Chapter Thirty-Nine – A Wizarding World Web Christmas

Harry and Ginny had a fairly quiet week leading into the last weekend of November; though they were both busy too – with his ongoing work in Tutshill for Harry; and Ginny kept entertained by putting the finishing touches on the Quidditch News Network website ahead of the weekend launch of the Wizarding World Web.

When stores opened on Saturday morning, and Witches and Wizards everywhere flocked to places like Diagon Alley to at least get a first look at the new magical devices if not buy one of the comparatively-expensive systems. There were actually very few people that knew about Hermione and Ginny being the primary developers of the Wizarding World Web, and that was fine with them; but it was also awesome to spend time in Diagon Alley in the morning to see just how hot their amazing, not-so-little invention did for the first day of sales. The Wizarding World Web devices and everything about the magical equivalent of the Muggle internet were definitely the top stories for pretty much every Witch and Wizard in the world.

Hermione, Ginny, and everyone else involved in developing the Wizarding Web had put a lot of thought into the products; and there were quite a few options that had something for everyone. Even squibs could use some of the systems thanks to the optional, Muggle-style keyboard and mouse that worked magically with the various-sized mirrors. There were also options for the new devices combined with the mirror communicators and the Wizarding World Mirror Network; though those devices were also the most expensive.

Ron and Hermione came over to Harry and Ginny's house for breakfast on Saturday morning; Harry cooked for them; the boys cleaned up; and then they headed for Diagon Alley together. Even the streets were crowded; but every store that carried the Wizarding World Web mirrors and accessories were totally packed. While Hermione and Ginny both had final prototypes of the systems; they weren't in Diagon Alley just to watch the show – they were picking up the smallest version of the fully-loaded mirrors and a couple of the largest models with just the mirror network add-on for their homes and offices. None of them really thought about it at all, and Ron didn't even know the details about it; but Hermione and Ginny – and Harry as a silent investor – were all making a nice little profit on every one of those system sales – and they were, or would soon be, happening all over the Wizarding World.

"At the rate we're going; we'll still be in line here until well-after the game this afternoon," Ron suggested when they'd been in line at Flourish and Blotts for more than a half hour and were just getting to the first of the mirror devices displays. Even with a lot of window shoppers in the store too; the line-ups at the check-out counters were quite long as well.

"We'll have lots of time, and even get around to feeding you before we go to the game," Ginny promised with a smile. "Look at the bright side. Hermione and I will be busy playing with our new toys for months; so you won't need to shop for a new Muggle computer for her this Christmas."

"There goes my plan for her gift this year," Ron said with a totally fake dramatic sigh. "Now what am I supposed to get her?"

"I could offer a brilliant suggestion," Ginny offered, "but you'd just get annoyed with me; and it's going to be way too great a day to go there."

"Even if he started on that right now he couldn't deliver that gift by Christmas," Harry pointed out – "not to mention that they'd likely get banned from Flourish and Blotts for life if he tried; and that'd be tough to explain to the kids someday when it was time to get their Hogwarts textbooks."

Ron had been on the way to glaring at him; but couldn't resist laughing at the last parts of Harry's comments; and the girls laughed along with him.

"That probably isn't what they had in mind for that new layaway plan either," Ginny joked; pointing out the sign above the display for the largest, most-expensive Wizarding Web mirrors.

"Will you two cut that out?" Hermione asked; though she was still laughing at Ginny's suggestion too. "That's all fun until I actually start thinking about having babies; and then that's never fun at all – for Ron."

"That's for sure," Ron agreed fervently; and then held up his hands in surrender. "I'll shut it now. Forget I said anything."

"I'll do that," Hermione decided; and smiled at him. "You are actually having fun while shopping in a bookstore; so that's quite a bit of progress."

"He's as excited about the Wizarding Web as the rest of us – even if he's trying to play it cool," Ginny declared. Wait until he figures out how easy it'll be to write up his reports for work and do research using one of these things too. It may be a while before the Ministry of Magic catches up; but they will eventually."

"Once they see Hermione and her team in action using them," Harry agreed. "I'll guess that a lot of budgets will suddenly be adjusted to make room for purchasing the new toys."

"Maybe, but it'll still take a long time to change over from parchment and quill to using these mirrors and all of the accessories," Hermione added. "That will be cool to be around and help out with, though."

"Great – more work for you!" Ron groused half-seriously; and Ginny laughed. "What's so funny now?"

"Refer back to the last topic; and then ask yourself why you think that having Hermione working too much is a problem," she suggested; still grinning at him. Ron laughed too.

"I so should have shut up while I was ahead," he conceded. "Good one, sis."

Ron may have been comparatively happy to be shopping while they were picking up their new toys, but he was ready to go and have lunch by the time they did finally escape Flourish and Blotts with their purchases and headed for the Leaky to meet up with the rest of their game-day gang. The Harpies-Magpies match was barely even discussed during their noon meal because everyone – including the staff at the Leaky – was talking about the Wizarding World Web instead. There seemed to be at least one portable mirror at every table; and Witches and Wizards were talking animatedly about what they could do and exploring the different sites that had all launched along with the devices going on sale. The Quidditch News Network that Lee and Ginny had co-founded was even mentioned a few times at tables close enough to them so that they knew it was getting at least some visitors; but Ginny didn't worry about that sort of thing any more than she thought about the money going into her Gringott's vault with every sale.

If the customers in stores around the Wizarding World had thought that the line-ups were too long; the shopping madness in Diagon Alley was nothing compared to the marathon match that the Harpies and Magpies played all afternoon and into the evening. Andromeda had dropped Teddy off with Harry and Ginny at the Leaky, and joined them for lunch; so they'd had extra time once they'd reached Ellis stadium to get hot drinks, snacks, and the usual game-day souvenirs and programs before going to find their seats and settle in for the game. They hadn't known then that they were in for a major Quidditch adventure; but they were prepared for a cold-weather day and fired up about it. Ginny was especially excited because she was going to be doing her first game reporting for the Quidditch News Network site; and was actually able to work on that on her new Wizarding Web mirror while watching the game.

That new job and aspect of her game-watching added more entertainment to the afternoon, but it was also challenging to keep up with the work while juggling that with time for their family, friends, and especially the kids. Victoire and Teddy were particularly interested in what she was doing; and Ginny needed help to keep them distracted and watching the game regularly so that she could write her report on the fly. That was tougher to do as the game dragged on hour after hour and the kids needed to move around and do anything other than just watch the action above the pitch. The younger kids had an afternoon nap; Harry, Ron, and some of the other guys and girls took turns taking the kids for little adventures out to the concession stands, for washroom breaks, or even just to walk around the stadium for something to do.

The match had just moved into the eighth hour when the Magpies' Seeker finally made a game-ending mistake against Gabrielle. Her timing for making the catch had been great because the Magpies had slowly been coming back from a big scoring deficit and had closed the gap to just sixty points when she wrapped up the match with a fairly spectacular play. At seven hours and four minutes, it was the longest game of the season so far for the Harpies by nearly an hour, and though they were happy to earn the big five-hundred to two-ninety victory; they were all also as exhausted as the Magpies' players were. So were most of their fans; and the aisles were soon clogged with Witches and Wizards trying to get out of the stadium and on the way home or to other destinations instead of waiting around in the cold to watch the usual post-game action on the pitch.

Harry, Ginny, and their group didn't try to fight their way through the crowds, and just waited until the worst of the rush was over before grabbing their gear and carrying all of the tired-out kids when they could leave the stadium at something close to normal walking speed. After such a long day, Ginny just wanted to go home, and though she still needed to do a bit of work on her game report when they got back; she had that done by the time that Harry got back from taking Teddy home and he also had their late dinner cooked and ready for them.

"Have you taken a look at how the first day has gone for the Quidditch News Network site yet?" Harry asked as they began eating after sitting down and filling their plates.

"I was going to wait until tomorrow, but couldn't resist taking a little peek," Ginny admitted. "It seems to be a hit; and especially after the game started today. That was probably thanks to Lee's adverts during his shows; but we'll see how it goes over the next few weeks. It does look good, though."

"I'm glad. You've put a lot of work into it; and anyone that loves Quidditch will love your site."

"Let's hope so; or my next reporting gig might be at the Daily Prophet."

Harry laughed. "I'm having a tough time picturing your column next to Rita's; but you'd be on the sports page anyway. The Prophet would be lucky to have you; and they could sure use a little integrity in the ranks of their reporters."

"No doubt, but I'm probably not the Witch to help them out with that; since I'd be ready to hex half of those less-ethical reporters within an hour of taking the job."

"True, but that'd be fun too," Harry suggested with another laugh. "Have you decided what you'll do for games this coming week yet?"

"I'll go to the Tuesday night game since you're planning on working evenings or nights anyway; and catch one of the Saturday games from Lee's mirror network studio so that I can watch all of the cameras and catch more of the game action than I can on one mirror." She smiled at Harry. "I know, we're doing Christmas shopping all weekend; but I'll need to get off of my feet for a few hours each day anyway; so this will work out for me – and give you time to do some shopping that I can't be around for – unless you've done that already."

"No comment on the last part of that; though I'm sure I can find something to do while you're busy – like play in the toy and Quidditch stores."

"Don't forget that we're supposed to take it easy this year with Teddy and the other kids," she reminded him. "Andromeda has a real battle with Teddy every time she tried to weed out his old toys – especially the ones that you gave him; and his play room is practically too full to play in."

Harry grinned at her. "Maybe I'll get him a bigger room for Christmas," he suggested; and Ginny laughed.

"Andromeda might let you do that; but don't expect her to give in on the toy overload issue."

"Then maybe we should just get him one of these Wizarding Web mirrors. There isn't a lot to do on them for little kids yet; but there probably will be; and he'd be way ahead starting to learn how to use one now."

"That's an idea," she agreed thoughtfully. "Mom and Andromeda might like it if they could do some of their home-schooling for all of the kids with them too."

"Don't suggest that to Ron right away, or he'll want us to make one stop and be done with the shopping next Saturday morning."

"I won't; but Hermione can talk about it sometime between now and then."

Ginny changed the subject then; and they enjoyed their meal and quiet chat time until winding down that bit of fun with an apple crisp dessert. Harry did the dishes after that while Ginny went into the sitting room to lay down and relax while watching something on the mirror network that she barely paid attention to while having a half-doze kind of nap. It was getting late by then anyway, so Harry pretty much ended up carrying Ginny up to bed not long after he was finished in the kitchen; they both got ready for bed; and ended their evening with some quality sleep time for two. Sunday was a quiet day off by comparison, and other than making one grocery and supply shopping trip and doing some chores around the house and yard; they took it easy for most of the day and rested up to get ready for a very busy end to November and start of December.

Bill's thirty-fourth birthday was the first family and friends event of the week; though they were just doing a luncheon for him at the Leaky so that Fleur and the kids could have him to themselves for dinner and the evening. They couldn't get everyone there for noon, but Harry and Ginny both went to the little party; they had fun with Bill and the rest of the guests; and then Harry had an afternoon nap ahead of returning to his Tutshill stake-out. He wasn't planning on working all night; but did expect to be at the house there until a couple of hours past-midnight all week. While that made for a fun start to the week; Harry was on the job and in the Tutshill house when his stake-out paid off in a big way on Tuesday evening.

He had been under his cloak in the usual spot in the hallway when two Wizards came into the house and hurried up the stairs. One of them was using their wand to light the way; so he recognized Rolando Lestrange when he quickly walked up and down the hallway and 'called' silently for a room. Rolando had been in the lead – and in the way – so it wasn't until he opened the door and moved out of the way that he recognized Andrew Avery – another of the family leaders. Both men were inside the room when Harry heard Rolando speak for the first time.

"Prop the door open," he told Andrew in a way that was clearly a request between good friends instead of an order. "No point in either of us standing in that drafty hallway while the others are arriving."

"Works for me," Andrew agreed; and Harry could hear a bit of scraping and knocking around that suggested Andrews wasn't being particularly careful with whatever he was using to hold the door open. Harry wondered if that was something done out of habit; since a Wizard or Witch didn't need anything other than magic to keep a door open if they chose to do that.

He didn't hesitate either as soon as he heard both Wizards talking together from somewhere deep in the room a minute later. He carefully and quietly walked to the door; looked in; and then entered the large room. Moving to the left; he went to the corner of the room and leaned back against both walls. There was nothing to hide behind or next to; but he doubted that anyone would find the need to walk over there or stand in the corner because there was a large conference table set up at the other side of the room with enough seating for dozens – and probably adjustable for the number of members at any given meeting. If there were going to be dozens at this one; it was definitely a meeting he wanted to be at!

While he hoped that he wasn't wrong about that, it was only about five minutes later when his guess about following Lestrange and Avery right away was proven a good one as the next two Wizards arrived. After that, there was a steady stream of arrivals at varying intervals that would have made it difficult to get into the room silently enough not to be overheard and worried about – even if the others in the room might not be able to find him under his cloak. He didn't recognize all of the Wizards and Witches at the meeting, but he did know who most of them were either through seeing them here in Tutshill or through other investigations the Aurors were conducting for various crimes. A few of those incidents had not been linked directly to the pureblood elite families; so that information alone was quite valuable. Out of the entire group, there was only one other family leader at the meeting – Donatien Rosier. Rolando was apparently leading the show tonight; and called the meeting to order once everyone had arrived and the door had been closed.

"Before we get to the usual reports," Rolando began without preamble or welcome; "there are a few things that I want to discuss with all of you." He paused for a moment while everyone else quieted and settled in to listen to him. Since that was done without need for so much as a hard glance; Harry could see that Rolando had enough power over the others, with the exceptions of Avery and Rosier, to have them obey even tacit commands without hesitation.

"This is our first gathering since the trouble in Falmouth and the other places, and I want to assure you that we will not be allowing that loss to go unpunished; though we'll get to that later in the meeting. What I do want to tell you right now, though, is that we are not going to put up with that type of complete failure from you or your underlings! It is quite obvious that someone in our former Falmouth group slipped up and allowed those pathetic Aurors to get a whiff of what they were up to – and the evidence at those trials should have never been discovered by them at all." He looked around the table and made eye contact with every subordinate. "In the future, we will deal quite harshly with those who betray us – whether knowingly or not. The deals we have made with you and your families will be worth nothing for traitors; and there will be nowhere that you and your families can hide from the wrath and power of the Death Lords and your fellow Dark Knights!"

"Yes, Lord!" all but Avery and Rosier chorused. It was clear to Harry that Andrew and Donatien were 'Death Lords' too; and he was quite frankly amused by the designations the new bad guys had apparently chosen for themselves. Tom Riddle himself would likely be just as amused; though he'd have probably ridiculed this lot too. He'd at least been original to come up with his own names; and not just borrowed names from his own Knights of Walpurgis and Death Eaters.

"The Aurors also confiscated too much from us in those raids in September; and we are going to do two very important things to deal with that problem. First, you are all instructed to review your own operations and adjust as necessary to ensure that your assets are not too concentrated in just a few locations. You will also be tasked with new operations to recoup our losses with new acquisitions. We have been forced to deal with losses that have caused some set-backs to our plans; but we will recover and continue with our ultimate mission – to restore true purebloods to our rightful place in the Wizarding World!"

"Yes, Lord!" the Knights echoed again. "We will prevail!"

"Yes, we will," Rolando agreed. "Now, let's begin with your reports, and while we expect results; do not attempt to hide any disappointments. That will no longer be tolerated; and we will do what we must to ensure your truthfulness."

That last comment had some of the Witches and Wizards at the table looking suddenly very nervous; and Harry was sure that he wasn't the only person in the room to take note of those reactions. While he'd actually expected that assertion to be proven out, that didn't happen; which again said a lot about the control these 'Death Lords' had over their 'Dark Knights'. While those Wizards and Witches may have considered holding back some news for their reports; they didn't actually do that – and Harry was quite sure about that. Since two of those Wizards were 'tested' by Rosier, the Lords hadn't been so sure; but Rosier did not find any subterfuge from those two underlings. It took close to an hour to complete all of those reports; and Harry learned a lot about what each of those groups were doing – and how they were doing it. When that was done; Rolando moved on to the next piece of business he wanted to deal with.

"We are now going to discuss what we – the Death Lords – have decided in regards to the new Dark Knight recruits that you have been recommending to us over the past couple of months. While we need to re-build our ranks, and also gain more followers for each of your groups; we will only be inviting three of your candidates to become Dark Knight Initiates. Six others will be permitted to continue to serve us in their current capacity; and the others are not fit to be more than, at best, imperiused tools."

Rolando proceeded to name the Wizards and Witches for each group, and while most were new to Harry and probably off the radar for the Aurors; the family names were all familiar and he expected that they'd find that everyone in this new group was poor and desperate enough to do whatever it took to get into this group of Dark Wizards and Witches in exchange for promises that were likely rarely actually kept except for a few, supposedly shining examples. With everything that was going on, Harry was going to need to spend some quality time with a pensieve, quill, and parchment after the meeting to write everything up for Emma; but he was also getting fired up again – even if this could be a rare opportunity if he couldn't be at the house whenever these meetings were held.

There were another handful of different items of business that Rolando covered after advising the Dark Knights of the new members for their organization; and then he returned to his promised discussion of what they were going to do to address their hated enemies; the Aurors. The first comment on that from Rolando had Harry's immediate, full attention, and as the other Wizard laid out their new plan for revenge; it was all he could do to hold back from throwing off his cloak and dealing with the lot of them in a rather permanent way. Part of him even mulled that over fairly seriously; since it occurred to him that Rolando might be the only member of this group to know the mental key to this room; so he might be able to get away with something like that without anyone ever being the wiser.

"By now you are all aware of what happened to Harry Potter last June, and while that mission did not succeed as planned; we did come far closer to ridding ourselves of that most-detested, half-blood freak of nature than we'd even known at the time," Rolando began. "That would have been too bad, since we want him to suffer for a very long time before we grant him the final death that he so richly deserves for all he has done to all true purebloods." He smiled at the looks of dark amusement and agreement he saw on the faces of those around him. "That mission, and this one, however, has a more practical goal for our overall mission. Hate or detest him, there is no doubt that Harry Potter is the true force behind the Aurors now; and destroying him will destroy the Auror power – and possibly even that of the entire Ministry of Magic!" That pronouncement was met by cheers and 'hasten that day' kind of comments; so Rolando had to pause before continuing.

"There are other reasons for destroying Harry Potter through that blood-traitor he's bonded to and that abomination she carries; but we must all remember that destroying the Aurors is as true and important a goal as our revenge on the Chosen Chump." A round of coarse laughter met that description of Harry; and he wondered if any of these Wizards or Witches had ever sent Rita Skeeter thank-you notes or gifts to thank her for all of the material she provided them through her books and articles.

"Our new plan, ladies and gentlemen, is to kill Ginny Potter and her baby while they are in the hospital – shortly after that abominable freak is whelped."

"Won't that be difficult to pull off?" one of the Witches asked. "There might not be much notice; and little time to enact such a plan." She smiled darkly. "We can hope that the Potty-Traitor will suffer through a day or three of labor, but she is a Weasley; and they've been known to pop them out fairly quickly."

"And often," another Witch snorted derisively; both women earning laughter from the others.

"We will be prepared to move quickly; and we will only need a very small group to do the deed; since it will be as simple as slipping a potion into her food – and she'll pass it along to her brat without knowing it."

"How will we slip that past Auror Potty; and what will it do?" one of the Wizards near the other end of the table from Rolando asked. "It must not act too quickly if it can be passed on to the baby before being detected."

"Potter will be too busy to stop us," Rolando answered; "and the potion we will use is incurable, excruciating, and both of our victims will be in that condition for months before succumbing – with Potter forced to watch them slip away agonizing minute-by-minute." He held up his hand when another man was about to ask another question.

"The details of that are not important except for those we have chosen for the mission. The more important part of our plan, that involves some of you, is that we are going to also launch an attack on Azkaban." That news brought out a roar of exclamations and questions; the first time that there was any break-down in Rolando's control of the meeting.

"Enough!" he finally shouted; raising his wand threateningly and immediately subduing the others. "If you had waited for me to finish; I could have explained that the attack we'll launch on Azkaban is just a ruse to draw the Aurors – and Harry Potter – there; and away from the hospital and Ministry of Magic. Yes, there will be some danger for those involved, but as with that attack in June; those involved will not be sticking around once the diversion has allowed us to complete our true attack."

"It is truly a brilliant plan, Lord," the second of the two Witches who had spoken already declared emphatically. "Please tell us how we may serve in this bold endeavor!"

Rolando proceeded to do that in some detail, and after that; there were a few more issues for them to discuss before he adjourned the meeting and all of the Dark Knights left the room in the same small groups or pairings and again did that at short, staggered intervals. Harry thought that was silly, since there wasn't enough time between that anyone watching the street wouldn't notice such a large group; but then these Witches and Wizards had no reason t suspected that anyone was watching the area at all let alone the actual meeting. When only Lestrange, Avery, and Rosier remained, the door was closed again; and they sat down at one end of the table.

"That went well-enough," Donatien told the other two Wizards; and they both nodded their agreement.

"The lot of them have limited talents, but they do as they're told; and they do manage to protect us from the Aurors."

"For the most part," Donatien agreed; "though we must remain ever-vigilant on that. None of us would wish to join our relatives in Azkaban."

"Or be under their thumbs again," Rolando agreed fervently. "Was I convincing-enough with telling them of our plan for the Potters? I am not as sure of the plan despite how confident Mulciber claims to be."

"I believed you," Andrew assured him with a smirk, "and since Graham owns this convoluted mission; it'll be his own head if he fails – and no fault of ours."

"Or risk; other than the 'volunteers' we'll be contributing to the cause – none of which can come back on us even if they're caught."

"He does profess to be the Imperius curse specialist," Rosier said, "and he may well be right about that; but that is going to need to be one very large diversion at Azkaban to draw all of the Aurors there – and especially to get Potter to join them in the defense."

"That might actually work easily enough," Rolando suggested. "There have, after all, been enough escapes and attempts; and Mulciber is right that he'll believe that the timing is meant to take advantage of him being busy with his wife and brat. He's quite likely dim enough to fall for the ploy."

"I do hope that Graham at least makes sure that he uses one of our better Potions experts. It would be terribly disappointing to have everything else work out only to have the Potion fail – or turn out to be curable after all," Andrew offered next; and Rolando shook his head.

"He's got our best for that, and it'll be infused with a curse that'll make sure it's as incurable, horrid, and deadly as advertised," Rolando promised. "Tess and I were happy to make that little contribution to the cause."

Harry had been glad to know that little detail, and promised that he'd eventually find a way to thank Rolando and his wife for what they were trying to help to do to his family; but he kept it together and continued to listen in on the conversation until the other three Wizards decided to call it a night at around one o'clock. Rosier left first; and then Lestrange and Avery were last to leave – except for Harry. He stayed for more than another half hour; making sure that he was alone in the house before leaving the room too. There was another delay as he checked the area around the house too before leaving and eventually making his way to Auror Headquarters. Once there, he grabbed a pensieve, shielded his cubicle, and got to work on a full review of his memories from the entire meeting and writing up his report as he went along. Getting all of that done took several more hours; so it was past-six by the time he got home again.

"Good morning," Harry told Ginny as she walked into the kitchen. "How'd the game go last night?"

Ginny took one long look at him; smiled a bit grimly; and then hugged and kissed him before answering. "Nice try, but you're cooking a major breakfast and have that look in your eyes. I'll tell you about the game once you've finished telling me all about the news I'm not going to want to hear. Since you didn't come home last night; I'll guess it also has something to do with the bad guys."

"I did pick coming home and having breakfast with you over waiting for Emma to get to work this morning," Harry offered; and Ginny nodded.

"Yes, you did, and I appreciate that; but it also means that whatever it is has to do with you and me as much as the Aurors." She took a moment to breathe in the sweet aromas coming from the food and coffee pot. "Let's get that food and cups of coffee; and then you can start talking."

They did that, and Harry then told her all about the plot against her and their baby parts of the meeting he'd witnessed. That pretty much took until they'd finished eating; so they re-filled cups of coffee and continued to talk about it before Harry started the clean-up. Ginny's mood had turned grim and fairly angry by the time Harry had finished his story, and while she was glad that Harry hadn't tried to do anything to that group of Witches and Wizards while at the meeting for his own sake; a little part of her also wished that he had.

"Are you going to head back into Auror Headquarters soon?"

"I'll clean up, grab a shower, and change first; but yeah, I'd better have a face-to-face with Emma over this. It isn't just the plot against us to worry about. There are other things they're doing that need to be considered; and we're certainly not the only people they're trying to hurt – or are hurting."

"Stopping all of the things they're doing would be great; but what's really scary is what they believe all of these plots and schemes will gain them." She shook her head. "I'll let the Aurors worry about all of that. It's enough to be worrying about the bad guys wanting to kill me and our baby." She was quietly thoughtful for a moment. "I wonder if this would make more sense if we knew those other reasons you said that Rolando mentioned for wanting to do this."

"For all we know, that was just a lie, or they could have reasons that they believe to be true but aren't," Harry suggested. "Look at Tom Riddle. If he'd just left my parents and me alone, that prophecy he was so worried about would have never happened at all. He basically set it in motion by his own actions."

"That's all true, Harry, but it really sucks seeing all of this from the parent perspective – like your Mom and Dad did. I definitely don't want to be looking over my shoulder and worrying about the next attack every however often for the rest of our lives either – or for our kids to need to do that too."

"I hope it won't always be like this either, honey; but has it ever really been all that easy or tranquil for any Wizards and Witches? If those of us of the Light haven't been fighting Dark Wizards, we've had troubles with Muggles or other Magical creatures. We can hope for better; but we'll just have to do our best with whatever happens – good or bad."

"I want to pick good," Ginny stated; earning a quiet laugh from Harry.

"Okay. We'll deal with this pesky little problem and see what we can do about making that happen after we're finished with them."

They continued to talk, but Harry also got to work on the clean-up. They had a shower for two after that and got ready to go out; and then Ginny decided that she wanted to be in on that meeting Harry was going to have with Emma and went with him to Auror Headquarters. Emma was in a meeting when they arrived, so they went to do a bit of visiting with other Aurors and a side trip to Hermione's office to see her. It was going on eleven by the time that Emma was ready to sit down with them, and they did that in a magically sealed conference room with Christine, Nathan, Ron, and Neville sitting in on it too.

"Everyone here has read your report by now, Harry," Emma began; and then turned her attention toward Ginny. "Since you're here too; I'll assume that Harry has filled you in on at least the basics regarding the plot against you and your baby." Ginny nodded and confirmed that. "We will all make sure that you're both kept safe; but I'm sure you also know that we'll want to let this plot develop so that we can take down as many bad guys as possible while also protecting a certain intel asset we have been fortunate enough to gain."

"That's what I want too – even if a bit of more direct intervention is very tempting," Ginny answered with another nod. "I'll do whatever you need to help out."

"You might not feel that way so soon after having your baby," Christine suggested with a knowing smile. "There are a lot of things that are great about being in the motherhood club; but the initiation ritual does suck quite a lot for most of us."

"I've heard that," Ginny agreed; "but I'll also guess that the protective instinct kicks in right away too; and that could end badly for anyone trying to hurt my baby – especially if I'm tired and cranky."

"There is that," Emma conceded; "but we won't let anyone get that close to you or your baby for that to be a worry." She smiled at Christine. "Consider yourself volunteered to lead that part of our counter-operation. Pick your own team; though let's not take anyone off other high-priority cases."

"Works for me," Christine said approvingly.

"Nathan, I want you to work the Mulciber angle," Emma continued after acknowledging Christine's answer. "If he truly is gifted at the Imperius curse, you'll need to be very careful; but we might get lucky and learn more details about the Azkaban side of the plan – and who will be involved in that fake attack."

"If Graham Mulciber can pull something like this off on nearly no notice; I'd say he must be very accomplished at that curse," Nathan suggested. "Even so, he'll likely need to be there in person to keep his imperiused raiders under control; so we'll at least have a shot at capturing one of the big guns in the act."

"That's the one part of this that is really rotten," Neville said; looking at Harry. "From what you've overheard; Mulciber may be the only leader directly involved when they launch that attack. We already know how well they cover their tracks; and I really wish that we could find a way to take the lot of them down too and put an end to all of this Dark Wizardry – even if even doing that would just be temporary."

"Putting most of the surviving Death Eaters in Azkaban hasn't stopped this new lot," Ron pointed out. "The good news is that we have job security here with the Aurors thanks to the never-ending line-up of bad guys willing to take their shot at being in charge."

"I don't want to do this job for a century or two," Neville told him seriously. "We'd all be better off if Aurors weren't needed some day. I know it's hard to believe, but there actually was a time when there weren't any Aurors at all."

Ron snorted. "Yeah – four or five hundred years ago; and even with my minimal aptitude for History I know that life for Witches and Wizards wasn't all unicorns and rainbows back then."

"Actually, there were unicorns and rainbows," Ginny teased; "but we know what you mean."

"And the first Aurors were hired about three-hundred and fifty or sixty years ago," Neville added. "I'm not suggesting we go back to the Middle Ages – just that it'd be very nice if we weren't always fighting against Dark Wizards and Witches."

"Most of us would love that too," Nathan told him – "unless that just meant trading Dark Wizards for another Goblin Rebellion or war with Giants or trolls."

"This meeting is totally going off the rails," Emma decided with a shake of her head. "Nathan, you can pick your team too; so try to work that out with Christine so you don't waste time going after the same Aurors." She turned to Ron next. "I'm going to have you lead the investigation for all of the other leads Harry's given us." She held up her hand when Ron opened his mouth to protest. "You'll be there to help out when it counts for your sister and brother-in-law," she promised; "but I'm not going to have either you or Harry too close to the main investigation for this new plot. We'll all need to keep our emotions in check while dealing with this or we'll wind up blowing this operation. I want to keep this on a need-to-know basis too. There are still far too many pureblood sympathizers in the Ministry – and at least some of them are spies for the other side. We don't want to go and scare them off."

"Definitely not," Ginny agreed fervently. "This might not even be all bad for me. If the bad guy leaders are focused on this plot; then I should be safe between now and then – which will be very nice over the Christmas holiday."

"I think that you should still be a careful," Christine cautioned; "but you're likely right about that. If you're thinking about sending Christmas cards to that lot to thank them, though; don't."

"Maybe that's why they're always mad at us – we never send them Christmas cards," Ginny offered with a laugh. "They just feel really left out."

"Funny, but not likely," Emma told her; smiling, but not laughing too. She looked at her watch. "I've got a lunch meeting to get to next. She stood up and got ready to leave the room. "I'd like the team picks and a preliminary plan for your respective investigations by the end of the day, please," she told Christine, Nathan, and Ron. "Harry, you'll keep us posted with what you're doing as always." She looked at Neville last. "I've got something I'd like you to help me with too, Neville, but I'm out of time; so walk with me and I'll go over that with you along the way since my lunch meeting is at the Leaky anyway."

"I'm sure that Hannah and the girls won't mind me stopping in to have lunch with them," Neville said and stood up too. "I'll see you at Francine's birthday party on Thursday, Ginny. Try not to let all of this upset you too much. Your Auror family's got you covered."

"Yes, we do," Christine agreed as the rest of them started to stand up too.

There was a round of hugs for Ginny; and then she let Harry take her home for lunch before they both needed to have an afternoon nap. While some of his best Auror friends took up the various investigations that Emma had launched thanks to his information from Tutshill; Harry returned to his stake-out on Wednesday night with renewed enthusiasm. That attitude helped out when absolutely nothing happened for the next two nights despite spending extra time there and getting home late each night. His fortune took another turn for the good on Friday night, though; and he was soon very excited again when he saw Rolando enter the upper hallway with another Wizard he hadn't yet seen at the house. Even the timing had been perfect; since he'd been about ready to call it a night early ahead of taking the weekend off for the two days of Christmas shopping he was going to be doing with Ginny, Ron, and Hermione.

"This isn't quite what I expected," the Wizard told Rolando. His tone was deferential; but also self-assured. "How does this place serve us and our cause?"

"We have, through great effort, created a Room of Requirements in this house," Rolando answered proudly. "It works much the same as the one at Hogwarts – or at least for what we know about what it can do. Our information with that is limited while the school is held captive under the thumbs of traitors and mudbloods."

"I've heard of that room; but not until after I had graduated," the other man told Rolando; who nodded.

"Few Slytherin students knew of the place while at Hogwarts thanks to Dumbledore and his lot; but I do not have time for idle talk; so let me teach you what you need to know so that I can get out of here."

"Yes, Lord," the man responded immediately.

"This Room of Requirements can create any type of room for the user," Rolando said next. "As one of the Dark Knights, you are permitted to know of this place now and create your own, absolutely and perfectly protected place to use for any sensitive business related to your duties with the Knights."

"How is it that secure – other than through the Fidelius Charm?"

"The Room of Requirements is a room in this house," Rolando explained. "You could not even give away your personal access to your own room without setting off the consequences. Once you've chosen your phrase to create your special, secret room; it'll be part of the protected charm too."

"That's brilliant, Lord! How do I do that?"

"To open your room, you begin with the phrase 'I need to go to' and then create the name of your personal room. Do not make that something simple – such as 'I need to go to Nicolo Nott's room' because that would be easy enough for any of the other Knights to guess at."

Harry was happy to have a name to put to the face, and while he'd already known from the conversation so far that Nicolo was one of the new Knights; he was glad to know which one of them he was dealing with now. The two Dark Wizards had been standing nearer to the other end of the hallway from his hiding spot; but they were speaking loudly enough to be easily heard anywhere on the upper floor.

"You will create that new room on your own after I leave, but to demonstrate; I will open one of the rooms that all Knights can access. I will open the library, but there is also the training room; the message center, and the conference room." He began walking toward Harry. "You call your room by thinking about what you need very hard and walk along the hallway three times. In this case, the entire phrase that you need to think hard about is 'I need to go to the library;' and you repeat that once with each pass along the hallway. I will demonstrate this while speaking aloud; but it is the thinking about it hard that is the key and you should always do that silently – particularly if you are here with other Knights."

"Yes, Lord," Nicolo agreed; and then remained silent as Rolando demonstrated as promised; including repeating the phrase aloud. After making his second walk toward Harry, the door to the library opened; Rolando opened it; and both Wizards went inside. Harry did not try to follow them, but the door was left open; and he could hear them talking from just inside the room.

"This library has many resources that you are welcome to use – including copies of every Dark Arts books we thought might come in handy for our work. Nothing in here can be removed, so don't try unless you'd like to die rather horribly and have your body lie in here until whenever the room is used again by one of your fellow Knights."

"Do I need to be cautious of any of the devices on those shelves?" Nicolo asked.

"No, there are no cursed items in here – other than the spells used to keep everything in this room. You can visit here and learn more another time; but all of those devices are just tools for us to use – pensieves and other magical devices. I would caution that if you don't know what something is that you don't attempt to use it. That could end badly for you too."

"I will and won't, Lord," Nicolo promised. "Two of the other rooms are self-explanatory; but what is the message center?" he asked as they returned to the hallway and the door disappeared after he closed it behind them.

"Simply a single location where the Knights can communicate in private with me – or with the other Death Lords. There are special quills and parchment there; and we will receive the messages instantly – though that doesn't necessarily mean that we'll be able to read them right away or respond. If we can, though; you can receive messages there too; and have your own mailbox set up already. As with the library, no other Knight or Lord can get at your mail – nor can you get any mail other than your own – so do not attempt to do so."

"This place truly is a marvel!" Nicolo said effusively. "Thank-you for entrusting me with this honor."

"Be the Knight we expect that you will be; and this promotion will just be the beginning for you' Rolando promised. "I must leave now. Stay and create your own room; and visit the other rooms now too if you'd like; but be out of here within the next hour and a half. That is all the time I've allowed for this visit."

"Yes, Lord," Nicolo agreed.

He and Harry both watched silently as Rolando was soon on his way down the stairs and out of sight. Nicolo walked into one of the front bedrooms and then probably watched his 'Lord' leave before returning to the hallway. There was a dark expression of triumph and joy on his face that he hadn't dared to show around Rolando; but showed his true feelings to Harry now. Nicolo was also a talk-out-loud-to-himself kind of guy; which was yet another bonus for Harry.

"This definitely is just the beginning for me. They've finally begun to realize my worth; and soon-enough I'll prove to them that I deserve to be their equal!" He walked along the hallway toward Harry while talking to himself. "Let's try visiting those other rooms first," he decided. "I need to go to the message center!"

He walked the hallway and repeated that phrase three times; and then stopped and stared at the blank wall when nothing happened. Harry knew why right away, but it took Nicolo a full five minutes of vocal self-musing laced with a fair number of expletives before he reminded himself about the thinking hard part of the instructions. Maybe he just wasn't used to thinking hard about anything, but it took him two more tries before getting it right. Harry again stayed in the hallway instead of trying to go into the room too. Nicolo spent ten minutes in the message center; then quickly visited the training and conference rooms for a couple of minutes each – and did that with just one botched attempt to call the conference room. Harry idly wondered whether enunciation played a part in calling a room if the phrases were spoken aloud; but doubted that it made a difference. Finally, it was time for the other Wizard to create his own special room; and he spent some time considering his naming options before choosing one.

"I need to go to Nott's Knightly Nook," he declared a bit pompously into what he believed was empty air as he strutted self-importantly along the hallway. "I need to go to Nott's Knightly Nook,' he repeated; changing the inflection a bit as if trying to decide the way it would sound the best. "I need to go to Nott's Knightly Nook," he finished with a flourish; and then again stared at the wall when nothing happened.

"You forgot to imagine what your special room would look like," Harry offered silently. "Rolando didn't mention that to you either; though that isn't surprising." He hadn't thought about it when trying to call a room for their D.A. meetings at Hogwarts either; but he had intuitively imagined what that room should be and the Room of Requirements had created it for him – and adapted it as needed. He had time to muse over what kind of room Nott would envision for himself because it took the man more than a half-hour to figure it out and get the room opened. He then spent nearly all of his remaining time there; and had to hurry to leave the house on time; not having any idea about whether there would be any consequences for disobeying that order.

Harry waited until he'd been gone for fifteen minutes, and then spent the next hour checking out each of the new rooms that he now knew about. Nicolo Nott had created a strange sitting room that was some combination of what Harry suspected was a well-known place from his past melded with opulent features that did not fit with the rest of the room. There wasn't really anything interesting to see in the room yet, since Nott hadn't begun to fill it with anything from his work; but Harry would at least be able to follow Nott's 'career' now that he had access to his secret, supposedly high security room. From there, he moved on to the message center.

That room looked like an office with a large table and chairs at the center and one wall that was filled with a floor-to-ceiling rack of mail slots. More than half of the slots had name tags affixed to them; and there was lots of room to grow. It was, however, very helpful to have an easy list of all of the current Death Lords and Dark Knights – even if he couldn't take a look at any mail. Then again, there wasn't any visible mail in those slots anyway, so either the Knights could only see their own; or the message center was only used sparingly and for very important or critical messages. The special quills and parchment interested Harry, but there wasn't any way for him to see what they did while on his own. He'd need to be in the room when one of the Knights tried sending a message to one of the Lords – or received a reply.

The conference room was the same room he'd been in for the meeting on Tuesday night, so he didn't need to spend much time there. His final visit was to the training room. Whoever originally created that room didn't have much imagination either. It was basically a cross between one of the Hogwarts dungeon rooms and the DADA classroom. There were a few tables with chairs round them; but mostly it was just a large, dark, uninviting place. Harry also got a sense of magical darkness that suggested the remnants of Dark Arts curses being practiced. There wasn't anything interesting to see there either, though; so he soon headed back out into the hallway and decided to move on to Auror Headquarters; write up his report; and then go home and get whatever sleep he could ahead of the Christmas shopping that Ginny would want to get to right after breakfast.

"What took you so long?" Neville asked; smiling as Harry stopped at the entrance to his own cubicle in surprise at seeing Neville sitting there so late at night. "I've been waiting here for a lot longer than I expected to be; considering that Ginny told us that you have a busy shopping weekend ahead of you."

Harry shrugged; hung his winter cloak on a hook; and went around his desk to sit down too. "If I'd known I was going to have late-night company; I'd have come earlier."

"Or not," Neville countered. "I'll guess that you were busy." He pulled out his wand and put up privacy shields around the cubicle; once again surprising Harry. "I'm fairly sure that we'll need to be quite sure that we won't be overheard before having this little chat," he explained to his friend. "Some secrets just shouldn't be shared – if you get my meaning." Harry grinned as he immediately caught on to what Neville was being careful not to say while testing the limits of what they could and couldn't talk about together.

"How did you find out?" he asked just as cautiously. Messing up a Fidelius charm wasn't something that either of them wanted to jump in and take the chance of getting wrong. That sort of thing made for a very bad outcome.

"Emma put me on surveillance of Nicolo Nott," he answered. "That was what she wanted to talk to me about after our meeting on Wednesday morning. Doing that paid off better than we expected; though this is what she had hoped for." He was quiet for a moment. "I don't sense any restrictions with talking to you about this yet; but let's just say that I was able to listen in on a short conversation earlier tonight between Nicolo and another Wizard; and learned something that I am sure only one other Auror knows about."

Closing his eyes, Harry took a long minute or two to test what he felt about the effects the Fidelius charm was having on him as he considered speaking of certain things with Neville. He was smiling and ready to take the next step by the time he opened his eyes again and looked at Neville.

"Rolando Lestrange told Nicolo Nott about their special house in Tutshill while you were close enough to listen in," he stated; and Neville sighed with relief and smiled too.

"I'm so glad that you took that step instead of me – though Ginny would have blasted me if you'd been wrong."

"I'd have stopped short had I felt the compulsion to shut up," Harry said seriously. "Welcome to the club – though the other members would not be happy to learn that we know of that place." He laughed. "We know more about it now than we did a handful of hours ago too; and I'm really glad to have someone who can help me out with it – and watch my back."

"I'm very glad of that too, Harry," Neville assured him. "Hannah might not be so thrilled when she finds out that Emma will be pairing me up with you now; but she'll get over it."

"The bad news there is that she has reason to be worried about that; but the good is that I wouldn't dream of letting anything happen to you for the same reason you don't want to get on Ginny's bad side."

"That's comforting to know – and might help me out when I have that chat with Hannah," Neville suggested with a nod. "So, what do we know now that we didn't before tonight? Can you even tell me about any of it?"

"I was able to mention the secret keeper, so everything else should be fine too," Harry told him. "One thing that I did know already that you didn't, though, is that the charm is meant to protect a Room of Requirements that is part of that house."

"Seriously?" Neville exclaimed excitedly; sitting up straight and then leaning toward Harry. "The one at Hogwarts is the only one I've ever heard of; and nobody alive seems to know how it was made – or by whom; unless it was the school founders or someone else in centuries past. I wonder how they discovered the spells needed to create it?"

"We'll find that out if we can," Harry promised; "but it is rather ingenious – and so is what they're doing with it."

He went on to tell Neville all about his first break in learning about Bletchley's secret room; and then about everything he'd witnessed and then checked out while there tonight. Neville had lots of questions; and they talked for more than an hour. Harry started working on his report at the same time; and was finishing it by the time they were nearly ready to wrap up their little meeting and head out to their respective homes.

"I'll think about all of this over the weekend," Neville promised. "Emma will want to meet with us on Monday morning; and then maybe we can decide how to best work this stake-out together. I would like you to show me around what we do know of the Room of Requirements so far and make sure that I can get into the rooms too; but then we should probably work shifts – or keep watch in one or more of those rooms too."

"I was thinking the same thing – especially for that message center and the library."

"How big is that library?" Neville asked. "Going through all of those books could take a very long time – especially since we can't take them out of the room."

"No, we can't," Harry agreed; "but Rolando didn't say anything about making copies. That might be an option, though if it isn't; we could always just read them and then re-create them using our memories and a pensieve. That would just take a lot longer."

"Whatever the case with that; it seems as though we are going to have a lot to do with this – and I'm good with having a mostly-indoors stake-out for the winter too."

"That is a bonus," Harry agreed. He was finished his report; put it in an envelope that he sealed as usual so that only Emma could open it; and then stood up and went to get his cloak. "Let's get out of here. We only have time for naps before I'll need to be up and running around with Ginny – and you'll likely be busy with the kids."

"If they're not already up and partying – or still up," Neville agreed. "The post-birthday days are usually tough on Hannah and me while the girls wind down from the fun and sugar overload."

"I hope we didn't contribute to that problem too much," Harry told him. "Andromeda keeps threatening to leave Teddy with us for the weeks after his birthday and Christmas if we – I – don't stop spoiling him rotten; but she hasn't gone through with that threat yet."

"With the 'yet' being the part of that you should worry about," Neville assured him. He'd stood up by then too and stepped out of Harry's cubicle.

They walked out of the Ministry of Magi together after Harry dropped his report off on Emma's desk; and then they apparated their separate ways. Harry tried not to wake Ginny, but she did rouse long enough to snuggle close to him and share a few soft kisses before drifting off to sleep again; and he was soon out for the count for a few hours of power down time too before it was time to be up and going again. Ginny had left him sleeping in bed and gone to have a shower and get ready first; and she also had the cooking started for their morning meal too before he woke up and hurried to get showered and dressed. The food was nearly ready by the time he joined her in the kitchen and they shared a long good morning hug and several kisses.

"I'd offer to cook more often if that meant starting every day like that," Ginny teased; "but I still prefer when it's the other way around and you're getting thanked for cooking for me."

"I like that a lot too," Harry assured her with a smile. "Thanks for letting me sleep in a bit, though. It ended up being a long night at work."

"You don't have that look about you this morning; so whatever was going on must have been good," she suggested; and Harry nodded.

"It was. I'll be getting a new partner to work with on Monday." He laughed at Ginny's happy expression – once she'd finished kissing him again. "Neville joined a certain club with me last night; which is why we were both late getting home. We had a fair bit to talk about after I got to Auror Headquarters to write up my report and he surprised me with his news."

"The timing can't be a coincidence," Ginny mused. "Emma must've put Neville on an assignment that paid off."

"Yes, she did," he agreed; "though that's closing in on the edges of something I can't talk about with you; so let's not go there. Is there anything new with our plans for the shopping and your Quidditch game break? Ron hasn't found a way to dodge it, has he?"

Ginny was happy to talk about that with him while they ate; Harry took care of the clean-up; and then they headed for Diagon Alley. They were meeting Ron and Hermione there, but Hermione had let Ginny know that they were running behind; so they stopped in at the Leaky and had cups of coffee while waiting for their shopping buddies to catch up with them. That had given them time for Ginny to share and extra-special hug with Neville to thank him for being able to have Harry's back at work; for Hannah to tease Harry about what she'd do to him if anything happened to her husband while he was doing exactly what Ginny was grateful for; and spend a few minutes with their girls, Alice and Francine. Once Ron and Hermione joined them; they headed straight out into the cold again and got started on their Christmas shopping adventure.

"I'm really not trying to get myself in trouble here," Ron told Hermione as she and Ginny talked about everyone on their gift-buying lists; "but that list is getting ridiculously long. Can we either get everyone we know to hold off on having more kids for a while; make fewer new friends; or start drawing names? All of the above might even be best. At this rate, in a few more years we'll need to start our Christmas shopping in July."

"I actually did buy a few gifts in July," Harry advised him with a grin; and Ron scowled at him while the girls laughed.

"You're no help," Ron grumbled.

"I'd say you do have a point too," Ginny said; and laughed again at Ron's obvious surprise. "We do have a big family, Ron; and with George and Angelina getting married next summer too; there are bound to be more nieces and nephews. We're going to have to draw names for cousins' gifts – and maybe should have done that this year. If we all eventually have three kids like Bill and Fleur; that'd be eighteen – and the kids certainly don't need a dozen or more gifts for Christmas before they even get to Christmas Day."

"Why is that scaring me?" Ron asked; and Hermione answered first.

"Because she suggested that we'd eventually have three kids." She smiled at Ginny next. "That's actually scaring me a bit. I'm not sure that letting the kids outnumber the parents is such a good idea."

"That might explain why Mom's a dueling master," Harry offered. "Defending against attacks from one opponent is nothing compared to juggling seven kids."

"Especially her kids," Ginny agreed. "Getting back on subject, though, while drawing names for cousins and siblings next year would work for me; I don't see how we can cut back much on the friends list – or draw names either."

"True, but some joint gifts with all four of us is an option," Hermione offered; "and maybe a family gift for some would work too if we went with something they could all use or some kind of gift basket."

"At least you're not suggesting making something for them," Ron said. "I don't know why, but when you mentioned family gifts; I got the mental picture of Harry and me knitting jumpers while on our stake-outs or sitting at our desks at Auror Headquarters."

"That'd be brilliantly funny, but if the mental picture that gives me of what your jumpers would look like is any indication; we definitely wouldn't want that – and neither would our friends."

While they had fun with that topic for a few more minutes; the girls really got into shopping mode too. Harry and Ron mostly kept busy as porters for the rest of the morning while the girls shopped. That job wasn't all that tough, since Harry would just send all of the bags to their respective homes after about every other stop as they made their way along Diagon Alley. Various Wizarding World Web devices gifts were on the list for quite a few members of their family and some of their friends too; so that stop at Flourish and Blotts was longer than most; though the visit to George's store was nearly as long because wheezes gifts were always a hit with all kids and most adults.

They finished up the first phase of shopping in time to have lunch before Ginny needed to go to the studio for Lee's Quidditch shows so that she could watch one of the afternoon games she was reporting on, and while she was doing that; Hermione led the boys into Muggle London to shop at their favorite Mall. She left them to do her own thing for a couple of hours while Ginny was busy anyway; and Harry spent some of that time helping Ron to pick out gifts for Hermione and the rest doing some of the shopping for the guys on their Christmas shop-for list. Ron didn't really have anything to complain about with any of that; since they did get to go to all of the fun stores while doing that – and he'd learned to appreciate Muggle toys and technology a lot over the past five or six years.

For Harry, playing with the new toys was always a blast; and Ron had gone from the early days when he just made fun of his friend to joining in more often than not. He still made fun of Harry too – especially when he played with things like virtual pets and robosapiens that didn't do anything nearly as impressive as magical action figures or dragon toys were. On the Muggle tech side of toys and entertainment, Ron did find the latest video games very cool; and with a new, slimline Playstation 2 available; Harry decided to check with Hermione to see if there would be one under the tree for Ron before picking up any of those games his friend had liked best to give him. He was more than hoping for one under his own tree too – and that definitely had a lot to do with growing up without the same cool toys that Dudley got to have and taunt Harry over.

"Good guess, Hermione," Ginny said as the two Witches caught up with their husbands. "We found them on the first try."

"It wasn't much of a guess," Hermione answered before sharing a quick hug and kiss with Ron while Ginny was doing the same with Harry. "Shopping for wives would have been first; then Harry would have wanted to check out the toy stores next; and that left tech stores – or the food court for snacks and drinks."

"That's a great idea," Ron said enthusiastically. "Let's go and do that."

"We can do that," Ginny agreed. "I've been sitting down for most of the past couple of hours; but a snack sounds good right now." She put a hand over her stomach and smiled. "I can almost guarantee that I have two votes for that, so with Ron's help; we have the majority vote."

"Then we're off to the food court," Harry said with a nod and smile. "How'd the game go?"

"The Arrows won," she answered. "It was a decent match; but the cold was affecting all of the players; and there was a strong wind to deal with at the stadium."

With a Mall full of Muggles around them, talking in detail about the Quidditch match wasn't an option; so they changed the subject to shopping after Ginny also advised Harry that she'd already finished her game report and posted it to their Quidditch site. Ron's snack was more like a normal meal for most; but he wolfed it down by the time the girls had finished having cups of hot chocolate and chocolate chip muffins; so he was ready to go again by the time they were. They then shopped for another two hours; had dinner at a Muggle restaurant near the Mall; and then wrapped up their day with a visit to another Mall that was more upscale and many of the stores carried more unique types of gifts. Ginny was totally exhausted by the time they were done, so Harry took her home; helped her out with a bath and heal; and then they both went straight off to sleep after that.

Sunday wasn't an exact repeat, since there were no Quidditch matches and they didn't stay out late; but they did spend about six hours shopping in the morning and afternoon; and basically finished all of their Christmas shopping. They also spent an hour and a half shopping with Teddy; and then Andromeda joined them for lunch before taking Teddy home again once he'd finished getting some gifts for her and a few friends with some financial help from his Uncle Harry. Dinner was at the Leaky; and then the only difference from Saturday night for Harry and Ginny was that their bath, heal, and bedtime started several hours earlier.

Having the weekend off to spend with Ginny had been amazing, but Harry was also fired up on Monday morning to get back to work – especially now that he had help for the Tutshill stake-out. Emma had been thrilled with the news; and Harry and Neville had enjoyed their meeting with her a lot. Some of the other Aurors weren't going to be impressed with new leads to track down going into Christmas and winter; but Emma was going to prioritize all of that anyway and it wasn't all bad to have too much to do when it came to being a step ahead of the bad guys for a change. Catching Dark Wizards and Witches for crimes they'd already committed was satisfying; but preventing those crimes from happening at all was always better. After meeting with Emma, Harry and Neville did the morning training with the other Aurors that were able to do that with them; and then they had their own, private meeting at Neville's place before Harry went home for the rest of the day with plans to meet up with Neville after dinner and head over to Tutshill so that Harry could eventually show his friend around the place and they could get to work on their stake-out.

Once he was home again, Harry spent the rest of the morning with Ginny; he cooked lunch for two; and then they had a long afternoon nap together before having dinner together. She went over to Lee and Alicia's place after that to do a few things with the Quidditch News Network site with Lee and a visit with Alicia and Alex. Harry met up with Neville in London near the Leaky; and they went to Tutshill from there and settled in to watch the house as Harry always did to make sure that they didn't walk in on anyone who might already be there. The house was empty, so after an hour of waiting; they were both ready to get indoors where it was warm. Harry was better at invisibility charms than Neville; so he gave up his cloak to his friend while they were in the house.

They began Neville's tour of the Room of Requirements by visiting the library, and that worked out well for them because they hadn't been there long before they had two visitors to the house. They didn't have company in the library, but being there gave them something to do for the hour or so they were stuck there until the other two Wizards had left again. Harry hadn't brought along reams of parchment or blank-pages books, but he did have some parchment and quills; so they also tried writing up a pair of potions they found in the Dark Arts books and found out that they could, indeed take copies of the contents of those books out of the room when they left without any problems. Harry had been fairly sure that they could just for that exact reason – so that the bad guys could take potions or spell instructions with them – even if Rolando hadn't explained that to Nicolo.

Once they could leave the library, Harry went on to show Neville all of the other rooms he knew about; and then they decided to split up for the next few hours – with Neville watching the message center and Harry staying out in the hallway in case they had any other visitors. There weren't any; but then Harry knew that there weren't that many occasions where there were a lot of visits to the safe house. They wrapped up for the night at two; went to Auror Headquarters together to write up quick reports that didn't have much news for Emma at all; and then they decided to start working an overlap shift for the rest of the week. Harry took the early shift while Neville opted for starting after the kids went to bed and working a bit later so that he could help Hannah as much as possible while she was busy both with running the Leaky and keeping up with the kids.

That change in plans meant that Harry missed out on going to the Harpies' game on Tuesday night with Ginny, but since it was very cold and there was an icy rain and wind to deal with; he wasn't all that disappointed – and wished that Ginny had given her ticket away too and just watched the match from the Quidditch studio instead. While it was too cold out to take Teddy or any of the other kids, they didn't have any problem finding takers for the extra tickets; and Ginny had a full gang with her with a nice mix of friends from the Ministry, Gringott's, and old Hogwarts school mates.

The Harpies were up against the Catapults this week; they were playing at Exmoor; and the bad weather was a big factor in the match. Rain and cold wasn't number one on that list, though, because Vicky came to play and was in the zone all night. The three goals that did get past here were all more due to luck than skill; and her Chasers were happy to help her out by scoring twelve goals against the Catapults' Keeper before Gabrielle ended the match with a fairly spectacular catch of the snitch to give her team a big two-seventy to thirty win against one of the better teams in the league.

While the Harpies and their fans were having a great, if cold and wet, night; work was not particularly exciting for Harry in Tutshill. There were two separate visits to the house while he was there. The first was while he was in the library, so he didn't know who the visitor was; and the second was while he was taking a turn in the library and looking through the books while Neville took a turn in the hallway until Harry was ready to leave for the night. Neville saw the second visitor, but it was someone they already knew about; and he didn't learn anything new during the few minutes that he saw the Wizard before and after he visited one of the rooms.

That guy hadn't been visiting the library; but Harry would have preferred that to looking through books that didn't seem to be organized in any way. They just seemed to be shoved haphazardly on shelves with no effort put into keeping them organized at all. That search did have him planning on a visit with Hermione to help him out. While they'd certainly want copies of some of the books; she could probably give him a list of known books kept at the Ministry or Hogwarts that he and Neville could check against so that they could locate books that might be unknown or believed lost and start with getting copies of them. Since there could also be books like the copy he'd had of Professor Snape's potions book with notes, they'd want to check every book for things like that too; but then he expected it to take quite a while to get through the library even with two of them working on it.

While Christmas was just two weeks away by the weekend, Harry didn't have anything going on to keep him from working both days; so he and Neville continued their stake-out through the weekend with plans to take a bit more time off over the holidays. That extra effort didn't give them any major new information; but it did give them another chance to observe the action in Tutshill on the weekends. Harry was mildly surprised that there wasn't more action there on Friday and Saturday nights than other days; though that could also be at least partly because the bad guys were just busy on those nights doing bad things.

There was one family birthday that Harry missed on Sunday, but Arthur and Molly were the only members of their family heading to Romania for a visit anyway – mostly because everyone else was either busy with work or getting ready for Christmas. Ginny didn't work on Sunday too after reporting on a Quidditch match on Sunday for their Quidditch News Network site; but she did spend some time helping Bill and Fleur with the kids so that they could do a bit of Christmas shopping; and had dinner and an evening visit with Ron and Hermione until shortly before she expected Harry to get home from work. The following week, through to Friday, was a fairly uneventful continuation of the previous week at work for Harry and Neville. They did continue to work on copying books from the library, and witnessed the arrival of four messages in the message center; but couldn't discover the contents and weren't in the room when those messages were picked up.

On the home front, Ginny did another game report for a match on Wednesday night; and then spent a lot of her spare time while Harry was working with Molly – helping out with the kids and giving her a hand with getting the Burrow ready for the Christmas holidays. Harry and Ginny sent out lots of Christmas cards every year now, and while they received a lot of them too; it was probably strangest for Harry to get one sent to them from Dudley and his wife, Pearl. They now had one child, Vernon, who had been born a year or so after they'd married, and according to the note that came with the card; Pearl was now pregnant with their second child and due in early June.

They'd found out about baby Vernon through the Christmas card from the younger Dursleys last year, and hadn't seen Dudley since running into them that one time at the Mall; but Harry was thinking that he should at least get together with Dudley and his family for visits now and then – especially once they both had children – as they would by February. Ginny teased him about the chance that Dudley could have a Witch or Wizard child just as his Evans grandparents had; but neither of them could get even a mental picture of that scenario that didn't have them bursting out in laughter. The Dursley genetics were just too unlikely to ever be over-powered by whatever magical potential was there from the other side of Dudley's family.

The Christmas holiday excitement definitely kicked up a few notches on Friday with the Hogwarts students coming home for a couple of weeks; though it wasn't until Saturday that Harry and Ginny got in on that fun. He'd worked on Friday evening until nearly midnight by the time he finished up and Auror Headquarters and headed home for the planned weekend off; and then he and Ginny had spent Saturday morning dealing with chores and supply and grocery shopping before getting around to the play time. That began with lunch at the Leaky with the Campbells ahead of the Harpies' game at Bodmin Stadium; and Bryce and Christine had all of their kids with them – including Dawn and Jonathan; since United was off for the weekend. Harry and Ginny were as excited about spending some time with the young couple as they were about seeing Jeremy, Kate, Aaron, and Pauline for the first time since the back-to-school party at the end of August.

"Yes, I'm getting huge; but it's only temporary," Ginny joked as she hugged Kate and responded to the wide-eyed teen's reaction to seeing her now that she was more than seven months into her pregnancy. Kate laughed; hugged her back; and then smiled when they stepped apart again.

"I think that you look beautiful, Ginny," Kate said; and then laughed again. "Maybe I'm just surprised because you look so different than in your Harpies' posters that are still hanging around the dorm rooms here and there at Hogwarts."

"They wouldn't be if I looked like this in them," Ginny joked. "It's a good thing that those Wizarding posters don't update to current looks. How scary would that be?"

"I'd say really scary for the old-timers," Christine suggested; "but not so much for you anytime soon."

"Are you guys glad to be home for the holidays?" Ginny asked as she continued with the teen and young adult hug-fest; directing that comment at the four Hogwarts students.

"Yes," Kate confirmed; "though it feels strange to have a whole week ahead before Christmas."

"I think that's brilliant," Jeremy told his sister. "We get to have some time to play before getting to the crazy holiday stuff."

"That will be nice," she agreed; "and we can get our revision done before Christmas too."

"Yeah, that was top ten on my to-do list too,' Jeremy told her with a roll of his eyes – "not! I suppose you'll want to go shopping every day too."

"Not every day, but if you don't want to go along; Pauline and I can handle that part of the fun without you."

"I predict at least a couple of shopping days in our future next week," Aaron told Jeremy; smiling at Kate. "I'll pick that over missing out on extra holiday time with my girlfriend."

"Are you just predicting that to try and make your Divination revision look better?" Jeremy asked suspiciously; and Aaron laughed.

"Funny, but you know that I'm not taking Divination anymore, mate."

"You could have," Pauline reminded him. "You had one of the best marks in it for our OWLs."

"I didn't know that," Ginny told them. "How'd you manage that?"

Aaron laughed again. "I faked my predictions really, really well; and the theory tests just need a bit of memorization to get through."

"That sounds pretty much like what Ron and I did when we took Divination," Harry told him – "though we didn't exactly ace the class."

The lunchtime conversation rolled along with the usual chats about school, Quidditch, and life outside of Hogwarts over the past few months. With a firm time-limit on having their meal in place, getting everyone fed and on the move again meant that the conversation continued on after they arrived at the stadium; picked up the usual food, drinks, and souvenirs from the concessions stands; and found their seats. While they'd all been enjoying themselves up to that point, the weather was once again icy cold and wet; so the game-watching was more than a little bit uncomfortable. That was the main reason for getting to their seats with just minutes to spare before game time; and the pre-game action on the pitch was short and uncomfortable for all involved.

Dawn and Jonathan now felt the need to support their United team, but the Harpies were playing the Wasps; and the rest of the Campbell family enthusiastically cheered for their team – and had lots to cheer about. The wet, wind, and cold was an advantage for the Chasers over the Keepers; and that meant that Vicky and her Wasps' counterpart were not having a very good day. Neither were the Beaters, but that just made work easier for everyone else on both teams as a lot of bludger hit attempts missed due to the wind or miss-hits with wet, icy bats. The Seeker battle was tough too, and it was far more difficult to catch a cold, wet snitch than it was during better-weather games. Gabrielle won that contest for the Harpies again; earning another come-from-behind victory for her team – and ending what had been a really great game for the Wasps and their fans.

"Gabrielle has got to stop doing that or she'll totally mess up the rookie-of-the-year award that I planned on winning this year," Dawn told Ginny; earning laughs from everyone that overheard her comment.

"You'll both mess that up for me," Jonathan added with a grin; and laughed too when Dawn hugged him enthusiastically.

"I'd be okay with it if you did win instead," she assured him; "but one of these days; the judges are going to notice that the players with all of the assists are as important as the scoring leaders or super-Seekers."

"You have assisted on more points than Gabrielle has earned with her snitch catches," Ginny said with a nod. "You're right about the judging for those player awards too; though I don't know if this will be the year that'll change. It's even been a while since the Keepers have brought home any of the big awards."

"Gee, I wonder why," Dawn deadpanned.

"Because the Harpies' star Seeker and Chaser took turns winning every one of those awards for the past five years?" Bryce offered helpfully; and Dawn laughed.

"Oh yeah – that'd be it," she agreed. "The game's over, though, and even if the aisles are crowded, it's probably warmer packed in with everyone else; so let's get out of here and go home." She smiled at Ginny. "Jonathan and I have everything we need for our team meeting on Monday."

"You could have gotten that by reading Ginny's game report on her Quidditch site and stayed home and warm," Bryce pointed out. "Her analysis of games is a lot better than any of the reports I've read in the Prophet for the same matches."

"We'll read her report later," Dawn promised; "but our managers don't let us get away with regurgitating reports from other Witches and Wizards at our planning meetings. That's been tried by others; and never ends well when they get caught."

"I'd think that'd only be a problem when the analysis is garbage," Harry suggested. "Offering the opposite of most of the advice in the Prophet would probably work out great for most teams."

"You'd say that about pretty much everything in the Prophet," Christine suggested; and Harry nodded and laughed.

"True, and that'd be fairly sound advice too; though I am admittedly biased."

"Anyone would be with the record you have with the Prophet," Bryce said with a laugh. "I'm sure we can come up with something better to talk about than that, though; so let's move along."

They did that, and eventually were out of the stadium and headed over to the Campbell's house. Harry collected Teddy on the way there while Ginny went on without him; and then he joined the work crew to help out while Teddy went to play with the other kids and Ginny was ordered to sit down, relax, and take it easy until dinnertime. That allowed her to spend more time visiting with everyone, but Harry still had a lot of cameo chats while mostly working with Bryce, Christine, and the other volunteers in the kitchen or dining room. He had a bit of play time with the kids and teens too; but that was mostly during the short visits he made to check up on Teddy. The three of them mostly had kids around them during dinner while the Hogwarts teens visited with parents or other relatives. That made for a very entertaining meal, if occasionally messy; and then Ginny needed to relax and take it easy again after that little blast of busy while Harry joined the clean-up crew. Though Ginny was getting really tired by then, they stayed later than usual so that she could eventually get some quality time to chat with Jeremy, Kate, Aaron, and Pauline.

"This is going to be the first Christmas holiday since I graduated that the only reason we won't get to spend much time together will be because the four of you are too busy to hang out with me instead of the other way around," Ginny teased after hearing about some of the things the four teens wanted to do during the week leading up to Christmas.

"I can't do much about the rest of the week," Bryce told her; "but you could use my ticket for the United game on Wednesday and go to it with Christine and the kids."

"You're just offering that because you want Ginny to do one of her reports on the match instead of the usual drivel the Prophet sports experts come out with," Christine suggested. "If Ginny would like to go, though; we'd really love that – and an un-biased report would just be a nice bonus."

"I'd love to go along," Ginny assured them. "Thank-you, Bryce." She smiled before commenting on the bad reporting part of his comments. "I used to think that some of those reporters were just biased against the Harpies, since I didn't pay as much attention to the reports for the other teams and players; but it could just be that they have a serious bias against Witches. It can't be a coincidence that Laura and Dawn seem to always be on the hit list for United even when they win while the boys are hardly ever criticized at all."

"I'd rather have them slamming me instead of Dawn," Jonathan said quietly and seriously. "It's really tough not to hex the lot of them every time we see them after they've written those stupid articles about Dawn – or Laura."

"Especially when they come back the next day sucking up to us as if they hadn't just shredded us for the entertainment of their readers," Dawn added. "I feel the same way for the few times they actually have bashed you for no good reason."

"Which happens about once for every twenty times they pick on you," Jonathan countered; but then shook his head. "This isn't fun for any of us to talk about. Let's move on to something better – like Christmas holiday plans for those of us who can actually do something other than Quidditch." He smiled at Kate. "Did you get invited to another visit and lunch with the Aurors this year? Dawn and I invited Jeremy and Aaron to our version of that; but they apparently accepted the invitations from the Wasps instead."

"You're not surprised about that," Jeremy told him with a laugh; "and I wouldn't dream of messing up your Quidditch career by signing on with United and putting you out of a job – or on the reserve team."

"We are so going to love kicking your butt when you do make it to the show with the Wasps," Dawn advised him. "Aaron might want to reconsider his first team choice too; but he'll have an extra year to do that."

"I'm totally open to the best offer," Aaron advised her; grinning at the look on Jeremy's face. "You do want me to be able to take care of your sister properly when I get around to marrying her, don't you?"

"Then do that by helping her Quidditch team win some championships," Jeremy told him. "She'll be an Auror, and you might want to take that into account before picking the only professional team she'll want you to play on."

"I'd be okay with him playing for our National team too," Kate offered with a smile. "His uncle played for Ireland, but Aaron could play for England instead – and we'd be lucky to have him."

"Gabrielle might argue that point," Ginny suggested; "but I'm sure that she'll only want to play for France if she gets the chance to do that some day."

"They'd be nuts not to offer her the job for the next World Cup," Aaron told her; and then smiled at Kate. "I'll definitely be shooting for a spot on one or two of the World Cup teams for England," he assured her. "It'd be a dream to get to do that with your brother, sister, and some of our other favorite Quidditch players."

"That would be fun," Dawn agreed; "though I used to dream about getting to do that with Ginny some day."

"Maybe she'll come out of retirement and do that with you," Christine said with a grin for Ginny.

"I only think about coming out of retirement about every other day; but that won't be happening anytime soon," Ginny told them with a smile as she put a hand over her stomach. "If it turns out that I really suck at the stay-at-home Mom gig, though; I might reconsider in a few years."

"You won't," Christine assured her; "but it might be fun to watch Harry give it a go as a stay-at-home parent."

"I'll pick chasing the bad guys over keeping up with toddlers seven days a week," Harry declared; earning some laughs. "A double bludger practice with the Harpies would likely be easier too; though I hope that Ginny does like being home with our kids more than Quidditch." He smiled at Christine's expression. "I'm strictly saying that because I want her to be happy – not for some sexist, selfish reason."

He still got teased about that comment anyway; and then the conversation moved on to lighter fare as they all enjoyed the time together. Harry and Ginny eventually took Teddy with them and went home; put their Godson to bed; and then went straight off to sleep too – both of them completely worn out from a very busy day. Harry was putting in a few hours of work on Sunday evening, but he and Ginny played with Teddy all morning before taking him back to Andromeda after lunch; and then they both had an afternoon nap before he headed for Tutshill for the evening and got back to his stakeout.

The work week leading up to Christmas Eve Day on Friday was a strange mix of serious work and holiday fun for Harry. While there weren't any major breakthroughs on the stake-out, he and Neville continued to work in the library and watching the house; and what they were finding in the library was particularly sobering. It wasn't that the dark arts spells and potions they found in those books were unexpected; but it was very unsettling to discover the depths to which the new batch of Dark Wizards and Witches were willing to go to take what they wanted from others – or impose their will and dominion over the rest of the magical and Muggle worlds.

On the fun side of life, Harry and Ginny kept busy during his non-working hours either getting ready for the holiday weekend or having fun with their family. Both parts of that included spending a lot of time at the Burrow – whether that was helping Molly out with the work ahead of the family Christmas on Christmas Day or doing holiday-themed activities with the kids. Ginny also went to a couple of Christmas parties that Harry couldn't attend with her; and she had fun with Christine and the kids at the United game on Wednesday; so those four days passed very quickly; and Harry and Neville both wrapped up their stake-out on Thursday night with plans to take nearly four days off to spend with their respective families.

With Christmas on a Saturday this year, Harry and Ginny used Christmas Eve Day for holiday visits with friends and delivering gifts. All of those visits were short and sweet, since everyone else was busy too; and then they spent a couple of hours in Diagon Alley enjoying the last-minute shopping scene there before heading home to spend Christmas Eve at home – and alone. That was a short-lived tradition for them that would be ending this year; since they would definitely have company with them next Christmas. That was something that they both thought about and mostly joked about as they enjoyed a quiet evening together; but they mostly just enjoyed sharing the love and joy of the holiday while watching a couple of Christmas shows on the mirror network before going to bed and making a few, much-hotter Christmas memories.

The Weasley family Christmas wasn't starting until after lunch, but Harry and Ginny had a busy morning to get through first before going over there in time to have lunch with her parents. Ginny wanted to open gifts first, so they did that, and then he cooked breakfast for her; cleaned up while she got ready for the day; and then took his turn showering and getting ready before they headed over to see Andromeda and Teddy. While Andromeda didn't have any family around that would associate with her, she did have good friends that she and Teddy spent Christmas Day with. Sometimes, that was with the Weasley's, but not this year; so Harry and Ginny spent a couple of hours with Teddy – and with Andromeda too when she wasn't taking advantage of the extra support to get ready for their own outing. Teddy had loved his toys; they'd had a blast playing with him; and then they'd moved on to the next and last stop of their Christmas adventure.

"You need a nap," Molly told Ginny after hugging her in welcome; and smiled when her daughter laughed.

"We only spent two hours with Teddy. Andromeda's the one in need of a nap."

"What time did he have her up this morning?" Molly asked.

"At five-thirty," Ginny answered. "He's been bouncing off the walls since then."

"And the two of you didn't help out with that while you were there," Arthur guessed as he took his turn hugging Ginny while Molly hugged Harry.

"Not from the gift side of things," Ginny agreed; "but we did try to tire him out a bit; and he might run out of steam – by sometime after dinner tonight."

"Depending on how much sugar he re-charges with for the rest of the day," Molly suggested with a nod. "If you're feeling up to it, maybe you should take him for a night early in the New Year and give Andromeda a break. She'll likely need it by then."

"I'd say she needs a week, but probably wouldn't take it even if we offered," Harry said with a smile.

"She has before," Molly reminded him; "but she won't do that this winter. Ginny will be too busy to do that for a while."

"We will be," Ginny told her parents happily; "but we'll need to spend some extra time with Teddy too."

"He does seem a bit worried about the baby," Molly declared; "though he hasn't said a word to me about it yet. This isn't quite the same as with a first child and siblings, but it could feel like that for him."

"Harry and Ginny will do just fine with him," Arthur predicted; "and then Teddy won't worry about it at all anymore."

Molly had nodded to that; and urged Ginny toward the kitchen table where she got her to sit down before getting back to the work she was doing for their Christmas dinner – and the lunch for four that they mostly snacked on while she continued to keep an eye on the work in progress with some help from Arthur and Harry. They got to spend nearly two hours together before the rest of their family began arriving; and then Ginny and Arthur were sent off to the sitting room to have fun visiting with everyone and play with the kids while Harry split his time between the two rooms and helped Molly with the work. They had the entire clan there; and also had Fleur's parents and sister along because the Delacours had come to spend the holiday weekend with their girls, Bill, and the grandchildren.

There were now seven Weasley grandchildren with an eighth on the way, so including the extra three Delacours and Aunt Muriel; Molly had twenty-five for dinner – and they collectively had a lot of gifts to open. The kids had voted to do that sooner instead of later, and since the new toys and games would give them all something to do for the rest of the day; the parents were good with that plan too. Molly and Harry took turns checking on the cooking in progress in the kitchen while they did that; but they were in the sitting room for most of the gift exchange that started shortly after Aunt Muriel arrived and finished an abbreviated version of her usual meet and greet with her extended family. That was entirely because she was on her best behavior for the Delacours; and that was something that Ron was especially grateful for after he avoided any criticism about his lack of progress in the baby-making department.

"You're going to need another Gringott's vault to hold all of that loot the kids are getting," Gabrielle told Bill and Fleur as she came over and sat down on the floor next to the sofa they were sitting in – and next to Victoire, Dominique, and Louis. Harry and Ginny were on the other side of the kids; with Ginny in a recliner while Harry was on the floor too and holding Louis in his lap.

"Or an addition on the cottage," Bill agreed with a smile. "Hopefully someone will remind us next year that it's time to start drawing names. We haven't even found places to put all of the new things they got for Christmas this morning."

"That's easy enough to deal with," Ginny told him. "Send a big toy box over to Aunt Gabrielle's place so that they'll have things to do when they're staying with her for visits."

"Then I'd need an addition on my flat – or be out of room to put the kids," Gabrielle pointed out with a laugh.

"Maybe Hermione could make an undetectable expansion toy box for you," Harry suggested; and then laughed. "Actually, I like that idea for us too. Maybe we should put that on our list for Santa next year."

"That's actually a really great idea," Ginny told him. "Maybe we'll work on that for all of the parents for next year – including us." She looked down at her stomach and laughed. "Now I'm wondering why I didn't ask Hermione about the possibility of having an undetectable expansion tummy for this pregnancy." She'd said that loudly enough for Hermione to overhear from where she was sitting on another of the sofas with Ron, George, and Angelina; and Hermione had laughed and turned her attention to Ginny.

"That isn't something you'd want to take the chance of messing with, Ginny; though I don't think the boys would want the details of the why for that."

"Definitely not," Ron agreed fervently. "Some of us don't even want the regular details when it comes to our sisters."

"Tempting as that opening is; let's not go there," Ginny decided. "I do think that you and George should join Harry, Louis, and Bill and play with the new toys, though. Even if you don't want any of the details, I'm almost positive that you don't have to worry that playing with your nieces and nephews will lead to a pregnant wife or fiancée."

"We're worried about Victoire and the other girls," George told her. "They seem to like dressing Harry's dolls and dragons in dresses; and some of us have reputations to protect." He grinned at Harry. "Depending on what you believe in the news; Harry's rep has nowhere to go but up, so he's got nothing to worry about."

"I'm sure that Rita would have a field day with the whole playing with dolls thing, though," Ron added; grinning too. "Maybe we should take pictures and send them to her in Azkaban."

"Or not," Harry told him firmly. "She already has enough fun making stuff up about us. We don't need to give her any real news for her to twist around and write about." Louis bopped him with one of his new toys to get his attention; and Harry smiled. "I think that's a hint that it's time to stop talking and get back to playing."

The conversations with the adults continued, and Harry did participate now and then too; but he really did have more fun playing with his nieces and nephews – and they all loved spending time with him. He didn't get to see Charlie and Julianne's and Percy and Audrey's kids often enough for his liking, and they were a bit more tentative with him at first each time they did get together; but they soon got over that after watching him play with Victoire, Dominique, and Louis for a while. All of that applied to three out of four of the kids, since Charlene was only a month and a half old; but Harry and Bill had the other six kids playing with them – and usually had one or two other parents joining in as they all took turns playing with the kids and their new toys.

Aunt Muriel really was on her best behavior, but she still ruled the house – something that mostly amused Gabrielle and her parents. They'd spent enough time now with Muriel to be used to her ways, and for her part; Aunt Muriel seemed quite willing to adopt them into her own family – with all of the 'benefits' that went along with that membership. For Gabrielle, that bonus entertainment included some fairly candid advice on dating; despite the fact that Gabrielle's dating issues had nothing to do with lack of opportunity and more to do with finding Wizards of suitable age that weren't incapacitated by merely being around her. In the year and a half since she'd moved to England and started working for the Harpies; there hadn't even been a successful Mr. Right Now let alone any serious boyfriend candidates, and while she wasn't against the idea of finding a decent guy to spend time with; Gabrielle was also content to just concentrate on her career. Explaining that to Aunt Muriel was pointless; though she had gotten a laugh out of the old woman by pointing out that she'd done well-enough for a long time without putting up with having a Wizard around in her own life.

The entertainment and fun all afternoon and during dinner was great, but Harry and Ginny especially loved getting to catch up with Charlie and Julianne; and to a lesser degree with Percy and Audrey. Ginny actually saw Audrey more often than she saw Percy, but the main reason that catching up with Percy wasn't as exciting was because he generally preferred to talk about the Ministry of Magic and politics more than anything else. Since that was something that both Harry and Ginny liked to discuss least of all; it wasn't something they went out of their way to do. Talking Dragons with Charlie, or work and kids with Julianne too was much more enjoyable.

Since they had all day on Sunday to recover from the Christmas cheer; staying late on Saturday night was an option that most of the family chose – though Aunt Muriel went home shortly after dinner; and Charlie and Julianne took their kids home by nine because on their home time it was late by then. Ginny ran out of steam by eleven, so Harry took her home and put her to bed then; and they wrapped up another amazing Christmas together by doing their second-favorite bedroom activity – sleeping!

They didn't need to get up early or do anything at all on Sunday; mostly because the rest of their family were all busy with in-law Christmas fun or other plans – as were most of their friends. Sometimes, that felt like a great bonus, since they didn't have to run themselves ragged keeping up with more than one family Christmas. After sleeping in until mid-morning; they got up; Harry cooked breakfast while Ginny got ready for a lazy day at home; they ate; and then moved into the sitting room to just hang out there and have fun after cleaning the kitchen together. They turned on the mirror network to watch a Christmas show, and Ginny also played around on the Wizarding World Web – including checking out her own site to see how it was doing now that there were likely many more Witches and Wizards trying out their new Christmas toys.

"We've doubled the number of visitors in just the past day or so!" Ginny exclaimed excitedly when she checked out the traffic stats for the Quidditch News Network. That said a lot about how many of the new devices had been given as gifts; since there hadn't been any games over the weekend; so the only new articles were either injury reports from practices or opinion articles.

"That's good for you, Lee, and the others," Harry said with a nod and smile. "Hopefully the adverts are getting some attention too."

"Some are," Ginny reported after taking a moment to look that up next. "No surprise that George's ads are getting the most visitors – his are the wildest and most-distracting."

"The Quidditch stores should do well-enough too," Harry suggested; "but George has an early advantage with his mail order business already in place and doing so well with a lot of the Wizarding schools. That's just going to get bigger and better for him now."

"That does seem to be working out well for him too," Ginny agreed. "We've a long way to go before the Wizarding World Web is anything close to the Muggle internet; but this is a good start – and doing fairly well for us already too."

"It may have a long way to go; but I've barely seen you use your computer since getting that mirror."

"I still go online nearly every day for a while," Ginny assured him; "but that's something I can do when you're busy with work." She smiled as she also put her Wizarding Web mirror down on the table next to her and then snuggled closer to him. "I can play with that thing some other time too; since I'm sure that we can both find something more interesting to do while we have the time together."

Helping her out with making that suggestion and offer a brilliant reality worked for Harry; and they both had a lot of fun as they wrapped up their Christmas weekend and enjoyed the break before he'd be back to work again and she'd be back to doing everything from working on her Quidditch reporting to spending time at the Burrow with Molly and the kids. For Harry, the first four days of the work week were fairly boring. He and Neville worked in Tutshill all on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evenings and nights; then switched to days and worked in the office on Thursday and Friday. Ginny had more fun with the kids, and caught a Quidditch match on Tuesday afternoon; though she watched that game from the mirror network studios instead of going to the stadium and dealing with the cold, icy weather conditions.

The office work for Harry and Neville on Thursday wasn't weather-related. They needed to help with getting things ready for the now-annual student day with the Aurors on Friday – New Year's Eve day; and they did some other work while they were there instead of trying to work day and night both days. While Harry didn't really want to miss the stake-out time; he also really loved the play morning and lunch with the Hogwarts teens and tweens – and most of them returned every year – including the older teens that had graduated and gone on to join the Aurors.

He was certainly fired up on Friday morning when he welcomed the eight kids they had joining them for the morning at the security station in the Ministry of Magic atrium. Ron and Casey were with him for that this year, and though the other Aurors had taken turns doing the welcome for the teens; Emma insisted that Harry be there too since he was 'the' Auror that most of the kids wanted to see and spend time with. Since it was probably the only public relations job that Harry actually did like, he didn't have a problem with the order; and impending fatherhood put a whole new perspective on the day for him this year.

"Welcome to the Ministry of Magic and your Adventure with the Aurors day!" he told the tweens and teens; smiling as he looked from face to face. Kate stepped forward and hugged him; and his smile brightened as he continued the welcome. "Let's do a quick round of introductions; though most of you know each other from previous visits with us."

He nodded to Kate to go first; so she did that; and then he added in extra information about each teen depending on how much they offered along with their names. Diana Dorny was the only NEWT student in the group, followed by Kate in sixth year; Quentin Quirke in his OWL year; and Mike MacDonald and Erica Davis in fourth year. The five of them had all been in the first group of kids to do the first Auror Day with Harry and Neville; and were all still just as serious about being Aurors as they were back then. The three younger kids in the group were third-year student Matthew Cresswell; Lena Kirke in second year; and new addition to the group, firstie Dyson Aubrey. Matthew still wanted to be an Auror because of what had happened to his father; Lean wanted to be an Auror like her Daddy, Nathan; and Dyson shared both of those reasons for wanting to be an Auror when he grew up.

"We're going to start our tour of the Ministry at the bottom this year and work our way up, so if you're ready to go; let's head down to the dungeon level and take a look around the least-favorite place in the building – for the bad guys."

"You'd think it was their favorite place for as often as they get to visit," Ron joked; both comments earning laughs from the eight students.

"I thought they loved the cells in the dungeon here," Casey offered. "None of the prisoners I've escorted to Azkaban so far have wanted to leave."

"You've been to Azkaban?" Diana asked him. "What's it like there?"

"It's a bad place to visit; and you definitely wouldn't want to live there," he answered half-seriously. "The worst of the Dark Wizards and Witches are the scary part of that place; so I'm glad that I picked this job over being a guard there."

"Even after that raid we heard about back in September?" Diana persisted; and Casey nodded.

"That was scary too; but it was also brilliant to be part of putting that lot of bad guys out of business."

"Can you tell us about it?" Matthew asked him. "Is actually fighting the bad guys anything like DADA class?"

Ron waved Casey on to go ahead and answer Matthew's questions; and the Auror-trainee managed to keep his little audience entertained while they took a lift down to the dungeon level. They started the tour then, and Ron led the way while Harry and Casey brought up the rear and occasionally joined in or quietly answered questions from the four teens closest to them as they went along. Visiting the cells and getting 'locked up' in them was fun for the kids; they checked out two of the courtrooms but didn't have time to sit in on the only trial going on for the morning; and then they moved on and worked their way up through the levels of the Ministry until they wrapped up their tour with a brief meet and greet with the Minister of Magic.

Kingsley Shacklebolt didn't do that for every group of teens that were visiting the Ministry in nearly every department now; but he did meet with a few of the groups each year; and the Aurors were getting a turn this year. Harry led the way from that meeting to Auror Headquarters where Christine and some of the other Aurors met up with them in the training room. The Witches and Wizards split up to get ready for their workout; with each of the teens getting a set of the official Auror workout shirts and pants to wear for the workout. As he had each year now, Harry led the physical workout for everyone, and then this year; he took the lead for the senior group for the DADA training while Ron and Casey led that for the first to third-year kids with help from Nathan so that he could spend time playing Auror with his daughter. Harry had Christine, Neville, Dennis, and Natalie with him so that he'd have one Auror partner for each of the five older teens.

"We're going to pair up so that you can all work on magic at your own levels," Harry told them after putting up a shield in the middle of the room between the two groups. "Diana and Kate, you'll work with Auror Campbell and the better-looking of the two Auror Creeveys." He grinned at Dennis as the girls all laughed. "Quentin, you're with Auror Longbottom, and just in case you weren't sure about it, Dennis; you and I will work with Erica and Mike."

"That doesn't seem fair for Erica being outnumbered three-to-one," Natalie pointed out; and Harry laughed.

"I wasn't planning on a Witches against Wizards duel."

"That's good," Mike told him with a grin that he directed at Erica; "since it'd look really bad for us guys when Erica beat us. She's the best DADA student in our year."

"Now I'm wishing that Harry was going to have that dueling practice just in case Erica could pull that off," Natalie joked as the others laughed at Mike's comments. "Do you have any orders for our groups, Harry; or do we just get to pick our own fun and games?"

"Pick your own. Dennis and I are going to horse around with Patronus charms this morning."

"Literally, in your case," Christine added with a grin; earning laughs from everyone in their group that knew Harry's Patronus was a Stallion.

They split up then around the half of the training room that they were using; and Harry and Dennis got to work with Erica and Mike. Both teens were able to perform the charm, though they also spent half of their time learning how to use the messenger capabilities of the Patronus. While that had entertaining for all of them, it was also fairly obvious that the two teens didn't get the point of Harry's choice of training for them; and Erica eventually voiced her opinion on that.

"I don't understand why we're even taught this charm anymore, Auror Potter," she told him in her sweet, melodic voice; smiling winsomely at him. "There hasn't even been a Dementor sighting in years; and there are many other ways to communicate now too."

"That's true," Harry agreed; "though we don't know whether there are any Dementors still out there. Don't underestimate the usefulness of the Patronus message, Erica, since it does still have uses; but the main reason I like to exercise my Patronus is because it requires the Wizard or Witch to focus positive thoughts and energy to work. Being able to do that to the best of your ability will make all of your magic stronger."

"Does it really?" Mike asked; and Harry nodded.

"Definitely. Positive energy – love, joy, and happiness strengthens those of us on the side of the Light."

"Does that mean that the opposite emotions strengthen Dark Magic?" Mike asked; a bit tentatively this time.

"They do," Harry confirmed with another nod, "and in a duel; those opposite energies affect us – and can be as much of a drain on us as our own use of magic for defense or offense."

"So the stronger our emotions; the better chance we have during a duel," Erica stated. "Wouldn't that normally favor the Dark Wizard or Witch?"

"Strong, happy emotions affect all magic to some degree," Harry advised her. "Cheering charms, for instance, are very tough to manage if you're filled with anger or hate." He paused for a moment while choosing how to answer her question. "In a duel, I'd agree with you for which side has the advantage; though maybe not for the reason you think."

"We lose the advantage of fighting on the side of the Light if we are drawn into the darker emotions too," Mike offered solemnly.

"Yes, we do," Harry agreed; "and it's more difficult than you might think to stay positive in the heat of a battle – especially when bad people are trying to do bad things to you – or those you love." The mood had grown fairly serious; so Harry smiled then. "So that, my young future Aurors, is why it's so important to practice happy thoughts – and fill our lives with as much love as possible. It could very well be, more than any advanced magic we know, that our capacity for love will make the difference when it comes to how successful we'll be as Aurors – and in life."

"That seems to be working for you," Erica said with a smile; and Harry laughed.

"Getting that figured out took me quite a while, Erica; and I still have my bad moments – just as we all do. My family and friends help me out with that a lot; so most of the credit should really go to them."

They still had a bit of time left to play, so they got back to the magical fun until it was time to get changed again and head out for lunch at the Leaky Cauldron. Quite a few of the Aurors joined them for the meal, and Emma officially hosted it; but she sat at a table with the older teens while Harry was again with Erica and Mike – along with the two youngest kids; Lena Kirke and Dyson Aubrey. They had Dennis, Natalie, and Nathan with them; and Harry especially had fun watching Nathan and Lena as they enjoyed what was basically a bring-your-daughter-to-work day for them – just as it was for Christine and Kate. While the meal and chat time was great, it was during the goodbyes after lunch when something extraordinary happened that completely caught Harry by surprise.

"Happy belated Christmas and on-time New Year," Erica told Harry as she handed him a card-sized envelope before stepping in to hug him tightly. That comment had been spoken loudly enough for several people around them to hear her; but then she leaned in to kiss his cheek. "Don't believe the note," she whispered. "It's a diversion. Save Ginny and your baby!" She gave him another hard hug for emphasis, and then quickly moved on; her smile in place as she continued to say goodbye to the other Aurors as if she hadn't just made a very personal, life-changing decision with that barely-audible warning.

He didn't have time to do more than think about what she'd said while he was also drawn into other circles of teens and adults; and then he'd needed to wait until getting back to Auror Headquarters with Emma and a few others before being able to take a look at the card and note that Erica had given to him. While he hadn't planned on returning to work after the luncheon, and pretty much all of the other Aurors were taking the rest of the day off; he'd called Ginny and let her know that he'd be later than planned – though he hadn't explained the why for the change in plans.

"What's up?" Emma asked Al as she waved him toward one of the chairs in her cubicle while going to sit behind her desk.

"We're about to find out," he answered as he sat too and began opening the envelope. "Erica gave this to me; but the big news is that she also warned me not to believe whatever is written in here – and that I need to protect Ginny and our baby."

"Merlin!" Emma exclaimed. "What does it say?" Harry already had the card and note out of the envelope by then; he set the card and envelope on her desk; and opened the sheet of neatly folded parchment.

"Auror Potter, I am terrified to be writing this note to you, because if my family ever found out, it would be very bad for me; but I cannot stand by and not warn you about something bad that's going to happen that I've overheard from a group of Wizards and Witches. Please don't try and contact me about this, or ask me for names. I am doing as much as I'm willing to risk." Harry paused for a moment before continuing.

"This group of Wizards and Witches are planning an attack on Azkaban. I did not overhear a date or time; but the goal is to free many, if not all, of the prisoners. While I don't know exactly when it will be, I can guess that it will be fairly soon – in the next two or three months. It sounds as though there will be a lot of people involved in this, though I don't know exactly how many. Hopefully you'll have enough time to find a way to be ready and stop them now. Be careful, and stay Safe. Erica."

"Okay, now I'm totally confused," Emma admitted; and Harry smiled at her even as his expression was also serious.

"Would it be clearer to you if I told you that our enemies have been using Erica to get to me?" He laughed when Emma just stared at him in open-mouthed amazement.

"Are you serious?" she asked; and he nodded.

"Yes, and it's totally working too; since I do love her just as much as they hoped I would. What they didn't expect was that Erica would fall in love with us too."

"With you," Emma amended; and Harry shrugged.

"Not just with me; but we don't need to get into that. What's important here is that she was obviously ordered to write the note; but I'm also certain that the warning she whispered to me was all her own choice – and a very big leap of faith for her."

"Do you think that they'd actually warn you about the attack on Azkaban just to get Erica in deeper with you?" Emma mused. "That seems very forward-thinking than what we usually get from the bad guys. She still has three and a half years of school before she'll be able to join the Aurors."

"They do seem to have a big-picture plan in play," Harry confirmed, "and yes; I do think they'd do exactly that – especially when the attack she's warning us about in the note is just a diversion from the real plot – and we'd just believe that Erica didn't find out about the attack on Ginny and the baby to be able to warn us."

"That's true," Emma said with a nod of agreement. "This doesn't change anything for our side of things right now, though, so you should move on and get started on your holiday weekend; and I'll get back to work for the rest of the afternoon." She sighed while glancing at the piles of paperwork around her office. "Year-end is a total pain for the department Heads around here. Are you absolutely sure that you don't want my job?"

"I'm positive," Harry said fervently. "At least we still get to duel our opponents now and then out in the field. Minister Shacklebolt won't let you do that in your meetings."

"They'd be more interesting if he did," Emma joked. "Get out of here, and maybe I'll see you sometime tonight at the party."

"We'll see each other for sure," Harry promised. "Don't work too late – the dinner is supposed to be amazing again this year and you won't want to miss it."

Emma laughed. "Then maybe I should miss it. That workout of yours this morning proved that I've been a bit too merry during the holidays this year."

"I can kick those workouts up a few notches during January if you'd like," Harry offered; and then grinned at the look on Emma's face. "There's no good way to answer your last comment; so I'm shooting for non-personal – and the tougher workouts are actually a good idea considering what we know is heading our way from the bad guys."

"That's true, and it would help Erica too if the bad guys find out that we're suddenly training harder," Emma conceded and added. "Make it happen."

"Me and my big mouth," Harry faux-groaned. "I'll be the bad guy with the other Aurors for doing that too."

"A win-win for me," Emma assured him – "except for the doing those workouts part of the deal."

They did their goodbyes then, and Harry headed for home. Ginny was working in the office; and took a break for drinks and to have Harry tell her all about what had happened with Erica and his meeting with Emma.

"You seem to be genuinely surprised by Erica; but not about the note," Ginny told him when he was finished; and Harry nodded.

"I am – and wasn't," he confirmed. "The Witches and Wizards that forced Erica to come to that first student day with the Aurors that we did are probably sure that she's one of their great successes against us, and while I've always seen the potential in her; this is the first time that she's taken the initiative to choose her own path – and I didn't expect her to be making that kind of choice for years yet. It's dangerous for her; and she's amazingly brave to do it anyway when she must understand the risks."

"I'd say that just proves she's more like your Mom than the bad guys expected," Ginny offered with a serious smile. "I hope she'll be okay, and if she isn't; that we'll be able to help her if and when she needs us. I'll definitely never forget that she picked trying to protect me and our baby over what's in her own best interest – at least when it comes to her family and whoever it is that is pulling their strings." She was quiet for a minute while thinking about all of it; and then turned her attention back to Harry.

"There's one down side to her help that I can see, Harry. You'll need to take the bait and go to Azkaban when that attack is launched instead of staying with me. If you don't do that, the bad guys are going to try and find out why their scheme didn't work; and Erica would be one of the first places they'd look for that answer."

"I've been thinking about that too," he admitted; "but I hate that idea a lot and want a better plan."

"We'll come up with a plan," Ginny assured him, "but I'm willing to trust some of our other Auror friends to protect me while you deal with the other problem – and hopefully capture the lot of them in one shot. I might even pick Christine, Susan, Natalie, or some of the other Witches over you for protecting our baby if it comes to that – not to mention that my Mom would have something to say about it too."

Harry laughed. "The bad guys would not want to face your Mom when she's protecting her kids and grandkids," he agreed. "We will figure all of that out soon enough, but let's change the subject; and try to enjoy our New Year's Eve instead of worrying about this all of the time."

"Well, there is a good chance that we'll get through another holiday without any problems with Dark Wizards or Witches thanks to this other plot of theirs; so that is an option," Ginny half-joked. "Maybe we should be sending them thank-you cards for not coming after us on a holiday for a change."

"Some of our friends are going to help us to thank them soon enough, honey; but I'm planning on doing that in person instead of through the Owl Post."

"Not that we'd send Storm or Snowflake to any of those people anyway," Ginny added with a laugh. "We love them way too much for that."

They moved on with the conversation from there and enjoyed a bit of quiet time together before heading upstairs to get ready for the dinner and party at the Magick Hall. Now that Ginny was almost eight months along with her pregnancy, there were regular moments of amusement and entertainment for her – and anyone around her at the time when her 'condition' affected even the simplest of daily activities. That was definitely true when it came to things like getting dressed up for a major party, though some of that fun was because of Harry's reactions to the little problems that came up with trying to do certain tasks that wouldn't be an issue at all. There was certainly nothing in the husband handbook about what to do when your pregnant wife needed help with getting dressed because reaching her own feet was either uncomfortable or temporarily impossible.

Then there was also the fact that helping Ginny out with that sort of thing was also fairly hot as well as funny, so it wasn't all strange and awkward; but then that part of the scene just meant that it took longer to get ready to go out – and they were both very happy campers when they were finally ready to head over to the Magick Hall!

"For Merlin's sake, will the two of you stop grinning at us like that?" Ron groused in welcome as Harry and Ginny caught up with him – and Hermione – at the table they'd all be sitting at for the dinner. "You're probably even scaring the kids – and probably that baby Ginny looks about ready to deliver any day now."

"The baby was there while we were making those grin-worthy memories," Ginny pointed out with a laugh. "If that didn't scare him, the grins wouldn't – even if he could see them."

"I think I've lost my appetite," Ron responded with an eye-roll and grimace. "Let's go and get drinks for you and Ginny," he told Harry. "That'll give the girls time to talk about things I definitely don't want to hear for why you're running late." Harry and Ginny took care of some hugs and kisses first, but then he went along with Ron and they got in line at the nearest drinks bar to their table.

"Since you obviously don't want to talk about what Ginny and I were doing all afternoon; what should we talk about instead?" Harry asked; and then laughed at Ron's groan.

"All afternoon? Seriously, mate; that's too much information right there," Ron assured him in a low voice that probably didn't completely keep the comment just between them. "You know that seeing you and Ginny so bloody happy is just going to have Hermione badgering me about babies – again."

"Probably," Harry agreed affably, "but you don't want to go there right now either; so let's start out with how amazing our wives look tonight and move on from there with anything not related to babies."

Ron snorted. "That'd be tough to do for talking about Ginny. I saw you guys coming into the hall a full minute before we could see your faces. That kid of yours is going to be born full-grown."

"I hope not, since that would make diaper changes tough and nursing very weird," Harry joked; and then laughed. "You went there; not me."

"A fact that I'm going to ignore – along with those comments. What do you think about the Harpies' chances in their game against the Prides tomorrow? The weather will likely be a problem for both teams."

"Weather will be a problem for Ginny if it's a long match. You know both teams will be ready; and they're too closely-matched this season to predict a winner – especially if the weather is miserable."

"At least you'll be in for a better match than the last one I went to for the Cannons," Ron told him; looking mildly disgusted. "If they don't get serious about putting together better teams soon, our only remaining Cannons fan to actually be around for their last championship won't be around for the next one. I sure don't want to be his age before the next one happens."

"Has any team gone two centuries without a championship?" Harry asked; and Ron laughed.

"No, but the Cannons seem to be more serious about being the first to do that than they are about winning one."

"A fact that has me wondering why you're picking a chat about that over nearly anything else."

Ron snorted again. "That should tell you how badly I wanted to change the subject. I'm not supposed to talk about work tonight; don't want to be around for the baby talk; and there isn't any good news in my corner of the Quidditch world. What's left?"

"How about wheezes – or maybe the Wizarding World Web?" Harry suggested. "Have you been doing much surfing on your new mirrors over the holidays? The teens were all talking about it at the lunch today."

"They were," Ron agreed; "and I haven't used mine all that much – except to check up on Quidditch scores here and there; and read Ginny's and Lee's reports and commentary. The Cannons' site is awful; though you've probably checked and know that."

"The whole thing is new; so it isn't really fair to compare it to the one that Lee and Ginny have – or the one that Ginny and Hermione helped the Harpies with," Harry pointed out. "Look how much different the Muggle internet is now even compared to when Hermione first taught us how to use computers. What they've come up with for our mirrors is way better than what the Muggles started out with – even if ours has a long way to go from where it is right now compared to what they have now."

"If it gets too much like some parts of the Muggle web, Hermione is likely to hex the bloody thing; and that'll be the end of it," Ron suggested; and Harry laughed.

"Did she catch you going to certain websites she doesn't approve of again, mate?" Harry asked quietly; and Ron grinned unapologetically.

"The Daily Prophet would sell a lot more papers if it had a Wizarding photo version of a page three like certain Muggle newspapers do," he offered; still grinning.

"Maybe," Harry conceded; "but would you want to see the Hag of the Month magazine go there?" Ron choked, since Harry timed that comment just as he was trying to finish his current drink before it would be their turn to order drinks; and he thumped Ron on the back as he coughed and wheezed.

"Now I've really lost my appetite, mate. Thanks so much for that mental picture," Ron told him once he was able to talk again.

"You did, once again, take the conversation there; not me," he reminded Ron. "You can't expect me to just hold back on the jokes when you give me the easy openings like that."

"The let's switch to the wheezes option," Ron decided. "Maybe that'll keep me out of trouble for a while."

Harry went along with that, though they only had time to do that until they returned to their table; and then they joined in on the conversations going on there with their wives and dinner companions. While they'd been able to sit together this year, politics still played a big part in seating arrangements for Ministry parties and events; so they didn't have any other friends with them for the meal. As always, Ginny didn't have a problem with that; though she was glad that she no longer had to follow Harpies' team rules in public and could be a bit less politically-correct than she'd needed to be while playing professional Quidditch.

Dinner was a two-hour culinary event, and while Ron managed to find his appetite just fine; he and Harry both stayed on the outer edges of the dinner conversation while their girls had fun talking about everything from babies and parenthood to the top current events and issues at the Ministry of Magic. Ginny needed to take one break in the middle of the meal that Hermione went along for to help her if needed; and then they all took a break after dessert while waiting for the transition from the meal to the dance.

While they still had their assigned table for the rest of the night, the socializing with friends and acquaintances kept all of them busy – whether that was visiting other tables or having friends stop by to see them. There were some differences for Harry and Ginny compared to past parties. The most obvious was that Ginny could only manage short dancing cameos; and did more mingling from a chair with her feet up – even when they were out wandering around the hall. Another was that they didn't have as many members of their family or friends groups at the party – mostly because those Witches and Wizards had other plans with their own kids.

Bill and Fleur were at the top of that list, but that was true for more than half of their friends with kids. Harry had thought about that off and on even as they had fun with everyone they knew that was there; and it made him smile just to think about joining that club soon. That didn't mean he wouldn't still love getting to go to parties and dances with Ginny, since he loved watching his amazing wife shine when they got to go out and play with the other grown-ups. Then again, ringing in the New Year while playing with kids all night was very appealing too, so they'd soon need to find the balance for that – just as all parents should; no matter how much that might scare their children to think about. Harry was sitting next to Ginny as he thought about that, and laughed when he looked over to where Ron and Hermione was dancing while thinking about the reactions Ron still had anytime his parents so much as mentioned romance in their own lives where he could overhear them.

"What's so funny?" Ginny asked; and Harry smiled brightly as he turned to face her.

"Just doing a bit of daydreaming about future New Year's Eves once we're parents; and the laugh was because I was wondering whether our kids will be like Ron when it comes to romance, dates, and such for their parents."

Ginny laughed too. "I could definitely see that if they're anything like your father was; but not if they're like you, me, or the rest of our parents." She laughed again. "Just for fun, though, why don't you tell me how you felt about that with your aunt and uncle? You already know what it was like for me as a kid with mine."

"Yeah – your parents were too busy with seven kids by then to have any time for romance," Harry joked; earning another laugh from Ginny.

"They weren't too busy at six kids; and I seriously doubt they were too busy with seven; but you're avoiding the question."

"You've met my aunt and uncle, Ginny," Harry reminded her. "To be honest; I never, ever thought about them in that way at all." He paused as if thinking about it for a moment. "Nope – still can't get there from here."

Ginny grinned at him. "I can; but only so far as to come up with an explanation for why your aunt is so skinny."

Harry laughed. "That is so bad – and funny. I love you, Ginny."

"Even when we're practically the reverse of your aunt and uncle right now?" she teased; and Harry leaned in and kissed her rather seriously.

"I'd say we're always about as opposite from them as you can get, and I'm not going to take the bait you're throwing out there; since you know just how beautiful you look tonight and don't need me to tell you – again."

"Maybe I do need that," Ginny countered. "You'd better save those kinds of kisses for later, though; or I'm going to start feeling un-well and need you to take me home." She laughed when Harry's smile flashed to life and he leaned in to kiss her again; pushing him away after just another brief, soft kiss. "I want to be here to ring in the New Year with you. We'll get around to the you and me part of getting the year off to a great start shortly after that."

Ginny may have planned on doing that, and they had fun while at the party until about twelve-thirty; but then she fell asleep shortly after climbing into bed – while Harry had been massaging her sore, tired feet. That meant delaying the intimate part of their New Year's Eve and Day fun, but Harry didn't mind helping his wife out with a healing massage that she mostly slept through before snuggling close to her and going off to sleep too. They'd made up for that in the morning before getting ready for another play day, and since they'd slept in; they'd gone with a snack breakfast because they were going out for lunch with the rest of the gang going to the Harpies' game with them.

Play was the name of the game for the first day of the year. They went out for lunch to the Leaky; moved on to the Yorkshire stadium for the game; and then watched a very short match that the Harpies won by a score of one-eighty to fifty. That win came early because Erin Connelly was trying a bit too hard to get a win over the Harpies. She made a mistake while trying to get the early catch; and Gabrielle took full advantage of that mistake to earn the win for her team instead.

Since they had the time thanks to the short game, Harry and Ginny did a bit of visiting after the game that mostly involved saying goodbye to a handful of Hogwarts teens that would be heading back to school on Sunday; and then they went home to enjoy a quiet dinner and evening for two. That included some adult-rated play time, but Ginny was also worn out; and they both enjoyed an early bedtime and full night of rest nearly as much as they enjoyed the intimate fun and entertainment.

While heading back to Hogwarts was a big deal for all of the students and their families, it was family time for Harry and Ginny on Sunday. They spent a lot of the day with Teddy; spent the afternoon with Bill, Fleur, and their kids; and wrapped up their day with dinner at the Burrow with Andromeda, Molly, and Arthur before heading home to another early bedtime ahead of the first workweek of the New Year.

Students the Wizarding World over might be turning their focus back to their studies; school Quidditch; and their friends now that Christmas and the holiday was over, and it was back to work and the real world for most adults – if they even got a break from that in the first place. At home or Hogwarts, they had a long, cold winter ahead, and while there was sure to be fun in their lives too; Harry and Ginny also had to deal with the danger looming imminently in their lives.

They were determined to deal with that as needed, but what was the brightest light in their lives as they looked forward to an amazing New Year was going to be the arrival of their baby and becoming proud, first-time parents. Whatever else happened in the coming weeks and months; that was going to be right up there at the top of their best-ever moments – and the start of one of the greatest adventures of their lives!

A/N: While waiting for the next chapters; try Googling Heirs of the Magi and check out the daily journals of Magi Master Cassie Proctor; or pick up the Heirs of the Magi books through Smashwords and other major ebook retailers. The Heirs of the Magi is an original, epic adventure; and the first three novels are available as well as the collections of Cassie's Journals. If you're enjoying 'After the War'; I hope you'll like visiting Witch Falls too!

**A/N 2** The continuing story for After the War is temporarily on hold because I couldn't keep the imagining of the continuing story for Harry Potter - After the Epilogue bottled up anymore! ATE Yr1 is now posted, and while I will get around to finishing this story too; it seems that AFter the Epilogue wants to come out of me first - and there will be a total of nine years for that story - including all of Albus and Lily Potter's years at Hogwarts and beyond!