AN: Since it's been so long since we've seen what's going on at the Burrow here's a brief synopsis: Luna's been welcomed back to the Burrow, Bill's stuck there now too, Harry didn't react well to learning about Sirius Black, Lichfield and Hermione came to some understanding about Mipsy, Ginny's decided to try to be a "sporty girl" to set herself apart, Dumbledore was backed into stepping down in the Wizengamot, and Umbridge made all hell break loose with the goblins.
Now, on with the show.
.o0O0o.
It was horrible, devastating, and completely unthinkable; the world as he knew it was coming to an end! How could anyone be expected to make such a monumental decision at a time like this? This was something that could change the course of history and define the world for generations to come. Why did he have to be the one in this position? Why was he always cursed in this way?
'That's it! I can't do it!' the man cried in his mind. 'I can't make this decision on my own.'
Darting into his pocket, he withdrew the largest coin and gave it a flip. Snatching it out of the air and peeking to see how it landed, the man discarded the result and did exactly what he wanted to do anyway. He took the Curly Whirly and the Drifter bar. No matter what his daughter thought you could never have too much chocolate.
Jauntily strolling down the convenience store's candy aisle towards the register, the man called Dan briefly thought about emulating the jive-talking fellow from the new Drifter commercial. In the end he decided it was far too early to be that weird, even for him. Besides, it might come off as inadvertently racist, and that wouldn't do at all.
"Is that it?" Mr. Behind-The-Counter-Man asked as he rang up the purchases.
Out of habit the frizzy-haired dentist paused to glance at today's tabloids; one of them stuck out like a sore thumb. 'Aliens Ride Monsters Through London Skies,' it said just as bold as you please above a grainy black-and-white photo purporting to show precisely that.
"Oh, I'm definitely buying this," he said as he picked it up.
Today looked like it was going to be interesting.
.o0O0o.
"Ginny, you get back here this instant! Ginny!" Bill heard his mother say as he stepped off the staircase.
He ran his fingers through his ponytail to make sure it was still attached before walking to the kitchen. Just because she'd overlooked saying anything last night when Charlie was here didn't mean she'd given up the fight. Peeking around the corner, Bill wondered how Ginny of all people had gotten on their mum's bad side.
"This is not ladylike!" their mother cried from the kitchen door a moment before a red blur flew off towards their make-shift Quidditch pitch.
Bill had to admit, he was rather impressed. He hadn't expected any of his siblings to be brave or stupid enough to do a runner on their mother but if there was anyone likely to get away with doing that it was Ginny. If the twins had tried they probably would've been Incarceroused and dragged back for another good talking-to. For all the downside, there were perks of being the only girl.
'At least she's Gryffindor material,' he thought with a bit of relief.
He'd been a bit worried that with Harry here it would've kicked her ambition of becoming Mrs. Ginny Potter up a notch or three and landed her in the snakes' den of Slytherin House. A silly fear when you really thought of it though. He'd been surprised when apple-polishing Percy hadn't ended up there and thought Ron had Hufflepuff yellow running through him for sure but they'd both made it in somehow. It might be a bit bumpy but Ginny was sure to be fine eventually.
"I'll never understand what's gotten into that girl," she said to herself as she came back inside.
"Did you ever understand her in the first place?" Bill grumbled under his breath as he made his way to the spot at the table where he'd left his work the night before.
"What's that supposed to mean?" his mother demanded, instantly making him feel like a child again. Hands on her hips and nostrils flaring, all she was missing was her wooden spoon to threaten him with.
'Ah, crap,' he thought, 'Her hearing's gotten better.' The last thing he wanted this morning was to have an awkward conversation with his mother. 'What's the worst that can happen?' Bill asked himself as he put the table between them. 'She could throw me out, but I didn't want to stay here in the first place.' It seemed strangely freeing to know you could say whatever you wanted, well, within reason.
"Well?" she prompted, her brow furrowing sharply.
"Well?" Bill replied as he thought of how to respond. "How well have you actually gotten to know her?"
"I gave birth to the girl," she said stubbornly. "I think I know my own daughter."
"I'm sure you do," Bill said placatingly. "And I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult at all for you to say what she's always wanted to be when she grows up," he said, casually tossing the easiest question he could think of at her before taking a look at the Daily Prophet.
"What do you mean?" his mother asked curiously, the slowest quaffle of a question imaginable bouncing right off her head to go through the center hoop.
The front page story about Dumbledore was disconcerting if true but it wasn't as disconcerting as that answer. While she'd had all seven of them bouncing around and running her ragged there had been some excuse for never getting a chance to get to know any one kid particularly well but once the twins had gone to Hogwarts that excuse dwindled really fast. And with Ron at Hogwarts as well she and Ginny would've been alone in the house more often than not. What had she been doing for the last three years?
"Ginny might be a girl, Mum, but she was never going to go straight from here to marriage with nothing in between. So before she got distracted by all this 'Boy-Who-Lived' rubbish," he said gesturing to the paper. "What did she want to do with her life?
"Well, she–," his mother began before quickly changing direction. "There's nothing wrong with marriage and family," she said defensively as she turned to march into the kitchen to get started on breakfast. Harry's little elf appeared ready to help only to be hurried off with an unhappy look and a shooing gesture.
"And there's more to life than it too," Bill said a bit too exasperatedly for so early in the morning as yesterday's conversation with Charlie crept back into his mind. "Look," he continued with a placating gesture as his mother threw food on the stove. "I love that you chased after your 'happily ever after' and got it so early – I wouldn't be here if you hadn't – but most girls don't go for it right away," he explained. "They want to work and feel productive first."
"Well then, Mr. I-Know-Everything-About-Women, you explain your sister then."
"Quidditch," Bill said as he finally sat down
"Quidditch?" she asked dumbfoundedly.
"Quidditch," he echoed with a nod.
"Why on earth would Ginny be interested in Quidditch?"
"Because not all girls are like you," Bill said sarcastically. "Just because you never had an interest in it doesn't mean she never would. Merlin, Mum, her first word was 'quaffle.'"
"You can't be sure of that," his mother said stubbornly. "Your father says it was 'waffle;' she loved them at the time."
"Either way, she has six brothers," he pressed. "Four of us have played for Gryffindor and there's a fifth one in training. Ginny's heard about the game since before she could speak, it's only natural for her to be interested in actually playing it. And there's a good future out there for her if she applies herself. She's wanted to be Gwenog Jones since the day she heard of her."
"You're talking about one of those Harper girls she screeches about, aren't you?" she asked him disapprovingly.
"Harpies, Mum, and yes," Bill clarified. "You do realize they've been an all-witch professional Quidditch team for the last eight hundred years or so, right?"
"They're a bunch of unwashed, unshaven hooligans, in my opinion," his mother said marching over and putting a large plate of food in front of him, in a mad attempt to shut him up by feeding him.
"You know who you sound like now, don't you?" he asked with a half-grin.
"Don't you dare compare me to Aunt Muriel," she said with an accusatory gesture.
"Well, if the tiara fits…" he said waving the bit of egg around at the end of his fork rather than complete the sentence.
"I am nothing like Muriel," she said crossly as she stalked back to the kitchen.
"And yet you were just chiding Ginny for not acting like a 'proper little Lady,'" Bill reminded her.
"It never hurts to learn a little decorum. You definitely could have used a bit more," his mother scolded. "Besides, you never know who you'll end up marrying and families with a certain level of social standing have expectations to meet."
"You mean families like Fawley, Selwyn, and – oh, I don't know – Potter?"
"Harry's–," his mother suddenly stopped to glance towards the living room before coming closer and continuing on in a lowered voice. "Harry's got himself a girlfriend, I'll have you know. So don't you go blaming me for the Boy-Who-Lived nonsense."
"Well, if I did you'd be in good company," he said with a smile, handing her the morning paper.
"Merlin's beard," she said disapprovingly as she scanned the article. "What happened to that man? He wrote the blasted books? No wonder Ginny went loony; he probably jinxed them."
"I doubt it," Bill said though a mouthful of eggs and toast. If he was going to be thrown out he wasn't going to be hungry too.
"It would explain why those books kept disappearing and popping up again."
"No, I think you had a hand in that," he said continuing his honest appraisal of the situation. "You may not have brought them into the house but you certainly dropped fresh dragon dung on top to make sure they were fertilized."
"When did this become 'Attack Your Mother Day'?" his mother said with a hurt look. "After everything we've done for you I don't appreciate it."
"You may not appreciate it now, Mum, but I am doing it out of love," Bill said honestly. "You always said that when you see something wrong the only way to fight it is with honesty, and ever since you stopped her from playing with Luna Ginny's gotten less and less like herself."
"And how does one have anything to do with the other?" she asked.
"Didn't you ever stop to think what kind of message you were sending to her?" he asked in return. "You took away her best friend when the girl's mother disagreed with you on whether a woman should work or not."
"It was what a mother's most important responsibility was, not–"
"Explain the difference to an eight year old," Bill interrupted, not wanting his mother to twist her way around things. "What seemed to get across was 'be exactly the kind of girl I want you to be or I'll make your life miserable.' And what better way to do it than become the girl from those books?"
An uncomfortable silence descended as she sat down across from him.
"Did she say that?" his mother asked somberly.
"Not–," he paused a moment to clear his throat. "Not in so many words, no," he said picking at his plate and avoiding her eye.
"You fight for so long to do what you want... and you still end up becoming your mother," she said with a shake of her head.
Bill peeked up at her as he uncomfortably nibbled his bacon. It was unusual for his mother to mention Grandmother Prewett at all, to the extent that none of them even knew her name. The most they had ever learned was gleaned from the barbs Great-Aunt Muriel occasionally sent her way about being disowned for marrying father.
"It's not like I haven't tried to help," his mother said almost pleadingly. "Those books are finally gone and I've talked to her about putting it all behind her. I don't know what else to do."
"Well, getting Luna back here was a solid step forward," Bill said getting back to his food in earnest. "And Ginny running out of here is a good sign, though whether she's doing it because she wants to or out of spite is anyone's guess."
"As foreign as the game may be to me I hope it isn't spite," she said with a contemplative look. "If she goes down that road in twenty years she'll become my mother just like I did."
"Well, for better or worse she looks to you as a role model," he told his mother as he finished his breakfast. "So if you want her to change you're going to have to help her."
"Can you imagine me out there beating those quaffles about?" his mother asked, mangling the game and looking at him with the most ridiculous grin on her face. "Those old brooms probably wouldn't be able to lift me off the ground, even if I wanted to fly."
Bill chuckled at the thought.
"No, I don't think you have to go that far," he said finally. "It might do more harm than good. I just meant do what you can to support her and encourage her to blaze her own trail."
"Yes, well that's easier said than done," his mother said giving his hand a pat. She squeezed it as she stood and bent over the table to give him a kiss on the forehead. "You'd make such a great father," she said as she ruffled his hair and took his plate. "We just need to find a good girl for you."
"Wha–? Mum, no!" Bill stammered aghast. His mother, he concluded, was impossible. 'How can she not understand what I'm talking about?'
"Ginny might be one thing," she said firmly, "but you boys need someone to take you in hand and keep you grounded."
'Great!' he thought astonishedly. 'I gave Ginny another perk and made my life worse!'
"Find a girl for Charlie, he's the one that needs one, bad," Bill said hoping to divert her.
"Merlin knows I tried," she said as she took the plate to the sink. "The boy almost ran me out of Romania for my trouble. I only want to see him happy." After a moment she turned to look at him shrewdly. "This Hermione girl of Harry's," his mother said appraisingly. "You saw her at the Hopefuls meeting yesterday, didn't you? What'd you think of her?"
"Polite and businesslike," Bill said to impress on her how unlike her the girl was. "Very grounded; definitely one that has a nice long career ahead of her too. You can tell she cares for Harry though," he added at the end because when you came down to it that was the only thing which really mattered in his opinion.
"Yes, well," his mother said with a dismissive wave, "far be it for me to tell a girl how to run her life. As long as they're happy, that's up to them."
Bill stared at his mother open-mouthed for a moment trying to puzzle out how one person could house so many contradictory opinions in their head and still have it function. How was it a pair of twelve year olds she barely knows could be free in her mind to come up with an equitable work/home arrangement on their own but as soon as it's her own family she's talking about suddenly the girl's free to live her life as she chooses but the older boys are the ones in need of a minder? Part of him wanted to point out the inherent contradiction while the other side knew if he did he'd ruin the tiny bit of progress he'd managed to make that day.
'Gah!' he inwardly raged before letting out a frustrated breath and running his fingers through his ponytail.
"You know, I really wish you'd let me cut that," his mother said with a critical look.
"I might find a girl who likes it this way," Bill said quickly, taking a stab at something new. "I've already had several mention how much they wished they had hair was like mine," he said truthfully.
His mother stopped to ponder that a bit.
"Yes, well… Different tastes I guess," she said finally.
'That's it!' Bill thought to himself as his head slumped to the table. 'I give up being a man; there's no way to win. Maybe if I find some way to turn myself into a woman she'll finally respect my opinion.'
"Oh, and Bill," she said from the kitchen, getting him to look up again. "What about this Penelope girl? What'd you think of her?"
He was saved from having to answer by a multitude of thunderous footsteps coming down the stairs. His mother gave him a shushing look as if paranoid about being overheard only to scurry over to snatch up the Daily Prophet and stow it in a drawer before whipping out her wand for a flurry of frenzied wand-waving to speed her cooking. Merlin knew they couldn't let the kiddies know anything weird was going on.
He'd have to send Charlie a curse through the mail for getting him stuck in this house again.
.o0O0o.
It had been far from a good night for Harry and definitely one of the longest. He hadn't gone back downstairs after Lichfield disappeared – he didn't want to inflict his foul mood on everyone – and nothing he'd done had been able to help. With his appetite gone he hadn't touched his food and dwelling on everything wrong in his life made it impossible to study. And to top it off, when he finally did fall asleep the hours he'd spent brooding had infected his dreams; Harry wasn't sure which of them had been worse.
Twisted figures he couldn't make out swirled around him before merging together to form something larger and more threatening. Its body shifted constantly, and Harry couldn't make out its face, but somehow he knew it was a man. It made the wind howl, pushing him back towards the darkness around him and nothing he said or did – no matter how hard he shouted or tried to strike him – nothing would make the man go away and leave him alone.
He had woken up seething but didn't know who he was mad at: Dumbledore, Lichfield, Sirius Black, or someone else entirely. The only tiny bit of consolation was the man hadn't been anywhere near as fat as Uncle Vernon so he supposed for once the Dursleys were the least of his worries. Harry didn't care what Dumbledore, the Ministry, or anyone else said about it; his time with the Dursleys was done. He'd run away again before he ever went back there.
The second dream he had was just… weird. Hermione was at the Burrow, which was strange enough, but she was upset at him for some reason. Harry hadn't remembered doing anything wrong but it wasn't like she could tell him even if he had. The only thing coming out of her mouth was harsh-sounding gibberish and her father was no help at all. He just sat back and watched saying, "I'm not getting involved with this," whenever he was asked to explain.
Eventually she'd had enough and the fireplace turned into a green monster and ate her. Afterwards Harry had been left to wander through the house to find where everyone else had gone. None of the Weasleys were there but Hermione's dad was in every room, still just watching with that amused grin on his face, which made him nervous. When he'd gotten to the attic Harry found him dressed like a clown where he danced around a bit before exploding into a dozen smaller versions who ran past him and started trashing the house.
It was almost a relief when the guys had woken him up. At first he thought it was to ask him about the night before, but it turned out just to be breakfast. Harry followed along behind them as they made their way down the winding wooden staircase.
The four brothers were talking amongst themselves about the Defense study group McGonagall had given Percy the go-ahead for but he found it hard to pay attention. Even once they switched to the prospect of "putting the new broom through its paces" listening seemed a chore since they were doing it in the same we're-purposely-not-talking-about-something kind of way which had become all too common lately. Harry didn't know if he really wanted to talk about it but was it too much to expect someone to care enough to ask?
Percy was Percy but Fred and George were friends of a sort – in a barrel-of-laughs, let's-hang-out-and-have-fun kind of way. Throwing boisterous parties after Quidditch wins or pulling pranks on Percy didn't really lend itself to talking about anything important though. Them not talking about it kind of felt like how they avoided Ginny and those Boy-Who-Lived books, so perhaps it was like their mother not wanting to make things awkward by mentioning awkward things rather than them not caring.
Ron had been his best friend since they met on the train though, surely he'd say something. They'd been together when they faced the troll, found out about Fluffy, searched for information about Nicholas Flamel… True, he'd been in the hospital wing with a poisoned dragon bite when he found out Voldemort was hunting unicorns and wanted the Sorcerer's Stone for himself, but Hermione hadn't been with him either and Harry told them both about it right off so it wasn't like they never talked about anything serious. They had even talked about uncomfortable things before when the whole thing about Hermione being his girlfriend came out.
It had taken him almost a week to notice anything was going on in the first place though so maybe it would come later; that's if Ron actually noticed. Ever since the possibility of a reserve team had been mentioned Harry noticed that Ron had gotten more and more interested in Quidditch, to the extent that practically all they did now was practice. The game itself was great when all the chaos was going on around you and the fate of the entire match depended on what you did during one mad dash for the snitch – like it was when you're Seeker – but Harry doubted practicing every minute of every day until they got back to Hogwarts would ever make him a decent Chaser.
And as much as he'd like to have Ron on the Gryffindor team and think it'd be great to get him closer to his dream of playing for the Chudley Cannons, even if they were ninth in the league and falling fast, Harry'd hate to think all they had in common was Quidditch. They were both friends with Hermione, true, and he'd become friends with his family, and was renting a room from them, but rather than making their friendship stronger because of it, somehow it made it seem less for some reason.
Harry was getting to know Hermione better but it didn't mean he wanted to lose Ron as a friend. So with Ron going more towards Quidditch and him going in a more Hermione-like direction, what would it do to their friendship? Harry pushed those thoughts away; he was sure he was overreacting over nothing at all. Maybe he just wasn't used to how things were at the Burrow. After all, when they got back to Hogwarts they'd still have homework to do and Snape to complain about, so there was always that.
Maybe he really was looking at it the wrong way, Harry thought to himself. Maybe they weren't bringing up what had happened because they didn't think it was their place to bring it up. Was this one of those things you only talked about with your girlfriend? Harry didn't know a lot about how having a girlfriend was supposed to be like but he knew enough to know there were things you only talked about with them, so maybe this was one of them.
He liked Hermione, he did; he liked writing to her and spending more time with her. The last two days at Diagon Alley had been great, besides the part where they were kidnapped and had their brains sucked out by the goblins for saying the wrong word. And Hermione knew more about what was going on with him than anyone else did – a lot more – but he didn't want to throw another problem on top of everything else, especially so soon after they'd had a nice time together. Maybe she'd think he was more trouble than he was worth and back out.
"Hey look, Harry. Your girlfriend's here!" Ron said suddenly as he got to the kitchen area.
Harry looked up quickly, expecting to see a smiling face and a mane of frizzy hair, only to see their brother sitting at the table with a load of books and papers around him. Bill looked at them and turned to glance through the windows to make sure no one was actually about to turn up before looking back at them again.
"Cute," Bill said as he ran his fingers through his ponytail and flicked it back behind him. "Very funny," he said humorlessly, giving the impression he'd heard the like before.
The other brothers chuckled as they all took their seats and Harry tried to look like he hadn't been looking forward to seeing Hermione again. Bill buried himself in a book about magical metallurgy while Molly served up another warm Weasley breakfast.
"So what will you four be up to today?" she asked them while heaping extra bacon onto his plate.
"The usual, I guess," George said as he started eating.
"Yeah, not much changes here," Fred agreed. "Unless we can get our hands on some more fireworks," he said with a grin.
"That's the last thing we need," Mrs. Weasley chided. "Dangerous enough having them bounce around in here; we can't have them getting loose and drawing muggle attention."
"But the town's miles away," Ron interjected. "No one's going to see us."
"And have you all finished your homework yet?" she asked changing the subject and a sharp eye out for any falsehoods.
"Fred and I are almost done," George answered for them in such a saintly way Harry couldn't decide if he was lying or not. "We do a question every weekend."
"At this rate we'll be done in six weeks," Fred said and Harry couldn't help but snigger.
"You'll be at school in two and a half!" their mother said crossly.
"That's still plenty of time," Ron said evasively.
"It's not like Binns can grade his assignments even if we did them," Fred said. "He's dead."
"And everyone gets a T in his class anyway," George agreed with a shrug.
Harry was about to ask what a 'T' was when Bill added, "Not everyone gets a T."
"Yeah, how could we forget about Hermione?" Fred said to George while gesturing to Bill.
Harry didn't like this new joke. Bill was not his girlfriend.
"Just because most people fail doesn't mean you shouldn't try," Mrs. Weasley said reprovingly. "You haven't started at all, I take it?" she said to Ron accusingly.
"It's not like Harry's done it either–," he replied.
"I'm already finished, actually," Harry admitted, somewhat regretting at having to go against Ron. The others looked over at him curiously but he didn't see what was so surprising. Homework was actually rather easy once you got down to it; the answers were right in the book. What had they been expecting him to do when he was spending all that time up in his room alone?
"That makes it easy then," Ron said with a grin. "I can copy off you."
"You most certainly will not," Mrs. Weasley said in a most Hermione-like way. "Homework is there to help you learn, and you won't learn anything by copying."
"Besides, if you're only doing the homework," Bill added, "you're not even doing half of the work you need to."
"What do you mean?" Percy asked.
"You think me and Charlie got Outstandings just from doing homework?" the Curse-Breaker asked. "That'll get you an Acceptable, or an Exceeds Expectations at most. For an Outstanding you've got to show them you've gone beyond what's required, and preferably show them something they don't even know they're looking for."
Harry didn't know if he'd be telling that to Hermione or not because if he did he might never get her out of a book again.
"We'll get on it tomorrow," George told his mother grudgingly as he took a bite of toast.
"See that you do," Mrs. Weasley said with an air of finality. "And no letting your grades slip, they were much too low last year. If you don't get at least an A in your classes I'll have McGonagall pull you off the team. The same goes for reserve whatchucallits too," she added to Ron when they protested.
There was plenty of mutinous muttering for the rest of breakfast from everyone but Percy, who alone seemed to think their mother's hard stance was appropriate, but that didn't stop Harry from asking what she meant by "at least an A." Apparently the strangeness of the wizarding world didn't stop with their laws, banks, and buses but also included their grades. Of course they thought the muggle way of doing it was just as strange.
"So you have A through D, and everything else is an F?" Ron asked bewilderingly as he got up from the table and shouldered his new broom. "What about an E?"
"There are no 'E's," he explained. "They probably didn't want anyone to think it meant 'Excellent.'" Harry didn't know if it was the real reason but it made sense to him.
"Couldn't 'F' mean 'Fantastic'?"
"I think 'F' means you're Fu–," Fred was interrupted by Molly before they got to the door.
"If you're going to be wasting your day with Quidditch, you let your sister play too," she preemptively scolded them, which for some reason drew an amused look from Bill.
"But she doesn't even have a broom," Ron protested.
"What, you think you're so special you get to have two of them?" Fred asked with a look.
"Looks like the Shooting Star is hers now," George agreed.
Even though his old broom was often outstripped by passing butterflies, and his Air Wave Gold was sure to be better in every way, Ron didn't look happy at having to let his old one go.
"With the four of us she'll still be the odd man out," Ron complained. "The teams won't be even."
"Hey Bill, Percy," Harry said getting an idea. "Does one of you want to come too?" he asked thinking with someone to pass the quaffle to he might not make such a bad showing.
"Wish I could," Bill replied with a grin while glancing up from his notes, "but some of us have to work for a living."
"And I've got to get started on the lesson plans for our Defense group," Percy pompously replied. "Penelope should be mailing her thoughts today too," he said before taking his leave and leaving him with only one other solution.
"You guys go on without me," Harry told the others.
"You sure, Harry?" George asked, the twins looking at him nonplussed.
"Yeah, I'll sit this one out," he replied.
"But we were going to test this against your Nimbus 2000," Ron said hefting his broom.
"You can still use it without me," Harry said with a shrug.
"That's nice of you, dear," Molly said touching his shoulder as she left the kitchen. She doubled back before she hit the living room. "If I hear one word about you not giving Ginny a turn there'll be no Quidditch for any of you for the rest of the summer, homework or no," she told her sons before giving a nod to Bill for some reason.
"What's up with her?" Fred asked when their mother had gone upstairs and was safely out of earshot.
"You don't want to know," Bill said with a shake of his head and a shooing gesture. "Just get going before she changes her mind and makes it worse."
Soon after, Harry found himself with nothing to do once Fred, George, and Ron left to make the trek up to the Quidditch pitch. He wondered if it was too early to write Hermione, and if he did what he could say without being a downer. He was just considering going back to his room to take a look at the new school books for the year – the ones he hadn't lent to Percy anyway – when Bill grabbed his head and let out a frustrated noise.
"Something wrong?" Harry asked him.
"I think I've gotten so used to messing things up I've forgotten how to do it right," the older boy grumbled while looking back over his notes.
"What are you doing?" he asked, inching closer to get a better look.
"Just something for work," Bill replied with a furrowed brow. "I wouldn't be able to tell you anything too specific even if I wanted to."
Looking at the notes Harry saw the lines and a few of the symbols he'd come to expect from enchanting but thrown into the middle of it were several strange figures which didn't look anything like what he'd seen before, even from the goblin runes at the bank. There was a circle with a dot in it, an extra curvy lowercase h, a hooked number 4, and a little devil thing with a big head and no legs. But there were also things he recognized from the muggle world there too: those hippie male and female symbols and a crescent moon.
"I've seen some of these before," he said pointing to the figures in the center.
"Yeah, you see them from time to time in Herbology and Potions, occasionally in Astronomy too, but they've moved away from it until N.E.W.T. level classes since we discovered those other planets," Bill said as he ran his fingers through his ponytail and looked at his notes the way Ron would a chessboard. "I'm trying to find a way to figure out the comparative strength of them within a single object in order to determine what it's made of when it's made of different things."
"…What?" Harry asked completely at a loss.
"Sorry, I have to speak in general technicalities in order to avoid spouting gibberish at you," he said with a grin by way of apology. "But I forgot if you're not that far into magical theory you wouldn't be able to tell the difference," Bill chuckled. "I'll see if I can talk you through the basics though if you want," he said gesturing to the chair beside him.
"I know what these are," he said pointing to the three he knew as he took a seat. "Muggles use them for male and female sometimes. And that one's the moon, isn't it?" he asked pointing to the crescent shape.
"That's some of the things they represent, but I didn't know muggles knew them," Bill said curiously. "It makes me think we didn't do a good enough job erasing our tracks when we hid our world from them. Those symbols actually represent the seven main celestial bodies…"
If Harry hadn't already heard about Sympathies from Hermione he would've been completely lost in the following lecture. As it was he wasn't too far from it since Bill went on to explain how the sun, moon, and planets corresponded to the days of the week, hours in a day, individual organs inside the body, what they did to magical plants, and even what metal matched up with which, though how anyone could figure it all out was beyond him.
"Now all of these influences constantly affects things, but in different ways," Bill continued to explain. "So you'd expect these sympathies to be present no matter what the thing was or what it was made of. But what if it's made of bronze, which is an alloy of copper," he said pointing to the female symbol of Venus, "mixed with a bit of tin?" he asked pointing to the hooked 4 of Jupiter. "What would happen then?
"Would one of the sympathies override the other so it read as either copper or tin even though it's bronze?" Bill asked spreading his arms as he got to the heart of the issue. "Would they double up or counteract each other like they do in potions? Or would they fuse together like the metals do so it's not ruled by either Venus or Jupiter but some other thing entirely? And what would that new thing be and how would you figure it out?"
Harry thought it was a very good question, and one he had no idea how to answer. As much as he hated it, he was starting to see what Snape had been talking about when it came to the "subtle science and exact art of potion-making." What the detestable man had been hinting at really didn't look like magic at all, so that much of what he said was true, but it was far more confusing and complicated than anything they'd covered in Transfiguration, and he always found that to be somewhat mind-numbing. Unfortunately, Bill wasn't finished.
"It'd be hard enough to figure it out if we're just talking about pure copper and pure tin," he went on to say. "What if there's a little lead in it, iota of iron, or a sliver of silver? You start taking that into account and it starts looking like wheels within wheels within wheels within wheels. Now I was no slouch when it came to Arithmancy, but that many complex calculations is enough to make your head explode."
"Too bad you don't have a computer," Harry said taking refuge back in the muggle way of doing things. "They were made to do things like that."
"You mean hire someone to do it for you?" Bill said curiously. "I think they made it my job for the foreseeable future."
Harry fought the urge to tell him what a computer really was because without knowing a lot more about the muggle world and how it worked than he felt up to explaining he'd only make the older wizard even more confused about things than he was himself. Why on earth would anyone put themselves through so much trouble, no matter how much they were paying him? And why was it his job in the first place? Why would the goblins want to know what metals were–
A lead weight settled in his stomach and Harry was glad he was already sitting down. He looked down at the figure of a circle with a dot in the center and suddenly everything fell into place. It was like the whole world curved back in on itself and he was the point it orbited around. The symbol stood for the sun – for gold.
He had taken Hermione to Gringotts so she could meet Dobby, and one mention of the Sorcerer's Stone and Nicholas Flamel – things she knew about because he'd gotten her involved in the first place – had the goblins suck out their minds and put them on display. Because of that the bank's doors were closed and they weren't allowing anyone to use what Hermione called "hard currency" while Bill had been yanked from his job raiding tombs in Egypt to work on this. It seemed so unlikely he might as well think Mrs. Weasley coming back to the kitchen to pull a Daily Prophet from a drawer had something to do with him – but it was true; it was his fault.
"You're here to find out how much fake gold has been made, aren't you?" Harry asked numbly.
The flash of alarm in Bill's eyes was all the confirmation he needed.
"Nonsense, Harry, dear," Molly said from the kitchen as she tucked the paper beneath an arm. "If anyone could just make gold we'd all be rich. It's part of some transfiguration law – Bill, you'd know the one–"
"–Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration," her son interjected looking nervous.
"Yes, that's the one," she agreed.
"But Gamp's Law only applies to actual transfiguration – the type with wands and incantations – it doesn't hold with any other branch of magic," the older wizard pointed out.
"Wait – Are you saying you can actually create gold with magic?"
"Yes, but it was never supposed to happen!" Bill blurted. "Hang on, I understood that," he said looking somewhat confused. "Yes, I'm here to work on a magical device to identify artificial gold," the older wizard said seeming to test every word. "Harry, I think you may have invalidated my Non-Disclosure Agreement. Charlie's going to be so pissed," Bill laughed.
In the period of time that followed Harry wondered just how many times the same conversation was going to have to happen. Luckily, this time Bill was on hand so he didn't have to participate, though it did lead to the odd moment of being there when the older boy learned the ancient wizard responsible for all this happening was the same one responsible for him being born.
There was some light at the end of the tunnel as far as repeated conversations went though. Bill informed them that not only had Gringotts informed the Ministry of what was going on but the Minister was sure to bring up the subject in today's Wizengamot meeting, so the whole country would know soon. That bit of information sent Mrs. Weasley darting to the radio for any news while Harry heaved a sigh of relief at never having to explain any of this again.
"How did you know about anyone making gold?" Bill asked him once his mother left, but Harry had no desire to have that conversation again either.
"Why are you only worried about those seven metals?" he replied diverting attention back to a different conversation.
"Because they're the ones found in nature," the older boy replied as if the answer was obvious.
"But what about the other ones?" Harry asked confused.
"What other ones?"
"Well, there's titanium, that's supposed to be stronger than steel," he said trying to remember everything he'd learned about any metals he'd come across. "Aluminium is used in cans for fizzy drinks, nickel is used in pocket change, platinum is supposed to be better than gold, and I've heard of adamantium – but I don't know if it's real or not."
"This is muggle knowledge you're talking about?" Bill asked.
"Yeah, they've known about those for ages," Harry shrugged.
The older wizard looked down at his notes for a moment before speaking.
"They didn't mention anything about those in Muggle Studies," he said judiciously. "But if it's true, it ruins everything I was trying to do," Bill said wadding up his notes and closing his books.
"Sorry about that," Harry said feeling horrible for yet another thing he caused to go wrong.
"Don't be," the older wizard said. "If anything you saved me from going nuts from trying to do the impossible. I don't think anyone's really looked into the subject in a thousand years. Could we really be that far behind the muggles we didn't even notice?"
Almost without meaning to Harry thought of plugs, rubber ducks, gasoline, washing machines, and how they didn't know how planes stayed up – to say nothing about atomic bombs. And while the wizarding world was great – Hermione's dad was right, the quills, robes, and owning your own owl did give it an amusement park kind of feel – and even with all the magic in the world they didn't seem to be able to keep the halls of Hogwarts from freezing in the winter.
"Yes," he said, answering the older boy's question.
"Well, you lived with them so I'll take your word on it," Bill said as he shoved some books aside and pulled other ones closer to him. "Now it looks like I'm going to have to do a lot more research on it before I can even get started on that. Good thing they gave us the day to come up with ideas by ourselves first," he said though Harry could tell the older wizard was worried.
"I could ask Hermione," he said hoping to find a way of putting things back together again. "If there's anyone able to find a book on it, it'll be her."
"Might be helpful, thanks," the older wizard said appreciatively.
Harry got up from the table, thinking to watch how the other Weasleys were getting on from a distance as Bill started opening up his other books. The columns of runes covering the pages drew his attention and made him and made him look back cautiously. Bill spotted the movement and looked up at him.
"I'd ask what you're doing," Harry said hesitatingly, "but I'd probably mess things up for you again."
"Have you ever thought about a career in curse-breaking?" Bill chuckled. "It sounds like you'd be good at it."
"Well, Barchoke threatened to drag Hermione off to their legal department," Harry said with a smile. "Maybe if I'm a curse-breaker I can break her out again."
"At the very least you'll be able to see her once in a while," the older wizard agreed. "I wouldn't want to steal her though, goblins tend to get possessive, but you're welcome to try," Bill said flippantly before drawing out a parchment covered in an overlapping series of circles, multi-pointed stars, and runes laid out at precise angles, though some parts of it seemed somehow less certain than others.
"I doubt you'll be able to wreck this as easily as you did the last one, though I'm interested to see if you can," Bill chuckled. "This thing's thoroughly grounded in the magical world though so if you manage to muck things up you should just forget about school and start working immediately," he joked. "I'll even put in a good word for you; not that you need it since you're already in good with Overseer Barchoke."
"Is that what Lichfield gave you yesterday?" Harry asked when something peculiar tugged at his memory.
"Yeah, and I can see a bit of the consanguineous mechanic he's talking about," the curse-breaker said pointing to part of the inner ring of the complex Spirograph-like image. "This certainly isn't Egyptian though – no hieroglyphs anywhere – so it's more than a little weird."
"What's sangooey?" he asked as he settled into his seat again.
"Sanguineous relates to blood," Bill explained. "Consanguineous means it deals with a blood relationship between two people through a common ancestor."
Lichfield telling him he was related to both Draco Malfoy and Sirius Black, probably through Phineas Black, sent a chill through him as it echoed in his mind for a moment. 'Why would Lichfield be having Bill look into something like that?' he asked himself.
"What kind of blood relation?" he asked Bill instead, trying to keep the suspicion out of his voice.
"I'm not sure," the curse-breaker replied with a furrowed brow as he flipped through what looked to be a runic dictionary. "It'll take a lot more time before I know all the specifics, but this is definitely not something for Hereditary Accounts," he said as he compared a few runes in the book to some on the parchment. "This section here makes me think it relates to a maternal line."
"Why is that important?" Harry asked curiously. Everything the old bailiff had cared about before had been about his father and grandfather, not his mother.
"Because it's just one oddity after another with this," Bill said with a confused look on his face. "First off, it deals with blood, and besides goblins using it for security I don't know many people who'd be comfortable with it. I don't know where the stigma comes from," he explained with a dismissive gesture, "but blood makes people think of the Dark Arts most of the time.
"I wonder if that's why they willingly hand it over to the goblins though," the curse-breaker thought out loud. "Better for them to use whatever Dark goblin arts they have to protect your money than for someone else to use Dark magic to take it away." The older wizard shrugged it off as if it weren't important.
"But even if it's not Egyptian, it still deals with some very ancient magic," Bill continued, getting almost as excited talking about this as his father did with muggle things. "This section here," he gestured to indicate one part of the drawing, "is definitely one of the focal points for the entire schema, and last night I identified it as dealing with the ancient rite of hospitium."
"You mean like a hospital?" Harry asked. He'd heard of blood banks but didn't see how they would have anything to do with this.
"Er–," the older wizard said seemingly at a loss. "Well, nowadays it's called hospitality but all the words are probably related since they all deal with caring for people, but no, this is very different. This is the magical concept of a 'guest right' – of taking someone into your home and providing them with food, shelter, and protection."
"Like your family did with me?" he asked catching on.
"Well, yes, kind of, but nowadays it's a cultural thing – just good manners," Bill explained. "The rite of hospitality went much further, actually evoking magic to seal a pact between the guest and the host, protecting them both, and usually with dire consequences should one of them turn on the other. That's why this is so weird," the curse-breaker smiled. "Hospitium hasn't been used like this in hundreds of years, but there's no way this schema could be more than ten or twenty years old, at most."
"What makes you say that?" Harry asked curiously, his mood changing to pick up the older boy's enthusiasm.
"Because this is an enchanting enchantment," the curse-breaker said pointing to the tiny runes along the sides of the parchment. "It's a way of enchanting an object – usually paper, like this – so it can then be used to enchant another object."
"Hang on," he said to prevent his head from spinning. "So you can enchant an enchantment to enchant another enchantment? Why would you do something like that?"
"Because with something like this you can create the enchantment in the comfort of your own home," the older boy said gesturing around them, "and then give it to somebody else to use ten years later and half a world away; even after you're dead. Either way it frees you up to do other things in the meantime."
"Oh," Harry said cottoning on to how it would work. "I can see how that'd be useful."
"They definitely are," Bill agreed. "We use them all the time in tombs for quick general negation enchantments or to make it easier to move heavy obstacles. You can never really know what'll set old curses off," he explained. "And enchanting enchantments are especially useful since you don't have to know what you're doing. Modern ones have trigger words to activate them but even with the ancient ones you don't have to know precisely what the enchantment's supposed to do in order to use them."
An idea popped in Harry's head and he asked, "Does it mean muggles can use them?"
The curse-breaker paused to think about it for a moment.
"Possibly," Bill said with a shrug. "You'd have to break Secrecy in order to test it but I don't know why it wouldn't work – unless you design it not to work that way when you enchant the enchanting enchantment," he hastened to add. "That might have been what they were originally used for," he said looking at him curiously. "It's said to be an ancient Roman technique that's only been rediscovered in the last two decades, but beyond that details are hard to come by. Once paper starts to disintegrate it's really hard to get it back and you don't want to see what water will do to it," the older wizard explained. "They don't even let us touch the stuff in tombs, it can be that delicate."
"If the technique is so old, how do you know this is new?" Harry asked.
"Simple," Bill said with a smile as he ran his fingers through his ponytail again. "The runes it's written in hadn't been invented yet when the technique had been lost," he chuckled at his own private joke.
"Oh," Harry said, feeling stupid. "But if the technique is Roman, wouldn't they have done it with Roman magic?"
"You mean in Latin?" the older wizard asked. "Talk to an Italian and you'll hear all about what they think about our Latin. Lumos Solem?" the curse-breaker said in a mocking accent. "That's not 'light of the sun,' you're commanding the sun to be shine. It makes no sense. How is that sunlight?
"The dirty little secret about enchanting," Bill said in a lowered voice, "is something they'll hint at but never specifically say in school: the runes don't matter," he said dramatically, throwing Harry for a loop. "At least they not in the way you think. The runes themselves aren't magical; it's what we do with them that's magical."
"But how can the runes not be magical if you use them to do magic?" he asked.
"The same way words aren't magical even though we use them in spells," the older wizard replied. "Words are just words, they convey meaning; nothing more. The magic comes from the intent of the person who wields the words, not from the words themselves, and these runes are only words in written form. That's not to say the words aren't important," Bill continued, "especially in the beginning. I still remember Flitwick going on about Wizard Baruffio and the buffalo on his chest."
Harry felt like he'd just stepped in a pit of quicksand and was quickly sinking into areas he thought they'd left behind when they stopped talking about the planets. Just how much of what'd learned last year was actually magic and how much was "foolish wand-waving?" Did he even need a wand? He was almost afraid to ask.
"In the last three years I've seen runes scrawled on paper, carved in wood, and scratched onto stone," the curse-breaker continued. "I've seen hieroglyphs painted in tombs and engraved on temple walls. I've even seen old reliefs worn almost smooth from the fury of a thousand sandstorms and one thing has always stayed the same: the magic remains long after the words are gone.
"Take a look at this thing here," the older wizard said pulling Harry's attention back to the enchantment in front of them. "There are runes, diagrams, and all sorts of cleverness crisscrossing this page, but there's not a bit of magic here," Bill declared.
His brain no longer seemed to work. It was like all the gears had been knocked loose and there was no one around to put them back together again.
"But, you just said it was an enchanting enchantment," Harry reminded him. "How can it be an enchantment but not be magic?"
"The same way your school books aren't magic but still have a bunch of magic spells in them," Bill said with that increasingly frustrating grin of his. "This is just ink on paper, but it's also the schema – the design – for an enchanting enchantment the likes of which I described."
Harry was beginning to think the older wizard was spinning his head around on purpose just to see him stagger off drunkenly when he was done.
"The runes provide a focus for your intent the same way using the words you learn do," the curse-breaker explained, "but that doesn't mean the words themselves are magical. In your sixth year you start leaving the words unspoken and start doing it all up here," Bill said pointing to his head. "But even without saying the words it doesn't mean there's nothing to learn from reading, and that's what I'm doing with this: trying to piece together the caster's intent by picking apart the words on the page."
"Oh, okay," he said still a little confused. "I think I followed part of it at least."
Harry was forcefully reminded of the last time he had gone to a museum. They had some very strange paintings the Dursleys hadn't approved of. Uncle Vernon had gotten into fight with the guide over whether one of them was a pipe or just a painting of a pipe and they were forced to leave.
"So where does blood come into this?" he asked, seeming to have lost track of that bit of the conversation somewhere along the way.
"Oh! Right, hospitality," Bill said getting back on track and scrutinizing the schema-thing again. "This actually seems to have the consanguineous bit on here more than once, so I wonder if it's the blood relations who were supposed to be the target of the enchantment or maybe the blood itself?" the curse-breaker surmised. "Ah! Of course, as part of the rite of hospitium. The relatives take in their relation, get affected by the enchantment, and some sort of... blood protection is imbued? Or shared? It's kind of fuzzy."
Harry was beginning to hate these sinking feelings he got when he figured something horrible out he probably didn't want to know. It didn't stop them from happening though or stop him from hearing Dumbledore's voice saying, '...to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever. It is in your very skin.' Hating it also didn't stop him from having to know for sure either.
"Who would be the one protected by this," he asked, "the blood relatives or the person they took in?"
"Definitely the blood relatives," Bill said as he went over the parchment. "As long as they shared the same maternal line. Like my mum and us kids could be affected like this but dad would be left out of it. What precisely they would get I don't know, and there doesn't seem to be any ill effects included for mistreatment. There does seem to be some targeted protections for the general area everyone would benefit from though."
"And how long would those protections last?" Harry wanted to know as his mood turned sour.
"There might be some specific ending conditions," Bill replied as he consulted his books again, "but generally for however long the person stayed with their host plus some time afterwards. This one seems extended somehow," he said tapping the parchment, "but the longest period on record is a year after departure, according to Rites of the Ancient World."
"That's long enough to go to school and back," he said feeling his anger rising but trying to keep it out of his voice.
"Might be long enough to fly to the moon and back nowadays," the older wizard agreed as he continued to consult his books.
"And how long would someone have to stay for them to get this protection?" Harry asked.
"Er–," Bill murmured as he flipped back a few pages. "It doesn't say precisely. As long as they are welcomed back before the time expires it should remain intact, but for how long... Long enough to be a proper guest, the same as when it's first established. At least a day, I'd say."
.o0O0o.
With a tap of her wand Molly switched off the wireless and resumed her pacing. Walking back and forth though gave no relief for her nervousness either and only led her to turn it back on again a minute later. She had never been one who could abide simply waiting for news but it'd be an easier thing to do if there was more than one station to distract herself with.
Of course the station itself left much to be desired. On their trips to Platform 9 & 3/4 the muggle stations they'd picked up in the car had always been very prompt with their news, giving "a rundown at the top and bottom of the hour," whatever that was supposed to mean. Was it too much to ask for the normal news to be as prompt?
She paced back and forth, occasionally catching a glimpse of Bill and Harry huddled around the table, and tried not to hear the mindless drivel wafting her way from the wireless. The silly romance plays they had on early to mid-morning were almost insultingly stupid. Only the worst sort of person would find themselves torn between a pair of equally disreputable lovers. How many times can one woman waver between a werewolf and a vampire, let alone consider either of them in the first place? She should just find herself a nice normal wizard and be done with it; the most she'd have to worry about then was boredom.
Surely they would break into their normal shows and announce something as world-changing as all the gold in Gringotts being worthless. They'd have to, wouldn't they? Even if they didn't broadcast the Wizengamot meeting itself, any truly important news would be reported as soon as possible, right? If they didn't she'd have to hope they printed an Evening Prophet to get the details.
Taking a moment to pull herself together she reminded herself that Arthur had gone in to work early to see how his Muggle Protection Act fared. So even if whoever ran the wireless didn't break into their precious 'passion plays' she'd know more about the situation when he got home than everyone else would. That's if they didn't clear the viewing area before they begin. If they had…
Well, she always said he was unappreciated and if the Ministry threw him out after everything he'd done for them it'd prove it. He was the head of his Office; he deserved his own seat in the Ministerial section. How could he call himself a head without a chair to sit on? It was so insulting she'd almost swear her harpy of a mother had something to do with it.
As far from the kitchen as she could get, Molly slowly sank into a chair and struggled not to cry. For the first time since the war she was scared. She had fought, sacrificed, ripped her family in two, and struggled some more to get the life she had and even then she and Arthur had had to scratch and claw for every bit of sun they could find. She couldn't believe it could all be swept away so quickly. If those spiteful bureaucrats in the Ministry didn't listen and have the Wizengamot pass those protections… How long would their handful of silver last? A day? Two? And how could the Ministry pay its people when it had no gold to stand on?
Molly was just thankful the kids' schooling had already been paid for this year, but what about the next? It took almost all Arthur's pay to keep Fred, George, and Ron at Hogwarts and make their lease payments. Thankfully Harry said they didn't have the lease to worry about this year so they might be able to save up for Ginny too, but if Hogwarts prices were thrown into chaos along with everything else, she didn't know what they would do.
Maybe Arthur was right, maybe she–
A foul curse came from the kitchen, almost overridden by the sound by a shoved table and someone running from the house. Surprised, she made her way there to find out what happened, only to see an equally surprised Bill at a slanted table with the door still open. Where Harry was she had no idea.
"What happened?" she asked. "Where's Harry?"
"I don't know, he just cursed Dumbledore and ran off," Bill said as he got up to peek through the windows. "He couldn't have gotten far; odds are he's hiding behind that fence. I'll go after him," he said wearily.
"You let him vent for a while," Molly chided him. "Merlin knows he has enough to be angry about you making it worse. We were supposed to be trying to cheer him up. What did you do?"
"I was trying," the boy said defensively. "You mentioned his interest in enchanting, it's why I left my stuff out last night. I never expected him to blow up – then again I didn't expect him to upturn hundreds of years of magical theory either."
"What. Did. You. Say. To. Him?" she demanded.
The brief review of the conversation they had made her feel just awful for the poor boy, and filled her with the desire to hit her own. How could he be so stupid?
"Bill, he was abandoned in the middle of the night on his mother's sister's doorstep," she reminded him, though in truth she didn't know if he was aware in the first place. "How'd you think he would take it? Now you take all of this upstairs and make yourself scarce," she gestured to the mess that was his work.
Molly looked outside to see the messy mop of Harry's head languidly make its way up the hill towards the tree line. She hoped the twins could get him back into brighter spirits again somehow. What they needed though was some way of bringing the boy out of his shell and comforting him because right now they were failing.
.o0O0o.
"Alright now, rinse," the frizzy-haired dentist said looking down as his latest patient swished fluid around in his mouth. "And spit," he said smiling, watching the still-novocained youngster dribble down his chin as he spit into the tiny toilet bowl by the chair.
He never got tired of watching them do that.
"And now we're done," the man called Dan said happily. "Wasn't that easy?" he asked the glassy-eyed youth before turning to the mother. "If you go up to the cashier she can ring you up, and don't you think I've forgotten about you. You're only making that upper right side worse by waiting," he playfully chided her.
He left the exam room and made his way through the tight corridors to the front, where he handed the file over to Clara the cashier before approaching Martha at the desk.
"So, who's next up for Dan's Dental Dreamworks?" he asked the secretary while wiggling his fingers.
"Your favorite," the dark-haired woman said with a grin, "Robbie Fenwick."
"He can't be here, can he?" he said with a shudder as he tried to peek through the office window and avoid being seen at the same time. "Has it really been six months?"
"He is, it has, and he's up," she said unhelpfully as she handed him the file.
"The Blighted Biter of Buckland Rise rides again," he groused. "Remind me again, why can't we knock him out, yank all his teeth, and give him dentures?"
"Because you'll be sued, lose your license, and probably end up in jail," she said with a look.
"Yes, but wouldn't it be worth it?" he asked with raised eyebrows.
"Not to me," the woman answered. "I don't fancy being called into court as a witness. If you want to bump him over to Sam though, you're in luck," she said as she handed him a Post-it note. "Your daughter called."
"Huh," he murmured genuinely stumped. "She never calls for anything. I guess I should take this," he smiled handing her back Ravenous Robbie's file. "No idea how long it'll take. Probably hugely important. Sam will understand," he winked.
He headed back to his office with a spring in his step. It'd be six more months before the ferocious ferret-faced Fenwick came back to bother him. Today was a good day.
.o0O0o.
AN: A day after I posted the last chapter the internet exploded with the whole "Black Hermione" thing. I was actually going to address this but... No. Believe what you want, do what you want, that's not why I'm here. I'm only here to write the kind of story I'd like to see more of while using the existing Harry Potter series as a foundation; everything else is immaterial.
As fans, Hermione Granger lives in our minds and thus will be more a reflection of us and what we think of her rather than anything else. Noma Dumezweni, Emma Watson, and others in the future may give the character form for a period of time and present their interpretation as a performance but they are no more Hermione than J. K. Rowling is and anything they say about her has no bearing on our individual interpretations of the character. They possess no more insight to her than the next fan does and we are under no obligation to listen to them prattle on about it or to change our views to match theirs. And that's all I have to say about that.
As always, thanks for reading.