The Guardian Brotherhood

"Gentlemen! May I present to you ... my client."

There was one of those long stretching silences, during which I was sure someone could tickle them all and they'd crumble to pieces. Mr Clarke and the Aurors and - did I recognise a Hit Wizard? The silence didn't last.

One of them - a Senior Auror by the looks of it - snorted. "Well I'll be damned..." He had a deep gravelly voice and a long jagged scar that ran from cheek to lip through way of the nose that would have made Moody proud. He looked disgusted with Clarke. "Goddamn chit's already come crying to mummy." I had a feeling the Auror was more resentful of the fact that their prime suspect had already come begging for justice, otherwise he'd be in their hands and wouldn't that make him happy. I didn't even want to know the sort of questioning tactics they were allowed to use. From a few accounts of Harry's days on the force, I knew they weren't always exactly ... ethical. Let's just say, "let's sit down and talk" wasn't their favourite way of dealing with those who wouldn't talk. They certainly liked "let's crack your shell around you", and they definitely loved "let's make your life suck like hell for a while." Oh, no fists about it. All perfectly painless ... at least physically. They bent people 'til they gave, like plastic rulers that bent and bent and before you knew it it had snapped in half in your face.

As much as I didn't want to believe half of Clarke's cock-and-bull story, the man seemed genuinely scared. Of many things. Even of his own story. In my experience, I'd come to have an instinct for liars... It wasn't foolproof, but nothing really was anyway. It was all in the eyes. Wide, fleeting eyes? Liar. Wide, staring straight into your eyes emphatically? Well, I now knew Mr Clarke needed my help. And I'd do everything in my power to do just that.

Smiling cooly, I leaned my hip back onto my desk. "Anything mummy can help you with? You see, the chit and I have a lot to discuss."

The Auror turned his narrowed eyes on me and advanced so he was mere, dangerous inches away from my nose. Ah, yes, intimidation. And I'm not proud to say it didn't work. It did. The man had a mean glare that made me want to curl up under an invisibility cloak and hope to all saints he didn't have a Moody eye. After a moment he snorted. "All right, girls, let's go." He and his little flock - all beefy ten of them - walked out. I released a breath I hadn't known I'd been holding.

"Mr Clarke ... I shall require your wand."

***

Harry stretched out on the couch. He could tell it was second-hand from the way it had lost its firmness in places, but he'd never tell Ginny that. She had her pride and it was intact, thank you very much. For her defense, though, she'd covered what he supposed was a stained and probably very threadbare original couch fabric with a cheery striped leafy-green and off-white slipcover. Yes, she'd done quite something with her new flat, and Harry found himself really enjoying his stay in her colourful living room.

"Okay," Ginny called as she came back in carrying a plate of snacks - sliced cucumbers, fanned out cheese sticks, cute baby carrots. "So you're saying the spell doesn't leave a trace. How are we going to figure out when it was cast and who cast it?"

"We don't," Harry replied, stretching his hand into the plate and removing a carrot. He frowned and appeared to study it, and Ginny was momentarily horrified that she might have slipped in a spoiled one. "When did you turn into a health maniac?"

She glared at him, but didn't reply. Instead she sat down on the loveseat opposite him and quickly brushed a wild lock of hair behind her ear. It didn't stay. "How can we be so sure it was Ron, then?" she asked again.

"We're not."

Ginny crossed her arms at his tone and sat back moodily, staring just past him. "So ... what? We just go on blind faith?" When silence stretched on she sighed. "Harry, I know I said-"

"Nevermind what you said," he finally muttered. "Look, it's just like I told you yesterday, no one knows the spell. We never noted it anywhere, and Hermione and I sure as hell didn't cast it since ... well, anyway." Then he frowned. "Besides, we can't. That spell needs three casters to perform it. That's why it's called the Triquetra."

Ginny blinked. "Then it can't have been..."

Harry exploded of a sudden. "Yes it was! Godric's fuck, it was!" When he saw her recoil away from him, he caught his breath and softened his tone, dropping his head. "It was. I don't know how, but it was."

She nodded silently, frowning. "Okay. Okay." She stared down at her hands and waited. Waited for the next step. There was one thing she'd wanted to do since Harry's revelation yesterday, but she simply hadn't been able to make herself do it. It was too hard, too painful to go back.

As though reading her mind, Harry lifted his head from his hands where he'd rested it. When he next spoke, his voice cracked on every word and she bit her lip. "We need to go back to Spinner's End."

***

The battlefield was deserted when they Apparated in just at the edge of the ward that had been placed after the war. It was only polite to honour the dead in a nonmagical way. They had trod this earth, battling magic with magic, and now rested elsewhere. Magic was not needed to pay respect. Only peace.

The sun was at its zenith, bathing the place with a falsely cheery glow, and though this was one of the warmest days they'd had this year, the wind prickled their skin with gooseflesh. This was where it had all ended. With the years, greenery had regrown in force, and it seemed wildflowers and bright red poppies had germinated where the dead had fallen. The sight was beautiful, mesmerising, but seemed to have been painted so to erase the stains of yesterday.

Swallowing, Harry released Ginny's hand that he had no recollection taking hold of, but not before quickly squeezing it. Then he walked off.

Ginny watched him. It was all she could do at the moment, really, because she felt numb and oddly disconnected. She'd promised herself never to come back, never to dwell on the past, and she'd done fantastically until Harry came along telling her they'd all buried Ron before he really was dead.

She hadn't told her parents. Merlin, they'd think she'd gone mad, completely round the bend. It would be her fault, too. Harry Potter had endured enough, it was normal he'd break one day, but her? "She believed him, sir, oh yes, she pushed him to the limit along with her."

Should she trust Harry? After all, he was her mentor, she had to trust his decisions. And he was damned good. He took care never to thrust her into an impossible situation. He made sure she understood the theory. He practised with her well into the night. She trusted his judgment. But then again, it - insanity, denial - was bound to catch up to him one day, didn't it?

Ginny closed her fist onto the lingering warmth Harry had left behind, then lifted her eyes to see him walk purposefully to the spot where Ron had fought for the last time. She closed her eyes. Yes, Ron had been just a few meters away from Harry, fighting three Death Eaters at once. Vague memories, but there it was. She'd been fighting one, then turned back around and his Death Eaters were down and he was gone. But the fire in his eyes ... She shivered. She'd always remember the fire. He'd fought to the end, to be sure.

She opened her eyes again to find a glint of wild ebony amongst the high weeds and wildflowers, then set off after him.

"What are you doing?"

There was an empty, hollow look in his eyes when she knelt next to him. His wand was in his hands and he was slowly circling round and round, always a little wider, apparently immune to the heat. She followed a trickle of sweat down his brow. "I'm trying to find lingering traces of magic." He was silent a long while afterwards and Ginny respected his need for all his sense to be alert if he caught a glimpse of something. Tracing didn't require any magic to be performed, but rather the reverse: the essence of magic was detected and absorbed by the wand. Absently she plucked weeds out and picked them apart, slowly. Finally Harry sighed, brushed back an unruly wet patch of hair from his brow and sat back next to Ginny. Her capris clung uncomfortably to her skin. "There are definitely traces of battle spells, that's a given." She nodded. "There's something weird in there, too, but I can't place it."

"Dark magic?" Ginny inquired, her eyes trained to the strands of weed in her hands.

"I dunno. It doesn't seem that threatening."

She glanced at him. "D'you think maybe he was Vanished? Maybe he came back somehow?"

Harry grimaced thoughtfully and glanced back at the spot he'd scoured. "You can't Vanish someone, only objects." Right, she'd forgotten about that. "And I can't reason why a Death Eater would bring an Invisibility Cloak on a battlefield. I mean, they wanted to fight us, not make us disappear. And besides," he added quietly, "they're extremely rare and expensive." He shook his head. "No, it's nothing like that."

"Disapparation?" she ventured again.

Harry's eyes snapped back to her, wide. "No way, Ron wouldn't leave in the middle of battle."

Ginny bit her lip, shrugged. "Ron wasn't always exactly bra-"

"No." A long silence, marred with tension and reproach, ensued. He whispered again, harshly, "How can you say something like that? He's your-"

"Oh, for Merlin's sake, Harry, the man's not a saint! I grew up with Ron, remember? When he's scared, Ron runs. It's what he does!"

The glare he sent her could have chilled her and burnt her at once. "Apparently, you don't know your brother," he said quietly, but it still felt like a hard blow in the chest. She looked down, seething silently. "And apparently, you don't give a shit that your brother fought like a hero. No, you probably thought he was saving his skin." By now he, too, was seething, eyes flashing, mouth distorted into an angry snarl. He clamped down hard on her shoulders when she tried to stand up. "Oh, he believed in that pureblood bullshit, did he? He just didn't join them because he was scared, right? He thought it'd be much more fun to play with the good guys. Tell me," his voice was raising, "tell me why the hell he pretended to hurt every single time Hermione was sick or hurt? Tell me why he didn't rape her like an animal if he didn't give a flying fuck about her? She's a mudblood, isn't she? It was all just a game, wasn't it? Tell me," he spat, "are you a pureblood bitch just like him?"

Ginny whimpered under the pressure his fingers exerted into her skin. At his last yelled insult, however, she growled low and pushed against him with all her might. "Fuck you, Harry Potter!" she choked. "You have no right accusing me after all I've ... I've..." She broke off, wincing and nursing her shoulders.

Harry stared, gaping, as if he didn't quite believe what had just happened ... what he'd just said to her ... all of it. Then his eyes narrowed again and he stood towering over her. "And you have no right accusing Ron of anything."

He was halfway across the field when he froze. Ginny's voice reached him clearly, even as she sniffed, even as she choked on her words. "What, were you having an affair with Ron? Is that why you're marrying Hermione? Because she reminds you of good times with Ron in some twisted way?" And with every word she spat passionately, something contracted in Harry. Something cold. Something that hurt like hell.

When he twisted around, he didn't see her. He didn't remember her voice, didn't see her flushed face, or her wild hair, or her eyes glittering with angry tears ... only remembered the words and how wrong they were. She was wrong! "Shut up, shut up!"

He didn't feel his wand hand raise, didn't know what spell catapulted from the long flexible wood, only felt his heart ache with the sting of her words.

Then he saw her.

And she glowed beyond the luminescent Priori.

***

"Mr Clarke?" I asked when he looked at me blankly.

Finally he blurted out, pale as a ghost, "I don't have it ... my wand."

Not to be undone, I smiled amiably. "You said earlier that you'd left it in your cloak pocket. Is it still there?"

He nodded wordlessly.

"It wasn't touched by the flames, was it? We could still perform some spell tracing on it, see what was cast with it, in any case..."

"No ... no, it wasn't burnt. Only the ... lab."

I tried to appear cheerful, though his behaviour really concerned me. He'd been somewhat lost and confused when he first came into my office. Then he'd calmed down considerably as he told me his tale. Now he looked ready to faint. Had his experience and predicament finally caught up to him? i was afraid he was losing it proper now. "Well, then, shall we go?" I grabbed a locked briefcase from my coat-hanger armoire, then walked toward the door. When I didn't hear him follow along, I turned back.

The man had blanched some more. Uh oh.

"Is something wrong?" Godric's beard, but I didn't know first aid!

Clarke looked down, and for a moment I was afraid he'd vomit right then and there, but thankfully he didn't and just started shuffling his foot sheepishly. If the situation hadn't been so dire I might have burst out laughing, but the man really concerned me. Okay, I thought, St. Mungo's it is. "Er," he began, "I might suggest that you go and I just ... er ... wait it out here, yes?"

"Oh, so that's what he was on about! Going back to the scene of a crme you were witness to - in his case, two, plus the destruction of everything around but him - was often just too much to ask. Certainly the cause for a hive breakout. Being all business-like, I'd forgotten about the human aspect of what I'd just requested of him. Gee, how cold.

"Sir," I began sympathetically.

Absently he retorted, "Bert."

Right. "Bert, I would require your presence as well to answer some questions. I know it's a lot to ask, but I need to place you at the scene of the crime and I need you there. Do you think you could do that for me? It would clear up an awful lot." Hopefully your name, I almost added, but then he'd believe I didn't believe. Yes, suspects were very on the edge, I'd noticed. Only normal, if you considered the kind of stress they went thought, but then again you didn't want to ruffle them or there was hell to pay.

I could see he was hesitating. He opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water a couple of times, then seemed to take a most difficult decision - oh, trust me, it was. "All right. We're in, you do your thing, and then we're out, clear?"

"Crystal."

And so we were off to the Atrium upstairs to Disapparate and 'do my thing'.

***

"You were gone an awful long time."

The hooded figure glared and strode briskly from the Apparation perimeter it had just entered without another glance back.

The young woman jumped down from her perch in the dimmed alcove and caught up to him. "The Council started asking question. What happened?"

He stopped, sighed, and tore his hood from his head, revealing shocking red hair that fell just below his chin. His sharp chiseled face was drawn tightly in irritation. "I got held back, okay?" Then he added, disgusted, as an afterthought, "I don't report to you."

"You could ... This was your first charge, for Godric's sake. They could suspend you over this, you know?"

"They won't," the man growled before walking away again.

She shook her head, keeping up with him with little difficulty, and narrowed her eyes at him. "You're supposed to go in, do your job, then get the hell out."

Smirking drily, the man snorted. "I did it, didn't I?"

She stopped. "You're so full of yourself."

She was locked between bruising wall and steely chest within the blink of an eye. "Yeah? The man's safe and in the hands of justice, how about that." It wasn't a question.

She opened her heart-shaped mouth in a soundless 'o'.

Releasing her somewhat, he groaned and brushed back his hair. "Look, Robin, it was either you or me ... They chose me. I don't know why."

"I've been here longer." She jutted out her chin insolently, drawing a bitter smile from his lips.

"Yeah, and look where pride gets you," he drawled, cocking an eyebrow at her current predicament. Nowhere. Lifting his hand, he pressed it against her trachea for emphasis.

Hissing angrily, eyes watering, she shoved hard, panting when he released her. "I can take care of myself just fine."

The man's cobalt eyes roamed over her petite frame. She musn't be more than twenty, he decided, judging by her flawless, pearly skin and small callous-less hands that even now rubbed vigorously at a long, feminine neck partially hidden by long, curled blonde locks. She could have been a dancer, he thought again, then mused that dancers certainly did not possess such power and strength of character. The girl was barely out of her teens, but certainly not in mind, and he whole-heartedly agreed with the Council to keep her under wraps as long as Miss Primadonna couldn't control her temper.

He leaned cooly against the long hallway's opposite wall, crossing arms and ankles in a relaxed demeanor. "I know. I'm sure they have something better for you."

She stared a little longer, then finally came off her high horses and exhaled, glancing up sheepishly. "So ... what was his deal?"

"Clarke?" He contemplated, then shrugged. "Us."

***

The entire room where Clarke conducted his research on medieaval magic was ... unrecogniseable. I'd never been into the facility but could tell that the fire had destroyed everything beyond recognition. Gingerly I stepped over the charred remains of an overthrown bookcase and its scattered contents. I could feel Clarke's presence behind me, breathing in little bracing gasps as we walked into the heart of the room. Lifting my gaze to the incinerated doorframe on the opposite wall, I saw the spot where Clarke had stood frozen as he started exiting his small office in the back, intact and pristine as opposed to the rest of the ravaged room. Somewhere to my right, four stumps stood from the ashes near a charred prop desk where blackened book pages and ashes lay, forever unreadable.

Standing in this mess made me feel like a sick intruder. Books, magical history, and people had perished and now rested in peace in this crematorium. I felt dirty and like a violator of men. That wasn't right.

What made it right was the reason we were here. Someone had to understand how and why this had happened. I was a reluctant volunteer, but there it was. I was here to do the dirty job.

I stole a wide circular glance around, then stared up and down at the ceiling and floor. Finally I gently set my briefcase down horizontally on a nearby table, and unlocked it. Reaching in, I produced a parchpad and set out taking notes. "This wasn't a mere muggle fire," I began for Clarke's benefit, then gestured to the space around. "See, there are no marks of an accelerator - gas or chemicals, usually - they would have ran where the felon left some. I can't see any marks of condensation, though - where the flames would have rejoined in bigger masses. This supports your story and I think it might have started suddenly and kept a constant degree and mass everywhere within the room and-"

I was interrupted by Clarke whose pained voice barely reached me. "Please, can we talk about something ... else?"

I turned to him, concerned. His eyes were screwed shut and his face sweaty and pale. I coughed to cover my idiocy, then jotted down a few more quick notes. "All right. So you ... opened the door there" - I pointed to the doorless frame where the floor remained untouched - "and the flames engulfed you, but didn't-"

"- Touch me," he finished hoarsely.

My gaze wandered back to the four stumps by the prop desks. "And..." I began hesitantly, for I thought I already knew the answer, "that would be where ... Leland and Danny were standing when...?"

Opening his eyes a short second, Clarke nodded.

I stayed uncomfortably silent, surveying my surroundings once more, and took a deep, bracing breath. "Can you point me to your armoire? With your eyes closed, if you prefer..."

He lifted a stubby finger to the leftmost corner, just beyond the glassy floor-to-ceiling delimitations where a small group of bespectacled or mousy researchers had congregated to silently gape at the destruction zone. I carefully maneuvered back where we'd come in and gladly exited the zone, shooting a quick polite half-smile at the crowd. "Excuse me..." I reached the coathanger armoire and dug inside the three cloaks' pockets, finding three wands. Pinching the bridge of my nose - good Godric, a headache already? - I returned back into the disaster.

"Can you show me which one is yours?"

He didn't open his eyes for that one. "The shortest." I grinned a bit at his reluctance at being here. But it was necessary, and I was thankful he wasn't making it harder than it already was.

"Were these what your assistants were working on?" I asked, pointing to the open books on the prop desks in front of the foot stumps.

Clarke chanced an eye open, gulped, and nodded.

Directing my wand toward my open briefcase, I Summoned two large indestructable plastic bags. "Who was working on the left desk?" I asked again.

"Danny."

I placed the books Danny was working on inside one of the bags, then did the same with Leland's. "Thank you," I breathed. "Let's go in your office now."

Meekly, he opened his eyes and followed me inside the room that was just as ravaged as the other, though perhaps thrown into more stark contrast because of its smaller size.

"What books were you working with?" I asked, wanting to be out of there just as much as he did. I'd been able to hold the creepy factor from my brain at bay as much as possible, but it was starting to penetrate, and it was definitely unpleasant being in here.

"Only the one. There on the desk."

I Summoned another bag wordlessly and slipped the thick volume inside, opened to the page Clarke had been studying. I noticed with some surprise that the right page was still readable amid all the burn marks, but barely. Excitement flooded my chest, bubbling. Knowing exactly what he had been working on might accelerate my investigation. "What exactly were you working on?" I asked.

He stared blinking, astonished by my different behaviour - excitement, probably, that I'd found a clue - then seemed to remember the question of a sudden. "Why, I'm not quite sure myself. Leland called me on it that morning. The three of us were checking references in other texts when..." He interrupted himself abruptly, turning the same shade of grey he'd been before.

"I'll need your notes, too." I Summoned Leland's, Danny's, and Clarke's notes and carefully put them in their respective bags. "Where did you get that book? The big one." I nodded to Clarke's tome in my bag. "How long have you had it?" I asked again.

Clarke stared at the large book a moment, then 'o'ed silently. "I bought it from a muggle sale. The book had been Confunded to look like a mathematics textbook when read by muggles. I've probably had it..." he scratched his scruffy chin thoughtfully "perhaps a year, a year and a half. We have ... had so many books, it's hard to keep up with the flow on the best day..."

I nodded understandingly, and smiled inwardly. Why, that was all the fun of it, too! Shaking my head absently, I concentrated on the next matter on my list. It certainly wouldn't provide conclusive proof to anything, but I wanted to just ... test a theory. It wouldn't hurt either.

"Would you mind if I studied that spot?"

He looked up and completely flushed of colour, stammering, "Y - yes, sure, I - umm - yes." And he promptly turned his back on it. I heard his harsh panting and imagined his eyes screwed tight against the memory, trying to erase it from his mind.

The spot - the intact spot where he'd been standing when all hell broke loose. There was bound to be some residual magic, considering the importance of the fire. A Full-Body Fire Shield was nigh impossible to produce, or so I'd thought until this morning. I knelt next to it, closing my eyes, listening, feeling, waiting. Stretching my own limits.

Then swallowed my sharp gasp.

***

Heart pounding savagely in his chest, he stared at her staring back, and for a long time he couldn't find it in him to breathe, so much it hurt.

Ginny's eyes engulfed him, made him weak with their teary misery, and he was actually surprised when he felt something hot and wet trickle down his cheek.

How had it come to this? To this bitter anger? All for Ron, or merely an avenue to let sentiments loose? Harry didn't know, but by Merlin it hurt like hell.

She finally lowered her wand, letting her arm fall limply at her side, and turned away, a haunted look in her eyes.

"Ginny I -"

"Please don't," she snapped hoarsely.

His mind reeled, wondering what to do. "I didn't mean -"

She twisted back around, eyes swollen and bloodshot. "I did."

And then she was gone.