Author's Note: I know that the cliffhanger at the end of the chapter really threw many of you for a loop. I'm not going to apologize for it, I'm a fan of them. It might be hard to believe but we are nearing the end of this story, there are only a few chapters left. My deep, deep thanks to my amazing beta, Arnel, who not only corrects my goofy comma usage, but she also sits and sips tea with me. I bow my head to her expertise. The shortest day is past and our daytime is getting longer, the promise of the new year awaits us all. May it be a year of health, happiness and Harry for you all. I was blessed by the FF community this year, and I will not forget how you all rallied around me through what was a trying time. My you all have a wonderful holiday and a bright new year. Mutt N Feathers

Chapter 7:

Perte (English translation: Loss)

Sirius sat slumped in a chair next to his wife's bed on the fourth floor of St. Mungo's, the picture of despair with his head in his hands. The room was dimly lit and eerily silent, save the chimes that rang from the monitoring spells cast on Anwen. One would go off for each breath the spell made her take. Another pulsed more quickly, tracking her erratic heartbeat. A final one was pinging when brain activity was detected. While none of them had much volume, the combination of them all created a cacophony for Sirius, and he just wanted them to shut up.

He couldn't believe he was here, sitting by the bruised and beaten frame of his beloved Anwen, waiting to see how her body and mind would heal. Harry was two floors below, heavily sedated with potions and charmed to his bed. His physical attack of Anwen had been unexpected. Had she not screamed, Harry might have hit her several more times with the wrought iron poker he grabbed from the set by the fireplace. Sirius stunned Harry as quickly as he could, but the damage was done. A gash fell along his wife's head, and they'd had to charm the hair off of her skull to repair it properly. A second blow hit her in the back, along the line of the shoulder that had been hurt in the Death Eater attack all those years ago.

Harry collapsed into the coffee table at being stunned and had broken his wrist and cut his forehead. Sirius yelled for James and Lily, both of whom were in the kitchen monitoring Anwen's success with the astral projection into Harry's mind. It could safely be said there was no success. It took the three adults to get the injured pair to hospital, as Anwen was thrashing out in pain and all of Harry's muscles had tensed. It was only hours ago, and yet it felt like days.

The door to Anwen's room opened, and James slipped in. Sirius wasn't sure that he'd ever seen his friend look as old as he did today. He wanted to comfort him, but he was too pained to move.

"How's she doing?"

"Her body will recover fine, well as fine as my little one's body ever is. The damages weren't as bad as they looked. It's the impairment to her mind, Prongs. Healer Weston thinks she was attacked there as well. It's this aspect that's making her brain function so volatile," he explained as he pointed at the blue light that was pulsating and pinging with no discernible pattern.

"I'm so sorry, Padfoot," James eked out through his now flowing tears. Seeing his brother in all but blood weep triggered the same in Sirius as he rose to hold onto his best mate. "If I ever thought that he'd do this to her..." The sentiment went unfinished but still understood.

"None of us could have predicted this," Sirius stammered. They stood there, embracing and weeping for their shared grief.

"I wonder if it's already too late for him, Padfoot," James mumbled as he cried. "Was his life so bad that he wants to remove his memories of it?"

"I don't think that's it," Sirius explained, "I think it's the loss of Ginny."

"Eva's bringing her over. When she found out, well, Moony said he'd never seen her that crazed before. He's with my kids and he called Charlie and Eira to take yours back to Fair Garden. Alice is on her way over here too. Lily is nearly inconsolable and with Eva helping Ginny, I needed someone else to be with her. Lil's afraid of what you and Anwen will think."

"Tell her to stop, or I'll go tell her," Sirius immediately responded. "I don't blame you, and I don't blame him. He's very sick. What kind of family would we be if we turned our backs on each other when we're in need?" Sirius explained when he'd finally gotten hold of his emotions. "I just...we can't lose either of them. Today was supposed to be such a happy day for us, Anwen was back home, we were going to tell the children about adopting their newest sister and then this happened." Sirius spoke as one who was uttering his stream of consciousness, not necessarily intending to share this information.

"Wait, you're adopting another baby?" James inquired, surprised but not shocked. He wondered if he was beyond shock today.

"She's...it's a long story, but Sitara is in need of a special family to take her. She has an unusual gift, and with Anwen's visualization skills this little girl would finally have a family that she could live with. Anwen's astral projection teacher, Jagjit Shresth, he works for the Ministry in India, knew this little girl was in need of a family. He helped us arrange everything," Sirius explained. "Oh, and she's not a baby, she's already six. They've been looking for the right family for her since she was born."

James smiled at the news; children were always welcomed gifts to their extended family. "What is it that made her so difficult to place?"

"She's an empath. She knows how to use her skill, and it made her difficult to live with. Apparently she and Anwen took right to each other, and well...anyway, she'll be in England in a week."

"What a bright spot in all of this darkness," James mused and Sirius laughed.

"Her name means star, so I guess you're right there." Sirius paused to sigh. "Has there been any more said about what might be happening to Harry?"

"None," James answered sounding devoid of hope. "He became violent, with Anwen of all people. I'm not sure we can have him at home, Sirius. He's got his little sisters there, and I know he loves them and wouldn't ever hurt them on purpose, but I didn't think he'd ever hurt his Aunt Winnie either."

"You know, when Ginny gets here, things might change?"

"Maybe, but if he reacts poorly to her...if we've got to leave him here, over on the locked ward...he's my little boy," James managed to say before he began to cry again. Sirius took hold of his best friend and held him while the emotions poured forth. Sirius couldn't manage much else, but he could be there for his friend right now.

In a hallway inside Fair Garden a young woman was looking at the Floo like it was her worst enemy.

"We don't have to go right now," Eva Lupin told her. "We could wait, he's still sedated heavily, and he will be for a while now. He probably won't even recognize that you're there with him."

"I know," Ginny answered quietly, "but something says I need to be there with him. I'm too much of a mess to be around the kids anyway." Ginny knew if the younger Potter or Black children saw her they'd immediately sense she was upset. Her eyes burned from the nearly non-stop crying binge she'd been on, and her face felt swollen and sore. If the girl was honest with her honorary aunt, she'd tell her all she wanted was her bed and some rest.

"Ginny, you need to stop worrying about everyone else and think about what you want and need," Eva slipped into counsellor mode. "Do you want to go?"

"I do, I have to see for myself what he's..." she trailed off. "I need to see Anwen, too. I can't believe that he hurt her."

"It took everyone by surprise. Remus is acting rather stoic about it, but to know that his best friend was attacked and by Harry no less. We're all shaken up, if you need more time..."

"Time isn't going to make this better. We both know that's the truth. I need to go and help. Harry seems lucid when he's with me. I just...Mrs. Lupin, he hurt me so badly. Everything was broken by him; my heart, my body, my spirit, but I never really contemplated a life that wouldn't have him in it. Now, it's like he's gone. I feel like it's my fault," Ginny began to cry again and Eva wrapped her arms around the girl, bending over awkwardly to reach her while seated in her chair.

"Ginny, child, Harry's problems weren't created by you and you can't expect to heal them yourself. It's going to take lots people working together, including Harry. He needs to stop assaulting his own memories. That is his choice, not yours. Please, don't blame yourself for what's happening," Ginny let Eva's words sink in and then nodded her head against the older woman's shoulder. When she could, she wiped her face and pulled a handkerchief out of the pocket on the side of her chair and blew her nose.

"I want to go, I need to go. I need to talk with Harry and I need to see Anwen," Ginny said resolutely. Eva nodded and helped the girl through the Floo.

One of the few redeeming parts of being on the critical care ward that Anwen was housed on was the private Floo for family to come and go as they needed. Eva showed her hospital identification at the desk and they were ushered into the room that her friend was in. Her heart broke at the sight of Sirius in the chair next to his wife's bed. He had laid his forehead down on the mattress, his left hand entwined with hers, his right hand brushing along her forehead. He was telling her about their life together. There were times like these that Eva had to remind herself just how far he'd come from the crazy playboy that she'd known at school.

"Sirius," Ginny whispered from the doorway and he lifted his head and smiled at the girl.

"Hey Eva, Red, you doing okay?" Ginny took his speaking to her as an invitation to come into the room, Eva following.

"For now, I've haven't been up to see Harry yet. How is she doing?"

"About the same. The healer was here a while ago, gave her some more potions to heal the fracture in her skull. There still hasn't been any change in her brain..." he stopped and swallowed back tears and it made Ginny want to cry even more. "We're just going to have to wait and see when she wakes up."

Ginny had made it to the bedside and she took Sirius' free hand between her own. "She is so strong, and she loves you so much. Whatever she's doing in her mind, she's doing it so she can get back to you. I have no doubt about that." Sirius smiled again at the young woman, his appreciation for how mature she'd become deepening.

"Thank you, Red. The two of you, so small and your bodies so...and yet you are the tenacious set of women I know," he leaned over and kissed her forehead.

"Can I talk to her?" Ginny asked, changing the subject to something easier to deal with.

"Sure, do you want privacy?" He moved to get up from his chair.

"No, don't leave her. She wants you here, she always wants you nearby," she told her guardian and he settled back into his seat. Ginny continued to hold one of Sirius' hands and then took Anwen's with her other.

"Hey, Anwen, I know that you're hurting right now, but I need you come back to us, okay? You've got that brood of yours, they miss you. I'm going to go and talk with Harry right now, see if I can help him. You keep getting strong, alright, and I'll come see you again. Don't wait too long, though. Sirius might pull his hair out if you do." Sirius snorted at the comment and it made Ginny feel better that he found the humour in the statement.

Ginny released both of the hands and began to back herself away. "I need to see Harry."

"Go on, tell James and Lily that nothing's changed up here," he requested and she nodded.

"I'll be back down once she's settled upstairs. Maybe I can reach her or her consciousness," Eva suggested. She was highly skilled at Medical Occlumency and she and Anwen had often worked together with the people Anwen encountered through her work.

"Thanks, Eva. We'll be here."

It wasn't until Ginny reached the hall that she allowed herself to break down into sobs again. It took her several minutes to get her emotions under control so that she was able to move again. She hadn't even noticed that Eva had been weeping herself. As close as Ginny was to Anwen, she and Eva had been friends longer. When you added Lily to the mix, you had women who were as close as sisters.

Using her hospital credentials, Eva had the pair use the employee lift down to the second floor. Ginny was thankful they were able to avoid the general public, as she was certain the media would have loved to get their hands on the story of Harry hurting Anwen. Slander and salaciousness sell papers.

Harry's room was dark with James on one side of the bed and Lily and Alice Longbottom on the other. James immediately stood and came over to greet Ginny with a gentle kiss on her crown before he enveloped Eva in his arms, whispering something in her ear as he held her. She nodded against his shoulder without giving a verbal reply.

The counsellor in Eva took over, and she crossed to where Lily sat, holding Alice's hand. When Lily saw one of her two closest friends she stood and threw herself into her friends arms.

"Why? Why would he hurt her this way," Lily sobbed. "What's going to happen to him?"

"We don't know any of that yet," Eva said quietly, "but he's going to need you to be strong as he gets better. Harry's not himself right now, he's very ill and it's going to take the love and care of his family to help him get well."

"But he hurt Anwen so! How are she and Sirius ever going to forgive him..."

"Mrs. Potter, they already have," Ginny chirped up before anyone had a chance to rebuke Lily on her statement. "They aren't mad at him or you. Sirius is just worried about her...and him." She stressed the last few words, making sure that the older woman understood. Lily nodded and let go of her friend and walked over to the chair that the younger red head was seated in.

"Thank you for coming Ginny. I know that he's hurt you, but I can't lose him. He only seems to react to you, at least in any positive way."

"There is nowhere else that I'd be. Can I talk with him, alone if you don't mind?" Ginny asked and while Lily looked pained at the idea of leaving Harry, she knew that he'd be in good hands.

"Come on, let's get some tea," Alice suggested. "I think you need to get out of here for a few minutes."

"I think that's a capital idea," James seconded and came and wrapped an arm around his wife. "We'll be back in a few." Ginny nodded as he left. Eva Lupin took Ginny's hands and looked her in the eyes.

"Are you sure you can do this? I can stay, sit way over in the corner, just so you're not all alone with him," she suggested. Ginny indicated it wasn't necessary.

"You said yourself he's heavily sedated, he's not going to hurt me. He can't; they've got him charmed to his bed," she quipped, attempting to ease the brevity. Eva smiled at her.

"Okay, we won't be gone long," she promised and then slipped out the door, leaving Ginny alone with the comatose Harry. She manoeuvred her chair over to his side and laid her head down next to his, her lips very near his ear.

"Hello Harry," she whispered. "I'm here. I miss you. I want you to come back to me."

At those words one of the monitors above Harry's bed began to ping louder and faster. Ginny's head popped up in panic, looking at the small blue blinking light, but unsure of what it meant. Before she even had a chance to register what was happening a medi-witch, a healer and Eva ran through the door, the Potter's on her heels.

"What's happening?" Lily screamed.

"His brain is functioning again, but too much, he's..." the healer said. "What did you say to him?" It was a demand that Ginny couldn't refuse.

"I told him I missed him," she said quietly, upset that she'd done something to further harm Harry.

"Oh, Ginny," Lily cried as she threw her arms around the girl.

"Is he waking up?" James asked.

"No, he shouldn't be, not with as much sedative in his system as we've given him," the medi-witch said emotionlessly.

"We don't know what's going on in there," the healer interrupted and he began moving his wand in complicated arcs and circles over Harry.

Two floors below Sirius was struck dumb and had fallen from his chair to the floor when Anwen began to scream aloud. It was a gut wrenching howl, her body arching up off the bed as if she were struck with the Cruciatus Curse. The little lights and bells had sped up, blinking and pinging wildly and fear for his wife's safety was of paramount concern.

Her Healer and a medi-witch flew into the room, their wands drawn and pointed at Sirius and then down at Anwen.

"What did you do to her?" The Healer demanded.

"Nothing, I had dozed off, and then she just started screaming," Sirius tersely explained, unhappy that it was insinuated that he would do anything to his wife.

"Contact the second floor, find out how Mr. Potter is!" The healer commanded the medi-witch and she left the room in a hurry.

"What's happening to her?" Sirius enjoined the doctor.

"I don't know," he explained before putting a silencing charm up on Anwen. With the sound of her scream gone, she appeared even more tormented, thrashing back and forth upon the bed, her face contorted, mouth open without any sound to accompany. "Her brain functioning is..."

They were interrupted by the medi-witch's return. "Mr. Potter is also in an agitated state," she explained. "Miss Weasley was in speaking with him, and then he just went into some sort of 'brain overload' were the words the desk clerk told me."

"We've got to sever this link between them, I don't know what sort of damage it's doing. You say that she was in a meditative state when the initial attack began?" The Healer questioned Sirius, again.

"Yes, that's exactly it," he answered for what felt like the one-hundredth time today. He was saved from having to further explain himself by the arrival of Healer Bev Weston, the memory specialist who worked with Anwen and had been helping Harry.

"I was just down in Harry's room but I can't get into his brain, his Occlumency shields must have been up when he attacked her, and now I can't bring them down. I was hoping that I'd have more luck if I tried through Anwen's consciousness," she explained as she rounded the bed and came to sit next to Anwen in the chair Sirius had formerly occupied.

"Bev, please, help her," Sirius pleaded and the older woman nodded her head and closed her eyes while drawing her wand.

"I can't project like Anwen, nor can I astral walk the way she does for that matter...no one really can besides Perenelle, but I can get in, I think. Anwen has a very secret back door, removed from her Occlumency shields. She created it a few years ago so that if she were ever so overtaken by the memories created by her work, she'd have somewhere to go and hide," Bev mumbled aloud, and Sirius felt his stomach lurch at the idea of Anwen needing to hide inside her own head. He was thankful she'd resigned permanently a few weeks ago. "We were reticent for me to try before now, but the situation now warrants my intrusion," she explained as she began her Legilimency. "There it is."

Sirius knew not to speak to someone while they were doing Legilimency. Loosing your concentration could be detrimental to both the person entering another's mind as well as the person whose mind was being entered. He was downright terrified for the welfare of his beloved right now. Bev's gasps and incoherent uttering weren't helping his peace of mind either.

Seconds felt like hours, and each one that the clock in the room ticked off boomed in Sirius head. He felt his heart racing between the sounds, his breathing increasing along with it. The medi-witch moved and pulled something from the pocket of her gown and handed it to Sirius. He gave it a sniff and recognized it as calming draught. He gladly drank it down.

"Saints be praised, how is she doing that?" Bev muttered and Sirius desperately wanted to know what was going on. "Come on now girl, please, come out with me."

Bev's head twitched from side to side, and Sirius was watching the cringes and flinches of her face carefully. Then as quickly as she had started, Anwen stilled, her breathing began to slow and her mouth closed and the edges curled up into a gentle smile. Her mouth moved to form a word, but the silencing charm was still around her, so while he didn't hear it, he knew that it was his name.

Bev relaxed her body against the chair, nearly panting from exhaustion. She laid her wand in her lap and opened her eyes.

"Go downstairs, tell them that I was in Anwen's mind," Bev spoke commandingly to the medi-witch, "I've severed the connection between Harry and Anwen. He is fighting himself in there. It appears to be an all out brawl. They need to do a full neurological block on him or he's going to kill himself." Sirius gasped and there was one final tick of the clock before the woman ran from the room.

The Healer looked dumbfounded. "I've never heard of such a thing."

"I knew that he was attacking his memories, I'd seen that part, but to see him..." Bev couldn't even finish she was so shaken.

Sirius stumbled to the end of Anwen's bed and sat down. "How bad will it get?"

"I have no idea how much damage he's already done. Anwen had erected some kind of barrier in there so that he couldn't damage his mind more, but..." Bev shook her head, "she had gotten herself into a corner of her own brain, watching carefully that Harry didn't do any further damage, but she couldn't move either. She was so near her own backdoor..." Bev swooned, clinging to the sides of the ladder-back chair to keep from falling off. "If I'm this wrung out then she's got to be depleted from being in there for so long."

"I'll get a strengthening potion for you both," the Healer told them as he went to leave the room.

"Bring her a rehydration one as well, I can see it in her face that she'd dehydrated, probably has been since she was in India. Never does drink enough water when she's doing these missions of hers," Bev scolded Anwen and Sirius nodded. The Healer nodded and left.

"What do we do now?" Sirius inquired.

"We wait. When she's strong enough, she'll wake up."

Ginny was stiff the next morning when she awoke in Harry's room. She'd slept in her chair all night, hoping for some movement from Harry. There hadn't been any. She rolled her shoulders forward and then back and then stretched her arms over her head. Her movement caught the eye of someone across the room. She was surprised to see Eva still sitting there.

"Did you stay all night?" Ginny asked.

"It was the only way that James could get Lily to go home for a while," the elder woman confessed. "I promised if there was any change that I'd call her immediately."

"There wasn't any need to call, was there?" Ginny said glumly, already knowing the answer. She looked at Harry. His breathing was controlled by a charm, his heart had a spell cast upon it to continue its beating. A jar of feeding potion was on a shelf above Harry's bed, attached to pots of blood strengthening potion and replenishing solution. At a given interval they were charmed to give Harry a dose to keep his body alive. His brain had been completely shut down. It was the only remaining way to keep Harry safe. The Healers had been honest about the level of damage they could detect. Harry might never fully recover.

Everyone had urged her to return to Fair Garden last night, but Ginny couldn't be anywhere but where she was now.

"How are you feeling this morning?" Eva Lupin asked the girl. Ginny needed to think about her answer.

"Drained, limp, guilty." Eva looked at her puzzled.

"Drained and limp I understand, but guilty?"

"I still feel like this is somehow my fault," Ginny began to explain. "I just wish that I'd told Harry that I was getting closer to forgiving him sooner. Maybe if I had, this might not have happened."

"Are you really ready to forgive him?" The counsellor in the older woman prodded.

"Yes, nearly anyway. It's not that I'm happy with him, or some of the things he's done, but...we were broken up. I really can't fault him for dating while we were apart. As for being a git, well, I'm not exactly a peach to be around three days a month. Harry used up all his PMS days in a few months, I spread mine out more."

"I see." Ginny sighed in frustration at the vague response.

"You're acting like a counsellor right now."

"I am a counsellor. Only you can know what's in your heart and what's best for you. I would advise that you don't make any hard and fast decisions right now. It's not the time for you to be doing anything of that kind."

"I won't, I promise," Ginny swore. "I just don't have any plans to leave him alone." Eva nodded and stood to stretch. As she did, the door opened and James came in.

"Anything happen overnight?" He questioned hopefully.

"No, sorry," Eva said. "Where's Lily?" James sighed as Eva closed the space and hugged her friend.

"She's at home. I had to medicate her last night. She's blaming herself for all of this. Calling herself a bad parent, telling herself that she didn't do enough, say enough. I tried to talk with her, remind her that Harry's an adult, making his own decisions and we can't control those, but..." he trailed off.

"I was waiting for that to happen," Eva said quietly.

"You were?" James replied surprised.

"Of course, she's a mother, an attentive mother at that. It's normal. I can't tell you how many parents I've had in my office that think they've somehow failed as a parent because their child made choices that weren't the best. Parents can only give their children the foundations, give them the base. What a child - especially a grown child - does in any given situation, that's up to them," she explained.

"I don't know, Eva. If we gave him such a good base, why did he make the choices he did?" James retorted.

"Just because a child has a strong moral base and an ethical set of ideals, doesn't mean they are going to live within them. Learning to navigate life is a lesson like any other. Sometimes it requires trial and error. When we were in school, you didn't do well in Astronomy. I remember you fumbling around just to find the most basic of things through the telescope, right?"

"Yeah, but what does Astronomy have to do with Harry?"

"Just listen to me. You sat in the same classes as the rest of us, learned the same lessons, had the same tools, and yet, you never were as proficient at it as the rest of us. What grade did you end up with on your OWL in the class?"

"I got an A, you know that. It was the only class that I got an A in, but I worked the hardest for it," James answered. Ginny, moving closer, was intrigued by the conversation.

"Yes, you had to work at it. Just because you went to class didn't mean that the knowledge and skill were dumped into your head, you had to learn what to do with it. Parenting is like that. We want to impart our knowledge on our children, want to just tell them what to do to avoid our mistakes in life, but we can't. Living, like anything else, is something that we do by trial and error." Eva finished and James was staring at her.

"If that's true, then why did he do something that was so far outside what Lily and I would have ever done?" James pressed.

"Neither you nor Lily lived through the trauma that he did last summer. It's not an excuse, but it is a way to explain things. He was self-medicating, just the same as if he were drinking to excess or mixing up his own potions to take. He needed something to numb the pain that he was feeling," she explained and James stumbled back into the chair that she'd vacated. Ginny had begun to silently weep in her seat.

"I never thought of him as needing to..."

"Neither of us did," a tearful Ginny added as she moved closer.

"Both of you, stop what you're thinking and listen to me," Eva said, putting her hands on her hips and appearing oh so authoritative. "You're both feeling guilty because you somehow think that you're responsible for Harry's actions. You're not. He made his choices, he did what he wanted. What matters now is how you behave toward him in the future. He's going to need support when he comes out of this state, and we're all going to have to rally around him." James and Ginny both heard her, and thought that there was deep merit to what she'd said. "Would it help if I went and saw Lily?"

"I think it would," James said quietly, still partially lost in his thoughts.

Lily Potter had been upstairs in her son's room, conversing with the day medi-witch when she heard a commotion in her hallway downstairs. She hurriedly left the room to see what the tumult was. The sight that greeted her was a happy one, if not slightly puzzling.

"Anwen, what are you doing here?" Lily asked her friend as she came through the Floo followed rapidly by her four daughters. Anwen was still moving rather slowly, even two weeks after Harry's attack on her. Lilyan, Jamie and Chrissie excitedly ran into the Potter house, taking off to find their friends. Sitara was less sure of herself and clung to her adoptive mother's hand.

"I escaped," she teased. "Sirius was in the garage playing with my birthday present, so I brought the girls over. They, and I, were worried about Harry and Ginny. Has there been any change?"

"None," Lily told her quietly. "We just don't know..."

"Look, I want to try to reach him. Please," Anwen asked.

"Anwen, if Sirius, or James for that matter, were to find out I let you do this..."

"Lily, please, I know I can help. We've only got as long as Sirius is tinkering with that darned car. Let me see if I can reach him." Harry remained in his cognitive repressed state. He'd been allowed to come home from hospital, but he had full time care here. Three Healers came by each day to assess his progress. A full team was working at St. Mungo's attempting to work out how to help him. Ginny remained as well, only leaving his side when she needed to use the loo or when she'd fallen asleep and they could move her to the guest room across the hall.

"Oh, Anwen, it's not that I don't want you to, I just, I can't take any more disappointment." Lily looked away as her tears cascaded down. Anwen released her small daughter's hand and wrapped her arms around her best friend and let her weep.

"We will find a way. There's a wonderful hospital in Scandinavia. They deal only with brain trauma and injury. I'm sure that we could send him there for treatment. There's also the magical trauma centre in Mexico," Anwen tried to settle her friend.

"That's so far away..." Harry's mother bemoaned.

"Lil, with a Portkey it isn't so bad."

"But the other children..."

"Have grandparents and aunts and uncles who can take care of them. If it comes to that you know that your family will rally around you," Anwen promised as she felt a tug at her skirt.

"Misses Anwen," Sitara beckoned from near her leg. Even when Anwen had released the little girl's hand, she had placed her small hand on her adoptive mother's thigh to wait until the hand holding could resume. Anwen broke away from the hug and looked down at the young girl's large brown eyes and huge smile.

"What is it sweetheart?"

"Misses Lily feels sad. I know you don't like me using my magic, but can I help her please?" Anwen gingerly knelt down to look at the girl, the child still smiling, her tongue poking out through the gap of her missing teeth.

"You may ask Misses Lily if she'd like you to help her," Anwen explained and the small child looked up at her aunt.

"May I help, Misses Lily?"

"You may, thank you," Lily responded. Sitara raised her hand and reached for Lily's. As she did Anwen could see the little girl's vibrant orange magic course from her hand into the adult's. Lily got a small smile on her face as she felt her mood shift. Sitara was a remarkable child with an exceptional gift and skill to use it. "Sitara I feel so much better, thank you."

The little girl had only been in Britain for ten days, but she had already settled herself into life with the Black family. Both Anwen and Sirius had noticed that she preferred the company of adults to that of her siblings, the exception being Jamie Black, one of the ten-year-old twins. Anwen chalked it up to her middle daughter's gentle nature and old soul.

With her heart feeling a little better, Lily relented to Anwen's request and they climbed the stairs together, Sitara remaining with them.

"Jamie," Anwen called and her blonde daughter poked her head out into the hallway from Lilyan's room. "Can you come and take Sitara for me? I want to see Harry."

"Sure Mum," she said as she walked closer, reaching her hand out for her little sister. "Come on, you can brush my hair and then I'll brush yours."

"Can't I stay with you, Misses Anwen?"

"Not right now, sweetie," Anwen told her even as her heart broke a little at the sight of the tears that might fall from the child's mahogany orbs. "Harry would never mean to hurt you, but he could by accident. I can't bring you in with me. As soon as I'm done, I'll call for you. Okay?" Sitara nodded at this and went off with her sister.

The women passed through the sitting room off Harry's bedroom and Anwen stumbled back when she saw Ginny through the doorway. She hadn't seen her surrogate daughter for about a week, and she was shocked at her appearance now.

"Lil, what happened to Ginny?" The young redhead had her chair in the farthest corner of Harry's room, facing Harry's bed. Her hair had lost it's lustre and just hung down, no curl or body to it. Her eyes had deep circles underneath them and her skin had taken on a rather sallow hue.

"She won't leave. She just sits there, staring at him. I have to beg her to eat, make her go in to sleep, although I think that she sneaks back in when we've nodded off. I'm nearly as worried about her," Lily explained. Anwen rubbed her forehead and took a deep breath. It would appear that they both needed someone to reach them.

The pair finished their walk to the bedroom, and the Medi-witch got up to greet Lily and report that nothing had occurred in the last five minutes. Anwen took another chair that was near Harry's head and lifted his hand, explaining she was there and what she was going to do.

"Mrs. Black, I don't think this is wise..." the Medi-witch started.

"I'm not going to provoke him, I just need to see if I can get in," Anwen explained.

"Please be careful, none of us have been able to breach his shields, even in this state. Your body might not be able to handle another attack," the witch explained.

"I know, but I have to try," Anwen said quietly. She closed her eyes and began to breathe deeply, her hands glowing in the silvery mist of her magic. Everything was quiet for moment, none of the other women even breathing.

"Oh, my, Goddess," Anwen exclaimed as a tear ran down her cheek.