An: Sorry for the long wait. I wanted to bring a little light to the tensions of the real world at the time, so you'll see a little of that this chapter. It's going to be a little shorter than usual.
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Horace Slughorn was in a word, opulent. He liked his comforts and was reluctant to give them up. Exceedingly well connected he had frequently enjoyed the endless stream of favours and gifts his connections brought, it was rather strange then Harry found, that he seemed to have been leaving in near complete seclusion for the better part of two years.
Dumbledore had asked for his company to aid in his efforts to hire the old potions master.
He'd gotten rather excited when Harry had mentioned Carmilla –who had once gone by Mircalla, was currently a guest of his new guardian, the recently exonerated head of the Black family.
Even in hiding he kept up to date with the latest news.
In the end Slughorn didn't take as much convincing as Dumbledore seemed to be expecting.
"–much safer without that idiot Fudge in charge, never liked him, and with that friend of yours around, well..."
"Humph, well I suppose with Bones in charge it's as safe as it's going to get with things the way they are... I'll be wanting a pay raise you hear me!"
Dumbledore for his part had just smiled serenely while Harry watched on bemused as Slughorn spouted off a long list conditions and provisions.
Later lying in bed after they had returned to the Burrow where Harry had spent a good portion of the summer break, hopping between Grimmauld Place and the Weasley house, he wondered to himself just how far Carmilla's connections spread.
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Lately the Weasley children had taken to escaping to Grimmauld Place to escape the rising temper building within Mrs. Weasley that made her unbearable to be around at times. She was as Ron so aptly put it, liable to "explode and blow her top" at any given moment. Fleur's presence was a constant source of contention.
Thankfully they usually managed to avoid being near the Weasley matriarch when she really got started by retreating to the Order's headquarters most days.
It was on one of these days that Ginny had accidently stumbled upon a rather shady looking business discussion between Carmilla and the twins who had recently opened up their rather suspiciously successful joke shop.
Having visited it all could agree that the success was definitely earned, but what was suspicious was how even with the thousand Galleons Harry had given them – most of which had undoubtedly been spent on the research and development of new products, they had been able to acquire a building on the main street of Diagon Alley; a real estate market notoriously hard to break into.
The three now seemed to have formed some form of unholy allegiance in the wake of their reconciliation following the vividly remembered lost buttocks debacle.
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Something was defiantly up with Laura. Lately her skin had been looking paler and her canines were notably longer than they had been.
So far there had been a silent consensus not to bring it up, but everyone had noticed it.
To Harry's amusement Luna had commented on the change when he and Laura on a mission into the nearby village for eggs after the twins had done something funny to the one's that had been at the Weasley house.
She loudly congratulated Laura on her contraction of Lover's Bite –a semi rare disease of the same family of Loser's Lurgy, accompanying her prognosis with a knowing look before turning to greet Harry.
It had been his turn to blush scarlet when she'd planted a chase kiss on his check when she'd bid them farewell.
Laura recovered from her own fit of spluttering and blushing had ribbed him all the way back to the house.
Secretly Harry was glad to see such shows of good cheer continuing unabated by the current tense climate of wizarding and muggle Britain... even if this time it was at his expense.
The tense political climate had calmed only minutely in the past weeks. Rashes of mysterious disappearance not solely the work of Voldermort or his followers continued to fill newspaper headlines as wizarding and muggle Britain was thrown into turmoil as competing factions vied for power. Death Eaters, Voldermort, guilds, unions, Irish nationalists and English patriots, there were a thousand different groups, all with different and often conflicting ideologies.
It wasn't just wizards either, muggle tensions had been taught for the better part of the last century with two world wars and what could justifiably been called a British civil war by some still fresh in the minds of the populace as new age IRA expatriates and newer groups voiced their dissatisfaction with the world with bombings and marches as the world stood on the precipice of another global conflict as America and the Soviets Cold War raged on.
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An: It's no Loser's Lurgy but Lover's Bite was a little something I came up with, it's Luna speak for Laura's current condition.