"Pass us the pumpkin preserve, would you Lyall? There's a dear."

Lyall Lupin sighed as he nudged the spread over to his mother. To say he felt like crap would be an understatement of considerable proportions. He could only imagine what he looked like right now – dark hair sticking up at all angles, hollow circles beneath his eyes, unshaven and unwashed, save for the toothbrush he had reluctantly dragged across his teeth. Even then he'd only managed it due to the fact he could have sworn something had died in his mouth overnight. He was in the same robes that he'd fallen asleep in – the dark blue folds might have looked nice if not for the fact that they were now tattered, covered in mud, blood and his own sweat, and hanging off him like they didn't really want to be there.

His eyes wandered slowly over the kitchen around him – neat and cosy, perfectly so to make him seem all the more out of place. A grand stone hearth took up a large proportion of one wall, with a brass cauldron bubbling away cheerfully, whilst pots and pans of every shape imaginable (and then some) were slung from the wooden beams of the low ceiling at various heights, some so low you repeatedly found yourself walking into them. All around the walls sat various bunches of herbs and dried flowers, whilst live flowers spilt off the small windowsill and trailed onto the floor. Some pictures hung on the walls – the five of them on the beach in Cornwall, splashing happily in the surf; his mother and father proudly rising the Hufflepuff Quiddich cup above the rest of their team, Lyall standing next to his brother and sister outside the Hogwarts express.

He smiled fondly at that one. It was the beginning of Conall and Ylva's fifth year, whilst Lyall was only embarking upon his second year of magical education. Ylva was beaming happily, her chest held out firmly to display her bright new prefect badge, practically glowing yellow. Conall looked a little more sullen, though with his antics Lyall wondered why Conall had even entertained the thought of becoming one of Hufflepuff's prefects. His eyes slid from the twins to himself. Scrawny, shy, and awkwardly fiddling with the hem of his blue-lined robes.

His father poured him some nettle tea. "Come on lad, the way you downed the last of our Pepper-Up should have you bouncin' by now! I know you're right shattered - as you have a right to be - but it's all in the mind, see? Get some breakfast down ya lad; it'll make the world of difference."

Lyall started, blinked, and automatically reached for a piece of toast. He continued to listen distantly to his mother as he proceeded to spread the preserve over the bread.

"Oh, we're ever so proud of you love! Our son – an auror! Studying hinkypunks one moment, off fighting werewolves the next! See, Athaulf 'n I was wondering where on earth our herbology nack had got lost in you, turns out you never needed it! I mean, cultivating belladonna and fluxweed is good 'n all, but not for you it seems! Ah, must be so exciting to be…- deary, you can probably stop with the now."

Lyall was vaguely aware that his knife, still moving methodically to spread the orange paste over his toast, had long since torn through the bread and he was now applying it to the table. He raised his eyes uncertainly.

"Look boy, mebbe a nap could do you some good, eh?" Lyall's father encouraged. "You've had one hell of a couple of days."

"Ooh, just wait till the twins hear about this! Right jealous they'll be of their baby brother! Trainin' as a auror an-"

"I'm not an auror, Mum." Lyall managed to sigh. "I'm just working with a couple, getting some experience. It's not that…" The young man stifled a yawn. "It's no…"

"Tell you what, son, go sit in the garden a while, hey? Bit of fresh air is what you need." Clara said, matter-of-factly, shooting her husband a knowing look, to which he responded with a shrug.

Before Lyall could protest, he found his feet were already dragging him towards the back door, and into the garden.

No expense had been spared in the maintenance of the garden of the Lupins' retirement home. A small, shelled pathway wound through the small plot of land, visiting every patch and plot on a grand tour of the Lupins' pride and joy. A tall, walled garden surrounded the place, with creepers of every kind and colour running up and down it. Lyall scanned his eyes around for a while, momentarily caught by a small gnome scampering for cover. Mr and Mrs Athaulf Lupin were fiercely protective of their garden, and had a bit of a reputation amongst the local gnome population.

The young man wandered down through the greenery, smiling and gazing at each plot. First was the herb garden. It was filled – crowded - with dittany, parsley, monkshood, wormwood, basil, rosemary, coriander, nettles, asphodel, cannabis, thyme… the list went on. Each lay in little rows, enchanted differently for optimum growing conditions. Lyall had always gone to seek out the herb garden in his childhood home and just lie in it, being careful of the nettles, breathing in the smell. Lyall chuckled as he remembered his mother's outrage after he'd been caught nibbling on the cannabis leaves as a toddler, waddling round singing gaily to no-one in particular, and trying to convince her how bright everything was…

Still smiling fondly, Lyall meandered down the plot. He passed the colourful vegetable patch, the bright flower patch, the chicken coop and even the small pond. To say the small garden was overcrowded would be cute.

The only thing missing from the Lupins' old household was the orchard which had, ironically, paid for this place. His parents had doted on those trees, growing hazel, sycamore, ash and birch, not to mention holly and ivy, growing such high quality wood that they could sell it for wands and brooms at quite impressive prices.

Lyall collapsed on the gnarled old bench on the pondside, dropping his head into his hands. He might not be so exhausted save for that unwise apparation this morning. He'd all but staggered into his father's skinny arms. The telling of his story of the previous day seemed to have guilted his mother a little, and she had apparently forgotten about the "boggart situation" altogether anyway.

Lyall knew he shouldn't begrudge his parents, really. And he hadn't even been avoiding them. He was just so overwhelmed with work. All he wanted to do was to observe and study the trickiest of the magical creatures – the apparitions. He wanted to write papers, observe behaviour, plough forward in establishing communication, maybe even lecture one day. He was the most happy when trailing through the wizarding quarters of the old universities in Oxford or Cambridge, spying out old books or conversing with the professors.

And so the ministry had sought him out to work for them. Forget study and research, oh no, Lyall's employers had him filing and leafing and interviewing and producing public awareness information and even more filing…

And now, they had him running around chasing after damn poltergeists like a Muggle mole trapper. The whole thing was a joke.

By now, Lyall's legs had cramped up completely. Groaning, he lifted himself from the bench and began to take some tentative steps forward, wincing as he did so. His strides lead him to the very bottom of the garden, to the little door at the end.

Yet another sigh, and a shrug. What the hell?

As it turned out, the door led him down a small path, and eventually into a small woods. Lyall began to grin a little, as he soon became surrounded in the verdant trees and shrubs, silent and still, with wildflower in the air and birds on the wing. His legs even began to unwind. Now he stopped to contemplate it, it really was a lovely day.

The peace was, of course, then shattered by a scream. A loud one at that.

Lyall pinpointed the direction and veered off to the right, after only the slightest hesitation. He knew of course that limping directly towards the scream was foolish indeed, but all the same he ploughed on through the shrubs and nettles towards the noise.

He stopped abruptly when he ran into the scream. Literally, ran into a flowery yellow Muggle dress with a screaming girl seemingly inside it. It fell to the floor.

Lyall was about to lean over to check on her, when a sickening crunch came from behind him. Slowly, ever so slowly, he looked up. He saw the huge, twisted roots of a tree, thicker than a body and plunging in and out of pale, dry soil. As Lyall's gaze drifted up, he saw the roots clump together to form a vast, sick trunk easily the breadth of a house, before separating again high above him to form gnarled and ugly branches, reaching out to all sides, towering above Lupin and blocking out the sun to leave a vast black silhouette. Then, it started to move.

Lyall rolled as a branch came down to the ground with a sickening thud, landing where his head had just been. Lyall stared at it for a moment, gasping, before having to roll again as a second tree-fist came down. The whole form groaned as its trunk twisted around, stretching its limbs and bringing them down to the floor of the forest in furious thumps, one after the other. Lupin, trembling, finally got his feet beneath him and staggered to his feet before tripping on his robes and landing on the girl, who had long since stopped screaming and now held a look of total bewilderment. He saw her face for a fraction of a second beneath him, before clutching her and rolling both of them to the left as yet another branch hit the ground. This time, it was the young woman who helped to drag him up, and they both staggered for cover. Suddenly, a twisted wooden limb slammed down across their pathway, and the two wasted no time in switching to run in the opposite direction. Lyall's hands searched through his long, ripped robes for his wand, to no avail. All at once the small hand clutched in his was gone, and he saw the yellow dress flying from his vision far into the air, carried by a single gnarled limb.

The young man finally found his hand on his wand. Trembling, he took stance and pointed it towards the tree.

"Ri…Riddi- Riddikulus!" He cried.

There was a deafening crack!, and quite suddenly, no tree.

In its place stood a large and really quite comical toadstool, with a red top and goofy cream spots, looking for all the world like an illustration from a children's book, and appearing rather startled to be so.

Lyall let out a shudder somewhere between a sob and a giggle.

"A wee boggart problem", he uttered.

And then Lyall remembered the dress, with the girl inside. He startled, and took off in the direction she had been flung.

She hadn't gone far. She was lying in a heap, scratched and bruised, but breathing labouredly. Lyall finally reached her bent over her to check for any broken bones.

"Hey…" she muttered, and started to sit up.

Lupin never got a chance to see the gir'ls face as he heard a soft giggle, followed a snort, before he saw white as a strong slap hit him squarely in the jaw. He barely had time to register the shock before the girl in the yellow dress fainted.


Hello there! So I'm back with another update. I hope you liked it, it has a wee bit more action than the others so far. Did any one you notice that little boggart-twist I pulled? That said, it wasn't mine - it's actually JKR's. I'm trying to keep this story totally cannon compliant, just with a little artistic license here and there.

Either way, please leave a review! Even just a little note to let me know that people are actually reading! (*sweats*)

'Till next time!


*Quick update!* OK, so due to the amount of traffic coming to the first chapter compared to the significantly fewer views in later chapters, I've given Ch 1 a very quick once-over. It's less specific in term of places (to give me a wee bit more artistic licence) and hopefully a little less rushed. You don't need to go back and read it though - just thought I'd let you know!