Opened At The Close...

15: More Than A Beast

   Dedicated to A_Little_Kitty with love from @LunaPage💛!
   Harry had not been planning the wedding with Ginny. He had been busy at work, and we'll just say that he was seeing less of Teddy than he was used to. There had been a strange case at the Ministry; more and more beasts were on the loose. Appearantly, the Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures (DRCMC) had been slacking and a series of rare magical animals was ravaging through the country. There were Occamies in Devon, nifflers near Surry, and there were even some whispers of a nundu on the loose. Harry seriously hoped they were only rumors.
   After an urgent owl at four'o clock one morning, he had jumped from his bed and threw some robes on a fast as possible. He didn't worry about being quiet, because Ginny was still staying at the Burrow. Teddy was in his room and slept as heavily as a sloth on anethstetics. Kreacher can take care of him for now, Harry thought. There's no time to drop him off at Andromeda's.
He left a note on the table for Kreacher, grabbed a bag of ready-to-go vials of various potions, the Cloak, and his wand, and Apparated to the dark alley outside a men's restroom in London. After flushing himself down the toilet, Harry ran straight to the Auror Office.
"Sir, I got your owl," Harry said breathlessly.
"So it seems," replied a curt man by the name of Joshua Pearson. "Elms is in the break room, waiting to Disapparate with you. He can explain the...ah...situation." Harry nodded at him and ran to the break room, where an agitated Elms stood drinking coffee with a drawn wand.
"Potter!" Elms said with relief, vanishing his coffee with a flick of his wand. "We have to go, now! This isn't a beast, Potter. This is a criminal. One that has been evading the Ministry's clutches since the Battle."
  Without letting Harry ask any questions, he grabbed Harry's arm and spun, leading them through darkness to a disturbingly familiar place.
"Godric's Hollow," Harry breathed. His confused senses seemed to snap into place, making him sharp and alert. Harry drew his wand, scanning his surroundings. They were standing in front of the church, whose stained-glass windows were dark and glistening with dew in the yellow summer moonlight. The air smelled like grass, rain, and honeysuckle; the whole town was quiet except for the tinkling of windchimes from a distant cottage. The trees and bushes were the only things moving, and even they seemed to stop bow and then in the gentle breeze.
"Sorry, Potter," Elms whispered, glancing around. "Should've warned you where we were going."
"It's fine, Elms," Harry said. "It's just... the last time I came here, Voldemort's snake had disguised itself as Bathilda Bagshot, and tried to kill me and Hermione." There was silence for a moment as they walked down the street, wands lit and ready to jinx. Then, Elms spoke.
"What we're dealing with is a lot less dangerous than You-Know-Who's snake. It's that old Death Eater, Lucius Malfoy."
"Oh, I'm not afraid of that old coward," Harry said, relieved.
"He can be dangerous," Elms warned. "He's evaded capture for a year, and every time we have him cornered, he slips away..."
"I'm going to be right here, then," Harry said, slipping the Invisibility Cloak over his body.
"Hey, Potter? Got anything in that potion bag of yours?" Elms suggested.
"Yeah," whispered Harry. He reached into his bag and extracted a vial of potion the color of molten gold. Handing it to Elms, he said, "Felix Felicis." Elms raised his eyebrows.
"Is it brewed correctly?" He asked.
"Yes. I used some the other day while we were chasing those nifflers."
"Couldn't have offered me any?" Elms said, taking a swig from the vial and handing back under the cloak.
"Sorry," Harry said, taking a sip of liquid luck for himself. After that sip, it took a lot of self restraint to not throw the Cloak off. They kept walking down the street wands at the ready, more alert now than they were before. There was a whooshing sound, and the two whipped around to face a figure in dark, billowing robes. He drew his wand.
"Hello, sir. Can I be of any assistance?"Elms asked politely. The man kept his wand drawn, and said,
"No, thank you. I believe I can manage." His hood fell, exposing his long blond hair and the unmistakable face of Lucius Malfoy. Elms tried to jinx him, but missed, which seemed crazy given the fact he had just had a nice big swig of liquid luck.
    All hell broke loose in the quiet streets of Godric's Hollow. Malfoy aimed jinxes at them, but everything just seemed to miss. The porches of cottages were hit instead, knocking holes in the wood and cracks in the stone. Bricks were shot out of sockets, and one of the church's windows shattered and rained to the ground.
It was a second before Harry remembered he was invisible.
"Petrificus totalus!" He yelled, and since Malfoy couldn't see him, the hex hit him square in the chest. He fell backward, hitting the stones with a thud. Harry walked over, while Elms strolled around, leisurely fixing the damage. "Hey, Lucius? I have something for you."
Harry gave him a good kick in the groin.
"That was from your son," he said.
     There was a bit of paperwork after they got Malfoy back to the Ministry, but it was a short time before Harry could go home. The sun was just rising as he appeared with a pop in his kitchen.
"Amare?" He called. Grabbing a pan and the carton of eggs, he began to make breakfast. The phoenix came swooping in a second later, cooing softly. He wrote a note and sent it to Draco Malfoy; he thought that he should know before anyone else. After all, Harry had given his dad a good kick in the nuts from him.
      As Harry was stirring his eggs, a pair of arms wrapped around him from behind. He gasped and jumped so suddenly that the spatula flew from his hand.
"It's only me, Harry!" The giggling voice of Ginny said. Harry sighed with relief.
"When did you get here?" He asked, picking up the spatuala and cleaning it with a quick scourgify.
"Around an hour ago," Ginny said, shrugging.
"Guess what?" Harry asked.
"What?"
"Elms and I caught Lucius Malfoy earlier," Harry informed her.
"Really?" She gasped.
"Yes. And last time I saw Draco Malfoy, he told me to kick his dad when I caught him."
"I bet that was fun," Ginny said with a smile, taking the spatula from him and turning off the stove.
"So fun," Harry agreed, kissing her neck from behind. "Is Teddy still asleep?" She nodded, turning to face Harry as they wrapped their arms around each other. "Do you have practice later?" He asked.
"No, actually. This is my day off," Ginny said, smiling.
"Maybe I can see how things are coming with the wedding," Harry suggested.
"Yes," Ginny said, leaning a little closer."Only a week and two days away, now..."
Harry leaned a little closer. "Can I help with anything? Or is it all done?"
"I can find something for you to do," Ginny said, closing the gap between their lips.
"Like what?" Harry asked when.they pulled their faces apart.
"Well," Ginny laid her head on his shoulder. "You might want new dress robes, and there's a few things we need to buy. You buy them for me."
"I'd be happy to Gin," Harry responded, letting her go reluctantly because his eggs were getting cold and, well, he was hungry. Ginny went upstairs and woke Teddy, and the three at breakfast together. Harry realized that less than a week from now, they would be doing this together as a family. The thought made him smile into his pumpkin juice.