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Framed
By MichiganMuggle

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Category: Post-DH/AB
Characters:None
Genres: Action/Adventure, Romance
Warnings: Dark Fiction, Death, Extreme Language, Mild Sexual Situations, Negative Alcohol Use, Rape
Story is Complete
Rating: R
Reviews: 193
Summary: After the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry Potter is training to be an Auror, and he is finally back together with Ginny Weasley. But when a young woman dies of poisoning at the Ministry’s Midsummer Ball, Harry is the first suspect, and he can only uncover the true murderer by working with his childhood rival, Draco Malfoy.
Hitcount: Story Total: 56143; Chapter Total: 2720
Awards: View Trophy Room




Author's Notes:
6/20/20: After posting nearly 2/3 of this story (I'm about to post Chapter 21 in a few minutes), I thought it was about time to add an author's note to Chapter 1 because I think the number of warnings I have listed may give people pause. Here is what you can expect from this story: It is dark. It is a murder mystery, and it is post-Battle so everyone has some level of PTSD. PTSD is not the main focus, but it is always there in the background. Also, my characters swear a bit, which I didn't plan, but the F-word keeps coming out of their mouths, and I decided not to censor them if that's how they feel they should express themselves. This story is told in a non-chronological manner and the darkest chapters are definitely the ones set in Carrow-era Hogwarts (which we don't even get to until Chapter 10). Keep an eye on the dates at the beginning of each chapter so you know when we and where we are. What this is fic is not: It's not violent or gruesome. Also, the rape warning is there for mentions of rape. There are no rape scenes. Also, Ginny is not raped. If this fic is too dark for you, I do have a follow up fic planned. It will also be a murder mystery, but it will be much lighter and will be Harry/Ginny, Neville/Hannah. I'm a slow writer, so I probably wont' start this until 2022 . . .




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Chapter revised: 6/20/20


Chapter 1: The Midsummer Ball

June 20, 1998, 9:00 p.m.
The Ministry of Magic

Flash! Flash! Flash!

Harry Potter could hardly see with all of the photographers around him, snapping pictures. The world was an explosion of light, and he was vaguely aware of questions being tossed at him. The only real, dependable thing was Ginny Weasley on his arm.

Finally, the photographs ceased and the world came back into focus. He was in the entryway of the ballroom at the Ministry of Magic, and his and Ginny’s entrance had just been announced to the room. The press had immediately swooped in and formed a half-circle around them, effectively walling them away from the other guests. Ginny looked calm and elegant in her gold gown, as if she did this every day, while Harry had to remind himself not to cause a scandal by hexing all of the reporters out of their way.

“Mr. Potter! Are you happy with the appointment of Kingsley Shacklebolt as Minister of Magic?”

“Mr. Potter! You are the youngest person to ever be awarded the Order of Merlin, First Class. How does this make you feel?”

“Miss Weasley! Who designed your gown?”

“Mr. Potter! You are the first person allowed into the Auror training program without earning any N.E.W.T.s. Do you feel this special treatment was justified?”

“Miss Weasley! Mr. Potter has allegedly left a long-term relationship with a Miss Romilda Vane to pursue a relationship with you. Were you involved in breaking up Mr. Potter and Miss Vane?”

“Mr. Potter. Miss Weasley is not yet seventeen. Are you keeping your relationship age appropriate?”

“Mr. Potter. Do you feel that Dumbledore would be proud of your defeat of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?”

Harry forced himself to uncurl his hand from his wand and smile at the reporters. He had spent a five-hour training session with Patricia Willoughby, the Ministry press secretary, earlier this month, learning how to deal with situations like this.

“I am very sorry, but Miss Weasley and I are not taking questions at this time. There will be a brief press conference in the Atrium at eleven o’clock, following the Order of Merlin ceremony. I will be happy to address any appropriate questions at that time. I will not be answering any questions of a personal nature.”

There. Patricia would be very happy to hear that he was trainable after all. Exactly like a good service Crup.

After that statement, the security guards steered Harry and Ginny away from the press, and Ginny squeezed his arm. She knew how much he hated dealing with the reporters. It was like the Tri-Wizard tournament over again, only worse because they wanted his opinion on everything Ministry related, even the things he didn’t know enough about to form opinions on. And they were no longer interested in learning who he was kissing, but trying to figure out if there were any women sharing his bed. He didn’t know where they came up with half their material. Long term relationship with Romilda Vane? He had never heard anything more absurd.

This was the first time that he and Ginny were out in public together even though they had become a couple again immediately after the battle. They had once attempted an ice cream date in Diagon Alley, but it had been a short-lived outing as they had spotted Rita Skeeter coming out of Flourish and Blotts and had Apparated back to the Burrow with ice cream cones still in their hands.

They had gone into the Muggle world with Ron and Hermione on dinner-and-a-movie double dates that were as much of a novelty to Harry as they were to Ginny and Ron. Each week, they picked a different pre-movie cuisine, and they’d now tried Chinese, Thai, Indian, and pizza.

Being out in the wizarding world, especially with the press around, was new to them, and Harry knew he would have to get used to it. They’d had plans for dates in their own world. They talked of going to a Holyhead Harpies game or having dinner in Diagon Alley or spending a lazy afternoon shopping in Hogsmeade. But this was not what Harry would have picked for their first date in the wizarding world.

The Midsummer Ball was exactly what he had expected it to be: lavish, glittering, and overcrowded. He hated everything about it. The wizarding world had spent all of May burying their loved ones until it felt like all of the earth in Great Britain had been disturbed, and now they were expected to dance and drink champagne like nothing had ever happened? The award he was to receive in an hour felt inappropriate too, and he had only agreed to accept it because Kingsley had insisted it was needed for the morale for the wizarding world.

“The world needs a hero right now, Harry,” Kingsley said. “We can’t recover without visible hope.”

Harry wished they would find a different hope, and in his apathy, he had allowed Hermione to write his acceptance speech.

He looked over at his girlfriend by his side. So he didn’t hate everything about the ball. Ginny was looking particularly beautiful. She wore the gold gown she had worn for Bill’s wedding--it was a shame to let a French designer dress go to waste, she’d said, but Harry knew her decision to wear the dress again was due to money--but it had been modified. A train had been added to make it more formal. Ginny had said it needed some alterations because she had grown. She blushed while saying this, making Harry wonder if it wasn’t the extra inch or two of height that had been the problem but the distracting curves she’d developed.

Around her neck, Ginny wore a simple gold necklace with a heart pendant, an impromptu gift from Harry from one of their Muggle outings. Her long red hair was in waves around her shoulders, which was how Harry liked it best. She wasn’t the fanciest woman there, but she was definitely the most beautiful. His Ginny didn’t need diamonds to shine.

While Harry would never admit it, he had also loved Ginny’s attempts to teach him how to dance. They had practiced in the garden of the Burrow, barefoot because Harry kept stepping on Ginny’s feet in the beginning. At some point, after many a misstep, it had clicked, and Harry no longer felt like he had to concentrate so intently on the individual steps, and his body began moving easily with Ginny’s. He had enjoyed dancing while no one was watching, but he wasn’t sure he’d enjoy it in a crowd.

“There’s Ron and Hermione,” Ginny said.

They moved through the crowd towards their friends. Harry couldn’t help but notice the weirdness of seeing so many people from different parts of his life, all in the same ballroom, wearing dress robes. There was Mafalda Hopkirk who, until Hermione had impersonated her last fall, had only been a signature on Harry’s warnings from the Improper Use of Magic Office. She favored pink dress robes when she wasn’t admonishing underage wizards. There was Hagrid towering over everyone in his rustic brown suit, his champagne glass looking minuscule in his hand. Draco Malfoy sat at a table with a pretty blond girl who was definitely not Pansy Parkinson. His fellow Auror trainees were there, trying to figure out how much alcohol they could drink while at the same party as their bosses.

“That was quite a welcome,” Ron said when they reached him.

“What can I say?” Harry said. “Rita missed me. Did the reporters get you on the way in too?”

“Yes, but they mostly asked us questions about you,” Hermione said, as Ron scowled.

Ron’s scowl was becoming familiar. Harry knew his best mate had been annoyed with him ever since Ron and Hermione had returned from Australia. He also knew his and Ginny’s relationship was the source of the annoyance, although the red-haired man never talked about it.

Most days, he and Ron were fine, playing Quidditch or reviewing their Auror training materials or banding together to distract George from his grief. Other days, Ron was moody and sarcastic. There would be a row eventually, but Harry was determined not to let that happen in earshot of Rita Skeeter.

“So, where does one get a beverage?” Harry asked, searching for a distraction.

“Waiters are circulating with champagne, and there is a bartender making cocktails and pouring firewhiskies somewhere over there,” Hermione gestured in the direction of the far wall.

As if on cue, a black-robed waiter appeared with champagne. Harry grabbed glasses for himself and Ginny, as Ron and Hermione already had drinks.

“Cheers,” Ginny said, and the four friends clinked glasses.

Cheers. It felt so hollow to Harry.

“Are you being melancholy?” Ginny elbowed him gently in the ribs.

“We just buried our dead, and here we are drinking and dancing. And about to receive medals,” Harry said.

Ginny put her free arm around Harry’s waist. On cue, a photographer snapped a picture, but from a distance.

“We need to go on with life. If we don’t, Voldemort wins. Some of the people in this ballroom wouldn’t be alive if you hadn’t defeated Voldemort when you did. Drink to that,” Ginny said.

Harry kissed the top of her head. He knew she was right, and he didn’t want to dampen her evening. Unlike him, she had been looking forward to tonight, especially as she was more than a month from her seventeenth birthday, making her one of the youngest people there. He also knew how deeply she was still mourning Fred, so if she could still find joy in the evening, he could as well.

“You know what the Death Eaters would hate?” he asked Ginny.

“What?”

“A photo of us dancing in the Ministry they once had control of.”

They left their glasses on a nearby table and joined the couples on the dance floor. It was nothing like the Yule Ball at Hogwarts. With Ginny in his arms, he finally understood what a ball was meant to be, and for the first time in several days, he was content.

This, at last, was victory. A future with the prettiest, most passionate girl he had ever known.

“Have I told you how beautiful you are?” he asked.

“Not in words. But I got the message.” He had been speechless when she came down the stairs that evening. Ginny hadn’t been the only one to notice his admiration. There had definitely been a few older brothers eyeing him suspiciously. “You look pretty good yourself.”

He doubted that. He and Ginny might be equals on the Quidditch field, but she far surpassed him in looks.

“I wish we had done this earlier. At the Yule Ball.”

“You weren’t ready,” Ginny reminded him.

That was true. Harry had needed to do a fair amount of growing up until he could appreciate Ginny. He thought he had appreciated her fully in sixth year, but he hadn’t really. It wasn’t until this summer until he realized just how amazing she was.

When the Weasleys had learned about the Horcruxes at last, they hadn’t understood why Harry, Ron, and Hermione had been willing to keep it secret from them, given the dangers. Even Mr. Weasley and Bill who had previously respected Dumbledore’s secrecy thought that the headmaster had been wrong in placing the burden on three teenagers who were barely of age. They weren’t angry with them, just hurt, but Harry would have preferred anger. He wondered if they thought Fred might still be alive if he had shared the dangers of the Horcrux hunt.

Ginny had been on his side the entire time, and ultimately, it had been Ginny who had won over the rest of the family. It was also Ginny who won them the right to privacy when they wanted to spend time alone, as they had needed the summer to catch up.

The summer had been odd so far, full of both the saddest and the happiest days of Harry’s life. Harry Potter had had many strange summers in his life. When he was eleven, a half-giant had told him he was a wizard and that he had been famous his whole life without knowing it. At twelve, he had ruined his uncle’s dinner party due to a rogue house elf. At thirteen, he had blown up his aunt. Every year, something happened that would never happen to anyone other than him.

This summer might be his strangest yet. It began with an endless string of funerals, followed by his first separation from Ron and Hermione in a long time. His best friends had traveled to Australia to locate Hermione’s parents. There had never been a question of Harry going with them. He had needed the time with Ginny, and Ron and Hermione had needed to sort out the complexities of their own relationship.

While he had no regrets about his decision to remain in England, it was a reminder that their relationships were evolving. After years of shared classes, shared adventures, and shared enemies, they would no longer be living in the same place and following the same schedules. They weren’t even a trio anymore. They were, with the inclusion of Ginny, two couples, which felt strangely adult.

Mere days after Ron and Hermione’s return with Mr. and Mrs. Granger, Ron and Harry began Auror training. It was a lot of ten-hour days, with studying to do after hours. As neither Harry nor Ron had earned their N.E.W.T.s, they had more coursework than the others. Harry missed the lazy days he had spent with Ginny in May and regretted starting his training in June rather than September as Kingsley had originally suggested.

While Harry was living at the Burrow and would continue to do so until the decontaminators and decorators both finished working on 12 Grimmauld Place, he felt like he barely saw Ginny anymore. He would get an hour or two with her in the evenings, and they had the weekends, but the Burrow was so busy and full that they rarely had any privacy. Even at the ball, they were always in eyesight of Molly Weasley, as well as every reporter in wizarding Britain.

“Well, I am enjoying this ball much more than the Yule Ball,” Ginny said.

“So am I. The perfect date makes all the difference,” Harry said.

He expected her to say something flirtatious in response, but she was staring in the far corner of the ballroom. “What’s going on over there? Did someone pass out?”


He turned to look, and sure enough, there appeared to be a disturbance in the corner. In moments, the ballroom would be in chaos, the scene of a murder.
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