The Ministry of Magic
It was two o’clock in the afternoon, and Ronald Weasley, former Keeper for the Western Defenders, best friend of the practically canonized Harry Potter, was sitting alone on the whole floor of Level Six, abandoned on a Sunday afternoon.
He blamed himself, really. He shouldn’t have left his assignments until the last minute, putting off and shunting them to the side until he realized, waking up in shock in the middle of the night, that his report on Northern Floo Travel was required for Monday morning. He had also realized with an even greater sigh of misery that he had barely started it.
And so, he had found himself sitting at his desk bright and early on a cold Sunday morning when he should have been at home, sleeping until noon and then making his way over to the Burrow for the weekly family dinner. He felt bad the most about the dinner, half for himself for missing out on an expertly cooked meal, and half for his mother, because he knew that she loved being able to see them all on Sundays.
However, he could console himself with the fact that he wouldn’t be the only one not there, meaning that he would at least have to share the guilt with Bill, Fleur, and Karine who were visiting Fleur's family in France. He would also bet a whole Galleon that Ginny wouldn’t be there, out doing some sort of Auror activity. And if they really wanted the whole family there, Hermione would have to be there because she was still Ron’s wife, estranged or not.
His wife.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered to himself; he had tried so hard to forget, to put it from his mind for just one day. And then he had to go and ruin it for himself by bringing up Hermione. He looked up from his report in anger and exasperation, and his eyes fell upon a picture frame resting on the desk, as the two people inside moved about, forever frozen.
Gingerly raising it from the desk, Ron brought it up to his face, mesmerized by the people inside, caught forever in a loop of time that would repeat itself for all eternity. He watched intently as the beautiful woman smiled up at the camera, cradling a sleeping infant in her arms, her eyes watering with unshed tears of pure euphoria. Her bushy chestnut hair was tied behind her head messily, and her body sagged in over-exertion and exhaustion, but in her face the light of a thousand suns was reflected, beaming down upon her newborn child.
The camera shook abruptly, and then the frame would begin again, never-ceasing and unstoppable. Ron stroked the photograph softly with a single finger over his son’s sleeping body, wishing with all his heart that he could be back in that moment again, back in the past when the world was different and happier and better.
A loud, chiming sound nosily broke his reminiscence, and he hastily replaced the photo back into its place on his desk, attempting to return to his report, hoping that perhaps he could make it to dinner after all.
It was only after a few moments that he realized the ringing sound had been the call of the elevator, possibly releasing someone onto his floor. He put down his quill, and strained to hear something, anything, to confirm to him that he was not alone.
“Are you sure this is the right floor?” he heard someone ask timidly, approaching him from down the corridor.
“Of course I’m sure!” exclaimed another floor, startlingly familiar. “I do work here too, you know.”
Ron’s face broke out into a smile as he realized it was his sister making her way over here, coming to see him. But who could she have with her? And what did she need from him on a Sunday afternoon?
The group came around the corner, and he was able to see that it was Ginny, followed by an strange man and...
“Her-hermione?” he croaked, stuttering in his surprise and shock.
“Hello, Ron,” she said softly, and he was able to see her then completely, from the long brown hair and thoughtful eyes, to the formal black robes of a Hogwarts professor. It had been so long, so long since he had seen her in person last, and it felt odd to be in his presence again, haunted by the familiar emotions and feelings resurfaced within him by the arrival of his wife, the mother of his child.
“I... I can’t believe you’re here- I mean, what do need from here on a Sunday? What, I-“ Flustered and shaken, Ron babbled on, until his fair skinned younger sibling cut him off.
“Nice to see you too, Ronald. But we don’t have much time, darling brother. We need your help with something. This man has lost... something. It was taken from Hogsmeade yesterday afternoon by someone using Apparition, and we would like you to find who that was for us,” Ginny said authoritatively, but Ron was used to her gruff and concise Auror attitude, always trying to be quick and precise.
“Yeah, I think I can do that for you. I, uh, actually have the report right here,” he said, gesturing to the long scroll of parchment before him. He made his way down the pages, jumping firstly from red line to red line, as it was these records of Apparition that had concealed arrival points, usually indicating a crime or otherwise un-lawful event.
He tapped his finger against the page as he found what he was looking for. “Here we go: departure from Hogsmeade, Northern Region, to unknown location. Accompanied by Side-Along Apparition.” At this, Ron looked up from his work, and stared at the man between his sister and his wife. “What exactly was it that you lost?”
“My son,” whispered the man quietly, before he turned his sight upwards and towards Ron.
The man met his gaze, and in that moment, Ronald Weasley felt overcome by the strangest sensation, the sensation of seeing two men at once: one the physical appearance before him, with the greying brown hair and time-lined face, and the other, a complete and entire sense of familiarity, as if he knew this man before him. And not just acquainted, but as if they had been so close that they had almost been a part of each other, and that now this reunion had made them complete.
Suddenly, the answer dawned on him, and as he said it, he saw the green eyes shine back at him, as the lightning shaped scar appeared. “Bloody hell. It’s you, isn’t it? Isn’t it, Harry?”
Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, nodded at him and smiled half-heartedly, sorrow etched into the corners of his face. “Hello, Ron,” he said softly.
They stared at each other for an eternity, simply watched and studying each other with the shock of fourteen years of separation between them. There was a great chasm between them, the chasm of passed time and missed opportunities, a great impassable gulf that spanned the decade that separated them from each other. The two women looked on, worried and nervous.
And before either one of them could even react, they watched as the two men threw their arms around each other, throwing themselves off of the edge of the cliff, finally making the bridge that was necessary between them. At this sight, Ginny sighed softly and Hermione grinned a small smile of amusement.
“Boys,” she muttered.
The two men separated, and Ron grinned stupidly at his long-lost friend. “I can’t believe it’s you! Where you been, mate? And you have a son? I-“ His voice died off as he tried to absorb everything. And then his happy expression faded away as he spoke once more, the emotions of thirteen years past all rushing back to him in an instant: “Why didn’t you come back?”
Harry tried to smile, but the attempt only partly worked, and his grin was a poor facsimile of the real thing. “I never meant to stay away so long, Ron,” though his eyes darted to Ginny and Hermione as he spoke, “I wanted only to get away for a little while, get rid of some of the Death Eaters still following me, take care of wounds that Voldemort inflicted on me. But then, then something else happened, and I couldn’t come back, even though I wanted to with everything I had.”
His three friends could all see the pain etched into his features as he spoke, and without speaking to each other, they agreed not to press the matter, not so soon, though so many questions were weighing on their minds, so much information about their long-lost friend that they simply didn’t have.
Ron cleared his throat, finally breaking the silent and slightly awkward moment that had overcome them. “So, it’s your son that was taken from Hogsmeade then, Harry?” he asked softly, and fought the urge to hold the picture frame still standing on his desk, the photograph that held forever the frozen image of his son.
“Yes,” whispered Harry.
“And you want to know where he went?” asked Ron, already looking down at the parchment before him, his eyes locating once more the listings for yesterday and identifying the red line that indicated the disappearance of his best friend’s young son.
This time, it was Ginny that answered, “Yes, Ron, we would like to know, and we don’t have a lot of time.”
He shot a glaring look at his sister, then resumed his work. “Well, this is a red-tag Apparition, which means that wherever they went, the location was Unplottable, since those are the only ones to which we have no destination identification,” he said, glancing back upwards at them, “which means that you’ll have to find out all the Unplottable locations in Britain, since that is the Apparition radius for Hogsmeade.”
“In all of Britain?” exclaimed Ginny, incredulous.
Ron shrugged. “I’m sorry, but there’s no way for us to know where they went otherwise. That’s what makes something Unplottable: so that you can’t track it or find it on a map.”
“I can help you,” called a soft voice from behind Ginny, and the two siblings turned to look at Hermione. She smiled weakly, before settling her eyes upon Harry. “Being a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher has its advantages,” she explained, “and, I really want to help you Harry. I want to help you find your son.”
Ron could feel his stomach tighten, and he made a point of avoiding looking at Hermione. He couldn’t face that memory today. He couldn’t relive the death of his son, his only child, his little boy. And he knew that Hermione couldn’t help but feel the same, for there was still the death of their child standing between them, an issue they had never been able to face and challenge together. He tried to push it out of his mind, and stood up from his desk, attempting to distract himself.
“I’m coming too,” he stated, grabbing his cloak and stuffing his wand into his back pocket. When he met no argument, he turned to stare at all three of them. “So, uh, where are we going, exactly?”
The other two both turned to Hermione, who turned a slightest shade of pink at all the attention, and it was like they were all teenagers again, reliving memories of a past long gone. “The Archives, I suppose?”
The two red-haired siblings nodded in agreement, but Harry turned to his old friend, slightly confused. “The Archives?” he asked, “where are those?”
At this, Hermione blushed a violent shade of red, and Ron and Ginny laughed at her embarrassment, amused. “They, uh, they’re at my house,” she muttered, looking down at the ground, “the Archives are what Ron here used to call my collection of books.”
Harry began to laugh as well, and it felt so good, and so right, to joking with his friends again, to be happy again. It felt like the years had never gone, and that he had finally wound up exactly where he belonged.
“Let’s go,” said Hermione quickly, turning to leave first so that the colour of her face could not be seen. Ginny followed, and as Ron turned to leave, Harry grabbed his arm, stopping him.
“You should probably put your wand somewhere else,” he began, gesturing at the long silver instrument resting in the back pocket of Ron’s jeans, “Mad-Eye told me once that wizards have lost buttocks that way.”
Ron hastily grabbed his wand and followed his laughing best friend down the corridor, even as he called after him: “Who does Mad-Eye know that lost a buttocks?”
The Auror's Duty by Aelan Greenleaf
Chapter Notes: Alright! The next chapter is up for my lovely readers!