Rating:
PG-13
House:
The Dark Arts
Ships:
Ginny Weasley/Harry Potter
Characters:
Harry Potter
Genres:
Mystery
Era:
Multiple Eras
Spoilers:
Philosopher's Stone Chamber of Secrets Prizoner of Azkaban Goblet of Fire Order of the Phoenix Quidditch Through the Ages Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Stats:
Published: 02/19/2004
Updated: 07/29/2007
Words: 410,658
Chapters: 40
Hits: 159,304

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Barb

Story Summary:
Aunt Marge's arrival causes Harry to flee to avoid performing accidental magic again. But when number four, Privet Drive is attacked, he becomes the chief suspect and a fugitive from both the Muggle police and the Ministry. He tries going to Mrs Figg's but finds unfamiliar wizards there. With an Invisibility Cloak and nowhere to turn he hides in the house next door, to keep watch on Mrs Figg's. He has no idea that this will irrevocably alter the rest of his life....
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Chapter 23 - The Suspended Sword

Chapter Summary:
Harry tries to talk to Teddy but the boy's accidental magic causes a bit of mayhem in the DADA office. In the meantime, the word about Harry's illegitimate son is spreading through the wizarding world. Anxious to find out the truth, Harry goes to see Tilda, who asks to come to Hogwarts so that she can apologise to Ginny and to Harry's daughters for turning their lives upside down. But these things never go as planned... Featuring breaking glass, a flying sword, an out-of-control Crup, a flashback to Harry's seventh year, Fred and George reminiscing about their glory days, and the arrival of the Prophet's most controversial reporter. Family reunion, indeed.
Posted:
03/26/2005
Hits:
3,038

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~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Chapter Twenty-Three

The Suspended Sword


"Erm, sit down please, Harrison."

Teddy hesitated in the doorway of the Defence against the Dark Arts office. A glass case in the corner held an elaborate antique sword and moving photographs on the walls showed students waving and smiling at the camera. (Teddy was still getting used to that.) A number of the photos were of kids on broomsticks, throwing and catching dented red balls.

Potter stood in front of his desk, his hair on end and his robes open, revealing a shirt and trousers that seemed to have been slept-in and a Hogwarts tie that was loosened as though he were an overgrown student. Teddy grimaced and went to the chair before the desk. When the day came that he learned his father's identity he had assumed that he'd be an adult. Instead he got The Boy Who Lived, who still seemed to be a boy.

After he and Nate had left the dungeons the night before--arriving in the dormitory long before the other boys, still in detention--Nate had told Teddy what he'd read about Harry Potter since getting his Hogwarts letter. His mother had shown him her old schoolbooks and he'd spent the remainder of the summer reading voraciously. Teddy had been unable to believe that the irate professor who'd arbitrarily given them detention that morning was some kind of wonder wizard. Now here he was, hero of the magical world, yet he didn't seem to know how to dress himself. (His shirt buttons were skewed.) Teddy managed to raise his eyes as high as Potter's chin, where he saw two red spots. This wally disposed of the Dark Lord? he thought, frowning.

The 'Dark Lord' must have been a right plonker.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"I asked Professor Flitwick to excuse you from your Charms lesson this morning so that we could talk," Harry began, trying to keep his voice from shaking. He picked up the Daily Prophet that Peeves had hurled at him in the entrance hall; he'd done his best to vanish all of the other copies--some while people were reading them--but he didn't know whether Peeves had distributed them elsewhere or how many students were in the habit of receiving the paper by owl post, as Hermione had done when she was in school. Handing the newspaper to Harrison, he said, "This is the morning paper. I don't know who told Rita about--"

The boy glanced at the reporter's byline. "Rita? You know her?"

Harry hesitated. "In a manner of speaking, yes. At any rate, I'll be contacting the newspaper to demand an immediate retraction--"

"--about you being my dad? That's why you asked me to come, isn't it? I'm not stupid. Looks like I can thank my mum for that. I must have got the not-being-stupid thing from her."

Harry winced. "Actually, no," he said, doing his best to ignore the insult. And the boy's insolence. "I mean--yes. I mean, I wasn't going to tell you--what you already knew. I reckoned that had already--I mean, that you'd already--" Harry sighed, exasperated. He ran his hand through his hair and pulled himself up to sit on the desk. "Listen. What I meant to say was--I'll ask them to retract the things Rita wrote about your mum."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Teddy really read the article now, feeling angrier and angrier with each word. He threw it onto the floor when he was done and swore bitterly, almost hoping that Potter would give him detention for his language, but Potter didn't say anything and Teddy felt the anger drain out of him again. He raised his eyes to Potter's and said, "I see what you mean. I mean--thanks." The word felt foreign in his mouth. "For getting them to--to take back this stuff about Mum."

Potter stood and started pacing. "I said I was going to ask them to do it. I can't make promises. The nerve! Rita hasn't changed. There was no call for her to--to make assumptions, based just on my age and your mother's age. She doesn't know. Although," he added, stopping to look out of the window facing the grounds, "for that matter, neither do I..."

"What don't you know?" Teddy asked, frowning. If I have to tell my own dad about where babies come from I'll have to be shot right afterward...

"I don't know what happened. When you walked into the Great Hall, it was quite a shock for me. As far as I know I never did anything with your mother that could--I mean, for her to have had my kid we would have had to--" He turned red and glanced at Teddy, then away again.

"You don't remember?" he gasped, staring at Potter, who turned an even deeper red and seemed dedicated to staring out of the window for the rest of his life.

"It was him," Potter finally whispered, slowly returning to his usual colour. It looked like it was an effort for Potter to turn and face Teddy. "Do you know who Voldemort was?"

Teddy nodded. "Nate told me. I mean, he only said the name once. Whispered it. Mostly he said You-Know-Who and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Which I think is stupid, as he's gone, but Nate said it's like swearing in public or something. It's just not done."

Potter shook his head. "I know people felt that way once, but I'd hoped that in the last ten years they might have come to their senses. Say the name. Don't give it power it doesn't have by avoiding it," he said adamantly. Teddy swallowed; after what Nate had said the idea of saying the name made him a little nervous.

"Well, anyway--I know who you mean. Are you telling me--what are you telling me?"

Potter sighed and sat behind his desk, looking like a student who was play-acting at being a teacher. "Listen... Just before my sixteenth birthday I stayed with your mum for a fortnight. I slept on the couch. She used to be my teacher when I was younger. Someone who was working for the Order of the Phoenix--a group of people fighting Voldemort--lived next door to her. I was waiting for the Ministry wizards to leave that house so I could go over there safely, but--"

"What do you mean Ministry wizards? Aren't they supposed to be good?"

"Well--yes and no. Long story. What's important is that I have this scar," he said, lifting his hair from his brow so that Teddy could see it. He let his hair flop down onto his scar again and explained how he got the scar, how Voldemort lost his body, but how the scar linked him to Voldemort. "About a year before he got his body back I had already started to feel the link to him more strongly. In something like a dream that turned out to be real I saw him kill a man, a Muggle who'd stumbled on him. When he had his body back I could feel the link even more strongly so the headmaster wanted me to learn Occlumency to keep Voldemort out of my head, prevent him from knowing my thoughts, from possessing me and making me do what he wanted me to do."

"Possessing you?" Teddy frowned. "But he wasn't dead, right? He had a body, you said."

Potter was grim. "Voldemort could possess people without being dead. And because of my scar he could possess me from a distance, unfortunately. I failed miserably at Occlumency during my fifth year; when I was at your mum's house, on the morning of my sixteenth birthday, I blacked out for a little while. Afterward I asked her whether I'd used my wand or touched her. She said I hadn't. But that was the only time that was unaccounted for while I was in her house, so I have to wonder whether she was protecting me from knowing what I'd done, or what he'd done while he possessed me. She must have realised that it wasn't really me."

Teddy felt sick. He didn't want to think of his mum being with a sixteen year old boy when she was thirty-two but he also didn't want to think of some evil wizard possessing the man standing before him and doing unspeakable things to his mum, things that led to his being born.

"How do you know?" he said suddenly.

"What?" Potter looked baffled.

"How do you know that's what happened?" Teddy said, his heart in his throat.

Potter's lips were drawn very thin. "I don't, actually. I've assumed. I want to visit your mum this afternoon and find out what actually happened. Hopefully she won't feel the need to protect me anymore and she'll tell me exactly what I--he--did."

Teddy felt like his stomach was leaping around inside him with anxiety. "But--but what if it was really traumatic for her? You want to make her relive that?"

Potter took a deep breath. "I may be wrong about this, but I don't think she was traumatised. When I realised that I'd lost time she--she was mostly concerned for me. She didn't act like someone who--well, anyway, that's why I was rather shocked to see you and learn who your mum was. Honestly, I thought that the only woman I'd ever been with was my wife--"

"You're married?" he said in shock, a moment before realising that he sounded like he was asking, Someone married you, of all people? On the other hand, he was thinking that...

Potter gave him a rueful smile. "Yes, so I reckon that would make my wife your step-mother. And we have twin daughters. They're eight years old: Ruby and Rory."

Teddy swallowed, digesting this. Sisters. I have little sisters. He'd always wondered what it would be like to have brothers or sisters, but it had never occurred to him, when he learned who his father was, that he would have got on with his life, married, had kids. Somehow he'd always imagined him waiting to be found by Teddy, his life suspended, poised for the moment when his son would walk into his life and make it complete. He felt very stupid. Of course he's married and has kids. Apart from being a wizard, even a famous one, he's a normal person, basically. Even more normal than Uncle Jack. He thought of his uncle, the presents he'd brought to the farm for his birthday. His mum wasn't happy; she'd said it was too extravagant. She was also suspicious about where Jack had got the money. He'd been dodgy about it.

"So," Potter said, with a forced-looking smile, "when do you want to meet your, erm, them?"

"My step-mother and my sisters," Teddy said dully, still absorbing everything.

"Yeah," Potter said, turning a little green, as though he might spew any minute. "Oh, and do you think your mum will be busy this afternoon? Or is there a better time to go see her?"

Teddy had been staring into space for a moment, trying to imagine Potter talking to his mother; he raised his eyes to him, confused. "Huh?" The queasy feeling had returned. Looking at Potter was like seeing a worst-case scenario version of his future self; he swallowed, trying to tell his middle to stop writhing. And there was something else about Potter that was bothering him...

"Harry Potter, you bloody berk!"

Both he and his professor--Teddy still couldn't quite think of Potter as his father--turned to the open door in surprise; a very tall red-haired man in deep purple robes had pulled the door open with a sudden jerk. He didn't seem like the professor-type and he was very angry.

Upon seeing the two of them together, the man opened his mouth, snapped it shut again, and then simply breathed, "Well bugger me," as he moved his eyes back and forth between them.

Potter smiled feebly at him. "Erm, hi, Ron. I was just talking to--"

"--your son? The one you conveniently forgot to mention to, oh, everyone?" He turned to Teddy and said offhandedly, "By the way, hi, kid. I'm your uncle. Well, step-uncle, since your sodding father is married to my poor sister."

"Listen, Ron--"

"Oh, now you want me to listen, do you? I'd have been perfectly willing when you were giving this story away to my competition, but noooo, that didn't happen." He pulled a newspaper out of his robe pocket and waved it in Potter's face. "So, what did you say to her? 'Listen, Rita, I've got an exclusive story to give you and the great thing is I'll be screwing over my best friend and brother-in-law at the same time! Isn't that grand?' Is that about how it went, Harry?"

Potter was staring at him with his mouth open. "Ron, this is not a good time. I never spoke to Rita, I don't know who did, but it could have been anyone in the castle. I'm trying to--"

"--to convince me it's not your fault," Teddy said quietly, glaring at Potter. He no longer felt queasy; instead he felt a rage stirring inside him such as he had never known, even when he'd attacked Carlisle, even when kids in the village school had given him grief about his lack of father. The glass case began vibrating very rapidly, as did the window glass in the casements.

Teddy was furious.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Harry looked at the boy; he didn't like his tone of voice and he definitely did not like the vibrating glass; it was rising in pitch to a steady whine. "No! That's not what--"

"Oh, it's not?" He turned to Ron. "You'd like an exclusive? Here's your exclusive. Even though it was his fault, Professor Potter wants to act like it wasn't. That's why you want to visit my mum, isn't it?" he said, turning to Harry, who could feel the power emanating from the boy as his rage grew. "You think it's either that dark wizard's fault, for possessing you, or my mum's fault, since she was an adult and you were a kid, but somehow it's never your fault, is it? Even though you said you hadn't learned how to do that Occlu-whatty thing..."

Harry swallowed. "No, that's not what--"

"May I be excused?" the boy said between gritted teeth; "I don't want to fall behind in Charms." The air in the room felt charged and the pitch of the vibrating glass grew higher; Harry looked back and forth between them. This day was not starting off well.

"Just a minute, Harriso--I mean, erm, what do you like to be called?" he asked, smiling feebly. "Harrison is fine," he said brusquely. "That's my name. And I'd prefer it if you'd leave my mum alone. I'd actually find some way to go there and stop you seeing her if I could, but thanks to you, Nate and I have detention this afternoon with Professor Snape."

"Snape gave you detention?" Harry said, aghast, remembering him ordering the two boys to go down to his office the night before. "But it wasn't your fault--" Harry stopped talking, realising that he shouldn't know this, as the boy didn't know that he'd spied on him. He also didn't think that telling the boy that he'd put the spell on Carlisle would win him good-father points. Luckily, Harrison didn't seem to be listening. Just like Ruby, he thought.

"I don't think she wants to see you," Harrison said, a clear dislike on his face. "She probably doesn't want me to see you, either. Otherwise she might have told me something about you, you know? Or she might not have minded that man in the wand shop guessing that you're my dad..."

"What?" Harry and Ron said together.

"Ollivander--what did he say?" Harry asked breathlessly.

Harrison glared at him truculently. "He tried to call me Mr Potter. Professor Snape corrected him. And then when I couldn't get a wand to work Ollivander--he gave me your dad's." He took it out of his pocket; Harry could see burn marks on the handle. "Said we didn't have to pay for it, either, but Mum wanted to pay for a wand. She wasn't keen on my having this one, but Ollivander said it had chosen me." He glared up at Harry. "I asked whether I could be excused, sir?"

The hair stood on the back of Harry's neck as he looked at the boy who held James Potter's wand. "You may go. I'm--I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you... I thought we should talk--"

"Oh, I'm not upset, why should I be? Everyone's talking about my being born as though it was a crime. You want someone to blame. Why should that upset me?" he growled before pushing past Ron, Harry's father's wand still clutched tightly in his hand.

The moment he stepped into the corridor the vibrations sped up again and Harry had only a moment to pull Ron onto the floor and cast a shield charm over them both before all of the glass in the room burst into a million shards and the sword of Godric Gryffindor shot out of the broken glass case and embedded itself in the middle of Harry's chair, where he'd just been sitting.

Harry looked helplessly at Ron; Ron stared around the room, at the broken glass everywhere, at the sword. Finally, he said, "Nice to see that he's as even-tempered as you were, Harry."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Ron and Harry left the office after casting numerous charms to repair the broken glass, remove the sword from Harry's desk chair, repair the chair, and return the sword to its display case. As they walked down the stairs to the staff room, Harry smiled feebly at Ron.

"At least I'm not a great Harry-balloon, floating around up on the ceiling of my office..."

Ron shook his head. "You know, you might want to reconsider keeping that sword around if your kid's going to do daft things like that..."

Harry grimaced. "I can't. What if Dumbledore comes to visit? He gave it to me when he retired and cleaned his stuff out of the head's office. Besides, I wouldn't feel right about it sitting in the empty house while we're here at Hogwarts."

"You'd see it on the weekends. Worried about it missing you?"

Harry pushed him roughly as they walked. "Don't be stupid. I just--it saved my life twice. Yours as well, come to that. And Ginny's, in the Chamber. I like having it to hand, all right?"

"Planning to go through the Veil again? Another visit to Sirius?" Ron raised his eyebrows.

Harry felt like pushing Ron once more but restrained himself. "Don't be stupid. And I wasn't 'visiting' Sirius; I wish you wouldn't call it that..."

The pain in his head had finally subsided but Harry's scar was bleeding freely now. He had to blink the blood out of his right eye while he held the hilt of the sword as tightly as he could, the jewels fitting perfectly into his palm, as they hadn't when he was twelve. He was surprised that the blade had deflected Voldemort's spell but he was glad to know that it could. He'd never understood why Gryffindor had had this sword made. He was a wizard; wizards duelled with wands and spells, not swords. It might have been for show, so that Gryffindor would be properly attired when he was in the company of Muggles, but clearly there was more to the sword than honed metal and jewels. It had to have enchantments on it, or the metal was forged using some secret magical process...

Harry was on the dais, the arch behind him; he could feel the Veil fluttering in an unseen breeze, for it brushed his legs lightly as it moved. He almost felt like he couldn't draw breath, he was so frightened, and if he thought about what he was planning to do in cold blood he very likely wouldn't be able to do it. Gripping the sword in his right hand and his wand in his left, he said, with a growl in his voice, "If you want to kill me you're going to have to do it with your bare hands, Tom Riddle." He hoped he sounded braver than he felt; what he wanted most of all was to run, to lay down sword and wand and ask for mercy. But he would never do that, and not just because he knew that no quarter would be given. He had to do this, no matter the cost. "You don't want to duel with me, remember?" he added, a warning in his voice. He hoped.

He watched Voldemort approach, still pointing his wand at him, the inhuman red eyes flashing dangerously. "Perhaps I cannot duel against a brother wand," Voldemort said in that high, cold voice. "But I can use this!" Harry blinked and Voldemort's wand had become a blindingly bright silver sword, at least a foot longer than Gryffindor's sword; there were emeralds showing between the long white fingers gripping its hilt and a green snake wound up the silver blade and wrapped around Voldemort's hand, so that the sword was bound to him.

"Nooooo!"

"Ron!" Harry turned at the sound of his best friend's voice; Ron had just burst into the chamber.

"Harry! Watch out!" Ron cried, running down to the dais as Voldemort lunged at Harry. Swords clashed; the ringing was nearly deafening. After Harry struck Voldemort's weapon with his own he twisted his body out of the way. The length of the other blade gave Voldemort the advantage, despite Harry using all of the strength he possessed to push against it with Gryffindor's sword. Voldemort contorted himself so that the blade was poised exactly at Harry's brow, where the bleeding scar slashed through pale skin. All he needed to do was to go a little farther, but Harry saw his opportunity and pushed back with all his might, so hard that he was thrown off-balance himself. He was falling and his hands weren't free so he couldn't stop himself...

"Nooooo!" Ron cried again, bounding over the bottom rows and dashing up the dais steps but stumbling on the top one; he tried to grab Harry's leg both to break his fall and keep Harry from going through the Veil but grabbed the sword instead. Despite his hand bleeding profusely as he grasped the blade, Ron wouldn't let go, determined to keep Harry on the proper side of the arch. Harry and Voldemort were now a tangle of struggling limbs as they both tried to avoid falling through the Veil, attempting to make the other go through instead. Ron was pulled along, his hand bleeding freely, wrapped around the sword...

Harry shook his head to clear it; he hadn't thought of that in a while, which was good; he used to have frequent dreams about going through the Veil with Ron and Voldemort.

"So, what are you going to do?" Ron asked.

Harry eyed Ron as they walked. "Oh, you believe me now? Don't think I was trying to screw you over by not giving you an exclusive?"

Ron grimaced. "Sorry about that. I even get why you didn't tell me before now. But when I pick up that rag and see a front-page story I don't know about featuring my best friend..."

"...then you should assume that Rita heard it from someone else, not me."

Ron turned pink. "Again, sorry. But you have to imagine how I feel..."

Harry smiled at him with understanding. "I know, Ron. It's got to be especially galling after Rita stole that article about the Ballycastle Bats scandal from you..."

"Lew keeps telling me I should be glad that the Quibbler got paid--and paid handsomely. But it is galling. She changed one or two little words here and there and for that she gets her own name put on it. Suddenly I don't exist. I worked for ages on breaking that story! And what do I get in return? A paltry twenty percent of the fee the Prophet paid to the Quibbler."

As he put his hand on the knob of the staff room door, Harry said, "Well, to be fair, Ron, you also get a nice house to live in. It's not like you need to make a pile of gold. Lew's place is plenty big for all of you, even with Luna expecting another kid."

As they entered the staff room, Ron groaned, "Don't remind me. I can't even grouse about what he pays when he's put the roof over our heads, can I? And we can't move anywhere else because he hardly pays me anything, even though I'm the only reporter he ever pays, and I can't go looking for work elsewhere. That would be disloyal while we're living with him. So I'm stuck," he moaned, throwing himself into a chair by the fire.

"I thought you liked Lew," Harry said, frowning, as he walked to the open window, where Hedwig was sleeping on her perch. He awoke her gently by stroking her back and was prepared with an owl treat when she tried to nip at his fingers.

"When he's being my friend I do. Sometimes we can go to a Quidditch match together or play chess or talk politics and he's great. But when he's my boss, or implying that I'm not providing for his daughter--which is his bloody fault--or telling me how to raise my kids..."

"Oh, buggeration," Harry breathed, pausing as he put quill to parchment. "Your dad. Not to mention your mum. What are they going to say? About all of this?"

"Who are you writing to?"

"Not your parents, but I probably should. The Prophet. The little matter of a retraction..."

"Write to Rita directly," Ron recommended. "Trust me. She gets worse if you try to go over her head. I've got heel marks on my bum as proof."

"All right," Harry said, writing a very brief request for Rita to come speak to him in person--without her quill. "And if you have any practical advice about how to handle your parents--"

Ron shrugged. "Wish I knew. I'm surprised Mum hasn't already sent you a Howler."

Harry sent Hedwig off with the letter. "Now that I've noticed that she hasn't, I am as well. Although she did say something this morning about shopping after dropping the girls off."

"You're lucky, you are," Ron said, shaking his head. "Dad isn't one to blow up about this sort of thing, so maybe he'll have a chance to calm her down before she sends you a Howler in the middle of a lesson. Say, why aren't you teaching right now?"

Harry sighed. "Ginny's taking the fourth year Ravenclaws this morning. She's the one who suggested that I talk to Harrison. I'm taking the fifth year Hufflepuffs on my own next so she can have a break after the overactive brains of Ravenclaw House."

Ron snorted. "You've got that right. I know she seems spacey, but Luna's got these wheels going around in her head constantly, and sometimes the things she comes out with..."

Harry grinned. "Yeah, but you love her. In fact I think that's why you love her."

Ron gave him a small smile. "Well, you know how it is to be around someone who gets you. I reckon I like that the best; not having to explain myself to her constantly, unlike--"

Harry put up his hand. "Let's not get into that again, not today. I haven't had to hear a rant from you about Hermione nor from her about you in a while, and I'd rather not."

"Don't worry, Harry. No ranting." Ron grinned at him, crossing his long legs at the ankle as he stretched luxuriously in the tattered armchair. "Just a moment of gloating, due to my being the one who recognised what a horrid mistake we were together."

"There's an understatement," came a voice from the corner. Theo Nott stood and smiled at them. He'd been sitting quietly in a wing chair, reading; they had been too busy talking to notice. "Even we Slytherins had to put up with too many of your rows with Granger until you showed her the door." Harry saw that Theo had been reading the Prophet; he pointed it at Harry. "Speaking of women who aren't your wives, you were busy after fifth year, Potter."

Harry rolled his eyes and threw himself into the chair opposite Ron's. "Theo--"

"And you named your son after me! I'm flattered, really..."

"He goes by Ted, not Theo. I didn't name him, his mum did. I only just found out about him--"

Theo grinned, crumpled the paper into a ball and threw it on the fire. He pulled up a chair from the central table and, turning it around, straddled it backwards. The fire crackled merrily, a photo of Harry at his wedding charring at the corners and curling up as the paper was consumed.

"Lighten up, Harry. I had to give you a hard time. Wouldn't be a good Slytherin if I didn't..."

Harry laughed. "You're the only Slytherin I know who has to try to be annoying."

Theo shrugged, leaning his chin on the back of the chair. "It's a two-edged sword..."

"Speaking of swords..." Ron mumbled under his breath.

"...when you're a Slytherin," Theo continued. "Some people won't give you a second look for a job for being a Slytherin, and others won't give you the time of day if you're not the dark magic sort of Slytherin... I'm lucky Minerva even let me interview for this job..."

"Come on, mate," Harry said, slapping Nott's shoulder. "Do you think she was going to give the job to Rita Skeeter? Just because she's an Animagus?"

Theo shrugged again. "Well, Minerva's an Animagus and she was hiring someone for her old job. If it was Herbology or Charms she might not care as much..."

"You had an Outstanding OWL in Transfiguration and a NEWT, you couldn't help your dad being a Death Eater or Malfoy giving you the diary in sixth year and you aren't an illegal Animagus. Rita never had a chance once she tried to impress Minerva with that; she knows who's registered. She also knew that she had someone really good--you."

Theo sighed and nodded. "Thanks, Harry. And because of that you of all people should have known that I wouldn't credit anything in the Prophet by Rita Skeeter unless it's appeared under Ron's byline in the Quibbler first," he added, gesturing at his best friend and brother-in-law.

Harry grimaced. "Right. Sorry--I know there's no love lost between you and Rita. I hope she agrees to hear me out. And I'm going to go see Tilda after the last lesson today."

Ron raised his eyebrows. "What does my sister think of this?"

Theo looked quite concerned. "Yeah, Harry--how's Ginny taking all of it?"

Harry gazed into the fire. "Better now than she was at first. It helps that she likes him. My son. She's not wild about the fact that she didn't know that Tilda and I had done anything beyond kiss, which is what I told her when I was sixteen. As far as I knew, that was correct."

"What?" Ron turned red. "You never said you were snogging an older woman that summer!"

Harry stared at Ron as though he was an idiot. "Of course I didn't, Ron."

"But you told Ginny..."

"Yes, I told the one friend I had who I thought would understand. She was perfect, just listening and not judging, not trying to give me advice or demanding details..."

Ron was indignant. "I would not have tried to give you advice! I mean--what did I know?"

"No, that would be Hermione. You'd have been asking for details. That's what happened when I kissed Cho. I didn't want to relive that. I felt like I could tell Ginny anything. I still do."

Theo grinned. "You should marry that girl or something. Don't you think so, Ron?"

Harry couldn't help smiling. "I should have realised sooner, that's what I should have done. I'm damn lucky to have her," he added, sighing. "It'll be weird to see Tilda again. I don't have any feelings for her now, but she was the first woman I--I felt--" He eyed Ron cautiously.

"It's okay, Harry. I'm not upset that you were interested in someone before Ginny, as long as it's strictly in the past," he said, raising an eyebrow. "Look at me; every time I'm at a family gathering with Bill I'm hoping no one brings up that I once asked my sister-in-law to a ball..."

Harry grimaced; he remembered how miserable Ron had been after Fleur had turned him down and how sweet Ginny had been with him at first. He also remembered how she had bristled and told Hermione what had happened to him and Ron. Ginny was not someone to trifle with. He thought, too, of her distress when she'd come very close to going to the ball with him, if she hadn't accepted Neville first. Ginny could be hard as nails but he knew that she had a soft center as well and the last thing he wanted to do was to wound her further.

"Come on, Ron," Harry said, forcing himself to speak lightly in an attempt to lift his own spirits. "The last time anyone said anything it was Fred and George, and you know how they are..."

"How they are? Is that what you call Foot in Mouth Disease?" Ron eyed him shrewdly now. "Sure you wouldn't like someone to come with you this afternoon?"

Harry grimaced. "If I wanted to take anyone it would be Theo, not my nosy brother-in-law, but no, I need to do this alone. What's the matter--don't trust me?"

Ron shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant. "Should I distrust you? The last time you were in her presence for five minutes the two of you--"

"No we didn't!" Harry cried, standing up, his hands balled into fists at his side.

"Calm down," Ron said, laughing nervously. "Can't you take a joke? I don't think you're going off to cheat on my sister, all right?"

"We just need to talk," Harry said quietly, sinking into his chair again.

"Right," Theo agreed, gazing into the fire. "You just need to talk..."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"We have nothing to talk about."

"Tilda! Of course we do!" Harry put his foot against the door as she tried to close it; when she'd first seen him all the colour had drained from her face and she'd moved her mouth soundlessly. It had seemed unnecessary to tell her who he was; instead he'd said that they needed to talk. He hadn't expected her to flatly refuse and close the door on him.

Harrison was right. She doesn't want to see me... He felt irked that the boy knew his mother better than Harry, even though that was perfectly logical. He wondered whether he should have used his Metamorphmagus abilities to disguise himself. "I think you know why I'm here, Tilda," he said quietly, keeping his foot against the door. "And believe me, I don't want to use magic to get into your house. I'd rather be invited in."

"Need to be invited?" she asked acidly. "Like a vampire?"

He sighed wearily. "Please, Tilda..."

She sagged helplessly and opened the door. "Yes, I know why you're here. I'd simply hoped that it would take longer for--all of it." Harry entered slowly, closing the door behind him and following her to the kitchen; she went immediately to a large black Aga cooker and put a kettle on for tea. Still facing the cooker, she said, "Have a seat, Harry. You've come a long way."

"It didn't actually take long. I Apparated from Hogsmeade, the village near Hogwarts castle."

"Right. I assumed you'd taken the train. Stupid. Sorry. Not used to thinking about--"

"Don't be sorry," he said, his voice catching. It seemed a strange, awkward conversation to be having after so long. "Please sit, Tilda. We really need to talk."

She sat at the other end of the long, well-scrubbed table, her hands lying flat on the pale wood, still not meeting his eyes. Harry had imagined saying to her, "You haven't changed a bit," but that would have been a lie; she had aged noticeably, with deep lines at the corners of her eyes and hair that was a mixture of silver and gold. She seemed to get more sun living on a farm than in Little Whinging; he could see a scattering of freckles across her nose and her hands were slightly reddened and rough, as though she'd been working out-of-doors. He had half been afraid that he would feel the old yearning when he saw her and was both relieved that he felt absolutely no attraction and more than a little embarrassed by his behaviour as a teenager.

"Hogsmeade, you said?" she said suddenly. "Hogwarts castle? So--so someone called you to come to the school?" she said in a shaking voice.

"No," he said, surprised by what had caught her attention. "No, I didn't need to come to the castle. I was already there. I'm a teacher at Hogwarts. Defence Against the Dark Arts."

"Why, that great, sodding--" she gasped. "He--he might have said something--" she ground out, striking the table with the flats of her palms.

"Who? Ted? He didn't know until--"

"Teddy? I didn't mean him. I meant your Professor Snape." She frowned, her brow furrowed. "And even after sending me the owl, he still said nothing," she went on, shaking her head.

"Owl? He wrote to you?" Harry was confused; first Snape had a kid and now he was writing to Tilda. He felt an irrational twinge of jealousy, even while feeling no attraction to her whatsoever.

"He thought it would be best if I had my own post owl, to write to Teddy without having to wait for him to write first. Kids. You know."

"Ah." He swallowed, nervous about bringing it up. Perhaps they could discuss owls and jobs and drink tea and somehow avoid the two tonne hippogriff in the room... Harry sighed; he knew he had to do it sooner or later. "Tilda, when I first saw Harris--er, I mean Ted--"

"Teddy," she said quickly.

"His friend calls him Ted, but all right--Teddy," he said, flustered by her interruption.

"His friend?" she interjected hopefully. "He's made a friend?" She smiled but seemed like she might cry. "I'd hoped, but wasn't sure I dared to... I asked whether the children are nice..."

"Tilda, please," he said suddenly, his voice hard. "This would be easier if you would stop interrupting me. I have something important to ask you."

She seemed to be blinking very rapidly; she looked down at the table and put her hand to her brow. "I only wanted to know how he is..."

"No," Harry said, trying not to let anger get the better of him. "You wanted to distract me. It's not as though I blame you. But--but I wish you'd told me. When I woke up. I wish you'd have realised that I wouldn't blame you. When that boy walked into the Great Hall--well, it was a bit of a shock, as you might imagine, since I have no memory of--well..."

She looked up at him suddenly, her light eyes flashing. "Oh, God. How is Ginny taking it?"

Harry sighed. "She's fine. She likes him. Teddy. She was mostly upset with me at first, thought I'd lied to her years ago when I told her about that summer. She finally accepted that I truly didn't remember anything happening between us but a little kissing."

"And your girls?"

Harry frowned. How much did Snape tell her about me? "They don't know yet. It's a bit tricky, you see, to tell them that they have an older brother whose mother isn't their mum. They're only eight years old. But we'd like to give him the chance to get to know his sisters. We'd like to--to take him home with us this weekend, if that's all right with you. And if he's agreeable. We have a house in Durham and don't like closing it up for ten months at a time..."

"Why shouldn't he be agreeable?" she asked, her voice shaking.

"Well, he's not very pleased with me. And this was in the morning paper," he added, pushing a copy of the Prophet across the table toward her. As she read it she grew paler and paler.

"How--how dare--" He could see that her hands were shaking as she held the paper.

"Yes, Rita dares. I wrote to her, asked her to talk. But I'd like to know what really happened first." He swallowed. "I didn't force you, did I? Even though it wasn't technically me..."

She wouldn't meet his eyes. "No, Harry. Is that all you wanted to know?"

"Imperius," he said to himself very softly.

"What?" She had raised her eyes to his now and was clearly straining to hear what he'd said.

"I said Imperius. He must have used Imperius to make you--to make you--which means that I--he did force you in a way..." He shook his head, feeling sick. "I'm so sorry, Tilda... For you to have gone through that and then protect me afterward so I wouldn't know what I'd done..."

She frowned. "Imperius? Erm, oh, yes. Imperius. I, erm, right. That. Well, you know how it is. Not so bad..." Her voice quavered as she spoke and then she sprung up suddenly, taking a teapot down from a shelf, fetching some tea leaves to add to it and filling it with water.

He watched her nervous actions sympathetically. "When did you realise that it wasn't me? That you weren't acting of your own free will?" he said very quietly.

"Oh, erm, well, you know. You pointed your wand and said, 'imperius,' and then I--I--" she trailed off, turning her back to him and taking two cups and saucers from a Welsh dresser.

Harry frowned as he watched her. The incantation is 'Imperio,' not 'Imperius,' although she could have a faulty memory on that, he reasoned. But something felt wrong to him, somehow.

"What happened after that? Tell me everything..."

She handed him his tea, turning red. "Harry, is this why you came to see me? Because I really don't want to discuss this, least of all with you..."

"Tilda, I'm going to be meeting with Rita and setting her straight. You saw what she wrote about you. I need to tell her exactly what happened. Oh, don't worry, she won't put details in the paper. But I need something to go on. I'll tell her it wasn't your fault. I was the one who was supposed to learn Occlumency, it's my fault he got into my brain and possessed me..."

She gave what sounded like a forced laugh. "What do you need to hear from me, Harry? Why do we really need to go over this? What's done is done. Can't we move on?"

"But--but why didn't you ever tell me?"

"And if I had, would you have believed it? Since you didn't remember any of it? And do you think I wanted to distract you from--from what you had to do?" Harry was silent at that.

He scrutinised her; she was leaning against the dresser with her arms folded across her body and her eyes looked bloodshot. "I still would have liked to know," he said softly. "And it wouldn't hurt if you talked to Teddy and told him that I'm not a monster. I'm not trying to place blame for all of this. I have a life, you know? And it's rather changed. But I want it to change; I want to welcome him into the family..." Harry sighed. "I grew up without a dad. When I found out that I had a godfather I was so excited... But I lost him..." His voice caught; even after so many years the memory of Sirius still had the power to paralyse him.

She was silent for what seemed a long time. "Take me with you," she said suddenly.

He jerked his head up in surprise. "What?"

"Take me with you to the school. So I can talk to Ginny and your daughters. There's no reason for you to bear this burden alone. I can explain to them why I never said anything--it was for their sake, after all, as well as yours. I knew you'd have a life, and you do. I didn't want to intrude on it. Now that I have, I think it's my duty to apologise and hope that they forgive me..."

"Tilda, for the last time, there's nothing to forgive. You'd already decided that it was a horrid idea for us to be together. I know that you never would have done that if you were in control of your--if you were in control," he finished softly, watching her face. There it was again--the guilty expression. Is that why she didn't know the incantation? She simply changed her mind about us--then realised that it wasn't me after all? He understood her guilt at last and felt abashed that he was finding it very hard to respect her now; when she'd decided they shouldn't be together he'd at least respected her decision. He wasn't sure what to think now.

"All--all right," he said, against his better judgment. "I'll take you to Hogwarts. Ted--erm, Teddy--probably has questions for you..."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The silence in the room was deafening. Harry had said, "Girls, this is Theodore. Teddy. He's your older brother. This is his mum, Tilda. Say hello, Ruby and Rory." Dead silence. Ruby and Rory had stared at the boy, speechless, while Tilda stood with her hand on his shoulder, smiling feebly at the little girls, then at Ginny, who despite her best efforts was clearly feeling threatened.

Ginny in turn stood behind her own children, touching them lightly, not chiding them for not greeting their brother, merely adding to the not-talking. Harry thought that this was possibly the longest any of the people in the room had ever failed to speak; all that could be heard was the crackling of the fire and the wind rattling the casements. He hovered between the two groups, his stomach in knots. He wanted to say something but couldn't think of what...

"Ow!" That wasn't what he'd planned to say, but when the door behind him struck him hard suddenly he couldn't help himself. He turned to find Hermione in the entrance to their flat, Ron standing behind her, trying to keep her from entering and failing; she was so crackling with magical energy that he pulled his hands back, crying out in pain from the shock. Harry rubbed the back of his head where the door had struck him and frowned at his two best friends.

"This isn't really a good time, you two--" he started to say as Hermione thrust her face into his.

"At what point were you planning to tell me--" She stopped abruptly when she saw the boy standing with his mother on the other side of the room, looking exactly as Harry had at the same age except for the eye colour and lack of a scar. "Good lord," she breathed, her eyes wide.

Harry turned on Ron. "I suppose you told her!" he said angrily. "I was going to do it myself--"

Ron was indignant. "Oh, no, you're not blaming me. She read the paper and Neville Flooed me to talk some sense into her; she'd have been here sooner if I hadn't slowed her down..."

"I told you, Mum!" Ruby burst out, a note of vindication in her voice. "I told you I saw a boy who looked just like Dad! In the book shop! It was him." She pointed at Teddy, who recoiled from her finger instinctively. Ginny gently put her hand on Ruby's arm, lowering it.

"Don't point, love. Yes, you saw a boy who looks like your Dad..." Ginny smiled feebly.

Teddy bristled. "I'm standing right here," he snarled at his sister. Gazing at Ginny as though hurt, he said, "And you're my stepmother? But your name isn't Potter!"

"Yes, it is," she explained patiently. "But when I'm teaching I go by Professor Weasley, which is my maiden name. I'm sorry I didn't say anything but everything was so--"

"Hades!" Rory cried as the Crup ran into the room, heading straight for Tilda. She began to smile at him, then leapt onto an ottoman when Hades snarled and snapped his jaws at her.

"What's wrong with that dog?" she cried. "Why does it have two tails?" The Crup snarled and barked at her, leaping straight up in the air repeatedly as though he had a spring in his bottom.

"Oh, he's not really a Jack Russell terrier," Hermione informed her, speaking over the argument between Ruby and Ginny about keeping Ruby's pet locked up. Hermione had evidently forgotten her rage at Harry, if only momentarily. "He's a Crup. A Crup is a magical ani--"

"Not now, Hermione!" Harry snapped irritably, trying to catch the Crup's collar as he bounced up and down, still barking angrily at Tilda.

"Don't you take that tone with me, Harry!" Hermione responded indignantly, having no trouble finding her temper again; Harry rolled his eyes when Ron started berating her for taking a tone with Harry while Ginny and Ruby continued to go round about Hades.

Teddy had backed away from the yapping animal until he was stopped by the mantel. Finally, Harry pulled out his wand and shouted, "Petrificus totallus!" over the din. The small, fierce beast went stiff all over and fell onto the carpet. Harry picked him up; holding Hades under his arm like a package to be posted, he said to Ruby, "Your mother told you to keep him locked up this afternoon. You know Crups don't like Muggles!" He had to shout to be heard over Ron and Hermione's row.

"I'm handling this, Harry," Ginny started to say before Ruby piped up.

"Well, you should've said that you were bringing a Muggle to Hogwarts," Ruby responded grumpily, crossing her arms and sticking out her lower lip.

"It doesn't like--" Tilda began indignantly.

The fire suddenly flared green and Teddy leapt away from the mantel in alarm. Two identical red-haired heads seemed to have been cut off their owners' bodies and were sitting in vivid emerald flames; the heads did not appear to care about the fire licking at their closely-trimmed beards. Tilda screamed and pointed, her eyes round. Teddy joined his mother on the ottoman; she held him tightly, putting him between her and the grinning decapitated heads.

"Hullo, all!" Fred Weasley said cheerfully as he glanced around the crowded, noisy sitting room.

"Got a bone to pick with you, Harry," George added with a smile, nodding at Harry, who still stood with the board-stiff Crup under his arm. Ron and Hermione continued bickering, not noticing the advent of Ron's brothers.

"This really isn't a good time, Fred. Or George," Ginny said through gritted teeth.

"Hullo, Ginny," Fred said brightly, as though she'd greeted him with open arms. "Ah, the new pet working out well, I see," Fred observed, nodding at Harry. "Got him stuffed. Yeah. Much easier than obedience training--"

"Uncle Fred!" Ruby complained; Rory giggled.

"How d'you know I'm not Fred?" George asked her, in a mock-hurt voice.

"It's a twin thing," Rory responded for her sister, shrugging.

Fred spotted Teddy then. "Ah. There he is."

("He might have told us when we were in school, if it weren't for you," Ron said to Hermione.)

"Well!" George said, nodding. "The paper didn't lie. For once. He is Harry all over again..."

Tilda seemed to realise that she could come down off the ottoman at last; she strode to the fire, no longer looking frightened of the talking heads. "I am tired of people--even parts of them--discussing my son as though he is not present!"

George have her an appraising look and a half-smile. "Hullo. Don't believe we've met..."

"Not bad, Harry," Fred commented, waggling his eyebrows at Tilda suggestively. "Older than I would have thought, though. You never said you'd taken up a new hobby after your fifth year..."

"I didn't--" Harry began, his face hot.

"Are you--are you flirting with me?" Tilda said incredulously.

"Fred and George!" Ginny scolded them, sounding remarkably like her mother.

("Oh, it's all my fault, is it?" Hermione returned acidly.)

It was unclear which twin Tilda might have been addressing. She gazed around in disbelief. "If I'd known--" She shook her head, looking at each one of them in turn, except for her son, coming to Harry last. "I never should have asked to come. First you make me ride that--that Nightmare Bus, which should not be legal! It's a hazard to life and limb and--and sanity--"

"What did you do to my mum?" Teddy demanded to know as Ginny started trying to reassure Tilda about the Knight Bus; Hermione was poking Ron in the chest with her finger as she growled at him.

"It's this magical bus," Harry started to explain to him before addressing Tilda again. "Sorry," he said sheepishly, hefting Hades under his arm. "I thought we'd cleaned all of the sick off you. I don't know why Madam Marsh still takes the bus... It's never agreed with her..."

"And then you bring me to this ruin of a place! I mean, I could put my whole head through that gap in the wall!" she cried, pointing at the perfectly solid stone wall beside the fireplace. "One of your kids could fall out of it! And this is where my son is going to school!" She had become very shrill, her eyes wild.

"Harry!" Hermione said suddenly, ignoring Ron now. "You didn't put a True Sight Charm on her before you brought her here? How could you be so irresponsible?"

Harry heard Fred agree and Ginny leapt to his defence, while Ruby agreed with her uncle and Rory put her face in her sister's, disagreeing.

"Would that have kept my foot from going through steps? Or kept the staircases from shifting?" Tilda wanted to know.

"Well, no," Ron admitted, also abandoning his row with Hermione. "That would still happen. One--erm, two--of the hazards of Hogwarts. But it wouldn't seem like the place was tumbling down around you if you had the Charm..."

"Sorry," Harry said again. "Forgot. Didn't learn how. Never brought a Muggle here before..."

Hermione sighed in exasperation. "Here, let me... I learned it from Professor McGonagall at the end of sixth year, when my parents wanted to visit me in the hospital wing..."

Tilda backed up as Hermione approached her with her wand out; Ginny, Fred, Ruby, and Rory continued to argue about whether Harry had made a mistake while George couldn't seem to make up his mind, agreeing with each person making an argument either for or against Harry.

"Oh, no you don't..." Tilda quavered, watching Hermione's wand move closer.

"Get a grip--" Ron began.

"Calm down," Hermione snapped at her. "I'm going to make it possible for you to see Hogwarts as it really is, without the Muggle-repelling charms interfering with--"

"Muggle repelling!" Tilda gasped. "Oh, that's lovely, that is, as though we're pests--"

"You're not much of an argument against that, are you?" Harry heard Ron mumble.

"Someone mention pests? Are the mice a bother again? Shall I frighten them for you?" Mad-Eye Moody growled, floating through the door and also through Ron, whose shout of protest (due to the cold) merely prompted the ghost to say, "Shut it, Weasley. Next time don't block the door."

"But you didn't come in through the door!" Ron complained, still shivering.

"I did in my way, laddie," Moody replied.

"I meant--"

"Well, this I didn't expect," Moody commented, ignoring Ron's whinging; when he saw Tilda he nodded at her. She backed up onto the ottoman again and a scream seemed ready to erupt from her; she was paler than Moody. "But perhaps I should have done," he added. "You're here."

"Bugger off, Moody!" Harry said angrily. "I swear, sometimes I think I'd rather have Peeves following me around--"

"That can be arranged," Moody grunted, not appearing to be offended. "Shall I fetch him?"

"NO!" cried Harry, Ron and Hermione while Tilda and Teddy cowered on the far side of the room and Ginny and the girls continued to argue with each other and Fred and George.

"Mum--" Ruby started to say, pointing at the window.

"Not now, Ruby--" Ginny ground out, clearly losing her patience.

"But Nana's owl is at the window," Rory said, pointing. Harry glanced up; sure enough, the owl that the Weasleys had bought after poor old Errol had breathed his last was on the windowsill.

The owl had a bright red envelope in his beak.

"Oh, bloody hell," Harry breathed when he saw that.

Ginny jerked the window open, allowing the owl to fly in. He perched on the mantel and waited in agitation for someone to come claim the red envelope, as though he knew what he was delivering and didn't want it to go off while it was still being held in his beak.

"Trust Mum to be on-the-spot with one of her Howlers," a twin said from the fire; Harry wasn't sure which one it was. He took a step toward the mantel but a moment later felt warm liquid soaking through his robes on his left side; looking down, he saw that the still-stiff Hades had lost control of his bladder. A puddle was forming around Harry's damp left shoe.

Harry swore vociferously, prompting both Ginny and Tilda to yell at him and put their hands on the shoulders of their respective children in a gesture of protectiveness. Laughter rang out from the fireplace. Harry felt a strong urge to put out the fire by getting the Crup to urinate on it.

"I told you that Hades needed walkies, Mum!" Ruby whinged.

"Listen, can I go now?" Teddy wanted to know. "Professor Snape agreed to postpone my detention but I do still have to go..."

"He gave you detention!" Tilda exclaimed. "You've already got detention?"

Harry held the damp Crup at arm's length. "That was my fault, you see--" he said at the same time that Teddy also bitterly confirmed that it was Harry's fault.

"What?" Tilda and Hermione said, outraged; this caused Ron to start berating Hermione again for sticking her nose into things that didn't concern her.

"So much fuss about a detention?" Fred or George said from the fire.

"How many detentions do you reckon we had when we were in school?" the other twin asked his counterpart calmly. The answer was drowned in the din of Hermione and Ron's new row and Teddy's self-defence, explaining that he hadn't done anything to Carlisle.

"Who is Carlisle?" Tilda wanted to know.

"Somebody shut the window," Rory demanded suddenly; "I just saw a bug fly in..."

"Ruby--I mean Rory--please," Ginny was saying, massaging her temples.

"Oh, erm, I mean, sort of my fault--" Harry stuttered.

"Daddy!" Ruby cried. "I think Nana's howler is going to go off!"

Hermione and Ron broke off their argument, took Hades from Harry and helped Ginny clean up the mess while he strode across the room to take the Howler; he took a second too long and the red envelope exploded, causing the owl to rise into the air in a cloud of feathers, his talons dangerously close to Harry's head.

"WHY DID I NEED TO READ IN THE NEWSPAPER THAT MY DAUGHTER'S HUSBAND HAS AN ILLEGITIMATE CHILD WITH ANOTHER WOMAN? WHEN WERE YOU PLANNING TO TELL--"

"Oh, bugger," Ron cried, his hands over his ears; Hades started to bark at the top of his lungs and leapt at Tilda again.

"Ron!" Ginny exclaimed in dismay; her dismay seemed to intensify when she realised that her brothers' heads were telling her daughters about some of the scrapes they'd got into in school to earn their detentions. She looked like she thought they were giving the girls ideas.

"Who told you to do undo the spell, Ron?" Hermione demanded of him.

"It was a sodding accident! I was trying to--"

"Well, what have we here?" said a familiar voice from near the window, which was still open. Harry looked up to see the last person he wanted to see, under normal circumstances, although in this case he had asked her to come meet him. He sincerely wished now that he hadn't.

Her eyes glittered avariciously behind her bejewelled spectacles and an acid-green quill was poised in one red-taloned hand. Amidst the shouting of the Howler, Tilda, Teddy, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Ruby and Rory, plus the yapping of the Crup and the laughter of Fred and George's heads as they recounted their glory days, Harry heard Rita Skeeter's smug, self-satisfied voice:

"Am I interrupting--what shall we call it?--a family reunion?"



Author notes: Thanks to Rena, Nick, June and Lea for the beta reading and Britpicking.
More information on my HP fanfiction and essays can also be found HERE. Please be a considerate reader and review.