Oliver was sitting in the ice cream parlor with Kevin, Michael, Nate, and Eli, waiting while Meg finished getting ready and Jasper was getting the ice creams all into the case behind the counter when there was a loud, frantic banging on the door. "We aren't open for another five minutes," Jasper muttered, "Oi, who is in such a frenzy over ice cream?" he walked 'round the counter and when he spotted the door, he said, "Oh."
The door jangled as it opened and Oliver was nearly thrown from his chair as Wally Grant came speeding in and threw himself at Oliver rather dramatically. "YOU'RE ALRIGHT!" Wally shouted at the top of his voice. "I was so scared! You have got NO IDEA! When we saw it on the Daily Prophet I nearly threw up! I'm so bloody sorry for all the shit I said the other day. You're my best mate, I'm so sorry I was mean to you. I thought for sure you were dead and the last thing I ever did was walk off on you like that. Please forgive me and don't you bloody dare ever, ever, ever die!" Wally was attached to Oliver and crushing his mate within a ferocious hug.
Oliver gasped. "It's alright, Wally, I'm alright."
"I was such an arsehole!"
"It's alright!"
Eli reached over and tapped Wally on the shoulder.
Wally looked at him.
"Who are you?" Eli asked.
"I'm Wally," Wally said.
Eli stared at Wally, then held up his turtle. "This is Yertle."
Wally looked at Oliver in confusion.
"That's Eli," Oliver said. He paused, then, pointing in turn, "And Michael, and Nate, and that's Kevin." He waved his palm at Wally, "This is my... my mate. From school."
"Hi," Wally said, looking 'round at them each in turn.
"Hi," the other four boys chorused in near perfect unison.
"Well, there you are. You wanted to meet them. Now you have." Oliver paused. "You... didn't miss much by not meeting Mrs. Jennings."
"Is she really..." Wally hesitated, glancing at the smallness of Eli, then looked back at Oliver, who's face answered the unfinished question.
"Is she really what?" Eli asked.
"Alright," Jasper said, cutting into the conversation from across the room, "I have more fantastic fudge ripple than will fit into the case, whatever will I do with these five extra scoops of it I've got?"
"I'LL HELP WITH THAT!" Nate shouted, leaping up from the table and running over to the counter, followed by Eli. Michael hesitated, looking at the older kids and trying to decide whether he wanted to pair with the elder or the younger and finally decided the younger was getting fantastic fudge ripple ice cream and he slid off his seat and went with them across the room.
Kevin leaned forward. "She's really dead?" His voice was a whisper.
"That's what the Dark Mark symbolizes," Oliver whispered back, "That a kill's been made."
"Blimey," whispered Kevin.
"Made by a Death Eater," Wally said.
"What's a Death Eater?" Kevin asked.
"Dark Lord's followers," Wally whispered.
"Who's that?" Kevin asked.
Oliver gave Wally a frustrated look, then said, "Nothin' you need to worry about Kev, not really."
"Not worry about? Course he should be worried about him!"
"No, he needn't worry about him," Oliver hissed. "He's a muggle."
"It's the muggles what should be even more worried than the wizards isn't it, though?" Wally said.
Kevin's eyes darted from Oliver to Wally. "What's a muggle? Wait, you mean like the magic? Because I don't have any magic like Oliver? Is that what a muggle is?"
"See what you've done, you've broken the statute," Oliver said, pushing Wally in the shoulder.
Wally looked around, "Because him being in Diagon Alley at Fortescue's ISN'T breaking it?!"
Oliver hadn't considered that. "Alright, true, but --"
"Fantastic Fudge Ripple!" Michael shoved a bowl in front of Kevin as Nate and Eli came back, carrying dishes for Oliver and Wally.
Eli put Yertle on the table and dropped a couple of strawberry slices in front of the turtle. "Look, Jasper said turtles like strawberries."
"They love strawberries," confirmed Meg, coming down the stairs and into the shop just as Eli was dropping the strawberries down. She walked over and picked up one of the slices and held it up for the turtle. Yertle opened his mouth wide and chomped into the bright pink fruit. "See that?"
"Wow, cool," Eli took the slice from Meg and continued on feeding Yertle.
Meg looked at Wally. "Okay, wait - did I miscount yesterday or do we suddenly have a yet another boy this morning?" She laughed. "How've you been, Wally?"
"I'm alright, Meg," Wally answered.
"You know Meg?" Kevin asked.
"Yeah, she was a Gryffindor at school like me and Ollie."
"Are you magical too?" Eli asked Meg, looking up at her.
"The most magical," Oliver said. "She got rid of all my bruises."
Eli looked at Oliver's face, then up at Meg. "You're nice."
She laughed, "Thank you, sweet heart.' She kissed the top of his head.
After Meg left with the boys, Jasper hesitated, then put up the closed sign in the window of the shop. "Be back at 1," he magicked a sign to say, spellotaped it to the door, and hurried to the upstairs floo.
He'd completely forgotten that he needed to talk to Harry Underhill.
After going through all the security at the Ministry, Jasper was arriving just as the ceremony for the inauguration was going out. The atrium was crowded and the hallways a bit reminiscent of swimming upstream. He saw the Minister for Magic lope past, surrounded by several strong looking wizards and trailed by Annalee McKinnon. There were a good deal of men and women in their grey and purple uniforms, and he spotted Frank Longbottom carrying a wrapped parcel and laughing at something his wife, Alice, had just said in his ear, his shiny new badge stuck to his chest. Then, just down the corridor, he spotted James and Lily Potter.
Lily was leaning with her back against the wall, James in front of her, leaning against his splayed palms, their faces close together, her green eyes shining up at him... It was all too familiar a sight, something anyone who'd been at school with them during their seventh year had seen a hundred thousand times during their "rounds" in the evenings - Jasper, of course hadn't been there, but he'd heard about these two from Meg and he couldn't help but laugh, even as he approached them with a rather serious bit of conversation to have...
"...are most definitely the most loviest..." James was whispering in Lily's ear and she was giggling, but then her eyes landed on Jasper and she poked James's shoulder, pointing. He looked over. "Jasper?"
"Sorry to interrupt," he said, flushing.
"Not at all, mate," James answered, then, "Hey congratulations, Lily said you lot're expecting to have a full quidditch team by the end of the year?"
Jasper's flush turned deeper. "Oh Meg told you, 'ey?"
"Yup," Lily laughed. "Congratulations, Pappi."
Jasper laughed, "Thanks." He paused, then, "Hey - James - a word?"
"Sure mate. What's up?"
Jasper glanced at Lily. "It's - sort of sensitive. Official stuff. Auror-James stuff. Sorry Lil."
"It's alright," Lily said. She stood on tip-toe and kissed James's nose. "I'll see you later."
James grinned. "Alright, love. I'll be home 'round six."
"Alright." Lily kissed his nose again, but he ducked his head and kissed her mouth instead and she laughed into the kiss, then melted in, and Jasper turned away, giving them a moment of privacy. "Bye Jasper," Lily said, "Let us know if you need any help with any of the little ones. I'm more than happy." Lily waved and walked away, headed for the hall of floos to go home.
"You want to come down to the office?" James asked.
"Yeah," Jasper nodded, looking at his watch. "Underhill might as well hear it at the same time."
"Oh mate, I think he's got stuff the rest of the day, being the head of the ATC and all, it's sort of his big day, I think him and Mad-Eye and the new recruits have a load of things to do all afternoon."
"Well you can do a report for him then or something."
"A report?"
"Yeah." Jasper paused, "I think I know who killed Mrs. Jennings."
"So tell me more about this Dark Lord guy," Kevin said, cornering Wally in the department store when the other boys were trying on trousers and shirts that Meg had selected for them. Wally was looking at a spinner of sunglasses and he had a pair on and peered at Kevin through the orange-tinted lenses.
Wally lowered the glasses. "What's there to tell? He's an evil wizard just like in the storybooks."
"And it's his follower that's killed Mrs. Jennings?"
Wally shrugged. "I dunno for sure, obviously, but that's what the Dark Mark usually means. They left one over Oliver's house when they killed his parents, and one over our mate Liam's house when they killed his whole family, too. They cast it to claim the death as having been done by them."
"He wants people to know he did murders?" Kevin asked.
"Yeah, it makes him scarier," Wally explained. "People know what he's capable of then, see? They give in to him because they think that'll protect them, but it never does."
"What's he want?"
"Power," Wally shrugged. "He hates muggles and he wants them all either dead or to serve wizards like house elves or something."
Kevin didn't press the question of what house elves were, though he wondered at the term. Instead he asked, "They killed Oliver's parents?"
"Yeah," Wally nodded, "A long time ago. That's when he went to live with that Jennings woman and she's been a right piece of work to him, that's for sure, but I never saw him have a bruise like that one the other day before, that was real bad and --"
"You haven't?" Kevin scoffed. "That one he had was nothin'."
Wally stopped spinning the sunglasses display and stared at Kevin. "Nothin'?"
"Oh yeah, that was just a light thrashin' on account that he talked back to her," Kevin tried on a pair of sunglasses that looked like the ones Elton John wore. Everything was rose-colored under there. "Michael had a broken arm once and we all drew on his cast and it was brilliant, but he didn't really do nothing except make too much racket in the hall... I mean, we were playing at a bit of football and he kicked the ball right against her bedroom door by accident while she was having one of her headaches and it was a right awful mess. We usually all take it up for Eli, though. He's not been beat on much."
Wally shifted his weight uncomfortably. "I didn't know it was that bad... I thought - I guess I thought that was the first time."
Kevin laughed, "Not even close."
"Snape?" James stared dumbfounded at Jasper.
"That's what I think."
"Bloody hell."
"Yeah."
James stared at the desktop. Before Regulus's death, he wouldn't have believed Snape would do something like this - at least not for the "right reasons" that Jasper was saying he'd done it with. Now, though, having seen Severus Snape act to try to save Regulus - as selflessly and desperately as James and Lily had been - James couldn't bring himself to believe Snape might've done it for any other reason besides to help Oliver.
"But why?"
What was it about Regulus Black and Oliver Kent that caused Severus Snape to act extremely and so completely out of character?
He rubbed his chin as he leaned back in his chair.
Jasper at on the edge of his desk, feeding the interdepartmental birds owl nuts from a small dish of them on the edge of James's desk.
"I think Snape's been through it, too, honestly," Jasper said.
James looked up. "He has?"
"Speculation on my part, but -- I mean, a lot of the signs are there for it."
James stared at the desk top, feeling things he wasn't sure he wanted to feel. Guilt, for one, for a great number of things he'd done over the years. Sure some of them - many of them, even - had been deserved, ever in retaliation over some remark or jab of Snape's own, but there were many that had not been revenge-coded, many that were out of pure dumb spite or else were payback for things that ought to have been long put to rest...
Taunting, teasing, unnecessary jinxes, hexes, jibes, snipes, and even hateful thoughts and nicknames tumbled through James's head.
It didn't excuse years of poor choices and horrible actions on Severus's part, it didn't mean he was innocent or even particularly good - but it meant that he wasn't all bad, that there was potential, and suddenly James Potter found himself staring into the face of the reason Lily had given Severus so many second chances.
She was the the only person in his life that had ever given him one at all.
The door opened and Annalee McKinnon stepped in, her face burning red, hugging a folder and a sheath of copies in her arms. She leaned against the door, eyes closed, and her breath coming out shaky. "Oh Merlin," she whispered.
"Annalee?" James looked up.
She looked at him as though in surprise to see him there. "James. Hi."
"Hi..." he said slowly, "Erm, can I help you?"
Her pretty cheeks turned even more red. "No. No, sorry. I - forgot this isn't my - nevermind - I - my office is upstairs." She giggled nervously, then, "Oh merlin's beard."
"Are you alright?" Jasper asked.
Annalee's eyes were somewhere between a dreamy joyful expression and one of a mild panic. "Alright? Me? Of course. Just - I'm great."
James smirked, "Making more copies, were you?"
Annalee looked at him. "Oh shut up, Potter!" She reached for the door knob and started to wrench the door opened and was about to step out when he said -
"Oi, Annalee?"
She turned back.
"I reckon he's worth the walk."
She hesitated. "Yeah? Marlene thought so, too."
James nodded. "You ought to give 'im a go."
Annalee's eyes lit up, excitement in them. "Yeah?" She looked at Jasper. "You were a Hufflepuff, yeah, Jasper?"
"That is the house I found myself in, yes," he answered.
James snorted.
"Did you know Sean Buckner?"
"Of course I knew Sean Buckner. He was in my year. Had the bed next to mine after Marty moved out of our dorm room. Nicest darned bloke I ever met, Buckner was." Jasper paused, "Hang on, he works here, too? Blimey, how'd the Ministry end up with all the best people I knew at Hogwarts?"
"Yeah, he's a copier, right across the hall," James said. "Apparently he's the best copier at the Ministry, seeing as Annalee here walks all the way down from the Minister's office to see him."
Annalee bit her lips.
Jasper grinned, "Ohhh. I see." Then, "Sean Buckner's a catch, you'd be a fool to pass him up."
She looked down at the papers in her arms.
James laughed. "I have some paperwork here that needs dupe-ing if you need an excuse to go back in there."
Annalee paused, looked up at James, then walked swiftly across the room, took the paperwork James was holding out, and tossed her hair over her shoulders with a sniff. "I'll have your duplicates to you in a jiffy, Mr. Potter," and she turned and walked out.
Jasper and James looked at one another and Jasper grinned, "You're having quite the week, aren't you? Brought home a bloody family for me and now you're match-making Annalee McKinnon... What's next, Potter?"
Sean Buckner was still humming quietly, pleased he'd seen Annalee twice in one day, and moving through the copying that had been sent to him by owl in great clumps while he'd been at the ceremony upstairs. "Be with you in a mo'," he muttered when the door opened, his back-to it as he opened a box of blank parchment to replenish his stock by his desk. He hoisted a stack up in his arms and turned 'round and found himself face-to-face with Annalee McKinnon again. "Back again already?" he asked her, smiling.
"Yeah," she said, a flutter to her voice. "I - Mr. Potter across the hall - he needed - these." She put the paperwork James had given her down on Sean's desk. "If - if you could."
"Right away," Sean answered. For anyone else, he would've finished the stack he'd been midway through before doing their copies, but for Annalee -- he pushed the stack aside and ruffled through James's paperwork, prepping it for copying.
She watched his hands as he set the pages to falling gracefully, his wand flicking, copies appearing, ink fading in across the sheets of blank beside his elbow as he worked through the pages.
Usually she'd be chattering his ear off by now, and he glanced up at her, saw her cheeks pinken. He looked back down at the papers.
"Sean?"
He looked back up. "Aye?"
"What're you doing Friday?"
"Well I work Friday."
"I mean after work."
He stared at her. "Af-after work?" he stammered.
"Yeah. For dinner, I mean."
"Dinner?"
"Yeah."
"Well, I - I - I mean, I - I plan on - on eating - some," he said awkwardly.
Annalee said, "My family is having a bit of a party. My oldest brother's coming home from America tomorrow, he's been studying there and - it's the first time in a long while that my whole family's been all together and all and --"
"That sounds fun," Sean said cautiously. "I - I'm sure you'll have a lot of fun. Must be nice to see your brothers."
"Yes," Annalee paused. "Sean, would you like to come?"
"To you family party?"
"Yes."
"For dinner?"
"Yes."
He paused, letting this sink in, blinking at her, then added, "With - with you?"
"Yes."
Sean bit his lips and nodded, "Yes... yes I - I mean, yes, that sounds -" he nodded more. "Very good."
"Splendid."
"Yes, splendid."
He finished up James's paperwork, then clipped the copies together and he stood up, coming 'round the desk to hand Annalee the copies and the originals. Usually, he only handed them over the desk, but this time, he came 'round and he stood there, holding them out to her. She took them and their fingers brushed and she flushed and tucked them into the pile she was already holding in her arms that he'd copied out for her just moments before.
She stood there, facing him. "So Friday. I'll... I'll come down here to meet up with you, we could floo from here."
"Yes, that sounds --" he nodded. "What shall I wear?"
"Anything," she answered. "I mean, nothing - I - no not nothing. I mean - nothing fancy. I - something, obviously."
"Obviously," he nodded quickly.
"I mean you always look good so it shouldn't be a problem," she added quickly.
"You always look good too," he said.
She stared at him.
"But you're bloody aware of that. You must be. You're too beautiful not to be aware of it."
Annalee looked down at the paperwork in her hands, then back up at Sean. "I need to get back upstairs."
"Alright. Of course."
"Of course."
She started for the door.
"See you Friday, then."
"Oh Sean, I'll come up with a hundred reasons to get things copied between now and Friday," Annalee replied, and she hurriedly ducked back out the door, letting it close behind her. She laughed and rushed across the hallway to Underhill's office.
Jasper and James looked up when she came back in.
"Here's your copies," she said, thrusting the documents into James's hand.
"And how'd that go, then?" James asked.
Annalee grinned. "Splendid," she answered, and she rushed out before he could ask anymore questions.
Jasper grinned. "Good for her."