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Full Summary:

Harry has lived his entire life within the borders of the Ward, an immense magical barrier protecting his family and their allies from the certain death waiting in the world beyond.

Life should pretty much be hell: monsters lurk in the woods and hills, dementors and lethifolds sweep through the air, and without magic to keep the bad stuff at bay, everyone's had to get...crafty. But none of that matters. To Harry, the Keep is home. For fifteen years, he and his parents and friends have lived in isolation—and even something like peace.

But when a wounded stranger breaches the security of their makeshift home, Harry realizes there's a lot he doesn't know about his world. His parents haven't told him the whole truth, about the strange destiny that waits for him in the magical world.

The Ward is a dangerous place. The world beyond is more dangerous still. But Harry will need to brave both if he's going to save their strange sanctuary—his home—and the family he loves within it.

Note: To be totally clear, everything up till the summer of 1980, right before Harry's birth, happened exactly as it did in canon...and from there, things get a little weird. But stay with me. :)

Rating: T for some violence and language, nothing crazy but please use discretion, etc. etc.

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The Ward

Part One

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The Woman in the Woods

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"There's someone in the woods," Ginny panted, and then she paused to take a breath. Her cheeks were ruddy with exertion. "It's...a stranger," she added slowly, as if she couldn't believe it herself.

Harry and Neville, who had been preparing the morning's catch, exchanged bemused glances. They sat outside by the firepit, taking advantage of the long light of the late August evening.

"There are no strangers," Harry replied at last, equally uncertain, though he set his knife down anyway. He hated cleaning fish, and even a silly excuse to stop was better than no excuse at all. "Probably it was a hidebehind or something; Emmeline said she saw one lurking round the wall the other day. Did you run all the way back?"

"It wasn't," Ginny insisted, cheeks flushing redder. She came to sit beside them on one of the stones that doubled as seats. Her basket, which she lowered to the ground, was heavy with hedgehog mushrooms and bright chanterelles. The leather strap of her bow and quiver had pulled against her chest. With some reluctance, she slipped it off and set the weapons on the ground as well. "I'm telling you, it was a person. A woman."

"What did she look like?" Neville asked. He, at least, was still dutifully cutting out the bones of his salmon.

"I dunno. Like a woman. Dark hair, a bit stooped over."

"An erkling, then?"

"It was a bit big for an erkling, Harry."

"You are still calling it an 'it,'" Neville observed.

"Her, then. Honestly. I should just go back and find her on my own."

"Yeah, and what's with that, anyway? You running all the way back here because of something in the woods?"

"It wasn't because of something in the woods," Ginny retorted hotly, brown eyes flashing. "Something I can handle. But I don't know what to do with someone. And neither would you."

"Alright, alright," Harry grumbled, feeling appropriately chastised. Like her mum, Ginny could really take it out of you if she felt she'd been wronged, and Harry wasn't in the mood to deal with his friend's temper.

"Could be a kelpie not in horse form," Neville added nonchalantly.

Harry half-expected another of Ginny's glares, but she had deflated, toying with the edges of the basket. "I dunno. I really don't think it was—I mean, you know how kelpies look sort of warped in any other form, but she was hunched over, so I didn't have the best look at her…"

"Well, I for one, am desperate to find out what this thing is. All of us ought to go together. Just as soon as we're done with the fish," Harry said, pointedly resuming his work.

"I see what you're doing," Ginny replied, rolling her eyes. Nonetheless, she drew a hunting knife from her boot and pulled one of the salmon toward her. Harry smothered a grin.

Between the three of them, they worked steadily in the half-light, their fingers sure from years of practice. If you let go and lost yourself a bit in the routine, it wasn't actually that bad, Harry thought. The firepit where they sat lay just atop the hillside, and as they slowly worked through the last of the fish, they had a fair view of their little world.

Meandering down the hillside below was a stone path that veered off in several directions: right to the ivy-covered outbuildings, left toward the wheat field and vegetable garden, or straight ahead, right on through the north gate and outside of the wall. Even now, Harry could see Emmeline Vance patrolling high atop it, pacing slowly with her attention outward. The wall blocked out his sightline, tall as it was, but beyond its sturdy protection was the endless green woods, which by now would be shrouded in the deep silence and darkness of the coming evening. And beyond, miles beyond, was the Ward itself.

The Ward you could sort of see even from a distance, though. It acted like something of a filter against the light, Remus had once told him, like seeing the world through some dark, translucent fabric. It covered the whole of the land inside like a great dome, the dense magic making dark swirls sometimes, surging and gushing across the skies like some mythic beast. Even now, Harry watched a coil unfurl among the clouds to the east, vaguely like a hand relaxing its grip.

The immense barrier did nothing to stop the birds, though: grey-green augureys and blue-spotted knolls were growing more active as the twilight hour approached, swooping overhead in search of insects on the wind. The cleverest of them was Wink, a knoll who usually sidestepped the hassle of finding his own food in favor of mooching off the Ward's human residents when there was fish to be had. It didn't help that he had particularly beautiful feathers, glossy blue-violet speckled with black, which made him the spoiled favorite not-quite-pet of practically everyone in the Keep. Even now, Harry slipped him a sliver of fish, which he stabbed with his beak and gulped down greedily.

As the three of them worked, a few people wandered back in from the Keep's grounds, heading toward the great hall for dinner. Tiny Dedalus, covered in pale dust from repairing a crack in the stone wall, gave them a cheery smile and a wink as he passed. Bearing a basket of eggs from the duck pens, Clary passed with her young daughter Peony, who toddled up to peer into the bucket of fish before rejoining her mother.

Gideon and Fabian walked up just as the three of them were finishing. The Prewett twins were accompanied today by Benjy's Patronus, a silvery robin that had perched atop Fabian's shoulder. The twins carried between them something furry that turned out, to Harry's immense shock, to be an actual red deer. And not just any deer, either: it was a hulking creature, at least seven or eight years old. The twins slowed as they drew closer, identical fox-like grins on their pointed faces.

"Is that real?" Ginny exclaimed, starry-eyed. "Can I touch it?"

"Blimey, I can't say I didn't have the same reaction," Fabian laughed, watching his niece run a tentative hand over the deer's fur, the ridges of its antlers. "I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me when we saw it in the woods."

"I thought they were all gone. That we'd hunted them down, or things had eaten them." Neville said in awe.

"So we'd all thought," Gideon added. "Maybe it's a sign of good luck, then. Or at least I'll tell that to Molly after we scare the hell out of her."

Its antlers were a deep brown, the tines a polished white. "Dad'll be weirded out," Harry said, staring.

"Can't help that," Gideon replied cheerily, adjusting his bow as they all began moving toward the Keep door. "But at least he'll be well-fed."

As they strode toward the Keep, movement from above caught Harry's eye. The building towered above them, twenty stories in all, the stones in its western face a dusky grey. In the lower floors, Harry could already make out the faint glow of candlelight; in one of the windows, a pale face peered out and retreated back in. Alba, Neville's little sister, probably having caught sight of the Prewett twins' catch.

A rush of warmth washed over Harry as they stepped into the building. Candles glowed in the iron chandeliers above, flooding the room in golden light. As was typical at this time of the day, the great hall thrummed with conversation as everyone returned from their work. At a wooden table near the fireplace, Caradoc Dearborn and his son Benjy argued about something with Moody; the jeering grin on Mad-Eye's face suggested that he was winning. In the corner, Elpha McKinnon practiced on the wooden flute Hagrid had given her as a birthday gift a few days back. A small group had gathered, elbowing each other good-naturedly to request favorite tunes, but when the Prewetts walked in with the deer, their focus was quickly diverted. Benjy's robin Patronus grew miffed at the ensuing chaos and fluttered back to its caster.

Harry hefted the bucket of fish, moving aside. "We'll have to tell someone before we go," he said quietly to Neville and Ginny, watching the twins preen at the attention. "Else we'll never hear the end of it."

"It's not against the rules to be out there when it's light out, so long as we stay close. Except I guess it'll be dark soon." Neville added.

"But if we ask the right person, then it's fine."

"Not my parents, obviously," Ginny said grimly, tapping her nose.

"Or your dad, Harry," Neville added thoughtfully. "Who's hunting? Where are your Patronuses?"

"Mine's with Dad, and Ginny's is with Remus."

"Where's your mum, Neville?" Ginny asked. "She'd be alright with it, wouldn't she?"

Neville shrugged sheepishly. "She's in the woods too; I sent my Patronus out with her a couple hours ago."

"Great," Harry sighed. "So that leaves Mum, and she'll give us a fair chance. Let's go run the fish back, then."

A door to the left of the fireplace led to the kitchens, and Harry made a beeline for it. The clank of pots and pans grew louder as they stepped over the threshold; a fire roiled in the corner, and the space smelled deliciously of onions and celery root. As always, the space buzzed with work, Ginny's mum at the center of it all.

Very few people in the Keep worked in the same place consistently; it was much more typical to specialize in a few things and rotate between them, according to a schedule Elphias carefully maintained in keeping with the needs of the season and, of course, the strengths of the person. Harry's father, for example, spent his days alternating between hunting with a team in the woods and helping with the harvest. His mother mostly turned their meager supplies into useful potions, but she occasionally worked to dry their extra food for winter or took turns watching on the wall.

Molly Weasley, on the other hand, was in charge of the food, and it was her only job. No one else could manage the stores of the entire Keep like she could, or keep plates filled even when the harvest was lean. Molly ferociously pushed them to preserve food now, in the heat of summer, and made sure they had enough rations in the thin winters, wielded a knife more skillfully than even Sirius, had arms sturdy enough to pack a solid punch from pummeling bread dough all day.

Her recruits today were the usual. Augusta Longbottom shelled wild peas near the window, bony fingers working with expert ease; Marlene McKinnon shaped fresh dough on a wooden table in the back; Harry was surprised to see his mum there as well, chattering amiably at Marlene's side as she helped roll the bread.

"There you are, dears, and quicker than I thought," Molly said, motioning for them to bring the fish forward. Harry set the bucket on the table, and she began to pull them out. "Good catch today," she said approvingly.

"Wait until you see what's coming next," Ginny grinned. "You'll just about die."

"What's coming next?" Molly asked curiously. She had reached up to the mantel wall above the fire to tap one of the runes carved there, and the fire's strength dwindled as it obediently curled in on itself like a closing flower. "Oh, and you've brought the mushrooms—lovely."

"You'll see soon enough. Did you need some help with them?"

"Well, they'll go well in the stew, but they'll need to be cleaned and sliced…" An enormous pot of something woody and sweet-smelling simmered in the hearth—hunter's stew, most likely. Ginny drew Molly's attention toward it ("Oh, what did you add to it today? Is the dried garlic ready yet?") as she snuck Harry a pointed look.

Neville followed Harry toward the wooden work tables, slipping away to talk with his grandmother. Harry set his sights on his mother instead. "Hello, mum," he said as he approached.

"Harry. What are you up to?" The corners of Lily's eyes crinkled when she smiled. A smattering of freckles, earned from long days in sunlight, stretched across her cheeks.

"Well." Harry said wryly. "Since you've asked..."

"Oh, no."

"It's nothing bad," he promised, returning the smile. "We just want to go back into the woods, Ginny and Neville and me."

"Why do you want to go into the woods, then?" Marlene, probably his mother's best friend in the whole Keep, had a glinting grin, dark hair to her shoulders, and a funny way of knowing when she was being lied to.

Careful, Harry warned himself, hoping the pair of them wouldn't gang up to tell him no. "Well...Ginny thought she saw something."

"What? Some sort of creature?"

"No, weirder. A woman."

Marlene and Lily exchanged a glance. "So it was a magical creature, then. Something that can shapeshift," Marlene said.

"No, Ginny said—" Harry tossed a look over his shoulder, feeling stupid and half-wishing Ginny would come to his rescue. "Well, she said it was a stranger."

"There are no strangers here," Lily said resolutely. "Not anymore. It was a hidebehind."

"That's what I said—"

"—which the lot of you are capable of dealing with, as long as we know that's what it is," Lily continued. "And I don't think we know that for sure."

"There would be three of us, though. And Ginny's got defensive magic, she's probably the safest person to go with in the whole Keep." At last, Lily sighed, but she looked conflicted now, which Harry thought was a step in the right direction. "Come on, mum, it's like you said. Remus taught us well. We've been allowed into the woods nearby for practically two years now. And it won't be far; Ginny's not allowed more than a mile out for gathering. There's nothing serious this close to the wall. It's got to be a hidebehind or a kelpie. Or a really attractive dementor."

Lily frowned, but it was the crooked one she had when she was thinking and not the one she wore when she was angry. "It's getting late. It'll be dark soon."

"But it isn't now. If we leave right away, we can check it out and be done before dark."

"Good to take care of it anyway," Augusta added sternly, abandoning all pretense of working with the beans. Neville gave Harry an apologetic look, probably because he hadn't managed to distract her for long, but Harry couldn't have held it against him. "It's best to keep the woods round the wall clear, right?"

"I notice Ginny and Neville aren't begging their mothers," Marlene said, amused.

"Course not. They're not mad." Augusta replied, giving Neville an uncharacteristic (if straight-faced) wink, and Harry rallied a bit to know she was on their side.

"I don't know, Harry," Lily said. "Why don't you all just go out tomorrow in the day…"

But Harry, who had just glanced back toward Ginny and got an idea, quickly asked, "What if we got someone to come with us? Like a proper hunter, who's trained to go out more than a couple miles and everything?"

"And which hunter would that be?"

"Oi! Sirius!" Harry called. A few feet away, his godfather had been sneaking a roll, fresh from the stone oven. Happily, Molly was still distracted by the deer, and Sirius was able to quickly stuff it into his pocket as he strode across the room.

"Dirty trick, Hal," Sirius said, mock glowering at his godson's smug grin.

"Sirius, you're a proper hunter, right? I hear you can even manage a sword."

"That I can, Hal," Sirius replied suspiciously, looking at Lily for guidance. Lily and Marlene just watched in amusement.

"And wasn't it you who just last month, one thousand miles away and all alone, took down a boggart that had taken the shape of a giant flesh-eating spider?"

"I was with Remus," Sirius challenged, laughing. "And we've barely got a full hundred miles to roam in the Ward."

"But basically, yes—"

"And I think it was a normal acromantula, not the flesh-eating kind...or I suppose all giant spiders can eat flesh if they want. Oh, and it was just a spider, not a boggart, though—"

"Sirius, help me out here."

"You just tried to bring the wrath of Molly Weasley down on me!" Sirius laughed incredulously.

"Which I now feel really, really badly about and anyway, since you obviously have nothing better to do until dinner besides nick extra food, how would you feel about leading a four-person expedition out into the perimeter of the woods, starting right now?"

"Knowing you, I'd rather take latrine duty for a week," he fired back. Then: "How far is 'the perimeter?'" he asked suspiciously.

"No more than a mile. Ginny was out gathering when she saw something weird we want to check out. She said it looked like a strange woman."

"Hmm. Probably a hidebehind."

"That's what I said," Harry and his mother repeated in unison.

"Great. Sounds fascinating," Sirius replied. After a moment, he slowly got to his feet, cramming half the dinner roll into his mouth. "'pose I'm in. We goin' now or wha'?"

Lily gave Sirius a look, but Sirius returned it soberly. "You know I'll watch them," he said after swallowing the mouthful. "If it's anything we can't handle, we'll come straight back. But it's not much different from anything else they do in the woods, Lils, if a bit later in the day. We won't go any further than the sound of my horn can carry." Like the rest of them, Sirius had removed his weapons and outer gear when he entered the stone Keep, the only safe place in all the land. Even so, as his hand fell to his hip as he spoke, as if he hadn't quite remembered the horn's absence in time.

"Alright, then," she said at last, appeased. "It looked like rain earlier, so make sure you've got your cloak," Lily said, more to Sirius than to Harry, who was already wearing his from earlier. "And Harry, take my blade, not your spear."

"Sure, mum. I'll grab it on the way out."

"See to it you do," Lily replied, surprising Harry by giving them a smile as they set off. "And whatever it is...take it out."

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As it was wont to do, the weather had turned in the span of only a half hour. The augureys perched in the Keep's upper windows had been crying as the four of them left the building, though, so they had dutifully brought their warmer gear. Now, a fine mist, churned by the incessant breeze and gleaming in the filtered light of the setting sun, fell about them as Ginny led the way. In their dark lethifold-skin cloaks, made waterproof with the aid of Neville's runes, they probably looked something like dementors themselves. All the same, the sturdy fabric repelled the worst of the chill and the wet, and the hood meant that Harry's face stayed mostly dry.

Which was good, because Harry kept finding his eyes drawn to the hunting horn at Sirius's side as they walked. It was the length of his forearm, dark and red as blood. Along with its identical siblings worn by the other hunters, it had come, or so Harry had been told, from a graphorn that had been killed in the first days of the Ward.

Harry had seen a lot of things in the woods, a lot of things that unsettled him. Dementors and lethifolds, of course, but also prowling erklings and red caps. There were kelpies and pogrebin, and, twice, wyrms that had strayed too near the Keep. And that was without mentioning all the plants that wanted to kill you as well, but Harry didn't really like to dwell on those. He knew as well that there were worse things out there still, roaming somewhere in the black heart of the Ward, out beyond the small patch of woods nearest the Keep where he was allowed to roam. He'd heard stories from his father and mother and the others, stories that usually kept him content with the meager swath of land he knew by heart—if curious about the rest of it.

He had never seen a graphorn. Back when even the adults had been younger, back when the land was new, there had been more things like graphorns, giant beasts that had taken almost all of the adults to kill. Bigger, stronger, faster things, things that still existed now but in fewer numbers, cut down by blades and arrows and, at least in these days, spells. Not just hidebehinds and kelpies and dementors, but real monsters from his parents' stories.

Sometimes, Harry wondered what it must have been like back then, every day facing creatures he could name but had never seen.

"How far can the horns be heard, anyway?" he wondered curiously. Sirius gave no sign he was surprised by the sudden question.

"We've never really tested it," his godfather replied. Though Sirius was looking away as he walked, scanning the woods, the easy tone of his voice suggested a grin. "Never had to. People just always hear. Doesn't really matter though—if we don't find anything nearby, we'll just turn round."

"Are we close now?" Neville asked, slipping a bit in the mud. Harry threw out a hand to steady him, used to his friend's occasional clumsiness.

"Not much farther," Ginny replied distractedly. "Few minutes or so. Maybe a quarter-mile from Augurey Sound."

They were all alert now, listening hard for any scrap of sound in the wood. The wind blustered past them, now rising and now falling, tugging at the dark boughs of the trees. Harry felt the comforting weight of his mother's shortsword against his back, though he'd have preferred the familiarity of his own spear. At his side, Neville was looking upward past the leaves and into the evening sky, which was a bruised purple toward the horizon. Harry followed his gaze to find that floating near the dark clouds to the east was a pair of dementors, their cloaks whipping in the wind.

"You see them?" Sirius said approvingly. "Good. Looks like they're just trailing behind us, but it's best to be aware."

"Constant vigilance," Ginny replied distractedly.

"There's that," Sirius agreed. After a moment's pause, he added slyly: "I think they'll leave us alone after the solstice next week, though."

Neville and Harry shared a confused glance. Ginny voiced their question. "What do you mean?"

"Let's just say Gideon and Fabian have a special celebration planned," Sirius replied with a grin.

"What kind of celebration?" Neville asked.

"Will they make fireworks again?" Harry added excitedly. "They will, won't they?"

"It's no fun to tell you outright...so I won't."

"But you've already mostly told us!"

"Shhh. You've heard nothing from me!" Sirius laughed, and before they could wheedle an answer from him, he shifted and a great black dog surged forward in his place.

"Ugh, you're such a nuisance," Harry said. Sirius, of course, did not reply, but he did circle around to leave a trail of slobber across the back of Harry's hand. In Animagus form, Padfoot's keen sensorium made him naturally better at recognizing the things that stalked them in the night, dementors and lethifolds and such, and so Harry suspected his godfather would eventually have turned into Padfoot regardless of the subject of conversation.

The woods were peaceful as they continued on. The sound of crickets chirping joined the hum of the wind. Ginny led them steadily forward, her hair bright in the darkness.

It was several minutes later that Harry noticed Sirius stiffen at his side. The dog made a gruff sound, but almost at the same time, Ginny said in a hushed voice: "Look, it's still there!"

In the growing darkness, Harry couldn't make out what she meant; nothing moved in the coming night except for branches and groundcover in the breeze. But Ginny had already begun to move forward, slinking toward a copse of trees a few yards beyond them.

The others swept forward to flank her, with Sirius now at the front. As they approached the trees, Harry realized there was something there, a dark thing leaning bonelessly against a fallen log. It was about the size of a human, not tall and silvery like a hidebehind, nor was it probably a kelpie, because as they grew near, he realized its skin was distinctly human-like. In fact, all of it was distinctly human-like.

"A boggart?" Harry murmured out of the corner of his mouth.

"Wouldn't it have done something by now?" Neville asked. They were just a few feet away, and had all drawn their weapons, Harry with his shortsword, Neville with his spear, and Ginny nocking an arrow.

The thing moved very slowly, like someone coming out of a dream, and Harry realized that the dark part of it was hair—three or four feet of tangled, knotted black hair. It was a person, a woman, just as Ginny had said. She was lying face down, but as she rolled her head to see them, the hair slid out of her face. Her skin was marred with a combination of dirt and bruises that made it hard to make out any distinguishing features except maybe a strong jaw. And then—

"You're hurt," Harry said stupidly, for she was: crusts of dried black blood had stained the filthy grey dress she wore.

"I've just finished bleeding," the person-thing rasped, and this, more than anything he had ever heard, made ice creep over his skin. Harry didn't need to look at the others to know that they were just as dumbfounded as he was, blindsided by a creature that used words. There were markedly few of those, and all of them lethal. But then...

"Are you a human?" Ginny asked it.

"Are you an idiot?" The person croaked. Though it was obvious the woman barely had the strength to move, her dark eyes darted between all of them, until they came to rest on Harry. She frowned, studying him.

Padfoot was taut as a bowstring, ears up and tail straight. He growled.

"How are you—what are you doing here?" Neville asked.

The person closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the damp log. "Mordred's crown, I'll have another go with the bloody manticore over a band of teenage imbeciles."

After a long moment, in which all of them stared blankly at her and probably gave her no confidence that they weren't imbeciles, Padfoot came to their rescue and changed back into a human.

The woman watched this transformation disinterestedly until the very end. Once Sirius's face was clear, she choked on something which turned out eventually to be a laugh, though she clutched at her ribs as though they pained her. "Cousin," she wheezed at last. "I'd really hoped you were dead."

"Bellatrix," Sirius replied. He drew his sword and reached down quickly to pick up an oddly straight twig that lay at her side. Whatever it was must have been important, for the woman blinked herself out of her daze just in time to reach weakly for it. "I can honestly say the same."

Before the woman, Bellatrix, could say more, Sirius put the twig in his coat pocket. "Harry," he murmured, not taking his eyes off the woman. "I need some rope."

It took Harry a moment to drag his thoughts from the stranger and understand what Sirius meant, but when the words finally filtered into his mind, he looked around quickly to spot a large, fallen branch a few feet away. He walked over, bent down, and focused on what he needed. Ropes he had made a hundred times before, maybe a thousand, but as always, each act of transfiguration was unique. He imagined the hard bark and layered wood filtering into a million twisted fibers, joined in flexibility, still with an implacable strength. When at last he was ready, he performed the spell—chordarius—with just as much care as every other time, taking the few moments he needed to perfect it.

When he had finished, and felt the last of the spell's magic go out of him, he held a long length of rope which he handed wordlessly to his godfather. Sirius took it, sheathed his sword, and glanced at Ginny, who nodded curtly—meaning, Harry thought, that she was ready to defend them by bow or by spell if it came down to it. Sirius knelt down. He pulled the woman forward, looping it around her wrists and knotting the length tightly.

"What in Merlin's name..." Bellatrix protested weakly, though she had no strength to fight him off.

"What are you doing?" Harry asked uncertainly, though he did nothing to stop it. "She's hurt—we can't just—"

"Harry," Sirius said. His voice was quiet, but something in it made Harry close his mouth straight away. "You may not understand...and I can't explain it now, so I can't expect you to. But she might be the most dangerous thing we have in the Ward right now."

"Oh ho," Bellatrix said weakly, head lolling backward. Her eyes were half-lidded now. "That's quite...quite a compliment, cousin."

"Sirius, I don't understand." Ginny said, still staring down her bow at the woman. "Where did she come from? Where did she—it's...there are no strangers. It's just us. Isn't it?"

Sirius opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He looked dazed himself. "I don't even know how to tell you. Don't ask me questions."

"Did she just call you cousin?" Neville realized suddenly. Once it was pointed out, Harry felt he could almost see it: the cutting jawline, the high cheekbones, dark hair and eyes.

Bellatrix gave a tired grin, and there was something cruel in it, something very unlike Sirius's usual grins. "Who are...these babies?" she asked, though her voice was thin and pained. "And how have they survived...so long?"

Sirius stood, ignoring her question. "I'm bringing you back to the Keep, but there's a few things you'll need to know," Sirius told her conversationally. "Things are different from how they used to be. I can't stun you, and Ginny's never had to stun a human before, and I don't think now's the best time for her to practice on you. So you can either shut up, or I can knock you out with the blunt end of this." He pulled his sword partway from its sheath and then slid it back in. "I'm not great at gauging my own strength or where to strike, so I might hit you too hard and kill you. I'm also not good at making sure I'm hitting with the blunt end, so I might give you the sharp side and kill you." And there it was: a cruel smile not unlike the one that had just been on the stranger's face.

Bellatrix said nothing, just frowned tiredly up at him. "What—?"

Before she could continue, he hoisted her bodily over one shoulder, and her head fell with an oof against his back. Sirius stood, turning to face them. He must have somehow known the questions on their tongues, because he took a long moment to school his face into stone. "Don't ask me just now," he ordered. "Don't...I can't answer. When we get back..."

He didn't seem to know exactly how to finish. And so without another word, he set off the way they had come, tracing their path back toward the Keep. After only the smallest hesitation, Harry and his friends slipped into line behind him, following his footsteps in the darkness.

It was colder now, though the mist had long since stopped falling. As they walked, their steps rang loud in the wood. Harry stared at his godfather's back, stared at the woman who could not exist, because this, the Ward, was all there was.

But there are no strangers, he thought.

.

.

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A/N: Poor kid has been fed some serious lies. Man, what a thing to have happen to you in the middle of your summer vacay.

Anyway. This story has been floating around in my head for a while. I was wondering what it would look like if things had gone differently and the first Order of the Phoenix survived (and how that might happen in the first place). Plus, I love medieval-inspired settings, so the walled Keep in the woods practically invented itself.

So here's the result, though I won't do too much talking about how things came to be this way for Harry and the others. Maybe you can guess. But either way, answers are coming in the next part! (Uhhh probably. I haven't written it just yet, though the general story outline is already done.) Don't hesitate to ask questions, though—I do want to be sure I've covered everything without leaving plot holes, so if you're curious about something, let me know. I just might not be able to answer some things!

Couple notes:

1. In case it isn't clear, everyone says "the Ward" to refer both to the magical dome and the actual land within it, including but not limited to the hills, woods, and castle Keep. More description of all that stuff to come. Eventually.

2. The prophecy does not include the lines about Harry being marked by Voldemort, because it makes my life easier.

3. Unfortunately, updates are going to be pretty sporadic. But things are all outlined now, so hopefully I'll have the next one out soon :)

If you got this far, let me know what you thought!

Peace,

~ket