Snitches get Stitches

“No English,” Harry whispered down to the table.

It was the only thing Harry said since being arrested and taken to the police station.

As soon as the cops closed the car door on Harry, he was wheezing and gasping for breath as if every inhale came through a very small tube. Harry genuinely thought he was going to suffocate in the backseat while the officers talked to one another about Harry ‘not getting out of it’.

When Harry desperately tried to yank his hands free, he made a terrible sound. They were stuck, chained.

Harry was going to Azkaban.

Harry was going to be tortured.

Harry was going to die and his baby would grow up without a father.

Everything went black in his vision at that thought and Harry retired to duck his head between his knees while one of the officers called for EMS to meet them at the station.

“Breathe.”

Harry automatically sucked in a shuddering breath and found that there was air being pushed through to his lungs. While Harry kept trying to actually breathe, he was faintly aware of a conversation that sounded as if it were happening very far away.

“It’s probably a panic attack or something, his vitals are fine. What’d you pick him up for anyway?”

“Murder.”

“No shit? He doesn’t seem like much of a killer.”

“He shot Terry Milkovich between the eyes.”

“And you arrested him? That sounds like a public service.”

Harry was slowly regaining the ability to see and he blinked quickly, making sense of his surroundings.

There was a bloke in a light blue uniform kneeling on the ground in front of Harry. He was holding a mask up to Harry’s face while he chatted with the officers that stood on either side of him. When Harry tried to take the mask off, he felt the bite of metal around his wrists and closed his eyes for a moment.

They thought Harry killed Terry Milkovich? Mandy’s dad?

Why?

Harry didn’t like Terry much, but he sure as hell didn’t kill him.

Not that Harry said that when they eventually marched him through the police station and handcuffed his right wrist to the table though. Remus said not to answer any questions and Harry had held up so far.

They tried screaming at him, as if that would phase Harry after growing up with Vernon Dursley—

“YOU PUT THAT GUN BETWEEN HIS EYES AND KILLED HIM!”

“No English.”

They tried talking calmly, drawing up scenarios that might have made Harry think it was okay to kill someone—

“Look, we’ve got two witnesses from O'Flaherty's saying they heard Terry say he was going to kill you for knocking up his daughter. Is that why you did it? You wanted to get him before he got you?”

“No English.”

The two blokes that arrested Harry played bad cop and good cop for a minute while they talked about Harry right in front of him—

“I bet he didn’t do it himself.”

“What? You think he asked someone to help him?”

“Terry can get rough with his kids, all I’m saying is maybe Harry was just the lookout while someone else pulled the trigger.”

“Then Harry’s a fucking idiot for not telling us that.”

When they looked at Harry, he only stared at them dully.

“No English.”

At one point, Harry amused himself by calling the officer that asked if Harry and Terry had a dispute over money, a gorilla with a troll brain.

Harry did it in Parseltongue though and the officer left the room rather quickly.

They left him alone for a while after that, then a different cop entered the room.

“Hey, Harry.”

Tony, the bloke who used to bring Sirius home when he was too drunk to walk, said when he entered the room alone. There were two plastic bottles of soda in his hands and he twisted the red cap off one and put it in front of Harry while he sat across from him.

Harry didn’t make a move to drink it. Instead, he just stared at Tony. Harry used to like Tony, some. It had been annoying that he always made Harry answer the door before he would bring Sirius inside, but at least he always brought Sirius home and never left him wherever he’d been before blacking out.

“I heard you don’t speak English anymore,” Tony said with a crooked grin. He seemed entirely at ease even while Harry just glared at him.

If they thought Harry was going to confess to a murder he didn’t commit because Tony used to give Sirius rides home then they truly thought Harry was stupid.

“I’ll level with you, you’re looking at a bad rap here,” Tony said. He put his elbows on the table and leaned toward Harry. “I heard you’ve got a baby on the way, you don’t want to be in prison when it’s born, do you?”

Harry swallowed, but he didn’t break eye contact.

They had to have proof that Harry committed the crime, right? They couldn’t just throw Harry in prison because their story sounded good?

… even if that was exactly what happened to Sirius.

“The other guys think you did this because Terry said he was going to kill you,” Tony said when Harry didn’t answer him. “I don’t think so. You seem like a good kid, I don’t see you killing a man out of fear.”

That was kind of him to think so.

“I think you killed him to protect Mandy.”

The other cops already tried to offer that up as an excuse for Harry to use. It wasn’t a bad one, Harry would have lost his mind if he saw Terry hit Mandy or Mickey, but shooting him over that seemed dramatic.

“I grew up in this neighborhood,” Tony went on with his friendly smile and guileless blue eyes. “I’ve been south side since I was born. I know the codes and the rules and I know what people don’t talk about.”

Harry wanted to say that it would be hard to know about something that other people didn’t discuss, but he held his tongue.

“I know that you looked ready to kill Kash Karib on the security tapes I watched.”

Harry blinked.

Kash Karib?

Why was Tony talking about him?

Tony was still staring Harry down and Harry tried very hard not to make any reaction despite his confusion.

“Kash raped your friend and now Kash is missing,” Tony said slowly. “Terry raped Mandy and now he’s dead.”

Harry used his free hand to smack the soda bottle across the table at Tony.

“Nobody raped Mandy!” Harry snapped furiously. He knew he wasn’t supposed to talk, but that was a disgusting thing to say.

Terry was Mandy’s father. Mandy said that he could get rough with her and Mickey, like Sirius did Harry and Vernon before him, but rape?

That was so sick that Harry couldn’t even comprehend it.

What father could be sexually attracted to their own daughter?

Tony pulled back some when the spray of brown soda soaked his shirt. He kept watching Harry though, him and probably who knew how many other officers behind the large glass window.

“That’s not what I heard from the people who knew Terry,” Tony said, not commenting on Harry’s recently returned ability to speak. “From what I can guess, that baby might not be yours. Is that why Mandy has an appointment at Planned Parenthood next week? Is she trying to abort it in case it’s Terry’s?”

“THAT’S A LIE!” Harry screamed. He tried to stand up and was yanked down by the handcuff around his wrist. Harry stood in a half-crouch and was positively seething.

Terry wouldn’t do that to Mandy. And Mandy wouldn’t do that to a baby.

Tony was making up lies to try and get Harry to confess to something he didn’t do.

“It’s sick to think about, isn’t it?” Tony said, trying to draw Harry in. “I mean Kash was definitely a sick fuck, what do you think happened to him?”

Harry actually bit his tongue. They weren’t really going to try and pin two deaths on Harry. As far as Harry knew, Kash fled town so he wasn’t arrested for what he did to Ian.

“And then Terry and Mandy?” Tony clicked his tongue and shook his head. “It’s no wonder she wants to get rid of it. Are you paying for the abortion?”

“No English,” Harry said through gritted teeth. Mandy wouldn’t kill the baby, Harry knew her better than that. Even if- if she cheated or the baby wasn’t Harry’s, there was no way that Mandy would kill it.

“What happened, Harry? You thought Mandy would keep the baby if you killed her dad?” Tony asked from where he was still sitting. “Is that why you did it? If Terry wasn’t around to hurt Mandy then maybe she’d keep your baby?”

“I DIDN’T KILL HIM!” Harry yelled, mad as hell. Tony was just sitting there and saying the sickest things, provoking Harry and trying to trap him.

Harry didn’t kill anyone and Mandy… Mandy would have told Harry if her dad was hurting her like that.

Unless… unless Mandy did tell Harry, and he just didn’t understand.

Tony kept talking and Harry only sat back down and put his face in his hands, thinking very hard.

Mandy said that her dad was a mean drunk and Harry had commiserated at the time, back when Sirius had still been home.

“Sirius gets like that,” Harry said. “He gets drunk and thinks I’m his brother.”

Mandy had her head on Harry’s shoulder and they were laying under a bridge together, wasting time outside of their homes they didn’t want to return to.

“Terry thinks I’m my mom,” Mandy said softly. “I dyed my hair thinking he would realize I’m his fucking daughter, but it didn’t work.”

Harry had been too surprised at the time to find out that Mandy’s dark black hair was fake to think through the implication of a father mistaking his daughter for her mother.

“I’m going to be sick,” Harry moaned just before the bile in his stomach bubbled up and he turned his head to the side to throw up on the floor.

The officers were all wrong, Harry didn’t kill Terry Milkovich.

But damn if he didn’t want to shake the hand of whoever did.

Remus was pacing his house quickly, thinking just as rapidly.

What did he do wrong?

What had Remus done that led the police to Harry only hours after finding the body?

With an audience of one crying teenage girl, one furiously ranting teenage witch, a shocked to blessed silence wizard, and a very anxious looking young woman, Remus mentally replayed the entire night before…

Remus went through the front door, leaving no damage to suggest a break in.

Nobody had seen Remus when he walked through to Terry’s bedroom.

Remus used Terry’s gun—

Slower, think it all through, Remus scolded himself when he tried to jump to the ending. Something went wrong, Remus needed to consider everything that happened.

Remus absently lit a cigarette and used the nicotine to help him calm down enough to think through everything.

Okay… Remus walked through the house, touching nothing, and entered Terry’s bedroom. There had been a tall wooden dresser that Remus moved to make it appear that Terry was alone in a locked bedroom.

Remus very nearly pulled his gun out before he saw the one on Terry’s nightstand. Remus hadn’t worried about leaving prints, as he burned his off when he had been sixteen and then again at twenty-six.

It was a requirement for the Sabini’s, one Remus didn’t mind complying with. Not a single marked member of the gang had fingerprints worth a damn to muggle technology.

Remus opened the clip, saw it was loaded. He loaded the clip, locked a bullet in the chamber. Remus knelt down beside the bed and had a very melodramatic moment when he whispered Terry’s crime to him just before he yanked the pillow from beneath Terry’s head, waking him up, and used it to muffle the sound of the gunshot…

Remus replayed that moment over and over.

Dramatic moment, yanked the pillow, shot Terry between the eyes…

Most suicides didn’t tend to have as perfect aim as Remus had, but surely that was one oddity against a host of more tangible evidence to suggest suicide?

Remus checked Terry’s hands and wrapped the gun in what was certainly his dominant hand. Then Remus took a wire coat hanger from the closet, slipped out the window, and quietly slid it shut and locked it once more from the outside.

There was nothing.

The single oddity of where Remus shot the man would never have been enough evidence to suggest murder… not when compared to the overwhelming evidence to suggest suicide.

What did Remus forget?

Fiona, Hermione, Mandy, and Fred watched Remus as he continued to pace and smoke.

Harry was in custody, depending on Remus to bring him home. There had to be—

Dramatic moment, yanked the pillow, shot Terry between the eyes…

Remus clasped his hand against his mouth and closed his eyes to very slowly rewatch that moment in his mind.

Remus yanked the pillow from beneath Terry’s head, held it over the barrel of the gun, and then shot him. And then Remus dropped the pillow.

For the love of God… how could Remus be so foolish? He left evidence on scene?!

And man bothered to silence the sound when he shot himself? It certainly didn’t help that Remus held the pillow against the gun, not the man’s face.

Remus held his hands up and tried to see if he could easily replicate the position Terry would have had to be in to shoot himself in a similar manner. Remus held his right hand out with a finger pointed at his forehead. He held up his other hand as if holding a pillow against the imaginary barrel.

It was awkward, it never would have given Terry the precision with which Remus shot him.

And so it was classified a murder, not suicide. A clever murder with the room locked from the inside, but a murder nonetheless.

It didn’t explain why the police had gone straight to Harry, that certainly had to be circumstantial, but it did explain how Remus’ carefully planned/entirely impulsive murder had gone perfectly astray.

When Remus ripped himself from his own thoughts, he slowly looked over those that were around him.

Remus had no idea why Hermione Granger was in Chicago, but she would certainly be useful if needed. Hermione loved Harry. Remus would never forget her standing by his side in the Shrieking Shack against a werewolf and convicted murderer, refusing to run or leave Harry behind.

But she was a minor. A very loud minor at that.

Mandy was also a minor, a pregnant minor. Remus disregarded her assistance before even truly considering her.

Fiona was the only one who knew that Harry had been picked up for Remus’ crime. Not once did she scream out the truth or begin berating Remus for his actions. Fiona was truly a marvel, Remus rather adored her. But Remus didn’t think he could definitively clear Harry’s name without using magic…

Which left Fred.

Fred was loyal to Harry, a legal adult in the magical world. Fred had once been the person Harry would miss most and he flew across the world on his broom for Harry. His wand wasn’t traced and Remus never found a Weasley that wasn’t willing to bend the rules. But Fred was reckless, emotional.

Break the Statute or risk having Fred’s emotions botch a rescue mission?

Remus offered Fred a tight smile and nod.

“Stay here,” Remus ordered him. “I need you to contact Nymphadora and see if she’s available, understand? If so, I need her at the police station, prepared for anything.”

When Fred nodded, Remus turned to Hermione.

“Harry’s bedroom is the last one at the end of the hall,” he told her quickly. “Go fetch me James’ heirloom. And you,” Remus looked at Mandy while Hermione immediately ran off, “you have a seat,” Remus said kindly. Mandy was shaking with either emotion, adrenaline, or chills and she looked easy to pass out.

Remus guided Mandy to the sofa by the shoulder and subtly plucked one of her black hairs right off her head as she sat down. Mandy, poor dear, seemed too in shock to even notice that Remus took a hair and pocketed it.

If Harry was going to make a fuss over an abortion then Remus was morbidly hoping it wasn’t his child. For certainties sake, he would test paternity when he had Harry home.

As soon as Hermione returned with Harry’s backpack that must have had James’ cloak in it, Remus offered his hand to Fiona.

“Come with me?” he asked.

Fiona grasped Remus’ hand and Remus hoped that her calm in the face of murder had not been a one-off.

Just before they left, Remus had an inspired idea.

“Mandy?”

Remus waited until Mandy turned to look at him and then he concentrated very hard on skimming just the surface of her mind. Remus was no natural legilimens, but he was a powerful enough wizard.

As soon as Remus saw a brief replay of Mandy being forced from her home by her frantic brother that morning—

“Terry shot himself.”

—he tried to smile warmly.

“Please, make yourself comfortable here. Fred can show you where the empty bedroom is, you and your brother are welcome to stay.”

Harry might have been arrested for Terry’s murder, but Remus didn’t forget that Mandy was the true victim in the scenario.

“What went wrong?” Fiona asked immediately when they left the house together.

Remus grimaced as he admitted to his own mistake.

“I used a pillow to silence the shot and the angle wouldn’t make suicide plausible,” Remus confided to her as they moved in a half-run toward the police station. “They may not have noticed the angle, but I left the bloody pillow on the scene.”

“And they immediately suspected Harry?” Fiona asked skeptically.

To that, Remus only had the same thing the police department did: a theory that sounded reasonable.

“Terry’s daughter is pregnant with either Harry’s child or Terry’s,” Remus mused aloud. “Outside of Mandy, who would be most angered by that?”

“Harry,” Fiona said, cottoning on quickly. “Fuck. This is good though, right? There’s no real evidence that Harry killed Terry even if there’s proof that Terry was murdered?”

Remus spared Fiona an amused look.

“And here I thought you were a cynic,” Remus said. “You trust the police to require solid evidence before filing a charge and holding Harry? If they arrested him, they had a warrant. If they had a warrant, a prosecutor has already agreed that Harry is the most likely candidate.”

“Fuck,” Fiona groaned. They were approaching the station and Remus ducked in an alley, pulling Fiona with him.

“What’s the plan? Shoot the place up?” Fiona asked when Remus paused to rummage through Harry’s back for the cloak.

“Destroy the evidence, destroy the case,” Remus said. He pulled the cloak from the bag with no real humor, given the incredibly high stakes. “I’m going to ensure Harry can be released. He has a temper, I’m hoping he didn’t implicate himself somehow. I need you to sneak in the evidence holding area and take any and all evidence marked for this case. Do it quick, because I’m going to ask about it soon.”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Fiona nodded. “I’ll just fucking waltz right in and I’m sure nobody will stop me.”

Remus shook the cloak out and threw it over Fiona’s head while she was still making her smart comments.

“Nobody will stop you if nobody can see you,” he informed her. “Don’t scream when you look at your arm, love. I will explain later.”

To Fiona’s credit (and Remus’ for choosing her to assist him), she didn’t scream.

But she swore like a sailor.

Remus walked in the police department seemingly alone. He strode directly to the window where a man sat and cleared his throat.

“Remus Lupin, I’m here about my son.” Remus smiled sarcastically. “You know him, I’m sure. The underaged minor being interrogated on an outlandish charge of murder? I’d like to see him.”

“Harry Black is your boy?” The cop tapped at a computer screen and then frowned at Remus while his eyes looked him over.

“Adopted,” Remus said smoothly. He provided Harry’s passport that he once had created for Sirius’ benefit and then his own muggle identification. “And it’s Harry Lupin, thank you.”

Remus was led back almost immediately and he held the door open just a few seconds too long so that Fiona could follow behind him. When Remus was led to the right, he heard Fiona’s footsteps turn left.

When Remus looked over his shoulder, he saw that her path was clear toward a hallway that he hoped led to evidence holding. All she needed was the damned pillow and gun. The case disappeared with the evidence as another citation of irresponsible police work.

The officer opened a door for Remus and he entered an interrogation room to find Harry handcuffed to the table across from a vaguely familiar officer.

Harry looked furious, the officer too calm.

Remus would prefer to flip that.

“Hello.” The officer stood up and offered Remus his hand. “Officer Tony Markovich.”

“Remus Lupin,” Remus said. He pretended to misunderstand the officer’s last name. “Is it not a conflict of interest to investigate the death of someone you’re related to?”

“Oh, no, it’s Markovich,” Tony said, pronouncing the word slowly. “A lot of people think it’s Jewish, but it’s actually Slavic, it’s the son of Mark.”

Remus still had Tony’s hand in his and he looked down subtly, clocking a cross tattooed on his wrist. Remus looked him over carefully and would hazard a guess at Catholic, seeing as he was quick to deny being Jewish.

A pity. He was an attractive man, if a touch too innocent looking. Remus didn’t have a type, necessarily, but he did like his women to look as if they fucked as a profession and his men to pull off a sweet smile immediately after choking on his cock.

Regulus Black had once carried on an entire conversation with Pandora LeBlanc about pixies while he stroked Remus beneath the library table.

“I see,” Remus said to Tony evenly. “I’m more interested in why my son is in handcuffs, but I’ll add that translation to my list of things I truly couldn’t care less about.”

Tony dropped Remus’ hand almost immediately and then waved a hand for Remus to sit beside Harry.

“You’re Harry’s uncle? His legal guardian?” Tony asked.

“Uncle through friendship and adoptive father through the courts,” Remus said as he sat beside Harry. He was pleased that Harry offered no differing explanation. “As you have no evidence to hold my son, I’d prefer to take him home.”

“We can hold Harry for seventy-two hours for questioning,” Tony said stubbornly.

“Indeed?” Remus asked, feigning surprise. “You’d hold a child hostage for three days to question him about his friend’s father’s suicide? I heard that American police were incompetent, but I had thought to give you the benefit of the doubt.”

Harry coughed very quietly and Tony frowned at Remus.

“That’s a bold statement.”

Remus smiled lazily and laced his fingers behind his head with a shrug.

“I’m a bold man,” Remus drawled. He was trying to merely irritate the officer, but… yes.

That would work.

Remus heard it as Officer Markovitch’s heart actually increased in tempo. And when Remus flexed his arms as if stretching, the man gained a light blush on his cheeks.

“Listen, Officer…” Remus tilted his head to the side and smiled charmingly. “Any evidence you may have that implicates my son is circumstantial at best, a wild leap of logic at worst, am I close?”

“Not even,” Tony said firmly, a lie. “Harry’s our number one suspect.”

“And who falls beneath him?” Remus asked innocently. “Drug dealers? Drug users? The many women I’m certain that a charming man such as Terry has encountered?” Remus placed his elbows on the table and saw Tony as he glanced quickly at Remus’ exposed forearms.

“Perhaps a jilted lover?” Remus suggested lowly. “A man hidden in the closet who was publicly rebuffed by his lover and killed him as revenge?”

“That’s quite a theory,” Tony said. He looked Remus square in the eyes. “Are you implicating yourself, Mister Lupin?”

Remus curled his lips to the side in a half-smile and made sure that Tony saw as Remus blatantly checked him over.

“I? Certainly not,” Remus replied. “I prefer my lovers to be younger, fitter… and I’ve never been known to turn a blonde away from my cock.”

Harry kicked Remus hard beneath the table but Remus’ words had the desired effect. Poor Officer Markovitch was sporting a terrible blush and seemed entirely flustered.

And speaking of lovers…

There was a knock on the door and Tony jolted in his seat and had to clear his throat to call for them to enter.

“A lady here says she’s representing the kid,” an officer said. Remus could just smell Nymphadora past them as he was intimately familiar with her floral perfume.

“A lawyer?” Tony asked. He looked at Harry and raised an eyebrow. “What happened to ‘I didn’t do it’?”

Remus actually wondered what happened to no English?

“Do only guilty men get lawyers in America?” Remus asked as he settled back in his seat.

Tony sighed and then nodded at the officer at the door.

“Let her in.”

Nymphadora strode in and Remus inspected the ceiling with faux-indifference to her presence. She was a godsend, truly. Remus didn’t know many people who would drop everything on a sickle to apparate to another country and assist in such a situation. And Nymphadora arrived dressed to impress with a smart suit on, her hair a slicked back shade of brown, and a ‘waste my time and I will slit your throat’ expression.

Remus let her take control of the situation while he mentally imagined a threesome with both Nymphadora and Fiona… Nymphadora was beautifully needy during sex, Fiona was fierce and knew what she wanted…

Though, there were two great tragedies in life… losing your heart's desire and gaining it…

Remus would add ‘never having a threesome with Nymphadora and Fiona’ to Shaw’s list.

“I want your badge number, a copy of whatever warrant you arrested my client with, and a cup of coffee if the first two things are going to take longer than five minutes,” Nymphadora snapped as she tapped a purple pump on the floor.

Harry remained blessedly silent while Tony provided Nymphadora with her first two requests immediately.

Nymphadora pursed her lips and looked down at the warrant that Remus was not given an opportunity to read. There was a look, just a quick flick of eyes, from Nymphadora to Remus.

Remus continued inspecting the ceiling while he subtly mouthed the word ‘poof’.

Poof, the evidence should be gone by then.

Poof, there was no reason for Harry to be there, period.

“Let’s talk,” Nymphadora said waspishly to Tony with her nose in the air. “You, me, and whoever your superior is.”

Remus allowed himself to grin just a touch when Tony was practically led out on a leash by Nymphadora. He looked over at Harry and saw that the poor boy looked as if he had whiplash.

“What do you want for dinner?” Remus asked him idly. “Is it morbid to bake a cake? I’ve got a terrible craving for chocolate.”

Chocolate cake and ribs… Remus blamed the impending full moon for the odd craving of ribs, but Remus always celebrated his best plots with chocolate.

And when the Chicago Police Department was in an uproar less than an hour later as the evidence of Terry Milkovich’s arrest had been tragically lost in the chain of custody, Remus considered it a plot just grand enough to make up for his amateur mistake the night before.

Nymphadora led Harry from the police station with her arm around his shoulder and Remus strayed to the alley just outside the station when he smelled Fiona’s own unique scent lingering there.

Fiona always smelled like men’s deodorant and baby powder. It was an odd smell and yet fit the woman quite well.

“I’m freaking the fuck out!” Fiona hissed as she took the hood of the cloak off and revealed herself. “Remus, what the fuck is this?”

“A very rare and priceless heirloom of Harry’s,” Remus said truthfully. He accepted the cloak, the bagged pillow, and the bagged gun when Fiona shoved it all at him quite aggressively.

“I want a fucking explanation now,” Fiona said.

“An heirloom is a thing that is passed down through a family.”

“Not that!” Fiona slapped Remus hard on the shoulder. “The fucking- it was- why was I invisible?!”

“Oh.” Remus flicked his wand from its holster and held the damned pillow out between himself and Fiona before he vanished it.

“That’s magic, love.”

It wasn’t that Remus was a deeply dramatic person, that had always been Sirius, but he did think that the moment of theatrics deserved some sort of acknowledgement.

Fiona only watched with her mouth open in a perfect ‘o’ as Remus did the exact same thing with the gun.

“I can’t decide if you’re in shock and I should erase this all from your memory or if you’re in shock and I should fuck you back to your senses,” Remus said thoughtfully. He twirled his wand between his fingers and Fiona’s eyes never left it. “Decide, love. Quickly, if it’s all the same to you. I do have a paternity test to give and an old friend to thoroughly thank.”

As needy as Nymphadora could be, there were also times where she was the one to put Remus on his knees and make him beg for her touch. Remus rather hoped that she had time to do so before returning home.

Fiona licked her lips and Remus was just as hopeful that she was going to choose the second option he gave her.

“If someone, like a little fucking kid, made something float in the air… is that magic?” she asked.

“It could be,” Remus hedged. “Unless you were on acid when it happened, then it could have just been a bad trip, love.”

“I wasn’t,” Fiona said quickly. “I have to go. Fuck. Fuck. Be home later, okay?”

Remus watched Fiona actually begin sprinting away from him and prayed that she wasn’t about to go screaming in the streets about magic.

If she did though, Remus knew an excellent auror that would handle the situation.

That excellent auror was waiting for Remus on his porch when he returned home.

“Your neighbor is terribly sexy,” Nymphadora said brightly. She held a plate out to Remus and he sighed happily to see a slice of chocolate cake. “She’s got this ghetto and insane thing that’s really working for me. I may have to come back for a visit soon.”

“And I may love you,” Remus said appreciatively just before taking a large bite of the cake. He closed his eyes and relished in the knowledge that he could add a mark to his shoulder and Harry would not be headed to jail for Remus’ mishap.

“Ew,” Nymphadora said plainly, crinkling her nose. “By the way, did you know that Harry’s girlfriend is pregnant?”

“I did,” Remus said.

“And her dad is the one that Harry ‘definitely didn’t kill’?”

“Correct. Also, I killed him.”

“Ah. Any reason?”

“He raped his daughter.”

“Good for you then. And so the baby is either the dead rapist’s or Harry’s?”

“That about sums it all up, yes,” Remus said.

Nymphadora grinned at Remus impishly with a sparkle in her eyes.

“I read the police report and may have skimmed Harry’s mind on the walk home,” she said unrepentantly.

“And here I thought you were psychic,” Remus quipped. He sat on the ledge of the porch and placed the cake beside him long enough to summon one of Harry’s hairs from inside the house.

“Ooh, paternity time?” Nymphadora asked, sitting beside Remus. “Ten galleons says it’s Harry’s.”

“I hope not,” Remus said fervently as he pulled Mandy’s hair from his pocket. “Harry wants to keep it if so.”

“The boy who lived to become a teenage father, I like it,” Nymphadora said. She turned her back to block the view from the Gallagher’s porch and nodded down at Remus’ hand. “Let’s see it then.”

Remus sent a final prayer to the skies before he tapped Mandy’s hair with his wand and then Harry’s immediately after saying the incantation.

“Shit,” Nymphadora swore.

“Fuck,” Remus agreed.

“Is it mine then?”

Remus looked directly from where the two hairs were glowing in matching shades of silver to Harry’s eyes. While Remus had been distracted by the paternity and Nymphadora, Harry must have followed his flyaway hair out to the porch.

Harry looked from Remus to the hairs and then back up to Remus’ eyes.

“It’s mine, right?” he asked.

Remus didn’t have it in Harry to lie, not with the proof in his hands and Hermione Granger inside who would likely know the same spell Remus did.

“It is,” Remus said.

All of Remus’ appetite for the celebration cake that Nymphadora brought vanished when Harry let out a strangled sound of joy.