Author's notes: I'm afraid things will get a bit Rocky.


"Alright, I think you're ready for something more," Melchior said. Harry didn't know whether to feel excited or scared.

It was mid-April, and he, Ginny, and Melchior were standing outside, in front of the house. The snow was steadily melting in the dale beneath, the sun shone longer and brighter with every day that passed, and more and more sounds emanated through the mountainous landscape: the flowing of a rapidly growing stream that was fed by melting snow. The impressive sound of innumerable reindeer endlessly wandering across the plateau that lay just on the other side of the ravine. More and more bird songs echoing through the trees. The howling of a pack of wolves far into the distance. Harry found it a worrying and somewhat disconcerting noise at first, but it soon became more familiar. It was one of the things that became a normal part of life, like the ever-burning fire in the house, the sound of the wind blowing through the pines, birches, alders and willows, and the sound of Melchior pacing through the living room when everyone else was asleep.

As the days became longer, more and more of the surrounding areas became visible as well. The mountains were no longer black, looming shapes on the horizon, but beautiful, full of life and colour. And rather than threatening, the forests around them became more and more inviting, especially now that he started to learn just how much the woods had to offer to him: fish, firewood, a few early morels that they would mix in with dinner to at least make the mashed potatoes taste less boring, and Harry and Ginny's favourite: birch tree sap.

Selene showed them one day how to gather the sap: she cast a controlled and precise cutting curse at the stem of the thicker birches, and then conjured a tube that led into a plastic cola bottle that she had brought with them. Then they would walk away for a while, and when they returned some time later that day, the bottle had a respectable amount of sap in it. Harry found its taste rather bland at first, but it improved a lot after they boiled it down when they returned home later. It was sweet, sugary and stuck to his palate slightly. He loved it. Ruddy hippies, indeed.

Harry felt happier than he'd ever felt before. He was here, in a beautiful, awe-inspiring area, he didn't have to worry about the outside world at all, and he was with people he cared about.

And that was a strange conclusion. He had actually grown to care about Melchior and Selene, despite everything. They had sheltered Harry, Sirius and Ginny, and they took care of them. Harry didn't want to imagine where he would be without them.

He still held no illusions about their personality, though. They were strange people, no matter how nice they were to him, and especially Selene was shockingly aggressive at times.

Ginny, bored of Selene's endless stories during their walks in the woods, tried sneaking up on her one time to scare her. She ended up pressed against a tree with a knife pushed against her throat with such a force that a trickle of blood welled up from it. Both girls shouted the most vulgar language at each other for quite some time before Harry managed to calm them down. But Ginny learnt her lesson. The slight mark the knife left behind remained visible on her throat for quite some time.

And the more Harry got to know Melchior, the more he knew the man was holding a lot back from him. After Melchior's near outburst at Sirius' remark a few months back, he stopped telling so many tales about himself during dinner. It had become a quieter affair since, and Harry somewhat missed the stories. He'd much rather be listening to those stories than watching Sirius' and Melchior's confrontation simmer below the surface at every meal.

Another thing that had changed since then was Melchior's drive during Harry and Ginny's lessons. He was quite animated and insistent on covering a lot of subjects before, but that all paled in comparison to how he was now.

He taught them from breakfast till dinner, with only a few pauses and a lunch in between, and he was much sterner as well. For three stupid, stale, annoying weeks, he forced Harry and Ginny to work on their silent spell-casting, and he had decided that he wouldn't accept a single whispered spell. Harry's breakthrough eventually came when he smashed a cup in frustration. Ginny's came when she was so fuming she melted an impressive amount of snow around her.

But that wasn't enough. First, they had to go through their entire repertoire of spells and be able to cast every single one of them silently. Then they had to learn a lot of new offensive spells, some of which very much deadly (Harry was repulsed and oddly fascinated by a strong version of the cutting curse. Many conjured training dummies lost their heads during those lessons), and all the while they had to read through some very dry, old and way too thick books about wards. Harry was sick of it.

"Something more?" Ginny asked, and Harry pulled himself out of his string of thoughts. Her white coat had the same colour as the melting snow around them, making her flaming red hair stand out even more than usual.

"Yes, something more. You're now very, very good at sneaking around, stealing things and taking down your foes from behind, especially considering your age. But there will come a time where you are forced to face your opponent head on and fight them, and you need to be prepared for that. I am going to teach you how to duel."

Harry and Ginny shared a look. Harry managed to stop himself from saying "finally!" out loud.

"Your opponent for today will be me, but be warned: I will not hold back. The snow should be sufficient to break the fall. Now then, who will go first?" Melchior asked.

"I will," Harry said. He felt his trepidation mounting as he and Melchior stepped further apart from each other. Ginny walked towards the boulders at the edge of the clearing, deciding to watch from a distance.

That was when something impacted his chest and he fell backwards in the snow.

"Lapse in concentration, Harry," Melchior barked.

"You didn't say when we were starting," Harry grumbled as he scrambled on his feet again.

"Who said I would?" Melchior countered. "Remember what I told you. Rule number one: ignore the rules. Again." This time, Harry managed to duck away just in time, and he immediately fired off a counter-curse. Melchior swatted it aside and sent forth a burst of magic. Harry ducked away, but he was still knocked over.

"That was a wide spell, not a concentrated, piercing one. Not everyone can do it, as it requires a lot of power, but you should be prepared for it nonetheless. Block it with your shield next time. Again."

Melchior was relentless. For what seemed like hours, Harry was forced to fight him again and again. It was a strange sight, seeing Melchior's broad, malformed, hunched figure move so gracefully as he attacked Harry with an unbelievable speed. He quickly learnt not to get distracted by that, though. Instead, he ground his teeth and willed himself to do the best he could.

At some point, he thought he was progressing, and he started to understand the rhythm of a proper wizarding duel. Attack, defend, attack, dodge, and that sequence in seemingly infinite variations. It was exhilarating, and Harry was soon grinning excitedly while casting his spells. He was especially proud of himself when he managed to execute a perfect roll to dodge a stunning spell.

But then his foot got stuck under a rock that was hidden underneath the snow. Melchior didn't show mercy, and Harry was blasted backwards, with his foot still wedged.

He didn't break any bones, but it definitely didn't feel right in his leg. Melchior quickly summoned an ice pack from inside the house and bound it around Harry's ankle to prevent any swelling.

Harry was somewhat unsurprised when Melchior insisted that he would continue the duelling practice only moments after he'd bound the ice pack.

"In battle, you will get injured, and you will feel pain. You will learn to stop yourself from getting distracted by that. Grab your wand, and get up."

The fight got grittier after that. Melchior had taught him to pour his emotions into his spell-casting, and Harry found out there and then that anger was definitely a useful emotion to get lost in.

Harry was sick of Melchior at that moment. He was sick of how the man first injured him and then demanded that he would continue the duel, even though his ankle hurt more with every step. He was sick of the man's love for mashed potatoes, he was sick of his never-ending classes, he was sick of all the secrecy, and he was apparently still angry about him and Selene spying on him for four months straight.

Harry squatted down to let a spell fly over his head, but his ankle didn't like that and a sharp pain spread through his lower leg. And that was the last straw. Harry saw red. Instead of a stunning spell or a disarming spell, he sent the most powerful cutting curse he could conjure right at the man's throat.

Melchior blocked it with ease of course. They met eyes for a moment, and Harry almost faltered at the man's intense gaze.

"That's it, Harry," he snarled. He followed up with another wide spell. Harry conjured a shield at the last moment that absorbed the impact of the spell. "No more holding back now. Use that emotion. Come on!"

Harry snarled and sent another cutting curse at the old man. And another. And another. Melchior swatted it all aside like it was nothing. It was futile, and the ease with which Melchior blocked Harry's spell was more tiring than the duel itself. In the end he didn't even try to block the disarming spell that Melchior sent at him.

"Alright, that's enough for now," the man said after he caught Harry's wand in his left hand.

Harry felt his anger disappear like snow in the sun, and the pain in his ankle returned in full force. He paid no mind to the cold and sank down to the ground.

"Tiring, isn't it?" Melchior asked. Harry nodded, even though he didn't know what part he was referring to.

Alright Ginny, you're up next. Harry, you need to get up quickly. You'll do yourself no good sitting in the snow like that," Melchior said.

Harry groaned and got up slowly. He wiped the snow off his jeans and coat with sore arms, and snow sprayed around him when he ran his hand through his hair. The more he moved, the more pains and kinks he discovered. His ankle throbbed angrily as he stood up, but he still managed to grin at Ginny as she approached him.

"Have fun!" He said as he started to slowly limp towards the house. She only raised her middle finger at him in response.

Harry was touching the doorknob of the front door when Melchior called him back.

"Don't even think about going inside. I want you to watch and learn. Here, sit down." He conjured a simple wooden chair for Harry to sit on. Harry sank down onto it slowly, feeling his legs tremble with fatigue. "Tomorrow I want both of you to tell me what you did wrong and what you could have done differently." And he immediately hurled a spell at Ginny. She was prepared, having watched the man duel with Harry before, and she sidestepped it nimbly.

She managed to hold on for an impressive amount of time, but, like Harry, she never came close to winning. Eventually a disarming spell pierced through her hastily conjured shield and her wand sailed gracefully into Melchior's hands.

"Impressive. But not good enough." He threw her wand back at her, but started firing spells at her before it even reached her.


Only after almost a month of gruelling, tiring trainings that left Harry and Ginny groaning with fatigue and their bodies more sore than ever before did Melchior take pity on them. By now the temperature was steadily rising, and they had to wade through a thick layer of slush every time they went outside. There were more and more catkins hanging from the trees every day, and this Tuesday, just three days ago, during an especially tiring duelling session against Melchior, Harry saw a tuft of what he thought were snowdrops rising above the rapidly melting snow. Of course, that distraction allowed Melchior to get a nasty stinging hex past his steadily developing shield. The place where the spell impacted him continued to sting the entire day, but the signs of spring, even this high up and this far north, left him in a good spirit.

Today, however, they wouldn't get to enjoy the outside, because Melchior said he'd planned something for them that required them to stay indoors.

"What are we going to do now?" Ginny asked. It occurred to Harry that they had stopped calling him "sir" a long time ago. Melchior didn't seem to mind.

"Today, I want you to start specializing in something. Every witch or wizard is unique, and so are their abilities. I'm quite proficient in potions and wards, for example, Selene in, well, destroying everything, and Dumbledore is a true master in transfiguration and charms, just to give you another example. Sirius, what's your strong point?"

"Transfiguration. Being an Animagus really helped me with the subject," Sirius answered from the couch. He was staring at today's newspaper, where an old picture of him during his stay at Azkaban graced the front page. Apparently he was sighted in Scotland today. The Ministry reacted immediately, once again assigning the Dementors as guards of Hogwarts. It still amazed Harry to no end how much power rumours had.

"Well there you have it," Melchior said. "Harry, what was your favourite subject at Hogwarts?"

Harry thought about it for a moment. "Well, first it was Charms, but when we finally had a competent Defence teacher this year, that was fun too. Professor Lupin was even going to teach me the Patronus Charm after the holidays," he said. He missed his little talks with the professor after Defence lessons.

"The Patronus Charm?" Melchior asked, looking at Harry sharply. "Yes, I could see why you needed to learn that. Why, Selene here can attest to that. Selene, dear, would you demonstrate yours, please?"

Selene looked quite uncomfortable as she got up from her sofa and pulled out her wand.

"Expecto Patronum," she cried, waving her wand about in the air. A large orca burst from her wand and lit up the room. It swam around quite gracefully, and that was an impressive feat, given the little space it had inside. Harry saw spots in his eyes after the animal disappeared.

"Very impressive," Sirius commented, giving her his most charming smile. Selene quickly sat down again and didn't look up from her lap, all the while furiously fiddling with her pocket knife.

"Moving on, then. It might be a good idea to teach you the charm as well. Sirius, you can cast a Patronus, right?"

"How do you… oh never mind. Expecto Patronum!" A large, bright, shaggy dog appeared for a moment and pranced around happily before it faded away.

"Very good," Melchior said. "Harry, Ginny, we've got a lot to do still, but I think I can start teaching you the charm in a few weeks. I think you're going to need it. Anyway, let's get back to today's subject. Ginny, what's your strong point?"

"I dunno," she said, a touch shyly. "I can fly, I guess."

"Yes, yes, and quite well, as I'm led to believe. Maybe we could buy you two a broom. That would be useful, seeing as you two are quite talented on them."

"Why would we need those?" Harry asked.

"I was going to ask you the same, actually. What do you think?"

Harry was silent for a while, but Ginny's eyes lit up.

"We could… cast spells from our brooms!" She said excitedly. "And travel anywhere we like without the Ministry knowing! Use it as an escape, just in case…"

"Exactly!" Melchior said as enthusiastically as Ginny. "Brooms are so much more than mere tools for Quidditch!" Harry and Ginny found each other's eyes for a moment, and she looked just as affronted by that statement as he was. "So your strong point is flying. But I think you have more talents than that, don't you?" Melchior said.

Ginny shrugged.

"Power! Ginny, you and Harry both have so much power within you. You fought off the Dark Lord for almost a year-" Ginny's cringe was barely noticeable, "-and I could feel it when we were duelling. Just think of the possibilities when you two work together. It would be magnificent!"

"What do you mean?" Ginny asked.

"Exactly what I said! Man isn't built to live alone. A person on their own always needs to do more than he can handle. Attack and defend, for instance. Gather food and cook it, too. Make plans and then keep himself in check so that he doesn't overextend himself. Not to mention the fact that you'll go completely mad without having someone to talk to..." He paused for just a moment and scratched his beard before continuing.

"Anyway, that's why you're stronger when you're together. Well, with the right partner, that is. The fact that you're on the run together is quite beneficial. I would almost say you're lucky you two are together, but then again, power attracts power, so…" Harry was determined not to look at Ginny as the man rattled on.

"Excuse me. Where was I? Ah, right. Power. I want you two to feel it, and I want you two to use it. I learnt a few methods myself when Caterina and I stayed with some Buddhists in Tibet, and I'll teach you those in a minute. First, though, I want you to look through my bookshelves and pick out a book that contains spells, charms, hexes, or anything else that requires power. You'll use that when practicing and getting to know yourself later." He clapped his hands once. "Well, go on, then!"

Harry and Ginny got up from the table and walked towards the bookshelves. There were only three small shelves, but somehow they stored an unbelievable amount of books. Harry ignored Warding for the Wary, Runes: the Keys to Kingdom and the very, very thick A Brief History of Magical Britain, and paused at a few books about the Dark Arts.

"What do you reckon this is?" Ginny asked Harry, pulling out a small book with black binding.

"It looks like a diary," Harry said. Ginny's hand shot back as if stung. Harry pulled it out completely and, after casting a quick glance in the direction of Melchior, leafed through it a bit. He could see lots of very small, cursive handwriting. Every page had a date above it. He could see the years 1969, 1970 and 1971 in the first part of the diary.

"I think this is Melchior's," Harry said. He looked at Ginny, but she was eyeing the diary with distinct repulsion.

"Sorry," he said. He closed it again.

"Just put it back before he notices," she hissed at him, and resumed sifting through the books. Harry slipped it in the inner pocket of his vest.

"Have you chosen your books yet?" Melchior appeared behind them suddenly. Harry managed not to jump at the sound of his voice, and instead showed him "Spells and Curses for the Practical Wizard". Ginny presented him "Your Mind is your Own: 101 Ways to Defend Your Mind from Intrusion".

"Both very good choices," Melchior commended them. "Ginny, perhaps yours is a bit too advanced?" But Ginny clenched her jaw, raised her chin, and looked admirably stubborn, as if daring Melchior to have her choose another book.

He showed her a ghost of a smile. "Alright then, if you insist. It'll be a good challenge. Put those books on the table for now. We'll go through them later. First things first…" He took out his wand and the dining table and chairs were shoved into the far end of the room. He waved his wand again and two long, white mats appeared in their place.

"Lie down," he ordered. They complied. The mat had looked soft and comfortable, but, lying down on it, Harry felt the wooden floor underneath it press into his back and bum. He hoped they wouldn't have to remain in this position for too long.

"Now close your eyes. Ginny, you're much too tense. Relax a bit more. Good… Now focus on your breath. Feel how you breathe in and out. In… and out. Harry, don't control it too much. Let it happen. Breathe in… and then push the air out again." Harry stopped thinking about what a strange sight he must've made and instead concentrated on his breathing. Melchior didn't say anything for a while, and Harry was more and more aware of the actual need for breath, not so much the automatic movement in his belly and chest.

"Now, I want you to start being aware of your body... Feel your energy course through you, from your head… all the way to your toes. Feel every tingle in the tips of your fingers… Feel the way your clothes touch your body…"

Harry felt energy. And lots of it. It flowed through his arms, down his chest and tingled his stomach. It was everywhere in his body, and it yearned to be freed, used, exploited. It was an invigorating feeling, and he wondered how this would feel if Daphne was with him. But it was Ginny who was beside him now, not Daphne.

Melchior's voice broke through the stream of thoughts. "And gradually, you'll find your thoughts wandering. You'll stray to other things… and that's alright. It's a basic function of your brain to constantly think… and you can't stop that. Thoughts are perpetual, a never ending stream. What you need to do, though… is to be aware of your thoughts… know when you have wandered off… and then you return… to the way your breath feels. And then you start over again. Feel your body…"


From that day forth, Melchior had them meditate every day. Harry was reluctant at first, and especially Ginny often wondered out loud what the use of it was. Sirius calling them spiritual hippies in jest didn't help either. Harry didn't know who he distracted more with those comments: him and Ginny, or Melchior.

"You are distracting my students!" The man vociferated one day after one joke too many. "I'm starting to think it was a mistake to leave the choice up to you about following my lessons! You act like a child!"

"We could always take it outside, old man," Sirius replied with a humourless grin. "We could see who needs to teach who a lesson."

"Hey Sirius," Selene interrupted. "Remember the fight on the train?"

That did the trick. Sirius glared at Selene for an uncomfortable amount of time, but he toned down his comments during Harry and Ginny's meditation sessions after that. Harry was amazed at how much effect a knee to the bits had on Sirius.

Despite this, Melchior wasn't deterred, and Harry and Ginny eventually stopped complaining when the effects started to show themselves in a dramatic fashion. Harry could only describe it as magic. He not only cast spells now, he could actually feel them form, build up inside him and then release through his wand. This gave him so much more control, and it was a thrill to put it to use through his spells. Especially his shield charms improved rapidly. He couldn't see the effect it had on Ginny, since she was using it to strengthen the defences of her mind (Harry didn't quite understand how), but she did look a lot happier than she'd ever been since she came out of the Chamber of Secrets.

Life, in short, was good.


And it only improved, as did the weather. As May progressed, the ever-present snow disappeared only to cling to the shadows of the thicker evergreens, creases in rocks, and other places where sunlight doesn't reach, and it made way for a previously hidden world of rocks, mosses and thick, wild grass.

The house was not far from the treeline, and Harry could see barren, endless tundra stretching out on higher grounds. The glacier further into the ravine stuck out even more now that the snow had melted around it. And the valley beneath had become a sea of green in an impressively short amount of time.

Harry found it amazing that only a few months ago he thought the area intimidating and threatening, with those dark mountains dominating the sky everywhere. Now, though, there was nothing left of that intimidating sight, and he felt the urge, no, the need to get on a broom and fly from mountaintop to mountaintop.

Harry was still marvelling at these changes during one of their walks. Now that it started getting warmer, he actually started looking forward to them. Sirius made it even more fun with his antics as a dog. He chased butterflies, jumped around noisily in brooks and meltwater streams and stood still as a statue when he heard the local pack of wolves communicate far away.

And today it was no different, Harry thought as he watched his godfather dart around the forest without a care in the world. It was a warm day, there wasn't a cloud to be seen, and the sun shone so brightly that Harry didn't need his jacket for once.

He instead walked around in one of the T-shirts that Ginny had picked out for him in Paris. It was white, well fitting, and on the front it said "STUD" in large, flashy purple letters. It had taken Ginny a lot of persuasion, but eventually he gave in and let her buy it for him, just to make her needling stop. But it actually fit him and he felt quite comfortable wearing it, neither of which could be said about the hand-me-downs from Dudley he used to wear.

Ginny and Selene too had shrugged off their jackets, and the three of them plus a happy mutt named Sirius spent the afternoon in the forest, travelling from one sunlit spot to the next. There was birdsong all around, the trees swayed lazily in a fresh and invigorating breeze, and all the while the brook flowed near them, its water so clear that Harry could easily count the small fish swimming around near the rocky bottom.

'So this is what spring is all about,' he thought. He was beginning to understand why people loved this time of year so much.

His world was turned sideways when he was pushed off his feet, and he fell roughly into the brook to his left. Ice cold water washed over his body and soaking his clothes instantly and he took a deep, gasping breath from the sudden cold. He looked around in confusion to see who'd pushed him, and then Sirius was there, splashing around in the shallow water, barking in his ear, pushing his nose against his face and wagging furiously. Harry laughed and tried to push his godfather underwater, but he was much stronger than Harry, and in the end he found himself on his back, half submerged and with Sirius' front paws on his chest.

"Help me!" He called to Ginny and Selene. They immediately came to his rescue, and the three of them finally managed to shove Sirius away. He wasted no time in running away to avoid retaliation. Each girl grabbed one of Harry's arms to help him up, and he showed his gratitude by pulling them down into the water with him.

It was the last carefree day of Harry's life.

They spent their afternoon near the stream for as long as they could. When they got too cold, they lied down on the sun-heated rocks and moss, and when that got too boring, they dove into the water again. Sirius was an image of utter content, lying completely relaxed in the sun, with his tongue hanging out. And when Harry met Ginny's bright brown eyes he could only see pure, unrestrained happiness in them.

But then the sun disappeared behind a cloud and an ice cold breeze came on, immediately chilling Harry to the bone.

Thankfully, Selene summoned their jackets, and Harry pulled his on as fast as he could. They walked back in a friendly, content silence, all revelling in the afterglow of a perfect spring afternoon.

"We have something to celebrate today," Melchior announced when they arrived back at their house.

"No more mashed potatoes?" Ginny asked cheekily, and Melchior surprised all of them by bursting out laughing. Selene looked positively radiant, seeing the man laugh so loudly, without a care in the world.

"Not quite," he finally said. He wiped his eyes dry. "I really do like you, Ginny. But no, I'm sorry to disappoint you. We do have a very large and very succulent steak for dinner, though. No, today is a very special day. It's Selene's birthday!" Selene spontaneously grew beet red and ducked her head.

"It's not my birthday!" She protested, but couldn't stop the impromptu Happy Birthday the others began to sing.

"Hip hip…" Melchior said.

"Hurray!" They all threw their arms up. Ginny grabbed Selene's arms and forcing her to join in on the cheers. They'd really warmed up towards each other, Harry thought happily.

"No, stop…" Selene protested.

"Hip hip…"

"Hurray!"

"Fuck's sake."

"Hip hip…"

"Hurray!" Harry said a half-hearted "hurray" to close it off, and then it was time for dinner.

"So, what do you want for your birthday?" Melchior asked.

"A big glass of red wine," Selene said, having finally given up her protests.

"An excellent idea! Harry, Ginny, firewhiskey for you I presume?"

"Really?" Ginny asked eagerly.

"No."

Melchior disappeared into the kitchen for a moment and reappeared with a fancy looking bottle. He poured himself, Selene and Sirius a glass and then summoned two glasses of water for Harry and Ginny. They toasted to Selene and to a long, warm, happy summer.

"So is it really your birthday or is it not?" Sirius asked after they tucked into their meal.

"It's a bit complicated. We don't know my actual birthday, but we do know the day I was left at the safe house, and we've always used that as my birthday."

"Safe house?" Sirius asked.

Selene and Melchior shared a long look. Finally, Melchior sighed and turned back to the others. "I think it's time for another story." Sirius raised an eyebrow, but let Melchior continue.

"When we previously left off, I believe Caterina and I were still living in Bournemouth, and our house in Scotland was being built, right?"

"I think so," Harry said.

"Right. Well, as our life continued, so did that case I was investigating. By now it was 1969, and although the general public didn't know anything, things had already gotten way out of hand. Muggles disappearing, grave robberies, a massive increase of Dark Creatures all over Britain, talks of the Defence Against the Dark Arts job at Hogwarts being cursed, and, most worryingly, bribes within the Ministry. Cases against Purebloods were now being dismissed even more often than before, sudden lawsuits against important people who were probably in the way, and lots of pressure on me to stop the investigation and sod off back to South-Africa. Of course, since it was those two oafs Carson and Lewis threatening me, I didn't worry too much about it, but it was still disconcerting.

"The situation was getting out of hand. So much so, in fact, that I found the combined force of me and Caterina, and sometimes Dumbledore's advice, not enough anymore. So I contacted a few of my old friends from the Slug Club. Even after so many years of being away from Britain, those contacts were still there, you see. Horace truly is a genius in that aspect, I tell you.

"We quickly gathered a group of good friends who were more than happy to help us. In fact, it was going so well that I started attending the Slug Club again, looking for N.E.W.T. level students to recruit. Those young people need a job and money most desperately, but what I found more important was that they're still fresh in this world. Not deluded by the Ministry or our as of yet mysterious group of criminals, y'know?

"I had a few old friends enlarge our basement and we made it a proper meeting room, with couches, a billiard table, coffee tables, all that stuff. It was a big success, actually. We had people come over every day of the week, be it just for tea and a quick game of cards, or discussing new developments. It made life in Bournemouth bearable, and we finally had a distraction from all the stress of our to-be-home in Scotland." He paused to take a couple of bites from his steak.

"Now, bear in mind that I was still quite young then. Oh, I was 29 of course, but life had been a bed of roses for me until then, apart from a fight with my parents here and there. I never had to worry about money or work and I never had to worry about dating either, and that was all because I had Caterina by my side.

"In that young inexperience, I got cocky. I saw our rapidly growing group as a new movement, a way to bring change to the corrupt and old-fashioned Wizarding World. In my bigheadedness, I called it The Opposing Movement." He filled his wineglass again and took a large swig. "One consequence of recruiting young people was that the meetings often got out of hand, let me tell you that. My plan at the start was to hold regular, simple and purposeful meetings, but in the end our basement turned into a sort of party centre every weekend. I don't even want to list the things we consumed there on a daily basis. It was 1969 at the time, I'll remind you."

"Sounds like fun," Sirius grinned.

"You have no idea," Melchior said, smirking. "Of course, the mood was often dampened when a new development came to light. It was going quite fast by then. More dark creatures sighted, blackmails, inexplicable murders on Muggles, and so on.

"We moved into our new house in the spring of 1970, opened the Floo up for other members of our little organisation and we finally settled in properly. The fun thing is that, as a wizard, you can live anywhere you like. Need some groceries? Just Apparate to the shop. Need to visit someone? Just use the Floo. Life was good and easy. That was when the War began. And it started off with a bang, too: Giants."

"Voldemort had Giants?" Ginny asked, aghast.

"Oh, yes he did. And that's all the fault of the Ministry as well. If they hadn't treated them Giants so dismissively, if they hadn't accepted such racist policies against them, it wouldn't have happened at all. But the Giants were angry with the British Wizards after the Ministry revoked their right to wander, and Voldemort used that to entice the Giants into fighting for his cause."

"You can't possibly mean that!" Sirius said heatedly. "Are you blaming the Ministry for restricting the Giants' movements? Do I need to remind you what often happened when they were still free to walk anywhere they wanted? How many people were killed by Giants?"

"Yes, and you can see how much good those restrictions did," Melchior argued. "More people were killed by Giants during the War than in all of the century before that! Now let me finish my story."

Grumbling, Sirius went back to eating his dinner.

"I remember the start of the War well. Caterina and I were woken up in the middle of a summer night by someone of the Opposing Movement calling us via the Floo. I believe it was Geoff Knight. He worked for the Department of Law Enforcement in the Ministry, and that's how he knew so quickly that something terrible had happened in Wales. Naturally, we went there ourselves to see what had happened.

"We found a large amount of rubble that used to be a village, several very large footprints and a lot of Aurors investigating it, and they weren't too happy with my presence there, let me tell you. I simply told them this had to do with that now three years old case I was working on. But I was actually sent away from the scene, and three days later I was called up to the Ministry, and they took the case away from me. I received a bouquet of flowers, a nice bottle of Elven wine and a sack of galleons that clearly said: "don't interfere with Ministry business anymore."

"In the meantime, someone who called himself Lord Voldemort had stepped up, claiming responsibility for the attack and vowing to start his reign of terror in order to clean up the Wizarding World from "impurity", or that's what he called non-pureblood witches and wizards anyway. That very same night he unleashed a horde of Werewolves in a village near Manchester, leaving behind, what was it? Over 50 dead? I can't remember the exact number. It was horrific enough anyway.

"We held an emergency meeting within the Opposing Movement the next day. I'll simply call it the OM from now on. We had grown a lot, and we were quite a large group by then, with about twenty-five people. And it would become even bigger during the war. Anyway, at the time, we had…" He twiddled with some of his beard hairs. "One worked for the Daily Prophet, a lot of them for the Ministry, there were two Healers from St. Mungo's, we had a young Quidditch Player and her coach-"

"Who?" Ginny interrupted eagerly.

"Gloria Smith, and her coach Gwendolyn Morgan."

"You know the Gloria Smith?" Ginny all but squealed. "The coach of the Holyhead Harpies?"

"Well, she was still their Seeker back then, but yes, I knew her," Melchior replied, smiling. "Fan of the Harpies, I presume?"

"You have no idea," Harry grinned. Ginny smacked his shoulder.

"But anyway," Melchior pressed on, despite Ginny, who clearly was not done with her interrogation yet. "We held a meeting, and all agreed that we would try and stop this Lord Voldemort. I didn't just recruit anyone, you see. They were all good, brave people, people who didn't shy away from danger.

'Around that time, Dumbledore contacted me as well. He knew of the OM, of course, and I think he rather liked the idea of a sort of secret society. He'd founded one himself, you see, named the Order of the Phoenix. I presume you know about this?"

"Yeah, Sirius told me about it a bit," Harry said, but Ginny shook her head.

"No matter," Melchior said. "We'll get to that later. Dumbledore wanted me to join it as well, but I was already too invested in the OM, so I refused. We came to an agreement, though, that we would work together when we could. We trusted each other and our groups enough for that." He refilled his wineglass again.

"The war progressed. Voldemort stopped massacring entire villages and found other ways to carry out his mission of unhinging Wizarding Britain, namely targeting the families of those who opposed him. His message was simple, but powerful: if you didn't comply with his wishes, everyone you loved would be in danger. People quickly learnt to take his threats seriously. Head Auror Howard Pearce lost his only child because he refused to align himself with Voldemort, for example, and that was really the point where the war grew more serious. But there were less prominent threats too. Think of break-ins here and there, threatening letters in your post-in, or a beat-up if Voldemort's lackeys caught you alone.

"Voldemort really liked to work from the shadows, and only a year after the war began, so this was the summer of 1971, you couldn't trust anyone anymore. You didn't know who was in league with Voldemort and who wasn't. The threat hung in the air: who was next on their list? Is it you? Is it me? Voldemort himself rarely showed himself, but those who saw him and lived to tell the tale spoke of a frightening, monstrous person, more snake than man, and that only reinforced his already successful campaign of fear.

"We of the OM didn't know what to do anymore. We didn't know who we could target, and even if we did manage to capture someone and deliver them to the Ministry on a platter, they would always escape prosecution. Some escaped from custody, others were cleared under mysterious circumstances. And they all disappeared immediately afterwards. It was hopeless.

"That was when Caterina came up with an idea. She spoke of the Resistance in Italy during the Second World War, and how they would set up a network of safe houses to aid Jews, hide weapons and provide shelter for the resistance movement.

"It was perfect. Voldemort vowed to kill every muggle and Muggleborn, or "Mudblood" as he started calling them, you see, so they needed protection. And Caterina reckoned that we, the OM, could provide that.

"We proposed the idea to the others and it was accepted. I and another man named Ben Dover were able to cast the Fidelius charm. Do you know that charm?"

"No," Harry and Ginny replied.

"It's a charm that hides a property, or an estate. The moment you cast the charm on it, it's hidden from everyone, as if it had never existed."

"Just like that?" Harry asked.

"Just like that. The one who manages this secret is called the Secret Keeper, and he decides who has access to the hidden property and who doesn't. So what we did was we hid the houses of all of the members of the OM and made safe houses and refugee centres out of them. By this time we had one or two connections to mainland Europe too. I believe I already mentioned that other countries closed their borders to all Britons during the war, didn't I?"

"Yeah, I think you did," Harry replied.

"Well, you can imagine, then, how precious those rare connections to the outside world were. The person who worked for us in France, Jacques Plaquesac, he was an employee of the French Ministry's Department of Magical Transformation, the DTM, so he had the authority to create French portkeys. And that was our connection to the outside world. The OM slowly transformed into a sort of international smuggle route. And a network of safe houses, of course.

"Selene was found at one of those safe houses on June the 7th, 1974. She was still a baby, not even a year old. But no one knew how she got there, since it was under the Fidelius, and everyone who had access to the house denied any involvement. It was a true mystery."

"So where did the name 'Selene' come from, then?" Sirius asked.

"Ah, now that's a good question," Melchior said. He looked as if he was enjoying telling this tale quite thoroughly. He sat up straighter in his chair before he continued. "Back in my house, which was still the headquarters of the OM, I had a sort of map of all the safe houses, showing everyone present there. Just a safety measure, of course. It was an ingenious piece of magic, and I really wish I could tell you it was my idea. But it's not.

"I first got the idea when I was attending a Slug Club meeting at Hogwarts a few months before, where I talked to a certain boy named Sirius Black, and he told me of a very interesting idea he had. Something he called the "Marauder's Map"…" Everyone looked at Sirius, who had gone completely rigid in his seat.

"I don't remember talking to anyone about this other than James, Remus and Peter!" He protested loudly.

"I would be amazed if you remembered. You were quite drunk when we talked. So drunk, in fact, that Horace was appalled by your behaviour and told me that he would never invite you again. A fourteen year old boy getting drunk in the presence of a teacher? Dumbledore didn't like that on bit."

Sirius waved that off. "Didn't like the man, anyway," he said. "He only approached me for the Slug Club because I was a Black, and if there's anything I hate, it's being associated with my family. But I can't believe you made your own Marauder's Map!"

"I made several of them, actually. And they were quite useful. But anyway, apparently Selene was already named before she was dropped off. Every person present in a safe house showed up as a dot, with their name above it, you see. And the dot of our new guest here said "Selene"."

"Wait!" Ginny said. "Harry, do you remember what happened right before we went to Sirius with Professor Lupin last Christmas? While we were on our way to his office?"

"Yeah, we ran into Fred and George," Harry said after a moment of thought. "Imagine if they found out I was taking their little sister to see mass murdering lunatic Sirius Black!"

"Hey!" Sirius protested

"Right, and they gave you an early Christmas present, didn't they?"

"I… Oh yeah, they did!"

"Did you ever unwrap it?"

"Bugger, no I didn't! I put it in my backpack. And then we had to flee from those Aurors, you know, and when we settled in here I just forgot about it."

"Hang on then," Ginny said and she bounced upstairs.

"Fred and George, Ginny's twin brothers, right?" Selene asked Harry.

"Yeah."

"I remember them. Did you know that they tried to follow you when you first went to Sirius during the Hogsmeade weekend around Halloween?"

"No," Harry said, surprised. "They must've seen Ginny and I leave Hogwarts, I guess."

"Yes, but how? You were under your Cloak, then, weren't you?"

"We were," Harry said. It was still unnerving, knowing that Selene had followed his every step for half a year. "And that wasn't the first time they saw me while I was under the cloak, either."

Ginny came downstairs again. She sat back down beside him, panting slightly, and laid a garishly wrapped package down on the table in front of him. It was thin as parchment, and a light went on in Harry's head as he started unwrapping it. Sirius muttered a curse when Harry uncovered a worn, yellowing piece of parchment.

"Is that…"

"The Marauder's Map?" Sirius finished for him, his voice trembling with excitement. "You know what to do, Harry. I told you the magic words last summer."

Harry pulled out his wand, tapped the parchment and said: "I solemnly swear that I'm up to no good."

"Nice," Selene sniggered.

Ink appeared on the document and spread out across the parchment to form a sentence. Harry read it out loud: "Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs, Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers are proud to present THE MARAUDER'S MAP. How in the world did they get this?"

"That's how they were able to follow you two when you went to Sirius!" Selene exclaimed. "They had a map of Hogwarts all this time!"

"Let me see it," Sirius demanded. Harry handed the parchment to him, and Sirius immediately disappeared behind the paper, seemingly oblivious to the world around him as he examined all the corridors on the map.

"Fred and George never told me about it," Ginny said then. "I knew they had something that helped them sneak around at night, but I never imagined it would be this."

"I'm amazed the charm hasn't worn off. I doubt the maps I made still work," Melchior said. "They're still in Britain, so I can't be absolutely sure about that, but-"

"Fuck me!" Sirius interrupted loudly. He shoved a few dishes to the side and laid the map down on the table. He pointed at one of the far corners of the document. "Here, look! In Hagrid's Hut!"

Everyone bent forward to look. Ginny gasped, Sirius growled, much like a dog, and Melchior muttered a curse. There, in Hagrid's Hut, not far from the dot that read "Rubeus Hagrid", was another dot.

It read "Peter Pettigrew".