Apparated back to Forthingsgate, collected a small amount of clothes and other essentials and was about to leave for the Satterbourne house when Mary Caroline came skidding into the entryway with a letter in her hand.

"You got a Muggle letter, hold on, don't leave! It's from the UMS." Mary Caroline waited for Gin to set down her bag and handed it to her.

"Oh, it's from Paige. My cousin." Gin flipped open the letter and took a quick glance at the contents. "She's found a couple of places that might work for a place to stay when I'm in Richmond. Guess I'll have a chance to look when I'm over there again."

"Um, speaking of places to live, um, I think I need to find someplace here in London. While I'm here, you know. Maybe a sublet or something." Mary Caroline rubbed her finger under her nose for a moment. "Sorry, had an itch. I can't stay here at your sister's place forever."

"You could, you know. I think there's a little guest house out back."

"Really? Good gravy, this place is huge." She shook her head. "No, I need to find someplace on my own. Who should I ask to help? I found a few places in The Daily Prophet, but I don't know the area. And if you say 'ask Finn' I'm going to break all your brushes."

"Hmm…" Gin folded the letter from Paige and put it in her pocket. "Well, Hermione is great with things like this, but she's busy all the time. Rose would be the next person, but she's either working with Uncle George or doing things with her boys…" She snapped her fingers. "That's it, Angelina, George's wife. You remember her, right? At the opening?"

"Um, no…sorry."

"Very classy lady, going grey a bit, married to the crazy man with one ear?"

"Ok, yeah. I do remember. Why her?"

"She's intimidating as a dragon when she wants to be, so no landlord will try to pull anything, she's George's wife and he's bloody well loaded for Galleons, but most of all she should have the time. I'll send her an owl."

Mary Caroline squirmed for a bit and crossed her arms. "I'm not asking for her to pay, I…"

"No, that's not it. I just meant that they'll pay attention to her." Gin looked over at her watch. "Hugo should be done soon. I'm going to pop over to the Satterbourne house. Want to come?"

"Why not? What else do I have to do?"

The two witches arrived via Floo at the Satterbourne house, causing a fairly large amount of ash, dust and Floo powder to rise and settle all over the place. Gin took out her wand and siphoned up the mess while Mary Caroline wandered into the kitchen to take a look around. Once Gin joined her she took her on a quick tour of the place, pointing out all the tasteful touches that had made her fall in love with the house on her first tour with Hermione. As they walked through the house Gin still couldn't believe that this was her house. Her house with Hugo. After all of the shit that had happened, and undoubtedly would happen in the future to some extent, they had bought a house. There was still the matter of when and where they would be married, but that went on the backburner.

While standing outside the house in the front, trying to decide what color they should eventually paint everything Mary Caroline elbowed Gin. "Now there's a nice looking, what do y'all say? Bloke?"

Gin turned to where her partner had nodded and saw a man about Hugo's age walking down the street in a rather shabby looking robe. He was almost bald but had his dark brown hair cropped closely and was wearing glasses. "Just someone out for a walk."

"Don't think so, sugar. He's headed this way."

The two witches turned and watched as the man opened the front gate, took care to shut it and walked towards them with a smiling face. He waved at them and seemed surprised. "I heard Weasley bought a house, but I never thought it'd be in Satterbourne. Said he always wanted to see the world a bit, but of course after being in the army…" He stopped in front of the women. "Oh, sorry, horrible manners. Is Hugo here? I'm Darville. Darville Dalgliesh. Served together in the army. And you must be Virginia. Congratulations are in order." He mimed tipping a non-existent hat towards Gin. "Now where is the old rotter?"

"I'm sorry; Hugo is away at the moment. I'd offer you a cup of tea but we've just moved in."

"Ah yes, should have Flooed or sent an owl on ahead, but then again as my mum says I've always been the last minute type. Got me in a bit of a pickle a time or two, that's for sure."

Everyone stood for a moment in silence, unsure of what to do next. Gin kept searching her memory, trying to remember if Hugo had ever mentioned someone named Dalgliesh. He'd told her about a lot of people he'd served with, mostly in an aside or saying that this person or that person was a bit of a nutter or crazy, but she didn't remember him ever saying anything about someone named Dalgliesh. Then again, he couldn't have talked about everyone. Still, she had to be sure.

"Well thank you, the gallery had a good start. We'll be open again on Monday." Mary Caroline stood next to Dalgliesh, close, flirtingly close.

Gin snapped out of her reverie and smiled at the man. "Were you with Hugo he heard the news? Such a shame about Erin."

A flicker of doubt crossed Dalgliesh's face, but only momentarily. "Ah, no, I wasn't there. Different assignment."

"Really?" Gin crossed her arms quickly, causing her bangles to jingle loudly. "So when Hugo heard the news about Al Potter's wife dying, when he was with his entire unit and they were all resting because they'd been at the front, you weren't there because you were on special assignment. Who was your commanding officer?"

Dalgliesh looked worried; his eyes began to dart from Mary Caroline to Gin and a very faint sheen of sweat could be seen on his forehead. "Special assignment, I was, um, yes. And, um, and it was Malfoy. He was my commanding officer."

"Tsk." Gin shook her head. "You were so close. Almost had me there. Scorpius wasn't his commanding officer then, he'd moved on to a different unit." She pulled her wand out of her pocket and pointed it directly at Dalgliesh's forehead. "So let's try this again, ok? Who the bloody hell are you and what the fuck do you want?"

Dalgliesh's hands went up. "All right, all right. My name isn't Dalgliesh, its Hubert Kipping. I'm a private investigator, hired by some lawyers out of the UMS. I'm just here for information, that's it. Just to find out a little more about you, background work."

Gin snorted. "You're pants at research, then. If you would have done some basic stuff you'd realize that not only am I marrying an Auror, his father is an Auror and an Order of Merlin First Class recipient, not to mention that my godfather is the same but with one minor difference. My godfather is Harry Potter. Do you think you're the first slimy git to try and get information out of me by pretending to know the Weasleys or Potters? Please tell me you've done some background. Tell me what house I was in at Hogwarts and I won't hex you."

"Slytherin. You were in Slytherin." Dalgliesh seemed nervous but somewhat angry. "I did some work, I'm not…"

He flew back a few feet from where they stood, sliding along the grass until his head rested at an odd angle against the fence that outlined the borders of the house. Gin put her wand back into her pocket and looked at her partner's shocked face. "What? I said I wouldn't hex him and I didn't. Never said one word about not stunning him, though. Watch him for a moment; I'm going to pop over to Hugo's parents' place. Back in a minute."

"So let me get this straight. Some git comes over spinning lies and telling me he knows Hugo, admits to being a private investigator trying to dig up dirt on me and I'm the one who could be in trouble?" Gin leaned back in the flowered chintz chair next to Hermione. "This is brilliant."

"He didn't do anything illegal, Virginia. If he wanted he could have pressed charges. Be glad your godfather scared him off." Hermione crossed her legs and leaned over the arm of her chair towards Gin. "With a little help from Ron, of course."

"This is insane." Hugo sat on the edge of the sofa and shook his head. "Maybe I should take some time off of work until…"

"No!" Gin and Hermione looked at each other as they had both disagreed simultaneously with Hugo.

Ron elbowed Hugo and leaned towards him. "Trust me, when they gang up on you it's a lost cause." As Hugo began to complain his father cut him off. "Save it. You'd have a better chance at licking a dragon than getting them to change their minds. Besides, there are other avenues; you're in Investigations, remember?"

"Ronald…"

Hermione's tone was one that Gin had heard before so she decided to end everything. She stood up, nodded at Mary Caroline and put her hand out to Hugo. "Come on, you have work tomorrow, I'm sure you can sort everything out later. We need to go; Mum's expecting us for dinner." After catching his eye she chuckled. "Don't worry, Dad and Nonky are cooking."

After bidding goodbye to her future in-laws Gin stood outside their house with Hugo and her business partner. Hugo gave her an odd look. "We're not expected at Colony House, are we?"

Gin shook her head. "No, but I thought by now you'd recognize the signs of one of Ron and Hermione's 'discussions' by now. You know she's going to let him have it for giving you the idea that you could do research about Chance on the job, and he's going to tell her that's what Aurors do, and they'll go on for a while. Did you really want to sit there and hear all of that?"

After rolling his eyes Hugo put his arm around Gin's waist. "Must be a girl thing. Rosie could always figure out when they were going to have a row but I never could; just chalked it up to her being a seer."

"I haven't known them very long and I could see that coming a mile away." Mary Caroline shook her head. "Ok, so now what? I'm only here for a couple of more days then I have to go back to Richmond."

"Food. I'm starving." Almost on cue Hugo's stomach growled. "See? How about we really stop over at Colony House?"

Gin shook her head. "Oh no, good try. We're going furniture shopping, remember? You agreed last night. We can get some takeaway or something on the way home."

"Hmm…how about the paint store first?" Mary Caroline pursed her lips in thought. "You know, if you start with the kitchen and work your way around the house…"

"But I'm starving!" Hugo looked at the women and after studying their faces for a moment hung his head. "Fine. But I get to pick the takeaway, then."