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eldabePart 1.
Harry was juggling a crying baby when the next summons came. Ginny had dropped Jamie off an hour earlier, telling Harry that it was his turn; Ginny knew he was having a quiet day and she needed to go to the Falcon's training camp. Jamie was getting too old to sit calmly in the baby carrier while Ginny did interviews. Harry did have a quiet day, having wrapped up two major cases and not yet assigned to anything new. And Harry had enough seniority to claim desk duty for the odd afternoon when Jamie was fussy besides.
Harry was supposed to be reading files about a suspected dwarfish smuggling ring, but instead he was walking up and down his office and bouncing Jamie gently up and down.
"Come on, Jamie, it's okay, I promise, shhhhh," Harry tried to comfort Jamie who kept whimpering and crying alternatively, his snotty nose smearing against Harry's Auror robes. Harry had sent an owl to Teddy offering to hang out with him this afternoon, as Harry was stuck in the office anyway. Teddy was full of energy, and Andromeda appreciated any quiet.
So when Harry's office door opened, Harry was expecting Teddy.. Instead one of the black memos from the Department of Mysteries flew across his office and landed neatly on his desk. Harry groaned. He shifted Jamie onto his hip and picked it up with his spare hand. Another summons, for Thursday this time. Harry rolled his eyes. This was ridiculous, he couldn't just be called out any time they wanted, could he?
Before Harry could call down the hall to Ron to complain, the door burst open again to Teddy, with a rucksack slung over his back.
"Hullo, Harry!" he said, and Jamie looked up from Harry's side at the new person in the room. Harry waved at Andromeda, who waved back and quietly slipped away while Teddy dropped his bag and came over to give Harry a hug.
Harry left the black parchment on his desk and promptly forgot about it as he played with his son and godson for the rest of the day. The next day there was an emergency raid and the day after that he was in Azkaban taking statements. He forgot about the letter until Thursday morning when he tried to sort out the mess on his desk.
Harry groaned again when he saw it, but it was far too late to back out. Rather than start other work, he shoved the parchment in his pocket. Harry pushed all the rest of his parchment into piles and went right down to the Department of Mysteries door.
Harry was a few minutes early, so he paced the hallway absently. His first few years at the ministry he avoided this hallway when possible, still remembering the feeling of seeing it all from Nagini's perspective. Arthur didn't seem bothered and after a while Harry wasn't either. Harry could still remember the days when all he wanted to do was get behind that black door.
This time Harry heard Draco and Astoria coming and he watches the from the door. They walked down the hallway slowly, heads bent together. Draco had one arm wrapped around Astoria's waist and the other arm tucked over a satchel. Astoria had one hand resting on her stomach, and Harry realized that she was pregnant. Her robes were cut and draped to hide the fact, but there was no doubt in Harry's mind. He remembered Molly fussing over Ginny's robes when Ginny finally agreed to buy something new for the pregnancy and he recognized the same style.
Astoria was practically glowing with happiness. She was beaming at Draco while they spoke. Draco, in contrast, looked pinched and stressed, his brow furrowed and his posture protective. As they neared the door, Astoria spotted Harry and waved.
"Hello, Harry Potter," she said cheerfully.
"Hi," Harry said, and then, “Congratulations," looking between Astoria to Draco.
"Thank you," Astoria said. If anything, her smile grew even bigger. "We're very excited, our first, you know."
Draco was still next to Astoria, his hand still resting on her hip. Draco did not look excited. He was frowning down at Astoria as she told Harry that she was expecting in early November.
As she talked, Astoria reached for Draco's bag and tugged it from his grasp. His hand tightened for a moment, and then he let go and she looped it over her own shoulder. Then she put a hand on the one still curled around her waist and looked up at Draco.
"It'll be fine, Draco, I'll be home in an hour or two."
Draco looked torn. He met Harry's eyes for a second. Harry couldn't tell what he saw in them, but Draco slowly pulled his hand from Astoria's hip and curled their fingers together for a moment.
As Draco pulled away fully, he nodded to Harry formally. "Potter."
Harry nodded back. "Malfoy."
Astoria watched the two of them, and then turned to watch Draco walk down the hallway. She had one hand holding her satchel and the other rubbing her stomach absently. A small smile played on her lips as Draco followed the curvature of the corridor out of view.
"You already have a son, don't you?" Astoria said, turning back to him.
Harry was used to people knowing every public detail about his life, and Astoria seemed genuinely interested.
"Oh, yeah," Harry said, "He's nearly two, now." Ginny was also pregnant, but they weren't telling anyone yet. At this point only Molly, Arthur, Hermione, and Ron knew.
Astoria's eyes lit up with interest, and Harry fumbled out his wallet to pull out some pictures. Astoria cooed over Jamie nestled in Ginny's arms, Jamie spitting up all over Teddy, an older Jamie toddling after a laughing Teddy, and Jamie smashing his first birthday cake. Harry also had one picture from his own birthday, of Ginny placing a very small Jamie on Harry’s chest while he was sleeping and him starling awake to Jamie drooling all over his pajamas.
"Oh, he's precious," Astoria said, as Jamie caught up to Teddy in the third photo.
James was such an easy-going baby. After poor Roxanne had kept Angelina and George up for weeks on end refusing to sleep, Harry knew how lucky he was to have Jamie. Harry flipped to another picture of James chewing on a stuffed kneazle, totally absorbed in his task.
The door opened and Unspeakable Turpin stepped out. "Good, you're here." She didn't even let the black door close before turning around and walking back through it
Harry held out his arm and Astoria took it and they walked into the blue light of the room of doors together. Harry patted his pocket, and felt the black parchment crumble to dust.
This time the Unspeakables had a third, a new young man. They kept correcting his notes. Harry gathered that his name was Zhou as he also never introduced himself. They reviewed the events of Voldemort killing Harry briefly and once they confirmed that Harry didn't remember anything new, they ran the same medical charms and took some blood and let him out to fetch Astoria.
Astoria was sitting in the same spot on the bench as last time, but she had a large children's book propped open against her stomach. Her bag was lying on the bench next to her, and two more colorful book covers peeked out.
Harry saw that the illustrations in the book were clearly magical. Andromeda had some books like these for Teddy, where colorful animals moved across the pages and reacted to tiny hands poking or tickling and petting, depending on the story. Astoria was dragging her finger across the page and a blue sheep followed the path of her finger.
"Astoria?" Harry said, and she looked up.
"Oh, hello Harry Potter. That was fast."
"Enjoying the book?" Harry asked, and Astoria looked down and laughed.
"Oh, yes, I'm trying to find good books for when this one is born." She lifted the book and nodded at her stomach.
"Starting a little early, aren't you?" Harry asked, teasing.
She put the book down on top of her bag, and wrapped one arm around her stomach. "Well, it's exciting."
Harry doesn't think she's stopped smiling once.
She put her hands on the bench to help push herself up and Harry quickly reached forward to help her. She thanked him for his help as he pulled her up, and she walked to the office with a bounce in her step, leaving her books behind.
Harry sat down in the seat she had vacated, and looked at the pile of books, curious. Harry opened the top one and started reading the story of the lonely blue sheep who was lost and was looking for his family. The sheep wandered through Godric's Hollow, Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley before finding his herd in North Wales being tended to by a nice wizarding family. The second book was an introductory guide to identifying magical herbs and fungi, with different herbs growing on the pages as Harry twirled the little moon on the corner of every page. The last book, Harry was shocked to find, was a Muggle book, with no moving pictures or images at all. It was about a little girl in London who travelled to Paris and saw pretty art in the Louvre. The book had scattered French and some art history. Harry, baffled, read it twice to see what hidden agenda there must be somewhere in the book. But it seemed as light and fluffy as the other two, just Muggle.
Harry realized he'd read all three books and Astoria still hadn't come out. He put all the books back in her bag and craned his neck to see the door to the office still closed. Harry wondered if the spells had to be modified so much because she was pregnant. Ginny's appointments had never taken this long, though.
Harry looked down at the arch again. After talking with Ginny, they'd made a headstone for Sirius next to Harry's dad in Godric's Hollow. Harry had taken Jamie so he could show him both of his names. One day Harry would bring Jamie and he would be able to actually read the names on the graves.
The room was still filled with horrible memories, but having been forced to sit in it once, Harry found he could bear it again. He had spoken with Ginny after the last time. She had been freshly showered from Quidditch practice and they had curled up together on the couch with chocolate and Harry had talked about Sirius. Harry admitted how he felt sometimes when he was sitting with the Weasley's and knowing that they were the closest thing he had to a real family.
It hurt to admit, but after all this time, the pain of losing Sirius was faded as well, another part of Harry’s youth. Harry told himself he should tell Teddy about Sirius too. Teddy would probably appreciate stories about his dad’s mates. Harry had.
The office door opened and Harry grabbed Astoria's bag and stood to see Astoria slowly walking out. The smile that had been on her face was gone and the three Unspeakables were all huddled over one of the glass plates.
Harry held up Astoria's bag and she smiled slightly, reaching out for it. "Did you read the books?" she asked.
"I liked the one about the Louvre," Harry said, curious how she would respond.
She brightened immediately. "I like it too! Draco and I found it at the local bookshop in the village. We were trying to find something that wouldn't be too unfamiliar."
Zhou came out of the office and offered his arm to Astoria. She waved him away and took Harry's arm automatically. Harry was still a little baffled by the idea of Draco in a muggle book shop, and let Astoria keep talking.
"And I think it will be a good introduction to art. The Manor has quite a collection of Renaissance art, with a focus on French painters. Some of the oldest pieces aren't even magical, although those have been in storage until recently."
They paused in the room of doors while the room spun around them. Zhou wasn't paying any attention to them, his nose still buried in his notes. Zhou hustled them both out into the hallway and pulled the door closed behind them. Harry could picture him sprinting back across the room to get back to his notes.
Astoria looked amused at she stared at the black door, and then shook her head. "So I am trying to curate a good introduction to reading, for the baby."
Harry's own collection of books and toys for Jamie and Teddy were mostly a combination of buying anything that caught his eye in the shops, any anything lent to him by Molly, Bill, George, and Percy. A lot of baby toys traveled from one Weasley to another depending on the age of the various children.
Harry automatically walked with Astoria to the lift, and then across the lobby of the Ministry. This time she paused in front of the fountain, which had been replaced again since Voldemort's day. Now it was an abstract design of moving metal shapes meant (Harry had been assured) to represent the shared flow of magic in the wizarding world. As the shapes twisted, water dripped down in rivulets to splash in the fountain below. There was also a plaque of rotating names set into the base around the fountain, of people who died in the last war.
Astoria tugged his arm when she stopped for a moment, watching the twisting metal shapes spiral and fall. There was a lot of controversy when the fountain was being rebuilt. Most witches and wizards hated the modern design of the fountain and complained that it didn't look like anything. Ron was baffled by it. Hermione loved it. Harry himself found the smooth endless cycling pleasantly neutral, and he liked it far better than the past two fountains.
Astoria looked up at the fountain for a moment, and then dug into her pocket for a coin. She came up with a sickle, and held it in her hand for a moment, before gently tossing it into the fountain. She stood and watched the place where her coin had disappeared.
Harry was aware of people watching the two of them. People always watched him in public, and he was mostly used to it. But he felt oddly protective of Astoria, who had placed her free hand back on her stomach.
She blew out a breath. "Thank you." She started walking toward to Floos, leading Harry now. "I wasn't sure if I would get a chance to come back before the birth, you know."
"Did you make a wish?" Harry asked. It always amused him that even witches and wizards had superstitions.
"Oh yes," Astoria said. "But I can't tell you, of course."
"You know, muggles also throw coins into fountains to make wishes," Harry said. He couldn't contain his curiosity. Her reaction to muggle things were so unexpected that he wanted to see how she would react to other things.
"Really?" Astoria said. "But I thought muggles don't believe in magic?"
"Well, most wizards don't believe that tossing a coin into a fountain means your wish will come true either," Harry pointed out.
Astoria laughed, her hand rubbing her stomach again. "Oh, what's the use being magic if some things aren't still mysteries?" She nodded back toward the lifts, and the Department of Mysteries, "Magic doesn't mean we've solved everything." They stopped in one of the lines for a Floo and inched forward as the line shrank. Astoria looked back at the atrium, bustling with witches and wizards chatting over the tinkling sounds of the fountain and the whoosh and pop of people coming and going by Floo and Apparation
"For example," Astoria said softly, watching a two wizards swing a small giggling child between them as they walked past, "we haven't quite managed to figure out luck."
Harry opened his mouth to ask what she meant, but it was her turn and she reached to shake his hand. "Goodbye again, Harry Potter!" she said, and with one smooth gesture she threw her Floo Powder into the fireplace, stepped after it and called "Pemberly Flat!"
Harry stood for a moment after she disappeared, turning the puzzle of Astoria Malfoy over in his mind. She clearly had an interest in the muggle world, if less than complete knowledge. But Harry tried to square that with the boy who had taught him and Hermione the word "mudblood" in second year and he wondered what the hell happened there. And something had happened to her, something similar to enough to the time he died that the Unspeakables wanted to study them together.
Then the witch behind him cleared his throat and Harry startled, then stepped out of the Floo line. People were still watching him, so he stuck his hands in his pockets and head back to his office. Maybe he would take Teddy out for ice cream this weekend and they could discover a new way for James to smush food in his hair.
Harry was juggling a crying baby when the next summons came. Ginny had dropped Jamie off an hour earlier, telling Harry that it was his turn; Ginny knew he was having a quiet day and she needed to go to the Falcon's training camp. Jamie was getting too old to sit calmly in the baby carrier while Ginny did interviews. Harry did have a quiet day, having wrapped up two major cases and not yet assigned to anything new. And Harry had enough seniority to claim desk duty for the odd afternoon when Jamie was fussy besides.
Harry was supposed to be reading files about a suspected dwarfish smuggling ring, but instead he was walking up and down his office and bouncing Jamie gently up and down.
"Come on, Jamie, it's okay, I promise, shhhhh," Harry tried to comfort Jamie who kept whimpering and crying alternatively, his snotty nose smearing against Harry's Auror robes. Harry had sent an owl to Teddy offering to hang out with him this afternoon, as Harry was stuck in the office anyway. Teddy was full of energy, and Andromeda appreciated any quiet.
So when Harry's office door opened, Harry was expecting Teddy.. Instead one of the black memos from the Department of Mysteries flew across his office and landed neatly on his desk. Harry groaned. He shifted Jamie onto his hip and picked it up with his spare hand. Another summons, for Thursday this time. Harry rolled his eyes. This was ridiculous, he couldn't just be called out any time they wanted, could he?
Before Harry could call down the hall to Ron to complain, the door burst open again to Teddy, with a rucksack slung over his back.
"Hullo, Harry!" he said, and Jamie looked up from Harry's side at the new person in the room. Harry waved at Andromeda, who waved back and quietly slipped away while Teddy dropped his bag and came over to give Harry a hug.
Harry left the black parchment on his desk and promptly forgot about it as he played with his son and godson for the rest of the day. The next day there was an emergency raid and the day after that he was in Azkaban taking statements. He forgot about the letter until Thursday morning when he tried to sort out the mess on his desk.
Harry groaned again when he saw it, but it was far too late to back out. Rather than start other work, he shoved the parchment in his pocket. Harry pushed all the rest of his parchment into piles and went right down to the Department of Mysteries door.
Harry was a few minutes early, so he paced the hallway absently. His first few years at the ministry he avoided this hallway when possible, still remembering the feeling of seeing it all from Nagini's perspective. Arthur didn't seem bothered and after a while Harry wasn't either. Harry could still remember the days when all he wanted to do was get behind that black door.
This time Harry heard Draco and Astoria coming and he watches the from the door. They walked down the hallway slowly, heads bent together. Draco had one arm wrapped around Astoria's waist and the other arm tucked over a satchel. Astoria had one hand resting on her stomach, and Harry realized that she was pregnant. Her robes were cut and draped to hide the fact, but there was no doubt in Harry's mind. He remembered Molly fussing over Ginny's robes when Ginny finally agreed to buy something new for the pregnancy and he recognized the same style.
Astoria was practically glowing with happiness. She was beaming at Draco while they spoke. Draco, in contrast, looked pinched and stressed, his brow furrowed and his posture protective. As they neared the door, Astoria spotted Harry and waved.
"Hello, Harry Potter," she said cheerfully.
"Hi," Harry said, and then, “Congratulations," looking between Astoria to Draco.
"Thank you," Astoria said. If anything, her smile grew even bigger. "We're very excited, our first, you know."
Draco was still next to Astoria, his hand still resting on her hip. Draco did not look excited. He was frowning down at Astoria as she told Harry that she was expecting in early November.
As she talked, Astoria reached for Draco's bag and tugged it from his grasp. His hand tightened for a moment, and then he let go and she looped it over her own shoulder. Then she put a hand on the one still curled around her waist and looked up at Draco.
"It'll be fine, Draco, I'll be home in an hour or two."
Draco looked torn. He met Harry's eyes for a second. Harry couldn't tell what he saw in them, but Draco slowly pulled his hand from Astoria's hip and curled their fingers together for a moment.
As Draco pulled away fully, he nodded to Harry formally. "Potter."
Harry nodded back. "Malfoy."
Astoria watched the two of them, and then turned to watch Draco walk down the hallway. She had one hand holding her satchel and the other rubbing her stomach absently. A small smile played on her lips as Draco followed the curvature of the corridor out of view.
"You already have a son, don't you?" Astoria said, turning back to him.
Harry was used to people knowing every public detail about his life, and Astoria seemed genuinely interested.
"Oh, yeah," Harry said, "He's nearly two, now." Ginny was also pregnant, but they weren't telling anyone yet. At this point only Molly, Arthur, Hermione, and Ron knew.
Astoria's eyes lit up with interest, and Harry fumbled out his wallet to pull out some pictures. Astoria cooed over Jamie nestled in Ginny's arms, Jamie spitting up all over Teddy, an older Jamie toddling after a laughing Teddy, and Jamie smashing his first birthday cake. Harry also had one picture from his own birthday, of Ginny placing a very small Jamie on Harry’s chest while he was sleeping and him starling awake to Jamie drooling all over his pajamas.
"Oh, he's precious," Astoria said, as Jamie caught up to Teddy in the third photo.
James was such an easy-going baby. After poor Roxanne had kept Angelina and George up for weeks on end refusing to sleep, Harry knew how lucky he was to have Jamie. Harry flipped to another picture of James chewing on a stuffed kneazle, totally absorbed in his task.
The door opened and Unspeakable Turpin stepped out. "Good, you're here." She didn't even let the black door close before turning around and walking back through it
Harry held out his arm and Astoria took it and they walked into the blue light of the room of doors together. Harry patted his pocket, and felt the black parchment crumble to dust.
This time the Unspeakables had a third, a new young man. They kept correcting his notes. Harry gathered that his name was Zhou as he also never introduced himself. They reviewed the events of Voldemort killing Harry briefly and once they confirmed that Harry didn't remember anything new, they ran the same medical charms and took some blood and let him out to fetch Astoria.
Astoria was sitting in the same spot on the bench as last time, but she had a large children's book propped open against her stomach. Her bag was lying on the bench next to her, and two more colorful book covers peeked out.
Harry saw that the illustrations in the book were clearly magical. Andromeda had some books like these for Teddy, where colorful animals moved across the pages and reacted to tiny hands poking or tickling and petting, depending on the story. Astoria was dragging her finger across the page and a blue sheep followed the path of her finger.
"Astoria?" Harry said, and she looked up.
"Oh, hello Harry Potter. That was fast."
"Enjoying the book?" Harry asked, and Astoria looked down and laughed.
"Oh, yes, I'm trying to find good books for when this one is born." She lifted the book and nodded at her stomach.
"Starting a little early, aren't you?" Harry asked, teasing.
She put the book down on top of her bag, and wrapped one arm around her stomach. "Well, it's exciting."
Harry doesn't think she's stopped smiling once.
She put her hands on the bench to help push herself up and Harry quickly reached forward to help her. She thanked him for his help as he pulled her up, and she walked to the office with a bounce in her step, leaving her books behind.
Harry sat down in the seat she had vacated, and looked at the pile of books, curious. Harry opened the top one and started reading the story of the lonely blue sheep who was lost and was looking for his family. The sheep wandered through Godric's Hollow, Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley before finding his herd in North Wales being tended to by a nice wizarding family. The second book was an introductory guide to identifying magical herbs and fungi, with different herbs growing on the pages as Harry twirled the little moon on the corner of every page. The last book, Harry was shocked to find, was a Muggle book, with no moving pictures or images at all. It was about a little girl in London who travelled to Paris and saw pretty art in the Louvre. The book had scattered French and some art history. Harry, baffled, read it twice to see what hidden agenda there must be somewhere in the book. But it seemed as light and fluffy as the other two, just Muggle.
Harry realized he'd read all three books and Astoria still hadn't come out. He put all the books back in her bag and craned his neck to see the door to the office still closed. Harry wondered if the spells had to be modified so much because she was pregnant. Ginny's appointments had never taken this long, though.
Harry looked down at the arch again. After talking with Ginny, they'd made a headstone for Sirius next to Harry's dad in Godric's Hollow. Harry had taken Jamie so he could show him both of his names. One day Harry would bring Jamie and he would be able to actually read the names on the graves.
The room was still filled with horrible memories, but having been forced to sit in it once, Harry found he could bear it again. He had spoken with Ginny after the last time. She had been freshly showered from Quidditch practice and they had curled up together on the couch with chocolate and Harry had talked about Sirius. Harry admitted how he felt sometimes when he was sitting with the Weasley's and knowing that they were the closest thing he had to a real family.
It hurt to admit, but after all this time, the pain of losing Sirius was faded as well, another part of Harry’s youth. Harry told himself he should tell Teddy about Sirius too. Teddy would probably appreciate stories about his dad’s mates. Harry had.
The office door opened and Harry grabbed Astoria's bag and stood to see Astoria slowly walking out. The smile that had been on her face was gone and the three Unspeakables were all huddled over one of the glass plates.
Harry held up Astoria's bag and she smiled slightly, reaching out for it. "Did you read the books?" she asked.
"I liked the one about the Louvre," Harry said, curious how she would respond.
She brightened immediately. "I like it too! Draco and I found it at the local bookshop in the village. We were trying to find something that wouldn't be too unfamiliar."
Zhou came out of the office and offered his arm to Astoria. She waved him away and took Harry's arm automatically. Harry was still a little baffled by the idea of Draco in a muggle book shop, and let Astoria keep talking.
"And I think it will be a good introduction to art. The Manor has quite a collection of Renaissance art, with a focus on French painters. Some of the oldest pieces aren't even magical, although those have been in storage until recently."
They paused in the room of doors while the room spun around them. Zhou wasn't paying any attention to them, his nose still buried in his notes. Zhou hustled them both out into the hallway and pulled the door closed behind them. Harry could picture him sprinting back across the room to get back to his notes.
Astoria looked amused at she stared at the black door, and then shook her head. "So I am trying to curate a good introduction to reading, for the baby."
Harry's own collection of books and toys for Jamie and Teddy were mostly a combination of buying anything that caught his eye in the shops, any anything lent to him by Molly, Bill, George, and Percy. A lot of baby toys traveled from one Weasley to another depending on the age of the various children.
Harry automatically walked with Astoria to the lift, and then across the lobby of the Ministry. This time she paused in front of the fountain, which had been replaced again since Voldemort's day. Now it was an abstract design of moving metal shapes meant (Harry had been assured) to represent the shared flow of magic in the wizarding world. As the shapes twisted, water dripped down in rivulets to splash in the fountain below. There was also a plaque of rotating names set into the base around the fountain, of people who died in the last war.
Astoria tugged his arm when she stopped for a moment, watching the twisting metal shapes spiral and fall. There was a lot of controversy when the fountain was being rebuilt. Most witches and wizards hated the modern design of the fountain and complained that it didn't look like anything. Ron was baffled by it. Hermione loved it. Harry himself found the smooth endless cycling pleasantly neutral, and he liked it far better than the past two fountains.
Astoria looked up at the fountain for a moment, and then dug into her pocket for a coin. She came up with a sickle, and held it in her hand for a moment, before gently tossing it into the fountain. She stood and watched the place where her coin had disappeared.
Harry was aware of people watching the two of them. People always watched him in public, and he was mostly used to it. But he felt oddly protective of Astoria, who had placed her free hand back on her stomach.
She blew out a breath. "Thank you." She started walking toward to Floos, leading Harry now. "I wasn't sure if I would get a chance to come back before the birth, you know."
"Did you make a wish?" Harry asked. It always amused him that even witches and wizards had superstitions.
"Oh yes," Astoria said. "But I can't tell you, of course."
"You know, muggles also throw coins into fountains to make wishes," Harry said. He couldn't contain his curiosity. Her reaction to muggle things were so unexpected that he wanted to see how she would react to other things.
"Really?" Astoria said. "But I thought muggles don't believe in magic?"
"Well, most wizards don't believe that tossing a coin into a fountain means your wish will come true either," Harry pointed out.
Astoria laughed, her hand rubbing her stomach again. "Oh, what's the use being magic if some things aren't still mysteries?" She nodded back toward the lifts, and the Department of Mysteries, "Magic doesn't mean we've solved everything." They stopped in one of the lines for a Floo and inched forward as the line shrank. Astoria looked back at the atrium, bustling with witches and wizards chatting over the tinkling sounds of the fountain and the whoosh and pop of people coming and going by Floo and Apparation
"For example," Astoria said softly, watching a two wizards swing a small giggling child between them as they walked past, "we haven't quite managed to figure out luck."
Harry opened his mouth to ask what she meant, but it was her turn and she reached to shake his hand. "Goodbye again, Harry Potter!" she said, and with one smooth gesture she threw her Floo Powder into the fireplace, stepped after it and called "Pemberly Flat!"
Harry stood for a moment after she disappeared, turning the puzzle of Astoria Malfoy over in his mind. She clearly had an interest in the muggle world, if less than complete knowledge. But Harry tried to square that with the boy who had taught him and Hermione the word "mudblood" in second year and he wondered what the hell happened there. And something had happened to her, something similar to enough to the time he died that the Unspeakables wanted to study them together.
Then the witch behind him cleared his throat and Harry startled, then stepped out of the Floo line. People were still watching him, so he stuck his hands in his pockets and head back to his office. Maybe he would take Teddy out for ice cream this weekend and they could discover a new way for James to smush food in his hair.
