Author's Note 11/4/2022: Hello Everyone. I apologize profusely for the delay in continuing Heather's story. For many reasons I was unsatisfied with my work on the story thus far, and this prevented me from being able to move forward until I brought the writing up to a level I was satisfied with. That being said, if you are picking the story up here, and have already read Chapters One through Ten when they were originally published, I would please ask that you go back and reread them before reading this chapter.

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter and everything about it belongs to JK Rowling.

Chapter Eleven

Heather and the other new aurors quickly fell into their new routine. Every morning they would arrive at the Ministry by apparition, shuffle along with everyone else reporting for work, and board the lifts for Level Two. Once there, they would file down the corridor into the breakroom, which was also used as a makeshift of a classroom when the need arose. For the first few hours of the morning they would be lectured to by senior aurors and members of other departments on wizarding law and their new responsibilities as law enforcement officers. It was rather like being back in school. After a hurried lunch, usually gotten from the food cart in the Atrium run by a squat little witch, they would return to the auror office and change into their workout clothes for an afternoon of dueling and hands on practice. When the day ended, they would all file back out of the office feeling completely done in, knowing it would be the same tomorrow.

In Heather's case, both arriving and leaving work meant dodging a handful of reporters and photographers who waited each morning and afternoon to try and get glimpses of her. Thankfully, she had two things going for her that aided her in hiding from them. For one thing she was shorter than almost everyone else who worked at the Ministry, seemingly, and so could usually hide behind one or several others. In addition to that, her dark hair and plain colored clothes, which were constantly called boring by Ginny, caused eyes to slide over her without marking her passage or even realizing it. How long this would last, she didn't know.

Friday morning dawned cool and gray, the sky covered with thick, rain laden clouds. Heather struggled to eat her breakfast, all the while wanting nothing more than to climb back into her bed and pull the blankets all the way up over her head. Grudgingly, she did have to admit that the rigid schedule and routine were helpful. It was good to have a reason to get out of bed other than eating breakfast and sitting around the Burrow. Having a purpose again was buoying her spirits in a way she hadn't even known she'd needed. Maybe that was why the dream hadn't bothered in days?

Another reason for it could be that she was too busy, and too exhausted, to worry about it. Her head was heavy from quickly memorizing so much information. Try as she might to keep it all straight, she knew that she hadn't gotten it all down as much as she might like. It was hard enough trying to keep straight the multitude of laws and regulations for engaging suspects while sitting in a classroom, let alone having to recite the information while dodging hexes. This wasn't helped by the presence of Honeywell's almost goading smirk every time Heather missed a question or failed to block a spell in time. Heather saw now why Honeywell had become an auror. Underneath that sweet and innocent outer shell, the woman was devious and cunning, and was usually at least ten steps of Heather.

It had taken most of that week for her to finally be able to hold her own against the experienced witch. Heather's old skill at dueling, not to mention her reflexes born of years of quidditch practice, were returning quickly enough, but her muscles were still playing catch up. Much like everyone else, the body that stepped into the lift at the end of each day was little more than a quivering mass that didn't feel remotely human again until a long soak in a lavender infused bath. If anyone saw her without clothes on right now, the number of bruises and minor scrapes present on her body might cause alarm. During her bath the previous evening, Heather had deliriously compared her skin to a cow, covered in dark splotches in steep contrast to its normal pale appearance.

Other than apparently keeping the dream and her other worries at bay, the other benefit to this perpetual exhaustion was that she had no left-over energy to be nervous around her other female coworkers. She could, and did, strip down to almost nothing in the changing room, oblivious to anything else going on. No one cared, or if they did, she didn't notice, and they didn't say anything. In fact, it had gotten to a point where the only pretense at modesty she clung to was hiding her front anytime she had to remove her pants. The thought of anyone seeing that still felt wrong, even if she wasn't entirely able to explain why.

This morning, her first stop upon arriving at the office was to dump her bag in the cubicle she shared with Honeywell. "Morning!" the blonde witch chirped with an energy that Heather thought was plain indecent for that hour of the morning. She didn't answer but made straight for the breakroom. Padma, Katie, and Sturgis were already there, drinking their first of many cups of coffee. Before this week, Heather had always been one for tea or pumpkin juice in the morning. Four days of being an auror had forced her to recognize the restorative powers of coffee and develop what could almost be called an addiction for the stiff brew preferred by the aurors. One by one the others filed in, not speaking but filling or refilling mugs.

Proudfoot found them and called the group to order. He started by calling out a list of names that included Heather. "You lot, report to the Department of Magical Transportation on Level Six to get your apparition licenses. Everyone else, go over what we talked about yesterday until ten." Heather, Ron, Neville, and a few others topped off their mugs and then walked towards the lifts. On Level Six they were greeted by Percy Weasley. After a lecture on apparition safety that Heather thought took much longer than it needed to, they were led into a waiting room and called one by one for testing.

Hours passed while they sat there, the group growing ever smaller. No one returned to the room after their name was called. At last, the only two occupants were Heather and Daphne Greengrass, a blonde-haired girl Heather remembered from Hogwarts. Neither of them spoke to the other. In fact, to Heather's knowledge Daphne hadn't spoken to another of the trainees all week. She had kept mostly to herself during classroom instruction, and only ever dueled with her mentor, a man named Moore. It wasn't a comfortable silence. Even though she had no real reason to feel this way, Heather found herself wondering if she really trusted Daphne like she did any of the others. The girl had been a Slytherin, and while this wasn't an actual reason to dislike or mistrust her, it was a hard bias to overcome quickly. According to mutterings Heather had overheard, Daphne had been evacuated with the rest of her house prior to the battle but had stayed in Hogsmeade instead of joining the death eaters. When the friends and families of those defending the castle had rallied there for the last charge while Heather lay apparently dead on the lawn, Daphne had fell in with them, turning her back on both her house and, from what the rumors said, her own parents. The very fact she was here led much credence to this. After all, if she'd fought with the death eaters or fled the school completely Kingsley would never have offered to let her become an auror.

If she was being completely honest with herself, Heather secretly wondered if this was the inside source for Rita's article. She had quoted an unknown Slytherin girl after all, and one who had supposedly defected from her house to fight for the school. Wouldn't it make sense that would be Daphne? It would explain her standoffish attitude and the fact that she hadn't even looked at Heather except by accident. During their years at school together, Heather couldn't remember a single encounter between the two of them. Daphne hadn't been one of Pansy Parkinson's giggling girlfriends, and so had never gone out of her way to give Heather grief.

Out of the corner of her eye, Heather saw Daphne's gaze shift to her then away again when Heather looked around. What was she doing here, and had she been the one who told Rita Skeeter such horrible lies? Heather resolved to get to the bottom of it if she could.

The door to the room opened suddenly and Percy stuck his head inside. "Heather, your turn." Heather breathed a silent sigh of relief and followed him from the room without looking at Daphne. They walked down two corridors until they arrived in an office. From the way that everyone was just so and there wasn't a single thing that could be called clutter, Heather figured it must be Percy's. She silently doubted that there was a single piece of dust out of place.

"Hi, Heather," Percy said brightly, closing the door behind them.

"Hello Percy," Heather replied. "I didn't know you'd transferred down here."

Something of Percy's old smugness filled his face. "Oh yes," he said pompously. "I've been made the Assistant Head of Department."

Heather thought that certainly explained the nice office. "Well…" she said, unsure of what else to say.

"Right, you're to apparate to Dad's office and right back here. He's expecting you." Percy said, adopting his official Ministry voice.

Heather nodded and pictured Mr. Weasley's new office clearly in her mind. She turned on her heel and a moment later she was standing in front of his desk. He rose, smiling, and handed her a small roll of parchment bearing his signature. "Go straight back," he said and returned to his work with a small wave.

"Excellent!" said Percy when she reappeared in his office. His eyes moved up and down her.

"Making sure my eyebrows are in the right place?" she asked with a grin.

"Now, Heather, you may joke but splinching is a serious matter," he said in a no-nonsense way. Heather rolled her eyes when he wasn't looking but didn't say anything else on the subject. When he was satisfied that she was completely intact, he handed her a small thick rectangle of parchment. "Here's your license. Don't worry about keeping it on you. We keep a copy on file for you here."

When she reached the lifts, Heather checked her watch. It was almost noon, and so time for lunch. As a lift rattled to a stop, Heather stepped inside, followed by Daphne who had come up silently behind her. They each stood on opposing sides of the lift as it descended to the Atrium. The rest of their group was already eating. The cart was a combination breakfast, lunch, and coffee affair, located just outside the archway to the lifts, near the fountain. With little time to go anywhere else, it had become the usual lunch spot for the new aurors, and if today was like the rest of the week had been, Heather would be lucky if the cart wasn't already sold out.

Mercifully, it wasn't. Heather paid for a chicken sandwich and pumpkin juice and slid into an open chair between Seamus and Padma. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Daphne sit down at a table alone and crack open a book she pulled out of a pocket.

"You didn't miss much" said Padma between bites of her own sandwich.

"Yeah, just a load of nothin' bout working around muggles" added Seamus.

Heather munched quietly while the conversation flowed around her. Her nagging suspicions of Daphne continued to occupy her thoughts. Was it right to question her loyalty just because she had been a Slytherin? After all, hadn't the war taught her that good and evil were not arbitrated by the decision of an ancient hat? And wasn't it more likely that Rita Skeeter had invented her anonymous source? It certainly wouldn't be the first time. Maybe she should try and get to know Daphne before making any concrete judgements. Seamus' voice cut across that train of thought, bringing her back to the present.

"I'm tellin' you. If I don't get out of me mum's house, I'm gonna go mental." He was saying this to Katie, who was seated next to him.

"I know what you mean," replied Katie. "My dad's going spare since it all happened. It's almost like he thinks I'm still underage again with all the rules he's putting in place. I'm looking for my own place, and fast."

"Well, if you'd like we can always find a place to shack up. I mean…" said Seamus, failing at the last moment to hide his suggestive grin.

"In your dreams, Finnegan." Katie said, rolling her eyes.

"Where are you living, Heather?" asked Neville. He was sitting directly across from her and had so far stayed out of the conversation.

"What? Oh, with Ron and his family. You?" she replied.

"My gran's," Neville said with a small shrug. "Don't really have anywhere else to go."

"Yeah, me either," replied Heather before lapsing back into silence.

Not wanting to brood any longer about Daphne Greengrass, she got up and went to purchase a large coffee along with a cherry danish. Now that the subject had been broached, what was she going to do for a house in the long run? For the time being she had no desire to leave the Burrow, but she couldn't just keep living with Ron's parents for the rest of her life. Her parent's old cottage in Godric's Hollow was hers, she knew, but not only was the thought of living in that house unpleasant, it would need a lot of work before it was habitable again.

The image of Grimmauld Place's dark front door took shape before her eyes. She shook her head violently to clear the image. The house that Sirius had left her was the last place she wanted to live. It was as grim as a mausoleum on it's best day, and it too held many strong, sad memories. She supposed she could always sell it. It wasn't like Sirius would be upset if she did. At the same time, the house was one of the few physical ties she had left to her godfather. She wondered if it had been checked since the Battle. As far as she knew only members of the Order could get inside, though Yaxley had by now had the better part of a year to bring in other death eaters. That's why they'd been forced to abandon it in the first place, and with Yaxley still on the loose that left the security of the place highly questionable. Was it possible he was using the house as a base just like she had? Her stomach twinged at the thought. The thought of him hiding there took up most of her attention as she followed everyone back from lunch.

"What's on your mind?" asked Honeywell when Heather arrived at their cubicle. Heather explained while they walked to the locker room. "Sounds like a good training opportunity to me," said Honeywell. "I'll run it by the boss after we're done here."

Heather joined in stretching with everyone while her thoughts continued to race. Even if they cleared the house, did she really want to go live there? No, definitely not. At the same time, the house might still be useful. It was strongly protected, local to the Ministry, and had more bedrooms than could possibly be needed.

"Right, Potter!" said Honeywell, drawing the wand that Heather had come to loathe and fear. "You, against me and Proudfoot."

"Two on one?" asked Heather with trepidation. Her muscles already ached, and she saw being knocked on her arse quite plainly in her near future. With equally large grins, Honeywell and Proudfoot took up positions opposite her while the rest of the group retreated out of the danger zone.

"Yup," Honeywell said brightly. "If you can only win when the odds are fair then you can't win at all."

Heather had been dueling on and off for more than four years now. Before this week, she had even considered herself to be quite good, what with having trained Dumbledore's Army and faced several of the strongest death eaters in her time. While she may have never had any formal training in the subject, years of combat had taught her everything she'd needed to know, or so she'd thought. Now she knew better. Aurors had always been in a class of their own within the Magical Law Department, second only to the elite Hit Wizard squads, and even those of the force who didn't specialize in dueling were still formidable. There was a reason, after all, that they had been feared by the death eaters. Now Heather knew why.

She didn't last longer than fifteen minutes against the two of them. Initially, both had focused their attacks from a single direction, taking turns firing so that Heather never had more than a split second to muster any sort of offense of her own. Heather's shield had mostly held up under this assault, until Proudfoot began sliding to his left, looking to get in around the edge of her protection. Now caught in a crossfire, Heather was completely on the defensive. It had only been a matter of time before she slipped up and something got through. She was a heartbeat too slow countering Proudfoot's stunning spell. She had no memory of the strike itself but based on the pain radiating from her ribcage when Hestia Jones revived her, she figured she had the makings of a brand-new bruise. Staggering slightly over to a bench, she watched as one by one her fellows took their turns. It was some small comfort that no one else lasted as long as she did, but not much.

When it was time to change and go home, Heather limped into the locker room with everyone else. 'You did good, Potter," commented Honeywell seriously. Heather nodded, accepting the compliment. One thing about her, Heather knew, was that when it came to praise or criticism, Honeywell didn't parse her words. Good or bad, she told it like it was. Heather appreciated this about her. She was here to teach and knew that false praise wasn't going to help Heather get better or stay alive.

"Thanks," Heather replied wearily, pulling open her locker.

Her pile of clothes had been haphazardly piled into the locker when she had changed earlier, but something seemed off about them. One by one she extracted each garment in turn, inspecting each piece before setting them on a nearby bench. Finally, near the bottom, she found what was wrong. Her bra, one of her favorites actually, was no longer the pleasant shade of green it had been when she had taken it off. Now, it was the lurid orange used by Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, with the words Nice Knockers, Potter. Love, Peevsey emblazoned across the cups in bright pink letters.

"Alright!" Heather called out after several deep breathes that did nothing to quell her anger, "Who do I have to thank for this?" She held the offending garment aloft, allowing everyone to get a good view. She could feel her cheeks flushing the same pink as the lettering as the entire locker room burst out in laughter. A few people were jockeying closer to get a better view.

"I didn't know Peeves could leave Hogwarts," Katie said almost too innocently as she pulled her shirt on over her head.

"He's not wrong though!" called Padma from further away, also in a deceptively innocent voice.

"I hate all of you!" cursed Heather before pulling off her sports bra and sliding her arms into the straps of the now orange one. Someone was going to pay for this. There were more hoots and catcalls as the bra disappeared under her shirt, but she paid them no attention. She'd fix it that night, right now she just didn't have the energy. "I swear, if this was Seamus I will murder him," she muttered as she pulled on her robes.

Honeywell was waiting for her outside, still smirking.

"Yeah, yeah" Heather said glowering. It was going to be a long time before this went away. She followed her mentor towards Robards' office.

"What?" he grunted in reply to Honeywell's knock.

"Potter's got a request. I think it'll make a good training op." she replied, pushing the door all the way open and moving inside. Heather followed hesitantly. Robards hadn't said much to the recruits this week, but rumor had it he was making bets on who wouldn't make it through training.

"Well?" he said when neither witch spoke.

Heather explained quickly, leaving out the details regarding the house's past history with the Order of the Phoenix. She hadn't been told just what of the Order's affairs had been made public knowledge yet, and so aired on the side of caution. Now that she thought about it, was the Order even still active? She would need to ask Mr. Weasley or Kingsley.

"So," Robards said dismissively, "you want to borrow some aurors to go check under your bed, Potter?"

Honeywell rolled her eyes. "Oh c'mon, boss. It'll be good training for the newbies and you know it."

Robards looked back and forth between the two of them. Heather could see the dark bags under his eyes and the lines on his face. Rather than looking like he was putting meat back on his bones now that he wasn't on the run, he looked more haggard than he had at the start of the week. "Fine," he said wearily after a long moment. "You may have a point. Sorry about my gruff, it's been a day. I'll brief Proudfoot on Monday."

Waiting for Heather when she got home that evening were two letters. If one hadn't been from Madam Pomfrey she would have ignored them until after her bath. The note wasn't very long, but it made her heart soar.

Heather,

I see no issue with you beginning a full dosage of your potion. Having seen your progression towards being a woman beyond just the physical matters, I can agree that you have clearly thought this change out and are ready to take the next step. The supply I sent you last week should last you for the next month, at which point you will have to make other arrangements. As you are no longer a Hogwarts student I am unfortunately unable to continue supplying you. I have included the name of a friend of mine at St. Mungo's who you can reach out to for future doses. I have already written to her to expect your owl. I am so happy for you,

Madam Pomfrey.

The other letter was from Andromeda Tonks.

Heather,

I hope you are doing well. I must say that when I heard you had become an auror from Molly, I was very proud. I know Dora would have been too. I was wondering if you would be free this weekend to come and visit Teddy and myself. I would very much like for you to be a part of his life. Please write me back as soon as you can with your answer,

Andromeda Tonks

Of course she wanted to see Teddy. They had all been given the weekend off to recover, so she would have plenty of time to visit.

"Mrs. Weasley, can I borrow Errol?" she asked.

"I'm sorry dear, but I don't think he's up for deliveries anymore." Mrs. Weasley said a little sadly. Errol had been their family owl for as long as Heather had known the Weasleys. One day soon Heather would have to face getting a new owl herself, but she still wasn't ready. After a hurried dinner and a quick bath, she scribbled off a reply to Andromeda and asked Ron to borrow Pigwideon. The little owl fluttered happily off into the night, watched dubiously by Heather from the kitchen window.