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The Brewmaster's Mystery
By Mutt N Feathers

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Category: Post-Hogwarts
Characters:Harry/Ginny
Genres: Drama
Warnings: Sexual Situations
Story is Complete
Rating: R
Reviews: 150
Summary: MMB is growing, Charlie and Seph are about to be parents and Harry and Ginny will be wed in mere months; life appears to be perfect. But when unexplained failures begin occurring around the brewery, Harry can't help but wonder if something is afoot.
Hitcount: Story Total: 88143; Chapter Total: 2626





Author's Notes:
Here's the new chapter, Happy Monday! I'm hoping to continue my once a week updating, but I've had a medical set back, and I'm unsure of how much work I can get done each day. I will continue to try. The song is by Rob Thomas. This is unbeta'ed, so if you find mistakes, they're my fault. Thanks for reading, MNF




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Chapter 5:
Cradlesong

November 18, 1999
Connor POV:


“Mummy, wheres me and you and Daddy-Charlie goin'?” I wondered. We were at the farm. We didn't live since Harry moved out. We live in Daddy-Charlie's house near the dragons. Mummy said we come back to the farm for Christmas and stay until it gets warm again. She wanted Bumpy to live here after coming out of her tummy.

“I have something very special to show you,” Mummy said. “Harry and Ginny and Grandmummy and Pop-Pop Weasley and Grammy Andi and Teddy will be there too.”

“Okay.” Daddy-Charlie picked me up and tossed me in the air. It always made me laugh when he did that. Then he put me down on his shoulders. I liked when I sit up here. I can play with his whiskers. Mummy doesn't like them. She told Daddy-Charlie to shave them or she wouldn't kiss him. I think she's fibbing. She still kisses him. A lot.

We walked past the greenhouse and over to where there was a big tree. A new bench was under the tree. Mummy sat down and asked me to sit next to her. I couldn't curl up on her lap any more. Bumpy was in the way.

“Do you know what today is?” Mummy asked. I thought about it real hard.

“Turdsday?” Mummy smiled at me and everyone else laughed a little. I laughed too. I wasn't sure what was funny.

“I think you mean Thursday,” Mummy corrected. I nodded, even though that's what I said. “No, that's not it.”

“It's not Tursday?” I said it slowly so she'd hear I said it right.

“Oh, no sweetheart, it is Thursday, but that's not what's I mean.” I think Bumpy is making Mummy nutty. “Today is something very special.”

“Oh, what?”

“Today is your Daddy-Sirius's birthday, and since you're such a big boy, I thought we could remember it.” Mummy always remembers peoples birthdays.

“How many fingers old is he?” I knew Mummy was more than ten fingers. That's old.

“He would have been forty fingers today. That's all my fingers, all of Daddy-Charlie's, all of Harry's and all of yours, put together.” I look at her. She must be making a joke.

“Whoa,” I told her. “That's really old.”

“You tell her, Connor,” Harry said. Everyone laughed and Mummy looked at Harry with the angry-eyes look she gave me when I painted on the carpet last week. I didn't know what Harry had done wrong. It was a lot of fingers, and that's what I told her. Mummy shook her head and then took my hands in hers. I liked to hold Mummy's hands. They are really soft.

“You know how we talk with Daddy-Sirius at night, right before you say your prayers?”

“Uh-huh.” I liked to take to my daddy in heaven.

“Well, you're getting to be older now, and Daddy-Charlie and I thought it might be good for you to have a special place to remember your Daddy-Sirius. A place you could come and talk with him, if you had things to say that you didn't want us to hear.”

“That's a good idea, Mummy. I can tell Daddy-Sirius my secrets.” Mummy is very smart.

“Yes you can. Plus, Harry was very close to Daddy-Sirius, so was Ginny. And did you know Harry's daddy and Teddy's daddy were best friends with your Daddy?” Mummy asked. I nodded my head. Harry told me all about daddy bein' a 'Rauder.

“They use magic and change into a wolf and a deer and a dog and run in the forest,” I told her.

“Yes they did. Very good remembering my little man,” she said with a kiss on my forehead. “Because of that, see what we had put on the back of the bench?” I looked where she was pointing, and there was a big deer and a wolf and a dog playing in the woods.

“Cool. I like it!”

“I'm glad you do, big guy,” Daddy-Charlie said as he messed up my hair. I didn't like him messing it up. When it gets messy I have to comb it, and the comb gets stuck. The Mummy gets out her brush. I don't like the brush.

“Any time you want to come out here, you just tell one of us grown ups, we'll walk you out. But, you have to come with one of us, okay?” Harry asked.

“I promise, Harry.” I nodded and everything. Mummy said I couldn't leave the house or patio without a grown up.

“Connor, honey, would you like to say anything to your Daddy-Sirius for his birthday?” Grandmummy asked me.

“Could we sing for him? He was a good fellow, wasn't he?” I thought he was a good man. Mummy always said he was.

“Sure we can,” Mummy told me, and it made me feel better. I knew Daddy was good. “He was a very good fellow.”

We sang the song together, and I saw Mummy and Ginny both start to cry. I didn't like it when they were sad. I stood up and kissed my Mummy and it made her smile.

“Harry, you pick me up to kiss Ginny too?” Harry did what I asked. Ginny smiled when I kissed her. Daddy-Charlie sat down next to Mummy, so I stayed with Harry. We were quiet. Then my tummy growled.

“I's hungry, Mummy. We eat soon?”

“You sound just like your Daddies, Connor” she said and everyone laughed. I didn't know why again, but I laughed too. So did Teddy.

“Sure, sweetheart. Beaghy cooked us all supper.” Mummy said and I cheered. I liked Beaghy's cooking.

“We all eating?”

“We sure are little man,” Daddy-Charlie said, and I cheered again. When Mummy and Daddy-Charlie stood up, the picture on the back was clear. Teddy saw it and started pointing.

“Doggie, Doggie, woof-woof.” Teddy was starting to talk. Mummy and Grammy Andi said to tell him a good job when he talked.

“That's right, Teddy. And the wolf says Awooo.” Teddy did it with me. I looked at the deer, but I didn't know what noise they made.

“Harry, what noise a deer make?” Harry looked confused for a minute.

“I don't know what noise they make, but they can stamp on the ground with their hooves. What if we say they go 'stomp-stomp-stomp'?” When he said stomp, he made it sound very low and loud. We all did stomp-stomp together. Then we did the other sounds. We did them all the way back to the house. As we came in the door, Mummy said she had a headache. She gets them a lot.


Monday, November 22, 1999
MMB Magical Brewery
Seph POV:


“Seph, you look awfully knackered,” Ginny said as I spoke with her behind the receptionist desk. Since Susan had taken the month off for her wedding and then honeymoon, Ginny had offered to fill in. The entire Quidditch league was on break until after the new year.

“Sleep is hard to come by when you're this pregnant,” I explained. “I've also been worried about work. The timing of the citation was not good, not with the expansion into markets in the north. This is also the first time we've introduced a bottle conditioned a beer.”

“I'm sure it's going to be great, Seph,” Ginny comforted, putting her arm around me. “Walter and Harry did so many test runs of it; and you're selling it with those special glasses, everything will be great.” Her enthusiasm was infectious. I wanted to believe the way she did, I just couldn't shake this feeling of foreboding. After the moulded hops and rat issue here we had a minor break-in at North London Brewing. We couldn't find anything taken, but the artwork in the lobby had been vandalised and a derogatory name for the female workers was spray-painted across the staff door. The police said it was just local youths getting into mischief, and they'd had similar problems at other local businesses, so I was sure they were right. To top it off, new beers always gave me butterflies in the stomach.

“Come on,” Ginny said as she directed me to the door to the Stag, Dragon and Flaming Crown and ushered me into a chair. Seamus was behind the bar, charming the spots off the still warm from the wash glasses and neatly putting them away. He had the Wellington style glasses we needed for our holiday ale, Mighty Mouthful of Mistletoe. This was the bottle conditioned brown ale which was making me so nervous. It was perhaps the most adventurous beer we'd ever undertaken, the lambics included. I wasn't sure when Harry approached me about doing an American style Brown Ale, the wort flavoured with whole cinnamon sticks and vanilla beans. The grains were roasted to give them a caramel and nutty flavour supporting the regular beer flavours.

“Seamus, give Seph here a tall glass of moo-juice and I'm going to order her something from the kitchen. Anything you don't want?” she asked.

“Avoid beef, its been repeating on me something fierce. Chicken would be better,” I explained. “Oh, and nothing fried.”

“Yeah, I learned that after making you breakfast the other day, and the fried bread did you in,” she joked before disappearing behind the kitchen doors. It was still early, not quite eleven. We didn't have many patrons yet.

“Yare lookin' worried, boss lady,” Seamus said in his thick brogue. “Whas got yer mind all twisted? Those whackspurts o' Luna's got ye dizzy?”

“I somehow doubt that,” I replied. I loved Luna, but she was a strange girl. I appreciated her take on life, however. Luna was working at the Ministry in the newly formed Ministry of Ecological Conservation while also studying for her Muggle degree in Ecology. The best thing about Luna, however, was what she was teaching Connor. He knew all about different animals, Muggle and magical. She'd also taught him about how where the animals lived were important, and what would happen if those places were polluted or ruined. Between her lessons on animals, and Neville's on plants; my son was well on his way to knowing more about the environment than either Charlie or I.

“Well, somethin' has yer mind all wonky? Barkeeps are good listeners, tell me yer problems,” he urged and I couldn't help but be taken in by his congenial personality and warm tone.

“I'm a little worried about the new beer,” I confessed. “We're taking a risk, and I'm not sure it's worth it. It's not that I don't trust Harry, it's more...” I paused to gather my thoughts. “We've created so many new brews in the last year, I just think we should spend time perfecting some of those rather than creating all these short release beers.”

Seamus nodded and wiped out a tankard and then summoned the milk from the cooler. After pouring a large glass, he charmed it, making it my favourite: chocolate milk. “I'm new to the brewing part of the business, but me Mam and Dad run a pub up in Dublin, which means I've seen beers come and go. We all tried the Mighty Mouthful, Seph, and it's good. Harry wouldn't risk everythin' just for the sake of makin' a new brew. He might not seem like it, but he can be cautious. Now, anythin' else worryin' ya?”

“Just being pregnant.”

“I can't do anythin' 'bout that, but, the guy behind ya can,” Seamus told me, and I spun around on the stool to find my husband standing there. Charlie opened his arms up to me, and I leaned into his chest. When he folded me into his embrace, the world felt better.

“Got a message from a red-headed harpy saying you were out of sorts,” he whispered. “Can I make it better?”

“You already have,” I sort of moaned.

“Why don't you drink down that glass, and then I'm going to take you away from here for the rest of the day?” I pulled back to look at him, and he was wearing a face which hid nothing of his intentions.

“Don't you need to work?”

“Nope,” he said popping the “p”, “couple of the old guys took the mated pair up to Hogwarts to show the kids in Hagrid's classes. With them gone the preserve is pretty quiet. The un-paired females have nothing to bicker over. Nasty lasses, especially the males mate.”

“She has every right to be,” I took her defence. “Imagine how hard it must be for her. Five females in the territory, and no other males around. They're probably trying to lure him away. Good looking guy like that must get hit on often.” Charlie realised I was speaking in a joking style about our own relationship and my worries about the female dragon-wranglers who often flirted with him.

“He's bonded to her and that bond means more to him than anything. Regardless of what the others might offer, he's a one female male.” Charlie leaned down and put his forehead against mine. “There is nothing in the world more precious to him than his mate and their children. He could lose everything else in the world, but still have them, and he'd be the happiest dragon on the planet.”

I stretched up to kiss him, realising how silly my worries about a beer really were. As long as I had Charlie and Connor, Harry and our family I could weather whatever else might come my way.
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