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Advice 2: Wheel of Fortune	By : Chocho Category: Harry Potter AU/AR > Slash - Male/Male Views: 3447 -:- 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
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: “Wheel of Fortune“, Ace of Base, The Sign, info on strokes taken from Wikipedia, recap from “Advice”

A/N: Edited for your reading pleasure.

+ HARRY POTTER + ADVICE 2: WHEEL OF FORTUNE +

What are you gonna tell your dad

It’s like a wheel of fortune

And what are you gonna tell your dad

If this wheel lets you down

My love is my engine

And you might be fuel

Stop acting cool

Just bet you might win

I’m not too cruel

(I’m in love with another fool)

“Wheel of Fortune“, Ace of Base, The Sign

+ HARRY POTTER + ADVICE 2: WHEEL OF FORTUNE +

Last Time

Malfoy-

Though I do not intend to leave Ginny or doing anything that would cause her to leave me, I have taken your advice to heart and have come to realize that what you said does make some semblance of sense. Therefore, I have decided to have a prenuptial agreement drawn up. When I told Ginny, Hermione and the Weaselys of my intentions, they were understandably upset and confused-

Draco rolled his eyes. Of course not. There goes their cash cow.

-but I will not back down-

Draco smirked.

-especially after I spoke with others in Bannum and heard stories similar to your aunt’s.

If you could offer your services once more and help me with the prenup, I would be eternally grateful.

Harry

Draco sat back and chuckled. It appeared as if Harry Potter was finally beginning to understand how the Wizarding World worked.

He snapped his fingers.

A different house-elf appeared. “Floo Mr. Hedgerow and inform him that I may have found a new client for him.”

The house-elf bowed before vanishing with a pop.

His attorney, Mr. Edward Hedgerow was the best there was. He would make sure that if the Potters’ marriage did fail, God willing, Ginny would be tossed out onto the street with only the clothes on her back- if she were lucky.

Step one. Complete.

+ HARRY POTTER + ADVICE 2: WHEEL OF FORTUNE +

CHAPTER I: Day One

A Year Later - Late Morning - Head Auror’s Office - London, England

Emerald green eyes flashed with a mixture of annoyance, anger and disappointment as they took in the older man sitting before him. “No,” was the immediate response from the owner of those eyes, seasoned Auror Harry Potter. There was no hesitation in his decision.

“Excuse me?” His boss, Head Auror Heinin Pieletska, narrowed his midnight blue eyes and leaned forwards over his desk. “What do you mean no?” he demanded to know of one of the Department’s top Aurors.

“Just that, sir,” Harry replied. “I cannot, in good conscience, take this assignment.”

“You’re refusing this assignment.”

Harry nodded. “Yes, sir, I am.”

A pleasant smile crossed Pieletska’s face as he relaxed back in the chair behind his desk. “Really?”

It was Harry’s eyes that narrowed this time in response to the almost purr of his boss’s voice. “Yes, sir.”

Pieletska continued to look relaxed and pleased with himself as he casually threaded his fingers together over his belly. “You do realize, Auror Potter, rejecting this assignment is grounds for termination, do you not?”

So that was it. He should have known. Pieletska never liked Harry. Pieletska made that perfectly clear from the moment he learned Harry Potter had aspirations of becoming an Auror. And from the moment Harry graduated from Auror Academy, Pieletska has deliberately made Harry’s job difficult if not impossible at times. Harry was continuously stonewalled and/or surrounded by enough red tape to cover the surface of the planet ten times over. It was infuriating to no end.

For whatever reason, the head of the Auror Department adamantly believed that the Ministry purposely turned a blind eye when it concerned one Harry Potter. Pieletska even claimed that Harry’s defeat of You-Know-Who was the result of “a lucky shot” and therefore did not constitute the DMLE ignoring all of the crimes Harry has committed as if they did not exist. Of course, when Pieletska was asked what crimes Harry supposedly committed, Pieletska always changed the subject.

Harry was not sure what Pieletska’s problem with him was, but it felt personal and that confused him because he could not remember ever meeting or hearing about Pieletska before entering the Auror Academy.

“Actually, sir,” Harry refuted with a smirk of his own, “it isn’t.” He sat back in the uncomfortable, wobbly visitor’s chair, trying to look more relaxed than he was. Resting his ankle on the opposite knee, Harry laced his hands around his raised knee. “According to Article V section 1 paragraph three of The Auror Code of Conduct and Regulations, any Auror who refuses an assignment, for whatever reason, is not to be terminated or reprimanded for the refusal,” he paraphrased from memory. Hermione had been proud when he’d memorized the entirety of the manual. “So, no, sir, me refusing this assignment is not grounds for a termination.”

A flash of fury flared in Pieletska’s eyes briefly before the Head Auror was able to school his expression. Harry‘s smirk grew in reaction.

“But you could go ahead and try,” Harry continued. “I’ll just sue you, the Department and the Ministry for unlawful termination.”

Harry did not become one of the Department’s top Aurors by being an idiot, but even an idiot could figure out what was going on here. Pieletska wanted him gone. It was not exactly a secret. Ever since Harry joined the Aurors, Pieletska has been trying to force Harry out and by whatever means necessary.

It seemed Pieletska had decided to switch gears. Since trying to get Harry to quit was not working, Pieletska was now trying to find ways to fire him instead. The man’s first attempt was apparently to deliberately assign Harry a case that he knew Harry would refuse to work. Pieletska’s thinking was that with Harry’s refusal, he would be free to fire Harry. Unfortunately, that was not how it worked.

“We both know this undercover operation is based entirely on baseless accusations that come not from an ‘anonymous tip’ but from you,” Harry accused.

Of course, Harry was bluffing. As sure as he was that Pieletska did not like him, he wasn’t as sure that Pieletska was behind the “anonymous tip” that accused Draco Malfoy of hording illegal Dark artifacts purchased off the Black Market. Though, knowing his boss’s detestation for certain members of Wizarding society for no other reason than his own ignorance and prejudice, which included the Malfoys as well as Harry, the allegation was not so far-fetched, especially when considering Harry‘s newly formed friendship and alliance with Draco.

At Harry’s accusation, though, Pieletska went rigid. It was all the proof Harry needed.

“Everyone is well aware of your--abhorrence for Draco so it’s not such an improbable idea that you would concoct some sort of--situation-”

“Draco Malfoy is a nuisance,” Pieletska interrupted in seething anger. He punctuated his belief by slamming a fisted hand into his desktop.

Harry cocked an eyebrow. “How so, sir? Draco is a law-abiding citizen and has been since graduating from Hogwarts. Did you know he tied with ‘Mione as Valedictorian?” he added just because he knew it would irritate Pieletska further. “He donates to local charities, founded The Restoration Fund after the war as well as the first wizarding orphanage in Britain. He’s helped pass several laws that could very well prevent another Voldemort.” Here he smirked internally as Pieletska flinched. “He is a brilliant Potions Master with his own chain of apothecaries and has helped on many of my cases as an expert consultant-”

“He is a Death Eater!”

“Was,” Harry corrected, “and not by choice.”

“Bullshit!”

Harry cocked an eyebrow. Pieletska was not the first, and would not be the last, to not believe the argument that Draco Malfoy’s hand had been forced by the Dark Lord. During the war, Draco did what he had to do in order to not only survive, but to protect his family. It wasn‘t like Draco was the only one guilty of doing so and yet he had been the only one on trial.

Besides, even if Draco had voluntarily joined Voldemort’s ranks, it did not change anything; at least, that was the way Harry saw it, but maybe his view on the entire matter was skewed. Then again, so was Pieletska’s.

Maybe that was it. Did Pieletska not like him because he’d volunteered to take the stand in the Malfoys’ defense at their trials, preventing the Malfoys from seeing jail time? Of course, Lucius had been sent back to Azkaban to finish out his earlier sentence for breaking into and vandalizing the Department of Mysteries and lying under oath. Nothing Harry said could have prevented that. At least with the Dementors no longer at the wizarding prison, the remaining years were more humane. Lucius had even been released early for good behavior.

Whether Harry’s assumptions were correct or not, whatever Pieletska’s problem was, the man needed to get over it and move on. How had this man become Head Auror when he allowed his personal feelings to steer his actions? It made Harry wonder. How many innocent people had been sent to prison just because Pieletska did not like them?

“You are, of course, entitled to your opinion,” Harry told his boss as he dropped his leg to the floor, “sir,” he added after a purposeful pause, “but Draco was found not guilty by the Wizengamot-”

“This is not the same as being innocent.”

Harry inclined his head in agreement. As much as he disliked agreeing with Pieletska on anything, the Head Auror was correct. When a defendant was found “not guilty”, it usually meant that the prosecution had not proven their case beyond a reasonable doubt--according to the jury at least. It did not mean that the defendant was innocent of said crime.

“Be that as it may, sir,” Harry continued, “Draco is not a criminal and framing him for a crime he has not committed just because you disagree with the Wizengamot’s ruling-”

“Beon hweat? Paet-”

Both men froze, blinking blankly across the L-shaped dark oak desk at one another.

“Sir?” Harry spoke after several long moments of silence. His voice was soft and cautious, but his pulse was racing. “Are you-?”

With the first stirrings of panic flitting across his face, Pieletska tried speaking again, but once again, nothing more than incomprehensible gibberish spewed forth.

Frowning, Harry kept his gaze firmly locked on Pieletska and extended his right arm slightly from his body. In a disillusioned holder strapped around his right forearm was his wand. All it would take was a flick of his wrist and his holly wand would drop into his hand. After all, this could be a trick by Pieletska in order to get him to lower his guard so that he could attack Harry. Harry would not put it passed the man. But his gut was telling him this was no hoax. Something was seriously wrong with his boss. Just the same, he did not lower his guard.

Harry went to ask the man once again if he was all right, but he never had the chance. The color drained from Pieletska’s face. Then he fell face first onto his desk. The loud thunk of Pieletska’s head hitting the hard surface of the desk was what sprang Harry into action. He raced around the desk, calling over his shoulder for help. His own face paled when he could not find a pulse.

+ HARRY POTTER + ADVICE 2: WHEEL OF FORTUNE +

Two Hours Later - Saint Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries - London, England

“And he just--collapsed,” Harry finished.

Auror Adelphos Constantine nodded. “Alright. Thank you Auror Potter.” Constantine’s root beer colored eyes never once left the small notepad in his hand. “If you can remember anything else, you will let us know.”

“Of course,” Harry agreed with a nod.

He was not sure what to make of his fellow Auror. Constantine was hard to read and even harder to like. The man had a way of making even the most guilt-free people feel guilt-ridden and just by his mere presence. It was a very disconcerting feeling, but it was what made Constantine such an invaluable Auror. There’d been talk among those who felt Pieletska should be ousted from office, including Harry himself, who believed that Constantine would make an excellent Head Auror. Constantine had never commented on the rumors.

With a snap of his wrist, the veteran Auror closed the notepad and stuffed it into an inner pocket of his robes. Only then did he spare Harry the first glance since arriving at the hospital to take Harry’s statement. With a sharp nod, Constantine turned smartly on his heels. His robes billowed out about him in such a way that reminded Harry distinctly of Snape. Rounding the corner, Constantine disappeared from view, but his footsteps continued to echo through the otherwise quiet corridor.

From somewhere within the hospital came the occasional bing of the elevator and murmured voices.

With a sigh, Harry followed after Constantine, but at a more sedate pace; turning the corner in time to see the hem of the veteran Auror’s robe vanish within the waiting room that was reserved specifically for those who had loved ones in surgery. The steady stream of voices emanating from the medium-sized room was cut short as the door shut.

Harry went to follow when a woman who could not be much taller than he was stepped out from a door across the hall from the waiting room. She was wearing sea foam green scrubs and her hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail. A sign hanging from the ceiling read, “Surgery Admission” with a white arrow pointing towards the very doorway through which the mediwitch had exited. The woman crossed the hall and opened the door to the waiting room. Not so much as a whisper flowed out into the hallway.

The atmosphere was tense when Harry stepped into the waiting room moments later.

The Healer was kneeling before Pieletska’s wife, Brónach. “Mrs. Pieletska, I’m Healer Ó Beacháin,” the woman spoke with a thick accent. “I was on call when your husband was rushed into the ER this morning.”

“How is he? How’s my husband?” Brónach Pieletska asked in panicked desperation, clutching a handkerchief so tightly her knuckles were white.

“He’s had what we call an Ischemic stroke. This is when blood supply to part of the brain is decreased.”

There was a round of gasps some quiet sobbing and a wave of muffled whispering at the news.

If Brónach Pieletska had been standing, she would have fallen. As it was, she swooned. One of her sons helped steady her. Harry recognized him from past Ministry functions. He believed his name was Josiah. “Why?” Brónach Pieletska half-whispered half-wailed from behind her handkerchief. Her usually bright blue eyes were dull and swimming behind a wall of tears.

“There are four known reasons as to what can cause an Ischemic stroke. It can be caused by a thrombosis, which is an obstruction of a blood vessel by a blood clot,” she rattled off, raising a finger, “an embolism,” a second finger, “a systemic hypoperfusion, which is a general decrease in blood supply, such as what occurs when one goes into shock,” a third finger, “or a venous thrombosis.” She dropped her hand. “In your husband’s case, though, he’s had what we call a ‘cryptogenic’ Ischemic stroke. What this means is that the cause of his stroke is unknown.”

“W-what do you mean ‘unknown’? What happened to my husband?” Brónach Pieletska demanded. That earlier desperation was beginning to turn into anxiety. If she did not calm down, Harry was afraid the medical staff would be forced to sedate her.

“At this time, we are unsure what caused your husband to have a stroke,” Healer Ó Beacháin explained in a calm voice. “Thirty to forty percent of patients who suffer an Ischemic stroke are classified as having a cryptogenic stroke.”

Brónach Pieletska slammed a trembling hand on the arm of her chair. Her youngest son, who was sitting behind her, lightly touched her shoulders and whispered softly into her ear, but she brushed him off as if he were nothing more than an annoying fly. If Harry was not mistaken, the younger son’s name was Ethan. “I don’t care about other patients! I want to know about my husband,” she screeched.

Healer Ó Beacháin nodded. “An Ischemic stroke occurs because of a loss of blood supply to part of the brain, initiating the ischemic cascade. As a result, the affected area of the brain is unable to function, which might result in an inability to move one or more limbs on one side of the body, inability to understand or formulate speech, or an inability to see one side of the visual field.”

There were a second round of gasps, muffled sobs and broken whispers

“Brain tissue ceases to function if deprived of oxygen for more than 60 to 90 seconds and after approximately three hours, will suffer irreversible injury possibly leading to death of the tissue, but because of the quick thinking of the Aurors, this did not happen.” She laid a hand on Brónach Pieletska’s arm and smiled. “Your husband is going to be fine.”

It was as if the whole room breathed a sigh of relief. The tension that had been suffocating the occupants--including Pieletska’s five children, his wife, parents and in-laws, friends and associates of both Mr. and Mrs. Pieletska, Ministry workers and Aurors--simply ceased to exist.

“Can I see him?” Brónach Pieletska asked with a pleading watery smile.

“Of course. Someone will be by in a little while to take you to your husband’s room.”

“Thank you,” Brónach Pieletska whispered.

Healer Ó Beacháin smiled gently and whispered, “He’ll be fine,” to the distraught housewife before sweeping passed Harry, whom had sagged against the wall in his relief, and out the room.

Harry wasn’t as egotistical, arrogant, or selfish as to actually feel responsible for bringing about Pieletska’s stroke, but he did feel bad for the guy. Pieletska was a pain in the ass to work for and with; in fact, Harry did not like him. But for an Auror to survive through everything they are forced to deal with on a daily basis only to be cut down by something like a stroke was somewhat anticlimactic. It was like a veteran surviving war only to be murdered at home by a petty thief.

Seconds later, the alarm on Harry’s watch went off. He cursed, startled to realize just how late it was. In the excitement of Pieletska’s attack, Harry had completely forgotten that he’d made plans to have lunch with Draco. Cursing again, Harry fled through the hospital to the apparition point.

Draco was going to kill him.

+ HARRY POTTER + ADVICE 2: WHEEL OF FORTUNE +

Half an Hour Later - Bean Sidhe Café - Bannum Alley

“You’re late,” Draco Malfoy bit as soon as he caught sight of Harry who was being guided through the café to the open-air patio by the host.

Harry apologized as he took the seat opposite the blond-haired Potions Master.

The host laid a menu down on the white plate before saying, “Your waiter will be right with you.”

After thanking the man, Harry turned the menu open to the beverage section and perused the extensive, not to mention expensive, selection.

If it was not for the privacy Bannum Alley afforded him, unlike that of Diagon, Harry was not sure if he would have ever stepped foot within the lavish and affluent shopping district. This was despite the fact that Harry was wealthy enough to purchase Bannum Alley twenty times over and still have enough money to allow the next thirty generations of Potters to live lives of luxury.

Having grown up with nothing and knowing that he was now the single wealthiest bloke in the entirety of Wizarding Europe, possibly the world, made Harry extremely uncomfortable. Of course, Draco was slowly curing him of that, whether Harry liked it or not.

“Well?” Draco snapped.

After deciding to go with a ridiculously expensive wine that he could not pronounce the name of, but which Harry could vaguely remember having sampled, Harry turned towards his friend and explained what had taken place that morning.

As expected, Draco glowered violently when he heard what Pieletska was, once again, trying to do and vowed to speak to his attorney about the matter immediately. “One would think Pieletska would have learned by now,” Draco said.

Harry snorted. “You would think.”

“I mean, after being sued countless times-”

“Five if I‘m not mistaken.”

Draco cocked an eyebrow at that. Had it really been nearly half a dozen times? Somehow, he was not surprised. He waved the trivial matter aside. “Either way, you would think that after being sued once for slander, making false accusations without sufficient evidence-”

“False arrest,” Harry added. Pieletska had actually had Aurors arrest Draco back in March for assault and battery and use of an Unforgivable even though the only “evidence” they had was the word of the supposed victim who was well known in the DMLE for not only making false accusations, but also smuggling illegal contraband. Even if the “victim” had been an upstanding citizen, the charges still would not have held up in court. At the time Draco was supposedly “beating the crap” out of the “poor defenseless wizard”, Harry and he were out of the country. They’d been in Newfoundland, Canada actually and had hundreds of witnesses to the fact. Pieletska had been none too pleased to have been thwarted.

With a nod of his head, Draco continued, “-among many countless other false allegations, Pieletska would have realized this private war of his is pointless.”

“Guess not,” Harry snorted. “Anyway,” he continued, “that’s not all.” Harry went on to tell him about how Pieletska had collapsed over his desk. “Turns out it was a stroke.”

At that, Draco burst out laughing.

“It’s not funny,” Harry said as he fought the curl of his lips and the flutter of his heart. Draco’s laugh seemed to affect him in strange ways lately.

“Oh, please,” Draco said with a roll of his eyes. “Pieletska was an insufferable man and you know it.”

“Well, yes-”

“How often has he interfered in your cases? Taken credit for something you did? Used you as a scapegoat for his mistakes and blunders? How many criminals have slipped through your fingers because of all the red tape he wraps you in?”

Draco did have a point. Pieletska was not a very nice man, but not liking him was very different from believing that he deserved and brought upon himself the stroke that very well could have killed him.

“Dear Merlin,” Draco moaned suddenly, “don’t tell me.”

“What?”

“You actually feel responsible!”

Harry scoffed at the unfounded accusation. “Please!”

Crossing his arms, Draco narrowed his eyes. “Really?” he prodded.

“Though,” Harry said with a sly smirk that would look foreign on the face of the Savior to anybody who hadn’t been spending as much of his or her time with Harry as of late like Draco has, “it wouldn’t surprise me if I was responsible.”

Draco raised an eyebrow, intrigued. By the tone of Harry’s voice, it was clear Harry was not suffering from some misguided sense of guilt over something that was clearly out of his hands.

“You see,” Harry continued, “a stroke can be caused by hypertension-”

“High blood pressure,” Draco translated.

The sly smirk grew. “Exactly.”

Draco chuckled lowly. He knew where Harry was going with this now. “And the fact that Pieletska was forced to deal with the two of us on a daily basis-”

“Who he hates with a passion.”

“Exactly,” Draco agreed with a nod.

“It’d be enough to give anybody high blood pressure.”

Draco threw his head back and laughed loudly.

Their waitress finally made an appearance just then and apologized for the wait. “Can I start you gentlemen with something to drink?” she inquired softly.

“Yes. I’ll have a glass of Gewürztrminer,” Harry garbled. His face flushed in embarrassment.

Draco snickered.

Harry scowled playfully back at him. He had the childish urge to kick him.

“It’s pronounced guh-voorts-truh-mee-nur.”

“Whatever,” Harry mumbled, suppressing the urge to roll his eyes.

Chuckling, Draco turned towards the waitress and ordered a glass of Merlot.

While the younger woman nodded and seemed to make some sort of notation in the brown leather bound notepad all the waitstaff carried, Draco had to wonder if she’d actually heard a word he said for she could not seem to take her eyes away from Harry. For his part, Harry did not spare her a single glance. Instead, those wondrous emerald eyes were either on Draco or on the menu. This never failed to fascinate Draco, especially because it was apparently unconscious on Harry‘s part. There was a look of hurt on the face of the waitress as she left promising to be right back with their order. Draco sent a smirk after her.

“Look, Dray-”

Draco’s heart skipped a beat at the nickname. Since early childhood, he had despised them, but for some reason, hearing a shortened version of his name uttered by Harry--he liked it very much. He fought back the blush that wanted to turn his pale complexion into the color of a boiled lobster. “Harry.”

“It’s entirely possible that Pieletska will find some way to pin his stroke on us no matter what the Healers say.”

“Of course he will,” Draco muttered with a heavy sigh.

“He’s been trying to get rid of me ever since I entered the Academy. Blaming the both of us for his near death experience-”

Draco rolled his eyes.

“-would be like killing two birds with one stone.”

“What’s he gonna say? That we slipped something into his tea?”

Harry snorted. That very thing happened a year before Harry entered the Auror Academy. Pieletska had agreed to an interview by a reporter who claimed to be from The Daily Prophet, but who turned out to be an assassin. The woman slipped a poison into Pieletska’s tea when the man left the office for a few seconds during their interview.

“Or used a silent incantation that nobody else knows about?”

Wouldn’t surprise me, Harry thought.

“I would say you actually saved Pieletska’s life,” Draco said.

Harry laughed at the irony of that. That was definitely something Pieletska would not appreciate. It would probably give him a heart attack. “I’d love to be there when he hears that!”

Chuckling, Draco scanned the café interior for a sign of their waitress whom had promised to be right back with their order, but did not see her. In fact, other then he and Harry, there weren’t many other patrons. Those few that were frequenting the establishment seemed to be waiting on the young woman as well. What was holding her up? Draco scowled in annoyance. How long did it take to pour two glasses of wine? Was she making it from scratch? Honestly!

“Stop it.”

“Huh?” Draco turned his attention back to Harry. “Stop what? Who‘re you talking to?”

Harry pointed at Draco’s hand, which was thrumming steady beats on the linen tablecloth.

Draco stilled the movement immediately and scowled at having been caught doing something so uncouth. Ignoring a laughing Harry, Draco turned once again to search for their waitress. There was still no sign of her. “Where is that damn waitress?” he snapped impatiently.

“Maybe there’s a problem in the kitchen,” Harry suggested.

Draco snorted and sat back, crossing his arms over his chest. “You would think that if there was some sort of problem, they would be respectful enough to inform us.”

Harry shrugged.

“Speaking of problems,” Draco continued, dropping his arms and crossing his legs under the table, “how’s the Weaselette and the others faring? Still in a huff about the prenuptial agreement you forced the Weaselette to sign?”

Before Harry could answer, their waitress appeared with their wine, uttering stuttering apologies for the wait and asking if they were ready to order. Both decided to start with a small salad followed by the French onion soup. For the main course, they both ordered the salmon, which was sautéed in a Sauvignon Blanc wine sauce and served with a side of steamed asparagus.

“Make sure it arrives in a timely fashion this time,” Draco said, barely managing to keep from snapping.

“Yes, sir. Of course, sir. My apologies,” the girl stuttered. Pale faced, she scurried off to the kitchen to place the orders, but not before she tried to catch Harry’s eye. To Draco’s continued fascination and delight, Harry once again ignored the poor infatuated girl, but he did sigh heavily with a small shake of his head.

“What?”

“You could be a little nicer you know. It wouldn’t hurt,” Harry answered with a sip of his rose-colored wine. It’s aroma of passion fruit with an underlining scent of roses tingled his senses.

That had Draco raising an eyebrow. He then shook his head with a snort. When they went out, Harry had the tendency to ignore the women around them as if they did not exist and he was telling Draco to be “a little nicer”. Talk about the kettle calling the pot black.

“What?” Harry inquired at the incredulous look on Draco’s face.

Draco shook his head in amusement. “Nothing,” he said. “Never mind.”

Harry did not believe him, but let it go.

“So?” Draco inquired after taking a sip of his own wine.

“So what?”

“How are things between the Golden Trio plus One?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Hermione, Ron and Ginny are fine.”

“But?”

“But what?” Harry asked, taking another sip of his wine.

“Come now, Harry,” Draco prodded, crossing his arms over the edge of the table and leaning forwards.   “You and I both know that it not exactly the case.”

“Do we?”

“Yes, we do. You see, I’ve heard tell that the Weasley brood was none too-happy about such an agreement being drawn up.”

“Of course you have. I’m the one who told you,” Harry reminded him.

“And?”

Harry leaned back and crossed his arms to keep the temptation to run his fingers through his hair at bay. Draco was trying to cure him of this tick.

Turning away from Draco’s intense gaze, Harry instead scanned the Alley, taking in the hustle and bustle of the crowd. Men, women and children meandered here and there, occasionally stopping to chat with acquaintances. There was the occasional delivery wizard or house-elf. And none of them stopped to gawk at Harry as if he were some sort of special attraction or oddity at the zoo. Here he was just another chap in the crowd. Here in Bannum Alley, he was who he always wanted to be: Harry.

“Like I said before, Ginny and I talked,” Harry began, “and she--understands.”

Draco took note of the slight pause. Interesting.

“She was hurt initially when I brought it up. Actually slapped me.” Harry winced at the memory, his hand fluttering to the cheek that had taken the offense.

Draco’s hands itched to soothe the wound. He curled them into fists to keep from reaching across the table and thus making a fool of himself.

“Ended up not talking to me for a while.”

Draco snorted. Now there was a shame, he thought.

“But she cooled down once she thought about it. She understands.” Or so she told me, Harry thought silently. He would not admit it aloud, but he still had some misgivings. Not about the prenuptial agreement itself or with forcing Ginny to sign one, because Draco was correct in what he’d told him.

“Look Potter, maybe you’ll be one of those rare couples that stay together, but what if, what if, you don’t? Don’t you think it’s better to be safe than sorry?”

In all honesty, Harry was not sure what he was still uncertain about. It was like an itch that you cannot seem to locate.

“And the others?” Draco asked, taking another sip of wine.

Harry sighed, dropping his chin in his hand. He glanced briefly at Draco before searching for their waitress- not that he knew what she looked like. Somewhere along the line, he’d finished his glass of wine. Maybe he should have purchased a bottle of the stuff instead.

“Not so understanding I take it?”

“With a great many things,” Harry muttered.

Draco cocked an eyebrow at that.

A flash of orange out of the corner of Draco’s eye just then caught his attention. He searched it out, hoping it was nothing more than some witch or wizard’s poor attempt at fashion. The alternative was not something he was in the mood to deal with; or ever, in fact. Unfortunately, the alternative is what it turned out to be. “Speaking of which,” Draco said with a sneer.

Harry whipped his head around. “Huh?”

Draco pointed out the annoyed looking ginger-haired Auror across the street with a jerk of his chin. The man was not alone. His bushy-haired wife was at his side.

Dropping his hand, Harry sat back and turned to look out across the alley. He groaned then cursed lowly under his breath when he spotted Ron and Hermione glowering at him from across the street. For the love of Merlin! He was twenty-two years old! Could he not have five seconds alone without having his self-appointed guardians hovering over his shoulders? Was that too much to ask for?

Draco found Harry’s reactions to the other two-thirds of the Golden Trio interesting and very intriguing. “They’re coming this way,” Draco announced.

Snapping out of his thoughts, Harry noted that Draco was right. While Ron had remained on the other side of the street in front of a French bakery, Hermione strode towards him with long purposeful strides. “Here we go,” he muttered.

“How’d they even know where you were?” Draco inquired as he watched the Muggleborn witch cross towards them. Given Harry’s reaction to the sight of his friends, Draco had the feeling that Harry had not informed them of where and with whom he would be having lunch. “Don’t tell me they put a locator charm on you.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Harry said with a snort. “I didn’t even tell Ginny who I was having lunch with.”

Draco’s eyebrow rose. “What did you tell them?”

Harry shrugged. “That I was having lunch with a friend.”

A smug sense of satisfaction rose within Draco at the confession.

“‘Mione,” Harry greeted with forced pleasure when Hermione saddled up to the waist high wrought iron fence that enclosed the patio of the café. “What are you doing here?” He stood up and greeted her with a kiss on both cheeks. “You remember Draco.”

“Granger,” Draco greeted evenly with a small incline of his head. Or was it Weasley? And did it even matter? Not really.

Hermione did not waste Draco with so much as a courtesy greeting, which had Draco quietly bristling. This was the exact reason why Purebloods despised Muggles and Muggleborns: poor basic etiquette.

With her arms crossed over her chest in a way that had her cradling her breasts, Hermione glared down at Harry. Her eyes were dark with fury. “Harry, can I speak with you? Privately,” she added when she remembered the unsavory company her best friend was keeping nowadays.

Mirroring her, Harry crossed his arms over his chest. “About?” he asked with a cocked eyebrow.

“You know what this is about.”

Unfortunately, that was too true. He did. Draco. Or more accurately, his association with Draco.

Both she and Ron blamed Draco for the prenuptial agreement, which in a way, was an accurate accusation. If Draco hadn’t brought it up, Harry never would have even entertained the thought, but in the end, he was the one to make the decision. Not Draco. It wasn’t as if Draco held a wand to his head and forced him to have one drawn up. Ron and Hermione felt about the prenup the way Harry had when Draco initially brought it up. Only while Harry came to realize the importance of such an agreement, Ron and Hermione continued to feel as if having a prenuptial was a physical manifestation of the lack of trust Harry must have for Ginny. But it wasn’t just about the prenup.

“Don’t you remember what he did to us, to ‘Mione, Ginny, Dumbledore?” It was always the same argument with Ron. To which Harry would always utter the same reply. “I do, but apparently you don’t.” It always led to fisticuffs.

They’d gotten into numerous arguments over the past year over Draco. It was why he hadn’t told them that the friend he was having lunch with was Draco. It was also why the three of them have begun to drift apart. They did not like his taste in friends and he did not like how they insisted on nitpicking his life.

“Actually, I don’t,” Harry lied smoothly.

Hermione narrowed her gaze.

“But whatever it is will just have to wait,” Harry continued much to the pleasure of Draco who smirked smugly while Hermione looked ready to argue. Before she could, though, his and Draco’s salads finally arrived. Instead of the waitress who had taken their wine orders, the salads were delivered by a male waiter.

Harry and Draco exchanged a look as Harry retook his seat.

“I apologize,” the waiter said. “Monica-” they were guessing that was their waitress‘s name, “-wasn’t feeling well. Your soup will be out momentarily.”

“Thank you,” Draco said, suppressing the urge to laugh. Not feeling well huh? More like feeling slighted.

Their new waiter sauntered back into the shadows of the café.

Harry glanced at Draco out of the corner of his eye. “See? Told you there was a reason.”

Draco cocked an eyebrow. “If I remember correctly, which I always do-”

Harry rolled his eyes as he picked up his fork and speared a halved cherry tomato and popped it into his mouth.

“-you said there was probably a problem in the kitchen.”

“Same difference,” Harry said with a wave of his fork.

“Uh huh.”

Harry chuckled as he stuffed a slice of cucumber in his mouth next.

“Excuse me,” interrupted the irritated female voice.

Both Draco and Harry turned to see Hermione still standing on the street outside the café patio. Hermione, for her part, not only still had her arms crossed, but her foot was moving at warp speed, her mouth was pursed into such a thin line that her lips were all but invisible and her face was flushed in anger.

Draco had to choke back his laughter at the sight of her bushy brown hair that was even more out of control than it had been when she arrived. She looked as if she was wearing a clown’s wig.

As if he could read Draco’s mind, Harry shot him a glare, though his lips twitched.

“Harry,” she snapped.

Resting his fork on the table besides his plate, Harry wiped his mouth on the cloth napkin that he’d settled upon his lap before turning towards his friend. “Look,” he began calmly, “you don’t like my association with Draco. I get it.”

“No, I don’t think you do,” she corrected him heatedly.

Harry’s eye twitched. He hated when she did that: act condescending and she did all the damn time. Something within Harry snapped. “You know what? I don’t and frankly? I could care less. You have a problem with Draco? Tough shit. Deal with it and move on.” He ignored her gasp. “Both Draco and I grew up. Time for you and Ron to do the same.”

“Harry James Potter,” Hermione shouted in outrage.

“Hermione Jean Granger,” Harry shot back.

Draco chuckled.

Hermione shot him a dirty look.

Draco smirked.

When their waiter, whose nametag read Robert, arrived with their soup, he did so quickly and quietly before hightailing it out of Dodge. Draco did not blame him in the least.

He also noticed that unlike with Monica, Harry looked as if he were checking out Robert, their new waiter, but without trying to look as if he were looking. Interesting.

“Draco and I are friends. That is something you are just going to have to deal with,” Harry bit out. “That’s not to say,” he continued over her protestations, “that I’m expecting you and Ron to become friends with him.”

Draco choked on his first sip of soup at that. Him? Befriend a Weasel and a Mudblood? Not likely. Ever.

Harry ignored him.

Hermione did her best to ignore Draco as well, but the clenching of her jaw and the fisting of her hands proved she was finding that difficult.

“Because that’ll never happen,” Harry said.

“Damn right,” Draco mumbled.

“Dray,” Harry warned with a tired sigh. He was starting to get a headache.

Once again, Draco’s heart skipped a beat at the usage of the nickname. Clearing his throat and ignoring that his face was aflame, Draco went on trying to enjoy his soup, which was not as easy or as enjoyable as it would be had it not been for the filth that was determined to destroy his day.

Hermione started at the nickname that slipped out of Harry’s mouth so easily.

“But I am,” Harry said, ignoring the look of betrayal on his friend’s face, “expecting you to at least pretend to act civil when in Draco’s presence and if you cannot do that, well...” He was sure there was no need to finish that sentence.

“Harry,” Hermione whispered.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me?” Effectively turning his back on her, Harry dug into the French onion soup, which he had to reheat with a subtle wave of his wand as it had cooled.

Harry--feeling like a heel but adamant in what he said--and Draco--smug in the knowledge that Harry had chosen him over Granger--ate in silence. Hermione stood staring down at one of her oldest friends in dismay.

“Okay,” Hermione finally said. Her voice was barely a whisper. “Okay Harry. If that’s what you want.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Harry watched her smile sadly at him before turning away. “I’m sorry, ‘Mione,” he called softly after her without raising his gaze from his soup. He really was.

Hermione paused. “Me, too,” she whispered back as she studied her black booted feet against the cobblestone-paved street.

“You know I love you right? You and Ron both,” Harry continued.

“I know.”

“And I know you’re just trying to look out for me.”

“Is that so wrong?”

Harry shook his head. “No, but ‘Mione…I’m not a child anymore. I’m a big boy and can look after myself.”

Hermione twirled around to face him with a protest on her lips. “I know that Harry, but-!”

“But nothing,” Harry snapped. He paused to get hold over himself, before continuing, “If befriending Draco is a mistake then so be it. It’s my mistake to make.” Each word was spoken softly and carefully.

Draco’s eye twitched.

“But Harry-”

“I’ve told you this before. What I need are friends not parents. If you want to dictate somebody’s life then have a child. I am not your child.”

“I know that Harry!”

“Then act like it,” Harry snapped. Once again, he paused to regain hold over his emotions. “My life is my life. Not yours. What I do, who I see, who I hang out with--none of it is your business.”

“But if we’re friends like you say we are then-”

“Then nothing!” Harry slammed down his spoon with a loud clatter. A hush fell over the café as the few patrons within paused to watch the goings-on.

Draco could not work out whether to be embarrassed, scandalized or awed.

Across the street, it was taking everything Ron had to keep from marching across the street and intervening. His Auror instincts were screaming at him, but Hermione made him promise before they left not to interfere no matter what happened. She had this notion that he would just make everything worse.

“You have no say in how I run my life,” Harry was saying. “If I want to make Draco my new best friend, it’s none of your business. If I decide not to tell you every single minute detail of my life, it’s none of your business. If I want friends other than you and Ron, it’s none of your business. If I want to keep some aspect of my life private, even from you and Ron, then it’s none of your business. You, Hermione, are my friend not my mother.”

Hermione spluttered, unsure what to say or how to take what she just heard. There was a war of emotions racing through her. “Wh-what about Ginny then?”

Harry blinked. “Ginny? What about her? What’s this got to do with her?”

“She’s-!”

“You know what? I don’t care. I’m through having this conversation.” Picking his napkin up from his lap, he tossed it onto the table. Pushing his chair back, he stood up. “Draco, thank you for lunch. Sorry it turned out so unpleasant.” With a last glare at Hermione, Harry sidestepped out from behind the table and vanished.

Not the least bit nonplussed, Draco sat back and sipped the rest of his wine while Hermione stared agape at the spot where Harry had just been. He chuckled at her gobsmacked expression.

Catching the eye of the waiter--who has been waiting tentatively in the recesses of the café, unwilling to get involved--Draco made a motion with his hand that indicated he wanted the check brought to him as well as the rest of their meal boxed.

“This is your fault.”

“Are you still here?” Draco asked in disbelief as he turned to face the infuriated Muggleborn witch.

“Harry wasn’t like this before he started hanging out with you.”

Draco snorted. “Sure he was,” he protested. “He just decided to stop placating you.”

“Harry would never-”

Pushing his own chair back, Draco stood, towering over Hermione. “You obviously have a problem with listening.”

“How dare you!”

“Look, Granger,” Draco began, “Harry--You know what? No. He said everything there was to say.” He took the brown faux leather bound bill folder and the to-go containers that held his and Harry’s fish out of Robert’s hands when the waiter appeared. Robert then took off as if his ass were on fire. “I know Harry has an anger management problem. I’m actually trying to get him to see a mind-healer about that.”

Hermione started at him, blinking rapidly, unsure how to take that.

“But what he said is the truth despite how he said it. The way you and the others treat him--it smothers him. He feels suffocated. All he’s trying to do--all he wants is some breathing space, but every time he succeeds in gaining some, you appear and take it away from him as if he were a toddler who’s been into something he shouldn’t have.”

Was that really how Harry felt?

“If you value your friendship with Harry at all, I would suggest you actually start to listen to what he has to say instead of patronizing him.”

A tight fist of guilt wrapped around Hermione’s heart.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me?” With a tip of an imaginary hat, Draco fled as gracefully as he could towards the register so he could pay the bill and then track Harry down before he did something stupid.

“…Draco my new best friend…”

Those words kept repeating themselves in Draco’s head as he paid the bill.

Step two complete, he thought smugly.

+ HARRY POTTER + ADVICE 2: WHEEL OF FORTUNE +

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

The first time Harry apparated when apparition was supposed to be impossible, such as apparating through anti-apparition wards, was during the Cass-Robinson case a year ago.

The Daily Prophet had taken to calling what transpired that fateful day, “The Real Adventures of Romeo and Juliet”. Like the Shakespearian play, the Cass-Robinson case was, in reality, a tragedy and not a romance. There is nothing romantic about death.

Fifth year students Cassandra Cass and Leo Robinson had been secretly dating for three months when word reached their families who had a century’s old feud boiling between them. Nobody was sure what started the feud or why. It just was and that was all there was to it.

The bad blood between the two families forced the young lovers apart. As was typical of teenagers, Cassandra and Leo rebelled against the demands of their parents and continued to see one another. When word reached the Cass family, Mr. Cass threatened to pull his daughter from Hogwarts and send her abroad or possibly into a Muggle convent. At that time, Leo Robinson decided it was best to end things. This led to a heated argument between the couple that in turn led the couple to avoid one another.

A fortnight later and halfway through dessert, both Cassandra Cass and Leo Robinson collapsed into their treacle tarts dead.

According to Draco, whom had consulted on the case as an independent expert specialist, ten times the lethal amount of a banned barbiturate called Magnus Hallucinari was found in Leo Robinson as well as Cassandra Cass’ systems. Trace amounts were also found in each of their goblets. Much like LSD, Magnus Hallucinari was a hallucinogenic drug that caused people to see, hear and sense people or events that are not actually there or occurring. It was banned more than a century ago. A search of their persons turned up an empty vial in Cassandra Cass’ robe.

At first, it’d been unknown whether Leo Robinson was aware that his pumpkin juice had been spiked, but it soon became evident that he hadn’t taken the deadly barbiturate willingly.

First, the most important quidditch game of the entire school year was the next day and Leo Robinson, as backup team seeker, had agreed to substitute for Dianthus Williams who’d had an unfortunate accident in Transfiguration and wouldn’t be able to play.

Secondly, Leo Robinson had shown no signs, even in hindsight, of being suicidal or even depressed after their forced breakup, unlike Cassandra Cass who’d been in a depressed funk according to her closest friends. In fact, according to Miguel Rodriguez, Leo Robinson’s best friend, Leo had started seeing someone else.

It seemed as if Leo Robinson had moved on. Cassandra Cass hadn’t.

This lead to the conclusion that the deaths of Cassandra Cass and Leo Robinson were not a double suicide as had originally thought to be the case, but was in fact a murder-suicide.

When the Cass and Robinson families were called in to identify the bodies of their children, all hell had broken loose. The Casses blamed the Robinsons for the death of their daughter and the Robinsons blamed the Casses for the death of their son. Harry had been so disgusted with how these people were acting that he was truly worried that there would be more murder-suicides for the Aurors to investigate--minus the suicide part--if he stayed there much longer. All he’d done was wish to be elsewhere and suddenly he was.

Somehow, he’d managed to apparate through the anti-apparition wards around Hogwarts, which was a normally impossible feat, but there he was in the middle of Diagon Alley. Not even Headmasters had the ability to apparate through the wards of Hogwarts.

But it wasn’t apparition. That much Harry knew. It was another form of teleportation. He’s been doing some research with the help of Draco, but so far, neither had turned up anything that would explain what was happening. Until that time, Draco told him he should probably check his emotions.

It was not easy.

Appearing in the living room of his house, Harry dropped down into the armchair before the cold hearth with a grateful sigh. Closing his eyes, he slouched down low enough so that none coming up behind him would see him until they were atop him. With his hands laced over his stomach, Harry stretched his feet out towards the fireplace and allowed the silence to envelope him.

He felt bad for how he behaved at the café.

Opening his eyes, he stared at the black wrought iron gate closed over the silent hearth.

He was going to have to make it up to Draco, Hermione and Ron somehow.

A noise behind him had Harry leaping to his feet. Twirling about, his wand in his hand and pointed before he had even processed the noise, he was startled to see Ginny. He made note of the two boxes in her arms. Ginny had come into the house through the front door and was proceeding towards the staircase that led up to the second floor where the bedrooms was located.

“Ginny?” he called, slipping his wand back into its holster.

Ginny wiped around, looking equally startled. The boxes, which Harry suspected had featherweight charms cast on them, slipped from Ginny’s grip, but she managed to reaffirm her hold. “Harry,” she breathed. “What are you doing here? I didn’t realize you were home. How was lunch?”

Harry grimaced, but managed to shrug. “Fine,” he said, hoping she would leave it at that.

His hopes were dashed when Ginny frowned. She resembled Hermione at times like these and no, it was not a compliment. “What happened? Are you alright?”

“Nothing.” That concerns you, he added silently. “I’m fine.”

As much as he would like to discuss his problems with Ginny, it was just not possible. Ginny liked Draco as much as Ron and Hermione did. Actually, like Hermione, Ginny used to just ignore Draco’s very existence, but once she learned that the idea of a prenuptial had initially come from Draco, Ginny’s passive aggressiveness had gone up in smoke right along with Draco’s Slytherin green robes that he’d been wearing the first time the two had come face to face after the prenup was signed. Harry had had the unfortunate act of arresting her. That had not gone over too well. Neither had the judgment that instead of jail time for assault, Ginny would have to pay for Draco’s robes that she ruined. She had been none too happy about that especially because she was still paying for them a year later.

Ginny looked as if she did not believe him.

Harry fought to roll his eyes. Instead, he zeroed in on the boxes she was carrying. “What’s with the boxes?” he inquired.

“Oh, uhm…” Ginny shuffled and looked everywhere but at him. She seemed nervous. “Just some clothes and stuff.”

“Clothes and stuff,” Harry repeated. His voice sounded dead.

They may have been dating for five years, engaged for a year, but that did not give Ginny the right to move into his house without his permission. This was his house, not hers, not theirs, his. While Ginny spent a couple nights a week here and had a toothbrush and a few toiletries including a change of clothes, Ginny did not live here. She still lived with her parents. He understood that she was frustrated with the living arrangements, was sick of living at home, but that gave her no right to act on her own.

In fact, Harry had no idea why she hadn’t just gotten her own place. It’s not as if she doesn’t have the money. With her job as the sports writer for The Daily Prophet, she could afford to move out of The Burrow. Knowing Ginny though, she probably thought getting her own place was a waste of money. Why get her own place when she spends most of her time at his place? That was most likely the reason why she decided to take matters into her own hands. He thought he’d noticed little trinkets popping up all over the house that he could not remember seeing before.

Not long after Ginny graduated from Hogwarts, they talked briefly about moving in together, but Harry had quickly shot the idea down. He could not remember what excuses he’d used then, but his opinion on the matter had not changed. The idea of living with her more than just those few nights a week she already spent here made him uneasy and uncomfortable and not in the butterflies in the stomach sort of way either.

“Yes,” Ginny was saying with more confidence that she had moments before. “We’ve been dating for five years Harry.”

“I’m well aware of that.”

“We got engaged a year ago,” Ginny continued as if Harry hadn’t spoken, “and we’re still living separately. For Heaven’s sake, we haven’t even started planning the wedding yet!”

With a headache threatening to split his head open, Harry sighed.

“So, if you’re not going to man up than I will.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Harry demanded.

“Just that. I’ve decided it’s long since passed time for us to move in together.”

Harry’s eye twitched.

“And it’s also been decided that come this fall, we will be Mr. and Mrs.”

“What?!” Harry exploded. “Who the hell decided that?”

“It was a unanimous decision by everyone.”

“And where was I?” Harry demanded angrily.

“Not here that’s where,” Ginny snapped. “You’re always working or out with friends. I never get to see you anymore.”

“Hence taking matter into your own hands as if I weren’t a part of this relationship,” Harry sneered.

“You might as well not be!”

“Then why the hell are you moving in?”

With an expression equally scornful as Harry’s on her face, Ginny started to open her mouth to make a retort of some sort, but Harry never heard it. Instead, without saying anything, her mouth closed with an audible snap. The anger vanished. In its place, her dark eyes went wide and her tanned complexion went white.

Concern washed over Harry. “Ginny? You alright?” He took a step towards her and noticed she backed away from him. That had him frowning. Yes, they were fighting and they apparently had issues that needed to be dealt with, but Harry did care about Ginny. He didn’t want anything to happen to her.

Ginny backpedaled away from him posthaste. She stumbled on the area rug behind her and the boxes slipped from her grasp and landed on the floor with a loud clatter. Thankfully, the boxes were sealed shut so their contents did not spill out.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Ginny gasped and slapped a hand over her mouth. She looked like she was about to vomit, faint, or both. “You,” she mumbled behind her hand. She was using the other one to point at him. It was shaking.

“I what?”

“You--looked just like--like Malfoy then.”

Harry blinked and said nothing for several long heartbeats. “What?” he finally managed to ask. His voice was flat and even.

The anger returned. It contorted and hardened her features. She did not look like the Ginevra Weasley he had fallen in love with. “That’s who you were having lunch with wasn’t it?” she demanded in a low hiss.

Harry didn’t panic. He did not so much as bat an eyelash. “Yes,” he admitted smoothly.

On the other hand, Ginny’s were harsh-controlled fury. “I thought I said-”

“-you didn’t want me seeing him,” Harry finished in the same poised tone. “You did.”

“And-”

“-I decided to ignore you obviously.”

“Why? Why would you do this to me?!”

Harry cocked an eyebrow. “Why what? Do what to you?”

“This! You know how I feel about the Malfoys!”

“It’s hard to forget,” Harry snapped, “seeing you remind fifty million times a day!”

“And rightfully so if you can’t oblige me your future wife!”

“That’s pretty difficult to do when he’s my partner!”

Ginny gaped at that, but quickly gained control. “Then request a new one!”

“No,” Harry said with his hands on his hips.

“…Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

Ginny’s face was as red as her hair.

“I’ll tell you what I told Hermione and Ron. I don’t give a fuck how you feel about Draco. He’s my friend and if I want to hang out with him then I will. If you don’t like it, there’s the door.” Harry emphasized this by sweeping his hand towards the front door.

The indignation seemed to melt from Ginny leaving her teary eyed and lost. “You--you can’t mean that.”

“Why not?”

Ginny stood in the middle of the foyer with the area rug bunched up behind her. Her boxes lay forgotten between them. She searched his face. What she was looking for Harry was not sure.

He did not like that he was hurting her. He really didn’t, but she had to learn, just as Hermione and Ron did, that he was through placating them over his own wants and needs and desires. He was tired of them making him feel guilty for wanting to put himself first occasionally. He was no longer a child and refused to act as one by allowing childish grudges and acts made during childhood to follow him into adulthood. He was not sorry for going against Ginny’s wishes or for going behind her back and if that was a contradiction to his previous thoughts, then so be it.

Ginny must have seen all that on his face for she turned and ran out of the house with a sob.

Harry sighed. It was a heavy, irritated sound. He scrubbed his hands over his face and cursed. That was when he sensed a new presence enter the house. “What do you want Draco?”

“To finish lunch,” came the simple answer.

Dropping his hands, Harry saw Draco leaning against the threshold between the parlor and the foyer, two containers in his hands. Harry couldn’t help it. He laughed.

Draco cocked an eyebrow. “What?”

Harry shook his head. “Nothing. Come in.” He waved Draco after him as he made his way to the dining room, but not before he banished the forgotten boxes back to The Burrow. “I’m starving.”

“You are one strange character, Harry.”

Harry snorted. “You’re one to talk.”

Draco chuckled.

“Wine?” Harry inquired as he pulled out a chair.

Draco merely stared him.

Harry scoffed. “Silly me. Stupid question. Kreacher!”

The gangly old house-elf appeared almost instantly and bowed. “What can Kreacher do for Master?”

“A bottle of chardonnay please.”

“Right away Master.” Kreacher snapped his fingers and a chilled bottle of the white wine resting in an ice-filled bucket appeared besides Harry. With a second snap of his fingers, a wine glass appeared in front of Harry and Draco. Without having to be asked, the house-elf also apparated--or whatever it was house-elves did--plates, silverware and cloth napkins for both Harry and Draco.

“Thank you. That’ll be all.”

Kreacher bowed and vanished with a pop.

“Good choice,” Draco said eying the bottle.

“Thank you. Learned from the best,” Harry said as he popped the cork. Unlike in the movies, a waterfall of wine did not come spewing forth to make a mess of everything. Only the uncouth and uncultured would do something so vulgar--or Draco says. Who was Harry to argue? This wine was not cheap by any means and he was therefore not about to waste half the bottle by allowing it to rain done on his nice clean floors.

Draco did a sort of half bow from his seat. “You are very welcome.”

Harry raised an eyebrow as he rose from his seat to pour some wine into their glasses. “Who said I was speaking about you?”

Draco sneered. “Prat.”

Harry chuckled. Recorking the bottle, he set the wine back into the bucket.

Draco, meanwhile, was serving out the food.

“Such menial behavior Draco.” Harry tsked. “Such uncouth behavior,” he laughed, unable to complete that sentence with a straight face.

In response, Draco tossed an asparagus at his head.

Still laughing, Harry ducked.

Kreacher appeared to pick up the discarded vegetable and popped back out.

Now this is nice, Harry thought, as he cut into his fish and Draco took a sip of wine, to be able to eat in peace without having your ear nagged off or feel the Evil Eye boring into the side of your head.

“So,” Draco drawled as he swallowed a piece of his salmon.

“So,” Harry echoed, “what?”

“What was that all about with the Weaselette?”

Harry rolled his eyes. Laying his fork, prongs side up, against the edge of the plate, Harry picked up his napkin from his lap and wiped his mouth before resettling it back on his lap. “It seems that I look like you,” he explained. He took a sip of his wine as Draco chocked on his.

Covering his mouth with his napkin, Draco half-coughed half-chocked out, “Excuse me?”

Chuckling, Harry went on to explain to Draco his fight with Ginny in-between bites of his fish.

“Ah,” Draco nodded once he was over his chocking fit.

Harry shoveled the last piece of fish into his mouth. He washed it down with the last sip of wine. “I don’t get it,” he said into the silence that had fallen.

“Get what?” Draco asked, setting his folded cloth napkin onto the plate with his silverware.

“Me and Ginny.”

Draco raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t get me wrong. I love her.”

Draco nodded his head in acknowledgement. “But?” he prodded.

“That’s just it!” With a sigh, Harry laced his fingers behind his head and stared up at the ceiling fixture above the table. Ginny despised the elaborate monstrosity. Harry wondered if she subconsciously knew that Draco had picked it out. “She was right about a lot of what she said,” he admitted softly.

“Like what?” Draco asked.

“Like that we’ve been together for five years and I still haven’t asked her to move in with me. I mean,” Harry continued, dropping his hands and looking at Draco across the table, “it took me four years to ask her to marry me. It’s been a year since I popped the question and we still haven’t discussed wedding plans. On top of that…”

“On top of that?”

“We hardly see one another. If I’m not at work, I’m hanging out with you.”

Draco’s face was blank.

“I can’t remember the last time me and Ginny kissed let alone had sex. When we do see one another, we don’t really talk because we’re usually with Ron and Hermione and the three of them are always talking about something or other I know nothing about. I just--it feels as if…”

Kreacher popped in, took away the dishes, and then popped back out.

“…you’ve grown apart,” Draco observed.

Harry nodded. He stared down at the tablecloth. Like the chandelier, it was something else about his home that Ginny despised. It’d been a Christmas gift from Draco. There was nothing elaborate about it. It was a plain cream-colored cloth made from Egyptian cotton. It hadn’t even been that expensive. Now that he thought about it, there wasn’t one aspect about his house that Ginny liked. Well, correction. There was one: it wasn’t her parents’ house.

“Do you resent it?”

Harry blinked up at Draco. “Resent what?”

“Me.”

Harry continued to blink. “Resent? You? Why the hell would I?”

“Well,” Draco said, twirling his wine glass. Within it, the last of his wine spun in a vortex. “Because from a certain point of view, I seem to have come between you and Ginevra.”

If Harry weren’t so flabbergasted over the ridiculousness of that statement, Harry would have laughed at the expression on Draco’s face when he stuttered out Ginny’s name. You would think Draco was forcing himself to say “Voldemort” instead of “Dark Lord” or “You-Know-Who” with the way his face twisted and grimaced. “Don’t be absurd,” he snorted.

Draco’s head snapped up.

“The only thing that has come between me and Ginny is her inability to get over herself.”

Draco searched Harry’s face. “You’re serious.” He said it as if he could not believe it.

Embarrassed all of a sudden, Harry shrugged and dropped his gaze to his finger that was playing with the tablecloth, ignoring the heat that rushed to his face.

Sitting back, Draco smirked. There was a smug air about him as he wondered if this meant that Harry chose him over his fiancée.

Step three complete, he thought.

+ HARRY POTTER + ADVICE 2: WHEEL OF FORTUNE +

Half an Hour Later - The Burrow - Outside Ottery St. Catchpole, Devon, England

Juggling several cloth grocery bags and fumbling for her wand that she kept within the pockets of her apron for easy access, Molly Weasley followed the well-worn path through the wards to her home. As she approached the front door, she noticed the door was closed but not latched. Instantly on guard, Molly set her grocery bags down and keeping her wand pointed at the door, reached out with her other hand and pushed it open with a hard shove. She jumped into the kitchen with a shout. The door flew open with such force that it bounced off against the counter behind the door and hit her backside. She stumbled forward with an oomph. Cursing it, she slowly closed the door behind her as she swept the kitchen.

Empty.

Just a few short years ago, she wouldn’t have been so cautious, but a war can do much to change a person.

Molly was just about to sweep the living room for intruders when she spotted something glinting in the sunlight on the table. She crept closer. It was a ring. A closer inspection and she realized it was Ginny’s engagement ring.

“Oh dear,” she said lowly.

Putting her wand away, she picked up the ring and crept upstairs to her daughter’s room. That was when she heard something. It was a continuous sound. It was soft, muffled. Molly followed it. The closer she came to her daughter’s room, the louder the sounds were. It did not take long for her to identify the sounds: crying.

Knocking softly, Molly pushed open the door to Ginny’s room. The sight that greeted her had her heart breaking. Ginny was laying face down on her bed, her arms hugging the pillows in which she had her face buried.

“Oh, Ginny,” Molly cooed. She rushed forward and perched on the edge of the bed. “Ginny dear.” She reached out and ran a hand over her daughter’s soft red locks. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“Oh Mom,” Ginny wailed. She threw herself at her mother. “Mom! I--I think--I think Harry just broke up with me!”

At the startling confession, Molly felt a roiling mixture of emotions surge through her. She was outraged and confused and part of her was in denial. She wasn’t sure how to feel at this unexpected news. What she did know for sure was that she had to comfort her distraught daughter. “Oh no,” she moaned. “Oh my poor baby. Are you sure? What happened?”

Crying, Ginny merely shook her head.

Molly hugged Ginny tighter; making shushes noises and rocking Ginny as if she were still a babe. “What happened?” she asked again.

Still shaking her head, Ginny sobbed out, “I don’t know!” Pulling out of her mother’s embrace, Ginny summoned a handkerchief from out of her top dresser drawer and blew her nose. “I was moving some stuff over and he-”

“Wait. Wait. What stuff? What are you talking about?” Molly interrupted.

Flushing, Ginny stared down at her quilt--it was white with pink roses and pink trimming around the edges--as she twisted her handkerchief around her fingers and said nothing.

“Did Harry finally ask you to move in?” Molly clapped her hands together. “I didn’t know that! That’s wonderful!” Not that she condoned something like this before the two were properly married, but between Ginny’s job at the Prophet and Harry being one of the DMLE’s top Aurors, the two never seemed to have time to spend together.

“Actually, uh,” Ginny’s flush deepened, “he, uh-”

Disappointment washed through Molly. She planted her hands on her hips and glared down at the top of her daughter’s head. “Ginevra Weasley! Are you telling me that Harry didn’t ask you to move in with him?”

Ginny shook her head.

Dropping her hands, Molly sighed. So, it seemed as if her naïve daughter took it upon herself to move in with Harry without first speaking about it with Harry. Molly shook her head. Ginny must have been speaking with Hermione. It sounded like something her newest daughter-in-law would say. Both Hermione and Ginny were modern women. They were strong, proud, stubborn and independent. That was not a bad thing, just the opposite in fact, but as modern women, they overlooked the basic rules of being in a relationship. Some things are just not done.   It was no wonder Ginny believed they had broken up. “Ginny.”

“But mom,” Ginny argued. “We’ve been together going on five years!”

Molly nodded. She was well aware of that. Oh, boy. Was she ever. She understood that Harry wanted to take things slow. As he once said, he and Ginny had all the time in the world. But even she was getting impatient with how slow the progress was. She was beginning to suspect there was more to it then having “all the time in the world”. Of course, she’d never said anything. She’d never told anyone, especially Ginny, of her suspicions. She figured things would work themselves out in time. So, yes, she understood her daughter’s exasperation. It was perfectly normal under the circumstances, but her frustration was no excuse for her impetuous. “I know that, dear, but Harry is a man.”

Ginny blushed red hot at that.

Molly chose to ignore the possible implications. “And as a man,” she continued, “there are, naturally, some things he is just not going to understand unless you beat him over the head with them and some times not even then.”

Ginny nodded. “Exactly! That’s what Hermione said.”

Ah! So Molly was right. “And so you thought the only way to move your relationship with Harry to the next level was to move into his house without his permission.”

“…Well…”

Molly could not believe the naivety of her daughter. “I know things between you two have been strained lately, but what you did was very stupid and obviously made things worse.”

Ginny dropped her gaze and nodded. “But,” she frowned, “why would it? If he loves me and wants to marry me-”

“It’s not that simple.” If only… Thinking the male mind worked the same way as a woman’s was an easy enough mistake to make.

“But why not?” Confusion lined Ginny’s face.

Molly giggled lightly and patted her daughter’s leg. “Because,” she answered in a conspiratorial whisper, leaning closer to Ginny, “Harry is a man dear. Not very fast on the uptake.”

Ginny tossed her head back and laughed loudly. “Thanks, Ma.”

“Of course! What are mothers for?”

Ginny laughed.

As Molly stood up, something small and cylindrical in shape from within one of the pockets of her apron banged against her leg. She reached in and pulled out a ring. It was the ring she’d found in the kitchen. Ginny’s engagement ring. “Here. You might need this.” She handed over the ring.

“Yeah. I think I just might,” Ginny agreed. She slid the gold band onto her left ring finger, admiring the emerald flanked on either side by a small white diamond. “Thanks Ma.” She looked up and spoke softly to her mother.

Standing in the threshold between her daughter’s room and the hallway, Molly smiled back at her youngest child. “Speak to him, Ginny.”

Ginny nodded. “I will.”

“Everything’ll work out fine. You’ll see.”

“I know they will.”

With a smile and a nod, Molly left, shutting the door gently behind her. She made her way down the stairs to the kitchen to retrieve her groceries. When she noticed that the carrots were missing, she sighed heavily and shook her head, cursing gnomes.

+ HARRY POTTER + ADVICE 2: WHEEL OF FORTUNE +

As soon as the door closed behind her mother, Ginny’s face fell. Misery enveloped her. It wrapped its arms around her and held her tight. Drawing her legs to her chest, she hugged her arms around her knees and dropped her face to her legs as tears filled her eyes, her throat constricted around a sob and her chest tightened.

“-and he chose Malfoy over me,” she whispered into the silence of the room against her jean-clad legs.

Her silent sobbing filled the room as her despair grew.

It wasn’t fair, she thought. It just wasn’t fair at all.

+ HARRY POTTER + ADVICE 2: WHEEL OF FORTUNE +

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

“Oh hey,” Harry spoke up into the mellow silence that had enveloped the men.

He and Draco were in the parlor lounging in front of the stone hearth where a roaring fire was slowly burning. The flames danced and undulated beautifully, giving the quickly dimming room a soft glow and illuminating the hand carved mahogany mantel, but gave off no heat. They were slowly polishing off a bottle of wine and a fruit and cheese platter courtesy of Kreacher.

Harry was of a mind to think that the old, decrepit house-elf had a crush on Draco because Kreacher was never this nice or thoughtful when Ginny was over. In fact, Kreacher disappeared when she was around.

Sipping his wine, Draco made a noise that indicated he was listening.

“You remember that--what’s his name--that Lucas Mahoney or whatever it was?”

“You mean from the Jackson case?” Draco set his wine down on the side table besides the plush armchair he had confiscated and picked up a grape from the platter on the coffee table. “The one who didn’t fit the pattern?” He popped the grape into his mouth.

Harry nodded as he took a sip of his wine. “Turns out,” he said, lounging back in the corner of the sofa, “his real name was Eamon.” Harry pronounced the name “AY mon”.

Draco cocked an eyebrow.

“Guess he hated his name so much he changed it, but it hadn’t been made legal yet.”

“Eamon. Really?” Draco washed down a second grape with a sip of wine. “If I were him I would have done the same thing. I mean, what kind of name is Eamon?”

“Irish,” Harry deadpanned.

“Oh. Ha. Ha,” Draco shot back dryly.

Harry snickered. “People could say the same about your name you know. It’s not even a name. It’s the name of a constellation.”

Draco glared at Harry.

Harry saluted him with his wine glass.

“So,” Draco said with one last glare before turning away and picking a square piece of mozzarella cheese from the platter, “this guy--he strangled and sexually assaulted--what?--nine people before we stopped him?”

“Right. Aaron Baker, Bailey Calkins, Cadan D‘anna, Dana Eaton, Eamon Faatz, Fanny Gabriel, Gary Haenel, Harriet Ianni and Ian Jarvis (1).” Harry held up a finger for each of the victims of the monster Jack Jackson and tortured to death.

“Sick fuck.”

“Got that right.”

+ HARRY POTTER + ADVICE 2: WHEEL OF FORTUNE +

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

Like after the second Muggle World War, once Voldemort was defeated, there was an influx of marriages followed by a baby boom. Ron and Hermione had been no exception as the June following Voldemort’s fall, they were married. It wasn’t anything fancy or elaborate; just a simple ceremony followed by dinner with family and close friends. But instead of starting a family like every other newly married couple was doing, Ron had gone to Auror Academy with Harry, much to the disappointment of Hermione who had decided to go back to school to sit her NEWTs. Even now that Ron and Hermione had gradated from their various institutions they had yet to start a family.

“We have plenty of time,” Hermione said at one point.

For the time being, both Ron and Hermione wanted to concentrate on their jobs; Ron was an Auror working for Harry who ran the Homicide Division of the Auror Department and Hermione worked in the DMLE as a solicitor alongside the Department‘s top barrister.

Yet, despite their demanding careers, Ron and Hermione seemed to be able to make time for one another. They appeared to be more in love now than they had when they were first married. Ginny envied them that. It seemed as if the closer her brother and Hermione became, the farther apart she and Harry got. Why was life so unfair? All she wanted was to get married, start a family and live happily ever after with her prince by her side. Was that too much to ask for?

She apparated in front of the one and a half story rural house where her brother and Hermione lived.

Hoping they were at home, Ginny strode up the narrow dirt path to the front door. She’d barely touched her knuckle to the wood when the door swung open an inch. Wary, Ginny stepped forward and pushed the door open. “Hello?” she called hesitantly. She stepped inside and shut the door behind her. “Hello?” she called out again in a louder voice. “Ron? Hermione?”

“Ginny?” called a female voice from the back of the house.

“Yeah it’s me,” Ginny called back.

There was the sound of approaching footsteps and moments later, a familiar figure appeared around the corner. “Hey!”

“Hey,” Ginny greeted her sister-in-law with a forced smile. It hurt to smile.

Hermione crossed towards her enveloped her in a hug. “Not that’s its not great to see you, Gin, but I was just about to head up to bed. What’s up?”

“Oh.” Ginny scratched at the back of her head sheepishly. She’d picked up the gesture from Harry. “I, uh, I’m sorry. I hadn’t realized it was that late. I can come back in the morning-”

“Nonsense.” Hermione looped her arm through Ginny’s and led the younger girl down the short hall to the small room located towards the back of the house that she had confiscated as her home office. “It’s obvious something happened and you know my door is always open day or night.”

“Thanks,” Ginny sagged against Hermione as the tension vanished all at once. Tears of relief filled her eyes. She was not sure what she would have done had Hermione turned her away. She really needed to speak to someone about this. As much as she loved her mother, she couldn’t discuss this with her. “Where’s my brother?” Ginny inquired as she stepped into the meticulously--one could say obsessively--neat office despite the stacks of clutter that filled it. Organized chaos.

“Sleeping,” Hermione answered. “He has an early shift tomorrow.”

Ginny nodded as Hermione conjured a chair for her.

“Actually,” Hermione confessed as she rounded her desk, looking a little sheepish, “I put a sleeping drought in his tea.”

Wide eyed, Ginny spluttered. “What? Why? What happened?”

Hermione heaved a heavy, tried sigh as she dragged her chair around the desk next to Ginny’s. “I got into an argument with Harry this afternoon about something stupid and when I relayed to Ron what happened, he, well--he’s a little upset.”

Ginny nodded in understanding. Her littlest big brother was a bit of a hothead.

“Can I get you something to drink? Tea? Water? Juice?”

“No thank you,” Ginny shook her head.

Once Hermione was settled in her chair, she inquired as to what her sister-in-law wanted to talk to her about. “Does this have to do with Harry?”

Folding her hands in her lap, Ginny hung her head and nodded.

Hermione said nothing, just folded her hands demurely in her lap and waited patiently.

“You know how we talked about me taking the initiative and moving in with Harry?”

Hermione winced. That was not exactly what she’d said or meant. “Oh, Ginny,” she moaned. “Tell me you didn’t.” What she’s said was to confront Harry. Hermione understood Ginny’s impatience and frustration with the rut her and Harry’s relationship seemed to be in--and yes, as women they sometimes had to take the initiative because men could be such clueless morons sometimes. As liberal and independent as she liked to think of herself as, even Hermione had to admit there was a fine line women shouldn’t cross. It had taken her quite some time to come to this realization.

Ginny winced. “Yeah,” she admitted in a small voice.

With a sigh, Hermione pushed it aside. What was done was done.

“He was already in a bad mood now that I think about it,” Ginny continued in that same demurred voice. “Now I know why.” Catching me bringing my stuff over just made things worse, she thought sadly. She really was an idiot. What had she been thinking?

Hermione cringed. “What happened?”

Ginny told Hermione about the argument. Afterwards, there was nothing but the buzzing of the insects.

“You shouldn’t jump to conclusions,” Hermione finally said. “People say things they don’t mean when they’re angry. You’re no exception,” she reminded the younger woman.

Ginny blushed. That was too true.

“And besides, we all know about Harry’s anger management problem.”

Ginny nodded.

“Harry is the epitome of a Gryffindor: he acts first, thinks later. You of all people should know that.”

That had Ginny laughing.

Hermione dropped her head in thought. “I’ve known Harry since he was eleven years old and if there’s one thing I’m absolutely certain about is that he’ll fight for his friends.” She lifted her head. “He’ll defend them to his dying breath--even if it means going up against those he cares about.”

That sounded exactly like Harry.

“Like you said, he was already in a bad mood, for which I apologize. That was completely my fault. Like I said, we--we had a bit of an--a disagreement-” Hermione winced at the choice of words. Understatement of the century, she thought. “-about his--association with Malfoy and he ended up saying--a few things before he stormed out and then you-”

“-had the misfortune of running into him directly afterwards,” Ginny finished with a wince.

Giving Ginny an apologetic look, Hermione nodded.

Ginny’s mind was reeling.

“Look,” Hermione was saying, “I know you hate Malfoy.”

That’s an understatement, Ginny snorted.

As if reading Ginny’s mind, Hermione snickered lightly. “I’m not overtly fond of him myself and Ron hates his guts, and he has every reason to, but not only is Malfoy Harry’s partner, like he told you, but Harry considers him a friend. So whether you like it or not, Malfoy is going to remain a part of Harry’s life and if you love Harry and want to remain in his life, this is just something we’re all going to have to deal with.”

Ginny bit her lip and glanced at a towering pile of books in the far corner that had to be held up with magic for gravity surely would have pulled the stack down long ago.

She wasn’t sure if she could do that--befriend Malfoy that was. There were just some things she wasn’t--couldn’t--refused to forgive Malfoy or his family for--not even for Harry’s sake. That was what she told Hermione.

Hermione gave her a sad little smile. “I know and that’s fine. Nobody said you had to, but for Harry‘s sake and for the sake of your relationship, you‘re going to have to learn to at least pretend, because trying to come in-between Harry and Malfoy or any of his other friends is only going to cause you heartache in the end. I should know,” Hermione continued. There was a sorrowful note to her voice now. “Both Ron and I have never liked Malfoy and we hated it when Harry started associating with Draco and then Harry said he considered Malfoy a good friend…we’ve tried talking to Harry about it, telling him how Malfoy was no good… but all it’s done is make things worse.”

Cursing, Ginny bent over and dropped her face in her hands.

“Look, Gin,” Hermione said, sliding to the edge of her chair. “What you should do is go talk with Harry, even if you have to bind him to a chair or something.”

Ginny giggled and lifted her head.

“Tell him what you told me. Talk things out.” Hermione emphasized the last part by punctuating each word as if it its own sentence. “Okay?”

Ginny nodded. “Alright. Yeah.”

Hermione smiled. “He loves you. You know that right?”

A warm feeling washed over Ginny. She nodded. “I do. I love him too.”

Both women stood up.

“Thing’s’ll work out. You’ll see,” Hermione whispered as she hugged Ginny.

“I know they will,” Ginny whispered back and she returned the hug. “Thank you. Really. For everything.”

“Of course,” Hermione said as she pulled back. “What’re sisters for?”

They shared a laugh.

Hermione walked Ginny back through the house in silence. Each was lost in her own thoughts. At the door, Hermione waylaid her sister-in-law with a hand on her shoulder. “Give Malfoy a chance,” she suggested.

Ginny’s eye twitched. She knew that if she wanted to keep Harry in her life, she had to polish up on her acting skills, but giving Malfoy a chance was outside her comfort zone.

“He’s not--He’s not such a bad bloke,” Hermione continued, seeing the hesitation on the ginger-haired girl’s face.

Ginny rounded on Hermione. “What?! Not so bad? What the fu-?”

“I saw them today,” Hermione was saying as if she hadn’t heard Ginny. She stared past Ginny’s shoulders at the night sky where a sea of stars twinkled majestically, knowing she probably shouldn’t say anything, but knowing she had to. “At the café.” She turned her gaze towards a furious Ginny. “I watched them--saw them interact.” She dropped her gaze to her slippered feet, gathering her thoughts. “It’s obvious--Malfoy seems to be the only one who can talk sense into Harry sometimes.”

The fury ebbed away at the words only to be replaced with a cold dread. It was the same feeling Ginny came to Hermione to get rid of. Now here Hermione was confirming what Ginny had already suspected. It was like a replay of what had transpired with her talk with her mother. Ginny felt nauseous.

“Like I said, talk to Harry. It’s obvious you have some things to talk about.”

Ginny could only nod.

“At this point, the only suggestion I can give you is to not make my mistake. If you force Harry to choose between you and Malfoy…He will choose Malfoy over you.”

The bottom fell out of Ginny’s stomach. This was not what she’d wanted to hear when she came over.

Somehow, Ginny made it home without splinching herself, undressed, crawled into bed and was asleep before her head hit the pillow. Her last conscious thought was that she both dreaded and looked forward to seeing Harry in the morning.

As Hermione was crawling into bed besides a snoring Ron, she silently apologized to Ginny as she remembered what she’d witnessed back in Bannum Alley earlier that afternoon. She had a feeling that it was already too late. Harry just might have already chosen.

+ HARRY POTTER + ADVICE 2: WHEEL OF FORTUNE +

That Night - Potter Residence - 23 Pasteur Drive, Swindon, Wiltshire, England

With a glass of wine in one hand, Draco stood from the sofa and waltzed over to one of the built-in bookcases flanking the fireplace. Only a couple of the shelves had books on them. The rest of the space was interspersed with knickknacks.

From the sofa, Harry sipped his wine and watched Draco. Maybe it was the large consumption of alcohol he’d consumed that day, but he found his gaze roaming the other’s tall, lean figure with growing appreciation, lingering on the tight ass that filled out those fitted Muggle designer jeans almost a little too well.

Draco ran a finger across the spines of the books and paused over one with a burgundy-red cover. “The Adventures of Lucius Caecilius Iucundus,” he read. He cocked an eyebrow over his shoulder.

Harry shrugged, ignoring the warmth that spread across his cheeks.

Setting his wine down, Draco pulled out the book and flipped carefully through its yellowed pages. He could guessimate its age to be a little over two centuries old.

“I was given the book by a Mrs. Fredrick J. Smith,” Harry said. “It was during one of the very first cases Pieletska assigned me to.”

“Really? What happened?”

“Early one morning when Mrs. Smith woke to let her dog out, she found a body floating face down in the small pond located on her property. It turns out that she had a noggle-”

Draco marked his place with a finger and turned towards Harry. “A noggle?” He’d been under the impression that the Noggle inhabited the Shetland Islands; or used to at any rate. Last he heard, there hadn’t been a noggle spotted there in decades.

Harry nodded and took a sip of his wine. “Yeah. They appear only by water as a small gray horse with bridle and saddle, its tail curled up over its back-”

“Yes. Yes,” Draco said with a wave of his hand. He knew damn well what a noggle looked like. He wasn’t an idiot.

“Well, then you know that they’re usually fairly harmless-”

“Except to mills and idiots who think it’s cute to ride a miniature horse.”

Harry chuckled. “It turns out the guy Mrs. Smith found face down in her pond was a thief. Went by the name Thrasymachus.”

Draco cocked an eyebrow.

“His real name was Wendell,” Harry deadpanned.

Draco barked out a laugh. “Wendell?”

Harry laughed, his emerald green eyes sparkling in mirth. “He’d been on the run for at least a decade. Has hit hundreds of houses--both Muggle and magical--and the Aurors were no closer to catching him than when he first appeared on the scene.”

“Useless. All of them.”

Harry shrugged. “We speculate that this guy heard rumors of Mrs. Smith’s collection of antiques that included that book,” Harry waved a hand at the book Draco still held, “and that particular night he’d planned on a little shopping spree, but got, ah, waylaid, as it were, by the sudden appearance of the noggle.”

Draco snorted. “Idiot.”

“Again this is all speculation.”

“Of course.”

Seeing as “Thrasymachus” was dead, it was difficult to know what exactly the man was doing on Mrs. Smith’s property. It could be that this guy was just passing through.

“But whatever he was doing there, he saw the noggle and maybe thought it was nothing more than a miniature horse and decided to take it for a ride, but once he got on the saddle-”

“He couldn’t get off.”

“Right,” Harry said with a nod. “And thus drowned when the noggle immediately went into the water (2).”

Draco returned his gaze to the book clasped around his finger. “And as a reward, Mrs. Smith gave you this book?”

Harry shrugged. “Yeah.” Noticing he was running low on wine, he reached for the wine bottle in the ice bucket and poured himself some more.

Opening the book to the page he‘d marked, Draco went back to flipping through the pages.

“It’s about this well-known Pompeian banker Lucius Caecilius Iucundus and his family on that August day when Mt. Vesuvius erupted.”

“Have you read it?”

“A little,” Harry confessed, “but it’s slow going since I’m not fluent in Latin.”

Draco nodded. “As with all Pureblood children, I was taught to speak Latin, as well as French, fluently,” he explained haughtily, “but it’s been awhile.”

“A bit rusty huh?” Harry teased.

“A bit,” Draco agreed with a twitch of his lips. He flipped to the last chapter. It was titled, “finis”. Without even reading the chapter, Draco felt it was safe to assume what happened. “iam nubes atra ad terram descendebat; iam cinis densissimus incinerate. plurimi Pompeiani iam de urbe sua desperabant. multi peribant (3),” he read. “Now black clouds were coming down to earth; now very thick ash was falling. Most Pompeians now about the city were becoming despaired. Many were dying,” he translated roughly. He mentally winced. It really had been a long time. Snapping the book closed, he slid it back onto the shelf. “A very depressing read Potter.”

Harry saluted Draco with his wine and a chuckle. “Even without knowing Latin, I could have told you that.”

“Yes. Seeing as it is about a man living in Pompeii when Mt. Vesuvius erupted and buried the town,” Draco said as he returned to the sofa besides Harry.

“Exactly.”

“Have you had it appraised at all?”

“No.” Harry set his glass on the coffee table.

“You should.” Draco downed the last of his wine and placed the now empty glass besides Harry’s. “Given its excellent condition and its rarity, you could probably get a fair price for it.”

Harry shrugged.

“I know some reputable dealers I can recommend.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Just let me know.”

Having a book appraised was not very high on Harry’s list of priorities at the moment.

Silence enveloped the two men.   It was a comfortable lull and not the least bit strained.

As Harry sat staring at the undulating flames dancing erotically within the fireplace, for aesthetic appeal rather than warmth this warm spring night, he sensed rather than felt movement besides him. That was when he found himself suddenly aware of Draco’s presence besides him. There was Draco’s arm thrown casually along the back of the sofa behind Harry’s head that Harry was certain was not there moments before. Warmth flooded his face. Suddenly feeling nervous for some inexplicable reason, Harry fidgeted and forcibly cleared his throat. Was it him or was the space between him and Draco growing smaller and smaller?

He jumped when a hand that did not belong to him settled onto his thigh just above the knee and ever so slowly started sliding upwards. Harry gulped. His pulse was racing. His heart was pounding. He couldn’t catch his breath. He tried to speak--to tell Draco to remove his hand from his person, but he couldn’t find the words. All that came out was the name of the man besides him who was currently in the process of molesting him.

“Draco.” It came out as a breathy whisper.   It didn’t sound like his voice at all.

When the hand halted a hairsbreadth from his groin, Harry breathed a sigh. He wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or relieved. What he did know was that his pants were uncomfortably tight and causing certain parts of him to chafe.

“Har~ry.”

His name rolling off Draco’s tongue sent a pleasant tingle rolling through him. Or maybe it was the hand that was suddenly cupping him through his pants. “Oh, God,” he moaned, arching into the gentle, but firm touch that seemed to be burning its way through the layers of cloth between it and his aching cock.

Draco ran his thumb over the head of Harry’s pulsating cock.

Pleasure shot up Harry’s spine. He moaned again and thrust his hips into the touch.

His head was spinning. Merlin help him. He had no idea what was going on, but he wanted more.

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, 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, 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.

+ TO BE CONTINUED +

Brónach (BRO nakh): Traditional Irish name. Possibly meaning “sorrow”. Other spellings: Brona, Bronagh.

Heinin: Welsh name. Not sure what it means.

Magnus Hallucinari: Great Dream

(1) Get the pattern? First a male is killed, then a girl, then a boy, then a girl, etc, but there’s more to the pattern then that. Can you see it? Here’s a hint. Jack Jackson’s last victim would have been Zach Aaserud.

(2) Info from Magickal Mystical Creatures by D.J. Conway

(3) Taken from the fourth edition (2001) Cambridge Latin Courses Unit 1. Please excuse the crude translation.
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Advice 2: Wheel of Fortune