Chapter 2391 - Ch: 11

Chapter 11: At Cogfir Inn (Molly's Clock, Part 2)

Saturday, 27 July, Charing Cross Road, London

In response to an annoyed (and annoying) horn, Emily Granger glanced up at the rear-view mirror, let out a deep breath, and shook her head.

"Right, around the block then," she stated, slipping her foot off the brake and setting the family sedan in motion.

Hermione's father glanced over his shoulder and frowned at the impatient lorry driver.

"There was plenty of room for him to steer around us," he declared. His gaze shifted towards the record store on the opposite side of the street, then shifted once more towards his wristwatch. "I just hope that something bad hasn't caused their delay."

Emily stopped for a red light, then said, "Relax, Roger…you'll have plenty of time to quiz your daughter about her new boyfriend."

"I'd rather be quizzing the lad about his intentions," Hermione's' father grumbled.

"Sounds as if he'd accept that quizzing if it meant that he was able to escape from that nuthouse for a weekend," Emily noted.

"Don't think that escaping from that nuthouse isn't also high on my list of things to quiz them about."

"Higher on the list than discussing the need for us to escape on a vacation of indeterminable length?"

"That too."

Emily sighed. "Just don't turn this weekend into a Spanish…."

Roger glanced over at his wife and grinned. "Go on…you know that you want to finish that sentence…"

"No doubt about what you want."

"Of course not...I want to become a lumberjack!"

"Stop, it!" Emily gently chided.

The signal turned, and she made a left-hand turn off of Charing Cross Road.

"Would have been easier if they had just teleported to the house like last week," Roger stated.

"It's apparated, Dear," Emily corrected. "And there was no need for them to waste the time that would have been spent driving into town."

"I suppose so," Roger said, as his wife waited to make another turn onto the street that ran parallel to Charing Cross. "Would it have been too much for the wizards to have located their entrance on a road with on-street parking?"

"Don't think parking was a real concern back in the Sixteenth Century," Emily reasoned. "Also doubt that they worry much about the modern needs of Muggles or Muggleborns."

"No argument on that second point."

Emily snorted as the intersection cleared and she completed her turn. "Does that mean you wish to debate the first?"

Roger glanced over at his wife, shook his head, then scowled as he looked out at the street ahead of them.

"Sure, it's fine for lorry drivers to double park," he stated sarcastically. "Just go around them."

"Oh, do be quiet and let me drive," Emily whined. "Unless you'd rather?"

"Well…if you'd like me too…I know how you hate driving in town…"

A snort escaped from Emily's nose. "Yes, well I hate narrowly averting death and oncoming traffic even more."

"Oh, we're back to that again?" Roger complained. "You heard Hermione…her friend's beauty is magically mesmerizing...just caught me off-guard that one time…and I got better…hardly even blinked when she came down for breakfast the next morning in that dressing gown."

Emily rolled her eyes as she waited for traffic to clear in advance of yet another turn…this time onto Shaftesbury Avenue, where a West End marquee caught her husband's attention.

Roger's lips curled into a smile as he nodded towards the theatre and asked, "Hey, as long as we are in the neighborhood, think that they'd fancy taking in a show?"

Emily followed her husband's gaze and snorted.

"Didn't you do enough last weekend to scare off your daughter's new friend?"

"What?" Roger protested. "It's Spamalot! It's brilliant! And award-winning, too!"

"And rather crude in its attitude towards the French?"

"Bah!" Roger scoffed. "It's the taunting Frenchman that comes out ahead in that scene."

"And the outrageous accent?" Emily asked.

Roger chuckled as he adopted that outrageous accent and replied, "Go and boil your bottom, you zon of a zilly perzon. Aaaaah blow my noze at you…"

Emily interrupted her husband's recitation. "I mean, the whole point of these visits is to help her French friend lose her accent, not to make fun of it!"

"It's just the one scene," Roger reasoned. "Think of the music!"

"Even more reason."

Roger, now in full Python fan-boy mode, began to sing.

"I am not dead yet…I can dance and I can sing…I am not dead yet…I can do the Highland Fling…"

"You can spend the night on the couch, too," Emily snarked.

Hermione's father let out a deep sigh as they turned back onto Charing Cross Road.

Not willing to let her husband so quickly off the hook, Emily asked, "We've seen so little of Hermione over the past few years…why would you even consider losing the opportunity to interact with your daughter for a few hours? You'd rather waste that time sitting quietly next to her in a theatre?"

"Right," Roger replied, with a sarcastic edge to his voice. "Because we had so many engaging conversations while we toured all of those bookstores and libraries last weekend?"

"That was different and you know it," Emily stated. "They needed to bring some kind of instructional material back in order to justify their escape from the Weasels."

It was Roger's turn to snort. Seeing no need to correct his wife's mangling of the Weasley name, he asked, "So it'll be more of the same this weekend, then?"

Emily's eyes widened in delight as she pointed down the street.

"Why don't you ask them yourself?"

Roger looked out the car window in the general direction of his wife's pointing. He smiled when he spotted his daughter and her friend...but he didn't smile too widely, for fear that his wife might think the French girl's beauty was once again affecting him.

oo00OO00oo

"Sorry that we were running late," said Hermione, as Fleur and she climbed into the back bench of the car. "Had a bit of a mess that needed to be cleaned up before we left the Alley."

"No worries, Dear," said Emily. "So where are we going?"

"The Sofitel St. James," said Hermione. "It's a hotel…supposed to be fairly close."

"Eight Waterloo Place," Fleur added. "Off of Pall Mall?"

"Oh, yes…near Trafalgar," said Hermione's mother, as she slipped the car back into the stream of traffic. "Lovely tea service…shouldn't take more than ten minutes from here."

Roger looked down at his watch. "A bit early for tea, isn't it?"

"I am sorry, Monsieur Granger," said Fleur. "But it wasn't until late this morning that I heard…and given the risk of sending you an owl…"

"More like the risk of Molly insisting on looking over our shoulder as we wrote out the message," Hermione quipped. "Fleur's family popped over the Channel for the weekend," she then explained. "That's where they are staying."

"Where we all are staying, I hope," added Fleur.

"Sorry?" Roger asked.

"Gringotts booked and paid for three adjacent suites," Fleur explained. "Zhey would be happy if your family spent the night there as well, so that our two families could become more familiar."

Roger's eyes widened, and he swallowed hard at the thought of there being more than one Veela to worry about. His wife ignored this reaction and stuck to the practical aspects of the situation.

"Gringotts….you mean the goblins?" she asked. "Not to be rude, or seem ungrateful…but why would they do that? Thought that they were rather tight with their gold."

"They are," Hermione agreed. "But they are also shrewd, and pragmatic, and more than a little worried that they're close to losing one of their most profitable accounts."

Roger was going to ask whether his daughter was talking about Fleur's family until he realized just how rude the question would be and held his tongue.

"I realize that it is short notice, and that you might have other plans," the French witch said apologetically.

"Oh, no…not a problem, Dear," said Emily. "We already knew you'd be spending the weekend with us, and hadn't made plans, not knowing what you two might be up for."

"You really wouldn't mind?" asked Fleur.

"Of course not," Emily replied, as she turned the car back onto Charing Cross and passed by The Leaky Cauldron once more, this time travelling south. "Spending time with your family sounds like a lovely idea…don't you agree, Roger?"

"Erm…yes, of course," her husband hesitatingly replied. Emily ignored this response, adding, "And it's a far better plan than what Hermione's father came up with."

"What was that?" Hermione asked.

Emily replied by pointing towards a theatre as they drove past its entrance.

"What ees Spamalot?" Fleur asked.

Hermione rolled her eyes and muttered, "Oh, bugger!"

The French witch's question was a welcome focal point for Roger's thoughts.

"You haven't heard?" he asked with a sly smile.

Emily would have reprimanded her daughter for coarse language, had she been able to actually hear it over her husband's enthusiastic explanation.

"We're knights of the round table,

We dance when e're we're able.

We do routines and chorus scenes

With footwork impecc-able

We dine well here in Camelot

We eat ham and jam and spam a lot…"

"That's enough, Roger!" Emily firmly stated.

Fleur laughed as she asked, "So what ees Spam?"

Hermione rolled her eyes a second time, fearing the inevitable.

These fears were justified.

"Spam, spam, spam, spam….D'oh!"

Hermione giggled as her mother pulled back the elbow that had just made contact with her father's ribs.

"So, Fleur, did things get sorted out at work this past week?" Emily asked, changing the subject.

"Yes, they did, Mrs. Granger."

"It's Emily, remember?"

"Yes…Emily," Fleur replied. "I have been very busy the past several days, helping my Bill on a big assignment."

"Channeling your Inner Lara Croft, then?" asked Roger.

"Hush!" chided his wife.

"What?" Roger protested. "Hermione…you did say he goes on Egyptian tomb-raiding expeditions, right?"

"Bill is a curse-breaker, Dad," she replied with a sigh.

"This summer, my fiancé has been working for a different organization within the bank," Fleur added. "Our new secret project…eet ees…"

"It is secret, at least for a few more days," Hermione interrupted.

"What's a secret?" her mother asked. "The secret project at the bank, or the one at the Burrow?"

Hermione sighed. "Well, it wouldn't be much of a secret plan in either case, would it?"

"So we can't be trusted with these secrets?" Roger asked tersely.

"Frankly, no," his daughter replied. "You two can't defend your minds from a Legilimens attack."

"Do you really think somebody would try to read our minds?"

"Absolutely," Hermione replied. "Well…at least once we've given them cause to go snooping about your brains."

"And that happens later this week?" Emily asked.

Her daughter shrugged. "I don't know…Bill is in charge of our travel plans."

"And you're okay with that?" her father asked incredulously. "Not the least bit curious? Who are you and what have you done with my little girl?"

"Daddy!" Hermione whined. "Of course I'm curious, but…we're just being cautious. Harry and I still need to work on our own mental defenses."

"You're afraid that Molly can steal secrets out your heads, then?"

Fleur shook her head and laughed. "No, not Molly," she interjected. "Legilimency is a subtle magical art, requiring cunning and finesse. She does not know how to do subtle."

Emily frowned. "So her husband, then? Thought you said he wasn't the type?"

"He isn't," Hermione insisted. "It's Dumbledore that we're worried about, which is why we are voluntarily suffering under Molly's…so long as she appears to have things under control, no need for him to come snooping around."

"Don't know which is more worrisome," Roger stated. "Your concerns about mind-reading headmasters, or the intentional ignorance that you've adopted as a defense."

"I hear you, Dad," Hermione replied with a sigh. "I hear you."

oo00OO00oo

Light weekend traffic allowed the Granger family's BMW sedan to pull up in front of the five-star luxury hotel before the stalled conversation could be revived. A doorman rushed to open doors and tipped his hat as Emily handed the keys over to a valet and informed the two men that (a) yes, they would be staying overnight, but (b) no, they didn't have any luggage to bring inside. Neither blinked at this apparent inconsistency.

There was little time to appreciate the understated (but still luxurious) fittings within the hotel's reception area. Two more people were waiting for Fleur and the Granger family at the entrance; a well-dressed middle-aged assistant manager, and a well-dressed nine-year-old girl. The petite blonde took one look at Hermione…then burst into tears, rushed up to Fleur, and buried her face into the front of her dress.

Fleur wrapped a protective arm around the young girl and asked, "Pourquoi si triste, ma petite?"

The younger witch turned her face just enough to glance at Hermione with one reddened eye, then shook her head, burst into even more tears, and pressed her face back against Fleur's belly. Her garbled response (which only Fleur was able to understand) caused the corner of the witch's lips to curl up into a thin smile.

"Ah…je comprends," she stated. Fleur then turned towards the others and said, "I am sorry…this is my sister Gabrielle, and the emotions of meeting you all are so…perhaps it is best if I take her upstairs and help her calm herself with my parents' help?"

Hermione's mom was quick to agree.

"Of course, dear…perhaps it would be better if we gave you the weekend to spend with your family…?"

"No, no…please, I wish for our two families to meet, and for you all to stay," Fleur was quick to reply. "I just need a bit of time with my sister."

Hermione pursed her lips for a moment, then reached a decision and nodded her head. She turned towards her parents and asked, "It's a nice day…why don't the three of us go for a walk?"

Roger and Emily glanced over at the two sisters, then turned towards each other and shrugged in agreement. Fleur thanked them for being so understanding. Before guiding the two witches towards the lifts, the assistant manager introduced herself, and asked the Grangers to ask for her once they returned from their stroll (as she would be the personal concierge for the two families during their weekend stay).

oo00OO00oo

The three slightly confused members of the Granger family waited until they had reached the Mall and began to walk down the tree-lined boulevard to start a conversation.

"So…do you know what that was all about?" Emily finally asked her daughter.

Hermione shrugged, and said, "Not really."

"Do you think it would be better if we spent the night at home?" asked Roger.

This time Hermione shook her head.

"No, there's good reason for you to meet Fleur's family. And besides…we had already planned on spending a bit of time alone with our families, so assuming that something terrible hasn't happened...and that Fleur can sort her sister out…we're good."

"I see," said Emily.

Hermione and Fleur had, in fact, hoped to use this time to discuss where things stood at the Burrow and to gain some approval for their tentative escape plans with their respective sets of parents, using their respective native tongues. In Hermione's case, it would be a continuation of the discussion that began the previous weekend.

Hermione's mother unintentionally got this continuation off-track when she asked a seemingly innocuous question.

"So, how are things going with your boyfriend, Hermione?"

"Mum!" the teen-ager whined.

"What?"

"Things are going fine, mother."

"You two managing to find some time to spend together, then?"

Hermione arched an eyebrow, wondering if her mother had used the word "time" intentionally.

"Well, I've told you just how much of a helicopter both Molly and Ginny have been," she replied.

"Not able to have any time alone?" her father asked.

Hermione sighed. Not being able to resist making an inside joke, she then replied, "Let's just say that we've been able to make a little extra time for ourselves."

"Not getting into trouble during those times, I hope?" Roger asked.

"No more than any other normal teenagers."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Hermione's father stated.

"Can we talk about something other than my boyfriend?" she whined.

Roger chuckled. "Relax, sweetheart…we aren't badgering you any more than normal parents would."

"That's enough, Dear," Emily declared. She then shifted the conversation to what she thought would be a safer topic.

"So, Hermione, you said that Fleur and you had a bit of a problem that caused your delay?"

The Muggleborn witch snorted. "Yes, you could say that…Fred and George discovered a house arrest charm when they inspected our knickers."

"What?" Emily gasped.

Her husband was a bit more articulate.

"When they inspected your knickers?" Roger asked sharply. "And just what were the circumstances for that kind of inspection, young lady?"

Hermione let out a deep sigh. "Oh, Father…it's not like we were wearing them at the time."

"You weren't….!"

Emily shushed her husband, and asked, "Maybe it's best if you start at the beginning?"

The teen-aged witch rolled her eyes.

"I suppose," she muttered. "Since we were already heading to London, Fleur and I volunteered to drop off a batch of completed potions to the twins' joke shop. While we were there, they let us use their flat to change into our Muggle attire…there's changing rooms inside the Leaky Cauldron for that sort of thing, but with Fleur being…well, Fleur…that would have created problems."

"What kind of problems?" asked Roger.

"The kind of problems that occur when a pub full of pervy wizards know that a part-Veela is disrobing behind a changing room curtain."

"Oh. Yeah. Makes sense," Roger replied, trying not to imagine that scene himself.

"Why didn't you simply wear your normal clothes under your robes?" Emily asked.

"They wouldn't have gotten past Molly's Victorian sense of decency," Hermione replied.

Emily glanced at her daughter's khaki shorts and sleeveless blouse and shook her head dismissively. She then sought some clarification.

"So you needed to change clothes, but wanted to avoid the pervy wizards at that pub…aren't these twin brothers lads themselves?"

Hermione snorted. "Complete lads," she agreed. "Their girlfriends kept them on a short leash, though."

"But not short enough to keep them from doing a knicker inspection?" her father asked sarcastically.

"Roger, let her get on with her story," Emily chided.

"Right," said Hermione. "So once we were alone upstairs in their flat we stripped down and Fleur checked for tracking charms."

"Do you have to be starkers to do that kind of magic?" Roger asked.

"Dad!" Hermione whined. "If you must know…just about every piece of clothing worn in the magical world can be charmed in some fashion, so if you are wearing four or five pieces of clothing, and the magic woven into the fabric is overlapping with our wand cores, not to mention our own magical cores…well, it's a lot easier to miss a well-hidden tracking charm."

"So you spread each piece out and analyze it separately to cut down on the background noise?" Emily asked.

"Exactly," said Hermione. "That also makes it easier to check for trackers that are hidden in our hair or toenails."

Emily pursed her lips. "Why would there be…?"

"That kind of magic doesn't hold very well when it is applied to anything that is alive," Hermione explained. "Rather devious, if you ask me…most people forget that fingernails and hair strands aren't living tissue."

Her father frowned as he asked, "Why would you need to strip down, then? I mean, take off your shoes to get to your toenails, maybe, but otherwise…"

Hermione's mum reached out and gave Roger's arm a swat.

"Think for a moment, you berk…do you really want your teen-aged daughter to talk about the kind of hair that might be hidden under clothing?"

Roger winced. "Erm…right. Never mind." He then turned towards his daughter and asked, "Are you sure you wouldn't rather talk about your boyfriend?"

Emily ignored her husband's tongue-in-cheek question and asked her own.

"Fleur found something, then?"

Hermione nodded. "There were charms on both pairs of knickers that weren't supposed to be there," she stated. When she heard her father suck in a short breath, the teen-aged witch cut off his question by adding, "And if you must know, Daddy, many witches wear undergarments that are charmed to be stain- and odor-resistant."

"Why do you think I was going to ask that?" Roger protested.

His daughter snorted, and said, "We knew from the diagnostic that Fleur cast that it wasn't a tracking spell, but there did seem to be some type of location-based magic involved. So we asked the local experts on Molly's meddling magic to take a look."

"And they found…you said it was a house arrest charm, right?"

Hermione nodded. "It's apparently most often used by magical mothers to keep their children from straying out of bounds. One object is charmed to serve as a base or anchor, and the other object is placed on whatever you want to monitor. The spell caster also charms a third item to notify them if the target wanders."

The Muggleborn's mother arched an eyebrow. "So whose knickers were serving as home base?"

"Mine," Hermione said with a sigh. "Best we can tell, Molly suspected that we might check for trackers, and decided this was the best she could do as an alternative."

"Aside from not trying to monitor your comings and goings in the first place?" Roger asked.

"Exactly," said Hermione.

"But what would she hope to gain?"

The teen-aged witch shrugged. "A perverse sense of self-satisfaction over her ability to keep track of us, if even imperfectly?"

"What could she tell from it, though?"

"Maybe that Fleur and I weren't doing what we said we were going to do this weekend?" said Hermione.

"That you weren't going to spend the whole time joined at the hip, working on Fleur's accent?" Emily asked incredulously.

"There's no way to tell how long the tether is," Hermione stated. "Might be farther than hip-to-hip…a hundred yards, or maybe a hundred miles if Molly thought that Fleur intended to pop over the Channel."

Roger asked, "So what sort of work-around have you two managed?"

A sly smile formed on his daughter's lips as she held out her left hand and wiggled two fingers.

"Mine are the pinkie ring…the ring next to it are Fleur's."

It took a moment for Hermione's father to process that statement as he stared at the two transfigured pieces of jewelry.

He then stammered out, "So…does that mean that you aren't wearing….?"

"Oh, hush, Roger!" his wife interjected. "Don't you think that Hermione would have packed a spare pair or two for the weekend?"

Hermione giggled. "The only time that we wear those awful things is when we're expecting to be inspected."

"What's that?" asked Emily.

"They're more like bloomers than normal underwear," Hermione explained. "Molly wouldn't have let us out of her house if we had worn our real knickers."

"When would she have been able to place that house arrest charm on them, then?" asked Roger.

"Probably when she did the laundry," his daughter said with a smile. "We throw them into the dirty clothes bin just keep Molly off track."

"Off the track of what you two actually wear while you're under her roof?"

"That's right."

"And how, pray tell, do those unmentionables get laundered?"

Hermione eyes darted down towards the shorts pocket that presently contained her two magically-expandable buttons. She thought better of revealing those secrets, for fear that her mother (at least) would want to see everything that she'd been hiding from Molly.

Trying to pass off the glance downwards as insignificant, she shrugged her shoulders and coyly replied, "Magic."

Having spent more time than a father would ever want discussing his daughter's knickers, Roger tried to change course and change discussion topics by suggesting that they pop into a pub for some drinks. This led the Granger family off of the tree-lined Mall and onto the narrow streets of Victoria and Westminster.

Hermione's eye was caught by the signage for a pub called "The Phoenix," but her mother wasn't in the mood for dealing with a gaggle of loud, overweight German-speaking tourists. Two blocks further down the road Hermione once again thought that she'd found another aptly named place that was called "The Stag," only to have her father reject the idea after taking a quick look inside. Emily thought his reasoning was rather dodgy, but Roger insisted that he just wouldn't feel comfortable inside a gay bar, even with his wife and daughter in tow.

The third pub that Hermione and her parents checked out wasn't perfect, but was considered adequate for their needs (i.e. the patrons were few in number, were of mixed gender, and spoke English with mostly English accents). So Roger accepted the establishment's deficiencies (overpriced pints and an overabundance of swotty City-working twenty-somethings), and settled into a relatively private corner booth while his wife and daughter freshened up.

"So, remind me again why you've continued to put up with Meddling Molly?" he asked, after Hermione had slid onto a bench and taken a long draw from her fizzy drink.

The Muggleborn witch took in their surroundings, and after finding the privacy levels adequate, let out a quiet sigh.

"With all that we've put up with, I half-expect the answer to involve undetected compulsion charms," she replied. "But the fact is…I still need someplace to build up my magical reserves with daily spell casting, and the Ministry won't allow me to do it at home."

"Your boyfriend's presence has nothing to do with it, then?" her mother teased.

"Just a coincidence," Hermione insistence with a sly smile.

"I'm sure," Roger snarked. "And Harry is staying there because his relatives are horrid?"

"And because of the protective wards," his daughter added. "Of course, some might note that staying at the Burrow allows one of Dumbledore's most-trusted minions to monitor his activity."

"So Meddling Molly is a most-trusted minion?" Roger joked.

Emily shook her head. "Whatever happened to the little girl who trusted both authority and the printed page?"

"Hit with a cynicism charm?" asked Roger.

Hermione shook her head. "Don't need magic to bolster all of the cynicism that Molly generates naturally."

Roger nodded. "What I don't understand is why Fleur and her fiancé put up with it...surely they could move out a get a place of their own?"

"Because Dumbledore ordered then to stay there to help guard Harry."

"But none of you really trust the Headmaster?"

"No, we don't…but the oaths that Bill and Fleur took when they joined Dumbledore's group do a good job of compelling them to comply with those orders."

"Why would they do that, though?"

"What…take the oaths?"

"Yes."

"Because joining the Order was the only way that they'd have been able to get close to Harry," Hermione reasoned. "And they need Harry to grant a boon so that they can get married."

"But the boons can't be granted until Harry assumes his Lordship?" Emily asked.

"That's right."

"And that can't happen until…"

"Tuesday night, one second after midnight," said Hermione.

"What would he have to do?"

"Visit Gringotts, sign some documents, retrieve the Head of House rings from his vaults…"

"Rings…plural?"

Hermione nodded. "We think that he'll also be accepted as the Head of House Black, now that Sirius's will has been executed."

"Who decides that?"

"Magic," Hermione stated. "Won't know for certain until he tries on the Head of House ring, but between Sirius naming him his heir, and the fact that Harry's great-grandmother was a Black..."

Roger had more on his mind than family lineage.

"Is it common for one person to be the head of more than one house?" he asked.

"I don't know," said Hermione.

"And what about any adverse issues that might come with taking control of more than one family?" asked Roger. "He won't have to have a wife for each house, or some such nonsense?"

"Not if I can help it," Hermione said firmly.

The strength behind their daughter's response took Roger and Emily by surprise. Hermione's father might have decided to probe the reasons for that firmness, had her mother not made a snap decision and steered the conversation away from the topic of marriage.

"Would the goblin bank even be open at midnight?"

Hermione snorted. "Harry has an open invitation to show up on their doorstep whenever he wants."

"Part of the same customer service plan that sprung for our hotel suites?" Roger asked.

"Imagine so," Hermione replied. "The goblins do have a huge financial interest in getting Harry to assume his titles. Doing so will make him an adult, at least within the wizarding world, and that allows him to write out a will."

"Ah, yes…that avoids the inheritance scam run by the magical ministry that you were talking about last weekend," said Roger.

"Becoming a legal adult also frees Harry from any discussion of magical guardianships…at least in principle," Hermione added. "We're quite certain that the Headmaster will try some legal maneuver to overturn Harry's emancipation, once he discovers it, but as long as the family magic recognizes him as a Head of House Potter…and if we're out of the country by the time that Dumbledore finds out…and if we can convince you to be someplace safe as well…"

"That's the plan, then?" Emily asked.

"In a nutshell," Hermione replied.

"And because we can't protect our minds…you can't crack that nutshell and explain why you want us ready to drop everything and leave town at a moment's notice?" asked Roger.

Hermione sighed.

"Let's imagine that Harry and I are able to get out from under Molly's thumb, and escape to someplace safe where I can still do my therapeutic magic without the Ministry noticing," she said. "Where's the first place that Molly and Dumbledore would go looking for us?"

Roger shrugged. "We don't know where you two would run off to…so even if they showed up on our doorstep after the fact and asked us…or read our minds…it wouldn't matter…so they would leave."

Hermione shook her head. "If only it were so simple…wouldn't put it past them to put a watch on your house in case we showed up later."

"Well maybe that kind of watch would be a good thing, if you still think that we're at risk of attack because we're your parents?"

"Their watching isn't all that effective…didn't keep two Dementors from attacking Harry at his Aunt and Uncle's last Summer."

Emily frowned. "If it's that bad…should we pack our bags and start our holiday right now?"

Hermione glanced around the pub, checking for anything or anyone that might be out of place. Then she leaned towards her parents and quietly said, "We learned this week that there is a cohort of goblin warriors who have secretly set up guard at the Burrow. We strongly suspect that the goblins are also keeping watch over the house and over us this weekend…might have one or two here with us right now."

Roger looked out towards the rest of the pub.

"Don't…don't be so obvious," Hermione whispered, as she reached out and grabbed her father's arm.

Emily asked, "Wouldn't it be easier to guard us if they told us that they were doing so?" Emily asked.

Hermione nodded. "Probably. But they haven't told us about the cohort at the Burrow either…at least not officially."

"Unofficially?"

"Bill was told something at work that allowed us to make reasonable inferences," said Hermione. "Told by some high-up Goblins who had to have expected us to figure things out."

"So why not be open about it?"

"Don't know, exactly," Hermione replied. "There's a lot of internal politics going on within the bank…at the same time the goblins are guarding us…they're reading our lips….and reporting what they overhear back to their bosses."

Roger frowned. "So why do you trust these Goblins, then?"

"We don't…at least not completely. We just trust their motivations."

"Which are?"

"Profits," Hermione replied. "Like I said before, they've got huge financial incentives to keep Harry alive."

"So…they're greedy bastards…but predictable greedy bastards?" Roger asked.

Hermione shrugged. "We can't trust them completely…like I said, there are factions within the bank working at cross-purposes…but at least we understand their motives. Can't say the same for certain others, unfortunately."

"Can't trust the good guys?"

"Molly is transparent enough…she wants to match Harry with Ginny, and Ron with me, and Bill with Tonks…but when it comes to the Order…or Dumbledore?" Hermione shook her head and sighed. "Let's just say that the distrust runs strong enough that we can't discount the possibility of the so-called good-guys actually engineering an attack on the house once we've escaped from Molly…just to scare us into returning to the fold and accepting Dumbledore's control."

Roger and Emily stared into their glasses as they thought about what their daughter had just said.

"That bad?" Roger finally asked.

Hermione nodded.

"And you really think that the plans that you don't know about are our best option?"

"Yes," Hermione whispered.

Emily reached out and covered her daughter's hand with her own.

"You've given us a lot to consider, Sweetheart," she said.

Hermione chewed on her lower lip. "Yes, I know…that's part of the reason why we wanted you to meet Fleur's parents…to get a different perspective, and maybe some advice…"

"What's the other part of the reason?" Roger asked. "Maybe there's a very good reason for your Mum and me to brush off our conversational French?"

The question brought Hermione out of her funk. She smiled and said, "Peut-etre."

Roger looked at the bottom of his pint glass and said, "Well then…je voudrais un autre bier!"

Emily glanced at her watch and shook her head.

"We should head back…I'd like to have time to freshen up before tea."

Her husband and daughter agreed with this assessment, and the three walked back to the hotel at a guarded pace (with Roger looking for hidden goblins behind every tree).

oo00OO00oo

Fleur and Hermione were again forced to dodge incoming garden gnomes when they returned to the Burrow the following evening. It was just Harry and Bill who were calibrating the pneumatic gnome launcher, which gave the two couples a brief opportunity to talk outside of Molly's hearing range (if not the hearing range of the goblin cohort that they presumed was keeping watch).

Harry was quick to pick up on his girlfriend's discontent.

"Things didn't go well with your parents?" he asked.

"No, everything was fine," Hermione replied tersely. "They got along great with Fleur's parents."

"It took a bit of time to bring Gabrielle around," said Fleur. "But by the end of the weekend it was if we were all family!"

Hermione groaned.

"Sounds like there's a story to be told there," said Bill.

"Oh, there is," Fleur replied. "It was so sweet...as you know, my sister…she insists that she owes a life-debt to Harry."

"Which she does not owe," Harry tried to insist.

"Nevertheless, it is what she believes," Fleur countered. "And so she had been thinking that she must fight any woman who would get in the way of repaying that debt. But when we arrived at the hotel, and Gabrielle saw Hermione? She believed at that very instant that all hope was lost and she burst into tears!"

"And she believed that because…?"

"Because Gabrielle insists that she could see that my soul is already wrapped around yours, Harry," Hermione said with a sigh.

There was a moment of shared silence, before Harry decided to quietly ask, "So you don't think that's possible?"

Hermione quickly released what her boyfriend was thinking, and tried to counter it by pulling him into a hug.

"Oh, Harry," she whispered into his ear. "The thought of our souls being wrapped around each other's is lovely…almost as lovely as the thought of my legs wrapped around your waist, but…"

"But you don't think…?" Harry began to ask. Thinking it best if he broke an embrace that might be spotted from a window, he stepped back and turned towards Fleur. "Is seeing wrapped souls a special Veela trait, or something?"

Fleur giggled. "Not in the literal sense, but it is true that we have a certain intuition about these things. My sister also thinks that she is touched by a bit of The Sight…"

"She's a bit touched alright," Hermione whispered to herself.

"Hush now, Hermione...you two were getting along so well today...just like family!" said Fleur.

"So what changed her mood?" Harry asked.

"Gabrielle's definition of family," Hermione stated.

Bill asked, "Why would that matter?"

"Because Gabrielle's definition of family apparently extends far enough outwards to include mistresses or second wives," Hermione declared with a fair bit of exasperation.

Harry thought about this response for a moment, then let out a groan.

"Which means that even with Hermione and me being together that she'll still think that I am on the hook?"

Hermione sighed and nodded her head. "By dinnertime last night she was calling me her Alpha."

Fleur giggled. "At least I have convinced her that she must wait a few more years before she crawls into Harry's bed!"

Hermione snorted. "Wished you'd done the same when it came to her crawling into my bed last night!"

Harry groaned a second time as he closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead with his fingers. When he heard Bill begin to chuckle, he tilted his head towards the other wizard and asked, "Not worried about laughing at your future liege lord's expense?"

"Oh, no," Bill quickly replied, "That's a 'if I wasn't laughing I would be crying' kind of laugh, milord. I'll be in the same boat, remember?"

"But not in the same bed, I hope," Harry snarked.

Hermione glanced down at her wristwatch and shook her head. "Enough of this…we should be heading inside before Molly get too suspicious."

As the four began the slow walk back to the Burrow, Fleur asked, "So how were things around here?"

Bill shrugged. "Same as last weekend…Mum invited Tonks to dinner again, and Ginny was hovering around Harry, and Ron was…well, Ron."

"Sorry to hear that," Hermione offered. "Molly didn't seem alarmed over anything?"

Harry shook his head. "No more than usual…caught her tracking charms, then?"

Fleur glanced back towards Harry and shook her head. "Must have, if she didn't show any concern."

"But aren't you worried that she'll figure out that you disabled them?"

"I'll argue that we should be happy we disabled them, if she complains," Fleur responded. "After all, we would not have known who had placed them upon us, or when. We could have been leading the Death Eaters straight to Hermione's parents, for all we knew."

"Makes sense to me," said Bill. "Now whether it will make sense to Mum is a different story."

"Doesn't matter," said Hermione. "We didn't disable them…just worked around them. They're still active."

"Really?" asked Harry.

Seeing how close they were to the Burrow, Bill thought it worth interrupting.

"So other than Gabrielle planning Harry's second marriage…the weekend went as planned?" he asked.

Hermione nodded in agreement. "My parents will be ready to go…wherever you're planning on them going, and whenever you plan on sending them there."

"Wow…how were you able to do that?"

"Just used logic, and told them as much as we could."

Bill snorted. "Logic…now why I haven't I tried that approach?"

"Because you're smart enough to know that it wouldn't matter?" Fleur asked.

The sight of his mother emerging from an opened front door prevented Bill from doing anything more than mentally agree with his fiancee's assessment.

oo00OO00oo

In hindsight, they should have worried more about the small package that was owl-delivered to the Burrow that night. Molly was quick to pocket the package, and fended off questions regarding its content. Nobody thought much about this, though...given the proximity to Harry's birthday…even after Molly asked to borrow Hedwig again and posted a letter to Charlie. So the teen-agers forgot all about owl-delivery…until it was put to use two days later, on the eve of Harry's birthday.

oo00OO00oo

Having played out the next six moves in his head, Ron Weasley tore his eyes away from the chess board just long enough to gaze longingly towards the short hallway that connected sitting room to kitchen.

"What's taking her so long?" he whined. "I'm hungry."

Ron's father looked over the top of his newspaper and replied, "Oh, for Merlin's sake…we just finished dinner twenty minutes ago!"

"But we weren't allowed to finish the pudding!"

"You had plenty enough to eat before that point, and more than enough time to eat it," Arthur replied. "Now sit there quietly and finish your game. Your mother will be finished when she's finished."

"Oh, alright," Ron muttered, his focus shifting as Bill slowly reached for his own queen.

On the other side of the sitting room, Hermione looked up from her book and smiled. Her boyfriend, who was sitting on the floor with his back resting against the sofa's arm, glanced back over his shoulder and winked. She strongly suspected that they were both thinking the same thing…that it was nice to see someone other than Molly or Hermione keeping Ron in line.

Not that Molly's overbearing supervision wasn't still in play at that moment.

An end-of-the-day meeting at the Ministry had run long, and kept Arthur forty minutes beyond his normal quitting time. The corresponding delay in calling everyone to the Burrow's dinner table pushed the end of the evening meal right up against the 7pm "safety hour" that Molly had established so that she might once again modify her clock while her dispersed children were in safe locations. Ron's protests about not being allowed to finish his pudding were ignored as the Weasley matriarch ordered everyone else into the sitting room. Arthur was charged with keeping an eye on everyone while the clock was deactivated. That he kept watch while his face was hidden behind an opened newspaper said more about his trust in The Burrow's wards than his unwillingness to be ordered about by his wife. Bill got roped into a game of chess with his younger brother, while Ginny played with her fluffy pets and Harry, Hermione, and Fleur each chose to pass the time with a good book in hand.

Molly claimed that having everyone look over her shoulder had been too distracting the last time she had worked on the magical device. This explanation was just plausible enough to keep a lid on anyone's suspicions about ulterior motives…right up until the klaxons began to blare.

Vvvverp! Scarlet Alert! Vvvverp! Scarlet Alert! Vvvverp!

Harry's gaze darted towards the kitchen entrance. He asked, "What in Merlin's name is going on in there?" but nobody heard the question, between the loud alarm and Molly shrieking, "WHAT IN MERLIN'S NAME IS GOING ON IN THERE!"

Arthur closed his eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, then slowly expelled it as he dropped his paper to the side of his chair.

"Something wrong, Dear?" he called out.

Molly burst into the sitting room with a wild look on her face and the clock pressed against her chest. Despite the noise-dampening effects of her more than ample bosom, it was clear to all that it was the clock that was raising the "SCARLET ALERT!" alarm.

Ron's mum quickly surveyed the room, noting who was sitting where and doing what. A breath caught in her throat, and remained lodged there for a few seconds as she held her clock out and rechecked the status of each hand. Molly frowned, shook her head, then spun on her heels and rushed out of the room just as quickly as she had entered.

"What the hell?" Bill demanded.

"That's a very good question," said Arthur, rising from his chair.

Ron nodded in agreement as he looked down at the chessboard and announced, "Mate in seven."

"Where do you think you're going?" Bill asked, as Ron pushed his chair away from the game board.

"To finish my pudding," the younger wizard replied, as they heard Molly shout out Fred and George's names above the klaxon.

"Good enough reason, I suppose," Arthur stated. He let his youngest son pass in front of him, then caught everyone else's attention and nodded towards the kitchen.

"C'mon, then, let's see what the fuss is all about."

While nobody needed a second invitation, some did need a bit more time than others to follow Arthur's lead.

"Coming, Harry?" asked Hermione from the doorway.

Her boyfriend winced a bit as rose up off the floor and stretched.

"Yeah, in a bit…my leg has cramped up."

A second round of shouts from the kitchen caused Hermione to glance back over her shoulder. She snorted when she took the time to mentally translate the words that had been shouted using French.

"What?"

"Fleur's not very happy about whatever Molly has done to the clock."

"Go on, then," Harry said. "I'll be right there."

Hermione said, "Okay," and dashed towards the clamor.

The raven-haired wizard shook his head at the same time that he shook out the stiffness in his leg. He took two steps towards the kitchen, then stopped, having spotted some movement out in the front yard out of the corner of his eye. With thoughts of diversions and attacks springing to mind, Harry crouched down, drew his wand, and crept towards the sitting room's front windows for a better view. He cautiously raised his head high enough to glance outside…then quickly ducked back down as his brain processed what he had just seen.

The teen-aged wizard sucked in a deep breath as he turned back towards the kitchen entrance and winnowed one raised voice from another.

Couldn't have been what he thought he'd seen. But if it wasn't, then…what the fuck?

Harry cautiously peeked up above the window sill…and gasped.

And then he waved his hand.

"Harry, get in here!" Hermione yelled from the kitchen. "You've got to see this to believe it!"

The teen-aged wizard's head swiveled sharply towards Hermione's call. He sighed, then swore under his breath as he pocketed his wand and stood to full height.

"Couldn't have said it any better myself," he thought.

oo00OO00oo

When Harry entered the kitchen, Molly was on hands and knees in front of the floo connection (something that Harry definitely did not want to see again). Hermione, Bill and Fleur were hurling pointed questions towards Arthur…or at least it looked that way…the privacy ward that shielded them from the wailing siren also kept their comments from leaking out.

Ginny and Ron were standing to one side with silly grins on their faces.

Harry walked over, grabbed his friend's arm and asked, "What's going on?"

The red-haired wizard pointed towards his mother's clock, which was sitting face up on the kitchen table.

"There's supposed to be some serious shagging going on right now," he quipped.

"What?"

"Take a look!"

Harry dug his fingertips into his ears to dampen the noise as he approached the magical device. All of the clock hands were green, which meant that everyone was relatively safe from harm.

At least for the moment.

"Oh, Fuck!" he hissed (quietly enough to avoid an admonishment).

It wasn't the color of the hands that had caused this response, but rather where those hands now rested. Molly's latest improvements to her clock had switched out some of the less-than-specific locations. Travelling and Hospital were still the same, but the Lostthat taken up space between the two locations had been replaced by Kidnapped. There was still a Home and School and Work for hands to point towards, but Prison was swapped out for Shopping, and Holiday now stood in for Quidditch. These changes, however, were only recognized by Harry long after the most prominent and pertinent modification was spotted. What really mattered at the moment was that his clock hand and Hermione's had finally stopped spinning…and come to a full stop over the same spot as the hands labeled "Bill," "Fleur," "Fred," and "George."

That location used to read "Mortal Peril."

It now read "Fornicating."

Harry turned back towards Ron and asked, "The clock thinks that Hermione and I are doing…that…right now?"

Ron let out a hearty laugh.

"Yeah, isn't it a hoot?" he shouted.

Harry considered his friend's wide smile, and shook his head.

"Well, you're taking it better than I thought," he replied loudly.

Ron shrugged. "Hey, can't help but laugh at the cocked-up clock when it thinks that you, Hermione, Bill, Fleur, Fred and George are all boffing your brains out! I mean…can you imagine?"

Harry's eyes widened into saucers.

"What?" Ron asked.

The raven-haired wizard glanced back towards the sitting room entrance, then focused his gaze onto the wall-mounted clock that actually told you the time. Harry shook his head, and told Ron, "Nothing…hey why hasn't somebody tried to silence that alarm?"

"Bill and Fleur both tried," Ginny shouted, inserting herself into the conversation. "I bet Mum's the only one who can turn it off."

Harry glanced towards the floo connection, then wished that he hadn't (since Molly was still on her hands and knees).

"So what's your mum doing right now?"

"Trying to confirm that my twin brothers aren't…awww….wish I hadn't just imagined the two of them that way."

"Well why don't we just move back into the sitting room until she shuts the damn thing off?" Harry shouted.

Ginny laughed. "And run the risk of missing what happens next? No way!"

It only took a few moments longer for Molly to pull her head out of the fire and brush the soot from the front of her robes. Bill spotted his mum's action and cancelled the "cone of silence" ward that he had erected more to keep the klaxon's blares from getting in than the content of their questioning from getting out. Arthur loudly requested that Molly turn off the alarm, so that they could (theoretically) conduct a conversation at normal speaking volume.

"I'll do that right after I send those two miscreants another howler," she declared over the din.

"Why would you want to….?"

"Because they ignored my floo call again with that obnoxious cardboard cut-out that claims they can't answer the floo right now. I can just imagine why they think that…"

"Don't have to imagine what they're doing if the clock is right," Ginny said with a laugh.

"Never mind that, young lady!" Molly shouted.

Arthur put a little more force behind his request for her to turn off the alarm before doing anything else. She reluctantly did so, after pulling the instructions from an apron pocket to ensure that she wasn't disabling more than the klaxons.

"What the hell, Mum?" Bill demanded.

"Language, William!"

"No sense of privacy, Mother!"

"Don't you backtalk to me, young man!" Molly shrieked. "I will not have my children talking to me like that within my house."

"You will not have any children living in your house either, with a stunt like this!" Bill hissed.

"Now, now…let's everyone take a deep breath," Arthur interjected. "Clearly, something is wrong with the clock right now…assuming that Fred and George weren't acting improperly during the floo call…"

Molly scowled. "Of course they're doing something improper!"

Arthur waved towards Harry, Hermione, Bill and Fleur.

"The same improper thing that these four are supposedly up to?" Arthur reasoned.

Molly looked down at her clock face, let out a deep sigh, then shook her head.

"Right, then something is off with the clock," said Arthur. "And any talk about how and why the clock has been modified should come second to determining whether those modifications have done more than get a few locations wrong."

"What are you proposing, Dad?" Bill tersely asked.

"I will make a quick floo trip to the Ministry and back," the Weasley patriarch declared. "If my hand correctly tracks my transit, then we'll know that the problems are most likely related to the latest changes."

Molly chewed on her lip for a moment before she agreed to the test. Arthur walked over to their floo connection, tossed a pinch of powder into the flames, and disappeared within them. Those left behind in the kitchen watched as the hand marked "Arthur" quickly shifted from Home to Travelling.

"Well his hand seems to be in working order, at least," Molly declared.

"Maybe the clock is focusing on intent," Ginny offered. "Instead of showing where you are, it's now showing where you want to be."

Hermione shook her head. "Well that can't be right…or else Ron's hand would have shifted as well."

"Hey!" the teen-aged wizard protested.

"Just sayin'," Hermione replied.

Molly shut down this line of reasoning with a terse demand for silence, which was then provided as they watched Arthur's hand move off of Travelling to Work, then back to Travelling, and finally back to Home as the Weasley Patriarch emerged from the floo.

Once told that his clock hand had accurately tracked his location, he suggested that Molly strip off the new locations and restore the clock face to its previous appearance.

She shook her head, and replied, "I can't change it back."

"Why not?" asked Bill.

"Because I ordered tamper-proof lettering," she replied. "Once the letters are applied, they can't be magically removed."

Arthur rolled his eyes. "Why would you order tamper-proof letters?"

Molly nodded towards Bill and Fleur and then asked, "Why do you think?"

Hermione asked, "Is it the words that are tamper-proof, or only the letters?"

"What do you mean?"

"Could you just jumble up the letters, and turn Fornicating into gibberish?"

Ron snorted. "Don't be stupid…there's no g or b in fornicating."

Bill sighed. "She's not talking about anagrams, you dolt…she's suggesting that we mix up the letters so that they don't spell out a word."

"And once it's no longer a location, then the clock hands might just ignore it," Arthur concluded.

"Not that Fornicating is actually a location," added Harry.

"Too bad, for that," said Ron. "I'd fancy a visit…d'oh!"

Molly pulled back the hand that had just cuffed her youngest son in the head, and said, "Travelling isn't a location either, and that worked well enough before." She then looked at the time-telling clock on the wall and sighed. "Five minutes…just enough time to try…back to the sitting room, the lot of you."

"Why can't I stay and finish my pudding?" Ron whined.

"Oh, take the pudding with you," Molly spat. "I need to concentrate, and you all need to work on the back-up plan."

"Would have been nice to have had a back-up plan in place to begin with," Bill muttered.

"Don't you sass me!" Molly barked.

"What are you thinking about for a back-up?" Arthur asked.

"I'm going to try to switch it to gibberish," said Molly. "But if that doesn't work…Bill mentioned anagrams just now."

"That actually makes sense!" Hermione said with a slight gasp.

Molly glared at the Muggleborn witch, but decided that time spent dressing the girl down would be better spent fixing the clock. So with another wave of the hand she dismissed everyone with a tight-lipped reminder that there were quills and spare parchment in the sitting room chest.

"What's an anagram?" Ron asked, as they exited the kitchen.

"Rearranging letters in one word or group of words to form a different word or word grouping," Hermione explained. "Remember I am Lord Voldemort?"

Ginny shuddered, remembering far too well the description of what had taken place down in the Chamber while she lay dying and unconscious.

As they entered the sitting room, Hermione gave her quasi-secret boyfriend an odd look as he rushed to pull the curtains shut over the front windows.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Erm…don't need any distractions," Harry muttered.

"I agree," said Bill. "Also think that it's best that we work independently," he added, as he distributed quills and parchment, then set two ink pots down on the coffee table for shared use.

"Oh, alright," Ron muttered, as he sat down on the couch and set his tart down on the coffee table next to his piece of spare parchment. After dipping his quill tip into the ink pot, the red-haired wizard looked down at the blank page and then asked, "So how do you spell fornicating again?"

The chance to poke fun at her brother brought Ginny's mind back from the Chamber of Secrets.

"I-N Y-O-U-R D-R-E-A-M-S…."

"Oh, good one," Ron snapped, as he leaned over and stole a glance at the top of Hermione's parchment page and asked about how anagrams worked as he copied her spelling. The Muggbleborn took a few precious seconds to explain her favorite strategies for creating anagrams. The time spent teaching was time not available for solving…which made her very unhappy when Molly summoned everyone back to the kitchen with a despondent yell.

"The letters won't stay where I put them!" the Weasley matron complained. "Get back in here!"

Bill shook his head as he glanced down at his failed attempts. "Damn…I've got nothing."

"Me neither," said Fleur.

"Anyone?" Arthur asked.

Ron giggled. "Yup, I've got one."

"Really?" Ginny asked skeptically. "Let me see it."

"Nope," said Ron with a wide smile.

"Anyone else?" Arthur asked.

"I've got one that might work," Hermione admitted.

"Right, then…you two come with me," Arthur ordered. He then turned to the others and said, "You lot keep working on a solution."

"Fair enough," said Bill, as he stood and stretched his legs.

A breath caught in Harry's throat when the older wizard walked towards one of the windows.

"Hey, thought you agreed with me!" Harry said sharply.

"What?" asked Bill.

"You agreed about the need to avoid distractions," said Harry. "Need to stay focused…you and Fleur are just muddling around."

Fleur let out a sigh. "Just the two of us?" she asked. "Seems to me that you and Ginny are also muddling."

Harry winced. "No, Fleur…Ginny and I are definitely not muddling around right now. You and Bill are the ones that are muddling….and taking a lot of latitude..."

The French witch smiled, and intentionally retrieved her accent as she asked, "Latitude? Eeez zhat what you kids are calling eet zhese days?"

"Exactly!" Harry hissed.

"I don't get it," said Bill.

"Gah!" Harry gasped. Shaking his head in frustration, he quickly wrote something on his parchment then held it out for Bill's review.

Ginny couldn't help leaning forward to see what Harry had written.

"P-A-R-A-D-O-X?" she asked. "That's silly, Harry…there's no X or P in fornication."

Fleur's eyes went wide in response to a realization.

"Outside?" she whispered to Harry. "On zee front lawn?"

Harry nodded.

"Menage a quatre?" Fleur asked.

The teen-aged wizard choked on some spittle as he shook his head no…he couldn't understand French, but a similar phrase had been bandied about his dormitory enough times for him to figure out what she was asking. Fleur reached over and patted Harry on the back, which allowed him to whisper something in her ear.

"Merde!" she hissed.

"I still don't get it," Bill noted.

Fleur walked over to her fiancé and pulled him away from the curtained window. It was his turn to choke on spittle once she whispered something into his ear.

The curse-breaker glanced back at the window…then towards the kitchen and the sound of his mother castigating his brother….and then back to Harry. When the messy-haired teen nodded and shrugged his shoulders, Bill let out a lough, sharp laugh, then asked, "But that also means that….?"

"More than two must be muddling, n'est-ce pas?" Fleur quipped.

"What are you three on about?" Ginny demanded.

"Oh, nothing…nothing at all," Bill replied. He then returned his attention to Harry and let out a snort.

"What's the worry about, you sly dog?" he asked. "Looks like you're getting ready to lose your lunch rather than lose your…."

"Hush, Bill!" Fleur interjected. "I am sure that Harry is just concerned over the clock working properly."

"Worried about more than just the clock working properly, but…yeah," agreed Harry.

"Oh, Buck up!" said Bill. "Things obviously are going to work out, right?"

Harry closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead with thumb and forefinger.

"Nineteen minutes," he muttered.

"What?" Bill asked.

Harry opened his eyes and repeated himself. "Nineteen minutes…I pretty sure that's the time from when the first alarm was sounded to when your mum opened the clock face back up."

Fleur giggled. "Ca baigne! Un étalon viril!"

Harry shook his head. "Not unless that translates into 'What a normal teen-aged boy!'."

Bill furrowed his eyebrows. "Why would you think that…oh, I get it now."

"There's no way," Harry said despondently.

"Apparently there will be, because there was," Bill noted.

"Yeah, well…if you've got any suggestions….or potions…."

The older wizard snorted. "Sorry, never really have had the need."

"Is somebody going to explain what you three are talking about?" Ginny whined.

Bill glanced over at his little sister, and then shook his head.

"Maybe in a few years," he replied.

Ginny growled. "Are you going to make me practice my bat-bogey hex?"

Bill rolled his eyes. "Are you going to risk the wrath of Mum with under-aged magic use?"

"Let's see what's going on in there," Fleur decided. "It is too quiet all of a sudden."

Harry watched the French witch grab her fiance's hand and drag him towards the kitchen.

"An excellent idea," he decided, following Fleur's lead.

Ginny stood still for a moment, hoping that Harry would also follow the French witch's lead by grabbing her hand.

She skulked into the kitchen once that hope was dashed, and began to ask, "So what's…"

"Shush!" Arthur hissed, nodding towards Ginny's mum.

The kitchen's new arrivals jockeyed for clear sightlines as they huddled around the kitchen table. Molly had just coaxed the last rearranged letter into place, and had set down her wand so that she could carefully replace the clock face using both hands. Once that was in place, it only took a moment to secure the face by hitting the hand-set brass screws with a "Righty Tighty" spell.

Molly would have then held her breath, had that breath not been needed to voice the spell that reactivated the clock.

The clock hands (which Molly had all moved over "Home") returned to their former positions (or returned to their rotational path, in the case of Harry's and Hermione's clock hands).

Arthur let out a deep breath and said, "Well that's settled, then,"

Harry tried not to wince in response to this assessment.

"Where's At Cogfir Inn?" asked Ginny.

Bill chuckled as he drew his wand and cast a Point Me spell.

"Some place to the South, apparently," Bill noted.

"I still like my idea better," Ron muttered.

Molly looked up from the clock and cuffed her youngest son on the back of his head.

"Ow!"

"For you to even think that it was an acceptable suggestion!" she chided.

"What was it?" asked Ginny.

"Coin farting," Hermione said with a snicker.

"It would have worked," Ron insisted.

"Can't see how," offered Bill. "Coins are solid, and they call it passing gas for a reason."

"That's enough," Arthur declared.

Harry nodded in agreement as he looked up at the wall-mounted timepiece and said, "Well…would you look at the time!"

Molly glanced up at the clock and nodded. "Got it working with just a few seconds to spare." She then stood back from the table, and said, "So go and make yourselves useful, then…I've got a howler to send."

Arthur gave his wife an odd look. "But I thought we determined that Fred and George weren't up to something?"

"Not to them," Molly spat. "To the magical clock maker who guaranteed that the new locations that I requested and paid for would work! I want my money back!"

"Oh, well…perhaps it would be better to save the howler for a follow-up if the first request doesn't work?"

Molly's lips thinned and her eyes narrowed as she glanced up towards the cupboard where she stored her "special stationary".

"I suppose you're right," she decided. "Merlin knows I need to keep a good supply on hand, so long as the twins are living away from home."

"There you go," Arthur agreed, as he tried to calm his wife's heart rate by rubbing her back.

Hermione's heart rate quickly raced in the opposite direction just as soon as Fleur pulled the Muggleborn back from the table and unobtrusively whispered a few words into her ear. The bushy-haired witch's eyes darted towards Harry; she blushed when he met her gaze and pressed a finger against the necklace charm that lay hidden beneath his summer-weight robe.

Molly's insistence that a letter be written straight-away to the clockmaker gave Harry the excuse that was needed...after offering Hedwig's services to her, he noted that his familiar wasn't around at the moment, and said that he'd go outside to look for her. The distracted Weasley matriarch agreed, and ordered everyone (save for her husband) out to hunt for Harry's owl.

It took Fleur only a few moments to sneak up on Ron while he was standing alone within the orchard and distract him with the release of her allure. Two minutes later, Ginny was similarly distracted. This was fortunately done out of sight of the others, which saved them from witnessing the auto-erotic reaction to Fleur's sneak attacks.

The blanket divide was already in place by the time that the French witch slipped into the shed.

"I cannot believe your mother!" she loudly announced.

"Shush!" Bill replied, before drawing his wand and casting some privacy spells. Once in place, he turned to Fleur and said, "You know that I feel the same way."

Hermione snorted. "Clearly we all do…and did…at least strongly enough to decide what we will all need to have done."

"What we will need to have done?" Harry asked.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Call it the future past perfect verb tense."

"How far back do we need to go?" Fleur asked, as Harry pulled the time turner out from beneath his robes.

"Two hours, at least," the raven-haired wizard replied. "Hedwig needs enough time to deliver the message."

"What message?" asked Hermione.

"The one that tells Fred and George that they will also need to have been shagging their girlfriends forty-five minutes ago," Harry quipped.

"Are you really sure that they need a prompt?" his girlfriend asked.

Harry shook his head as stretched out the silver chain over the other's heads. As he did, Bill said, "We would still need that hour to discuss our reaction to this mess."

"What's there to talk about?" Harry asked. "We all know what needs to be done…or what we had to do…or whatever…"

"Not that part," Bill replied. "I mean how we react tonight, at one second past midnight."

"Oh…well, better go the full three hours, then," Harry decided. "I still need time to figure out how the hell I'm going to last that long."

"How long is it?" asked Hermione.

Fleur giggled. "I thought that you've already determined that, ma Cherie?"

"Not that!"

"Nineteen minutes, at least," Harry stated.

Hermione's eyes went wide as she reflexively squeezed her thighs together and whispered, "Fuck!"

"Exactly," said Bill. "Sorry Harry, but we can only go back two…Fleur and I were still in France three hours ago."

"Two hours it is, then," said the boy who was convinced that he was about to have already lost his virginity.

oo00OO00oo

As Fleur cast the Tempus charm that confirmed that the two couples had indeed gone back two hours in time, Harry turned towards Hermione (who was resetting the hour hand on her wristwatch) and whispered, "Did you just say 'Relax, Loverboy'?"

"Nope," Hermione replied. "Guess you heard future me a few hours from now."

"You see?" asked Fleur, as she reached out and gave Harry's arm a squeeze. "I told you that you would rise to the occasion!"

"When did you figure out what was happening?" Hermione asked the other witch.

"When Harry told me."

"And when was that?"

"After you and Ronald brought your anagrams into the kitchen," said Fleur.

Hermione then turned towards Harry. "And you didn't think that I needed to know what was going on?"

"There wasn't a chance…everything was going so fast…"

"Nineteen minutes is not so fast, you think?" Fleur teased.

"So what tipped you off?" Hermione asked Harry.

He shrugged. "I wish that I could claim that I had brilliant powers of deductive reasoning."

"Okay, so?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "Well, didn't take much for me to put one and one together after I looked out the window and spotted Fleur and Bill shagging on the front lawn, not ten seconds after they left the sitting room for the kitchen."

"We can deconstruct who knew what and who was doing what later," said Bill. He tapped his wand tip against one of his expandable buttons, pulled out quills and parchment that he handed out to the other three.

"You each need to write letters," he declared. "Harry…yours goes to the twins, informing them that they need to be fornicating from 7:15 until…let's say 7:45."

"Thought we only needed nineteen minutes of fornication?" Hermione asked.

"Margin of safety," Bill said with a shrug.

"Think that they're up to the task?" Fleur asked.

"They're Weasley men," Bill replied. "No need to say more."

"Would you have the same confidence if we were talking about Ron?" asked Harry.

"No comment," said Bill. He then turned to Fleur and said, "Write a quick note to your sister…we'll have Hedwig deliver that one last."

"Okay," said Fleur.

"What's my letter for?" Hermione asked.

"It's for your parents," Bill replied. "You did agree on the authenticating sentence over the weekend, right?"

When Hermione nodded, the curse-breaker began to dictate.

"Use that sentence, then tell them that they need to get in their car as soon they receive the letter. They're to drive west on the M3 highway, and then north on the A30 to a place called Blackbushe Airport…it is roughly twenty miles from their house."

Hermione nodded. "Blackbushe…got it. They're to go there straight away, or do they have time to pack?"

Bill shook his head. "No need to pack…Gringotts will make arrangements once they're away…don't want anyone who might be watching the house to think that anything is out of the ordinary."

"Makes sense," said Hermione. "So once they arrive…?"

"There is a restaurant next to the tower," Bill replied. "They should park, go inside the restaurant, and tell the host or hostess that they are there to meet with Nigel Nilbog."

Harry looked up from the letter that he was writing to the Twins.

"Who's Nigel Nilbog?"

Hermione giggled. "Nilbog is goblin spelled backwards, Harry."

"Oh, right."

Hermione finished writing out that sentence then asked, "And then?"

"And then they'll be off," said Bill. "With luck and no large delays, they'll be up in the air before we turn back time." He thought for a moment, before adding, "It would be easier if they take their passports with them, but arrangements can be made if they forget."

"Got it," Hermione declared. "Anything else?"

"No, that's about it."

"So where are they going?"

Bill smiled. "I guess that we're close enough to our own departure to stop worrying about need to know?"

Hermione shook her head. "No, that's alright. If you tell us now, then with Harry's luck it would guarantee Dumbledore dropping by tonight for a spot of tea."

"Oi!" Harry complained.

"Alright, then with our shared luck," Hermione replied, as she leaned towards Harry and kissed his cheek.

"That's better," he declared.

The three letter writers finished their respective correspondences soon after this declaration. Hedwig flew into the opened window barely five seconds after Harry had opened it, and took her instructions…she was to deliver Fred and George's letter first, then the Granger's letter, and then fly on to France to deliver Fleur's letter to her sister. Nobody would think it strange if Harry's familiar spent time resting at the Delacour's after such a long flight.

With Hedwig safely gone, Bill closed the shed window, turned back towards the other three, and began to explain what would happen next. Not what would have to happen within the hour…but, rather, what would happen that evening. The review of these plans took over an hour, which was both good and bad from Harry's perspective…good since it kept his mind occupied, and tamped down on his nerves, but bad in that it kept him from figuring out just how he was supposed to fornicate for nineteen straight minutes, given the fact that he had barely lasted three or four minutes the two times that Hermione had offered a helping hand.

This made the situation seem all the more desperate when Bill cast a Tempus charm and glibly announced that it would soon be time to start fornicating.

Fleur glanced around the cluttered shed and shook her head.

"This…it will not do for such a special moment, no?" she asked.

While the French witch set her mind to temporarily transforming Arthur's shed into something that looked more like a bridal suite, Bill pulled Harry aside and asked, "So…do you need protection?"

"I have already taken care of that for them!" Fleur called out from the other side of the room.

"Really?" Harry squeaked, as he glanced towards his blushing girlfriend.

"Well…it is always better to be prepared," she sputtered. "Not that I was planning on something like this…I mean, I kind of was, but not exactly like this…"

Harry gasped, and repeated himself. "Really?"

Hermione chewed on her lower lip as she walked up to Harry, took his hand, and asked, "Well, tomorrow is your birthday…right?"

Her boyfriend let out a deep sigh of disbelief.

"I'm sorry."

"Why?"

"Because I wanted our first time to be special…and the only way that I can think that I'll be able to last nineteen minutes is to distract myself."

"Distract yourself how?"

Harry winced. "Well, the surest way that I'm able to manage embarrassing erections is to think about something decidedly unsexy…like Ron's dirty socks, or Umbridge..."

"Ewwwwww!"

"You see what I mean, then?" Harry asked.

Hermione nodded. "Well, you know Harry…this weekend when I was with my mum, I kind of asked her how a couple could make their special moments last longer than a few moments…"

"You talked about that with your Mum?" Harry hissed.

His girlfriend's eyes narrowed.

"Would you rather I had asked my father?" she replied. "Honestly, Harry…I was just trying to help…and you're the one worrying about the nineteen minutes…and she is a medical professional…."

"She's a dentist, Hermione!"

Bill decided that now was a good time to see if Fleur needed help with the temporary redecorating, and excused himself from the rest of the conversation. This saved him from learning about the "squeeze technique," and from considering a situation in which he would need to pinch the end of his todger for nineteen long minutes just to delay an orgasm. The way that Harry crossed his legs and howled in protest reinforced his decision to give the couple some privacy…at least until it was time to act. He walked towards Harry and Hermione and asked, "Right…seven minutes to go…time for Fleur and me to give you two lovebirds some privacy."

Hermione looked around the shed and smiled. While the area on the near side of the hanging blanket (the side closest to the door) was unchanged, the magically expanded far side of the blanket had been completely transformed. Cluttered bits and pieces of Muggle stuff had been transfigured into lit candles and rose petals, while a work bench had been turned into a comfortable quilt-covered bed.

"Thank you, Fleur…you didn't have to."

The French witch looked her arm through her fiancee's and asked, "It was the least we could do…for you two are helping us to have defeated Molly's clock, no?"

Harry shook his head at the use of the future past perfect verb tense as Bill shook his hand, Fleur kissed his cheek, and they both wished the younger couple well.

Bill casting yet another Tempus charm, and re-confirmed that Hermione's wristwatch was synchronized.

"Hey, Fleur?" Harry asked, as Bill and his fiancée headed for the shed's door.

"Yes?"

"Don't forget to wave when you spot me staring out the window."

The French witch smiled. "I will be sure to remember."

The older couple then left, exchanging whispers about who would need to be on top and who would need to be facing the front windows of the house in order to make the future past work out.

Hermione giggled as she watched Bill and Fleur walk towards the front of the Burrow from one of the shed's windows.

"I still find it hard to believe that they're going to be shagging on the front lawn in broad daylight and nobody is going to spot them."

"Except for me," said Harry. "And probably the invisible goblin guards that we're not supposed to know about."

"That's true," Hermione replied. She stepped away from the window and pulled Harry into a hug.

"It's going to be okay," she insisted. "We already know that things worked out, right?"

"But I wanted this to be more than okay!"

"It will be, because it will be with you," Hermione replied. She thought for a moment, then shook her head, glanced at her watch, and gave Harry's bum a firm squeeze. "Ugh…enough with the bodice-ripper dialogue…six minutes to go…so let's get naked!"

There was still a bit of disbelief within Harry's eyes as he stepped back and followed his girlfriend's lead. Once down to just his boxers, he cast a Tempus spell to confirm the accuracy of Hermione's wristwatch.

"Five and a half minutes, right Hermio…..ne?"

The Muggleborn witch was bending down to retrieve the knickers that she'd just stepped out of. She froze when she heard Harry's voice break, imagining the from-behind bare-arsed view that she was now providing him. Taking in a breath to help steel her nerves, she casually stood up straight, turned towards her future past lover, and glanced at her watch (which was now the only thing that she was wearing).

"Five minutes, fifteen seconds by my watch…Harry?"

"Erm…Merlin. Sorry for staring at you like a fool, but you're so beautiful!"

"And you're so handsome…and hard," Hermione quipped.

"How could I not be?"

Hermione took a few steps forward and reached for the waistband of Harry's boxer shorts. "Need some help guiding this tent off of its pole?"

Her boyfriend shook his head. "Better pace myself, or it'll be over before it starts!"

"Relax, Harry…we don't have to rush straight into this, do we?" Hermione asked, as she ignored his suggestion and stretched out the elastic of his waistband.

"That was my question, actually."

"What was?" Hermione asked, as she dropped to her knees and carefully guided his boxers down towards the floor.

"What is the exact definition of fornication?" Harry asked. "I mean…I know what it is, but do we have to be going full-out the whole time, or can we ease into it a bit? You know…maybe some foreplay before we…you know?"

Hermione thought about this question as she regained her footing, glanced at her watch, and dragged a single finger down Harry's chest.

"Well…the exact definition is something like sexual intercourse between partners who aren't married," she stated.

"So we wouldn't be fornicating if, say, we stuck to…let's say…just using our tongues?"

Hermione nodded. "Sexual intercourse, strictly speaking, is defined as vaginal penetration by a penis. That's how unmarried witches can still fool around while still maintaining their virginity."

Harry shook his head as he pulled his girlfriend into an embrace, and kissed the side of her head. "I doubt that's how Molly would define it."

"I hear you," Hermione replied, as she rested her chin on Harry's bare shoulder. "The way she throws the term Scarlet Womanaround….."

The naked witch suddenly broke the embrace by leaning back and shouting, "Holy Shit, Harry…you're brilliant!"

"What?" he asked. "I am?"

"Absolutely!" Hermione declared, as she grabbed her boyfriend's hand and dragged him over to the transfigured bed.

"Hoisted on her own petard!" she declared, as she pushed Harry down onto the bed and climbed on top of him.

The raven-haired teen looked up at the girl who was now straddling his thighs and groaned.

"Hermione…I'd rather not think about Molly hoisting herself on anything with you sitting on me like this."

"Oh, right. Sorry," Hermione replied, making yet another time check. "T-minus three minutes Harry…what I meant was that on the one hand you might think that Molly will be beaten by her own Puritanical sense of insanity."

"She will?"

"Yes, Harry…think for a minute…"

"Don't have much more time than a minute."

"Two minutes forty-five, actually. Just think about how far we've already gone, Harry. Hell, look at what the two of us are doing right now….do you think that Molly would consider this to be fornication?"

"Erm….yes," Harry stammered, trying to focus more on Hermione's logic and less on her lovely breasts.

"But it isn't fornication, is it? Because right now your bits are only pressing against my bits, instead of penetrating them."

Harry, who was now beginning to follow the logic, reached up and began to fondle both of Hermione's breasts. He then asked, "And this wouldn't be fornicating either, would it?"

Hermione looked down at Harry's hands and rolled her eyes. "No, playing with my girls is not the same as vaginal penetration, so it isn't fornication." She then reached down and grabbed Harry's erection. "Neither is this, by the way."

"Careful!" Harry hissed, finding Hermione's grip far too pleasurable for their own good.

"Oh…alright," she sighed, as she dropped her grip and dropped down to the bed so that she could stretch out against Harry's side. Leaning into his embrace, she said, "By this logic you could be buggering my arse in…two minutes and ten seconds…and Molly's clock wouldn't care…because by definition, it's not fornication."

Harry squeezed Hermione's shoulder and playfully asked, "I could, huh?"

"Could what?"

"Could be buggering your arse two minutes from now?"

"Please, Harry…I'm trying to think out loud."

"And I'm just thinking about what you're saying out loud!"

"Well stop thinking about buggering my arse right now and consider the other hand."

"What's this other hand going to do during the buggering?"

"Harry!" Hermione protested, as she nudged her knee against his leg. "On the other hand…magic is largely about intent, isn't it?"

Harry let out a breath and nodded his head. "It is, but Hermione…you have less than two minutes to work this out…."

"So stop interrupting me!" Hermione said. "Magic is mostly about intent, and it was Molly who expressed her intentions to the clockmaker, and Molly who placed the letters on the clock face, and Molly who said the spells that activated the clock's magic, so by that measure…"

"If it's Molly's clock, it follows Molly's logic?" Harry asked.

"Exactly."

"So buggering would be considered fornication."

Hermione snorted. "Harry…like I said…using Molly's logic we're fornicating right now."

Harry thought for a moment.

"So your one hand is saying that only my erect penis inside your vagina will make the clock think that we're fornicating," he reasoned. "While your other hand is saying that we could spend nineteen minutes doing nothing more than what we're doing now and the clock is going to raise the alarm?"

"That's about it."

"So how do we figure out which hand is right?"

Hermione shook her head. "Well, on the one hand…"

"Enough with the hands, please?"

"Okay, okay…have you figured out how you're going to delay ejaculation for nineteen minutes while your penis is in my vagina?"

"Not unless I'm thinking nasty distractions, or pinching myself every ten seconds…"

"So that's an argument in favor of Molly's logic," Hermione reasoned. "And there's always the knowledge of future's past."

"Verb tenses, again?"

"No…I mean…we know that a minute from now that the clock will place our hands over fornication. We know that has already happened, even though in one sense it hasn't happened yet. So whatever we're doing in the next minute has to be considered fornication…at least according to Molly's clock. No way around it."

"Oh," said Harry. "Are you sure?"

Hermione let out a sigh. She once again looked at her watch and said, "Yes…now that I've thought it out…I'm sure."

"Okay, then," said Harry. "So that means that we don't have to have sex right now."

"Not if having sex means sexual intercourse."

"So what do you want to do now?"

Hermione thought for a moment, then lifted herself up until she was squatting by Harry's side.

"Well…even if we think that we could do nothing and still trip the clock's alarm…no need to risk such a conservative hypothesis."

"No need?"

"No…I'd rather we test the limits of our shared sexual development, rather than test the limits of Molly's Puritanism."

"What does that mean?"

Hermione responded by standing up on the transfigured bed. She then stepped one foot over Harry's chest and squatted down, holding her crotch only a few inches above his face. Holding her wristwatch out in front of her face, she watched the second hand's motion as she asked, "Think that your tongue can last nineteen minutes, mister?"

"Really?"

"Hey, you were the one suggesting that oral sex would count."

Harry chuckled. "I was, wasn't I?...Well, if you think it's the right thing to do…mmmph!"

"Sorry to interrupt, Love…but it's fornicating time."

To prove her point, Hermione twisted her wrist so that she could show Harry her watch.

The nod that he gave in response added to the stimulation as she pressed against his face.

The soundness of Hermione's logic was confirmed a minute later, when they both heard the faint cry of Molly's clock as it raised the "Scarlet Alert" from inside the Burrow.