Part IXV: Dream On Ron (28 December, 2002)
Title: Tart Noir Around and About Vertick Alley
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Tart Noir, crime-romance
Pairings: Lavender/Zacharias, Draco/Ron, Susan/Blaise, Zacharias/Ginny ...
Summary: Lavender Brown is part of the investigation into the murders of the children of Death Eaters and is madly in love with her flatmate and best friend, Zacharias Smith. Ron Weasley is babysitting Draco Malfoy and sick of being gay in a terribly straight Wizarding World. Susan Bones doesn't get patronuses and is not having a relationship with Blaise Zabini. Zacharias Smith is sick of his job and thinks he might ask Ginny Weasley to move in with him. Mr Darcy, the flatmate's cat, thinks they're all bloody ridiculous. Four twenty-one year olds suffering with work, love and life.
Notes: I know, I'm a horrible person who deserves to be fed brussel sprouts, but in my defence it has been a busy six weeks. I worked more than fulltime throughout December, and have now moved over the other side of the world. Better late than never, and now that I'm back at university, I'm sure chapters will come more frequently. This isn't what it should be - I have real trouble with Ron.
Apparently they’re getting closer to cracking this case. I haven’t seen Lavender since she left for work in the early hours of the morning, and I’m now off to guard Malfoy (Draco?). I’ve been bullied into the day shift for once, but since Gabrielle covered my shifts the days after Christmas I’m not too concerned. Hermione’s back in at work in the evenings and we’ve talked about wanting someone with Harry as much as possible. When I have to go back to night shift, we might get Ginny to stop in but for now this works.
All the kids are off on Christmas holidays and it’s early in the morning so it’s quiet as I walk up the familiar stone steps. Every footstep seems to echo through the corridors and it takes such a long time to reach his office. I knock, Gabrielle appears.
“Good luck,” she says, rolling her beautiful eyes. “He’s been in a shit mood since Boxing Day.”
So much for a calm, conflictless day. I screw up my nose at her. “How was your Christmas?” I ask, anything to prolong the inevitable insults from Malfoy.
“Good, I went back home, Bill and Fleur came by for a time, after Christmas at your parents. Did you go home?”
“In the afternoon. Spent the morning at the flat and at St Mungos. But Mum would’ve killed me if I hadn’t come home for Christmas dinner.”
“Yes, Molly is not a woman I would like to cross.” She smiles. “Anyway, I really must go.” She pats my arm as she squeezes past me. I take a deep breath, open the door. He’s sitting at his desk, facing away from me
“Hello?” I say, hesitant.
Malfoy snorts.
There’s something about him that just makes my blood boil. “I’m fine, thanks for asking. And how are you?”
He grunts. I deliberately bump his as I pass his chair. “So sorry.”
“Fuck you, Weasley.”
“Quite.”
“Please,” Malfoy says, and his voice sounds strained, “could you do your job standing a good five metres away from me?”
I roll my eyes. “I’ll be just over here if you need me.”
Malfoy scoffs. “I think me and seventh year Potions essay will be just fine.”
Merlin, he’s lucky I’m working. I would happily hear my fist connect with his jaw. “Shall I just sit down then?”
“Yes. Just stay as far away as possible. Please.”
I sit down on his couch, try not to look at him or distract him, keep alert. Shortly later he turns to face me. “Has there been any break through in the investigation?”
“I think so. I haven’t seen Lavender, she’s at work, but she sent me a very cryptic owl telling me to be careful.”
“So they have a suspect, I presume.”
“That’s how I interpreted it.”
“Anything further from Parvati Patil?”
“No. She’s out cold. They reckon she’ll be okay when she wakes up.” If she wakes up.
“Hard for her.”
“And Harry.”
Malfoy snorts. “Poor poor Potter.”
“It’s fucking difficult, Malfoy. Surely even you can see that. Imagine if it was Pansy in that hospital bed.”
“Different relationship.”
“No, really? I thought you two were totally into each other.”
Malfoy rolls his eyes. “Just shut up.”
“Fine.” I twiddle my thumbs, wonder what’s happening in the real world at this very moment. Hogwarts has always seemed so separate. War breaks out, but you still go down to the Great Hall for breakfast, go to class, try and grab the best seats in the common room, stay up late doing last-second assignments …
“Weasley, I’m going for a walk,” Malfoy snaps, interupting my musings. “You’ll have to follow me.”
I stalk two paces behind him through the twisting, turning corridors until we reach the main entrance. The cold winter air slams into my face.
“You sure you want to go for a walk, Malfoy?” I ask.
“Yes.” He glares over at me. “You can wait under the shelter if you want. I won’t go out of sight.”
“Oh, but I was so desperate for stilted conversation.”
“Shut up Weasley or I’ll hex you.”
“I wouldn’t pit fully trained hit wizard against a Potions teacher myself, but I’m sure you get plenty of foolish wand waving and hexing done between potions.”
“You forget, I have dark connections.”
I shrug. “Dark side lost, Malfoy. Anyway, thought they declared you Switzerland, along with Pansy and the rest of you.”
“That’s right.” He snorts. “It was all talk. I never hatched a cunning plan to get Death Eaters into the school and Dumbledore murdered.”
I wonder if maybe, just maybe, he’s teaching here to make ammends for that ‘cunning plan’. “I’ve been offered the Magical Creatures position here,” I say. Unconsciously, I’ve followed along beside Malfoy, our paces matching.
“Didn’t realise that oaf was retiring.”
“Don’t call him that!”
“He almost killed me with his stupidity!”
“It was barely a graze. Anyway, not right now, but when he retires.”
“You going to take it?”
“Don’t know,” I say. “The thought of seeing your ugly mug across the breakfast table isn’t something I particularly relish.”
He smirks. “Christmas Eve told me differently.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
“Bet you’d like to do that for me.”
“I would break your pointy face into little pieces if I wasn’t your babysitter,” I growl.
He flexes his long fingers, sticks his nose in the air. “I prefer the term bodyguard. Or hired muscle.”
“You like the muscle then?”
“Well, it’s a comfort I’ve got someone so big and strong to look after weak little me,” he replies, batting his eyelashes in manner of sixth-year-Pansy.
“Go die in a fire, Malfoy.”
He throws a snowball at me, right to the gut, then runs off in laughter while I clutch my stomach and yell expletives after him. It’s as he’s nearing the gates to Hogwarts that I get a strange sense of forboding.
I pull out my wand and run after him, just as a masked figure appears at the gates. Pulls out his own wand, binds Malfoy with it and levitates him towards the gates before my brain even processes what is going on.
“Expeliarmus!” I yell, but it’s too great a distance. I am running, sprinting towards Malfoy’s figure hanging metres above the ground, wand pointed at the masked figure, the serial killer.
I’m gaining on them, still not quite outside the gates. Malfoy’s screaming like an absolute girl. Reaching the gates at last, I concentrate hard, apparate to a spot ahead of the masked figure, a man, as I notice from close range. Wand steady and pointed straight at him, “Drop him.”
There’s a moment of absolute stillness. I can’t stupefy him, the probable scenario is that in the event of his being stunned or hit with a dangerous spell, all magical things under his direct power will disintegrate, a spell developed by Bellatrix Lestrange during the war. Stunning would only be counter-effective.
“Drop him now,” I say, wand tip quivering now.
The mask remains expressionless. No indication of what he might do. Brown eyes stare from the blackness, I can’t even get an idea of skin colour, hair colour. Nothing. As far as I can tell, he could be a robot.
“OH NO YER DON’T!” Out of the forest, Hagrid runs, leaps and pulls Malfoy onto the ground, breaking the spell’s connection with him.
The mask sighs, shrugs. “Stupefy!” I yell, but he’s already gone with a loud crack.
Hagrid has run with Malfoy’s body to the safety of Hogwarts grounds and, more specifically, his hut. I sigh and follow his lead. “You got any floo powder?”
“Window ledge,” Hagrid says, nodding to his front window. While he loosens Malfoy’s bonds and gets him a cup of tea, I call the aurors.
“Attempted kidnapping of Draco Malfoy just outside Hogwarts grounds. Assailant got away, but victim is safe and unharmed, currently in Ground’s Keeper’s hut.”
“What do you mean, unharmed?” Malfoy squawks indignantly.
The woman on the other end of the floo nods. “I’ll send a team over directly. If you could meet them at the gates.”
“Certainly.” I pull my head out of the fire. “You alright, Malfoy? You were screaming like a little girl back there.”
He glares. “Thought I was going to be dead soon, useless ingrate. Why didn’t you just stun him?”
“Want to be made inter dust did yer?” Hagrid growls. “Remember the war?”
Malfoy shudders. “Of course.”
“I suppose a thank you would be too much to ask for,” I say. “For Hagrid, I mean. He did save your life.”
“Suppose so,” Malfoy mutters, looking at the wooden floors. “Much appreciated, Hagrid.”
“Don’ mention it.”
I head out to meet the Aurors. It’s Tonks, with a couple of others I only recognise by sight, looking as grim as pink hair allows her. Her and Remus are pregnant with their first child, it’s five months now, and she’s starting to show. I’m surprised she’s working the field, though I really shouldn’t be. “This where it happened, Ron?”
“Yeah.”
“And where’s Malfoy?”
“In Hagrid’s hut. You’ll want to talk to Hagrid too. He saved Malfoy.”
“Good old Hagrid,” Tonks says, smiling wearily. “You two want to go and talk to them? I’ll wait for a processing team and talk to Ron.”
The others leave willingly enough and I’m left with Tonks. “So,” she says. “What happened?”
“Malfoy came outside for a walk, I followed. He ran on ahead after throwing a snowball at me. He was well within my sight. Then, out of nowhere this masked figure appeared, bound and levitated Malfoy and runs off. I ran after them, apparated as soon as possible directly in front of the guy and ordered him to drop Malfoy. Hagrid came careening out of the trees over there and broke the levitation spell on Malfoy and the assailant apparated before anything could be done.”
“Right.” Tonks is looking out at the whiteness. “Might get footprints, could be useful in proof against the suspect we currently have. There’s aurors taking him into custody now. What did he look like?”
“He had brown eyes? Honestly, Tonks. He was wearing a full facial mask, dressed entirely in black. I couldn’t see hair colour, skin colour. Hell, the clothes were so loose, I can’t even be sure whether he was medium or light build. My height or slightly shorter.”
She sighs. “Well, maybe Malfoy saw something you missed.”
“Doubtful. Now, are you going to tell me who they suspect or am I going to have to go home to Lavender and drag it out of her?”
Tonks grins. “I’m sure that would be difficult.”
“Like you wouldn’t believe. Lavender thinks that case confidentiality is for other people.”
“I should be shocked by that.” Tonks shakes her head. “Prime suspect in the case is Dean Thomas.”
“Dean? No.” I shake my head. “Not possible.”
“They have evidence, circumstances are suspicious. They found a hair. He’s being brought in now I presume.” Tonks sighs. “This isn’t the first time we’ve had vigilante problems since the war, Ron.”
“I know. It’s just, Dean hurt Parvati? We were classmates.”
“According to Lavender they didn’t get on so well.”
“Fuck.”
Tonks pats my shoulder. “It’ll be okay.”
I shake my head. “I know. Just wish I hadn’t asked now. Change of subject: How are you? Morning sickness getting you down?”
“Me?” She laughs. “Getting ready for impending motherhood.” She wrinkles her nose and her hair is black and streaked with grey, lines formed around her lips. “Can’t you just see it?” And she’s back to pink.
“Isn’t morphing bad for the baby?” I ask. “And isn’t this a bit dangerous?”
“The morphing doesn’t harm the child. And I’ve been forbidden from going into conflict until after birth, I can come to scenes like this where it’s picking up the pieces. I should be angry at Dawlish, I really should, but it means less paperwork and I occasionally get to go home early, something my back is thanking me for.” She smiles. “Remus is terribly concerned.”
“Don’t blame him,” I say, grinning. “Not only is his wife carting their unborn child around on cases, but he’s probably going to end up with little pink wolf pups.”
Tonks cuffs me over the head, as Hermione apparates into the scene. “I’d report you for abuse, Tonks, if I wasn’t certain that he deserved it.” Tonks raises a hand and she and Hermione high five.
“Look,” I say, aware that I’ve left Malfoy to Hagrid’s well-meaning but sometimes difficult to handle hospitality for longer than I should have, “I’m going to get Malfoy to St Mungo’s for a check-up. If you need to talk to me before nightfall, I’ll be there. Otherwise, you’ll find me at home.”
“You’ll stop in and look after Harry?” Hermione asks.
“Of course.” I roll my eyes. “I’ll see if I can get him to the hospital café for food.”
Hermione sticks out her tongue at me, pulls back her hair into an elastic and bends down to look at the footprints in the snow. I trudge back up to Hagrid’s hut. The aurors are just finishing and Malfoy looks slightly hysterical. “I’m to take you to St Mungo’s,” I tell him. “Think you can manage the floo?”
He grimaces. “Of course.” But when he tries to stand up, he almost colapses.
I pick him up, ignoring all protests. Hagrid throws powder into the roaring fire. “St Mungo’s!”
And I step, coughing, out of the fireplace. There are healers on us in seconds, Tonks obviously called ahead. “He seems unharmed,” I say. “Just a bit hysterical.”
“Hey!” Malfoy yelps.
The healer nods, feels his pulse. “If you put him on that stretcher, we’ll get him up to a room and do a checkup.” She has her wand out as I lie him down and uses some sort of charm to sedate him and takes him along the corridor, me following in her wake.
I pace outside the room for the next hour before the healer comes out. “He’s unharmed, we’ll be keeping him overnight for observation and performing more tests tomorrow. Someone will have to come and take him home. I trust you will be doing that.”
“Yes, I will,” I say. “Thank you.”
“Do you want to see him?”
There’s a moment’s indecision, then, “No, it’s best I don’t.”
I stand outside his door, doing my job, until Belinda comes to relieve me, several hours early. “Harding says you’re to have the rest of the day off.”
“Thank you, Belinda,” I say. “I’ve organised to pick him up tomorrow so I’ll do my shift as usual.”
“As you wish.”
I head down the hall, then down a flight of stairs, until I reach Parvati’s room. Harry is sitting in a chair by her side, head slumped on her bed, out cold. I smile, pull up another chair and give his hand a squeeze. Then, I doze beside him until night falls and the stars burst into the night sky.
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Tart Noir, crime-romance
Pairings: Lavender/Zacharias, Draco/Ron, Susan/Blaise, Zacharias/Ginny ...
Summary: Lavender Brown is part of the investigation into the murders of the children of Death Eaters and is madly in love with her flatmate and best friend, Zacharias Smith. Ron Weasley is babysitting Draco Malfoy and sick of being gay in a terribly straight Wizarding World. Susan Bones doesn't get patronuses and is not having a relationship with Blaise Zabini. Zacharias Smith is sick of his job and thinks he might ask Ginny Weasley to move in with him. Mr Darcy, the flatmate's cat, thinks they're all bloody ridiculous. Four twenty-one year olds suffering with work, love and life.
Notes: I know, I'm a horrible person who deserves to be fed brussel sprouts, but in my defence it has been a busy six weeks. I worked more than fulltime throughout December, and have now moved over the other side of the world. Better late than never, and now that I'm back at university, I'm sure chapters will come more frequently. This isn't what it should be - I have real trouble with Ron.
Apparently they’re getting closer to cracking this case. I haven’t seen Lavender since she left for work in the early hours of the morning, and I’m now off to guard Malfoy (Draco?). I’ve been bullied into the day shift for once, but since Gabrielle covered my shifts the days after Christmas I’m not too concerned. Hermione’s back in at work in the evenings and we’ve talked about wanting someone with Harry as much as possible. When I have to go back to night shift, we might get Ginny to stop in but for now this works.
All the kids are off on Christmas holidays and it’s early in the morning so it’s quiet as I walk up the familiar stone steps. Every footstep seems to echo through the corridors and it takes such a long time to reach his office. I knock, Gabrielle appears.
“Good luck,” she says, rolling her beautiful eyes. “He’s been in a shit mood since Boxing Day.”
So much for a calm, conflictless day. I screw up my nose at her. “How was your Christmas?” I ask, anything to prolong the inevitable insults from Malfoy.
“Good, I went back home, Bill and Fleur came by for a time, after Christmas at your parents. Did you go home?”
“In the afternoon. Spent the morning at the flat and at St Mungos. But Mum would’ve killed me if I hadn’t come home for Christmas dinner.”
“Yes, Molly is not a woman I would like to cross.” She smiles. “Anyway, I really must go.” She pats my arm as she squeezes past me. I take a deep breath, open the door. He’s sitting at his desk, facing away from me
“Hello?” I say, hesitant.
Malfoy snorts.
There’s something about him that just makes my blood boil. “I’m fine, thanks for asking. And how are you?”
He grunts. I deliberately bump his as I pass his chair. “So sorry.”
“Fuck you, Weasley.”
“Quite.”
“Please,” Malfoy says, and his voice sounds strained, “could you do your job standing a good five metres away from me?”
I roll my eyes. “I’ll be just over here if you need me.”
Malfoy scoffs. “I think me and seventh year Potions essay will be just fine.”
Merlin, he’s lucky I’m working. I would happily hear my fist connect with his jaw. “Shall I just sit down then?”
“Yes. Just stay as far away as possible. Please.”
I sit down on his couch, try not to look at him or distract him, keep alert. Shortly later he turns to face me. “Has there been any break through in the investigation?”
“I think so. I haven’t seen Lavender, she’s at work, but she sent me a very cryptic owl telling me to be careful.”
“So they have a suspect, I presume.”
“That’s how I interpreted it.”
“Anything further from Parvati Patil?”
“No. She’s out cold. They reckon she’ll be okay when she wakes up.” If she wakes up.
“Hard for her.”
“And Harry.”
Malfoy snorts. “Poor poor Potter.”
“It’s fucking difficult, Malfoy. Surely even you can see that. Imagine if it was Pansy in that hospital bed.”
“Different relationship.”
“No, really? I thought you two were totally into each other.”
Malfoy rolls his eyes. “Just shut up.”
“Fine.” I twiddle my thumbs, wonder what’s happening in the real world at this very moment. Hogwarts has always seemed so separate. War breaks out, but you still go down to the Great Hall for breakfast, go to class, try and grab the best seats in the common room, stay up late doing last-second assignments …
“Weasley, I’m going for a walk,” Malfoy snaps, interupting my musings. “You’ll have to follow me.”
I stalk two paces behind him through the twisting, turning corridors until we reach the main entrance. The cold winter air slams into my face.
“You sure you want to go for a walk, Malfoy?” I ask.
“Yes.” He glares over at me. “You can wait under the shelter if you want. I won’t go out of sight.”
“Oh, but I was so desperate for stilted conversation.”
“Shut up Weasley or I’ll hex you.”
“I wouldn’t pit fully trained hit wizard against a Potions teacher myself, but I’m sure you get plenty of foolish wand waving and hexing done between potions.”
“You forget, I have dark connections.”
I shrug. “Dark side lost, Malfoy. Anyway, thought they declared you Switzerland, along with Pansy and the rest of you.”
“That’s right.” He snorts. “It was all talk. I never hatched a cunning plan to get Death Eaters into the school and Dumbledore murdered.”
I wonder if maybe, just maybe, he’s teaching here to make ammends for that ‘cunning plan’. “I’ve been offered the Magical Creatures position here,” I say. Unconsciously, I’ve followed along beside Malfoy, our paces matching.
“Didn’t realise that oaf was retiring.”
“Don’t call him that!”
“He almost killed me with his stupidity!”
“It was barely a graze. Anyway, not right now, but when he retires.”
“You going to take it?”
“Don’t know,” I say. “The thought of seeing your ugly mug across the breakfast table isn’t something I particularly relish.”
He smirks. “Christmas Eve told me differently.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
“Bet you’d like to do that for me.”
“I would break your pointy face into little pieces if I wasn’t your babysitter,” I growl.
He flexes his long fingers, sticks his nose in the air. “I prefer the term bodyguard. Or hired muscle.”
“You like the muscle then?”
“Well, it’s a comfort I’ve got someone so big and strong to look after weak little me,” he replies, batting his eyelashes in manner of sixth-year-Pansy.
“Go die in a fire, Malfoy.”
He throws a snowball at me, right to the gut, then runs off in laughter while I clutch my stomach and yell expletives after him. It’s as he’s nearing the gates to Hogwarts that I get a strange sense of forboding.
I pull out my wand and run after him, just as a masked figure appears at the gates. Pulls out his own wand, binds Malfoy with it and levitates him towards the gates before my brain even processes what is going on.
“Expeliarmus!” I yell, but it’s too great a distance. I am running, sprinting towards Malfoy’s figure hanging metres above the ground, wand pointed at the masked figure, the serial killer.
I’m gaining on them, still not quite outside the gates. Malfoy’s screaming like an absolute girl. Reaching the gates at last, I concentrate hard, apparate to a spot ahead of the masked figure, a man, as I notice from close range. Wand steady and pointed straight at him, “Drop him.”
There’s a moment of absolute stillness. I can’t stupefy him, the probable scenario is that in the event of his being stunned or hit with a dangerous spell, all magical things under his direct power will disintegrate, a spell developed by Bellatrix Lestrange during the war. Stunning would only be counter-effective.
“Drop him now,” I say, wand tip quivering now.
The mask remains expressionless. No indication of what he might do. Brown eyes stare from the blackness, I can’t even get an idea of skin colour, hair colour. Nothing. As far as I can tell, he could be a robot.
“OH NO YER DON’T!” Out of the forest, Hagrid runs, leaps and pulls Malfoy onto the ground, breaking the spell’s connection with him.
The mask sighs, shrugs. “Stupefy!” I yell, but he’s already gone with a loud crack.
Hagrid has run with Malfoy’s body to the safety of Hogwarts grounds and, more specifically, his hut. I sigh and follow his lead. “You got any floo powder?”
“Window ledge,” Hagrid says, nodding to his front window. While he loosens Malfoy’s bonds and gets him a cup of tea, I call the aurors.
“Attempted kidnapping of Draco Malfoy just outside Hogwarts grounds. Assailant got away, but victim is safe and unharmed, currently in Ground’s Keeper’s hut.”
“What do you mean, unharmed?” Malfoy squawks indignantly.
The woman on the other end of the floo nods. “I’ll send a team over directly. If you could meet them at the gates.”
“Certainly.” I pull my head out of the fire. “You alright, Malfoy? You were screaming like a little girl back there.”
He glares. “Thought I was going to be dead soon, useless ingrate. Why didn’t you just stun him?”
“Want to be made inter dust did yer?” Hagrid growls. “Remember the war?”
Malfoy shudders. “Of course.”
“I suppose a thank you would be too much to ask for,” I say. “For Hagrid, I mean. He did save your life.”
“Suppose so,” Malfoy mutters, looking at the wooden floors. “Much appreciated, Hagrid.”
“Don’ mention it.”
I head out to meet the Aurors. It’s Tonks, with a couple of others I only recognise by sight, looking as grim as pink hair allows her. Her and Remus are pregnant with their first child, it’s five months now, and she’s starting to show. I’m surprised she’s working the field, though I really shouldn’t be. “This where it happened, Ron?”
“Yeah.”
“And where’s Malfoy?”
“In Hagrid’s hut. You’ll want to talk to Hagrid too. He saved Malfoy.”
“Good old Hagrid,” Tonks says, smiling wearily. “You two want to go and talk to them? I’ll wait for a processing team and talk to Ron.”
The others leave willingly enough and I’m left with Tonks. “So,” she says. “What happened?”
“Malfoy came outside for a walk, I followed. He ran on ahead after throwing a snowball at me. He was well within my sight. Then, out of nowhere this masked figure appeared, bound and levitated Malfoy and runs off. I ran after them, apparated as soon as possible directly in front of the guy and ordered him to drop Malfoy. Hagrid came careening out of the trees over there and broke the levitation spell on Malfoy and the assailant apparated before anything could be done.”
“Right.” Tonks is looking out at the whiteness. “Might get footprints, could be useful in proof against the suspect we currently have. There’s aurors taking him into custody now. What did he look like?”
“He had brown eyes? Honestly, Tonks. He was wearing a full facial mask, dressed entirely in black. I couldn’t see hair colour, skin colour. Hell, the clothes were so loose, I can’t even be sure whether he was medium or light build. My height or slightly shorter.”
She sighs. “Well, maybe Malfoy saw something you missed.”
“Doubtful. Now, are you going to tell me who they suspect or am I going to have to go home to Lavender and drag it out of her?”
Tonks grins. “I’m sure that would be difficult.”
“Like you wouldn’t believe. Lavender thinks that case confidentiality is for other people.”
“I should be shocked by that.” Tonks shakes her head. “Prime suspect in the case is Dean Thomas.”
“Dean? No.” I shake my head. “Not possible.”
“They have evidence, circumstances are suspicious. They found a hair. He’s being brought in now I presume.” Tonks sighs. “This isn’t the first time we’ve had vigilante problems since the war, Ron.”
“I know. It’s just, Dean hurt Parvati? We were classmates.”
“According to Lavender they didn’t get on so well.”
“Fuck.”
Tonks pats my shoulder. “It’ll be okay.”
I shake my head. “I know. Just wish I hadn’t asked now. Change of subject: How are you? Morning sickness getting you down?”
“Me?” She laughs. “Getting ready for impending motherhood.” She wrinkles her nose and her hair is black and streaked with grey, lines formed around her lips. “Can’t you just see it?” And she’s back to pink.
“Isn’t morphing bad for the baby?” I ask. “And isn’t this a bit dangerous?”
“The morphing doesn’t harm the child. And I’ve been forbidden from going into conflict until after birth, I can come to scenes like this where it’s picking up the pieces. I should be angry at Dawlish, I really should, but it means less paperwork and I occasionally get to go home early, something my back is thanking me for.” She smiles. “Remus is terribly concerned.”
“Don’t blame him,” I say, grinning. “Not only is his wife carting their unborn child around on cases, but he’s probably going to end up with little pink wolf pups.”
Tonks cuffs me over the head, as Hermione apparates into the scene. “I’d report you for abuse, Tonks, if I wasn’t certain that he deserved it.” Tonks raises a hand and she and Hermione high five.
“Look,” I say, aware that I’ve left Malfoy to Hagrid’s well-meaning but sometimes difficult to handle hospitality for longer than I should have, “I’m going to get Malfoy to St Mungo’s for a check-up. If you need to talk to me before nightfall, I’ll be there. Otherwise, you’ll find me at home.”
“You’ll stop in and look after Harry?” Hermione asks.
“Of course.” I roll my eyes. “I’ll see if I can get him to the hospital café for food.”
Hermione sticks out her tongue at me, pulls back her hair into an elastic and bends down to look at the footprints in the snow. I trudge back up to Hagrid’s hut. The aurors are just finishing and Malfoy looks slightly hysterical. “I’m to take you to St Mungo’s,” I tell him. “Think you can manage the floo?”
He grimaces. “Of course.” But when he tries to stand up, he almost colapses.
I pick him up, ignoring all protests. Hagrid throws powder into the roaring fire. “St Mungo’s!”
And I step, coughing, out of the fireplace. There are healers on us in seconds, Tonks obviously called ahead. “He seems unharmed,” I say. “Just a bit hysterical.”
“Hey!” Malfoy yelps.
The healer nods, feels his pulse. “If you put him on that stretcher, we’ll get him up to a room and do a checkup.” She has her wand out as I lie him down and uses some sort of charm to sedate him and takes him along the corridor, me following in her wake.
I pace outside the room for the next hour before the healer comes out. “He’s unharmed, we’ll be keeping him overnight for observation and performing more tests tomorrow. Someone will have to come and take him home. I trust you will be doing that.”
“Yes, I will,” I say. “Thank you.”
“Do you want to see him?”
There’s a moment’s indecision, then, “No, it’s best I don’t.”
I stand outside his door, doing my job, until Belinda comes to relieve me, several hours early. “Harding says you’re to have the rest of the day off.”
“Thank you, Belinda,” I say. “I’ve organised to pick him up tomorrow so I’ll do my shift as usual.”
“As you wish.”
I head down the hall, then down a flight of stairs, until I reach Parvati’s room. Harry is sitting in a chair by her side, head slumped on her bed, out cold. I smile, pull up another chair and give his hand a squeeze. Then, I doze beside him until night falls and the stars burst into the night sky.