A/N: Ah, the bits about Rosenheim and Emma D. Barnaby's "ball." Yes. They should be extremely fun to reveal, but not yet. Stick around, we have this chapter and maybe one or two more. Hope you've been keeping up on your reading. Don't really have time to slow down and re-explain it all.

On another note, in regards to the new book coming out, this fic is slightly AU until I go back in the revised edition (hopefully to be put up at Sugarquill—updates on that to come in later chapters) and tweak a few things about chapters one and three. This is only a bit different than canon as it stands, but I'm not going to confuse everybody by going back and changing everything now. We're in for the long haul, folks.

Disclaimer: You know the drill—it's not mine, it's not being used for anything commercial, and JK Rowling rocks my socks.

Chapter Thirteen: Facets in the Glass

Very much like the Hutch had served as a makeshift centre of operations in England, Ginny and Harry found the hotel suite they were sharing with George acting as a hub of sorts. Ron and Hermione had already set up surveillance equipment on the counters of the kitchenette, there were open files covering the ottoman/coffee table, and the entertainment centre was conveniently shrunk and set to the side so that Hermione could post a blown-up copy of the brochure/tracking map on the wall. Right now, it was empty of all of their magical signature colours—they were all crowded in the suite, or at least in the hotel, several blocks away from the stadium. Fred and George were pawing through the mini-bar, Ron was fiddling with the knobs on one of the surveillance…thingamajigs they'd brought along, Hermione and Luna were at the small table with separate publications open in front of them, Harry was seated on the loveseat, and Ginny was pacing with a pale, manic look on her face.

Neville, who claimed that tense atmospheres did him little good when he had things to accomplish, had taken off on his own personal mission after accompanying Luna to the hotel. He was in the closeted herbal market, a place where Apothecary owners around the world shopped when they were looking for rare plants, a short Apparation away from Orlando. For the moment, Ginny envied him. She was tired of the tension, and more importantly, she was sick of being the source of it.

"The American papers don't have very much about it," Hermione said with a frown as she dropped the newspaper she'd been perusing for the past few minutes. "I'm sorry, Ginny, I don't know what to tell you. There's no way to be sure—"

"The Prophet said that the note was signed by a W.H. Who else could it be?" She felt like tearing her hair from her head; the nauseating pressure that had been mounting just behind her sternum for the past two weeks was roiling to a peak that no antacid potion could possibly hope to fight. She felt like she was going to explode into a thousand tiny little pieces and get bits of Ginny everywhere for the others to clean up.

Hermione opened her mouth, thought about it, closed it again. "I'm not discounting your theory," she began slowly, perhaps sensing that Ginny was close to detonating. She scowled when both Harry and Ron raised their eyebrows at her. "I'm not, honestly. But you have to look at motive. Specifically, he has none for doing this."

Harry shifted positions on the couch. "He has all the motive he needs. He wants to confuse her and to throw her off. That's all he's after at this point."

"W. H., though?" Hermione hit the folded paper with the back of her hand and rubbed her other hand through her tamed red locks. "Why would he use those initials?"

"Witch Hunter," Ginny, Ron, and Harry said on the same breath.

Hermione rolled her eyes at the three of them. "Yes, I know that. What I meant is—" She stopped mid-sentence and picked up the paper, stared hard at it for a minute. Because Ginny had known her for years, she knew that her strained look was merely hiding a thought process that would put many of the world's smartest people to shame. Ron and Harry, obviously recognising the same thing, also waited for her to finish thinking. "Well, obviously you're right." Hermione shook her head. "I hadn't seen it until just now, but only because I couldn't out figure out why. I just did."

"Well?" Harry asked it for all three of them. Ginny, who couldn't get rid of the edgy feeling that an eruption was impending, began to pace again, her own brain racing across the problem. Instead of the solution she desired, though, she found just a jumbled, hyperactive bundle of thoughts that seemed to speed dizzily with no sense of connection.

"It's not that he just wants her confused and thrown off, as you put it." Hermione toyed with her quill, glanced across to Luna (who was ignoring them all to read the newest copy of her magazine). She looked straight at Ginny and the other woman finally felt compelled to stop pacing, held in that gaze. "Well, not just that, at any rate. He wants you busy."

The other three stared at her for a long time, each of them trying to make sense of such a bizarre statement. Ron realised it first. "Of course!" He even slapped his forehead, groaning as he shook his head. "Dermot was your partner—at the American Tunnel. Right?" Warily, Ginny nodded. "So he knows most of your habits and mannerisms."

"The ones that didn't sprout directly from his actions, at least," Hermione amended, rising from the table.

Ron waved impatiently as though to say, "yes, yes, whatever." Looking back over at Ginny, he said, "I reckon Dermot could easily take a sniper shot at you and kill you, given his history with Muggles and guns, but he wants it to be personal. That's the thing he's been with all of his Witch Hunter victims, right?"

"Right—he got to know each of them on a personal and romantic level before he—" Ginny broke off with a groan similar to Ron's. "I can't believe he'd do this." For the first time since she'd landed in Florida, anger spurted over the confusion, soothing her nerves in its own way.

"I still don't get how keeping her busy has anything to do with it," Harry stated, obviously still confused.

Ginny shot a look at her brother and his wife, ordering them to let her explain. Looking over at Harry, she said, "He wants me off by myself, and he knows that by now the only way I'll try to duck out of the way of my bodyguards is if I'm extremely busy. I get—I get cranky when I'm that busy. And when I'm cranky, I don't think rationally. I don't think anybody does."

"And the best way to do that is to pile extra work on you in the form of the Typhoon switching hands," Harry finished, nodding his head. His glance at Ron was only slightly sardonic. "Does anybody else feel like we're in the middle of a big, absurd chess match where we don't hold all of the right pieces?"

"No, I feel much taller now, thank you," Ron bit off sarcastically.

While Harry gave a weak chuckle and Hermione rolled her eyes, Ginny stared at her older brother, confused. What on earth…?

"So what do we do now?" Ron continued, less sarcastic now.

"Forewarned is forearmed, right?" Hermione crossed to the mini-bar (Fred and George had abandoned it at some point, though Ginny couldn't remember when) and pulled a bottled water from the fridge. "We know what he's up to, so Ginny is less prone to duck her security now that she knows. I bet he was trusting that none of us would read the Prophet this morning, or make the connection. He probably bet that Chris Gingham would buy the team, since according to you, Ron, Chris has been doing that for awhile now, and trusted that you wouldn't make the connection that Malfoy and the others—your case, essentially—had been arrested."

Oh! Ginny inwardly shook her head as she finally understood Ron's cryptic comment, recalling that everybody had made a fuss when Ron, Hermione, and Harry had faced McGonagall's giant chess set in their first year.

"He's getting sloppy, if that's the case." Harry stood up, started pacing around the spacious suite. "All of us on the team spread rumours like none other. It was bound to get out."

"But not necessarily the fact that the note was signed W.H.," Ginny argued, feeling some semblance of coherence slip into her mind now that she could put the pieces together into a larger puzzle again. She felt as though she'd regained some of her ground in sanity. She took a deep breath, thought about the overall picture. "And that was the only clue that might have warned us. Otherwise, we'd just be suspicious, and even busier…because we'd be trying to get through to Tonks and figure out who solved the mystery for us. So he took a risk, and he lost. Undoubtedly, he has some sort of contingency plan if that happens, but as far as you and I know, he doesn't know we know yet."

She stared at the others. "He doesn't know we know yet."

Ron stroked his chin, thinking. "Assuming that, we find a way to turn this back around on him."

But Hermione shook her head and tapped her finger against her teeth, brow furrowed in deep thought. "No," she said, bemused, before Harry or Ginny could jump in. "Let's do something worse. Let's taunt him with it." The smile she gave them now was feral.

"And I think I know exactly how."


The American Quidditch Open, generally one of the largest events of the year for hardcore Quidditch fans around the globe, attracted the largest crowd Harry had seen outside of the World Cup. He could hear it even now, thundering overhead as he made his way through the restricted door marked "PLAYERS ONLY" and down a long, dimly-lit corridor. On one level, he found it funny that all of the back-ways and underbellies of every single Quidditch stadium looked essentially the same: a grey backdrop for low lighting and dark tunnels. On another level, little else amused him right now. He'd left Ginny in the company of Fred, Ron, and Neville, and the thought that he wasn't around to protect her left a greasy spot in his stomach that wouldn't go away. They were up in one of the top-boxes, in plain sight and in the least danger for a little while, but that didn't stop the worry from gnawing unpleasantly. He headed into the locker room that the Typhoon had been assigned—

—And ducked just in time to avoid a balled-up pair of pants to the face.

"Hey! Don't kill the Seeker!" he shouted, laughing as soon as his instincts would let him. He picked up the pants, a white set of briefs, and dangled them from one finger. "And just whose are these?"

Bear snatched them from him, giving him his answer without saying a word. Clutching a towel around his waist, he stalked off.

Harry raised an eyebrow at Stacy, who was standing just inside the locker room, a too-innocent look on her face. He might have blushed at her state of attire, but he was unfortunately used to seeing Tracy and Stacy Harrows in various states of undress. Between them two of them, the twins had maybe a shred of modesty—on good days. The sight of Stacy in her Quidditch trousers, barefoot with only a sports-bra covering her torso (which, he noticed, was scarred a good deal—not that he was surprised. Tracy and Stacy hadn't made it to the top of the Quidditch leagues by playing nice, after all), was distressingly common.

She flipped her hair over her shoulder and regarded him with an amused look. "What?"

"Nothing. Just surprised you and Bear made it past the need for trousers."

There was a noise akin to a muffled explosion on the other side of a set of lockers, so Harry figured at least Tad, if not both Beaters, had heard his droll comment. Stacy rolled her eyes, still grinning, and headed off to the female half of the locker room, leaving Harry free to wander and claim his own locker. "What's been going on in here?" he asked of both Tad and Frank once he reached them.

"Sexual tension, mate. Forget the knife. It's so thick you could cut it with a spoon. A dull one." Tad, a hulking figure of a man, was nearly whistling as he pulled on his uniform. Harry just laughed in reply and pried open his own locker.

Frank cracked his knuckles and whirled his torso about to pop the bones in his spine. "Which reminds me—I reckon it's time Harry at least repaid Bear for that bet we made about him and Pretty Miss Mason awhile back."

"Bear? That's all I'm repaying?" Harry looked dubious. "I believe I owe all of you for that one. I seem to recall every single one of you insisting—"

"Yes, but see, you ended up with Pretty Miss Mason, so really, I think universal balance means you can only repay one person. And that's Bear. He just won the unlucky lottery." Tad grinned his most charming smile just as the Keeper in question wandered in, trousers secured in place by a belt. "Well, go on, Harry. Pay him back."

Bear, more interested in combing his shaggy hair into something resembling a done coif, barely spared them a glance from his locker mirror. "Pay me back? What?"

"Five minutes until our practice session on the Pitch, guys!" Melinda's voice called across the locker room. "Whatever you're doing over there, hurry it up!"

Harry rolled his eyes at the wall and hurried to strip out of the leather jacket (impractical clothing for the muggy heat of Florida in the middle of the summer, but it was the only thing he'd packed that hid his arm-holster, so he'd suffered through it. He peeled off the T-shirt underneath and wormed his way out of his jeans.

"Figure I owe somebody something for that wonderful dare you and the others put on me back when we were playing the Demented," Harry told Bear as he pulled on his Quidditch trousers, latching them with a set of plastic fasteners that wouldn't hurt as much as a belt if a Bludger hit him. "So here it is—we win this thing, you have to kiss Stacy—in front of the entire stadium. On our victory lap."

"Potter, this isn't second year at Hogwarts," Bear grumbled, slapping aftershave onto his face. "I'd appreciate a little maturity here."

Tad laid a none-too-gentle hand on the irate Keeper's shoulder. "Not the way it works, Bear. Besides, it's only fair."

Bear turned a stink-eye on both Tad and Frank. "Fair? How come he's only issuing this challenge to me, then? Why not you two?"

"Technically, this challenge is issued to both you and Stacy," Harry pointed out mildly, strapping his robes shut with one hand and reaching for his boots with the other. "Besides, both Tad and Frank are married already, Tracy has a long-term boyfriend, and I don't think Melinda would give us enough of a struggle to make it fun. I don't think it's quite the same thing."

Bear stared all of them. "I hate you all," he said cheerfully, and stalked away, broom slung over his shoulder and boots only half-fastened.

"It's nice to be loved," Tad remarked. He and Frank followed their sulky team-mate, juggling their brooms while they pulled on the sturdy gloves that enabled them to keep a sturdy grip on their bats. Harry shook his head after them and finished closing the snaps on his uniform. He pushed a hand through his hair, uselessly, and straightened his glasses. It was a pre-game routine that hadn't changed whether he was eleven or twenty-three.

He swung around when Stacy, whistling, headed for the door. "Hey, Stace? Could I have a word?"

"Sure. But on the way to the Pitch. Bear or Melinda will have our hides if we're late." It made for an enclosed space walking side-by-side in the small corridor, but they managed. "What's up, Potter?"

Since Harry had always found that the best way to deal with these things was to admit the truth right out, he scratched the back of his neck. "It's Amy," he confessed.

Immediately, Stacy looked concerned. "What about her? Is she okay?"

"Well, right now, she is." He chewed on the tip of his tongue, trying to figure out how he would word this. "Sort of. The thing is, she's had a lot of side-projects going on for months. And she's…well, she's exhausted. So I was looking forward to this Florida trip. Spent a pretty Knut, if you know what I mean. I wanted to pamper her, make sure she gets enough rest. And then all of this…this rubbish about the Davenports and Teddy Gingham, and with Chris buying the team…well, he wants her to start all of this promotional activity while still over here."

"Ah. And you don't want that to happen," Stacy summed up, nodding her head as they made the turn into the corridor that would take them straight through the Player's Doors to the Pitch.

"I want her to take a break and have a bit of a vacation. She can do the promotional rubbish just as well from bloody old England." Harry let a touch of his grouchiness towards Dermot creep into his voice, giving his plea a genuine feel.

Stacy paused for the briefest of minutes to pull on her gloves—her hands were so small that they looked like a doll's. "So," she surmised, focused on the wrist-fastenings, "you want me to absently drop a word to my dear and loving sister, who will be so concerned about Amy—because we both like her, you know—that she will, of course, order her boyfriend to back off a bit?"

"Precisely."

"I've got your number, Potter. Sure, I'll drop a word, after the game. Now, c'mon." That said, they exited the stage door and broke out into a very narrow corridor, this time only claustrophobic because fans crowded in on either side. Laughing nervously, they took off for the Pitch, arms up to fight off any overzealous advances.


Despite the fact that their mascots were turtles and their robes were sea-green to match, the Honolulu Honu quickly proved to be exceedingly fast. Unfortunately enough for them, that was about where their skill ended. Bear had been running various drills in practice to help them deal with this possibility, so the Typhoon only took a couple of hits to the jaw before they found their niche. Soon, Tracy, Stacy, and Mel had second-guessing the Honu Chasers down to an art, Harry following behind a great deal more clumsily.

He was clearly the only player at a disadvantage. The three Chasers and one Seeker from the Honu were a seamless and speedy team, working well enough together while Harry struggled to keep up with three professional-level Chasers in a position he was unaccustomed to—while seeking out the Snitch. Twenty minutes of flubbed passes, near misses with the Honu Seeker, and one very sloppily executed Wronski Feint later, he was almost ready to throw in the towel.

"Bloody yanks!" he muttered irritably when Bear called a time-out as they were a narrow twenty points ahead and an hour into the game. "The Seeker isn't just a glorified Chaser! We have our own jobs to do!"

"Then do your job," Bear snapped, in no mood to take any of the normal flak. He gestured the three Chasers closer. "Mel, Stace, Trace, you all need to hog the ball a little. They may be faster than us, but they're horrible at stealing the ball away."

"We know, Bear," Stacy said patiently. "Harry, take a breather from Chasing, see if you can't find that Snitch. Ten minutes and then come help us out. We should be okay. Right, girls?"

Tracy and Mel, a bit out of breath, affirmed this with nods. Reluctantly, Harry shrugged. Though he'd complained, he hadn't meant to make the Chasers work harder. But, he thought as he remounted the broom and took to the sky on the updraft of roaring fans, if he could find the Snitch in that ten minutes, he could spare the Chasers a lot more trouble than he could just by acting as a fourth member of their little clique. So he kept his eyes narrowed behind his glasses, studying every inch of the Pitch for any sight of the Snitch.

"WHAT'S THIS?" he could vaguely hear the announcer shouting across the Pitch. "POTTER'S GIVING UP ALREADY?"

Quickly, he tuned the new announcer out. He'd dealt with worse; his singular goal right now was to find the Snitch. Fortunately for the Typhoon, the Honu Seeker seemed to be taking cues from him. Harry could see the thin wizard, black-haired and olive-skinned like the rest of the Honu, drifting around the other half of the Pitch, scanning the field with equal intensity. Harry kept his hands loose on the broom shaft, knowing that if it came to a dive, he had the advantage; the Honu Seeker had proved absolutely rubbish at diving after the Snitch. He was clearly better at helping the Chasers.

With the Honu Seeker following, Harry didn't have to worry about playing a fourth Chaser anymore. Soaring as high as the rules would let him (and incidentally pulling the Honu Seeker up that high as well), he drifted over the entire Pitch.

When ten minutes had passed and there had been no sight of gold among anywhere in the stands, the Honu Seeker clearly gave up and rejoined his trio of Chasers, leaving Harry no choice. The Seeker growled to himself in frustration and threw himself into trying to keep up with Melinda and the twins. He was unfortunately aware that the announcer had spent most of the game mocking him for his uncouth Chasing skills, which only increased the frustration exponentially.

"Chin up, Harry!" Tad urged as he flew close by in order to fend off a Bludger.

"Easy for you to say," Harry growled under his breath, watching Melinda execute a flawless barrel roll. "You only have one job to do."

"I heard that!" With that, Tad was gone, streaking across the Pitch after the iron ball.

Harry scowled in his general direction as he moved to catch the pass Melinda hurtled in his direction. It was then that he saw it: a flash of gold, just underneath a Honu Chaser's left shoe.

It happened so fast that even Harry and Tracy wouldn't be able to describe it. Harry jerked back in surprise as the Quaffle barrelled into his stomach at full-force, jerking his whole body backwards. Consequently, the nose of the broom shaft arced towards the sky and Harry hit a free fall backwards. As the fear superheated his veins, he wrapped himself around the Quaffle. The nose swung around in a full vertical circle on its own accord, Harry holding on for dear life. At just the right second, he threw himself forward and sent his broom into an acceleration that plastered his hair flat.

Tracy, moving forward to collect a hand-off from Harry, swerved downwards just in time. Harry threw himself sideways to avoid a collision between his boot and her forehead, stuffed the Quaffle down into the involuntarily outstretched hand, and—in one swooping motion—snatched up the Snitch from beside the Chaser's shoe.

He then forgot to duck.


"Nice shiner, mate."

The only thing that would have made the moment more humiliating, Harry decided, would have been some very inappropriate boxer shorts, like ones covered in rubber duckies or something equally inane. As it was, he was stuck in his tartan boxer shorts, exposed to what seemed to be everybody he knew, and there wasn't a bloody thing he could do about it until the healer came back and gave him a clean bill of health.

He scowled at Ron. "Yeah, well, you try pulling off a catch like that without some form of bodily injury."

Ron obviously didn't notice his best friend's perturbation at being stuck sitting on a healing table in front of everybody he knew. He grinned. "Well, on the rare instance when people actually succeed in kicking me, it's because they actually kicked me. Not because I ran into their foot."

"Sod off," Harry suggested helpfully.

Behind him, he heard Ginny sigh. "Ron, leave him alone."

"But—"

"Ronald."

Harry had been hoping that he would last the entire Open without having to visit the Athletics Healer Headquarters, so it was naturally quite disheartening that he had landed there after only one game. The fact that the room they had abandoned him in was damp and stank of stale sweat didn't lighten his mood. He should have been celebrating with the rest of his team after such a win, but he was forced to sit, all but forgotten, in a room that smelled like a jock strap.

The fact that Ron found it all funny just exacerbated matters.

"I suppose you're lucky the Seeker missed your nose," Ron said after a second of observing Harry's battered face. "It's plenty big already."

"Which one are you?" Harry sniped. "The pot or the kettle?"

"Will you two knock it off?" Ginny snapped, her patience finally evaporating. "Ron, if you don't have anything nice to say, go find one of the twins. Harry, the healer told you not to move your head. Stay still."

Harry felt a twinge of guilt as she moved into his line of sight once again. Since the healers had let her in a few minutes before, Ginny had been oddly silent, though she had spent a great deal of time pacing. His attempts at conversation had been met with monosyllabic replies; whenever he thought she might strike up a conversation or at least attempt to chide him, she just gained a fierce expression and kept silent. If he hadn't been so annoyed at being stuck in a room in only his boxers while it seemed that everybody on the team and Ron, Hermione, and Luna wandered through, he might have said something about it.

"Sorry, Ginny." Ron rolled his shoulders and studied Harry's face. "How do you feel?"

"Like I ran my face through somebody's foot, thanks." The brief spurt of pain potion the healer had shoved down his throat hadn't done much.

Before Ron could answer, the door to the small office opened and the healer that had left Harry behind aeons before finally entered. "Sorry about the hold-up, Mr. Potter," he apologised absently. He was a plain-looking man that brought the colour brown to mind, though the robe he wore was vividly purple. "It seems your stunt has the whole stadium in a tizzy."

"I've been injured worse from badly done Wronski feints," Harry grumbled, and shrank away from the stink-eye that Ginny gave him. "What? It's not really that big of a deal."

"Miss Harrow claims you were trying to kill her. She's lucky you missed, or I might have both of you in here," the healer informed him with no small amount of amusement. He handed over a vial of liquid that Harry recognised. "Drink all of that while I try to fix that shiner. It should make you feel better."

"I just hope it's extra-strength." Throwing caution and his taste buds to the wind, Harry tilted back his head and poured the liquid down his throat. He coughed once and handed the empty vial back to the healer. Already, blessedly cool numbness trickled down the right side of his face. "Gets better every time."

"If you're feeling good enough to be sarcastic, I'm pretty sure you'll be fine, Mr. Potter." The healer began to examine Harry's battered face with deft fingers that Harry couldn't feel. "You made quite a mess of your face, but a couple of restructuring spells and a bone-binding potion should clear things up right away."

Harry wanted to tell him to just fix it already, but he kept his mouth shut for fear of unleashing the monster within Ginny.

The healer was as good as his word; Harry walked out of the office no more than ten minutes later, still pulling his shirt over his head. Talking animatedly, Ron preceded him while Ginny followed at a more demure pace.

"Ron," Harry interrupted after a minute. "Do me a favour? Go see how your wife is doing or something."

Once Ron had asked a sufficient question to make sure that Harry was not actually Dermot in disguise, he left them alone. They could hear his cheerful whistling even after he'd disappeared from sight.

"He's just happy because he had some money on that game," Ginny muttered, rolling her eyes. Her expression when she looked at Harry was not perverse, though. She studied his face. "Harry, if there's one thing you should have learned at Hogwarts, it's how to duck."

Harry winced. "It must have got lost under all of that Transfiguration and Potions nonsense."

"I'm just glad you weren't hurt worse." Ginny shook her head, pushed the dark locks back from her neck. Her face was shiny from the dried sweat the Florida heat had produced, and the effect served to make her look tired. "Sorry. I don't mean to be so glum right now—I mean, that was a spectacular catch. I don't think Tracy even saw the Quaffle coming."

"I'm glad I missed." He would have never been able to live it down had he collided with Tracy. As it was, he was going to be infamous for running into the Honu Seeker's foot. He moved his hands into his pockets and tried not to think about it. "I'm sorry I scared you."

"Occupational hazard. I can imagine any athlete's girlfriend understands." Ginny mustered up something of a smile. "But the good news is that I think you can put that down as one of your more…interesting saves, don't you think?"

"It's something I'll never live down, if that's what you mean." Since the right side of his face felt plastic and foreign, he didn't try to smile. He did, however, sling an arm around her shoulders. "So, Miss Weasley, how much money did you win? Ron wasn't the only one who had money riding on the game."

Her smile was exactly what he had been intending. "Oh, I don't bet until the later games," she informed him pertly. "There's more money to be had."

They rounded the corner and entered the foyer where public access to the stadium began. Since there wasn't actually a game taking place on that particular Pitch for another couple of hours, it was all but empty. Hermione had obviously been waiting for them; she dropped the map she'd been casually studying and hurried over to intercept them. "Congratulations, Harry." It was said breathlessly, the main indication that something was happening. "Listen, get back to the hotel as fast as you can. I've already sent Ron ahead—the twins and Neville should be waiting there for you."

With that, she Apparated away. Ginny and Harry exchanged puzzled glances and followed suit.

Harry managed to avoid Apparating straight into Neville, but Ginny wasn't so lucky and stumbled over a potted fern she had completely forgotten was there. She swore viciously, but nobody so much as flickered an eyelash.

Harry needed only to glance at Neville's stony expression to know that something bad had happened at some point during the game. "What's up?" he asked, vaulting over the couch to join the others in the small lounge. "Any word on Dermot?"

"Your man Chris Gingham is determined to make our jobs as hard as possible," George grumbled, and handed Harry the front section of a local magical newspaper. Harry unfolded it to see a large shot of Chris Gingham smiling and shaking hands with some Quidditch official or other. "You and 'Amy Mason' are to attend some sort of charity function tonight. A chance for him to show off the Typhoon. Open admittance. It's going to be a security nightmare."

Harry felt like crumpling the newspaper, but he just passed it over to Ginny.

"Any chance Chris is Dermot?" Neville asked.

"Quite a large one." Ron worried his bottom lip as he mulled over the problem. "Fred? George? How susceptible are you to a plan that involves breaking the law?"

"Oh, very," Fred volunteered for both himself and his twin brother, his expression caught in a fine juxtaposition between grim and mischievous.

"In the meantime, Ginny, you're coming down with a nasty case of some kind of flu in about two hours, brought on by something magical you ate. You're not going to be well until tomorrow morning, unfortunately." Ron's calculating glance moved to Harry. "That's actually a good chance to get you out of the function early, Harry. I want you to appear distracted tonight, and bow out as early as you can. That'll give Ginny's 'flu' some credibility."

It was truly a sign of just how much Ginny was worried about Dermot, for she agreed to "come down with a nasty magical bug" without any sort of protest at all. Before long, Ron had dispatched Fred and George off on a mission he wouldn't describe to the others, claiming that he and Luna would take up post at the function that evening to watch Harry's back. Fred, George, Hermione, and Neville would stay with Ginny, and the Darrows would have the evening off. It was done with speedy dispatch.

"This is just the first hurtle," Ron muttered in an aside to Harry, once he was sure that Ginny could overhear him. "With the ownership switching hands, who knows how much more of this we'll have to face before we can lay our trap?"

Harry could not think of an answer.

Nearly an hour later, Fred and George returned with the news that no, Chris Gingham was most assuredly none other than Chris Gingham. Better yet, they said, the function Harry was attending tonight would have free punch.


In the end, all seven members of the Typhoon were shanghaied into attending Chris Gingham's charity function, with varying degrees of willingness. Tad and Frank seemed as though they longed to be nowhere else as they greeted fans and signed autographs, telling boisterous jokes and drawing the largest crowd between them. Melinda politely gave those interested her attention, but she lacked the Beaters' charisma. Tracy and Chris were both popular; Bear and Stacy could have made matching dour bookends; Harry, true to his word to Ron, was distracted and testy, meaning that very few fans approached him. He was lucky that most of the Americans weren't as impressed with his status. Besides, the Typhoon players were viewed as the "out of town" team, so they weren't nearly as popular as the American Quidditch Team or the local Orlando Craze.

"See anything yet?" Harry muttered when Ron, masquerading as a fan of the Sacramento Bees, came up for an autograph.

"Either he's not here or he already came and realised that Ginny's not here," Ron replied, and stared sceptically at the signature Harry had scrawled on his notepad. "Geez, mate, you have the most terrible penmanship I've seen."

Harry caught a glimpse of Luna, in her capacity as one of the evening's many reporters, as he rolled his eyes.

The meet-and-greet was being held for all the teams not currently playing in a local convention centre, charmed so that Muggles would conveniently forget about its existence for the evening. It was held in an open foyer that was just what Ron had predicted it would be: a security nightmare. It was impossible to locate a single figure in such a milling crowd. The teams, positioned at the edges and separated from the crowd by a line of velvety rope, were grouped together. The fans could move along the guide rope and get an autograph from every player if they wished.

Harry figured Ginny had probably known about the event, but had managed to get the Typhoon out of attending. Unfortunately, the new ownership meant that Chris Gingham would be springing these events on them all through the tournament, Harry had no doubt.

"Hey, Potter, are you all right?" Tracy asked, moving away from Chris's side. Harry had already apologised thrice for nearly killing her during the game, but that hadn't spared him from any of the good-natured ribbing from the team members.

"I'm fine," Harry replied shortly. "Do you have any idea what time this will be over? I really should get back—I don't like being here when Amy's undoubtedly on her own leaning over the toilet bowl or something. She at least needs somebody to hold her hair."

"Chris says five more minutes should do it. The crowd's already starting to break up." Tracy gave him an apologetic look. "Tell Amy I hope she feels better quick?"

"Sure, sure."

Tracy took a glossy 8x10 from a fan and scrawled her name above her grinning mug, passing the picture over for Harry to complete. "Fine job my sister and Bear are doing about keeping a happy front up, don't you think?"

Harry spared them a glance. Stacy had her arms crossed and was staring into the distance; since all of the fans had pretty much left them alone, Bear was scowling at the far wall. Together, they made a frightful picture. "Yeah," he agreed, shaking his head. "What's up with the pair of them, anyway? I walked into one of their rows today."

"Bear's not too fond of the git my sister's been seeing these past three weeks." Tracy smiled, a bit of conspiracy in her mirth. "For the top Chaser and Keeper in the league, they're very…short-sighted, don't you think?"

Since he couldn't leave for the next three minutes anyway, Harry filled her in on the dare he had given Bear earlier. She found it appropriately funny.

Ron wandered up to the pair of them, closing the notebook he'd been using to collect autographs. "Hullo, Harry. I've got autographs from all of the Bismarck Flickertails. What the devil is a flickertail, anyway?"

"Tracy, meet my good friend Ron Weasley," Harry said politely. "Ron, this is Tracy Harrows. The one with the good left arm."

"And other stellar qualities," Tracy added, shaking Ron's hand. "Always nice to meet a friend of a friend. Are you at the tournament to support the team or just random coincidence?"

"Oh, I'm here to win some quid off of Harry's wins," Ron replied airily.

Tracy laughed. "Well, we'll try to win a few for you, then."

Harry turned to mention to Tracy that Ron had won a very impressive fifteen pounds off of them earlier that day—and had ended up with fifteen pounds of chicken from a clueless American bookie. Mid-move, he stopped. Something wasn't right there. Quickly, his eyes scanned back and forth over the crowd, searching, seeking, but he saw nothing, nothing out of the ordinary.

"I appreciate that," Ron told Tracy, removing the autograph collection book from his pocket once more. "Listen, I was wondering if I could perhaps get an autograph? Just to prove to my girlfriend I met the best looking member of the Typhoon?"

Harry continued to search fruitlessly. A vendor was trying to hawk various pennants and T-shirts from the Open. Harry's eyes passed over him, ignored a group of thirteen-year-old boys that were crowded suspiciously around a photograph of some sort. He scanned the rafters of the building, though they told him nothing.

"That might do you any favours," Tracy said to Ron, taking the book from him, "but sure, whatever your poison—"

"Get down!"

Inexplicably, he shouted it; instinctively, he lunged forward, catching both Tracy and Ron in a flying tackle that clattered them to the floor.

It wasn't quick enough. Just as he hit his friends, explosions, loud, long, and sharp, rent the air, filling his ears. Three of them, in staccato succession, as he ran into Ron and Tracy. Warm liquid spattered his face; they landed in a heap of discombobulated limbs, so entangled that Harry took an elbow to the face.

The after-effects were immediate. Screams tore through the centre. Stomping sounded, people running. Gunfire, Harry realised. It had been gunfire! Chaos burst into furious bloom. Everywhere, people scattered for the edges, hiding behind whatever they could find.

And Ron Weasley let out an oath that would make even the dirtiest of mouths widen in shock.

"I'm hit!"

A/N The Second: I'm evil. Yes, I know this. Yes, I expect a lot of reviews that tell me exactly that. Fire away.