Harry Potter 1. And This Long Wake of Phosphor

**Prologue**

**And This Long Wake of Phosphor...**

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><p><em>And this long wake of phosphor, <em>

_iridescent _

_Furrow of all our travel — trailed derision! _

_Eyes crumble at its kiss. Its long-drawn spell _

_Incites a yell. Slid on that backward vision _

_The mind is churned to spittle, whispering hell. _

-Hart Crane, _Southern Cross *****_

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><p><strong>(a letter written on ruled notebook paper)<strong>

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><p>Hey Ginny,<p>

You know I'm not that great at writing letters, but I'm giving it a go. I reckoned if you didn't hear from me at some point I'd be in trouble. The thing is, I haven't written so far because I'm not sure what to say. Or, I'm not sure what to say that won't make you mad at me.

I still don't want you to come with me. Sorry, but that's the truth. The Dursley's have been gone a lot the last few days and I've been sitting here and thinking and it looks like a bad idea. How are we going to get you away from the Burrow? Your mum will kill me, you know.

What really worries me is the Ministry. You'll still be under age and if you use any magic then they'll find us. I can't think of any way around that (and yes I have tried, I'm not just using excuses). There's no way I'll let you come if you can't use magic to defend yourself.

So... I've torn this letter up about five times now and started over. This is the best version, I think. I don't know. I'm not good at writing letters. I just want to know that you're okay and that you don't want to hurt me for changing my mind again.

- Harry

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><p><strong>(a letter written on blank white stationary)<strong>

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><p>Dear Harry,<p>

You're a prat. I'm only slightly angry with you. You aren't good at writing letters, but at least you tried.

As for everything else – stop it, Harry. You're thinking too much. God, you should never be alone, you know that? You're terrible at it. I leave you to your own devices for a few weeks and you start to implode. I want you to get in touch with Scott and tell him to bring you to the Burrow right away. Full stop. Get out of that awful house and come see me. We'll work this out. I bet Hermione can think of something for the Ministry problem. Or we can tell Scott to just burn the place down.

Love,

Ginny

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><p><strong>(a letter written on ruled notebook paper)<strong>

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><p>Ginny,<p>

Please don't tell Scott to burn down the Ministry. He might actually do it, and we've got enough problems. I don't know how to get in touch with him. He just shows up sometimes. Besides, I don't think he would take me to your place. He seems happy enough to leave me here for the time being, probably because of the protections. Makes his job easier, I guess.

Last time I saw him he said that Lila was watching out for you and everyone else at the Burrow. If anything should happen, make sure you stick close to her. I told Scott to stay near you as well, but I'm not sure he listened. He usually likes to keep us all in one place. If he hasn't tried to move us, he must have some sort of reason.

I said before I wasn't good at writing letters. Well, I'm really, really not good at writing letters that are roma personal. But I miss you. And I still don't see how this is going to work... but I hope it does.

Guess that wasn't very romantic. I'm just rubbish at this.

- Harry

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><p><strong>(a note scrawled on the back of a flyer for a lawn service)<strong>

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><p>Hey dude<p>

Lil said Ginny was griping

about me seeing you?

For something?

I don't know

Just call me

Even you magic Neanderthals

gotta know how to use a phone

020 7946 0998

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><p><strong>(a letter written on heavy parchment)<strong>

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><p>Harry,<p>

Hey, mate. Thought it was about time I write you, since it's been a bit. I've been writing Hermione nonstop though, for a change. I think she likes it. Hard to tell just reading about her day, maybe she's sick of all the mail. You don't think Hermione would ever get tired of letters, do you? Maybe I should stop.

Anyway, I wanted to ask you something. I saw you'd been writing Ginny. Which is fine, don't get me wrong, that's nice that you can still be friends and all. But I thought, maybe, there was something else going on? Gin seems kind of excited when she's writing you. So really what I'm wondering is if the two of you got back together. That's why I wrote.

Write back soon,

Ron

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><p><strong>(a phone conversation)<strong>

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><p>(Ringing)<p>

SCOTT: 'Yello!

HARRY: Hello? Scott?

SCOTT: Oh, hey, Harry. Thought I might hear from you.

HARRY: Well you did give me your number. How does that work, though, did you just buy a-

SCOTT: Uh, Harry, if we're going to continue this conversation it would be helpful if you'd take the phone out of your ass.

HARRY: Sorry. Sorry, I... (embarrassed silence) God, I don't remember the last time I used a phone. I was putting it too close to my mouth. At least I'm not shouting, some wizards will do that.

SCOTT: Good thing you're no ordinary wizard. The Chosen One doesn't need to shout.

HARRY: (sigh) Right. Like I was saying, did you buy a phone in London?

SCOTT: This is a recent setup. Standard, but recent. This number actually just routes to my comm.

HARRY: Okay.

SCOTT: ...So did you call for any particular reason, or is this a cry for help?

HARRY: That thing with Lila and Ginny. Ginny wants you to take me to the Burrow as soon as you can.

SCOTT: Why? You changing your mind already?

HARRY: I change my mind about it every other minute. That, and she doesn't like me being alone out here.

SCOTT: Tough noogies. Not much longer to go anyway, you'll be there soon enough.

HARRY: I figured you'd say that. That's what I told her.

SCOTT: Well aren't I predictable. (a loud bang, muffled shouting in the distance) Hey, look at that, I gotta go. Keep it real, H.

(dial tone)

HARRY: Bye...

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><p><strong>(a letter written on ruled notebook paper)<strong>

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><p>Hey Ron,<p>

Look, I know this isn't what you want to hear, but the thing I have with Ginny is complicated. I will I'll just be honest. She wants to come with us. I know that isn't a good idea, but there's a lot of stuff at work here and you need to talk to Scott about it more than me. He said some things that

I don't know how to finish this. I'm sort of convinced that leaving her behind is pointless, but then I'm also not because I know that it will be dangerous. I can't say more in a letter. Sorry.

-Harry

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><p><strong>(a letter written on blank white stationary)<strong>

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><p>Bloody hell, Harry! I can't believe you told Ron and not in person. He exploded today, no joke, I thought for sure Mum would find out about the whole thing. What were you thinking? I swear he's going to lock me in my room until the war is over. It's unbearable here right now, thanks to you.<p>

Even Dad wants to know why we're fighting and what am I going to say? Couldn't you just keep it to yourself for a few more weeks? Is that really so hard?

You're such a total prat, Harry. Good thing I love you.

-Ginny

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><p><strong>(a letter written on ruled notebook paper)<strong>

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><p>Ginny,<p>

I'm sorry. I really am. I just couldn't lie to him, I thought about it. He was going to find out anyway, you know that. He hasn't written back to me. I'm sure that's not a good sign.

On the subject of the problem, I'm back to being glad you'll be with me. I feel like if I could just be with you we could work this out.

I reckon this will last until tomorrow morning, then I'll want to lock you away again.

-Harry

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><p><strong>(a letter written on personalized pale lavender stationary)<strong>

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><p>Dear Harry,<p>

I understand you've made quite a mess recently. Ron has been writing me (for once!) and raised a fuss about you and Ginny. I suppose you've worked things out with her, at least for the most part.

I really can't imagine why you told Ron without doing so in person, but what's done is done. I'll do my best to calm him, though when it comes to Ginny you know how he can be. What you really need is for Scott to talk to him. That way, even if Ron tries to hit Scott, we all know he had it coming anyway (that was a joke).

Speaking of which, has Scott said anything about watching me? I could have sworn I saw a blond man across the street last Thursday. He was leaning against a car. I went to the front walk but by then he was gone. There wasn't exactly a crowd on the street that evening, so I thought it might be him.

I know you're impatient and feeling cooped up at the Dursley's, but it won't be much longer until the wedding. Try to get some rest, Harry – _real _rest, not the tossing and turning you call rest when you're worried about something. I know you haven't been sleeping well, because I know you.

Affectionately,

Hermione

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><p><strong>(a phone conversation)<strong>

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><p>(Ringing)<p>

SCOTT: This had better be Harry Potter.

HARRY: It is me. Why would it be someone else?

SCOTT: Just getting ready to threaten someone, if need be. You never know. Somebody else could have broken into your house or stolen this number from you.

HARRY: And you would have done what, exactly?

SCOTT: I would have told them that I'd rip their lower intestines out through their urethra unless they let you go immediately.

HARRY: Ugh. Can that actually be done?

SCOTT: No. But it would be both painful and fatal when I tried.

HARRY: Uh, anyway... Hermione wrote me. Were you outside of her house last Thursday?

SCOTT: Yep.

HARRY: (relieved sigh) Okay, good. I was worried that if it wasn't you, maybe someone else was looking for her.

SCOTT: They'd better not. I wouldn't like that at all.

HARRY: Me neither. So everything has been okay?

SCOTT: Ron and Ginny are safe in the Burrow, Lila is still spending a lot of time there. Most of her time, actually. Hermione has been fine at her house, you've been okay at yours so far. Neville is holed up in his not-so-humble abode, and there's so much magic around there I can't get too close to it, I'm worried I might break something. Luna... Luna is okay for now. I caught a Death Eater sniffing around her place.

HARRY: What? Already? Why her, she can't possibly be considered such a threat-

SCOTT: Relax, I took care of it.

HARRY: You can't be everywhere at once. Why don't you let me go and stay with her for a while, just until we can all get together.

SCOTT: No. You're staying right where you are.

HARRY: Luna is in danger, I can't just sit here on my arse!

SCOTT: You can and you will. I told you, I took care of it.

HARRY: Took care of it _how_?

SCOTT: I told Neville about it.

HARRY: You... Ah. I see. Sometimes I forget how sneaky you are.

SCOTT: No, you don't. Luna is now enjoying an indefinite stay in Neville's hospitality.

HARRY: I'm surprised he could convince his grandmum.

SCOTT: I don't know if he bothered to ask. So is there anything else, or were you just checking in?

HARRY: I, er, might have told Ron about me and Ginny. With a letter.

SCOTT: I know. Lila is currently having a high old time watching the two of them quietly seethe at each other.

HARRY: He hasn't written me back.

SCOTT: Probably saving his fingers for punching.

HARRY: ...Er, about that. Hermione thought it might be best if you talked to him.

SCOTT: Hah! Yeah, I bet she did.

HARRY: Would you? I think he'll listen to you if you explain everything. Tell him what you told me.

SCOTT: And save you from being assaulted?

HARRY: Come on. You wouldn't want your Priority One to take a beating, would you?

SCOTT: (laughter) You picked that up quick. I'll make a Primare out of you yet!

HARRY: So that's a yes?

SCOTT: That's a maybe. I'll look into it. Talk to you later.

HARRY: Alright. Later, then.

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><p><strong>(a letter written on heavy parchment)<strong>

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><p>Just because I'm writing doesn't mean I'm not still bloody angry about the whole thing. But I guess I'm not blaming you as much. As much! Ginny is giving me the cold shoulder like you wouldn't believe, it's effing freezing in here. I know how she gets when she wants something. But Harry, this is something she can't have! Right? I thought you were on my side with this.<p>

Lila had a few words with me. She and Ginny are best mates now, apparently, who knew. So I've got two narky girls in the house, that's brilliant. You don't think if we make Ginny stay at the Burrow, that Lila will take her along anyway? Fucking hell. I can't believe you started this.

Scott sent me a letter (sort of. Lila showed it to me on that little phone of hers) and says he wants to talk. I don't know what he told you, but it'd have to be bloody spectacular to work on me.

- Ron

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><p><strong>(a note scribbled on the personal ads page of the morning paper)<strong>

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><p>Talked to Ron<p>

He wasn't feeling reasonable, but

we worked it out

Truth hurts

Keep an ear out for the phone

Lila wants to talk to you

S.K.

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><p><strong>(a phone conversation)<strong>

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><p>(Ringing)<p>

HARRY: -It really is for me! Yes, I get calls too. At least I think – hello?

LILA: Is there a problem?

HARRY: This is Lila, right?

LILA: Right.

HARRY: (distantly) I told you it was for me! This doesn't have anything to do with you-

(DISTORTED SHOUTING): -my telephone, boy, you'd better believe it's my business-

HARRY: Not this time. Just back off, all of you! Lila? You still there?

LILA: Present. Obviously there's some issue with my calling, so I'll make this short. Ginny wants to see you as soon as possible.

HARRY: Um... I don't know how I'd manage that.

LILA: I'll be managing it for you. Be at your window tomorrow night at ten. Okay?

HARRY: Er, yeah... Yeah, I'll be ready.

LILA: Good. See you then.

(Click)

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><p><strong>(a letter written on blank white stationary)<strong>

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><p>Thought I wouldn't go through with it, I bet. I won't say where we're meeting over the post, but it's neutral ground. Lila handled everything very nicely. I think she's better at this Prime stuff than Scott is.<p>

I'll see you soon, Harry. And don't start worrying.

- Gin

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><p>When ten o' clock came around, Harry was sitting on his bed with his hands clasped nervously in front of him. Despite Ginny's parting words, he had in fact been worrying. What was he going to say to her? After all the times he'd changed his mind on the issue of her accompanying him on his mad quest, no doubt she was ready to slap him senseless.<p>

It didn't help that the weeks of separation left him craving her company. She wanted to talk (or fight), and all he wanted to do was snog.

"Fuck," he muttered. It helped a little.

Lila was coming, and Ginny was waiting. Harry didn't know how to deal with Lila, which was mostly why he was keenly missing Scott's presence. His interactions with the woman had been limited, at best. Her demeanour had always given Harry the impression that Lila didn't much care for him. He couldn't think of anything he had done to make her feel that way...

Well, except becoming the Chosen One and getting her assigned to his hopeless cause.

Did she resent him for that? Harry felt a bit angry at the possibility. It wasn't _his _fault she was assigned to this mess of a mission. He hadn't asked for her, or Scott's, help. He hadn't exactly _refused_ it, but...

He was uptight and jumping to conclusions. Lila had been steadfast in her protection of Harry's friends during the attack, and hadn't flinched from the fighting or her duty. Scott might have seemed more dedicated to the task at hand in comparison, but he had also been a very visible presence for over a year now. Harry hadn't seen much of the other sibling. He supposed her conduct that night at Hogwarts was proof enough of her ability. And besides, Ginny was apparently on good terms with the Kharadjai woman so that was important to keep in mind.

Harry didn't know how he'd be hailed this time, but he half-expected another rock pinging against his windowpane. Instead, a glaring beam of light swiftly appeared, traced its way across the ceiling, and then vanished again. It repeated this motion twice more before Harry made his way over and opened the window.

Below on the grass stood Lila, holding a torch in her hand as she flicked the switch on and off. When Harry stuck his head out she tucked the light into one of her jacket pockets and motioned for him to descend. Obviously she had the same faith in Harry's climbing abilities that her brother did.

Once again Harry carefully lowered himself out the window and dropped the remaining distance. In a repeat of the last occasion, Lila caught him just as Scott had. The embarrassing key difference was that Scott didn't possess a large (and firm, a distant and very male portion of Harry's mind assessed) pair of breasts for Harry to be squashed against as he was prevented from injuring himself. Lila didn't comment, letting go of him without a hint of awkwardness, and Harry found himself thankful that the Kharan siblings weren't entirely similar.

There was a car parked across the street. Lila lead him to it in silence, sliding into the driver's seat while Harry sat in the passenger side. It took him a moment to remember how to buckle his seatbelt, fumbling with the straps and feeling more chagrined by the second. Lila's supposed opinion of him wasn't going to improve if he couldn't even ride in a car correctly.

But Lila said nothing, starting the car and driving down the street without so much as a glance in Harry's direction. Her silence didn't invite conversation. Despite his feelings of awkwardness, Harry chose to stare out the window rather than find something pleasant to say. It was obvious that Lila wasn't interested in talking.

As they drove, the Muggle world flashed by in patches of illumination: streetlights and houses, shops and petrol stations. A suburb dissolved into a field which in turn grew back into a parking lot. With a growing sense of displacement, Harry realised that the normalcy outside the window seemed more alien than wands and wizards. When was the last time he had gone for a car ride of any distance, one that didn't involve flying? Nobody in the buildings flashing by knew that their future was in doubt. He had only been in the car for ten minutes, and already the wizarding world seemed small.

Scott had been right. It would be easy to get lost out there, and disappear.

"I'm glad Scott isn't here," Lila commented.

She had been quiet for so long that Harry actually jumped when she spoke. "Oh?" he said after he caught his breath. "Why's that?"

"He'd be making some stupid comments about the locale," she huffed, sounding irritated even though Scott wasn't present to make said comments. "Every time we're in the English countryside, it's _Straw Dogs_, and every time we're in the American south, it's _Deliverance_. He watches too many movies."

Harry felt that this conversation was only confirming his estrangement from his Muggle roots. "That sounds like him," he said, deciding that was a neutral response.

"Either that or he'd want to listen to _Village Green Preservation Society_ over and over again. Which is fine, for the first couple plays. I like it. But he never gets tired of it. It's like he thinks his life needs a soundtrack."

That was a very odd description of Scott, and yet, somehow it fit him perfectly. "I think sometimes he's waiting for the band to strike up, when he makes a big entrance or something."

Lila smiled. "Hah! Yeah, he wishes."

Harry leaned back in his seat, feeling more relaxed. Maybe Lila _wasn't_ harbouring a deep dislike for him. "So, um, where are we going?"

"My apartment. Ginny is already there, though I'm sure that doesn't make you feel any better. She didn't look violent when I left."

Harry winced. Ginny had plenty of time to get violent before he arrived. "Alright..."

"This is a one time thing. We found an opportunity and we took it, but just because the Death Eaters aren't looking for a car doesn't mean they won't be in the future," Lila warned.

Harry glanced out back outside, peering upward into the overcast sky reflexively. Even if there was someone on a broom up there, there was little chance he could spot them. "I don't think they know exactly where I'm staying."

Lila nodded. "If they did we'd have already run into them. But just in case, Scott is making some noise to keep them occupied."

That brought Harry's head snapping back around. "What? What is he doing now?"

"We found a Death Eater supply cache in a building over in Knockturn. Well, Scott found it. I don't think he was actually looking for it, but he's been following a few Death Eaters around while you Primes have been holed up." Lila checked the clock on the dashboard. "About... sixteen minutes ago, he set fire to the place."

Harry frowned. "Why would they have a supply room? They can keep their things wherever they want by now, probably."

"Maybe 'supply cache' isn't the right term," Lila amended. "There was some stuff in there, mostly robes and masks, but it was also a meeting area. A recruitment centre, we think."

"They'll just move somewhere else," Harry muttered. A familiar sense of hopelessness tugged at his heart. Wizarding Britain was being poisoned from within, and there didn't seem to be any way to stop it.

Lila merely shrugged. "It will get their attention for the night, and that's all we needed."

Maybe every victory was temporary, Harry mused, turning away from Lila and staring out the glass. They all had been so far. Every year at Hogwarts had brought another minor success, and it had never done anything but delay the inevitable. Voldemort had shrugged off his defeats and was stronger than ever.

As the dim outlines of trees flashed past outside, Harry felt like he was standing still. Even if he avoided death or capture, and successfully sought out the Horcruxes, doing so would take all his time and energy. And meanwhile the rest of the wizarding world would be swallowed by the dark, piece by piece. What was the point of killing Riddle if, at that end, there was nothing left to save?

"I see what she meant," Lila interjected into the silence, making Harry jump again.

"Huh? What who meant?"

"Ginny. She told me you shouldn't be allowed to think alone," Lila said wryly.

Harry didn't reply, crossing his arms in a disgruntled fashion. Whatever Ginny thought, she didn't have to say that sort of thing to Lila, of all people.

Lila looked over at him with an amused expression. "I would say the same thing about Scott, personally. I understand where she's coming from."

"Scott?" Harry scoffed. "He's too spastic to brood, or whatever it is you think I'm doing."

"Only because the Scott you know isn't the one _I_ know," Lila told him with a hint of smugness. "You know proto-Scott. Scott Junior. Remember, he did grow up, same as the rest of us. He just aged down for your convenience."

"Yeah, I know, but he still has – _had_ – all his memories, he was still an adult, just not... physically."

"But it's not the same. You'll see."

It was troubling to think that Harry's new found friend and ally might not be the same person any more. And he didn't like the way that Lila seemed to be rubbing it in. "Whatever," he grumbled.

Lila rolled her eyes. "Scott isn't schizophrenic. He'll be different, but not _that_ much. If I were you, right now I'd be more worried about Ginny."

That excellent point brought Harry up short. His meeting with Ginny was fast approaching and he didn't know if she wanted to smack or snog him. With any luck she'd snog him first and then smack him after, when he'd be feeling no pain.

Who was he kidding. Ginny had a good arm.

Harry passed the rest of the trip in a pensive silence. Lila must have found this amusing, if her expression was anything to go by. Harry still wasn't sure where things stood with her. He wasn't certain that she didn't like him, but now he wasn't sure that he liked _her_.

After some time, the surrounding area began to look a little familiar. Harry thought he might have glimpsed parts of it from the air while playing Quidditch in the Weasley's backyard. When they entered the town he recognised most of it, having passed through before.

He did not, however, recognise the squat, two story building they arrived at. Lila drove the car around to an alley at the back, and parked in a narrow space that seemed designed for a slightly smaller vehicle. A worn brick staircase climbed the back of the structure. Lila ascended it with Harry in tow, pausing to punch a combination into an electronic lock next to the door at the top.

Inside a small window overlooked the street to Harry's left; to his right, a blank hallway stretched out, punctuated by doors along the left hand side. Lila led him to the nearest one, marked number 3.

"If you're going to fight, keep it down," Lila warned Harry as she inserted her key into the lock. "I share a wall and a floor with some people who are probably asleep by now."

When he entered the flat, Harry noticed the layout only peripherally; two bedrooms, a toilet, and a kitchen attached to the sitting room. The fact that Ginny was sitting in a chair opposite the door demanded the majority of his attention. She was wearing jeans that accentuated her slim form, coupled with a yellow, thin-strapped tank top with a hem about an inch too short to conceal a tantalizing strip of pale skin. After weeks apart, she seemed more stunning than ever.

Harry didn't want to fight. He wanted Lila to leave so he could get Ginny onto that couch with him.

"Hey, Gin," he managed to get out, making a feeble attempt to keep his eyes on her face.

"Quit staring at my tits, Harry," Ginny said without much ire. "We need to talk. _Again_."

Lila brushed past him while he internally fumbled for a response. "I've been told that tits are for staring at, amongst other things," she noted. "But there's a time and a place. Like I said, no shouting. I mean it."

"Yeah, okay," Harry grated out in response. He watched with relief as Lila disappeared into one of the bedrooms and shut the door. He was already tired of her intercession in what he thought was a private matter, and the last thing he wanted was to suffer her snarky asides while he talked to and\or felt up his girlfriend.

With Lila out of the way, he looked back over at Ginny only to see her eyes narrowing. "You'd better not have been staring at _her_ tits," she said, crossing her arms.

"What? No!" Harry said, aghast. Lila's chest was undoubtedly impressive, but not even close to the first thing Harry was thinking about while dealing with her.

"And why not? I thought blokes went for that sort of thing, the bigger the better and all that."

He couldn't win. He couldn't- "What the- I- No! That's not even always true, you... You're taking the piss, aren't you."

Ginny laughed, muffling it with her hands. Harry just gaped back at her, dumbfounded. She was jiggling a little as her shoulders heaved, and he was rapidly developing a problem that he'd need one of the many throw pillows laying about to hide.

"I'm sorry, Harry, but you should have seen the look on your face when you came in," Ginny chortled. "You didn't know whether you wanted to hide or snog!"

He knew which one he wanted to do _now_. "It was all worth it just to hear you say 'tits'," he told her (and it sounded like a joke, but it wasn't, really).

Ginny moved over to the couch and patted the seat next to her. "Come on, sit down. If you're lucky maybe I'll say tits again."

No, if he was lucky he'd get to see some tits, not just hear about them. But luck had never been one of Harry's primary attributes, and he reckoned whatever good fortune he had was now spent. Ginny wasn't angry, and that was about as lucky as he could see himself being.

He slumped onto the couch and stared straight ahead at the blank television, too nervous to meet Ginny's eyes. "...So what did you want to talk about?"

"Like you don't know," Ginny scoffed. "Did you change your mind again on the ride over? Or are you waiting for my next letter?"

"I was waiting for your next letter," Harry replied in a monotone.

Ginny sighed. "And I suppose you've been too busy worrying about that to actually think of how we can make this work."

"Yes."

"Well, I've been talking to Lila-" Ginny began, and Harry immediately knew that he wasn't going to like any sentence that started that way, "-and she says that me being under-age shouldn't be a problem. There's a spell attached to me, she just has to get rid of it."

"Alright. Does she also have a fantastic plan to stop your mum from killing me?"

Ginny shifted a bit in her seat. "We weren't going to _tell_ her before we leave, right?"

That was the worst idea Harry had heard in awhile. "No!"

"Exactly. We'll just skip out at the first opportunity and take care of those Horcruxes." Ginny reached over and took Harry's hand, gripping it firmly.

She made it sound so easy, but Harry was a long way from sharing her confidence. Still, she was holding his hand and wasn't angry about his letters, so he said nothing and leaned into her slightly. There was no point in disagreeing and possibly starting a real row.

Without warning, Ginny released Harry's hand and turned over to straddle his lap. This put her breasts at eye level (as well as putting a few other things in close proximity) and it took a great deal of willpower for Harry to look up and meet her eyes while she moved her hands to the back of his neck.

"You'll be glad I'm there when it comes down to it. I know you're not happy now, but you'll see," Ginny murmured, pressing herself closer to Harry. "There _are _benefits to having me around, you know."

"I can think of a few," Harry said lowly, moving his thumbs to stroke her waist where he held it.

Ginny leaned in for a kiss that wiped every doubting thought from Harry's mind. It started off innocent enough, but when she opened her mouth and squeezed herself against him in an almost desperate manner, things became very interesting. Harry was suddenly very conscious of the fact that this was about as far as they'd ever taken things, and Lila was right in the next room.

Even as he pulled his lips from Ginny's and gently pushed her away, he was already regretting it. But Scott's couch was not the ideal place to try the sorts of things he _really _ wanted to try with her.

"Too fast?" Ginny asked. She was breathing hard and eyeing Harry's mouth hungrily.

"No, just about perfect," Harry told her. "But... you know, Lila is right over there..."

"Bugger her," Ginny said tersely, moving in closer again.

"I heard that!" Lila's muffled voice said from behind the door. "No sex on my couch! I want to keep it clean!"

Ginny sighed, slumping downward and resting her head on Harry's shoulder. "I bet if it were Scott he wouldn't care if we had sex on his couch," she murmured humorously.

"If it were Scott, he might be giving us advice," Harry managed to choke out. Ginny's clear implication that she wouldn't mind having sex with him left his tongue uncooperative and his pants even tighter than before. He really hoped she wouldn't move a great deal while she was positioned on his lap. He was dangerously close to embarrassing himself.

Ginny raised her head to look him in the eye. "So, are we good now? No more doubts?"

Harry dropped his chin and gazed at that delicious strip of skin near her navel. "Like I've ever been sure about anything," he muttered.

"But _more_ sure, I hope. I know this is hard for you, Harry. I don't always understand why, but I'm trying. You can't do this alone. And I _want_ to be with you." She cupped the back of his head and kissed him, hard and possessive. "Please let me help."

"Okay, Ginny. I... okay."

She placed her head back against his shoulder, holding him close. "You didn't really want to leave me, did you?"

"No, never," Harry said honestly. "I just thought I didn't have a choice."

"You always have a choice, Harry," Ginny said. "But you need help to see them."

Harry snorted in amusement. "That sounds like something Scott told you."

"Lila told me that, actually." Ginny ran her fingers through his hair, and then tilted her head, bringing their lips near enough to feel the warmth. "She didn't say anything about _this_, though."

Harry lost himself in her lips, tongue and scent, and for that moment, he didn't doubt a thing.

* * *

><p><strong>(a letter jotted on the back of a blank envelope)<strong>

* * *

><p>Had fun at your reunion?<p>

I heard you enjoyed yourself

very much

remind me not to sit on that couch

anymore.

Fuck your balls

Scott

* * *

><p><strong>(a letter written on personalized pale lavender stationary)<strong>

* * *

><p>Dear Harry,<p>

Ginny wrote me a lengthy letter detailing your meeting with her at Lila's home. I'm glad that you've decided (again) to see reason, though I admit I'm a bit worried as to how long it will last. I know Ginny had you convinced at the time but, as we both know, you aren't very reliable when it comes to this particular.

I've had some doubts (never about my own involvement, Harry!) the same as you, but I do realise that it's not as personal. Still, during our current separation I've given it a lot of thought and, much as it pains me to put it in writing, I think Scott is correct. Past evidence points to Ginny being as inextricable from this mess as the rest of us. And yes, Harry, we are just as involved as you! Don't you dare mentally stagger off into another bout of solitary despair. You're stuck with us, like it or not. I'd prefer that you like it, but I know you too well.

Please don't distance yourself now. It's so very important that we collaborate in this. I really can't stress that enough. And if, as things may be now, you feel more inclined to listen to Scott, then I know he would tell you the same thing.

Wishing we could talk in person,

Hermione

* * *

><p><strong>(a letter written on ruled notebook paper)<strong>

* * *

><p>Dear Hermione,<p>

I couldn't think of any good way to respond to your last letter, which is why this is so late. I felt guilty. I still do. And not about the whole thing with Ginny, I mean that's still a problem, I can't get over it just like that. But that you that I would have made you think that your advice doesn't mean anything or that Scott is my only

God I can't do this in writing. I'm not a writer. Scott is my friend, and I think he is yours too, but he wasn't there to fight a troll with us. He wasn't there at the Department, or to help Sirius, or at any of the million times that you were there for me like you always have been. At all the important parts of my life, the worst and the best and come on, Hermione. You and Ron were the first real friends I ever had.

I just hate this thought that maybe I made you feel like what you had to say was second to Scott. Maybe when he's talking about guns. But you know magic and you know me and,.

Writing this all down has made me realise how stupid I was to even consider trying this alone. Sorry. When you and Scott are putting together all the plans that will actually get us somewhere, you can both laugh about how dumb I am. And then Ron can punch me again.

Harry

P.S. How detailed was Ginny's letter?

* * *

><p><strong>(a letter written on heavy parchment)<strong>

* * *

><p>Hermione says that Ginny convinced you all over again that taking her was a good idea. Is it just me, or are all the women against us here? I'm not mad at you anymore, Harry. I think us blokes need to stick together.<p>

Fred and George were over here a couple days ago, talking about moving you to a safer place. I didn't catch the details, though. You know those gits, they won't tell me anything.

Anyway, taking Ginny is still a bad idea, but, this whole bloody thing is a bad idea. Nobody's going to be safe anywhere, not anymore. Guess we have to accept that. It doesn't make me a poof to be scared, right? Too fucking right I'm scared. Bloody hell.

Well, sod it. Almost time to just get on with it. I bet Hermione will know what to do.

Ron

* * *

><p><strong>(a letter written on blank white stationary)<strong>

* * *

><p>Harry,<p>

It will be your birthday before too long. I know I told you not to worry earlier, but I guess I am now. You have to promise me you'll be careful.

And for God's sake, don't change your mind about me again. I'll be very cross with you.

Love,

Ginny

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Asterisk<strong>

*** Due to confusion, I felt I should make it clear that the poem prefacing this chapter is a real poem, written by the American poet Hart Crane (1889 - 1932).**

**ALL other poems, quotes, and excerpts used as prefacing quotations in the following chapters are pure invention, and attributed to people who do not exist. **

**Anything unattributed is also something I made up, unless it is in the actual body of the text as a part of the narrative. Then, anything goes - it could be real, it could be from Rowling, or it could be from the Kharadjai. Google it if you get curious.**


	2. Goodbye, Arcadia Part I

**2**

**Goodbye, Arcadia**

**Part I**

* * *

><p>"<em>Primes may be required to leave behind their familiar spaces,<em>_  
>but they should not be <em>_**expected **__to. Understanding the difficulties__  
>inherent in new and almost certainly dangerous undertakings<em>_  
>is an important part of building a solid working relationship<em>_  
>with your Primes. The demands of the shape can be both arduous<em>_  
>and frightening. A good integrationist takes this into account,<em>_  
>and utilizes empathy as much as any other tool at their disposal.<em>_  
>True rapport is emotional, not merely circumstantial."<em>

— The Guiding Light: An Integrationist's Guide to Understanding Primes, Chapter VI: Being Kind

* * *

><p>Harry was angry. This was not an uncommon state for him (especially recently), but rarely did he try so hard to keep it under control.<p>

This related to how tired he was. He hadn't been sleeping well, not at all, and the fatigue made his temper short. Staying at the Dursleys' for the past weeks had been necessary but entirely undesirable. He was so close to leaving for good, and that moment couldn't come soon enough.

And now Uncle Vernon was looking to delay it yet again. Harry didn't care how it happened, he just wanted the Dursleys to go hide, out of the house, and out of his way. He couldn't run off to fight Voldemort while they were easy targets; his conscience wouldn't stretch that far. As soon as Harry left for good, the protections around Privet Drive would be finished, and he didn't think the Death Eaters would have any problem killing some of his Muggle relatives, no matter how incidental they were.

He was also still unable to perform under-age magic without breaking the law. Going 'off the grid', as Scott had put it, would be that much more difficult if the Ministry wanted to arrest him yet again. Harry already had plenty of other people lining up to take a shot at him.

So instead of forcibly shoving his relatives out the door with a spell, Harry took another deep breath and tried to think of some way to get the man's fat arse out of the house and into the car. Vernon was currently labouring under the delusion that the protection program Harry had offered was an elaborate ruse to gain ownership of the Dursley house. This was so stupid that Harry was actually stumped for a response. He would rather sleep on the street than live in this shitehole by choice.

He realized he had actually said that last part out loud when Vernon's face began to turn a rich, furious purple.

"Is there a problem here?"

A new voice from the lawn interrupted the proceedings and temporarily curtailed Vernon's rage. Harry stepped forward to peer around Dudley as they all turned to look, but he already knew who it was.

Scott Kharan stood on the garden path wearing a slightly bemused expression. He was also wearing Muggle clothing and, while his choice of trousers and a long-sleeved button-up shirt seemed slightly odd in the summer heat, he was neither mismatched nor obviously uncomfortable.

Vernon looked suspicious, but didn't react as he would to yet another member of the Wizarding society he so loathed. "No, no problem," he responded gruffly. "Just discussing something with the boy here—"

"Harry, yeah. That's his name — it's Harry. Say it."

Vernon glared. "I beg your pardon?"

"Call him Harry," Scott said. He moved a few steps forwards, towering over Vernon's stout form. "Just for future reference."

The implied menace in Scott's stance was enough for Vernon to realise what was going on. He whirled on Harry. "Boy, is this another of your — your—"

"Friends?" Harry suggested.

"Comrades. Compatriots," Scott added.

"—your _type_," Vernon spat out, like it was something rotten. Petunia grabbed Dudley's shoulders and pulled him further away from Scott.

"Do you see a wand?" Scott asked. He held up his hands for inspection.

That mollified Vernon, if only very slightly. "So he's a normal acquaintance of yours," he said grudgingly to Harry.

_Normal? No, definitely not._ "Not exactly," Harry snorted.

"Wands are scary things," Scott said breezily. "You never know what they can do, right? Maybe turn you into a toad or something. Maybe set you on fire."

"Silence!" Vernon demanded, but he was apparently too afraid to shout in case the neighbours were listening. "I will not discuss these things in my house!"

"That's fine. Weren't you just leaving?"

"Oh. OH." Vernon turned once more to Harry. "I see. You've enlisted help, have you? Boy, I'll tell you right now that I will _not_ be forced out of my own home on some ridiculous pretence—"

"That's not what you said yesterday," Harry interrupted.

"I changed my mind! And now here's this fellow _also_ trying to get us to leave, and I can put two and two together, yes I can, and I see what's happening here!"

"I don't think you do," Scott told him, and the blankly polite expression he had been wearing was now somehow threatening. "Harry is telling you that if you don't leave with the people coming to get you, then Voldemort will torture and kill you, your wife, and your grotesquely deformed son. But I'm here to tell you about a more immediate danger."

"Am I to believe there's _another_ maniac out to get us?" Vernon scoffed.

"Could be. The day ain't over yet. Are you scared of wands, Vernon?"

"_Scared?_" Vernon indignantly blustered. "Of course not, it's just _unnatural,_ all of you are—"

"Then this must seem mundane." Scott reached into his buttoned shirt, and when he partially withdrew his hand, the hard outline of a pistol was clenched in it. He rested the handgun against his chest, the last half of the barrel still concealed beneath the cloth.

Vernon's face drained of colour so quickly it was as if he had sprung a leak. Petunia let out a high-pitched squeak and scurried backwards until she was pressed against the wall. Dudley just stared, looking more interested than alarmed.

"What, scared of this too? Don't you know how a gun works?" Scott said mockingly. "Physics. Chemistry. Action and reaction, pressure and velocity. Nothing magical about this — why so frightened?"

"Petunia," Vernon croaked, "call the police."

Scott grinned. "And tell them… what? That a magical wizard is threatening you with a gun?"

"Scott, don't do anything stupid," Harry warned. He didn't think Scott would actually gun down his relatives, but wouldn't put it past the Kharadjai to shoot Vernon in the knee or something.

"Take my purse! There's jewellery upstairs in the bedroom!" Aunt Petunia said hysterically, speaking for the first time.

"I don't want, or need, your money," Scott said contemptuously. "I want, _and_ need you to get the fuck out of this house."

Since nobody had actually been shot yet, Vernon had regained some small portion of his bravado. "And go where? We can't just drive off aimlessly!"

"There will be some people here soon to take you to a safe place," Harry reminded him.

"And you're going to go with them," Scott said with finality.

Vernon actually quivered with rage when given the order. "Or else what?"

"Or else I'll take this lamp," Scott said calmly, nodding at a table lamp near him, "and I'll beat you with it until you stop moving. Then I'll wrap you in a bin bag and they can _drag_ you to the safe house. So go sit down, or I'll put you down."

Vernon's mouth opened and closed several times, outrage vying with terror. But the look in Scott's eyes made it clear that he was both willing and fully capable of carrying out his threats, so Vernon turned around on shaky legs and tottered over to the couch, where he collapsed and was joined by Petunia. They huddled together, shock writ large on their faces. Harry found dark humour in the fact that despite all the wizarding going on lately, it was the looming promise of a Muggle-style beating that cowed them most of all.

Except for Dudley. Harry didn't know if it was stupidity or overconfidence, but Dudley was defiantly sizing Scott up.

"I could thrash you," Dudley grunted to Scott, flexing his massive arms. "Put the gun away if we're goin' to fight."

Scott glanced at Dudley, the expression on his face indicating that he didn't think the lad was worth his time. "You don't want that."

"C'mon then," Dudley said fiercely, angered by Scott's low opinion of his strength. "You scared of me? After all that talk? You're just a bloody coward."

Harry closed his eyes and placed a hand on his forehead, because he knew what was coming.

He hadn't seen Scott fight all that much, just a few times. But if there was one thing that had been apparent from the start — made clear through both Scott's actions and words — it was that he fought in a certain manner. He didn't fight for show. He didn't fight for honour, or out of fairness, or with a sense that he had to hold himself back. Scott fought to _win_. And he would do it by the most direct means possible.

In what appeared to be one fluid, rapid, impossible motion Scott grabbed Dudley's right arm and bent it the wrong way at the elbow, stretching it back. When Dudley leaned forward slightly with the torque exerted on his shoulder, Scott then punched him in the throat. This was followed by a second punch to the chest and a kick into the side of a kneecap.

Dudley hit the floor so hard that the house shook.

"DUDLEY!" Aunt Petunia shrieked.

Vernon was too enraged to be so eloquent. With a wordless roar he sprang from the couch and started to charge at Scott.

Harry knew he had to put a stop to this before it got out of hand. "THAT'S ENOUGH!" he ordered, and drew his wand. He pointed it at Vernon.

Vernon skidded to an ungainly halt, his face a conflicting mess of horror and rage. Petunia was down on her knees, hyperventilating with barely contained hysteria as she worked in vain to roll Dudley onto his back. For his part, Dudley was making a great deal of noise trying to breathe.

"The throat is a good show stopper," Scott said to Harry, looking unconcerned by the scene he had caused. He gestured at Dudley's twitching form. "See how hard it is for him to inhale? The first punch closes his windpipe; the second hit to the chest knocks out any air he already had. He's close to passing out."

"Thanks for the lesson, but I could have done without the demonstration," Harry said, fixing Scott with a hard glare. "Try not to hurt anyone else while you're here, all right?"

Scott raised an eyebrow, looking down at Dudley. "I think the lesson was more for _him_."

Harry sighed, releasing some of his anger. Dudley had always been prone to starting fights. It was just his incredibly bad luck to start one with Scott. "They've been hard enough to convince without you maiming Dudley."

"Sorry. Regardless, we gotta talk."

"In a minute," Harry said. "Let's wait for the Order to get here."

"_They_ can wait for the Order to get here," Scott said, jerking his head in the direction of the Dursleys. He grabbed Harry's arm and tugged him towards the stairs. "We have other plans."

As soon as they were in Harry's room, he closed the door and frowned at Scott. "What other plans?"

Scott flopped down in his usual position at the foot of Harry's bed, but in his adult form he hung off the edge from the waist down. With a groan, he sat back up. "I think the Order will want to move you, too."

Harry had the same thought, but there was no way to be sure. "They already told me they are. If I leave now I'm not coming back, and that will break the protections."

"They'll break on your birthday, and that's coming up fast," Scott pointed out.

"Either way, Voldemort will be waiting for me," Harry said grimly. "Maybe he doesn't know exactly where I am, but he's had a lot of time to narrow it down."

"That's right. And if we have to shoot our way out of here, I'd like to be prepared."

That was a daunting proposition. "Maybe we should see what the others have set up first," Harry suggested.

"That's fine. It'd be better to move under cover of dark. Here, this is what I've done so far…" Scott stood and led Harry over to the window; leaning down, he pointed towards the section of street that was visible from the side yard. "See that car parked across the way? That's mine." He then pointed downward. "There's a bag of stuff in the bushes, in case we exit this way."

"I think the Death Eaters won't have much trouble stopping a car," Harry said.

Scott smirked in response. "Let's see you stop a car while avoiding gunfire. Take it from someone with experience: it's not easy to do _anything_ when you've got bullets snapping around your head."

"They could still overwhelm us. We're bound to be outnumbered."

"Which is why speed will be key," Scott said absent-mindedly. He was checking the lock on the window. "A distraction wouldn't hurt, either, if you've got any ideas."

Harry thought about that for a few seconds. "I could send my Patronus out the opposite way. It will be bright in the dark, and it moves pretty fast."

"I also have a variety of grenades in that bag," Scott said. He opened the window and, apparently satisfied that it could be done quickly, shut it again. "We could set traps in case they come into the house. Flashbangs would work well if we get caught in the open. I've even got some CI-WP6 canisters."

"…And those are good?" Harry guessed.

"Combat Incendiary White Phosphorus grenades. They burn hot as hell, but more useful in this scenario is the shit ton of smoke they put out. All I have are WP6s, though. Wish I had some WP0s." Scott's eyes widened. "Or a WP _double_ oh…although, come to think of it, anything higher than a WP2 would probably set fire to the neighbourhood."

"I'd like to avoid that," Harry said dryly.

"What I got is good enough to get us out of here. Besides, the double-ohs are what they slide in the one-fifties, or mount in bomb racks, rocket pods, that kind of crap. Nothing we could carry… Unless I can figure out how to bolt an artillery piece to that car…"

"We're trying to be inconspicuous," Harry said patiently.

Scott sighed. "I suppose we are." He paused then, looking confused. "Shit, did I really just beat up your cousin?"

Harry looked at him askance. "Uh, yeah. Yeah, you did."

"Goddammit. That was uncalled for."

Harry was dumbfounded by that uncharacteristic expression of remorse. "What's got into you?"

"Teen form, that's what." Scott sighed again. "It lingers, you know. I changed just a couple hours ago. Still feel stupid… impulsive. Chatty. End up punching a kid in the throat, that's nice. I need to settle back in to being _me_, not a bag of hormones."

"You calling _me_ a bag of hormones, too?"

"Indirectly. But you are, yes." Scott moved back from the window and surveyed the rest of the room. "I heard from Lila that you've still been mailing Ginny, correct?"

"Yes, and it hasn't had much to do with hormones," Harry replied, making the connection in Scott's train of thought. "Keep your nose out of my letters."

"Keep your snog sessions off of my couch," Scott shot back. "Whatever erotic missives you've been sending, I don't care… much."

Harry decided to ignore that. "Have you seen this?" he asked, changing the subject. He grabbed his crumpled copy of the _Daily Prophet_ and threw it over to Scott.

"Seen what?" Scott said, trying to smooth out the pages.

"That article. About Dumbledore. By fucking _Skeeter!_ I thought Hermione had her number but I guess even that's not enough anymore." Harry's hands curled into fists. "He's hardly been gone for a couple months and people are already just…"

"Rewriting history, I take it," Scott guessed, peering at the newspaper.

"To say the least," Harry grated.

Scott lowered the paper and raised an eyebrow at Harry. "Is this something we need to take care of?"

"Take care of _how_?"

"Depends whether this Skeeter person is actively working against us, or just an opportunist. Is she taking a side, or making some money?"

Harry scoffed. That was an easy enough question to answer. "Making some money. She's a piece of work, but not really Death Eater material."

"All right. Understandable motivation, deplorable methods. Let me know if we need to shut her up. This sort of thing doesn't _seem_ impactful, but you would know better than me." Scott shrugged.

"Most people don't listen to her… I hope," Harry amended. "What would you do to her?"

"Customary threats to her home, career and life. Maybe I'm wrong, but she doesn't seem likely to hold on to journalistic integrity at that point."

"You have to have journalistic integrity to hold on to it."

Scott grinned. "Point."

"I just can't believe she can do that," Harry muttered.

"The free press cuts both ways. From the look of things this will soon be irrelevant, because the Wizarding press won't be close to free under Voldemort." Scott frowned. "He's got people afraid to say his name. He has to be a good propagandist. Or at the very least, he knows how to be memorable. I think we can expect wide-ranging manipulation of the media as the Ministry comes under his control."

That was an entire other issue, one that Harry wasn't ready to face. He didn't know what could be done about the Ministry except finding the Horcruxes and getting rid of Voldemort quickly. That didn't appear terribly likely, though. Harry knew he would likely be dodging Death Eaters and the Ministry in equal measure.

"Not much we can do about it," he said.

"Now _now_, no," Scott agreed. "No defence is perfect, however. Given the opportunity, the Ministry will be a good target."

Harry didn't know what kind of plans Scott was forming, but they probably involved a great deal of violence. With dull resignation he reckoned Ginny's speculative scenario of Scott burning down the Ministry was close to the truth. Harry would prefer that it not come to that. He didn't like the idea of destroying the Wizarding world in order to save it.

"Let's try to stay focused," he warned Scott. "We have to find those Horcruxes and we can't stop to fight every Death Eater in the country along the way."

"Again — speed is the key. We can't get bogged down, we're outnumbered."

"But how fast are we going to be, searching for bloody Horcruxes?" Harry said impatiently, feeling like Scott was missing the point. "You'll be dragging us along with you, remember. We're not soldiers, or — or whatever it is _you're_ supposed to be. I have to sleep, even if you don't."

Scott shrugged. "Then we hide sometimes. It's not the biggest country, but big enough. But I still think a running battle is our best chance. Fire and manoeuvre, Harry. Don't let them fix you."

"I'll try. But I'm just…" Harry paused. What was he, exactly? The Boy Who Lived? The Chosen One? Or (as he felt) just a dumb kid in over his head? "…a student. I'm not any good at this."

"Not yet," Scott added. "And I disagree. You've shown yourself to be a fighter more than once. You didn't give up when Voldemort had you before."

"And I got lucky," Harry muttered.

"Sometimes, that's all you need." Scott glanced at the doorway. "I think someone else is here."

"It must be the Order," Harry said hurriedly, throwing open the door and rushing for the stairs. "You'd better stay up here!"

Not waiting for Scott's reply, Harry quickly descended and found Dedalus Diggle and Hestia Jones attempting to engage the Dursleys in conversation. In Harry's opinion, this was a complete waste of time, and was tempted to say so, but considering that his relatives might be spending a fair amount of time with the two Order members, there was no reason to sour things so soon. Diggle and Jones would find out just what the Dursleys were like in short order.

"Harry!" Dedalus exclaimed, beaming at him. "Good to see you, lad!"

Harry spared him a polite nod, but quickly approached the Dursleys. Dudley had managed to pick himself up off the floor and was now slumped against the arm of the couch, frequently coughing. "These are the Order members I told you about. Go with them and do what they tell you," Harry instructed Vernon.

Vernon was cowed by this point, but not completely beaten. "Boy—" he started.

Harry leaned in closer. "Do I need to get Scott to help move things along?" he asked in a low voice.

Vernon swallowed whatever protest had been forth coming, eyes wild. "Come on, Petunia," he said weakly. "Let's be off."

Harry stood by the stairs and watched in silence as the Dursleys left. Vernon's shoulders were slumped, appearing defeated. He didn't even glance at Harry as he went out the door. Aunt Petunia held herself stiffly, though the fear in her posture undermined the attempt she was making at dignity. She did look Harry's way, just for a moment; whatever she saw in his eyes made her flinch. Her mouth moved the tiniest fraction, but the words were left unsaid.

As Dudley staggered along — bent forward slightly, with the hand that Scott hadn't hurt gingerly touching his throat — he paused at the doorway. Harry thought he seemed confused, and for a moment it looked like he might say something. A great jagged cough burst from his lungs instead, and he turned away.

There wasn't a whole lot of emotion attached to seeing them go. Harry had written them all off a long time ago. There was no point looking for family where he'd never find it.

Back upstairs, Scott was waiting. "Everything taken care of?" he asked.

"They're gone," Harry confirmed.

"Anything you want to do while you got the chance? Set fire to the drapes? Take a shit on their bed?"

That made Harry laugh. "No, I think I'm good. Leaving is enough for me."

"Cool. But if you want to steal a TV or something, I won't say anything."

"Where would I put it?" Harry went over to his bed and fell back onto his pillow. The sun was still bright in the sky.

As he stared upwards, the ceiling held no answers for the problems facing him. The man sitting at the foot of his bed might. Harry reckoned Scott had already said his piece, though. A waiting car and a rucksack of bombs were probably just part of the plan. Whatever came after would most likely be improvised, seeing as how neither of them knew what they would be up against.

It still seemed impossibly daunting. Harry's worst fear was that Voldemort would force a confrontation right out in the street in front of the house. He didn't think he had much chance of surviving such an encounter, not even with Scott's help. Well… no. His _worst_ fear would be Voldemort and his followers killing all of Harry's friends and then Harry himself (or, even more terrible, leaving Harry alive).

Harry reached into his pocket and withdrew his wand, holding it up for inspection. It looked like a weak weapon for saving the world, or at least the U.K. part of it. "Scott," he said, breaking the silence which was so unusual considering the Kharadjai was present, "who was the first person you ever killed?"

"That's a hell of a thing to ask," Scott replied calmly.

Harry winced. "Sorry."

"I don't know."

"You don't…" Harry blinked, realising that Scott had actually answered the question, sort of. "How can you not know?"

"It was a firefight. It was dark. I wasn't the only person shooting. I shot more than one person, but as to which I killed? I don't know. Highground credited me two confirmed kills. The OpFor took their dead and wounded with them when they withdrew. I never saw either."

That sounded very impersonal, and not at all what Harry had imagined for his fight against Voldemort. "Why were you fighting them? If it's okay to ask, that is…" he hedged, trying to be a bit more tactful.

"I was still in the Third Army at the time. I got my dick wet in universe, uh… I can't remember the number. But it was Operation Hold Spree, I remember that. I was with the 113th FIR, Sigma Company. Standard interdiction orders: they put us between the OpFor and the civvies and told us to send them packing. We did it, all right." Scott paused. "As for the _why_… I'd have to requisition the files. I think there was a long term UO manifestation, and we were preventing… something or the other. It might have been ethnic."

"What does 'Hold Spree' mean?"

"It doesn't mean anything. It was just the callsign for the Op, they're always random."

Harry frowned thoughtfully. "Then what's the callsign for _this_ Op?"

"Halberd Prevalence. The words are nonsense, but the initials might be more than coincidence. Someone has to name the mission, and I think a lot of times inspiration comes straight from the intel."

Scott was being unusually forthcoming. Normally Harry would have to pry anything Kharadjai related out of him. "So that was your first battle, huh."

"Oh, no. Not at all. I was with the 202nd SFM for years before that, Second Fleet Marines. Homefront SAD, Canaan Sector. Stationed on the KCC _Ultimatum_. Before that, 542nd RIR, Kappa Company. Saw some action during the Hanetse elections. And before that, the 195th SFM, Carcer Patrol, KCC _Longevity_. And other stuff, too."

Harry couldn't really process that many acronyms, so he just forged onward. "But you never killed anyone during any of those battles?"

"Kharadjai engagements. Strictly on the homefront. Shot a few people, but nobody died. Always kind of tricky to fight other Kharadjai. Go through _multus_ ammunition making sure they stay down."

"Wow. Yeah, that's got to be hard fighting other people like you."

"Luckily, most aren't like me. Back then, _I_ wasn't like me. I was tough, sure, but I can take way more punishment now. Primare training will do that."

"And experience, I'd bet," Harry said dryly. "Not like you've had a clean bill of health so far here."

"True that! And the worst is yet to come, my worried friend. How fortunate of you to have me as your handy damage sponge."

Harry didn't feel comfortable throwing _anyone_ into the line of fire, not even Scott. "Let's try to be careful, I don't want anything like that to happen."

"We can be careful. But, Harry…" Scott's voice turned serious. "When it comes down to the wire, don't hesitate. Get behind me, kick me out the door, tell me to draw their fire, whatever you have to do. This world needs you, and it won't miss me."

"Whatever," Harry muttered, feeling the bitterness touching the back of his tongue, just like it always did whenever his supposed indispensability came up.

"No. Not whatever. You fucking do it."

Teen Scott would probably have let the whole thing go and made a joke about it. Harry was starting to understand what Lila had meant. "Fine. I get it."

Scott sighed. "You don't. But that's just part of who you are."

"Enough of this," Harry grumbled, pushing himself up into a sitting position. "What are we going to do for the rest of the day?"

"It's your house now, boyo. We could redecorate."

"I thought décor was Lila's thing."

Scott grinned. "Only the part where you add stuff. Myself, I like to subtract."

And that's how Harry spent the next couple of hours practising his throwing aim with Aunt Petunia's china plates. It was petty, but so was she.

* * *

><p>"I don't like this," Neville said stubbornly.<p>

"I know, Neville," Luna said sympathetically. "But Daddy has been alone for a bit too long, don't you think? How can he be expected to catch a Snorkack without my help?"

Neville crossed his arms, not yielding to the point. He was watching as Luna packed the few belongings she had brought with her during her extended stay in the newly created guest bedroom. Against his better judgement, she was going back home.

In the past, Neville had almost invariably spent his summers alone. The plants in the greenhouse were his only companions, a (usually) silent collection of distractions to keep him occupied. He'd never had any friends he thought he could invite over for a visit; he knew that Harry was stuck at his own house for the duration, and, well… he supposed he might contact Ron or Hermione, but unless they liked plants, there wasn't a whole lot to _do_ at Neville's.

The Longbottom Estate was a large, draughty old place, the kind of generational residence that had more rooms than occupants. This had been especially true for Neville's childhood, spent largely in the company of his grandmother and whatever relatives came to visit. There were doors that he hadn't opened in years, full of cloth-covered furniture and heirlooms of indeterminate origin. The grounds were equally vast, though a great deal of it hadn't been tended to. Past the greenhouse was an overgrown field, and then past that stood the woods, marked only by the trails of deer.

When Scott had advised Neville that a Death Eater had been spotted lurking about Luna's place, Neville hadn't needed the unsubtle hints the Kharadjai had dropped: he had known exactly what to do. That night he had gone into the room across from his, forcing open squeaky, rusted windows and bashing out the splintery shutters when he couldn't figure out how to unlock them. Loads of dust had been sent out those windows, the cloth coverings on the bed and dresser following it.

When Neville informed his grandmum that he would shortly have company, she had been too shocked to protest. This was probably because he had simply told her, and not asked. Neville wasn't sure he had ever done that before.

He had never sent anything through the post, nor did he contact her via Floo, but the next day Luna had shown up on his doorstep, regardless. Scott had obviously taken care of things (and knew Neville well enough that he never bothered to check and see if Luna could stay in the first place). The second Neville had seen her on the porch, all floating golden hair and wide silvery eyes, his heart was caught in a fist. He had _desperately_ wanted to avoid disappointing her. And he'd been afraid that his house and whatever entertainment he could provide would be entirely disappointing.

But Luna had flitted from room to room, from the kitchen to the greenhouse, expressing wonderment at the smallest things. Neville had followed her in a daze, registering her gentle chatter only peripherally. She'd smelled good. Maybe that had been an odd thing to notice (and certainly not something he could ever express to her) but he had been stuck on it, nonetheless.

Luna liked spending time with him out in the greenhouse, inventing fanciful origins for all his plants, giving them each a name. She loved the woods. Neville hadn't ever spent much time in them but he followed her about like she was magnetic, caught in her pull, stopping her only when they strayed close to the edge of the magical protections that surrounded the property. At night she would pull out a new book from the small library downstairs and read the ending with him. She explained that she always read the ending first, since she didn't want to get involved with the story if it didn't end happily. Sometimes she would read it backwards, for a different perspective. At supper-time, Gran would try her best to bore little, disapproving holes into Luna with her eyes, but Luna never seemed to notice. After awhile, Neville even found it funny.

And always, _always_, he noticed every little thing about her. The way her wayward tresses caught the slightest breeze. The way her small, pale hands held the pages of a book, so careful and reverential. The way her eyes lit up when some new fancy struck her. The way her delicate nose crinkled when she laughed, always full-bodied and without restraint. The way her perfect rosebud mouth pursed before she stood on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek before bed.

It was the best summer Neville had ever had.

And now she was leaving him.

"Luna, we don't know whether it's safe for you to go yet," he argued.

"It won't be long before Bill Weasley's wedding, I'll have to wear a dress, and I didn't bring anything suitable," Luna told him, making an unusually relevant argument. One thing spending a summer with her had taught Neville was that her head wasn't in the clouds as much as most people tended to think.

"Just tell me what you need, I'm sure Scott could get it for you," Neville countered lamely, knowing full well that he hadn't any way to contact Scott.

Luna stood up from where she had been stuffing a pair of trousers into her bag and frowned. "I know he's a friend, but perhaps not in that way? I don't think I'd want Scott sorting through my knickers."

Neville's mind was immediately barraged by images of a drawer full of Luna's knickers and her wearing various pairs. He impatiently brushed the thoughts away. "Okay, what about Lila? Or Ginny?"

Luna reached over and took his hand. "Neville, I know you don't want me to go. And that makes me feel very nice. But I can't stay here forever. I don't think your grandmum would like that at all."

So she _had_ noticed Gran's frosty demeanour. "Oh, she'll be all right, she just… needs time to get used to having someone else here, it's usually just the two of us—"

"No, Neville," Luna said firmly. She squeezed his hand. "I have to go. But we'll see each other again very soon."

Neville held onto her hand tightly, vainly searching for some reason why she simply couldn't go. "I…"

Without warning, Luna stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him in a close hug. Neville was generally aroused by her presence alone, and even as he put his own arms around her shoulders he was hoping that she didn't press any closer. His reaction to the hug would be entirely obvious at that point.

"I understand," she hummed into his chest. "I don't want to go, either. But it's time." She looked up at him, her grey eyes completely captivating. "You smell quite nice," she noted.

Neville swallowed with some difficulty. "Th-thanks…"

She blinked. "Oh, before I go, there was something I wanted to give you."

"What's that?"

Luna lifted herself up on her toes, pulled down on Neville's neck, and pressed her lips to his.

Neville froze. He didn't know what to do. Every cell in his brain was screaming in ecstasy but he was just standing there like a lump. He had to do _something_! But by the time Neville had decided that he should at least _try_ to kiss her back, Luna had pulled away.

She licked her lips, Neville's gaze tracing the movement of her pink tongue. "That was exhilarating," she noted. "Did you like it?"

"Yes," he said weakly. "I liked it a lot."

"Oh, that's good. I thought you might not, since you didn't move at all. But I've never kissed a boy before, so I don't have any comparison. Is that normal?"

Neville responded by lifting her up and kissing her with every ounce of pent up attraction he had accumulated over the summer. When they finally broke apart, they were both gasping for air.

"How was that?" Neville ventured. He was already eyeing her lips again and felt like he could never, ever get tired of this.

Luna seemed slightly dazed. She touched her lips in wonderment. "That was very interesting. I never understood before why so many people like kissing, but I do now. It's a lot of fun, isn't it?"

Neville nodded enthusiastically. "Uh-huh."

"I like it very much." She looked back up at him with an almost hungry expression. "I think it's more fun with you than it would be with anyone else. I feel warm all over; do you? Especially down here." She placed one hand in a spot that almost made Neville choke on his own saliva. "Would you like to kiss me again?"

Neville had never been more sure of anything in his life. "Um, yeah."

"All right then," she said, and moved her hands to his neck again.

Once again, the demands of oxygen forced them to separate. Neville was about sick of this 'breathing' thing. "Luna… would you like to be my girlfriend?"

Luna's smile was as bright as the sun. "Of course! I've been waiting all summer for you to ask."

"You—" Neville started, but then he realised that there wasn't any point. What was obvious to Luna had escaped far smarter people than himself.

"It's been such a wonderful summer, and I enjoyed spending it with you even more than I thought I would — and I thought I would quite a lot. I was very right." She hugged him again, even more tightly than before. "You've been a great friend, and I'm glad you also want to be more. I've never had a boyfriend before. This is very exciting."

Oh, yes. It was _very_ exciting. Neville shifted his hips away from her slightly. "It has been a great summer, hasn't it? Best I've ever had. And I've never had a girlfriend, either."

"Really?" Luna actually seemed surprised. "I think that's odd. You're brave and handsome, and very kind."

Neville blushed. "Yeah, well, you're really smart, and pretty and nice to everyone, even rotten gits like Malfoy. I can't imagine why any bloke would pass you up."

Luna smiled again. "That's why we should be together, Neville. We see what nobody else does."

They were holding hands on the front porch when Luna's father came to get her. Neville thought he might let go before Mr. Lovegood saw, but couldn't think of any way to do it without upsetting Luna. Gran was already glaring at them from behind the window curtain. No doubt she'd have some words for him when he went back inside, but Neville didn't care. This was one decision Gran hadn't forced him into, and she couldn't force him out of it, either.

Luna made the whole hand-dropping thing irrelevant when she gave him a enthusiastic kiss right before she turned to go. Mr. Lovegood was busily looking about with great interest, and Neville wasn't even sure he'd noticed; that was, until he paused to give Neville a very direct look. Neville couldn't control the blush that stole over his face, but stood his ground regardless. Luna wasn't ashamed of it, and he wouldn't be either.

As he watched her leave, all he could think about was seeing her again. The short time to the wedding didn't seem so short at all.

As expected, Gran had immediately tried to corner him with questions about 'that Lovegood girl' but Neville wasn't having any of it. He brushed past her with promises of talking later and went straight to his room.

There, resting upon his bed, every sensation she had left him with crowded his mind. The taste of her lips, the feel of her small form enfolded in his own… It was all so immediate, and tortuously unrepeatable. He wanted to do it all over again.

It was funny, really. Neville had always thought that finding his first girlfriend would be an awkward, difficult experience. That he'd have no idea what to do and would probably muck it all up before it even started. The only part of that which ended up being true was that he really didn't know what to do.

But he couldn't _wait_ to figure it out.

* * *

><p>"Fuck me," Scott muttered. Reaching over, he knocked one of his pieces off the board.<p>

"I suppose you think that was lucky," Harry said sarcastically.

Scott brought his hands up and rubbed at his temples, peering at the board with furious concentration. "You made an estimated guess, and it worked. Real combat is not so forgiving… Although, sometimes—" He moved his piece forward, forcing Harry to reveal that his own piece was inferior. "—it is."

"Damn it." Harry had got better after four straight games of Stratego, but Scott was still reigning champion.

"Look for the patterns. The ranks are thinning… am I obvious enough that those stationary units are bombs, or am I just screwing with you? Am I moving in a definable way, or am I just responding to _your_ moves?"

"I don't know, that's the problem." Harry leaned his head over onto one hand. "I need to find my own strategy game to be good at. I'm tired of losing to Ron in chess and you in this."

Scott made a face of disbelief. "What? We've played four games just tonight, how many years have you been losing to Ron? We're not exactly in the same league."

"Well, I'm already tired of it. And I think that's a bomb," Harry said, pointing at one of Scott's pieces.

"Only one way to find out…"

"Okay." Harry grabbed the edges of the game board and spun it around so that Scott's pieces were revealed to him. "There we go. I was right, it was a bomb."

Instead of flying into a (admittedly justified) rage, Scott only smiled sharply. "_Now_ you're thinking. Don't ever play the game they want you to. There are no rules, only limits."

Harry sighed. "I can't win at all. If I play fair you beat me, if I cheat you don't get angry and take all the fun out of it."

"Someday you might have to flip the board on Voldemort. And that's not a game."

"Fight to win," Harry stated tiredly, the underlying mantra of so many of Scott's 'lessons'. Harry usually felt like he was being tested, not taught.

"No glory in combat. No honour in killing. No dignity in death."

"Is that a quote?" Harry asked. "Or did you make that up, too?"

"_Nullus bellum decus. __Nullus honor interfectis. Nullus dignitas in mortem._" Scott leaned back in his chair. "It's a quote, yeah. Older than you, older than me, older than anyone still alive to remember it. The point is that we don't do these things because they're fun. We do them because we must. Don't put on a show, just get it done."

"Like you did with Dudley?" Harry said bitingly.

"Wrong target, right idea." Scott shrugged. "Sorry about that, again."

Harry sighed. "It's all right. He had it coming."

"So do a lot of other people. And wait, what else did I say I made up?"

"The thing about the 'shield within'," Harry said. When Scott looked blank, he added, "Remember? Back in the Room of Requirement, after you blocked everyone's spells. You said that you made up that quote about the shield."

"Really?" Scott appeared surprised.

Harry thought Scott might be fooling around at that point. "Come off it. You're telling me you don't remember that at all?"

"No, I know the quote. _Nullus vim supra intra scutum. _No power above the shield within. I don't remember telling you it came from me, though. Maybe you're thinking of something else."

"No, I'm not. You said you made it up," Harry told him exasperatedly.

"Hmm. Well, if I did — _if_ I did — then I was totally lying. That quote predates me by at least a hundred epochs."

"So you lied. What a surprise."

Scott actually looked a bit embarrassed. He glanced out the kitchen window. "Getting darker out there."

"The Order should be here before too long," Harry said, allowing Scott to change the subject. "You might want to go upstairs. Last thing we need is for them to see you."

"What, you're just going to leave me up there alone? I'll get bored."

"We'll both be lucky if boredom is the worst that happens tonight," Harry said grimly.

"Cheerful. C'mon, let's go upstairs and make sure you didn't forget to pack anything. I'm sure that will be riveting."

Despite Scott's suggestion, Harry was the only one checking to see if anything needed to be packed once they returned to his room. Scott stared out the window while Harry peeked under the bed and went through his wardrobe, stirring up dust rather than anything vital. Apparently not content with the view, Scott left and went into the other rooms.

Harry was considering Scott's words about hiding out with the Muggles; some of the attire he had left in his drawers might still be useful in that regard. Most of it was just poorly fitting clothing that Dudley had outgrown, but it was better than nothing. It would do until he could buy some more.

"Harry, come here," Scott called out from Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia's room.

Harry dropped the t-shirt he had been examining and walked down the short hallway to where Scott was looking out the double windows intently. They offered a view of the back garden, as opposed to Harry's window, which mostly offered a view of the neighbouring house. It occurred to him, as he walked around the bed, that he had never actually been in the room before, or, if he had, he had been too young to remember.

Scott pointed at something outside. "You see that man walking down the street back there?"

Harry looked in that direction and just saw the outline of someone before they went out of sight behind an obstructing house. "What about him?"

"That's the third time he's covered that part of the walk."

Harry felt a chill run down his spine.

"He's nervous," Scott continued. "He keeps looking around, but not finding anything. He's also wearing slippers, corduroy pants and a turtleneck sweater. So either he's high as a kite, or he's trying to fit in and doesn't understand how or why."

Harry knew what he thought was most likely. "He's looking for me."

"Probably. If he is, he's not alone."

It was a very bad discovery, but Harry had known something like this was inevitable. He set his jaw. "We have to warn the Order. If we can get a letter out in time they'll call it off."

Scott nodded. "Okay. Make it fast."

Harry rushed back to his room, grabbing a loose piece of paper from his desk and the first pen he saw. He had no sooner begun to scrawl out his desperate message when Scott appeared in the doorway.

"Too late," Scott said calmly. He jerked his head in the direction of the stairs. "Your ride is here."

Harry dropped the pen, not caring when it rolled off the desk and clattered on the floor. "Shit."

"Yeah. Go see what the plan is, but try not to leave without letting me know."

"Leave?" Harry said incredulously. "I can't leave, not now, those bastards are right out there! They'll attack everyone with me, we'll have to figure something else out."

"Like what? We already knew this could happen." Scott held up his hands in a helpless gesture. "Just go downstairs and see what the plan is. We'll go from there."

"Fine. But I'm not putting anyone else in danger. I'll go alone if I have to."

Scott laughed quietly. "You really think you could get out of here without me knowing?"

That, Harry thought as he descended the stairway, was a problem for later. Right now, he had to find out what the Order was up to.

What they were up to, as it turned out, was completely unacceptable.


	3. Goodbye, Arcadia Part II

**3**

**Goodbye, Arcadia**

**Part II**

* * *

><p>"<em>Initial encounters were scattered and indecisive. On the fourth<br>__day at 1400 hours, the opposing force occupied the tree line  
><em>_directly northwest of our forward positions. During the  
><em>_following six hours, repeated artillery strikes were directed  
><em>_at the enemy in the hope of creating gaps to exploit. These  
><em>_proved ineffective at dislodging them, and enemy casualties  
><em>_appeared light.  
><em>

_At 2100 hours the order was given to attack and force the  
><em>_opposition out of their entrenched line. We advanced that  
><em>_night under the cover of smoke."_

— Excerpt from POR, Operation Lucid Javelin, U:1118907/Palgarvin  
>Decanus Scott Kharan reporting, regarding Talbot's Field (Field 187),<br>670-1122lts (pg. 24)

* * *

><p>Scott Kharan sat on the edge of a bed and listened. The discussion occurring downstairs was very animated.<p>

The time had come for Harry Potter to leave the protections his mother had left him at the house on Privet Drive, and the Order of the Phoenix had arrived to oversee the transition. However, whatever they had planned was obviously not to Harry's liking, if his raised voice was anything to judge by.

Scott couldn't say he was surprised. The Order had no doubt come fully prepared to put themselves in the line of fire to protect the all-important Chosen One. And if there was one thing Harry simply could not abide (made all the worse by the loss of his godfather, Scott conjectured) it was others dying for his cause. A cause he hadn't even chosen, it had chosen _him_.

Scott knew that was how the multiverse worked. He had seen and dealt with it before. Harry was much less accepting of such invisible machinations. Scott understood that, as well. He would be interested to see if Harry could convince whoever was downstairs with him (Scott recognised a few of the signatures pulsing in the shape, but not all) that they would be better off letting Harry go it alone.

A small smile played around Scott's lips. He very much doubted that.

Either way, there were rapid footsteps on the stairs. Scott could tell it was Harry, so the truth would soon be apparent. One way or the other, they were leaving. The question was simply how.

When Harry burst through the door with panic writ large on his face, Scott knew exactly what was going to happen.

"We're leaving," Harry said shortly. "Now. Out the window."

Scott didn't bother asking why. "Leave them a note, and let's go."

While Harry scribbled frantically away at a piece of parchment, Scott quietly opened the window and dropped to the ground. He dragged his equipment bag out from under the bush which had so helpfully concealed it. Through the small side window in the kitchen he could see shadows playing on the dining room walls. It looked like quite a crowd in there.

"Help," Harry whispered from up above. Once again, Scott assisted in his descent.

"Your stuff?" Scott asked in a low voice, noting that Harry wasn't carrying anything.

Harry was pale in the moonlight. "They'll take it. But we can't just leave them, we have to… draw attention, to ourselves.

Scott immediately began walking towards the street. "How long until they find your note?"

"Probably seconds," Harry said grimly.

"Get in the car," Scott said, starting to run.

They raced for the vehicle, which Scott had unlocked by remote. As they ran, Scott dug into his duffel bag and pulled out one of the white phosphorous grenades he had been saving for just this occasion. The black metal casing was stamped with yellow letters:

**CI-WP6****  
><strong>**DISTRACTION DEVICE****  
><strong>FUSE(4s)  
>(1s\60s)<strong><br>****LOT.414 TAM-MO.68770**

Once in the driver's seat, he threw the bag into the back seat and thrust the grenade at Harry.

"The plastic dial on the face, it has red lines at intervals — turn it one to the right. Ignore the little clicks, move it one red bar to the right," Scott instructed, starting the car as he did so. "Then pull the pin out of the top, that ring."

Harry fumbled with the grenade for a moment, but figured it out quickly. "Okay, one bar to the right." He pulled the pin and the catch snapped open. "I think that's got it."

"Good. Have your protections broken yet?"

"My… On the house?" Harry looked backwards as they drove down the street, the house that had been his home and hell rapidly disappearing. "I don't know. I didn't think about it until you said that."

"Then we can assume they are." Scott glanced up at the rear-view mirror but didn't see anyone following. "You see this intersection coming up?"

Harry turned back around. "Yes, I see it."

"Throw that sucker out the window right in the middle."

"But there's glass, how do I—" Harry started, though Scott quickly rolled the window down. "All right, here goes…"

Harry threw the phosphorous grenade out into the empty street, where it rolled before coming to rest in the recession of a drain.

While Harry had done as instructed, he was not satisfied that the Order members left behind would be any safer. "So what's that going to do? Scott, we have to go back. If the others get caught coming out of the house—"

The grenade ignited with a blinding flash. It was not the natural light of fire but a scorching, pure white chemical burn that flickered with a painful brightness. A thick cloud of smoke roiled from the drain, creating a dense cover that rapidly obscured the street behind them from view, suffused with an incredible glare that made it seem as if the entire intersection was blanketed with condensed light.

"Like kicking over an anthill," Scott murmured, checking his mirrors again. Any Death Eaters in the area would flock to that display, finding nothing but smoke and night blindness.

"They'll see that for sure," Harry said, echoing Scott's thoughts. "God, that actually hurts!"

"Don't look directly at it. And yeah, everyone will see it." Scott settled back into his seat, but kept a sharp eye on his mirrors. "There's a hat in the glove compartment, put it on. And take off your glasses, there's a different pair in there as well."

Harry tugged at the latch and found the cap inside, the front of it emblazoned with a cartoon fox striking an enthusiastic pose. The back of it proclaimed, 'LIKE A FOX'. He also found the case containing a pair of grey-rimmed rectangular glasses. "I get it," he said thoughtfully as he put them on. "What about my scar?"

"Nobody's going to see that from outside. And speaking of which, we aren't in the clear yet, so keep your guard up. Lila is waiting up ahead at a waystation. She has another car, and we'll switch out there."

"You think the Death Eaters would recognise one car from another?"

Scott shrugged. "Let's not take that chance."

His precautions were admittedly more like the ones he might take for a Muggle opponent. He was switching lanes frequently, taking less obvious routes and occasionally doubling back when the roads permitted it. If Harry noticed, he didn't say anything; his eyes were firmly fixed on the sky.

"The protections should have broken once you left for good," Scott reasoned. There wasn't any need to state these things out loud, but sometimes it was easier to think that way. Harry's opinion was also often useful. "If they didn't attack us when we crossed the street, it's because they couldn't see us. The protections were still working."

"Or they wanted to see what we were doing. Or wait for Voldemort to get there," Harry countered pessimistically.

"I don't buy it. They had us dead to rights, out in the open. And they couldn't have known that we had possible reinforcements in the dining room. They had no reason to hesitate; even if they were looking to capture you, they still would have tried to kill me."

"Moody said that they didn't know it was tonight, that the move was tonight," Harry said slowly. "That was the secret. Apparently they've gotten to some bloke in the Ministry who made it hard to get me out of there, banned the Floo and Apparating, all of that. So they were going to all leave on brooms."

"But you caught a ride with me anyway because of that dude we saw on the other street," Scott guessed.

"Sort of. Moody had Polyjuice, if you can believe it," Harry scoffed. "That was their shite plan, to disguise themselves as me and split up. Moody reckoned they'd all go for his broom, since they'd think I'd be with him, the strongest. Fucking hell."

Scott smiled slightly. He had known it was something like that; Harry was physically incapable of allowing others to take the weight of his terrible responsibility. The boy sounded deeply shaken by the thought, even though it hadn't actually occurred. "And it could have been a massacre," Scott said, deciding to play to Harry's assumptions for the time being.

"No, because I wasn't effing doing it," Harry growled.

"What did you put in your note?" Scott asked, taking the hint and changing the subject.

"I was in a bit of a rush when I wrote it," Harry said with wry understatement, "but it was mostly for Hermione."

* * *

><p>It was after the one minute mark, almost exactly, that Hermione knew Harry wasn't coming back.<p>

Nobody else had seemed to entirely catch on, yet. Moody was suspicious, but the rest of the assembled team seemed content to wait for Harry to haul his trunk downstairs, secure in the knowledge that they had forced him into accepting their escape plan.

Hermione knew better. Harry had fled because he had a way out. She had known the second he'd begged off, resisting giving them his hair for the potion immediately, shouting about his things as he charged up the stairs. She had known, but hadn't tried to stop him.

It was perhaps a bit unusual for her. However, in this instance, she felt that she needed to have faith. If Harry thought he had a better way, then maybe he really did. The fact that Scott was almost certainly somewhere nearby had a lot to do with Hermione's confidence. The Kharadjai would no doubt have plans of his own.

After a few more seconds, George nudged Fred in the side. "C'mon, let's at least help him to hurry things up."

Fred acted surprised. "Were we in a rush?"

When they started towards the stairs, Hermione's loud sigh stopped them. "Don't bother," she said flatly. "He's already gone."

The twins just looked blankly back at her. "Gone where?" Fred said dumbly.

Moody's magical eye whirled and fixed on her. "Damn it, girl, if you're saying what I think you're—"

"Come on, then," Hermione said exasperatedly, ignoring all the stares and expressions of dismay at her revelation. "I do hope he's left a note…"

The Order members crowded onto the stairs in a race to the top. Hermione didn't bother, bringing up the rear. When she reached Harry's room it was empty, just as she had predicted. Moody was muttering a number of sulphurous oaths under his breath as he scanned the space but Hermione ignored him, approaching the bed.

"Oh, good," she said, picking up the hastily written note. "At least he remembered this much."

"What's tha' say?" Hagrid rumbled, his huge form taking up a good portion of the room. "Did he say where he went off to?"

"Of course not," Hermione muttered, scanning the words. "He knew we'd follow him."

"Bloody hell, Hermione, just tell us what it says!" Ron burst out.

One part of it, Hermione knew, was for her and Ron's understanding only. "'Stupid plan, not doing it'," she read out loud. "'Please take my trunk and Hedwig for me. See you later at the usual place'." She paused. "Then there's a bit more that doesn't make any sense, I think he didn't finish.

That particular part made perfect sense, actually. It read, 'motor with SK'.

Moody had already examined the lettering himself. "What motor? What does he mean by that, and what is SK?"

Hermione wasn't a very good liar, and she knew it. Luckily, Harry had written that last part down so poorly that he had provided her plausible denial. "That's the part he didn't finish, I suppose."

She was saved from having to continue her adlibbed deception by Bill's sudden shout from the window. "WATCH IT!"

The Aurors and seasoned Order members immediately took cover, falling to the floor or rolling behind the bed and dresser. Hermione was a bit slower on the reaction time, having been caught completely by surprise, and as such she could clearly see the dark shapes that were speeding over the house.

"Death Eaters!" Moody snarled, wand at the ready.

The tension in the room ratcheted up to an almost unbearable level as wands were drawn and a few choice swearwords came up from various corners of the room (and at least a couple from the wardrobe, where Mundungus was cowering). But it quickly became apparent that the Death Eaters had no interest in them at all — in fact, it didn't seem like they even knew the Order members were in the house. The hooded and cloaked forms of the enemy shot over the Dursley home, intent on a different target.

Ron was the first to stand, his distress clear. "They must've found Harry!"

Moody was already moving towards the door. "Outside!"

"Wait!" Bill interjected, still staring intently out the window. "I'm not sure they have. Mad-Eye, what do you make of that?"

Moody clomped over to the glass and peered outward. Hermione was close behind him. There, in the distance, a glaring white light could be seen pulsing, visible only by the trees it was illuminating.

Fleur shielded her eyes with one hand, hiding back behind Bill's shoulder. "_C__'__est_ _si brillant! _It 'urts my eyes!"

"Magical flare, maybe, some kind of signal," Moody was muttering. His normal eye was squinted against the brilliance. "Very bright, very powerful. Someone wants us to see this, wants _everybody_ to see this."

"And they saw it, indeed," Professor Lupin said tensely. He was hovering very near Tonks. "Should we follow?"

In the distance, Hermione could hear the din of sirens. Moody had as well. "Muggle police," he said. "The Death Eaters will clear out. We will, too."

Multiple voices immediately rose in protest, but Moody cut them off by being even louder. "Shut it!" he barked out. His magical eye fixed on everyone in turn, lingering on Hermione for an uncomfortable stretch. "Potter is impulsive, not stupid. That little display was his, I'd wager. However he did it…" Once again, he eyed Hermione suspiciously. She blinked nervously. "…he's long gone. Regroup and return to your posts before those blighters get their act together and come snooping around here."

Tonks sighed and leaned against Professor Lupin. "I hope you know what you're doing, Harry…" she said, a touch fearfully.

"He'll turn up when he's ready," Moody said gruffly. "Come on. Get up, let's move. You too, Fletcher. Budge your arse."

While the rest of the group shuffled back down the stairs, talking amongst themselves with obvious confusion, Hermione snagged Ron by the elbow and held him back. "Let's get Harry's things like he asked."

"Oh, right! I almost forgot. Sorry, Hedwig," Ron said, lifting the owl's cage from its hook.

Hermione didn't bother trying to physically lift Harry's enormous trunk. With a flick of her wand, she levitated it and moved it towards the doorway. "I thought this might happen," she said quietly.

"It was Scott, wasn't it?" Ron presumed, speaking in an equally hushed tone. "Off his fu— er, _ruddy_ nut, as usual. Blimey, look at all that smoke out there. What do you suppose he burned?"

"It was too bright to be a natural fire. I suppose he used some sort of technology. And I _hope_ he didn't burn anything down in the process." Hermione frowned, worried by the thought. She certainly didn't trust Scott to be concerned about property damage.

Ron looked equally doubtful. "Maybe he lit a few Death Eaters on fire."

"Ron!" Hermione chided him, appalled by that image. "Scott would never… Well, that is to say he _probably_ wouldn't, not if it wasn't efficient… Perhaps. We'll ask him about it later."

Back downstairs Moody was reapplying Disillusionment Charms. He stopped when Hermione and Ron entered the dining room, his magical eye staring at them with an unnerving fixation.

"Did you find Potter's things?" he questioned sharply, eyeing the trunk Hermione was levitating.

Hermione flinched involuntarily. "Yes…"

"Good." Moody turned to place the charm on Tonks but then abruptly whirled back around. "And you don't know what he was talking about with the motor?"

"Perhaps he had a Muggle vehicle of some sort?" Hermione suggested, hoping to draw attention away from the 'SK' portion of the note.

"Huh," Moody grunted, mulling that over. "They wouldn't be looking for a car, that's for sure… Could Potter operate one, if he had it?"

"He was raised by Muggles, I don't see why not." In truth, Hermione hadn't the slightest idea if Harry knew the first thing about driving a car.

"Let's hope he doesn't crash the contraption and do the Death Eaters a favour," Moody growled. "Let's not _any_ of us be doing them any favours, for that matter. Disillusionment Charms all around, and then get gone. And be sure you tell us the moment Potter contacts you, got it?"

Hermione felt a bit of pride at that. Moody knew that she and Ron would be the first people Harry would get in touch with. "Of course," she promised.

When Moody went back to help the others, Ron, who had cleverly remained silent during the exchange, put his arm around Hermione's shoulder and leaned in to whisper in her ear. "Are we really going to tell them? What if Harry asks us not to?"

"We'll deal with that when the time comes," she whispered back. "Besides, Harry will have to go to The Burrow at some point. They'll see him there whether he likes it or not."

"Probably not," Ron suggest wryly. "Not after this."

"Oh, he'll be a bit angry, but he'll get over it." On impulse, Hermione stood on her toes to kiss Ron. When she drew back, she smiled at him. "We've got too much to do to be fighting."

Minutes later they were in the air, speeding away from the Dursleys' and to where they could safely Disapparate. Hagrid had volunteered to take Harry's trunk and Hedwig, which was lucky. Hermione wasn't the best flyer, and she didn't see how she could manage either and still stay on a broom. Her own school trunk was a bit unwieldy, but Harry's looked like he could have comfortably slept inside of it.

Down below, Britain slumbered in the night air, unaware of the calamity that had nearly occurred in the suburbs nearby. Somewhere on those roads, Hermione thought, tracking the lights of moving Muggle traffic, Harry and Scott were making their way to parts unknown.

If they didn't get there safely, Hermione would be quite cross with them.

* * *

><p>"It's not an easy decision. Fast, but not easy. What it comes down to is what we could learn," Scott said quietly.<p>

Harry sat low in his seat, shoulders hunched. "Whether everyone else is all right. What they're doing here in the first place."

"It's a net. They're watching the woods, if you noticed. Not a _good_ net, full of holes and misdirected. They probably think you're on foot, Apparating by steps."

The two men in mismatched clothing walked an awkward perimeter at the back edge of the petrol station, clearly watching for something. Harry observed as they doubled back yet again, still pacing the same stretch of grass where the woods began. One of them, he was almost certain, had a wand tucked up in his sleeve.

"Whoever's in the shop has surely noticed them by now," Harry muttered. "We did and we're a lot further away."

"There's no one here but us and Lil," Scott pointed out, indicating the blue car parked in the side lot. According to him, Lila was inside it. "They probably did something to take care of the attendant."

"Stunned or Imperiused him, maybe," Harry guessed.

"Or they killed him. I haven't seen anyone moving inside."

Harry's blood ran cold. To think that some random Muggle could be on the floor behind the counter, dead, because Harry escaped without a trace and the Death Eaters were so desperate that they were out (on foot!) looking for him… Harry felt like he might turn to ice.

"Stop it," Scott said calmly. "You didn't kill anyone. We don't know if _they_ killed anyone."

"If they did, it's my fault," Harry said numbly.

"No, it's not. Every outcome can't be predicted. What if you had gone with the Order? Would it be Ron or Hermione killed instead?"

The worst part was that Harry _knew_ Scott was purposefully manipulating his emotions. More than a year's worth of time spent with the Kharadjai had rendered his more blatant machinations transparent. But it was working, regardless.

"Let's go find out what they did," Harry said tightly.

"All right. They'll try to stop us if we just walk up to the store front. Give me a minute to move around, then I'll signal you."

"Signal me for what, what do you want me to do?"

"Just get their attention. Stay low and get over by the field, I just need you to say something to them. It will make things easier."

With that, Scott opened his door and slipped out into the night. He disappeared into the shadows almost immediately and Harry had a difficult time tracking him. Scott avoided the ring of illumination from the lights of the station, circling wide and heading for the side lot where Lila was parked. After a moment, Harry climbed out of the car as well, taking care not to shut the door loudly.

The petrol station was situated in a roadside clearing not too far from the motorway. It was meant to service the passing traffic, frequent even this late at night. The complete lack of other vehicles made Harry suspicious. Scott had said they were driving on the A303, and weren't too far from Andover. It didn't seem likely that the station would be so deserted. The Death Eaters must have done something to repel any potential Muggle customers.

Rarely had Harry been so utterly frustrated by his inability to use magic as he was while creeping through a shallow ditch, trying to get closer without being seen. This sort of thing might be all well and good for Scott, but a Disillusionment Charm would have done the job for Harry. He very much regretted leaving his Invisibility Cloak in his trunk. He had been in such a hurry…

The sparse scrub at the edge of the ditch was all the cover Harry was afforded when he came to a halt. Fortunately, the Death Eaters were fixated on the tree line. This fixation increased tenfold when the loud snap of a twig echoed out from somewhere in the woods. The Death Eater on the right slid his wand out of his sleeve, confirming Harry's earlier guess.

Another loud snap. The two men started to close in on the general location from which it had emanated. With a jolt, Harry realised that the twigs had probably been his signal to do something.

Taking a deep breath, Harry stood up. "Oi! You two!" he shouted.

The Death Eaters spun around, wands raising, but it was already too late. Scott and Lila surged from the brush with unnatural speed and sent the unfortunate Death Eaters crashing to the ground with a series of rapid blows.

Scott immediately hauled the limp form of his opponent upward and began carrying him towards the back of the station. "Lil, take yours to the other bathroom. Harry," he called, "go check in the store, see if anyone is hurt."

Harry jogged over to the double doors, a mounting feeling of dread suffusing him. Inside, the lights, so bright after his time in the dark, illuminated a plethora of colourful products and accessories. Behind the counter, the station attendant was slumped forward in a chair, his head pillowed on his arms. He didn't appear to be harmed, which was surprising.

"Um, excuse me?" Harry said tentatively. The man didn't stir. "Hey, are you all right?"

Still no response. Harry would have feared the man was dead, but his chest was rising and falling evenly. The attendant was sleeping, and couldn't be woken. There wasn't any doubt that the Death Eaters had done this to him, though it wasn't nearly as terrible as what they might have done.

Harry pondered that when he returned outside. Why _hadn__'__t_ the Death Eaters simply killed the man? He was grateful that they had not, obviously, but it was a bit confusing. Death Eaters weren't known for their compassion.

Around the back of the shop were the doors for the privy. Harry went up to the men's room and peered inside.

Scott had situated the unconscious Death Eater on the floor, leaning against one wall. He was going through the man's pockets, rifling through the clothes with great concentration.

"There's someone in the shop, but they're just sleeping," Harry told him.

"Makes sense," Scott said a bit distractedly. "There are cameras in there. If they make it look like he fell asleep on the job, there won't be any questions asked."

"I was a little surprised," Harry admitted. "I… thought they might have just killed that bloke. They've killed plenty of Muggles before…"

"And always covered their tracks. If they were going to kill him, they would have burned the place down or something. They'd have done it when they moved on." Scott stood decisively, looking down at the Death Eater. "Close the door. We don't have much time for this."

Harry wasn't sure he wanted to close the door. It seemed like doing so would enable Scott to do whatever… _things_ he was planning to do. Not that Harry knew what was going on, exactly, but he wasn't naive enough to think the Death Eater was just going to talk. Not without some motivation. And knowing Scott, that impetus would be very unpleasant, and perhaps not something Harry wanted to watch.

Despite these misgivings, Harry steeled himself and closed the door, but he resolved to stop Scott if he thought things were getting out of hand.

Scott picked up the Death Eater by the back of his peach-coloured coat and dragged him near the toilet. He then slapped the man's cheeks a few times until he started to stir, coughing and struggling feebly.

"Welcome back to the world of the waking," Scott said pleasantly. "I'm going to ask you a few questions, but first—"

Scott grabbed a fistful of the Death Eater's dark hair and plunged him face first into the toilet bowl, forcing his head beneath the water. Bubbles poured out furiously; Harry could hear the frantic shouting reverberating through the ceramic. He bit down on his lip and said nothing, reasoning that if Scott wanted the Death Eater to answer any questions, then he wasn't going to outright drown him.

Sure enough, Scott pulled the man's head from the water. He kept his knee pressed firmly against the man's back, though, pinning him painfully in place. "What's your name?" he asked the man loudly. When he didn't get any immediate response other than gasping, he shook the Death Eater so hard that the man's teeth clicked together. "What is your name?"

"Preston!" the Death Eater choked out.

"Okay, Preston," Scott said, easing up a little on the pressure from his knee. "I'd like to know what you were doing out here tonight. What were you looking for?"

"Who are you? Where am I?" Preston questioned. "What the hell are you doing, treating me like this—" He was interrupted when Scott plunged his head beneath the water again. This time when Preston was pulled back up for air, he looked faint.

"What were you looking for?" Scott asked again in the exact same tone.

"I… just want to know… who you _are_," Preston garbled. "I haven't done anything, I… haven't said anything to _anyone_, I swear! There's no call for this!"

"Preston… As a favour to you, I'll ask you one more time, then down you go again. What were you looking for?"

"Potter, of course, we… we all are, were, all of us. That's what we were told! I'm supposed to be here!"

Harry tensed at the sound of his name. It was difficult to stay silent. The Death Eater wasn't making much sense, and Harry wanted Scott to cut to the chase. He needed to know what had happened back at the house.

Scott seemed to be having the same thoughts. "What about the house? Potter's house, where he was staying, why did you leave it?"

Preston seemed aghast. "What? There was a light! Surely you saw it, or you were told?"

"Preston, I want you to tell me exactly what your orders are, and why you were given them," Scott said slowly. He lowered Preston's head an inch closer to the water.

"The light was a fake, and Potter was gone, we were split up to search the area, but he wasn't there, so they spread us out and gave us these clothes and we're supposed to watch the woods, just these woods, in case he comes through!" Preston spat out frantically. "I did what I was told, we put the Muggle to sleep and we watched the woods _like we were told!_ I have orders! There's no call for this!"

"And you never caught anyone else?"

"_Who_ else? The Dark Lord wants Potter, blast it, and that's who…" Preston suddenly went white and he fell silent. "…Who are you?"

"Why did you think he'd pass through these woods?"

Utter terror passed over Preston's face. "Fuck off. I'm not saying nothing."

Scott glanced over at Harry. "We're out of time, anyway. Go see if the other one said anything."

Harry hurried out the door, anxious to see if Lila had wrangled any more information from the second Death Eater. He had only taken a few steps in that direction when she emerged from the other loo.

"Lila!" Harry said, getting her attention. "Did yours say anything?"

She shook her head. "No. I didn't have enough time. Come on, those Muggle wards are already fading and we need to be gone."

Harry fell into step beside her. "What about the Death Eaters?"

"I'll handle them. You and Scott are taking my car, and I'll take yours." Lila pointed out the blue car she had parked at the side of the station. "It's unlocked, go get in and Scott will be right over. I just need to talk to him."

Harry went and opened the door, sliding inside and buckling his seatbelt with slightly shaky hands. The adrenaline rush of confronting the two Death Eaters was fading, leaving him feeling a bit light headed. He supposed things might have been simpler if they'd just kept driving, but he'd needed to be sure that no Muggles had been killed. It would have been an awful way to start the Horcrux hunt. He was aware that casualties were possible (and even likely) but he'd always had the thought that if anyone died… it would be him.

Sirius had been enough of a price. No one else should have to pay it for merely being in Harry's proximity. He looked down at himself, fear clenching his throat. He was a poison, an airborne disease. He should have made Ron and Hermione stay behind. He should never have talked to Ginny.

He stopped himself before that line of thought grew out of control.

Scott came running up to the car and started it immediately. "That was risky," he commented. "Lila will make sure the Death Eaters aren't found any time soon. By the time they're missed, we'll be far from here."

"It was worth it to know that they didn't get anyone at the Dursleys'," Harry said with great relief.

Scott nodded. "We got away about as clean as we could have hoped for."

"What was he babbling about, though? That Death Eater wasn't making much sense."

"Apparently he thought I was another Death Eater. An officer, maybe. He thought he was in trouble and that I was misinformed."

"He thought you were on his side and you were drowning him?" Harry said incredulously.

"Riddle controls through fear. He probably has a circle within the circle, his own Gestapo to keep the ranks in line. Random brutality as part initiation, part discipline. Standard stuff for a terror army, dictatorial." Scott almost sounded like he was reading the information from a book.

"So he thought you were kicking the shite out of him for being the wrong place. Or not finding me." Harry sighed. "You know I hate it when people get hurt because of me, but… if a few Death Eaters get a _Crucio_ over missing me, I can't say I'd regret it."

Scott grinned. "Yeah, me neither. This is also useful to know. That sort of discipline tactic is a hard balance between fear and resentment — dissension can be exploited."

Scott pulled the car back on the motorway, merging with traffic and soon the scenery was flying past the window once more. Harry found himself falling asleep, the left side of his forehead pressed against the cool glass. Headlights flashed intermittently, illuminating his eyelids before dying back into the darkness. The rocking and rumbling of the vehicle was as effective as any lullaby.

It was only an indeterminate amount of time later, when fewer cars blinked past and the moon was hidden behind thick clouds, that Harry's eyes popped open, propelled by a sudden dark thought.

With an uneasy feeling in his chest, he thought he knew why Scott had sent him out to check on Lila.

"You killed him," he spoke out into the silence.

"Yes."

And Harry didn't know what to say or feel.

"An interesting note," Scott continued. "While you were sleeping, I was thinking — and driving, of course — even though I never pulled a wand on him, that Death Eater still assumed I was one of them. I was drowning him, and he didn't wonder why it wasn't a _Crucio._"

Harry started to ask why Scott had killed Preston (and Harry fervently wished he had never learned the man's name), but shut his mouth at the last moment. He knew why Scott had done it. It was safer that way, it made sense. It was the only solution that kept dangerous information out of Voldemort's hands. Even knowing the why, though, didn't make it any less terrible or easier to accept.

So which was worse: the thought that Harry's decision to check the station had doomed the two men to death, or the thought that if he _hadn__'__t_ made that call, the station attendant might have been a charred corpse when the Death Eaters left.

Nothing but chance. Life or death, at the mercy of a brief thought, a whim, a split-second decision. From Harry.

But if he had known beforehand, he knew which one he still would have chosen.

"…You'd just knocked him a good one. He wasn't thinking about any of that, he couldn't breathe," Harry slowly replied.

"Huh. Yeah, that's a good point." Scott grinned. "I knew there was a reason I kept you around."

Harry relaxed a bit on this more familiar ground. "You must mean besides my stunning good looks."

"Compared to what? A baboon? A moray eel?"

"You, for starters."

Scott let out a very long, exaggerated sigh. "Uh, in case you've forgotten our pre-assigned group roles, I'm the pretty one. Hermione is the brains, Ron is the muscle, Ginny is the firebrand, and you're the wannabe, the weedy, anxious little guy who wants to be like us but just ends up as the comic relief."

That wasn't how the joke had gone originally, as Harry was quick to point out. "No, you said I was the leader and you were the wildcard. Neville was the sidekick and Luna was the… something."

"Space cadet."

"Right. And nobody was the 'pretty one'. Except me, from now on."

"You are pretty for a man, that's true."

"You said you were, first!" Harry retorted.

"Uh, no, I'm fairly sure you just made that up. Maybe you dreamed it when you were snoring over there."

"Shut it, Scott. Maybe if you didn't talk so much your driving wouldn't be shite," Harry grumbled.

"We can trade off any time," Scott said graciously.

"I wouldn't know how," Harry reluctantly admitted.

"I figured. We'll probably have to do something about that, as a contingency. I'll get you some reading material."

Harry started to protest, but thought better of it. Homework or not, learning to drive could be dead useful. Even Hermione didn't have a license for that.

The second the conversation lapsed back into silence, the image of Preston's terrified visage floated back to the forefront of Harry's consciousness. He didn't understand it entirely; he'd seen death before. It was the manner, he decided. The Death Eaters at Hogwarts had died fighting, cut down in combat. Preston had died frightened and alone in a Muggle lavatory, somewhere off the A303 motorway. And Harry honestly couldn't say if he'd deserved it. Preston had been a Death Eater, which meant he'd most likely done something horrible just to earn that title. But that assumption wasn't proof.

"How did you kill him?" Harry asked quickly, almost afraid of the answer.

Scott sighed. "He was there to kill me and capture you, which in the end would be the same as killing you. You know that, right?"

"He wasn't there to kill you, they had no idea I wasn't alone—"

"They'd have killed anyone with you and you know it."

"Yeah." Harry set his jaw. "How'd you do it?"

Scott stalled. "Harry…"

"Just tell me!" Harry violently demanded.

"You want the simple answer, or the technical answer?"

That brought Harry up short. "Just… an answer. Simple, I guess."

"I broke his neck. It was quick and he didn't feel anything."

"Like you would know," Harry snorted derisively.

"I would. I've been hanged before," Scott said mildly. "I heard the snap, but I didn't feel a thing when I blacked out."

That was not what Harry had expected. "Oh. I… Okay."

"Harry, look." Scott glanced over at him for a moment. "We'll have plenty of time to go into therapy later. We do what we have to, and we move on. Just try to remember the most important rule."

Harry rubbed at his eyes, feeling more tired than anything right then. "What?"

"Don't ever enjoy it."

Right then, that seemed easy enough. "Already done," Harry muttered.

"I know. And that's why I'm not worried about you."

Was that the trick to it? Scott seemed capable of killing someone and then joking not half an hour later… though he hadn't joked _about_ the killing itself. He was compartmentalized, or maybe just jaded, or maybe… a million other things. Harry sighed and tried to clear his mind. People weren't that simple. _He_ wasn't that simple. He couldn't understand himself, never mind Scott's contradictions.

The dark road ahead fled backwards beneath the headlights and offered no answers. Nothing ever did. Somewhere up ahead lay temporary safety, and somewhere behind, the enemy was looking for him. All paths were uncertain.

Head against the window glass, Harry succumbed to a shallow and uneasy sleep.


	4. Landfall

**4**

**Landfall**

* * *

><p>"<em>It is the singular strength (and sometimes weakness) of the<br>integrationist to absorb a time and place and make it their own.  
>I've found home in a thousand centuries, I've slept in pits and<br>palaces. 'Home' often implies a house, but any long-term  
>integrationist will tell you the same thing as I — you need to find<br>the heart, not the dwelling. I never could find it on my own,  
>because it wasn't mine to start with.<br>_

— Excerpt from the untitled memoirs of Optio Poitr Lewllyn, Ret.

* * *

><p>Harry stood outside Scott's room and tried not to panic.<p>

It wasn't that the present situation was so stressful. He was just waiting (again), attempting to find both patience and courage. When he arrived at The Burrow, a time that was fast approaching, _that_ was what he dreaded. Because he knew he was in for it. There was a long list of people he had no doubt upset with his sudden departure from Privet Drive.

There were three formidable females at The Burrow, none of which would be happy about Harry's impromptu escape. Between Hermione, Ginny, and Mrs. Weasley, Harry reckoned he might as well make his peace. Hopefully Hermione would let him off with a light scolding; she knew that Scott had taken care of things and trusted the Kharadjai enough for that. Ginny would also understand what had taken place, but when it came to Scott… Well, Harry would have to work to smooth that over. So would Scott. And Mrs. Weasley would be the worst of all, because Harry couldn't tell her the truth (about much of anything, at this point).

The Order would be angry that he had abandoned them. He didn't care too much about that, though. Their idea of a 'plan' had been completely unacceptable and he didn't regret not going through with it. Moody would be infuriated, probably just because things didn't go according to his design. He'd get over it. Of all of them, Remus would be the most distressed. Harry's former professor had taken it upon himself to try and fill in for Sirius, and took the duty of godfather to heart. Harry would have to apologise; Remus deserved that, at least. He might have understood if Harry had been able to explain.

That was the hardest part of the whole mess. Harry _couldn__'__t_ explain, not to anyone that didn't already know.

And that was a short list, indeed. Ginny, Ron, Hermione, Neville, Luna, and Harry himself. There would have been one more name, but Dumbledore was gone. Had fate allowed it, there would have been two. Harry wouldn't have kept anything from Sirius, even if Scott didn't want him to (though he doubted the Kharadjai would have had any objections — in fact, Harry thought Scott and Sirius would probably have got along well).

That brought the guilty notion that Remus deserved to know, as well. Harry couldn't imagine a good time for that conversation.

The door to Scott's room flew open and the occupant in question strolled out with all the swagger and confidence of an affluent man about town. This was directly at odds with his threadbare shirt, baggy jeans, and skinny teen-aged form.

"Ah, the heady vigour of youth…" Scott said enthusiastically, stretching his arms out. "I'm a teen again, hooray! Let me enjoy it for these first few minutes before I remember how much I hate it."

Harry shrugged, unmoved by Scott's complaints. "It's got to be better than ageing up. What if you had to be sixty years old for this mission?"

"Then they'd get an older Kharadjai and I wouldn't have to deal with this shit," Scott said cheerfully. "Can't be done, my clueless friend."

Harry bristled a bit at the 'clueless' part. If he was clueless, it was only because Scott was so full of shite. "Why not?"

"Because I've never _been_ sixty before. How can I make myself an age I haven't been?"

"How do you make yourself younger? I don't sodding know!" Harry spat out.

"Wow… Relax, man."

Harry sighed. "…Sorry."

"You're all bent out of shape 'cause of everyone waiting at The Burrow, I know." Scott walked over towards the kitchen, patting Harry on the back a little too hard to be sympathetic. "Don't worry! You're only facing the unbridled wrath and disappointment of everyone in your life who cares about you."

Harry winced; he couldn't help himself. Scott had slid neatly back into teenform and being a complete arsehole. Harry's only consolation was that Scott wouldn't be walking away untouched. "Some of your Primes aren't going to be happy with _you_, either."

"Yes, which is why I plan on throwing you to the wolves and then hiding." Scott grabbed a banana off the countertop and stuffed half of it into his mouth. "Thall weh go?" he mumbled through the partially chewed mess.

Harry followed Scott out the door and through the narrow corridor to the stairs down the back. Lila was waiting by the car outside, appearing more than a little impatient. Scott had taken his time while reassuming his teenage form.

"It's not a good sign when you take longer to get dressed than your sister," Lila informed Scott as they approached.

"But it _is_ a good sign when that's because you wear way more clothing than that sister, who dresses like a tramp," Scott retorted with great cheer.

Lila was wearing a strapped tank top and a pair of jeans that did flatter her form but were hardly revealing. Scott was just getting in his jabs wherever he could, regardless of whether they were fitting.

Oddly enough, it seemed to be working. Lila glared daggers at Scott. "Get in the car and shut up. If I have to play 'older sister slash guardian' again, then you're gonna listen to me."

Scott opened his mouth for what would have no doubt been a defiant rejoinder, but Harry elbowed him in the side first. "Shut it," he muttered to the Kharadjai. "I just want to get this over with."

"'Things you don't want to hear during your first sexual encounter'," Scott quipped, but he must have taken the hint because he left Lila alone during the short car ride to The Burrow. Harry didn't need Scott pissing Lila off as well. There were enough angry females to be dealt with.

The car was only able to make it halfway up the overgrown path before a newly fallen tree blocked the way. Lila slammed the shift into park with a grumpy expression, eyeballing the dead tree as if it was a personal offence to her. "Hold on," she said shortly, opening her door.

"Just give us a minute to move this thing, Harry," Scott said, following Lila out of the vehicle.

Harry was slightly offended that he hadn't been asked to help. He wasn't a Kharadjai, sure, but he wasn't a total weakling either. At the very least he might have moved some of the branches. He crossed his arms and settled in to wait. With the engine shut off, Scott and Lila were close enough that he could easily hear their conversation.

"So is there a reason why you're especially mad at me today?" Scott asked as he grabbed the side of the trunk opposite of Lila.

"I didn't say I was mad at you." Lila heaved upwards, standing a large section of the tree on end. She knocked it back over, off the path, where it made a deep thump and shook the car a little.

"You never do. You just glare at me and expect me to read your mind," Scott said.

"I do not."

"Do too."

"Do not!"

"Do too."

"…We're not doing this. I refuse," Lila stated.

"Fine, then just tell me what's wrong."

Lila narrowed her eyes at him. "Maybe it's that time of the month. You usually love that excuse; you assign it to every little thing."

Scott shrugged. "Is it?"

"That is none of your business," Lila told him.

"It is, isn't it."

"No!"

Scott threw up his hands in exasperation. "Then what? You've finally realised that you hate me? You've discovered a lifetime worth of pent-up resentment because I'm not a sister? You're a lesbian, but you don't know how to tell me?"

Lila merely rolled her eyes. "How you come up with this stuff, I really don't know."

Scott's face took on a shrewd look. "You know what I think? I think you're mad because I'm a teen again. I think you just settled back into being my younger sister and now you're stuck resuming a role you don't understand."

"You should have been a psychologist, Scott, you're so damn smart," Lila said scathingly.

"I bet I'm right."

"Too bad you'll never know," Lila said dismissively, and went back to moving the tree.

"Argh!" Scott retreated back to the car, leaving Lila to handle the rest of the roadblock alone. "She _must_ be in a bad mood," he confided to Harry. "She won't even tell me if I'm right."

"Probably because it's already making you crazy," Harry said dryly.

"I am right! You'll see."

Harry only shrugged in response, far too worried about his own eminent problem to care whether Scott ever received an answer. He was still lacking any ideas as to what he might say to defuse the situation. All he had was the honest answer: he had refused to play along with the Order's plan to put themselves in harm's way for him.

That wasn't a response that would placate anyone.

Lila seemed calmer when she re-entered the vehicle and started it up again. She made no comment regarding Scott's suppositions, instead speaking to Harry. "It might be better if you talked to Ginny first. She's been on edge since you took off."

"I'd guessed as much," Harry sighed.

The Burrow appeared between the trees as Lila drove down the bumpy path towards the garage. She couldn't park inside of it, not even with the loss of the old Ford Anglia. Mr. Weasley had expanded his collection of Muggle odds and ends to the point that there was hardly standing room inside the small structure.

"She's up in her room," Lila told Harry, her eyes a bit fuzzy and distant. Harry recognised the same look as having been worn by Scott whenever he was examining the shape, that odd aspect of the universe that only the two Kharadjai seemed to experience directly. "I'll run interference as long as I can. Go upstairs and talk to her — quietly, if you can manage that."

The car jolted slightly as Lila put it into park outside of the garage. She unbuckled her seatbelt and looked backwards at Harry. "The other Primes don't need any real explanation. What will you tell everyone else?"

"Er… How about, that I called you and you came and picked me up that night? Without knowing about the whole Order thing. You didn't know. And I called you early, so you were already close when the Order showed up, and I just went to you instead," Harry said, inventing what he thought was a fairly plausible excuse.

"Keep it simple," Lila warned. "Don't dig yourself any deeper. You called me, I offered you a ride. But leave out the stuff about me meeting you at your house. There wasn't any time for that."

"She's right," Scott said, speaking up for the first time. He had been sulking after Lila's refusal to engage him. "You went out the window and called Lila later that night from a payphone. She came and got you somewhere else."

"That doesn't explain the grenade, though," Harry pointed out.

"Yeah. But unless you know of a very similar spell, there aren't any convincing explanations. Either me or Lila gave you that grenade just in case you got in trouble, because we have Muggle stuff like that, which is dangerously close to the truth, or you have no idea. You weren't around to see it, you know nothing about it."

Harry was sceptical. "That's a bit further than coincidence can take me."

Scott nodded glumly. "Then you got it from one of us. Who?"

"You," Harry told him. "You're daft enough to give me something like that to play with."

That gave Scott a moment's pause. "…Not bad, Harry. I can see that working, banking on my notoriety as a loose cannon… It could have been an early birthday gift, or my idea of a starter kit for arson."

Of course, Scott would be perfectly willing to use his own status as a confirmed nutter for other ends. "Nobody would doubt it if I put it that way."

"I should hope not. I have a reputation to uphold."

Harry rubbed at his eyes. "Just promise me one thing."

"Yeah?"

"If you get to know the twins better, don't give them any explosives. Or guns, or anything else of that sort," Harry pleaded.

"From what I've heard, seems like they're doing just fine without any Muggle munitions," Scott remarked.

"They are. So they don't need anything from _you_," Harry emphasised.

Scott sighed heavily. "Have it your way. But if the opportunity arises to arm them against the Death Eaters—"

"Then we'll talk about it," Harry quickly interjected.

Lila opened her door and motioned towards The Burrow. "All decided?"

Harry braced himself as best he could, gathering all his courage. "Yeah. Let's go."

It was hard to reconcile the dread he was feeling with the familiar shape of The Burrow. He usually wanted to be there more than anything, looked forward to it even more than Hogwarts. And part of him still did. That part was waiting for everything to blow over so he could relax again in the company of his _real_ family. Realistically, he knew that would happen. Either he or Scott or time would smooth things over, relegate his dash from the Dursleys' into memory.

But not soon enough for his liking.

"Molly is in the kitchen," Lila was saying as they approached. "Ron is in the living room, as is Hermione. When we go in, I'll cut right to distract Molly, Scott will keep Ron and Hermione in the living room and you will go up to Ginny."

"It'd be nice if you could not tell them I'm talking with Ginny," Harry said nervously.

"That might actually be the only thing to keep them away," Scott noted.

Lila swatted at him, though he dodged. "No, Scott. Don't bring it up unless you have no choice."

"Like that's going to be easy? The first thing they'll ask is where Harry is!" Scott protested.

Lila gave him a look that could only be described as frostbitten. "You wondered why I'm mad at you? Well, guess what, now you're on the right track because when you're a teen _you can__'__t do anything!_ You just _gripe_ about it! My **actual** brother would have just nodded and handled this crap, but instead I get a whiny little **brat** who sticks _me_ with all the work!"

Harry quickly backed away from the two of them. This seemed to be a built-up grievance and he had no intention of getting in the way.

Scott scoffed at Lila. "Whatever, Lil. All you did is sit around The Burrow and stuff your fat ass with cookies and fudge. So sorry you got stuck with that end of the 'work'."

There was a second where Harry was pretty sure that Lila was going to attack Scott (and given his teen form, Harry reckoned she might win, which he would sort of like to see). After standing motionless in a tense silence, she seemed to draw her professionalism around herself and turned towards Harry.

"Come on, Harry," she said levelly. "Try to be quick."

"You're in for it later," Harry muttered as he bypassed Scott.

"You're in for it _now_," Scott shot back.

Lila opened the front door without knocking — apparently she had been present often enough that she was now excluded from the protections on the house. She immediately detoured to the right, where Harry could hear Mrs. Weasley moving about the kitchen.

"Hey, Molly," Lila said, growing distant. Harry went rapidly for the stairs, barely paying attention as Scott peeled off and headed for the living room. At the very top of the flight was Ginny's room. Harry hoped that Lila had been right. He didn't want to have to go looking for Ginny, not with everyone else around.

Her door was shut. Harry took a deep breath, and knocked.

"What is it now, Mum?" Ginny called out, sounding exasperated. "I'm right in the middle of—" She opened the door and immediately fell silent.

"Hi, Gin," Harry said meekly. She stared back at him. "Uh… What were you in the middle of?"

She grabbed his arm, hauled him inside, shut the door, and kissed him soundly.

Then she pulled away and smacked him on the shoulder.

"Ow!" Harry yelped. It hadn't really hurt, but he thought maybe if he showed some sign of pain it would lessen her anger.

"Harry James Potter! You scared the shite out of me!" Ginny lambasted him, face flushed. "What were you thinking? Where did you go?"

"I'll explain, just keep it down," Harry shushed her, glancing nervously at the door. "I wanted to talk to you first."

That seemed to mollify her slightly. "So talk."

"Well… The Order had a really bad plan to get me out of the Dursleys' house. It was stupid and dangerous and so I… I just had Scott take me. In a car."

"In a car," she repeated, her eyes dangerously alight. "In a Muggle car with half the Death Eaters in Britain chasing after you."

Obviously, someone had told her about the Death Eaters. "They weren't chasing us. I mean, they _were_, but we lost them really early on." Harry decided to gloss over the petrol station incident, at least until later.

Ginny's expression was not promising. "Right. Of course you lost them. Why wouldn't you, in a Muggle car, with just Scott, leaving the Order and all your friends behind without telling them where you were going or letting them protect you in _any way_ while a _sodding car and whatever guns __**Scott**__ has was plenty safe and __**not stupid or dangerous at all**_."

Harry flinched. "Gin… Come on, there were loads of Death Eaters around, you wouldn't want Ron and Hermione, or Fred and George, or Bill, going out against them…"

"Why wouldn't they? Because they shouldn't be allowed to help you? Because we're all so _safe_ anyway?" Ginny said scathingly. "If I were there, would you have left _me_ behind? Wait, stupid question. You'll leave _me_ behind for just about anything!"

Harry was trying to keep his cool but she was making it impossible; he never could remain impassive around her. "Ginny, I couldn't let them start a fucking battle right in the middle of the suburb!"

"Right, so you reckoned Scott would kill them somewhere else instead. Never mind that he's just one person, never mind that he's more interested in killing people than saving you—"

That sparked Harry's temper. "I don't need to be saved!"

"We all need help, Harry, _especially_ you!"

Harry threw out his hands. "And Scott helped me. So what's the problem?"

"The problem," Ginny hissed through clenched teeth, "is that you had an entire bloody house full of your friends and family and you went and ran off with the least reliable bloke we know _without telling any of us a bloody thing!_" A tear tracked its way down her cheek, bringing Harry up short. "I was scared, Harry. I didn't know where you were."

"I left a note…" Harry countered feebly.

Ginny turned away and flopped onto her bed, burying her face into one of her pillows. "A note that didn't tell us _anything _except that you were with Scott, like that was supposed to be comforting," she said, voice muffled.

Harry awkwardly fidgeted in place for a moment before seating himself next to her. It felt faintly forbidden to be anywhere near Ginny's bed, and now he was sitting on it. He tried not to get distracted. "It was the truth, at least," he said.

Ginny rolled over, staring at her ceiling. "…Scott got you out in one piece," she admitted, sounding like it pained her to do so. "I guess that's a point for him."

"He can be difficult, yeah, but… He's not a bad bloke, Gin. He just wants to help, even if he doesn't always go about it, uh…" Harry was unable to find the right word.

Ginny sighed, wiping at her eyes. "God, Harry. You about made me sick with worrying. I never wanted to be like my mum, either, you know. Always worrying about things, nagging to cover it up."

"I think I've made both of you worry more than you should ever have to," Harry said quietly.

"Ugh." Ginny made a noise of disgust, sitting up. "Now I've sent you on another Harry Potter guilt trip. This is my room, in case you forgot, and it's a no-brooding area."

"Sorry."

"At least it's easy to get an apology when you're like this." Ginny wrapped her arms around his shoulders and kissed him again. "Like I said, no brooding in here. You'll have to find something else to do on my bed…" she murmured against his lips.

Harry was once again painfully aware that he was sitting on Ginny's bed. In her room, with the door closed. "Such as?" he said, heart pounding.

"This is a good start," she said, running her tongue across his lower lip.

They couldn't do this, not now, Harry knew, even as he kissed her hard. Lila and Mrs. Weasley were in the kitchen and Scott was doing something or the other in the living room to delay Hermione and neither of them could keep it up forever. Harry reckoned he had minutes, at most, before someone came upstairs to see where he'd gone. He was definitely making the most of it. Too bad being caught in such a compromising position was the last thing he needed (though if it was by Mrs. Weasley then he wouldn't have to worry about Voldemort or the Horcruxes anymore, because he'd be dead).

With a superhuman application of will, Harry extracted himself from their rapidly escalating snog. "We can't!" he gasped, barely preventing an almost involuntary return to Ginny's lips. "Scott and Lila are downstairs, and—"

"Scott!" Ginny's eyes flared and she pushed off of Harry's lap. She stormed towards the door. "Where is that sodding wan—"

Harry leapt forward and pulled her back with a full-body hug. "We can't have a big row, either! Your mum doesn't know, Ginny, she doesn't know about Scott!"

Ginny seethed and struggled against his grip, but he wouldn't relent. "Fine!" she said. "Tell him to come up here, I'll _talk_ to him in private!"

"Gin, if I go back downstairs your mum and Hermione are going to corner me and you know it."

"What am I supposed to do, then? Just let him get away with it?"

"Get away with _what_? With helping me? He got me out of the fucking Dursleys', I'd say that's a good job all around…" Harry said defensively.

That gave Ginny a moment's pause, seeing as how she had conceded the same point shortly before. "Well…"

"I didn't want anyone to get hurt, Ginny," Harry told her, though he tensed a bit when he remembered that his wish hadn't entirely come true. "It was the only way."

"Really," Ginny said shortly. "What about Scott's stupid Apparating, or whatever it is he does to get around? Why didn't he just do that?"

Harry didn't have an answer to that question, so he had to guess. "I dunno… The shape probably wasn't right, or something."

"The shape, the shape, the bloody shape," Ginny huffed, wriggling free of Harry's grasp. "That's his excuse for everything, isn't it."

Admittedly, it sort of was. "You can always ask him." Harry's eyes widened a fraction when he realised his mistake. "Later, though. And… calmly."

Ginny flopped back down onto Harry's lap. "He won't tell me anything, you know that."

Harry thought that Scott would be much more likely to explain things to Ginny if she just asked him instead of being so confrontational. But he kept that to himself. "Then I'll tell you."

Ginny twisted her neck around to look at him. "Instead of trying to chuck me and not tell me anything at all? That's a switch."

He deserved that. "Sorry. I'm here now, aren't I?"

"Yes," Ginny said, picking herself up and reversing to straddle him. "So let's get back to snogging, shall we…"

Oh, that was marvellous idea. But even as her lips closed over his, Harry was feeling like they could be intruded upon at any second. In fact, it was a bloody miracle that nobody had walked in yet. Scott and Lila must have been working overtime downstairs.

"Lila can only delay your mum for so long," Harry said, turning his head so that Ginny's lips pressed against his cheek. "And Scott probably has his hands full with Hermione. I'm surprised no one's come up yet, to be honest."

Ginny sighed. "If you _really_ want to stop that badly…"

He didn't. He really, really didn't. "No, but if your mum—"

"Right, I know." She stood up. "No point in waiting."

* * *

><p>Hermione had been comfortably ensconced on the couch with Ron (though not in an especially intimate fashion, not with Mrs. Weasley about) when her thoughts were interrupted by a noise at the door. Someone had arrived at The Burrow, if the stamping feet at the entryway were any indication.<p>

Ron perked up next to her, where he had been lightly dozing. "You think that's…?"

"It might be!" Hermione said, feeling hopeful that she might soon be seeing Harry, alive and intact. "We should…"

She trailed off when Scott waltzed into the room like he owned the place.

"Oh, hello," Scott said dully, as if they were distant acquaintances.

Hermione wasn't playing along. "Scott. Have a seat."

She intended to get some answers, but Ron was less interested in Scott's presence. "Hey, where's Harry?"

Scott slumped in one of the armchairs, putting his feet up on a small table (and getting away with it only because Mrs. Weasley wasn't there to see). "He's upstairs with Ginny."

Ron flushed red. "Are you—! You'd better be joking."

Scott slowly shook his head. "Nope. Hermione, be a good Prime and prevent your significant other from interrupting Harry."

While she chafed at Scott's deliberately antagonising attitude, Hermione knew he was still correct. "Ron, it's all right. They have some things they need to sort out."

"Right," Ron snorted. "_Things_ to sort out. Alone, in her bedroom. After Harry chucked her. And I'm just supposed to sit on my arse and ignore it?"

"Uh… yes," Scott told him with a sarcastic undertone. "That's about right. Good summary, very succinct."

"Sod off," Ron retorted hotly. "Not like this is any of _your_ business!"

"Not yours, either, bucko," Scott replied laconically.

Hermione knew she needed to keep Ron calm, and Scott wasn't helping in the slightest. She kept a firm grip on Ron's arm. "Ron, _please_. Harry and Ginny need to work this out on their own. I know you're just being protective, but that's not what Ginny needs right now. She's had enough of that from Harry…"

"I… Yeah, I know," Ron muttered, subsiding. "I told Harry I wasn't mad at him anymore, but… that was before he went straight up to her bedroom!"

"They're just talking, Ron," Hermione assured him while fervently hoping that was the case.

"And maybe fucking, if they can multi-task," Scott added unhelpfully.

To Ron's credit, he didn't rise to the bait. His cheeks flushed a bit darker, but he merely responded with a terse, "Shut it."

Hermione glared at Scott. She didn't know what his problem was; the second he'd walked in the room he'd been nothing but mean-spirited and aloof. He was looking blankly back at her, a combative spark in his eye. And at that moment Hermione realised that she didn't care enough to batter at his defences. Whatever answers Scott held, they could wait until he was no longer in such a hostile mood.

"Let's go upstairs," Hermione said to Ron while watching Scott carefully. "I left a book up there I want. It's a bit stuffy in here, anyway."

Ron looked surprised, but didn't object. "Sure, if you want."

Hermione ignored Scott as she followed Ron out of the room. The Kharadjai made no move to follow them. Hermione liked to think he was stunned by her sudden departure, sans interrogation, but that was a bit optimistic. Scott was difficult to read, even in his more volatile teen form.

As they passed the kitchen Hermione saw Lila there with Mrs. Weasley. They were conversing over their food preparations.

"—I understand that he needs to explain himself, dear, but I would like to hear what he has to say as well!" Mrs. Weasley was saying.

"You know how kids are when they're in trouble. Harry wants to try his luck with Ron and Hermione first." Lila was speaking to Mrs. Weasley and facing the doorway. While Mrs. Weasley was distracted with chopping vegetables Lila shot a quick glare at Hermione, coupled with a hand gesture that clearly meant to stay out of sight.

Hermione ducked back into the living room, pulling Ron with her. If Lila was telling Mrs. Weasley that Harry was with them instead of Ginny, then being seen without him would be very bad indeed.

Mrs. Weasley sighed. "I suppose he would. Thank you for looking after him, reckless though he was."

"It wasn't a problem. He can pay me back for gas money, and we'll be even," Lila said wryly.

"I wish you had been here when Arthur and the boys came back, along with the rest," Mrs. Weasley said, shaking her head. "I about lost my head, it was such a fuss! They were half hoping that Harry was already here, but of course he was nowhere to be found, and the Order didn't know what to do."

"I'm not sure what help I'd have been," Lila replied.

Mrs. Weasley chuckled fondly. "You're the very definition of grace under pressure, dear. I'd wager you barely blinked when Harry rang you in the middle of the night. Someday you'll have to tell me which side of your family that calm comes from — I do wish you'd smile a bit more, though." Lila must have smiled at that, because Mrs. Weasley exclaimed, "There, see? Such a lovely face, I don't understand how there isn't a line of boys outside your flat."

"I'm not at my flat. I'm over here," Lila pointed out.

"You haven't been home much, that's true. Oh, and with the wedding all the rooms will be filled…" Mrs. Weasley fretted.

"I'll take the couch," Lila offered.

"But what about your brother, dear?"

"He'll take the floor. And he won't complain about it, either."

Hermione peeked around the corner; Mrs. Weasley was shaking her head. "I think you're a bit hard on him," she said.

"Only because he hasn't been around here," Lila countered.

Hermione took the opportunity presented and darted through the doorway and up the stairs while Mrs. Weasley had her back turned. As she ascended with Ron, she heard what sounded like a large pot or pan hit the floor, followed by Lila apologising. The Kharadjai woman was neatly covering any sounds made by the creaky steps.

Lila had taken her integration at The Burrow just about as far as Scott had at Hogwarts, Hermione noted. Mrs. Weasley seemed completely accustomed to Lila's presence, and had acted in an almost motherly fashion. Molly Weasley was a very caring woman and Hermione herself had been on the receiving end of her maternal instinct on more than one occasion. It made sense that she had taken to Lila in that fashion, especially since Lila didn't have much in the way of family.

That concerned Hermione. Mrs. Weasley didn't know about any of Lila's underlying motivations. Hermione couldn't even be sure that the friendship was genuine on Lila's part. Scott and Lila had both sometimes come across as very calculating, but at least Scott had done his manipulations from a position of (semi) honesty.

Further up the stairs, Ginny's door was still closed. When Hermione drew closer she could hear voices inside, especially Ginny's. She didn't sound pleased, and Harry's muffled replies were defensive in tone.

"See? They're having a row, nothing more," Hermione said to Ron. "I knew she'd be angry."

"Good. She can be shirty with someone else for a change," Ron grunted.

Hermione gave him a look of reproof that he probably didn't notice. "You brought that on yourself."

Ron didn't answer, instead turning to enter his room. Hermione knew he was having a hard time reconciling his position as Harry's best mate and his role as Ginny's older brother. She felt a bit bad reminding him of his earlier overreaction, but it really was his own fault. She just hoped that Ron would become more comfortable with the situation in time. Not that Harry was helping in that regard. His ambivalence only confused things further. Ron needed a clear signal that Harry was sticking with Ginny for good.

Hermione went to follow Ron, but paused to cast a nervous glance back down the stairs. She didn't like the idea of leaving Scott to his own devices in The Burrow, especially since he seemed to be in a mood.

As she was hesitating, Ginny's door opened and Harry emerged.

He stopped dead in his tracks and stared at Hermione. He had obviously not expected anyone to be outside.

Ginny squeezed past his still form and smiled at Hermione. "He's here, and he's fine," she said, indicating Harry. "Physically, anyway. Who knows where his head's at."

"Thanks, Gin," Harry sighed. He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. "All right. Let me have it," he said to Hermione.

Hermione frowned. "You _want_ me to shout at you?"

"Of course I don't, but I knew when I came over that you were going to be angry."

"Yes, because I have a reputation for being unintelligent," Hermione sarcastically responded. "You really believe I didn't know where you went? I knew you weren't coming back when you ran up the stairs, Harry. You can be very predictable."

"I…" Harry looked dumbfounded. "You knew? And you didn't say anything?"

Obviously, Harry hadn't thought this through. "Not with everyone else there. I knew that Scott had to be around and that's not something we talk about with the Order," Hermione explained.

"…Yeah. Sorry for, er… assuming. I should have known you'd suss me out quick enough," Harry said sheepishly.

"I can't say I was happy about it," Hermione was quick to point out. "But I understand."

"I guess I do, too," Ron said, coming up behind her. He was looking back and forth between Harry and Ginny; Harry was avoiding his gaze, and Ginny was staring back defiantly. "Well, come on, then," Ron said after a moment. "You've got to tell us what happened, mate."

Harry appeared to be immensely relieved. "Sure, of course."

Hermione followed them into their room, glad that Ron hadn't decided to cause a scene. He so often managed to surprise her in the best ways. He would work things out with Harry soon enough. Whether he would be on better terms with Ginny in the near future remained to be seen.

As she seated herself at the foot of Ron's bed, Hermione made a mental note to check on Scott after Harry was done relating the details of his flight from the Dursleys'. She didn't want the Kharadjai causing any trouble while everyone else was occupied.

* * *

><p>Scott was bored.<p>

Hermione had left, depriving him of the opportunity to snipe at her. Lila was busy in the kitchen with Mrs. Weasley, and even in his teen form Scott knew better than to interrupt. That wouldn't end well for him.

His major Primes were all safe and working out their own problems upstairs. Neville was virtually untouchable in his fortress of a house. Luna was still a concern but she still had enough magical protections around her home to be safe for the time being. At the very least, there were enough wards at the Lovegood residence to give Scott time to show up if something should happen.

He would like to go check on her, regardless. Staking out Luna's house would give him something to do until the wedding. And if the Death Eater he'd seen before came back around, that would also be a welcome diversion. Before, he'd let the man go on the basis of not drawing further attention to Luna's place. Once Luna was back at Hogwarts (or staying at The Burrow, a thought that sent him on a mental tangent, trying to piece together how that might work) he'd be free to make an example. Perhaps he might send the Death Eater's head to Voldemort in the mail?

He made a face, unhappy with that idea. Too cliché.

It didn't matter. He was stuck at The Burrow in his teen form. Lila had volunteered to assist in the preparations for the upcoming festivities, which meant Scott wouldn't be going back to the flat any time soon, either. Not unless he ran back by himself.

What the hell was he going to _do_?

He glanced over at the empty chessboard near the fireplace, silently willing someone to come along and sit down in one of the chairs. Chess had never been his game, but it would be a diversion. Nobody showed up, of course. He couldn't will someone into appearing. He was being silly.

Silly. Teen form. _Damn it._

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. So far over the course of the day he'd pissed off Harry, Lila, Hermione and Ron, and if he didn't get a hold on himself the list would only continue to grow. He needed a priority.

Surely there was _something_ that required his attention.

But as he sat in his chair and scanned the empty living room, not a single thing came to mind. There wasn't even any classwork to revise. He couldn't leave the house to harass the Death Eaters or snoop around for Horcrux clues. Everyone _in _the house was either angry with him or had no reason for interaction.

He stood up decisively, hoping that the action would provide inspiration. Stretching his arms, he strode over to one of the windows, which offered no insight into anything other than the woods surrounding the property. It was over that way where he had given Harry and Ron an impromptu lesson in handguns the year before; he wondered if he could still find the brass.

Also somewhere in those woods was the invisible line of the magical protections. Perhaps he should use this opportunity to examine them further? He might learn something useful… Or he might break something he shouldn't have been messing with in the first place. The vast majority of magic remained unfathomable to him, there was no reason to think the property wards would be any different.

He angrily paced away from the window. If a swarm of Death Eaters attacked The Burrow, he knew what to do. But he was simply not equipped to _wait_ as a teen. What year was it? '97? He could buy some video games, he supposed. The first-generation 3D games were rudimentary at best, but that didn't mean they weren't fun.

That was just one of his hobbies (he had many). For most of them, he'd need Muggle money. And since his sister was holding the purse strings, and was currently quite pissed off, he wasn't going to get it through official channels — a method which was frowned upon and at least slightly illegal, but he'd slipped in plenty of 'personal expenses' before. Primares were kept on a very loose leash, and it was understood that their small appropriations requests didn't endure much scrutiny. He could go out to eat pretty much anywhere on the company dime so long as he took Primes with him. 'Integration' covered a wide array of activities (and sins).

Now he was paying the price for going deep cover as a teen and leaving Lila in charge of appropriations. And the price was steep, indeed. He'd figure it out later, though. The mission came first; he just needed to recognise which portion of the mission he should attend to.

Scott headed for the back door. At the very least, he could patrol the boundaries of the Weasley property and pretend like he was doing something important.

Outside the air was warm, stirred by intermittent breezes and filled with the gentle rustling of leaves and grass. The sun was just starting to set, still high in the sky but dipping towards the western horizon. On a whim, Scott marched off in that direction. It seemed like as good a place as any to start.

The boundaries of the Weasley property ran uniformly through woods, and it was not a symmetrical border. While the magical barriers never actually bent smoothly (Scott wasn't sure why, save for the uninformed guess that curved geometry was impossible, or at least difficult, with spellwork) they still angled outwards and inwards at various intervals. As he walked along the edge of the invisible line he swerved often to avoid trees and the changing direction.

The land owned by the Weasleys was obviously not perfectly rectangular. Scott wondered if the wards followed the exact contours of the plot or if there were geological constraints to barrier creation that he was not aware of. Despite a year at Hogwarts, when it came to magic, it generally seemed he was aware of very little.

A tall, hollowed-out stump caught his attention near the northwest corner. The remains of what had once been a large tree rested at the bottom of a slight hill, hiding it from view. Scott smiled when he peered inside. A variety of Muggle beer tins and Firewhiskey bottles had been tossed inside of it, jumbled together with the old leaves. Whose spot was this? Bill's? Charlie's? Fred and George's? Most likely all of the above. Ron would no doubt be added to the list soon enough, if he hadn't already. A few yards away a slightly worn section of bark and a defoliated patch of dirt marked what was clearly the pissing tree. Scott made his way over, unzipped, and added his part to the legacy.

Further south, Scott was struck again by how green everything was. The last time of any length he had spent in woodland had been on Silva Greater, now that he thought about it. That had been in a hilly region where the soil was thick with dark clay. Everything else had followed suit, colour-wise. He had been in the English woods before, of course, though he'd spent more time in Scotland and Ireland. It had just been a while.

"Crap," Scott said absently as a stick poked him sharply in the leg, reminding him to watch where he was going.

He tried to focus, but when the next few hundred feet of ground failed to yield anything more interesting than sticks and leaves, Scott knew it was a lost cause. He couldn't spend the remainder of his time at The Burrow wandering around the edges of the property. Once in awhile, fine, patrolling was good for safety. But he would have to find other things to occupy the rest of his time.

He turned and went back toward the house, dragging his feet a little. Even if his sister or some of his Primes wanted to fight, he was no longer feeling up to it. Maybe he'd crash on the couch for awhile and sleep away the afternoon. The closer he was to The Burrow, the more appealing that seemed.

His rendezvous with some couch cushions was immediately delayed when he set foot on the front walk. It seemed he could leave The Burrow without assistance, but entering was another matter. The door refused to budge when he tried to turn the handle.

He loosed a long sigh of defeat, raising his hand to knock. Lila was going to love this.

Then he paused, stopping his hand just before touching the door. Something wasn't right. No… not necessarily _wrong_, but something was different. His Primes were no longer upstairs, he was sure of it. And someone else was inside.

He glanced back over towards the garage. Lila's car was still the only one parked there, and there weren't any new tire tracks. Wizarding visitors, obviously. Or maybe visitor. The shape was not being especially helpful in that regard.

He could help himself if he could just get back inside. Frustrated with the magic that confounded him yet again, he banged on the door a bit harder than necessary.

It took a long moment, but it was Lila who eventually answered. "There you are," she said, looking down at him. In her adult form and with the aid of the doorstep, she was almost a foot higher up than Scott and clearly enjoying the vista.

"Who's here?" Scott asked, brushing past her.

"The Minister. He showed up a few minutes ago and cornered all the Primes in the living room."

That was not what Scott had expected to hear. "The _Minister_?"

"Yeah, I know."

Lila might have said more but Mrs. Weasley hurried into view from the kitchen, throwing worried looks towards the living room. "Scott, there you are! Minister Scrimgeour was asking after you, dear. Where were you?"

"I went out for a walk," Scott explained.

"I'm not sure that's the best idea these days, it's not safe to go out alone," Mrs. Weasley said chidingly. She gave Lila a meaningful look.

"Yes, that was not a good idea at all," Lila said severely, taking the cue and jumping right into her rarely exercised parenting façade. "Don't go out without telling someone first."

Scott clenched his jaw hard and nodded in response, not trusting himself to speak. Letting Lila boss him around went against every sibling-oriented fibre in his body.

"I mean it. And don't think you can just not say anything so later you can claim you never agreed, buster," Lila warned.

She was really pushing her luck. "I get it," Scott said shortly.

"Then go talk to the Minister, we're keeping him waiting."

Scott went towards the living room, wondering why his presence had been requested. Harry, sure, of course Scrimgeour would want to see him. But Scott had only met the man once, at Dumbledore's funeral, and it hadn't been a very polite meeting. If the topic had come up prior to the Minister's arrival, Scott would have doubted that Scrimgeour even remembered him.

Inside the room Harry, Hermione and Ron were squished together on the sofa. Scrimgeour had commandeered the chair that Scott had been sitting in earlier. Ginny was sitting on the arm of the couch, next to Harry. Harry's arm was wrapped firmly around her waist in a supportive gesture. Scott smiled as he slipped to the side and came up behind the Minister. Harry often dropped the ball when it came to Ginny, but every now and then he was surprisingly intuitive when it came to staying in her good graces.

Scott swiftly stepped into view and leaned back against the fireplace, crossing his arms. The gazes of his friends would alert Scrimgeour to the fact that there was someone behind him, and Scott wanted it to look like he'd been there for awhile.

Sure enough, Harry's startled look brought Scrimgeour's head swivelling about.

"You wanted to see me?" Scott drawled nonchalantly.

The Minister was tall and rangy, with hair that reminded Scott of a large cat's. He had the sort of hard, line-etched face that came from a lifetime of scowling. No doubt his Ministry ran on threats as well as incentives. Scrimgeour might have been an intimidating man if Scott was the sort to be intimidated. With the vast majority of his life spent within the Kharadjai army, intimidation was not a feeling that came easily. Still, Scrimgeour was clearly a forceful character and possibly someone to be reckoned with.

The Minister's eyes were an interesting colour and very focused. Scott met them coolly, affecting a pose of indifference.

"Scott Kharan?" Scrimgeour said roughly, seeming like he wasn't expecting an answer. "I believe we've met before."

So Scott _had_ been remembered. Should he reciprocate? …No. It was more fun not to. "Have we?" Scott asked, frowning.

"Yes. At Headmaster Dumbledore's funeral. You were especially adamant about saving a row of seats." Scrimgeour's eyes were hard and unfriendly.

Scott shrugged. "I don't recall."

Scrimgeour clearly did not believe him. "Really. Then perhaps you'll recall which possessions Dumbledore would have been most likely to leave to you?"

"It's Dumbledore's will," Harry interrupted, leaning to the side to look around the Minister. "He… he left us things."

Scott had been so caught up in baiting Scrimgeour that he hadn't taken a closer look at his Primes. All of them looked stricken in various degrees — Hermione had obviously been tearful not long before Scott's entrance, and was leaning hard against Ron's shoulder.

Scott was immediately suffused with curiosity as to what they had each received, but it could wait. If he was understanding the slant of the conversation correctly, _he_ had been left something as well?

"Dumbledore accorded something to me?" Scott asked, letting his surprise show.

"He did." Scrimgeour reached down near his feet and picked up what appeared to be a steel cube, a little over one square foot in volume. It must not have been heavy, since he lifted it with ease.

Scott left his spot by the fireplace and crossed over to the couch, peering at the cube with fascination.

Scrimgeour held it out slightly, but made no move to give it to Scott. "Do you know what this is?"

"It's a cube," Scott said blandly, still studying it.

Scrimgeour's eyes narrowed. "More specifically?"

"It's a symmetrical object. It has six square facets. You could also call it a regular hexahedron."

"I'm not amused by your games anymore than I am by Mr. Potter's," Scrimgeour said coldly. "This, boy, is a magical strongbox. It is heavily enchanted and encrypted in such a way that it requires a password."

"Then it must be a long password. Dumbledore's funeral was a while ago; obviously you haven't had much luck at brute forcing it," Scott said dryly.

"They haven't," Harry said with hint of maliciousness. "Not with any of our gifts."

Scott raised his hands helplessly. "Cryptography isn't my area of expertise…"

Scrimgeour's fury was plainly apparent. "This came with the strongbox. What does it mean to you?"

Scott took the envelope. Inside was a short piece of paper with only two, neatly printed words:

sock drawer

Scott lowered the paper and raised an eyebrow at Scrimgeour. "Did you try 'sock drawer'?" When the Minister merely glared in response, Scott added in a more hostile tone, "I'm assuming you already ransacked a dead man's sock drawer. Find anything incriminating? Did he not wash his socks regularly?"

"We did what we deemed necessary to prevent powerful magical objects from entering the wrong hands," Scrimgeour bit out. "It doesn't surprise me that you don't understand that, if you've been spending time in Potter's company. There are a great many things he doesn't understand."

Harry immediately leaned forward to retort, but Scott beat him to it. "Looks like you've had some rousing success, for sure. You kept that cube from me for a whole — what? A month and change?"

Scrimgeour was incensed. "You need to switch your tone, boy, and learn a little respect—"

"Is it a dangerous cube? Are the edges _sharp_?" Scott interrupted, getting more than a bit angry himself.

The Minister stood up to his full height, glaring at Scott. "If Dumbledore thought it appropriate to leave Gryffindor's sword to a gaggle of resentful _children_ then we can only imagine what he believed should be hidden within such a strongbox! Your lack of cooperation, your _incessant_ opposition to government efforts—"

Scott cut him off again. "And you try _so_ hard, it's good to see those tax dollars at work, it really is, but are you talking to me, or Harry?"

"I am speaking to _all_ of you. Mr. Potter is merely the most stubborn and ignorant, though it appears that _you_, boy, are the latest of Dumbledore's excesses to be left to me!"

Involuntarily, Scott's hand twitched towards the gun he wasn't carrying. "But you deal with them so gracefully," he bit out.

"Let it alone, Scott. If he can't control us then we have no use," Harry said, sounding sick of the entire argument.

"There's a line between control and guidance, unable though you are to see it," the Minister retorted. He turned a ferocious glare on Scott. "As for you, boy, your impudence will earn you nothing but additional troubles."

"Yeah, fuck you, too!" Scott exploded, stepping forward. "My name is **Scott** and if you call me '_boy__'_ one more time I'm gonna cram that cube right up your—"

Scrimgeour's eyes blazed. "You arrogant, disrespectful—"

"—square peg, round hole, old man, let's solve _that_ equation—"

"TIME OUT!"

The Minister was interrupted yet again, this time by Lila's loud shout. All heads swivelled towards the door, where Lil was standing with her hands on her hips. Scott knew that was never a good pose to see. Regardless, for the first time that day, he was grateful for her interference. He was dangerously close to doing something stupid.

"If you can't discuss this calmly, then don't discuss it at all, and yes, I'm talking to you too, Minister," Lila said sharply. Mrs. Weasley was hovering behind her, looking shocked. "Now if you aren't going to be civil, I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to leave."

"I acted only as I was treated," Scrimgeour nearly snarled, standing up to dwarf Lila with his height. "I suggest you discipline your brother before someone else is forced to do it for you."

It didn't seem possible, but Lila's expression somehow became even frostier. "I'll keep that in mind. Or not. Either way, let me show you the door."

Scrimgeour turned his glare on Harry one last time. "Our business is _not_ concluded, Mr. Potter."

"It never is," Harry said with disgust.

The Minister turned on his heel and brushed past Mrs. Weasley with a terse, "Madame." He didn't acknowledge Lila.

The second the door shut behind him, Harry sank back into the couch with a sigh. Ginny turned to comfort him with a strained expression and Ron was clearly overwhelmed by what had happened, staring at the small silver device in his hand. Hermione, though, was the most conflicted. Considering she had simultaneously received a gift she didn't understand from a dead man and watched her friends fight with the Minister for Magic, that wasn't surprising.

Scott figured he'd better say something to Mrs. Weasley. But Lila (who had been very on top of things at The Burrow, it seemed) was already doing damage control.

"I'm sorry about that, Molly. I knew it wasn't going to be pleasant, but I guess things got out of hand," Lila was saying.

"I just wish all this nonsense hadn't been necessary in the first place," the older woman sighed. "We're supposed to be on the same side, after all."

"The Minister doesn't seem to understand that," Lila told her, smoothly shifting the blame towards Scrimgeour. "Come on, let's have a spot of tea. No point in worrying about what we can't change."

And just like that, the potential crisis was averted and Scott was left alone with his Primes again. Scott was slightly irritated that his interference hadn't been required.

"Well. That's taken care of," he blandly remarked.

Hermione looked at him angrily. "Where on earth were you? Of all the times to disappear!"

"Hey, cut me some slack. I showed up at a very opportune moment," Scott said defensively.

"You should have been here to begin with," Hermione said, but her tearful visage and hoarse voice robbed her reprimand of any bite. Instead, Scott felt like she had just wanted everyone present for moral support. He couldn't blame her. Dumbledore's death was still a raw wound.

"Do you know how to open that box?" Harry asked, nodding at the metal cube.

"Of course. Do you know how to do whatever it is you have to do with your… whatever it was you got?"

"He left me the first Snitch I caught," Harry murmured, looking down at the small golden orb. "And yeah, I think I know what to do."

"Wish I did," Ron grunted. "Well, I suppose I do know what it does… I just don't know what to do _with _it."

Harry glanced at his friend. "Use it to put out lights. We might need that to sneak around, when called for."

Ron smiled a little. "Could have used this a few times over the years, eh? Before you got the Cloak, anyway."

"Well, we're a bit big for the Cloak now. We won't outgrow that."

"Ginny, do you know what to do with your gift?" Hermione asked, leaning forward to see the other girl.

"No," Ginny responded quietly.

Scott did a double take. He hadn't even realised that Ginny had received a gift. In her hands was a blank box, like a smaller version of Scott's own cube, though hers appeared to be made of wood.

Ginny noticed his reaction. "What? I can't get something too?" she said defensively.

"You really need to work on those exclusion issues," Scott told her. "I didn't say anything like that."

Ginny flushed. "You… Fine! There's a note carved on the top. You're so smart, _you_ figure it out."

She tossed the box over to Scott, who deftly caught it and examined the top section. There, in neatly carven letters, was printed:

**something that was supposed to happen**

"Huh." Scott was drawing a blank.

Despite her words, Ginny had looked somewhat hopeful. "Nothing?"

"Hmmm… No. Not yet, anyway. Pass it around, let everyone think it over."

But no one else had anything to add to the discussion. Given the events of the afternoon, Scott felt that they were all most likely drained anyway. Between revisited grief and the hostility brought by the Minister, it had been quite the day for his Primes.

"Let's sleep on it," Scott suggested. "I don't think we want to deal with this shit right now."

"Agreed," Hermione said tiredly, not even commenting on Scott's language.

Harry wasn't quite ready to let it go. "Why did he pick today? He could have shown up as late as he wanted, or not at all. We didn't know anything about Dumbledore's will."

"He had to show up at some point, Harry. It's illegal to withhold items from a will," Hermione said.

"They dragged their feet for awhile and then came to us when they couldn't work it out." Scott picked up his cube and spun it in his hands. "The Minister thought we might solve the puzzle for him."

"It can't be that puzzling if you already know how to open it," Ron commented.

"Why? Because I'm stupid?"

"Yeah, more or less."

"Fair enough. But in this case Dumbledore made sure only I would understand the clue."

"Then what does it mean?" Harry wanted to know.

Scott was about to answer when Lila came back into the room. "Your mom wants to talk to you. Keep it simple," she said to Ron and Ginny. "And this goes for everyone — I suggest you shelve your boxes and whatnot and get ready to work on wedding junk. I bought you as much time as you're going to get."

"When are we eating?" Scott immediately asked.

Lila crossed her arms. "If you pester us, never. Either be patient or go forage in the woods."

"I think you're taking this 'parenting' thing a little too close to heart," Scott mused.

"Someone has to raise you right. Now go put your cube away and get busy, there's a lot to do."

Scott carried his cube upstairs, deciding to leave it in Harry and Ron's room. He knew how to open it and wasn't feeling any real sense of urgency to do it — instead, it was Ginny's gift that dominated his thoughts. He had the inescapable notion that he had heard the phrase written on it before.

No doubt it would come to him in time. He only wished he knew how much time he had.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

Ah, the first author's note for the new story. Shiny and new, full of promise. Unfortunately, as per the usual way of things, now that the time has come to write an author's note, I can't think of anything to say. I abstained from author's notes up until this point because I felt that Harry's escape from the Dursleys' had a drive that I didn't want to interrupt.

_Vis Insita_ represents a step away from the format ofTTM only in the sense that, A: I'm bringing back my old habit of having quotes for every chapter, and B: I'm posting as I go. For the last story I had a backlog of chapters right up until the last two, I think. I was always substantially ahead of myself. Now, with more than a hint of shame, I confess the next chapter is maybe a fourth completed. Also, I keep meaning to re-read the seventh book in its entirety. Skimming is probably not good for canon consistency.

Some of that is actually intentional, and not negligence (though let's be honest; a lot of it is negligence). TTM was all about playing with book six and audience expectations. _Vis_ _Insita_ is, to my mind, about divergence. I'd prefer to spend less time studying the ups and downs of _Deathly Hallows_ and more time examining the chain of events that brought Harry to this point, and how the changes in the sixth year will impact the future.

Essentially, I'm more worried about contradicting myself than contradicting book seven. We'll see how that goes.

As always, thanks for turning out, reading up, etcetera. Sherry of PhoenixSong fame is now not only posting this story but editing it as well, so if you see anything wrong it's totally not my fault anymore. Please pile praise upon me and send all comments and criticisms her way, where she will then pass them on to me in an email I will never open. She didn't agree to be any sort of middleman, but as long as we keep this between ourselves hopefully she won't know what's going on.

As for the rest of you, ply me with your questions and comments. I had some good ones about the Kharadjai, insightful stuff. Who knew that people would actually pay attention to some of the things Scott says? What a world.

I would like to finish up the next chapter soon. But I'm sick at the moment, and I also have work. However, we all know that I'm full of shit, and the fact of the matter is that I am very lazy and have many, many, _many_ videogames to distract me at all hours of the day and night. So there.


	5. The Leaving Cycle

**5**

**The Leaving Cycle**

* * *

><p><em>Thus the road did wander to the shore<em>  
><em>Great swells coiled forward<em>_  
><em>_then washed back, thrice more__  
><em>_Yet, that retreat left silence, vast, unbroken__  
><em>_held quick in the pools of thy memory__  
><em>_unspoken__  
><em>_That windswept mire; devious, bereft!__  
><em>_Worn piers of disarray, black shoals,__  
><em>_heart's theft.__  
>Caught fast in the naught,<em>_  
><em>_twixt the needle and eye__  
><em>_Spilled forth, still fearful__  
><em>_pressed low 'neath the sky__  
><em>

-Susanna B. Aether, _Still Lost, Constantia__  
><em>(Verse XII: lines 227 - 239)

* * *

><p>Hermione was hanging wedding decorations, and wishing that she weren't.<p>

There were so many other activities that required her time: planning, discussing, preparing mentally and physically for the coming trials. She desperately wanted to get everyone together and go over the items left to them by Dumbledore with an eye for the slightest details — they had only brushed the surface of whatever secrets the Headmaster had wanted them to divine, she was sure of it. She also needed to sit down with Scott and work out some sort of arrangement for their leaving of The Burrow. Input from anyone would be valuable, of course, but she was certain Scott would already have some ideas on the subject.

And they would need to leave; the sooner, the better. She only wished they didn't have to attend the wedding. Not that she wasn't looking forward to such a joyous event, and there was sure to be dancing… but the timing left a great deal to be desired.

As did her decorating companion.

"This is FUCKED." Scott kicked over a stool with a loud clatter, making Hermione wince. "Look at this crap. Look at it! Look at it_ now_, because nobody is even gonna bother come show time, they'll all walk through here without even noticing all the effort it took to make this room look so shitty—"

"Oh, just _stop_." Hermione reprimanded sharply when Scott's voice began to rise. She didn't want to hear yet another blistering tirade about wedding jobs. Harry and Ron were about as unenthused but at least they were less verbose.

"What?" he said, as if he didn't know exactly what the problem was.

"Obviously you're having issues, but we'll have even more if you start shouting."

"_Issues_?" Scott mocked. "Yeah, we got issues. Issues, like, these crappy decorations, the fact we haven't had a spare minute to plan anything, the fact that even if we did I'm not sure we could get out of the house without making a scene… Also, I just stepped on this glass thing." He pointed towards his left foot, beneath which he had broken some sort of bauble. "I'm not wearing shoes. That's an 'issue'. Apparently, I've been scuffing the wood floors. Ask Lil, she'll tell you _all_ about it!"

Hermione sighed and motioned him towards a nearby stool she had used to reach the top of the windowsill. "You're a mess, you know that?" She gripped Scott's ankle and lifted his foot for inspection, wrinkling her nose at the amount of blood already soaked through the cloth of his sock. "_Accio glass!_"

"Ow. Yes, fine, I'm a mess. Bully for me."

"I don't think it should be a point of pride. Take that sock off before you smudge anything. And keep your voice down!" Hermione said quickly when Scott opened his mouth for what was sure to be another tirade. "Your sister is going to come looking for you if you don't keep it down."

"Good, when Lil comes in here I'll staple this to her forehead!" Scott leaned down from his perch and snatched a length of garland off the floor, brandishing it like a weapon.

"You don't _have_ a stapler. If you did, we'd be done already," Hermione said. Scott was supposed to be attaching the decorations to the wall with a Sticking Charm but just about everything he tried to stick fell back to the floor.

Scott crossed his arms, dropping the garland in the process. "Rub it in, Hermione, you're a real class act. Not all of us got magic shooting out of our tits."

Hermione coloured. "Shooting out of my—"

"Tits. Yes, those. I'm looking right at them."

"Then stop!"

"Ten Galleons. When it comes to boobs, I only take cash bribes."

Hermione turned her back on him, moving some of her moreprominent features out of his view. "How about we finish this so—"

Scott scoffed, disrupting her. "So Molly can give us some more busywork when she gets back? Come _on, _Hermione, we aren't doing a goddamn thing around here but running in circles. How much you wanna bet that Ron and Harry are just lying around upstairs while we do our assigned work like a couple of gulls?"

He had a point, but she certainly wasn't going to admit it. "Whatever else there is to do, hopefully we'll be separate," she rejoined a bit more coldly than she'd intended.

"Awwww… Don't be that way, magi-tits. You're the breast friend I've ever had."

Hermione gritted her teeth so hard her jaw creaked. Scott had been a handful recently, even by his standards; he'd been short-tempered, moody and occasionally even outright hostile. This latest bout of crudity was just another symptom of whatever snit he was in, and Hermione was tired of it. She hadn't done anything wrong and she was fed up with being treated like she had.

She rounded on him. "What, exactly, is your problem?" She placed her hands on her hips and glowered at him.

"Wow, an open forum. Where do I start? First off, I'm fucking sick of these decorations—"

"No," Hermione said, cutting him off.

Scott's brow creased in a threatening frown. "No?"

"No. Don't even try to misdirect me. You were in a state before we ever started putting these up."

Scott's glare intensified. "You think so, huh."

"I _know_ so. You've been snapping at everyone ever since the Minister left, and I for one have had enough!" She stamped her foot for emphasis, leaning towards him and glaring with all her might.

Unfortunately, while such an action would have impressed upon her other male friends that she was well and truly angry and it was time to be reasonable or back down, Scott was either unable or unwilling to be properly intimidated. Every furious argument with him was an escalating series of barbs, growing more hurtful with elevation.

Hermione liked debating with Scott. He was intelligent, clever, and engaging, and always had something to say on every subject, even (especially) the ones he knew nothing about. Sorting through his slang of wildly varying origins and looking past his frequent use of cutting invectives revealed a stimulating conversationalist. But she did _not_ like fighting with him.

He still didn't seem to understand that.

Scott cast his gaze about the room, his eyes wide with mock chagrin. "Oh no, you've figured everything out. Where's Ron, I need him to shove his tongue in your mouth since you won't shut it."

Hermione fought hard against the blush but couldn't overcome her body's involuntary response to such a comment. "I must have figured something out if you're already resorting to crudity. You might want to work on that jealousy, it's a touch transparent," she shot back.

Scott nodded in exaggerated acceptance. "You're right. I've been hanging decorations when what I _really_ wanted to be doing was tonguing Ron. The homoerotic angst has just been hanging over this house like a pall. Tell you what — you go out with Ginny and rug burn your mouth, and me and Ron and Harry will head upstairs for a rousing game of Butts and Weenies."

She rolled her eyes to prevent herself from flinching at his graphic remarks. "So predictable, it's always the same with you, isn't it! I make a valid point and you head straight for the gutter!"

"You think your point about jealousy was _valid_? Or… maybe I got the wrong idea? Should I have flipped that around, Hermione, did you mean I couldn't control my **throbbing sexual urges **for _you_?" Scott sneered.

The thick scorn in his tone hurt far more than his words. The implication was that he couldn't possibly find her attractive, that nobody could ever find her appealing enough to induce jealousy. He was stabbing right into her shaky self-confidence. Frigid, mousy, bushy-haired and buck-toothed Hermione. An old image, one she'd tried to shed with age. The tatters still clung to her and maybe always would.

Intellectually, Hermione knew that Scott was doing it deliberately. He was trying to drive her away, abandoning his more subtle manipulations for blunt trauma to the psyche, using a year's worth of profiling to push her buttons in a damaging fashion.

Emotionally, she was incensed.

Scott was still going. "Well, if you really want to, I guess I can take one for the team. You all look the same in the dark, right? Just remind me to double bag it."

"You should be so lucky!" Hermione hissed at him, her face now flushed with rage instead of embarrassment.

"By whose definition?"

"It should be yours, by this point! At least I've been interacting with another person, the best company _you've_ had lately is—" Hermione couldn't believe what she was saying even as she finished the thought. "—your own h-hand!"

It was something similar to what Scott might have said in her situation, which was the point. Maybe she wanted to win an argument, just once, without having to stick to her moral high ground. Her continued reticence to drop to Scott's level was apparent in her revealing stutter. Regardless, despite the somewhat inept delivery, perhaps the uncharacteristic nature of the insult would be enough to shock him.

She should have known better.

"Yeah? _Yeah?!_" There was a dangerous spark in Scott's eyes. He leapt up from the stool, smacking his injured foot onto the floor with a sound that made Hermione wince, though he didn't even seem to notice.

What followed was far more disjointed than Scott's usual diatribes, and especially vile. "Well, what-the-fuck-_ever_! At least I do it in the goddamn shower, that's just common fuckin' courtesy! Meanwhile, where are _you_ assholes at, in your bed, beds, plural, I'm stuck on the floor and decent enough not to streak Molly's cushions, sleeping on borrowed sheets still sticky from a bunch of frustrated teens jacking and jilling off all over the fucking place because you don't know how to fuck each other! Well, here's some advice on that front, dumpling: raise your knees, bite your pillow, and keep your fingers out of your ass! _Christ!_"

Hermione slapped him, hard, across the mouth.

After a moment of tense silence, she fled the room.

* * *

><p>Lila was in the process of baking biscuits when Hermione passed through the kitchen on her way up the stairs.<p>

Her face was flushed and her eyes moist as she rushed by, clearly in some kind of a state. Lila placed her spatula on the counter top and watched Hermione's feet disappear into the upper reaches of The Burrow. Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

It was possible that Hermione was simply experiencing the same kind of borderline-hysterical reaction to some minor catalyst that seemed to plague teens of both genders. Hermione, however, was considerably less susceptible to that sort of thing. In fact, it was downright unlikely.

Which left only one culprit within the realm of standard possibility.

As expected, Scott slouched into the kitchen a few moments after Hermione had made her hasty exit. Far less expected was the reddening imprint of a hand across his face. Lila took a deep breath through her nose and let it out slowly. She was going to need patience for whatever came next.

"Congratulations," he said dully, slumping into a chair opposite from her. "You've been promoted."

Lila refused to play this game. "Thanks, I'm honoured. It's been a long time coming."

Scott didn't react to her sarcasm. "I'll put in for a transferral tonight. It won't be an easy transition but I know you can handle it. If there's anything you want we don't already have, just let me know and I'll call in whatever favours I have to. Best I can do on such short notice, but… I'm sorry. I should have had a handle on this."

Lila nodded slowly. She reached over, picked up the glass of water she had been sipping, and threw it in Scott's face.

He nearly fell over backwards, stumbling off the stool, sputtering and flailing. "_What the fuck—"_

"_You_ are saying that to _me_?" Lila said incredulously. "You're the one trying to bug out and stick me with YOUR mission, you asshole! What the fuck, indeed!"

Scott's shoulders slumped. "Okay… I might have overreacted, somewhat…"

"Yeah. _Somewhat_." Lila glared at him, motioning for him to reseat himself. When he did, he looked so pathetic that she could only roll her eyes, her anger softening. She handed him a biscuit. "Here, eat this. I dropped it on the floor earlier."

Scott stuffed the entire biscuit into his mouth without comment, munching it glumly.

"Now, do you want to tell me why you and Hermione decided to have a dual breakdown?" she asked.

His replied was muffled by food. "Thought it would be fun. Kind of a bonding thing, really, very sisterly. Sometimes my feminine side seems neglected, gotta get the oestrogen raging, have a good cry…"

Lila paused a moment to see if he would continue. "Are you done?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm… I'm done." He didn't seem entirely sure.

"So…?"

He sighed, spraying a good deal of crumbs across Lila's previously sanitary counter top. "We had a fight."

"About?"

"How I was being a dick. Which I then ended by being an even bigger dick. Kind of a hollow victory."

"You're really having trouble with this."

"I know." Scott dropped his head into his hands. "God, I _know_."

"You're not even a true teen, get a grip. Surely you didn't act like this the first time around. You've never said anything to that effect," Lila pointed out, although when it came to his younger years Scott had never such much to _any_ effect.

Scott shrugged. "Well, maybe I don't remember."

"Liar."

"Well, maybe I want to forget."

"Much more likely." Lila probably knew more about Scott's childhood than anyone else but it still didn't amount to much. She often felt his reticence was unfair considering how she had told him about many of her adolescent traumas.

"…I'm just going to stay here awhile," Scott muttered.

Lila pushed away from the counter. "You're lucky you're in teen form right now, because it means I'm going to be an understanding big sister and cut you yet another break. You will stay here — _and don't even think about touching those biscuit__s — _while I go smooth things over with Hermione. You know, like you should have done in the first place."

"There's a very good reason ARI is not recommended," Scott said dourly as Lila left the kitchen.

Scott was right about that, anyway. Age Regressed Integration was a solution sometimes worse than the problems it was meant to address. Still, for all his scatterbrained, teen-form vitriol, Lila had to privately admit Scott had done well so far. This latest issue could be smoothed over with a little effort from a third party, which was why it was often so nice to have a partner for a long-term operation. Even if that partner was your little sister, Lila thought wryly.

As expected, Ginny's door upstairs was shut. No doubt that was where Hermione had fled. Lila paused further down the landing to address the two lazy boys in Ron's room who were dozing in the midday sun.

Lila slapped the door frame with her hand, causing both of them to jump. "Attention all useless boys: there are cookies, or _biscuits__,_ as you prefer, downstairs in the kitchen. You may EACH—" she said, raising her voice when Harry and Ron began scrambling to their feet, "—have _three_ cookies. See how many fingers I'm holding up? That's three, in case you've forgotten."

"Brilliant, thanks, Lila," Ron enthused as he sped off downstairs, followed closely by Harry.

With them out of the way, Lila was free to approach the girls. Pausing at the doorway, she listened for a moment but couldn't hear any sobbing within. She'd have been surprised if that were the case. Scott probably hadn't expended too much effort to get Hermione to leave the room, but making her cry would require crossing lines that even Scott's teen form wouldn't allow (Lila hoped).

She knocked twice. The door slid open just far enough for Ginny's angry visage to peek out.

"Oh, it's you," she said, her expression calming somewhat."Thought it might be your git of a brother."

"My git of a brother is downstairs contemplating his shortcomings. Can I come in?" Lila raised a questioning eyebrow.

Ginny opened the door and let Lila through. Inside, Hermione was seated on the edge of the bed. Her face was a bit red but it didn't seem as if she'd been crying, per Lila's expectations. She was definitely upset, however. Her hands were fisted in the sheets and her expression was drawn.

She glanced up when Lila entered, then cast her gaze back down. "I thought you were Scott, come to apologise. I should have known better." A tinge of indignation coloured her words.

Lila leaned against the door, arms crossed. "I think you both need to simmer down before any apologising gets done."

"_Scott's_ the only one who needs to apologise!" Ginny interjected angrily.

Lila threw her a sceptical look. "Do you even know what this is about?"

Ginny leaned back against her dressing table in a huff. "I know enough. I know Scott."

"I think I have a bit more authority in that area," Lila said dryly before turning back to Hermione. "So?"

"What do you want me to say? You're evidently aware we had a row," Hermione said defensively.

"I was more interested in what started it. Actually — no, never mind. I don't care. How are we going to end it?"

"I don't even know _why_ he was so angry!" Hermione burst out, clearly frustrated. "He's just been so distant and hostile, and—and I'd had enough! I still have!"

Lila tilted her head. "And what he said was unforgivable?"

When Hermione hesitated, Ginny jumped in again. "Obviously; that prat, always saying horrible things with no regard for others—"

"Ginny, did Hermione even tell you what he said?"

Ginny's mouth snapped shut but her expression remained defiant. "She doesn't have to. Look at her!"

"I wouldn't care to repeat any of it," Hermione said weakly.

Lila shrugged. "Yeah, probably not. But I'm assuming that he didn't say anything he wouldn't have said if he wasn't yelling it."

Hermione blinked. "Well… I suppose that's one way to put it… I wouldn't have said this in the moment, but it could have been worse."

"He likes you," Lila said simply. "He might hit below the belt, but he won't go for the jugular."

Hermione sighed in response. "Given time, I might find that comforting."

Ginny raised her hands in disbelief. "Right as rain, are we? Hermione, you've never just given in to him before, why the bloody hell would you now? Make him apologise!"

"I do deserve an apology, but… so does he." Hermione's cheeks tinged pink, and she hung her head. "…I slapped him."

A bright grin immediately lit Ginny's features. "Oh, _Merlin_, I bet that felt good!"

"No!" Hermione immediately denied. "…Well, perhaps a little — but that doesn't matter! I've perpetuated a dangerous gender stereotype. Violence against women is rightfully deplored, but it shouldn't be any more acceptable for me to strike a friend just because he's male."

"That's very PC of you, Hermione, and could no doubt spark a fascinating debate on gender," Lila said in a bland tone that belied her spoken interest, "but the fact of the matter is that if you hit Scott, it's because he let you. You know what Scott is. He could have broken your wrist or killed you without a whole lot of effort. It probably took more effort just to sit there and let it happen, actually. I almost admire his self-control right then. Which is odd, coming right out of a spectacular _failure_ of self-control. Isn't that odd? I find that odd."

"I know he let me! That hardly makes up for it."

"Then you can both say you're sorry. After you eat some of the biscuits I baked, assuming there's any left after the ravenous horde of boys descended."

Ginny's attention was captured by that statement. "You baked biscuits? Why didn't you say anything earlier, they're probably gone now!"

"Don't worry. I left some out but I hid the rest. Still, that's no guarantee. Scott will find them, somehow." Lila's eyes narrowed. "He always finds food I hide. He's like a goddamn truffle pig."

Ginny didn't seem interested in what a "goddamn truffle pig" was or why Scott was similar to one. "If Ron gets into them there'll be nothing but crumbs!"

"Then I guess you'd better hurry," Lila told her. When Ginny made a hasty departure, Lila looked over at Hermione and rolled her eyes. "These kids, huh? Too bad you're one of them so you can't roll your eyes too."

"You don't see _me_ sprinting off, do you?" Hermione protested.

"No, and therefore the cookies will be gone. You've sacrificed everything in your pursuit of dignity."

"Biscuits are hardly everything," Hermione opined.

"That's not a good attitude to take when all the cookies are currently being eaten." Lila pushed off the wall and gestured to Hermione. "Come on, I'll make sure you get some alone time with Scott when you're ready. Just try not to drag things out; Molly won't be running errands forever."

By Lila's estimation they were already cutting things close as it was. Molly was an efficient shopper and would no doubt return before too long. Before that happened, it was imperative that everything be calm and that everyone had at least the appearance of getting things done. Lila liked weddings well enough, but she'd never been involved in the preparations for one before. It was severely dampening her anticipation.

She walked into the kitchen just in time to see Hermione snag one of the few remaining biscuits (while Ginny was flirting with Harry and eating his share in the process). Scott remained exactly where Lila had left him, chewing on a cookie without any apparent enjoyment.

Lila approached Hermione and briefly leaned down to her ear. "Now would be the time," she said quietly. Straightening up, she addressed the others in a louder tone. "Anyone who gets crumbs on my clean floor will be cleaning them up with their tongue — and then cleaning _that_ up with a rag. And Ron, for fuck's sake, chew with your mouth closed! That's right, I said 'fuck', don't give me that look. You're making me mad."

Offered the proper distraction, Hermione and Scott slipped out to the sitting room. With any luck, they'd patch things up before the rift grew any wider.

Between the wedding and the war, further distractions were not needed.

* * *

><p>Scott was hiding.<p>

Not from Hermione, this time. He wouldn't have minded seeing her, actually. The two of them had arrived at an uneasy truce and Scott would have liked the chance to settle things on a more permanent basis and explain himself. Instead, he was lounging on the roof of The Burrow, safely out of sight and hopefully out of mind, as well.

With the arrival of so many Weasleys (Arthur had been at work far less often, Fred and George had returned to help with preparations, Charlie was present for the same reason and Bill was around to be the star of the upcoming show), it was becoming increasingly difficult to move around without attracting notice. Scott's false history had been established enough for most purposes, but Bill's presence during the attack on Hogwarts was problematic. He'd seen too much and knew too little. That was a dangerous combination, and it was only his near-total preoccupation with his forthcoming nuptials and Lila's stone-faced refusal to discuss the matter which kept him at bay.

And that wasn't even taking into account Fleur's family. Scott nervously opened one eye and glanced around, closing it again once he was sure no one was looking for him. Fleur's younger sister (what the hell was her name?) had developed an unhealthy obsession with Scott, providing attention he didn't want or need. Another reason to remain out of sight. Her puppyish crush was, as far as Scott could tell, not hampered by the fact that Scott could deflect her juvenile Veela aura. His immunity seemed to only provide her with more determination.

Scott found the part-Veela sisters interesting solely for what they were involuntarily doing to the shape. Tall blondes were not his style, even if the little one had been old enough to qualify. Women like that only reminded him of his sister.

In regards to Lila, she had been a godsend. He had never been more grateful for her presence on the mission than he had been in the last few days, watching as she used her deep integration at The Burrow to the fullest effect, issuing orders and butting heads with the Weasley boys as if she'd lived there her entire life. Fred and George had been resentful at first, but quickly learned it would make their lives easier not to cross Lila. Scott had learned the same lesson long before; he just generally chose to ignore it.

His lips twitched in a small smile. It had probably escaped the attention of most, but Scott had been watching from the outskirts of the semi-organised free-for-all that constituted the final days of wedding preparation and Charlie was clearly smitten with Lila. He did his best to hide it, but Ron appeared to come by his lack of subtlety honestly. Scott didn't know whether Lila would discourage Charlie's interest or not. He hoped she wouldn't burn any bridges since that kind of infatuation could be useful. It provided a hold over a person that might be exploited at some point, should a situation require it.

"Scott?"

Scott sat up, broken from his thoughts by Lila calling his name. It sounded like she was in the garden just below his feet.

"Scott, I know you're up there. Gabrielle isn't with me, numb nuts. Get down here."

_That_ was the kid's name. Scott knew it started with a G. "Yeah, hold on. I'm working on my tan."

"Prematurely age on your own time. There's stuff that needs doing."

"Oh, God. More? Surely Mrs. Weasley is out of decorations. There isn't that much storage in the world."

"We're done with the decorations. For now. I'm going to pop out to the shop with Molly, and I need you to keep an eye on things," Lila explained.

Scott scooted down the shingles until his legs were dangling off the roof. He leaned forward and looked down at Lila mischievously. "'Pop out to the shop'?" he quoted. "You're blending in so well, I'm proud of you, really."

"Get. Down. Here. Pronto."

"You're very impatient for a single mother."

"Now!"

Scott sighed and pushed himself off the roof, landing gracefully in the grass. "All right, but that creepy little blonde chick better stay away from me. She's not even a Prime, I don't have to put up with her."

Lila crossed her arms, unyielding. "But you will. Oh, but keep Ginny away from her. Gabrielle has been making eyes at Harry since you did your disappearing act, and it's creating some friction. Better she moons over you than the guy in a fragile relationship with a very touchy girlfriend."

As much as Scott hated to admit it, she was right. The integrationist in him was already examining the situation dispassionately, working the angles, calculating how best to keep Gabrielle's interest on him and divert her from Harry. "Okay, I'll do something about it."

Lila smiled at him. "There we go. I knew there was still a professional in that teen form somewhere."

"When I grow up, I want to be big and strong like you!" Scott said, affecting a high-pitched street urchin accent.

Gratifyingly, Lila laughed. "Then eat your vegetables, do your homework, and keep that creepy little blonde chick away from Harry."

Scott eyed her knowingly. "And should I also keep that creepy big redheaded dude away from you?"

Lila ran a hand through her hair, preening. "Oh, I don't know about that. It's so nice to have a gentleman caller."

"That sounds so dignified… and sexless. I'm pretty sure he wants to bone you on any available flat surface."

"Please stop projecting your lust for Sophie on all other relationships. It's very unbecoming." Lila raised a finger. "Also, don't say anything like that to him. _I_ will handle this, not you."

"As your older brother—"

"You'll stay out of it. I happen to like it when someone notices I'm a woman."

"Who doesn't? You have two huge reminders—"

"Just go!" Lila cut him off for a second time before he could really get started. "I'm supposed to have left like five minutes ago, get out of here!"

"There must be something innate in my teen form that accepts older authority, because why else would I be _listening_ to you?" Scott griped as he headed for the back door.

"You're showing signs of self-preservation — I'm as surprised as you are!" Lila called back, and then Scott was inside and had many other things to focus on.

He hugged the outer walls of the room as he moved towards the kitchen, avoiding eye contact and the appearance of being unoccupied. That was a dangerous state to be in with the wedding so close; idle hands were immediately tasked. So he walked with purpose, even though he didn't have much of one. All he had to work with was the vague notion that he needed to watch his Primes and make sure… of what? Nobody was in danger inside The Burrow. Not physically, anyway. There were other pitfalls.

One of those obstacles came bounding towards him with a swish of platinum blonde hair. "_Bonjour, Monsieur Kharan!_" Gabrielle said brightly.

Scott carefully hid a flinch. "Gabby, hi! Lila told me you were talking to Harry, do you know where he is?"

She nodded. _"Oui, il est là-haut."_

Scott was fortunate that he spoke French, as Gabrielle's skills in English were not at the same level as her sister's. He briefly considered that perhaps his fluency was working against him at the moment; Gabrielle probably appreciated his ability to converse in her native tongue.

Well, it was too late to pretend otherwise. "_Merci_. I'm going to go see what he's up to."

Gabrielle followed him without invitation, chattering away in French while occasionally pausing to look up at him through her eyelashes coquettishly. Scott largely ignored her, though with Lila's admonishment in mind he did throw out a comment now and then. Mostly 'yeah' and 'uh-huh', but it was enough.

At least Gabrielle was too young to expect anything else. Her girlish attraction was simple and untainted by the emotions and hormones that could have made things much more complicated for Scott. He'd give her a modicum of attention, dance with her at the wedding, and then she'd be shipping off back to France.

"_Avez-vous été amis avec Monsieur Potter pendant une longue période?" _Gabrielle asked, breaking Scott away from his thoughts.

"Uh, about a year or so. _Près d'un an._ I moved here from the United States with my sister, could you tell from my accent? _Que je suis un Américain?"_

She looked up at him curiously. _"Votre accent est différent … Mais je ne connais pas les Américains."_

"Well, I guess you do now."

She smiled. "Yes, I know you!"

The upper portions of The Burrow were largely empty due to the activity below. Scott made his way up to Ron's room first, figuring it might be occupied. It was abandoned as well, though the state of order and cleanliness made it clear Mrs. Weasley had commanded that it be made presentable for all the house guests.

Other than the attic, Ginny's room was the only one left. Scott leaned around the door frame and peered inside.

Harry, Ginny and Hermione were in deep discussion over a book. Dumbledore's gifts were spread around on the bed: Harry's Snitch, Hermione's children's book and Ginny's wooden box. Scott was pleased to see there was research in progress. They'd had little time for it beforehand, and a stolen moment like this could be valuable.

He stepped inside, making sure to knock his shoe against the wall to alert them that he was present and not alone. Hermione snapped the book shut, the Snitch disappeared into Harry's pocket and Ginny knocked the wooden box behind the bed.

"Scott, hey," Harry said, standing up. "Where'd you run off to earlier?"

"Rooftop. I was hiding from Lila," Scott told him, but he jerked his head in the direction of Gabrielle, who had stepped into the room behind him.

Harry winced slightly. "Oh, hello, Gabrielle."

Gabrielle smiled and nodded in Harry's direction but her gaze remained fixated on Scott. Apparently his presence was enough to dampen her interest in The Boy Who Lived. From an integration standpoint it was useful, but unexpected. As far as most people knew Scott was just some random Muggleborn from across the pond who had befriended Harry. Harry, meanwhile, had not only interacted with Gabrielle before, he was famous as hell _and_ had saved her life (or at least had provided the appearance of doing so, as Scott understood the story).

Scott didn't know if it was his unusual accent, his looks, or the simple fact that he spoke French, though it was most likely none of the above. He suspected Gabrielle's fixation had gone to him by default; he was the youngest unattached male in the household.

Ginny had already shifted a bit closer to Harry and was glaring at Gabrielle, so Scott knew it was time for a distraction. "Yeah, so, I don't think anybody knows we're up here right now and Lila just left with Molly. That probably gives us about forty-five minutes to an hour to do whatever we want as long as we stay out of sight. Also, where the hell is Ron?"

"With Charlie, last I saw him," Harry said.

"He doesn't get to see Charlie much, so he's making the most of it, while he can…" Hermione added, and as she trailed off it went unsaid but understood that the end of the wedding was not what she referred to.

"Hmm." Scott wanted to say more, but Gabrielle's presence was severely hampering things. About all he could do was leave and let his Primes work out what they could before the inevitable interruption. "Okay, just checking in. Me and Gabby are going to go see if there's anything worth stealing in the kitchen; as you were."

He turned and left, glad that Gabrielle would follow him without prompting. Downstairs, things were just as chaotic as before. Scott dodged Bill and Gabrielle's father, who were carrying a table, and slipped past Fleur and her mother in the midst of a high-pitched argument in French. Something about flower arrangements.

With Lila and Molly gone, the kitchen was blessedly deserted. Scott poked around in a cabinet that seemed like a spot Lila might conceal something in; he was rewarded with a small wrapped package of leftover biscuits. He turned to Gabrielle with a smug grin and hoisted his ill-gotten gains. She beamed back at him in response.

They slipped out the front door. Scott decided to avoid the usual spots, on the off chance someone came looking for them. Lila's car was still parked near the garage, so Scott made his way over to it and sat down with his back against one of the tyres. Anyone at the house would have to circle around to see him.

Gabrielle sat in the grass next to him and held out an expectant hand. Scott dropped one of the cookies into it and together they ate in silence, savouring the stolen treats.

It was moments like these which reminded Scott what a mistake it was to assume integration was all about fighting. His job sometimes required killing, but it also required him to sit out in the sunshine and eat biscuits with a small girl for companionship. True integration was about becoming part of someone's life and accepting everything that came with that. And life was mostly mundane.

"_Ceux-ci sont très bons,"_ Gabrielle commented. _"Votre sœur en faire?"_

"_Oui. _She can be handy in a kitchen — _elle est bonne dans une cuisine._ I'm not half bad myself, depending. When you travel a lot it's a nice skill to develop."

Gabrielle frowned. "Half bad? _Partiellement mauvais?"_

"Uh, _non_. I mean that I'm pretty good at it. _Plutôt bien._"

"_Très bon! _Yours are like hers?"

Scott shrugged. "I'm not much for biscuits, that's kind of her thing. I make some kick a… some kickin' chimichangas, though."

"What is 'chimichanga'?"

"A fried burrito. It's Mexican food. _Mexicain._" He grimaced in pity. These poor savages had never had a chimichanga.

That answer seemed to satisfy Gabrielle for the moment. Scott knew he probably wasn't doing her English skills any favours by constantly explaining in French but it was all he had the patience for.

Patience. He should have limitless patience by this point. Here he was, treading water again. Playing escort for a French tween who was barely even peripherally related to the events at hand. At least at Hogwarts he'd been networking.

At least Kylie hadn't talked much.

"My sister looks like your sister, you think?" Gabrielle wondered.

Scott didn't know about that. They were both blonde, true. Going any further, Scott knew he was probably biased. That said, Lila was taller, tougher, smarter and (in Scott's sibling-solidarity rooted opinion which he would NEVER, EVER confess) substantially more attractive.

He kept all of that to himself. "A little bit, yeah."

Gabrielle looked up at him with a hint of apprehension. _"Je pense que Fleur ne l'aime pas beaucoup…" _Then, perhaps realising that the possible tension between Lila and Fleur might be carrying over to Scott and herself, she hastened to add, "I do like you!"

Scott had already figured that out. As for Fleur not liking Lila, he didn't know much about that. Either Fleur was just naturally catty, or they had clashed over some wedding details (possibly both). The fact of the matter was, he didn't know a whole lot about Gabrielle's family in general. Under different circumstances he might have used the time before the wedding to rectify that. Now he had much more pressing concerns.

He spotted two of those concerns slipping through the trees at the edge of the property. From the way Fred and George were attempting to be inconspicuous, Scott figured they were probably looping their way around to that stump he had found full of whiskey bottles. It would be a good opportunity to take their measure; Scott didn't know exactly what was coming, but he did know they would be a part of it. It would be good to arrive at an understanding.

Besides, by this point the secrecy was wearing thin. The battle at Hogwarts had punched all kind of holes in Scott's carefully constructed false existence. A few more wouldn't hurt.

Scott turned and pressed the few remaining biscuits into Gabrielle's hand. "Here, Gabby, do me a favour — take these back to the house with you. _Partagez-les avec votre sœur, si vous voulez, mais assurez-vous que vos parents ne les vois pas._"

She took them eagerly. "Thank you! _Je vais les cacher quand je rentre à l'intérieur…_" She stood to leave, then paused. "_Mais…_ you are not coming?"

"I'll be there in a few, _dans une minute, _I need to go talk to the twins, okay?"

"_Bien. _See you soon, Scott!" Gabrielle waved at him in a manner that was probably intended to be flirtatious.

Scott headed for the woods as soon as she was gone. Hopefully she wouldn't head straight for Harry once she was back in The Burrow. Scott had never actually been grateful that he and Lila hadn't met until they were both adults (the loss of a common childhood seemed a high price), but he was starting to consider it. Kid sisters seemed like a lot of trouble.

Several minutes of walking put him out into the woods, the sounds of nature deadened by the thick summer canopy. Fred and George were conversing up ahead, standing around the decaying tree base and passing a bottle of something or the other back and forth.

"Is this a private party?" Scott asked as he meandered up, startling the both of them.

They recovered quickly. "Scott Kharan, old bean!" Fred said grandly. "By all means, join us! Pull up a stump!"

"If you can find another. This one's rubbish, I'm afraid," George added, gesturing around.

"No need to be so self-critical, gentlemen. You may be rubbish, but at least you aren't drunk." Scott peered at the bottle George was holding. "Oh. Never mind."

Fred grinned. "This might be enough to knock _you_ on your American arse. We're sober as judges."

Scott shrugged. "Just let me know when your liver is about to explode so I can clear the blast radius. And speak of blast radii…"

"You had our undivided attention the moment you said 'blast'," George told him.

Scott leaned back against a nearby tree and let his expression become serious. The twins took note, glancing at each other. "I wanted to talk about your shop."

Fred smirked. "You might want to be more specific, mate, there's a lot going on behind those doors…"

"I hope so. In layman's terms, fellas — what do you have that will take the legs off a theoretical Death Eater?"

The twins dropped all pretence of humour. "So it's happening, then," George said quietly. "You lot are leaving to…"

Scott was not surprised that the two of them had pieced together that much. "Yes. And soon, we're only here for the wedding. You know what's coming."

"Everybody knows what's coming," Fred said. "Everybody who isn't a bloody idiot."

"We're ready… Or, mostly. We still have all the defensive products we've been selling, and we can disappear if we have to. As for anything else…" George trailed off, scratching at his head. "We had a few ideas. But we weren't sure…"

"There was a market? Or that they were a step you wanted to take?" Scott asked.

"The second one. There's always a market for weapons," Fred said cynically (and correctly).

Scott leaned forward with interest. "What kind of weapons?"

George held up a hand. "Before we go any further with this, we need to know who you are. Who you _really_ are. You and your sister aren't exactly your average American tourists, yeah?"

Scott sighed. "You don't need to know that any more than I really need to know about your weapon designs. Me and Lil have been tasked with helping Harry. In the larger scheme of things, that translates into helping pretty much everyone close to him."

"Remus said you were with some American version of the Order. Or at least, that Dumbledore trusted you." Fred seemed uncertain of that information.

"And if that's not the truth, it's close enough to work if you choose to believe it," Scott said. "Bottom line: make all the bombs you can and get ready to vanish. When things go south, I will try to be in touch. The time may come for some collaborative efforts."

"You'll notice he didn't answer the question," George said to his brother.

"No, I didn't. Can you live with that?"

"Harry trusts you. That earns you a bit from us, as well," George said. "Just don't stretch it too far."

"What kind of collaboration were you talking about?" Fred asked, returning to Scott's previous comment.

"Some properly targeted deconstruction can go a long way," Scott hinted.

"We aren't terrorists," George said coldly.

Scott rolled his eyes. "A terrorist is just a revolutionary without a game plan. Our hate has _focus_. And our goals are achievable. We aren't trying to kill an_ idea_ here, guys, we just need to kill one person in particular."

"Ah, I hate to burst your bubble, but we run a _joke_ shop, if you'll recall. Light-hearted, class clowns? Dropped out to pursue a rollicking life manufacturing fart pranks?" Fred said acerbically. "Somehow the 'assassin' part of that was something we missed out on."

"Unless you think you can force-feed You-Know-Who an Acid Pop, we might have a few on back order," George noted.

Scott recognised their defensive reaction in derailing a serious conversation with sarcasm; he did it all the time. It didn't matter, though, because he'd said what needed to be said. "Hey, do what you want. I'm just giving you the heads up, chuckles, don't shoot the messenger. I'll be getting shot at soon enough as it is."

"God, you're morose when you're sober," George sighed, lifting the whiskey bottle to his lips.

"You're very judgemental for a drunk," Scott told him. He turned to leave, but stopped when Fred caught him by the shoulder.

"Be careful. All of you. And make sure you _do_ stay in touch, however you can manage it. We're not saying _no_, absolutely, but… let's see how things turn out, right?" Fred was stoic, but couldn't quite hide the worry in his eyes.

"I meant it about having a way out," Scott said. "The Order is going to be a big fat target for every Death Eater looking to make his bones. They'll kill you if they can and scatter you even if they can't."

"Don't worry about us. We can handle ourselves. Just… watch out for Ron, will you?"

Scott nodded. "I will."

"Good. Oh, and if you tell him I said that I'll fill all your trousers with itching powder."

"Doesn't it kind of defeat the purpose of the prank if you tell me what it's going to be?"

"Not if I tell you the wrong thing," Fred said, grinning wickedly.

Scott's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Hmm. Good point. Just keep in mind that any pranking retribution will be visited upon your balls."

Fred was outraged. "Damn it, you can't just go right for the balls!"

"Disproportionate, is what that is," George said authoritatively.

"Just stopping this before it starts, _stultorum. _That was Latin, by the way. _Latina, lingua. _Wouldn't want you of lesser intellect to feel left out," Scott said condescendingly.

"Expect the worst, my friend," Fred said ominously.

George perked up in interest. "Can you teach me to swear in Latin? 'You cuntus maximus', all that lark?"

Scott spread his hands. "Just say that — who's gonna know?"

"_I'd_ know," George grumbled. "If you're going to swear, do it properly."

"That's a sentiment I can get behind — but we'll have to save that activity for a rainy day, because I need to get back to the house. I can give you the Latin motto for your shop, though," Scott said over his shoulder as he walked away. "_Caveat emptor!"_

* * *

><p>"Machiavellian."<p>

"What?"

"That's the word I was looking for. Machiavellian."

"I didn't know you were looking for a word," Harry said shortly. He wasn't automatically opposed to Scott's conversation, but seeing as how he was currently sitting at the table waiting for his birthday cake to be brought out it wasn't the ideal time to discuss 'Machiavellian'.

"Machiavelli said it was better to be feared than loved," Scott mused. "But he also warned against being hated… That's the balance, between hate and fear. Riddle doesn't walk it well. He's not subtle."

Hermione leaned in to assist. "Scott, is this really the time?"

Ron was also talking. "It is chocolate, right? I'm not speaking to you if you asked for anything else."

Somewhere behind Harry, Neville and Luna were engaged in a conversation of their own. "I just wish you could have stayed a bit longer," Neville was saying.

"We'll be at Hogwarts soon, Neville," Luna replied. "Would you like to hold hands?"

Hagrid was also present, making the room seem crowded all by himself. He was talking to Remus and Charlie in a voice that would have been considered shouting coming from anyone else. Tonks was deep in discussion with Ginny; about what, Harry didn't know, but Tonks was frequently changing her hair colour.

Between them and all the other weddings guests moving in and out of the room, it was all a little overwhelming.

Harry would have preferred a quieter gathering. A little cake, a few presents, and maybe a special present from Ginny later on… That would be ideal. Alone time had been a precious commodity during the wedding preparations; with the event itself now imminent, it had all but vanished.

Harry shifted in his seat and tried not to look put out. This was all for him, after all, even if he hadn't asked for it. There was no need to be ungrateful.

Besides, all the presents he's received thus far had been splendid. Before Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had given him one he hadn't known it was customary to give a wizard a watch when they came of age (after all the years spent divorced from his Muggle upbringing he still had a great deal to learn). Ron's present had been a book with the rather unwieldy title _Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches_. Harry hadn't shown it to anyone else, yet. He was certain Scott would have something to say about it.

Scott had yet to deliver any presents of his own, which might have meant he simply hadn't bothered to procure one. Harry didn't think so, though. Scott wouldn't ignore an occasion that was so significant to Harry, even if it was only to further his integration. No, he most likely had a present that couldn't be safely given with their current audience. It could very well be dangerous, a thought that left Harry excited and apprehensive all at once.

Ginny also hadn't given any presents so far. Harry had a good feeling about that. All the best gifts from Ginny couldn't be wrapped.

Well… they couldn't be _un_wrapped in public.

"Cake Time!" Lila sang out, carrying the delicious desert on a tray, candles lit.

Harry was immediately besieged by well wishes and hugs. After Mrs. Weasley squeezed him tightly, Lila stepped in. She didn't give Harry quite as enthusiastic a hug as the other woman, but when she moved back she placed a hand on his shoulder and whispered, "Molly wanted something more extravagant, but I was told you didn't."

Harry smiled up at her appreciatively, nodding his thanks. No doubt if she'd been given the chance Mrs. Weasley would have run herself even more ragged than she already was putting together additional decorations for Harry. He didn't want or need that kind of effort. Just having any sort of party at all was enough, and, after his childhood at the Dursleys', still something of an oddity.

Scott had risen from his seat and was fidgeting near the cake. "Harry, for the love of GOD, dude, hurry up and cut this thing or I am about to commit a major infraction of birthday protocol—"

"Oh, no, you aren't!" Lila said, brandishing a knife in his direction. "Harry gets the first piece and_ you_ will wait your turn."

"It's fine, everyone can help themselves," Harry tried to say, but Lila placed an enormous slice on a plate in front of him and then fixed him with an expectant stare. Harry dutifully ate his first bite. "It's really good, thank you, Lila."

"No big deal, just an old recipe I dug out," she said airily, but she seemed pleased by the compliment.

"I will now demonstrate my impression of Ron," Scott was saying. He had his plate tipped upward, apparently to shovel his entire slice into his mouth.

"That's not an impression, that's just you," Ron scoffed. "I could eat _two_ slices at once."

"Uh, that sounds like a challenge, freckles."

"It sounds like both of you are going to get smacked," Lila said threateningly.

Harry wouldn't have minded seeing Ron versus Scott in an eating contest, but he didn't voice that.

"Happy Birthday, Harry," Neville said, coming up on Harry's left. "I know I already said it with everyone else, but…"

Harry grinned up at him. "Thanks, Nev! I'm glad you could make it."

"Me too! I've just wanted to get out of the house, since…" Neville trailed off and glanced in Luna's direction.

Harry knew that Luna had stayed with Neville for some time over the summer, and not much else. Obviously there was more to the story. "Er, Nev… Are you and Luna…?"

Neville turned bright red, but kept his chin up. "Y-yes. We're seeing each other now."

Harry felt a twinge of sympathy when he heard how defensively Neville said it, as if he were expecting immediate derision. The worst part was, he probably would receive it back at Hogwarts. Luna was pretty, intelligent, and one of the bravest people Harry had ever known, but many (including her own house) never saw past the cork necklace and radish earrings.

Well, Harry thought firmly, neither she nor Neville were going to get that kind of scorn here. "That's brilliant, Nev. Really, I mean it. She's a great girl."

Neville was still red with embarrassment, but he smiled hesitantly. "She really is… I wish I'd seen it sooner."

"I know what you mean," Harry said, looking over at Ginny.

About two seconds after Neville went to rejoin Luna, Scott immediately appeared in the vacated space. He grinned widely at Harry, teeth blackened by copious amounts of chocolate. "I love it when a plan comes together."

Harry's expression was dubious. "Now you're taking all the credit for them, too?"

"I can never take _all_ the credit," Scott said with blatantly false modesty. "An object must exist before it can be moved, these things are no different. We don't create reality, we shape it, we _shift_ it."

"Which is Machiavellian?"

"No! No, that was a different train of thought. Thanks for reminding me, though."

Harry glanced around, but no one was paying attention to them. "So what would have happened, then? If you hadn't done anything, I mean. If you just left everyone alone."

Scott eyed him. "You sound faintly bitter."

"You were a complete twat on loads of occasions just to get me with Ginny."

"It worked, didn't it?"

Harry glared at him. "And with Neville and Luna, all you did was send a bloody letter…"

Scott held his hands up in a placating manner. "Okay, I see what you're saying, but it's not a fair comparison. I started giving you a hard time only _after_ I tried a bunch of other stuff."

Harry didn't want to have this argument in the middle of his birthday party. "Sod it, just answer the question."

"Ultimately, I don't know. You and Ginny, Ron and Hermione — these are relationships built on requirements. They provide strength. They are, if not absolutely necessary, then highly useful. They give you something you need."

"But how is Neville different with Luna?" Harry asked, feeling a bit angered at the implication they weren't important to the shape (and therefore, to Scott).

"They aren't. Not functionally. Love is a binding agent; you take two disparate people, and that connection allows them to compensate for the weaknesses of the other. They become complementary. Love can also destroy, of course, but hopefully this whole war thing will be over before that ever happens. If it does," Scott amended, upon seeing Harry's alarmed look. "So, the principal is the same. But because Neville and Luna aren't as… _central_, to this escapade, the shape wasn't so urgent on the matter. There were multiple strands available, I just… I just encouraged one of them."

There were lines to be read between that statement and Harry didn't like the implication. "You mean you picked the outcome that was most convenient for you."

"I suppose you could put it that way."

Harry stared at his cake for a moment, trying to decide if he was outraged, resigned, or if it was really any of his business in the first place.

"They're happy together, Harry," Scott defended himself. "Could you see them with anyone else? Maybe they would have had a connection anyway, and maybe it wouldn't have lasted, but why go through that kind of trauma and then wait to find someone else eventually when they can have a lasting relationship _now_?"

"What if they would have been happier with those other people?" Harry countered.

"What if they wouldn't? Let's not pretend we can compare what they have now with some distant, unknown outcome."

Harry considered that. "So you don't know much about the alternatives?"

"Nope."

"…Well, whatever. I just hope you know what you're doing."

"Hey — it's me!" Scott said, grabbing his empty plate and going to help himself to more cake.

Harry had about three seconds to contemplate how unhelpful that was before he had company again. This time it was Ron who sat at Harry's side. "Happy birthday, mate. You look at that book, yet?"

"No, not yet. I'm waiting until Scott isn't around," Harry said.

"Why? Think he'll get smart about it?"

"We are talking about Scott…"

Ron snorted. "He should keep his fat mouth shut. Most action he's seen is flirting with Hufflepuffs, and the easy ones, at that." He nodded his head in the direction of Lila, who was picking up empty plates. "Hey, have you seen Charlie with Lila?"

"Charlie?" Harry located Ron's older brother sitting near the window. Sure enough, he was watching Lila. "Huh. Can't say I have…"

"He's completely barmy about her, full stop," Ron said, sniggering. "Embarrassing, really."

"Yeah, you have no idea what that's like," Harry said dryly.

Ron's ears turned red. "Shut it. That was different."

Harry considered the situation and couldn't think of any positive outcomes. He wasn't even sure if Lila qualified as human. "Maybe you should say something to him, before he gets hurt…"

Ron shook his head sorrowfully. "Charlie, Charlie… Daft bugger pokes dragons for a living, 'course he picks the most violent girl we know. I wonder if he _needs_ to feel like he might lose a limb, no matter what he's doing…"

Harry had been thinking more about the emotional fallout, but he couldn't say that Ron didn't have a point. "Er, true. Maybe one of us should talk to Lila about it…?" He reconsidered whether he really wanted to do that. "Let's make _Scott_ talk to her."

"You do what you want, mate, I'm not going to be anywhere near when that goes pear shaped," Ron said wisely.

The party began to slow to its inevitable end once everyone was full of cake and satisfied. The guests began to drift off, several of them having to leave (though any goodbyes were tempered by the knowledge they'd be right back for the wedding). In deference to his birthday, Harry found himself exempt from any jobs around the house. This was how, as evening began to set, he found himself upstairs, alone with his friends, for the first time in weeks.

Hermione took charge. "All right; let's go about this in an organised manner," she said in her best authoritarian voice.

Scott, predictably, sabotaged her moment. "_Jawohl__, __mein Führerin__!"_

She paused just long enough to fix him with a blistering glare, then turned to Dumbledore's gifts, which she had arranged on Ron's dressing table. "I've read through the book… And while I enjoyed it, I can't see any other reason it was left to me. That said, I'm sure we can all agree that there was a specific reason we were given these things; therefore, I just haven't discovered it yet."

"You'll suss it out," Ron said with total confidence.

Hermione blushed a bit. "Um, thank you, Ron. Moving on…" She picked up the Deluminator. "As for your gift, I can think of all sorts of ways this could be useful. Stealth, primarily, but I was wondering if it works on anything that _produces_ light, even as a by-product."

That caught Scott's attention. "Power sources? Bioluminescence?"

"Perhaps. We'll have to test it, at some point." She set it down and lifted Harry's Snitch. "Harry, I've given it a bit of thought, and, if I remember right, you know how you caught this particular Snitch…"

"Yeah. The bloody thing about choked me," Harry recalled. "Give it here, I'll lick it or something."

Ginny, who was on the bed with Harry, leaning against his chest, grimaced and shifting against him slightly. "Ugh. You don't know where that's been!"

Harry grinned down at her. "Want to give me a kiss afterwards?"

She turned her head, pressing a hand against his mouth playfully. "No! You'll just have to kiss me somewhere else…"

Ron was staring at them in horror. "Fucking hell. I'm going to be sick."

Hermione prudently moved things along. "Harry?"

"Right." Harry pressed the Snitch to his lips. He held it there for a moment, but nothing happened. He lowered it.

Hermione looked puzzled. "I thought that would accomplish something…"

Ginny took the Snitch from Harry. "Look, there's writing here now! 'I open at the close'… What?"

"'I open at the close'," Harry repeated, reading it for himself.

Hermione sighed. "More riddles. I suppose it couldn't be too easy." She gestured at Ron and Scott. "Any ideas from either of you?"

Ron shrugged. "No, that sounds pretty much like nonsense."

Scott's face was creased in thought. "Get back to me. We're missing something."

"All right, well, I suppose we won't solve everything in one night." Hermione took the Snitch back and traded it for the small wooden box that had been bequeathed to Ginny. "Has anyone had any thoughts on Ginny's box?"

Scott startled everyone with a sudden snort of laughter. "Maybe a few, though I can guarantee that Harry has had _many_ thoughts concerning Ginny's box…"

Hermione may not have been familiar with whatever slang Scott found so amusing, but she knew a rude joke when she heard one — especially from Scott. "This! This wooden box she got from Dumbledore, not whatever horrible thing _you're_ thinking of!"

"What does it say on it, again?" Harry interrupted. He wanted to head off any potential clashes between Scott and Hermione before they grew loud enough for someone to investigate.

"'Something that was supposed to happen'," Hermione said.

Ron rolled his eyes. "We don't understand any of this shite; there we go, that's what was supposed to happen. Dumbledore always liked a good laugh."

"No, I know this one. I've heard that before…" Scott muttered.

"Where?" Ginny demanded.

Scott sighed and leaned back against the headboard, pressing his palms into his eyes. "Okay. 'Something that was supposed to happen'. Involving Harry and Ginny, probably. Something Dumbledore said to me… Wait… No, _I_ said that!"

Hermione's face lit up in excitement. "You said it?"

"Yeah! Yeah, it was up in his office. We were talking about stuff, then there was an interruption from the shape, he asked me what was wrong… I said something happened, he was worried, so I said it was okay, that it was 'something that was _supposed_ to happen'!" He opened his eyes. "That's it! God, that was driving me crazy. It's kind of scary to think that he was banking on me remembering that."

"Out with it, already!" Ginny said impatiently. "What's the secret?"

Scott looked at her shrewdly. "Nothing that hasn't already happened in this house with the box present. So, let's try something a little more tactile. Harry, Ginny — put your hands on the box."

Ginny placed her hand on the wooden surface and Harry followed suit, placing his hand over hers.

"That's very touching, Harry, but let's not take any chances — put your hand on the _box_," Scott ordered.

Harry grimaced to cover his embarrassment and moved his hand.

"Okay. Now, kiss each other."

Ron started. "Wait just a bloody minute—"

"Shut up, firecrotch, this is for a good cause," Scott told him.

Hermione nodded. "I think I see what he's getting at. Go ahead, you two."

Harry looked down at Ginny and raised a nervous eyebrow. "Er, not especially used to an audience…"

Ginny shook her head fondly. "Harry, stop being a prat and just kiss me."

So he did.

He withdrew in alarm as he heard the box click and felt it jump beneath his hand. "Whoa!"

"It's opened!" Ginny said excitedly. She popped open the lid and reached inside.

"Be careful!" Hermione cautioned. "We don't know what… Oh!"

Hermione's exclamation was in response to Ginny withdrawing a strange object from the box. It was shaped like a vial, wrapped with gold filigree in curious shapes that were hard to trace with the eye, beguiling and strange. The bottom had four silver legs so it could be stood up, and the top of it seemed to be sealed with lead.

The liquid inside the glass was dark red and burned with a strong, unearthly light.

Ron peered at it in fascination. "What… the bloody hell… is _that?"_

"Uh, maybe this is too scientific for you, but it appears to be a test tube full of blood," Scott said matter-of-factly.

Hermione shot him a look. "It's much more than that. If I'm not mistaken, that's a phylactery!"

Ginny's eyes widened. "Aren't those illegal?"

"Some kinds are, yes… But I don't think Dumbledore would have had any of those."

Ginny reached back into the box and withdrew a slip of paper. "There's another note…"

Harry read it over her shoulder. "'_Ms. Weasley — A token to assist you in your admirable dedication. Take comfort in the light: as long as it shines, so does he'."_

"Oh, my…" Hermione had a hand pressed to her chest, her eyes shiny with tears. "That's so _romantic!"_

Ginny blinked. "Um, why?"

"That's Harry's blood inside the vial. It's tied to him — as long as it's glowing, Harry is… still with us," Hermione explained. "It should also grow brighter or weaker depending on how far away he is."

Harry wasn't sure he liked the idea of having that much of his blood sitting around outside of his veins. "That's… kind of disturbing."

"I think it's dead useful," Ginny said archly. "Hah! Let's see you run off without me _now_!"

"You're screwed, dude," Scott assessed.

Ron motioned at the vial uncertainly. "What I want to know is, how did Dumbledore get all that blood?"

The same thought had occurred to Harry. "While I was in the hospital wing, I guess. Could have happened any number of times."

"Just thought he'd help himself one of those times, huh."

"Guess so," Harry said, feeling a bit queasy.

"You really shouldn't find this so odd, Ron," Hermione said. "After all, your family clock downstairs works the same way."

Ron and Ginny were both taken aback. "It does?" Ron gaped.

"Of course. How did you think it worked?"

"I didn't," Ron admitted. "It just did, that's all I needed to know."

"Well, now you understand," Hermione said a trifle smugly.

"So the clock is full of blood, doesn't mean I have to like a vial of mine any better," Harry muttered.

Ginny pressed the phylactery against Harry's chest and they all noted the way it became even more incandescent. "Well, _I_ like it," she said.

"I bet that could be used for some kind of weird sex. Most magic is conducive to weird sex, it's kinda fucked up," Scott mused.

"Moving on!" Hermione said desperately. "We should have Gryffindor's sword, which was left to Harry, but the Ministry found a loophole of some sort and kept it."

"That, we could use," Ron opined.

"So all that's left is Scott's cube," Hermione noted, lifting the cube curiously. "It's a magical strongbox, and evidently powerful enough to keep the Ministry out of it."

"So it'll keep us out, too," Harry said.

"Yes, but Scott already said he knew how to open it. Correct?" Hermione asked Scott.

Scott shrugged. "About ninety-percent sure. I mean, there's only one way to find out."

Hermione held the cube out to him. "Give it a go, then."

The Kharadjai reached out and took it, but merely placed it on the bed next to him. "That might not be the best idea. Whatever is inside is probably better off staying concealed so long as we're here at The Burrow. We don't even know how big it is."

"It's probably much bigger on the inside," Hermione conceded. "Which actually brings me to my next point. I've been working on this handbag…" She picked up the small, beaded handbag that had been sitting innocuously next to the other items. "I've placed an Undetectable Extension Charm on it, and I think I've got it all done correctly. It wasn't easy…"

"Fishing for compliments?" Scott asked wryly.

"Explaining the process," Hermione said loftily. "Now, we should be able to fit whatever we need in here when we leave. I've already put a few changes of clothes for all of us—"

"Did you take my 'Muggles Do It With Science' shirt?" Scott interrupted to ask. "I can't find it."

"As if I would ever pack something like that. I bet your sister rightfully discarded it. Anyway, I also have important books and a few other things we might need. If you have anything you'd like to keep safe, let me know soon."

"Does it matter how much the stuff weighs?" Scott questioned.

"Not within reason. I can't fit a lorry in here, if that's what you're wondering."

Harry had the feeling that Hermione would soon be a walking armoury. He also had a few ideas as to what he might store in the handbag. Brooms, maybe. Some of his things from his trunk.

He was broken from these thoughts when Ginny exhaled sharply. "What is it?" he asked her.

"Look!" She held up the phylactery, which had dimmed completely. "You're still breathing, right?"

"Er, yeah." Harry smiled awkwardly. "Still here… Hey, it's fine now, see?"

The phylactery had regained its glow. Hermione walked over to examine it more closely. "I do hope it wasn't damaged somehow," she said, tapping it with her wand. "Perhaps the Ministry wasn't careful with the box."

"That was me, actually," Scott volunteered lazily.

"You?" Hermione said, rounding on him.

"Yeah. I interrupted the magic thread to Harry, just for a second. I recognise it now, though." Scott flopped back onto the bed and closed his eyes, his position mirroring the one he had taken at the foot of Harry's bed during their first meeting, what felt like a lifetime ago. "It's a lot like the threads Ron and Ginny have, which makes sense considering what you said about the clock."

"You break that—that 'thread' and I'll break you," Ginny threatened. "You about stopped my heart!"

"Noted. I've obstructed a few one-way threads before; it's the ones like these that are reciprocal which get tricky. Your Trace thing is gone, Harry, in case you had any doubts."

Harry had already cast a few minor spells since that morning. "I know. And it's absolutely brilliant, let me tell you."

"Hmph," Ginny grumbled crossly.

"Relax, Ginseng. We'll snap that spell off you soon enough," Scott reassured her.

"It's getting dark," Hermione fretted, looking out the window. "We'll be sent off to bed soon, it'll be an early start tomorrow. Is there anything else that can't wait?"

"What about the ghoul and your parents?" Ron said. "Although, I don't know about the ghoul now, what with Ginny…"

"What about me?" Ginny said.

Hermione took a deep breath and, in a halting voice, explained how she had placed a powerful Memory Charm on her parents and sent them out of the country. Ron had also prepared for his own absence and, with Mr. Weasley's help, had disguised the ghoul in the attic as himself with a severe case of some kind of magical disease Harry didn't recognise.

"But if I'm gone as well…" Ginny concluded.

"Right. But it's a bit too late to worry about it now," Hermione sighed.

Harry was still crushed by the news about her parents. "Hermione… I'm…"

"Don't, Harry," she said weakly. "It's done. I'm not sorry. At least they'll be far away from all this."

"I just wish they didn't have to be," Harry said, gritting his teeth against the guilt.

Ginny's arms wrapped around him, drawing him close. "She's right, Harry. Don't get all broody about this."

"Nobody blames you, mate," Ron said.

"Man up, Harriet," Scott added unhelpfully.

"Thanks," Harry said, grateful for his friends. "Except for you, Scott, you can fuck off."

"I'm sensing some hostility…"

Whatever further retorts Harry might have come up with were forestalled by a rapping at the entryway. It was Lila, pushing open the partially closed door and leaning inside.

"Wrap it up, kiddos," she said. "Big day tomorrow. I suggest you hurry to a bathroom if you don't want to wait in line the rest of the night." She was in her bedclothes and her hair was damp, proving she had already beaten the crowd. "Are you sleeping in here or on the floor downstairs?" she asked Scott.

"Hmmm, on the floor up here, or on the floor downstairs? Decisions, decisions…" Scott said sarcastically.

"Flip a coin. And Ginny, I need to see you before the wedding tomorrow, all right?"

"Sure," Ginny agreed.

As everyone stood and stretched and readied for sleep, Harry reluctantly removed his arms from where they had been around Ginny's waist. "What was that about?"

"Probably about the Trace," Ginny whispered, as the others in the household were now moving up the stairs.

"Right. Well, let's hope she can get that sorted."

Harry still wasn't completely sold on the idea of bringing Ginny along, but it seemed inevitable. All of his arguments had been refuted and about all he had left was his irrational fear (or so he'd been told; he felt his fear was entirely rational). He'd have to make the best of it, along with everything else. Still, their impromptu council of war had helped a little.

He felt _slightly_ more prepared.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note<strong>

I LIVE… AGAIN.

Yes, it is I, Caleb, returned to you from the abyss. It was cold, dark, and smelled a bit pooey, so I decided to buy a new laptop and get back to writing, or whatever it is you can call my literary regurgitation.

First off, I greatly appreciate all those who sent me their condolences after my sob story of an explanation that was previously in the place of this chapter. By this point I barely remember the chapter contents that were lost, so who knows if this new stuff is in any way comparable. Maybe it's even better (but probably not)!

I'm so far removed from the books at this point that I'm having to do a fair amount of research. Hopefully it will pay off, but no doubt I'll be missing things regardless. This is where the 'AU' tag on my story will really start to pay for itself. I know that technically the only things that could change are because Scott did something that altered them, but, hey — CHAOS THEORY! My saviour! My fanfictional panacea!

It cannot be overstated how incredibly useful all your reviews were in finishing this. They're like fuel, I periodically go back and read over them to remind myself that there are, in fact, people who enjoy (or pretend to enjoy, which is just as good over the internet) my story and who will read my new chapter. No, it's not a huge hit, but hey — it's done way better than I ever imagined it would. I mean, seriously — who the hell would ever think a story about a sci-fi-American-Exchange-Student-OC-with-guns-and-shit-who-isn't-American-or-an-Exchange-Student-for-real-ha-ha-ha would be read by anyone, ever? BUT IT WAS.

Speaking of huge hits, I was cruising around over at the big fanfiction site, you know the one, and saw that _Harry Potter and the Nightmares of Futures Past_ was still going strong. That's actually the story that inspired me to get off my ass (or rather, get on it) and start writing this. It also has over 10,000 reviews, which is terribly, terribly depressing. But hey, congrats to that guy! I'm just going to go back up to my room and let jealousy consume my soul.

So… yeah. Per my usual modus operandi, I probably had a lot of other stuff to discuss and it has all dribbled out of my brain gourd. Perhaps if you ask a few excellent questions in the multitude of flowery reviews you will lavish upon me, I will recall more.


	6. The Enemy Without

**6**

**The Enemy Without**

* * *

><p>"<em>Fear is a primal response <em>_—__ it's not considered, but__  
><em>_reflexive. Our race is exempt from so many of the perils__  
><em>_that plague baseline humans; regardless, we are just as__  
><em>_subject to sharp, involuntary terror as those who have an__  
><em>_even greater reason to heed it.__  
><em>_  
><em>_The belief that runs deep in the military __—__ and is often taken__  
><em>_to extremes within the specialized branches __—__ is that fear can__  
><em>_be, and __**should **__be, controlled. The ability to remain calm in__  
><em>_the face of travails is highly prized amongst all levels of__  
><em>_field agents and eternally sought after by the Imperiarchy.__  
><em>_When unable to find it, they create it. S.P.E.A.R¹ has always__  
><em>_been intended to emphasize that no matter what the rank__  
><em>_or individual experience, panic is an unacceptable reaction to__  
><em>_any circumstance. They call it uneconomical, obstructive, and__  
><em>_without use. The fundamental reason is far more dangerous: it is__  
><em>_contagious."__  
><em>_  
><em>1: Subsistence, Perception, Endurance and Agility Regimen  
><em><br>—_The Tip of the SPEAR: Kharadjai Republic Special Forces and the  
>Purview War<p>

* * *

><p>Ron shifted uncomfortably in his dress robes, pulling at the collar. About the only thing they had to recommend them was that they weren't old; they were new, clean and well-fitted, for a change. At least he didn't have to attend Bill's wedding wearing something that should have been binned a decade ago.<p>

He tugged at the collar again. Nice robes were a scant comfort when he was expected to greet a thousand effing people whose names he couldn't remember and then find them on the seating chart.

"When is everyone supposed to arrive?" he asked Fred, who was standing closest to him.

Fred flipped out his pocket watch. "Well, let's have a look… As I thought, everything goes tits up in five, four, three…"

He was a bit off, but no more than a handful of seconds after he finished his count, guests began Apparating in just beyond the edge of the grounds.

Harry was studying the seating chart again, appearing very uncomfortable. Or at least Ron assumed he was uncomfortable. It was hard to tell since Harry had taken Polyjuice that morning and assumed the form of some red-haired Muggle from the village. Now he was 'Cousin Barny'. It was supposed to be a protective measure, though Ron didn't really see the point. Even the Death Eaters couldn't be stupid enough to think Harry would be somewhere else on a Weasley's wedding day, off by himself.

Nobody had asked his opinion, though, as usual.

As the guests approached, Ron turned slightly to give Scott's distant form an envious eye. The lucky git had been recruited by Lila to help her with the catering, and while he hadn't obviously stolen anything, his mouth always seemed to be full. The bastard was stuffing himself while Ron and Harry did the real work.

"We need a system for all the younger witches," George was saying. "I get first choice, I think that's fair."

"Hang on there, old man, nobody's picking through your leftovers," Fred protested. "We'll do this proper like: anyone have a coin on them?"

Ron didn't know why they were even bothering to discuss it. "Me and Harry are already taken, you sods. Do what you like."

George nodded. "Yes, that's right — you _are_, aren't you. That reminds me, Harry… Charlie was saying we should sit down and have a talk with you, at your earliest convenience…"

Straightening his collar one last time, Ron gave the seating chart another once over. "Shut it, they're here."

Seating all the newcomers was a bloody nightmare; he didn't know two-thirds of them and all the cousins from Fleur's side either had incomprehensible accents or didn't speak English at all. Ron and Harry did the best they could, and Fred and George spoke a few phrases in French, but it quickly became apparent they were going to need help.

"Oi, Ha—er, Barny. I just had an idea," Ron said, walking up to his friend. "Scott speaks French, let's foist these frogs off on him."

"They'll all keep bothering him if they know he understands," Harry pointed out.

"And?"

Harry grinned. "I'll go get him."

A couple of minutes later and Harry reappeared with an obviously reluctant Scott. "—just ask them for a _name_, Barny, this isn't particle science! _Quel est votre nom?_ There, you're set."

Harry just handed him the seating chart. "Look, the faster you do this, the faster we can be done."

With that, Ron and Harry each seized one of Scott's arms and practically threw him at the unseated Delacours who had gathered to converse.

"Uh… _Bonjour et bienvenue. Puis-je vous aider à trouver vos chaises?"_ Scott said grudgingly.

With that problem taken care of, Ron found himself with a bit of time to mingle. He went looking for Hermione, with the vague thought that maybe if he spent time with her before the wedding proper she wouldn't ask him to dance afterwards. The more he thought about that, the less likely it seemed.

The weather was perfect for a wedding and while the decorations were a bit much for Ron's taste, he supposed it all fit together well enough. He might have paid a bit more attention to everything for use in the eventuality of his own wedding, but seeing as he might not survive the rest of the year, there wasn't much point in worrying about it. That was about as far as he was willing to go with the whole 'inevitable death' thing, though. Ron, along with Hermione, still tended to find Harry's fatalism annoying. At least Scott and Ginny were positive about the future (which probably should have been scant comfort: Scott was paid to keep their spirits up and Ginny usually just wanted Harry to stop brooding). And who knew what Lila was thinking.

Ron grinned as he thought of the uproar Lila had caused earlier. As she had requested the night before, Ginny went to see her before everyone filed out into the garden. Ron hadn't been present, showering at the time, but as Hermione told it, Lila had broken the Trace. Problem was, she had also broken a few other things.

Half the Weasleys in the household had rushed upstairs in a panic as Ginny's hand on the family clock spun around aimlessly, moving from 'Mortal Peril' to 'Lost' and eventually coming loose and falling off. They had found a very startled Ginny in her room, still alive and well.

Mum had fixed Ginny's connection to the clock while Dad had taken the thing halfway apart in an attempt to find the problem before having to abandon it for his wedding duties. It was still mostly in pieces. Fred and George had harried Ginny for the secret of her 'prank' until she threatened to hex them both, Ministry rules or no.

Ron just hoped that Lila had done the job right. If Ginny could be tracked by the spells she cast, it would be a short Horcrux hunt.

"Weasley," a voice grunted from somewhere near Ron's left elbow. He turned to find the craggy visage of Mad-Eye Moody looking back at him. Ron braced himself.

"Hello," Ron said politely, trying hard not to stare at Moody's whirling false eye. It was moving so fast the pupil was just a blur.

"Lot of power here today," Moody said without preamble, not that Ron expected any small talk from him. "Nice to see you're all on guard, anyway… Those heavy wards are solid, but no replacement for constant vigilance."

It hadn't been so long ago that Ron would have found such comments amusing. Now… well, he understood that kind of paranoia a bit better. "Expecting trouble?"

"Always," Moody growled. His magical eye came to an abrupt stop. "There she is. Over by the bubbly."

Ron glanced towards the champagne table, but there was more than one woman there. "Who?"

"The Kharan girl. Lila, I think it was." Both of Moody's eyes now fixed on Ron, boring into him. "You watch that one, lad. She's got a look about her…"

Ron glanced that way again, this time spotting Lila. She was conversing amiably with several of Fleur's cousins while Charlie hovered nearby. "What kind of a look? Blonde, tall…?"

"Oh, she seems normal enough just now. Had a chat with her just a minute ago. Well-spoken, very polite. Pretty, if you like the type. Your brother obviously does." Moody's expression darkened. "But it's in the eyes. You can't hide what you've seen, who you are. Not to someone else who knows."

"Knows what?" Ron asked tensely.

"How to snatch the breath out of a man. How to scrape the fear from your insides and leave nothing but the scars. I'm not daft, Weasley, I know what I look like. You think any of the other pretty young things here can see me and not want to look away?" Moody's eyes narrowed. "Not her. She was taking me apart. You understand, lad? She had me sized."

Ron wished that Hermione, Harry or even Scott were present to smooth things over. Diverting Moody probably required a team effort. "At least you didn't duel, Mum would have been a bit shirty about that," he said, trying humour.

Moody snorted derisively. "She's got a knife strapped to her left thigh. At that range I'd have had it in my throat before I could get my wand out. Not as young as I used to be."

"Oh. Yeah, she's… good with pointy things. Mostly in the kitchen, though." Ron really needed to stop talking.

"You watch that one," Moody said again. "She's a different sort than the rest."

That was the absolute truth, even though Ron couldn't confirm it. He just nodded, not trusting himself to reply further. As soon as Moody walked off he let out a breath he hadn't know he'd been holding. "Blimey," he muttered to himself.

"Ron!" Hermione walked up and looped her arm through his. "Did Moody want something?"

She was so lovely in her dress that for a moment Ron forgot he should respond. He wanted to bury his face in the crook of her neck, or between her… "Um…"

Her eyes sparkled teasingly. "Yes?"

He tried to get hold of his hormones even as he moved his arm around her waist. "He was talking to Lila. I think he's on to her."

Hermione's playful expression switched to a frown. "Drat. How did that happen?"

"I dunno. She has some sort of 'I-can-kill-you-with-my-little-finger' aura that equally mad bastards like him can detect. He said she was dangerous and I should watch her."

"Well, she is dangerous… but not to us, at least."

Ron made a face of disbelief. "Were you there when she cornered Fred and George after they jinxed her toothbrush? She's scary, she is. I thought the twins were going to cry."

"Oh, she wouldn't have hurt them." Hermione stilled, then added, "Not permanently."

Ron wasn't willing to give her even that much credit. "Yeah, sure. Also, Harry never broods and Scott always tells the truth."

Hermione swatted his arm gently. "You! She's not _that _bad."

"She and Scott are both nutters, and heavily armed, at that."

Ron staggered awkwardly into Hermione when Scott came up behind him and unexpectedly threw a comradely arm over his shoulder. "Hey! This is the guy, this is my boy, right here! Hey, man—" Scott leaned in close to Ron's face and completely dropped the jovial act. "If you ever leave me alone with the full cast of _Les Misérables_again I will fucking end you."

Ron looked at Hermione. "See?"

Hermione only sighed. "Scott, if you can't watch your language at a wedding just because Ron left you with—"

"—a bunch of goddamn cheese-eating surrender monkeys—" Scott said over her.

"—our French guests, then there's really no hope for you. If you didn't want to be a translator, you shouldn't have let it slip that you speak the language in the first place."

"I regret that deeply, now," Scott said bitterly. "Whatever. Bye."

"I think you mean, 'whatever, _au revoir_'," Hermione said pointedly.

Scott's eyes filled with suppressed rage but he said nothing as he stomped off towards his assigned seat.

"That was brilliant," Ron said, trying not to laugh too loudly.

"That was mean," Hermione corrected. "But he had it coming for _so_ many things." She put her arm around Ron's again. "Come on, looks like it's time for the ceremony."

"Bugger. And here I was beginning to think we got to just stand around, talk and eat."

"We get to do that afterwards."

The ceremony was fine enough, not that Ron had a whole lot to compare it to. He didn't understand why all the women felt the need to get all teary. He spent most of the time alternating between resisting the urge to tap his foot and staring at the back of Xenophilius Lovegood's head, which was shaped a bit like one of the rocks in the front garden. Luna, at least, was dry-eyed. She moved up a notch in Ron's estimation for that.

Scott and Lila were side by side. Lila was ramrod straight in her seat, her full attention focused forward. Scott was slumped awkwardly in his chair and perpetually looked like he was a few seconds from falling asleep. Ron could sympathise. At least they, like Ron, were seated. Poor Charlie, Ginny, and Gabrielle had to stand for the entire thing, being the best man and bridesmaids, respectively. Hermione was tightly clutching Ron's sleeve, her eyes shiny with tears, and he just hoped she didn't decide that his sleeve made a good handkerchief.

Being able to observe most everyone did provide Ron with some vital information. He spotted Viktor Krum, the grouchy git, and resolved to keep Hermione away from him. And Great-Aunt Muriel was the last person on Earth he wanted to get stuck at a table with during the reception. Maybe he could talk Scott into staking out a private area, free from undesirables. The Kharadjai never seemed to have an issue being disagreeable, and nobody expected courtesy from an American anyway.

Then Bill and Fleur were man and wife and so on, and so forth… Ron had lost his patience about halfway through and wanted nothing more than to stand up. He was given the chance when everyone rose to applaud. Then the sides of the tent were opened, the chairs were removed, and the far more pleasant aspect of the wedding began.

Ron searched for a suitable table as the band struck up a tune. He'd lost track of Harry in the crowd (which was easy to do, with Harry no longer sporting his distinctive messy black hair), but Hermione and Ginny were with him. Scott had also been following; he'd made it a few steps before being accosted by Gabrielle, eager to dance.

"_Danse avec moi, Scott!"_ she'd insisted, tugging at his hands.

"_D'accord,"_ Scott had said without much enthusiasm. _"Vous pourriez avoir à m'aider, je ne sais pas cette chanson."_

They left him to his dancing, picking up Neville and Luna along the way. The five friends took their places around the table.

"It's funny how he humours her; it seems so incongruous with the rest of his personality," Hermione mused, watching Scott twirl Gabrielle around. "I suppose he was the same way with Kylie."

"That's a lovely dress, Luna," Ginny said to her friend.

"Thank you." Luna seemed a bit more focused than usual, perhaps because all that focus was on Neville. "I wanted to match Daddy's outfit, but I also wanted Neville to see me and like it."

Neville bashfully slouched down in his seat. "I always like seeing you."

"Taking notes?" Hermione said to Ron after Neville's heartfelt declaration.

"Come off it," Ron grumbled. "It's easy to be lovey-dovey when you get an opening like that."

Ginny was searching the crowd. "Where's Harry?" she wondered, lowering her voice. "How am I supposed to spot him when all our cousins look the bloody same…"

Lila wandered over to their table. "Ah, this must be the party table. Is this seat taken?" Without bothering to find out if it was or not, she sat down. "I love weddings. Planning them, not so much."

"It has been a lovely wedding, but you may have a point," Hermione agreed.

Lila leaned forward on her elbows, addressing Ron and Ginny. "I know you guys will be taking off soon. I wanted you to be aware, if you weren't already, that I'll be staying here to keep an eye on things."

"Thank you, Lil. I'll feel a lot better with you here to watch the family," Ginny said softly.

Ron nodded shortly. "Yeah, me, too."

"Neville, Luna," Lila said, "you'll be at Hogwarts, which makes things more difficult. Scott will try to stay in contact with you. That said, if something comes up and he can't be reached, send me a letter or use the Floo or do whatever you can to reach me immediately."

"We'll try," Luna said, uncharacteristically grave.

"You might have the worst of it, all things considered. Be strong. And if things get too bad, leave." Lila pointed a finger at them. "I don't care about the laws or your parents or the stupid Trace or whatever — if things really go downhill at Hogwarts, you get hold of me or Scott and we will get you out of there. Full stop."

"But… how?" Neville asked.

"You let us worry about that."

Ron gripped Hermione's hand beneath the table, the relaxed mood of the wedding dispelled by Lila's words. Reality was fast approaching.

Having said her piece, Lila left them. Shortly after Neville and Luna also went to dance; or rather, Luna went to wriggle about abstractly and Neville went to stand awkwardly nearby. Ron felt a twinge of guilt as he watched them. They had been absent for some rather important events.

"Do you think they'd be better prepared if we'd told them everything?" he said to Hermione.

"There's no time, now," she said regretfully. "And that's just the way it worked out, they couldn't be around as often…"

"I'm just worried about them, going back to Hogwarts without us…" Ron said roughly. He blinked in surprise when Hermione pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

"I'm so proud of you, Ron," she told him, her eyes suspiciously shiny again. "I really am."

Ron coloured a bit, shifting gracelessly in his seat. "What's brought this on?"

"Oh, nothing," she sighed, placing her head on his shoulder. "Just you being yourself."

Ron rested his cheek on top of her soft hair. "Well… that's all right, then."

* * *

><p>"Potter — a word…"<p>

Before the interruption, Harry had been looking for his friends in the press of people. He desperately needed to sort out a few things, he needed their insight. He'd been speaking to Elphias Doge about Dumbledore, wanting to get the truth from the man who had known the Headmaster well enough to write his obituary. Doge had refuted the Skeeter article that had so infuriated Harry, but then Ron's Great-Aunt Muriel had broken into the conversation and contradicted Doge on every point.

Harry's mind was spinning with this new information — Dumbledore had once had a sister, who'd died under mysterious circumstances. That, along with his friendship with the infamous Grindelwald, the imprisonment of his father, the falling out with his brother… Harry had known _none_ of it! That wasn't even including Dumbledore's roots in Godric's Hollow, the very place Harry's parents had lived.

He didn't know what to think. He'd stopped for a moment and leaned against a tent pole; lessons flashed through his memory, trying to provide calm and context. Words spoken out in the darkened woods and snow — the intangibility of truth, the power of lies… Information was ammunition. Harry _needed_ to speak with his friends, because he didn't know if what he'd been handed was explosive.

Mad-Eye Moody had just asked for a moment of his time that Harry wasn't especially willing to give. Still, he turned towards Moody, not bothering to ask how the Auror had known it was him. "Yes?"

Moody stepped closer, lowering his voice. "I just had an interesting conversation with the groom…"

Harry thought he knew where this was going; he'd seen Mad-Eye talking to Lila earlier. "I'm guessing it wasn't about married life."

Moody made a hacking sound that might have been a laugh. "What would I know about that? No, the subject was much more familiar, to me and you both — a battle at Hogwarts."

Harry wasn't sure how to approach this situation. Luckily, he had a minute to think about it as Moody continued talking.

"Peculiar thing, that battle… Lot of Death Eaters dead — and good riddance — but from Muggle weapons, not wands. Used by her," Moody jerked his head in Lila's direction, "as Bill tells it. Not a bad tactic, altogether. Most wizards won't see that coming. Still, it's… unusual. But maybe not as much as where she and her kid brother came from in the first place, eh, Potter?"

"America?" Harry hazarded. He found himself unexpectedly grateful that his Polyjuiced form made his emotions far less obvious.

"The accent's right, I'll grant you that," Moody grunted. "Look, Potter… In the end, I don't really care if you know something about this. Dumbledore trusted you. He let that Kharan lad into his school. Arthur's got good sense, and he let the tall blonde lass into The Burrow. So if you trust these Kharans, you have your reasons. But if you don't, I'm telling you now — they're dangerous. That girl might look like the latest model for _Witch Weekly__,_ but she killed more than a few men that night at the school. And from what I hear, her brother might have, too."

Harry nodded grimly. "I know."

"Then I'll quit wasting your time," Moody growled. "Just one thing, Potter — if I survive this round with the Dark bastards, I'd like an explanation. Unanswered questions are a bloody bad itch."

"I'll tell you, I swear. I… have a few questions like that right now, myself. About Dumbledore," Harry finished. He was almost afraid to bring it up, but if Moody knew something…

Moody's mouth thinned into a pale, lopsided slash. "Been reading that rubbish in the _Prophet_, have you?"

"Sort of. I just… he never said anything about having a sister, or Godric's Hollow, or… any of it." Harry tried to hide the hurt in his voice.

"Some things a man doesn't want to talk about. I should think you'd understand that, Potter," Moody said gruffly.

Harry felt a flash of anger. Dumbledore had known all those things about Harry, every last one. "I suppose."

Moody huffed out a short breath in apparent irritation. "I can't help you, not the way you want. It was before my time and I don't make it my business to pry or gossip. He was a strong man who always did right by me and wrong by the Dark, and that should be good enough for anybody."

It had been enough for Harry, once. "Yeah… Well, thanks anyway."

Moody nodded. "Constant vigilance, Potter. You watch your arse out there or you're liable to lose it."

"I will."

And with that, Moody was gone. As he went back to searching for his friends, Harry was glad that it had been Mad-Eye who finally cornered him. The old Auror's practicality and discretion had saved Harry a real headache in trying to explain things. Moody was the type to worry about the 'why' after the fact and simply accept the hand that was offered in the face of unavoidable war. Harry could strongly relate.

He eventually found his friends; most of them were out on the dance floor. It was comforting to see that, even when dancing with Ron, Hermione still had her handbag with her. Back behind the crowd, Harry found Scott sitting by himself at one of the more out of the way tables.

"I expected you'd be at the centre of the party," Harry said, sitting next to Scott.

"I already did my time on the floor. I'm a free man for the moment — Gabby was distracted by pudding." Scott leaned back in his chair, stretching.

Harry lowered his voice. "I just had a talk with Doge and need some other opinions, I don't know what to make of this…"

"Can it wait?"

"Wait?" Harry looked more closely at Scott and noticed that his face was a bit strained. "What's wrong?"

"I'm not sure. I didn't expect things to accelerate so soon, but the shape is behaving—"

He was interrupted by cries and shouts of alarm from guests. A silvery blur darted through the crowd, stopping when it reached the middle of the tent. Harry's eyes widened as he recognised the Patronus spell, in the form of a lynx. The apparition froze for a long moment. When it moved again, it opened its mouth and spoke in the voice of Kingsley Shacklebolt.

**"**_**The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming.**_**"**

Panic erupted. The guests of the wedding scattered, Disapparating or searching for friends and family. This alone proved there were already Death Eaters nearby — there had been wards that prevented Apparition. It was total chaos.

Harry jumped up from his seat, wand at the ready. He turned to tell Scott that they needed to find the others, only to find the other boy still sitting calmly in his chair. He looked like the Patronus had just informed them that the wedding might be gently rained on.

"_Postrēmo,"_ he muttered. "Well, now we know what the deal with the shape was."

And just like that, Harry felt his heart rate decrease. Scott's tranquillity in the face of an imminent attack was comforting (and Harry knew that was probably the point). He began to consider the situation more dispassionately.

"The Death Eaters are here," he said to Scott, shouting over the panicking guests. He pointed towards the indistinct shapes at the edges of the Weasley property. "They'll need a minute to drop the rest of the wards; where's Lila?"

"She'll be gathering everyone to get them into the house, it has protections the yard doesn't," Scott said, standing. "We can get out in the meantime."

"No. Not while they can still get surrounded," Harry said stubbornly. "We need to draw these bastards off."

Scott smiled approvingly. "I like it. Come on, let's find Ron and Hermione. They should be over this way."

They found Ron and Hermione a handful of seconds later; the pair had been searching for them in turn. Neville and Luna were close behind.

"Harry!" Hermione yelled, gripping him a fierce hug. "We didn't know where you went!"

"Afraid I might leave without you?" Harry said with a wry smile.

"Don't act like you wouldn't! Come on, we've got to Disapparate before they get through the wards!"

Harry ignored her insistence. "Where's Ginny?"

Neville pointed towards the other side of the tent. "I saw her over that way, just a second ago."

"Not a bad way to go, the enemy is thinnest on that side," Scott said, already moving in that direction.

"What? Harry, what's going on?" Hermione demanded, her eyes wide and frightened.

"I'm drawing them off so the family can get into the house — are you coming or not?" Harry wasn't offering again. He'd prefer to have his friends stay with Lila, anyway.

"Coming," Ron said firmly. His wand hand was steady despite his shaken demeanour.

Harry led the way through the rapidly thinning crowd, picking out the distant line of Death Eaters at the rim of the woods. Scott was correct; there were fewer this way than towards the path and The Burrow.

The air was beginning to fill with spells. A bright light ripped through the tent canopy over Harry's head and he heard Shield Charms being shouted. He glanced to his right as he ran; a dark blob of shapes were moving together towards the house. Spells were emanating from the gathering more thickly than anywhere else, and he knew that had to be the Weasleys. But if the Death Eaters weren't given good reason to leave, Ron's family would be trapped inside the house… Despite the heavy protections on the structure, a protracted siege was a dangerous possibility.

A Stunner rang loudly off a nearby tent pole, casting brief illumination in a flash of red. Harry stumbled and nearly fell when a slim form ran into him headlong.

"_Harry!" _Ginny gasped. She disentangled herself from his arms and grabbed his hand as they ran together. "Where are we going? Lila said I needed to find you!"

Harry gritted his teeth in response to the knowledge that Lila had willingly left Ginny behind. He'd have a few words for her when they next met. "We're going to break through the Death Eaters up ahead and draw them away from The Burrow," he panted.

The dark figures ringing the property were drawing closer. The last of the wards must have fallen. Harry increased his speed, hoping the cover of twilight would disguise his intent long enough to smash aside the few Death Eaters ahead and reach the cover of the trees.

Scott shot ahead of the group with unnatural velocity. Harry could hear the closest Death Eater shouting in alarm.

"HOLD IT RIGHT THERE! DROP YOUR WA—" the Death Eater roared, only to be silenced with an audible expulsion of air as Scott kicked him full force in the stones.

"Blimey!" Ron choked somewhere behind Harry.

The Death Eater's agony didn't last long. When he slumped forward, Scott grabbed the back of his hood and pushed him down further, proceeding to slam his knee into the man's face. There was a nasty crunching noise (probably the nose, Harry guessed) and the Death Eater went limp.

The other Death Eaters nearby were close enough to witness this; spells began hurtling in their direction.

"_PROTEGO!"_ Harry shouted, deflecting two Stunners and what he thought was a _Diffindo_. He flinched but kept moving, extending his arm to block another spell from hitting Ginny. When this one rebounded, it left a small crater in the grass, apparently a weak Blasting Curse.

The group's training in Dumbledore's Army was proving its worth as everyone was furiously casting without pause: Stunning Spells and Disarming Charms flew out in all directions, striking unprotected Death Eaters and forcing the others to shield themselves or find cover. The bulk of the enemy force was still on the other side of the front garden but Harry knew they needed to reach the woods before they were overwhelmed.

Scott knew this too. He hadn't even bothered to draw his wand. Instead the Kharadjai teen had doubled back and was moving like a wraith, low to the ground. He curved out and then swept back in towards the Death Eaters to the left, flanking them.

Harry dropped his Shield Charm and raised his wand simultaneously with a Death Eater who had managed to deflect several spells from Luna and close the distance. _"STUPEFY!_" he shouted, ducking to the side just in time to avoid the masked man's answering Stunner.

He rolled across the ground as a spell cut through the grass where he had been a moment before. He deflected the next curse and the bright spark of the rebounding spell lit the night enough for Harry to see a second Death Eater — who had been sprinting up to reinforce the one duelling Harry — fall flailing to the earth as Scott slammed an elbow into his throat.

The nearer Death Eater heard his comrade's thick choking — he turned to look and Harry's Stunner slammed into the back of his head, throwing him violently forward. He didn't get back up.

Harry rose and resumed running, taking stock of the rest of his friends. Ron and Hermione had disabled their opponent while Neville and Luna had the last Death Eater pinned behind a tree, which shook and shed bark and leaves as spells pummelled it.

Realising his predicament, the hapless Death Eater decided to run. Stupidly, he did so in wrong direction. Blindly casting a Blasting Curse at the soil to cover his retreat, he sprinted out from behind the flora as Harry tried to lead properly through the dirt thrown in the air.

Then the Death Eater jerked with an odd motion. He stumbled forward a few more steps seemingly by momentum alone, then collapsed to his knees.

With the dust now clearing, Harry saw the hilt of a knife extending from his chest.

Scott ran up to the stricken man and, in one smooth motion, pulled the knife from his chest and kicked him onto his back. Reaching down, Scott grabbed the Death Eater by his hood and bent his head backwards, exposing his throat.

"_Scott, __**no**__!"_ Hermione shrieked out in horror.

Scott froze. Harry couldn't make out the expression on his face, but after a half-second of pause he released the Death Eater and gifted the helpless man with a solid kick to the face.

"Everybody go, keep moving," Harry said, finding his voice. "Come on, it's not far now!"

A quick glance over his shoulder proved that the last of the wedding guests had either escaped or been captured. There were no lights on in The Burrow, but Harry didn't have time to worry about that. A row of Death Eaters were making their way towards him, though not quickly. There must have been some confusion in their ranks as to what was happening.

The group hurried into the trees, stopping once they were concealed to catch their breaths and ease the adrenaline shock. Harry could scarcely believe they'd actually made it this far; he'd been harbouring the fairly serious thought that he was just martyring himself so everyone else could get away.

Of course, they hadn't made it quite yet. Harry tried to plan as everyone huddled around him. "All right," he breathed, sweat running down the back of his robes. "They're going to see those bastards we just handled when they get close enough. With a little luck they'll follow us, but we need somewhere to go."

"Do you think everyone else got to the house?" Ron asked, subdued. "It's all dark…"

"Lila wouldn't let them turn on any lights. With a hostile force outside the windows the last thing you want to do is provide a silhouette," Scott explained.

Ron and Ginny both looked relieved at that, evidently having been extremely worried by the lack of life signs at The Burrow.

"What about your sister's flat? We could hide there; I doubt any of the Death Eaters know about it," Hermione said to Scott.

"Sure, if we can get there," Scott said.

Harry nodded. "It's a bit of a walk, but I think we can make it."

"Neville, Luna…" Hermione said hesitantly. "I hate to suggest it, but… the two of you absolutely cannot be seen, not if you're going back to Hogwarts. You should probably just Disapparate back home."

"No way!" Neville protested, looking outraged by the suggestion.

"It would be quite unseemly to leave you now," Luna said, her voice uncommonly serious.

"No, she's right. Those blokes we just fought never got close enough to see you well, but we don't know if it's going to stay that way," Harry said. "Just go, it's fine."

"But you need our help!" Neville said.

"I need you at Hogwarts!" Harry countered. "Luna's still got the Trace and without you there—"

"The Trace means fuck all with the Ministry gone!" Neville said stridently. Harry wasn't sure he'd ever heard the other boy swear before.

"Which is fine for tonight but that won't last," Scott cut in. "If you absolutely refuse to leave, then we can discuss this at the apartment, because these guys are starting to get their shit together and we need to go _now_."

"Right," Harry said decisively, standing from his crouch. "Wands out, eyes open."

They started moving along the tree line towards the back of The Burrow rather than going deeper into the woods. The town in the valley below was far enough away without taking a more roundabout route. Several minutes later they could hear the shouts as the Death Eaters found their defeated compatriots.

Ginny was next to Harry every step of the way, picking through the brush and trying to minimise the noise she made. It was easier for her with her light, slim body than the most of the rest of them (though somehow Scott made hardly a sound). Harry thought about the men chasing them and fought down the fierce surge of protectiveness that ensued. Now was not the time to think about how stupid he'd been to include Ginny in this madness. She should have been safe in The Burrow with the rest of her family.

"Any regrets, yet?" he asked her quietly as he pushed aside a branch so they could both pass.

"No. And if you ask me that again I'll hex _you_ instead of those Dark wankers," she responded fiercely.

So much for that line of inquiry. Harry kept his mouth shut as they advanced further. The shouts from behind kept getting closer, an ominous sign. Unfettered by stealth, the Death Eaters were moving slightly faster.

"Hermione…" Scott began as they walked, using a conversational tone that was incredibly incongruous with the situation. "Do you know the incantation for the Entrail-Expelling Curse?"

"No, but I could find it easily enough," Hermione whispered. "Is this really important?"

"If it does what I think it does — and it really should, considering the name — it could be useful. A spell like that has utility in combat."

"It's not fatal. It was designed for medical purposes, the organs come out intact," Hermione told him.

"Don't underestimate the shock value. You could inspire terror with a curse like that. Besides, nothing says they have to _stay_ intact." Scott stopped talking abruptly and swivelled his head to look backwards. "Tom's friends have just about caught up. No point in being quiet — they sure aren't."

The Death Eaters could be heard crashing through the woods, all rustling leaves and snapping twigs.

"Run!" Harry bit out.

They started moving as quickly as they could, which wasn't very fast considering all the obstacles and their hindering dress clothes. They could travel more easily back on the open grass but Harry didn't dare leave the concealment of the forest. The fact that there was no open space was the only thing keeping the Death Eaters from bombarding them with spells.

"_Laqueusi Crus!" _Hermione chanted, jabbing her wand at the forest floor behind them. Harry had never heard of the spell before but trusted that she knew what she was doing; she repeated it several times as they went along.

Harry had been half expecting to be reinforced by the Order at some point, but the further they went along the forest's edge the more apparent it became that they had been scattered and were either long gone or in The Burrow itself. He just hoped his improvised distraction had allowed them to get away cleanly. The party had devolved into such a mess at the first sign of attack that he didn't know where anyone ended up who wasn't actually with him.

A few dozen yards of more progress and Harry heard a pained yelp from behind. Hermione nodded in grim satisfaction. "That will be the first of the traps. They'll be moving slower now if they know what's good for them."

"Brilliant," Ron panted, grinning at her. "I hope he lost a foot!"

"Nothing that dramatic, but it wasn't pleasant."

Scott, who was ahead of the group, hopped over a fallen log and reached underneath it, flipping it out of the way. "I was wondering what you were doing." He slammed his hands into another fallen tree that sat at an angle across the deer path they were on and grunted in frustration when it wasn't immediately removed. "Fucking teen form."

They were now past The Burrow and moving parallel with the back garden. The sounds of pursuit were growing fainter, Harry noted with relief. Hermione's traps had done their job.

A few seconds later he nearly jumped out of his skin when an acute, reverberant noise sounded out across the area.

It came from the direction of the house. Harry spun to face it and saw that Ron's window was open — from inside the room came the faintest flicker of light and a rapid _SNAP-SNAP-SNAP _that was sharp and clear, blended with a fuzzier echoing report. The staccato percussion beat against Harry's eardrum. The Death Eaters began yelling again, this time in fright.

It didn't take too long for the Death Eaters to start returning fire; the night was illuminated in multicolour once again as spells flew from the trees towards The Burrow. Some of them were dissipated by the wards but Harry could see others being countered, proving that Lila was not alone.

Ron winced when a luckily aimed spell flew through his open window and briefly lit his room with an orange glow, followed by a muffled thud that Harry felt in his chest. "Fuck," he grumbled. "There goes the furniture."

Property damage was the least of their concerns. The Death Eaters appeared to be falling further behind but Harry wasn't counting on that to last. The gunfire from The Burrow had stopped and he knew that Lila must have lost sight of her targets. This could be because they had gone further into the woods, where the dip in elevation and thicker foliage would conceal them, or they were much closer behind Harry than they seemed.

Either way, the clock was ticking. Harry knew they had to reach the river before the Death Eaters also emerged from the woods. There was no concealment between the end of the forest and the start of the town. He considered simply Apparating to Lila's flat. He'd been there before, and Ginny had as well.

"I think we're losing them!" Ginny remarked breathlessly. There were scratches on her face and hands, and her bridesmaid's dress was smudged and torn.

"Should we slow down a bit to save our energy?" Neville wondered.

"No! Keep moving," Harry said before anyone could start to relax. The entire point of their flight was to draw the bulk of the Death Eater force away from The Burrow, and that meant leading them to the town one way or the other. If they weren't distracted by the chase they might get clever.

"If they think they aren't right behind us anymore one of them is going to start using his brain and try to cut us off," Scott said, echoing Harry's thoughts. The clatter of gunfire started up again from the direction of the house, the sound bouncing off the trees. "Argh, not now, Lil! Let them run!"

"What is she doing? We're trying to get them _away_ from house!" Harry said, frustrated.

"She doesn't know how incompetent they've been." Scott nimbly ran up along the trunk of another fallen tree, digging his phone out from somewhere in his dress robes. "Here, the slope is clearer to the right up ahead, go down that way."

Harry leaned backwards and slid down the hill where Scott had indicated, stopping at the bottom to catch Ginny. Hermione busied herself setting more magical traps along the incline while Scott dialled Lila. They didn't pause longer than half a minute before they resumed walking.

"It's me. Hold your fire, the OpFor is trailing. …Yeah, they're with us. We just hit the bottom of the hill back behind the house, how many Death Eaters are still up there? …Where? Yeah, just get back to me. …It's all in Hermione's bag, I'm set for now. We can link up if we have to. Okay. We're going to draw them to the end of the forest and then decide from there, just drop the wards when you can and get gone. Okay. You too, bye." Scott hung up.

"Is everyone all right?" Ron asked anxiously.

"Yeah, she's got the whole crop of redheads, minus two, inside the house. Once we pull the assholes following us down to the edge they're going to drop the emergency wards and Disapparate out," Scott explained.

Harry allowed his tension to ease a slight bit at that. "So they're still following us?"

Scott nodded. "Sounds like it. Lil is done shooting so I imagine they'll rediscover their balls any second now."

"Let's go, then," Harry said, increasing his pace to the one they had set before.

As they went, Hermione drew closer to Harry. "Harry, I had a thought," she said quietly. "We don't know if they've already put up a jinx on the area to stop us from Disapparating. They can't on The Burrow, not with the wards up, but we aren't protected…"

"They might be too busy to have bothered," Harry said, but he wasn't really that optimistic. "Look, if that's the case we'll ask Scott to get rid of it."

Hermione appeared moderately reassured by that. "Try not to stand out in the open if there's another fight, Harry," she said with an odd mixture of resignation and fondness. "You're too recognisable of a target."

Startled, Harry reached up and touched his face. The Polyjuice had worn off and he hadn't even noticed in the confusion. "I can't believe I didn't feel that."

"Adrenaline," Scott said, apparently having been listening in despite Hermione's hushed tone and all the rustling the group was making. "You can get shot and not know it."

The woods had been thinning steadily since they had arrived at the lower ground. It wasn't much longer before they reached the scrub brush that marked the end of forest and the beginning of field. The lights of Ottery St. Catchpole glittered up ahead in the night, glinting off the rippling water of the river that lay between them and their destination. There was only one bridge nearby, part of the road that wound past The Burrow.

The night was still, save for the occasional Muggle car passing through the otherwise empty streets. Harry strained his ears but could hear nothing above the sussurating grass and the hushed rushing of water. He knew his group of friends needed to make some decisions. With the Death Eaters having fallen behind, they had a bit of time in which to think things over.

"We don't have a lot of time, so let's make this quick," he said hurriedly. "Nev, Luna — we've made it out, so you need to go. Scott, is there an Anti-Disapparation Jinx over us?"

Scott stilled for a moment, his eyes unfocused. "There's some kind of area-effect spell behind us. I couldn't tell you what it is, but we're out from under it right now. I think… I think they're moving it as they go."

"They'll have to recast it periodically, that's probably what's keeping them," Hermione said.

"If they find us they don't want us slipping away," Harry said darkly.

Neville looked indecisive, while Luna's expression was unreadable. "Are you sure?" Neville said uncertainly.

"Yes! You've done all you can and I appreciate it more than I can say, but you _have_ to get out of here. We'll be leaving as well, it's not like you're just abandoning us," Harry insisted.

"It's fine, mate. Good on you for staying this long," Ron said to Neville.

Luna reached out and gripped Neville's hand. "Don't be long, Harry. We'll miss you."

Neville set his jaw. "We'll take care of things for you at Hogwarts, Harry."

"I know you will," Harry said, fighting back a horrible combination of pride, gratitude and desperate fear for his friends.

Neville and Luna vanished with the loud crack typical of Disapparition. Harry knew he would breathe a little easier with them out of harm's way. If only the rest of his friends were, too. Unfortunately, they were even harder to get rid of.

"Now what?" Ron asked. He was scanning the trees warily, his wand held tight.

Harry wasn't entirely certain. "I think going to Lila's flat is as good a plan as any, for now. Ginny and I know where it is, so that shouldn't be a problem."

Ginny nodded. "All right. I'll take Hermione and you take Ron and Scott. We'll Apparate into the living room, okay?"

"I don't suppose you've ever done Side-Along before?" Hermione asked a bit nervously.

"No… Would you rather Harry try to take all of us at once?" Ginny said tartly.

Harry was very much opposed to that. "Uh, no. I'm not doing that."

"Guys, you need to do this, like, now. Whatever that area spell is, it's getting closer," Scott interrupted them.

"Right. Come on, let's try it." Harry held out his hands to Ron and Scott, trying to look more confident than he felt.

"Go ahead. I'll be right behind you, same as the cave," Scott said, ignoring the offered appendage.

Harry was fine with that. Taking only Ron with him would be substantially easier. "Okay. Ginny, on the count of three. One… two… three!"

Harry squeezed his eyes shut and imagined the flat where he and Ginny had spent quality time on a couch covered with small pillows. The world condensed, pressed inwards until Harry felt as if he were riding the pressure front of a storm, a bullet spiralling out of a gun. The world roared, then twisted.

And he was gone.

* * *

><p><strong>::Author's Note::<strong>

Ah, another author's note. So much to say, and so little that I remember. Well, let's start this off one way or another. Time to ask for feedback of a more specific nature.

First off: Luna and Neville. Do you like seeing their relationship getting page time, or do you think they should be relegated to more secondary characters? They already are, arguably, but even _more_ secondary. If I recall correctly the section earlier in this story in which they officially become attached at Neville's house was received with a deafening silence. I was thrown off guard, since I thought such a romantic interlude would garner more response than anything else in that chapter. Apparently no one cared. Hence my wondering.

Secondly: I remember doing a reader poll in the last story about the possible return of Sophie. She received a unanimous 'yes' vote but ultimately I was unable to find a place for her. Do you think she should make a reappearance in some capacity, or is she old news?

And finally (I think): Does anybody like the quotes I'm using now? Or do you just scroll past them? Nobody commented on the poem prefacing the last chapter, which I have to admit was a little disappointing. I thought at least one person might like it. I've been so consistently wrong in predicting what will be the focus of the reviews I receive that I'm starting to think I don't understand why people like this story, not even a little bit.

I would like take a minute to thank Sherry at PhoenixSong for continuing to beta this hunk of wordings. She voluntarily took on the responsibility for mysterious reasons and continues to do so each chapter despite the many other more important things she could be doing with that time (like looking out the window, or watching daytime television).

So get back to me on that junk. Or, you know, just give me a 'LOL GOOD JOB', whatever floats your boat. I'll take pretty much anything when it comes to reviews. Just think of how many I'd have if all the people who hated it took a second to let me know how much! I'd be rolling in them, like, baller style.


	7. The Balance Unseen

**7**

**The Balance Unseen**

* * *

><p>"<em>To all 363<em>_rd__ FFM officers who submitted post-operation_  
><em>complaints regarding the standing orders for Operation<br>__**redacted**__: greatly deviated strategical and logistical_  
><em>applications must be ratified, at minimum, by Highground<br>during active engagements or by the acting MOFC when  
>assets are in play as determined by the mission parameters.<br>While adaptation is expected and encouraged, the widespread  
>disregard for Second Fleet's established jurisdiction on<br>__**redacted**__ is not acceptable without command-authorized_  
><em>alternatives or situational necessity (which shall be determined,<br>__ex post facto, by a designated Imperiarchy CRC with input from  
>observers and referred POR).<em>

_Second Fleet command has issued several statements regarding_  
><em>this matter which are required reading for all commissioned<em>  
><em>officers currently assigned to or pending assignment with the<em>  
><em>Operation <strong>redacted<strong> attachments. It is the hope of the  
>current <strong>redacted<strong> regional command that any continued  
>issues with Second Fleet oversight can be resolved without further<br>overtures towards insubordination."_

—Second Fleet Regional Command missive regarding recent difficulties with attached Fifth Fleet Marines

* * *

><p><em>RE: New Orders:<em>

_Requested more than a single sheet of toilet paper._

—Praefectus Minor Phylla Galbarden, in reply to written orders from  
>Forward Command, Operation Lifted Trowel<p>

* * *

><p>Harry woke up on his side, squinting against the light shining into his eyes. When his vision cleared, he pushed himself up on one elbow and took in his surrounds. He was momentarily panicked by the unfamiliarity of them.<p>

The walls of the room were blank white. There was a half-opened wardrobe opposite the bed on which he woke up, with a few shirts hanging inside. The light which shone on him emanated from the open door next to it. There was obviously an open window somewhere beyond, since he couldn't see any lights that were on.

Harry's heart rate slowed and the panic receded once he remembered what had happened. He was in the Kharan flat, still on Scott's bed where he had passed out the night before. A gentle snoring from somewhere behind him was proof of Ron's presence. Harry would have been fine with taking the couch but Scott had insisted it was his; only in retrospect did that seem suspicious. Maybe the couch was better than the bed.

Hermione and Ginny were in Lila's room. Everyone had been so knackered the previous night that they had automatically fallen into such 'appropriate' sleeping arrangements without questioning whether they were really necessary any more.

Harry mentally retreated from that thought. He couldn't speak for Ron and Hermione, but he wasn't sure he was ready to share a bed with Ginny, temping as it seemed.

He rolled off the bed and tugged on his shoes. He noted with distaste they were his nice ones from the wedding; they had all fallen asleep in their tattered, filthy clothing. Getting more suitable clothes from Hermione's handbag would be a top priority (as was utilising Scott's shower). Harry walked out the doorway, deciding to let Ron sleep. There was no point in rousing everyone until he had some kind of plan.

The large couch had been vacated when Harry emerged from Scott's room. The door to Lila's room was still closed. There were footsteps and the banging of cupboards from the direction of the kitchen, where Harry found Scott making a breakfast far too large for just himself.

"Is that for all of us?" Harry asked hopefully, eyeing the steaming bacon that Scott had piled on a plate near the stove.

"Good morning!" Scott said with pronounced cheer. "Yes, this is a group breakfast, you can thank me later and you can thank me right now, for double the thanks!"

"Thanks. Any particular reason you're so bright this morning?" Harry wondered, sinking into a nearby chair.

"I'm still riding high on our recent triumph; also, I didn't sleep at all last night and I'm a mite wired."

Harry wasn't feeling especially triumphant. "What the hell are you on about?"

Scott deftly flipped the pancakes he was making with one hand (Harry had eaten such Kharadjai-style pancakes before due to Lila's cooking at the Burrow, and was anticipating them greatly). He pointed his other hand at Harry. "Last night, you dumbhole! Everything went according to plan, it was perfect. We fought the enemy, lured them away from civilian targets, and then cleanly escaped."

That wasn't exactly how Harry remembered it. "Um, we just made everything up as we went along. Also, we were outnumbered, overpowered and terrified."

"And took no casualties. Harry, I know that you're new to this whole 'battle' thing, but take it from a guy with a lot of engagements under his belt — if you get away and nobody dies while you're 'outnumbered, overpowered and terrified', that's a success story. Never mind that we actually accomplished our objective. With a bunch of kids. In the dark."

"All we did was run…"

Scott scoffed dismissively. "We hindered and evaded. With a bunch of untrained _kids_. In the _dark_. If I was Riddle — and I'm _way_ too good-looking for that — I'd be reassessing my element leaders at this point."

"Okay, then what would you have done if you'd been them?" Harry challenged.

"Well, first I'd have consulted Hermione as to what spells we could use. Then I'd have actually, you know, utilised my superior numbers to flank and surround you. Split up the left, right and middle, Disapparate further forward and double back. Bring up that area jinx so you can't get out, leave one side open to drive you towards that clearing. You know, that clearing by that hill? With the thing?"

"Hermione would have been with me," Harry said dryly. "I don't see the point of leaving us a way out."

"Never encircle an enemy completely. Nobody fights harder than a man who knows he's trapped. Also, a surrounded force has a tendency to punch a hole through one side, which can put you in a very nasty position. The trick is to make the enemy _think_ they can get away. Then they go where you want them to."

"Never encircle the enemy completely," Harry repeated. He took the lesson seriously, memorising it as he always did whenever Scott imparted advice of a militaristic nature. Such things might someday be crucial. "No exceptions?"

"There are always exceptions. Understanding when they apply is a very valuable skill."

"Do I have time to learn it?" Harry asked, only partially joking.

"I don't know. You've got a decent amount of raw talent, so let's see how that pans out."

"Great. I'll be dead before I learn anything."

Scott studied him. "Hmmm… Your despair is most likely symptomatic of a lack of protein. Quick, eat these eggs! Hurry!"

Harry dutifully began eating the eggs Scott had slid across the table to him, though he did it with considerably less haste than suggested. "Seen any Death Eaters snooping about?"

"No, but I have a limited view from these windows." Scott crossed the room and peered out through the shades. "We could be anywhere, far as they know. You aren't at Privet Drive, you aren't at The Burrow and you aren't at Hogwarts… that pretty much covers all your known haunts."

"I don't get out much," Harry admitted.

"Hey, all those years of being a shut-in are finally paying off."

Harry took another bite of his eggs, suddenly ravenous. He hadn't eaten much at the wedding, and the Death Eaters hadn't paused in their pursuit so they could all have a snack. "Those pancakes done yet?"

Scott's cooking was unexpectedly good. Harry didn't know why that was so surprising, except that Scott didn't really seem the type. Of course, neither did Lila and she had made some wicked biscuits and cake. Harry was just happy to know that there would be someone to provide meals that knew what they were doing, should circumstances require it. Harry himself didn't exactly know his way around an oven.

Harry and Scott ate and cooked, respectively, in a companionable silence for about five minutes before Hermione appeared from Lila's room, yawning widely and sporting a head of hair even bushier than usual. Her wedding dress was badly wrinkled and dusty.

"Good morning," she said sleepily. "Oh! Are those pancakes?"

"How do you want your eggs?" Scott said by way of response.

"Scrambled, please. I don't like it when they're watery. Harry, you look awful."

"Thanks," he said through a mouthful of bacon.

"We all need to change… I'll get my handbag in a bit. Scott, are you going to use the clothes you already have here?"

"Yeah," Scott affirmed. He motioned at Harry. "Dude, once you're done get some clothes from Hermione and jump in the shower. We'll rotate every one through the bathroom when they finish up eating."

"I'll go after Harry, then," Hermione said. She sat down at the table, eyeing the eggs Scott was making expectantly.

"Wait, I just had an even _more_ efficient idea!" Scott proclaimed. "We'll double up to save time! Harry, you shower with Ginny. Hermione, you shower with Ron. Then, you can all jump back in with me for a second shower to get clean on account of the sex you had during the first shower."

"I think my eggs are ready," Hermione said tersely.

"Would you prefer to shower with me first? Before you respond, keep in mind that you could hurt my feelings."

"Scott, it's a bit early for this," Hermione sighed. "Can I have my eggs, please?"

Scott looked a bit put out that Hermione hadn't risen to his bait. "Fine."

Harry thought that things would be a lot calmer amongst his friends if Hermione could just learn to disregard Scott's deliberate needling _all_ the time. He still hadn't found out what had happened between them at The Burrow, but it was obvious they'd had a brief falling out. He hoped they'd settled things. The journey ahead would be hard enough without inner tensions.

Ginny wandered into the kitchen and flopped down into one of the other chairs. She looked tired, though a lot of that had to do with the ragged state of her dress and the smudges on her face. "Morning… I thought I smelled breakfast. Give it here, Scott."

He frowned at her. "What's the magic word?"

"_Avada Kedavra."_

"That's two words! I said _word, _singular!"

"Well, let me have some of that food and then I'll thank you if it isn't shite," Ginny said in a reasonable tone.

"All right, that seems fair."

Harry turned to Hermione, who was using her fork to arrange her eggs in a neat pile. "Can you get some of my spare clothes for me? I'm going to clean up."

She obligingly went into Lila's room and retrieved a change of clothing for Harry. He dropped the bundle on the sink in the bathroom and sorted through it while the shower warmed up. They were all bits of Muggle clothing, of which he had little that still fit him. He needed to buy more if they were going to be moving outside of the wizarding world.

When he stepped under the spray the water at his feet ran dark with debris and the heat stung like acid on his scraped legs and fingers, but it was a good feeling. He had survived the attack and, much more importantly, so had his friends.

He put the palms of his hands against the wall and pressed his forehead to the slick tiles, letting the water course through his hair and down his back. He breathed, slowly, in and out. The steam was calming, almost medicinal. If he could keep his head, plan everything out, stay hidden… they might have a chance, however slim. He had more help now than he'd ever thought he would.

He snorted self-deprecatingly, opening his mouth to let the water run in and spitting it back out. More and more it seemed like his thoughts of going it alone had been nothing but delusions. He couldn't even get Ginny to stay behind, never mind Ron and Hermione. It wasn't like he had lived to see what would have been his seventh Hogwarts year all by himself. Not even close. He'd have died in his first without his friends. Why had he thought he was strong enough to handle this war alone?

Maybe Scott was right. Maybe Harry _was_ retarded or something. It would explain a lot.

"Harry?"

He nearly jumped out of his skin when a voice broke him from his contemplation. Outside the sliding shower doors was an outline mottled by the steam and frosted glass. The pitch of the voice and the bright red hair crowning the figure identified it as being Ginny, who had for some reason entered the bathroom. Harry couldn't remember if he'd locked the door or not.

"You're not trying to drown yourself, are you?" she asked with obvious amusement.

Harry didn't think she could see anything through the distorted glass but he covered himself instinctively. "Um, kind of busy here, Ginny…"

"Hmmm… Anything I could help with?" she inquired in a low tone.

Oh, God. How did he respond to that? "Well…"

"I'd probably lend you a hand… or two… if you asked nicely enough."

"Uh…"

She sighed. "We're flirting, Harry. Can't you at least try a little?"

"We don't usually flirt while I'm starkers," Harry said defensively.

"Would it help if I was starkers too?"

There was only so much blood in Harry's body, and seeing as his brain was being starved due to it being hoarded by one organ in particular he was having difficulty thinking of an appropriate response. That might have been bollocks, medically speaking, but that was what it felt like. "No. I wouldn't be much interested in talking, then," he managed to force out.

Ginny giggled. "No, I suppose you wouldn't. You're having a hard enough time now and I'm only standing here!"

She had no idea how hard. "Right, just standing. Because it's perfectly normal to walk in on a bloke while he's in the shower and say things to drive him mad," Harry said even as he was fervently hoping that she'd do this sort of thing more often.

"Yeah? Well, how about this…" Ginny said throatily, and with a start Harry realised she was much closer to the glass than she had been. "You're not the only one who's all wet."

Harry couldn't deal with that. He wanted to have some sort of witty response, he wanted to keep the game going, but in the intimacy of the setting and without the armour of his clothes he was helpless. "_Ginny_…" he groaned, not sure if he should tell her to leave, tell her to stay, or tell her to get in.

At that moment fate decided to spare Harry from choosing. Regrettably, this created a far worse problem.

The door popped open again and Ron stuck his head in. "Mate, I don't fancy taking a cold shower, hurry — GINNY!"

Ginny stood unaffected. "What?"

"WHAT THE BLOODY HELL ARE YOU DOING IN HERE?! GET OUT!"

"_YOU _GET OUT!" Ginny shrieked back. The sound bounced around the tight quarters with a volume that was painful.

With the door open Harry could hear Hermione attempting to intervene while Scott was laughing uproariously somewhere in the background. He shut off the water and dried himself as quickly as possible. His clothes were still near the sink, and he didn't much care for the thought of exiting the shower with nothing but a towel for modesty.

"HEY!" he shouted, momentarily silencing the arguing siblings. "Can you both get out so I can get dressed? I'm not putting on a show."

"That's a shame," Ginny immediately rejoined while Ron sputtered with rage.

"HARRY! What's the idea letting Ginny in here?" he demanded.

Harry had no intention of explaining the situation fully. "She sort of let herself in."

Ginny sounded unapologetic. "I didn't hear you complain."

"Ginny! Merlin, do I even want to know… No, fucking hell, I really don't!" Ron exclaimed.

Then Scott shouldered his way in, causing Hermione to let out an undignified squawk as he pushed her aside. "Okay, loud fags and faggettes: reality check. I do have neighbours! So Hermione, good-bye, and Ron, get out of my bathroom. Harry, get dressed. Ginny — staying or going?"

"Staying," Ginny said smugly.

"Going!" Harry immediately countered. "Everyone is going, go!"

As soon as the door shut behind them Harry darted out of the stall and locked it. He wasn't leaving any chances open for a repeat performance, even if the first half had been exciting, to say the least. Ginny might have been a welcome intrusion but nobody else was. He dressed himself quickly and tried not to think about it. Of all the reasons to leave Ginny behind, the inherent, tempting distraction of her presence hadn't occurred to him. He had to focus.

And that meant putting together some sort of plan. He sat on the couch while the others took their turns in the shower. The muted rush of the water, the murmuring of conversation and the hum of the cars in the street all faded, relegated into the same mixed swell of noise that settled somewhere at the back of Harry's head as he thought about the past and how it might inform the future. He didn't know enough to finish, but he thought he knew enough to start.

The couch shook and Harry tilted to his right when Ron flopped down next to him. "You look lost," he commented.

"Aren't we all, now?" Harry said philosophically.

Ron looked at him askance. "Are you trying to be deep or something?"

Harry sighed. "Or something. Hey, remember that life-sized chess game you played first year?"

"I remember most of it. Up until I got bashed in the head; that part's a bit fuzzy, for some reason. I swear I've got a dent there now." Ron ran one hand over his skull. "Don't tell Hermione about that. She probably doesn't go for blokes with lumpy skulls."

"Yeah, it's true. Good skull symmetry is a must for a classy girl like her," Harry agreed. "But what I want to know is, how did you do it? How do you… I don't know, look that far ahead?"

"I don't know _exactly_ what's going to happen. The big thing is to look at the board and know all the possible moves you can make, and then you need to know your opponent, at least a little. So you can guess how he'll react when you do make a move. You can't plot everything out to the very end, just have a general plan of movement and be able to change it if you have to," Ron tried to explain. "The giant chess board wasn't all that smart, really. If I'd done a little better I wouldn't have gotten dented."

"You were brilliant," Harry assured him. "Hermione and I would have been right fucked without you there."

Ron shrugged modestly. "Maybe. Why'd you bring that up?"

"Because I'm trying to do the same thing now and I don't know if I can," Harry admitted.

"I don't think I'll be much help, mate. I mean, I'll be with you, whatever happens, but… chess has _rules_."

"I suppose. I just thought you've kicked my arse around a chess board so much that you'll probably be better at planning than me. You're unbeatable."

"Hermione is better than both of us combined, she'll see us through," Ron said confidently. "And as much as I'd like to just take the title, I'm not 'unbeatable'. I've lost plenty of times to Dad. Bill's beaten me too. You know, Scott's beaten me at least a couple of times!"

"Of course even he'd be better than me," Harry grumbled.

"You just lose track of things. You always do fine to start with," Ron said encouragingly. "Scott does the same thing, but he's weird about it. He only uses, like, a third of his pieces much at all, but he uses them really well. I usually just sacrifice a few of mine because I can't pin him down, then after awhile he's too outnumbered to do much. It's like he expects the rest of his pieces to take care of themselves."

Harry grinned at that. "Maybe he does. They can talk, after all. Does he get angry when they don't do anything on their own?"

"He used to. One night I thought Hermione was going to put a Silencing Charm on him, he was swearing so much. He'd borrowed one of my sets and they weren't listening to him. Or, they didn't right up until he threw one of the pawns down the stairs." Ron made a chucking motion. "They listened pretty sodding well after that!"

"Where the bloody hell was I during all this?" Harry wondered as he laughed.

"Not witnessing a great moment in chess history, obviously."

"What are we laughing about?" Hermione asked. She had just left the bathroom and her hair was curly and damp as she settled onto the couch next to Ron.

"I was telling Harry about that time I was playing chess with Scott and he worked himself into a state," Ron said.

"Which time?"

"Quit talking about me!" Scott yelled from his bedroom.

"Fine, we have more important things to discuss," Hermione said.

"No you don't! Keep talking about me, but only say nice things!"

"Impossible!" Hermione called back. "All right… we managed to escape, that's good. Now we need a starting point for our hunt. Harry, I have the locket in my handbag. When do you want to examine it?"

"I don't. Not until we have some sure way to destroy it," Harry said. "I think Scott might be able to help with that. Scott!"

"Yeah?" Scott walked out of his bedroom, wearing a shirt that was at least two sizes too big for him.

"Nice look," Ron commented. "The Death Eaters will never notice a blond midget following us around."

"You're like, half an inch taller me than me, so can it, dude. What is it, Harry?"

Harry leaned forward. "We don't have any way to kill the Horcruxes. So I was wondering if you still had any of that Blue explosive?"

"Oh, yes!" Hermione said excitedly. "That should work, shouldn't it?"

Scott grimaced in a discouraging way. "I've been thinking about that, too. I'm pretty much ninety-nine percent sure it would destroy the object itself. Blue converts matter to energy, so the only issue is density versus quantity. And minimum safe distance. That being said, I'm shaky on how the magic would factor in."

"How so?" Hermione asked. "Without an object to tether it, the fragment of the soul should… Oh. I think I see the problem."

"What?" Harry said impatiently.

"Once ignited, Blue only interacts with matter. If destroying a Horcrux physically is all that we need, then it should do the trick," Scott said. "No more locket, no more soul. But if there's something else going on, some kind of magical reaction that's necessary… Well, if I Blue bomb that thing there's no guarantee Riddle's soul sliver won't go floating back to him."

Harry shook his head. "But when I destroyed the diary I just stabbed it."

"With a Basilisk fang," Hermione reminded him. "Basilisk venom is a very powerful magical poison. It destroyed the book _and_ the soul fragment."

"Hitting the locket with Blue ultimately wouldn't be much different than dropping a pound of PE4 on it. Maybe a little more complete, but either way it's dust. That might not suffice. It burns me to even think it, but Muggle tech may fail us in this case." Scott did not look happy to be saying that.

"Does it matter if You-Know-Who starts getting bits of his soul back?" Ron wondered. "I mean, as long as they're all back in him he can be killed again, right?"

"We have to assume he'd notice," Hermione said regretfully. "Otherwise that might have been an ideal plan."

"It was building the Horcruxes that made him fuck ugly in the first place. Sorry," Harry said quickly to Hermione when she glared at him in response to his profanity. "If he starts getting his soul back he'll probably change again. And he'd almost have to feel _something…"_

"He'd know what we were doing and then there'd be nothing stopping him from collecting the other Horcruxes or making new ones." Hermione shook her head. "We can't allow that. The process is supposed to be draining, so I doubt he'd do it on a whim, but if he makes even one more that we don't know about…"

"Then he'll be your kids' problem after we ice him," Scott noted.

"I'd rather just end this now, if I can," Harry said firmly.

"I'm just saying we got options."

"That is not an option! I'm not having you make an encore appearance in twenty years and lead my kids around through the same bloody nightmare!"

"Twenty years? What, are you going to have kids tomorrow? In twenty years you should still be able to get off the couch and cast a spell or two."

"Not an option," Harry repeated.

"There's something else we need to consider," Hermione said. "Harry's connection to Voldemort has been a problem in the past, and if he—"

Scott held up a hand, interrupting her. "What did you just do?" he asked sharply.

"What?" Hermione's face revealed nothing but confusion. "I didn't do anything…"

"Yes, you did. There was a magic thread you sent out, just now."

"Scott, I didn't—"

"Yes, you _did!_" Scott insisted. "You created a linked spell, like five seconds ago."

Hermione paled. "Linked to what?"

"Hell if I know. You were talking about Riddle and then, boom — connection. Very brief, I probably wouldn't have noticed it if I wasn't so tied to the shape right now."

Harry didn't know what Scott was talking about, but Hermione looked concerned enough to put him on edge. Ron already had his wand out, and Harry followed suit.

"Can you tell me anything about the characteristics?" Hermione said intently.

"The technical details would be in terms you aren't familiar with. It was similar to the seeking spell Dumbledore put on me last year when you were looking for me. Not exactly the same. You weren't pinged, it came from you. Or if it didn't then it was created so fast it seemed like it did. Something was… triggered? Does magic even work like that?"

Hermione nodded shortly. "Rarely. Since it's already over and done with, I'm going to test a theory. Tell me if anything happens, okay?"

"Yeah. I'll just be standing here."

"…Voldemort," Hermione enunciated clearly.

Scott squinted towards the window. "That did it. Whatever 'it' is."

Hermione rapidly rose to her feet, her expression grim. "Everyone grab your things. I'll get Ginny out of the shower. Hurry!"

Ron gaped at her. "Hermione, what the bloody hell are you—"

"I don't have time to explain but we _have_ to leave as soon as possible, I promise it's urgent! _Go!" _she yelled when they just looked at her dumbly.

Harry glanced over at Ron to see an identical expression of befuddlement. Scott, in contrast, had rushed back into his room the moment Hermione had said they were leaving. Either he understood the emergency or he just trusted Hermione enough to believe there was one. Harry fell into the second category, and acted accordingly.

Most of their personal belongings remained in Hermione's handbag, so there wasn't much for Harry and Ron to gather. Instead they busied themselves by keeping an eye on the door and peeking nervously out of the window. Harry didn't know exactly what they were watching for but it was presumably Death Eater related. Just about everything was, more or less.

"Harry," Ron said quietly from where he stood by the door.

"Yeah?"

"Where are we going to go?"

That was a very good question, and Harry didn't have an answer. "I haven't a clue. We were supposed to figure that out while we hid here."

"Maybe Grimmauld Place?" Ron suggest hesitantly.

"Bollocks to that," Harry immediately replied.

"Look, I know you don't want to go back there, because of what happened to…"

Harry glared at him, resenting the inference. "It doesn't matter whether I want to or not! Snape can get in, remember? He has the keys, just like us!"

Ron grimaced. "I'd forgotten about that. I guess since Dumbledore snuffed it we're all Secret Keepers now."

"Yeah. Damn place is probably Death Eater headquarters by this point." Harry had never liked Grimmauld Place and that had only become more true with the painful memories now linked to it. Still, he hated the idea of Voldemort's followers (particularly Snape) making themselves comfortable in Sirius' home.

"What is this place you're discussing?"

The unfamiliar voice made Harry spin around, wand at the ready. His shoulders slumped and he relaxed when he saw it was just Scott, fully grown once more. The Kharadjai really needed to give them some kind of warning, though he was probably amused when they were startled.

"Grimmauld Place," Harry said. "Sirius' family house. I think I've mentioned it before. We've stayed there."

"I see. Are we going there?"

"No. Snape can get in too. The building is under a charm that makes it invisible to anyone who doesn't know about it already. Dumbledore had the key, essentially, but…"

"Now nobody does," Scott surmised.

"No, now we all do."

"Something to keep in mind. If it's occupied, we could jump in there and cause some damage.

"Or _get_ damaged," Harry added. "Let's not go looking for trouble, we've got loads as it is."

"Don't discard an asset just because it's in enemy hands. A house like what you're describing is useful."

"_Was_ useful," Harry said stubbornly.

"If it was made unassailable once, it can be made that way again," Scott argued.

"Will the two of you shut it? I'm trying to think," Ron interrupted them.

"Well, maybe we should all stick to our strengths," Harry said snidely, and then immediately regretted it. He was lashing out and Ron didn't deserve it. He sighed. "Sorry, mate. What were you saying?"

"From what just happened, it looks like You-Know-Who put some sort of curse on his name, right? That's why we have to leave; Hermione said his name and now they can find us," Ron supposed.

Harry had been too busy fighting off memories of Sirius and arguing with Scott to really think about it. Now that Ron had laid it all out, his theory made frightening sense. "Damn," Harry breathed. "I didn't know that was even possible."

"On his assumed name. I've referred to Riddle multiple times without effect," Scott pointed out.

"Then we all need to do the same, from now on. We can't slip up on this again," Harry said seriously.

"They haven't smashed down the door yet," Ron said nervously. "Maybe they didn't find us?"

Scott pushed down the window blinds and peeked through. "That's a fair point, Ron. What's keeping them?" He let the shades snap shut with a decisive motion. "They won't recognise me. I'm going to go out the back and do a lap around the building. Help the girls get all our junk together and lock the door behind me."

Harry shook his head emphatically. "No, we should stick together!"

"Don't be an idiot on this one, Harry," Scott said in a maddeningly level tone. "They won't know it's me and even if they do, I'm expendable. If I get made I'll start shooting. You'll hear that real quick."

Before Harry could protest any further Scott unlocked the door and slipped out, closing it quietly behind him.

"He's gone completely fucking mental," Harry seethed. He darted over the window, keeping watch.

"What do you mean, 'gone'?" Ron said, doing the same. "You act like this is out of character for the git."

Hermione came sweeping back into the living room with Ginny in tow and her handbag slung over her shoulder. "All right, I think I have everything, but there's not much time to check. Let's pick a destination and go, it doesn't matter where so much as it isn't here. I think — hold on, where's Scott?"

"Outside," Harry said.

"_What?"_ she gasped

"Are we not leaving, then? Hermione hasn't told me what's bloody happening," Ginny said irritably.

Ron was still next to Harry, straining his eyes in an attempt to catch sight of Scott. "He thought he'd just pop out and look around."

Hermione was pale. However, she seemed to calm after a few tense seconds of consideration. "…I see. Well, they haven't come in yet so we'll have to assume they don't know where to find us, precisely. I'm sorry for not explaining right away, but they found us because—"

"You-Know-Who has cursed his name, right?" Ron said. "How many times have I told you not to say that bloody name?"

Hermione blinked. "How did you…?"

"We thought about it a bit. We're not _completely_ daft, Hermione," Ron said wryly.

Her cheeks coloured. "Of course you aren't. I didn't mean it like that."

"Most of us aren't completely daft, save one, who thought it would be brilliant to take a stroll out with the Death Eaters no doubt surrounding us as we speak," Harry muttered.

"Very positive, Harry, good job keeping our spirits up," Ginny mocked him.

Harry kept his mouth closed after that, but he continued to glare out the window regardless.

Several minutes passed before there was a rattling from the lock and the front door reopened. Scott walked through to be greeted by the business ends of everyone's wands.

"At least you're paying attention," he commented. He shut the door behind himself and relocked it. "I just did a walk around the building, pretending like I was in the middle of a phone call. It's a good cover, especially when the people who might otherwise notice you have no idea what an actual phone conversation looks like."

"So are there Death Eaters out there or not?" Harry demanded.

"At least two." Scott pointed a finger in the direction of Lila's room. "On that street, standing around. They're dressed like workmen and not too badly, actually. One of them has his wand just jammed through his tool belt, though, didn't even try to hide it. Sloppy."

Some of the tension went out of Harry's shoulders. "So they weren't actually trying to get in here."

"Oh no, not at all. They're obviously lost."

Hermione had seated herself on the couch, her face etched with intense thought. "That makes a great deal of sense, actually, as they were using this new sort of tracing spell in combination with Apparition, which requires very specific knowledge of a place. If they could only Apparate to the nearest known location, and since none of us have activated the trace again, they don't have anything else to go on. It could have been anyone, or someone who has already left…"

"It's not very good, then, is it? They'll have to do a better job of finding us than that," Ginny said with a hint of scorn.

"I don't think it's meant for us… Or, not us alone," Hermione mused. "No one who follows Riddle dares to say his name, and the same goes for those who fear him. He's using this spell to find the opposition before they consolidate."

"It would've worked well enough if we'd been somewhere else," Ron said.

Harry nodded. "We got lucky. If Scott hadn't caught that, they wouldn't have found us this time and then we'd have said it again where they could catch us easy."

"Or I might have kept saying it…" Hermione said sheepishly. "You know what I'm like when I'm making a point."

Scott spread his hands. "Lesson learned. And almost painlessly, the best way."

"So we don't have to leave?" Ginny questioned.

"It's still less safe here, now," Harry told her. "I guess we don't have to run, but I don't want us to stay here longer than we have to."

"If we could find somewhere with more than two beds that would be brilliant," Ginny said, clearly only partially joking.

"I haven't thought of anything," Harry admitted. "Hermione? Ron?"

"I have loads of relatives outside of The Burrow, but…" Ron hesitated.

"It would be too dangerous for them," Harry finished.

"Yeah."

Hermione shook her head. "My house is empty, but I can't be certain they don't know where it is. Scott, did you ever see any Death Eaters near my home?"

Scott nodded. "Twice. Even Riddle's goons can find an address."

"Then that's that," Hermione said, looking a bit shaken by the revelation.

"Well, we can't bloody well stay here," Harry bit out in frustration. They were talking in circles and no one seemed to have a viable solution, least of all him, the supposed leader. They had barely started their insane quest and already he felt hemmed in.

"All right… Let's consider this more closely," Hermione said slowly. "This discussion would be more focused if we knew where we needed to be first. We have to pick a Horcrux and start there."

Harry crossed his arms, thinking hard. "We'll have to settle for collecting them until we have a way to destroy them."

"There's one over that way," Scott said, waving a vague hand in a northward direction.

Everyone in the room ceased all motion and stared at him.

"…What?" Harry said slowly.

"A Horcrux. Well, I think it's a Horcrux. But it's that way." Scott pointed north again.

"And how is it that you know this?" Hermione asked in a dangerous tone.

"It's pretty much the only clear thread I've gotten since this shebang kicked off. Do you have any idea how many tries it took me to change age?" When nobody said anything he added, "At least five. And I didn't start counting right away."

That mollified Hermione enough to head off the imminent explosion of rage that had been sure to follow if Scott had been withholding vital information again. Harry wouldn't have been too happy, either. "So this is a new development," she said more calmly.

"Yes."

Ginny appeared extremely sceptical. "So… You just somehow know there's a Horcrux out that way somewhere? Just like that?"

"No, not 'just like that'. And I can't be one-hundred percent on it being a Horcrux. I caught the line for a second: it's an important thing, and it's way north of here. That's the best I can do." Scott responded to Ginny with a slight acerbic undertone, but Harry was a bit relieved at the lack of outright antagonism from him. He'd never taken questioning from Ginny very well (and vice versa).

"Your efforts are always appreciated, of course," Hermione cut in diplomatically, perhaps sensing that any conversation between Scott and Ginny should be interrupted. "However, there's not much we can do about that right now, not without knowing more."

"'North' is sort of a big place, and a bit cold and drafty, at that," Ron said, finding the humour in the situation.

"That's all I got," Scott said.

"Not like we have anything better," Harry muttered, feeling like they were still getting nowhere. "Scott. Let me ask you something."

"I'm just standing here."

"If you were in my shoes, what would _you_ do? How do you find things?" Harry asked him.

Scott crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. "This is hard mostly because the trail is so cold. We're looking for things that nobody is supposed to know about, some of which were created decades ago in total secret. First rule of any search is to check the shape, see if there's anything helpful. I said there's something up north and that's all we've got out of that. Then you do all the usual things, methodical background work. What is this thing you're after, are there others like it, who would want it, is it worth anything, are there any known previous owners… That kind of crap."

"Most of that isn't applicable," Hermione pointed out.

"Exactly. My initial instinct at this point would be to start shaking people down, see what turns up. There's a reason most detective work involves knocking on doors. Unfortunately, those are the kinds of questions that absolutely can't get back to Riddle."

"So you think we're effed, more or less," Harry summarised.

Scott frowned at him. "You have a couple key advantages, Harry. First and foremost, Riddle thinks you're just hiding from him. He doesn't know that you know. Secondly, Dumbledore did a lot of research and handed you a bunch of clues. As I understand it, they're mostly based on circumstantial evidence and his estimation of Riddle's personality, but it's better than nothing. I think we can count on Dumbledore's profiling to be largely accurate. He knew his enemy, and he asked his questions when Riddle wasn't around to hear about them."

"All the clues are just what the Horcruxes are probably made out of: the cup, the locket, the snake, something of Ravenclaw's," Harry said. "We need _location_."

"Get your ear to the ground," Scott advised. "We've been out of touch with the rest of the world for about twenty-four hours. With the Ministry gone, just about anything could be happening out there."

"That's a very good point," Hermione agreed. "Let's not decide to go somewhere only to find it's entirely unsafe now."

"We have to get out of here first, which…" Ron trailed off.

"…Brings us right back where we started," Harry said unhappily. "It's great that this conversation is so interesting, since we're going to be having it for the rest of our lives."

Ginny wrapped her arms around his waist and leaned into him, momentarily derailing his vexation with her presence. "You're cute when you're snarky," she told him, pressing a quick kiss to his chin.

"I… thanks?" he stuttered.

"Eloquent," Scott said. "Look, guys — just leaving isn't the problem. I can get us a hotel or a flat pretty much anywhere. I thought the concern was being located somewhere more… magical. I've already had the talk with Harry about disappearing. If that's all we need, we can pile into the car and Riddle's boys won't even know where to start."

"Neither will we," Harry said. Scott was correct that the two of them already had a similar discussion, and Harry had been equally unconvinced of the viability of hiding in the Muggle world then as well.

Hermione stood and approached Harry, her hands clasped together in a nervous fashion. "Harry… I know you're not very open to the idea and I do understand, but Grimmauld Place…"

"Why does everyone keep bringing that up?" Harry snarled, pulling away from Ginny's grasp. "Am I the only one who remembers that Snape probably has the bloody house full of Death Eaters?"

"But we don't know that for certain! There are more protections there than ever before now: I overheard Moody talking to Professor Lupin about spells the Order left to keep Snape out."

"Like that's going to keep out Vol— _guh_—" Harry bent over, gasping in pain after Scott jabbed two fingers, hard, just below his sternum.

"Sorry, but they might get a better fix if you say that name again," Scott explained apologetically as Harry rubbed at his chest. "Consider it avoidance conditioning."

Harry nodded silently, trying not to cough. It hurt like hell but it was better than the alternative of not having been interrupted. He really needed to be more careful.

Ginny was less accepting. "You could have just said something!" she snapped at Scott, moving between him and Harry protectively.

"It's all right," Harry wheezed. "I wasn't thinking, he had to be quick about it."

"Funny, isn't it? You spent all that time trying to get everyone to stop saying You-Know-Who, now we don't have a choice," Ron mused.

"For future reference, Scott, it's fine to just put a hand over the mouth," Hermione chided. "We tend to bruise more easily than you do. Harry, I think we need to at least check Grimmauld Place. If you're right then we'll avoid it from then on, but I would really like to know if it's not usable."

"She's right, mate," Ron said with apology in his tone. He obviously was in tune with Harry's strong feelings about Sirius' old home.

"We'd all have our own rooms there," Ginny said excitedly. That was the selling point for her, it seemed.

Harry sighed, feeling outnumbered. Objectively, he knew they had a point. Grimmauld Place was just too useful to abandon without checking on it first. Emotionally, he never wanted to set foot there again. But the mission came first.

"Fine," he relented. "We'll see how it looks. But if there's a single Death Eater inside we're never going back."

* * *

><p>"How does this open?"<p>

Hermione watched with trepidation as Harry reached forward and brought his wand close to the door. "Magically," he said. "Are you ready?"

"Okay." Scott raised his shotgun. "Give me three seconds before you follow. Keep your wands up and check corners. Staircase is forward, correct?"

"Straight down the hall," Harry confirmed. "The stairs down to the kitchen are there, too. First door on the right is the dining room."

Scott shifted his stance, leaning forward slightly. His face went blank, only his eyes reflecting the intensity of his posture. "Open it."

Harry opened the door.

Scott leapt forward, pressing his shoulder to the right side of the door frame and then the left, crouching as he did so. He swung his weapon in the same directions, covering the angles of the doorway. Hermione released the breath she had been holding when his finger remained still on the trigger. The entry hall must have been clear.

He moved inside and, after a short pause, the rest of the group followed him.

The entry hall was dark and dirty, much filthier than the last time Hermione had passed through it. The dust was settled thickly on the floor, almost unnaturally so. A gust blew through the open doorway and stirred it, raising a cloud to sift through the air. Or at least, that's what Hermione assumed. When the dust didn't settle and instead began to move and create an unmistakably human shape she realised something else was happening.

When the face formed Hermione clapped her hands to her mouth and recoiled in horror. The dust wraith was the ghastly, wavering doppelgänger of Albus Dumbledore. Its arms outstretched menacingly as it approached them.

Scott levelled his shotgun at the apparition's head, unmoved. "If you're alive in some way, then stand down. I _will_ kill you. Again."

The dust wraith exploded violently into a choking cloud, leaving all of them coughing and batting futilely at the thick air.

Scott appeared taken aback. "…I didn't expect that," he said after a moment. "Did it die?"

"It was a terror spell, not properly alive," Hermione told him. "It must have been looking for Snape."

"Ah. It was more subtle than the other spells, I didn't catch it. Sorry about that."

"What others?" Ron asked, shaking dust from his trousers.

"There was a spell that hit me when I stepped in, and something is pinging from those curtains." Scott pointed at the portrait of Mrs. Black, still blessedly concealed.

"Keep stopping that one," Harry said quickly.

"We must be alone if those spells hadn't already gone off, right?" Ginny supposed. She started to cautiously approach the door to the dining hall.

"Most likely, but don't run off!" Hermione cautioned. "We need to check every room."

"Behind me. Spread out, don't hug the walls. Harry, watch the back," Scott said, raising his gun once again and moving forward down the darkened hall.

"Let's just split up, I think we can handle it," Harry said, visibly impatient with Scott's methodical approach. "I'll take Ginny and check downstairs, you go with up with Ron and Hermione."

Scott stopped his advance and seemed to consider that. "…No," he said. "You take everyone down, I'll go up alone."

"Take Hermione then," Harry countered.

"Fine." Scott gestured to Hermione. "Come on, let's go."

Hermione felt like she was some sort of prize at auction after Harry and Scott's impromptu compromise, but she was willing enough to follow the plan. Harry, Ron and Ginny would be capable of handling a great deal between the three of them. Scott was highly lethal, but that lethality was of a largely Muggle variety. Pairing him with Hermione neatly compensated for his lack of wizarding knowledge. Hermione approved of the team structure; it was the most efficient set up.

She voiced this thought to Scott as the ascended the staircase. "These are the best teams, I think, if we're required to separate again. Obviously it's best that we're all together, but I'm sure that won't always be possible." She sent Scott a curious glance. "I must admit, I'm surprised you let three of your Primes go into danger without you."

"This way nobody can slip out and tell anyone we've entered. And I didn't think there would be an overwhelming Death Eater force all jammed into a kitchen." Scott poked the barrel of his shotgun into the cheek of one of the mounted house elf heads. He left it when that provoked no response. "Besides, there's no one here."

Hermione looked at him in surprise. "How do you know that?"

"The house is linked to everyone in it. Probably because of the charm you guys had to let me in on. From in here I can see the threads that I couldn't from the outside, all the people that are part of the magic. There's nobody here but us." Scott opened the door to the drawing room and peered curiously inside. "It's good you guys could add me to the charm instead of me having to force my way in. I think I would have had to break everything."

Hermione was struck by a thought. "Can you see everyone attached to the Fidelius Charm or just those that are present now?"

"I can see the threads for people who aren't currently here, but I have no way of knowing if that's all of them," Scott said logically.

"But can you _identify_ those people?" she asked intently.

"A lot of them I don't know, or I'm not reading them right. There's… 'distance' on some of them. There's not any actual spatial arrangement in the shape, of course, not in a conventional sense. See, travel and communication through the shape have the exact same latency regardless of the distance involved, so we know it's coterminous with the entirety of the physical universe, and—"

Hermione reluctantly broke in. "I _really_ don't want to interrupt you and please promise me you'll finish your explanation later, but this is very important: can you find the thread to Snape?"

Scott leaned against the grimy wall and his eyes became unfocused. "…Yeah. He's fairly clear. So is Mrs. Weasley, for some reason." He blinked and shrugged at Hermione. "Coincidence. The shape can be like that, it doesn't imply a connection. Although, speaking of connection, there's another thread very close to Snape's…"

"Who's?"

"I don't know. I've never encountered the signature before. It's a strange one, though, very… uh, _muted_…"

Hermione placed a hand on his shoulder, trying to focus him before the shape took him off on another tangent. "If you can see Snape's thread, does that mean you can break it?"

"I'd need a little time to isolate it, but yeah, probably. As long as you think it won't cascade and break the charm."

That brought Hermione up short. Scott was prepared to defer to her in this matter, and the truth was she hadn't the slightest idea if the cascade he proposed was possible. "Well…"

"Table it?"

"Table it? But we're already discussing this... Oh, you must mean should talk about it later. Yes, that's fine," Hermione agreed. "I may have to do some research." That would give her more time to consider the matter, anyway, since she highly doubted she would be able to find any pertinent information in her books. Scott's manipulation of raw magical energy had no precedent that she'd ever encountered.

Scott had already moved on and was pushing open the door to the room that had been Hermione and Ginny's during their last stay. "This one looks inhabited," he said.

"It was mine. I suppose it is again, unless Ginny would prefer it. There are more rooms upstairs," Hermione said. She watched as Scott swiftly stepped through the door to the loo, gun at the ready. "I thought you said there was no one here but us?"

"No one connected to the charm," Scott corrected. He exited the toilet and moved towards the staircase to the next landing, his eyes and weapon constantly seeking targets. "There could be other things — the dust man proved that well enough. Besides, complacency is a good way to end up dead."

"We've made enough noise that anything up there knows we're here," Hermione said even as she lowered her voice.

"Let's find out," Scott suggested, not pausing in his ascent.

Hermione didn't much care for the idea of running into another terror construct. The sight of Dumbledore rising from the dust had given her quite a fright. Which was the point, of course, but she didn't have to like it. She wasn't entirely certain why the spell had ended itself; perhaps it had only been meant for Snape.

"Can you detect any more spells around here?" she asked Scott as they went up. She made a note of his stance: he held himself in a state of taut readiness, walking in rapid, smooth steps as he swung his shotgun in different directions, his eyes never stopping their assessment of every shadow, every doorway. It was clear he still believed a threat was possible.

"Vaguely," Scott quietly replied. "There's a general ambient energy here, sort of like there was in Hogwarts. Probably a lot of spells tied to objects."

"Be careful about interrupting anything," Hermione warned. "Some tethered spells might be necessary for the wards."

Scott pressed the barrel of his gun against the nearest door. "What's this?"

"Harry and Ron's room. The next door over is the loo, and the third is just storage — mostly dust, at this point," Hermione said without concern, until she remembered just what had happened with dust not long before.

Scott shoved the door open, revealing nothing but darkness. "Empty," he said after a moment.

Hermione relaxed; then something else occurred to her. "What about the portrait?"

"Well, there's a painting hanging on the wall. If you want a critique I'll have to look at it in something other than the infrared spectrum," Scott said with a hint of sarcasm.

That did make sense, but she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of admitting it. Hermione waved her wand and illuminated the room. The portrait was empty, just as she had hoped. With another wave she put out the lights and swiftly shut the door.

"That's the portrait of Phineas Black; there's another one in the Headmaster's office at Hogwarts. As I understand it, all of the former Headmasters are bound to assist the current one, but with the Ministry having fallen, and us not knowing who's in charge at Hogwarts now…"

"His loyalties are suspect?" Scott asked.

"He was a Slytherin and a pure-blood Black, first and foremost. I'll put an Imperturbable Charm on this door. Harry and Ron will have to stay in a different room."

"It's better that he not know anyone is here, especially with the sterling qualities you listed." Scott glanced at the stairs. "How many more floors?"

"Two, not counting the attic."

The next floor was where a great deal of the Weasley family had stayed during fifth year. There were multiple bedrooms to check but all of them proved empty. Hermione was glad at the lack of opposition, but also suspicious. Why hadn't Snape led anyone to Grimmauld Place? It was an unlikely oversight. Hermione had initially assumed that Snape may have entered alone, and the traps left for him had been effective to the point that he was unable to relate his knowledge of the hidden structure to any of his cohorts. But there had been no clues of any activity, not even at the entrance. All signs pointed to Grimmauld Place being totally abandoned — by both the Order and the Death Eaters.

The top floor had only two bedrooms, formerly belonging to Sirius and his brother. Both were empty. With those cleared the only thing left was the small, crooked stairway leading up to the attic. Hermione had never been in the attic before and wasn't looking forward to it. It was certain to be filthy.

The musty smells emanating from the small door at the top of the narrow stairs were not pleasant. The door itself had once been painted white, though most of the paint had since stripped away. Scott reached down and tested the doorknob.

"Not locked, looks like," he said.

"_Lumos!" _Hermione whispered, illuminating the dark space as Scott tried the door in earnest. If any unseen dangers did lurk within (and had somehow managed to ignore the racket created by the two of them walking up the rickety stairs) such foes would be alerted by the door. It dragged against the floor, having apparently sunk a bit since its earlier days. Hermione winced and covered her ears as Scott forced it open with a protracted series of kicks against its base.

The light of her wand revealed nothing but more dust and the lumpy, shrouded forms of furniture and boxes covered in sheets. That was more than enough to satisfy Hermione's curiosity, but Scott stepped inside for a closer inspection.

"No footprints," Scott noted, examining the thick layer of dust on the floor. "Nobody's been up here for… I'd say at least ten, fifteen years."

"Well, then I suppose we can go back," Hermione said with relief, trying not to touch anything.

"Hold up your light first, I want to check this…" Scott was distracted from leaving by some sort of cabinet that had caught his attention.

Hermione didn't know what was so fascinating about a dusty old cabinet but she wasn't happy at having her exit forestalled. Her expression reflected this, but Scott was too busy trying to pry the cabinet open to see that. Since her glowering was wasted on his back, Hermione glanced around the attic with forced curiosity. There were probably any number of things she might find interesting beneath the drapes of heavy cloth, but for the time being she was much more concerned with how Ron, Harry and Ginny were faring downstairs.

"Junk, junk," Scott was muttering to himself as he pawed through the contents of the large standing cabinet. "Textbooks, boxes. Not what I was expecting. What the… Porn? Hmmm, these are pretty old. December seventy-seven of _Playboy_, and American, too, which is weird… Interview with John Denver, who cares… Short story by Bernard Malamud, that could be good… "

Hermione could feel her face burning scarlet. "Put that back!"

"I'm not done with it. There's a do-it-yourself folding paper spaceship, which… is gone. I guess someone already used it. Damn. Still, those are some nice tits. Not a total loss."

"_Accio magazine!"_ Hermione hissed, ripping the periodical from Scott's grasp. She caught it and dropped it onto a nearby table, making sure it was face down. "And here I thought you were above such things!"

Scott gave her a look that indicated a poor opinion of her sanity. "What would make you think that?"

"You're an adult now! Act your age!"

"You first, Miss 'I'm-Seventeen-Years-Old-But-Still-Blush-At-The-First-Hint-Of-Sexuality'," Scott smoothly riposted.

He had a point, damn him, but that wasn't going to stop her. "We aren't talking about me, we're talking about _your_ immaturity—"

Scott was already back to rummaging through the cabinet and ignoring her. "Look at this, it's a whole shoebox full of darts. Who would keep these?"

Hermione had a few suspicions that were solidified by Scott's pornographic discovery. "These are most likely some of Sirius' things."

"That would seem to fit, based on what little I know of him." Scott reached into the very back, his face lighting up. "Hello…"

"What is it?"

"Oh. Oh my." Scott was reverently unwrapping something that had been bundled in several blankets. "Purdey. I'm guessing nineteen-fifties. Twelve gauge bore, over under shotgun — look at that engraving. That's _nice_."

Hermione took a half step backwards. "It's not loaded, I assume…"

"It doesn't _feel_ loaded…" Scott said, bouncing the weapon in his hands. When Hermione leaned away he snapped it open and glanced into the chambers. "Nope, not loaded. And also not very clean. I'll have to teach Harry how to take care of that."

"You aren't going to give that to him, are you?" Hermione said in alarm. Harry had no experience with firearms.

"Well, yes. It is his, isn't it?"

That gave her pause. Technically the gun was, in fact, Harry's. And it had once belonged to his godfather, which made the prospect of not telling him highly uncomfortable. Harry had spent the last seven years of his life in the study of magic, and Hermione wasn't convinced that giving him a Muggle weapon was a good (or safe) idea, but… The weapon wasn't hers to withhold.

The parallels between this line of thought and the Ministry's recent actions were not lost on her. Really, the problem wasn't that she thought Scott didn't know what he was doing with firearms; he knew what he was doing. She just had less faith in his ability to impart that knowledge. Regardless, Harry had a right to know.

"Just, _please_ be careful with it," Hermione cautioned.

"Obviously." Scott looked around the attic. Nothing else seemed to grab his interest. "Might want to poke around up here later. Come on, let's see if Harry found anything."

Scott took the stairs down two at a time, leaving Hermione breathing hard in her attempts to keep up. She hoped Harry and Ron weren't particularly attached to their old room. Well, just Ron. She doubted that Harry was particularly attached to anything about Grimmauld Place.

When they reached the ground floor Hermione could see that the lights were on downstairs. She followed Scott down, not bothering to rush in order to match his pace. The house was clear and she didn't feel as apprehensive about being left alone close to the light as she did in the dark upper reaches.

Harry, Ron and Ginny were gathered around the large table in the kitchen. Harry held a letter in his hand, and his expression was troubled. Hermione felt a flash of fear — had something happened to the Weasleys? A quick glance at Ron relaxed her somewhat, as he didn't appear to be panicked. Still, his and Ginny's countenances were grim enough to set Hermione on edge.

Scott spread his arms in question when no one said anything right away. "What? Did you find something?"

"There wasn't anyone here, obviously," Ron said. "But, an owl came in, and… Well, here."

Ron took the scrap of paper from Harry and handed it to Scott. As he read, his expression turned dark. Wordlessly, he gave it to Hermione once he was finished.

The letter had been written in cramped, curly handwriting that rigidly adhered to straight lines across the faint blue of the paper. Only the occasionally shaky forms of the capitals and the blotted spots of what must have been tears indicated the anguished state of the writer.

It was from Kylie.

Mr. Harry Potter,

I am sorry to write you. I tried to write Scott Kharan but my owl could not find him. If you could give this letter to him I would be very grateful. Death Eaters came to my house and took my parents away. I do not know what to do and I need help please. I wrote my address on the back of this letter, if Scott can help.

Please help,

Kylie Elizabeth Timous

Hermione lowered the letter, her face pale. Her heart went out to the young girl, who, with no one else to turn to, had sent a cry for help to one of the only friends she had. The war against Voldemort would have casualties, Hermione knew this and had always known this. But Kylie's desperate plea had hammered home the terror, the_ plight_, of the wizarding nation in a way that was immediate and personal.

Scott's expression had lapsed from its initial coldness into something more unreadable. He set Sirius' gun, once again wrapped in blankets, down on the table. "I'll take care of this. You guys get the Horcrux research going, I'm sure Hermione has a few ideas."

Harry laughed, though there was no humour in it. "Yeah, right. Come on, let's find a way to get to Kylie's."

"Floo is out. That's going to make things tricky," Ron said.

Hermione flipped the letter over and looked at the address. "This is out in the country," she said, examining it closely. "Holbeach in Lincolnshire."

"Let's just take our brooms, there's a reason we packed them," Ginny said, leaning back from the table. She was clearly enthusiastic at the prospect of a rescue mission.

Hermione didn't quite share that same avidity, but she wasn't willing to leave Kylie in such a terrible situation. "That may be an option. We'll have to check a map first."

Scott crossed his arms. "If you're all done discussing the trip that you won't be taking…" he said loudly. "…Then we can move on. You're Primes. You got more important things to do right now. I said I'll take care of it."

"You're integrated with us — or did you forget?" Harry sarcastically wondered. "Going to run off and leave all your Primes to their own devices? To save a non-Prime's family? You're a true professional."

That seemed to get under Scott's skin in a way Hermione hadn't often seen. "Yeah, sure, Harry. Maybe I _should_ ignore a direct quest for help from a terrified girl and sit around with my Primes, who, being of age and all, probably should be able to hide in an invisible house without me to hold their fucking hands!"

"Or maybe we'd rather not hide when someone needs our help!" Harry snarled back, and although he'd said 'we' it was clear that he blamed himself for the situation. "Why don't _you_ stay here and think about Horcruxes?"

Hermione looked beseechingly to Ron and Ginny, hoping for some help in ending Scott and Harry's escalating argument before it was completely out of hand (or became violent). But the Weasley siblings had already distanced themselves from the two verbal combatants and it was obvious that Hermione would have to intercede.

"Stop it, both of you!" she commanded in as piercing a tone as she could muster. "This isn't helping in the slightest! Harry, you know that Scott only wants to help Kylie; he's her friend! And Scott, even though Harry and the rest of us weren't as close to her as you, we still want to help! We know it's dangerous and we accept that. And as you yourself pointed out earlier, we need to get out there." She tried to think of a way to appeal to Scott's military sensibilities. "This is… This is our first mission. It's a test of us, of our effectiveness. How can we improve as a… um, fighting unit if we don't fight?"

Scott narrowed his eyes at her. "When did you get to be so manipulative?"

"I had a great example," she shot back. "So are we going or not?"

Scott sighed, rubbing at his face as his shoulders slouched. "…I guess we've all been expecting something like this," he said after a moment. "Harry, let's look at the map. Ron, Ginny, help Hermione unload our stuff from her handbag. Looks like we're going to need it."

"We'll leave most of it in here, for now," Hermione said to Ron as he moved to assist her. "Careful with that black rucksack, it's Scott's and it may be explosive. Scott, here's the Muggle map."

Scott took the map from her and unfolded it on the table. He and Harry leaned over it, tracing the North-East coastline. "Here's Holbeach," Scott said. "Little over a hundred miles. That doable by broom?"

"Yeah. I'd say an hour and a half, tops," Harry confirmed.

"Okay. Now, the first thing you want to look at when preparing a ground op is major roadways. Their patterns define points of population and provide clear landmarks…"

Hermione busily sorted through her handbag, trying to remain occupied and not let her growing nervousness overwhelm her. It was one thing to talk about mounting a rescue mission, and something else entirely to do it. A similar outing in the fifth year had not gone well, which did not help. At least this time Harry wasn't acting on falsified visions and impulse.

Which didn't necessarily raise the chances of success, all things considered.

* * *

><p><strong>::Author's Note::<strong>

When Hermione and Scott visit the attic at Grimmauld Place, there's a short joke involving a pornographic magazine. It's a 1977 December _Playboy._ I decided at some point that I wanted to have such a joke, which was fine, but then I may have taken things a bit too far.

After extensive Googling, I downloaded the entire 1977 run of Playboy magazine, skimmed through them, and picked one that I thought Sirius might like the best. So that magazine does in fact contain an interview with John Denver (to which Scott was highly indifferent) and an awesome, do-it-yourself folding paper spaceship. Then I Googled myself to some classic bush.

Ha ha… I'm kidding. I didn't Google myself, I just masturbated.

Last chapter I asked some pointed questions about various aspects of the story. Most of the responses can be boiled down to, 'whatever, just keep writing'. The relationship between Neville and Luna received a surprising dearth of support. Which is too bad, because I probably still have uses for them. So suck it, readers.

That was a joke. The depths of my love for all of you cannot be capture by mere words, not without being arrested.

Holbeach is a real place which is indeed a little over a hundred miles from London. I can't actually go there, unfortunately, so if anyone happens to hail from that area of Lincolnshire I apologise for any inaccuracies. I won't really be all that sorry, but maybe you'll be less likely to leave a scathing review if I pretend like I am. On the other hand, maybe you wouldn't leave a review at all if you weren't angry. I guess it's kind of a win\win.


	8. Dear Kylie

**8**

**Dear Kylie**

* * *

><p>"<em>Of course, the [question] I get asked the most relates to that<em>_  
><em>_one designation on the bottom of the [Field Performance Report]__  
><em>_brevium: neutral, influenced. The key word there is 'influenced',__  
><em>_and during the initial stages of OAR (Observation and Reporting)__  
><em>_it tends to come up a lot. What is 'influenced'? How do__  
><em>_you define that on the ground? Even field agents still have__  
><em>_questions about it, even Primarius. How and where do we draw__  
><em>_that line?__  
><em>_  
><em>_The simplest definition of 'influenced' falls along the lines of the__  
><em>_obvious, we're talking about mind control now, total loss of freewill.__  
><em>_It's once we move into the less apparent that things start to become__  
><em>_murky. What about blackmail? What about conscription? Now__  
><em>_we're going to have difficulty. That kind of decision becomes too__  
><em>_detailed, too situational. Those people are inevitably going to be__  
><em>_lumped under 'hostile'. If they're shooting at you, it's kind of hard__  
><em>_to think of them as being anything else, right? Many of you have__  
><em>_been in that position.__  
><em>_  
><em>_But the most insidious definition, the one that raises the most__  
><em>_uncomfortable questions is, I think, the victims of misdirection.__  
><em>_The victims of lies. Not everyone who hinders is aware that__  
><em>_they're doing it. People can be taken advantage of in truly__  
><em>_awful ways, and that's just the worst situation to find yourself__  
><em>_in."__  
><em>

-Major Ezekiel Philipps, Praesaedius Training Corps  
>Keynote speech at ICDC¹ DCCCXCVI<p>

1. Imperiarchy Communis Disciplina Congressus

* * *

><p>Kylie's parents had been taken from her. The thing was, if she hadn't received the note informing her of this fact, she probably wouldn't have known.<p>

The manor was large, silent and empty, but it was always large, silent and empty. The pristine halls were as quiet and cold as a tomb, the neatly buffed floors and elegant archways lacking any sound save for the hushed flutter of the lamps. Kylie had spent her whole life avoiding those halls with their stone-tiled floors. She traversed the carpet where she could, tiptoed where she couldn't. Sound could only bring attention to what an ungainly beast she was (or so mother said).

She knew that her parents were not at home and apparently were not coming back, but some habits couldn't be broken. She could no more speak out loud or run freely than she could when Mother and Father were there to note her every misstep and enumerate her failings. So she hid in her room and glanced furtively out the rain-slicked window, trying to ignore her frantic heartbeat and hold on to the faintest hope that help might come.

The note had been pinned to her door when she had opened it in the morning, ready to sneak across the hall to the loo like she did every day. She purposefully woke up early since her father would descend the nearby staircase on his way to breakfast, and she couldn't look unkempt if he were to spot her. But that day instead of a scolding for tousled hair she received a letter explaining that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had taken her parents and she need not look for them (as if she would know where to start).

She was positive there were still Death Eaters around the garden. She had seen shapes moving near the front walk at night. She wanted to take a closer look but had ended up cowering beneath her sheets instead, trying to summon up the bitter disappointment in herself she should have been feeling, since Mother and Father weren't there to berate her. What kind of Gryffindor was she?

The afraid kind, obviously. She had stuffed her house scarf in the bottom of her bag, terrified that her parents would find it. She didn't have to lie about which house she had been Sorted into, she just had to hide — no one talked to her if they could help it. If she kept quiet (which she always did) then her parents would assume… well, they would never assume the best, but they might not assume the worst.

A proper Timous belonged in Slytherin; her ancestry proved that well enough. And though the Timous family had been marginalised and ignored for the better part of a century, they were still from the same, pure-blooded stock. Kylie was supposed to be making connections in Slytherin, reminding them that the House of Timous may have been forgotten but was not gone. Instead she was making friends (real friends!) in Gryffindor.

If her parents found out, Kylie wasn't sure what would happen. She was already unworthy; she barely existed in the margins. She had a feeling that she couldn't be a Timous and be a Gryffindor. She knew which one she'd choose if she had to.

She dropped the quill she'd been using at her desk and drew her knees up, hugging them to her chest. She breathed hard, fighting down the panic that scraped at the edges of her heart, squeezing it tight. Such thoughts were dangerous and difficult. It had been hard enough just to write to Harry Potter and ask for help.

She knew he probably wouldn't come. And even if he did, what would he do? Everyone was running from the Dark Lord, terrified and overpowered. She had been taught to take comfort in that, to know that she was on the winning team. But she didn't feel like she was. And if the Dark Lord was on her side, why had he taken her parents?

It was what she understood the least. Her mother and father had been ignored by the pure-blood elite just as she was ignored by them. Nobody remembered the Timous family, nobody asked for their presence. Their fortune was modest by the standards of the upper class; they were not disgraced, but they were not important. Maybe they were of some other use? Maybe… a sacrifice?

Kylie shuddered again, planting her forehead against her knee. If he had needed a sacrifice, why not take her?

Was she so unworthy that she was useless even in death?

Not that she _wanted _to be killed (though that hadn't always been true). Going to Hogwarts was the greatest change her life had ever seen, an entire new world opened to her; and then the Headmaster had been murdered as her new home was attacked by the people she was supposed to consider allies. Even if she could go back, it wouldn't be the same. Maybe it didn't matter. Everyone had probably forgotten about her, by now.

She picked up the quill again, trying to summon the willpower to finish her letter to Trevor. Even if he didn't reply, at least she had tried. That would be a personal victory. Harry Potter and Scott had never responded, though, and it hurt. She shouldn't let it. She should be used to being ignored, and with no real experience at making friends how could she expect to be any good at it? Their affection had probably been nothing but pity.

Even so, it was still the best thing in her life. She would always have those moments.

The parchment stared up at her, half blank and waiting for the words. She pressed the quill to it and tried to be honest. It didn't come easily. She had been taught to keep herself tightly bound.

This last year, those knots had started to fray.

* * *

><p>The night was wet and dark. Rain drops fell from the sodden skies and ran down the tree trunks, hanging off the leaves and dripping onto rocks and mud. Harry shifted in the wet grass, trying to ignore the way it was soaking his trousers. This was the first real strike of the war he had found himself at the centre of. He needed to focus on the task at hand, not how bloody uncomfortable he was.<p>

Besides, it seemed like the sort of thing he should become accustomed to. The enemy wouldn't wait on the weather. The rest of his piecemeal hunting party were all wearing similar expressions of discomfort, save for Scott; he was prone on his stomach, disregarding the mud puddle he was laying in.

_No time like the present, _Harry thought. Bracing himself, he shuffled forward a few feet on his knees and then fell next to Scott. He instantly regretted his decision to emulate the Kharadjai and set an example for the rest — the shock of the wet and the cold on his stomach was unpleasant, to say the least. He tried not to think about what was soaking through his shirt and motioned for Scott to pass him the binoculars.

Scott obliged, handing them over. "Turn the wheel on the top to focus," he said softly. Harry had to strain to hear him over the rain. "Look to the right of the house, past the fountain in the middle of the yard."

Harry did so, looking to the right and peering through the lenses. "Fuck," he swore the second he focused on where Scott had indicated. "That's not all of them, is it?"

"No. There's two more behind the split-trunk tree on the left side yard. You see the lit window on the second floor? To the right?"

"Yeah," Harry confirmed. The window in question was just barely lit, but when magnified it was noticeably brighter than the others.

"I think Kylie is in there, I saw her hair for a second."

"I know it seems paranoid—" Harry began.

"Very little at this stage seems paranoid," Scott said.

"…But I think this is a trap."

"Had to be this bloody obvious before you decided that?" Ron said derisively.

"Someone had to say it," Harry muttered. He stared hard at the looming structure ahead, willing a solution to occur to him.

"Yes, I think we all have some doubts about this," Hermione said, her nervousness displayed by the rapid tapping of her wand into her palm.

Harry turned to Scott. "Do you think her parents are here somewhere? I know she said they were taken, but it looks like they've got her hostage, too."

"Possibly. Kylie could only tell us what she knew."

"If it was actually her who wrote that letter," Ginny suggested.

"I think it was, actually. Her handwriting was familiar," Hermione said. "I helped her with some revision on a couple of occasions…"

"Like I said, she could only tell us what she'd been told," Scott reiterated.

Hermione's eyes widened. "Do you think… that her parents went _willingly?"_

Scott pointed at the house. "You tell me. Does this look like a ransom attempt? Or does this look like bait for a third party?"

After a few seconds the shock in Hermione's face faded, replaced by a grim sadness. "It does make sense, yes. A house like this would suggest…"

"That Kylie takes tea with the Malfoys," Ron said with disgust.

"Is this the same Kylie I know?" Ginny said with disbelief. "Barely says a word? Was Sorted into Gryffindor?"

"It's not likely that she personally has Death Eater sympathies," Hermione agreed. "No, I think it's rather that she… Well, I do hate to say it, but… she is the 'bait' tonight."

"I'm prepared to check this issue under the assumption that not only is this a trap, but it was planned and implemented by Kylie's parents," Scott stated.

"And I thought _I_ was being paranoid," Harry said, grimacing.

"You think they would use Kylie like that?" Ginny sounded sickened by the thought.

Scott nodded, his face remaining the blank slate it had been for the entire conversation. "Yes."

Harry rolled over onto his side, shivering a bit at the sensation of the water streaking across the top of his head. It was a bad job all around, no doubt about it. It wasn't the first trap he'd ever walked in to, but that hardly recommended it. "They'll wait for us to go down the garden path, and then…"

"There have to be more," Ginny guessed.

"If there are any, they'll be behind the house," Scott told her. "Once we commit, they'll swing out from the sides. They'll have the high ground and we'll be stuck in the middle with limited cover."

"Waiting isn't getting us anywhere," Ron said gruffly. "C'mon, I'll go first."

Hermione gripped his arm and pulled him back down into the brush. "You will not! Scott will go first!" As soon as the words left her mouth she blushed in chagrin. "That is, if he… If his _plan_…"

"Involves taking one for the team?" Scott said dryly. "Not this time. Tell me something: does this look like the kind of force you would leave for the almighty Chosen One?"

Harry really, _really_ hated that appellation, but Scott did have a point. "If Riddle knew I was going to be here, he'd have everything he's got."

"Which means they don't really know if you're going to show or not, so they have a few low-level robed turds standing around to pass it along if you do."

"I'd love to get my hands on the Slytherin that told them about Kylie and us," Ron growled.

"Later. The point is, these guys aren't so much a trap as they are an alarm."

Harry considered that. From his vantage point there didn't appear to be many options. The Timous estate was situated right in the middle of farm country, surrounded on all sides by flat fields. The wards that kept Muggles out also thwarted the progress of rural planning; the manor was an island of trees, no doubt looking exactly the same is it had for centuries, if not longer. He wondered how many farmers had harvested their crops not twenty feet from the property, never having a clue they shared a border with wizards.

The result of all that empty space was a definite lack of alternative routes. While the manor gardens were ringed with trees, the areas around the house proper were barren save for a few low stone walls and the large decorative fountain. There was no way to cross to the door without being seen.

Stealth offered the best possible outcome. Especially since the only other thing Harry could think of was speed. If Scott opened fire, and everyone rushed the front… It was possible that they might rescue Kylie and get back beyond the edge of the wards before more opposition arrived. They would have to be very quick, though. The window of opportunity would be slim; perhaps tooslim for that to work.

Harry looked at Ron. "I don't fancy our odds in a fight. How about we go in under the Cloak?"

"We aren't all going to fit under there," Ginny pointed out.

Harry winced. "Er… I was just talking to Ron, actually…"

Ginny fixed him with a blistering glower. "Oh, is that right?"

"I suggest you rethink that plan, unless you have some way to get past the wards," Hermione said in a frosty tone.

"The front walk should be fine, it's the door that could be a problem," Harry said, trying not to sound defensive. He needed to sell everyone who wasn't Ron on the merits of his plan. "We'll slip under the Cloak and get in and out before anyone notices."

"And what if you're seen?" Hermione questioned. "Never mind how you intend to get past the door…"

"We'll get Kylie to open it for us," Harry asserted with as much confidence as he could project.

"How? Ring her up on the phone?" Hermione said sarcastically.

Harry had to smile at that. His methods were Muggle, but not that advanced. "Close. All we need are a few rocks."

Hermione didn't immediately respond. Her expression remained angry, which, when combined with her silence, indicated that she knew the plan was workable but was opposed to it by default.

Ginny had not arrived at the same conclusion. "What a crock of shit! I am not staying here while you march through the Death Eaters and hope for the best!"

"There is an issue," Scott spoke up. He had been distant from the conversation, still staring through the binoculars.

"More than one," Ginny agreed, which was probably some sort of landmark event.

"Ron is too tall to get under that Cloak. You are too, Harry, but it would just be the bottom of your shoes if you stand up straight. Remember trying to stay quiet with both of us tripping over each other under that thing?" Scott reminded.

Harry did remember now that it had been mentioned. It had been a right pain in the arse to spy on Malfoy while trying to keep their feet from showing. And that had been in the previous year; Harry didn't think he'd grown all that much, but Ron had always been taller.

"Then I'll go," Hermione volunteered.

"Why don't I just go alone?" Harry wondered out loud. He was getting very tired of debating everything with his uncooperative friends. His plans weren't _that_ bad.

Scott gave his unsolicited opinion on that topic. "Try not to do that, a two-person team is more effective. Besides, I want Hermione here. I'm going to need her magic brain if I have to dispel something."

"Then it's up to me," Ginny said smugly.

Harry didn't want her anywhere near the line of fire to begin with, never mind the fucking front door. If only he could think of some way to express that without getting slapped. "Um, Gin…"

Even that garnered him an immediate glare. "Don't, Harry. I'm going with you."

Hermione nodded reluctantly. "That's our best course, I think. If anything goes wrong just run back to us, we'll cover you."

Harry glanced back the way they had come, mentally marking the spot where the trees ended. Scott had been able to get them past the edge of the property, but according to him, the wards over the entirety of the grounds were old and very powerful. They would have to get back into the fields before they could Disapparate.

It was not a welcome prospect. Harry tried one last time to find another alternative. "Scott, do you think we could pick off the side guards without the rest noticing?"

"Can you cast a spell without yelling it?"

A fair rebuttal. Harry could cast some spells non-verbally, but certainly not his full arsenal. "…Maybe."

"Not good enough. If Riddle shows up, there's no desirable outcomes."

Which could result from more than just the sound of spells being cast. Studying the manor once more, Harry remembered that there could be an indeterminate number of Death Eaters on the other side of it. They might be able to see the forward sentries — or perhaps all of the Death Eaters were in regular contact. Either way, removing even one of them could be disastrous.

"Nothing for it," Harry sighed. "We can't risk an alert until we have Kylie. We have to use the Cloak."

"Agreed," Scott said.

"…Yes," Hermione also concurred, though with clear reluctance.

"Then this is how we'll do this," Harry said, his mind working rapidly. "Ginny and I will get down to the door as quick as we can. Hermione, can you hand me some of that gravel by your foot? It's about the right size for this. We just have to get Kylie to look out the window long enough for me to wave to her. I think she'll recognise me."

"She'll know me, I saw her in the girls' dorms all the time," Ginny added.

"Right. As soon as she gets the front door open, we get her under the Cloak and leave. I don't really care if we have to run or whatever at that point, we just have to be gone. Ron, you and Hermione will — hey!" Harry broke off as Hermione rapped him on the top of the head with her wand. "What are you…" He trailed off as the familiar sensation of the Disillusionment Charm trickled over him.

"It's not as perfect as the Cloak, of course, but it should help if you have to run…" Hermione explained as she did the same to Ginny.

"Now that's damn useful," Scott commented with a look of far greater interest than he usually wore when magic was happening.

Harry glanced down at himself. In the darkness of the woods he could barely distinguish his own form. The rain dripping through the trees provided the clearest indications of his outline. "I'm sure you can see me just fine," he said to Scott.

"We're not up against other Kharadjai. And considering how infallible your Cloak has been, I'm going to guess there isn't any spell to view the infrared spectrum."

"I've never come across such a spell," Hermione confirmed.

"Good. Although, if the Death Eaters have any cloaks of their own, maybe it's something you could look into?" Harry suggested as he pulled his own Cloak out of Hermione's handbag.

Hermione was clearly intrigued by the challenge. "I suppose I might, at that…"

"Come on," Harry said, motioning to Ginny. "Let's do this."

"I was hoping to hear you say that in a bit of a different situation…" she purred as she slid under the Cloak with him, her body heat soaking through his damp clothes.

"Knock it off, Gin," Ron grumbled.

Ginny ignored him. "This is really strange… I'm not sure where I am," she said, shifting a bit awkwardly.

"We'll go slow at first, until we get used to it." Harry turned to the others. "Is everyone ready?"

"One last thing," Scott said. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

Harry stared at him. "What?"

"This rescue. It's a big risk. You sure about it?"

"As opposed to what?" Harry asked, becoming angry. "Leaving Kylie all by herself, surrounded by Death Eaters that would probably kill her for being a blood-traitor Gryffindor? What kind of fucking question is that?"

"Well, considering her parents set all this up, she might actually be safer here. I mean, we're rescuing her from a trap set for _us_."

Harry could scarcely believe what he was hearing. "Right, sure, so let's just ignore her, let the Death Eaters do whatever they want with her, and let her think we didn't even care enough to check if she was all right! I can't believe this shite, what are you thinking?! This was your fucking idea in the first place and now you're—" Harry's mouth snapped shut as he realised exactly what was happening. "Oh, you… You fucking sod. Of all the times to — _stop testing me!"_

"Really, Scott? You decided to take the piss _now?_" Ron said.

Ginny looked equally disbelieving, but Hermione seemed more curious than anything. "Is this sort of scenario part of Kharadjai training?" she wondered.

Harry blew out a furious breath, not particularly caring if that was the case. "So what was this all about, then? Just poking me to see what I'd do?"

"Offering an alternative — logistically desirable, morally bankrupt. The kind of choice that sometimes has to be made… but not this time," Scott said, unperturbed by Harry's hostility.

"We'll talk about this later," Harry said balefully.

"Yeah." Scott had retrieved his rifle and was looking through the scope with deadly intensity. "If you hear me fire, fall back immediately. Ron — I have a job for you and your Keeper skills. Grab those grenades."

"Um…" Ron looked at them apprehensively.

"They're smoke grenades, relax. If we go loud I want you to toss three of them, left, right and centre. Get them as far out as you can. Harry, if you have to retreat, just make the smoke and you'll be all right. Between that and the Cloak, they won't see shit."

"Do be careful," Hermione whispered to Harry and Ginny as they shuffled forward under the Cloak.

Harry pushed his way through the brush for a few feet, fighting the tangles of weeds and low-hanging branches. It was lucky that the darkness and rain would conceal their movements, since the Cloak did nothing to hide all the foliage being pushed aside. Once they were out of the trees it was less likely anyone would notice the grass flattening beneath their feet.

Ginny didn't have the experience with the Cloak that the others did. Her movements were slow and halting as she tried to match stride with Harry, and it didn't help that he was slightly bent over into her space. The gradual hill that marked the end of the woods was a jumble of mud and soaked grass. Harry put an arm around Ginny's waist and held her tightly, bracing both of them as they slid down the slope.

Making matters more difficult was the pervading darkness. The dark clouds overhead prevented even a sliver of moonlight from shining through, shrouding the entire property in deep, impenetrable shadows. Harry hoped that the grounds were well-kept enough to be free from detritus. A rabbit hole or a misplaced rock could send them sprawling.

Ginny wrapped her arms around herself with a shiver. With the shelter of the trees behind them what would have been a pleasant summer's night breeze became cold with the rain. "This thing still works when wet, right?" she whispered through chattering teeth.

"It'll be fine," Harry assured her. "Let's go right around the fountain."

The stone slabs of the garden path were easier to navigate, though not without their own hazards. They swerved around the gathered puddles for fear of splashing. The Cloak was becoming uncomfortably heavy in the rain, clinging to Harry's face and arms. The dim light in the window presumed to be Kylie's became clearer, a beacon through a downpour that was turning into something near torrential. At the top of the hill Harry had been able to see the house fairly well. Now past the fountain, he couldn't even see the tree line he had come from.

"At least they'll never hear us!" Ginny said positively, all but pressing her lips to Harry's ear in order to be intelligible.

Harry nodded shortly in reply, not wanting to encourage conversation despite the decreased danger of detection. Ginny was probably right, but the problem was that Kylie might not hear them either. If the rain fell any heavier they would have hardly needed the Cloak, never mind Scott's smoke grenades. The wind was picking up as well, cutting through the soggy covering and making Harry fervently wish he had dressed more warmly. Ginny obviously felt the same — she had pressed back into him, seeking warmth.

The front of the manor was a solid edifice of stone and ivy, fronted with stylised columns and even a couple weather-worn statues. Harry could barely make out the details; Kylie's window had become almost the only point of visual reference in the pouring rain. He placed one hand against the cold wall and followed it towards the dim glow.

With the window now directly above them it was time for the hard part. Harry looked to the left and right, trying to determine if any Death Eaters could see the section of the house where he and Ginny stood. The columns at the outside corners would shield them from anyone not actually in the front garden.

"See anyone?" he whispered to Ginny.

"How could I? I can barely see the bloody house right in front of me," she grumbled. Her long red locks were plastered to her neck and back; with the Cloak collecting so much water she looked like she had gone for a swim. "Take this spell off so she can see me."

"Just stay close to the wall. I think you'll have to light your wand." Harry dispelled the Disillusionment Charm from Ginny and then did the same for himself. If they were discovered he didn't want her to draw all the attention.

Harry extracted several rocks from one of his pockets and looked upward. The light from Kylie's window barely penetrated the storm, even when he was so close to it. No doubt Ron and Hermione could no longer see it at all from where they hid back on the hill. Hopefully Scott would be able to see well enough, though Harry wasn't sure if the infrared spectrum was impeded by the rain.

The first pebble he threw yielded no results. He repeated the action, not really knowing if he was hitting the window or not. He couldn't hear anything but the wind, and lost track of the pebbles almost as soon as they left his hand.

Then a shadow flitted behind the streaked glass. Ginny straightened beneath the Cloak and began pushing the sodden material off of her. "I think she heard that one! _Lumos!_"

Ginny sheltered the bright gleam of her wand with her body while Harry kept tossing rocks. Kylie would have to open the window to see them, and that meant she needed more incentive than a noise she might have imagined. With a little luck, curiosity might make her brave enough to investigate.

The light shifted, became more obscured. Harry threw his next pebble a bit harder than the others. It shot upwards into the dark, clinking off the glass. He paused anxiously. Kylie had to have heard that one if that was her shadow blotting out the light. And if it wasn't her then Harry was about to have a real problem on his hands. He readied himself to run.

The window moved slightly; then, with a creak that was just audible over the storm, it was pushed open. Seconds later, Kylie's head peeked tentatively over the edge, her eyes huge with trepidation.

Ginny jumped up and waved at her frantically. Kylie's already wide gaze somehow widened even further, and what little of her head could be seen shook with what must have been a startled gasp.

"Kylie!" Ginny said in a loud whisper. "It's me, Ginny! Open the door!"

Kylie stared downwards, not moving.

Ginny grimaced. "The door!" she repeated, emphasising with gestures towards the front walk. _Open the door_, she mouthed with exaggerated precision.

_The door?_ Kylie silently repeated, peeking her head out further so her mouth was visible.

"Yes!" Ginny nodded emphatically. "Open the door for us!" She mimed turning a doorknob.

Kylie nodded in reply and she slid back out of sight.

Harry pulled the Cloak back down over Ginny. "I think she understood," he said, feeling good about their chances for the first time.

By the time they hurried over to the door it was already partially opened. Kylie's slight form was sketched against the light from the entryway as she leaned out into the rain, as if she were a silhouette painting. Harry glanced back towards the hill but the rain had yet to slack.

He looked back just in time to see another shadow on the wall behind Kylie.

He surged forward, leaving Ginny momentarily exposed as he snatched Kylie from the doorstep and clamped a hand over her mouth as she tensed and loosed a muffled scream. He pulled her to himself and fell backwards onto Ginny, leaving all of them sprawled on the ground next to one of the decorative columns. There was frantic moment as he rearranged the Cloak, trying to cover them. He was sitting on the portion Ginny needed and Kylie was still on the outside. Somehow he managed to push himself upward, slide Kylie underneath the Cloak and allow Ginny to worm her way in to flop against his side.

Kylie struggled against his grip, still unaware in the dark of who held her. Harry almost lost his hold on her when Ginny fell against him; reaching blindly upward, he caught Kylie again and yanked her back against his chest. Her tiny chin smacked firmly into the deep bruise where Scott had jabbed him earlier. Harry fought back a yelp of pain, biting his cheek so hard he tasted blood.

"It's us, it's us, Kylie, stop! Stop moving!" Ginny hissed, catching Kylie's flailing hands with her own.

Kylie instantly calmed, going limp with relief. Either that or she had fainted, Harry couldn't tell in the dark. More concerning was the large shadow standing just inside the hallway on the other side of the door.

Harry wrapped a tense arm around Ginny's shoulders, hugging her to him both as a warning to keep quiet and as a precautionary measure. If they were discovered, he was in a good position to shield her. He barely breathed as a Death Eater stepped out into the rain, the drops plunking hollowly against the stiff cloth of his hood.

"No one here?" a voice asked from inside the house.

The man outside descended from the steps and lit his wand, waving it from left to right as he searched around the column. "No… Where's the little Timous bird, still up in her room?"

"Light's still on. Dolohov said we're not to go up there, though."

"Fuckin' Dolohov," the man grumbled, looking up through the rain with a posture of distaste. "I'm about sick of that cunt."

"Orders is orders. You'll earn a _Cruciatus _with that kind of talk," the other Death Eater warned.

"Hmph. You think this door just blew open, then?" the first Death Eater said. He took another step forward. The tip of his boot was now resting on the edge of the Cloak.

Ginny shuddered slightly. She was stiff at Harry's side, every muscle tensed. Carefully, Harry slid his wand hand out from where it had been trapped beneath Kylie.

There was a rattling sound; the Death Eater inside the house was probably testing the latch. "It's pretty old."

"Like everything else around here. God, I hate this bloody rain. My wife is going to give me hell if I catch a cold."

"Then don't. Hurry up and look about and then get back in here, we have to report in a few minutes. You want them to think we ran off like Preston and Henry?"

"Remember what Lestrange said she'd do if she found them? Christ. All right, just give me a minute. If you come out here you'll get sick and then your wife will give you hell, too."

"My wife actually loves me, Grebbs."

"Fuck off. I'll be right back."

The next step Grebbs took was right onto Harry's leg.

Grebbs stumbled backwards, confused but not immediately alarmed. "What…?" He kicked out towards Harry.

Harry wasn't going to wait for the inevitable. "GO!" he shouted to Ginny. He caught Grebbs' foot just before it hit him and pulled, sending the Death Eater reeling sideways into the column.

"_Expelliarmus!_" Ginny disarmed Grebbs, catching the man's wand and hurling it out into the dark towards the fountain. "Come on, Kylie, _run!_"

Harry desperately fought to get on his feet, hampered by the slick cobblestones. He tugged up on the edge of the Cloak and managed to keep it in place but Grebbs' leg was still resting on top of him, a heavy obstacle. He pushed furiously against it even as the Death Eater snarled and swung a fist at his invisible tormentor. Ginny threw herself against Grebbs' chest while Harry barely dodged the punch. Her weight knocked Grebbs onto his back, freeing Harry.

Harry grabbed Ginny's shoulders and pulled her up and off Grebbs. For a moment her wrist was caught in the Death Eater's grip; then there came an unexpected _SNAP_ that cut through the rain with startling clarity, and Grebbs' head lolled backwards. Ginny yanked her arm free.

Harry began to run, Ginny at his side. He looked to his left with the expectation that Kylie would be there, only to find that she was already ahead of them, having apparently taken Ginny's instructions to heart. Her legs were short, though; it didn't take Harry long to catch up to her.

"This way, Kylie, keep going. We just have to make it to the hill!" he said breathlessly, grasping the small girl's hand in his own and pulling her along.

She nodded, her breath emerging in pants that were more like sobs. Her eyes were full of terror and it was clear that she was pushing herself just to keep up, but she still ran gamely along with them. Harry felt a brief flash of something like pride; perhaps Kylie had been more of a fellow Gryffindor than he'd ever given her credit for.

_CRACK, CRACK, CRACK. _Shots rang out from the hilltop, growing louder with every step. Harry couldn't hear any shouts or footsteps behind him but that didn't mean much with the storm drowning out everything but the noise of Scott's gunfire.

His heart dropped in his chest when he heard a very different kind of snapping sound coming from multiple directions: the distinct report of Apparition. The Death Eater reinforcements had arrived.

* * *

><p>It took Ron about five minutes of inactivity to be bitterly reminded of how much he really, <em>really<em> hated being left behind.

The relief that Hermione wasn't part of Harry's mad plan to march up to the front of the manor was tempered by the fact that Harry _was_, and he was taking Ginny with him. If Ron had his way, they would all go or not go at all. Splitting up didn't feel right.

It certainly didn't help that a few minutes after Harry and Ginny had exited the woods their destination could no longer be seen. The rain steadily increased tempo until it drowned out all sight and sound with a heavy deluge that soaked through Ron's clothes so quickly he might as well have not been wearing any. The smoke grenades Scott had indicated earlier seemed more or less useless once the weather had taken that kind of turn.

Scott had reached the same conclusion. "Forget about the grenades."

"Gladly," Ron muttered. He had been none too eager to handle Scott's dangerous Muggle weaponry in the first place.

"I can't even see the fountain now," Hermione fretted. She was gnawing on her lower lip with evident worry.

"They're fine," Scott said. He was prone in the mud with his rifle resting on some kind of two-legged stand.

Hermione left her (relatively) dry spot beneath an arching tree and huddled next to Scott. "Tell me what they're doing!"

"Walking. Or shuffling, really."

"Ginny's not tripping Harry, is she? She hasn't been under the Cloak like us, I wish we'd had time to let her practice…"

Scott wiped water from his face and pushed his fringe up away from his eyes. "I can't tell at this distance. But they're still upright, at least."

"Just use your binoculars, or the thing on your gun," Ron suggested.

"I would if I could. Glass appears opaque when looking at thermal radiation, it's surface temperature only." Scott waved a hand at his weapon in an exasperated gesture. "Kharadjai tech has projected optics and integrated imaging to get around that limitation, but I'm stuck with contemporary GEP equipment for the most part. Can't have the locals getting ahead of themselves if I lose something."

"Of course. We have to be kept in our place," Hermione said tartly.

"Says the girl from a hopelessly backward, borderline pre-Copernican society that is the very definition of technologically stagnant. It's not the wizarding folk I'd be concerned about finding a Voight magazine with eight millimetre caseless. The Muggles might reverse engineer that shit; a witch would probably think it was food or something. Try to eat it."

"You are so deliberately offensive at times," Hermione remarked in a tone that was more resigned than angry.

Ron didn't understand even half of what Scott had said, but he knew when he was being insulted. At that moment, however, he barely cared. "Well, however you do it just keep watching Harry and Gin. Be a prick later."

"They're almost to the front wall," Scott reported. "If you want to see use the scope on the gun, it has a night setting. I just hate that green shit. It hurts my eyes."

Hermione looked at him in surprise. "Your eyes? I've seen you look straight at the sun without blinking…"

"Yeah, the eyes are actually the only part of Kharadjai anatomy with any major physiological differences. They're at the front wall, moving along towards Kylie's window," Scott updated before continuing, "There are advantages, but we're all still subject to our little quirks. I used to get migraines working with those old green screen computers."

Ron carefully crawled over Scott and settled down next to the rifle. He raised it up and pressed his eye to the scope but couldn't see anything. "It's not working."

Scott reached over and moved something that clicked. Now Ron found himself looking at one of the distant columns in front of the house. The world was rendered in a palette of contrasting shades of green, glowing and fuzzy. The rain streaked down in blurred lines that made it even harder to discern details.

"It's not great, huh?" he said, blinking a bit in an attempt to focus better.

"Not in this weather."

There was a flash of white to the right of the column Ron was looking at. He turned that way, rotating the weapon on its stand. The motion was so disorienting through the magnified sight that he had to pull away. "This is harder than I thought. Did you see that light?"

"I think someone lit their wand." Scott had moved up into a sitting position and was leaning forward, staring hard into the darkness.

"They call _that_ being careful?" Hermione gasped.

"Probably didn't have a choice. Ron, I might need that gun back."

Ron removed his eye from the sight and pushed the weapon back towards Scott without protest. It had been nice to be able to see, but he didn't exactly trust himself with the Muggle implement. The only thing he really knew about it was that it killed people and it shouldn't be played with.

"Where are the guards? Did they see?" Hermione asked anxiously.

"The guys on the right went to the back of the house. The guys on the left are just hanging out on the side yard, they haven't moved yet," Scott answered.

"Thank goodness for that."

The rain was not letting up in the slightest. Deprived of the night vision offered by Scott's firearm, Ron was once again unable to see further than ten feet in any direction. It was more than a bit frustrating. If Harry ran into trouble, Ron would be useless.

A thought occurred to him. He shifted closer to Hermione, putting his mouth close to her ear so he wouldn't have to raise his voice. "Do you think you remember where the house ends to the right, if you had to aim there?"

"I believe so," she said.

"Good. If Scott says there's a problem, maybe we could start casting to the right and left and make the Death Eaters look our way."

Hermione hesitated, then nodded her assent. "If we must. We should keep that plan in reserve, though. Our spells will be very visible right now; Scott can fire his rifle without giving away his precise location."

"All right, well, we'll let him go first," Ron said with a grin.

Scott began speaking again. "They're at the door. Looks like it's already — what the fuck…"

"What? What's happening?" Hermione demanded.

"Harry just grabbed Kylie from the steps. There's a Death Eater right inside, they're hiding and he's…" Scott pulled his rifle up to his shoulder and stared through the sight. "If he takes another step then that's it."

"Have they been seen?" Ron said tersely. He readied himself to react, though he wasn't entirely certain what he was going to do. "Scott?"

"…Here we go," Scott said under his breath, and pulled the trigger.

_**BAM! **_Ron flinched back and clapped his hands to his head, but it was far too late for that. A familiar sonic splinter once again ripped through his left ear. He clenched his teeth and rode out the pain, waiting for it to subside and the ringing to begin. Next to him, Hermione had also covered her ears, looking dazed.

Ron dropped his hands and pushed himself up on his knees. "_Same fucking ear!_" he snarled at Scott, drawing his wand. Scott might have said something in reply, but all Ron could hear to his left was a piercing tone and his own heartbeat.

Scott was already shooting again. Two shots, then three more in quick succession. Ron still couldn't see. The rain sheeted downwards with unrelenting regularity and he had no targets.

"Scott, what is happening?!" Hermione shouted.

"They've got Kylie and they're coming right up the middle!" he replied. He swung his weapon to the left. _**BAM! BAM! **_Barely three feet away, the shots broke across Ron's skin like a stinging gust, sharp and disorienting.

A spell came zipping out of the darkness, a blinding streak of light that was dazzling in the wet night. It flew harmlessly over their heads. Ron blinked and stared down towards the manor, trying to discern where it had come from. A second spell sparked to life at the right side — he pinpointed the source to a general area, and raised his wand to return fire.

Hermione seized onto his arm and dragged it back down. "No, Ron! We can't give away our position!"

Ron rounded on her angrily to argue but was interrupted by a sound that sent a shiver down his spine — the distinct crack of Apparition.

"Oh, no," Hermione gasped.

"Multiple hostiles. They're coming in at the front and sides of the house, I see six, eight, ten, too many," Scott said in a dry cadence. "Harry's out in front, almost here… I'll swing left and — no, they're moving. No time. Grab him and we'll fall back, they're at the bottom, just help them up!"

_**BAM! **_Out on the lawn something sparked brightly in reaction to Scott's shot, and he muttered inaudibly in response. Ron stood and rushed forward into the brush, skidding down the muddy hillside with Hermione close behind. He didn't get far before he heard the crashing of branches being forced aside.

"Harry, is that you?" he said, raising his wand.

"Yeah!" Harry's welcome reply emerged from a thick tangle of bushes. "The Cloak is caught, give me a second. Kylie, grab Ron's hand!"

A small, pale appendage snaked out of the foliage and Ron took it, yanking Kylie up the embankment. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Hermione doing the same for Ginny. Then came Harry, clawing his way up with furious determination. They all reached the top and slid down the short crest to the other side, gasping, filthy and soaking wet.

_**BAM! BAM! BAM! **_Scott had resumed firing. On the third shot a bright flash from the garden below illuminated the night like a bolt of lightning, brief and dazzling. The strobe effect left Ron with a still picture of every drop of rain in that moment, imprinted like a dark photograph.

Everyone scrambled to their feet, bracing off tree trunks to avoid slipping and not always succeeding. Ron helped Kylie get up; the young girl was breathing hard and trembling. Ron just hoped she had the strength to keep running. At least they didn't have far to go.

The storm that had once been a hindrance was now more useful, even as it made descending to the field a bit tricky. The Death Eaters were no doubt having just as much trouble with movement and vision as Ron was. He slid from tree to tree, using them like stepping stones, in too much of a hurry to be more careful. Everyone else went down with the same reckless speed. Ron couldn't see Scott, but since he was no longer shooting he was hopefully right behind them.

As the trees thinned and the ground became level, Ron reflected that this was the second time he had been running for his life through a darkened wood (and if he went back to his times in the Forbidden Forest, it wasn't even just the second). He thought he might try to get used to it. It seemed like running away was the only thing they could do against the Dark Lord and his growing army, which was not a pleasant realisation.

Somewhere back up the hill came the sound of another short, sharp explosion. Ron spun around, concerned that Scott had been left, but the Kharadjai was only a few feet behind.

Ron opened his mouth to see if Scott had done something with his Muggle weapons or if the Death Eaters had resorted to blowing up the woods in their pursuit, but Scott grabbed his shoulder and propelled him forward again.

"Just run!" Scott barked out. He sprinted ahead and scooped Kylie up into his arms; the slight girl had been slowing with exhaustion, unable to keep the pace with her taller companions. "Hermione, they're working on that area spell!"

"How close?" she shouted back.

"Too far North but they'll figure it out real quick!"

"Everyone group up!" Harry called out. They were at the edge of the fields, stumbling over the unevenly ploughed ground and trampling some farmer's wheat in the process. "This is it!"

Ron reached out and latched onto Hermione's hand, preparing himself for Disapparating. Harry was doing the same with Ginny. Scott rushed over to Hermione and set Kylie back on her feet. He took her limp hand and placed it firmly on Hermione's arm.

"We're good, go," he said, and turned back towards the estate.

Just before they disappeared, Ron looked up to see the shining orbs of lit wands bobbing at the top of the hill like faerie lights. Shadows darted amongst them in search, hunting for their quarry as they surged down the slope.

Then the world contracted and twisted, pressing inward with discomfiting pressure and followed by the sensation of falling.

The next thing he knew, he was lying on his back on the cold stone floor of Grimmauld Place.

There was a heavy silence interspersed with breathing and a few sighs of a relief. Eventually, Hermione broke it. "I apologise for the rough landing, it wasn't the best job of Side-Along…"

With a groan, Ron pushed himself into a sitting position. "You were brilliant," he assured her. "If I'd have done it we'd be Splinched all over the room."

They were downstairs in the kitchen for some reason. Ron supposed everyone had spent enough time there that it was a natural enough destination, and it had the added benefit of avoiding Mrs. Black's portrait.

Harry was shakily rising to his feet, taking stock of the room. "Is everyone all right? Ginny?"

"Fine," Ginny said from somewhere on the other side of the table.

"Looks like we're all here, except for Scott," Harry said, though he didn't sound all that worried. "He's probably— _Ginny!"_

"What?" Ginny said in response to Harry's panicked exclamation.

"Are you hit? You've got blood on your clothes, let me see you—"

_Blood?_ That gave Ron the motivation he needed to get up. "Gin?"

"I'm _fine!" _Ginny said, exasperatedly swatting Harry away from where he had been tugging at her garments. "It's not _my_ blood."

Harry still looked concerned. "You're sure? You can be hit and not feel it."

Ginny just rolled her eyes. "I'm not hit! It's all from the man on the stair, the Death Eater."

"Grebbs?"

"Yeah. I think Scott shot him," Ginny said, more subdued.

Ron had no idea who they were talking about, but as long as Ginny wasn't bleeding he didn't much care. "So nobody got hurt by anything, right? Except the damn trees, I mean," he said, gingerly prodding a long scrape on his forearm.

"Kylie?" Hermione gently inquired. She had helped the younger girl into one of the nearby chairs; Kylie was still trembling violently.

"Okay," Kylie whispered through chattering teeth. "Scott?"

"He's fine, he'll be here any moment," Hermione reassured. "Ron, could you start the fire? She's freezing."

Ron was beginning to feel more than a little cold himself. In the shaky aftermath of an adrenaline rush his heart rate was slowing and the stone basement was a poor place to be in soaking wet clothes. The chill sank into his skin, settling in his chest and making him want to cough.

"So, where the hell is Kreacher, anyway?" he said to Harry as he ignited the fire. The task had made him think of Grimmauld Place's resident house-elf. "The lights were on when we Apparated in, weren't they?"

"Yeah, none of us lit them. He's around here somewhere, but if he doesn't want to see us then I'm fine with that," Harry said with distaste.

"Just not like him, that's all. I thought he'd have shown up to say something horrible by now."

Harry frowned thoughtfully. "That's true. He hasn't even been over by Mrs. Black's portrait."

"Maybe the little snot learned his lesson," Ginny chimed in.

Harry shook his head. "Not likely. I mean, it'd be great if he'd just go die in the attic or something, but…"

"Whatever. As long as he stays out of our way, I don't care. And Harry, stop it, this is embarrassing enough already!" Ginny complained.

Ron turned around in bewilderment and saw a blushing Harry looking away from Ginny. Ron didn't get it until he noticed that Ginny's arms were crossed over the source of Harry's sheepish stance; the rain had plastered the fabric of her shirt to her chest, making it extremely evident that she was quite cold.

"Ugh!" Ron groaned in disgust, stepping away from them. "Why don't you get back under the Cloak until you're decent, Gin, however long that's going to take. If we have that kind of time."

"Sod off, Ron. Harry, don't just stand there, be a useful boyfriend and warm me up," Ginny said, wrapping her arms around Harry.

"Um, Gin, you've got blood on you…" Harry said, though he didn't pull away.

Ron could only take so much of that. He left the two of them by the fireplace and went back over to Hermione and Kylie. The small Gryffindor girl that they had just rescued was the very picture of misery, shivering in her chair with her wet strawberry-blond hair hanging in long, limp strings that stuck to her pale face. Her wide eyes were ringed by dark circles and filled with hopelessness. Hermione was rubbing at the girl's arms, trying to warm her.

"Scott will be here very soon, you're safe now, you're all right," Hermione said soothingly.

"W-what about m-my parents?" Kylie stammered.

Hermione met Ron's eyes with a sad expression, worrying at her lower lip. Carefully, Ron very slightly shook his head. Kylie didn't need their theories, not right then.

"We don't know where they are, yet," Hermione said truthfully. "But we got your letter and we came to get you."

"…T-thank you," Kylie whispered.

"They didn't hurt you at all, did they?"

Kylie shook her head.

"That's good. Let's get you warmed up and then see what we can do for a change of clothes. I'm afraid everything will be a bit big for you, but at least they will be dry," Hermione said.

Ron grabbed another chair and placed it in front of the fire while Hermione led Kylie over to it. Harry and Ginny had also gathered close to the flames, and for a few minutes the group silently huddled together in the warmth.

"Your hair is steaming," Harry said to Ginny. He had his arms around her waist and they were looking very cosy, which Ron was doing his level best to ignore.

"I'm thinking about cutting it," she replied. "It's a bit long for fighting and whatnot."

Harry made a noise of disappointment. "Maybe you could just pin it back?"

The sound of footsteps descending the basement steps interrupted them. Scott jogged down into the room still dripping wet and more covered in mud than the rest of them put together. He set his rifle on the table and ran a hand through his hair, leaving it sticking almost straight up.

"Good, you got the fire. Everybody all right?" he asked.

"Fine. Just a few scrapes is about it," Harry told him.

Hermione was giving Scott a look of concern. "What took you so long? Did you have trouble leaving?"

Scott wasn't listening to her. He held out his hands and went to Kylie in the manner of someone approaching a skittish animal. "Kylie, are you okay? It's me, Scott. I'm just a little different right now."

Kylie was staring at him in wide-eyed wonder, mouth open. In retrospect, Ron appreciated that he had been given the opportunity to at least consider the possibility that Scott was actually an adult before witnessing it. He was sure it was quite a shock.

"We read your letter and came as quick as we could," Scott continued. "You warming up?"

"But, how?" Kylie said with wonder.

Scott sighed. "Not moving off that topic, huh? Okay, there's a few things about me you don't know… First and foremost, this is my real age. I was pretending to be a teenager so I could go to school with you guys."

"Why?"

"To help Harry, mostly. He needs help with this whole war thing. As it turns out, I guess you needed help, too. So here we are."

Ron didn't think that was much of an answer, all things considered, but Kylie closed her mouth and did not inquire any further. That was understandable; she was sliding lower in her chair, wilting with exhaustion.

Scott noticed that as well. "Tell you what, how about you go with Hermione for now? She'll find a nice room for you and then we'll talk more once you're feeling better. Hermione, if you have any ideas…?"

"She can stay in Mr. and Mrs. Weasley's room, it's one of the cleanest, from what we saw," Hermione said. "Come on, Kylie, I'll get you a shirt and see you to bed."

Ron watched them go. The thought of sleep was wonderful indeed, but he was very reluctant to leave the fire. He thought about just sleeping in a chair right by the crackling flames, though he changed his mind when he remembered doing something similar after the battle at Hogwarts. His neck still hadn't forgiven him.

"Scott," Harry called, motioning for the Kharadjai to come over.

Scott obliged. "I assume no one here is a casualty?" he said as he approached them.

"Not in the physical sense," Harry said dryly. "Did you make it out okay?"

"I pulled them further out into the field. I made it to the road and came back once I hit the other side of the embankment. They had that spell to stop Disapparition up by that point, so ideally they're still wandering out in the wheat," Scott explained.

"I hope they all catch cold," Ginny said spitefully.

"Pneumonia would be even better, and possibly fatal."

"I heard an explosion when we were going down the hill, was that you?" Harry asked.

"Yeah, I was wondering about that, too," Ron said. "I tried to ask you about it then, but you were a bit pushy about hurrying, for some reason…"

Scott chuckled darkly. "Someone found my claymore. Hopefully multiple someones."

Harry didn't look ready to laugh about that, but he didn't look all that horrified, either. "Okay, um… I think we should talk everything over in the morning, if that's all right. We should try to get some sleep."

"That's fine. Everyone did some good work tonight, I want you all to know that. Get some rest, you guys earned it. Oh, that reminds me — did Hermione tell you guys about your room, Harry?"

"Our room? What about it?" Harry said, confused.

"You'll have to stay somewhere else this time. Hermione said there's a portrait in there that can't know we're here. She put a spell on the door so you can't get in."

"Phineas," Harry said with disgust. "That wanker. I'd forgotten. She's right, we can't go in there."

"Wonderful," Ron groaned. He had _so_ been looking forward to his old bed. "On the up side, I guess we can have our own rooms."

"Harry can sleep in my room, I don't mind sharing," Ginny casually offered.

Harry blanched and his eyes darted towards Ron. "I, er… I don't know about that…"

Ron was too sodding tired for a row with his sister. "You know what? Do what you like and I'll yell at you for being a slag in the morning, because right now I don't fucking care," he said to Ginny.

"Good enough for me; come on, Harry," Ginny said brightly, tugging on Harry's arm.

"…We'll talk about it," Harry said nervously, resisting her pull.

They drifted away, still talking, while Ron prepared himself to leave the seductive warmth of the fireplace. Scott was the only one who didn't look that tired, which wasn't all that unexpected. For a trained soldier their relatively short outing into the night probably hadn't been all that taxing. Ron wished he could feel the same way. Maybe he would, at some point, if they kept running rescue missions. He tried not to think about that too much. He knew not every mission could end so well.

Scott turned away to go back to the table and Ron noticed that he was limping slightly. Glancing down, the low light of the fire revealed that the back of Scott's left trouser leg was soaked with blood from a bit below the knee to the very bottom.

"Scott, what happened to your leg?" Ron said. "Don't tell me you got hit by your own bomb again."

"Of course not," Scott scoffed, as if such a thing would never happen even though it had before. "Someone got lucky when I ran up to the road."

"Ouch. What was it?" In a way, Scott was fortunate he had been struck with some sort of offensive spell. Being stunned or paralysed would have been even worse.

Scott shrugged as he picked his weapon back up from the table. "I have no idea. Took a nice chunk out of the back of my leg, though. Not a huge deal, but it surprised me. Pissed me off enough I almost doubled back, but I was afraid Harry would be an idiot and come looking for me."

Ron grimaced. "Damn. And then I'd have to go, and Hermione and Gin would never stay behind, and we'd all be back out there again. Because, you know, Harry _would_ be an idiot. It's not really a question."

"Yeah. I know. Anyway, go get a change of clothes from Hermione and then get some sleep. I'm going to do a sweep of the building just in case, then do the same."

"Want some company?" Ron offered half-heartedly, not really wanting to walk all over Grimmauld Place.

"No. I've got it."

Ron wearily made his way upstairs, not knowing where he was going to sleep and not particularly caring. Any empty bed would do. No doubt he'd be roused from whatever bed he chose before he was ready by either Hermione or Harry, or possibly both, as they would be eager to discuss the night's events more thoroughly. Ron understood the necessity, but didn't think there was any rush.

Everyone was still alive, which was good enough for the time being.

* * *

><p><strong>::Author's Note::<strong>

I have been exceedingly non-prolific lately and for that I apologize. I was _exceedingly_ stuck on this chapter for an unseemly period of time. I've had to struggle with writer's block lately even more than usual. It's just, I'm going through some stuff right now that makes it hard to focus on my fanfiction; I won't bore you with the details.

For the full effect, go back and reread that last sentence while imaging me as Molly Ringwald, circa 1985, lying on my stomach on my bed while twisting a phone cord through my fingers. I'm wearing a baggy t-shirt and sweatpants while trying not to cry because it makes my eyes all puffy, but you guys are my girlfriends so you'd understand if I did, right?

Let's talk about characters. Specifically, my new found and (theoretically) eternal love for Bob's Burgers has made me think about breakout characters in an ensemble cast fiction. Now, I don't know if any of the canon cast can be defined as 'breakout' even if they grab more attention here than they did in the book. You already love them. And while Scott would seem to be a candidate for the term, he's not a dark horse. He's _intended _to be a star, designed that way, with his POV being used right from the second chapter.

All the other original characters were created primarily for background, providing a few minor players to flutter around the edges of the story and maybe say or do a couple mildly interesting things before disappearing again. One of these characters transcended that origin by becoming increasingly indispensable to the narrative, due mostly to her catching on with readers in a way I'd never anticipated. I am, of course, referring to Lila.

While Scott talks of her early on the story, she almost didn't show up beyond a few passing mentions. The decision to give chapter six to her in its entirety was (as I said in my ending author's note on TTM) not the best of decisions, but it worked out better than I had any right to expect. I still don't know quite how she caught on with you guys, when it happened or why you were ready to embrace another OC when just _one_ is such a hard sell, but she did. I've had more than a few reviews with questions or comments specific to her, and I had expected none.

Your embracing of her in all her prickly, sometimes standoffish, and wonderfully big-breasted glory has had me puzzled ever since. It's been a pretty good reaction for a character that I had initially only worried about writing in such a way as to keep her distinct from Scott.

So if you like Lila (and I know some of you do, get those hands up), maybe let me in on the mechanics behind your gracious acceptance of a second OC. And if you don't like her, then either ignore this or tell me why you think she's just crap all around, your call.

I'd like to wrap this up by thanking my good friend Thomas Paxton for continuing to give me more feedback than I've ever required and frequently ignore. Without him, some of the Harry and Ginny scenes would have been about two hundred percent more inappropriately sexual, and, indeed, were it not for his judicious remarks the entire story might have collapsed into a sweaty, writhing jumble of hardcore pornography. So give him your thanks; or send him a strongly worded letter, depending on your stance vis-a-vis the previous sentence.

And as always, Sherry is an sensual ripe-bodied editing goddess who deserves all the accolades.


	9. This Island, These Tides

**9**

**This Island, These Tides**

* * *

><p>"<em>When immersed in the environment it becomes<br>__easy for even an experienced Integrationist to lose  
><em>_sight of the details in favor of wider focus. This  
><em>_is never more apparent than during the 'down time',  
><em>_the long stretches that exist between objectives.  
><em>_Primarius training is designed to impart patience,  
><em>_but many in the field find that patience does not  
><em>_always equate to tolerance. When the adrenaline  
><em>_fades the mundane then attempts to reassert itself.  
><em>_As is often the case, the most subtle lessons of  
><em>_integration are the hardest to bear, for they insist  
><em>_that events must unfold at their own pace. The same  
><em>_trauma that is lost on battle-hardened Integrationists  
><em>_can leave Primes exhausted, physically and emotionally.  
><em>_True integration requires a constant adjusting to  
><em>_the needs of those within your care. An Integrationist  
><em>_must learn to accept that, quite frequently, those  
><em>_needs cannot be met with effort, but only by time."_

-The Guiding Light: An Integrationist's Guide to Understanding Primes, Chapter IX: When Strength Fails

* * *

><p>"Harry."<p>

Harry was clinging to the edge of unconsciousness, nearly sunk into the full embrace of welcomed sleep. The insistent tug of the darkness behind his eyelids was not quite strong enough for him to ignore the sudden speaking of his name, though, no matter how much he wanted to.

"Harry," the voice said again, more insistently.

The flat tones of the accent identified it as Scott, and therefore not an immediate threat. Harry was accordingly not enthused enough to respond. This had a lot to do with the heavy warmth wrapped around him. That weight which so attractively draped itself across him was none other than Ginny, who had started the night collapsed on the opposite side of the bed and had at some point shifted to cling to him. Not that he was complaining. If he had known that having her in his bed like a heated blanket would be so conducive to slumber he might have tried it sooner.

She did provide some distraction, however. Every time she inhaled her breasts pushed themselves against Harry's ribcage, a delicious sensation which made him think that maybe women with Lila's level of endowment were overrated. Ginny was just so... _pert_, he supposed was the word.

A sigh. "Harry... I know you aren't asleep. I need to talk to you."

Harry squeezed his eyes shut even tighter and grimaced. It was clear that Scott wasn't going away, and, fearing that things might soon escalate to violence, he blinked back encroaching sleep and tried to focus. After a few seconds he could see Scott's dim form towering over him, backlit by the low light from the open doorway.

"What?" Harry whispered.

"I have a question and, no, it can't wait." Scott tilted his head more towards Ginny. "Someone's a sound sleeper."

Harry was grateful for that, but even Ginny would probably wake up if he had to shove her off of him. "I can't exactly move right now."

"Really? Did you pee before you went to bed? It can be difficult to just lay there, when you're so comfortable, but there's that insistent pressure and all you can think about is waterfalls and spigots... All that liquid, pouring, gushing, trickling..."

God damn him. Harry's focus shifted to his bladder and it responded accordingly. "Just when I think I can't hate you more..."

"And before you take a leak, you have to talk to me. Another obstacle on the road to relief."

Finally, Harry gave up and shifted from his position. Somehow he managed to slide out from under Ginny's limbs and slump gracelessly to the floor. Ginny snuffled a bit in her sleep, but didn't wake. She must have been more exhausted than she'd let on.

Out in the hallway, Harry motioned for Scott to hurry up. "Go on, what's so bloody important you had to wake me up and send me to the loo?"

"I was poking around downstairs and ran into some kind of low-level sentient named Kreacher. Short, oddly coloured with large ears. He said he lived here, is that true?"

Harry sighed. "I should have mentioned him before. Yes, he does live here. He's the Black family house elf."

Scott cast a glance around the grimy, poorly lit hall. "Don't they clean or something?"

"He's mad. Spends all of his time talking to the portrait of Mrs. Black in the entryway. He also hated Sirius and had a part in... in what happened."

"He's a traitor?"

Harry didn't want to relive those events, not again. He tried to move on. "I don't know if we can call him that. He was never loyal to us in the first place, he just answered to Sirius and now me because he has to. He's an evil little shit, though. I was hoping he'd stay in whatever hole he crawled into."

"Do I need to kill him?"

That brought Harry up short. Scott had the blank look on his face that commonly accompanied his most difficult questions and statements. As usual, he looked neither eager nor loath to actually carry out such an act. He merely wanted to know if it was necessary.

"No. He can't leave the house or betray us or do much of anything unless I tell him to," Harry said. "He might call you some names, but that's about all he can do."

"I think he's afraid of me, actually. Or at least what I was carrying." Scott tapped a finger against one of his handguns. "We ran into each other by surprise. He asked me what I was doing sullying this house, I asked him who he was supposed to be and how he got in. He told me his name and that he served here, so I said I'd have to check on that with you. He started to leave, I pulled a gun on him, said to not fucking move; he took off like a bat out of hell."

Harry frowned in thought. "Huh... He's been a wizarding house elf his whole life, almost never leaves this damn place. If he was afraid of your guns then he must know what they are, somehow."

"I may have the answer to that, as it turns out. But it can wait until morning."

"I'm so glad this couldn't," Harry said sarcastically, though he was torn with the need to return to bed and the curiosity raised by Scott's assertion.

"Go ahead and sleep in, everybody needs it. Nothing on the agenda for today but discussion, anyway."

Harry nodded and turned away, ready to relieve his aching bladder and crawl back into a bed that would still be warmed by the second presence he was not yet accustomed to. He and Ginny were both fully dressed, at least, and had been so tired that they'd fallen onto the same bed and passed out without talking about it. Which was fine. It wasn't how Harry had imagined his first time sharing a bed with a girl would go, but it was a good way to start (not that he dared to hope it would continue). His protestations the previous night when Ginny had suggested sharing had stemmed mainly from his anxiety in not knowing what she was expecting from him. If she just wanted to cuddle for warmth every night, he was more than willing to give it a go.

She was still asleep when he returned to his (their?) room and he couldn't think of any way to get back in his previous position, so he moved to the other side of the bed and put his arm over her waist. They were both fully clothed but it was still the most intimate Harry had ever been with another person in such a fashion: long term close physical contact. That was sort of a depressing thought. Of course, given how little the Dursleys had ever been tactile it was fortunate he hadn't developed some kind of neurotic aversion to be touched at all.

He'd never really thought about that before. He supposed, in that sense, he was lucky such a toxic upbringing hadn't damaged him more thoroughly.

Or that's what he thought, anyway. He knew better than to solicit any other opinions.

He blinked a few times, felt the darkness at the edges of his vision start to swell and fold in. His limbs ached with the memory of exertion and cold; a myriad of scratches stung against the cloth of his shirt whenever he shifted. It didn't matter. Ginny's heat radiated through the layers of cloth and skin, pushing aside the thoughts and pain and then consciousness.

Then he blinked again, this time against the light.

He had no idea how long he had slept. Ginny was gone and a quick sweep with his hand revealed the spot she had occupied was no longer warm. Harry had never closed off the room completely after Scott had come in, and the soft light that shone across his bleary vision came reflected off the partially opened door. There were no windows in the room, which was good, since he probably would have woken up much sooner had that been the case.

With a groan, he pushed himself up and out of the bed and staggered into the hallway. Some of the bedroom doors were opened while others were closed, and he realised he had no idea who was sleeping where.

Glancing back into his new quarters, he noticed something odd, a detail he had not perceived without the morning sun to illuminate the scene. The furnishings were clearly disarranged, with randomly opened drawers and odd and ends scattered about. He was fairly certain neither he nor Ginny had caused the mess, and couldn't think of any reason why Scott and Hermione would have when they had searched the place the night before. Someone had been looking for something. His heart rate quickened: had it been Snape?

He considered that as he went downstairs. There was no evidence that Snape had returned to Grimmauld Place at any point. The added protections left by the Order had been undisturbed when Harry had arrived, and no doubt there were further safeguards that were not apparent. A more likely culprit, Harry reasoned with burgeoning fury, was that rat Mundungus. He'd stolen more than a few things from the Black estate and likely hadn't felt the need to be subtle about it.

Harry stumped into the kitchen to be greeted by the sight of Hermione, Ron and Ginny rummaging through cupboards and generally making a mess in what seemed to be the pursuit of breakfast. Scott was nowhere to be found.

"Find anything edible?" Harry asked as he approached them.

"Not much, I'm afraid. We won't starve today, but we will need supplies soon," Hermione said, placing cans on the counter top. "I'd rather not dip into our emergency stores in my handbag unless we have to."

"Right, no point in eating any of that when we can go to the shop," Harry agreed.

"Will it be safe going to Muggle shops?" Ginny wondered.

Harry bit back his automatically pessimistic response in favour of something more encouraging. "Well... They can't watch _all_ the shops. There's a lot of them out there," he said, remembering his car trip with Lila when the Muggle world had seemed so vast.

"I doubt they're watching any. They may be watching this particular area, however, so we'll want to go further afield." Hermione turned away from the cans she had been examining with an expression of mild disgust. "These are edible, in the strictest sense of the word."

Ron sighed. "We do have Muggle money, right, because I can't do this more than once. Breakfast was not meant to come in cans, that's just... Blasphemy, or something."

"Your mum isn't here to cook for us, so even after we buy food I suggest you lower your expectations," Hermione advised.

Ron leaned his head back and groaned. "God, we are just off to a great start. We should have brought Lila instead of Scott: handy in the kitchen and nicer to look at. Uh, not as nice as _you_, though, of course..." he quickly added.

"Good save," Harry said.

Hermione just rolled her eyes. "I know what you meant. And while Lila is quite pretty, I don't find that reason to prefer her. Scott has his foibles but at least we know how to work with him."

"I like Lila, she's got her head on straight," Ginny protested, defending the woman she had befriended (an unexpected attachment that still bemused Harry).

"Not as much as Charlie does," Ron snickered. "And he doesn't just like her head, he _really_ likes her-"

"Ron!" Hermione yelped.

"Hey, where is Scott, anyway?" Harry asked.

"He's upstairs with Kylie. Oh, poor Kylie..." Hermione sighed. "She had a panic attack when she woke up this morning. I think she didn't know where she was at first."

"How are we going to tell her about her parents...?" Ginny said slowly.

That was a good question, and one that Harry didn't want to face. "Er... Maybe Scott will tell her. He knows her best, anyway."

"I hate to just push the responsibility onto Scott..." Hermione began.

"I don't," Ron interjected.

"...But in this case it might be for the better. It would be easier, coming from him. Not that it could ever be easy..."

Harry couldn't really understand what Kylie was about to go through: betrayal and disappointment had been constant expectations from what he had nominally considered his 'family'. Even when he had latched on to Sirius there had always been a part of himself held in reserve, reluctant to trust and become vulnerable. From what he had seen, he thought that Kylie might have had a similar upbringing. But for whatever reason she had never become hardened like Harry, who saw emotional abuse as routine.

He frowned, a little disturbed by his own contemplations. He may not have had much experience in the area, but he was self-aware enough to know that those were not good traits to bring into a relationship with Ginny. Maybe he had tried to chuck her for the wrong reasons.

He couldn't express that sentiment to her, of course. Not again, unless he was feeling extra masochistic.

"Knut for your thoughts?" Ginny offered, taking Harry's hand as she sidled up to him.

With a start, he discovered that Ron and Hermione had resumed scavenging for breakfast while he had drifted off into his reverie. He shook himself. "Sorry, I was miles away," he confessed.

"I saw. Look, I know you're worried about Kylie, but I really think Scott should handle it. She likes him, for some reason."

Harry couldn't help but laugh. "Yeah, for some reason. Aren't you done hating him by now?"

"I never _hated_ him," Ginny protested. "He was just such a prat, all the time. Especially to me!"

"I guess I can't argue with that. Still, you have to admit he's been better lately."

"He's been older lately," she pointed out. "He's more tolerable as an adult, for whatever that's worth."

"I'd just like it if you two got along better. This is all hard enough without us fighting with each other," Harry said a bit more plaintively than he'd intended.

"So sorry to be a burden! Too bad you didn't just ditch me after all, then you'd only have Scott to worry about," Ginny said with a huff, pulling her hand from Harry's.

Harry groaned and rubbed at his eyes. "Oh, come off it. Don't try to make this into a row, it's too early, I'm still tired and I'm hungry."

"It's actually not early, it's a bit after noon."

"Really?" Harry blinked with surprise. "Oh. I didn't know what time we went to bed."

"Hmmm," Ginny hummed with satisfaction. "Yes, _we_ did go to bed, didn't we? That was cosy."

He didn't disagree, but he was also hesitant to encourage her too much. When it came to their relationship Ginny tended to take a mile when given an inch, as if she were trying to make up for lost time (or an inevitable shortage of time, which was a much more depressing concept). Harry certainly didn't mind the occasional snog and snuggle; however, he wasn't sure he could handle anything more on top of everything else. Additional complications were the last thing he needed, and going further with Ginny was sure to be very complicated indeed.

Maybe feeling that way made him a poof. Maybe he needed to just get over it and grow up. Or maybe he was making an arse of himself with the daft assumption that Ginny might want to have sex with him in the first place. He was an emotionally damaged wannabe hero with a death sentence hanging over him; it was a wonder she wanted to be with him at all. He should be happy with what was being offered, even if the limits of that intangible offer remained a mystery.

"I don't want to assume anything," he said hesitantly, "but should I put my things in our room, because I slept great, and if you did then maybe we could sleep again, in the same place, that is, if you wanted to... But if you don't I understand, it's kind of a weird situation and we were just living in totally separate dorms and then at your house with your mum and maybe it's not... right..."

Ginny stepped forward, took him by the back of his head and kissed him on the mouth. It was chaste compared to some of their past kisses – for which Harry was grateful considering that Ron was standing _right fucking there – _but it was still passionate.

"Harry," she said firmly when she pulled away, "if you don't show up in our room tonight, I will be _very_ cross with you."

"Understood," he said weakly.

"I should probably do something about this, but I can't even look at you," Ron jeered from somewhere near the oven.

"Hermione, will you hurry up and share a room with Ron so he'll stop pretending he's better than me?" Ginny called without looking away from Harry.

"Leave me out of this, please, I've got more important problems than sibling rivalry to deal with. Things such as feeding all of us, and keeping us clothed and **alive**," Hermione answered with pronounced sarcasm.

"_Someone_ would have woken up cheerier with a Weasley to keep her warm," Ginny snipped back.

"Girls, girls – you're BOTH the prettiest," came a loud voice from the stairwell. Scott strode down into the kitchen wearing the same rumpled and mud-streaked clothing he had the previous night. His hair was in a frightful state and it didn't look as if he'd slept at all.

Harry was just glad the girls had been interrupted before things had escalated. He was in enough pain without any screeching and Scott's condescending greeting would neatly pull all aggressions towards him. Harry, thinking of Scott's many manipulations, wondered if that had been the point.

"Why didn't you get any sleep?" Harry asked.

"I did sleep, just not in a bed. I camped out on the hallway floor outside your rooms. Ideally, if we were attacked my hideous dying screams would wake you."

"Appreciated," Harry said wryly.

"In a much more likely scenario, you would blow up the entire building killing whatever it was that attacked you," Hermione said acerbically.

"Wow," Scott drawled. "Maybe you _should_ have spooned with Ron last night."

"No I should not have, and..." With a sigh, Hermione trailed off. "Why are we all arguing this morning? We have shopping to do and Horcruxes to find and we're all alive and we're all safe, and... and we should be grateful! And poor Kylie had to see all that violence because her parents are just _horrible_..."

Ron was at her side the minute her voice began to crack under the pressure of barely repressed tears. "Hermione, I'm sorry, we're just fooling around, nobody's really angry... Come here..."

"_Oh..._" Hermione buried her face in Ron's shoulder and made a few odd, stifled snorting noises.

Ron rubbed her back soothingly. "It's all right, love. It was a rough night, but we made it out okay."

"We did last night, but what about the next?" Hermione groaned into Ron's shirt, echoing Harry's own thoughts.

"Nothing we can do about that right now," Ginny said with a staunchness that was somewhat undermined by the trepidation in her eyes.

"I know. You're right, of course." Hermione sniffed a few times and raised her head, though she stayed in Ron's embrace. "I try to be strong all the time, but I think the shock just hit me, and... I'm sorry I snapped at you, Ginny."

Ginny shrugged dismissively. "Don't worry about it."

"I _will_ worry about it, just a little," Hermione said, but she smiled. "Oh, dear. I think it was Kylie that sent me over the edge, I just can't imagine what she's going through..."

"We just have to be here for her," Ron said. "What else can we do?"

"Nothing. It's something she'll have to come to terms with," Hermione said sadly.

As Hermione pulled herself back together, Scott walked over to Harry and leaned towards him. "This is getting heavy," he remarked.

"I guess," Harry said uncomfortably. He supposed the trauma of the previous night might seem trivial to Scott. Either that or he was just trying to alleviate the mood with some of his tactless humour.

Whatever his reasoning, Scott switched his approach. "Kylie is asleep again. She cried herself out, finally."

Harry's heart sunk in his chest. "She was crying that long? Did... you tell her about her parents?"

"She didn't cry that long - it just took her that long to _start_ crying. She was bottled up tight." Scott's countenance was compassionate, though something in his eyes went deeper than that (empathy, maybe, but the look passed over his face too quickly for Harry to catalogue, and then he was blank again). "I haven't told her our assumptions about her parents. To be honest, though, I'm not sure I'll have to. She's not stupid, and I don't think she would see something like that as being impossible for them. If she's already struggling to come to terms I don't see any reason to interfere."

"I'm worried about leaving her here if we have to run off again. Kreacher isn't exactly good company," Harry said. "I know she can't go back to Hogwarts; they'd just take her again, especially now that they know we'd come for her. That's another mouth to feed, too. Money wouldn't be a problem if I could get into Gringott's, but..."

"Don't worry about cash. I took half of my bank with me, and Lil has the other half. She's not unreachable if we need it. That should get us where we need to go, depending on how long this lasts." Scott shrugged. "We may have to consider other eventualities. I can always get my hands on regular money, at least."

"You have that much?" Harry said with a start. Scott had never acted like he'd had a great deal of money... Then again, it wasn't like there was much use for pounds at Hogwarts.

"No. But I know where to get it."

Harry rolled his eyes. "I don't think we'll have time for you get a real job, mate."

Scott grinned, an expression that instantly made Harry forget he was conversing with Scott's adult self. "Yeah, probably not. But operations sometimes call for self-funding in a hurry."

"So... Like, just take out a loan?" Harry supposed taking out a Muggle loan would be an easy way to get money, especially since a Memory Charm would erase the debt quick enough. That was not very morally sound, of course. He definitely would not want to modify anyone's memory unless he absolutely had to.

What Scott said next took morality more or less out of the equation. "Drug money, usually. Maybe number rackets or prostitution, depending on time and place, but usually drug money. All cash, large amounts and untraceable. It doesn't even matter if you can't make it clean, it's just more drug violence."

Harry fought hard to disguise just how appalled he was. "Oh. Um... Look. I don't want to get involved in selling drugs, we've got more than enough problems without Muggle police looking for us too."

Scott sighed. "No, Harry, we don't _sell_ the drugs. We steal money from the _people_ who are selling the drugs! We don't have time to sell drugs, come on. One time during my GEP-ILT I was attached to a LEEM unit doing long-term Establishment. They needed a big influx of capital within a month to fund something the MOFA was doing. Anyway, they moved us out of Belgium and set up over Columbia. Two weeks later we hit the FARC, the ELN and the Calis all in the same forty-eight hours and got out with about six million."

"I am not going to Columbia to steal drug money."

"You don't have to; this is London! We don't need six million, but if we need a few thousand there's always a place."

"No."

"Okay, well let's look at what we got." Scott turned and waved a hand at Hermione. "Hermione, are you done freaking out?"

"Yes, and thank you for your concern," Hermione said tartly, stepping out of Ron's embrace. "What is it?"

"Break out the handbag and let's go over some things while we have the time."

"Wait a minute," Ron interrupted. "I'm not discussing anything without breakfast first, full stop."

"It's lunch, really," Ginny pointed out.

Ron nodded agreeably. "I'll have both. And supper, if we can manage it."

"Then I hope you like beans, because not much else has lasted." Hermione picked up one of the cans in question. "I think Mrs. Weasley took most of the food with when she left after we were last here."

"To the store!" Scott declared.

"I have about sixty pounds I took from home," Hermione said. "I didn't feel comfortable taking any credit cards from my parents, they'll still need them..."

"There's money in one of those duffel bags I gave you," Scott said, unconcerned. "Come on, people in Islington have to shop somewhere."

"People in Islington aren't being hunted by Death Eaters," Harry said.

"Neither are we; not here, not yet. I've already been outside and there's nobody around but us and the normal humans you call Muggles, for some reason," Scott told them.

"And what is it you call them? Baseline? How is that less insulting?"

Hermione took a small breath in relief. "It's fortunate they haven't started looking around here yet, I just said we might have to go out further into London. It won't last, so let's gather up supplies while we can. I doubt there will be any Death Eaters at Tesco."

"Yes, let's pop out to the shop for tea and crisps, chaps," Scott proclaimed in a British accent that, while accurate, was unbearably posh.

Harry couldn't quite suppress the smile that brought. "Sure, just talk like that when we're at the shop, that won't draw any attention."

"Why didn't you just fake an accent when you came to Hogwarts?" Hermione wondered. "It's not as if you aren't capable of it."

"Because I didn't have to. Why keep track of an unfamiliar accent twenty-four hours a day when I can just say I'm an American?"

"So you could at least pretend to be more civilised," Hermione said, looking down her nose at him.

Scott crossed his arms and gave her a level look. "Should we talk about how the sun never set on the horror of British colonial practises, or just agree that every culture has its monsters, not that you know the first thing about mine?"

Hermione gestured at him dismissively. "Oh, don't get all snooty. You started this."

"Okay, obviously we need to go shopping, but we also shouldn't leave Kylie here by herself," Ginny said.

"I would stay, but it would not be in anyone's best interest to leave me and my many valuable skills behind. And I say that with total humility," Scott said gravely.

"That goes for me as well," Hermione said. "What do the rest of you bring to the table?"

"Bloody hell, Hermione. Way to make a bloke feel useless," Ron groused.

"_Now_ who's being snooty?" Harry said.

"I was joking and you know it," Hermione told them. "Scott, on the other hand..."

"Is indispensable, always. Now, we could discuss this store trip all day..." Scott began.

"And probably will," Harry grumbled.

"...But in the interest of expediency, how about we lay this out on a D6 or draw straws or whatever it is you British people do."

"I've got a better idea: I'll just decide who's going," Harry said flatly.

Scott hummed in interest and nodded his head slowly. "Hmm, Harry attempts to act unilaterally... But how will that go over with the masses?"

"Take a guess," Ginny said with a glare towards Harry.

"She won't be mad if you pick her," Scott said.

Harry ignored them. "We're _all_ going. Scott, go wake Kylie up. She'll be safer with all of us than she would be here with one person. Besides, this way she can pick out whatever food she likes."

Scott grinned. "Common sense? Why, Harry, when did you develop that?"

"It's a work in progress. Go on, get Kylie. Hermione, let's see if we can make a quick list."

* * *

><p>Hermione walked down the cereal aisle and felt out of place.<p>

She wasn't quite sure what to make of that, since of all her friends she was the most likely to be familiar with a Muggle grocery (with the possible exception of Scott). She had often gone shopping with her father as a child. She very much doubted that Harry had ever been taken shopping by the Dursleys. Ron and Ginny had limited contact with Muggle society, and Kylie probably didn't even know what ninety percent of the products on the shelves even were.

Hermione's own discomfort stemmed from the realisation that the world of aisles, dairy refrigerators and microwave meals was no longer familiar to her. Her summers at home were filled with vacations and time spent at the house with her family. It had been awhile since she had gone shopping anywhere but Diagon Alley.

She glanced around the shelves again nervously. She knew that appearing fearful would only draw attention to herself but it was hard not to be wary. There were no robes or wands in sight. It was evening, so instead of a crowd of mothers and small children there was a smattering of diverse adults wandering the shop. It might have been better for her nerves if the place was emptier. However, she knew that concealment demanded other patrons. Her ragtag group of teens plus two blended in well enough once separated.

The low ceiling and thin shelves didn't do much to muffle sound. Around the corner in the next aisle Scott was speaking to Kylie. "How about sugary stuff? Do you like sweets?"

Hermione didn't hear any response from Kylie. The girl had been almost completely silent since she had been roused from bed, and never moved more than a few feet away from Scott. She was a soundless, bedraggled shadow for the Kharadjai, and Hermione worried not only about the slight girl's state of mind but also the concern her demeanour might draw from strangers.

Either Kylie had nodded in reply or Scott had decided for her, because there was the sound of a box being dropped in his shopping trolley. "Okay, we'll try them."

What were they going to do about Kylie? Hermione pondered that question as she meandered over towards the dairy section, where Harry and Ron were. The poor girl couldn't go back to her home, not after her escape. And while there was no way of knowing what Hogwarts would be like once it reopened, Hermione assumed the worst. It probably wouldn't be safe for anyone, but especially not for Kylie.

And yet Grimmauld Place was hardly suitable quarters for a traumatised child. With the Horcrux hunt ongoing she would be left there, alone, for days or weeks at a time. Hermione plucked a jar of pasta sauce off the shelf and spun it in her hands idly as she thought. Perhaps Kylie would be better off in Lila's care, safe wherever the Weasleys had taken refuge.

Hermione winced when yet another thought occurred to her. Kylie would not take separation from Scott well. He was her lifeline, her only point of familiarity and safety. That wasn't reason enough to risk her well being, of course, but it could be problematic.

Further up the next aisle, she discovered that Kylie wasn't the only one trying out sweets.

"Really, Harry?" she said to him, crossing her arms. "All this time and all you've got is an armload of Jaffa Cakes!"

"I like them," Harry said defensively.

"So do I, but they aren't exactly a rounded diet. Scott has a trolley over there, why don't you drop them in and then find something we could make a meal out of?"

"I was getting to that."

Meanwhile, Ron and Ginny were loading bottled water into a different trolley. Hermione approached them with a nod of satisfaction. "At least someone is getting something useful."

"Do we really need all this? Grimmauld Place has water," Ron said.

"I know, but these will be good in an emergency."

"How much Muggle money do we even have?" Ginny wondered. "Is water expensive? We've got loads of it."

"Quieter, please, Ginny," Hermione nervously reprimanded, looking around for anyone listening in. "We're Muggles too, remember. Don't worry about money. Scott has enough for whatever we buy here."

"I don't really want to owe him anything," Ginny complained.

Hermione rolled her eyes. She herself had plenty of issues with Scott, many of which they had worked out through the medium of heated arguments, but even she didn't think he would be so petty. "Nonsense. I doubt it's even his money, now go on. See if you can find some sacks of flour."

She should have known a group trip to the shop would end up with her supervising the entire experience. Scott was too busy seeing to Kylie to direct the shopping frenzy, Harry had hardly any experience in a Muggle shop and Ron and Ginny had none, full stop. Although hadn't Mrs. Weasley bought food and other things at Muggle shops in town? Hermione supposed that if Ron or Ginny had been in attendance at any point, they had been very young.

She went back to Scott and Kylie, who were rolling their trolley down an aisle stocked with crisps and other salty snack foods. Kylie was holding out a bag for Scott's perusal.

"No, I'm not supposed to eat Twiglets. They make me violent," Scott said. "What about nacho chips? See if you can find some nacho chips."

Kylie dutifully began searching the shelves. Hermione went over to Scott to inspect his chosen purchases more closely. He had selected a wide variety of goods, ranging from canned soup to paper towels. There didn't seem to be any overarching method to his choices, or at least not one that Hermione could establish.

"All the stuff on the bottom will last," Scott said, noticing her examination. "Now I'm just getting whatever. How about the other cart?"

"Ron filled it with bottled water, primarily. Harry seems to be wandering about gathering up biscuits."

"Well, as long as he's doing something."

Kylie came trotting back with a large bag of Doritos. Mutely, she held it out to Scott.

He reached out and took it. "Tangy Cheese, huh? Well, that's probably like nacho cheese. Good work, Kylie. Hey, why don't you pick out something that looks good? Surprise me."

Kylie turned to her new task, studying each new item of food with a seriousness that they really didn't deserve. Her steps were short and hesitant and she paused frequently in rigid poses, hands clasped, the very picture of deep uncertainty.

"She hasn't said a single word all day," Scott said quietly to Hermione. "I'm afraid if I stop trying to engage her she'll just fold in on herself completely."

Hermione did not know what to say to that; she had no answers. "...Keep trying," she said finally. "You're all she has left right now."

"Ouch. That's probably worse than having nothing at all," Scott chuckled, giving her a knowing glance.

In truth, Hermione felt more than a little insulted that he would presume that was her opinion. Did he think her so cruel? Scott wasn't perfect, but he'd been a godsend for Kylie and more than a little helpful to the rest of them. "That's not true, don't say that."

Scott frowned. "I was joking."

"I know, but it wasn't funny. She needs you."

"And I can't always be there," Scott sighed.

"I've been thinking about that. We could put her with the Weasleys; Lila will be there too, which is even better. We just need to know where they're hiding."

"Lil said something about a Fido Charm, isn't that the same magic as Grimmauld Place?"

Hermione nodded. "_Fidelius, _and yes they are, and therein lies the problem. I know your 'apertures' can circumvent that protection itself, but she'll still need the Secret Keeper to reveal the place to her or she won't even be able to know where she is. I'm not sure what the effects of that would be... I'd assume very disorienting, and perhaps even dangerous."

"Even if you get past the ward you still can't know where you are?"

"That's my understanding. There's no precedent that I'm aware of, I'd have to do some research. Lila is most likely a secondary Secret Keeper – she can't tell anyone else about the location. Or, well, I suppose she's a Kharadjai so she could break her own enchantment, but then should theoretically lose her own knowledge of the location... Unless you can stop the spell from doing that as well?"

"I have no idea. I'm the first integrated Kharadjai in this universe, there's no basis of information for how I can interact with magic."

"Of course, even if she did break the enchantment and revealed the location, the spell should prevent a witch or wizard from gaining the knowledge regardless, without being tied to the spell by the Secret Keeper themselves," Hermione continued musing, before shaking her head in exasperation. "Oh, my, that's quite a puzzle. I'd love to experiment, but this would be an exceedingly poor time for it."

"So, as a secondary Secret Keeper...?"

"You can't reveal the location of Grimmauld to others. You just know it yourself."

"Okay, but if everything you just supposed is true, then why wasn't Kylie affected when you Apparated her in?"

"I took precautions," Hermione said with a touch of smugness. "I gave her a piece of paper with the address on it when we were at the top of the hill. I thought if she wasn't told she might be unable to Disapparate with us at all."

Scott looked disappointed. "Oh. And we could have learned so much."

"At the risk of leaving her before a horde of charging Death Eaters?" Hermione said incredulously. Surely even Scott would not be so ruthless, not to learn something that might not even be important.

"No, no. It's better this way."

"That's what I thought."

Hermione turned her head and look back down the aisle at Kylie's small outline, her slender, timid hands gently picking up snacks and putting them back exactly as she had found them. She looked lost and ragged, wearing clothes too big for her with her strawberry blond hair in tangles and scratches covering her arms and ankles. She looked like a refugee.

"Scott," Hermione said softly, "do you think we can win this?"

"Yes." Scott did not hesitate and stated it with total conviction.

"Did you just say that because you know it's what I needed to hear?"

"Yes."

"What do you _really_ believe?" Hermione asked him, well aware she was unlikely to get a real answer.

"I believe Riddle still doesn't understand what he's up against. And it will cost him."

"And once he does understand?"

Scott grinned. "Then things get interesting." When Hermione stared back at him, the smile collapsed and he sighed. "Look... I can't tell you the future. You can't know what doesn't exist; it's just a word we use to express and simplify a complicated combination of causality, probability, chaos and the gradual changing of spacetime. And then there's the shape. So if you're wanting some kind of oracle..."

"No, that's not at all what I meant," Hermione said impatiently. "I just wanted an honest answer."

"From me?"

"Yes, from you! I wanted to know how you felt about our chances. Obviously, that was a mistake."

"Okay, fine. Then in my professional opinion, we're doing all right at this time. We have successfully hidden from superior enemy forces, escaped from them on multiple occasions and won every combat encounter to date. We have goals to pursue and the ability to pursue them. We're losing our support structure from the wizarding world, but we're establishing our own. Intelligence gathering and force composition remain standing issues."

Hermione liked how easily Scott could break the situation down into individual components to be managed and improved. He was an alien soldier, of course, and the way he saw things was not always applicable to the magical world, but it was still nice to hear.

Kylie came trotting back with a bag of caramel popcorn, which she diffidently placed on top of the pile already in the shopping trolley.

"Ooo, popcorn," Scott said.

Later, when they all reconvened at the front of the shop to pay, Scott extracted a sizeable stack of pound notes from his pocket. The staff member at the register blinked in surprise, but the look on Scott's face didn't invite questions.

"Load it up in the car, kids," Scott said, ushering Kylie out of the store with a hand on her back.

The car had been retrieved from Scott's flat. It had taken time to drive it from Ottery St. Catchpole to London, which was why they had ended up shopping in the late evening. There wasn't anywhere to store a car at Grimmauld Place; it would have to remain in a car park nearby.

It was an oddly comfortable trip, despite how cramped the car was. Ron had been afforded the passenger seat due to his long legs, which left four of them packed in the back. Fortunately, Kylie was a small presence. She sat behind the driver's seat, alternating between leaning against the window and Ginny's shoulder. Scott tapped his fingers on the wheel in time with the radio – Hermione thought she recognised The Kinks but he had it turned down low. His attention was elsewhere as he moved smoothly through traffic with a practised hand, his eyes assessing every shop front and alleyway. The groceries in the car boot rattled and rustled and nobody felt like talking.

When they arrived at Grimmauld Place, Scott drove past it without stopping. Hermione understood his intent. The others seemed more confused, and Ron opened his mouth to point out Scott's 'mistake'.

Scott beat him to it. "Eyes?" he said impatiently, as if he had already expected something from the rest of the and they were tardy.

"We all have them," Harry said.

Scott sighed and turned onto a side street that would take them back in the other direction. "Call out targets, people. Give me eyes, three-sixty. You know what to look for."

The second pass down the street revealed nothing out of the ordinary. There were a few passing cars and a bare scattering of Muggle pedestrians. Scott helped them unload the supplies and then drove away to where the car would be kept.

"Maybe I should have gone with him," Harry fretted.

"He can park a car, mate, he'll be fine," Ron said.

It took time to carry all the food downstairs where it was sorted and stored. Hermione didn't know how much money Scott had left. He was about as forthcoming as ever as to the background specifics of his work. She sometimes wondered if much of what he knew was considered classified by his mysterious government. It was an uneasy thought: what if he was under orders to withhold vital information? Such a directive would seem to run contrary to his mission objectives and therefore unlikely, but she never could be certain about much when it came to Scott (a source of their frequent clashes, she knew).

Ginny was examining the Muggle snack food with great interest. Her mum probably hadn't bought that sort of thing and most of the food hoarded by students at Hogwarts had been from Hogsmeade. She started to open Scott's prized bag of nacho crisps and Hermione quickly stopped her.

"Let's not open those. They'll be good for awhile and it's early days yet," she said. They were also Scott's, and Hermione had no wish to mediate the conflict that would erupt if he found Ginny eating his precious nacho cheese.

Ginny dropped the crisps with a put-upon sigh. "Hermione, I'm bloody starving!"

"I bought some scones for today, they're in that bag. Just leave enough for everybody!" Hermione said, raising her voice as her friends descended on the package.

Kylie hadn't moved, of course, so Hermione made sure to grab an extra scone for the girl before someone else unthinkingly ate it. With a luck luck she might be able to coax Kylie to eat without Scott's intervention. While Kylie followed Scott like a lost lamb – which she was, really – she did seem to have some measure of trust in the rest of them (save for Ron, who seemed to intimidate her).

"All right, what's next?" Harry said, munching on his scone.

"Clean this place up again?" Hermione suggested. It seemed their stay at Grimmauld Place would not be temporary and she would prefer more sanitary surroundings.

Ron groaned, Ginny winced and Harry's expression made clear how unenthusiastic he was at the prospect. "Um, maybe we can clean as we go? We've got a lot of stuff to handle that's more important," he said.

"Very well..." Hermione said, disappointed but not surprised that her suggestion had not been well received. "I believe our first priority should be gaining the means to destroy the locket. I would like to be able to get rid of the other Horcruxes as soon as we find them."

"We could clear out the dining hall, put some protective spells up and..." Harry trailed off. "I don't know. Did you have a spell in mind?"

Hermione shook her head regretfully. "I'm afraid not. I've haven't found anything that would help us. I think we would need something specific to the task. But we do know a different alternative: basilisk venom."

"That's not something we can just buy, is it?" Ron asked.

"No. Not legally, anyway. But we know it works, and we have a source."

"The Chamber," Ginny said in a small voice.

"It wasn't your fault," Harry said immediately, stepping closer to take her hand.

"It certainly wasn't, Ginny," Hermione told her. "And besides, that basilisk might save us."

Scott came thundering down the stairs, making more noise than anyone else had. No doubt he did so intentionally to broadcast his presence. "Car is parked," he announced.

"Good. We were just discussing the use of basilisk venom on the Horcruxes, there's some we can retrieve at Hogwarts."

"Okay. Do we have a plan to get in?"

"The tunnels, maybe... They're sort of well known at this point, though," Harry said thoughtfully.

"The plan will have to come later. There are things we still need to see to, like your strongbox, Scott," Hermione said. "I also need to talk to you about the Fidelius Charm. I've had an idea but only you can tell me if it's possible."

"Better eat some thinking food, then," Scott said lazily. "Kylie, did you eat?"

Kylie had eaten about half of the scone that had been given to her, which was more than Hermione had expected. She raised the partially eaten treat for Scott's inspection.

"Okay, good. Try to eat some more." Scott turned a dark eye on Ron. "If you ate all of my scones, son, it's about to get tragic."

"Nice, mate, just threaten me right off," Ron protested.

"History is on my side." Scott stuffed nearly an entire scone in his mouth and then turned to Harry. "When you're up for it, I have something for you."

* * *

><p>"Faster."<p>

Harry thumbed the lever and released the lock, his skin abraded and stinging from the textured surface of the metal. He reached out with his left hand and snapped open the breach, remembering at the last second to turn the barrels so the shells ejected out and to the right instead of hitting his chest. He extracted the ammunition from his pocket and fumbled slightly when withdrawing, almost dropping one. By putting them between his fingers with the brass portion against his thumb he could insert both simultaneously and seat them with his palm. It was a technique he had yet to master, and he grimaced when the top shell glanced off the rim before he managed to get it in. Finally, he shut the breach and pulled back the hammer.

"I said 'faster'," Scott reminded.

Harry scowled but didn't respond, raising the shotgun to his shoulder.

Scott reached over to the tray of china cups that Hermione had reluctantly conjured. "Quick acquisition," he said, bouncing one in his hand. "Identify, aim, fire."

So he kept saying, but since the targets consisted solely of the identical tea cups the 'identify' part of things hadn't meant much. Harry's ears rang, his shoulder ached and his arms were growing tired, but he refused to end the training session. Scott's discovery in the attic had given Harry a new connection to his godfather, a sense of purpose he had needed and a loud, violent outlet for his darker emotions that he had needed even more.

"Just throw the damn thing," he told Scott irritably.

Scott shrugged. "Okay, but you need to keep your-"

In mid-sentence he hurled down the long stone room, low and fast. Harry was startled by the unexpected action and reacted badly. He spun and fired without fully raising the weapon to his shoulder. Without proper bracing the recoil sent him back a step and the shot went wide, cracking against the charmed mattresses they were using as a stop. Apparently the Imperturbable could only take so much; there was a bright flash and then feathers burst from a newly created hole. The cup shattered against the floor and the pieces scattered into the corner to join the rest.

Scott sighed and shook his head, gazing mournfully at the ruining mattress. "That mattress was two days from retirement."

Harry lowered his weapon and rotated his aching arm. "We really shouldn't be doing this inside."

"Yeah, okay. Let's go shoot skeet in the middle of London."

Harry rolled his eyes. "I didn't say that. But this isn't safe, is it?"

"Not for your ears. Might do your upper body some good," Scott said, punching Harry in the shoulder.

It was a friendly blow with no real weight behind it and it was still like getting smacked with a cricket bat. Harry winced and rubbed his already sore appendage. "Ow. Are we done?"

"Yeah, we're done."

Harry turned to leave and was stopped when Scott caught him by the back of his shirt. He tugged out of the grip. "What now?"

"You're not walking out of here with that thing loaded. Drop your ammo and clear it."

Harry grudgingly ejected his remaining shell and pulled the trigger, resetting the hammer. "You're always going around fully armed," he accused.

"For which I am fully trained and certified. How much training do you have? Hmm, oh, that's right, a little session in the woods and then tonight, so maybe an hour and fifteen minutes?"

"What if we get attacked?" Harry demanded. "What then?"

"I presume you still remember how to use magic. Or at least you'd better if we're going to win this thing." Scott grabbed the dusty box of shells and closed it. "Keep a few with you, just don't leave them in the chamber."

Scott had a point. Safety was important, and Harry's other friends were uncomfortable around the gun enough as it was. Hermione especially seemed distrustful of the weapon, which was odd considering her Muggle origins... Or perhaps she was reacting more to the fact that it was in Harry's hands. He supposed that was fair, if a little insulting.

He looked down at the shotgun, savouring the heft and imagining Sirius doing the same. There was a tinge of guilt in the pleasure, though. Had Sirius really threatened Kreacher with the gun? That had been the theory espoused by Scott, and while Harry didn't like the though it did make a lot of sense. The decrepit elf had not been seen again since his confrontation with Scott.

Later that day, during lunch, Hermione leaned forward on the table and caught Scott's attention. "Scott, I'd like to discuss my idea with you."

Scott took another bite of his sandwich. "Shoot."

"I remember you saying you could identify certain 'threads' attached to the charm, and that it might be possible to separate individuals from it."

"I also asked you if that would destroy the spell entirely."

"Yes, and honestly I have no idea. But if we can't monopolise the Secret Keeping again this building will not be secure, regardless." She frowned in thought. "There are still curses in place to prevent Snape from entering or telling anyone. He is not our only concern, though."

"So you want me to cut him off," Scott guessed.

"Actually, I was wondering if it might be easier to remove everyone who isn't in this room?"

"Hold on, what about the family?" Ginny said.

"They have their own Fidelius now, they're perfectly safe," Hermione assured her. "I don't want to exclude them either, but I've given this a lot of thought and we don't know how many people have access to this place. Between Snape and the entire Order, that's too many Secret Keepers. Even Fletcher is a Secret Keeper now, God only knows whom he might have told..."

Harry had not forgotten Mundungus. His anger flared as he remembered the stolen suitcase and the mess upstairs. If there was profit to be made from being a Secret Keeper then no doubt Mundungus would capitalise on it.

"Dung'd probably sell to the highest bidder," Ron scoffed.

Hermione concurred. "He's proven untrustworthy. A clean sweep is our best option, leaving just us as Secret Keepers – save Scott and Kylie, of course."

Harry glanced across the table to where Kylie was nibbling on a slice of cheese she had removed from her sandwich. By unspoken consensus it seemed they had all stopped trying to keep anything from her. There didn't seem to be much point to it, not after everything she had already witnessed. She probably understood very little of what was being said, but she kept her eyes on her food and asked no questions. He understood that particular brand of self-absorbed pain.

"Can it be done?" Hermione asked Scott.

"Yeah, probably. I mean, there's only one way to find out, and I can't guarantee the spell will remain intact," Scott said around a mouthful of lettuce.

"I understand. If it comes to that, we'll leave." She looked around the table. "Well? What are your opinions on this? I'm not making this decision alone!"

"You were doing just fine, I thought," Ron sniggered.

"Do it," Harry said. If it worked, they would be safe. If it didn't, he wouldn't be sorry to leave.

"It sounds like the best plan," Ginny said agreeably.

"Kylie, what about you?" Scott turned to the girl.

Kylie seemed to shrink when their eyes focused on her. She slumped in her seat and shrugged her thin shoulders.

"Good enough for me. I'll need time to parse this out. If you need me, I'll be upstairs on that couch." Scott pushed himself to his feet and belched loudly.

"Right. Don't strain yourself," Ginny snarked.

"Ah, Virginia... Your ignorance isn't even amusing any more."

"_Ginevra!" _She seethed.

Scott ignored her, traipsing up the stairs with Kylie at his heels. For his part, Harry was tempted to go back to the dining hall and fire off a few more rounds. No doubt Scott would insist on supervision, though. Grimmauld Place did not offer much in the way of recreation. Hermione retained nearly full control of all the reading material, which was likely for the best. Past experience indicated that having Harry or Ron participate directly in her literary research would only serve to slow her down.

He had already thoroughly explored the premises on previous occasions and had no wish to unearth any memories. So when they all went their separate ways Harry remained in his chair and tried to stave off the dark thoughts which always came seeping in when the future loomed large in his mind. It was hard to believe it had only been a couple days since the wedding; it felt like a lifetime. At least they hadn't been sitting around, waiting for the fight to come to them... Not that they'd had the chance. He wondered if, outnumbered as they were, there would always be too many fires to extinguish. Would they run themselves ragged fighting a war too large for them to win? He slumped over in his chair, brow furrowing.

His brooding was interrupted by his best defence against it. "I know that look," Ginny said. She seated herself in his lap and wrapped her arms around him. "This should help."

He returned the gesture. Her warmth had a way of thawing the fear that gripped his heart. "It always does."

They sat like that for a long moment. Harry was just beginning to calculate how long he could remain in such a position before he lost circulation to his legs when Ginny began to speak again.

"I didn't get you anything for your birthday," she said guiltily.

She was still thinking about that? Harry barely cared that he'd even had a birthday. "It's fine, Gin. I honestly don't care, my birthday doesn't matter now and didn't matter much when it happened."

"I care!" she told him. "And you should, too, if only for all the effort Mum and Lila made. She gave you a cake."

That made Harry feel a bit bad. He hadn't thought of it like that. "You're right. It was a good cake, too..."

"...I did have something. Something in mind, I mean," she said quietly after a pause.

He debated whether he should express interest or point out the irrelevancy of the discussion. The first option was safer. "What was that? That is, if you want to tell me. I can always wait."

"I almost didn't bring it up, since I..." She stopped. It was strange seeing her so hesitant. "It was kind of an impulse."

He didn't know what she was talking about. And, really, he just wanted her to understand that it didn't matter. He didn't need any more presents. He was alive and he had her with him, which was more than he had expected. "Are you going to tell me? Or is it still a secret?" he asked, humouring her.

She looked up and met his gaze seriously. "I'm not a slag," she said defensively, as if that were something he needed to hear. "I'm not."

Now he was completely confused. "Uh... I know that, Ginny. I never thought you were... I _don't_ think you are."

"But, I thought maybe, since this is so dangerous and if... I mean, if I wasn't going to make it-"

He did not want to hear that. "You're going to make it," he said with the kind of firm desperation that comes from the impossibility of believing otherwise.

"But if I don't-"

His teeth clenched. "You will."

"Harry! I'm just saying that I was a bit scared and thinking about things, and then it was your birthday and, well, we haven't been dating very long but I feel like we've been together forever, and all I could offer was..." She looked away. "...Me."

She was sitting in his lap and they were entwined in a tight embrace. He wasn't sure how he could be said to not have her at that moment. "So... What's this, then? You aren't really here?"

She groaned with exasperation. "Stop being thick, Harry! I thought we might... do _it_."

She couldn't be suggesting what he thought she was. He recalled his earlier thoughts, his self-recrimination at similar presumptions. "...I must be missing something."

"You aren't, but you're doing a good job at pretending," she told him. She was blushing, he noted with shock. "Sex, Harry. I thought we could have sex. I didn't want to die a virgin."

Lust was instantly overwhelmed by terror. "You're not going to die at all."

"Probably not," she sighed. "But that's what I was thinking. I lost my nerve, after all that's happened. I guess... Given the time to think about it, you know, I guess I wasn't so ready."

If he were direct with himself (which was difficult, considering the images her confession had sent spinning through his mind), he knew he wasn't ready for that either. He had decided as much earlier, and nothing had changed since. "It's a big decision, or so I hear," he said, trying to bring some humour into the conversation.

"You aren't upset, are you?" She risked a glance up at him. "I know it's a bit shit for me to bring it up and then tell you I changed my mind... Now I'm just a tease."

He did sort of wish he'd never heard about her intentions or her change of heart, but it was too late for that. "It's all right. And you're not a tease or a slag or any of that other rubbish. You're just being honest."

She pressed her cheek against his shoulder and sighed. "I'll have to get you something else. Sorry."

"It can't possibly be as good," he said in a rough approximation of Scott's leer.

She wiggled on his lap in a self-satisfied sort of way and laughed. "Of course not. But it will have to do... for now." She whispered the last part directly in his ear, making him shiver.

Harry didn't expect anything from her; every new offering was accepted with gratitude. He was still amazed she let him touch her at all.

He hoped he could never take her for granted.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note<strong>

You may have wondered where I've been. Or maybe not, seeing as I tend to disappear anyway. I've just spent two months away from home without internet or even a computer with which to type. However, I was not entirely unproductive. I continued to write by hand and must now attempt to take the notebooks I filled and turn them into something readable whilst deciphering my own inscrutable handwriting. Calligraphy will never be a viable hobby, I can tell you that.

No questions this time, my treasured readers. Let me know what you thought of the chapter instead of answering my inane queries.


	10. Trace These Lines

**10**

**Trace These Lines**

* * *

><p>"… <em>for its continued role in deciding the patterns<br>of Kharadjai expansion within Solus. Similarly, the  
>shape is crucial to field agents operating within<br>other universes for the inverse of the same purpose.  
>Rather than plotting the most stable locales for growth,<br>the shape is frequently utilized to find the center of  
>an already extant continuum. It can be misleading<br>to use the word 'center' in the same sense as it is also  
>technically inappropriate to use any terms of basic<br>spatial relations. The shape is at once infinite and  
>finely featured, a blank slate that reflects the geometry<br>and hues of existence. In doing so, it corresponds to  
>what we identify as landmarks both physical and<br>idealogical. Used in practical application, this  
>ephemeral 'center' often marks the Prime(s),<br>delineating them by corresponding to their actions  
>and presence.<em>

_Confusing the issue are the objects that may be_  
><em>marked in a similar fashion. A more detailed<em>  
><em>understanding of the shape can only be gained by<em>  
><em>learning to differentiate the finer threads of change<em>  
><em>and import that emanate with subtle distinction from<em>  
><em>the sentient and the inanimate. Experienced field<em>  
><em>agents will not confuse the two; but multiple<em>  
><em>inanimates are often challenging to isolate, and<em>  
><em>inscrutable of purpose."<em>

-H. James Weller, _The Measureless Expanse_

* * *

><p>The shape floated behind his senses like magnified plaid, a riot of woolly, contrasting colour. Each thread had a purpose — or, at least, implications. Most were meaningless to the observer. The information contained within the shape was the sum total of existence, ultimately too large and detailed to be fully deciphered. Only the tiniest fraction was ever apparent, and always relative to whoever was looking. Either the observer only understood what was relevant and familiar, or they only understood what the shape allowed them to understand, depending on who you asked. Scott had always been of the opinion that the truth fell where it usually did: somewhere in between. Reading the gossamer threads was a skill part experience, part luck, part innate ability and part inexplicable, savant-style instinct. The shape was a science, to be sure. But it was only partially understood at the best of times.<p>

Scott's present universe of residence had never presented a best case scenario for understanding. Much of what he saw as he sat on the couch, staring at nothing, was a chaotic jumble without readable pattern. He could trace the usual lines to his Primes, and he knew the direction he would need to travel to find Lila. Kylie was also linked to him. He'd seen that before and still found it somewhat surprising. She was not a Prime, and not central to events in any way he could discern.

He left the shape for a moment and studied Kylie where she slept on the couch cushions. Her strawberry-blond hair fell over her face, and only the rise and fall of her chest attested to her still living. Scott felt a surge of protectiveness that he didn't try to suppress. Kylie was not a Prime, but she was a friend and an innocent in need. His mission was, at its most basic level, to preserve as much life as possible. Occasionally that meant abandoning the few to save the many. But it was not the Integrationist way to let the guiltless fall if it could be prevented. It didn't matter how peripheral she was or what his original intentions had been. Through his actions, he had taken responsibility for her.

Besides… it was impossible to say what part she might play in the shape of things.

Back in the shape, the twisting strands glittered in an entrancing arrangement. He refused to be distracted. The shape could be seductive in its forms, promising epiphany with just a few more minutes of observation. It encouraged obsession. Scott had been trained to hold the pace.

Grimmauld Place was laced with magic, draped with the lines of energy like creeping vines on a monolith. There were a bewildering variety of spells tied to all kinds of objects and structural features. He could not define the purpose of even a fraction of them, but he knew the Fidelius from the connections it held. Like some sparkling, diaphanous anemone, the tendrils stretched out from the anchoring building to wrap themselves around all who shared in it. Some were familiar signatures, some were not. Hermione's proposition had saved him from having to painstakingly pick out the individual threads, a task he might not have been capable of.

It took time to work it out. The constant motion of the shape made it difficult to construct well-defined actions. He paused before putting his calculations into action. If the worst should happen and the charm was unable to sustain itself after such a drastic change of property, then they would all need to retreat back to the flat. At least Hermione's beaded handbag ensured they were always prepared for travel.

So he did it, reaching into the shape and wiping out all the distant chains, severing them from the source. He almost expected them to begin regenerating immediately — if the spell had a memory system it would re-grow the missing connections and there would be no way to stop it without destroying it entirely. But the way it had become altered after Dumbledore's death suggested a level of malleability.

Sure enough, the links did not extend again. Scott waited a full hour before he was reasonably satisfied they wouldn't be coming back. He would recheck periodically for as long as necessary.

He didn't want Kylie to wake up on the couch by herself so he carried her to her room and tucked her in bed. Given her recent levels of physical and emotional fatigue, her tendency to doze off was not surprising. If it persisted then it could become a problem. The very fact that she was present to begin with was a concern. Everyone who had taken shelter at Grimmauld Place was part of what Scott considered the strike team, the combat element: except for Kylie. They needed someone else to hold down the fort. He had an idea or two about that.

He went to Hermione's room and knocked on the door, forgoing his usual method of barging in because he knew Ron was also inside. He didn't know what he might be interrupting. He had previously considered the logistics of travelling with a group of newly in love teenagers. It might get messy. He wasn't especially concerned with the morality of the situation. He was not a parental figure to any of them, with the possible exception of Kylie; that ship had sailed when he had integrated as a fellow teen (and as a personal preference he tended not to establish paternal relationships with even his younger Primes). In the unlikely event of his advice being requested he'd do whatever he could. A few questions about contraception might be in order.

Ron opened the door. "Hey, mate. What's up?"

"Need to talk to Hermione," Scott said. "She available?"

"Maybe if you talk real loud. She's reading."

"I can talk real loud."

Scott entered the room to find Hermione surrounded by books far larger than they probably needed to be to convey the information contained within. She looked up at him, not so involved as to miss his approach.

"Did you have any success?" she asked hopefully.

"It's done. Nobody outside the building is part of the charm."

She clasped her hands together, beaming at him. "Brilliant! That's a great relief, to have a safe place."

"I might be able to make it safer. I was thinking about Kylie and the food situation." He flopped down on Hermione's bed and made himself comfortable. "We're going to need someone here when we're gone."

"I was thinking about that, too… We can't keep going out in public for groceries forever, it's too dangerous." She paused. "…But I can't see any of us willing to stay behind."

"I was going to get an additional agent to stay here, another Kharadjai. Someone to watch the street, keep the place stocked and look after Kylie and whoever else."

"Whoever else?"

"We can't assume Kylie will be the only refugee we harbour."

Hermione appeared startled; that must not have been a possibility she had considered. "I suppose we can't, at that. And here I was worried we wouldn't be able to shelter ourselves…"

"Guerrilla tactics will serve us well, but it's always good to be able to withdraw to a solid position." Scott closed his eyes and thought about his options again, only one of which he liked. "It's something I'll have to work on. What were you doing?"

"Reading in circles," Ron said. "She keeps asking me for the same books. Which is fine, really. I already feel a bit bulkier around the shoulders."

Hermione sighed and picked up a particularly weighty volume. "He's not wrong. I had been researching Horcrux creation on the chance I might learn something about their destruction. That went nowhere, so I thought I might look into thermal emissions, like Harry suggested. I found an old spell they use in metal working to identify thin spots in cauldrons holding heated material, then from there another spell that shows hot or cold spots in pipes to reveal leaks, but that actually causes the liquid to change colour according to temperature. If I could find some way to marry the concept to altered vision, perhaps with charmed goggles or—"

"Take a breath," Scott recommended.

She deflated. "Yes, well… It's quite fascinating."

"I know. I just don't want you to pass out."

"Your concern is very touching," she said acerbically.

Ron had been shifting impatiently from side to side, clearly eager for Scott to leave so he could have Hermione to himself. That was too bad. Scott had one more point of discussion.

"Speaking of touching…" he drawled, "is there some kind of contraceptive spell?"

Hermione blushed scarlet. "I don't see how that's relevant."

"Oh, but you do. You really do."

"What's it matter to you?" Ron asked pugnaciously. Perhaps he had misinterpreted the direction of the question, as Scott had asked Hermione. Scott wasn't asking for himself.

"It matters to _you_," Scott said pointedly. "We can't wait nine months between Horcruxes."

"There is such a spell, Scott, and honestly I'm insulted you should think we'd have opportunity to use it," Hermione said stiffly, chin up.

"Right, how silly of me. A bunch of physically mature teenagers, all recently of age, in a massively stressful life or death situation with no future guarantees, no parental supervision and no comfort save each other? You'll never be tempted to do more than hold hands, I'm _sure_," Scott said with what he felt was exquisite sarcasm.

"Come of it, I wouldn't… I mean, I... not just like…" Ron struggled, trying to walk a line he obviously hadn't realised was so thin. "She deserves better, I… I owe Hermione more than that!"

"Yeah, it's called 'foreplay'."

Hermione leapt up from her place on the floor and seized Scott's arm, trying to tug his dead weight off her bed. "Out!"

"I am being a responsible adult and responsibly reminding you to remember that spell before you run out of experimentation that doesn't involve penetration—" Scott said mildly, allowing himself to be pulled towards the door.

"_Out!"_

The door slammed behind him, leaving him standing back out in the dim hallway. He supposed he might have been more tactful in his broaching the subject of preventing teenage pregnancy. But 'tactful' wasn't really his style, and he was pretty sure the message had been received. The warning would transcend the method of delivery.

The door to Harry and Ginny's room was also closed. That was more concerning than Hermione and Ron's similar state because Ginny had been very forward in her affections. Scott had a notion as to why, and thus far Harry had demonstrated his typical reluctance in such matters. Still, he could only hold out so long. Scott had always kept an appropriate personal detachment when it came to the sexuality of his female Primes, but he was not so distanced that he didn't understand Ginny's appeal. However, he wasn't at all certain that she really wanted what she seemed to. There were layers at work. He wasn't the only one trying to bypass Harry's self-destructive tendencies.

A friendly reminder remained in order. He knocked on the door and frowned at the lack of immediate response. He knocked again.

"…Who is it?" Harry called out with reluctance. His voice was rough with sleep; it sounded like Scott had woken him up again.

"Scott. We need to talk."

"Can it wait?"

Scott paused. What had they been up to? When in doubt, be direct. "Are you guys having sex?"

"No!" came Harry's much more alert reply, followed by a "Sod off!" from Ginny.

"Do you know the contraceptive spell? I asked Hermione and she said there's a spell for that."

"We aren't having sex!" Harry yelled in exasperation.

"You mean not yet. Do you know the spell or not?"

"Yes!" Ginny snapped.

"Good. Then be careful. Harry, put your tongue to work, that's a skill you're going to want to cultivate."

"Oh, God, please go away," Harry groaned.

Scott obliged, striding off confident that his responsibility to his Primes was fulfilled. It wasn't the usual kind of guidance he offered, but Integrationists had to be flexible. And, while he was on the subject of flexibility, he had some calls to make.

* * *

><p>"Ah, the mystery box," Scott said with relish, dropping his magical strongbox on the table with a considerable clatter.<p>

"Don't drop it like that! It might be fragile," Hermione scolded.

"It's a magical metal box. I'm sure it's fine."

Instead of growing increasingly frustrated, Hermione sighed and placed a hand on his arm. "I know, but please be careful. Magic isn't as durable as you might think."

"Sorry. I think a part of me wanted to see if it would bounce."

"What was the clue for this?" Ginny asked.

"Something about socks, wasn't it," Ron recalled.

"'Sock drawer'," Harry murmured.

"Distressingly cryptic," Hermione said.

"Not really. He left a clue he knew I would understand, and only me. Just like I did for him," Scott mused.

"I'm glad you could clear that up," Ron said.

"It's simple, dumbass. You just had to be there." Scott lifted the box in his hands and recited:

_This is a password,  
>A past written sign.<br>The outside is yours,  
>And the inside is mine.<br>Open it with your hands,  
>Memorise with your mind.<br>Trust not to your senses,  
>Instead cleave to this rhyme—<br>Fear not the fighting,  
>Or the cliffs yet to climb.<br>The journey is dangerous,  
>But our real problem is Time.<br>_

There was a loud, hollow clank and one of the identical box sides popped out of place. Scott turned it over so that it was right-side up, having gained a recognisable lid; when he flipped it open everyone instinctively leaned back.

He looked down into the strongbox. "It's bigger on the inside, for sure," he said, his voice echoing back hollowly. "Not by a whole lot, though." He reached in.

He pulled out a long shape wrapped in rough, lumpy green cloth. It turned out to be a sort of bag; after locating the drawstrings he extracted the object.

In his hand he held a silver sword studded with glittering rubies.

Harry's jaw dropped. "The Sword of Gryffindor!"

Ron was equally awestruck. "No way…" he breathed.

"But… the Ministry said they'd confiscated it!" Hermione stood and hurried around the table for a closer look.

"There's not more than one, is there?" Ginny wondered.

"No, the historical record is clear on that much." Hermione placed her fingertips on the handle of the weapon. "Dumbledore must have given the Ministry a fake… That's the only explanation I can think of."

"Unless this is the fake," Scott said.

She looked at him sharply. "Do you think it is?"

"No…" Scott said slowly, testing the balance of the blade. "It's crawling with magic. And I don't know why he would give us the fake one."

"Hey, there's a note pinned there," Ginny said, pointing to the discarded bag.

Ron retrieved the note, holding it up to the light. "'Mr. Kharan'," he read. "'I regret the premature ending of our mutually beneficial alliance. But you know better than most that there are events beyond our control. I regret the necessity of using you in this fashion to circumvent the Ministry, but you understand necessity as well. I suspect your understanding of the situation surpassed mine in at least a few undefined ways, though there are many more facets you could not have known. No doubt you have discovered a few of them by now. I know whatever armaments I might have offered would be of little use to you — you work within your strengths, as you should. Therefore, I trust you will see this sword placed in the proper hands.'"

There was a moment of silence as they all absorbed the words of the deceased Headmaster. "…Indeed," Scott said after those seconds of contemplation. He flipped the sword in his hand and extended it hilt first to Harry.

He didn't take it right away. "I'd bet a roomful of Galleons you know how to use that better than me."

"I have my own sharp instruments. This one is yours."

Harry took the sword and set it on the table, rocking it back and forth and watching the play of light on the blade. "I guess I won't actually be fighting with it… Probably."

"Sure, stay positive."

"This neatly resolves one of our most pressing issues," Hermione happily declared.

"Get the locket and let's smash it!" Ginny said eagerly, excited at the prospect of progress.

Ron was of the same mind. "This is what we've been waiting for, right? We should kill the one we've got before we find another."

Hermione nodded. "I do think we shouldn't delay. Horcruxes have a negative effect on those around them, according to what I've read. That's not surprising, considering what little I know of their creation. The handbag may be dampening the effect, I'm not sure…"

"The diary was alive, sort of," Ginny said with haunted eyes. "It might not do anything until we try to kill it."

"Good to know," Scott said, drawing his right handgun and checking the magazine.

"It will be your other talents which will prove more useful if it projects any dangerous magic fields," Hermione said, eyeing the weapon warily.

Scott didn't put the gun away. "That's one possibility."

"I'll go get the locket."

A few minutes later they were all staring at the innocuous-looking locket that Hermione had placed on the table. For his part, Harry felt the same way about it that he always had — it seemed like a prize not worth its cost.

"…Horcruxes must be something different, because I am getting nothing from this thing," Scott said.

"What, nothing at all? Not even just magic?" Harry said.

Scott took the locket in his hand and squeezed it, turning it over in his fingers. "No. It's just a locket."

Harry found that worrying. He had assumed Scott's abilities would help them identify the Horcruxes. "We'll see," he said, hefting the sword. "Everyone stand back!"

"Wait!" Hermione exclaimed. She hurried off and dug through one of the cupboards before returning with a cutting board. "No need to damage the table," she said, placing it beneath the locket.

"Watch, now the damn thing will explode," Ron predicted.

Harry raised the sword over his head and brought it down with all his strength. The blade sheared through the locket with a metallic shriek, sending the two halves spinning away as the sword cut deep into the board. They had all tensed when the blade met the silver, but there was nothing. The halves clattered to a stop and silence returned.

Ginny wrinkled her nose. "That's it?"

"It was rather anticlimactic, wasn't it?" Hermione said.

Ron kicked a half that had landed near him; it skittered away without result. "This is weird, mate. The diary was screaming and bleeding all over the place."

"Kylie, don't touch that," Scott said when the girl approached the other half apprehensively. "Something isn't right. Maybe the potion was the primary protection, but you've ascribed semi-sentient qualities to the diary you killed."

"Maybe it was sleeping," Ginny suggested, relief crossing her features.

Scott bent down to examine the locket halves. He picked up the half that Ron had kicked and stuck his finger inside of it. Finding nothing of interest, he dropped it on the table and went to retrieve the other. Harry grabbed it and after a quick inspection he had to admit that it really did seem ordinary. The sheared edges were shiny compared to the rest of the tarnished silver surface, revealing its age.

"It shouldn't matter if it was inert," Hermione was saying. "The destruction of a soul is powerful, violent magic. There should have been some kind of reaction."

"Cut it again, Harry, maybe it's not dead," Ron said.

Scott broke into the conversation with a tone of mixed amusement and resignation. "This clears up a few things." He held up a creased note that he had apparently extracted from the other locket half.

Without further comment, he handed it to Harry.

_To the Dark Lord  
>I know I will be dead long before you read this but I want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret. I have stolen the real Horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can. I face death in the hope that when you meet your match you will be mortal once more.<em>  
><em>R.A.B.<br>_

At first, Harry didn't understand. It didn't seem possible that he had never possessed a real Horcrux all along. He read it again, then again. There was little to interpret. The note was clear and concise. What it meant for the future was anything but. He felt like he had climbed a mountain only to fall back down.

The rage — old, familiar and simmering — began to set in, a slightly better alternative to despair. Had it all been for nothing? All the pain, fear and sacrifice for a fucking _note_?Dumbledore had given his life for _this? _It was like some horrible joke. Better luck next time, Potter, the universe seemed to say. His efforts were utterly futile.

"Harry…? What is it?" Ginny asked, looking alarmed at whatever she saw on his face.

"The princess is in another castle," Scott said laconically.

Harry snapped. _"__**Fuck off!**__"_ he snarled, rounding on Scott.

And then he had to get out of that room before he said or did something stupid (and Scott's sardonic amusement at the turn of events was infuriating beyond measure). He hurled the note down on the table and stormed upstairs, ignoring the confused cries that followed him. He had to be alone. He had to suppress the aching knot of anger and panic and unbearable frustration before he would be of any use to anyone.

He started to enter the room he had shared with Ron out of habit, too caught in his maelstrom of emotions to pay attention. Hermione's Imperturbable reminded him, painfully, of the reasons for not going in there. He withdrew his aching hand from the invisible field and lashed out with his foot at the nearest wall, leaving a sizeable dent in the plaster. The act did nothing to calm him.

The worst part of the discovery was that Dumbledore had died to retrieve a worthless fake, but almost as bad was the realisation that they were right back at the beginning, surviving without advancing. It wasn't enough to just stay alive while being hunted. They had to find victories if they were ever going to win.

Now one of the keys to victory was gone, taken by an unknown party who may or may not have destroyed it. And they could not afford to assume. The idea of facing Voldemort without knowing for certain that there were no Horcruxes left… Even if they won, it would only be a matter of time until the cycle started again. Harry wanted finality, one way or the other. At least if he died he wouldn't have to deal with another Prophecy.

He made his way to the room he shared with Ginny, trying not to dwell on that last thought. Grimmauld Place encouraged such musings; the building carried a heavy air, an oppressive weight. The dim hallways and dark décor always made Harry feel as if he were underground, traversing some ancient subterranean lair. He remembered his brief sojourn to the Slytherin common room. Something about Dark magic seemed to shun the sunlight in a very classical fashion. When he reached his room he made sure to light it as much as possible, but it didn't help much. Light never seemed to reach far in Grimmauld Place. Everything was permanently in shadow, shrouded by gloom.

He collapsed on his bed and ran his hands over his face and through his hair. He knew he shouldn't have run like that. He was supposed to be part of a team. But the thoughts of Dumbledore dying in vain had overwhelmed him. It was so difficult to accept that the Headmaster's last, great effort had been for nothing.

No doubt Hermione would be pulling herself and everyone else back together to work on the next step soon. She was often implacable in her logic. Harry sighed, trying to release some of the tension and regain control. The fight wasn't over. The locket was a disappointment and a setback but it was _not _the end. As long as they were all still alive, Riddle would be resisted.

He tried not to think about the likelihood that they wouldn't be living much longer.

* * *

><p>Hermione knew she should probably go to bed, but her mind was moving too quickly for sleep.<p>

The discovery that the locket was a fake had been a major disappointment and had left them all discouraged (save for Scott; Hermione suspected that whatever let down he might have experienced was offset by smug satisfaction: his instincts had been correct). When Harry had left, not even Ginny followed him. There was a general numbness that set in with the realisation that they had been further behind in the Horcrux hunt than they had known. Now they were left with nothing but vague clues and little idea as to following them.

Ideas were usually Hermione's province, and she was feeling the pressure. Not for the first time she wished the others shared her intellectual proclivities. It was nice to be relied upon, but sometimes she felt isolated in her research, expected to deliver solutions because she had in the past. She herself was largely to blame for that perception. She had consistently taken command of such tasks, and (if she were to be honest), occasionally belittled the academic gifts of her friends, unintentionally and otherwise.

She was the clever one. Everybody said so. Before Hogwarts that was _all_ she had been. Meeting Ron and Harry had allowed her to grow and change and occasionally take on other roles. Being a friend, a fighter, now a girlfriend.

A girlfriend… That was a new title. She felt her heart skip a bit at the thought. She thought it lucky that Ron was as inexperienced as she, since she doubted she had been an ideal significant other. The whirlwind of events they were caught in demanded the majority of her attention. Now that they had finally established a place of safety perhaps she could spend more time with Ron, the way Harry and Ginny had been together more.

Of course, Harry and Ginny had also been sharing a room. Hermione bit her lower lip nervously, considering that. It hadn't been so long ago that she would have objected to the arrangement on moral grounds, but now… Now whatever comfort could be found in the face of evil seemed a small transgression, indeed. Even Scott, who was at least nominally the adult in their party, had done no more than inquire as to whether they all knew the contraceptive spell (which she really ought to have expected, and in regards to sexual discourse it had been responsible of him, even if his manner was less than considerate). It all left her to wonder if perhaps by clinging to no longer relevant modes of propriety she was only depriving herself. Who was she seeking to impress with her virtue? Mrs. Weasley, no longer present? The parents who didn't even remember her? There were lines and then there were _lines_, and many had faded in the shadow of greater issues. Nothing said she had to have _intercourse_ with Ron… She wouldn't mind being held, though.

She worried at her lip some more, thinking of how to best broach the subject with him. She was having difficulty conceiving of any method that wouldn't make her sound like a 'scarlet woman', as Ron had so humorously put it once. Ginny didn't seem to have that problem. But then, Ginny had been very forward with Harry lately, aggressive even by her standards. Hermione wasn't sure why, though it did seem to be working. Harry had a complicated tangle of intimacy issues bestowed by his horrible relatives. Perhaps Ginny knew she would never get anywhere if she left things up to him.

Ron didn't have the same problems, but he did have a strong sense of inadequacy ensured by a large number of accomplished older brothers and his close friendship with a world-famous wizarding hero. It had come between him and Hermione before. Sharing a room might go a ways towards ameliorating that, making it totally clear that she wanted to be with him. They'd been so busy that he could probably use a reminder.

What would he think, though, at the suggestion? What would he _expect? _She crossed her arms beneath her breasts, imagining them bared to his gaze and feeling the heat flood her face. She didn't think she could handle that, not yet. Just the idea of being next to Ron in a bed, draped in his limbs, his presence large and warm and so intrinsically male left her suffused with a heady combination of comfort, desire and fear. The concept of pressing herself against him in such a position, feeling the contours of his chest and stomach and maybe even the clearest sign of whatever interest she could stir in him… It was odd how apprehension and arousal were not mutually exclusive.

The precise instant she became thankful that she was alone was, predictably, right when Scott came strolling in. He slouched in the chair across the table and tented his fingers, assessing her. She lifted her chin defiantly and fought against her lingering blush.

"Everyone else is in bed, or at least in their rooms," he said. "I assume you're deep in thought."

"Yes," she replied, volunteering nothing.

"Judging from your flush, pupils and the way you're poking against your shirt I can guess what you were thinking about."

She bit the inside of her cheek and blushed again, trying to tug her shirt out a bit without making it obvious. "Then you can keep that guess to yourself!"

He nodded. "And you? Will you be sharing with anyone?"

She sighed and looked away. "…I haven't decided yet."

"Another hard decision."

"Well, this one isn't quite so earthshaking as some others."

"That depends how close you are to it. You are very close, and you might be taking things _a lot_ closer."

She felt like she should be offended. "Maybe I'm not that kind of girl."

"I think you could be, which is part of what you find so disconcerting."

She glared at him. "You really think you know everything, don't you. You think you've got everyone so perfectly charted."

"Never. But I do think I'm right about this."

"What does it matter to you?" she demanded. "Ron and I are already together, your job is done. Further interest at this point is perverted; are you trying to breed us?"

He leaned forward on the table with exaggerated interest. "No, but since you've advanced such an intriguing idea…"

"You're vile," she sighed.

"And you're weird. I've got a horny teenager with a boyfriend in a safe house sans parental restrictions and she's getting on to me for not being more repressive."

"You're supposed to be!"

"I'm supposed to be your friend and ally, not your dad. I'm here to protect and advise you, and to that end I already asked about safe sex. I was responsible. What else am I supposed to do? Confine you to separate rooms? Watch you twenty-four hours a day? Nobody here is going to be discouraged from sex by my non-existent authority. I came to you at Hogwarts as an equal. If you guys decide to start fucking each other, I can't stop it."

She didn't really know how to cope with the idea of her and Ron fu… doing that. "I see your point. But you're still an example for Kylie."

He spread his hands. "And who am I sleeping with? Anybody who tells you they've taken this ride is lying."

"That's good to know, seeing as you've spent most of your time surrounded by girls far younger than you. Sarah Hilman from Hufflepuff was telling anyone who would listen for awhile that you were… Um, you did… Well, it's personal."

He looked at her incredulously. "What? That I did _what?_"

"I'm not repeating it!"

"Well, I don't even know who that is, goddammit!"

"Oh, don't have a fit. Nobody smart believed her."

"That leaves a lot of people who did."

"That's a rather dim view of the Hogwarts population… if fairly accurate," she conceded. "I don't think you need to worry about gossipy Hufflepuffs at this point."

"Neither do you."

"Steer me not towards temptation," she said dryly.

"My hands are off the wheel," he said. "It's your morals, your body, your love. I was merely curious as to the direction of your musings."

"You'll have to stay curious. I'm not rushing into anything."

"True to form," he said without disapprobation.

"Do you think I'm too careful?" she asked suddenly, voicing an old fear. "Maybe all I do is hold everyone back…"

"They need it. Harry is impetuous enough for all of you."

"But I—I wonder sometimes if I've ruined things for them, on occasion, and maybe I'm not… Maybe I can't be as passionate as Ron needs, and—"

He interrupted her. "Every fire needs a wet blanket? It's not that simple. Friendship is about balance, especially yours. Harry is an effective loose cannon, but he has to get to where he's going first. As for Ron… I think he's decided what he needs. And he's more likely to be worried that you don't need him."

"But I do!"

"I suggest you tell him that. And why." Scott stood up and stretched. "Also, go to sleep. We have a locket to find all over again."

Hermione's thoughts immediately switched gears. She made her way up to her room, once again pondering the mystery of the locket. She might have saved it for later, as she was unlikely to make any progress without further information, but there was something about the whole mess… The initials R.A.B. seemed familiar, she felt as if she had seen them before, and recently. Even more oddly she thought of them as being connected to Scott. But that didn't make sense. He didn't know much about magic (could barely use it) and R.A.B., whoever they were, would likely be found in historical tomes if they had defied Riddle in the last war. Although, perhaps not. The act had obviously gone unnoticed.

She couldn't imagine Scott ever mentioning such a person. The mental connection had to come from somewhere else, or be an aberration. If he knew who R.A.B. was he would have said something when he had read the note.

And yet, the feeling persisted.

She was standing outside her door, mere feet away from the comfort of bed, when she doubled back to find Scott and put the question to him before it faded. She made it to the stairwell when she realised that she didn't know what room he was staying in, if any. He had been remarkably difficult to keep track of, considering he had been confined to the same building as the rest of them. Or he supposedly was. She wouldn't have been surprised if he were wandering the nearby streets in search of threats.

Drat. The last thing she wanted was to search for him again. Scott's frequent disappearances at Hogwarts had carried over to Grimmauld Place.

Well… If he wasn't outside he had to be in _one_ of the rooms. Checking each bedroom in turn would be easy enough. There were three bedrooms he definitely wouldn't be in, as they were occupied or sealed off, so she skipped those. She made sure to check in on Kylie and see if the girl was sleeping soundly. She was, but Scott was not keeping vigil in the padded chair by the window. Nor was he in the hallway outside, as he had been previously.

_I should have never let him wander off_, she thought as she ascended the last flight of stairs before the attic. The door to Sirius' old room was ajar, so she pushed it open.

Scott was slumped on the foot of the bed, eyes closed. He was still fully dressed and armed and didn't have the appearance of intending to stay. She frowned down at him, concerned. When was the last time he had slept? She didn't know how hard he was pushing himself, or how far he could. The source and limits of his stamina remained a mystery (and he probably preferred it that way). Whatever the case was, the stream of low light from the partially opened door highlighted the dark circles beneath his eyes.

She was just wondering if she ought to leave him be when he spoke. "I'm not staying. Harry wouldn't want me in here."

"Harry wouldn't begrudge you a bed to sleep in," she said.

"He can allow me a nap. I'll be up in a minute."

"Why don't you just stay here for the night?" she suggested.

He took a long breath through his nose. "I don't trust the charm like you do. And I don't know if the threads I cut are going to re-grow, I need to check on them now and then."

"I understand the second point, but why don't you trust the charm? It's never failed before."

"That you know of. No defence is perfect."

"Granted." She glanced around the poorly illuminated room; she could see how Sirius' taste in decoration would appeal to Scott for its Muggle roots, if nothing else. "I had a sudden thought that I can't seem to shake."

That grabbed his attention, as she thought it might. He put a great deal of stock in sudden thoughts. He sat up. "What's that?"

"When you saw the note was signed 'R.A.B.', that didn't mean anything to you at all?

"No. Why? Do you think I'm forgetting something?"

"Not precisely… But I seem to have associated you with those initials and I can't figure out why."

"Hmm." Scott lay back down and closed his eyes again. "Well, I can tell you that I didn't take the original locket."

She rolled her eyes. He could at least _try_ to help her. "Obviously. The initials would have been S.K… Whatever your middle name is."

"I don't have one."

"You don't… Anyway, you have no thoughts on this at all?"

He shrugged, an odd expression for his horizontal position. "Not this time. Ask me again later. The shape might be accommodating, though I doubt it. Maybe something will come to me."

She sighed and shook her head. "Only if you get some sleep. Please just stay here tonight, you need to rest."

"Kylie—"

"Can handle your absence for a bit. I'll make sure she doesn't have any problems."

Scott grunted in response, neither a yes or a no. She turned to leave when he stopped her. "Hermione?"

"Yes?"

"I had another question for our earlier conversation. It's personal."

"Of course it is."

He rocked his shoulders, settling deeper into the mattress. "Why didn't you ever get together with Harry? It seems like the opportunity was there."

She had expected another interrogative concerning Ron, not a new and even more difficult area of inquiry. "You're right, that is personal."

"It's not _that_ personal."

She sighed. "I just didn't feel that way for him. Why would that surprise you? You're the one who pushed Ron and me together. You've always been insistent on coupling according to the grand design of your shape."

"The shape allows for many permutations. I try to steer you towards the best path, but that's a very subjective goal sometimes."

"Hence my continued difficulty accepting your tampering. Was there anything else?" she said curtly.

"Specifics, if you would humour me. Wasn't there ever a point where you thought Harry was bound to be with you? Didn't your closeness ever foster desire?"

"I was quite young when I met Harry, and, honestly, puberty pushed me towards Ron…" She cast a furtive glance towards the door. "Don't you dare tell him I said this, but I've never found Harry… especially attractive. To me!" she hastened to add. "I can understand his appeal to other girls, but… He's a bit short and thin, and… Well. I've never really thought of myself as the kind of girl who has a 'type', but…"

"Big, brawny and red," Scott assessed.

She blushed but couldn't really argue. "I suppose so."

"Did you feel like you went against expectations?"

She didn't know if Scott was digging for anything in particular, or if a little invasive psychology before bedtime helped him sleep. "I think a lot of people expected us to be a couple in the first three years… And maybe even after, I'm not sure. I thought at the time that I was being rather blatant in my attempts to get Ron's attention, around the Yule Ball in particular."

"Just took you a little longer to reel him in."

She rolled her eyes. "Just a little."

"Think of how Ginny feels. At least Ron knew you existed."

"Part of me," Hermione corrected. "The part that was a good mate and technically female."

Scott took so long to answer that she started to wonder if he had fallen asleep. "…There's some resentment there," he mumbled. "Don't sit on it. Talk it out."

"Easy for you to say," she grumbled.

"It is, yeah."

She left him, her head no less stuffed with whirling questions than it had been when she had found him. Scott had often left her with more questions than answers, but this time he had provided no answers at all. Not entirely his fault, to be sure, but why he had felt it was the perfect time to begin some impromptu amateur therapy…

She shut the door behind her, hoping he would stay put and rest. In the motion of turning to leave she glanced across the hallway at the door opposite of Sirius'. That was when the plaque mounted there caught her eye. It solved the mystery of why she had thought of Scott to begin with, for it had been with him that she had seen it before it had been worthy of notice:

_**Do Not Enter Without the Express Permission of Regulus Arcturus Black**_

* * *

><p>The next day put them on the path to the real locket, but it didn't take too long for it to become apparent just how twisting that road was.<p>

Harry had enthusiastically joined in the ransacking of Regulus's room. The ostentatious amount of Slytherin-themed ornamentation made it feel like they were destroying something belonging to the enemy, even though that enemy was long dead (and had perhaps been an ally). They had torn it apart, searching every nook and cranny for even the slightest clue. None of them had been hopeful enough to believe they would find the locket itself so easily. Scott had taken charge of the search in a rigidly methodical fashion; he had obviously done that sort of thing before. But despite such direction they had found nothing.

By noon, all they were left with was the name.

They gathered in the kitchen once again, sitting in glum silence. The only sound came from Kylie, of all people, as she crunched her way through an apple — apparently she didn't mind making noise if there was food involved.

"…All right," Hermione said, her face smudged with dust. "We know a bit about Regulus Black from what we just went through and what Harry's told us. So let's try to narrow things down, at least somewhat…"

Harry stared at the tabletop, doing his best to contain his frustrations. "Go on."

"I doubt that R.A.B. ever destroyed the locket. We know firsthand how difficult it is; there's not much out there that will do the trick. Sirius said that Riddle killed Regulus, right, Harry?"

"Yeah. He said that Regulus tried to back out of being a Death Eater."

"Not the best severance package," Scott murmured.

"Retirement plan: six feet of dirt and a decently comfortable coffin," Ron quipped.

"Burial at your own expense."

Hermione pondered the information. "It almost had to be unrelated… Riddle never discovered that the locket was missing from the cave. Regulus may have rebelled, but he kept that secret."

"For all the good it does us," Ginny said. "He just made things even harder!"

Hermione sighed. "At least he meant well."

Harry reached under his glasses and rubbed at his eyes, feeling a headache coming on. "Comforting, that."

"He must have stored it somewhere. If he knew anything about Horcruxes, then he must have known better than to keep it in his own room. He would put it somewhere safe."

"Gringotts?" Ron said.

"I hope not, I really do. We would have a serious problem."

"What about inheritance? Anything that this R.A.B. guy had should be Sirius's, and anything of Sirius's is now Harry's," Scott said.

"Even if it _is_ in my vault, I can't get to it," Harry said.

"Let's try to establish whether or not it was ever here before we worry about getting into Gringotts," Hermione said sagely.

Scott made a noise of concurrence. He rocked his chair back onto two legs and stared at the ceiling. "Hiding something important means either putting it somewhere it would never be found, or placing it in such an environment that, even if it were found, it would be unremarkable."

Harry looked at him. "So, if you were hiding the locket, where would you put it?"

"Around here… In the attic. Minimal foot traffic, maximum mess. It would be just another trinket on the crap pile, if anyone bothered to look."

"If we're going to search, we might as well take it from the top." Hermione rose from her chair and moved purposefully towards the stairs. "Besides, we can clean as we go!"

"Oh, happy day," Scott muttered.

"Do you think you could give me some hand-to-hand training? Like, right now?" Ron asked as he followed Scott upstairs. "Getting my arms broken would be _really_ instructive."

"But then who would break my arms?"

The attic was intolerably dusty. Hermione and Scott had been the only two who knew what to expect inside. The ceiling was not as high as Harry had expected and it sloped downwards in a triangle shape, forcing everyone to hunch if they walked close to the walls. The peaked nature of the roof was extremely odd, considering from the outside the building was quite square. It was like architecture from an entirely different house.

"Start in the corners, work your way towards the middle," Scott instructed. "I'll man the perimeter."

"I can't get to the corner," Ginny complained. She was trying to squeeze between two lumpy objects covered in sheets without success.

"Let's get rid of these sheets and all this dust first, that will make things easier," Hermione said.

The sheets were soon piled outside the worn white door and a liberal usage of cleaning spells took care of the majority of dust. The process had mostly revealed a great deal of old furniture, some of it clearly expensive. Harry dug through the cabinet that Scott had led him to while the others cleaned, setting aside the things which had once belonged to Sirius that he wanted to keep or examine further. He even found another old box of shells in a lower drawer.

The search went on for a time without any useful discoveries. Nothing related to Horcruxes or even Dark magic turned up. The attic was full of the kind of useless household amenities that built up in a residence. It seemed that the Blacks kept their more dangerous artefacts closer at hand.

It was Ron who found the old velvet box underneath a discarded mound of other boxes. It was empty, but the white silk lining was formed into a perfect impression of the locket. They gathered around to examine it.

"Too bad R.A.B. didn't use this for the real locket," Ron said.

Ginny frowned and held out her hand. "Can I see that?" Ron handed her the box and she put it next to the light from her wand. "I didn't see the locket up close, but this shape… It looks familiar, somehow, I don't think that Mum has anything like it…"

"Then how could it be familiar? It's been sitting in goop for as long as you've been alive," Scott said, but his tone wasn't mocking.

"I don't know. I thought we threw something like this away, though, the last time we cleaned. I remember it was chucked with the rest of… the rubbish…" She stopped and her eyes widened.

There was a brief moment of inactivity as her words sunk in. Like a lightning bolt, the memory of the locket in the drawing room shot through Harry's mind. The strange, silver and green locket that nobody could open. Tossed with the rest of the rubbish…

"Oh, fuck," Harry said in a dead voice.

Even Hermione did not reprimand him. If the real locket had been discarded, thrown into a bin and forgotten, then it would now be hidden more completely than Riddle had ever intended. It would be buried somewhere beneath mountains of refuse. They could never find it.

"Now, hold on a minute," Scott said sceptically. "You're thinking that the Horcrux got thrown away?"

"I know it did. I remember there was a whole box of rubbish that Mum wanted gone," Ginny said.

"So… you guys just throw magical artefacts out with the rest of your shit? Isn't that illegal? How is the Statute of Secrecy even possible if every landfill is littered with all your cursed junk?"

Hermione immediately brightened. "He's right. Normal rubbish can be put out with the bins, and some of the things here must have been, but magical items have to be properly disposed of. There's a whole process for it at the Ministry, a lot of red tape — your dad would have been involved in some of it, when it was Muggle objects," she said to Ron and Ginny.

"Mum wanted that stuff out of sight, anything Dark or suspicious," Ginny supplied. "I don't think she ever went to the Ministry."

"I'll bet she boxed it up, our attic is full of boxes," Ron said.

Hermione raised her wand and swept the light around the room. "Right! Finish up in here, and then we'll check every cupboard."

"Mum never came up here, we should go check the cupboards now," Ginny said impatiently.

Hermione appeared uncomfortable with that plan, probably not happy with leaving a job half done, but she acquiesced. "All right. We know a lot of those things came from the drawing room, so let's start there."

The drawing room was more bare than Harry remembered, no doubt the work of Mundungus. He approached the shelf where the Horcrux had once sat, just another bauble in a house full of them. If he looked closely enough he could almost see the dusty outline. How had the locket come to be on that shelf? It seemed like a poor hiding place for an object of such danger. He couldn't believe he had held it in his hands, not so long ago. It had done nothing to him. It must have known it was in no danger. The realisation that the Horcruxes were smart enough to understand when they were discovered was a difficult one. The slivers of Riddle's soul carried his evil intellect with them.

"Harry — look at this," Ginny called.

He left his contemplation of the empty shelves and joined his friends at the cupboard in the far corner. The dusty carpet inside had clear footprints pressed into it. Amongst the clutter there was an empty box on its side.

"Not our footprints, obviously," Ginny said quietly.

Everyone was looking at him. No doubt they were preparing for the effusion of rage that would ensue once he drew the same conclusion as the rest of them. And he already had. Mundungus Fletcher had beaten them to the Horcrux, just as R.A.B. did before. He tightened his fists until they shook, but managed to keep himself together. He felt more than a little embarrassed that everyone so clearly expected him to explode.

"Fletcher took it, then," he said in as calm a voice as he could muster. It probably didn't work so well emerging from clenched teeth.

"That fucking twat!" Ron growled.

"Ron!" Hermione gasped.

"He is!" Ron said unapologetically. "Now what? It could be anywhere!"

"Mundungus… He's the Order member with the fence operation, correct?" Scott asked.

"I don't think he's smart enough to have an 'operation'. He's just a thief," Ginny scoffed.

Scott shrugged, not interested in the distinction. "Well, when we saw him in Hogsmeade, I took a suitcase worth of stuff from him, was there a locket in there?"

Harry's heart, just moments before sunk with despair, jumped with hope. "I don't know, I just chucked it in my trunk and forgot about it, I never looked…"

"It's a good lead," Scott opined.

There was a snag, Harry knew, one that had also occurred to Hermione, judging by the expression on her face. "We had to leave Harry's trunk at The Burrow…" she said. "Oh! Unless Lila brought it with her?"

Scott pulled his phone out from somewhere in his many pockets. "On it."

"If it is at The Burrow we'll have to be very careful," Hermione said, resuming the conversation as Scott walked away with his ear to the phone.

"Maybe some of the wards are still up," Ron said, though he didn't sound like he believed that. The look on his face made it clear what he thought of the alternative.

Harry could relate. The idea of Death Eaters roaming unopposed throughout The Burrow was violently repulsive. He was angry just thinking about what they might have done. In all his life he had only found himself at home in two places, and now both of them had been violated. Ginny took hold of his right arm, either sensing his mood or seeking comfort for herself. He leaned into her and hoped, for her sake even more than his, that The Burrow was still intact.

"If we go, we should do it at night," he said.

Ginny moved her head closer and whispered, "What about Kylie?"

Harry glanced over to where Kylie was seated on the couch. She was reading a book that he hoped she had been given by Hermione, as most of the books in Grimmauld Place were not appropriate for her (or anyone, really).

"Scott said he had an idea," Hermione offered.

"Did he bother to share it?" Ron asked.

"What do you think?"

"Wait until he's off the phone, then we'll see," Harry said.

Scott lowered the phone from his ear. "They didn't take your trunk. Lil says they were already loaded down, so anything of ours is probably still there."

"Damn." Harry squeezed Ginny's hand a bit tighter when he felt her tense; she knew they were going. "All right. We'll need to start planning."

"Yeah. Oh, and Ginny…" Scott held the phone out towards her. "Your mom wants to speak with you."

Ginny paled. "What?"

"Your mom. She's on the phone. Don't shout, she can hear you just fine, and give it back to me when you're done." Scott actually looked sympathetic, which was not a good sign. "You might want to take this out in the hall, but don't wander far."

Ginny looked a trifle faint. She took the phone from Scott's hand the way she might a live snake. She hesitantly raised it to her ear, looking to Harry to make sure she was doing it right. When he nodded, she took a deep breath and said, "…Mum?"

The outburst from the other end was not comprehensible but definitely audible. Harry fervently prayed that Mrs. Weasley did not want to talk to him next. He hadn't grown up in the Weasley household and didn't know how to deal with a scolding, never had.

Ginny winced and her lower lip trembled for a moment. Then she took another deep breath and her face set with familiar determination. "I'm fine, Mum! I… No! I can't! _I can't!"_ she insisted, rapidly walking out the door.

"Don't go far!" Scott yelled after her.

"Scott, don't you dare give me that thing next," Ron warned.

"I would have preferred to avoid it, but Lil can only do so much."

"Will she be joining us once the Weasleys are settled?" Hermione asked, steadfastly ignoring the shouting echoing in from the hall. "We could always use the help."

"Unlikely. She's also been watching the twins at the store, and Charlie and Bill have been talking with the Order. If they get together to strike back, they'll need Lil."

"Keep Lila with them, we've got you, we're fine," Ron insisted.

"I was planning on it, relax. Now let's get some food while we still can, we have to go to The Burrow and who knows what's waiting for us."

"You said earlier you had a plan for…?" Hermione subtly nodded her head towards Kylie.

"It's in progress," Scott said unhelpfully.

"BECAUSE I LOVE HIM AND I'M STAYING!" Ginny screeched from somewhere outside.

"…How very awkward," Scott said after a pause. "Ron, go tell your sister not to break my phone."

"Tell her yourself!" Ron said.

Harry was touched to hear Ginny proclaim her love for him, and to her mother, no less, but couldn't help wishing she hadn't dragged his name into that mess. His good graces with Mrs. Weasley were probably in serious jeopardy. No mother would be pleased to have her daughter rushing off into danger for some boy, even if that boy was the Chosen One and a friend of the family.

"I never should have let her come," he said miserably.

"That's not your choice," Hermione told him sharply. "Would you have left me behind?"

Maybe if he'd ever thought it were possible. Though, then again… "No," he said reluctantly. "I need your help."

"Be sure to tell Ginny she's of no use! And it's nice to know I don't rate for companionship," Hermione snapped.

She stalked off, leaving the room. Ron went after her, stopping for a second to give Harry a look of disbelief.

Harry sighed. "Why do I even bother talking at all?"

"Masochism," Scott said through a mouthful of a cereal bar he hadn't been eating a moment before. "Rampant, unbridled masochism."

"And why do I bother talking to _you?"_

"Refer to my previous statement. Kylie, do you want granola?"

When Ginny came back in she looked exhausted. She practically hurled the phone at Scott and collapsed on the couch with her head in her hands. Harry wanted to comfort her but wasn't sure that would be safe. He was at least indirectly to blame for her distress.

"Why did Lila teach Mum to use that thing?" she groaned.

"Consider yourself lucky she stalled as long as she did," Scott said.

She looked at him through her fingers. "You aren't going to make me go back, are you?"

"Why the hell would I do that?"

"Never mind," she said a bit more cheerfully. "What are we eating?"

* * *

><p><strong>::Author's Note::<strong>

As the story progresses, I think the difference in behaviour Scott exhibits as an adult from the way he is as a teen becomes more readily apparent. Ideally it's still an often subtle distinction.

Like the last author's note, I find myself with relatively little to say — I seem to have an easier time answering your questions than finding a new topic for rambling each chapter. I know I had some fairly epic rambling sessions in the last story but, at least for now, they elude me. I considered not having any author's note at all, as was once my way, but it has been repeatedly stated by reviewers that they would miss my pointless discourse… I presume that only applies when I actually have something to say. No doubt this will be disappointing regardless of how you feel about author's notes in general.

I guess I could mention that I'm pleased with the reception that Kylie's larger role in the story has garnered. Most of you seem to like, or at least not mind, having her around. I've had a few questions relating to her importantance in regards to the plot. I've refrained from answering in specifics, per usual. I really detest it when an author gives away key points in an attempt to assuage the audience. I've read more than a few stories where a main character is 'killed', only for the author to proclaim at the end of the chapter that we shouldn't worry because they aren't really dead. Same thing with breakups, or whatever. I've always avoided detailed disclaimers and warnings for the same reason. I think my only lapse in that general area was stating that Scott would never romance a canon character, which, given the direction of the story, I think hardly counts as a spoiler.

Anyway, thanks for reading and hopefully enjoying.


	11. When We Remembered Zion

**11**

**When We Remembered Zion**

* * *

><p>"<em>The 'Long Night', they called it, two hundred<br>days of darkness in which the cold took back  
>the countryside and the populace went dormant<br>below the permafrost. The same astrophysical  
>phenomenon that birthed the unique economy<br>of Arcturus created the eclipse which took it all  
>away once every twelve years. Many would leave,<br>returning with the light. Those who stayed would  
>watch their world freeze, held in stasis,<br>succumbing to sleep._

_But the war did not freeze. It would burn hot,_  
><em>cracking the ice, dispelling the night with the flash<em>  
><em>of muzzles and the bright blast of artillery. The<em>  
><em>two hundred days would not reign in silence so<em>  
><em>long as the Commonwealth maintained their<em>  
><em>position. As the shadow of Stygia fell over the<em>  
><em>planet, the soldiers girded themselves for the<em>  
><em>long, cold dark. The formations did not change.<em>  
><em>No terms were given. This refusal to retreat<em>  
><em>would result in the most horrific chapter of<em>  
><em>the Border 219 Conflict. Few would leave the<em>  
><em>Long Night unscathed; all would remember<em>  
><em>the lessons in darkness."<em>

—Colonel Had Yinsen, Ret., _The Long Night_

* * *

><p>The plan was simple.<p>

They would Apparate to the edge of the woods where they had previously Disapparated to Lila's flat. From there they would retrace their steps to The Burrow, taking stock of the situation and giving them time to look for any new traps. At that point, based on the opposition, they would either approach the house or try something else. Harry and Scott would go first (Assault Team) while Ron, Hermione and Ginny would take position on the first floor (Fire Team — Scott had been very insistent in his terminology).

Ginny had complained for a bit about not being part of the Assault Team, but it hadn't done her any good. Scott had been unyielding when it came to 'squad' composition and everyone else seemed willing to give way to his experience. Ginny couldn't help but think that _Lila_ would have put her on Assault Team…

Since then they had all tried to keep busy until nightfall. Scott had weaponry to attend to and Harry was back to shooting cups. Hermione was in her room studying, where Ron was no doubt studying her. That left Ginny with nothing to do. Even Kylie was assisting Scott with his guns, mutely handing him whatever tools or pieces he asked for. She seemed to be enjoying herself, though it was hard to tell.

Grimmauld Place was cold and musty and bereft of amusements. So she loitered outside the dining hall, covering her ears and waiting for Harry to run out of ammunition or stamina. Snogging was about the only pastime she could think of that didn't involve a book. Unless Harry was willing to share his new toy… She knew it was dangerous, but she kind of liked that.

She leaned against the door and watched him reload with limited success; he was trying a technique he had yet to master. She admired the way his lean arms cradled the weapon with little regard to its weight. Harry had long had the appearance of being underfed, but now he was finally filling out, gaining a definition to his chest and shoulders that made her pulse quicken.

And she loved him. That still was strange to admit, even to herself. Her feelings for Harry had aged with her, progressing each year: infatuation, longing, lust and then love. Time had blurred the lines between them, the steps indistinct. When had her awe been replaced by respect? When had she supplanted a want for the hero of the stories with a need for the real one? She was uncertain. It was enough to know she could at last be with him, despite his many attempts to ensure otherwise.

That was a persistent fault of his. Loving the person instead of wanting the legend had meant coming to understand just how much wreckage he insisted on carrying with him. Harry had always been unable to let go of guilt, clinging stubbornly to regret. He was a martyr in his own mind, determined to sacrifice all he was to save everyone he loved. He never seemed to grasp how pointless a gesture it was. Those who were close to him either couldn't or _wouldn't_ be saved in such a fashion. He continually tried to set aside his happiness with no result. He just wanted to assuage his unwarranted guilt by abandoning the people he felt were afflicted with his existence.

It was enough to drive her mad, most days.

Even after it had been made repeatedly clear that Ginny wasn't going anywhere, Harry still dragged his feet in their relationship. It was true that they had made great progress recently. That was largely due to her ongoing war against his reserve.

Contrary to some of the nastier rumours that had circulated Hogwarts, Ginny was not a slag. Neither of her previous boyfriends had made it any further than her neck, and not due to lack of trying on their part. For whatever reason, the curvature that she had expected to gain at the onset of her teen years had never quite come to fruition. She ended up short but still willowy, her pleasure at maintaining a tiny waist offset by maintaining a tiny everything else. But she had learned that her red hair, bright smile and confidence could do what other girls relied solely on their figure to accomplish. And not every bloke was looking for an excess of padding, anyway (Charlie's fascination with Lila's extravagant bust notwithstanding). Harry certainly didn't seem to mind.

And she had been giving him plenty of opportunities not to mind. From the outset she had recognised that keeping Harry at arm's length would result in nothing but hand holding. He wasn't going to push, not when it came to her, so she had to push enough for the both of them. That meant keeping a level of aggression that may not have been proper, but was necessary. She _loved_ him, sod it all, and she wasn't going to let his intimacy issues bring their romance to a standstill.

The outcome had sometimes been embarrassing in retrospect (had she _really_ walked in on his shower?) and a lot of her confidence had been a front. She forcefully sublimated her doubts and hesitation because Harry had enough for both of them. She had successfully distracted him from his self-destructive tendencies and brought them closer together. A little propriety was a worthwhile sacrifice (though her 'birthday present' had not gone according to initial plans; she could only push herself so far).

She wasn't always certain when to ease back on the pressure and when to increase it. It was a subtle process than frequently eluded her. But if his tense stance while holding his dangerous new toy was any indication, he needed another dose of the particular care only his girlfriend could provide. She'd have to get right on that.

That was when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the front door begin to open.

It slid forward, then back, then jumped forward again, as if whoever was opening it was unsure if they wanted to enter. It took Ginny a moment to understand what she was seeing. The house was invisible and everyone who could get inside of it already was. So if the door was opening…

"HARRY!" she shouted to gain his attention, and then she sprinted down the hallway and hurled herself against the door. A surprised squeak came from the other side but the door itself barely moved; the breath whooshed from Ginny's lungs at the impact.

Harry came rushing down the hall with his Muggle weapon in hand, trying to reload it while running. He snapped it shut and Ginny heard a gasp from the threshold.

"Hold fire!" a high-pitched voice yelled out. "Friendly! Friendly!" A tiny, pale hand poked through the opening and waved back and forth.

Harry hesitated. "Who's there?"

Ginny found herself being pushed aside as the door opened further. "It's Sophie! Remember me?"

In stepped a diminutive woman with curly brown hair, a pixie face and large green eyes. She was dressed in Muggle attire and carried a sizeable rucksack in one hand. Ginny didn't recognise her, but Harry seemed to.

"Sophie!" he exclaimed, lowering his weapon. "How did you get in?"

"I had help," she said, turning to close the door in the same halting fashion she had opened it. "Scott let me in on the charm, it's very interesting! I had a little trouble with the door…" She extended one perfectly manicured hand towards Ginny. "Hello, Ginny, we didn't have a chance to meet last time. I'm Sophie Strauss, I work with Scott."

Ginny shook the offered appendage; the woman's grip was stronger than a hand that delicate had any right to be. "Hello… Sorry about slamming the door into you."

"It's my fault," Sophie said graciously. "Scott told me to just come in, but I should have known better. Is he upstairs or down?"

Harry started to reply, and that was the moment when the curtains on the wall flew open to reveal Mrs. Black's portrait. She began to howl her usual torrent of abuse. _"Mudbloods, filthy half-breeds defiling my house! Blood traitors, get out—"_

Harry jumped forward and wrestled the drapes shut, swearing at the old woman under his breath. When silence fell once again, Ginny looked back to see that Sophie had produced a handgun from somewhere in her clothing and was aiming it at the portrait. Ginny wondered if a bullet would have been effective. Perhaps Harry could practise on Mrs. Black at some point.

"My goodness!" Sophie breathed, tucking her gun away. "Did I do something wrong?"

"No, that's just Mrs. Black, she's barking mad," Harry said, glaring at the covered painting. "Just shut the curtains again if she shouts at you. Anyway, I think Scott is downstairs with Kylie."

Sophie followed them to the stairwell, curiously studying her surrounds. Her expression remained polite, but Ginny couldn't imagine she was impressed. Nobody else was.

Scott was still at the table, performing some kind of maintenance on a weapon Ginny had never seen before. Kylie was placing bullets on the table in neat rows with great concentration; it seemed Scott had found an unlikely apprentice.

"Scott!" Sophie called out excitedly. Kylie jumped and knocked over some of the ammunition.

"Sophie, my dear, how wonderful to see you," Scott said with overstated cordiality. "I see you've got your tits back, and they are _marvellous."_

Sophie gasped in shock. "Scott! Don't sexually harass me in front of a child!"

"Ooh, you're right." Scott pointed at Kylie. "Kylie, forget I just said that."

Kylie nodded.

"Anywho," Scott said uncomfortably, "welcome to base camp."

"It looks very… defensible," Sophie said with careful courtesy.

Harry snorted dismissively. "Don't hold back for my sake. This place is a rubbish heap."

"It just needs some fixing," Sophie said positively. "What are the other floors like?"

"I'll give you the tour," Scott told her. "In the event of ward failure there are only a few points of ingress."

They left and went upstairs. To Ginny's surprise, Kylie stayed behind and continued counting out her rows of bullets.

"She seems nice," Ginny said to Harry.

"She is. She's about the opposite of Lila from what I remember."

"Hey, I like Lila!" she objected.

"I mean, she's not… You know, pushy like Lila."

"And Scott."

"And Scott, yeah."

Ginny brushed her hair back from her face. "Do you think she's pretty?" she asked casually.

Harry just looked at her. "I'm not falling for that again."

"It's just a simple question, Harry."

"Are you going to do this every time Scott brings in some pretty new Kharadjai?"

"Ah ha! You _do_ think she's pretty."

"Her and half the girls at Hogwarts, so what?" Harry said exasperatedly. "How many of them did I end up with?"

Ginny wasn't actually threatened by Sophie any more than she had been by Lila; both women were attractive but also too old for Harry. Besides, Lila kept a professional bearing and it had been obvious from the moment Sophie had stepped in the kitchen that she had eyes only for Scott. Rather, it was that Ginny took a perverse pleasure in tormenting Harry in that one specific fashion. He was just too adorable when flustered (and no matter how much faith she had in his strength of character, it was always nice to hear that he only wanted her).

"Cho Chang," she said pointedly. Now, Cho was another matter entirely. Lila and Sophie were well off limits, but plenty of Hogwarts girls would have loved to get their claws into Harry — and Cho briefly had.

Harry sighed. "Thanks so much for reminding me of that huge mistake."

"Uh-huh, that'll teach you not to notice me!" Ginny was only partially joking, self-aware enough to know that jealousy was one of her less attractive features (and seemed to run in the family).

"I just love it when you get scary possessive," Harry said dryly.

"I don't think you can blame me after you've tried to chuck me about ten times," she rejoined. "If I let you go you won't come back!"

"…That's fair," Harry sighed. His expression had become more serious. "Thanks for holding on, Gin."

She hugged him and pressed her mouth to his, savouring the rasp of his fledgling stubble and the way his lower lip felt beneath her tongue. "I had to, for both of us," she said once they separated. She had waited six years for him to see her as something other than Ron's little sister, despairing that maybe he never would, that she could never be what he wanted. And once she finally had him, he had tried to use fear as an excuse to tear them apart. She could never have stayed behind. She couldn't imagine bearing that.

She didn't express that to him because he wouldn't understand. Only Hermione did, really. Two romantics waiting for a pair of thick-headed boys to see what was right in front of them.

"So…" Harry said, "I don't suppose you'd consider going back to your mum?"

"I'm going to pretend that you're joking," Ginny said, not letting go of him.

"It sounded like your talk didn't go well," he ventured.

That was a massive understatement. "We didn't 'talk' much. Mostly just yelled."

"We heard, yeah."

She grimaced. "It was hard because I know she's scared for me, but she has to understand that I need to do this. And if we don't win, how long would I be safe hidden away? It's just…" She tried to find the right words. "I _know_ she worries about Bill and the twins and Charlie, but she doesn't order _them_ back home! But I'm the youngest and a girl, so I have to coddled, always. It was like she couldn't even believe that I wanted to be a part of this. I _need_ to be."

"It might be easier to think of you like that if you weren't so beautiful," Harry said without a hint of condescension.

She kissed him again — he'd just earned it. "Maybe I should carry bombs and stuff like Lila, then they'd take me seriously." She frowned. "I hope Mum doesn't go after her, now."

Harry didn't look concerned. "She can probably handle it."

Ginny knew he was right, though that raised the question of who would handle Lila. "So I suppose Sophie is here to look after Kylie while we're away?" she said, changing the subject.

"I think so. She doesn't do the same thing as Scott, she has a different speciality, or something," Harry said vaguely.

"She worked out how to open the door by herself," Ginny noted. It was a simple enough task, but for a non-witch without a wand?

Harry looked startled — he must not have thought about it. "Hey, you're right. I don't think she even had a wand, and Scott can barely light his…"

"Maybe she'll want to learn magic."

"Hermione would be happy to help. I'm not sure how much time she'll have, though."

"True." Ginny tugged at his hand and nodded towards the shotgun he had set on the table. "Come on, teach me how to use this thing."

Harry looked delighted. "Sure!" Then his face fell. "Except… I probably shouldn't. I'm just learning myself, Scott should show you how to be safe."

"I don't want Scott to show me, I want _you_ to do it," she said stubbornly. "You don't have to let me shoot it, I just want to see what you do."

"Well, then Scott probably wouldn't care. I know I don't. I think there are some more ear plugs in that black bag, let's check."

* * *

><p>Ron had plenty to worry about. He'd never been much of a worrier, mostly because Harry and Hermione took care of that, but even he couldn't ignore the immense difficulties ahead. And now, thanks to the interference of Scott and Lila, he had something else almost as unpleasant to look forward to: a call from his mum.<p>

Sure, she had wanted to shout at Ginny first, and Hermione had said something about the need to vent and that Mum might settle down now, but Ron knew better. The next time the call came, it would be to berate him for letting his baby sister tag along, as if he had any choice in the matter. As if he hadn't protested her inclusion, for all the good it had done. He'd tried putting his foot down for once and Scott had shown up at The Burrow to inform Ron that he had no ground to stand on.

Mum just didn't understand the situation. He supposed that Lila might explain it to her. He was glad to be far removed from _that _conversation.

Hermione had been in a frenzy of research ever since it had become clear that they were returning to The Burrow. He understood the necessity of planning and that she was trying to make progress on her spell for night missions, but he wished she would at least talk to him. He needed distraction. The adrenaline took the edge off the terror of the actual confrontations; it was the waiting which was unbearable.

She was fully immersed in her books; they were piled around her as if she were in the process of building a shelter. Her hunched position put her breasts in clear view, dangling tantalisingly from the confines of her jumper. He could remember the moment in fourth year when he had first noticed that her chest had gained some interesting properties, and it had only become better since then. He didn't know much about bra sizes and whatnot, but he knew what he liked. Hermione was less than Lila and more than Lavender, falling into the category known as _perfect_.

He looked away in case she caught him staring. He really couldn't help himself, though. Her chestnut hair fell around her face in a tempting tangle and her eyes were bright with interest, alight with that vital spark of intelligence that made her look so beautiful and alive. Why _should_ he look away? There wasn't anything wrong with a bloke wanting his girlfriend. He was supposed to.

In fact, he had been trying to think of a way (inspired by Harry) to bring up sleeping arrangements without sounding like a complete pervert. There was more to it than just presentation; sharing a bed with Hermione would be temptation itself. He didn't know if he could trust himself not to touch her. And what if she _wanted_ him to? What then? He was caught between desire, his upbringing and the distant but ever-present fear that each moment he had with her might be the last.

Not that any of it mattered when she was so busy. He knew how important her work was and had thus far successfully resisted the urge to force her to take a break. Another half hour and he would anyway.

A knock at the door jolted him from his thoughts.

"Ron, could you get that?" Hermione said absently, turning a page.

He already was, expecting it to be Scott checking on Hermione's progress. He certainly hadn't expected the short woman who greeted him with a gleaming smile.

"Hi, Ron!" she said with a little wave of her hand. "Remember me? Sophie?"

It took Ron a moment to equate the wide-eyed, skinny girl he'd met at the Christmas party with the full-figured woman in front of him. "Right, Sophie. How are you?"

"Good, I'm good. Hermione, hello!"

Hermione had risen at the sound of an unfamiliar voice and walked up behind Ron. "Sophie!" she said with surprise. "When did you get here?"

"Just a few minutes ago. I tried to let myself in but it didn't work very well; I had some trouble with the door and then Ginny thought I was invading," Sophie told them with a sheepish tilt of her head.

"Scott failed to inform us of your arrival, I'm sure that didn't help," Hermione said. "Will you be staying long?"

"Yes!" Sophie replied enthusiastically. "I've been tasked with securing the dwelling for the duration of your stay. Do you have any food requests?"

"Uh… No?" Ron said, glancing at Hermione in confusion.

"We just went shopping, actually," Hermione said.

"Okay, I'll be sure to take stock of supplies. Scott is still showing me the building, so I'll see you around!" With that, Sophie shut the door and was gone.

"…So, is she like our secretary now?" Ron wondered.

"Ron, do yourself a favour and don't call her that," Hermione warned.

"Why? What's she going to do, be slightly less polite?" he scoffed. "Still, she's a nice change from the other Kharadjai we know."

"_She_ might not do much, but Scott fancies her, remember?"

"Does he?" Ron had honestly not noticed at the party, but he'd had Hermione firmly on his mind then (some things didn't change, he reckoned).

"I thought so. Either way, we could use the help."

Ron gave her a sideways glance. She was finally on her feet, which seemed like a good time to intercede. "How about you take a breather?" he suggested.

She straightened out her jumper and ran a hand through her hair. "Yes… I'm not getting anywhere with that spell as it is. I need more sources, I think."

That wasn't Ron's cup of tea, but he knew that spell creation, and even the modification of an existing spell, was highly difficult. "I just wish I could help you. I'm rubbish at that stuff."

"No, you aren't, don't say that!" She scolded. Maybe he was sick, but he always found it a bit arousing when she was bossy. "Besides, you've been keeping me company even though I know you're bored. I haven't told you how much I appreciate that."

"The view is never boring," he said with a grin.

She blushed. "I… could make it more exciting," she said playfully. She tugged down on her collar a bit, exposing a sliver of pale skin and a mole that Ron had only seen a handful of times.

His jaw dropped. Prim and proper Hermione was already sexy — a teasing Hermione was almost more than his libido could handle.

Her blush intensified and she dropped her hand. "Um… I mean, I like that you—"

He couldn't have stopped himself if he'd wanted to. He pinned her against the door, cushioning her softness with his arms and kissing her furiously, plundering her mouth. She squirmed in his grip but, far from trying to get away, she was working for a better position, hoisting herself up by wrapping her lithe legs around his waist. Her hands grasped at his shoulders and the back of his head.

It was heaven. He wanted more, could never get enough. Her tongue was like silk, her lips like candy and her body arched into his, highlighting every luscious curve. If only he had known she would be so receptive to taking a break.

But all good things had to end, this time due to the demands of oxygen. They broke apart, breathing hard, and she slid down him to stand on unsteady legs.

"…Oh, my," she said after a moment.

Ron nodded dumbly. It was at that point he realised he was sporting a full erection against her stomach. She had to have felt it, it couldn't be more obvious. But not only had she not cringed away, she was pressing back into him with fervour.

"Would you like to sleep in here?" she asked suddenly, not meeting his eyes as if afraid of the answer. "Unless you think it's not appropriate, and I understand, it's a big adjustment—" she babbled.

He didn't know what to say to make her stop so he kissed her instead, silencing her mouth with his. "That would be brilliant," he said after.

"Good, then that's settled," she murmured, leaning closer again. "I don't see any reason to stop…"

He was more than happy to resume.

* * *

><p>"That's the attic," Scott said, pointing to the narrow, uneven stairs which led up to the peeling white door. "I've only been in there a couple times. We did some cleaning, there's a lot of material. You might want to take stock when you get a chance."<p>

Sophie smiled up at him. "It will be like antiquing!"

He had something else to say after that but forgot what it was for a moment, stunned by the flash of her eyes and smile. He kept his face impassive as he sought his missing words; he needed to be careful if he was going to avoid embarrassing himself. It had been some time since he had basked in Sophie's adult presence and he had to readjust. He hadn't expected her to look (or smell) so good.

She was short in stature but utterly feminine in form, a china doll with a porcelain complexion. Her tiny waist tapered out into broad hips and a delightfully well-shaped posterior, while up above her slim, elegant neck and shoulders presided over a high-set pair of full breasts. Her features were a classical conception of cherubic beauty, with wide, pink cupid's bow lips and huge bright green eyes surmounting her heart-shaped face, framed by curly milk chocolate locks.

It wasn't easy, being professional around her. Sometimes Scott didn't even bother to try.

"Watch your fingers, some of those antiques might bite," he said finally. "There's all kinds of wacky magic sunk into this place."

"I know, I feel it," she said distantly, her eyes unfocussed.

Scott knew many people who frequently accessed the shape, and it only bothered him when she did it. Perhaps it was because her wide eyes were so emotive, so bright — while touching the shape she had a doll's eyes, glassy and lifeless. He always wanted to shake her, force her to come back to him. He'd never had that urge with another Kharadjai.

Of course, he had a lot of urges when it came to Sophie. Many were less innocent.

"You might notice the work I did on the largest spell, the area Fidelius Charm," he said, smoothly ignoring his instinct. "We want to keep it attached to everyone in this house only."

"Has it been regenerating?"

"No, and I don't think it will. But just in case."

"I see there's been a lot of strengthening between Primes," she commented.

"Largely without my interference. High stress and close quarters: a recipe for bonding. Or breaking apart."

"Well, lucky for you this group is prone to the former!"

"Most of the time." Scott looked her up and down. "I see you've recovered well from your Christmas ordeal."

Sophie's cheeks tinged the slightest shade of pink. "I was fifteen!" She put her hands on her generous hips. "It was all your fault, anyway. You didn't need me there."

"Ah, but…" Scott leaned in close and lowered his voice, "I need you now."

She looked away, hiding a smile behind her hand. "Here I am! So, what were you saying about Kylie?"

Scott quickly sobered. "She's traumatised, with good reason." He gave a summary of the events which had brought Kylie to Grimmauld Place. "She's stopped talking. I try to keep her engaged and busy, but she sleeps a lot."

"That poor girl," Sophie murmured sympathetically. "I'll try not to leave her alone if I can help it."

"One more thing," Scott continued as he led the way downstairs. "There's a little gremlin-thing called Kreacher that lives here. He served the previous family as a butler, or something. He's a crazy little shit but he's afraid of guns, so he should steer clear of you."

Sophie looked intrigued. "He's a _gremlin?"_

"A house-elf. If you want to know more, you should ask Hermione."

"You'll probably tell me that for everything," she replied slyly.

"Hey, if the Primes can handle it, let them," he said.

"Okay, okay," she said, smiling again.

She needed to stop doing that because he had a mission to plan and that light-up-the-room smile was a wonderful distraction. He could compartmentalise, though, he always had. It wasn't his first mission with an attractive co-worker and it wouldn't be the last (granted, none were ever quite so delectable as Sophie).

Scott went back to his weapons while Sophie assisted Kylie with the counting, introducing herself and trying to establish some early rapport. Kylie seemed to accept the woman's presence readily enough, though the real test would come once Scott had to leave.

His thoughts turned to the operation. The Burrow was difficult to approach without being seen, he knew that from experience. The same woods that had once sheltered them in their flight would now serve the same purpose for their entry. The closest he had ever come to assaulting a fixed wizarding position had been his hit and run with the claymore mine outside the Death Eater mansion. He didn't know what kind of defences were standard use for Riddle's men. None of his Primes seemed to know either, and he suspected that the Death Eaters had no modus operandi. The enemy was a loose confederation of irregulars comprised of idealistic bigots, opportunists and conscripts. Whatever organisation existed would likely depend on local officers, not general orders. Riddle seemed content enough with the state of his 'army' so long as they remained loyal to him.

Thus there existed a random element. There always was in combat, but in this case Scott had only a slightly better idea what to expect than he had going into the cave. The enemy was united by ideology, not training. That could be an advantage. Zealots rarely made good soldiers. Even more of them were simply riding the coattails of what they thought was the winning side. Combatants lacking conviction would fold without training or fear to keep them in a fight they didn't want. Riddle used fear, and Scott had never put much faith in that as a consistent motivator. Men faced with certain death from the enemy would prefer to chance possible death from their superiors later.

Adaptability would be essential, but it always was. That was true a hundred times over for an Integrationist. His training demanded that he hit the opposing force as hard as possible, but Scott had held back on more than one occasion to further a connection to his Primes. There were lines to be crossed, and some that had to be walked. As in the shape, as in space — the universe, like those it was comprised of, sought equilibrium.

"They call me the seeker — I've been searchin' low and hi-iiiiiiiiiiiigh," Scott sang to himself as he refitted the telescopic stock to the M4A1 he had chosen for the night. The short barrel, zero-magnification optics and light recoil made it ideal for mid-range encounters. He'd also laid out his semi-automatic shotgun, to be used if the house were occupied.

"What's that song?" Kylie asked.

Scott froze for a fraction of a second before his composure snapped back into place. "It's from an old band. They come right from your own backyard, in fact," he said casually. "How many magazines have you counted out?"

"Nine," she said, pointing to the obsessively neat rows of bullets she had created. It had taken her several times longer than it would have if Scott had done it himself, but that wasn't the point. Anything to draw her out.

"Sophie, could you load those, please?"

Kylie shrunk a little. "Can I load, too?"

Scott knew those tiny fingers of hers didn't stand a chance against the spring in a high capacity magazine. "I have a different job for you, since you've got experience," he said. "Now, these rounds go in rows of eight, okay? Not forty like the others."

Kylie appeared pleased enough with that proposition. She opened the box of .45 JSP and started counting, her mouth moving silently with the numbers.

"What are you packing at the moment?" Scott asked Sophie.

"Well, I had to leave my Aus-10 at the gate because they stopped me and said you were doing tech equivocation for your integration, and I was like, 'Oh, duh! Of course he is!' So they gave me this .40, but the slide sticks. And it's not very clean," she said unhappily.

"Why do you think I always go to Litchfield?"

"The gate armoury is the only choice when you're in a hurry! It's not like you gave me advance notice or anything…"

"You still shouldn't have left your Aus at a grease locker. Why didn't you give it to Pat?"

"He wasn't there. If my Aus ends up in some Second Fleet holster, I'm blaming you!"

"I think I could make it up to you," Scott said, leaning back in his chair and flexing his muscles.

Sophie rolled her eyes, though not before giving him a good once over. "I doubt _that_ is worth eighty-eight fifty."

"Eight-eight fifty?!" Scott exclaimed. "What is it plated with, adamantium?"

"It's the limited edition!"

He slowly shook his head. "Sophie, Sophie… You are such a sucker for limited edition and/or commemorative everything."

"They're new and it's very nice," she said defensively.

"It had better be for eighty-eight fifty. It should clean itself."

The evening wore on and the sun descended. As twilight began to creep across the sky everyone gathered in the kitchen for final preparations. They were all dressed in dark clothes, and looked down at the crude map Scott had sketched out.

"We're all familiar with these grounds," he began, "so this diagram is for our point of entry and exit. Go ahead and draw on it if you think of something that should be pointed out." He placed his finger north of The Burrow, near the river. "We go in here, where we left the last time. It's also our fall back position. Secondary fall back is the path from the road, here. If we get scattered, link up with whoever you can and Disapparate. Harry?"

Harry stepped forward. "Right… I thought we shouldn't get caught out in the garden in a single group if we can help it. Scott and I will go in the front door while the rest of you lot get in the back, and, yes, Ginny, Scott will be going in first. He won't let me 'take point'."

"A _point_ in his favour," she said, grinning at her own pun.

Harry shut his eyes for a second. "Ugh. Anyway, I'm hoping we'll see any Death Eaters about through the windows, if they're inside. We can't count on it, though, so we need to be quiet for as long as we can. If we find the locket then we leave as quick as we're able, we don't want more showing up like last time."

"We don't know what the locket is capable of, or how well it understands what's happening around it. I'm going to bring Scott's strongbox along in my handbag, and that should provide some dampening," Hermione added.

Harry nodded. "Good thought. Anyone else have something to add?"

"If no one is there, can we look around a bit?" Ginny asked. "There're some things I'd like to bring back here."

Scott was prepared to buy Harry time to find the locket with his life, if needed, but he didn't care for the idea of becoming a casualty because the girls needed more shampoo. "I'm not getting shot because you forgot your lube."

"Scott!" Sophie hissed, clapping her hands over the ears of a confused Kylie.

He really needed to stop doing that. "I mean, Ginny, you can look around if it's clear, but let's not get stuck in a fight for a few extra pairs of trousers."

"Obviously. I'm not daft," Ginny snapped.

In the interests of mission unity, he decided not to prod her further. "I know."

Harry appeared grateful that the spat had ended so quickly. "Anything else?"

No one spoke. The air was charged with anticipation and anxiety.

"Okay," Harry said then, "we'll go at ten."

* * *

><p><strong>2200<strong>

The field by the river looked exactly the same in the moonlight as it had before, a startling (and somewhat heartening) reminder that it hadn't been long at all since the retreat from the wedding. The short time frame put their progress into perspective. It made Hermione feel more accomplished. Although, it also meant they hadn't survived very long, which was a pessimistic view.

The night was still save for the rustling of leaves, the rush of the river and the drone of distant cars. The group, tense and confused in the moments after Apparition, regained their bearings. Those first few moments were the most vulnerable. They spread out and kept a careful eye on the trees.

Hermione watched Scott. He was the most likely to see threats first, their best early warning system. He swung his short rifle around in slow arcs, no doubt searching for heat signatures.

"Clear," he said, lowering his weapon back to where it hung against his torso. He had it attached to some sort of strap system that allowed him to keep his hands free. Hermione approved of the versatility offered and was already wondering if something similar could be constructed for her wand.

"Okay, up the hill," Harry whispered.

They advanced with minimal discourse, climbing the short hill they had once descended and finding the same deer path they had followed before. They passed the tree trunks that Scott had pushed aside, and saw the circular depression in the dirt which marked where a Death Eater had stepped in Hermione's trap. It was too dark to see anything more, but she imagined the soil was stained with rusty blood, and looked away.

The Burrow sat quiet and dark across the grassy expanse of the side garden. There were no obvious signs of major damage, though it wasn't easy to tell at such a distance. She thought Ron's window might be broken, and remembered Lila using it as a vantage point for her machine gun.

But that appearance of abandonment was deceiving, for when they moved further forward a single dim light could be seen gleaming out from the ground floor. It looked to be coming from the kitchen.

"Damn," Harry muttered. "I guess it was too much to hope that it would be empty."

Scott had his binoculars out. "I see two, sitting at the table. I think they're playing cards."

"Another couple of alarms," Harry surmised.

"Yeah. They shouldn't have a light on, that's a great way to ruin an ambush. This is what happens when you put thugs in a hood and call it a uniform."

"They're dumb berks, lucky for us. I say let them be stupid," Ron said.

"Amen."

"They'd better not have touched my things…" Ginny said angrily.

"We'll see if you have time to check your underwear drawer," Scott said.

Ginny gasped in outrage. "You think they went through my knickers?!"

"Shhh! Don't worry about that right now!" Hermione shushed her. "Scott, what about spells?"

"None of the usual wards are still here. There's a kind of ambient energy around, but I think it's just a remnant," he reported.

"Old spells tend to linger; it makes re-establishing wards easier," she explained.

"…There might be some other things around. On the ground, maybe. I need to get closer."

"Could be traps," Harry said. "Do you think you can get Hermione to the right spot?"

Scott unclipped the rifle from his chest and handed it to a startled Harry. "Cover us," he said, drawing a handgun and thumbing the hammer. "Hermione?"

"Ready," she said tersely. She wasn't enthused at the prospect of going ahead, but it had to be done.

Ron's hand shot out and snatched her wrist. "Don't go far," he said with a worried edge.

"I won't," she assured him. "Please don't come running after me unless it's serious, I don't want you to step in a trap."

He smiled tightly. "No promises, love."

"Don't shoot me in the ass," Scott told Harry, and then he left the brush in a low crouch, moving much faster than Hermione thought he should be able to in such a position. She did her best to keep up, taking advantage of her shorter stature and leaning over instead of bending her knees as much.

Scott halted by a patch of grass that looked no different than any other. He held out a hand to stop her. "Here," he said, pointing downwards. "And there are more."

Hermione extended her wand, waving it near the patch with cautious motions. "_Incantantem Revelio_," she whispered. The runes that briefly shone above her wand were not familiar in their sequence, but the individual characters told her enough. "…I think it's a variation on the trap spell I used after the wedding."

"What are the trigger conditions?"

"I can't tell. Touching it would do the trick, I'm sure, but I don't know if it's individual or if they're chained somehow."

"Will it create an alarm?"

"If it's being monitored then yes, indirectly. But the spell I used made very little sound. They'll be counting on whoever gets caught to start screaming, I'd imagine," she said, shivering a bit at the thought of any of her friends stumbling into the spell.

"So there's a good chance these are self-contained. We're looking at a minefield, not a proximity fence."

She wished she could give him a more positive answer. "Probably. But it's a risk."

"It always is." He raised his head and peered at the house. "There's no Anti-Apparition field in place. That has to be deliberate."

He had a point — an Anti-Apparition Jinx was the first line of defence against intrusion. "They wanted us to come in like that, knowing we couldn't leave the same way…"

"Let's go back and share. We'll have to make a call on this."

Back in the trees, the new information left opinions divided.

"Just get rid of the traps and we'll rush like we planned," Harry said, handing the rifle back to Scott.

"I can't. Too small, too widespread. I have to get close," Scott said.

"If you lead us, we might get past without tripping any," Hermione said.

"And what happens if we have to leave in a hurry, maybe unable to Disapparate? They aren't just alarms, they're physically dangerous."

"We've got the brooms in the handbag, why don't we fly upstairs?" Ginny proposed.

Ron peered upwards — the night sky was clear and moonlit. "Are we sure there's nobody else around?"

"No," Scott stated. "We could do something for one or two people with the Cloak and a broom, but that doesn't help the rest of us. And I don't want anyone to touch anything until I check it first."

"I can also check," Hermione said, slightly offended.

"Me or Hermione," Scott amended "…But mostly me."

"All right, look," Harry said with surprising patience. "The Burrow is trapped… If Scott and Hermione can't get rid of the traps without causing an alarm, we won't be getting in there tonight. So we'll all go together, disabling traps along the way, and then surprise the Death Eaters in the kitchen, grab the locket, and get out."

"You're right," Hermione agreed. "Scott, let's try it."

"I'll knock out that first trap. But get ready to Disapparate," he warned.

Ginny latched on to Harry's hand, as much for support as Apparition, Hermione thought. She herself moved closer to Ron. Presumably Scott would be able to tell if the destruction of the trap triggered any silent alarms; otherwise, the first sign they had been discovered would be more of Voldemort's men arriving.

Scott crept back out onto the green to the night tunes of buzzing insects and the whispering breeze. The calm and cool of the clear air was strange in contrast to the situation. If Hermione closed her eyes she could easily imagine she stood at the end of a summer day at The Burrow, spent with friends as close as family. The violence which might be imminent was difficult to accept in a place that had always seemed so inviolate, so removed from the turmoil of the outside world.

Scott stopped near the closest trap and settled back onto his heels. As always, whatever he did to alter the raw energy of magic was an invisible process. She had learned that the only way to see if Scott was accessing the shape was to check his eyes: they tended to become unfocussed.

A few minutes ticked by. She was just beginning to wonder if he was having trouble when he gestured to them. They moved out of the woods to follow.

Their pace was slow at first, but after the first several traps Scott seemed to gain a better understanding of them. Given how quickly he had destroyed spells in the past, it was safe to assume he was carefully disarming them instead of simply erasing them. Hermione just hoped that deactivating the spells had not alerted the creator.

When they reached the front of the house (making sure to move below the windows) Scott paused and pulled the shotgun from the sheathe on his back. Hermione flinched; she knew what came next, but her need to allow her friends to be protected was at war with her misgivings.

Scott placed his hand flat on the door. Either it was unprotected or he took care of the spells, because he looked back at them and put up five fingers. His mouth moved silently in countdown, the fingers lowering one by one. Harry hurried forward to stand behind him.

"_One,"_ Scott silently enunciated, and then reared back and kicked open the door.

He was inside before the fragments of the latch hit the ground. Two shots blasted out in quick succession, sharp and rattling. Hermione held her breath, waiting for the clatter of a counter-attack; there was none. A few soft sounds emanated from inside.

Harry stepped back out, looking pale in the light from the doorway. "Give him a second," he said.

If she concentrated, Hermione thought she could hear the rasp of cloth and footsteps. A shiver of horror vibrated up her spine — Scott must have been moving bodies.

A handful of seconds later Scott's head poked back outside. "Let's go," he said, "and don't relax."

"No worries there," Ron muttered as they filed inside.

The light in the kitchen was from a candle flickering on the tabletop. Playing cards were scattered across the surface and the floor, along with dark drops of blood. More of the fluid anointed the wall; some of it looked undisturbed, but a lot of it was spread out in an unnatural smear, as if Scott had tried to wipe it off. There were only a few craggy pockmarks from the buckshot. The rest must have remained within the lumpy shapes in the corner, draped with a tablecloth. Hermione carefully averted her eyes.

She tried to ignore the cloying copper odour of blood as she examined house. The Burrow was in better shape than she had expected. The cupboards had been looted of food (likely by the two guards, judging from the mess they had made) but most of the structure itself was intact, including the windows.

"Lil said your family grabbed a ton of stuff before they left, so don't panic if something valuable is missing," Scott was saying to Ron and Ginny.

"I bet Mum took the clock," Ginny said, looking at the bare spot where it had been.

"Everyone stay where somebody can see you at all times. And make sure that candle stays lit. Harry?"

"Should still be upstairs," Harry said.

Hermione felt their chances were improving. If the Weasleys had taken most items of value (sentimental and otherwise) with them during their retreat then the Death Eaters would have had little motivation for a thorough search. It seemed like they may have been told to leave The Burrow in its post-wedding condition in order to lure its former occupants back. Someone high up in the chain of command must have possessed the foresight to issue such an order, perhaps even Riddle himself. As it turned out, the ploy had actually worked — or it would have, had those left to keep guard been more vigilant.

"Ginny, you and I will watch outside — make _sure_ you stay below the windows. Ron, could you sit at the table? Let's make it look like nothing is wrong," Hermione said, taking charge. She tried to close the door but it would no longer stay shut, so she propped a chair against it.

Ron started to rest his hands on the table before he thought better of it. "You know what happened to the last bloke who sat here?" he said uneasily.

She did. "It's only for a moment."

"A moment too long. Bloody hell, I used to eat off this table…"

"I know, Ron, but—"

"I think someone's coming!" Ginny said urgently.

Hermione hurried to the kitchen window and peeked under the curtain. Three robed and hooded figures were making their way up the front walk. They weren't hurrying and appeared to be in conversation. She estimated it would be no more than a few minutes before they reached the house.

"Stay right where you are!" she whispered frantically, and bolted up the stairs.

She rushed up to Ron and Harry's room — it was a mess. The two beds had been flipped over towards the window and the wall opposite was stripped down to its wooden frame, which had been charred. The glass in the window was gone completely save for a few jagged shards at the edges and the mirror over the dressing table was split in two. Brass shells were scattered all over the floor, mixed with steel links and dust.

Scott and Harry were crouched by the window behind a bed frame that Scott was supporting with one hand. She realised that Harry's trunk must have been buried beneath the overturned bed by an explosion, which was a stroke of luck. Some of the trunk contents were laid out on the floor, including a familiar black suitcase. Harry held an object tightly wrapped in a rag.

"Death Eaters are coming up the path!" Hermione told them.

Scott was on his feet in a second, pushing the bed away and picking up his shotgun. "How many?"

"Three. They don't seem to know that anything is wrong but we have a couple minutes at most, probably less."

"We got what we came for," Scott said. "Throw it all back in the trunk, Harry, and let's go."

Harry dumped the loose items back in the trunk and handed the crumpled cloth to Hermione. She took it and dug into her handbag as fast as her fingers would allow, bringing out the strongbox and placing what she fervently hoped was the real locket inside. Scott lifted Harry's trunk up, indifferent to the weight, and together they hurried back downstairs.

Ron and Ginny were still in place, frozen with tension. "We're leaving!" Hermione said, gesturing to them.

They didn't need any encouragement. Ron jumped from his chair and took Hermione's hand while Ginny did the same with Harry. Hermione thought she could almost hear boots on the pavement while she concentrated on Grimmauld Place, fixing it in her mind. The world contracted, twisted, and then she was gone.

* * *

><p>Harry had stumbled into a recurring situation — same table, different locket. The group had gathered around the second such trinket to fall in their possession. There was something different about this one, though, he was sure of it.<p>

Ginny looked uncharacteristically afraid, standing further back from the table than the others. "I think it's awake. Do you feel…?"

"Yes," Hermione said, keeping her wand raised. "It was hiding itself before."

They all could all feel it. The locket had a presence, an aura of weight and physicality. It was not merely an object. Even as they stared at it, Harry felt it was staring back, assessing them in turn. He didn't like the idea that they were dealing with another diary, capable of defending itself.

Scott was the only one who had moved closer to the locket. He placed his palms on the table and leaned towards it. "What are you looking for?" he murmured.

Hermione gave him a sharp look. "What is it doing?"

"I'm not sure. I've knocked out several threads it's sent at me, and it's trying to counter my defence. The reaction implies intelligence, or at least programming."

"Not for long," Harry said, and raised Godric's sword.

The locket snapped open.

There was a great rush of wind and a muffled roaring and the room lost definition behind a haze. Harry's thoughts slowed, nearly ceased. He was lost, bemused. Where had he just been standing? Memory was suddenly unreliable. There was something heavy in his hand, and he held onto it as the only solid thing in the confusion.

Ginny stepped down from a table that Harry hadn't noticed just a second before. She was beautiful, almost ethereal, glowing with life. Her hair shone like copper and her brown eyes flashed strangely; she moved with a blatantly sensual method that didn't look quite right, for whatever reason. She didn't usually walk like that (he thought?), hips rocking, breasts jiggling unbound beneath her flimsy shirt. Something seemed off… Hadn't she just been standing next to him?

She stopped before him, lips red as blood. "I'm done, Harry," she said coldly. "I'm tired of holding you up."

Harry tried to respond — his mouth was numb. "What?"

"Supporting you, Harry. Waiting and waiting for you to pull your head out of your arse and give me what _I _need, but no… It's all about you, isn't it?" she said disdainfully. "You treat me like a little sister for years, then decide that you'd rather fuck me now that it's convenient. You've put my whole family in danger, but that wasn't enough for you, was it? You needed me too for a little extra comfort. How hard did you _really_ try to leave me behind? I wouldn't have come if I knew you'd just be selfish again. I don't know why I bothered."

The words flayed him like whips, stripping him of his defences. "But — I thought… What about all you said before, what about—"

"This?" Ginny simpered, running her hands down her body. "Or maybe just these?" She lifted her shirt to reveal her firm, high breasts, nipples stiff and pebbled in the sudden cold. "You think getting close makes you special? Like you're the first bloke I've shared a bed with, and you won't be the last. There are loads of other boys out there who will give me what I want. There are loads who already _have. _Stop acting like I need you."

He could barely speak. Even as his heart shattered his mind was stuck in a mire, moving at quarter-speed. "But… I…"

"You can't even defend yourself when you know it's true. But don't worry about me, Harry. Once I'm back at Hogwarts and line up a bloke or two, I won't tell them about us. I wouldn't want to embarrass mysel—"

She was cut off when, without warning, a chair swung out from somewhere to Harry's right and smashed her to the floor. The moment she hit the ground the murkiness seemed to dissipate from Harry's brain, and he turned to see who held the makeshift weapon.

It was Ginny, the _real_ Ginny, dressed in the proper clothes Harry remembered. She was flushed red, almost shaking with rage. _"Fuck off, locket slut!" _she snarled.

Harry looked across the table; his vision was still severely limited but he could hear someone talking. It sounded like Ron, though Harry had never heard that tone from his friend before.

"Ron, _please!"_ Hermione cried out, tears in her voice.

"GET AWAY FROM HER!" Ron roared, and it sounded like the real Ron. Harry hoped he was dispelling the locket's hold as Ginny had.

"It's having a go at everybody!" Ginny said angrily. She dropped the chair and drew her wand. "Harry, if it gets me, just give me a good slap!"

He shook his head. "I think we just have to get rid of this damn fog—"

And just like that, the mist disappeared.

Scott was still standing right where he had been. He looked calmly out at his dazed friends and at the locket, which was emitting a sickly purple light.

"Sorry that took so long," he said in a voice that didn't sound especially sorry, "I didn't understand what it was doing. It's working on me, now."

They regrouped. Ginny took a deep breath, embarrassed in the aftermath of her fury (and probably by the way the locket had presented her). Hermione was wiping tears off her cheeks and Ron stood by her, his face contorted with anger.

Harry had seen enough. He marched forward to kill the bloody locket good and proper when Scott held out a hand to stop him.

"Wait," Scott requested. "I want to understand this thing better. It could be important."

"If it grabs you, I'm going to kill it," Harry said.

"I know. But this is really something…"

Images began to flash from the locket. They were blurry projections, half-formed and too rapid to sort out. Harry was left only with impressions: pine trees covered in snow, a beach under heavy clouds, a fallow cornfield in autumn. None of it made much sense.

"What are you looking for?" Scott said again. His eyes were distant.

The images stopped. The light from the locket started to take new form, shifting into a human shape. Soon Tom Riddle stood on the table, staring down at Scott. It was an older Riddle than the diary; not quite Voldemort, not still the same young man. His skin was pale and his eyes had a red tint to them that spoke of things to come.

Scott snapped back to focus. "Giving up?" he asked.

"Not quite," the echo of Riddle said, his voice high and clear. "What are you?"

Scott's answer was even less forthcoming than usual. "Another mystery in a world full of them."

Riddle's eyes burned. "I've solved many, and answered questions others were too afraid to ask."

Scott shrugged. "I'll allow for the possibility. Be real, though: you don't have that kind of time."

"Don't pretend to understand my capabilities."

"Same to you. Being only a fraction of a person, I presume you're limited to this smoke and laser show."

Riddle fell silent, apparently struck by Scott's knowledge of his creation. When he spoke again, he tried a different tact. "If you know what I am, then you know what I have to offer."

"Dick," Scott assessed.

Riddle glanced contemptuously at the others. "I gather this is the 'resistance'. Freedom fighters to themselves, mere nuisances in truth. What do _they_ have to offer someone who can do what you can?"

"Are you suggesting an alternative?"

"I have use for power. It _should_ be used, and expanded… We could come to an agreement, mutually beneficial."

Scott shrugged again. "Maybe. Either way, that would be something to bring up with the real you. Stuck in a locket is not a great position for negotiation."

"Take me to him. Be rewarded."

"With what?"

"The key to immortality," Riddle promised.

Scott smiled. "Way ahead of you. Harry?"

Harry slammed the sword through the locket. The segment of Riddle's soul howled in agony while the purple light grew too dazzling to look at. An explosion rang out, the force of it ripping the sword from Harry's grip and sending a painful jolt up his arm. Then the light vanished as if a switch had been flipped.

In the middle of the table was a bubbling puddle of melted metal, rapidly cooling as it steamed and fused to the surface.

Scott broke the ensuing silence. "Last time I saw something like that, I'd just decapitated a Sith."

"Is everyone all right?" Hermione asked. Her eyes were still red rimmed but her voice was steady.

"Fine," Harry said as he surreptitiously rubbed at his hand.

"You're hurt," Ginny said accusingly, noticing his distress.

"Just a bit of a shock. No more than a bruise."

She took the hand and prodded his palm with her fingers, frowning when he couldn't suppress a wince. "We need to talk," she said, relinquishing the appendage.

"I'm telling you it's fine, it just aches—"

"Not about that!"

"About… Oh. Do we have to do that tonight?" Harry said plaintively.

"Yes! I'm not letting you brood about what that thing said until you push me away again," she insisted.

"I wouldn't do that," he said unconvincingly. In truth, the process had probably already begun.

She didn't even bother getting angry; she just rolled her eyes at him. "Right, Harry."

"He's not hurt bad if he's already telling jokes," Ron said from across the table.

Scott waved towards the stairwell. "Big night all around. Way past our bedtimes. Discuss whatever you like, but do it upstairs."

"Why? Are you going to tuck us in?" Ron scoffed.

"Do I need to?" Scott asked with equal bite. "Or are you old enough to know when to sleep?"

"All right, don't get shirty, _Dad_," Ron grumbled. He put an arm around Hermione and led her towards the stairs.

Harry followed them reluctantly. He was dreading what he knew was going to be a painfully emotional talk with Ginny. If he had it his way he'd just bury the whole thing until it went away.

But he knew she wouldn't let him.

* * *

><p><strong>::Author's Note::<strong>

So, I've been thinking about the Bechdel Test recently.

And that's a damn slippery slope, because, as a general rule, I don't write to meet any particular standards. I know my writing style has been frequently commented on in the reviews and is sometimes noted as being at least marginally unique; and this far into my story I think you are all aware that I will follow in-universe logic over pretty much anything else, to the point that I'm actually willing to sacrifice all sense of tension, danger and mystery by refusing to let the characters become momentarily stupid or contradict established rules for no reason other than 'the plot demands it'. Obviously, I haven't been checking off any lists, here. The tropes I twist come as they will and I seek out nothing but the next logical step, even if that step is the result of characters being illogical.

That slope comes in with the temptation to write a scene with no other purpose than to meet the demands of the test, which, in and of itself, defeats the purpose, as compliance should ideally be a natural outgrowth. Two female characters have had a variety of interactions over the course of this tale, and while many of those conversations did not concern romantic matters they probably did concern Harry in some way. Almost everything does, as it is, after all, the Harry Potter series.

The waters are further muddied by the fact that Hermione is the only female character at the core of the first story (for most of it). Lila rarely interacts with the female Primes, speaking mostly to Scott. And Kylie… Well, Kylie just doesn't have conversations with people. The two most regularly verbose and conversationally nimble characters are Scott and Hermione. They make a great pair for dialogue and talk about all kinds of crap, but Scott would have to lose the penis to pass the Bechdel.

So… Do I throw a conversation in there that meets the standard, in order to gain some sort of vague moral superiority? It's not like I have much use for political correctness. On the other hand, most of my readers are women (although I seem to attract a higher percentage of male readers than most other fanfictions I've seen). Perhaps they would appreciate the inclusion.

…Or perhaps they would let me know just how little they like being condescendingly pandered to.

Portrayals of women in fiction is a difficult subject. Maybe my female characters offer an acceptably differing array of personality types, capabilities and flaws; or maybe Lila's strength and competency are cancelled out by her big tits. I don't know how that scale works and it probably depends on who you ask. The question I think is most pertinent, is do I care? Or, perhaps, _should_ I?

As things currently stand, I do not, to the best of my memory, pass the test. It's not that the female characters are always talking about boys, because that's certainly not true, but they are usually talking _to_ boys. Lila and Molly have a moment back in TTM chapter six where Lila introduces herself and they talk about family, but since Molly's family is predominately male and Lila's family consists entirely of Scott, I don't think that cuts it. Should this bother me? Or should I be more concerned about keeping the characters true to themselves, and not some nebulous criteria. That seems like an obvious choice, but I'm wondering if I can't do both.

Well, whatever. Thanks for reading.


	12. Truth of Sequence

**12**

**Truth of Sequence**

* * *

><p>"<em>Relativity teaches us that simultaneity is an<br>illusion; that, as there are no privileged points  
>of reference, all observations of time are equally<br>valid. There is no absolute truth of sequence:  
>all we can do is equate.<em>

_The shape tells us otherwise, depending on the_  
><em>form it is given (or perhaps chooses). That<em>  
><em>in itself is a valuable lesson, for by coming to<em>  
><em>accept that there are worlds in which not<em>  
><em>even causality is fixed we must at last learn<em>  
><em>that it is not only time and opinion which are<em>  
><em>subjective, but in fact the entirety of reality.<em>  
><em>Each universe creates its own structure,<em>  
><em>follows no rules but its own. That they appear<em>  
><em>so similar in our experience may be the<em>  
><em>greatest misperception of all: the most dire<em>  
><em>overcognizants speak of things we dismiss as<em>  
><em>impossible ravings, but someday we may realize<em>  
><em>that when we looked out into the Multiverse, we<em>  
><em>found only what we were capable of understanding.<em>

_The difference between truth and lie is of the_  
><em>beholder and no truth can ever be complete,<em>  
><em>whatever the intention behind it."<em>

-Dr. Joseph Carnahan, _New Constellations_

* * *

><p>It had been about an hour since the locket had been destroyed. Harry was sitting on his bed, staring at the wall. There was nothing interesting about the wall, but his head was swimming and at least it didn't offer any further distractions. The traumas of the night were stacked on top of each other, and it was a small mercy that remembrance of a man's head disintegrating was temporarily blotted out by Locket-Ginny expressing what he feared was the truth.<p>

'Small mercy'… Who was he fooling? The more recent horror was far worse than yet another witnessed death in a long line of them.

The real Ginny was in the shower. Her ablutions were giving Harry time to think, the last thing he needed. And once she returned she would be determined to discuss what the locket had done. He didn't want to talk about it. He wanted to forget it ever happened. Confronting emotional problems was well outside his comfort zone. Too bad the locket had understood at least one avenue to his wounds.

A shadow fell across the doorway. "Are you all right?" Hermione asked tentatively, leaning in.

"No," Harry said honestly.

She sighed. "Well… that's not good, but I still prefer forthrightness to your usual avoidance."

"How about you?"

"Same as always: stressed, anxious and storing up a nice pile of post-traumatic stress for when this is over," she said.

"Just be glad you didn't go into the house with Scott," he said dryly.

She flinched slightly. "Yes… I wondered if you weren't making a mistake."

Harry clung to the shreds of his stoicism. "I have to get used to it sometime."

"Oh, Harry, I hope not, for your sake," she said sorrowfully.

He just wanted to change the subject. "Did you need something?"

She hesitated. "…I thought you might be discouraged, seeing as that was the only Horcrux we had to destroy. I wanted to remind you that we aren't entirely without clues."

"It's not much good to know what something is if we don't know where it is."

"I have to disagree. In this case, knowing _what_ may very well lead us to _where_." She stepped closer. "Scott told us there might be a Horcrux to the north. That's not very specific, but I would bet he could tell us more if we were closer. And you said you wanted to go to Godric's Hollow?"

He did, and had for some time. He'd never seen the place that might have been his home, or his parents' graves. "I still do."

"I'm sure you've considered the danger. But I've found another reason to go." She was clearly excited by whatever she had to say. "Did you ever read _A History of Magic_?"

'Read' was a strong word. "Sort of."

She gave him a disapproving glance, but continued, "Bathilda Bagshot, the author, is still alive, and she lives in Godric's Hollow! We're hunting for historical artefacts of magic, and I can't think of anyone more qualified on the subject."

Harry didn't allow himself to feel much hope, but Hermione was right. It could be a real breakthrough. "We have to try, anyway."

She beamed at him. "Exactly! We'll start planning soon." She turned to go, and then stopped. "Oh, and Harry?"

"Yeah?"

"Do talk to Ginny about what happened tonight. Don't let it fester."

"Are you going to make Ron talk?" Harry asked accusingly.

"Of course!"

"Then I guess we're both buggered," he muttered.

Hermione left him and he returned to his contemplation of the wallpaper.

His mind wandered. The patterns on the wall became Ginny, scorning him, rejecting him. Like he had rejected her, and not just recently. He had ignored her for years. He had turned from her attentions without even knowing it. He was tormented by the idea that such unknowing (uncaring) disregard was worse than a conscious decision. It was as if she hadn't even been worth the finality of a proper rejection — he had strung her along instead, breaking the young heart she had placed in his careless hands. And he could never be bothered to see what he had been handed.

Perhaps what the locket had shown him was cruel, but just. He'd pushed her away without trying, and then at last drawn her close only to push again. How could she be blamed if she left? Even Ginny had to take a hint eventually. Even her stubbornness could only cushion her spirit so many times.

He shook his head so hard that stars burst into his vision. The thoughts were more than he could stomach; he fought against them, wiping his clammy palms on his trousers as if he could wipe away the very idea, and then without warning was ambushed by a memory:

_**The door splintered, broken by the inhuman force of the kick. It would have rebounded off the interior wall but Scott was in the way, shouldering through with shotgun raised. The Death Eater on the right barely had time to react. He swivelled in his chair, cards falling from his fingers. The gun barked, acute and deafening. As if an invisible hand had grasped the back of his robes and pulled, he was ripped from the chair, sending it tumbling when his legs caught on it. The robes over his chest shredded and caved inward, turning to dust and whirling scraps. Blood flew out of the gaping cavity where his lungs should have been.**_

_**He had not fully come to rest when the second Death Eater was shot in the head. This time the robes concealed little — his hood fell off with the impact and his head shattered like an egg. The tightly-grouped buckshot, each the size of a musket ball, hit at the corner of his right eye. His cheekbone caved in, flesh splitting away from his nose and forehead. When the leaden wad tore through his brain and smashed into the rear of his skull his head snapped back with such force that blood spattered across the ceiling.**_

_**Scott continued without hesitation. The limp corpse was thudding on the floor when he stepped forward and tugged the tablecloth off the end where it had been shunted, apparently in the way of the Death Eater's card playing.**_

"_**Go out and stall the others for a second. They don't need to see this," Scott said.**_

_**And Harry did? He supposed he had volunteered.**_

_**The last sight before he stepped out was of Scott using the corner of the tablecloth to sweep brain and skull fragments from the wall.**_

"Harry?"

He snapped out of it at the sound of Ginny's voice. "Y-yeah?" he stammered. He realised his heart was racing.

"What's wrong? What happened?" She touched his forehead with one hand, still warm and damp from the shower. ""You're not getting sick, are you?"

He laughed shortly. "Just in the head, maybe."

Her mouth thinned. When she sat next to him he noticed with a start that she was wearing one of his old grey t-shirts. It hung down to her thighs before giving way to her long, slender legs. They were marred with scratches, a legacy of her insistent bravery.

She noticed his scrutiny and rolled her eyes sheepishly. "I stole your shirt," she confessed. "I didn't pack much in the way of pyjamas."

He was fine with that. Probably a little _too_ fine. "I don't mind, that's how I usually sleep."

"In a shirt and knickers?" she said impishly.

"The male equivalent," he said wryly.

Her countenance sobered. "I know we're both tired, but I think we need to talk now, even if just for a bit."

He tried not to look overly reluctant, though he was sure he didn't pull it off.

"Were you thinking about what the locket said to you?" she asked.

"No, not when you came in," he said truthfully.

She gave him a doubtful look. "Really. You looked upset."

He sighed and rubbed at his eyes. "…I was thinking about the Death Eaters tonight."

She took his hand. "Do you want to talk about that?"

He could talk about getting psychically violated by a piece of Voldemort's soul or watching two men die in a terrible, if mercifully instant, fashion. What a choice. Why wasn't going to bed an option?

The silence stretched out between them as he endeavoured for an answer. Ginny's grip on his hand tightened until she finally burst out, "Come on, Harry! I saw what you did, don't pretend it didn't bother you!"

"I know it wasn't really you, Gin."

"Of course you do, Harry, you aren't completely daft! That doesn't mean it didn't hurt!" She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed in some mixture of affection and frustration. "I don't want you to torture yourself thinking any of that shite was true, and I _know_ that if I leave you alone, you will."

"I did try to push you away, though, I was a complete twat to you—"

"Good job," she snorted.

He had to concede the point. "I guess I'm not that convincing."

She didn't laugh. She pushed her hair back behind her ears and pressed her cheek to his shoulder. Then she wiggled her way around until she was straddling his lap, holding him as close as possible. "I'm going to hug you. It will make this easier," she said, her breath fanning against his neck.

That was foreboding enough to dampen his arousal. "Okay. I'm listening."

"When I first met you… it was like something out of all the books I loved," she said softly, playing with the hair at the nape of his neck. "You were a hero, a legend. I couldn't believe you were there at the station, and then you were there at breakfast…"

"I don't remember that well," Harry admitted. "It seems so long ago—"

"I know you don't remember, Harry. That was the problem. I was in awe. Ron was your friend and I thought maybe I could be, too; I might become more than just the little sister. Then you saved me in the Chamber. I thought I was in love after that." She sighed. "So I pined away in my dormitory like some ridiculous princess. I wrote bad poetry, some of which you heard, unfortunately. I lived for the moment when you would see me in the hall and think I was beautiful, or interesting, or anything other than a nonentity."

Harry had to interrupt, he couldn't stand it. "You were always beautiful and interesting."

"Not enough for you to notice me. But it's not like I had anyone to blame but myself; I barely spoke to you at all. Did you know there was even a period when I hated Hermione? The two of you were so close, I thought it was her fault no one else had a chance."

"We were never like that!" he objected.

"I _know_, Harry! I'm pouring my heart out here, can you stop interrupting!?"

"Sorry."

She took a deep breath. "…Looking back, I should have known better. It wasn't the other girls I couldn't compete with; it was your life. I was heartsick when you asked Parvati to the Ball, and it was so much worse when I found out it could have been me, that it nearly had been. But then nothing came of it; she couldn't compete with the Triwizard Tournament either. I think that was when I started to come to my senses. I thought you wouldn't see me no matter what I tried. I even asked Hermione about it earlier that year, if I could ever have the slightest chance. She told me I had to be myself more, be less shy, because you would never notice how I was around you, and even if you did, you wouldn't understand why."

She was killing him; it was more than he could stand. He would do _anything_ to take it back, to give her what she deserved. Everything the locket had said, everything he had been thinking before she had entered to the room, it was all true. He had been a monster long before he had got Sirius killed, long before Tom Riddle had possessed his mind. He really was The Boy Who Lived, the fucking Chosen One, marching down the road of destiny, heedless of the ants beneath his feet. Everyone around him was a casualty. He inflicted hurt without even having to try.

The anguish made him forget his previous apology. "It's on me, all of it, you were always right in front of me and I'm so fucking self-absorbed—"

"_**Harry!"**_ she yelped, tightening her arms until he couldn't breathe.

"Sorry," he wheezed.

"…So, I came out of my shell. I stopped hiding behind my hair, I made friends, boys noticed me. It felt good. I felt… _relieved_ to know I wasn't completely unattractive, that boys could like me—"

"Unattractive?" he said incredulously. Was she serious? Was there no limit to the damage he had done? "Ginny, you are completely fucking gorgeous, you are—"

She slapped a hand over his mouth. "Thank you, Harry, but you're my boyfriend and I'm sitting on you wearing your shirt and a pair of knickers, so you're just a bit biased. But thank you."

"I just hate that I ever made you feel that way," he said when she removed her hand.

"You never meant to. Anyway, you know most of the rest. I started dating. I liked the attention and found out snogging was fun, but… I tried to convince myself I was over you. I tried to replace you even though I'd never had you, and still no one else measured up. And for a short while I thought I should hate you. I'd stopped chasing you and you were _still_ in my head, this schoolgirl fantasy I couldn't get rid of. But by then I was your friend, too. I couldn't hate you. And when I started to get to know you as a person, it didn't ruin that want, it just got even worse, it was more _real_. But you were just out of reach. With Dean, I thought maybe I finally was, too." She pulled back and looked in his eyes. "It didn't work."

"Thank God," Harry said, caught in her gaze.

"That night after the game, when we kissed — I didn't plan it. I know you didn't, either, it just _happened_. And then we were together like we always had been." She laughed in disbelief. "It's strange, isn't it? We barely even discussed it."

He remembered. That night had been full of heat and noise, the merriment almost overwhelming. He'd gone upstairs to escape the press and Ginny had followed. She'd congratulated him, he her, and then when silence had fallen between them it had been about the only thing — they'd been standing close. The pull had been magnetic; Ginny's hair had hung in wonderful tangles, her lips slightly parted, her skin flushed. She had smelled like the outdoor air and flowers. They'd come together as if there were no other outcome.

Harry suspected Lila's interference, somehow.

"We did later. But right then we didn't need to. I thought," Harry said.

"Don't start second guessing that kiss, it was perfect," Ginny ordered, unaware she was already too late. She slid her hands back and rubbed at the tension in his shoulders. "Don't stress, Harry. I didn't tell you all that so you could beat yourself up about it."

She was too late for that, also. "Then…?"

"Because you need to understand what a load of utter bollocks that locket-me was spewing!" she said with an anger that didn't seem to have faded since the Horcrux's destruction.

"Oh, right. That," Harry said. Ginny's story had been wrenching enough for him to forget there was probably a point to it.

"I want _you_, Harry. I always have, even when I tried so hard to ignore it," she said. "I've never blamed you for the danger my family is in; we _chose_ to fight back. I _chose_ to be here with you, even when you didn't want me to. And it's not as if I'm the only one supporting you! Everyone should if they aren't a load of evil wankers."

Harry was unable to absolve himself so easily. "But—"

She cut him off again. "I don't want to hear it! We can fight about your guilt later. As for the other rubbish that thing said, and did…"

He remembered. The breasts he had been taunted with were currently pressed against him.

"I can't believe it just lifted up my shirt like that, I was _**so**_ angry. Good thing for that fog, I don't think anyone else saw…" She breathed hard through her nose, eyes flinty. "I have never shared a bed or anything else with other boys. I dated two, neither of which got anything more than a snog and that's _all_. That bloody locket took my face and my tits and made me out to be some sort of super slag!" she raged.

"None of it seemed right," he reassured her. "I never thought you were a slag, even when I saw you with Dean. I just wished you were mine."

He must have said the right thing — she melted back against him. "I always have been, if you believe Scott about the 'shape'."

Harry didn't want Scott to intrude on them, even vicariously. "Are you as tired as I am?"

"I'm already half-asleep," she mumbled into his shoulder, going deliciously limp in his arms. "I talked myself out."

He lay back, swinging his legs up on the bed and settling her beside him, where she immediately draped a warm arm over his torso. He opted to leave his trousers on, feeling it was safer that way, and he needed them to make his erection less obvious. Maybe he wouldn't be so self-conscious someday, but not that night.

"…Harry?" Ginny said sleepily.

"Yeah?"

"My tits are much nicer than that. Bloody locket didn't get _anything_ right."

It was comforting to know the Horcrux hadn't taken that first away from them. "I believe it."

* * *

><p>Sophie waited until Kylie was fast asleep before she left the room. The girl had been suffering night terrors, panicked dreams that often kept her from slumber. Another human presence seemed to calm her. Hopefully her resumption of speaking was a sign of recovery.<p>

Sophie had kept Kylie upstairs, well away from the Horcrux. She didn't know exactly what had happened in the kitchen but the locket had been a dark vortex in the shape once activated, and she had felt it being snuffed out. Whatever came next, she understood her own role in it. She had begun creating a mental plan for cleaning the house, as well as a few organisational rearrangements for defensive purposes. The singular point of ground floor entry made her job easier.

She disliked the dim the hallway she stepped out into, closing Kylie's door behind her. She liked her dwellings brightly lit, spacious and well furnished. Her career had forced her to learn to live without any of those attributes but had not changed her preferences. She wrinkled her nose at the candle holders she passed. Candles could be romantic and atmospheric, but they were such low-lumen alternatives to what she considered conventional lighting.

The doors for the rooms of both pairs of Primes were closed. Harry and Ginny's was dark. A sliver of light emanated from the crack beneath Ron and Hermione's door, along with muffled voices. They must have had something to discuss, perhaps related to the Horcrux.

She descended the staircase with the intention of going to the kitchen and seeing if everything was still intact. She found Scott sitting on the landing between the first and second floor, beneath the disgusting, mummified elf heads mounted to their grimy plaques. From that position he had a clear line of sight to the front door, which is what she assumed he wanted, but his head was leaned back against the wall and his eyes were closed. He had his shotgun resting across his knees. She hesitated, debating whether or not to disturb him.

Her indecision was made irrelevant when he spoke, eyes still closed. "Is Kylie asleep?"

"She is," Sophie said. She walked down the last few steps and sat next to him. "How did it go?"

"It's dead. And melted to the table, if you can believe it. It was dangerously manipulative; not surprising, considering it's a reflection of its maker, but whatever damage it did is a concern. I'm counting on the girls to take care of things. I know Ginny will, but I hope Hermione will talk to Ron."

"Do you want me to talk to her? If it was a personal attack maybe she would be more comfortable speaking to another woman…"

"Hermione would actually be more comfortable talking to me. I mean, she won't be comfortable with _anyone_, if the locket went where I think it did, but I think I could make her talk to me. We have an interesting dynamic."

Sophie had seen a little of that. "I think it's great how well you've connected with her! She seems like the most difficult Prime."

Scott made a face. "Yes and no. She demands oversight but understands necessity."

Sophie nodded in silent agreement before remembering that his eyes were still closed. She looked down the dark hallways towards the door. "Do we need to take shifts tonight?"

"Hmm? Oh, no. No, I was just sitting down for a minute."

She studied him more closely. His wheat blond hair had grown out since she had last seen him, falling closer to his eyebrows and the tops of his ears. She traced the lines of his elegant, angular face with its strong chin, lean cheeks and straight-edged nose set above his wide, firm mouth. He had a raw-boned handsomeness, not soft and pretty but sharp and male. The low light nearly hid the stubble dotting his features. He smelled like gun oil, flannel and warm masculinity. She wanted to kiss him.

She shook herself and glanced away in silent embarrassment. That attraction had been present from the moment she had met him and had grown with time. But in that time she had also become his close friend and comrade (familiarity had not lessened the pull; it only added an emotional component). Sometimes she felt like they were gradually moving towards something more.

While she greatly enjoyed his physical appearance she was not blind to what was currently detracting from it. His skin had the wan pallor of fatigue and dark circles hung beneath his beautiful grey eyes.

"Scott, when was the last time you slept?" she asked.

His response was slow in coming. "…A few days. We've been busy, and I've been watching that charm. Also…"

"Yes?" she pressed.

"The shape has been distracting. I don't know, I should sleep, this is stupid. I'm keyed up."

She sat up in alarm. "You've been taking combat stims?!" she gasped. He had never relied on the debilitating enhancers before.

"I was just using the expression! It's a figure of speech!" He looked at her with annoyance but she was just glad to see the alertness in his gaze.

She settled back against the wall. "How long were you planning on burning out?"

"I wasn't. I just couldn't sleep before, I didn't trust this house."

"I'm here now, you don't have to worry," she said gently.

He favoured her with a tired smile. "I know. Thank you for coming."

She winked at him. "I was ordered to."

"And there are so many fringe benefits," he yawned, stretching in an exaggerated manner intended to highlight his musculature.

That was more true than she would ever admit. "And the locale is so grand, too."

He grimaced, glancing up at the preserved heads. "It's better than forward observation. Plumbing is always a plus." He sighed, taking in his surrounds with weary eyes. "Talk to me, Sophie."

She placed her hands on her thighs and rocked back and forth idly, not sure what he wanted to hear. "We are talking…"

"How are we doing?"

He looked so worn out sitting there that it sent a deep ache of empathy through her. She couldn't help herself — she reached over and took his large calloused hand in both of hers, trying to impart comfort. Scott was not an especially tactile person. He didn't seem to have a very strong aversion to touch but rarely sought it out, which wasn't surprising considering his childhood. She had always taken it upon herself to bridge that gap with friendly gestures of affection. Her own vast family tree had given her a fondness for contact with those she held dear. And Scott, for all his singularity, had never pulled away.

Having Sophie at Grimmauld Place would ease his burden in more than a merely logistical fashion. With her, he was free to display weakness and doubt that he never would in front of his Primes.

"Did the locket show you something?" she said carefully.

"It tried. I don't think it was equipped to show our deepest fears… Few things can express something that abstract. But it knew how to get under Harry's skin."

"What did it tell him?"

"I don't know. I just know how he looked afterwards."

"I think you're doing great," she said, switching back to his original question. "You integrated for a whole year and now you're fighting back. You guys even just destroyed a Priority Object, that's awesome!"

"It's a start. But the Primes can't maintain the pace, it's brutal. They aren't trained to handle a battle every night." He rubbed at his eyes and yawned again. "I should talk to Lil."

"You should go to sleep," she retorted.

"I guess."

She patted her lap. "Here, lay down."

His eyebrows shot up and his gaze crawled towards the apex of her thighs. "You're inviting me to…?"

She blushed and brought her knees together, blocking access. "No!"

"So I _can't_ use you as a pillow?"

"You… But that's… Oh, ha ha, very funny," she said petulantly. "That is _not_ what you meant."

He slumped over and dropped his head on her lap, going limp. "Ahhhh… I always knew your thighs were the gates to heaven," he said sleepily.

"Shut up, Scott," she said fondly.

* * *

><p>It hadn't taken very long for Lila to regret allowing Molly use of the phone. The problem was that she would have regretted it equally, if not more, had she denied the worried mother.<p>

The result of Molly's high-decibel 'conversation' with her daughter had been the predictable demand that Lila go and retrieve Ginny immediately. In response, Lila could have lied. She could have promised to try, or to bring up the subject with Harry. But the truth was more convenient, if also more damaging, as the truth often was. She had advised Molly that she was unable to bring Ginny back home. Molly had pressed for reasons; Lila had provided none. When Molly had declared that she would go and find Ginny herself, Lila had coolly informed her that could not be allowed (it was also impractical, due to Scott's tampering with the Fidelius).

Consequently, Molly was no longer speaking to her. Arthur seemed to understand the situation a bit better, but intellect alone could not overpower a father's fear. He had little to say to Lila as well.

That was disappointing on a personal level, if not particularly relevant to the mission. Lila's past few days had consisted of watching a family who didn't understand her presence and listening in when Order members arrived to speak with Bill and Arthur. She had little to report back to Scott; the Order was still scattered and trying to consolidate. The felling of the Ministry had stripped the resistance of its main avenues of information. No one seemed to know what was happening outside of the safehouses.

So she waited. And in such close quarters, without the distraction of a wedding, she had been forced to refuse questions instead of avoiding them. That made her presence increasingly inexplicable, and it was hurting her integration. Simply being Scott's sister who lived nearby no longer sufficed.

Even Charlie's interactions with her had been muted by wariness. He hadn't appeared to mind not knowing much about her before, perhaps looking forward to the opportunity to _get_ to know her, but once it became clear that the rest of his family didn't know her either, he had found cause for concern. She sort of wished she hadn't used a gun during the escape from the wedding. The safety of the Weasleys had come before her secrets.

It was Bill who posed the greatest challenge. He had confronted her several times, frustrated by her refusal to level with him. It had not yet reached the point where he demanded that she leave. She was not a Secret Keeper and therefore no threat to the house if ejected (or so he thought), and perhaps her efforts to protect his family had made an impression on him despite his distrust.

She needed to change her approach. Full disclosure was not an option, and might never be. Answering select questions could buy her the time she needed to reaffirm her loyalty; the Order would recognise her worth in the field once they ventured out. She had no intention of being left behind, whatever the mission.

She stood at the side of Shell Cottage, watching the waves roll towards the shore. The charm which concealed the dwelling was a looming dome in the shape. It extended much further than she had expected. She wondered what might happen if she severed her own connection to the Fidelius. Would she become blind to her surroundings? Concealing what stood right in front of her would require magic to attack and impair her cognition. She should be able to resist.

The question would remain rhetorical — she needed the link. It might only be answered if she visited Scott's safehouse without invitation.

She sighed and crossed her arms beneath her substantial breasts, lifting them and taking the weight off her too-tight brassiere. The fitted garment was designed for combat, supporting her prodigious bust in situations of great motion and impact. It had shrunk in the wash, despite also being designed not to do that. Apparently magical laundering was different. She needed to try out her other bras to see if they fit better, and probably go shopping.

That had to be, of course, the way Bill found her: lifting her breasts with one arm while fiddling with the support straps with the other. His eyebrows shot upwards.

She dropped her hands and favoured him with a blasé stare. "My bra shrunk. And yes, these are real, in case you were wondering."

"Not as much as Charlie," he said humorously.

"Also, considering how often you men are adjusting your tackle, I think you can let me shift my boobs around without excessive comment."

"Entirely fair," he graciously agreed.

She leaned back against the wall. "What can I do for you?"

He addressed her with directness. "You could answer some questions, for a change."

"That's a pretty big change," she said, unaffected.

His eyes darkened. "Look, how long do you think you can keep this up? You lied to my mum for a year, but that's over. None of us have any idea who you are. I'm not even sure you're a witch."

"I'm Lila Kharan."

"And who is that?"

She considered her reply for a moment. "Scott Kharan's sister. We're a team." She glanced at Bill but he said nothing, looking impatient for more. "We're soldiers."

"Mercenaries?" he said sceptically. "Who hired you?"

"We aren't mercs. I told you, we're soldiers," she said stiffly.

"A sixteen-year-old and his slightly older sister. Just like all the other recruits," he said sarcastically. "What are you? Twenty? Twenty-two?"

She ignored his guesses. "Our talents are suited to this mission."

"And what mission would that be?"

"Riddle is not merely a local concern," she told him, choosing her words with extra care. "Other parties are aware that Harry must be supported."

He took a step closer, eyes narrowing. "The American government?"

If that was what he wanted to think then she saw no reason to disillusion him (for the time being). "I'm not at liberty to say."

He sighed. "Well, you're going to have to tell me a little more than _that_."

"I'm here to protect your family and assist in mission planning and execution."

"Mission execution or _person_ execution?" he said pointedly.

"Whatever may be required."

He stared at her, and then slowly nodded. "The thing is… I'm not in a position to turn away someone like you. The Order isn't, which I'm sure you've noticed. And I know you were at Hogwarts with your brother, during the attack. So Dumbledore knew that, too."

"Scott attended with his consent," she said.

"Right. So you explained yourself to him, but don't feel you owe us the same courtesy. I get it."

Lila was not impressed by the ploy. "Good. I'm glad you get it."

Bill laughed without amusement. "I really don't know what to make of you. I'll tell you one thing, though: if you betray my family, you won't live long enough to collect whatever reward the Death Eaters have for you."

She rolled her eyes. "Save your threats for the enemy. Or at least someone you can intimidate. Most men don't have prettier hair than me."

This time, he laughed genuinely. "Just so we understand each other — it's customary! You've killed enough Death Eaters that I doubt you're on the other side. I just wonder if you're on _our_ side. But…" His expression sobered. "We need all the help we can get. And Harry, even more."

"What we do, we do to ease his path," she said quietly.

"I understand if you don't trust me entirely, as well."

"I do trust you. In time, perhaps with more. Not everything is mine to tell."

"Harry seems to trust your brother," Bill said. "I doubt he knows as little as me."

"Harry is privileged. How often did Dumbledore confide in you?" Lila asked pointedly.

"You aren't Dumbledore."

"We ran in the same circles. We had an understanding."

"That I believe," Bill stated. "Anything else you'd like to share?"

She looked away. "Ask me again later."

"Count on it." He turned to go and then stopped. "Oh, one more thing — don't hurt my brother. He still fancies you, so at least do me a favour and let him down gently."

"I haven't led him on."

"I know, that's why I'm not angry."

"He hasn't pushed the issue. If he wants to be direct then so will I." Lila wasn't willing to simply reject Charlie outright. His attraction to her might still be of use, and it was fun, too.

"If it's all the same to you, then, I'll keep trying to talk him out of it."

"Do what you want," she said indifferently.

After he left she stared at the ground and wondered how long her minor admissions would suffice. She had briefly considered bringing up the topic of Fleur, but ultimately Bill's new bride was more of an annoyance than a real concern. Lila and Fleur had clashed several times during the wedding preparations and Fleur had not forgotten it. She barely tried to hide her resentment of Lila's presence. Lila doubted that talking to Bill about it would have accomplished much, anyway.

She was also bored. She knew she needed to suppress the feeling if she was to advance into integration; it required many workaday things. So she did her best to stay occupied and waited for a call from Scott or a gathering of the Order to bring new challenges her way.

She supposed she could call Strauss. The other woman wouldn't be excessively busy tending to her similar directives and was always up for a chat. Strauss could natter away almost endlessly when invited to, and her family connections ensured she was always full of the latest news and gossip. Lila usually had to pry the best stuff out of her, though, or infer it. Strauss was too considerate and decorous to revel in anything malicious (she sometimes made an exception in regards to certain female members of the Consistorium staff — Lila suspected that Scott factored in).

Lila filed away the option for later. She needed to return to the interior of the cottage. However, going back inside might mean facing Molly again. It had to be done at some point. Eventually the frantic mother might understand things, though it might be too soon to hope for change. Lila could rebuild burned bridges but first the ashes had to cool.

She wished she had a better way to check on the twins. Getting to Diagon Alley was the easy part (not that apertures were ever easy). It was more difficult to return before her departure was noticed. She knew that if her method of travel was revealed, Molly would insist that it be used to retrieve Ginny, which would in turn lead to a plethora of facts that Lila had no desire to disclose. Explaining that not only was she unwilling to take Ginny through an aperture but literally _unable_ would result in questions about the shape and Primes and a million other things that the Weasleys didn't need to know.

Lila desired to end her feud with Molly, not create an entirely new mess with unneeded revelations. Regrettably, any missions with the Order could end the same way if Lila was forced to use any of her more unusual abilities. That was a problem that would have to be faced when it arose; other problems had to be faced more immediately. She took pride in her reputation for not shirking confrontation. With that in mind, she strode into the cottage to being repairing her integration.

The small sitting room was where Molly spent most of her time. The Weasley matriarch alternated between knitting, sewing and staring with desperate worry at the family clock. Lila was not unsympathetic. But to end Molly's torment was to end the war, and the only way out was through. There had to be some part of her which knew that. She just stood to lose too much. Perhaps it would help if Lila reaffirmed her dedication to preventing such loss.

Molly did not look up from her knitting when Lila seated herself in a nearby rocking chair. Her face was drawn and the stiff movements of her hands were a far cry from her usual skill. She tore at the yarn, fraying it.

"We need to talk," Lila said evenly.

Molly's reply was terse. "I don't think we have anything to talk about."

Lila went ahead and rolled her eyes; Molly wasn't looking at her, anyway. "That's obviously not true."

"I tried talking to you before and you wouldn't listen, I don't see the point now."

"I did listen. You were being unreasonable."

Molly's knitting needles clacked together loudly. "'Unreasonable'?" she bit out. "It was _unreasonable_ to ask you to bring my daughter home? It was _unreasonable_ to think a sixteen-year -ld shouldn't be out on her own, fighting Dark wizards?"

"Under these particular circumstances, yes."

"I don't care!" Molly snapped. "You've done nothing but lie to me and then refused to lift a finger when I needed your help! I don't even know who you are."

"You do know me. I'm Lila."

"No, I don't think I do. So please, leave me be."

"No."

"_No?!"_ Molly nearly shouted.

"Not until we settle this."

"Unless you can produce Ginny, I can't imagine that happening."

"Scott is protecting her," Lila reminded.

"_Scott?_" Molly said incredulously. "Your younger brother? Are you trying to reassure me?"

"He has the same training I do," Lila told her, omitting the fact that he had significantly more.

Molly waved her hand, as if brushing away Scott as a topic worthy of discourse. "I can barely accept that Dumbledore left this task, whatever it may be, in the hands of children, _my_ children, I surely don't pretend to know what the man was thinking," she said in an angry, rapid cadence. "I know that Harry will look out for Ginny and they think they're in love, but if I have no choice with Ron and Harry and Hermione — if I ever have, with all the trouble they get into — then at least they're of age!"

"Ginny chose to accompany them."

"That's not a choice she can make! I am her mother and I want her _here!"_ Molly said with an edge of hysteria. "The only reason I haven't gone to get her myself is because I don't know where she is!"

"Neither do I," Lila said. Technically, it was true.

"Stop lying to me!" Molly demanded. "You rang your brother on that Muggle wireless!"

"It's just a number. It could connect to anywhere."

"Then you talk to Scott and tell him to tell you."

"That won't help you. I won't be a Secret Keeper."

"Then he can tell me!"

"I don't think he will. They have reasons for remaining isolated."

"Then we have nothing to discuss," Molly hissed, and resumed her knitting.

Lila wondered if her own reserve was creating a barrier. It could be maddening if one participating party in an argument never lost composure. Her lack of emotion might be reinforcing Molly's perception that Lila was uncaring, without pity.

Lila didn't have to act. She just had to loosen her rigid self-control and allow her body to reflect her emotions. "We have _a lot_ to discuss," she said, hearing her voice roughen with temper and feeling the blood rush to her cheeks. "I have done my best to protect this family and I know I'm not perfect, but I don't deserve to be treated like this just because I won't give in to your whims!"

Molly was taken aback. Lila rarely displayed any real anger, and had never raised her voice to Molly before. "Protecting my daughter is not a whim!"

"It is when you should have already realised it's not going to happen! Ginny is with Harry and they have a job to do, and I can't fucking change that!" Lila said forcefully.

Molly gasped. _"Lila Kharan!_ I ought to jinx your mouth shut!"

Lila actually felt slightly ashamed. "…I'm sorry. But stop blaming me for things that are beyond my control. You didn't think it was coincidence that Dumbledore left something to Ginny, did you?"

Molly looked away, a hand fluttering to her mouth. "I didn't want to think he'd be so callous."

"He was what he needed to be to finish this." Not enough of what he needed to be, in Lila's opinion.

"They're just children…" Molly said again, almost to herself. "Why must it be them?"

They trod near truths, now, stepping too close to the shape. Lila had no wish to speak in actualities, so she generalised. "It always has been. Harry is at the centre of this and his friends won't leave him."

"And he won't come to the adults for help?" Molly smiled bitterly and wiped at her eyes. "He can't be blamed, I suppose. We've never been there when he most needed us. The Tournament, the Ministry… The way the _Prophet _treated him, those awful _Dursleys_…" she said the name like an epithet.

"It's difficult to trust authority when your family failed you like that," Lila said.

"_We_ are his family," Molly said sharply. "The only one he has."

That was encouraging. "I'm glad this hasn't turned you against him.

"Never!" Molly seemed shocked by the idea. ""I don't always agree, but he does what he thinks is right. He always has."

Lila leaned back in her chair and smoothed her features once more. "This will all be over someday."

Molly looked at the family clock, its hands illustrating how grim things really were. "You'll forgive this mother for worrying about what happens before then," she said quaveringly.

"Whatever it may be, I'll be here."

"I know, dear. Perhaps soon you'll tell me why." Molly took a deep breath and set her knitting aside. "What shall we make for dinner?"

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note<strong>

Discussing Ginny…

I received some constructive criticism recently from a reviewer who felt that Ginny was, 'not herself'. And that raised a question: not herself in comparison to what?

Reading pre-book five fanfiction is always an interesting experience because the Ginny of those stories is utterly different from the one I've presented. She's shy and blushes around Harry, rarely speaks up and is somewhat clumsy. The following books gave us a radically different version of her under the excuse that she was being more of herself. I'd consider that somewhat sloppy characterisation, but the fact is JKR never gave us enough of Ginny previously for that to be true. You can't have an inconsistent character if they're barely a character at all. And the ageing process was probably excuse enough. Plus, I've always liked the implication that only Hermione ever knew the _real_ Ginny, and that limiting the reader to Harry's POV left us without much in the way of insight into tertiary characters. I disagree (obviously) with that approach on a literary level, but I've always found a single POV to be horribly limiting.

The fact is, Ginny probably spoke more words in this chapter than she did in all the Harry Potter books combined. That leaves me looking for somewhere to fit her the way I've fit everyone else, but fitting someone you don't really understand is difficult (and then there's my general objection to characters having specialised purposes, as if everyone needs one specific role and they only exist to fulfil a narrative requirement — that's an entire other author's note).

The reviewer didn't care for Ginny being primarily Harry's handler, which is a rather insightful criticism because that's probably why Scott brought her along in the first place. It was suggested that Ginny learn to become a Healer. I've seen a lot of that in fanfiction, Healer Ginny, and I know it doesn't have a basis in the books unless you count her ability with Charms. I think Ginny as a Healer came about because someone did it first and everyone else liked it, because it gives her a role that no one else fills. It delineates her in a way the books don't.

I'm not really looking for something that simple because people aren't that simple. What Ginny is to the other members of the cast may not mean much to the reader, but that's what she is. I'm trying to think of a way to phrase in a manner not quite so inelegant… What I want to say is, I'm not interested in adding character traits for the purpose of making Ginny more interesting, when the story still has so much use for her. I get a little cranky when people tell me that she doesn't seem indispensable to events, or that she's not adding enough to the crew (see my side thoughts above about characters as nothing but narrative requirements). What should I do, just disappear her like Rowling did? No one is indispensable but Harry.

Ginny is fighting Death Eaters, she's Harry's girlfriend, and she has some other talents like mimicry, Charms and Quidditch that haven't really come up yet. I know some people can be disappointed that she hasn't done anything amazing yet, but who has, besides Harry? I think my regular readers know that I'm perfectly willing to sacrifice any and all narrative conceits in the pursuit of logical character behaviour (even if that behaviour is illogical, as we often are).

I'm not saying Ginny isn't something special. I'm not saying I don't have anything for her to do. All I'm saying is that I won't sacrifice internal consistency to max her stats.

Well, this was some petulant bullshit of an author's note, huh? Please try to review the chapter and not my extended whining as I cringe in a corner, clutching my notes to my chest and blubbering in defence of my version of Ginny. She's really good, guys! I know what I'm doing, guys! Come on, I'm a good writer, leave me alone, leave me alooooooonnneeeeeee


	13. Each Breath Be Blessed

**13**

**Each Breath Be Blessed, Every Hour Be Stilled**

* * *

><p><em>Time waits<em>

_Though not with Man_  
><em>Nor on Planets<em>  
><em>Nor near the Gates<em>

_Instead it stands_  
><em>To side of view<em>  
><em>And reaches out<em>  
><em>With dusty hands<em>

_A jealous grasp_  
><em>Our rhythm held<em>  
><em>Beating slowly<em>  
><em>Behind the clasp<em>

_By that long clock_  
><em>Counting each tick<em>  
><em>Marking each tock<em>

_Still caught_

—Aidan Stonémarc, _1330 Long Beach, 1993_

* * *

><p>Days passed without change.<p>

The problem, as Harry saw it, was information: they had none. They were cut off at Grimmauld Place, isolated. Their forays into the outside world had largely been rapid, violent affairs with narrow focus. They had accomplished much but learned little. The Order hadn't much to offer either, according to Lila's reports. They were trying to organise, left without resources or anyone to trust. Diagon Alley would be a death trap, Hogsmeade little better. The enemy had eyes everywhere, it seemed.

So they sat and studied and plotted, and, honestly, it was a bit of a relief. Harry usually hated inactivity, but the trauma of having the world turned upside down followed by battles in quick succession had worn him down. He needed the time to gather himself. He knew even greater hurdles lay ahead.

He spent a lot of his time practising his aim, fine-tuning his shotgun skills. Ginny often accompanied him, and even tried her hand at marksmanship on occasion. She didn't have the affinity for it that Harry did and mostly went along for his company. They were not neglecting their magical skills, either. The whole group trained together, casting and covering each other, honing their wandwork in the process of teaching Sophie. It was strange to see the tiny Kharadjai woman casting without the aid of a wand (and sometimes without verbalisation or even a gesture). Her control was imperfect and, without a wand, it took her considerable time to master even simple spells, but once she did she was capable of doing things that Harry had never seen before.

She could send Stunners whirling around the room, accelerating and slowing them, splitting them into multiple glowing spears. She had access to the hidden workings of magic, manipulating with her innate power what a wizard would express in pages of runes and Arithmancy formula.

It certainly served to underscore Scott's magical incompetence. Harry had assumed that Scott would be caustic and defensive about it, and maybe the teen-Scott would have. But the fully grown Scott who sometimes sat in on their training sessions regarded Sophie's talent with an obvious pride (which told Harry more about how Scott felt towards her than a hundred of his lewd comments).

"How many people could do that?" Harry had asked one time, watching as Sophie sent a Stunner into a corkscrew so fast it looked like a solid tube. When it hit the mattress, it had cut a perfect circle into the fabric.

"No more than a handful. Training helps, but what you're seeing, the way the shape is understood and then altered… It's like what makes someone a great painter or musician. It can't be taught." Scott had smiled as Sophie sheepishly prodded at the smoking mattress. "It's part of why she joined the Praesaedius."

"She wasn't going to before?" Harry had said. He had assumed that Sophie was a career soldier like Scott and Lila (which, come to think of it, was also an assumption).

"That's _her_ story," Scott had stated.

"I haven't heard your story, either."

"That's right. You haven't."

Harry had let it go, knowing he wasn't getting any further answers.

Hermione had been absent for some of those practises. Harry was worried about her, and he knew that Ron and Ginny were, too. She spent endless hours in research, studying her books in search of information that Harry thought probably wasn't there. He doubted even Riddle had fully understood the nature of the Horcruxes when he had made his first one. The perceived reward had simply been worth the risk.

As far as Horcrux locations were concerned, Hermione had not found anything they didn't already know. Dumbledore had been thorough. Harry was all for gaining an edge, but Hermione needed to slow down. They could have to leave at a moment's notice and they needed everyone to be well rested. Ron was getting tired of her obsession as well, and could probably be counted on to do something about it soon.

Harry was sitting at the table eating sugar-loaded cereal and discussing the best treats Honeydukes had to offer with Ginny when a familiar white shape fluttered down the chimney and perched on the back of an empty chair.

"Hedwig!" Harry exclaimed with delight. The owl preened herself and allowed Harry to rub her feathered head. She dropped a folded note in front of him.

He picked it up and read:

_Harry,_

_I thought you might want to write to some_  
><em>of the Order members I haven't seen lately.<em>  
><em>They might tell you things they wouldn't<em>  
><em>say in front of me. At the very least, tell Lupin<em>  
><em>you're okay. He asks after you all the time and<em>  
><em>it's very annoying.<em>

_Lila_

_P.S. I tried to tie this to your owl's leg and_  
><em>it tried to bite me. Lucky for it, I was feeling<em>  
><em>merciful. If it wants to carry this the whole<em>  
><em>way, whatever.<em>

Lila's blunt presence permeated every line of the missive. Harry could practically hear it being read in her flat, sardonic tones.

"It's from Lila," he explained to Ginny. He handed it to her. "She wants me to send a letter to Remus."

Ginny read the note. "Hah! They won't talk to her so she's going behind their backs," she said admiringly.

"If that's what it takes, I guess. It can't be easy over there since they don't know what we do." He did not envy Lila's situation.

He procured some paper and a quill and was debating how to start (and getting plenty of unsolicited advice from Ginny) when Scott strode into the kitchen with Kylie close behind. He paused briefly to look at Hedwig.

"That's new," he commented, and starting digging through one of the cupboards.

"Lila thought I could use Hedwig to contact the Order," Harry told him.

"We thought about getting an owl of our own, once. Didn't pan out," Scott said idly. "Kylie, you pick something. I'm tired, not hungry."

Harry hadn't been blind to Scott's increasingly haggard appearance. "Did you sleep enough?"

"Define 'enough'." Scott passed Kylie the cereal she had pointed at. "I slept."

"I'm writing to Remus. Is there anything you want to tell the Order?"

"Not until we have a target for them, or vice versa."

"I'll find out." Harry pressed the quill to the parchment and started writing.

"From what Lil said, it sounds like they know as much as we do. Oh, and here…" Scott dug into one of his numerous pockets and produced a ballpoint pen, which he tossed at Harry. "Welcome to the twentieth century."

Harry looked around the stone room with its wooden furnishings. "This pen is too modern for this bloody place."

"So am I."

Harry couldn't argue with that. Even the cutting edge of Muggle technology must have seemed obsolete to Scott. "That's you, mate — you're just too advanced for us."

"Your sarcasm does not change the truth."

"That you're a stuck-up git?" Ginny said.

"Yes, exactly."

Sophie trotted down into the kitchen, her demeanour an odd combination of sleepy and cheerful. "Good morning!" she said brightly, followed by a yawn that she hid behind one hand.

"Good morning, and, yes, I slept last night," Scott said pre-emptively.

"Wonderful!" She helped herself to a scone. "I slept great, if you were wondering."

"I wasn't. You sleep like the dead and are only slightly more responsive."

Harry concentrated on his letter. It took a few moments to get the hang of using a pen again. There was no question that it offered greater ease of use. A perfect world would really be a blend of magic and science. If only the two weren't so mutually exclusive.

Although, it struck him that Scott's phone had always worked in places where it shouldn't. Harry had always assumed this made possible by the advanced nature of Kharadjai tech, but perhaps not. Maybe it could be duplicated and adapted.

"Scott, how is it your phone works at Hogwarts?" he asked.

Scott answered promptly, which was a nice surprise. "Because it's not a phone, it's a comunit."

"…But you always call it a phone."

"It saves time."

"Not any more. What's a comunit?"

"Short answer: it uses the shape for communication and therefore requires a Kharadjai to provide that connection. If I gave it to you it would just be a phone."

"You gave it to me," Ginny pointed out.

"And I was right there, making it work," Scott said.

"How far away could you go before it would stop?" Harry asked.

Scott shrugged. "Not very."

"Never mind, then," Harry said, disappointed. It seemed communicating the Kharadjai way was not a goal within reach.

"Only a Kharadjai can provide access to the shape. It's a constant limitation," Sophie said thoughtfully as she stirred an excessive amount of butter into the bowl of porridge she was making.

"Would you like some porridge with that butter?" Scott asked, echoing Harry's observation.

"I have porridge with it," Sophie primly replied.

Harry was about halfway through his letter (he was having trouble with the wording; he didn't want to be perfunctory with Remus but he also didn't want to discuss his own state of mind) when Ron and Hermione came downstairs. Hermione seemed rested, which was encouraging. Ron must have prevented her from reading late into the night.

"Why, hello, Hedwig!" Hermione said, greeting the bird. Hedwig blinked in reply. "Who are you writing, Harry?"

"Remus. I'm trying to find out if the Order knows any more than we do," Harry said.

"Ol' Mad Eye has got to have something up his sleeve, if no one else," Ron imagined.

Remus' reply came back quickly; Hedwig returned that evening and deposited the letter in front of Harry with an expectant manner. He gave her some of the owl treats he had dug out of his trunk and read the letter out loud while everyone clustered around.

"'Harry…'" he read, "'Upon receiving your letter, I was going to come see you directly, only to discover I no longer remember how to get to where I suspect you may be. I spoke to Bill and Nymphadora and we're all in the same boat. I don't know how you managed to change the charm, if that is what's happened, but I hope you did. If this isn't your doing then the implications are troubling. Please write back as soon as you can and let me know. If the enemy can circumvent such a powerful charm then we are all in danger.'" Harry paused and looked at Hermione. "Should they be able to remember anything about this place? It sounds like he knows the name, or something…"

She contemplated the question. "…I'm not sure. It may be a side effect of what Scott did. He removed their access, but not their memories."

Harry continued. "'We have been trying to organise but it has been difficult. Travel is dangerous, especially as Apparition is our only quick option. There are Anti-Apparition Jinxes placed in Diagon Alley and other major areas. Be very careful where you go. Moody has disappeared — he briefly returned to his house to gather his Auror equipment and was ambushed. He managed to fight his way out and sent a message to us before he went to ground. Hopefully we'll hear from him soon. I'm glad you wrote, Harry. We're all worried about you. I have much I would prefer to say in person. If all goes well perhaps we can meet soon. Be safe, Remus.'"

"I don't like the comments about meeting in person. Are you sure this is from Lupin?" Scott said.

Sometimes Scott's paranoia was a bit much. "Hedwig wouldn't take a return letter from someone else," Harry said. The owl was looking at Scott with her hackles raised, clearly indignant.

Scott stared back. "I suppose there are some benefits to an intelligent messaging system."

The letter had been full of the kind of news Harry had been hoping not to receive. "I'd better let him know about the charm."

He started a second, shorter letter to inform Remus that the Fidelius Charm had been altered by them and it had been intentional. Harry also made sure to promise to stay in touch, though he didn't guarantee a meeting. He wasn't in a position to commit to much of anything.

"Scott. Scott!" Hermione was saying, trying to get his attention.

"Yeah?" Scott said, coming back from wherever he had been mentally wandering.

"I was thinking about what you said before, about a possible Horcrux up north. I was wondering if you'd had any more precognition to narrow it down?" she said hopefully.

"It's not precognition. It's perinoesis, or shape-given perception of the present," he corrected meticulously.

Hermione didn't like being corrected. "Fine. Have you or haven't you?"

"No. Maybe if we got closer."

"I'm sorry, I haven't felt anything like that at all," Sophie apologised, seeing the disappointment on Hermione's face.

"I can't exactly be angry with you when I can't see the shape at all!" Hermione complained. She opened her mouth as if to say more and then closed it, a troubled expression flitting across her features.

"It has many uses but only a few in which it is reliable," Scott said.

"Then searching will be our last resort. We'll probably have to travel the Muggle way, unless we want to risk brooms again."

Flying around on brooms without a destination in mind and for an indeterminate amount of time seemed like quite a risk, indeed. "Yeah, let's take the car if we're going to do that," Harry said.

"I thought we were going to Godric's Hollow?" Ginny said.

"We still are," Harry confirmed. "This is just a load of maybes."

Godric's Hollow was on Scott's maps but they had come to the conclusion that they were almost certainly incomplete, covering those portions known to the Muggles. The wizarding population preferred a level of segregation for Statute of Secrecy purposes. That left them with a partial picture, which was better than none.

It had been decided early on that travelling by motor would be the safest way to approach the village. Hermione had discovered Bagshot's address, though if she was in hiding, perhaps behind a Fidelius of her own, then Scott would be the only chance they had of finding her. There was no guarantee she even remained in Godric's Hollow at all. Harry was eager to find more Horcruxes but the trip would be worthwhile for him regardless of whether they found Bagshot or not. He wanted to see his parents' graves, and the house he couldn't remember.

Though maybe Riddle wanted him to do that, too. Visiting a location so tied to Harry's history carried with it a bevy of perils. Harry would be taking the Cloak and his shotgun, if he could find a good way to carry it; it would be a good weapon for the element of surprise, assuming he could pull the trigger when there was someone in the sights. As Scott was fond of saying, there was only one way to find out.

The next day, Harry approached Scott with an important question. The Kharadjai was in the drawing room, intently studying the street outside through a foggy window. It was raining, and had been off and on for days. The puddles near the kerb were deep and passing cars churned up a dirty mist in their wake, tyres hissing in passage. The venture to Godric's Hollow would be a wet one.

Harry walked to the window and peered up at the overcast sky as raindrops plunked against the blurry pane. "Seen anything?" he asked Scott.

"Not yet. If they haven't narrowed it down by now, they must not know where to start. That's encouraging," Scott said satisfactorily.

"Maybe they're just well hidden," Harry said pessimistically.

"It would be an unusual display of subtlety." Scott's eyes tracked a small yellow car as it drove past. "Besides, they can't know where we're looking out of."

"I'm just saying we shouldn't be careless."

"I wasn't planning on it."

Harry stepped back and sank onto the couch. "I came to ask you something."

"Is it something I'm not going to like?"

"Uh, I don't think so… But how am I supposed to know?" Harry said logically.

Scott turned away from the window. "I don't know. You could ask me for a machinegun or something."

"Would you give me one if I asked?"

"God, no."

"It was worth a try." Harry moved on to his actual query. "So, if I can't have that, will you teach me to fight?"

"I thought I have been."

"But not just shooting and plans, I mean up close… Like, punching and stuff," Harry said eagerly.

"Punching and stuff." Scott sighed and sat in the chair across from Harry. "Okay, first off, I can't teach you to fight like me. You aren't strong enough or fast enough and you can't be. Trying to imitate my style isn't going to get you anywhere."

"Fine, but it's not like we have that kind of time anyway. Just teach me how to do what you did to Dudley — quick things like that."

Scott made a few elegant jabs at the air, his hands a blur. "Yeah, joints and points. Just the good stuff, the shit that works on people who know less than you, or get caught by surprise. You'll still be in trouble if they know what they're doing, but, like you said, you don't have time to master a system."

"But I could take on a Death Eater, right?"

"Well… How big of a Death Eater?" Scott raised his hands and dropped them. "This will be good in an emergency, but keep your distance. Your wand is what you know."

Maybe, but Harry had begun to feel that, against Voldemort, magic might not be enough. He needed to expand his arsenal, use tools the enemy wouldn't expect. There had never seemed to be much chance of him winning a duel against the Dark Lord. Only Dumbledore had been able to equal Riddle in skill and power. Harry might have had considerable power of his own, he didn't know, but if he did it was undeveloped. Riddle had decades of practise and research behind him. Harry didn't have fifty years to hone his skills. By the time he achieved parity, he would have already lost.

It was unfair to be so outmatched thanks to the directives of the Prophecy (the universe, according to Scott). If anyone had to be fated to kill Voldemort it should have been Dumbledore.

But the world was stuck with Harry, so he reckoned he needed to fight dirty. And luckily, that seemed to be the only way Scott ever fought.

That truth became even more evident in the opening moments of their first impromptu sparring session. They moved aside the table in the kitchen and faced each other on the bare flagstones. Harry had suggested they find some kind of matting for the floor; Scott's reply had been that preventing pain was not instructive, which Harry felt did not bode well.

"Okay, things you need to know," Scott began. "Forget everything you've ever seen in every martial arts movie. If you end up trading blows for minutes on end, either you both suck or you're in a fair fight, which is the last thing you want. You want to inflict as much damage as possible as quickly as possible. You want to end the fight before it has a chance to start. Every fight is different, but the basic goal can be boiled down to this: get the other guy down, and then kick him until he's crippled or dead. You're going to do real damage if you can put your body weight behind it. And a lot of times the fight will end up on the ground. Try not to hit the floor, but if you do, make sure you take him with you."

"So you're going to be knocking me down," Harry said, looking at the stone floor with reluctance.

"Not yet. First I'm going to show you where to hit someone, then we'll work on your footing a bit. Then I want a sandwich." Scott tapped a finger on his throat. "Lesson one: how to make someone wish they'd been born without a neck."

* * *

><p>Hermione knew she was missing something. She just couldn't work out what that something was, and she <em>hated<em> that feeling.

_The Tales of Beedle the Bard _was a fascinating glimpse into wizarding lore, a rare valuable and an insight into the magical childhood she hadn't lived, but, as far as she could determine, nothing more. She couldn't accept that Dumbledore had given it to her simply because he had known she would appreciate it. That would have been true of most any book, and all of the other gifts bequeathed by the Headmaster had purpose.

He had not hidden her gift behind locks or passwords, which meant his intent was hidden in some other way, in plain sight. The Ministry had been forced to give Ginny and Scott their gifts after failing to open them. For Hermione's they had found no reason to withhold it at all, it seemed, which meant the answer was well hidden indeed. Hence her frustration.

Her efforts to produce a spell mimicking Scott's infrared senses had fared little better. She needed more books, especially ones with greater detail to offer on the specific spells she had found. She had already admitted to herself that she may have set her sights too high. Creating such a unique new spell, one based on a Muggle understanding of wavelengths, might well be beyond her abilities.

The others always had implicit faith in her magical acumen. But the fact was that no matter how clever she was or how advanced her knowledge base had become, she was still a seventeen-year-old witch with a sixth-year education. She had already taken a great many tasks upon herself. Attempted invention might well be the one she could not meet.

It was a disappointing thought. But no matter how eager she was to solve the problem, the infrared spell had to remain a secondary priority. The Horcruxes had to be found, above all else.

With luck, finding Bathilda Bagshot in Godric's Hollow would set them on the trail of one (or maybe even more) of the magical artefacts Riddle had stolen for his own Dark purposes. And once they were all gone, he would be vulnerable; or at least, as vulnerable as a powerful Dark wizard surrounded by a makeshift army could be.

"One problem at a time," she mumbled to herself. She set aside her copy of _The Tales of Beedle the Bard_ and looked at the other books around her without enthusiasm. They had all failed her.

She stood, stretched, and went downstairs in search of something to clear her mind. It was a minor miracle how busy she had managed to keep in a house so detached from the outside world. But between research, training and Ron…

She flushed a little at the last thought. It was not natural to her nature to be aggressive in her affections, but having Ron so close at hand, and never having to look over her shoulder for parents or teachers, well… It was easy for her hormones to take control. So far they had limited themselves to snogging and a bit of touching over the clothes. Ron could sometimes try to push things further in the heat of the moment but he always stopped when asked. Sleeping in the same bed had remained chaste as well, both of them in their night clothes. They tended to wake up on opposite sides of the bed, as it seemed neither of them were natural cuddlers (in contrast, Ginny had said she'd fallen asleep directly on top of Harry; Hermione couldn't imagine how that was comfortable).

She was fine with that. She was no good at rushing things, and what would her parents think of even the _current_ arrangements, not that they would think anything at all, as for the time being they didn't remember her… The thought saddened her all over again, per usual. She pushed it away.

On the first floor she heard a racket emanating from the dining room that now served as a training room. It was a common occurrence; there was always something happening in there.

"_Wingardium Leviosa!"_ Ron was saying as she walked into the room. He levitated a plate for a moment and then lowered it back to the floor.

"Wingardium… Leviosa," Sophie slowly repeated. She moved her hand in the approximate motions a wand would make. The plate did not move but Sophie smiled anyway, as if she had accomplished something. And maybe she had — the shape worked invisibly.

Ron cast the spell again. "You have to be precise with the flick, see…"

Kylie was also present, standing silently in the background. There had been some debate as to whether the Fidelius Charm could overpower the Trace. It had been decided that it probably would, seeing as it overrode just about everything else, but ultimately Scott had removed the tracking spell from Kylie. Ever conscious of the unexpected, he had wanted the girl to be able to defend herself should the occasion arise, regardless of her location.

Freed from Ministry oversight, Kylie was carefully levitating a cup while following Ron's example. Hermione flashed back to a similar scene, years before, when Ron's role had been reversed and the future held no hints of what was to come. It seemed like a lifetime ago. She felt a pang of nostalgia, and glanced at Kylie. It seemed impossible that any of them had ever been so young.

Of course, even the trials of securing the Philosopher's Stone (which were so trivial in retrospect) had been nothing compared to the horror that ended Kylie's first year. And her second looked to be far worse.

That gave Hermione a thought. "Kylie," she said, approaching the girl who would have soon been a second-year student, had things gone differently, "when is your birthday?"

"Sunday," Kylie said quietly.

"Oh! We can have a party for you!" Hermione said delightedly.

Kylie wouldn't meet her eyes. "Last Sunday."

"What?" Hermione said, aghast. "You turned twelve and didn't tell us?"

The girl hunched her shoulders, trying to make herself smaller. "I'm sorry."

"No, no! It's all right, it's just…" Hermione tried to think of how to phrase her disappointment. Kylie was a textbook victim of neglect and abuse, defending herself by disappearing. She never volunteered anything personal. "…I'm sure Scott would like you to tell him."

Kylie shrugged.

"I know he would," Hermione said firmly.

"Absolutely, and happy birthday!" Sophie added. "Look at you, twelve years old! You'll be looking all grown up before you know it!"

In truth Hermione didn't think Kylie had grown much at all: she was as short and skinny as ever. Hermione had a feeling that the slight girl was probably destined to remain that way, though that was not certain. She herself had not possessed much figure to speak of at twelve.

Kylie scurried out of the room, hopefully to inform Scott of her birthday, though she might have just been fleeing all the attention.

"Wingardium Leviosa," Sophie said, returning to her previous task. "The spell does not exert pressure across the object… Rather, it simulates weightlessness, creating a limited separation from gravity and granting control through an energy tether… I think. Ron, could you please cast it again?"

Hermione stood back and watched, always endlessly enthralled by Sophie's instinctual understanding of the very essence of magic, the shape from which it sprang. She was deciphering the building blocks of the spell. Even advanced spell studies could not match such a level of detail; a runic expression of the spell would have revealed the components for wand control and hovering, not how those facets worked as defined by physics.

Oh, the things Hermione might have accomplished with Sophie's help… It was crushing to realise that, should the war be favourably resolved, she would likely never see Sophie again.

Ron cast the spell and the plate rose once more. It climbed a few feet before Sophie stepped between it and Ron, sending it clattering back to the floor. "The tether is interrupted; the objects reverts to it natural state," she observed in a clinical tone. "The energy field dissipates nearly instantaneously when not maintained; the rapidity suggests a failsafe rather than a failstate. Ron, again, please?"

The plate lifted. Sophie moved close to Ron's wand but did not block it. "The failsafe is activated when the user loses line of sight as determined by the tether. Having lost control, the spell extinguishes." She interposed herself between Ron and the plate once more and it fell. A slight frown creased her smooth brow. "Discovering the proper element of alteration requires trial and error. Ron?"

Four more times Ron lifted the plate, and each time it came crashing down. Fortunately it was silver and not a more breakable material. Ron was beginning to look bored.

"Science is often repetitive," Sophie said apologetically. "Again, please!"

On the fifth cast Sophie stepped in front of Ron's wand; this time the expected clatter never came. When Sophie moved aside the plate remained suspended.

She grinned triumphantly, green eyes shining. "Success! The failsafe is averted; the spell continues to hold in the absence of the tether."

She poked the plate with a finger. It moved away, gliding through the air and beginning a lazy spin. Bouncing off the wall, it drifted towards the ceiling. Hermione was reminded of videos she had seen once from a space shuttle, the astronauts brushing things aside in the air.

"The object has no weight but maintains mass," Sophie continued. "This likely limits the density and size of objects that can be moved, accounting for the varying power levels of individuals." Suddenly, the plate plummeted back to earth, ringing loudly on the stone. "The simulated weightlessness is temporary, lasting only so long as the spell continues to cycle. Without refreshment, it fades, and gravity is reasserted."

Hermione felt like she was attending a lecture. Should she politely applaud? She had the urge to take notes.

"Trial two will be an attempt to create the spell without a focal object. Primare Strauss, 1-875-153." Sophie walked over to the chair in the corner where, unnoticed by Hermione, her phone had been resting. She tapped a few buttons and tucked it away. "I'm hungry!" she declared. "I bet Scott will make us sandwiches if we ask nicely."

She traipsed towards the kitchen and Hermione hastened to follow. "What did you mean by creating the spell without a focal object?" Hermione asked.

"Casting the spell on a point in space, rather than a solid anchor. If it works it should create a zero gravity field," Sophie explained.

Hermione had the sudden mental image of casting such a spell over her shoulder and watching the Death Eaters pursuing her flail helplessly in the air, unable to alter their momentum. "Could I learn to do such a thing?"

Sophie giggled, a high-pitched, childlike laugh that Hermione found a bit grating. "I think you could answer that better than me! But really, right now it's just a goal that sounds nice. That spell is made to work on singular objects. I have no idea how an area of effect even works in magic or if it has enough power to be distributed like that."

Hermione considered the problem. "…I believe you would have to create a new spell using the Levitation Charm as a base. It's one of several spells all derived from the same concept, such as the Hover Charm. None of them do what you're describing, I'm afraid."

"Well, it won't hurt to try! Unless something goes really wrong, and then I guess it might hurt…"

They found Harry and Scott standing idly in the kitchen, both of them chewing on excessively large sandwiches. Harry was holding himself stiffly — Hermione saw him wince when he swallowed.

"What's wrong with you?" she asked him. She went to make sure there were still enough sandwich ingredients for the rest of them.

"You'd have to get the answer to that in essay form," Scott said.

Harry snorted into his food. "Nothing," he said to Hermione once he had recovered.

The blossoming bruise on his throat told a different story. "You just wait until Ginny sees that," she admonished, pointing out the offending blemish.

"He volunteered," Scott said.

Harry just nodded and took another bite.

"You're an adult, Scott; you don't need to hurt Harry to heal yourself, if you ever really did in the first place," Hermione told him.

"Oh, Scott… What did you do?" Sophie asked with a disappointed demeanour.

"Nothing out of line," Scott said, affronted. "Harry asked for some basic close combat training. He knew it was going to hurt. And it's not like it was all on me, I let him get his practise shots in."

"Which I'm sure _also_ hurt. Hitting you is like… Hitting a, a wall, or… Something else hard," Sophie finished lamely.

"If you can't find an analogy, you should probably stop reaching," Scott remarked.

"Quiet, you," Sophie ordered. "Harry, come see me when you're done eating and let me check your hands."

"I'm just sore, it's fine," Harry said with his usual unnecessary bravado.

"Could be bruised sore, or could be hairline fractured from punching Scott's big bony head sore," Sophie said pointedly.

Scott leered at her. "Hey, it's not the only big bone I've got for you." Then he straightened up and cast a quick glance around the room. "Crap, is Kylie in here?"

"It's not much good if you catch yourself _afterwards!"_ Sophie exclaimed.

"I'm good. She's not in here," Scott said, relaxing.

"You're not good. You're rude."

"And virile. Have you noticed how virile I am?"

"Virulent, maybe," Sophie said, looking pleased with herself.

"Virulently sexy," Scott said, deepening his voice. He stepped close to Sophie, towering over her, and ran his fingers down her arm.

"Quit it," she said without conviction.

Hermione had rapidly tired of watching them flirt. "That had better not be the last of the ham," she told Harry.

"There's some left," he assured her.

'Some' proved to be a few measly bits that would barely suffice for half a sandwich. "Sophie, we're out of ham thanks to these two, can you add it to the list?"

"Adding ham to the list!" Sophie chimed. She picked up the list and swept her hand around the rubbish that had accumulated near it. "Pen, pen — where's my pen, who took it?"

"It probably rolled behind the counter," Scott said.

His idle prediction provided the comical sight of Sophie — who usually carried herself with a posture and poise that Hermione associated with some sort of deportment school for Proper Young Ladies — climb up onto the counter and wiggle on her stomach until her head was flush with the wall. "…It's not here," she said, her voice echoing back hollowly.

"Oh, here it is," Scott said casually, extracting the pen from his shirt pocket. His gaze was firmly riveted on Sophie's ample posterior, her wide hips lifted and legs dangling towards the floor in a position that could easily be misconstrued.

She came to that conclusion without even looking back at him. "You butt! Give me that pen!"

"Sure, I'll give it to you."

"You butt!"

Before long everyone had gathered at the kitchen table for lunch (Sophie had bullied Scott into making it as absolution, though he seemed entirely unrepentant). Ginny was discussing her infamous Bat-Bogey Hex with Sophie, who looked equal parts enthralled and disgusted. Harry was poring over the Muggle maps with Scott, no doubt continuing their study of Godric's Hollow's geographical features. Hermione didn't know what pertinent information was left to be discerned, considering how much time they had spent on the task already.

Harry had taken to Scott's tactical instruction like a duck to water. She couldn't profess any surprise. Harry had always been intelligent, but often unfocussed (and it was difficult to blame him for it considering the difficulties he had faced each year). Between the guns, hand-to-hand and small unit tactics, Scott had provided his Prime not only with an outlet for that intelligence, but also rage and helplessness. Hermione approved of Harry having an outlet; fifth year had demonstrated the consequences when he was kept bottled up. She just wished he could turn to Quidditch again, instead.

Ron and Kylie were fully immersed in their food, at least one thing they had in common. Hermione ate hers without tasting it. The mission to the Hollow loomed large in her mind, a steady pressure. Would it always be that way before every excursion? Constant worry, the stress of her limitless research… She drove herself to consider every angle, but that was impossible.

It was simply in her nature, she supposed. She couldn't seem to charge heedlessly like Harry and Ron, or be endlessly prepared to adapt to inevitable permutation, like Scott. She needed planning and contingency. She could have the first, but never enough of the second.

"Hey, Scott," Harry said, catching Hermione's attention as well. Scott had moved away from the map and was holding a very one-sided conversation with Kylie. "I have a question for you."

"You've had a lot of those lately," Scott observed.

"It's your own fault; you've actually been answering them."

"I've always had an open door policy."

"It's a bit frightening you can say that with a straight face," Hermione interjected with a touch of justified spite.

"What can I do for you?" Scott said to Harry, ignoring her.

"I want to know if you can break open the Snitch," Harry said seriously. "I have no idea how to open it and we might need whatever is inside, I don't want to wait."

"Same answer as always for magical items. I think I could break it but I can't promise it would survive the process. Maybe it destroys itself if forced, maybe the thing inside of it is tied to the lock and breaking one breaks both."

Harry looked to Hermione, and she sighed. More and more it seemed that she didn't have the answers expected of her. "I don't know. There's no magical basis for what Scott does, not that I've ever read about." She was once again rephrasing that familiar refrain. The workings of the shape were alien to her beyond what Scott had explained and what she had observed and inferred. So she did what any responsible academic would do, and referred them to another expert. "Perhaps Sophie could help?"

At the sound of her name Sophie perked up, halting her conversation with Ginny. "Yes?"

"Harry has a magically protected object that he would like Scott to open," Hermione explained. "Do you think you could help identify or separate the spells so that whatever is inside avoids damage?"

"Sure! But you'll have to teach me the spells I need to know, first."

"We don't actually know how it was created…"

"Oh… Well, in that case, the only comparisons I have are the spells I already learned," Sophie said regretfully.

Harry looked resigned, as if he had known better than to expect an easy answer. "Could you still take a look at it?

"No harm in trying," Sophie agreed.

"It's upstairs in my handbag, Harry, you know where that is?" Hermione said.

"Yeah, just a minute, I'll get it," he said.

Harry went to retrieve his gift, and upon his return Sophie dashed any remaining hopes the minute she held it in her hands. "No, sorry…" she said. "This is very complicated."

"I would expect so. It was made by the Headmaster, after all," Hermione said.

"So are you going to break it?" Ron asked Scott.

"I don't know. Sophie's already holding it, let her do it," Scott said.

Sophie quickly set the Snitch down on the table. "I know I haven't been here very long, but that doesn't seem like a very good idea…"

Ron laughed. "That's all we got around here!"

"We don't have to decide right now," Harry said, though he was not quite able to mask his impatience. Hermione hoped that Ginny would distract him before he worked himself into a state about it. The Weasley girl had become increasingly skilled at stopping Harry's moods before they gained traction.

More days passed. The foray into Godric's Hollow remained at the forefront of their efforts. They had been given time to prepare and contemplate. Rushing off with minimal planning was easier from a stress standpoint, eliminating the intolerable waiting, but they were all still glad of the room to breathe. Harry wrote to Lupin again in an effort to gain any insight, no matter how trivial, into what they might be up against. Unfortunately, the letter was not coached in specifics, as they were unsure how secure Lupin's location was. They had tried calling Lila and the former professor had not been with the Weasleys.

During the call a rare outburst of genuine frustration had emerged from Scott. "Give me _something_ here, Lil!" he had yelled. It was the kind of display that had been entirely common at Hogwarts, but Hermione had become accustomed to the more subtle, placid expressions of an adult Scott.

Lila's response had been inaudible, but likely scathing. "Fine," Scott had grumbled, "I'm sure Sophie would love to hear all your excuses." He'd tossed the phone at the short woman, who had immediately set about placating Lila.

Lupin's reply to Harry came on another grey, soggy afternoon. They timing was fortuitous as they had gathering to debate whether they should proceed without further reconnaissance. Scott had been advocating a solo trip for himself, after which he could report back. That had been the core of their discussion when Hedwig had returned with the first real news they'd received.

_Harry,_

_I am relieved it was you who changed the Fidelius Charm and am also extremely curious as to how you managed it. But that can wait; Moody returned to us today, arriving unannounced at one of our safe locations. We made sure it was really him and that he was not Imperiused, and I suggest you do the same for those in your company._

_Apparently he's been on the run. The Death Eaters at his residence chased him but he was able to give them the slip once he escaped the Anti-Apparition Jinx. He's been all around since then, checking on people known to be sympathetic to us, and the news isn't good._

_Thanks to your warning we knew about the Taboo, but what we didn't know was how effective it has been at terrorising the populace. Many potential allies were discovered before we could get to them. It seems our own defiance in using He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's proper moniker has come back to haunt us._

_Worse, the sycophants and criminals and even those just scared out of their wits are taking sides. The result is a sort of militia that's been enforcing the Taboo and kidnapping dissenters. Those not motivated by a desire to move up the ranks and join the Death Eaters, or by simple fear, are seeking to collect a standing bounty on Muggle-borns. There's at least the pretence of legitimacy; the bounty has been placed by what's left of the Ministry. I don't know what they call themselves, but I've heard them referred to as the Snatchers. They are not organised like the Death Eaters proper, but by number alone are a concern._

_I pray that you remain safe and well. Lila Kharan recently made some interesting admissions to Bill. I would like to talk about them, amongst other things, when we meet in person._

_Be Safe, Harry,_

_Remus_

"Again with the meeting in person," Scott mused.

"Shut it," Harry said absently. "Well, it's not good news but it is news."

"'Snatchers', huh," Scott said, unimpressed. "I can't wait to tangle with the Death Eater Youth."

"I knew Mad-Eye would make it," Ron said triumphantly. "He's too barmy to die."

"Fortunate that we discovered the Taboo when we did," Hermione said, mulling over the new intelligence. "I also approve of the added precautions they've taken. I should think Scott could recognise the Imperius readily enough, it's powerful and constant, and there should be a, 'thread', back to the originator. I'm less certain about Polyjuice…"

"Can that be demonstrated?" Sophie asked.

Hermione shook her head. "It takes quite awhile to prepare and needs regular supervision."

"Darn it. Why can't everything just be demonstrated?" Sophie said unhappily.

"We should have secret phrases we can use for that," Ginny said eagerly, clearly excited at the prospect of exercising such spy-craft.

A bit dramatic, but not an idea without merit. "We could. If not our shared memories should suffice," Hermione said.

"Right," Scott agreed. "Just ask something specific. For example: Ginny, when you were with Harry in the hospital wing, what did I say you would give him for good behaviour?"

Ginny coloured. "Shut it!" she snapped.

Scott looked at the rest of them. "It's her."

Harry was confused. "What?"

"Never you mind," Ginny told him.

"…I'll just ask later," he mumbled, subsiding.

Hermione didn't know what that had been about and she also didn't much care. "You should really meet with Professor Lupin before long, Harry. It sounds like there are some things he'll only discuss in person."

"Ugh. I don't really want to handle questions about Lila," Harry said with distaste.

"Lil can handle it herself. Just send him back to her," Scott said.

"What do you think she told Bill?"

"I'm surprised she didn't tell Charlie," Ron sniggered.

"As little as possible," Scott said to Harry's question.

"Sounds familiar," Harry said dryly.

"Hey, I could have told you nothing at all."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Yes, let's all be ever so grateful for each bit of partial disclosure we had to drag out of you."

Scott's face darkened, but before he could issue a cutting remark, Sophie jumped in. "Some things are hard to explain, I'm sure we all understand that," she said lightly. "Will any of this change the plans for the next mission?"

"No," Harry determined.

"The stuff about the Taboo made me think, and I was wondering if the Fidelius might be stronger?" Ginny said.

"I don't think we should say the name even if it is. Don't break a good habit," Ron said wisely.

"Hmm… I believe that, even if they could be alerted, the location itself should remain a mystery," Hermione calculated. "Ron is correct, though. It's important that we continue not saying it."

"But if we _could_ say it, even just once, it creates interesting opportunities," Scott said.

Hermione always became suspicious when Scott began to speak of 'interesting opportunities'. "Such as?"

"A trap. Riddle doesn't deal with the Taboo himself, he's a busy man. And it sounds like it doesn't even warrant the hooded crowd any more. So why not thin the herd and maybe learn something while we're at it?"

Predictably, it was Harry who seemed most eager to pursue Scott's suggestion. "What did you have in mind?"

"Record his name, find a nice spot out in the sticks somewhere, set it to repeat and wait for someone to take the bait."

Hermione could plot out the rest for herself. "The Taboo may not work on an electronic recording."

"I'd still like to try."

"I think it could work," Harry agreed.

"Perhaps," Hermione vacillated, unwilling to commit, "but we should wait. Let's not put them on high alert right before we go out there."

Scott tilted his head slightly in acknowledgement. "Of course."

"So where are we on the plan, then?" Ron questioned. "If I'm going to get cursed I'd like to know when and where, saves on worrying."

Harry picked up one of the maps and placed it on the middle of the table. "We'll be coming in on this north road, here." He traced it with his finger. "We'll have three teams. The first will be Ginny and me. We'll go to the graveyard and then to my parents' cottage. The second will be Ron and Hermione. You two will see if you can find Bagshot's house. Once that's done we'll meet up and talk to her, if she's there."

Ginny put her hand over Harry's and smiled at him. "You and me, yeah?"

"I thought you might like that part," Harry said wryly. "Sophie has some things she can use to make us look like Muggle couples, so we don't stand out."

Hermione had issues with the plan. "I don't know about splitting us up like that, even if only for a while… And where is Scott in all this?"

"Highground," Scott said cryptically, and placed his finger on a map point that meant nothing to Hermione.

Ron was on the same page. "Thanks for clearing that up, mate, you're always so bloody helpful."

Scott sighed loudly, as if his saint-like patience was being tried by their ignorance, but when he saw Sophie glaring at him, he dropped the act and explained, "The town sits below this hill line in a flat area surrounded by woods. At least part of the ridge is probably man-made, you can see the railroad tracks that run along this section, north to south. The hill curves along the west edge of town and then tapers out in this farmland down here. That's my vantage point, the crescent hill. I'm going to cover and coordinate from there."

It was the same role he had taken during Kylie's rescue. Hermione knew Ron would be glad that he wouldn't have to sit on the sidelines again, but she wasn't sure… Staying behind was difficult, but moving around without contact was dangerous. Another sudden storm could increase their peril. "Coordinate how?"

"Godric's Hollow is mostly Muggle. Their electronics work, so Scott's should too," Harry said. "He has some radio gear."

"Gear that's been gathering dust up until this point," Scott said. "Military grade. I'll run you through some channel protocols."

"Radio? Like, what, the wireless?" Ron said apprehensively, no doubt reluctant to learn how to operate a strange Muggle contraption.

"It's not hard, I can show you how," Sophie told him.

"Anybody have something to add?" Harry asked.

"I realise that having two pairs in town initially will speed things up," Hermione said slowly, trying to phrase her concerns effectively, "but I'm worried that splitting our firepower may be a mistake."

"It's a risk," Harry grimly agreed. "I don't like not having us all together, either, but I think we'd be more noticeable with a group of four. And if something goes wrong we'll need to get out fast as we can. Especially now, since it looks like Riddle has even more people."

"I'm out there to create a delay, if it comes to that," Scott said.

"Plus you and Ron will have the Cloak," Harry said to Hermione.

That seemed unwise. "Oh, no, Harry, your parents' house is on the edge of town, you'll need it more," Hermione argued.

"You take it, we'll be fine," Harry insisted.

"Yeah, we don't need it," Ginny joined in.

Hermione shot an exasperated look Scott's way. "A bit of help, please?"

Scott obliged. "She's right. Graveyard team gets the Cloak. The mission comes before misplaced chivalry."

"Take it to a vote," Ginny challenged him.

"We are not taking it to a vote. You are getting the Cloak and that is the end of it," Hermione stated with finality.

But, of course, it wasn't final. They argued about it for a few more minutes until at last Hermione exclaimed, "All right, we'll vote! All in favour of Harry and Ginny having it…"

Hermione, Scott, Ron and Sophie all raised their hands, leaving Harry and Ginny outvoted no matter what they did.

"Fine," Harry said shortly, angry at being overruled. Hermione would have thought that he'd be happy that Ginny would have the Cloak, but perhaps he hadn't considered it that way.

"Why does Sophie get a vote?" Ginny complained, even though it didn't matter.

"Because she's pretty. The opposite reason is why you don't get a vote," Scott said snidely.

Ginny jumped up from her seat to counter-attack by word or wand — it was good odds for either — when Sophie beat her to it. "Scott, you do not talk to her like that!" she said in a direct, imperious tone that Hermione had never heard from her before. Then she turned to Ginny and said in her usual light manner, "He was just joking, but he shouldn't have said something that mean. You are very beautiful and don't listen to anyone who says otherwise."

Scott rolled his eyes. Despite the uncaring gesture, he didn't speak on his own behalf.

"Also, I get a vote because I buy your food!" Sophie said, once again cheerful.

"No, you get a vote because you can shut _him _up, same reason Lila would," Ginny said, glaring at Scott.

A moment of awkward silence descended, as no one seemed to have anything else to add (and the tension between Ginny and Scott was difficult to ignore). The distant rumble of thunder echoed down from the upstairs hall, causing everyone to glance that way involuntarily.

"It's going to look strange if we're strolling about in the rain," Ron said.

"Go when the weather clears. Probably won't be nice enough for a crowd, if this place ever has any," Scott advised.

"More waiting…" Harry sighed. "Well, I guess that gives you extra time to beat me up, Scott."

"Actually, Harry, Scott asked if I would help you train," Sophie said.

Harry looked a bit relieved. "Sure, we could switch things around."

Sophie didn't appear to be much of an opponent, but appearances were deceiving. Hermione knew that Harry had been struggling to learn anything under the lightning-quick instinctual onslaught that was Scott's tutelage. Sophie might offer something more palatable. Hermione just hoped that Sophie wouldn't injure Harry before the mission, which was a strange thought to reconcile with the Kharadjai woman's porcelain doll features.

"When do the rest of us get to learn all that?" Ginny inquired.

"Whenever you ask," Scott said.

Ginny's jaw set pugnaciously. "Then teach me."

"Er… How about I go back to Scott and you practise with Sophie?" Harry suggested.

"What? You don't think I can handle him?" Ginny demanded.

"No," Harry told her with unfortunate directness.

"I can teach both of you, and anyone else who wants to learn," Sophie said. "The basics aren't difficult."

Hermione knew her strengths, and physical confrontation was not one of them. Still, it could only be helpful to learn a few self-defence methods. "I would like to learn those basics, at least. I think we all should."

"The more the merrier!" Sophie happily replied.

Hermione wasn't sure she liked such enthusiasm from the woman who was volunteering to hurt them. Scott didn't speak on the subject any further, apparently content to let Sophie take the reins. Hermione wondered if Lila might be persuaded to make a similar offer of instruction to the Order.

They could all use an edge.

* * *

><p>Scott stared moodily out the window, taking in a second-story view of a day as grey as an overcoat. It had been raining steadily for nearly twenty-four hours. The few pedestrians that passed did so in a hurry, carrying umbrellas and keeping their heads down.<p>

Normally a downpour wouldn't be reason enough to delay a mission (and hadn't before). But the plan was to hide in plain sight, and that meant not being the only people on the street. His position on the far outskirts of town meant he wanted good visibility, as well. Or at least as good as it ever became. England wasn't known for its low humidity.

Downstairs, Sophie was teaching the Primes simple hand-to-hand techniques, the 'joints and points' that Scott had already imparted to Harry. No doubt they were having an easier time of it with her. Scott wasn't much good as a close combat instructor, and he knew it. It came too naturally to him; he had difficulty limiting himself and quickly grew frustrated with his pupils. So he let Sophie take over. And if anyone besides Harry wanted to learn shooting techniques, Scott could handle that without issue.

Rain continued to thunk against the window pain. He didn't allow it to bother him. The military taught many skills, but one of the most valuable and simultaneously mundane was the ability to tolerate tedium. HUAW, as the familiar refrain went: Hurry Up And Wait. His time spent orbiting Carcer on the _Longevity_ had been an exercise in endurance. The lesson had served him well ever since.

He reached into his pocket and grasped his phone for a moment before releasing it. He knew there wouldn't be any calls he had missed, it was always on his person. Lil hadn't called him since he had snapped at her; she'd been calling Sophie instead, checking in that way. He probably deserved that. Lil would get over it, in time.

A few more cars moved by on the street. He had seen nothing to indicate Death Eater activity, which was enough to prod his paranoia. It had already been demonstrated that severing individuals from the Fidelius Charm removed access to the location but not the memories of it. Grimmauld Place was the name of the street, not just the building. That should have been more than sufficient information to bring Riddle's men outside, even if they were unable to see the structure itself.

So where were they? The Death Eaters weren't exactly Primarius ComOp material but they hadn't been _completely_ incompetent. Surely they had their hands on someone who knew Grimmauld Place. Snape, if no one else. Scott was about to start checking license numbers and identifying residents. He would need a phone book to get started, and then a police uniform and a notepad…

His highly illegal ruminations were stalled when Kylie pattered into the room and sat on the couch. He glanced back at her to make sure she wasn't more upset (than usual) since he'd last seen her. "Hey, Kylie. How's tricks?"

She stared back at him, uncomprehending.

He tried again. "What's happening, how have you been today?"

"Okay," she said, and it looked to be true enough. With the ongoing training sessions and frequent meetings, Kylie had found new ways to involve herself and had been sleeping less. She enjoyed watching Sophie bend magic into new forms, and, with her first-year education, had a lot to learn herself. Her magical instruction would continue, if sporadically, despite her absence from Hogwarts.

Not for the first time, Scott wondered just how much attention Kylie was paying to what was happening around her. She had never asked directly just who Scott was or why the Horcruxes were so important, but maybe she didn't have to. Or maybe she knew she probably wouldn't get an answer.

"Get tired of spellwork?" he asked her. She had been levitating plates and jinxing mattresses while the others suffered through Sophie's crash course.

Kylie nodded. "I broke a cup," she confessed.

"Well, we've all broken a few lately."

They lapsed back into companionable silence, punctuated by the skitter of rain. It was one of the things Scott liked about Kylie: silences with her were never awkward, never weighted with words waiting unsaid. Her presence was not demanding.

He followed the progress of a lorry, its cargo rattling loudly as it turned the corner. He'd never seen the vehicle before but that didn't mean much; he hadn't been monitoring the street constantly. He had a hard time imagining any Death Eaters learning to drive, but it was impossible to track all of the traffic in London, and if they changed cars often enough…

Still unlikely. And inefficient, gaining glimpses only in passing.

Kylie's voice came again, quiet but steady. "Do your parents know you're grown up now?"

Not a question he had expected, though it obliquely approached some of the curiosities the girl must have. "They're dead," he said easily, without drama or reprimand. "And this is my real age, remember? I was younger before so I could go to Hogwarts."

"I'm sorry," Kylie said mechanically, as if she knew it was customary to express sympathy for dead parents but wasn't sure why. "How did you get younger?"

"It's a special skill. Not many people can do it, but the group I work for taught me how."

"Oh." A short pause, then a deep breath. "I don't think you're a wizard."

He was surprised to see her being so straightforward, but it was a good sign. He had never wanted to be feared by her, and if she could put questions to him directly then it was hopefully an indication that she had found a better basis of comfort at Grimmauld Place and with him. He left the window to sit next to her on the couch, where she was looking shocked by her own audacity. She flinched when he met her gaze.

"I'm not. I'm a Kharadjai. We're like… a different kind of Muggle," he tried to explain. "We don't have magic, but we can do other things. And we like technology."

"Like guns?"

"Like guns," he confirmed. "My government sent me here because Harry needs help. And I was trained to help people like him."

"But they didn't train you in America," Kylie ventured.

"No. I've been to America, but I'm not from anywhere you've ever heard of. It's very far from here, in a sense."

She crossed her arms and looked away. "You don't have to make it so simple for me. I'm not a dumb little kid," she stated with a note of tween petulance so unexpected from her that she might as well have screamed it.

Scott grinned at her. "Okay, sassy-pants. I'm a specialised soldier in an inter-universal task force that's assigned to intercede in universes with major problems by assisting those closest to the events. As an integrationist, I have been trained to become a part of their lives in order to maintain maximum efficiency in my intervention while still being invisible, or at least inexplicable, to outside observers. That's why I was at Hogwarts, that's why I'm still here now. I go where Harry goes, I do whatever I can to assist him."

Kylie took a few moments to absorb that. Then she asked the question that she had really wanted to. "…Why did you help _me?_"

That was much easier to answer. "Because you're my friend. You asked for my help and I wasn't going to leave you there."

"Why did the others come?" she almost whispered.

"They weren't going to leave you there, either."

A tear rolled down Kylie's pale cheek. She stood, wiped it away, and hurried from the room.

Scott followed her as far as the doorway. ""When you want to talk again you can always find me!" he called after her.

Kylie was solitary by nature (and by nurture, as the case seemed to be). She would need some time to work things through, and then she would be back with more questions.

Though, if they were about the future, then Scott was going to run out of answers.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note<strong>

The POV spread for this chapter was Harry-Hermione-Scott, which is a decent trip through the eyes of my main expositioners. It also gives readers a 2:1 canon to OC ratio, which is probably about right as far as what my usual readers prefer. I know a lot of you have said you like the original characters, but would you have read if every chapter was from Scott's POV? Probably not.

Look at the POV progression for the first six chapters of _That Terrifying Momentum:_

1: Harry — 2: Scott — 3: Scott — 4: Scott — 5: Dumbledore/Scott/Dumbledore — 6: Lila

The gift of such hindsight really illustrates the huge mistake I made with those opening chapters. It isn't until after _The Best Kinds of Monsters_ that the narrative begins cutting between all the canon characters with regularity. I won't even try to guess how many readers I lost between the _Nothing Important Happened Today_ and _Remember October, November? _People who might have otherwise given Scott a chance were likely repelled by his weird, shape-centric POV.

At the time, my reasoning was that those beginning segments covered events that happened more or less exactly the same as they did in the book and by switching to Scott I avoided having to plagiarize. Obviously, I should have tried a little harder. Few people want to sit through five chapters in the POV of strange new, possibly Mary-Sue characters and Dumbledore.

Now look at the POV spread for the first six chapters of _Vis Insita:_

1: Harry — 2: Harry/Neville/Harry — 3: Scott/Hermione/Harry — 4: Harry/Hermione/Scott — 5: Hermione/Lila/Scott/Harry — 6: Ron/Harry

At some point I must have learned my lesson. The chapter I'm currently writing is Remus/Ginny/Harry, bringing the total used POVs in both stories to twelve. I suppose that might be excessive but it's kind of an integral part of my writing style, which, while not necessarily _good_, is at least recognizably mine. So I've got that going for me. Now I just need anything else.


	14. Meshes

**14**

**Meshes**

"_What do you do when your hands are_

_not enough? What do you say when your_

_words will not help things? Remember,_

_always: the future is informed by the past,_

_and it is the past you cannot change."_

-Primare Macawi Qaletaqa (Integration Corps)

* * *

><p>"<em>Visus Verum."<em>

(Sight True)

-Primarius Combat Corps Designated Marksmen Maxim

* * *

><p>"You can still hear me, right?" Harry said nervously, touching a finger to his ear.<p>

"**Yes. Stop touching your ear,"** Scott said, his voice tinny and distorted.

Harry quickly dropped his hand. It wasn't that he doubted the technology — he had more faith in Muggle devices than most of his companions, maybe even Hermione. It was more that he had substantially less faith in his ability to utilise it properly. The receiver in his ear was working, but he was plagued by the persistent feeling that it might be a bit clearer or a bit more comfortable if he adjusted it just a little more…

He tried not to think about it, and tucked his hands into the front pockets of his light jacket to keep them from wandering. The hood of the jacket was pulled up over the hat with the enthusiastic fox on it that Scott had given him before, along with the rectangular glasses. The dark blue of the garment matched neatly with a pair of excessively baggy black trousers (with an extra tight belt in case he needed to run) and a ratty set of red trainers. All together it made him pretty anonymous, he thought. He could be any London teenager with a taste for hip hop and a contempt for authority.

Ginny was less unremarkable, but even more transformed. Her hair had been turned a light brown, streaked with bright pink stripes and styled at the front with a perfectly edged fringe that fell to her eyebrows. Her lipstick and mascara were dark, highlighting her expressive eyes and the white of her teeth. She was wearing tight, low-slung jeans with stylish holes in all the right places and a lime green t-shirt which had some kind of big-eyed Japanese mascot and lettering on it. There were multiple earrings in both of her ears (only the ones in the lobes were real), a tiny diamond stud on the side of her nose and a small silver ring in the left corner of her mouth (both fake). She was a veritable punk rock princess ("I look like a drummer for the Weird Sisters!" she had exclaimed).

Harry thought she looked hot. He wasn't all that keen on the brown hair, though.

"Enjoying the view?" she teased, noticing his scrutiny. She waggled her tongue at him, showing off her faux-tongue stud.

He needed to be focussing on a different view. "I wonder what your mum would say?"

"Nothing, unless you count shrieking," Ginny snickered.

The two of them were sitting in a Muggle park, huddled together on a bench while they waited for Scott to find a good position. Ron and Hermione were doing the same at an intersection several streets away.

"Any luck?" Harry tried again, this time making sure not to fiddle with the device.

"**Yeah. I just jumped a fence and found myself in Muggle-charm territory,"** Scott said. **"Shouldn't have to worry about company on this side of the ridge."**

"**There's a charm where you are? A Repelling Charm?"** Hermione questioned.

"**Yeah, I think so. It's familiar enough,"** Scott replied.

"**Do you see any reason why?"**

A short silence. **"…I didn't think of that, that's a good point. There must be something up here, but I don't see it. I'll let you know if I run across anything, but I'm moving on**."

The fact that the Muggle-Repelling Charm didn't even try to work its aversion magic on Scott implied some things about the shape and what he was. It was the sort of stuff Hermione probably thought about. "Right, just let us know. Uh, break," Harry said.

Scott had devoted about half an hour the previous day to a lecture on the vast array of KRAF communications protocols. Harry had held on longer than most, but finally spaced out when Scott began detailing the command codes between squad, element and company leaders, whatever that even meant. Sophie had capped off the presentation by pointing out that strict adherence to protocol was irrelevant as there were only five of them in the field.

"**Don't get stilted, Red-Lead. Just talk when you have to, Sophie already ruined my fun."**

"Copy, Highground," Harry replied with a small grin.

"**Technically applicable, since I'm functioning as forward observation and sniper support, but as the ranking Primarius asset in the field I would probably be Sword-Lead. 'Scott' will also work."**

Ginny had little interest in such specifics. "Are you ready yet?" she said edgily.

"**Soon. I see a tree I like the look of."**

Ron's voice came booming over the hiss of the radio. **"For climbing or peeing?"**

"**Keep it down, Ron, I can hear you just fine. And the tree will serve both purposes nicely."**

"Now we have to sit here while he pees," Ginny muttered.

Godric's Hollow was a sort of quintessential British town: one- and two- story buildings with hedges, pine trees and low stone walls. The cottages crowded together along narrow streets lined with tall black lampposts. Cars were not allowed to park in the village proper, lending it an even more rustic appearance. The air was cool and more than a bit humid. The soil squished beneath Harry's shoes and the roads were strewn with deep puddles.

He could see the hill and the woods rising above the edge of town; Scott was somewhere in those trees, invisible and lethal. It was comforting knowledge. It was also a bit unnerving. Harry felt as if he had an angel of death hovering near, and with the release of a single careless word or gesture would bear witness to a bullet snuffing the life from a hapless target.

That was stupid, of course. Scott wasn't so inept, so random. He wouldn't shoot some poor Muggle in a fit of panic because Harry had sneezed. Scott _didn't_ panic, so far as Harry could tell. That behaviour seemed to have been stamped out of the Kharadjai.

"**I'm situated,"** Scott radioed, his level tone underscoring Harry's thoughts. **"Red-Lead, progress. Gold-Lead, maintain."**

"I think that means we can go now," Harry said to Ginny, and together they stood and began walking towards the town square.

Harry knew that the graveyard was behind the church at the centre of the village. He didn't know much else, though, so they would have to alter their plans according to whatever obstacles occurred. There were a few other people out and about, on the streets and their lawns; Harry returned the friendly wave from a man tending to his front garden. Ginny's newly styled hair was already beginning to frizz in the damp. Harry's jacket was clinging wetly to his skin, but he knew he'd be just as uncomfortable without it.

He tried to stick to the left side of the street, knowing it was the only chance Scott would have to keep them in sight. It didn't seem to matter much, though; the houses were too close to the pavement, and any buildings with a first storey were probably in Scott's way. Harry pulled on Ginny's elbow, moving her further towards the houses and away from the open street.

She went with him, but shook her head slightly. "It's no good, those trees are still there."

He glanced over; sure enough, the houses had momentarily ended only to be replaced by tall pines behind a fence. "Scott, can you see us at all?"

"**Sometimes. Get to the square, it's mostly open. Gold-Lead, maintain but be ready,"** Scott said.

"**We'll be ready,"** Hermione replied.

"**The sooner the better. This bench is rough on the arse,"** Ron said.

The square was just up ahead. There was little traffic of any kind around, despite it being the hub of the village. A woman on a bicycle passed by, and the retail shops had a few customers visible through the glass window displays. The Parish Church sat at the terminus of the lane which bore its name. It was a very old building, though Harry didn't know enough about architecture to guess how old. The suburbs of Little Whinging were an entirely different sort of England than Godric's Hollow.

"It's quite nice here," Ginny opined, looking around the square. "Bit damp at the moment, but that'll change…"

He looked at her and imagined, for a vivid moment, what life would have been like had he stayed, had his parents lived. He would have met Ginny at Hogwarts regardless; he might have been a better boyfriend, happier, more whole. He could see himself with her, hand in hand, roaming the square, eating at the shops and then going back home for a snog in the cottage garden.

But his parents were dead, the cottage was empty and in so many ways he was as well.

"Harry?" Ginny said softly.

He looked up, realising he had stopped in the middle of the pavement. "Sorry," he said, resuming motion. "It is nice, yeah."

They crossed the square together, avoiding the deeper puddles in the old, uneven road. Groups of birds chattered and pecked at the ground, searching for crumbs and splashing in the pools. Hints of music wafted out from an open window somewhere, echoing faintly. No one seemed to be paying Harry and Ginny much attention.

"What's this?" Ginny said, indicating the obelisk in the centre of the square.

"**Memorial,"** Scott radioed. **"I don't know what's on the other sides, but I can see the Air Raid Precautions insignia on the one facing me. Volunteers lost during the Blitz, most likely."**

Harry felt somewhat ashamed at that; he was only barely familiar with the organization's existence. "There's a crown with a circle on this one, it says 'AFS'."

"**Auxiliary Fire Service. You'll find more than a few women listed on that thing."**

Harry approached to take a closer look, and then recoiled in shock. The obelisk had disappeared: in its place was a statue of a family with a small child. He blinked, nonplussed. Obviously the monument had been magically altered…

Comprehension began to dawn just as Ginny spoke again. "Harry… Is that your parents?"

It was. It was strange to see them in stone form, but there was no mistaking it. The infant in Lily Potter's arms was none other than Harry himself.

He didn't know how to feel about that. He had never become accustomed to being put on a pedestal, and now it was entirely literal.

"**What's going on? Call out targets."**

"No, no targets," Harry said quickly, taking a step back. The statue did not revert. "The obelisk is actually a statue of my parents and… well, me."

"**It must be magically concealed. You would have to be close to see what they are, Scott,"** Hermione chimed in. Harry had almost forgotten that she and Ron were listening.

"Baby Harry is so cute!" Ginny gushed. She brushed the stone infant with one hand. "Ugh. And very wet, still…"

"**Change your nappy, Harry,"** Ron said.

"Ha ha, shut it, Ron," Harry grumbled. "Great, now I'm a sodding statue. And have been, I guess. Thanks for not telling me, all the people who have known my whole life."

"We didn't know, either," Ginny said.

"I wasn't blaming you. No one here is to blame," he said tiredly.

He stood and stared at the effigy for a couple long minutes, trying to decide how he really felt about it. He couldn't find the right mixture of emotions. It was a good likeness, but the photographs he had been given by Hagrid were better. He didn't know if the statue was a fitting tribute or an empty gesture. No one had ever asked him how he felt about it. No one had bothered to inform him that it existed in the first place. But then, there were a great many things of which no one had bothered to inform him, and the statue was far less important than most of them.

"Come on," he muttered finally, gesturing to Ginny. "Let's go before someone asks me to sign it."

"What is it all the girls do at rock concerts? 'Would you sign my chest?'" Ginny asked with forced levity in a rather obvious attempt to distract him from his dead parents given engraved form.

It didn't really work, but he appreciated the effort. "Maybe later."

"**Oi! Mission stuff only, I don't need that shite delivered straight to my ear,"** Ron complained.

Harry had expected some sort of colourful commentary from Scott, but the Kharadjai had remained silent as Harry left the statue and continued towards the church. Normally he would just let it be, but an extended silence of any kind made him second guess his radio.

"Scott? Are you there?" he asked, trying to touch a finger to his ear without being obvious about it.

"**I'm here,"** Scott replied after a moment.

"Okay. Just making sure I hadn't lost connection."

"**No."**

Harry frowned. Scott sounded a bit different, not like he had a moment before. "Everything all right?"

"**Yes, now if you're done playing with the statue there's a graveyard to tour."**

Harry frowned. Scott's tone was brusque and annoyed, which wasn't his usual reaction to the kind of verbal sparring that had been going on. He almost sounded… "Er, Scott…" Harry said carefully, basing his query entirely on a gut feeling, "Are you… not happy about the statue?"

Ginny looked startled. "Is he getting tetchy on _your _behalf?" she said to Harry.

"No, I think he has his own reasons. And I guess I understand."

There was a long pause. **"…All right. Look, it's no offence to your parents, okay? And I know they sure as hell didn't ask for it, but everybody on that obelisk is a fucking hero and it's — i-it's not a shared space, you don't just override that and use it for something else."**

"**But the obelisk is still there, only witches and wizards can—"** Hermione began.

"**Can not see the obelisk? Everybody should see it. And I bet it was there first. Forget it, this is immaterial. Where are you guys? I can't see you."**

"**We're still along the edge of town. Doesn't look like there's much magic around here, probably not the right place for Bagshot,"** Ron supplied.

"**Copy. Keep looking."**

The church was a typically shaped structure with intricate stained-glass windows and little else in the way of decoration. The front doors were open.

"Do we have to go inside?" Ginny wondered. There was a fence extending from both sides of the building.

"Scott, how do we get in? I'm not climbing a fence with these people around," Harry said.

"**I think there's a gate to the right of the steps,"** Scott told him.

As it turned out there was a gate there, almost hidden in the shadow of the church and neatly blending in with its dark surrounds. It was partially opened, and squeaked a bit when Harry pushed it open. He quelled the impulse to glance around and see if anyone had noticed, keeping his gaze firmly ahead.

Scott had observed his discipline. **"Good nonchalance, Harry, but not especially effective when Ginny is walking backwards and glaring everywhere. Why don't you just scream, 'I'm not supposed to be here'?"**

Ginny flushed. "Then say something next time!" she snapped, but her defiance was laden with chagrin. "I… I'm sorry, Harry, I didn't think…"

Harry shook his head. "It's fine, nobody was looking. I should have told you."

"**Ginny."**

"Yes, I know, I messed up," she sighed.

"**Maybe a little. But I know it's tense out there, and if your first instinct is to keep your head on a swivel nobody's gonna blame you for that. You're doing fine, keep it up."**

"Right," she said blankly, apparently unable to deal with encouragement from Scott.

"**Also, let's keep things clear. I'm remote switching all channels, separating Red and Gold. Don't panic if I'm not remarking on chatter, and let me know if we need to cross communicate again."**

"**Good luck you two,"** Hermione said, and there was a soft 'click' that Harry assumed meant the radio channel had changed.

"**Red-Lead, come back,"** Scott said.

"What? But we just got… Oh, wait that means — yeah, we're here. Uh, I copy. …Break."

"**Channel is good. Continue progression, check in at intervals."**

The graveyard lay serene in the shadow of the parish church. The grass was neatly trimmed and the headstones seemed well cared-for, though a few of the older ones displayed the inevitable ravages of age and weather. Sounds from the village drifted in from behind, mixing with the sighs of the wind through the bushes. It was odd, in a way, to be visiting a graveyard in such a fashion. The sun shone brightly overhead, burning through the damp and casting rainbows where the mist met the horizon. There was no gloom, no cold or dark. Harry's last visit to a burial ground had been in a more classical setting.

It was hard to be overly apprehensive in such surrounds. There was nothing threatening about the scene, no sense of foreboding. It was peaceful, lucent. It made the weight over his heart easier to bear. His parents had found a fine place to rest.

He had no indication as to where his parents' grave was, exactly, but the graveyard wasn't very large and it didn't take him long to find it. There was no ostentatious memorial, in contrast to the square. The headstone was a simple one of white marble, gleaming in the sun. It stood in the middle of a row, without anything to differentiate it save for the names carved there.

"This is it," he said to Ginny, who had been searching a different row.

She approached, her eyes scanning the inscription. "'The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death'," she read.

"**First Corinthians,"** Scott said. **"**_**Novissima autem inimica destruetur mors. **_**Always liked that one."**

Harry stood over the grave, feeling sort of empty. There was no sense of closure or peace or even just sadness. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to feel, really. Regret? Maybe loss? When he had been younger he'd imagined what life would have been like with his mother and father, childish fantasies of perfection to serve as a sharply contrasting escape from the reality of the Dursleys. But by the time he finally arrived to pay his respects, he knew that no matter how he had been raised, he would still be destined for the war. For death.

'The last enemy', indeed. Unfortunately, not the only one. Death had many hooded minions.

Ginny took his hand hesitantly, probably not sure if he wanted to be touched right then. He didn't mind; he wasn't distraught. And in fact his lack of any strong reaction was beginning to make him feel guilty. They were his _parents_. Shouldn't he be grieving?

"…I don't know what I expected," he said finally, staring at the headstone but not really seeing it. "It's hard to feel like they're here."

"**They aren't. The body is a vessel for something more complex,"** Scott stated. His confidence in such a belief wasn't difficult to understand: he was living evidence.

"Don't feel bad about it. You never had a chance to know them," Ginny said, leaning against him. "_He_ took that from you, too."

"Yeah," Harry muttered, feeling dark strands of hatred cut at his heart, "he did."

The grave looked pristine. Not that he had expected it to be vandalised or covered with graffiti, but he had thought that there might be more signs of visitation. Maybe the magical population was discouraged from coming to the graveyard, and that was the purpose the statue served. Most would probably assume the square hosted the primary memorial.

He let a few minutes tick by but no sudden onslaught of emotion assailed him. He was almost disappointed by that. There were no answers here, no memories. Just a marker for people he had never known, even if he _should_ have known them, in a better world. He thought about what Scott had told him after Dumbledore had been killed, how the dead didn't miss the living and grief was a sadness for the self. James and Lily Potter were long buried, and Harry was the one who had been left to suffer. He could try to miss what he'd never had, but that was pointless and at least partially impossible.

He'd spent more than enough time feeling sorry for himself as it was.

"Let's go," he said to Ginny.

She hesitated. "I found something else you might want to see," she said.

"What's that?"

She led him past a few more graves until she stopped and pointed at one carved from granite. From the angle of his view he couldn't read all of it, but the name 'Dumbledore' immediately caught his eye.

He hurried forward and stooped down, studying the stone. "'Kendra Dumbledore'… 'And her daughter Ariana'…"

"**Not a common name. I assume there's a relation,"** Scott said.

Harry had never discussed the upsetting rumours he'd been told during the wedding. Scott didn't know anything about Dumbledore's apparently troubled past. But then, did Harry? Dumbledore had never even hinted at ever having had a sister. It was frustrating (and still hurtful) to consider just how secretive the Headmaster had been, and how little Harry had been entrusted with.

"I think so," Harry said, opting not to get into the details.

Scott either didn't pick up on his reluctance or didn't care. **"I can lead you to the cottage whenever you're done there."**

Harry looked to Ginny. "Ready?"

"If you are," she said, glancing back at the Potter grave.

He knew he would return someday, assuming he lived long enough to do so. "Yeah, let's move on."

The Potter cottage, or whatever might be left of it, stood on the southern border of town. Harry had been wondering if the Fidelius might still be active on the property, since a lack of occupants didn't seem to matter. If that were true then they would need Scott to abandon his post and assist them directly. Instead, Harry was mildly surprised to see the upper level of the cottage rising up from behind the hedges of the front garden.

It appeared largely intact, save for one section of the first storey that had been utterly destroyed, leaving the inside visible through the shattered walls. The weeds and hedges were overgrown and the wall around the front garden was vine-covered with crumbling mortar, but despite those flaws it seemed otherwise sound.

Harry stopped in front of the rusting wrought-iron gate. "It looks better than I expected," he said, voicing his thoughts.

"I'll bet it used to be lovely…" Ginny said softly, and in her eyes Harry could almost see the reflection of what she imagined.

"Needs some work at the moment," he said. He didn't want to envision the house as she was, before it had been made a ruin. He didn't want to become attached or nostalgic for a time he couldn't even remember.

She looked at him knowingly. "You don't have act like this."

"Like what?" he said defensively.

"Like you're so tough."

He glared at her. "Maybe I am so tough."

"I _know_ you are, you prat, it's part of what I like about you! But it's okay to feel _something_, it was your parents' house."

"So, what? I should just throw a fucking wobbly right here?" he demanded.

"Just forget it," she muttered with a huff.

"**Let's save the hysterics for Grimmauld, Red-Lead,"** Scott reminded.

"Sure," Harry said shortly. He reached out and grasped the gate to see if he could pull it open, and then immediately rebounded when a sign with golden letters appeared out of nowhere in front of him. "_God — _can't I touch anything around here without it turning into a fucking memorial?!"

"**Problem?"**

"No. Just another marker," Harry said, trying to calm down. Given the situation he really couldn't afford to be fighting with Ginny and lashing out at inanimate objects. When she moved closer to look at the sign, he caught her by the elbow. "If you want to talk about… Well, whatever it is you were getting at, we'll do it later, okay?"

"**What's the sign? I can only see the back of it."**

"Uh…" Harry quickly read through it. "It just says that this was the Potter cottage and that they left it like this in memory of what happened." Another fragment of his life, preserved in amber for the consumption of the masses.

Scott unwittingly echoed Harry's thought. **"Nothing like seeing your tragic past reduced to a tourist trap, huh?"**

"At least Uncle Vernon would charge," Harry said, amused at the thought of the Dursleys ever attempting to capitalise on their wizarding connections.

"**When this is all over, I'll show you how to make some real money online. The obsessions of modern society ensure that there will always be some pitiable freak willing to pay a premium for your nail clippings and-or pubes."**

Harry didn't want to know what they might do with either item. "No, I really don't want to do that."

"Did you see this, Harry?" Ginny was asking, pointing at the sign.

Harry looked to where she was indicating — on closer inspection, he saw that the sign had been repeatedly vandalised. There were all sorts of carvings and inscriptions in magic ink. Some of them were just the usual 'X Was Here' nonsense, but others were words of encouragement and hope. There was an old and faded 'Please come back Harry' on one side, and a much newer 'be careful out there, Mr. Potter' on the other. There was a 'SOD YOURSELF MUGGLELOVER' as well, but he ignored that one.

Ginny was looking at the top left corner with a grin on her face. "Someone carved a todger right here," she sniggered.

"**Ah, the ol' line-drawing penis… Classic mainstay of every vandal. When in doubt, draw a dick."**

"It's a great tribute," Harry said, looking at the crudely etched genitalia. At the very least, it was better than the Death Eater-derived messages.

The gate proved resistant to their efforts, but after a couple minutes of investigation they were able find a spot in the wall where erosion had left a foothold. The grass in the front garden reached his knees in some places and the ground squelched beneath his trainers. It was almost like a marsh. All of the windows were shattered and there was no front door. Rubble clacked in time with his steps as he went inside, echoing from the bare walls. There was no furniture or ornamentation left.

Graffiti covered everything: scrawled names and dates, crude drawings and profanities, even a few professional-type multicoloured tags like the ones Harry had seen in the city. He examined one that appeared to be a quote, written in a loopy, elaborate hand that was difficult to decipher, and covered by other markings towards the end.

"'Come away… human child, to the waters and the wild, with a faery, hand in hand, for the world's more full of weeping than you can understand…' Sounds weird, doesn't it?" he murmured to Ginny. There was a hollow quality to the acoustics as he'd read it to himself. "I guess having carpet and furniture makes a difference."

"I wonder what happened to all of their things?" Ginny said. She brushed her foot across an indentation in the floor where something heavy must have once rested.

Harry frowned. "I don't know. Maybe some of it's in the vault… I've never looked…"

"**Are you going upstairs?"** Scott asked.

"Yeah, why?"

"**Be careful, there could be water damage."**

Fortunately the steps upwards were solid enough, save for some loud creaking. All of the rooms were so barren that Harry couldn't tell what any of them had been used for. There was a larger one with what had to have been a toilet attached (it was tiled, and there were pipes exposed in the floor). Perhaps it had been his parents' room. There wasn't enough evidence to imagine what it could have been like. He made a mental note to go back through the pictures he had; some of them had definitely been taken in the cottage.

In the middle of the hall were large, rigid letters carved deep in the wood of the wall, graceless and dark, like a warning. 'THIS IS HARRY'S ROOM', they starkly proclaimed. There was a crude arrow underneath, pointing the way, though there was no other way to go.

Through the doorway indicated was the destroyed room. The wall nearest the street was completely gone, blown outwards into the garden. Half the adjoining section was missing, and the back wall had been bent under the force of the explosion; it leaned in the middle, exposing the joists where it connected to the ceiling and leaving a gap between the wall and the floor. A great deal of the roof was piled here and there in musty puddles of rainwater.

The baby's cot in the middle of the room was the first piece of furnishing Harry had seen. He felt a chill run up his spine at the sight; there was no question that the cot had been his, and the state of the room was testament to what had happened there. What he couldn't understand was how it was still there, after so many years.

Behind him, Ginny gasped. "Harry… Is that…?"

"It's mine. Has to be," he said in a strained voice.

A closer look at the legs of the cot answered his question. The paint had been blasted off of them, and though the iron was rusted he could still see the clumpy drops and streams where the metal had melted and fused to the floor in extreme heat. The cot hadn't been moved because it couldn't be moved, not without tearing up the floor itself.

He stood back up from his examination. He touched the edge of the infant bed hesitantly — it was cold beneath his hands, unpleasantly rough and corroded. The empty space where he had once rested within the cot was full of still water. He stared at his reflection, an odd mirror of the past where he was once again in the cot. A mirror, liquid and somehow not at the same time, a pool of everything that had gone wrong and still could. He had the vague, horrified sensation that some part of him lay drowned there, beneath the mirror, scratching against the other side… That, maybe, if he reached into the water, a tiny hand might grip one of his fingers…

Ginny's footsteps crunched over the nearby refuse. "How did you survive this?" she said wonderingly.

"Maybe I didn't," he said dully, still staring into his own green eyes.

Ginny stopped moving for a moment. He heard her walk over to him, and then she took his hand. "Harry?"

He blinked, moving his jaw as words flitted near his tongue but none of them seemed quite right. The mirror in the cot wasn't helpful, offering nothing but his own silent visage.

She tugged at him insistently. "Are you trying to scare me? Because it's working."

"…I guess I'm feeling something," he said.

"Take your time," she said quietly.

He didn't think he could express it properly. The cot, the mirror, the hand in the water… It would all just sound mad once spoken. "…This is just really damn strange," he finally mumbled. "Forget it. It's not much different than my cot under the stairs."

"Your cot where?" she said curiously.

With a start, he realised he had never told her about his old 'room' on Privet Drive. He had no intention of correcting that oversight. "Never mind. Scott, are you there?"

"**Still here. Gold-Unit is mobile, how about you?"**

"Almost." Harry glanced around the room. "Did you see us come in?"

"**I'm on an angle, comparatively. I can see the back of the memorial sign through the gap in the second storey."**

Harry was confused for a second before he remembered that Scott deviated from the usual method of numbering floors; the Kharadjai considered the ground floor to be the first. Harry stepped over a mouldering heap of roofing and went to the half of the wall remaining at the side of the cottage. Placing one hand against it, he leaned out through the empty space and peered up at the elevated trees in the distance.

"See me?" he asked Scott.

"**Hello. Did you find anything in there?"**

Harry searched the forested hill for any sign of Scott, though he knew it was futile. "Weren't you listening?"

"**No, I was talking to Gold-Unit. You weren't yelling so I figured it wasn't important."**

"Good to know you'll listen up if I start screaming."

"**So did you find anything or what?"**

"Not really. We're about ready to leave."

"**Okay, get back to the square when you can. Gold-Unit is narrowing down the objective."**

Harry waved his hand in acknowledgement. "We're going."

He avoided looking at the cot on the way out. Whatever it might represent or mean to him, it didn't much matter for the foreseeable future. He'd be better off without the burden of sentiment, that was clear enough. He almost regretted visiting in the first place. But not quite, since he wouldn't have wanted to face such a high probability of death without seeing the cottage and the grave (the cottage was really a grave all its own) at least once.

So that was one burden eased, if only slightly.

* * *

><p>"How is the Red Team doing?" Hermione asked, looking towards Ron so it would seem to any observers that she were talking to him instead of radioing Scott.<p>

"**Red-Unit. They're still inside the cottage."**

Red Team, Red-Unit; as if it really mattered. It was amusing to find that Scott, who had so often chafed beneath the restrictions of Hogwarts, was dedicated to such pointless protocols. "I wish we could see it," she sighed.

"**Not to belittle Harry's deep psychological traumas, but your half of this mission is actually important."**

"That _was_ belittling."

"**I was just being polite."**

The Hollow was a lovely village and normally Hermione would have appreciated the opportunity to explore it more, especially considering its history. But the mission had cast an anxious pall over the day, and she'd hardly been able to relax enough to enjoy the architecture. Quite the shame, that. So many wonderfully quaint English cottages…

It didn't help that every time she saw Ron out of the corner of her eye she involuntarily tensed, thinking it was a stranger. His beautiful copper hair had been replaced with a dull brown, his blue eyes darkened to hazel. He had rejected some of the more atypical Muggle attires offered by Sophie and was clad in a t-shirt and trousers.

Hermione had been transformed into a dishwater-blonde with hair so limp and straight that it felt very odd where it brushed her shoulders and back. Her eyes were blue, and she wore a baggy black hooded sweatshirt over form-fitting jeans complete with a wide, button-studded black belt. She supposed it was a sort of college student fashion? She wasn't really sure what Sophie had been going for. The important thing was that she looked very little like her usual self.

"Where is this bloody place?" Ron grumbled. He was counting the addresses as they walked down the street, making sure they didn't miss any.

"Professor Bagshot must live on the very edge of the village… We aren't far from the cottage at this point," Hermione said.

They were having great difficulty in locating the house because the address Hermione had found did not correspond to any areas they'd seen. Instead they kept an eye out for anything obviously magical, structures or signs that were hidden from Muggles. So far all the streets they had walked had been entirely normal. And, of course, if Bagshot's house was under a Fidelius they were sunk. It would be down to Scott to determine things then, if he could.

"Scott, can you point us towards any magical concentrations now?" Hermione asked for what was probably the third time.

"**We've been over this. Not from up here."**

"Well, then, get your arse down here, because we are so effing lost right now," Ron complained.

"**I'm where I need to be. You're walking west along the south edge of town. There's a dead end coming up on your left through that group of trees, don't miss it."**

When they reached the trees they turned down the narrow street that was nearly hidden in the shadows of the pines. The curving hill to the south and west of them loomed closer, gaining a detail it had lacked when they had been at the bus stop on the opposite side of the village.

Hermione squinted at the ridge, thinking there might be some slight chance she could pick out Scott's hiding place. "Scott, where are you on the ridge?"

"**To your eleven o' clock high, where the oaks are clustered and lean out."**

A fairly specific hint, but between his camouflage and the constant motion of the leaves in the wind it quickly proved to be useless. "Hmmm… Well, so long as you're there, I suppose it doesn't matter exactly where."

Ron started to raise his hand, and then just as quickly dropped it. "I probably shouldn't point," he said wryly. "I can't see him but I thought maybe I saw the trees he's talking about."

"**I'm close enough to track you without the scope. About… a hundred and fifty yards. Southward wind, six miles per hour. Minute of arc, six clicks up, left… Well, south-west, so maybe one-fourth MOA and I'm not going to get a chance to…"**

Hermione was impressed at the amount of maths that was being implied. "Seems like a bit of calculation involved!"

"**It's not too bad at this range, you can ignore a lot of variables and wing it. I just hate having to do it all in my head. I need Sophie to spot for me. Or, you know, some actual Kharadjai tech."**

"And I need to find Bagshot's gaff, so I guess none of us get to be happy today," Ron said.

He was right; Hermione needed to get back to the important things. As soon as she studied her surroundings more closely she found reason for encouragement: the street they were on was quiet even compared to the rest of the small village, shaded by trees and suffused with an air of seclusion. There was magic in some of these houses, she could tell.

"I think we're close," she said to Ron. "There! Lying on that windowsill, is that a Sneakoscope?"

"Blimey," Ron muttered, wrapping an arm around her waist and hurrying her past the house with its makeshift burglar alarm, "if it is we should stay clear!"

"Scott, we must be in the right place." It made sense that they would be so close to the cottage. The magical inhabitants of Godric's Hollow lived near each other along the southern part of the settlement, likely for the sake of convenience and safety.

"**The Repelling Charm extends at least partially down the hill. It might run up all the way to the houses — could just be a Muggle-proof backyard."**

"We probably should have checked here first, then."

"**Might have saved us some time, but we were being careful. If you have to— movement behind you."** Scott broke off mid-sentence, his voice instantly gaining the cold, unwavering tone Hermione had begun to associate with danger. **"About fifteen yards north, where the trees end."**

Hermione snaked her hand out and grasped Ron's sleeve before he could turn. "Slowly," she whispered. "Let's finish walking around."

"Yeah, brilliant. I can't get enough of that awful, crawly feeling about my shoulders," Ron said unhappily.

The half circle at the end of the street would bring them back around to face whoever was approaching. Hermione knew that such casual subterfuge might be necessary but she was of the same mind as Ron when it came to how she felt about it. Becoming deliberately vulnerable to maintain their ruse was not a pleasant sensation, even if Scott was keeping watch from his perch.

When they finished the partial circuit they could see back down the pavement. The figure coming towards them was short and stooped, and wasn't walking so much as shuffling. The person was draped in enough clothing that there wasn't much else to discern at a distance.

"**Stop and pretend to enjoy those flowers. Make them come to you."**

It seemed wrong that they should have to _pretend _to enjoy some fragrant flowers, but there they were. They stood close together under the pretence of examining the bed of bright blooms decorating the front garden of the nearest house. "Here, lean on me," Ron said quietly. He raised one arm up and put it around her shoulders. "Can you get your wand out under my jacket?"

"What about you?" she whispered back as she carefully extracted her wand, using him as concealment.

"I've got my hand up my sleeve." He waved his right hand at the flowers as if he were pointing out some of particular interest, showing her the empty cuff. The elastic wrists of the garment had allowed him to hide his wand inside.

The gaunt figure tottered to a stop next to them. Hermione took a quick breath through her nose and then turned towards the stranger.

The black shawl wrapped tightly around the person's head made it hard to distinguish anything at first, but when a cloud shifted overhead the increased light illuminated certain key features. It was an old woman.

"…Professor Bagshot?" Hermione said tentatively.

Bathilda Bagshot nodded her head in a stilted affirmative, swaying strangely with the motion. She said nothing, but raised a hand as crooked and gnarled as an old stump and gestured at them.

Hermione was momentarily transfixed at the unhealthy, almost corpse-like grey of the appendage. She blinked, trying not to stare. "Professor, we've been looking for you. Did… Do you want us to follow?"

Bagshot motioned again. She was clearly ill, perhaps even close to death. Her clothing alternated between being loose and lumpy, caught up in odd knots and tied together in such a way that it didn't look as if it could be removed. They were also wet, as if she had been standing out in the rain. One of her eyes was unfocussed and had a white tinge to it, and the other was dull like an old marble. When the breeze wafted through a very unpleasant smell came with it. Ron coughed a bit, though he covered his mouth with one hand and tried to pass it off as unrelated.

"**Tell her you'll follow,"** Scott said.

Hermione smiled tightly at the ancient witch. "We'll be right behind you, Professor."

Bagshot turned on unsteady legs and began to limp back the way she had come. Hermione and Ron followed at a distance.

"This isn't right, there's something very wrong with her," Ron hissed in Hermione's ear.

"Well, she is supposed to be a bit batty by now," Hermione said weakly, but in truth she agreed.

Ron had to take almost comically small steps to match Bagshot's pace. "If she wasn't walking, I'd swear she'd already snuffed it. You can't Imperius a corpse, can you?"

"No, and she doesn't look like an Inferi." Hermione gnawed at her lower lip, feeling with every step like they were being led into a trap. "I don't know what happened to her but you're right, this is wrong."

"**Listen very carefully."** Scott's voice came back over the radio with enough abruptness to make Hermione jump. **"Whatever you're following is not human."**

Ron swore under his breath; Hermione's heart skipped a bit. "How do you know?" she said tightly.

"**Because it's the same temperature as the sidewalk."**

The infrared spectrum; as Scott had described it, the world in greyscale, bright and dark representing the contrast of infrared radiation. A chill ran down her spine. If Bagshot was emitting the same heat as the wet pavement, then she — or _it_ — was not living by the standard definition of the term. They were following a ghost. She drew closer to Ron, her footsteps faltering.

Scott was still talking, his voice ringing through her distress. **"I could put a shot in it but I don't know what kind of magic could do this and I'm too far away to look at it myself. I need you to make a call."**

A call. She needed to make a decision, she needed… To hear what Ron had to say, first, she wasn't alone in this. "Ron?" she said faintly.

He was pale but his stance was strong. "I say Stun her, find out what we're walking with."

"…On the count of three, then," she said, tightening her grip on her wand. "One…"

"**Shift right after your shot. Do you copy? Take cover, right side, after your shot."**

"Yes, I hear you…" Hermione affirmed. "Two…"

"Scott, if you put one of those bleedin' bullets in me…" Ron said, his wand held so tightly in his hand that it was shaking.

"_Three_," Hermione breathed, and then she swept her wand up and shouted _"STUPEFY!"_ in tandem with Ron.

The two Stunners shot out with a bright red glare and impacted perfectly into Bagshot's back, sending the old woman crashing to the ground with an audible thud.

For about a second they just stood there, staring at the woman they had Stunned. Scott swiftly interrupted the moment. **"I said, shift right, Gold-Unit,"** he told them with a clear note of censure in his otherwise flat tone.

Ron grasped Hermione's arm and kicked open the nearby garden gate, hurrying both of them inside and crouching behind the fence. They faced each other in the shade of the slatted barrier, breathing hard.

"Tell me we didn't just kill an old lady," Ron panted.

Hermione peeked over the top of the fence, wand at the ready. Her eyes widened. "We didn't," she said, immediately dropping back down. "She's getting up."

Ron squeezed his eyes shut. "Bloody hell. I wish you'd just said 'yes'."

Bagshot was slowly regaining her feet, moving with the same bizarre, uncomfortably jerky motions that she had before, except even more pronounced. There were several horrible grating noises that reverberated in the silence, like bones that hadn't set properly, unnatural joints clacking and grinding against each other. It made Hermione flinch just to hear it.

"Fuck this," Ron said through gritted teeth. He hopped up into an extended crouch and levelled his wand over the fence. _"STUPEFY!"_ The red light hit Bagshot right in the torso, but save for making another wince-inducing sound had no results. _"DIFFINDO!"_

The cutting spell sliced across the woman's shoulder, sending tatters of cloth fluttering to the earth. A thin portion of dead grey skin was revealed, sporting a nasty deep cut — and no blood.

"Settles that," Ron said, dropping back down next to Hermione. "She's an Inferi or something."

A rather dramatic way to seek proof, considering an alternate scenario would have resulted in a badly wounded Bagshot, but Hermione couldn't argue with results (not until later, anyway). "They're vulnerable to fire! I'll cast low, you cast high, Incendio should—"

"**I'm firing, stay clear of the target."**

Ron looked at her in confusion. "How clear? Should we run?"

Hermione pressed her eye to one of the gaps in the fence. "I—"

Bagshot took a step towards the fence; her ankle turned in the wrong way and she stumbled forward. She started to raise her head again and then… And then there wasn't much of her head left to raise. There was a HISS-SNAP and a THUNK and sort of a wet cracking noise beneath all of that, like an old fruit rind being smashed, and the left side of the woman's head and a bit of her face just sort of… blew away.

As Bagshot collapsed a sharp, ringing report echoed out from the trees and drifted over the street.

"**Effective fire, target is struck."**

Hermione clamped her jaw until her teeth ached and furiously fought back her gag reflex, the bile burning the lower reaches of her oesophagus. She would_ not_ embarrass herself in front of Scott, she would _not_, she would not, not, _not…_

"Bloody _hell_…" Ron groaned in some terrible mixture of appreciative awe and sick horror as he took his own peek.

And then, though she would not have thought it possible, some even worse sounds emerged from Bagshot's ruined body. Hermione didn't want to, but she forced herself to look. Bagshot's jaw widened impossibly, yawning open like a sickly dry cavern, the flesh of her cheeks stretching until they tore, leaving wiggling strings of skin clinging to her yellowed teeth. Her throat bulged as something came _up_ it—

The largest snake Hermione had ever seen burst from the dead woman's mouth in a flurry of scattered teeth and slithered into the nearby bushes with incredible speed. She gasped when a bullet impacted against the concrete where the snake's tail had been less than a second before, shattering the material with a sound loud enough to hurt.

"**Traversing right, stay down… Lost visual. I've lost visual. I lost the snake, guys, I don't know where it is, get out of there. Move it."**

They ran. Back out the gate, back down the street, past the houses and narrow alleyways. Hermione hadn't heard the staccato cracks of Apparition, but she knew they were coming if they hadn't already. "We're going to the square!" she said between desperate lungfuls of air as she did her best to keep up with Ron's long gait. "Where are Harry and Ginny?"

"**They're on their way. I'm repositioning, thirty seconds."**

Hermione just needed to know that Harry and Ginny were okay. Once that was ascertained, they could all leave without worrying if someone was being left behind.

Hopefully such information wouldn't take long to acquire, seeing as she wasn't sure they even had thirty seconds.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note<strong>

One of my reviewers has said that the canon version of Hermione is probably the least 'bookish' version they've seen. That's an interesting viewpoint, and possibly a very accurate one considering the tendency of fanfiction to greatly expand and exaggerate character traits. I don't know whether Rowling herself would think that was true, especially as she has said that the very reason Madame Pince is such a poor, obstructionist librarian is that the key to the plot is always in a book, and if Pince led Hermione right to the correct tome there wouldn't be much of a story.

And it's funny to think about because, in the course of writing TTM and Vis, I have struggled on more than one occasion to write the series of events that leads Hermione to whatever epiphany she's reaching for, as opposed to her just having it. And that is in itself a departure from much of the books, wherein Hermione simply _does_ have the answer whenever it is needed. That happens multiple times, both a sign of the character's intelligence and the driving engine of the plot.

But I'm not tied to Harry's POV alone, and as such I have the ability and perhaps the duty to illuminate things from Hermione's perspective, showing the steps to enlightenment rather than merely the moment of. I don't always choose to do so, but I do strive to make her leaps of logic seem moderately plausible. And if you have noticed great swathes of narrative exploring Hermione's thought processes, I must admit I enjoy writing her most of the time.

She's a useful character, probably the _most_ useful of the canon cast, especially for exposition. Her natural curiosity allows me to have Scott expound at length on the shape and other hidden matters. But because she is not as passive a questioner as Harry or Ron, I get to have Scott not just give out answers, but _defend_ his answers. With Hermione, it's not enough for him to simply explain; he has to be convincing. And if he's lying he has to be very, very careful not to contradict himself. Hermione makes him work, and I think that Scott, as a character, needs that. I think too many fanfiction readers have seen too many OCs go unchallenged.

I had a friend of mine who sometimes reads and offers criticism on my writing ask me once if anyone had ever asked about a possible Scott/Hermione romance. I was pleased to be able to say no, because it means my intended dynamic between them — an intellectual connection, not a sexual one — comes across correctly. I'm not stupid, of course; I know this perception is aided by readers' general revulsion when it comes to OC/canon pairings. But still. My usual readers have become attached enough to the OC cast that I've received many comments and questions regarding Scott/Sophie, which is unusual enough. Most of the time a fanfiction readership couldn't give less of a crap whether the OCs ever enter a relationship with anyone.

I remember leaving review responses back in the early days on Phoenixsong, pledging that Scott would never be in a romantic relationship with any of the canon cast. It says a lot about fanfiction culture that I would even feel the need to express such reassurances.

Anyway, let me know what you thought of the trip to Godric's Hollow — not quite what you remembered, is it?


	15. How to Build a Following

**15**

**How to Build a Following**

* * *

><p>"<em>The best way to survive an ambush is<br>to avoid encountering one. But when_  
><em>reconnaissance fails, you may find<em>  
><em>yourself in such a situation despite all<em>  
><em>precautions.<em>

_When extracting yourself or your unit_  
><em>from an ambush, there cannot be enough<em>  
><em>emphasis placed on speed. A successful<em>  
><em>ambush can consist of many elements,<em>  
><em>including advantageous positioning and<em>  
><em>strength of numbers, but it is the element<em>  
><em>of surprise that so often results in<em>  
><em>unquestionable victory. While immediate<em>  
><em>withdrawal is the best tactic to use in an<em>  
><em>ambush, it may not be possible, and a<em>  
><em>fighting force which does not respond<em>  
><em>rapidly will soon lose the opportunity to<em>  
><em>ever respond at all.<em>

_As such, it is vitally important to react as_  
><em>quickly as you are able. It is perhaps the<em>  
><em>only battlefield situation in which blind<em>  
><em>decisions can be encouraged, because the<em>  
><em>worst response to an ambush is no response."<em>

_-_Excerpted from_ Field Tactics Introductory Manual_,  
>Section III (Imperiarchy Bureau of Information, Third Army Division)<p>

* * *

><p>"<em>Watch what, Highground, there's nothing<em>  
><em> here but shit and leaves."<em>

- Last pre-wrench transmission from Victus  
>Company, 897th SFM, just prior to an ambush.<p>

* * *

><p>The scope was swaying slightly in the breeze but he didn't want to reposition in the midst of such a tense situation, so he pressed the stock more firmly into his shoulder and grabbed the branch with his left hand. A relatively thin tree like the one he sat in was not the best platform for a rifle. The problem was the hill itself, though, since it was so overgrown that the trees were the only elevated positions with clear sightlines. It wasn't like he had the time to build a proper stand. Luckily, he wasn't shooting far.<p>

Scott watched through his scope as the distant, hunched figure of Bathilda Bagshot tottered back up the walk towards where ever her house might be. He hadn't seen her actually emerge from any of the structures. He listened while Hermione and Ron planned in hurried whispers.

"**I say Stun her, find out what we're walking with,"** Ron suggested. Scott nodded approvingly, even though Ron couldn't see it. Ron was demonstrating some healthy, proactive paranoia.

"…**On the count of three, then,"** Hermione said.** "One…"**

The silhouettes of his Primes told him he was at about a hundred and sixty yards, more or less. Wind speed was holding fairly steady, so that was a plus.

He felt a reminder to his untrained Primes was in order. "Shift right after your shot. Do you copy? Take cover, right side, after your shot." There was a fenced-in yard to their immediate right that would provide decent safety in a hurry.

Hermione and Ron were still talking, but he half-listened — none of it was critical. Instead he switched to the alternate channel briefly when he heard Harry.

"**Scott, we're almost at the square,"** Harry said.

"Copy, Red-Lead. Just be prepared to deviate," Scott told him.

He didn't have time to say more. Two Stunners, bright through the magnification of the rifle scope, slammed into Bagshot and sent the old woman reeling to the concrete. "Good hit," Scott muttered. He frowned when his Primes just stood there afterwards. "I said shift right, Gold-Unit," he said curtly. At least they complied once prompted.

His Arctic Warfare Magnum rifle was chambered for .338 Lapua, a round that straddled the line between anti-personnel and anti-materiel. The weapon itself was fifteen pounds and forty-eight inches of steel in a drab green, the barrel ending in a large suppressor. With a round velocity in the vicinity of three thousand feet per second it wouldn't do much in terms of actually quieting the gun, but it would eliminate muzzle flash and makethe point of audible origin harder to identify. He slapped his palm against the handle of the bolt and the bottom of the magazine to ensure they were both fully seated.

Down on the street, Bagshot was moving. Scott figured he already knew at least part of what was going on but he didn't want to put a bullet through an old woman until he had proof positive she wasn't just batshit crazy. A few seconds later, Ron provided that proof with a Cutting Charm that demonstrated just how congealed all of Bagshot's blood had become.

He hit the safety and placed his finger on the trigger, aiming at his target's centre of mass. If accurate, the shot would enter just behind the dead woman's right arm and cut through her lungs and heart. "I'm firing, stay clear of the target," he warned, interrupting Hermione's plans to use incendiary spells.

Precision shooting was a tricky business, especially when the target was moving erratically. Scott moved his aim slightly to the right, targeting a spot just ahead of where she was standing. As soon as she put her foot forward to move in that direction, he started to squeeze.

And that, of course, was when she tripped and flailed forward, dipping downward and throwing off his careful aim. It was too late to readjust, though — he was already in the process of firing. The gun bucked against him, pushing hard into his shoulder. In the confines of the trees the sound was painful enough to make him thankful he'd forgone a muzzle brake in favour of the suppressor. Like the first, sharp note of a thunderclap the sound rang out and then echoed back, rattling against the forest and the houses below.

The results weren't what Scott had intended, but they would certainly do. The round tore through Bagshot's frail cranium and left a mushy tapering spray of flesh, jellied blood and bone across the side walk, complete with tufts of white hair as garnish. Not a pleasant picture. Scott was more or less inured, but he could hear Hermione trying not to retch over the radio.

"Effective fire, target is struck," he reported. It was more out of habit than anything, since Ron and Hermione were quite aware that the target had been struck.

Bagshot's corpse started moving again. He glared into the scope, feeling almost insulted. He'd scooped the reanimated author's brains right out of her head, how could she possibly be moving? The twitching that sometimes resulted from nerve damage, sure, that wasn't outside the realm of possibility. But Bagshot was moving way more than could be attributed to the spasms of a body that didn't understand it was dead. The Inferi in the cave had all died when subjected to massive head trauma. What made Bagshot different?

What made her different, as it turned out, was the massive snake that surged from the dead woman's mouth — pushing her teeth outwards and sending them skittering across the walk — and then slithered into the nearby brush.

Scott hadn't been expecting that. He was so surprised he didn't even comment, struck momentarily dumb by the absurdity of it; instead he took an instinctual snap shot at the retreating snake, resulting in a close miss.

He tried to track the snake through the bushes but it was no good. The green reptilian blended perfectly into the foliage and he lost sight of it almost as soon as it had appeared. "Traversing right, stay down…" he told Hermione and Ron, not wanting them to get into the line of fire. Even as he said it he knew it was too late. "Lost visual. I've lost visual. I lost the snake, guys, I don't know where it is, get out of there. Move it."

That was the end of their subterfuge. Scott wasn't entirely sure what he'd just seen, but snakes seemed pretty well up Riddle's alley and the clock was now ticking. With all of the Primes converging on the town square, he hauled the rifle and its bipod off the tree branch and jumped down. There was a different, taller tree back to the west, in the direction he had come. He would need a better vantage point.

"**We're going to the square!"** Hermione said, her breathing strained and the jolts of her steps audible in each word.** "Where are Harry and Ginny?"**

"They're on their way," Scott answered, ploughing through the heavy brush without regard for stealth. "I'm repositioning, thirty seconds." He switched channels and then combined them again, controlling the two teams' receivers remotely. "Red-Lead, come back."

"**There you are!"** Harry sounded nearly frantic.** "Were those shots I just heard? What the bloody hell is going on?"**

"Are you at the square?" Scott asked, ignoring Harry's hurried questions.

"**Yeah, we're right at the obelisk."**

Then everyone was together and intact, and it was past time to leave. "All element, this is Highground. Disapparate. Get on, get out, this is finished. Everyone is clear."

"**We're leaving? All right,"** Ginny said, sounding a bit confused at the circumstances that were forcing them to leave.

"**We'll see you back at Grimmauld,"** Hermione said.

Scott reached the tree he had in mind and leapt up into it. He wanted a ringside seat for whatever Riddle would send in. No doubt it would be informative. He settled his rifle on a branch that was steadier than his previous one and started scanning the edges of town, watching for black hoods.

About a second later he knew something was wrong — the shape signatures of his Primes were far too close to be at Grimmauld Place. "Any unit, Highground. Come back."

Hermione responded almost immediately, and she sounded scared.** "Scott, we can't get out. An Anti-Apparition Jinx is up over us, it must have been raised as soon as we attacked that snake!"**

He scanned the shape and, sure enough, once he looked past the Muggle-Repelling Charm still overhead he could feel the buzzing of a large Anti-Apparition field. It was unusually large and strong for something that had come up so quickly. It must have been prepared in advance, somehow, maybe having already been extant in the past and taking advantage of the magical residuum Hermione had once mentioned. Multiple casters, maybe? He needed to remember to ask.

Like the barriers at Grimmauld it was too big to simply destroy — an outright attack would only tear rents into it, easily repairable. Instead he started to look for the threads with which it could be unravelled, a time-intensive process that he probably couldn't afford but he didn't see a lot of choice.

He was angry at himself for not noticing. Between his focus on his shooting and the general miasma of magic that hung over the southern section of the Hollow he'd missed the field entirely. "It must have been masked by the Muggle charm I'm in, it's…" No. No excuses. "I fucked up, Hermione."

She didn't seem inclined to blame him, at least not for the moment.** "We're almost to the square, what should we do?"**

Right. Current solutions, not future arguments. He paused, working on the spell, trying to think of the best course for his Primes. "Stay away from the middle and take cover on the south-west side. That field can't go forever; link up with Harry and Ginny, get the Cloak. Harry, tell me you aren't still by that obelisk." As if in answer, a small explosion echoed from the direction of town. Scott abandoned the shape and pressed his eye to his scope while he tried to mentally calculate his new MOA adjustments. "Harry?"

"**Death Eaters! We're gonna need help!"** Harry shouted, and even as he did so more sounds of a struggle began to rise above the houses.

So much for dealing with the jinx. Through the scope Scott could see dust rising from a hole in the cobblestones around the obelisk. "Are you hit?" he asked, trying to zero in on the origin of the damage. He could see Harry and Ginny where they had taken cover behind some overturned tables outside of the café.

"**Blasting curse, Ginny deflected it,"** Harry said breathlessly.** "They're coming from the graveyard."**

Graveyard. He swung the barrel slightly upwards and brought the church doors into focus, and then panned right. The gate to the cemetery was gone, as was a good portion of the fence. There were multiple figures in black robes stepping over the wreckage and flanking both sides of the square. He heard more popping sounds in the distance; pulling his head back, he looked down to see even more Death Eaters arriving near the cottage.

The sheer number of them was enough to give him pause. He wasn't going to have time to work on the jinx. He wasn't even sure he could get everyone out alive.

Which was fine. He just had to get the_ Primes_ out alive.

"Hermione, they're Apparating in through the jinx, how can they do that?" he said rapidly.

"**Really? Oh… They set it up in advance, they must have. It's not a quick job, it's a ward, like the one at The Burrow,"** she replied in a grim tone.

That explained his difficulties with it. Looking back through the scope, he added up what he was seeing with his options and arrived at the only solution he could think of. "Harry, they're coming right at you. So listen close — are you listening?"

"**We're listening,"** Harry said softly.

"Do you remember how to get back to the park?"

"**I do,"** Ginny said.

The Death Eaters were closing in on the café, circling the square. Their progress was somewhat impeded by the handful of Muggles they had cornered. They were levitating one man, spinning him around in mid-air, and had a few women backed up against a wall. Scott couldn't hear what was being said, but he knew it was nothing good.

"If you run back down the street just to your right, you'll find the other two," Scott said, trying to talk quickly but still be clear. "Link up, use the Cloak, get to the park. From there you can get to the car. Hermione, you have the keys."

"**The emergency keys you gave me?"** Hermione said nervously.

"I'd say this qualifies. Harry, Gin — I'm going to take a shot. The second I do, you run as fast as you can."

"**I'll shield us, Gin, you counter,"** Harry said.

Scott pressed the rifle to his shoulder and began searching the square for the best target. "No countdown. Just be ready."

It didn't take long to locate the lucky winner, which was good because Scott had no more than a few seconds — and that was a generous estimate — before Harry and Ginny were spotted. The closest Death Eater was a rotund fellow who wasn't so much walking towards to the two as he was swaggering, apparently without a care in the world. A rather odd way to approach enemy number one.

Scott was centring the crosshairs over the man's chest when he shouted, close enough and loud enough to register over Harry's microphone, and what he said greatly changed Scott's perception of the situation.

"**You two, behind the table! Budge up and get over with the others!"** the Death Eater yelled hoarsely, and he kicked the short fence around the café's eating area for emphasis.

The Death Eaters hadn't lost track of Harry and Ginny; they'd been aware of their hiding spot the entire time and just hadn't seen the spell deflection, writing it off as a miss. They hadn't recognised the Chosen One and the youngest Weasley at all. Sophie would be pleased to know her work had been so successful in the field.

"**They don't know it's us!"** Ginny whispered.

"I heard. Run!" Scott said, and squeezed the trigger.

The Death Eater stiffened as if he were about to say something further when instead Scott's bullet knocked his breath and a good portion of his lungs out of his back. Scott didn't waste time watching the results. As Harry and Ginny stood and ran, he fired four more shots in rapid succession, working the bolt as fast as he was able. The first in the barrage was relatively on target, piercing one more Death Eater through the side (he spun on his feet with the force of the shot and bounced off a shop window), but the next three all missed, hitting in and around a cluster of enemies and just scaring the hell out of them.

Which was ultimately the point; Scott wanted them to understand that it had not been Harry and Ginny who had shot the first man. They were sprinting away at full tilt even as the shots snapped through the air and blasted holes in the cobblestones.

The Death Eaters didn't seem to entirely realise what was happening, which suited Scott just fine. However, they were about to be given the time to figure it out because Scott had to reload. The seconds required could make a difference in a firefight.

Sure enough, when he slammed the bolt shut and brought the scope back up to his eye he found himself looking at a much emptier square. The Death Eaters had ducked inside the buildings — no doubt whatever chain of command they had was deciding how to handle a Muggle sniper. Scott could be reasonably certain that there was at least one enemy down there that understood what they were up against.

They were pinned, for the moment, which was what mattered. He tracked downward, locating the second, larger group of Death Eaters coming from the cottage. They were running through the streets, not far behind Harry and the others. Scott studied them for a moment as they moved, and he didn't like what he saw.

The front of the group was comprised mainly of non-hooded individuals who weren't wearing uniform black robes. Instead they were dressed a mix of normal, everyday clothing and whatever else they wanted, often with what seemed to be rudimentary attempts to appear militant. Behind them were a handful of actual Death Eaters, robed, hooded and masked. Obviously, Scott was looking at an infantry unit of Snatchers with their Death Eater commanders. The most worrying thing about them, though, wasn't their numbers; it was the way they were holding formation. The group hurried through the town keeping to the same basic organisation, and they never stopped to loot the houses or attack the occasional Muggles they encountered. They were properly coordinated and under orders.

Scott's lip curled in contempt. Fine, good for them. They had fundamental unit coherency skills. Now he would see how well they stuck to their rudimentary training while under fire.

He picked a Snatcher at the front of the pack and aimed for the head, looking for something dramatic. He would take aim at one of the Death Eaters in charge next, but first he wanted a nice, sharp shock to their morale.

The Snatcher ran up to the corner of the next intersection, leaned against the wall to peek down the street, and then picked himself up and began to run across the open space.

_BAM._ The shot hit him on a downward angle about an inch above his left eye and burrowed through his skull, coring it like an apple. The resulting spray of blood and brain matter, the exiting force of which sent his head snapping forward on his suddenly limp neck, was just the image Scott had been looking to share with the corpse's comrades.

Scott was too far away to hear whatever shouts of horror and alarm rose up in the aftermath, but the body language of the other Snatchers was clear enough. They reeled back in terror, scattering around the dead man. Scott quickly moved his view over to snipe one of the commanders while they were frozen in shock — only to have his heart sink slightly in his chest.

None of the Death Eaters could be seen. When the Snatcher had been killed, they had all moved to stand behind the houses on the side of the street towards Scott, removing them from view. And even as he watched, the Snatchers — who were probably having orders shouted at them — began to do the same.

He swivelled back to the front of the formation and put a bullet through the chest of a second Snatcher and then, running low on options, separated a witch's leg at the knee, as it was the only part of her visible.

Looking up from the scope, he saw the Death Eaters from the square had left the centre of town and were moving quickly in his direction. He knew at that moment that he'd done all he could from a distance. He couldn't suppress both approaching groups of OpFor at the same time.

Which meant Plan B.

He dropped from the tree and set his rifle down, ripping the bandoleers with the .338 magazines from himself and leaving them where they fell. He hated to abandon the weapon, but he couldn't carry it with him. He flipped the M4A1 strapped to his back around so it rested on his front torso, quickly checked the compensator for any detritus and then flipped the safety.

"Harry, what's your progress?" he called out.

"**We're with Ron and Hermione and we're heading to the park,"** Harry said, panting into the mic.** "Gin?"**

"**Just a few more streets, I recognise that motorcar,"** Ginny said.

Scott made a mental note of Ginny's excellent sense of direction; it was a useful skill to have in a team. "What about the Cloak?"

"**We're moving too fast."**

That made sense. With the four of them the Cloak would be only partially effective anyway, and while running it was more or less useless. It was really too bad that the magic of the Cloak only worked when it was worn, and they couldn't simply let it fan out behind them. "Understood. Good luck."

"**Good luck?"** Hermione repeated, sounding suspicious.** "Where are you? Aren't you meeting us there?"**

Scott squeezed the stock of the M4, debating exactly how much he needed to tell them about Plan B. "They aren't actually chasing you right now, but that could easily change if they see the four of you together, that's some simple math. I've got their attention right now, so keep moving and hopefully they'll wander off into the trees."

"**Okay, then go back up the railway so you can meet us at the car,"** Harry said.

He started moving, making his way down the hill on an intercept angle to the Death Eater forces. "There's no time, I'll just aperture out, you know the jinx doesn't affect me."

He knew that if he didn't open an aperture before he started a running battle, then he wasn't going to open one at all.

"**Then let us know when you're about to leave,"** Hermione said.

"We'll be out of radio range by the time you get to the car," Scott lied as he ran. "You can't wait for a signal if I can't give it. The second you're out of the Apparition field then leave, I'll probably already be gone at that point. Don't be surprised if I beat you there and eat all the celebratory biscuits."

"**We'll see about that,"** Ron promised.

"**All right, Scott. Don't be late,"** Harry said.

"Never am," Scott assured him, and then he muted his microphone, hefted his carbine, and darted over a hedge and into the alleyway that would take him to the streets.

He skidded to a halt against an old stone wall that was part of a house. To his right, just a few doors down, was the street that eventually connected to the square, where the first group of Death Eaters were coming from. Straight on past that was the second group, who were darting from building to building and looking for a good way up to the hill. They had started casting at the trees, Scott could hear it. He could also hear the repeated shouting of Shield Charms; he leaned around the corner and saw, to his chagrin, that many of the Snatchers were holding defensive charms in place at the front ranks, while those behind them cast a wide variety of offensive spells, trying to flush him out.

Still rudimentary, he thought, trying to convince himself. It didn't mean anything. Even a Death Eater could have a good idea or two if they tried hard enough.

Time to draw their attentions elsewhere.

The sun was just beginning its long dip below the horizon when Scott leaned out and carefully centred his holographic reticle on a Snatcher who was casting what looked like incapacitation-oriented jinxes at the woods. She was spacing out her spells without much regard for how Scott could have actually moved in the time after his last shot, which was nice to see. The world hadn't turned_ completely_ upside down.

He took a breath, let it out, and squeezed.

Without the magnification afforded by his rifle scope he couldn't tell what the damage was. The woman fell over, but in all the flurry of casting no one noticed right away. He ignored the man with the Shield Charm who had been in front of her and placed a few more careful shots into the back ranks. Hopefully they were lethal. He was able to see one man clutching his stomach because he had fallen out into the street, but before Scott could follow up with a better shot the enemy realised they had been flanked.

It took a second, but not much more than that, for the spells to begin hurtling his way. Before they could really build up a frenzy and pin him, he held down the trigger and loosed a long, ripping burst back at them. The bullets flashed bright against the Shield Charms as Scott picked himself up and almost threw himself across the intersection, moving as fast as he was able.

The side street he was on ran back up towards the square. He ran, legs and arms pumping while his carbine swayed against his chest. He wasn't running for distance, forgoing a strong and steady loping cadence that made full use of his height. He was all-out sprinting, running as fast as he could. He needed to get past the Death Eaters coming from the square before they found out he was on the adjoining road.

He took a sharp right after winding towards the church and found himself viewing the square up close and personal. He glanced around, taking in the damage; the captive Muggles were nowhere to be seen. Hopefully they were just hiding.

He wanted them to stay that way. "THIS IS SERGEANT WATT, I'M WITH THE TA!" he bellowed across the open space. His voice echoed back to him and he had a brief sense of déjà vu, of putting his back to a stone wall and looking out across a similar square with a weapon in hand; not so far away, over in France, but separated by time. "LOCK YOUR DOORS, STAY INSIDE AND KEEP AWAY FROM THE WINDOWS! HELP IS COMING."

The only help that was coming would arrive in the form of a Ministry Memory Charm. Scott saw a discarded single-use camera lying in a puddle near the café, and wondered how wizarding Britain found all the possible photographic evidence. There were very real bullet holes out there they would have to fix, as well.

His musings would have to wait. The first unit of Death Eaters had doubled back, and, no doubt drawn by his shouting, were coming into the square.

He opened fire immediately, his shots sparking off of hastily raised Shield Charms. The Death Eaters fell back, quickly retreating down the street and out of sight.

He'd gone through something in the vicinity of twenty rounds, he was pretty sure. That left half a magazine. During the mission to rescue Kylie he had discovered it took about three shots from his M14 to rupture a_ Protego_. It probably depended on the caster, but he figured the total would usually hover around that mark. His M4A1 didn't put out the same muzzle energy as the larger calibre M14. He would have to shoot more to down a shield, and while the 5.56x45mm was a lighter and more compact round than the heavy 7.62x51mm, he had been carrying ammo for his Arctic Warfare Magnum, the bulky .338 Lapua (8.6×70mm). Accordingly, he was hauling fewer rounds for the carbine.

In other words, a battle of attrition would quickly leave him shooting back with his .45 handguns, and then, shortly after, throwing rocks.

He put two rounds into the walls on either side of the opposite street to make sure the Death Eaters were thinking good and hard before sticking their heads out again when his radio buzzed and Harry's voice filtered through the static.

"**Scott? Sco—Um, Highground. Come back. …Hello? Scott, we're at the car. The jinx doesn't reach out here and we're about to leave. Are you already gone? I mean, of course, if you were already gone you wouldn't be… getting this…"**

"**He said these radey things don't work this far away, mate,"** Ron said.

"**Radio. It's a transmitter and a receiver and, never mind, you just weren't listening when he explained it all, were you,"** Hermione said.** "Scott, if you can hear this we're leaving right now. We'll see you back at home."**

"**Home?"** Harry repeated, sounding disgruntled.

"**Well, it is for now, Harry, like it or not..."**

"**Come on, you lot! It's not safe, remember?"** Ginny helpfully prompted them.

"**Right. I bet he's already left,"** Harry said, and then the radio went silent.

That was the biggest problem taken care of. With the Primes safely removed from the field, Scott could breathe a bit easier. Not much easier, though, since the Snatchers were rushing into the square.

The difference between the group of Death Eaters with the Snatchers and the group without had never been clearer. The Snatchers scattered the moment Scott opened fire on them, but instead of simply trying to hide they took cover and began shooting back. Scott switched from target to target, trying to use the first few vital seconds of the firefight to suppress them, fixing them in place and swinging the odds momentarily in his favour.

It was no good. He dropped one man by pounding through his shield and hit his partner once the protection was gone, but there were too many and the volume of spells heading his way increased so rapidly that he found himself ducking behind the wall as chips of stone flew past his face. Scott fired back as best he could, but when he saw Snatchers beginning to come out of the alleyways onto his side of the buildings he knew he was outnumbered, outgunned, and outflanked. He just barely jumped a nearby hedge and went prone behind a fence before several cutting charms scraped off the wall he had been near.

Suddenly, it seemed that Scott was out of vulnerable targets, and as he lay there on the grass with curses lighting the space over his head, he realised with a sinking feeling that someone on the other side understood the dance — and Scott didn't have a partner.

Now he was the belle of the ball. But he'd had enough of being a débutante: it was time to spike the punch and head for the door. He'd also had enough of dance analogies.

He kept still for a moment, letting the barrage of spells slow somewhat. As soon as he had a bit of breathing room he hopped onto his feet and backed up to the other side of the fence, letting constant bursts of fire go at every target in front of him, forcing them into cover. The firing pin clicked on an empty chamber, and with that he spun around and ran.

He cut around the back of the church with spells bursting at his heels. Then he headed south, towards the crescent hill.

* * *

><p>To say that Harry was upset with Scott was something of an understatement. He wasn't in a full out, screaming rage, not quite yet, but he was<em> not happy<em>. And, really, Ron could relate, because it wasn't like he enjoyed being lied to, either.

After arriving at Grimmauld place they had expected to find Scott already present (waiting for them in the kitchen and eating all the biscuits, no doubt). But instead the room was empty. Upstairs they had located Sophie and Kylie in the middle of dusting out the drawing room. That was the point at which Harry had started to boil over, but at least he had gone back downstairs so as not to upset Kylie.

There had been a little bit of ranting about 'that bloody lying fucking gobshite', but mostly Harry fumed in silence, standing tense with his arms crossed and staring at the floor as if he was attempting to see through it.

Ron didn't always get Harry's moods, but he understood this time. Scott had fully and completely lied to all of them, repeatedly, just to get them to leave him there. So they could be in safety while he let the Death Eaters chase him around. So they would just abandon him like a bunch of Slytherin cowards.

And it angered Ron to a degree that actually sort of surprised him. Scott had always been a shifty bastard. For the most part, though, the Kharadjai's lies and omissions hadn't been specifically aimed at Ron. Not that Ron liked it when his friends were lied to, either… It just hadn't been quite so personal.

Scott had to have known how Ron would feel about leaving one of their own behind. If there was one thing Ron knew he wasn't, it was a disloyal prick. He'd never abandon his friends. No matter what happened, regardless of the odds, he knew he was with them. And that included Scott.

So, yeah, Ron was just a bit narked about the whole thing.

Hermione was pale and her lips were pressed tightly together, giving her the appearance of worry. And while that was probably a part of what she was feeling, her eyes sparked. "I didn't even think to question it, we were in such a rush," she mused. "That was nonsense, of course, about the radio… I'll bet they have a range of a couple miles, at least…"

Ron knew her logical dissection of what had happened was her way of dealing with things, but he sort of wished she would just stop because every word out of her mouth made Harry's fists clench even tighter.

"And he knew we couldn't go back to the village, not with the ward in place. We could go back to the car park, but then who knows where he would be in relation, or how many Death Eaters would be in town or the Ministry might be there by now, or…" She took a hard breath through her nose, her glare intensifying. "He really did it, this time. Trapped us but good."

"I could go back," Harry ground out.

Ginny straightened up from where she had been slumped in one of the chairs. "Not without me, you aren't!"

And not without Ron and Hermione, it went without saying. And since Harry wouldn't drag his friends back into almost certain death or capture, he wouldn't be going at all. Hence the clearly audible noise of his teeth grinding together.

"Don't do that, Harry, it's bad for your enamel," Hermione told him absently as she stared into nothing, likely still trying to calculate some way to help Scott.

"I DON'T FUCKING CARE!" Harry exploded, and rammed his foot straight into a cupboard door. Ron winced; the wood splintered and he imagined Harry's foot probably had as well.

"Harry! Are you trying to hurt yourself?!" Ginny demanded.

Whatever pain he was in seemed to have dulled Harry's fury. "…If I was, it worked," he said after a moment of grimacing.

"Daft sod," Ginny said, though her tone was more fond than anything. "Why do you have to yell_ and_ kick things?"

Harry didn't appear to have an answer for that. The silence returned while Ginny watched Harry, Hermione worried, Harry paced (or limped, now) back and forth, and Ron just waited to see what would happen next. He knew Scott could very well be in serious trouble, but he simply couldn't think of a single thing they could do about it. The blond bugger had neatly ejected them from whatever fight he was embroiled in.

If Scott had any idea what was good for him, he'd have run and hid the moment he ended up on his own. However, self-preservation had never been one of Scott's more prominent traits (the way he provoked Hermione alone was testament to that). No doubt he'd done his best to draw all of the Death Eater attention his way to allow Ron and his friends their easy escape.

What Ron didn't understand was why, now that they were safe and Scott had to be aware of that, he hadn't come back yet. Ron didn't know how Scott went from place to place (none of them did, really, not even Hermione). But he knew that mysterious ability had allowed the Kharadjai to follow the others when they used Apparition, and that the wards shouldn't matter at all. So there was something else going on.

Harry came to the same conclusion. He hobbled his way over to the stairs. "SOPHIE, WE NEED YOU," he bellowed upwards.

Her slight voice drifted down, barely understandable._ "Wha…?"_

"DOWNSTAIRS! WE NEED YOU DOWN—bloody hell, I'll just go up there," Harry muttered.

Sophie yelled something else that Ron couldn't make out at all, but a few seconds later he could hear her footsteps on the ground floor landing. She hurried down into the kitchen, still holding a dust rag. "What? What is it?" she said a bit anxiously, looking at all the serious eyes on her.

"Where's Scott? Why isn't he here yet?" Harry said brusquely.

Sophie blinked. "You didn't mean to leave him behind?"

"No!"

"Sophie, Scott lied to us," Hermione said, crossing her arms. "You see, he told us he was leaving the Hollow before we did, but now he's still not here. And there were a great many Death Eaters when we left, we were lucky to escape. So why hasn't he just come back yet when the wards won't trap him like we were?"

"Oh…" Sophie said softly, and she began wringing the dust rag in her hands, mindless of the way it dirtied them. "Was he fighting?"

"He drew them off so we could get away, but he said he was keeping his… distance…" Harry trailed off, his brow furrowing in fresh anger as he realised Scott had probably lied about that, too.

Sophie always carried herself in a very rigid posture, but now there was a tension in her shoulders that fought against the weak smile she tried to maintain. "I see."

"So? Why isn't he here?" Harry said again.

"Well…" Sophie tapped her fingers together, obviously debating how to reply. Ron could have told her that was a mistake; Harry had a bit of thing about people getting choosy with the truth.

"I just want a real answer," Harry growled.

Sophie's face took on a stubborn cast. "And you'll get one, if you'll be patient and let me decide how to explain things," she said, obviously not liking Harry's tone.

"It's really very simple. You open your mouth and tell me the truth."

She frowned at him. "I don't know why you're mad at me, I didn't do anything!"

"What we'd like to know is whether there is anything we can do to help Scott get back," Hermione said, cutting in before Harry said something he would regret later.

"There's this saying, that everyone knows…" Sophie began. She stopped and frowned again. "Or, I_ think_ everyone knows it, unless Scott made it up and just_ told_ me everyone knows it, which is something he might do…"

"And that is?" Hermione prompted.

"Oh! Um, it's, 'opening an aperture in combat is like threading a needle in free fall: you can waste your time trying it, or you can pay attention to the ground'. …I guess that doesn't work too well for you, since you would need a parachute, but you get the idea."

"So… Scott can't come back while he's fighting?" Ron guessed.

"No, he can't." Sophie's eyes filled with concern. "Apertures aren't easy to make even in ideal circumstances, especially when they have to be stable enough to move a person through. And when you're in combat, and you can't spare the time to concentrate, and the shape is going all crazy…"

"Then they must still be chasing him, correct?" Hermione said anxiously. "Otherwise he'd have hidden somewhere and come home?"

Sophie didn't look any happier about that scenario than Hermione. "That's likely… He might need to get further away from the town and the Death Eaters, depending on how the shape is acting. Or…"

"Or what?" Harry said agitatedly.

"Harry,_ relax_," Ginny admonished him. "This isn't Sophie's fault!"

Harry grimaced and took a few steps back, not really looking contrite but at least trying to be less confrontational.

"There are a lot of things that could be giving him trouble: density, magnetism, shape turbulence, certain types of radiation…" Sophie trailed off when she saw that, with the sole exception of Hermione, everyone was looking blank or impatient. "But I thought there were people in the town? Moogles?"

Ron grinned. "Muggles," he corrected, glad to hear someone else mispronounce something for once.

"Most of the people there are Muggles, yes," Hermione confirmed.

Sophie sighed. "Then he's probably going to draw the OpFor out of town, if he can, to protect the civilian populace."

"And of course, we're not allowed to fucking help with any of that!" Harry spat.

"You_ are_ the Priority One, Harry, and as such, Scott has a responsibility to keep you from becoming a casualty even at a cost to himself," Sophie said gently.

Ron actually held his breath after that, and was pretty sure Hermione was doing the same, because Sophie probably couldn't have pushed Harry's buttons any better if she'd tried. She started to say more, but Ginny glared at the short woman so fiercely that she blinked in surprise and closed her mouth. Harry had his back to them, so Ron couldn't see how close they all were to being treated to a repeat performance from the summer before fifth year, but he reckoned it was pretty damn close.

Fortunately, Harry was self-aware enough to realise that, too. He spun around and stormed up the stairs without another word. Ginny followed with one last blistering look at Sophie.

"…Well, that was rude," Sophie said after a moment of silence.

Ron looked over at Hermione. "You know what I like best now that Ginny's snogging Harry? We don't have to go after him and try to talk any more."

"Ron!" Hermione said, but there was a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "How easily you toss your best mate duties onto your little sister."

"She wanted that one, so she can have it. Just like you and trying to convince Scott he's wrong about something."

Hermione immediately sobered at the mention of Scott. "I'd say I can't believe he put us in this situation… but I really can. I hate feeling so helpless. He_ knows_ I hate feeling this way and he still did it!"

Ron hated it as well. He put an arm around her shoulders and drew her close. "Me, too. I owe him a punch to the gob when he gets back."

Hermione laughed against his shoulder, where she had rested her head, but there wasn't much humour in it. "I hope he'll come back in good enough condition that it will be all right for you to punch him."

That was not a good thought. Ron remembered that night in Gryffindor Tower with the seeping hole in Scott's arm. "That bomb hole he had in him was right fucked. At least he won't ask_ me_ for an Episkey."

"Language, Ron," she protested without much enthusiasm. They stayed in their embrace for a minute or so, and then she pulled away. "Come on, let's have a sit down. I'm exhausted and there's nothing we can do, for now."

As they walked towards the stairwell, Ron noticed that Sophie was still standing near it. Her complexion was pale and she was staring at nothing, still idly crumpling the dust rag she held. It occurred to him that her state of mind might not be so far away from the rest of theirs.

"Think he'll be all right?" he asked her.

She jolted out of her reverie. "Oh! Yes, I'm sure he'll be fine… He's one of our best, you know, so he probably won't be captured…" she ended her half-hearted assurance waveringly.

"He's the most dangerous bloke I've ever known. I guess I haven't known that many, but it's got to count for something," Ron told her.

"I bet he'll be back soon," Sophie said in something approaching her usual tone. "Please don't mention this to Kylie, though, I don't want her to worry herself sick."

"We won't," Hermione promised.

Ron just hoped Scott made it back soon, because it wouldn't take Kylie too long to notice his absence.

* * *

><p>It was getting dark out.<p>

The setting sun was to his advantage, and every darkening shadow made it less likely his pursuers would find him once he disappeared from their sight. Unfortunately, they knew it. Their chase, once more careful and considered, grew reckless.

After carefully pulling them out of town by slowing his gait and taking shots at intervals, Scott had initially outpaced them once he reached the woods, moving more quickly on foot than they were able. But, again, he had underestimated them (or, as he was beginning to suspect, their new leader). The Death Eaters had split the Snatchers into smaller, more mobile groups. Some of them had begun Apparating to keep up, sometimes even flanking or appearing ahead of him, depending on what they were able to see. Others had taken to brooms, and while Scott's gunfire had forced them to keep a respectful distance it also revealed his position.

Several flying enemies had hovered over him at considerable height, spotting for the rest and ensuring escape would not be easy. The encroaching darkness made such high altitude reconnaissance less useful, and soon it would be impossible to see him from the air at all. The Death Eaters were becoming desperate, running themselves ragged to keep up.

Scott hadn't seen any sign of Riddle himself, which was a bit insulting. Apparently, having been told that Harry wasn't present, the self-proclaimed Dark Lord didn't feel that Scott was worthy of any personal attention. Scott didn't know if the enemy had been ordered to capture him, but judging from the damage the spells sent his way did to the forest, he sort of doubted it. Taking him alive would be a happy accident.

He was sporting the usual scrapes and bruises that came from sprinting through the woods, along with some other assorted minor lacerations from shrapnel. The only direct hit he'd taken had been a Full-Body Bind that had sent him crashing into the rough soil. Luckily, he'd stopped himself with his face, which now stung like a motherfucker. He didn't know what the damage was, but he probably wasn't ready for date night.

He hurtled over a small ravine and crunched through a dead thorn bush. Sliding across the loam, he regained his balance and took cover behind the largest nearby tree. At first he didn't see anyone. Then, dark shapes flitted under the canopy to his right.

He scowled at them. He could stop and just try to hide, but the forest didn't offer much in the way of concealment. Short of crawling into a hollow log (he hadn't seen any big enough) or something else equally obvious, there were no options that wouldn't be easily discovered in a thorough search. He might have expected a less than thorough search in past engagements. Now… Now, someone on the other side definitely knew what they were doing. If the DEs lost track of him, they would double back and look. He had to get beyond their radius and disappear.

He had just decided to leave the group he could see behind and try his luck in a different direction when something smacked into his left hip.

He grunted in pain and rolled with the blow, bending at the waist and sliding partway down the trunk. He looked down to see dark blood spreading out from a sliced section of his camouflaged pants. Slapping his hand over it, he glared back to where he thought he had been hit from, trying to twist around enough to raise his weapon that way one-handed.

Sure enough, a hooded Death Eater was crouched on the short ridge to what had been his left. When Scott met his eyes, the man fell flat to his stomach and crawled backwards until he was out of sight.

"Good call," Scott muttered.

"_AVADA KEDAVRA!"_

The first group he'd spotted was still a ways back, but close enough for their frontrunner to shout a curse. Scott snapped back to face forward and snuffed out the green light shooting towards him. The Killing Curse was fairly slow, he'd noticed, compared to many of the other dangerous spells. The Severing Charm in particular had enough velocity that Scott found it difficult to counter even when he knew it was coming.

Scott returned fire, the sharp crack of his carbine reverberating wildly through the close-set trees. The Snatcher under fire didn't fall, running to a spot where he could no longer be seen. Scott was almost positive he had hit the man. Another Snatcher dove behind a nearby tree, but didn't travel far enough to be safe: Scott shredded the trunk at neck level, getting a nice gout of arterial spray for his trouble.

The rest retreated, but Scott could hear more behind another grove. "DOCTOR! DOCTOR, WILLARD IS HIT!" a woman screeched.

Willard — the man who hadn't fallen, the man with the punctured neck or someone else who had been behind either of them? Whoever it was, their suffering had given Scott a chance to get moving.

He pushed himself to his feet, ignoring the burning in his side. The cut was deep, but it didn't hamper his movement enough to warrant healing. He ran, peppering the short ridge with a few random rounds in case the Death Eater there was thinking about being proactive again.

There had been more of them closing in than he had thought. Spells rattled against the trees, showering him with bits of bark. Scott might have spun around to suppress them and give himself some more room to run, but he'd done too much of that earlier. He was down to his last two magazines.

He was beginning to wonder if they weren't also tracking him the old fashioned way. He was moving at such speed that his trail was apparent to anyone who knew how to follow broken twigs and faint footprints. And they had been diligent enough about holding a good search pattern that he hadn't been able deviate his course much, heading mostly south.

Opportunity arrived in the form of a stream that trickled through a gully ahead of him. With the rightmost group of foes concerned with their casualties, he had a chance to move that way, and the stream provided just the path he needed to-

-weightless, wet, pain-

-confuse the trail, what happened?

He gasped out a mouthful of water, the feeling rushing back to his limbs and the ringing in his head beginning to subside. He braced his hands and pushed to extract himself from the mud but he wasn't rising, his left arm was simply rolling him over. He raised his head and forced it to look to the right, sliding his chin along the ground as he couldn't seem to get up in the flooded ditch he was in, lying on his stomach.

There was blood all over the dirt, frothing red in the water. A few gobbets of flesh were scattered along with the stained pieces of camouflage that he knew was his own. He couldn't move his right arm because most of his right shoulder was gone. Out of the corner of his eye he could see a dark, glistening hole in his shoulder blade, the bone splintered out into the muscle. It was just a throbbing red mess. He didn't know what had hit him but it must have been hot, because the skin around the injury was red and blistered, and wisps of smoke rose from it.

He couldn't feel it. That was very bad, because the first rule of shape triage was 'what you cannot feel, you cannot heal'. He needed the pain to provide his body with information, to intimately know the location of the injury. Under better circumstances it was best to dress the wound and wait until his body was prepared to handle it, but, since he didn't have a great deal of_ time_, he grabbed a jagged nearby rock and dug it into his ruined appendage.

That, he most certainly felt. He howled into the mud, writhing with the agony, not trying to stifle it. The burning point of intolerable pain was where he shunted his energy. The pain intensified, then changed into a sort of pressure, and then just when the sensation was almost unbearable, it stopped.

His right arm flopped down into a more natural position as the wound was healed, and sweat immediately ran down his face. He was tired, now. All of his muscles felt lax, uncooperative. It had been a deep injury with at least second degree burns. A couple more like that, and he was finished. Replacing anything was exhausting — replacing bone was brutal.

He forced himself to stand, shoulder still badly hurting. The actual hole created by the spell would be gone, the bone and muscle restored — mostly. Shape triage in the field was not the most reliable of medicines, especially without assistance. He couldn't even look at the wound to make sure it was fully healed, and there was always a chance that there were problems below the surface of the skin that he would have to tend to later. The blistered area around the wound was still there, as were all the other related lacerations and bruises. The little things were hard to get, and usually not worth the energy.

He had only been down for about thirty seconds, but he could hear the Death Eaters closing in. He took off down the stream as fast as he could, his shoulder sending spikes of hurt through him with every jolt.

The stream coiled around through the trees, changing direction a few times but always heading generally westward. By the time the sun had sunk completely below the horizon he had left the water behind, climbing up the stream bank and continuing west. He jogged down a slope and found a narrow road at the bottom. It was paved, clearly of Muggle origin. He looked around for any way to identify it and perhaps figure out where he was based on his memory of the maps of the Hollow. That was when the lights caught his eye.

Weaving through the trees, up across the other side of the road were the twinkling lights of lit wands. He counted six, maybe seven individuals, no doubt looking for him. He didn't see any Death Eater hoods. They could have been Ministry people, which wasn't much better.

They might have Apparated ahead of him, or the net was wider than he'd thought. Either way, there were probably more still behind him. The lights were moving away from him, so it would be a good time to hide.

He ran down the flooded ditch along the side of the road until he came to a drainage pipe which ran through a brief hill. Crouching in the water, he peered into it. He couldn't say it appealed to him as a particularly sanitary hiding spot, but it would do. He just had to gather himself for a minute or two until he could piece together an aperture pattern. All the fighting had left the shape a whirling mess (it hadn't been even a fraction as bad after the mercifully brief encounter at Kylie's) and his head was pounding. He really just wanted to lie down.

It wasn't until he was already a good twelve feet or so inside the pipe, sinking into the filthy water, that he remembered that it was, duh,_ full of water_. He couldn't open an aperture in water. That much fluid mass was more than he could transport.

He pressed the heels of his hands to his stinging eyes, not sure if he wanted to laugh or cry. Both possibilities could bring unwanted attention, so instead he just took off what was left of his jacket and turned it into an acceptable (if extremely soggy) pillow.

Any further problems would have to wait until morning, after his pursuers were gone.

* * *

><p><strong>::Author's Note::<strong>

So I've heard that, recently, ol' Rowling decided to throw some dynamite in the fireplace by claiming that, given the gift of hindsight, pairing Harry with Ginny instead of Hermione was perhaps a poor decision based on her original ideas for the narrative and not what eventually evolved. Well. I don't keep up on any HP-based news sites. I'm assuming they exploded. In the end, it turns out she was more or less misquoted and taken out of context, as she came back around to believing in Ron and Hermione by the end of the interview, but I'd imagine the damage is done.

There are a lot of things wrong with this, but first I'd have to say that if Rowling was concerned about shaping her story according to emergent narrative and not initial conceptions, then what in the ever loving shit was that epilogue? Her plan was rigid, almost inflexible at times. Characters frequently behave strangely and are as stupid or smart as the plot demands them to be (especially in book seven). I'm not attacking her abilities as an author; most of the time the requirements of her narrative are hidden well enough, and it's not like the books weren't entertaining to the point that we can forgive a lot of plot bullshit. We give a lot of leeway to things that are fun.

So, let's disregard 'death of the author' and the deep problems inherent in retconning established works — we may all be beginning to fear a George Lucas-level Harry Potter rewrite sometime in the near dystopian future, but we don't have to worry about it just yet. Many of Rowling's after-the-fact assertions fit well enough into the existing framework, some better than others. Dumbledore's sexuality is a strong subtext in book seven, so not really a problem. A lot of the other things she's said have nothing to do with 'current' events, so to speak, and can be more or less ignored.

The problem with proclaiming that Ron and Hermione only ended up together for the demands of narrative, or as wish-fulfilment, is that it ignores the deeper backgrounds established. It's not like Rowling twisted the characters to place them with people whom they obviously weren't compatible with. Ron and Hermione have clear romantic tension going back to book four. Their being drawn to each other is such an integral part of their characters that I find it hard to accept the notion that it's an unnatural imposition on the narrative.

It would be easier to accept if there was any kind of Harry-Hermione subtext. But there's not — and I say that as someone who read the books through initially without any shipping preconceptions or proclivities. I didn't give a single shit who ended up with whom. And while it's my understanding that the movies drop a few Harry/Hermione hints, there aren't any in the books. And the books are my basis for this story, right down to appearances. I don't imagine a single one of the movie actors and actresses when writing these characters.

When I read that Rowling interview, I immediately thought of my favorite character insight from the fanfiction, 'After the End'. It's not my favorite story overall, but there's this one part where Harry is raging, as he does, and Hermione is trying to talk him into something. He turns on her and she recoils and the narrative states, and I'm paraphrasing, 'He always had the power to frighten her'. I think that came to mind because it's always been, what I've felt, is the biggest obstacle to them being a couple, on top of their general incompatibility, the way they related in a very sibling-esque manner, Harry's frequent genuine annoyance at her and that there's never the slightest hint in any of the novels that he is even attracted to her. Harry, when he gets going,_ intimidates_ her.

When I began writing this, I chose canon pairings just because they made the most sense. If anything, Ron/Hermione makes_ more_ sense than Harry/Ginny. I've tried to even that playing field a bit by making Ginny a bigger character and filling in some of the blanks.

I still hate that epilogue though. An end of an era, like that, is really the moment where, as an author, you have to let it go and leave it to the reader to extrapolate. I don't think she could have ever capped it off with an epilogue that would be satisfying. That's why we read fanfiction.

Author's note, too long! Shutting down… Losing power… And this chapter was mostly about Scott, come to think of it… Probably should have written a note about him. Next time! So, what did you guys think of Scott's delaying action/diversion/retreat?


	16. As You Were

**16**

**As You Were**

* * *

><p>"<em>Those not in the business often imagine<br>integration as being a constant struggle  
>against the whims of the shape and of<br>stubborn Primes. In fact, integration  
>much more closely resembles a business<br>partnership than a form of herding — you  
>aren't chasing cattle! There's a level of<br>autonomy inherent in the process that can  
>come as a surprise to the inexperienced.<br>But it's crucial, because it's just not possible  
>to always be behind the stick."<br>_

—Captain Paul Skinner, Ret., _Life in Providence_

* * *

><p>It was a very subdued breakfast that Ginny walked in on a bit before nine in the morning.<p>

Sophie and Kylie were absent, possibly still in bed. Harry, Ron and Hermione were eating in silence, eyes on their food. There was a noticeable tension to the proceedings. It wasn't especially surprising considering one of their own was missing.

And, yes, Ginny could admit to herself that she thought of Scott as 'one of theirs'. She wasn't exactly the best of chums with the Kharadjai, but he was part of the group and part of the fight, and… Well, he had come through enough times in the past to earn some respect. Besides, she was not so petty as to wish harm on him. She didn't want Scott to be _gone_, and certainly not to be dead, or whatever his equivalent was… She just wanted him to quit taking the piss and stop messing with Harry's head when it suited him.

She had really expected Scott to come waltzing in not too long after they started worrying the night before, probably making some smart remarks as he did so, the bloody liar… But his continued absence had given her anger time to cool. And by the time she rolled out of bed to find her friends in the midst of an eerily quiet meal, she had discovered her own measure of concern.

Scott was somewhere out there risking life and limb for the cause, and while she was still angry that he hadn't allowed her the chance to do the same, she recognised his dedication. And she also knew that if she continued to fight, then Harry would as well. So Scott had done some good, even if he hadn't gone about it in a good way.

"Why didn't you wake me?" she asked Harry when she seated herself next to him.

Harry shrugged listlessly. "Nothing's happening. Reckoned I'd just let you sleep."

"No word, then?"

"No." Harry stared into his cereal as if there might be some answers floating within.

Ginny leaned around him to see what Ron and Hermione were thinking. Ron was shovelling food into his mouth without much in the way of expression, but Hermione was watching Harry with a look of resignation. Like Ginny, she knew what came next.

Harry did not disappoint. "If he's not back by noon, we go looking for him," he said, dropping his spoon with a clatter.

The noise woke Ron up. "You think it'll be safe by then?" he said, sounding unconvinced.

Harry's dark expression was answer enough: he didn't much care.

Ginny sighed and looked to Hermione. "Do you want to try and talk sense into him, or should I?"

"I'm not sure I have the energy for something so exhausting," Hermione said wryly.

"I'm sitting right here!" Harry said angrily.

"Harry, going back is not a good plan. The Ministry will surely be there, even if the Death Eaters aren't," Hermione said, trying logic.

"You think I'm that daft? I've thought about this," Harry told them forcefully. "I'll go back to the car park under the Cloak. I can look around, suss out what's happening, and maybe see where Scott went. Then we can go from there."

"We work in teams, remember? I'll go with you under the Cloak," Ginny said.

"I'll move faster by myself. Less chance of being seen," Harry told her in a tone that was obviously intended to be as reasonable as possible.

Which was a bit insulting, but she got the point. She could be a little shirty when it came to being left behind. Could he blame her? She had been so peripheral before. He wouldn't have even taken her to the Department of Mysteries if she hadn't insisted then, too. She had to fight for every concession. She had to constantly prove her right to be present, and she didn't feel like anyone else had to do that.

Or maybe that was just her own insecurities talking. Well, whatever it was, she didn't like the idea of Harry buggering off by himself with nothing but the Cloak for company.

She took a breath and tried to match his reasonableness. "I get that, but if you find trouble—"

The clatter that came from the stairs in the middle of her sentence about made her jump out of her skin.

They all whirled towards the staircase with eyes wide and wands out in time to see Scott slide down the last few steps on his bum, legs splayed out in front of him.

"I do believe," he said in a hoarse yet cheerful voice, "that the ol' leg is giving out."

Harry was out of his chair in an instant. "You stupid idiot! You're fucking insane, what have you done to yourself?!"

"Bloody hell, you're dirty," Ron said with disgust. "What happened to your leg?"

"Let me look, let me look at it," Hermione insisted, trying to push past the boys.

From where Ginny was standing, Scott was a little over half dead. His military clothes were so filthy that they were more brown than green, and his left thigh was stiff with dried blood, running almost to his knee. He was missing an entire sleeve from his shirt, the skin unnaturally pale around the shoulder and then flaring out into a nasty collage of red and yellow burns and pus blisters. His face looked like he had used it to batter down a door: covered in cuts, both lips split, nose swollen, topped with a nice fat black eye. Every square inch of him was covered in dried filth. He smelled positively awful.

He grinned at them, revealing red-tinged teeth. "Morning, mates. God save the Queen."

Harry threw up his hands and stalked away, obviously too angry to deal with Scott immediately.

"Ow! What happened to your face, mate?" Ron said, wincing sympathetically at the plethora of scrapes and bruises.

"Born this way, sadly. Doctors say they can't do anything for me."

Hermione huffed with exasperation and a touch of relief she couldn't quite mask. "Your disfiguration is temporary. We don't mind looking at you, it's the _listening_ to you we have trouble with. Ohhhhh…" She flinched away from Scott's mutilated arm after she almost steadied herself on it. "…I'll take a look at that in a moment. Lift your chin up."

Scott complied. "Will I ever be pretty again, nurse?"

"I'm not a miracle worker," Hermione said dryly. "Harry's right, what on earth did you do to yourself?"

"Took a spill. Got lucky, though, my face broke my fall."

"Maybe I can help some," Ginny offered.

Ginny was startled and almost jumped back when Scott reached out and grabbed her shoe, squeezing it. "It is weird how happy I am to see your scowling face?" he said, smiling up at her.

"Yeah, it is," she confirmed.

"He's riding his usual post-mission adrenaline high. With this level of bruising I'd say he's likely concussed, as well," Hermione said. "Can you check that hip and make sure he's not still bleeding?"

Ginny wasn't squeamish when it came to blood. Less than Ron was, anyway. His expression as he tugged down Scott's frayed trouser leg (it tore right off without much effort, and it was obvious he had taken a nasty Severing Charm at some point) was more than a bit queasy. Good thing he had a strong stomach to counterbalance how revolted he was.

Although, perhaps she had taken pride in her medical fortitude too quickly. The gash on Scott's hip was truly disgusting, and when she cast a few cleaning spells on it to remove the blood she could see the white of bone down through the gaps in the scabbing.

She glanced up from it to steady herself and found Scott gazing down at what she was doing with curiosity. "That smell south of cheese to you? Not really bad, right?"

"You smell really, really awful," she told him honestly.

"Yeah, but not gangrenous, right?"

"Isn't it a bit soon for that? Besides, you told me you were resistant to gangrene, if I recall," Hermione said.

"I am, I am. It's all good."

Very little about his state was good. Ginny did what she could, casting at the wound until the edges turned pink and the centre was fully scabbed over. Hermione had done more or less the same for his face, lessening the swelling. Neither of them were trained Healers with access to the kinds of resources available at St. Mungo's.

"I have some potions that can replenish your blood, Scott, are you going to need them?" Hermione said. "I wouldn't ask, but they'll be difficult to replace."

"Should be fine," he said, sounding a bit more lucid after their ministrations.

"I'm not sure what to do about your shoulder. I cleaned up the cuts, but I don't have any salve for the burns."

"I'll fix all this stuff later, when I can. I'll slap a bandage on it, jump in the shower until the water stops running red and then pass out for awhile. You guys can yell at me when I wake up."

Hermione narrowed her eyes at him. "Yes. I'm glad you remember that we have good cause to."

"Got that right," Ron muttered.

"Harry's about ready to go nuclear over there. I can't wait for that chat," Scott said, and Ginny couldn't help but think he actually meant it.

"Please don't antagonise him," Hermione requested. "You know what you did, and we know why you did it, but that doesn't mean we don't have valid reasons to be angry."

"Uh-huh," he said absently, tapping away at his phone.

"You!" Hermione huffed. She stood and used her wand to clean her hands. "Ron, can you help him get up to the loo?"

"No need; help is on the way," Scott said, tucking his phone away.

Sophie came rushing down into the kitchen, still holding her phone. "Oh, no…" she groaned when she saw Scott, pressing a hand to her mouth.

"Come on, now… You've seen worse," Scott said. "And I even have pants on, mostly."

"So I should just be happy about the state you're in now? Because of pants?" she demanded.

"Well, maybe not _happy_…"

As Sophie was even shorter than Ginny, and Scott was about the same height as Ron, the size and weight differential made it utterly bizarre to see Sophie so effortlessly haul Scott up the stairs. She probably weighed about half as much as he did, even without all the weaponry he was still carrying.

Now that Scott was safely at Grimmauld and he wasn't in critical condition, Ginny turned her attention to Harry. He was standing near the cupboards with his arms crossed.

"Looks like Scott will be fine," she said, walking over to him. "He wasn't quite as bad as he looked."

"He's such a twat," Harry seethed.

"Are you going to go yell at him?" she said hopefully. It was sometimes nice to see Harry assert himself when it came to Scott (and, as a side bonus, an angry Harry was an extra attractive Harry, with his lean muscles tense and his green eyes flashing).

Harry chuffed out a laugh, dropping his arms. "No. I'll wait until he tells us what happened, _then_ I'll yell at him."

Ginny gave him a disbelieving look. "You're awfully calm for a bloke who was just shouting."

Harry shrugged a bit sheepishly. "Yeah… It's kind of hard to stay angry with him when he took a beating like that."

Ginny wouldn't acknowledge it out loud, but he was right. "I'm sorry we didn't find out more about your parents."

"I don't know what I was looking for," Harry admitted. "Just… something that wasn't there."

Hermione approached the two of them, breaking into the conversation. "Discussing the mission?" she said, and then without waiting for an answer continued, "It's terrible what happened to Professor Bagshot, the poor woman… And now the whole mission was for nothing." Her eyes widened and she held out an apologetic hand towards Harry. "Oh! I'm sorry, Harry, I wasn't implying it was a waste… I'm sure the visit did you some good."

"Maybe," Harry said apathetically.

"I'm sure it did," Hermione repeated lamely. "Well, be sure to write to Remus and let the Order know what happened. If they hear about it they'll want to know you're okay."

"They'll want to know we're _all_ okay," Harry stressed.

"Yes, of course," Hermione said with embarrassment. "That's what I meant."

Ginny just rolled her eyes. Hermione was right about the Order, or at least some of its members, when she said they would be worrying mostly about Harry. But seeing as he loathed any reference to his friends being more expendable than him, she really should have known he would latch on to her grammatical slip. Ginny always appreciated Harry's defence of her importance, even if she wished he would be more realistic sometimes.

Harry looked dourly towards the stairs. "We'll see what Scott has to say when he's ready. Unless we kick his arse before that for lying to us."

"I don't know about you, but I'm still more than a bit put out with him," Hermione declared.

Ginny was as well, though she was still bothered by the nagging thought that if Scott _hadn't_ lied, then Harry would have willingly stayed in the line of fire, no doubt waiting for the opportunity to sacrifice his well being for someone or something. She felt like Harry was actually angry not because of the lie, but because when it came to self-sacrifice, Scott had beat him to it.

She saved that opinion for later, when she could bring it up to Harry alone. "If you want to kick his arse, I'll hold him down," she offered.

Harry's mouth lifted in a small smile, which was progress considering the mood he was in. "I'd like to see that."

"What? You'd like to see me jump on another bloke?" she said innocently.

"Ugh. Not anyone, but especially not Scott." Harry grabbed Ginny's wrist and pulled her over to him. "I didn't have a mum to teach me to share."

Ginny leaned into him. "Too dark, Harry."

"Ron would have laughed."

"No, he wouldn't have."

"Scott would have laughed."

"He's a prick, though."

"Yeah."

Hermione glanced over at the table where Ron had resumed his meal. "I'm going to finish eating. I need to get back to my research if we're going to find another Horcrux."

Harry quickly sobered, and Ginny sent Hermione a glare that the older girl didn't notice. He had been so close to cheering up, and then Hermione had to go and remind him of Horcruxes. "I don't know what we're going to do. Bagshot was our only lead."

"Not true; Scott told us there was a Horcrux to the north. It's not much to go on, but we might be able to narrow it down," Hermione countered.

"How?"

"Manually, if we have to. The closer we get, the more precise the shape should be."

"Only if the shape is still showing him this thing at all," Harry pointed out. "His first clue might be the only one we get."

"Well, let's hope that's not the case." Hermione briefly hesitated. "It's not ideal, Harry, but we may need to bring more people into the know… The Order have resources we don't, and the more of us looking, the better our chances are."

Harry's eyes darkened, his stance gaining a clear tension. "And the better our chances of Riddle finding out what we're doing."

"I know, but—"

"Dumbledore left this to me. If he'd thought the Order could help, he would have told them," he said with a tone of finality.

But Hermione could be equally stubborn, and she didn't take the hint and drop the subject. "He couldn't have foreseen everything. And we needn't assume that the Order would require specifics to be helpful, just a few questions about artefacts in general might lead us in the right direction."

"It's too risky," Harry said, intractable.

Hermione began to respond yet again and Ginny was done with the whole conversation — Harry and Hermione were going to circuitously argue for who knew how long and they didn't need Ginny standing there to do it. She grabbed a scone and sat down next to Ron, who was also ignoring the clashing of his best friends in the background.

"Feeling all right?" she asked him, wondering if his silence was a symptom of something more than fatigue.

"Been better, but haven't we all?" he said philosophically.

"True." She pushed the crumbs from her scone around on the table with her fingers. "How do you think Bill and Fleur are getting along? It's been a bloody dreadful honeymoon."

"I reckon they're fine; Bill's tough and Fleur is…" Ron didn't finish, perhaps wondering what, exactly, Fleur was. "I guess she's probably not too keen on Lila being there, though."

Ginny did remember the two blondes clashing on several occasions. "Fleur will keep clear of Lila if she knows what's good for her." Ginny couldn't imagine Lila tolerating much of Fleur's superciliousness, and she sort of wished she could be there to see it if Lila finally lost her temper with the part-Veela. "Too bad you won't be there to jump to her defence."

Ron glared at her. "That was fourth year, and she's partly Veela! I'm not made of bleedin' stone, I can't just shrug off whatever they do to you."

"You do just fine now."

"It took some practice," Ron admitted.

"And some practice snogging Hermione?" Ginny said slyly. "Gave you a new focus, did it?"

"Piss off. I've given you hardly any shite for all the times you've tried to suck Harry's tongue out of his head!"

Ron had, in fact, been quite non-confrontational when it came to her relationship with Harry — at least by his usual standards. Which made sense, considering Ron had been pushing for Harry to get with Ginny from day one. He just wasn't comfortable witnessing the fulfilment of his hopes. "I'll give you that, big brother."

"Glad to hear it, baby sister."

"Why does it have to be 'baby'?" she protested. "Why can't it at least be 'little'?"

"Because you'll always be the baby of the family," Ron told her, and he poked her affectionately in the forehead.

"Isn't that the truth," Ginny grumbled.

"Thanks for talking to Mum, by the way. That was nicely handled, with all the shouting."

"I should have given that phone to _you_," she said spitefully. "Have you tell Mum why your _baby_ sister is out dodging Death Eaters."

Ron shuddered. "If that ever happens, I'm telling her you Imperiused me."

"A true Gryffindor, you are."

The bickering was familiar and comforting, a relic of a time before the two of them had made the transition from students to soldiers. Ginny had never admitted it to her companions (and especially not to Harry), but she worried greatly about her brothers. She knew they would never stay in the safety of Shell Cottage. She understood that compulsion towards action and wouldn't expect anything less from them, even as she often wished they would stop expecting less from her.

* * *

><p>"Careful, careful, careful!" Scott hissed as Sophie tried to extract him from his flak jacket without abrading his shoulder.<p>

"Oh, _now_ you want to be careful!" she said, still upset with him.

"No, I want _you_ to be careful," he corrected.

"I am! Stop wiggling and hold still!" she berated him.

Scott fell blessedly silent for a minute or so as Sophie did her best to disassemble his gear while working around his injuries. It was a role she had performed more than once. She was used to weathering smart comments from Lila about 'stripping her brother'. Under other circumstances it was true that she might have taken secret pleasure in handling him in such a pseudo-intimate fashion; however, the condition he had to be in before he needed someone to help extract him from his kit took attraction out of the equation. Especially this time, when he smelled absolutely terrible.

"I smell like the inside of an ass," Scott noted.

"That's what happens when you marinate in ditch water all night," she informed him.

"But am I tender?"

"Tenderised." She brushed a few gentle fingers over a particularly bad burn. "Can you feel that?"

"Very much," he said, wincing. The burn disappeared, leaving a patch of unnaturally clean skin behind, and his posture sagged a little lower.

"Now the hip," Sophie said. "You don't need a pinch, do you?"

"Nah." Scott tensed up, and when he relaxed his breath came out in a wavering sigh. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead and he wiped at his upper lip. "Got it?"

She checked his hip, making sure the injury was well healed. There was still significant bruising at what had been the tips of the cut but the deep wound itself was gone. "Looks okay for now," she told him.

"I'll worry about the face later. Try to pretend you're still attracted to me."

"I'll try."

She helped him into the shower stall and then left to stand outside the door. She had led him to the master bedroom where Kylie usually slept, since it had an attached bathroom. At the very least, she could afford him more privacy than he would have received at a forward hospital.

"There's room for two!" he called to her as he tossed his ruined pants over the top of the curtain.

Or maybe he didn't care much for the privacy. "So?" she shot back, trying to sound indifferent.

"So, you know, the whole wash cloth thing was kind of a standing offer…"

Some day she would go ahead and take him up on one of his inappropriate propositions just to see what would happen. She liked to think he would be taken aback, caught off guard and left stammering some sort of retraction. A more rational part of her brain thought that was pretty unlikely, but she still enjoyed the idea of throwing him so thoroughly off balance.

"I was looking over your quick sheets," she said, steering him towards a different sort of conversation altogether. "Did you want me to update some of the statics?"

"I've been meaning to take care of that," he said, starting the shower. He hissed with the first shock of pain as the warm water coursed over his injuries. "I just don't see myself leaving any time soon, even for just a couple days."

"What about… involuntarily?" Sophie said reluctantly. She didn't care for the thought, but Scott had already flirted with capture.

"Good point. I'll fix the sheets, just promise me you won't let them sideline you if they bring some subs in."

"I don't see why they would…"

"Who knows. I was just saying," Scott mumbled.

He stuck to his washing from then on, offering no more salacious remarks or job-related commentary, which was a sure sign of exhaustion. She waited patiently for him to emerge. As the rush of the fight continued to wear down she knew he would keep getting slower and more deliberate in his motions, until the act of just moving was a chore. Hopefully the hot water would help with the soreness.

Sophie straightened up when the door to the room creaked open further. She assumed it was one of the Primes come to check on Scott and perhaps demand more immediate answers, but instead the strawberry-blonde head of Kylie peeked around the frame.

The girl's wide eyes darted towards the open bathroom door, and upon hearing the sounds of the running water she blushed. "Sorry," she whispered, beginning to withdraw.

"Scott's in there, he's okay! He just needed some help because he's really tired," Sophie volunteered, wondering if Kylie was getting the wrong idea about Sophie's presence.

"That you, Kylie?" Scott called out, his voice hollow as it echoed around the shower.

"Yes," Kylie replied in a voice he couldn't possibly have heard.

"It is Kylie, she wanted to know how you were doing," Sophie said, assigning motivations to the girl who might have just been trying to go into her own room.

"I'm spring fresh, at least according to this soap," Scott said, and the strain of projecting such a loud and ostensibly well voice was becoming more apparent in his gruff timbre.

"See? He'll be fine," Sophie said.

Kylie's mouth turned downwards. "Is he hurt?"

"He's okay. He just needs to sleep," Sophie told her.

"You're lying," Kylie said accusingly, and then she fled.

"Kylie! Wait…" Sophie trailed off. "Oh…"

"What?" Scott said, oblivious.

Sophie dropped her hands and sighed. "I fudged the truth a bit and told her you were okay, but she knew it wasn't entirely true…"

"She ran off?"

"She called me a liar and then ran off," Sophie said sadly.

"Showing some spirit, nice."

Sophie wasn't quite so pleased. "I wish she had showed some spirit at someone else…"

She was prepared to refuse to help Scott dress himself for bed, but by the time he stumbled out of the shower he was so spent that he didn't even make such predictable comments. She helped him get up to the room with the motorcycle posters (which was how she always thought of that room, steadfastly ignoring all the girls in bikinis) and he collapsed on the mattress, asleep almost as soon as she pulled the covers up over him.

It was funny how the shape-enhanced Kharadjai physiology worked in combat. It was hard to slow without sputtering to a stop, dependent on inertia. No longer immersed in the rush of the shape and fuelled by adrenaline, Scott crashed.

She stepped back out in the hallway and shut the door behind her as quietly as she could (good thing she had oiled all the hinges recently). She took her phone out of her pocket and called Lila.

Lila answered quickly. "Speak," she said.

"Hello, this is Sophie," Sophie told her.

"I'm aware."

Sophie hesitated. Lila sounded terse, which might mean it wasn't a good time for a call. But Lila often sounded like that. "Are you busy?"

"I wish."

Right; save for the coming and going of the Order, Lila hadn't had much interaction with the war effort. "Scott just got back from Godric's Hollow. He's a little banged up, but mostly okay."

"And why didn't he come back with the Primes?" Lila asked, having been made cognisant of their return with a different call the previous night.

"There were noncoms all over the AO. I guess that was expected, but Scott led the OpFor away and then hid until just a little while ago."

Lila was silent for a moment. "Hid where? In water?"

"In a drainage tube with water…"

"That moron," Lila groaned.

"Well, he _was_ in a hurry…" Sophie half-heartedly defended him.

"Don't use up his excuses, Strauss, I'll hear all about it later. Listen, when he wakes up tell him that the Order really wants to talk to Harry. Like, _really_. Remus Lupin is getting desperate, he even came to me. And they usually do their best to pretend I don't exist."

"Okay. Should I just tell Harry?"

"Run it by Scott. Then tell Harry, if you want to make it look like you came to him first."

There was a deeply manipulative facet to integration that Sophie had never been completely comfortable with. She understood that it could be useful and even necessary, but she didn't see the point in misleading Harry for no real purpose. Lila automatically established the option, whether it was needful or not. "Um, I'll just tell Harry since Scott's asleep. He already knows that Harry needs to see Lupin some time."

"Your call. Hey, I have to go stop Fleur from sabotaging my pound cake with her shitty French culinary 'skills'. We should talk more later."

"Sure, of course!" Sophie said, eager to have a real conversation with her friend.

"Have fun with the Primes," Lila said with a hint of warmth.

"Okay, I'll talk to you later!"

With that taken care of, there wasn't much to do except go back to cleaning and organising. And, while she had a strong and abiding belief in the value of cleanliness, she had to admit she was a bit tired of the tedium. Scott's interruption would have been welcome had he not managed to injure himself so thoroughly. And he had tracked mud everywhere, so there was that. Cleaning spells were highly convenient and she had made full use of _Scourgify_. Some staining defied the magic, however. Perhaps one of the Primes could offer a more powerful cleansing spell.

Still, the upper hallways were looking better. The training downstairs had been creating a constant mess, and, rather than get caught in an endless cycle of picking up after another mattress explosion, Sophie had decided to start from the top down. The corridor she walked through was no longer quite so grimy and the shadows didn't seem as deep. She didn't think anything could completely dispel the miasma of gloom short of a full remodelling. Grimmauld Place seemed designed to be… well, _grim_.

And Sophie just didn't understand why anyone would want that, she really didn't.

She peeked into the drawing room and found Kylie gazing out one of the windows. Sophie thought about saying something, but decided it would be better not to. The slight girl probably needed some time to calm down (which was a strange state of affairs, considering Kylie's general temperament).

Down in the kitchen Sophie found the Primes, all of them gathered around the table with various foods. There was a bit of tension in the air, and after a moment of observation Sophie determined that Harry and Hermione were avoiding looking at each other. There must have been an argument.

She wasn't sure how well received any news of Scott would be, all things considered, but she offered some regardless. "Scott is mostly healed up and in bed. Once he wakes up he should be ready for…" Sophie searched for the right word.

"Interrogation?" Hermione offered.

"He's trained to resist those," Sophie said humorously.

"I should hope he'd try to resist a bit less this time," Hermione said with a frown.

Ron shook his head. "The ponce probably doesn't think he did anything wrong."

"Perhaps not. But he may be convinced to do the right thing even if it's for the wrong reasons; that is, in the interests of team unity," Hermione explained.

"Or we may have to take turns hexing him until something goes through," Harry said darkly.

Sophie hoped that he was joking, as violence was a _very_ unproductive way to get Scott's cooperation. "Would you like me to speak with him first? I could let him know, that… That things are a bit tense right now and he should behave himself…"

"You really think he'll care?" Harry said cynically. He pushed his empty bowl away and went up the stairs, probably to make use of the makeshift target range.

"He might," Sophie said to his retreating back.

Hermione sighed, watching Harry leave. "That's going to be an uncomfortable conversation."

"You mean 'shouting match'," Ron said.

"No, I meant conversation, but I'm being optimistic." She glanced up at the clock. "I'm going to get back to research — Sophie, would you let me know when Scott is up and about?"

"Of course," Sophie assured her.

"I'm going to get back to bed," Ron said sleepily, stifling a yawn.

"Lazy prat," Hermione said affectionately.

After they left, Sophie turned to Ginny, who had been oddly silent. The red-haired teen was gazing towards the stairs with a thoughtful expression on her freckled features. Sophie had probably interacted with the youngest Weasley the least out of all the Primes, mostly due to Ginny's absence during the Christmas party of the previous year. She knew that Lila thought highly of the girl, which said a great deal for Ginny's character. Lila wasn't easily impressed by people.

Ginny noticed Sophie's scrutiny. "I'm not that upset," she said, meeting Sophie's eyes. "I understand why he lied to us."

Sophie blinked in surprise. "You do?"

"He did it to save Harry." Ginny looked back towards the stairs again. "How can I be angry with him for that?"

"That's very mature of you, Ginny!" Sophie said admiringly.

Ginny rolled her eyes. "I'm still hacked off about _other _things. Like what he said to me the other night. And how he obviously doesn't think we're worth a damn in a punch-up. He wasn't even _at_ the Department; where does he get off acting like we can't handle ourselves?"

Sophie was not an integrationist, and she wished that Scott or Lila was present. It wasn't that the siblings always said the right thing; it was more that, even if they said the wrong thing, they were at least screwing up their own mission. Sophie didn't want to be blamed for anything.

Oh, my… Shameful thoughts, those were. She was no coward, she reminded herself. "It's not personal, it's just common sense. You can't run as fast as Scott can. Neither can I, I'm short, too! So because of that, and all his experience, he was the best choice to create a distraction." There! Clear, logical and concise. Lila would have been proud.

"He obviously thought he was the best choice, since it's one he made for us," Ginny said sarcastically.

Sophie had a good idea of Scott's reasons, but she hadn't been there. She didn't want to say any more, not before Scott had a chance to explain himself. "You'll have to ask him about that…"

"If I can get a word in edgewise," Ginny sighed. "Harry'll probably drown the rest of us right out."

Sophie made a mental note to take Kylie elsewhere for that confrontation. There would likely be an unfortunate amount of bad language.

Ginny stood and placed her bowl in the sink. "How's Lila doing?" she asked.

"Oh, I just spoke with her! She's fine, doing very well," Sophie overstated. "She said she was baking with someone named 'Fleur'."

Ginny laughed. "You should have been there for the wedding. Lila doesn't bake with Fleur, she sort of bakes _around_ her."

It was true that Lila hadn't referred to the other woman in very complimentary terms. "That was the impression I was given, yes…"

"But everyone is okay? The family, I mean," Ginny said more seriously.

"Lil didn't mention any problems. Oh, but a Remus Lupin wants to speak with Harry, she did say that."

"There's got to be somewhere we can meet with him," Ginny said thoughtfully. "I mean, just to be sure he's not Imperiused or something, then he can come inside."

Sophie thought about the surrounding areas in Islington; she had taken a couple excursions to get a feel for London, as well as studied the maps Scott had given her. "Highbury Fields isn't too far from here, that's a nice open space."

"So no one can sneak up on us?"

"Right! Clear sightlines are very important."

"I'll tell Harry about Remus and be sure to mention it, then," Ginny said. "Last thing we want is a repeat of what happened in the Hollow… Whatever did happen. Me and Harry were fine, and then all of a sudden there were Death Eaters everywhere! I haven't got the full story."

Neither had Sophie, and with Scott asleep she wouldn't for awhile. "All things in good time."

Ginny snorted as she went up the stairs. "You sound like my mum."

That wasn't a bad thing, was it? Sophie thought that Mrs. Weasley was very nice, by all accounts. She had never met the Weasley matriarch and probably wouldn't, seeing as Sophie had no cover story. Although… With the way things were developing, fake histories might soon be useless. Scott and Lila were expending less and less effort maintaining their false identities. The pattern of events had made such things increasingly obsolete, the lies impossible to support. So perhaps Sophie _could_ introduce herself to the Weasleys before too long.

She was startled out of her thoughts by an incoming call. "Hello?"

"Strauss, you got a minute to talk? I'm free for now," Lila said.

Sophie grinned. "Sure!"

* * *

><p>Harry knew he was brooding. He did. He wasn't so caught up in his own little world that he didn't even know what he was doing. It was more than he didn't care.<p>

What else was he supposed to do? Watch Scott sleep? Boring and, honestly, more than a bit creepy. He didn't want to sit in a dark room staring at some other bloke on a bed. If Scott woke and saw Harry there, no doubt he'd have something clever to say and Harry wasn't about to hand him that kind of ammunition.

So he sat in his own room and wrestled with his thoughts. Not easy, but familiar. It passed the time and kept him occupied, and, so long as he managed to keep his brain from drifting to the _really_ bad things — like Sirius or losing Ginny or the rest of his friends _stop it_ — it wasn't too painful. Just sort of melancholy, really. Sadness could be bittersweet.

When Ginny walked into the room, he reckoned he was about to catch some shite, because she never had much patience for his frequent, crippling bouts of self-pity. And he couldn't blame her. He couldn't stand himself, sometimes.

She sat next to him and began running a soothing hand over his back. The press of her fingers against his tense muscles made him realise, as if he never had before, just how tiny her hand really was. She was so small, his Ginny. It made his heart ache, and he wasn't sure why.

"Breathe, love," Ginny murmured.

He did so, drawing in the air with a long, shuddering breath. He started to understand just how tightly he had been holding himself when his posture began to loosen.

"What brought this on?" Ginny asked him.

He couldn't even begin to tell her. "I'm mental," he stated.

She moved closer to him. "You're _Harry_. And it's not like things have been easy." She sighed. "I wish we had got together sooner. Before you got so used to doing this alone."

Harry tried not to think about the years it had taken him to pull his head out of his arse. It seemed so unfair, what might have been. He could imagine taking Ginny to Puddifoot's — they would have laughed about it. They could have danced together at the Yule Ball, snogged under the mistletoe… He was happy for what they had, but whatever they _hadn't_ had was his fault. And now it felt like time was already running out.

He tried to put that into words. "…I wish I had done everything with you," he told her with all the honesty he could wring out of his heavy heart.

"We still can," she told him fiercely.

He felt the weight of the future settle onto him and squeezed his eyes shut, just trying to stay upright. His eyes snapped back open when Ginny put her hands on his face and forced him to look at her.

"Don't give up before we get a real chance at us," she said shakily. "I want a real life after this, and I want it with you. Don't you _dare_ sacrifice yourself because I know you would."

"I already tried to sacrifice this, remember?" Harry said, indicating their relationship and trying to deflect Ginny's demand with a bit of self-deprecation. "That didn't work out so well."

She was not distracted. "I want you to promise me."

"Promise _what? _That I won't die?" he said with a strained laugh.

"Yes."

"Stop it. You're barmy, I can't promise that."

"You can't even lie?" she said plaintively.

"No." He shook his head. "Not about that."

Her lips thinned and she looked down at the floor. "I bet you think I'm being daft."

He wasn't going to lie about that, either. "A little bit, yeah."

"You know why, don't you?"

It was a trick question, it had to be. Girls always did that; they presented you with a seemingly innocuous question that was not, in fact, innocuous at all, because you were expected to bloody well know the right answer already. If Harry was honest and said _no_, he hadn't a clue what she was talking about, that was wrong and he was in trouble because he should be able to read her mind. And if he took a guess at it she'd know he was just guessing, so same result.

And he really resented it, because Ginny didn't usually do that sort of thing. She was so up front, and the only kind of drama she started was the kind where she was telling him where he could get off.

So he tried to think of what someone else would say, and ended up channelling his inner Scott. In his current situation that was a lot like channelling his inner Ron, with one subtle distinction: Ron would blurt out the first thing that came to mind, not knowing if it was wrong. Scott would blurt out the first thing that came to mind, not _caring_ if it was wrong.

"Because you love me?" he said carelessly.

He was just about to smack himself for being such a smarmy git and save her the trouble when she nodded firmly. "That's right," she said.

He blinked at her, trying not to let his surprise show. At least she wasn't taken aback that he had guessed right; she hadn't been setting him up for failure.

"Because I love you," she repeated. "And the last thing I ever want to hear is you talking about dying for the rest of us."

He remembered her admonishment for his black humour at the Three Broomsticks, what felt like a lifetime ago. "You lot talk about dying for _me_ all the time!"

"We talk about _fighting_ for you, Harry! We'll die if we have to, but you seem to think you're going to die no matter what! _It doesn't have to be that way and __**it's not going to**_," she declared with the hard, blazing look that he so admired.

He didn't know how to respond to that. He just wanted her to be right. They sat there for a few more moments while she calmed down and he looked everywhere but at her, knowing that the longer he studied her perfect, freckled face the closer he would be to some kind of breakdown. She was so beautiful that sometimes it hurt, because beautiful things didn't last in Harry's life.

She hissed something under her breath that he didn't catch, and her slim arms were put around his shoulders. "Just _stop_," she pleaded.

"No, I'm not… _ignoring _you, Ginny, I just…"

"What?" she said, close to his ear. "Tell me."

He shook his head helplessly. "It's hard to explain. It's… You're too perfect, and I can't lose you."

She stiffened. "Is this about chucking me again?"

"No!"

"Then what?"

Harry pulled off his glasses and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, trying to relieve the pressure he felt. "It's about…" he stopped, put his glasses back on, and shook his head again. "It's about me being a moron and thinking about things instead of doing things."

"You're not a moron. You just act like one sometimes."

"Yeah, cheers."

"Oh, come off it. You're not even angry, look at you. You're trying not to smile!" she teased.

He was. "No, I'm not," he said stolidly before giving in to a tired grin. Enough was enough: sitting in a dark room wasn't accomplishing anything. "You want to go shoot some more cups?"

"We could have a cuppa first, it's about teatime," she said.

"It's always teatime around here. Come on, then."

They were about halfway down the stairs when she grabbed his arm. "I almost forgot — Sophie said that Remus wants to speak with you as soon as you can."

"In person?"

"Yeah, like he said in his letters. She told me there's a park nearby we could use to meet, it's nice and open. What do you think?"

Harry thought that he didn't like treating Remus like a potential enemy. But, given the situation, there wasn't much choice. They had to be careful. "Okay, so we would meet him there, make sure it's really him, and then let him back in."

Ginny looked unsure about the last part. "You want to let him back into Grimmauld?"

"Yes. It's Remus, Gin, he's not going to try and make me go back," Harry said. He had that much faith in his former professor.

"I know that, but what about _me?_" she said, revealing the reason for her reluctance.

Harry understood. And he couldn't blame Remus or Mrs. Weasley if they were to attempt to return Ginny to safety; it wasn't like he hadn't tried something similar. But Ginny was at Grimmauld Place, and by Harry's side, to stay. He still would have preferred to keep her away from the danger, and if she _asked_ to leave he would never say no, but he wouldn't force her to go. And he wouldn't let anyone else do it, either.

"It will just be Remus, no one else, or I won't agree to it," Harry told her. "And… your being here isn't open for discussion."

Her expression softened, eyes glowing. "Thank you," she said simply.

He smiled crookedly. "For what? Not being a prat, for once?"

She grinned up at him, making him realise just how close they were standing. "More or less."

He couldn't resist her when she looked like that. He leaned in for a kiss and she met him halfway. What started as mild gesture of affection quickly evolved into an extended snog, her tongue tracing his mouth while he sucked at her lower lip. They finally parted with a 'smack' that was embarrassingly loud in the stairwell. He hoped there wasn't anyone around to hear it.

"All right," he said once they broke apart. "Let's get the maps and take a look at this park."

"In a minute," she said. She put her arms around his middle and threaded her fingers. "I'm not finished yet."

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

This is a late author's note, added after the fact, but I realized I actually had a question for you guys.

I've been both surprised and encouraged by the positive reception that Sophie has received as both a character and in her capacity of shouldering an increasing role in the narrative. I figured getting you to accept one OC was a stretch and two would be a miracle, but that was back in the first story when I was making a lot of poor decisions about POV and OC usage, particularly in using Lila's POV too early and using Scott's too much (it was a crutch, admittedly, to get me out of having to paraphrase the book).

So all the feedback I've received concerning our favourite, tiny Kharadjai has been really great. I'm glad you don't mind seeing her around as a background presence and even occasional POV provider. She's a very different sort of character than the Kharan siblings.

My question is, would you be opposed to or bored by a possible upcoming section focusing more on the history and friendship between Scott and Sophie? I'm not talking about hijacking the narrative for any length of time or shifting the focus away from the canon characters, but rather a scene or so about just the two of them. If it's not something anyone is going to care about, then I don't see the point of writing it. I can develop Scott by playing him off the rest of the cast, and there's no need to develop Sophie if you don't care about her any further than the way she fills a logistical role.


	17. Parts Per Million

**17**

**Parts Per Million**

* * *

><p>"<em>Every exchange is important. Every<br>word has value. You may not see it  
>at first, and you may never see it; but<br>that does not alter the logic of causation.  
>The shape tumbles out in an infinite series<br>of interlocking parts, creating unlimited  
>configurations with patterns too far<br>removed from their origins to be anticipated.  
>The hard limits of your perception will<br>prevent you from creating accurate  
>predictions. That does not mean you should<br>ever stop striving to create outcomes that  
>are likely to be favorable. To surrender to<br>the chaos is to lose all sense of efficacy,  
>and doubt is swiftly followed by inaction."<em>

—Oritorius Arthur Eamon Grant

* * *

><p>Remus Lupin stood near the corner of Highbury Crescent and Highbury Place. He knew the streets and where they led, despite never having been there before, because he had located it on a Muggle map. The war memorial at the intersection was just ahead of him; a woman on a column holding aloft some sort of laurel, with cannons flanking the pedestal. Harry hadn't owled much more than very basic directions and the statue had been a key landmark.<p>

Which was smart, and Remus was glad to see Harry taking such precautions. He knew that he was somewhere in the general vicinity of Harry's Fidelius-hidden home, but probably not especially close. He couldn't remember the name of the place no matter how hard he tried. He was sure he had been there before, however. He remembered the dark halls and stone kitchen. He remembered Sirius' room, the one he himself had stayed in, the entry hall with a loud portrait and the umbrella stand Tonks always tripped over. If Harry let him into the safehouse, it would be like recovering from selective amnesia.

The evening sun waned on the horizon, casting an orange glow over the park. A handful of Muggles came and went on the other side of the short, wrought-iron fences while Remus stood beneath the trees. He had come alone, as requested. Lila Kharan had helpfully taken him to the park, leaving him there in the afternoon. He had used the extra time to ensure there was no Death Eater presence anywhere near the meeting point.

He was grateful to Lila for the use of her Muggle vehicle, even as he remained uncertain whether she could be trusted. She had made it a point to force her way into Order business, never taking no for an answer. She had jumped at the chance to assist Remus with transport, perhaps looking to prove herself. Unlike some other members of the Order, he already felt she had proven her intentions with her defence of The Burrow. It was her _motivations_ that remained suspect. And her inscrutable history.

Remus was looking forward to seeing Harry for many reasons, not the least of which being that he missed the lad. But he also would be taking the opportunity to ask some pertinent questions. Even if Harry didn't know much about Lila, Scott was sure to. Perhaps he would be more tractable than his sister.

He checked his watch: it was three minutes after the time Harry had given. Remus wouldn't worry until the ten minute mark, and it was possible his watch was a bit fast. He began to look around to see if he could spot Harry, or perhaps Ron or Hermione, before they reached him. There were a few pedestrians across the way, a man climbing into his car and a woman in a yellow frock strolling by the fence.

Remus started to pivot and look to the other street when the woman in the frock turned onto the path where he was standing. He straightened up and took a step closer to the trees, not wanting to be in her way. Muggles didn't usually believe in werewolves, but he knew that his generally rumpled appearance and shabby clothing could be off-putting. He didn't want to come across as being some loitering unfortunate. He'd had the Muggle police called on him before, once, when he had been at a park.

He gave her a half-smile when she walked by, along with a respectful nod of his head. "Ma'am."

"Professor Lupin!" she said brightly.

To say he was startled would have been an understatement. "…I beg your pardon?" he said, trying to remember if he had met her before. She was young enough to have been one of his students at Hogwarts, but she didn't look familiar.

"You are Remus Lupin, correct?" she said, her accent standing out starkly with the speaking of a full sentence.

"Yes, I'm Remus," he confirmed, searching her features for any hint of familiarity. "Have we met?"

"No, we haven't. I'm here on Harry's behalf," she explained.

"Of course," Remus said, feeling a bit disappointed that Harry hadn't come in person. But it wasn't as if the boy's caution was unwarranted. "Well, you found me. What's next?"

"I have a few questions… But first, take my hand, please." She held out one petite, well-manicured hand.

Remus hesitated for a moment, unsure of what the woman was trying to accomplish. Still, he had his wand concealed in a pocket, and it wasn't possible to turn a person into a Portkey. He reached out and took her hand, his larger one engulfing hers. "Very well. And what will this accomplish?"

She smiled at him and shook her arm slightly, prompting him to release her. "Just checking on some things! Okay, questions, questions… Let's see…" She scanned a piece of paper that she took from a handbag slung over one shoulder. "Um… How did James save Snape's life?"

Remus grimaced at the memory. "James intervened so I wouldn't inadvertently kill Severus after I transformed. In light of recent events, perhaps not as fortunate as I'd once thought," he said, thinking of Dumbledore's funeral.

"Okay, um… You made a special map, what was the password for it?"

A much more pleasant question. "'I solemnly swear that I am up to no good'," Remus told her with a small grin.

"Two for two!" she cheered. Remus raised an eyebrow, amused at her exuberance. Who was this tiny, ebullient woman? "Last thing, and it says on here… How did you and Tonks end up together?"

Remus frowned slightly. He had expected another question about a more distant past. "Some of the details are… private. But I had been aware of her feelings for some time, and though I felt the same I avoided her. A misplaced sense of responsibility, I suppose. I'm not the most stableof romantic partners," he said with a dry chuckle. "She cornered me after an Order meeting and told me she'd had enough of my excuses. She had been very much on my mind, and I was running out of ways to convince myself. And she is nothing if not convincing, when she gets determined." He looked to the woman in the yellow frock but she said nothing, still staring at him with great interest. Her large eyes were a lovely shade of green, reminding him of Lily. "That's about the size of it. Did I pass?"

"Oh, there's no answer written here," she said, waving the paper at him. "I guess someone just wanted to know."

Remus caught the parchment and took it from her, quickly skimming it. There, inked in messy handwriting, were the questions he'd been asked: and no answers of any sort. "There are no answers here at _all_," he said, head snapping back up to look at her.

Her eyes sparkled with mirth. "It's not me you had to impress!"

"'Lo, Remus," a voice said from somewhere to his left.

He nearly drew his wand before he remembered: the Invisibility Cloak. "Harry," he said through the breath he let out.

"Sorry if I scared you. We thought we'd be extra careful, what with…" Harry didn't need to say more.

"I understand," Remus said. He'd have done the same, in Harry's position. "Were you satisfied with my answers?"

"I reckon it's you," Harry said with a smile in his voice. "Just follow Sophie, she'll take you to the others."

They started walking, Remus staying close behind Sophie. He still didn't know who she was, but Harry seemed to trust her. As they went she chattered on about the park and how nice it was, seemingly without any need for a response. Remus was more interested in her accent than in what she was saying. It was highly similar to Lila's, flat and rhotic, though he thought he detected a few minor variations. He knew that Lila was an American and suspected that Sophie was as well, with perhaps some regional divergences (the last Americans he had spoken to had been from Salem, and sounded quite different).

Soon they arrived at a row of houses undistinguished from the rest, a flat-roofed tenement that still didn't seem familiar, even though he knew it should. There was a rustle from the empty air and then Harry's hand appeared with a slip of parchment.

Remus took and examined it.

**Welcome back to 12 Grimmauld Place**

And just like that, he remembered everything.

"Well, I'll be damned," he murmured, watching as the houses shrunk and grew apart, revealing the entrance he knew so well.

Ron, Hermione and Ginny were standing just inside the doorway, wands out. "Harry?" Ron said cautiously, eyes on Remus.

"He's fine," Harry said.

Hermione immediately tucked her wand away, beaming. "Professor Lupin!" she said excitedly. "It's so good to see you!"

"And you as well," Remus warmly replied.

The interior of Grimmauld was not quite as shadowy as he remembered, though signs of a recent scrubbing likely accounted for that. The light travelled a little further, the walls were not so grimy, and even though the colours of the décor were as gloomy as ever at least they weren't so overbearingly grim. He wondered if the spiders in the dining hall were gone, but the door was shut as they passed it.

He paused once they reached the kitchen, taking in the sight of the room where he had met with the Order so many times. "Hard to believe I couldn't remember this old place," he remarked.

"Why would you want to?" Harry said, looking at the surrounds with aversion.

"There are good memories here, too, Harry," Remus lightly reminded.

Harry didn't reply to that. He sat down at the table with the others flanking him (Sophie excused herself, going back upstairs). Remus looked at them from across the table and realised that they were presenting a united front against him. Had they become so isolated as to perceive him as a possible threat? Or was it more that, as an adult, he might try to make them abandon the mysterious enterprise left to them by Dumbledore?

Perhaps he should address that first. "You should know that before I left, your mother," he began carefully, nodding at Ron and Ginny, "made some demands of me. She wishes to speak with you, Ron. Ginny… She asked if you would come back and see her."

"So she can lock me in a room?" Ginny said derisively. "No, thank you."

Remus couldn't discount that as a possible outcome. "I thought I would pass the message along, at the very least. I'm not here to try and force any of you into anything. Not that you would let me," he said with a self-deprecating smile. "I'm rather outnumbered at the moment."

Ginny didn't relax. "You can tell my mum that—"

"Ginny…" Harry said softly.

"She doesn't understand, Harry! _Still!_" Ginny argued. "She sent Remus here—"

"I came on my own," Remus corrected her, not wanting that misconception to gain traction.

"I don't want to get between you and your mum," Harry told his girlfriend, guilt etched on his face. "This is the last thing I wanted."

Ron winced, shifting in his seat. "There wasn't a way around it, mate."

"There was one way," Harry said roughly.

"That was never an option. I told you that," Ginny said coldly.

"I know. Really, I know," Harry repeated after Ginny gave him a disbelieving look. "Just…"

"If you tell me that I should have stayed behind one more time there is not a person here who will blame me when I hex—"

"I'm not saying that!" Harry yelped.

"Ginny, please, I'm not here to take you home," Remus assured her, trying to head off an argument between her and Harry that he didn't fully understand.

He hadn't known that there had been any question as to whether she would accompany Harry, Ron and Hermione on whatever task the deceased Headmaster had assigned them. But then, Remus admittedly didn't know a great deal about the circumstances. He had always assumed that Ginny was as thick as thieves with Harry as the other two were. Perhaps that had not been the case.

Ginny frowned at him. "You just said that Mum—"

"I said that I was instructed to _tell_ you that your mother wanted to see you." Remus leaned forward towards the girl. "Ginevra, I'll be honest: I don't think you should be here. It's too dangerous. But—" he continued when her glare intensified, "—I don't believe that _any_ of you should have to be here. But it seems there's no way around it, at least for Harry. And I know that none of you would ever abandon him. I certainly can't change things now." He looked directly at Harry, trying to make his sincerity as clear as he could. "Harry, you know that if I could take this off your shoulders, I would."

"Even if you could, I wouldn't let you," Harry replied, subdued but steadfast.

"I know," Remus said, his sorrow for Harry almost a physical presence. It wasn't right, the things Harry had to bear. Thank God he had the friends he did.

Hermione chose that moment to change the subject. "Professor Lupin, how is everyone in the Order?"

"Better, now that we're all in contact. I wish I could say the same for the Ministry."

The children (though he couldn't really think of them that way anymore, could he?) all exchanged worried glances. "We've been out of touch for the most part; I haven't seen the _Prophet_ since we left The Burrow. What's been happening?" Hermione asked.

"You-Know-Who has completely taken over; they're barely trying to be subtle, these days. They've installed Thicknesse as Minister, and we're fairly certain he's under the Imperius," Remus told them grimly. "Right now, our biggest concern is the Muggle-born Registration Commission."

Hermione paled, and Ron immediately reached out to steady her. "Registration?" she said faintly.

"Nothing so benign, if you could call something like that benign to begin with. The _Prophet_ ran a story on a false study done by the Department of Mysteries; it's absolute rubbish, of course, but I suppose the right sort of people will believe it. It says that they discovered that magic can only be inherited, and therefore Muggle-borns must have taken their magic through theft or force. Supposedly they're intended to present themselves for registration and questioning, but I can tell you, few come out of the Ministry once they go in."

"That's absurd!" Hermione gasped. "The logic is utterly flawed—"

"I know, believe me," Remus reassured her. "But as I said, it's just a cover for people who already accept that sort nonsense. The Snatchers I wrote to you about, Harry, they enforce the Commission's laws."

"They do a lot more than that," Ron said. "They came after us with the Death Eaters."

Remus sat up straight in shock. "What?"

"We were… on a mission," Harry said vaguely. "The Snatchers were there. Scott could tell you more than us."

"Right, Scott," Remus said, letting the 'mission' reference go for the time being, as it was obvious they weren't going to say more. "His sister actually brought me here. Is he around?"

Hermione gave Harry a warning look, which was interesting. "I'm afraid he's not available for the time being; perhaps later," she said.

Remus raised an eyebrow, concerned that he was so obviously being misdirected. "Are you sure? Lila would appreciate some news from him, I'd wager."

"Not this time. Sorry," Harry said with real regret in his voice.

"Very well, Harry," Remus said, trying not to let his disappointment show. "I expect I'll stumble into more than a few things you won't want to talk about."

"I didn't want it to go this way," Harry muttered.

"I know you trust me, Harry. I just wish you trusted me a little more. Though not as much as I wish your father had trusted me, just a… little more…" Remus sighed before he could stop himself, expressing more of his deep regrets than he had ever intended.

Harry looked stricken. "This isn't like that! If it was just me, I'd—"

"I know, Harry. I don't blame you for anything. Whatever Dumbledore left you with, it's more important than my feelings."

Harry shook his head. "Scott and Lila aren't about that. They just aren't my secrets to tell."

"Then I doubt I'll be discovering what they _are_ about. I'd need a pint of Veritaserum to find out what Lila had for breakfast," Remus said, trying to inject some humour into the proceedings.

Hermione was still wan, but smiled weakly at his joke. "That sounds about right."

"You said in your letter she'd said some things to Bill," Harry pointed out.

Remus nodded. "Unclear things, yes. She told him that she is a soldier and that both she and Scott have been working to ensure your success. Which is a comfort, but not especially detailed. With all her interest in the Order's plans, it's hard to accept her when we know so little about her."

"I trust her and Scott, and so did Dumbledore," Harry said. "I don't know if that means much to the Order…"

"It does to me," Remus said. "I think the others will at least be willing to let Lila assist us in some way. She just has to prove useful. I doubt that will be much of a problem for her after what I've seen."

Harry still looked guilty. "I'm really sorry I can't tell you more. It's not fair to you."

"Very little about any of this is fair, Harry," Remus told him. "I'm sure you're only doing what you must. And speaking of which…" He gestured at the room. "How did you alter the Fidelius Charm? I didn't think it was possible, even as a Secret Keeper."

Harry winced. "I can't talk about that, either…"

"But we can assure you it's not something that could be duplicated," Hermione jumped in. "You don't need to worry about whatever other Fidelius Charms you have."

"It has to do with losing the original Secret Keeper?" Remus presumed.

"I truly can't say, Professor," Hermione said regretfully.

Remus sighed. "This meeting has been far less illuminating than I had hoped, though I suppose that's what I should have expected."

Harry was clearly frustrated, as well. "Look, what is the Order doing? Maybe we can help _you_."

"Originally, we had hoped to infiltrate the Ministry. But the attack at the wedding revealed too many of us; we can't pretend to be uninvolved. Arthur had to go into hiding immediately, and he was our best bet for an inside man." Remus shrugged helplessly. "In a way, it might be better to have been forced underground sooner. It would have happened eventually, and now we can learn how to strike back. With that in mind we've started assisting Muggle-borns who have fled the Registry, getting them to safehouses before the Snatchers catch up. We're also preparing to keep an eye on those who have already registered. Our eventual goal is to discover where captured Muggle-borns are being held and free them. Every witch and wizard released from Ministry control is another possible wand for the Order."

"So recruitment is a priority," Hermione surmised.

"I'm sure I don't need to tell you how badly outnumbered we are. There are always more regular wizarding folk than there are Dark, but getting them to fight for us is daunting, to say the least."

"Bloody cowards," Ron snorted.

"They're afraid," Remus reminded. "Afraid for themselves and their families. Not everyone was in Gryffindor, Mr. Weasley."

"I guess," Ron mumbled, looking a bit ashamed.

"Correct me if I'm mistaken, Professor, but aren't the Aurors your best source of new members?" Hermione asked.

"For skilled members, yes, and I wish it were that simple," Remus replied. "Tonks has made some inroads there and Moody has been using his reputation to attract possibilities, but we have to be so careful that it's a slow process. We want Aurors to join us while still working for the Ministry, at least for the time being. Not many are suited for that kind of work, and it's not easy to walk away from a career. We have to be able to guarantee the safety of our members' families if we really want to bring in the numbers."

"There are no guarantees," Harry said flatly.

Remus smiled sadly. "No, there aren't, Harry. And the worse things get, the more people will understand that. We just have to hope that it won't be too late."

A heavy silence descended over the table. Ron had taken Hermione's hand and was studying her with concern while she stared at nothing, her astounding intellect no doubt examining the Muggle-born situation. Remus wished he had better news to bring her, but the Order was stretched thin and too many Muggle-borns had already disappeared. Thank God that she, at least, was safe with Harry, if only temporarily. Remus was also pleased to see that Ginny was holding Harry's attention, wrapping herself around one of his arms and neatly preventing him from tumbling into another morass of guilt. Harry already had enough terrible responsibilities without taking the blame for things over which he had no control. Remus wasn't blind to Harry's disturbingly advanced martyr complex.

"As we're already on the subject…" Remus began, not wanting to let the silence drag out too long, "I notice you've done a bit of recruitment of your own. When Ms. Sophie approached me in the park, for a moment I thought she was an old student! Excellent misdirection, Harry."

"It was Hermione's idea," Harry said modestly. "We knew no one would recognise her, even if they were looking for us."

"She sounded American, at least to my ears; another friend of Lila's?"

"Yeah, basically," Harry said evasively.

It was obvious that Remus wasn't going to get more information on the Kharans, even indirectly. "Can't blame me for trying, Harry."

Harry gave him a hesitant smile, relieved Remus was taking his reticence so well. "I don't. Have you spoken to Lila, or was it just Bill? Because she might tell you more."

"Not bloody likely," Ron said, giving Harry an incredulous look.

"She will in her own time, if at all. I understand that much about her. If you want to help, however, putting in a good word for me with Scott might do the trick. Granted, I don't know how much influence he has with his older sister…" Remus said.

"At least some," Harry said, not looking all that certain. "He's technically her… I'll talk to him, I'll do that for you. Maybe I can convince him to tell you things, or to have Lila do it. Even if it's just you and not the Order. I think Scott owes me that much."

"But does Scott think that?" Ginny said cynically.

Harry scowled. "I don't care what he thinks."

There was apparently some tension between Scott and Harry. Remus doubted he'd be privileged to the full story, but he hoped it wasn't too serious. The last thing Harry and his friends needed were internal divisions. "I would greatly appreciate it, Harry."

Harry shrugged off the thanks. "It's still less than you deserve."

"There aren't many getting what they deserve at the moment," Remus said wryly.

Remus spent the rest of the meeting trying to draw Harry out and get a sense of the lad's mental state; with Sirius gone (and Mrs. Weasley out of contact), Remus felt it was his duty to care for Harry in whatever way possible. He had always carried a sense of guilt for not being more of a presence in Harry's life. His lycanthropy had seemed reason enough for years, but his relationship with Nymphadora had left him wondering if that wasn't just an excuse. She certainly thought that he used his werewolf status to protect _himself_ from hurt, more than others. It was a particularly difficult idea to come to grips with. No one wanted to believe that their greatest trauma was also their greatest crutch.

It was apparent, even in cursory conversation, that Harry was not well. Given the pressures he had been subjected to his entire life, it was hard to conceive of how he could be. But Harry was strong, far stronger than anyone his age should have to become. And his friends, all of them, loyal in a way Remus hadn't often seen, supported him. Remus knew it was a rare group of young men and women who sat at the table with him. He had known that during his year teaching at Hogwarts and it was only more apparent now.

Soon enough it was becoming late, and Remus knew he should be going. He was reluctant to leave. There was a hurried feeling that came over him, as if he had one chance to say everything he had to say to Harry, and then it would be too late. He supposed it sprang from how difficult it had been to arrange a meeting with Harry in the first place. Now that he remembered Grimmauld, it shouldn't be as much of an issue. Unless…

Before leaving, Remus placed a hand on Harry's shoulder. He remembered a time, not long ago at all, when he would have had to reach down, instead of across, to do the same thing "Harry, I don't know when we'll be able to meet again, but… Were you planning to exclude me from the Fidelius once more?" He winced internally: he'd sounded more anxious than intended.

"No, of course not," Harry assured him. "We didn't really mean to the first time, it was just what had to happen."

Which raised even more questions Remus had no hope of getting answers for. He hated to return to the Order with so little to tell. That was the nature of the business they were all embroiled in, however: too many secrets, and so little trust.

"It was good to see you, Harry," Remus said, squeezing Harry's shoulder. "Keep in touch."

* * *

><p>Ginny was on a mission. And that word, 'mission', had taken on a great many new and often unpleasant connotations recently, but it still fit.<p>

She needed to talk to someone. That was a requirement easily fulfilled, given the number of people with which she was surrounded every day. However, her needs were a bit more specific than that. She needed another girl to talk to, concerning the kinds of things she wasn't going to be comfortable discussing with a bloke. And that cut three of her companions right out of consideration.

It wasn't because of any one thing in particular. Rather, she had a lot on her chest and the catalyst had been another night spent wrapped around Harry with progressively fewer layers of clothing separating them. Her own self-reflection and the awkward dialogue shared with the object of her increasingly uncontrollable affections were not sufficient to sort things out. She needed a second opinion.

Hermione had long been Ginny's confidante, ever since the older girl had stayed at The Burrow for the first time and established a friendship that had lasted and strengthened through years of near-death experiences and clueless boys. Ginny would have gone to Hermione first by default, except that Ron was now Hermione's boyfriend. And Ginny didn't want to hear advice from a girl who would be basing all of that advice on experiences gained from snogging Ginny's brother.

But Lila was unreachable (and the concept of having a personal discussion with the stoic woman was more than a bit daunting). Sophie seemed nice enough, but Ginny didn't know her very well. Kylie had probably traded a grand total of three or four words with Ginny. So Hermione it was.

It was a good time for it because Harry and Ron were caught up in an endless series of practice duels, no doubt another simple demonstration for Sophie that had quickly devolved into a mock battle that they refused to end. Ginny loved duelling and, at the risk of being immodest, she was quite good at it, but Ron and Harry just didn't know when to stop. They would cheerfully fight each other until they were both half-blind and stupid from the Stunners. Perhaps it reminded them of the DA. Or maybe it was more that there just wasn't much else to do.

Whatever the reasons, that left Hermione alone with her research. And, sure enough, Ginny found the older girl upstairs, sitting on a bed so covered with books they looked like a very uncomfortable blanket.

"Hermione?" Ginny said.

Hermione looked up and blinked hard, squeezing her eyes shut. Perhaps they were dry, which would make sense considering how long she had been staring at the pages. "Yes?" she said a bit vaguely, at least part of her brain still processing the parchment.

"Do you have time to talk?" Ginny asked. And she wasn't _really_ asking, because Hermione was probably rereading books in the hopes of finding something she had missed, and she needed to take a breather.

Hermione blinked again and seemed to come to herself. "Of course," she said brightly, closing her book. She carefully gathered up the volumes around her and stacked them neatly on the floor, clearing a space for Ginny.

"Thanks," Ginny said, closing the door and sitting cross-legged across from Hermione.

"What are we talking about?" Hermione said with interest.

"Boys! Our boys, in particular. We could pretend we're back in the dormitories, if you want. Just the kind of talk to have sitting on a bed like this, don't you think? We're really looking the part. Do you want to charm my nails?"

"Clichés are much less fun if you point them out," Hermione said disapprovingly. "But all right, give them here." Ginny held out her hand and Hermione took it. "I found a charm for a rainbow assortment I'd like to try…"

Once Ginny's nails were sparkling with five different colours on each hand, Hermione started on her own. "Do you think Harry will like this?" Ginny wondered, examining a particularly bright shade of pink on her ring finger. "I don't care for this one; I'm already pink enough…"

"I don't believe he's ever expressed an opinion on nail colours – at least, not to me," Hermione said. "You could always ask. He's probably smart enough not to give an honest answer."

"You'd think, wouldn't you? No, he'll probably be, like, 'I don't care about your nails, Gin, do what you want'," she said in an impression of Harry's cadence. "This looks good, it would fit right in with what I wore to Godric's Hollow. I should dress like that more, Harry couldn't stop looking. You think Sophie would give the clothes to me?"

"I'd imagine so. But you can get the same reaction from Harry wearing anything that's a bit tight."

"I think he's into breasts, my Harry. You should have seen him when we caught up at Lila's flat, I was wearing that yellow top with the straps, you know, the one that shows my belly? I thought he'd love that, and I think he sort of did, but he was just staring at my tits the whole time. He even forgot to try and look like he wasn't."

"He likes your legs too, you know. He's always looking at your calves when you wear those striped knee-highs with your skirts," Hermione added.

Ginny dropped her hands in disgust. "I'm too short, I don't have legs."

"Oh? What were you standing on a moment ago?"

"You know what I mean! I've got these thick thighs and Quidditch calves for my hips to sit on and then there's nothing going on up. Whoever said 'sporty' was good for a girl? I'm shaped like a bloody broomstick."

"You're entirely feminine and it's not just my opinion – ask Harry sometime what he thinks of your shape, I think you'll find it quite flattering. If there was 'nothing going on up' do you think he'd have been quite so distracted by your shirts?"

"I'd kill for your tits, honestly. They're just going to waste anyway, what with my brother staring at your bum. Hey, I should use an Engorgement Charm and see how long it takes Harry to notice!"

"About five seconds, I should think. And that's a terrible idea, Ginny. Do you want to look like you had Lila's grafted on to you?" Hermione pursed her mouth in suppressed amusement. "You'd probably tip right over!"

The mental image that conjured was hilarious. "I'd look like I shoved a couple Quaffles down my shirt!" Ginny laughed.

"Harry wouldn't care for that, anyway. Cho wasn't exactly top heavy herself, so he's fairly consistent. It's your particular style of pulchritude that attracted him in the first place."

"My what?"

"Your beauty," Hermione clarified.

"Why didn't you just say that?" Ginny said derisively. "Who are you trying to impress?"

"I'm not trying to impress anybody! _Some_ of us have vocabularies beyond Quidditch and vulgarity!"

"Who's fucking vulgar?!"

Hermione flinched. "You…! I already have to tolerate enough of that from the boys! Ron never could watch his mouth, but Harry's language has taken a poor turn since Scott came around. Usually just when he's angry, at least, but he's angry so often…"

"I think he's dead sexy when he gets riled," Ginny confided.

"Even when you're shouting back at him?"

"Not when he's angry at _me_," Ginny clarified. "We're not like you and Ron, we're not sick. We don't fight so we can snog after."

"I am not _sick!"_

"Yeah, you are. You're snogging Ron, there's something wrong with you. You'd have to be mental to bring your lips anywhere near him."

Hermione glowered. "You're exceptionally biased, I can't ever count on you to be objective. Your opinion in this matter is invalid."

"Whatever, I had a question. Well, more than one but it's a start." Ginny hesitated for a moment, and then decided to get right into it. "What's the furthest you've ever gone with a bloke?"

Hermione froze, her mouth slightly parted. "…I hadn't expected _that_ question, I must admit."

"I said I wanted to talk!"

"Yes, but I didn't know you meant _that_ talk," Hermione explained.

"Why not? Who else am I supposed go to for a chin wag? 'Oh, hello, Harry, I've just had my monthly; want to talk about it?'" Ginny said.

"I'd suggest approaching Sophie, first," Hermione said dryly.

"She seems an all right sort, but it's not like I know her. And I wanted to talk to _you."_

Hermione frowned slightly. "All of this research I have, I didn't consider… I've been letting you down as a friend, haven't I?"

Ginny shook her head, her red tresses scattering over her face. "No, you've been busy. We all have."

"I shouldn't be too busy for you," Hermione said with self-reproach. "Now… You are aware, of course, that the furthest I've ever been with any bloke would be the furthest I've ever been with the only bloke I've ever had, and that would be your brother."

Ginny grimaced. "I know."

"I'm just making sure you understand. I do want to talk and be here for you, but I can only tolerate so many expressions of disgust!"

"I'll try to keep them to a minimum," Ginny promised.

"Very thoughtful of you," Hermione said dryly. "Now, with Ron, I…" Her cheeks flushed and she leaned forward conspiratorially. "Most of the time we aren't touching when I wake up, but once he had his hand on my breast."

Ginny scrunched up her nose. "You let my brother touch your tits? Do you know where he's been?"

"It was over the bra, as if I need to justify it! And I knew you wouldn't want to hear this, I don't know why you came to me," Hermione said with a huff.

"All right, sorry, but, he was probably sleeping when he did that. I meant on purpose, like… _Together_, you know?" Ginny stressed.

"Well, just some more touching under the shirt, and, as you said, he does like my bum, he's always cupping that when he gets the chance… He started lifting me that way when we snog, once he found out I didn't mind. I enjoy it, actually. I think he's still a bit uncertain about touching my breasts; he usually asks, first. That must seem more 'forbidden', I suppose."

"Ugh."

"Ginny!"

"What, I can't help it!"

"Try a bit harder to suppress it! Now do you want to talk about this or not? How can we have a sex talk if you keep making those faces?" Hermione complained.

"Sex?!" Ginny yelped. "Oh my God! You've been _shagging?_ I can't believe you! …How was it? Did it hurt?"

Hermione had turned scarlet. "No! I meant sex talk as in sexuality, gender relations, not shagging specifically and the closest we've even come to that was…"

Ginny leaned forward eagerly. "What?"

Hermione glanced away.

"What? You can't just leave it at that!" Ginny demanded.

"Sometimes, when we're snogging," Hermione said slowly, "I've put my legs around his waist and sort of… _Rubbed_ against him."

Ginny clamped her mouth shut while she overcame the urge to say something rude. The key to approaching these topics with Hermione was to wait out the initial revulsion until Ron became more of a faceless, male idea. Once she arrived at that point, the thought of grinding against Harry in such a fashion was a wonderful one. Some of the positions they slept in – Ginny wrapped around his side with his thigh between hers – had created a friction that brought with it an animal instinct for even more.

"Was that good?" she asked. "Did you come?"

"No!" Hermione denied a bit too quickly. "…But it felt like I could have."

"I've thought about that, sometimes. I mean, we're already snogging and he's right there, why shouldn't I just get up on him? I wonder if he would try that with me," Ginny mused.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "He'd do anything with you."

"But that's not true," Ginny said worriedly. "I know that the way you are with Ron is different. You're the one holding him back, you know, setting limits. Us Weasleys are a randy lot, and that's the truth. But with Harry I have to push for everything, always, right from the beginning. I barely got him to stay with me at the start of all this!"

Hermione placed a sympathetic hand on Ginny's knee. "I know it hasn't been easy for the two of you. Harry has… I mean, considering his upbringing and everything that's happened, well… Ginny, all of your affections in whatever form are, I'm quite certain, the most he's ever been touched in his life. And I think he's still not entirely used to it," Hermione said insightfully. "I'm afraid it may be a long time before you don't have to push him a bit. But isn't he worth fighting for?"

"Always," Ginny said fiercely.

"I knew you felt that way. And I'm sure he does, too."

Ginny picked at the sheets with her fingernails. "Maybe. Sometimes I wonder if he thinks I'm all over him because I just want him to _pleasure_ me."

Hermione's eyes danced. "Don't you?"

"Yes!" Ginny said, giggling. "But that's not _all_ I want!"

"Well, perhaps you should make that clearer? _I'm_ well aware you love him in more ways than one, but he doesn't have quite the same perspective that I do. You never showed him all the times you practised writing 'Ginny Potter' in your diary!"

"I didn't show that to you, you twit!" Ginny screeched in outrage. "You peeked when I dropped it that one time!"

"It fell open to that page; I can hardly be held responsible for that," Hermione said in an overly-reasonable tone.

"You bet your arse you can!"

"I can't bet my arse," Hermione countered. "Ron's recently claimed it."

"Oh, _God_," Ginny groaned, looking away.

"…It's an interesting thought, however," Hermione said after she gained control of her giggles.

"What, Ron squeezing your arse? That's a _nauseating_ thought, and you should be ashamed."

"I'm not, though," Hermione said, lifting her chin despite the blush suffusing her face. "Do you think they'd be shocked at Hogwarts, if they knew?"

"What, that Hermione Granger is a secret slag for my brother?"

"I am not!"

"The only person shocked would be _you_," Ginny said, ignoring Hermione's protest. "Half our house already thinks you've been shagging after every argument since third year."

"No!"

"Yeah! If I told them you were snogging all over this place, they'd just be wondering what the real news was! The only people that ever thought you were subtle were you and Ron. Even Harry twigged on around the Yule Ball, and he's almost as thick as Ron. Did you really think no one noticed?"

"It's just a bit disillusioning," Hermione sighed. "Regardless, I did have an interesting thought: what if you showed Harry your old diary? You know, the pink one with all the tassels?"

Ginny blanched. "Show Harry my old diary?"

"Right. The regular one that wasn't stabbed with a basilisk fang, obviously." A hand flew up to Hermione's mouth. "Oh, dear. That wasn't very sensitive, was it?"

Ginny barely noticed. "Show Harry where I wrote 'Ginny Potter'."

"Yes."

"Where I wrote about how green his eyes are."

"Yes."

"Where I made up little stories in which he rescues me from various dragons and Dark wizards."

"Yes, that's right."

Ginny stared at her. "Are you barking?"

Hermione held up her palms, as if to forestall Ginny's wrath. "Hear me out."

"Why? You've just started and it's already the worst idea I've ever heard!"

Hermione looked sceptical. "Oh, that can't be true. Surely Fred and George have come to you with worse ideas."

"Nope. This beats them all."

"Ginny! I'm only suggesting it because I think it might help Harry understand you better!"

"How? How could that possibly help?" Ginny said wildly. "I'm not that silly little girl anymore, I've tried so hard not to be!"

"But you _were_ once. You were. And, despite your protestations, part of you will always see Harry that way, just like a part of me will always see Ron as that cute boy on the train with dirt on his nose," Hermione said with a strident note in her voice that made it clear this was something she was convinced of. "Show Harry how long you've been in love with him, or at least the idea of him, and he'll see just how important he is to you. How important he was even before he let you be important to him!"

But Ginny wanted Harry to see her as the woman who was fighting by his side, not the girl who only dreamed about him. She had tried to reconcile the two with her confessions after the locket's destruction, and Harry had responded with loads of guilt for his unintentional dismissal of her feelings. "I told Harry some of it and all he did was beat himself up for not noticing me sooner!"

"Oh. Of course he would," Hermione said blankly. "I didn't think of that."

"Obviously."

"But it doesn't matter," Hermione said, recovering her confidence. "Guilt is Harry's usual response for a lot of things. You just have to work around it."

"It must be nice to have an easy boyfriend," Ginny snarked.

"You know better than that," Hermione reprimanded. "Harry may have guilt, but Ron has insecurity. Don't you remember what happened with him and Harry during the Tri-wizard Tournament? Always worrying that he's not good enough for me, always feeling overshadowed by his brothers… It's maddening sometimes. So don't tell me I can't comprehend what that's like!"

"Come off it! Ron isn't even half as damaged as Harry," Ginny insisted.

Hermione's lips twitched, and then she snorted in laughter. "I can't believe you said that like it's a point of pride. Are we really arguing about whose boyfriend is more unstable?"

"I guess we are," Ginny said, giving in to her own laughter.

"Oh, we are so far off topic!" Hermione declared, and of course only she would ever worry about relevancy during such an informal conversation. "You asked me about how far I've 'gone', so to speak, but why did you want to know? Or was it purely for gossip purposes?"

"No…" Ginny sighed. "I guess I was looking for comparison."

"How so?"

"It's just, we're sleeping in the same bed and it's not easy to ignore how it just drives me mad sometimes, how I get so…"

"…Aroused?" Hermione diffidently suggested.

"Yeah. And I know he is, too. Half the time I wake up and he's all pressed against me there, I can feel him."

"Oh. Oh!" Hermione blushed. "His…"

"His cock," Ginny clarified, purposefully choosing a more uncouth term and enjoying the uncomfortable expression that flitted across Hermione's features. Served her right for being so detailed about Ron.

"I see. Um… Well, that's a very natural, physical reaction to that kind of proximity," Hermione said.

Ginny preferred to think of it as a very natural reaction Harry had to _her_. "So I wanted to know if you'd done anything with a boy's bits, although since it's you and Ron please don't go into it much. Please."

"No. Not, directly. Just… the rubbing, like I said."

"Right. Well, I thought since it happens with Harry so much that maybe I could give him a hand…?" Ginny made a fist and moved it in the universal gesture for male masturbation.

Hermione's eyes widened. "While he's sleeping? I really think you ought to ask first, Ginny."

"Of course not while he's sleeping, I'm not just going to grab him!"

"I'm not sure he'd mind, entirely, but it's always better to ask…"

"But do you think I should? It's one thing to talk about it, I mean, Harry likes to flirt. I just don't know how far he wants to go. Which is so weird to say, since blokes are supposed to want everything right away, but…"

"It's a bit of a stereotype, isn't it?" Hermione agreed. "Our particular blokes are maybe more self-conscious than most, but it's a good reminder that we shouldn't assume so much and settle into simple societal labels."

Ginny rolled her eyes. "Stop trying to turn this into some sort of lesson. Our blokes are just prats who don't know what they want."

"I think Harry is probably just wondering what _you_ want from him."

What Ginny wanted from Harry was _more_. That was often ill-defined, though her talk with Hermione had made some things clearer. Ginny didn't want actual shagging, not yet. She needed to work her way up to that, she couldn't just skip ahead right to the finish. But she wanted to see what Harry looked like beneath his trousers, and she wanted to touch him (and maybe if she was feeling especially curious to take him into her mouth – just to try it). And on his end of things, she wanted _his_ mouth on her, all over her, without embarrassment, and she didn't want to have to give him written instructions to achieve that.

"Maybe if I just rolled over, and put my tit in his mouth…" Ginny mused. "He'd have to know what to do then, right?"

Hermione made a strangled sound that was part laughter, part shock. "By instinct, if nothing else," she managed.

They talked for a bit more, and by the time they finished Ginny was feeling more confident in what she intended. There was no need to rush headlong into shagging, but she was tired of getting herself off in the shower. And if she was tired of it, she imagined that Harry probably was, too. So the next logical step in their relationship would be mutually beneficial.

She didn't see much point in discussing it with him beforehand. Harry thought best on his feet, anyway: he'd be better off without time to worry about it.

* * *

><p>"School starts in less than a week," Ron observed.<p>

That brought about a severe moment of dissonance for Harry as he sat on the floor of the dining hall, still breathing hard from his last practice duel. He suddenly felt as if he was late, severely late – he hadn't bought his books yet or anything, didn't even have a list! He should be at The Burrow getting ready for a trip to Diagon Alley, not sitting about Grimmauld Place. What was he doing? He didn't have any new quills and if he 'borrowed' all of Hermione's, she was going to kill him!

But he wasn't going to school at all, he had to remember; instead of worrying about NEWTs he was trying not to die, and instead of a quill he had a ballpoint pen and his wand was supplemented by a shotgun. It wasn't quite the start to a new year that he was used to.

"Won't be riding the Express this year, eh, Harry?" Ron said quietly.

"Not the Anglia, either," Harry said wistfully.

Ron snorted. "Damn thing's probably still out in the Forest with the spiders. Bloody spiders."

"Too bad, that. We could use a flying car."

"Think we could charm ours?" Ron said thoughtfully.

Harry shrugged. "Maybe? Didn't your dad spend loads of time on that, though?"

"I don't really remember. Wouldn't do us much good unless we could get our hands on an Invisibility Booster – though I guess they can't expel us for being seen, so that's a plus…"

"Yeah. I had this dream once," Harry began, closing his eyes and remembering, "where we crashed in a city instead of hitting the Willow. And it ended up being on television and they knew magic was real, and they found out all about witches and wizards and Tom Riddle. And then the Muggles killed him, so I didn't have to."

Ron was silent for a moment. "I think we'd just have different problems after that, mate."

"I know. It was just a dream."

"'Sides, even if You-Know-Who snuffed it from Muggles or whatever, wouldn't he come back again?"

Harry sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "He will unless we can finish these Horcruxes. Any ideas? Because I am ready to be shut of this shite."

Ron made a face. "I think we'll have to go north, like Scott said. Maybe something'll turn up."

Harry shook his head, frustrated with the thought. "I don't get how that's going to work, we could wander around forever with a hint like that, if you can even call it a hint."

"Didn't Scott say he'd know more when he got closer?"

"I don't know. He says a lot of things," Harry said tiredly. He took off his glasses and gazed blearily around the room.

Looking down at the spectacles, he thought he might ask Sophie if she could get him some Muggle-style contact lenses. His vision was terrible without his glasses and he worried that he might lose or damage them during combat. It wasn't something he'd given much thought before, but when Ginny had deflected the spell into the cobblestones at the square in Godric's Hollow the resultant dust had coated his lenses. He'd cleaned them with a quick _Scourgify_, but he couldn't help but wonder what might have happened if they'd been struck by a stray bit of rock.

He held the glasses up towards Ron. "It's funny how no one's ever _Accio'd_ these things right off my face," he said.

Ron's eyes widened. "Blimey, I never thought of that! You're right fucked now you've said that."

"Not for long, tosser. I'll bet Sophie can find me some contact lenses; try to Summon those and I'll just close my eyes for a second."

"That a Muggle thing?"

"Yeah, they're pieces of plastic, or something, that work like glasses but they fit right over your eye."

Ron squinted as he tried to imagine such a thing. "Wait, _over_ your eyes, or, like, _in_ them?"

"In them, I think. I saw this kid messing with his once in the loo, back in primary school."

"Doesn't that hurt?" Ron said disbelievingly.

"I hope not," Harry said, not enthused at the prospect of sticking anything into his eyeball. "But even if it does, I need to do it."

"All right, mate," Ron said supportively. "You'll look right strange without your glasses, though."

"I'll probably only use the contacts for missions." Harry grinned when he had another thought. "You know they've got coloured ones too, to change how your eyes look. Like a glamour charm."

"You know Ginny would kill you, right?"

Harry was a bit taken aback by Ron's warning. "Really?"

"Yeah! What are you, daft? She's barmy about your eyes. She'll be out for blood if you make them anything less than green as a fresh-pickled toad," Ron said with a smirk.

Harry didn't have any strong feelings about his eyes one way or the other (though in his early years as a wizard he had tired of repeatedly hearing how they looked like his mother's). But he supposed he could understand Ginny's attachment to them, at least somewhat. He felt the same way about her hair.

"I hadn't planned on it. I was just thinking of disguises," Harry explained.

"Not much call for that while we're stuck in here, huh," Ron commented.

That brought things right back around to the real problem; they were hiding and not much else. Harry knew that what he and his friends were doing was the most important piece of the war against Riddle, more vital than even what the Order was attempting. For that reason Harry had cut himself off from everyone who didn't know about the Horcruxes (and as much as he hated the idea of the wizarding world thinking he had abandoned them, there didn't seem to be any way around it). But now, Harry was barely doing anything at all. He almost wanted to owl Remus and just leave with him, joining the Order. It was better than sitting around and hoping that Hermione would find something in her books.

True, the time was well spent in research and training. But outside, things were getting worse. Harry wanted to save the wizarding world while there was still a wizarding world in Britain left to save.

For the first time, Harry wished his mental connection with Riddle would flare up again. Harry had assumed for awhile now that Riddle had gained firm control of his Occlumency and was actively blocking Harry from entering his mind. It made sense. The Department of Mysteries had been a costly trap for Harry, but it hadn't exactly gone according to plan for Riddle, either. The Dark Lord cloaked himself in shadows and thrived on secrets: having Harry in his head was just too great of a liability.

So while Harry was grateful to no longer be forced to delve into Voldemort's horrid psyche, he couldn't dismiss how occasionally useful it had been. It had saved Arthur Weasley's life, after all.

It was odd, though, how utterly quiet the connection had been. Riddle had a history of being unable to control his broadcasting during moments of extreme emotion. So while he could probably prevent most visions from going Harry's way, it was surprising that nothing had slipped out at all, especially considering how happy Riddle had to have been after the Ministry's fall. But Harry had seen nothing, experienced not even a twinge from his scar. The curse-created link between the two foes had been dormant for well over a year. In fact, he hadn't been given so much as a glimpse through Voldemort's eyes since… Since…

…Since a blond-headed boy had walked into a playground.

His heart began to accelerate as a cold weight settled over him. No. No, he was just jumping to conclusions. Scott wouldn't have blocked the connection without discussing it with Harry first, surely he… He couldn't have. Such a massive lie of omission would have threatened Scott's integration, his _friendship_, with Harry, it… There were too many opportunities inherent in the connection, Scott would have seen that. He would have wanted to know more, he might have even encouraged the link. Information was ammunition.

Unconvincing. All of it, not convincing, it wasn't. It fit too well. Harry felt the rage coming on, bubbling up from deep within him. He fought it, trying to be rational, searching every crevice of his memory for some hint that Scott hadn't known anything about the link and it was all a coincidence.

There was nothing. A few of the usual comments from Hermione, asking if Harry's scar was hurting. Concerned glances from Ron and Ginny if Harry rubbed at it out of habit. Scott had been there for at least some of those moments. Had he said anything? Had he ever asked? Or had he already known that Harry's scar was fine, because he had ensured it?

Harry couldn't remember.

"Er… All right, there, mate?" Ron asked hesitantly. He had been sitting and watching with obvious confusion as Harry's mood took a turn for the furious.

Harry stood. "Sophie's downstairs, isn't she?" he said in the most level tone he could.

"Last I saw her…"

Harry went for the kitchen, barely noticing as Ron jumped to his feet and hurried to follow. Scott was still asleep as far as Harry knew, which was good: when Harry confronted him he wanted the Kharadjai to be off balance, and waking him up suddenly might do the trick. But first, he wanted a second opinion, and since it was possible that Sophie didn't know much of what had happened at Hogwarts he might be able to shake something out of her. Unless she had been told to lie to Harry and was just another manipulative, conniving Kharadjai. Either way, Harry was going to give her the chance to look him in the eye and come clean.

Sophie was using cleaning spells on a stack of dirty dishes when Harry stormed into the room. She must have been experimenting with _Scourgify_, because she was holding a plate that was perfectly cleaned on one half and still soiled on the other. She turned when she heard Harry enter.

"Harry!" she said pleasantly, setting the plate down. "Are you hungry? I still have some – what is it, what's wrong?"

"I need to talk to you," Harry said a bit more calmly than he'd intended. Sophie was so small and feminine that it was difficult to be angry with her. Harry, in his newly refreshed paranoia, wondered if that was why she had been chosen.

Sophie's already large eyes widened slightly. "What about?" she said with an inquisitiveness that appeared to be innocent, but Harry wasn't sure he bought it.

"This." Harry pointed a stiff finger at his scar. "How long has Scott been blocking Riddle out?"

Sophie didn't react the way Harry was half-expecting her to: she maintained the same simple curiosity. "Blocking what how?"

"Riddle. Tom Riddle, you know who he is?" Harry said sharply.

"Oh, yes. I thought you said riddle like, 'puzzle'. What did Scott do to him?"

"I'm asking _you_," Harry said, his voice rising. "I'm not going to explain shite you already know so just answer my question!"

Sophie took a step back and clasped her hands in a defensive posture, catching on that she was being accused. "I don't know what you're talking about, Harry, and I don't care for your tone," she said, lifting her chin.

Harry was losing his momentum, beginning to feel like he had made a mistake. Sophie wasn't cagey like Scott and Lila, and if it was a performance it was a very convincing one. He decided to be forthright and see what that gained him. "My scar here; it's a curse scar made when Riddle tried to kill me. It connects my mind through his sometimes when he's feeling a strong emotion, and once he used it to trick me. And I just realised that hasn't happened, at all, since Scott arrived. So has he been messing with my head or what?"

Surprise was writ large across Sophie's open features, though shortly after she did her best to school them. Her stance became uneasy and she shifted her weight slightly. "No, no… The shape doesn't work that way, we can't read people's minds or alter them."

Harry was inclined to believe that was true, but it wasn't an answer to his question. "Has Scott been blocking Riddle without telling me?" he asked coldly.

"I don't see why he would…"

"_Has he or not?"_

Sophie flinched, though she remained infuriatingly hesitant. Harry was beginning to think that she didn't know anything about the mental link, but it definitely seemed like she was doing her best to cover Scott's arse. "Are you sure about this?"

Harry blew out a breath. He hadn't come down to the kitchen to waste his rage on Sophie. "No, I'm not, and that's why I'm asking. Please."

The 'please' seemed to accomplish what his confrontational attitude had not. "I don't know. I'm sorry, I really don't. This is the first I've heard of anything like that being possible."

"All right," Harry said, bracing himself. Getting a straight answer out of Sophie was child's play compared to the sleeping Kharadjai upstairs.

"You'll have to talk to Scott about your concerns. I'm sure he would have apprised you if he had to 'block' anything important—" she faltered a bit when Harry scoffed, "b-but you should take this to him."

Harry planned on it. He turned on his heel and went back up the stairs.

"You'll have to wait until he wakes up!" Sophie called after him. Harry ignored her, but she hurried after him and caught him by the elf heads. "I mean it! He's still resting!"

"I don't care!" Harry shot back.

She crossed her arms and glared at him. "You can talk to him as soon as he wakes up but not before. He needs to sleep."

Harry tried to stare her down to no avail. It was obvious she wasn't going to budge when it came to Scott's well-being. "Fine," he said grudgingly. "As soon as he wakes."

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note<strong>

A few chapters ago, I was worrying about the Bechdel Test. Then for this chapter, I drove this bitch straight into Girl Talk™. I refuse to be consistent. You can't make me.

The previous chapter was intended to not have any author's note at all. As I had with _That Terrifying Momentum_, I wanted to use this story as a method of gauging different methods of soliciting greater or lesser numbers of reviews. The trend I'm currently studying is the impact of my author's notes. My assumption is that I get significantly more reviews when I have one, particularly when I use the note to make a bold statement or ask a pertinent question. After reading it, you guys tend to review in order to answer the question or address my thoughts on a subject (generally a meta-fanfiction one, having to do with tropes).

When left with nothing but the chapter itself, most of you don't have anything specific to say about what happened in it. I think this is pretty common, although my extreme chapter length may have something to do with it. Even if you come across something that stands out, you may forget what you had to say about it by the time you reach the end. This may be why most of my long-form reviews tend to be an overview of the story itself, created after a full read through of the currently extant work. Single chapters rarely elicit more than a handful of sentences, or an occasional quoted line if something is especially stand out.

Tellingly, the chapter which received the most reviews in _TTM_ was the one with the author's note asking you readers to explain why you do or don't review a chapter. While some of that impact may have to do with specifically inviting the reader to speak on a subject, with the implication that the author will be listening and responding, most of it likely has to do with guilt. In this instance, statistics may be more powerful than a common, 'review please'.

I'll save that study for a later date. Until then, did you enjoy Remus and the Girl Talk™?


	18. Apology Not Fucking Accepted

**18**

**Apology Not Fucking Accepted**

* * *

><p>"<em>Two threads are side by side; sharing<br>an anchor, they are analogous. Observation  
>will be required to determine if they are<br>Component, Solidary or Symbiotic.  
>Difficulties may be encountered in<br>the absence of frequent traffic or  
>proximity. <em>_Lacking constant broadcast,__  
><em>_there is no immediate delineation  
>without simultaneous traffic.<em>_"_

—Thomas Spencer, _Collected Articles (Fourth Edition)_

* * *

><p>Harry woke up at an indeterminate time after midnight. It was too dark to see his watch, and he knew he had left the door open a bit when he'd come back from the loo. That left him rolling out of bed sometime before sunrise.<p>

He was thirsty, mostly. He yawned as he descended the steps with his lit wand held out before him. The pale light cast leaping shadows from the banister, flitting across the walls, and he was struck by the sudden memory of headlights projecting the same dark, scrolling shapes from his window at the Dursleys', when it had been barred. Thanks to Sophie's cleaning efforts the sight was a bit less threatening than it would have been in the past. The décor remained oppressive, but at least it didn't look abandoned any more.

Near the bottom of the steps he could see the warm glow of lamplight shining from the kitchen. He extinguished his wand and descended into the light, wondering who else was up and about.

Scott was rummaging through the cupboards, digging about the food and making quite a racket with the bags of crisps he was pulling out. He was barefoot and dressed in a pair of boxers and a t-shirt that looked like it might have been white at some point but had since turned grey. Despite such a state of undress, his M14 rifle was slung across his back.

He quickly looked around when Harry entered the room, only to turn away, incurious, when he saw who it was. "Hey, have you seen my nacho chips?" he asked with his head back in the cupboard.

Harry had not expected to find Scott. The sight of him sent Harry's anger leaping in his chest, tensing his muscles and curling his fingers. He tried to tamp it down. "What are you doing?"

"I'm starving, man. Got the munchies, need some calories to burn."

"I think Ginny ate your crisps," Harry said with a certain amount of satisfaction.

"Aww, what?" Scott dropped his forehead against the cupboard bottom with a thump. "Why would she do that? No, wait. It's because nacho chips are awesome."

Harry watched in silence as Scott continued to rummage through the cupboard, perhaps clinging to the vain hope that Ginny hadn't eaten the crisps. Harry needed to confront Scott and he almost didn't know where to start. The Kharadjai had been out of action for long enough that the grievances had seemed to compile, long enough that Harry had discovered an entirely new one that almost overrode the others. If it was the truth. Some part of him wanted to give Scott the benefit of the doubt, but it was difficult to do so when Scott's history of omission, even more than the evidence, was so damning.

They had, after all, just survived a mission in which Scott had directly lied to all of his Primes. Not the best way to maintain trust. Harry was still deeply unhappy at being cut out of the battle, but at least he could understand Scott's reasoning, even if he didn't agree with it. But the mental link with Voldemort? If Scott had truly been blocking it, without ever saying a word, then Harry just couldn't abide that. God only knew what vital information might have been lost through such an action.

"Sit down," Harry said, his acidic anger coursing with his thoughts.

Scott withdrew his head from the cupboard. "What?"

"Sit down. I want to talk to you."

Scott's mouth twitched as if he was going to smile, but when his gaze met Harry's, his mouth flattened and his eyes narrowed. "About what?"

"What do you think? Take a wild guess," Harry said harshly.

Scott dropped the tin he was holding and raised a questioning eyebrow. "Are you still mad about the radio thing?"

As a matter of fact, Harry was, but that wasn't the present issue. He pointed at his scar. "About this."

Scott's other eyebrow shot up. "Okay. Not something we've really talked about before, but…"

"How long have you been blocking Vol—"

"Harry."

"—Riddle from my mind?" Harry said angrily.

"How long have I _what?"_

"Been blocking Riddle! Through the scar!" Harry shouted, enraged by Scott's dedication to playing dumb. "Do you have any idea what you've done, do you have _any fucking __**idea**_at all? We might have found them all by now, we might have saved more—"

"Harry, if you don't start making sense—"

"You'll what?! _What?!" _Harry snarled. "Lie to me some more? Cut me out of the fight? Muck about with my FUCKING head?!"

"Sure, I'll start with this fork! C'mere, maybe a fork lobotomy will calm your ass down—"

"_Just tell me!"_

"Tell. You. WHAT?"

"_**THE TRUTH!**__"_ Harry bellowed.

"Time OUT!" Scott yelled, making a gesture that formed a 'T'. "I feel like we've done this before. Let's try something different: fuckin' tell me what you want."

It took every ounce of willpower Harry had, but he reigned in his fury. "This. This is my curse scar, I got it from the Killing Curse," he said through gritted teeth as he pointed again at his scar.

Scott crossed his arms and nodded. "I know."

"It gives me a mental connection with Riddle, and I can see through his eyes when he broadcasts, which is how I saw Mr Weasley get bitten and was tricked into going to the Department." Harry's voice was already rising again.

"I _know."_

"Then do you also_ know_ why it so happens to be that I haven't had a single vision since you decided to take over my life?" Harry seethed.

Scott just stared at him. "What are you suggesting?"

Harry looked him right in the eye, searching Scott's face for even the smallest sign of falsehood. "Have you been blocking Riddle from my mind?"

Scott's face contorted in scornful disbelief. "No, I haven't. I don't even know what that would look like, a thread like that would have been…" He froze.

Watching the realisation come into Scott's eyes was all the confirmation Harry needed. "You cunt. You absolute, sodding cunt," he said, his voice shaking with rage. "Have you ever been my friend at all? Why couldn't you just fucking _stay_ gone! Or better yet, actually done your fucking _job_, because we would all rather have Dumbledore, anyway!"

"Go fuck yourself, I don't need this."

"You don't even get it, do you? You think you're right, you _always_ think you're right, you're NEVER wrong! We might have had the Horcruxes already, we could be _done_, but no — you had to go fucking with everything, always, thinking you know what you're doing when you know nothing at ALL. How much time did we waste because of you? _How many people are __**DEAD**__ now because __**I DIDN'T KNOW IT WAS HAPPENING?!**__"_

"How many of us are alive now because you didn't run head-first into a trap? Or did you have another godfather to spare?" Scott said in a tone like ice.

If Harry could have found the presence of mind, he'd have throttled the life out of Scott right then and there. He had to leave; he couldn't look at Scott for a second longer. He turned and staggered up the stairs, brushing through the stunned cluster of his friends that he hadn't even noticed gathering behind him.

"Harry, I'm sorry," Scott called after him.

Harry didn't even spare him a glance.

* * *

><p>When Harry fled back upstairs, Ron and Ginny followed him. Hermione stayed where she was, meeting Sophie's eyes. They reached a silent agreement, and Sophie put her arms around Kylie's shoulders and led the girl back towards her room. In the past, Hermione would have been the first to follow Harry and attempt to comfort him. But she had been supplanted in that role by Ginny, which hadn't always been easy to accept: Hermione missed the way she used to relate to Harry and Ron. Growing up meant finding significant others, and a gradual changing of their group dynamic that she sometimes resented.<p>

But that was just life, wasn't it? And now she had stayed behind to confront Scott Kharan, the biggest change of all. She went down into the kitchen with a burning desire to find out why on earth she had been awoken by a shouting match.

Scott watched her approach with a look of resignation. "Go ahead," he said dully.

"Go ahead and what?" she questioned, halting in front of him.

"Slap me. Or punch me, you know how to do that now. You heard what I said."

"I did. I also heard what Harry said," Hermione said shortly. "I missed the beginning of the argument, so I'm not sure at what point you both agreed to say the most horrible things you could think of."

"It came about very naturally."

"Oh, did it? Good, that's ever so reassuring, I should hate to think you forced that kind of behaviour," she said blisteringly.

Scott sighed. "What do you want? He came in here and just fucking lost it, was I supposed to stand there and take it?"

"Couldn't you? You're purportedly such a professional, you could have just said nothing."

"I can't," Scott said, scrubbing at his face with his palms. "We're not even supposed to do that, you know."

Hermione felt the pang of excitement that always ran through her when Scott was on the cusp of actually revealing something. "I don't."

"It has to do with how we relate to Primes. You guys are my friends, for real. Faking that would just be hobbling myself. And when someone, a friend, comes at you like Harry just did, the worst thing you can do is not react. It's like… If you don't engage them at all, if you act like you don't even care enough to get angry back… That's just worse." He dropped his hands. "Look, I _could_ suppress all my emotions, I _could_ act like I'm in combat twenty-four-seven, but the point of all this is, I'm an integrationist. I integrate with you, I become your friend, you see me as I am. I don't _have_ to be emotionless."

Hermione was about to protest and point out his long history of omission and obfuscation. Then it occurred to her that, although Scott often hid the facts, he didn't hide his personality. She didn't know much about the Kharadjai, or his mission, or even some of the things he had done for Harry's sake, but she did know a great deal about Scott as a person. He was sparing with his secrets, but he wasn't playing a character. He was Scott — humorous, dangerous, difficult Scott.

"Why not put on an act?" she said. "Why not give your integration a boost by telling us exactly what we want to hear, or being extra accommodating and friendly? Not that I want that from you, mind," she added quickly.

"Because you can lie to a person, but you can't lie to the shape. Building real threads means making real relations. Our thread," he motioned between the two of them, "is as much a reflection of how I feel about you as it is how you feel about me."

She felt herself soften towards him, despite what he had said to Harry. "That's… touching, actually, in a very strange way."

"It was always my intention to touch you."

His innuendo was too unenthusiastic to be offensive. "You'll have to try much harder than that to distract me. Now what brought all this about?"

"An oversight."

"All right. Yours, I presume?"

"Yes."

She gave him a few seconds to go on. When he continued to look blankly back at her, her mouth thinned. "Scott, you can tell me what you did now, or I can go ask Harry and get nothing but his point of view."

"You're all going to be on his side anyway."

"And whose fault is that?" Hermione said sharply. "I am trying to be impartial and you are not, in any way, making it easy!"

Scott crossed his arms and leaned back against the kitchen stove. Hermione didn't know if he was formulating an answer or debating whether to answer at all. She scraped together some modicum of patience, and waited.

"It was about his scar," Scott said. "He came in, probably already pissed off about the Hollow, and asked me how long I'd been blocking Riddle's connection."

Hermione gasped. "His Legilimency?"

"Or something. I'm not clear on the details."

Harry's curse scar — his involuntary connection to Voldemort's mind. Harry's lack of Occlumency skill had been a serious point of contention between him and Hermione in the past, and it was only in the last year or so when Voldemort's mental invasions had ceased that she had largely let the subject go. Several times in the sixth year she had asked Harry if his scar was hurting, or if he'd been having visions, if he looked especially tired in the morning. He'd always replied to the negative, and while she had suspected he might not be entirely truthful, that was only in regards to the pain. He disliked any focus on his physical weaknesses. If he'd had any actual visions, he would surely have reacted to the information. Hermione would have been told.

She'd given it a bit of thought, and assumed that Voldemort had taken care to block Harry more thoroughly than ever before. It made sense: the battle at the Department of Mysteries had been devastating for Harry, with the loss of Sirius, but it had also been a huge defeat for Voldemort. The Dark Lord must have decided that the curse link was simply too dangerous to allow, despite its possible uses.

Now Scott was offering an alternative scenario, one involving a breach of trust that Harry would take very, very badly.

Hermione needed a moment to sort out her thoughts. If Scott had actually prevented Voldemort from broadcasting to Harry's mind, that was good, and she approved. She knew that Harry, in an almost disturbing way, _liked_ the link as much as he feared it — it offered tantalising glimpses into the operations of the enemy, a first-hand window into Voldemort's plans. But Hermione had never believed that was worth the risk to Harry's mind. Had he learned nothing from his possession? Scott had done him a favour, removing such a vulnerability.

Unfortunately, it sounded as if Scott had gifted that favour in the worst possible way. Tampering with Harry's mind and saying nothing was a horrible lie of omission.

Hermione worried at her lower lip, not sure how to process the situation. "…I don't know how what you've done can be so good and so awful at the same time."

"If it helps you split the difference, it was completely unintentional."

That put things in a different light. "How can that be?"

Scott sighed and lifted his hands. "I need time. I'm trying to remember things and I don't know exactly how this happened. I have one incident in mind, but that's not enough to account for… It should have come back, especially with effort on the other end, which means it was more than… once, or…" He stared at an undefined spot somewhere to Hermione's left, eyes narrowed in deep thought.

"Can you tell me anything? Explain how you didn't mean to do it and I'll try to talk to Harry," Hermione offered.

Scott shook his head. "I have, like, the smallest piece of the puzzle right now. It doesn't make sense."

"Try," she persisted.

Scott huffed out a quick breath and bounced on his heels. "I think it started with the Trace. Harry had it all last year and I was watching it off and on, ever since I caught it that first day at the playground. But I couldn't anticipate it unless I knew he was casting, and it was slow enough to catch but not consistent, especially at the school where I think it would get swallowed by the wards. Or maybe there was something else about it, where it would be interrupted in an area deemed… I don't know, I don't know yet, but if Riddle sent something down the pipe and I chopped at it without knowing there were two threads on top of whatever else…" He frowned and rattled off, as if from a textbook, "'Lacking constant broadcast there is no immediate delineation without simultaneous traffic'. That's Spencerian Shaperate 101."

It took Hermione a moment to sift through his rambling. "So, you believe that you were attempting to interrupt the Trace on Harry, and prevented a vision from Riddle instead?"

"That's my first, off-the-top-of-my-head theory, yes. Because I distinctly remember severing what I thought was a Trace thread when I was coming back to bed from a monster late night crap. I remember it so well because I felt five pounds lighter."

Hermione wrinkled her nose in disgust but refused to comment on Scott's bowel movements. "But why would you be worried about the Trace at Hogwarts? We were allowed to do magic there, Harry's Trace should have been inactive."

"It wasn't. Not always."

"That's very odd, then, because it's not as if he ever received any warnings…" Hermione mused.

"Not just him, though. I blocked your Trace, and Ron's, and Neville's, and even Ginny and Luna's a couple of times. Those threads kept going off, and I thought the Ministry was tracking your spells or something. Finally, I just figured they weren't going any further than the wards."

"Why didn't you say something?" she said, exasperated.

He raised his arms in aggravation. "Because I thought I was wrong! There wasn't any point, it was all working as intended, no one was getting into trouble and you all seemed just fine with your Trace. So, then, I just assumed I was wasting my time. There's a lot of shape things I've done that I didn't go over with you, Hermione. You wouldn't have known what I was talking about anyway."

"Is that what you were doing when you wandered off all the time? Fiddling with the wards or whatever other magic caught your eye?"

"Sometimes, yeah."

She sighed. Down in the kitchen in the dead of night was not the proper time to see if Scott would divulge more details. And, as much as she hated to admit it, he was probably correct about her level of understanding. The shape was entirely beyond her experiences. "I see. But if you gave up interrupting the Trace, or at least what you thought was the Trace, then why hasn't Harry's scar been acting up again?"

"That's the part I don't understand."

"Any ideas you can share?" she said hopefully.

"Like I said, I need some time."

"Then you can use the time it will take for Harry to calm down. I'll go speak with him and let him know, once I have the chance. At least you actually apologised; I am impressed," she said wryly.

"And it worked so well, too."

"Let him sleep on it." She turned to go and then stopped, looking back at him. "Oh, and if I ever hear the two of you say things like that to each other again, I'll jinx you both and you can sort it out as slugs!"

Scott's face lit up with interest. "What kind of slugs? What if my preference is to be a snail?"

She ignored him, climbing back up the steps into the dark upper reaches of Grimmauld. She went straight to her room instead of Harry's. She didn't have to worry about him being alone, he was with Ginny, and by the time morning came around he would be ready to hear Scott's side of things. Or maybe not, but regardless, Hermione wanted more sleep.

Ron was there on the bed, staring up at the ceiling with his arms folded behind his head. He sat up when she walked in. "You all right?"

"I'm fine, he wasn't hostile," she reported. "A bit reticent, but not hostile. Harry and Ginny?"

"Asleep, I think. Harry didn't want to talk about it. What happened?"

"Harry jumped to conclusions, it seems. Though it's hard to blame him; what he thought had happened certainly _sounds_ like something Scott would do."

"Did he?"

"Sort of." She explained what Scott had told her, outlining the uncertainties. "So all we really know is that Scott might have tampered with Harry's curse link instead of the Trace."

Ron sighed and flopped back down. "Damn, I hate it when they fight. We just get caught in the ruddy middle."

"Now we know how Harry felt for all those years," Hermione said ruefully.

"Oh, brilliant: guilt. That's just what I need."

"Consider it a sense of perspective. Or at least empathy." She shed the outfit that had been hastily assembled when the shouting below had awoken her and climbed back into bed. "Hopefully Harry will have cooled off by morning and we can have a proper discussion."

Ron appeared sceptical. "I don't know, Hermione," he said, rolling over to drape a warm arm around her. "Ginny's usually good for that, but maybe not when Scott's the problem…"

* * *

><p>Ginny could barely believe what she was doing, even as she reached up and knocked on Scott's door.<p>

When Harry had returned to bed she had been close behind, doing her best to hold back the torrent of questions ricochetting around her mind. She was absolutely furious on his behalf, seeing red, Scott's brutal comment echoing in memory. But Harry hadn't wanted to talk about it, shrugging off her tentative questions and sitting silently while she raged against Scott. Harry's refusal to join in sapped most of the energy out of her reaction. By the time he'd fallen asleep, she had lost the momentum of her anger and was left with worry.

It was also then that she reluctantly remembered the way she had gasped when Harry had all but outright stated he wished Scott had remained dead.

But what had Scott said before that? Ginny thought about his fight with Hermione and all the other occasions he had been such a complete arsehole. It didn't matter how Scott had been provoked — he had no right to speak to Harry that way. If there were sides to be taken in a fight between friends, she knew whose side she was on. Scott was not deserving of her sympathy.

The problem was, as she sat next to Harry's dozing form, she found herself wondering if her relationship with him was affecting her judgement. She had never wanted to be the kind of girlfriend who said yes to everything, who was blindly supportive and just blind in general. She'd known girls like that at Hogwarts, who dated boys that they thought could do no wrong. And they made fools of themselves, over and over, and learned nothing. Ginny didn't see herself that way. She called Harry on his shite all the time; it was her independence, her fire that had gained his attention to begin with. He didn't _want_ her to be a passive partner. She was naturally inclined to oblige, letting him know exactly when he was in the wrong.

Her heart was irrevocably loyal to Harry and that wouldn't change. It _hadn't_ changed, even when she had spent time trying to change it with different boys. She wanted to take his side. But her head was telling her that Harry's fight with Scott seemed far from one-sided. Or at least the part of it she had witnessed.

So that was how she ended up knocking on Scott's door, ready to give him a piece of her mind and maybe,just _maybe_, tolerate his excuses long enough to hear his version of things.

Scott opened the door with a short enough delay that he must not have been asleep. "Yes?" he said wearily.

Ginny's jaw flexed furiously as she tried to boil her indignation down into the proper words. "You're a massive wanker, you know that?" she said finally, unable to formulate anything more eloquent.

"Is that all?" He started to close the door.

"I'm not finished!" She slapped her palm against the entryway.

"I'm busy, Ginny," he said shortly. "You're mad at me, I get it."

"No, _you're _mad if you think you can say something like that to Harry and get away with it!" she said.

"Nice use of grammatical context. Now, I'm _busy."_

"I don't care." She pushed passed him and entered the room. Halting by the bed, she spun around to face him and crossed her arms.

Scott pressed his face into his hands and ran them over his head; he made an odd sort of groaning chuckle in tandem with the gesture, a sound more related to disbelief than humour. His straw-coloured hair had grown out to the point that it almost fell past his eyebrows, and when he lowered his hands it began slowly settling downwards from where he had pushed it up, as if it were reflecting his mood. "Gin," he said with a tight, uneven smile, "this may not be the time to assert yourself."

Was that supposed to be threatening? Perhaps having Harry Fucking Potter as her boyfriend had made her somewhat blasé when it came to smouldering, dangerous-type blokes, but Ginny had never found Scott intimidating. Granted, that had been back at Hogwarts when he was a teen and didn't _loom_ over her quite so much as he did now, with his musculature, razor-sharp grey gaze and endless Muggle implements of murder. But she remained unafraid, because she knew he would never hurt her. Oh, sure, he'd dismember a room full of Death Eaters with terrifying efficiency if he had to, but he'd never lift a finger against his Primes. She had his number.

So he could stand there and look at her with the same intense, slightly unhinged glare that he'd used on certain Slytherins, but she really didn't care. She could see the cracks in the façade — the slight softness at the edges of his eyes, and the way his shoulders slumped. She knew he was _trying_ to intimidate her. When he was staring down a Slytherin in the hallways, he didn't have to try. An air of imminent violence would come over him, and he just _was_. That air was conspicuously absent.

Also, he was wearing nothing but an old t-shirt and boxers which displayed his hairy legs and rather knobbly knees. So that was really working against him.

"I think it's a perfect time to assert myself," she said.

His shoulders slumped a bit more. "So you want to waste your breath yelling at me?"

"I want an explanation."

He must have decided to drop his menacing act, because a flicker of surprise crossed his face. "Really."

She didn't like his dubious tone. "What? Is Hermione the only one around here who gets answers from you? The rest of us aren't allowed?"

"I already talked to her, and I think you'd rather hear what I had to say from her, not me."

"That would make _your_ life easier, I'll bet. I'm already here, though, so too bad."

"It would make my life easier if I picked you up and tossed you out of here," Scott said equably.

He could, but she didn't think he would. "Harry wouldn't care for that," she warned.

"Hiding behind your boyfriend's skirts?"

"Does it look like I'm bloody hiding?"

"No, not you," Scott said with a sort of tired amusement, and then he began to explain.

Ginny didn't fully understand what Scott was saying; she'd been privileged to only a fraction of whatever previous insights into the shape he had offered. But she knew that even Hermione was quickly lost when he explored the subject. It didn't help that he seemed to take so much of it for granted and spoke as if he expected them all to be familiar by matter of course. Still, she understood enough to know that Scott had definitely made some sort of mistake, but Harry wasn't blameless.

And from Ginny's perspective, the only mistake Scott had made was neglecting to mention anything to Harry. Because blocking the curse-link wasn't a problem — it was an utter relief.

"So you didn't know that you did that to him," she said, making sure.

"I have mixed feelings about blocking the link at all, on purpose or not. It sounds useful. I need to know more."

Ginny's eyes widened. "It's dangerous for him!" she hissed. "Do you _want_ him to get possessed? No, don't answer that. I'm hacked off with you enough as it is. You should have told him that you'd blocked Tom out, maybe you didn't know, but don't you ever let Tom back into his head if you can stop it!"

She fought back the tendrils of panic that wrapped themselves around her heart, bringing memories of the Diary. The thought of Riddle having access to Harry's head was terrifying, she couldn't breathe. She couldn't lose him. Not like that. And Harry was brave enough, mad enough, to welcome Riddle's connection if he thought it would help the mission. She couldn't let that happen. She knew how easy it was to lose pieces of yourself that way. The Dark could be comforting, and seduced as easily as it frightened.

Scott reacted to her vehemence by looking thoughtful. "Is this curse-link that much of a threat?"

"Don't _ever_ let Tom into Harry's head," she said, making her stance absolutely clear.

"Even if Harry hates me for it?"

"I'll talk to him if I have to," she pledged.

The fact that Ginny would actually intercede with Harry on Scott's behalf seemed to affect Scott more than anything else had. "Is this because of the Diary thing?"

"This isn't about me," she said quickly. She didn't want to talk about the Diary with Scott. "You need to protect Harry, you said you would."

Scott nodded. "And I will, but it sounds like he isn't going to want me to stop this particular thread."

"Then tell him you aren't!" she said urgently, not stopping to think about it.

"…But, that's why he was screaming at me in the first place."

Ginny shook her head in frustration. Scott didn't get it, he didn't understand her desperate, overriding fear of losing Harry to Tom's influence. She knew what it was like, she carried the scars, and the thought of Harry gradually succumbing to the Dark that forced its way into his mind was horrifying to the point that she would do anything to avoid it. Harry would gladly go into Chosen One-mode and throw away his sanity if it meant satisfying his martyr complex, but she was _not_ going to let that happen.

Scott didn't seem to grasp that he was the cure. He had the power to keep Harry safe from the curse-link and the self-sacrificing impulse to use it. Ginny had confronted Scott with the intention of giving him a good telling off for making such an inappropriate comment about Sirius, but she was willing to let even that go if Scott would just protect Harry's mind.

She tried to think of a solid argument that would appeal to Scott's tactical considerations, if he wasn't taking Harry's health seriously. "Look, what… What about the Fidelius? Harry's a Secret Keeper; what if Tom got into his head and found us here?"

Scott appeared contemplative. "It was my impression that the location has to be given willingly… On the other hand, without understanding exactly how Harry's thread works, we can't say for certain that Riddle _couldn't _grab it… So, you have a point."

"Right," she said, relieved. If Scott agreed with her reasoning, then it was probably logical enough to convince Hermione and maybe Ron. Ginny wanted them on her side if she had to confront Harry.

Not that she wanted to confront Harry, or do anything to hurt him if she could help it. But he was off his nut if he thought she was going to stand idly by while he risked his sanity and his soul for unlikely benefits.

"Strange night," Scott dryly remarked. "You came in here to pick a fight and end up asking for my help."

He'd better not be gloating. "I want you to help _Harry."_

"What do you think I've been doing?"

"Lying to him and throwing Sirius in his face," Ginny said, making it clear to Scott that he had not been completely absolved.

Scott stepped around her and toppled into his bed. "All right. Go away, I'm sleeping, zzzzzzzzz…"

She had made her point, so she started to leave. "Just remember what I said, this is really important," she told him, hoping he had been taking her seriously.

"Well," he said, his voice a bit muffled by a pillow, "if anyone knows what they're talking about in this instance, it would be you."

Harry had once conceded the same thing. Ginny had always hated the residual stains that came from having touched Voldemort's mind, but if that experience was enough to make Harry listen to her again, then perhaps it had all been worth it. It was hard to find an upside to the Chamber. She would take what she could get.

Hermione was outside in the hallway, leaning nervously against the wall.

Ginny frowned at her. "Have you been eavesdropping?"

The other older girl shook her head. "No! I had to use the loo, and then I heard you on the stairs and thought you were going to confront Scott… So I followed, just in case things got out of hand."

So she _had_ been eavesdropping. "You thought we would try to kill each other?" Ginny said, a bit affronted at the idea. She had traded words with Scott on more than one occasion, but never spells.

"You can't blame me for thinking you two need a chaperone!" Hermione said defensively.

"Us? You and Scott fight more than anybody!"

"It's not the same. We argue in a more academic parlance," Hermione said loftily.

"Bit swotty tonight, are you?"

Hermione ignored that comment with a disdainful air. "So? What did he say?"

"Some rubbish about how it was all an accident. He made it sound good, but who knows?"

Hermione sighed. "We can't prove it one way or the other, but it was my feeling that he was being honest."

Ginny wasn't entirely sure she wanted to admit it, but she said, "I do care about whether he was lying to Harry, I really do. But… I don't think that matters as much as whether he can stop Tom from getting to Harry."

Hermione brightened. "Exactly! Harry never could be bothered to learn Occlumency properly, and this is just the solution we needed. I should have thought of it earlier, really."

"Harry won't see it that way."

Hermione bit her lip, hesitating. "…We will have to be very careful, I think," she said slowly. "He could easily see us siding with Scott as a betrayal."

Ginny felt a stab of irritation. "Bollocks, why should we have to tiptoe around him just because he wants to be an unreasonable git?"

"I'm just saying how he might feel. He thinks that scar is his chance to turn things around, and he won't care if that puts him at risk. You know what he's like."

"We aren't siding _with_ Scott; he was wrong not to tell Harry and I still can't believe what he said earlier—"

"He wasn't exactly unprovoked…"

"—As if he has any right to say that," Ginny continued, disregarding Hermione's tentative defence of Scott. "We're using him to fix a problem."

"Harry doesn't see it as a problem. We're going to have to work to convince him. You can be… Well, _convincing_ in ways I can't…" Hermione said delicately.

Ginny's mouth dropped open. "Are you suggesting I bring this up while my tits are in his face?"

Hermione blushed, but said, "If you think that would help."

"Hermione Granger, you are becoming a devious woman. I like it." Ginny's grin faded a bit and she added, "Just don't tell me if you've done the same with my brother."

"I haven't any intention of doing so. Telling you, that is. I might yet put Ron's face—"

"Stop!"

"HEY! SOME OF US ARE TRYING TO SLEEP!" Scott thundered from behind his door.

"Oh, that's rich. He's probably been listening to every word, not sleeping," Hermione said, glaring at the shut door. "Shall we forget who woke everyone in the first place?" she said, raising her voice.

Scott did not reply.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "If only he'd stay quiet. Well, I don't know about you but I'm off to bed. See you in the morning, or whenever you decide to pry yourself off of Harry."

Back in the bedroom, Harry was sound asleep. Ginny was glad, since he needed more rest and she wouldn't have to explain where she'd been. Looking at his face, lax and peaceful in sleep in a way it never had been in waking, she felt a reluctance come over her. Did she really have to side with Scott? Harry didn't need his girlfriend against him when the world was. And even though it was for his own good, he'd had more than enough of people doing things for his own good. The last thing she wanted was to work against him, not when he needed her support so badly.

But equally urgent was her deep overriding terror for the state of his mind. He had to see what a terrible idea going into Tom's head was. He _had _to. She didn't know what she would do if he wouldn't see reason. She would debate with him, plead with him, scream at him… She would cry, even though she knew he didn't like that. Whatever it took to save him from himself.

She crawled onto the bed next to him and placed an arm around his torso, resting her cheek on his shoulder. If she pressed her ear close enough she could hear his heart beat; it was that sound which she followed into sleep.

* * *

><p>Harry awoke feeling more tired than he had when he'd gone to sleep. It took a moment for him to remember why.<p>

Part of it could be attributed to the tumultuous night, but another part was a simple unwillingness to confront the day. He didn't want to get out of bed, because getting out of bed meant having to talk. And having to talk meant having to face what had happened, and, more specifically, what he had said.

He could recall every word, and the echoes of his furious vituperations washed over him in a hot wave of shame.

He hadn't meant to say those things to Scott. Once again, his anger had driven him to lash out at his friends without giving them an opening to share their side of things. Maybe Scott had been deserving of such rage (though whether he had deserved Harry's more pointed comments was another issue), but in the clear light of the morning Harry could process the argument with a clarity that had been lacking in the dark of the night. Scott had never admitted guilt, and he had never been given the chance to explain. What that meant, exactly, remained to be seen. But Harry knew he had let his fury and frustration get the better of him.

Scott's verbal reprisal had been so devastating because it had been true. Harry _had_ got Sirius killed. He _had_ rushed headlong into a trap. It hurt to have it thrown back in his face, but staying angry about it would be a kind of hypocrisy, he thought. Perhaps the whole sorry adventure had served to illustrate what a poor excuse for a leader Harry was; a decidedly second-rate 'Chosen One'. Did Scott hold Harry in contempt? It had certainly sounded like it. Maybe Harry had violated the soldier's creed that Scott adhered to. He was a fuck-up, a liability. A danger to his own comrades.

So he was suffused with guilt, a leaden weight in his chest. But there was still enough anger flickering in the hollow around his heart for him to discount an apology. Scott hadn't outright said that he'd blocked the curse-link; but he hadn't continued to deny it, either.

Scott would get a chance to do both, once Harry could find it in himself to roll out of his sheets.

A warm weight settled on the bed next to him, and the subtle floral fragrance let him know it was Ginny without having to open his eyes. "Harry? Are you awake?" she said quietly.

That was the question. His body said no. His brain knew better, but _wanted _to say no. "…Yeah."

She placed a tentative hand on his shoulder. "How are you feeling?"

"Tired," he said truthfully.

"Still in a strop?"

Her tone was gentle, but the question was direct enough. Harry grimaced into his pillow. "Not at the moment."

"Good. I've got some things to tell you, before you have to see anyone else," she said.

That was interesting enough to make him roll over and look at her. "What do you mean?"

She seemed to be having trouble meeting his eyes. "I talked to Scott last night, after you were asleep."

He understood: she was reluctant to look at him because she was afraid he was going to explode after she admitted to speaking with the 'enemy'. But Harry wasn't angry. He was just knackered. Although, he had to admit it was surprising that Ginny approached Scott for anything less than a duel after what Scott had said about Sirius.

"You just talked?" he asked, wondering how that could have happened without violence.

"I didn't try to kill him, if that's what you're asking," she said with a bit of an edge, obviously not happy with Harry's automatic assessment of her temperament.

"Let me guess: he says he has nothing to do with my scar."

"He said that he did, but—"

Harry sat straight up. "That son of a _b_—"

"—_But_ —_"_ Ginny stressed, pushing her hands against Harry's chest, "—that he didn't do it on purpose!"

Harry almost laughed. "Really? _That's_ the best he can do? What kind of absolute rubbish is that?!"

"I don't know… But Hermione thought it was true."

That brought Harry up short. While there was some form of betrayal implicit in such a revelation, it was also sobering. Hermione was not easily convinced of anything, especially when Scott was involved.

Harry wasn't sure how to deal with that. "…Why?"

"It made sense. To her, anyway, it sounded like a load of nonsense to me," Ginny admitted.

"So you thought he was lying?" Harry said, gratified by her admission.

She dropped her hands from where they had still been resting on his torso. "I think… That Scott has a good reason," she said slowly, her eyes assessing Harry's face.

He couldn't believe her. "Bollocks," he said hotly. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and jumped to his feet. "Where is he? If he's so bloody convincing, he can tell me himself." Before he could move, Ginny reached out and hugged him, pulling him back down to the bed. "Gin!" he protested, though he didn't try too hard to escape her grip.

"Harry, listen to me. I know Scott's been a git, and you have every right to be angry about what happened. But don't ask him to let Tom back into your head," she pleaded.

"I'm not, I'm going into _his_ head if I can. Think of what we could learn!" he enthused, hoping she would see the possibilities. A vision at the right moment could even end the war.

His hopes were dashed when she glared at him, jaw set. "I don't care what we could learn. I care about _you._ And if you think I'm going to just smile and support you while you give Tom another chance at possessing you, you're mental!"

Of course — the Diary. It all came back to the Chamber, and the Diary. Harry's heart sank a little as he considered just how utterly opposed Ginny was going to be to the curse-link. He hadn't thought about it before, but he should have.

He tried to think of a way to bring her back to his side. "It's not really the same as the Diary, he doesn't usually _want_ me to see what he's seeing. It's like spying, not like…"

"Like a two-way connection? Like losing your energy, your mind, entire days? Like giving away parts of yourself you didn't know you wouldn't get back?" She was holding herself so tightly that the muscles of her slender neck stood out in stark relief, and her voice held a quaver that made Harry's heart ache.

He didn't know how to make his case without hurting her. "Ginny…"

"Don't," she forbade him. "Don't try to make me feel better about this."

"I'd be a rubbish boyfriend if I didn't."

"No, you'll be — well, all right, yes, but — you'll be a rubbish boyfriend when you get possessed and turn into Tom! You think I want to date the Dark Lord?"

Harry, extremely aware of Ginny's emotional state, phrased his answer very carefully. "No, of course not. But what I'm trying to say is that, right now, we really need some answers. And there are risks, yeah, but we have to take some if we're going to win."

"No, Harry! You are _not_ going to put your sanity on the line when you don't even know if it will get you anything!"

He leaned away from her, his efforts to curb his own anger beginning to fail. "You knew this would be dangerous, Ginny! You knew what I was getting into, I _told_ you about the Horcruxes and the Prophecy and you _knew_ when I was leaving that I might not ever come back, and you still came with! After I told you you couldn't, remember? So don't tell me I can't take a chance!"

"I bloody well _will_ tell you when you're being stupid!" she shot back.

He stood and towered over her, hands clenched. "This isn't your choice. It's not up for debate. It's my mission and my scar and if I want to try and use it to help us you don't get to tell me I can't!"

She jumped up after him, matching his stance. Her face was flushed with rage, but her eyes betrayed her fear for him. "_Your _mission? You're up your own arse, Harry!"

"I'm serious, this is too important—"

"You listen to me. You _**listen**__,"_ she hissed, and she grabbed the sides of his face and forced him to look her directly in the eyes. "Maybe you're too much of a git to remember that we love you and we are scared to _death_ for you, but, even ignoring that, I am _making _it my decision when you are putting everyone at risk with your stupidity!"

"I'm pretty sure you can handle me if Riddle takes up residence. There's only one of me," Harry scoffed.

"Oh, that's good, I'm so happy you were thinking ahead, but, and here's a thought: _you are a Secret Keeper."_

Harry could almost feel the bottom dropping out of his argument. "I… It probably doesn't work like that…"

"Prove it! _Without_ killing us all!" Ginny spat. "Oh, and in case you've forgotten, the Prophecy says that only **you** can kill Tom. So go ahead and hand the keys to your brain over if you want to kill us all anyway!"

Harry froze, her words splashing across him like ice water. He had been so sure he had found the solution to his persistent problem of information — all he needed was for Scott to fix whatever had been broken. But he had failed to consider the risks to anyone other than himself. Harry could gamble his own health, mental and otherwise. He'd done it before and he would do it again, Ginny's wishes notwithstanding. There just wasn't any way around it.

Placing everyone else's lives and their only safe haven on the line was not a chance he was willing to take.

The fact that Ginny had presented such an insurmountable argument was infuriating. Harry had no riposte. "God! What have I _missed?_ How many visions…"

"How many lies?" Ginny said rhetorically, reminiscent of Scott's cold words.

Harry didn't care for the reminder. "Scott still shouldn't have played with, with my… Fucking, _threads_, fucking whatever," he said stiffly.

"He might have said something, yeah, but it was still good," Ginny told him. "He did you a favour. And if you can't see that, then you haven't grown up as much as I'd thought."

That stung. "Not even going to pretend to take my side, Gin?"

"No, Harry, because this time you're wrong!"

She looked as if she was about to say more, and then stopped. She glanced out the door, looking at something. Harry was just about to move and see what it was when she turned back and fixed him in place with one last scorching glare; the tears in the corners of her eyes didn't detract from its power, they only made it heart-rending. Then she stormed from the room.

He was left with such a bewildering mess of emotions that he didn't know what to try and deal with first. Even his righteous anger towards Scott was no longer a surety.

A shadow fell across the floor. It was Hermione, standing silhouetted in the doorway with her arms crossed. She stepped inside and Ron followed her. "So much for feminine wiles," she muttered.

Harry blinked. "What?"

"Don't concern yourself. How much did she explain?"

"Enough to know you're against me, too," Harry said.

"I most certainly am not!" Hermione objected vociferously. "What I'm against is your foolish plan to make yourself vulnerable again. I don't know exactly what Ginny's told you, but if she hasn't already made it clear why using your link to Riddle is such a terrible, awful idea, then I will be more than happy to do so!"

Harry ignored the offer, looking past her towards Ron. "What about you, mate? Here to tell me I've cracked?"

Ron's eyes darted towards the open door; he plainly wished to be anywhere else but caught between Hermione and Harry. "I barely know what's going on, Harry."

"Come off it. You know what this is about."

Ron sighed. "It's a real chance you're talking, Harry. I know you think you can handle it, and maybe you're right, you know, but… If it goes wrong, then that's it, yeah?"

Harry was being forced to face the possibilities inherent in his decision to use the link. And not just the possibilities that had encouraged him to confront Scott in the first place. He wasn't feeling all that reasonable, but when everyone closest to him was declaring that he was risking too much, one after the other, and using damning logic in the process… He was self-aware enough in that moment to realise that much of his anger was springing from resentment. He resented the lack of blind support from his friends, he resented the logic being thrown at him, and he resented having to question his own recklessness. He'd rarely second-guessed himself in the past and it had generally worked out well enough.

It hadn't worked out too well for Sirius, though.

"So Scott mucking about in the shape… I am supposed to just let that go?" Harry said, already feeling defeated.

Hermione shook her head. "Of course not! You should demand a thorough explanation, you deserve one. Severing the link was definitely for the best and is, without reservation, an enormous relief, but he should have at least said something."

"He'd have done it anyway, even if I said no," Harry muttered.

"I really can't say what he might have done at the time. Now, yes — Ginny made a rather excellent point regarding your status as a Secret Keeper."

"Yeah, that's me. I never think of anything and I'm too bloody reckless!" Harry said loudly.

"Harry, please. I would be the first to admit that the link has _some_ merit as a weapon, and might even tell us something vital. _However,"_ she stressed, "the risks are too great. It's as simple as that, risk versus reward. The 'rewards' are nebulous at best and the risks are extreme."

Perversely, it was more acceptable to Harry's mind to hear such an impersonal assessment of the curse-link. Otherwise he was left with the thought that perhaps his friends' desire to see him safe was interfering with their accepting that danger was inevitable and often necessary. Hermione was making it clear that the link was not logistically viable.

And as much as Harry wanted to argue, he didn't have a counterpoint besides, 'but it might work'.

"…I get it," he said finally. "I'm outvoted."

"It's for the best," Hermione said gently.

"Right," he said shortly. He was too stubborn to be totally convinced, but it was obvious he wasn't going to get what he wanted for the time being. "Now where's Scott?"

"Kitchen, I think," Ron volunteered.

"That'll do," Harry said grimly, and pushed past Hermione on his way out the door.

"Try to keep your head!" Hermione said, hurrying along behind him.

"Have I been shouting at you? I must have missed that."

"No, but you're hardly calm! Will you wait—" She caught him by the arm at the top of the steps. "Harry!"

He pulled out of her grasp. "What?" he said impatiently.

"You're going to start all over again, that's what! You're going to storm down there and start yelling and we'll be right back where we started!"

Harry leaned around her and looked at Ron. "Could you get your girlfriend off my back?"

"No, because she's right," Ron said almost apologetically. "If you don't settle things with Scott, mate, we're never going to get anything done — and we've got a fuck load to get done."

"Ron!" Hermione hissed, slapping the back of her hand against his chest.

"Oi! Whatever," Ron scoffed. "It's just a word, get over it."

"It's a word you shouldn't be saying!"

"Is this really the time to act like my mum?"

"I wouldn't have to if I weren't surrounded by rude boys that think swearing makes them sound cool!"

Harry took the distraction offered by their argument and hurried down the stairs. There was a clatter of pots and pans emanating from the kitchen, and when he walked into the room he saw Sophie on her knees in front of the cupboards, apparently in the midst of rearranging things. Kylie was helping her by stacking the various utensils in piles while Ginny sorted out the silverware. Scott was standing over them, either supervising or adding nothing to the proceedings (same difference).

"Scott," Harry said, gaining the man's attention. Scott's face lost the open look it had held while he'd been watching the girls and became unreadable. "We should talk."

"Can we keep it civil?" Scott asked, inclining his head towards Kylie.

"Time for a break!" Sophie declared before Harry could reply. She set down the kettle she had been holding and stood, steering Kylie towards the stairs. "Please try not to shout," she said quietly to Harry as she passed.

Ginny did not leave; she moved to stand just behind Harry's shoulder in silent support. Scott watched her with what looked like amusement. Harry was just grateful that she had forgiven him so quickly — though that might not last, depending on what he said next.

"So, my scar." Harry rubbed at it. "Are you going to tell me what happened?"

Scott said nothing for a moment, clearly assessing Harry's disposition. "I can tell you what I think happened."

That wasn't what Harry wanted to hear, but he said, "All right."

Scott explained that threads were not always easy to differentiate within the shape, especially if they were extant but not active. He had repeatedly blocked what he considered to be the Trace under the assumption that the Ministry might be tracking Harry through it (and the way Scott described the Trace, it actually sounded similar in working to the Taboo). But ultimately, after trial and error, Scott had discovered that the Trace was always working even though the wards around Hogwarts prevented it from going anywhere. He had ceased meddling with the tracking spell.

"The thing I still don't understand is why you haven't had any visions since then. If Riddle is broadcasting from his terminus in conjunction, even unconsciously, then I don't see why it wouldn't re-grow or resume. The Trace works in pulse traffic, so if I chopped at a signal the carrier should still be there, if damaged, which… What if there was sympathetic resonance? Damage done in echo is still cumulative if it exceeds the rate of repair through resumption…"

Scott was getting a bit technical. "Dumb it down for me, mate," Harry said.

"I don't know why you haven't seen anything from Riddle, especially now that the Trace is gone. But I'm working on it."

"All right, well… Don't try too hard," Harry grumbled. "I've been outvoted."

"Let you know they prefer you un-possessed, did they," Scott said with a smirk.

"Don't look so proud of yourself. You didn't even know what you were doing."

"No, but it seems to have worked out, at least for now. And, Ginny had a pretty good point about the Fidelius. It's in our best interests to keep your thoughts to yourself."

"But think about what we're giving up," Harry said, making one last attempt to get someone to agree with him. He pretended he didn't hear Ginny's sharp intake of breath behind him. "We've been stuck here without a single sodding idea what to do next. What if I could find out?"

"Man, if it were just me, you might have a chance at convincing me," Scott said. "God knows it's tempting. And if it worked, it would be an intelligence goldmine. But that's a _huge_ 'if'. You're asking to put our entire operation, personnel and all, on the line for a long shot. You can't even give me a clear picture of the odds."

"…I don't usually think about that," Harry reluctantly admitted.

Scott shrugged. "And that's not a bad instinct when you're up against the wall. I don't know your combat history like Ron and Hermione, but I do know you're good on your feet and take chances when the moment comes. Thing is… this isn't one of those moments."

It was true. Many times in the past, Harry had defied the odds and taken extreme chances; retreat didn't seem to be his style. But there was a gulf between reacting in the heat of battle and planning a war. He had responsibilities, an 'operation', as Scott had put it. There were people counting on him, an entire war effort depending on the actions of the makeshift team he was now a part of.

Harry mentally pledged that, in the future, he would do a better job of remembering that.

"I guess it isn't," he said.

"Also, if I'm going to be honest… Hermione told me the curse-link was a bad idea. And when Hermione tells me something magical is a bad idea, I tend to listen," Scott said.

Harry had to smile at that. "Smart of you. I wish I had listened more, my marks would be better."

"Nobody mention this to her, all right? We'll never hear the end of it, seriously," Ginny cautioned.

"Like she doesn't know," Scott said.

Harry took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Scott… We'll keep Riddle blocked, then, but… Let me know if anything changes. Or if you change it."

Scott nodded. "Yeah, definitely. I wish I knew how it works."

"Doesn't really matter for now, looks like. That's that," Harry said, and he couldn't quite suppress the irritation that came from having to let the whole idea drop. Maturity was hard. "Let's get everyone together for supper tonight. We need to talk about Horcruxes again; we have to do _something."_

"Agreed. If we can't locate a military target, maybe we can put together something for reconnaissance."

Harry left the kitchen to go and get dressed (he'd never put any socks on and the stone floor was cold). Ron and Hermione's door was closed — they must have ended their argument in the usual fashion.

Ginny sat on the bed next to him while he dug a pair of socks out of his trunk. "Thank you for listening," she said warmly.

"Didn't have much choice, did I?" he said, though not with any ire. "I was wrong."

"We'll find another way. It'll all work out," she said optimistically.

Harry had never been good at optimism. "We'll see."

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

I was amused by the comments last chapter hoping for Scott's swift return to action. He's been a tertiary presence in chapters before, but I can't remember if there's been a previous chapter in which he made no appearance at all, save for a few mentions by others. In most fanfictions, the disappearance of an OC is cause for relief. I get rid of mine for awhile and people ask after him, which is heartening.

Remus was curious about Scott and wanted to talk to him, which necessitated a few mentions, but I tried to keep it down. Any time someone talked about Scott without him being there, all I could think was, "Whenever Poochie's not onscreen, all the other characters should be asking, 'Where's Poochie?'" Which reminds me, I need to rastafy Scott by about ten percent.


	19. For Your Information

**19**

**For Your Information**

* * *

><p><em>Wilt thou speak now, O guarded youth?<br>Thy lips dost bloom with tongues and truth.  
>Cast loose the ripened, press the wine<br>lest thy words wither on the vine.  
><em>

—Susanna B. Aether, _Still Lost, Constantia_  
>(Verse VIII: lines 23 - 26)<p>

* * *

><p>Harry took another bite of his sandwich, resting his elbows on the table and looking at nothing in particular. "So the Trace is kind of like the Taboo."<p>

"Sort of," Scott said. "The Taboo isn't a constant connection; it just seems to be able to find you, somehow, like owls do. Did Hermione ever tell you about the time she came to find me on top of the Astronomy Tower?"

"I don't think so."

"Dumbledore helped her. He sent this weird floating blue orb to find me. At the time, I thought it made a connection and followed the thread, which is how I think the owls work. I thought it just happened really fast. But now… Now I think it was following a strand that was already there. I think Hogwarts tracks everyone within the walls, all the time. And I think your map taps into that."

It made sense. The Map itself was complicated, but didn't seem to be especially powerful. Harry wondered how his father and the other Marauders had managed to unravel that particular Hogwarts secret. "But the Trace is different because it's always there."

Scott dropped the bit of crust he had been gnawing on back onto his plate. "Right. I can't break the Taboo because it doesn't exist until the moment of broadcast. Except, that doesn't make sense. In order for you to broadcast in the first place you need a medium, you don't have a carrier. Unless it's omnidirectional, and amplified at the receiving end… Which would really be something else, that's verging on Kharadjai tech…"

"But is the Trace really fast like the Taboo?"

"It's fast, but not as fast. Still fast, though, yes."

"So how did you catch it that day on the playground?"

"You know I would love to claim it was by virtue of my tremendous talent. I can't, though, it was sheer luck. I had already been examining your threads very closely when Tonks opened up on me, and when the Trace pulsed I was knocking out magical connections to you in case they were a form of attack."

Harry rolled his eyes. "So you just stopped the Trace by accident. And probably my curse-link with it. Again."

"You know, I might have at that," Scott said agreeably.

"Obviously, Riddle never had a chance of reaching me with you around."

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

The two of them were lingering over a late lunch after a productive training session with the others. Scott had been teaching them how to divide themselves for suppression and flanking, which was a bit difficult in the limited space they had. But they had made progress. It was encouraging to see how much better everyone moved and fought as a team with just a little proper instruction. They had learned a lot at Hogwarts, but small unit tactics and coherency hadn't been on the curriculum.

Scott's attempts to teach them standard Third Army hand signals had been less successful. The basics weren't all that difficult to remember, but once Scott started getting into the distinctions between command and subordinate gestures, as well as what seemed like a million different motions for unique enemy signatures and weapons (most of which didn't even exist in Harry's world), confusion set in. There was theoretically a difference between the gesture for a stationary sentry and a mobile one, but Harry couldn't remember what it was.

Harry had also taken Scott's words outside of the Timous Manor to heart, and had been trying to increase the number of spells he could cast nonverbally. It was much more difficult than he had hoped, though he supposed he should have expected that after his poor results during Snape's lesson. Harry didn't know if he was just naturally bad at nonverbal casting or if it took the kind of time to learn that he didn't have. He made a mental note to ask Remus in their next letter.

Thus far he had managed to nonverbally cast the Severing Charm consistently, and made fair progress with the Banishing Charm. He had been disappointed to note that the spells he did manage to cast without speaking had all been considerably weaker than their shouted variant, with the sole exception of his _Expelliarmus._ That spell, at least, produced equivalent results.

He drew his wand underneath the table and tried a Summoning Charm on Scott.

Scott's eyebrows shot up and he glanced down at his left armpit as the handgun beneath his button-up flannel shirt protruded against the fabric, vibrating wildly. "What is it, little guy? Is it feeding time?"

"Not much fun when you've got it all strapped in there," Harry said, disappointed that the weapon hadn't flown towards him.

"That was a good one, though. Last time you _Accio'd_ my shit I barely felt it."

"There's a bit of a knack."

"And what's that?" Scott said somewhat disinterestedly.

Harry held his wand up to the light. "I don't know… Sometimes I just do better…"

"Well, that makes one of us." Scott pushed away from the table. "At least I don't have Flitwick riding me any more."

"Where's your wand, anyway?" Harry asked.

Scott reached up into his sleeve and yanked his wand out with an odd 'click', as if it had been fastened to something. Harry noted that it had not been well taken care of. "Just in case."

"Where'd you get it? Maybe they made a mistake and it's not right for you." Harry had never heard of anything like that happening, but surely it was a possibility.

Scott shrugged. "I stole it."

"From who?"

"From the shop."

Harry stared at him. "Are you daft? Don't you know anything about wandlore?"

"Yeah, sure, because we built the Republic by waving sticks at each other, _Harry._ The only wood in the army is the erection Halsey gets when he orders you dusted from orbit!"

"Whatever, but—"

"Try doing some belt mining, maybe, all this wood and stone was a great look a couple centuries ago. You might discover a few things, like alloys and high-contact ceramics and superconductors—"

"Yes, you hate the wizarding world, I get it!"

"'Hate' is a strong word, Harry."

"How do you spend a year at Hogwarts without knowing you should have gone to a wandmaker? Honestly…"

"I went to Ollivander's! He's supposed to be the best, right, that's all I fucking heard at school, Ollivander, Ollivander, Ollivander, everyone has wands from fucking Ollivander!"

"Yeah, because he's popular around here, but all those people actually had him find the proper wand! The wand chooses the wizard, mate. It could be a big part of your problems."

"Then where did all the first-years get their wands?"

"I don't know… I got mine at Ollivander's."

Scott threw his head back and sighed. "Ollivander was gone, I needed a wand, I took one. It didn't work well, but it worked sometimes and now who cares?"

Harry didn't think that was a wise attitude. "All this training you've been doing with us for fighting without magic, and you ask me that? If we might have to survive without a wand, what makes you think you'll always have a gun?"

"The fact that I'd be better off sharpening this thing to a point and putting it through someone's eye. It takes me too long to put a spell together to bother with it, and that was in a classroom setting."

"But having a good wand could make it a lot easier. You won't know until you try it."

"Again, there's this little problem of supply…"

"Ask Kylie where she got hers," Harry suggested.

"Maybe I'll look into it. Hell, I guess I could write Trevor if Kylie can't help me." Scott leaned forward in his chair, bringing the front legs back down with a loud clack on the stone floor. "Which reminds me: do you have any more of those owl treats? Hedwig was looking to me earlier and they were all gone."

"I'll check my trunk. Or you can ask Hermione if she has any in her handbag."

After leaving the kitchen they ran into Ginny on the ground floor as she was coming from the upper storeys. Her hair swung heavily, weighted downwards with damp, and it was obvious she had just finished with the shower.

"Ginnaaaayyyy," Scott said by way of greeting. "Was struck by a thought — do you ever reflect on the irony inherent in you dumping Dean because he was too condescending and overprotective, but fighting tooth and nail to stay with Harry even though he tried to _leave_ you for reasons both condescending and overprotective?"

"Yeah, constantly. I spend all my free time reflecting on the irony," Ginny said without missing a beat.

"There's something about him, obviously," Scott mused. "Something that made you persevere through behaviour you wouldn't begin to tolerate from anyone else."

"She tolerates that from me? This is news," Harry said dryly.

"Shut it, you big blond pillock," Ginny told Scott. "Harry, are you going to the training room? I'd like another go with your gun."

"Is that what the kids are calling it these days?" Scott wondered.

"Maybe later. I'm about to go sort out my trunk, I've been putting it off," Harry explained.

Scott couldn't take a hint. "And then are you going to sort out _her_ trunk?"

"What does that even mean?"

"I don't know. Something to do with anal, I guess…?"

"Why don't you go sort out your innuendo? Come on, Gin," Harry said, taking her hand and leading her back up the steps.

"What if I don't want to help sort your rubbish?" she complained.

"Yeah, you do. It'll be fun, somehow."

The light up in their room had never been very good, so Harry set his lit wand on top of the trunk lid once it was open. He surveyed the piles inside with great reluctance; Ginny's description of it being 'rubbish' hadn't been far from the truth. The last time he'd taken a good look into his trunk had been sometime before the wedding, he couldn't remember exactly when. The night they had crept back into The Burrow he hadn't done much more than push everything aside in search of the suitcase.

He started digging into the right side of the trunk while Ginny picked through the left with a more delicate touch. The first thing he set aside was the mokeskin pouch gifted by Hagrid — dead useful, from the sound of it. It wasn't as big internally as Hermione's handbag, but as only he could take anything out once it was placed inside, he needed to start using it for certain valuables.

On top of the pile was a package of Chocolate Cauldrons — he checked the wrapping and noted they were quite old, so he tossed them into the bin. His Quidditch robes had somehow become jumbled up with a bunch of the jumpers from Mrs. Weasley and his dress robes, no doubt during transit. He spent a moment trying to separate them before giving up and placing the tangled ball on the floor, along with several pairs of socks that he hoped were clean (the odds weren't good).

It looked like most of the school books were on Ginny's side. No owl treats so far… He found the handle of the ruined penknife Sirius had given him. After a moment's sad contemplation, he placed it back. Below a stack of Transfiguration homework (with average marks at best, he noted with chagrin) was the shiny new cover concealing the old contents of the half-blood prince's Potions book. He held it in his hands, considering it. It was another unsolved mystery in a school full of them. But it had been surpassingly useful — perhaps Hermione might make use of its secrets.

Several boxes of Chocolate Frogs well past their expiration. A piece of parchment he didn't recognise until he flipped it over and saw Scott's mid-DADA work of art, an inked drawing of Ron and Hermione K-I-S-S-I-N-G in a tree (according to the messy caption). Harry had no idea how he'd come into possession of it, but it was highly amusing. He'd have to tack it to a wall somewhere. A scrap of paper with his name on it, spat out by the Goblet of Fire (he remembered Fred giving it to him, who knew where the twins had found it). Still no owl treats.

Spello-tape, the miniature model of a Hungarian Horntail (no longer moving), a Grow-Your-Own-Warts kit. Various correspondence, including some of the notes Dumbledore had sent the previous year. His old Sneakoscope, calmingly silent. An Exploding Snap deck. A load of mementos and just plain rubbish had sifted to the bottom, a layer of messy detritus. Mostly Chocolate Frog cards, loose threads, and dust.

He was distracted from delving into the bottom layer when Ginny spoke. "Found some owl treats," she said, tossing the package to him. "Where'd you get this Firebolt model? That's really detailed."

"Tonks gave that to me for Christmas fifth year. I was missing my real one."

"At least you still have it. The real one, I mean. I still can't believe that mad bitch banned you for life like that."

Harry shrugged, no longer particularly bitter about it. The scars on his hand led to far worse memories of Umbridge. "It got you on the team, didn't it? I'd say that's a silver lining if there ever was one."

"I suppose… I prefer playing _with_ you, though." She lifted up a thick stack of books. "Oof. Why didn't you resell these? That's what Mum always… Hang on, what's this?"

Harry peered down with mild curiosity, only to freeze when he saw the object of her attention. He knew exactly what it was and he'd completely forgotten he had it.

"Harry… Is this…" She lifted out a faded card, pressed thin from the weight of the tomes. It cracked a bit when she opened it, stuck together, but otherwise it was in good condition.

Harry could already feel his cheeks burning. The singing get-well card she had given him in third year was at least blessedly silent. He wasn't quite sure why he was embarrassed — at the vivid remembrance of what had been a painfully awkward moment, or at the sentimentality implied in his possession of the card? Perhaps both.

"Why do you have this?" she said quietly, not looking at him.

"Because you gave it to me," he said honestly.

At that point in his life, and even years later, he hadn't received so many cards or so many _anythings_ that he just tossed them aside. As difficult as it had been for his thirteen-year-old self to accept a shrilly singing card from a blushing, infatuated girl, the fact was that she had come to the hospital wing to give it to him. The idea that someone cared felt new to him, then. Sometimes it still did.

She looked at him, eyes soft. "You didn't have to be so kind to me, when I was silly."

Harry wanted to shrug it off but he was utterly caught in her gaze. "I… You weren't silly, you were… You were _you_, you were…" He was struggling to find the phrasing. "You were there for me, and… I wasn't ready. I'm sorry."

She pressed her fingertips to his lips and rolled her eyes. "Harry, are you really apologising for not falling in love with me when you were thirteen?"

"…No? Yes? I mean, I could have at least handled it better…"

"How?" she scoffed. "By pretending? Even back then I would have resented it, eventually. Besides, even if you'd just kissed me on the cheek, I wouldn't have been able to be in the same room with you for a month."

Harry had been a bit slower to notice girls than some of his other friends, and, given his history with the opposite sex, he had to admit it was unlikely his third-year self could have done better. But the actions of the past were always difficult to correlate to present knowledge, and he was still troubled by the thought that if he had done something, given her even a fraction more of the attention she'd craved, the Chamber might have been avoided.

"…I don't know," he muttered. "It was what you wanted. I should have at least tried to give you that."

"What I wanted was to close-mouthed kiss Harry Potter, marry him, and then what happened after that was a bit vague," she said with a half-smile.

"Well, we got the first part taken care of," he said, returning her grin.

"And a bit extra," she said, eyeing his mouth. "But we already talked about this, remember? I regret all sorts of things about it, I wish I had done so much differently, I wish… God, I wish I had just asked you to the Yule Ball. Before that I couldn't even talk to you, so… That's the point where things could have been different if I'd just used some of that Weasley courage."

"Or if I'd not had my head up my arse."

"Up Cho Chang's arse, anyway, that bint," Ginny laughed, though there was a definite edge to it.

Harry made a mental note to avoid bringing up Cho in conversation even more fervently than he had been. Obviously, rivalries — even one-sided rivalries — formed that early didn't easily fade away.

"Are you going to keep it, or put it back?" Harry said, nodding towards the card.

"I'm not going to take it! It's your gift, after all," Ginny said sweetly, and she placed it back where she had found it.

Back to the rubbish. Harry picked up something that looked a lot like one of Crookshanks' hairballs and swiftly deposited it in the bin. There were a few stray Every Flavour Beans that needed to go, as well. He picked at one with his fingernail; it was hard as a rock. He was lifting up another bundled, dusty jumper when a flash of light caught his eye. There, against the back of the trunk, was a reflective surface.

His heart constricted as he gently took the hand mirror from where it had slid down between his belongings and the back wall. He hadn't thought of the mirror Sirius had given him in some time. He didn't even know where the other one was.

A wild, uncontrollable thought surged through him: what if Sirius had the other mirror still with him? What if he had taken it through the Veil? What would that mean? If Harry used it, and received an answer…

Harry held up the mirror in slightly shaking hands. "…Hello?" he said, his breath fogging the glass. "Is anyone there? Hello?"

Nothing. He waited a few more seconds, peripherally aware of Ginny watching him with open concern. But Sirius did not answer. He really was gone.

Irrational anger came over Harry like a sudden storm. He had been, if not accepting, then at least resigned to Sirius' death. And then he'd stumbled across this stupid, worthless mirror and been sucked into the inevitable disappointment that came with his insane burst of hope. Furious, he lifted the mirror over his head, intent on smashing it the way it had just smashed him.

"Harry?"

A man's voice. Harry went stock-still for a moment until his brain caught up and realised it wasn't Sirius' voice. He lowered the mirror and looked over his shoulder towards the door. "What, Scott?!" he barked, still angry.

Scott wasn't there. "Harry? I heard you from this thing. Harry, come back."

Harry looked down into the mirror to see Scott's sharp grey eyes gazing back at him. "Scott?"

"There you are," Scott said. He moved his head around, apparently studying the mirror's frame, and giving Harry a rather unfortunate view up his nostrils. "So, I don't know why you didn't tell me you had a mirror communication system, but this is exactly the kind of magic junk I need to hear about."

"I forgot I even had this. Where are you?"

"The Motorcycle Room." The image shifted as Scott lifted the mirror from wherever it had been sitting. "Can you still see when I'm moving?"

"Yeah. Works fine."

"No latency that I can tell, though that might not hold up over real distance. We need to give these to Hermione."

Harry didn't want to part with his mirror (despite having been ready to smash it moments before). "Why bother, your radio works just as well, and we don't have to hold it."

"But it won't work everywhere. Maybe this won't, either, but it's nice to have options. Let's at least see what she can tell us."

When they approached Hermione, she looked a bit put out that her research had been interrupted, but quickly became immersed in the magic of the mirrors. She placed them side by side on her bed and tapped them in turn with her wand, watching as the action was broadcast. It was disorienting to see the two mirrors reflecting the vantage of their opposite.

"I believe this may be a variation on the Protean Charm," Hermione said. "It's a very malleable bit of magic, you can do all sorts of things with it. This is more complex than anything I've seen so far…"

"Modification, duplication; is that feasible?" Scott said.

"Feasible, yes. Guaranteed, no. Our DA coins were attuned to a master, a 'server', if you will, which filtered down to the rest. These mirrors are working in tandem, neither controlling the other, reflecting changes made to one and then in turn… Quite impressive that they're sensitive enough to copy light and sound, that's a much greater breadth of information than numbers on a coin."

"You're almost talking about this in telecommunications terms, fidelity and bandwidth," Scott noted.

"Same concept, different methods… It's often said by wizards that Muggles use their technology to compensate for their lack of magic and accomplish the same things."

"And typically failing to comprehend just how far they've been surpassed in so many of those things."

"Yes, we're all aware you're a techno-supremacist," Hermione said tartly. "I'll work on these and see what I can do. Sophie might speed things along, if she's available."

"I think she's cleaning the bathrooms again. I'm a little worried she's becoming obsessive."

"There's nothing wrong with promoting cleanliness."

"And it saves us the trouble," Ron added.

Scott went off to find Sophie and, before Hermione could become completely absorbed in her work, Harry made sure to mention the meeting he had planned. "Everyone be around for supper tonight?"

"Where else would we be?" Ron said.

"You know what I mean. We need to talk Horcruxes. We've been stuck too long."

Ron looked around the room with aversion. "Yeah. Getting a bit sick of it, really. Like that summer all over again."

"I know you two are eager to do something, but let's not be too hasty," Hermione cautioned. "Our circumstances, while dull, are still a sight better than dodging curses."

Harry shifted impatiently. "We can't keep sitting here, this is taking too long—"

"I'm doing my best!" Hermione cried.

"I wasn't blaming you! I… I just want us to talk about it."

"All right, we will," Hermione said stiffly, obviously wounded by the implication that she had failed to provide the next step.

Harry sighed. "Okay, I'll see you at supper."

When Harry left to return downstairs, Ron went with him. Harry made sure to shut the door behind them on the way out; Hermione tended to become annoyed with footsteps in the hallway when she was working, much like she had in the library. At least at Grimmauld Place she didn't have Pince to provide additional noise suppression. Harry grinned when he thought of Scott's clashes with the Hogwarts librarian — his intense dislike of the woman had been entirely mutual.

"What's so funny?" Ron asked.

"Thinking about Pince and Scott."

Ron immediately wore an answering smile. "Hey, remember when he took out those big bloody books with the letters on them?"

Harry remembered very well. Scott had removed several reference books from their proper places and relocated them to an empty shelf used for temporary sorting. The volumes were arranged according to the alphabet, and he had set them so that the spines spelled 'P-E-N-I-S'. When Ron had critically suggested that 'bollocks' would have been more apropos, considering the medium, Scott had defended himself by pointing out the limitation of one unique book per letter.

They had left before the fruits of Scott's labour were discovered, but by all accounts Pince had been on the warpath for about a week.

At the bottom of the staircase there were noises emanating from the kitchen that sounded a lot like dishes being organised. Harry and Ron wisely decided on the training room as their destination, not wanting to get conscripted into Sophie's latest home improvement project. Inside the dusty, spell-scarred interior, Scott was throwing lightning punches at a dummy made primarily of pillows. He was standing back too far for his hits to really connect, likely a measure to preserve the slapdash construct, which was not built to withstand punishment from a Primare.

"You look like Dudley," Harry remarked as he watched Scott perform the same kind of boxing moves he had seen his cousin practice. The comparison was not quite accurate, as Dudley had performed the same motions at about a fifth of the speed and with none of the grace.

"Who?" Scott said, not pausing.

"Dudley. My cousin, the bloke you decked for no reason."

Ron looked delighted. "Aw, and I missed it!"

"Oh, that guy." Scott hopped away from the crude mannequin and pivoted at the waist, stretching. "Fuckin' chav."

"You what?" Harry said, taken aback. "What do you know about chavs?"

"You act like I've never been in jolly ol' England before. I know a chav when I see one." Scott kicked out, getting a decent puff of feathers for his effort. "The chain and the track pants were an especially nice touch."

"Yeah, well, Dudders' sense of style took a bad turn once Aunt Petunia stopped dressing him. Which, you would think was impossible…"

Ron sighed. "I wish I knew what you were on about, because it sounds fantastic."

"It sort of was," Harry agreed.

"I'll say this for the kid — he can take a punch. He was up and walking away sooner than I expected," Scott said.

"That's good for him, since he's so punchable. He might get more out of life."

"Really, _really_ lost," Ron reiterated.

Scott dropped his hands and assessed the dummy. "I gotta stop using this thing. It's the only one we have. So — what did Hermione say about the meeting?"

Harry didn't know why Scott was asking — it wasn't like anyone had better places to be. "She'll be there."

"Ginny?"

"Not sure where she is, actually…" Harry assumed she was spending some time alone, a rare commodity at Grimmauld. But since he hadn't actually seen her in a fair amount of time, distant klaxons began blaring in the back of his mind. "I'd better go see if I can find her."

"She hasn't left the building," Scott said. From anyone else it would have sounded like bland reassurance, but he likely knew for certain.

"Right. I was just saying."

Scott turned away to inspect the mattresses and Ron leaned in closer to Harry. "All right, mate?" he said, looking at Harry a bit askance.

Harry forced himself to relax. "Yeah. Overreacting."

"What, you?"

"Stuff it. Scott, you told Sophie that Hermione wants to see her, right?"

Scott waved him off. "Yeah, yeah. She's going up once she's done with whatever she's doing. Something with plates, I don't know."

"She'll have to let me borrow one, because I'm starving," Ron declared. He turned to Harry. "Coming?"

"Nah, I'm not hungry. You go ahead."

"Suit yourself. Just don't go shouting at me when all the crisps are gone — you had your chance," Ron said, walking out of the room.

"You don't have to eat _all _of them!" Harry yelled after him.

He loitered around the training room after Ron left, sort of hoping Scott would start practising again. Just watching didn't teach much, especially when Scott did everything so quickly it was hard to see the specifics. But it was always interesting and even a bit inspiring. Wands weren't the only way to survive. Harry wanted to remember that.

Unfortunately, Scott seemed to be doing nothing but stretches, which was boring. Harry started thinking about getting down to the kitchen before all the crisps really were gone. Hungry or not, he still wanted his share.

"You've been spending a lot of time with Ginny," Scott said suddenly, as if that was somehow a meaningful observation. Harry had a very short list of available people to spend time with, and Ginny was at the top of that list.

"Is this jealousy? Should I try to be sensitive?"

"Oh, don't spare my feelings."

Harry sighed. "It's great, you know? With her I feel like… I just forget. I don't have to think about things, I can imagine a future, going places with her… or whatever. Then something else happens and I wake up. And I remember it doesn't matter what I want, because I have to fight a Dark Lord and I'm not going to live long enough to really be with Gin the way I want to."

"Agree to disagree. Even so, you can still get laid _before_ that."

Harry didn't have a response for that, mostly because he really wished it was true. "I hope you have some ideas about Horcruxes for tonight. Because I don't."

"Really." Scott sounded unconvinced. "All this time and you haven't thought of a single thing."

Harry inclined his head in acknowledgement; he'd been exaggerating. "The snake. It already came after us once. Maybe we can find it again."

"The problem with the snake is that it's a pet. Riddle will miss it."

"I know!" Harry nearly shouted, instantly exasperated. He caught himself and said, more evenly, "I know, yeah. But it's got to be luck that he hasn't noticed already, right? I mean, how long can we expect to go before he checks on at least one of them?"

"We can't do anything about that. If it happens, it happens, but it doesn't seem like he watches his Horcruxes very closely. Between all the traps and the fact that the damn things do a pretty good job of protecting themselves, I guess he figures he doesn't have to."

"Cross your fingers, then," Harry said. There wasn't much else to do but pray. That, and try to finish the war before Riddle found the time to check on his things.

To that end, the entire group convened that night in the kitchen. The meal was a fairly boisterous affair, which was heartening. It always made Harry feel better when everyone could escape the pressure and the gloom long enough to enjoy themselves. Scott entertained Hermione and Kylie with a predictably outrageous (and quite possibly fabricated) tale from his past, while Sophie looked on in amusement. Harry, Ron and Ginny had an in-depth Quidditch conversation for the first time in what felt like ages. Harry even managed to speculate on their seventh-year team composition and strategy without succumbing to regret.

It was all over too soon. With the remains of their repast still littering the table, Harry took it upon himself to turn the discourse towards the most pressing issue.

He stood, gaining everyone's attention. "That was brilliant; thanks for popping out to get it, Sophie, we all owe you a few quid," he said. "All right… I've been thinking, and we can't keep sitting around here hoping something will just turn up. We're down to the Cup, the snake, and something of Ravenclaw's. So let's go with that. We need a place to start looking."

Hermione was rigid in her seat; chin raised and face pale, she began, "I would like to apologise for my failure to—"

"What? Failure?" Ron broke in, face incredulous. "Bloody hell, woman, you've been working your arse off over this!"

She flushed. "My efforts don't mean much when I haven't been able to—"

"This is not an inquisition," Scott said evenly, cutting her off once again. "This is not a pity party. We tried the books we have, and if you couldn't find anything then the rest of us sure as shit aren't going to. It's probably not there to find."

"So we move on," Harry said.

"Very well," Hermione said, subdued. Harry couldn't tell if she was convinced that the limits of her research had been reached, or if she still felt crushed by the perception that she had failed her friends in the same way her books had failed her.

"Now, we know about the snake. But even if we can find the damn thing again, Riddle is going to miss it once it's gone. So the snake probably has to be last." Harry frowned. "That leaves us with the Cup and a Ravenclaw object."

"Can you fill me in on this Cup again?" Scott requested. "What did Dumbledore say about it?"

Harry quickly ran through what little he knew of the Cup, how it had been owned by Hepzibah Smith and then stolen by Riddle after he murdered her. "That's all we know. It could be anywhere."

"It won't be, though, just anywhere," Hermione said. "He's consistently chosen hiding places that are important to him."

Scott ran his fingers over his short stubble, staring off into space. "He's compulsive. Narcissistic and compulsive, he could have used anything to make a Horcrux, right? He could have used anything and left it anywhere. Use a rock and bury it a hundred feet down in a random field. There'd be a friggin' strip mall over it by now, we wouldn't be able to find it even if he told us where to look."

Harry was very glad that Scott hadn't been offering Voldemort any advice. "So he's arrogant, that's good for us."

"Absolutely. I'm just trying to understand him."

"We may not know as much as Dumbledore but, thanks to Harry, we know quite a bit," Hermione continued. "It's a question of choosing some areas of interest."

"Hogwarts!" Ginny supplied. "He went there, same as us. Tom would have liked to get one over on Dumbledore, too."

"Borgin and Burkes, since he worked there," Harry said. "Um… His father's house, maybe. Where he got his body back. And maybe somewhere in Albania…"

"Your cottage in the Hollow, Harry," Ron said. "Though I guess you didn't see anything when you were there."

"No, nothing," Harry said, although he never had reached into that still water in the baby's cot… But anyone could have run into a Horcrux there.

Hermione pursed her lips. "I don't know if he would want to commemorate a _defeat_ in that way. Albania worries me — I'd rather us not have to take such a trip. Do you know if he spent time there before he lost his corporeal form?"

"I have no idea," Harry admitted. "He went back there again after first year, though, didn't he? There must be something about the place…"

"He's not Albanian, that's the thing. The placement of the other Horcruxes suggests he likes to keep them closer to home than that." Hermione worried at her lower lip. "Oh, I wish we could be more certain. I would hate for us to waste time going all the way over there for nothing…"

Scott was still deep in thought, his voice slow and a bit vague. "I don't get these Horcrux things. They seem like a real Hail Mary. I mean, he spends a decade floating around down there, and the only reason he comes back is because someone went looking for him. He wasn't self-sufficient; he was just really, _really_ lucky. Think about those percentages. Those are not friendly odds. There could be a thousand other Dark wizards with Horcruxes haunting every forest from here to Tibet, waiting for someone to remember they exist, for decades, centuries, maybe longer."

"Still better than snuffing it for real, I guess…?" Ron said, not sounding convinced of that.

"I don't see how. Anywhere else? Just get all the ideas out there, who cares if it's daft," Harry said.

"Well…" Ginny said slowly, "Tom gave his Diary to Lucius Malfoy… I don't know if he'd repeat it, since it was lost and all, but it's something to think about."

"That's a good point," Harry said. Not an _encouraging_ one, but still a good point. "He could give a Horcrux to someone else, to keep it for him, he did it before."

"Didn't work out," Ginny said with an attempt at a self-deprecating smile that only rose halfway before it faltered.

Harry would have taken her hand if she hadn't been on the other side of the table. He hated the anguish the Diary could still stir in her, even as he understood completely. "Doesn't mean he wouldn't try it again," he said, wanting her to know her contribution was appreciated.

Hermione was peering intently at nothing in particular, a sure sign her brain was firing on all cylinders. Scott was sitting directly across from her, the same expression stamped on his features; they looked as if they had been imported from an entirely different tableau. Harry had to suppress a sudden grin as he imagined the two of them had just left some international economic think tank, Apparating into Grimmauld Place in mid-thought.

Ron had caught that. "What's funny?"

"Nothing," Harry said quietly to him. "It's… Just those two, in their own world."

Ron gave Hermione and Scott an appraising look. "I think their worlds are two _very_ different places, mate."

"…It's a valid concern, Ginny," Hermione said eventually. "Unfortunately, we don't have any real information on what's happening in Riddle's inner circle."

"We could have," Harry said pointedly.

Hermione shot him a scathing glance. "Let it go, Harry. You should know you're through with that. And as I was _saying…_ Riddle would never use the word 'Horcrux', even amongst his closest followers — in fact, I doubt he'd offer any explanation at all, whoever was entrusted with the object would be expected to take it without question… But as to whether he's given any items of importance to anyone he considers loyal, we just don't know."

"I do," Kylie said.

The silence that followed her unexpected statement was profound. For a moment, Harry wasn't even certain that she'd actually said anything. It was the dark red blush staining her cheeks, and the way she began to hunch her shoulders, which confirmed the reality of her interjection.

Harry started to speak, but Scott beat him to it. "You know something about this?" Scott said. He flicked his eyes towards Harry, who gave him a quick nod of understanding. When it came to Kylie, it was best to let Scott handle it.

Kylie stared at the floor for a moment. And, then — although her posture remained defensive — she raised her eyes and looked at all of them, almost defiantly. "Yes."

"How's that?"

"Something my parents said. Mother mentioned it, and F-Father…"

"They were talking about an important object? From Riddle, You-Know-Who?"

"The-e-ey were f-fighting ab-bout i-it," she said quaveringly. Her hands were shaking and her eyes were glassy, darting from person to person over cheeks that were burning so brightly it looked painful.

In the seconds between her statement and Scott's forthcoming reply, the tremors in her limbs became increasingly violent. Every second she spent with the full attention of the room seemed to worsen her condition. Sweat appeared on her forehead and the cloth of her shirt was visibly vibrating with the thumping of her rapid heartbeat. It was when her mouth dropped open to emit ragged gasps that Harry realised he was watching the girl crumble into a full-blown panic attack.

Scott reached out and caught her by the arms as she bent at the waist. He lowered her to the floor and put his palm on her cheek, placing her head against his shoulder. "Breathe, Kylie," he said levelly. Sophie crouched behind them, stroking Kylie's hair. "Nice and slow. There you go. Can you breathe through your nose? Here, take my arm. Squeeze as hard as you want, it won't hurt me. There you go. Just breathe."

For a moment they all stood there and listened to Kylie struggle for breath. Harry felt terrible just for being present, and from the painfully awkward way everyone else didn't seem to know where to put their eyes, they probably felt the same way.

"So, there's this bloke who walks into a pub," Ron said abruptly.

Harry just looked at him, before he realised what Ron was doing. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. He walks into the pub, right, and goes up to the tap. And he's getting his first pint, and over by the door there's this dog who's licking his balls. The bloke looks at the bartender, points at the dog and says, 'I wish I could do that'. And the bartender says, 'You should probably pet him, first'."

Ginny snorted with laughter at the same time Hermione said, "Oh, God."

They gathered close to the stairs and talked more quietly after that, making sure to keep their eyes off Kylie. Presumably she would recover better without all the focus on her, or at least Harry hoped so. Really, he wondered what she had been thinking. It was clear that anxiety and panic attacks resulting from being the centre of attention were nothing new to her. No doubt her predisposition for such things had only been worsened by the recent upheaval of her life. And yet, she had still spoken in front of all of them, knowing that whatever she would have to say on the subject of Horcruxes would be of extreme interest, knowing that her information could give them the clue they needed or send their quest crashing to another standstill. Not a small amount of pressure for anyone, but an _extreme_ amount for her.

…Well, she _had_ been Sorted into Gryffindor.

Kylie had been still for a few minutes when they reconvened around the table. Harry could see his own uncertainty reflected in the others; should they leave? Would Kylie have another episode if they focussed on her again? He thought that perhaps he should go upstairs, and let Scott relay whatever information Kylie had later.

But Kylie had staggered back to her feet. Steadying herself on Scott's arm, she took an uneven breath. "Th-the Dark Lord had a precious th-thing he wanted kept safe. My p-parents said they would do it… b-but he chose the mad witch instead. F-Father was really angry… He said some awful things about th-that witch and Mother was frightened she would f-find out," she stuttered, her voice rasping and difficult to hear.

"Do you know what kind of thing it was?" Scott asked.

Kylie shook her head; several tendrils of her strawberry-blonde hair remained motionless, plastered to her forehead. "Mother said F-Father shouldn't have wanted it, even for the Dark Lord's f-favour. It was Huf-f-flepuff rubbish."

"The Cup!" Hermione gasped.

"Where did he want it kept safe?" Scott said intently.

"She put it in Gringotts," Kylie said.

Harry heard Ron swear under his breath and felt like joining him. Anything but Gringotts…

"And he gave it to a crazy woman?" Scott asked. "What's her name?"

"I don't know," Kylie almost whispered. "She has l-long dark hair and calls me l-little mouse."

"Bellatrix," Harry growled.

Scott looked over at him. "It fits."

"Kylie, this witch — does she have sort of large eyes, heavy-lidded? Like she's always a bit sleepy?" Hermione said.

Kylie nodded.

"There's one way to be sure," Harry said.

Beckoning to Scott and Kylie, he led the way upstairs to the Black family tree tapestry. The stairwell rattled with the sound of so many simultaneous footsteps. Kylie was still shaky and weak; Scott was ostensibly helping her by offering an arm to lean on, but by the halfway point he was basically carrying her.

Harry lit the drawing room and approached the tapestry, searching through the names. He pointed at Bellatrix's image, next to her sister Andromeda's scorch mark. "That's her?"

"Yes," Kylie confirmed, and with that one simple word things had become even more complicated. "She's quite mad."

"Yeah, she is," Harry said grimly.

Harry heard the couch springs squeak behind him as he stared at Bellatrix's tiny, cloth visage. Everyone was settling into the drawing room rather than returning to the kitchen; a shadow passed over the tapestry as Scott leaned on the wall next to the window. Harry didn't really want to turn around because that would imply he had something to say. What could he say? He was staggered by one of the worst scenarios they had imagined: a Horcrux in Gringotts.

"Scott, tell me honestly," he said, studying each dark thread in Bellatrix's eyes. "Can you get us into Gringotts?"

"Anyone can get _in_ to a bank, Harry. It's the getting out where things start to go wrong," Scott said.

Harry frowned. "What do you mean?"

"What I said. Bank robberies are easy if all you want is to get your hands on some money. Any idiot can bust in the front with an automatic and fill a bag. It's when you look at the success rates for escaping that the numbers aren't so good."

"Have you ever been to Gringotts?"

"No. Lila has, though."

"Well, it's not like a Muggle bank. The 'getting in' part won't be easy, either."

"What can you tell me?"

Harry turned around, pausing to give someone else a chance to add their knowledge. But his friends were all looking to him, which he supposed made sense. Out of everyone in the room, he was the only one with a personal vault. He'd been to it a few times out of necessity, while Ron and Ginny usually didn't go to the bank with their parents. And as far as Harry knew, Hermione didn't have a vault at all, only going to exchange Muggle money.

"The front entrance is this huge marble hallway with all these counters and doors on the sides. There's got to be a hundred goblins in there at any one time, maybe more. The vaults are all below, in the tunnels. I heard they go down for miles. You use really fast mine carts to get around. Everything is protected by wards and traps, and even magical creatures. It's like a maze."

"That doesn't sound easy," Scott admitted. "Hermione, do you have any books on this place?"

"No. But I'll check my catalogue, I may be able to order some from Flourish and Blotts," she said.

"Some blueprints would probably be too much to hope for," Scott said.

"The goblins keep their secrets close, I'm afraid."

"Bill could help," Ginny said. "He's worked there for years now, he'd have to know a few things. You want me to write to him?"

"It has to just be him, not the Order," Harry insisted. "I don't want anyone else to know we're looking at Gringotts."

Ron was pale. "Bloody hell. If you'd told me we'd be thinking about stealing from Gringotts… It's supposed to be impossible!"

"That's what I've always heard," Ginny concurred.

"Every bank wants you to think that," Scott said.

"Yeah? And how many Muggle banks guard their vaults with dragons?" Ron said.

Scott's eyebrows shot up. "Dragons?"

"Big scaly blighters with spikes."

"All right, so they're very dedicated to the narrative of them being impregnable."

"Very," Harry said, thinking of what he'd seen in Gringotts.

"But it's a well-defended building, is what it comes down to, speculatory or not. And a wizarding bank is still a bank and they do the same kind of things." Scott gave Harry a serious look. "So with that in mind, I'm pretty sure I can get us in. But unless Bill can give us access to some perfect back door, I don't think we can keep from ending up on the front page."

That made a lot of sense. Breaking into Gringotts would already require a miracle: doing it with complete stealth was more than they could ever hope for. "So we have to do it last. But we also have to do the _snake_ last…" Harry rubbed at his eyes, feeling a headache coming on that was not scar-related.

"We'll need time to plan anyway, the more the better. So it's not so bad," Hermione said in an encouraging tone. "I'll put together everything I can find on Gringotts."

"I'll write to Bill tonight," Ginny said.

Harry sighed. "All right. Scott, I want you to look it all over before the rest of us. Give us an opinion and some options."

Scott nodded. "Yep."

"I know this seems like bad news, but at least we have confirmation," Hermione was saying. "That's far better than being in the dark, and now we can—"

"Yeah, it's nice to know," Harry interrupted her, unable to tolerate her optimistic platitudes. "But what do we do in the mean time?"

"I think we should go to Hogwarts," Ron said. When everyone looked at him, he shrugged. "Like I told Harry, school's starting soon. If we're going to look around there, now's our chance before it's full of people."

"That's an excellent point, Ron," Hermione said with a proud smile. The tips of Ron's ears turned red and he looked away from her.

"He's right," Scott said.

Harry agreed; if they were going to Hogwarts there wouldn't be a better time. "If the Cup is in Gringotts then we're looking for something of Ravenclaw's. I know where their tower is, but I don't know how to get in…"

"According to _Hogwarts: A History,_ the common rooms are accessible year round," Hermione said. "So we should be able to go into the Ravenclaw Tower."

"Let's not make things harder for ourselves. We're looking for a Ravenclaw artefact in the Ravenclaw part of Hogwarts, so let's get a Ravenclaw," Scott said.

"Luna?" Harry surmised.

"Any objections?"

Harry had been very careful about giving away anything related to the Horcruxes, but he felt he could trust Luna implicitly. And she didn't have to know exactly what they were looking for to help them. "No, I think she'll be good to have."

Hermione nodded easily, obviously having her own level of trust in Luna. "It's not a bad idea."

"I'll work this out with Lil. Meanwhile, think about how we want to do this," Scott said. "I doubt the school will be completely empty."

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note<strong>

There are other chapters in the story from a singular point of view, but I can't remember any that don't have scene breaks with the exception of the very first one, _Nothing Important Happened Today. _Wait, I guess _The Most Final Equality_ was the same way, too. Well, never mind. I don't know what I'm talking about.

That extends to the rest of this author's note, because, per usual, once it come time to write it I find I have little to say. Oh, I'll have a million ideas when I'm reading reviews and formulating complicated answers that don't necessarily fit the question, but put the blank page in front of me and my mind mirrors the same emptiness.

The thing is, people seem to like these, or at least expect them. I've tacked short author's notes onto the end of a variety of chapters just because it seems to be a thing I'm supposed to do, and invariably those chapters don't get much in the way of reviews. It's like, I have to challenge you with a question or an exploration of narrative technique or even something philosophical. That seems to spur people into reviewing, to speak on the topics posed in their own manner. But then I get a lot of reviews that concern nothing relating to the chapter itself. So, sometimes, I'm reluctant to ask you guys a question. I'll get my answers, but that's all. No actual 'reviews', in the standard sense of the term.

But does that matter? I should be grateful to receive any response at all, regardless of form. All of us authors love the long-form review, of course, and I do my best to respond to all of them, but even shorter notes of encouragement are a driving force, and a gift. There's no commerce at work, here, no relationship of trade. I write the story for no compensation, and you write reviews for no compensation. And, ultimately, perhaps that's why you seem to want author's notes from me. Nobody wants to toss their words into a void. I don't — I want reviews. And, in a sense, by using the reply system and writing author's notes, I'm reciprocating. I'm reviewing your reviews, providing feedback and answers, proving there's a person on the other end.

A story creates a community. Some more than others, yes — I'm not like _Harry Potter and the Nightmares of Futures Past,_ or _Methods of Rationality. _I don't have a forum, or a Yahoo Group. I don't have a TV Tropes page. We have FFnet and PhoenixSong and whatever communications we choose to write to each other. And if my replies give you a reason to keep reviewing, I understand. Fanfiction gives us a level of reciprocity that standard publishing has yet to replicate. I imagine someday it may reach that point, and some authors are more in touch with their fans than others, but I'm not exactly remote, here. If you talk, I hear it (even if you aren't necessarily talking to me; yes, I Google my own name sometimes). And I speak back, because I should, it's polite, it's what's right, it's a component of how I do this and it's the best thanks I can give.

In summary, I'll be sure to comment even if you open the review box and mash your palm against the keyboard, gifting me with a long string of indecipherable consonants. I value your input highly, of course, and I myself would never be so lazy as to vb dcvbnvfvfbnmcvxbnhjggvcxdecvbnjhgfvbngfvdgbhngfdgknijbgfvbhnjmhbgvfdbjn,mnjfvxdrnbjkm


	20. Erebus Tau Alpha

**20**

**Erebus Tau Alpha**

* * *

><p>"<em>Strategy is the art of knowing what you have.<em>

_Logistics is the art of getting what you need._

_My art is called filching: I get what you need,_

_but aren't supposed to have."_

-Technician Patrick Bennet, Transversal Station Primarius Quartermaster

* * *

><p>Neville squinted against the sunlight coming in through the kitchen window as he tried to understand what he was doing wrong. The plant he had placed near the sink was, from all that he had read, supposed to do quite well indoors. That was why he had chosen it to add a little colour to the kitchen. But it hadn't grown at all, as far as he could tell. Despite the ample lighting and frequent watering, it remained small and pale. He felt slightly insulted that the plant wasn't thriving. He was quite good with plants; it should know that. All of his other plants were cooperative.<p>

He was just about to go and get one of his books when a loud knock at the door startled him. Gran was out, but, it couldn't be her, she'd used the Floo. Visitors were rare at the Longbottom Estate. No one ever knocked on the door.

The highly unusual nature of the situation warranted caution. Neville pulled his wand from his pocket and approached the door with apprehension knotting his stomach. The wards on the property were old and strong, and he doubted anyone could have gotten past them without making a great deal of noise. But he wasn't going to heedlessly throw the door open on a supposition.

There was a swinging latch on the door which opened a small glass window – he peered through it and saw a blonde woman looking coolly back at him. He leaned away from the peep hole in surprise, and then opened the door.

"Um... Lila?" he said, taken aback. He hadn't seen the woman for awhile, and, to the best of his memory, she'd never sought him out before.

Her gaze was serious. "Neville."

"What is it?" he asked, his stomach knotting again in the face of her demeanour. He hoped with all his might that nothing had happened to any of his friends.

"You're needed," Lila said.

Neville stood up straight, shocked and delighted. "All right!" He started to step out and then paused. "Do I need to get anything?"

"Change of clothes, if you want."

He rushed upstairs and threw the first sets of clothes he could grab into his empty book bag. On the way back down he thought of Gran, and quickly scribbled out a note for her, some rubbish about going school shopping with friends. Not the best excuse, and she wouldn't be happy, but he couldn't delay. He was needed.

Outside, a Muggle vehicle was parked on the cobblestones of the front garden path. Neville winced; his house hadn't been designed for Muggle access, and he hoped the contraption wasn't so heavy it would do any damage. Lila slid into the front and he stopped, unsure of what he was expected to do. Should he follow her in?

Lila, seeing his uncertainty, climbed back out and opened a door on the rear of the car. "I think you'll want to sit in the back," she said with a knowing smile.

Neville didn't know what she meant by that, but he gratefully ducked into the opening. It was larger on the inside than he'd expected, and had an odd, rubbery odour to it that he'd never smelled before. It wasn't all that unpleasant, just strange.

"Hello, Neville," a dreamy voice to his left said.

He was so startled that he sent his book bag flying up towards Lila, who deftly batted it out of the air and into the empty seat next to her. He turned to see Luna, her wild blonde tresses fluttering gently in the cool air that blew from the vents. Her smile was wide and bright and just for him.

"Luna!" Neville breathed. "When did... How did you..."

Luna reached down and did something with the seat that made a 'click'; the strap that ran from the ceiling across her body slid away and she scooted over to the middle section of the seat. As she fastened a new strap over her middle, Neville leaned in closer, feeling her heat. He knew he was staring but he couldn't help it. She looked (and smelled) amazing.

"Have you been well?" she asked, placing a hand on his knee.

It had been less than a month since they'd seen each other at the wedding, but it felt like forever. Neville didn't care that Lila was sitting right in front of him; he bent down and captured Luna's mouth. Any fears that he'd been a bit too forward were extinguished when she kissed him back with equal fervour.

"Good grief," Lila muttered.

Neville pulled away from Luna with a jolt when the vehicle started to move. "Where are we going?" he wondered.

"Birmingham," Lila said. "I'll be leaving you there with the others."

Neville's eyes widened. "So this... We're—"

"On a mission. You've been drafted."

"Um, all right," he said, having no idea what this 'mission' would entail but totally unwilling to be left out of it.

"Quite exciting, isn't it?" Luna enthused.

It was, though the way she was pressed up against him left Neville with a different sort of excitement in mind. "Y-yeah," he said, noticing how her shirt stretched tightly across her chest.

When Luna turned her head to look directly at him they were so close together her nose almost bumped his. "Birmingham is a bit far away. Would you like to keep me occupied?" she said with a hungry sort of tone.

"I'll think of something..." he said faintly, leaning into her involuntarily.

"Here's what I'm going to do," Lila said loudly, gaining their attention. "I'm going to keep the radio on and try to pretend you aren't back there. So don't do something I can't ignore, all right?"

Neville felt his face flood with heat. "R-right."

"Mind your hands, then, Neville," Luna sighed regretfully.

It took awhile for Neville to become accustomed to riding in the car. The motions of it seemed unnatural, so smooth compared to the carriages at Hogwarts. But, by the time they were speeding northward on the motorway it had ceased to be disorienting. That was good, since with Luna wrapped around him like some kind of hot-blooded blonde eel, he didn't want any distractions. Their brief time apart had apparently left her craving his touch as much as he did hers, an idea which left him gobsmacked when he thought about it. How could she possibly want him the way he wanted her? He wasn't that great, and she was _Luna_.

He tried to be heedful of Lila a few feet away, divided from them as she was by a single seat, but the moment Luna thrust her tongue into his mouth was the moment he forgot the rest of the world existed. Fortunately they had to stay 'buckled in' – as Lila had said, referring to the straps that held them to the seat. This prevented Luna from climbing on top of him (as her constant wriggling seemed to indicate she was trying to), a position which would lead to him having to cast a Scouring Charm while doing his best to avoid explaining why.

She tasted wonderful and smelled even better, and the warm silk of her skin was driving him absolutely mental, he couldn't hold her close enough. He couldn't go another month without her, that was certain. Although, if it meant another reunion like this...

"You guys might want to tone it down, you're starting to turn me on," Lila commented.

Luna leaned back, her face flushed and her lips swollen. Her wide silvery eyes were even more languid than usual. "Did you want her to watch?" she asked.

Neville blanched. "Not really."

"Me neither," Luna said. She regretfully slid her hands down from where they had been buried in his hair, letting them linger on his shoulders. "May I have a hug?"

He really didn't know what she was thinking, sometimes. About eighty percent of her body had just been pressed against him. "Whenever you want."

In the calmer aftermath of Lila's interruption he found his eyelids sinking lower, lured downwards by the soothing warmth of Luna's body heat and the sweet scent of her hair as it tickled his nose, his cheek resting on top of her head. The road rumbled beneath the tyres in a steady drone that mixed with the radio. Luna had quickly become lax in his arms, drifting into sleep. She was probably tired; given the distance from her house to Neville's, and the fact it was only then approaching noon, she must have been up quite early.

He hadn't even realised he had followed her example until he found himself suddenly staring into a pair of amused grey eyes, his forehead stinging from where it had been flicked.

"Rise and shine," Lila drawled. "Your next chariot awaits."

Neville gently shook Luna awake and pushed himself out of the car. He found himself in a paved lot next to a narrow street, a two-storey brick building across it and houses down the way. Nearby was a larger Muggle vehicle painted a dull grey – standing around it were Harry, Ron, Ginny, Hermione and a tall blond man.

Neville grinned and hurried forward to greet them. "Hey, you lot! What's this about a mission?"

"Nev, glad you could make it," the blond man said.

"Hello, Scott," Luna said, yawning. "You've grown taller. Did you mean to?"

"It was intentional, yes."

Neville's mouth dropped open. He took a few steps closer and stared. It was unmistakable – the blond man was Scott. "What... How did you..." He trailed off and closed his mouth, embarrassed. It had been implied, along with all the other information the Kharadjai had shared, that Scott had always been older. It was just a shock to see. "...So this is really you, huh?"

"This is me, as I am," Scott said grandly.

"Disappointing, isn't it?" Ron said.

"Good to see you, Nev," Harry said warmly. "You too, Luna."

"Good to be here," Neville said, not really caring whether he had a basis to believe so. He was just ecstatic not to be left out.

"Yes, all we core Primes, together again. Scott must be beside himself," Hermione said dryly.

Scott was leaning into the opened side door of the large grey motor, rustling sounds emanating from within. "Nev, Luna, come over here. Let me get you up to speed before we take off."

They all gathered around Scott as he pulled a map from the vehicle and held it out. Harry took one corner and Ginny the other, stretching it taut. Neville wasn't sure what he was looking at – the names of places were familiar, but it was all a bunch of lines and letters. He didn't recognise much but the coasts and major cities.

"We're here: Birmingham." Scott placed his finger on the city. "Off Burlington Street; Philips Street Park is right behind this building. And we're going..." He drew an invisible line northward, ending in Scotland. "...To Hogwarts."

Neville felt a bit let down. He had expected a more exotic destination. "Why not just Apparate, then?"

"We can't, not directly onto the grounds. Not into Hogsmeade anymore, either, or so we've heard," Hermione explained.

Harry nodded. "It's an area we know, and they know it. So we're going to take our time and do this the Muggle way."

"It's been hard to stay hidden," Ginny said to Luna. "We've had to do things differently."

"All right, makes sense, but... Why Hogwarts?" Neville wanted to know.

Harry hesitated. "...I'll try to explain more as we go."

Scott rolled up the map. "We'll stop on the way out of town so everyone can go to the bathroom, because we're going to be headed up the M6 for almost eight hours and I am not pulling over thirty minutes in because you didn't feel like taking a piss at McDonald's, _Hermione."_

"It'snot hygienic!" she asserted.

"You've got an immune system. At least, you'd better. All right, load it up!" Scott slapped the top of the van and went around to hop up into the driver's seat.

"Shotgun!" Harry called out, running up to claim the second seat at the front of the vehicle.

"So you get that seat just because you keep saying that? What is this ruddy game?" Ron grumbled, climbing into the back.

Harry paused with his hand on the door frame. "Not my fault you didn't pay attention," he said in a superior tone.

"Reload," Scott said.

"Shotgun!" Hermione blurted.

"Shot—... Oh, _what..."_ Harry whinged.

With Hermione smugly ensconced in the passenger seat, they drove off, briefly stopping to relieve themselves at a restaurant (and Hermione had been correct, the loo at McDonald's was _not_ hygienic). As the scenery flashed by, Harry told Neville and Luna about the mission in very general terms. He was clearly omitting more than he was saying. Which was a bit of a let down, for Neville. He had hoped that he and Luna had been 'drafted' in the complete sense, finally allowed to participate in whatever Harry and others had been up to. Apparently, that wasn't the case.

Harry's explanation was so vague that by the time he was finished about the only thing that was clear was that they were looking for something.

Neville frowned. "But, what is it? How will we know if we find it?"

"We'll know," Harry said firmly. "Luna, we think this object has something to do with Ravenclaw. Have you ever heard anything about that? Like, old Ravenclaw artefacts?"

"Well, Lisa Turpin is mysteriously missing several pairs of knickers. She loses more each year – I told her it was Nicking Numbees, but she never did put up the correct charms to ward them off," Luna said thoughtfully. "Also, there's the Lost Diadem."

"You should look for the knickers, Harry, you're quite good at spotting those," Ginny said with a wicked smile.

"Awwwwww yeaaaahhhhh," Scott crowed from the front.

"Er – the Diadem thing sounds like a good lead, tell me about that," Harry said hurriedly, perhaps noting the look of horror on Ron's face.

"It's lost," Luna clarified.

"Right. It's lost, but... Anything else?"

"They say it grants whoever wears it great wisdom. It also looks quite nice with a ball gown."

"How do you know that? Maybe it's really old and ugly," Ginny said.

"I've always thought it looked lovely on her statue."

"There's a statue of it? Is that in your common room?" Harry asked. When Luna nodded, he said, "Okay, we should look at that."

"Maybe we could talk to Flitwick," Scott said loudly, turning his head so they could hear him over the constant hum of the car.

"Oh! What about the Grey Lady?" Hermione said, craning her neck in a similar fashion. "Although, I don't know if she'll speak to us... I've never heard her say a word."

"She talks to Ravenclaws," Luna said. "She helped me find my books when I misplaced them."

"Did you misplace them, or did someone _take_ them," Neville said, angrily remembering the many times Luna's housemates had stolen from her.

Luna looked at him, her gaze uncommonly serious. "It's all right, Neville. That was last year."

"I don't care what year it was. People shouldn't take things from you."

Luna said nothing, staring at him. Then she laid her head on his shoulder and threaded her fingers through his.

"...Well," Harry said awkwardly into the following silence, "good thing we have you then, Luna. You can ask the Grey Lady about the Diadem."

"What's the difference between a diadem and a tiara?" Ginny wondered. "I know what a tiara looks like."

"Never been clear on that," Scott said. "Also, if you want to talk to a grey lady, Hermione about fits the bill. Looking a little off colour there, Herms."

"A touch of motion sickness," Hermione said faintly. She was indeed looking a bit grey.

"You need to stop turning to look at the back, that's your problem."

Harry chuckled triumphantly. Hermione heard him, and risked additional nausea by giving him a cutting glare.

"Crack the window," Scott said. "Or just stick your head out, like a dog."

"What a flattering comparison," Hermione muttered. She rolled the window down a few inches and leaned against it.

Neville spent the first hour or so of the trip trying to get a sense of what he had missed. After the escape from the wedding, he had returned home and hadn't done much but write to Luna for some time: he'd been wondering if any of the Death Eaters had recognised his opposition to them. Luna's hair, especially, was memorable enough that he worried for her. His warnings to Gran had gone unheeded as she'd done her shopping and attended social gatherings as usual. He supposed that was the privilege of being a well-known Pure-blood. The Death Eaters seemed reluctant to go after a family as established as the Longbottoms.

Neville wasn't naïve enough to think that wouldn't change if he was seen with Harry. He just didn't care. He had already decided that, once the current 'mission' was concluded, he would be asking if he could stay on as part of Harry's team. He'd probably be refused, and he knew he wasn't all that useful, but he felt compelled to try.

His questions met a lot of dead ends, but slowly he put together a picture of a task left to Harry that was so dangerous, even the deceased Headmaster's own Order knew nothing of it. Harry had kept that duty close, sharing it only with a very select few, and together they had been doing their best to fulfil it. Perhaps Dumbledore wouldn't have wanted Neville to know the secret, which was fine. He just wanted to help, and he didn't have to know the details behind what he was asked to do.

The conversation was sporadic after that. Most of the talk faded away after the first hour. Neville watched the scenery roll by as Luna slept on his shoulder again; it didn't take him long to get tired of the interchangeable vistas. There wasn't a whole lot to see, really, outside of the towns. Everything sort of looked the same from a car window, he was discovering. He was actually a bit proud of how quickly he had become accustomed to the Muggle transport – he didn't even hit his head when he clambered out with the others at the three hour mark, having stopped to stretch their legs and use the toilet.

"Where are we?" Luna said sleepily, looking blearily around the service station.

"Carlisle," Scott said. "You all get a tenner for the store, put your hands out if you want it. Don't stand back, Harry, everybody likes money."

"If he thinks he's better than us, I'll take his share," Ron graciously offered.

"I'm his girlfriend so I should get his," Ginny declared.

Harry pushed past them and claimed his note. "I'll pay you back after we rob Gringotts," he told Scott.

"Put it in writing," Scott said, leading the way into the shop.

Neville was utterly lost amongst all the shiny plastic packages and endless advertisements of the service station shop, so he kept his flimsy paper money in his pocket and followed Luna around as she gathered an armload of seemingly random items. He wasn't sure she understood how much money she actually had or what the things she was buying were, though she gravitated toward whatever had the brightest wrapping. When she hauled it all up to the counter, Neville placed his own money on top of hers, just to be safe.

The next hour was spent passing around their purchases, eating a wide assortment of food and washing it all down with bottled water. An hour after that, Neville was deep in an involved discussion with Luna (meaning she talked and he listened) about the theoretical migratory patterns of the Crumple-Horned Snorkack. Once that topic was exhausted, he listened in to what was happening up front: Hermione had begun to bother Scott for information.

"Is it really too much to ask for a bit more about you?" she was saying stridently. "You've long since abandoned your guise as a new student. I really don't see why you insist on remaining so secretive."

"Force of habit," he said nonchalantly.

"That's not much of an excuse. I hope you realise that."

"And what, exactly, do you want to know?" he said irritatedly.

"How do your portals work?"

"We've been over this. Nobody knows how they work."

"All right... But, why can't _we_ use them?"

"You're not a Kharadjai. It's very difficult to move anything with significant mass through an aperture, especially when you can't hold it open for yourself. There's a low percent chance an aperture wouldn't collapse the second you touched it, but that's for the best, since if you _did_ manage to get through that would be very bad."

"Why?"

"You're a Prime. In moving through the aperture, there would be a period of time when you technically weren't in the universe. It's a fraction of a millisecond, but that's still a fraction of a millisecond in which the shape considers you dead."

"Ahhhh..." Hermione nodded sagely, apparently comprehending Scott's point even as Neville was lost. "Best not to force it, then."

"The odds of you successfully going through an aperture are low enough that I'm not going to worry about it, but I'm also not going to let you try."

"That's stupid," Harry said. "We could have gone anywhere, otherwise."

"Not anywhere I haven't already been," Scott said.

Harry frowned. "Bollocks. You went right to the cave with us, how could you have been there before?"

"Dumbledore had, and I followed him."

"Interesting. If a Death Eater were to Disapparate away, could you chase them?" Hermione asked.

Scott pushed himself straighter in his seat, whipping his head from side to side and getting a few pops for his effort. "Probably not if I didn't know them. Maybe if it was Snape. Maybe."

"Are you going to be fine driving the whole way?" Hermione asked him, noticing his discomfort.

"It's not that far. And who else is going to do it?"

Hermione pursed her lips. "I suppose I might..."

"No, no," Ron said immediately. "This is already scary enough."

"I could learn!" she said defensively.

"Yeah, but... This really isn't the _time_, you know?" Scott said.

"Fine!" she huffed, crossing her arms. "See if I show any concern for you again."

"She's mental if she thinks I'll ride with her steering," Ron said to Harry. "You remember what she's like on a broom?"

Ginny shuddered. "We'd die. I know we would."

"I can hear you!" Hermione called out.

"Good," Ron yelled back, "then you know you're mental if you think-"

"I heard you the first time!"

Their argument quickly picked up steam after that. Neville did his best to ignore their squabbling, but it was rather difficult in such close quarters. Luna looked unbothered as she nibbled at some bright orange crisps.

"Those any good?" he asked her. She held the bag out for him and he popped one into his mouth. A few seconds after swallowing, he realised his throat was on fire. "Bloody hell!" he choked, reaching for a half-full bottle of water nearby.

"They're delicious," Luna said serenely, crunching through another one.

After the pain subsided, he thought about the flavour and realised they _were_ good. He had another, then a few more, and after about half the bag was gone he was eating them with almost the same ease as Luna. He'd never had much in the way of spicy foods before and was encouraged by his ability to handle it. He hadn't known that about himself.

Outside, evening was tinting the sky. They wouldn't arrive at Hogwarts until after dark.

* * *

><p>Harry was pleased with himself; at the last stop of the journey he had managed to catch Hermione unaware (she had been dozing, and was still half-asleep at the petrol station). When they resumed the drive, he was in the front passenger seat. The victory was a bit hollow, however, as she hadn't really seemed to mind. Having Ron to lie against probably had a lot to do with that.<p>

More than that, his self-satisfaction was rapidly dimming in the face of fear-laced anticipation as Hogwarts grew ever closer. It would be about an hour before they arrived. He knew the plan and the terrain, but the opposition remained unknown. There could be anything waiting for them at Hogwarts, and it was that thought which troubled him most.

But since he couldn't _do_ anything about it, he tried to distract himself (perhaps sitting away from Ginny hadn't been the best idea). To that end, he had attempted to engage Scott in lighter conversation, but it seemed like everything they spoke about inevitably turned towards darker subjects.

"You think they'll be waiting for us?" Harry said.

Scott adjusted the rear view mirror and squinted at it; no matter how long the trip went on, he continued to closely examine the other cars on the motorway. "No. If anything, this little excursion has proven just how removed from the Muggle world wizards really are."

Harry could see the truth in that. "I've never eaten at McDonald's before."

"That has less to do with being a wizard and more to do with your asshole relatives," Scott said dryly.

"It was all right," Harry said, loathe to dig into his past with the Dursleys.

"It's a hard place to recommend. But it's cheap, and it's everywhere."

"How much do you think they're looking for me?"

"Depends on the day. Depends on Riddle's mood, probably. He'll hand out a few Cruciatus, everyone will get real busy, and then when he gets distracted they don't try so much." Scott shrugged. "You gotta remember, they think you're just hiding. If they think you're under a Fidelius somewhere – which, you are – then there's a definite sense of futility to the hunt."

"Didn't help my parents any," Harry said quietly.

"Pettigrew came forward. He volunteered. Kind of undermines the whole system. I don't see anyone back there betraying the charm, do you?" Scott jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "Although, hindsight is everything. Your parents certainly didn't see it coming."

Harry greatly resented the implication. "That's not true. They just suspected the wrong person," he said, thinking of Remus.

"Who do you suspect?"

"You," Harry said sarcastically.

"I'm not even a Secret Keeper," Scott scoffed.

"Oh yeah? How do I know you didn't just make yourself one when you changed the spell?"

Scott frowned thoughtfully. "I might have if I knew how. I still can't tell the difference between Secret Keepers and clients. The threads all look the same."

"Does it matter?"

"Not really. Call it professional curiosity."

Harry watched as a farm went by, all green fields, white wooden buildings and low stone walls. He thought it might be nice to live somewhere like that, perhaps because it reminded him of The Burrow. "So, when we get there... You think you can find any Horcruxes yourself?"

"I don't know. The locket was definitely magical, but not in a unique way that I perceived. And despite everything, it was not a Priority Object. Which honestly doesn't surprise me that much. It's rare when the universe points something out for you."

"So even when we had it on the table, you couldn't tell for sure," Harry said.

"I could tell it was doing _something_, but that was after it was active. But I'm not sure what the wizarding world considers a 'soul'. Stuff like that usually falls under the deep shape."

Harry had never heard that term before. "_Deep_ shape?"

"Oh, boy. You just opened a can of worms. Okay..." Scott pushed his shoulders back into his seat, stretching his neck again. "The shape is a reflection of existence. It's alive because we are and it's complex because reality is. But what we see of it is only the surface. Imagine the shape as an ocean. You swim on the top, and below... Below, it gets real dark. Anything could be happening down there."

"But you always talk about the shape as being all around you, like... Not flat."

Scott grimaced. "Yeah, just, I'm really reaching for an analogy. Okay, new one – and this one will work. Imagine a piece of string. One end is tied to a post, the other is tied to a second post. Two posts, one connection. You look at it and say, 'okay, this string is connected to these two posts'. Maybe you take another string and tie it around your wrist and then to one of the posts. If you get lost, you can follow the string back. That's integration – you build your own connections. You really only see what you're connected to, _through _the things you're connected to, and that's the barest fraction of the whole.

"Now... These two posts are in a forest, the biggest forest ever. And everything that exists in this forest is tied with string. There are threads everywhere, connecting everything. If you look at one of those strings more closely, you'll see it's not just a single piece, it's several strings twisted together. Get even closer – more strands, infinitely smaller, tangled tight to make bigger ones. Everything is made of something which is made of something which is made of something.

"The shape we see... It's infinite. But it's still _macro._ The deep shape is beyond our ability to perceive. The Liberi glimpse it, and it makes them crazy. Or they have to be crazy in the first place, whatever you believe. There are entire libraries of speculation on what the deep shape could tell us. Who we are as Kharadjai, why we have the abilities we do. How the Multiverse really works. We don't know, and maybe we _can't_ know, which is frustrating to consider. The fact is, I'm good with the shape in a way not many people are. And I'm just paddling around the shallows, wondering what's out in the dark water. I switched analogies again, god _dammit._ Ugh... Well, most people can't swim."

"Like me?" Harry said.

"Literally or figuratively?"

"Hey, I can swim," Harry said, stretching the truth a bit. He'd done all right when he had Gillyweed, but a handful of occasions spent at the lake in the summertime had proven he wasn't much of a swimmer. Prior to going to Hogwarts the closest he'd ever come to a body of water was the bathtub.

"You can _swim_, or you can just not drown?"

"I don't know, something in between. I didn't say I was great at it. I swam at the cave, didn't I?"

"Not really. We were sort of pulling ourselves through. It's not swimming when you've got a wall and floor to push off of."

"I swam some," Harry muttered. "What does it matter? Are you going to crash us into a river?"

"Too early to say."

"Yeah, well... Don't." Harry squinted against the last sliver of the setting sun, watching the layered hues fade across the horizon. Before leaving Grimmauld they had considered the time table for the day, calculating how long it would take to drive. It turned out to be significantly longer than it took for the Hogwarts Express to go even further, direct from London. Lack of traffic wouldn't account for all of the differential. Obviously the train was magical; Harry had always known that it must have been, everything related to Hogwarts was, but he hadn't really put much thought into it.

The cover of night would both cloak them from enemy eyes and ensure that the castle itself would be mostly empty. They were counting on the castle's protections being the same as they were during the school year, especially as they were so close to the start of the term; once Scott bypassed the powerful outer wards, they should be able to move about freely, like usual. The Marauder's Map would provide all the information needed to go about undetected, if it were at all possible. Harry could only hope there weren't Death Eaters at the school. He couldn't bring himself to believe that there wouldn't be any.

Harry glanced over at Scott, wondering if the Kharadjai was thinking similar thoughts now that the school was near. The trees outside were beginning to look familiar in their shapes and patterns. But if Scott was worried, it didn't show.

"Could be an army at Hogwarts," Harry said, trying to gauge if that bothered Scott. No reaction. "...But I guess this is all familiar to you, huh."

Scott shrugged. "Not entirely."

"Why's that? I thought you'd seen it all," Harry said, only partially mocking.

"Terrorists and corruption, sure. But, here's the thing – look at similar people, like Pemuda Pancasila, Colombian coke armies, the IRA, the KKK, the Nazis, the Shining Path, Pinochet, the whoever whatever. Very bad people, all across the board, but... Very human, also."

"There's nothing human about the Nazis," Hermione said strongly, apparently having been listening in.

Scott sighed. "You are so very wrong, but that sort of plays into our unspoken yet eternal argument concerning the fundamental nature of man." Hermione made a disgruntled sound, which Scott disregarded as he continued, "The thing that separates Riddle's new order here, is the... the _lustlessness _of Riddle's aesthetic. I don't know how else to put it... The IRA, they'd go to a pub, they get shitfaced, they go home and fuck their wives or their girlfriends or both, tuck their kids into bed, and then get up the next day and bomb a church. The Nazis? The Nazis knew how to party. And in the end it's all about the reality or at least the illusion of power, but Riddle has somehow – and maybe it's the Dark magic? – has somehow stripped his starter empire of that Beer, Guns and Pussy ethos. They don't act like a paramilitary, or a death squad. They act like people expect evil wizards to act like in the movies. I mean, who's ever heard of a terrorist insurgency composed of the cultural _elite?"_

"It is the magic, or at least parts of it. The parts we're after," Hermione said. "Riddle is achieving immortality through inhumanity. _Literal_ inhumanity. It's not an ethos in the typical sense."

Harry remembered the way Riddle looked at the Department: red eyes, slitted nostrils and chalk-white skin. He had become a Dark monster by choice. "He doesn't look human, that's for sure."

"Most of the guys I mentioned were all about rape," Scott said. "In between the killing. I know some Death Eaters have dabbled in the area, mostly with Muggles. It doesn't seem to be one of Riddle's core tenets, at least. I don't know if he'll bother to curb the impulse in his men, but perhaps the further they all take this Dark crap the less they'll care about it."

"I can't say if there's ever been any studies concerning the effects of Dark magic on libido... I rather doubt it, but I hope you're right," Hermione said.

Harry felt sick. He had known, in a very general way, that the Death Eaters might indulge in such behaviour, but hadn't wanted to think about it. He didn't know if he could stand having that on his conscience as well. "Why would they do that to Muggles or Muggle-born if they're all about blood purity?"

"Because ideals last right up until they have a helpless person at hand. They would have to not be a hypocrite. Have you met a lot of Pure-blood bigots with that quality?" Scott said.

"But... I..." Harry struggled with the idea. He couldn't see how it could possibly appeal. "Why would you want that? I mean... It couldn't be any good for _you, _either... could it?"

Scott shook his head. "You don't understand because you're confusing rape with sex. Rape is about violence and power, not traditional arousal. It's 'good' for the rapist in a way that's not related to how sex is good for the participants."

Harry slumped back into his seat, deeply uncomfortable with the concept. "I still don't get it."

"Me neither," Ron said from somewhere in back.

"Yeah, because you guys don't get off on subjugation and torture. Not a bad thing, unless you're planning an audition for Riddle," Scott said.

"He tried to recruit my mum and dad. He'd kill me if I walked up and told him I wanted to join, the Prophecy guarantees that," Harry mused.

"You'd never join him, even if there weren't a Prophecy," Ginny said, her voice floating out of the dark. Sometime during the conversation the sun had sunk below the horizon, and the only illumination came from lights in the dashboard. It would have made Harry sleepy if he weren't so tense.

"Thanks, Gin," he said, appreciating the vote of confidence.

"Unless he offered treacle tart," Ron added much less helpfully.

"Now, Harry would never abandon his principles... For only one serving," Hermione chimed in.

"Are you hearing this?" Harry said to Scott. "Apparently they've confused me and treacle tart with you and bacon."

"Ah, but different approaches, Harry. Different approaches," Scott said easily. "If Riddle offered me bacon, I'd kill him and take the bacon."

The next half hour felt like a century, and then Scott pulled the vehicle off onto a dirt road that wound through woods that were heavy with a familiar foreboding dark. Not quite the Forbidden Forest, not yet... But definitely adjacent. The MPV shook with every bump, rattling the passengers. Harry winced when his teeth clacked together and kept his mouth firmly shut after that. When they started driving over roots he nearly smacked his head against the window.

They rolled to a stop at the edge of a grassy field, and Harry could see lights in the distance. He knew it was Hogsmeade; any Muggles who had taken the same off-road journey would have seen nothing at all. The town was a glittering island on the horizon, beckoning the way across a rustling, unquiet sea of darkness. It was a landmark and a warning.

"That wasn't good for the shocks," Scott grunted as he shut off the engine. He reached up and hit the lights on the ceiling. "Everybody out. Hermione, got your bag? Good. Harry, your stuff is in the glovebox."

Harry jumped out of his door and reached back inside to get a small case from the glove compartment. He opened it and looked nervously at the contents. "Damn. Scott, give me a hand with these, would you? I barely know what I'm doing."

"Barely? Or not at all?" Scott took the case from Harry. "Where's the bottle? Get the bottle."

After retrieving the bottle, Harry watched carefully as Scott prepared the contact lenses. "So you put those drops in them first?"

"It helps. You don't always have to. Can you do this? Put it on the tip of your finger. Now just – no, look at it, not me. Stop looking at me! Look at the contact! You want to centre it. Now press it in, gently."

Harry paused, the contact millimetres from his eyeball. "Am I on it right?"

Scott sighed. "Just give it here. Pull your eyelids apart. Now hold still, look straight ahead. Pick a spot."

"Er..." Harry involuntarily leaned away as Scott's finger grew uncomfortably close.

"Don't be a pussy. Hold still."

Harry barely stopped himself from cringing at the incredibly unpleasant sensation of pressure on his eyeball. Then Scott's finger went away, leaving behind a strange feeling of something cool and sort of squishy in his eye, like he'd gotten pudding in it. "Ugh."

"Blink a few times. Close your other eye, is it good?"

"I guess..." Harry kept blinking, his vision blurry from excess fluid.

"Other one – will you fucking cut it out? Literally all you have to do is stare straight ahead, why is this an issue? ...There we go."

Harry blinked rapidly and carefully wiped at the edges of his eyes. "God, now I'm crying. Look at me." He blinked, and wiped, and blinked a bit more, and then when he raised his head and looked back at Scott...

Clarity.

"Wow..." he breathed, staring at the other man. "Your face is so _detailed..."_

"Quit staring at my pores," Scott rebuked. "Look around, how is it?"

It was amazing. He had forgotten how crisp and elaborate the world was, how sharp the colours. It was funny how he could cease to realise things like that, over time. His glasses prescription had changed before, back in fifth year at Remus' behest, but his eyes hadn't been looked at since. Sophie had produced some sort of portable optometry apparatus after he'd asked about the possibility of contacts (and she had been highly reluctant to explain even the simplest things about the way the device functioned, perhaps indicating it wasn't something from the Muggles).

"Remind me to ask Sophie if she can replace my proper lenses, if I forget," Harry told Scott.

Harry walked over to the rear of the people-carrier, where the others were gathered, while Hermione sorted through her beaded handbag. Everyone looked tense and pale. He stepped into the light next to Ginny.

"Well?" he said, pausing for her perusal.

Her mouth dropped open. "Oh, _Harry..."_

He shifted uncomfortably. "Weird, yeah?"

She stared at him, her bright brown eyes and flaming hair more beautiful than ever before with their newly gained definition. She put her hands on either side of his head, bringing his face down closer to hers.

"...Right, that's it," she said after a moment of mutual gazing. "You aren't allowed to go without your glasses where other girls can see you."

He grinned in relief: she didn't hate it. "It's just for missions. I don't care for sticking things in my eyeballs."

"Is it bad?" she said with concern.

"It doesn't hurt, it's just... Odd." He glanced away from Ginny to see the others all examining him as well.

"Who the bloody hell are you?" Ron said.

"Henry Porter," Harry said laconically.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Remind me to invent a pseudonym for you if you need one. Goodness, Harry, I've hardly seen you without your glasses. Have your eyes always been that green? Those contacts aren't coloured, I assume."

"No. Ron said Ginny would kill me," Harry said.

Ginny gave him a hard look. "If you ever change your eyes I'll... Well, I'll kill you. Like Ron said."

"You look really different without the glasses, mate," Neville said.

"I guess I _do,_ huh," Harry said, still a bit surprised by the reactions. He supposed that was a natural result of wearing the same glasses for most of his life. "There goes my public image."

"I wouldn't expect anonymity," Hermione cautioned.

"I know. Not with this still around." Harry tapped a finger on his scar.

"You don't look _that_ different, mate," Ron said. "Still the same scrawny git."

"What a relief."

Scott came up behind them. He had changed into his fatigues and was practically bristling with weapons and ammunition. "All set?" he asked, slapping a loaded magazine for his carbine into the palm of his hand. When no one said anything to the contrary, he slid the magazine into the receiver and pulled back the handle above the stock. Harry watched a long, pointed bullet briefly pop into view behind the ejection port before the bolt slammed into place. "Okay. Wands out, eyes open."

"Right," Harry said, drawing his wand. "Let's see how Hogwarts is doing without us."

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note<strong>

This chapter was written in the fine tradition of the road trip. It's a slice of time that most other stories would probably elide, skipping to the arrival at Hogwarts. I was interested in having the main cast all together in an enclosed vehicle, moving through the Muggle world. It's not something they encounter too frequently (more frequently than they ever did in the book, to be sure) and I always like writing about it.

Indeed, _This Island, These Tides_ was a chapter that I think was primarily notable for how many people commented on the Primes' trip to the shop. I don't know if it was the rarity of witnessing the Harry Potter cast having a purely Muggle experience or just the laid back, somewhat humorous, somewhat melancholy vibe the whole chapter had. In a way, putting the cast in such a mundane situation is, in and of itself, uniquely different. The books don't deal much in mundane situations. The magical places as described by Rowling tend to oscillate between whimsy and darkness.

It strikes me, rereading what I just wrote, that 'somewhat humorous, somewhat melancholy' is probably a fitting, succinct encapsulation of _Vis Insita's_ overall style. Some of that is a reflection of book seven, which is a very serious tome, especially when contrasted to earlier entries in the series. Some of that is probably a reflection of things happening in my own life; all authors seem to, in one way or another, leave a part of themselves in what they write, even if unconsciously. And at least a part of that is Scott's switch to adulthood. Quite a few readers have said that they like the way he's written as an adult and in fact prefer him that way, even if he is perhaps not as reliably amusing as his teen-self. Certainly, Scott is probably a more tolerable OC now that he's not a spastic teenager.

Scott has always been a vector to introduce Muggle things to the Potter crew, though he's not the best way sometimes. His world is not our world, and the technology he has access to is 'Muggle' only in the sense that it isn't magical (most of it. There are always those things – apertures, self-healing – that are scientifically dubious at best). Therefore, I find it even more effective to just put them out in the real world. And it makes sense, I think, at this point for them to experience the larger society more often.

So, I pose questions to you, to answer or ignore at your leisure: Would you like to see more occasions when Harry and the others are in Muggle locations, interacting with that world? If you do, what would be a situation or place you would want to see them in? Where would you put them if you were writing it? Or is there just a Muggle location or item you'd like to see them interact with because you think it would be interesting from a character or humour standpoint?


	21. What Is Gone Shall Be Forgotten

**21**

**What Is Gone Shall Be Forgotten**

* * *

><p>"<em>There is no empirical evidence in favor<br>of the existence of the human soul. All  
>known sciences, every rational discipline<br>and our total knowledge of the coherent  
>physical universe, in their collective sum,<br>have provided not a single iota of proof  
>or entailment that the soul is real, or<br>that something similar in working, but  
>technically distinct, is extant. This<br>is a very interesting point of fact,  
>rife with implication.<em>

_Equally interesting, and portentous, is_  
><em>the utter lack of evidence that the soul<em>  
><em>does <strong>not <strong>exist. And whereas the argument  
>against lacks inferences, other universes,<br>and the shape itself, imply a great deal  
>about the possibility of the soul. But,<br>as is often the case, the same word  
>may mean many varied things. Thus, the<br>soul continues to exist somewhere  
>between superstition and science."<em>

—Dr. Albrecht Kresser, Foreword to _Modern Science  
>Periodical's<em> _Collected Theorems Volume CXIV_

* * *

><p>As the clouds rolled overhead, they followed the edge of the Forest where it met the field. They stayed in the area where the trees were thinner and the brush didn't fight them quite so much, away from the dark boundary where the branches closed in overhead and the Forest truly began.<p>

Harry kept himself at the edge of the group, closest to the Forest. It was a pointless enough gesture that he knew he was only doing it to assuage his sense of protective duty. Scott also trod near the dangerous border, and if there were any creatures moving back in the darkness the Kharadjai would see them long before anyone else did.

Hermione stopped up ahead. "Scott!" she whispered, gesturing frantically. Scott hurried forward and crouched next to her. "What is that?" she said, pointing.

Scott peered in the direction she'd indicated, then leaned back. "I think it's part of a tree."

Harry couldn't see Hermione's face, but her posture was embarrassed. "Oh," she said.

"When in doubt, point it out. Silhouettes are tricky in the moonlight."

What little of it there was. The clouds overhead blocked out most of the stars and Hogsmeade, its lights dim by Muggle standards, provided distraction rather than illumination. Their progress was slow. Ginny had already caught her knee on a branch and Neville had fallen face first after putting his foot in a rabbit burrow.

After a short time, Harry could see the road between Hogsmeade and the Castle. He felt an instant pang of nostalgia for the trips to the town. It was sobering to realise that, even if he had returned to school, the Hogsmeade weekends would almost certainly have not been allowed. No students would be walking that road anytime soon. Harry really wished he _could_ walk it after the third time he stumbled straight into a tangle of branches.

When they reached the fence they stopped, spreading out slightly and keeping watch. Harry sat down on the carpet of pine needles while Scott did… whatever it was he was doing. He appeared to just be standing there. But Harry had experienced enough to have some faith in the things Scott could do with the shape, and it wasn't long at all before the Kharadjai's eyes refocussed.

"Right here," he said, indicating a section of fence with his arms. "And keep your head down when you go up, just in case." He helped each of them up to the top of the fence, one by one, letting them put a foot on one of his hands.

"That was quick," Harry said when it was his turn. He stepped onto Scott's offered hand and touched the fence for balance as he was swiftly lifted up. With his hands on the cold stone, he vaulted over the top and landed on the soft grass.

"Public building," Scott said by way of explanation when he followed. "Familiar, too."

Harry had always been told he had been safe at Hogwarts. But the ease with which Scott had slipped them through the boundaries made Harry wonder if that had been true not because the school was impenetrable, (which, considering all that had happened there, it clearly was not) but because Dumbledore had been there, along with a staff of other powerful witches and wizards. Perhaps Harry's safety had always been in numbers, not walls.

There was a warm glow emanating from the windows of Hagrid's cabin as they made their way across the lawn. As tempting as it was to ask him for help, the parameters of the mission meant it would be better not to. Stealth was not one of Hagrid's qualities. Besides, Harry didn't want any of the Hogwarts staff mixed up in things if it all went wrong.

Soon they were in the shadow of the Astronomy Tower. Harry felt a chill as he looked up at the looming structure, knowing he stood where Dumbledore had fallen.

"All right, Hermione's got the brooms," Harry said, keeping his voice terse but hushed.

He sort of felt like entering Hogwarts through the Astronomy Tower was a horrible, ironic echo of the past, but it was just too convenient to pass up. The various ground floor entrances would be easier. They would also be more predictable, and it had been decided that the freedom of movement gained by starting at the top was worth the trouble of using the brooms.

It only took a single trip to move all six of them to the top with the three fliers they had (Scott opened an aperture and went first — he was already somewhere below, in the corridors). They assembled near the parapet while Harry unfolded the Marauder's Map.

"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good," he recited, tapping the parchment with his wand. The lines of ink spread across the paper in a real-time blueprint, a source of endless fascination for him. No matter how many times he saw it, the process was still really cool.

Hermione leaned in at his right shoulder, reaching out to hold one side of the map at a better angle for her viewing. "Let's see… It appears most of the staff are still in their offices or bedrooms, so that's good. Filch is in his office. But who are…"

Harry followed her gaze to the two dots moving through the Entrance Hall, neither of which had been present when the Map had been checked previously. They were labelled 'Alecto Carrow' and 'Amycus Carrow'. A flash of recognition was swiftly followed by rage.

"Death Eaters!" he growled. "They were here. Right here." He looked up from the Map and remembered the scene of Dumbledore's murder. The spot where Harry had lain, helpless. The stairs down which Scott had tumbled. The parapet from which Dumbledore had fallen. And right there, near where Snape had stood, the Carrows had been, also.

"Look at them, walking about like they own the place," Ginny sneered, sounding deeply offended.

"I don't know where they're going," Hermione mused as she tracked the pair. "We'll have to be careful to avoid them if they're on some sort of patrol, though I don't know why they would be… The upper levels should remain empty."

"That was the idea," Harry said, still glaring around the room. He couldn't quite shake the memories.

"Hey," Ron said, gaining their attention. He was standing near the stairwell, listening for Scott. "Scott says it's clear. We going?"

The last time Harry had descended the spiral staircase had been in even darker circumstances. Fortunately, this time Scott was crouched at the corner of the intersecting hallways with his carbine at his shoulder instead of lying dead on the floor. All of the rubble which had accumulated during the fight had been removed, but the hallway itself was still damaged. Pits and gouges marked the walls, and great chunks of the ceiling were missing. Harry approached the wall on the side where the Death Eaters had gathered and put his finger onto a divot that he thought had to be a bullet hole.

"What a bloody mess, eh?" Ron said, running his own hand over the scarred stone. "Makes me wonder if I did any of this. I couldn't see a thing in here that night."

"I remember," Harry said.

"I found Flitwick!" Hermione declared. She was bent over the map with Ginny and Luna. "It appears his quarters are near the staff rooms, not Ravenclaw Tower."

"Where's the Grey Lady?" Harry asked, turning away from the pitted wall.

"I'm not sure… But the Ravenclaw common room is empty, so we have our chance."

They moved quickly through the corridors, making use of some of the lesser known routes and shortcuts. Initially, their pace had been hampered by a desire for greater silence. But the Map continued to show that they were alone in the upper storeys, and, while they were never reckless, they stopped trying so hard to watch their footsteps.

Harry kept a close eye on the Map, though not so close as to not also check on his companions. Everyone was understandably tense, but there was a cohesive sense of purpose and preparedness that was very encouraging. Even Neville and Luna, who hadn't been at Grimmauld during all of the lessons and practising, took their cues from the others and moved well with the group.

Hermione walked at Harry's right, adding her eyes to his, scanning the Map. Ron and Ginny were near them, always vigilant, while Luna and Neville brought up the rear. Scott flitted at the front of the group; he frequently disappeared, darting ahead or stepping around corners. Harry felt, for the first time, as if he had a real combat-capable group with him, and not just a bunch of desperate kids plus one out-of-his-element soldier.

The entrance to Ravenclaw Tower was at the top of another spiral staircase. Harry grimaced as he looked upwards. He'd come to terms with it in his first year, but there really were a _lot_ of stairs in Hogwarts.

"Have you ever seen a fat Ravenclaw?" Ron said to Harry as they started the climb.

Harry laughed. "This explains so much."

"According to _Hogwarts: A History,"_ Hermione said between breaths, "this stairwell was designed as an intentional barrier. The Founders thought that Ravenclaws might be too busy reading to exercise."

"I've always felt quite fit," Luna said tranquilly.

"But you'll notice the Headmaster gets an escalator thing," Scott said. "Maybe there's a hidden staff elevator somewhere. I can't see most of them doing this by choice."

"Slughorn would never make it," Ron said, "though I guess he could roll back down."

At the top of the stairs they found the blank door with the eagle-shaped bronze knocker. The last time Harry had seen it he'd been lucky enough to catch some Ravenclaw students already in the process of entering, and they had informed Luna of his presence. He had no idea how to actually open the door. There was no portrait to speak to.

Thus he was surprised when it was the eagle who spoke — and rather nonsensically, at that. "What can change the nature of a man?" the eagle said sonorously.

They all looked to Luna for guidance, but (predictably) Scott interrupted. "What?" he said.

"What can change the nature of a man?" the eagle said again.

Scott frowned and turned to Luna. "Is this how you enter? With philosophical speculation?"

"It's usually a riddle," she said. "But not always. Once it was a numbers sequence. There were first-years standing out here for hours."

Hermione seemed to like the sound of that. "Oh, that's so much more interesting than our password… Not as _practical_, perhaps…"

"What kind of ruddy House makes you do homework so you can get inside and do homework?" Ron groaned.

"What can change the nature of a man?" the eagle repeated. Harry might have been imagining it, but he thought there was an impatient edge to the eagle's sententious voice.

Scott shrugged. "The nature of man does not change. But the nature of _a _man can be changed by time or trauma."

"Knowledge. Epiphany!" Hermione said.

"Love," Luna said. She looked at Neville, who blushed.

"That will do," the eagle said, and the door swung open.

The common room through the doors was decked in soft shades of blue and bronze. Swathes of silk fluttered at the walls and arches, and the carpet underfoot was deep in thickness and hue. Harry looked up and saw that the domed ceiling was painted with stars. It might have been enchanted, because they looked very realistic. There was a style of columned classicalism about the room, an awareness of noble history. He thought it was pretty nice, overall, though he felt that it lacked Gryffindor Tower's comforting sense of home. The Ravenclaw aesthetic was proud and beautiful, but a bit distant and cold for Harry.

Scott was looking around with an odd expression. "Whoever decorated this place must have worked on the Consist," he said.

"Luna, where's that statue you were speaking of?" Hermione asked.

Luna led them over to what looked like the entrance to the dormitories. There stood a tall marble statue of a robed woman. She was posed stiffly, almost haughtily, her chin lifted as her blank stone eyes gazed at nothing. The diadem rested on her head. It was wrought in a very bird-like shape with a large gem stone in the middle. It was hard to get a sense of the specifics, as the carving was made of the same white marble as the rest of the statue.

"What sort of gem do you suppose that is?" Harry said.

"Impossible to say just from this. The shape is distinct, though, I don't think we'd mistake it if we saw it," Hermione said.

They all stood there for a moment, no one speaking. Harry reckoned they were probably all thinking the same thing — barring a miracle, searching a castle as vast and mysterious as Hogwarts was going to be an exercise in futility. Luckily, they had more than one chance at finding a lead.

"All right," Harry said. "Let's find the Grey Lady and see if we can't talk with her. Remember to let Luna do the talking."

"Thank you," Luna said graciously.

"I have a suggestion," Hermione said immediately. "I would like for us to split up."

"Have you never seen a horror movie?" Scott said.

She rolled her eyes. "I would like for us to split up for reasons other than making us more vulnerable to serve the plot. How about that?"

"Hey, you're the teen girl with a boyfriend. I'm the single white guy with a gun, if I die it'll be near the end in heroic self-sacrifice."

"Stop it, this is serious! Now, I know I haven't been able to find much in the books I have. But I've been considering the problem, and Dumbledore might have had additional notes beyond the reference material I Summoned from his office. I want to go to the Headmaster's Office and look for anything else that might help us."

It wasn't a bad idea, except for the part about her going without everyone else. Harry was about to point that out when Ron beat him to it. "There's no way you're going by yourself," he said.

"Of course not. That would be foolish," Hermione agreed. "Rather, I want Scott to go with me. He can get me into the office. Can't you?"

"Yeah, shouldn't be a problem," Scott said.

"You can't go out there without the Map!" Ron protested.

Hermione's lips thinned. "I have to! Besides, that's why Scott will be going with me. He's the most qualified to move undetected."

"Look, I know splitting up worked out last time, but what if it doesn't _this_ time?"

"I have to _try_, Ron! We need every clue we can get and we can't stay here all night!"

Harry observed the play of emotions across Ron's open features: anger, fear, disbelief. All of which were appropriate when confronted with the prospect of Hermione traipsing off into the school with no one but Scott for company. But, just when Harry was bracing himself for a white-hot row between his two best friends, Ron did something that gave Harry a whole new respect for the second-youngest Weasley, and insight into how much Ron respected Hermione.

"Give her the Cloak, Harry," Ron said, his voice hoarse with restraint.

Harry didn't need to be told twice. "Hermione, give me the handbag and you take the Cloak."

She seemed to be about to protest, but when she looked at Ron, her mouth closed and her eyes softened. She gave Harry the beaded handbag after pulling the Cloak out and draping it over her shoulders.

"But, wait," Ginny said anxiously. "How will we know if something happens?"

"I've got just the thing," Hermione pronounced. She dug through the handbag and withdrew two of the old DA coins. "Though I wish I'd brought those mirrors you gave me, come to think of it. Drat! I was so intent on understanding them that I keep thinking of them as being unfinished… Well, these are only one-way, of course, but you can let us know when you've found the Grey Lady and where to meet you."

"What about on your end?" Harry said.

Hermione glanced wryly towards Scott. "Should a real emergency occur, just follow the unbelievable noise. But I'll send a Patronus, if secrecy becomes pointless."

"I think we should all meet at the Room of Requirement… Like, if we get lost, if we can't keep in touch," Neville proposed.

Scott pointed at him. "Good, Nev. Room of Requirement is our rally point. If you get separated, go there and we'll find you. Everyone agreed?"

No one objected.

Harry nodded. "Okay. Let's get at it."

* * *

><p>It was unnerving to be in the hallways of Hogwarts when they were so quiet and unlit. Less so in the upper levels; there were many corridors which never saw much use. But the lower Hermione went in the school, the stranger it became. Empty seats in empty classrooms, heavy stillness where there was usually unbridled motion. She tried not to think about it, holding tightly to Scott's hand as he led her unerringly through the frequent stretches of dark.<p>

It made her wish she had made better progress during her attempts to formulate a night vision spell, futile though her efforts had seemed. Most of their clashes with the enemy had occurred at night, and the same darkness that cloaked them also hindered. Scott's ability to see thermal emissions was a massive advantage that Hermione very much wanted to duplicate. She resolved that, should she have the time, she would resume her research on the subject.

Her trepidation wasn't just a result of her surroundings. Before they had left the others, Scott had fitted one of his handguns with a suppressor and a magazine marked by a red stripe around the bottom. Harry, reliably curious when it came to firearms, had asked what kind of ammunition the stripe denoted. Scott had replied, 'Illegal.' Whatever that might mean, she didn't want him to have to use it. To that end, she had been using her invisibility to scout ahead, when the light allowed. There were many reasons to avoid risking confrontation besides her state of mind.

It was very odd to be using the Cloak without Harry or Ron with her; she wasn't used to being underneath it by herself. Scott had refused to make use of it, citing his height. Hermione didn't think that was much of an excuse, seeing as even if he were standing straight the Cloak wouldn't reveal more than a few inches of his feet and ankles. But he seemed perfectly all right without it, and it was true he needed it less than she did. She wasn't all that comfortable with him being the sole visible target; no doubt his aversion to using the Cloak had more to do with her status as a Prime than any personal objection. She didn't care for the idea of increasing his risk for her own safety, but she didn't argue about it like she knew Harry would have. There came a time when being a realist meant accepting what was unpleasant.

She was having a much harder time accepting that there were Death Eaters in the school. It was not unexpected, given the politics involved. But the very thought of the Dark supporters being allowed where Dumbledore had once endeavoured to keep them out… Sickening. Enraging. There was a small, ugly part of herself that wished the Carrows would wander her way: Scott would extinguish them. She did her best to ignore such thoughts, knowing that her ability to do so was what separated her from the enemy.

She peeked around the nearest corner, checking the hallway for signs of life. "There's nothing," she whispered.

Scott went forward on silent feet to the next intersection. The stairwells had been moving around again and their original route had been altered. Now they were on the fourth storey, trying to find a different way down. He pushed aside a tapestry and ducked into a passageway which would avoid several of the more frequented classrooms.

It was pitch black behind the tapestry and Hermione didn't dare create any light. She put her hand onto Scott's right shoulder and hoped that her feet didn't catch on anything. It was so dreadfully unfair that he wasn't equally blind. When he stepped to the side, her hand slid down his back before catching on an object she couldn't immediately identify. Mottled rubber brushed the back of her fingers; she realised it was the handle of his knife (the large one with the thick spine, which was really a straight-backed machete, though he never referred to it as such).

She would prefer not to see him hack anyone to death with it. "If we come across someone, why don't you let me Stun them. It would be quieter that way," she whispered, trying to appeal to his sense of stealth.

"If I'm seen, I'll start to surrender. You take them from the back," he said.

Scott's tactics always stood in such stark contrast to what Hermione knew of wizarding combat, based as it was on centuries-old duelling codes. He didn't seem to know _how_ to fight fair. The substantial portions of her brain dominated by logic had always rather admired that about him, when the rest of her wasn't morally appalled at his ruthlessness. Not that she minded his lethal approach to the Death Eaters — not as much as she once had, anyway. It was his casual disregard for the truth and any human lives not directly tied to Harry that left her conflicted.

Although, perhaps she was being unfair on the last point. It wasn't as if Scott had _actually_ tried to kill Dean, or anyone else who had been an inconvenience. Dean was still alive, after all. Or, at least she hoped he was. Being a fellow Muggle-born, Dean's continued survival was very much an open question.

Another corridor, this one with windows. The clouds had parted somewhat and faint moonlight granted enough illumination that Hermione didn't have to rely on Scott for navigation, speeding things along. She looked down into the courtyard below. It was a major thoroughfare for the students, and it was eerie to see it so empty.

They managed to reach the gargoyle standing vigil before the entrance to the Headmaster's Office without encountering any signs of life. Hermione allowed herself to relax a bit, letting the tightness in her chest ease ever so slightly. According to the Map, McGonagall had remained in her usual quarters, perhaps uncomfortable with taking the rooms that adjoined the office. Hermione doubted that the Transfiguration professor would be given the chance to come to terms with the idea; with the Ministry under Death Eater control, they could easily assign one of their own to the post of Headmaster. Such an announcement might have already been made, but Hermione hadn't seen the _Prophet_ in some time.

The gargoyle was an impassive sentry. "Now what?" Hermione said.

Scott reached out and rapped on the statue's face. "Open up." Nothing happened, and he _tsk_ed. "My time saving measures never work. Start listing candy."

It only took about thirty seconds of guessing before the gargoyle moved aside. Not the greatest security system, but she supposed that wasn't really the point. It was an inconvenience by Dumbledore's design. She wouldn't have been surprised if the gargoyle would move of its own volition when presented with a real emergency. Or perhaps the Headmaster would be made aware of who was attempting entry.

A short trip up the odd spiral stone lift and they pushed aside the double doors and walked into the dark and quiet office. Nothing looked disturbed, compared to when Hermione had last been there. All of Dumbledore's instruments remained on their shelves, along with what she had thought was his memorabilia. Either some of the things had already belonged to the school, or he had bequeathed them to it. Or, maybe, in the absence of any living relatives, they had nowhere else to go. Although, didn't Dumbledore have a brother? She was fairly certain that was the case.

It felt a lot like invading a tomb. She shuddered beneath the Cloak, feeling smothered by it. She tore it off and stuffed it back beneath her robes, taking a deep breath to steady herself. A bare corner of the Headmaster's desk caught her eye.

"That's where I stole it from," she murmured, approaching it.

"What's that?" Scott said, leaving his examination of the silvery instruments.

"The locket. I took it from right here." She placed her palm on the desk. It was smooth and cool to the touch.

"I heard about that." Scott gripped the back of the chair facing the front of the desk, his eyes distant. "That was a smart move."

Hermione exhaled, hard, through her nose. "No, it wasn't."

He looked up, curious. "It's what got us the real one."

"No, I know. But my own estimation of the false locket's importance has little to do with it. I…" She had been afraid to discuss that moment. She wasn't sure she wanted to know what it implied, but she was just about sick of her unease with the subject. She was hardly one to ascribe to 'ignorance is bliss', never one to stick her head in the sand. It was past time to ask. "I'd never seen it before and had no idea it was supposed to be a Horcrux. Rather, I took it because it… It felt important. I _felt_ it."

"Ah." Scott ran his fingers over the same spot on the desk that she had touched. "And it wasn't in an intuitive way, you're saying."

"It was the way you talk about." She stared at the corner, trying to make sense of the memory. "…Did you do something to me?" Her head snapped up to look at him.

He smirked down at her. "No. Someone like you who is close to the shape — or at least the UO facet of it — has a higher chance of experiencing sensitivity. You increase your compatibility through proximity. It's why Primes are so much more likely to work as recruits than others."

"Why hasn't it happened since?"

Scott shrugged, sitting on the edge of the desk. "You were very close to an important object at the time. The shape was still subsiding after everything that had happened, so maybe all that turbulence had something to do with it. Who knows? But I don't think you've ever been very sensitive to begin with. You're definitely not an esper."

"That's good," she said without thinking about it. "…Isn't it? What's an esper?"

"Someone with a naturally high sensitivity to the shape."

"So someone powerful, like Dumbledore," she assumed.

"No, a high sensitivity to the _raw_ shape, the true shape. Not a manifestation of it. Unrelated to magic. Your Seers may be espers, I don't know if that's true or not. I'm pretty sure that Luna is."

Hermione considered that for a moment. "…I can't say that surprises me," she concluded. "Is that due to any particular strain? Perhaps Kharadjai ancestors, a bit of common blood?"

"No such thing. Either you're a Kharadjai, or you're not."

"At least I know I'm not going mad. Nicking that locket required a great deal of soul searching." Hermione glanced around the darkened office and set her relief aside to be examined later — there was important business at hand. "Let's each take a room. I'll check the Headmaster's residence and you look in here. Set aside anything you think might be Horcrux related; even if it's not, we'll take it all and sort it out later."

"Shut the door behind you when you go," Scott said. "If anybody busts in I want it to look like I'm alone."

"But, how will you signal me if you need help? I might not be able to hear you," she fretted.

Scott raised his handgun and waggled it. "This close, you can probably hear this even with the suppressor. If not, I don't know what to tell you. I'll just lock the big door."

"All right," she acquiesced. At least he was taking precautions. "I'll try to be quick."

"Don't try too hard. Check everything well, I doubt we're going to get a second chance at this."

That was an excellent point. "True. Still, we don't have a great deal of time. I'm going, watch your back."

She ducked into the Headmaster's residence and shut the door behind her with a quiet click. She lit her wand but left the lamps alone, not wanting much light to reach the windows. The room was lined with bookshelves and scrolls, apparently a small private study. She had her work cut out for her.

She marched determinedly to the nearest corner and began rifling through a stack of papers, looking for anything relevant.

* * *

><p>Scott slid the lock on the double doors shut and walked back towards the desk, scanning the office for a likely starting place. The claw-footed desk seemed the most probable source of documents. He walked around to the back of it and pulled open the closest drawer.<p>

"You'll find nothing there, I'm afraid," a voice said to his left.

Scott had his gun up before the voice finished talking. There was nothing but darkness and the wall. Except… It had to be one of the portraits. He couldn't see the people in them through heat emissions. All the portraits were grey rectangles without much in the way of detail, the different coloured paints deviating little in emissivity.

"The latch for the shutters is just to the side of each window, respectively. The lamp between them won't reach the door," the voice explained.

Based on the familiar tone, Scott thought he knew who was talking. He closed and locked the shutters over the windows and managed to use his much-neglected wand to light the lamp after several tries.

Albus Dumbledore looked out from the large portrait directly behind the desk, blue eyes twinkling over his half-moon spectacles. "I had hoped I might see you again, Mr. Kharan," he said amiably.

Scott studied the portrait for a moment. "…So, what exactly am I talking to, here?" he asked slowly.

"A memory, more or less."

"A ghost?"

Dumbledore shook his head. "Not quite. I've passed on, I'm afraid, and don't linger like a ghost, or like Tom. I am a… simulacrum, you might say. A very advanced re-creation."

Scott thought about that for a moment. He lowered his gun and leaned back against the desk. "So I'm talking with a semi-sentient recording."

"If that's how you wish to think of it. I'm not certain how to express the magic in Muggle terms."

"Synthetic Intelligence based on personality imprinting and reconstructed memory paths. You'd be illegal in a lot of places."

"Fortunately, this is not one of them," Dumbledore said with an amused smile. "So — how goes the hunt?"

"It'd be going a lot better if your favourite pet hadn't killed you."

"Ah…" Dumbledore paused. "Scott, there are things of which you were not aware. I bear the blame for many, but I… Have you encountered Severus since that night?"

"No. He's been smart enough to be absent from every skirmish so far. He must be aware I'd finish the job."

"I must ask you not to do that. Severus is, and has always been, working for me."

Scott rubbed at his right eye, not sure how to respond to that. "Well… It pisses me off, but I can't help but be impressed by that level of denial."

Dumbledore sighed. "There are secrets of which—"

"Do you not remember that he killed you? Did that get left out of whatever passes for your memory?" Scott wondered.

"Severus did nothing which I did not ask him to do."

"You _asked_ him to torment Harry?"

Dumbledore fixed Scott with a hard look. "I asked him to kill me if Mr Malfoy could not."

Scott couldn't believe what he was hearing. "That's absurd. Malfoy isn't worth that."

"We'll have to agree to disagree on the matter of whose life is worth what."

Scott rolled his eyes. "So you dropped everything at Harry's feet in the service of some kind of moral absolutism. What is this bullshit?"

"Will you allow me to finish, or are you content in your outrage?" Dumbledore said sharply.

"I'm pretty content, thanks for asking though—"

"Severus made an Unbreakable Vow with Draco's mother after Tom placed the responsibility of my murder on the boy's head. If Draco were unable to complete his task, Severus was to step in and finish it to prevent him from being punished. He did so with _my_ full agreement. It was the only way."

"The only way to _what? _To save Malfoy and Snape's worthless butts?"Scott said incredulously. "I'm going out on a limb here… I think I speak for both myself and the wizarding world at large when I say I'd rather have kept you! I'd kill both of them to prevent you from being mildly inconvenienced. I'd kill both of them for just about any reason at this point, doesn't have to involve you at all."

"I'm disappointed in you," Dumbledore said sadly, as if that was supposed to mean anything to Scott. "Are you so willing to be ruled by revenge?"

"No, Albus," Scott said tiredly. "Revenge has nothing to do with it. Revenge doesn't bring people back. You can't change the things you want to change with it."

Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. "But?"

"You're confusing revenge with prevention. Emotion and logic don't always lead you to different places." Scott crossed his arms. "A dead Death Eater won't help the Muggles who were killed. But a dead Death Eater won't kill any more Muggles. Prevention."

Dumbledore glanced over Scott's shoulder. "This is not the most opportune moment to debate our philosophies. May I return to the point?"

"That would be good."

"I was already dying. I destroyed the Horcrux in the Marvolo family ring, but not before I foolishly placed it on my finger. It was protected by a powerful curse, and though a combination of my and Severus' skills prevented my immediate death, I had no longer than a year to survive."

Scott frowned. "So it was a mercy killing."

"Indeed. It also served a greater purpose, which was all I could have hoped for."

"God damn it, Albus," Scott said coldly. "You should have told me. If you were cursed I could have done something."

"When the extent of your abilities became clearer, I had considered it. Alas, while the curse itself was magical, the damage it wrought was not. It poisoned my blood, and even Severus could not undo it entirely." Dumbledore nodded towards Scott. "If I had been younger, I might have come to you. But I was an old man, Scott. Even if you had purged me, my body was failing."

"I see." Scott wasn't entirely convinced, but it did make sense. Short of getting Dumbledore connected to advanced life support, there may not have been anything that could be done. Sometimes the body was simply finished. "And you think that, even with you gone, Snape is still one of us."

"I do. He has motivations which are unknown to you."

"So _make_ them known," Scott insisted. Dumbledore hadn't said anything that made Scott less likely to put a bullet in Snape just to be safe.

"It is not my story to tell."

"Right, of course." Scott was done with the subject. If Dumbledore wouldn't justify Snape's existence then Scott would just end it if he saw the professor again. It wasn't like Dumbledore could do much about it, stuck to a wall as he was. "Let me bring you up to speed."

Scott gave a quick summary of all that had happened during the hunt for the Horcruxes. When he finished, Dumbledore stroked a pensive hand over his beard. "You'll have to tell Ms Granger that I relied on my Pensieve for my research, not any physical notes. I felt the information was too dangerous to put in writing. Well done discovering the real locket. I had no idea what we removed from the cave was a fake. I only wish Sirius had lived to hear about Regulus…"

Scott didn't know much about either man, so he said, "Thoughts?"

"Some. I already searched the Chamber myself, once I finally managed to open it. Not being a Parselmouth, it took some effort."

"Couldn't you just… I don't know, Summon a snake and charm it to talk?"

Dumbledore looked amused. "How is it you only received average marks at best, Mr Kharan?"

"Just because I can't do it doesn't mean I can't read about it. I got an imagination, at least."

"Unfortunately, that method — while inventive — would not work. In order to charm the snake to speak, one would have to know what to make it say. Parseltongue is a very rare and misunderstood ability, and there are no dictionaries or manuals for its use. But the details are best left unexplored for the moment. The Chamber was empty."

"Okay. We're working under the assumption that the Lost Diadem might be what Riddle used. Right now the others are going to talk to the Grey Lady and see if she knows anything about it."

Dumbledore brightened at that. "An excellent plan. She is one of the few left to know of the Diadem."

"If we find it, we've got that sword you gave us. Good call on that one."

"Your presence allowed me to take a calculated risk. My plan had been to hide the Sword here after giving the Ministry a fake, after which I would find a way for it to come into Harry's possession. But once I realised you were indeed dedicated to the side of good, I knew I might bequeath it to you, someone towards whom the Ministry had no history of dislike. I presumed they would pay less attention to your gift."

"I'm pretty sure they tried to open it."

"Undoubtedly, but the law allowed only a limited delay before they would be forced to give you the items, lacking a legal pretext to seize them. I knew they would spend far more time trying to unravel Harry's gift. Yours was made in greater haste, and they might have opened it given enough effort."

"You weren't worried it would sink this whole enterprise if they did take it?"

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. "Perhaps. But the Sword has a way of turning up when it's most needed."

"Huh. Then let's hope it knows not to go wandering." Scott paused. "We have a big problem."

"Oh?"

"We found out that the Cup is in Gringotts."

Dumbledore's eyes widened behind his spectacles. "Oh, my."

"Any ideas?"

The ex-Headmaster frowned, worrying at his beard again. "That is quite a pickle. I'm particularly worried by what this implies about Tom's state of mind. A random vault doesn't fit his usual behaviour."

Scott considered that. Kylie had never actually stated that Riddle had requested Gringotts, specifically. Just that he'd wanted the Cup kept safe. "He gave it to Lestrange, she put it in her vault. I can't tell you exactly how that conversation went, so I don't know if he asked that it be kept in Gringotts or if that was her decision."

"An interesting choice, either way," Dumbledore mused. "I had thought after the Diary was destroyed it would be the last time Tom entrusted a Horcrux to one of his people. The shelf, to your left — look at the top right, next to the large book with the red leather binding."

"This green one?" Scott said, walking over to the shelf and reaching for it.

"Yes, that's the one. It's a history of Gringotts in the modern era. Nothing too detailed, but it's the best description of their security measures I've seen. I only wish I could help you in your planning."

"Can I take you with us?" Scott asked, tapping the edge of the portrait.

"I must stay here to advise the next Headmaster. All of us are a few steps above the typical portrait, and we are compelled to serve. There are also several security measures to prevent our theft."

"It was just a thought. I don't know if I'll be able to get back in here to see you again."

"Hogwarts will soon be in the hands of our enemy," Dumbledore said sadly, though there was a righteous anger underpinning his words. "I wish it had not come to this. But we are not defeated yet — to that end, I have several things to tell you that you must know."

"Just me?" Scott said.

"I leave that to your discretion. Firstly, how do you feel about grave robbing?"

Scott shrugged. "I've dabbled in the area."

"Good. Before you leave, break in to my tomb and take my wand."

Scott raised an eyebrow. "Why? I can barely use the one I've got."

"It's not for you. Not necessarily for any of you, for that matter," Dumbledore said quickly. He obviously knew the risk of discovery was increasing with every passing second. "Ms Granger will be able to explain everything when you tell her this: my wand is one of the Deathly Hallows."

"That will mean something to her?"

"It will. Secondly, tell Remus he must be in contact with me as soon as possible. I know the Order is doing what they can for the Muggle-borns, and I may be able to assist."

"You're very well informed for a guy glued to the wall."

"Surprised?" Dumbledore said with a hint of his old humour, but it faded almost instantly. "And lastly… Lastly, I must ask that you be circumspect with what I am about to tell you. If you choose to tell Harry immediately, I understand. Circumstances have changed. But… consider it first. And consider it well."

Scott squinted at Dumbledore. "This sounds very serious. Am I going to find it hard to believe?"

"Not once I explain. Have you found yourself in disbelief a great deal, lately?"

"I saw a snake jump out of a lady like a fucking nesting doll."

"How horrifying. But, if nothing else, your belief ought to stretch that much further."

Scott readied himself. "All right, lay it on me."

"Harry is a Horcrux."

Scott's world slowed to a crawl as every synapse in his brain lit up with the news like summer lightning. _Harry was a Horcrux_. Scott didn't know how, or why, or even when, but it made a terrible, rending kind of sense. Of course Harry was a Horcrux. How could he _not _be? The kid stepped in every other kind of shit. It was like hearing the punchline to a long-form joke, the kind that wove in and out of events until it all came together and was so much funnier for having been delayed.

Sometimes Scott grew tired of Harry's moping; those were the days he avoided his Priority One and let Ginny or Hermione or anyone else handle the damaged teen. And Scott always did what he could to force Harry out of his brooding and into thought and action. But when the cosmos seemed to actually go out of its way to beat Harry down… Scott understood where the battered Boy-Who-Lived was coming from. In a better life, Harry would have already had to grow up while dealing with all the damage left to him by the Dursleys. That was a fully formed drama right there, no need for any magic or dark destinies. A different bitter coming-of-age, one with less threats of sudden death and more time to suffer and breathe. Harry barely had time to feel the pain, most days. Who did?

Enough, enough. Scott continually suppressed his pity when it came to Harry because Harry didn't need or want it, because Scott didn't care for the feeling, and because it was useless. Empathy, sure, when it could be managed. Dispassionate analysis? Always. Harry needed solutions. If the Chosen One wanted a shoulder to cry on, he had better offerings than Scott.

"Tom is not aware of this, so far as I can tell," Dumbledore was saying. "Scott?"

"I'm listening," Scott said shortly.

"Minerva will be here soon; she always speaks to me before she sleeps and you cannot be seen. These are things that neither she nor the Order can know. We haven't much time, certainly not enough for you to dissect my plans, so the most pertinent information only: When Tom attempted to kill Harry, his soul was unstable enough to inadvertently split again. Harry's connection to him is not from the scar, but from the Horcrux. Foolish of Tom, not to realise how precarious his soul has become, but he made yet another crucial error in taking Harry's blood for his resurrection. Harry cannot directly die at Tom's hand, which means the only part of Harry that _can_ die is what's left—"

"Scott?" The door to the living quarters opened and Hermione peeked around the frame. "Who are you talking to? Oh! Professor Dumbledore!"

"Ms Granger. It's a great relief to see that you are well," Dumbledore said kindly. "I understand you're looking for books that will be of use to you. Back in the residence there is a cupboard beneath the stairs. Inside are several tomes regarding blood-based magic you may find helpful."

"Blood-based?" Hermione said, clearly intrigued. "That might give greater insight into what's happened to Harry…"

"I believe so. Once you retrieve them, you and Mr. Kharan should be on your way. It wouldn't do for you to be caught here."

"Of course, Professor. I'll be right back," she said, and ducked through the door again.

Dumbledore looked at Scott, his gaze piercing."Be careful going forward with what I've told you. I know if I can trust anyone, it's you."

"Really," Scott said slowly, a bit unsure of where Dumbledore was going with such a statement.

Dumbledore smiled. "No hidden meanings. You're incorruptible because no one has anything to offer you. The only facet of this entire affair that can affect you is whether Harry succeeds."

"Yeah, if he goes down that's really going to fuck up my stats."

"You're the perfect mercenary. No offence intended, of course; I don't mean that literally."

Scott, like pretty much any Primare, didn't care to be referred to as a mercenary, even figuratively. But he was feeling generous, so he said, "Sure, I get it."

"I found them!" Hermione said, darting back out into the office.

"Under the Cloak, let's go," Scott said. He looked back at Dumbledore as he turned to leave. "Hang in there. Ha ha."

"Yes. Quite," Dumbledore said dryly. "The best of luck to you. We should speak again, if we are able."

Scott huddled with Hermione on the stone escalator, waiting impatiently as the odd conveyance ground its way to the bottom. He was still trying to fit the new information he had into his perception of reality, the puzzle of the shape and the physical which never fit together quite right. He could now fill in some of the gaps. The last thing Dumbledore had said was especially intriguing, and he had wanted Hermione to have the blood magic books. That had to relate to Riddle's tie to Harry. Scott just needed time to sort it all out, and Hogwarts was not the place to do it.

"Did Professor Dumbledore have anything important to tell you?" Hermione whispered.

"Maybe," Scott vacillated. "Get back to me later."

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note<strong>

I don't really know anything about Dr. Who. I thought I'd make that clear at some point, which ended up being now. I've seen a fragmented handful of episodes from one of the more recent series, most of which were on while I wasn't paying attention.

I say that because there have been parallels drawn between TMM and Dr. Who before (along with Heinlein). Dr. Who and Robert Heinlein are, I'm afraid, not among my influences. I haven't read Heinlein, and I don't watch Who. I'm actually not sure what I would say are my clearest influences on this story. _Star Wars _and David Eddings, I guess, in a very oblique way.

The Kharadjai are really a creation born out of being contrary, rather than copying what I like. My aesthetic is less a conglomeration of ideas from things I enjoy and more a rejection of the specifics that I don't, which should tell you a lot about the kind of person I am, probably. I observe things in science fiction and fantasy that I think are stupid, and resolve to do the opposite. That leads me to resemble works that I might like were I familiar with them, obviously: there is nothing new under the sun.

Dr. Who may not be one of those things. I know a little about the Doctor, and I can't say I like much of it. This is mostly, again, because of my chosen aesthetic. The Kharadjai are representative of my ideas concerning that what we call 'human failings' are in fact _sentient_ failings, that utopia is not achievable, progress is temporary, entropy always wins, and so on. Scott has expressed some of these ideas before. I do think the Doctor is funny and I can see why people equate Scott's often irreverent (if far more profane) attitude to Who, but they are very different characters — at least, Scott is compared to the only incarnation of the Doctor I know.

I don't like sexless, aloof aliens as a fiction concept. The Kharadjai are a direct response to the idea that evolution somehow has 'stages', that there are 'higher' forms of life. That's not how evolution works. And maybe that's unfair to the Doctor, I don't know.

But Scott is wonderfully, damagingly, fragilely, dangerously, _irrevocably_ human. That's the point. He has an ego and empathy and rage and humour and a penis. He's never above human concerns, whether it's as noble as keeping Harry alive or as base as trying to look down Sophie's shirt. I find that more interesting.

Again, I don't know how much Dr. Who plays with these concepts. And I imagine it depends on who's writing the show and who's playing the Doctor.


	22. What Is Forgotten Is Not Gone

**22**

**What Is Forgotten Is Not Gone**

* * *

><p>"<em>Those who seek immortality are fools,<br>__for immortality does not exist; not in  
><em>_life, and not in deed. This Multiverse has  
><em>_but one Overseer. His name is Entropy, and  
><em>_He will not remember you._

-Emperor Decimus Nesaeil, purportedly on being asked to convert to the Church of the Infinite Strand

* * *

><p>The only Hogwarts ghost that Harry had ever spoken much with had been Nearly Headless Nick, who had been occasionally helpful in the past (and also decidedly unhelpful, but Harry still thought well of him). The ghosts generally kept to their own Houses. The Fat Friar and Nick, though, were at least approachable and friendly. The Bloody Baron and the Grey Lady were silent, ominous figures who rarely, if ever, made any gestures towards inter-House cooperation.<p>

So when they found the Grey Lady near the North Tower, and she responded when Luna approached her, Harry was interested just to hear her voice. It was low and smooth, and had the same hollow, spectral undertones as the other ghosts. Even Nick at his most exuberant sounded a bit like he was at the bottom of a well.

"What are you doing here, Miss Lovegood? School has not yet started," the Grey Lady said, floating towards them.

"I've come to speak with you," Luna told her.

The slightest frown creased her placid, ethereal face. "Have you?"

"I need to ask you about the Lost Diadem."

The frown morphed into open annoyance – apparently, the Grey Lady's airy demeanour was a bit of an act. "I'd thought better of you. Many a student has bothered me for the diadem, hoping to cheat their way to better marks. I did not help them, and I will not help you."

"Oh, it's not for me," Luna said pleasantly. "It's for Harry."

The Grey Lady glared at Harry. "Whatever advantage you seek for the coming school year, you won't get it from me."

"Uh..." Harry shot a sideways glance at Luna, wondering if he should address the Grey Lady directly. Luna looked encouraging enough, so he said, "I'm not looking for the Diadem for classes or anything. It's for..." How to put it without giving anything away? Neville and Luna had simply been told they were on a 'mission', and since military terms had worked well enough so far- "It's for the war effort."

The Grey Lady's expression did not change. "Generations of students have given me excuses-"

Harry had neither the time nor the inclination to stand there and be lectured. "Lady, are you even listening to me? Or do you _want_ You-Know-Who to win, because it really seems like you do. _Where is the diadem?"_

The ghost was taken aback, floating further away with wide eyes. "No, I... Is this really necessary?"

"Listen to him!" Ginny urged. "This is important!"

"Maybe since you're a ghost, you don't care too much what happens to the school-" Harry began.

The Grey Lady drew herself up sharply. "How _dare_ you?! I am the ghost of House Ravenclaw, and as such-"

"Good, brilliant, then you don't want the Death Eaters to take over your precious House permanently!" Harry said a bit too loudly, and Ginny placed a cautioning hand on his arm. He bit his cheek and said, more calmly, "I have to find that diadem. Everything depends on it."

"Do you think yourself so unintelligent that the diadem would bring you victory? The Dark Lord must also be wise, yes?"

"Harry hasn't said, but I don't think it's for wearing," Luna commented.

"It's not. I can't tell you what it's for, but I can tell you it isn't for me, either," Harry said to the reluctant ghost. "If you know anything about it, you have to tell us. Or I guarantee, you won't have a House much longer."

"Are you threatening me?" the Lady said with a desperate air, looking less like she believed that and more like she was running out of reasons not to talk.

"It's not _me_. Don't you get it?"

The Grey Lady stared silently at a distant point somewhere past Harry's shoulder. Then she sighed, the puff of her breath washing over Harry like the first touch of winter. "...It once belonged to my mother," she said. "When I lived, I was her daughter, Helena Ravenclaw."

"And the diadem?" Harry didn't really care about the Grey Lady's life story.

"It... came into my possession," she said hesitantly, perhaps glossing over more than a few details. "It was hidden in Albania for a time. There it remained, after my death. I told no one. Until..."

Harry grimaced. "Until Tom Riddle."

"Yes," the Grey Lady said regretfully. "He was sympathetic, I thought he... He told me he understood."

Harry supposed the story of the diadem was tragic, or something. "Do you know what he did with it?"

"I do not. But I know the diadem is no longer where I once left it. He stole it... Ironic, I suppose..." she said with sadness.

"Is the statue in your common room accurate? I mean, is that what the diadem really looks like?" Ginny asked.

"Yes. The gemstone is a sapphire."

"Well, that's better than nothing," Harry muttered. He turned away from the Grey Lady, letting Luna thank the ghost. His mind was otherwise occupied.

He was almost positive that the diadem was at Hogwarts. It made _sense_, logically and intuitively. He couldn't shake the idea, certain without knowing exactly why. He'd seen the memory of Riddle with Dumbledore, asking for a teaching position. It would have been the right time to hide the diadem, the perfect false pretences. But where would he have put it? Hogwarts was so vast... There was the Chamber of Secrets; secrets which Riddle thought only he had unravelled. There was also the Slytherin common room, where he had made the connections that would form his future cadre. Harry didn't believe that Riddle would have placed it near another House's territory. He despised them and what they stood for. Except, perhaps, Ravenclaw? Harry wasn't sure how Riddle had felt about Ravenclaw. Indifference, at best, surely.

"At least we know what it looks like," Ron was saying. "Bloody big sapphire like that? It'd be hard to miss if we could see it."

Which was worrying, really, since that meant Harry was pretty sure he'd never seen it. "Yeah. Gin, you got the coin?" he said, looking at the Map again.

"I set it. I told them we'd be here... Or should we move?" she said.

"No, it's clear for now. We can stay." There was no one in the vicinity of the North Tower, and it was safer to stay put.

"She really didn't want to talk about the diadem," Neville said, watching as the Grey Lady floated down the corridor, disappearing into the darkness.

"But she seems likely to keep quiet about this," Harry said. He located Hermione and Scott on the Map – they were moving in the right direction, so Hermione must have seen the message on the DA coin. Their path looked to be safe.

"That her?" Ron said, leaning over the Map.

"Yeah, she's fine. And invisible, probably," Harry replied.

"Wish I could say the same for us. So, where do you want to start?"

Harry thought about that. He looked at the Map again, locating the Carrows. They were in the dungeons. "The Chamber first."

"Lovely. Odds on Myrtle keeping her mouth shut?"

"Damn it, I didn't even think about her."

"Let me and Luna go first, she doesn't get so shirty when it's girls coming in," Ginny offered.

"Scott might be able to get rid of her," Harry said distractedly.

Scott and Hermione were past the point that they might run into the Carrows, but they were moving almost parallel to McGonagall, who seemed to be going toward the Headmaster's Office. There were a few smaller passageways connecting the two hallways, so hopefully the pair were keeping quiet. McGonagall's dot kept moving without pause. Soon, Scott and Hermione were ascending. Harry observed their progress until they were almost at the nearest juncture.

"They're here," Harry told the others. He pointed to the right.

At first, there was nothing. After a moment, a very faint rustling could be heard.

"Nobody hex me, please," Hermione said from somewhere to Harry's immediate left. He stepped back and she pulled the Cloak off, her wild hair clinging to it with static. "That was quite the climb," she huffed, her face flushed. "Scott was right behind me, I don't know what he's doing."

"Should we go check on him?" Neville said uncertainly, raising his wand.

Luna laid a hand on his arm. "It's best to wait. I wouldn't want to surprise him."

Scott traipsed around the corner a handful of seconds later. "We weren't followed," he declared. He surveyed everyone, stopping in the middle of his perusal to give Harry a very long, piercing stare.

"I know you weren't followed, I've got the Map," Harry reminded, holding the parchment up. He frowned in response to Scott's scrutiny and glanced downwards, wondering if the Grey Lady had breathed frost on him or something.

"Good," Scott said, looking away. "Where to?"

"The Chamber," Ron said with false cheer. "Can't wait! Did I tell you I nearly died last time I was there?"

Scott shook his head. "Dumbledore already checked the Chamber."

Harry blinked in surprise. "How do you know?"

"We spoke to his portrait," Hermione explained. "He didn't have any additional notes, but these books might be of some use. Ron, can you hold open the handbag for me?"

Harry looked at her, eyes wide. "You saw Dumbledore?"

"His portrait," Scott reiterated. "We can talk about it later, the important thing is the Chamber's already searched."

Harry desperately wanted to know more about the Headmaster's portrait, but he pushed it aside. "Then we'll have to wait until we can get down to the Slytherin common room. Did you think to ask Dumbledore for the password?"

"I didn't even know they had a password."

"What if we ask the Fat Lady? Maybe she can break the rules, since it's such an emergency," Ginny suggested.

"Why would she know it?" Ron said.

"I don't know... The portraits talk to each other all the time," she said.

"The Slytherins don't have a portrait. It's just a bloody stone wall."

Ginny made a face. "Really? Well, that's boring..."

"They'll know," Scott said, putting a finger on the dots representing the Carrows.

Hermione blanched. "No, no! We're being low key, remember? Violence is the last thing we need!"

"Where else can we go?" Harry put to all of them, mentally agreeing that having Scott do... whatever it was he had in mind was a last resort. And not just from some sort of squeamish, moral standpoint; risking exposure was the last thing they needed, especially if Scott was increasing that risk by aiming to capture instead of kill. "Everybody think."

Harry turned inward, racking his brain. The Chamber and the Slytherin dungeon were certainly the most likely places, but Riddle might not have been so obvious. The self-proclaimed Dark Lord loved secrets, the obscure, the forbidden. There were several passages that were not well known, and a few empty rooms that saw almost no traffic. None of them were 'secrets', strictly speaking... Also, anything left there would be rather obviously out of place. Unless it was hidden behind a brick or a loose flagstone. Of course, anything so cleverly concealed would be more or less impossible to find, so Harry tried not to think about that.

Obviously out of place... Where would a Horcrux _not_ be obviously out of place? The Locket had originally been in a cave, surrounded by very obvious traps and placed in a pedestal. If Voldemort had dispensed with the deadly protections and ominous pageantry, he could have buried the Locket somewhere in the crevice, beneath the water. But he hadn't. And while that did fit Riddle's rather grandiose preferences, it suggested to Harry that there had to be some way to detect Horcruxes magically. Or maybe Riddle just wanted there to be no chance of forgetting where he'd placed one, along with the symbolism and ties to his past. But the Locket wasn't the only his method of concealment. Nagini was hiding in plain sight.

The Trophy Room? Maybe, but Harry had been in there plenty of times and Ron had even cleaned it, once. No diadems in there, by Harry's recollection. Not that his memory was perfect. It was probably worth checking out if no one came up with a better location. It was the kind of room where there were enough shiny things that one more might be overlooked. Well, the diadem would probably be recognised by any Ravenclaw, so maybe not so much...

Everything in the Trophy Room was pretty organised, anyway. Harry remembered asking for ideas during the search for the real Locket; Scott had said he would have hidden it in the attic, where there were so many things that one more wouldn't have stood out. The truth ended up being fairly close to that, but it also hadn't been by Riddle's design. He put his Horcruxes in places that meant something to him, places he probably thought that only he would know about: the cave, Gaunt's shack... Which begged the question of where the Diary and the Cup had been kept. Maybe, at some point, he had thought them no longer safe in their first locations, and given them to trusted Death Eaters instead.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Luna calmly observing everyone, with Neville looking as puzzled as she was serene. The two of them probably had a fairly good idea of what was going on, but they couldn't be allowed to know the specifics. It wasn't that Harry didn't trust the two of them – he would with his life, if necessary, but, as the only ones who were returning to Hogwarts, they had to be kept ignorant for their own protection.

"Nev, Luna – can you two go back down the hall for a minute?" Harry felt terrible even asking, but it had to be done. "We need to talk about some things, and..."

Neville's face fell a bit, but he nodded. "Right, yeah. Come on, Luna."

Luna noticed Harry's distress. "It's all right, Harry," she told him as she turned to leave, "you do what you must."

Harry was tired of not having a choice, especially when his friends paid the price. He nodded stiffly to Luna in acknowledgement, still guilty. With Neville, she went back down the corridor where they had come from, staying within sight but not within hearing distance.

"Okay, so I just thought of this," Harry said, crossing his arms as he mulled it over. "So, Riddle gives his Diary to Malfoy's dad for safekeeping. But, then he gets back and finds out that it's been destroyed because Lucius didn't keep it safe at all."

"I'm surprised Malfoy Senior survived that little faux pas," Scott mused.

"I guess he's still useful. Anyway, so then he decides to give the Cup to Bellatrix – but he makes sure to specifically tell her to put it in Gringotts."

"Kylie never said that," Scott pointed out. "That could have been Bellatrix's decision."

Harry frowned, thinking about the slight girl's stammered confession. "...Then I don't know. But where else would she put it? And Kylie knew that it went to Gringotts, so Bellatrix had to have told Riddle what she was doing, and he was okay with it."

"He's not taking the same chance," Hermione said.

Harry nodded. "Right. But just the Cup. He didn't give any of the others to anyone else. The Snake makes sense – I mean, who's going to want _that,_ it takes care of itself– but that means he thinks the Locket is still in the cave and the Ring is still in that old shack. He trusts those places... But, more than that, they're really important to him. If there was somewhere else as important, I think he would have kept the Cup there. But he didn't, and not the Diary, either."

"So we have to be on the right track, yeah?" Ron surmised. "This was his home for years, same as us."

Harry thought about the orphanage, but quickly discarded it as a possibility. Riddle would never hide a part of his soul in a Muggle setting. "And... Now that I think about it, I'm not so sure about the Slytherin common room. There's so many people going through there, and a lot of them would know at least a little about Dark magic."

"It's not impossible that it was ignored. Remember, the Locket was in a state similar to hibernation, despite being on a shelf in the open," Hermione said. "Though that wasn't deliberate on Riddle's part..."

Scott made a noise of disbelief. "I don't get him, then. That's stupid. If anyone is going to understand a Horcrux for what it is, it's a Slytherin, and Riddle doesn't want that. Plus, it's not like the Houses are totally segregated. Yeah, the Ravenclaws know about the lost diadem and the other students probably don't so much, but all it takes is one Slytherin visiting her Ravenclaw boyfriend to see that statue. And a diadem in Ravenclaw colours, it's like, what the hell is this doing here?"

"But would Riddle have thought of that, is the question," Hermione said.

"I don't know. More and more, I'm starting to realise that I don't understand how this guy thinks. He doesn't make sense."

"I doubt splitting his soul has done any favours for his reasoning."

Scott gave her an appraising look. "You think he's insane?"

"I think he's blinded by avarice and misanthropy. And more than a bit obsessive, as well."

"Compulsive, too. It's that tendency we're up against at the moment."

"Yeah, he's effing mental, we know," Harry interrupted, breaking back into the conversation before Hermione and Scott could totally run away with it. "And that's why he'd hide something here to begin with. Because he thinks he's such a big deal, because he loves knowing things that no one else knows."

"Or at least that he _thinks_ no one else knows," Scott said absently.

"Right, secret rooms that maybe aren't as secret as he..." Harry's arms dropped, going slack as a realisation struck him like lightning. "...You think Riddle would ever ask a house-elf about Hogwarts?"

Hermione scoffed. "Of course not. I doubt he'd deign to recognise their existence."

"That's right. But it was a house-elf that told me about the Room of Requirement."

There was a long moment of silence as they all stared at each other, caught in simultaneous revelation.

Ginny broke it. "Bloody hell!" she swore. "Were we in there with it this whole ruddy time?"

"Nearly, I should say – the room can take many forms, we don't know how many, and it could be in any one of them," Hermione said, eyes bright.

"Then let's be specific, and see if that works," Harry said eagerly. He waved to Neville and Luna, getting their attention and bringing them back over. "We're going to the Room," he told them.

"Should I bother asking why?" Neville said with an unconvincing laugh. He was obviously hurt by the exclusion.

"I wouldn't. You're already in a bad position," Scott said seriously.

"Oh." Neville looked at Luna with concern. "Right."

Harry knew finding the correct configuration for the Room might end up being quite the problem, but he was so relieved to have a real, solid lead on the Horcrux that he barely cared. It felt like a good one, too. He really thought they were on to something. The Room of Requirement was exactly the kind of arcane mystery that Riddle would have latched onto.

The Map lead them to the Room without incident; the upper levels remained dark and empty. The sheer size of Hogwarts had often been exhaustingly inconvenient when going from class to class, but for the purposes of stealth it was a real benefit.

"We need a place to hide things..." Harry verbalised his thoughts, pacing before the entrance. "We need somewhere to keep something important..."

"A diadem, especially," Hermione added.

"We need a place to hide a diadem..."

"We need a storage room, Room," Scott said.

The door appeared. Harry looked at it for a moment, hesitant to open it. "...Think we'll get it right the first time?"

"You said diadem, like, exactly. If the Room didn't understand, I don't think it would open at all," Ron opined.

"It's always given us what we wanted before," Ginny said optimistically.

That was true, and for all the times they had used the Room, they had never really explored the limits of what it could do. "Please work," Harry muttered, and then he pulled the door open.

When they stepped inside they were greeted by a mess the likes of which Harry had never seen.

There were piles of furniture, endless shelves, mounds of discarded papers and quills, and more miscellaneous rubbish than could be comprehended. The ceiling vaulted overhead, higher than usual, deep shadows pooling out from the arches, painted by light from a source that wasn't immediately apparent. Just outside of the small, clear circle in which he stood, Harry spotted six different swords, an armchair with half the stuffing falling out, a cage with what looked to be at least eight different bird skeletons littering the bottom, a jester's cap, a pile of soap bars, a Muggle refrigerator, a snapped broomstick, a tarnished trophy, and what looked like a car tyre stuffed with towels. Above all else, there were books – thousands of them, stacked on every shelf and flat surface.

Harry squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and tried to smother a hysterical laugh. "...Hey, Scott."

"Yeah?" Scott said, nudging at an overturned vase with his foot.

"Remember where you said you'd hide something if you had to?"

"Aw, man. I gotta hate being right."

"What _is_ all this?" Neville said, gawking at the heaps.

"Everyone's favourite rubbish bin," Ron surmised.

"And even that's an understatement," Hermione said. She picked up a book at random: the cover was inscribed in a language Harry didn't recognise. "I would say generations of students have left things here, going back to the founding. Although... Even given the antiquity of the school, there's too many things for everyone to have stumbled across this by accident. I wonder if the Room was common knowledge centuries ago."

Scott shrugged. "And people share."

Hermione nodded and leaned close to his ear, speaking quietly. Harry took a step towards them to listen. "True. I think we need to reconsider Riddle's motives, in this instance. It's not possible that he thought only he knew about the Room, not looking at all this."

"Unless he knew something we don't," Scott whispered back.

"Such as?" Hermione asked, frowning.

"Maybe we're making a wrong assumption about the nature of the room. Maybe when students lose things at Hogwarts, it all finds its way here."

"That's an interesting idea... But, how would that come about?"

Scott rolled his eyes. "How does any of this shit happen? I don't know, it sounded magical."

"Does it matter?" Harry interrupted. He glanced away to make sure Neville and Luna had wandered off. "He put the Horcrux in here, and if we didn't know what to look for we'd never find it. And we might not anyway, no matter how long we spend. So... let's start."

"Go team," Scott drawled.

"We should have him encourage our enemies," Ron sniggered.

Harry ignored the two of them and carefully stepped his way over to a bookshelf that was large enough that he wouldn't be able to reach the top of it. There was more than just books stacked on it, and he dug around in a few small bins and pulled a handful of wooden coins out of a brown bag. Three other cloth bags contained marbles. He pushed aside a clay pot filled with desiccated twigs and gingerly poked aside a pair of bloodied trousers.

"Don't touch those, Harry," Ginny said, scrunching up her nose. "You don't know where they've been."

"I don't know where any of this has been. Could all be covered in anything," Harry said, shrugging.

Ginny withdrew her hand from a zebra-striped pillow. "Oh, lovely."

"It's not that bad, actually. It's pretty interesting in here," Harry noted.

"You would say that. It's like we've shrunk down and ended up inside your trunk," she gibed, moving off in Hermione's direction.

Strains of music filtered in from his left, and he turned to see Scott standing in front of a music box, playing along to the twinkling refrain with an extremely out of tune guitar. "That's not what we're looking for," he called out to Scott in exasperation.

"This guitar is a piece of shit. This is, like, a fifty dollar garage sale guitar," Scott replied.

"Hey, Harry!" Ron yelled. Harry craned his neck even further back – he could only see about half of Ron behind a large metal wardrobe. "Look at this, it's one of the chess pieces I played with in first year! You know, the big ones!"

"Is it the one that brained you?" Harry asked.

"No, it's just a pawn," Ron said, sounding disappointed.

"So we know someone's been in here since then, at least," Hermione remarked, her voice drifting up from behind a pile of folding chairs.

Harry opened his mouth to respond when a loud crash rang out from somewhere on the other side of the shelf he was searching. "What's that?" he said, trying to look around the shelf.

"Are you all right, Neville?" Luna said.

"It's all right! It's just me. I fell," Neville shouted, sounding harried.

Harry moved back to where he had been and knocked a grey book off one of the slats. He winced when it bounced off his foot and he bent down to pick it up, glaring at it. _Von unaussprechlichen Kulten?_ What the bloody hell did that mean? The designs around the edges of the cover were vaguely sinister. The words looked German, he thought.

"Hey, Scott." Harry leaned back and whipped the book towards Scott, who deftly snatched it out of the air. "Is that German?"

Scott glanced down at the cover. "Yeah... I don't think you should read this."

Harry hadn't planned on it. He abandoned the shelf and crept sideways between two book mounds and then awkwardly climbed over a record turntable. He carefully bypassed a rack of corked potion bottles, the contents of which still looked vile, despite their apparent age (there was a heavy coating of dust on the glass). Nothing but books, a chipped tea set and a wooden desk littered with carved hearts. He pushed a few stacks of books aside half-heartedly, feeling like he wasn't in the right place. Maybe there was somewhere with more jewellery...

A conversation drifted up from behind a jumbled wall of chairs. "Where on earth did you- no, it doesn't matter. Just put it back," Hermione ordered.

"Why should I? Harry gets a gun, why can't I have an axe?" Ron countered.

"Harry is learning how to use that gun properly. Are you going to ask Scott for _axe_ lessons?" Hermione said condescendingly.

"I might at that," Ron said pugnaciously.

"Ron! You can barely lift it, and you're telling me you're going to lug it along on our next outing?"

"...It would look good on my wall, anyway."

"That thing is _not_ going in our bedroom," she said with a note of finality.

Harry tuned them out, moving deeper in the Room. Weird echoes stirred around the stacks, muffled noises of movement and snatches of words slipping between dust-coated slats and yellowed pages. He hoped it was all from his friends, or maybe some harmless magical portraits. He didn't like to imagine what else might be moving and speaking in the Room. Thus far, no one had encountered any objects that were hostile or even all that dangerous, but that could easily change. He was actually surprised he hadn't cut himself on anything yet.

Thinking of the portraits that might be in the Room, he was more than a bit jealous that Scott and Hermione had been able to speak with Dumbledore's visage. Between the two of them they could be trusted to have covered anything relevant, but Harry still wanted the opportunity for himself. He had personal questions. And an aching part of him might be assuaged by seeing even a flat replication of the Headmaster. It would have been a bright spot of something approaching normalcy, a short trip to saner times. Though, more and more it seemed the sanity of the wizarding world had been nothing but a ruse, a thin veneer. The Dark had still been there, biding its time, waiting for the master to return.

Harry tripped over a large chunk of amber (which appeared to contain a single enormous butterfly), effectively removing him from his thoughts. He'd lost sight of the others, and stood still for a moment to regain a sense of direction. Blurry shapes were moving to his right, distorted by a poorly arranged pile of crystal balls.

It was Neville and Luna. "What creature do you think this horn belongs to?" Luna was saying.

"Um... I think that's a big spring," Neville said.

"For what?"

"...Bouncing?"

"Oh! I see, it's for sitting."

"Wait, Luna-"

There was a steely, reverberating rattle and then a tremendous crash, followed by the patter of books against the floor. Harry winced.

"Luna!" Neville sounded more amused than frantic, so Harry assumed everything was all right.

"I would have bounced well if this shelf weren't in the way. What a bother," Luna sighed. "At least I landed on my bum. I think it's all right. Would you like to check it for me?"

"Yes!" Neville blurted out. "I-I mean, no! No. ...Wait. Yes. I-If you want."

Harry turned and retraced his steps, hoping to run into Ginny. Around the previous curve of shelves he instead encountered Scott again, who was busily rummaging through a multi-level cupboard on the opposite side of the book-littered aisle. "Find anything good?" Harry asked.

Scott withdrew, showering the ground with empty envelopes. "Not unless you like stamps. Ever wanted to be a philatelist?"

"I don't even know what that is."

"Then probably not. Hey, did you hear Ron found an axe?"

"I heard." Harry picked up a book bag that turned out to be filled with used quills. "Half this shite should have been binned."

"There's a strong similarity to an evidence locker. Looks like a lot of this stuff was hidden to cover up some rule breaking. Stop detentions before they start, that kind of crap." Scott held up an ancient, rusted golf club, the end of which was dented and clearly bloodstained. "And some not-so-minor infractions."

Harry grimaced. "I hope they didn't hide whoever they used that on in here, too."

"No bodies... Yet. The night is young."

"Not young enough. We have to get out of here before morning," Harry said tensely. Moving their venture into the Room had bought them some time, now that they didn't have to worry about being exposed in the hallways. But the cover of night was still necessary to make their escape.

"Try to relax; just be methodical," Scott said calmly. "I think you were right. I think it's in here somewhere."

Harry wasn't quite as convinced, but it was easy enough to believe that pretty much _anything_ could be in the Room. He still didn't have a good idea of the size of its current incarnation. Average view distance was about five feet in any direction – the aisle he was sharing with Scott offered a whole fifteen feet before it took a turn (or just ended – Harry couldn't tell from where he was standing and he couldn't remember where he came in). He rotated in a circle, looking for something solid and uncluttered enough to climb. The only thing fitting that criteria was Scott.

"Hey, lift me up," Harry said, raising his knees and surmounting a pile of books with an ungainly hop.

Scott nodded his head in acquiescence. "All right, but don't get used to it. I'm still taller."

He bent down and picked Harry up by the feet without any apparent effort. Harry waved his arms about wildly, trying to remain upright through the transition and managing to steady himself using the top of the cupboard once he was standing on Scott's shoulders. What he saw was slightly more encouraging than he had expected.

"It's bigger than usual," he said, trying to look backwards without falling. "But not huge. I can see the walls, we're pretty close to the left one."

"Any diadems?"

"No. There's a videotape up here, if you want it."

"Sure, why not." Scott lowered Harry and took the VHS tape from him. "Oooh, _C.H.U.D._"

"Is that any good?"

Scott squinted. "Mmmmm, by what metric?"

Fifteen minutes later, Harry was knee deep in loose papers, all of them conspicuously lacking any marks (perhaps some professor had decided to 'lose' the work... which begged the question of why they didn't banish or immolate them, but whatever). He had discovered about eight different varieties of hats, none of which resembled a diadem. He looked around, unable to see any of his companions from where he was. He possessed the growing suspicion that most, if not all, of them were becoming increasingly distracted by items of personal interest. He'd caught Hermione arranging textbooks by year, Ron finding more of the life-sized chess pieces, Ginny placing several antique Quaffles in the handbag, Scott cleaning a flintlock rifle with a school flag, Neville collecting seeds and Luna building a book fort.

All of them had been appropriately repentant when confronted, with the exception of Scott, whose bizarre placidity was both annoying and an expression of fatalism uncharacteristic enough to cause genuine concern. Harry was starting to think that either Scott knew something the rest of them didn't, or the shape was muddling the Kharadjai's mind again. Which, come to think of it, might be a good sign.

Harry retraced his steps until he found Scott, who had moved away from the rifle and was digging into an uneven pile of candelabras.

"Is the shape telling you anything?" Harry asked abruptly.

Scott shrugged. "No, nothing overt. Although I did say there was something up north, and look where we are now."

"Okay. But, you know, you've been acting really weirdly laid back considering, so... What's the chance that there's a Horcrux in here, as an Important Thing or whatever you call it, and it's affecting you?"

Scott's face went blank for a moment, and then he frowned slightly. "I don't think that's very likely."

"Not subconsciously?"

"No."

"But you didn't say it was impossible."

"...No."

"I just thought you seemed pretty sure there was a Horcrux in here."

"Not at first. I thought it was about as likely as anywhere else here, maybe a little more," Scott explained. "Then after we dug around a bit, I figured there was nothing. I almost voted to leave, seemed like we were wasting our time. But after a little _more_ digging, I realised there was enough stuff in here that Riddle might feel comfortable hiding something."

"You almost wanted to leave?" Harry said, surprised. He personally didn't feel they had searched sufficiently to be sure of anything.

"Yeah, I wasn't buying it. Which, admittedly, was a wrong impulse, there could be anything in here, I don't know why I... Would think that and then immediately be so convinced there... was..." Scott's teeth gripped his bottom lip in a savage grimace, and then he spun on his heel. He glared ferociously towards the aisle they had previously been in. "I really don't like having my head fucked with."

"OI!" Harry shouted, pulling out his wand. "EVERYBODY GET OVER HERE!"

There was a collective clattering as the distributed group converged on Harry's position, knocking over who knew how many books in their rush to respond. Hermione clambered over a school desk, Neville and Luna came rushing around the nearest corner, Ginny squeezed her slim frame between two shelves and Ron ploughed straight through a stack of novels, scattering them all over the aisle.

"Here!" Ron said, panting.

"What is it? Why are you shouting?" Hermione said frantically, searching for a target.

"I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure Scott just narrowed it down for us," Harry told them.

"With his obliviousness," Scott growled. He had one of his handguns out and was running a thumb over the trigger guard, his thumbnail white with pressure.

Hermione observed his behaviour with obvious alarm. "Your...?"

"We think the diadem is right over there. Scott was by it and it made him think there was nothing here," Harry said, stating what he had inferred.

"You're okay, though?" Ron said, nudging a still rigid Scott with one elbow.

Scott's face had slid into a blank combat state. "Depends on how you want to define that."

"You're not dead."

"By that very wide definition, yeah, I'm okay."

"It was already attacking you?" Hermione said with great concern. "That's worrying. It shouldn't know what we're up to, not yet."

"Then I guess it's been paying attention," Harry said grimly. "We have to find it before it can do real damage. Hermione, get Scott's cube out. Come on, let's find this thing."

Harry led the group back to where Scott had suddenly become convinced that they were on a fool's errand. He was expecting the search to take time – the heaps of rubbish in that particular space were especially daunting and he didn't know if the diadem needed a direct line of sight, or if it was completely buried and worked in an area. Either way, the longer it took to find, the more it would awaken. As ably demonstrated by the locket, a Horcrux was at least moderately powerful once it chose to defend itself. If they were lucky, the diadem was still half-asleep. If not... Well, he didn't know what the alternative scenario would be, exactly, but it wouldn't be good.

"Um, is that it?" Neville was saying.

"That's it," Scott said.

Harry blinked, removed from his thoughts. "What?"

"That's it, right there. Right in front of my face."

And sure enough, there it was. Scott must have been looking right at it the first time he had passed through. It sat on a pile of bundled clothing, innocuous, non-threatening. It was old and tarnished, stained by time and neglect. The sapphire had little lustre, the silver was blackened. It looked more like rubbish than a priceless treasure.

Harry snatched a tattered set of robes off a nearby table and wrapped it around his hand. "Hermione, hold the box open."

"I'm not positive a few layers of cloth are adequate protection," she nervously replied. She readied Scott's old lock box regardless.

"I'll be quick," Harry told her, not actually sure if that would make any difference. "Scott?"

"Hurry. I'm having trouble pinning it down," Scott said, his eyes unfocussed.

Harry didn't need extra encouragement. He was starting to feel like going anywhere near the diadem was a terrible idea and he should probably just leave, but he was cognisant enough to recognise the impulse as not being his own. Hermione held the cube out and he swiftly batted the diadem into it, the silver ringing out when it hit the bottom. Hermione snapped the box shut and slid it back into her handbag.

Harry pulled the robes off his hand and made sure his skin hadn't rotted away. He didn't think that was an unreasonable reaction considering what the diadem was and who had made it. Hermione's handbag wasn't disintegrating, so that was a good sign. They had agreed to take the Horcrux back to Grimmauld before confronting it. None of them felt comfortable trying to destroy it in an unsafe location, considering the unknown qualities it might use to counter-attack. The locket had ably demonstrated the capacity Horcruxes had for defence.

Harry checked the Map as they hurried back down the cluttered paths to the exit. He'd been possessed by the paranoid fear that, somehow, the Carrows would be camped just outside the door, guaranteeing a confrontation. Harry couldn't think of any way that might happen other than the Grey Lady's betrayal, but it was a fear born of increasing tension now that they had to escape. No doubt Riddle could draw the right conclusions if two of his minions had been defeated just outside of the Room where he had hidden one of his Horcruxes.

But the upper levels of the school remained clear, silent and dark. Once they left, there would be no evidence they were ever there at all.

They retreated back to the Astronomy Tower, following Scott's dim outline and the occasional glint of moonlight on the steel of his weaponry. At the top, the moon had begun to peek out from behind the clouds, but it was still dark enough for their purposes. They descended on the brooms and hurried across the susurrating expanse of darkened grass, blades hissing gently against their ankles and stretching back upwards after being crushed in their wake.

On the darkened lawn, Scott was nowhere to be found. Harry checked the shadows closely. "Where's Scott?" he whispered.

"He must have gone ahead," Hermione guessed.

Harry clenched his teeth in frustration. It wasn't as if they could sit around and wait. "Let's get back to the wall."

They were about two-thirds of the way back when Harry spotted Scott in the muted moonlight. The Kharadjai was moving low and fast, coming back towards them from the direction of the lake. Harry knew better than to stop out in the open, so he kept going, knowing Scott would catch up.

It wasn't long before Scott fell in beside Harry. "Where'd you go?" Harry hissed angrily.

"I had to check something," Scott replied.

"You can't just disappear like that! You're the one always telling us to stick together!" Harry lambasted him.

"I couldn't exactly leave a note. I'll explain when we get back, just keep moving."

Harry was still angry (the whole moment also brought back some of the leftover rage concerning Scott's lies at the Hollow), but he let it drop. There was a time and a place to berate Scott, but deep in enemy territory was a poor choice of both.

When they reached the wall, Harry paused while the others climbed over. He looked back towards the school, looming over the lake like a man-made mountain. Gryffindor Tower was dark. It was nearly September; the nights were growing cooler. The castle was his home, and instead of anticipating his return to its enlightened halls, he was running from it.

He didn't want to turn and look away. He might never see Hogwarts again.

"Get over here, you pillar of salt," Scott murmured, poking Harry's shoulder and jolting him from his reverie.

Harry tore his gaze from the school and put his foot into Scott's waiting hand, vaulting over the wall. The woods cloaked him beneath the rustling canopy, and all together they slipped back into the night.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note<strong>

What is it with fanfiction authors and present tense?

I've noticed that there are innumerable fanfictions, usually shorter pieces, that all use the same present tense, almost stream of conciousness form. And quite a few multi-chapter works, as well. Do they feel that it adds immediacy to the narrative? Where did they learn to write like that, and why has it caught on? Last time I checked, past tense is still standard for published narrative fiction, even if it's in first person.

I guess I'm not necessarily opposed to it. It just seems like such a weird pattern that I've seen everywhere, in every fandom. A lot of the authors who use the style are the ones with, like, two hundred stories published, most of them less than three thousand words a piece. Fanfiction, as a form, does lend itself to allowing quick character pieces and fragmented thoughts. Anything can be published, after all, and an audience eager to spend more time with the characters they love by any means possible is not, as I'm sure we've all seen demonstrated, especially picky. I've seen any number of more or less unintelligibly written stories get glowing reviews.

Maybe it's just that all those intensely character-thought focused one-shots are easy. God knows, I've had tons of bits and pieces of ideas about anything and everything that I could have written down. But I rarely do, and when I start I tend to run out of steam. Which is funny, because usually whatever I've written is long enough compared to the usual fare – 500 - 1500 word blurbs.

But I always feel like they aren't done. I have this inability to be so abortive, and the stories in which I have been (Artificial) never feel finished to me. I don't really like one-shots, I guess. I find it more rewarding to stitch all those thoughts together, to fill in the gaps, and produce a single, cohesive long-form narrative. Which may be unfortunate, since the nature of Scott and his work definitely lends itself to one-shots. I envy the freedom of all those drabble authors, sometimes, all those strange little 2000 word bits of free form, present tense headspace drama.

But here I am, writing the comparatively rarer novel length fanfiction. And considering my average chapter is eight to ten-thousand words, I'm probably not cut out for the life of the one-shot poster.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed your return foray into the Room of Requirement.


	23. Nothing Important Happened Today Part II

**23**

**Nothing Important Happened Today**

**Part II**

* * *

><p><em>Mind's eye winks in kind<em>

_selectively, often blind_

_solipsistic reverie_

_attuned to old frequency_

_chained before a line of sight_

_and sound, fine sensory plight_

_past takes flight, comes 'round again_

_time traces tighter circles_

_Circles have no end_

-Dorothy Dawes, _Fifty-Nine_

* * *

><p>Harry awoke flailing, scrabbling his limbs against dark surfaces as he lashed out the last remaining spikes of panic, emerging from a night terror. He froze, panting, as the sweat cooled on his chest and forehead, and the outlines of his surrounds slowly faded in from the shadows. He felt caged. He couldn't remember where he was. It wasn't until the faint red glow of the digital numbers next to his bed caught in the corner of his eye that he came back to himself. The light emanating from the squat, plastic clock on his bedside table was the beacon back to sanity.<p>

He fell back onto his pillow with a sigh, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes and pulling his knees up, letting the cool sheets run across the bare bottoms of his feet. He put his hand out to his right, hoping he hadn't awoken... Who? He had been sure there was someone else there with him. The nightmare had been so real that he could almost still see the long hair fanned across the mattress next to him. He felt a pang of embarrassment. Had he been dreaming about a _girl?_ It would be just his luck if he'd said anything out loud. Dudley might have heard him through the walls, and there would never be an end to the teasing.

Harry sat up, straightening out his too-big pyjamas and sliding his glasses on. He couldn't go downstairs for a glass of water without waking Aunt Petunia, but he could drink from the tap in the loo. If there was one thing to be said for his old cupboard, it was the easy access it provided to the kitchen. He sort of missed that. Of course, if those strange letters kept coming for him, he might end up back in there no matter how afraid Uncle Vernon was of... something. Whatever the letters were.

He slid out of bed and walked over to the door. He started to turn the doorknob when a sudden movement to his left startled him. He nearly cried out, hopping awkwardly backwards and almost bashing into the door of the wardrobe. But, in moving backwards, he'd stepped out of the dim light from the window, allowing it to fall across the corner where the sounds of squeaking bedsprings and rustling sheets emanated, illuminating a tousled head of blond hair.

Harry relaxed, dropping his arms. It was only Scott.

"Bad dream?" Scott whispered, one glinting grey eye peeking out from beneath the pillow over his face.

"I guess so," Harry replied, and then stopped with a slight frown. His voice didn't sound right to him. He cleared his throat as quietly as he was able, and reached for the door again.

"Going to see if Vernon missed a letter?" Scott said eagerly, sitting up.

"No," Harry said glumly. "He's not stupid."

"Yeah he is!"

"He's not blind," Harry amended.

Scott grabbed his pillow from where it had fallen onto the floor, stuffed it up into his shirt, and began pushing himself in a circle on his bed, using his fists. "Hey, who am I?"

Harry tried not to laugh. "A big, dumb gorilla or Uncle Vernon."

"Wrong! I'm Dudley!" Scott cackled.

"Shhhh!" Harry hissed, his eyes darting to the nearby wall. "I'm going to the loo, so be quiet!"

"Maaahurrwaaamuuhaa," Scott said, face down on his pillow. He began pretending to snore.

Harry rolled his eyes and left his excitable... Cousin? Brother? Friend? Scott was... Maybe second cousin. Harry should definitely know that. He fought off a strong sense of disorientation. Apparently that nightmare, whatever it had been, had shaken him up more than he'd realised. His whole world was off centre.

The tap water was cool enough even in the summer, washing the dank taste of terror from Harry's mouth. He stood back, wiping his lips and studying the person in the mirror. It was definitely his own reflection: a short, skinny boy with a mop of black hair and glasses that were too big for his child's face. He raised a gangly hand and prodded his slumped left shoulder, narrow where it hid beneath a baggy pyjama top loose enough to display his prominent collarbone.

There was something wrong about the image. He felt like he had been different in his dream. It would explain why his thin limbs felt like they belonged to someone else. He shook himself, and turned away from his reflection. He either needed to wake up fully, or sleep it off. His dream was severely affecting him, and he couldn't even remember it.

Wait – dream? He'd been so sure it had been a nightmare just minutes ago. It was starting to seem less malevolent and more plain weird the longer he thought about it. It danced at the corners of his brain, tugging on his memory and making the world seem disconnected. He'd had enough night terrors to recognise the feeling, though it was rarely so persistent. He even felt a bit dizzy. Wincing, he stumbled back into his new bedroom after nearly turning to go down the stairs out of habit. He reckoned he'd be back in the cupboard soon enough, regardless of how small it was getting. Uncle Vernon wouldn't stay terrified forever.

Harry stopped just at the doorway, frowning. Where had Scott slept? His mind was so foggy he couldn't remember. When they were both really little the cupboard would have been fine, but Scott was at least an inch or two taller than Harry, now. The Dursleys couldn't stuff the both of them back under the stairs, it would never work. Harry was cheered by the thought. Perhaps Dudley's second bedroom would remain theirs by default, whatever happened with the strange letters.

He closed the door behind him and glanced at the second mattress on the floor. In the shadows, he couldn't tell if Scott was asleep or watching him from underneath his pillow. Scott was always observing things. Even at school he always seemed to know who everyone was, who they were friends with, what clique they were a part of. It was an ability Harry had always admired. Dudley might have ruled with a heavy fist, but Scott ensured that he and Harry were left alone, if not befriended. Scott could be vicious, and all the other kids knew it.

Harry fell down onto his bed and put his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling. Getting off his feet seemed to improve things a bit, though his pillow was unpleasantly damp with sweat. He was almost afraid to try and sleep again, in case he emerged once again biting back a scream. Scott wouldn't mind, since he was awake at random hours all the time and never seemed to keep a proper schedule, but the Dursleys would be furious if Harry woke them, especially with all the strange goings on lately.

"Think we'll get to keep our new room?" Scott spoke from the darkness, startling Harry from his thoughts.

"I dunno," Harry said honestly, shifting a bit. "Depends if Uncle Vernon gets more angry than scared."

"Man, we're not even going to fit downstairs!" Scott exclaimed, rolling over again. Harry thought that Scott just liked hearing the springs squeak. It was probably a novelty after sleeping in the linen cupboard (Harry was relieved he'd finally remembered). "All my snacks are down there, though."

"I think Aunt Petunia knows there are crisps missing," Harry warned.

"Whatever," Scott said in a bored tone, perpetually indifferent to the possibility of punishment. He was nothing if not a defiant inmate at the Dursley household. Harry preferred to just be left alone.

"...I can't remember my dream," Harry sighed.

"Was it about ghoooooOOOooossttttssss?" Scott warbled.

"Those aren't even real," Harry scoffed.

"They are real, totally. Totally real. I can see one right now. I can see, like, twenty. Thirty! Stay back! Back, you damn dirty ghosts!" Scott chattered, pointing to random corners of the room.

Some of the kids at school still made fun of him for his flat American accent, though not so much to his face. It was dangerous to do things to Scott's face. A lady from the school had once told Aunt Petunia that Scott had violent tendencies and poor impulse control, along with a bunch of other words that Harry hadn't understood (but he knew that Scott was kind of mental). Harry had always been afraid that, someday, Scott would do something bad enough to get kicked out of school, leaving Harry alone. So Harry always tried to even out Scott's mood swings and intercede when one of the blond boy's sudden rages came on. Scott would get real quiet and real stiff, and Harry would drag him away or distract him before someone got their nose broken, or (as had happened on one particularly bad day) concussed.

Harry was smart enough to know that Scott needed more help – like medicine or a special instructor or something – but he wasn't going to get it from the Dursleys. So Harry just did his best to guide his friend (cousin?), and keep him focussed.

"Where'd you go?"

"Huh?" Harry snapped out of his thoughts yet again. Never mind keeping Scott focussed, Harry was having a hard time concentrating. He felt like he was still partially dreaming, trapped in his own head. He lifted himself up on his elbows to make eye contact with Scott, but the other boy was gone. "Scott?"

"Graaaaawwrrr!"

A blanket-covered hand extended up from the floor and batted harmlessly against Harry's stomach. He recoiled from the edge of his bed and looked down: a big cloth lump was sitting there. Scott had piled several blankets over himself and was crawling under them, concealed like some bizarre mobile pillow.

"I'm an amoeba!" he proclaimed.

"A what?" Harry laughed.

"An amoeba! I'm engulfing you with my pseudopod..." Scott freed a hand and pulled one of the blankets off himself, throwing it over Harry's legs. "Don't be alarmed, non-amoeba. This is how I feed."

Harry stifled a snort. "What if I don't want to get eaten?"

"Too bad! You can't escape without your legs. That's... so impossible."

"I grow new ones!" Harry declared, and scampered away to the other bed.

They continued their impromptu game for about half an hour, with Harry fleeing while Scott slowly pursued him, shuffling beneath the blanket. The ever-present danger of waking the Dursleys just added an element of suspense. Eventually, they tired of it and retreated back to their beds, talking about the visit to the Zoo, their unfinished plans for summer break and the mysterious letters.

The next morning, the two of them were locked in their room while Uncle Vernon frantically dealt with the onslaught of letters. Or, at least, that's what Harry assumed was happening. It was about time for the post to arrive, and there was a great deal of shrieking and cursing reverberating up the stairs. He sat on the edge of his bed and glumly waited while another chance at grabbing one of his letters slipped away. Scott listened to Vernon's struggle with an air of sadistic glee.

Harry supposed they ought to use their new space and Dudley's discarded toys to enjoy themselves while they could, but his intense curiosity was overriding his sense of fun. Who could possibly be sending him letters? He didn't really know anyone, outside of Scott.

He thought it might have something to do with his parents. Nothing else made much sense (not that the seemingly infinite letters made much sense to begin with – something weird was happening). And that meant that it might affect Scott, too, since he was Harry's second cousin or something. But Scott had been unperturbed by the sudden influx of neatly-inked letters.

If Harry had been somebody else, he'd have probably thought that Scott knew something about the post, or maybe even expected it. But Scott had always been like that, reacting to odd occurrences by hardly reacting at all. It was just the way he was. The same frequently hyper kid that had become disproportionately enthused about collecting pine cones the previous winter had asked only a couple offhand questions when the glass had inexplicably disappeared at the Zoo, freeing the boa constrictor.

It could be frustrating for Harry, to feel like he was alone in questioning how his hair had suddenly grown back after that disastrous haircut, or how he had ended up on that roof without any memory of climbing it. He was glad that Scott never called him a freak or mocked him for making things up like the Dursleys would have, but, if Scott didn't think Harry was imagining things, then why didn't he care about what that meant?

Harry pondered that, looking out the window and squinting against the glare. It was something he hadn't thought about much when he was younger. Anything could seem normal when you grew up with it. Now he was nearly eleven years old, and the letters were making him reconsider things he had barely considered in the first place. Scott's lack of curiosity was, in retrospect, troubling. This was the same bloke who seemed to know random facts about everything, even though he only turned in his homework irregularly. Scott was as clever as he was erratic, often in strange ways. He wasn't like the other kids, even ignoring his instabilities. But, then, Harry wasn't, either.

"Something out there?" Scott trotted over to the window and peered out to determine what Harry was looking at. "Is it that big dog again? I love that big dog."

"It's nothing," Harry said. He reached over and poked Scott's shoulder, hard. Physical aggression of one kind or the other was usually the best way to hold Scott's scattered attention. "Hey."

"What?" Scott glared, rubbing his shoulder.

"What do you think is in the letters?"

Scott shrugged. "I don't know. School stuff."

"But where are they all coming from? Don't you think this is really weird?" Harry pressed.

"It's just how you are," Scott said nonchalantly.

Harry blinked. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You know, the stuff that happens with you. Like your hair, or when you made that snake escape."

"So you _did _notice!" Harry exclaimed.

"Duh! I'm not _stupid._ You think I'm stupid! Screw you, Harry! You get screwed!" Scott shoved Harry in the chest, knocking him back onto his bed.

Harry didn't retaliate; Scott never hurt Harry the way he had some other people, but he could get pretty rough. Harry would just get him back later, anyway, since they were in the middle of something more important. "You always act like it's not a big deal!"

"It's not!"

"I think so!"

"It's not. _You're_ stupid," Scott grumbled. "It's just how you are. You're special and you make things happen."

It was hard to deny, although Harry wasn't sure if he made things happen or if things just happened to him. "I guess... But, I don't know why."

"Because you're Harry Potter."

Harry pondered that for a moment. "...So?"

Scott tossed his hands into the air, apparently pushed beyond endurance (a very short trip for him) by Harry's incomprehension. "So? SO?! You're Harry Potter, you're the main guy! Crazy junk is always going to happen to you."

"I'm just another kid, it's not all about me," Harry protested, not feeling particularly important.

"YES IT IS!" Scott howled. "YOU'RE THE MAIN GUY."

"All right, shut it!" Harry hissed, hoping that Uncle Vernon was too preoccupied to see what the racket was about. "I get it!"

Harry didn't actually get it, not even a little bit, but it was clear that Scott had latched onto some sort of answer that made sense only to himself. It was hardly the first time that had become the case; Scott was either very creative or had some kind of disability, depending on which adult was asked. He definitely didn't see the world the way most people did. He often seemed to see a different world entirely, one with strange patterns and rules. Apparently, the fact that Harry had always been 'the main guy' was, to Scott, abundantly obvious.

Harry didn't know why being whatever Scott thought he was made him special or more likely to have odd things happen to him. But he didn't ask for an answer: he wouldn't get one he understood, because he _never_ did. It was like the times when Scott talked about all the ropes and threads he could see that weren't actually there. Sometimes Scott was worse, and sometimes he was better, and Harry had learned a long time ago that he had no control over which end of the spectrum Scott swung towards on any given day. Besides, it was easier to deal with Scott's loose grip on reality than when his temper took a swift turn for the dark or the violent.

Scott was either still upset with Harry's inability to grasp the obvious or bored of the conversation entirely, it was hard to say which. Whatever the reason, they lapsed into a silence that lasted about five minutes, at which point Scott became bored of that, too.

"Arm wrestle me!" he demanded.

Harry knew better than to accept the challenge. Scott could be bested in board games and homework, not feats of strength. "No way. 'Sides, you can't wrestle if you're on fire."

"I'm not on fire. Why am I on fire?" Scott said suspiciously.

"Because the floor is made of lava!" Harry said triumphantly from his safe perch at the end of his bed.

Scott shrieked and leapt onto his own mattress ("WHAT IS GOING ON UP THERE?" Uncle Vernon bellowed somewhere below). After arguing for several minutes as to whether Scott had removed himself from the lava fast enough to still be alive, they established enough of the rules to continue. There wasn't much room to play, but they were accustomed to that. They ended up putting Scott's mattress on top of Harry's and floating adrift on the lava sea, searching for lava treasure (they were also wearing lava-proof suits with oxygen tanks, as Scott had insisted that temperatures would be extreme and the air would not be breathable). Their attempts to rig a sail had been met with failure, hence the aimless nature of their quest.

By sunset they had banished themselves to the garden, taking advantage of the cool evening air to kick an old football around before settling down behind the flowers next to the window at the side of the house, where they could hear the television inside. Scott liked to listen to the news and Harry liked to watch the sky darken from where he lay on his back, staring upwards through the gap between the bushes and the siding. Wood chips dug into his shirt and the breeze blew dust into his hair, but he didn't care. There was a peace and freedom in their hiding place, beneath the faint moon and swaying branches. No one was looking for them. There was nowhere else they had to be.

He lifted his head up to look at Scott, wondering if the other boy might like to go to the nearby playground and jump off the swings. Scott's face was creased in thought as he listened to the news, though, and he probably wouldn't be willing to leave until something else came on. Harry didn't much care about the news, personally, but Scott was intent on hearing about the ongoing reunification process in Germany and something called 'perestroika', so Harry didn't even try to get his attention (especially when the telly said that British astronomers had found an extrasolar planet: Scott really liked outer space).

Harry wasn't absorbed by what nations were 'on the brink' of leaving the Soviet Union, so he closed his eyes and concentrated on the wind hissing through the grass. The air was growing cooler as the heat of the day dissipated. His eyelids became heavy, his breathing slowed. A bird fluttered overhead. Scott made a noise of interest, quiet, familiar. A car passed by the house. Harry felt himself drifting into sleep, and saw no reason to fight it.

* * *

><p><strong>it was snowing out and the flakes which clung to his hair and collar were turning to slush, sliding down the back of his neck but that was fine it was just the price of playtime at the cusp of a blizzard, enjoying themselves before the snow started streaking in at odd angles, blowing into faces and whiting out the world in a haze of freezing, misted air and it was easy to forget that it was nearly supper time, not that he cared all that much, he could be hungry later, but right then Ginny was dancing just ahead of him, giggling, with a packed snowball ready to impact against his nose or groin (she always swore it was an accident), so he needed to be careful and watch her, because she needed to be watched and he just liked watching her so long as no one else noticed.<strong>

**he took cover behind the closest tree in the orchard and tried to spot Ron, but the snow was already thickening and visibility was low like a cold fog, like smoke you could breathe and not get sick, not that he had ever breathed in much smoke but he sort of knew how that might work, and Hermione had been no help whatsoever from her safe spot near the pond where she was determined to stay, attacking anyone who came near (and it was hard to blame her considering how many times she had been betrayed already, but she was just so easy to betray), though she had sounded at least slightly hesitant when he had last approached her so maybe she would be open to another alliance before too long, it wasn't like _he_ had betrayed her, he'd never had the chance, and they should really consider it for both their sakes because Scott was out there, somewhere, probably cheating like he always did, and all their games seemed to end with everyone ganging up on Scott because he always deserved it, and it was getting to be about that time.**

**the odd thing was, though, that the sky was getting brighter instead of darker, and it was evening so that shouldn't have been happening, and instead of a snowball he was holding his wand, which wasn't allowed per agreement of all present, and when he stepped forward to get back to the garden, lifting his knees and crunching through the drifts, the orchard gave way to the tunnel of trees behind Hagrid's cabin, and Scott was just ahead to talk about war, with the steam of his breath catching the moonlight, and to their backs Hogwarts was burning with Ginny inside, she was fighting for her life somewhere upstairs, near the Tower, and he was as frozen as his surroundings, suffocating beneath the Cloak, his trousers soaked through from the cave, rimed with ice, and he could feel his blood slowing.**

**and then-**

* * *

><p>Harry would have screamed if he had any air to do so. He had no idea where he was, but it was dark, and something heavy pressed down on his chest and mouth and he couldn't <em>breathe<em>. He panicked, kicking out and squirming, trying desperately to get away-

"Harry! _Harry! _Shut up, man, open your eyes!"

His eyes? They were shut... He blinked, breathing hard through his nose when the pressure on his torso lessened. He found himself staring straight up at Scott.

"You had a nightmare, I guess," Scott explained.

Harry glanced around. The two of them were still behind the bushes below the window, but the sun had set and the stars were out. The Dursleys were probably already in bed, so there was a good chance that he and Scott were locked out of the house. He panted for a second when Scott's hand was removed from his mouth. Not a pleasant way to awaken, but better than making a scene outside where it might wake the neighbours. Uncle Vernon would be slow to forget that.

Scott was scanning Harry's sweat-soaked shirt with disgust. "Wow, you look like you humped a fish tank. You're super gross, dude."

"Shove off, it's not my fault," Harry grumbled, sitting up. He was more disturbed by his dream than by the state of his clothing. He felt as if he had been granted a realisation and then promptly forgotten it. Half-remembered truths tugged at his subconscious.

"What was it about?" Scott said curiously.

"I don't know," Harry admitted. "It was snowing and we were having a snowball fight... And we were going to gang up on you..."

"Whaaaaat... Are you sure it was me?"

"It was because you were cheating."

"I guess that _sounds_ like me..."

"Arg, come on!" Harry snapped off a nearby twig, frustrated by his inability to recall the full meaning of the dream. "I can't bloody remember anything!"

"It's just a dream, Harry," Scott told him condescendingly. He hopped up and pushed his way out of the bushes, heading towards the back garden.

"No, it wasn't," Harry muttered to Scott's retreating back.

They settled down where they usually did, in a strip of grass between the back of Aunt Petunia's flower bed and the fence. It was trimmed with shears instead of the lawnmower, lending it a lush, long-stemmed softness that the rest of the lawn was lacking. It was their default bedding when locked out of the house, and usually comfortable enough in the summertime with the fence blocking most of the breeze. They huddled next to each other like puppies sharing warmth. Scott was a pretty dependable heat source, as his body temperature always seemed elevated, regardless of the weather, and he didn't move around in his sleep.

Sometimes sleeping outside was better than waking up to Uncle Vernon banging on the door about breakfast (in the event that Harry could not be found, the Dursleys were usually too apathetic to look for him). Some of the kids at school probably would have called Harry and Scott a couple of poofs for curling up together, but Harry didn't care. It was better than being cold, and Scott was his cousin, anyway (right?), so who cared.

His own arm wasn't the best pillow, but Harry was still tired enough that a little discomfort wouldn't keep him from sleep. The fence creaked in the wind and an owl flitted in front of the moon. He yawned, pushed away Scott's foot from where it was digging into the back of his knee, and settled a little lower, until the grass was tickling his nose.

And then-

* * *

><p><strong>he was lost for sure, not on purpose, but somehow he had lost sight of Mr. Weasley and now he hadn't the slightest idea where he was, because the Ministry was a massive building and he'd never been there before, certainly not on his own, and he couldn't figure out where to go, every door was unmarked, and the dark stone of the building was an odd contrast to how much brighter it had been upstairs and he was positive, just given the atmosphere, that he wasn't supposed to be where he was, and not just in the sense that he needed to be with Mr. Weasley, but also in the sense that he doubted he was allowed, it looked forbidding, secretive, and possibly even dangerous.<strong>

**just to his left he saw Ginny duck into an open door so he followed, maybe she knew where she was going, but even if she didn't it was better than standing in that dim entryway by himself, and as soon as he stepped in he was in awe, taken aback by the uncountable clocks that lined every wall, with Time Turners as well, and a hummingbird in a bell jar that cycled through its life in forward and reverse, which was what he knew he was seeing, though he couldn't say how he knew or why it all seemed so familiar in a way that was foreboding and comforting, like he knew how it would all end but the ending wasn't a happy one but at least he knew.**

**he reached out towards the jar, and Ginny was gone, he hadn't seen her leave but he knew she was gone, and as his hand met the glass it slid through as if the hard surface were water, rippling around his skin, feeling cool but not damp, and the glittering light within danced around him, flowing up his arm, and when it reached his head he felt himself begin to move through a strange dimension, undefinable, a place where images were piled and paged through like endless stacks of paper, flipping over backwards, anticlockwise, against the stream.**

**cascading-**

"_I just want you to be careful, that's all."_

"_Sleep at night, Harry. Talk to me."_

**thunderous-**

"_That's not me, Harry! You know who I am! I am not going to **hide**!"_

"_You didn't really want to leave me, did you?"_

**cacophony-**

"_We're flirting, Harry. Can't you at least try a little?"_

"_Don't give up before we get a real chance at us."_

**and then-**

* * *

><p>"AH! Not again! Wake up, you chowderhead! I mean it, WAKE – UP-"<p>

Each word was emphasised by a solid punch to Harry's now-aching shoulder. He rolled away from his assailant, flattening a few of Aunt Petunia's exactingly cultivated flowers in the process. He barely noticed, staggering to his feet and pitching forward until he pressed himself, shaking, against the fence, gasping for air.

"Are you gonna hurl?" Scott said, standing just behind Harry.

The memories slowly began to settle, sliding away from the front of his conciousness to pool in an unsorted mess. So much remained unclear, but he remembered a girl with long red hair who was as fiery as the hue suggested, a tall, freckled boy who was snarky and stalwart, and a girl with untameable brown hair and an eager mind.

"Where's Ron and Hermione? Where's Ginny?" Harry asked. The night air was a boon for his overheated skin.

"Who?" Scott said.

Harry blinked at him. "Wha... W-Well, what about your sister? Where's Lila?"

"Oh, she's busy. She has a job, you know."

"Scott..." Harry said slowly. "Why didn't I know about her before?"

Scott stared back at Harry for so long that Harry started to wonder if the other boy had somehow frozen solid. "Well..." Scott finally replied, squinting, "...Why didn't _I_ know about her before now, huh?"

The short silence which followed was profound. "...What is going on?" Harry whispered.

Scott tucked his hands into his pockets, brow furrowed. "First guess: the shape has experienced a convulsive reordering and we were scrambled along with it."

Harry understood what Scott was talking about, and, at the same time, _didn't_ understand. It was as if the concepts were known to him, but not the specifics or their meanings, and while he didn't fully comprehend it, he had heard it, or something like it, before. "What does that mean, then?"

"I don't know... It was smart, though? It sounds good. I think it's the truth."

It was maddening. The explanation was so close, Harry could feel it, but it eluded him. "You think this has something to do with the letters?"

Scott shrugged. "What would they have to do with this?"

Harry paced back and forth. "They're weird and this is weird and now we're, like, remembering things that aren't real... Or, remembering stuff that is real but we forgot somehow..."

"It's not unheard of."

"What's not?"

"Situational memories, selective amnesia creating by a reordering, catastrophe-level or otherwise." Scott sounded like he was repeating something he had been told, but didn't actually understand.

"Who heard of it?"

"...People?" Scott said uncertainly.

Harry sighed. "This doesn't make any sense. Maybe we're both going mad."

"_Folie à deux,"_ Scott murmured.

"What?"

"Hmm? Well, maybe you're going crazy. But I'm definitely not crazy, I'm pretty sure," Scott said confidently.

That was such a self-serving, ludicrous reversal of reality that Harry didn't know how to respond. He could accept that he might be going mad, but Scott had been mental long before the letters and the memories, and he was showing signs of whatever was happening to Harry, too.

"Quit talking rubbish," Harry settled on saying.

"Never!"

They were both getting a bit loud – Harry sent a nervous glance towards the windows of the house. The faint moonlight lent the edges of the walls and windows a lack of definition; there was a fuzzy sense of unreality beneath the slowly shifting clouds. As if the world were a smudged painting, or a book Harry was trying to read without his glasses.

"I don't know what to do," Harry said quietly, making an effort to contain his growing disorientation and panic. "I'm afraid to go back to sleep..."

"What if I go to sleep first? Maybe I'll dream instead of you."

Harry frowned; he couldn't see how that would work. "That doesn't make sense..."

Scott spread his arms, eyes wide. "What does, huh? What makes sense right now?"

That wasn't very compelling logic, but Harry also didn't have any other ideas. "Okay, fine. You sleep, I don't think I can, anyway."

"Don't mind if I do," Scott said with misplaced cheer. He flopped back down onto the grass and curled up with his head on one of his arms. "Just keep it down, I can hear you thinking. Don't think so loud."

"Just shut it. Stop being daft," Harry muttered, swatting Scott on the back as he sat down against the fence.

Scott's breathing slowed within a few minutes as he sunk quickly into sleep. Harry leaned back against the rough, varnished wood of the fence and stared up at the sky, wondering how long it would be until sunrise. Perhaps the brightness and clarity of the day would chase away his dreams, and allow him to sleep in the sunlight.

* * *

><p><em>You are standing in the hallway outside of the usual conference room, somewhere deep inside the complex. The location is not exactly classified, just by virtue of the traffic it gets, but it's also not something that's advertised. The name of the moon gets kicked around a lot, Pavarel, everyone knows that's where the Primarius is, but as to which star system, which planet, which moon? Not common knowledge. You know it technically as Point-87-87, but no one actually calls it that outside of the dispatch addresses and the top secret blueprints. It's the Cellar.<em>

_True to its name, most of the complex is underground and at least slightly damp, no matter how many dehumidifiers and pumps are always chugging away. That's to be expected, though, given the surroundings. The Cellar sits right on the equatorial belt, deep in a rainforest climate that doubles as a training (torture) ground. It's one of the most hostile ecosystems ever discovered. You're well aware of this, as you've taken your turns trying to survive the wide assortment of poisonous and/or carnivorous flora, flooding rains and deadly, highly territorial fauna._

_The Cellar is actually just one of many Primarius outposts on the moon and in the system. Also not common knowledge. But the powers that be are willing to let the Cellar gain some notoriety if the others are then ignored. You haven't been back here since the last time you had to run training, and you can't say you're happy about it. In your experience, most of your briefings happen over at Charpenak, a much more comfortable institution far to the north. But your reporting orders came through in a real hurry, out of nowhere, and you have to be wherever your assigning officer is. And it looks like that's the Cellar._

_You're reporting to someone different this time, too. You didn't recognise the name, which is a little worrying. You're pretty sure you know all the officers worth knowing. Colonel Diehl is your usual dispatcher. He knows how you work and generally stays out of your way. The last thing you need is some Major, freshly promoted past their point of competency, demanding constant oversight and status updates as if you were a probationary newbie. That's not very likely to happen (you're in the Primarius, not Second Fleet), but what if you just don't click with whoever it is? Knowing the right people is the only way to get anything done in a bureaucracy._

_It's already bad enough that you aren't going to be afforded any more than the most basic preparations. You've just talked to Batton over at CHRONOSEC and they're still working on the stop and sync, so that will buy you a little time. The news wasn't great, and Batton got real technical about the offset problems and the kind of pseudo-inertia they had to tackle. Then he gave you the usual line about doing their best and not being miracle workers. You don't know why he bothers to try and justify his results when so much of what they do over there is based on what's even possible at any given moment. There are a lot of government appendages that barely lift their own weight. CHRONOSEC isn't one of them._

_You've looked at the papers enough to sketch out a very rough plan that involves catching this Dumbledore guy early enough to make an impression, and that will be your in (you really hope Batton can swing it). You've got Lil packing the essentials plus a little extra, and Crandall is putting together a list of TechEq suitable gear for you. So, even though the Praesaedius team will have literally just **days** to mine the locality for info, it could still be worse. If nothing else, the Liberi were unusually loquacious. You have some kind of 'Prophecy' (they spelled it capitalised, for whatever reason), so that's a start._

_Harry Potter. A name, a nebulous 'destiny', and not much else. You've been to England plenty of times, but it sounds like you'll be integrating in a unique occurrence of it. Even the stress of having to do what you can with the little time and information you've been given can't entirely dampen your excitement. Another world, another adventure. It might be bad, sure. But you'll always learn something._

_You don't even know what Harry Potter looks like, but he's about to be your new best friend._

* * *

><p>"HOLY CRAP GODDAMN-"<p>

Harry hadn't realised how close to sleep he was until Scott's sudden exclamation jolted him back to wakefulness. He turned to see what the problem was just in time to catch Scott's thrashing elbow in the chest, knocking the wind out of him. He winced, rubbing at the throbbing bruise.

"Hey!" he said, aggravated. "Watch it!"

Scott hadn't even noticed. "Whoa, ow, my head. My head hurts. Memories hurt."

Harry had a headache, too, and he didn't think it had anything to do with Scott's elbow. Scenes from a different life were becoming increasingly vivid. "So, we've definitely gone back in time, right?"

"Technically, no, but close enough. Come on, we gotta talk about this. Let's go to the usual place." Scott stood and beckoned towards the street.

They hurried across the pavement, heading to the playground. Harry now remembered it as the place where the two of them had first met. Which was a bit odd, that he would have met his cousin (co-worker?) so late in life, but he was just then realising how little of what he had known about himself was actually true. He was squeezed beneath a crushing sense of deja vu.

The sight of the swings only emphasised that overwhelming familiarity. He had been there before, with Scott. They had both been older. They had talked of Prophecies and Horcrux hunting and how Scott's name was pronounced. Topics both crucial and casual. It was an important place, despite its mundane nature.

And they had been late into their teens, Harry remembered that now. He remembered six years at the school he called home, and a desperate search for the keys to ending the war that had swallowed his seventh year. He didn't understand how he had come to be young again, trapped at the Dursleys and waiting for Hagrid to explain the real world once more. But it seemed like Scott might, so the playground would probably host yet another conversation.

He remembered Ginny, too, and looked down at himself, wondering how he was going to handle puberty all over again. He hadn't even finished the last time.

Underneath all these thoughts was a burgeoning sense of joy, almost uncontrollable. If he had gone back, if he was able to do it all again, it was an opportunity beyond anything he could have expected. He could...

He stopped himself before he could get swept away by the possibilities. First, he needed to understand the circumstances. He sat in one of the swings and clasped his shaking hands.

"Okay..." he said, keeping his racing mind under tight control, "...So, what is this?"

Scott dropped himself into the adjacent swing, rattling the chains. "I think it's a replay."

"A replay?"

Scott sighed and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "A replay. You know, like pinball? Extra ball, extra play. Replay. Put in another token, try again."

Harry shook his head. "But life doesn't take tokens."

"Hey, I _like _tokens_. _They're like real money, but fun! And they have a picture of a mascot or a go-kart on them."

Harry rolled his eyes. "I didn't say I didn't like them, I... You know what? Who cares, maybe I don't like them, what are you even talking about?!"

Scott shrugged and nudged one foot through the gravel, making an uneven circle. "It's called a Spontaneous Universal Reset. Technically. But nobody calls it that – it's a replay. It's a universe-wide synchronous occurrence triggered by a series of latent events compounded by a more serious geometric error. The shape ceases to properly transform with the time strand and it all comes to a grinding halt, from a relativistic standpoint." Scott once again had the manner of recitation, not comprehension.

"Do you even remember what that means?" Harry pressed.

"Yeah, kinda," Scott said. His high-pitched, defensive tone was an immediate reminder that an eleven-year-old Scott was trying to relate the lessons of his indeterminately-aged memories. His vocal patterns had been varying wildly between the erudite, didactic language of his adult self and the rapid, disordered communications of his very young self.

"Well, just try to explain it," Harry said evenly. He didn't want to provoke his cousin(?). He needed Scott to hold onto a Kharadjai frame of mind.

"Okay, try this – the universe stops. But, why? That's the big question. We could guess that a lot of little things have been going wrong. Eventually, we reach this rare point where it's all perfectly balanced. The universe is teetering between situation normal, and critical failure. It hits a wall."

"Okay, so my destiny sort of stops, right? Riddle can't get me, I can't get him?"

"Something like that. The shape runs right into that dead end – do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars. So it backs up, and takes another run at it." Scott leaned back to look at the stars. He barely seemed to be paying attention to what he was saying. "So the theory goes. We don't understand replays. We don't know why they happen or the precise mechanics of what is happening."

"All right, so you don't know," Harry said impatiently. "But what actually does happen? What does it mean for us?"

"It means reliving your life. Or, at least most of it. It means going back to square one. And it means taking me with you."

"So we _have_ gone back in time," Harry said exultantly.

"No, I said no! It's not going back because all of this reality still exists, it just becomes the past that nobody remembers."

Harry tried to wrap his head around that. "But, I do remember! You do, too! And that means we know what's going to happen."

"Nuh uh. You didn't do this the first time. I didn't live in a linen closet. Don't you know anything about chaos? Nothing ever happens exactly the same way twice in the real world!" Scott retorted.

That was a disappointing (and frightening) notion. "So we can't fix everything?"

"We can try," Scott hedged. "Anything changed will create different outcomes. But, at the same time, the shape will only allow so much deviation. It may allow even less this time around, since our imprint remains. Like a wheel falling into a rut."

"But maybe not?" Harry insisted.

Scott scrunched up his face. "Maybe, maybe. Could all be rewritten, or replaced. No fate but what we make, unless we already made it. Unless the song remains the same. But revision is not only for homework."

Harry didn't know what to think. He needed time to process, everything had changed in an instant. He wanted to stop talking about the shape, save that for later. Scott had stopped being intelligible, anyway.

He looked down and saw his foot next to Scott's, so much smaller than in his new memories. And the appendage was even smaller than it appeared to be, as Harry was wearing one of Dudley's old shoes, too big for him. It suddenly struck him as almost unbearably weird to be back in his preteen body.

"Look at us!" he remarked, unable to get over it. "We're so... small!"

"Hey, _you_ are small. I'm not small. I'm at least regular-sized," Scott said imperiously. He hopped out of the swing and stood with his arms crossed, visibly straightening his posture to be as tall as possible.

"No way, we're both-"

"SO REGULAR!" Scott boomed, throwing his arms around wildly and jumping in place. "I'M GROWING RIGHT NOW!"

"Shhhhhhh!" Harry tried to shush Scott, but it was difficult through the laughter.

"This sucks though, it really sucks, it SUCKS. Are we not supposed to say that, now? You suck, playground! You suck, moon! You-"

"Scott, be quiet!" Harry squealed. He grabbed Scott's arm and pulled him back towards the swings. "Come on!"

"Stop it!"

This resulted in a tug of war that ended with them wrestling on the ground and giggling like a couple of twats. When that particular phrase occurred to Harry, it finally served to snap him back into his more mature frame of mind, at least temporarily.

He scampered up and sat back down on the swing, determined not to let Scott run things out of control. They had to remember how to be adults, difficult though it was. "Sit down, we have to think about this!" he said in a voice so high and whinging he almost looked around to see who it came from.

"No! I won't!" Scott declared. "I have to grow! Like this!" He emphasized every short sentence with another jump. "I used to be... a big guy! Girls liked me!"

"Girls never liked you," Harry scoffed.

Scott gave him the nastiest look a preteen could summon. "Yeah they did! I was a big blond sex machine on the highway to Pound Town!"

"Pound Town?!" Harry repeated, and it sounded even more vulgar in his eleven-year old tenor than it had in Scott's.

"You heard me!"

"Just sit down, we have to talk!"

"We just did, I said-"

"Not about the shape, you're full of rubbish anyway," Harry said, gesturing to the swing next to him. Scott was too loud to be running around while they talked, he needed to calm down. "We need to decide what to do next."

"Doesn't Hagrid come soon?"

"After Uncle Vernon cracks and takes us to the island," Harry explained. "It's a couple days, yet."

"I wonder what he'll make of me," Scott mused. "Harry Potter isn't supposed to have a cousin."

"So you _are_ my cousin?" Harry had thought that was the case, even though it was technically impossible.

"Not really. The shape has never had to admit that I exist before now. So it created a history based on my relationship to you: some kind of distant cousin. I'm from your dad's side."

"And people will just remember that I had an aunt who isn't real?"

"Or an uncle! It's probably best not to ask a lot of questions, though. Nobody's memories will extend very far. They can take me at face value and 'remember' that I'm your cousin in some capacity, but asking anyone who should have known my parents to reminisce might confuse them. Or, maybe not."

Which created an entirely different question. "Okay, but, and no offence, I've known Ron and Hermione a lot longer. Why aren't they here? Shouldn't Hermione, like, be my sister?"

"They already have families and histories. I'm here because I didn't belong anywhere."

Harry wondered if perhaps he and Scott weren't so alone, then. "You think they remember the... future? Real past?"

Scott shrugged. "I don't know. I guess I could go check."

"Could you?" Harry said eagerly. "Maybe we can find some way to meet before school starts."

They could devise a way to handle Quirrel before he went anywhere near the Stone, and then go from there. With Scott's ability to travel, and Harry's upcoming inheritance, they could start collecting Horcruxes early. Scott could get rid of Riddle Sr.'s bones, make Pettigrew disappear, hell, even assassinate Umbridge. The possibilities were dizzying.

A sudden thought dropped Harry's heart into his stomach. "We have to get Sirius out of Azkaban. We have to get him out of there, as quick as we can," he said urgently, gripping Scott's arm. He couldn't stand the thought of his godfather being in there for a second longer than necessary.

Scott frowned. "Legally? We can grab Pettigrew for proof and that might spring Sirius. Or, we can do it the hard way. I could talk to Lil."

Harry hesitated. He didn't have much faith in the Ministry to free Sirius even when presented evidence of his innocence. But if they broke Sirius out of Azkaban using Scott and Lila's particular skill sets, then Sirius would be stuck in Grimmauld again, a permanent fugitive.

"...We can try legal first, probably." Harry wanted to think about it some more. "Go see if everyone else remembers things, they'll have some ideas, too."

"We may be on our own," Scott cautioned. "At least until you decide to tell them."

Harry couldn't even imagine how _that_ conversation might go. He fervently hoped that he and Scott were not alone in their remembrance. "Well... Go see."

Scott grimaced. "I don't know if I can work an aperture at this age. Give me a minute."

It took him about twenty to stabilise an aperture, and about ten more to enlarge it to the point he could pass through it. Harry watched Scott struggle with a mixture of impatience and anticipation that left him fidgeting in his seat, unable to be still. When Scott vanished, Harry remained at the playground rather than return to Privet Drive, trying to organise his thoughts. The developments of the day were overwhelming.

He was left with few certainties, and endless possibilities that both tempted and terrified.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note<strong>

Over two-hundred reviews! Yes, Vis Insita has surpassed TTM in review count, though only on FF net.

I consider the reviews for any story to be a collective, including all websites posted to. So, in this instance, TTM has roughly 500 reviews from Phoenixsong and FF net, with maybe 50 more from various other places like Mugglenet, Simply Undeniable, etc. So 550, give or take. Vis is around 370, currently. The fall off is primarily explained by the drop in readership at Phoenixsong. More people are reviewing at FF net, but not as many people as stopped reviewing at Phoenixsong.

Still, consider this: on FF net, TTM has 163 reviews from 136,000 hits. Only about 1 in 8 people continue on after the first chapter. Vis Insita, by comparison, has 211 reviews from 30,000 hits. Math isn't my strong suit, but I'd say that's a pretty significant increase in the ratio of readers to reviews. It's the benefit of long-term storytelling – people who go to Vis are reading it because they read the first one. It's the entry point for those who are serious about reading this thing.

I've considered posting Vis elsewhere, just for the sake of exposure. A lot of the sites where I would have applied either aren't around or aren't particularly active anymore, so quite a few of those doors have closed. I've found that reviewers tend to gather in the same places, even when I've posted elsewhere anyone who sees it tends to find their way to Phoenixsong or FF net anyway.

Thank you everyone for making this story a (cult) success. We've staked out one weird corner of the fandom, here, that's for sure. Most Harry Potter readers don't know what to make of TTM and Vis. I'm glad you were all so willing to embrace something off the beaten path.

Especially now, after you've just finished a very strange chapter, indeed.


	24. Closer to a Memory

**24**

**Closer to a Memory**

* * *

><p>"<em>I propose the following: if the shape<br>__can alter memory, then our understanding  
><em>_of memory must change. Instead of a record  
><em>_of our own perspectives, unique and created  
><em>_by how we perceive causation, memory can't  
><em>_be so confined. To see it that way would imply  
><em>_that the shape changes our remembrance  
><em>_intentionally, and with a skill beyond any  
><em>_surgeon. _

_But I don't believe that to be true.  
><em>_Altered memories are simply a by-product.  
><em>_Reality transforms with the shape; these  
><em>_transformations write themselves in our minds,  
><em>_automatically. To change the root, is to change  
><em>_the leaves. So, it follows that our memories are  
><em>_influenced by us, but not created by us, nor  
><em>_dependent on individual perspective. We all  
><em>_translate the pages we are given in different  
><em>_ways, but read from the same book."  
><em>

_—_Cecil DuMont, _Inviolate: Forgotten Sciences of the Shape and the Modern Monopoly of Thought_

* * *

><p>The book she was reading was not quite involving enough.<p>

Typically, Hermione did not suffer much difficulty losing herself in a novel — or anything written, really, it didn't have to be fiction. Words were her speciality, a world she understood and connected to on a fundamental level. Escape through the vector of books had allowed her to survive primary school, a pen and ink shield against the harsh reality of the social strata and her place within it. In retrospect, she thought she must have been a truly insufferable child to have failed to connect with even the other outcasts. Or perhaps she had been consistently unlucky.

Hogwarts had changed all of that. It had taken a little time to happen, but soon enough she'd gained the truest friends a girl could ever wish for. And, as they grew together, she had begun to hope that her luck had changed so thoroughly that one of those friends might become something more.

He had, eventually. Ron had given her some wonderful memories. Which was good, as they were all she had left.

She lowered her book and stared hollowly at the coat of arms above the great stone fireplace that dominated the far wall of the manor's sitting room. It was a fireplace big enough to burn a body, she morbidly considered, and probably had. Malfoy Manor was full of secrets, all of them unpleasant.

And it was her Manor, after all. Hermione Granger-Malfoy must have owned at least half. It was right there in her name.

In reality, she knew that she owned nothing. She was little better than the furnishings around her, another prize possession for the master of the house. She belonged to the son, not the senior (bad as it all was, it could have been even worse), but the Manor was a family collection. She had been added to the rest of the curios through the machinations of a Ministry far past the point of insanity. Utter, incomprehensible insanity.

A Marriage Law! The madness, the inhumanity, the trespasses against civil rights, the repudiation of the most basic liberties and human dignity! It could not be borne. Most days she could scarcely comprehend how a rational world could allow such a thing. Then her knowledge of history caught up to her outrage, and she remembered that far worse things had been allowed to happen. It was scant comfort. It was all she could do to bottle up her indignity, and keep the uneasy peace.

In a perverse sort of equality, at least Muggle-born men had also been treated like chattel by the pure-bloods desperate to avoid losing what little control they had over spousal arrangements. They all had to choose, or the Ministry would choose for them. The fact that the choosers were pure-bloods, and those chosen had no say in the matter, had to be a purposeful attempt by a corrupt regime to placate its wealthiest members, even as it forced them into matrimony with those they viewed as inferior at best and mere animals at worst.

Did they not see how draconian it all was, how unfair, unprincipled, _untenable? _Those cursed fascists in office didn't care about the human cost, the barbarity, the ludicrous _absurdity _of the entire affair. It was so illogical it just made her want to _scream._

She swallowed her freshly bubbling indignation when Draco walked into the room. He nodded coolly towards her on his way to the rear stairwell. She did not return the gesture, watching dispassionately as he went, her features impassive.

Gone were his sneers and general aura of contempt. He treated her with a cold civility, distant but generally polite. He was fairly indifferent to how she spent her time. She didn't know for certain, but she speculated that he had used her to dodge out of another arranged marriage, perhaps to someone he couldn't ignore. So he had what he'd wanted, and there was little further use for her, even as a target of scorn. He probably didn't even remember he was married until he saw her.

He didn't have _everything_ he wanted, though, she reflected vindictively. She had never gone to his bed. But that small kernel of victory was lessened by the fact that he had hardly tried to bring her into his bed. He'd made some half-hearted suggestions on their wedding night, but he didn't really want her for sex. No doubt he had another woman, probably more than one, for that. No, Hermione knew that, beyond whatever motivation he might have had to escape a different Marriage Law victim, she represented one last, spiteful blow against Harry, and against Ron.

Draco had held the power to take away Harry's best friend and entrap Ron's love. So he did it, of course. She doubted he'd ever entertained second thoughts before, during or after the process. Petty vengeance was less of a consideration for the Malfoys than it was a standard impulse to be indulged.

Thinking of Ron and Harry brought back the waves of loneliness and deep despair. She dropped her book upon her lap and passed a hand over her eyes, fighting back helpless tears. She wanted so badly to be free of the whole mess. But what would be the point of escaping if she would just be found again? The law was the law, and she hadn't been able to change it, despite... Well, she couldn't recall any specific examples, but she was sure she had tried.

Harry might be able to protect her, at least for a time. He had married a pure-blood despite the Law. Even a Ministry gone mad could not deny the triumphant hero his chosen bride: no one told Harry he couldn't marry Ginny, not with his fame and public support at an all-time high. For once, Harry's name had worked for him. Ron and Hermione were lesser known, always had been. They lacked the same protections.

Hermione didn't know who Ron was married to, if he was. She assumed so; it was the law, after all. She hoped it was someone sweet, and kind, who could handle his temper, bolster his confidence, and understand how precious he was.

At least Harry had Ginny. In her best moments, Hermione was able to be happy for them. She frowned slightly, thinking about Harry's sway with the public. Why hadn't he been able to help her? With his money and prestige, surely he could have done_ something_. She would have had ideas, public relations tactics, governmental loopholes she could research. It didn't seem right. Harry had always jumped to her defence before. It was in his nature.

Perhaps he _had_ tried, and she just couldn't remember, given all the fuss and her state of mind. Come to think of it, she couldn't even remember how Harry had defeated Voldemort. She must have blocked it out, because, as soon as the question occurred to her, bits and pieces of that night began to return. She recalled a great battle in a forest, all flashing light and dark swathes. There, Riddle had been struck down at last.

Had it truly been so simple? She shook herself. Perhaps spending so much of her time removed from reality was beginning to affect her. She decided to take a walk in the garden, one of her frequent pastimes. The garden was tended by the house elves, and none of the Malfoys made much use of it. It was an excellent place to find her preferred state of solitude.

The garden path was as perfectly manicured as everything else about the Manor. Money bought cleanliness and order, among other things. Like her, apparently. She quashed the thought and pressed deeper into the hedges. There, beneath the arched branches, was the closest thing to tranquillity she had found since the Law had passed.

It had been forced upon her, that was true enough, but she still felt as if she had failed. Not just Harry and Ron, but herself. She was the bright one, the one who could find a way out of situations that required more than bravery. If anyone could discover a way around the Law, or, barring that, a way to escape the Manor cleanly, it would be her. That wasn't egotism, it was simple fact. Solving such problems had been her purpose ever since two reckless boys had saved her from a troll.

So why _hadn't_ she escaped? Even protections as mighty as those surrounding the Manor could be breached more easily from within. A single shopping trip to Diagon Alley, one visit to her parents: little more would be required to allow her to disappear. Yet, she sat, mired in self-pity. She felt a wave of bitter disappointment wash over her. She was better than she had been acting. She didn't need to escape into books, she needed to escape to the outside world!

She had no idea why she had been so inactive, downright _passive_, in her handling of the situation. But she resolved that would change. Starting immediately, she would do whatever she had to in order to return to Ron. They could run away to Australia, or America. They could live like Muggles if they had to. It would be hard for Ron, at first, but in time he could be taught everything he needed to know. She began tallying a mental list of the most vital things he would need to memorise in order to pass as a Muggle effectively, and then noted that there would be some other, different cultural considerations if they integrated into American society.

She stopped, thought about what she was doing, and smiled. _That_ was more like it. She was herself again. Hermione Granger was a force to be reckoned with. She had simply forgotten herself for awhile.

Yes, integrating into America. Most British pure-bloods had little to do with American wizarding society, almost entirely Muggle-born as it was. She and Ron could be safe there. It would be easy enough to configure a method of communicating with Harry and the rest of the Weasleys. And she had known someone… Someone she associated with that word, 'integrating'…

Well. It would come to her, eventually.

Sections of the garden were almost like a maze, though only in the sense there were hedge walls that couldn't be seen over. Everything was neatly laid out along the paths, and there was no danger of becoming lost. She passed by a marble bench, deciding she would rather stroll and think, and crossed over a small ornamental bridge. On the other side, four hedges lined an intersection on the pathway. Randomly, she stepped to the left, which was the way to the orchids.

She immediately recoiled, one hand groping for her wand, when she almost ran into the looming form of a person standing there — a person with a weapon.

The gun barrel which nearly stopped her heart lowered, revealing a familiar, and somewhat sheepish, visage. "Did I scare you?" he said.

Oh, damn it all. It was just Scott.

Hermione dropped her hands to her sides, still trembling, though it was more from embarrassment and anger than shock. She took a deep breath and slowly let it out, not trusting herself to answer right away. "You," she began, shakily. She shut her mouth and took another deep breath, this time through her nose, and tried again. "You hulking, inconsiderate lout! What are you doing, lurking around corners, giving me such a fright? How did you even get in here?" When Scott quirked an eyebrow at her, she sighed. "Silly question. But, you startled me!"

"Us hulking, inconsiderate louts are known to do that," he said.

She flushed slightly. Perhaps she had been a bit harsh on him, but he had just about scared her half to death. "Well, I'm sorry, but you're quite tall, and the first thing I saw was your chest and a gun barrel!"

"I wasn't sure it was you. I knew you were in here, somewhere, but it could have been Malfoy," Scott explained.

"And you were prepared to, what? Shoot him?"

Scott gestured towards the Manor. "And deprive you of all this?"

Becoming a widow, courtesy of Scott, would be one way to fix the problem, she supposed. A rather awful way. It wasn't as if she hadn't wished death on Draco several times already, given what he had done. However, whilst she wouldn't shed a tear should something happen to her husband, premeditated murder was a step further than she was willing to go.

"I doubt I'd miss it. You can put that away," she told Scott, indicating his firearm. "We're alone out here."

"This deep into enemy territory? I'll keep it out, thanks."

She rolled her eyes. "We're not at war, anymore. If you get caught, you might be charged for trespassing. Shoot someone, and that's attempted murder."

"Like it would be _attempted_," he scoffed.

"Of course, yes, you never miss, you're the best murderer ever, and so on. What are you doing here?"

"Gee, I'm happy to see you, too."

She sighed again, wilting a bit. After a moment, she reached out and took his hand, squeezing it with rediscovered affection. "I _am_ happy to see you. I'm sorry, I'm… Not in the best of moods."

"I don't know how you could be." Scott looked up at the Manor with an expression of distaste. "What do you say I torch this place and take you home?"

A tempting offer, indeed. "I wish it were that simple."

"It isn't?" Scott seemed genuinely surprised.

"I…" Hermione paused. Was it not? She had been so certain about the complexity of the details that kept her trapped under the Marriage Law, but they had become vague in her mind. No doubt it would take awhile to sort it all out, and who knew how much time she had with Scott. "I don't have time to explain it all. Just, please don't make things worse."

"I don't know what's going on, I wasn't even at your wedding," Scott complained.

"Of course you weren't. No one was." Even Hermione's parents had not been allowed to attend, being Muggles. It was strange, though, that she hadn't had any say in that at all. The wizarding world wasn't _that_ backward, was it? Had she no recourse?

"Did you at least have a cake? Is there any left?"

Either Scott was trying to make her laugh, or he had finally lost his tenuous hold on reality. Though, all of these sudden, previously unrealised questions assaulting her made her feel as if perhaps _she_ were the one going insane. There was a fog of war being lifted. Scott's presence was galvanising. She couldn't remember the last time she had seen him, but she knew she had never been so glad to see him before.

"My memory seems to be impaired," she said with a growing sense of urgency, "as well as some other aspects of my personality, I'm sure it's all related. I don't know if Draco has done something to me, or perhaps the Manor itself, but I know now that I need to leave, regardless of the Marriage Law."

"'Marriage Law'?" Scott echoed, mouthing the words as if they tasted strange. "That explains where you're shacking up. I thought you were, like… Undercover, maybe. Or here for tea. You're British, you'll take tea with anyone if they invite you."

"Where on earth have you been?" she said impatiently. "Did you just decide to stop paying attention? The Ministry has completely exceeded its authority and forced pure-bloods to marry Muggle-borns in an attempt to repopulate and lower the rate of squibs. Wizarding Britain has been on the brink for a long time, you know that. Part of that being their obvious propensity for the worst possible solutions."

"What a messed up country," Scott sighed. "This is some paperback bullshit, we're reaching fanfiction levels of self-serving stupidity at this point. _So_ fucking contrived."

"You think I don't know that?! It's _absurd,"_ Hermione hissed. "Someone in the upper offices clearly longs for a return to feudalism. I should have refused to begin with, consequences be damned. But I won't keep living here for a second longer than I have to. Now, can you take a message to Harry for me?"

"I can, yes."

"Ask him if Grimmauld Place is still protected. If it is, I want to know if I can hide there for an indeterminate amount of time. Hopefully, not too long. I may have to flee the country."

Scott nodded. "I can help with that, too, if you want. Or, I could dynamite this shitheap, and then the Ministry."

"Don't be hasty, Guy Fawkes," Hermione said dryly. "Rather than unleashing your inner arsonist, why don't you help me escape?"

"Fine. But I get to dynamite one public edifice of my choice."

"Your terms are ridiculous, so are you, and we aren't even bargaining right now! Now, please go, I don't want to spend another second here that I don't have to." She paused, biting her lower lip. "And… If you see Ron…"

Scott raised an eyebrow. "Yes?"

"Tell him… Oh, never mind. I don't know what to say. What _can_ I say?" There was so much that had been left unspoken that she doubted any words could do it justice after the time that had passed. "Do you know anything about his…?"

"Penis?"

Hermione blanched. "Wh—?! Why would you think _that_ would be the next word?! _Situation. _I was going to say sit— Oh, you are, you're_ impossible_, just go, I don't want to talk to you anymore!"

"This isn't a very welcoming environment. I think you need to develop your skills as a hostess."

"They hide me when they have visitors. Sometimes I'm not sure who my in-laws hate more: Me, or Draco for marrying me." Surely she had to be right about Draco dodging a different, more responsibility-laden marriage to some other Muggle-born. She wondered who the luckier woman was.

"Poor Hermione in her big, lonely castle, trapped with a brutish man," Scott simpered.

She glared at him. "It's a Manor, and I don't need your pity."

He grinned widely. "'Taaaaaaaale as ooooold as tiiiiiime…'" he began to sing.

Hermione loved the Disney animated films — not liked, _loved. _She was not impressed by the comparison. She had seen the one to which Scott was referring in the theatre, a rare Muggle moment with her parents. And the behaviour of the Malfoys was, even at their best, still far more ugly beneath the surface than the Beast had ever been.

Still, she couldn't quite suppress the smile brought about by Scott's exaggerated warbling. It felt too good to be around someone who tried to entertain her, again. "Oh, shut it, you prat. Now I remember why I didn't miss you."

"Not even a little?" Scott sniffled, blinking back imaginary tears.

"…Perhaps very slight modicum," she allowed. "Will you please go? I want to leave here."

"I'll see what I can do," Scott promised. "If Grimmauld has completely decayed in Sophie's absence, I'll come up with something. How about an apartment by the Thames? Think of all the jellied eels you could eat," he enthused, as if that were a major selling point.

"No, thank you, I prefer my eels un-jellied. Or not at all, really."

Scott wandered back off into the garden, presumably to disappear. He seemed to dislike opening apertures in front of people, which she thought probably had less to do with trade secrets than with his own sense of dramatic mystery. Or, perhaps not, but whatever the case was, she didn't know why he had to be by himself first. Maybe he just knew it would annoy her.

That would be like him, but no matter. She needed to consider her plans, build contingencies. If she were to simply disappear for awhile, she rather doubted that Draco would go looking for her. He would likely be relieved, or indifferent. In fact, were it entirely up to him, he'd probably not bother to report it. He lived his life as if she weren't around anyway; her departure would be more a convenience than anything. Lucius might worry for the family's reputation, but not for long, she wagered. Being forced to accept a Muggle-born into the fold had been the ultimate indignity for the Malfoy patriarch. He would likely view letting her go as being worth the embarrassment.

No, the government would be the real issue. And she was done accepting their authority.

A shadow fell across her, followed by footsteps. She rolled her eyes, wondering if Scott was having trouble with his mysterious apertures, and, more to the point, what he expected her to do about it. "Was there something else, or are you—" she turned, and was greeted by a very different visage than the one she had expected. Her mouth dropped open. "…Harry?"

* * *

><p>With a whoosh of air that sent her hair fluttering, Ginny slammed her bedroom door shut and leaned against it. She could feel her absolute humiliation in her burning cheeks, nearly bringing her to tears.<p>

It wasn't fair. _She hadn't been ready!_

She abandoned the hard surface of the door and turned to the comfort of her bed, flinging herself onto the soft sheets and burying her glowing complexion into her pillow. The cool cloth was soothing, though not enough. She wished she could Transfigure it into a Time Turner. That would be dead useful, and she didn't need more than a few minutes to fix everything.

She had known that Ron and the twins had been up to _something_, even if they refused to tell her what. She'd heard them leave in the middle of the night, which, at least in the twin's case, was not all that unusual. So when she'd traipsed down to breakfast in the morning, yawning widely and peering out blearily out from behind the curtain of her brilliant red hair, she'd had nothing on her mind but the forthcoming meal.

She certainly hadn't expected _Harry Potter_ to be at the table.

Harry Potter! The saviour of the wizarding world, the mighty hero, the living legend, the… the skinny, black-haired boy with the amazing green eyes she had seen at the station. He'd seemed so alone, then. Now he was with Ron and the twins. They'd corrupt him before she even had a chance to say anything!

Not that she could say anything. Unless she counted the mortifying squeak she had unleashed, something akin to a mouse being squished. Scabbers made noises like the one she'd made when she saw Harry Potter in the kitchen with nary a warning. And there was only one chance to make a first impression.

If she could do it again, she would dress nicely, and be ever so polite, with dazzling manners and a pretty smile and maybe he would smile back! She'd be intelligent and charming, and have so many questions, and soon enough he would be her friend, too, not just Ron's. And it would be wonderful. He'd take her on adventures and tell her all about himself.

Oh, who was she fooling? She couldn't say a word to him, never mind be witty. He was _Harry Potter!_ She was… a small red-haired girl from a big family without much money. The Minister would want to converse with Harry Potter, all the Aurors and the _Daily Prophet_, Dumbledore and Quidditch stars. They would be his friends and confidantes. Not little Ginny Weasley. Not if she couldn't just _speak_ to him!

It wasn't that she lacked self-confidence entirely, she knew she was an all right sort, she had opinions and ideas, she could be interesting. None of that did her any bloody good when her body betrayed her, turning red as a tomato and squeezing her jaw shut with invisible force. She'd imagined talking to him for so long, and, now that she had the chance, she couldn't!

To top it all off, she'd been right rude, running out like that, and walking in not fully dressed in the first place. Her fury focussed on her brothers, abandoning its internal direction. If they'd had the simple courtesy to tell her that Harry Potter had been downstairs, the whole affair might have been avoided. It was like they _wanted_ her to make a fool of herself. Oh, that would be just like them, wouldn't it. The ruddy prats.

She'd be sure to get them back for it, but, in the meantime, she resolved to do better. Harry Potter would notice her, and she would speak to him, and they would be the best of friends and maybe even boyfriend and girlfriend, eventually, once they were a bit older. She didn't want to wait too long, though.

Well, she wasn't going to accomplish any of that feeling sorry for herself in her room. As she dressed, she tried to think of a good way to make up for her earlier embarrassment. Perhaps she could show Harry how good she was on a broomstick. She knew he liked watching her play, and had always taken pride in her Quidditch skills.

Except he'd never seen her fly. And the rest of her family didn't know she even could. So why had she thought that? Harry liked Quidditch, of course, and was an amazing Seeker. Or, he would be an amazing Seeker. She knew he would… Though, he'd never been on a team before and was even raised a Muggle, as she understood it, so…

She shook her head, wondering just how barmy the incident downstairs had left her. Such weird thoughts besieged her; almost like memories. She would be worried that she was finally confusing fantasy with reality, but she couldn't recall ever fantasising about playing Quidditch with Harry Potter. Adventuring, fighting Dark Lords, holding hands, sure, but not Quidditch. It was a very odd train of thought.

But not a bad one, all together. Flying might be just the thing to make Harry her friend. She'd just have to sneak into the shed again, and invite him. He looked like he could keep a secret (she knew he could, somehow).

Thus at least momentarily bolstered, she pulled her door open and strode out straight into someone standing there.

She stumbled back and nearly fell to the floor, just catching herself on the edge of the door frame. She found herself bent over nearly double, resting on her heels and staring at an unfamiliar pair of trainers. Her heart sunk in her chest. Oh, no. Surely she hadn't just walked into Harry.

With great trepidation, her eyes travelled upwards until they met the person's face. Recognition sparked immediately, and she almost let go of the frame in relief.

It was only Scott.

"Were you eavesdropping out here?" she snapped, pulling herself up.

"Why? Were you talking to yourself?" he responded blandly.

"No! I was…" She stopped, not wanting to explain what had happened. "It's none of your business."

"Yeah, probably not. Hey, have you seen Harry?"

"He was just at the table," Ginny replied without thinking. Then, she frowned. "Wait, '_Harry_'? Are you friends with him already?"

Scott squinted down at her. "I feel like you're setting me up for a joke, but I can't guess the punchline. Okay, I'll bite: yes, I'm friends with him already."

"Great. Now you can tell him all sorts of lies about me, if you haven't already," she huffed.

He pointed at her. "Hey, I was on your side when you didn't even know it. Who was dating Dean, again? Yeah, not me. Don't blame me for not being able to work around your baggage fast enough. I brought you up to Harry just about every goddamn day."

She gaped at him. "What are you even talking about? Who's Dean?"

Scott dropped his hand and stared blankly back at her for a long, silent moment. "…He's a guy," he said at last. "He's a guy who you… something. And it was a problem. For me. And possibly the universe. Maybe I should keep a journal…"

"You've finally gone completely around the twist, haven't you," Ginny said ruefully.

"No, no. That's not what's happening here. I'm just delivering a message, because Harry wants to talk to you."

A jolt of excitement shot through her. "He does?" she said weakly. After what had happened? She hoped he wanted to talk about something else. If he tried to apologise for startling her or something like that, she would just die. But, wait— "You just asked me if I'd seen Harry."

"Right. Because he wants to talk to you. I didn't know if you'd run into him before I found you."

Scott must have just arrived, which made sense, as she hadn't seen him in the kitchen with the others. He sometimes walked over to The Burrow from wherever it was he lived, she couldn't remember where that was, or why he came over, or how she had come to be on such informal speaking terms with a grown man. But, none of that mattered. Harry wanted to speak with her!

"Is he still in the kitchen?" she asked.

"No, he's out in the orchard. I don't know what he wants, but he was pretty tense. Hermione was there, too. Something must be up." Scott shrugged, apparently unconcerned with whatever that something was.

Hermione being there put a bit of a damper on things. It wasn't the private conversation Ginny had hoped for, but she still brushed past Scott (thankfully, he didn't follow) and hurried out of the house, crossing the lawn and heading for the orchard. It was very pleasant out, and the dew from the grass soaked her feet as the air slowly heated with the sun. Her heart pounded in her chest, dizzy with anticipation.

Her bold flight lasted until she reached the trees. Hesitation took over, and she carefully wound her way around the trunks and branches until she saw Harry standing in the shade, and she stopped.

He looked tired, dark circles apparent beneath his eyes and the faint hint of his still-sparse stubble dotting his chin and upper lip. He was wearing clothes that were too big for him, giving him the appearance of being underfed again, even though she had seen him put on weight over years of Hogwarts feasts and Quidditch training. Except, had she? There were years, and there were none. He was younger, but not. She glanced down at herself and saw a different form than she had in the mirror of her bedroom, with breasts and hips and unfamiliar marks. There was a tiny scar on her left index finger, and she couldn't remember how she had come to have it. The Harry from the table was superimposed over the new Harry, older and more worn, blurring together and making her blink. Hermione stood just behind him, her stance worried, and she was the same as always, singular, unwavering in age.

Harry smiled tightly. "Ginny, it's all right," he said gently. "Or, I think it's going to be."

"We shouldn't have let Scott go," Hermione fretted. "We don't know if he'll go to Ron."

Harry sighed. "He has to. You saw him when we tried to explain, he forgot the second we were done talking. This thing is trying to stop him, I'm positive."

"Thank goodness he's so hard to pin down. He's doing what he thinks is his job, regardless, which is a sort of comfort. I never thought I'd be grateful he's so stubborn." Hermione worried at her lip. "When he finds Ron, what will we—"

"One step at a time," Harry interrupted. "Gin, I can explain. Well… Some of it, anyway."

Ginny didn't know what was happening or who (when?) precisely this Harry was. But she remembered that she trusted him. "All right, Harry. What's all this?"

* * *

><p><strong>Scott steps out into the hallway, letting the door slid shut and seal behind him. The soft 'click' and subtle hum of the hermetic locks is familiar to him, almost a sort of comfort. The world behind each door could not intrude.<strong>

**The halls of the Transferral have an odd, muffled acoustic quality to them. The ceilings seem a bit lower than natural and noise doesn't travel far in the partitioned sections, muted and dull. There is only the constant thrum of distant machinery, droning somewhere deep behind the walls and beneath the floor.**

**He takes a step and then pauses, unsure of his destination. Unsure of where he'd come from, actually. He turns back to look at the door he had just exited. Matte grey metal, featureless, without clue. He frowns, waving at the emitter. It doesn't respond.**

**He rolls his eyes, turning away. Fucking place was falling apart, per usual. He understands that Transversal Station is a massive expenditure, but, come on. It is _the_ major hub of travel. Someone could pay to fix the fucking 'mits when they broke.**

**Still, he should really remember what he was doing. The door directly across from him lights up. Instead of the standard designations, it scrolls only two words across the air.**

**Find Ron.**

**It's a pretty unusual OP tag, a little succinct for the bureaucratic tendencies of the Imperiarchy. But it's clear enough, and it's the direction he was looking for. He palms the door open and steps confidently through.**

* * *

><p>Ron's fingers dug into the upholstery with growing tension as he watched her from his perch. Some of the other students had probably noticed his fixation, he thought grimly. It was all a real laugh, he'd wager. But that was less important to him than the task which he had set himself. He had to ask Hermione to the Yule Ball. And he <em>was<em> going to ask her. He just hadn't quite sussed out how.

She was assisting Harry with his homework over at the couches, meaning she was doing at least some of it. Harry had an impatient look on his face, probably wishing she would stop explaining how something was done and just do it for him. She would, eventually (she couldn't help herself), but not before she did her best to aid his comprehension. That wasn't what Harry wanted, but it was what he was going to get until she became frustrated enough with his inability (unwillingness) to understand, and took over.

Ron had been on the receiving end of that kind of help more times than he could remember. Observing it from the outside made him think that perhaps he and Harry relied on her too much. It wasn't fair to expect her to do their revision at least partially and then all of hers, too. Even if she seemed to enjoy it.

He didn't understand that side of her. He secretly admired it, but could never summon that level of academic interest. He understood one thing about her, though: she wanted him to ask her to the Ball.

That understanding was in direct contrast to his previous position of doubt, which he had attempted to mask with false indifference. But, that morning he had awoken from a dream that had seemed so intense, so real, that in the moment of breaking conciousness he had felt as if he were going into a dream instead of coming out of one. He couldn't remember the details, left with haunting after-images and unintelligible segments of conversation.

Despite its unclear nature, his dream had bestowed upon him an inexplicable certainty: Hermione wanted him to ask her to the Ball. He knew it with the surety of hindsight, a truth obvious only in retrospective. Which didn't make much sense, but, hey, he supposed he'd take whatever sources of confidence he could find, even if, in this case, it meant he was completely mental.

So, all he had to do was think of the proper way to ask her, right? Couldn't be too difficult. Maybe if he—

"The cycle is shortening," a voice mused from the chair next to Ron's, jolting him from his thoughts.

Ron turned his head to glare at the intrusion, intent on giving whoever had startled him a piece of his mind. He was trying to think, damn it! But the unwelcome voice proved to have emerged from a familiar head sporting an unkempt top of straw-blond hair. Ron made a face and subsided back into his seat.

It was only Scott, the bugger.

Ron wasn't going to waste his breath having a go at Scott. He'd been watching Hermione do just that for years. "What's that?" he said disinterestedly. Hopefully, Scott would pick up on Ron's half-hearted replies and go bother someone else.

"This thing we're in. This cycle, though I don't think that's the right word. Unique occurrences may have obvious repetition, but that doesn't necessarily evince they are cyclical in nature."

Ron turned to look at him, incredulous. "What?" he said.

Scott ignored him. "I'm not where I was before, but I haven't gone anywhere. We're narrowing it down, whatever 'it' is, whittling away. The decimal shifts with each new instance, like a countdown, the number is approaching a real integer. But, every decimal place erases the previous digits… I don't recall where I was, or where I'm going, but I _am_ going, and iteration brings us closer to the true paradigm."

Usually, it was Harry who put up with that kind of rubbish. "Oh, I thought you were talking to me," Ron said, turning away.

"I am if you're listening."

"What's the point?" Ron sighed, wishing Scott would just shut it or go away. Ron had Hermione to think about.

"I know something is wrong. But I don't know what, or, as I suspect, I can't _remember_ what. I've been here before."

"You've been to Hogwarts lots of times, mate," Ron said dryly. "At least in body, your head is anyone's guess."

"Have I, though? Here, yes, but _now?_ I'm trying to think about it and I run into walls, there's nothing to remember, half the time, or it comes to me at the last second and still doesn't really fit." Scott stared into the fireplace. "This may be invention. This may be a cage. This is wrong. I was somewhere else, a minute ago."

"Yeah, you were standing over there," Ron told him. He started to raise his hand to point, and then he dropped it, eyebrows pulling together in confusion. Scott hadn't been over there, actually. Where had the Kharadjai been? And what was a Kharadjai?

Scott watched Ron's aborted attempt at indication with detachment. "This is wrong," he repeated. "I know that much."

Ron began mentally assembling a refutation of Scott's daft assertion (probably just a, 'shut it, you nutter'), but then he thought about his dream, and the way it seemed to take over his reality. He couldn't entirely dismiss the overall feeling of strangeness that had descended over the day. "Did you see a Grim in your bacon?" he said with attempted levity, though he couldn't quite make himself mean it.

Scott did not reply, returning to his study of the fireplace.

Ron almost took the opportunity to drop the entire mess and watch Hermione again. Almost. He couldn't quite shake the disquiet that Scott's words had created, stirring remnants of his clinging dream. He tapped his fingers against the arm of his chair a few times, debating whether he really wanted to encourage Scott. Then he said, "What do you think it is?"

Scott grunted in disgust. "If I knew, I wouldn't be talking to myself."

"Yeah, enjoy your company, too, mate."

"So this _is_ considered a conversation."

"Not if it was anyone but you, probably. You may be slightly different, but, I reckon you knew that."

Scott shook his head, though it didn't seem to be in response to Ron's jab. "This sense of recursion is not natural. I believe any recurrence is a sign of the same pattern being applied. It's not that we've done this day already; it's that we never did this day, in this fashion. The shape tells me that what I think is happening is not what is happening."

Ron raised his eyebrows, nonplussed. "So what does that mean?"

"It means…" Scott pursed his lips. "It means this isn't…"

"Real?" Ron finished, and the disorientating sensation of his dream stole back over him, tilting the world strangely. He must have still been dreaming, it was the only thing that made sense.

Scott made a quiet noise of frustration. "What would that imply? If this isn't real, if we accept that this is… What? Some kind of enforced solipsism? If we… But, wait, didn't I just tell Harry…"

Ron glanced over towards Harry, but his friend was gone, as was Hermione. In fact, almost everyone was gone. The common room had suddenly emptied, leaving only a few vague faces moving in the distant corners. They seemed to disappear at the periphery of his vision, fading into the shadows. A chill came over him.

Scott's eyes were unfocussed. "I remember that. And there's an orchard, too, and a garden. Multiple steps, or tiers, this is a complicated structure. This _is_ a cage. But I've been biting at the bars. I see. I _see_."

Ron was thoroughly weirded out. The common room was now completely barren. Even the couches by the fire had disappeared, and the fire itself was low. There were no longer any staircases to the upper dormitories. "What the bloody hell is going on?" he said unsteadily.

Scott looked over at him, face serious. "I have to report this. Stay here and wait for Harry. I'll be back as soon as I let my superiors know what's happening."

"What? Wait! Come on, don't leave me!" Ron pleaded. The edges of the room had grown blurry, as if there were something outside that was slowly devouring the entire tower and all the light within it.

"I have to go, man. Don't worry, this should stabilise after I'm gone. I have to report this."

"But, what do I do if—"

Scott jumped up and strode through an aperture before Ron could finish his question.

Ron had no idea what was happening. All he knew was that he didn't like it. He drew his wand and stood, wanting to be able to rotate to view the entire room, or what was left of it. He didn't _think_ Scott would just leave him to die, but it also didn't seem like a very safe situation.

"Fucking brilliant," Ron muttered to himself, keeping his wand up as he slowly turned around. "Now what?"

"Ron?"

He spun towards the sound of a voice; it took half a second for his brain to recognise it as Harry's. "Harry?"

"Ron!" That was Hermione. She appeared from seemingly nowhere, near where the portal entrance would usually be. She rushed forward, and threw her arms around him.

"Hermione," he stammered, taken aback. Just minutes before he'd been thinking about asking her to the Yule Ball. Now she was visibly older, prettier than ever, with stress stamped across her features. "What's going on?"

"Thank God we found you," she sighed, relaxing a little in his arms. "We waited for Scott to move forward, and hoped for the best."

"We're still here, though," Harry said, coming up behind her. Ginny was with him. She was wearing clothes that Ron hadn't seen on her in years, though they somehow still fit. Harry looked like he was wearing a shirt made for someone twice his size, and his trousers were cinched tight with an enormous belt. "Glad to see you in one piece, mate."

"Yeah, you too," Ron said genuinely, though he still had no idea what was going on. He was beginning to understand that he wasn't at Hogwarts, and probably never had been.

"I guess this wasn't the real end," Ginny said tightly, her worried eyes scanning the darkened shell of a room.

Hermione pulled away from Ron, still gripping his hands. "But Scott was here. Once we explain things to Ron, we'll move on. What's the last thing you remember?" she asked, looking up at Ron.

"I was going to try and ask you to the Yule Ball," he admitted, and it already felt like an old memory, even if it had happened moments ago.

Her eyes brightened. "Oh!" she said softly, her lips curving upwards. "And how did that go?"

"Scott started spouting a load of bollocks and I got distracted."

"Oh," she said flatly. "So much for changing history. I mean, not really, but it would have been interesting to see the result, nonetheless."

"We were at Grimmauld. Try to remember," Harry urged. "We got back from Hogwarts and then… Something happened."

Grimmauld? Ron visualised the darkened halls and grimy décor of a place he knew well, a kitchen downstairs where they had talked of many things. Like Horcruxes. They'd found one of them, right in Hogwarts, in the Room… He remembered. They came back from their mission, they were going to kill the diadem… Nothing. Nothing came after.

"I remember we were going to take care of the Horcrux, but I can't remember anything after that," Ron said.

"Same here," Harry told him. "I think it did something to us."

Ron looked around at the blurry, half-finished common room. "Are we inside of it? Is that what this is?"

"Not literally, I don't think," Hermione said. "It's a kind of mental trap. We were all stuck in our own… dreams, I suppose we can call them."

"You weren't at Hogwarts?"

"No. We all had different dreams. Mine was very unpleasant," Hermione said with a small shudder.

"Which is weird, isn't it?" Harry mused. "Mine was like a good dream."

"Mine really happened, sort of," Ginny said.

"Yeah, mine too," Ron added. "Except for…"

"Scott?" Harry guessed. "Same here. He's the reason I snapped out of it. I sent him to go check on you and Hermione, since it was, um, we were back. Back before I found out I was a wizard, it was like time travel. And I wanted to see what you were doing, if you remembered the future like I did. So I sent Scott off, and I guess he went into Hermione's dream. But, when he didn't come back, I started to… I, it was like it didn't make sense anymore. I even forgot about him for a bit, then I remembered, and then I remembered the _real _past, without him in it, because it was still all mixed up."

Ron frowned, confused. "You knew he wasn't really there?"

"No, I… I'm not explaining very well. It was so strange. But, when he was gone, I knew he didn't belong there and that he wasn't really a part of it. The way my memories kept changing, they kept trying to fit him in. The diadem seemed to think he was there originally, it was like it wasn't entirely my dream, it was Scott's, too, his idea of a replay, and without him the diadem didn't know what to do about it." Harry frowned. "I don't think he was supposed to be able to leave."

Hermione nodded. "I'm sure he wasn't. The diadem can't work on him the way it does us, just like the locket."

"He still forgot. We confronted him in Ginny's dream, and even though he understood, he forgot all about it afterwards," Harry pointed out.

"I have a theory," Hermione said, unsurprisingly. "We are progressing because the diadem is fighting with Scott. He broke out of the dream with you, which I'm not even sure was his original dream. Let's suppose it wasn't; perhaps he was doing something else before he went into yours."

"Why would he go into mine, though? Wouldn't the diadem just give him a different one if he were able to leave?"

"Well… What if it was a work dream?" Hermione conjectured. "What if he was dreaming about his job, then… Then he would go to you, to our universe, because that's his mission. And his aperture took him to you, right through the magic. He's our connection. We sent him to Ron, even. I doubt he realises what he's doing. The diadem seems to be making him forget, but has been unable to lock him in place."

"When I understood that my memories weren't real, they were changing, my whole dream fell apart," Harry said. He gestured at the partially disintegrated surrounds. "Sort of like this. Then I was in yours, Hermione."

"You can see it's already happening here," Hermione said.

Sure enough, the space was growing dimmer. The stone walls were replaced by vague barriers of indeterminate material, and the corners had been swallowed by shadow. There was no longer any resemblance to the common room.

"This is just as spooky as last time," Ginny said, crossing her arms uneasily.

"The diadem _must_ be trying to stop Scott." Hermione leaned against Ron's chest as the room turned dark, and the blackness fell over all of them. "Whatever is next, it will be for him."

Ron stared out into nothing. He couldn't even see Hermione's hair right below his chin anymore. The light was gone, and the darkness was complete and utterly still. "This is supposed to happen, right?" he said, trying to keep calm.

Harry's voice came from somewhere to Ron's left. "Yeah. It's bloody awful, though. Every time."

Ron could no longer feel Hermione's presence. There was absolute silence and darkness, a sensory deprivation of total completeness. He squeezed his eyes shut and hoped that it was just a transition, nothing permanent. He had a brief falling sensation, and then the faintest breeze tickled his scalp.

He thought he could hear the ocean.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note<strong>

The last chapter was like some kind of Rorschach blot for my readers. I greatly enjoyed your confusion, as I am a sadist, and also enjoyed all the different theories flying around. Some of you were very close to the mark. And apparently some of you think that I really am totally nuts, and would be willing to throw out almost half a million words of story to start over right in the middle of several plot arcs.

I imagine most of those reviews were written in the initial rush of confusion: after some time and distance from it, I'm sure a lot of you began to doubt that I'd sabotage myself so soundly in order to rehash what a thousand other Harry Potter fanfiction authors have already written about so thoroughly. I know that a full time travel fic could be fun in some ways, but, with the exception of Scott, I doubt I have anything to add to the genre.

Also, I was too lazy to start from book five, so you can imagine how I feel about going back to book one. In chapter 23. In the sequel to another story of more than 200,000 words. I mean, come on, guys. I'm obviously a different sort of author to the usual crowd, but I don't think I'm _that_ crazy. Am I? Now I'm not sure anymore.

Stay tuned as we explore further just what is happening to Harry and crew. Oh, and before the inevitable Inception comments flood in, I've never seen it. So I won't get the references. I guess you can make them anyway, if you want, just to feel pop culturally superior.


	25. There Is None

**25**

**There Is None**

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><p><em>And the passage of that reaping<br>Left parted hearts and sundered weeping  
>Great tracts of ruin, reft of seed<br>Vast shoals of mourning, mud and reed  
>Lo, thy cup spills forth with anguish<br>Thy soul lies choked with boundless need  
><em>  
>—Susanna B. Aether, <em>Still Lost, Constantia<em>  
>(Verse XII: lines 190 - 195)<p>

* * *

><p>Harry stood, facing the ocean.<p>

He blinked, disoriented by the sudden transition. His trainers sank into the wet sand, pushing it up around the edges, creating sodden prints. Before him was a blank, grey horizon below heavy cloud cover. Other than the gentle rush of the waves, all was silent; not even birds wheeled above.

The water was dark, reflecting the clouds, though enough sunlight slipped through the ominous weather to light the beach with a diffuse illumination. In fact, it seemed the light had no central source; shadows were pale and undefined, everything had an unvarying dullness. The palette shifted towards monochrome, leaching the brightness from sand and surf.

At first, Harry thought he was seeing foam in between the breakers. After a moment, he realised the swells were thick with debris: he could see scattered wads of cloth, bits of wood, all sorts of other unidentifiable rubbish that bobbed and sank, collecting in matted clumps. There were metal constructions set at the edge of the water, angular beams all stuck together in spiky-looking configurations, the purpose of which escaped him. The colour of it all didn't quite match the sky. He looked down at his feet, and saw that the water was tinted red.

The wind blowing in over the ocean lulled, and that was when the smell hit him.

He gagged, clapping a hand over his mouth. The putrid stench was indescribable, a powerful odour of bloated rot and decay, thick and suffocating. He spit onto the sand, bending over, trying to catch his breath where there seemed to be no air. He pulled his shirt up over his nose. It barely helped, but it was enough to keep him from vomiting. The sea stank of copper. Eyes watering, he turned away from it.

The sight that greeted him was a horror beyond immediate comprehension. Accordingly, he looked only at one small piece of it. Five feet away, leaning against one of the strange things made of crossed metal beams, was a corpse. Harry was certain it was a corpse, and not anything alive, as although the body was staring back at him, it had no eyelids. There were fleshy pockmarks in the corpse's cheeks where it was apparent something had been pecking at it. Most of its lower lip was gone, baring blackened teeth in a hideous imitation of a partial grin.

The corpse wasn't the first one Harry had seen, though he'd never seen one in such a condition. The dead man propped up against the rusted girder had been there for a while. Harry let his eyes trail downwards, examining the rest of it with numb detachment. The corpse was wearing a tattered uniform that Harry didn't recognise, and there were several obvious bullet holes in the chest. The exact point at which the water reached its peak was marked by a wet circle around the corpse's midsection; its boots dripped water, waiting for the next wave.

Harry took a half-step backwards. He pressed his shirt more firmly to his face. Taking a shallow breath, he allowed himself to take in the rest of his surroundings.

The dead were piled like mounds of earth, lumped in putrid heaps taller than Harry in some places. There must have been thousands of bodies, eyes open, mouths parted, stiff in the sun or bloated in the surf. Some stared at nothing, some appeared to sleep. Those not raised on top of others were often indistinct shapes covered in sand, made terrible by the details: a hand poking out; the imprint of a face; dry, wispy hair fluttering in the breeze. There were distended ones, filling with gas. Others were shrivelled, skin cracking, flaking away. Some looked as if they had just arrived, discarded by some vast carrion bird.

It was a mosaic of mottled flesh: sun-baked yellow feet; swollen purple faces; blackened swathes of bruises and rot; like bad bananas, like compost in the heat. The colours clashed on necks and ankles, smeared across rigoured backs, pressed on pale bellies. Struggles left their singular marks; pain was painted. Fractured ribs tore out through sloughing skin; joints twisted backwards, or fragmented through the muscle. There was a man face-down in the tide with both his legs kinked like wire, splintered bone tearing through his trousers like thorns.

Rivulets of blood and other effluvium trickled down to join the ocean, carving red furrows in the sand. The larger piles left wide, coursing stains that swallowed up the lesser streams. Smaller groups of bodies soaked the ground around themselves with their fluids, creating bloody tide pools. Remnants of life spilled and ran and puddled, drying into patches of rusty sand or tinting the ocean.

It was a slaughterhouse, humanity rendered into so much spoiled meat. And it went on along the shoreline until Harry could see no further.

He clenched his teeth and fought against the bile but, at last, his stomach had its way. He emptied it into the waves, ribs aching as he heaved and heaved until he felt utterly spent. He stayed there, bent down with his hands on his knees, spitting into the sand until the dizziness cleared. As he watched the water lap away his sickness, he wondered what he could have eaten in a dream. It was still a saner thought than what was behind him.

The pain brought a little clarity. He was alone, missing his friends, and surrounded by what looked like an impromptu mass grave. Straightening up, he wavered when confronted once more by the stench. Shirt in place, he scanned the horizon.

The beach ran inland into a line of cliffs, distant and foreboding. It looked like there were structures set into it, drab concrete bunkers and defensive walls. He hesitated. Perhaps whatever had put all the bodies on the beach (and maybe killed them in the first place) was up there. Harry didn't know a whole lot about Muggle wars, but he knew a firing position when he saw one that obvious. If there was someone in the bunkers, they might mow him down as soon as he was close enough to distinguish from the dead.

But what choice did he have? The ocean seemed to go on forever, as did the beach. And he was willing to risk a lot to get off the beach. The smell churned his empty stomach and the sights were more than he could process. To his right were three severed legs, none of them matching (one was clearly a child's, a tiny blue sock still on the foot). A bright glint from a nearby pile caught his eye: it was the reflection from a wedding ring on a hand protruding between two other corpses, the rest of its owner unseen. At the foot of the mound was a man staring sightlessly at the sky. The back of his head had shattered completely, and the skin of his face was stretched out to the sides, rubbery, past where it would have curved with his skull, as if it were a mask that no longer fit correctly.

Harry started walking, wending his way between the mounds on the narrow paths. They weren't entirely unobstructed — he had to step his way over a body, on occasion. Several minutes into his grim march he came across the scorched remnants of a tank, wedged between two tall corpse piles like a makeshift barricade. He had to detour, but eventually found his way around.

He soon saw that he had been wrong about the composition of the bodies — they weren't all human. There were stranger shapes amongst the dead, scales and horns and skulls that were too long in the face. A blue-skinned arm, a plated head. They were rare, but noticeable. There were other things, too, jumbled in with the endless bodies. Cars and planes, fragments of broken machinery. There was a helicopter with twisted blades, the pilots still strapped inside the cracked cockpit. Vast shapes loomed in the distance, partially obscured by fog. He thought one of them was a ship run aground — others were completely alien in their strangely angled silhouettes. And, still, nothing made a sound.

The further he travelled from the ocean, the less clustered the corpses became. The piles became less vertical, the air a bit brighter. Soon, there were no more mounds and the ground was carpeted with single bodies, only occasionally overlapping. He carefully moved around them, sometimes stumbling over torsos or accidentally stepping on a hand or leg. His foot caught on the neck of a woman who was missing the top half of her skull, the edges alternately pulpy and jagged and the inside scooped nearly empty. Her eyes were open, but rolled back so far only the whites were visible. After that, he stopped looking closely at them.

About two-thirds of the way to the cliffs, the distribution of the bodies had become thin enough that he could walk without watching his feet. The fog was beginning to thin as he went higher. Just ahead there was a sandy ridge, a sort of artificial-looking hummock that ran in both directions. It was surmounted by a barrier of barbed wire, most of which had been destroyed.

Panting, he pushed himself up to the top and paused, standing in a gap in the wire. Behind him, most of the larger mounds were nothing but dark outlines in the fog. From his elevated position, he scanned the sand and saw there were no footprints save his own, not a single sign of movement or battle. It was as if all the numberless dead had been imported from elsewhere, carelessly cast-off on the beach.

On the other side of the sand hill, the ground continued to slope upwards towards the cliffs. Corpses were even more sparse, he noted with relief. Then he froze, as something caught his eye. There, sprawled on the sand at the foot of the hill, was a Death Eater. The black robes and white mask were unmistakable.

He fumbled for his wand. Nothing else on the beach had been alive, but he wasn't taking any chances.

"_Expelliarmus!"_ he hissed. The jet of light shot out and impacted the body against its chest, producing a hollow sound. The corpse shook slightly with the impact, but otherwise remained still.

He lowered his wand, not sure what had driven him to do that. He'd walked through a war's worth of corpses without incident; there was no reason the Death Eater would be any more animated.

"HELLO?" a voice shouted, echoing out from Harry's left.

He was so startled that he nearly lost his footing. He reached out to steady himself and received a fistful of barbed wire for his effort. He swore, quickly withdrawing his hand and glancing at it. His palm was lacerated fairly badly, blood already streaming down his shirt sleeve.

No time for that. He pressed the flat of his injured hand into his trousers and pointed his wand in the direction of the voice. "WHO'S THERE?" he yelled back.

Two blurry shapes emerged from the fog, hurrying towards him. Harry's glasses were speckled with water, sand, and probably some worse things. He squinted, trying to make out details.

The one to the right waved their arms over their head. "IT'S HERMIONE! PLEASE DON'T CAST!" she called.

They grew close enough that he could see the second person had long, red hair, and he literally shook with relief, lowering his trembling wand hand. He leaned against the incline and slid the rest of the way down, nearly falling in his haste to get over to the girls.

They met out on the flat, near where the shadow of the cliffs cut a pallid, uneven line across the sand. Ginny threw herself at him, hugging him so tightly that he couldn't catch his breath.

Hermione was a bit more reserved, but still clasped his arm with quivering hands. "Thank God we found you," she said shakily. Her hair was a tangled, wind-blown mess, and there were tear stains streaking down her smudged cheeks. "We weren't far from each other on the beach, but no one else was there and we didn't know what had happened!"

Ginny was pale as a ghost, her freckles standing starkly against her milky skin. "Are you all right?" she asked with nearly frantic concern. She pulled back from Harry's embrace and took his head in her hands. "You're fine, right?"

"Mostly," Harry said. "I was sick earlier."

"We all were. Anyone would be. I don't…" Hermione faltered, staring at the hillock and no doubt still seeing what lay beyond it.

"You're bleeding!" Ginny exclaimed, spotting his injured hand.

"What? Oh, that. I cut myself on the wire. I can't really feel it," Harry lied. It stung pretty fiercely, but that was all.

"We have to find Ron. I'd hoped he was with you, but he might still be down there," Hermione choked out. "We have to go back…"

They all stood silently for a moment, not looking at each other. None of them wanted to go back.

Hermione sniffed, and straightened her posture. "I'll go. You two can stay here, I'll find him."

Harry opened his mouth to tell her no, to tell her that he'd go instead, or that he'd go with her. He would _make_ himself go back down among the dead.

Then, a steely rattle reverberated out. They all jumped and spun towards the sound, only to see Ron at the top of the hill, kicking some of the wire out of his way. "Hey!" he said hoarsely, sliding down the packed sand. "Am I glad to see you lot!"

Hermione ran forward and grabbed him tightly. "I was so scared!" she said, fresh tears in her eyes.

"Me, too," Ron told her. His eyes were huge, and haunted. "Fucking hell. I mean…" Words seemed to fail him.

"This is still the dream, right? It has to be," Ginny said, sounding as if she needed to convince herself that none of it was real.

"If this is Scott's dream, I'll never get at him for not sleeping again," Hermione promised fervently.

"If it is, then where is he?" Ron wondered.

Harry considered that. If the dream always started in the same place, then Scott would have made his way towards the ridge, just like the rest of them. It would have been madness to stay at the tide. "Did any of you see any footprints on the way up?"

"No. Nothing but… well, you know," Ginny said haltingly.

Hermione coughed suddenly. "There was a man without a jaw, right where I woke. His tongue was floating in the water—" she brought her arm across her mouth, stopping herself.

Harry looked up at the concrete bunkers in the looming cliffs ahead, set like dull jewels in the rock. "We're all together, so this is Scott's dream. It has to be. And he'd never stay on the beach." Harry pointed to the bunkers. "He'd go up, somewhere he could see anything coming, and get a weapon, maybe. If he didn't have one."

"None of them have any weapons. Did you notice? So many are in uniform, but there are no guns at all," Hermione said, making a clear effort to keep her hands still and steady her breathing.

Harry hadn't noticed during his grim trek, but he supposed he would have, if there'd been any. All the weapons of war he'd seen had been broken and useless.

Ron was gazing at one of the nearby crumpled forms, his expression unlike any Harry had seen on him before. "Let's just get out of here."

They walked, crossing the beach as it began to curve up towards the cliffs and give way to rock and brush. There were no clear passageways to the top, but Harry thought he could see a few places where the natural ramparts of stone had crumbled enough to climb. The shallow furrows were worn by water, eating away at the cliff face. If they could find one spot gradual enough, it wouldn't be too much trouble to make their way up.

The corpses continued to become less frequent. Soon they were hiking without interruption, though the occasional dark shape in the corner of Harry's eye still gave him pause. Just before the beach sloped sharply upward, there was an enormous, soil-dusted _thing_ lying on its side. The hulking remains were so crusted with sand that any details were lost, but something about the patches of craggy reptilian hide and bizarre, branching golden armour tugged at Harry's memory.

The place they found to climb was still steep, but not overwhelming in its verticality. There was a flat area before the cliff continued upwards, a sort of step, where Harry hoped they would be able to find an easier way to the top. It was roughly adjacent to one of the bunkers. The dirt slipped under his feet and tumbled down to the bottom; he felt as if he were falling one foot for every two he moved. He tried to grab hold of a spindly bush and the shallow roots pulled right out of the sandy soil, nearly sending him tumbling.

He cast sideways looks towards the dark ports of the bunker, but he couldn't see anything within. There was no light inside at all. And hopefully no one (or nothing) watching them ascend.

At the top, they discovered a concrete trench dug right into the rock. It ran parallel with the upper cliff, looking down towards the mist-shrouded beach. Harry had studiously avoided any looks of his own in that direction. He'd noticed everyone else doing the same. There were no cadavers littering the trench, though there were copious amounts of spent shell casings and old, faded bloodstains. Now that Hermione had mentioned it, he saw she was still right; there were no guns of any kind. Even the jutting emplacements where stationary weapons would have been affixed were empty, the metal mountings rusting unused.

They had been moving without speaking for some time, walking closer together than normal, often hesitant to proceed. Harry understood how the others felt. The sights and the silence were oppressive even when they weren't actively horrendous. He wasn't sure what the exact nature of the hell they'd stumbled into was, but, about half an hour removed from the edge of the waves, he still couldn't quite accept what he'd seen there.

"This way?" Ron said, after they reached the midway point along the trench.

On the left side was a tunnel, bracketed by concrete pylons. There was no illumination inside (there were enclosures on the ceiling, but they weren't powered). When Harry walked to the edge of the entrance, he could see light at the end, up a series of staircases with short landings in between. The tunnel climbed upward and exited somewhere at the top of the cliff.

The air coming out of the dank, inclined corridor was cool and musty. It smelled like concrete and damp, with a faint hint of something more unpleasant. There were doors along the left side of the tunnel, one at each of the small landings. The light at the top seemed to barely travel downward, creating only a blinding spot against the dim.

Harry wasn't sure he wanted to go into the darkness, given the nature of the dream. But it did appear to be their quickest way up. "Seems like it," he said, taking the first step in.

His eyes adjusted after the first set of stairs. The door at the initial landing was a solid metal construction, staining the concrete into which it was set with rusty splotches and streaks. He didn't try to open it — he wasn't especially curious as to what lay behind.

He looked away from the door as they passed and nearly ran right into Ginny, who had halted in the middle of the next set of stairs. "What is it?" he asked.

"I thought it was someone," she said breathlessly, apparently having been startled. "I mean, it is someone, or, it was… I didn't see it at first."

He looked around her; up ahead was another corpse, slumped against the wall with its head down, chin on its chest. It was sitting next to the third doorway up, a little over halfway to the exit. He'd been hoping they'd left all the bodies behind at the beach, but it seemed as if they weren't so fortunate.

"Go around it," he said, guiding her towards the right.

They were hurrying past the corpse when something caught Harry's eye. He resisted looking for a moment, but he couldn't quite help himself. The corpse had its legs sticking out in front of it, stiff and splayed. Its shoelaces were untied, and it was the loose string of one that Harry stared at, tracing it back to the shoe.

The corpse was wearing the exact same trainers as he was.

Hermione noticed that he had stopped. She paused at the edge of the landing, one foot on the next step, and looked over her shoulder. "Harry?"

"He's wearing the same shoes as me," Harry said flatly. Same socks, too, same…

Hermione turned around fully and took a step closer to the body. She bent down, peering at it closely. The exact moment of realisation was clear: she stood up like a shot, eyes huge, with both arms stiff at her side in horror.

Ginny saw the same thing, too. "Oh, no," she said, backing away. "Oh, no."

"Hang on," Harry said, his words sounding stiff even to his own ears. "It's not really me. It can't be, I'm right here."

"Remember, this is all for Scott," Hermione said, her voice a bit too high and strained to carry off the intellectual detachment she was aiming for. "Perhaps the diadem wants him to think you're dead."

His corpse was next to a doorway that wasn't barred. There wasn't much light inside, even with his eyes having adjusted, but he could see what looked like another body, lying against the wall with their feet towards the door and their head lost in shadow. It was about Ginny's size, he thought.

"Well," Ron said with a forced nonchalance almost entirely undermined by his wide eyes and vocal tremor, "at least you're still in one piece."

It was true. Harry's faux-corpse was grey-skinned and rumpled, but there wasn't any major damage that he could see. "Keep going," he said numbly. Confronting his own mortality in so literal a fashion was just about more than than he could handle right then.

"Yeah, come on," Ginny said quickly. She had turned from the body, apparently unable to look at it, and her eyes were wild. She grabbed Harry's sleeve and pulled him away with desperate strength.

Harry went willingly, hurrying towards the light. As he left the tunnel, he halfway turned and his eyes sought out his corpse again, feeling a bewildering compulsion that he couldn't ignore. He didn't know what made him take another look. Disbelief, maybe. Dream or not, it all felt entirely too real.

Just before he crossed out of the shadow of the tunnel roof — the line of light at his chest, and rising — Harry saw the sitting corpse, down in the dark. It was looking back at him, meeting his gaze. Its pale lips were moving, mouthing silent words. Trying to tell him something.

Harry lurched into the muted daylight with his heart pounding. He didn't look into the tunnel again.

They were at the top of the cliff line. The beach below was almost entirely obscured by the fog through which they had passed, an indistinct wall of swirling mist and shadow. Landward, there was a field. The tall grass rippled in the wind, hissing strands creating the first real ambient noise he'd heard since he'd been near the water. There didn't appear to be any more corpses, though he supposed they might be hidden in the grass. The breeze from the ocean still carried with it the sour stench of the beach, so it was hard to tell if anything was rotting close by.

"He's not here," Hermione noted with disappointment. "What next? I don't see any sort of pathway…"

The field was featureless, unbroken. It ran out, slowly rising into a large hill directly ahead of them. The clouds were even darker in that direction, low and ominous, and the wind was cold, smelling of rain. Harry watched as lightning flickered in the clouds, too far away to hear. The grass waved furiously, flailing in the gusts, rustling ever louder.

"I don't like the look of that," Ron murmured, staring out towards the dark, roiling horizon.

"We should be able to see from the top of the hill," Harry said, pointing towards it. "Let's try that first, maybe there's some sort of landmark or road."

The grass whipped around Harry's waist, tickling his arms and slowing everyone's progress. It had the dead, brownish hue brought by winter, even though Harry would have said it was an unusually cold summer or spring, if a dream could be said to have a season. Then again, it wasn't as if the beach had to correspond to a real location. They were nowhere, nowhen.

He stubbed his toe on something and nearly fell; he looked down, afraid of what it might be. It was merely a rock. "Watch your step," he said to Ginny, who was walking next to him. When she flinched slightly, he hastened to add, "Just rocks, I think."

"Not entirely," Hermione said. She bent down and lifted up an enormous metal casing, the open end tarnished with the soot of ignition.

Ron gaped at it. "What kind of gun would use _that?"_

As Scott wasn't anywhere nearby, Harry felt that it fell to him to be knowledgeable about firearms (even though he wasn't). "Uh, that's probably for artillery," he guessed.

He proved to be correct. When they crested the top of the hill, they found a round concrete depression set into the top. There were two enormous artillery pieces bolted to the ground within, surrounded by empty wooden boxes and spent shells. There were no corpses, or any sign that humans had been there recently. The concrete of the floor was free of bloodstains and even scorch marks. It almost had the appearance of being new.

"These look like they haven't been fired in ages," Hermione noted. The guns were rust-eaten, their paint flaking. "But, the shell I found… Well, it's a dream. I suppose there isn't any chronology at work. It's symbolic."

"But why weren't ours like that?" Ginny wondered. "Everything in my dream made sense until Scott showed up. It was just like I remembered."

Harry flashed back to the night when they had destroyed the locket. That Horcrux had created a sort of dream, too, just one that lived in the moment rather than entirely in the mind. But when it turned its attentions onto Scott, the Kharadjai had resisted. Instead of a taunting him with a doppelgänger (who would it have been for Scott?), the locket had displayed several fuzzy images, apparently reflections of what little it had been able to glean. One of those images, Harry now recalled, had been a beach under heavy clouds.

"That beach was in the locket!" he exclaimed.

"What? We're in the diadem," Hermione corrected.

"No, I mean when the locket was trying to mess with Scott. One of the pictures it made was a beach, just like that one." Harry looked to the concrete walls, where the grass was still soughing loudly in the ominous wind. "I thought there was a cornfield, too, but maybe it was this grass."

"So… they tried the same thing with Scott's head," Ron surmised. "Looks like the diadem is better at it."

"Perhaps…" Hermione vacillated. "There's an incomplete quality to all of this, a lack of narrative."

"That beach has to be based on a memory, I'm sure of it. But… if all the diadem can get from Scott are fragments, even though he isn't aware of what's happening… Then, maybe it just stuck them all together," Harry theorised.

Ron frowned. "I thought it was trying to trap us? We had good memories, or at least good fake ones. Isn't that so we'd want to stay?"

"I didn't have a good memory, or a memory at all," Hermione pointed out. "I believe it was trying to be convincing, or discouraging, not necessarily wish-fulfilling."

"It's desperate," Harry said with grim satisfaction. "Scott had no bloody clue what was really happening, and he still mucked about and did as he liked. Now it's trying to get him to give up."

"Once we find him, we can tell him that this isn't real. That should dispel the dream, like it did the others," Hermione said.

Ginny voiced their collective fear. "What if it doesn't bring us back?"

"Then we work it out, together," Harry told her with as much confidence as he could project under the circumstances. They were all still reeling from the sights and smells of the beach, so he didn't think he was particularly convincing.

They left the emplacement and resumed moving in the same direction, hoping for a good vantage point. The air currents whipped across the top of the hill with such velocity that several times Harry had to hold his glasses in place. Lightning continued to flash intermittently on the foreboding horizon, and they were beginning to be able to hear it, deep rumbles carried by the wind. Those clouds were noticeably swirling, and Harry very much hoped that they would come no closer.

They soon stood together at the crest, taking in the vista. The clouds overhead were still heavy and dark grey, dimming the sunlight and leaching colour from everything, but the terrain below them was not quite as monochrome as the beach.

Beginning not far from the foot of the hill was a ragged cornfield, the dead stalks barren of vegetables and frayed. It looked as if something huge had been stomping through the fallow tract, crushing some of the stalks to the ground and bending others at broken angles. It might have been wind damage and, even as they watched, dry, brittle husks twirled in miniature vortexes and piled in the furrows. Beyond that was another field much like the one they had already crossed, though this one was dotted with more scrubby brush. At the end of it, almost to the point where it couldn't be clearly seen, was a single enormous tree, stretching towards the steel sky.

There was a sort of path — not a proper road, but a crooked foot trail of dirt that cut through the middle of the cornfield and what lay past it, seemingly winding towards the tree.

"I suppose that must be our landmark," Hermione said, breaking the silence. She had to nearly shout to be heard over the wind that swept up the hillside. "It's the most obvious route we've seen."

Would Scott have taken the most obvious route? Harry wasn't sure. Short of wandering off into unmarked territory, however, there weren't many other options. "And there's the cornfield. There was one more thing, I think. Can't remember what it was…"

"I don't think I saw that as clearly as you did," Hermione said.

Ginny, however, nodded. "There was. It was a forest, with snow."

It wasn't cold enough for snow, and there weren't any forests in sight. "Well, maybe it skipped that one," Harry said.

"It could have been a good memory. Wouldn't have much use for that," Ron said.

That seemed true. Whatever amalgamation of memory and fantasy they were trapped in, it didn't look as if any of the source material had been pleasant. Harry opened his mouth to speak, and then thunder growled above the plain, loud and deep enough that he felt it in his chest. He shut his mouth and frowned with concern towards the swirling cloud bank.

It was a concern Hermione shared. "The last thing we need is to get caught out here in a storm."

"You think we could get hurt? We're not even here, not really," Ron said.

"I don't know what the result would be if something were to happen to us. At best, I think nothing would, we're all aware of what's actually going on. At worst…" Hermione paused. "I doubt we'd just wake up."

"Just be careful and treat it like it's real. It's a Horcrux, so whatever happens won't be fun," Ginny said succinctly.

They went carefully over the uneven ground of the cornfield, crashing through the dry stalks, a clamorous passage that left Harry trying not to sneeze as the fine fibres blew all around him. After, they followed the path. The trail was dusty and often uneven, winding through the field towards the looming tree. Up close, Harry could see that the dirt beneath his feet was packed with shell casings. All sizes and types, the cases were jumbled together in a long metallic procession. Some were of the fat, plastic kind that he recognised as compatible with his own shotgun; others looked more or less like the rifle ammunition Scott had loaded into his M4. There were a few stranger varieties that didn't look like they would work in any gun Harry had ever seen.

As the branches of the tree slowly gained definition, it became apparent that the barren limbs were not the only thing about the tree that was dead.

Hermione squinted at it, and then gasped. "Oh, no. Please tell me I'm not seeing what I think I am."

Harry's glasses were not in the cleanest condition, but at that point they were close enough that he could confirm Hermione's fears. "I see them, too."

"Really? Enough is enough…" Ron muttered, almost to himself.

The branches of the tree were heavy with corpses, swaying in the oncoming gale. They hung from their necks by ropes, pendulous silhouettes that swung with every gust, feet dangling, heads lolled. Harry watched as the wind picked up once again, moving the suspended corpses in a rippling wave. At a distance, it looked like some macabre wind chime.

Ginny's hand wound tightly around Harry's right arm. "I don't want to go over there," she said quietly, only for his ears.

"Neither do I," Harry said, though they didn't halt their advance.

At last, they stood beneath the single tree, draped in the spindly shadows of its limbs as the hanged cast their own blurry outlines on the ground, gliding across the dull earth between each sketched branch. The storm continued to build in the distance behind the tree, but directly above it the sun seemed to pierce through a thinner layer of clouds, sharpening the scene with a dusty, distributed amber patina. The effect was like standing in the shade of something more organic, a mockery of life, a constant shifting of light and shadow that created ominous, half-formed shapes out of those which were already horrid.

The many people who hung from the upper reaches were unfamiliar to Harry, or at least too distant to clearly distinguish. However, the limbs closest to the ground were the anchor for several limp corpses that spun listlessly in the air currents, near enough to examine. Of the four closest, one was a tall woman with dark hair and another was an older man, neither of whom Harry recognised. The other two were Lila, her blonde ponytail fluttering like the corn husks, and Sophie, her porcelain features purpled and bloated above the noose.

Scott sat at the very foot of the tree. His head was down; one arm over a raised knee, the other in the dirt. The flickering shadows played over his slouched shoulders. The bottoms of his trousers were coated with blood and sand, just like the rest of theirs. He gave no sign that he was aware of their arrival.

Harry took a few steps forward, dropping his feet more heavily than he normally would. If Scott was as oblivious as he seemed to be, it was probably not the best idea to sneak up on him. Harry made sure to knock a protruding shell out of the soil, sending it clinking across several others.

His presence thus announced, he licked his lips and said, "Scott?"

Scott raised his head. He didn't look grief-stricken, or terrified, or even angry. He just looked tired. Weariness and resignation were etched in every line of his face.

Harry felt he should first reassure his friend. "Scott, it's all right. None of this is real."

"I know," Scott said.

Harry blinked. "You…" He glanced back at Hermione, who met his look with equal bafflement. "You already knew?"

"It's fairly obvious. Some things look real enough, but the smell is off. And there are no birds at all. There weren't even any flies down at the beach," Scott said. His tone was normal, almost conversational, and if that were the only thing Harry had to go on then he would have said that Scott had, somehow, been unaffected by the carnage. It was the Kharadjai's defeated posture which told a different story. He picked a cartridge out of the scrubby, matted grass next to his extended leg and flicked it towards Harry. "Look at this."

Harry bent down and picked up the tarnished tube of brass. He wasn't sure what he was expected to see. "What about it?"

"It's supposed to be a .45 ACP, but the end of the cartridge isn't flanged. There's nothing for the extractor to grip. It's ammunition designed by someone who sort of knows what ammunition looks like, but not how it actually works."

Harry remembered what Hermione had said, about the dream's lack of 'narrative'. The same patchwork construction obviously extended further. Perhaps the absence of weapons had not been intentional, but rather the by-product of an uncertain architect. Still… all the corpses had been entirely convincing. And Scott may have taken issue with the verisimilitude of the odours, but they had been sickening enough for Harry.

"The _smell _is off?" Harry repeated, unable to just let that go. He'd regurgitated his imaginary previous meal down in the tide, in large part due to that smell.

"It's close," Scott allowed. "But a big pile of bodies like that… Well, I don't really have a comparison. There are a lot of things wrong with this."

"Yeah, I'd say so!" Ron burst out. "There are a bloody million dead people down there! Who _are_ they?"

Scott shrugged lethargically. "They're supposed to be people I've killed." He looked up briefly, and, noting their collective expressions of horror, added, "It's exaggerated for effect."

"And who are they?" Harry asked, indicating the tree and its ghoulish occupants.

"No one you know. With a couple obvious exceptions," Scott said evasively. He didn't look at the bodies. "Kylie is over there."

Harry followed Scott's quick indication and saw a form near the edge of the clearing that he hadn't noticed before. It was a small body, draped in a flannel shirt that served as a makeshift funeral shroud. "She was in the cornfield. Crucified. Like a scarecrow, I think the idea was," Scott continued, his lack of inflection somehow making his words even more awful.

"Harry was in the tunnel," Ginny said softly.

Scott did not react. "I saw."

Harry shifted his weight uncertainly. "Do you remember the dreams before this one?"

"I think so. I remember the one we had well enough."

"Was that the first dream?"

"Unless you can tell me differently. I don't recall being anywhere before that."

"This should have already ended," Hermione fretted. She had her gaze resolutely fixed on the ground. "If Scott's been aware, that should have ended it. I don't know why we're still here."

Slowly, Scott rose to his feet. "Maintaining one dream is a bit different than five — or at least four, mine were short. I'd guess the others were abandoned as all attention turned to me."

"So how do we get out?" Ginny asked, her voice a bit too level for genuine calm. Harry could relate: knowing that the dream wasn't ending, but not why, was stirring the beginnings of panic.

"The other dreams disintegrated. I'd thought it was because awareness broke them down, but, no, it was because the diadem abandoned each one as Scott moved on. This one's being supported, so perhaps if we…" Hermione trailed off, her brow furrowed. "If we tried to destabilise it ourselves…"

"How?" Ginny pressed.

"I don't know! I don't…" Hermione stopped suddenly. "Scott."

Scott was looking at one of the hanged corpses with an indecipherable expression on his face. "What?"

"We know that these dreams operate under a sort of logic. Much more logic than standard dreams, anyway. If our thoughts changed our dreams, and that does seem to be the case, then it follows that we have some small level of impact here. And you, uncontrollable as you seem to be, have even more," Hermione said excitedly, the first real hint of spark returning to her eyes.

Scott leaned against the tree. "Logic, because if my apertures worked, it's because I know how they work and if the diadem doesn't, and it shouldn't—"

"Then we know that was you!" Hermione finished.

"Right, okay. So we take an aperture back to the Transversal, and then find the door back to your universe, the real one, waking ourselves up. Is that what you're thinking?"

Hermione nodded. "Yes. I know you said apertures won't work for us, but these aren't real apertures. There's no reason we can't go through, other than your own sense of reality, of course. I'm supposing you can bend your preconception long enough to allow us passage."

"Let's say it works. What's going to stop the diadem from just putting us right back in dreams again the second we wake up?"

"Ability?" Hermione hazarded. "It's obviously limited, and it seems to have reached those limits attempting to trap all five of us."

"But it's got to be listening to us right now! It can just stop anything we do if it knows we're doing it," Ron pointed out.

"That can't be right," Ginny said sceptically. "If it can do whatever it wants, then why didn't it just kill us?"

"Yeah, if it could kill us, we'd already be dead," Scott agreed. "Struck by lightning, heart attack, spawn an anvil over us like some Looney Tunes shit, it could take us out anytime."

Harry remembered the trap in the cave. Riddle didn't wish to kill his enemies, not immediately. Not before he could establish how they discovered his secret. "Riddle designed his traps to keep people alive, at least for awhile."

"Okay, sure. He wants to know how we know, assuming he ever becomes aware of this. It's not like he checks on his stuff often enough for it to matter," Scott said. "So it's a limited thing. We don't understand what the rules are, but there clearly are rules."

"It's still our dream," Hermione said. "Maybe we didn't start it, but it's ours. To an extent."

"Then we need to push the extent."

"What if we could confront the diadem directly? Perhaps we could face an avatar of Riddle, as you did with the locket," Hermione suggested.

"That assumes this dream has a pretty literal nature, if what happens to the diadem here happens to the diadem in totality," Scott said. "More to the point, why would the diadem include itself in this dream?"

"I suppose it probably doesn't have to, does it," Hermione mused. "There wouldn't be much sense in making itself vulnerable."

"I also didn't do much confronting with the locket. Harry's the one who ended the conversation in a very physical fashion."

Hermione nodded. "The physical is not currently an option, we need another one. A dream ends when you awaken; so, we must either end the dream or somehow awaken ourselves."

Harry would have joined the discussion if he'd had any ideas. But he had assumed that the dream would collapse once Scott was made aware of the situation. With that not being the case, the next step was a mystery to him. He watched the clouds churn overhead, the darkest portions never seeming to come any closer. The beach and everything past it were in stasis, or so it appeared. The light hadn't changed in the time since they'd moved inland, though it was so overcast that he couldn't tell if time were actually passing. He supposed that, eventually, it might become night. Or perhaps it never would. Whatever the case, he didn't want to be stuck in the dream long enough to find out.

What was the _point_ of it all? The entire pastiche of horror was clearly an attempt to mess with Scott, but to what end? If the diadem had just wanted Scott to stop moving from dream to dream, then why had it not simply placed all of them together in the same environment and made them forget they'd been anywhere else? Scott would have stayed there, all of his Primes already present.

That was an interesting thought. "Hey," he spoke up, interrupting, "if the diadem needed to keep Scott from moving, why do you think it didn't just drop us all into the same dream?"

Ron shrugged. "Because it was the other people that broke the dreams in the first place, like you did for me, or Scott did for you."

"I walked right into Scott. Then he started talking about things I didn't remember, straight away. I was so confused… But, I think that helped," Ginny said.

"That's exactly it," Hermione agreed. "No one else in your dream would doubt the reality of the situation if they themselves weren't real. Remember, it's not _just_ that it needs to stop Scott from moving about. It can't read him like it does us, with whatever form of Legilimency it uses. Wherever he is, he causes us to misremember, we don't understand his presence. Putting him with Harry was an immediate blunder, but even if he'd been by himself, he would have come looking for us eventually."

"Maybe that's why it put me with Harry. It can't create convincing versions of you guys for me if it can't figure out what events we've shared. I'd have been with a Hermione that couldn't recall any of the shit we did or talked about," Scott said. "I'd have been out of there soon enough."

"Can we talk about this somewhere else?" Ginny said suddenly.

Harry glanced upwards at the swaying deceased. He and his friends had all been doing a good job of pretending that they weren't having a discussion beneath the corpse-heavy branches of a hangman's tree. It would be even better if they didn't have to pretend.

For once, Scott seemed to be entirely amenable to Ginny's suggestion. "Let me see what I can do."

Another swell of thunder rumbled across the plain, as if to add urgency. Harry watched the clouds darken further, and wondered if it would rain. He hoped to be gone before he found out.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,

More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.

Comforter, where, where is your comforting?

Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?

My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief

Woe, wórld-sorrow; on an áge-old anvil wince and sing —

Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked 'No ling-

ering! Let me be fell: force I must be brief."'

O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall

Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap

May who ne'er hung there. Nor does long our small

Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep,

Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all

Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.

—Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 – 1889)

Happy holidays.


	26. In Transition

**26**

**In Transition**

* * *

><p>"<em>By taking part in the Universal Objective and<br>befriending those who are closest to it, the  
>integrationist is implicitly accepting the trials<br>that go hand in hand. That much is expected.  
>Less so is the understanding which can evade<br>the inexperienced integrationist until it is too  
>late: It is easy to forget that trials take many<br>forms, and often those that are most damaging  
>are not corporeal. All integrationists must accept<br>that they are to put their physical well being at  
>risk in lieu of their Primes. But they must also<br>be willing to risk themselves emotionally."  
><em>

_ —_You Must Be More: The Combat Corps. Primare's  
>Path to Probationary Integration<p>

* * *

><p>It hadn't taken Scott too long to establish an aperture. Perhaps their current estrangement from reality made such things easier.<p>

They were looking at an impossible window in the trunk of the vast tree, behind which was some sort of blank grey interior. Harry knew it wasn't a _real _aperture. Regardless, he couldn't help but be a little enthused at the prospect of entering one. He'd wondered what it would be like ever since Scott had appeared at the cliff edge by the sea, above Riddle's cave.

"Transversal Station," Scott said, gazing at his work. "Where you need, when you need it. Or, as we say in the army, 'where you need, when they get around to it'."

"Is there anything we need to know before we go through this?" Hermione asked.

Scott shook his head. "You're not a Kharadjai, so, no. Whether or not this works depends on how accurate an emulation this is."

Hermione blew out a breath. "I suppose we're about to find out. Shall I go first?"

"Go ahead."

She approached the aperture with obvious trepidation. When she stood mere inches from it, she slowly lifted her hand and made as if to push it through. She paused just before her palm met the opening. "This doesn't hurt, does it?" she said nervously.

Scott rolled his eyes. "It's a hole. There's nothing _to_ hurt you."

"But there are no protective edges at all, it's impossibly thin, won't it cut right through me if I touch the sides?"

"No. The edge is in the tree, you'll just bump into the tree."

"The tree is uneven, not perfectly vertical, there are plenty of spots where the aperture doesn't meet it—"

"Just go through!" Scott barked irritably.

She glared back at him. "I don't want to lose a hand, I was making certain! You don't need to shout at me for being cautious!"

Anywhere else, at most other times, Harry would likely have found their argument amusing. But there was a sharper edge to it than usual, an undercurrent of deeper distemper. "I'll just go," he said quickly. Without stopping for any confirmation, he tucked his arms in, lowered his head, and stepped through the aperture.

There was no sensation at all in moving through. No tingling of energy, no strange sounds. He felt the ambient temperature change, and that was it. It was no different than stepping through any other door. He was slightly disappointed by how anticlimactic the experience was.

On the other hand, it was about a thousand times more pleasant than Apparating.

He found himself in a hallway that was remarkable only for its length. It seemed to stretch on in both directions until his vision failed him. The air was cool and tasted filtered, vaguely antiseptic. There was a subdued rumble humming distantly through the walls and floor, and the metal doors lining the sides were unmarked. It made him wonder how anyone was able to know where they were going. Each door looked exactly the same as the rest.

"These should be on."

Harry jumped a little when Scott suddenly spoke next to him; he'd been leaning down to look at a small rectangular plate next to the nearest door. The raised plate was segmented into even smaller rectangles, each of which seemed to be slightly textured. Behind him, he saw that the aperture was gone and everyone had come through. "What should?"

"The emitters." Scott tapped a finger against the rectangle. "There are also ones at the ceiling with directions and door numbers. Don't know why it's all dark."

Harry had no idea, and he was about to say so when an incredibly loud buzzing sound ripped through the air and nearly startled him out of his skin — it took him a second to realise it was a siren. There was a humming noise that seemed to cut right through his sinuses, rattling his teeth, and two shimmering walls of unknown energy appeared at both sides of the hall, isolating the group. They were trapped.

"What is this?" Ginny exclaimed, her voice high with alarm.

"Hold on, hooold on—" Scott muttered. He approached the nearest sparking field and slammed his fist twice against the wall next to the buzzing edge. "Hey!"

The projection of a person appeared from nowhere, floating in front of the dancing blockade. It was a pale man with carefully parted hair and a round, friendly face, who seemed to be behind some sort of desk or console. "Sorry, Primare, but the system's telling me you've got four unsanctioned para-baselines and you're still contaminated. You gotta come through the grid, Scott, you know that!"

"I've_ been_ through the grid, Gus!" Scott said impatiently. "Everyone here is cleared with NSV status and we're clean as a whistle, this is the fuckin' server again. Restart the database and recheck, Zhubin said you'd have to do it manually with the NSVs when they come through Central instead of P-Sector."

A short pause. "…Okay, I'm seeing it," Gus said with a note of apology. "I'll get those off for you. You need a lift?"

"No, we're all right. Have a good one."

The energy walls disappeared and the infernal humming ceased. The hall seemed unnaturally silent when the noise faded.

Scott broke the quiet with a triumphant chuckle. "I can't believe that worked. You were right," he said to Hermione.

She blinked. "About?"

"Our level of control. That was complete horseshit I just fed to faux-Gus. The system is centralised and updates automatically for all sectors. And you can't bring NSVs through Central, nobody does that." Scott frowned, and glanced at the ceiling. "The safety gates didn't come down, either. Good thing you didn't touch the field."

The 'field' had been a bright, seething array of energy and had sounded like a live wire, the loud, deadly droning being the opposite of inviting. Touching the damn thing had not been one of Harry's impulses.

"Do tell us if there's anything else we shouldn't touch," Hermione said.

"Well, don't cause any serious structural damage and you won't trigger the active countermeasures. I think you can handle that." Scott bent down near one of the blank emitters. After a few seconds, he backed away with an expression of disgust. "None of this is working. I know I've been moving through here, but there's no indication this time. You think this is the same dream, or a new one?"

"I can't think of any way to be absolutely certain," Hermione admitted. "That said, perhaps it would be a different dream if we went somewhere we are all familiar with? I should think this would still be yours."

"We're all familiar with Grimmauld and we want that to be the real one." Scott sighed. "I don't even know how I bypassed the box. We should have come out in the room behind the door, not the door itself."

"Why do you need one of these doors to be the correct one? You're aware this is a dream, just make your own," Hermione pointed out.

"My nebulous control. I'm worried that if I make my own aperture I'm just creating an expansion to this dream, which this seems to be."

"There shouldn't be any dreams left to move to…"

"Yeah, but if this last aperture took us to a dream version of the Transferral, why wouldn't the next one take us to a dream version of Grimmauld?"

Hermione's mouth thinned. "If your control is the key, all of this doubt can't be helping."

"Oh, so I just have to _believe."_

"If you have a better idea, I am waiting to hear it!"

Harry was aware that everyone was very much on edge, but he wasn't going to allow Hermione and Scott to start squabbling. "Hey!" He stepped between them. "This is the _last_ time for a row, full stop. You two are the ones most likely to work this out and we all know it, so stop having a go at each other and start thinking."

Ginny stepped next to Harry and crossed her arms in a show of solidarity. Ron contributed by tugging Hermione back further away from Scott, letting her lean into him.

"I'm not going to work this out. I don't know what's happening or how to stop it," Hermione said quietly, defeated.

"Same boat," Scott grunted, avoiding her eyes. He turned away, took a few steps down the hall, stopped, and whirled back around on his heel. "Are we not cool?"

"What?"

"The fight we had, before the wedding."

Hermione was clearly startled. "Well, we… we did talk about it. Briefly. And you apologised, I believe."

"No, I didn't. Not directly. I weaselled out of it like a little shit." Scott went silent for a moment, face blank, perhaps deciding what words to use (or how much to reveal). "The Minister called me 'boy'. My old man used to call me that, and it pisses me off. Between that and decorating for a wedding my fuckwad teen-self didn't give a crap about, I was agitated, and I took it out on you. You didn't deserve it, and I'm sorry."

"I appreciate your explanation, and I accept your apology," Hermione said formally, though her eyes had softened considerably. Then her mouth turned downwards, and she said, "And I apologise for slapping you. Regardless of what you said, I did not have the right to strike you."

"I accept your apology. And I also have an idea."

Hermione looked relieved, though that may have had as much to do with the sudden end of such an awkward moment as it did Scott's revelation. "Do you?"

"Last time I went through here, there was a door marked to take me to Ron. None of these," he waved his hand at the blank doorways, "are active, but if there's another dream, there might be another doorway. We need to check the directory."

"All right, then let's go," Harry said, wanting to get moving. As far as he was concerned, doing something was better than standing around and debating whether there was anything that could be done.

They followed Scott as he turned and began walking. The doors all looked the same, but he seemed to know where he was going. As they went, Ginny moved to walk closer to Harry.

"I've never been anywhere like this," she remarked.

"None of us have, except for Scott," Harry replied.

"Really? I thought this was a Muggle sort of place," she said.

That made Harry smile, his first one in what felt like forever. "A Muggle sort? What sort is that?"

"You know…" She indicated the entirety of the hall with a vague hand motion. "All metal-ly, with no lamps. And weird-smelling air."

The 'Transferral' (Transversal? Scott had said both) was definitely quite the contrast to the usual wizarding surrounds. But Harry had also never seen anything quite like it in the Muggle world… Not that he had seen all that much of the Muggle world, either. "Not exactly. I think this is all Kharadjai."

Scott led them to an open doorway on the left side of the corridor; it had been recessed into the wall, unnoticed until they came upon it. At the top of a short ramp was an odd, unpainted metal entrance that didn't look like a part of the hallway itself, but rather some sort of dock, attached with a clamping system. It granted access to what Harry guessed was the interior of a conveyance, a nondescript box with about ten seats, arranged around the sides of the rectangular space. It was like being on a much smaller Tube. All of the seats had a harness system, but Scott sat down without using his, so Harry followed suit.

He regretted it a moment later when Scott said, "Primarius Sector Central," and the lift slid into motion with such rapid acceleration that Harry nearly smacked his head on the back of his seat.

"Straighten up, bobblehead," Scott said, having probably forgone a warning for his own amusement.

After another jolt in a different direction, Hermione asked, "Are we moving horizontally?"

"See for yourself." Scott tapped something on the wall and sections of the car which had been opaque became windows (the mechanic through which that was accomplished was not clear). There wasn't much to see outside. They were moving so quickly that the surroundings were nothing but a blur of alternating light and dark.

"How bloody fast are we going?" Ron marvelled.

Scott shrugged. "We won't reach top speed in the interior. Not for this trip. There's not really anything to see unless you're on the exterior."

"This doesn't strike me as being especially aerodynamic," Hermione observed, looking around the rectangular room.

"There's no atmosphere outside the car. Or gravity." Scott glanced out at the passing blur. "Nothing but a whole lot of infrastructure."

Hermione went stiff with pure excitement. "Are we in space?!" she gasped.

"No. You're in a dream."

"…That is true," she murmured, subsiding.

"Closest I'll ever be," Harry assumed. "Too bad we can't see anything."

Scott nodded. "Short trip, though."

The sound of the lift began to change, indicating deceleration. Soon there came a quiet clanking as the clamps re-engaged, and the door slid open by itself. They filed out into a short hall that looked more or less like the one they had just left.

"The lifts here don't talk to you," Scott said as he walked. He had a familiar spring to his step that had been missing even just minutes before. He gestured like a tour guide, perhaps pleased to be, for once, in his territory, and not theirs (even if they weren't, really). "Usually they're all chatty with arrivals and departures and targeted advertising. That's in the public sectors. Here, they keep everything quiet and expect you to know where you're going."

The brief hall emptied out in a larger room with a higher ceiling. There was a row of several lift entrances lining the longest side of the room, and a large, curved metal desk at the centre of it. When Scott had spoken of 'Central' as if it were some manner of front office, Harry had expected something more welcoming than the blank halls. Instead, the Primarius hub was as severe and utilitarian as the rest of the Transferral they had seen, with uncomfortable-looking chairs that were bolted to the floor, and unadorned metal fixtures and stairways. There were coloured lines on the walls and floor, apparently as guidelines to different areas. One wider doorway had large, block letters over it in red, reading, 'QUARTERMASTER'. It looked more or less like what Harry would have imagined a military base might look like.

"I thought Central would be bigger," Harry said.

"This isn't Central. This is _Primarius_ Sector Central," Scott corrected. "Central is the main floor for civilian traffic."

Ron looked around the empty room. "Yeah, this is a little less than lively."

"It's so weird being in here when it's quiet like this," Scott mused. He approached a wall upon which many of the rectangular emitters were fixed, waving his hand in front of each of them in turn. He received no response.

"There's a light behind the desk," Ginny said, pointing towards it.

Scott hurried over to it. "This is the front terminal. I'm not supposed to use this." He paused. "…Who's gonna stop me?"

Several screens came to life in front of him, glowing in the air. There seemed to be at least some level of solidity to them, despite their projected nature, because Scott's fingers didn't pass through as he pressed on them. Harry knew he could ask for an explanation, but he was equally aware that he wouldn't understand any of it. He accepted the screens and the rest of Transversal Station the same way he had accepted all the other magic he'd witnessed (though he knew that Scott would probably throw a fit if Harry called the screens 'magic').

"Oh, God, it's good to be using something with an interface again," Scott said, apparently to no one in particular. "So tired of fucking _quills_. Hmm-hmm-hmmmm okay — P-sector directory, active only, one match… What?"

"What is it?" Hermione had been attempting to read over his shoulder but, given how fast Scott was moving through screens, Harry doubted she'd been successful.

"Only one active aperture. Period." Scott pointed to the projection. "No designation, no OP tag, no timer, no usage entries. It's called, 'Next'. Just 'Next', that's it. Is this still me? Because, if so, my brain is stupid."

"Can we get there?"

"Yeah, we can get there, I just don't like the implication — _down!"_

Harry was startled, unprepared — he'd been looking intently at the screens, doing his best to decipher the lettering (it was English, but it looked like most things were marked with abbreviations and acronyms), when Scott had barked out his sudden order. One of the lift doors across from the desk was opening with a steely rumble, revealing several raised gun barrels. Harry didn't get the chance to react. Ginny threw her arms around his shoulders and dragged him to the ground behind the desk before he fully understood what was happening.

"Stay down," Scott told them quietly. He'd drawn a handgun, suddenly armed. Harry couldn't remember if the Kharadjai had been carrying a gun in the previous dream.

Harry felt Ginny's heart beating with fright against his back as they listened to the booted footsteps of the unknown enemies spreading out, taking positions along the widest edge of the room.

"Intruders behind the desk!" a man shouted out once the sounds of movement had ceased. "Identify yourselves!"

Scott's face creased into an outraged glare. "PRIMARIUS CAPTAIN SCOTT KHARAN, 1-776-998!" he roared back. "AND YOU HAD BETTER HAVE A **GODDAMN **GOOD REASON FOR POINTING A WEAPON AT ME, T-SEC!"

A nervous pause. "…Come out unarmed, sir, so we can verify!"

Scott shoved his pistol towards Hermione, who blanched, but took it from him with hesitant hands. He hopped up onto his feet, turning his glare onto the soldiers. "Name?" he snapped.

"Sergeant David Green," the man replied in a calmer tone, revealing an accent that Harry couldn't even begin to place.

"Who's your commanding officer?"

"Lieutenant Fernett, sir, but we were told—"

"I don't care what you were told," Scott said bluntly, overriding the Sergeant. "I'm moving my NSVs and stopped by the directory when you come stomping in here like it's fucking raid-day, scaring the shit out of my Primes. Why are you scaring the shit out my Primes, Sergeant?"

"We had a report that there were some unauthorised—"

"Do I look unauthorised to you? Is a Primarius Captain unauthorised to be in P-sector?"

"No, sir, this must have been a misunderstanding."

"That's right. So you need— get your fucking finger off that trigger, Security Officer!" Scott snapped at a different man, making the hapless guard jump back. "You need to go back to the Lieutenant and explain this fuck up. You agree?"

"Yes, sir," the sergeant said. He was attempting to maintain a rigid expression, but the relief that came with his dismissal was obvious enough.

"Report to Lieutenant Fernett," Scott said with a note of finality, and the guards filed back into the lift.

Slowly, Harry and the rest stood, not entirely sure what had just happened. "Are we all right?" Ron said. "Or should I keep hiding, because I don't really mind it, at this point."

Harry nudged Ginny with his shoulder and gave her a small grin. "Nice tackle, Gin."

"Did you like that?" she said with an answering smile.

Hermione held the gun out away from herself in one hand, barrel dangling towards the floor. "Please take this back," she said urgently.

Scott reached over and obliged, tucking the weapon back into its holster. "Back to the lift, guys. It's not too far from there."

"It's fortunate that they recognised you," Hermione commented as they followed their previous path back.

"They didn't. T-Sec can confirm my identity with my serial number, facial recognition and biometrics. Or, that's what the real T-Sec would do. Maybe this time they took my word for it." Scott appeared to be amused by the idea.

"Or maybe they _did_ recognise you, being creations of your memory," Hermione countered.

"I've never seen those people before. Now, Fernett, I have met her at least once. So who knows. T-Sec isn't even supposed to come over here. The Primarius handles its own sector, we don't need cops. If there had been actual staff around, there would have been some friction."

"You do strike me as being territorial," Hermione remarked.

"Me?" Scott said innocently. "I'm the soul of cooperation compared to Major Heidi. She treats T-Sec like dog shit."

After another short ride on the multi-directional lift, they were deposited in yet another identical hallway. Harry supposed it was an efficient design, but he felt like he was going in circles. The architectural repetition would have been disorienting and dreamlike even if it weren't actually a dream. Perhaps the emitters, had they been functioning, would have added much needed context and colour to the halls.

"This is it, by my count," Scott said, stopping in front of a door exactly like all the others. He waved his hand at the emitter; it sprang to life, casting a single glowing word: NEXT.

"Not 'home', or, 'exit'… Just, 'next'," Hermione said with a small sigh.

"It's not what we wanted. But any progress has to be better than none," Harry said, making a deliberate attempt to be encouraging instead of expressing his own thoughts on the matter. He knew that was something he needed to work on.

"We're all right bloody here," Ron said with frustration. "Who could still be dreaming?"

Scott tilted his head in consideration. "Well, worst case is the dreams are layered, and everywhere we've been so far has actually just been my dream in which I've created my conception of what you guys would have been dreaming."

"That doesn't make any sense," Ginny said, wrinkling her nose with confusion.

"Maybe you just don't understand."

"That's not what I meant!" she said, frowning at him. "It doesn't make sense based on the _dreams. _You weren't even there when I saw Harry at breakfast, how the bloody hell would you know anything about it?"

"She's right, that had to be hers if it matches to her memory," Hermione argued.

Scott nodded, conceding the point. "Okay, so maybe the diadem has its own dream."

"That doesn't make sense either, why would it trap itself?" Ginny said.

"Okay, so maybe someone else got caught with us when the spell hit."

"Sophie and Kylie were all the way upstairs… But, we don't know how far this spell could reach…" Hermione said worriedly.

"No… I don't think so," Harry said, mulling it over. "The locket didn't do anything to them."

Scott nodded again. "Okay, so maybe—"

"Look, we're just going to have to go through," Harry said, interrupting Scott's apparently endless litany of possibilities.

Scott already had his gun out. He tapped the emitter screen and the door slid open, revealing a featureless aperture. "You know, you're supposed to be able to see through these. I've never seen an aperture that actually looked like something."

Harry hoped there was something on the other side, and he wasn't about to step into non-existence. "Here I go—" he began, only for his words to end with a strangled exhalation when Scott pulled him forcefully back by his shirt collar.

"Allow me, Mr Priority One," Scott said. He stuck his head through the aperture. After a moment, he withdrew with a slight frown on his face.

"Well?" Hermione prompted. "Is it safe?"

"The aperture, yes. The location… See for yourself."

Harry didn't like the sound of that. "Can't you just _tell_ us?"

"You're just, you're killing the drama, man. You're killing it," Scott sighed.

"I guess I'm just boring, sometimes."

Scott gave him one more disapproving look, but said, "It's Godric's Hollow. Or at least part of it."

"The Hollow?" Harry repeated, confused. He looked at the others, but they all seemed to be as perplexed as he. "Why would that be…?"

"It can't be Sophie or Kylie, then, they've never even been there," Ginny said.

"Ahh, door of mystery. Why are you so mysterious?" Scott said, shaking his head at the aperture.

Hermione face twisted with apprehension. "It's not a possibility I'm pleased to consider, but… What if one of us isn't real?"

They all stared at her — save for Scott, who shrugged nonchalantly. "What if two or three of us aren't real? What if _none_ of you are real?" he said, somehow unperturbed by that concept. "I could be talking to myself right now."

"Then let's prove it; ask me something," Ron said.

Scott rolled his eyes. "It would prove nothing. You could all share some private memories that only you would know, and I would have no way of knowing whether or not they actually happened. Any memories we already share are in my head or your head and therefore meaningless if our heads are being accessed."

Ron grimaced. "Well… you're Horcrux-proof, sort of, so if anyone's real it's probably you. Don't tell me if I'm not. I'd rather not know. Ignorance is bliss, and all that rot."

"The shape isn't quite what it's supposed to be, but it's telling me you're real, even if it's not telling me much else. And maybe that's just because our lines are the only thing being properly rendered from memory, easy and familiar, but you know what? It doesn't matter. We might as well pretend we're sure, because this is happening." Scott raised his handgun. "Few second delay, move fast and spread out. You know how this goes."

They did, unfortunately. Harry sort of wished he hadn't become familiar with the frisson of terror, adrenaline and exhilaration that rushed through him as he tensed, waiting to spring through the aperture. It was so similar to the feeling that came just before the start of a Quidditch match, except the game had never engendered the same dread. It was a sensation that somehow made all the others so much more intense, an added layer of madness and consequence, a thrilling fear. He thought he understood how Scott could do these things for a living.

Scott shot through the aperture; seconds later, Harry followed. He found himself outside, standing in a street in Godric's Hollow, beneath a starry night sky. The wind was cold and burned his throat, which had become accustomed to the mild, recycled climate of the Transferral. It was dark in the Hollow, dark enough that moon seemed glaring. The village looked lifeless. None of the street lamps were on, and all the houses were unlit.

Save for one. They had emerged right in front of the Potter cottage, its windows glowing with soft candle light. Harry stared at it: the cottage was intact, the upper storey unbroken, the front garden neatly trimmed. It was a sight he had witnessed only in photographs. He shivered in the biting air, trying to make sense of it.

"Thoughts?" Scott said quietly, gun at the ready as he scanned the shadowed surrounds.

"One or two, but I reckon you want something useful," Ron replied, blinking as his eyes adjusted.

"Get off the street," Scott ordered, vaulting over the garden wall. The rest of them just used the gate, which wasn't locked.

More secure in a position of cover, Harry leaned against the low stone wall and tried to arrange his thoughts. If anyone's dream involved the Hollow, it would logically have been his own. But, he'd already been through his dream. Was the diadem creating new scenarios for them to move into, divested from any one person's memories? It was awful to think that the dreamscape might stretch out before them into eternity, renewing itself whenever needed, granting only false progression. They could wander forever if every new step was built in front of them.

Hermione was examining the cottage. "We're clearly meant to go in," she said, indicating the rest of the dark and silent village.

"It's a trap," Harry assumed.

"All of the dreams were traps. But if the last one was for Scott, perhaps we've circled all the way around, and this one is for you, again," Hermione said.

Harry frowned. "Odd choice. I've only been here once, and the memory isn't even all that bad, everyone got out all right… Or sort of all right." He jerked his head in Scott's direction.

"Might be a dream for all of us," Ron suggested.

"It didn't look like this when we were there," Harry said. "That's not my memory."

"Mine, neither," Ron agreed. "House is in one piece and it's bloody cold out. I guess that's halfway an improvement."

"Don't get too attached to the idea of memory. Scott's dream was a bit of a jumble," Hermione pointed out.

Ron shrugged. "But that's him, yeah? None of the rest of us are absolute nutters like that, 'cept maybe Harry, but not in a way that helps."

Harry rubbed his hands against his trousers, trying to get some warmth through friction. "Come on, you lot — one way or another, we're going inside. We'll ice over out here."

In the moonlight, Ginny was as pale as a ghost. "Don't go in there, Harry," she said tightly.

He looked to her, bewildered. "What?"

Her expression was hard to decipher in the darkness, but he thought it was something close to horror. "Don't you know when this is?"

Harry found himself at a loss. "No one does… It's a dream."

She pointed at one of the houses across the street. Harry peered over the wall, trying to spot what she was indicating. The moon beams that streaked through the parted clouds lit upon the front walk, where he could see the distinct, lumpy shape of a carved pumpkin. Which explained the weather, as they were only common during…

It was Halloween.

The feelings that assailed him were too many and too simultaneous to be processed. He didn't know exactly what was happening, how it was happening, or even how he felt about it, but he made a conscious decision that, ultimately, it didn't matter. _It did not matter._ If his dead parents were inside the house, then he maybe he would fall apart then; but, until that moment came, he was finished with being confused and terrified. Enough was enough.

"We are not going to discuss this," he said fiercely when Hermione began to part her lips, making her recoil. "We are going into the cottage, and we are going to get out of this dream."

Ginny's expression tightened, and Harry knew she was probably worried about his state of mind, but, fortunately, she held her peace. Ron might have been, too, but after what felt like an eternity trapped in nightmares most everyone's default countenance was some version of worried, so it wasn't obvious. Scott's face gave away nothing, as was usual in such situations.

"Check the windows, I'll take the top," Scott said shortly.

Harry moved forward with Ginny at his side, peering into the front window through cold glass as Scott leapt up the front of the building and hung from a first storey windowsill by his fingertips. There was very little light inside, but from what Harry could see the room was empty. He stared at the chairs and short tables; picture frames adorned the graffiti-free walls and a fire flickered in the hearth. He pulled his head back, refusing to fall into nostalgic regret. Everything he could see was long dead and buried and he should remember that.

"Looks empty," Ginny whispered.

Harry nodded and put his back to the window, letting Ginny keep an eye on the interior whilst he watched the street. Ron and Hermione scurried back from the opposite window; overhead, Scott had clambered onto the roof.

"There's no one in there," Ron reported. "We went to the side and the kitchen's empty, too."

"Give Scott a moment," Harry said. He huddled a bit closer to Ginny's back and wrapped his arms around himself. "Try to stay warm, we might have to run."

It was a minute or so before Scott fell lightly from the roof, landing with a soft thud on the grass. "Nobody in the master bedroom or hallway. I can't see into the bathroom, and the curtains are drawn in Harry's room," he told them. "How do you want to do this?"

Harry thought about for a second. Rushing seemed like the best solution, at first, but he didn't think they could all get up the stairs fast enough. If there was someone inside, they were most likely in Harry's old room. If they somehow didn't hear the door being kicked open, they'd hear the footsteps in the stairwell.

"Let's go up quietly, if we can," he said.

Scott placed his fingers on the doorknob. "…I don't feel anything." He stepped aside for Hermione.

"There aren't any protections," she confirmed a moment later. "I believe it's already unlocked."

Harry knew there should also have been a Fidelius over the cottage. Perhaps it had broken when Voldemort's spell had rebounded and the cottage was ravaged, but that obviously hadn't happened yet. The timeline seemed wrong, according to what Harry knew of that night. But, it was just a dream, after all. It could hardly be counted upon to be accurate.

The door swung open smoothly when Scott went through. Harry studied his surroundings with as much detachment as he was able to maintain, comparing them to what he remembered of their destroyed version. It was hard to equate the bare, vandalised ruins he had passed through with the well-furnished home he stood in. Some part of him had been afraid that his father's body might be present, left lying where he had tried to stop the intruding Dark Lord. But they encountered no one, alive or dead.

They followed Scott up the stairs, trying to step as silently as they were able. Harry remembered the stairs being extremely creaky when he had last gone up them, but that had been after years of neglect. They were much sturdier in their past state. After a quick pause outside the master bedroom in which Scott checked the loo (Harry peeked inside the bedroom, but didn't allow himself to linger), they gathered outside the closed door to Harry's room.

Scott made the hand signal that Harry was pretty sure indicated the command to breach and clear. Harry aligned himself with the doorway as they had practised. Scott braced himself, and kicked in the door.

They sprinted forward as the door swung all the way open, smashing against the inside wall. Scott moved left, Harry shouldered aside the rebounding door and brought his wand to bear, looking for targets. There was only one.

Voldemort stood in front of the cot.

Time seemed to slow. Scott was traversing his weapon, the barrel inching its way toward the centre of the room. Harry felt his lips move, tried to form _Expelliarmus_, knowing that if he could take Riddle's wand away or even just stun him for half a second, Scott might put a bullet in him, might swing the odds in their favour long enough to escape. Harry heard Hermione shouting something, felt Ron's footsteps pound on the floor behind him. Red light glared brightly in the corner of his eye, someone's Stunner.

Then he realised that time hadn't seemed to slow — it _was_ slowing. He felt as if he were moving through sand, his arms wouldn't cooperate; he could feel his own momentum and was unable to alter it. He had the sensation of falling. His wand floated upwards with a snail's pace, no matter how hard his muscles strained. He watched as Scott rotated towards Voldemort like a leaf gently twisting in the breeze.

The lights began to fade; the Stunner disappeared. Voldemort's robe melted into the spreading blackness, leaving his pale head levitating against the dark. Then that, too, vanished, and the sounds that had become deep and roaring faded as well.

Then, there was nothing.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note<strong>

I'm aware I more or less shot myself in the foot with my 'author's note' last chapter, doing nothing but quoting the poem which was the chapter's inspiration and ending with a highly ironic wish for happy holidays. Perhaps last chapter many of you simply had nothing to say, compounding the issue with the author's note. Humorous passages tend to draw the most comment, and the previous entry was anything but. The low number of reviews demonstrates, yet again, that if I don't tack on a rambling author's note to an already complete chapter, readers won't have as much to say. And, I suppose it makes a sort of sense. This is a prompt, if you will, a more subtle version of the 'review please!' you see so often. I'm not going to beg for reviews, and I'm sure as hell not going to do one of those things where I only post the next chapter if I get ten or more reviews — if I'd done that, the first story would have never been finished. I really hate that, anyway; it strikes me as unbearably tacky and it tends to encourage one-line reviews of the 'more plz' variety. I'd prefer that you review when you actually have something to say, even if what's on your mind is picking out a moment that appealed to you, or a moment that did not.

Scott and his world were front and centre this chapter, even though his POV was not exercised. I've used his perspective less and less as this tale has progressed, simply because I don't have to. His POV was, if anything, overused in TTM because I needed to move the narrative to the viewpoint of someone who hadn't been there for canon events, especially when they were being repeated. To use Harry's POV when covering a scene that was also present in the book would greatly increase the difficulty of avoiding plagiarism. I very rarely quoted or even paraphrased in TTM, mostly thanks to my ability to use the perspective of Scott, Lila, and the rest of the canon cast who weren't Harry.

I've said before that there are certain challenges in using Scott for an original novel. However, if I ever were to do so, writing TTM and Vis has given me a wonderful head start on characterizing him. In the very early stages of TTM, Scott was only partially developed as a character, certainly nothing as complete as he is now. Consequently, he had a grab bag of character traits. I remember he had an eidetic memory, he always had a toothpick because he was an ex-smoker, he frequently lapsed into memory, and he often expressed his thoughts as spoken abstract poetry. It was a shotgun approach, a cornucopia of quirks which would hopefully make him interesting to the reader.

Tellingly, all of those traits had disappeared by the halfway point of TTM, retconned out of existence as I narrowed in on the core of Scott and discovered what actually made him interesting. In reality, my attempts to compensate for having an original character by adding idiosyncrasies to him was precisely the wrong impulse. Fanfiction readers have a deep aversion to 'quirky' new people, for good reason. I learned that you guys responded to Scott's humanity, his humour and implied pathos, far more than shallow, supposedly interesting behaviours. By the time I began developing Lila in earnest, I avoided purposefully unique foibles for her. I learned to let who she is come across in what she said, how she acted with the rest of the cast, not by giving her an unexplained trait that stood out because I _made_ it stand out.

Sophie, I think, more than anyone, benefited from the learning process due to her late introduction. I think her initial appearance in TTM is a little rough and, as it's so caught up in her POV, relies a bit too much on telling rather than showing. But in Vis I believe her unique mannerisms are conveyed almost entirely through dialogue and incidental action.

Scott continues to grow and gain definition (as they all do), and I thank you for sticking with the story and giving me a chance to do better.


	27. How You're Bound

**27**

**How You're Bound**

* * *

><p>"<em><strong>Q: Startlingly few advances have been made<br>**__**in understanding the shape within the last  
><strong>__**several generations, and overcognizance remains  
><strong>__**incurable, if uncommon. Should we be worried  
><strong>__**that we've hit the limit of our understanding?**_

_A: Not at all. Scientific progress is not predictable:  
><em>_there is no set rate for the expansion of knowledge.  
><em>_Breakthroughs create avenues that lead to further  
><em>_discoveries, but breakthroughs can be few and far  
><em>_between. In fact, more often than not science is  
><em>_advanced through failure, rather than success.  
><em>_When presented with many options (and what  
><em>_presents more options than the shape?), a  
><em>_process of elimination is a necessity until,  
><em>_eventually, someone happens across the way  
><em>_forward. Obviously, there is a methodology  
><em>_to all of it, but ask any scientist and they'll tell  
><em>_you that sometimes, it sure doesn't feel like it!  
><em>_We may not be anywhere close to a complete  
><em>_understanding of the shape, but every new  
><em>_theory, quantifiable or not, takes us one step  
><em>_further. Who knows how near we may be to  
><em>_unlocking even larger pieces of our greatest  
><em>_puzzle?"_

_ —Modern Science Periodical's Public Forum: Ask a Scientist!_

* * *

><p>When Ginny regained consciousness, she blinked. Or, at least she tried to.<p>

Her eyelids were glued shut, perhaps as a prank — that was the first thing that came to mind. They were resisting her attempts to open them, she could feel her lashes tangled together. Her right eye was less obstinate: when light finally broke, it was a stabbing pain that quickly forced her to shut her that eye again. It took a few moments to become accustomed, not that there was much to see.

She was lying on her back on top of something soft, staring up at the ceiling. Her head _hurt_; every heartbeat sent a throb of agony coursing through her skull. The pain was especially acute above her left eye, and when she moved her eyebrows she felt something there that was sticky and sharply painful. She gasped involuntarily, her throat dry and rasping.

An answering gasp sounded from somewhere nearby. "Ginny!"

"Who's that?" Ginny said, trying to sit up. She moved her arms and there was a tug from something on her right wrist, along with a sensation like a pinch. "Ow!"

"It's Sophie! Here, I can help." Sophie bent down and wiped at Ginny's eyes with a damp rag. "I didn't get all the blood, I think. Is that better?"

Ginny blinked a few times, and after a moment of adjustment she was able to see clearly.

She was on the bed in the master bedroom, with Harry next to her. Ron, Hermione and Scott were on the floor on top of various cushions and other mattresses, their faces slack and their eyes closed. There was a chair in front of the nearby short dressing table, and the top of it was covered in papers. It seemed as if Sophie had been writing something.

Ginny sat up, fighting back a wave of vertigo. There was a clear bag of what looked like water hanging from the headboard next to her; a tube from it ran downwards and connected with her wrist. She looked more closely and saw with great alarm that it actually went _into_ her wrist, resting in her vein. She reached for it.

"Don't pull on it, it's taped in!" Sophie exclaimed, stopping Ginny. "One second, here… There'll be just a pinch."

It wasn't the most comfortable feeling to have the tape removed and the whatever-it-was taken out, but it didn't hurt all that much. Sophie stuck a small bandage (decorated with colourful dinosaurs, for some reason) over the puncture. Ginny rubbed at her wrist and shook herself, feeling quite dizzy. "Got anything to drink?" she asked plaintively.

Sophie handed her one of the Muggle bottles of water. It was room temperature, but Ginny didn't much care. She drank it with relish, swishing the water around her cheeks to dispel the dryness. "So what happened?" she asked, wiping a drop from her lower lip.

"I don't know, for sure, but I think that Horcrux thingamabob did something to you guys. I've been trying to work it out, but, I guess I don't have to? Are you all going to wake up now?" Sophie said hopefully.

"The last dream ended, I think, and we were…" Ginny trailed off, trying to remember. The nightmares in which she had been trapped were fading to tatters when confronted with the waking world. The things that had happened which had seemed so real, so horrible, were quickly becoming indistinct, losing immediacy.

With a sudden grunt, Harry rolled over, squashing his face into Ginny's hip. He jerked his head back and blinked up at her blearily. "…Did we make it out?" he said.

She smiled down at him, more relieved than she could say. "We're back!" She grabbed his hand, entwining their fingers.

He began to shakily push himself upright with one hand, apparently unwilling to let go of her even for a second. "Finally. Are you—" he looked at her again, and his eyes widened with panic. "Ginny, what is that?"

"What?"

"Your head! What happened?"

Her hands flew upwards, running over her lips and nose. "Oh, God, did something happen to my face?"

"No, right here." He gently pressed one finger onto her forehead.

"_Ow! _Bloody hell!" she yelped, leaning back. She felt the same spot and found a large bandage.

"I guess you don't remember," Sophie interjected. "You were all standing around the table when the thing did whatever thing it does, and you fell when you were knocked out. Everyone is going to be kind of bruised; it's not a very good floor to fall on, downstairs."

"That explains a few things," Harry said, pressing a hand to his ribs. He had a sizeable contusion on one of his cheekbones that he didn't seem to have noticed yet.

"So I bashed my head on the floor?" Ginny said, wincing as she prodded at the bandage.

"Don't poke at it!" Sophie exclaimed. "But, poor Ginny, you were the unlucky one. You hit your forehead on the corner of the table, and then hit the same spot on the floor. You split your skin pretty bad…"

Harry was dismayed. "You should lie back down, here—" He pulled gently on her legs.

"I'm fine! It just stings a bit," Ginny protested, refusing to admit how dizzy she was.

"You sure?" Harry's eyes were worried, and Ginny knew she needed to at least pretend to be all right or he'd find some way to blame her injury on himself.

"Did you forget I played Quidditch? I had worse than this after that collision during practise," she told him not entirely truthfully.

He sat back. "Still. I should have caught you."

She would have rolled her eyes if she weren't so disoriented. So much for pretending to be all right. And trust Harry to expect the impossible of himself. "You should have caught me when you were unconscious?" she said tartly. "Do you hear yourself when you talk, or does all the guilt stuff up your ears?"

He flushed slightly, avoiding her eyes. "Shite, Ginny. I just don't like seeing you hurt, all right?"

She definitely understood his sentiment. Too bad he never seemed to understand that it ran both ways. "It's not that bad. If it was, Sophie wouldn't have let me sit up, right?"

"That's right!" Sophie immediately agreed, and then proceeded to sabotage Ginny's argument by adding, "You might be dizzy for awhile, I don't think you're concussed, but you did lose a fair amount of blood. No fun getting hit in the head, and I know! Very vascular, and then your clothes get ruined. Like a nice summer dress, a blue dress, robin egg blue, with a knife that you weren't told had a spring, then Scott still owes me dress money, actually, I just thought of that…"

Ginny glanced down at herself, but she still had a sheet wrapped around her torso. She left it, not wanting to reveal any bloodstained clothing for Harry to see. "But I'm fine, more or less."

"I think so, but I'll keep an eye on you for awhile," Sophie said unhelpfully.

Ginny gave up trying to get Sophie to say the right thing, and leaned into Harry's shoulder. "And I'll be watching _you_, bruise-face," she told him.

"Yeah, I just felt that a second ago," Harry said, closing the eye over the bruise.

"Harry, can you give me your wrist? I'll take care of that IV for you," Sophie offered.

"Huh?" Harry looked down at his arms. "Whoa!"

"It's just to keep you hydrated, it's okay," she reassured him.

"No, I know what it is, I just didn't expect it. Were we out long?"

"A little less than seventy-two hours," she told him.

"That's not as bad as I expected, actually," Harry admitted.

A loud moan sounded from somewhere on the floor. "Which one of you lot hit me with a Bludger?" Ron groaned. "Soon as I can stand, your broom's going right up your arse."

"You hit the back of your head when you fell," Sophie said, hurrying over to the mattress where Ron was slumped. "Can you see me?"

"'Lo," Ron mumbled by way of response.

"Hi!" Sophie leaned over Hermione, who remained still. "…Well, she'll be up soon, I bet. I'll get that IV for you, Ron."

"Get the what?" Ron said, confused. The exact moment when Sophie revealed the thing in his arm was made apparent when he then blustered, "Fucking hell, what'd you stab me with?"

"Language, Ron," Hermione yawned. She raised up on her elbows, eyeing her surroundings sleepily. "Oh, we must have succeeded. Did I kip on this old thing? This isn't one of the target mattresses, is it?"

"Oh, no, those are filthy!" Sophie said. "How are you feeling? You ended up falling on Ron, so your knees took the worst of it."

"I knew it: mid-collapse, and she still can't keep her hands off me," Ron said, smirking towards Hermione.

"Prat," she said with far more affection than Ginny felt was warranted. "More likely, even my subconscious knows a decent cushion when it needs one." She started to sit cross-legged, and then flinched, halting the action. "Blast. I see what you meant about the knees, Sophie."

"It's only bruising, nothing broken. They'll be extra stiff right now, too," Sophie said.

"Has it been that long?"

"Not quite seventy-two hours."

Hermione raised her eyebrows in surprise. "It felt like years. Or did it? It already seems so vague… I didn't expect the nightmares to be literal to the point that they would fade so quickly."

"Maybe that's for the best," Ginny said, thinking of the beach.

"It can't be that easy," Harry said soberly.

Ginny sort of agreed, but she didn't want to encourage Harry's inevitable post-nightmare brooding. Fortunately, Hermione interceded by noticing her IV.

"Am I being fed intravenously?" Hermione wondered, raising her wrist for inspection. "I see these all the time on those hospital programmes that mother watches."

After assisting Hermione with removing the IV, Sophie walked over to Scott. He wasn't on a mattress, but rather sunk into a large pile of pillows, looking a bit like someone floating on a pond. Ginny noticed he didn't have an IV in his arm, which didn't seem fair.

"I didn't think it would take him this long," Sophie fretted.

Hermione craned her neck to get a look at the Kharadjai. "Do you think there's something wrong? Or is he just being lazy?"

"It's the latter," Scott said all of a sudden, his eyes still closed. "I woke up while Ginny was talking to Sophie, but I'm really comfortable."

"You're such a _butt!"_ Sophie asserted. "I was worried, too!"

"What did you expect me to do? _Move?" _Scott said with derision, as if the idea of him in motion was a ridiculous concept.

"I should kick you. I _will _kick you!" Sophie declared.

She marched over to Scott and aimed an extremely gentle, ineffective kick at his right thigh. He opened his eyes long enough to catch her ankle, resulting in a giggling Sophie half-heartedly attempting to free herself from Scott's easy grip, a tug-of-war that quickly became an obvious pretence for them to touch each other.

Ginny rolled her eyes. "We weren't ever that bad, right?" she whispered to Harry.

Instead of agreeing, Harry's eyes darkened. "I never really gave us the chance."

Ginny pursed her mouth in irritation. She'd somehow said the wrong thing. Well, that was just too bad, because she was stiff and her head hurt _a lot_, and she wasn't up to dealing with one of Harry's regret-fuelled moods. "Just shut it, Harry," she said shortly.

The look he gave her was startled rather than wounded, which made her feel a little better about being so abrupt with him. Down on the floor, Scott had relinquished his hold on Sophie and was trying to examine himself whilst moving as little as possible.

"So what's the damage? Did I break my ass?" he said.

"Actually, you fell back into a chair. You looked like you just fell asleep in it. It was sort of cute," Sophie told him.

Ron raised his hands and dropped them in disgust. "Right, I've got a splitting headache, and the one bloke who can take the damage just has a sit down. Absolute bollocks."

Ginny scoffed at him. "My headache is worse. You're not even bandaged, you big ponce."

"What bandage?" Ron said, squinting at her. The light was fairly dim in the bedroom, and Ginny's hair had fallen over part of her face. She brushed it aside and leaned forward to show him her injury. "Oh, hell," he said, impressed. "You're right, that is better than mine."

"Told you."

"What happened?" Hermione wanted to know.

"Hit my head on the way down, apparently. Really graceful of me," Ginny said with a sigh.

"I feel okay," Scott offered, as if that were supposed to help.

"You hush!" Sophie ordered as she walked back over to the dressing table. "So, do you guys know what happened?"

"The Horcrux forced us into a dream-state," Hermione said. "We each had our own version. We were separate, but Scott prevented the Horcrux from affecting him quite the same as us. He was amnesic, as we were, but able to move between dreams. We're not certain if the dreams were broken by the revelations, or if they were terminated in order to focus on Scott once he moved on. The diadem may have been conserving resources rather than keep us suspended."

"Or both," Harry said.

"True. Perhaps the diadem allowed our dreams to end rather than try to maintain them after the disruptions," Hermione agreed.

Ginny looked towards the door. "So it's still down there?"

"I didn't touch it, no way! I felt something happen, and then I went downstairs and you were all on the floor!" Sophie said with wide eyes. "I brought you up here and, well, you can see…"

She held up a few sheets of paper on which she had written. Her handwriting was obsessively neat but also very small, and Ginny couldn't make any of it out. Not that it would have mattered even if she could; there were larger symbols and formulas which looked like a load of nonsense to her.

Sophie continued, "I was working on unravelling the threads. They were pretty complex… I didn't want to just break them all, I didn't know what might happen to you."

"That may have been for the best. We're still not sure what would have happened if we were to become injured or worse in one of the dreams," Hermione said. "Unnatural removal could have been damaging."

"It was a last resort," Sophie said. "It hadn't been very long, not yet."

Scott slowly sat up, pushing pillows aside. He had to use his hands to steady himself, and Ginny thought he was probably dizzy, too. "Where's Kylie?"

"She's fine, she's asleep in the motorcycle room," Sophie explained. "It's a little after midnight right now."

"Okay. We tag-team the diadem, and Harry kills it while it's still recovering, probably. Thoughts?" Scott said, looking to them.

Hermione raised a finger. "When you say 'tag-team', you mean…?"

"Me and Sophie will go full suppression on that fucker while Harry slices it. Or you, or whoever if Harry's too banged up to swing a sword."

"I can do it." Harry slid off the bed, holding himself stiffly. It was clear his injuries were bothering him more than he was willing to show. "Where's the sword?"

"It should still be in the handbag," Hermione said as she was helped to her feet by Ron, who was also looking a bit unsteady.

"I have your purse," Sophie said. She went over to the wardrobe and picked up the handbag from the nearby floor.

"Hey, maybe someone else wants a turn," Scott said to Harry.

Harry looked over his shoulder at Ginny. "How about you, Gin? Want to kill a Horcrux?"

Ginny didn't really want to _kill_ anything, though she knew the time might come when she would have to. But she supposed the diadem wasn't really alive, or a person. And she was pleased that Harry had asked her first. "Sure, I'll kill it. I owe it one for making me live through that embarrassment all over again."

"What, at The Burrow? I never went in, what was happening?" Harry said curiously.

Ginny wasn't about to share the details of her dream, at least not with everyone else there. "Don't worry about it." She gingerly pushed herself off the bed, keeping a hand on the headboard to remain steady. She wasn't quite as wobbly as she had feared. Hermione handed her the sword, which was quite a bit heavier than she had anticipated. Harry had made it seem easy to wield, but he'd always been stronger than he looked. "So I just…" She raised the weapon and mimed cutting downwards.

"Er…" Harry reached hesitantly towards the weapon. "Actually, I just remembered that it hurt my hands, last time, when the locket sort of blew up, maybe you should let me—"

Ginny glowered at him. "I can handle it."

He quickly dropped his hands. "Right. I was just warning you."

They filed out of the room, ready for battle. Or, hopefully, an execution. Sophie and Scott seemed confident enough that they could keep the diadem from attacking their minds again. They'd certainly have a better chance with two Kharadjai on the job, and it wasn't like they could just leave the diadem sitting there. It had to die, even if only because Ginny didn't want to have to eat sitting on her bed.

She brushed into Scott on the way out the door, accidentally putting her foot over his and tripping him up. He stumbled into the door frame, catching himself with a hastily raised hand. "Sorry," she apologised.

He merely shrugged in response. "Don't squeeze too hard when you swing," he advised. "Might be able to avoid the jolt that Harry got last time."

The bedroom had been darkened to spare everyone's vision when they awoke, and out in the hallway she was able to notice that Scott's complexion was unusually pale, and his eyes were a bit too bright. "Are you all right?" she said, unsure if any concern would be accepted, coming from her.

"It was quite a ride. I just need to walk it off," Scott said easily.

He seemed genuine, though she doubted he would admit to any weakness. Their relationship was temperamental, at best, but she was starting to think that maybe it was time to try and move beyond that. He had just saved them, after all (even though Sophie might have done the same, given a little more time). Ginny didn't trust him to do what was best for Harry's emotional well-being, or anyone else's, for that matter. She probably never would. But she saw the facts of what had happened, and that meant seeing that Scott had fought, killed, and even _died_ for the cause. And, now, she had been confronted with irrefutable evidence that Scott had suffered for it, too.

She stopped at the top of the stairs, turning towards him as the rest of the group descended. "I'm not giving you a free pass for all of your shite," she warned him, "but… Thank you for doing whatever it was you did."

"I didn't do it for you," he said coldly. Then, a corner of his mouth raised in an understated smirk. "I didn't know what the fuck I was doing at all."

She wrinkled her nose. "I know that, I've been saying it from the start."

"So you have as much faith in me as ever. I can rely on that."

They gathered at the foot of the stairs. Scott and Sophie moved to the front of the group, both displaying readiness in their stances. Scott's face was remote and cold, per usual, but Sophie's was a bit more readable, holding a seriousness and competence (and even a little fierceness) that was strange on her normally inviting features. Ginny hadn't seen the woman be much of anything besides wide-eyed and friendly. She tried to school her own expression into something harder, hopefully at least moderately deadly. She briefly wished for a mirror.

"Go," Scott said, and the two Kharadjai rushed down the steps into the kitchen.

Ginny did her best to keep up, but her legs were stiff beneath her and her centre of balance swayed with every step. Considering that she'd taken the worst fall, perhaps she hadn't been the best choice to wield the sword. Not that she was willing to admit that. She could do what was needed and collapse afterwards, if she had to. The bloody Horcrux was the reason her head hurt so much to begin with, and it deserved what was coming.

She didn't stop to ask what was happening when she saw Sophie and Scott standing in front of the table, the diadem before them. There were no signs and sounds of a struggle, but no doubt they were doing whatever it was they did with the 'shape', and Ginny didn't need to be told to hurry. She stepped between them, raised the sword over her head (fighting hard not to tilt with the motion — the floor seemed to move beneath her and she knew she couldn't stay upright much longer) and swung it downwards as hard as she could.

She didn't have the best aim: the blow was off-centre, shearing unevenly through the diadem. It didn't seem to matter, though. There was a horrid, all-encompassing shriek that cut through her eardrums like a spike, and the sword slammed into the table, reverberating up the metal.

She carefully lowered the sword point to the floor, taking the weight off her trembling arms. The two pieces of the diadem had flown off the table from the force of separation. She stared at them, waiting for a reaction. None came.

"Don't tell me it was a fake," Harry said flatly.

"It can't be. We _know_ it isn't," Hermione said.

Scott stepped on the nearest piece of diadem, flipping it over with the pressure from his foot. It clattered tinnily against the floor, and Ginny could see that the shorn edge was smoking slightly. "It was real," Scott said.

Sophie bent down to retrieve the other piece. "It's dead. I can tell for sure," she confirmed.

Harry seemed satisfied by that. "I guess they're all different."

"Did it put up a fight?" Ron asked curiously. He held out a hand and Sophie gave him part of the diadem.

"I don't have a comparison point, Scott fought the locket, or talked to it, I guess, I wasn't here," Sophie said.

"It was tired. Or surprised," Scott said, rubbing at his eyes.

Ron held the broken diadem up for Hermione to see. "The sapphire is still all right. Maybe we can fix the rest of it?"

"Perhaps. But the Sword likely destroyed all the magic, if there was anything left of Ravenclaw's spells after Riddle finished with it," Hermione said with a touch of sadness.

"Was it an important artefact?" Sophie said sympathetically.

"It was a remnant of the Founders. Those aren't easy to come by, especially such powerful ones." Hermione looked wistfully at the shattered diadem for a long moment and then took a short breath, her expression hardening. "But, it had to be done."

"I guess we'll have to tell the Ravenclaws about it eventually. But it'll be after all this, so the whole precious-Ravenclaw-diadem-slicing might not seem like such a big deal after we've saved everyone," Ron supposed.

"That would probably smooth things over," Harry agreed. "And if they aren't saved, there won't be anyone to complain."

"Always look on the bright side of life, mate."

"Wonderful, now there will be wanton destruction based on the assumption there's no tomorrow," Hermione muttered to Ginny.

"I don't know. Could be fun," Ginny said cheekily. She decided to extend the olive branch a bit further, and said, "How about you, Scott? You like to blow things up, I reckon."

"I've been known to, on occasion. From time to a time. I wouldn't, it would be remiss if I were to claim other things. My sheen avoidant camouflage, in lines left, threaded through. Maybe, did I tell you about the time I was at the Hill and they wanted the, I can't— it's just a long story," Scott rambled, his words strange and halting. Ginny stared at him as he leaned heavily against the wall.

Harry took a step towards him, confused. "You all right, mate?"

Scott ran a noticeably trembling hand down his face, but did not reply.

Sophie began to walk over to him, her face etched with concern. "Scott? Are you okay?"

"Yeah, probably," Scott said, and then his eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed.

* * *

><p>Sophie's first thought when Scott fell down was to find the shooter.<p>

Her second thought was that she was in a basement, there was no sniper, no one had attacked him, and the diadem was dead. He hadn't eaten or drank since his recent awakening, so he couldn't have been poisoned. There had been no magic affecting him. Something else was wrong. Something unexpected, and serious.

Which meant her third thought was that she had to find out what was wrong, so she could help him. He needed her help. So _move!_

She darted forward, crouching next to him and gently patting his cheeks as she found his pulse. "Scott? Scott?" she said, doing her best to sound calm, pulling open one of his eyelids. His pupils were not dilated, and his pulse was fast, but steady.

Shadows fell across her as the Primes gathered around. No doubt they were all confused and worried, just as she was, but making sure Scott was stable was more important than reassuring them. He had slid down the wall when falling, guiding his descent and lessening the impact. She quickly ran her hand along the back of his head, and was relieved at the lack of blood. His airway was clear, and it didn't sound like there was any fluid in his lungs. She pressed on his fingernails, looking for signs of shock.

"What happened to him? What's going on?" Harry asked.

"He passed out," Sophie said distantly, still working to be sure that Scott was not severely injured.

It didn't make sense for him to react that way if he was, she didn't understand. Scott rarely lost consciousness for longer than a few seconds even when receiving critical wounds. He was Combat Corps toughened, integrationist trained and about as hardy as the Imperiarchy could make someone. He could be depleted, a state most quickly achieved by healing, but exhaustion from healing required him to actually _heal_, and he had done nothing but sleep for almost twenty-four hours without so much as a paper cut on him.

Or so she had thought. She would have noticed if he'd been bleeding as he slept under her care. And he definitely wasn't bleeding currently, nor suffering from past blood loss. Perhaps a major internal injury? His head was not bruised or swollen. She tugged a knife out of one of her pockets and ran it up the front of his shirts, cutting both together.

"Turn around, please," she told the hovering teens.

Hermione, Ron and Ginny complied, stepping back. Harry edged backwards, but said, "Is this the Horcrux?"

"Harry, I'm trying to help him, and I'm asking you to be polite!" Sophie said, attempting to modulate her tone to be more authoritative and less shrill (she already spoke in such a high, girlish pitch that when she really got upset she could hit the notes that made Lila call her 'dog whistle', which Sophie _hated)._

"I'm trying to help, too, I just want to know—"

"Harry, what, are you trying to have a butcher's at Scott's bits?" Ron said loudly from where he stood with his back to the scene. "Because it sort of sounds like that, mate."

"Sod off, she's not taking his trousers…" Harry groused, but he retreated to a safe distance and turned away.

There was no severe bruising to be found on Scott's torso or back, his ribs were intact, his abdomen was pliable… She couldn't be absolutely certain there was nothing physically wrong with him, not without tools other than her hands and eyes, but he really seemed to be just fine. Her examination had been primarily to make certain that he hadn't been severely bleeding or broken, something she could patch up until he could take care of it. Anything further than that, and the best thing was to put him back in a bed and let his involuntary healing reflex handle it.

But her past experience with his physiology told her that he wasn't suffering from physical trauma, or reacting to it like a baseline due to depletion. Scott was sick. She wanted to believe he had just caught something that would run its course, though she knew that was very unlikely; baseline illnesses were rarely a match for Primarius-level physiology, and all three Kharadjai currently in the field had gone through the inclision grids and medical checks that ensured they wouldn't carry any diseases from Solus with them.

Given all that had just happened, Sophie knew that the most probable scenario was the one she least wanted to accept: it had something to do with the shape. And that meant Scott might be beyond her help.

She would have to cross that bridge when she came to it. First things first. She pulled Scott's shirts back together as best she could. "I'm going to take him upstairs."

"What's wrong with him?" Hermione asked with concern.

Sophie wasn't sure if she should admit that she didn't know. Maybe it would be better to pretend that Scott was fine. That was probably what he would have done. On the other hand, it was a bit too late to conceal his weakness from his Primes after he had collapsed right in front of them.

"I think it's a Kharadjai thing," Sophie hedged. She scooped Scott up into her arms — he outweighed her by about a hundred pounds and was a full fourteen inches taller. His weight wasn't a problem, but he was so much bigger than she was that it was hard to manoeuvre without bumping him into something. She tried to shift him so that his head rested on hers, as her shoulder was too low. "Just so you are — oops — aware, don't carry someone who's unconscious this way, it could be bad if they hurt their spine or neck."

She managed to get Scott up to the master bedroom with a minimum number of collisions, though the stairs were somewhat tricky. She went up sideways, letting Hermione guide her. Once Scott was settled onto the mattress, she stood over him, debating her next move.

If he truly had been depleted, somehow, then he wouldn't inadvertently destroy the IV. And if he did, then he might be on the mend. So she inserted the catheter into his arm as the Primes watched, their confusion and worry palpable. She shared in it, but didn't have any answers for them.

"Is the diadem still affecting him?" Hermione asked.

"No, I checked," Sophie said. She placed a hand back on Scott's cheek, just to be sure, but other than the usual threads to the house there was no magic on him. She watched him for a few silent minutes, pretending to fuss with the IV to prevent any questions as she made her decision.

Ultimately, there wasn't really much of a decision to make. Barring any new developments, she would watch, and wait, and hope her fears were unfounded.

Taking a short breath, she turned to the Primes and pasted a smile on her face. "I think he's just tired. And he's not the only one! I'm impressed you're all moving around so well after everything, but it's _really_ late, and you should probably go to bed."

"Didn't we just sleep for three days?" Harry said, though the dark circles under his eyes betrayed his fatigue.

"No, she's right. It wasn't restful, and we're all injured," Hermione said.

Ron frowned. "So there's nothing we can do?"

"Not right now. But, I'll let you know if I need help with anything," Sophie told him.

"I think maybe he's got the right idea," Ginny said, wincing as she gingerly touched her bandage. "I could sleep for yonks."

"Ginny, be sure to come see me when you wake up so I can take a look at that," Sophie said, pointing to Ginny's lacerated forehead.

"Try an _Episkey_ or two, Ginny, it might help if it's bothering you," Hermione suggested. "I have some potions we can look at tomorrow, also."

"It's not that bad. We should save potions for worse things than a bump on the head," Ginny said.

"You'll all feel better with some real sleep, I know it," Sophie said, and gestured towards the door. "Shoo! Go sleep! I'll stay with Scott, just in case."

They filed out, though Harry paused at the threshold, reluctant to leave. "You'll tell us if anything happens?" he said.

"Of course, I promise," Sophie said.

He nodded. "All right. And thanks, you know, for… the tubes, and everything."

That garnered him a more genuine smile. "You're so welcome!"

When he left, the smile slipped from her face. She sat on the edge of the mattress and picked up Scott's right arm, cradling it as she checked his pulse again. It was still steady. His arm was heavy and warm; idly, she pressed her own wrist against his, observing the size differential. She decided not to call Lila yet, not until she had something to report other than Scott's sleep state. Her instincts were making her anxious, but she had no evidence that there was anything seriously wrong.

She took off his shoes and socks, pulled the blankets up over his legs, and then carefully crawled over him and settled in on the other side of the bed, curling up next to his side. She usually was pretty good about keeping her attraction to him in check (or so she thought; Lila had offered a differing opinion), but sometimes she did allow herself her little fantasies, when it seemed harmless. It was innocent enough to put her cheek on his shoulder: friends could do that! And that way she would be aware if he awoke and began to move. It was practical.

She counted his heartbeats until sleep took her. Her dreams were strange, all disjointed and made more of sensations than events. They bled into each other and were too abstract to last past the point of waking. When she awoke, she didn't know how long she had slept, but it didn't feel like very long. Someone was speaking to her.

"What?" she mumbled, lifting her head from the warmth of Scott's shoulder.

It was Scott who was talking. She had awoken in the middle of his sentence. "—altogether grey," he said.

She smiled happily and started to sit up. "Are you feeling—" The smile vanished when she saw his face. "—better?"

His forehead was beaded with sweat, hair plastered to it. His shirt was shirt damp and his skin flushed red, blotchy and bright. His eyes were open, but they were glazed, unfocussed. They stared upward at something only he could see.

"Twine is twisted, twined, another desert of scratches," Scott muttered. "The fullness of months breathes rhyme. And rhythm of anchors creates new tides. Not mine."

She brought her hands to his head slowly, taking care to appear non-threatening. He seemed incapacitated, but she knew better than to put much stock in his appearance as an indicator of his harmlessness. Scott was a weapon honed to its finest point, and needed to be treated as such when he was not in control of himself. Fortunately, he did not react when she placed the back of her hand to his heated skin.

"Shoot, you're burning up," she whispered. "Scott? Scott!"

It took a few soft pats on his chest, but he finally looked at her instead of past her. "Scully? Hey, Day."

"No, it's Sophie. See?" She moved a bit closer to him, pushing her hair away from her face.

"Sophie," he repeated. "I know you. You always look like a heart. I love your heart."

Her heart actually fluttered a little at his nonsensical, wonderful endearment, but the important thing was that he recognised her, and was therefore much more likely to cooperate. "I love your heart, too. I need to move you into the bathroom, okay?"

"Wha's in there?" he said.

"Cold water so your brain doesn't boil," she said lightly. "Can you walk?"

"Only all the time," he scoffed. "These lines will lead and be led, canvassed."

She was losing him again. "Scott, can you look at me? Please?"

His eyes snapped back to her. "Sophie."

"I'm here. Can we stand you up, now?" She put his arm over her shoulders and lifted, more or less forcing him out of the bed. He ended up on his feet, but was far from steady.

"You have the best amazing tits, Sophie. They're so awesome," Scott slurred.

"Oh…!" she trilled, eyes wide. "That's… sweet of you to say. Here we go, we're moving now."

As they made their slow way over to the bathroom she was relieved that Scott did nothing more than lean heavily against her and occasionally try to shuffle off in a different direction. She didn't want to have to fend off any advances, or even injure him further if he couldn't keep his hands to himself.

"This floor is cold," Scott mused when they stepped into the tiled bathroom. "But it's room temperature, an extension of the same geometry and measured air. This perceived differential is due to a process known as conglutination."

"Conduction," Sophie corrected. "Hey! What are you doing?"

"I wanna stand in the warm Euclidean plane," Scott hazily explained as he tried to turn around and return to the bedroom.

"No, you're too warm already, that's the problem," Sophie said, gently guiding him back onto the tile.

"Scott?" someone said from the doorway. Sophie turned around to see Hermione leaning in, one hand on the door frame and curiosity stamped on her features. "I— I couldn't sleep, my knees don't want to cooperate no matter what side I lie on. I popped in to see if Scott was well, or at least better," Hermione explained, staring at Scott as he swayed on his feet. "That must not be the case…"

"Hermione, you're a star," Scott said in wonder.

"That's me: ever so popular," Hermione said with a weak smile that didn't overcome the concern in her eyes.

"He means in the shape, you're a bright Prime," Sophie interpreted.

"I am the Lizard King," Scott proclaimed, walking straight towards the doorpost.

Hermione, to her credit, did not laugh. "I think you need to look at reality and not the shape, for the moment."

"He can't tell the difference," Sophie said, guiding Scott towards the bath.

"Christ, it's cold in here," Scott mumbled as she put her arms under his and lowered him into the bathtub.

Normally, she would have been on his case for his language, but she was going to cut him some slack given the situation. "It's not cold, you're running a high fever."

Scott looked right at her, and said matter-of-factly, "Our threads will not intersect the way you want them to. The reason in me is dying."

She pressed a pale hand to his flushed cheek. "Scott, you're scaring me. Please come back."

"What can I do? Is there anything?" Hermione said helplessly.

Sophie put one hand behind Scott's head, protecting the back of it from the tile wall, and lay the other over his arms. "Turn on the cold water. But, back away quick!"

"I'm sorry about the decorations, Hermione, don't be bright at me," Scott said, watching her through uncomprehending eyes.

"I'm not… _bright_, at you, you're forgiven," Hermione reassured him. "This is going to be very uncomfortable, but I promise it's for the best. All right?" She turned on the water, and it shot with a hiss from the shower head and poured over Scott, pooling in the wrinkles of his clothing.

He immediately began to struggle. "Agh!" he coughed, turning his head against the spray and kicking his feet. He nearly threw Sophie's arm off before she tightened her grip, knowing that if he began to fight with full strength she had no chance of keeping him restricted. "I can't swim in this! Fuck, it's so cold—"

"It's okay, you're just in the shower—" Sophie said, trying to get him to look at her.

"Get off me, we've got men in the surf!"

"Scott! You're in the tub, you're okay—"

"I can't breathe—"

"Yes, you can, take a deep breath!"

"Sophie, _help!"_

His pleading tore at her, but she stubbornly held him down. "There's air, you can breathe, see?" she lowered her face and gently blew on his mouth and nose. Hermione, demonstrating some quick thinking, moved the nozzle so the shower no longer struck Scott's face.

It took a minute, but Scott subsided, relaxing into the tub and leaning his head back, staring at the ceiling. Sophie cupped water in her hands and ran it over his hair and burning ears. He was shivering, arms wrapped around himself protectively as he witnessed whatever madness the shape was inflicting on his mind. He was having an episode of sensitivity that was very similar to what many overcognizants experienced. And that made Sophie so afraid for him that it was all she could do to keep wiping water over his heated skin and not demand answers that he wasn't capable of giving her.

She had been young, but she remembered the fits that her cousin had gone through before he had been sent to Ara Collis, spoken of in hushed conversations amongst the family. Not all overcognizants were born totally incapacitated: age and experience brought a greater connection the shape, and, with it, greater dangers to the mind. Her cousin had never been fully functional, but she knew of the rare case when someone toed the line, ready to slip over. She had always been aware that Scott was highly connected to the shape, experiencing physical symptoms of disorientation during upheavals that left Sophie merely discomfited.

But she had never seen Scott go through anything like what she was witnessing. He would have been medically discharged for certain if he had. Which left her wondering if all the training he had received and effort he had exerted were finally taking their toll in a terrible fashion.

She blinked away a sudden image of Scott, limp and vacant in a bed at Ara Collis, and hoped she was just overreacting. Of course, on the rare occasions that Lila had confided the same fear to Sophie, Sophie had told the other woman that _she_ was overreacting. Sophie desperately hoped she wasn't going to have to regret those platitudes.

She took a short breath and looked back at Scott's eyes, determined to concentrate on the problem at hand. His fever seemed to be dropping, and the shock of the water had brought him back to reality, at least somewhat. His gaze was no longer unfocussed, if not entirely lucid.

"How do you feel?" she asked him, stroking a hand across his hairline.

"Cold," he said, blinking rapidly. "That feels good."

"The cold?"

"Your hand. You have such tiny hands, I like them. You don't paint your nails."

"I do sometimes," she protested, looking at her petite fingers.

"Nail polish is weird."

"Well, you know how us field girls accessorise. I just almost never think of it anymore, even at home," she said, trying to sound cheery. "I bet Hermione or Ginny have some polish; what colour should I paint them?"

"I have a charm for that, actually," Hermione offered.

"No, nail polish is weird," Scott grumbled insistently.

"Okay, it's weird," Sophie agreed, just happy he was making even a little bit of sense. "Are you—"

"Your hands are like little doves, they always flutter and land on things so lightly. Then you wring them when you worry and they get all red," Scott rambled. "You shouldn't be red, you should be, you are, is like porcelain. Silk and porcelain. And emeralds. And twisty chocolate hair."

Sophie was grateful that Hermione had been there to assist, but she was starting to wish that she were alone with Scott, at least until he regained a filter between his brain and mouth. "My hair _is_ twisty, it's true," she said, unable to truly engage with such a strange, and yet somehow flattering, description of herself. "We can turn off the water soon and get you back to bed."

"Chocolate hair, but, was not, um, chocolate like your cake."

"My cake?"

"The big cake you had. With frosting like this." Scott held up his thumb and index finger, measuring about half an inch apart. "It was green."

Sophie searched her memory for a cake fitting that criteria. "…At my birthday party? When I had it at the cliff house?"

"With the frosting like this." Scott made the motion again, though the measurement was quite a bit different. Sophie assumed he had it right the first time.

"You do love your frosting," she said fondly, brushing his hair back from his forehead. He had let it grow out; she actually couldn't remember the last time he had it so long. She knew, to her disappointment, that he would probably have Lila shear it back down soon.

"It was good, not, not the cheap stuff, sugar and… sugar. You always buy so much. And I just ate it. You always spend too much. Could have got something that does more. Bullets. Not frosted."

He wasn't gaining much in the way of coherency, but his fever had gone down, so she was relatively hopeful that he would sleep it off soon. "It was for the cake, Scott, I don't need bullets for a party. You were supposed to eat the frosting. What else are you going to do with it?" she said.

He shrugged, though his shoulders weren't in sync. "I dunno. I wanted to lick it out your pussy."

"_Okay…!"_ Sophie squeaked, standing up like a shot. She put her hands on Hermione's shoulders and steered her towards the door. "And out _you _go—"

Hermione's cheeks were scarlet. "Yes, I— that's all right, then. I'll just leave. Goodnight," she stammered, mortified. She limped out into the hallway, shutting the door behind her.

Sophie turned around and went back in, shutting off the water (though it seemed like Scott might still benefit from a cold shower). She couldn't be mad at him, he had no idea what he was even saying, or admitting, which was incredibly frustrating because if she couldn't be angry, what was she supposed to be? Calm, probably. Accepting of his words as a by-product of his delirium. Using her medical detachment to prevent herself from visualising Scott on his knees with frosting on his fingers and his face between her thi— nope nopeNOPE_._ It didn't matter how unfair it was that he could say something like that without real consequence. His words were a symptom of a continuing problem. Scott was sick and she had to help him and she wasn't going to think about frosting or fingers or his lips and tongue lapping up two kinds of sweetness from her…

…Until later. When she was alone.

The audible chattering of Scott's teeth was enough to move such thoughts to the back of her mind. With a bit of difficulty, she managed to get him to raise his arms so she could pull off his ruined shirts. The next stage was a bit trickier: she draped a towel over him and reached underneath it to swiftly remove his pants and underwear in a single, easy motion. His modesty thus preserved (even if he wasn't in a state to appreciate it), she sat him up further and wrapped the towel tightly around his midsection, using a second towel to dry his hair.

He suffered through her administrations without comment, blinking slowly. He seemed to be growing sleepy as the shock of the cold water wore off.

"Time to stand up," she told him, neatly folding the towel she had used on his hair and setting it near the sink.

He looked down at his bare chest. "Have I lost weight?" he said vaguely.

"Some. You need to sleep and eat more, I've been telling you that." She took his hands and raised him to his feet.

"I want a shirt," he demanded, hunching over uncomfortably.

"I know you do. If you go lay down for just a second, I'll get you one."

She was able to move him back to the bed without him giving her any trouble or saying anything inappropriate (not that he was ever especially appropriate even when coherent, but there were levels to that sort of thing). She gave him the shirt he had asked for and was pleased to see him put it on without assistance, even if he did struggle somewhat. She debated whether or not to offer him a pair of pants, but by the time he had the shirt on and had his head on the pillow, he was shaking again.

"Are you cold?" she asked, already knowing the answer. He needed to be wearing more below the waist than a damp towel. She knew he always slept in boxers and a t-shirt, minimum, so she retrieved a pair of underwear and slid it up to his knees. "Can you do it the rest of the way?"

She had to guide his hands to the waistband, but he pulled up the underwear himself and she took the towel back to the bathroom, leaving it with the rest of the sodden clothing on the floor of the shower. Returning to him, she pulled the covers up to his chest and tucked them in around his shoulders. He instantly relaxed, going limp, though there was still a slight tremor in his jaw.

She crawled over him once again and shifted up to the headboard, cradling his head against her stomach. "Better?"

"I don't wanna see so much anymore. I'm scared," he said drowsily.

Tears prickled in her eyes — she kept her head up and breathed evenly through her nose, not wanting him to see that she was scared, too. But she didn't have any answers, so she held him a bit more tightly and slowly stroked his hair, the comfort being all she had to offer. "Hold you up, when you fall down… Hold you up, when you fall down…" she sang quietly. "This isn't just, the way we were, it's how we're bound…"

She knew she wasn't much of a singer, and Scott's slide into slumber probably had more to do with his exhaustion than her unschooled voice. His eyes closed and his breathing slowed as he slipped into what was hopefully a sightless sleep.

She waited about forty minutes before she carefully extracted herself from the bed. Stepping out into the hall, she shut the door and took her comunit from her pocket. She called Lila, hoping the other woman might have some answers.

Lila answered after a few rings, her voice raspy with sleep. "Yes?"

"Something happened with Scott and I don't know what it is," Sophie said, discarding any pleasantries.

There were some rustling sounds, perhaps as Lila sat up in her bedding. "What happened?"

"They broke the spell on their own and woke up, and we destroyed the object, but Scott looked pretty bad. And then he fainted," Sophie told her friend.

"Exhaustion?"

"I don't think so," Sophie said anxiously. "He isn't injured. He woke up a little while ago and he had a high fever and delirium."

"You might want to ask Hermione, when it comes to magic—"

"No, no he was… He was stuck in the shape. Shape sick, and hallucinating," Sophie explained. Lila was silent for long enough that Sophie felt compelled to speak again, adding, "Um, I think he's better. I put him in the shower and the shock brought him back a little, and his fever went down. But, do you know…"

Sophie paused, unsure of what the most delicate phrasing would be. It was an uncomfortable line of questioning, to ask if Scott had demonstrated any recent symptoms of overcognizance. She wasn't a family member (though she felt like maybe she almost was — close enough, right?).

Lila still didn't speak. Sophie fidgeted nervously, the silence weighing more with every passing second. Unable to stand it, she said, "Maybe it's nothing! He did some strange things in the Horcrux dream, I'm told, so it's probably related, it's that. If he had to shape the whole time and then the spell breaking that he was tied to, if he was working on it right then, maybe it… You know, something new. And weird," she finished lamely, not sure where she was going with her attempted explanation.

"I've never seen him have an episode like what you're describing without a physical root cause," Lila said. Her tone of voice was cool, unsentimental: a façade. It might have worked on someone else, but Sophie had been Lila's friend for too long to be fooled. "He's never said anything to indicate otherwise."

"Right, so, it could be something new, maybe a one time thing. I mean, he uses the shape all the time and it's not a problem for him."

"If he'd had an episode like this, he would have washed out," Lila said firmly.

Silence descended once again, haunted by what had been left unsaid. Scott's last evaluation had been awhile back. And even if his current episode was the first, it could easily be the first of many.

Sophie didn't want to be entertaining that thought, never mind have to speak it. "Okay, well, I'll keep an eye on him and let you know when he's recovered. I'll make him call you," she said.

"Yeah, tell him I want to talk." Lila didn't put any particular emphasis on 'talk', but no doubt Scott would interpret it as a threat irrespective of how Sophie relayed the message.

After the short conversation, Sophie immediately returned to Scott's side. He was still sleeping, breaths slow and even. She crawled over the covers and placed her head back on his shoulder. Whatever should happen next, she would be there.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note<strong>

I once read a series of articles about _50 Shades of Grey; _specifically, a takedown of the book and all the ways in which it is horrible (there are many). It was an amusing way to pass some time, and I recall the excerpts from the novel being almost ludicrously terrible, to the point where if they had been posted elsewhere, free of context, I would have had no trouble at all believing that _50 Shades_ had been written as an intentional parody.

But the moment I remember the most was noticing the protagonist's repeated usage of 'holy crap', that mild, always versatile epithet. And as I thought about it, this sort of frozen feeling descended on me — hadn't Scott said that at some point? Surely he must have, along with all the more severe versions. And, if he had, was it just as laughably bad? Did it come across as stupid?

Dialogue worries me. I've talked a bit about the different aspects of the story that I spend a great deal of time polishing: all that narrative introspection, chapter titles and the like. But I've noticed that dialogue tends to be fanfiction's Achilles heel. Even authors who can slap together blocks of narrative which are readable, if often graceless, struggle to make people talk like people and _especially_ struggle to make people talk like _unique_ people. Even the deep frustrations of badly exercised punctuation can be less distracting than a cast of characters who all speak in the same voice. Or, perhaps you've encountered the characters who repeat, ad nauseam, the same awkward turns of phrase, or speak in nothing but clunky, period-laden statements. No flow, no personality, no reality. Holy crap, indeed.

It engenders a certain panic to realize that your work may unintentionally resemble something that you would very much prefer it not to. I had the instinct to immediately remove every instance of Scott saying 'crap' in the story. Why not 'shit', instead? Why not 'holy fuckballs'? But suppressing that impulse is, I believe, the right thing to do for the character. Sometimes Scott uses the word 'crap'. It's common parlance, and not necessarily indicative of the kind of literary stiffness that pervades _50 Shades_ (which, judging from all that I've read from it, suffers more from a literary rigor mortis).

Still, the worry remains. And the mirror of that worry is the equal fear that editing the dialogue _too_ much will strip it of whatever original varnish it contained. There must be a balance, somewhere in there, and I fear that I too often fail to find it.

How is the dialogue in this story perceived? Is there too much, too little (probably not too little, I'm thinking)? Do my readers feel that the characters are properly delineated, that each has a voice which is not shared by another, that they use personalized expressions and cadences? If there are any which are too similar, then which ones? I think Lila sounded a lot like adult Scott in the early going of TTM, until she gained enough lines and narrative focus for the differences to come across (I hope). I also would like to say that Sophie has one of the most unique vocal styles in the story — but maybe she hasn't been around long enough for that to come across, despite my intentions.

Writing can be frustrating, certainly. Sometimes I feel like I'm too close to the story to tell when it's bad, and sometimes I feel like I'm too close to tell when it's _good. _And sometimes I feel like my reviewers are too easy on my dialogue due to the state of fanfiction in general, not because of any particular merit on my part.

Holy crap, enough of this shit. I hope you liked the chapter, character-driven as it was.


	28. While You Unravelled

**28**

**While You Unravelled**

* * *

><p>"<em>Of the sixty-four major planets within the<br>__Republic, only seventeen have history  
><em>_which predates the Imperium. Common  
><em>_wisdom would have it that this is due to a  
><em>_combination of the Imperium's aggressive  
><em>_colonization efforts and its equally strident  
><em>_attempts to destroy records pertaining to  
><em>_the nation-states and lesser confederations  
><em>_which it absorbed. As is often the case, common  
><em>_wisdom gives us only part of the picture.  
><em>_The Imperium, even at its height, comprised  
><em>_less than thirty percent of the Republic today.  
><em>_The shadows of the Emperors loom large over  
><em>_our culture because we allow them to. The  
><em>_Imperium was not so mighty, not so vast, as it  
><em>_seems we prefer to imagine — certainly, as the  
><em>_Imperium wanted itself to be imagined._

_Would-be Emperors should, over the course of  
><em>_this book, take note: Even a single world is  
><em>_beyond a single mind, and your reach does  
><em>_not so much exceed your grasp as it equals it.  
><em>_The qualifier being, neither will ever match  
><em>_your estimation."_

—K. J. La Forge, Foreword to _Gods of Dark Space: The Last Epoch of the Kharadjai Imperium_

* * *

><p>Tonks considered herself an open-minded sort of woman. She made the effort to befriend people, to make them feel welcome. The world was hard enough without everyone being grumpy. If people spent more time being pleasant and less time trying to get ahead, perhaps getting ahead wouldn't be so costly.<p>

As such, she felt that her presence had been keenly missed at Shell Cottage. She hadn't been around much like some of the other Order members had — she'd been busy on the outside. Her original plan of action had been to stay with the Ministry as long as possible, working from within as a spy. In retrospect, that had been damn optimistic considering how much the enemy knew of her background. The skirmish at Bill's wedding had put an end to all that, along with the disappearance of Arthur's two youngest. Even the dullest Death Eater could put those facts together, and after the Weasleys had been forced into hiding the rest of the Order had decided that pretending innocence was pointless.

Tonks hadn't let the loss of her Ministry position stop her from fighting back. But whilst she had been out and about, finding Muggle-borns before the Snatchers did, other aspects of the Order's operation had been neglected. Namely, getting to know (and retaining) their allies. Or, at least one particular ally.

Granted, retention didn't seem to be that much of a problem. Lila Kharan appeared determined to stick around no matter how blatantly the residents of Shell Cottage ignored her. To be fair, most of that treatment had been coming from Order members other than the Weasleys. Though Molly was the only person on close terms with the enigmatic woman, Bill and Arthur had established some manner of peace with her presence.

Remus had reported that Harry had claimed Lila could be trusted, though the reasons for that faith had gone unexplained. Tonks reckoned that Harry was at least a fair judge of character. In practical terms, though, the point that had kept anyone from attempting to force Lila to leave was her relationship with Molly; that, and the fact that Lila already knew too much, and it might be safer to keep her close at hand.

Tonks thought they could do better than that. Perhaps all Lila needed was another friendly face? The woman was a fighter, and a deadly one. Tonks had seen that with her own eyes. The Order needed fighters, as many as it could gather (though mass recruitment was impossible when they didn't know who they could trust). It was foolish to ignore an asset, especially an asset resolute enough to disregard the fact that she had been implicitly refused. And _especially_ an asset that had already proven herself fully capable of taking life when necessary. If Tonks could get Lila to open up a little, perhaps the Order would be more willing to include the woman.

Lila was definitely disinclined to be excluded: Tonks had seen her listening unobtrusively during meetings. When Remus had gone to see Harry, Lila had more or less bullied her way into providing him with transport. Perhaps her insistence had come off as calculated to some of the others, and Tonks agreed, to an extent: she reckoned Lila didn't do much of anything without ample consideration. But Tonks had watched as Lila shot at Death Eaters, standing sentinel over Harry's friends. That had left a more positive impression, and she wasn't sure why the Order had been so reluctant to take advantage of the skills Lila obviously had to offer. Was the woman really so unapproachable? Or did the boys just resent a tough bird like Lila forcing her way into their club?

That was a bit unfair of Tonks, she knew. Remus certainly didn't think like that. But she couldn't help but wonder if Lila's buxom build and flawless features had been a mark against her. Tonks' own femininity had been an occasional handicap in the Aurors, so she could relate. Lila's help might have been more readily accepted if she looked like Kingsley.

Or perhaps that was rubbish, and it was just that no one knew what to make of Lila. Molly could be a commanding woman, but she didn't involve herself much in the Order's decisions. Tonks had more pull — or at least she had _better_, she was putting her arse on the line same as everyone. If Tonks said Lila was all right, they would put Lila out there once, at least, just to see what she could do.

Tonks definitely wouldn't mind having another girl on board. She got along with most of the blokes just fine, but sometimes all the testosterone got a bit stifling.

She found Lila out behind the cottage, near the sea. The statuesque blonde was contemplating an object in her hand — it looked like a Muggle mobile. Tonks had never been obsessed with technology the way that Arthur was, but she had been curious, on occasion. The 'firearm' Lila had used at Hogwarts had been loud, messy, and deadly effective. Prior to that, Tonks had never seen Muggle weapons at work. It had been sobering to realise that the Muggles were quite a bit more dangerous than common wisdom held.

But if the Order could have a dangerous Muggle of their own (or something close to it; Lila was obviously a witch to some degree), that would be something, wouldn't it?

"Lovely day," Tonks said in greeting. She strode over to Lila and stuck out her hand. "Tonks. I know we've met, but let's make it proper."

Lila was slow to respond. She studied Tonks with cool composure, her eyes a dove grey that would have been soothing were they not so unreadable. Tonks began to feel a bit silly, standing there with her hand out, but didn't want to back down.

After a long moment, Lila tucked her Muggle device back into a pocket and took Tonks' hand. "Lila."

"That's a pretty name," Tonks commented. "Do you spell it with two Ls, or is there an H on the end, as well?"

"Neither. It's spelled the same as 'Lyle-lah', just pronounced differently."

"Is that how they say it in America?"

"It's how I say it," Lila said shortly.

Tonks had assumed that Lila's exclusion had been primarily the work of suspicious, overprotective men, but it seemed as if the alienation might not be quite so one-sided. Lila was a bit guarded, to say the least.

"Well, I like it," Tonks told her. They lapsed into a short silence, punctuated by the ocean's constant swells. "…It must be dreadful to be trapped here all the time, I don't know how you do it. I'd go mental in about a day, full stop. Do you like to read?"

"Sometimes."

"I do, myself. Bit partial to the sorts of books that you don't read in polite company, if you catch my meaning. Bloody awful writing, half the time, but it's not the _prose_ I'm after. Oh, but don't tell Remus. I reckon he thinks I'm a bit scholarly, if you can believe that."

The corners of Lila's mouth twitched upward, and Tonks thought they might be making progress. "We're entitled to our little vices."

"That's what I say! I ran into Sirius once when he was leafing through one of those old porn magazines he was so proud of, the great prat. I think he expected me to be appalled, but I was just narked 'bout all the shite he'd given me for my choice of reading material, and there _he _was with bloody big tits splashed across the page, one of those bints what looks like they're about to tip over — oh, no offence—"

"None taken."

"Anyway, after that I told him I didn't want to hear a bloody peep out of him even if he saw me flipping through an issue of _Huge Fat Cocks. _He gave his word of honour, though he was laughing hard enough to near wet himself. He always liked a good laugh, even if it were on him…" Tonks trailed off, the memory hitting her harder than she had expected.

"You miss him."

"Yeah. I just hadn't thought about that in awhile." Tonks took a short breath, steadying herself and getting back on topic. "I wanted to come out and say that I know things haven't been too friendly 'round here, save for Molly. But I hope you can look at it from our view. We're trying to survive, and we don't know who we can trust. You want to help and that's brilliant, we need it. But, it would be even better if you could tell me more than just, your brother is friends with Harry and you fight the Muggle way."

"What would you accept?" Lila asked, her expression unchanged.

"Well, you snuffed out some Death Eaters, so that's a pretty brilliant start," Tonks said with a congratulatory smile. "Could tell me why you're so keen to hang about?"

"My brother and I have divided our mission. As I told Bill, we're soldiers. My job is to protect the Weasley family. The spell on the cottage takes care of that, so I'm free to assist the Order."

It was more than a bit strange for a young woman to claim that she and her teen brother were soldiers. Tonks decided to focus on the second part of Lila's statement for the time being. "Is that why you helped Remus?"

"He needed a ride, and I can drive."

"What else can you do?"

Lila's bearing became more rigid. "I'm trained in the use of a variety of Muggle small arms. My primary combat role is fire support, I'm a first-tier support gunner with expert-level training and veteran-level combat experience. I'm also qualified as a second-tier combat medic."

"That's all quite impressive," Tonks said dutifully, trying not to let her confusion offend the other woman. Lila clearly took pride in her qualifications, even if they didn't mean much to Tonks. "But, what does that mean, more… Practically?"

Lila leaned back against the wall. "It means I know how to fight, and I'm good at it."

Which Tonks had already seen, if briefly. At least Lila was actually answering questions; the woman didn't seem quite as unfriendly as some of the Order members seemed to think she was. "How did Dumbledore recruit you?"

"My brother approached him. Scott offered support to Harry, and Dumbledore agreed to make that possible. I was part of the package."

"So you just up and volunteered?" Tonks said a bit sceptically.

Lila fixed Tonks with a look of mild condescension. "If you think Riddle is only a threat to wizarding England, you need to think again."

"Well, I won't try to argue with that!" Tonks said, readily conceding the point. "Who gave you all that training, though?"

"No one you would be familiar with."

"It's a secret, eh?"

"There are a number of things I'm not at liberty to tell," Lila stated.

Tonks had been an Auror long enough to have given similar answers to people, and she felt that she had hit upon something that Lila was never going to explain no matter how hard she was pushed. She also had the notion that Lila's disclosures had little to do with Tonks' questions or manner — Lila seemed ready to talk for her own reasons.

"I won't ask you to break an oath, but I'm sure you know that's going to make it harder to trust you," Tonks said.

"You don't have to trust me. You just have to use me."

Tonks intended to do just that. "We might get a chance to. I popped in for a meeting tonight, we just got word that the Snatchers are about to go after some poor sod. We've got someone who might be able to tell us who it is."

"Have you confronted them directly before?" Lila asked.

"No, we've been lucky so far. Always one step ahead, usually gone by the time they show up. They aren't exactly punctual: load of old wankers wearing costumes and playing soldier. 'Course, they get a lot more than we save. We can't be everywhere."

"You can make them worried that you might be."

"Easier said than done. If we weren't so bloody outnumbered…"

"I think I could make an impression on them, given the opportunity."

That was what Tonks wanted to hear. "Come on, then! We're supposed to meet in about an hour. The others'll give you a chance, I'd wager, if you attend."

"We'll see," Lila said, not sounding all that convinced.

For the next half hour or so, Tonks continued trying to coax whatever information she could out of Lila. It wasn't easy; Lila immediately shut down any attempt to discuss her origins beyond the flat in Ottery St. Catchpole, and never forgot herself no matter how convoluted the conversation became. It could be frustrating, at times, but Lila never became hostile, even when Tonks strayed towards more restricted topics. She seemed to be willing to meet Tonks halfway in gestures of friendship, becoming less aloof with every passing minute. Tonks was pleased to see her assumption proving true: Lila's reserve was difficult to crack, but not impossible.

"—and he had all of them, every last one. For a guy who disparages my decorating, he sure as hell made use of my throw pillows. All I could see were his feet sticking out," Lila said.

"What did you do?" Tonks asked.

"I jumped on him."

"Yes!" Tonks cackled. "Did he scream?"

"He goes, 'Lil, you fat lard, get offa me!'. I'm like, 'I'll lay on my pillows whenever I want.'"

"He sounds like quite the—" Tonks broke off when the door to the cottage opened, and Remus came hurrying out. He was breathing hard, and his wand was clenched in one hand. "Oi, luv! Did you just pop in?" she said.

"We found the target, and there's not much time," Remus said quickly. "We've a Portkey inside, Alastor and Bill are already there."

"Then why don't they grab them and go?" Tonks said, confused.

"The Snatchers arrived first," Remus said grimly. "This relocation just became rescue."

Bad news, indeed. The Order preferred to avoid direct confrontation by necessity; if Alastor and Bill hadn't already left, they must have thought it possible to win the fight.

"Who else?" Tonks said, following Remus back inside.

"Just us and Charlie. And there's no time to wait for more."

"Well, lucky for us, I thought ahead." She nodded in Lila's direction. "Just us and Charlie, plus one."

Remus cast a concerned glance in Lila's direction, though he did not protest. "You're coming, as well?" he said to Lila.

"Where's the Portkey?" she asked.

"Charlie has it in the sitting room."

"I'll meet you there," Lila said, heading towards the stairs.

Remus spoke quietly to Tonks as they hurried towards the front rooms of Shell Cottage. "You believe she can be trusted?"

"You really think she can't after all that's happened?" Tonks shrugged. "Her brother is with Harry right now, we all know that. If they wanted to sell us out, I think we'd bloody well be sold."

"No, I agree," Remus said with a faint smile. "But no one else has been allowed to join without revealing more of themselves."

"I know, luv. Extreme circumstances, and all that."

Charlie was waiting for them, a large, half-melted candle on the table nearby. Tonks assumed that it was the Portkey.

"Wotcher, Charlie," Tonks said, giving him a quick hug. "Been awhile, yeah?"

"I thought I wasn't going to get to see you again before I went back to Romania," Charlie said with a smile. "Ready to show the Snatcher's how things really work around here?

"I wouldn't miss it."

Lila came back downstairs with a baggy black jacket pulled over her green t-shirt, carrying an enormous rucksack in one hand. She joined them, glancing down at the candle with an odd look on her face. "What is that?" she said.

"The Portkey," Remus told her. "Have you travelled by one before?"

"No. What do I need to know?"

"The first time can be a bit disorienting. Here, I should probably carry that for you," Remus offered. Lila nodded and handed him the rucksack; Tonks watched Remus' eyes widen comically as his arm stretched downwards to a painful final jolt when he took the full burden of Lila's items. He caught himself before he fell over, leaning back against the weight.

Lila put her hand back out. "Do you need me to—"

"No, I've got it," Remus said, embarrassed. "Everyone touch the Portkey, we've little time to waste."

Tonks had never liked travelling by Portkey — always made her a trifle nauseous, not that she had ever told anyone. The Portkey activated and she felt the familiar tug somewhere deep in her midsection. When she landed — managing to stay on her feet and even look slightly dignified, to her delight — she looked up just in time to see Lila hopping back up after rolling neatly across the ground. Not a bad solution for the impact, considering she was a first-timer. Tonks vividly remembered ending up face down after her first jaunt through a Portkey.

She didn't know where they'd ended up, but it was somewhere in the country. They were in the middle of grazing land, old stone walls zigzagging across the hills and valleys like grey lines across crumpled green paper. Several shaggy cows on the other side of a nearby wall watched, incurious, as the Order party collected itself. Down the hill was an animal pen with a collapsed roof, and past that stood a lovely little cottage just off a narrow road, surrounded by hedges.

Bill and Moody were huddled behind one of the stone walls along the edge of the cottage's back garden. Tonks crouched to stay out of line of sight, letting the wall shield her as she made her way over to them. She didn't see any Snatchers or Death Eaters, but they must have been there, somewhere. Probably already inside.

Moody didn't waste any time with greetings. "There's four inside; could be five, if we missed one. Two more in the front, watching the road."

So at least they weren't outnumbered too badly, considering how lopsided the numbers usually were. Tonks peered over the top of the wall, but the reflecting light off the window made it impossible to see inside the cottage. She thought she could hear a raised voice, however; it sounded like a man.

"We'd better get in there before they decide they've learned enough," Remus said.

"Before they run out of things to steal, more like," Moody growled. "We're going to do this proper, with an Anti-Disapparation Jinx. No one leaves."

"I'll flank around the right. When you hit the back, I'll take care of the sentries and rush the front door. Watch your fire in that direction," Lila said with casual authority. From her rucksack she removed a metal construction with a dull finish, long and angular and covered with strange ridges and patterns. With a sharp click, she attached to it a translucent curved box filled with what looked like tiny spears, and then unfolded one end of the machine with another snap, lengthening it.

Moody eyed the device with a wary combination of suspicion and respect. "All right. But make it quick."

"Of course. Tonks, on me."

Charlie was looking at the narrow door into the back of the cottage. "Think I'll just be in the way. I'll slip around the side, see if there's a window I can use."

"Should be good at that, all the times you popped out for a twilight snog," Bill said mockingly.

"Hark who's talking, brother. We've both been out a window or two," Charlie retorted with a grin. "Try not to start without me."

"No, move in teams," Lila instructed. "Someone go with him."

"She's right," Moody said tersely. He might have been snappish because the new girl was giving orders, but it was hard to tell with Mad-Eye. 'Terse' was just about the only way he said anything. Tonks had spent a considerable amount of time thinking he virulently disliked her before she twigged on.

Bill sighed. "And I'd thought my window climbing days were over."

"Come on, old man: one more for the memories," Charlie told him, and together they went down the wall towards the side of the house that was in shadow.

"On me," Lila said again to Tonks.

The stone wall ran to the right, where it was bisected by another wall running perpendicularly, creating four corners. Lila swiftly traversed the obstacle, vaulting over in a low position that kept her weapon pointed towards the cottage. Tonks would have liked to imitate the motion, but didn't trust herself not to muck it up with her unpredictable clumsiness.

Lila paused for a short moment halfway along the second wall, looking towards the sky. "What is it?" Tonks whispered.

Lila shook her head in reply, and kept moving. At the front of the cottage the road wound off in either direction, over the hillocks. Two men in shabby robes stood watch in front of a faded door set in weathered stone. From where she was, Tonks couldn't see inside, but she could hear the raised voice and what sounded like a woman pleading.

Crouching down below the lip of the wall, Lila took off her jacket and placed it over her hair. There was a crumbling gap that sunk about a foot into the uneven stone; she braced her weapon in the opening and peered through. The men standing sentry appeared bored, leaning against the wall and paying attention to their surroundings only peripherally. It was clear they had been in similar situations before, and had probably been in their current one for some time.

Tonks felt the tension course through her, taught, unbearable. She was an instrument strung too tightly, strings thrumming with the slightest vibration. Waiting wasn't her strong suit — she preferred action, immediately if at all possible. She didn't handle anticipation all that well, but did have experience with it. She was able to keep herself from fidgeting well enough. She didn't want to spoil her aim.

She glanced at Lila, who was adjusting her own aim with calm intent. "…I'm ready," Lila murmured after a moment. "I'm going to fire four to six times. Don't let the sound freeze you up."

Tonks remembered how loud the Muggle weapon had been at Hogwarts, even a hallway away. Lila had been using a much smaller one, then. Tonks didn't know if bigger meant louder, but it seemed logical.

They crouched there for what felt like forever, measured in what was actually about ten or so seconds. The sound of the signal popping over the house was overridden by the immediate report of Lila's weapon. Tonks had been expecting it, but that didn't help all that much. The sound jabbed deep into her ear, overloading it.

She actually saw the projectile; or, well, she supposed that might be impossible, but the path of it was so clear that it was if she could actually see it carve through the dusty sunlight. The Snatcher closest to the wall reacted a bit like someone might when struck unconscious, with a jolt and a wobble, toppling over. He actually put out a hand to stop himself, which was odd considering how much of his brain must have been pudding at that point — the hand brushed limply against the door as he collapsed on the step. The second man didn't have much time to react, not doing much more than turning his head to look. Tonks saw him bend his shoulders forward a bit, folding in around the two shots that hit his chest. The last shot hit him in the head, or at least Tonks thought it did; Lila fired a fourth time, but it was hard to say where it went. The Snatcher fell onto his back, unmoving.

Tonks vaulted over the wall as the second man was still coming to rest. The ringing in her ears drowned out the details, but there were spells being shouted inside the cottage. She sprinted the short distance across the garden, grass flattening beneath her feet. The window nearest the door shattered outward in a flash of purple light. Remus and the other blokes must not have had quite the advantage in surprise they had hoped for.

She burst through the front door, eager to turn the tide. She nearly ran right into a Snatcher on the other side. He shoved at her, trying to push her back out the door. She caught him by the wrist and put her wand right up to his ribs, blasting him with a non-verbal curse at point blank range. He sank to the floor, twitching.

She hopped over his shuddering form and took cover in the doorway to the loo, ascertaining that the fighting was raging between the small room at the front (where the window had been broken) and whatever rooms were at the rear. It seemed as if Remus' collective team had advanced until meeting the main force of Snatchers in the kitchen, who had reacted swiftly enough to lock down both entryways. Tonks ducked back into the loo as a hex splintered the jamb, threatening her eyes. She cursed colourfully as wooden shards cut into her cheeks and the bridge of her nose.

A sharper cacophony rose above the rest, shattering through the spells. Tonks looked cautiously around the edge of the pitted door and saw the tip of Lila's smallest weapon poking through the broken window. Of the three remaining Snatchers, two had been bombarding the back of the cottage whilst the third had spotted Tonks' entry and removal of his comrade — it was he who had hit the doorway. Lila, unopposed, had gone to the window and fired into their unguarded backs.

Two of them were dead or incapacitated before they realised they had been flanked. The third, the one closest to Tonks, fell to the floor, but then reached underneath the hanging cloth covering the nearby table. Through the curtain of the tablecloth he pulled a wriggling, shrieking form. Tonks at first thought it was one person. Then, she realised it was actually two people: a young boy, probably a first or second year, and a woman who was most likely his mother. The woman had wrapped herself around the boy, shielding him from the violence, and had refused to let go even as he'd been pulled out from their shelter.

"Stop!" the Snatcher wheezed. He yanked the two civilians close to himself and wrapped an arm around them, using the other to press his wand to the boy's throat.

The battle ceased, falling silent with eerie rapidity. In the sudden cessation, Tonks could see dark blood soaking through the Snatcher's robes. Lila hadn't missed: the man had been shot through the neck, and was losing blood at a rate that guaranteed he wouldn't be a threat for much longer.

"Let me Disapparate," the Snatcher said weakly, becoming paler by the second.

"You haven't got long," Moody growled from somewhere in the back of the cottage.

Remus' voice came then, reasonable and calm. "We can help you, but only if you let us."

The Snatcher did not respond, though Tonks wasn't certain if he _could_ respond. He had ignored Remus and Mad-Eye, instead staring at Lila with mute terror and rage. Her aim had not wavered, fixed on the top portion of his head. His hand was beginning to shake so badly that Tonks wasn't sure he could cast properly. She wasn't willing to bet the boy's life on it, though.

"If you let them go, I promise you won't be harmed any further," Remus said evenly, having also witnessed the Snatcher's fixation on Lila. As he spoke, Tonks edged out of the loo and moved silently closer, waiting for someone to speak again.

Moody's harsh voice was just loud enough to be perfect. "Don't be an idiot—"

"_Expelliarmus," _Tonks hissed.

At such a low volume the spell lacked power, but the Snatcher also didn't have much of a grip. When the spell struck him, his wand flipped out of his loose hand and clattered onto the floor. He whipped around in Tonks' direction and put his hand out to retrieve it. The motion proved too much for his drained body to handle, and he fell over with a soft sound of dismay. Tonks quickly Summoned his wand out of his reach, though he made no more attempts to recover it.

The woman let out a shuddering sigh of relief and restrained horror, clasping the boy even more tightly to herself. Lila stepped away from the window to enter through the door, and in the sunlight streaming through the broken glass Tonks could see the boy staring down over his mother's shoulder, eyes wide. He was watching a thin stream of blood course over the tile floor, snaking out from the Snatcher's neck.

The woman suddenly stood and clapped a hand over the boy's eyes. "We should go," she said with an undertone of hysteria, steering him towards the back. She flinched as her toe caught on the dying man.

Tonks had dealt with a few people in a similar state. She gently took the woman by the shoulders and led her out to the back garden. Charlie followed, making sure the door was shut behind them. The woman slumped onto the grass, legs unable to support her. She looked dazed, in shock. The boy was subdued, but kept glancing towards Tonks and Charlie with an expression of unselfconscious awe.

"You all right?" Charlie said quietly, drawing Tonks aside.

Tonks looked blankly back at him for a moment before she realised he must have been referring to the state of her face. "Bloody hell, is it that bad? Don't tell me I look like Mad-Eye. I'll never have another snog." She ran her fingers over the cuts, wincing at the sting.

"It's not that," Charlie assured her. "Worst scratch is right here, on your nose, and it's not deep. I just wondered if everything went well at the front."

Tonks gave him a mocking smile. "Lila's fine and fit, don't worry yourself, you big sod."

"Stuff it," Charlie said, stepping back with a grin. "Last time I show concern for you."

"Don't need it, do I, I've got — Remus!" Tonks said as her significant other emerged from the cottage. She quickly examined him, making certain he wasn't injured. "We got a prisoner, or…?"

"They're all dead," Remus said, looking weary. He was a gentle person at heart, more prone to the scholarly pursuits than Auror's work. She loved him for it, but the demands of the Order weighed on him more than they did her, at times. "Lila and Bill are watching the front, Moody's searching for whatever information he can find." Which, in the present situation, meant searching the bodies. Not a pleasant task, but one for which Mad-Eye was better suited than many in the Order.

"Better him than—" Tonks started to say, only to stop when Remus grasped her chin, tilting her face upwards.

"Are you hurt anywhere else?" he said with concern. "These aren't deep, but…"

"It's fine, luv, just a few scratches. Makes me look tough, real experienced. I'm like Mad-Eye, now, but still wicked hot." She winked at him.

Remus' mouth titled slightly upwards. "You won't get any argument from me," he said fondly. "Have Molly clean you up when we get back, there won't be any scarring. It's all from debris." He turned and crouched down next to the traumatised woman, who was staring at nothing. "Is there anything inside you need to take with you?" he asked.

"What?" she said distantly, jolted out of her stupor. It took a bit of coaxing on Remus' part to get her to focus, but she directed them towards a few irreplaceable heirlooms and a small stash of money. Remus hurried inside to retrieve the items whilst Tonks kept the woman company. Charlie had approached the boy and they were discussing Quidditch, neatly diverting the child's attention from his mother's ragged state.

"I was in Hufflepuff. I thought were were safe," the woman said tearfully as they waited.

Tonks had questions, but they would have to wait for a safer locale. Remus emerged and set several laden pillowcases next to the woman, apparently the only thing he could find for quick carrying. "Are we ready?" Tonks asked.

"Moody and Bill are locking up. They just need something to cover the window," he said. The Order had learned it could be advantageous to hide their actions from brief scrutiny. If one of the Dark Lord's people stopped by, it would look as if the Snatchers had already left.

Lila trotted out the door and brushed past Remus, her long weapon still at the ready. "Are they wounded?" she asked Tonks.

"These two are all right," Tonks said, surveying the mother and son they had rescued. "You?"

"Fine. Is that all superficial?" Lila waved a hand towards Tonks' face.

"Only my pride that's hurting," Tonks told her with a jaunty smile, ignoring how much the expression stung.

"'Lo, Lila," the boy said.

"Hi, Trevor," Lila said casually, as if they'd run into each other on the street.

"Where's Scott?" Trevor curiously inquired.

"Off somewhere with Harry, per usual."

"Do you know, like, has he said anything about Kylie? She never wrote me back," Trevor said solemnly.

"Kylie's fine, she's with Scott."

Trevor grinned with relief. "Oh, that's good. Did you use that gun on those gits? It was wicked loud!"

"Trevor!" his mother gasped. "Come over here!"

"Mum! I'm talking to Lila, she's Scott's sister, she was at the party like I told you," Trevor protested. He turned back to Lila. "What'd you do with the other gun, the smaller one? You had it at school, I saw."

"I still have it," Lila said.

"Trevor! _Now!"_ his mother ordered.

"Listen to your mom," Lila advised.

"All right…" Trevor sighed, walking very reluctantly to his mother's side. He seemed a resilient little bloke, that was for sure.

Bill and Mad-Eye left the cottage, magically locking the door behind them. Remus wrote down the information needed to access the safehouse they were going to, and then burned the parchment once Trevor, his mother and Lila had all read it.

Tonks remembered how excited she had been to get her Apparition license. The process had since lost its charm, especially now that she was so often using it to flee instead of for simple convenience. She gripped Lila's hand tightly and stepped sideways through the void.

Their destination was an old warehouse somewhere in Exeter, Tonks wasn't exactly sure of its location. It had once belonged to an associate of Mundungus who had since passed away. Dung had acquired it cheaply (and presumably illegally, though no one had asked him for the particulars) and had been using it to store goods for his 'business'. It was far more space than he actually needed, given the small valuables he usually trafficked in, so he had given most of the place over to the Order's needs.

It was an enormous, musty old structure of faded, water-damaged brick and puddled concrete beneath a crumbling roof, mounds of industrial rubbish piled everywhere. The dirty tiled windows were cracked, often missing panes, and the entire place smelled strongly of damp. The most habitable areas were within an upstairs area adjoining the warehouse proper, what had once been offices. The Order had cleaned up and quickly converted it into a makeshift living area, installing a few temporary walls and getting the water running again. Trevor and his mother would be the first to inhabit the repurposed offices, though they would not be the last.

"What is this place?" the woman asked, appearing more exhausted by the second. Fatigue followed shortly on the heels of adrenaline.

"A safe house for people like yourself, those persecuted by the Ministry," Remus said, leading the woman over to a rather hideous lime-green settee. "As I'm sure you've gathered, we strongly disagree with current government policy."

"But I'm a Half-blood! So is my son, and I haven't seen his father in more than seven years…" she faltered, pressing a pale hand to her face. "I'd thought we were safe…"

"So what did they want with you?" Moody said, stumping over to her. She quailed beneath his mismatched gaze.

Remus wisely stepped forward, placing himself between the woman and Moody. "It would be helpful to know why those men attacked you. Anything you can recall could be of great use to us."

"They… asked after the Andersons," she said delicately. "Neighbours of mine."

"Muggle-born?" Remus put forward.

"Yes. They went away on holiday when things took a turn. I told those men that I didn't know where they'd gone." She shuddered. "I lied. But if you hadn't arrived when you did, I don't know what I might have done…"

"But you didn't. That was very brave of you," Remus commended her. His demeanour was firm yet calming, a soothing authority. It was such an irony, his way with distraught people, when knowledge of his condition would often _make_ people distraught.

"Trevor's the brave one," the woman said with a tremulous, watery smile, running a hand over her son's tousled hair. "He tried to fight before they grabbed me. Don't know how I raised a Gryffindor, but here we are."

"I'm all right, Mum," Trevor said, standing up straighter. He'd been energetic and seemingly untroubled until a bit after their arrival at the warehouse. The shock of events was beginning to set in, and his posture suffered accordingly.

Bill leaned in to speak softly next to Tonks' ear. "Charlie and I are going back to the cottage to let everyone know how it went," he said, and Tonks knew that by 'everyone' he meant primarily his mum and his wife. "We'll see you there."

"I want to thank all of you," Trevor's mother was saying quietly as Tonks focussed back on her.

"Just doing our job!" Tonks said. Then she paused, considering the semantics. "I mean, sort of. Or is this a hobby?"

"I prefer to think of it as a duty," Remus said dryly.

"Right, not something for bob-a-job week, is it? 'Cept for all this cleaning. Glad I missed that."

Lila popped back into the room, which momentary surprised Tonks as she hadn't noticed the tall woman leaving. "Trevor, I'll make sure Kylie will write to you."

"Can't I go see her?" Trevor asked.

"Trevor! Don't be rude," his mother scolded. "And I want you to stay here."

"Sorry, kiddo," Lila said with a sympathetic tilt of her head. "But she might come to you, if we can work something out later."

"Is there anyone we can contact for you, to let them know you're all right?" Remus asked. "Family, perhaps?"

Trevor's mother nodded. "My sister, she lives in Lisburn. I can give you the address. They won't miss me at work for another two weeks, I was on holiday. Not really by choice, either. Just as well. They've been letting a lot of people go, lately, I was probably next. New management," she said grimly.

"There's a lot of that going around," Remus said.

"I know. I work at Gringotts — or _worked_, I suppose, soon enough. The Ministry's taken over. Anyone who isn't the right sort is getting shown the door. You can guess what sort I am." The woman sighed deeply. "Doesn't matter much now, does it?"

Remus nodded sadly. "I'm sorry that this has happened to you and your son. If it's any consolation, you did the right thing."

"I hope so," the woman said quietly. Trevor had fallen onto the settee next to her, and looked to be near to sleep. "At least he'll be safe here."

Tonks knew that would be true for a time, and she hoped it remained as such for the duration (whatever that might be). Those trapped within the safehouses could emerge to find a world they no longer recognised, should things progress poorly. But Tonks preferred not to dwell on such things, and had always been able to brush the thoughts aside. She felt quite good about what they had accomplished, actually. Mother and son, safe and sound, and a few more Snatchers who wouldn't be bothering any Muggle-borns. Didn't want to pat herself on the back too hard, but it was a fine job. On to the next!

Whilst Remus was finishing up, Tonks took the opportunity to go after Lila, who had slipped out again and was downstairs in the warehouse proper. The self-proclaimed soldier was poking through a heap of disassembled Muggle machinery with the toe of her boot. It didn't seem as if she were looking for anything in particular.

"Find anything valuable? I'd be surprised," Tonks said, coming up next to Lila. "Dung's already been through here, I expect, squeezed it for every last knut."

"This used to be a truck transmission," Lila said absently, looking down at the mangled shell. "Would he know what Muggle scrap is worth?"

"He had a stack of tellies in here, when we first came in. I just about nicked one; thought Remus might like it. He knows his way around Muggle things better than I ever have," Tonks said. Remus' partial estrangement from the wizarding world was not by his choice, but his status as a second-class citizen had forced upon him the knowledge necessary to navigate the Muggle world with a familiarity many Order members lacked.

"Not how to drive, apparently. Lucky for me."

"Hey, lucky for all of us. You really came through, it was bloody spectacular, especially the bloody part. Too soon? Shite, I think I've disturbed myself. Sod it, point is, we owe you one."

"I did what I had to," Lila said levelly, though she looked a bit more pleased at Tonks' praise than her words let on.

"You get it done, that's for sure. Got that whole Queen and Country, stiff upper lip thing that I do admire, really. Does it sound like I'm taking the piss? I'm not, promise. I suppose you might not have a queen, come to think of it. Well, I'm sure you can make it work."

"Bow to your Queen, worm," Lila said quietly to herself, as if remembering something.

Tonks blinked. "What's that?"

Lila looked at her with an expression of apology. "I need to make a call."

"Oh. All right, I'll just bugger off, then. See you later?"

"Next mission," Lila said, walking away.

Tonks rather thought she'd see Lila before that, though there was no telling when the Order would have to act again.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note<strong>

Fanfiction is interesting in the sense of it being an adaptation, for it often represents the 'darkening' of any medium. Consider this: how many stories are lighter-hearted than whatever they were based on? Some, but almost never a majority. Look through the stories of pretty much any sitcom, cartoon or youth-oriented movie franchise. Very few are comedic, even if the source material is (also interesting is how source material which is already very dark tends to not attract fanfictionists to begin with).

Part of this may have to do with how difficult it is to write comedy. Drama is an easier path, and one which fanfiction is naturally inclined to, as authors express the pathos that they feel when watching or reading or playing. Laughter isn't really something that's expressed the same way, and most comedies, especially more modern sitcoms like _Arrested Development _or _Community,_ have cores of serious emotion that the shows themselves tend to leave implied or reduced in impact by jokes. Comedy comes from pain, after all, and fanfiction tends to express that to the detriment of other facets.

(Sometimes I think that the angst which infuses fanfiction comes from a more personal source. We write these things because we want more of these places and people, and there isn't any more than what we're given. These worlds and characters we love — they aren't real. That's probably the worst pain of all.)

I just find it odd sometimes how many stories based on very funny shows don't even attempt to be funny. I suppose it's one thing if the characters can support that kind of pathos, but it can be a little ridiculous sometimes.

I'm not pointing a finger here, or looking down on anyone. It's not like Vis Insita is a comedy. I have the advantage, also, in the sense of my source material, which is quite dark. I would say that TTM and Vis Insita are more _explicit_ than the Harry Potter novels, but not really any darker. I've merely included the things that Rowling was unable or unwilling to make text. And since the novels are not essentially comedic in nature, I don't have to be, either. I've always been a bit taken aback by how many reviews I've received which focussed on the humour of these two stories, as I've always perceived them as being intrinsically dramatic.


End file.

Harry Potter, Adventure, Drama