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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: 56132; Chapter Total: 2565
Awards: View Trophy Room






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Chapter 6: Apologies for Breakfast

May 13, 1998
The Burrow

Crack. I’m sorry about the year of worry. Crack. I’m sorry I took Ron and Hermione with me. Crack. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you what we were doing. Crack. I’m sorry I hurt Ginny. Crack. I’m sorry that the break-up wasn’t enough to protect her. Crack. I’m sorry we put you into hiding too. Crack. I’m sorry Teddy will have to grow up as parentless as me. Crack. Above all, I’m sorry about Fred. And Tonks. And Lupin. And Mad-Eye. Crack. Bloody hell, I’m even sorry about Snape.

Harry Potter was cracking eggs. At almost eighteen, he could have prepared breakfast with magic. He was of age, and necessity had forced him to learn many cooking and household spells over the last year. Today, he wanted to prepare the meal slowly in the Muggle fashion. In every crack of an egg, or swirl of a whisk, or flip of bacon, he was telling the Weasley family everything he could not bear to say out loud.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t say the things out loud, but he knew everyone would talk over him. It’s not your fault. Voldemort is the cause of everything. You did all you could. No one could expect more from you. But he had to say all of the things that churned in his belly, so he said it by cooking breakfast, by de-gnoming the garden, by fixing the broken porch step, by keeping a pot of tea brewing. Finding absolution in these acts, Harry now understood why Molly cooked so much. It was an apology for all the things that could not be fixed, for protection that did not go far enough. It was more than that. It was an offering.

It was seven, and Molly was not up yet. Clearly, she would be having one of her days. Some days, she was the Mrs. Weasley he had always known: warm, loving, and quick to spoon a third helping on your plate when you’re weren’t looking. Other days she was a ghost Molly. She stayed in her bedroom, wearing a dressing gown so ancient she had probably had it when she nursed Fred and George. Either Ginny or Mr. Weasley would bring food up to her, which she did eat. Even the most depressed Weasleys rarely said no to food.

Harry could hear Mr. Weasley moving about in the bathroom upstairs. Arthur was dependable as clockwork, and Harry knew he’d leave for the Ministry at precisely seven-twenty-five. He had been the strong one for everyone in the family, but Harry noticed he had started drinking an extra glass of wine in the evenings, the only sign that all was not well with Arthur Weasley.

Even with Bill and Fleur back at Shell Cottage and Ron and Hermione in Australia, the Burrow was full. George wasn’t ready to go back to the flat he’d shared with his twin and was sleeping in his childhood room. Percy was also back in his childhood room, and Harry, guilt recognizing guilt, knew he would stay at the Burrow as long as George was there. Charlie was in England for one more week before returning to Romania. Once Charlie left, Harry would move out of Ron’s room and into Bill and Charlie’s childhood room. Ginny, of course, was at home.

“Ah, Harry. I thought I smelled breakfast.” Arthur entered the kitchen.

Sorry I put my hand down your daughter’s knickers while you slept last night. Sorry I am not actually sorry I put my hand down your daughter’s knickers.

“Morning, Mr. Weasley. I was up early.”

“Are you the only one up? Is Ginny up?”

Harry frowned. “I don’t think so. Her door was closed.”

He knew that much because he had closed Ginny’s door behind him when he had left her room that morning, but he wasn’t about to tell Arthur that. He did wonder, at times, exactly what Mr. Weasley knew or suspected about his relationship with Ginny.

Both Molly and Arthur approved of Ginny dating Harry. Molly did watch them a bit more closely than she had in the past, but they were also both still children in Molly’s mind, and Harry felt certain she did not know that Harry and Ginny frequently slept in the same bed. With Arthur, Harry had no idea what the older man did or didn’t know. He knew Arthur to be a thoughtful observer who was not easily fooled.

“It may be a late start for everyone this morning,” Mr. Weasley said, his expression unreadable. “Are you off to the Ministry this morning?”

“I am, but not for a few more hours. My meeting with Kingsley is at ten, and then I’ll meet Ginny at the Leaky Cauldron for lunch at one, and then we’ll both go to Andromeda’s to see Teddy.”

“Do you have an answer for Kingsley?”

“I do. I am joining the Aurors.”

“Ah,” Arthur said, and Harry could not tell if the older man approved or disapproved of his decision.

Harry had known what he wanted to do as soon as Kingsley had issued the invitation, but he had known the decision was no longer his alone to make. Ginny had been very supportive of the idea, and he almost wished she had been otherwise, even though she didn’t like the idea of a year’s separation any more than he did.

“They’ll need you to help rebuild the Ministry,” she’d said. “Otherwise, they’ll muck it up like they always do.”

While Harry had wanted to be an Auror since he was fourteen, he was reluctant to sign the paperwork. That would mean he could no longer spend lazy evenings in the common room with Ginny, or play their favorite game of seeing how long they could snog in a private corner of the library before Madam Pince caught them, or watch Ginny’s long red hair whip behind her in Quidditch practice.

His boyhood would be officially over.

Of course, it had ended long ago, perhaps when Dumbledore had fallen off the tower. Things like sitting in Charms class, or making curfew, or dodging Peeves seemed childish now, like things from someone else’s life. He would be restless in Gryffindor tower, longing to be out, catching Death Eaters.

He would miss Ginny terribly though. They had rationalized this in their talks. He would need to put his full focus on his training this year, and she would need to be without distractions in her last year. She was taking all of the classes needed to become a healer, but Harry knew that was her back up choice. Ginny was hoping to become a professional Quidditch player, preferably for the Holyhead Harpies.

Harry knew it would benefit Ginny if he was no longer at Hogwarts, as that would leave her to be captain of the Gryffindor team, which she would need to be to catch the eye of Gwenog Jones of the Holyhead Harpies. To Harry’s amusement, Ginny had decided she would attend all of the Slug Club parties this year, as she had missed the one Gwenog had attended in her fifth year.

“Kingsley will be pleased,” Arthur remarked.

“I think so,” Harry said. “I’ll have to be careful though. He’ll never hear the end of it if an Auror trainee without any N.E.W.T.s mucks things up.”

“Harry, you will be an excellent Auror. No one doubts that.”

“Thank you.”

He wished he was as confident. His lack of N.E.W.T.s did worry him. He would have them eventually. To make certain there would no gaps in necessary knowledge, he, Ron, and other Auror trainees who had not completed Hogwarts would have additional studies on top of their Auror coursework, and in June of the next year, they would take their N.E.W.T. examinations at Hogwarts along with the seventh years. The shame would be unbearable if he did not pass.

Mr. Weasley poured himself a strong cup of tea and loaded his plate with toast, eggs, and bacon. After putting a warming charm on the rest of the breakfast, Harry joined him with his own plate and tea. They talked of the Ministry and of Teddy Lupin until Arthur had to leave.

Once he was alone again, Harry’s pensive mood returned. He washed the dishes by hand, once again feeling that the Muggle chore was an offering or maybe an act of penance.

For the first time in his life, Harry James Potter had everything he wanted. He never had to return to Privet Drive. He had the most loyal friends a man could ask for. He loved a beautiful woman and was loved in return. He had been offered his dream job, even though he technically wasn’t qualified for it. He had a house in London, even if it did look as though it had been decorated by a gothic novelist. He even had a family, for it became apparent in the days after the battle that he wasn’t merely a regular guest at the Burrow; he was now considered one of them.

He even had Teddy. It had never occurred to Harry to want to have a child in his life, but he had loved Remus and Tonks’ baby from the moment he first held him.

It just didn’t feel right that he got everything he ever wanted, practically overnight, while George would never get to share another birthday with his best friend. Or that Harry could be possibly be present for Teddy’s first steps while Tonks and Remus would not. Harry knew it wasn’t his place to decide who deserved what fate, but he felt guilty when he enjoyed his life and he also felt guilty when he wasn’t enjoying his life when so many people had died so he could do just that.

A tawny owl swooped through an open window, and Harry’s stomach churned with unease. The tawny was not a Weasley owl, it wasn’t Neville’s barn owl, nor was it the Scops owl that always brought their mail after the Ministry screened it.

Due to all the Death Eaters on the loose, all of Harry’s mail was being searched for security. Kingsley himself had taken time out of running the wizarding world to place protective charms on the Burrow to ensure no unauthorized owls could fly through the wards. After Kingsley was done, Bill had checked the Minister’s work. There was no reason this tawny should have been able to fly through the kitchen window, drop parchment on the counter, and casually fly back out again.

He remembered Ginny’s insistence that an owl was spying on them a few nights before. Was this the bird she had seen? He had not thought much of her suspicion at the time. She had woken from a nightmare, and Harry figured it had left on her edge, seeing threats that were not there. But Ginny wasn’t one to frighten easily, and she was one of the most perceptive people Harry knew.

He approached the parchment with his wand out. At eleven or twelve, he would have simply snatched it up, but seven years in the wizarding world had taught him that the most dangerous items were often the most innocent looking. He waved his wand over it, murmuring some incantations for detecting dark magic that he had learned from Hermione during their year on the run.

Nothing.

He hesitated another moment and then untied the string wrapped around the parchment, smoothing out the letter.

Dear Harry,

I know you are back with her. Some part of me isn’t even surprised. I wanted to believe you when you said you were over her and in love with me, but I think I always knew.

I am surprised that you don’t feel any responsibility after what happened, that you could just walk away from us. Is this is the behavior the wizarding world expects of its “hero”?

You can’t hide it forever. You know I definitely can’t.


There was a scrawled initial that could have been a B, an R, a P, or an F. The writer had clearly flunked penmanship in primary school.

As far as jokes went, it was a weird one. Not only was it not funny, it didn’t make any sense. The only girl that Harry had ever been romantically linked with aside from Ginny had been Cho Chang. But Cho had been before Ginny, not after. Harry knew Cho’s tidy, feminine script from their D.A. days, and this large slanted scrawl was not it.

And why would anyone work out how to get an owl through ridiculously complicated magic just to send him a nonsensical message? Where was the pay off?

“Mmm, breakfast.” Ginny was in the kitchen, still dressed in her short nightgown. “This looks amazing, Harry.” She filled up her plate, then gestured at the parchment that Harry hadn’t realized he was crumpling in his right hand.

“So, what’s that?”
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