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Advice 2: Wheel of Fortune	By : Chocho Category: Harry Potter AU/AR > Slash - Male/Male Views: 3448 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or the characters, places or names. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Day I
- 2-Day II
- 3-Day III
- 4-Plus
- 1
- 2
- 3
Advice 2: Wheel of Fortune

Three-Shot

Sequel to: Advice

Written by: chochowilliams

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Summary: While a rift forms between the Golden Trio, and Harry and Ginny start having premarital problems, Harry and Draco are growing closer. When a Ministry official is assassinated and the prime suspect turns out to be Draco, just how close these ex-rivals have become is revealed.

Warning: AU, infidelity, romance, drama, slash, OC character death, bashing, possible OOCness, OCs, m-preg, sexual situations

Pairing: Harry/Draco, Hermione/Ron. Mentioned: past Draco/Astoria, Astoria/OMC, Harry/Ginny, Ginny/Michael Corner

Inserts: recap from chapter 1

A/N: Enjoy!

+ HARRY POTTER + ADVICE 2: WHEEL OF FORTUNE +

Last Time

He’d readily admit to finding Draco attractive. It was fact like the sky being blue and the grass being green. So what? Even the straightest of men would find Draco to be a good-looking bloke. He’d even admit to having several very erotic wet dreams staring the blond Adonis as of late. But that didn’t mean anything. Who didn’t have a homoerotic dream at least once? It was no big deal. Dreams weren’t meant to be taken literally after all. Just because he’d dreamt of this very scenario countless times didn’t mean that over the course of their post-Hogwarts relationship, he’d fallen in love with the man.

If that were the case, though, then why wasn’t he telling Draco to stop?

Panting, Harry rocked his hips in time to the hand jerking him off. He dropped his head back against the top of the sofa as the building pleasure overcame any doubts and questions and uncertainties.

Harry watched Draco from hooded eyes as the blond haired blue eyed Potions Master slid off the sofa and sank to his knees in front of him. Draco looked up and caught his eye. Harry’s breath hitched.

Without taking his eyes away from the lust filled emerald ones, Draco unclasped Harry’s pants and lowered the zipper, being carefully not to get Harry caught.

Harry gulped. He clawed at the delicate fabric covering the cushions. His toes dug grooves into the floor.

Draco grabbed Harry’s cock, hard yet soft and throbbing, and freed it from its uncomfortable confinement. When he took the entire length into his mouth, worshipping it, loving it, Harry’s eyes rolled back as wave after wave of pleasure rolled through him. Moans and grunts and other nonsensical noise filled the otherwise quiet of the house.

Harry knew he should stop Draco before it escalated any further, but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember why.

+ HARRY POTTER + ADVICE 2: WHEEL OF FORTUNE +

CHAPTER II: Day Two

Midnight - Saint Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries - London, England

All the shops were closed for the night and the usually bustling streets were empty but for the random witch or wizard heading to or from the Leaky Caldron. Even Knockturn Alley was free of its more questionable clientele. The only exception was Saint Mungo’s, which was bustling even at this late hour. Despite the hustle and bustle, there was an underlying quiet.

Into that silent silence, the elevator pinged and the doors slid open. Later, when questioned, nobody would be able to identify who stepped out the elevator, or if anybody had even been on the elevator at all. Nobody saw anything. Nobody heard anything. The Killer preferred it that way, as he was here to end the life of Head Auror Heinin Pieletska, permanently.

Pieletska should have died in his office that morning from a stroke. Obviously, that had not gone as planned. If it hadn’t been for Auror Harry Potter and his quick thinking that was what would have happened. That was neither here nor there though. The Killer was more of a hands-on type anyway.

Stepping out of the elevator, The Killer glanced around just as it struck midnight. Pieletska’s room was supposed to be located on this floor. According to Intelligence, there weren’t any guards posted outside Pieletska’s room, which was an unusual move for the Head Auror as Heinin Pieletska was a serious paranoid schizophrenic. The man believed everyone was out to get him and therefore had bodyguards with him everywhere he went; even to take a shit--Pieletska reminded The Killer of a mild-mannered version of Fudge when rumors of Voldemort’s return started surfacing. Though, it made no difference either way. Guards or no guards, nothing and no one would be able to put a halt to this mission.

As it was the ambiguous time between yesterday and tomorrow, The Killer was surprised to see just how busy Saint Mungo’s was. It wasn’t nearly as busy as it was during the daytime, but there was still more employees running around than he’d expected at this time of night. Some of them were rather rambunctious as well. How did they expect their patients to rest with their merrymaking?

Taking a moment to familiarize himself with where he was in relation to Pieletska’s room, The Killer strode down the corridor confidently and slipped inside Pieletska’s room without being seen or stopped. Just as expected, there’d been no Aurors standing guard outside the room nor were they waiting in ambush within.

Perfect.

The Killer did make note of Brónach Pieletska fast asleep in one of the visitor chairs, though, her presence mattered little. She would never know he was even here.

The Killer ghosted towards the bed in which Pieletska slept a sleep from which he would never wake. “Good night sweet prince,” he whispered.

In a matter of seconds, Heinin Pieletska was no more.

The Killer slipped out of the room and vanished just as mysteriously as he’d appeared.

+ HARRY POTTER + ADVICE 2: WHEEL OF FORTUNE +

Same Time - Potter Residence - 23 Pasteur Drive, Swindon, Wiltshire, England

Harry was not sure how it happened--any of it; not how he’d become such good friends with Draco Malfoy and especially not how he’d ended up naked in bed with Draco equally naked above him, covering every sweat slickened inch of skin with kisses.

It was mind-boggling.

Falling in love with Draco had been a different experience than it had been with Ginny. It hadn’t been love at first sight with either of them. In fact, he hadn’t realized that he was falling until he hit the ground. With Ginny, it started out as jealousy. He and Draco had started out as rivals, and then became acquaintances during the Death Eater trials. When Harry started consulting with Draco on various cases, they’d become friends of a sort. It hadn’t taken long for Harry to call Draco a best friend, much to the chagrin of just about everyone. Now they were lovers. During this long transition period, it’d been more than just the status of their relationship that changed. His feelings had as well. It was only now that he understood. The status of his and Ginny’s relationship, or lack thereof, made more sense as well now.

Draco made him happy. Without the blond at his side, he was cold and alone and wanted nothing more than to curl up into a ball and die. Draco made him smile until his cheeks hurt and laugh until he couldn’t breathe. Harry was always coming up with excuses to see Draco. The first few times Harry asked Draco to work with him as a consultant had been out of necessity, but all too soon, Harry found himself calling Draco in when there was no reason to bring him in on the case. More often than not, he’d call on Draco’s services just to get his opinion instead of asking Ron or one of the other Aurors who worked for him in the Homicide Division, which would have been more prudent. When out and about, Harry would hope to run into Draco or he’d see something in a shop window that would remind him of Draco. He’d hear jokes or other bits of trivia he’d remind himself he had to tell Draco or ask him to clarify.

When Draco finally entered him for the first time after what felt like an eternity of foreplay, there was pain and tears and a steady stream of cursing from Harry and soothing whispers from Draco. It was almost too much. Then he was being rocked and nothing else mattered. It was a steady rhythm that thrust nonsensical utterances out of his mouth, echoed by Draco above him and inside him and over him, and washed away the pain in wave after wave of pleasure so intense Harry wanted to cry. It enveloped him, filled him, and colored his world in a wash of color. Harry met Draco thrust for thrust, forcing him deeper, harder, faster. The pleasure built. As it intensified, so did their once steady rhythm. They cried out as it reached its pinnacle and exploded.

They rode out the pleasure.

Panting, his white blond hair plastered to his flushed and sweat drenched face, Draco collapsed on top of Harry who didn’t have the energy to grimace at the feel of his ejaculate sandwiched between them. He had to admit that the feel of Draco’s trickling out of his anus and down his thigh, though a bit strange, was a-freaking-mazing.

All too soon, Harry felt Draco hardening within him and blushed.

Draco rose up on his hands and knees in a sort of pushup motion and gazed down at him. His beautiful blue-gray eyes darkened with lust and desire and something else that had Harry’s blush darkening. Draco leaned down and captured Harry’s lips. Desire shot through Harry. Then Draco was pulling away, sliding out of him. Harry whined at the loss. With a devilish smirk and a snap of his hips, Draco entered Harry for the second time that night, forcing out a sharp passion filled cry, and all was delirium.

This cycle continued long into the night and into the early morning hours.

Draco had become his whole world. How this happened, Harry was still not sure, but it had and Harry wouldn’t change it for anything in the world.

+ HARRY POTTER + ADVICE 2: WHEEL OF FORTUNE +

Same Time - The Burrow - Outside Ottery St. Catchpole, Devon, England

The Burrow was silent but for the occasional creak and groan. In through the open windows came the soothing sound of crickets and the throaty chortles from an owl as well as the glow of the moon. It illuminated the kitchen where the dishes were silently washing themselves. In the master bedroom, it shone upon a pale arm that was thrown over the side of the bed. In another bedroom, the moonlight sailed in through the open window and highlighted a shaking form that lay curled on its side under a thin white sheet, sobbing quietly into a pillow.

Even in sleep, Ginny couldn’t out run that cold dread.

“…Malfoy seems to be the only one who can talk sense into Harry…If you force Harry to choose between you and Malfoy…He will choose Malfoy over you.”

Those words echoed repeatedly in her mind, haunting her.

She loved Harry, always had, always would. She wanted things between them to work. She wanted him to want her, to love her, to hold her. She wanted to marry him and become Mrs. Harry Potter. She wanted to have his children and grow old with him. She wanted to fall asleep in his arms and wake up besides him. She wanted what her parents had, what Bill and Fleur had, what Ron and Hermione had. Was that too much to ask?

+ HARRY POTTER + ADVICE 2: WHEEL OF FORTUNE +

Same Time - Weasley Residence - Ottery St. Catchpole, Devon, England

Hermione could not sleep.

Besides her, Ron tossed and turned, mumbling something or other that she could not make out before settling back down. Within seconds, his heavy snores filled the otherwise silent house. Rolling her eyes, Hermione elbowed her husband. In his sleep, Ron grunted and flipped onto his side. The snores halted briefly before starting up again. Turning onto her side with her back to her husband, Hermione reached for her wand and cast a nonverbal silence charm at the ginger-haired Auror. Instantly, blessed silence filled the house. Sighing, Hermione returned her wand to her bedside table and took to staring out the open window.

She couldn’t stop thinking about her conversation with Ginny. With each replay, the fleeting unease would intensify. Ignoring it only made it worse. Trying to prove it was unfounded wasn’t working either. She kept flashing back to what she’d seen of Harry’s interaction with Draco and then comparing it to how Harry and Ginny acted when they were together.

It was no contest.

Harry was more outgoing when he was with Draco, happier, more like the Harry she used to know. With Ginny, Harry was becoming increasingly withdrawn. Hermione had chalked that up to Harry’s demanding career, but now she wasn’t so sure. Then, of course, look at how long it had taken Harry to ask Ginny to marry him. Four years. At this rate, it’ll take another four years for him and Ginny to plan their wedding. And they still weren’t even living together.

That really didn’t mean anything though, right? Right, she decided with renewed determination. All Harry and Ginny needed was to sit down and talk. A relationship could not thrive if there was no communication and with both of them being consumed by their chosen careers, it was difficult to have that, but it was something they would have to strive for if they wanted their relationship to work.

She ignored that rebellious voice in the back of her mind that asked, What if they don’t?

+ HARRY POTTER + ADVICE 2: WHEEL OF FORTUNE +

Dawn - Saint Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries - London, England

Brónach Pieletska was grateful to the staff at Saint Mungo’s for allowing her to remain by her husband’s bedside through the night.

Stiff from having fallen asleep in the chair, Brónach Pieletska sat up and groaned. She issued a steady stream of hisses as she worked out the kinks that had developed kinks of their own. Note, she thought with a sigh, never fall asleep in a chair again.

Standing, she shuffled to her husband’s bedside and sandwiched his hand between her own with her usual “good morning sweetheart” on her lips as she bent down to kiss him. The greeting died before it could even be formed and her downward movement stopped abruptly, ending with her bent over at nearly a ninety-degree angle over the bed.

Heinin’s hand was cold. Heinin was never cold, not even in the winter. She often joked with her husband that he had no need for a warming charm for he had his very own internal furnace keeping him warm. It was infuriating. While the rest of them were freezing their behinds off (even bundled up and with warming charms), her husband was roasty, toasty warm as he strutted around practically naked. So the fact that he was cool to the touch was not a good sign.

The beginning of panic clawed at her belly.

“Heinin?” she whispered over the thudding of her heart.

Her screaming sobs a few moments later had a horde of medical staff as well as security guards rushing into the room. They found Brónach Pieletska sobbing hysterically over her husband’s prone, pale form.

Try as they might, nothing anyone did helped. At six-oh-three in the morning, Heinin Pieletska, Head Auror, was pronounced dead.

+ HARRY POTTER + ADVICE 2: WHEEL OF FORTUNE +

Late Morning - Potter Residence - 23 Pasteur Drive, Swindon, Wiltshire, England

With a cup of coffee in one hand and The Daily Prophet in the other, Harry was sitting at the table in what Draco had taken to call “the breakfast nook” situated in the old solarium off the kitchen late the next morning. In the kitchen, Kreacher was working on breakfast.

“Anything interesting?”

Folding the corner of the paper down, Harry peered over the top to watch Draco strut barefoot into the solarium holding a folded sheet of parchment. As the sight of the older blond wizard, whose hair was still damp from his shower, Harry’s face grew warm as the events of the night before replayed in his mind.

Flat on his back with Draco over him in a mock pushup stance, thrusting into him with a snap of his hips, going deeper and harder and faster and Oh god, yes! Draco flipping them about so that Harry was riding him. Draco’s hands, lips, teeth and tongue groping, sucking, nipping and licking. Fingers probing and tweaking and dancing.

If the smirk on Draco’s face was any indication, he knew exactly what was going through Harry’s mind.

Harry tore he gaze away from the sight of Draco in a pair of fashionably distressed jeans and a black t-shirt with Metallica printed across the chest. They were Harry’s, but since Draco didn’t have any clothes other than the ones he’d worn the day before (and magic or not, Draco never wore the same clothing twice), he’d had to borrow some from Harry. Draco had had to resize the articles of clothing as the two of them weren‘t the same size. They now fit Draco like a glove, hugging him in all the right places.

“Morning,” Harry greeted his lover who rounded the table to kiss him. It was a brief press of lips, but it left Harry breathless and blushing nonetheless.

“Morning,” Draco returned with another smirk.

Harry cleared his throat. “Clarkson and Mabes ended some standoff in Kingston without any casualties and without altering the Muggles to what was going on,” Harry answered as Draco sat down opposite him. Folding the paper, he set it aside and then took a sip of his coffee. It was starting to cool so with a subtle wave of his hand, steam was rising from the mug of once again hot coffee.

Draco snorted as a cup of tea appeared on the table before him. “And why do I have the urge to say, ‘Bullshit‘?” he commented.

To put it simply, Clarkson and Mabes--mostly Clarkson--were total screw-ups and incompetent Aurors, but Pieletska kept them on because they were the grandchildren of two very influential Wizengamot members. The bullshit and nonsensical assignment were usually assigned to them, assignments the two managed to screw-up more often than not despite the supposed ease of said assignments. For example, several months back, they had to rescue a kneazle who had become stuck in an old coal shoot. They ended up burning down the house. No one was sure how that happened.

Harry laughed.

To keep from launching himself across the table and fucking Harry right there, Draco occupied himself with taking a sip of his tea. He practically moaned as the flavor of the tea exploded in his mouth. His eyes fluttered closed. As haughty as Harry’s house-elf could be, it sure knew how to brew a perfect cup of tea. The tightening of his groin that was caused in direct correlation to Harry’s laughter was all but forgotten in the wake of the orgasm in his mouth.

“Good tea?” Harry teased, his emerald eyes dancing with mirth.

“Silence,” ordered Draco in all seriousness. “You‘re ruining the post-coital bliss.”

Harry snorted. “Git.”

Smirking, Draco relinquished the hold on the antique teacup.

The first time he was shown the eighteen piece tea set, it had come as no surprise to learn that Harry had procured it from an estate sale for a knut on the galleon and all because he‘d graced the family with his presence. If they were still boyhood rivals at Hogwarts, Draco would have teased and taunted Harry mercilessly. As it was, Draco couldn’t because he’d been able to purchase several priceless pieces from that same estate sale all because he could claim to be Harry Potter’s best friend.

“Much to my devastation, there was not a single article about me,” Harry continued as he shadowed Draco’s move and set his mug down on the table.

“Oh the horror,” Draco replied monotonically.

Harry laughed.

Draco’s cock twitched.

“No, seriously, you know how there’s usually at least one reporter camped out in front of the house?”

“Harry, you sneeze and it makes the front page.”

“Yeah, usually accompanied by bold headlines that claim I have only days to live,” Harry laughed. Not only The Daily Prophet, but other various wizarding rags--excluding The Quibbler--have tried to kill him off so many times, in various ways, Harry lost count. Apparently, nothing else happens in the Wizarding World. “There wasn’t anything about me and Ginny or that fight I had with Hermione.”

“Well, I am surprised there’s nothing about you and the Weaselette. You two are like Wizarding World royalty,” Draco sneered.

Harry would scoff at the simile, but it was an accurate comparison. He did smirk at the blatant jealousy though. Then he narrowed his eyes. “What did you do?”

“Me?” Draco gazed across the table at Harry with a look of innocent naivety on his face. “Like what?”

“Yeah. Not buying it.”

“I haven’t the foggiest clue as to what you refer,” Draco said lifting his teacup up and taking a sip.

“Uh huh.”

Hiding a smirk behind his teacup, Draco continued, “But I’m not surprised there’s nothing about what happened at Bannum. It is known for its discretion and privacy after all. It‘s why it’s so popular with the elite. It would be uncouth to invite people as uncivilized, ill mannered and rude as the paparazzi. Cockroaches of the Wizarding World they are.”

Harry nodded. He had to agree there. Squish one and two more pop up. “I’m surprised they don’t just sneak in though. They’d have a field day.”

Draco gave him a look that informed Harry how asinine that statement was. “Potter.”

Harry winced. Draco only called Harry by his surname when Harry said or did something stupid. He’d come to loathe hearing his family name uttered by Draco unless it was accompanied by his given name.

“Not possible. There are these things called wards.”

Harry rolled his eyes.

“They’ve extended them to include those ‘journalists’ who are also animagi such as Rita Skeeter.”

Harry smirked at that.

The seemingly endless hearings and trials hadn’t begun until spring the year following the Battle of Hogwarts. Ministry officials hadn’t wanted a repeat of what happened after the First Wizarding War. They wanted to avoid imprisoning people, innocent or not, without a fair trial. They also wanted to avoid allowing the guilty to walk free because money exchanged the right hands. A majority of the populace, mostly those who hadn‘t seen any combat during the Second Wizarding War, believed the Death Eaters and their allies deserved no trials. That they should be put to death immediately upon their capture. Of course, those that remembered what had happened with Sirius made sure that didn’t happen.

It was also decided that there would be no gawkers, journalists or other media allowed in the courtrooms during the trials. Nobody but the Wizengamot, court reporter, defense, prosecution, witnesses and family were allowed. Everybody was instructed not to talk to reporters. It caused quite the uproar, but the Ministry hadn’t budged on the decision, for which Harry was thankful.

Despite the ban on media--professional, amateur or otherwise--details of the trials were being leaked to the media. Nobody was sure how this was happening. People were questioned under veritaserum and still the source of the leak couldn’t be found. Then someone suggested that there could be unregistered animagi, such as bug animagi for example, who were sneaking into the trials to observe the proceedings and report on the happenings to the masses.

By the time the next trial was held, a new ward was up.

Coincidentally, the leaks stopped.

Harry had spotted Rita Skeeter and her photographer not too long after and she’d been livid. He hadn’t been able to stop smiling the rest of the week.

“Oh yeah,” Harry continued, having just remembered. “Your ex-wife made the paper.”

“Astoria?”

“Yeah,” Harry nodded. “Apparently, she’s now engaged to the grandson of some muggle millionaire or something.”

That had Draco choking on his tea.

Harry chuckled at his lover’s reaction. It was identical to the one he’d had when he read the announcement. Only Draco managed not to spray the entirety of the solarium.

“What?! A muggle?”

“Yup.”

“Are you sure?”

Harry shrugged. “That’s what it says in the paper. Don’t know how accurate the info is. We know how reliable news in The Daily Prophet is,” he continued as Draco exchanged his tea for the paper.

“Bloody hell,” Draco muttered after tearing through the paper to find the article to which Harry was referring. Right there on page seven in bold headlines accompanied by a picture of his ex-wife who was plastered to the side of some muggle was the notice. According to the article, Astoria’s new fiancé was from a wealthy British muggle family and was heir to some chocolate company that made nearly a billion pounds the year before. “She really did it.”

“Did what?” Harry inquired, taking a sip of his coffee and enjoying the aromatic steam enveloping his face.

“Astoria--she threatened to marry a muggle if I divorced her,” Draco said without taking his eyes from the article he was meticulously reading through.

“She did what?” Harry exclaimed in disbelief before laughing at the idiocy of such a threat.

Shaking his head, Draco folded the paper back up and set it aside. “You know she was against the divorce.”

“Yeah.”

Not long after Draco aided Harry in drawing up the prenuptial agreement between Harry and Ginny, Draco made headlines by announcing plans to divorce his wife of two years, Astoria Malfoy nee Greengrass. He gave irreconcilable differences as his reasons and left it at that. Now Harry wondered if Draco had had feelings for him even then.

It wasn’t just Astoria, but the entire Greengrass family had been in an uproar. Draco’s parents had not been too happy either, but they stood behind their son and heir’s decision.

There’d been a long drawn out court battle where Astoria’s name had been dragged through the mud at every opportunity.

“And how does threatening to marry a muggle get you to remain married to her?”

“No idea.”

Harry chuckled. Too much inbreeding, he decided. It made purebloods brainless morons. “What’s that?” he asked with a nod at the parchment sitting on the table by Draco‘s arm.

“The answer we were waiting for.”

Harry frowned before his eyes lit up. “Oh! You mean from your contact?”

“Yeah. Said he’ll meet us same place same time this afternoon, but he wants 100 more.”

Harry rolled his eyes. Of course he does. “Surprise surprise, but does he have the info we need.”

“That’s what he said.”

Harry nodded.

The latest case Harry and Draco were working on had fallen into Harry’s lap quite by accident. When they’d gone to question a man suspected to have been the sole witness in the death of a prominent businessman, they’d discovered he’d been rushed to Saint Mungo’s the night before with severe abdominal cramps and bloody stool. By the time Harry and Draco arrived that afternoon, the witness was dead. According to the husband, their witness purchased a banned fertility potion off the Black Market. Toxicology reports backed his claim.

The fertility potion was invented several years ago by a Potions Master by the name of Wilhelm Cyril Wilhelm in order to aid infertile or struggling couples trying to have children. It was banned because three out of four of the test subjects during the clinical trials died because of complications due to unexpected side effects. Most of those who survived were rendered barren. There were a handful of participants who had no ill side effects and who claimed the fertility potion had indeed worked; it’s suspected these couples received placebos, but there is no evidence to prove either way.

Harry and Draco went to question Potions Master Wilhelm, but the man and his notes were gone. Since there was no evidence that suggested that foul play was involved in the Potions Master’s sudden disappearance, they were working with the theory that the Potions Master was involved in the illegal distribution of his banned potion. Even though the man himself has disappeared, there have been several raids that resulted in some arrests, but they were all minor lackeys who knew nothing. All leads have since dried up.

That Draco’s contact wanted to meet was a good sign. Maybe they’d be able to apprehend the Potions Master or at least someone who knew where to find him.

Two loaded plates floated down onto the table before Harry and Draco just then. The sight of fresh fruit, bacon, scrambled eggs, sausage, hash browns and toast had both men drooling.

As they ate, they talked of nothing of great importance. They basked in the warm sunlight pouring into the solarium turned breakfast nook and enjoyed the other’s company.

Not once did it occur to Harry that he hadn’t once thought of Ginny.

+ HARRY POTTER + ADVICE 2: WHEEL OF FORTUNE +

Afternoon - Knockturn Alley - London, England

They were to meet their contact, who referred to himself as “Sting”, in Knockturn Alley between Al C. O’Hol’s Liquor Store and A. Tobacco Shop.

They’ve used Sting so frequently in the year since they teamed up that they’ve come to rely on him to an almost unhealthy degree. They often joked that if anything happened to their informant, they wouldn’t be able to close another case. It was an over-exaggeration, of course, but that was how much they relied on the information Sting fed them.

In the beginning, Sting use to solely be Draco’s runner. In exchange for finding certain rare and hard to find ingredients, Draco had provided a substantial remuneration in return. Then Sting had stumbled upon some information that related to a case Harry was working on. It happened to be one of the first cases Draco consulted on. Now Sting did double duty as both runner and informant.

He’s since proven himself both reliable and trustworthy.

Unfortunately, the price for Sting’s information was steadily increasing. Sting claimed that phishing around for the information they needed was becoming increasingly dangerous. Word of his exploits had gotten around and nobody wanted to talk to a rat. He’d made many enemies. Many would love to see him dead. It wasn’t as if Harry and Draco weren’t sympathetic to the man’s plight or didn’t believe his story, because they were and did. Sting could very well be telling them the truth, it wouldn’t surprise either Harry or Draco, but fear for his safety wasn’t the only reason behind Sting’s demand for more money. Sting had a serious drug habit that Harry believed began as a direct result of being labeled as a rat.

As Harry and Draco entered the open square at the end of a particularly narrow thoroughfare, whose centerpiece was a fountain that has been broken longer than it’s worked, they caught sight of movement in the alley between the liquor store and the tobacco shop. They headed in that direction.

Other shops in what had once been the main square in Knockturn Alley included a secondhand goods shop, an adult bookstore and some sort of pub that had no windows and no door. They only knew it was a pub by the sign creaking lazily.

“So,” Draco drawled as they entered the shadow-filled alley, “what’s this about Potions Master Wilhelm?”

His eyes darting everywhere but to either of them, Sting was fidgety and twitchy and was constantly pinching at his nose. “Money first. Then you get your info. This be hot off the presses stuff I got here.”

Draco sighed. “Isn’t it always?”

Sting shook his head and opened his mouth.

There was a loud bang somewhere off in the distance, sounded like a potion had exploded to Draco, and Sting jumped. Even in the darkness of the alley, Draco could see what little color there was on the junkie’s face drain away instantly. He even yelped and started dancing about as if his ass were on fire.

Draco snapped his fingers to get the guy’s attention. “Hey! Hey! Over here.” He waited until Sting was, mostly, looking at him. “You know the drill. Tell us what you know about Wilhelm and this fertility potion of his that’s made its way to the Black Market then you get your money.”

Sting shook his head vigorously. “Hell, no, man. Like I said, this be hot stuff. Nuclear even. As in, it can fuck up a lot of VIPs’ day. Know what I mean?”

Harry and Draco exchanged a startled glance.

“VIP as in Ministry workers?” Harry asked over a racing pulse.

Again, Sting shook his head. “That be all you get for free.”

Draco started for his wand, but Harry grabbed his arm and shook his head when the blond glanced sharply at him. Sighing, Draco stepped aside and waved Harry forward.

Sting was greedily watching as Harry reached into an inner pocket in his black leather motorcycle jacket Draco had bought for him the week prior, pulling out a red cloth bag the size of the width of his hand. The small bag appeared empty, but in reality had an expansion charm on it so that the entirety of Sting’s payment could fit inside without him having to lug around a giant money sack.

Sting very nearly ripped the small cloth bag out of Harry’s hands. Holding the bag close to his chest, he backed up several steps and gazing about, stuffed the bag into an inner pocket of his scuffed up robe.

“Not even going to count it Sting?” Draco sneered.

“Naw. You good for it.”

Draco opened his mouth to make another retort, but an elbow into the gut had him rethinking that plan.

Harry hissed, “We don’t have time for this.” Pushing aside his partner, who was rubbing his abdomen, grumbling about something or other, and giving him the evil eye, Harry turned towards Sting. “What’s this about VIPs?” If these VIPs that Sting was referring to did involve members of the Ministry, it would explain so much. Including why nobody had been assigned to work this Black Market ring. If certain members of the government were involved in the illegal trade of goods then of course they wouldn’t want to see it shut down. They would lose venture capital as well as their freedom.

His eyes darting up and down the alley as if they had a life of their own, Sting stepped forward and lowered his voice as he said, “What I heard, these VIPs be getting kickbacks for pretending they see nothing, for overlooking certain deals that go down. They make certain things and people disappear, lose paperwork, grease palms. Know what I’m saying? In return, they get a cut of the action, a generous percentage.”

Harry stared wide eyed over Sting’s shoulder at magical graffiti on the wall--a black generic dragon that was weaving in and out of a phrase that from where Harry was standing, he couldn’t make out--while his mind started to put bits and pieces together.

“Dirty Ministry officials,” Draco muttered in disgust, “why am I not surprised.” He turned towards Harry. “What the hell have you gotten us involved in Potter?”

Distracted by the thoughts formulating in his mind, Harry muttered, “One hell of a conspiracy,” before turning towards Sting. “You hear about any of these VIPs possibly being Aurors? Maybe someone high up?”

“I got no names, but I hear something like that yeah.”

Draco looked at Harry sharply. “What are you thinking?”

Dragging his fingers through his hair, Harry swore. There was a saying that said there were no coincidences. He was starting to believe that to be true.

“Harry?”

Harry shook his head. There were too many thoughts circling in his head, too many connections being made at once. He felt as if his circuits were overloading. What he needed was to go home and organize his thoughts into a coherent realization that he could then express to Draco for his opinion.

He never got the chance.

There was a noise behind them and before either Harry or Draco could react, a group of red robed Aurors appeared out nowhere with their wands drawn and pointed at them. They started shouting orders punctuated quite frequently with very clever swear words, their voices overlapping each other.

It was chaos.

Harry glanced at each and every single one of the seven men surrounding them. He memorized their faces, their stances, the way they gripped their wands and wore their robes. He committed to memory every single detail that he could. This happened in an instant and without conscious thought.

“What the fuck?” Draco exclaimed in confusion and irritation as he glanced about.

“What’s going on here? What is this?” Harry demanded, stepping forward.

His progression was halted when half of the Aurors’ trained their wands on him. His hands went up. It was only then that he realized that the Aurors hadn’t been pointing their wands at them but at Draco. What the fuck was going on? He and Draco had joked the day before about Pieletska trying to pin his stroke on either or both of them as some sort of assassination attempt. He hadn’t really thought Pieletska would have the balls to actually go through with it though

Was that why they were here then? To arrest Draco for somehow causing Pieletska to have a stroke? Or were these the VIPs Sting just mentioned? Did they think he and Draco knew too much? Were they here to silence them?

But, no, that couldn’t be it.

There was nothing that could have been slipped into Pieletska’s morning tea that could have mimicked the effects of a stroke or caused him to have one. Even if there were, it would have shown up on one of the multitude of tests Saint Mungo’s no doubt ran.

Unless an anomaly had shown up and they were blaming Draco for the presence of the anomaly. The why was easily explainable. Pieletska had been trying, unsuccessfully, for the past five years to find some way to send Draco to Azkaban. Wouldn’t surprise him if the man had his own secret army who all believed in the same paranoid beliefs he did.

It would also serve as an excuse to find out exactly what he and Draco knew if these Aurors were part of those supposed VIPs. Maybe some unfortunate “accident” would befall both he and Draco. That way, their unofficial investigation into the Black Market would be no more and the VIPs could continue as before.

Or maybe Harry saw shadows where there weren’t any.

“Do you have idea who we are?” Harry continued heatedly. The one day he left his badge at home… “Do you have any idea what you just interrupted? We are the middle of an invest-”

Ignoring Harry, one of the Aurors stepped forward. “Draco Malfoy,” he said loudly and clearly, “you are under arrest-”

“What?!” both Harry and Draco exploded.

“-for the murder of Head Auror Heinin Pieletska,” the Auror continued as if he hadn’t be interrupted. “You have the right to remain silent. Any…”

Draco did not fight as several of the Aurors came forward and bound his hands behind his back. He was too shell-shocked. They searched his person and took his wand that had been secured to his forearm in a disillusioned holster, and then marched him out of the alley and out of sight.

Harry, meanwhile, watched flabbergasted as the scene unfolded before him. His head was spinning. So many thoughts and emotions were swirling around inside his mind. At the same time, his mind was blank. What the hell just happened?

He never noticed that sometime during the confusion, Sting had vanished.

+ HARRY POTTER + ADVICE 2: WHEEL OF FORTUNE +

Same Time - Potter Residence - 23 Pasteur Drive, Swindon, Wiltshire, England

When the wards let her through without any trouble, Ginny breathed a sigh of relief. Given their fight the day before, she’d been sure Harry would change them to keep her out. That he hadn’t was a good sign. Maybe Hermione was right. Maybe things between her and Harry weren’t as bad as she’d made them out to be. Maybe her fears were unfounded. Maybe she had nothing to worry about after all.

With a renewed sense of hope, she approached the front door, knocked and waited. And waited. Confusion and disappointment flooded through her as her knock went unanswered. She moved to the window and peered into the house. There was no movement from within.

Harry was supposed to have off. Maybe he’d gone out. Doing some shopping perhaps? Harry hadn’t mentioned anything about having made plans. It could be he was up in his attic-turned-office doing some work on one of his cases. It wouldn’t surprise her. When on a case, Harry gave all he had to it. Everything else was thrown by the wayside. The man was obsessed. He didn’t sleep, didn’t eat. Ginny lost count of how many times she’d had to drag his behind to the table. If it was up to him, Harry would work himself into a hospital bed and even then, he’d still be on the job. Given his work history, it made sense that he’d not hear someone at the door.

She returned to the door and knocked again. Harder this time. “Harry,” she called. “It’s me!”

Swindon was essentially a Muggle city, but the section where Harry lived was principally magical, so there was no reason for Kreacher to not answer the door, especially when he had to have sensed her passing through the wards, but even the retched little house-elf was AWOL. Then again, that vile, disgusting creature’s whereabouts were none of her concern, but it would have been nice to be welcomed inside seeing as she was Harry’s fiancée. Of course why would this time be any different from the countless other times she’s been here?

Digging into her purse, she pulled out the Muggle house key Harry had given her when he moved in. When she turned the key in the lock, not only did she hear the shifting of the tumblers unlocking the Muggle deadbolt, but felt the wards fall. Palming the key, she opened the door, stepped inside and shut the door behind her. The wards fell back into place immediately. According to Harry, if someone tried to get into the house without using the house key, the wards would trip and trap the culprit until Aurors arrived.

“Harry,” she called. “Kreacher!”

Ginny strolled through the foyer, noticing her boxes were gone. She’d have to ask Harry where they were. Guess that was something else they had to talk about. She definitely had to apologize for trying to move in without consulting him about it. It’d seemed like a good idea at the time. Hindsight told her the opposite. Though, after being together for as long as they have, she felt as if they should be living together, especially now that they were engaged. But of course that was something else they would have to talk about.

“Harry! You here? Harry,” she called out as she waltzed into the living room. The house was still and silent. It appeared Harry wasn’t home after all and that Kreacher was once again ignoring her. Sighing, she settled onto the sofa with every intention of waiting for Harry. Come hell or high water, they were going to talk.

+ HARRY POTTER + ADVICE 2: WHEEL OF FORTUNE +

Auror Department - Ministry of Magic - London, England

Shock and disbelief had quickly given way to anger.

As Harry made his way through the Auror Department to his office in the Homicide Division, it was taking all he had to not upend everything and everyone he came across as if he were five years old. Acting like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum would accomplish nothing other than getting his ass suspended or quite possibly even fired, hurting Draco’s “case” in the process.

Besides, just because Pieletska was taking an extended leave of absence didn’t mean that he still didn’t have eyes everywhere; that group of Aurors who arrested Draco being case in point.

Pieletska has been looking for an excuse to get rid of Harry ever since he learned of Harry’s enrollment in Auror Academy. Harry being caught destroying Ministry property was all the justification Pieletska needed to fire Harry once and for all.

With Harry’s credibility destroyed, Pieletska would then be free to go after Draco.

That man really was a piece of work.

As Harry stormed into the Homicide Division, the bullpen fell silent. He didn’t notice. “Weasley. My office,” he barked over his shoulder.

It was just a year ago that Harry had been promoted by the Head of the DMLE to lead the newly created Homicide Division, replacing his old partner who had been transferred to the equally new Narcotics Unit. When the position became available and candidates were considered, Pieletska had immediately rejected the idea of offering Harry the promotion, even though he’d more than earned it, more so than any of the others he recommended. In the end, the Head of the DMLE went over Pieletska’s head and promoted Harry himself. Pieletska had not been too happy about that. Just one more thing for which to hate Harry.

One brave soul gulped nervously and sweating profusely, stepped forward. “Uhm, sir, he isn’t here.”

Harry’s angry stride halted mid-step. Spinning around, he gave the Auror who had spoken the once over.

Ross Rosenstein, originally assigned to the Special Victims Unit, but asked for a transfer after only a month. He was one of the tallest non-half-giants Harry had ever seen at a little over six feet tall, weighing in at close to two-hundred pounds. Other than his height, Rosenstein didn’t really stand out. Brown hair. Brown eyes. Quiet, but diligent. The perfect Auror.

After graduating from Auror Academy, much to Ron’s dismay, Harry and Ron weren’t allowed to partner up. Each Rookie Auror is assigned to a Veteran Auror for in the field training. Afterwards, when the Veteran Auror feels his trainee is sufficiently competent enough, the Rookie Auror is oftentimes reassigned to a different partner, though there are times when the rookie and the veteran stayed partnered up until one got transferred, which was what happened to Harry. Ron had partnered with Rosenstein until the two had a falling out. Ron was currently in-between partners. Harry was thinking of assigning him a rookie trainee.

“Who isn’t?”

“Weasley, sir.”

Harry turned towards Ron’s cubicle, which was the closest to his office. Sure enough, it was empty. He scanned the bullpen, but didn’t see him. “Where is he?”

“Candela, sir.”

Harry swore softly. “Contact Saint Mungo’s,” he ordered as he started towards his office, “get Head Auror Pieletska’s current condition. I don‘t care how many heads you have to crack. I want to know everything they know.”

“Sir?”

“Did I stutter Rosenstein?”

“No, sir.”

“Thought not.”

The door to Harry’s office opened before him and closed behind him like those automatic doors in the Muggle world. It was nothing knew. His magic at times had a mind of its own, especially when fueled by his emotions. He had just enough control over it to keep from blowing up some poor innocent bystander, but that was it. Hermione thought all he needed was more practice and refused to believe otherwise when he stated again and again that it wasn’t as simple as that, at least not for him. It was like his hair. It did what it wanted when it wanted. Period.

He marched around his desk and collapsed into his chair. Leaning his elbows on the desktop, he dropped his face into his hands. He wanted to punch something, but he was fresh out of something. Besides, this was neither the place nor the time. Getting hold of himself, he pushed himself up and went to the fireplace. First things first. He had to contact Draco’s lawyer. Then he had to figure out what the fuck was going on so he could get Draco out of custody and then they could go home and work out their frustration together. The thought of just how they would accomplish that had Harry shivering in delightful anticipation. His trousers grew suspiciously tight.

Clearing his throat, he pulled out his wand and lit a fire and then snatched a pinch of floo powder from the ceramic bowl on the mantel and tossed it into the fire. The undulating flames momentarily swelled with crackles and pops before dying back down. They were the same as before only now they were green. Kneeling, he stuck his head into the flames and called loud and clear, “Hedgerow, Bush and Verge.”

Moments later, he was gazing into a moderately sized reception area decorated in warm neutral tones with plants placed strategically. A woman in a pinstriped suit was sitting at a desk directly across from the fireplace. “Miriam,” he called out.

Startled, the woman’s head snapped up and around. When she spotted Harry, she sighed wearily. “Again?”

“Unfortunately.”

There must have been something in his voice or on his face because she stiffened. “What is it? What happened?” she demanded.

Harry told her what had taken place earlier, including his suspicions while she took notes.

Miriam let loose a string of colorful and very creative swear words once he finished. “Okay. I’ll inform Edward what’s going on.”

“Thanks, Miriam.” He closed down the connection and sat back.

Edward Hedgerow of Hedgerow, Bush & Verge, was one of the best attorneys in Britain. He’d successfully defended Draco from Pieletska numerous times over the past year alone.

Sighing, he dropped his face in his hands. He scrubbed his hands over his face, before standing up and turning towards the door when a knock sounded. “Enter.” His bark was all but gone. Now he just sounded tired.

The door opened and Rosenstein poked his head into the office. “Sir?”

Suddenly wide-awake, Harry snapped to attention. “Report.”

Rosenstein stepped into the office and shut the door firmly behind him. “Sir. I contacted Saint Mungo’s as per your orders.”

“And?” Harry prodded as he crossed the office to his desk.

“Head Auror Pieletska…” Rosenstein faltered, briefly overcome by his emotions before he was able to school his expression. “Head Auror Pieletska,” he began again, “was pronounced dead early this morning.”

Harry’s shot to his feet. “What? He died? How…?” Less than twenty-four hours ago, Healer Ó Beacháin assured them that Pieletska would be fine. That his stroke hadn’t caused any permanent damage. Had they missed something? Were there complications? Had he suffered another stroke? Only this one fatal?

He’d thought that Auror who’d arrested Draco earlier had misspoken when he charged Draco with murdering Pieletska and had instead meant attempted murder, possibly by slipping some sort potion into Pieletska’s morning tea that caused the stroke that very nearly did kill him. Guess not. They really had arrested Draco on suspicion of murder. But why? On what evidence?

“Natural causes, sir.”

Relief swept through Harry so fast, he swayed. It wasn’t that he’d doubted Draco’s innocence. He knew that Draco was not guilty. How? Because he was Draco’s alibi. They two of them were otherwise preoccupied all night. He had the marks, and the sore ass, to prove it. But at least with Pieletska’s death being ruled due to natural causes, there was no evidence to distort to frame Draco. “What about an autopsy? Toxicology?”

“Completed about an hour ago. Both are clean. There isn’t any sign of foul play.”

“Are they absolutely sure it was natural causes?”

“Yes, sir. They called in an independent ME and Potions Master to double check the findings. They concur with Saint Mungo’s conclusions that Head Auror Pieletska passed away sometime during the night in his sleep. There was no trace of a potion in his system or magical residue from a spell.”

Harry collapsed back into his chair.

“They’re sending over copies of his medical file.”

“Good. Good,” Harry nodded. “Thank you.”

With a nod, Rosenstein left Harry to his thoughts.

Sitting back, Harry started to run his fingers through his hair, but stopped himself. Instead, he laced his hands behind his head and frowned up at the ceiling where several memos soared. He ignored them.

It was beginning to look as if his theory from earlier wasn’t so much of a paranoid conspiracy dreamt up by an overactive imagination and one too many Muggle films after all.

No, something fishy was definitely going on and he was determined to find out what.

+ HARRY POTTER + ADVICE 2: WHEEL OF FORTUNE +

Edward Hedgerow, Joshua Bush and Lindsay Verge were infamous in their own right individually, so when all three proceeded Harry into the interrogation room where Draco was being held and questioned, two very different emotions were born. From Draco there was relief. From the team of Aurors crowded within the tiny, windowless box-like room there was fear disguised as anger and annoyance.

“That will be all gentlemen,” Edward Hedgerow announced briskly as he swept across the room in two steps to stand besides his client, “thank you.”

One of the Aurors stepped forward. Harry recognized him as the same one from the alley who’d read Draco his rights. He was also the one who’d had his face pressed so close into Draco’s when they first entered that it could have misconstrued as kissing. Which meant that it’d been this guy’s dulcet tones they’d heard from out in the hall.

“Counselor, your client is in some serious trouble.”

“And the charges?” Edward Hedgerow asked as his partners crowded behind him.

“Murder,” sneered another Auror from the back who’d been pushed almost out into the hallway by the sudden influx of bodies.

“And whom, may I ask, is my client suspected of murdering?”

“We suspect nothing,” spit a third Auror from the middle of the pack. “We know Malfoy is guilty.”

“Of course you have evidence,” Joshua Bush stated, “to back up this claim of yours.”

“And you never answered the question,” Lindsay Verge added. “Who is it that our client is suspected of murdering?”

Harry smirked at Verge’s deliberate emphasis. He was leaning against the wall besides the door with his arms crossed, taking in the show. With Hedgerow, Bush & Verge on the case, he knew he had nothing to worry about.

“Head Auror Heinin Pieletska was found dead in his hospital bed early this morning,” the lead Auror said.

That was where Harry came in. He stepped forward and produced the medical file Saint Mungo’s had just sent over. The Aurors watched him warily and with unconcealed disgust as he pushed through them to slam the file down onto the table.

He caught Draco’s eye and smirked. Draco nodded back, the same smirk mirrored on his slightly paler than normal face. Harry frowned at the discoloration on Draco’s left cheek. His emerald eyes narrowed. Fury swept through him. He rounded on the sorry pathetic excuses for Aurors and felt a small thrill when they flinched at the sight of the obvious rage bursting across his face. Harry dialed it back enough so that he could think clearly. After all, it would do them no good if he blew them all to kingdom come.

“What I have here, gentlemen, are the records from Saint Mungo’s pertaining to the Head Auror‘s admittance, including a copy of his autopsy, toxicology and magic residue reports. I myself also contacted the hospital administrator and had a nice chat with him. Know what he told me? He told me the same thing he claimed to have told you; that Head Auror Pieletska died of natural causes. He said, and I quote, ‘We have at this time, no evidence to suggest that Head Auror Heinin Pieletska’s death was the result of foul play. He just fell asleep and never woke up.’ End quote.” Harry swept his gaze from one Auror to the other. “So, pray tell, gentlemen, how Draco Malfoy could possibly be responsible for the death of a man whose death was a natural occurrence.”

“It’s obvious,” the Auror in the back spit with a sneer worthy of a Malfoy.

“Enlighten me.”

The Auror, a man in his late forties with a sprinkling of grey in his dark brown hair and contempt in his equally dark brown eyes, pushed through his fellow cohorts to stand toe to toe with Harry. He eyed the captain of the Homicide Division with open disgust.

Not intimidated in the least, Harry merely raised an eyebrow.

“He’s a filthy Death Eater.”

Harry waited in silence for the man to continue, but it quickly became apparent that there was nothing more to the man’s argument. “That’s it?” Admittedly, he was disappointed. He’d been expecting some sort of well thought out argument.

“You arrested my client for a murder that did not even occur because he was a Death Eater six years ago,” Edward Hedgerow summarized. His voice was emotionless as he spoke, but Harry knew all three attorneys were equally disgusted and angry.

“We may not be able to prove it, but he is guilty,” the lead Auror snapped pointing at Draco who merely cocked an eyebrow in return. This Auror was the same age as the other one--late forties, early fifties--with dirty blond hair and deep blue eyes filled with rage. “He killed Pieletska.”

“He is a Potions Master,” the third Auror said. Unlike his brethren, this guy was calm, cool and collected. His voice and face were expressionless and emotionless. There was no telling what he was thinking or feeling. “He has the skills to create a new potion that could have simulated the affects of natural death. All he had to do was sneak into the hospital and somehow get the Head Auror to ingest it. Given that the Head Auror had no guards posted, as he usually does, and the skeletal staff at the hospital at night, it is conceivable Mr. Malfoy could have snuck into the hospital, made it into the Head Auror’s room, slipped him the potion and snuck back out without being seen.”

Harry was impressed. This guy was good. It was too bad his talent was being wasted as Pieletska’s personal flunky.

“My client had no involvement in creating a potion such as that if one does indeed exist,” Edward Hedgerow said after a brief conference with Draco who was equally impressed this particular Auror’s reasoning, as false as they are.

Conceiting the point, Harry inclined his head. “True. Draco does indeed have the necessary skills to create such a potion; he is a genius after all, but he hasn’t created or has anything in development that when ingested would simulate the affects of a natural death. As his partner, I would be the first person to know if it were. You can even go search his laboratory. Rip it apart. You won’t find anything,” he continued over Draco’s protestation. “But this doesn’t have anything to do with Pieletska, does it?”

Though he had no proof, Harry knew these guys were dirty; they were part of the Black Market ring he and Draco have been after. Harry was sure of it, though he’d need more evidence before he went pointing fingers. In the meantime, given the one Auror’s obvious prejudice, Harry could play another card.

“Oh? And what does it have to do with Auror Potter? Why would we arrest a man for a murder that never occurred?”

“Easy. I was called into Pieletska’s office yesterday. He told me he received ‘an anonymous tip’ that ‘accused Draco Malfoy of hording illegal Dark artifacts purchased off the Black Market’ and as his partner, he wanted me to participate in an undercover operation to ‘bring him down once and for all’.”

The admission had the other three Aurors eying Draco Malfoy in a suspicious new light.

“Of course, we all know this claim is bogus and called in by Pieletska himself who admitted that was the case because Draco was a ‘nuisance’ who should have been given the Kiss right along with every other witch and wizard that aligned themselves with Voldemort.”

There was a grumble of agreement from the three Aurors. Harry had a feeling that they weren’t agreeing to his argument that Pieletska filed a false complaint, again, just so he could put Draco in Azkaban because of whom he “chose” to associate with during the war. Instead, they were agreeing that Draco should have been given the Kiss. Harry’s antipathy for his fellow Aurors was overwhelming.

“Alright,” Harry said with renewed vigor. It was becoming increasingly difficult to keep a lid on his emotions. “According to the hospital, they put Pieletska’s death sometime around midnight, so even if he’d been murdered, which he wasn’t because there is absolutely no evidence corroborating his death was anything but natural, Draco still wouldn’t be responsible because he has an airtight alibi for the time of his death.”

There was a snort.

“Pretty convenient, wouldn’t you say?”

“Take it however you will,” Harry said.

“And just what is this supposed airtight alibi?” the lead Auror snarled.

“Me,” Harry replied easily.

The three Aurors exchanged a skeptical glance. “You?”

“And we’re supposed to believe this supposed alibi?” the second Auror spit.

“You and Mr. Malfoy are partners Auror Potter,” the calmer third Auror, said, “and it’s not unheard of for partners to alibi each other out of questionable situations.”

“Be that as it may,” Harry conceited the point, which was all too true, “I am not one of those partners. If I even suspected Draco was involved in something illegal, I would give him up in a nanosecond, but as it is, he isn’t because I know for a fact that Draco has a solid alibi.”

“And what exactly were the two of you doing at midnight last night that would give him such an airtight alibi for the time of Pieletska’s death?”

“Having sex.”

The three Aurors sputtered.

“Bullshit,” the second Auror spit, his face red.

Without a word, Harry lowered the collar of his robe to show a bruise bigger than the pad of his thumb on the side of his neck.

Draco looked at the mark in self-satisfaction.

“And what is that supposed to be?”

“A hickey.”

The second Auror sputtered some more. His face was turning purple as if he were choking.

The third was as blank as a sheet of parchment.

The lead Auror was gazing at Harry in disgust.

“Look gentlemen, give me veritaserum, give me a pensive. I can prove to you that Draco and I were together all day yesterday and all night last night. We even had breakfast together this morning before we went to meet with our informant, who we were speaking to before you arrived and falsely arrested Draco for a murder that never happened.”

“Now, unless you have some proof that a murder actually happened and that my client is guilty of said crime, we are done here,” Edward Hedgerow said, placing a hand on Draco’s shoulder.

Stiffly, Draco stood up, stifling a wince that didn’t go unnoticed by Harry or his lawyers.

“You’ll be hearing from us,” Edward Hedgerow as he and his partners followed Harry and Draco out of the room.

+ HARRY POTTER + ADVICE 2: WHEEL OF FORTUNE +

Same Time - Potter Residence - 23 Pasteur Drive, Swindon, Wiltshire, England

The rumbling of her stomach was what woke Ginny. Yawning, she sat up and stretched, wincing at the creak in her neck. She didn’t remember falling asleep, but it was obvious she had been asleep for sometime if the flood of sunlight in through the bay window was anything to go by. As the large living room window faced west and thus the setting sun, it got all the sunlight late in the day. A quick glance at the clock on the mantel confirmed it. It was just going on five o’clock.

“Harry,” she called out as she slid off the couch. “You home?” She sighed when, once again, there came no answer. Was he still out? Or had he come home only to leave again? Had he not seen her? Or had he seen her but chose not to disturb her because she was sleeping? Harry was considerate like that. She didn’t even bother calling for Kreacher. He never answered her, ever.

Searching for a note proved fruitless as there was none.

Ginny was starting to get angry--angry at Harry for not being here when she needed him and angry at herself for foolishly believing that Harry would be wallowing in misery--and that was causing her to become restless, so she took to walking about the house. In part, it was to stretch her legs. Mostly, she wanted to see if she could find any evidence pertaining to where Harry went.

Starting with the living room, she swept through the first floor quickly, before heading up to the second level where she decided to start with the master bedroom.

Ginny stepped over the threshold into the bedroom and halted at the sight of two neatly folded piles of clothing that appeared to be freshly laundered sitting at the foot of the queen-sized sleigh bed. The pile closest to her was obviously Harry’s. She recognized the boxer shorts. The last time she and Harry had gone out together, Harry bought them. The other pile gave her pause. Whose clothing were those? She almost called out for Harry before she remembered he wasn’t home.

Curious, Ginny strode boldly into the bedroom and over to the bed. She picked up the stripped button down dress shirt on top and studied it. It didn’t look familiar. She would have just chalked the unfamiliar clothing off to yet another one of Harry’s shopping sprees, which Harry has been going on a lot lately, but none of the unfamiliar clothes would have fit Harry. They weren’t the right size. Harry was short and lean, but with a solid muscular build. These clothing were for someone taller and even leaner than Harry. Had Harry purchased them as a gift for someone? Or-

Maybe they didn’t belong to Harry at all.

The implied meaning behind that sudden thought stopped Ginny cold. The shirt slipped from her suddenly trembling hands and fell silently on the floor. She took a step backwards away from the offending piece of cloth.

Something crinkled under her foot. Dancing away from whatever it was, hoping she hadn’t broken anything; she glanced down and saw that it was a blue, square, foil-like wrapper. Frowning, she bent down and picked it up.

Almost immediately, she dropped it with a gasp and jumped back as if she‘d been stung. Her back hit the wall. The color drained from her face. Her startled brown gaze went from the empty condom wrapper on the floor to the pile of clothing belonging to the unknown entity. Devastation gripped her heart. Tears stung her eyes.

She wouldn’t--She couldn’t--She refused-

He wouldn’t--not to her--to them-

Ginny flew across the room to the small garbage can situated by the bed. Her movements were frantic, almost hysterical, as she clawed through the trash first with her hands before she upended the thing, dumping its contents onto the floor. She tossed the trashcan aside and ignored the loud clatter it made.

“No,” she moaned, slapping a hand over her mouth. Shaking her head frantically, she stumbled to her feet and staggered backwards away from the evidence.

Among used tissues, an apple core, crumbled balls of parchment, a broken quill and an empty bottle of ink was an empty tube of lubrication jelly and several ripped condom wrappers along with their used condoms.

“Oh, God,” she sobbed. “Oh, God, no. Please, God, no. Why?”

In that moment, she knew. She didn’t want to believe what she now knew to be the truth, but she had no choice.

When she felt the brush of cold metal against her lip, she held out her hand and saw her engagement ring. Her movements’ hysteric, Ginny ripped the ring off her finger and tossed it blindly with an angst-filled roar that gave way to sobbing. She stumbled blindly backwards out of the bedroom, her vision blurry and doubled behind a stinging veil of tears. The ache in her chest and the pain in her heart doubled every moment she lingered.

Tripping over her own two feet in her hurry to vacate the scene of the crime, Ginny tore out of the bedroom, down the stairs and out of the house. Not once did she look back.

Kreacher appeared in the foyer moments after Ginny disapparated. A smile that could almost be called evil crossed his face as he shut the door with a snap of his fingers.

+ HARRY POTTER + ADVICE 2: WHEEL OF FORTUNE +

Same Time - Auror Department - Ministry of Magic - London, England

There was a smudge of dirt on Ron’s cheek as he marched through the Auror Department towards his cubicle in the Homicide Division.

He’d just returned from Candela, a small wizarding community outside London, where he arrested a woman for murdering her husband and disposing of his body in an old well that she subsequently filled in.

In the woman’s original statement to the Aurors, she claimed her husband left after an argument late one night, which had been an almost nightly occurrence, and never heard from him again. Turns out her statement was accurate, just not complete.

It turns out the woman had been hundreds of thousands of galleons indebt and had taken out a second mortgage on the house. She had just applied for a third one earlier that day when her husband discovered her financial trouble and confronted her. They fought. She smashed an antique solid bronze statue over his head and buried him in the backyard. She’d used her husband’s life insurance, which had been a million galleon policy, to pay off her debts.

This wasn’t the first spousal homicide he’d worked. It happened way too often in his opinion. A great percentage of the time it was a deliberate act, sometimes premeditated, sometimes done in the heat of the moment. Very rarely had it been a case of self-defense. But in almost every single case, the defendant always used the “self-defense” defense and he had a feeling it wasn’t going to be any different this time.

He still had to question the woman, but for now, he was going to let her stew in the interrogation room where she was currently being held while he washed up, maybe got something to eat and organized his notes. After that, he’ll head down to question her. Or maybe he’ll let her rot in a cell all night.

Ron had just stepped into his cubicle when he caught a familiar sight out of the corner of his eye. He turned around and saw Harry walking passed with Draco and three older unfamiliar gentlemen. All with serious expressions on their faces. They appeared to be deep in conversation.

What was Harry doing here? Wasn’t it his day off? It wouldn’t be the first time Harry showed up at the office when he wasn’t scheduled to work. Usually it was when he got a new lead on a case though, but as far as Ron knew, Harry didn’t have any active cases at the moment. There was that Black Market case, but Harry hadn’t been officially assigned to work it. In fact, as far as he knew, nobody had, which they’ve both always found odd.

“Oi! Harry,” Ron shouted across the floor, but Harry just kept on walking as if he hadn’t heard Ron. That was possible given how abuzz the Homicide Division usually was. You couldn’t hear yourself think at times. Therefore, Ron didn’t feel slighted or offended when Harry seemingly ignored him.

There was a flash of anger, though, as he remembered the conversation he’d had with Hermione the night before that pertained to Harry and Draco’s relationship, but he pushed it aside for the time being. Now was not the time or the place, though it was something he wanted to discuss with Harry. Maybe he’d floo him later on. He could also ask him about what he was doing at the office as well.

Sighing, Ron collapsed into his chair and closed his aching eyes. It had been a long day.

“And it’s not over yet,” he muttered.

Opening his eyes, Ron gathered his notes together. He hoped this woman didn’t feed him a bunch of bullshit when he went to question her. He was not in the mood.

+ HARRY POTTER + ADVICE 2: WHEEL OF FORTUNE +

Half an Hour Later - Potter Residence - 23 Pasteur Drive, Swindon, Wiltshire, England

The moment they stepped into the house and shut the door behind them, the wards clicking back into place, Kreacher appeared with such a low bow that his nose touched the floor. “Welcome home Masters. Would Masters be wanting dinner?”

“Maybe later, Kreacher,” Harry said.

With another bow, Kreacher disappeared back into the depths of the house.

Even though they haven’t eaten since breakfast, neither he nor Draco were particularly hungry. While his anger at the audacity and incompetence of his fellow Aurors had subsided, it hadn’t vanished completely. It was still there, simmering under the surface, but the adrenaline feeding the anger had been used up and now he was just exhausted.

“You really think they did all that just because they wanted us out of the way?” Draco asked as they trooped up the stairs to the master bedroom.

Yawning, Harry rubbed his eyes. “At this point, I’m not sure what to believe. Could be they’re zealots.”

“You mean like a Death Eater on every corner, a Dark Lord in every shadow?”

“Precisely.”

Draco sneered, “Wouldn’t surprise me. There seems to be a lot of people like that around.”

“Unfortunately,” Harry agreed with a tired sigh. “I deal with people like that all the time.”

“Like who?” Draco asked as he sank gratefully down onto the pillow top mattress. Lying back, he folded his arms behind his head and let his lids droop closed.

“Like, for example,” Harry answered as he crossed the bedroom towards the attached master bath, “if a suspect confesses, he’s guilty because the innocent wouldn’t confess to something they didn’t do and no matter what you say, they refuse to believe anything different.”

Draco scoffed.

“It’s not really the same thing as people who’re convinced you’re guilty just because you were a Death Eater-”

“Not by choice,” Draco added, muttering.

“Exactly,” Harry said, raising his voice to be heard over the sound of running water. “It goes back to my point. Why would anyone join Voldemort unless they believed in the same--ideology?”

“If you’re innocent, you’d have no reason to confess.”

The quiet was stifling after the sound of running water vanished. “Precisely. In a way, they remind me of Ron.”

Draco cocked an eyebrow at the comparison. “How so?”

“Ron, well, I never had friends before coming to Hogwarts and Ron was the first one I ever had after Hagrid and Hedwig.”

“Seriously? Weasley?”

“Yeah and you want to know one of the very first things he ever told me?”

“I have a good idea,” Draco sneered.

“I knew nothing of the Wizarding World before receiving my Hogwarts letter.”

“And thus learned everything from a-”

“Say it and you’re sleeping on the couch,” Harry interrupted. It may have been stated matter of fact, but there was a hint of an underlining note that made it clear it was no idle threat.

Draco gulped.

“But yes,” Harry continued. “Everything I learned about the Wizarding World I learned from witches and wizards as Light as Voldemort was Dark.”

“And as prejudice against everything perceived as Dark and thus ‘evil’ as the Dark Lord was against non-Purebloods.”

The silence following Draco’s statement was a heartbeat or two longer than normal before Harry said, his voice low, “Ron told me there wasn’t a wizard placed in Slytherin who didn’t go bad.”

Draco scoffed, but remained silent. He did not want to be kicked to the couch for bad mouthing Harry’s first and bestest best friend, even though whatever he might have said wouldn’t have been--much--of an over exaggeration, no matter that Harry and the Weasel weren’t exactly on speaking terms at the moment.

“People like that--They have a preconceived notion about someone-”

“Like my father and my grandfather.”

“Yeah. They were both Death Eaters and thus-”

“So am I.”

“…It’s not really the same thing, but-”

“They’re still people who refused to admit when they’re wrong.”

“Exactly.”

Draco hummed. “I suppose you‘re right. Though, it makes sense to think of it in terms of them being part of the Black Market ring we’ve been investigating.”

“The Aurors who arrested you, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s precisely why I plan on speaking with Moore in the morning.”

“Moore?” Draco inquired innocently.

“Assistant Head Auror. If anything happens to the Head Auror, he takes over as interim Head.”

“Lucky him.”

“Actually, Moore never wanted to become Head Auror.”

“Really?”

“Claims he became an Auror to catch the bad guys; not to be a politician. He would have gone into politics if he wanted to be a politician.”

“Then why become Assistant Head?” Draco asked.

“Pay raise. He has like a million kids.”

Draco choked. “What?”

Harry snickered. “Man just can’t keep it in his pants.”

“Oh, ew!” Draco ground his hands into his eyes as if that alone would get rid of the image that had popped unbidden into his head. “Thanks for the visual.”

“Welcome,” Harry laughed.

Dropping his hands, Draco turned his head and swallowed as he took in the visual his Auror lover presented as he stepped out of the bathroom.

Having taken off his robes, Harry was now standing in the threshold between the bedroom and the bathroom in nothing but a pair of jeans that were unbuttoned and riding suspiciously low on his hips. A droplet of water trailed down the flat planes of his abdomen to vanish within the waistband of his fitted boxer shorts.

Licking his lips, Draco propped himself up on an elbow and crooked a finger at Harry in a come-hither motion.

Smirking, Harry slowly stalked his way across the bedroom towards his blond haired Adonis, sashaying his hips in a deliberate motion.

Draco’s cock twitched in reaction. Growling, he snapped forward, grabbed Harry by the belt loops of his pants, and dragged him forward so that he was standing framed between Draco’s knees, smirking at the squeak he managed to produce from Harry--who would later deny emitting such a noise. Hooking his other arm around Harry’s neck, Draco dragged Harry down into a kiss.

It was just a chaste press of lips sweetly moving against one another’s. As their lips parted simultaneously, deepening their kiss just that little bit, Draco lowered himself back down onto the mattress. Harry planted hands on either side of Draco’s head as he allowed himself to be pulled down. He lapped at Draco’s lips, teasingly pulling away when Draco’s tongue came seeking, chuckling at Draco‘s moue of disappointment.

Suddenly Draco cursed and pulled away. Letting go of Harry, he rubbed the back of his head.

“Dray?” Harry questioned in concern, his hands still propping him up above his lover.

Draco reached behind him. When he’d gone to lay his head down, something hard had dug into the back of his head. Sure enough, there was something there. It wasn’t crumbs as he‘d originally suspected, but turned out to be a ring. He recognized it immediately.

“What is it?”

Without a word, Draco held out his hand.

With a mighty inhale, Harry froze at the sight of the gold band. “Ginny’s engagement ring,” he breathed. Standing up, he palmed the ring. His thoughts whirled in confusion.

Draco sat up. “What’s it doing here?” he questioned carefully.

Good question. “I-I’m not…sure.” Better one was what had Ginny been doing here. After the way he’d treated her yesterday, after the things he’d done to her, said to her, he hadn’t actually expected her to want anything to do with him for a few weeks at least.

“You think she was here?”

“…I don‘t…,” he answered, distracted.

Draco searched his lover’s face and felt his heart clench painfully at the contorted expression on Harry’s face. He turned his head away and stared at the far wall, his hands clenched into fists. If Harry was starting to have regrets about them now that it appeared as if the Weaselette was calling off their engagement, Draco swore he would hex Harry into the next millennium. He was not going to be somebody’s dirty little secret. He wasn’t some whore. “Kreacher,” he called, desperately trying to hold onto his anger rather than the sorrow weaving itself forward.

Moments later, the ancient house-elf appeared with another one of his floor sweeping bows.

Before Draco could say anything, Harry asked, “Did Ginny stop by,” as he fisted his hand around the diamond and emerald ring.

“Yes, Master Harry.”

Ginny was braver than he was. Harry could face a dozen wanted fugitives, unarmed and without backup, but he couldn’t make the time to sit down with his own future wife and talk about the dragon in the room, even with the shit up to their eyeballs. He’d known for a while that they had to talk; that they were growing apart; that his feelings were changing, but for some reason, Harry hadn’t been able to say anything. Instead he’d ignored it, pretended that everything was still okay between them even though that had been far from the case.

Maybe he hadn’t said anything because he’d been afraid of hurting her. Like he told Draco the day before, he still cared about her. He always would. That was never going to change.

Either way, he’d been a coward plain and simple. “When was she here?”

“Not long after Master left. She waltzes into Master’s home as if it’s her right,” Kreacher said in contempt. “Filthy- ”

“Did she leave a note?” Harry prodded, cutting off Kreacher before he could fall into one of his tirades. It was safe to say that Kreacher had never grown fond of Ginny or vice versa. Avoidance was certainly better than listening to the two bicker back and forth, but that also meant that both Kreacher and Ginny went on little rants about the other to him. It was quite tiresome.

Alternatively, Kreacher had fallen immediately in love with Draco.

“No Master. She left without a word to Kreacher.”

Harry nodded. “What did she do when she got here?”

“Called out for Master, but Master wasn’t here, so Kreacher thought the filthy Blood Traitor would leave, but she didn’t. She fell asleep, forcing Kreacher to clean around her. When she woke, she called for Master again, but Master was still not home so she snooped into master’s trash,” Kreacher sneered in distaste.

Harry paled.

Draco cocked an eyebrow. “Well,” he drawled. “That-”

“Shut up,” Harry snapped. Dizzy, he stumbled backwards and sank onto the bed besides Draco. Dropping his head, he fisted his hands into his hair and gulping, asked breathlessly over a racing heart, “Which…?”

Kreacher pointed to the trashcan not far from the bed. “Master’s Blood Traitor left in a hurry after trashing the house Kreacher spent all day cleaning.”

Harry swore, grounding the heels of his hands into his eyes. He knew exactly what Ginny found when she went rooting in the trash, what caused her to run pell-mell out of the house as if Voldemort was hot on her tail; evidence of his infidelity, of his night with Draco.

Still feeling slighted at being scolded as if he were a child, Draco waved Kreacher away and then turned towards his lover.

“She knows.”

“She was bound to sooner or later.”

“I know that! It’s just…Fuck!” Harry laid back on the bed, draping his arms over his brow and staring blankly up at the ceiling. The ring was still clasped in his hand.

Draco forced back the tears. He was not going to give Harry the satisfaction of knowing how much he was hurting him. “Go to her,” he said. Just that short sentence was like acid. It burned and hurt more than words could say.

Taken back, Harry lay blinking. “What?” His chest tight, reverently hoping he’d heard him wrong, he dropped his arms and turned his head. “Dray-”

“Maybe you could, I don’t know, try and work things out,” Draco continued with a wave of his hand as if it didn’t feel as if his heart and soul weren’t being torn from his body.

Harry sat up. “Work things out? Why the hell-?”

“I don’t mind. Really. I mean you and the--Ginevra-”

Harry shook his head, back and forth, over and over again. Why would Draco be saying this? Wasn’t this what Draco wanted, to have Harry all to himself? To be able to proclaim to everyone that Harry Potter was in love with him? Wasn’t Draco in love with him? Had he changed his mind? Or had Harry read too much into their one night together? The mere thought of Draco not wanting him any longer was too much to bear. Tears stung his eyes. “Dray. Draco. Stop. Just stop.”

Draco refused to look at Harry.

He was dumbfounded by the glimpse of torment and anguish--the utter heartbroken expression on Draco’s face. It hit him then. What if Draco was under the impression that he, Harry, had changed his mind about the two of them? The vise around his chest unclenched. “You idiot,” he whispered.

Draco’s head snapped around. Those gray-blue eyes were icy cold as they glared into Harry’s bright emerald ones. Draco appeared momentarily thrown by whatever he saw on Harry‘s face, but quickly shook off the shock. “Excuse me?”

Harry sat up, slid to the edge of the bed and stood up. Blindly, he set Ginny’s engagement ring on the nightstand before coming to kneel before Draco. Laying his hands on Draco’s knees, Harry pushed Draco’s legs open and sidled between them. Reaching up and cradling Draco’s face, Harry smiled gently up at the confused pale face. “You are such an idiot,” he reiterated softly. “Remember what you asked me yesterday?”

With an expression that went neutral, Draco answered, “I asked if you resented me for coming between you and Ginevra.”

Smiling, Harry nodded. “Do you remember what I said?”

Draco smiled for he did remember. “You said, ‘Don’t be absurd. The only thing that has come between me and Ginny is her inability to get over herself.’”

“Exactly.” Straightening to his full height, Harry leaned forward and captured Draco’s lips in a kiss that expressed without words everything he couldn’t say with words. “The only regret I have,” Harry continued, pulling away from Draco enough so that he could speak clearly, “is hurting Ginny like I have. Things haven’t been right between us for a while and instead of being a coward and avoiding her, I should have--There’s no excuse for what I’ve done to her.”

Draco nodded.

“But I have no intention of going back to her. I’ve moved on.”

Draco cocked an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

“If he’ll have me of course.”

“Hm. I’m not sure. Guess you’ll have to ask him.”

Harry purred in pleasure. “Oh, I plan to,” he whispered huskily, swooping in to take possession of Draco’s lips.

As Draco dragged Harry onto the bed with him, the ring, which had been wobbling uncertainly on the edge of the nightstand, was snatched by gravity. It dropped into the trashcan, sinking to the bottom.

+ HARRY POTTER + ADVICE 2: WHEEL OF FORTUNE +

Same Time - Edinburgh, Scotland

Ron had just sat down to start questioning the woman suspected of murdering her husband ten years ago when he’d been called out to a body dump. The fact that he was right in the middle of interviewing a suspect was no never mind to the powers that be, which in this case was acting Head Auror, Assistant Head Auror D’Arcy Moore. Why Moore sent him and not Madigan, who was at the top of the call list, Ron wasn’t sure. There were rumors that Moore and Madigan had a thing up until a week ago, but it had ended badly when Moore discovered Madigan in bed with another man. Apparently, this was Moore’s payback.

As he’d been out in the field all day, Ron hadn’t heard the news about Pieletska’s death. It wasn’t public knowledge yet. It wasn’t until Ron had been called into Moore’s office and handed this case that he’d heard. He wondered if Harry knew.

“Sir.” A Hispanic woman in perfect Muggle attire greeted him with a nod of her head as he approached the cordoned off scene. Her name was Garcia if he wasn’t mistaken, rookie, but a solid Auror with a bright and long future in the Department ahead of her.

“What we got?” he asked crouching down besides the body laying facedown in the middle of the sidewalk in the middle of downtown Edinburgh.

The victim was a white male, possibly in his mid to late thirties, with green spiked hair. It was difficult to determine approximate age for the victim’s face was heavily lined. Unseeing eyes were a solid black. It was a definite sign of illegals abuse, possibly Zhangjiakou--named after the city in northeastern China where the drug was first developed--or Rain, which had almost the same effects. The male victim was close to six feet tall and extremely gaunt. He was almost skeletal thin. It was another sign of illegals use. Using the tip of his wand, Ron lowered the flipped up collar of the victim’s black button down shirt and inspected the wound on the throat. It was deep, clean, and most definitely fatal. There didn’t appear to be any hesitation marks.

This guy couldn’t have been dead for more then an hour at most.

A wand, snapped in half, lay several feet from the body.

“Who cast the Notice-Me-Not?” Ron inquired before Garcia could say anything.

“My husband, sir. Here’s over talking to Murray.”

Ron glanced over his shoulder and saw Murray nodding his head and jotting down notes as he listened to whatever it was he was being told by a second male who was dressed like Garcia in perfect Muggle attire. Murray was one of the oldest Aurors in the whole DMLE. He’d had a long and illustrious career and planned to retire next year. The man Murray was questioning reminded Ron of his brother Charlie except with brown hair and heftier. “You called it in?”

“Yes, sir. I and my husband were in town having dinner and catching a movie as it’s our anniversary-”

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you, sir. We had some time before we had to head to the theater and decided to do some window shopping when this vehicle came flying around the corner.” She pointed to the indicated corner where several crime scene witches were grouped. “The car slowed down. The back door opened and the vic was tossed out. The car then took off.”

Standing up, Ron approached the curb and crouched back down. There were skid marks running several feet down the street. “What color was the car? Are you sure it was a car? How familiar are you with Muggle vehicles?”

“Very, sir. I’m Muggleborn and my parents made sure I knew all about the Muggle world as well as the Wizarding one. Also, my older Muggle brother is a car enthusiast.”

“So it was a car then.”

“Yes, sir. A four-door black luxury car. Mercedes. Tinted windows. I was only able to get a partial license.”

“Many wouldn’t have even gotten that much. Good eye, Garcia.” He would be able to use his contacts within the Muggle authorities in order to find the vehicle.

“Thank you, sir.”

Still crouching, Ron studied the scene. He pictured the car Garcia had seen squealing around the corner--there’d be more skid marks there--and slowing down just the slightest bit as it passed Garcia and her husband who were out celebrating. The back door opened. John Doe, as he would be referred to as until they had a name, was tossed out like yesterday’s trash, already dead given the lack of blood at the scene. The car took off, leaving behind more skid marks. Momentum had the male victim rolling a good couple of meters down the sidewalk before coming to a halt before a boutique.

Whoever this guy was, he was obviously a wizard, so what was he doing being tossed out of a moving Muggle car in the middle of a Muggle city in plain sight of Muggles? Was it a coincidence that the vic was discarded in front of probably the only two magical folk walking the streets of Muggle Edinburgh that night?

What about the car? It wasn’t unheard of for wizards to use Muggle transportation. Ministry officials used them all the time.

Some of his fellow Aurors would have written off Muggles as being responsible right away, thinking that no Muggle would be able to take down a wizard, but that just wasn‘t true. While magic couldn’t be used against Muggles except in certain extreme circumstances, if this guy had been so hopped-up on whatever his drug of choice was when he’d been jumped, Muggle or not, magic wouldn’t have done much good. Both Zhangjiakou and Rain affected one’s ability to use magic. But if the vic had been clean at the time, then no matter the amount of Muggles, he wouldn’t have ended up face down with his throat slashed unless the Muggle had taken him unawares and quite possibly not even then.

Standing up, groaning as his knees protested the move, Ron moved back to the body. “Has the ME arrived yet?”

“On his way, sir,” Murray answered, strolling towards him.

Garcia’s husband had remained by the wards that kept out Muggles and unauthorized magical folk.

“He looks familiar,” Garcia muttered as she crouched over the body. Her head was bent low and tilted to get a better look at the dead man’s face.

Ron latched onto this. “Familiar how?”

Garcia shook her head. “Not sure.”

Ron crossed towards her and the dead body. “Was he a suspect? Bring him in for questioning? Was he wanted for questioning?”

Garcia shook her head.

“Maybe you went to Hogwarts together? Dated him? He date a friend of yours?”

Again, Garcia shook her head.

Sighing, Ron scrubbed his hands over his face.

“Sorry, sir. I just can’t remember.”

Ron waved it aside. “It’s alright. Let me know if you do. What about you?” Ron asked Murray as the older Auror joined them.

Garcia stood and stepped aside.

Murray took her place and studied the victim as best he could given the man was facedown. “Yeah,” he answered right away. “Yeah. I’ve seen him.”

Ron snapped to attention. He’d asked as a matter of routine since Garcia had admitted to being familiar with the victim. He hadn‘t actually expected an answer. “Where was this?” he demanded.

“Knockturn earlier this afternoon.”

“Knockturn Alley?”

“Yeah. I was called to a domestic disturbance and saw him loitering in front of a closed tobacco store. Seemed nervous. Strung out.”

“Was he with anyone? See anybody approaching him?”

Murray shook his head. “No sir and he was gone when I left.”

“Potter!” Garcia exclaimed suddenly.

Ron turned around, expecting to see his best mate. When he didn’t see him, he turned back to Garcia questioningly.

“I accompanied Auror Potter once when Potions Master Malfoy was unable to do so to see their informant in Knockturn Alley,” Garcia explained excitedly. “Met him in an alley besides a shop that sold tobacco. Guy went by the name Sting. Could be why you saw him there earlier,” she said to Murray. “He was waiting for Potter.”

Murray nodded. “He was acting pretty nervous. Almost scared. Jittery. Thought he was coming off something, but maybe he had something that was hot.”

“And got him killed,” Ron finished. He swore under his breath. “This is Harry’s informant?”

“Yes, sir,” Garcia confirmed with a nod.

Ron cursed again. Guess he was going to have that conversation sooner than he’d thought.

+ HARRY POTTER + ADVICE 2: WHEEL OF FORTUNE +

An Hour Later - Potter Residence - 23 Pasteur Drive, Swindon, Wiltshire, England

They were embracing within the shower after their rambunctious bout of lovemaking; hot water raining down upon them, steam filling the bathroom and fogging the mirror. Draco stood behind Harry, their bodies aligned and molded together perfectly. His arms were wrapped tightly and possessively around Harry’s narrow waist, pouring kisses along Harry’s neck and shoulder.

Harry, for his part, tilted his head in order to give Draco better access and moaned loudly at the feel of the hard, throbbing cock snuggly pressed against his ass. “God,” he panted, “I love you.”

Draco paused, blinking stupidly. Then a shit-eating grin spread across his face. Tightening his hold, Draco buried his nose within Harry’s shoulder. “I love you too,” he reciprocated. It felt as if his heart was going to explode out of his chest.

Step four complete. Mission accomplished.

It took a great deal of effort not to cackle like some evil sorceress from a child’s fairytale.

Draco wasn’t sure when he’d developed feelings for Harry. He’d only realized they were there when he saw the announcement in The Daily Prophet about Harry’s engagement to the Weaselette. From there, he’d made it his mission to woo Harry away from his redheaded gnat. There’d been no guarantee that the self-assigned task would work. It might very well have ended in failure. After all, if Harry wasn’t interested then he wasn’t interested and no amount of anything would change that no matter how much Draco would wish the opposite were true.

Luckily for him, Harry had been interested--even if Harry hadn‘t realized it at the time--and things between Harry and The Golden Trio plus One had already been on the rocks, making it so that Draco was able to slither right in and take up the slack.

Draco loved it when a scheme went according to plan.

Now that he had him, he was never going to let him go.

Tipping his head back, Harry rested it on Draco’s shoulder, folding his arms around the viselike grip around his waist and sighing contently.

Finding Ginny’s engagement ring and realizing that she’d done the one thing he’d been too much of a coward to do was the first time in over twenty-four hours that Harry had even thought of the woman. The sudden realization had been startling. There was no excuse for how he’d treated her. She deserved better. The first chance he had, he was going to apologize to her for being such a cad, but he wasn’t going to apologize for Draco. He had absolutely no regrets about becoming Draco’s lover. Draco made him happier than he’s been in a long time and he wasn’t about to lose that.

Harry held his breath as Draco resumed kissing his neck, his hands trailing downwards. He cried out as Draco took his hardening length in hand, the other reaching underneath to cup his balls. That was as far as their foreplay went before the proximity alarms went off. Harry stiffened, his head righting with a snap.

Feeling Harry tense from something that was obviously not of his doing, Draco frowned in concern. “What is it?”

Harry groaned, and not because of anything Draco did, his head slumping forwards with a curse as the presence whom had triggered the proximity alarms passed through the wards. “Ron.”

It was Draco’s turn to stiffen.

Extracting himself from his boyfriend‘s unyielding embrace was more difficult than Harry thought possible and not because if felt as if Draco had used a permanent sticking charm to keep them glued together. Turning around in Draco‘s arms, Harry leaned forward and kissed him so soundly he left Draco cursing the day Ron Weasley was born. Chuckling at Draco’s growing predicament that was pressed against his own, Harry stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel, grinning at the grumbling going on behind him as Draco reluctantly followed suit.

“This had better be important,” Draco grumbled as he wrapped the towel around his waist.

Harry chuckled. “You know you’re cute when you’re frustrated,” he commented, pecking Draco on the lips.

Draco snarled after him, despite the rosy hue his cheeks had taken on. “Malfoys are not cute I’ll have you know.”

“Really? My mistake. What are they then if not cute?” Harry tossed over his shoulder as he pulled on a pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt that said, “Every Saint has a Past” on the front and “Every Sinner has a Future” on the back.

“Debonair comes to mind,” Draco said as he riffled through Harry‘s closet for something suitable to put on. “Suave. Charming.”

“Annoying,” Harry countered as he slid his feet into a pair of house slippers. “Full of themselves.” He yelped as a stinging hex came hurtling out of the closet to zap him in the ass. “Pain in my butt,” he added, rubbing his ass cheek that twinged in pain.

Draco chuckled.

Tossing open the bedroom door, the sound of knocking became evident.

“Shouldn’t Kreacher have answered the door?” Draco asked as he stepped out of the closet dressed in a black silk button down dress shirt tucked neatly into a pair of grey suit pants. He crossed the bedroom to sit on the bed and summoned a pair of black socks out of the dresser.

“Not if it’s ‘Mione, a Weasley or a Muggle. He respects members of the House of Black--except Sirius--and me. That‘s it,” Harry said as Draco put on the socks before following Harry downstairs where the knocking had turned into insistent hammering. “And as you’re part of the House of Black through your mother, he basically worships you.”

Draco smirked at this bit of information.

Harry rolled his eyes as he peeked through the peephole to check that the visitor was indeed Ron. It was. The wards fell around the door as he turned the deadbolt. “Hey,” he greeted his friend neutrally after opening the door to admit the exhausted redhead. After what transpired at lunch the day before, Harry was not sure how stable his relationship with Ron was. It was safer not to poke a sleeping lion. “You look beat.”

Ron sighed as he stepped into the foyer. “I feel beat.”

“Long day?” Harry asked as he shut and locked the door. The wards reset themselves automatically.

“You have no idea.” When Ron’s mud brown eyes landed on the bane of his existence leaning casually against the wall by the staircase with his arms crossed over his chest, he froze. His hand twitched with the impulse to grab his wand.

“Weasley,” Draco greeted with a nod of his head.

Ron gave the man a once over, noting the wet hair and the clothes that reminded him of the outfit Harry wore the day he proposed to Ginny and then dismissed Draco as the insignificant insect he was. He vaguely noted that Harry’s hair was wet as well. “Sorry for stopping by so late mate.”

Harry waved his friend’s apology aside. “No problem. What’s up? Want some tea or-?”

“No thanks. Another time. I, uh, actually this isn’t a social call.”

It was as if a switch had been flicked. Ron watched as Harry went from casual and relaxed to tense and alert. “What happened?” he demanded.

Instead of answering, Ron pulled out a photo from an inner pocket of his Auror robes and passed it over. “Do you know this man?”

Harry swore when he saw the photo.

Ron pulled out his notepad and a Muggle pen from a second inner pocket of his robes and flipped the notepad open to a new page, ready to take notes.

“When was this taken?”

“An hour ago in downtown Muggle Edinburgh. He was killed approximately two hours ago.”

Harry swore again as he peered across the foyer at Draco, who looked back with a cocked eyebrow. “It’s Sting.”

Dropping his arms, Draco pushed away from the wall. “What?” he snapped. “It can’t be. We just saw him.” He marched across the foyer and snatched the picture from Harry’s unsteady grip. His already pale complexion went white. It was a close-up shot of their informant and his runner, Sting. His throat had been slashed. The man’s deathly pallor was evident. “He--You…Fuck.” Handing the photograph back, Draco staggered into the living room and into the nearest seat, which was an antique Victorian straight back chair and dropped his face into his hands.

Ron watched the pureblood heir with something akin to sympathy.

Harry also watched him. Then turned back to Ron. “What happened?” he demanded. His emerald eyes were ablaze with fury. The photo crumbled in his harsh grip.

Gulping, Ron relayed what he believed to have happened. The vic, now confirmed to be an informant that went by the name “Sting”, had had his throat cut and then his body had been dumped. They had an Alert out in both the Muggle as well as the Magical communities in the area for the car Garcia had seen , but he was not holding out any hope of the vehicle providing the magic bullet--if it was ever found that was, which he highly doubted. Who. What. Where. When. Why. They had no answers and unless they either found the getaway car or Harry knew something, Sting’s death was going to remain unsolved.

“Do you know what Sting’s real name was? Did he have any family? Know where he lived?” Ron inquired from where he was standing before the cold fireplace.

“Jacob,” Draco said just as Harry shook his head negatively. “I believe his name was Jacob.” He lifted his head and sat back, staring blankly across the room at the ceiling above Ron’s head. “Jacob…something-or-other. I’m not--Rowans,” he interrupted himself. “Jacob Rowans.”

Ron jotted the name down. “Know if he had family?”

“Not that he ever said. Our association was strictly business. He’s worked for me for the last few years procuring various potions ingredients and acting as liaison between me and certain clients. Then he started acting as Harry’s informant about a year ago.”

“He did say something about a grandmother in Brussels,” Harry added from where he sat on the sofa. “Said she retired there several years back.”

Draco cocked an eyebrow at him.

Harry shrugged.

“Where did he stay?” Ron asked.

“He moved around a lot,” Draco said.

“Especially recently,” Harry added.

“Why’s that?” Ron asked.

“He wasn’t well liked.”

Ron raised an eyebrow.

“He was a snitch,” Draco clarified. “He made a lot of enemies over the years.”

Ron nodded. “When was the last time you met with him?”

“This afternoon,” Harry said.

“I received a message this morning saying he wanted to meet,” Draco said. “That he had information about the case we’re working on.”

“Regarding the banned fertility potion?” Ron asked.

Harry nodded. “Yeah.”

“I bet it was them,” Draco said suddenly.

Ron eyed the man. “Them who? You know what he‘s talking about?” he asked Harry who was nodding.

“The VIPs.”

“The what?”

“The VIPs. That’s what Sting called them. You see, like Draco said, Sting claimed to have some information for us regarding the sale of the banned fertility potion on the Black Market.”

“Only we never got to hear everything he knew,” Draco said as he crossed the room to sit besides Harry. Sitting back, he draped an arm along the back of the sofa and crossed his legs.

“Why? What happened?” Ron asked.

“Aurors appeared and arrested Draco,” Harry answered.

Ron gazed at Draco suspiciously. “What for? What he do?”

“Nothing,” Harry all but barked.

“Just like last time huh? And the time before that?”

“Yes,” Harry replied firmly.

Ron gulped at the fury in Harry’s eyes. “Oh-kay, so, uh, what was this information Sting had? You think whatever it was got him killed?”

“Quite possibly,” Draco said lazily from besides Harry. “Of course, we have no proof, but it’s quite a coincidence that at the same time Sting comes to us with info that could blow our case wide open-”

“-and quite possibly cause quite a scandal within the Ministry-” Harry added.

Ron’s eyebrows shot up into his hairline. “What?” he choked.

Draco inclined his head at Harry. “-a group of Aurors arrive to arrest me for a crime that didn’t even happen.”

Intrigued, Ron pushed away from the mantel and rounded the coffee table to perch on the edge of the chair sat at an angle to the sofa. “What exactly did this guy of yours tell you and what does it have to do with the Ministry?”

With additional input from Draco, Harry told Ron everything that had happened from when Pieletska called him into his office the day before until Draco was arrested in Knockturn Alley. He also told Ron about their suspicions.

Afterwards, Ron sat back, trying desperately to figure out how a simple homicide had become one of Harry’s harebrained conspiracies. His head throbbed painfully as he tried to wrap his mind around the influx of information he’d been fed. “That’s…a lot to take in.”

Before Draco could even open his mouth to comment, the air was forced from his lungs by a sharp jab to his side. Wrapping his arms protectively around his throbbing middle, he glared at Harry who was conveniently not looking at him.

“I plan on speaking to Moore in the morning,” Harry was saying to Ron. “See what he thinks.”

Distracted, Ron nodded. “Yeah. Good idea.” Shaking his head, he sat up, flipped his notepad closed and slid it and the pen back into the inner pocket of his robs. “Well, uh, it’s getting pretty late. Uhm. Thank you…for--you know…”

As eloquent as always, Draco thought with a roll of his eyes.

“Of course.” Standing up, Harry walked Ron to the door, pausing long enough to give Draco a hard slap upside the head for the eye roll.

“We’ll catch whoever’s responsible,” Ron said at the door. “Whether it’s those VIPs you were talking about or if it was just retaliation from someone he burned.”

Harry nodded, but remained silent. Unlike Ron, he was a realist. He knew that not every crime that was brought to the attention of the Aurors was solved for one reason or another--sometimes for lack of evidence and other times because it just wasn’t a priority like the death of some junkie. “Thanks.”

With a nod, Ron stepped out the front door and strolled down the front walk towards the edge of the wards so that he could apparate back to the Ministry to finish his paperwork and then head home. “See ya later,” he tossed over his shoulder.

Harry opened his mouth to say something about him and Ginny, but nothing came out. He couldn’t find the words. By the time he could, Ron was already gone.

He smiled when pale arms wrapped around him from behind and moaned when a familiar hardness pressed into his ass.

“Now,” Draco breathed into his ear, “where were we?”

Harry shivered in pleasure.

+ HARRY POTTER + ADVICE 2: WHEEL OF FORTUNE +

Night - Horny Goatfish Pub - Northumberland, England

It was a Muggle pub.

If someone had told her a week ago that she would spend hours at one, she would have laughed in his face. Then again, many things were different than they were a week ago.

Harry went to Muggle pubs all the time--or he used to before Draco introduced him to Bannum Alley. In the Muggle world, nobody knew him. Nobody stared at him as if he were some sort of oddity or treated him as if he were the Second Coming. Muggles looked at him and not his scar. He could let his hair down, as it were, and be what he’d always wished he could be: Harry, just Harry. He didn’t have to worry about his exploits making the front page of every paper in Great Britain, respectable or otherwise. The Muggle World gave him the anonymity that he wasn’t allowed in the Wizarding World.

While the press could be overwhelming at times, she’d never understood his desire to become just another face in the crowd. Who’d want to be a nobody? With the connections Harry had, he could accomplish so much.

She’d also never seen the benefit in hiding out in a Muggle pub. She’d never accompanied him to one, not even when he asked. She preferred Wizarding pubs like The Three Broomsticks, the Hog’s Head or The Leaky Caldron. Muggle pubs always seemed to be so very--Muggle. But now here she was in the middle of a Muggle pub filled with Muggles in the middle of a Muggle city.

Now she understood what it was about these places that Harry loved so much. Here, nobody knew her. She was just a nameless face in the crowd. Just another woman among a dozen or so others. Run of the mill. Ordinary. She wasn’t Harry Potter’s girlfriend or Ronald Weasley’s little sister or Hermione Granger’s sister-in-law. There weren’t any jealous fangirls to watch out for or fanboys trying to either hit on her or hit her up. She wasn’t being mobbed by so-called journalists just waiting for that one slip up that would allow them to make a name for themselves. What she had was anonymity.

It was strange to not have people watching her, whispering, pointing or asking her about Harry. At the same time, it was refreshing.

Here, she could get drunk and cry and bitch and moan and curse out Harry-I-Take-It-Up-The-Bum-From-Malfoy-Potter all she wanted and it wouldn’t be splashed all over the papers in the morning.

Because it had to be Malfoy Harry was having an affair with. There was no question.

They have been spending a lot of time together. Harry has spent more time with Malfoy just this past week than he has spent with her in the past two months.

The changes Harry had undergone in everything from the improvement of his etiquette to his personality to his wardrobe; he was starting to act and look and think just like Malfoy.

Then there were all the gifts Malfoy has presented to Harry over the year they’ve started hanging out; like that god-awful light in the dining room. From a certain point of view, with all the gifts Malfoy has given to Harry, for seemingly no reason at all, and all the times they‘ve been seen out together socially, one could argue that Malfoy was courting Harry. One reporter not too long ago made that very argument. At the time, Ginny had ignored the speculation. She’d had no reason to believe it was anything more than baseless crap.

Of course, there was also the knowledge that when push came to shove, Harry would choose Malfoy over her in a heartbeat. Or that when Harry gets into one of his moods, Malfoy was the only one who could snap him out of it.

She had no place in Harry’s heart let alone his life. She had gone from Harry’s best friend’s little sister to Harry Potter’s girlfriend and back again.

To her chagrin, she wasn’t drunk. How could she be when she’s been nursing a single glass of beer the entire night? It had long since grown warm and was most likely as flat as a crepe.

As much as she wished she was three sheets to the wind, she found she just wasn’t in the mood, which was funny because that was why she’d come here in the first place.

She’s never despised that she still lives with her parents more than she did this night. Her entire world had been flipped upside down--the rug had been pulled out from under her--and all she wanted was to curl up on the sofa or in bed with a tub of ice cream and have a good cry and curse the day she ever heard of Harry Potter. She could go home and do just that, but then of course, her mother would demand to know what happened and, unfortunately, Molly Weasley does not take no for an answer. Ginny would be forced to tell her the whole horrible ordeal because Molly Weasley would want nothing less than full disclosure and Ginny was just not in the mood to rehash the worst moment in her entire life. She didn’t want to be cuddled and fussed over. She didn’t want to see people looking at her in pity or with sympathy. She just wanted to forget today ever happened.

“Ginny?”

A familiar voice called out to her over the din, startling her. Ginny spun around and gaped at the tall male who approached her. She was completely gobsmacked. If this were one of those Muggle cartoons, her jaw would be on the floor. What were the odds of running into another witch or wizard here in the middle of nowhere? Especially when said wizard was an ex-boyfriend you haven‘t seen or heard anything from since before the war? “Michael?” she breathed in disbelief. “What…?”

With a large toothy grin, Michael Corner enveloped her into a bone-crushing hug. “Hey! It is you! It’s so good to see you!”

“Good to see you too,” she echoed, returning the hug. It felt good to be held, she decided.

“Ya know, I was just thinking about you,” he said. His breath ghosted passed her ear.

Ginny shivered in reaction. “Really? Good thoughts I hope,” she teased.

Michael laughed, tightening his hold briefly before pulling away. He slid into an empty stool besides her at the bar and ordered a beer. “So how are you?” he inquired covering her hand that rested on this slick bar top with his own.

Ginny blushed at the intimate touch. “Good--now that you’re here.” She was surprised how truthful that statement was.

“Uh, oh. What happened?”

Maybe it was the concern he was showing, despite the light, playful tone, or maybe the flippant way the question was asked that set Ginny off.

It really was over wasn’t it? Her fairytale romance with the love of her life was over before it could even begin. She’d been in love with Harry Potter since she was a child. She, like the rest of the Wizarding World, had grown up hearing the heroic tale of the Boy-Who-Lived who had, at fifteen months, defeated the Dark Lord who many had claimed to be unstoppable in his reign of terror. She’d always imagined him riding to her rescue atop a noble steed like a valiant knight to save her from an evil Wizard. He would defeat the evil wizard and together they would vanish into the sunset where they would live happily ever after.

Only reality was much different than her imagination. Instead of riding to her rescue, her valiant knight had ridden off into the sunset with the evil wizard while she remained imprisoned for all eternity.

As she felt the stinging pressure of tears beginning to fill her eyes, she forced a smile to remain on her lips and shook her head to vanquish the heavily depressing thoughts.

Though the hollowness inside her where Harry had resided ached, she would not let that son of a bitch win.

Michael must have seen something on her face for the teasing grin fell from Michael’s now worried face. “Gin?”

A single tear rolled unhindered down Ginny’s cheek. Her breath hitched. Her jaw started trembling. Her shoulders began to shake with suppressed sobs.

All she’s heard lately was unkind criticism about how she was fucking up things with Harry. Everybody seemed to have ignored Harry’s part in the destruction of their relationship. It was always “Oh, Ginny, you didn’t.” and never “Harry, you idiot. What are you doing?” Michael was the first person to seem genuinely concerned about her and for her.

“Oh, Ginny.” Michael stood up and embraced her.

Ginny wrapped her arms around Michael’s waist and hugged him so tightly she heard Michael grunt. She buried her tear stained face in his chest and cried softly, “I’m sorry. It’s just been a really shitty day.”

“It’s okay,” Michael said softly as he tried to comfort his ex-girlfriend. He pulled away enough so that he could smile down at her. “Come on. Let’s say we get out of here huh? I’ve got a place not too far from here. I can make some tea, heat up some biscuits my mom sent me--because apparently without her there to cook for me I’m going to starve to death-”

Despite herself, Ginny chuckled.

“-and we can talk or not talk. Whatever. What do you say? Hm?”

Smiling, Ginny brushed at her wet cheeks and nodded. “I’d like that.”

“Good. C’mon.” Draping his arm around her shoulders, Michael steered Ginny out of the pub and out into the night.

+ TO BE CONTINUED +

Goatfish - U.S. fish with whiskers beneath mouth: a distinctively colored fish with two thin flexible appendages barbels beneath the mouth that are probably used as feelers. Native to: seabed in warm seas.

ME - medical examiner
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Advice 2: Wheel of Fortune