Work Text:
Harry scuffs his boot against the floor. He’s been outside the Head Auror’s office for almost an hour now, and he can just hear the rise and fall of voices behind the thick door. The Head Auror has either forgotten to set the muffling charms, or she wants him to listen.
He’s not going to listen at the door. He’s a fully-qualified Auror with years of experience catching Dark wizards and unsnarling nasty problems, and he’s not going to —
The door swings open.
“Auror Potter.” Head Auror Tregellis’s lips are pressed together in a thin line. “Come in.”
Harry runs a hand through his hair and follows her into her office.
A Ministry Health and Safety representative is there, as well as someone Harry dimly remembers as one of the Ministry’s Legal Service staff.
“We’re here to discuss that stunt you pulled,” the Health and Safety rep says.
Harry grins. It’s not a promotion. He’s not going to be pinned behind a desk like a butterfly on a card and left to choke on forms and mission planning.
“I thought it was a nice bit of flying,” he says. “We got the jewels back, too.”
Head Auror Tregellis picks up her reading glasses and sets them on her nose. “Let’s take a look at this mission of yours, shall we?” She picks up a parchment. “Three months’ surveillance time, ruined when Auror Potter decided to infiltrate the Goblin separatists on his own, with home-brewed Polyjuice potion and thirty Galleons worth of costuming supplies from Diagon Alley.”
She looks at him over her glasses. “We had Polyjuice on hand, Mr. Potter. And the Aurors have a fully-stocked department to supply charms and potions for undercover work.”
“You would have made me sign for it,” Harry mumbles.
“Quite right! And we would have had to approve the operation. Which we wouldn’t have done, as our relationship with the Goblins is at a sensitive juncture just now.” She sniffs and looks back down at the parchment. “So you admit that you used unapproved supplies because you knew your operation wouldn’t be approved, and yet you’ve put in for exes on them. Cheeky, Mr. Potter.”
“I brought down the smuggling ring bringing basilisk venom into the country,” Harry says, hopefully.
“So you did. You also broke thirteen Health and Safety regulations, endangered the Ministry’s ties to the Goblin community, risked your own neck —” She pauses, while the wizard from the Legal Service leans over to mutter something in her ear. “Right, thank you. And nearly broke the International Statute of Secrecy.”
She leans back in her chair. “What should we do with you, Mr. Potter?”
“Give me another field mission?” Harry asks, hopefully. “I did get the Crown Jewels back.”
From the expression on her face, Harry can tell another field mission isn’t in his immediate future. The Health and Safety rep mutters something under his breath that sounds like all that for some Muggle lady’s jewel box and the wizard from Legal just stares.
“I think it’s time for a bit of time away from the field,” Head Auror Tregellis says.
She raises an eyebrow. “Do you realize that your little stunt meant we had to move up our raid on Leverett & Hare? Three months of investigation, and we had to tip our hand early. Now we have no leads on where Hare’s ill-begotten Galleons were coming from. We needed that shop operating, Potter.”
“I’m sorry,” Harry says. He genuinely is. He hadn’t known that the Goblin smugglers were connected to the Hare case, which Ron’s been working on for ages now. “I didn’t realize.”
“Thanks to your harebrained actions, we now need an Auror to help our Magizoological consultant process the evidence in the shop.” The Head Auror smiles. “Congratulations, Auror Potter. You just volunteered yourself for the task.”
Evidence processing. Harry stomps back to his rarely-used desk, fuming all the while. Evidence processing! It’s a first-year trainee task. Hardly something the Ministry should be wasting one of their best operatives on.
Merlin, sometimes he misses the years just after the war, when the Aurors didn’t have time for niceties like surveillance and contingency planning. It’s safer to be an Auror now, but Harry misses getting his hands dirty. Coming up with plans on the fly, just himself and his team against a Dark wizard.
Harry hears a sound from the doorway, and looks up. Ron’s standing there, holding his wand at his side.
“I hear you bollixed up our case,” he says.
Harry winces. “I really am sorry,” he says.
Ron drags the silence out a bit longer, and then smiles. “It’s fine. I’ll tell them you spelled me if you say anything about this, but we weren’t getting anywhere with Hare anyway. It was time to move in.”
“Right.” Harry slumps down. “So what are we looking for?”
“You’re familiar with the case?”
Harry shakes his head.
Ron sits down at the chair across from Harry’s desk. “Dodgy shop in Kockturn Alley,” he says. “This one specializes in Magizoological goods. Illegal, restricted, merchandise that fell off the back of a broom. That sort of thing. Only they’ve been running Galleons and Galleons through Gringotts, changing over from Muggle money, which means they’re using Muggle money to hide their illegal sales from the Ministry. We haven’t been able to find what they were selling or who they were selling it to. Whatever it is, they’re keeping it deep underground.”
“So why does this shop need three weeks of evidence processing?”
“You know what kind of potions ingredients they sold there?” Ron shakes his head. “The basilisk venom was one of the less dangerous materials. No way to pack it all up without a specialist.”
“Great.” Harry slumps over his desk. “So I’m stuck spending three weeks with some barmy Ministry expert from Magical Creatures, watching them handle explosive Potions ingredients.”
Ron shakes his head sympathetically. “Maybe you shouldn’t have gone and rescued the Crown Jewels, mate.”
Harry gets to Knockturn Alley early the next morning. Leverett and Hare is down one of the side-alleys. The windows across the front of the building are charmed black, and he can’t see inside.
He lets himself past the Ministry charms on the door and goes in.
It’s tiny — he’s seen Muggle takeaway shops with more elbow room. He takes a deep breath and casts a Revealing charm before trying to go behind the counter — no reason to risk triggering — ah, there it is, the security charm.
He’s broken through three security charms and a nasty curse when he hears a knock on the door.
“We’re closed,” he yells, before he remembers that the Magizoological consultant was meant to be there by nine. He pulls the security charms back together and goes to unlock the front door.
Outside, Luna Lovegood is standing on the step, holding a basket. Her blonde hair is streaming loose over her robe, which is a shade of hyacinth blue. She’s wearing earrings made from the feathers of a bird Harry doesn’t recognize.
“Harry!” She smiles. “They didn’t tell me it’d be you.”
“Luna?” Harry looks up and down the alley and then opens the door to let her in. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s been ages since I saw you last,” Luna says. She studies the tracery of fire across the countertop, where Harry’s working on disassembling the security charms, and then sets her basket down on the flagstone floor.
Harry’s not sure if it’s been ages, but once he stops to think, he realizes that he’s not sure of the last time he saw her.
They still see one another — of course they do, at weddings and birthdays and celebrations for new houses and new babies. The former members of Dumbledore’s Army have stayed connected to one another, and if Harry’s let himself drift away from everyone but Hermione and Ron and the Weasleys, he still gets pulled back for parties and new job celebrations and all the rest.
Harry wonders, suddenly, if the parties are the only time Luna sees the rest of them.
“It’s good to see you,” he says, sincerely. “But why are you here?”
“The same reason you are,” Luna says. “Clearing out this shop.”
“The Ministry’s paying you to clean out a third-rate Dark wizarding supply shop?”
“Hare specialized in Dark creatures,” Luna says. She flicks her wand against the countertop and Vanishes the dust. Under the suddenly clean glass, Harry can see something with eyes, glittering in the feeble light from the doorway.
“Carramora fire beetles,” Luna says. “Pretty, aren’t they?”
Harry leans in for a closer look. The beetles are dark, with flashes of light on their carapaces, like black opals. They’re not moving.
“They don’t seem dangerous,” he says.
Luna smiles. “They don’t, do they?” She taps her wand on the countertop, casually, no spell behind it, and a blossoming fireball rises from one of the beetles.
“They’re only mostly dead,” Luna says, while Harry jumps back.
“Right.” Harry swallows.
“Why don’t you finish disassembling those security charms, and we can get to work?”
Harry spends the first few hours getting past the charms across the front counter. Based on the number of charms, on the complexity, Hare must be a deeply paranoid wizard.
When they step past the counter, the store suddenly jumps, unfolding around them like the inside of a Wizarding tent. It’s a good deal larger than Harry thought it would be.
Baskets and boxes lurk on wooden shelves in the dim light from a skylight. There’s a strong smell — not unpleasant, not exactly. It reminds Harry of Snape’s supply closet, with a strong undercurrent of the basement of Grimmauld Place.
Luna casts a spell Harry doesn’t recognize and then studies the results. “Nothing alive enough to attack us,” she says, cheerfully. She puts her wand over her left ear and starts walking along the shelves, studying the contents.
Harry looks at an enormous shed snakeskin on the wall. There’s a knife next to it, like someone’s been cutting off tiny pieces to sell.
Once she’s completed her initial scan, Luna unpacks crates and baskets and packing material from her basket and explains the system. Harry gets to log the evidence, and Luna will identify and package the materials for safe transport to the Ministry evidence room, the Ministry’s secure destruction area, or (in rare cases) the research and development teams in the Department of Mysteries.
“They get most of their research materials from Dark wizarding busts,” Luna says, while she packs an enormous reptile skull into one of her boxes.
The teeth look wickedly sharp, and Harry can’t resist reaching out to touch them.
“Careful,” Luna says. “The bite of a Peruvian Vipertooth can be venomous even after death.”
Harry pulls his hand back. “Right.”
Luna may look dreamy, but she works hard. They don’t stop for lunch until Harry’s stomach finally growls at half three. Harry offers to get sandwiches, but Luna produces a draggled picnic from her basket. “You get used to bringing in your own food,” she says. “Mostly I’m in the wilds these days. Jungles and deserts and all that.”
The bowl she hands him is filled with vegetables and grains he doesn’t recognize, but when he gives in and tastes it, the food is spicy and warm, and goes well with the cold pumpkin juice.
“Why the wilds?” Harry asks.
“Most of the undiscovered Magizoological creatures have left settled areas,” Luna says, and starts explaining her research, which takes her all over the world, into small Magical and Muggle communities, to look for the last undiscovered Magical creatures.
“And then we try to save them,” Luna says. “That’s always the tricky bit, though.”
They’re at the shop until half past nine that evening, when Luna decides that most of the immediate threats have been neutralized.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” she says, once Harry’s re-set the Ministry’s charms across the entrance. She smiles. “The shop should still be here.”
“Was….” Harry swallows. “Was there a chance it wouldn’t have been?”
Luna pats her basket. “Not with the Thunderbird eggs under a proper stasis. The stasis Hare had on them had degraded. Must not have been much call for them, in London. I’ll be dropping these ones off for transport tonight. The breeding program will be glad of them.”
“Er.” Harry blinks. “Well, good night then.”
“See you in the morning, Harry!” Luna smiles, and then Disapparates.
He stares at the empty bit of alleyway where she was, and then blinks. “Right.”
The takeaway down the road from his flat should still be open. He can get a curry and then he’ll see her in the morning.
The next morning, Harry brings them both coffee and pastries. Luna smiles at him and he smiles back for a long moment before he remembers that he’s meant to be checking the level of water in the jars holding the plimpy scales.
“Where is Leverett, anyway?” he asks, while he refills the jars with water. “Everyone keeps talking about Hare, but the name of the shop is Leverett and Hare, not Leverett or Hare.”
“Dead for years, I should think,” Luna says. She looks up from the dusty box of feathers she’s sorting. “Why?”
“Just wondering.” Harry flips through the register book again. It’s utterly unhelpful. Only Hare’s handwriting — he doesn’t even seem to have had a part-time clerk at the weekends.
Luna lifts an enormous feather from the box. It’s gray, shaded with spots of yellow ringed by blue. “Oh, Harry, look.”
“It’s pretty,” Harry says.
“It’s from a Crested Warblegarbler,” Luna says, sadly. “They’ve been gone for ages. They must have been lovely.”
She stokes the spine once before laying the feather aside in a special box, one which holds notebooks and a pile of parchment scrolls. “For my research,” she says, when she notices Harry watching. “It’s part of my agreement with the Ministry.”
They find scales and feathers, fur and blood, and clear vials that Luna swears hold the breath of magical creatures. “Very delicate stuff,” she says, looking into one of the vials, and Harry thinks he sees a shimmer through the glass before she packs it in one of the crates.
A tiny glass vial holding a thick, silver liquid Harry knows instantly is unicorn blood goes into the smallest box, the one going to the Department of Mysteries. Harry doesn’t want to think about what they’ll do with it there.
What they don’t find is any evidence of how Leverett & Hare was coming by all the Muggle money that Hare was depositing in the shop’s Gringotts account.
A week in, Harry uncovers the shop’s real books, hidden behind a concealment spell. He uses the magical signature to search the rest of the shop and uncovers a hoard of parchment on rare Magical creatures that keeps Luna entranced for hours, while Harry cross-references the inventory they’re preparing of the shop’s stock against the accounting books.
“It makes no sense,” he says, looking up.
“Hmmm?” Luna doesn’t look up from the parchment she’s studying. Harry brought cheddar and pickle sandwiches, from one of the Muggle shops near his flat. Luna’s eating hers with one hand and studying an illustration of a monster with a chicken’s head and a scaly body rending apart a knight with its claws. The illustrator was generous with the red ink.
“The books,” Harry says. He pushes the ledger back and picks up his own sandwich. “Are doxy eggs worth anything?”
“I shouldn’t think so,” Luna says. “They’re useful if you’re brewing Girding Potions, but they’re not much used other than that.” She picks up her wand and uses it to turn the parchment over. “Why?”
“He’s got entry after entry of them.”
Harry’s frustrated. Going by the ledger, you’d think the shop was supporting itself solely on the sale of doxy eggs, which Hare recorded himself buying for Knuts and selling for a small fortune. Which makes no sense. Harry remembers Cormac McLaggen eating a pound of doxy eggs on a bet — he hardly could have done that if they really cost forty Galleons per ounce.
“Perhaps it’s code for something else,” Luna says. She finishes off the sandwich and starts on the crisps.
“Maybe.” Harry glares down at the ledger. He’s not convinced.
Luna moves from the large things to the small things, sorting from the egg of the Scottish lake monster down to the silver eggs of the Occamy down to the tiny, tiny eggs of the bantam cockatrice.
“No doxy eggs,” Harry says. It’s still bothering him.
“None,” Luna says. “But you could buy them at Slug & Jiggers. There’d be no need for Leverett & Hare to carry them.”
But they're still listed in the ledger. While Luna moves from the eggs into the furs and hides, Harry tries cross-checking the ledger they found hidden against the one from the front counter. It matches, mostly, but he finds that all the doxy egg transactions are missing from the ledger at the front counter.
He leans back in his chair. Another day closer to packing everything up, and he’s no closer to figuring out how Hare was really making all those Galleons.
He looks over at Luna, who seems to be checking a pile of green fur against a stack of scrolls.
In the light from the skylight, her hair glows as if lit from within. She’s beautiful, and Harry wonders how he didn’t see it before. Why he hasn’t always seen it.
She looks up from the parchment she’s studying. “Harry?”
“It’s nothing,” he says. His mouth is dry. “Nothing at all.”
When Harry gets in the next morning, Luna’s already there. She’s got something under a striped blanket and she’s wrestling with it.
“Harry!” she yells, as soon as he opens the door. “Get the crate ready!”
He puts the coffee cups he’s carrying down on the counter and runs for the packing supplies. “What kind of crate?”
“Anything that can hold a bucking skin,” Luna says. She’s barely holding on.
Harry’s heart is beating hard as he rifles through the stack of crates. Finally, he finds one large enough to hold whatever it is Luna’s got under the blanket.
He pulls the crate out and holds the open side parallel to the floor. “Ready!” he yells.
Luna struggles, steering the blanket away from a shelf of glass bottles and the front counter before letting it go. It slams into the open crate, knocking Harry down to the floor.
The crate falls next to him. Harry struggles up, but Luna’s already got her wand out to attach the top. “Good call on the stasis crate,” she says, cheerfully.
“Er — right.” Harry didn’t know there were such things. “What was that?”
“Vintage bucking skin.” Luna wrinkles her nose. “You don’t want to know how they made them… oooh, is that coffee for me?”
Harry brushes himself off and hands it to her.
“Mango and passionfruit,” Luna says, looking up at him with her pale eyes. Her hair is disheveled and her robes are falling open, revealing a pair of trousers and a faded Wyrd Sisters t-shirt. “This is lovely coffee, Harry.”
“It’s Muggle,” Harry says, pleased that she noticed. He had been getting ordinary coffee for them both, but he thought Luna might appreciate something more interesting.
She takes another sip and turns back to the store. “Should just be another few days,” she says, in satisfaction. “Apart from all the Dark items, it’s been a lovely project. Hare was quite organized about his research notes. They’ll be helpful.”
Only another few days. Harry’s been trying not to think about how empty the shop’s getting, how little time they have left to work together.
Harry clears his throat. “I’ve enjoyed working with you,” he says.
“Oh, have you?” Luna turns back to him. “I’m so glad, Harry.”
The last of the ledgers gone through, the last of the bottles and jars safely packed away. The light’s streaming in through the front door and the windows, now that they’ve removed the spells that had been put up to prevent anyone seeing in from the alleyway. Ministry porters keep showing up to bring away the goods they’ve packed, and Harry wants to tell them to stop, tell them to leave everything here. He’s no closer to cracking the case. Surely that’s a reason to stay.
“How often do you work with Aurors?” he asks Luna, one afternoon.
Luna looks up from her parchments. “Oh, not often,” she says. “Once we’re done here, I’m off to the American Southwest to look for wild Thunderbirds. They’re endangered, you know. Most of them are part of a breeding program run by the Americans.”
“Right,” Harry says. From what Luna’s told him, he knows she spends most of her time traveling, all around the world, looking for Magizoological creatures and getting herself into and out of trouble. “How large an expedition is it?”
“Just me,” Luna says. She takes her wand from behind her ear and casts a protective charm over a box holding the Carramora fire beetles. “It’s lovely, Harry, out in the wilderness, just you and your wand and maybe a tent. You can’t imagine how beautiful it is when the moon sets, and you can see the stars, and it’s like they’re burning just above you.”
Harry finds himself imagining it as they pack away the last of the boxes. He hadn’t realized how much he’d started looking forward to seeing Luna each morning until it was nearly over, until she was about to leave. Her pale eyes, her open mind, her deep and surprising knowledge of everything Magizoological. How sympathetic she is.
He lets himself imagine the two of them staying together. Perhaps he could travel with her, part of the year. He’s got leave built up with the Ministry. Surely a few weeks hunting for Thunderbirds wouldn’t be out of the question. Head Auror Tregellis would probably be glad to see the back of him for a while.
When they’ve stacked the last of the crates for the Ministry porters, Harry stands to face her. “Er, Luna?”
“Yes, Harry?”
Her hair’s a mess, and he lets himself brush an errant strand away from her cheek. “I, er —”
She smiles. “I’ve enjoyed working with you, too, Harry.”
He can’t find the words, can’t think what to say. She’s about to leave and he can’t find the bloody words. He can’t —
He gives up on words and leans in instead. “Luna —” He leans down and kisses her, tangling his hand in hers, brushing her lips with his. She kisses back, pushing him back against one of the walls of the shop. She kisses with abandon, opening herself up to Harry. Her lips asking, silently, for the same from him in return.
Harry’s wanted to do that for so long. He just hopes he hasn’t left it too late. Hopes this isn’t going to be the last he sees of her until the next wedding, the next party.
Finally, Luna pulls back. “I wasn’t expecting that,” she says, quietly, like she’s talking to herself.
“I hope —” Harry runs a hand through his hair, which must be sticking on end by now. “I hope you didn’t mind?”
“Oh, no.” Luna laughs. “No, it was grand, but I’m not sure where we go from here.”
Harry puts his hand against the wall to steady himself, and suddenly there’s a feeling in his stomach like he’s fallen off a broom as they’re both swept off their feet, tangling together in mid-air, trapped by some sort of thick —
Harry tries to struggle. Luna elbows him in the stomach and then goes still.
“What just happened?” he asks.
They’re trapped in an enormous net, hanging from a panel that’s swung open from the ceiling. Luna examines the thick fibers holding them. “It’s Acromantula silk,” she says, with interest.
Harry’s glasses are on the shop floor. He can make them out if he squints. He pulls out his wand and casts a Diffendo, but the severing charm bounces off and knocks his wand from his hand. It clatters down to the floor, useless beside his glasses.
“It’s immune to most forms of magic.” Luna studies it for a moment longer, and then smiles. “Nice work, isn’t it?”
“We’re hanging from the ceiling,” Harry says.
“Yes, and isn’t it clever?” Luna looks around them with interest.
Harry can feel her against him, the two of them wrapped up together by the net and by gravity. Her hair’s getting in his mouth. “Clever,” he says. “How do we get out?”
“We'll have to ask for help,” Luna says. She takes her wand from behind her ear and summons her rabbit Patronus. “Hello,” she says to it. “Please find Ron Weasley and let him know we’re in a trap.”
The Patronus studies them both for a moment and then hops off.
“Shouldn’t be long,” Luna says, stretching against the net.
Harry can’t help but smell the brisk, ocean-y scent of her hair potions. Her body’s warm against his.
“How did this miss all our sweeps for magic?” Harry asks, to distract himself.
“I suspect it’s a Muggle trap.” Luna cranes her neck to study the cable running from the shop’s ceiling to hold them. “Creative. Most Wizards wouldn’t think to check.”
“Creative.” Harry shakes his head.
“It’s a shame, really,” Luna says. “I was enjoying kissing you. I don’t get to do that often.”
I’d like you to have the opportunity every day, Harry’s about to say, but then Ron comes in the door.
“Harry! Luna!” Ron casts a revealing spell. “Having a spot of trouble, are we?”
“Yes, yes, very amusing,” Harry grumbles. “Can you just free us already?”
Ron bites his lip and then steps past the counter. “Had to make sure I wasn’t about to get trapped myself,” he says. He looks at the netting. “Acromantula silk? This must be worth a fortune.”
“Isn’t it lovely?” Luna asks.
“Reminds me of the Muggle traps Fred and George used to set,” Ron says, searching for a release. “Not traps for Muggles. Traps of the sorts Muggles make. There was a whole summer when me and Ginny couldn’t go in the garden shed without something falling on us or us getting trapped in a net. They finally caught Percy in a Burmese tiger trap one evening and Mum made them stop.… If it’s anything like — ah, there it is.”
He pulls something inside the wall and Harry and Luna are dumped unceremoniously on the floor. Harry has to feel around before he can find his glasses, and they’re broken.
Luna takes them from him and fixes them with a Reparo before handing them back.
Harry puts them back on, and sags with relief when the shop springs into sharp focus around him. “Thanks, Luna,” he says. “And thanks for rescuing us, Ron.”
“Any time.” Ron looks around the shop. “You’ve really cleaned this place out, haven’t you?”
“Only we've found bugger-all for evidence,” Harry says, and then shakes his head when Luna opens her mouth to protest. “Evidence for the case against Hare, I mean.”
“We've found evidence for three new sub-species of Nargle,” Luna tells Ron. She starts idly tapping on another wall with her wand. “Perhaps he had Muggle hiding places, as well as Muggle traps.”
“Luna, that’s brilliant,” Harry says.
The three of them search the shop, poking and prying and tapping on the walls. Luna’s the one who finally finds the hidden switch in the wainscoting that levers up a patch of innocent-looking floorboards.
Harry casts Lumos and approaches the hiding place carefully. He’s not risking another trap.
“It’s just doxy eggs,” Luna says. She’s looking down into the hole in disappointment. “Who would need this many?”
Harry shakes his head. “He was certainly selling something,” he says, thinking furiously. Doxy eggs. Money, in Muggle denominations, for payment for —
He looks down into the hole again. The eggs are tiny and rounded, like the vitamin tablets his Aunt Petunia used to make Dudley take when she thought he was looking peaky.
“Luna, what happens if someone eats Doxy eggs?”
“Not much,” Luna says. “Your body just processes the magic. It’s why they have to be brewed into a Girding Potion to have any effect.”
“And if you weren’t a wizard?”
Luna’s eyes go wide. “Harry, that’s it!”
Ron scratches his ear. “What’s it?”
“They’re selling them to Muggles,” Luna says. “They must be. Their bodies aren’t used to the magic in the doxy eggs — oh, it’s not much per egg, but they’re Muggles, it must have an effect.”
She takes her wand from behind her ear and starts absently writing in the air with it. “Average Muggle is what, twelve stone? Factor in slowed absorption because of the eggshell and assume they’re processing it over a few hours, and that’d probably feel quite nice. Rather like you had a Pepperup potion, only without the steam.”
Ron turns to Harry. “You reckon he could sell that to Muggles?”
“He could,” Harry says. “He definitely could.”
“It wouldn’t be safe, though,” Luna says. She draws a couple more figures in the air. “Muggles would build up an immunity over time. And if they took enough, they might start going into withdrawal without them.”
Harry goes to the counter and tosses the secret ledger over to Ron. “This explains why the payments have been in Muggle currency. He wasn’t using Muggle money to hide the money trail— he was getting the money in Muggle currency because he was selling to Muggles.”
“Brilliant.” Ron looks down at the ledger. “We’ll turn it over to the Muggle crimes task force.”
Harry smiles at Luna, and she smiles back at him. The moment seems to grow, and Harry feels like he should look away, but he finds that he can’t. He’d quite like to keep looking at Luna for as long as he can.
Ron shifts between his feet, and then looks at Harry. “Right! This is one of those times when Hermione tells me I ought to leave, isn’t it?”
“You rescued us,” Harry says. “But mate? I reckon it is.”
Ron grins, and picks up the ledger. “See you at the office, Harry.”
Harry's crossing the room to Luna before the door’s fully shut behind Ron.
“Right,” Harry says. “Where were we?”
Luna smiles up at him, and then stands on her tiptoes to kiss him again.
Harry’s sprawled back in one of Luna’s Muggle camping chairs, watching the last rays of the sunset in the distance. His boots rest on a convenient boulder.
He’s done the dishes, packed their supplies. Luna’s updating the map of Thunderbird sightings on the wall of their tent. She doesn’t believe in Wizarding tents for sleeping in — “They can be infested with Nargles, Harry, and you’re defenseless at night.” But they have a Wizarding tent set up, for food storage animals can’t get into, and water and a bathroom and a wall for Luna to pin all of her charts and maps to.
At night, they sleep in a Muggle tent, only a thin layer of canvas between themselves and the rushing wind, the water down in the draw, the laughing of the coyotes in the distance. It’s nothing like the Forest of Dean. Harry worried it might be, but light and heat and magic and fire make it wonderful.
Luna makes it wonderful.
In the distance, there’s a flash of lightning, low on the horizon. It’s several seconds before Harry hears the thunder’s rumble.
“Come on,” Luna says, poking her head out of the tent flap. Her hair’s streaming down her back and she’s got both of their brooms. She throws Harry his Firebolt and charms the tent flap shut against intruders. “We’ve got to get there.”
“A sighting?”
Luna grins. “It’s a thunderstorm, Harry.”
“So we might see one this time.”
“Signs are promising,” Luna says.
She mounts her broom and then leans down from it to kiss Harry, soundly, and then she takes off, a streak of blonde hair and flapping robes in the last of the dying light.
Harry grins, and then jumps onto his broom to take off after her. Luna’s getting them into trouble. All’s right with the world.