Wind rattled the windows in Ron's old room. The old ghoul in the attic gave an answering moan, making the little family of frogs that lived in an enlarged tank set in the corner croak. Despite the noise and the rain – or maybe because they were such normal, familiar sounds – Harry Potter felt drowsy and at peace listening to all of that. He'd been playing with an old Snitch he'd nicked earlier from the Weasley family Quidditch set, but for now his hand was draped over his knee.

It was still something Harry had to get used to, being able to have restful moments like these. The war, the Horcruxes, being in hiding… it had been a weight on his shoulders and an undercurrent in his thoughts for so long that every once in a while, he jolted.

"It's been over two years, mate," said Ron. "You've got to learn to relax."

It was true. Harry's twenty-fourth birthday had come and gone; it'd been well over two years since that horrible day in June. Thanks to Dumbledore, Harry had been healed. He could – and did – relax. Harry squeezed the Snitch, and felt the wings beat against his palm. After a second or two of movement, it went still again. It was a very old Snitch.

Ron went back to the latest issue of The Turnip.

Harry shut his eyes again. The rain made him want to pull out Ron's old camp bed, stretch out on it, and take a nap.

"So why don't you?" Ron asked.

"Sorry, didn't mean to say that out loud," Harry muttered. He tossed the Snitch in the air. It was slow to move, as though it were surprised to find itself free. It'd been caught in Harry's hand for hours now; it probably had no idea what to do now that it was free. It bobbed in the air in front of his nose, as though asking: Are you going to just catch me right away? Slowly, its gossamer wings sped up, and it zig-zagged across the room.

The door opened without warning, and a mane of red hair appeared.

"Mum wants to know what you want – hey, I was looking for that!" said Ginny.

The Snitch whirled past her and she caught it after a couple of swipes.

Harry raised his eyebrow. Even an old Snitch was hard to catch; not everyone could do it.

"Mum wants to know what you want for dinner," said Ginny. She slipped the Snitch into the pocket of her dress.

"Aren't we celebrating your birthday?" Ron threw his copy of The Turnip aside. "Why am I choosing what we're having?"

Ginny's birthday was why Harry and Ron had come to the Burrow in the first place. The youngest Weasley was twenty years old, and Molly and Arthur had summoned all their children ("And of course, you're part of our family, too, Harry, dear," Molly always said whenever she addressed an invitation to Ron.) home to celebrate. Even Charlie was here from the Ukraine, where he now lived.

While Harry was distracted, Ginny had offered an explanation as to why everyone was getting their own favorites for her birthday. "I can't believe you're reading," she said. Harry had noticed one of her favorite things was to take the mickey out of her brother.

"It's The Turnip," Ron said defensively. "And I read, just not as much as Hermione."

Ginny smirked at him. "What, did she teach you how?"

Ron tossed a pillow at her, while Harry laughed.

Ginny sidled out of the room once Harry and Ron told her what they wanted for dinner. She took the Snitch with her. "So what's The Turnip got to say this week?" Harry asked.

"Mentions that situation in Russia that Charlie told us about," said Ron. "With all the vampires; apparently the Russian Ministry – or whatever the department's called over there – had to go in and put 'em all down. Lots of people are upset about it."

The Turnip was a relatively new publication that provided the information that The Daily Prophet simply ignored. The Quibbler had once provided this service – briefly – but the death of Xeno Lovegood had put an end to that. Later, Harry'd found out that Igor Karkaroff had been sent by Voldemort to kill him. Both had died in the blast of an exploding erumpent horn. Whoever wrote for The Turnip had learned that terrible lesson; everything was anonymous and untraceable. None of them would die simply for printing the wrong sort of news.

Harry let out a tiny sigh, hoping Ron couldn't hear it over the rain currently pounding on the window.

"What're you sighing about?" Ron asked.

Harry scratched at his leg, wishing Ginny hadn't taken the Snitch. "Just thinking nothing is like I expected," Harry said honestly. There was no reason to lie; Ron and Hermione were privy to his dissatisfaction with the state of the wizarding world. They felt the same way. They'd spent half their lives dealing with Voldemort in one way or another; now that he was gone, it felt like a betrayal that the corruption in the Ministry and in the populace was still there.

"You owe me a galleon," Ron informed him. "You promised you'd give me a galleon if you started brooding."

Harry knew this. "I'll give it to you when we get back to Grimmauld Place," he said. It wouldn't be until tomorrow; everyone was staying over for Ginny's birthday.

The door opened again; Hermione walked in.

Ron flung himself off his bed, and at his girlfriend. Harry, used to these displays by now, looked out the window. His two best friends greeted each other in a decidedly thorough way. His gaze caught on The Turnip. He'd already read this particular issue. Ron was more interested in the international news section, given both Hermione's and Percy's jobs, but Harry preferred the more domestic column that fearlessly illuminated the corruption in the Ministry, and the darker events that continued to plague Britain. Harry pulled out his wand and summoned the paper toward him—

"Harry!" Hermione said, laughing. "That was so lazy! You could've moved three inches and just grabbed it."

"I didn't want to move three inches," Harry said. Hermione could think he was lazy all she wanted. After months of being in bed, it had become natural to him to do pretty much everything with magic. He stood up, and brushed the back of his robes. They'd bunched around his trousers, and he adjusted them.

"I'm going to let you two talk," Harry informed them, and headed out the door. Hermione, who worked for the Ministry (she'd been the only one of the three of them who could swallow it), had been gone for over a week. They needed to reacquaint themselves with each other without Harry lurking in the background, the way he'd been the entire time they'd been falling in love with each other.

He clattered down the stairs.

George caught him by the elbow and yanked him into the twin' room. Fred was already there; they were both wearing identical looks of amusement.

"We have your antidote for you," Fred said.

"It's time for your monthly medicine," George said cheerfully.

"Open up," said Fred.

Harry, resigned, and did as they asked. It was easier than arguing with them, and they were technically doing him a favor. George unstoppered a vivid green bottle, and poured the contents into Harry's mouth. It tasted bitter and slightly musty; it was a taste nearly impossible to get used to, but the alternative was far worse. "Have I told you two lately that giving you a thousand galleons to start up your joke shop was one of the soundest decisions I've ever made?" Harry said, once the urge to gag had passed.

"Not lately," said George.

"But we know," said Fred.

They were both warmly condescending, and Harry sighed out through his nose. "Thanks," he said. They'd actually been easy on him this month. Usually they were much more obnoxious.

"Dinner's ready!"

Molly'd magicked her voice to make it sound like she was standing right next to them. Harry headed out of the Fred and George's room; they followed right behind him. Everyone gathered relatively quickly around a wooden table heavily laden with food. Ginny was at the head of the table, in between her parents. It was madness for the first few minutes, as everyone grabbed at what they wanted, knocking each other's hands out of the way, sending good-natured threat, and being scolded by their mother whenever a swear was issued.

"I did not raise you to speak like that, Charles Weasley," Molly said sternly.

"Sorry, Mum," said Charlie, ducking his head.

Harry bit back a laugh. Very little had changed since he'd first started coming to the Burrow. Molly still had the ability to cow her sons. Charlie subdued dragons for a living, but ducked his head when his mother scolded him. He shared a quick, laughing glance with Ginny.

Harry felt some tension release during the dinner. The Weasleys were at their best – they usually were, when they were trying to impress Ginny, or make Ginny laugh. Harry'd noticed this over the years, and decided it was because she was the baby of the family by several years, and also the only girl. It was very entertaining to watch.

They'd moved to the sitting room. Charlie and Bill were discussing something in low tones. Harry had a feeling that Charlie was discussing the Russian vampire situation; the Ukraine was heavily affected by the decisions of the Russian Ministry. Even though the Muggle countries had split apart, the Russian Ministry still controlled a large number of witches and wizards. The Ukraine was still under the authority of the Russians.

"Bill! Charlie!" Molly said sharply. She'd noticed.

"Mum," Ginny said, embarrassed.

"I didn't want any discussion of that," Molly paid her daughter no heed. "Not on Ginny's birthday."

"Mum, I don't mind, really—"

"Sorry, Ginny," said Charlie.

Molly had always been ferocious about keeping the terribleness of the war from affecting Ginny, and even though Voldemort had been gone two years, she was still at it. Harry understood. That business with the Horcrux diary during his fifth year… that had given him nightmares, and he'd been fifteen. Ginny'd only been a first year. No wonder Molly wanted to protect her, but Harry did feel that she often went a little over the top.

"Mum, I'm twenty years old," Ginny said. Harry hid a smile behind his mug of coffee.

"It's your birthday, dear," Molly said. "I didn't want anything – anything depressing to come up."

Ginny rolled her eyes.

Harry drifted over to Arthur. Despite Molly's admonition, Harry and Arthur had formed a bond over their favorite Turnip articles. This morning's column had been right up Arthur's alley: a store in London had been supposedly haunted, it was a joke to the Muggle news, the column said, but it turned out that someone had enchanted the mannequins to do increasingly disruptive things during the dead of night. The article had ended on a questioning, troubled note. If the charm hadn't been taken off the mannequins, how much more destructive would they have become?

"Did you read the new Seeker article?" Arthur asked him in a low, low voice. Instead of going by their real names, the writers had codenames, much like the contributors to Potterwatch once had. Harry's favorite writer at The Turnip was Seeker.

"Yeah," Harry said. He knew Arthur would have been as interested as he was. "Is your department doing anything about it?"

"As much as we can," said Arthur. "You know the situation with the Ministry. We have to treat everything like this as though it's a harmless prank." There was a low note of disgust in his voice. "It's a sad day when a newspaper called The Turnip does a better job of protecting the Muggles than the damn Ministry of Magic."

"Last week, Remus mentioned the Ministry still hasn't done anything to negate the anti-werewolf legislation Umbridge drafted."

"Umbridge," Arthur growled.

Harry caught Ginny's eye. She was listening intently. It was almost a decade since Umbridge, Tom Riddle's diary, and the Chamber of Secrets. But the memories Harry had of it were still painful for him, and he hadn't been the one—

"Arthur!" Molly said sharply.

Arthur's ears turned bright red. "Sorry, love," he said to Molly. Then, to Harry: "We'll talk more. Later."

But they never had a chance to reconnect.

"If Mum's going to keep treating me like I'm about three years old, I'm going to need a drink," Ginny announced.

"I don't treat you like you're three—"

"Mum's just trying—"

"—give her a hard time—"

Ginny just rolled her eyes and summoned the firewhiskey.

Harry hid another smile. He happened to think that Ginny was very patient with her over-protective family. He'd been around her often enough that he could tell when they were annoying her. Harry couldn't blame her; he wouldn't want to be coddled either. But Ron had explained it to him long, long ago: "None of us want Ginny hurt. Why d'you think we're fighting so hard?" That'd been around when Ginny was twelve or thirteen, and none of her siblings or her parents had abandoned that attitude.

Two glasses of firewhiskey later, Harry was next to Ginny again.

"Thanks for the Bludger bat," Ginny said cheerfully.

"You're welcome," Harry said. He didn't really know what position Ginny liked to play, but he did know that she loved Quidditch. One of the Weasleys had told him that she'd always wanted to play professionally. It was the firewhiskey that made him say it: "Maybe you'll even be able to play professionally one day! Just need to practice."

She looked at him sharply. "Oh, thank you, Harry," she gushed. "And maybe one day they'll let you join the Auror Academy! After a lot of work and practice, of course."

Harry's mouth slowly fell open, and a burst of laughter came out. "Oh, God," he said. "I deserved that."

She snickered at him. "It's all right, Harry. Just don't start getting patronizing like the rest of that lot." She gestured around at her family.

"I won't do it again," he promised.

Harry trudged up the stairs, tired and bleary-eyed. Blissfully, there was nothing on his mind other than that it had been a good idea of Molly's, not to allow serious discussion. It's good to have a break, he thought, as he pulled out the camp bed, and conjured blankets, sheets, and pillows. It was good to be in a safe, warm place. His thoughts drifted and scattered as he fell asleep, listening to the rain that still drummed down on the roof of the crooked little house.

Despite the late night, he woke early the next morning. He hadn't heard Ron come to up, but he was snoring in the next bed when Harry opened his eyes. It was still early, he could tell. Harry almost decided to roll over and go back to sleep, but decided to take a shower before everyone else was up.

He was rubbing the sleep out of his eyes when he bumped into Ginny on the landing.

"Oof," she said.

"Oh… sorry, Ginny," he said lamely. He yawned. "Still – still sleepy."

"Well, it's early," she said, amused. Her hair was damp, but she must've done some sort of drying charm on it. Harry watched, blearily, as the wet strands dried with remarkable speed.

"Yeah," he said, after a belated pause. That would be a really handy spell to know. He knew one that dried everything right up, but it always left his clothes the worse for wear. I should ask her what that is, he thought.

"I think you need some coffee," she told him.

"You're probably right," he said. "Where are you off to so early?"

"Work," she said simply.

It was a few seconds later that Harry realized he was standing between her and her old room, where she stayed when she was at the Burrow overnight. "Right, yeah," he said, moving to the side. He smiled at her. "Have fun at the shop, don't let Fred and George turn you into anything."

She nodded, and moved by him. "Have a good day, Harry," she said over her shoulder.

Harry watched her go up the stairs, unable to help feeling slightly envious. The twins had given her a part-time job as soon as she'd graduated Hogwarts. True, it had been an owl post delivery service until after Voldemort was gone, but now Weasleys Wizard Wheezes had three different locations. Ron always said that he didn't think Ginny was completely happy with the job, and Harry suspected he was right, but at least she had one.

Harry had gold in his Gringotts account, and various tasks Dumbledore gave him. He tried not to examine them too hard, because he suspected Dumbledore kept him busy out of pity.

Stop it, he ordered himself.

The shower he took dispelled the sudden gloom, and he was much more cheerful when he wandered down into the kitchen. Molly was already up, bustling about, and Arthur sat at the small breakfast nook with a cup of coffee and this morning's issue of The Daily Prophet.

"Can I help with anything, Molly?" Harry asked.

"Oh, no, dear," said Molly. "Sit down and have some coffee, won't you?"

Harry did as he was invited to do. Arthur immediately lowered the newspaper. The front cover showed the Canadian Quidditch team. They were the favorite to win the Quidditch World Cup this year, and had been enjoying a lot of press coverage.

"Anything on that Muggle department store?" Harry asked.

"No, the Prophet is garbage as usual," Arthur said, disgusted. "It's all just Quidditch and lies."

Harry nodded. He hadn't expected anything else. During the long years of the war, the Prophet had undergone several shifts. First, it denied that anything was going on; instead, they'd painted Harry as starved for attention, and lying about what he'd seen. Then, once Voldemort had been unmasked, they'd turned shrill about public safety, churning out advice that Dumbledore had called "ridiculous poppycock" on more than one occasion. Finally, in the last years, Death Eaters had seized control of the paper, and it'd become a propaganda machine. Only The Quibbler had written the truth, and that paper had died with Xeno Lovegood.

"Anything from Turnip?" Harry asked. It was another pointless question. While the Prophet came out every morning, as the name of it promised, The Turnip had a more eccentric publishing schedule. Instead of padding its contents with tribble and editorials, The Turnip didn't bother. Instead, they packed it with the essentials.

"Nothing yet," Arthur said with regret.

"I read the Seeker article just this morning," said Molly. "I didn't have a chance to yesterday, what with Ginny's birthday. Arthur, is it true the Ministry's tied your hands?"

"Of course they did," Arthur told her. "I was given orders not to pursue it. Rufus Scrimgeour told me personally that I was to treat it as some recent Hogwarts grads just having a lark." He spread his hands wide. "What can I do to oppose of the Head of Magical Law Enforcement? I can't do anything."

"Officially," Harry murmured.

Arthur gave him a little smile. "Officially."

It was just then that the twins stumbled into the kitchen, looking even more tired than Harry'd felt before his shower. Their eyes were rimmed in red, and if they were anyone else, Harry might've thought they'd been having a good cry up in their room. But he knew them well enough to know it was from drinking last night, not crying.

"Morning," they mumbled. Fred shuffled over to the coffee, and George slumped into a chair.

"Nice of you two to have a lie-in while you make Ginny go do your work for you," Harry said, chuckling.

"Ginny?" Fred said, as though he'd never heard of such a person.

"Yeah. Small, red-headed. Used to live here with you? I ran into her on the landing, she said she was headed to work."

"We didn't send Ginny out to the shop early," George said. "We're not monsters."

"Must be her other job," Fred grunted.

"What other job?" Molly said curiously.

"One of our customers asked her to help her out at her shop," said George.

"George! What kind of customer?" Molly said at once. "You just left your baby sister to—"

"Keep your hair on, Mum, the woman who hired her was old and dotty, and looking for someone to help with filing and taking care of the kneazles."

"Oh," said Molly, deflating at once. "Old? And a woman?"

"Honestly, woman, you think we're idiots," Fred said with a huge sigh. "It was a dotty old woman."

"She was dressed like a sunflower," George put in.

"Had her arms full of beads—"

"—had her pet kneazle with her on a leash—"

"Ginny thinks she might even get hired full time," George put in.

Harry felt another wave of envy, and retreated from the conversation. He was content to listen to the Weasleys banter with each other. It distracted him from his own thoughts. Harry didn't hate his life. In fact, after everything that had happened with Voldemort, he was quite grateful he still had a life. It's just that it's not… how I thought it would be, Harry thought.

When he was first forced to consider possible career prospects in his fifth year, he'd immediately decided on Auror. That had always been in the back of his mind, even during the long years of trying to chip away at Voldemort's sundered soul. But once Harry'd recovered, he'd realized the last thing he wanted to do was join a Ministry that had allowed certain Death Eaters to buy themselves out of trouble, even as they threw people like Stan Shunpike – who'd been Imperiused – into Azkaban simply because they couldn't afford the bribes. How could he work for an organization like that? He couldn't.

Harry had a reasonable amount of gold, but he didn't have a purpose. Voldemort was gone. The Order of the Phoenix had not been disbanded, but everyone had mostly gone back to their regular lives.

He'd even tried to get a regular job, the type that Ginny had. Not a career, but just something to do. But the years of propaganda against him, plus the fact he refused to tell anyone – not even Ron and Hermione – how the final confrontation with Voldemort had happened, made it difficult to even be out in public, let alone find someone to hire him.

"Harry, dear, are you all right?" Molly's voice cut into his thoughts.

"Oh… yes, I'm fine," he said. "Just a little tired."

HPHPHPHPHPHPHP

But it was a lie that only grew. Over the next month, Harry's restlessness grew. He was helping out at Hogwarts two or three days a week; the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor preferred not to engage the students in dueling and was always grateful when Harry was there to do it for him. It was one of the ways he helped Dumbledore, but it just… wasn't enough.

It was these feelings, he was sure, that led him to a trickle of relief when he read the title of the newest Seeker column: "DARK MARKS SPOTTED ALL OVER THE ENGLAND."

"What do you make of this?" he demanded of Dumbledore thirty minutes later.

"I am very concerned."

But Dumbledore sat behind his desk, looking as unflappable as ever. A kettle was pouring hot water into tea cups for them. Harry felt caged, pinned down, and could not seem to sit down longer than a few seconds.

Dumbledore seemed to understand his need to move. "Let's go for a walk," he suggested.

It was morning, and most of the students were in their first classes. It looked empty, but there was a magical energy in the air that Harry knew came from so many witches and wizards performing magic. It didn't feel like this over the summer; over the summer, Hogwarts was like a shell that had been emptied of its filling.

"Did you read the entire article?" Dumbledore asked, once they'd reached the grounds.

"Yes," Harry said.

"So you know it is not the true Dark Mark," Dumbledore said. He flicked his wand, and said, almost lazily: "Nebula." Fog immediately rose up from the earth around him, drifting into the air, and it was suddenly too difficult to see more than a foot in front of him.

"No, just carved into stuff… not floating over a house that's had all its inhabitants murdered." Thank God, Harry added silently. "But it's still disturbing."

"I agree," said Dumbledore.

Harry, unable to help himself, unleashed all of his frustrations about the state of the Ministry – and, indeed, the wizarding world. "And of course the Ministry was bought off. We still have Death Eaters running around free. Of course we're seeing – seeing Dark Marks cropping up on trees, and carved into street lamps." What he didn't say was that he hated there was nothing he could do about it. He wasn't an Auror. He didn't want to be an Auror, not with the Ministry the way it was, constantly spinning real events into a narrative they wanted to espouse. He couldn't just – just—

"Have you thought of going to work for The Turnip?" Dumbledore asked. His voice was oddly muffled by the fog. It swirled weirdly around his long hair and beard, giving him an otherworldly look.

"I – what?" Harry said blankly. "Work for The Turnip?"

"This Seeker fellow appears to be doing exactly what you want to be doing. Tracking down darkness and shedding light on it," Dumbledore pointed out. "It's no secret that you've been restless and dissatisfied lately. To be quite honest, you remind me of Sirius."

Harry's jaw worked. Sirius had been both reckless and dissatisfied, it was true. It had led to his death. Dumbledore was giving him a warning.

"You think I'm like Sirius," Harry said. It was an accusation.

"No, but I do think that now that you are fully recovered from that terrible curse, you are now feeling like you ought to be doing what you've done half your life," Dumbledore said tranquilly. He paused so suddenly that Harry nearly walked into him. "And that's searching out corruption, even if that corruption does not have Voldemort as its root cause."

Harry closed his eyes for a moment. "The Seeker never mentions me," he said quietly. "He never writes articles, with those – those—"

"I think the phrase you want here is 'vile speculations'," said Dumbledore.

"Yeah, those vile speculations," Harry said, swallowing. It was one of the things about the column that made Harry like it so much. It'd been publishing for years, and not one time had the Seeker ever mentioned Harry Potter. If he tried to get a job with The Turnip, he worried that would change. He spoke this thought out loud to Dumbledore.

"Ah," said Dumbledore. He said that spell again, and the fog thickened. "Do you know why I made the fog, Harry?"

"Erm—"

Harry did not know why, actually.

"I like privacy," Dumbledore said.

"Oh, I thought you just liked showing me how powerful you are," Harry said cheekily.

Dumbledore chuckled. "We are doing nothing wrong. We are not planning any nefarious deeds. And yet… sometimes it is easier to have private discussions. To know that no one is looking out the window, wondering at what we are talking about. The fog is offering us a disguise."

Harry thought about this for long moments. "You want – you think I should join The Turnip in disguise?" He asked. Harry was almost positive this was what Dumbledore meant, but—

"That's exactly what I think," Dumbledore said, warmly amused. "Here, look," he said. Some of the fog drifted away, and Harry could see a thick tree trunk no more than a foot away from where they were standing. In the center of it, was a carved Dark Mark. No crude carving, this. It was perfectly etched. He could even see the scales on the snake that issued forth from the skull.

Harry could not help but take a step back, pulling out his wand. Dumbledore's hand clamped down on his shoulder. "These aren't just carvings," Harry said angrily.

"I know," Dumbledore said.

"Dark magic did this," Harry said.

"Yes, it did," Dumbledore said.

Harry swore.

"I'm sorry, Harry," Dumbledore said. "If wishes came true, mine would be that you could settle down to the life you deserve. Calm. Peaceful. Without even a hint of the darkness that plagued you for so long."

But Harry would much rather purpose, than calm and peaceful. At least not the peace and calm he'd experienced the last two years. It was calm because he mostly stayed inside. It was peaceful because he wasn't doing anything. He stared at the Dark Mark.

There was something else now. Something was settling over him like a cloak. It was purpose, he realized.

He looked at Dumbledore.

Dumbledore looked at him.

"So how would an anonymous bloke go about joining The Turnip?" Harry asked.

xxxxxxxxxxx

Author's Note: Hi! So I don't know how long this story is going to remain called The Peverell Dilemma, but honestly, I couldn't think of a title (other than just calling it Turnip and Seeker, which would be weird, even for me). I toyed with calling it Here Comes the Sun, but my beta talked me down. LOL

I really hope you enjoy this story. Please take the time to review!