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SIYE Time:14:50 on 29th March 2024
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Framed
By MichiganMuggle

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Category: Post-DH/AB
Characters:None
Genres: Action/Adventure, Romance
Warnings: Dark Fiction, Death, Extreme Language, Mild Sexual Situations, Negative Alcohol Use, Rape
Story is Complete
Rating: R
Reviews: 193
Summary: After the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry Potter is training to be an Auror, and he is finally back together with Ginny Weasley. But when a young woman dies of poisoning at the Ministry’s Midsummer Ball, Harry is the first suspect, and he can only uncover the true murderer by working with his childhood rival, Draco Malfoy.
Hitcount: Story Total: 56146; Chapter Total: 1912
Awards: View Trophy Room




Author's Notes:
Feels like I haven’t written from Harry’s POV in forever. Probably because Chapter 13 took me nearly a year to write (100% Draco’s fault), so it has been some time. Due to length, this is being split into two parts.

Is anyone willing to beta Part 2 before I post it here? I currently have a conversation between Harry and Ron that is way too mature to be authentic. While I feel like both of them grew up a lot during Deathly Hallows, they are still very much teenage boys, and I need a stronger element of teen boy in this scene.

On a more random note, I recently revisited Chamber of Secrets, and I have decided my sympathies are entirely with Myrtle. Forget the injustice of being murdered by eyeballs. She was stuck in the middle of her awkward phase for all eternity. I’m imagining spending my entire afterlife in my middle school as a permanent twelve-year-old and I’m horrified.

Okay, I’ll shut up and let you read the chapter now.




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Chapter 16: Interviews, Part 1

June 22, 1998, 5:30 a.m.
The Burrow

They weren’t morning people, he and Ginny, but they did their best to become morning people because the early morning hours were the only ones where they were guaranteed privacy. When Ron and Hermione were in Australia, he and Ginny had become accustomed to sneaking into each other’s beds once Arthur and Molly were asleep, and they had grown quite bold with their hands in their nighttime explorations.

Then his friends had returned, and Harry had learned that Ron’s hearing could be quite sharp when he was motivated to play watchman. With Hermione living with her parents again, he had little incentive to turn a blind eye. Two days after his return, Ginny had commented that, if she didn’t know that the duplication charm didn’t work on humans, she would have thought that Ron had performed it on himself so there would always be an older brother to supervise herself and Harry.

But these early morning hours were theirs, and Ron slept too late and too deeply, as did any potential duplicate Rons, to know they were sneaking into the orchard, far beyond sight of the house. While Harry did miss his sleep, seeing Ginny at sunrise more than made up for it. It had become his favorite part of the day: the sight of Ginny’s vivid hair at sunrise, the smell of dewy grass, the slight chill of the morning air, and the warm weight of his sleepy girlfriend in his arms.

That morning, they were naked on a blanket, and boldness with their hands had turned into boldness with their mouths, which was very new territory for both of them. When they were done and both contented, they lingered on their blanket, with Ginny in his arms. By the time Molly and Arthur woke, they would both be dressed and playing Quidditch, but this time was theirs.

“I wish you didn’t have to go into work,” she said.

He kissed her. “Me too. But you’re busy too. You’re going over to Luna’s with Hermione today.”

“I’m kind of dreading it, much as I love seeing Luna.”

When Harry, Ron, and Hermione had escaped from the Lovegood home, Xenophilius had been imprisoned by Death Eaters. He’d been tortured so badly that no one knew if he would recover. Amazingly enough, Luna did not blame Harry, Ron, or Hermione for this. A healer visited the partially rebuilt home daily, which was part of a health program Kingsley had implemented to deal with the aftermath of the war, but Luna dealt with the majority of her father’s care.

She had also inherited the running of The Quibbler, which was the reason for Ginny and Hermione’s visit. Worried about the load on Luna’s shoulders, they had agreed to help write the summer issues. Both girls had been busy with interviews and writing while Ron and Harry were at the Ministry. The July issue was devoted to the aftermath of the war, and they had interviewed dozens of people who had either fought in the Battle of Hogwarts or else been displaced during Voldemort’s takeover of the Ministry.

“That’s understandable. You’re a good friend, Ginny. She’s lucky to have you.”

“And I’m lucky to have her. It’s just sad. She’s talking about not coming back to Hogwarts because it would mean putting her dad in St. Mungo’s.”

“September is more than two months away,” he reminded her. “Xenophilius could make significant improvement by then.”

“But if he’s not, she’s not going back.” Ginny flipped over on to her belly. “Luna wants to be a magizoologist. You not only need N.E.W.T.s for that, you need schooling years past Hogwarts.”

“She can sit her N.E.W.T.s without attending Hogwarts.” He ran a hand over Ginny’s bare bum. “Not easily, I admit, but Luna is a Ravenclaw, and I’m sure Flitwick and McGonagall would set a self-study curriculum for her.”

“I don’t want to go back without her. I know how selfish that sounds, but you aren’t going back, Ron and Neville aren’t going back, and now Luna probably won’t go back.”

“This isn’t like last year. We’ll see each other. I will be there every Hogsmeade weekend and every Quidditch game I can get off work.” He kept his tone confident, but he was dreading it as much as she. He had loved his summer with Ginny and didn’t know how they would deal with a long distance relationship. “And you’ll have Hermione and your seventh year friends. And you’ll see Luna too; we’ll make it work if she doesn’t go back.”

Getting restless, Ginny started pulling her clothes on. “I just hate the thought of her alone with just Xenophilius for company. She’s solitary enough as is.”

“You forget that Ron, Neville, and I consider her to be our friend as well. We’ll get her out of the house. And your mum will make sure she is well fed.”

“You’d better take care of my friend.” Ginny crossed her arms over her chest. “Well? Are you getting dressed? It’s too easy to beat you at Quidditch if you’re naked.”

* * * *


12:30 p.m.
Auror Department, Ministry of Magic

After their Monday morning Magical Law class, Harry and Ron were not thrilled to find out that they would be assigned to Dawlish for the afternoon because Kelly, along with another female senior Auror, would be interviewing both Mandy Brocklehurst and Aimee Cartwright. While Harry had wanted to attend these interviews, he did understand the Auror policy that dictated that victims of sexual violence could only be interviewed by Aurors of the same sex.

Still he did not enjoy the prospect of spending hours with Dawlish, who was a walking library.

“Green trainees!” he said when Ron and Harry reported to his desk, joining Anthony Goldstein and Terry Boot. “We have a big afternoon of interviews lined up.” Harry and Ron exchanged excited glances. “You won’t be doing any of the questioning yet.” Less excited glances were exchanged. “However, this will be one of your more valuable training experiences.

“Your attention should focus on the questions asked. Pay attention to the language of the Aurors interviewing. Also, pay attention to those being interviewed. Their language, facial expressions, and body language. You’ll also be expected to provide a full transcript of all interviews.”

It was better than book work, but Harry longed for a more active role in the investigation.

“Who is being interviewed, sir?” he asked.

Dawlish passed a piece of parchment to him and Ron. “It’s quite an assortment of people. Some classmates, some family friends, a few cousins, some Hogwarts staff. Minerva McGonagall was quite prompt in sending Romilda’s records, so that gave us a decent start on finding people to interview. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the Daily Prophet. Their legal representative is fighting the order to surrender their photos. It could take weeks to untangle the bureaucracy, so we are going to go ahead with the sources that we currently have available.”

“Will we be permitted to read the records from Hogwarts, sir?” Anthony Goldstein asked.

“You may,” Dawlish replied. “I don’t think I need to remind anyone that anything you read is confidential and not to be discussed outside this department. It’s tempting when you know the parties involved, but it cannot be shared under any circumstance.”

The trainees all nodded.

“Come.” Dawlish slapped his hands on his knees and stood. “I’ll show you where you will be. It’s a room outside the interview room. There is a mirror that you will be able to see and hear through, although we will not be able to hear or see you.”

“We won’t be in the room?” Ron looked disappointed.

“No, it would be too stressful for the interviewees to be surrounded by Aurors. It’s the next best thing. Even when you are out of training, you will find yourself in the observation room from time to time. All right, our first interview is with Valerie Hawkins. Does anyone know who she is?”

The four young men all shook their heads.

“Creative director of Witch Weekly,” Dawlish stated. “Second in command to the Editor in Chief. Previously, Sharon Vane held this role, but after a scandal involving dieting potions and a dead model, Mrs. Vane was demoted to Beauty Director.”

“Very interesting,” Harry said.

“I heard you suspect the mother, Potter,” Dawlish said.

Harry put his hands up. “I have never said that.”

“Well, you should,” Dawlish said. “Always, always suspect the family. The deepest secrets are usually at home.”

With that, he lead them down the corridor to a door that Harry had always assumed opened to a broom cupboard, since it was the only one not labeled with a room number. The room, which was definitely not a broom cupboard, was much larger than the exterior suggested. It had a gleaming conference table, a series of brown leather armchairs, and even a side table stocked with coffee, tea, and water.

The trainees all claimed arm chairs that gave them a good view of the interview room, and Anthony Goldstein set up the transcription charm.

Valerie Hawkins was already in the conference room. The Aurors had not joined her yet, and Harry’s first thought was that she looked like a calculating woman. She was a tall, beautiful woman in her late thirties, and even Harry, who knew nothing about fashion, thought her ivory robes were very classy.

When Dawlish and Adams, a Green Auror, entered the interview room, Harry watched Valerie change her facial expression to one that was pleasant, bordering on blank. Interesting. He began writing his notes.

There were introductions and fetching of tea before Dawlish officially began the questioning.

“How long did you know the victim?” He asked.

“Since her infancy,” Hawkins said, her tone friendly and helpful. “Sharon frequently brought her children into work whenever it was the nanny’s day off. We all watched Romilda grow up.”

Adams, a wizard in his late twenties spoke up next, “And how would you describe the victim?”

“She was a clever, pretty girl, and she was always more interested in the magazine than either of her sisters. Everyone loved Romilda. When she was small, she was frequently in trouble for sneaking in the wardrobe room and playing with the designer robes. There would be missing sequins in the dress robes needed for the following week’s photo shoot and shoes with high heels broken off because a six-year-old had tried to walk in them.”

“And as she grew older?” Dawlish asked.

“Same excitement, better behavior,” Hawkins said. “She was being groomed to follow in her mother’s footsteps. Around the time she started Hogwarts, she stopped playing in the wardrobe room and began trailing the young models, pestering them with questions about their makeup and their boyfriends. If she were still with us, I expect she would have become a model herself in the next year or so. I suspect Sharon was trying to get her a contract, even though Romilda was still in school. Sharon began modeling when she very young–too young–and I think she would have expected the same of Romilda.”

“Is it unusual for models to be in school?” Adams asked.

“Not unusual, no. Modeling is a short-lived career, so many do start young. And the profession requires a figure that is near impossible to maintain after adolescence. But what’s best for the career isn’t always best for the girl.”

“Isn’t the best for Romilda?” Dawlish asked. “Or any girl of a young age?”

“Both. I’m not a mother, so I’m talking as an outsider here, but I’ve seen so many girls of fifteen, sixteen, or seventeen start modeling, and they are suddenly in an adult world where they are being offered alcohol, hallucinogenic potions, and sex. These girls aren’t ready for that. They are still students at Hogwarts or Beauxbatons or wherever they came from. And that would have been Romilda’s world had she started modeling.”

Harry couldn’t help but think that she didn’t feel that conflicted about the exploitation of young girls, as she would have found another field to work in if she were.

Dawlish continued, “But, as Sharon Vane has witnessed the same things, she could potentially shield her daughter from the worst?”

“I suspect Sharon’s idea of a terrible fate for her daughter would have been obscurity. She had fame, and a great deal of it, at a very young age. She and I were at Hogwarts together.”

Harry straightened up, feeling this would be where Valerie Hawkins would get personal and possibly nasty.

“Different houses, of course,” she continued. “She was a Slytherin and I was a Ravenclaw, but we were in the same year, so we knew each other. Our sixth year, she turned seventeen a month or so into the school year. Over the Christmas holidays, she did her first topless photo shoot and came back to school bragging about her new boyfriend, a 27-year-old photographer. And like that, every girl was talking about her, and every boy was wanking to her nude photo.”

Adams seemed to share Harry’s opinion that she was there to gossip.

“Is this relevant, Ms. Hawkins? Romilda wasn’t a model. So there was, in all probability, no adult photographer boyfriends and no nude photo shoots. We are concerned with what Romilda’s life was like, not what it could have been. What can you tell us about her life as a student, a daughter, a sister?”

“I don’t know much about her life at Hogwarts. I expect she was a leader. She took after her mother, so how could she not be? As a daughter, she was eager to please. She wore what her mother told her to wear, took the classes her mother suggested, befriended children from just the right families, and always skipped pudding because her mother never ate pudding. How’s that for a waste? The gift of a teenage metabolism, and she always skipped pudding, only to die before her metabolism had a chance to slow down.”

“And her relationship with her father?” Dawlish asked.

“I can only speculate. I’ve worked closely with Sharon for nearly two decades now, and Mortimer is still a shadowy figure to me. I could tell you how each of the Vane daughters takes her tea, but I have only seen Mortimer at the office once. She’s very controlling, you know. She doesn’t want her husband near the models lest he realize that women come younger than Sharon.” She said the last part in a mock whisper, as if sharing a dirty secret about the Vanes.

“And how did Romilda take her tea?” Dawlish asked.

Hawkins blinked. “Black, of course. Sugar and milk both have calories, dear. With one ice cube because she didn’t like it too hot. Sara prefers a touch of milk and two sugar cubes, while little Emilia likes hers very milky with half a sugar cube. You might be asking if sugar cubes can be divided, and yes, they can. Every single assistant Sharon Vane has ever had, and Merlin knows she goes through them quickly, has learned the charm that divides a sugar cube perfectly in half for the littlest Miss Vane.”

“And what was Romilda’s relationship with her sisters?” Adams asked.

“Well, they are sisters, best friends one moment, bitterest of enemies the next,” she said with a wave of her hand. “Romi was closest to Emilia in spite of the five year age difference. Sharon was grooming Romilda to be like her, while Romilda was grooming Emilia to be like Romilda. Sara is her own person, which never went over well with either Sharon or Romilda. She’s a sensitive, bookish type and not terribly bothered by her appearance. Over the Easter holidays, I heard Romilda make a comment about how Sara could fit into the sample robes too, if only Hufflepuff’s common room wasn’t so close to the kitchens. Sara’s a bit stout, if you didn’t know. And she said that right in front of Sharon, who didn’t reprimand Romilda for her cruelty, but instead took a pastry out of Sara’s hand and threw it in the rubbish. But other times, I have heard Romilda being quite sweet to Sara and comforting her when she was upset by something Sharon said to her.”

“I’m sorry, but what are sample robes?” Dawlish asked.

“The sample clothing that designers send us for photo shoots. They are all in the same size, which is why models all have the same body type. Romi was just the right size to fit into the sample robes.”

She held her hands a few inches apart, as if to indicate the waistline of a very small invisible woman.

Kelly Proudfoot and Ingrid Matthews, apparently back from interviewing Aimee and Mandy walked into the room. A smell of something sweet entered the room with them.

“What’d we miss?” Kelly asked in a whisper, even though the participants in the other room couldn’t hear her. She sat next to Ron and Harry, while Ingrid, a member of Team Purple, sat next to Anthony and Terry.

“Creative director of Witch Weekly is painting a very careful picture of Sharon Vane as a bad mother,” Harry whispered back.

“So, she agrees with you?”

“I don’t know,” Harry said. “She has an agenda. Not sure what it is, but she’s not here out of the goodness of her heart or out of affection for Romilda.”

“Drama. Good thing I brought snacks.” Kelly pulled some fresh biscuits out of a bag, which explained the sweet smell they had brought into the room. She slapped Ron’s hand when he tried to sneak a biscuit.

Adams was talking, “Do you know if Romilda was social when she was home on holidays? You mention seeing her over Easter. Did she mention seeing any of her friends? Or having dates?”

Valerie shrugged. “She mentioned a friend coming to stay. Robin, maybe? It was a girl from her dormitory.”

“Raven King?”

“Sounds right. It was a bird name. Other than that, I don’t know. I know Sharon had a dinner party that week, but I doubt the girls would have been permitted to invite their friends to that.”

“Do you know who any of the guests were?”

“Not really,” Valerie shrugged. “I got the impression it was as trip down memory lane for Sharon. All of the people she used to party with before she met Mortimer. I wasn’t a socialite in the seventies. I was too busy beginning my career.”

“Do you know of anyone else Romilda might have encountered on her Easter holiday?” Adams asked.

She shrugged. “She was at the office. Any number of people could have talked to her here. She saw her friend Robin, as I said. She might have talked to some of Sharon’s guests. Why? She wasn’t killed at Easter. Shouldn’t you be concerned who knew Romilda at the party?”

“We’re interested in her whereabouts during the last few months of her life, and anyone who might have taken a particular interest in her.”

“And you think one of her school friends did it? I don’t recall seeing an excessive number of teenagers at the ball. Wouldn’t your murderer likely be closer to home?”

She overplayed her hand on that one, Harry thought.

“Do you know of anyone with a motive to kill Romilda?” Dawlish asked.

She hesitated. “No. I just think it’s unlikely that a child did it, given the reports coming out of Hogwarts indicate it was chaos last year. Undoubtedly, it would have been easier to kill her at school at the Ministry of Magic if someone had been so inclined.”

It was a decent point, but Harry assumed Valerie Hawkins had no idea of what had happened to Romilda at Hogwarts.

“Thank you for your time, Ms. Hawkins. If you ever think of something else or learn something new, please let us know.”

There was shaking of hands, and then Valerie Hawkins was escorted from the interview room.

“So, what do we think, boys?” Ingrid asked the trainees.

“I think she told the truth,” Terry said. “But I think she told it slant.”

Anthony nodded. “She’s threatened by Sharon Vane, but she doesn’t have anything concrete on her.”

“I don’t think we learned anything new,” Ron said.

“We learned a bit about Romilda’s whereabouts over Easter,” Harry said. “But it’s not particularly enlightening.”

“It’s worth following up on,” Kelly said. She’d vacated her chair and was looking over Anthony’s shoulder at the transcript. “Oh dear, she really doesn’t like Sharon, does she?”

“Nope,” Harry said. “So, how did things go with Aimee and Mandy?”

Kelly sighed. “Not well. There seems to be a Fidelius charm at work because neither of them can answer any direct questions without choking. We tried some indirect questioning in the hopes they could reveal something, but eventually, we just got the impression we were re-traumatizing them, so we opted to leave rather than cause additional harm.”

Both Anthony and Terry looked quite grave, and Harry remembered that Ginny had told him that they were both close friends with Mandy, in addition to Terry being her ex-boyfriend.

“So Romilda wasn’t murdered because of the lifting of a Fidelius?” Harry said.

“It doesn’t seem so,” Ingrid said. “It’s possible another Secret Keeper could have been used in Romilda’s case, but it’s unlikely.” She looked up at Kelly. “It’s us next?”

Kelly nodded. “Poppy Pomfrey, 1:15. Nearly a decade out of Hogwarts, and I still feel she’s about to scold me for playing Quidditch too roughly or for not wearing a coat outside.”

“You played Quidditch?” Harry asked. He wondered if she was a fellow Seeker. She certainly had the small size that was advantageous.

“Hufflepuff Captain, 1988-1990,” she said. She’d nodded at Ron, “Charlie will remember me well.”

“Let’s go,” Ingrid said.

The two women left, and Dawlish and Adams joined them in the observation room. Within a minute, the two female Aurors escorted Madam Pomfrey in.

Their first few questions centered on the condition in which she’d first found Romilda. The school healer was unflinchingly detailed in her report, and if she had to stop at any point and blink hard, she always continued ahead with her description. Harry’s fellow trainees all looked as uncomfortable as he felt as they heard what their female classmates had endured.

“Is it possible that Romilda could have conceived?” Ingrid asked.

“No,” Madam Pomfrey said. “This was seven and a half months ago. While there are certainly charms to disguise pregnancy, they would not have continued after her death. There were three girls who were assaulted at Hogwarts during the last school year, and none of them became pregnant.”

“Was that pure luck?” Kelly asked.

Harry had no idea what she was getting at, but he did note that Madam Pomfrey seemed to shift in her chair. “There’s nothing lucky about sexual assault,” she said, harshly. “If they did not become pregnant, that’s a small mercy, not luck.”

Ingrid seemed to be choosing her words carefully. “As I am sure you have heard, many people have been given immunity for war time acts that would typically require sentencing. Using an Unforgivable to save the lives of innocents, for instance. So, if someone were to administer a contraceptive potion to assaulted victims who were in no condition to consent to its administration, that person could receive immunity.”

Oh. That’s what she had done.

If anything, Madam Pomfrey looked more uncomfortable. “Yes, I did administer the 24-hour potion to Romilda, as well as to Aimee Cartwright and Mandy Brocklehurst, as well as a potion that would protect them from any sexually transmitted infections. I didn’t list either of these in their official records.”

She sighed and looked out the magical window, which was showing rain that day.

“I am not proud of it. I do support the law that prohibits administering either contraceptive or abortive potions to a patient without their consent. I do believe girls and women should be empowered to make their own reproductive choices. But with the girls, we had no idea if or when they would wake, so they were in no position to make any decision. With Aimee–she was first, you know–I discussed the matter at length with a couple of my colleagues, and we all agreed that it was a lesser evil than potentially allowing her to become pregnant with the child of one of her attackers.”

“You wanted to minimize harm,” Ingrid said.

“Yes.”

“Was there an official investigation into what happened to the girls?” Kelly asked.

“Not exactly. To his credit, Snape did tighten up rules after the attacks. Earlier curfews, more professors patrolling the corridor. But were any of the likely suspects questioned? Not to my knowledge.”

“Who were the likely suspects?”

“No one is really certain,” Madam Pomfrey said. “That’s the trouble. It is a pretty universal suspicion that the older Slytherin boys–the 6th and 7th years–were responsible, and I have no doubt the ringleaders were there. But just because a group of people looks guilty doesn’t mean that they are.”

“Who would you consider to be most likely?” Kelly asked. When Madam Pomfrey hesitated, she added, “You won’t be ruining anyone’s life here if your suspicion is wrong. It’s simply a starting point of who to interview.”

“Gregory Goyle, who finished his final year in Slytherin,” Madam Pomfrey said, “and Geoffrey Bulstrode, who will be a seventh year Slytherin. While I think Vincent Crabbe also falls under this category, he did not survive the Battle. Possibly Markus Weatherby, who will be starting his seventh year in Ravenclaw.”

“What is it about these boys that sets them apart from the others?”

“Cruelty,” Madam Pomfrey said. “Last year, certain elder students were permitted to administer punishments. These four had a certain enthusiasm for the Cruciatus.”

“Did other students use Unforgivables on classmates?”

“Yes, but no others were quite as effective. There needs to be both force and emotion behind an Unforgivable. Not all students who supported the Carrows had the necessary inner fury.”

“Is there any possibility that not all of the attackers were students?” Kelly asked.

“It’s possible. More than a few girls were overheard saying that they would not want to be caught alone with Amycus Carrow, and he certainly was caught staring at the young girls often enough. I know Minerva made it her responsibility to trail little Ginny Weasley, whom Carrow seemed to have a particular fascination with.”

Harry’s stomach clenched. While Ginny had certainly mentioned that the Carrows had been terrible, she had never mentioned this.

“Was there any reason to believe she might have been attacked?” Ingrid asked.

“Ginny Weasley? Not as far as I know.”

“So the three girls who were attacked, what were their parents told?”

“I don’t know,” Madam Pomfrey said. “Under Dumbledore, I was always responsible for notifying the parents of children under my care. If the case was critical–injuries sustained in class or due to Quidditch–sometimes the headmaster would add his signature, but Snape completely took that role over, or so he told me, and I wasn’t allowed to contact any parents at all that year. None of the girls were well enough to go home for the Christmas holidays, so they must have been told something.”

Madam Pomfrey answered some more questions about both Romilda’s experiences and the general culture at Hogwarts the previous year, then the Aurors rotated through a long string of interview subjects. The senior Aurors seemed in agreement as to which interviews would be performed by certain Aurors and who would be in the observation rooms.

Some of the interviews were pointless and seemed to serve no purpose other than to provide catharsis for the person being interviewed.

“She was just the most darling girl,” sobbed the Fashion Director for Witch Weekly. “She loved helping me in the wardrobe room. She really had quite an eye for fashion, and she wasn’t afraid to tell me when I outfitted the girls wrong. She’d say, ‘Hope, can’t you see this crushed velvet is all wrong on the blond model? Put it on the mysterious brunette over there.’”

Others were outright ridiculous.

“I was gazing in my crystal ball the evening of the ball,” said the Vanes’ elderly next door neighbor. “And I saw danger coming for poor Romilda.” She shook her head and sighed. “Her father should have never angered the goblins. I could see, clear as day, that Swiss goblins were coming to take her life as punishment.”

Others seemed to trying to sort through their own suspicions.

“Romilda grew strange in the spring,” said Flora Clearwater, who had just completed her fifth year in Ravenclaw. “Not haunted and jumpy like she was when she came out of the coma in winter. She became moody and unpredictable. Sometimes, she was angry and bent on revenge. Other times, she was dreamy and didn’t seem to know where she was. I started wondering if she had begun abusing pain potions.”

Others got straight to the point.

“Those boys tampered with her memory,” Professor McGonagall stated. “I’m positive of it. It became clear that all three girls had been put under the Fidelius because none of them could speak of their attacks, but they used a memory charm too. Aimee never resumed classes, but Romilda and Mandy did, and we watched them closely to see if there were any boys or men they shrank from. It was tricky at first, as they were scared of everyone, including us, but as time went on, neither Mandy nor Romilda reacted specifically to any person or persons.”

Others had theories.

“She did it to herself,” said a cousin of Romilda’s. “Have you met my aunt and uncle? I would do anything to get out of that house.”

The interviews were like a giant confusing quilt. Harry felt there must be a pattern somewhere, but he was too close to see it. The only things that seemed consistent were that no one liked Sharon Vane, and that everyone thought that Romilda had been attacked by Slytherins.

* * * *



8:00 p.m.
The Burrow

They didn’t finish observing the interviews until well past dinner time. Ginny would not be pleased about them being home so late. He didn’t like it much either, though he had to admit Dawlish had been right about this being an excellent training experience. He certainly had a great deal to think about.

When they got to the Burrow, Molly was in the kitchen with a cup of tea, but Ginny was nowhere in sight.

“Hello, dears,” she said. “I put a warming charm on your dinners. Harry, you received an owl today.”

He found the parchment on the counter. It was from Thom Wright, who was in charge of the decontamination of number 12 Grimmauld Place.

Renovating his townhouse had proven to be quite the project. Bill had been the first one to enter Grimmauld Place after the battle. He had gone in as a favor to Harry, as Harry had been attending a couple dozen funerals in May. Bill had donned full cursebreaker protective robes and deactivated anything left by Yaxley and his mates to cause death or injury.

Kreacher had been next. In exchange for removing Wallburga’s portrait from the entrance, Harry had given him permission to keep any Black artifacts not tainted with dark magic in either his cupboard or the attic. Kreacher had also been offered a bedroom of his own, but he had declined, so Harry planned to give him the coziest cupboard any house-elf ever had.

After that, Harry had gone through the library with Gawain Robards, who had been intrigued by the amount of books on the dark arts Harry had inherited. Not wanting to live surrounded by volumes on curses, Harry had permitted Gawain to take whatever he wanted for the Auror reference library. He wasn’t sure if he should be alarmed at how his boss had drooled over some of the more rare and menacing volumes and hoped it was merely the Ravenclaw in Gawain. Once those books had been moved to the Ministry, Harry had marked the rest of the Dark Arts books for destruction, keeping only the wizarding history and literature books on the shelves.

After that, it had been time to hire his decontaminator, Thom, and his decorator, Elisabeth, who was a close friend of Andromeda’s. If Kingsley had not negotiated with the goblins about the Gringotts break in, he would have never been able to afford it, as the goblins had initially wanted to claim half the contents of his vault for restorations. Kingsley had made an agreement that they could seize the contents of the Lestrange vault instead, arguing that the Lestranges had been the ones to store stolen objects on goblin property in the first place, in exchange for them leaving Harry, Ron, and Hermione’s vaults alone. As the Lestrange vault was four times the worth of Harry, Ron, and Hermione’s vaults combined, with plenty of goblin silver inside, the goblins had given in as gracefully as was possible for goblinkind.

Thom had been busy at work, getting rid of doxies and small rodents, identifying more minor dark objects that had not dangerous enough to be included in Bill’s sweep, and dusting oversized chandeliers. He kept in regular correspondence with Harry, and his owls never, ever contained good news.

On the greenhouse that Harry had never set foot into due to its haunted appearance: “There isn’t a single plant in there that won’t try to kill you.”

On the attic: “Congrats! You have a school of ghouls. Normally, ghouls are solitary creatures, but yours have bonded.”

On the hallway cupboards: “One of my workers went into a cupboard, hasn’t come out, and we can’t find him. Where does it go?”

On a wardrobe in one of the third floor bedrooms: “There is a family of furry creatures living in there. I can’t ID them. I brought in my mate, who once interned with Newt Scamander, and he has no idea what they are either. Seem to be friendly little things though.”

On mystery pets: “There are lots of toxins in this house. You really shouldn’t leave your cat here while we’re working.”

And so, the greenhouse plants had been burned and their ashes banished.

Silencing and deodorizing charms had been placed on the attic, as the ghouls were harmless but loud.

Larry, the missing worker, turned up in the library the next day and he had stories.

Luna and a family friend had turned out to inspect the furry wardrobe dwellers and declared them to be a magical marsupial from New Guinea, and Luna was in the process of domesticating them.

Harry and Ginny arrived and found there was, in fact, a black-and-white cat living in his house. Unsure if she was a dark creature or an Animagus left by Yaxley and his mates, they took the feline to the Magical Menagerie. After an examination, she was declared to be a perfectly normal, dark magic-free cat. As Yaxley and his fellow Death Eaters had not bothered to secure the house after they had trashed it, she must have just wandered in on a cold winter’s day. Ginny had named her Domino, and she was now living at the Burrow and sleeping in Ginny’s bed.

Harry unrolled the parchment from Thom reluctantly, hoping he hadn’t discovered some dark creature lurking in the parlor. He, Ron, and Neville were hoping to move into the house in September, but it seemed unlikely that the house would be ready by then. He knew Kreacher, who was currently helping out at Andromeda’s, was also very eager to move back in.

Harry,

After the biting candelabras, the ravenous cupboards, the swinging chandeliers, the rats, spiders, ghouls, and whatever that was living in the wardrobe, I declare your home to be free of unwanted creatures and objects. My staff has one more full day of work where they will wash the walls, mop the kitchen floor, tear out moldy carpeting, and remove the wallpaper you called “dizzying.”

Your decorator should be able to begin work on Wednesday morning.

It’s been a pleasure doing business with you.

Thom

P.S. My last bill will be substantial. One of those mutant rats bit me, and Larry is still upset about the vanishing cupboard.


“Yes!” he said. “Ron, the decontaminators are all done! One more day, and they’ll be out, and the decorator will be in!”

“Harry, you aren’t eating,” Molly said, her lips pursed.

Harry realized she had put roast beef and mashed potatoes in front of him. He also knew her displeased expression was due to her dislike of his and Ron’s decision to move out rather than Harry ignoring his plate. He supposed he shouldn’t have shown his excitement at moving out of her house.

“Sorry,” he said. “It looks delicious. Where is Ginny?”

“Upstairs, I suppose. I would have thought she would come down when you both got home.”

Harry ate his dinner quickly and washed his plate, so he could go upstairs and tell Ginny the good news. He took the stairs two at a time and knocked on her bedroom door. There was no answer, so he went to his own room to change his clothes and figured he’d look for Ginny outside.

When he opened his bedroom door, he found his girlfriend sitting cross legged on his bed, a book in her lap. And on Ginny’s face was an expression of pure fury.

“Hi?” He unconsciously backed a few steps out of his room.

He had seen Ginny extremely angry on a few occasions before, but only once before had it been directed at him. The day after the Battle of Hogwarts, Ginny’s relief at Harry being alive wore off and a year’s worth of fear and anger had kicked in. She’d screamed at Harry for a solid twenty minutes in the Gryffindor seventh year boys’ dormitory.

Her expression today rivaled her post-battle face, and he knew this would not end well.

“So. I came in here to borrow your copy of Quidditch Through the Ages. Do you know what I happened to find inside?”

Harry’s mind was a blank. As far as he knew, nothing had been in the book. Had Ron borrowed it and absentmindedly put some smutty pictures inside?

“Er . . .”

She wasn’t waiting for an answer. “This!” She raised some parchment in the air. “And this! And this! Were you going to tell me about this?”

He had no idea why she was getting so worked up over parchment, until he leaned and recognized it. The mystery letters that had been delivered by the tawny owl that should have never been able to get into the Burrow. His stomach sank.

“I did show you that,” he pointed out. “We agreed it was probably a weird prank from a classmate or something.”

“You showed me the first one. You did not let me know that two more letters followed.”

“Because we agreed it was a joke!”

“Why would you save a joke? You were storing these just in case. And one letter might have been a prank, but three? Who is sending these to you?”

“I don’t know! Nothing in them makes sense!”

“Have you been telling anyone about these, Harry? Ron? Hermione?”

He shook his head. “I thought I was just being paranoid. I thought about asking Hermione to see if she might have some theories as to how that bird got onto the grounds but . . .”

”Hermione’s not your girlfriend!”

“I know that! I . . .”

“You promised me. You fucking promised me, Harry. Do you remember after the battle when you told me that there would be no more secrets?” He didn’t respond because he had promised her exactly that. “But nothing has changed, has it? Ron and Hermione are still your confidants, and I’m just here, conveniently off to the side.”

“But I haven’t been talking to Ron or Hermione! I just thought Hermione would have some insight, you know, because she’s brainy.”

That was the wrong thing to say.

“I’m brainy! I received nine O.W.L.s. I believe you had seven?” Ouch. “Even if I didn’t have brains, I am still your girlfriend and the one you are supposed to confide in first.”

“I know, I know. I just wanted it to be nothing.”

“Well, if it turns out to be something, I’m sure you’ll just run to Ron and Hermione like you always do.”

With that, she slammed out of the room.

Harry flopped face first onto his bed. Why hadn’t he told Ginny about the follow up letters? He’d had his reasons at the time. Because none of the letters made sense. Because he thought they might make sense if he just mulled it over. Because Ginny had been crying over Fred, and he didn’t want to bother her with something so ridiculous. Because it had been too sunny and beautiful to bother with mysteries. Because it had been too rainy and miserable to bother with mysteries.

And yes, he was a creature of habit, and he was unused to confiding in anyone other than Ron and Hermione. He had thought he was over that. He had told Ginny so much over the last month, and he’d been repeatedly surprised at how well she understood him, but he wasn’t used to talking to her first. And had the long conversations lessened once Ron and Hermione were back and his attention was divided?

He felt a cut on his face and realized he’d landed in the perfect position to get a parchment cut on his cheekbone. He glared at the offending letter. And he instantly sat up.

Merlin. He’d seen that illegible handwriting somewhere. And recently.

The letter writer’s sloppy cursive resembled that in Romilda Vane’s diaries.
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