I roll over and groan. A wet kiss greets me from the other side of the bed. Susan must have bought some sort of clover perfume …

“Bloody hell!”

( At first I think I must have done something to pissed off a mobster or something because there’s a horse head in my bed. )

Aside from a few lamps, pretty much everything is back to normal at our flat after the fire. Well, the groceries were pretty much ruined but I just got new ones and shrunk them for now so I can keep looking at the shops for the certain lamp I know Susan is still upset over. I tried a Reparo Charm on it after the water had knocked it off the mantle but it backfired because my wand tip was covered with cranberry sauce still.

As I open the door to the antique shop … yes the lamp that was broken was a rare one, owned previously by Susan’s late Aunt Amelia. I know it won’t replace the one that was broken but it’s the least I can do. It was the look on Susan’s face when she told me things can be replaced, Justin, people can’t, that made me need to find a duplicate.

At the third antique shop I visit, the owner tells me he doesn’t have that particular lamp but that he could get it for me. Sometimes my Muggle upbringing causes me to ask stupid questions like, “how long will it take to ship?”

The old clerk looks at me strangely, goes to a very large, very dusty cabinet, calls the serial number from the broken base I handed him at the beginning of my query and within seconds there is a popping sound and a duplicate of the lamp is sitting on a shelf of the old cabinet as if it had always been there.

“This was the very next one made in the firing days according to the serial number here,” he tells me, wiping away the dust that covers the tiny etching on the brass bottom. The glass will need to be shined up but as I stare at the lamp, I see another carving on it. To A and M It’s the same carving that was on the first lamp!

“These lamps were typically sold in sets of two,” the clerk tells me. I knew that some of Susan’s Aunt’s stuff had been stolen after her death but this is a wonderful coincidence. A better replacement than I could have ever dreamed of.

I pay the clerk the asking price after enquiring about his source. The theft of Amelia’s belongings was so long ago that whoever is selling it now is likely just an innocent proprietor. Still makes me mad though.

The clerk didn’t tell me until after I’d shrunk the lamp that I ought not to have done it. I’m just about having a heart attack when he tells me the lamp will likely be okay if I resize it gently. I only know one reversal for shrinking! And as I told you, it’s the one I used frantically the time Susan was mad at me and … Keep your knickers on, I’ll tell you one day about that fateful night.

As I’m wondering if my life will ever be a quiet one and debating if I’d even like that, I’m answered right away. Hell no, I’m going to kick the hippogriff crap out of that guy! Not thirty feet in front of the shop a woman is struggling with a man who is trying to steal her packages and purse.

“Oi! You there, leave her alone!” I yell but as I approach, the older woman gets the upper hand. My jaw drops and I wonder if I will need to help him.

“How … dare … you!” the woman yells furiously, her purse clunking mercilessly on the bloke’s head with each syllable. The man staggers to his feet and I fear he’s really mad now and will do some lasting harm to the woman so I approach, my wand just under my jacket.

“Ouch! Lady, I’m trying to rescue you!” I shout as I’m clobbered by the surprising heavy small purse too. The robber hits the pavement beside me. Tiny quantities of my shrunken groceries spill out onto the roadway and my clothing. I smell peanut butter. That’s because it’s in my hair. I hear a sickening crunch. Oh no, please not the lamp …

Blue eyes stare down at me and a smile forms on the wrinkled lips.

“Justin Finch-Fletchley is that you?” I can’t quite place this person who seems to know me so well. Strong arms reach down and pull me to my feet while a very spry leg shoots out from beneath a pink skirt and kicks the robber back to the ground as he tries to crawl away. A very nice, muscular leg … Ew, Justin, old lady leg! I shake my head and look back into the twinkling blue eyes that are now fully part of a smiling face.

The leg goes back under the pink skirt and my eyes find their way back to the face that doesn’t match it at all. I pull my shirt away from my body. Tiny particles of egg goo and shell stick to my chest hair. I’m gonna have to shop all over again.

“Well, you seem to have this situation well in control,” I begin to say as Muggle policemen approach rapidly. Before I can say a word, I’m ordered to put my hands on my head and kneel down. I do so and damn me but I can’t help but take another look at those legs.

“Eyes up, pervert!” shouts one of the officers placing his knight stick under my chin causing me to bite my own tongue.

“I wasthn’t looking at her legth! Well I wasth but not … I’m engagthed! Lady, pleasthe tell them I wasth trying to help!” The policemen’s eyes follow a tiny can of pasta sauce as it rolls out of my pocket into a nearby sewer grate. They look at one another puzzled, completely distracted by the tiny groceries all around me.

Thoroughly fed up by now by the fact that the officers have left the purse-snatcher completely unscathed as he tries to get away, the woman pulls a wand!

The policemen’s eye seem to slide out of focus for a moment as she discreetly places her wand back in its pink holster at her side just under her jacket. I blink as a small bit of milk flows down into my eyes and the tiny carton lands on my shoe.

“As for you,” the woman tells the robber, let this be a lesson to you that won’t waste mine and the court’s time!” A spark shoots from the newly re emerged wand and the robber’s pants are set ablaze as he screams off down the cobbled street leaping into a snow pile and rolling around screaming. This reminds me of something Susan would do.

A small, unwrinkled hand is offered to me yet again and I take it.

“Thanksth … Msth?”

“Brown,” the lady says.

“Hey! My fianthay and I know a Lav …. Lavender? Is that you?”

“Took you long enough, Justin,” Lavender laughs and now I know why the blue eyes were so familiar to me.

“That was the best Confundment Charm I’ve seen!” I say in real admiration. “These aren’t the drones you’re looking for,” I say in my best Star Wars voice, waiving my hand in front of the officer’s faces. Oops, better stop that, they’re gaining their wits.

Lavender and I hurry off and duck into a pub.

“I’ll have a pint of mead,” I tell the bartender.

“And for your mum?” she says.

“Shesth not my mum,” I slur dismissively, sloshing beer over my poor tongue as Lavender performs a resizing charm on Susan’s lamp while the bartender looks away. I close my eyes until she’s says it’s still intact. The tag from the antique shop is still featured predominantly on the shade.

The bartender’s eyes shoot from the antique tag on the lamp to me. “Ah, okay, whatever.”

I’m just about to retort that Lavender is not my mum again when I realize what the bartender thinks now. I’ll just shut up.

“Now, don’t drink too much mead, son,” Lavender smiles in a wicked sort of way. The clerk stares at me triumphantly.

“You know something, you’re evil Ms. Brown,” I tell her as we clank glasses in a toast.

“Coming from you, I’ll take that as a compliment,” she tells me.

“You would anyway,” I retort. “So what are you doing in that get-up?”

“I just felt like some fresh air. I’d just finished a book signing and usually it’s right back home or to a hotel but I really just needed to get out.”

It’s good to hear Lavender say that. For so long after she was attached by Fenrir Greyback, we couldn’t convince her to go out in public, even in disguise. But then no one could really blame her with the werewolf registration still in place. It was a sore issue even for people like Bill Weasley and Lavender who don’t transform on full moons.

“Fancy a bite?” Lavender smiles and her false teeth are slightly pointy. That is not the thing to say to a person who was just thinking of werewolf attacks.

“What … Oh, sure. Yeah, I could uths thsum food,” I say lamely.

“Stick your tongue out,” Lavender orders, still completely amused by my predicament. Just as I do, the bartender shows back up.

“There’s no call for rudeness,” he tells me. “I do have other customers to serve you know. It takes a few minutes.”

“I’m thorry, I wasthn’t thticking …” I begin, but the mead and Lavender’s strawberry margarita is sloshed down onto the table and the bartender stalks away. I’m going to have to leave a huge tip …

In seconds my tongue is good as new and Lavender and I talking are about Susan’s and my wedding while we wait for lunch. Well, that is Lavender is talking about silk versus satin and months for weddings and girl stuff like that. I’m trying to envision my bachelor party. That’s the nice thing about being a guy. Put on a suit, show up on time and it’s all good.

When lunch arrives, Lavender frowns. “Oh, Justin, I ordered extra rare steak, I hope you don’t mind …”

I pick up an onion ring and stuff it in my mouth. “Not at all.” I just won’t watch her cut into it.

Lavender insists on paying for lunch, reminding me that I have to go grocery shopping again. I make her promise not to be a stranger. As she’s doing up the top button of her coat, I can just make out the scars that I remember with a sickening jolt, go all the way down her body. How could I forget? When I picked Lavender up the day it happened to carry her to a safer spot, I seriously worried that she would fall in two in my arms. There was that much blood.

“Justin, are you okay?” Lavender asks me, handing me the lamp and reminding me not to shrink it again.

“Yeah, fine.” I am, too. It’s just that the night the battle happened is never far from anyone’s mind. Without Susan lighting the way with her wand and yelling at me to keep going as we tried to get Lavender some help, we’d have never made it the hospital wing in time. And it was only when we were out of immediate danger that I learned that Susan had been walking on a broken leg the entire time without complaint.

Lavender and I step out into the cold air. We make plans to get together with some old friends soon before she descends the stairs in the opposite direction I need to go. I marvel as her usually impeccable posture becomes bent with age. She sure can play the part. I just wish she could learn to be herself more, too. Her books are fantastic, romantic, full of ideas on how a bloke should … I mean, not that I’ve ever read any of Lavender’s books or anything. I was just tidying up some of Susan’s things on the nightstand and one happened to fall open. Yeah, that’s it.

I crack one eye open and roll quickly to the side of the bed.

“Ben. Never. Ever. Get in my face in the morning, especially when I’m supposed to be seeing Susan there …”

“Sorry, you were moaning. Blimey you look bad.” ( Ben’s one of those annoying people who can get up in the morning ready to go. )

I hold my wand ahead of me, ducking low to go through yet another support beam opening. I can’t believe this was all made by Muggles. Well, to be fair, it wasn’t entirely Muggle-made. I mean if it had been, it would never have survived the Blitz. Sure, the major grunt-work was done by Muggles; toting cart after cart of yellow bricks, mole-like, into the dark chasms of the earth on some crazy roller coaster-like contraption, mortaring them together while fighting off the ever-present fear of cave-ins. But oddly enough, it was Gellert Grindelwald who cast the Support Charms on the tunnels during World War Two. Otherwise, London would have been a much different city.

( Now of course, don’t get me wrong. )

I tried to ring my father last night. I have no idea why I would need his permission for something like what I'm about to do. But I do. Not that I got it. Hell, I don't even know how I'm going to say the words, let alone have them come out at all romantic.

( My hand wraps protectively around the item in my pocket. )