A/N: Wow, I didn't even realise this, but I need to check my chapters over better. I said something about Seamus and Lavender working the Prague branch of the Tunnel together. Well, that would be impossible, seeing as Seamus is playing for Dublin Demented. So it's good old Dean to my rescue.
Disclaimer: None of this actually belongs to me. Okay, granted, I based Chris off of a character I had, but he doesn't technically belong to me in any sense of the word. There are lots of things that don't belong to JKR either…Tropicana, and some other stuff that I can't remember right now.
Chapter Twelve: Sapphire Swirl
If Ginny had thought she might have even a single moment alone with Harry to discuss exactly what would be occurring at Tropicana Stadium in Orlando, Florida, she was sorely mistaken. From the night that he had stumbled in, tired and sore, and proposed the outlandish idea of throwing a surprise wedding for Ron and Hermione just two days after they were due to return from Florida, the Hutch had become a hub of activity. Key players in the Dermot scheme at the Quidditch Open practically took up residence on every free space—Ron and Hermione, Fred, George, Neville, and even Luna all jockeyed for space. It didn't help that random Typhoon players kept dropping in. Two nights before they were all slotted to leave for Florida, Ginny had a great idea.
"Let's go somewhere else," she told Harry, who'd innocently wandered into the bathroom to brush his teeth. Upon finding out that Ginny was in the shower, he'd tried to make his escape, but Ginny hadn't let him. She'd snaked one wet arm around the shower curtain and grabbed a hold of the back of his T-shirt. "Today. When we have our final meeting. Let's go somewhere else."
Harry, who was trying not to send too many furtive looks at the shower curtain lest she suspect the rather inappropriate road his thoughts had been travelling for several minutes now, made a noise in the back of his throat and reached for his toothpaste. "It does get a bit crowded," he relented. "Where would you like to go?"
"Out. Maybe Tony's."
Although they avoided Tony's on the nights when they were looking for a romantic evening on the town, Harry figured that one of Tony's back rooms was probably the perfect location. Tony had always kept his back rooms spacious and clean, with well-stocked whiskey and scotch. Harry reckoned that the German businessman kept other associates than the Tunnel because he and Ron rarely requested use of one of the rooms.
"Sure," he agreed now, spreading toothpaste onto his brush. He could have just used a tooth cleansing spell, but somehow his mouth always felt cleaner after using toothpaste. "I'll ask Ron to smooth over the details. He's in the kitchen now. Probably enjoying the only coffee he'll see in awhile."
Morning sickness had struck Hermione with such force that even the smell of coffee made her nauseous. In order to keep things running smoothly, Ron had sworn off the black substance—whenever she was around. Since she had been called in early to consult on a case at work, he had immediately fled to the Hutch, where the forbidden substance was kept up in full stock. To Harry's amusement, he'd already greedily sucked down two cups of it. The Quidditch star wondered just how late his friend would be staying up tonight.
"I really wish he'd convinced Hermione to stay home for this," Ginny said over the sound of the water. Harry grunted and stuck the toothbrush in his mouth. "If Dermot gets wind that we've got a pregnant woman in our ranks, he'll try especially hard to use her as bait against me, somehow. That's my niece or nephew in there, you know."
Harry didn't bother to garble a reply that the child was also his godchild, figuring that she wouldn't understand him through the toothpaste lather.
"And we're all going to be so exhausted from the tournament and hopefully catching Dermot, and she needs to be well-rested for her 'wedding,'" Ginny continued. "We're cutting it a bit close." She turned off the faucet and Harry heard the unmistakable sounds of her squeezing water out of her hair. "Would you be a dear and pass me my towel?"
Automatically averting his eyes, Harry held the floral number at the edge of the shower curtain. Ginny grabbed it and pulled back the curtain a minute later while Harry was rinsing the toothpaste away. She had wrapped the towel around her, her hair straggling wet and down her back. For once, she'd left the guise as Amy Mason on overnight, so the bare shoulders were dark rather than freckled, and her hair looked a rich, dark brown. Harry tried not to gape, but Ginny's amused look told him that he was far from successful.
"Just where did you say you were going today?" she asked, reaching up and pulling her hair behind her and then over one shoulder. Instead of squeezing past him to go into the bedroom to change, she sat down on the edge of the tub, towel and all, and reached for a jar of lotion that she kept on the back of the toilet.
"Rosenheim," Harry replied. "It's near Munich. In Germany."
Ginny's patronising smile told him that she knew exactly where Munich was. "You'll be back before four, right?"
"If my portkey leaves on time, I will be." As much as he hated travelling by portkey, he saw the necessity of taking one across the channel to Germany. It would save him hours upon hours in Apparation lines and slim down a trip that should take several days to only a few hours. "I just have to ask a favour from an old friend, and then I'll meet you at the Leaky Cauldron at four o'clock. You've got the co-ordinates, right?"
"They're in my day-planner," Ginny confirmed, rubbing lotion into her left calf and unintentionally giving Harry a clear view down the top of his towel. Modesty demanded that he look away, but his reflection was so bright red in the mirror that he stared at the sink instead. By doing this, he missed Ginny's amused grin. "You'd better hurry if you want to get Ron to drop by Tony's and still catch your portkey."
"Right," Harry muttered, hoping it was just his imagination that his voice sounded strangled. He dropped his toothbrush into the waiting cup beside the faucet and took his time drying his face off with a towel.
Ginny stood up before he could make his escape and wrapped her arms around him. In such close quarters, he was aware of just how little she was wearing, and that thought—combined with the fact that he knew her protective older brother was sitting in the kitchen, slurping down coffee—made him sweat. Ginny's mischievous look wasn't helping matters.
If he emerged from the bathroom a little more tousled than he'd entered it, Ron took no notice. The redhead was sitting at the kitchen table, ignoring the stacks upon stacks of things Harry and Ginny had compiled there from two different cases and weddings. He had a copy of The Daily Prophet open and was perusing the sports section for scores and the different matches taking place. When Harry entered the kitchen and decisively poured himself a glass of very cold water, he didn't even look up. "The Cannons aren't doing as well this year," he said conversationally. "Their Seeker is rubbish."
"Jones isn't that bad," Harry pointed out. "Just easily distracted by shiny things."
"You know, that should be precisely what makes a good Seeker, not a rubbish one," Ron groused, turning the page to the business section.
"You'd think." Harry shrugged. "Think you could talk to Tony and finagle one of those back rooms of his for this afternoon? It's getting a bit crowded at the Hutch recently. Granted, you're all welcome to come over tonight, since we have that dinner ball that we have to go to, but we should at least get out of the Hutch this afternoon.."
Ron had yet to look up from the paper. "I'll drop by and talk to him after my meeting with Lavender and Dean. They're in town."
"Well, give them my greetings and congratulations and whatnot." Harry finished gulping the water and set the glass in the sink. "I'd better go if I want to catch my portkey on time."
"Might want to hide that mark my sister left on your neck before you do that," Ron advised.
Harry whirled around fast enough to smack his elbow solidly on the icebox door, and swore viciously. Ron finally looked up from the paper to raise an eyebrow at him. "What?" he asked innocently, and took a sip of coffee. "It was just a bit of friendly advice. Though I still don't know why you have to go all the way to Germany."
"It's a friend of mine's birthday," Harry lied. He and Ginny had agreed to keep both Ron and Hermione in the dark about the impromptu wedding they were throwing. Hiding Hermione's pregnancy had been out of the question, especially when the morning sickness hit. But Ginny had gone to Ron expressly for the promise that her brother and his wife wouldn't tell either set of parents until after September third.
"You could just be like the rest of the human race and send a card," Ron pointed out. "We're extremely busy here, and you going to Germany now could set us back hours."
Harry looked pointedly at the newspaper in Ron's hands, which was currently open to the funnies. "I'm sure you can manage without me until at least noon. If it falls apart after that, I'll illegally Apparate myself all the way from Rosenheim to this very spot."
Ron rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "Fine, fine, go, leave us with your tons of paperwork."
"That was the plan, yes." Adjusting the folds of the Muggle shirt he was wearing, Harry tossed his friend a wave as he departed. The instant he was outside of the Hutch, he muttered a concealing spell in the direction of his neck and jogged down the stairs.
Though they met at Tony's for the final planning meeting for the Open, afterwards, the Hutch was a flurry of constant movement. Harry, who was trying to both pack and prepare for a night on the town in the midst of all of the action, sympathised for the first time in his life with sardines in a can. The Hutch had never felt small before, but now with six people doing a variety of different chores, it was minuscule at best. He and Neville were both packing (Ginny, obviously the most sensible of the three flatmates, had already packed her luggage), and somehow that meant constantly squeezing by Hermione or Ron finalising plans in the living room, or getting past Ginny at the stove or Luna at the table. Ginny was cooking partly from necessity and partly to burn off some nervousness, preparing a feast for the others that wouldn't be going out to Emma Barnaby's fancy ball that night. Luna sat at the kitchen table, scribing furiously at a long letter.
"Instructions," she told Ron when he asked. "I came home following the rhodondins, but my father just gave up his job as editor because he got married again, you know. Of course, it's mine now, so I'm making sure my assistant knows to feed the Revolving Invisible Newts while I'm gone."
Ron goggled. "All of that is for your pets?"
"Revolving Invisible Newts are very rare," Luna pointed out, looking up mistily from the letter. "And they're very shy. I haven't even seen mine rattle the leaves in their cage or whistle, which I'm told is commonplace for them. And they've rejected all of the food I've tried to give them so far."
Hermione looked almost stricken as she bit back the urge to inform Luna that perhaps the Revolving Invisible Newts weren't exactly alive—or real, come to think of it.
Harry wandered into the kitchen, a neck tie thrown over one shoulder and two more dangling from his hand. Though he wore fancy slacks and a white dress shirt, his feet were bare, and he had yet to try and tame his hair. He held the neck tie selection up for Ginny. "Which one, do you think?"
"Hmm." Ginny looked away from the linguini to study the choices. "The grey and green one."
"Slytherin colors?" Ron wrinkled his nose.
"What? They look good on him?" Ginny shook the wooden spoon in her older brother's direction. Surrounded as she was by everybody in their work robes or jeans, the inky black ball gown she had chosen for the night's festivities looked decidedly out of place.
Harry glanced down at the tie in question, shrugged, and threw it across his shoulders. Tossing the other two across the back of a chair, he began to work at knotting it.
Since studying the brochure for the Tropicana Stadium, where the Open was taking place, held very little interest to Ron, he decided to revisit the topic of Ginny and Harry's evening outing. "I can't understand why you two are going out tonight," he groused. "We're leaving tomorrow on one of the most dangerous assignments the Tunnel's had to offer in a long time, and you two are going out to rub elbows with the high-society snobs and the like. It doesn't make any sense."
"Emma D. Barnaby's parties are things that can't be missed." Harry tightened the knot on his tie and turned to Ginny for a nod of approval. He'd received the invitation by owl several weeks before, but in the hustle and bustle of the last few weeks, it had completely slipped his mind. They had been rather late to R. S. V. P., but Emma hadn't seemed to mind. "I'm doing this as a favor to the twins, too. I'm a partner in the shop, you know. And it looks good for business to have me there."
"And I get to play the trophy girlfriend." Ginny smirked.
Ron opened his mouth to continue disparaging, but a resounding whump sounded around the kitchen. He shut his mouth and glared at his wife, who was innocently twirling her wand across the table from him. The oven timer made every single one of them jump, and Ginny let out a nervous chuckle.
"Here," she said, waving her wand at the linguini. "Give it a few minutes to cool. There's Butterbeer, pumpkin juice, and milk in the icebox, and help yourself to anything you like from the cupboards." Collecting up a shawl of the same slinky black material as her dress, and a streamlined purse, she shooed Harry from the kitchen. He returned a minute later, feet shod and a dinner jacket over his arm. "Don't wait up."
They headed downstairs to the main floor of the apartment building, where they'd agreed to meet Fred, George, and Angelina. The twins had decided on Muggle attire for the evening, and had found appropriately bright powder-blue Muggle suits that looked a few decades old. Angelina wore a striking red dress that came to an abrupt halt just above her knees. A glance down told Harry that she had painted her toes to match.
"I so wish I could wear that colour," Ginny said mournfully, rubbing a hand on the shoulder of Angelina's matching red shawl.
"And I wish I still had a figure like yours." Angelina's grin was quick. "I suppose we're even."
George, meanwhile, was entertaining himself by poking through the mail slots in the wall near the door, studying all of the bills that Harry's neighbours were studiously avoiding. When he got to Harry's slot, though, his eyebrows shot up. "Looks like you've got something," he told Harry, holding out a simple white envelope. "You know any Muggles?"
"A few." Harry took the envelope, but he didn't recognize the spiky handwriting that scrawled his name and address. It figured that there was no return address. Curious, he broke the taped seal with his thumb.
"No!"
Just as Harry peeled back the opening flap, Ginny caught a look at the handwriting and elbowed him to the side—just in time. A Bludger plowed for the open seal and barreled into the space where Harry's head had been instants before. He shouted a curse as it hit the wall behind him, crunching wood and sawdust all over the assembled. Immediately, it careened away and straight for the potted houseplant Harry's landlord kept in the corner for ambience.
But George and Fred hadn't been Hogwarts' top Beaters for naught; before the Bludger could take out an entire wall, Fred's quick hands snatched it from the air, and he and George used their weight to wrestle it down to the ground. Angelina yanked out her wand and pointed it haphazardly. "Stillus!"
The Bludger dropped with a thud.
Footsteps pounded on the stairs. Muttering an oath, Harry whipped out his own wand and waved it at the wall. "Reparo!"
Mr. Prost, Harry's neighbor on the second floor, thundered into view just after the spell had taken effect. The portly gentleman wore what was surely his wife's bathrobe, and fuzzy blue slippers to match. He hadn't tied the robe tightly enough and Harry, in that instance, found himself much better acquainted with Mr. Prost than he ever wanted to be. He hastily averted his gaze and coughed. He took the chance to glance over at Ginny, and nearly scowled at what he saw there. She was bone-white, every ounce of color having evaporated. She was too far away for him to reach out a hand and take hers, so he was grateful when Angelina wrapped a supportive arm around her shoulders.
Prost, meanwhile, was nearly bright red. "What's all the racket!" His beady eyes, not unlike Harry's uncle Vernon's, swept over the group suspiciously, as though they had been holding a wild party in the foyer of the apartment building.
"I fell," Fred supplied quickly as George hurried to hide the Bludger behind his back.
He wasn't quick enough. "What's that?" Prost demanded, moving forward (and unconsciously letting the robe slip a little more). "A cannonball? What have you got a cannonball for? This isn't one of those foolish pranks, is it?" His eyes narrowed back on Harry.
"The cannonball belonged to my grandfather," Angelina said, thinking quickly for the group. She hadn't been dating a Weasley twin for this long without a few tricks up her sleeve. "We're taking it to a charity auction tonight." She gestured at the formalwear and Prost's expression seemed to let up the slightest bit. It was enough for Harry; speaking quickly and apologizing for his friend's "clumsiness," Harry hurried his neighbour up the stairs and back to his apartment.
When he came back downstairs, it was to find George rubbing Ginny's shoulders while both Angelina and Fred looked stricken. Fred held out a single white piece of paper. "It was in the envelope—fell when we were dealing with the Bludger." His voice shook, betraying a cold fury.
Harry didn't have to read it to know who had sent it, and the Bludger. Ice burrowing in his throat, he took the paper.
"I'll be there," was all it said, in the same handwriting from the envelope.
Dermot had just laid out the challenge. The next move was theirs.
There was a tension in the air like a damp, sticky heat as most of the group assembled at the international portkey headquarters early the next afternoon, baggage in hand and grim looks in place. Harry, who'd travelled over by car with Ginny, Ron, and Hermione, held his bags and one of Ginny's. He felt a bit hung-over, with greasy nausea battling the contents of his stomach, and a pounding headache threatening to split his skull in half, though he'd only had one drink at the ball the night before. Glancing around him, it didn't look like the others were faring much better. Ginny, he knew, hadn't had very much sleep; she had been trembling when he fell into an uneasy sleep beside her, and she wasn't in the bed when he awoke. She stood between him and Fred now, clutching a carpet bag. Even her disguise as Amy Mason couldn't hide the dark circles under her eyes.
International portkeys were nothing like regular portkeys, which was why he tolerated them at all. When travelling by international portkey, one didn't haven't to fly across the Atlantic by one's finger attached to a boot. No, the creators of these portkeys had designed them with luxury and convenience in mind. They were old train cabooses, converted to hold several rows of padded benches, and painted in the same maroon-and-blue patterns. The headquarters housed a yard full of such cabooses; each one had a sign in front of it, declaring its flight number, destination, and departure time. Harry and the others were standing inside the waiting room, patiently waiting for Caboose 982 to arrive so that they could board and take off for Orlando, Florida.
Smiling solely for Ginny's sake, Fred leaned over and muttered something to his youngest sibling. She gave a short grin in reply, but said nothing.
Harry figured that Ginny had to be uncomfortable, even though she hadn't said anything. Hermione had insisted upon putting a battery of protective spells on her before they left the Hutch that morning, but that wasn't all. Underneath the flowing paisley top, they had fitted a snug charms vest, which would block a great deal of caustic spells. Though Ginny's drab-green slacks were just as loose, she had insisted on not wearing the charm trousers. "I won't be able to walk properly," she pointed out. "And we can't let the other members of the Typhoon know something is up. They'll bungle things up."
Nearby, Hermione had tamed her frizzy locks into a sleek bun, and had dyed them the same colour as Ginny's altered hair for good measure. Her passport and identifications read "Jill Mason." The others had agreed that it would be easiest to pass off a large group of spectators if they weren't all related to Harry or Ron in some way. Fred and George would be attending the Open as business partners looking for a new market. Neville and Luna were going incognito. They would be catching a later portkey with the Darrows.
Finally, the number 982 flashed across the little screen at the front of the waiting room. "That's us," Harry said needlessly, and gathered his and Ginny's luggage. They headed out the swinging saloon-style doors to the grey English day and presented their tickets to a moustached clerk who barely gave their passports a cursory glance. Caboose 982 was rather small compared to the others in the portkey yard, but Harry didn't mind. He chose a seat near the back and let Ginny in first.
"Maybe you should catch a nap on the way there?" he suggested, nudging her shoulder when she blinked heavily. "I'll even let you use my shoulder as a pillow."
"Nice of you," Ginny muttered around a yawn. Despite her sarcasm, she had head resting on his shoulder before the portkey even took off, and was dead asleep within seconds. Ron and Hermione sat in front of them, with a twin in a seat either behind them or beside them. Though they'd made unsaid plans to discuss what would happen at the Open on the way, everybody fell silent.
The portkey took off with a lurch that barely moved its occupants. It was only half-full; the only other occupants sat off to the front and the other side, away from Harry and his friends. Still, he eyed them, wondering if any of them could be Dermot in disguise. They looked like wealthy, well-to-do wizards who had no sense for Muggle fashion and an apparent fondness for the colour pink, but he wouldn't put anything past Dermot. So he kept his fingers loosely wrapped around his wand.
It wasn't long before Fred, George, and Ron started a card game. They would be on the caboose for about two hours, Hermione had estimated, since transatlantic travel was always bound to take some time. Outside, the windows displayed a dizzying blur of colours that shifted so rapidly that Harry couldn't watch them without feeling the nausea increase. Instead, he pulled the window blind down and settled back to relax as much as he could with the sickening feeling of dread in his stomach.
They weren't going into this blind and unarmed, he had to remind himself. From they instant they landed in Orlando, there would be at least two or three people surrounding Ginny, eyes peeled for any signs of Dermot. They had a strict identification system and some nifty little toys to aid their cause. Harry pulled the one that Hermione had delivered to out of his pocket and studied it. It looked like a worn copy of the brochure for Tropicana Stadium, but he knew that Hermione and the twins had put in dog's hours to finish this particular project.
"Good news." Hermione leaned over the seat in between them, resting her elbows on the back of her seat. "I modified it some more after you went to bed last night."
"You know, pregnant women need sleep, too," Harry pointed out.
Hermione narrowed her eyes. "I know." Thankfully, she was too excited about her new invention, for that was the only rebuke he received. The others were already walking on a thin wire around Hermione, who was prone to emotional fits, but he'd rather brave her displeasure and tell her if she was doing something outright unhealthy. "We managed to get Dermot's magical signature on the map."
Harry's eyebrows shot sky-high. He knew that Hermione, Fred, and George had taken a simple multicoloured map on the brochure and had somehow tied all of their magical signatures into it, meaning that it would show the viewer (with the proper password, of course) exactly where everybody in the group was at the stadium, not unlike the Marauder's Map. The Marauder's Map, however, showed everybody in Hogwarts; the stadium map only showed those members in their group.
"How'd you manage that?" he asked, appraising the map again as though hoping for Dermot's name to show up on the page.
"The Bludger he oh-so-kindly sent as little gift for you last night. It didn't have a very large magical signature on it, but it was enough for me to tie to your map—and Ginny's, but that's it—to let you know which half of the stadium he's in. Unfortunately, it can't get any more specific than that." Hermione's frown pulled slightly to one side, and a line appeared between her eyes. "Actually, the modifications will probably end up being more of a curse than a blessing."
Harry shrugged. "At this stage, I'll take anything I can get."
"Also, we added a few of your team-mates on here," Hermione continued, taking the brochure and prodding it with her wand. "Namely, Frank Gideon and the Harrows sisters. Fred picked up their signatures when they took the early portkey out."
"Sneaky."
"Necessary," Hermione corrected. "Those are only recorded on yours and Ginny's maps, though. Since they're all considered collateral."
Something niggled at the back of Harry's mind. "So if you had to put in every magical signature by hand," he began, taking the brochure back and turning it over to the glossy front, "why was everybody listed on the Marauder's Map? The thing was sitting in Filch's desk drawer for years, and it's not like my father and his friends could have possibly sat around predicting every person that would ever come to Hogwarts."
"The Marauder's Map," and Hermione took on her lecturing tone, the one that Harry had heard a great deal of over the years, "is tied in magically to Hogwarts. Now, you may not be aware of it, but Hogwarts itself has its own identification system. Unfortunately, the castle won't ward out evil, since I figure there's probably a little bit of it in all of us. You have to know where to find it, but the identification log is there. If you know where to look, you can find out exactly who's in the castle at any given time. I don't think Professor Dumbledore knew about it."
Harry got the feeling that no matter how long he lived, there would always be something about Hogwarts that was determined to surprise him. "So the map ties into that log?" he asked, just to make sure.
"Yes. Frankly, I'm amazed that your father and his friends thought to utilise it. It's a genius move, really. I wish they'd left documentation to its whereabouts. I'd love to get a look at it someday.
"We could have done something similar, using the stadium's identification system—tickets and whatnot—but none of us has the magical strength or desire to take on such a large project. Plus, we'd need a bigger map to keep all of those names legible, and really, who wants to sift through thousands of names like that?"
By the time that they arrived in Florida, Hermione was napping against the window and, knowing more than he ever wanted to about magical identification systems, Harry had joined in on the card game. They were playing with Ron's fedora as the pot, keeping their bets down to Knuts and a few Sickles for posterity's sake. Ginny was still curled up against his side, and he hadn't been able to feel his right arm for a good twenty minutes, giving him only one hand with which to play cards. He didn't mind.
The portkey landed with an awful lurch and a thud, throwing its contents forward. Harry reacted instinctively and threw an arm up to keep Ginny from sliding to the floor. Ron's fedora hit the ground and scattered coins everywhere, and Hermione awoke with a jolt. Ginny blinked heavily for several seconds as she gathered her wits, jarred and confused. She looked around slowly, tilting her head. "We're there already? I didn't think we'd left yet."
"You fell asleep before we left." Harry collected their luggage from the rack above their heads and gestured for her to precede him out the door. Outside, sunlight slanted in through the few windows that hadn't been covered by blinds. It was bright enough to disperse all sense of mood from the previously-gloomy cabin. "It was about two hours, give or take. Did you have a good nap?"
"My leg's asleep."
They made their way out into the blinding Florida sunshine, grateful when Hermione thought to produce sets of wraparound sunglasses. The receiving yard, a uniformed row of rectangular "launch pads" for the caboose to land, was a long and bright affair. It looked as though Orlando was a larger station than the one in Surrey; the receiving headquarters, through which they'd be processed, was nearly half a kilometre away. A cloying sense of humidity only made the journey more miserable.
Hermione, meanwhile, was entertaining herself by listing off statistics about Orlando. "It's about ten in the morning," she told them as they neared the arrivals gate. "We're five hours behind here, and we left at—"
She broke off at the sight of the woman waiting to greet them at the gate. Immediately, Ginny and Harry started forward; Tracy Harrows was standing just on the other side of the gate, dressed as a Muggle and with her hands in her pockets. She waved to them as the clerk checked their passports and allowed them inside. "Took you long enough!"
"What's the matter? Has something happened?" Ginny asked. "Are the others okay?"
Tracy just laughed and shook her head. "You two are the biggest worrywarts." She shifted slightly and for the first time, Harry noticed that she wasn't alone. A lanky, quiet stranger was standing to her side, studying them with blue-green eyes from under a thick thatch of brown hair. "Chris, this is them."
Harry juggled the one handheld suitcase he had to his left hand and extended his right to the man. "Hello. I don't believe we've met. Harry Potter. And my girlfriend, Amy Mason."
The stranger gave a perfectly charming grin as he shook first Harry's hand, then Ginny's. Like Tracy, he was dressed as a Muggle, but the smooth lines of his clothing spoke of a rich background. There were laugh lines in between his eyes, and a sprinkling of premature grey in his hair. "Chris Gingham."
Ginny tipped her sunglasses down. "The Quidditch Prince?"
Now the grin turned sheepish. "One and the same, unfortunately. Although I have to admit, I'm not too fond of the title right now. But that's better discussed somewhere else. Is there a chance we could grab a cup of coffee? I'm afraid we need to talk."
Harry felt a spider of suspicion crawl lightly across his skin and eyed Chris Gingham again. Was this how Dermot was going to make his move? Lure them into false trust with an affable stranger and attack that way?
"About what?" he asked, keeping his voice polite.
"Some things have recently come into play." Chris's voice was smooth, but it was obvious to even a stranger that he didn't wish to discuss it in public.
Ginny and Harry's exchanged look held a quick and furious debate. Finally, Ginny gave her most gracious smile, one that almost hid the rumpled lines in her face from where her cheek had been resting against Harry's shoulder, and said, "Certainly. Is there any good coffee around here? I'll certainly need it to get used to the time difference."
Harry could hear rustling behind them that meant the others were debating how best to tail Ginny to the coffee shop, since it didn't seem like Chris Gingham wanted anybody but them to come along for coffee. Finally, George separated from the group and headed towards the bathroom. "We'll meet you at the hotel?" Ron asked Harry, clapping him on the shoulder. His eyebrows stayed raised for just a fraction long enough to let Harry know that George was coming with them.
Tracy led them to a coffee shop right outside the station, a Muggle place that seemed to have a golden-brown and green motif going for it. A few seconds after they entered and headed to the counter to place their orders, a freckled blond in a red baseball cap and a T-shirt for some sports team wandered inside. Harry nodded at George, impressed that he'd managed to change so quickly, and nearly grinned when the Weasley took up a place at the counter with a newspaper and a ready smile for the girl working behind the counter.
"I'm sorry if I sound rude, but how exactly do you know Tracy?" Ginny asked as she slid into a booth near the back of the restaurant.
Tracy waved a hand at that. "Chris is my boyfriend of…what is it now? Two years?"
"Something like that." Chris shook his head, more amused than anything else. "Just don't ask Stacy what she thinks of me."
So that explained why even Melinda turned down the possibility of getting Tracy with Bear sometime, Harry thought with a spurt of amusement. Until the Typhoon had happened, he had never been involved with any inter-office romances and politics, so it amused him to realise that he was right in the thick of it now.
"At any rate, down to business." Chris changed demeanours so quickly that Harry nearly blinked at him. "Did either of you have a chance to read the Prophet this morning? I can imagine things might have been hectic for you."
It was an understatement if there ever was one. That morning, the Hutch had been a hive of activity, most of it centring around George, Fred, and Hermione as they worked to get the faint traces of Dermot's magical signature in the brochure-maps (Harry hadn't known this, for he and Ron had been too busy double-checking all of their luggage and making sure it was tamper-proof). Neville usually read the paper for the business report, and Hermione read it religiously, cover-to-cover, but they had forgone life's little pleasures in the face of the upcoming mission. So both Harry and Ginny shook their heads now.
Chris removed a wallet from his back pocket and pulled out a folded square. Unfolded, it revealed the front page of the Daily Prophet, with a very stark black and white photograph of an elderly wizard being led away in stun-cuffs. Harry blinked; that was Sam Werner's unforgettable scowl. Underneath that, the headline screamed, "Quidditch Scam Revealed!" in block letters.
"So I take it you don't know anything about this?" Chris asked dryly, passing the newspaper over so that Harry and Ginny could get a better look.
Underneath the headline was written, in italicised print, "Werner, Davenport, Malfoy, and Quidditch King Teddy Gingham All Caught Red-handed in World's Biggest Quidditch Scam!"
"That rag prints more and more like a tabloid every day," Harry said with an amusement he didn't feel. His stomach had dropped out and had landed somewhere in the vicinity of his knees. Somebody had busted the scandal that he had Ginny had been researching for months wide open. Not sure he wanted to read exactly what was in the article, he looked over at Chris. His tongue felt as though somebody had replaced it with cotton. "What exactly's going on?"
"There's no easy way to put it, so I'll just tell you straight: the Typhoon is a criminal organisation."
"You don't say." It was like a punch to the stomach to see all that he had worked over the past few months in black and white print, so the sarcasm slipped out before Harry could stop it. Ginny elbowed him, mortified, but Chris only smiled.
"So, all of the team had suspicions," he said, shaking his head. "You really are a remarkable lot."
That was news to Harry, who exchanged a sidelong look with Ginny. The whole team had suspected that something was amiss? Not a single thing had slipped; granted, there'd been a few disgruntled players at the beginning, since they all saw playing on the Typhoon as a demotion, but that had ended after a few weeks of Ginny's clever advertising. From then, there hadn't even been a ripple of resentment.
"It was pretty obvious that something was up," Ginny pointed out.
"Yes, I suppose it was." Chris took the newspaper article back, took care folding it. "Anyway, there's a lot they don't say in the article, but the gist of it is that in 1978, my father and Ulysses Davenport, old school chums that they were, threw the Quidditch World Cup by bribing pretty much every single member on the Pitch, and alerting many of You-Know-Who's supporters about it. Of course, the money went straight to Sam Werner, the manager of the English team, and, I imagine, ended up in the hands of You-Know-Who."
Harry nearly swallowed his coffee down the wrong pipe, and choked out a cough. Beside him, Ginny whitened. "It's that simple?" It was said aloud, but it was rhetorical, and exactly what they were both feeling. The mystery that they had been working on for months had such a simple answer? It was like going out and buying lion-hunting gear, only to find a housecat!
"Of course, everybody involved was memory-charmed afterward—You-Know-Who's orders—so even if Davenport, Werner, and my father were accused of it, they could honestly say there were no witnesses." Chris had a natural storyteller's voice, smooth and with the right inflection to keep Ginny and Harry's interest. "It didn't even come up until Draco Malfoy was going through his manor looking for something to sell, no doubt to pay off his gambling debts. His father kept the books for You-Know-Who, apparently, because Malfoy found ledgers from 1978. He may be annoying gnat of a man, but he's not stupid. You can probably see where he's going from here."
"He blackmailed Ulysses Davenport, Teddy Gingham, and Sam Werner," Ginny finished grimly.
"I notice that neither of you look very surprised."
Since Ginny's cover-story had her attending some magical school in America, Harry nodded for the pair of them. "I went to school with Malfoy."
"Ah. At any rate, Malfoy's demands must have got to be too much, so my father gave him an out to make even more money."
"The Typhoon."
Chris touched the tip of his nose with his forefinger. "Malfoy, of course, bought it—with the condition that you be on the team, Potter."
"Priceless," Harry muttered, feeling the age-old hatred for Draco Malfoy arise yet again. He swallowed over acidic bitterness and scowled. Even though he'd suspected as much, it still burned to be played like a fool.
"So now we come to the dilemma," Chris finished. "Three of the five owners of the Typhoon are currently incarcerated in a wizard jail cell of some type, awaiting a sentence that I'm sure includes several counts of manslaughter and illegal dealings. They haven't picked up Malfoy yet, but it's only a matter of time before they catch up to him—with five counts of obstruction of justice and extortion."
"Who haven't they caught yet?" Ginny asked, adding the numbers up in her head.
"Dave Davenport had a smaller share in the team, but he's willingly given it up. Since the government seized the other four shares, the team has no official owner." Now Chris gave the charming grin again, which was no balm to the fact that Harry's stomach was once again sinking. "And you can't play in the Open without an owner."
"Well, that presents a problem." Harry caught the brief flash of panic in Ginny's eyes. Without an owner, the team would have to return to England—and they would be forced to give up their best shot at catching Dermot. Without this chance, it was possible that Dermot would continue to terrorise them for years, unless they went into hiding. Harry felt something settle heavily in his middle and looked over at Chris, gravely. "How much is the team?"
"It's not for sale." Chris took a long drink of his coffee, which had probably gone cold during their conversation.
"I thought you said the government seized it—"
"They did. I pulled a few strings, called in a few endorsements, and purchased it about six hours ago. I just finished putting a down-payment on it." He named a sum that made Ginny's jaw fall and Harry whistle appreciatively. "However, I'm willing to take you on as a sponsor, if you like. I can afford the team, since I'm filthy rich from my mother's side of the family, but it's nice when all of the team members own shares of their team."
"Before we get down to negotiating," Harry said, jiggling his own coffee cup and looking the other man straight in the eye, "I have to know—who gave Malfoy up?"
A frown, an occurrence that was surely rare for as cheerful a fellow as Chris Gingham, came across the other man's face and echoed itself in Tracy's expression. "Nobody knows," Tracy answered. "The article said that it was just left on some Auror's desk, in a note form—"
"Nymphadora Tonks," Chris supplied, frowning. "If you ask me, one of Malfoy's enemies probably set him up."
The coincidences were growing in number and suspicion, but Harry couldn't very well voice any of that in front of Tracy and Chris. So he waited patiently for a minute, hoping that Chris might supply more information. Seeing that this wasn't going to happen, he shifted a bit. "I reckon we'd better get down to negotiating the price of my share, then?"
"Not quite yet." Chris faced Ginny, gave her his best wheedling grin. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to start on the new promotions as soon as this week, would you?"
"Only if I could make all of the preparations from here," Ginny replied, gripping Harry's forearm under the table so hard that he forced himself not to wince. "I just have one more question about that note that Tonks found. Was there any signature at all?"
Chris and Tracy both looked puzzled until Chris pulled out his wallet and the article once more. "The Aurors have their best researchers on it," Chris assured them even as he unfolded the paper yet again. He scanned it quickly and then passed it across the table. "But so far nobody matches the profile belonging to the initials 'W' and 'H.'"
It wasn't until Ginny gasped that Harry's stomach hit the floor and he realised just who "W.H." was.
