Chapter 10: Radio Silence

A quietness descended over Harry's life for that evening. He was itching to spend time with Sirius, Dumbledore… for a moment he began to consider even Scrimgeour. But a strange part of him was enjoying the pretence that things were normal, and that the biggest conflict in his life really was cooking dinner and paperwork. He felt immediately guilty, of course, for happily deluding himself—but Ginny was tactful, and managed to keep him occupied every ten minutes.

Lily had warmed to him in the hours since he had seen her last. It seemed she had forgotten the unforgivable slight of tidying her brother's messes alongside her own. Rather than sulk, she sang loudly along with the radio in the way most confident children do, refusing to stray from the lyrics for anything less than questions about when dinner was ready. Her nameless acid green Pygmy Puff frequently chirped with her, still wearing it's tiny red Christmas hat.

'Uncle George said you had one, mum,' she said with a mouthful of mashed potato. Harry grinned as he charmed the gravy boat to pour a generous helping over his plate.

'I called him Arnold,' said Ginny, 'and I hope you'll call yours something similar, please, just to wind Uncle Ron up.' Lily's eyes brightened at the same time as the fireplace surged upwards in a brighter green than the Pygmy Puff on her shoulder.

Harry and Ginny glanced at each other. He hoped it wasn't Kingsley again… he had started to forget what good rest felt like.

'Any left?' Came Teddy's voice, face barely visible. Lily shouted 'Yes!' so loudly that her Christmas present squeaked and rolled to hide in the shadow of the warmth of the gravy boat, trembling.

Harry looked worriedly over to the leftovers, but didn't know why he had bothered. There was, as always, plenty enough for a reduced family such as theirs, and Harry usually added a strange portion-and-a-half by default, Albus or James always lingering somewhere in the back of his mind. More often than not, it found a second life as Teddy's meal anyway and Harry was pleased good food would not go to waste.

'Sausage and mash, lovely,' Teddy said as he stumbled out of the grate, rubbing his hands together looking gleeful. He made a bee-line to the pot that stood waiting on the kitchen side.

'Does your grandmother never feed you?' Ginny asked, rolling her eyes as she cut up a sausage.

'You know what Nan's like,' he said as he took a dessert spoon and began slopping mash onto the plate he had summoned, 'Supper at six-fifteen, only!—(Harry was startled at how good his impression of Andromeda was even when he wasn't morphing into her)—and if I miss it I have to fend for myself… scavenge, beg… or, well, come here. Thanks, Ginny!'

Teddy pushed Lily smoothly over to the other side of the table-bench to make room for himself. The gravy boat only spilt a little on its summoned journey over to him, and Harry knew Teddy had noticed because he was looking rather self-satisfied all of a sudden.

Ginny told Teddy that it was Harry, in fact, that had made the meal tonight as Lily scowled while picking miniscule pieces of food from her Pygmy Puff's hair, her own dinner forgotten.

They chattered about rubbish for a while, and Teddy seemed lulled into a sense of comfort and security before: 'Why d'you keep missing meals?' Lily asked suspiciously, with the well-practiced manner and timing of a younger sibling who can sense when something might get an older brother in trouble.

They all laughed as Teddy struggled to swallow a full forkful of potato in his shock; his throat convulsed, his eyes bulged for a second, and the very tips of his hair flashed a lurid pink for nothing more than a glimpse. 'I've—uh—I've been keeping up with friends, you know. Getting on top of sending letters out to them.'

'Yes,' Harry said, exchanging a glance with Ginny, 'Victorie's been needing a lot of help with her homework recently, hasn't she?'

'Don't help her too much, Ted, she'll never pass her exams otherwise.'

It certainly wasn't Teddy's abilities that made his face turn pink. Lily crowed in delight at this turn of events and immediately began to jab fun at him. Teddy shovelled the remainder of his mashed potato into his mouth to avoid answering, looking for all the world as if he was the twelve year old Harry still thought of him as.

Harry wandered, suddenly, if this was what It would have been like with Sirius if they had caught Pettigrew before he escaped. Maybe Lupin would have been around, too. Already the thought spiralled into imagination, beyond the Dursleys that he never saw anymore and back into a world that Lord Voldemort had never really touched. It was alien to think of, to picture those he had seen in the Mirror of Erised around a large table like he and the Weasleys had been at the Christmas lunch just past. Utterly bizarre to imagine looking to your neighbour at the table and being able to spot, clear as day, traits he had inherited rather than simply passed on as with his children. Harry had had nearly thirteen years to become used to blood family, and even that still took him aback sometimes.

'Harry.' —Ginny had been dragging him from his head for hours, and this was no exception— 'I'll put these away. Put on the Wireless, will you?'

The ghost of her hand was still warm on his forearm as Harry nodded and moved to the living room. Lily had not noticed his pause, but he thought Teddy might have—he stared for a moment too long in the doorway of the kitchen before turning his back to slump into his usual spot on the sofa.

Lily placed her Pygmy Puff in his cage, where he rolled around squeaking softly on the heated material that lay at the bottom. Teddy lazily (still a little smug about being able to use magic whenever he pleased, though he would never admit it) pointed his wand at the fireplace which flared merrily red and gold. Ginny's voice came through the doorway in little snippets of household charms.

The Wireless was on the mantlepiece, next to a picture of Teddy and a small James holding a large, sticky gobstopper each. Fiddling with the dials, Harry felt quite at home, and almost as if he were back in the Gryffindor common room.

Warbling noises music drifting around him, Harry shoved Teddy's feet from one end of the sofa and sat down in their place. He folded his back into the cushions to make himself comfortable, and dug his chin into his chest while he took off his glasses to scrub them against his top.

'What's all this on the news, then?' Teddy asked, though he was nothing but a blur in Harry's eyes.

'Well if you'd listened to the news you would know, wouldn't you?'

'You know what I mean. You must be dealing with it.'

'And if I was? So what?'

'So…' Harry replaced his glasses and saw his godson peering at him with wide eyes, 'what's the point to it all?'

'Does anybody in this house understand what confidential means,' Harry muttered, turning to face Teddy fully. 'Look, Ted, I can't tell you anything because we don't know much yet.'

'But how are they doing it?'

'We don't know.'

'Don't know, or don't want to say?'

'Both.'

'That doesn't make any sense.' He huffed and turned to stare at the bookshelf. Teddy was trying to give the impression he was reading the titles, but Harry could see he was just moving his eyes in the right directions as he tried to think about what to say next. He sighed.

'No, people pretending to be your parents have not shown up.' Teddy whipped around in surprise. 'And I would have told you if they had. Really.'

'Oh,' he looked conflicted. Harry thought he could understand—even if they were imposters, they would look like Remus and Tonks so accurately that to glimpse them in the flesh rather than a photograph was obscenely tempting. Harry felt the same… his only memories of Lily and James were from a few precious photographs or through the eyes of their murderer, which he was hardly going to count as a good thing.

Harry found it hard to say much when he thought Remus and Tonks could very well crop up… but also very well might not. He could not bring himself to mention anything about the truth of the matter to Teddy, because he knew that his mind would go immediately to his parents, as did Harry's own. The surprise of their being alive was better than the lifetime of waiting and hoping that faced Teddy if he knew it was, somehow, a possibility.

It was, of course, only a matter of time before Teddy found out that Sirius, Dumbledore and the rest were who they appeared to be. They would have to re-join the world at some point, Hermione's discovery pending. But Harry couldn't bring himself to have that conversation just yet. Selfishly, he did not want to be the one to break the news. But for that matter… he couldn't imagine anyone else telling Teddy that, yes, dead people had come back, but no, sorry, not your parents, how could you ever be so lucky? How could Harry have Sirius back, and then look Teddy in the eye and tell him sorry, not for you?

An impasse. So, Harry would put it off before he had to deal with it, like Divination homework. God only knew what he and Teddy would do if Remus and Tonks actually did come back.

And then Teddy was distracted by Lily asking him for Pygmy Puff names, and he started throwing out the names of his old professors or textbook authors. And Harry pressed himself into the sofa with a cup of milky tea Ginny brought him.

'I'm going to have to visit the others,' Harry said quietly into the darkness of their bedroom hours later. The radio spun a tune into the air softly.

'Probably,' Ginny's voice was muffled by sleep and the duvet.

Bright and early, feeling guilty about the abysmal hours he spent at his actual workplace, Harry arrived at Saint Mungo's. Nothing had changed since he had last been here, for Lily's broken wrist—the old mannequins and tiles made him feel as if he would find badly disguised reporters behind every corner.

There were still people staring and the occasional healer stopping in their tracks, but mostly everyone was a little too tired to think too hard about the celebrity in their midst, which worked for Harry perfectly.

The wizard behind the desk gawked at him as he stood in front of it, placing his Auror identification in front of him. The wizard didn't even glance at it.

'I'm here to see the occupant of room seven hundred and thirteen. He's under investigation.' Harry paused. 'I'm an Auror.'

'I know.' The wizard whispered back.

They stared at each other. Harry flattened his fringe, which of course meant the stare was levelled wholly at his forehead.

Slowly, without removing his gaze, the wizard—Bletchley, his badge said—slid the Auror card towards himself. He scribbled, still keeping half an eye on Harry's face, the identification number upside down on a small square of parchment off to a forgotten side of the desk, which Harry was certain wasn't official in any way. Wanting to get out of the situation, he scribbled his name onto the clipboard on the visitor's side of the desk, nodded his head, and veritably sprinted away, ending up in a lift with a witch who had bright blue scales crawling up her arm. She didn't even glance up.

As she stepped out onto the third floor—plants and potions, Harry was unsurprised—Harry was left alone to contemplate where he should actually go. Unlike what he remembered of Muggle hospitals, there were no helpful room numbers. Instead, a long list of wards under the various magical injuries possible denoted by floor.

Usually the suspects he visited here had done silly things to evade capture like crashing a broomstick (ground floor) or injuring themselves with their poisons (third floor). But this was an as yet unknown case…

Deciding to go with where he thought they might reasonably keep someone dangerous, Harry left the lift at the fourth floor, for spell damage. It was eerily quiet and his footsteps thundered and bounced like he was disrupting a silent séance. There was no Welcome Witch or Wizard here; no desk or waiting area. The only waiting people seemed to do here, Harry thought grimly, was for bad news.

After five minutes of aimless wondering and one mis-turn that started him down a corridor of rooms labelled only in intervals of five, Harry turned a blessed corner that revealed Thomas Cresswell leaning sulkily against a near wall.

'Harry!' He immediately chirped up. 'Didn't know you were coming in!'

'Neither did I,' Harry replied. Then he looked around. 'Isn't there supposed to be a Hit Wizard around here? Rather than you?'

Thomas harrumphed. 'He got the squits. Reckon he went out last night. Pretty young really, it's lucky he wasn't here because he'd probably be sick at the sight of you.'

'Charming,' Harry said dully, choosing not to point out that Thomas was merely in his late twenties and therefore in no position to call anybody young. 'Where's the Healer? I need to speak to them before I go in—'

'Good luck with that.' He shook his head. 'Nobody's been in other than them, apparently he started kicking off as soon as he saw red robes so they stopped trying to question him.'

Not surprising at all, Harry thought. Considering for all Scrimgeour knew they were working for Voldemort's Ministry now. He almost wished Dawlish had had time to take a turn watching the hospital room; Scrimgeour would have definitely hit the roof if he saw his old colleague.

'Which way is the office? I'll try and ask them if there's any chance—'

'My apologies, Mr Potter,' said Healer Pye, rounding a corner, 'Nobody's getting into that room other than my Healers.'

'Why?' Harry asked, thinking of leaving Scrimgeour in a horrible limbo where he still thought Voldemort was in power and likely assumed he would be assassinated at any given second.

'I should ask your own Aurors about that. I'm sure Auror Dawlish would have some warnings for you.'

Harry tried not to smirk, but he caught Thomas' eye and both their lips quivered attempting to hold in sniggers. Healer Pye frowned at them.

'Enough said,' Harry replied, thinking dreamily of all the things he would say to Dawlish when he next saw him. 'How is he doing?'

'Well we haven't found anything wrong with him, other than some strange habits.'

'Habits?'

'He tends to twitch a lot, and he stares at the newspapers we give him for hours. He calmed down once we started giving him his creature comforts, like the morning paper, of course—but that can be expected.'

Harry didn't know what could be expected, but he didn't need to think much about it either because his mind was galloping away in another direction.

'Did you say he calmed down once he got hold of a newspaper? Which newspaper?'

'My,' the Healer looked taken aback. 'Well—just that morning's. As I recall there was a rather good article about the new laws the Minister is bringing in. You know, about regulating foreign potion ingredients and such.'

Of course, Harry didn't know. But he knew that it would certainly mention the Minister's name, and somewhere in that paper would be also be the day's date.

'And is he listening to the radio much?' Harry continued as Thomas stared curiously. 'I assume you've given him one of those too?'

'He never stops listening to it.' The Healer said. He moved over to the door when Thomas shuffled out of the way. Harry peered in through the small square window and saw Rufus Scrimgeour in incongruous hospital robes, staring into the middle distance in a fold-out chair.

'It's on constantly,' Healer Pye said. 'Even when he sleeps. But we're not sure he does much of that, either, because he wakes up as soon as we walk in. Good as gold since he got it though, good as gold.'

Of course he started behaving himself after getting a radio—he had heard Kingsley, his old colleague, give a long speech about people who looked like the war-dead appearing. News bulletins would have made it plain as day that it was peacetime. Harry's name was probably mentioned, and if there was anything to indicate Lord Voldemort was not in power, it was Harry's name being referenced.

Harry stared at the side profile of Scrimgeour's head like he had with Dumbledore's. In just the same way, the old Minister turned.

He and Harry stared at each other for a few seconds before Scrimgeour's lips lifted into a tiny smirk. Then, he turned to face the wall where his radio sat.

The old bastard knew exactly what was going on. He had put it together and was now waiting, quietly in his make-shift prison cell, for Harry to prove it.

'Let's keep him in here for now,' Harry told the Healer.

AN: I found this particularly hard to get written, and I'm sorry about the little delay. Hopefully will be back to fortnightly after this.