[A/N: Thanks to Calamity Owl for beta-reading this chapter! BTW, I think I forgot to mention in a previous author's note that the mind-eating opera mask is a reference to an SCP.]

Hermione pulled her capelet tighter around herself as they emerged from the warm theatre into the February London night. "So, what did you think, Harry?"

"Of the play, or whether the painting really did qualify as 'art'?" he responded.

She shot him a cheeky grin. "Both."

"I just don't buy the painting as art. Sure, you can throw it up on a wall and call it art, but where does that stop? I feel like there has to be something more to 'art' than a mere declaration," Harry said.

"A lot of people would disagree with that statement," Hermione said, "but not me. I suppose it makes me old-fashioned, but I see 'art' as being something more than a magical spell that someone can speak into being. It reminds me of something Tom Stoppard—another playwright—said he saw in a novel. Two landscape gardeners are vying for a job, and one says that the client should be able to distinguish the picturesque and the beautiful. The other says he does distinguish those, but he adds to them a third character he calls 'unexpectedness.' The first gardener responds, and this is what really stuck with me, 'Pray, sir, by what name do you distinguish this character when a person walks round the grounds for the second time?'"

Harry laughed. "I see what you mean, and how it applies to that painting, too. The first time you see a few white stripes painted on a white canvas and someone calls it 'art,' it's intriguing. After that, though, it's just boring."

"I agree," Hermione said. "So, what did you think of your first West End play?"

"I really enjoyed it," Harry replied. "It was both funny and thought-provoking, and I thought the actors were great. Well, except for Richard Griffiths. He really rubbed me the wrong way for some reason. How about you?"

"I loved it, too," Hermione said. "I'd heard that it was a great production and I'm glad we went as part of my mandatory relaxation time."

"I am, too," Harry said, "but I have to admit enjoying the rest of the way we spent your mandatory relaxation time a little more."

She blushed. "I did, too, but we can't do that all of the time."

"True," Harry said. "I mean, wi…um…people occasionally try, but they invariably end up dead of exhaustion, dehydration, asphyxiation, or some combination thereof."

"I don't want to know, do I?" Hermione asked.

"I wish I didn't know." Harry shuddered. "So you said you wanted to do this again in a few weeks?"

"There's another play by a heavily-awarded playwright named Sam Shepard that a lot of my old classmates said was absolutely amazing," Hermione said. "If it had just been a few of them, I'd be sceptical, but so many of them saw it and liked it that I'm curious."

Harry shrugged. "OK, I'll give it a go," he said. "If he's won a lot of awards, it's probably at least reasonably good. Hopefully things will be quiet at work and I—bugger."

"Harry?" Hermione was so shocked she didn't even think to reprimand Harry for his language.

"I need you to promise me something," Harry said.

"Anything."

"Never, ever tell Sue I used the 'Q' word."

She arched her eyebrows. "Fine, but I just want to be clear that I don't buy into that superstition. Absolutely nothing bad is going to happen because you said—"

Harry glared at her.

"Used the 'Q' word," she continued.

"Thank you," Harry said.

Two weeks passed normally for Hermione afterward, and she'd just started rereading the chapter of her Potions textbook Andi had asked her to familiarise herself with for the next day's lesson when the floo lit up.

"Hermione," Sirius's voice asked, "are you there?"

She got up and hurried into the floo room. "What's wrong?" she asked as soon as she could see the fireplace.

"There's a mob in front of the Ministry Press Building and I think Harry is about to help defuse it," Sirius said. "Turn on your Wizarding Wireless!"

"I will!" Hermione replied, and hurried back into the sitting room to do just that. Harry had shown her how to turn it on a few months before, but since Christmas she usually preferred the music on the old Victrola. Changing the record and needle after every song was annoying, but it gave her the opportunity to practise manipulating small objects with magic. And, especially during the first week she tried that, the Mending Charm.

A flick of her wand accompanied by the incantation "Operatur" activated the wireless. "-the mob is outside the Ministry Press Building now. Again, this is Cordelia Prattlewell reporting live from Diagon Alley. Gringotts is somehow remaining open in all of this chaos, possibly because even an angry mob knows not to try its luck with goblins. Oh, and there's a gout of flame coming out of the main Gringotts doors right now. They must have brought up the dragon."

Hermione blanched.

"Well, this reporter is certainly impressed with the safety of her vault in all of this madness, though she would recommend not walking into the bank until after any dragon dung is collected from the floor. Now, back to the Ministry building, where Aurors are holding the crowd back with transfigured stone barricades. The mob is still chanting demands that the Ministry fire everyone implicated by what some are calling the 'Umbridge Dossier' and hand them over for punishment. Someone is emerging from the building now…yes, it's Minister Bones herself, with only a single Auror as a bodyguard! That strikes this reporter as risky…no, wait, the Auror is the Man-Who-Lived himself, Harry Potter! This reporter withdraws all concerns about the Minister needing additional protection."

"You stupid, ridiculous, noble man." Hermione shook her head. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm going to reorient the microphone," the reporter said, her voice more muffled now. "I think the Minister is about to cast a Sonorous Charm and address the mob."

"Wizards and Witches of Great Britain!" a new voice said, presumably the Minister. "You deserve no less than honesty at a time like this, so I'll be honest with you: I had no idea ten percent of the entire Ministry staff would either take us up on the reconciliation offer or resign in disgrace. I'm horrified that such corruption is baked into the fabric of the Ministry and will ensure—"

The reporter gasped, her voice muffled by how she'd moved the microphone, and Hermione's heart very nearly stopped. "Someone tried to hex the Minister!" she said. "The other Aurors have the person now, but the only reason the Minister wasn't hurt was that the hex bounced off a shield in front of her. But I didn't see anyone cast…Merlin! Was Potter shielding her that whole time? How powerful—"

"Oh, god!" Hermione's hand flew to her mouth. "Harry…"

"That's enough!" Bones roared. "You elected me to do a job and Merlin help me I'm going to do that job until I'm legally removed from office. Right now, my job is to clean out the rot in the Ministry and I'm not going to let anyone get my way, including you. So here's what's going to happen. I am going to go back into my office and propose a law to the Wizengamot requiring all Ministry employees to make an Unbreakable Vow not to accept bribes, and you all are going to get out of this street in five minutes or Auror Potter and I are going to forcibly remove the lot of you. Now get moving! I have work to do."

Hermione's stomach knotted up at the thought of Harry taking on an entire mob single-handedly. This insane politician was going to get them both torn to—

The reporter's voice took over again. "The noise of the crowd is dying away and they're…they're starting to break up and walk away. Yes, this is Cordelia Prattlewell confirming that the angry mob is now more of an embarrassed herd. Our Minister and the Man-Who-Lived have successfully defused the situation without violence. This reporter has never seen anything like it, and, though impressed, she hopes she'll never see anything like it again. This is Cordelia Prattlewell signing off from Diagon Alley."

Hermione slid off the chesterfield onto her knees and threw up on the floor in front of her. After crying for a few minutes, she got herself together enough to cast a Wiping Spell to clean up the vomit. It didn't work very well, but after another three attempts she finally managed to clean everything up, and just as she finished the floo lit up.

She couldn't see if there was a face in there from that angle, but she recognized Sue's voice when the other woman shouted, "We're coming through!"

Sue stepped gracefully out of the floo a moment later, nodded to Hermione, then turned to help Harry as he staggered out of the floo. Hermione jumped to her feet and hurried over as Sue helped him to one of the armchairs in the floo room.

"Harry," Hermione shouted as she ran, "what happened?"

"Magical exhaustion," Harry whispered.

"Did you hear about what happened outside the Ministry Press Building?" Sue asked.

"Sirius floo'd me and told me to listen in," Hermione said. "So I heard precisely how stupidly brave this idiot right in front of me was!" She emphasised the last four words each with a light punch to Harry's arm. He groaned.

"I wasn't pleased with Auntie's decision to go out there with just Harry, either," Sue said. "I wanted her to take a dozen of us with her as guards, but she didn't want to look weak. So only Harry went with her, and the poor man kept up a Shield Charm over both of them the whole time."

"And that's difficult?" Hermione asked.

Harry nodded weakly. "Oh, right," Sue said, "I forget you're just finishing up the Third Year curriculum now and that's not till Sixth Year. It's difficult to cast and requires a lot of power from the caster. It's not designed to be used for more than a few seconds at a time, but Harry kept one up for several minutes that was large enough to protect two people."

"That's amazing!" Hermione said. "I just wish you hadn't put yourself in so much danger, Harry,"

"Worth it," Harry said slowly. "Amelia's…the best Minister in decades. I won't let…a mob drive her out."

Behind Hermione, the floo lit up again. "Harry," a familiar voice said, "may I come through?"

Hermione didn't recognize the face of the woman in the floo when she turned around, but she did recognize the voice. It would have been hard not to, since she'd just heard that same voice break up a mob in Diagon Alley.

"Oh, Susan, I'm glad you're there," Amelia Bones said. "And you as well, mystery witch about whom I definitely know nothing."

Sue facepalmed while Harry softly laughed. "Let her through," he said.

Hermione nodded and went over to press the runes carved into the fireplace to clear her for access. A distinguished witch on the high side of middle age stepped through wearing formal grey robes and a monocle.

"Thank you," she said to Hermione. "I knew how tired Mr. Potter was and I wanted to make sure he wasn't home alone right now. I didn't realise Susan was here and I didn't know if you were living here yet."

"Um…" Hermione wasn't sure how to respond to that.

"Auntie?" Sue asked. "I don't mean to pry, but how in Morgana's name did you find out Harry had a girlfriend?"

The older woman smirked. "Augusta can't hold her liquor quite as well as she thinks." Her expression turned serious again. "Mr. Potter, how are you holding up?"

"I've been better," he said.

She frowned. "Usually you just say you're 'fine,' so now I'm actually a little worried about you. Do you want me to take you to St. Mungo's?"

"No, I'll be OK," Harry said.

"Would you like me to get you a Pepper-Up Potion?" Hermione asked.

"Kind of, but I'd just end up paying for it later," Harry said. "I should probably just take a nap."

"You've earned it," Amelia said. "Thank you for going out there with me."

Sue shook her head. "I still think that was a terrible idea," she said.

"Harry said it was worth it," Hermione said. "I hope he was right, Minister, because if he comes home to me in a box one day I'm going to damn well want to know whether it was worth it."

Amelia had the grace to look suitably chastened. "I knew that was a risk," she said, "but a crowd like that is a powder keg. I could have brought a dozen Aurors with me and subdued that crowd by force if I had to, but people would have been injured either in the fighting or in a stampede. Harry's presence both calmed them and, realistically, intimidated them, too. That made it easier for me to cow them myself and run them off."

"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't impressed with both of you," Hermione said, "but one of these days you're going to have to solve your problems without Harry, you know."

"I know," Amelia replied. "It's just…most days I feel like all I can do is claw out another few years of peace before the next war. Your idea about the Truth and Reconciliation hearings is the best thing to happen to this country in years…and yes, I knew that was you immediately. Neville is a lovely young man who has probably never studied muggle political history in his life. If Gus hadn't already told me Harry was dating a muggleborn genius, I would have thought someone else was trying to use Neville to influence me."

Hermione blushed. "I'm glad you liked the idea so much."

"Just so you know," Harry added, "she also figured out that Millie and Marcus would probably target Derby next. I wish I could give her the credit for that."

Amelia raised her eyebrows. "Most people don't start accomplishing things until they officially exist. You're quite precocious."

"Her official existence," Sue said, "is part of the problem. We don't want anyone to find out about her until she passes her O.W.L.s, but she's going to show up on the list of magical citizens next year now that her core is unbound."

"Her core was bound?" Amelia whirled around on her adopted daughter. "What happened?"

"We only just discovered that," Sue said. "Lord Selwyn's former house elf came to talk with Dobby, ended up bound to them through a series of events I still don't quite understand, and snuck back into Selwyn's estate to get the artefacts he used. Harry and Hermione aren't telling anyone exactly how he did it, though, to minimise the possibility that anyone else will ever be able to replicate it. Apparently at least one of the artefacts involved is truly unique."

Amelia's jaw dropped. "That's incredible! So Selwyn was hunting down the muggleborns this whole time? Why wasn't he killing them, though? We know he was capable of doing so, even if we could never prove it."

"We think," Hermione said, "that it was the nature of one of the artefacts involved. We can't tell you what it was, but it was probably powerful enough to overwhelm some of his personality and essentially rewrite his plans a bit."

Harry nodded. "If it had been one of the mentally weaker Death Eaters, like the Goyles or Jugson, I wouldn't be surprised if it had been able to overwhelm their minds entirely. This artefact…it's not evil, but it's shockingly powerful. We're ensuring it's returned to its rightful owner and protected."

"I see," Amelia said. "I'm not happy about the secrecy involved, but I agree that the fewer people who know that hunting down only muggle-borns is possible, the better. So why continue to keep her existence a secret?"

"We're worried Purebloods might use her age as an excuse to bind her again. She's studying for her O.W.L.s so she can take them in May."

"Are you telling me she didn't know about magic until recently—"

"My birthday last September," Hermione supplied.

"Last September," Amelia continued, "and she's taking her O.W.L.s in May?"

"Just five of them, yes," Harry said. "She's on track to finish her coursework in time."

"She's got lots of help," Sue said. "Professors McGonagall, Flitwick, and Tonks are giving her private lessons, Remus and Luna are tutoring her, and even Bathilda Bagshot is helping."

Amelia rubbed her temples. "How is this the craziest thing that's happened to me today?"

"Luna once told me," Hermione said, "that Harry's wrackspurts were distinct and occasionally became, for lack of a better term, contagious. That seems like as good an explanation as any."

"Oh, Morgana," Amelia said, "I refuse to consider that possibility. That way, madness lies."

"I just listened as the head of our government used my boyfriend to scare off an angry mob," Hermione said. "If we're comparing crazy days, I feel like I have a legitimate shot at winning today."

Amelia turned to Hermione and stared at her for a moment, as if seeing her for the first time. "Mr. Potter," she finally said, "is a national hero and a dear friend of Susan's, so I'm concerned for his well-being even when my office sometimes makes that difficult for me to show. I admit to being a little nervous when I heard he had begun dating an entirely unknown quantity, but our conversation has completely allayed those concerns."

"Um…good?" Hermione said.

"Don't worry," Sue said. "I think Auntie just realised what we've known all along: while the rest of the magical world looks at Harry and sees a legend, you look at him and see a man you care about."

Harry interrupted their discussion with a soft snore and shifted a bit in his chair.

Amelia smiled. "The poor lad's earned a break. Ms….?"

"Granger," Hermione said.

"For now," Sue added, making Hermione blush furiously.

Another smile ghosted across Amelia's lips. "Ms. Granger, do you know the Human Levitation Charm?"

"Not yet, I'm afraid," Hermione said.

"I'll handle it," Sue said. "You should probably take a break, too, Auntie."

The older woman sighed. "I probably should. Would you mind if I lay down on the chesterfield in the sitting room for a bit? Nobody is going to bother me here and I could probably get away with literal murder if I claimed to be looking after Mr. Potter."

"Not at all," Hermione said. "Feel free to move any of my notes out of the way if I left something on the cushions. Can I offer either of you tea or anything?"

A house elf popped up next to them. "Enny can get Mistress's friends tea if they wants."

"No, thank you," Amelia said, and Sue likewise shook her head.

"Oh, all right," Enny said sadly, and popped away.

Sue raised her eyebrows at Hermione. "She's your house elf, not Harry's?"

"It's a long story," Hermione said. "She was abused by her previous owner and I made an Unbreakable Vow to free her if she ever asked me to do so."

Amelia's eyes widened. "You did what?"

"I did," Hermione said as she met Amelia's stare with her own, "what I think everyone bound to a house elf should be required by law to do. No one should take advantage of house elves' needs to enslave them."

The older woman paled slightly. "I was a Hufflepuff Prefect in 1972," she said, her voice softer now. "Hufflepuff is the nearest House to the kitchens in Hogwarts. Late one night about a month into the school year, a house elf came to ask me to deal with a disturbance in the kitchen. I hurried over and found a little girl screaming at a boy and demanding all of the house elves be freed immediately. I managed to calm her down long enough to explain more about the symbiotic relationship house elves had with Hogwarts and allay some of her concerns. The fire in your eyes just now reminded me of what I saw in her eyes then…and in her hair, too."

"Lily?" Sue asked.

Amelia nodded. "And Severus. I would feel much better about the world I was leaving to your children if Lily and James had lived to shape it." She turned to regard the young man snoring gently in his armchair. "You're right, Ms. Granger. I need to learn to stop solving my problems with Mr. Potter just because he can do it. Our world needs him to be more than just a hero."

"I do, too," Hermione whispered.

Amelia patted Hermione's arm and nodded again. "Get him to bed, Ms. Granger, and take care of him."

"I will," Hermione said.

Sue nodded and waved her wand in what looked like a lazy half-circle at Harry while murmuring "Mobilicorpus." He floated gently about three inches into the air and Sue manoeuvred him into the sitting room and then up the stairs ahead of her, with Hermione following closely behind. They didn't want to try their luck with any more stairs than they had to, so they deposited him on the bed in the guest room Hermione had been using prior to changing her sleeping arrangements.

"Are you going to be alright?" Sue whispered.

"Sure," Hermione responded. "I just met the head of the magical government, told her off, got her blessing to continue shagging the national hero, and now she's napping in our sitting room because she and Harry are exhausted from scaring off an entire angry mob by themselves. Why would I not be fine?"

Sue had to muffle her own laughter for a moment before getting it under control. "That's fair," she said. "Just blame it on Harry's wrackspurts and get some sleep, yourself."

"I'll do that," Hermione said. "Thank you for taking care of him and at least trying to curb his worst impulses."

"I've been doing that for years," Sue replied. "It's just nice to finally have some help on that front."

Lucius flicked his wand at the wireless to turn it off and poured two snifters of brandy for himself and his son. "What a sad day in Wizarding History," he said. "To placate a mob rather than utterly smash it is to only encourage more such uncivilised behaviour."

Draco nodded and sipped the brandy. "Indeed, Father. Had a Malfoy or a proper Black been the Minister, that mob would doubtless have been taught its place."

"I agree." Lucius took a sip of the brandy and swirled the rest in the glass thoughtfully. "And yet…this is why I've tried to counsel against rash action right now. We can water down these laws later, when no one is paying attention. To stand in the way of the populace at the moment is to stand in the way of a charging graphorn." He sighed. "But enough of the foolishness of our allies. Have your inquiries revealed anything of the muggleborn or Umbridge's lost artefacts, whatever they were?"

"I'm afraid not," Draco said. "We won't have any way of knowing if any mudbloods have been unbound until the Hogwarts Headmistress reveals the names from the Book of Admission in the fall, and she is safely ensconced within the protections of Hogwarts. Is there nothing you can do to lure her out, Father?"

"Possibly, but pushing too hard on that might also tip my hand," Lucius said. "Our opponents in this game, whoever they are, are clearly ruthless and well-resourced. I don't wish to make us targets for the mere possibility of obtaining useful information."

"True." Draco nodded. "What can we do, then? We can't wait around while the mudbloods swarm back over us."

"I agree," Lucius said. "We need to make it our priority to figure out how it was done so we can replicate it, but we also need to start laying the groundwork with the Wizengamot to re-bind all of the mudbloods who haven't taken their O.W.L.s. We can at least keep some of them out of our society."

"That could work," Draco said. "I mean, it would be better to hunt them all down, but keeping some out of our society is better than having them all return."

Lucius raised his glass and smirked. "To the mudbloods: may they stay lost."

Draco grinned and clinked his glass against his father. "May they stay forever lost."