sam_storyteller (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sam_storyteller) wrote2005-07-08 03:20 pm
sam_storyteller) wrote2005-07-08 03:20 pm
Entry tags:
Harry Potter and the Legion of Ghosts: Ch. 1
Title: Harry Potter and the Legion of Ghosts
Rating: PG for now.
Warnings: Portrayal of institutional incarceration. Some discussion of mental illness.
Notes: Thanks to Judy, Simon, and Heidi for feedbackses, especially for catching one exceptionally embarrassing typo...
Summary: Four years after the events of Deathly Hallows, people have begun to move on, even to forget. For one young soldier of the war, however, the past he laid to rest has begun to resurface, forcing him to question his conceptions of death -- and his sanity.
PLEASE NOTE: This story is incomplete, and I have no plans to complete it at this time.
Chapter One: Don't Die Today
The small announcement in the Prophet was pinned up to the bulletin board in the locker room, which was probably Broderick's idea of a joke. It was barely four lines long, as plain and ordinary as all the others, and if you had replaced the names you wouldn't even imagine that it had inspired a front-page spread.
Arthur and Molly Weasley of Ottery St. Catchpole are pleased to announce
the engagement of their daughter, Ginevra Weasley, to Harry Potter, son of
James and Lily Potter of Godric's Hollow. Harry and Ginevra were engaged
on July 21 and are planning a winter wedding.
Harry looked up at the tiny announcement and rubbed the back of his head ruefully. Just as well that the parents of the bride were supposed to make the announcement. It would have been awkward if he'd had to announce his own engagement, seeing as his parents were probably pleased but definitely dead. Besides, he wasn't good at writing those things and Molly had been practically gleeful at the idea of writing her only daughter's marriage announcement.
Ginny, with her typical aplomb, had told Harry to let her mother handle the details, show up for the formal-suit fittings, and say no if she wanted anything fancier than the back garden for the wedding. Then she'd hefted her Quidditch bag over her shoulder and gone off to practice. Harry sometimes envied her absolute calm, and occasionally worried it was drug-induced.
"Happy birthday," Ron said, clapping him on the shoulder. "Nothing I like better on my birthday than a little public humiliation."
"It's subtle," Harry said, still staring at the little announcement, which had dancing hearts drawn all around it. "How does he think these things up? I'd have gone for the big front-page spread, but when I see the little clipping up there I feel so...obvious."
"No worries, someone took care of 'obvious' for you," Ron said, pointing to Harry's locker. It was plastered with dozens of copies of the front-page article the Prophet had run on the engagement, including a speculative poll about how long the marriage would last. Harry understood that the Boy Who Lived and the star Beater of the Harpies sold papers, especially together, but did they have to be so cynical about it? It was certainly enough to crush love's young dream.
Or maybe, as Ginny insisted, he was being a little oversensitive. Possibly even high-strung. He tried not to seem annoyed as he began pulling the sheets of newsprint off his locker.
"Weren't they supposed to stop hazing us after the new class of rookies came up?" he asked.
"I think it takes a few years. Buck up; they'll probably harp on your marriage and then let the 'rookie' thing go completely. There are worse things to be teased about. Anyway, we've got a job to do, Auror."
"Happy Birthday to me," Harry muttered, opening his locker and pulling on his uniform robes. "Twenty-two years old and not over my superhero complex yet."
"Well, someone's got to save the world," Ron said philosophically. "I think we're doing inspections today."
Harry brightened at this. "That's not so bad. I rather like inspections. They're like little murder mysteries."
"You can do mine then. Bo-ring."
"By the way," Harry continued, as they walked down the corridor to the briefing room, "you're going to be best man, you know that, right?"
"Well, I wasn't going to ask or anything. But I was going to kill anyone else you picked until you asked me," Ron replied.
"That's the Auror spirit!"
They emerged from the corridor into the briefing hall, meant to hold hundreds at a time but today occupied by perhaps thirty of the younger Aurors, the ones not yet proven in battle or not quite sure of themselves. Harry and Ron were both proven and sure, but they still fulfilled the "younger" category, as their instructors had never let them forget. You may be Harry Potter, but... was a very familiar phrase during his training.
"G'morning," Ron called, as two or three waved. Most stood in knots on the stage or in the first row of seats, chatting quietly with each other. "What's the news?"
"Inspections," Broderick said, touching his wand to his throat to amplify his voice. "Be seated, please."
Harry and Ron sat down together in the crowd of young Aurors, Ron already bored, Harry's attention drifting as soon as Broderick began to talk. It wasn't that Broderick was boring, it was just that he knew all this already.
He'd made the mistake, back in training, of assuming he knew everything because of the advanced magic he'd managed to control -- he'd been forced to control -- during the war against Voldemort. He did know quite a lot for a boy his age, his Defence and Charms NEWTs proved that, but when he'd arrived at the Aurors' academy he'd assumed he would just drift through the school, picking up any odds and ends he needed.
As it turned out when he nearly failed the first term, he needed a lot more than odds and ends. He needed thorough grounding in basic emergency situations, he needed to know simple defensive charms, and he needed to learn not to overkill. He and Ron had been conditioned to use whatever was at hand, no matter the collateral damage or the consequences later. They'd had to, in order to survive. Now they had to learn that a debilitating and dangerous charm didn't need to be used when a much simpler but obscure one would do the trick. Desperation was not an appropriate reaction any longer.
Still, the inspection drill he knew by heart. Some of the others were still struggling to pick up the finer points, but Harry had a firm grasp on what was legal to inspect and what was to be done if a Dark Artefact was encountered. As they had been, often. And since Harry had been forced to study how to react in any situation, owing to the mild trauma of having been martyred and resurrected at the age of seventeen, he was very enthusiastic about knowing what to do. About the concept of preparedness.
His mind drifted to the birthday party that Ron and Hermione had arranged for him that evening. Really it was just dinner in Diagon Alley, but his whole family would be there -- Arthur and Molly, already calling him son; Bill with little Victoire, elfin and pale-haired and freckle-spattered; Percy and George with their new Weasley Wizard Wheezes inventions; Hermione, wise and calm; and of course Ron and Ginny, the two Weasleys he loved best, battling each other for the last bread roll. Teddy too, and Andromeda, quiet and dignified but also always in the exact place she needed to be to catch Teddy falling off a chair or help Arthur steady a serving platter.
After four years, George's occasional vacant look or Andromeda's small, hidden frowns were as much a part of the tapestry as anything else, and they ceased to hurt Harry quite so much. He would take Teddy from Andromeda with the threadbare excuse of giving her five minutes to herself, and he and the little boy would exclaim over Percy and George's new creations. Teddy gazed on him with adulation Harry wasn't sure he would ever experience again, and it made him doubly happy to be able to love and spoil the child of a man who had desperately craved affection his entire life. Everyone would say he was so good with Teddy and Ginny would slip her hand into his and then later after the party, after everyone had gone their separate ways, she might come home with him --
"Isn't that right, Mr. Potter?"
Harry tossed his mind backwards a few seconds, picking up Broderick's last few words.
"Only in cases where the object is in plain view, sir," he answered.
"Very good, Potter. You're not entirely incompetent today," Broderick said, but his tone wasn't completely approving. "Potter, Weasley, Niccoli, Jansen, Allan, you'll be leading teams today. Your assignment files are on the desk; please brief your people before you step out. Potter, Weasley, you'll be competing against each other; time you two learned to depend on others a little. Loser does all the paperwork."
Harry glanced uneasily at Ron. He'd known this had to be coming, given how often the two of them worked together, but he also knew that Ron could be competitive and that he himself had trouble believing others would do a job as well as he would. He had trusted Ron and Hermione and nobody else, that last year when he was a teenage kid on the run; the habit had become ingrained in him. If he was going to beat Ron, he'd have to trust the others to get the job done as well.
"All right," he said to the people slowly gathering around him. "Meet up in the back room of the Fox and Hare, ten minutes, ready to go. Everybody take a packet..." he handed out the slim reports, each constituting an inspection they were going to have to make, "...and be prepared to present on it."
As his new team dispersed he jerked his head at Ron, who clapped one of his own team on the shoulder and crossed over to where Harry was standing.
"Hey," he said. "Don't die today."
"Yeah," Ron grinned. "You too."
***
Harry leaned back and tipped his chair on two legs, propping his boots on the none-to-clean table at the Fox and Hare. It was the Aurors' pub, almost exclusively frequented by MLE staff, and it had a back room that Harry appropriated for briefings. They didn't drink on duty, especially not this early in the morning, but it was private and there was always a tray of sweet buns waiting for Harry Potter and his friends.
"Report," he said. "Clives, you first."
"Right-o," Clives said, standing with her portion of the file in one hand and a cup of hot coffee in the other. "Standard inspection. We're to check the Naiad Greenhouse Company for quality control, make sure no...I don't know, Dark Plants are getting in. Weeds, imports, that kind of thing."
"How many you reckon you'd need?"
"Aside from me, just one to make sure nobody sneaks up behind me and hits me with a pot if I find something," Clives said with a grin.
"Tap someone. Wright?"
Wright looked hesitant as he stood up; the boy was brilliant but painfully shy, and Harry felt sorry for him whenever he was called on to present anything. Not that it would ever stop him from making Wright present. Probably good for him.
"Umm, there's been a, uh, report that, um. Dark artefacts are being smuggled into Knockturn through The Corner," he said.
"And what's The Corner?"
"It's the big shop on the intersection of Diagon and Knockturn," Wright stammered. "They sell Potions supplies mostly, also kind of, you know, knick-nacks."
Flowered plates with cats on them, Harry thought to himself.
"We're supposed to serve a warrant to search," Wright continued. He was blushing to the tips of his ears from sheer mortification at speaking in front of others. He held up the parchment warrant, separating it out from the report.
"Right. I'll go with you and we'll take two others. Next!"
Harry listened to the others present their assigned investigations, mostly standard look-overs to make sure that Ministry-sponsored projects weren't going awry. They'd made Harry nervous at first, because they seemed invasive and wrong, but most of the time nobody seemed to mind unless a warrant was being served. He came to realise that the boss of Naiad Greenhouse Company wanted Aurors double-checking his work and keeping an eye on his employees, as did most of the other businesses they inspected. People liked to see an Auror striding about importantly.
"All right," he said, when assignments were parceled out and the smaller teams formed. "I'm going with Wright and his team, but if anyone needs me, go ahead and call." He tapped the button on his collar for emphasis; it was one of Hermione's additions to the Auror service and would turn warm against his throat if he were needed. "We're going to split up from here. Take it easy and do a thorough job. I know Broderick said he was racing me against Weasley, but this is just one more test. My reputation's riding on your ability not to screw up."
He glanced around the room. Some of the newest rookies were looking at him with something like awe; even the ones who'd been through the academy with him were watching as if he were some kind of exotic science experiment.
"Run along," he said, and they began filing out slowly. He took one more sip of his tea and set it down, turning to Wright and the two raw rookies standing behind him.
"Ready to serve your first warrant?" he asked them. The two swallowed and nodded. "Wright, if you can't learn how to give a simple report in public -- "
"I know," Wright said, smiling and cheerful now that the worst was over. "It's horrible, isn't it?"
"Well, we're just going to keep making you do it until you die of shame or get over it, I suppose," Harry said. Wright gave him a sardonic salute, then ran ahead of him, back into the pub proper, to have a word with one of the other departing rookies. The group of young Aurors began to scatter, stepping out into the sunlight to find a quiet place to Apparate or following each other into the floo network.
Harry touched Wright's elbow as they passed and said "Offices" softly; Wright nodded and followed, along with -- what were their names? Cabrini and Smith, he thought.
"We'll go from the Ministry directly to the public floo-point at the juncture of Diagon and Knockturn," he said, as they walked back to the offices. "When we arrive, Wright will take any rear exits, Cabrini the floo point -- it's on the left-hand side as you enter, if memory serves -- and Smith will take the front door. I'll serve the warrant; if he doesn't do a runner we'll give him time to clear out his patrons. This is a warrant, not a licence to publicly humiliate anyone. And if anything happens to me, Wright's in charge."
Other employees of Magical Law Enforcement were just beginning to arrive as the Aurors began to leave, and the little band fought their way through the crowded, narrow corridor to the open departure-fireplaces on the end. Harry gave Hermione a nod and a smile as she passed on her way to the staff offices.
"See you tonight, Harry!" she called, as he stepped backwards into the floo. "Happy birthday!"
"Diagon and Knockturn," he said, raising a hand in acknowledgement. He thought he had time to tuck his arms against his body before it whisked him off, but as the world began to spin he pulled his hand back and rapped it sharply against something hard and unyielding. The pain was sudden and intense enough to feel as though sparks were exploding inside his hand, and he had to fight the urge to tuck it against his body and curl around it. Instead he pressed it against his chest and his other hand against the back of it, seething through his teeth at the pain.
Then, quite suddenly, he had more to worry about.
The floo stopped and he found himself falling, tumbling out like he hadn't since the first time he'd used a floo and ended up in Knockturn by mistake. He put out his uninjured hand, trying to grasp anything that would keep him upright, but he landed hard on his shoulders and skidded across the slick wood floor, crashing into a shelf that threatened to topple down on him.
Excited, startled cries told him that he was in someone's shop, a busy shop by the sound of it. He scrambled to his feet, whacking his hand again on a table, and doubled over in pain.
"It's an Auror!" someone shouted. "Everybody out!"
Harry gasped and straightened as people began to rush for the door; he saw enough to know that he was in The Corner, making a much more dramatic entrance than he'd wanted. As people poured out someone fired a hex that narrowly missed his chest, and then a second from another direction that knocked him off his feet.
"Aurors! MLE, everybody freeze!" someone shouted. Good old Wright was charging through the crowd, and Harry saw Cabrini blocking off the front door. Wright reached him and helped him stagger to his feet again, hauling him up by his arm.
"This is the MLE," Harry shouted hoarsely, ripping the warrant out of his pocket. "We have a warrant to search the premesis. Everybody stay calm."
He ducked a hex that came from behind the counter and swore under his breath. The owners of The Corner were fighting back.
"Cabrini! Let them go!" he called over the din. "Hostile fire!"
"On it," she called, vaulting the till counter and kicking someone in the head from the sound of it. Smith ran past them, angling for the rear exit, and took a hex square in the chest.
This was not how Harry had imagined the inspection going.
"Help the rookies," he said to Wright, shaking off his grasp. "I'll go after the second hostile."
Wright broke for the fight behind the till while Harry leapt over Smith and shielded himself as he burst into the back room. A glass jar landed at his feet and fumes rose instantly, swirling around the shield but unable to break past it. Harry dodged through the racks of jars and glassed-in shelves of artefacts too valuable to be kept in the front. A heavy iron pestle sailed past his shoulder. He couldn't clear the shelves between him and whoever-it-was, because they were full of potions and supplies that could cause a really amazing explosion if they were thrown around carelessly.
Glass shattered as one of the artefact cases went over, and magic crackled in the air. Harry leapt forward, aware that his wand was useless now but years of training making him confident that he could take anyone who came at him in a hand-to-hand fight.
He dodged another glass bottle and went full bore into the man throwing them, a man he recognised as one of The Corner's proprietors. He couldn't hear anything from the front of the shop, only aware of the stabbing pain in his hand, the blood running down his face and shoulders from glass shards that had nicked him. He got a fistful of clothing in his good left hand and kicked hard, knocking the man's legs out from underneath him. They went down in a heap, Harry on top, but the other man rolled and pinned his right hand down. Harry screamed in pain and kicked again.
They wrestled on the floor, amid the broken glass and long shards of wood, his opponent scrabbling for something under the pile of debris. Harry fought as well as he could, but with only one hand and no magic it was hard going.
Suddenly the world went very still.
Harry looked up into a leering, bloody face. There was a weight on his chest; the other man had straddled him and was holding something to his throat. Not a wand; it split Harry's flesh as easily as a knife in soft butter.
Just a nick. For now.
"There are three other Aurors in the front room," Harry said, trying to breathe deep. "You're not getting away. You can either be arrested for assault or for homicide. Up to you -- "
He stopped, because the man wasn't listening. He was staring at the knife he held to Harry's throat, and as Harry watched he held the golden, glinting blade up to the light.
Blood -- Harry's blood -- ran down the edge of it, a long bead dancing but not breaking on the blade. There were sigils and runes imprinted in the spine, and the hilt was wrapped in green silk. As both men watched, the blood seemed to sink into the metal, disappearing without a trace.
"Give up now," Harry managed. "Just give me the knife and nobody else has to get hurt."
The man continued to stare at the blade.
There was an odd flurry of movement behind him and Harry braced for one of the others to knock him free, but it never came. Instead, a second hand appeared, wrapping around the hand holding the knife. A pale, half-opaque hand, fingers rubbing soothingly on his attacker's. Harry followed the line of the arm with his eyes only, up to a ghostly shoulder and then a familiar, heart-shaped face framed by short hair.
Nymphadora Tonks, four years dead, was holding the man's hand. Her other hand, Harry could see now, was on his shoulder. Her mouth was low and close to his ear.
"Don't kill the boy," she whispered. If the man heard her, he gave no sign. Harry felt his body begin to shake. "Come on, mate. He's just a kid. You're in enough trouble already, aren't you?"
Harry hadn't noticed that light from the doorway between the front room and the back had been shining on them, didn't notice until the colour of it changed, turning grey and dim. He turned his head -- the man flinched but didn't strike -- and saw a silhouette in the door, one arm raised as if to summon help. He couldn't see clearly until the man's head turned and then it was still only a shadow, but Harry had spent hours memorising his godfather's face from photographs after he died.
Sirius was half-turned, thin body twisted around so that he could call to the others. Harry heard his voice, no louder than the other whisper.
"What about Harry?" he called to whoever was in the front room. "Come find Harry."
Even as he said it, Smith burst through the doorway, shredding the shadow into flickers of light and tackling Harry's captor to the floor. Harry didn't move; glass crunched and there was a pained cry as someone lost the fight. He hoped Smith had won, because the world was going sort of curly around the edges, shadows closing in, and he couldn't have moved even if he wanted to.
"Harry?" someone called.
"Sirius?" he asked weakly.
"Oh, Merlin, he's fucked," he heard Wright say, not Sirius but Wright. "Call St. Mungo's. Harry, it's okay, we got it under control. Come on Potter, keep your eyes open. What hex was it?"
"No hex," Harry mumbled numbly, right before his vision failed completely and he blacked out.
***
Harry knew that he didn't want to wake up.
He knew he didn't want to die, exactly, and he knew that he'd have to wake up sooner or later, but if he woke up the pain would come back. He could feel it licking hungrily on the edge of his consciousness. He could also hear people talking, and knew that if he woke now the entire Weasley family would be there.
"Listen to me," he heard someone say. Percy, he rather thought. None of the others had quite the imperious tone that Percy had. "My father is very prominent in the Ministry and his only daughter is engaged to be married to this man. His baby daughter."
"I like that!" Ginny put in. Harry would have chuckled if he'd been awake.
"I'm aware of that, sir," said a second male voice, one Harry couldn't place. The pain sat up and took notice. "We know quite well that this is Harry Potter, and believe me we are doing the best we can, but these things take time."
"Time is what you don't have," Percy retorted.
"Tell him, Perce," Bill said in the distant background.
"With all due respect, Mr. Weasley, shouting at me in this room is not going to help Mr. Potter out one bit. If you'd like to step outside -- "
"Nobody's stepping anywhere," Ron, sounding strained and unhappy.
"That's right," Molly said. "We are going to stay right here until our Harry wakes up, so you can shove your visiting hours up -- "
"Mum!" Ginny said. "You can't tell the Healers -- "
"Stop it, everyone!" said a new, authoritative, terrifying voice. Blessed, blessed silence; blessed, blessed Hermione, bringer of order.
And, into the silence, a childish wail.
"Now look, you've gone and upset Teddy," Molly scolded.
"Teddy shouldn't be here, look at him! Seeing Harry is upsetting him," Hermione continued.
"Hermione," Ron said urgently. It was his way of saying Stop bossing people, but Hermione wasn't exactly one to listen to subtext when she didn't want to hear it.
"Percy, go outside and talk with the Healer -- you too, George," she ordered. "Bill, you're not doing anyone any good by looming and menacing, take your mum and get some tea. Ron and I will talk with the mediwitches about all these bloody flowers."
"You can't order me around," Percy said petulantly.
"No, she's right," said a new voice. Harry never thought he'd hear George as the voice of reason. "Come on, Perce. We can give him what-for in the hallway. Hey, Teddy bear. Teddy boy."
"M'not a teddy bear," Teddy whined tearfully.
"Okay, okay. You want some peppermints? How about Aunt Hermione take you outside and you can show all the Mediwitches your funny hair, and you can have a peppermint," George wheedled.
"Mkay," Teddy agreed. The door opened and Harry heard people moving around, shifting and walking, and then all was silence once more.
"Well, thank Merlin for small favours," Ginny said, and Harry heard her move a chair closer to the bed he must be on. His hand throbbed painfully. "Sorry, Harry."
A hand smoothed down his hair, which didn't help; aches began to creep into every muscle.
"It's just us now. The Healers say there's nothing wrong with your hand and your cuts are already all healed up. You just lost some blood, that's all, so as soon as you wake up they can give you some replenishing potions."
Harry opened one eye. His whole body burst into flame, it felt like, but it died down to merely excruciating after a few seconds.
Ginny was sitting next to him, arms folded on the rail of the bed, head tilted.
"Waiting for them to get thrown out?" she asked, smiling at him. Thank god for Ginevra Weasley.
He meant to say hello and thank you, but it came out as "Everything hurts."
"I know, love. There's potions for it if you want but it'll put you back to sleep again."
"Potions," he mumbled.
"Don't say I didn't warn you," she sighed, and Harry felt a cup held to the corner of his mouth. His jaw didn't seem to want to work right, but he opened his lips enough for the liquid to flow into his mouth, and he swallowed automatically. Three swallows before choking a little, and the cup was withdrawn. Cool liquid ran down the side of his face. Ginny wiped it up with her thumb and kissed his forehead.
"If you die before our wedding I won't be responsible for Mum," she said, and Harry laughed a little as he slid back down into blissful sleep.
***
When his eyes flickered open a second time, there was no pain at all. There wasn't even a bed; he was floating on nothing and quite enjoying it.
He turned his head slightly and saw another dead man.
"Hi there, Godfather," Remus Lupin said, hands shoved in his pockets, beaming at him. "We're supposed to come tell you not to go to the light and rubbish of that kind, but since you're not exactly on the brink of death I thought I'd forego it. Still, a free pass is a free pass, hm?"
Harry tried to talk, but his lips wouldn't move.
"Anyhow, you can't see me, but it's good to see you again. You'll be up and about in no time." Lupin inhaled, frowned, exhaled. "So...that's all, really. I just wanted to see you, say hello. And -- well, thank you. I see you with Teddy. I can't tell you what that means to me."
Harry, perplexed, noticed that there was a sword hanging off Lupin's belt. It looked sort of stupid, in fact; there was his old professor in a perfectly normal pair of trousers and a rather nicer shirt than he'd ever worn when he was alive. The belt was just an ordinary belt with a plain buckle, but there was the sword. Just hanging there.
Gryffindor's sword, come to think of it.
"We're always watching," Lupin said, and Harry closed his eyes.
Continue to the next part
Rating: PG for now.
Warnings: Portrayal of institutional incarceration. Some discussion of mental illness.
Notes: Thanks to Judy, Simon, and Heidi for feedbackses, especially for catching one exceptionally embarrassing typo...
Summary: Four years after the events of Deathly Hallows, people have begun to move on, even to forget. For one young soldier of the war, however, the past he laid to rest has begun to resurface, forcing him to question his conceptions of death -- and his sanity.
PLEASE NOTE: This story is incomplete, and I have no plans to complete it at this time.
Chapter One: Don't Die Today
The small announcement in the Prophet was pinned up to the bulletin board in the locker room, which was probably Broderick's idea of a joke. It was barely four lines long, as plain and ordinary as all the others, and if you had replaced the names you wouldn't even imagine that it had inspired a front-page spread.
Arthur and Molly Weasley of Ottery St. Catchpole are pleased to announce
the engagement of their daughter, Ginevra Weasley, to Harry Potter, son of
James and Lily Potter of Godric's Hollow. Harry and Ginevra were engaged
on July 21 and are planning a winter wedding.
Harry looked up at the tiny announcement and rubbed the back of his head ruefully. Just as well that the parents of the bride were supposed to make the announcement. It would have been awkward if he'd had to announce his own engagement, seeing as his parents were probably pleased but definitely dead. Besides, he wasn't good at writing those things and Molly had been practically gleeful at the idea of writing her only daughter's marriage announcement.
Ginny, with her typical aplomb, had told Harry to let her mother handle the details, show up for the formal-suit fittings, and say no if she wanted anything fancier than the back garden for the wedding. Then she'd hefted her Quidditch bag over her shoulder and gone off to practice. Harry sometimes envied her absolute calm, and occasionally worried it was drug-induced.
"Happy birthday," Ron said, clapping him on the shoulder. "Nothing I like better on my birthday than a little public humiliation."
"It's subtle," Harry said, still staring at the little announcement, which had dancing hearts drawn all around it. "How does he think these things up? I'd have gone for the big front-page spread, but when I see the little clipping up there I feel so...obvious."
"No worries, someone took care of 'obvious' for you," Ron said, pointing to Harry's locker. It was plastered with dozens of copies of the front-page article the Prophet had run on the engagement, including a speculative poll about how long the marriage would last. Harry understood that the Boy Who Lived and the star Beater of the Harpies sold papers, especially together, but did they have to be so cynical about it? It was certainly enough to crush love's young dream.
Or maybe, as Ginny insisted, he was being a little oversensitive. Possibly even high-strung. He tried not to seem annoyed as he began pulling the sheets of newsprint off his locker.
"Weren't they supposed to stop hazing us after the new class of rookies came up?" he asked.
"I think it takes a few years. Buck up; they'll probably harp on your marriage and then let the 'rookie' thing go completely. There are worse things to be teased about. Anyway, we've got a job to do, Auror."
"Happy Birthday to me," Harry muttered, opening his locker and pulling on his uniform robes. "Twenty-two years old and not over my superhero complex yet."
"Well, someone's got to save the world," Ron said philosophically. "I think we're doing inspections today."
Harry brightened at this. "That's not so bad. I rather like inspections. They're like little murder mysteries."
"You can do mine then. Bo-ring."
"By the way," Harry continued, as they walked down the corridor to the briefing room, "you're going to be best man, you know that, right?"
"Well, I wasn't going to ask or anything. But I was going to kill anyone else you picked until you asked me," Ron replied.
"That's the Auror spirit!"
They emerged from the corridor into the briefing hall, meant to hold hundreds at a time but today occupied by perhaps thirty of the younger Aurors, the ones not yet proven in battle or not quite sure of themselves. Harry and Ron were both proven and sure, but they still fulfilled the "younger" category, as their instructors had never let them forget. You may be Harry Potter, but... was a very familiar phrase during his training.
"G'morning," Ron called, as two or three waved. Most stood in knots on the stage or in the first row of seats, chatting quietly with each other. "What's the news?"
"Inspections," Broderick said, touching his wand to his throat to amplify his voice. "Be seated, please."
Harry and Ron sat down together in the crowd of young Aurors, Ron already bored, Harry's attention drifting as soon as Broderick began to talk. It wasn't that Broderick was boring, it was just that he knew all this already.
He'd made the mistake, back in training, of assuming he knew everything because of the advanced magic he'd managed to control -- he'd been forced to control -- during the war against Voldemort. He did know quite a lot for a boy his age, his Defence and Charms NEWTs proved that, but when he'd arrived at the Aurors' academy he'd assumed he would just drift through the school, picking up any odds and ends he needed.
As it turned out when he nearly failed the first term, he needed a lot more than odds and ends. He needed thorough grounding in basic emergency situations, he needed to know simple defensive charms, and he needed to learn not to overkill. He and Ron had been conditioned to use whatever was at hand, no matter the collateral damage or the consequences later. They'd had to, in order to survive. Now they had to learn that a debilitating and dangerous charm didn't need to be used when a much simpler but obscure one would do the trick. Desperation was not an appropriate reaction any longer.
Still, the inspection drill he knew by heart. Some of the others were still struggling to pick up the finer points, but Harry had a firm grasp on what was legal to inspect and what was to be done if a Dark Artefact was encountered. As they had been, often. And since Harry had been forced to study how to react in any situation, owing to the mild trauma of having been martyred and resurrected at the age of seventeen, he was very enthusiastic about knowing what to do. About the concept of preparedness.
His mind drifted to the birthday party that Ron and Hermione had arranged for him that evening. Really it was just dinner in Diagon Alley, but his whole family would be there -- Arthur and Molly, already calling him son; Bill with little Victoire, elfin and pale-haired and freckle-spattered; Percy and George with their new Weasley Wizard Wheezes inventions; Hermione, wise and calm; and of course Ron and Ginny, the two Weasleys he loved best, battling each other for the last bread roll. Teddy too, and Andromeda, quiet and dignified but also always in the exact place she needed to be to catch Teddy falling off a chair or help Arthur steady a serving platter.
After four years, George's occasional vacant look or Andromeda's small, hidden frowns were as much a part of the tapestry as anything else, and they ceased to hurt Harry quite so much. He would take Teddy from Andromeda with the threadbare excuse of giving her five minutes to herself, and he and the little boy would exclaim over Percy and George's new creations. Teddy gazed on him with adulation Harry wasn't sure he would ever experience again, and it made him doubly happy to be able to love and spoil the child of a man who had desperately craved affection his entire life. Everyone would say he was so good with Teddy and Ginny would slip her hand into his and then later after the party, after everyone had gone their separate ways, she might come home with him --
"Isn't that right, Mr. Potter?"
Harry tossed his mind backwards a few seconds, picking up Broderick's last few words.
"Only in cases where the object is in plain view, sir," he answered.
"Very good, Potter. You're not entirely incompetent today," Broderick said, but his tone wasn't completely approving. "Potter, Weasley, Niccoli, Jansen, Allan, you'll be leading teams today. Your assignment files are on the desk; please brief your people before you step out. Potter, Weasley, you'll be competing against each other; time you two learned to depend on others a little. Loser does all the paperwork."
Harry glanced uneasily at Ron. He'd known this had to be coming, given how often the two of them worked together, but he also knew that Ron could be competitive and that he himself had trouble believing others would do a job as well as he would. He had trusted Ron and Hermione and nobody else, that last year when he was a teenage kid on the run; the habit had become ingrained in him. If he was going to beat Ron, he'd have to trust the others to get the job done as well.
"All right," he said to the people slowly gathering around him. "Meet up in the back room of the Fox and Hare, ten minutes, ready to go. Everybody take a packet..." he handed out the slim reports, each constituting an inspection they were going to have to make, "...and be prepared to present on it."
As his new team dispersed he jerked his head at Ron, who clapped one of his own team on the shoulder and crossed over to where Harry was standing.
"Hey," he said. "Don't die today."
"Yeah," Ron grinned. "You too."
***
Harry leaned back and tipped his chair on two legs, propping his boots on the none-to-clean table at the Fox and Hare. It was the Aurors' pub, almost exclusively frequented by MLE staff, and it had a back room that Harry appropriated for briefings. They didn't drink on duty, especially not this early in the morning, but it was private and there was always a tray of sweet buns waiting for Harry Potter and his friends.
"Report," he said. "Clives, you first."
"Right-o," Clives said, standing with her portion of the file in one hand and a cup of hot coffee in the other. "Standard inspection. We're to check the Naiad Greenhouse Company for quality control, make sure no...I don't know, Dark Plants are getting in. Weeds, imports, that kind of thing."
"How many you reckon you'd need?"
"Aside from me, just one to make sure nobody sneaks up behind me and hits me with a pot if I find something," Clives said with a grin.
"Tap someone. Wright?"
Wright looked hesitant as he stood up; the boy was brilliant but painfully shy, and Harry felt sorry for him whenever he was called on to present anything. Not that it would ever stop him from making Wright present. Probably good for him.
"Umm, there's been a, uh, report that, um. Dark artefacts are being smuggled into Knockturn through The Corner," he said.
"And what's The Corner?"
"It's the big shop on the intersection of Diagon and Knockturn," Wright stammered. "They sell Potions supplies mostly, also kind of, you know, knick-nacks."
Flowered plates with cats on them, Harry thought to himself.
"We're supposed to serve a warrant to search," Wright continued. He was blushing to the tips of his ears from sheer mortification at speaking in front of others. He held up the parchment warrant, separating it out from the report.
"Right. I'll go with you and we'll take two others. Next!"
Harry listened to the others present their assigned investigations, mostly standard look-overs to make sure that Ministry-sponsored projects weren't going awry. They'd made Harry nervous at first, because they seemed invasive and wrong, but most of the time nobody seemed to mind unless a warrant was being served. He came to realise that the boss of Naiad Greenhouse Company wanted Aurors double-checking his work and keeping an eye on his employees, as did most of the other businesses they inspected. People liked to see an Auror striding about importantly.
"All right," he said, when assignments were parceled out and the smaller teams formed. "I'm going with Wright and his team, but if anyone needs me, go ahead and call." He tapped the button on his collar for emphasis; it was one of Hermione's additions to the Auror service and would turn warm against his throat if he were needed. "We're going to split up from here. Take it easy and do a thorough job. I know Broderick said he was racing me against Weasley, but this is just one more test. My reputation's riding on your ability not to screw up."
He glanced around the room. Some of the newest rookies were looking at him with something like awe; even the ones who'd been through the academy with him were watching as if he were some kind of exotic science experiment.
"Run along," he said, and they began filing out slowly. He took one more sip of his tea and set it down, turning to Wright and the two raw rookies standing behind him.
"Ready to serve your first warrant?" he asked them. The two swallowed and nodded. "Wright, if you can't learn how to give a simple report in public -- "
"I know," Wright said, smiling and cheerful now that the worst was over. "It's horrible, isn't it?"
"Well, we're just going to keep making you do it until you die of shame or get over it, I suppose," Harry said. Wright gave him a sardonic salute, then ran ahead of him, back into the pub proper, to have a word with one of the other departing rookies. The group of young Aurors began to scatter, stepping out into the sunlight to find a quiet place to Apparate or following each other into the floo network.
Harry touched Wright's elbow as they passed and said "Offices" softly; Wright nodded and followed, along with -- what were their names? Cabrini and Smith, he thought.
"We'll go from the Ministry directly to the public floo-point at the juncture of Diagon and Knockturn," he said, as they walked back to the offices. "When we arrive, Wright will take any rear exits, Cabrini the floo point -- it's on the left-hand side as you enter, if memory serves -- and Smith will take the front door. I'll serve the warrant; if he doesn't do a runner we'll give him time to clear out his patrons. This is a warrant, not a licence to publicly humiliate anyone. And if anything happens to me, Wright's in charge."
Other employees of Magical Law Enforcement were just beginning to arrive as the Aurors began to leave, and the little band fought their way through the crowded, narrow corridor to the open departure-fireplaces on the end. Harry gave Hermione a nod and a smile as she passed on her way to the staff offices.
"See you tonight, Harry!" she called, as he stepped backwards into the floo. "Happy birthday!"
"Diagon and Knockturn," he said, raising a hand in acknowledgement. He thought he had time to tuck his arms against his body before it whisked him off, but as the world began to spin he pulled his hand back and rapped it sharply against something hard and unyielding. The pain was sudden and intense enough to feel as though sparks were exploding inside his hand, and he had to fight the urge to tuck it against his body and curl around it. Instead he pressed it against his chest and his other hand against the back of it, seething through his teeth at the pain.
Then, quite suddenly, he had more to worry about.
The floo stopped and he found himself falling, tumbling out like he hadn't since the first time he'd used a floo and ended up in Knockturn by mistake. He put out his uninjured hand, trying to grasp anything that would keep him upright, but he landed hard on his shoulders and skidded across the slick wood floor, crashing into a shelf that threatened to topple down on him.
Excited, startled cries told him that he was in someone's shop, a busy shop by the sound of it. He scrambled to his feet, whacking his hand again on a table, and doubled over in pain.
"It's an Auror!" someone shouted. "Everybody out!"
Harry gasped and straightened as people began to rush for the door; he saw enough to know that he was in The Corner, making a much more dramatic entrance than he'd wanted. As people poured out someone fired a hex that narrowly missed his chest, and then a second from another direction that knocked him off his feet.
"Aurors! MLE, everybody freeze!" someone shouted. Good old Wright was charging through the crowd, and Harry saw Cabrini blocking off the front door. Wright reached him and helped him stagger to his feet again, hauling him up by his arm.
"This is the MLE," Harry shouted hoarsely, ripping the warrant out of his pocket. "We have a warrant to search the premesis. Everybody stay calm."
He ducked a hex that came from behind the counter and swore under his breath. The owners of The Corner were fighting back.
"Cabrini! Let them go!" he called over the din. "Hostile fire!"
"On it," she called, vaulting the till counter and kicking someone in the head from the sound of it. Smith ran past them, angling for the rear exit, and took a hex square in the chest.
This was not how Harry had imagined the inspection going.
"Help the rookies," he said to Wright, shaking off his grasp. "I'll go after the second hostile."
Wright broke for the fight behind the till while Harry leapt over Smith and shielded himself as he burst into the back room. A glass jar landed at his feet and fumes rose instantly, swirling around the shield but unable to break past it. Harry dodged through the racks of jars and glassed-in shelves of artefacts too valuable to be kept in the front. A heavy iron pestle sailed past his shoulder. He couldn't clear the shelves between him and whoever-it-was, because they were full of potions and supplies that could cause a really amazing explosion if they were thrown around carelessly.
Glass shattered as one of the artefact cases went over, and magic crackled in the air. Harry leapt forward, aware that his wand was useless now but years of training making him confident that he could take anyone who came at him in a hand-to-hand fight.
He dodged another glass bottle and went full bore into the man throwing them, a man he recognised as one of The Corner's proprietors. He couldn't hear anything from the front of the shop, only aware of the stabbing pain in his hand, the blood running down his face and shoulders from glass shards that had nicked him. He got a fistful of clothing in his good left hand and kicked hard, knocking the man's legs out from underneath him. They went down in a heap, Harry on top, but the other man rolled and pinned his right hand down. Harry screamed in pain and kicked again.
They wrestled on the floor, amid the broken glass and long shards of wood, his opponent scrabbling for something under the pile of debris. Harry fought as well as he could, but with only one hand and no magic it was hard going.
Suddenly the world went very still.
Harry looked up into a leering, bloody face. There was a weight on his chest; the other man had straddled him and was holding something to his throat. Not a wand; it split Harry's flesh as easily as a knife in soft butter.
Just a nick. For now.
"There are three other Aurors in the front room," Harry said, trying to breathe deep. "You're not getting away. You can either be arrested for assault or for homicide. Up to you -- "
He stopped, because the man wasn't listening. He was staring at the knife he held to Harry's throat, and as Harry watched he held the golden, glinting blade up to the light.
Blood -- Harry's blood -- ran down the edge of it, a long bead dancing but not breaking on the blade. There were sigils and runes imprinted in the spine, and the hilt was wrapped in green silk. As both men watched, the blood seemed to sink into the metal, disappearing without a trace.
"Give up now," Harry managed. "Just give me the knife and nobody else has to get hurt."
The man continued to stare at the blade.
There was an odd flurry of movement behind him and Harry braced for one of the others to knock him free, but it never came. Instead, a second hand appeared, wrapping around the hand holding the knife. A pale, half-opaque hand, fingers rubbing soothingly on his attacker's. Harry followed the line of the arm with his eyes only, up to a ghostly shoulder and then a familiar, heart-shaped face framed by short hair.
Nymphadora Tonks, four years dead, was holding the man's hand. Her other hand, Harry could see now, was on his shoulder. Her mouth was low and close to his ear.
"Don't kill the boy," she whispered. If the man heard her, he gave no sign. Harry felt his body begin to shake. "Come on, mate. He's just a kid. You're in enough trouble already, aren't you?"
Harry hadn't noticed that light from the doorway between the front room and the back had been shining on them, didn't notice until the colour of it changed, turning grey and dim. He turned his head -- the man flinched but didn't strike -- and saw a silhouette in the door, one arm raised as if to summon help. He couldn't see clearly until the man's head turned and then it was still only a shadow, but Harry had spent hours memorising his godfather's face from photographs after he died.
Sirius was half-turned, thin body twisted around so that he could call to the others. Harry heard his voice, no louder than the other whisper.
"What about Harry?" he called to whoever was in the front room. "Come find Harry."
Even as he said it, Smith burst through the doorway, shredding the shadow into flickers of light and tackling Harry's captor to the floor. Harry didn't move; glass crunched and there was a pained cry as someone lost the fight. He hoped Smith had won, because the world was going sort of curly around the edges, shadows closing in, and he couldn't have moved even if he wanted to.
"Harry?" someone called.
"Sirius?" he asked weakly.
"Oh, Merlin, he's fucked," he heard Wright say, not Sirius but Wright. "Call St. Mungo's. Harry, it's okay, we got it under control. Come on Potter, keep your eyes open. What hex was it?"
"No hex," Harry mumbled numbly, right before his vision failed completely and he blacked out.
***
Harry knew that he didn't want to wake up.
He knew he didn't want to die, exactly, and he knew that he'd have to wake up sooner or later, but if he woke up the pain would come back. He could feel it licking hungrily on the edge of his consciousness. He could also hear people talking, and knew that if he woke now the entire Weasley family would be there.
"Listen to me," he heard someone say. Percy, he rather thought. None of the others had quite the imperious tone that Percy had. "My father is very prominent in the Ministry and his only daughter is engaged to be married to this man. His baby daughter."
"I like that!" Ginny put in. Harry would have chuckled if he'd been awake.
"I'm aware of that, sir," said a second male voice, one Harry couldn't place. The pain sat up and took notice. "We know quite well that this is Harry Potter, and believe me we are doing the best we can, but these things take time."
"Time is what you don't have," Percy retorted.
"Tell him, Perce," Bill said in the distant background.
"With all due respect, Mr. Weasley, shouting at me in this room is not going to help Mr. Potter out one bit. If you'd like to step outside -- "
"Nobody's stepping anywhere," Ron, sounding strained and unhappy.
"That's right," Molly said. "We are going to stay right here until our Harry wakes up, so you can shove your visiting hours up -- "
"Mum!" Ginny said. "You can't tell the Healers -- "
"Stop it, everyone!" said a new, authoritative, terrifying voice. Blessed, blessed silence; blessed, blessed Hermione, bringer of order.
And, into the silence, a childish wail.
"Now look, you've gone and upset Teddy," Molly scolded.
"Teddy shouldn't be here, look at him! Seeing Harry is upsetting him," Hermione continued.
"Hermione," Ron said urgently. It was his way of saying Stop bossing people, but Hermione wasn't exactly one to listen to subtext when she didn't want to hear it.
"Percy, go outside and talk with the Healer -- you too, George," she ordered. "Bill, you're not doing anyone any good by looming and menacing, take your mum and get some tea. Ron and I will talk with the mediwitches about all these bloody flowers."
"You can't order me around," Percy said petulantly.
"No, she's right," said a new voice. Harry never thought he'd hear George as the voice of reason. "Come on, Perce. We can give him what-for in the hallway. Hey, Teddy bear. Teddy boy."
"M'not a teddy bear," Teddy whined tearfully.
"Okay, okay. You want some peppermints? How about Aunt Hermione take you outside and you can show all the Mediwitches your funny hair, and you can have a peppermint," George wheedled.
"Mkay," Teddy agreed. The door opened and Harry heard people moving around, shifting and walking, and then all was silence once more.
"Well, thank Merlin for small favours," Ginny said, and Harry heard her move a chair closer to the bed he must be on. His hand throbbed painfully. "Sorry, Harry."
A hand smoothed down his hair, which didn't help; aches began to creep into every muscle.
"It's just us now. The Healers say there's nothing wrong with your hand and your cuts are already all healed up. You just lost some blood, that's all, so as soon as you wake up they can give you some replenishing potions."
Harry opened one eye. His whole body burst into flame, it felt like, but it died down to merely excruciating after a few seconds.
Ginny was sitting next to him, arms folded on the rail of the bed, head tilted.
"Waiting for them to get thrown out?" she asked, smiling at him. Thank god for Ginevra Weasley.
He meant to say hello and thank you, but it came out as "Everything hurts."
"I know, love. There's potions for it if you want but it'll put you back to sleep again."
"Potions," he mumbled.
"Don't say I didn't warn you," she sighed, and Harry felt a cup held to the corner of his mouth. His jaw didn't seem to want to work right, but he opened his lips enough for the liquid to flow into his mouth, and he swallowed automatically. Three swallows before choking a little, and the cup was withdrawn. Cool liquid ran down the side of his face. Ginny wiped it up with her thumb and kissed his forehead.
"If you die before our wedding I won't be responsible for Mum," she said, and Harry laughed a little as he slid back down into blissful sleep.
***
When his eyes flickered open a second time, there was no pain at all. There wasn't even a bed; he was floating on nothing and quite enjoying it.
He turned his head slightly and saw another dead man.
"Hi there, Godfather," Remus Lupin said, hands shoved in his pockets, beaming at him. "We're supposed to come tell you not to go to the light and rubbish of that kind, but since you're not exactly on the brink of death I thought I'd forego it. Still, a free pass is a free pass, hm?"
Harry tried to talk, but his lips wouldn't move.
"Anyhow, you can't see me, but it's good to see you again. You'll be up and about in no time." Lupin inhaled, frowned, exhaled. "So...that's all, really. I just wanted to see you, say hello. And -- well, thank you. I see you with Teddy. I can't tell you what that means to me."
Harry, perplexed, noticed that there was a sword hanging off Lupin's belt. It looked sort of stupid, in fact; there was his old professor in a perfectly normal pair of trousers and a rather nicer shirt than he'd ever worn when he was alive. The belt was just an ordinary belt with a plain buckle, but there was the sword. Just hanging there.
Gryffindor's sword, come to think of it.
"We're always watching," Lupin said, and Harry closed his eyes.
Continue to the next part
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Look, I've got nothing to do these days if you need an extra beta reader ping me. I owe you since you have done it for me.
I think the infodump is fine as a place holder in a first draft - but really could be expanded and would serve your story better.