Disclaimer: Story based on characters and plot owned by J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books, Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. I wrote this for pleasure; no money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

The Game Is Afoot

by Perspicacity

"Gah! Potter, if I ever catch up with you, I'm hexing your bits off!"

Ginny grits her teeth as a second electrical jolt travels up her arm. Furious, she sits up, snatches her wand from the table beside the bed, and whispers, "Tempus." Four AM. Merlin!

She scratches the back of her head and a thick mane of ginger hair, unbound from her customary Chaser-plait, curtains her face as she curses her fiancé for the ten-millionth time. She conjures an elastic tie and binds it back just as a third jolt causes her to bite through her lip.

"Then I'm reattaching them so I can hex them off again!"

A groan interrupts her mutterings and she recalls where she is: crisp white sheets, an obscenely large bed, five times as many pillows as anyone could possibly need, Ollie as a bed-warmer—she must be in the Hilton in Manhattan. Oliver Woods's mum was Muggle-born and he can navigate the non-Magical world fairly well, so when she comes to town, he usually insists on their "roughing it," his treat of course. She secretly thinks it's because his flat is a ruin.

Her companion stirs and an arm reaches over the warm spot where she lay a moment before. She adroitly hands the Keeper her pillow and he draws it to his body, drifting into deeper slumber.

Her stomach grumbles, last night's meal of oyster shooters and miso soup just a memory, and she reflects on the Weasley tendency to equate most things to food. In her case, she subconsciously associates her partners with a favorite cuisine. Michel—spicy, fiery, and exotic—is Thai. Jonas—his touch deft and subtle—is an elegant, seven-course French dinner served with a two-hundred-Galleon wine. Ollie—lazing in his arms is one of Mum's meals, comfort food for the soul.

She tries not to think of Him. Forbidden fruit.

Absently, she twists the band on her left hand so that the stone shows, something she rarely does anymore, preferring to wear it stone-in, and she looks down at her hand. As if in answer to her gaze, the square-cut diamond throbs with a faint glow. The emeralds on either side catch the light and shine with the uncanny hue of her fiancé's eyes.

Her breath hitches at the flood of memories.

"I hate you, Harry James Potter," she whispers through her tears.

"Listen to this—'In a rare moment of solidarity, the Wizengamot came to an unanimous decision to award damages of two thousand two hundred twenty two million Galleons in the case of 'Magical Persons v. Tom Riddle,'" Hermione read to her friends from the most recent Daily Prophet.

"Blimey," Ron said. "I didn't know there were that many Galleons."

"Don't be absurd. Of course there aren't," she said, looking over at Harry and Ginny, who were holding hands and speaking quietly to one another. "The entire Magical economy isn't more than three hundred million Galleons."

"Then why do it? I mean, what's the point in awarding damages they know nobody can collect?" Ron asked.

"Politics," Harry said, his voice flat. "Everyone wants to claim their own piece of the war and prove how committed they are to victory... after the fact." Ginny patted his arm.

"Seems pretty stupid to me—oh, hey, Meep!" Ron shouted to a pale, stoop-shouldered Slytherin, who sent back a rude gesture and walked away.

"Why do you guys call him that?" Hermione scolded.

"You tell her," Harry said.

Ron cracked his knuckles, as he often did before telling a favorite story. "I forgot you hadn't heard this one. It all started the other day in Defense..." When the trio had matriculated into classes to make up for their missed seventh year, Hermione, having seen enough of war, opted out of her Defense N.E.W.T. and selected instead an elective course in Healing. "The Mylster tosser struts in, bloody Slytherin he is, and tries to curse Harry from behind. Of course Harry blocks it and transfigures the git's shoes into dingos. They're a kind of Australian dog."

"I know perfectly well what a dingo is, Ronald," Hermione huffed.

Ron rolled his eyes as Ginny giggled, striking a dramatic pose, the back of her hand on her forehead. "My prince was merely defending my honor."

"Anything for a maiden so fair as thee." Harry bowed and kissed the back of Ginny's hand as she curtseyed. "Actually, Mylster's an idiot and a dangerous one at that," he said, his expression stormy. "It was a dark cutter, designed to scar, if not worse, a derivative of Sectumsempra. No way after what we went through I was going to just let a junior Death Eater get away with casting that around Gin."

"I'll say," Ron continued, "Ruddy fool got what's coming to him though. You're what, the fastest wand this side of the Channel? Besides, there's this whole thing about your killing You-Know-Poo that seemed to escape the wanker's notice."

"He's jealous," Ginny said, remembering how the brooding Slytherin was one of the purebloods who had stalked her the year before at Hogwarts.

"Can't really blame him," Harry said, his hand sliding about Ginny's waist. She beamed back at him.

Ron put his finger in his mouth and made a gagging noise, then continued with his story, "Anyway, the dingos start jumping and biting, so Mylster, squealing like the little girl he is—no offense, Hermione—jumps up onto his desk. They're bobbing up and down, barking at the git and snapping at his robes. Then he grabs his essay and starts swatting at them. Just then, one jumps up and bites him on the arse, getting a mouthful."

"Ew," Hermione said, wrinkling her nose.

"I'll say—poor dog. So Mylster makes this sound like 'meep!'"

"I still say it was more like 'yeep,'" Ginny corrected.

"Actually, it was more like 'geep,'" Harry said, then caught a stern look from Ginny. "Er, 'yeep.' I meant to say 'yeep.'"

Ron gave him a mock-glare. "Anyway, Meep drops the essay and the other dingo grabs it and shreds it. Harry vanishes the dingos and sits down just as Professor Lawson walks in. So Meep..."

"Yeep," Ginny says.

"Ahem. Meep is standing on his desk, robes shredded, arse exposed to Merlin and the Ministry—and Lawson no less—and he starts going on about how, 'Really, Professor, a dingo ate my homework!' So the ponce tries pinning the blame on Harry..."

"I told him, I'd do a Priori on my wand if he did one on his. That pretty much ended his protests."

"Ponce got detention for a month. Bloody brilliant, I say." Ron gave his girlfriend with a wry grin, expecting to be chided for his language.

"I'm not going to take the 'bloody' bait, Ron." She smirked at the horror on the faces at the others at her language.

He stuck his tongue out at her and continued talking, "So that's why we call him Meep. Last class of the term, Meep gets hit with a month of detention. And that's what I call a proper send-off for a slimy Slytherin. Isn't it, Harry?"

A whistle sounded in the distance. Ron and Hermione started to jog ahead toward the train depot at the edge of Hogsmeade while Harry slowed.

"Harry, we'll be late," Ginny said, as she pulled on her boyfriend's arm.

Harry's eyes lost focus and, despite the northerly December winds, his forehead beaded with sweat. Ginny guided him to the snowy path as his legs went limp. He lay on his side and she watched his jaw quiver, then go lax as he fell into another episode.

After what seemed like an eternity and a second round of warning whistles from the train, Harry's breathing slowed and he looked up into her eyes, his own showing anguish.

"Fate's a persistent bitch," he said.

Ginny fumbles in the dark for clothes strewn about the room. Black cocktail dress, heels, stockings... Whispered cleaning charms freshen them enough to wear, although she gives up her torn knickers as a bad job—a souvenir for Ollie, perhaps? Maybe he'd forgive her for running off.

Ollie. Damn, he was so chuffed—they had plans for the day, the second day of the New Year and for once she was in town on holiday and not on the road with the Wasps. There was no way, of course, she could take staying at the Burrow and trying to force a smile as Ron and Hermione, back from Australia, give her pitying looks between cooing at their latest bushy-haired spawn and Scourgifying barf off their clothes. No way she could look up at the family clock and see Harry's hand, still pointing to "Lost," nor cope with Mum's fussing and chiding about her "scarlet woman" ways, how all she really needed was to settle down with a nice boy.

Of course there was only one boy nice enough. The one who had disappeared eight years ago.

She sits at the small writing desk and takes pen and paper, intending to leave a note, then curses under her breath as the pen refuses to work. No surprise there—when has a hotel ball-point pen actually worked? She conjures a quill and ink well, scribbles a note, and places it on her pillow. Ollie will understand. Or will he? To be honest, she isn't sure she understands herself.

She slips outside into the hallway, a case-study in the uniquely American Muggle fixation with pastel blandness, and closes her eyes, feeling an acute tug at her heart, a sensation she hasn't felt in years. It centers about the ring she wears and the man she has come to detest. She snorts in morbid amusement and attempts something that the textbooks would classify as midway between exceedingly foolhardy and suicidal. With a quiet pop and a thrill of euphoria, Ginny Weasley Disapparates, not to a destination, but to a feeling.

As she feels herself being slurped through a drinking straw, she wonders idly whether they'll even locate enough of her splinched remains for her mother to scold.

"Don't stay up too late, you two. Ginny, dear, you have a big day tomorrow and so do you, Harry." With a knowing smile, Molly hugged her daughter and honorary son, then walked up the stairs, skipping the squeaky third step as any good Weasley would in the family manse.

Ginny turned to her boyfriend, who had his hands buried in his pockets and was looking down at the floor, nervous. She asked in a swotty voice, "So, Mr. Potter, why so quiet tonight? Tired of me already?"

Harry looked up, horrified. "No, never! Its, um..." He swallowed, looking around, slightly panicked. "Can we, er, sit down?"

"Sure," the youngest Weasley said as her smile faded a bit. Something was wrong. She guided them to the sofa in front of the fire in the sitting room. As she sat, a brief flash of white light flared.

"What was that?" Harry asked.

"Beats me, though George was here earlier tonight."

"He didn't seem like he was in the mood for pranking though," Harry said.

"No, Mum said he hasn't been the same since, well..."

"Sorry," Harry said, his eyes lowered.

She swatted his arm. After Harry's ten thousandth apology for something he hadn't done, she'd decided to try Pavlovian conditioning. So far, it hadn't worked, which suggested that maybe he wasn't any more cognitively capable than the wizard Pavlov's Krups.

Harry raised a Muffliato spell to give them privacy as Ginny dispelled the charm her mother had placed on the sofa that warned if things got too amorous, a trick each Weasley child had learned—each, that is, except Ron, who still managed to be caught in an embarrassing tangle of partially removed clothing with Hermione on Boxing Day. Ginny followed with Colloportus and Impenetrable charms on the door, just to be safe—she saw no sense in giving Mum a show were she to walk in unannounced.

After a long silence, Harry said, "What I have to say is really hard, Gin, so please just let me get through it, okay?"

Ginny swallowed hard. His eyes were pained, just like before the trip home. Was he dumping her?

"I care very much for you, I really do. I think I may... love you even. These last months together, they've been brilliant." The bottom dropped out of her stomach. Merlin, he was dumping her. The first time he'd told her—sort of—that he loved her, and it was to dump her? "I mean, after all those lonely nights on the run..."

She bit her lip. "You had Hermione, Harry." Hermione, it had to be. Blimey, Ron was going to be devastated.

"It wasn't the same, Gin. I only wanted one thing then and that was to be with you..."

"I understand," she said in a quiet voice heavy with emotion. "You said 'wanted' and 'back then.' You've changed your mind about us? Is that what this is about?"

"No! Just hear me out, okay? These past months we've been together at Hogwarts, they've been the happiest of my life, which is what makes what I'm about to do so hard, since I know it's going to change things..."

Her temper flared. "No, Harry," she blurted out. No way she'd make it easy for him to do that, not after all they've been through.

"No?" he gasped. "But you don't even know what I'm going to ask!"

"I don't? Look, maybe I don't know what you and Hermione have been getting up to, but it's not right. Ron loves her and I love you."

"Hermione? What's she have to do with any of this?" He bolted to his feet, angry.

"Dammit, Harry, I waited for you." Why was she crying? She stood and started poking him in the sternum to emphasize her points, "I watched Hagrid carry your body back, you bloody git." Poke. "Do you..." Poke. "...have any idea what that did to me?" Hard poke. Tears welled in her eyes, but her anger refused to abate. "I even went after Bellatrix Lestrange, hoping she'd kill me just so I could be with you again." She slapped him hard across the face. "Bastard. You can't come back from the dead only to leave me for Hermione, Harry. It's just not fair."

"Leave you for Hermione? What, are you daft, woman? I was going to ask you to marry me."

Her mouth fell open. "Marry you?"

"Yeah." He stepped forward cautiously before she broke into a wide smile and threw herself at him, leaping into a tight hug and knocking him backward onto the sofa, where he fell onto his back with her on his chest.

With a silly grin, he pushed her off and stood up, fishing in his pocket for a ring. Kneeling, he took her hand in his.

"Ginny, I love you dearly. Would you make me the happiest man in the world and agree to marry me?"

"Yes," she gasped, her voice on hiatus, as he slipped the ring onto her finger. Harry touched his wand to the stone and she felt a wave of magic wash over her. She felt warm and comforted, as if held in an embrace.

Harry took her hands in his and looked into her eyes. "I swear to you, Ginny, no matter what the future holds, I will remain true and never stop loving you. If we're ever separated, I will return to you if it's the last thing I do."

She blinked, a little confused at his ominous statement, and then looked at the ring on her hand.

"It was Mum's. I read in one of her journals that she'd charmed their rings, but I haven't figured out what spells she put on them—her notes just said it was something that validated their love for one another. There's a men's ring too." He fished in his pocket for the second band.

"Gimme." Ginny said, snatching it from him. With tears in her eyes, she looked up at her fiancé. "Harry, you mean the world to me. Marry me, you big idiot."

"Um, okay?" She put the ring on his left hand and touched the slender tip of her wand to the band. He glowed brightly for a moment and then expelled a strong pulse of magic outward, which caused the items on the shelves to rattle. "Whoa. I didn't expect that."

"Maybe the strength of the bond is proportional to your magic? You are pretty powerful, after all..."

"Perhaps it reflects the strength of my love for you?" he offered.

She snorted. "That's laying it on thick, but I think I can accept it tonight, Mr. Potter."

"Very well then, Mrs. Potter."

"I like the sound of that," she said with a smirk. Harry brought his fingertips to her cheek. She leaned into his touch, then inched closer. Their faces drew near one another and he felt her hot breath on his face. As their lips brushed against one another, Ginny's eyes shot open and she let out a long, loud belch. A second later, Harry did the same, laughing hysterically.

After several failed attempts to speak, punctuated by an unending series of burps, belches, and other digestive sounds, Ginny articulated in low-pitched rumble of burp-speech, "I am so going to kill my brother..."

Harry let out his own burp-grumble, "You're going to have to wait in line..."

Ginny appears with a sharp crack in the middle of an empty street in a dismal neighborhood. After a moment, her pulse still surging from the adrenaline high of the Apparation, she blinks in surprise at being alive and whole. Looking around, she sees rows of four-story flats on either side of the street, dismal, shabby structures with dark windows. The faint, brown-yellow reflection of sodium light off the morning haze lends the place an antique look, like old newspaper.

Behind her, bright lights approach fast. A horn blares and a yellow cab bears down on her. She lunges to the side and trips, bumping her head hard on the the boot of a rusted Volkswagen parked at the side of the road. Her left foot lands crookedly, breaking the heel off her shoe.

"Bloody hell," she mutters, as spots dance before her eyes. Dizzy, she opens a black Gucci handbag—her holiday gift from Ollie—to retrieve her wand. Behind, she hears movement: perhaps a stray cat searching for food? The bag is only just large enough to fit her wand within, and it snags on the fabric lining.

"Yo, lady, lookin' for someone?" a drunken voice drawls. She whips her head around and sees three large men of indeterminate ethnicity approach. They wear baggy clothing and a surprising amount of gold jewelry. The one in the center steps forward, placing a hand with several rings over his crotch, "'Cause you found him."

The one on the left draws a knife with practiced efficiency. Center continues with a string of words, coarse and crude, that she can't quite make out and she becomes frantic. She tries Apparation, but can't focus on a destination, dizzy as she is from the blow to her head. Instead, she starts tearing at the fabric, hoping to wrest her wand free. It resists.

"Get away from me..." she cries, voice quavering, and stumbles backward.

Center smiles, gap-toothed and predatory, his gold caps showing. "Red's for'n. Bitch ain't down for LJ and his peeps?"

Left, with a teardrop tattoo beneath his eye, grabs at her handbag and tears it from her. The man on the right, tall, wearing a stocking cap, seizes her upper arm. She kicks at him, but only manages a glancing blow before he backhands her and spins her the snowy pavement. He slurs something beginning with, "Bitch," the only word the three seem to be able to say properly, then cuffs her a second time, splitting her lip.

Center—LJ, apparently—pulls her to her feet and Right puts a knife beneath her chin as Left rifles through the handbag and pockets several American notes. LJ starts to say something more, but stops, his face going slack, as he peers over her shoulder. The other two follow his gaze and chorus, "Shit!" though in their argot it sounds more like "she-eet."

A quiet voice behind her states, "You gentlemen should let the lady be and return her bag. We wouldn't want things to get... uncomfortable." His voice, deep, with an American accent, is devoid of emotion.

The three back away and she breathes easier as the knife leaves her throat. Left tosses her bag by her feet.

"Go now and perhaps I won't pay you a visit later."

She sees the three sprint away, then accepts an offered hand from her savior, a heavyset man with a dark, reddish complexion, long, black hair, and dark glasses. As she stands, she notices a woolen topcoat folded over his arm. He unfolds it and slides it over her shoulders. She can't help but be frightened, both by the stoicism of the man who intimidated the thugs and the fact that he just happened to be walking by at 4 AM carrying a coat that is a perfect fit.

"Let us get you inside, Miss Weasley."

Okay, it's official. She's scared out of her socks now.

"Mr. Potter, this way." Harry followed a young, portly Goblin into an opulent office dominated by a wide desk of charcoal-coloured granite inlaid with dragon bone. Behind sat an ancient Goblin dressed in bejeweled finery: Ragnok, manager of Gringotts and de facto leader of the Goblins in Britain. Upon Harry's arrival, his face split in a wide, fanged grin and he tented his clawed fingers in the customary Goblin greeting among friends.

"Harry!" he shouted, then jumped spryly to his feet, extending a hand.

"Ragnok, it's great to see you again." Harry said, giving the Goblin's hand a shake.

"Always a pleasure, Harry. I trust you've had a chance to read the statements we sent you?" Harry nodded and the Goblin continued. "Now then, let's get started. Have you selected a financial advisor, Mr. Potter?"

"Uh, no. Do I need one?"

"Well, it's generally advisable. If you don't have a human in mind, might I suggest one of our Goblin advisors? They are renowned for their aggressiveness." He said the last with a relish and a snarl.

Harry thought for a moment, then recalled a Goblin in whose trust he'd placed his very life. "How about Griphook? Could he do it?"

For an instant, glee glinted across the old Goblin's features, before they returned to implacable stoniness. "Excellent choice. Clawjack, go retrieve Griphook." The younger Goblin nodded and trotted off. A few minutes later, he arrived with Griphook bound in shackles and showing signs of heavy beatings. Clawjack removed the shackles and the injured Goblin stumbled, nearly falling to the floor before Harry caught him and helped him into the room.

"Harry Potter?" the Goblin rasped, his voice faint.

"What happened?"

The Goblin exchanged a glance with his chieftain before turning to Harry. "Oh, my mate and I, we like things, uh, rough..."

Harry blinked, deciding he didn't want any more details.

"Mr. Potter here would like you to serve as his financial advisor. I trust you're up to the task?" Ragnok asked pointedly.

"Absolutely." The injured Goblin bowed low to his superior.

"Then let us begin. Our first matter." Ragnok slid a piece of parchment across the desk to Harry, where Griphook snatched it away and started to read. "You still wish to gift your Order of Merlin Galleons to St. Mungos?"

"Yeah. I never wanted the award, but I reckon this way I could do some good with the money."

"A kingly gift indeed, Mr. Potter," Ragnok said.

"Sign here," Griphook said, pointing to a spot on the parchment. Harry took a quill from the desk and obliged. The document glowed for a moment, sealing the contract.

"Very well. Next order of business. Profits from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. I see that you control a minority, nonvoting interest in the company and that you receive regular dividends. You mentioned in your letter that you wish for this money to go towards the reconstruction of Hogwarts and once that was done, the proceeds should go to offsetting tuition costs for Muggle-born and Magically born students in need?"

"Yeah. Is that possible?" Harry asked, looking over at Griphook, who was scribbling quickly on a piece of parchment.

Ragnok chuckled. "Indeed, I believe you shall find that almost anything is possible with enough Galleons. What is your recommendation, Griphook?"

"A blind trust initiated by a bequeathment," he mumbled, finishing his writing with a flourish. "It is the best option. It isolates the trust from your finances, which will protect you from liability and shelter dividends from Ministry taxation. I've drawn up a contract for you to sign."

Harry tried to read the nearly illegible scrawl, but had difficulty. As the minutes wore on, Ragnok coughed three times, sighed four times, and resettled in his seat twice. For his part, Griphook shuffled uncomfortably several times, then at one point started to swoon, only arresting himself at the last moment by grabbing the edge of the desk. Most of the terms made sort of vague sense to Harry, except for one. "Excuse me, but my Latin's a bit rusty. What does peccata patrisfamilias delata ad filium mean and why am I signing a 'blanket acceptance of same'?"

Griphook blinked, then cleared his throat and spoke, his words slurred. "Ah, that. It's standard boilerplate on many contracts such as this. It essentially amounts to your acknowledging that any rights you retain in overseeing and managing the trust will commute to your heirs. In this case, it is a formality, as it is a blind trust, but we have noted that you have no such clause in effect for the rest of your estate. I took the liberty of adding it to this contract so that your heirs will retain property rights to your estate in the event something happens." The younger Goblin shared a meaningful look with Ragnok.

"Oh, that sounds fine. Thanks. So I should sign then?"

Ragnok nodded. "We've much to cover today, so the sooner we can put this matter behind us, the better." Harry signed and again, the document glowed briefly. As it faded, he noticed his chair becoming decidedly less comfortable.

"Okay, Mr. Potter," Ragnok said, his demeanor suddenly frosty. A nod signaled two burly sentries, who sealed the door and barred egress with long spears. Harry instinctively reached for his wand, but remembered that he'd left it at the entrance in accordance with the new security measures at Gringotts. "We shall now deal with the important matter of redress of damages to Gringotts and the Goblin Nation."

"Damages?" Harry choked.

"Indeed. We have evidence that you gained unauthorized access to one of our vaults and you stole items of value as well as a rare magical creature. According to Griphook, this break-in was orchestrated by you, so you bear responsibility for the redress." He sighed and pushed back from the desk, regarding Harry over a pair of clenched fists, formal Goblin body language which Harry recognized as affirmation of an adversary. "A choice must be made that impacts the entire Magical World and you are the one best equipped to make it. On the one hand, we could interpret your actions as a blatant act of war between your people and ours, triggering yet another Goblin 'uprising,' as your kind call them. In your weakened state, I believe the Wizarding world would be hard pressed to oppose us this time."

"War?" Harry mouthed as the chair he was sitting on became even harder and the back became straighter. "You can't be serious."

"Of course I am. You have no idea, Mr. Potter, just how tense relationships are between our two nations at this time."

"And the second option?"

"You compensate us, in accordance with the Treaty of 1194, wherein the offender's, that is to say, your primary vault is forfeit."

"I lose all the money in the Potter vault?"

"And the contents," Griphook lisped.

Harry swallowed and shifted in the extremely uncomfortable chair, which was now developing sharp studs on the back where his shoulders should go. Aside from his and Ginny's rings and his cloak, all of his ties to his family resided in the vault. But could he countenance starting a war over family heirlooms? He gritted his teeth. "There's no other choice? Can't we work something out?"

"Unfortunately, no."

"Obviously, I can't abide by a war, so it'll have to be the second option. But the contents, much of it is worthless to you, just old journals and portraits and the like..."

"If we cannot find a suitable buyer, we shall simply destroy the items," Ragnok said. Noting the shocked look on Harry's face, he continued, "Please understand that Gringotts does not intend this as a personal slight. It is simply business."

Griphook coughed.

"Except Griphook, for whom it is personal."

Griphook's eyes shone. He opened his mouth to speak and Harry noted that several of his fangs were missing, "Revenge, Mr. Potter. I've been imprisoned and tortured for months, all because of the charm you put on our sword that let you to steal it from us once again. I swore that day I'd live to see you ruined and I have."

Harry turned back to Ragnok. "What about the Black estate? I can purchase back the Potter heirlooms from it, right?"

"You could, except that you've accepted penalties against your estate on behalf of your magical and familial forebears."

"But none of them did anything!"

"Ah, but this Lord Voldemort did and he named you as his magical heir. I hold a copy of the document here." He offered it to Harry, who read with horror.

"So anyone bringing a civil suit against Voldemort..."

"Is, in point of fact, bringing a suit against you, Mr. Potter. And before you object, your magic was found to be compatible with his, a rare occurrence among those not of the same bloodline. This gave him the legal right to name you as his heir."

"But the Wizengamot—they've just ruled on a huge, symbolic damage settlement..."

"Not so symbolic now, is it?" Griphook said, leering at Harry.

Ragnok continued, "From Gringotts's perspective, we receive our standard fee—one Sickle per Galleon of total debt to prosecute a hostile seizure. Your Ministry has, in fact, authorized our seizure of assets and, by your willing, legal acceptance of peccata patrisfamilias delata ad filium, you forfeit the right to contest."

"But I didn't sign on to be Voldemort's heir!"

"Is your signature on a binding contract stating otherwise? I am sorry, Mr. Potter, but we have already begun the seizure. Your Black properties have been acquired and your vaults have been sealed. Proceeds will apply toward the debt you owe us and will be divided among the claimants."

"So I am ruined."

"Essentially," Griphook said with a sneer. "Though you still have your educational trust vault."

"How much?"

Griphook smirked as he opened a ledger on the desk and thumbed through its yellowed pages. "Five thousand, one hundred four Galleons and twelve Sickles."

Harry was quiet for a long moment, thinking, when his leg started to pinch painfully. Sharp spikes were rising out of the seat and needles started to poke out its high back. "Bloody hell, what's with this chair?"

Griphook smirked. "Its comfort is charmed to reflect your standing with Gringotts. Frankly, I'm surprised you are not yet standing."

Harry sighed in resignation and then stood. "How much for Mum's journals?"

Ragnok looked at Griphook. "I think we can part with them for, shall way say, five thousand Galleons?"

"Done," Harry said before Griphook could interject and raise the price.

Ragnok nodded to an assistant, who ducked beneath the sentries' spears and departed for the vaults. Standing, he reached across the desk to shake Harry's hand, his genial smile and affable manner having returned. Harry ignored the gesture, choosing instead to glare at the ancient Goblin. "Very well, I believe this concludes matters for today. And like I said, please don't take this personally, Harry. I would hate for our friendship to suffer over matters of business."

"Wait," Ginny says, reaching into her handbag again and withdrawing her wand without any difficulty.

Figures. Of course she'd have no trouble now, as her life is no longer in danger. Or is it?

She taps it to her shoe and repairs the heel, then treats the scrapes on her knees and fixes her torn stockings. Looking up, she sees that her companion shows no emotion, not even after witnessing magic performed in front of him. While the American Statue of Secrecy laws are somewhat more lax than back home, she doesn't relish the thought of trying to Obliviate the hulking man.

"Allow me," he says, drawing his own wand from the breast pocket of a heavy pea coat. After a subtle flick of his wand, she feels her injured face heal.

"You're magical. I should have guessed," she says. Ginny's pulse races as she weighs her options. Though it doesn't make sense, something about following this man seems "right," for want of a better word. Curiosity is probably the only thing keeping her from Apparating back to the hotel. Well, that and the mild concussion, the adrenaline rush of the unknown, and the desire to know why she was drawn here in the first place.

As if reading her thoughts, the man nods and takes ahold of her arm gently, yet firmly, and leads her in the direction of one of the decrepit tenements.

They trudge through trash at the base of the stairs and she asks, "Where are we going?"

"Inside."

"Thank you, Mr. Obvious." They walk several steps and she asks, "So who are you?"

"My name is unimportant."

"Your mother must not have liked you."

The man pauses and looks at her for a moment, then opens the door and leads them into a filthy entranceway with plaster walls sporting several cracks and gouges.

"What's inside?"

"My associate."

He leads them to a lift and pushes a button with his gloved hand. A moment later, a loud rattling accompanies its arrival.

"Who is this associate?"

"The one who sent me." She rolls her eyes as they step inside and her heels squish into damp carpet smelling strongly of urine.

"This associate? How did he know to find me?" She tries to stand in the tiny car without touching any of the walls, an act which requires that she stand uncomfortably close to the man. He is very large, her head not even making it to his shoulders.

"Magic." He presses the button for the fourth floor.

The lift lurches upward and she grabs onto the man's arm for support. "You work for him?"

"Sometimes."

The doors open and he leads them out and down a hallway, in the process stepping over a grizzled man passed out on the floor. His grimy fingers wrap around a nearly empty bottle of malt liquor.

"Can you possibly be any more obscure?" she grumbles, stepping over the man and hoping he doesn't awaken, as she remembers that she's not wearing knickers.

"Perhaps," he says with a patronizing smile.

Daphne looked at herself in the mirror. Her long hair, straight and black, was flawless, framing an angular face that was slightly too thin. She knew that she wasn't beautiful in the classical sense, though she wasn't bad either, with an intangible, exotic quality to her looks. A silver charm necklace of turquoise and shell completed the ensemble.

Beside her, Pansy Parkinson fussed with her Glamour, applying, as was her habit, just a little too much pink to her lips, while Tracey Davis looked on. Pansy drawled, "You really think this will work? Word on Slynet is that he's still hung up on the Weasley tramp." The Slytherin network, or Slynet, allowed alumni ready access to information within and outside the school, a means for the House of the "Greatest of the Hogwarts Four" to manage matters to their advantage.

Tracey sighed, her heavily lidded eyes half open. "It'll work, Pans. It's not like Potter has a choice. Daddy says the Goblins are moving against him tonight." She touched her wand to her skirt, which shortened by another inch, moving from merely scandalous to coronary-inducing.

Daphne's wand started to vibrate and she turned to the others. "We have to go. He's due any moment."

The three left the Glamour room and took a table in front of the Floo in the Leaky Cauldron. A few minutes later, Harry arrived, shoulders slumped, hands in his pockets.

"Potter!" Daphne called, drawing his attention as the three witches approached him.

He nodded to them, surprised. "Ladies. I'm sorry, but I really can't talk now..."

"No, you have to at least to hear us out." She took his arm and spoke to him in a low voice, "We know what's going on and we're here to offer our help. You're going to need allies."

"But at a price," he said, suspicious, his eyes boring into hers.

"Well, yeah," Pansy said, snorting. "Nothing's free—you wouldn't trust us otherwise."

"Forget it." He started to pull away.

Daphne moved in front of him and crossed her arms. "Look, unless you move your mentally impaired Gryffindor arse, in a few minutes, you're going to find yourself seized and indentured, probably for good. We're your bloody rescue party, Potter."

"Come, Harry," Tracey said in a husky tone, taking his other arm and leading them into a side room. Harry resisted at first, then decided to at least hear them out, taking solace in his knowledge that after the Goblins, it'd be difficult for his day to get much worse.

He took the chair at the head of the table facing the entranceway, his wand in his hands, and watched the others in silence. Tracey sealed the door and placed one-way privacy charms about the room that blocked sound from leaving, but allowed the muffled murmurs and clinks of the adjacent bar to be heard.

"So, what do you know, what are you offering, and what do I have to do?" he said curtly.

Daphne blinked, amused by his directness. "We know you've just lost the Potter fortune and that there is a movement to seize the Black estate as well, one which we can block if we move fast. They've sealed access to your vaults, so you'll need help to mount a challenge—help, I would add, that the Weasleys can't afford to give." Pansy sneered at the mention of that family. Daphne gave her a hard look and continued, "You need to go into hiding, and soon. The Goblins are coming after you with the Koroboth."

"The whatsit?"

"Please," Tracey muttered. "Tell me Gryffindors aren't all this stupid..."

"Humor me," he said, his teeth clenched. With the day's activities, his patience was near an end.

"The Koroboth is an ancient Goblin magical device used to garnish wages until a debt is paid in full," Pansy said, as if reciting a homework essay for Professor Binns. "It passes debt down to your heirs, and their heirs, and so on, making you magically incapable of holding onto more than a pittance. The larger the debt, the more aggressive the penalty. In your case, you probably wouldn't touch gold for the remainder of your life."

Tracey sneered, "Use your head for a change, Potter. How did you think a talented, pureblood family like the Weasleys could remain so poor for so long?"

"Bloody hell," Harry said.

"We're getting off subject," Daphne said, turning to him. "Potter—Harry, you need to be hidden from the Goblins. When they catch up with you—and they will without our help—you and your future heirs will be ruined. We can help. Each of us has spoken with our families and we are prepared to hide you and aid in your defense."

"What's the catch?"

"You have to give us something in return, obviously," Pansy said, sneering. "In the case of my family, you swear a loyalty oath to us and serve as a retainer, taking care of... special matters of security. We have an alliance with the Goblins and can get them to put away the Koroboth." She inspected her nails as Harry started to look visibly sick. The Parkinsons were known to trade in dark artifacts and creatures and he had little doubt as to the moral ambiguity that these "security services" would entail.

"The Davis interests are rather straightforward," Tracey said with a sultry look, peering up at Harry through her long lashes. "As I'm sure you know, we are in the advertising business. We simply require exclusive and indefinite rights to your image for marketing purposes. The Goblins owe us a debt that we would be willing to call in in return for your cooperation. Oh, and for the sake of appearances, you would need to enter a betrothal contract."

Harry coughed. "To you?"

"Or my sister Heidi, a second year Ravenclaw. Either would suffice." She blinked light blue eyes at him and gave him a radiant smile, one that sent a shiver down his spine.

Harry swallowed, then turned to Daphne, who spoke quietly. "My family needs someone with your... talents."

He froze. "My talents?"

She stared at him levelly, then continued, "Yes, the ones that were awakened the day you faced Him. I know, Potter. It's there for anyone who knows what to look for."

"What talents?" Pansy asked. She and Tracey shared a confused look.

"How?" he mouthed, then cleared his throat and asked, "And what's the catch? Do I have to kill people? Prostitute myself? Marry you or someone I don't love?"

She peered at him quizzically. "I know because it's my business to know. As for the catch? This is a business transaction with mutual benefit, nothing more. My family are investment bankers and we've been looking for someone like you for over a century. We can hide you in the Muggle world using some unique familial magic, but you'll need to sever all ties to the Magical world. And don't flatter yourself—no marriage contract is required, nor would I accept one. Brash and stupid isn't exactly my type."

"Could I..."

She interrupts him. "No, Potter. You won't be able to marry or even come into contact with your precious Gryffindor fiancée while you're hidden. It would disrupt the subtle masking charm we'll be using, which is temperamental around practicing witches and wizards of the European tradition."

A commotion arose outside in the main pub. Several shouts and loud crashes could be heard.

"For how long?"

"That depends on whether we win your freedom from debt. If so, then as early as two years..."

"The Goblins. They're here already," Pansy said, placing a circular hoop of steel on the table. Tracey did the same with a statuette of a dragon and Daphne took out a small piece of pottery.

"They're Portkeys. You have to choose now, Potter," Tracey said.

"How about I 'choose' to Apparate away?"

"Then you 'choose' to be a slave. They're Goblins, not some stupid Death Eaters," Daphne snapped. "They're obviously monitoring the Weasleys, as well as Hogwarts and any other property you might own or person in your circle of friends. You can be guaranteed that they've secured leverage over them. Your only chance is with one of us."

A burst of loud crashes sounded as heavy axes started to break through their sealed door.

Harry turned to Daphne. "Suppose we don't win. How long, Daphne?"

"Eight years—statute of limitations on the Ministry award."

The door frame splintered as a burly Goblin wrenched the door off its hinges.

"Swear on your magic that you'll help me?" Harry met her brown eyes, searching for any hint of perfidy.

Without blinking, she raised her wand. "I swear on my magic that if he accepts our offer, my family will aid Harry Potter in matters of his debt in a manner consistent with what we discussed." A pulse of pink light expanded outward from its tip. "Now swear that you agree to our terms."

Harry frowned for a moment, considering her offer.

With a loud grown, the door collapsed inward and several Goblins hustled into the room to form a line behind Griphook. They leered at Harry and awaited a signal from their leader, Griphook, who was holding a slender rod covered in glowing blue runes. He snarled as yellow eyes latched onto Harry's.

Harry banished one of the chairs at the advancing Goblin, knocking him onto his back and bowling over several of the goblins behind him. As Griphook sat up, Harry took a cue from Cedric and transfigured a second chair into a dog, hoping to set it upon his adversary. Unfortunately, rather than the Rottweiler he was trying for, his dog appeared as an overly amorous Golden Retriever, who yipped and jumped up onto the sputtering Goblin, placing its paws on his shoulders and turning the Goblin's face into a wet mess of dog slobber. Harry felt a hand on his arm.

"Right." Harry raised his wand. "I swear on my magic that I'll uphold my end of the bargain with Daphne Greengrass." Yellow light flared brilliantly as Griphook freed himself from the dog and rushed at Harry.

"Yap!" the dog offered, giving chase to the squat Goblin.

"Daphne, get us out of here!" Harry yelled, putting his hand on the piece of pottery.

The tall witch placed her hand over his. She uttered a word in a language Harry had never before heard and the two of them vanished just before Harry could be poked in the bum with the Goblin's rod.

The door opens and Ginny steps through. The flat is neat, if decorated in plain, unimpressive furniture and an overabundance of Muggle books. It looks to be about the size of a two-bedroom flat back home, with no signs of anything magical. She turns back to her companion, who gestures that she take a seat on the sofa. She obliges, then starts as she hears a vaguely familiar voice speaking into a Muggle portable telephone in a language she doesn't recognize—Japanese maybe? The man is slender with dark hair laced with grey, and he wears a light blue dress shirt and khakis. He's pacing in front of the window opposite the door. In his hand, he holds a tea towel.

Though she doesn't see spectacles, her breath hitches as he ends his call and turns a set of brilliant green eyes toward her.

"Ginny?" he says, delighted, yet not surprised, apparently.

"Harry?" she gasps, then steps forward, reaching with her left hand to touch his cheek. "It's you... it's really you." A tear trickles down her right cheek.

She balls her right hand into a fist and slams it into his face, her knuckles flicking backward at the last moment so that the heel of her hand strikes him just below the bridge of the nose, a trick she learned from Charlie. He tries to spin away from her blow, but her left hand holds his face in the path of her hand. She hears a reassuring "snap" and he staggers back, his hands reaching to his ruined face.

"Bloody hell, woman, you don't change, do you?" He uses his towel to staunch the steady flow of blood.

"You sodding bastard, I hate you!" She kicks him in the leg. "I hate you so much!" she shouts as a large hand belonging to the man who rescued her wraps around her upper arm and restrains her.

"Merlin, Gin. You can't wait for an explanation? No, hit first, then calm down. Weasleys and their ruddy tempers..."

"Like you've any right to talk, you... you've no idea what I've gone through these past eight years!"

Harry walks to the loo and looks at himself in front of a mirror. He lets out a sharp cry as he straightens his nose with an audible "crunch."

"Don't I?" he shouted back at her. "Right. Because being apart was an entirely one-sided thing."

"Dammit, just let me fix it," Ginny says, struggling free from the large man's grasp and taking her wand from her purse.

"No!" Harry shouts, slapping her hand hard and knocking her wand onto the floor, where it lands with a clatter and rolls nest to the sofa.

She holds her bruised hand in the other. "I wasn't going to hex you, you idiot! I was going to fix your nose... and maybe your shirt." She eyes the large blotches of red spattered on his clothing.

"No magic. Not around me." The man who accompanied Ginny leans over and picks her wand up off the floor.

"Why? I could use Episkey and you'd be fine in seconds."

Harry turns away from her to rinse the towel in the sink. "Because it'd probably kill me, Gin."

"Ginny," she said, crossing her arms. "Only close friends can call me 'Gin.' Which you aren't anymore, Harry. And what do you mean by 'kill you?'"

"I meant what I said. Ever hear of a pacemaker?" She shakes her head. "It's a Muggle invention that keeps your heart beating right when it normally doesn't."

"And magic affects it?"

"Makes it stop working. Probably would stop my heart too."

"Do you even have one?" she spits, her fury returning.

He answers with a tired sigh. "This is really not how I envisioned us reuniting..."

She grumbles at him, flopping onto his sofa. "That's pretty presumptuous, thinking we could possibly 'reunite' after what you put me through."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I can't take this bloody effing ring off, Harry! You know, the one you promised yourself to me with?" Her eyes well with tears. "And every time I try to find someone in my life, someone who can fill the damned hole you left, it hurts more and I don't know why, but I think it's the ruddy ring! I can't take it anymore, Harry. Why? Why'd you have to leave me? I loved you!"

"I'm sorry," he says, reflexively. "I didn't have a choice. And I really didn't know about the ring—I never intended to trap you."

"You'd better be sorry," she says to his back, crying, as he rinses the towel. "Do you have any idea what you put me through? I got back from tryouts, looking for my fiancé to celebrate my making the cut for the United as reserve Chaser, only to find that you'd vanished to Merlin knows where, that nobody even knew where you were? Not even Hermione! What the bloody hell was I supposed to think?"

He gives her a pained look, exacerbated by his ruined face. "That I loved you and would return to you, no matter what it took—just like I said in the letter I sent that you. The one, I remind you, you didn't bother to read!" She recoils from his sudden burst of anger. He turns sharply, draping the wrung-out towel over the edge of the sink, then nods at the large man. "Woholi, thank you. Can you return Miss Weasley's wand and leave us now?"

"Are you sure, Wapi? I could hold it and return later."

Harry blows out a long sigh, looking at Ginny, who is still fuming. "Yeah, we're good. Thanks."

Harry picks up a chair from the table and follows the large man to the doorway. He sets it down upon the floor near the door. The other man nods and leaves with an amused smile. As the door closes, Harry sits turns casually in the chair and gives his fiancée an ingratiating smile, only to find her wand trained on the spot between his eyes.

Through clenched teeth, the enraged witch says, "Explain yourself, Harry James Potter, and take this bloody ring off or I swear I'll curse you where you stand."

"I'm not standing, love."

"Aaargh!"

Asgaya Hannibal Greengrass raised the pipe to his lips and rolled sweet smoke over his tongue. He held it in his throat and relished the cold burn, then kissed a steel-grey plume toward the ceiling of the lodge. His dark eyes closed as the wards quivered, marking the arrival of an unknown magical presence. As the mild hallucinogen illuminated the spiritual world before him, he made a slow, sweeping gesture with his left hand that sent tendrils of Spirit Magic toward the west wing of the lodge complex, from where he could sense the intrusion.

The Greengrass patriarch deepened his trance and conjoined his spirit with those of his ancestors. He became one with them and was permitted to hear through their ears and gaze through their eyes into the very souls of those approaching.

"Are you sure, my dear?" he asked nobody in particular.

He paused, as if listening.

"May I look?"

A moment later, he pulled back, pleased with what he saw in the intruder—balance, strength, honesty... power. Happier still to notice seeds of affinity between his daughter and the other.

He closed his eyes and focused on hearing. Loud voices soon assaulted his heightened senses.

"Potter? Are you okay?"

"Yeah. I never did get the hang of Portkeys—just give me a minute for the room to stop spinning and I'll get up."

"Merlin, you're hurt!"

"Oh. I guess I am. I think I may lie... down..."

Asgaya heard a thud, as if a body hit the ground.

"We have to get help! Sit up, Potter. Don't go to sleep."

"Oh, okay. I've had worse though. Wow, my head's wet."

"It's blood, you idiot."

"Oh. Madame Pomfrey said that when lots of blood came out of my head, it was sort of bad. Or maybe it was my stomach."

"Come on, on your feet. And keep talking; don't fall asleep."

"Okay, Daphne. Daphne. That's a pretty name. You're pretty too, you know. Pretty in a different way from Gin..."

"So not what I want to talk about."

"And you're nice too, even though you try not to be. What is this place? It seems, er, rustic?"

"It's our family lodge. We use—used—the last place for appearances. You should feel honored; you're the first outsider to visit."

"I do. You're holding my hand?"

"Until the ancestral spirits get acquainted with you, yes. It's for your safety."

"Oh. And the other hand on my bum?"

"It's on your waist! Oh, I guess it is on your bum."

"That's okay. I rather like it there. You're pretty, you know. I like you..."

The sound of shuffling feet could be heard.

"Hey, no nodding off! Talk to me, Harry. So, um, what do you know of the Greengrasses?"

"Not a lot. You're all fabulously wealthy investment bankers or something, which explains why you live in some sort of mud hut."

"It's a family lodge. The Greengrasses are of Native American descent, the Eighth Cherokee tribe. We settled in England instead of setting out on the Trail of Tears..."

"Native Americans? Oh, I think I should sit down again."

"Keep going, please. Yes, Native Americans—the people who lived in the Americas before the Europeans settled there? Maybe you've heard them called 'Indians?'"

"Oh, like the motorcycles... Sirius had a motorcycle once, but then he fell through the Veil. I got to ride it with Hagrid once. Wow, my legs really don't want to work."

"Daddy is so going to hate me for bringing you here. Get up, Potter."

"Sorry. You're really nice, Daphne. And pretty. I'm glad you didn't die."

"I am too. Thanks for saving my life back there... Harry. Anyway, my father's name is Asgaya. It means 'man' in the Cherokee tongue."

"Clever."

"Hush. Names for us are important—we undergo a ritual when we come of age where our name is selected for us and we take on the aspects of that which we're named for."

"I see. So your father is called 'man,' which beats 'troll' or 'dungheap,' I guess. Your mum?"

"Tortured to death by Death Eaters soon after I was born. Her name was Agehya, which means 'woman'. Stop with the smirk, Potter—only Slytherins are allowed to smirk. Being named 'man' and 'woman' means they are, or in the case of Mum, were, the man and woman of the tribe, exemplars and leaders."

"You know, the Sorting Hat tried to put me in Slytherin..."

"Good thing it didn't. You wouldn't have lasted a week with that pitiful excuse for a smirk."

'So what's your name? I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours..."

"How do you know you'll be named—oh..."

"I spy with my Inner Eye that you and I... will get naked at some point."

A loud slap echoed in the corridor.

"Ouch! I'm hurt here, remember?"

"Your arm isn't hurt."

"It is now. And we will get naked, in this place, even. I wonder if Gin will be upset—did you know we were going to be married?"

"Yes, you told me, Potter."

"She's pretty, like you only different. 'Wapi.' That's my name."

"Lucky. Wapi means 'lucky'."

"I get lucky? Oh I guess that explains the nudity... Ouch."

"Stop mocking us. This is serious."

"Sirius was my Godfather. He had a motorcycle, but he wasn't an Indian."

"Come on, Potter. Don't pass out yet—just a few more steps, then we can get you some help."

"I don't feel lucky."

"You're still alive. Considering the state of our manor, I'd say we're both lucky."

"I guess. What's your name?"

"Tayanita."

"It's a lovely name. What does it mean?"

"It means 'little beaver,' and Potter, I don't care if you're delirious. Not. One. Word."

"...You're fond of the wood and don't mind it in your mouth... Oof! You're a pretty beaver, you know."

Harry lowers the ice pack from his swollen face and continues. "...So I didn't have much choice, you see. We talked for a long time about our options. While using my gift for gambling would have been the fastest way to make back my fortune, I'd have drawn attention from the Mafia for sure, which couldn't have ended well. They have their own wizards who would have noticed and dispelled my masking charm in a trice. In the end, we reckoned that my best chance was to help the Greengrasses in their family business. I took my handful of Galleons, invested them aggressively, and took on a job as an investment consultant for the family hedge fund."

"So what do you do, exactly?"

"I trade. Stocks, options, derivatives, whatever's in flux on any market that's open to us."

"Okay, I get what stocks are, since I have shares in WWW, but I have no idea about the others."

"Just other kinds of investments. Options are..." His eyes focus in the distance, a glazed look coming over his face. As quickly as it had come, he returns to normal. "Damn. Hold on a second, Gin, er, Ginny."

He pulls a portable telephone from his pocket and starts speaking in it, this time in a Middle Eastern language—Turkish perhaps? He stands and paces in the small flat as Ginny looks at the nearest bookshelf, not recognizing any of the titles. She pulls one off and reads the cover. The World as Will and Representation by Arthur Shopenhauer. She opens the book to the middle, but finds the text turgid and impenetrable.

Harry ends his call. "Sorry—had to move on that. Oil futures, should be good for between thirty and forty million in about a month. Oh, and those are my flatmate's. I'm more into the Existentialists on the bottom shelves."

"What?" she blinks. Setting aside that Harry would even be interested in Muggle philosophy, even with the depressed exchange rate between dollars and pounds, thirty million dollars is a large amount of money, far more than the net value of all of the Quidditch teams that she'd played on.

Harry gives her a solemn look with his bruised, raccoon eyes, and taps his forehead. "I'm pretty good at this. Who knows? Maybe it's what I was intended to do, to help Muggles retire early and enjoy their lives? All I know is that as of a few weeks ago, I'm free of the debt I owed Asgaya."

"What debt?"

"I'm not surprised you didn't know—we tried to keep it quiet after all. He bought options on all of what Voldemort owed the magical world for literally fractions of a Knut to the Galleon. He paid out around fifteen million Galleons, which equates to about 140 million dollars at today's exchange rates. In exchange for their help, I was beholden to him and his family until I could buy down that debt with interest... Ah, hell, I swear I can't catch a break." His eyes glaze over a second time. A minute passes and they clear. With a deep breath, he picks up the telephone and carries on a conversation in yet another language—Russian, this time.

"What was that about?" she asked.

He shrugs. "I had to lose nineteen million fast or the SEC would have come knocking in about two weeks." At her confused look, he said, "The Securities Exchange Commission, they look out for investment anomalies that point to insider trading. Without the adjustment, we'd have fallen under scrutiny, which is a right pain in the arse, trust me."

"I can't begin to understand what you're talking about—you just gave away the equivalent of almost two million Galleons so you wouldn't be investigated?"

"Yeah. Had some put options written and talked my mate Volodya into buying them up. Good profit for him. When he exercises them, he'll wire my Caymans account with a retainer, so it's all good."

"Alohomora." Daphne opened the door to Harry's flat and flicked on the lights. A bare, fluorescent bulb buzzed and flickered overhead, one end dark with sputtered cathode, and cockroaches scurried from the glare. Thunder rumbled outside as rain pattered against tall, narrow windows. The witch scowled at the smell of rot and bleach.

Woholi pushed past and strode into the flat as Daphne turned on the third of their group. "Daddy, how could you let him live like this?"

The middle-aged man sighed as he ran a hand through a mane of long, salt-and-pepper hair. "I assure you, Nita, we pay him enough to live better." Asgaya was, as always, dressed in fashionable Muggle clothing, from Breitling Navitimer watch to fine wool trousers and wingtips. Only an impeccably tailored ribbon shirt and a silver necklace paid tribute to his Native American heritage.

"But why does he live like this? This is horrible?"

"Compound interest," Woholi said in a rare moment of loquaciousness, then turned back to his study of the papers and effects on the table.

At Daphne's confusion, Asgaya said, "Wapi may have learned a little too well. We drummed into him the credo, 'begin with the end in mind' and that the highest leverage when investing is early." He pointed to a crate of Top Ramen and continued, "It looks like he's putting essentially everything he makes back into his holdings. I'd find his devotion admirable if it weren't so foolish—he'll burn out if he keeps up like that."

Daphne's father removed his black woolen coat and placed it on the arm of Harry's disheveled sofa. He pulled a pipe and a small bag of herbs out of a pocket and packed the pipe. "I have to say, this ring matter has me concerned, and not least because it places our investment at risk."

"Harry is more than an investment," she whispered, surprising herself with her vehemence.

"I understand, darling Nita. But from the clan's perspective, we stand to lose a great deal if this isn't reconciled. Now, let us be proactive and synergize. First things first—you and your brother, search for anything to help us figure out what kind of bad trip he's on. I'm going to see if our allies can tell us anything."

Woholi searched through the desk in the sitting room of Harry's flat as Daphne walked slowly about the room, taking in the squalor. She pushed open a battered door to the side and tried the light, but it didn't work. Her left hand clasped the silver charm on her necklace she wore to deaden her magical signature and she raised her wand, whispering, "Lumos." She put as little into the charm as possible, so as to avoid disrupting Harry's Spirit Weave, should he return soon. Blue light illuminated the tiny room and showed little of note—a few items of clothing on the floor, a small futon, some books and notebooks.

Hearing her father's melodic chanting in the background, she turned her attention to the closet, where she slid Harry's hanging dress shirts and trousers to one side, noting that he didn't own much more than the minimum required to be presentable at work. Asgaya's chanting stopped and he spoke a few words to Woholi, whose massive frame appeared in the doorway a moment later. Daphne's brother stepped toward the futon and slid it aside to reveal a hole in the plaster, into which several notebooks had been been placed.

She returned her attention to Harry's closet, where at the bottom was a cardboard shoe box. Opening it, she found a few wallet-sized photographs that Harry must have carried with him the night he had to leave. Also inside was his wand, holly, eleven and a half inches with phoenix feather core, a blackened tip, and a spiral crack; it was the second most famous wand in existence, now that the Dark Lord's had been snapped. He had apparently chosen to store it here rather than carry it and risk using it and destroying the fragile magic protecting him.

She used his wand to expand the photographs. The first, an image taken a few weeks after the Battle of Hogwarts, showed surviving members of Dumbledore's Army. Harry stood in back off to one side, flanked by one of the idiotic Weasley twins, who was missing an ear, and the Granger girl, one arm in a sling and the other around Harry's waist. She guessed from his absence that the other twin must have died in the conflict. The rest stood in two ragged rows, casual and relaxed. Occasionally, one would turn to Harry with the sort of affectionate reverence that the other clansmen gave her father. She knew that neither Harry nor her father felt themselves to be leaders, yet each had unimpeachable instincts and the kind of attractive personality that gathered followers, moths to flame.

She sighed, remembering that she could have participated in the battle—her family had no love for Voldemort, after all—but she had opted instead to use an emergency Portkey to flee and remain with family at the lodge compound rather than die in the final stand.

Unfortunately, the act of pragmatism alienated her further from her associates. So many conversations afterward, even some Slytherins, would come back to, "Where were you that night?" While hers was the safe, logical, even obvious choice, she often wondered whether it may have been the wrong one—had she missed the defining cultural moment of the age, her generation's deadly version of what Woodstock was to her parents?

The second photo contained Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Hermione, the first three in Gryffindor Quidditch robes, celebrating a victory. Hermione was with them too, though Daphne doubted the arrogant bint understood the game any better than she. Harry's Captain badge gleamed and he wore the kind of wide smile Daphne could only vaguely remember on him, his time since they left the Magical World being marked by melancholy, his obsessive drive to learn their family trade punctuated only by occasional, private bouts of depression.

She'd violated his privacy once before, the night he left the compound, when she joined him in his bed.

Bloody irrational Gryffindors. Wasn't she beautiful? Wasn't he heartsick and lonely? How could what she had sought been so wrong?

Woholi grunted behind her. She glanced at her brother, who was now poring over the contents of one of the notebooks, then glanced at the third photograph. It was a candid shot, a side view of Harry and Ginny in an embrace. She stared at it for a long time, studying the details, the shared, nuanced gestures that evinced affection beyond a simple kiss.

A closeness she'd never known with anyone, much less Harry.

Despite her misgivings, she had grown to enjoy his company over the last few weeks since he had joined them. She had even allowed herself to think of him as more than an associate—maybe even a friend of sorts, her first outside the Clan. Yet what they had did not approach what she saw in the photo.

It crumpled in her grasp.

"Nita, something troubles you?" her father asked from behind, his voice hoarse from the smoke.

"No," she lied.

He gently pried the photograph out of her hands and smoothed it. He looked at it with dark, bloodshot eyes. "I see," he said, handing it back to her. In the distance, thunder rumbled.

"It's nothing. Just Potter and his... intended," she said, tossing the photograph back into the box.

"Of course," he said, giving her a half-smile. "Nothing at all..."

"What?" she objected, then schooled her face into impassivity. "He is an important asset. I'm merely concerned with his health and effectiveness..."

The man paused, eyes staring in the distance. After a minute, he nodded. "As an elder, I've always said that we should seek first to understand, then to be understood. I do not believe that you quite understand Wapi, so you should not be surprised that he does not know your heart."

"What's to understand? He's pining for Weasley and doesn't want me."

"Quite the contrary. I believe—and your mother agrees—that he cares for you very much."

"Bollocks! Then why?"

"Why did he leave?"

She nodded, biting her lip.

"I do not know for sure..." Asgaya sat for a long time, eyes unfocussed, then returned. "Your mother thinks it is because, though he has strong feelings for you, he's given his heart to another. Wapi is frightened, both by what he feels for you and that he is tempted to give up the task he has set for himself..."

"It's here," Woholi interrupted, pointing them to a page in one of the notebooks. Daphne noted the leaf contained a spell base expressed in abstruse Arithmancy. With just an O.W.L. in the subject, she knew only enough to catch a hint of what it described—reciprocal charms on the rings as foci and something to do with fidelity and validation.

"Let us step into the light, children, as I consult our allies. This is beyond my knowledge." Asgaya led them from the bedroom and laid the notebook open on the table in the sitting room. He seated himself cross-legged on the floor in front of the sofa and took a long pull from his pipe, then blew sweet smoke upward toward the ceiling. He chanted in a low, hypnotic voice as the rain continued to tap on the windowpanes and his eyes gradually lost focus.

Daphne scowled and crossed her arms. Something about the charm bothered her, something on the tip of her mind, and she found herself feeling, in addition to jealousy, anger toward Harry's fiancée. And anger at the situation... and at Harry, for leaving, and at herself, for driving him away.

She felt a warm hand on her shoulder. Her brother nodded to her and she allowed herself to relax.

Several minutes passed and a tired sigh marked the end of her father's trance. "I've consulted with our ancestors and we have some ideas, but I need information first. What can you tell me of his parents, Nita?"

"His mother was a genius and his father was a talented, yet spoiled hound." She gave a summary of the profiles of both, based on archival data she'd accumulated off the Slytherin network.

Asgaya nodded. "That would explain the charms. They were designed for a set of engagement bands. They involve several interlocking charms which are tied to the wearer's magic. Unfortunately for Wapi, they are impossible to remove except by consent or death of the other. A second threaded charm conveys sensate feedback to inform partners of infidelity..."

"That bitch! I'm going to kill her!" Daphne shouted, her wand out in a flash. The most recent data on Slynet, verified by a Hogwarts Professor, was that Weasley had become involved with another of late.

"Please, dear, don't be rash..."

"Don't be rash? The tramp is doing this to him—she's killing Harry!"

"I was about to say that I believe we can block the worst of it, now that we know what it is." He stood, an imposing figure, and his voice was stern. "But I forbid you to harm the Weasley girl. Not permanently, anyway."

"Why? You've always taught us to be cutthroat with our rivals..."

He sighed, his warrior persona softening. "True, but that's business. In matters like this, one must think, 'win win.' Nita, trust me on this: if you were to kill this girl, you would hurt him badly, perhaps even destroy that which attracts you most about him. And were he to discover your hand in things—and these things have a way of coming out—it may render him incapable of loving you."

Daphne thought for a moment. "I could chop her hand off, right?"

His glare was sufficient answer.

"It's not really fair—you killed your rival for Mum's hand..."

"Which was a mistake, I assure you. I should not have done that, as she has reminded me several times over the years. And besides, I do not believe that the blame falls entirely on her shoulders."

"What you do you mean?" she asked.

"The Spirit Weave is obscuring the part of the charm that connects each ring with the other. Both are feeling the loss acutely. I am certain that this is contributing to Wapi's loneliness and may also be affecting Miss Weasley's actions."

Daphne frowned.

"I am not giving him up, Daddy. He's the one I want."

"I would remind you of the time when you wanted a pony, only to become disenchanted..."

She scowled at her father, who, after a moment, winced in pain.

"But your mother has informed me that I should trust her instincts on this. Tayanita, you are a clever girl. I'm sure you can come up with a way to get what you want that is less... direct."

She looked about the apartment. It would require sacrifice, but could she do it? She stepped forward and hugged her father. "Thanks, Daddy."

"Anytime. I know I've not been the best father..."

"But at least you listen to Mum," she said with a smirk. "Though she and I both think you pass off too much from Muggle self-help books as tribal wisdom."

He raised his eyebrows. "I should never have taught you to commune with her..." He stopped, wincing again. "Sorry, dear."

Daphne laughed. "I'm still waiting for you to tell us that we need to 'sharpen the saw.'"

Ginny looks around the shabby apartment. "So Harry, how much money do you have?"

"Last month? About three hundred seventy million, US. Now, after paying off Asgaya with interest? Maybe twenty million? Twenty five? A couple of million Galleons if I were inclined to convert it, which I probably won't because of the whole thing with the Goblins. Still, not shabby returns, considering that I started with all of about one hundred Galleons."

"What do you mean 'if' you convert it? And what's that thing about the Goblins? Aren't you coming back now that you're free? And why if you have so much money do you live..."

"In a shithole?" He notices her slightly disgusted look. "Sorry—Yank expression, means about what you think it does. And I see you've picked up Hermione's interrogation style... I live here because I couldn't afford anything better when I started out. I stayed because I've been dumping every bloody Knut I've made back into my investments to try to get out faster." Harry's voice bitters and his hands ball into fists. "This loveliness has been my prison for eight long years while others have been out playing Quidditch and living the good life..."

"That's hardly fair," she says, standing. "And you have some nerve making it out like it's been some kind of picnic for me. Being away from you hurts, Harry. Not like you care..."

"I do care," he says, walking toward the kitchen.

"Don't you turn your back on me!"

"I'm not. I'm fixing you breakfast. You're starving."

"I am not starving, dammit, and stop avoiding the issue!" At that moment, Ginny's Chaser metabolism betrays her and her stomach growls loudly. "You're bloody annoying, Potter!"

"Sorry I don't have ingredients for a full English breakfast, so it'll have to be just eggs and toast, okay?" he shouts from the next room. Fuming, Ginny moves to the doorway as Harry continues, ignoring her earlier outburst, save that he seems to be beating the eggs harder than is strictly necessary. "According to Asgaya, Ragnok threatened the Minister at the time, Gumboil, with war if he didn't declare me persona non grata in the Wizarding World. Apparently, to Goblins, running away from debt like I did is about the most insulting thing I could have done. Even though Daphne's father bought up their share, the Goblins still had this honor thing going, which you should read as a 'full-scale Goblin uprising' level of grudge. The upshot is that I basically can't return to England without 'bad things' happening." He punctuates "bad things" with drooping, eggy Peace signs, as if voice inflection weren't enough to get the point across.

Harry sets three places at the table as the toast pops up out of the toaster with a "ping." The smoking Muggle contraption startles her out of wondering who the third setting is for. Harry stands and is silent for a moment, as if listening to something far off, and then looks disgusted. He snatches a box of tissues from the table and drops it on the floor midway between the table and the exit. Then he grabs a throw pillow from the sofa and tosses it next to the box of tissues.

Blinking, she asks, "But Gumboil's gone and Gudgeon's in place now as Minster. We should be able to get the law changed, right?" she asks.

He gives her a shrewd look. "We? That's the first time you've spoken of 'we' since you got here, Gin."

"Ginny," she says, then sighs. "Fine, Gin. But don't read anything into it—you're still not off the hook, mister." She swallows, meeting his eyes. "And I still want you to fix this ring."

"Noted," he snaps. "Maybe I could return, but it'd be unlikely. The Goblins haven't changed their mind and I understand I've been savaged pretty badly in the Daily Prophet over the last several years, so it's not like I've got popular opinion on my side. I somehow doubt the Magical World would go to bat for me like I did for them." The bitterness of his voice is unmistakable.

"Go to bat? I think you've been living in the Colonies too long," she says, smiling lightly. She takes the bowl of scrambled eggs from him and places it on the table.

"Even so. Well, give me your wand, I'll fix your ring."

Her stomach clenches. "I thought you said no magic?"

"I did. This won't take much—I think." He plucks the wand from her hand and takes her other hand in his. His face is grim. "And I won't have you suffering anymore on account of me."

"Wait!"

Before she can pull away, he touches the tip to her engagement band, which glows brightly for an instant and slides off her hand on its own accord. With a musical chime, it bounces thrice on the table before clattering onto one of the plates.

She feels a crescendo of magic, a growing wave of contentment that rushes over her and drowns her gnawing heartache into oblivion. In an instant, the wrongness of her life, the elemental incompleteness she had felt, that had driven her from partner to partner and had fed her thrill-seeking tendencies, dissipates. Minutes later, all that remains is a vague hint of regret.

"Merlin," she says, breathless, opening her eyes. At her feet, Harry kneels and clutches his chest in obvious pain. Her wand lies beside him on the floor. "Harry!"

"I'm fine. It took a little more magic than I thought." He shrugs off her offer of help and stands shakily, then stumbles away from her. "I'll be right back—I need to... take a pill and throw some water on my face or something." He enters the loo and slams the door.

Ginny recovers her wand and her gaze falls on the engagement band, the source of her torment for so long and a token of more innocent times. She resists the urge to pick it up.

"You can do this, Gin," she tells herself, subvocalizing as she does in matches. "It's what you wanted, just walk away. You'll both be better off. He's practically a Muggle now, not even part of your world anymore..."

She starts toward the door.

And stops halfway, her jaw quivering and her legs turning to rubber. She flops cross-legged onto the floor with her bum landing upon the pillow Harry had placed there minutes before. She buries her face in her hands as silent tears drip down her forearms and onto the floor. A moment later, she plucks a tissue from the box nearby.

"I hate you, Harry James Potter."

Daphne stepped off of the main Hogsmeade boulevard and onto the rocky path towards the gardens and beside the lake. She'd seen her quarry pass this way several minutes before, the witch's arm hooked in the elbow of a slender, black-haired Ravenclaw—Saumny was it? He was one of the few who socialized with Harry's friend, Lovegood. She pulled her cloak tighter about her to block the chilly February breeze and picked up her pace.

Harry. She smiled to herself that she thought of him now as Harry and not Potter. He had been delighted to waken in the hospital to see her holding his hand, had even given her a brilliant smile.

She could have stopped the couple in the village, but that would have risked witnesses and complications. This way was subtle, more her style. Plus, it would have the bonus of catching them off guard, making what she had to do that much easier.

She passed a couple of fourth year students in a state of deep snog behind a poorly done privacy ward and she consulted the tracking charm she had placed on the red-haired witch. They were in the copse just ahead.

As she neared, she saw the two clutching each other, her robes opened at the front and his hands upon her midriff—in this weather, they must be using warming charms. They were speaking in low tones that she could just make out.

"I'm not sure about this, Ginny. I mean, we're in the open and all..."

She gave him a mischievous grin, "Come on, Ger, it'll be fun. It's the thrill of almost getting caught that makes it good..."

"Yeah, but we did get caught by Slughorn..." She pouted and a moment later a grin spread on his face. "How I let you talk me into these things, I'll never know."

Laughing, the witch tossed her head back, her thick mane falling in a river of red over her back and exposing her delicate neck. The eager Ravenclaw did not hesitate to meet it with soft, eager lips that nibbled and sucked.

Daphne sighed, sickened by the display and annoyed that she was unable to hit one without risking hexing the other. She looked up and saw that they were beneath a tree whose branches were laden with powder from a recent snow shower. A silent concussive hex dropped a cubic meter of white onto the couple.

"Gah!" Ginny said, pushing back from Saumny, who grunted as snow dropped onto his exposed head and down his loosened collar.

"Stupefy," Daphne whispered and the wizard collapsed into a heap. Ginny looked up and reached for her wand as the older witch summoned it to her. "Nice shirt," she said, glancing at the black midriff-tee with white lettering: "Chasers ride it rough."

Ginny closed her robes with a huff and glared at the black-haired Slytherin alum, her eyes narrowing into malefic slits. "Greengrass. What do you want?"

"To discuss a mutual friend," she said in an offhand way as she strode forward, wrinkling her nose at the dozing wizard at her feet.

"We have none. Now give me my wand."

"Harry?" Daphne quirked a slender eyebrow at the stunned witch.

"What do you know about Harry?" Ginny said quickly. "Where is he? What did you do with him?"

Daphne ignored the question and instead prodded the unconscious wizard on the ground with the toe of her boot as she flicked her wand about, raising a privacy shield. "How would you characterize your relationship with Harry? Close?"

"It's none of your business!"

She gave the shorter witch an infuriating smirk. "I've made it my business. Besides, I just realized that I have two wands and you have—let me count—none."

"I've got nothing to say to you unless you tell me what you know about Harry." Ginny crossed her arms.

Daphne sighed and hit her with a Petrificus Totalus, locking the witch's limbs and dropping her into the soft snow. She approached the prone girl, took a stopper from her handbag, and placed three clear drops upon Ginny's tongue. Then she tapped the girl's jaw with her wand, loosening it from the hex and treating her ears to a long and surprisingly creative string of profanity.

After a minute, the girl's eyes started to glaze, though her cheeks stayed pink with rage. Daphne grabbed the girl's chin to silence her and spoke, "Weasley, I know that Harry Potter fell desperately in love with you in his sixth year at Hogwarts—why, I can only guess at. Last year, he chased after the Dark Lord and got into all sorts of trouble, yet he always remained true to you. In the end, he faced his enemy and died trying to save all of us, yet he came back for you. He pledged his love for you over the holiday and you accepted his engagement ring. He calls you 'Gin,' as a pet name..."

"How do you know this?" Ginny asked, her voice slightly airy, as the powerful truth serum started to influence her.

Daphne ignored her. "If Harry Potter could speak to you today, what would you say to him?"

Though she was falling rapidly under the spell, Ginny fought it by becoming defiant, as expected from her extensive Slynet personality profile. "I'd tell him that I bloody well hate him. The prat deserted me the day after we were engaged and I gave myself to him, then left me with nothing—no note, no goodbye, just a hole in my heart and this ruddy ring. I hate him for what he did to me and I doubt I'd want to hear anything he had to say..."

She fought in vain as she fell completely under the truth spell. A moment later, she relaxed and continued in a flat voice, "And I love him desperately and completely, so much that I cry myself to sleep at night. I'd give anything for him to come back to me..." Tears started to well in her eyes.

Daphne sighed and shook her head at the witch. "Stop your pathetic blubbering and let me give you the antidote." Ginny opened her mouth and three more bitter drops were placed on her tongue. After a moment, the dreamy look left her eyes and she scowled at her captor.

"I'm going to tell you something, Weasley, and I want you to listen well." Daphne sat upon the wizard's back facing the other witch and drew a holly wand with a blackened tip from within her robes. "Recognize this?" she asked.

Ginny gasped, "Harry's wand."

The witch winked and held the wand pointed upward in front of her. "I swear on my magic that I am acting on Harry's behalf and in his best interests. I swear that my family has vowed to protect him and keep him safe." Harry's wand tip flashed a brilliant blue.

"How did you get his wand? And why is he with you?"

"That's not for you to know. What you should know is that despite several opportunities to do otherwise, Saint Harry has been utterly, disgustingly true to you, that, unlike you, he's never betrayed his vows. You really don't deserve someone like him, you know. Despite the pain you've caused him, he still begged for me to deliver this..."

She held the letter up to Ginny's face. It was addressed to her and written in Harry's messy scrawl. Ginny started to stammer, struggling hard against Daphne's hex.

"No need for that. Here." She smiled sweetly and placed the letter between Ginny's thumb and forefinger, then stepped back.

"Thank you," Ginny whispered, shocked.

Daphne's kind smile turned wicked. "Don't mention it. Incendio." In a second, over the immobilized witch's screaming protests, the letter became ash.

Over the next minutes, Ginny exhausted her vocabulary of profanities and impossible or obscene things that Daphne could do with her various orifices. Hoarse and emotionally crushed, she was left mouthing the question, "Why?"

"Because I promised Harry that I'd inquire how you felt about him and that I'd deliver your letter, both of which I can now swear a magically binding oath to, if necessary. As well, I can swear that you said that you hated him, that you were uninterested in what he had to say, and that his letter was destroyed before it could be read." She buffed her nails on her cloak. "I'd have to say that this worked out far better than I could have hoped."

"But why? Why are you destroying my life?"

"Because I can?" she said, widening her grin, then dropping it. "Actually, despite appearances, I'm not needlessly cruel. It's just that I've also fallen in love with Harry and wish to take him as my lover. You're in the way, unfortunately."

Ginny's cheeks burned with spots of red and she struggled against her magical binding. "He'll never leave me for you."

"We shall see."

"Why Harry? Why not someone else?"

"I've decided that he is the one I want. Come now, even you can see his attractiveness."

Daphne bent her head down so that their noses were nearly touching. Ginny blinked at the malice she saw in the Slytherin's dark eyes. "And you really should know something about me. You hurt Harry, and that's something I cannot forgive. The game is afoot, Weasley, and I always win." She picked up a piece of shimmering silvery fabric, partially buried beneath the snow. "I think I'll hold onto this—somehow I don't think Harry intended for you to use his family heirlooms to shag behind his back. Ta ta..."

She draped the cloak over her shoulders, then turned one last time toward the whimpering girl and contemplated the relative merits of killing her in spite of her father's command. "Obliviate. You will remember our conversation here today, except you will forget my identity. You will remember that you yourself burned Harry's letter before it could be read. You will remember that you had just this one chance to find Harry, but that you blew it because you couldn't keep your bloody Gryffindor temper in check nor your legs together..."

Harry emerges from the loo wearing a tee, his bloody shirt having been placed in the sink to soak. His eyes have swollen further, lending his face a squinty look. He's holding a towel and a hot water bottle, which he places on the arm of the sofa.

"My flatmate is going to arrive shortly. It's going to be an awkward conversation, so I'd ask if you could please try to keep an open mind..."

"Maybe I should I just leave. When's he going to arrive?"

"She, actually, and in a couple of minutes."

Ginny blinks, taking in this information as she eyes the the several bookshelves with abstruse philosophical titles.

Harry, following her glance, adds, "Jenny's a philosophy grad student at Colombia and she just got off work..."

Ginny sighs, crestfallen. "Merlin, I don't know why, but somehow I was hoping that just maybe you might have waited for me. I should have known you'd shack up with another Hermione..."

"I did," he states, then realizes what he's said, "I mean, No, she's not another Hermione. I mean, that is to say..."

"I think I'll be going now," Ginny says as she reaches for her handbag.

"Look, it's not what you think, Gin."

"Don't Gin me, Potter. We're through. I thought we had something special once, but you're just like every other guy, only interested in sticking your..."

The door opens and a tall, dark-skinned woman enters, shrugging off a long coat and kicking off her shoes. Exhausted, she tosses the coat over the chair Harry had left near the door and she walks over to the couch, flopping down and pulling off a U. of Colombia sweatshirt. "Oh snap, my bosoms are tender again." Ginny's eyebrows rise as it becomes obvious that the woman, a stunning, exotic beauty, was wearing nothing underneath except a silver necklace. The woman takes the towel and hot water bottle and places them over the sort of perfect bust one normally sees only in off-colour adverts for late-night Floo confessionals.

"Harry-poo, you're so good to me," she coos.

The red-haired witch clears her throat and stands, her black dress riding up on her hips.

The woman looks up at Ginny gives her an idyllic smile, showing two rows of gleaming perfection, and she bounces to her feet, offering the witch her hand. "Hi!"

Harry says, "Uh, Gin, this is Jen. Jen, Gin."

"Ginny," Ginny says at the same time Jenny says, "Jenny."

"Charmed," they chorus, which causes Jenny to giggle once again.

Jenny gently touches Harry's injured nose, her forehead creasing in worry. "Oh, did you get a boo-boo, Harry-poo?"

"Yeah, I, uh, ran into someone who had a score to settle. We worked it out though, I think." He looks at Ginny, who appears to be torn between feeling ready to gag at the "Harry-poo" epithet and annoyed at seeing another woman touching him with such tenderness.

Suddenly, Jenny squeals loudly, dropping her towel and hot water bottle. Oh, you're Ginny, Harry's fiancée! I've heard so much about you!" She pulls the witch into a tight embrace. Ginny, whose own dress has a daring neckline, feels awkward at coming into contact with so much of the woman's bare torso, particularly the aforementioned bosom, which presses beneath her chin. Jenny steps back, holding Ginny's hands in hers, and studies the witch's face and body with a practiced eye. "Harry, you were right, she really is the most gorgeous thing..."

Harry looks down at his feet after taking in Ginny's reaction to the other woman.

"So, Jenny," Ginny says, stepping back from Harry's flatmate, her voice cold. "What kind of work do you do?"

"I'm a dancer."

"Ballet?"

Jenny giggles, bouncing in a way Ginny is not entirely sure is accidental. "No, silly, Exotic. I go by Bunny and I'm really good with a pole."

"I'm sure you are," Ginny mutters. "Harry, can I speak with you for a moment?"

He takes in her stony glare and squeaks, "Uh, Jenny? I made breakfast—why don't you tuck in and we'll join you in a second, okay?"

"A stripper? You left me for a bloody stripper?!"

"Ginny, it's not what it looks like. If you'd listen..."

"I've had it with listening! I suffered for eight years while you're off shagging some scarlet woman slut with the mind of a three year old..."

"Shagging—is that like carpeting?" Jenny asks, obviously eavesdropping. "We put new carpet in here ourselves just last year, didn't we, Harry." She selects a copy of Foundations of Modern Pessimism from the shelf and sets it beside her plate. After a moment of awkward silence, she looks up at the fuming witch, her brilliant smile having faded a bit as she notices the frosty glare Ginny is giving her.

"I think someone needs a nap. You can use my bed if you like," she offers.

"I beg your pardon?" Ginny says.

"Some what you've said to me is kinda mean. I know you don't like me, but I don't like being called a slut, especially by a woman with no panties and who's supposed to be engaged to Harry-poo." She puts her hand to her mouth and giggles some more. "Oh, and who has a sticky-goo guy smell..."

"I do not have a sticky... you know!" Her face reddens.

Harry walks up to Ginny, sniffs her hair, and scowls. "Actually, you do. I wasn't going to bring it up before, but..."

"Fine, I was with someone. But you're the one sleeping with a stripper!"

"It's not what it looks like. We're just friends," Harry says.

"He's right. We sleep together lots..." she says from the table.

"Not helping, Jen." Harry says.

Jenny continues, "Like on movie night on the couch. Though we've never made bouncy beds or, what did you call it? Shagged?"

Harry sighs, taking Ginny by the arm to the corner of the room, where they can have more privacy.

"What do you see in her?" she hisses.

"Look, we're just friends. And Jen's nice, probably the kindest person I've ever known. Besides, she intrigues me. I can't see near her."

"What?"

"My gift doesn't work when I'm around her. You have no idea what a relief it is to be able to turn it off once in awhile."

Ginny crosses her arms and scowls at him.

"I swear, Gin, I've never cheated on you..."

"Never? I find that a little hard to believe—especially when you've got... that prancing around naked." She eyes nastily, then tries not to eye Harry's partially nude roommate.

"First off, that's not the kind of guy I am. Second, I swore to you I'd remain true and I have. Finally, there're the rings, though before today I thought the charm was defective." At Ginny's perplexed look, he say, "According to Mum's notebook, she fixed them so that if Dad strayed, Mum's ring would send a mild shock up her arm. Same with hers I guess. She couldn't trust Dad back then and wanted to keep him honest..."

"But you said they aren't working?" she says with trepidation, not liking where the conversation is going.

"Well, let's just say that I get shocked a whole fucking lot, every few days." He notices the look of horror on his fiancée's face as she turns away. "No way! Bloody hell, Gin—do you even own a bed?"

She whirls on him, her wand in his face. "Stop right there, mister. You've no right to say that to me—you were the one who left me like this, alone and empty!"

"But you didn't even wait two fucking months before shagging someone else!"

"Look, I was grieving and lonely! Ger helped me through a tough time..."

"Lovely. So, I guess the bloody rings are working right after all. And now you know that, unlike some people, I've been perfectly faithful. And an damned fool, apparently."

"But I did feel something."

"You're still alive, so it wasn't from me. Probably your own doing."

"But why would I feel it?"

Harry sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Leakage, maybe, I don't know. No Charm is perfect and some of what you were sending to me probably fed back up your arm. The effects were probably stronger for us since you and I are way more powerful than Mum and Dad."

She inhales sharply. "Your heart..."

He nods. "Valentine's Day, just after I left. I went into cardiac arrest and was taken to a Muggle hospital where the doctors, not knowing about magic, reckoned I'd OD'd on cocaine. Now with the pacemaker my heart doesn't stop anymore. It just bloody hurts."

They are interrupted by a joyous squeal as Harry's roommate runs up to Harry, gives him a big hug, and repeats, "Thank you, thank you..." over and over. She pulls back, kisses him hard on the lips, and bounces back to the table, looking for her portable telephone. "Wait until I tell Mom!"

"Somehow I don't remember my eggs being quite that good," Harry says dryly.

"Circe," Ginny gasps as she sees a familiar band slide onto the stripper's left hand.

"It's just my size too. Yes, Harry, yes! I will marry you!"

"Dear Lord," Harry says, rubbing his swollen eyes. "Um, Jenny, about that ring..."

"That's mine," Ginny says, giving Harry a meaningful look.

He swallows, looking uncomfortable. "Actually, I'd rather if nobody had it just now."

Ginny looks at him for a long time, her jaw quivering. "Okay. But c-can we try again, Harry?"

He pauses, staring at his feet. "Maybe. I don't know. All this is going to take some time getting used to."

"I understand. I'll wait—for real, this time. I'll give you a magical oath if you want." She puts a hand on his, but he flinches at her touch.

"No oaths, no magical bonds," he says sharply, then looks out the window for a long while. "People change, Gin? I'm not sure I'm the same guy I was."

"Yeah, I know. But I want this." He stays motionless, looking away. After a minute of quiet, she can't help herself. "Harry?"

"I'm not sure what I want, Gin. I thought I knew, but... You know I may not be able to come back to the... you-know World?"

"I know, but I still want to try."

"I thought you hated me. You sure say it a lot."

"I wouldn't have hated you so much if I didn't love you, you big dope."

Jenny watches the two dreamily. "Oh piffle—at least I was engaged to you for a little while." Her forehead creases as she tries to remove the ring. "Phooey, it won't come off. Harry-poo, can you get some butter?"

Ginny's jaw drops as Harry asks the half-naked stripper, "Does it seem stuck to you, Jen?"

"No, it's the strangest thing—it's like it should come off, but it doesn't want to."

Ginny takes her wand from her handbag.

"Oh, I've got one of those too!" Jenny chirps, then winks at the witch, saying in a stage whisper, "I need one, since Harry is such a saint. Mine isn't as long and skinny, though. Where do the batteries go?"

Harry coughs. "Actually, it's not one of those. It's, um, a thing ordered off the telly that should help loosen the ring." He mutters under his breath, "I hope."

He touches Ginny's wand to the ring, accepting the flash of pain in his chest, but it doesn't budge. "Dammit. I thought this might happen."

"What?" Ginny asks, panicked.

Harry glances at Jenny. He says, "The ring only responds to her or my, um... thingamajigs." He gestures with her wand. "Since she's not a, you-know, she doesn't have one, so I need to get my own thingamajig."

"Who did you give your... thingamajig to, Harry?"

Recognition dawns on Jenny's face as her mouth makes an 'O'. "Are you talking about..." Blushing, she whispers, "You-know... bouncy beds?"

Harry ignores her. "I left it with Daphne, whom I haven't seen in ages." Ginny's eyes widen as she realizes whom she had encountered in the forest so long ago.

Harry looks at his watch. "Damn, I can probably still catch Asgaya if I hurry—he'll know how to get in contact with her." He races across the flat and grabs his coat. At the door, he fumbles in his pocket and pulls out a business card, handing it to Ginny.

"Call me, okay? I'm not sure what's going to happen from here, but if anything does, we'll have to take it slow." He kisses her chastely on the cheek and races down the hallway, leaping over the vagrant.

"I love you, Harry James Potter," she says to his back.

Ginny turns toward the other occupant of the flat, who has donned her sweatshirt. She looks at the woman for a long time, then makes the connection. "Greengrass."

"Who?"

"Finite Incantatem." The taller witch's skin whitens and her cheekbones become more prominent, her face resembling the witch Ginny remembered from school. "Nice Glamour and an impressive acting job. Let me guess—you're not really an exotic dancer?"

Daphne rolls her eyes as her own wand appears in her hand. "Please," she says, having lost her American accent. "Well spotted, Weasley. As for the acting, that's easy: I just channel my inner Gryffindor."

"We're not like that!" Ginny protests, then recalls Lavender's gag-worthy behavior around "Won-Won." "Not all of us, anyway. I don't suppose you'll give me back my ring."

Daphne admires it on her hand and pretends to think it over. "No. I'm rather fond of it." She glares at the younger witch. "And it stopped being yours the moment you rejected him. You have no idea, do you? Six hundred fourteen nights I watched him suffer, comforting him as I could, holding him as he cried out in pain for you, of all people? And yes, I knew—I read his mother's bloody notebooks, after all. Do you have any idea how much it bothered me knowing that I should have just killed you and made the man I love happy?"

Ginny collects her handbag and the coat she wore before. "You had eight years to seduce him, bitch, but you failed." She matches the other witch's smirk. "I told you you wouldn't succeed."

"Perhaps, but who has his ring? Besides, how faithful do you think he'll be, now that he knows the truth about you and that shagging me won't automatically kill you?"

Arms akimbo, Ginny's voice becomes cold. "Who lied to him, Greengrass? If there's one thing Harry values, it's honesty and trust. You won't keep him once he finds out how you've betrayed that trust."

"Who comforted him when his bloody misplaced love was killing him? He always suspected, you know. And it's amusing that you'd bring up trust: let's just say that I'm hardly the worst betrayer here—you're about to find that some hurts go too deep to heal. Like almost killing the man you claim to love because you can't keep your legs together..."

"Harry loved me first and he's never stopped loving me!" Ginny shouts, crossing her arms before the taller witch. "I'm not giving up."

"I wouldn't expect you to, nor to know when you're beaten." She sneers at the younger witch. "And, just so you know, the kid gloves are off. I'm not about to play nice this time, not after what you did to him."

Eyes narrowed, Ginny steps forward until her face nearly touches that of the other witch. Both witches grip their wands more tightly.

"Me neither. And I should warn you: the game is afoot, Greengrass, and I always win.

Fin.

Author's notes: This story started as a reply to the jejune "Harry's Affairs" challenge on SIYE; I wrote it as a tune-up, as I was out of writing for awhile. For various reasons which I won't go into here, the original piece was determined to be inappropriate for that site, so I rewrote it into the present form. I'd like to thank the folks at AFC (japanesejew, ZanyMuggle, Nukular Winter) for their very helpful comments and for convincing me to stick with the story; also, members of Readers Consortium (Rob, Taure, scaryisntit) commented on one of the scenes in an early draft. Neisseria and Rob provided the Latin translations. Spenser Hemmingway and General Custer commented on an early draft (and both hated it).

WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot should be commended for her excellent beta work; she caught numerous errors and cleaned up my prose to look almost presentable. (If anything was missed, it was because so much was wrong before she started).

Asgaya's aphorisms came from Covey's The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, perhaps the most famous self-help book in existence.

I originally intended this piece to be a comedy, but it was revised it into its present form, which I think is stronger. I would describe it now as an "anti-romance," a blunt criticism of chivalric love.

While I have no plans to continue this story, I may use it as a prequel to another story in the future.