[Was supposed to go up Friday. *blushgiggle*]

“Excuse me?”

The Auror continued walking by her desk.

“Excuse me,” Mira said, a little louder, a little firmer.

The Auror paused and looked at her though his hand was already clutching the handle of Harry’s door. He raised a brow at her. “Yes?” was the deep reply.

“I’ll have to ask you to check in with me before you walk through that door,” she said pleasantly, blue eyes bright. “And as I know Mr. Potter does not have a meeting scheduled with any Aurors at this hour, we can go about penciling you in for another time.”

Snorting, the Auror turned from her and proceeded to open the door.

Mira’s brow furrowed slightly, temper flaring. A flush high in her cheeks and eyes a little too bright, she spoke again. “I would not suggest stepping through that door, Auror Sanders.”

She didn’t know how things were run in the outer office prior to her time with Harry, but the biggest thing Mira had noticed was a severe lack of respect – respect for her, but at base, lack of respect for Harry. He was head of the Magical Law Enforcement Department for heaven’s sake, and yet most everyone acted as if he was at their leisure.

It was absolutely unacceptable. They could at least ask to see him instead of just assuming. Mira knew that Harry didn’t always mind the interruptions, but it was the principle of the matter. He was their boss, all of their boss, and he should be treated with the respect that entitled him.

Amused now, the Auror raised a brow at her again as his hand dropped and he turned back towards her. “No? What would you do then, Miss …” his eyes scanned to her nameplate and it made Mira fume further; he’d been in these offices many times before. He knew her name. “… Montgomery?” He seemed to amuse himself further and chuckled, adding, “I’ve things of import to discuss with him. Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it.”

Her eyes flashed angrily. As much as Mira enjoyed her time at the MLE, she loathed those like Auror Sanders. They acted as if they were better human beings than most everyone else either for the pure fact that they were an Auror, had a number of years to their name ‘fighting the good fight’, or both.

Her hand tightened around her wand beneath the desk, breath drawn to speak or hex, she wasn’t sure, but just that moment the door opened.

Harry's eyes widened behind his glasses when he opened the door, a man's back blocking his view of anything else. "Mira?" The man turned at his voice, a smug expression on his face. Green gaze flicking to his secretary, Harry's eyebrow furrowed when she saw the pink tint to her cheeks. He was pants at reading girls, but it was obvious that it wasn't a good coloring on her face.

"Something wrong?"

Blue eyes a little too bright with her temper, Mira shifted her gaze from Auror Sanders to Harry. Her thoughts raced. There was two ways to handle this. How she wanted to deal with it was to call the Auror out, but the comments on the tip of her tongue were anything but professional.

Choosing the other, less savory, but more professional route, Mira turned her gaze back to the man standing between them. "Auror Sanders was just about to make an appointment with you, Mr. Potter. That's all."

Chuckling, Auror Sanders shook his head and turned from Mira. "She meant right now, sir. Now, I wanted to tell you about ..."

"Actually, I'm fairly certain that's not what she meant, Bradford," Harry said, reaching a hand up to run through his hair as he turned back to look at Mira, "because she didn't tell me I had any other appointments for the evening."

He wasn't sure when he'd begun to decipher the looks in Mira's eyes, but her blue gaze made it clear that Sanders hadn't been exactly respectful in his insistence. Something about the way her lips were pursed made it clear that he'd said something to make the normally pleasant atmosphere of Mira's space tint with annoyance, and he found himself reluctant to allow it to continue.

A frown pulled between Bradford Sander's brow as he looked at Harry. The little secretary was a nuisance, amusing to get riled, but he'd not had a problem before this. Then again, he'd not been at an impasse between the two of them at the same time.

Things were different. He wasn't sure if he liked it, but now wasn't the time to address it. "I must have misunderstood," he said, nodding first at Harry and then shifting his gaze to Mira. "How about tomorrow, darling?"

Color flushed high on her cheeks again at the comment. I'll show you 'darling' she thought uncharitably, releasing her wand a moment later and bringing her hand back above the desk to grasp her quill and turn the calendar to the next day. "Very good, Auror Sanders. Will half past nine in the morning, suit?"

"Course," he nodded, gaze shifting between the two as he made for the door. He supposed it could wait until the morning. "Good evening, sir," he said one more time before disappearing.

She never lifted her gaze from the datebook before her. Mira's hand wanted her wand, wanted to exercise one of the thousands of charms, hexes and curses she'd committed to muscle memory.

Harry watched Sanders leave the outer office, somewhat reluctantly, before turning his gaze to Mira, an eyebrow raised in her direction. "You alright?"

Letting out a breath, Mira could feel the heat in her face, but willed it away. It was part of the job, and someday she would put the fear of every seven hell her mother talked about, and the entirety of her family's knowledge of charms, into them, and they would put their names down for a damn appointment.

Lifting her face up to Harry, she wasn't quite able to manage her usual smile but she nodded. "I'm fine, thank you."

He wouldn't push her. He knew that sometimes when women were angry, pushing at them to talk about it could lead to less than enjoyable results. Besides, it wasn't like he willingly talked about things that had made him upset.

"I don't have anything else on the schedule tonight, right? I actually don't know if I was lying to him just to get him to leave, or if it was the truth and I pulled it out of my memory."

"No, you don't," Mira replied, eyes brightening to their normal twinkle a bit as she really looked at Harry. His hair was askew, likely from running his hand through it one too many times, and his whole person was generally slightly unkempt.

It also didn't go unnoticed that he'd admitted to taking her word above the Auror's, and that he'd been observant enough to notice anything was going on in the first place. She knew he was an Auror himself and that he was the 'hero' of their world along with being the department head of the MLE, but he often seemed very much the scattered scholar.

Not that it was his preference, her mind supplied. He did his job, and worked hard at it, but even she could see that his heart was not in the office, but the field.

Field. Expression brightening further, Mira was reminded of the Quidditch game Euan had taken her to, though now that she thought about it, it was a pitch, not a field. "I know you were probably in the office that day, and since you actually don't have any more meetings tonight, or any other pressingresponsibilities , I should shoo you out the door until you actually leave, but did you at least get a chance to listen to the Harpies/Falcons game?" She peered at him cannily. "Do you even know who won?"

Harry's eyes widened slightly, his green gaze taking on a tint of surprise. "You went to the Cup?" He'd known of the game, tried as hard to follow the teams as he could, but often found himself looking up to realize the game he'd intended to listen to had already passed, leaving him to read of the result in the Prophet the next morning. "I'd read that the Harpies won. Was it a good game?"

He crossed his arms over his chest, leaning against the door frame as he looked at her, intent on her answer, interest flooding into his eyes.

"I think so," she nodded, "though I couldn't really tell you further than it was quite exciting, that the Falcons were rather brutish, and that the Seekers almost crashed into the stands at one point."

Searching through her shoulder bag, Mira continued on. "I usually only follow football, but Euan," she glanced up at him, noticing the intent expression and her lips turned up as she explained further, "Auror Trainee Abercrombie? Well, he's friends with one of the Chasers and he had an extra ticket and asked if I wanted to come since I met Rose a few weeks ago when she was visiting Games & Sports. My sister came too," she supplied as she once again continued routing through her bag for the tiny trinket she was looking for.

"I'm afraid I didn't know the whole of what was going on, and that Cassiopeia and Euan probably enjoyed it much more than I did, but everyone was rather thrilled the whole of the game and sometimes the best part is just being in the stands and taking it all in," she added, a 'there you are' slipping from her as she found what she was looking for and pulled the small bauble from her bag.

"I haven't been to a professional match since ..." He looked down at his crossed arms, trying to remember, "... probably since school, actually." Harry laughed, shaking his head when he realized it was the truth. The sad, horribly pathetic truth.

"Well, that's just a horrible, terrible shame," Mira said, voice convicted though her expression was bright with her impending surprise for her boss as she came around the desk to stand before him, blue eyes bright. "I think dragging you to a Quidditch game is somewhat out of the question as I don't go unless convinced and there have been proper bargains made, but football is just as, if not more exciting," she added, grinning up at him.

"Haven't been to one of those either," he murmured, looking down at her with a small smile.

"That I can fix sometime this fall if you can pull yourself from your mounds of paper some evening. I have season tickets for Chelsea," she replied, eyes brighter still as she thought to the upcoming season. "They won the English Premier League this year, and are set to do so again if they can keep the momentum going another season."

Her expression brightened further as a thought occurred to her. "I could even get you a scarf and then you'd be in proper colors! It's very serious business, the colors. Muggles take football very seriously, as it should be, really."

Harry nodded. "We took the colors pretty seriously in school, too. I think I'd be able to fit in if I tried hard enough." Vernon and Petunia had taken Dudley to a match once, when he'd been home for the summer from Hogwarts. Dudley had come back burnt and smelling of beer and popcorn.

Realizing the memory had moved to his face, darkening his gaze for a few seconds, he blinked away the memory, focusing on Mira. "If I could pull myself away from the mounts of paper, of course."

"I think we may be able to manage something by the fall, don't you?" she asked, expression slightly more sober as blue eyes tracked across his features taking in the slight change, and the bite to the air it had caused in the space just around him. "I'm all done with school for a few months, even. We could really make a go at getting everything off your desk and allocating work to more appropriate places?"

He chuckled, the sound a deep rumble in his chest. "Appropriate places?" He grinned at her, shaking his head a bit as he pushed off the door frame, hands falling to his sides. "When does the season start? We have, what? Two months? Three?"

"Just over two, but I think it can be done, no?" Mira grinned, thrilled by the prospect of both helping Harry get his life a bit more organized so maybe he didn't have to spend so much time in the office - which he did dutifully, though Mira could see that it wasn't where he wanted to be - and sharing football with him,specifically Chelsea football.

"In fact, it's not football related, but maybe this will inspire you," she said, finally holding up her hand and opening her palm. On it rested an exact replica of a Golden Snitch. "It's not the real thing," she said, picking it up with her other hand to hold it up for him to see. "It's got the teams, winner and date of the game engraved here. See? And if you push right here ..." she pressed a tiny button sticking out the bottom and the announcer's voice blared through the room welcoming them to the LeagueChampionship between the Falcons and Harpies.

"Eeep!" she squeaked, eyes wide as she started, fumbling to press the little button again until it went off. She blinked up at him, heart beating too fast from her surprise at how loud it actually was. "It plays the whole of the game," she said, almost a little breathless.

The golden ball reflecting on his glasses, Harry lifted his arm, offering his palm. Mina dropped the ball into it, and he brought the gift closer to his nose, peering at the small writing on its side. He closed his palm around it, a tactile memory running through his mind of not only every time he'd caught the elusive bit of metal during school, but also the very first time he'd held it, when Oliver Wood had been showing him how to play the game.

"Thank you," he said, eyes ticking down to her blue ones a second later.

Mira grinned, expression brightening. She'd thought that was the right pick. "You're welcome."

Smile altering a bit as she peered up at him cannily, her lips twitched as she added, "you're even more welcome to go home for the evening. It's past six, you know."

Gaze flicking to the clock on the wall behind her head, he nodded. "Yeah. I have a few more papers I need to get through before I leave, though. You don't have to stay, though."

There were papers for him to go through, things to look over. Every day there were always more and more of those. The true reason he wanted to stay, something he more than realized was cowardly and pathetic, was because every time he returned to Grimmauld Place and saw Luna in bed, he was confronted with the idea that he had no idea how to help her.

It was true, in the last few weeks she'd started to appear to be getting better, but he knew it was because of nothing he'd done. He hadn't been able to be there when she'd needed him. Too many things going on in his own head, too many other things drawing his attention elsewhere.

Harry knew it shouldn't be like that. He should want to make the time, be there for her no matter what, help her more than he had been. The fact that he couldn't, that he'd failed in supporting her the way he knew he should have, filled him with guilt heavy enough that he'd rather avoid it than address it. Childish, stupid, but truthful.

"I won't stay too much longer," he said, giving her a lopsided grin, "promise."

She was not unaware of the heavy thoughts churning around him, though Mira ignored it; it wasn't her place to wonder or ask questions and instead she narrowed her eyes at him, lips pursing. "You do realize I know that face and it's intended redirectioncapabilities ," she commented, thoughts taking a downward turn to her brother and the faces he'd never make at her like this, the faces that she'd only see in her Papa and not Joshua.

Eyes clouded with memories, and those that would never be, Mira took a step back from Harry. "I'll let it go this one time though," she said, lips curling though the spark was lessened now. "I've got to get home to Cass, but don't stay too late, yeah? You'll have to come back bright and early anyways."

The change in her was noticeable, and for a fleeting second, he wondering if something he had said had made her angry. Reviewing what had been said, however, Harry knew it wasn't something he'd done. She was bright and sunny, but no one could be that way every minute of every day. He had enough dark thoughts for several people, but he didn't hold the monopoly on them, though sometimes it seemed like he might.

"I'll try to leave at a decent hour. Tell your sister I said hello. Respectfully, of course."

A real grin touched her lips again, and Mira nodded. "I will. Very respectfully, and properly too."

Nodding, he tightened his grip on the gift in his palm, slipping back into his office.


SUMMARY: Mira is appalled by the lack of respect for the proper etiquette behind acquiring an appointment, and gives Harry something she picked up during the League Championship.