When Harry crawled into bed he lay as if he was in his coffin, grumpily deciding there was hardly any point in getting undressed at all. He knew he would be back at work earlier than he would ever be happy with, and going to sleep would be tantalising.

Instead, as grey light filtered through the curtains, Harry thought about the insanity, and about his brother-in-law. Percy Weasley was not a quiet man; Harry knew this from when they first met and continued on to become teenagers, adults, and fathers. Percy was never one to hold back and always had something to say. He might not shout as loudly as his siblings, but on his face was every thought.

But Percy had been quiet as they took the man that looked like his uncle into a cell (squinting, asking Percy if they knew each other and if they were cousins, because his nephews were only small). His face sagged, became limp, and his entire body wilted.

'My uncle,' he had whispered. Kingsley explained the pair looked like Fabian Prewett and Marlene McKinnon. He recognised them distantly.

'Don't eat the Christmas tree, Kreacher,' Ginny mumbled next to him. Harry looked over and smiled.

He had somehow avoided waking her up. She had gone to sleep as she so often did: propped up on the headboard in a slouch. Her hair was straight at the front and a mess at the back because of it, and Harry had to silently slip her wand out of her hand before she started firing off curses in her dream world. Constant vigilance, he thought with a smile.

Breakfast brought a sulking daughter and a tired Ginny drinking stronger than usual tea in a large hand-painted mug.

'I can't believe you won't tell me what's going on,' she hissed at Harry when he reached over to pass her the sugar. Harry shrugged sheepishly, not sure if he should feel so guilty about upholding the requirement of secrecy for once.

'You're going back so early.' Ginny said across the table with narrowed eyes as Lily looked back and forth.

'Something's come up,' Harry said unhelpfully. He could hardly tell his wife someone pretending to be an uncle she'd never met – had they met? Surely she wouldn't remember if they had? – was sitting feet away from his office, next door to, apparently, his Godfather.

Ginny stopped complaining after she finished her first mug, and was back to normal by her second. She still eyed him out of the corner of her eyes when she thought he wasn't looking, and Harry knew she was searching for signs of distress or intensity. Harry had worked through these things in the time he spent staring at the grey and drizzly morning, and was now filled with determination rather than anger.

'I'm going to see Hermione first thing,' he said conversationally as he shoved his arms in his robes. He admired Ginny's restraint to merely raise her eyebrow and say nothing more.

'Have fun,' she said wryly, accepting his kiss and murmured love you.

'Right, Lily, get dressed up warm, it's cold out there!' Harry heard Ginny say brightly to the living room at large as their daughter trod quietly up the stairs behind her in pyjamas, scowling at being caught.

Harry strode into Hermione's office without knocking, as he usually did. As always, she jolted, her quill this time sent skittering to the opposite side of her desk. It collided with a stack of parchment as she glared at Harry.

'What?' Hermione asked, retrieving her quill. 'What is it this time?'

'It's actually quite urgent—'

'It's always urgent,' Hermione sighed. 'Well then. Hugo.'

'Hugo?' Harry said, nonplussed, before his nephew clambered upright from the corner of the room where he had been crouched.

'Hello, Uncle Harry,' he said quietly, gripping a large book that was several times larger than his head. He and Harry stared at each other for a moment before Harry turned to Hermione for an answer.

'He's not very well,' she said. Hugo shrugged, not looking very convinced at his own ill health. 'Ron's had to put out some fires at work, so—'

'Actual fires?' Harry said, alarmed.

'Honestly Harry, I don't ask questions about the shop anymore.' She said primly. Hugo had moved to the side of her desk and she tenderly swept some of his curly hair from his eyes. His nose wrinkled in disgust at the affront.

'You look all right to me,' Harry said cheerfully to his nephew. Hugo shrugged again. 'Not reading that book we gave you for Christmas?' He tried again, reading the large spine Hugo gripped – Hoax and Dreams in Swamps and Streams.

'I've already gone through it twice,' Hugo replied, suddenly coming alive. 'But it didn't mention enough about toxipology ('toxicology,' Hermione added) so I'm reading about how someone went to some swamps and even found some new newts—'

Hugo was in the midst of a newt and salamander phase, which was only marginally better than his previous garden gnome one. Ron was excited at the prospect of the newly inevitable dragon episode, having experience with the direction these things usually took. He had already written to Charlie for some dragon teeth to gift to Hugo for his tenth birthday, as well as Hagrid for any stories about Norberta. Harry and Ginny had already received the 'suggestion' of giving Hugo the encyclopaedic From Egg to Inferno: A Dragon Keeper's Guide.

'Hugo,' Hermione interrupted firmly, 'Why don't you have a look around the records room?'

Hugo looked irritated but not unwilling. He huffed and marked his place in his book by folding the page almost in half.

'Down the corridor and—' Hermione said.

'—To the left, I know.' He replied, rolling his eyes and looking very much like Ron. He rattled out of the room without a backward glance and Harry laughed at his fading voice; 'Yeah, Mum's kicked me out again, Mrs Higgs – no, my uncle – okay, only a digestive though, I want to look at the N section—'

Hermione looked very sheepish when her office door closed with a tinny click. They both knew children weren't really allowed to loiter around the Ministry, and the fact she was a known war hero likely had something to do with Hugo's presence.

'I won't tell if you don't ask any questions,' Harry offered. Hermione only got more wary.

'You wouldn't tell anyway,' she said grumpily, 'I've seen you smuggling biscuits to your children under the cloak far too many times. What is it? Is it serious?'

'No questions!' Harry insisted. Hermione rolled her eyes and gestured helplessly for him to continue. 'I'm stuck on a method to disprove someone's identity. A way to prove they're not who they say they are.'

Hermione raised her eyebrows and sat back in her chair. Her wedding rings clicked against a button on her blazer. Harry simultaneously felt like he was in detention with McGonagall and was also one of Hermione's children being told off for eating sweets before dinner.

'Look, I'm sorry Harry, but I've really got to ask – why do you need me to prove someone wrong on their own identity?'

'Well they can't be who they say they are.' Hermione looked at him disapprovingly. 'It's all hushed up at the moment, I can't tell you more.'

'You shouldn't be here at all, in that case,' Hermione scolded. But – Harry saw the new glimmer in her eyes.

'I assume you've tried Veritaserum?'

'No point. Too much paperwork to get permission and they might think they're really who they say they are.'

'Potions tests? All of them?'

'All clear.'

'And you're certain they're just not … who they say they are?'

'Hermione.'

The clicking restarted as she thought in silence. Harry flicked his wand against his leg to the time of an old muggle song he remembered growing up with.

'There's not much to work with in the first place,' Hermione said slowly. 'The only thing I can think of is a Muggle DNA test, but somehow I don't think you would be able to get that past those old warlocks on the board … let alone get blood from whoever it is even if you did …'

Harry cursed himself for battling so hard for rules and regulations and the separation of powers in the past. He wished, not for the first time, he could be a renegade like Mad-Eye. He would even accept the eye.

Hermione shifted, leaning forward conspiratorially. 'There is something,' she said lowly, eyes flickering to her door. 'It's not really spoken of, nobody wants to touch it, understandable really … but it's all I can give you at the moment.'

Harry nodded eagerly, wild fantasies of voyaging to some forgotten temple and discovering a dusty relic with truth-telling powers flitted through his mind. Then he remembered he was in his thirties, was a government official, and was very tired.

'You remember those awful trials they had, during the war?'

'With Umbridge?' Hermione winced, and nodded.

'Well, towards the end – not that they knew it was, of course – Voldemort and his followers were working on some kind of test to actually prove who was Muggleborn and who was lying … they didn't trust people weren't doing what Colin and Dennis Creevey were doing, you remember? Pretending to be the cousins of Purebloods? They didn't want to just take their word for it … didn't want to have to hold trials anymore. I suppose they thought it would be easier to just test everyone and have done with it …

'The thing is, they actually got rather far.' Hermione sighed and took steadying breath. She looked very uncomfortable, and Harry knew she hadn't spoken of this to anyone in years – perhaps ever. 'They couldn't prove if someone was a Muggleborn, exactly, but they could prove whether they were related to who they said they were … I think it traced back shared magic in families. Remarkably similar to a Muggle DNA test, really.'

Harry withdrew from the circle of bowed heads they had made for themselves, breath leaving his body in a low, drawn out expulsion. He was thankful in that moment, so thankful, that the war had ended when it did, that the few Muggleborns who had managed to lie their way to safety weren't caught …

'How did they test people?' Harry asked, unsure if he wanted to know, imagining torturous experiments.

'Blood,' Hermione said quietly.

She looked suddenly older than her years. Harry's mind went back, as it always did, to the cave with Dumbledore. He thought of the power a wizard could hold over another with their blood to hand. He thought of the horrible possibilities it would have offered Voldemort, of the horrible things that would have befallen Muggleborn wizards and witches, Half-bloods, Purebloods, if even a drop had made it's way to a Death Eater.

'I'm glad they didn't get very far.' Harry said finally. Noises of the corridor outside filtered into the new melancholy as they both sat unmoving.

'I shouldn't let Hugo into that room, really,' Hermione said absently. 'That's where I put it … hid it away in the miscellaneous section.'

Harry thought about the bowels of the records room, of the stacks that moved around more than the Hogwarts staircases. It was labyrinthine when organised alphabetically, never mind a stack of miscellaneous. Hugo would be fine.

'As much as I hate to use something like that, I think it's our best shot.' Harry said finally.

Hermione's head shot up. 'Is it really your last option? I'm not sure it's legal …'

'Is it expressly illegal?'

'Well … I suppose not.'

'Good enough.' Harry said gruffly. 'Do you think you could dig it out again?'

'Of course,' Hermione said, looking mildly terrified. 'But I've got my own work Harry, I can't run off and start a new research project with everything here!' She gestured wildly to the parchment on every surface.

'I'll clear it with Kingsley,' Harry said dismissively, hating himself a little for using his Chosen One clout.

'Harry!' Hermione said reproachfully. Harry left feeling better about the prospect of finding out the truth of who these people were, but infinitely more guilty.

AN: It is a bad habit, to write exclusively in the early hours, but here I am.

Finally! Hermione! Finally! Plot progression! It's a little jumpy from last chapter, but I spent ages agonising about how to get from point A (early hours in the office) to point B (Hermione). So I just sort of ... skipped. Sorry.

Anyway, once tests are done ... we'll be seeing more characters. And Hogwarts.