“If ya won’t go, I will.” Seamus took a step back, but Neville barely recovered himself and reached out in time to keep him from turning.

“No.” He pushed himself to his feet again, shaking away the despair that had threatened to choke up again like vomit. “If I’ve made a terrible mistake there, it’s too late, and if I let you go, I’m just throwing you away.”

Seamus made a face that was both dismissive and a bit confused. “I ain’t –“

“I need you, and not just because you’re my friend, or because you’re about the only person I do trust right now.” His voice dropped to a low, conspiratorial tone, even though they were alone in the deserted pub. “I’m going to be sending a lot of people your way, and I want more than spells protecting them, but beyond that, if they can’t track this murderer down…well…”

The blue eyes gleamed with an unsettling comprehension. “If you’re gonna be chasin’ a rat underground, ya need someone knows their way round t’gutter. Aye.”

“Exactly.” He took his hand from his friend’s shoulder now, clapping it once firmly as he stepped back. “For now, though, tell Sue to expect serious company.”

“How many?”

“All the children of the DA and most of their mothers,” Neville stated bluntly. “It looks like I’m the target by proxy for now, and it’s not alchemy to know that other than my own family, there’d be no deeper way to hurt me than through my soldiers.”

Seamus nodded, and the years between them could see how seriously he was taking this even through the cheeky grin. “Ya know, Fearless Leader, you’d best be understandin’ I’m tellin’ her this as a message straight from the top.”

Neville raised one eyebrow, tugging the wrinkles from his robes as he prepared to Apparate to Willow Creek. “And why is that?”

“Because there’s an old Celtic proverb, there is; Man who brings home thirty unexpected dinner guests sleeps on t’couch ‘till his bits fall off.”

OOO

“As your friend, Neville, I want to say ‘of course,’ but as the Head of Department, my answer has to be an absolute no.” Harry put down the mug of coffee, crossing his arms resolutely as he stared over his glasses at Neville with what he knew was meant to be a look that conveyed no hope of argument.

Neville, however, was not so easily dissuaded, and he matched the stubborn posture with his own. “I’d think of all people, Harry, you’d understand wanting to track down the person who killed your parents.”

“That’s exactly why I said no.” It looked as if Harry was about to get up and leave right then and there, but then he stopped, settling back down in the chair as his face softened to genuine sympathy. “I was way, way too personally involved…I burned out completely, and I cost a lot of people their lives, even if it worked out in the end. Maybe that was the only way for it to have a chance with Riddle, but that was a very strange situation all around. This…Neville, I can’t. It would be effectively authorizing a vigilante.”

Neville snorted, smiling grimly. “Would you rather have an authorized or unauthorized one?”

“That sounded uncomfortably close to a threat.”

“More a statement of fact.” He spread his hands openly on the table, deliberately trying to prevent this from becoming the ridiculous power struggle it was so nearly verging on and had no need to be. The tension that had stood between himself and Harry since Riddle’s defeat was something that the years had faded until it often seemed to have vanished completely, and now was not a time to let it flare again.

“I’m not just sitting back and evaluating broomstick legislation while this nutjob is on the loose. I resigned in good standing. You are completely free to renew my commission, and I’m asking you please. As my friend,” Neville took a deep breath, treading carefully on the next, delicate step. “And because you once said you wished you could repay me….”

Harry winced, then shook his head again. “If I think it’s for the good of the Department; and we all know that you bent the rules on the Finnigan case until they screamed.”

“Kingsley still wanted to retain me.”

“Neville, stop.” It wasn’t an order, it was a request not to take this to a fight, and Neville felt a stab of guilt that almost made him sorry for having pushed so hard. “I’m not budging on this. You’re not getting anywhere near this case, and if you try, you’re going to force me to do something I really, really, really don’t want to and put a man I owe a great debt of gratitude under arrest.”

He meant it. Harry really meant it, and Neville bit back the retort that had been on the tip of his tongue, forcing himself instead to take a step back. He wasn’t going to just back down, that was no question, but there were always other ways. After several seconds, he leaned forward again, smiling in what he hoped was a conciliatory enough manner. “What if you renew my commission, but don’t put me on the case?”

This time, the snort of skepticism was Harry’s. “I’m no fool, Neville.”

“No, I mean it, Harry…I’m trying to compromise here.” The last was a bit more snappish than he had intended, and he stopped himself, starting again slower and more calmly. “This isn’t the only case the Department is running. You still have a normal workload. What if you bring me back in, I take on as much of that as I can carry, and you’re free to put all your attention to finding the murderer?”

The green eyes narrowed, and he could all but see Harry turning the offer over in his mind, searching it for angles, loopholes, hidden tricks of phrasing. “I thought you were determined to be on the case yourself?”

“If filing things and running down routine hexings means that there is another top Auror on the hunt, then I am,” Neville answered honestly, making no effort to hide that it was still far from his first choice.

To an outsider, it might have seemed like Harry had written him off entirely as he abruptly stood and paced to the far corner of the room, taking off his glasses, cleaning them on his shirt, and putting them back on again as he muttered under his breath. Neville knew, however, that this wasn’t a dismissal – it was itchingly close to a yes, in fact – and he said nothing, waiting until at last Harry pivoted back towards him, running a hand through his hair before jabbing a finger towards him like a disobedient child. “You so much as think of touching it officially, you know a good Solicitor could get our whole case tossed.“

He almost didn’t dare answer, not wanting to risk saying the wrong thing at such a fragile juncture, but Harry was clearly expecting him to say something, and he nodded. “I understand.”

The broad smile of relief that suddenly appeared on Harry’s face was not what he had expected, nor the warmth of the handshake that he rather numbly returned. “It’s a deal, then.”

“Er…thank you,” Neville managed.

“Don’t,” Harry shook his head, but the smile was still there, the words teasing. “I’m probably going to regret this.”

“No, you won’t,” he promised seriously. “I’m not going to cheat when you’re trusting me.”

“I’ll give you Smith’s load, then, and bring him onto the homicides.” Harry returned to his place at the table, reaching into the pocket of his robes for his notepad and flipping a few pages before he found what he was looking for. Tearing off the sheet, he handed it over, his manner having returned to pure business. “He’s wrapping up that assault in Essex, there was a break-in and art theft at Malfoy Manor, and there’s someone running tainted black-market Felix Felicius. It’s tossing you back into the deep end a bit, but times are hard, and it doesn’t always bring out the best in people. Things have been hot for us even without these murders ever since the Wizengamot cut our numbers. Only two Death Eaters still at large; they think we’re just a Vanishing Charm for Galleons and want to leave everything to the Enforcers.”

Neville glanced over the list, noticing two more cases that Harry had neglected to mention, though both were marked as already being prepared for trial. He would have to ask Zacharias if he was expected to take those as well. “I can handle that, absolutely. When can I start?”

Harry flipped the notepad closed and replaced it in his robes, shrugging. “Tomorrow, if you really want to, but I’d think you’d want to take a few days to --”

“Tomorrow,” he interrupted firmly, then changed the subject before the other man could question it. “There’s something else I need to tell you, but I need you to promise me something first.”

The look that flashed through Harry’s eyes was almost betrayal, and as his jaw set, his back straightening, Neville realized that he thought his generosity was already being played for loopholes. “Depends.”

He met Harry’s eyes evenly, keeping his own as open and honest as he could. “This isn’t about my commission, Har--I guess I should get used to calling you ‘Sir,’ shouldn’t I?”

“You’re not back until tomorrow, and still, Nev, unless it’s something properly official, I don’t run things the same way Robards did.” He still hadn’t let his guard down, but he reached across the table to lay a comradely hand on Neville’s. “Harry, Zach, Tony, Demmy, Saz, Brian. Justin and Ron on Reserve, but I’ll be trying to get them back in, too. There’s too few of us who have seen too much to be Auror this and Sir that.” His eyes narrowed. “But whether it’s ‘Harry’ or ‘Potter’ or ‘Sir,’ what are you wanting me to promise before you’ll tell whatever it is?”

Neville took a deep breath, wishing suddenly that he hadn’t said anything after all, but knowing it was too late. “Promise me you’ll take what I’m about to tell you as the offer of a friend and not a sign of backsliding.”

“Now I’ve gone from nervous to extremely nervous. This is about Finnigan, isn’t it?”

“He hasn’t hur --.”

“Stop!” Harry closed his eyes, pressing his palms against them beneath his glasses before meeting Neville’s gaze again, his voice soft. “Don’t tell me if you’re going to ask me to violate ethics here. Because I owe him my life, Ginny’s, Ron’s, Hermione’s…don’t abuse what you know I’d forgive him.”

“It’s nothing he’s done,” this time, it was Neville who reached across the table to give the other man’s hand a quick, reassuring squeeze. “But he wants to make you an offer, Harry.”

“Why doesn’t he send me an owl, then?”

“Because he doesn’t want it in writing, and he doesn’t trust his own mouth not to get in the way of asking you himself. You might forgive him anything, but he’s still a bit of a hothead about you, whether it’s fair or not.”

Harry chuckled darkly. “I think I fell out of his good graces thirteen years ago. Can’t say I’m surprised…he strikes me as the kind of bloke who could hold a grudge. But he’s making me an offer, you say?”

“It’s a straightforward trade,” Neville continued quickly, stopping himself from getting into an irrelevant argument about what exactly who thought of whom. Now wasn’t the time, and those two would be better sorting it out among themselves anyway if it truly needed to happen. Middlemen rarely improved such things. “If he brings in the killer, you get his sentence commuted. He offered it after I asked him to take in the DA’s families at the Loch…which includes your kids, by the way.”

“The latter I’ll take you up on,” Harry agreed, then one dark eyebrow lifted in what Neville couldn’t tell was skepticism or interest. “But the killer…does he know who it is?”

“No,” he admitted, “but he has a lot of experience tracking down people on the dark side of the law who don’t want to be found.”

“It’s no good if we get our suspect in little pieces.”

“He’d be alive, that much he promises.”

The argument had been perfunctory only; he already knew what the answer would be, but Harry seemed to be considering it far longer than he had expected, and when he finally did speak, Neville felt his jaw drop in shock. “Tell him thank you, but that would be my last resort. Only if we have no chance doing it through the ‘right’ channels.”

“I…” Neville shook his head, trying to recover himself. “I’d have thought you’d say no.”

“I don’t like someone running around on my watch leaving a trail of bodies,” Harry replied darkly. “Besides, my motives aren’t all pure.”

Now it was Neville’s turn to be suspicious. “What do you mean?”

“We both know Finnigan’s no sociopath, but he was incredible at what he did. That took discipline, and it took monumental courage. If he could learn to work within our rules – the Ministry’s rules – like he did Utterson’s --“

Neville held up a hand, cutting him off mid-sentence. “No chance, Harry. I can see where you’re going, but no. Assuming he completely forgave you, the day I can imagine Seamus Finnigan carrying a Ministry badge is the day Goblins are passing out gold in the streets. It wasn’t ‘Utterson’s rules’, it was their plan, and --”

He was interrupted by a loud crack, and both men turned to find Anthony standing just inside the door of the sitting room, looking rather flustered as he smoothed a hand quickly through his dark curls. “Sorry I’m late. I took some work home and kind of lost track of the time.”

“Sit down, Tony,” Harry gestured with his wand, pulling out a third chair. “I think we were just about to get to you anyway, but first…you should know, Neville’s renewing his commission with us.”

Anthony smiled, tipping him a small, congratulatory salute as he took his place between them. “I thought you might, mate. Welcome back.” The smile turned sympathetic, and his voice softened respectfully. “I’m so sorry about your parents…I know that words aren’t much of anything, Commander, but I want you to know that I’ll be working with you on this like they were my own. We’ll get him.”

“Not for this case, Tony,” Harry corrected softly. “He’s taking Zach’s load to open him up for us.”

“Ah.” Anthony shifted awkwardly, but he recovered almost at once. “He’s bloody good; gets his teeth in a case like a Manticore. And we’ll be bringing back the Reserve too, right? Justin and Ron?”

“I think five bodies ought to be enough to squeeze the funds from the Wizengamot,” Harry said bitterly, then nodded his head towards Anthony with a questioning look. “Any progress?”

“I’ve finished the review of Hermione’s memories,” Anthony’s instant shift to hardened all-business was a little disconcerting. “There’s no sign of alteration, but it only deepens our mystery. She and Seamus were definitely the last to see the Longbottoms alive, and they were alone with them. Thirty-seven minutes, then she was tired, and they let her sleep. Hermione was the only one to touch the doorknob – it still records her as the last before Healer Monroe discovered the bodies -- and she heard it click and seal when they left.”

“Any more warnings from her?” It was easier than it should have been to keep his voice steady, but Neville could feel the surge of a very dangerous something beneath the tight control at the mention of his parents. “Anything that might suggest she knew she was in danger? Her last –“ His voice choked traitorously, but he pushed past it, relieved that neither of the other men showed any sign of having heard. “Her last word to me was ‘goodbye.’ Do you think she knew?”

“There was no indication,” Anthony said gently. “The very few bits that Hermione and Seamus did manage to decode seemed to just be asking after you.”

The simple statement hit him like a hex to the gut, but he swallowed hard, hurrying on with a crisp professionality of his own that he hoped wouldn’t sound as false as it was. “But if her warning to me last night was about Dumbledore, that would connect to –“ The thought of the diaries sparked something, and he held up a finger to pause the conversation as he searched quickly through his robes, finally pulling out the small book Seamus had given him and tossing it onto the table in front of Anthony. “Speaking of…it was her brother.”

Anthony picked it up, turning it over in his hands, and he saw the flicker from confusion to the ghost of renewed grief in the dark eyes as he recognized Lavender’s initials. “Her brother?”

“The leak in the DA that you found with Skeeter,” Neville explained. “It came from this; her brother let Skeeter look at it for a few hours in exchange for a hefty pile of Galleons.”

A flush rose on the olive complexion, and it was alarming to see even an instant’s such unabashed hate across Anthony’s normally composed features. “That hag!”

“I don’t want to say she deserved it, because murder’s a bit much,” Neville took the diary back, tucking it back into his pocket with such care that it was as if he could somehow recover a bit of his friend’s lost dignity and privacy in the gesture, “but I’m not crying that her last article never saw print, either.”

Anthony took a deep breath, and although it wasn’t quite the same flawless professionality as before, he no longer looked as though he were about to hunt down and hex the dead. “I’m backing off the diaries for now, though; taking a new angle. I’m going to see if I can find any sign of the other books that we stole having shown up on the black market, confirm or refute authenticity that way. There are a few rare book collectors I have a pinch on after having caught them with some dark magic tomes that were not supposed to be in private hands.” He paused, looking to Harry with a somewhat sheepish half-smile. “Although Hermione pointed out something…it’s not just Neville that links our victims.”

“Oh?”

“Dumbledore. All three Longbottoms and Jones were original Order, and Rita literally wrote the book about him. And they start dropping the moment the diaries start appearing.”

Harry’s mouth opened, shut, then he took his glasses off and laid them meticulously to the side before getting up and walking over to the nearest wall…which he proceeded to bang his forehead against several times. Neville would have laughed if he hadn’t felt like doing the exact same thing. “We can share the dunce cap,” Anthony offered mildly. “I didn’t think of it either. I never read Rita’s trash book, completely missed that connection.”

“I read it.” Another introduction of forehead to wallpaper. “Cover.” Thunk. “To.” Thunk. “Cover.” Thunk. “Leave it to Hermione….”

“Harry, I understand where you’re coming from, but you have about three more smacks before Mimsy comes down on you, and we don’t need that,” Neville warned. Harry stopped immediately, and he waited until they were all seated again and he was quite sure they were not about to be descended upon by an irate house-elf before he continued. “That’s a good lead, but I don’t want to take chances that it’s not me. So far, it’s an equal case, considering what Rita was working on when she was killed.”

“Jones – “ Anthony began, but Neville’s look stopped him.

“Was my mother’s best friend. There are pictures of Meg and I playing together as babies.”

“Okay, then, we work both angles evenly.” Anthony brought out his own notepad, a flick of his wand transfiguring the tip into the already-inked nib of a quill. “If it’s you, Neville, where would you say they’ll be going next?”

“It depends if they’re trying to cut me off from access to the past or just hurt me.” It was strange, even a little heady how easy it was to fall back into this. The back-and-forth, the camaraderie of the elite Department, the strange, dangerous excitement of decoding clues and finding patterns in despair. “If it’s the former, I’d say anyone who knew my parents. If it’s the latter…anyone with a Galleon they’ll never spend. Top on the first list would probably be the Weasleys, Seamus for the second.”

“If they go after Finnigan, they are mental,” Anthony scoffed, but he was already taking notes. “Still, they’ve already gotten into a secured ward without leaving a trace, not to mention being willing to strike in broad daylight on a public street.”

“What bothers me most is that we still don’t have a motive, no matter if the connection is Neville, Dumbledore, or someone or something else that we’re still missing.” Harry twirled his wand between his fingers, leaning back in his chair to drape his feet over the armrest in a way that would have made Gran furious. “These are clean, almost clinical strikes. Straight AKs, no fuss, no trace, no torture or sign of struggle or interrogation beforehand, and we don’t have the first idea why.” He paused, then gestured with the wand towards Anthony. “Let’s start with the big four.”

Anthony nodded, ticking them off on his fingers. “Money, Love, Power, and Batshit.”

“Who stands to benefit from your grandmother’s will, Neville? If your parents are gone? Anyone other than you?”

“No, and if something had happened to me, there was a stipend to take care of the property as long as Mimsy was alive, but the rest would have just gone to St. Mungo’s. I’m her only heir.” Neville ran over the will in his mind once more, ensuring he hadn’t missed anything, then shrugged. “All right, my kids inherit as well, of course, but as ruthless as Peg can be sometimes when there are sweets involved, I think this is a little beyond a four year-old. Besides, she has an alibi. So do her brothers.”

“Not to offend,” Anthony said thoughtfully, “but I don’t see two hospital-bound married invalids and an elderly widow being embroiled in too many vicious love triangles.”

“Maybe not now, but what about something like Snape?” The enthusiasm of a sudden idea was clear in Harry’s voice, but the other two men couldn’t help but look at him as if he’d gone a bit off his wand.

“Snape?”

“Merlin,” Neville groanded, “Just what we need! More dead people!”

Harry dismissed them both with an irritated wave of his hand, already chasing down his new epiphany. “He was in love with – obsessed with – my mother, and Dumbledore was blackmailing him with that. What if he got the idea from someone else? What if he’d done it before, had another sneak on his payroll in the Death Eaters or the Ministry? What if there was someone who wanted Alice – or Frank, for that matter – and they’re getting scared now that the old diaries are coming out, but they can’t control those, so they’re trying to eliminate witnesses that could confirm or deny both the diaries and the…the whatever it was. Affair, one-way obsession, whatever. Keep it in the realm of rumor, especially if they’re in a position of power now --”

“And about to deal with his or her son in the context of that power,” Neville finished, impressed. It was times like these it was easy to see that it wasn’t his famous name that had earned Harry his position. The man’s instincts could be uncanny. “Not to mention that if I have half as much influence as people seem to think I do, I could probably hurt them pretty bad if I thought I had reason to hate them.”

“Power. Number three of the big four,” Anthony agreed eagerly. “Possibly hints of four as well. I think we may have the key to this spell.”

“Did your mother keep a diary, Neville? Or your father?”

“I used to wish they did, but no. My mother had a handful she’d tried to start as a girl, but they never got past the first page where she vowed that this time she really meant it that she would keep it up.”

“If she was your mother’s best friend, Jones would definitely have known if she had a lover,” Harry murmured, half to himself. “And that kind of scandal is right up Rita’s alley if she was trying to dig something juicier on you than Lavender could have offered…and click, click, click, we have our chain. All five.”

Neville frowned, not liking this latest step one bit. “My mother would never have cheated on –“

“I’m not thinking like your friend,” Harry snapped, “and you can’t think like her son. Neither of us can really say we knew our parents, Neville.”

“People don’t change that much,” he protested, “And Gran—“ Neville stopped as something occurred to him, something so wrong that he didn’t want to say it, but they were both looking at him, and Harry was right. This was no time to think he knew anyone. “Harry, on the day my Gran died, I had something spectacularly weird happen.”

“In our lives,” Harry observed dourly, “that’s not a good thing to hear.”

“Draco Malfoy came to visit me.”

Anthony pulled back, eyes wide. “Tallish, slimy, extremely blonde, schoolboy fondness for impersonating ferrets?”

Neville shot him an exasperated look, sighing. “How many Draco Malfoys do you know, Tony?”

Harry, however, had already moved on…if he had been startled at all to hear of the unusual visit. “What did he want?”

“An alliance. To ‘take me under his wing’ and teach me the ways of the Wizengamot in exchange for a good word. Took me to the Manor, was really trying to charm me up proper, but I wasn’t in much of a listening mood that day.” For a moment, he considered sharing the revelation about Hannah, but decided against it. Even among friends, it never hurt to keep a few cards to yourself.

“He’s too young to be our mystery man,” Harry mused. “He’s only a few months older than we are.”

“But he made a big deal about how precarious his situation already is, and on that he was being honest, at least.” Neville made a face, hardly able to believe what he was about to say. “His father’s just the right age, and if there’s anything that could make me hate Draco more than I already do, it’s finding out that his father had an affair with or forced himself on my mother.”

Harry let out a low, impressed whistle. “Let’s pray you’re not half-brothers.”

“I have never been so thankful that I can say I unmistakably have Franklin Longbottom’s nose.”

There was a long, uncomfortable silence, then Harry nodded, sitting up straight in the chair again, and his face had taken on what Neville recognized as authority surmounting friendship to issue an order rather than a request. “Take him up on his offer.”

“Oh, Merlin, I was afraid you’d say that.”

“Use this,” Harry continued tautly. “Tell him you’ve changed your mind, that this has shaken you badly, that you need his expertise before something else terrible happens. I still don’t want you officially on the case, but Malfoy is definitely a suspect now, and if I have this kind of chance to get you in more or less undercover with him, I’m taking it. Be as much of the eager, naïve willing pupil as you can stand.”

“I’ll not punch him,” Neville said resignedly. “More than that, and he’ll know something’s up.”

Anthony tipped his head mildly, almost hiding his amusement. “I thought it was Harry, Ron, and Hermione with a history of punching him?”

“All right, so I just assaulted him with plantlife, but if I refrain, that should still be enough. Maybe I’ll grant him a handshake.”

“Attack of the deranged hydrangeas,” Harry mused. “Now that does sound more like you.”

The smile had gone, the makeshift quill moving busily again as Anthony thought aloud. “You know, Harry, he might be counting on your old animosity to keep him safe here.”

“Thinking I’ll automatically keep him off the list as long as possible to avoid making it seem personal…I follow you.” Harry made a distasteful noise, then snapped himself back on track. “He’s wrong. Hogwarts was a long time ago. This isn’t about calling Hermione names, and I still think he’s a slippery, cowardly git more than properly capable of murder, but I’m not taking chances. We’ll pack up the kids tonight, and I’m sending Ginny, too. She won’t actually put up a fight since she’s getting so close to having the baby.”

Anthony looked up, curious. “Sending them to the Loch?”

“All the DA’s families, if I can,” Neville added. “Seamus and Sue have agreed to shelter them for the time being, and actually, your wife should have gotten the owl about it while we’ve been sitting here.”

“I’ll have Li, Asa, and Fi there by morning.” Anthony pushed back from the table, replacing the notepad and his wand as he looked across the other two faces. “If you don’t mind, though, considering that, I’m going to need to take as much time as I can get to try and put this to the girls in a way that won’t upset them, so I’m going to have to beg off for now. See you tomorrow at the office, Neville? Back in the green?”

Neville sighed, wondering if he could send Mimsy to collect his uniform. He didn’t want to go to the Cauldron again, but the only alternative would be to see if he could wear…no. That wasn’t even something to think about. Even if it probably would fit.

Thankfully, before his lack of a reply could be noticed, Harry held up a hand. “Before you go, Tony?”

“Yes?”

“Next time, don’t lie.”

Harry was smiling, but the remark yanked Neville’s thoughts alarmingly from the upstairs closet they had refused to abandon. “Lie?!”

“Got caught up in work, you said? Hmmph! We’re all married men.” Harry gave a meaningful nod downwards, and as Anthony’s eyes followed, he turned first pale, then exceedingly red. “Your personal life is your business, but I don’t think you’re flexible enough to get lipstick on your own trouser buttons.”

For several seconds, Anthony struggled to find a reply, but there simply wasn’t one to be had, and at last he contented himself with an equally eloquent gesture before Apparating away, leaving Harry shaking with rather un-Aurorlike giggles. Neville had to admit that he was close to the same himself, but he still worked up the most admonishing glare he could. “That was mean.”

“That was fair.” Harry took a deep breath, composing himself. “He found a pair of Gin’s knickers in my desk drawer last week.” Another chuckle under his breath, but then the last of the amusement faded, and when he looked up again, his eyes softened. “Official business is over, okay?”

There was something in the way he said it, and Neville drew back, uncertain. “Yeah. I will be there tomorrow, though.”

“Of course you will. Nev, when you give your word, I consider it already done, hell or high water.” The compliment was said as an afterthought, and although Harry too had stood, he didn’t seem inclined to leave yet. He fidgeted uncertainly with his wand, then put one hand firmly on Neville’s shoulder, meeting his eyes with so much true compassion that he had to look away. “That doesn’t change what’s happened. I don’t feel right leaving you here alone.”

“I won’t be alone,” Neville dodged. “I have Mimsy, and –“

“Neville…” Harry circled around to crouch in front of his chair, ducking under his dropped gaze so that he could no longer avoid those piercing eyes. “I don’t remember my parents, but I remember Cedric, Sirius, Dumbledore, and I know that what hurt more than anything else was that all that grief and confusion and anger had nowhere to go but an empty bedroom on Privet Drive. Don’t suppose I’ll think you’re weak or –“

“No. I’m all right.” The smile bent his mouth like it would break it, and when he wrapped his hands around Harry’s, he didn’t really want to let go, but the words floated past his lips so easily that they seemed to come from somewhere else entirely. “I’ve had losses before, too. I know how to deal with it, but thank you for the offer.”

Harry didn’t seem quite dissuaded, but he still stood, stepping away to give himself room. “Floo. Send a Patronus. I don’t care if it’s four in the morning. If you need – if you want anything….”

“I’m fine, Harry. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow.”

A last, lingering look. A twist. A crack. Alone.

“I really am fine,” Neville stood, pushing the other two chairs back neatly under the table and waving his wand to vanish the remains of the coffee from their cups and push them into a pile for Mimsy. “I’m busy. Busy is good. And tomorrow I’ll be back in uni—“

Green wool and shining brass buttons in Gran’s upstairs closet. Hannah’s beautiful face in a mother’s empathy as she had turned to him. Your father’s uniform, Neville. She’s kept it perfectly preserved. He could wear it tomorrow.

Wear it tomorrow.

Tomorrow.

Maybe he was not fine.

Neville closed his eyes, squeezing them so tightly that there could be no tears as he braced himself against the table, looking up towards the ceiling in a blind plea to someone who couldn’t hear him anyway. “Hannah.” His voice sounded as if he hadn’t used it in a century, a whisper rough and tattered. “Hannah, come back. I’m sorry, love. I…oh, Merlin…I need you.”

It was wrong. Selfish and wrong and not fair, because even if she could hear him, she couldn’t come back yet. There was someone out there who was killing, who had already taken, and it was the right thing to do to send them away. Even if he didn’t know where they were. Even if it felt like he’d lost them too, and what if he had? What if he never saw them…no. NO!

He shook his head furiously, as if he could physically rattle the horrifying possibilities from his mind. If they did it, if they were strong enough, good enough, smart enough, brave enough, he could have them all back again, whole and healthy and happy, and if not, it wouldn’t matter, because then he knew with a certainty that should have been far more upsetting that there would be nothing at all holding him back from going completely mad.

Waking up the twins with the sun barely warm through the duck-patterned drapes of the nursery, gently stroking soft little heads and singing that silly good-morning song Hannah’s mum had sang to her and unable not to smile as they so solemnly untangled from the single knot of chubby limbs that didn’t matter if they were put down in separate beds. The tiny creases of concentration between Ernie’s eyes as he mashed his entire hand down on a bit of potato to smear it vaguely towards his mouth. Hearing his own Yorkshire and Hannah’s softer Kent mingled in their words at childish random. How seeing these lives they had created almost erased the memories of those he’d taken.

It hurt. It hurt and he didn’t want to, but it was what he’d lost for now and beyond it…beyond it was sweet wrappers piled deep in his bedroom drawer. Beyond it was holding Gran’s long, pearl-tipped hat pin as they got ready to go to market. Beyond that was his own self-imposed title that anyone else would have heard coldly, but that said “Commander” with more love and pride than most boys ever heard “Son.” Beyond that was tears of grateful possibility and bird-thin hands clutched in RAF blue wool. Beyond that was “good-bye.”

Beyond that was what nothing could ever bring back.

As a child, he had been afraid of the thunderstorms that rattled the Dales throughout the summer. When the skies would darken and the wind begin, he would hide under his bed or in a closet, shaking at what seemed all the enormity of nature pitted against one little house and one even littler boy who didn’t even have magic. Gran had thought it a ridiculous fear, but he still remembered the day she had pulled him, crying and begging, out of his hiding place and out of the house to face the storm in all its fury. It had been sheer terror at first, but slowly, as the warm rain soaked them both, he had come to see the beauty and majesty of it, to learn that there was nothing, after all, to fear.

But this was a storm of a different kind, and despite the years that had passed, he was afraid again. He could feel it coming, building, aching in his blood and tight across his back, pulling fresh pain from the scars, making his hands shake as he gripped the edge of the table, pleading, willing himself to keep control. He’d never let himself go, not really, not since, and he didn’t dare. What he was now, what he had become in that cavern didn’t matter day to day, but he knew that his conjunction with Danu had left him with a power that had turned the seasons, and it was there against the muzzled sobs of the child like thunderheads on the horizon.

He was gasping, his fingernails marking the wood, but there was no one but himself to hold him back, and he had to. He had to. Tears were expected, grief reasonable, but this hollow, screaming madness was not his privilege. He had too much responsibility, there was too much he needed to do, and even if he didn’t rend the earth with it, it would certainly be enough to tear him apart, to drown him under it, and if he ever wanted to see his family again….

Breaking his eyes open again, he swallowed it down like choking to death, raising his voice in a calm that was wholly a lie. “Mimsy?”

The little elf was there at once, appearing with a crack that sounded so much like lightning that he jumped, her expression entirely too soft, entirely too fretful, her cadences entirely too much like Gran’s. “Master Neville needs something?” She paused mid-curtsy, hurrying over to stroke a hand soothingly against his leg. “Oh, Mimsy sees…Mimsy understands. Master Neville misses –“

“I’m fine, Mimsy.” The composure of his own voice shocked him, as did the reflection of the at most mildly sorrowful face he glimpsed reflected in the dining room windows. Hannah always said he was a poor liar. She was so wrong. “Would you be willing to help my friends with something, though?”

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously, searching his face, but at last she finished the curtsy she had begun before. “Anything Master Neville needs, of course.”

“You’ve never met my friend Seamus, but you know his wife. Susan?”

She thought a moment, tapping her rounded chin with the tip of one finger. “She is the one that Mistress brought here on the Bad Night, yes? Who helps all of Master Neville’s soldiers and has most beautiful hair?”

“Exactly,” Neville nodded. “She lives on a farm up in Scotland, and it is protected by very powerful magic, but you will be able to get there because you belong to me, and they are keeping all of my friends’ children safe, so they’re going to need some help.”

To his surprise, Mimsy hesitated. “Their house-elf might not like Mimsy butting in, sir. Mimsy has heard things about those Scotch elves that are not very nice.”

“They don’t have one,” he felt himself smile, taking the opportunity to make up for a bit of the damage he knew the Cauldron had inflicted on her dignity. “I thought that if anyone could show them just how indispensible an excellent house-elf can be….”

“Yes, sir!” Mimsy started to bustle away, then stopped, turning back to him with a frown. “If they are keeping all of Master Neville’s friends’ children, why did Master Neville send the Pub Trollop and the little ones away with Justin Finch-Fletchley?”

It took him far too long to answer, and when he did, he couldn’t believe that the harshest tones of battlefield command were being thrown towards the creature who had been almost another parent to him. “That is not your business! Go. Now.”

Mimsy looked as if he had struck her, her mouth falling open, and he thought he caught a glimpse of tears in her eyes as she vanished, but he didn’t care. Whatever it made him, however much something whispered he would regret it later, he didn’t care. He’d gotten her out, and that was all that mattered, because he didn’t know what was going to happen, and the sting of words could be explained away so much more easily than the lash of accidental magic. She was safe, Merlin willing Hannah and the babies were safe, and he was alone in the shadow of the oncoming storm.

The edge of the table crumbled to soft loam in his hands, when he fell to his knees the floorboards were pulsing, too warm, filling the room with the sticky bite of fresh sap running like blood between the cracks. His back was throbbing now, aching so deeply he couldn’t curl up and couldn’t sit straight and certainly had no hope of escaping what his own thoughts so traitorously forced upon him.

Opening silver paper on his eleventh birthday and finding his father’s wand nestled in the cotton wadding of the box, the hint of a smile on Gran’s face. Testing it so fearfully, certain that it wouldn’t work, then the startle and the wonderful laughter all around when the sparks erupted.

The way his mother had approached him on his first visit, curious as a child herself, eyes blank and unknowing, then startling all of them when she had fled to the corner, moaning and howling. They had rushed him away, not allowed him back for almost a year, but how awful that he knew now why. Because if it were longer than counting and he met a boy of six on the street, it would send him into just as much agony to recognize his own son as a baby no longer.

Gran’s same smile, but deeper with pride when she had taken him to get his own cherry and unicorn because the linden had been driven, shattered into the dark hole of a silver mask. How he had thought she would be angry, tried to wash away the blood on his face, mumbled through the story omitting as many details as possible. But she had called him a very brave man. It was the first time she had used either word, and the shaken boy of fifteen who still couldn’t quite believe he was alive had not recognized their treasure yet.

The unfathomable look in her eyes as she adjusted the ribbon of the Order of Merlin around his neck and advised him how to properly bow to Her Majesty. His mother mesmerized by the shining engagement ring on Hannah’s finger, humming what he would give almost anything to know now. Telling Gran in breathless incredulity that they were expecting twins, and the clasp of her still-strong hand around his, the way she had brushed his cheek, that smile again. They had only gone to see his parents once when Hannah was visibly pregnant. Monroe had said the change upset them. Not the grandchildren they’d never…never…never….

Like a blast of thunder, the willow split itself apart, and while the house remained silent, the shattered wood began to scream.

OOO

He did not remember falling asleep, but the dawn was still vibrant with color when he awoke, the harsh new light refracting into his face through the jagged glass of the broken living room windows. His mouth was dry, his throat raw, his back knotted in deep, throbbing bundles of ache, and when he pushed to his knees, shaking his head and trying to reorient himself, the sudden nausea was so intense that he nearly threw up. Sweet Merlin, what had he done last night?

Clutching his head gingerly, Neville managed to stand slowly by closing his eyes away from the invasive light, and it baffled him how he had managed to aquire such an epic hangover in his grandmother’s decidedly alcohol-free home. But no, it wasn’t a hangover, not quite. The taste in his mouth was wrong – like…like grass, really – and he felt wrung out on a level far deeper than simple overindulgence. This was like having his bones hollowed out, as if something had been seeped from him, as if he had drained every drop of blood and replaced it with weak, thin water.

The room told him when he finally opened his eyes. A hurricane would have wreaked less devastation. Every piece of furniture was destroyed, some torn apart, some reduced to piles of dark compost as if left to rot for a thousand years. The timbers of the walls had come to life, sprouting branches with bright new leaves through the tattered wallpaper. Every once-upholstered surface was invisible beneath a thick blanket of moss, and the floor was knee-deep in the gorse and heather of the moors that should have been locked far outside the walls. And beyond the broken windows, the grounds had run wild. Every manicured hedge, every carefully tended flowerbed…gone. These were the Dales as they had been before the hand of man; primal and powerful, untamed and seemingly untamable masses of brush.

Incredulously, Neville ran his hands over his robes, fumbling through the folds and pockets for quite a while before finally locating his wand. His hand was shaking as he pointed it at what he was reasonably sure had been a chair, his voice rough as he tried to cast the spell that should have been easy for a child. “Reparo!”

A faint, sputtering spark popped from the end of his wand, but nothing more, he was struck with a fresh wave of nausea, and Neville heard himself laugh faintly. “All right then,” he slipped the wand back into his pocket with a resigned sigh to no one. “I get the message. Enough’s enough.”

If he wanted to be in any shape to Apparate to the Ministry in – he checked his watch, grimacing – two and a half hours – he needed to lay off the magic completely. Get something to eat, some tea, let his body recover from what had rather obviously been quite the outpouring of unrestrained power. Really, it was almost easier this way, and he supposed he should be grateful. The memory had returned, but it was as vague as the painting of a distant storm across a large room, and best that he was just too drained to feel, that there was just too much to do to think.

It was the kitchen that held the greatest shock for him, but that was nothing like the one that had come when he had first awakened. In fact, it was entirely intact, but as he stared at the stove, he was forced to the realization that he had absolutely no idea what to do. That, in point of fact, he had never cooked for himself. Not once.

As as child, there had been Mimsy, then Hogwarts, and then he’d lived back here at the Creek again until he was married, when he had been living over a bloody restaurant, for Merlin’s sake, with a wife who was a fantastic cook and even if she was busy there was always something set aside that he only needed to heat up, and…it wasn’t as if he had tried to avoid it. It just had never occurred to him. And now here I am, twenty-seven years old, Order of Merlin, half starving because I’ve power enough to accidentally unleash the fury of nature on my own front yard while having a bad night, and the only thing I can do is…tea.

Not even that, though. It took magic to boil water.

Still, his life had taught him nothing if not how to improvise, and a search of the kitchen did eventually turn up a loaf of bread, some cold roast, some cheese, and a pot of mustard. Not breakfast food, maybe, but the resultant sandwich was workable enough, even if he half-crushed the bread because he didn’t know what kind of knife to cut it with, even if the cheese was more broken chunks than tidy slices. There was milk to drink, the shower did have manual taps, and soon enough, Neville was pleased to find that he felt almost normal again.

There was only the matter now of his uniform. Despite feeling decidedly stronger, he had no desire to press his luck on magic with a cross-country Apparation looming closer with every tick of his watch, and that meant no way to send Mimsy to the Cauldron. He couldn’t just report for duty in civilian attire, even if it wasn’t grass-stained and torn in so many places, and that left only one option.

Taking a deep breath to steel himself, Neville followed the long hall to Gran’s bedroom, but when he put his hand on the knob, he stopped. For a moment, he wondered if there had been a Shield Charm erected, it was so hard to move forward, but there was no tingle of magic, and he knew it was a silly idea. It was all in his head, just in his head, and he had let himself give in to that more than enough already. He turned the knob harshly, the brass squealing against the abusive wrench, pushing into the room as if ready to face an enemy.

No one there, of course. Just the bed, stripped down and still surrounded with the spells of a crime scene. Just the nightstand with her glasses still there beside the book she would never finish. Just the closet where at the end of the row hung two sets of men’s Auror’s robes. Slowly, like fighting against an Imperius ordering him back, Neville crossed the room to run one hand over the sleeve.

They were almost identical to his own. After a brief use of scarlet in the mid-nineties, Shacklebolt had decided to return the uniform to its traditional phaelo green to help restore the Department’s public image in the wake of Riddle’s abuses of power. Identical also, the patch on the breast, the texture of the serge, the brass buttons with their embedded crest. So easy, almost, to imagine they were his. He saw his hands move, but he felt nothing as he pulled them from the hanger, opened the buttons, slipped his arms into the sleeves. Closed cuffs, a slit on the side instead to allow the wand to be accessed at the belt. A thin trim of piping in gold. Buttons to the thigh instead of the waist. Such nothing details.

There was so much he had thought he knew, but this was so different. Pictures told him he tended towards his mother’s sturdy build but had his father’s height. This was a perfect length of mid-calf as if measured for him, but a taut tug of cloth across the chest and shoulders. Stories said his father had fought hard. This was patches of cloth in a dozen places that were newer than the surrounding fabric, magically mended, and here and there the color was faded where Scourgify had to be used a bit too deeply. Stubborn hope and the words of others said his father had loved him. This was a spot on the shoulder cleaned a thousand times exactly where he knew now a man rested the head of his infant son. This was a spot on the hem torn by tiny, terrified fingers locked in a closet while he had screamed his sanity away.

A sharp chiming noise startled him, and he snatched for his wand, remembering at the last second not to grab for his sleeve before he recognized the sound. Frowning, he pulled the watch from his pocket, staring in disbelief at the hands as he silenced the alarm. Quarter to eight? But that meant…he had been standing there nearly an hour? It wasn’t possible. His sense of time must still have been off, another side-effect of the magic, maybe?

Not that it mattered. Neville squared his shoulders, closing his eyes as he drew deep within himself for the concentration he needed. He had made a promise, and now he made another. You deserved better than this, Dad. You worked for justice, and so help me, I swear I will see justice done for you.

OOO

Finding his way through the complicated corridors of the Ministry to the Auror Department came as easily as if he had last reported in mere days ago rather than years, but Neville was surprised to find that the offices themselves had shrunk. The bustling, spacious room he remembered was smaller now than the dining room of the Cauldron, the cubicles crammed in so tightly that there was barely room to turn around between them, and the furniture an oddly mixed collection of dented desks and spellotaped chairs.

It was obvious, too, that Harry ran things more casually than Robards before him, and he felt a bit awkward to discover that he was the only one in uniform among the witches and wizards already clustered around their Department Head, who had perched himself on the edge of the desk closest to the door. Neville squeezed in between Justin and Zach, wondering if he had misremembered the time, but just then the clock on the wall struck eight, and Harry nodded in satisfaction, rubbing his hands together briskly.

“Morning, people. Busy day ahead of us, and everyone can see we have some old friends rejoining us to help deal with what this morning’s Prophet has decided to call the Nevermore Murders.”

Anthony made a face. “Someone there’s a fan of Muggle poetry, it seems.”

“Personally, I always thought Poe was far too impressed with his own morbidity,” Justin retorted archly. “Give me Byron or Plath when I’m in a black mood. ‘I had a dream, which was not all a dream –‘”

“That’s lovely,” Harry interrupted, “but the ravens are not actually at the murder scenes or definitively connected to the victims. Let’s not get caught up in it being about the diaries. It probably is, but coincidences do happen.”

There were several nods, and he took a deep breath, gesturing at Neville. “For those of you coming back, you need to know about our budget. We don’t have one. I’ve had to fight tooth and nail just to keep them from cutting our numbers further, and the only reason we’ve kept our salaries is that I’ve had to play on a few things I don’t exactly like calling in.” Harry tapped the scar on his forehead, then spread his hands with a wry, resigned smile. “So while I’ve got them to authorize the reserves with our killer on the loose, you’re paying your own expenses out-of-pocket, and you’ll be sharing cubicles. Neville with Saz, Ron, you’re with Brian, Justin with Demmy. Not the best welcome back, but tea and coffee’s still free. They do know when we’d mutiny.”

“A career in politics does not always entirely preclude common sense,” Justin laughed, raising his own paper cup of the thick, pitch-black departmental brew in salute. “And I’m certainly willing to take care of incidentals as well as pitch into a general petty cash if need be. It’s an honor just to be back.”

“Honor to have you back, all of you.” Neville felt a warm squeeze on his arm, and looked down to see Demelza grinning up at him as eagerly as a long-lost lover. “We’ve missed you. Especially you, Commander.”

His cheeks warmed at the unexpected enthusiasm, and he shrugged her away, chuckling awkwardly. “Thanks, Demmy, but I’m just Neville here.”

“Sorry, Commander, things haven’t changed that much.”

She meant it lightly, but Neville caught the slight, involuntary wince from Harry and shook his head, determined to cut off any sense of split loyalties before they could take root. “As long as you remember who’s Commander-in-Chief.”

Harry raised his own cup of tea in acknowledgement, a touch of relief in his eyes, but Demelza just grinned at him in what looked almost like a wink behind the black eyepatch. “I remember who makes my assignments.”

“Good to know you have your priorities, Chambers,” Harry agreed dryly, then picked up a sheaf of parchment from the desk beside him. “Speaking of; case sheets are ready as soon as everyone gets changed. And be quick about it. Some of you are going out in fifteen.”

Nods all around, and the group dispersed quickly to the two doors at the back of the room. Previously, the locker rooms had only been to keep spare robes in case of a particularly messy assignment, but he had no chance to wonder what else had changed before Harry tapped him on the shoulder. “Neville, a moment? Those robes….they’re your father’s, aren’t they?” His voice had dropped, and there was a mixture of respect and sympathy tinted with something else that reminded him suddenly that the Potter’s home had been destroyed, leaving Harry no such mementos.

His look must have been answer enough, because Harry sighed, pushing his hands uncomfortably into his pockets. “I get it. I do. But as much as I’m not trying to be a Troll when you’re doing us a favor, I can’t let you wear them.”

Neville frowned, glancing over them again as if to confirm that there was no date embroidered beneath the crest. “The style’s not that far off, Harry. I didn’t think it would be too big a deal.”

“It’s not the style, it’s the draw,” Harry said grimly. “We’ve got someone out there who may be targeting you specifically, and I don’t want you reaching for an empty sleeve because you weren’t trained on a belt holster. Do you still have yours?”

For some reason, the simply reasonable rebuttal caused a wave of relief, and he realized how much more uncomfortable he had been with wearing them than he’d wanted to admit. “They’re at the Cauldron, but I can get them.”

Harry considered it a moment, then shook his head, already moving towards the changing rooms himself. “Tomorrow. We’ve got a big load today. You’re close enough in size, you can borrow Zach’s spare set. Just don’t mess them up. Did I mention we have no budget?”

“I seem to recall something like that,” Neville smiled as he followed through the tight warren of cubicles. “Is it really that bad?”

“Having to remind people in other departments that you saved the wizarding world to beg for spare Copying Quills isn’t my idea of good.” The bitterness was clear even over the sarcasm, and Neville couldn’t help but cringe. Celebrity, as he had learned himself, had its upsides, but that was just humiliating, and he felt sincerely sorry for the other man.

“You’ll have a friend on the Wizengamot this time next week,” he offered quietly.

Harry did not look back, but his shoulders tightened, and there was a strange, icy warning in his tone. “I once thought I had several.”

Before he could consider the implications of that, however, they had opened the door, and Neville discovered that like the offices beyond, the changing rooms were also smaller than they once had been, clearly meant for four men rather than the seven now pressed inside. An elbow almost caught him in the stomach, and he had to step back quickly, pushed up tight against the door as Callahan wheeled around, his ruddy face flushed deeper in annoyance as he brandished one scuffed black brogan. “Anyone seen me other shoe? May’ve tossed it in t’wrong locker last night, I’m thinkin’. Knackered out like a feckin’ whore durin’ shore leave, I were.”

Anthony’s voice sounded almost at once, muffled slightly as he pulled his shirt off over his head. “Over here, unless I have a spare foot I don’t know about.” Throwing the shirt into the bottom of the tiny locker, he grabbed the shoe and sent it flying into Callahan’s waiting hand, his eyes widening as he spotted Neville. “Need something, Commander?”

Zach answered before he could, whether Harry had asked him already or he had assessed the situation for himself. “I think I know.” He disappeared behind the thin metal door for a moment, then tossed the heavy robes across to Neville. “Here. Gimme those and I’ll keep them safe. Protego and everything.”

The unspoken understanding of their significance touched him, and he hoped the smile conveyed deeper than it felt as he began to strip off. “Thanks.”

“Blimey! What happened to yours, Ron?” Neville looked up at Harry’s bemused tone, half-afraid that he would see a uniform that still bore the evidence of some awful final mission, but instead the robes that Ron had just shrugged into were just cataclysmically wrinkled, as well as scrawled over with a lot of something that was very pink and distinctly glittery.

“Not sure,” Ron admitted distractedly. “I think Rose may have gotten to them. Found them wadded up in a bag. It’ll Scourgify.”He seemed to be having some trouble with the buttons, and at first Neville wondered if some of them were missing or had been distorted, but as the other wizard turned, his face flushed, he saw what the problem actually was. Nor was he the only one.

“She shrink them, too?” Anthony asked dryly. His only answer was a scathing glare, and the raised eyebrow became a full-fledged grin. “Justice comes to all sooner or later! I believe that Mr. Weasley’s legendary metabolism may finally be a thing of mere legend.”

“Shut it,” Ron snapped, but although it wasn’t so much that Neville had even seen the gradual change over the years, his once-gangly form had definitely filled out, and the closely-cut uniform was proving anything but forgiving. “I’ve just lost a little definition, that’s all.”

Callahan could not resist, folding his arms smugly over his own barrel chest as he leaned against the door of his locker. “No one’s sayin’ ya lost nothin’, lad.”

“I’m a perfectly normal bloke coming up on thirty,” Ron retorted defensively, abandoning his efforts to force the old black trousers to button in favor of waving an accusatory hand at Anthony. “You’re the one who’s mental! Half those muscles don’t even exist.”

Anthony glanced down at himself, assessing the almost-inhumanly carved distinction of his own torso that Neville knew was the result of the tightly controlled strength needed to carry out the daily balancing act of his artificial legs. “Funny, I use them every day.” He shrugged casually, pulling on his undershirt and reaching for his belt before adding as an afterthought. “But I also lack your love affair with bacon.”

Ron glowered at him, but Anthony had already turned away to pull on his robes, and he settled for a wounded look at his best friend. “This, Harry, is why I don’t miss working with smart-arse ex-Ravenclaws.”

Harry’s mouth was pressed tightly in what was obviously a struggle being lost between his sense of humor and his sense of loyalty. “Hermione and I have tried to tell --“

“I know, I know!” he interrupted, then sighed. “Fine. You win. I’ll get back to the gym tonight.”

Something in his voice suggested that the friendly jabs might have held some unwittingly very real sting, and Neville cleared his throat quietly, trying to keep his tone matter-of-fact and entirely non-judgmental. “That uniform, Ron, it was what, thirty-one at the waist?”

“I think so.”

“I’ll need some time at the office to look over the cases before I go out anyway.” Neville shrugged off the borrowed robes he still hadn’t buttoned, holding them out. “I’ll send to the Cauldron for mine; you can borrow Zach’s. I’m thirty-four, so if they fit me, they’ll work fine for you.”

Ron’s eyes were warily appraising as his took them, searching for the tease, the disdain, but there was none to be seen. If anything, Neville envied his friend; envied the simple sense of security and safety that meant it was okay to put off a workout until tomorrow or the next day, to view your body with a ‘good enough’ shrug rather than the relentless scrutiny of a someone who would, as Demelza had so casually pointed out, always be the leader of an army. Some part of that must have shown in his face, because the guardedness turned to real gratitude, but before Ron could say anything, Harry spoke again.

“That’s great of you, Nev, but be ready by noon.” Harry tugged his sleeve down crisply over his holster, the friendly banter gone completely in a confident authority. “Malfoy will be expecting you regarding the theft, and Zach, you’ll have to brief him quickly anyway. You’re due at the Prophet to go over Rita’s office at half-past.”

Zach had been tying his shoes, and he straightened so quickly as he wheeled to face Harry that he missed slamming his head on the locker’s edge by not even an inch. “Bloody hell! You lost your mind, Harry? No way I can --”

“It’s okay, I can read,” Neville said quickly. “Just point me at the files and notes you already have, and I’ll let you know on the Galleon if anything’s too confusing. Has your handwriting gotten any better?”

He didn’t seem entirely happy with the arrangement, but there was little option, and Zach gave a non-committal shrug. “Harry can read it.”

Behind Zach, Harry made a face, and Neville had to struggle to keep his reply deadpan professional. “Then it must have improved astronomically.”

“You only have me until ten of eleven today, I fear.” Justin had conjured a mirror to hover in mid-air, making minute, invisible adjustments to the robes that already hung so perfectly that Neville would half have thought he’d had them made new that day. “I’m shuffling madly at Parliament, and I should be able to clear for you tomorrow with the exception of a committee meeting from half-three to five which I simply cannot miss and I’ll have to check my email to see if I’ll be at Number Ten on Thursday evening, but –“

“Do what you need to.” Harry clapped him lightly on the shoulder, but his eyes were serious. “I don’t want you burning out on us again.”

“Nostalgia has its limits,” Justin agreed quickly. “Still, it’s rather nice to all be working together again, dark though the circumstances may be. And I’d forgotten how I do like the uniforms, even if I still maintain they’d look devilishly noir with a fedora.”

“Right crop o’ spit and shiny hero boys, ya are, and a tough old dog t’keep ya in heel.” Callahan made a brief snort of laughter, but the amusement in his blue eyes was merely a veneer over steel. “Don’t reckon that murderin’ fool knows what he’s brought down on hisself.”

“They never do,” Ron agreed.

Justin vanished the mirror with a flick of his wand before tucking it away, and his answering smile was equally hard, creasing the thin scars on his face into fleeting relief. “And clearly, they never learn.”

OOO

“Zach, you’re on the Nevermore team now. Brief Neville as fast as you can, then you’re going to the Prophet, interviewing Healer Monroe, then the witnesses from the Jones murder. Tony, I want to know if any of those books – or anything claiming to be them – has hit the black market collector circuit.” Harry barely glanced over the writing on the parchment bundles as he handed them out; some barely a few pages thick, others nearly as hefty as dictionaries. “Justin, I know you’re splitting your time, but I thought we could take advantage of your dual citizenship here. I’ll give you copies of Neville’s old case files, and I want to go a bit outside the box and see if you can find a connection. Maybe someone who’s straddling like you and has a criminal record in the Muggle world but not here.”

Justin took his with an uncertain frown, thumbing through the first few pages as his eyes narrowed. “I don’t have access to police records there, Harry. I’m RAF and an MP, but those things are under different classifications.”

“Search newspaper records, then,” Harry replied, undaunted. “I know you can do that with ridiculous speed on that computer of yours. See if any of the names pop up, particularly in regards to recent prison releases or assassination attempts.”

“It’s a long shot,” Justin muttered, half to himself, “but I’ll give it a go. I think I might have better luck actually on the conspiracy boards; the ones who’re dismissed as nutters for believing in what’s right under their noses. Secret underground societies of sorcerers covered up by the government,” he made a noise too dark to properly be considered a chuckle. “The things some people will believe….”

There was an uncomfortable titter from the little group, no one sure if they should laugh at what wasn’t quite a joke, but Harry broke the awkwardness almost immediately, picking up the next assignments from the stack at his side. “Demmy, you’re our medical specialist. I want you overseeing the autopsies of the Longbottoms and reviewing the previous autopsy files. Saz, I need your eyes at the actual crime scenes, you’re going with me. Ron, you and Brian have the Dellingworth case – he’ll fill you in – and Neville, you’re taking Zach’s previous load and starting at Malfoy Manor at noon.”

Neville was pleased to see that the file in question was already at the top, what he assumed were the most pertinent details neatly marked to glow with a subtle orange halo of light, but the handwriting was every bit as indecipherable as he had remembered. Long, vaguely wavering lines with spikes and dots almost at random, it looked more like Arabic than English, and he was grateful that Harry seemed to know that the pages themselves weren’t offering much at first glance. “Original Medinicci,” he pointed to a bit that yes, could possibly be an M and did contain three dots. “Reported stolen yesterday morning, so I doubt he’ll be happy we haven’t gotten there yet what with people distracting us by dropping dead.”

The sarcasm directed at his old rival was unmistakable, but it vanished before anyone could comment as he stood, looking around the circle of officers already immersed in their newly-issued tasks. “Any questions straight off?” No one answered, and he nodded briskly, adjusting his glasses and taking the last – and, Neville noticed, largest – sheaf from the desktop, this one with his own name marked in the upper corner. “Okay, then. I’ll be in my office until ten, and after that you can just write me up as usual.”

It took a moment for the oddness of the statement to sink through the casual tone, but by the time Neville looked up curiously, Harry was already gone, and he turned to Demelza. “Write him up?”

“The idea was from our Galleons,” she explained distractedly, not looking up from what he wished he couldn’t see was a photograph of a woman’s nude, nearly emaciated body stretched on the heartless steel of an examining table. “The notepads we use…I might have one more back at my cubicle, but here, I’ll show you.” She flipped the file closed and fished her notepad from her pocket, but not before he caught a glimpse of the name he had wanted to pretend it wasn’t. “The last page is charmed. You write the person’s name at the top, and if they have one too, whatever you write below that will appear on theirs. It erases after a couple of minutes or if you write back, but it gets hot like the coins did to tell us we have a message.”

“That’s brilliant,” he smiled weakly, not wanting her to know that he had seen the photograph, much less that it had any effect on him. It couldn’t. He’d decided to do this, after all, and wasn’t every victim they had ever dealt with someone’s family? “You’re really taking it the next step.”

“Tony’s work. We’re all grateful we didn’t lose him to the – Commander?”

He didn’t even hear her confusion, all thoughts of clever spellwork or disturbing photos forgotten as he spotted a figure with impeccable posture and sleek black hair already headed for the exit. Neville shouldered past her, catching the other officer’s arm even as his hand closed over the doorknob. “Justin! Wait!”

One eyebrow arched a fraction as he turned back, as if unable to fathom a reason Neville might want to detain him. “Harry’s already given me your files, dear chap. I’m quite set.”

Neville dropped his voice to a whisper, hoping that it wouldn’t carry too far in the packed office. “I need to talk to you about what you have.”

The grey eyes widened, and his expression of sudden comprehension was nearly comical, though his words became even more clipped and polite in a way that, although Hannah had long told him was a sign of discomfort, had never ceased to drive him a bit mental. “Ah. Yes. Your family. Indeed.”

“Ah, yes, my family indeed,” Neville repeated, and his grip on the other man’s sleeve tightened, uncaring whether he wrinkled the wool or even bruised the flesh beneath. “Where are they?”

A faint flush appeared on the high cheekbones, but whether it was pain or just being increasingly put out he couldn’t determine. “Now, you know I can’t tell you that. There’s no need for a scene.”

“I don’t do ‘scenes’, either, Justin,” Neville whispered coldly. “This is not a scene. There will not be a scene. But if something has happened to Hannah or my babies, a scene will not even begin to describe how unhappy I will be. How do I know they’re all right?”

“I thought you trusted – nevermind.” He stopped himself with a little shake of his head. “Silly question. You’re worried, of course. These are terrible times, and I do value the trust you placed in me, certainly, especially when you could have sent them to join the others at –“

Neville’s fingers tightened further, and although he couldn’t see anything, the flinch of pain he felt was unmistakable. “Are. They. All. Right?”

“Yes.” Justin scowled, twisting his arm away and starting to rub at where he had been grabbed, then changing his mind and reaching instead for his trouser pocket, where he withdrew what Neville recognized as one of the ubiquitous miniature telephones that Muggles carried everywhere. “I was going to give this to you later when we had more privacy, but here.”

He flipped it open effortlessly with one hand, extending it towards Neville to display the bright glass and score of glowing buttons. “It’s already programmed with…but that doesn’t matter. What’s relevant to you is that if you hear it make a noise, open it up like this, push this button, and you can talk to your wife. If you want to ring her, push the green button twice and wait for her answer. If it stops working, give it to me, and I’ll recharge it.”

Neville took it carefully, his face carefully neutral even as his heart leapt at the chance to talk to Hannah despite his suspicions of both object and owner. “Can I use it now?”

“It won’t work until tonight. Probably…lets see…two, five…eightish our time. She has to get where she’s going to have the other one.”

The clear calculation of timezones startled him, and he couldn’t suppress the shiver at the staggering distance implied. “How far away have you sent her?”

“Far enough that even if she makes a spectacle of herself she won’t be found, and far beyond Apparation range.” There was something icily matter-of-fact in the pronouncement, and Neville ran his thumb over the panel of buttons, trying to imagine how such a small thing, utterly devoid of magic, could possibly breach such a gulf. Would he be able to hear her at all? Would she sound like herself? Would he even be able to tell, shouting back and forth and trying to make out her answers, if it was her on the other side?

“I don’t know if that makes me more or less comfortable,” he admitted quietly.

There was a long pause, then Justin put both hands on Neville’s shoulders, surprising him with the uncharacteristic intimacy of the gesture even before he looked up to see that the shuttered gray eyes were just as alarmingly open and vulnerable. “Do you think that Harry would ever betray Hermione?”

He shook his head, almost laughing at the suggestion despite how still on his guard he was. “Of course not.”

“Ernie, Hannah, and I were every bit as close as those three,” Justin whispered, but even that hushed, he caught a tight control to the other man’s tone. “And I’ve already lost one of them; a man who was more than a brother to me. You have no idea what I would be willing to do to prevent losing my sister.”

Neville held Justin’s eyes evenly, his own restraint still in place, but allowing the utter conviction and subtle promise of retribution to show through. “No more than I would do to protect my wife and children.”

“The better, then, that we are in alliance on that very thing.” Justin smiled, once again breezily formal as he pulled back and brushed his hands smartly against the skirt of his robes, tugging everything back into place where imaginary wrinkles might have thought of occurring. “I would hope you always keep it in mind.”

“Neville!” Before he could answer, Zach had appeared at his elbow, looking extremely hurried as well as very annoyed at both of them as he shot Justin a frustrated glare. “Later, mate! I’ve got almost no time to bring you up on…” He stopped, trailing off as he caught the look on Neville’s face and the phone still clutched in his hand. “Are you okay?”

“Of course.” Neville shook himself, pocketing the phone and turning his full attention to Zach as Justin murmured his apologies before leaving. “I’m sorry. I had some business with him. But let’s just worry about the Malfoy case for now. Just give me the spell roots; I can work out the rest for myself.”

Zach was already heading towards his cubicle, talking quickly without even looking back to make sure Neville was following him. “Four in the morning yesterday, Draco was woken by what he swears were footsteps. Adult, human. Wife accounted for in bed next to him, no guests, doors locked. Gets his wand, checks it out, nothing. Brings his kid to bed with them just to be safe, double-locks the bedroom door. Next morning, Mrs. Malfoy notices the painting missing, he calls us. We were a little busy.”

“Approximate value?”

“200,000 Galleons.”

“No pocket change, even for him.”

“Definitely not. Not a little thing, either. Six by four, and that’s feet.” They had reached what was obviously his cubicle now, the walls thickly patchworked with photographs of Meg and the children interspersed with a variety of crayoned artwork. He began to rummage the cluttered surface of the desk, pocketing small items and bits of parchment as he talked, pausing only to snatch gulps of coffee from the steaming cup balanced precariously close to the edge. “Took the frame, too, which is another 30,000 and thick gilt over mahogany. Malfoy’s estimated the total weight around close to 150lbs. We’re expecting ransom, since there’s no way the thief could sell it without attracting attention, but nothing on that front so far, and it’s neither the most valuable nor personally significant piece in the house.”

“You’ve alerted all the legitimate dealers?” Neville didn’t have one of the official notepads yet, but he flipped over the stack of files he had gotten from Harry, jotting down the information on the back with the stub of a pencil borrowed from the overflowing mug on Zach’s desk. “Muggle too?”

“Yes on the former, no need on the latter. It’s a magica portrait. Sotheby’s would have a lot more awkward questions about oils that moved beyond just ownership rights. Haven’t had time to visit the scene, though. Your par–“ He stopped himself, looking horrified at what he had almost so casually said, but Neville waved it away.

“I know. It’s okay.”

Zach wasn’t so easily brushed off, and he straightened, pushing the drawer closed with his knee as he turned somberly to Neville, all brusqueness and bustle gone. “No, it’s not okay. And I should have said something sooner. You’ve lost half your family, Commander, and had to send the rest away. If there’s anything Meg or I can do…if you want to stay at my place, maybe, so you aren’t alone….”

The earnest generosity of the offer made him uncomfortable, and it was difficult not to look away. “Your family’s been hit too, Zach.”

“It’s not the same.”

“Loss is loss,” he replied firmly, not wanting to argue it further. “I’m just counting on you to help stop this bastard before anyone else loses someone.”

“I’ll do everything in my power.”

“That’s all any of us can do. And now,” he pointed towards the door, “I think you’re going to be digging for dirt on our favorite reporter?”

“About time someone turned the tables on her.” Zach gave a downright vicious little smile. “You never know, if I find something good, I might just have to write my own tell-all.” He checked his pockets again, then returned to rummaging for something, jerking his head vaguely back towards the entrance. “Saz’s cubicle is the first on the left. She should have the rest of what you need to get back into things here.”

Neville took the cue to leave, and although the indicated cubicle was barely a few steps away and certainly well within earshot, it still took him off-guard when Sally-Anne was not only clearly waiting for him, but reached out just in time to grab the top piece of parchment where it was starting to slip off the stack in his hand. “How did you –“ He stopped, feeling ridiculous as the unnaturally bright, featureless blue of her magical eyes glittered at him in amusement.

“Nevermind.” Neville took the seat she offered him, although they had to angle their knees oddly to avoid knocking into one another in the space that had never been designed for two chairs, much less people in them. “I hope you aren’t offended if it still takes a little getting used to.”

“Takes a lot to offend me, Commander,” she laughed. “If getting talked around by people like I’d lost my ears and wits rather than just my eyes for seven years didn’t do it, you startling a bit isn’t going to break my sensitive little heart.”

“Thank you, I guess.” He opened the files on the spot she had cleared for him, scanning over them as if the writing might have somehow become more legible in the last five minutes. It had not, but a possibility occurred to him, and he twisted to look at her again, wondering how to phrase his question without being rude, no matter what she had just said about not being easily offended. “So, what exactly can…well, I never quite got up the nerve to ask Moody what his –“

“Mine are a generation better than his,” Sally-Anne interrupted proudly. “That’s why they’re restricted to Sorcerer Security Clearance only and I had to join the bloody greensuits to get them.” She tapped her cheek, blinking deliberately, and Neville almost jumped back as they changed from blue to brilliant orange and back again. “Don’t want these little pixies in just anyone’s head, or we’d have a lot more work.”

The complete ease of her manner about them was disarming, and he allowed the building fascination to show, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees and take a better look. He had seen her with them for two years now, but he had always tried not to make a big deal of it or to stare, but now he noticed that the whites weren’t actually white, they were mother-of-pearl, and the striations of the iris were actually a perfect radial starburst. It was eerie, certainly, but also rather pretty in its way. “Then you really can see through things?”

“Like the cute litte scar on your right arse cheek where you sat on that teacup when you were four?” His jaw dropped, at a loss for words as he felt his face explode into a violent blush, but she just laughed. “Don’t worry, lovie. Just fooling with you.”

He shook his head, unwilling to dismiss what had been far to specific – and correct – to be a guess. “Then how…?”

“Bottles found their way upstairs in the Room too, and it’s not just lads that brag,” she winked. “If I looked through your clothes, it wouldn’t be the surface I’d be seeing, it’d be…” Her face fell, and she looked almost stricken. “I can’t believe you never said anything, Commander.”

“I don’t understand what you mean.” Neville looked down at himself, wondering even with magically enhanced vision what she possibly could have seen that would have been so obviously upsetting. “About what?”

“They really did tear your back all to hell, didn’t they?” she said softly, reaching out to brush the tips of her fingers against his shoulder so gently that she seemed to be afraid the wounds were still fresh. “There’s enough deep muscle scarring that I can see it, and soft tissue doesn’t show up easily. That’s got to still hurt.”

“Aches a little sometimes,” he confessed, suddenly feeling twice as exposed as when she had teased him before. “No big deal. Long healed. But anyway, what else can they do?”

Thankfully, she understood that he didn’t want to talk about it further, moving on as brightly as if it had never been mentioned at all. “Magnify, night vision, heat vision, magical fields and spell residue, and I can see through just about any kind of concealment charm, potion, spell, or transfiguration.”

Neville let out a low whistle, genuinely impressed. “I can understand why they’re restricted.”

“It’s enough just to see.” There was something sensual in the way she spoke the simple word, shaping it on her lips like the name of her most dearly beloved. “Seven years of darkness, Commander. I was willing to do anything. I can never repay this.”

He knew there was no way to pretend to understand that kind of loss, nor the relief of escaping what she had thought was a life’s sentence, but he felt like he needed to say something, no matter how foolish. “If you can see something we’d miss, that’s more than repayment enough.”

“One more thing –“ They both looked up, surprised to see Zach leaning over the edge of the partition.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at the Prophet?” Sally-Anne asked.

“In a minute,” he snapped, the rest of his words tumbling out in such a hurry that Neville could barely follow them. “Malfoy will probably go at you about the restrictions on the house. That’s not our jurisdiction, so don’t let him talk you into making any promises. And I’ve got the floo address of an art historian in there somewhere to give a second opinion on the value. And I’ve already contacted the insurance branch at Gringotts, they confirm that it’s been in his family for two hundred years, but where they got it from in the first place is unknown. And he hasn’t made a claim yet. And they also said they have two more by the same artist, so I’d check if there was any attempt made to –“

“But what about the moose?”

Her completely deadpan interruption stopped the babble immediately, but the two men’s reactions could not have been more different. Zach paused only long enough to sputter a single rather foul name at Sally-Anne before vanishing from view, doubled over in helpless, gasping laughter. He was still laughing - barely able to collect himself enough to stagger to the door – as he left, and Neville stared in bafflement at the young witch who was grinning broadly. “The moose?”

“Stakeout,” she said blithely, pushing back a strand of her short, blonde hair with a cheeky toss of her head. “Four in the morning. You had to be there.”

He looked towards the door where he could almost still hear Zach’s boyish laughter, despite knowing that the other man had already Apparated away. It gave him an odd pang of nostalgia for the camaraderie they had shared even in the midst of a job he had so often despised, the private language and in-jokes, even some of the truly black humor that anyone outside would have instantly declared a sign of serious mental illness. One side of his mouth turned up in a bittersweet smile. “I’m almost wishing I had been.”

“You can stay, you know,” she suggested tentatively. “Harry’d be thrilled to have another wand, and everyone knows that you were brilliant.”

He shook his head as if dispelling a dream, turning back to the paperwork and trying to focus instead on the notes Harry had made in the margins here and there. “It doesn’t matter if I was good at it. It’s not who I am, Saz.”

“All due respect,” Sally-Anne corrected him softly, “but right now it is.”

“I suppose you’re right. What else do I have left?” Neville hadn’t meant it to sound either so bitter nor so self-pitying when it had really just been a statement of dry fact, but thankfully, she didn’t seem to read anything unnecessarily maudlin into it, and the look on her face was one of pride, not sympathy as she placed her hand over his.

“You have us, Commander. Whatever else we’ve become, we’ll always be your DA.”

TO BE CONTINUED