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

"You wanna tell us what's going on, like, now?" Tony wheezed at Harry, barely holding himself straight as he slipped on a loose rock.

He had no idea what they were doing. At all. After Harry's head-ache inducing run to the front of the building, the wizard had slipped inside the darkness of the nearest back alley. Then, he'd grasped Gibbs and Tony's arms and vanished into thin air.

By the time he'd gone and come back with McGee and Ziva in tow (and Harry didn't look anywhere near glad that he was wasting so much time, which made Tony wonder why he'd even bothered to bring the MCRT along), Tony was unashamedly wheezing and stumbling back and forth while McGee kept running his hands through his neck, face unnaturally white.

Obviously, the Israeli and their boss behaved a tad better, but Tony was firm in his belief that he at least saw Ziva gagging and Gibbs over-sweating. Naturally, Apparition dropped low enough on Tony's forbidden-transportation list to beat even his partner's driving.

Now, they were climbing what appeared to be some sort of hill toward an unknown (at least for the NCIS team) destination, and Tony wasn't very cheerful about it. His suit was way more than wrinkled (Harry hadn't exactly let them change clothes) and he was afraid of looking down at his shoes.

Ziva glanced behind her and she smirked at his harassed figure. Of course she did. She was a Mossad-trained assassin brought up to live through the desert. She was striding easily along, lacking any sort of visible barrier to keeping up with Harry with no trouble.

Well, his mother always did say he picked girls all wrong.

He eyed the facilitated view of Ziva's backside. Then again, there were other perks that more than compensated for it.

Harry barely glanced back at his question. He just kept trudging along feverishly, and the rest of them better keep up or else. "We're going to find Ginny."

Well, that was helpful. But Tony wasn't complaining, because that was the first thing he'd said since the last spell – which was some sort of silvery animal bursting out of the wizard's wand and taking off. Tony had had to hurry to be able to catch up with everyone else, since he'd been so prone on staring.

"That's great." He groaned, rubbing his chest against the soreness. The problem wasn't as much the physical effort as it was its continuity. "It's also very unhelpful, but, you know, great."

Harry managed to produce half-a-glare to the senior agent between three-foot long steps. "She mentioned the time when she said she hated me…" He began with a short, clipped voice, swatting away some sort of bug that passed him.

"When you took a break or something." Gibbs said, the first thing that had left his mouth so far.

Harry nodded curtly in front of them, not turning. "Yeah. That's what she said. Except not really."

"Huh?" McGee panted out – Tony guessed it was the only sound he could make. He was, unsurprisingly, at the end of the group, behind Tony, and, since the effort of turning his head was too great, the senior agent didn't glance at him.

"We did break up, once." Harry explained further. "But she didn't tell me she hated me then. She told me she hated me on another occasion."

Tony was half-listening to him. He could see the top of the mountain, and, all due respect and worry to Ginny, he was really, really eager to get there.

Ziva nudged him sharply on the ribs to attract his attention to the branch he'd been about to get whipped with. He dodged out of the way so that he was no longer walking directly against it. After that, he decided to increase the focus he was offering to his senses.

"More specifically, she told me she hated me there." He pointed to the spot Tony's eyes had been trained on. He could she a large boulder that was just begging to be used as a bench. "When I said I'd been here before, and not gone visited her." The raised eyebrows Harry's statement was met with prompted his additional sentence. "I'd been on the run for months by then. Hadn't seen her as long as that."

Nobody asked why he'd been running, or of what.

"But, what, she lived near here?" Ziva asked, looking around with a frown. All she could see was open air and lively grass, sometimes dotted with the cheerful tree, and no habitations anywhere. The sky was sufficiently clear for her to see for several miles around, even.

"Over there" Harry pointed somewhere east. "is the Burrow."

"I'm pretty sure it's illegal to hop continents like this every couple of hours." Gibbs drawled, pushing away a branch to be able to continue forward.

"Maybe in the Muggle world." Harry muttered, seemingly fully intent on paying actual attention on walking (climbing something seriously steep, in Tony's dictionary) instead of talking.

"So… what, she told you she hated you up there. And?" Tony asked, using short sentences for once, which was a proof of how much he did need to hit the gym.

"So," Harry continued. "when we did end things, we were at Hogwarts, nowhere near here. She was giving me a clue. Whatever happened to her, it's got something to do with this place." He seemed determined to believe it.

"Okay." McGee said slowly. "But then, if you broke it off at… Hogwarts" He struggled to be able to get the word out. "she could have easily be referring to there. Why mention two places?" He questioned, wanting, just like the rest of the team, to clear out any mismatching details this whole confusion brought on.

"Because that was the only way she could think of telling me that wasn't covered by the Vow." Harry answered tersely, obviously still cautious in his conclusions from her sentence. Either way, he ploughed on, answering McGee's question firmly. "She can't mention this place either directly or indirectly." He managed a small smile, even looking back at the four of them. "So she didn't. She only mentioned Hogwarts. Her sentence, in the context, wasn't weird at all, and she never broke the Unbreakable Vow by saying it." He renewed his speed, looking more confident after speaking his theory aloud. "Besides, it's impossible to be taken at Hogwarts nowadays."

Instead of asking why, everyone figured it was just not worth the time and mental effort to question everything that was said by wizards.

"So you think she was taken here?" Tony asked, interest momentarily soothing his discomfort.

"Maybe."

"But she said she was kidnapped in that street you talked about." Gibbs brought up, approaching Harry more, and clearly more unwilling to say magical names than his teammates.

Harry shrugged. "I never bought that. Like I said, it's all covered by the Vow. It's more likely that she was taken somewhere else entirely. This place seems good enough." He said, eyes racking around and taking in everything he could as he kept on briskly.

"How do you know what's covered by the Vow?"

"Guessed." He answered curtly. "If it were me, I'd make sure not to leave any loose ends either." He elaborated to Gibbs' glare.

Silence followed his sentence, until McGee had a rare bout of social inspiration and changed the subject. "W hen did this happen, anyway? When she told you she hated you, I mean." He added quickly, when Harry threw him an annoyed and disbelieving look.

He blinked, not expecting the question, before turning back again. "We came here on a walk not long after… after the end of everything. I told her when I'd been here. Big mistake." He mustered a slight grin that he flashed them for half-a-second.

"Did a number on you, did she?"

"Oh, yeah. But only after kissing me, which followed telling me she hated me."

"Conflicted lady."

Ziva rolled her eyes at the quips. Tony just could not stay serious for long.

Then she nearly stumbled to the ground when a house appeared, seemingly completely and utterly out of nowhere (this time literally out of nowhere) right in front of her.

"Oh, yeah." Harry remembered, and his tone was closer to the one belonging to the cheerful young man she'd become accustomed to over the past few days. "Probably should've told you that was there."

Ziva breathed slowly through her nose. It wouldn't do to attack Harry out of the black. She opened her eyes again to find Tony raising his eyebrows with a funny face at her and Gibbs staring at the house. Her boss seemed to be wondering whether inanimate objects would react like people did to one of his glares.

"This is Luna's childhood home." Harry continued, and she caught a grin, which told her he seemed to be feeling better, even if it was at the team's expense. "It's protected against Muggle sighting, which is why you only noticed it now. I think her father still lives here." He mused as an after-thought. With the stories she'd caught (partially) from Ducky and Luna the previous evening, Ziva believed it.

"Yes, well, I reckon we're not here for courtesy visits." A gruff voice suddenly spoke behind them.

Ron and Hermione were standing there, frowns on their darkened faces. Their stances were all business, and Tony guessed that the animal-thingy had been sent to them, with some sort of message.

"Harry!" Hermione said sharply with a scowl. "Why did you bring them?" She gestured to the MCRT, and Ziva found himself straightening and bristling. "I don't mean to insult you, but it's both dangerous and a liability to be bringing Muggles with us!"

"Wasn't a liability when all those kids got home to find dinner instead of wizards with a superiority complex." Harry reminded her, hardly playing attention as he stared at the ground attentively. "Now help me find something – anything at all, really – that might be any clue what-so-ever."

And that's how they spent the next ten minutes – the longest amount of time Harry allowed to be wasted. He called it sufficient – Ziva called it unproductive. But then, Hermione demanded that they all take a break, refusing to listen to Harry's protests ('We need to wait for backup anyway – no, we can't storm a building full of unfriendly killers twenty-to-one – because when we broke into the Ministry, not all the people there were aiming to murder us in cold blood!').

Apparently, she and Ron had climbed from the other side, because, according to her, the higher you tried to Apparate, the harder it was. Although both the Muggles and the wizards (even Hermione, regardless of her logic) looked disgruntled about it, they agreed to rest for a bit – even if it was fifteen minutes tops.

Despite being better than Tony (who was being his whinny self), she was still sore from the walk up there. Gibbs, out of everyone else, was the only one that stayed standing, and DiNozzo probably expected her to do the same. Well, she expected herself to do the same. So, when she found herself plopping to the grass next to her partner and a few feet off the rest of the group, she was only a little less surprised at the action than he was.

He gasped in mock-shock, slapping a hand over his heart. "Ziva David! Did you just indirectly admit tiredness?"

"If you do not shut up, I will get you to directly admit pain." She warned, grinning when he huffed out a hissing breath at the contact her elbow made with his arm.

"Touché."

But, instead of letting her arm fall next to her after hitting him, she let it slide, allowing her fingers to sneak into his. She made sure their hands were out of Gibbs' sight.

He wasn't grinning anymore, but he was smiling broadly in blatant and quiet (the silence, to anyone that took a look at his expression, would be surprising – if he wasn't yelling, his face certainly was) boasting. Instead of annoying, she found his teenage-like enthusiasm endearing. It probably didn't help that she understood what he was feeling out of personal experience.

She risked a glance at the rest of their climbing party. No one was looking at them, so she felt bold enough to drop her head on his shoulder. Still, she was careful not remain at least partially hidden next to his side.

She felt a pair of warm lips brush her forehead. "You know, we're not being particularly inconspicuous." He murmured with a grin – and then he pulled her closer, effectively stripping any meaning of his words.

She snuck a sly look at him. "Like you care." She retorted, cheek buried in his chest.

Of course he didn't. And neither did she. Physical proximity to him was the last thing she'd complain about.

He grinned unabashedly, shamelessly confirming her words. Maybe subconsciously, they retracted gradually to a place where Gibbs' view of the two was fully impeded by the house. Only then did she relax.

For a few seconds, they shared a little moment of silence and peace, as if they could pretend they weren't getting up in a few minutes to go God-knew-where to fight something they'd hardly fought before. Somehow, the hand that wasn't holding hers went to her hair, and her curls slowly became straighter and shinier with his movements. She found herself leaning more and more against him, until her weight was supported almost in totality by his body.

Of course he had to be the one to shatter the peace and quiet. "So, I've been thinking." He began.

She sighed, straightening. She felt colder without the full support of his frame underneath her. "Of course you have."

He made a face at her, and she had to laugh at it. Only when he decided that the mood was relaxed enough again, did he restart to speak. "When this case is over…" She stared expectantly, waiting for him to conclude his trailed-off sentence when he stole an apprehensive glance at her.

She recognized that look. He'd been wearing it since they'd left The Burrow yesterday. It was mostly there when Mary was around, but she had caught him several times distracted, wondering and thoughtful (as his partner, she had spent quite a lot of time with him before; now, she spent even more, so she could safely make that statement). It was getting to a point that, should he fail to reach out to her about it, she would demand that he speak herself.

Now, apparently, he was doing the former, so she decided not to make it even more difficult. He looked like he was struggling with something, and she was both appreciative that he was asking advice and smug that he was asking it to her.

"Yes?" She asked softly, so as not to startle him out of his thoughts.

Tony sat up properly, crossing his legs (this was the lowest she'd seen him treat one of his suits – even if there was a - magically appeared - blanket under him) and looking down with a wary frown. "Mary lost her family." He started up again, glancing briefly at his partner, who had a lost look on her face, lacking the ability to pinpoint where he was going with this. "And… I don't think her uncles or aunts, or even her grandparents, are ready or able to… to raise another eight-year-old. And that's not to mention her… abilities." He scratched the back of his head, face betraying the look of a wide-eyed puppy with no clue of his direction.

And, creeping toward her very slowly, like a curtain revealing pieces of the scenery bit by bit, it sluggishly dawned on Ziva what Tony was heading toward saying.

"I just think…" He trailed off, eyes unfocusing on the horizon. "Maybe… I mean, she seems to genuinely like me…"

Ziva's head tilted to the side when she stared in awe, open-mouthed, at her partner. "You would like to adopt her." Ziva dazedly said in absolute wonder.

She didn't even begin to think what kind of feelings that statement brought up in her. Her mild fantasy about a family – with Tony, obviously – returned, this time more insistent, more demanding, more within reach. Her hand, almost of its own accord, gravitated to his (she didn't remember letting go).

Tony was intently scrutinizing her expression – for what, she didn't know. Whichever fears were plaguing him, the feel of her fingers squeezing his seemed to subside them, and she saw the tiny flicker of hope in his wild eyes.

But then he looked away, as if reality had crashed back onto him. "No- I mean, yes, but- I don't know." He said tersely. She could almost see him tensing, pulling back – and she experienced a rather mixed feeling. Frustration was about the only thing she could identify. She wanted him to have no boundaries when speaking to her – wanted him to talk to her freely and allow her to help. Except that his stony face didn't point in that direction at all.

Good God. Was this what people felt when she closed herself to the world, closed the door on everyone? She really wondered, right at that moment, why it was that some people still didn't give up on trying to open a window to her whenever that happened – she was at it for five minutes and she was rendered completely helpless.

"Tony-" She said. When he turned back to her, she found her expression bright and her eyebrows raised. "For what it is worth – I think you have it in you to raise a great little girl. And," She added, when he didn't seem completely satisfied or convinced. "I think Mary would like that very much."

That was it – the trigger. His eyes were wide and (now definitely) hopeful. His fingers made his hair unkempt as he ran them through it nervously, and she wondered what was going through his mind.

What he said next, however, was possibly the last thing she'd bet on. "Would you adopt her with me?" He blurted out, apparently out of the blue – or possibly the heat of the moment.

For a moment, she let her control falter and her mouth fall open in shock. What was he asking of her? Did he realize what those words brought up in her mind? All the things she'd thought over the years about him, all her wishes of creating a family, of settling down with something permanent, never made possible because – always because – of her work.

And- And with him. God. If anyone had asked her who she saw herself grounding with, the last person on her mind would be Tony. Even after she had acknowledged her feelings, she would still refuse to think of him. He was just so… unpredictable.

Except, when it came to trust, he had most of the amount she had to give. She knew she could rely on him. She knew she could close her eyes and give him her hand, and he'd keep her safe.

Still, this was something serious. He was proposing a commitment that could not be taken lightly. It was alright for him – he'd obviously been pondering it for days. She had just had the bombshell dropped in her lap.

His eyes were already widening in realization of what he'd just said. He was coming to understand the full extent of his words, and more than ready to backpedal. But – he stayed silent.

Besides, she knew that if he needed an excuse, he'd provide the fact that an adoption would be more warmly looked upon if it was a couple – and there was a good chance that his odds would not be improved by his professional occupation, so he would likely need it. Even if her own job didn't exactly help matters.

But she didn't say any of that. She stayed honest and uncovered – which was not exactly a regular occurrence.

"Yes." So she couldn't tell who was more dumbstruck at her mumbled answer.

Feverishly (and Gibbs being hardly the first thing on their minds), she all but threw herself at him, hands grasping his brown hair in what he considered an almost painful gesture.

He was still getting used to the feeling of kissing her – the sensation of pure delight that overtook him was entirely too new to be properly controlled.

Tony had already found the reason they'd skirted around the subject of… them for so long. There was no way the damn would close now – their interactions had left him aching with a kind of longing that made anything else seem stale and tasteless in comparison. If this fell through (and he was too fiery about not letting that happen), he knew that he would take everything back, and she'd take everything back, and he'd never be able to look at her again without a gut-wrenching pain that made it worthless to try. So, logically, that just couldn't happen.

And he couldn't, for the life of him, figure out how she managed to have that kind of effect on him (though he pretty much had the 'why' down) from just one kiss. She made him think all of that, made his head whirl so bad, just because she could press her body to him, just because she could smile and peck his lips, and just because she somehow knew exactly how to push his buttons.

God, he was completely and utterly in love with her. And it was turning him into a cheesy moron. At least he was sure of one thing: this would definitely not fall through.

And the conclusion to all of this was that he was reminded of why he'd very much enjoyed their night of fervent disregard for their respective asses, if Gibbs ever found out.

Except he'd have to, didn't he? If they were going through with something as serious as this – if they were adopting a child – Gibbs would have to be informed. Because an adoption meant a connection that had to be prepared to last, since you don't bring a kid to a crumbling bridge. For the first time, he started to really see the ramifications of his question and her answer. They had both been heartfelt, even if in the heat of the moment, he knew. And he also knew that this was very, very serious, and that they had a great many things to figure out, and fast.

For now, though, kissing Ziva was about enough.

"What was that for?" He breathed, gasping as she pulled back. That was a poor summary of everything that had gone through his head, but it would have to do.

She grinned, her clothes rumpled and her neck marked, and she planted her head on his shoulder. "It is what Americans do in movies when they are excited or happy about something, is it not?"

He had no idea what made him say it. It was as if a temporarily clouding fog had filled his mind and made him concentrate on little things that drew his next words out.

Like the way her lips were swollen from his bites and licks. And the fact that she'd just agreed to adopt a child with him. Or the way her hair still half-preserved the mark of his hand tangled in it, or maybe the unbuttoned top of her shirt that she still hadn't noticed. Maybe her eyes were too bright for him to focus, too warm for him not too feel warm as well. The quiet space around him was pretty damn beautiful too. Her comment probably helped too.

Either way, his next words came out in a trance no one could break or stop.

"I love you."

There was a sharp intake of breath (he wasn't sure if his or hers) and her head whipped around to him, eyes wide in alarm.

For seconds her eyes flashed and flickered with several unrecognizable thoughts, and it seemed like so long that he was ready to make a joke out of it all.

But maybe his trance was a little bit contagious – just a little – because her eyes suddenly gained a glazed over aspect and her hand shakily reached forward to his face, slowly and deliberately. Her fingers lightly traced the outline of his jaw and she seemed to be driven by the same urge that he'd been driven by. "I… love you, too, Tony."

Had he really gone from no girlfriend to adopting a child with the girl he was now exchanging love declarations with in less than a day? Maybe he was better with women than his mother thought after all. On top of that, he had no idea when they'd started to be so damn soul-bearing about their feelings – weren't they the ones who couldn't seem to speak openly to each other in some way that was not riddles?

He kissed her again – he liked that he could do it whenever he wanted. The exhilaration of both their words wouldn't be burning itself out anytime soon, and he was very happy about living with that.

"Well," He breathed when they pulled back for air. "I certainly have no objections to doing this again. Any of it." He beamed, and, like a child on a sugar rush, he became hyperactive that he was getting everything he wanted and then some. "In fact, I feel pretty stupid about not doing it before."

She was chuckling, her mood hardly different from his, when his last sentence brought up something in her mind, and she stopped abruptly, frowning. Her head turned sharply to him, a calculating expression on her face.

Tony waited patiently for her to spit out whatever was bothering her – she seemed to be struggling with what words to use. "I… I must tell you something…" She started warily, and he raised his eyebrows – the endeavors that Gibbs would have his head for were now officially stopped. "We have- we have done this before. We were dating, I think, when our memories were erased."

He was starting to get a funny feeling that she just thought that bombshells were fun to drop.

"What now?" His dry mouth resembled that of a fish.

She nodded slowly, eyeing him, as if uneasy about his reaction. "When Harry came and we searched him, you… uh, you found a picture of him and his godson in his pocket. Teddy, I think it is his name. And…" Now the words were starting to rush out of her mouth, much like when she had a flashback and revisited the emotions of the actual happenings. "And we had just had an argument about something I do not even remember, and both our tempers were flying high-"

"Running high." He muttered, but she didn't even seem fazed by his correction, in the middle of her feverish rant.

"-and you pulled me away from everyone else and you just…" Her face was fully red as she stopped short from the end of her sentence. She finally turned to face him fully, even if avoiding his amused (now that the shock had worn off) eyes. "The point is: that is what I meant by the question I asked Hermione after I was done playing a baby the other day." Tony managed to distractedly roll his eyes at that. Only Ziva would nearly die, then cry bloody murder for having shown weakness.

Well, die, lose her mind, it was about the same to him. She'd be gone and that was unacceptable – pretty straight-forward.

"You told me that you… you wanted to have what you wanted." She said, stumbling over her words in hesitation. "So you did. I, uh… went home with you that night. And the wizards came the next day for the memories." He decided not to dwell on that subject, preferring to focus on her redness.

Then he remembered something else she'd said back in Jenny's office with Hermione, and he suddenly had an even better distraction. "So, that was the big thing that changed when Harry and Ron came?" He asked, smirking in delight at her. "Unbelievable. You just can't keep your hands off of me.

She rolled her eyes, but her cheeks were still flaming a little, which just made his grin widen. "You are an idiot. Come on," She sighed, standing up. "we should join them again."