Right—Potter's safe, the second Potter is in place, the paperwork is as solid as it's going to get, the Blacks are alive, and how long that lasts is up to them, Andrei thought, making his way around the Black Lake. The burning question is what to do about Sirius. The poor bloke's already got enough rattling around in his head without adding Azkaban to the mix—if he sits in there much longer he'll go completely round the bend. And I'm no psychiatrist, and neither is anyone else. Gran Valya's been an improvement lately, admittedly—she's even taken Snape under her wing, in a manner of speaking. Though who's educating whom is anyone's guess—the moment they get onto the subject of poisons and potions, you might as well turn out the lights, they can go at it for hours. And where does it come from? Actually, that is a real question—Walburga's started taking an interest in antidotes. Though that's probably less about Snape and more about Regulus needing complex ones right now.
Regulus, exhausted but happy, was still moving around the house with difficulty—mostly with Kreacher's devoted assistance. Curiously, the "magic porridge" had had the least effect on the two of them compared to everyone else—which probably meant their changes had run the deepest, not surprising in the circumstances. Sirius had come up repeatedly in conversation; several enquiries had been sent to the Auror Office regarding his case, but not one had received a reply, which surprised everyone except Hagrid.
A full assault on Azkaban mounted by a single family and a couple of sympathisers held no appeal for any of them. Walburga had begun quietly restoring contacts in the wider wizarding world, with an eye to reaching someone inside the magical prison for purposes that were frankly illegal, but so far they had only managed to slip through a package of warm clothing—inside which, at Hagrid's insistence, a portion of the Porridge of Reasonable Behaviour had been concealed. Whether it had actually reached the addressee was something to verify before sending the next batch, but they had no information yet.
I wonder—do owls fly there? Snape had asked at the time, but no one could answer him. And since there was no precedent, presumably owls couldn't manage the distance. So Andrei kept constructing increasingly wild theories about how to get even the minimum of information.
Owls over open sea? What if one were to come to an arrangement with the Giant Squid? Though could I even Apparate that far—it's not exactly next door to the lake…
The surface of the lake rippled in a light breeze, which seemed to carry that thought away and replace it with a new one:
I wonder—is Arthur Weasley's car running yet, or still on the drawing board? Oh, wait. Where's Pettigrew—is he already with the Weasleys or not? Stop guessing, just go and check. Ah, this is Hagrid's legacy at work again, clearly—my thinking works, but sometimes it works sideways. I should eat more porridge.
Thus concluding that all roads led to the Burrow and it was unavoidable in any case, Andrei caught his foot on a root, went flying, and only thanks to the excellent reflexes he'd developed of late—courtesy in no small part of Harry Potter—avoided planting his face into the ground. From the outside it must have looked as though someone had barked "drop and give me twenty" at him. As he straightened and dusted the earth off his palms, he heard a creaking laugh just above his ear, and without thinking swung round with his fist.
Then he shouted in pain. Try punching a tree and see how it goes for you. The dryad, meanwhile, was in absolute hysterics.
Filtering his Russian vocabulary through gritted teeth and substituting English approximations, Andrei hissed for about thirty seconds, then looked at her expressively.
"For the record—I generally don't hit women."
"Only when you can actually tell," she added. "I'm not a woman." She giggled again. "I'm made of wood."
"I had gathered," Andrei said, nursing his fist with wounded dignity. "Your sense of humour matches."
"That's it—I'm not milking any more unicorns for you!" She stamped a root-like foot and made to sweep off, but Hagrid caught her in one leap and wrapped every available limb around her in a firm embrace.
Ninochka—for of course it was she—wriggled a bit, but apparently turning him to dust didn't particularly interest her, especially since the gamekeeper said so many flattering things to her, and in that voice of his. Really, it was almost a shame he couldn't propagate by cuttings—she nearly flushed at the thought—there was always pollination, of course… but if he could just give her a small cutting, and she could put a little branch of her own soul into it, what a sturdy little girl they'd get… Oh, what nonsense was growing into her crown today.
Andrei would have kissed Aragog for the unicorn milk, he was so grateful—but Ninochka had found kissing entirely baffling and hadn't seen the point at all. It turned out she far preferred strokes, and having certain branches gently tended—particularly the ones at the top, around her head.
Well-well, we know what you were thinking, and yes, some of the ladies among you can be just as bad, no argument there. The thing is, with dryads it all works very, very differently, so we ask you not to over-anthropomorphise—and Andrei, having caught himself doing exactly that, seconded the request.
Naturally, they came to an arrangement about regular deliveries. What did Ninochka ask in return? Not a great deal, really—could he remove a few more cobwebs, since Aragog had turned out to be on one hand a gifted weaver and on the other quite incapable of undoing his own work. Then the gamekeeper needed to shore up a stream bank that the centaurs had churned up, clear out an old spring nearly buried in moss, transplant a few saplings of an unfamiliar species—he didn't recognise the variety and suspected they would become homes for new dryads, which later proved correct. And a few other small things besides, which pushed the visit to the Weasleys back by several hours.
***
Evening at the Burrow was never peaceful—nor was any other time of day, except for a few hours in the small hours of the night. Molly Weasley, visibly if not yet heavily pregnant, was being run off her feet by Ron—a year and a half old and already fully mobile—by the twins, whose energy recognised no limits and whose heads were incapable of retaining more than one prohibition at a time and then only briefly, and by Percy, who was perpetually getting the worst of the twins. She was thanking the universe that none of these children had shown any signs of magic yet, and that the older ones were at school. And that at least the youngest wasn't quite keeping up with the twins and Percy yet. So her complexion and general dishevelment were in perfect harmony with the flushed face and non-existent hairstyle of their uninvited guest, fresh from a day's work in the forest.
"Er—ahem—hello, Molly," Andrei offered cautiously.
"Hagrid?" She still had the energy to be surprised. "What brings you here, good evening, would you like some tea, did Dumbledore send you?"
Andrei opened his mouth, uncertain where to begin, but it turned out an answer wasn't required.
"Ar-THUR!" Molly let out a sound roughly equivalent to a fire alarm, and around the corner of the house almost immediately appeared an equally stocky red-haired man in stretched tracksuit bottoms, smeared—judging by the smell—with engine oil.
Hope stirred in Andrei's chest that he was about to see the famous car.
"Hagrid?" Arthur said, surprised in exactly the same way his wife had been a moment before.
"Good evening, Arthur—I've actually come to see you," Andrei said, shaking his hand carefully. "Sorry, Molly, it's a bit of business—"
"What business?" she enquired immediately, in a tone that made it definitively clear who was the head of this household and who was the more important part—the neck—and simultaneously shooed the children away to stop eavesdropping.
This worked with remarkable magical efficiency: the twins immediately settled quietly in the bushes, catching every word and gaping at the half-giant; Percy, delighted with the reprieve, retreated into the house; and Hagrid handed little Ronnie a flatbread made from the special porridge—just in case. The toddler promptly sat down on a pile of wellington boots and began working through the offering, and the garden became unexpectedly quiet and calm.
Andrei sighed. The Weasleys were Dumbledore's people—he had to be very, very careful. But how? Damn, he really should think things through in advance at least sometimes. He improvised. And told them—oh yes—the same tale of the motorbike "cut to absolute pieces," which earned him complete understanding and what appeared to be genuine enthusiasm from the head of the household. At least, Arthur's eyes lit up with unmistakeable interest.
He must be quite a talented artefact-worker, it occurred to Andrei suddenly. That could come in extremely useful.
The neck, however, was entirely unconvinced. Molly pursed her lips.
"Why on earth are you concerned about the property of that traitor Black?"
Andrei almost sat down. What a wo— woman. But he recovered quickly.
"Because of Harry!" he said—and immediately bit his tongue, on which a long compound sentence about godfather, property, and inheritance had been teetering.
"What about Harry?"
"Well, it's just—" he scratched the back of his head for verisimilitude. "The godfather's property—he'll inherit, won't he?"
"Which godfather?"
The trap snapped shut.
Stumbling as frequently as possible, Hagrid produced yet another version of the story, invoking "the great man Dumbledore" at every available and unavailable opportunity. Molly's expressive face cycled through a great many expressions before doubt began to surface around the latest mention of Dumbledore et cetera. Andrei paused deliberately—and was rewarded.
"But a magical godfather couldn't have—" Molly said, spreading her hands. She was, after all, from an old pureblood family and understood something about these matters.
Andrei shrugged and, inwardly wincing, began his Dumbledore chorus again—only to be interrupted this time by Arthur:
"Hagrid—are you certain that Sirius Black is Harry Potter's godfather?"
"Well of course! If the Headmaster says so, how could it be otherwise? He and James—Potter, I mean—were absolutely inseparable, weren't they." Andrei gave a not entirely convincing but very loud sniff. "Friends their whole lives! There were four of them, and Lily Evans too— I remember… Oh. I think I don't remember that part very clearly, actually."
The Weasleys exchanged a glance. Andrei blinked as innocently as he could manage and honestly admitted that he might be mistaken—his memory wasn't entirely reliable these days, not since the fall. A bad fall. On his head. And could they possibly help with the motorbike? Because you really couldn't go robbing a poor little orphan like that.
Arthur gave his wife a pleading look, but Molly rolled her eyes.
"By the time your little orphan is grown up?" she said. "You've got a solid sixteen years. Plenty of time. Now—supper!"
The twins erupted from the bushes and crashed into the kitchen, something fell and broke inside the house, Molly yelped and rushed after them. Andrei was already considering a polite refusal, but then it occurred to him that Pettigrew might already be here, inside the house. So he accepted the invitation, sat down on the bench carefully—but the furniture, built to survive a small army, held him—and did his best to eat modestly. The interior and exterior of the Burrow alike made it clear that the Weasley family and financial comfort were not on particularly close terms. And yet he could—
"Molly—is there anything I could help with?" it came out before he could stop it. He glanced at the twins, working their way cheerfully through mashed potato and sausages, and clarified: "The forest turns up useful things, you know. Mushrooms, herbs…"
Molly was moved nearly to tears. Andrei hadn't even expected to have to persuade her that bringing over an armful of potion ingredients now and then was no trouble at all—especially now that he happened to know where unicorns liked to groom their manes.
"Why do you rush so?" he asked. "It's hard going, with so many at once. They're quite the handful."
The elder Weasleys sighed heavily. The handful in question had, fortunately, begun to nod off—well-filled stomachs tend to have that effect—and were dispatched to their room. Percy went too, and Andrei just managed to notice a rat's tail tucked inside the thin jumper. His fingers made an involuntary grabbing motion—fortunately they were under the table at the time, and his head was very thoroughly occupied with other things. Specifically, with a devious plan for eroding the authority of a certain great wizard, in which the main challenge was not only the eroding but not getting caught doing it.
"What we need is a seventh son," Arthur said suddenly, when Molly had also gone to put little Ron to bed. "He'll be able to break the curse, they say."
And he shared with Hagrid his and his wife's hopes—so thoroughly that neither of them noticed Molly return and began clearing the table.
"A son, then?" Andrei said, unable to help himself, stacking plates. "You're certain?"
Molly sighed, stroked her belly, and nodded—and his face fell. So that's what's happening. Oh, but the seventh will be Ginny! Wait—they probably can't determine the sex in the womb yet, even being wizards. Damn. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the old man at it again.
He caught the hard glint in Molly's eyes and understood—yes, he'd given himself away. And they weren't letting him leave until he explained himself.
"You know something."
"Well, I— It's just—" Andrei spread his hands with exaggerated care so as not to knock anything over, and sighed. "It's, er— That is—
"It's a girl."