Okay, another chapter. Thank you Arnel for your support!
Personally, I'm doing better. Thank you for all of your kind words and support.
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The Space Between | ||||||
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Category: Post-Hogwarts, Post-DH/AB, Post-DH/PM Characters:All Genres: Action/Adventure, Drama, Fluff, General, Humor, Tragedy Warnings: Dark Fiction, Death, Disturbing Imagery, Extreme Language, Intimate Sexual Situations, Mental Abuse, Mild Language, Mild Sexual Situations, Negative Alcohol Use, Rape, Sexual Situations, Spouse/Adult/Child Abuse, Violence, Violence/Physical Abuse Rating: R Reviews: 584 Summary: Harry and Ginny's lives have finally evened out. They've faced trauma, and loss, more than most have, but they've fought hard to find a normal. If only things could stay that way... Old enemies find new ways to seek revenge. This story is the sequel to Bound. It would be extremely helpful if you read that first. Warnings are to be safe. It's probably overkill. Please message me if you have any questions or concerns. Hitcount: Story Total: 353504; Chapter Total: 3683 Awards: View Trophy Room Author's Notes: |
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After the bombing of the Ministry Harry thought the letters might stop. They didn’t. They still arrived several times a day, but this time without the explosives. Still just appearing in the post office. Still, they took no chances. The letters were intercepted by an Auror as soon as they arrived in the building. Conveniently, they were sent on a regular schedule of every three hours starting at eight o’clock and ending with the last delivery at five o’clock in the afternoon. Harry eyed the stack of red envelopes with a jaded cynicism. “We have no way to stop this since it’s not from owls.” “No,” Raeburns agreed. “Owls are immune to most things, which is what makes them so good for delivering the post, but they are, at least, visible. I’m betting these are being dropped by a Portkey.” Harry shook his head and took the stack of envelopes and threw them in the fire. They were all repeats of the same thing and while Harry was sure that whomever was sending them actually did mean them harm, it was unlikely the letters would tell them what they needed to figure out who was sending them. If they had no leads soon he’d taking it to Nat to see if she could figure it out, but they currently had no detectable magical trace on the letters. Thankfully they had George on the lookout for someone to buy more quills, but since they’d seen an uptick in sales in the week before the letters started to the tune of over a hundred quills, Harry was utterly certain they’d run out of patience before the villain ran out of quills. It was utterly frustrating. He’d had to tell his kids to stay at Hogwarts for the Easter hols, even though he could have done with some time with them. He just didn’t have the time to devote to seeing them or keeping them safe. With the summer holidays coming up in just over a month, he needed to make progress on the bandit. They were working flat out, tracking down leads sent to them by the public. It hadn’t been Harry’s idea to speak to the press, but the press had heard nonetheless. What was more, the reporter had implored the public to send in their ideas of who it could be. This had resulted with Harry and the other Aurors had spending months chasing their tails. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say we were being given tips just to confuse us.” It was out of Harry’s mouth before he could stop himself. He knew why he’d said it, of course. The public could see evil in the smallest things, and none of them were exactly trained to spot actual danger. However… He stared at Raeburns and saw the exact same train of thought pass through the other man’s brain. “Damn…” Harry breathed out. “We should have considered that before, if I’m honest,” Raeburns said ruefully before calling out for the other Aurors to gather in the meeting room. “I’ll get the bin of tip mail.” Harry rather thought it was bins, plural, at this point as he made for the meeting room. He was right. It was bins. Seven of them. “We need to sort these,” Harry told the others. “I have a feeling some of these are pranks or possibly sent from the red-letter bomber. I don’t know if we’ll be able to figure it out, but everyone start sorting the letters alphabetically by the last name of the sender and we’ll go from there.” They weren’t even ten minutes into sorting when Teddy let out a snort. “This one is from Al E. Gator.” “Come again?” Harry asked as he took the letter from his godson and scanned it. “Well…” “I have a Dick Tate,” Susan said as she handed over the letter. Harry let out a long sigh. “Did anyone read the names on the envelopes?” “Actually,” Teddy admitted reluctantly, “I was tasked with scanning and opening all of them. Since we’ve had thousands, I definitely stopped checking names after the first day unless the tip seemed credible. Mostly, I just wrote down the tip and compiled those in a list for us to check. Come to that, the only weird name I spotted that first day was Doris Shutt but I just thought it was probably an unfortunate marriage.” “Poppy Cox,” Raeburn sighed as he picked up another. “Rick O’Shea.” “Lee Vitoff.” “Oliver Clothesoff.” “Alright,” Harry said as everyone laughed at that last one. He rubbed at a headache that desperately wanted to build. “Let’s try to work through this and find all the pun names. I can’t believe we’re seriously doing this. If you’re unsure of the name, put it in a pile and we’ll have someone else review it.” His report to the Minister that afternoon was not good. She was less than amused at the ridiculous game being played on the Aurors. “Is someone trying to make us a joke?” “It seems that way,” Harry agreed. “That’s why I’m more convinced than ever that this isn’t Crabbe. She is too crazy to have any kind of sense of humor.” “I completely agree with that,” the Minister said heavily as she shook her head. “Keep me posted.” Harry didn’t make it home until close to midnight and was asleep next to Ginny the moment his head hit the pillow. It didn’t last long. They were awoken less than an hour later by an extremely loud explosion outside the house. “What?!” he grumbled as his sleep-deprived brain tripped over itself, thinking he was dreaming, but only for a second as he grabbed for his glasses and his wand and ran for the source of the noise, heading out of their room and down the hall to James’ room. The tree just outside the kitchen window was on fire! He scrambled to open the window and cried out, “Aguamenti!” Less than five seconds later, Ginny was next to him, doing the same thing. In moments the fire was out and they both stood there for a full three seconds of silence as Polly called out, asking what had happened. A team of Aurors was at their house within ten minutes to start the investigation, one which Harry had to deliberately step out of since he was too close to the situation. “It has to be an owl,” Raeburns growled in frustration. “The owls can get through the Unplottable charms, the Fidelius Charm, and every other protection you have around this place! My bet is we’re going to find the tiny bits of an owl somewhere in this mess. It probably landed in the tree to wait until morning to get in the window.” Harry had a sick feeling in his stomach that his old friend was right. “What are we going to do?” Ginny asked numbly as they sat together at the kitchen table, drinking tea liberally laced with whisky. “All our mail will have to go through the Ministry,” Harry sighed and thought of the headache that was going to cause for the office. He didn’t want to pawn off his problems on the Ministry, but there was little he could do with the kids coming home soon. His bigger concern was someone using the owls to try to find the house. It was a bit of a gamble, but if someone had a broom and enough time on their hands, they could follow an owl to the location, even if they couldn’t get into the location. “This was supposed to be our one safe place,” Ginny sighed as she stared into her nearly empty mug of tea. “This was supposed to be a haven, and yet time and again people have found a way around the security.” Harry felt a twist of guilt rip through his gut as he reached over to grip his wife’s cold hand. “I’m sorry, Luv.” “It’s not your fault,” she reminded him. “I just wish people would stop targeting you like you’re the author of everything! It’s not all on you.” It might not all be on him, but sometimes it felt like it. “I’ll get the mail rerouted as soon as the Aurors are done here. We’ll be safe after that.” But he wasn’t sure he believed it, and he had a looming deadline of the kids coming home hanging over his head. Already Ginny had stopped watching baby Emma at their house. She went to Teddy’s place, or to Fleur’s on a random schedule so that there was no predictable pattern to her movements. After seeing to the mail and dealing with the paperwork involved in the explosion, Harry decided he’d had enough for the day and went home to get Ginny and take her to the beach cottage. There both of them collapsed into bed and slept for going on ten hours. ~*~ “This is seriously cracked,” Teddy said as he changed Emma’s nappy just before bed. “Why won’t people leave Harry alone?” “I don’t know,” Victoire sighed as she sorted through some clothes, making a pile of items that were too small. “He’s the loveliest person! I don’t get who would be targeting him, or why? What is the point in all these letter bombs? What could he have done that could have set all of this off?” “People don’t need a reason to be crazy,” Teddy replied heavily as he finished dressing the squirming Emma. She was supposed to be tired, but of course the only people who were tired in their house were Teddy and Victoire. Victoire shook her head and took the squirming toddler to sit in the rocking chair to nurse her. “Yes, but there had to be something.” It rang through Teddy’s mind as he went to finish the last of the cleaning up after supper. He’d have loved to stay and watch them but if he stayed, Emma would absolutely not relax enough to go to sleep. She’d use him as a distraction, so he was banned from the rest of the nighttime ritual. He set the dishes to washing and put the rest of the kitchen to rights as his mind dwelled on the problem of the red envelope bomber. It felt like whoever was sending them was absolutely mocking them. It felt personal, as though the person might have something against the Ministry. There were a lot of people who had something against the Ministry, of course. It was almost a given that there would be issues. The Ministry was only ever slightly popular, at best, and only then when there was a crisis, but except for the Crabbe issue, which primarily targeted Harry and a few individuals who had been collateral damage, things were running fairly smoothly in the country. It was true that wages were stagnated, as they were in much of the world. Taxes might be a little too high. Not everyone loved every decision the Ministry made, and certainly there were protests to things such as the house-elves being given more protections, but… BUT! Teddy’s mind stopped running so quickly he could have literally fallen over. It was just one small incident, but it had happened just weeks before the red envelopes had started appearing. He felt like jumping out of his skin. He had to go speak to Harry, but he wasn’t going to leave without telling Victoire and goodness knew how long it would take Emma to fall asleep tonight. It took her hours, of course. Not literally, of course, but the twenty minutes Victoire was in the nursery felt like about seventy hours to Teddy. He quickly explained his theory to his wife, who agreed it was worth looking into, and then headed back to the office where he knew Harry would still be working. It wasn’t yet eight o’clock and Harry hadn’t left the office before ten any night in the last few weeks, save the day he slept through after the bombing the week before. He found Harry in his office and knocked on the door frame as he came in, closed the door, and sat down. “Why are you back?” Harry asked curiously as he studied Teddy with eyes full of exhaustion. “What was the name of the man fired for the house-elf regulations back at Christmas?” Teddy asked Harry. Harry stared at him blankly before he shook his head. “I dunno, Hermione took care of it. I didn’t have…” then Harry stopped and his eyes came back to life as he realized what Teddy was implying. “Bloody hell.” “That’s what I thought,” Teddy agreed as he leaned forward in his chair. “What if it’s him? He has a grudge against the Ministry, a reason to make all of us miserable, in particular you for setting this off, and he’d know how the postal system here in the Ministry worked. He’d know the procedures of how to plan out ways to hurt or sabotage the Ministry.” “That’s a really good theory,” Harry said as he stared up at the celling and mulled it over. “We have to watch him. We have to get proof.” “I can do that,” Teddy said quickly. “With being able to change disguises so often, I can be the one to keep track of him to see if it’s really him. The red letters are still coming multiple times a day, and those just appear, but the hoax tip mail is all coming via owl, right?” Harry nodded slowly. “Okay, I need to run this by the Minister and think through a plan. You head home and we’ll have something for you in the morning. This needs to be well thought out.” By the time Teddy arrived at eight the next morning, they had a good plan in place. The Ministry’s records on the man, who turned out to be named Hughes Lovenut, a name which made Teddy certain he’d have lose mind just on principle of having to bear that name, lived in a small village in Wales with several other magical families. One of the witches who lived right next to Hughes was an older witch who worked directly under the Minister and was as trustworthy as they came. It was decided Teddy would go, disguised as a small boy, to visit the woman for a week. She would claim him as a great-nephew, too young for school, who had parents that wanted to travel overseas on holiday without him. As a small child, Teddy could pretend to play right outside of the man’s house, watching and observing. Also, as a small child, if he was not seen because he’d gone home, no one would think twice about it. It would be assumed he’d been put to bed. Another Auror could take over in the house and watch over Lovenut until the morning when Teddy was back on duty. “It’s a good plan,” Teddy agreed. “Is Maude taking the week off to spend with her nephew?” Maude Pike was the name of the woman who would play Teddy’s aunt. “She is,” Harry told him. “She can be a second set of eyes and ears for us. Also, I’ve heard she has a tendency to bake biscuits when she’s bored, so watch your waistline while you’re there. Both the Minister and Hermione have complained about her good cooking.” Teddy couldn’t help but laugh. He walked into the assignment in high spirits, certain he would be able to find the proof to nab Lovenut in a matter of days. How very wrong he was. He posed as a ginger-haired six-year-old, an image he’d pulled from an old picture of Uncle Charlie when he’d been a small boy, complete with freckles and a big, round face. He topped it off with glasses, which he didn’t actually need, and clothes Hermione and Ginny dug out from when Hugo, James, and Al had been that small. He’d been amazed they’d still had things and hadn’t given them away yet, but Ginny said it was harder to let go of the memories attached to the clothes. And so Teddy spent the first week at the house playing outside constantly, building a fort as close to Lovenut’s house as he possibly could. The man, who was tall, thin as a rail, and toe-headed with flat gray eyes came out several times to look at him. Teddy pretended, at first, to be shy, and then he tried to offer one of the biscuits the wonderful Maude Pike made by the dozens, but was rebuffed with a curt word that too many biscuits was going to make him fat. Teddy had had to scramble to think of what a child would say, but all he could think to do was shove the sweet, fattening perfect goodness into his mouth and say, around a mouthful of food, that he wasn’t going to get fat. Unfortunately, if he had to stay with Maude for much longer he was absolutely certain he would. Granted, he could just hide the fat but it would still be there in his natural form. The problem was no owls left the man’s house and the only mail he received was the morning’s paper. The Ministry continued to receive regular joke tips via owl, and the red envelopes still appeared out of nowhere. “This is a bust,” Teddy told Harry at Harry’s place the evening of his last day at Maude’s as he opened up the sack of treats the woman had insisted he take along. Harry groaned as his hand hovered over them. “Dear Merlin, that woman is a menace! Just one…” “It’s never just one,” Teddy assured him darkly. “No, don’t eat them, Ginny! Trust me, you don’t want to do that to yourself.” Ginny just laughed and shook her head. “I am absolutely going to pass,” she promised and then eyed Harry as he let out a groan of ecstasy. “That’s absolutely indecent!” “So is this,” Harry said as he popped the last bit into his mouth and went for another. “See?” Teddy said as he also took a second one. “So if it’s Lovenut, we have nothing. I saw nothing, except an unpleasant middle-aged man who is not a fan of sugar. That’s not a crime, though.” Ginny took the bag from the both of them and they eyed her as she took it and put it on the counter. “That doesn’t mean he’s not doing anything. It just means he’s been sneaky enough not to get caught.” “We have to try something more direct,” Harry agreed. “I’m going to take one of the red envelopes to Hogwarts tomorrow and see was Nat makes of it. I don’t recall if she’s ever seen an old Portkey, so I dug out one for her to examine.” “Are you staying on at Maude’s?” Ginny wondered as she stuck a bowl of carrots in front of the two men. Teddy shook his head. “At this point, it would do no good. We have nothing on him. He didn’t appear to be leaving his house, but we can’t be absolutely certain and without more proof than a hunch, we can’t do more.” “It’s back to the old grind for you,” Harry told him as he reluctantly picked up a carrot. “Good thing, too. I think you gained half a stone in the week you were there.” Teddy grinned merrily. “It was worth it.” Harry made good on his decision the next morning, arriving just after classes. He’d sent a note to Neville earlier in the day to have Nat summoned to Neville’s office and when Harry opened the door, it was to find Nat waiting for him in one of the comfortable chairs before Neville’s desk. “Hullo, Mr. Potter.” “Natalie,” Harry grinned as he often did when he saw her. She was just such an affable child, although since she was sixteen now he supposed he couldn’t think of her as such much longer. “How is the term going?” “It’s been alright,” Nat said with a small smile as Neville shifted a bit in his seat. Nat glanced to her Head of House, and then back to Harry. “I, uh, had a small fainting episode. I think I was a little too stressed, but I’m better now.” Concerned, Harry sat down next to her and studied her more carefully. She was a little pale, come to that. “Are you sure?” “Quite sure,” Nat promised. “Healer Weasley came to see me already, and she’s suggested I take it easier on my studies.” “Audrey spoke with the O.W.L. panel, as Nat here is what we’d consider a medically fragile case. It’s been decided she will take the exams by herself, untimed, so that she can do her best work. In her practice exams she has not shown a need for more time, but this has been done once or twice in the past when it’s been necessary. She’ll take them here, in my office, where she will have access to food and water the entire time. One of the examiners will be on hand, as will a Healer from St. Mungo’s.” “It’s a bit of an overkill, actually,” Nat sighed out. “I honestly think I’ll be fine, but I just needed to, uh, not study so much. I need more sleep.” Harry felt like he was missing half of the story. In fact, he was certain that Nat was lying to him about studying being the root cause of the problem. “Neville?” “Yeah?” “Can we have the room for a moment?” Neville gave him a long, steady look, and then nodded. “Absolutely. I’ll wait outside.” The moment they were alone, Harry pointed at her. “You’re lying.” Nat glanced away from him as her face turned bright red. “I don’t want to talk about it.” Concerned flared through him as he studied her small face as the flushed embracement deepened. “Are you in trouble?” She shook her head. “It’s just a stupid teenager thing.” He waited a beat, but decided that yes, the only thing that might turn her face tomato red would be a stupid teenager thing, as she put it. “Alright, but you know you can talk to us if you need to.” He’d remembered all too well wanting to talk to Sirius when things had started to pile up in his fifth year. Nat nodded once. “So what’s up?” “Ah, yes,” Harry said as he pulled out one of the red envelopes. “These are just appearing in the post room at the Ministry. We don’t know how they’re getting there.” Nat stared at the envelope and shook her head. “It’s elf magic.” Harry’s heart skipped a single beat. “Excuse me? It’s not a Portkey?” She shook her head firmly. “No, it has the same magical signature as the meals that appear in the Great Hall and as all the laundry. The elves move things from place to place with magic all the time. Portkeys look more… chaotic is the best word. Elf magic looks smooth and natural. There is some weird magic all over the parchment inside, though.” “That’s one of George’s inventions,” Harry told her. “It’s a quill that writes love letters.” He then went on to explain about the specially enchanted quills. Nat’s mouth fell open and then she started to giggle. “I’ve seen that before on letters delivered here at Hogwarts! Oh, wait until I tell the others that the love letters are being faked!” He left her to it and left even more confused than he had been before. Hughes Lovenut did not, as far as the Ministry knew, own a house-elf. The list of families who did was small, including his own, and would have to be checked. But first he needed to go home and have dinner with his wife so she didn’t forget his face. Work could work, at least for a little while. Ginny, it turned out, had already heard about Nat’s medical scare and Audrey going to check on her. “I had coffee with her two days ago,” she informed Harry. “Where was I?” Harry asked rhetorically, but he knew the answer. He’d been at work, of course. “It’s a good thing I’m an independent woman,” Ginny laughed. Harry took her hands and kissed the knuckles gently. “I’m sorry, Gin. I’m so damn sorry! The whole work thing…” “It’s fine for now,” she interrupted. “For now, I’m okay with where we are. There will come a day when I will say enough is enough and that will need to be that, but that won’t be for a long time yet.” “I promise,” he said simply and absolutely meant it, “as soon as you say you’re ready for me to be done I will wrap it up and bow out.” “That’s all I can ask,” she said. “Also, to go back to Natalie, Audrey thinks it’s a boy thing.” “Uh… come again?” “We both think her crush on Al is the problem and why she fainted,” Ginny told him and Harry nodded slowly, as though he wasn’t terribly confused. “She has a crush on Al…” Harry said and tried not to make it sound like a question. “Honestly, Harry!” Ginny sighed in exasperation before laughing with genuine humor. “Sometimes I think you sleep through half our conversations! Of course, Nat has a crush on Al, and Al has one on her! How have you missed this?” Harry wasn’t entirely sure what he was supposed to have seen, actually. “They’re friends.” “Yes, they’re friends, but…” she shook her head. “No, never mind. That’s not important. The important part is we think she was more upset about that and not sleeping because of her worry over Al than the actual exams. She’s so smart, so I can’t imagine she’s truly going to struggle with them.” Harry wanted to ask how Ginny and Audrey had come to that conclusion but decided that way only lay madness and he had enough on his hands already. “Right.” “Scared Al, from what I heard from Lily,” Ginny said as she sat back and stuck her feet up onto his lap, prompting him to start rubbing at her bare feet. “Lily says he carried her all the way up to Hannah in the hospital wing and wouldn’t leave her side. I really feel for her,” she told him as she poked his stomach with her big toe. “It’s so hard having a crush on a boy and him not knowing.” “Well,” Harry grinned as he leaned over to kiss her soundly on the mouth, “I know now and even better, I married you which means I never have to be without you.” But of course he was, since he still had to go back to the office and let the rest of the team know that an elf was getting the packages into the post office. The elves down in the post office told him that they knew it was an elf sending them but no one had asked the elves what was happened. Harry decided that Hermione had been right all along and the wizarding treatment of the house-elves was stupidly appalling. He could have learned about how the letters were arriving in the Ministry months before if just any one of these highly intelligent wizards or witches had thought to ask one of the house-elves in the Ministry’s employ. “I feel like an absolute idiot,” Hermione groaned as Harry explained what they’d found out the next day. “I didn’t think to question them, either! I just asked what happened, and not about the letters and how they were arriving! Of course the elves would know exactly how they were getting here.” “We’re all idiots,” Harry assured her with a long sigh. “Now we have to figure out who is doing it. I asked and they don’t know who the elf is who is sending in the letters, but we have the owls with the fake tips coming and I’ve decided I’m desperate enough to have someone follow the owl with a return to sender order.” It was all for nothing, of course. The owl’s letter was sent by I.P. Freely, and it turned out that Mr. Freely’s owl did not know how to get back to him. Or her. Harry had several Aurors try again to follow several more of the owls back to the sender, but the owls ended up circling London, confused and lost. However the owls were getting to London, it wasn’t via any normal routes. Also, it was never the same owl twice. Harry finally put out a call to all the owl shops and mail centers in all of wizarding Britain to see if anyone had seen anything odd. Finally, they had their first break. “I have a lead,” Susan said as she came in through Harry’s open office door. “I just spoke to a bloke up in Scotland who says he’s had a couple of gentlemen in to get an owl to London and he grew suspicious because three of the owls haven’t returned yet. The bloke, who was different looking each time, requested to tie the letter onto the owl personally and made quite a show of it.” “Have any of his owls returned?” Harry wondered as something inside him began to stir. Susan nodded and pulled out a sheet of parchment from her robe pocket. “One tawny and a snowy made it back from the man the shop owner says rented the use of the owls, but they’re both quite confused and he has been trying to nurse them back into health. He’s afraid he can’t send them out anymore.” “This has to be happening all over,” Harry mused as he sat back. “He’s Confunding the owls, or something.” “Most of the regular post owls are typically not vulnerable to tampering. They go where they are sent and don’t go off course, then they return home,” Susan said grimly. “I’m a little mystified that someone would be able to do that to the owls in the first place.” “What we need to check now is–” Harry’s words were cut off by Ginny’s horse Patronus galloping into his office and his wife’s words speaking in an urgent tone. Harry was up and out of his seat before he even heard her message, knowing someone was horribly wrong. “House is under attack,” Ginny’s voice told him. “I have Emma and we’re leaving for the beach house.” The blood froze in Harry’s veins as people around him began yelling and most of the Auror force assembled to go to his house. The scene they arrived to was complete chaos and fire everywhere. The woods around his house were burning and immediately the Aurors went to battling the fire and sweeping the area for anyone who might be lurking. Harry already knew they were gone, but he went through the house and found his wife, his granddaughter, and the two elves gone, as he’d expected. Still, his heart relaxed for a split second only before he ordered Teddy to get to the beach house and verify that they were alright. They had to be alright! It took almost an hour to put out the fires and Harry saw, with dismay, that much of the beautiful forest around his house had been destroyed. The house would have burned if they hadn’t arrived as quickly as they had. Ginny could have put it out, of course, but he was glad she’d left. Houses could be fixed, but death was permanent. “They are alright,” Teddy assured him as he arrived back on the scene and surveyed the damage. “What an absolute mess!” Harry felt cold throughout his whole body as he moved through and processed the scene. Finally, when they’d finished up and he’d contacted Neville to ask him to work on fixing the trees once he was done with the term, Harry went to speak to the Minister, to tell her of his plan. “How do we justify that to the wizarding world?” she asked him seriously. “How do I explain granting a warrant to search his home?” “You say an anonymous, credible, tip,” Harry told her flatly. “That’s exactly what it will be.” Sighing heavily, the minister nodded. “Well, I can’t argue with that.” An hour later, Harry smuggled Nat out of Hogwarts under the invisibility cloak. Her classmates were told she’d needed to report to see Hannah, which was not unusual, and Hannah had curtained off a section of the Hospital Wing to make it seem as though Nat was sleeping there. They went first to the Ministry, straight to the Auror’s office. There Harry explained what they were doing and why. Nat was silent through much of the explanation, but she nodded in agreement. They used the Floo to get to Maude Pike’s home. Maude was not home. The Minister had personally asked to use her home, and for her to stay at the Ministry while they did and Maude had agreed. No one would know about Nat, except for Teddy, Hermione, and the Minister herself. Nat put the cloak back on as soon as they arrived in Maude’s house and Harry took her to the window which overlooked Lovenut’s house. Nat studied it silently for more than a minute before she said, “He’s got an elf in there. It’s all over the house. He’s also made a lot of Portkeys. There’s a weird aura around the house that I think… I think it’s a defensive thing for buildings. I’ve seen it before on your house, at Hogwarts, and around the Ministry.” “That’s all I need to know,” Harry told her as relief flooded through him. Lovenut had a house-elf, one he hadn’t registered. That was all Harry needed to know. He’d have Teddy get her back to school and then they’d move in on Lovenut. This would all be over in a matter of hours. ~*~ “Thanks, Teddy,” Nat said as Teddy helped catch her as she fell through the Floo into Madam Longbottom’s office. “No problem,” Teddy replied as he steadied her. “Everything alright?” Hannah asked as she gave Nat a once over. “I’m fine,” Nat said with a tight smile as she waved bye to Teddy, who was heading back to the Ministry to deal with Lovenut. “Al is waiting for you,” Hannah told her and her heart tripped a beat at the mention of his name. “He wouldn’t leave, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him to go.” “Thanks,” Nat said as she went out into the empty Hospital Wing and pulled back the curtain to see Al sitting on the empty bed she was supposed to be using. “You didn’t have to wait for me.” Al jumped and she realized she’d startled him. “You okay?” “I’m okay,” she promised yet again. He wouldn’t believe her. She’d given him quite a fright when she’d fainted on him the week before. She hadn’t slept well for a week because her brain kept tormenting her with all the ways Al was going to be happy without her. It was true, of course. He didn’t need her and he wasn’t going to want to be with her, so she needed to get over it, but her brain just wouldn’t shut off. She knew that it was hormones and puberty, but of course that didn’t exactly make her feel better about the whole thing. So she’d been exhausted, and she hadn’t eaten well, and she’d fainted. He hadn’t caught her and she’d hit her head, which had meant an overnight in the Hospital Wing, but it wasn’t like it would cause permanent damage, of course. Magic was good about healing those things. Still, he’d been hovering since. Part of her relished his attention. Most of her felt guilty that he felt guilty. It wasn’t his fault that her stupid heart was causing her so many problems. “Nat…” Al stood and came towards her, scrutinizing her features. She hated when he did that. She knew what he saw, and she hated it. She couldn’t change how she looked, nor would she try… but this way he was seeing all her flaws up close. “I’m fine,” she said again. He shook his head. “I hate that my dad keeps asking things of you.” “He had to,” Nat said heavily. She double checked they were alone and then told him what had happened. Al was suitably horrified by the damage near their house, but still not ready to let his dad off the hook. “He should find another way.” “I was under the cloak,” Nat said as she held up the sack that held the cloak. She handed it to Al. “You can give this back to James later. Anyway, no one knew I went there or that I came back except people we can trust.” “One of these times, he’s going to expose you and you’ll get hurt,” Al muttered angrily as he scowled down at the cloak. Nat gently put a hand on his arm which was bunched up tight with tension. “Do you honestly believe that, Al? Do you honestly think your dad would let me get hurt?” “You’re too fragile!” Al exclaimed as his troubled eyes met her. She shook her head. “No, I’m not. I fainted once. I was being stupid, but this thing with your dad was easy. It was nothing! I just went to look at a house. Seeing the magic takes no effort at all! In fact, I have to work hard not to see the magic! That’s the hard part.” “I dunno,” he sighed. “It just doesn’t seem right!” “Let’s go,” Nat told him wearily. “Anyway, your dad had already faced off against Voldemort several times by the time he was sixteen.” “My dad isn’t you,” Al muttered darkly. “He didn’t just faint.” Nat almost let the anger win over the comment, but when it came down to it, he was absolutely right. She was not Harry Potter, nor would she ever be Harry Potter or anything like him. So she let it go and grinned up at Al. “On the plus side, at least I didn’t break anything this time.” He was not mollified. “It’s not funny.” “It’s a little funny.” “It’s not.” She fell silent for a moment before saying, “I need to be useful where I can, Al. Your dad isn’t going to let me get hurt. He has my best interest at heart. I want to help! I like feeling useful and like my life isn’t worthless.” “Stop!” he growled and turned on her, stopping her in her tracks with his anger. “You’re not– you’re– Leah! Come on!” She bit at her lip and watched him as he struggled to say something, but whatever it was it seemed to have defeated him. “It’s not the job I want, not like you, but if I can help make the world a safer place then I want to do it. You have to understand that.” “I do, but–” “Then no buts,” Nat said as she started down towards their common room again. “We have nothing to row about.” It didn’t feel like he was exactly ready to be done fighting, but he stopped the argument for now. Nat wondered if this was just how her life was going to be. It wasn’t a bad life, certainly, but it also didn’t feel like it was a complete life, either. Sneaking around under a cloak just didn’t feel like a full life and she didn’t know what to do about it. |
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