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

It was Ziva who ended up finding their connection between Ginny's kidnapping and that place. And it was, besides thoroughly disgusting, completely by chance.

"Gibbs?" She'd called suddenly and in poorly concealed queasiness, stopping in her tracks behind Tony and eyes trained on the ground. She didn't stumble back, but that appeared to have happened only with sheer will force. "M- Maybe you should take a look at this."

It turned out that Ziva's hawk-like gaze had spotted an eye.

Time out, stop, backtrack – say that again?

Ziva might have had kept her composure, but when Tony saw what she was looking at, he had no such qualms. He quickly put ten feet between himself and the blue orbit, encouraging Ziva to do the same by tugging on her jacket. The little, frankly gag-inducing thing was covered in dirt, as if it had been dug up – and quite recently, too.

Gibbs briskly walked to where they stood, Harry hot on his heels, and, when he spotted the eye, he said nothing, did nothing – just turned to the wizard for an explanation. Their boss was so used to it by now that he wasn't even feeling self-conscious about not holding all the cards in his hand.

One look at it, and Harry released such a colorful, inventing and completely confusing choice of swear words that Tony just stared for a few seconds in fascination, trying to absorb as much as he could.

Then he picked it up, Ron and Hermione's stormy scowls flanking him, and Tony saw McGee's complexion turn an unnatural shade of green.

"What is that?" Tony managed to demand in a half-commanding voice, watching Harry carefully wipe the eye clean with a piece of cloth he'd produced out of (where else) thin air.

Harry glowered at the ground the object had been found in. "It's Mad-Eye's eye." He ground out.

"Such a fitting name."

"I'm going to rephrase DiNozzo's question: what is it doing here, what's the story behind it, and how can it help us?" Gibbs growled, fed up with this waiting game. They should be trying to get Ginny by now, but apparently the reinforcements took a while. He was filled with pure annoyance, and he knew Harry was just as frustrated.

"I have no idea what it's doing here." Harry began, already walking off again and kicking some leafs into the air, making them hover slightly. "The last time I saw this, I was burying it next to a completely random tree in a completely random forest in a completely random act of respect."

Hermione rolled her eyes, taking off after her friend with Ron in tow. The MCRT was left to half-haphazardly catch up while Harry paced around with the air of someone who'd like to pull off all his hair. "It belonged to an old… mentor of ours. He passed away, and his body was desecrated." Hermione explained, looking sour and upset at the subject. "Harry took it upon himself to recover the only thing he could find and pay his respect by burying it properly." Her voice was saddened and sober by the end, and she took a moment before restarting. "We could maybe visit that tree Harry mentioned?" Hermione suggested, but her voice was unsure and half-hearted.

"Right. If only they hurried." Harry snapped, doing a three-sixty to briefly glare at his female friend. She huffed at him, crossing her arms and sitting down.

"But – an eye?" Tony prompted, both morbidly curious and aiming to deflate the serious mood (that didn't fit him at all).

"Sort of like your glass eyes. But it actually sees." For that answer, Tony was thankful he could no longer appreciate the sight of the thing.

"Right." The senior agent answered warily. "So-"

His sentence was cut off by a shrill shout from not so far away. "We're here! We're here! Sorry we're late, but you just can't Apparate up here with all this equipment. Why didn't you go down?" This was all said before the small group approaching them was within analyzing distance.

Tony was unsurprised to say that he recognized each and every one of them from the dinner party. Every single one of Ginny's brothers was there, and Audrey as well (according to what he remembered, Fleur and Angelina had both been pregnant, assuming his memories were all fine and dandy). Then there was Dennis and Luna, and Neville and Hannah (names he was very proud to remember), and they were all carrying backpacks. Big, heavy-looking backpacks.

"Why didn't we?" Harry turned quickly to Hermione, but he was already distributing the fastest greetings Tony had ever seen.

"Rest, remember?" She reminded him, with a characteristic extended amount of patience. Then she turned to the newcomers with a disproving expression. "I didn't know you'd be bringing so much; I thought Ron and I had enough. I imagined you'd be able to Apparate directly here! Now you are the ones tired." She was about to say something else, but Harry interrupted her harshly.

"Oh, no, we are so not waiting any longer. Let's go." And he Disapparated on the spot.

The rest of the group stood very still for about two seconds. "Oh, for Merlin's sake." Ron grabbed Gibbs (who was nearest) and followed his friend.

Hermione sighed in resignation. "Anyone with lighter package take one of the Muggles." And she pushed McGee toward Luna, stating the name of the forest they were supposed to be going to loud enough for everyone to hear. Luna smiled reassuringly at the nervous-looking McGee while Hemione instructed that they follow whichever clue Harry had left (she said she knew he'd leave a big one) to the right place. Without question, Luna nodded and left.

The same couldn't, however, be said for the others. "Why are we bringing Muggles with us?" George pointedly crossed his arms with a frown – he wasn't looking so cheerful anymore.

Tony was opening his mouth to reply when Hermione beat him to it with a haste and irritated retort. "Ask Harry. And, besides," She added, deflating at the look on Tony and Ziva's face. "they'll probably be plenty prepared for us, which we can't say for ourselves. Basically, they probably won't expect Muggles, so we're bringing them." She replied shortly.

Tony was growing pissed and impatient. They didn't know if the fight had started and they didn't have time to waste. The five that had gone already were back-up-less and Tony was less than pleased about it. One look at Ziva and he knew she shared the same thoughts.

Hermione shoved him toward George and he almost stumbled. "Here. Go!" She ordered.

And Tony's arm was grabbed, and, for the second time that day, he Apparated. It appeared as though he was different from most people – he was most definitely not getting used to the feeling.

After he dry-heaved and gagged and generally embarrassed himself in front of George, he was ushered through the green trees. He tripped on broken branches, trapped leaves in his shoes, gave an artistic make-over (the kind that involved lots of tears and stains) to a (very) good suit while on George's heels, who was following something apparently invisible to Tony.

"Why haven't the others caught up yet?" He managed to ask once they weren't in an area where the noise (animal or human – such as nearby factories or something of the sort - alike) made conversation impossible.

George glanced at him, and Tony was privately smug that he seemed to be taking the hike better than the wizard was. Maybe his kind really didn't rely much on physical exercise.

The one-eared man shook his head. "They wouldn't catch up. It'd be a hell of a coincidence if they Apparated to where we did. No one but the Trio knows where this place is – we just came to the forest, and it isn't like it's so small we'd end up all together. We're following Harry's lead to the right spot." He figured it was pointless to get an explanation to this invisible lead, so he just went with the flow and dutifully followed George's footsteps.

He eyed the backpack on George's back. "Isn't there a spell to shrink things, or make them lighter?" Tony asked, both because he was hardly one to keep silent and because he was actually curious.

George batted away a branch in front of his face with the ease of a Beater (it wasn't like it was unexpected that Tony would remember names like that, so he wasn't even gloating over it). "Because it's material from my joke shop." He answered, pushing away his derivative thoughts. "Spells don't tend to have the desired effect when you use them on these wonders."

He patted his bag affectionately, and Tony was almost reminded of his more normal behavior the previous night. The senior agent was also reminded of his personal oath (the kind of which was apparently a big thing for these people) to never, ever, touch anything even remotely resembling one of George's products.

It didn't take long, and suddenly they were bursting through some last bushes to the middle of a lot of people – or maybe the space was just too overcrowded. He immediately saw Harry, for the simple reason that the guy was practically growling in frustration from (obviously) not finding Ginny there. Everyone else was scattered as far from each other as they could (one foot, tops), frowning and contemplating the trees as if the plants would somehow spit out the red-hair.

Tony got a touch apprehensive. All this was leaving him uneasy, and he knew that, had Harry been paying more attention, been less distracted by his wife missing, the wizard would have been feeling the same foredoom.

Ziva was, obviously, the first to find him. Of course, she'd arrived first, because her 'ride' (Hermione) had a clearer idea of the place they were going to. They exchanged terse comments, too distracted and uneasy for more, hands dropped would-be-casually on their holsters.

He spotted Gibbs, tight-lipped (the Boss' gut was never wrong when he was scowling like that, and Tony didn't take comfort in the fact that he wasn't alone in his worry) near McGee. Good, that made sure they were partnered with people they knew how to deal with.

With a pang, Tony suddenly remembered everyone back at the Yard – they'd taken off without a word of explanation and he only hoped they'd assume another crime scene. Unless, of course, Jenny decided to reveal that they currently had no case, and cause the mass panic on everyone else – a mass panic that the director was very likely already feeling.

This was going great, really. Now to deal with the psychotic death eating bad guys (and that was just disgusting) and this day would surely end on a positive note.

Tony had that last thought, and then all hell broke loose.

Somehow, there apparently was room for more people, because they were startled by the appearance of God-knew how many (Tony hardly cared to count) hooded figures. Without any warning or sound whatsoever, lights - of every available color of the rainbow - began almost automatically flying over all their heads, and the Muggles could only duck. Tony didn't know how George's utensils had become of use – he just heard a lot of really loud explosions and brightly colored swear-words.

The fluidity the wizards attacked with told Tony that this was not the first time they had ever fought, and it was not the first time they had ever fought together. It reminded him of his own team, when they found themselves in dangerous situations, and he slowly began to understand what it was, exactly, that Harry had meant with the word 'war'.

It was stupidity, but also instinct, that made Tony's sidearm whip out, but he corrected that mistake quickly when he realized that Ziva hadn't been quite that idiotic.

For her part, his partner could barely hide her annoyance at his blatant lack of thinking. Guns were pointless (she'd discovered that the hard way) and she had knocked out two wizards before Tony managed to holster the weapon and get himself fighting-ready.

Where they were, there hadn't appeared many enemies (which probably meant that they'd been watching and considered the Muggles a very minor threat – maybe not so much anymore, though) so Ziva took a very brief moment to analyze her surroundings.

She had trouble understanding how anyone could fight, trapped between everyone else like this – right up until someone blew up a handful of trees to her right and the space was suddenly doubled. They were still packed like sardines, but at least they could actually take a step now.

That was also the moment when she realized that magic could do a hell of a lot more damage than knock out or petrifying someone.

Her movements became a lot more careful around the attractive and bright flashes of light then. But that didn't make much of a bummer in the Israeli's actions. As if a silent and invisible snake, she and Tony began taking out every opponent they came about, and they, so obviously it was painful, were not prepared for the kind of fight the Muggles put up. So they'd fall, rather embarrassingly quickly.

But luck tends, however, to grow old, and her first real scare happened very soon, and it was when Tony had the audacity to get hit.

Obviously, he did not get hit with anything dangerous, because that would require amounts of red-tainted rage from her that were common currency in the days of Mossad, but which she had not used in quite a long time. Tony would not allow her to revert to the person she used to be, and so he didn't dare get badly injured – she knew he cared too much about her to do that. Such was a very logical argument.

His lower leg suffered some sort of physical wound. The light that was used to perform it was different too. Like a whip, it slashed down and then dissipated as if it had never existed. It was directed at Luna, who managed to deflect the majority of the attack from hitting her or anyone else. Unfortunately, that was not before the tip of it collided with her partner.

She could see the damage that such a small bit of the spell had done. Tony's pants were ripped, and his skin had to have been cut, unless the red liquid soaking his clothes was something other than blood.

He staggered slightly, and that was when she made use of her legs to both take care of her current opponent and hurry to her partner's side.

"Well, that hurt." He gasped slightly, breathing raggedly against the pain. He tested his leg, and winced when it throbbed at the pressure the ground put on it. "Damn." He cursed in a low voice, watching as Ziva single-handedly disposed of anyone approaching the two of them. "You know, sometimes I wonder why you need a partner." He commented, forcing his voice to sound natural (so that Ziva's worries could be falsely soothed) and trying to introduce some sort of comic relief to his surroundings.

His partner's glare told him he was unsuccessful, but by then he was already hurrying to take care of the bleeding. He crouched, eager to leave his partner's back unprotected for the shortest amount of time possible. "I do too. But your stupidity actually happens to be an excellent source of amusement." She told him casually – too much so, for a woman that was dancing around wizards, by dodging, kicking, punching and jumping - while her attackers barely knew what they were fighting against.

Tony eyed the now exposed wound, not without a certain amount of sharpness, cringing a little at the cut-open flesh and ignoring the pain-induced waves of nausea while he was at it. "Well, on the bright side, I really don't think this is getting infected." The slash was totally clean – he guessed a beam of light wasn't much of a disease-carrier. "My stupidity seems to be going nowhere." He reassured her.

His tie served as a make-shift tourniquet and the scarf Ziva threw him became his bandage. He tucked it all as nice and neatly as he could, but he knew he hadn't made a very good job. He just hoped it didn't undo itself before the end of this… he supposed he ought to be calling it a fight, even if the first thing that came to mind at flying lights was 'Fourth of July' and not 'battle to the death'.

The stain was still on his clothes when he stood up, and that, combined with the light limp, didn't do much to make him forget the pain.

Nor did it make Ziva keep her mind from it either. And if the responsible party hadn't already been unconscious by then, Ziva knew Gibbs would have wanted a shot at the guy too. Even if serving only as a scare, since she knew everyone was perfectly aware Tony could handle himself.

"Are you okay?" She knew he wasn't, but it was obligation to ask anyway. She suspiciously inspected his harried work, untrusting of it.

"Just fine." He produced a grin at her, and though she knew he wasn't, she also knew he could handle himself fighting for a couple more hours. She frowned. She hoped this didn't take that long.

And they were back up punching and kicking, but Tony made sure his movements were a little slower, and Ziva made sure she stayed that little bit closer to her partner.

In the end, the good guys ended up with the upper hand. The whole thing was too spread out and too confusing for Ziva to recount everything that had happened everywhere, but she did know one thing: adversaries not fighting wizards went down much faster than their comrades. Of course, that changed quickly – they were idiots, but not quite that much. Eventually they realized that, while a minor and reduced threat, the Muggles were an unknown one, and that gave them an advantage they weren't prepared to deal with.

So they'd swarmed the four team members in no time, and Ziva was apprehensive because, despite her best efforts, she'd been quickly and efficiently separated from her partner. She couldn't even see him anymore, and the wariness at that fact offered her attacks a hurried viciousness that she disliked because of how unguarded that made her feel. Like there was a part of her outside of her body and beyond her layer of protection.

If Tony ever found out what went through her head sometimes…

Regardless, the fight took less time than the wizards were obviously expecting. But the MCRT were the ones panting as soon as it ended. They regrouped, and, from Ziva's keen point of view, they weren't the cleanest bunch. She saw Gibbs staring at Tony's injured leg, but before she could give an excuse as to why she had let her partner get hurt, Tony had played it off with a patented joke - business as usual.

"Well…" McGee wheezed, all but smacking a hand to his forehead to wipe the sweat from it, and preventing Tony from receiving the impending Gibbs-glare. "That went well."

There were limp, battered bodies all around them. Some of them, Ziva was perfectly aware, didn't even fit the unconscious category, but she chose not to dwell on that. The two that Gibbs had determined to be the leaders were being held up by the scruff of their necks, and their wands were broken on the ground. They were withering rather pathetically in the Boss' grip, and Ziva almost rolled her eyes at the display. Her fondness for magic practitioners had hardly improved – but then, she did deal mostly with the scum of the Earth every day, so she knew that the example of some was not the rule for all.

Harry approached Gibbs, ignoring everyone else. He glared as hard as he could at the two guys still in speaking condition, and they glared right back. But Ziva was trained by Mossad, and Mossad knew how to read fear in people's eyes. The two Death-Eater-wannabes were scared out of their senses, and it was showing. If she had any doubts about whether Harry had told the truth about his doings, they were gone now.

"Where is she?" His lips barely moved, but Ziva didn't wonder if there was anyone who hadn't heard.

The two idiots made the unwise decision of keeping quiet, and Harry wasn't in the mood for games, so one of them was howling in no time.

Harry conceded to repeating himself, stepping back from the guy. "I'm going to ask again – where-is-she?" He punctuated each word with a carefully produced glower, speaking up now, and directing his words to the two. Even with a now openly terrified face, they still stayed silent (maybe because they felt that now that Harry was a foot away, they were free from danger – they were smart like that).

Harry barely took a menacing step before the one he'd hit gave up. "Okay, okay!" He yelped, scooting away as much as he could in Gibbs' firm grasp. "There's an old building over there-" He pointed in a vague direction and Harry, unwilling to wait until he finished, took off, with Ron, Hermione, Luna and Neville hot on his heels. Apparently, those four were the only ones who understood exactly how their black-haired friend's mind worked, because the other little group of others that was supposed to go with them took a while longer to snap into motion.

When they were gone, Gibbs' face leaned forward to be at eye-level with the one who'd spoken (the guy immediately leaned back in disgust – maybe Gibbs was making him see how much grime his face was covered in) and their boss spoke slowly and with red-light danger written all over his face. "I reallyhope you didn't lie; because we Muggles - without magic to do the kind of torture that you decided to use on my agent -" Gibbs' hand visibly tightened in a zone that was too close to the guy's neck for comfort. "found other, interesting and creative ways to make people suffer."

Both Ziva's and Tony's heads snapped in alarm to their grimacing young coworker. He shrugged uncomfortably under their scrutinizing stares, muttering that he was fine. He did seem okay, but Ziva's glare intensified a tiny but on the pathetic excuse for a man on Gibbs' hand.

There was blissful silence for a while, while they edgily waited for everyone to return, and Ziva only pitied that the fact that the two men who were still up and about marred it.

"What the bloody hell did you tell them where it was for?" The other one snapped suddenly, and every head turned to him. It was completely random, and the Israeli wondered if she ought to add 'mentally lacking' to the list of attributes she had for him. Ziva guessed that this behavior had a purpose, which was simply to irk them.

Wrong choice, if you were under Gibbs' glare already. The guy was ignoring their boss as best as he could, acting as though he was completely unfazed by the Muggles holding them.

The other one glanced from Gibbs' raised eyebrows to his partner's face, and then made an expression that told Ziva that he was playing along with his fellow genius friend. Now that Harry was gone, he was feeling, apparently, braver.

He straightened, and Ziva had a hard time not commenting on how ridiculous that movement looked in his current position. "It's not my fault." How he figured that, Ziva would never know – even if she wasn't particularly complaining, he had been the one to let the cat out of the bag. "I told you we should have taken the Muggle chit too!" His retort was pompous and he even managed to throw a nasty glance in her direction.

They were young, alright (the way that they'd gone from scared witless to provocative could only be associated with young idiocy) and they also had no idea what was coming.

His eyes rolled backwards and he fell, passed out, when the butt of Tony's gun hit the back of his head. Ziva had not noticed him walking toward Gibbs, but now her partner was standing right beside his boss, dark expression hardly conveying positive thoughts.

"Sorry about that." The senior agent said flatly, letting the limp body drop right in front of him without a spare look. "My bad."

Gibbs was visibly containing a smile. "Don't worry about it. It happens." Their boss said mildly, patting the other one's cheek with excessive force. The only guy left awake didn't say another word.

"I thought it was illegal for you to treat suspects like that, you know." Rolf Scamander commented, hardly making a move to stop them. Ziva recognized him from when she'd picked Mary up (much to the little girl's pouting disappointment) from the grass at the Burrow to go home (she chose not to think too much about how easily that word slipped in reference to Tony's apartment) and Luna's husband had introduced himself.

Gibbs crossed his arms, and Tony, of course, offered the witty comeback. "It's too bad no one from this side of the Mississippi will remember they ever existed, huh?"

"I did notice you didn't seem to be too bothered with being careful with, you know, the suspects' lives, lately." Harry was back, and his mood appeared to be too.

And he was almost swarmed. He and Ron were holding Ginny between them, even if she was protesting loudly how fine she was. The smile she directed at the party assembled there was a little fake, and Ziva was suddenly sharply aware of how exhausted the red-haired woman must've been. "Hey, you lot." She greeted.

Questions were fired, but the NCIS team kept silent, patiently waiting in the background for the woman to be interrogated so that they could go home.

But then Harry approached them, leaving Ginny to be mobbed by the rest of her family for a second - and it was Gibbs' turn for answers. "Anybody there?" He started with.

Harry shook his head. "No, just a couple body guards. Bill, Charlie, Percy and George put them next to the others. Ministry should come to take care of this mess soon, and then we can go." He promised.

"The place?" Gibbs chose to move on to the next question instead of wasting time on pleasantries.

Harry sighed, looking tired and as eager to leave as them. "It was a poor excuse for a building. They decided to it set up in the middle of the forest that they discovered the eye in." He rubbed his face. "I get the feeling that they're not particularly smart."

"How did they find the eye?" McGee spoke up, looking a little more exhausted than strictly necessary. Ziva frowned at him in concern, remembering what Gibbs had said about torture.

"Still working on that."

"And why can't we help?" Tony asked the question Gibbs was silently yelling.

Harry shrugged, ruffling up his hair when one of his hands ran through it. "Not exactly a Muggle kind of investigation." He pointed out, and they all, including Gibbs, gave up.

"Work faster, then. I don't like loose ends." And that was probably the last thing Gibbs would say in this conversation.

Harry nodded, and then scrutinized each and every one of them critically. His eyes lingered on Tony's bloody leg and frowned at Tim's strained expression. He hesitated before speaking quietly. "Thank you. For today. You probably took down half of them."

"You're, uh, welcome." The senior agent stammered, a rather unwilling participant in that conversation, but knowing that Gibbs would say nothing, and Tony probably should instead.

A hint of a smile tugged Harry's lips up, and that was when a bunch of pops the MCRT had come to dread was heard from somewhere to their right. More people (Tony was unaware the forest could take any more) appeared, cloaks, wands, the whole shebang. They all immediately stiffened, but Harry reassured them that these visits, at least, they were expecting.

Once he'd spoken to the Ministry officials, who were eyeing the Muggles critically, much to Ziva's indignation, Harry carted the team off to join the group gathered around here, and they didn't exactly object, because, in Gibbs' words, 'politics are bad enough on paper'.

Between them, Harry, Hermione and Ron managed to bring the four of them back to the bullpen (Tony was actually surprised they'd been willing to separate from Ginny, but he guessed that they were grateful enough to spare a little amount of time) where, (un)surprisingly, no one noticed seven people appearing out of thin air. The MCRT did, however, very much notice, if their dry-heaving was any indicator.

Either completely ignoring or oblivious to their discomfort, Harry was pausing, refraining from leaving just yet. "I… I have just one more favor to ask." He said slowly.

That was how, a couple of hours later, Ducky found himself with a very annoyed Ginny in his autopsy room, while he gave her a check-over. Jenny appeared somewhere in the middle of it, and Harry told her that he didn't really want to go to a hospital and go through all that explanation trouble, so he'd asked Ducky for this. The director wasn't particularly thrilled, but she presented no audible or visible objection, and she decided to stay back.

That didn't last very long though. Even as Tony watched from his position against the farthest wall, Gibbs gave the woman a penetrating stare, and, with a muffled sigh and possible curse, Jenny followed their boss through the doors sliding open. They closed behind them (though not before Gibbs left strict orders for Ducky not to allow Tony to leave that room before he had checked out his leg - Tony had jumped at the chance to use the same excuse as Ginny not to go to Bethesda), leaving the room ringing with Ducky's stories and Ginny's decreasingly tight face. Tony thought she even grinned once.

Harry, now the only other person in the room, bounded, with a lot more cheer than before in his step, over to his shadowed corner. "Where are your teammates?" He questioned, imitating his stance to his right.

Tony glanced at him in acknowledgement. "Abby's lab. Officially, Ziva went to check on Mary and dragged McGee along. Unofficially, she took McGee to the lab so that Abby can make him go to sleep." Tony grinned slightly. "She's playing mother hen." The smile faltered, and Tony realized that, in order to avoid thinking about the things harassing his mind, that was a rather poor choice of words.

Harry looked at him at the senior agent's sudden frown, not needing a wild imagination to have a vague idea of what was going on in his mind. "Taking the opportunity?" He asked lightly, repeating the words of a couple of days previously.

Tony didn't ask how Harry knew what was going on in his mind at that moment, and he didn't ask how he'd known that Tony would be pondering adopting Mary back when Tony didn't know it himself. He just assumed that he knew, and, for some reason, he felt comfortable discussing this with him.

"It's just…" He hesitated, pondering the words he wanted to say and feeling guilty about thinking them. "I've been so wrapped up in the- positive aspects of that idea, that the potential issues about it slipped my mind so far." Tony grimaced at Harry in anticipated apology for his next words. "Ginny could've died today. I really don't want that to be me or Ziva, and then leave a kid who just needs some stability in her life. Again." He added as an after-thought, referring to the fact that that same stability had just been stolen from Mary.

He didn't actually say the word adoption, but he knew that Harry knew what he meant.

The wizard tilted his head to the side thoughtfully, playing with the hem of his shirt (Tony wondered if it was a glamour of some sort – he was pretty sure he'd seen the young man wear a robe at some point that day). "I'm not going to lie to you." He finally announced, and Tony got a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as he wondered what the wizard was going to say. "It's not easy, and mark those words. Sometimes, I stay awake at night with living nightmares plaguing my brain."

There was silence for a while, seemingly Harry patiently awaiting Tony to digest that. The senior agent's head whirled, but he decided to stick with the main questioning to reduce the headache.

"How do you fix it?"

He'd asked the right question, apparently – unless Harry grinned for no reason. Well, as a matter of fact, Tony could picture things that were more unbelievable than that…

The wizard sobered, noting Tony's less-than-light expression. "I reach to my side and Ginny's right there." Harry shrugged. "You just need your partner." And he walked off to give his wife his hand as she plopped down from the table, Tony staring after him.

Harry did seem to have this annoying habit of always being right, even if he made everything sound so easy.