DISCLAIMER: Neither the TV show 'NCIS' nor the 'Harry Potter' book series belong to me.

Gibbs was once again in the observation room in front of Potter, and Tony heard before he saw that he was having a fierce shouting match with the other Potter. Well, not exactly a match; more like he was on the receiving end of Ginny's voice, which didn't seem like fun. The guy really seemed to have a soft spot for red hairs, if he was letting himself be yelled at like that.

Harry was blissfully and obliviously still staring at the ceiling, but now his expression betrayed tiredness by boredom.

"… he hasn't done anything, as far as you've said, and you are still keeping him! I want to take my husband home! My brother and his wife too! Now!" She screeched – she had good pair of lungs.

Tony spared one dismayed glance at Ziva and entered the room, finding Gibbs, crossed-armed, patiently listening the red-head out.

"Your husband was trespassing in a private property, which was also a crime scene. I can hold him." Gibbs took advantage of the window of time she used to restock on oxygen to say with a mild tone and expression.

Ginny looked ready to breathe fire. Her whole complexion seemed to redden as she glared at Gibbs. He'd never known someone to rival Gibbs' glare with so much intensity.

When Tony thought she'd explode, she closed her eyes, her face tight with strain, and exhaled slowly. "Then at least let me talk to him." Her lips were barely moving or visible, they were so thin.

Tony was pretty sure Gibbs would refuse, even if he stood, just staring at Ginny, for a long time. But then he gave a single nod.

Tony finally made himself known by clearing his throat. Gibbs, who'd probably already known he was there, didn't even look up, but Ginny's head immediately snapped around to him. "Boss, Abby's on the way up, and I think she wants to talk to you." He said, glancing at the fiery woman in front of him.

She squared her shoulders and turned back to Gibbs expectantly. "Mrs. Potter, Agent DiNozzo will show you where to enter the interrogation room." And he left.

Ginny's glare fixed on him and Tony gulped. "Uh, yeah, right this way." He held the door open as she passed, not missing Ziva's amused smirk. He repressed the urge to stick out his tongue at her.

After having successfully delivered the woman to the room three feet away, he returned to observation, where he found Ziva staring at the hugging couple on the other side of the wall.

She started when he entered, tearing her eyes away as if she was embarrassed of having been caught. He closed the door with a light click behind him and went to stand next to her in front of the fake mirror. Her eyes were permanently trained on the floor, and he could swear there was a light blush on her cheeks.

Even if he had thought of anything to say to that, the plan was made impossible by the conversation suddenly being initiated by the two Potters.

"So, why are you here?" Harry's voice was low in a thankless effort to keep anyone who might have been listening (like Tony and Ziva) from hearing what he was saying. "Wasn't the Ministry supposed to send someone three bloody hours ago?"

Tony had no idea what the Ministry was, though he was pretty sure Harry had mentioned it before - and his thoughts stopped there, because if he tried to think deeply over every strange thing they said, he'd be old and grey before figuring it out by himself.

"Harry!" The woman chastised, hands landing on her stomach. "If you keep saying things like that, how are you supposed to control yourself once he's born?" Her voice was only half-teasing. Funny, you put her next to her husband and her mood is a lot better, out of a sudden. Or maybe it was taking her from the influence of the MCRT dysfunctional dynamics. "And the Ministry…" She hesitated in a way that didn't bode well. "There's been an attack."

Harry seemed to have been electrocuted, the way he jolted upwards suddenly in alarm. "Attack?" He seemed to forget about trying to be silent at that.

"Nothing happened to anyone, and they were caught." She said hurriedly, refusing to let him go any further than he had to. "But they crippled the department that deals with Muggle involvement." She shook her head. "The way people act sometimes, it's like there are some that actually enjoyed the time Voldemort was in charge."

She clenched her teeth furiously. "They meant to go on a panic-spreading spree around London without getting caught. Anyway, the plan fell through, the Ministry has the responsible group, and the department is back up, but you caught the blind spot. So they were convinced the op had gone smoothly until I raised the alarm. Since they were a bit hectic over there, it's going to take time," She warned. "so I came myself." And she pulled the chair Gibbs had been sat on and set herself next to her husband, who was rubbing his face vigorously.

Tony exchanged a mystified, rendered mute look with his partner. She shook her head – she hadn't understood a word either. All he'd caught was that they now had an extra few hours, apparently.

After that, Harry slumped back into his chair, smiling tiredly at her. He reached out and pulled at her hand, slipping his fingers through hers. "So what will your brother say when he hears you came see me before him?" He asked teasingly, introducing a comfortable mood that he seemed to be in a severe lack thereof.

"I have five brothers." She answered flippantly, resting her head on his shoulder.

He laughed, beginning to trace circles on the back of her hand. And they fell into silence.

He didn't know why, how or when, but at the end of that exchange, Tony found himself a lot closer to Ziva than he'd been before. He also found himself in a staring match with her, and no idea how that'd happened either.

He didn't like that. Ziva was- Ziva was unreachable. The kind of person who he could not even dream to have – though that didn't stop him at all – and he was the kind of person who she wouldn't even consider to even dream of dreaming of having. He counted himself lucky to have gained her trust – even if, sometimes, he wasn't sure if he actually had gained that (the name Rivkin came to mind) – and he counted himself lucky to be her friend. Any possibility of anything else had died the summer she spent in Somalia, also known as the summer-that-shall-not-be-named. Or mentioned. Or thought about, such as right then.

It reminded him of how impossibly, agonizingly fortunate he was that she was still there, in front of him, and within touching distance. And that reminder encouraged vividly – and very convincingly – his next actions, which was one of the reasons he avoided thinking about it.

"We should-" He breathed, swallowing dry and feeling sluggishly hypnotized. "We should add that five brothers part to- to the search…" His face was inches from hers when his voice trailed off, and the encouragement of those thoughts kicked in.

She licked her lips. "Mh-hm." She agreed quietly. Two inches.

The door slammed open and they jumped apart, heads snapping toward the source of the noise. Gibbs raised his eyebrows, and McGee, behind him, looked from one to the other as if wondering what had been happening, exactly. "Interrupted something?" Gibbs asked casually, entering the room without bothering to look at either of them. McGee followed more slowly.

"No, Boss, nothing. Uh, Ginny Potter has five brothers." Tony, refusing to look at Ziva, hurriedly said, flustered.

"We… haven't found anything related to that." McGee frowned at the two. Still giving sideways glances at Ziva's turned back, he addressed Tony. "But we got the information on them."

Tony's eyebrows were still aiming downwards as he turned to look at the couple holding hands in front of the mirror, needing to avoid McGee's gaze. He rubbed the back of his head, apparently subconsciously.

McGee came up with four very thin files. After glancing at Tony one last time, Ziva decided to take point, since he seemed too distracted to remember.

Ziva took two of the files and Tony snapped out of it to take the other two once he saw her doing it, since Gibbs and McGee had obviously already read them. Come to think of it, she had never known Gibbs to have stayed in the same room without a proper reason before – that was a first. Or maybe he was just waiting to see if anything happened while Ginny was in the interrogation room.

She opened the file in her hands. It belonged to Harry – and it was incredibly short.

There was a birth certificate – Lilly Evans, the mother, was listed. No father in record, and no clue where his name had come from. Then, he'd disappeared; until age one, when he suddenly appeared in the system again. A death certificate of his mother was presented, to Ziva's quiet horror – no cause listed. And then, everything seemed perfectly normal for a child's bringing up with his uncle and aunt. Right up until he was eleven.

At the end of that summer, he just disappeared from records – no school, no nothing. And then, he came back, next summer, in occasional purchases and other meaningless things. And that pattern repeated itself for the next seven years, until he disappeared again the summer of '97 and never surfaced again, not in anything relevant.

Stunned, Ziva turned the last page several times, as if expecting writing to begin appearing with each of her movements. "Nothing else?" She asked McGee in bewilderment.

He shook his head in conviction. His behavior suggested he'd checked several times. "Nothing. And, believe it or not, that's the fullest file of the four – except maybe for Mrs. Weasley's." McGee had been the one to be corrected on the name he used for Hermione.

"He's right." Tony's voice carried to her, and she turned to him to find his eyes on her already. "I got the Weasley siblings – zilch." He waved the file in front of her face. "Birth certificate, issued a couple of years ago to the both of them, no parents listed. Marriage certificate too to the two, and besides that – I got nothing."

"That is impossible." Ziva said, frowning. To his delight, however, she didn't try to double-check him, instead opening her other file, presumably on Hermione Weasley, nee Granger.

Stunned, she said aloud. "Perfectly regular birth certificate with both parents. Normal education and records until the age of eleven, where she takes up the same pattern as Potter and appears and disappears again every summer. And then," She read further. "She vanished completely, at exactly the same time Potter did."

There was silence for a while, as the agents digested this. "Is- Is it even possible to just- disappear like this?" Ziva asked, looking around at her teammates.

Gibbs was sipping his coffee and staring at the Potters, as if completely ignoring everyone else in the room, though she knew better. Tony was staring at her, and before she could get too involved in that, she turned her head away to spot McGee – no longer invested in discovering what exactly had gone on inside the room between her and her partner – running a hand through his hair, as if her question somehow physically distressed him.

"Up until today… I would've said no..." He glanced at the files. "But now… I don't know. It's like…" He trailed off.

"Magic." Gibbs, apparently done with his coffee as he dumped in the bin, finished McGee's sentence flatly, walking through them toward the door. "McGee, run the Grangers and Lilly Eva-"

He was cut short by a shriek outside the door. "STOP! You can't do this!"

Ziva's blood chilled when he recognized Abby's voice and the clear distress it rang with. Gibbs immediately ran out the door, gun halfway out of its holster before he'd taken a step –and he took pretty fast steps. The rest of the team mimicked him, and they spilled into the hall in the smallest semblance of organization they managed to achieve in their abruptness.

And they found Abby pointing an accusing finger at… a wooden stick. Particularly, one of the sticks they'd taken from the three trespassers that same morning. Which was hovering, in mid-air, still in an evidence bag, and trying to burst open the door to the interrogation room where Mrs. Weasley was being held. By hitting it, repeatedly, with its tip – it wasn't really working.

Tony had no idea if he ought to point the gun at the stick, the door, Mrs. Weasley, or himself.

He opened and closed his mouth several times, and no one seemed inclined to explain anything, since everyone, including Gibbs, was doing the same while staring at the small, carved branch. Abby seemed a little less like she'd been hit with a stun gun, though, probably since she'd visibly been following the thing all the way from her lab - where it should still have been.

"Uh, Boss?" Tony called weakly, hand shaking – not from the familiar weight of his weapon. "How about we give the Director's explanation another shot, huh?"

Gibbs didn't answer. Instead, he strolled forward – and for the first time in his life, Tony saw Gibbs hesitating before making a move – and then firmly grasped the offending piece of wood. When it made nothing explode, or turn everything pink, or some other horrible thing, Tony was almost shocked speechless. Then he turned, and marched off in the direction of Jenny's office. Everyone else, including an unusually quiet Abby, followed.

Gibbs ignored Cynthia and blasted open the office's door once he got there. Abby closed it gently when she entered last, but the room still rang with the sound, because Gibbs' presence was nothing if not imposing and attention-calling.

Their entrance had obviously interrupted something Ducky was about to say, and the two people in there were staring at them in silence. Gibbs stepped forward and dropped the evidence in Jenny's desk, where it fell still, obviously no longer attempting to go to its owner.

The silence was thick and heavy, and Gibbs' only fiery angered words didn't help matters any. "Explain. Now."

It was an invitation for her to spill any bullshit that Gibbs would never believe in unless he'd seen the flying wand (Tony refused to ignore reality any further – pretty mature for a guy who congratulates himself on maturely naming something in his head. Even if that something was a freaking wand).

And for the rest of the day, the almost… something with Ziva became unimportant.

Jenny took off her glasses warily, sitting at her desk. Ducky had fallen silent, seemingly willing to see where the water would flow. He probably figured he'd get his answers more easily if it was Gibbs doing the questioning.

Ziva scrutinized the tired-looking woman behind the mahogany desk. Her eyes were fixed on Gibbs, and she could see that though she'd tried to maintain a carelessly detached position regarding both the… magic, and the apparent problem with their memories, the whole ordeal was getting to her more than she was showing.

She looked ready to break, and Gibbs must have sensed that too, because his aggressive, stiffened posture relaxed the tiniest fraction. But she knew he had no intention of leaving the matter unfinished.

Tony was looking edgily from one of his bosses to the other. For a moment, she felt as though she wouldn't be surprised if he started balancing on his tip-toes. McGee was chewing on his cheek, and Ducky was staring in silence. Abby was still staring at the piece of wood she'd probably been analyzing, and her glare and dark mutterings promised the offending item a nasty future. It'd run off on Abby, now it had to pay the consequences.

Wow. Maybe Ziva had hit her head. Those thoughts were hardly normal.

Gibbs broke the silence again to make his dramatic entrance a little less of a… well, dramatic thing. "Jenny. I want to know what's going on."

She rubbed her forehead and she was suddenly a young woman in love with her partner again. She met Gibbs' eyes with a pained gaze. "I told you. I am not lying. And I am sorry."

For some reason, something in Ziva's mind raised alarm at her tone and expression. Certain memories of just a few months previously shot forward in a desperate attempt at being recognized first.

Jenny… Jenny had been in a right depressed state. Those memories manifested themselves clearly then, for some reason. Ziva frowned. Gibbs had been worried and distracted about her, the whole team could tell. Ziva had caught him several times staring at the director's door with an unexpressive face. Then he'd look straight at her with a raised eyebrow, and her head would snap back to her work.

The look on the director's face then was similar to the anguished glances she'd thrown them all back then. She'd mostly gaze at Gibbs with sad eyes, as if willing him to do… what? She could not think of a plausible explanation - but she'd given those looks at Tony, McGee and her as well.

Memories.

Her brain was as if mocking her. You know why she was upset. It taunted her amusedly. Why do you think you're remembering this, reliving this, right now?

"A few months ago…" Ziva said, as if in a daze. Every previously silent head in the room snapped to her - but she registered that in a very remote part of her brain. "We… We did something…" She struggled to get out. As if looking through someone else's eyes, her mind numbly told her that Jenny had wide, desperate, and hopeful eyes trained directly on her.

Her heartbeat was quickening, her breaths were shortening and her blood ran too hot for her to concentrate on what she was saying. It was as if her own body was fighting her as she spoke and struggled to- to- remember…

They'd… They'd been through all of this before… Jenny explaining, Tony mocking it, Gibbs looking ready to kill someone and the same expression of calm in Harry's eyes.

Gibbs' expression of betrayal at memory- at memory erasing and Jenny- a red-rimmed Jenny- a red-rimmed Jenny apologizing and- and kissing Gibbs to stop his protests…

And-

Someone's warm lips… Contentment and a frenzy of emotions… Gibbs head-slapping her and… and who?

A body pressed deliciously close to her… Moaning and groaning and her name, repeated again and again and Tony, God!

Ziva, Ziva… Her name, again and again… Ziva… ZIVA!

"Ziva!"