A/N: First I'd like to thank everybody for those wonderful reviews of Chapter Three! You guys really inspired me! I promise, I'm actually going to finish this story…and it's going to have a plot, and everything! Doesn't that make you excited? You guys are awesome!!

Disclaimer: JKR's wonderful, isn't she? This is hers, not mine. No money being made here, no sir.

Chapter Four: Diamond Bludger

When Harry finally staggered out of his room somewhere between noon and two o'clock the next afternoon, he blinked rather blearily at the scene that was presented to him. "Er…?"

He and Ron weren't completely socially inept—which, of course, took much work on Hermione's part. Harry still felt he had her and the twins to blame for the fact that he could schmooze at big-wig parties now—but never had Harry seen this many women in the living room of the Hutch. For one intense moment, he was grateful that he hadn't slept in boxers for the first time in six years. He'd collapsed onto his bed in the shirt and sweatpants he had been wearing all through the discussion with various Weasleys in the kitchen the night before. His hair was sticking up in funnier patterns that normal, and he desperately needed a shave, but those were rather minor things. First, he had to figure out just why there were nine women in his living room.

Ginny herself was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of one of the wing-backed chairs Hermione had forced him to purchase a couple of years before, leaning back against the legs of another woman. She had a large white book spread in her lap and several stacked on the floor in front of her. "Took you long enough to wake up. Ron's been calling all morning." Seeing his pointed look, she sighed. "Oh, yes, and these are my friends. Some of them are co-workers."

"Hi, Harry!" called a familiar voice, and Harry turned to see the Harrows twins sitting on the loveseat against the far wall.

"Stacy—Tracy—nice to see you. Oh, hi, Mel. Didn't see you there." Melinda Warren, the third Chaser for the Typhoon was seated on the floor in front of them, paging through a book similar to the ones Ginny had stacked around her. She looked up at Harry's greeting and gave him a mute smile before going back to her book. Harry had yet to hear her speak. The whole team just called her Mel and when she needed to ask for something, the Harrows twins usually spoke for her. Harry couldn't figure out if she was shy or just physically couldn't talk.

Not really interested in trying to come up with a story to convince the team of why they spent so much time together, Harry and Ginny had finally decided just to tell the others that they were flatmates and leave it at that. Besides, now that Dermot was a threat, they were flatmates, so it wasn't like they were lying about anything. Harry would just have to remember to call her Amy in front of Mel and the Harrows twins.

"What, no hello for me?" Angelina pretended outrage that Harry hadn't spotted her among the group. In response, he crossed to her and dropped a kiss on her cheek, apologising that he wasn't the brightest paint on the palette until he at least had a cup of coffee. "Oh, that's better then."

Harry turned slowly to look at the remaining four women in the party. Three of them, he had never laid eyes on before, but he remembered Ginny's flatmate, Tara, from their two conversations. After all, Tara had given him access to the files about Dermot, although Harry had learned everything about the situation from Bill. Harry greeted her and made his exit before Ginny could drag him into whatever sort of party she was having. He enhanced the lock on his door and showered quickly, throwing some Muggle clothing on. Returning to the kitchen, he dialled Ron's number while he waited for the coffee to finish brewing.

"Oi, mate, what took you so long?" was Ron's greeting.

With all of the giggling in the background, Harry didn't bother to try and hide the fact that he and Ginny weren't alone in the flat. "There's been an invasion at our house, apparently. Ginny's got friends over."

He could practically hear the storm brewing between Ron's ears. "Friends?" he asked slowly, obviously trying to keep his cool. "The both of you are supposed to be keeping a low profile. You go out for drinks last night, and today she throws a party?"

"Angelina and Tara are here. I think they're running interference should anything happen. And whether or not we have friends over doesn't really matter. Dermot knows where she's staying." Harry let that bombshell drop while he rooted through the cabinets for a mug. The kitchen sink was full of dirty dishes, so he shot a cleaning charm at them, grateful that he didn't have to bother with soap and water anymore. "He was kind enough to deliver a little drawing last night."

"In person?" Ron's voice was dangerously soft.

"Left it outside the front door. I strengthened the wards last night after Ginny went to bed. She's as safe here as she would be in any of the safehouses." Harry took a long sip of coffee—felt the warmth curl his toes. He sat down at the kitchen table and scanned the Daily Prophet. "What I don't get is why this guy's taken the sudden offensive. I flipped through the files, read the profiles that are set up on the Witch Hunter connected to the Dermot Raine personality. He's more the type that prefers to lie in wait, not making any big strikes until the trapped woman is completely unsuspecting. He's noted for doing absolutely nothing that might give away his identity. Yet he's made a public appearance and left us a drawing of a cat and mouse. Why the change in MO?"

Now Ron just sounded old. "Probably because his regular MO didn't work on Ginny."

Harry spit coffee all over the front of the paper in shock. The soggy pictures glared at him, furious when he added insult to injury by dropping the paper. "What? Ginny was one of Witch Hunter's targets before? I thought she was just tracking him!" Bill, he thought very viciously, I'm going to kill you. Bill had given him a very brief version of the story the week before, claiming that Ginny had transferred merely because she had figured out that her partner Dermot was the Witch Hunter. However, her being a victim threw things into an entirely different light. It was one thing if Dermot was trying to kill her because she had unearthed him—it was an entirely different level if he was trying to finish a job that had been set in motion a couple of years before.

"Now do you see why I want to wrap her in cotton and send her to Madagascar?" Ron sighed heavily. "We're lucky we found Scotty alive just in time. Too much longer in that safe and he would have suffocated." He and Harry had spent a sleepless night waiting for any news from the agents that were scouring the Hogsmeade area, hoping to find their missing agent. By the time the agents had thought to check the lake between Hogsmeade and Hogwarts, Scotty's precious supply of oxygen had almost depleted. He was on vacation from the Tunnel at the moment, and Harry knew that he was really struggling with whether or not he wanted to come back to the organisation. Nearly a full night spent in a safe in the bottom of a lake tended to put things like that into perspective.

"Who's that on the phone, Harry?" Angelina queried as she padded, barefoot, into the kitchen.

Harry smiled at her to hide any of the storm that had been raging across his face a moment before. With his mug, he indicated the fresh pot of coffee. "Your future brother-in-law."

"Ah…that narrows it down oh-so-much." Rolling her eyes sarcastically, Angelina poured herself a cup of coffee and wandered back into the other room.

"It's Ron!" he called after her. The giggling increased in the other room, and he rolled his eyes.

"Blimey, Harry. How many women do you have over there?"

"Current count is nine." The doorbell rang and high-pitched greetings could be heard tossed across the room. "Wait, scratch that. Make that ten."

"Ten women at your flat on a Tuesday afternoon…" Even though he couldn't see him, Harry knew that his best friend was shaking his head in wonder at it all. "Harry, I hope you realise what a lucky git you are, you runt."

Hermione, who had been the reason for the doorbell, wandered into the kitchen just then in search of coffee. She looked over at Harry inquisitively, as though wondering why he was there, even though he lived there. "Yes," Harry answered into the phone, "I'm a very lucky git, as you put it. The most beautiful one of them all just walked into the room. I think I should go over there and give her a kiss."

Hermione, realising who Harry was talking to just by his tone, grinned at this.

"That had better not be my sister you're talking about kissing—she's vulnerable, you bloody—" Ron started to growl.

"Of course it's not your sister. It's your wife."

Before Ron could properly react to Harry's gibing, Hermione stole the phone from him and pushed at his shoulder, shooing him from the kitchen. Harry saluted her with his coffee mug, dropped a kiss on her cheek as he left the room, and retreated into the safety of his own room to collect his shoes. He threw a light jacket on over his new grey Typhoon T-shirt and paused at the doorway to the living room. "Gi—Amy, I'm headed to Tony's for a drink and to see if any of my dragons won at the races last night. Stay here until I get back?"

She didn't look up from her book. "Tara's here. I'll be fine."

"Er—all right then." He started to head towards the door, but a hand caught his arm before he could get far. He turned to see Hermione adjusting her spring jacket, ready to go already. "You're coming with me?"

Her smile was apologetic. "If it's not too much trouble. I need to ask Tony about a couple of things." Having been her friend for more than half of his life, Harry caught the underlying message: she needed to talk to him about Ginny. He had been wondering when that was coming, but figured it was fair. After all, his intentions towards Ginny had been see-sawing wildly lately.

They left the flat together and headed down the rickety stairs that led to the street. "So…" Harry began. "What's got Ron so grouchy lately? Is it just this situation with Ginny? He's been rather…bear-like whenever I've talked to him."

"Just some cross-jurisdiction issues. With Ginny here, the Australian branch of the Tunnel feels the need to nose in on every detail of the operations, and Ron's really feeling the strain." Hermione shrugged. "You'd think that they'd give us a little more leeway, since we started the original Tunnel."

"Who's leading the Tunnel Down Under, then?" Harry asked, blinking into the sunlight. There wasn't a cloud to be seen for miles, which was considerably odd—England had been enjoying a very wet early spring that year. "Is MacDuff still in charge?" Wilson MacDuff had been a year ahead of them in Hogwarts, and a Prefect friend of Hermione's. He was an original member of the Tunnel, having been a late addition to the DA. Most of the DA members had gone on to be high-acting operatives in various branches of the Tunnel. Harry knew for a fact that Lavender Brown, surprisingly enough, was running the operation out of Prague.

"No—Will transferred to start a South American branch, although it's been nearly a month since he's been in contact with any of the other headquarters." Nobody knew the full roster, but Hermione knew all of the Directors on a personal basis. Harry normally didn't work any sort of field work, existing mostly as a backer should the Tunnel need it. However, in the past couple of years, the Tunnel hadn't needed much gold from him. "They've got a fellow named Roger Heston in charge now. He's a bit older and a bit more liberal than Ron likes, but I dropped in last week on my way home from an assignment, and they've got a good crew down there. Efficient. A touch impersonal, but there are worse things to be."

They turned into an alley that Ron and Harry had chosen years before as an Apparation point—it had an alcove to the back of it, and the entrance to the alley itself wasn't actually visible from the street. Sure, the filth covering the place reeked of something awful, but it was better than Disapparating in plain site. "So, is Ginny still signed on as an agent down there?"

"Her contract was finalised last week—she's officially freelance." At this, Harry started; a freelance agent was one step from leaving the Tunnel. He hadn't known Ginny had been looking for a way out. From all that he had observed, she loved doing work for the Tunnel. "Don't look so shocked, Harry. Ginny has given this organisation five years of her life. Sooner or later, a woman wants to settle down and work her dream job."

No wonder her answer about whether or not she was going to be in town for a while at the benefit party was so vague, Harry thought to himself. She didn't know herself. Freelancers could be called to any branch of the Tunnel whenever they wanted to be. "So she wants to be an Organiser full time, then?"

"I imagine the position she's got with the Nottingham Typhoon is just something that she had been hoping for long before the opportunity to make it Tunnel work came along." Hermione shrugged and folded her arms. Out in the sun, it was warm, but the alley was shadowed and quite a few degrees cooler. "She's always loved Quidditch, and setting things up just right. Isn't it the obvious solution?"

The thought hadn't even occurred to Harry.

She didn't catch the look of bewilderment on Harry's face. "C'mon," she said, gesturing at the alcove. "Let's go talk to Tony."

Tony's normal crowd of layabouts and gamblers was waiting for them inside the small pub when the two arrived, blinking at the abrupt change of lighting. Quite a few men leered at Hermione, but both of them, well-used to this treatment from Tony's customers, just ignored them. Jack emerged from behind the counter and grinned nastily. His T-shirt had more stains on it than usual, and he had entirely abandoned the notion of an apron. Harry idly wondered if he and Snape ever traded hair-care tips. "A different girl this time, Potter? Don't tell me saint-boy's cheating on his girlfriend."

"Jack, you know perfectly well who I am, and you know who my boyfriend is," Hermione replied in a tone reminiscent of Professor McGonagall, rolling her eyes at the small man. "Just go fetch your boss. I have no desire to play this game with you."

Harry had never seen the man, who had been a stumbling block to him so many times in the past, move so quickly to do anybody's bidding, even Tony's. A few seconds later, Tony trundled in and beamed at Hermione, completely ignoring Harry. The two had forged a special relationship upon their first meeting, mostly to drive Ron mad. It had worked, for now Tony flirted easily with Hermione and Ron constantly grumbled about how the German bar-owner was trying to steal his woman. "Why, Miss Granger! What a lovely surprise. If you'd have let me you know you were coming, I would have tried to clean up the place."

Hermione smiled and waved him off. "And make all of the germs that have made this place a playground cry? I think not. Hey, Tony."

"Hermione." Tony looked around and pretended to see Harry for the first time. "Oh, you brought the runt with you." Seeing Harry's look, however, he sobered up with the line of questions. The Seeker was stone-faced despite the lightness of Tony and Hermione's banter. "What's up, Harry?"

He glanced over his shoulder at the crowd, who were trying their hardest to pretend they weren't listening to every word the trio said. "Do you have a minute?" His nod was pointed at a black door in the back of the small pub, the room Tony used to conduct all of his private business and sometimes Tunnel meetings. It was probably the most secure room in all of Great Britain, even more secure than the Tunnel Headquarters. Tony sometimes let his closest friends crash in there—Harry remembered more than one occasion waking up in one of the chairs after a late night out with Ron or the twins.

"For England's top Seeker?" Tony asked, still trying to lighten the mood. "Certainly. Is this about the pretty redhead you were with the other day? If it is, I'll just say here and now that I liked her. She's got spunk."

"She's also got one of the most dangerous serial killers after her to finish a job he started a couple of years," Harry pointed out, his expression darkening once the three crossed the threshold into the other room. It was sparsely lit, a large, polished table being the dominant feature in the room. The chairs clustered about it were plush and cushioned—while the pub out front looked in as though it needed to be dumped into a vat of bleach water, Tony kept his back room pristine. He crossed to a sidebar and began pouring drinks for the three, nodding to show that he had heard Harry's statement.

Hermione's look told Harry that the news was far from new to her. Knowing her, it hadn't taken long to wheedle the information out of Ron, as Harry had out of Bill. Or maybe Ginny had told her herself. Harry wasn't too certain.

"We are talking about Dermot Raine here, correct?" Tony wanted to know as he sat down, sliding drinks across to the other two. "I've heard a couple of my sources mentioning him being in town. Witch Hunter and whatnot, his reputation precedes him."

"We had an agent tracking him, against Ron's better judgement," Hermione informed him. "She was one of his victims—to date the only one that has managed to escape. She had been working on the case for two years before he struck and is still to date the only specialist we have on the case. We didn't have much choice to assign her to the case. I'm sure you heard about the Shrieking Shack incident from last Friday?"

"My sympathies, about that. How is Agent Darrow doing?"

Hermione tapped the tips of her fingernails across the table, contemplating the best answer. "It…was an eye-opening experience for him. He's taking a break from the Tunnel for the time being." She specifically left out how Harry and Ron had been dispatched to Scotty's apartment after the Suicide Alarm had been tripped. It had taken the help of Scotty's wife Linda to convince the man not to jump from the penthouse apartment he had earned on his wages as a broker, his daytime job. Scotty's attempt was classified information, even from Tony—who had a jaw tighter than anything Harry had ever seen.

"I am sorry to hear that—Darrow's the best field agent you've got." Tony tilted his glass to one side and then to the other, watching the ice cubes slide around in the liquid. Harry got the feeling that he actually knew more about the Scotty Darrow situation than he was letting on. But that was Tony for you, he thought. "Well, apart from the Weasley twins."

Hermione steepled her hands. "Yes. Hopefully he'll come back. If not, it's understandable."

"So," Harry interrupted, not really interested in the psychology of Scotty Darrow. "What have you heard about the Witch Hunter, Tony?"

"Oh, just the usual for any lowlife that comes into the country. He's dropped by once or twice to play poker, but now that you're in here, I doubt I'll see him again. Git bolted whenever he saw me coming, I swear. Don't know why." He spread tree-trunk thick arms and gave his best disarming smile, indicating his massive bulk. "I'm not that intimidating of a guy, am I?"

"He talk of any hits he might take?" Harry asked, narrowing his eyes keenly.

"Jack can tell you more about it than I can." Jack appeared at the door, summoned by an unseen signal on Tony's part. Neither Harry nor Hermione was particularly surprised to see him. He leered at the pair of them and sat down, ignoring Harry's steely glare. "Jack—Dermot Raine. Everything you know."

The blond man leaned backwards so that his chair only rested on two legs, watching both of the newcomers with slitted eyes. "Why you interested in the Witch Hunter, Potter? Plays a mean game of cards."

Harry swore at him. "Jack, you willingly played cards with a serial killer?"

"Hey—willingness had nothing to do with it. He had heavy pockets. I got wife and kids at home. Do the math." Jack caught Tony's look and shut his mouth so abruptly that Harry nearly stared. "All right, so I was trying to bleed the guy for information. I do that with characters that come in here, y'know? Besides, I didn't know he was the Witch Hunter until he told me so in our third game of cards. You wouldn't know it from looking at him."

"I'm sure he's perfectly charming," Hermione said quickly to smooth ruffled feathers. "Did he tell you anything about Ginny Weasley? We believe he might be stalking her."

Jack scratched his head and leaned back. Harry wasn't sure if he as actually thinking or if he was stalling on purpose to annoy the pair of them. Either way, it was working. "He left the country, Potter. This morning on the eight o'clock portkey. He ain't stalking nobody. Said he was here to get together with an ex-girlfriend. I think she turned him down, so he went back to Boston."

"We'll have to alert the authorities over there, as well as McNeil." Randall McNeil had been in charge of the American Tunnel since its inception. Harry turned away from Hermione to narrow his eyes at Jack. "Is that all you can tell us, Jack?"

Instead of answering, the man disappeared with a pop!

"Prat," Tony swore under his breath, standing and heading for the door. He turned before he reached it and nodded finally to them. "Look, you two, I'll drag it all from Jack and owl you what I know."

"Thanks, Tony. We appreciate it."

And with that, Tony left them, presumably to beat his second-in-charge over the head with salami.

*

Angelina Johnson sat at the small table of the Hutch, watching the form of her future sister-in-law as it whizzed back and forth at dizzying speeds, puttering here and there to collect ingredients for the four-course meal she was "whipping up." Personally, she had always liked the shorter, thinner Ginny Weasley—the girl was a solid bet on the Quidditch pitch, with a spicy sense of humour similar to her own fiancé's, and more compassion than she had ever seen in one being. Angelina had been thrilled that she had dedicated most of the day to helping her out with the wedding—with Ginny as a wedding planner, she was almost positive that nothing could go wrong.

"Slow down there, Skip," she told her friend now. "You're going to leave skid marks in Harry's kitchen floor if you keep going this fast."

Ginny, reaching for the spice cupboard, turned to look at her as though she had forgotten she was there. "Oh!"

"That right there makes me feel loved, Miss Weasley." Angelina smiled to take the sting out of her words, and Ginny reddened sheepishly. "What's got that bee in your bonnet buzzing, then?" The lean Chaser stood to cross to the pot simmering on the stove. "Home-made sauce? I thought you said you were over Harry."

This earned her a snort. Unlike Ron, Ginny was quite adept at hiding her emotions, so Angelina didn't even see a hint of a blush or anything that might give her away. "Mum taught me to have too much pride in my cooking to use store-bought sauce, that's all. Try a bit—you'll see why."

The sauce, Angelina had to agree, was one step from heaven; it was the perfect texture, and had a tang that most spaghetti sauces lacked. "Mm—is this a family recipe? If so, forget the wedding. I'll just elope tonight!"

"Not so much a family recipe as a result of my boredom at sixteen. I'll owl you the recipe when I get around to writing it down," Ginny told her, not looking up from the cookbook she was browsing. She sighed and pushed herself away from the counter, shoved both hands through her already dishevelled hair. "The sauce turned out nicely, but I wish I had that much luck with desserts. I'm afraid I'm rather hopeless."

Angelina just watched her lift lids and check the various dishes she was concocting, a smirk sitting smugly on her face. "Girl, you've got it bad. Cooking for a friend is one thing, but a four-star feast is another."

Ginny did not even look daunted as she flickered her glance towards Angelina. "Please. This is at the very least five stars."

This thrilled the tall woman far more than anything else Ginny could have said. Harry needed a girl, and not an air head. Plus, Ginny was almost family, and a former member of her Quidditch team. Angelina couldn't think of two people that were more suited for each other. They had both become such well-rounded people since Hogwarts that Angelina sometimes didn't recognise the two skinny Seekers she'd had in her seventh year. Now they were both one step from being complete, she knew. "So you're not denying it, then?"

"If I deny it, you're just going to get that knowing grin—kind of like the one you've got on now—and just start teasing me." Ginny shrugged one shoulder, effectively downplaying the news that she was delivering. "Why bother? You'll see right through anything I say—so here it goes: yes, I like the git enough to cook for him, although right now he's a buggering idiot if he thinks he's going to boss me around."

"True love," Angelina sighed, collecting a bottle of Butterbeer from the icebox. "When did you figure out? At Madame Barnaby's party?"

"Figure out?" Ginny actually stopped with her perpetual movement to contemplate this. "No, it wasn't then, but I was shocked. When I left, Harry was sulky, pale, and skinny. You remember what he was like at Hogwarts. And then I came back, and there's this man in a tux that answers to Harry, and knows everything Harry knows, and walks and talks like Harry—but he's nothing like Harry."

Angelina studied her, trying to gauge any type of emotion from that story. Ginny was an honest person, she knew, but when it came to emotions, she knew that the redhead wasn't exactly big on sharing. In fact, since she had returned to England, there had been a guarded, reserved air around her that Angelina didn't remember from Hogwarts. It was like something had scarred Ginny in those five years away, and she was still licking her wounds and trying not to showcase them. "When you left, he was still in Auror training, wasn't he?"

"I left the week before he dropped out of the program. I knew he wasn't happy, but there wasn't anything I could. I mean, it wasn't like he really ever paid much attention to me, even if I did help him defeat Voldemort." Ginny said the name unflinchingly, her tone betraying none of the hatred she harvested for the murderer that had terrorised their lives for years. She tilted her head at Angelina, her dark eyes inquisitive. "You seem like you had a pretty good vantage point over the years. What changed?"

"A guy hits rock bottom—only thing to do is bounce. And trust me, love, Harry bounced. Fred found him passed out in an alley one day, and the next day he woke up and went and tried out for the Chudley Cannons, even though he hadn't been on a proper Quidditch team since his third year. Made it, hands down, led the team to victory. Suddenly, he's on the cover of all of these famous magazines and everybody is wanting a minute of his time. I think he finally let some of it go to his head because he showed up on Hermione's doorstep and asked her and the twins to polish him up. So far, the sheen has stuck. Dazzling, isn't he?"

"Dazzling, charming…" Ginny shook her head in amazement. "If you told me that he would be like that when I came back, I would have laughed at you."

"And now you're head over heels in love with the guy."

Ginny's look turned perverse as she lifted a colander from the sink and dumped its contents into a serving bowl. "You tell anybody, and I tell my darling older brother that you've been having fantasies about him and his twin."

She was too elated by this news to care much that her wedding planner was blackmailing her. Still, she had to play along. "Ouch. Never let it be said that Ginny Weasley doesn't fight dirty."

A magical timer beeped and Ginny pulled oven mitts over her hands and pulled a pie from the over, inspecting it critically. "Of course I fight dirty—you can't expect to win against six older brothers if you're an angel, you know. Don't worry, though. With me as your guide, you'll know every dirty trick in the book."

"Is that a promise? That would be amusing to watch."

Harry had come home, it appeared, and let himself in through the front door without so much as a noise to let either of the two know he was coming. Angelina eyed him, guiltily wondering how long he had been standing in the kitchen doorway. Ginny, however, was completely nonchalant as she straightened and looked over at him. "Hope you don't mind spaghetti." Angelina decided that she needed to learn exactly how Ginny remained calm like that, even given the possibility that he had overheard her confession. "Hi, by the way. Where've you been?"

He crossed to the kitchen table, began rifling through the stacks of letters that had arrived in his absence. Angelina saw logos from several different Quidditch teams and broom-making companies, but he tossed most of these in the trash. "Tony wanted a second opinion on a broomstick he's thinking of purchasing. 'Lo, Angelina. Here to plan the wedding?"

"She was baby-sitting me until you got back," Ginny told him facetiously.

"I hope she didn't have to change your nappy," Harry deadpanned in reply.

Angelina, meanwhile, was watching the interaction between the two, wondering if it was as obvious to them as it was to her: They were both fluid, graceful people, almost a step above humanity. In fact, the two seemed to shine with an ethereal glow—especially when they looked at each other. It was the stuff out of romance novels, sappily applied to life right in front of her. This was a couple that would be flirting and teasing each other for the rest of their lives.

"And you cooked her dinner?" Harry tried to sniff at the pot, but Ginny shooed him away. He grinned over at Angelina, unabashed. "That was awfully nice of you, Gin—"

The phone nearly jangled off of its hook and Angelina, being the closest to it, reached over and plucked it up. "The Hutch," she answered simply, for anybody who had the number would know the name of the house.

"Angelina? Oh, good. Just the person I was hoping for."

Angelina grinned. "Hi, George."

On the other end of the line, George paused. When he did start speaking, his tone was almost rueful. "You know, it's very unnerving how you can tell us apart, even though our Mum can't even tell the difference between our voices."

"Fred calls me Angie."

"Oh. Either way, I'm supposed to call and beg you to come over, since Fred's kind of, er, stuck up on a project we're walking on. Personally, I think the prat's just wanting a little sympathy, mainly cos I was laughing at him. But, still. You have to see this." In his typical fashion, George hung up the phone without saying good-bye, leaving Angelina staring at the receiver in her hand.

Harry looked up from the magazine he was browsing. "Anything wrong?"

"No…Fred's just managed to get himself 'stuck' on another project and George wants me to come over and laugh at him." Angelina shrugged and began pulling on her tan slides. The Weasleys were all tall, but her close-to-supermodel height meant that she couldn't wear high heels on any day that she would see Fred. Although Fred seemed to think it was funnier that he was only an inch taller than his girlfriend, Angelina wasn't amused. "So I'll see you two on Sunday?"

"Sunday?" Harry asked, still perusing the magazine.

Ginny frowned as she tasted the sauce again. "Family dinner, remember?"

"Oh. Right." Harry pushed a hand along the back of his head, forcing his hair to stand up in soft spikes as he grinned sheepishly at Angelina. "Glad I'm not the only outsider now, actually."

Angelina gave him a patronising look.. "Harry, I've been coming to family dinners for years now. Might want to catch up with the times." She gave him a hug and kissed his cheek on the way out. "Ginny—I'll give you a call tomorrow once I show those invitations to Fred—assuming that I can get him un-stuck from whatever mess he's in now." The two women hugged and then Angelina hurried into the living room and waved her wand at the fireplace, igniting the flame that would send her to save her fiancé from whatever mess he had buried himself in now.

*

The general sounds of splashing from the kitchen told Ginny that Harry was still finishing the after dinner dishes—his own choice. "You cooked," he'd told her, pointing towards the living room when she moved to start on the dishes. "I'll clean up. Besides, I know where everything is better than you do."

"That's because you live here. And you cooked this morning, and cleaned up."

"Either way, I'll do the dishes. Go grab those files out of my room and pour yourself something to drink. Get comfortable." Despite the serious tone in his voice, his shove towards the door was playful. "It won't take more than five minutes."

Some time later (longer than five minutes, she was sure), she was perched on the edge of one of the comfortable chairs, a glass of sherry sitting untouched on the coffee table in front of her. She had found the sherry and glass in a little decanter hidden inside the Quaffle sitting on the coffee table, just another artistic touch that she wouldn't have thought Harry capable of. His apartment was very masculine, which was ideal for its one and a half occupants, but Ginny was of the opinion that it needed a woman's touch to smooth out all of the masculinity. She could see that Hermione had attempted to do a couple of things to the place, but her efforts were muted against Harry's tastes.

The carpet was plush and cream, complementing the earth tones nicely. The couches and chairs were done in green, with all of the wooden surfaces in the room polished with a dark finish. However, the large windows and cheerfully blazing fireplace effectively displaced any darkness that the décor might force upon the place. And Hermione had definitely done the curtains, Ginny decided as she looked at the floating cream material that was a few shades darker than the carpet. Leaving her glass on the coffee table, she crossed to the fireplace and examined the photos on the mantle.

Seated in the place of honour was a group-shot of the trio, arms wrapped around each other's shoulders. Hermione was sandwiched between the two boys, her head thrown back so that her hair tumbled every which way. The three were grinning widely, obviously having just shared a joke before the snapshot was taken. They looked to be about eighteen or nineteen, and dressed in Muggle clothing. The picture to its left had them in formal robes, at some Ministry ball or other. Occasionally, Harry would reach up to fidget with his glasses, but that was all that remained of the awkward youth he had been. Ron and Hermione would occasionally break from their poses to dance, and it delighted Ginny to see that her brother's ears were red.

"I try not to keep too many pictures of them up in the house. Sometimes the show just isn't worth it," said a voice behind her. Harry had finished in the kitchen and was wiping his hands on a dish towel, looking somewhat wistfully at the photographs over Ginny's shoulder. He frowned at something. "We don't have any of you on there, though. We'll have to fix that."

"Oh?"

"Yes, of course. We've got the rest of the Weasleys on there." Turning, Ginny saw that that was true: there was a small photograph of Fred, George, and Angelina standing together, a formal picture of Bill and Fleur and their firstborn, and a group picture of all of her brothers playing as many pranks on each other as they could fit into a photograph frame. It looked as though Charlie had Bill in a headlock, and the twins were trying to set Percy's fez on fire, with Ron grinning at them from a few feet away. "Spot of honour, right next to the Ron and Hermione picture. I'll have to dredge up my old camera."

He poured himself a glass of sherry and took a seat in one of the green wing-back chairs, propping his feet up on a stool. It had been a long day for him—drawing information out of Jack was always a beastly task. Even with Quidditch practice cancelled, he hadn't had much sleep. And it didn't look like he was going to get much tonight, either. "So. Sit. Get comfortable."

"Don't have much of a choice." Still, Ginny obeyed, forcing herself to appear relaxed as she took a seat and crossed her legs, leaning back. "You do realise that the information I give you tonight must remain classified. An ever-expanding circle knows now—you, Tara, Ron, Bill, Hermione, and probably that Tony guy you visited today. I want this to remain within that circle."

"All right," Harry said gravely.

Ginny pushed her hair back and closed her eyes. "Where should I start? I guess the beginning is as good a place as any." She had always been told her memory was like a steel trap, so it didn't surprise her that she could remember the day clearly—walking into the American Tunnel Headquarters, the smell of fresh-cut grass lingering from the lawn, the scent of coffee heavy on the air, the dark greys and midnight blues of the actual office, the sharp, impressive lines of her new boss…the nervousness that made her belly wriggle like a fish out of water. "The Witch Hunter was my first case in America. I'd transferred from Prague just to tackle the case because I heard it was open, and I wanted to try my hand at investigative crime work instead of field work.

"My first day on the job, they dumped about twenty files on me and said, 'Get to know these like the back of your hand.' I ended up doing so, but it was still a bit discouraging until they gave me a partner to work with. Dermot Raine." She opened her eyes, looked over at Harry. To her surprise, he wasn't looking at her, but at the sherry in the glass. "You have to admit, he's a handsome man—and very charming. Serial killers usually are. That's how they lure their victims in. Still, he was a member of the American Tunnel. It didn't occur to me to associate his charming demeanour with the Witch Hunter profile." She shrugged. "Doing that would have been taking a serious shot in the dark."

"So when did you first clue in?"

"I'm getting to that part." Suddenly, she needed that sherry. She took a large gulp, felt the reassuring burn. "Dermot and I made a good team. Both of us were exceptionally good at field work—him because he had military experience, and me because I had a really hard head."

"I noticed," Harry input dryly.

Ginny's ghost of a smile was wry. "I was good at my job, really good. I nearly had the Witch Hunter bagged on several different occasions. But each time, he managed to elude me—and I never managed to save the victims. I kept getting closer to discovering his actual identity the whole time, and by that time, I was dating Dermot. Well, not dating so much as living together, really. Mum would die at hearing that one of her children was living in sin, especially with a man nine years older than her, but the situation just worked out. I think I might have even loved him." She took the time to curl her legs under her and hunch forward, unconsciously presenting a smaller target to any opponents. "Of course, that all changed on the night in May when he drugged me."

The only sign of tension in Harry's figure was the tightening of fingers around the sherry glass. "He drugged you? How stupid of him."

Only a select few people knew what had happened in the final battle, in the room where six Hogwarts students had been trapped with the darkest lord of all time, and several of his top minions. Even the six that were present still had sketchy memories of the event. However, one of Ginny's clearer memories was being hit with the Blood Curse, a rather obscure Dark Arts hex that involved one's blood causing pain everywhere it touched. Potions could do nothing to alleviate the pain, and the only cure was a very little-known counter-curse. Ginny's body had nearly exploded in the agonising seconds it had taken Hermione to remember the counter-curse. Those few seconds had cost her greatly: to this day, very few potions held effect unless she was given mass amounts of it.

"Probably the only thing that saved my life," Ginny reflected.

"So he drugged you and you…what…woke up to find him standing over you with," and here Harry actually reached for a file, flicked through it, and ran his finger down a page, "a tie, about to strangle you?"

"You clearly underestimate me."

"Oh?"

"Yes—I woke up before he even found his tie on the floor." At this, Harry grimaced, having had a completely different picture in his head. "But I was out long enough for him to set up the scene. You know, the spilled wine on the bedspread, and the 'Witch Hunter' sign across the closet door. You know, for a minute, it didn't even make sense. I just remember sitting there in bed and wondering if I fell asleep on the job. When I realised what was happening, I was just so shocked that I didn't know what to do. He hadn't even turned around by the time I figured out, 'hey, girl, Apparate!'"

She told him all about running around the American Government of Magic with nothing but a towel on, and he winced appropriately. When he asked about what had happened after, she shrugged. "They didn't believe me at first, but they dispatched some agents to the apartment…he was gone by then. In fact, I didn't see hide nor hair of him for two years. Tara Staples and I transferred together out to Australia to avoid him, spent two great years down there. We thought he'd been picked up by the Muggle police—until he showed up in our night club one night."

She stared off into space for a moment, and Harry let her. "He could have killed both of us on the spot without so much as a by-your-leave." She shook her head. "But he didn't. The prat wanted to be friends, as if it was perfectly acceptable that his night job was charming and murdering women! He got away before Tara and I could Stun him, and showed up a few nights later. The Australian Tunnel wasn't very helpful in purging him out and bagging him, so I thought…maybe if I came here, you know? We have the most organised and possibly the scariest Tunnel. With all of my brothers, I'd figured we would bag him in no time."

"Ron and Bill were all for it until the other night," Harry observed. "They kept your case top-secret, though. I had to threaten bodily harm before they would even let me in on the sketchy details. And then they didn't even tell me the half of it."

"That was at my request. I wanted as few people involved as possible." Ginny sighed gustily. "As far as I can tell, he's taken his aim somewhere else. If he truly wanted me dead right now, I wouldn't be here."

"Then how do you explain the Shrieking Shack?"

"He tries once, he fails, and then he goes away from months to years at a time. Usually sends me cryptic notes, like the one you found in the hallway, to make sure that I know he's still out there." Ginny waved her wand at the coffee table to move all of the debris to the side, and conjured a map. "He's originally from the Alabama area, so he attacks there, mostly. He's hit a couple in Portland, but they're all pretty much in the south." She indicated a spot on the far left corner of the United States as she spoke.

"Then why the Irish accent?" Harry wanted to know.

Ginny's shrug was oddly hollow. "Game of intrigue, I guess? He's a complex man, Harry. He likes to have his fun, but it's…it's kind of creepy." She rubbed her the back of her neck and winced suddenly. The pain potion was wearing off, and her side was once again beginning to ache. I really need to start taking it easier, she thought to herself as Harry excused himself from the room and returned with the normal goblet. "I really hate this stuff."

"Next time try to miss any boards that happen to be sticking out of the floor, then," Harry advised, watching her quaff the potion. He waited until she was almost done with the potion to deliver his important news: "I put aardvark bogies in that one especially for you."

She gagged on the potion. "You didn't!"

"Didn't I?" His eyes sparkled with amusement. "It would serve you right for even coming up with such an odd concept." Smiling to himself as she forced the last bit of potion down, he took the goblet from her and retreated back to the kitchen for a minute. "What you're saying matches up with Jack's news, then. He claimed Raine had left the country on the eight o'clock portkey this morning."

"Better notify the officials to wherever he went," Ginny warned.

"Already done. So what can we do now?"

She bit her lip. Ron and Bill hadn't liked this part of the plan, especially after the Shrieking Shack incident, but it was necessary. "We try to draw him out, I guess. But we can't do it here. He's proved that he can work my turf just as well as his own. We have to strike him on his own home-ground."

To her surprise, he didn't protest. His green eyes grew clearer for a minute as he rested his chin on one hand, staring into the flames. "How will we be able to do that, though? We've got the Typhoon and Ulysses Davenport to worry about here."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Harry, have you forgot that I'm the team planner? I hear that there's a Quidditch Open going on in America….what better way to become a popular team than to go and beat all of the American teams?"

*

"An American Quidditch Open?" Bear Winslow demanded the next day at practice as he and Harry ran laps around the pitch. Although Harry was nearly half a foot shorter than the lanky Keeper, he had always been a fast runner, and so had no problems keeping up with Bear's long legs. "You mean, we're going to play against a bunch of yanks?"

"That's what Amy said," Harry told him. "I couldn't believe it at first, either, but it's a couple of months after the big scrimmage. We're all headed off to sunny Florida for a two-week long tournament. She's already secured us a spot and everything."

"Oi! Tad! Frank!" Bear shouted at the Beaters, who were trundling along with their slow, patient jogs behind them. He and Harry jogged in place until the other two men caught up. "Have you heard? We're going to be playing against a bunch of yanks!"

Tad gave them his everlasting grin. "In the American Quidditch Open? Yeah, we heard. Pretty Miss Mason told us this morning when we were having coffee with her after practice."

Harry and Ginny had haggled down the terms of his bodyguard duties—as long as Ginny was with one of the team, she was allowed to be out of his sight. She'd practically jumped at the opportunity, much to Harry's dismay, and had spent most of the morning flirting with Tad and Frank. He could understand the need to get away from him, so he wasn't too upset or anything. Besides, Tad and Frank were both married, either way.

Why does that reassure me so much? He wondered at himself. A snider part of his mind felt the need to chip in, Because you want to jump her bones, you git.

Well, he never said his mind was exactly the most refined thing on the planet. The problem with being Ginny's protector of sorts (even though they figured that the threat was mostly gone for now) was that he was now spending so much time around Ginny and seeing the person he remembered from Hogwarts…but a smoother, sleeker, sexier version of it. Sure, she was on the end of her emotional rope, but he could still see the fire beneath that tired exterior. It came out in her sense of humour and the way she would just…look at him.

You're smitten, his mind berated.

"Playing Quidditch in the states…who would have thought?" Bear laughed as they finished their final lap and headed over to the water cooler, each taking a cup from the bench. "Well, if they hate us here in good old mother England, we could always immigrate and beat the yanks in their own league."

"As much faith as I have in the lot of you, I doubt that," said a new voice, as Ginny herself joined the group. Harry barely avoided squirming guiltily at the thoughts that had just been flowing through his mind. "Those American teams are pretty hard-core. They don't have as many fouls over there. Usually the Seeker just acts as a fourth Chaser."

"Hear that, Harry?" Frank chortled, rubbing a hand over his afro. "You'll have to start training with the birds more." Stacy, Tracy, and Melinda had earned the nickname after a very long and delirious team practice, and actually didn't seem to mind the appellation very much.

"Save it for after the big game next week," Ginny warned, turning her thousand-watt smile on Harry. He hid the fact that his stomach flipped over by taking a long drink. She looked so odd with her hair so dark, but Harry still found that wildly attractive. He liked the freckles more than the tanned skin, but he was hardly going to tell her that. "That's still considered a foul here, and I'd hate for them to slip and fall into a pattern of passing it to Harry."

"Oi! All of you! Into the air now! This is a practice, not a social hour!" Dave Davenport flew by, his expression cranky with the lot of them. Bear and Harry rolled their eyes, but moved over to where their brooms were propped up against a chain-link fence. The birds, or Chasers, were already in the air, awaiting the rest of the team. Practice usually started out with Harry and Bear assisting them with passing drills, usually just providing bodies for them to avoid hitting.

Bear kept pace with Harry, rolling his shoulders as they flew. "I reckon she likes you, Potter," he observed, craning his neck to watch Ginny head into the stands to mingle with the crowd and get some excitement going over the team. The majority of the crowds would arrive in a couple of hours, which would mean that they would start practising the daredevil stunts for which the Nottingham Typhoon was rapidly becoming well-known. "You sure you're only flatmates?"

"Positive," Harry muttered. "I can give you every assurance that she doesn't even think of me that way."

"Oh, she definitely likes him," Tracy Harrows claimed, flying up to the pair. She pushed blond hair out of her eyes and grinned at Harry. "It's kind of obvious—how she looks at him, and all."

"Can we not discuss my love life?" Harry wanted to know.

Stacy and Melinda flew over, obviously curious as to what could have Harry groaning so early in the practice. The three Chasers were always amused by the fact that Harry was single, and had offered to set him up with some of their Quidditch-playing friends. Meddling in each others' lives was what the three were good at, they'd told the men on the team. This was only bad for Bear and Harry, who were the unattached men on the team. Frank and Tad both had wives—both of whom were sitting in the audience at that very moment. "Harry and Amy?" Stacy asked her twin. She studied Harry for a minute, and he felt very much like a piece of meat hanging on a rack. "They'd be cute together. And she definitely likes him."

Why on earth did this whole topic make him feel fourteen again? "Even if she does, it doesn't change much."

"Oh, c'mon, don't be such a spoilsport." The other four stared as Melinda, who'd never spoken a word in Harry's presence before then, spoke up. She had an African accent and an easy grin, her white teeth shining out from her brown face. "Let's make this interesting. I'm willing to do a little betting. What about you guys?"

Before Harry could do so much as protest, even Tad and Frank had joined in, claiming that they were both willing to bet on this wager. "If we win the Dublin Demented game, you have to kiss Amy on your victory lap," Bear finally decided.

Harry raised an eyebrow. In other situations, he might have protested, but that would only dig him farther into this hole. "And if we lose?"

"Work on your Frank Sinatra impression, because you're singing 'Strangers in the Night' to her in front of the whole audience."

"Won't Seamus love that?" Harry grumbled to nobody in particular, and flew off before Dave Davenport could break up their gaggle once again. Up in the stands, Ginny had no idea that any conspiracy was going on, about her or not. She didn't even look up as he flew by.