"It's a shame our sprog isn't home for this," the solicitor said as he sat down on the chesterfield next to his wife. "This new Jeeves and Wooster series looks great."
"It really does," she said. "I'm so happy that you introduced me to this show."
He gave her a peck on the cheek. "Not as happy as I am to have you here to watch it with me."
A knock on the door startled them both.
"Who could that be at this time of night?" The fear in his wife's voice was a reminder that some parts of the war would never really end.
"I'll go check," he said, trying to make his voice more confident than he truly felt. "It's probably just a neighbour who ran out of sugar or something. I'll go check on them and be back in a moment."
As he walked out of the room, he saw his wife stand up and draw her wand. To put it mildly, she did not come from a family of optimists.
He didn't know what he expected at the door, but two primary schoolchildren complete with backpacks was definitely not it. One was a boy with glasses, a buzz cut, and a disarming grin on his face, and the other was a slightly taller, serious-looking girl with her bushy hair stuffed into a ponytail. "Good evening!" he said as he opened the door. "What can I do for you two fine young people?"
"Hi!" the boy said. "Are you Solicitor Tonks?"
"That I am," Ted said. "Whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?" That boy looked familiar for some reason.
The boy shrugged off his backpack without answering and, with some effort, hauled it around so it was on the step in front of him. "We'd like to hire you starting right now." He unzipped the top of the backpack to reveal what had to be at least a hundred galleons inside. "It's time-sensitive."
Ted sighed. "Of course it is. One moment." He looked over his shoulder. "Andi? Some work followed me home. Please watch it without me."
"Oooh!" the girl said. "Is that the new Jeeves and Wooster? My parents are taping that for us. I can bring over the tape for you later if you want."
"That's very nice of you." Ted fought the urge to raise his eyebrows. No Pureblood and scant few half-blood homes would have a VCR, but these two were too young to know of magic if they were muggleborn.
Andi poked her head into the hallway just as Ted was shepherding the children into his office. "Is everything alright, dear?" she asked. "Wait, are these your clients' children?"
"We're the clients," the girl said, her voice firm almost to the point of condescending.
The older witch paused. "Oh, my apologies. Are you both alright? Do you need help finding your parents?"
"We're alright, don't worry," the boy said. "We just need some legal advice."
"Very well, but let me know if you would like us to escort you home," Andi said.
"That's very nice of you," the girl replied.
Ted nodded to his wife, led the children into his office, and cleaned off two chairs for them to sit on next to his desk. Once they were settled in, he asked, "How can I help you both?"
The boy shook his head. "I'm sorry, but we'll need the standard vow first."
Ted's eyebrows launched into his hairline. "You two can power a vow?"
The girl sighed. "He can, at least. We did a dry run earlier without completing it."
The boy patted her on the shoulder. "Don't worry. I'm just weird like that. I'm sure you'll be able to do it soon."
"Vows aren't things to trifle with, you know," Ted said sternly.
"We'd never!" the girl said as they both nodded violently. "This was important, though."
"Very well," Ted said. "You have a wand, I take it?"
The boy nodded and drew an old wand covered with nicks and at least one burn mark.
"I'm not going to want to ask where you got that, am I?" Ted asked.
The boy smirked. "I'm very sneaky."
"He literally gave it to you," the girl said.
"It's more pirate-y if I stole it."
"How can you be a pirate if you're a wizard?"
"I can absolutely be both." He paused. "Can't I, Mr. Tonks?"
Ted suppressed a smile and wished Nymphadora were there to see this. "I think there have been wizard pirates in the past, yes."
"See?" the boy said. "I'll be a great pirate."
She rolled her eyes. "I'm never going to hear the end of this. Can we just do the vow before this conversation gets any sillier?"
"You mean 'more awesome,'" the boy said, but he gamely held up the wand.
"Of course," Ted said. If nothing else, these two were going to be amusing to work with. He held out his hand and took the girl's in his own. Once the boy put his borrowed wand over their hands, the girl pulled out a piece of paper (notebook paper, Ted noted, not parchment) and said, "Do you vow to keep secret anything I specify is covered by this vow and reveal it only to myself and my specified agents, as long as I tell it to you while you are still in my employ?"
"I so vow," Ted said.
A rope of golden flames shot from the boy's wand and wrapped around their conjoined hands. The boy's brows furrowed in concentration, but the light of the flames didn't so much as flicker.
"I accept your vow," the girl said, and the flames dissipated around their hands. "Now, let's get down to business," she shot the boy a glare, "and that business is not piracy."
"For now," the boy shot back, refusing to be deterred.
She ignored him and pulled out another piece of paper and handed it to him. "All of this is covered by the vow," she said. "Even our names."
"Please destroy that paper after you read it," the boy added. "Ideally with some cool magic."
Ted nodded and began to read. Each sentence took another hammer to his entire worldview, and by the time it finished his hands were shaking. "Is…this true?" he asked them.
"Of course!" Hermione looked insulted.
Harry shrugged. "As far as I know. I'm new to all of this, though."
"This is…" he put his head in his hands. "This is way bigger than anything I've ever handled before. Would you be willing to add my wife to that vow? I need her advice here, and I think Harry and Sirius may need medical attention."
Harry crossed his arms. "I hate doctors."
"Andi is a magical doctor," Ted said. "I think you'll like her."
"Fine," Harry said. Hermione nodded.
Ted rose to his feet, slipped around the children with more agility than his girth might have led them to expect, and stuck his head out of the office door. "Andi, could you come here, please?"
His wife hurried over from the sitting room. "What's wrong, dear?"
Ted shook his head subtly. "We'd like your help, but we'll need to read you into the standard vow first."
"Wait, how could the children have performed a Vow with you?" she asked.
"Because I'm a wand pirate!" Harry brandished the wand happily.
"Just to be clear," Hermione added, "he is unusually powerful but he is not a pirate."
"I'm definitely a pirate," Harry stage-whispered.
The girl pinched the bridge of her nose. "Just bind the Vow, Harry."
"Wait, Harry?" Andromeda asked.
Hermione blushed.
"The Vow first, please," Ted said. "This is important."
Andi sceptically submitted to the Vow. "Are you alright, Harry?" she asked afterward. "You look a bit peaky."
"I hadn't tried two of those in a row," he said. "I'm tired now."
"Oh, Harry." Hermione patted her lap. "You should lay down."
He nodded, scooted his chair over, and laid his head down on her lap. "Yell if you need me," he said, and closed his eyes. It was one of the cutest things Ted had seen since that same little boy had fallen asleep on Nymphadora's shoulder all those years ago.
Andi seemed to make the connection, too. "Is that really…"
Ted nodded and handed her the piece of paper. "This explains everything."
While she read it, he conjured her a chair. (A plain wooden one, since his conjuration had never been great.) As he'd expected, she only made it about three lines in before placing her free hand over her heart and needing to sit down.
"By the way," Hermione said while Andi was reading, "our agents in this matter are my parents and Sirius."
"So he's really innocent?" Andi asked.
"I'm almost positive he is," Hermione said. "He saved my life two nights ago. That's why…well, you'll get to it."
A few moments later, Andi said, "Merlin! You're engaged?"
"It was kind of a joke," Hermione said, "but I guess magic got involved and now it's not."
Ted leaned forward and rested his head on his interlaced fingers. "You said it was only 'kind of a joke.' Could you elaborate on that?"
"Well, Father got angry with something Harry said about something making me so happy my hair glowed, then Mother and Sirius started laughing and wouldn't tell us why, and Mother said she'd tell me only when I got married. I couldn't imagine marrying anyone other than Harry, anyway, so I asked him if he'd marry me and he agreed."
"Herm'ne is m'fav'rite person," Harry mumbled from where she was stroking his head in her lap.
"I see," Ted said. "So that was probably just enough actual intent that, coupled with life debt, the betrothal took."
His wife nodded. "That makes a weird sort of sense."
"Don't worry about it," Hermione said. "Harry and I really aren't as bothered by that part as my parents are. Getting Sirius out of trouble is more important."
"You…um…might change your mind about that later," Ted said.
The girl shrugged. "Then we'll worry about it later. Our education will come first, regardless."
"Boo," Harry said, his voice muffled by Hermione's leg.
"Oh, hush," Hermione said. "Revisions aren't that bad."
Harry grumbled unintelligibly.
Andi suppressed a smile and went back to reading. The smile disappeared once she got to the end and her face went pale. "You think You-Know-Who might not be dead?"
"Who?" Hermione asked.
"You know who!"
"I really don't," Hermione said.
"You don't know who?" Ted asked.
"What?" Hermione asked.
"Third base!" Harry mumbled.
Hermione broke down into giggles, Ted burst out laughing, and Andi looked very confused.
"I'll explain later," Ted told her.
"Do you mean Voldemort?" Hermione asked.
Ted jumped a little and Andi startled so badly that she dropped the paper and had to catch it.
"Don't say that name!" Ted said. "It was under a Taboo during the war and people are still terrified of it. Saying it brought Death Eaters to your door."
The girl frowned. "Why didn't the police say it and ambush them, then?"
Ted and his wife stared at each other. "I…um…don't know," he said.
"I have so many questions," Hermione muttered, seemingly to herself.
"Do you see why I asked for your help?" Ted said to his wife. "We probably have two cases of malnourishment on our hands, and on top of that they're both politically powerful relatives of yours."
"I understand, but it's a lot to take in," Andi said. "Do I guess correctly that your family and Sirius are nearby?"
The girl nodded. "They're in the car and parked around the corner. Would you like me to get them?"
"Yes, please," Andi said.
"OK." Hermione looked down at Harry. "Budge up, Harry. We need to get everyone else."
He ignored her.
"It's alright, dear." Andi drew her wand. "I can levitate him onto the chesterfield in the sitting room if you'd like."
The girl's arms wrapped protectively around Harry. "It won't hurt him, will it?"
"Of course not!" Andi said.
"Would you feel better if I carried him?" Ted asked.
"I think so. We're not used to magic yet," Hermione said.
"I understand," Ted said. "I grew up just like you."
He lifted the boy gently off of the chairs and was shocked by how light he was. James had been such a big presence in every sense of the term that seeing his son so small just felt wrong, like the universe was broken.
A light knock came upon the door a few minutes later and Ted shouted, "Come in!"
Andi sat down on the chesterfield on the far side from where Harry was curled up, her face pale. Ted walked over and put his hand on her shoulder for morale support just as Hermione led three adults into the room.
The thin, but wiry balding man seemed to be her father, and the bushy-haired woman whose hand he was holding could only be her mother. With them was a man he'd never thought he'd see again.
"Ted. Andi." Sirius nodded to them, but his voice was wary.
Dozens of different responses cycled through Ted's brain, each one discarded as trite, insufficient, or inappropriate. Andromeda was openly crying now.
Finally, Ted settled on the most important thing he needed to say, the one his brain kept coming back to and the one he'd want Sirius to have heard even if the man stormed out immediately afterward. "We're so sorry. Please forgive us," he said, his voice breaking.
"You left me to rot," Sirius said, his voice dull.
"We believed the Ministry that there'd been a trial," Ted replied. Andi was still sobbing.
"How could you believe I'd hurt James?" Sirius demanded. "He was my brother."
Surprisingly, it was Andi who spoke. "I thought the madness had taken you, Siri. I hear it whispering to me sometimes, too."
"The what?" Hermione's mother asked. "Wait, I'm sorry. I'm Miranda and this is my husband Isaac. Now, back to my question. The what?"
"The Black Madness," Andi said. "Many of my family have gone mad sooner or later, including my sister Bellatrix. In school, she was a normal, run-of-the-mill bigot, but within a few years she became a homicidal maniac slavishly devoted to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named."
Sirius shuddered. "She was the only one of his servants who terrified me nearly as much as he did."
"Is that…um…something we should be concerned about for Harry's sake?" Miranda asked.
"Nah." Sirius shook his head. "If all those years in Azkaban didn't trigger it, this is probably as mad as I'll get. Then again, I did just spend most of a year pretending to be your children's stray dog, so maybe I am a little off."
Isaac shrugged. "You're probably less messed up than literally everyone in Azkaban, so that should count for something."
"I'll understand if you don't want to forgive us," Andi said, sniffling, "but I hope you won't kick Nymphadora out of your life, too. She cried for days after Harry's parents died, Harry disappeared, and you were imprisoned. All of her favourite people gone within the space of a few days."
"Anger was all I had in Azkaban," Sirius said. "I'm too tired to stay that angry. I just want my family back, or what's left of it."
"Thank you," Ted said. "We want you back, too."
Sniffles from the other end of the chesterfield drew everyone's attention. Hermione had climbed up next to Harry and wrapped her arms around him. "If they could take Sirius away, could they take Harry away, too?" she asked. "He's my best friend and I don't want to lose him."
"Nobody is going to take Harry," Ted said. "A ludicrous number of things had to go wrong for Sirius to be imprisoned without a trial. Now we know what to look for and we'll fight them if they try."
"Excellent," Isaac said. "That's exactly why we came to you. We think Harry and Sirius might need treatment for malnutrition and we need a plan to clear Sirius's name, then we need to figure out why this Voldemort—"
Ted and Andi twitched.
"Sorry, this He-Who-Must-Be-Full-of-It fellow isn't dead yet."
Andi raised her eyebrows. "I'm…not used to hearing people mock him like that."
"What's he going to do?" Isaac asked. "We're the parents of a muggleborn witch. From what Sirius said, that's close to the top of his hit list, anyway, and that's before we basically adopted Harry."
"Exactly," Miranda added. "Our only options are winning or our children dying, so we're damn well going to win."
"So this is one of the times bad language is OK?" Hermione asked.
"Yes, honey, it is," Miranda said.
Hermione smiled. "In that case, go kick some arse, Mr. Tonks."
Harry, whom everyone had thought was sleeping off his magical exhaustion up to that point, raised an arm to the sky and sleepily said, "Yarr!"
"You two," Sirius pointed at Isaac and Miranda, "are doing something right as parents. I don't know what it is, but I salute you."
"That's very nice of you to say," Miranda said.
"It really is," Isaac agreed, "but if I'm being completely honest, I have no idea where his pirate thing came from."
Hermione just shrugged and said, "Boys are weird," as if that explained everything.