Harry ends up having dinner at Ron and Hermione’s that night in the sort of absent- minded way he often does, where one minute he’s talking about a case at the office with Ron and the next he’s blinking and kissing Hermione on the cheek as he takes off his coat. He doesn’t mind it—he’s grateful for it—but he can’t help but wonder some nights if he isn’t… imposing on them. Forcing himself where he does not belong.

The roast is good tonight, though, so Harry tries not to think about it.

They spend a few minutes going over Hermione’s day, always an interesting discussion —you couldn’t pay Harry to work the judicial side of the law, but Hermione seems to enjoy it, and she’ll be Chief Witch of the Wizengamot one of these days—before they cycle back around to the Malfoy case. Rose laughs her sticky-fingered amusement right along with Ron as he tells, with what Harry privately thinks is a lot more delight than is really professional, the story of Harry and Malfoy’s weird little impromptu skit. Harry defends himself the best he can—”It was for the children, Hermione!”—but eventually he gives in and sighs, laughs a little along with them.

“Fine,” he admits, grinning slightly, “it waspletely mental. But what was I supposed to do? Malfoy’d already told them the whole thing was play-acting, I couldn’t very well say, ‘No, kids, actually you’re all lucky to be alive, if Mr. Malfoy’s house elf hadn’te and got us you’d probably all have been killed!’ No. I had to go along,pletely barmy though it was.”

Ron nods enthusiastically, swallowing a mouthful of potato. “Mad as a brush, that Malfoy,” he says, sounding immensely pleased to have the opportunity to do so, before he fixes his eyes on Harry. “Meant to ask you about that, actually—why didn’t you finish the interview? Did he go off on one or something?”

Harry looks at him blankly. “What?”

“I saw your initial report,” Ron says slowly. “The whole backside of the page was blank. Harry, did you et to finish filling it out again? You know your backlog is already massive.”

Harry closes his eyes briefly, the words “Details of the Crime,” and the entire page of empty space to write swimming behind his eyelids. He hadn’t otten to fill it out; he’d otten to even ask, distracted by…whatever. The way Malfoy kept looking like he was about to scream or cry or be sick or something, just for a second, before he went back to looking like a ferret-faced posh bastard without a care in the world.

“Er,” Harry says, opening his eyes. “Yeah, I, er, did. et. To write it down, I mean. I’m going back in the next day or so, though,” he adds quickly, “to get some additional details, do some more digging, so. I’ll definitely get it done.”

For some reason, this sentence triggers an apprehensive look between Ron and Hermione, who quickly looks back to Harry, takes a sip of her wine, and says, in a falsely bright tone, “Paperwork is very important, you know, Harry. I know it doesn’t always seem that way, but it’s really a cornerstone of our justice system. Why, just the other day I was having a conversation with—”

“Wait,” Harry says slowly, his mind working. Why would Ron and Hermione be worried about Harry going back to Grimmauld Place? What could they possibly be worried he would find or figure out, except—one of the Hogwarts governesses, Malfoy had said—and that he wasn’t responsible for the name L.E.A.R.N.—

“Oh my god!” Harry says, pointing a wild finger at Hermione and then staring at it, slightly horrified with himself. He drops his hand but not his tone as he continues, “You knew! You knew I’d sold my house to Draco Malfoy and you didn’t tell me! God, you’ve known for years, haven’t you?” he demands, suddenly remembering the night Hermione told him the place had been converted, the sharp, probing way she asked if he thought he’d ever drop by. At the time he’d thought she was trying to get at his Deep Emotional Baggage or whatever, but: “You’ve known since the first time you went and saw the museum!”

“I,” says Hermione, clutching at her wine. She opens her eyes too wide, that I’m- innocent-please-ive-me look Harry most strongly associates with missing bites of his dessert, and then, quailing under Harry’s ferocious glare, blurts out, “Ron knew too!”

“Divorce,” Ron gasps, turning to stare at her. Harry, who spent several months a few years back quietly panicking every time either of them said this before he recognized it was a joke, settles back in his chair to glower, arms crossed over his chest. Ron casts a look his way, grimaces, and then turns back to Hermione. “I can’t believe you’d just throw me under the bus like that! Divorce for sure, I no longer feel this marriage is built on a foundation of trust.”

“Well it’s the truth,” Hermione says, and turns beseeching eyes on Harry. “Please don’t be angry, Harry. We didn’t want to keep it from you, we just. Well!” She turns her pleading look on Ron, who, for all he was threatening to divorce her a mere twelve seconds ago, caves under it a lot quicker than Harry would have.

“It’s only,” Ron says, and takes a long swig of his wine, clearly to brace himself. “You— well. You know how you can get, Harry. About Malfoy.”

“What?” Harry says, staring at both of them. “Sorry, what? No, I don’t know how I can get about Malfoy, what are you even talking about?”

“Oh, Harry,” says Hermione, sounding very pitying.

“Mate,” Ron says, in the same tone. “C’mon. This is a safe space.”

“Also, we were there,” adds Hermione, with a heavy sigh. “Remember in sixth year? When you were so obsessed with him that we weren’t allowed to talk about anything else?”

“He was doing evil,” Harry protests, outraged. “And I was doing my best to thwart evil! That’s not obsessive, that’s—that’s—civic-minded!”

“Civic-minded, was it, to sit up all night watching his name move around the Slytherinmon room on the Marauder’s Map?” Ron does not sound convinced. Also, he sounds like maybe he thinks Harry has suffered some sort of traumatic brain injury in the last ten minutes; it’s not abination Harry enjoys. “I swear, one night we were down in themon room and I said, ‘Youing to bed, Harry?’ and you said—”

“Oh god, I remember this,” Hermione interrupts, and groans. “You said ‘I won’t rest until Malfoy does!’ Then you threw a paperweight at the wall, and it exploded.”

“I loved that paperweight,” Ron says mournfully. “It died too young.”

“Well!” Harry says. He feels boxed in by the joint weight of their disapproving stares, and a little wildly he fixes his eyes on baby Rose, who at least is too young to judge him. “Well, okay, fine, maybe in sixth year I was a bit—but it was sixth year. I had a lot going on and maybe, fine, maybe I did get, I suppose, a little fixated on the whole Malfoy thing, but that’s one year! One! That’s hardly a basis—”

“Oh, Harry,” Hermione says, now sounding so pitying that Harry wants to die.

“My mum and dad used to talk about it,” Ron says, with the air of a man laying down a trump card. He nods when Harry turns, agape, to stare at him in horror. “Yep. Yes. They did. My mum always said it wasn’t natural for a child to have a nemesis, and then my dad would say that he was sure that if the Malfoy boy was anything like his father he was a terror and deserved it. And then Mum would say, ‘Yes, Arthur, I’m sure he does, but I’m not worried about him, even Fred and Ge never had nemeses,’ and then Dad would say of course they had, but not sounding very sure about it. And Mum would say no, they didn’t, they had prank targets which admittedly also was not very healthy, but they’d never actually singled out and declared violent hatred for one of the other schoolchildren. And then Dad would mutter something about keeping an eye on you and have a large drink, which, as we all know, meant he agreed with her but didn’t think you’d be keen on hearing that little boys shouldn’t have eternal undying feuds of hate with their classmates!”

Ron leans back in his chair, looking triumphant. Harry slides down in his own, wishing there were a way to slip under the table and Disapparate without them noticing he’s gone.

“This might be the most humiliating moment of my life,” Harry tells Rose, who gurgles at him and gleefully smears mashed carrot across his sweater. Seems about right.

“The point is, Harry,” Hermione says, her tone brisk now, “for obvious reasons, we thought it might be better to just leave the whole Grimmauld Place thing alone. Malfoy’s never been any better about you, after all, and you didn’t even want to know who’d bought the place. You could have found out easily, but you never did, so we thought we’d leave well enough alone.”

“Yeah, mate,” Ron says, and shrugs. “We weren’t trying to keep you in the dark, but. If this hadn’t happened today, you’d’ve kept on the way you’ve been and probably never even found out about it, don’t you reckon? And we just thought that might be…better. In the long run.”

“I’m not a child,” Harry mutters, and looks away from their twin stares. “And I’m not —I’ve never been—whatever, obsessed with Malfoy, you two are off your nut. He just drives me a bit mad, is all, but I’ll go back and get the rest of his statement—”

“Wait, you didn’t even take the other part of his statement?” exclaims Ron, eyebrows raising. “Harry, that’s the most important part of the whole interview!"

“I will go back and take the rest of his statement and get whatever information I need and solve this case and then that is it,” Harry says, and stabs vengefully at his roast. “Okay? All right? Is that enough to get me off the hook here, judges? I’ll do my job and then get on with it like the adult that I am. All right?”

Hermione and Ron share that apprehensive glance again, but then Hermione sighs, gives Harry a long look. “Fine. You’re right, you’re an adult, and we’ll drop it.”

“I’m locking all my paperweights in the office safe,” Ron says darkly. Harry ignores him.

He sends Malfoy an Owl the next morning. After several different atte

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