Questions and Answers

Ginny approached Harry with a bandage in one hand and a jar of ointment in the other. He made a face at the sight. 'Do we have to?' he asked.

'You're worse than one of the children,' Ginny told him. 'You're lucky Leighton doesn't make me bring you back to the hospital for them to do this.' She lifted the sling over his head and set it on the bed next to him.

'That bloody goop they gave you makes my whole arm numb,' Harry complained.

Ginny unbuttoned Harry's shirt with the ease of long practice. 'Would you rather not have it?' she asked archly, knowing the one time he had talked her into not using it, he'd spent most of the night awake, pacing next to the bed, unable to sleep because of the pain.

'No...' he sighed. When Ginny pushed the shirt down his arms, he grinned up at her. 'You can unbutton other things,' he suggested with a wicked glint in his eyes.

Ginny paused in the act of peeling the thick bandage off Harry's shoulder. Her brow arched as she gazed down at Harry. 'No.'

'That's it? You're just going to deny a sick man like that?' Harry asked incredulously.

Ginny scooped a dollop of the icy blue ointment from the jar and gingerly spread it over the livid gash. 'Absolutely.' She picked up the bandage and gently laid it over his shoulder, making sure the gaping edges were covered and cast a Sticking charm to hold it in place, then a Cushioning charm to keep Harry from jarring it. Ginny pulled his shirt back into place. 'Not until you can move your arm without wincing in pain,' she told him, kissing his nose.

'But that'll take weeks,' Harry groused.

'Then you'll have something to look forward to,' Ginny told him pertly. 'Think you were eighteen again,' she huffed. She pointed her wand at the old bandage. 'Evanesco.'

'Can I at least have a kiss?' Harry asked hopefully. Ginny bent and gently kissed him, so lightly if Harry hadn't been able to taste the Peppermint Frog on her lips, it might not have happened. 'Witch,' he murmured.

'And a damn good one.' Ginny laughed huskily and gathered the jar and her wand and left the room.

XxXxXxX

Ron closed the lid on a carton, and wiped his sweaty face, leaving a smudge on his nose. He looked around the room Jane had slept in; searching for anything he might have left. Satisfied the room was empty, he swept his wand around the room, muttering, 'Tergeo.' The dust that lay in the corners and along the top of the baseboards vanished. He lifted the carton in his arms and carried it down the stairs to the sitting room to join a welter of similar cartons. 'Right, that's the lot from your mum's room,' he told Hermione.

'Thanks.' Hermione looked up at him and grinned. 'You've got a smudge on your nose,' she told him. 'Right there.' Her finger tapped the tip of her nose in illustration.

Ron swiped the sleeve of his t-shirt over his nose. 'Better?'

'Yeah.' Hermione reached up and ran her thumb down Ron's nose, removing the remainder of the smudge. She glanced around the sitting room, a hint of dismay creeping into her features. 'What am I going to do with the house?' She ran her hand through her hair. 'I mean, I suppose we could live in it, but...' She trailed off uncertainly

'But...?'

Hermione sighed and dropped to the sofa. 'We don't really need it. Not with Rose and Hugo both in school.'

'You could let it, maybe...' Ron suggested.

'I don't know,' Hermione said softly.

'You don't have to make any decisions now, hen,' Ron told her. 'But it isn't good to let it sit empty for very long.'

Hermione's nose wrinkled in doubt. 'I'm not sure,' she said. 'I'm not chuffed about letting strangers live here.'

Ron pensively pulled at his fingers until the knuckles popped. 'You could...' he began softly. He cleared his throat. 'You could sell it...'

'I can't,' Hermione said shortly. 'Not while Mum's still alive.' She sighed and got up, picking up a pen to label the carton. 'I know it's not like she's going to live here again, but it just feels like I'd sell the house out from under her.'

'You can't just not do anything,' Ron said mildly. Hermione's back was to him, but he saw her shoulders jerk in reaction. He fiddled with his wedding ring for a moment, twisting the wide band around his finger. 'Is there anything else that you need to do here right now?'

Hermione sealed the carton with tape, and rubbed her hands over her face. 'No.' She kept her back to Ron. 'Could you go pick up Rose and Hugo from Harry and Ginny's? I'll be home later.'

Ron touched her shoulder. 'Hermione...'

'Just go.'

Ron's lips thinned in annoyance. 'You don't have to keep going on alone like this.'

Hermione carefully set the pen down on top of the carton. 'I appreciate your concern, Ron, but it's not your problem.'

Ron grasped Hermione's upper arm and turned her around. 'What do you mean it's not my problem?' he demanded. 'Your mother is my problem. She has been since the day I married you.'

'You don't understand...'

'Why? Because my parents aren't Muggles? Because what's happened to your mum won't happen to mine?' Ron's eyes narrowed. 'Or am I just not intelligent enough to understand?' He dropped Hermione's arm and stormed out of the house.

'Ron, wait...' Hermione went after him, but he had Disapparated.

XxXxXxX

Hermione shifted a small box filled with photographs into her other hand, as she opened the door to the flat. Hugo lay sprawled in on the floor in the sitting room, snorting contemptuously at some rubbish on the telly, before he switched it off, muttering, 'Over one hundred channels and still not a bloody thing on...' He glanced up at his mother, pressing his lips together, as if to stem the tide of words in his mouth. 'Sorry, Mum.'

'Where's your father?'

Hugo tilted his head toward the back of the flat. 'In the kitchen. Been baking since he got home. There're enough biscuits to last through a family do, and now he's doing pies.' Hugo paused, sniffing the air appreciatively. 'Apple, I think. Or maybe pumpkin.'

Hermione rubbed one of her temples. 'Damn,' she sighed. She could count on one hand the number of times Ron had gotten upset enough to go on a baking spree. The last time, he'd made enough biscuits and pasties to leave on the counter in the shop for a week during the holiday rush for the customers to take one with their purchase and have plenty for them at home. She ruffled Hugo's thick, dark red hair. 'At least school's starting soon and he can take them to work, eh?'

'Are we still going to get my things for school next week?' Hugo asked anxiously.

'Yes,' Hermione said firmly. She went into her bedroom, and set the box on the bed, before venturing into the kitchen. Piles of biscuits were heaped on the counters and four pastry-lined pans sat on the table, waiting for the pumpkin filling Ron mixed in a bowl. The aromas of chocolate and cinnamon hung heavily in the air, nearly choking Hermione in the summer evening. She shut the door behind her, and flicked her wand at it, casting a Silencing charm with an ease that still made Ron marvel, when he wasn't industriously attempting to ignore her, as he was trying right now.

He took his wand from his pocket with his free hand, and Summoned a ladle from the drawer by the stove, murmuring the incantation. Ron began to fill the waiting pans without bothering to glance up at his wife.

Hermione picked up a chocolate biscuit and nibbled at the edges. 'It's not that I don't think you're intelligent enough,' she began. 'I just need you...' She bit her lip. 'I can't handle what's going on with Mum if you end up as rattled by all this as I am.'

Ron's hand with the ladle shook and the pale amber batter slopped onto the table. 'How long have we been married?' he asked.

Perplexed, Hermione stammered, 'Sixteen years. Next month.'

Ron nodded once. 'And for most of those sixteen years, your mum has been another member of this mad group of people I call my family. And I don't know what's going on, and nothing I can say or do seems to help, because I don't know anything.' He turned back to his pies and resumed carefully measuring the batter into the waiting pastry. 'I need to be involved, hen,' he added quietly.

'You have no idea...' Hermione started to say, before she was rudely cut off by Ron.

'You're damn right I have no idea!' Ron snarled. 'Bloody hell, Hermione! Don't you understand I can't help you - I can't be what you want me to be for you - if I don't know what's going on?'

Hermione stared at Ron in abject shock. She lifted a trembling hand and covered her eyes, sniffling a few times. Ron's shoulders slumped as he saw a tear slip from the corner of the eye that wasn't completely concealed by her fingers. 'Oh, Hermione, please don't cry...' he muttered. He dropped the ladle and awkwardly wrapped his arms around her. Seeing her cry made him feel like he was fifteen and completely clueless again.

'Mum forgot Dad was gone yesterday.' She rubbed her nose over the front of Ron's shirt, breathing in the familiar aromas of the laundry soap they used and baking that clung to him. 'I had to tell her he was dead.' Her voice broke slightly. 'It was like it happened all over again for her.'

'Maybe you shouldn't tell her,' Ron ventured.

'I couldn't not tell her,' Hermione sighed. 'She'd been looking for him.'

Ron thoughtfully picked up the ladle. 'Do you remember when Rosie was about four and you had just started defending people to the Wizengamot?'

Hermione nodded wearily. 'Yeah. So?'

Ron picked up a filled pie and slid it into the waiting oven, then added a second one before shutting the door. 'The week when Draco Malfoy's parole came up for review and you had to stay in Scotland for the duration for security reasons, and Rosie kept asking where you were the first day or so. If I told her you weren't going to come home for a while, she'd throw a tantrum that made anything I could do at her age seem like a picnic.' Ron began to absently munch on a biscuit. 'But I just shouted at her one day halfway through the week you were at work.' His mouth tipped up slightly in a deprecating grin. 'Except for the shouting, it seemed to be just enough for her to know you weren't here for the mo.'

'You want me to lie to Mum?'

'Not really lying,' Ron corrected. 'Just not telling her everything. Not if it's going to upset her.'

'Mum's not four years-old, Ron.'

'No, but it can't hurt to try. What's the harm?' Ron picked up another biscuit. 'Do you want to keep repeating that your dad's dead until she forgets she married him?' he asked harshly, wincing inwardly at his tone of voice, cramming the biscuit into his mouth to cover his embarrassment.

'Not particularly,' Hermione replied dully. She ran her hand through her tangled hair.

'At some point, Hermione,' Ron mumbled, 'you'll have to learn to just go with things.'

'I hate that,' she said tightly. 'I hate not knowing what comes next.'

'None of us do, hen,' Ron told her quietly.

XxXxXxX

Dudley tucked his mobile into the pocket of his shorts and left the flat with a sigh. He walked out of the door and stretched a few times before setting off down the sidewalk. His evening run was a long-ingrained habit that stretched back to the summer after Harry left them for good. The summer when it was apparent Harry wanted nothing to do with them. He had started running to get out of the house after dinner when the scent of cleanser hung heavily in the summer air and reveled in the ability to come and go as he pleased, after nearly a year of being cooped up with his parents.

As he settled into a rhythm, Dudley reflected on that year. All those men and women who'd kept watch over them had had nothing but praise for Harry. They spoke of him in hushed, glowing tones, full of hope, but with undertones of anxiety for his safety. He would lay awake far into the night, trying to match the image of what his parents had said about Harry and his kind with what he witnessed every day. It didn't match up.

Well, most of it hadn't. Dudley could still remember that summer day Arthur had come to pick up Harry. He'd been frightened - more than he wanted to admit - and terribly hungry. The quarter of a grapefruit and measly lettuce leaf topped with cottage cheese that had comprised his breakfast and lunch didn't do much to ease his physical hunger. So when he'd seen the brightly wrapped sweet fall to the floor from the pocket of one of the twins that had come with Arthur, Dudley knew he shouldn't have touched it, but a rumble in his gut overrode any misgivings he might have had about it and his hand shot out and grabbed the sweet before his mother could see.

He unwrapped it, thrilled to discover it was a toffee and not a sherbet lemon. Dudley loved toffee. Quickly, he popped it into his mouth and his eyes closed in unholy bliss as the toffee began to melt on his tongue. In seconds, he felt his tongue begin to swell and it rapidly expanded until it filled his mouth, then protruded from his lips, lengthening until it snaked over the sitting room rug.

Dudley's pace increased as the uncomfortable memory played through his head. It was one of the few things he'd never confided to Aaron. Even with Aaron knowing Harry was magic, Dudley didn't think he'd believe it.

Dudley stopped, and rested his hands on his knees, panting for breath. He normally didn't run that fast, preferring a somewhat slow, steady pace, as opposed to the blistering speed he'd set himself this evening.

He could still remember the identical looks of unholy glee on the twins' faces as they each disappeared in the fireplace. At one point his whimpers of fear, turned into grunts of pain as Petunia attempted to forcibly yank his tongue from his mouth. It wasn't until he'd begun to black out because his tongue was blocking his airway, that either of his parents allowed Arthur to fix it. Dudley remembered seeing the fussy flowers woven into the rug come into focus as his vision cleared and lay on the floor a few minutes, panting, grateful that he could breathe once again.

It had taken years for Dudley to be able to probe that memory for why. It had been obvious to him, much later, that he had been targeted by the twins. So he'd stewed for an entire year, until he had his chance, in the weeks after Harry had come home from his school and Dudley could hear his nightmare-induced cries. He hadn't wanted to risk physically provoking Harry, so he settled for needling Harry about the nightmares.

But still...

Those Dementors had sent him for a loop, but it had been the words of Harry's headmaster that had sent him down a path of self-examination. Harry, Dudley decided, was not nearly the threat his parents had made him out to be. He started to wonder how much his parents had damaged Harry by their blatant neglect and abuse. Calculating just how much Harry had lost was mind-boggling, as far as Dudley was concerned. It made him cringe now, as he thought about how much of Harry's rotten childhood could be laid at his own feet.

Dudley started running again, but this time he wasn't attempting to outrun his memories. He wondered if he would be able to finally forgive George, and by extension Fred. Even if he wasn't able to actually do it face-to-face. It had been something he worried about and told as much to Aaron. For his part, Aaron had just gazed at him thoughtfully for several long moments before he went to a bookcase and pulled out a worn book, finding a page halfway through and turned the book around to Dudley.

Frowning, Dudley took the book, blinking a few times as he realized it was Aaron's prayer book. Aaron's index finger pointed to a passage. You have to mean it, he said. But if you realize you can't after giving it an honest effort... Aaron had shrugged. At least you tried.

XxXxXxX

'Mum?' The pained whisper came from the doorway. Daphne sat up, waving her wand at the lamp next to her bed. Scorpius stood framed in the doorway, wincing at the sudden light. She beckoned to the boy and he slowly walked into the room.

'You haven't called me "Mum" in ages,' she said lightly. 'You must not feel well.'

Scorpius shook his head. 'No...'

Daphne slid from the bed, and picked up her dressing gown. 'You should have come inside earlier.'

If Scorpius could have blushed, he would have. As it was his skin was already blazing painfully. 'I know,' he admitted. 'But I lost track of time.' He hissed in pain as Daphne eased the unbuttoned pajama top off his shoulders.

'You didn't feel it, did you?'

'No. Not until it was already like this.' Scorpius' bright pink shoulders slumped a little.

Daphne made sympathetic clucking noises as she laid a hand over his hot, tight skin. 'I'm not very good a brewing potions,' she said. 'But your grandmother's not bad at it. I can do a Cooling charm, maybe numb it a little bit to hold you over until the morning and Narcissa can make something for that burn.'

'Okay.' Scorpius' voice held a hint of misery.

In the corridor, Draco swiftly headed for the stairs and silently descended them, slipping into the library. He found a small book, bound in green leather. Leafing through it, he found what he was looking for, and walked into the kitchen. He set the book on the large, high table in the middle of the room, and uncertainly glanced around, looking for a cauldron. There ought to have been one somewhere. He began to root around through the cupboards until he found a few smaller ones. No matter. It would fit his purpose. He set it on the scrubbed wooden table, and lit a fire underneath the cauldron. The ingredients were easy enough. Aloe, rosemary, lavender. They were ordinary Muggle ingredients, but he knew they'd been grown with dragon dung fertilizer. It seemed to make whatever healing properties they had stronger. He hesitated over adding monkshood. It could help numb pain, but it was highly toxic at large doses, and he had seen Scorpius at dinner. The boy was almost as red as the scarlet stripes in his school uniform tie. A pinch, then, Draco decided, hoping Scorpius wasn't overly sensitive to the properties of monkshood.

It was a relatively easy potion to brew and in less than an hour, Draco decanted some of it into a vial. He set it aside and put the rest of the potion in a larger vial and set it next to the smaller one intended for Scorpius. Draco quickly cleaned the kitchen, putting everything to rights. He carried the smaller vial into the study and dug out a scrap of parchment and a quill, hastily scribbling instructions that it was to be applied topically no more than twice a day. Draco stood outside Scorpius' bedroom door and carefully pushed it open.

Scorpius lay sprawled across his bed, sound asleep. Draco carefully set the vial on his son's night table and backed away, lest he wake him.

XxXxXxX

Harry settled into a chair and took the cold butterbeer from Neville gratefully. He watched Hannah coo over Sarah, her face alight with bliss. 'Nev, can I ask you something?'

Neville laughed. 'You just did.'

Harry rolled his eyes. 'You've been around teenagers too much.' He cautiously shifted his healing shoulder and shook his head. 'Something personal,' he clarified.

Neville took a long pull of his drink. 'Sure.'

Harry indicated Hannah and Sarah. 'How come you and Hannah never had children?'

'Oh...' Neville inhaled slowly. 'It just happened,' he said quietly. 'We tried. For a long time. And while we were trying, we looked into adoption.' Neville picked at the label on his bottle. 'Adoption is a little expensive, and it's not that we didn't have money, just not enough at the time.' His voice cracked a little, and he smiled a bit wistfully. 'Then I got the job at Hogwarts, and money wasn't quite an issue anymore, but with me going back and forth between Diagon Alley and Hogwarts, the Ministry drone said it wouldn't look good on an application. By then, Hannah and I realized we weren't going to have a baby, and then I got the position of Head of Gryffindor house.' Neville shook his head. 'We just never got around to trying to reapply.' He rubbed his eyes. 'I seriously doubt they'd let us adopt a child now. I mean we're almost forty.'

'Why don't you ask?' Harry asked curiously.

'Because I don't want to be told no.' Neville grinned deprecatingly.

'It's not really fair,' Harry muttered. 'You should have had a houseful.'

Neville shrugged. 'There're a lot of things I should have had,' he commented. 'Just wasn't in the cards for us, I suppose.'

XxXxXxX

George staggered onto the hearth of Harry and Ginny's house. He waited for Sophie, Fred, and Jacob to come through the Floo, and sent them out into the back garden to join the others. He trailed after them, stopping in the kitchen when he saw Dudley through the window, sitting next to Ginny and Hermione. Katie's fingers laced through his. 'What's wrong?' she asked.

George nodded toward Dudley. 'Didn't know he was going to be here.'

'George, you're both adults. Try acting like one.' Katie squeezed his hand before she, too, joined the others in the garden.

Taking a deep breath, George followed Katie, and stood just outside the door. His eyes drifted toward Dudley and he took a deep breath. I have to do it, Fred. He trudged to stand behind Ginny's chair. 'I... We... We didn't know it wouldn't reverse itself. Most of the sweets we did like that would last a few seconds then you'd go back to normal.' He stopped talking, his jaw working.

Dudley didn't look at George, but nodded once in acknowledgement. George made a soft sound in the back of his throat and strode toward Harry and Neville.