Wednesday night Harry and Savage sent owls off to warn every single witch and wizard on the wolf list to be on the lookout. They spent Thursday and Friday meeting with those on the list to collect threats. Every single person on the list who was still alive had gotten one. The penmanship matched. The wording was identical. Fleur was beside herself with worry about Bill. Harry thought of the bodies they had already found, and he had nightmares about walking in on Mrs. Weasley's boggart, seeing her paralyzed with fear as it cycled through the bodies of her dead children. She had already lost Fred.
Lavender's account gave no details about her attacker except for a vague idea that it was probably a man. Harry wished that he could reach out to Protego and promise immunity if the vigilante could give them more information. He worried. He worried about Teddy Lupin. Would this wolf hunter go after the child of a werewolf too? As far as they knew, Teddy didn't even have the symptoms of a half-bitten, but his parentage was known. Harry being his godfather exposed the baby boy with color-changing hair to gossip and media.
When Saturday came, Harry was exhausted. He and Ron arrived in Hogsmeade early and had a hearty breakfast cooked by Aberforth Dumbledore at the Hog's Head. They ate mountains of eggs and sausages and muffins and fruit. By the time the girls made it into town, Harry was considering unbuttoning his jeans below his robes; he was stuffed.
They waited just within the gates to Hogsmeade. Harry spotted Ginny's red hair first, but he heard Hermione directing the third-years before any other voices carried. She was Head Girl, after all. Harry wondered if someone in Ginny's year felt like they'd unfairly lost that position to an interloper.
Ginny, wearing blue jeans a green and gold sweater that looked half knee-length robe and half hooded sweatshirt, broke from the crowd and ran to hug and kiss Harry. The other students whispered and pointed. He had gone to school with all of them, but they acted like they had never seen him before, standing on tip toe and craning their necks to get a look at him.
When Harry untangled himself from Ginny's arms (though he was in no hurry), Hermione was standing next to them, holding Ron's hand. "When Ron didn't reply to my letter, I thought you might not come."
Ron rubbed the back of his neck and blushed. "Sorry. I forgot after I got called away in the middle of writing it."
"Hello, Harry," a high, dreamy voice said. Harry looked behind Ginny and was surprised to see Luna standing there. He didn't know why he wasn't expecting her. She was in Ginny's year.
"Luna," Harry said with a grin. "How are you doing?"
"Good. Quite good. I've been busy writing a paper on the use of Thestrals as symbols of death in art."
"Really?" Harry asked, pushing his glasses up his nose. "For Care of Magical Creatures or History of Magic?"
"Hmm?" Luna asked.
"What called you away from my letter?" Hermione asked.
Harry wasn't sure how much he should say, so he tugged Ginny's hand and lead the group down a less crowded street. They could hit up Honeydukes after the rush was over. "Uh, there was an attack in London. Actually, a crossover of both our cases. Someone is attacking werewolves and half-bittens, and Protego saved someone from him."
Luna clapped and bounced on her feet. "Protego! He's so dreamy."
Ron crinkled his nose. "How can you tell. He wears a mask."
"Luna's smitten," Ginny said with a teasing smile. "She has her schoolbooks covered in the Daily Prophet pages about him."
"He's a hero! And he doesn't do it with the ministry watching him. He's rogue. Like you, Harry," Luna said, looking off at the clouds as if expecting Protego to appear there.
Ron snorted. "We work for the Ministry, Luna. We're aurors."
"Now you do."
Harry opened the door to a shop. Most of the shops had survived the war or rebuilt. Zonko's hadn't come back, but Harry suspected that had as much to do with George's competition as it did with the war. They found themselves in Gladrag's Wizard Wear. There were students and locals shopping in the clothing store, but it was far less densely packed than the sporting goods shop or the candy store.
Ginny started flipping through the racks of men's professional dress robes and holding items up to Harry. "So?" she asked. "Attacking half-bittens? Does Bill know?"
Harry nodded. "I met with him yesterday morning. Had breakfast with him and Fleur."
"Are you dressing him now?" Ron asked.
"Just browsing," Ginny said, flushing red and putting a green and gold robe back on the rack. Harry shot Ron a nasty glare and picked it up. It was a bit flashy, but he had nothing for formal events. The robes he'd worn for Bill's wedding had been ruined on the run. "And Lavender," Ginny said. "Have you warned her?"
"We have," Harry said.
"Do you want to go to Tomes and Scrolls?" Ron asked, directing Hermione's attention.
Hermione nodded. "I do need some leisure reading material. I finished that book I was telling you about, Deadly Potion Disasters of the Dark Ages. It was a great read. Did you know—"
"We'll catch up with you guys later for Butterbeers, right?"
Hermione and Ron left, leaving Ginny and Harry with Luna. They shopped for nearly an hour. Luna sometimes made bizarre suggestions, but her presence was welcome. Ginny told Harry about gifts coming to her from professional Quidditch teams. The Holyhead Harpies were sending her weekly care packages of magazines, snacks, and games. She had a pendant and a shirt from eight different teams. Indeed, the sweatshirt she was wearing now had a little gold talon embroidered on the left side.
"Oliver said something about you being strongly recruited."
"You've been spending time with Oliver? How is he?"
"Good," Harry said, looking around. They were walking up to the front with a pile of purchases (mostly for Harry, but also a dress that Ginny promised to wear on their first date over winter break.) "He's just as obsessed with Quidditch as ever, but now it pays. Ron and I have had drinks with him a few times."
He wanted so badly to tell Ginny about what they were really up to, but he couldn't risk putting it in a letter or telling her in a crowded shop. He set the pile of robes on the counter and drew his bag of gold to pay. He had never had so many clothes in his life. Until now, he had Dudley's hand-me-downs and black school work robes. Aside from a few Weasley sweaters, none of his weekend wear had really fit.
They waited for Luna while she paid for a rather fluffy aqua scarf and matching set of mittens. They ducked into Honeydukes to restock (Harry needed a few bars of chocolate for his stockpile), but also left with Ice Mice and Fizzing Whizbees and a handful of other assorted sweets. They had a few hours before they needed to meet Hermione and Ron at The Three Broomsticks. Luna seemed to understand that Harry wanted to talk to Ginny alone, and so after loading up on candy she said she needed to get something repaired at Dervish and Banges and left them alone.
Harry and Ginny took a walk up to the Shrieking Shack and sat on a stone wall to eat Bertie Bott's beans and talk. "I haven't been seeing Oliver on social calls," Harry admitted after spitting a black pepper bean into a shrubbery.
"Oh?"
Harry looked around furtively. Ginny drew her wand and quietly cast a charm to put them in a bubble of silence. "You should learn that one," she said. "Seventh year charms class."
"Hey now," Harry said with a smirk. "I have my honorary O.W.L. in Charms. Outstanding marks."
Ginny grabbed his collar and yanked him forward, planting a firm kiss on his lips. Harry was eager to talk to Ginny, but he figured it could wait for a few minutes in the name of some quality snogging.
When they finally came up for air, Ginny licked her lips. "You taste like black pepper."
"Could be worse. Could be booger." Harry's expression fell. He looked down at his hands and took a slow, deep breath. "Ron and I are on a secret case. We're investigating a leak. Shacklebolt thinks our boss was in with the death eaters."
"What?!" Ginny said in a high, loud voice that made Harry glad they had a bubble of silence. "Robards, right?"
"This auror, Brynja Dunstan, she was under cover. Robards and Shacklebolt and Dunstan were the only ones who knew, but her cover got blown and she was almost killed."
"I remember her. A Ravenclaw. She was in a study group with Percy. She's Penny's friend."
"And apparently Oliver's friend. Oliver hid her after the death eaters found out what she was up to. So he's our cover story for meeting. We're investigating Robards, and making sure he wasn't the only one."
"So what are you doing?"
Harry closed the pouch of jelly beans and put it away in his bag. "I've got Damocles Belby making Polyjuice. I'm going in to interrogate one of the Death Eaters as Brynja."
"Why isn't she?"
"Long story," Harry said. "Basically this guy stabbed her a few times with Bellatrix Lestrange's cursed dagger...so..."
Ginny nodded. "Got it."
Harry looked out at The Shrieking Shack. It still looked like a boarded-up old Haunted House, but the roof looked more solid than he remembered. He wondered if that was one of the renovations McGonagall was talking about.
"Anything else?"
Harry looked back at Ginny. The autumn sun filtered through the trees and dappled golden light on her hair. He smiled. "Huh?"
"What else are you doing to investigate?"
"That's about it. Just tailing some other aurors, though I don't know what we expect to find. I mean...it's not like they're going to report in to Voldemort."
Ginny shook her head. "No, no that certainly won't happen."
"Capper is our only lead. That's the death eater."
"Are you going to make a deal with him?"
Harry hadn't thought much about how he intended to get the information out of Capper. Had he expected the guy to just start monologuing if he came in looking like the right person? He shrugged. "Maybe. I guess I have to see what kind of deal I'm authorized to make." Harry made a mental note to drop in on Kingsley before the potion was ready. He looked back out of the shack, and he thought of something.
"There's a girl, Reilly Brune. First year, werewolf."
"Why you were at Hogwarts a few weeks ago?"
Harry nodded.
"Well good thing Hogwarts has practice at working with werewolves."
"I'm not worried about her hurting someone," Harry said. "I'm worried about someone hurting her. Someone is determined to kill her, and we don't know who we're looking for. She's a full werewolf, which probably puts her high on their priorities."
"Hermione and I are here," Ginny said. "And Luna. You want us to look after her?"
All three girls had survived The Battle of Hogwarts. Harry thought about how much they had been through. "Yeah," he said. "But don't let her know you know. It's just, well, I'm sure her parents wouldn't be too happy that the ministry told someone about her. Confidentiality and all that."
"I won't, but I'm betting they'd just be happy the famous Harry Potter has assigned his closest confidants to work as her security detail."
Ginny looked at her watch, a delicate silver band with a mechanical timepiece on it (the only kind that worked at Hogwarts). "We have a little bit of time before we meet up with Hermione and Ron. What do you say we go find a more private corner to snog in?"
She wasn't going to hear any arguments from Harry. "Yeah, I think I could squeeze it in to my busy schedule."
"That's plenty of work talk for today. Let's just enjoy the rest of the day." Ginny hopped off the wall and grabbed his hand. She dragged Harry to his feet, and he let her lead the way.