Patiently, Luna just waited.
He walked back in two minutes later and handed her a stack of one hundred fifty pound notes, wrapped with a paper band with the Bank of England seal pressed across the join of the two ends.
"Thank you, Sirius," she brightly returned, slipping the entire stack into her wizard-spaced clutch-purse.
"Any hints on what you're picking up?" he tentatively asked.
"It's a surprise," she grinned. "Don't worry. You're going to loveit."
"So it's a gift, is it?" he asked. "You do realise you'd be buying me a gift with my own gold, right?" "You'll forgive me!" she happily returned, before walking the couple of steps back to the fireplace.
After she tossed floo powder into the grate, called "Diagon Alley!" and disappeared through the green flames, Sirius sighed, shook his head and went back to what he was doing; more parchmentwork on the Houses of Black, Potter and Peverell finances in his home office.
One fortune was bad enough, but keeping and looking after three of them gave him never-ending quill cramp of his writing hand. The LeStrange fortune had already been merged into the Black fortune. He was just glad the Peverell fortune, for all it was, was mainly in what could loosely be termed as muggle artefacts.
It had been two and half weeks since Harry had apparated out of the SGC and he was finally back in Britain. Relaxing, he had just stepped onto the gangway leading down off the ship to the wharf and was looking about, scanning with his eyes for trouble. At the time, he was glamoured to appear like another passenger who was actually heading to the terminus at Southampton. With an identical copy of their passport in his hand he spotted a large gaudily made sign that said 'Snorkack Expeditions'.
'Snorkacks!?' he thought. 'Only Luna...'
He couldn't see who was holding the sign, as they were holding it across their front and in such a way he could only see fingertips holding it at slightly above the middle at each end and a pair of legs from just below the crotch and down. However, from the stockings and women's shoes he could see, whoever it was, they were clearly a woman.
After passing through Customs and Immigration, with the help of a Harry-special subtle Confundus Charm on both government officers, he carefully made his way to whoever was holding the sign.
Stopping in front of them, he stood a moment, listening.
Whoever it was they were lightly humming a tune. It was a tune he remembered Luna would hum while he was teaching the DA in the Room of Requirements at Hogwarts.
He smiled and lightly knocked on the sign with his fingertips.
The person holding it suddenly stopped humming and slowly rotated the top of the sign forward.
As soon as the face came into view, he grinned and said, "Hello, Luna Lovegood."
With her own smile she returned, "Hello, Harry Potter."
Knowing he still had the glamour up, he cocked an eyebrow at her in inquisitive surprise. "Don't worry, Harry," she said. "I knew it would be you, no matter what you were likely to look like."
Then she proceeded to begin folding the sign up until it was about the size of a deck of playing cards. Then slipped it into her clutch purse.
'Magic," he immediately thought. 'It's the only way something so large could have folded up to something so small.'
Still surprised, he asked, "You knew I was coming?"
"Yes," she replied. "I'll explain how I know that once we're in the cab and on our way back to London."
"We're taking a cab?" he asked.
"Yes," she replied, stepping to his off-hand side and hooking her right arm into his left elbow. "Escort a lady out?" With a snort of amusement, he began to lead her off the wharf.
"Why are we taking a cab?" he quietly asked, as they walked.
"I do not trust the Ministry to keep secret the apparation and portkey signatures," she replied. "Tom's been busy."
"Ah!" he quietly returned.
Once they were at the cab pick-up point, nearly the first to reach there as he didn't have luggage to worry about, Luna had to take a minute or two to convince the 'cabbie' she really did want a cab all the way to London. She even had to show him she had the money to pay for it.
As soon as they both hopped in, Luna subtly cast a privacy ward up between the back seats and the front and a compulsion charm on the cabbie not to try to engage them in idle chatter. British cabbies were notorious for it. Then she slipped her wand back into a disillusioned wrist holster and turned to Harry, sitting next to her.
As the cab then pulled away from the curb and into traffic she said, "Alright. Here's a quick verbal overview of what's been happening since you left. Try to hold your questions, for now. I have a small stack of scrapbooks I've been keeping since that night and I've been filling them with the information you're going to need."
"You knew I would be back? And that it would be a while?" he asked.
"Yes to both," she firmly replied. "Now, about what's been happening..."
As they were driven north towards London, Luna quietly spoke to Harry and explained matters. Harry, as he'd been told, listened. He only asked a couple of questions, to which Luna directly answered or told him was contained, in detail, in her scrapbooks. He understood her hint.
After receiving authorisation to set up a watch post in England from the British Secret Intelligence Service (BSIS), of which Steed was their representative, over the next two weeks SG-1 had visited the sites of Privet Drive and scouted out what they could of Whitehall. They'd tried to find the school in south-western Scotland, but couldn't find it. Even asking some of the 'locals' was only met with confusion.
BSIS, through Steed, gave them further information on the Dursleys and also mentioned that young Mister Potter most definitely was not in the house when it was burned to the ground.
"So, it wasn't a gas explosion?" asked Sam.
"No, Major," Steed firmly replied. "Some sort of accellerant was used to burn the house down with the deceased occupants inside. From the coroner's report it appears they were tortured before they were then killed. It is believed the house being burnt down was a method by which to erase the evidence.
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