Seven Years in Slytherin Chapter 7: First Year 6: His Saving Grace, a harry potter fanfic

Seven Years in Slytherin
XxMookinexX

Based on the Harry Potter books by J. K. Rowling.

First Year, Part Six
His Saving Grace

"You are too young to fall asleep for ever; and when you sleep you remind me of the dead."
Seigfried Sassoon

Harry Potter took a deep sip of coffee. The wizarding world had a fantastic array of drinks, and he'd tried a great many of them in his life, but when it came to simple Muggle pleasures: tea, coffee and hot chocolate, he had yet to find a passable wizarding equivalent. Butterbeer didn't seem appropriate.

He glanced at the clock on the wall. 4am. He fingered his wand in exasperation. What a ridiculous time to rendezvous! He understood the reasoning, however. 4am was the least busy hour of the day. Most would be asleep. People working night shifts had just reached the point of boredom, and it was still too early for the first commuters to have left their houses. But he was confused by the location. The waiting room of St. Mungos? It was the only truly busy place at this hour. Patients and welcome witches kept giving him adoring looks. He felt incredibly out of place here. A perfectly healthy person in the middle of a sick ward. He glanced, not for the first time, at the wing he'd become so familiar with over the past three months.

It had been Christmas Eve when Grace Hart was attacked, and Harry had no idea what had happened to her. Hermione had said it reminded her of something, but she couldn't remember what. It was perhaps the least helpful Hermione had ever been. He'd almost felt let down. Which was ridiculous. There was no reason Hermione should have all the answers. There was nothing like the pocketwatch in any known text. Three months had passed so quickly, and the most brilliant minds of the decade had yet to make any progress in Grace's case.

His long-time Auror conspiracy theorist, Abraham Brahmms, had been having a fantastic time dreaming up all the ways this attack on Grace was actually an attack on Harry. After all, the girl was Albus' friend. She'd spent the day in his house. James and Alex had wrapped the present – although they claimed it had contained chocolate from Honeydukes (How they'd gotten this particular gift from Hogsmeade when neither were in their third year, Harry had restrained from asking. He was aware the Marauders Map had gone missing from his desk some time ago. He was certain James and Alex wouldn't use it for any more harm than the Weasley Twins had back in the day).

Somehow the signs were pointing his way, because who would attack an eleven year old girl just for the sake of it? Harry remembered how Ginny had looked back in his second year. She had been a first year then, too. Tom Riddle had attacked her. But he didn't believe another dark wizard was rising. It wasn't denial on his part. He was actively searching for criminals that used the dark arts all the time. The most he'd had to face in recent years had been mysterious thefts. Thefts that had become less mysterious and more vexing now that one of the thieves had made themselves known to him. Not in person. They had a way of controlling other people to do their bidding which alarmed Harry. If it weren't for the fact that this mind-control was short-lived, he'd be actively hunting this particular agent down. For the moment, he was focusing more on her compatriots because she was a useful source of information from time to agent got in touch to warn him whenever a particularly important magical artifact was about to go missing. Sometimes his increased security measures paid off, and the thief obtained nothing for their work. Sometimes the reverse was true. It was a source of vexation. Another reminder that he should be better than this.

That morning he'd received a postcard of a Native American tribal tent. It had read: St Mungos, 4am.

No name, but he'd known who it was from. It was becoming an established pattern now.

That was why he was sitting here. Waiting.

"Mr Potter," a Mediwizard had rushed up to him and was forcing an object into his hands. "This is for you. From FIRE." The knot in Harry's gut tightened. Then, just as usual, the Mediwizard straightened and looked confused, agitated, like he didn't remember what he'd just done. "Did you want something?" he snapped, more angrily than he would have usually. Something about the temporary mind-control made the witch or wizard more touchy when it wore off. Probably their mind was fighting off the memory of how they'd been attacked and subdued as a form of paranoia.

"Thank you," he said. "Just the time."

"It's 4:03."

"Thank you," he repeated, and the Mediwizard hurried off. FIRE was always 3 minutes late. Harry examined the object in his hand. A Muggle cell phone. It should have no reception here, but he had a feeling it wasn't working on conventional means. He held the device to his ear. "Hello?"

"Mr Potter!" a voice cooed from the speaker, drilling directly into his eardrum. "How fabulous to see you again! I just thought I'd let you know that you're right to be looking so concerned in that direction. I have stolen something from that girl." Harry stiffened, and got to his feet, heading deliberately down the corridors towards Grace's room. "Grace, wasn't it? Such a shame, I couldn't warn you sooner. But you see, it was a matter of time." She laughed. At least, he'd always thought of FIRE as a she. The voice could be transfigured for all he knew. "Sorry, my little joke. Anyway darling, I had a completely bizarre task today. I mean, stealing that little pocketwatch was only the beginning. You'll laugh when I tell you. I had to make a delivery! Me!" She laughed again. Harry imagined the agent checking her nails and fanning herself excitedly. "You had no idea I could be giving, did you, darling?" Harry bounded into the room. Grace sat frozen on the bed, staring at her hands. The pocketwatch had been removed months ago for testing. To his practiced eye she appeared unchanged, but FIRE had mentioned her for a reason.

"What did you do?" he bellowed, struggling to remain calm. The agent sighed. Perhaps she was pouting at him again. She always did that when he cut her off mid-stream.

"It was nothing harmful. Don't be such a grouch!" She addressed him the way he'd expect a fussy pet owner to address their dog. Who's a good boy? Roll over. Play dead. Good boy. "I gave her a few… I suppose they could be memories? Let's call them hints about events to come. You can tell her, oh, what was it? The first one doesn't mean anything. It's a proof. Anyway darling, that's just the message I was supposed to pass on. They know I like to talk to you. Now, shall I gift you something, my dearest?"

"What do you want? What are you selling?"

"My, my, I've trained you well!" On the other end of the connection he heard a fast-paced clapping. FIRE was applauding herself. "I want, oooh, a postcard of a beach house in the Bahamas and ten pots of potpourri." Harry grimaced. This was the way FIRE worked. Extravagant, irrelevant extortion. "And dewdrop, you mustn't shoot the messenger, but I'm afraid I know exactly what's happened to that poor girl. You see, I told you I would steal that trinket last year. Don't you remember? Mysterious theft from the Department of Mysteries! I was front page news in The Seer. A pity they had no photo of me. I would delight the masses. But alas, a thief can only gain notoriety by their invisibility. Sooooooooo, beach house. Bahamas. I'll post it to you next time in the usual way. The potpourri is just to brighten up my day! Aaaaand, yes, I'd talk to those Unspeakables if I were you. Oh," she laughed. "Bad pun! They can't tell you anything!" She dissolved into a fit of giggles. "Well, maybe I'll be kind this once, as a favour to you because you look so cute when you're sleepy. Like a little lost dog. I'd love to adopt you, honey. Hmm, so, I suppose there's someone else you can talk to if you can find one. You'll have to be quick though. She's going to die if you don't get her back to normal. It can't be news to you that she's wasting away in there. She's running out of time!" FIRE cackled again, finding her choice of words to be hilarious. Harry grimaced. How could she find this funny? He stared at Grace's frozen, greying face, the clamminess of her skin that was starting to sag away from her bones, and wanted to explode.

"Who?" he demanded. "Who do I need?" He'd learnt long ago that interrupting was a bad idea, but in this instance FIRE was too gleeful of her response to care.

"A pharaoh!" She cackled, and the line went dead.

The silence made it worse, somehow. The way they all stood around, watching. People were vicious in their pack mentality. Secretly gleeful of others despair. The shocked silence was broken as someone snickered. Some of the older students hushed them with furious expressions, but that didn't stop the buzz of conversation starting up all around her. A lot of people were talking. Some were annoyed. But there was laughter. Unmistakable laughter. Grace's face burned with humiliation. Alex didn't even have the decency to cover it up by saying something snide. She'd feel better if he turned this into a joke. But he just lay there looking shell-shocked. Like she'd been the one to spell him, not the other way around. Even James was lost for words.

The blood oozed down her legs, forming a disgusting puddle on the floor. Even though she knew it was fake, she felt thoroughly disturbed. The very sensation of it seeping over her skin, faintly warm and sticky. She knew exactly what it looked like. Female bodily fluids. She glared at Alex. This prank was too much. Of course, she knew it was intended for someone else, but that didn't stop the prank from being deeply malicious. She was filled with such a sudden all-consuming rage that she struggled to restrain herself from throwing herself at him and punching him in the face – Muggle style.

The 31st March was a miserable day. Rain pelted against the windows, drowning every ant in its path. Albus could hear it in his dream. He shifted deeper into the sheets of his smaller bed in Godric's Hollow. The watery onslaught had begun the previous day, as the Hogwarts Express brought them home for their Easter holidays. Albus had sat with Scorpius and Celia in a telling silence. When they had been at Hogwarts, in the bustle of the corridors and pressures of lessons Grace's absence had been easier to ignore. There had been so much to learn: locking and unlocking charms, illumination and extinguishing spells, softening charms, smokescreen spells, rotations of planets, planetary interactions and transfiguring small objects into one another. Even in the common room, the occasional silence could be written off as the usual post-Christmas gloom or bad-weather depression.

Of course, there were times that they hadn't been able to ignore it. The headmaster, Morgan Percepal, had announced what had happened to the student body their first day back. Well-wishers kept trying to express their sorrow. Celia had taken to terrorising them, mostly by yelling 'She's not dead!' before they got five words out. It must have been worse for her, Albus thought. She had to wake up every morning and see Grace's empty bed.

Or maybe Alex Carlsdale had it the worst. He'd all but withered into himself over the term. He barely spoke, and Albus hadn't known how to help his brother through that pain - the pain of not being able to help his best friend - when he was suffering it himself.

It was the dreams that got to Albus. She haunted him in his sleep. Ever smiling. Ever laughing. It wasn't a nightmare, but he felt worse every time he woke up and remembered that Grace was gone. She was frozen, and there wasn't a medic in the world who could bring her back. He missed her. At odd times, he'd expect to hear her voice. He'd think that she'd find something funny. That she'd complain about this homework. That she'd get Alex or Celia back in line. What bothered him most was the way that sometimes he forgot about it. He didn't used to at first. She was always occupying some part of his mind. But as the term drew on, and the monotony set in, he missed her less often. The guilt was insurmountable.

He'd never realised a person could just stop like that. That the true tragedy was that their lives kept going, even without her. He hated that. Hated how insignificant it made her seem. She should be so much more important.

His Uncle Ron had kept waffling on during Christmas about how Aunt Hermione had been frozen by a basilisk in their second year, and how traumatising that had been. His dad had sat him down and told him Uncle Ron had no idea what he was talking about. As Aunt Hermione delighted in telling them, Uncle Ron used to have the emotional capacity of a tea spoon. His dad told him that everyone handled grief differently. That Albus shouldn't compare what he was feeling to what anyone else was doing. But it was difficult to separate his feelings sometimes. He'd almost punched Lucy in the first week back for saying some sarcastic comment about being glad the annoying girl was out of her hair.

The only times he found clarity were the dreams, even though they haunted him. As the rain made a rhythmic splatter on the windows, Albus sunk back into the dream.

"Hi," Grace said, waving at him as he walked out of the lake. The dream was just the way he'd left it. An almost Hogwarts. A Hogwarts that might never be. He didn't know why he'd shaped it this way, perhaps because it was peaceful? Perhaps because these were the things he associated with Grace.

"Hi," he greeted back, and sat beside her on the wooden jetty he'd imagined into the middle of the lake. She paddled her legs in the water and inspected her toes.

"What's new?" she checked, glancing over her shoulder at him and smiling encouragingly. For some reason she was wearing a Mickey Mouse beach towel and a wide-brimmed sunhat – the kind Rose wore when they went on holidays together – even though it was raining. He guessed that was probably because of the rain he could hear outside, and almost rose to consciousness before he refocused on the dream. He examined his hand and noticed the rain stopped an inch away from his skin. He was bone dry. Perhaps dampness was too much for his imagination. He waved his hand and the whiteboard his parents had given him for his birthday appeared in the air beside them. Grace clapped her hands.

"Where have you got to?" she demanded as he inspected the board. He sighed and took off his glasses. After all, he didn't need them here. None of this was real. He tried to ignore Grace. He didn't have the heart to send her away, but she wasn't very useful in these dreams.

"The usual," he muttered, glaring at the spider diagram in front of him, willing it to make sense. If only he could see some connection jumping out at him. But alas, his subconscious hadn't made any progress. Throughout the winter term, he, Scorpius, Rose and Celia had poured over books in the library hoping to find some clue as to how to help Grace. But the only books that went into detail about dark arts were in the restricted section, and every time they thought about sneaking in, a teacher would appear out of nowhere as if they'd known what the four of them were planning.

Grace looked at him curiously, her head tilted to the side, the way she'd looked on the platform when he tricked Scorpius into reassuring Rose. Her eyes were bright. But not quite real. Even with his best efforts, the dream Grace never lived up to a true imitation.

"I'm still working on this." He gestured towards the diagram of the pocket watch and all the research they'd uncovered about time devices in magic. Most of it had been largely irrelevant. Lots of time-turner related facts and cautionary tales for those who wanted to jump through time. One author had written: 'Imagine splinching yourself, and then imagine you haven't splinched yourself through distance, but through time.' He wondered if people could survive if bits of them were stuck in other time frames. Presumably not. It took far too long to gather the pieces.

Pocket watches were used to tell the time, or enchanted to contain magical compartments or wizarding photographs on their inside covers. Nothing that would account for an incident-specific timer. 'It's like a Muggle bomb-timer-thing,' Rose had said with exasperation one evening, 'only in reverse!' Celia had been very scathing.

"How do time-turners work?" the fake Grace wondered. He closed his eyes. "How did someone come up with the idea in the first place?"

"Do you think that's important?" he asked, turning away from the whiteboard to face her. He blinked. She appeared to be wearing a suit of armour, with a silly hat instead of a helmet. Paper confetti was floating down through the air around her.

"No, Albus!" She threw up her hands and scowled at him. As she did so, her face morphed into a mirror image of his. "You don't think it's important, so neither do I. I'm simply voicing the questions you're not focusing on, some of which is self-doubt and the rest random curiosity." After a few seconds her face reverted to normal with an audible 'pop'. "You know I don't know anything you don't already know yourself. There's no point asking me anything."

"Or you asking me," he pointed out. She smiled at him and batted a balloon out of the way.

"Albus, if you didn't think you already had some kind of useful answer hidden away why would you keep coming here?" she demanded. He was reminded a little of Victoire in the sternness of her address.

"I don't know," he said, looking back to the board. "There's got to be something. A pattern. Some minor detail I haven't thought about yet."

"Well, it's not the answer," Grace said. "But I do have another question for you."

"Fire away," he said, and sighed dejectedly. Grace aimed her hand at him like a gun.

"Why a pocket watch?" she wondered. "Clearly it's counting the time since the attack. But why? You don't think the attacker was attempting an elaborate bit of mockery, do you? Counting up the time we've wasted… it's a little petty for an unknown enemy." Grace looked uncertain. "Assuming the enemy isn't that vindictive – a big assumption, I know – what's the point of measuring how much time has passed?" She stared at him, waiting for him to voice the obvious thought they were both having. This was, after all, taking place in his mind. They knew the same things.

"A measurement is usually used for something… a specific amount?" He rubbed his temple, trying to form his thoughts into something more coherent as a buzzing started up in his brain. "Usually when you measure something, you measure it into something – a container, like a jug or a bowl on a set of scales."

"Yeah," Grace agreed, "Like when you're baking a cake." She pulled the chocolate cake his mum had made for his 12th birthday from behind her back and held it towards him.

"Make a wish," she ordered. She grinned and blew out the candle before he could comply, then she took a step backward off the jetty. The weight of her armour made her sink straight down into the water. The birthday cake remained floating in the air, smoke rising from the ember on the candle.

Albus blinked awake. The rain didn't seem as heavy now. His hand tightened on the duvet. The thought resurfaced on his brain. He dove for his wand and scrambled to the whiteboard.

Measuring time.

Capturing time?

Was it a helpful thought? He bit the inside of his mouth. In the distance, he could hear two women talking. One of them was his mum, but he curiously opened his door to find out who might be visiting them. It was very early in the morning - 6:39 according to his watch.

"Hermione, when Ron told me you'd been somewhere exotic, I thought that meant you'd snatched a bit of holiday. Tell me you didn't spend the whole time you were there in the library!" Albus heard his aunt laugh.

"I'm afraid I spent rather a large portion of the trip in the Egyptian embassy looking for a pharaoh who doesn't exist." Albus crept to the top of the stairs, intrigued. A pharaoh? "The library in Alexandria was fantastic, though. I forget how much I miss learning for learning's sake."

"Well, I hope you had some success. Harry's still in his office. He didn't come to bed last night." Aunt Hermione made a tutting sound under her breath.

"Everything okay?"

"Yes," his mother said and sighed. "It's just been difficult for him... letting the boys down like this. You know, in the back of his mind, I think he still believes he can save everybody." There was silence. "I'm worried about him." Albus heard them both sighing. "Please stay for a while when you've finished talking shop. I feel like it's been a long time since we properly talked."

"I would love nothing more," Hermione reassured her. Albus heard them walk in opposite directions; his mother towards the kitchen, his aunt towards the invisible study. Albus heard her hissing in her best parseltongue: open. But it took her two attempts, even now. Parseltongue had never been his aunt's strong-suit. Perhaps that was another reason his uncle Ron always bragged about it. He'd rarely beaten Aunt Hermione at anything else.

The door opened, and Albus wished he could find some way to follow her inside. An alarm blared, and his heart nearly stopped in panic.

"Relax, Harry," his aunt said. "It's just me."

"Hermione. Good." The klaxon noise stopped. Albus supposed his dad had done something to switch them off. The door sealed shut, just as Harry started to ask her something. Albus bit his lip, and angrily turned back to his room. He hated being kept out of the loop. Still, at least now he had a new starting point. On the whiteboard, he added a new word: Pharaoh.

Grace struggled uselessly as the man dragged her away through the sea of little tents. Rather than panic, she berated herself. What on earth had she been thinking, following him? He'd looked so suspicious. So familiar. It had felt like something she had to do. Now Celia was alone in there with that other guy, getting further and further away, and Grace had no idea what to do. She glared up at the man. He was so pale and thin. He looked like the type to collapse from an elbow to the solar plexus, but instead he was as immovable as a very large, dense rock. Possibly granite. She heard a scream in the distance, and even though they were quite a distance away now she could tell it had come from the tent they'd just left. Her stomach flipped in shock.

"Why're you doing this?" she yelled.

"Did you have any luck?" Harry asked, as he waved at the door behind Hermione. It swung shut and slowly sealed itself into the wall.

"On the Pharaoh front? I'm afraid not. Whoever Fire wanted you to meet, they're definitely not there anymore. I wondered if it was maybe a wizard calling himself the Pharaoh. But if so, there's been no sign of him."

"Maybe." He was disappointed. "That's exactly her style of bad joke. I shouldn't have listened to Brahmms. I should have gone myself."

"No, Harry. I agreed with him. It was probably a trap. In any case, that may not be important anymore. I've remembered what it was that was so familiar." She reached into her bag and withdrew three large tomes, which she dumped onto the table. "Just look at this." She flipped through the cracked parchment, licking her fingers to gain added purchase on the older well-worn pages.

"What are they?" he wondered.

"A bit of light reading," she joked, causing Harry to smile. Seeing her flicking through old textbooks made him feel like they were decades younger. "I'm actually half-way serious," she said, glancing up at him as she smoothed her hair down. "I remember reading these when I was twelve. Do you remember when Ron went to Egypt during the summer after our second year? I was so jealous at the time I read up all about Egyptian curses. Particularly the parts about time – because I had my time turner that year. Well, I remember being fascinated when I realised that all the mummification and preservation that the Egyptian wizards practiced formed the basis of spells that go into making time turners. Just think about it! Bodies would shrivel up on themselves. The way Pharaohs were preserved - I mean aside from the extraction of their brains through their nose – a lot of them died very young!"

Her excitement was causing her to lose sentence structure. She came across the page she was looking for and jabbed a manicured fingernail at a paragraph of ancient hieroglyphs he couldn't hope to read. Fortunately, the diagram of the necklace was more than revealing enough with Hermione's commentary.

"In ancient Egypt there was no distinction between their 'priests' and 'magicians', in fact, probably in a large part due to there not being and international law on magical secrecy, 'spells' and magic were well known and frequently incorporated into Egyptian rituals. The 'spells' were written down, and mostly they were a lot of mumbo jumbo backed up with suspicious poisonings. However, this book contains some brief descriptions of the 'forbidden writings' - spells which were locked away and kept secret from anyone who was not a magician. This talks about the amulets the Pharaoh's wore, and it says here that they 'sucked the life force away' to 'enrich their lives in the next world'. You know how they all believed in - well, not reincarnation, exactly - multiple lives. Worlds. The 'spirit' was very important to them. The magicians told the Pharaohs that their next lives would be even more enriched if they wore these good luck charms, but they were actually amulets that were part of a dark magic ritual. Do you understand what that means?"

"You're saying... Is the pocketwatch one of those amulets?" he asked.

"No, but there might be one inside it, or the same spells have been cast on it that were originally cast on these amulets."

"So all this time- her life is being drained away?" Fire's joke about how she was running out of time resounded in his head. She had been literal. That was the joke. "How do we stop it? Or reverse the process? Do we break the pocketwatch? Or the person who made it? What should I be looking for?"

"I don't know, Harry. Wait. Let me think. I don't even know if I'm right about this." Harry snorted.

"Hermione, when have you ever been wrong?"

She was terrified, but she tried her best to fight down the terror. The adrenaline would help her reactions, she knew, but it was hard to think and she needed to think right now. She had no idea where Albus was. Or where any of the others were for that matter, or how many of them had been hurt on the street. She had six potions left. One clasped between each of her fingers. She looked to her left, saw Scorpius' grim face and nodded at him. She was ready. He held up his free hand with three fingers extended. A silent countdown. Then the attack. She closed her eyes, lent her head back against the broken wall, swallowed, and ran her thumbs over the necks of each flask, setting the potions inside bubbling as the magic in her plasters activated and warmed them up. She wasn't ready. She'd never be ready. But to save Albus, she'd have to be.

Albus awoke to an incessant tapping on the window. An ordinary barn own glared at him and fluffed up its feathers indignantly against the drizzle. At least the rain wasn't torrential anymore. He glanced at his watch to find that barely an hour had passed. He wiped the sleep from his eyes, stumbled from the bed and pulled the window open. The owl was unfamiliar to him, but he recognised the handwriting as Scorpius' and eagerly tore the scroll from its leg. The owl hopped inside and immediately started preening its feathers, apparently disinterested in any treats.

Staring curiously at the parchment in is hands, Albus unwound it with clumsy half-asleep fingers.

Hi, Al,

I think I've had a breakthrough! We're visiting my grandparents, and I've been looking through some of Grandfather's books (which by the way are exactly as creepy as you'd expect. Some of the stuff in there... I'm beginning to understand why so many people were giving me horrible looks in school - I didn't go looking for them either, I think he deliberately left them out in my room. I really don't know what to think about that...) and there's a whole section on these things called a homunculus and ancient Egyptian magic that seems relevant. I can't take the books from here, and I can't imagine you want to visit this hellhole, but I've made a few notes. Do you want to meet up in Diagon Alley? Honestly, I'll tell them I'm off to visit Ceils, but we can definitely go from there to meet you because you know she'll lie much more convincingly than me about needing to go shopping. Let me know. I can probably get us there for 9 or so. Let's meet outside Gringotts.

See you soon,

Scorpius.

Albus grinned. Any tiredness he'd felt was gone now. He scrambled to his desk, grabbed a quill and then hastily jotted a reply.

Hi Scorpius.

Sounds great! I overheard dad and my aunt talking about a Pharaoh, so your Egyptian reference seems promising! I'll see you at nine.

Albus.

The owl hooted and stuck out its leg obediently for him to fasten on the reply. It shot out into the rain very quickly, apparently eager to get the journey out of the way. Albus leant out of the window and watched the owl as it sped out of sight. It was hard to believe that just yesterday they'd been clueless, and now two leads had popped up at once, and with just the right timing too! Surely, the holidays had been perfectly placed for them to investigate this themselves. The thought of telling his father didn't even cross Albus' mind as he hurried to pull on his clothes.

The wind blew the green grass around them, and she shivered in the cold fading light. Dusk settled upon them like a deep sleep. The sky blazed in pink and orange. Albus turned to her, his green eyes obscurely pale, and he smiled so thinly that her blood ran cold.

"I could do anything," he said. His calmness scared her. His hand twitched on the second wand. It was bone white. But she thought it should have been metallic. It should have smelled like blood. Like the monstrosity it was. "I could do anything I wanted and no-one could stop me."

"Oi, Potter," a whisper carried to Albus as he walked through the bustling streets of Diagon Alley. It was nowhere near as busy as the week before term, but there was still enough of a crowd that to begin with, after a quick look around without recognising anyone, he believed he'd imagined it. He shook his head and continued along the street.

"Potter!"

Albus froze. There it was again. A definite hoarse whisper from the darkness. None of the people in the main street showed any interest in him. So perhaps, he thought, it was someone who didn't want to be seen. He scrutinised the shadows, until he saw a leather gloved hand beckoning him towards an alleyway. The alarm bells rang in his head.

"Yes, Potter! I'm talking to you."

He almost asked if it was Scorpius, but he knew better. His gut was telling him to be cautious. He walked in an arc, not stepping closer to the dark alleyway, but around it so that he had a better view. The hand was attached to a tall, stick-thin man draped in a long threadbare patchwork coat. His face was lost in shadows cast by the broad brim of his tall gentleman's hat and the upturning of his large coat collar. The hat would have been reminiscent of a chimney if not for the crumples. Now it appeared more like an accordion. As if it had been stamped on many times. Albus swallowed as the man caught sight of him. He saw a flash of red near where the strangers mouth should be. His stomach clenched into knots.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"I sell time," the man whispered in his rattling breath. Even though Albus was stood some distance away, he could smell something putrid and rotten as the stranger spoke. Could it possibly be his breath? Could anyone's breath smell that foul?

"Time?" He double checked.

"Would you like some?" the stranger asked. He spread his coat and Albus was transfixed by the many clock faces and egg timers contained within it. The black robes beneath were covered in pockets filled with sand. Hour, minute and second hands hung in clumps from various clever hooks sown into the lining. He reached for a tiny gold device, the size of a Muggle yo-yo, intricately carved with hourglasses and moons. Albus recognised it. The pocketwatch. His heart jumped into his throat and he took a step backwards, reaching for his wand, cursing himself for not taking hold of it sooner. The man did not move. Instead, he laughed, and when he laughed he sounded like a rattlesnake. "I'm not the one who did this to your friend. I merely seek a resolution on behalf of my benefactor. So take it," he said, extending the disk on its chain and holding it out so that it could drop, neatly, into the palm of Albus' hand if he reached out. "Completely free of charge. A gift. A silly trinket of a thing. It doesn't even work anymore!"

There was bile in Albus' throat.

"Who are you?" he demanded, pointing his wand directly at the man's chest. The rattlesnake laugh sounded again. Albus didn't know how a human could produce such a noise.

"Are you going to kill me?" the stranger asked. "Please, I'd welcome the entertainment." Albus didn't have a clue. The bat-bogey hex was about the most threatening spell in his arsenal. He had nothing else with which to attack or defend himself. He could hear Viridian shouting in his head. He wasn't prepared for this. He'd never even considered that he'd actually get in a situation like this at his age. How on earth had his father managed it? Because he'd been eleven, younger than Albus was now, hadn't he? When Voldemort had attacked.

"Who is this benefactor you mentioned?" he demanded, sounding far more confident than he felt. It was his fear. It had transformed into an anger at his own incompetence. There must be something he could do. This man was involved. He had to at least get some answers. Find some way to reverse what they'd done to Grace. "Why did they attack Grace?"

"I suppose they felt it was their right," the man murmured, swinging the pocketwatch around a finger. The man hadn't bothered to get a wand out. He must know how incompetent Albus was, not to feel even the slightest bit threatened. Of course he was at his ease. He'd approached Albus. He was the one with the plan. With all the answers. "Come now, are you going to use that or not?" Albus gritted his teeth. He wasn't thinking properly. Apparently he wasn't in the position of being attacked, at least not straight away, and making a false threat was only weakening his position. He shifted his grip on his wand as Viridian had taught him to do. Defensive. Responsive. He eyed the man up, looking for a sign of attack, and planted his feet more securely on the ground. The fight or flight stance, Viridian had said. "Very good, now you're thinking. Clearly, I have an agenda, so you might as well hear me out. This pocket watch. Do you know what it does?"

"It measures time," Albus stated dryly.

"Clever boy." It didn't sound like a complement. For the first time since their conversation began the man moved his head, tilting it backwards so a little more light fell across his face. Or lack there of. Albus' mouth went dry. The mask was Egyptian. Gold and cobalt with falcon black eyeliner. A burial mask, although Albus didn't know it. There was a slit in the mouth, and red light poured out of it. There were no eyeholes; the painted eye sockets on the plaster stared blindly at him. At the edge of the mask, where a person's hair and ears would usually be seen, there were linen bandages. "So whose time are we taking?"

"My friend's," Albus ground out through his teeth, glaring at the monstrosity before him. It wasn't human, that much was clear. A mummy, or some kind of undead, but with more intelligence than a zombie or inferi. He didn't know enough to know exactly what, but he knew none of his spells would ever effect it.

"Indeed. But we have enough now. So we thought we'd let you stop it. After all, we're not monsters." Another rattlesnake laugh. "Not all of us. So, listen. Your friend. The other one you're meeting today. He's going to teach you about homunculi. You're going to need this." The pocketwatch jiggled up and down on its chain as the monster moved its gloved hand. Now that Albus knew what to look for he noticed the bandages between the end of the glove and the sleeve of the coat. Hating himself, Albus reached out and let the pocketwatch fall onto his outstretched hand. It felt ice cold. "Oh, and do apologise to your aunt for me. I really was otherwise engaged when she came to visit. I hope she enjoyed the hospitality of my homeland." Albus jerked back, pulling the pocketwatch with him. The monsters hand was still in the air in front of him. Albus watched it slowly descend back to the monster's side.

"Pharaoh?" he checked, unable to keep the thought in.

Red light shot out of the mask again. Perhaps in a feral grin.

"At present, I prefer the term WIND," he said mysteriously, then straightened up. The monster was a good seven foot tall. He towered over Albus. "We'll meet again. Do not be surprised if all is not exactly what it seems."

It happened suddenly. One moment he was towering over Albus, the next Albus had sand in his eyes and was stumbling back into the street, furiously wiping his eyes with his sleeve. When he'd blinked enough of the sand away to be able to see again, the monster was long gone.

Well, that was one way to obscure your exit. Viridian was right, Albus thought. You really had to be prepared for everything.

She was standing in a dark room, dark enough that she could not see the walls, but there, in the centre, was an archway with a veil. There was no breeze, but the veil moved all on its own, dancing in ethereal light. She felt unsettled, looking at it. It made her bones ache.

"Careful," Mr Potter warned. "Don't get too close. I knew a man who fell though once. He didn't come out the other side." She looked at his face and saw the tension there. The grief. Of course, the story was real. He wouldn't lie to her.

"I don't get it," Celia said, wrinkling up her perfect nose. Albus had just finished regaling them with the incident. He'd run up to them and demanded they find somewhere quieter to discuss it. Scorpius had looked more and more grim with every passing sentence. Meanwhile Celia had looked between them, feeling frustratingly out of the loop. "How did he know Scorpius was going to tell you anything about homunculi?"

"I only looked at the books this morning" Scorpius grumbled. "They must have read my letter."

"Meaning they're probably watching my house," Albus concluded. "Or your grandparents'."

"That's really creepy," Celia said, shivering slightly. "And that WIND person, whatever he is, was so blatant about tracking you down. How did he find you so easily? I mean, Diagon Alley is a big place. How did he know you were going to go past that particular alley?"

"Which alley was it?" Scorpius interjected. "Do you know?" Albus shook his head.

"Honestly, I was too focused on getting out of there. With all the sand, it wasn't exactly at the forefront of my mind."

"Well, can we see it?" Celia asked. Albus nodded a little reluctantly and put the pocketwatch in the middle of the table. Celia poked it with a nearby spoon. "You're sure it's not working anymore? I don't want to be frozen."

"Honestly, I don't know if I should have even taken it. Merlin knows how he got it. Last I heard the Aurors were running tests on it. I don't want to trust anything he had to say, so I wouldn't touch it unnecessarily. But apparently we'll need it to track down this homunculus you want to tell me about."

"Right," Scorpius said, taking it as his cue. He reached into his pocket and pulled out three pieces of parchment he'd scrawled over with notes. "Okay, so I was looking for pocketwatches and amulets when I stumbled across an entire chapter on ancient Egypt. The spells and curses seem to revolve around these man-made statues, known as homunculi or shabti, which were used in conjunction with amulets, usually in their burial rituals and especially for dark curses that buried their opponents alive. There are a lot of myths about Egyptian mages being cursed into half alive, half dead states. The cursed mages went mad in that state for years and years, and whenever their tombs were disturbed they often killed everything in their path, magical or Muggle alike until they were blasted apart by curse-breakers. The Egyptian Minister for Magic in the 19th Century set up an entire response team to help Muggle archeologists that kept breaking into these tombs. The team were the first ones to report that the cursed mages were actually very easy to kill if you destroyed the shabti or homunculus they were buried with. They must have discovered it by chance, but following that a lot of wizards who were interested in the dark arts started to make the connection between homunculi, amulets and the most powerful curses, which always involved some element of time. I just thought, well, even if the Auror's found a homunculus in Grace's room, how would they have known it was connected to the pocketwatch? This doesn't exactly scream ancient Egyptian curse, does it?"

He pointed at the pocket watch in the middle of the table. It looked so normal.

"Do... you think Grace will be okay?" Albus asked quietly, thinking about what Scorpius said about the mages going mad. Magical accidents were very hard to fix, even by magical means, and maladies of the brain even more so. His Uncle Ron had always said that their old defence against the dark arts professor had deserved to lose his memory after all he'd done to other people, but Albus had always thought it was a cruel fate.

"Well, if she needs help," Celia said, "she's in the best place for it."

"But we should get a move on," Scorpius agreed. "Just in case."

She was… There wasn't a word for the degree of horror and panic in her mind. If her bladder had been full she would have wet herself. She was frozen in shock, and she knew she had to move out of the way of its beak and its talons and the storms and gales stirred up by every flap of its impossibly large wings. She knew it wasn't possible to survive. It screamed, and she thought her ears would bleed from the pitch and sheer volume of its cry. Lightning split the sky. She was in pain, she felt deaf, disorientated. Maybe the bones in her ears had moved. Her sense of balance was gone. But if she didn't move she was a sitting duck. She tightened her grip.

In the end they chose to use the floo network to reach the Carlsdale's house. Without warning Albus burst out of their fireplace, causing Sally Carlsdale to let out a little shriek and almost knock over the large saucepan she was stirring.

"James! No-" she started when she realised he wasn't his brother. "Albus? What are you-?"

Then Scorpius shot out behind him. His foot connected with the back of Albus's knee and his leg collapsed under him. They were sprawled on the floor when the fire went again and Celia stepped out gracefully. She took one look at the boys on the floor and arched an eyebrow.

"What are you doing?" she asked, perfectly poised. Not a single ringlet was out of place.

"What in Merlin's name are you all doing here?" Sally exclaimed, completely confused by this home invasion.

"We were... well, we wanted to visit Grace's dad," Albus said lamely. He didn't want to say they wanted to search her room. For one thing, she might not believe them. For another, it was possible they were completely wrong. He didn't want to give anyone false hope. Also, as soon as he'd said the lie, he realised how appropriate it was to turn into truth. "Rather, I know Grace would be worried about him. So we thought we might check how he is, and maybe remind him that he's not on his own in worrying about her." To his surprise, his eyes had started to sting as he tried to keep eye contact with her. He looked away, blinking, but she swooped down on him and gave him a huge hug.

"That is one of the most thoughtful things I've heard in a long time," she said. "Thank you. I'm sure Grace would really appreciate it." She straightened up and glanced at the food she was cooking. "Tell you what, this is pretty much done. Would you like to take some to Kyle for me?" When Albus looked blank, she smiled. "I mean Grace's dad."

"Oh, sure," he agreed. Still smiling, Sally Carlsdale turned and reached for some Tupperware to spoon the Moroccan chicken into. When she was done, she turned back to them and passed it to Albus.

"If you go right it's just a few houses down. Number 14."

"Thanks," he rushed.

"Yes, sorry for coming in so rudely without asking first," Celia put in. Scorpius nodded.

"We usually have better manners than that."

"Oh, don't worry," Sally said, beaming at them all from the doorway. "I'm used to James turning up that way all the time."

It took them less than a minute to find the house, and Scorpius took the initiative to ring the doorbell. They had met Grace's dad very briefly at the train station when they came home at Christmas. He'd seemed a jolly man. Of course, Albus didn't expect him to be jovial when he opened the door, but he hadn't quite prepared himself for the ghost of a man before him. Mr Hart's glasses had slipped down his face, so the wrinkles around his eyes were incredibly prominent. His temples were greying a little. His face was lined with stress and worry. His eyes were swollen from too many nights with too little sleep. He looked skinnier, as if any moment the wind would be able to blow him away.

"Hello?" he said in a quiet voice. "Can I help you?"

"Um, yes." Albus held out the food. "Mrs Carlsdale sent us with this, and... um, I don't suppose you remember, but we... we're friends of Grace. Could we maybe come in for a bit?"

Mr Hart didn't move for a heartbeat. He stared blankly at them. Albus wondered whether he'd heard them.

"Of course," he said suddenly, shaking his head. It's... I'm afraid it's a bit of a mess, but of course you can come in. You probably miss her too. I'm sorry." He pinched the bridge of his nose, and straightened his glasses. He made his way inside, allowing the others to follow into the little kitchen. "I do remember you. I should have realised. It's Albus, isn't it? And Celia? And... Scorpio?"

"Scorpius," Scorpius corrected, smiling so that Mr Hart wouldn't think he was offended.

"It's nice to see you again," Celia cooed, chirpily. "I'm sorry if this is weird. We were just wondering how you were. I mean, Grace will probably be annoyed with us if we didn't check in with you!" Again, there was a slight pause before Mr Hart was able to speak.

"Quite," he agreed, with a little gasping smile. There were tears in his eyes.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Celia said. Quickly looking around for some tissues. "Scorpius, would you make us some tea?" Scorpius nodded and set into action, whilst Celia made Mr Hart sit down at the table and tried to comfort him a little. "Grace is always telling me I'm too blunt." Albus passed her some kitchen towel in the absence of tissues. She handed them to Mr Hart, who blew his nose.

"That's my Gracie," he agreed. "She speaks her mind."

"I know!" Celia agreed. "But it was always such a surprise. I mean, she and Alex used to really go at it, but most of the time she's so easy going! Thank you, Albus. Could you get some toilet roll?" He nodded, seeing this as his opportunity to sneak up to her room. "Did she ever tell you how she had to tell me off for being vain about this stupid freckle I got on my nose." Albus saw Celia pointing at her completely unblemished skin as he glanced back at the doorway. He could still hear her talking as he left the room and headed quickly and quietly for the stairs. "It was more of a sun spot, and it's gone now, but at the time I thought it was the end of the world. Honestly, she gave me such a lecture!"

He tiptoed upstairs and carefully as he could, sticking to the wall so that they wouldn't creak, and then headed to her room. It was a parody of the events three months ago. He pushed the door open. For some reason he'd been expecting to see a thick layer of dust on everything, but it was newly cleaned. Presumably the Aurors had wanted to put everything back the way it should be. He looked around. The homunculus wasn't obvious. But then, why would it be? He opened the draws of her desk. Nothing but papers and stationary. He crossed to the bedside table. Nothing of interest but an old diary. Curiously he opened the first page.

ALEX IF THIS IS YOU READING THIS KNOW THAT I WILL CURSE YOU INTO YOUR GRAVE!

Albus grinned broadly and closed the diary again, shaking his head. He knelt down by the sheepskin rug and looked under the bed. Still nothing.

He was going to feel incredibly stupid if WIND had lied to him. He blinked. Of course, it might help him ascertain the truth if he used the pocketwatch. He took it out of his pocket and let it dangle in front of him by the chain. Slowly he walked around the perimeter of the room. As he approached the wardrobe, he heard something shift about inside. Dropping the pocketwatch he quickly threw the door open, his heart racing. There was a small shelf at the top of the wardrobe, it was mostly filled with old books and a string of fairy lights, but there was also a small clay figure that had fallen on its side. He had to stand on tiptoe to grab the homunculus. It was cold to the touch. He looked around. There was a spellotape dispenser on the desk which looked weighty enough. He grabbed it and hefted it in one hand and then brought it down on the homunculus with all of his strength. The clay woman shattered into ceramic fragments. He felt something brush by his left ear, but when he turned there was nothing there. On the desk, the homunculus dissolved into dust.

Grace's right hand felt like it was on fire. She was screaming, but it took her a while to register the sound. She couldn't see anything, and it took her a moment to realise her eyes were closed. She opened her eyes, knew in a moment that she was sat upright on a bed in some kind of hospital, but was distracted by her hand. She was almost scared to look at it, but she did. She was holding golden light, which swirled around her hand in a whirlwind that was enclosed in a localised globe. Looking through the light, she saw the skin of her hand was dark red, and blistered. The blisters were popping, because she was burning herself on something she was holding onto. She had a horrible thought about letting go, and having the skin of her palm come off, but whimpering she forced herself because her current pain was too much.

Only, when she opened her hand, she wasn't holding anything. But she had been. She'd been looking at it.

Now all she saw was her right hand - the fingers bent into a claw of raw, blistered, and oozing skin. Grace blinked. Her eyes were so dry. The pain of her hand was unbearable, but the rest of her didn't feel good either. It was like she'd stayed up for three days in a row. Her head was pounding. She yawned deeply and uncontrollably. She was sore and stiff right down to her bones. She started to stretch, and half way through realised she was too tired for even that. She collapsed backwards onto the pillows, The pain in her hand was too great to ignore, her eyes were streaming with tears. Her throat was dry and sore from the scream. Distantly, she heard people rushing towards her, asking her if she was alright. All she could do was keep her poor, right hand in the air and hope that they'd notice what a mess it was.

She fell deeply asleep.

Author Notes:

So, I believe I have defeated the first hurdle of my crippling writers block. I cannot promise you these updates will be regular. My job keeps me very busy. But I can promise there will always be an update eventually.

I really love FIRE. I really hope we actually meet her one day because she's so ridiculously eccentric, it's great :D She's also really sneaky - did you notice the way she actually told Harry she stole the pocketwatch again without him noticing? The next time they talk I imagine him having angry words with her, and she'll just laugh it off and say 'But I told you so!'

I'm a big fan of dream sequences. I don't use them often, but they mirror times in my life when I have the kind of dream where you are in control of what happens, and with its own bizzare logic everything makes sense there. Those dreams always help me problem solve, although whether the solutions actually help when I'm awake is a different matter. I wanted to reflect that here, if only because I miss writing Grace. Although, I really enjoyed writing a chapter from other characters point of view.

One of my favourite parts of the WIND sequence was having Albus realise how completely inept he is. I always thought that in Philosopher's Stone Harry clearly has no idea what he's doing, and it's only Lily's protective magic that saves him. Albus doesn't have any of that, and yet I need him to get his act together if we're going to see any of the cool action sequences I have planned for later years. At the same time, I wanted him to be the one to break the homunculus.

Luv Ya

XxMookinexX