It’s early in the morning; the day’s barely begun, but Harry’s already tired as he walks to the Defence classroom on Monday morning. He’s barely slept the last two nights, too worried about what Anna told him and everything else that’s been going on. Ginny’s walking with him, telling him about Ravenclaw’s Quidditch practice yesterday.

“They need to work on Chasing,” she says, “but they’re already showing improvement. What I’m worried about is the Beaters, because—what are you two doing here?” She addresses this last question to Jamie and Freddie, who are waiting outside the door. Harry’s too exhausted to even be surprised by them. Both of them are looking at him and Ginny with bright eyes and expectant expressions.

“We’ve got class,” Jamie says innocently.

Harry checks the battered watch on his wrist. “Class isn’t for ten minutes, Jamie.”

“It never hurts to be early,” Freddie puts in. “Sets a good example.”

“Exactly. It’s his job as a Prefect to set a good example, you know,” Jamie says.

“And it’s his job to support me in that endeavour,” Freddie adds.

“And I like to think I’m a good friend,” Jamie says.

“The best,” Freddie agrees.

“Why don’t you both come in,” Harry says, “and tell me what this is really about?”

“We don’t know what you’re talking about—” Jamie says.

“But we’re happy to come in, thanks,” Freddie finishes, leaning over to open the door to the classroom. In a flash, Freddie and Jamie have walked inside the classroom, leaving Harry and Ginny in the doorway.

“Do you want to come in, too, Gin?” he asks hopefully.

Ginny leans up on her tiptoes and kisses the corner of his mouth. “Course. You look like too much of a mess to deal with this alone.”

“What would I do without you?” Harry says dryly, but he tugs Ginny in with an arm around her waist and kisses her properly. For a blissful moment, he lets himself get lost in it, but then he hears Jamie clear his throat and he’s pulled back to reality.

Ginny’s cheeks are slightly flushed when she looks up at him, but that’s the only sign she’s flustered at all. “Come on, Potter,” she says, slipping her warm hand into his and tugging him into the classroom. “Alright, you two,” she says to Jamie and Freddie, perching on Harry’s desk and looking entirely as if she belongs there, “what’s going on?”

“Who says anything’s going on?” Freddie says. “We just wanted to ask how you both were doing.”

Harry raises an eyebrow and waits.

“Although, now that we’re talking,” Jamie continues, and Harry thinks there it is. “How did your talk with Anna go, Dad?”

Harry considers it for a moment and leans against his desk. “About as well as it could’ve gone, I suppose.”

“By which he means that the Death Eaters and their children are after the Potters and their friends and family,” Ginny says, and then shrugs and adds, “So, you know. The usual. Nothing new there. Nothing we haven’t handled before.”

When Harry glances at her, her jaw is set in determination and her eyes are fierce. He loves her so much it hurts sometimes.

“Right,” Freddie says. “It’s just, well…”

“Fredd ie and I spoke, yesterday,” Jamie says.

“And we decided to have a little chat with her ourselves,” Freddie says.

“You confronted her, again? Seriously?” Ginny says.  

“In our defence,” Jamie says, “we never got to finish our first conversation with her, did we?”

Harry looks at them for a long moment. “What sort of chat, did we have?”

“Well, we wanted to tell her to stop bothering Lils, for one,” Jamie says. “Just, you know, a casual reminder. We didn’t get around to telling her that on Friday.”

“We know that she and her gang have been the ones who have been bothering her. And Lorcan and Lysander, too,” Freddie adds fairly.

“And Lily thinks she’s the one who attacked Scorpius,” Jamie says. “Lils isn’t stupid. If she thinks that, there’s got to be a reason.”

“She didn’t do it,” Harry says. If nothing else, his chat with Anna convinced him that she didn’t do it: or, at the very least, that she didn’t attack Scorpius. He’s still not sure about the rest.

“We know, Dad,” Jamie says. “We figured that out when we first spoke to her. So we went to speak to her again. She knows more than she’s letting on.”

Harry figured that much out, too, so he waits.

“To be fair, she’s not that bad, actually,” Freddie says, “once you get her away from her, you know.”

“Her snakey friends,” Jamie says helpfully.

“Exactly,&rdquo ; Freddie says. “You know Goyle?”

Harry frowns. “Yeah, he was at school with us. Was a good friend of Malfoy.”

“Not that Goyle,” Jamie says impatiently. “His son. You know, Nigel Goyle. He’s dating Anna.”

“They broke up a while back,” Freddie corrects Jamie.

Jamie snorts. “You’ve been paying attention, haven’t you?”

“Anyway. He doesn’t take Defence and isn’t on the Quidditch team, so you both probably don’t know him too well,” Freddie tells Harry and Ginny, ignoring Jamie. “But apparently, his dad had a falling out with Scorpius’s dad a while ago. And it got really ugly.”

“What sort of falling out?” Ginny asks.

“A bad falling out. Anna didn’t get into the details. She just sort of let it slip,” Freddie says.

Harry frowns as he thinks about it. The way Anna didn’t want to reveal who attacked Scorpius, the way he suspected that Scorpius was being targeted. It does make sense, he has to admit. Malfoy and Goyle were close in school, but after everything that happened during the way, he supposes it makes sense that they could’ve had a falling out. And Goyle was always the sort of person who never minded using Unforgiveable curses…

“Right,&rdq uo; he says slowly. He glances up at the door; students are starting to line up outside the classroom, in time for the morning’s lesson, even though it doesn’t start for a few minutes. “Jamie, Freddie, go tell them to come in, please,” he says.

“We’ll talk about it after class, then?” Jamie says.

“Works for me,” Freddie agrees, and walks with Jamie to the door.

Harry turns to look at Ginny. She looks just as worried as he feels.

“Do you think he did it?” Ginny asks him as she hops off the desk and gets to her feet again.

“I think,” Harry says, and then pauses long enough to sigh. “Merlin, Gin. I think we’re going to have to talk to Malfoy. Again.”

*

On Wednesday afternoon, the fireplace in Harry’s office turns emerald green. Harry’s sitting at his desk, reading through the second years’ latest homework assignment – half a roll of parchment on the subject of the most useful Defensive jinxes, in their opinion, and why – and he notices it from the corner of his eye.

His fireplace is enchanted to only allow certain people in by Floo: Ron, Hermione, Teddy, and – as of the last two days, ever since he sent the letter – Draco Malfoy. No one’s written to him or given him any notice before arriving, which means it can only be one person.

“Hi, Malfoy. Come sit down, would you?” he says tiredly, setting his quill down and looking up.

Draco Malfoy brushes soot off his robes – which are a shade of light blue Harry dislikes immediately – and looks at Harry, his expression set in a weak approximation of his trademark sneer. “Hello, Potter. Where’s my son?”

“I have no idea,” Harry says.

“I thought you were meant to be keeping an eye on him,” Malfoy says, striding over to his desk.

“Well – yes, but that doesn’t mean I monitor his every waking second, does it?” Harry points out. “That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“What did you want to talk to me about, then?”

“Goyle.&rdquo ;

Malfoy blinks. “What?”

“You heard me,” Harry says. “Is it true you had a falling out with him recently?”

“Not recently, really. It was long overdue, I’d say,” Malfoy says, wrinkling his nose.

“Tell me about it,” Harry says.

“Why?”

There’s no point in lying or hiding anything, so Harry says, “Because it could help me prove who hurt Scorpius.”

Malfoy hesitates, and then starts to talk. “He was always an idiot, really. It only got worse after…”

“The war?”

Malfoy nods. “Astoria was right about him. She says he was always… well. It all came to a head last year.”

“What happened?” Harry says.

“Goyle showed up unannounced at my house, around a year ago –”

“Just like you showed up unannounced here,” Harry can’t help saying.

Malfoy glares. “You asked me to come, Potter,” he points out.

Harry rolls his eyes. “Go on,” is all he says.

“Goyle showed up unannounced at my house. It was just before Scorpius began his second year, during the summer. Albus was with him when he opened the door – he was visiting at the time, I believe,” Malfoy says. “And Gregory… Goyle was drunk, and he lost his temper. He seemed to think that I was betraying my friends, and family, by allowing my son to befriend… your son. Called me a blood traitor, if you can believe it.”

Harry can definitely believe it: it sounds like something that would come out of Gregory Goyle’s mouth. He supposes he can see why that would be the tipping point, why that would encourage Goyle’s son, and his friends, to target Scorpius, if they think of him as belonging to a blood traitor family.

“We haven’t exactly been on the best terms ever since,” Malfoy continues. “Do you think he’s the one who hurt Scorpius?” Malfoy asks, suddenly looking furious.

“Not him, no. But his son, Nigel… I don’t know for sure,” Harry says. “But I’m going to find out.”

The fireplace turns green again, and both Harry and Malfoy turn to look at it. A violet-haired boy steps out, sneezing.

“I keep forgetting how much bloody soot gets in these fireplaces,” Teddy mutters, and then looks up. “Oh. Hi, Harry. I didn’t know you were busy.”

“What’s wrong, Teddy?” Harry says. His mind immediately goes to the worst possible place: another attack, Teddy’s been hurt…  

“It’s nothing bad,” Teddy says, and then grins. “Actually, it’s good. Vic and I were in the Leaky Cauldron for lunch, and I overheard something… anyway, long story short… I think I have a lead in the case.”

“About Scorpius?” Malfoy says.

Teddy blinks. He seems to properly register Malfoy’s presence only then. “Oh, uh. No, Mr. Malfoy, sorry.”

Harry glances at Malfoy. “I think you might be able to find Scorpius in the Ravenclaw common room,” he says mildly.

Malfoy rolls his eyes and gets to his feet. “You’ll tell me if you find out anything else?” he says.

“I will,” Harry says.

Malfoy nods curtly. Once he leaves, Teddy takes the seat Malfoy was sitting in. “What I meant was … you know, the graffiti I found?” he says to Harry.

“Course I remember,” Harry says. He thinks about the picture Teddy showed him, the picture he’s still got in the drawer of the desk The Real Darkness, outside the Leaky Cauldron, along with a picture of him. It’s not exactly easy to forget.

“Well, we were at the Leaky Cauldron, and guess who was eating next to us?” Before Harry can guess, Teddy continues. “Rita Avery. I recognised her because she was a year above me at school. Anyway, she was talking to someone, and I overheard her saying, we can get more people to see it our way, especially if you keep up the drawings. Surely she was talking about the graffiti, wasn’t she?”

Harry nods slowly. “It does seem like that, yes,” he says. If Nigel attacked Goyle because of his father, then it stands to reason that Rita Avery’s been influenced by her family, too. Goyle’s always been a follower: first he followed Malfoys, and then the Carrows. If he’s acting out now, enough to influence his son to attack Scorpius, then he’s sure as hell not acting alone: he’s following someone, someone who’s behind the Dementor attacks and everything else that has happened.

Rita Avery.

He remembers the trial of Avery – Rita’s father. He thinks about a memory in a Pensieve, his mother telling Severus Snape that Avery and Mulciber’s idea of humour is evil. If anyone’s capable of allying with Dementors…

“Teddy,& rdquo; he says, “I need you to go back to the Ministry. Get me the arrest records of Avery. Rita’s father. Him and Mulciber, too. I want to find out when Avery was released from Azkaban, and if Mulciber’s out or not.”

“Why?” Teddy says, already getting to his feet.

“Because, if I’m right,” Harry says grimly, “then we’re all in even more danger than I thought.”