The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches...

Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies...

And the Dark Lord will mark her as his equal, but she will have power the Dark Lord knows not...

And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives...

The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies...


"You already have the wizarding world, with all that it contains, so why, why Tom, why do you want the muggle world, as well? What is there in it that is of any use to you?" Albus Dumbledore pleaded of his archenemy, his wand raised and at the ready.

"Nothing." Voldemort, Dark Lord and ruler of Wizarding Britain replied almost conversationally, giving an evil grin. "It is just...why should I rule only one world when I can have TWO?"

Dumbledore, seized by a sudden rage, threw a curse Voldemort's way in the blink of an eye, which the latter aggressively redirected into the wall, blowing a hole in number twelve, Grimmauld Place's sitting room - and opening up more space for their duel to take place in.

"Why, Albus, my old friend, I'm shocked, truly." Voldemort hissed, indeed shocked, his eyes wide, and not a hint of a sneer in his voice. "You, attempting to curse me? To KILL me?"

"You may have taken this world, but I will NOT allow you to have theirs!" Dumbledore thundered, slashing his wand viciously through the air, and sending out a whip of purple flames to strike at Voldemort.

Voldemort threw up a shield, but the flames had a force behind them that was unlike any other, and the Dark Lord, shield and all, was sent flying backwards to slam into the sitting room wall.

As he rose to his feet, there was a great deal of fear evident in his face for the first time since their duel had begun. Now...now Voldemort seemed to have realized just how far he had pushed Albus Dumbledore - and he dearly regretted it.

Though, whether or not Voldemort would LIVE to keep regretting it was another question entirely.

Just as the Dark Lord moved forward to retaliate against Dumbledore, several wizards and witches engaged in a fierce duel - members of the Death Eaters and the Order of the Phoenix; Lucius and Draco Malfoy, Cho Chang, Luna Lovegood, Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger, Padma and Parvati Patil, Ron Weasley, and Cedric Diggory (the first five being, as Death Eaters, against the latter five, who were members of the Order) - brought their fight into the sitting room through the very hole Dumbledore's redirected curse had created mere moments ago.

"You may survive to flee this battle, Dumbledore," Voldemort shouted over the sounds of their dueling loyalists. "but you and your Order will have nowhere to run TO! At long last I have found you out; at long last, your precious headquarters belongs to me now!"

Dumbledore realized the very same thing, for he called out suddenly to the members of the Order, his voice magically amplified to carry to all floors, all rooms, and all corners of Grimmauld Place, former headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, "All soldiers, retreat and regroup! Disengage, and retreat immediately!"

With that order given, Albus Dumbledore, for the first time in his entire life, fled the scene of battle, and headed for the hallway that would take him out the front doors of number twelve, and onto the streets of London.

Voldemort did not hesitate to follow Dumbledore, a gleeful smile overtaking his snake-like face.


Retreat "immediately", Parvati Patil thought, as she sent a blasting curse at Cho Chang's head, didn't leave a lot of wiggle room for her to do what she so badly wanted to do: blow Cho's pretty little Chinese head to pieces for torturing and killing her three-year-old little sister, her mother, and her father last year after having found them in their hiding place in the countryside.

Parvati didn't need to even look at her twin, who had thrown a cutting curse at Cho's neck with the goal of decapitating the woman, to know that Padma felt the same way she did about Dumbledore's order to retreat - in the middle of losing headquarters to a siege by Death Eaters or not.

Unfortunately, Cho seemed to have some objections about the whole "blow her head off and decapitate her at the same time" thing that the Patil twins were angling for, because she blocked both curses with a shield charm, which was fortified by a shield charm cast around her by Luna Lovegood, her insane, pale little lover, who had gained a split second of breathing room against Hermione Granger's relentless assault and superior skill only by way of a creative sneak attack which had involved levitating (ironically) a book, and sending it zooming across the sitting room to slam into the square of Hermione's back.

Parvati unleashed another blasting curse on Cho, each second she spent looking at the woman only increasing her rage. Cho had once been a member of the Order, but she had switched sides last year; doing what she had done to Parvati and Padma's family had been a test of her loyalty to Voldemort and the Death Eaters, and one that she had passed with flying colors.

Though, Cho had not switched sides for any good - or even understandable - reason. She hadn't done it because she believed in pureblood supremacy, she hadn't done it because of even blackmail or threats to her life or the life of those she loved if she didn't join the Death Eater cause, and nor had she done it because she wanted to be with her insane girlfriend rather than AGAINST her insane girlfriend. That last one especially, Parvati could have understood and even accepted, considering the amount of former friends or even family members who had been fighting each other from on opposite sides in this long and terrible war...

But no. Cho Chang had switched sides solely because, in her own, gloating words half an hour ago when this Death Eater assault on Order headquarters had begun, and she had first found herself facing the Patil twins: "I was smart enough to join the winning team."

THAT reason - changing sides simply because YOUR side was losing - Parvati would NEVER understand and would NEVER accept.

That reason deserved only contempt and disgust.

And something very big and very heavy rammed down its traitorous throat, as Hermione - after blasting Luna clean off her feet and into the nearest wall with a resounding crack that broke through even the sounds of combat - attempted to do by conjuring a metal pole up near the high ceiling and bringing it slicing down for Cho's face, whose head had been forced back by a magical, golden noose Padma had managed to wrap around her neck.

But, as with the Patil twins' simultaneous blasting and cutting curses, it just wasn't to be.

Cho escaped the pole Hermione had intended to shove down her open mouth by looping her arms around Padma's rope and pulling herself forward. Although, despite that the pole did NOT go down her throat, it DID go right through Cho's leg, just below the knee, which pinned her to the sitting room floor like a worm on a fishing hook.

'Now you die.' Parvati thought fiercely, thrusting her wand at the helpless, traitorous, MURDERESS-of-toddlers woman. 'Bombar-!'

When Parvati suddenly found herself going from preparing to kill Cho, to rolling across the floor and slamming into a bookshelf, she did not, at first, have a clue WHAT had happened to her.

There had been no flash of light, surely no spell cast at her.

Then, as Parvati took stock of her surroundings and her own self, she realized she was entangled in a mess of pale limbs and pale hair, and that there was a pair of big, glittering blue eyes not even a foot in front of her face, which were so close that their owner could be mistaken for trying to kiss Parvati Patil.

Which, not a moment later, was EXACTLY what happened.

Parvati responded by biting down, HARD, on Luna Lovegood's probing tongue and shoving the pale freak away from her with both arms (because, to Parvati's horror, she seemed to have lost her wand when Luna had full-body-tackled her).

Scrambling to her feet (and wiping her mouth with a vigor born of disgust), Parvati was met by the sight of the backs of both her twin and Hermione, who were fighting back Cho (who had somehow freed herself from the impaling pole, and was now standing heavily on her good leg) in order, Parvati realized, to give HER time to find and take up her wand again.

Well, Parvati was not going to waste the time they were buying her. She immediately set about looking for her wand, and, very luckily, found it amidst a pile of splintered wood and cushion fluff that had once been a very expensive chair.

At about the same time Parvati picked up her wand, Luna had retrieved hers, and the former was forced to engage the latter in battle so as to prevent Luna from attacking Hermione and Padma's exposed backsides. It was really rather fortunate that, for the moment, Parvati's utter disgust at Luna's stolen kiss was outweighing her all-consuming desire to have Cho's head on a silver platter, because otherwise Parvati WOULD, in all likelihood, have just ignored Luna in favor of renewing her murderous assault on Cho - a decision which would have certainly sealed the fates of either Padma or Hermione, and possibly even the both of them.

Something worthy of note was that, throughout all of this, throughout everything that had been going on between Parvati, Padma, Hermione, Luna, and Cho, and even Ron and Ginny Weasley (who had gone off into the kitchen in their own, very personal one on one duel that no sane person from EITHER side of the larger battle for Grimmauld Place was going to try and interrupt), Cedric Diggory had been almost effortlessly dueling both Lucius and Draco Malfoy at the same time in his own corner of the sitting room.


Packed together almost shoulder-to-shoulder in the second floor hallway, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew were facing off against Bellatrix Lestrange, Narcissa Malfoy, and - if only to keep up pretenses - Severus Snape.

"Well, well, well, isn't this one big family reunion." Snape sneered, raising his wand and casting Sectumsempra at Sirius Black - a fraction of a second slower than he would have had he actually been intending to kill Sirius, which allowed for Sirius to block and absorb the curse into a hastily erected shield. "The infamous Marauders all in one place. Well, not ALL of them, anyway..."

Sirius twisted his face into a very convincing snarl of rage as he retorted, both with words, and a gushing of cursed acid, "James will be rolling in his grave once I've wiped that smirk off your greasy face, Snivellus!"

Snape almost lazily shielded himself from the acid that had been directed at him with the force and quantity of a fire-hose. Bellatrix and Narcissa, however, were not so lucky or so skilled as to have protected themselves on the same level as Snape (mainly owing to the fact that Lupin and Peter had sent simultaneous blasting curses at them a heartbeat after Sirius had started spewing his acid), and the hall was quickly filled with the screams and flailing of the two melting women.

When the women attempted to bid a very panicked and agony-filled retreat down the stairs behind them, the Marauders quickly seized the opportunity to hit them in the back of the neck with cutting curses, ending their lives swiftly and painlessly.

Snape, true to form (and his double agent role), did not stick around to make conversation. He shot three, rapid-fire curses at the Marauders, whirled around, and all but glided down the stairs, his long black robes billowing out behind him.

"Would it kill him to say thank you?" Sirius said to no one in particular, flourishing his wand and staring after Snape.

"You know it would." Lupin said seriously.

"Thank you? For what?" Peter frowned, his voice high and anxious.

"For WHAT?" Sirius turned to Peter with an expression of utmost incredulity. "How about for just knocking off Bellatrix and Narcissa after decades of their being pains in all our collective asses? This moment was a long time coming, and it deserves the proper recognition and-"

"Later." Lupin interrupted. "Did you forget there's a battle going on here?"

"Oh, fine. Battle now, celebration later." Sirius grumbled.

"I just hope this battle ends soon." said Peter shrilly. "I've had about enough of-"

Suddenly, the magically augmented, booming voice of Albus Dumbledore met their ears, calling for all Order forces to escape and regroup, and also cutting Peter's complaint short.

"Oh thank merlin!" Peter cried, relief spreading throughout his sweaty, pale, mouse-like face. "Let's get out of here while we still can!"

"Coward." Sirius snorted, though he did not hesitate to obey Dumbledore's order, and headed for the stairs, with Lupin at his side, and Peter several steps ahead of both Sirius and Lupin.


Ron Weasley, youngest son of Arthur and Molly Weasley, was fighting a battle he knew he was NOT going to win - at least, not without some help. Which didn't seem likely, given that Dumbledore had just issued an order to abandon Grimmauld Place, HEADQUARTERS, for dead.

"Run along now, brother." Ginny Weasley smirked on hearing Dumbledore's words. "While you still can, that is." she added, flicking her wand and disintegrating the whole dining room table, allowing herself even more room to maneuver - and more to step her viciousness up to eleven.

Ron barely blocked her triple flurry of cutting curses, DIDN'T block the literal swarm of conjured, flaming swords she sent at him from all directions, and yet somehow he came out of that one with all his limbs intact, and with only a few dozen slashes and burns after throwing himself wildly forward in his panic.

Of course, on seeing his sister's face, that panic turned very quickly into rage. "I never asked you-" Ron started, SNARLED, as he transfigured an old grandfather clock into a ravenous wolf, which immediately lunged at Ginny from behind.

Ginny, with so much speed and liquid grace it terrified Ron more than anything else he had seen from her in their many duels over the years, dropped low to the floor in a perfect split, decapitated the wolf as it sailed over her, and then came back up again without even using her hands and shot at Ron the most dangerous curse of all: the Killing Curse.

Ron, in his shock and heightened sense of fear, barely avoided the green streak of light, which sailed right between his free arm and ribs and struck a window behind him, causing it to shatter brilliantly.

"Asked me what, Ronnikins?" Ginny said sweetly, an ugly - and knowing - grin coming to her lips.

"Why?" Ron gritted, as he deflected another of Ginny's lesser curses into the ceiling. "All these years - I never asked why. Well, I'm asking now."

"You never asked because you were scared." Ginny laughed, flourishing her wand and easily blocking one of Ron's Stunners (which brought about a look of genuine surprise on her face for a heartbeat's time). "I could give you the most terrifying, sickening answer you could ever hope to hear." she went on, flashing another of her trademark grins.

"How about just giving me the fucking truth?" Ron snarled, taking a bolt of red lightning on his shield (which, like Ginny's liquid move of a few moments ago, was something new - and terrifying because of it). "Was it Percy? Did you think, I dunno, that he needed SOMEONE, ANYONE on his side, when he was all alone in supporting the Ministry?"

Another look of real surprise passed over Ginny's face. "Percy? You think this was about him?!" High-pitched laughter spilled from her lips. "Not in a million years! He was as idiotic and foolish as the REST of you are, and he outlived his usefulness - hence his execution. I did it myself, you know." she threw out, smiling almost coyly.

"So we bloody suspected." Ron growled, but his face had gone white, and his heart had dropped into his stomach. Because suspecting it all these years, and having it CONFIRMED, now, finally...were two very different things.

Ginny smiled again, and there was nothing at all coy about it this time."Glad I could help. Why don't you lay down and let me help you die now?"

"What if I say no?" Ron retorted, twitching his wand and sending a blast of flames at his little sister.

"What if I say you have no fucking choice?" Ginny shouted over the rush of flames, indicating to Ron that she was, regrettably, alive and shielding herself in a cocoon of magical energy.

"TELL ME WHY, GODDAMNIT!" Ron screamed at her suddenly. Then the last thing he ever expected to happen - happened.

Grimmauld Place's ceiling began to collapse - Ron realized then that the entire building was literally falling apart around them, very much ablaze - and then from out of the stream of flames Ron had issued forth came Ginny.

Ginny, literally flying forward out of the flames at him with a look of pure rage on her pretty face, her left shoulder speared through with a large piece of debris, to lay a hand on Ron's throat and take him back across the dining room and slam him against the wall with a shocking force.

"Because I want you all DEAD!" she shrieked in his face, looking- no, she WAS deranged, Ron realized.

And that one word sunk into Ron's mind: Dead.

Percy was dead, and Ginny had killed him.

And now she wanted HIM, Ron, dead too.

And he WAS dead, he realized, as he noticed Ginny's wand sunk up to the hilt in his gut, blood pouring out over her hand.

"Two down, six to go!" Ginny hissed, her voice equal parts malicious and ecstatic.

And then Grimmauld Place fell apart entirely.


Cedric Diggory, all around prettyboy, potential male model, Tri-Wizard Champion, former, one time boyfriend of Cho Chang, and one of the most skilled, powerful, and wholly Light members of the Order of the Phoenix, was determined to prove he was worthy of the rumors that had been floating about the Order lately: that Albus Dumbledore had been considering him, Cedric, to become his replacement as the new leader of the Order, in the event that Dumbledore simply stepped down or suffered an unlikely death.

But that determination to prove himself was not why Cedric fought now, nor why he had EVER fought - if he proved himself worthy as a matter of course, in doing what he always did, then so be it, he would take up the mantle if need be, but he wasn't going to actively start showing off or anything like that to garner approval or what have you; he wasn't a politician or something.

No, Cedric fought simply because it was RIGHT. Right to protect the innocent, right to try and take back the wizarding world from the Death Eaters, and right to do everything he could to stop the Death Eaters from making headway in their new goal of taking over MUGGLE Britain as well.

It was also right to do what he did next.

"Ugh!" The noise that came from the girl's mouth was part surprised, part pained, as she stumbled back into the pitch-black alley outside the now-collapsed Grimmauld Place, dropping her wand entirely in favor of draping her arm across the gash Cedric's spell had opened up across her belly, her eyes wide with pure terror and fear - of Cedric, and of her death, if he didn't do something about it.

"Wait- don't!" she cried, sobbed, falling back against a dumpster as Cedric drew nearer to her. "Don't kill me, please! I didn't m-mean to ...to hurt you, or...or any of them, I swear! It's my m-mum, she's...she's...they said..."

"I know." Cedric assured kindly, kneeling in front of the girl and directing his wand at her injury, and concentrating on repairing it. She WAS just a girl, he could see now, up close. She couldn't be more than fourteen, and, having watched her duel before taking over fighting her himself, he really rather doubted her claim of having hurt ANYONE during the siege. At the least, she looked to have TAKEN a heck of a lot more than she had GIVEN - Cedric's mortal wound included. "I know what they do, I know how they trick people." he continued quietly, truthfully. Blackmail, threats and hostages, when the Death Eaters couldn't get people to join them of their own free will.

This dying, thirteen-year-old girl had been forcibly conscripted, forced to partake in the siege as...cannon fodder. Just another number, and PURELY for the purpose of the Death Eaters wanting a heck of a lot more numbers than the Order during their assault.

"I- I'm not...you're not..." the girl choked, eyeing her rapidly resealing wound with weak, wincing, confused eyes, mostly on account of the loss of so much of her blood.

"You're not going to die, no." Cedric spoke gently. "Not here, not today. And not by my wand. What's your name? And, if you can tell me, the name of your mother?"

"Kendra. Kendra Abernathy." The girl swallowed a great deal of her own tears and snot, but didn't seem to notice (or care). "My mum...my mum's name is Tess Abernathy. What are you...going to do with me? I- I don't have anywhere to go, I...they took me from Hogwarts, told me about my mum, and they made me...made me come here, and...and..."

"I'm not going to kill you." Cedric said firmly, fighting back an urge to sigh. "My...friends and I have to disappear for a while, all over the country, before we can start finding each other again. If you like, you can stay with me, travel with me. I'll keep you safe, and when we meet up with my friends again in a safe place-"

"Nowhere is safe." Kendra interrupted, making a noise that was both a laugh and a sob. "We- I- THEY found you here, they took ME from HOGWARTS, with all the wards and- and everything else that's supposed to keep us safe! There is nowhere safe. There hasn't been for a long time, I think."

Cedric stared at her for a long moment, feeling the hard, sinking truth of the girl's words. He gulped, and managed to smile at her, all the same, as he told her, "Well, then, a place that's as safe as anywhere else is right now, which is to say, not at all."

Kendra gave another laugh/sob, and silently nodded her head.

After a few moments of silence, Cedric had healed her wound entirely, and he gave the wide, long scar a tap with a finger. "Done." he pronounced, smiling at Kendra and standing up. "Now, we really need to get out of here before more Death Eaters start showing up. They'll want to scour the surrounding area for survivors and stragglers."

"I'm not a Death Eater!" Kendra exclaimed, hot tears spilling down her face, as she tried to get to her feet, then doubled over terribly, gasping in pain and falling to her knees. Cedric was down with her again instantly, and he didn't hesitate to pick her up in his arms, intent on carrying her out of this place, this battle, that she never should have been in.

"Sorry, sorry, I should've told you - you can't put any strain on your body like that any time soon." Cedric swiftly apologized, an arm going around Kendra's back to secure his hold on her in his arms. "Usually you'd take a few potions and get some rest, but...I'm sorry, I'm not a Healer."

"I'm not a Death Eater." Kendra repeated, her voice a frail, scared little whisper in Cedric's ear, as her arms went around his neck, and her head came to rest on his shoulder. Cedric could feel her burning, salty tears soaking through his shirt.

"I know." he whispered soothingly, carrying her out of the alley, bound for what he could sense had to be the border of the anti-apparition ward the Death Eaters had cast over the area. "I know."

You're just a kid. he added silently.


"You almost got us all KILLED!" Padma Patil screamed at her twin, punctuating the end of her sentence with a hard slap of Parvati's face.

"Padma-" Hermione started to intervene, stepping forward to grab Padma's - her wife's - wrist when she cocked her hand for another swing at Parvati.

Padma whirled on Hermione, her dark eyes burning. "Let go of me! This- this- this BITCH who I can't BELIEVE I call my twin was so hellbent on-"

"Padma, DEAR, this really isn't the best time or place for this!" Hermione said shrilly, gripping Padma's arm tighter still when the woman started to fight against her. "See that smoke?" Hermione jerked her head to her left, to where thick, black smoke could be seen billowing up into the sky several blocks away. "THAT is why we should keep our voices DOWN and our eyes PEELED!"

"THAT is why Parvati is SUCH a bitch!" Padma said, louder than Hermione, but still a great deal quieter than she had been previously ranting, as she still had the presence of mind to not want to attract Death Eater attention. "Did you SEE HER IN THERE? She was SO preoccupied with making sure Cho lost her life that she put all of OURS in jeopardy! For merlin's sake, I had to pull her BODILY out of that building! And when we ran into the Malfoys outside and set about helping Ced deal with them, Parvati tried to run right back INSIDE - AND THE BUILDING WAS ABOUT TO COLLAPSE! It DID, in fact, and not five seconds after that stunt of hers! If she'd made it back in, she'd have been crushed and DEAD!"

"I know, I was there too." Hermione attempted to placate the angry egyptian woman. "I helped drag Parvati away, too. That's how I got this." she added, holding up her arm to show Padma the bloody gash she had, courtesy of Parvati's fingernails. "Honestly, my sister-in-law has got to have some of the sharpest nails I have ever...I mean, the SECOND sharpest nails I have ever felt." Hermione hastily amended, at Padma's glare. "Anyway, let's get inside somewhere, or apparate somewhere, or something. But whatever we do, we can't stay in the open like this, and eventually we'll need to make our way to the backup headquarters Dumbledore gave us the location to when we went over those contingency plans AGES ago for just this scenario."

Padma finally yanked her arm from Hermione's grasp, but she didn't strike her twin again. Instead, she just nodded to Hermione, and turned to gaze up and down the street with wary eyes.

Parvati remained, as she had been for the past fifteen minutes, totally silent, and seemingly unphased by the behavior of her sister (she hadn't even flinched on being slapped).

In fact, Hermione noticed that Parvati seemed rather out of it, on the whole, and that worried her a great deal more than Parvati's previous state of total, blind bloodlust.

With the peace made between them (or, at least, the silence), it wasn't long before the three women found refuge in a rather nice hotel (which had a pool), because, as Hermione had pointed out, "The last thing the Death Eaters would expect is for any of us to stick around. They'll be moving on from London to the rest of the country in their search, but they'll overlook us hiding in their own backyard." They purchased a room for two, using the accumulated muggle money Hermione always kept stored in her magically expanded pockets, which, of course, meant there were only two beds in the room.

Padma and Hermione took one bed, while Parvati took the other for herself, seeing as the former two women had been married for nearly five years now, and the latter woman would have just ended up killing them due to the still lingering - and still very strong - feelings between them regarding the loss of Grimmauld Place, and Parvati's own actions during the seige in particular, if they had been forced, against all odds, to be within five feet of each other.

Long after midnight, several things contributed to the waking of Hermione from her (remarkably, given the circumstances) relaxed sleep. There was the sound of a sliding window, there was the humid April breeze that followed, and there was the persistent sounds of a woman in a great deal of interpersonal distress.

All of which indicated one thing to Hermione, as she sat upright in bed, and set her eyes on the source of all this. She was not shocked to see what she saw, though she was wary and worried.

Parvati Patil was sitting in the open window, crying, shivering, and looking out - and down - on night-lit London.

This sight would not have alarmed Hermione so if their hotel room had not been on the twenty-second floor.

"Parvati..." Hermione warned, as she carefully (for Padma's sake, and a wish not to wake her) but quickly (for Parvati's sake, and a wish to SAVE her) got out of bed, and started to cross the room for the window.

"Damn." Parvati actually LAUGHED, turning her head to look at Hermione with eyes that already belonged to a corpse. Those eyes stopped Hermione in her tracks. "I was HOPING you would have turned out to be Padma, that would have made this go a lot easier."

"You're not doing this." Hermione said evenly, though her heart was pounding like it had never done before - not even in battle.

"That's why I wanted it to be her." Parvati laughed again. "She probably would have told me to just hurry up and get on with it. Just jump, just stop being such a liability, such a danger, to everyone around me." Hermione took another step forward, and Parvati shook her head. "Don't try it. You won't get close enough to grab me before I can throw myself out of here."

"You're not a danger to anyone." Hermione tried to speak calmly, reasonably. She was the smart one, wasn't she? She needed to put those brains to use, right now, or else lose a sister. But the thing was, right now, her brain seemed to have gone dead. Flat. There was barely any activity firing off across it, hardly any thoughts coming to her mind.

Parvati smiled, shook her head again. "No, she was right, earlier. Padma. I almost got a lot of people killed with how I was acting."

"But it's past, it's gone, it's over with, now." Hermione replied, still trying to maintain her calm, reasonable tones. "You don't seem like a murder-crazed, vengeance-seeking maniac now. You seem quite calm, actually."

"I am the farthest from calm that any woman has ever been, Hermione."

"Look, Parvati, I - we - all understand your feelings towards Cho, especially in light of what she did to your - to mine, too, if you'll recall I married your sister - family."

"Merlin, I wish I hated you right now, sis." Parvati gasped, looking away from Hermione and out the window again. "I wish I hated you as much as Padma hates me now. This is so...so HARD, and you aren't making it any easier with your...your..."

"I'm sorry." said Hermione, not really in the least bit sorry for her current course of action. "Look at me, Parvati. Please. Just look at me." To her surprise (and hope), Parvati did. "Look, I know it was bad, what happened back at headquarters. None of us were prepared, we thought we were all safe, we thought we could be relaxed and happy, and we thought that not even the worst of what was out there could ever possibly get us IN THERE. But it did, and that...that was infuriating, it was...terrifying. It shook us, all of us - myself included. And now," Hermione paused, as her voice rose a pitch, and an unexpected sob tried to escape her lips. "and now we're all apart, we're all...scattered to the wind. Scatter and regroup, was the contingency plan. We couldn't all just go straight for backup HQ, because even the muggles would notice dozens of people apparating at the same time in the exact same place, and with Voldemort trying to take that world he's sure to have imperiused eyes about; police officers and the like. No, we needed this, to do this...and this...it's HARD."

"You'd rather be curled up somewhere nice and warm with Padma and Melinda." Parvati spoke, after a long silence, her voice holding jealousy, bitterness, and a touch of out of place happiness (all of which Hermione very much took note of).

At the mention of Melinda, Hermione and Padma's two-year-old daughter, Hermione's heart simultaneously leaped for joy and sunk with the yearning and pain that she felt at the separation (albeit a necessary one).

"I would rather be, yes." Hermione admitted, with a hard swallow. "There is nothing I would love more in this world, honestly. But- but Melinda is safe where she is, and I can't...WE can't...be seen visiting her, be seen coming and going. No, Padma and I, we can't...we can't - we WON'T - risk Melinda's safety that way. Parvati, if you do this now, here, you'll lose any chance of having what Padma and I have: with each other, and with Melinda." she added, slowly and carefully.

Silence reigned for minutes on end. Neither woman moved, neither woman spoke. Until, finally, Parvati's head dropped to her chest, and a long, shuddering breath was let loose.

"That was a dirty pull, Hermione." she accused, sliding down from the window - and onto solid carpet. "Damned dirty pull. In fact, never use that card against me again."

Hermione tried to grin, but only a weak, relieved smile appeared on her face, which showed off her two, large front teeth (a feature of hers that she had always wanted to change, but that Padma had always NOT wanted her to change, saying that they were perhaps her sexiest of assets; and who was Hermione to argue with THAT kind of comment borne of her wife's mind and lips?). "I'll use it again and again, if it keeps you from doing what you were just on the verge of doing." she replied firmly. "Anyway, I won't have to use it again, will I? You're fine now. I mean, Cho died in that building. You can let go of your rage, your grief, your pain."

"Yeah." Parvati's smile was much stronger than Hermione's, and her eyes no longer looked dead. "I guess I can. I guess...I can hope again. Hope to have what you have with Padma."

"You can do more than hope for it, now." Hermione spoke quietly. "You can go make it happen."

"Not right now." Parvati shook her head. "After the war."

Hermione bit her lip, wondering if she should say what was first and foremost in her mind. In the end, she chose to just say it.

"Parvati, what if there is no 'after' for us? That's why I married Padma, right out of Hogwarts, and why we had Melinda so soon after. That was before the war became this bad, before...well, just look at how we are now, the situation we're in. Looking back on it all, thinking about our present circumstances, I'm glad I married so soon, and I'm glad I had Melinda when I did, because, honestly, I could have easily died back at headquarters along with Cho, and who knows how many others that didn't make it out in time. And I could have died a hundred times before that, in a hundred different battles!"

"So, what you're saying is that there's no time like the present?" Parvati said, after a lengthy silence.

"Exactly." Hermione nodded, pleased that she had had an affect on her sister, and pleased that her sister had used the muggle platitude correctly. She swept past Parvati and shut the window, then took Parvati's arm on the rebound and sat Parvati down on her bed before joining her. "Now, listen. Scattered though we are, I think I might know where to go to find at least one other. If he survived, if he escaped, and if he's smart, that is. And I'd bet on his being all three."

"Who?" Parvati questioned patiently.

"Cedric." Hermione said simply. "I once told him about how I used to go camping in the Forest of Dean with my parents, something I can count on one hand the number of times mentioning to others. I'm sure he'll expect me - us - to go there, so he'll go there and wait for us to find him."

Parvati gave a nod, then cast a glance at her still-slumbering twin. "We can hope."

"More than hope." Hermione smiled. "We leave in the morning."


"...Ginny..."

A voice in the dark.

"...Ginny...wake up..."

Only pain. Only...

She was floating, rising, and around her was a warmth, a heat...a...

Burning.

"Ginny, please!"

Red.

Ginny Weasley opened her eyes, and found herself, in addition to being in the embrace of Cho Chang, in a private room in St. Mungo's, the hospital that had been, for many years now, completely under Death Eater control, much like the Ministry of Magic, and wizarding Britain on the whole.

"Cho." Ginny snapped, shoving Cho away and sitting up in the hospital bed. She felt no pain, no scarring, no injuries. For all intents and purposes, Grimmauld Place collapsing on top of her had never happened - had only been a bad dream. But if that was the case..."Tell me that he didn't make it out of that place alive, too."

Cho did not ask who Ginny meant. Cho was far from stupid - a trait which Ginny despised more than any other human trait - and Ginny had obsessed over nothing but the total annihilation of her former family members for many, many years now.

"He didn't." Cho answered, a smile coming to her lips. "I asked our salvage teams to save the body for you, when they came across it in the rubble. Or at least, what's left of it." she added softly. "I knew you'd want to see it."

Ginny smiled, too, feeling a rush of relief and satisfaction at Cho's words. More than, really. She felt giddy, dizzy, she felt...like one more link in the chains binding her, keeping her from absolute freedom, had been broken.

"See it, mutilate it, keep it as a souvenir. Thanks, Cho." said Ginny earnestly. It was as she was looking around the room that she realized something - or rather, the ABSENCE of something. "Where's Luna? I would have expected her to be..." She fell silent at the sight of Cho's face being taken over by pure, overwhelming anguish. She had her answer. "I'm sorry."

"It's funny, really." Cho said, in hushed, trembling tones, her eyes rapidly filling up with tears. "This has been our greatest victory, and I've never felt worse."

With a sigh, Ginny took Cho into her arms as best she could in her position, and began running a small, slender hand through Cho's sheet of shiny black hair, which, Ginny noted, actually looked quite pretty when it was being bathed in the rays of the morning sun (this observation being made from a purely objective standpoint, of course).

"You know," Ginny began, speaking quietly into Cho's shoulder. "if she had lived to celebrate this victory with us...well, I think we both know what she'd go out and do."

Cho nodded in Ginny's arms, and spoke in a voice thick with pain, yet also the barest hint of amusement. "Go on one of her expeditions to South America, looking for Nargles or whatever. And she'd drag us with her, and a few dozen other Deathies, just so they could be her pack mules."

"Whatever makes her happy." said Ginny, shrugging, and pulling Cho tighter against herself. "Her last one actually proved the existence of those Crumple-Horned Snorkacks, at any rate."

Cho gave another nod, but didn't say a word for the next few minutes, seeming content with doing some more crying.

Ginny, on the other hand, was not content to let this continue into the next century, so she released Cho, sat back, and said with a fierce grin upon her face, "Hey, this IS a victory, even if we lost some people we'd rather not have, and I think that they'd want us to celebrate. We could even make it about honoring their memories." Not that Ginny believed in that sort of thing, personally. She'd always thought all that stuff was pointless. After all, what were things like honor and glory to the dead? They were...dead, and they had no use for it. Certainly, the living people who honored them weren't doing them any great service seeing as they weren't also alive to experience being honored.

"What do you want to do?" Cho asked, blinking away her tears, her tone more curious now than anything.

"Well, before the orders come down from the top to join the hunt for any surviving Order members - besides the ones that escaped, don't forget that there were still many of them that weren't even AT Grimmauld Place during the time of our assault - we could go on a victory shopping spree." Ginny grinned. While she herself wasn't much of a "girly girl", she knew that Cho most definitely - to an almost sickening extreme, honestly - was.

Honestly, Cho was the only person Ginny had ever met, or even heard of, who spent half an hour prior to a battle putting on makeup and doing her hair. It was like, who in the WORLD did she want to look good for out there? Her enemies as they lay dying, gazing up at her? Or had it always been for Luna, like getting all dressed up for a date? But then, what did THAT say about Cho's sanity, which Ginny had never before questioned?

At the prospect of a celebratory shopping spree, Cho's swimming eyes widened, and filled quickly up with delight, replacing the pain and grief, and the chinese woman broke out of Ginny's embrace and sprang to her feet. "Well, what are we waiting for?!" she demanded of Ginny, her eyes narrowed, and a frown on her face, as if Ginny had been the one...

"Oh, fuck you." Ginny snapped, her nose crinkling with her irritation as she slid off the hospital bed and onto her feet. "Let's just go already, before I change my mind."

'And the trip might not be a TOTAL bore, anyway.' she thought to herself, as she and Cho strode down the halls of St. Mungo's. 'Maybe we can stop by Gringotts, then I'll get to have fun killing some goblins.'


"I think we've laid low long enough!" Peter Pettigrew's shrill voice rang throughout Knockturn Alley, his volume supporting his opinion.

"That's funny, coming from a man who once spent thirteen years laying low." Lupin replied mildly. "One would think you'd be in your element. After all, it's only been one day."

"No, what's funny is that you're not actually being-" Sirius began, his voice rich with his amusement.

"Don't say it!" Peter squeaked, clapping his hands to his ears.

"I'll have you know that I'm being perfectly-" Lupin glared at Sirius before finishing. "-SERIOUS when I say that Wormtail here shouldn't be so bothered by the state of things."

"That was different, as you well know!" Peter shrilled indignantly. "I had a good home! I had food, I had warmth, and I had a master who-"

"You know, you really come off as the world's creepiest bloke when you start up again with all that 'I had a better life as a rat than as a human' stuff." Sirius interrupted seriously.

"I still don't see why we can't just go straight to the new headquarters." Peter huffed, ignoring Sirius.

"Because - and I'm telling you this for the last time, Wormtail - certain protocols were set in place, and we have to follow them if we want to avoid risking the same thing happening to our new headquarters that just happened to our OLD headquarters." Lupin explained, with a sigh and an impatient air.
He was normally a very patient person, but he had had to repeat the same thing to Peter twelve times now over the past twenty-four hours, and that (not to mention Peter's voice) would wear thin on ANYONE.

"Fine! But if I see one more-" Peter's words were cut short, because Sirius had suddenly lunged at him and covered his mouth with a hand.

"Sirius, what-" Lupin began, frowning in a cross between disapproval and relief. But then he, too, caught himself and fell silent, as he heard the voices - the FAMILIAR voices - that were becoming louder and louder by the second, as their owners came down the main street of Knockturn Alley.

Sirius, with help from Lupin (the only other person in the trio with a clue), dragged a struggling Peter down a narrow - and incredibly dark - side alley.

"Shut UP, just SHUT UP!" Sirius hissed, practically strangling Peter's fat neck with his arm now. "Or I swear to-" He never finished his sentence. Both, because Lupin had just stunned Peter point blank in the backside, and because the horridly familiar voices were dangerously close to crossing in front of the mouth of the side alley.

"...there's one not too far ahead. Past that bend." Ginny Weasley's voice echoed around the alley.

"You want me to visit a..." Cho Chang's voice trailed off into silence, the embarrassment plain for all to hear. "...one of THOSE places, to visit one of THOSE women? When I said I was feeling very lonely with my girlfriend just having been killed yesterday evening, I didn't mean..."

"Oh, I get it now." Ginny's laughter came loud and clear, now she and Cho were passing right in front of the Marauder's side alley. "You want LOVE, you want ROMANCE, is that it?"

Sirius resisted the urge to snarl like a dog at the sight of all that red hair. Ginny had tried to kill her own parents, once, a few years back, and the whole Order had suspected for even longer that the woman had SUCCEEDED in killing her older brother, Percy. She was highly skilled, incredibly powerful, and also was widely known to be a little bit insane - or a lot.

She had proven to be one of the best, one of the most dangerous, of all the Death Eaters, and, according to Snape's sporadic spy reports, had risen up through their ranks like a bottle cap blown off a shaken up drink.

Now, Sirius might not have always gotten along with Arthur and Molly Weasley, but he knew they were smart and kind people, and that their own daughter would try to murder them (and every other member of her family) for reasons unknown...that was what enraged Sirius most of all about Ginny Weasley.

Turn your back on family if they deserved it (like his), hold in yourself a seething, undying hatred of them if it was justified, try to kill them if you HAD TO, but to do all of the above when your family was some of the most decent people known to humankind...?

That was just...disgusting. Despicable.

Sirius wondered then if he could land a curse on Ginny from this distance, in this very limited window of opportunity...

As if Lupin had read Sirius's mind, the werewolf elbowed him and just shook his head.

Holding back a sigh, Sirius gritted his teeth and, for the moment, let his hate leave his heart.

To attack would only give away their position - and their survival.

And it surely wouldn't make things any easier on the others who had escaped Grimmauld Place yesterday.

"Of course I want romance!" Cho's indignant tones rang out (another one who the very sight of caused Sirius to nearly bite his tongue in half). "Luna and I went back almost a year! There was care, there was the strength of memories and experiences built up over time, and-"

"Do you want what you had with Luna or not?" Ginny interrupted, as if Cho hadn't even been speaking at all, her tone suggesting that she had a very DIFFERENT idea of what Cho had had with Luna than Cho herself did.

"I didn't just have a- a- a FUCK with Luna!" Cho spat vehemently, though sounding, at the same time, on the verge of sobbing.

"...If you say so." Ginny's indifferent tone drifted back to Sirius; the two Death Eaters were past the side alley now, and out sight. "...I'm getting one, though, since we're in the area and all. You can wait outside and do whatever the hell you want to do..."

As the pair of women grew further away, Sirius thought he heard the tail end of Cho Chang's response, and he could have sworn it was something like, "...want to go back to my clothes shopping."

Slowly, with disappointment, regret, and irritation, Sirius rounded on Lupin.

"It was your idea to hide out here." was all Lupin said, in that calm, reasonable tone of his that made Sirius want to bite his head off - literally.

"Yeah, well, let's go hide somewhere else now." Sirius grumbled.


"Sorry, I- don't know any kitchen spells." Cedric Diggory said, feeling more than a little regret as he gave the answer to Kendra Abernathy, thirteen-year-old Death Eater- ah, forced conscript, and now homeless, hunted girl and, though he wouldn't mention the very real possibility to her (at least, not until he found out for certain), war orphan.

"You can make all this out of nothing, but not food?" Kendra frowned from her cot, waving a hand at the homely little cottage interior of the tent Cedric had conjured for them late the previous night, on arriving in the Forest of Dean.

"We've had food." Cedric replied, shaking his head, though knowing his answer was not exactly to her question.

"We've had BUNNIES!" the girl said, as if she thought there was a universe of difference in there somewhere (which, Cedric reflected, she probably DID think). "And I didn't even have THOSE because HOW COULD YOU DO SOMETHING SO SICK AND EVIL?!"

"Look, you need to eat - especially with that cut I gave you, and all the blood you lost from it." Cedric sighed, retrieving a large piece of cooked rabbit meat from a cupboard. "Just...do what I told you to do in the first place. Just pretend-"

"Pretend it tastes like chicken!" Kendra positively shrieked. "How can I even TRY and do that when I saw you- when I saw you...when I saw you go out there, stun two rabbits, then kill them, take out all their insides, and then hover them inside of the fireplace?!"

"Just pretend THAT never happened." Cedric grinned in spite of himself, offering her the rabbit meat. "Pretend you've just gotten it from a grocery store."

Kendra gave him and the rabbit meat a very dirty look, then shook her head fiercely. "Not that one! I'll do it, but- but not THAT one. Get the other one."

"Should I even ask why?" said Cedric with a laugh, as he stowed his current rabbit back in the cupboard and exchanged it for the other, which was an entire, whole rabbit that neither he nor Kendra had taken any pieces off of as of yet.

"The one you first offered me was the cute, fluffy little white one." the girl responded promptly, as she sat up as best she could in the cot. "This one," she indicated the whole rabbit in Cedric's hands. "was that ugly, fat brown one."

Well, that wasn't how Cedric, personally, would have chosen his meal, but he supposed as long as the kid actually, finally ate it...

She did eat it (the whole thing, in fact), and in under five minutes, and with a ferociousness that, while being both disturbing and amusing to Cedric, was also a great relief, as it betrayed just how hungry she had really been despite all of her protests and complaints (as he had known she had to have been).

"This isn't how I wanted to spend my April." Kendra moaned, l aying back down in her cot after finishing off her rabbit. "Kidnapped, lost my mom, sent to fight a bunch of...a bunch of REBELS."

"From what I saw yesterday, you didn't hurt anyone." Cedric hastened to reassure the girl, once again.

"But I was TRYING!" Kendra burst out, and now, at last, Cedric thought they had come to the heart of her worries. She bit her trembling lower lip, looking at him with sudden fear and panic, then she looked down at her folded hands on her stomach. "I was trying, so, SO HARD, with everything I had, to HURT THEM ALL! Even you, when you jumped in front of me, I...I tried! I tried to hurt you! Every single person I came across, every single person who was just scared and trying to get out of there...and I came in there WITH the people trying to hurt them...and I tried to hurt them, too..."

"So how...how am I NOT a Death Eater? How am I NOT one of them?" she finished, looking at Cedric with tearful, desperate eyes. "Really?"

Cedric was quiet for a long time, seriously pondering Kendra's question, and wondering what answer, if any, he could give to her to allay her fears.

"Kendra, did you want to hurt them?" he said finally, softly. "All those people you say you tried to hurt, did you WANT to hurt them?"

Horror grew in the girl's eyes, and her voice was almost inaudible as she said, "Yes."

Cedric mentally cursed himself, then did some very quick thinking. "Did you want to hurt them to hurt them, or did you want to hurt them to survive?"

The girl blinked at him, confusion overtaking her horror and shame. "Wh-what do you mean?"

"Death Eaters hurt people because they...because they WANT to hurt them, because they WANT to see them suffer, or even die." Cedric continued carefully, now that he had a good idea of what he wanted to say. "That's why they torture their victims. They like seeing people in pain. Last night, during the attack, when you tried to hurt the people that you did, I don't believe you were doing it because you wanted to see them hurt, because you would have LIKED seeing it. No, you tried to hurt them because you wanted to live, because you wanted to survive the night. That's all you did, and that's all any of US did. That's all I did." He paused to watch the glimmerings of understanding begin to show in the girl's eyes. He gave her a small nod, and a smile, before continuing. "Kendra, that's us, that's me, that's you. That's what we're about, that's what makes us different from them. What we do...the only thing we can do...hurting Death Eaters...it's because it's what we need to do to survive, because they'll kill us and torture us without hesitation, and we don't...we don't do it for any other reason, for nothing more, and nothing less. What you did was just...survival. What you did was right, and just, and the only thing you could have done, and I promise you that no one will ever - nor SHOULD they ever - blame you for it. And that includes yourself." he finished, firmly but kindly.

"Thanks." Kendra finally said, looking genuinely relieved, and lighter in her heart and mind.

Cedric just shrugged. "Don't mention it."

Kendra smiled. "I'll try not to." Suddenly the smile slipped off her face, to be replaced by a look of intense fear. "Ced-"

"I heard it, too." Cedric said tersely, drawing his wand and spinning to face the tent entrance. "Someone's outside." 'And merlin, please let it be who I think it is and NOT Death Eaters.' he thought (more like pleaded with the universe) as he took slow, quiet steps towards the entrance, his ears straining to hear the snapping of twigs, the crunching of fallen leaves, and the low, almost indistinct murmur of voices that, perhaps only to his wild imagination, seemed familiar-

"Drop your wands!" He cried, throwing himself out of the tent, out beyond the defensive and disguising wards he had cast on it, and jabbing his wand at the three, hazy figures standing in the dark evening gloom, which was made that much more dark by the canopy the closely packed trees made with all their branches and leaves.

"You drop YOUR wand!" one of the three intruders - a woman, they were ALL women - replied, while pointing her wand at his face.

"He asked you first, Parvati! Do you really think he's going to just drop his when he holds the advantage of-"

On almost a whim, Cedric lit his wand, casting bright, white light on his three unexpected visitors. On recognizing them, he relaxed entirely, and let his wand drop to his side.

It was Parvati and Padma Patil, and Hermione Granger.

Not a second later and Cedric received three, very quick hugs in succession, and he realized he was grinning, and that the three women were beaming.

"Right, well, it's great to see you again." Cedric addressed them, growing serious. "But we shouldn't hang around out here, especially not when you found me so quickly. Because if you did, the Death Eaters can, too."

"You weren't expecting us?" Hermione said, looking surprised and disappointed as she, along with Parvati and Padma, followed Cedric into the tent.

"I was." he said, a little defensive. "But I expected you to show up here a lot later. How did you find me, my exact location, specifically, so fast?"

"You aren't the only one Dumbledore's been teaching to use ancient, latin magic." Hermione said proudly, and a tad bit SMUGLY. "I detected a great deal of magical energy swirling around in one place - sort of a big sphere in my mind's eye - and I knew that had to be your camp."

"The Death Eaters don't like ancient magic, much, so don't worry, they won't be finding you - us - any time soon with the same trick." Padma assured Cedric with a pat on the arm, and an amused smirk at his slack jaw on his hearing Hermione's explanation.

"Erm- Cedric, who's this?" Parvati said suddenly, eyeing Kendra with surprise and wariness, who was in turn eyeing the three women with fear and even a little panic.

"Forced conscript." Cedric said shortly. "Her name is Kendra Abernathy. Her mother is...being held by Death Eater forces. As soon as we reach the backup headquarters, I'm going to see if we can't figure out where she is, and get her out of their hands and back to Kendra." That last part, he said while looking at the girl herself, earning him a bright smile and eyes full of gratitude, and Cedric almost hated himself for giving her that hope.

He knew how the Death Eaters operated. It was more likely than not that they had killed Kendra's mother - and possibly even BEFORE sending Kendra to Grimmauld Place - because the woman had been a tool to ensure Kendra's initial cooperation, and would not be needed for any reason afterwards.

Seeing Hermione's brown eyes narrowed at him, and the frown on her lips that was both angry and strangely relieved, Cedric knew without a doubt that the bushy-haired woman had come to the same conclusion as Cedric about Tess Abernathy's fate, and that she was just as conflicted as him about whether or not Kendra should be given any kind of hope on the matter.

"Kendra, this is Parvati Patil, Padma Patil, and Hermione Granger." Cedric introduced to the girl, almost having to force himself to look her in the eyes now. "These are some of those friends I was talking about meeting up with from the Order."

Kendra just looked even more fearfully at the women - especially when they started trying to talk to her, and in tones Cedric recognized as their talking-to-small-children voices - and Cedric wondered if they were going to have to have another talk so soon after the last.

Thankfully, the women were rather sharp, and they got the hint that their efforts with Kendra were just making things worse, and they instead turned to Cedric with a topic of discussion that he had known had to be discussed, but had been hoping to NOT do so until much, much later.

It was Hermione who opened it up with, after the four had seated themselves around a small, round, wooden table near the fireplace, "We need to talk about Grimmauld Place." She looked from person to person in the heavy silence that followed her proclamation, her brown eyes holding the same haunted look that was in Padma and Parvati's eyes - and, Cedric suspected, in his own as well. "We need to compare notes, see if we can't sort out at least most of who survived and who- who didn't. And we need to try and figure out, also, just how the Death Eaters even managed to get into the building to begin with, considering the Fidelius, and the fact that Dumbledore was the sole Secret-Keeper." Hermione barreled on, in what was typical for her in times of stress. "I mean, if Dumbledore had died, the charm would have made all of us - everyone he ever brought into the protection - Secret-Keepers as well, and then one of us-"

"Like Cho." Parvati put in, spitting the name like a curse.

"-could have gone ahead and revealed it to the Death Eaters, but seeing as Dumbledore has clearly NOT been dead these past months..." Hermione finished her ramble as if she hadn't been interrupted at all.

"It means that the Fidelius is worthless." Padma sighed, slipping her hand into Hermione's, and looking far more worried, alarmed, and afraid than even that realization should have called for. Cedric knew why. He knew that Padma and Hermione had a daughter out in the world, somewhere, under the protection of the Fidelius Charm (among others). And if the Death Eaters had somehow found a way to disrupt and bypass that most powerful, most ultimate of protective charms, then their child was completely vulnerable.

"It's not entirely unexpected, is it?" Parvati said quietly, sending her sister and sister-in-law a look of what was likely supposed to be comfort, but came across more like an expression of sickness to Cedric. "I mean, the Death Eaters have had the wizarding world, the Ministry, under their total control for YEARS now, which means they've had complete, unrestricted access to the Department of Mysteries, too. Who knows what there even is in that place, what the Death Eaters have been studying and learning in there? Maybe they uncovered, or DIscovered, something that enabled them to beat the Fidelius."

"That's actually a solid theory." Cedric agreed. "I'll accept that until anyone finds out otherwise."

"Right." Hermione nodded. "The how doesn't even matter, I suppose. It happened, and that's that. We just have to deal with it."

"And how ARE we going to deal with it?" Padma said intently, eyes fixed imploringly on her wife.

"Melinda's going to be fine." Hermione responded soothingly. "Even without the Fidelius to protect her, the anonymity and isolation of her location will protect her. No one, not even Dumbledore, knows where she is." She glanced at Cedric, both in apology and in wariness. "She's not even in the country, anyway, and Voldemort doesn't have even near enough forces to try moving into OTHER countries. He's just started trying to secure the other half of THIS country, honestly; the muggle population of Britain."

"Right, right." Padma smiled shakily. "You're right, of course. I just can't help but-"

"-worry. Neither can I." Hermione finished for her wife. "But if we were to spend every waking moment worrying, we'd never get anything done."

"So, who survived, and who didn't?" Cedric broke the silence that followed Hermione's words. "Dumbledore definitely made it out of there, the Marauders I saw go down an alley, Snape survived - though he went away with some of the Death Eaters, what with having to maintain his cover - and the last I saw of Tracy, she was dueling with Pansy out on the street...and..."

"And she was getting her pale ass handed to her." Parvati finished, which, while being WHAT Cedric had wanted to say, had definitely not been HOW he had wanted to say it. "Pansy's nearly on par with Ginny. She's a monster - in more ways than one."

"Did anyone see Hannah?" Padma questioned. "I never even saw her come out the front door, before...before the place came down."

"I didn't see her come out, either." Cedric offered hesitantly. "But that doesn't mean she didn't when we weren't looking. Or that she didn't find some other way out, or - if she was in there when it all came down - that she didn't survive the collapse."

"And we know for certain that Fred, George, Bill, and Charlie are alive and well." Hermione said. "What with their being all over the country these last few months searching for Voldemort's remaining Horcruxes."

"At least there's ONE they won't have to search for." said Parvati, shuddering in disgust. "That snake of his, Nagini. Though, if Snape was just willing to throw his cover to the wind he could probably get off a Killing Curse at the thing, no problem."

"And if he did that, he'd never get away alive." Padma snorted, shaking her head at her twin. "Besides being our spy, he's one of our most valuable assets. He's the only true Potions Master we have on our side, and a pretty good Healer to boot, which, again, makes him valuable, because we don't have too many Healers on our side. Although," she paused, her eyes glazing over with sadness. "Hannah was learning how to be one."

"I'm sure Hannah's fine." Parvati spoke, though with an almost dismissive air about her that earned her a glare from Hermione.

"If Snape can get past what happened with the Marauders, why can't YOU get past what Hannah did to-" Padma started furiously, rounding on her twin.

Cedric backed his chair up a good three feet from the table; he knew this argument well, as did everyone in the Order, and it was NOT one that anyone with any common sense wanted to hang around and watch.

"Hannah STOLE-" Parvati began, all but spitting her words - her anger.

"There's no such thing as stealing - or CHEATING - if you weren't even together!" Padma retorted, slapping a hand on the table.

"We WERE together at the time!" cried Parvati. "Dean and I were together, then along came Hannah to lure him into a CLEARLY sexual encounter, which led to their suddenly saying THEY were together, which-"

"You were NOT together!" Hermione jumped in, exasperation permeating her voice. "You told us all at the time that you and Dean were 'taking a break'! Which is the exact OPPOSITE of being together!"

"Exactly! Merlin bless your eidetic memory, sweetie!" Padma exclaimed, kissing her wife's cheek before turning back to glare at Parvati. "That is EXACTLY what you said to us at the time, no getting around it!"

Suddenly, interruption came from an unexpected source, which, miraculously, halted all conversation, stopping the argument in its tracks - a feat which had never before been done.

Kendra, staring at them with wide eyes from over in her cot, said loudly (and incredulously), "You people are supposed to be saving the world?"

Amidst a lot of flushed faces, half-hearted murmurs, and no eye contact, the members of the Order of the Phoenix resumed their seats.


Three Months Later


"Are you...certain you want to do this, Dumbledore?"

Albus Dumbledore peered gravely over his long, laced fingers at the highly anxious, disturbed, and even fearful man sitting across from him at the table in the muggle coffee shop just two minutes shy of midnight. The powerful old wizard let out a sigh and said, his tone firm but weary, his expression unyielding but resigned, "This war has been going on for nearly ten years now, Edward - though, at this point, I do not believe it can even be called a war anymore - and too many lives have been lost in it, too many innocent people have been made to suffer. Too many families have been torn apart, too many children have been subjected to unspeakable horrors - or have been forced to commit the horrors themselves." Albus bowed his head, closing his exhausted and very, very old and anguished blue eyes. "Yes..." he said softly, more to himself than to the man whose company he shared. "This is the only choice we have left to us, the only move we have left to play against Voldemort...SHE is the only thing we have left to put into the playing field."

"I know things are desperate," Edward conceded quietly. "I know the Order has been down to hit and runs, to guerrilla tactics, these last few weeks, and I know spirits are lower than ever just trying to get a win under our side's belt..." Edward paused a long moment before finishing off with, "but are things really so desperate that we need to go and let HER loose on the world - the magical AND the muggle - and with a wand, no less?"

"Yes." Dumbledore replied, just as a quietly. "I do know how she is, I HAVE been reading every report the hospital's staff - which includes all of yours - has been sending to me over the last eleven years concerning her."

"I doubt that." Edward nearly growled. "If you had been keeping up to date with the happenings of HER, you'd know that we CANNOT do this - horridly losing the war or not. Prophecy or not." he added, his expression turning to something very close to disdain (or perhaps disgust).

"One way or another, in a week or in another ten years, the prophecy will be fulfilled!" Dumbledore snapped, his hands coming apart and turning into fists that slammed down on the surface of the table, and with such a force that both their coffee mugs jumped several centimeters into the air. "But it cannot be fulfilled if she is wasting away in a padded room wearing a straitjacket!"

Edward, rather than having startled at the old wizard's reaction, slowly sat back in his seat, flipped a particularly long lock of dark hair out of his eyes, and smiled. "If you had really been reading those reports, Dumbledore, you'd know that she isn't exactly wasting away in that room of hers. Quite the contrary. And the room isn't padded - the muggles passed a law against those damnable rooms and that treatment a few years ago." he couldn't seem to help but add, while letting out a genuinely amused chuckle.

"Regardless," Dumbledore allowed, the tension draining from his body as quickly as the blood was returning to his face. "we need her. And once we have her, it's my hope that, between Sirius, Remus, Severus, and a few other choice individuals who have the capability to form some kind of a connection with her, that some repairs can be made to her mind - and quickly - so that she might better respond to her training."

"I've seen some impossible things in this world, Dumbledore," Edward started slowly. "done both by muggles and by wizards, by technology and by magic, but the one thing I know for sure that can't be done by either is bringing any amount of sanity - doesn't matter how little or how great - back to that woman's mind. If I had the Galleons, I'd bet you a thousand the first thing she's going to do when you get her out of her room is either try to kill you, or try and make a break for it."

Edward fixed Dumbledore with a rather hard look all of a sudden. "I'm telling you, you can't train her. You can't teach her, you can't ORDER HER. She's not a domesticated, or even a stray, dog. She's a wild wolf. She does whatever she wants, whenever she wants, and for whatever inscrutable reasons she has in that head of hers - and no one, not you, not me, hell, not even Voldemort himself holding her under the Imperius Curse could get her to do any different. Even when she's agreeing with you, or doing what you ask of her, she's really NOT listening to you or obeying you, it's just that whatever she wants to do or wants to have happen just HAPPENS to coincide with what you want from her. She might as well be an alien, there's just no way to know or understand her logic or how she reasons things."

"And did you forget," Edward pressed on relentlessly, ruthlessly, even, in his quest to NOT, under any circumstances, allow Dumbledore to let the crazed woman loose on the world. "that she murdered her aunt and uncle when she was eleven? The uncle was maybe understandable, given everything he'd been doing to her over the course of her life - all kinds of abuses: food and water deprivation, beatings and rapes - but the aunt? And that was just the start for her! Do you have any recollection at all about just how many hospital staff members and even other patients she's killed or permanently crippled over the years - most of which she's managed to do even at times when she was wearing either handcuffs or a straitjacket, AND was surrounded by guards?"

Edward leaned forward in his seat, looking the Headmaster in the eyes as he hurled out his final point of contention. "Even YOU decided you didn't want her coming to Hogwarts at the time, all those years ago, because of the danger she would have posed to the other students. It was mostly- no, ENTIRELY YOUR DECISION to put her in the hospital to begin with - and to put myself and other wizards and witches on the staff to keep an eye on her."

"I know - I do remember - but now we have no choice." Dumbledore reiterated, after a very long, very heavy silence. "And we also have nothing left to lose; I doubt that whatever she could unleash on the world could be any more terrible and damaging than what Voldemort has accomplished in this past decade, particularly in light of his first, major move against the muggle world last September."

"Famous last words." Edward groaned, his head falling into his hands. He stood abruptly and clapped his hands. "All right, I'll take you to her. Best just to get it done and over with. But when she's out there doing whatever she's going to get up to doing - and it won't be anything good - you just remember that I did my best to persuade you against uncaging her."

"I shall endeavor to do just that." Dumbledore promised, similarly rising to his feet and slipping out of the booth. "I'll make the preparations with the Order, and I will see you at headquarters in three days' time."

Edward only nodded in parting, and, Dumbledore wondered to himself, as he followed suit, if he was not going to make the greatest mistake of his life.