The First Day

Harry pulled off the large glasses and massaged the bridge of his nose. The temporary glasses were leaving dents in the sides of his nose. He was unimaginably bored. Reading, which might have kept him from going mad with ennui, made him dizzy. Molly had brought a small wireless to his bedroom, but the only thing he liked were Quidditch matches, and those only aired in the evenings. The daytime hours were unfortunately dominated by the kind of programs his aunt had had watched on the telly after lunch. It made his stomach turn. He could hardly leave the room and go to the loo without Molly following hot on his heels, in case he should be stricken with a sudden dizzy spell. The cosseting was starting to get on his nerves. Harry preferred to be left alone when he didn't feel well, but he couldn't figure out how to tell Molly to leave him be. He spent the days counting down the minutes until either Arthur, George, or Ron came home to deflect some of Molly's attentions. His appetite had slowly begun to return, but Molly clucked in disapproval over the amount of food he left on his plate after each meal.

'Harry?' Molly knocked softly on the partially-open door. 'Are you up for visitors?'

Harry sat up quickly, the glasses clattering to the floor. 'Yes! Yes, I'm perfectly fine for a visitor!' A wave of dizziness washed over him, and he swayed against the pillows.

'Here ya go, kid,' Carter said softly, slipping the glasses into Harry's hand.

'Thanks...' Harry slid the glasses over his nose, blinking as the darkened room swam into focus.

'Light bother ya?'

'A little...' Nevertheless, Harry reached for the lamp next to the bed, and turned it up a bit more. 'Hiya...'

'Guess I can tell Minerva to stop worryin' about ya so much.' Carter conjured a chair and dropped into it. 'She didn't really believe it when Miss Weasley and Miss Granger said you were gonna be all right. She might be a tough old bird around the students, but she does lose sleep over you. All of y'all, not just the Gryffindors,' he added.

Harry nodded, remembering McGonagall's reactions to any sort of injury to a student when she thought she was out of earshot from the students, and especially to his own supposed death last May. 'Yeah...' Harry pushed himself up higher in the bed. 'Not to be rude, but I have a feeling you didn't just come here to soothe Professor McGonagall's concerns. I mean, Ottery-St.-Catchpole's a bit out of the way from Hogsmeade.'

'Well, no, not so much.' Carter eyed the boy peering at him from behind the most unsightly pair of glasses he'd ever seen on someone outside the Muggle armed forces. 'You don't have to keep everythin' such a secret,' he said.

'But I don't want to compromise an investigation,' Harry shot back.

'You also don't want to compromise your relationship with Miss Weasley, presumin' it becomes somethin' more.'

'It might,' Harry allowed, wondering where Carter was going with this conversation.

'So, how many Aurors over here are married?' Carter asked, tipping his chair on its back legs.

'Not very many. My supervisor is, and I think a couple of others are, but it doesn't happen often. Not with Riddle making life so difficult before.'

'Rid... Oh, yeah, Voldemort.' Carter ran a hand through his hair. 'It's not quite the same in the U.S. We didn't have the same issues like you did over here, so a lot of us were married. I was.'

Harry's eyes flicked to Carter's left hand. 'But you're not now.'

Carter's thumb rubbed his left ring finger reflexively. 'No. If I'd been honest with my ex-wife, we might not've gotten married in the first place.'

'She had something against Aurors?'

'You could say that. She had somethin' against wizards, to be exact.'

'You didn't tell her you were a wizard...?'

Carter shook his head. 'I met her in Chicago, right after I was transferred from Manhattan. Y'remember when I told you that some of the students at Salem get disowned by their parents for bein' magic?'

'Yeah...'

'That's what Faith was like...' His attention focused inwardly and his voice dropped to a murmur. 'Not that she was hateful or anythin'. She just believed in what she thought was right. And I loved her. I kept thinkin' I'd tell her I was a wizard later. Well, later came and went, and I still hadn't said anythin'. I charmed all my pictures to not move when she came over to my apartment, made sure she didn't see my wand lyin' around anywhere. I even disconnected my fireplace from our Floo network.'

'Blimey,' Harry breathed, unsure of whether to be impressed or disdainful of the lengths Carter went to in order to hide himself.

'I was a damn fool,' Carter snorted. 'I know that now. Then, I just thought I was makin' compromises that you'd make for someone you love. At any rate, we got married, and it was just easier to not tell Faith. I just told her I was a police detective. Close enough to the truth, but still a lie. I got hurt pretty bad investigatin' someone and the Ministry office in Chicago had to bend over backwards to keep Faith from findin' out because I begged 'em to. That was when I decided to quit bein' an Auror. The school in St. Louis needed someone to help teach Defense, so they offered it to me and I jumped at the chance.'

'Wouldn't you have to live at the school, like you do at Hogwarts?'

'No. Even with magic, our buildings aren't nearly as large as Hogwarts. It was a nice, normal job with regular hours. And things were fine for a while, then Faith got pregnant. I didn't know if the baby'd be magic or not and if it turned out the baby wasn't magic, it gave me another excuse to not say anythin' to Faith. But just after Leah's fourth birthday, she pitched a temper tantrum in the middle of the grocery store and some watermelons exploded. Poor teenager workin' in the produce section had a time tryin' to explain why a perfectly good watermelon'd explode like that. People just thought it was a bad melon.

'It was just the beginnin' for Leah. Faith had to cut chewin' gum outta Leah's hair one night, and the next day it'd grown back. Or the frilly dress that Leah didn't wanna wear shrunk when Faith tried t'make her wear it. Faith thought she was goin' crazy. So I told her. What I am. She took Leah and moved out. And when she filed for divorce, I didn't have any recourse in wizarding law, because everything was in the Muggle system. Faith couldn't very well say I was a wizard in a Muggle court, so she made it sound like I had this bizarre "alternative lifestyle".' Carter's facial expression didn't change but his voice grew even quieter. 'She got full custody of Leah. I've only seen her a handful of times since then.' Carter spread his hands wide, exhaling gustily. 'After that, I heard from Gareth, Kingsley's younger brother, that they needed a Defense teacher here. I had heard the position was cursed, but figured things couldn't get worse than they already were.'

'Curse is broken,' Harry supplied helpfully. 'Not sure now if you'd consider that a good thing or not...'

'Nice to know I won't die at the end of the year,' Carter quipped. 'I know it's not the same situation and all, kid, but not bein' entirely truthful with someone because you think it's for the best doesn't usually work out very well. And it's better if you figure out if you can be honest with Miss Weasley now, before things like marriage and kids get thrown into the mix.'

'So why are you telling me this?' Harry asked warily. He thought it was quite a lot of personal information to share.

'Part of normal Auror trainin' is to make sure you're not gonna go off the deep end any time soon. And that also includes knowin' whether or not you know what you can talk about and what you have to keep to yourself. You kinda skipped all that.'

'I suppose if I haven't gone mad by now, I'll be all right,' Harry said.

'And you don't have much experience dealin' with married Aurors over here.'

Harry shifted in his bed, and pulled his knees up to his chest. 'You didn't just come by to check on my health,' he stated.

'No.'

Harry thoughtfully chewed a hangnail on his thumb. 'Kingsley sent for you,' he guessed. 'Am I right?'

'More or less,' Carter admitted. 'Peter Wilson mentioned it to Kingsley, since you didn't get the screening the others got.'

'So why didn't Peter come do this little heart-to-heart?' Harry asked snidely.

'Because Peter's wife used to be an Auror until they got married. He's never felt the overwhelming need to hide his work from her. And Kingsley's never been married. Unless you count his job... They thought you might take it better from me.'

Harry snorted, pulling his glasses off. 'Because you're not a direct supervisor,' he huffed. 'I seem to have issues with people in positions of authority.'

Carter chuckled quietly. 'Yeah, so do I.' He rocked the chair forward, so all four legs rested against the floor. 'I didn't come to lecture ya, kid, and I didn't mean to spill all my history on ya like that.'

Harry felt his mouth curve upward. 'Just as well,' he began. 'I can be a bit thick sometimes. Have to be beaten over the head with something before I get it.'

Carter pushed himself to his feet and waved his wand desultorily at the chair making it vanish. 'One more thing, kid...'

'What?'

'Those are the ugliest damn glasses I've ever seen on a witch or wizard. What happened to your old ones?'

'They're in an alley in Belfast,' Harry replied. 'Or a dustbin at St. Mungo's. Couldn't be repaired.'

'Fubar, eh?'

'What?'

Carter grinned slowly. 'Fucked up beyond all recognition.'

'Something like that.'

'Hm.' Carter started to walk out of the room. 'Don't go out in public with those on, kid. You'll scare small children!'

Harry grinned, and slid down into the bed, waving his wand at the lamp, plunging the room into a near-twilight darkness that didn't make his head hurt. 'The first chance I get,' he promised. 'I'm going to replace them'

*****

George sorted through a stack of merchandise. 'What do you think of disappearing knickers?' he asked idly.

Ron's hand jerked and he toppled a stack of fireworks boxes. 'I think they're brilliant,' he blurted, mouth going dry.

'To sell for Valentine's Day,' George said dryly.

Ron began to restack the fireworks. 'Might work,' he told George. 'Bit cheeky thought, innit?'

'Thinking about sending some to Hermione?' George asked, trying to banish the images of what his younger brother and his girlfriend could do with a pair of disappearing knickers.

Ron coughed and mumbled something George couldn't quite hear.

George gazed around the bustling shop. 'Yeah. Wouldn't quite do for the window display.'

'In the curtained-off area, maybe?' Ron suggested.

'Yeah. But we still need something for the window.'

Ron began to snicker. 'Ever heard of some Muggle thing called a mood ring?'

'A what?'

'Hermione used to have one. It's supposed to turn colors based on your mood. She says it's complete rubbish, that there's really just a potion inside that changes colors based on temperature.'

'We could do that!' George said excitedly, mostly because it was a totally new idea, one that had never occurred to neither him, nor Fred. 'Do they have to be just rings, do you think?'

'I don't see why,' Ron said, shrugging.

'Could add it to the Wonder Witch line,' George muttered, diving for the small box that held a bit of extra gold. 'Be back in a mo,' he said. He dashed out into the street, leaving Ron gaping after him and hurried down to Madam Malkin's, intent on his destination and not the people around him, so much so, that he ran headlong into another person, scurrying down the street in the opposite direction. 'Ooof!' George grunted, looking down in surprise at the figure sprawled on the slushy cobblestones.

Katie's mouth dropped open and she flushed painfully. 'Hiya...' she said weakly, accepting George's proffered hand. He hauled her to her feet, unable to meet her eyes.

'All right, then?' he asked brusquely.

Katie nodded. 'Yeah, fine...'

'Right. See you around, then.' He could feel Katie staring after him as he walked away so quickly, he was almost running.

'Katie?'

Katie spun in confusion. 'Mum?'

'Katie, you're soaking wet...' Belinda clucked in concern.

'Tripped,' Katie murmured, glancing over her shoulder at George, hair bright in the dull grey January afternoon, until he slipped inside Madam Malkin's. 'What are you doing in Diagon Alley?' she asked her mother.

'My supply of magical herbs is a bit low,' Belinda said nonchalantly.

'Mum, you grow your own herbs,' Katie said pointedly, heading toward her flat.

'Muggle herbs,' Belinda corrected. 'Things you can find in any common Muggle garden.'

'You usually order the others by owl post,' Katie said, as she opened the door of her building and trudging up the stairs.

'All right. You've found me out. I came to see you. Haven't seen you at home much lately.'

'I've been busy, Mum,' Katie sighed.

'I could tell you Timmy misses you, but you've always been impervious to maternal guilt,' Belinda told her.

Katie tapped her doorknob with her wand. 'It's a gift,' she retorted. She flicked her wand at the lamp over her small table, filling the room with light.

Belinda gazed around Katie's small flat in dismay. Old issues of the Daily Prophet were piled haphazardly, dirty dishes were stacked in her sink, and through the bedroom door, Belinda could see a pile of laundry on the floor in the corner and Katie's disheveled bed. She reckoned if she checked under the sofa, she'd find dust bunnies large enough to rival boarhounds. Katie hated cleaning, but she wasn't normally this slovenly. 'Are you feeling all right?' she asked.

'I'm fine, Mum,' Katie grumbled, striding into her bedroom, and grabbing a crumpled pair of jeans. She peeled off her wet trousers, grimacing at the mud ground into them and on the back of her coat. She jabbed her wand at the coat, cleaning off the worst of the mud. It would have to do for now.

'Wasn't that your friend George with you in the street?' Belinda called from the kitchen, waving her wand over the sink.

'Yes, Mum.'

'Seemed a bit put out,' Belinda commented, making a pot of tea.

'He was,' Katie replied shortly.

'He seemed a bit put out with you,' Belinda added.

'He is,' Katie admitted, pouring herself a cup of tea. Belinda said nothing, waiting expectantly for Katie to continue, placidly fixing a cup of tea for herself. Katie heaved a sigh. 'He asked me out and I turned him down,' she explained.

'But I thought you liked George...'

'I do, but it's complicated.'

'What's complicated about it?'

'Because he won't let Fred go.'

Belinda choked on her tea. She set the cup down, and wiped her mouth with a tea towel. 'Katherine Patricia Bell, that is probably the stupidest thing you've ever said.'

'What?' Katie yelped, stung.

'Katherine, you cannot just expect George to get on with things because it's uncomfortable for you.'

'Since when do you call me Katherine...?'

'Since you started acting as if you don't have a brain,' Belinda said tartly.

'Mum,' Katie began with forced patience. 'I just ended a somewhat comfortable, albeit boring, relationship, and as much as I like George...' Katie shrugged helplessly.

Belinda nodded and put her cup in the sink. 'I see. And losing George's company hasn't bothered you at all, then?' She waved at the messy clutter littering Katie's flat.

Tears welled in Katie's eyes. 'I didn't say that, Mum,' she said quietly, sniffing. 'What should I do?'

Belinda drew Katie closer. 'I think you ought to apologize to George, for starters.'

'But...' Katie protested weakly.

'No buts, young lady,' Belinda said briskly. 'I'm so disappointed in you, Katie. I didn't raise you to be this insensitive to other people.'

'Mum!'

'Now, Katie, I'm not trying to get your wand in a twist, but after everything you've done with George, for you to just expect him to conform to your desires like that is unconscionable.'

Katie slammed her cup to the counter, splattering them both with tea. 'How would you like it, if every time you were together, he thought things would be so much better if his brother were around? Hmm? To know that you'll never be enough for him?' Katie grabbed her coat and stalked to the door. 'I need to go back to work,' she growled. 'Lock the door when you leave.'

*****

Harry slowly made his way down to the kitchen, tightly gripping the banister. He was tired of being cooped up in the bedroom, staring at the four walls, floor, or ceiling. He could smell the scents of Molly preparing dinner, and it made his stomach growl in anticipation. At the bottom of the stairs, he wobbled a little as he let go of the banister, and took a moment to find his balance. Lightly trailing his fingers along the wall for support, he shuffled into the kitchen. 'Could I have some tea?' he asked.

Molly turned around. 'Harry, what are you doing out of bed?' She bustled to help him into a chair.

'Just really needed to get out of bed...' Harry sighed. Molly bit her lip doubtfully. 'I promise, I'm fine,' he assured her. Molly shook her head, and flicked her wand at the cupboard. Two cups landed gently on the table, and she Summoned the teapot, tapping it with her wand as it floated past her. Before it landed on the table, it tipped forward, pouring tea into each of their cups. Harry added milk to his tea and picked up the cup, sipping it happily at being able to drink it at the table and not in bed.

'The second you feel dizzy, it's back to bed with you,' Molly instructed.

'Yes, ma'am,' Harry murmured.

Molly examined Harry, slouched in his chair, those awful glasses dominating his face. It reminded her of the first morning he'd eaten breakfast with them, still bundled into his too-large pajamas, hair messily in his eyes, his round glasses a little too big for his still-childish face. 'Sometimes, I can still see the little boy peeking out from under that fringe,' she said mistily, brushing the hair from Harry's eyes.

Harry grinned crookedly. 'Not so little now, yeah?'

'No, I suppose not,' Molly said wistfully.

Harry glanced into the sitting room, where he could see the clock over the mantle. 'What does it say when I'm out on a case?' he asked curiously.

Molly followed his gaze and sipped her tea. 'Work, mostly. The last time they sent you out it went to Mortal Peril just once, and that was the night before you came home. And it was only for a few moments. This time it was at Mortal Peril quite a bit. When Kingsley came to tell us you were in St. Mungo's, it had already changed to Hospital. I hadn't noticed it before then, because Arthur insisted that I stop incessantly checking the clock. It's a little difficult for a parent to realize that you can't wrap your babies up in cotton wool and protect them from harm. And it's not as if staring at that clock at all hours of the day will keep anything from happening to you.'

In that moment, Harry saw Molly with a clarity he hadn't had before. That she hovered when they were home, because she couldn't when they were out. What he saw as stifling overprotection, was her way of attempting to make up for the fact she wasn't able to throw up Shield charms between them and all the evil in the world. He kept his eyes firmly on the clock while Molly unobtrusively wiped her eyes on the edge of her apron. 'Well,' she said briskly. 'This isn't going to finish dinner.' She pushed her chair back and stood up, redirecting her attentions to the stew burbling away on the stove.

'Molly...?'

Molly paused in her actions. 'Yes, dear?'

'Thanks...'