A Very Memorable Birthday

A Very Memorable Birthday

Chapter Two

Luna caught her breath and Apparated to the Ministry. They were checking Harry in for questioning.

"Well," he said cheerfully, when she appeared, "This feels a bit odd. I haven't been here in ages. It hasn't changed much. Thanks for coming along."

She waited until they took him to a holding cell, then got in to see him after the Aurors were finished questioning him by signing about six reams of parchment. The cell was pretty standard. There was a small table, a straight-backed chair, a metal framed bed, and a toilet with a sink over it. When Luna came in, he was sitting on the chair, but he got up and came over to the bars. The female Auror she'd seen earlier now sat on a bench outside the cell, listening to everything they said. She was wearing a Ministry badge that said "Ruby Hopkirk" on it. The girl was weirdly cheerful. It annoyed Luna.

"Are you related to Mafalda?" Harry asked, interestedly.

"She's my great-aunt," the girl replied.

"Never mind her, Harry. What happens next? Did you call anyone for help?"

"Not yet," he admitted.

"You saw me before you even called anyone else?"

"What can I say? I promised to spend sometime with you on your birthday, didn't I? You look really good tonight, by the way. I like that swirly skirt with those boots. It's very sexy. "

"Harry," she said, exasperated, "this is serious."

"I know. You can tell because I'm being so flippant. The worse things get the more stupid things I say."

The Auror laughed. "I have to admit, I have a lot of respect for any girl who would spend her birthday in custody with her incarcerated boyfriend. Any normal girl would run for her life."

Harry glanced over at her. "Luna's never exactly been a normal girl."

"Oh, thanks a lot. Et tu, Harry?" Luna said sourly.

"I mean that in a good way," he explained hurriedly to Ruby, then looked back at Luna. "Wait a minute," he said, with an amused expression on his face, his eyes twinkling. "You love me? Why didn't you ever tell me? This is hardly the place to start discussing something like that."

Luna looked back at the female Auror, who had snickered as Harry spoke, and gave her the most evil glance she could come up with.

"He's NOT my boyfriend. He's my best friend, and he's still acts like a boy, sort of, sometimes, but...oh, never mind!" If they had to talk in front of a female Auror, Luna wished Tonks could have been there, but she and Remus Lupin were on their honeymoon. The last time she had seen Harry had been at their wedding. They had danced together that night, too, and Harry had kissed her goodnight, a light kiss, like the brush of a fairy's wings. She closed her eyes, remembering how good it had felt to be in his arms, with her head on his shoulder. Wait, what about his shoulder?

"Harry, what happened to your shirt?"

"Oh, it's a very expensive elf-made wine, knowing Narcissa Malfoy. Narcissa threw her wine glass at me when we started to argue."

"You were arguing with her right before she died?" Luna shrieked. "No wonder they think you killed her!"

"Luna, don't go overboard about that!"

"I'll go overboard if I feel like going overboard, damn it! Now tell me what happened! Tell me everything that happened!"

"You and I were supposed to meet at seven for the interview, so I got there early hoping I could get a good table," he recited in a matter-of-fact fashion. "I put down the flowers I had gotten you for your birthday, and I was about to sit down to wait for you when I saw Mr. and Mrs., Diggory across the room. Well, whenever I see them, I talk to them, ask them how they're doing, oh, you know how it is! While I was talking to them Narcissa must have come in. I hadn't seen her when I first got there. The waiter had just brought her a drink when I went to walk past her to get back to our table. She said something nasty, and I said something nasty back, and we started arguing. It was nothing important, just the usual stupid stuff. She threw the wineglass at me, and then she fell over. She was dead when she hit the floor."

"Could she have had a heart attack?" Luna asked hopefully.

"Did she even have a heart?" Harry asked in a puzzled voice.

Luna pushed her hair back off her neck and rubbed her forehead wearily. Harry looked at her with concern. "Hey, look, you don't have to stay here, and you didn't get any dinner. Why don't you go home? I promise to give you an exclusive interview when I go to trial."

"I'm not going anywhere. No way...unless I go get some sandwiches. You must be starving. Would you like a sandwich?"

"You'd bring me a sandwich to jail on your birthday? You do love me!" Harry said, amused.

"Shut up, or they won't need to try you. I'll kill you and they'll need to try me."

When she got back she was carrying some ham sandwiches she had bought in a derelict Muggle pub around the corner from the Ministry telephone box. It had made Aberforth Dumbledore's place look like a palace. Dawlish was back, and Harry had his shirt off. She assumed it had been taken as evidence. She clutched the sack of sandwiches tightly. His body was very distracting.

Harry was not overly tall, and a bit thin, but he had wide shoulders, nipples that were especially distracting, not a lot of hair on his chest, but on his flat stomach a light fur ran down into his trousers. Merlin! She shook her head, trying to concentrate on what Dawlish was saying. Why hadn't this guy been fired after the war?

"We don't have enough evidence to hold you overnight, Mr. Potter, IF you have someone who will sign you out and be responsible for seeing you return tomorrow at two o' clock for another interview, you can go."

"That would be me," Luna squeaked and Harry looked at her gratefully.

Dawlish looked at her sourly. "In the meantime we will be checking the body of the deceased to determine if she was indeed poisoned, and we will be conducting more interviews with witnesses. Some people left before we got a chance to talk to them but if they had reservations at the restaurant we should be able to trace them."

"You're thinking that if you find an ulterior motive, then you can send me to Azkaban," Harry said heavily.

"Yes, Potter, that's exactly right," Dawlish replied. God, this guy could hold a grudge forever!

Dawlish went to get the forms they had to sign before they could go. They ate the ham sandwiches quickly standing on opposite sides of the cell bars.

When Dawlish came back, he let Harry out of the cell. It turned out Luna had to fill out about a dozen more sheets of parchment before they could actually leave. Harry looked over her shoulder as she signed each sheet. "This evening just keeps topping itself," he sighed. "Look at all of those stupid questions. It's like getting permission to study dragons. Is there anything in there about what you have to do if I bite someone on the leg?"

"I prefer to wait and hope for better things," Luna replied, distracted once again by his bare chest.

"Oooh, I think you do love me!" Harry said with a grin.

"As if you didn't know," she said lightly. "Now let's get you home."

"Dobby will be glad to see you again," Harry answered as they left the building.

"I'm not taking you home to your home. No such luck. I promised the Ministry I'd vouch for you showing up tomorrow, so you're coming with me to my place," Luna said, grabbing his arm so he couldn't wander off.

"We are definitely in love," he teased her.

"You just better not be a killer."

"Oh, I'm not. I just wish I could figure out what did happen. First I'm waiting for you, and then I'm getting tied up with leather, and I do NOT mean that in a good way."

Luna winced as she had a vision of Harry tied to her bedposts. Bad friend, Luna! Bad girl! She Apparated them to her flat, and he began to pace around her living room and dining area like a messy-haired panther.

"This is nice. It's very compact. I think there are still rooms at Grimmauld Place I haven't found yet. God only knows what I'll find in that place next."

"Let me see if I can find you something to wear. Aren't you getting cold?"

"Well, a little, but Narcissa is probably getting colder."

She found an old T-shirt of her father's that she sometimes used to sleep in. It had hung down to her knees when she had worn it, but she thought, looking at it critically, that it should be just right for Harry. When she held it out for him to take, his fingers closed over hers.

"Thanks, Luna, for everything. I can always count on you." Green eyes, familiar and beloved, were filling her world. There was nothing else- no shirt, no flat, no dead woman. She leaned in until she felt his lips on hers and put her arms around him. He kissed her back, tentatively, then with more assurance. The shirt fell out of her hand, onto the floor, and she was running her hands around his back

Then she yanked herself away. Dead woman! Jail! Inquest! Poison!

"Oh, God, that was totally inappropriate!" She moaned, humiliated, dropping down onto the couch.

"I know," he said cheerfully, joining her. "That's why I didn't kiss you before. Although I have to say, I've been thinking about how to give you a kiss all night. You've been so protective and all. It's very appealing."

"Put on the shirt, Harry. Let's figure this out."

"What, you and me? I thought we had decided. If I don't go to prison, we're going to be in loooove," he said in a sing-song voice

"Why do you always joke about things like that?"

"Never mind," he said hastily. "We have to be back at the Ministry at two tomorrow. What are we going to do then?"

Luna leaned back on the couch, as he pulled the shirt over his head. "Okay, Harry, if you didn't do it, who did? Who had a motive to kill Narcissa Malfoy?"

"Half the wizarding world, maybe? The woman was impossible! And don't even get me started on the Muggles who'd like to see her dead. She was always looking for a chance to insult the families of Muggleborns"

"Did you see anything weird at all before it after it happened?"

"No!"

"Come on, think. There must be something!"

"Luna, I've tried, believe me. Calm down. The Aurors will have to figure it out."

"Oh, you trust them? They think they already have their murderer. They think you did it. They're going to twist everything around so that the evidence fits. It's up to us to clear you! You can't trust them!"

"Oh, get serious, Luna. What else can I do? You're a great girl and I adore you, but you're not Jane Tennison."

"Who's Jane Tennison? Did she know Narcissa?"

"Never mind," Harry sighed, and then he kept her from talking any more for awhile by kissing her again.

"I don't exactly mind," she said when she caught her breath, "but I do find this a little weird after all of these years."

He cuddled her in his arms. "You've just had a very bad day. I'm trying to get you to relax."

"Yes, it's my birthday. They're always bad. I hate birthdays. They always ruin me. I always wind up acting in ways I wouldn't normally act. I hate it! I tell you, I hate birthdays!" She laid her head on his chest, and snuggled into his arms, and it was wonderful. She could have sworn that sirens were singing the "Hallelujah Chorus" in the background.

Then she jerked out of his embrace. "Harry, if Narcissa had just got to the restaurant, she didn't have any food on the table. And even if you could have put poison in the wine, she didn't drink it. She tossed it!"

His green eyes sparkled as they widened. "Oh, my God! I thought she was such a petty old crone for doing that, and it's going to save my arse! She couldn't have been poisoned!"

"Should we send an owl to Dawlish or Hopkirk?" she asked excitedly.

"Not at this hour. It's almost midnight," he said.

"Then what should we do?"

"Give them a chance to figure it out. If they don't do it on their own, we'll tell them in the morning."

Luna jumped up. "I'm going to tell them now!"

Harry swore under his breath. "You are not. You are not waking them up at this hour of the morning. If they don't hate me enough now, they will then. This irrational, loony side of you has always been sexy in its own way, but at the same time, it's as problematic as hell. Try and see reason, won't you?"

"I am seeing reason!" She ducked under his arm, and he grabbed her. They tripped over each other's feet and landed in a tangle on the floor.

She had almost all of the wind knocked out of her, so she had to gasp into his mouth when he kissed her. He took her parted lips as a sign of encouragement, and his tongue touched hers. When he nibbled her lower lip, she groaned.

"That will teach me a lesson."

"Oh, yes. I'm going to show you a thing or two," Harry said, leaning in for another long kiss.

If she had not been half-insane with longing, she would have been horribly embarrassed by the amount of dust in the carpet, but that was definitely another worry for another day.