"I'm so close to telling you you're seeing things," Ron said, almost in a lying position in his chair at the backyard of the Burrow, patting his stomach.

Up by the pond, George and the kids too young for Hogwarts played some game that involved liberal amount of mud and accidental magic, and they were all completely soaked, which brought a smile to Harry's face. The rest of the Weasleys and various significant others were inside, doing the dishes, and most likely giving Harry and Ron some time alone.

"The trouble is," Ron went on, watching the kids with a smile of his own, "I'm seeing things as well, and none good. I'm thinking we bring this to Kingsley."

Harry nodded, biting his cheek. It wasn't that he didn't trust Kingsley, but he was a Minister, and in theory he answered to Belyakov, even though that sort of correspondence was a rarity these days. He still couldn't see the clear connection, but for now, it was the safest to assume everything was related. He told Ron as much.

When he didn't answer, Harry cleared his throat. "Have you mentioned anything to Hermione?"

Ron pulled himself up the chair with a groan, and his smile vanished. "No, and you won't either." He nodded towards the house. "Who would have thought she'd be happy doing dishes on Sundays with mum, but she is, and neither of us got the right to ruin it for her, alright?"

"But—"

"Mate, I love you, but I'm gonna punch you if you drag her into this."

There was no answer to that, and all Harry could do was nod. Ron must've seen the resignation in his eyes as he gave a nod as well, and returned to his comfortable position, eyes narrowed towards the pond, and the children's antics.

"I'll get you the files," Ron said. "And you annoy your boss into letting something slip, alright?"

Harry grinned. "My preferred tactic."

"Tactic would mean there's a thought to it instead of being a relentless pain in the arse," Ron replied with a snort. "We've got to go to Kent, though. It's sort of the zero ground, isn't it?"

It all somehow led back to it, Harry had to agree, and murmured his agreement. "You and me, then?"

"Tomorrow, after work. Just like in the old times." Ron didn't look particularly happy about it, but he had his mouth set in that determined stubborn way of his, and Harry was glad he had him as a backup. No one better for it, as far as he was concerned.

Harry understood it alright, for the old times included a terrible war, a loss of a family member, and so much death besides, and all of it before they had even finished Hogwarts. For some it may seem so long ago, but a single glance at Ron's face told Harry that they both still remembered it as if it were yesterday.

"You wanna come in, play some cards? Why, I have this bottle of elvish red I've been meaning to try."

Harry grinned wryly. He didn't mean to linger long at Weasley, but what was he to do otherwise? Bars were always an inviting prospect but… "And you wanted a professional with you? I can hardly say no to that, can I?"

By his reckoning it had been almost a year since he last spent the afternoon with them, but as he entered, and Arthur's eyes lit up in joy and Molly brought him a snack, he thought it was worth it.

As the Monday morning came, Harry found himself wearing a shiny little badge that Mrs Malfoy owled him the day before, and that meant he was one of them. He flashed it at Crabbe and Goyle wanna-bes with a grin they probably didn't deserve, but he couldn't resist.

They, the pair of mature bodyguards, decided to pretend he didn't exist, and in his own maturity, Harry tumbled into Crabbe's shoulder. Within the headquarters, there weren't as many people as he saw last time, but it was still rather early.

A girl approached him, at guess barely out of Hogwarts and missing half of her right brow for some reason. After some pleasantries, she led him to the first floor of it, into what he assumed was to be his office. Only the chair was already occupied.

"Pansy," he said in greeting, giving the mostly empty and small room a brief glance. "I love what you've done with the place."

"Narcissa wants you to know the basics," she said, not stopping writing. He tried to peek what it was about, but she had handwriting so small and tight he couldn't even make the spaces in between the words. "Anyone with a shred of intelligence would deduce these, but I'll write it all down just in case."

"Can't be too careful with the likes of me," Harry agreed with a wide smile that just made her frown. He doubted he ever saw her smiling in any case, and he doubted his presence would change that fact. "Or you could just tell me, you know."

"Just telling Gryffindors never ends at just. I'm busy besides."

"You know, last time I heard you speaking, you wanted to give me up to Voldemort."

That made her stop, and she raised her head, lips curled into distaste. "And if it worked, I'd save myself from a headache a decade later. Grow up, Potter, it was a perfectly reasonable thing to do."

Harry hummed and thought about it. Not that he would tell her, but he could see the sense in it. He himself doubted he would end up victorious, and Slytherins were the sort that valued their lives more than the lives of suicidal, scarred idiots.

"Anything I should know in particular?"

She put a final dot with a sharper than needed move of her quill, and then gave him a cold, flat stare. "I don't know how you managed to get onto Cissy's good side, but I've told her, and I'll keep telling her that this is a mistake."

"Why is that?" His smile lost some of its usual strength but he'd be damned if he let her see that she got to him as fast as she did.

"Because you're trouble, Potter," she answered, and got up, deep purple robes catching the light as it fluttered, as if there was a wind messing it up. The watch on her wrist was one of those fancy French things, with all the modern charms on it, no doubt. She wore it well, but what he got out of it was that she wasn't in it for gold.

He casually blocked her way out. "Where do I find you if I've questions?"

"At the end of the hall." Her pitch black eyes were narrowed. "As rare as possible, if you don't mind. Later, Potter."

He sat down on the still warm chair and got to reading. Once he got the hang of the process, he tapped his wand against the box under the desk, and it started spurting letters out with a gagging sound, and Harry had to spring into action to catch them all. According to Pansy, these were the options he could pick from, and once he chose any, all he needed to do was to sign it and get to work.

Absent-mindedly he went through a couple, to get a hang of what people were after. Some names he recognized, the others not so, but the sheer amount of nonsense had him grinning. There were a witch looking for a muggleborn to take her shopping into a muggle world without embarrassing her, a dying werewolf offering his body for potion ingredients as his way of contributing to the Free Wand Society, and a squib looking for someone to deal with the ghost of his mother that still mocked him for the lack of magic, to name a few.

But what really got his notice was the number of contracts looking for potion ingredients and magical items for other purposes. More than one mentioned the late batches to the apothecaries, and some even insisted they went out looking on their own, only to find the usual spots all empty. One mentioned the fact that he couldn't remember the last time he had seen a hippogriff.

As he came upon Ollivanders request for wand-making ingredients, he put down his signature, and got up, thinking. He wasn't the biggest brewer out there, but now that it was pointed out to him, the last time he had been to restock his potions, the store was emptier than usual, both in stock and people.

Once more, he went through the list of trees Ollivander was after, and sighed, barely recognizing the third of them, but then he got an idea and grinned. He may be pants at herbology but he had a rather large friend that wasn't.

The steady, unabated rain turned the ground around Hagrid's hut into a shoe-grabbing mud, and Harry drew his wand and made it all more solid with an irritated flick. It didn't help much, and by the time he knocked at the door he was wet and miserable, cursing his ineptitude with the basic charms. He could summon great torrents of fire with half a thought, but ask him to dry his raincoat and he'd spend ten minutes fumbling with a charm.

The doors opened and Fang was first to greet Harry, though where he would once hurl himself at Harry with loud barks and wet licks, now he just settled into a joyful, doggy grin, and gave Harry's shoes a gentle prod.

"Harry." Hagrid beamed, and crushed his bones with a hug. His hair and beard were as messy and long as ever, but instead of deep brown, now there were the roots of steely gray. "I've just put on a kettle. Come in, come in."

Harry accepted the warm tea with a grateful nod. "How have you been, Hagrid?"

"Busy," the half giant replied, a smile vanishing into a serious scowl. "The centaurs, the bloody mules, have been a lot less toleratin' lately."

"How so?"

"S' the ministry business," Hagrid said. "That list of theirs they're forcin' them into."

Harry shook his head. "You'd think they'd settle that by now."

Hagrid waved one of his large fists and almost knocked Harry's tea. "Bugger the politics, eh?" Hagrid said. "What brings you on about, Harry?"

When Harry showed him the list he was after, what was left of Hagrid's good mood evaporated. A moment after, he replaced their teas with a cooked wine. It was strong and spicy, and it made Harry warm all down to his stomach.

"There's dark magic afoot, I reckon, nothing else coulda done it," he said in a whisper. "You're not the first to think o' the Forbidden Forest."

"Dark magic?" Harry repeated, some of his skepticism creeping into his tone.

"What else?" Hagrid boomed loudly. "I pass the yew tree every mornin' on me duties, and I got stuck in the branch just the other day, and the buggerin' thing just cracked, all rotten. McGonagall says even muggles started to notice."

"That there are trees dying?"

He shook his head. "Not all. Just the ones we use."

Which was even more worrying, in Harry's opinion. The trees had magical properties to them, and cursing them wasn't the easiest thing around. You can destroy it rather easily, sure, but curse it to slowly rot away? That was a different sort of magic, and not something your everyday Arthur could use without some serious preparation.

"Not just trees, either," Hagrid went on, his eyes getting wet, oblivious to the darkening of Harry's face. "The thestral fouls were all born sick, poor bastards. I had to put 'em down. A kindness, I thought."

Harry put a hand on his shoulder. "It was, Hagrid. It was."

As his big friend wiped his face, Harry found the whole thing a bit far fetched, almost absurd. There was no way something as big as this could happen without the ministry noticing, and if it somehow did, the ministry was simply too large to keep it secret. Even if everyone seemed to know all about it.

"How come no one is doing anything about it?"

"They told us it's a temporary thing," he said. "S'matter o' fact McGonagall told us only recently we ought to ration what we've got."

"Show me."

Delving deeper into the Forbidden Forest made Harry even more miserable, his soaked clothes sticking against his skin, as his legs seemed to hit every single root that stuck out of the ground, old trees as solid as ever, but Harry could see an occasional dying one.

Hagrid nodded, a sadness hunching to his sagged body. "Beech, and that one over there's Alder." Harry grabbed the branch, pulled down with too much force, and almost ended on his bottom for his troubles. It gave way too easily. "Told yer, didn't I?"

Some half hour later, Hagrid maneuvered them onto a sort of clearance, ever-green grass reaching to Harry's hip. And then at one point it just ended, leaving flat, empty dirt soft under Harry's feet. "Uh, Hagrid?"

"Awful thing," he said, crouching down to pick up some mud, letting it fall back through his open fist. "One old unicorn liked it here, before, and I haven't seen it since. I still worry about him sometimes."

A prickling on the back of Harry's neck made him stiffen, and he raised a shield on instinct, an arrow bouncing off it. It wasn't about to hit either of them, but it was too close for Harry's liking. Far too close.

"Bane, you old mule," Hagrid yelled at the trees on the other side of the clearance. "You coulda hit Harry."

And indeed, the centaur stood forth from behind the bush, a bow with a new arrow in his hands, though not pointed at them as of yet. "I gazed at the stars in the morning, Hagrid. There would be no blood spilled on these grounds. Not today."

"Funny, that," Harry said, tilting his head, and taking a step forward, his wand at the side. "I haven't gazed and I'm still not sure about the blood part."

Bane frowned. He always looked the wildest of all the centaurs Harry had ever seen, but in his age, he managed to grow even wilder. Mane of gray and black fell around his pale, gaunt face, his eyes sunken and dark brown, and with no warmth.

More bushes at the treeline rustled, and Harry could feel the bows pointing his way. They were hardly any threat to him, but there might be just as many centaurs behind him, and Hagrid had no defenses available beside Harry.

"You are not welcome, wizard."

"Wizard, is it?" Harry said, feeling the fury raising from deep down within his stomach. For the species that rarely forgot any slight, they seemed to be rather quick to forget what he had given in this very forest. "Alright, then, centaur. Let the arrow fly and we'll see who isn't welcome."

To all fairness, Harry's bravado was more of a front as he tried to gauge the situation as best as he could, in deep rain, and not seeing most of his enemies. Sure, he could set it all on fire, but he doubted Hagrid would like that.

Bane watched Harry's wand warily, probably with the similar train of thoughts behind those sunken eyes. Before either of them could say anything more, another centaur stepped forward, Magorian, and put his hand on Bane's shoulder.

"Morning," Magorian said. Harry liked the fact he didn't have his bow at the ready. "Rather pretty one, wouldn't you say?"

Harry glanced up at the gray clouds that were halfway to being the black ones. "If you say so."

"But not as pretty a place," Magorian continued, as if he hadn't heard Harry. "A foul one, this, and one we swore to protect."

"Protect from us?"

Magorian's mouth turned into a flat line as his eyes went back and forth between Harry and Hagrid. "You both have proven your friendship to our kind before, and I acknowledge that." He gave a little bow. "But there are some matters no friendship can overcome."

"Yeah," Harry said with a smile he didn't feel. "Like shooting arrows at us, eh?"

"This darkness cannot be allowed to spread, not in this forest."

Harry was suddenly reminded why he hated talking to the bloody stargazers, and gave a loud sigh. "We're here to investigate, not to spread it. See if we can help."

"Time for prevention is over." Magorian's shoulders sagged, a grief so strong in his eyes it made Harry uneasy. "With wizards it began, with wizards it will end. We ask again and no more, let this place rot in peace, and let it spread no further."

Harry opened his mouth, but Hagrid gave him a strong tug before he could say anything, and shook his head, his flatbow now at his side as well. It took an effort, but Harry managed to put his wand away. "I'd have been happy to call you friend just yesterday, Magorian, but this is not a way to treat one."

If possible, Magorian's eyes grew even more sad at that. "So be it."

After that, it took Harry most of the day to gather enough of the branches that wouldn't make him embarrassed to show at Ollivanders. The old man gave a sad smile once he had seen a rather pitiful pile and gave Harry a handful of coins. He had no idea if it was a good price for it, but he didn't care.

Ron eyed Harry with something between amusement and pity, and muttered a couple charms as he dried Harry's raincoat. "At least it stopped now. Shall we?"

The moment Harry accepted Ron's hand they side apparated to the empty, foggy street somewhere in Kent. Small houses were neatly rowed at each side of it, curtains pulled shut, and without lights at front porches, only street lamps giving any vision against falling dark.

"So muggle, eh?" Ron said under his breath as he started walking down the street, Harry hot on his heels. "I've never understood folk who settled here., but by ministry reckoning there's a dozen wizards here or so. Used to be anyway."

Harry had to agree. The village was so lifeless it uncomfortably reminded him of Privet Drive, and the sheer normality of it that made his Uncle and Aunt into what they were, among other, less pleasant things.

"Last time I was here, this was all packed with curious curtain twitchers and busybodies. It's just around the corner." As they approached it, Ron took out the deluminator and started killing the lights behind them. Just as they passed the curve, he suddenly stopped.

Harry opened his mouth to ask him what was the matter, but then got a strange thought in his mind. Wasn't he supposed to be somewhere? He shook his head, went to take another step forward, and then bumped into Ron. "What are you doing?"

Ron looked at him as if he was mad. "I'm going home, mate. Hermione's making dinner."

It took all of Harry's willpower to battle his own legs, and to actually question the weirdness, but he got the hang of it. He had more than enough experience with things muddling his brain, and he hated such magic with passion. He gave Ron a sharp slap, not the sort that would hurt, but rather a loud and embarrassing one. "Keep it together. It's the spell."

Ron drew, his face bewildered, full of rage. "What did you just do?"

Harry slapped him again. "Ron! Think."

And to Harry's great relief, he did, and then blinked stupidly a couple of times before pocketing his wand. "Merlin's saggy pants," he said. "They put repellers around it, the sort they have for muggles around Hogwarts."

Mouth set in a determined line, Ron turned around once more, eyes closed in concentration as he pushed forward, through the alien influence of the protective magic, and Harry followed, having an easier time with it, but then again, he always did when it came to resisting things.

Once they got inside the bubble, the effect broke, and Harry saw three houses in a row completely busted, as if a large explosion happened just in front of them. Their fronts were mostly missing, the sides barely holding together, various rooms at sight as if it was a doll house he once saw Ron's kid playing with.

"Broken enchantments did this?" Harry whispered. They were alone, and the repelling magic would ensure so, but Harry had a strange feeling someone might be listening. "Were all three houses charmed?"

Ron shook his head. "Just the one in the middle. But stuff on the house was rather low-grade—you see how the sides of the other two houses are still holding—the real banger was just about where we are standing."

Harry crouched, touched the ground with his wand, and felt nothing. From the houses, a faint sense of decay spread. "What was it?"

"A screamer, an alarm, and a notice. That dude from the DOM said there was some complicated Arithmancy involved as to which one would get triggered, some prophetic, divination bull."

"Intention based," Harry said to himself. Which meant there was probably some blood involved, and those spells didn't go down easily. In turn, it explained the radius of the blast. "Paranoid folk, then."

"Eh, not necessarily. After You-Know-Who people have been taking safety much more seriously."

Harry approached the house, waving away Ron's worried advice about it being a moment away from collapsing on him. Even if it was debris, Harry could clearly see this was a home, a place where people lived and laughed, not just a random safehouse. Judging by the protective spellwork, they weren't slouches either. And then it all collapsed on them.

If the same didn't happen to him just days ago, he wouldn't have any suspicions, but he wasn't a slouch either and his whole setup vanished in a blast, though not of the same size. The thought from earlier that day reappeared in his mind with gusto, and it made him wary.

"No way this is just a random thing," he said, voicing his thoughts to Ron. He told him all that happened earlier that day, and felt sympathy when Ron's shoulders sagged. "To be honest, it feels like some kind of testing to me. Imagine if this happens to the ministry's enchantments? Or Hogwarts?"

Ron paled, freckles becoming pronounced. "Impossible. We're talking about a millennia old magic. The only thing that can do anything remotely close to what you're talking about is a curse." He gave a weak chuckle. "But how would you go about it? Something akin to You-Know-Who's curse on the defense professor spot. You'd have to curse…"

"You'd have to curse magic itself."