The morning dawned bright and clear, and Minerva banished the boys to the backyard almost immediately after breakfast so she would have some quiet time to catch up on the local newspapers. In truth, they were no trouble to get out the door, they'd seen the sunshine and were eager to re-explore their old haunts. She shut the door behind them with an indulgent chuckle and sat down on the sofa, ignoring the call of the fresh air, which was still coming off the forest.

The headline was of the wedding of some prominent town figure; likely someone who had influence at the Herald, judging by the fact that the entire front page was devoted to the story. Thankfully, page two had some real news.

The most interesting was an update on a runaway girl who had gone missing four days before. The reporter took great relish in pointing out that there had been a rash of such disappearances in the last year or so, and was proposing some wild theory featuring drug rings. Minerva shook her head. At least these people had never had to worry about real troubles. She found herself rather envying them. She turned to a report on a robbery.

Terry crouched over a hole he was digging and tried to think what to do next. The air seemed rather thicker than usual and he felt like his head was clogged up. Nearby, James was staring into space next to the toy dog he had brought outside. Terry shook his head in an attempt to clear it.

The forest outside the fence was the only thing that seemed really clear at the moment. Except that it wasn't. Maybe it was the fog in his head, but he thought he could almost see a rippling in the air. It rather reminded him of something, and it brought up good feelings the longer he stared at it. Sorta like Gran did, except that it felt older, somehow, like something he'd almost forgotten.

Something like…Mum. But not the Mum he remembered, who hadnursed a bitter anger deep in her eyes. This felt…

A face hung over him, filled with love and pride, though he hadn't learned to recognize the expressions yet. Everything behind her was brilliant white and smelled funny, all harsh. He didn't feel afraid, though, because she'd pulled him to her and he could hear the heartbeat that had kept him company up until an hour ago. "Hello, Dudley. I've been waiting for you." She smiled again. "My little son."

Terry wasn't sure how he'd gotten out of the yard, but he was standing right at the edge of the trees. James walked past him silently, his face still. Terry looked ahead to the shimmering he'd seen before and broke into a smile. Mum stood amid the trees before him, holding her arms out. The longer he walked towards her, the more dizzy he felt. No matter how far he went, still she was ahead of him. Sometimes he'd break into a stumbling run, and sometimes James would pound past him for a moment, but they were always nearby each other. Terry wasn't really sure why James was staying with him. Maybe he saw his mum, too.

And then she stopped moving away from him and stood motionless in a largish clearing. The ground here was really uneven, and he kept tripping over stuff because he didn't want to take his eyes off of Mum long enough to look down. He didn't have that much farther to go to reach her, but he felt tired, so tired. His leg gave out under him and he slumped to the ground. James walked past him a couple steps, then suddenly fell. Terry gave his brother no further mind, for Mum was walking over.

She knelt and put her arms around him. He felt a stinging sensation where she touched him, but suddenly found he didn't care. She was holding him ever tighter and some other people were as well, because she didn't have that many arms. A numbness washed though him, and Terry drifted off to sleep with a smile of happiness on his face.

Minerva stared blankly at page eight for a long time before admitting to herself that she wasn't taking in a word of it. She snapped the paper rather violently in an attempt to refold it, then angrily hurled it to the floor. The longer she sat, the more a restless energy flared up inside. Something was very wrong.

She'd never been much of a pacer, but her feet carried her back and forth as she tried to work out what her unconscious was telling her. And the utter silence wasn't helping. She froze suddenly. The silence…it shouldn't be that quiet, not with the boys in the yard. Something tensed inside her as she walked to the window.

A look revealed nothing, but she forced herself not to panic. There were any number of places in the back yard that couldn't be seen from the window. Minerva kept her steps slow as she walked to the door, feeling as though she'd fallen asleep on the couch and was moving through a nightmare. Her hand closed on the doorknob. 'Gently now,' she admonished herself; the boys didn't need to know that their gran was cracking up. The knob turned and the door whispered open.

As if from a distance, she heard the creaking of the wooden porch as she took three carefully measured steps forward. Only then did she look out at the yard. Her knees buckled. The yard was empty and the gate was open. That would have been Terry, he'd always had a way with locks.

The ice that had grown up inside her suddenly flashed to fear, and she ran forward, calling their names. The only thing that answered was the echoes from the woods. Minerva spun, looking up and down the road; then forced herself to focus. They couldn't have been gone that long, which meant that there would still be scent traces. She switched to her cat form.

The boys' scent lingered in the air, mixed with the rich smell of the woods that somehow reminded her of mother and love and happiness all rolled into one. She took a step forward…and then froze. The transfiguration back into her human self was faster than she'd ever done it before.

There was something in the air that ensnared the mind. It was either too weak or too far away for her to detect it as a woman, but her cat nose had caught it well enough. And with the keen sense of smell the boys had, the scent would have trapped them easily enough.

The first thing she did was put on a Bubble-Head charm, then she retrieved the stuffed dog James had snuck outside. Years before, Mad-Eye had shown her a tricky little charm that he sometimes used to see where a suspect had gone. For a moment she thought it hadn't worked, then a line of pale gold footprints began to appear. It came as no surprise that they led off into the forest. Minerva jogged along beside them.

For a good mile she followed the increasingly unsteady tracks. As she moved farther and farther into the forest, she became unnervingly aware of a nightmarish silence. Not a bird sang and not a squirrel scampered among the branches. It was only with an effort that she convinced herself that she wasn't being watched.

The forest was growing lighter up ahead, yet she could feel a darkness that seemed to penetrate her soul. A few more steps brought her to a scene born of nightmare.

The land sloped to a pit nearly in the exact center of the clearing. Vines, some big around as Hagrid's arm, covered the ground. A human skeleton lay nearby, spike-laden tendrils drilling deeply into the bone. It looked as though the bones were nearly eaten through. The bodies of animals were scattered around, some alive and breathing as the plant wrapped its limbs around their bodies and dug needle-sharprunners into their flesh. Others appeared mercifully dead, their bodies shriveling as they were slowly consumed. Already a couple of the vines were feeling about for her. She took a quick step back and cast on a Aversion Charm.

It took a moment to recognize the low moan for what it was. A teenage girl lay on the ground some fifteen feet away, oblivious to the vines that were wrapped around her. Minerva remembered the article in the paper and shuddered. The girl looked dehydrated, desiccated. And just beyond the girl was James.

Minerva's breath caught in her throat as she suddenly recognized the bodies of her two charges. Both looked to be asleep, their dreams slowly turning from pleasant to nightmare. Neither looked badly hurt yet, but there was no way Minerva could see to get them free without risking killing them, particularly if the plant decided to retaliate.

Never had she heard of a plant like this, and she had no idea of how to deal with something that large. If the twins and that other girl had any chance for survival, it would be at the hands of a plant expert. Despite that knowledge, it took every bit of will power she had to turn and walk away. In only a few yards her steps had turned to an all-out run.Minerva could only pray that the woman was somewhere that she could be reached.