Gryffindor Investigations

Summer turned into autumn, the kind of cool, crisp autumns Harry had always loved and dreaded as a boy. Loved, he knew now, because the turning of the seasons had always resonated pleasantly in his magical senses. Dreaded, because autumn meant school, where Dudley would pummel him and the other children would laugh at him, and because his opportunities to avoid his aunt and uncle were sharply limited.

*Amazing,* Harry mused as he sat drinking tea in his backyard garden one lazy Tuesday afternoon. *I still associate autumn with them. Even after all my time at Hogwarts, all those summers marking the calendar until September the first. I guess we never really outgrow our childhoods. I wonder how Dudley’s doing?*

Harry had had exactly one letter from the Dursleys since leaving Privet Drive (Merlin, was it really six years ago, now?). That letter had come from Dudley, about two years after the final battle against Voldemort. The letter had been surprisingly literate; in fact, for Dudley, it was practically eloquent. His massive cousin had been about to move to the States, in order to develop the only real talent he had: beating other people up.

Even having been raised in the Muggle world, Harry had found it hard to follow Dudley’s letter. Odd, unfamiliar terms like “dojo”, “Octagon”, and “BJJ”—clearly an abbreviation of some kind, but Harry had no idea what the letters stood for—had been splashed across the page with a liberal hand. But while Harry had been spotty on the details, the gist of the letter was clear. Dudley would be doing some serious training in some kind of martial art, he would have little time for visiting his family—and, despite his parents’ attitudes, he firmly included Harry in that category.

Harry shook his head in bemusement. He closed his eyes, leaned back, and allowed his mind to wander, conjuring up a fantasy childhood in which he and Dudley had grown up the best of friends, more like brothers than cousins, utterly inseparable. Getting into scrapes, getting out of them, having adventures, sharing secrets, playfully rough and tumbling around the house as Aunt Petunia looked on nervously, wondering what would be broken this time. A completely idyllic childhood, from start to finish.

*But then,* he mused, *if things had been that wonderful, I might not have wanted to go to Hogwarts, not if going meant being separated from Dudley. And I definitely wouldn’t have responded as strongly as I did to Ron and his family, if my own had been even remotely tolerable.*

A light tap on his shoulder made him open his eyes. As if Harry’s thoughts had conjured him, Ron was standing there, a warm smile on his face. “You must be psychic,” Harry murmured. “I was just thinking about you.”

“Was I naked?” Ron asked hopefully, with a lascivious grin.

“Nope, you were eleven, so I didn’t think you being naked would be a good idea.”

Ron pursed his lips, pretending to consider it. “Probably not,” he agreed in a sad tone of voice. “Guess who’s here? Dean Thomas.”

“No way!” Harry sprang to his feet. “Where is he?”

In the sitting room, as it turned out. Harry gave a loud whoop of joy at seeing him again, and the two ex-Gryffindors caught each other up in a rough hug, slapping each other on the back and laughing like children.

“Dean, mate, it’s brilliant to see you!” Harry crowed. He stepped back to look at his former schoolmate, and definitely approved of what he saw. Tall, lean, graceful—Dean was an incredibly handsome man. And, judging from the dragonskin jacket draped over the back of the chair he’d been sitting in, a very prosperous one.

“It’s just as good to see you—BOTH of you—too,” Dean replied. “I can’t tell you how relieved I was when Neville told me you two were friends again. That time, fourth year, when you weren’t talking to each other,” he shook his head, “you both just seemed incomplete without each other—and believe me, it was NOT fun having a front row seat for that!”

“Will it help if we said we were sorry?” Ron asked sheepishly, but with a big grin on his face.

“Maybe,” Dean said. “IF you promise that this is it, and you’ll never be so stupid again…and if I can ask you for some help.”

Harry was slightly taken aback. “Personal help?” he asked cautiously. “Or professional help?”

“Professional.”

Reflex took over. Harry’s mindless enthusiasm vanished as if by magic, to be replaced by a cool, analytical professionalism that now would examine everything Dean said, every nuance in his speech, every gesture and mannerism. And, to Harry’s mild surprise, Ron was doing the same.

“Let’s sit down,” he said, “and you can tell us what the problem is. Start at the beginning, and tell us everything—it doesn’t matter if you don’t think it’s important, because it might turn out to be after all.”

Kreacher chose that moment to enter the room with his usual impeccable timing, bearing a cart holding tea and light sandwiches. The three men helped themselves liberally (Ron grabbed three sandwiches right off the bat), and as they ate and drank, Dean began his story.

“We all sort of lost touch with each other after we left Hogwarts,” he said slowly, "so I don’t know how much you know of what I’ve been doing the last five years.”

“Some kind of game, right?” Ron hazarded.

Dean smiled. “Close. Harry, you were raised with Muggles, same as me—you must know about video games, right?”

Harry grinned. “Yep. Dudley always seemed to have a million of them, and they all seemed to involve blowing something up, or shooting it, or taking a chainsaw to it, or…”

“Right,” Dean said. “That’s the stuff.”

Ron was incredulous, his face a mask of complete bafflement. “And Muggles……thought that was fun?”

“Muggle children, at any rate,” Dean said, taking a sip of tea.

“Of all ages,” Harry put in around a mouthful of sandwich. He’d caught Uncle Vernon playing with one of Dudley’s more violent games once, and the older man had been practically foaming at the mouth.

“Right,” Dean said again. “Well, obviously, the Wizarding world hadn’t ever heard of the concept—which is where I came in. You, mates, are looking at the proud inventor of magical video games.”

“No way!” Ron exclaimed.

“It’s true.” Dean executed a little mini-bow in his chair. “The whole idea was to cast illusion spells into something that would hold enough of the magic to make it complex enough to keep someone’s attention. After that, it was just getting a couple of blokes who were good at the business end, and getting funding.”

“And you cast the illusions,” Ron said shrewdly, “because that was always your strongest magic, mostly because you were already so brilliant at drawing on paper, drawing in thin air was easy for you.”

“Right again, Ron,” Dean said. He drained off the last of his tea, then continued, “So it’s me, my two partners, a couple of younger wizards who handle the administrative and detail work. My partners handle the advertising and the money, and I keep casting illusions.”

“You must be casting a lot of them, if you’re doing that well,” Harry noted. “How are you managing it?”

“By not eating and sleeping enough,” Dean admitted sheepishly, “up until last week—which, hopefully, is where you two come in.”

“I don’t follow,” Harry said.

“You remember those Galleons we had when we were in the D.A?” Dean asked. “The ones that Hermione magicked to tell us the time and place of the next D.A. meeting?

“Yeah,” Ron replied as he finished his last sandwich. “What about them?”

“She wasn’t entirely accurate when she told us how she made them. Remember, she told us she’d put A Protean Charm, singular, on them.” Dean shook his head. “Well, when I was starting up the business, I asked her how she’d managed to cast the spell so that it went into each Galleon in exactly the same way—and she told me that, actually, she’d put a Protean Charm on EACH of them. She had to cast the spell on each one of them in turn.”

He poured himself another cup of tea and continued. “And that was just for something simple. I was doing complex illusions, and I could keep it up for a while, but I needed a better answer for the long term. And that’s what led me to the Replicator.”

“Replicator?” Harry and Ron asked in unison.

“Jinx,” Dean said automatically, grinning. “Yeah. It’s not even on the market yet, it’s that new. Basically, it’s the magic spell equivalent of a photocopier; it replicates any spell you cast, as many times you need it to, up to a thousandfold.”

“No way!” Harry exclaimed, almost spilling his tea. “I’ve never heard of anything like that!”

“I did say it wasn’t on the market yet,” Dean pointed out. “It’s only because of Jack—Jack MacGuinness, one of my partners—that we were able to hear about it at all. His brother-in-law’s on the team developing it; Jack was able to get him to let us try a n advanced prototype.

“About a week ago, Jack’s brother-in-law—Michael Archer’s his name—was supposed to deliver the prototype to us. He definitely left his house that morning—Jack’s sister saw him off—but he never got to his lab, and he never got to us.”

“What did the Aurors say?” Ron asked.

Dean rolled his eyes to the ceiling in exasperation. “They’re ‘following all leads’—which means, of course…”

“That they don’t have any,” Harry finished. “Did they try to trace him magically?”

“Yes,” Dean said grimly. “And they couldn’t find anything.”

“Which means that someone’s blocking their trace.” Harry nodded thoughtfully. “Dean, you’ve got yourself a couple of agents. We’ll owl over a copy of our standard contract tomorrow, but for now…”

He stood up, offering Dean his hand, but Dean, after climbing to his own feet, waved it aside and caught Harry up in a rough hug before either Harry or Ron could stop him. “Damn, it’s good to see you both again,” he murmured, squeezing Harry tight to him. Harry, taken completely off guard, could definitely feel the hard, tight muscles in Dean’s arms and torso—and something else, just as hard, somewhat lower.

And then he released Harry, collected his jacket, and was gone.

Harry stared at the front door, then became painfully aware of Ron’s eyes on HIM. He turned sheepishly; Ron’s eyebrow was up, and his body was relaxing from what had been an ever-so-slight fighting stance. “Do you know where that came from?” Ron asked.

“No!” Harry gasped. “NO idea, honest!”

Ron nodded. “Still, between him tonight, and Neville when we were working on the Cryne case……”

“All we need is Seamus to say he fancies us both, and we’ll complete the set,” Harry said, still bemused.

“At this point, unless he knows where this Archer bloke might be, Seamus doesn’t matter,” Ron said sourly. “Any ideas?”

“I’ll check with my mates in the Aurors, see if he emptied the bank account, if he’s used his charge cards, that sort of thing. And, maybe……”

He looked at Ron apprehensively. Ron’s ears reddened under the scrutiny. “Maybe?” he asked.

Harry took a deep breath. “We could ask Hermione for help.”

Ron’s flush spread to his cheeks. His fists clenched and unclenched, and his body became rigid with barely controlled rage. Finally, he turned on his heel and stalked out of the room. Somewhere in the house, Harry heard a door slam angrily, and he was fairly certain it hadn’t been Kreacher.

And, as if the universe were trying to prove that, the house-elf appeared, bearing a cart ahead of him. He inched into the room very tentatively, as if afraid of what Harry might do, and, to put the house-elf at his ease, Harry immediately said, “It’s all right, Kreacher. Please, relax.”

“Master Ron seemed to be unhappy, Kreacher noticed,” the house-elf said as he began to gathering up the tea things.

“He was,” Harry replied as he threw himself on the couch, “but it had nothing to do with you, Kreacher. I said something that upset him, that’s all.”

The house-elf paused in this work, and gave Harry a very curious look. “Something wrong, Kreacher?” Harry asked.

“Kreacher is not sure if he should speak, Master Harry,” Kreacher replied evasively.

“Please do, Kreacher.” Harry smiled. “I can make that an order, if you’d prefer, but right now, it’s only a request.”

“Master Harry is kind,” Kreacher smiled. “Master Ron was speaking to himself as he passed Kreacher. Kreacher does not think Master Ron even knew Kreacher was there. Master Ron said many things, but Kreacher especially remembers that he said a name Kreacher thought he recognized. It was the name of the young witch who lived here briefly with Master Harry, Kreacher thinks.” Even after all this time, Kreacher still could not bring himself to say Hermione’s name.

“If the name was ‘Hermione,’ you’re right, Kreacher.”

“Kreacher was sure he was.” He began to clean up again, but continued to speak. “Even then, Kreacher was sure that Master Ron loved this witch……but now, Kreacher is just as sure that the love is gone. There is only hurt, and deep anger, and Kreacher wonders why.”

Harry sighed. “Ron and Hermione did end up making a pair of it, Kreacher,” he said sadly, “but it didn’t end well, and it ended more or less because of me. Even though Ron and I are together now, I don’t think he’s ever really gotten over it. And I just suggested we get her to help us with a problem, which must have made him feel even worse.”

“Would Master Harry like Kreacher’s advice?”

Harry was quite taken aback; the house-elf’s eyes were burning with a dreadful intensity, far more emotion than Harry had ever seen in him before. “Yes, I would, Kreacher,” he said carefully. “What is it?”

“Master Ron must face his feelings about this young witch, and about their time together, and about how it ended,” Kreacher said firmly. “As Kreacher is sure Master knows, the heart is as important to magic as the mind. If Master Ron allows his feelings to remain as they are, unruled, unchecked, unresolved, the hurt will only grow. It will fester inside him until it, not he, rules the magic.” Kreacher’s eyes grew solemn. “And if it comes to that, Master Harry, you will be the one who will bear the consequences.”

“What do you mean by that?” Harry asked sharply.

“Master Harry is one who loves,” Kreacher said, “and is loved in return. Kreacher has seen, many times, what happens when one continues to love and the other does not – or CANnot. Kreacher fears that Master Ron may become one who cannot love—that he will shut himself away from love, from any sort of feeling at all, because the risk of being hurt is too great.”

Harry stood up. “I’d better talk to him,” he said. He strode toward the door, and then paused, and turned to look at the house-elf. “Kreacher…”

The house-elf was collecting the last of the tea things. “Kreacher has much work to do, Master Harry,” he said shortly—but Harry could see an amused glint in this eyes. “And so does Master Harry.”