A/N: Once again, I'm apologizing for the amount of time it's taken me to getthis chapter to you. It took a lot to write, mostly because I'm introducing my last and favorite plotline. From here, it's two or three chapters until our wild ride is over. And you have my word that it WILL be done by July 16th. Seeing as my summer plans just fell through and crashed into a puddle at my feet, I'll have time. Even if I have to chop the chapters up and make it six or seven chapters instead of two or three.

Disclaimer: As always, it's not mine. JK Rowling owns all, and what she doesn't have, you can bet that AOL or Time Warner or whatever it is nowadays has their paws all over it.

Chapter Eleven: A Fool and His Gold

The Nottingham Typhoon meeting room was a place where all seven team members (and seven alternates, although the team members rarely saw the alternates) had cashed in multitudes of hours. They'd all unofficially picked their seats at the first inter-team meeting, and had kept those. Harry's seat was in between Bear and Frank, across the table from Melinda. They normally left the seat at the head of the table open, but today, Ginny took up residence there. She was standing now at the chalkboard that was usually used to highlight team plays.

On the board now was written "American Quidditch Open" in Typhoon red lettering.

"You have all of your uniforms and other pertinent items issued to you in your equipment lockers," Ginny told them now, resisting the urge to pace around the table. She'd never had a problem giving speeches or briefings—and she'd had to give quite a few briefings while working for the American Tunnel. Her day job as an organiser meant talking to people on all different levels. And the people of the Nottingham Typhoon had more or less become her friends. So she was completely at ease walking around this room, decorated liberally with promotional posters for the team.

Bear raised the hand that held his quill. All of the members, to Ginny's amusement, were taking notes and treating this like a classroom. "We're wearing different uniforms for the Open?"

"Yes. Our home team uniforms are markedly similar to the American National Quidditch team, so the Davenports have had the robe designers create a primarily grey robe for the tournament."

Stacy snickered. "Grey's not exactly my colour, Amy."

"Oi, shut it," her twin sister told her. "Grey looks fabulous on both of us."

Ginny just shook her head at the pair and smiled. "At any rate, we've put hundreds of Galleons into those uniforms. They come with all the standard Quidditch uniform specifics—impossible to tear, won't stain, spell-washable, automatic adjustment to the weather, etc."

"I love wearing clothing that's smarter than me," Tad muttered to Bear.

Ginny ignored him and turned back to the board, flicking her wand at it. "Dates for the Open," she explained when a list of numbers appeared. "Because it's a tournament and they want it over by the date specified, the rules have been altered slightly. First team to either catch the Snitch or reach six hundred and fifty points wins the game."

Immediately, seven frowns appeared. "A points limitation?" Bear wanted to know. "That means that there's only so many points that the winner of the tournament can have overall. There's never been a ceiling on points before."

"It's more for time restraints than anything else," Ginny informed him, shrugging. "They need to free the stadium up for renovations after the tournament takes place. Which means getting us out of there before the official American Quidditch season starts. They're changing a lot of things around for the tournament to take place."

"Like what?" Harry asked, tapping his quill.

"Installing more seating, and changing the entire floor plan to fit three pitches instead of just one. That way, three games can take place at the same time—one on the main pitch and two on pitches they've installed on the sides." Really, Ginny knew that Harry was more than aware of the current and original floor plans for Tropicana Stadium than he let on—he'd been poring over them every night for the past two months—but she played along with the charade.

"Do you have a list of where we'll be playing?" Bear asked, scribbling notes.

Ginny shrugged. "I know our first game will take place on the south pitch, which is one of the side pitches. Beyond that, we'll find out where we play next, based upon whether we win or lose."

Even though she hadn't given out that much information yet, Bear's parchment was half-full already. "So it's based on elimination, rather than overall ranking?"

"Overall points gained will determine your position in the end, but if you lose your first game, you're out of the tournament and it's unlikely you'll take first place." Ginny shrugged and cleared the dates off of the board. "You've all been issued an official copy of the rules."

"And I expect you all to read them," Bear warned, his position of captain lending authority to his voice and inspiring Stacy to mutter, "Anything you say, Captain."

Rather used to the strange tension between Bear and Stacy as of late, Ginny shrugged that off before any sniping could break out and turned back to the board. "You should all have a list of the teams playing. I've just received word that we're kicking off the tournament on the south pitch, playing against the Honolulu Honu."

Puzzled looks flew around the table. "Where's Honolulu and what's a Honu?" Frank finally voiced for the entire group.

She'd already looked it up herself, or she wouldn't have known the answer, even though she did know where Honolulu was. "Honolulu is the capital city of Hawaii, which is that one island state. And a Honu is the Hawaiian word for seaturtle."

"Really inspiring to name your team after a turtle," Tad snorted.

"Don't let the name fool you. I talked to several PR representatives from the tournament yesterday and they all seemed to think that the Honu is probably the fastest team entering the Open." Ginny twitched one shoulder in a version of a shrug she'd picked up from Tara and shuffled the stack of parchment she'd brought into the meeting with her. "I've already arranged for rooms at a local hotel in the area, as well as travel across the Atlantic. Your Transcontinental Portkey passes should be arriving via owl any day now. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to book you all on the same portkey, but a majority of you will be in groups together. Now, you know the rules about going into a foreign country—the magical embassy is located down the street from the stadium, and I expect you'll go there if you run into any problems with the law—which you won't."

She bit her tongue over the plans that she and Harry had made to travel to the Open with Ron, Hermione, Neville, and the Darrows. The rest of the Typhoon would be taking a luxury portkey the morning before her group left.

"We could be back as early as a week after our departure date, or three weeks after that, depending your placement in the tournament," Ginny warned them, "so don't make any plans until after the last day of the tournament."

Stacy raised a hand. "What sort of press activities have you lined up for us?" she asked, knowing to expect the inevitable. Ginny was good at her job, and that meant that promoting the team was going better than expected.

"Bear's got a couple of wireless interviews lined up, the rest of you will, of course, be expected to answer a few questions at the original press conference, scheduled for…" She flipped through her stack for clarification, even though she knew all of the dates by heart. "The night before the tournament begins. Attire for that will be formal robes, and no drinking beforehand." Her eyes flitted briefly to Bear, who had a reputation of showing up to press conferences with firewhiskey on his breath. He just raised his eyebrows in a return challenge.

"I'll have all of this written down for you in handy little packets," she finished, "but I thought it might be best you actually listen to it before you see it in print. Any final questions?"

Of course there were questions—one couldn't expect to move a professional Quidditch team across an entire ocean for a tournament with different rules without there being questions—but Ginny answered them patiently and quickly. Before long, the meeting was adjourned and the team was dismissed from a long day of briefings and practice. She turned down the offer of attending a drinks mixer with Bear and the Harrows, for there was still a pile of work waiting for her at home, most of it on the wedding she was planning for Angelina and Fred.

"I just need to collect something I left in the locker room," Harry told her sheepishly, standing and flattening his hair. "Then we can get out of here. That okay?"

Ginny shrugged and shuffled the pile of paperwork into the overfull binder she had been carrying around as of late. "That's fine. I'm not in a hurry."

Even with the upcoming tournament increasing tension in the air around the team by tenfold, it hadn't taken much for the others to notice that something strange was occurring between Ginny and Harry. Stacy had asked Ginny about it once or twice only to receive a quick shake of the head. Ginny imagined that some of the men had questioned Harry, as well, but if that had happened, he wasn't keen to tell her anytime soon. It was only when Hermione, sensing trouble, had pressed the issue that Ginny relented to tell anything at all.

"We just can't seem to get off on the right foot, Harry and I," she moaned when Hermione had asked, nearly two days before. "Every time we find our niche, something happens to blow it all to pieces."

"Well, what happened this time, then?" Hermione had asked, logically working her way through the situation. Although Ginny couldn't have known this, she had gone to Harry first, and had received a zipped lip for her troubles. Ginny, she had figured, was a much easier target, since they'd been girl friends since Hogwarts. It took awhile for Harry to talk, either way, especially if it was anything close to regards to his feelings. Old habits died hard. He'd rather lament over a Toxic Butterbeer with Ron and Neville than spill all of his secrets to her.

"Oh, nothing much," Ginny had answered, rolling her eyes over the coffee mug. Hermione had invited her over to get away while the men went to a Quidditch match together, taking the evening off of Tunnel duties. They were sitting in the kitchen of Hermione and Ron's flat, enjoying some of the spiced coffee Hermione had picked up on some mission or other. It made for a cosy evening. "Just me."

"You?"

"Things were…getting intimate." Even at twenty-two, she couldn't quite voice it, and blamed her mother for such prudence. "Everything was completely fine. We both expected it would come sooner or later. So we're on the couch, snogging." That part, she had to admit, had been nice. Harry Potter definitely had the kissing thing down pat, but whenever had she expected less?

"And things started to get—a bit too heavy?" Hermione looked puzzled. Underneath that, she looked almost downright uncomfortable, and Ginny imagined that discussing Harry was quite like talking about a brother for her. Since she didn't particularly want to know details of Ron's sex life, she sympathised. However that didn't stop Hermione from asking. "Was he doing something…wrong?"

"No, not at all." Ginny shook her head irritably. "He was—fine. It was me. I just…I couldn't get thoughts of Dermot out of my head. Over two years, and it won't leave me alone."

Hermione's eyes widened understandingly. "You haven't…since Dermot?"

Ginny just shook her head mutely at that, and stared into the coffee.

Hermione had fallen silent then, perhaps trying to comprehend the entire situation in the quiet way she had gained. What had once been a bossy adolescent had somehow transformed itself into a self-assured woman. Where she had once blurted out the answers because they always seemed to be on hand, Hermione now took time to contemplate. Finally, she cleared her throat. "Was it anything like Dermot?"

"No!" Ginny was quick to shake her head. "Not a thing—Dermot…he was good." As much as it hurt her to think about the relationship she'd had with him, there were certain things she couldn't deny. But that didn't mean she had to talk about them ad nauseam. "But with Harry, it's a lot more—exciting."

"Well, what happened, then?"

The explanation was embarrassingly simple. She jerked both shoulders, not quite a shrug, not quite a protective movement. "I panicked." Since Hermione's sympathetic look had seemed to demand more, Ginny sighed. "I just…I couldn't stop seeing that scene in my mind. Right after I woke up, you know. The funny thing is when it happened, when I woke up while Dermot was setting up the scene, I thought I had just fallen asleep on the job. It took me nearly a minute to realise that it was happening to me. And then…I couldn't stop the panic. I grabbed a towel and just…Apparated out of there. Didn't even think to Stun him or anything, for all the good my training did." She shook her head. "But I can't forget that…feeling of discovery."

"So, you panicked because you felt like it might happen again," Hermione surmised.

"Irrationally," Ginny muttered, her ears burning. It had been a full week since the fiasco on the couch, but that didn't stop her face from turning bright red every time something even so much as reminded her of it.

"How did Harry take it?"

"Better than I might've. He tried to get me drunk." It was an exaggeration, but it had the desired effect. Hermione's eyebrows shot up into her hairline. "No, I'm joking. But he did give me whiskey. It was his idea that I talk it out." She bit her lip when Hermione smiled. "He told me that was what you did to him that helped him start to get better."

Hermione had risen then to clear away the empty coffee mugs and retrieve a tin of biscuits from beside the icebox. "When you store up something as voluminous as that, it either eats you whole or you explode. I just shoved Harry off the fence. He did the rest." This drew a sardonic look.

"The manners, the polish, the schmoozing, all of that was Harry? All of it?"

"Certainly. I just had a…how do I say this? A hook through his nose, helping him along." Hermione shrugged, completely unabashed about the manipulation she'd done to help Harry. "That's not the issue, though. So you two were getting intimate, you panicked, and…"

"And now things are strange between us." Ginny sighed. "He's been perfectly understanding about the whole thing, and he doesn't push, but I think I've thoroughly confused him. So things have been weirdbetween us lately."

Hermione frowned. "Have you tried talking to him about this?"

"I figured time would smooth it out." Ginny rested her chin on her arms and stared at the wood grain pattern of the tabletop. "Which was a great plan—until it didn't work. Now it's like there's this great big thing in between us, and I'm not sure how to deal with it. The nightmares came back and there's no way Harry doesn't know about those…"

"You have nightmares?" Hermione asked, interrupting her. "I thought Dermot didn't actually attack you."

"He didn't." He just came close—too close. "It's hard to explain. Dermot didn't actually attack me, but I spent so much time working on that case. I was good…because I could see through the eyes of the victim, help figure out what had happened in each scene. It had never given me any problems, but when it finally did start to happen to me, Ginny Weasley, and not just another victim, I guess that's when it really hit home."

It had hit home, and in a way that could jar the very soul, she thought now, waiting outside the locker room for Harry to retrieve whatever it was he had left behind. Two days after her conversation with Hermione, she was still contemplating what she had said to her friend, and what impact it had had on her. She had panicked not because she had physically been attacked…but because it had almost been her. Even two days later, it didn't make any sense.

"Hey." Harry's greeting caught her off guard, but she smothered her surprise by not jerking at the sound of his voice. "What's up?"

She shrugged one shoulder. "Just thinking."

They started heading towards the Apparation room, which had been built the week before to avoid people reckless Apparation in and out of the stadium. Since the game between the Demented and the Typhoon had been a free match, Apparation wards hadn't been a priority.

Harry tucked his hands into his pockets, looking sidelong at her as he walked. "About the plans for the Open? The meeting went well. Everybody seems to be more excited about this than when we first found out."

"Yes, it did," Ginny answered, bemused by her own thoughts. Forcing herself to focus on the topic, she glanced over at him. "Do you have any idea what's going on with Bear and Stacy? They're flat-out sniping at each other now. The sexual tension is so thick you could cut it with a slicing spell."

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she instantly wished she could call them back. Harry, on the other hand, barely did anything more than pause at the threshold to the Apparation room. He looked at her, green eyes serious.

"Yeah, I guess you could say that."

Right then, Ginny cheerfully could have swallowed her own tongue. Deciding that it was better to just nip this thing in the bud, she thought quickly and asked, "Hey, instead of going home to where Luna and Neville are doubtless having another one of their little dinners, why don't we go out tonight? I could use a drink."

Harry's smiled slowly. "Yeah," he said, and Ginny felt they'd probably just taken the first earth-shaking step towards fixing things. "Yeah. That'd be nice."

"Just not Tony's," Ginny was quick to add.


As the American Quidditch Open nosed to just nine days away, tension clung so tightly to the air of the stadium that Harry sometimes felt like just trying to wring it out like a sponge. That wouldn't have worked, though, so he continued to fly the long hours, to weight-train and run when the team met for physical training, and to invest many hours in the locker room, debating different tactics and strategies with Bear. Sometimes Dave Davenport stayed for these meetings, but mostly, it was just the team. They all preferred it that way.

Unfortunately, that didn't mean getting through practices was any easier. With Ginny, the Open, and the Tunnel fighting for space in his head, he had a lot to think about, and it struck at the most inopportune moments.

"Your head's in the clouds again, Potter, and that's bad!" Tracy Harrows shouted at him as she whizzed by, her Firebolt Mach III practically leaving a smoke cloud in her wake.

Harry mentally kicked himself and shoved the nose of his broom down. Ahead of him on the Pitch, the Chasers were all bantering the Quaffle about at high enough speeds to make his hands hurt at the mere thought of having to catch it. Apparently, break was over, and nobody had thought to inform Harry.

He loathed American Quidditch rules, he decided, streaking down and under Stacy's flight path, staying out of the way and yet still on hand. Although his main priority was searching for the Snitch, he was expected to be on hand for the Chasers. The Seeker acted as a fourth Chaser whenever it was needed, evening out the field a little bit. Harry, who strongly believed that his only job in the game should be to find the Snitch and occasionally pull off a dive to aid his team, disliked the fact that he would have to work more closely with the others—and essentially play two positions.

Not that they were a bad lot, he was hasty to correct himself. He liked them well enough that both he and Ginny attended their functions whenever they had some down time (which wasn't very often, granted, with Ginny planning two weddings and still working a full time job, and with Harry in charge of the American Quidditch Open plans and helping Ron and Hermione out with other Tunnel cases when they would let him). They'd even had the rest of the team over to the Hutch for drinks after one practice. Bear had become a temporary fixture to the sofa for the night.

"Potter's day-dreaming again," Stacy sing-songed as she flew by.

Harry ground his teeth, and forced his mind back onto the Quidditch practice. If anybody noticed that he was distracted after that, they chose not to comment. Harry even managed to pull off one of Stacy's trademark moves, catching the Quaffle and going into a barrel-roll simultaneously. As he was pulling out, though, a flash of gold off to the side disoriented him enough so that he dropped the Quaffle—right into Mel's waiting hands. "Nice, Potter!" she shouted, and flew off with it as he raced after the Snitch.

The closer the Quidditch Open drew, the more the team ribbed each other, Harry observed. He and Ginny were the butt of several jokes determined to make each redden (although Harry only succumbed half of the time). Frank and Tad pulled outlandish pranks on every other member of the team—and each time, the team retaliated. Soon, it had escalated into a prank war that even Fred and George would have been proud to call their own.

A glance over at Tad was all it took to discern that he still had the purple spots that Mel had felt were fair retribution.

"Bring it in, bring it in!" Bear called, waving the team over to his post in front of the hoops. Immediately, Frank and Tad tucked their bats into holsters on the legs of their practice gear and flew off after the Bludgers. This usually meant a race, and today was no exception. Tad beat Frank by the narrowest of margins, inspiring cheers from the rest of the exhausted team. "Okay, good practice, mates. I'll have a strategist or somebody important like that review the recordings and we'll go over it tomorrow morning at eight. Remember, drink water tonight, try to avoid going into any dives that might give you some foreign and exotic disease that doesn't have a cure, and take care of yourselves. We leave in thirteen days, and I want a healthy team."

The best thing about Bear, Harry decided as he flew to the ground to jog off into the locker room, was that he kept the end-of-the-practice speeches short and to the point. Granted, they would spend until noon the next morning going over strategy, but for now, Harry was glad for the freedom. He hurried through a shower, changed into a fresh outfit, and almost broke records getting back to the Hutch.

"Is practice out already?" called Ginny's voice from the kitchen when Harry let himself into the flat.

"Actually, we ran over time," Harry called back.

Neville stuck his head around the corner of the wall separating the kitchen and the living room. "Oh, good, you're here," he said, relief visible in his voice. "Come save us. Your girlfriend is using us for slave labour."

"Us?" Harry asked, picking up the mail from where Hedwig had dropped it beside the front door.

"Yes—Luna's over for dinner."

Harry's feet didn't even give pause. Having Luna over for dinner was becoming a common occurrence at the Hutch. She had yet to become a fixture, although Ginny always prodded Harry to ask Neville if he and Luna were dating. Harry always refused. Neville's dating life wasn't something he particularly cared much for, especially since Neville's soon-to-be ex-wife was trying to rob him of every Knut in the bank.

"Hello, Harry," Luna greeted in her misty voice. She and Neville were seated around what appeared to be a small mountain of parchment and envelopes. Even as she spoke, Luna's hands flew, folding a sheet, stuffing it into an envelope, passing the envelope to Neville, who was working with hot wax and a signet stamp.

"Hello, Luna. I trust you're well?" He was exhausted from practice; the day had been chilly, and the windburn was already irritating him. If his tone was a bit formal, it was masking the crankiness that usually accompanied exhaustion.

Ginny was at the stove, the phone in one hand and a wooden spoon in the other. Fire shimmered under two different pots. "Hope you don't mind spaghetti. I just threw some together," she told him as he kissed her cheek on the way to retrieve a bottle of Toxic Butterbeer. Although there were moments when things turned strangely sour between the two of them, they had finally started to relax. She lifted an eyebrow at his drink selection. "Was practice that bad?"

He shrugged. "Feeling a bit sore. Need something to relax." He nodded at the phone as he uncapped the bottle, purposely ignoring Bear's orders to drink lots of water in favour for the pure need of alcohol. "Who's that you're calling?"

"Oh." Sheepish because she'd forgotten that she was even holding the phone, Ginny laughed. "Hermione called about five minutes ago. Asked to drop by for awhile. She's at the flat all alone tonight since Ron's apparently over in Derbyshire, taking care of something with one of his agents."

"And what's all this?" He swept the hand holding the bottle towards the stacks upon stacks on the table.

"Grunt work," Neville grumbled, dropping hot wax onto another envelope and sealing it.

"Angelina's new invitations finally came in today," Ginny explained. "We had to send them back, remember? She let Fred order them, and of course he had to make some kind of joke making fun of Percy on them."

"And the bright orange ink against the green background probably wasn't wise, either," Harry recalled.

Ginny rolled her eyes at her absent older brother. "The new ones just arrived today and these two offered to help me out. In return, I'm making Mom's famous spaghetti sauce."

"You should help, mate," Neville said pointedly, shoving a stack of unfolded invitations in front of one of the empty chairs. Although he was normally mild-mannered, his expression clearly told Harry that since it was Harry's girlfriend forcing them to do this, he had to help. So Harry shrugged and rolled up his sleeves. In truth, he wanted nothing more than to sit back and listen to the Quidditch match on the wireless, finish his Toxic Butterbeer, and go to bed early.

He was still stuffing envelopes when Hermione arrived at the Hutch. Although he'd told her time and again that she didn't have to knock, she did anyway. On the rare nights that Ron stayed over, however, that courtesy mysteriously disappeared. This nearly made Harry smile as he rose to answer the door. "I've got it," he told the others.

His amusement with Hermione came crashing down to the region of his knees when he pulled the front door open. The look on her face said more than she ever needed to. Immediately, he checked the hallway for danger. Seeing none, he pulled her inside. "What's wrong?"

She sniffled, though her eyes were dry. "I need to talk to you."

She could have ordered him to walk across hot coals and he would probably have acquiesced gladly, and offered to do a jig as well. Right now, he just nodded. The protocol that he and Ron had set up after the Dermot attack came first. "What was Ron's nickname for your first date?"

She rolled her eyes, and some of the anxiety disappeared behind her exasperation at the question. "Vicky. I'm me."

"Good. Wait here."

"Where's Hermione?" Ginny asked when Harry walked back into the kitchen alone, pulling on a windbreaker.

Instead of answering right away, he took a swig of his Toxic Butterbeer and kissed her on the cheek. "Change of plans. Hermione wanted to talk to me about something, so we'll head out for a drink. That okay with you? You didn't need me for anything?"

"No, no, it's fine, go ahead." Ginny was clearly biting her tongue, wanting to ask more questions, but Harry was grateful that she stifled them. "Neville and Luna are here, and if they go out, I'll call one of the twins. Call if you're going to be too late? I wanted to go over some of the final Open plans with you before we have the group meeting."

Although Harry wanted to tell her that the discussion of plans would probably have to wait for the next day, he just nodded and put the Toxic Butterbeer back in the icebox before heading back out. Hermione was waiting for him in the front hallway; she jumped when he came around the corner and received a queer look for it. Without a word, they headed outside and down to the street.

"What is it?" he asked when they were a considerable distance away from the Hutch. "Is something the matter with Ron?"

"No—Ron's fine." Hermione had her hands in her pockets and her face turned towards the ground. Her eyebrows were knitted together over her eyes, providing a contemplative air. "At least, I think he is. He's supposed to call later, if he can. Things are a bit…strange…over in Derbyshire right now, which is why he's there, overseeing it personally."

Harry bobbed his head in understanding. Since starting up the Tunnel, Ron had always preferred to oversee the bigger projects himself, no matter how much time they took. Three years later, he was getting the hang of it down.

"So what's the matter, exactly?" he asked, nudging her with his elbow. "What's wrong?"

Hermione didn't answer as they headed up the street, towards another block of flats owned by Harry's landlord. There was a pub nestled in between the two buildings that Harry visited whenever he didn't feel up to dealing with Tony. He knew the bartender who worked Tuesday nights there, a Muggle named Steve that was putting himself through Uni. Even though Steve wasn't working that night, Harry still headed to the building, holding the door open for Hermione.

"What do you want to drink? I've got a few pounds."

The pub was the same one that could be found on any other street corner. Pictures for football teams that Harry had once been able to recognise covered the walls, memorabilia from those same teams crowding in for space. It was preternaturally dark, the only bright space being a single television set that sat in the corner with several men gathered around it. Harry was reminded of rabid Quidditch fans gathered around a wireless, and nearly broke into a smile over this. Hermione's news, however, pressured away any signs of mirth.

"Mineral water?" she asked hesitantly, as though she'd never been to a Muggle pub before. Harry nodded and wound his way to the bar to order their drinks while Hermione slid into the booth in the corner, making certain that her back wasn't to the room. Aurors and Unspeakables were paranoid about having their backs to a room—and rightfully so.

When Harry headed over with her water and a pint for himself, she was drawing patterns in the tabletop with a fingertip. For anybody else, this might have been mistaken for idleness, but Harry knew better. Hermione's mind was doubtless a whirl of activity, even though she gave the impression of being completely placid and almost bored.

"So," he began, sliding the water over to her, "what's on your mind?"

"About a thousand different tasks and things I probably forgot to do," she replied absently before taking a long drink of mineral water. Harry raised an eyebrow. "I'm pretty sure I forgot to feed my cousin's goldfish like he asked me to—he's out of town—but I think I overfed the goldfish yesterday, so he should be fine. I need to get Ron's dress robes professionally mended before the next Ministry ball. Speaking of which, why on earth did you two decide it would be funny to try and light a bonfire while in dress robes? And drunk?"

"Seemed like a good idea at the time," Harry replied honestly, smiling behind the pint. "I seem to recall that Ministry ball being the most boring one ever. A bonfire was just the thing."

He received a scowl for his answer. "That's the same thing Ron tells me," Hermione muttered.

"Must be true, then. Either that, or we're both great big liars."

"Or gits."

"Or gits," Harry conceded, his smile now too big to hide.

"At any rate, my best spells won't work on them now that he's completely botched them to pieces. I meant to drop them off at Madam Malkin's today, but the plumbing broke again and I spent three hours spelling it just right and I'm pregnant."

Harry very elegantly choked on his drink. "What?" he coughed, thinking that he had misheard.

But he hadn't, it turned out. Hermione calmly wiped the flecks of beer that he'd spewed everywhere with a napkin and looked him straight in the eye. "I'm pregnant," she repeated, slowly as though he were daft.

There was a great discord between Harry's thoughts and the rest of him, so great that he gaped for several minutes before Hermione smilingly reached over and pushed his jaw up to the rest of his face. "You can breathe now," she reminded him.

"Pregnant?" he repeated, trying to wrap his mind around the concept. Hermione…pregnant? Going to have a baby?

Granted, she wasn't the first in their class in Hogwarts to pop out a kid. Seamus had swept Lavender Brown off of her feet the moment they'd left Hogwarts. Granted, the Finnegans were both members of the Tunnel (Lavender was in charge of the branch over in Prague, and Seamus was her right-hand man), but the thought of Hermione—and Ron—having a baby hadn't even occurred to Harry.

"Earth to Harry?" Hermione asked weakly when he continued to stare.

"That—that's wonderful!" he burst out suddenly, and found that he meant it. He nearly dove across the table to give her a hug, but thought better of it. He'd never been around any pregnant women—he didn't know what could break them. So he remained seated. "That's fantastic news! What—what did Ron think?"

Hermione paused, just long enough to let Harry know that something about the pregnancy was already amiss. "I haven't told him yet," she said, evading his eyes.

"Oh." Puzzled, Harry couldn't think of a single reason why she would tell him first and not Ron, unless she had found out that day while Ron was still over in Derbyshire or… "It's…his, right?"

Asperity surfaced so quickly that he had his answer without Hermione snapping, "Of course it is! I'm not a scarlet woman!"

"Then why on earth would you tell me first?" Harry asked, eyebrows dropping low. "I mean, this is fantastic news and I'm flattered that you told me first—but it's Ron's." The minute the words were out of his mouth, it hit him. Ron was going to be father. His best friend was going to be a father. Merlin, for that matter, his other best friend was going to be a mother. It was staggeringly huge in proportion to everything that had occurred that day that Harry suddenly found that he needed another drink. "Shouldn't Ron be the first to know?"

"What's going down in Derbyshire right now is important," Hermione explained patiently, and Harry felt that she wasn't exactly saying it aloud solely for his benefit. "I've been bursting to tell somebody for about six hours now. I thought about maybe telling Ginny, but then I realised that I might need your help."

"And you have it—with whatever you need," Harry promised quickly, setting aside the beer to take one of her hands in his. The kid might be forty before Harry got over the shock and awe of the fact that his two best friends were going to be parents. He'd only just got around to accepting their marriage, he thought somewhat uncharitably, and now Hermione was just throwing new and foreign things like pregnancy at him. Didn't she realise how unfair that was to his psyche? He needed time to adjust to these things, curse it all.

It was a mark of how much she'd rubbed off on him over the years that he made a mental note to pick up some sort of book about it, or to at least ask Ginny. Being a woman and the daughter of a woman who'd borne seven children, she probably had a better grasp on the whole shebang than he did.

"Erm," he continued, "what exactly do you need?"

Hermione chewed her bottom lip. "Well," she said slowly, taking a deep breath. "Moral support, mostly. Once I tell Ron, we're going to need to tell Molly and Arthur that we've been married this whole time—not that Molly doesn't already suspect. The woman's as cunning as a Dervish at times—and having their favourite adopted son around might soften the blow a little."

Mrs. Weasley had never had any trouble scolding her boys while Harry was in the room, but Harry bit his tongue over this information. "Ginny and I'll go with you whenever you want to break the news," he promised, squeezing her hand. "And then I'll obligingly drag Ron off to a pub so you and Ginny can pick colour schemes for little junior or juniorette's new room. I haven't seen any proof yet, but she swears up and down she's brilliant with colour schemes."

"You're awfully quick to agree for the both of you," Hermione observed, unable to hide her sly look.

Harry conceded the point with a tilt of his head. "Seeing as I like to keep my innards intact, I'll have to double-check with her before I can make any promises set in stone, but you have my word that at least I'll be there. And I can offer you ten-to-one odds she'll be there, too."

"That's good enough for me." Hermione shrugged one shoulder, more of a reflexive jerk than anything else. She stared down into her drink (untouched as of yet) with such concentration that Harry frowned. Before he could inquire further, she raised her head and tried to smile. Unfortunately, it came out as a grimace. "But that's not the problem. I can handle the Weasleys. It's the Grangers that are the problem."

Harry, who'd never heard of Hermione's parents causing her any sort of problems since she'd steadily begun to distance herself from them during fifth year, frowned quizzically. "What about them?"

"It's just that they're so old-fashioned!" This exploded from Hermione, quite possibly what had been pressure-cooking inside her skull since she had received the news that she was indeed pregnant. "By getting pregnant before I get married, I'm bound to cause a scandal in the hallowed halls of Granger fame."

"Erm, Hermione, you did get married before you got pregnant," Harry pointed out. "All you have to do to avoid becoming the 'scarlet woman,' as you put it earlier, of the family is just tell them that. I'm sure they'll…" He trailed off, finally catching up to exactly what Hermione meant, and sighed. "Oh. Right."

Though the decision for Ron and Hermione to get married would have been welcomed on all sides of their family, from adopted family like Harry on to their actual parents, the two had made the pointed decision to keep the whole affair a secret. With Hermione's security clearance being so high in the Ministry as an Unspeakable of unspeakable rank, and Ron being a natural target as the leader of the Tunnel that he was, it was just logical that they keep it under wraps. Neither wanted their relationship to be used by enemies that might capture and torture them. Though it had made sense at the time, situations had unravelled a bit so that it didn't really matter whether Ron and Hermione were legally married or not. An enemy that took enough time to study them would automatically know that the two loved each other above all else.

Harry constantly told them they were crazy for not telling at least the Weasleys, who would understand perfectly well, about the marriage. The Grangers, however, were another matter. Hermione had purposely distanced herself, especially after completion of Hogwarts. She had lied to her parents, telling them that she had an average job in the Ministry, working for some random department or other that she had undoubtedly fabricated. After what they had been through while she was a constant target of Voldemort, Hermione didn't wish her parents to know that she had just elevated her target rank by marrying the leader of an underground organisation, or that she herself was one of the most endangered government agents.

"Well," Harry said now, chewing on the inside of his cheek while he thought about it, "why not tell them you married Ron secretly because you were worried they'd disapprove?"

"Because they've made it clear on multiple occasions that they do approve of Ron." Hermione let go of Harry's hand to bury her head in hers. "I've been trying to think of excuses of why we would have hidden the marriage since I found out about the baby, but nothing."

An idea had germinated in Harry's mind, almost out of nowhere. He stared at Hermione for a minute, contemplating it and everything he knew about pregnancy (which, he admitted freely, was pathetically little). "How far are you along?" he asked, changing the subject.

"Two weeks, give or take a day or two." Hermione shrugged. "Might be a bit early to tell for a Muggle—I think. I'll admit that I haven't been keeping up to date on their technologies as I should be, what with the Fizzing Whizzbee Scandal and some things at work taking up most of my time—but I did an age indicator spell and that's what it told me."

Harry calculated some dates in his head, and nearly sighed at the results. With chasing down Dermot at the American Quidditch Open and trying to work through the lack of breakthroughs on the Nottingham Typhoon case, he and Ginny were swamped to begin with. He didn't feel what he was about to suggest would gain him any favour with Ginny. At least she hasn't sent the invitations yet, he thought, and mentally adjusted the Kamikaze helmet he'd all but donned since the crazy notion of just how to help Hermione had crossed his mind.

"I've got an idea," he told her. "But you have to give me a month."

Later that night, when he had dropped Hermione off at her flat and made sure she was safely locked in and all of the wards were active, he trotted home to the Hutch. He had too much on his mind to Apparate, but he made good time anyway with a light jog. It felt good to clear his head a bit.

Ginny was waiting up for him in the living room with a thick day-planner spread open on her lap. Neville and Luna were nowhere in sight. "You're sweating," she observed, puzzled.

Harry nodded and collapsed into one of the wing-backed chairs. "Jogged home from Ron and Hermione's."

Frown lines appeared between Ginny's eyes. "All that way? Harry, that's nearly seven or eight kilometres. And you've practice tomorrow."

"No matter. I'll be fine." Harry shrugged that off, although his limbs were already starting to feel sore. He wanted nothing more than a shower, but there was work to be done. "I've got some news for you, but first…did we send out the invitations for Ron and Hermione's surprise wedding yet?"