Chapter Eleven

Hannah Priest.

Teddy's head swam, drowning in the events of the last few weeks. Hannah's grant. Mollie Foster. Gideon Tate. All the Muggle-borns at St. Mungo's. Victoire.

Victoire. He had to get back to her. He had to tell her what he knew, about Hannah, about his failure to get to know her, about how Hannah had led Victoire to putting herself in extraordinary danger. Hannah had led Victoire here like a predator leading its prey, and using Teddy as bait while she did it. Was Victoire next?

He dashed across the Atrium and leapt into one of the fireplaces, glittering fiery green and yellow. "Twelve Grimmauld Place," he choked out, and in a blur of heat, he was deposited squarely into the drawing room at Grimmauld Place.

"Vic?" he called cautiously, his heart beating a staccato rhythm against his chest. "Victoire?" Panicked, clutching the visitors' logs in his hand, he raced through the rooms of Grimmauld Place, calling her name, his brain foggy with panic. In each room, his voice echoed weirdly. "Vic! Vic!" But the house was empty. She wasn't there.

Victoire jumped when she saw the huge, shaggy wolf ambling toward her. It was pure white, all light and it had Teddy's eyes. Where are you? Where are you? I'll come find you. Tell me where you are. His voice came in a whisper, but was laced with panic.

The wolf disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared. She stood up from the ground at St. Mungo's hospital. She had left Grimmauld Place not even ten minutes ago, opting to sneak back into the wing of St. Mungo's were Avi was. He was still in his wolf-form, and when she peered in to the square window on the door, he had bound up to the window and gazed so intensely into her eyes that she thought he could see right into her soul, into her magic. When the Patronus wolf had jogged up to her, she was sitting with her back to Avi's door, remembering the first day she had seen Avi-tanned and curly-haired and freckley and so over-the-top friendly.

She sent her own lioness back to Teddy. "I'm at St. Mungo's. Where are you? I'll come to you."

Her Patronus-a gleaming lioness-leapt away, disappearing into thin air. Moments later, Victoire felt a surge of heat in the pocket of her jeans. The ring. She yanked it out, the gold glinting in the dim lamplight of the corridor. Gently, she placed it in her palm, closing her fingers around it. She saw Teddy's flat, the neatly made bed, a tea kettle sitting on the stovetop and she knew.

Sliding the ring back onto her finger, she placed a gentle hand on the door that led to Avi's cell. "I'll be back," she whispered to him. "I'm coming back to help you."

And with a swift turn, she was gone.

"Hannah?" Victoire hissed in disbelief. "Your...girlfriend?"

"She's not my girlfriend, for Merlin's sake!"

"You're pretty fucking friendly, if I recall," Victoire said, shifting her weight so she could lean back and glare at him. A pink tinge crept up his neck, and suddenly she felt guilty giving him a hard time about his relationship with Hannah. He couldn't have known, she reminded herself firmly.

They stared at each other contemplatively for a moment, and Victoire felt her stomach writhe with discomfort. Her mind felt fuzzy, like the static in the air right before a terrible storm, and as she stared into Teddy's eyes, she found herself feeling even more confused. His eyes bore into hers with an intensity that she couldn't name but only feel, and she felt a crackle between them before she forced herself to look away. Teddy cleared his throat, embarrassed.

"I need to tell Harry," he muttered.

"Where is he?"

"He's in the field right now. I can't reach him."

"Tell, um, his number two!" Victoire exclaimed.

"She told me I can't get the logs," he said. "She'll be pissed and fire me."

Victoire threw up her hands in exasperation. "You have another job!" she hissed. "Who cares if she fires you?"

Teddy blushed again. The truth was that, despite the overwhelming evidence that the witch he'd been hooking up with for a few months now was infecting Muggleborns with werewolf's blood, he had been enjoying the last few days at the Ministry. He had always liked research and putting together puzzles, but it had never felt real or consequential until now. The lives of hundreds of people were in his-and Victoire's-hands, and whether that was accidental or not, he felt like his work suddenly mattered.

"I'm going to confront Hannah," he said finally.

"What-the-hell-Lupin!" Victoire said. "You're going to confront a mad witch who could very feasibly turn you into a werewolf? You know what she's capable of!"

"She won't," he said. "She's targeting Muggleborns. I'm pure blood. She won't touch me."

"Let me come with you," Victoire demanded.

"No!" he said. "It's too dangerous."

"I'm pureblood, too! What's she gonna do to me?"

"It has to be me."

"No." Her voice came out strangled, and she was horrified to realize that she was choking back tears. She blinked forcefully, trying valiantly to hold back the tidal wave prickling the backs of her eyes.

"Yes."

Teddy sat nervously in his flat the following day. He was fidgeting with a thread sticking out of the knee of his jeans. One more pull and these jeans are done for, he thought idly, yanking the thread regardless.

A knock at the door roused him from his trance. Clearing his throat, he called, "Coming!" and covered the distance between himself and the door in three long strides.

Hannah Priest stood on the doormat. The doormat, Teddy realized with a start, that Fleur Weasley had given him when he'd moved to London. "Hey there," Hannah said, leaning up and giving Teddy a peck on the cheek. He worked hard not to reel back in revulsion. Instead, he gingerly placed a hand on the small of her back and led her into the flat.

"Did you clean?" she asked, dropping her purse into a chair and looking around.

"I did," he admitted. "Just wanted to make a good impression."

She raised one dark eyebrow quizzically. "You know we've already slept together," she giggled. "You don't need to impress me now."

He shrugged, his heart hammering so hard that he was worried she would see it. He took a deep breath, and gave Hannah what he hoped was a stern look. He didn't want her to think that this was anything other than what he intended for it to be: a chance for her to confess.

The plan he and Victoire had worked out together had come together pretty simply. Hannah was Greyback's heir. The grant she had received from the Foster Family Foundation had been granted under false pretenses. Hannah had told Mollie Foster that she was researching how Muggle-borns got their magic with the idea that understanding that Muggle-borns didn't steal magic from magical people would help alleviate some of the stigma and discrimination that Muggle-borns still experienced in the wizarding world. At least that had been Mollie's idea. Hannah had, of course, had her own aims.

Victoire had wanted Teddy to bind Hannah, to force her into confessing what she had done to the Muggle-borns currently indisposed at St. Mungo's. Teddy had refused. "She needs to confess without coercion," he reminded her. "Otherwise it's inadmissible in the Wizengamot."

He cleared his throat, refocusing back on Hannah. "I, uh, wanted to talk to you," he said, hoping he sounded somber. She was sitting cooly on the sofa, her long, tanned leg crossed over the other one lazily, her bare foot bobbing up and down. "There's something-"

"Teddy," she interrupted. "You really don't have to do this."

He stared.

"You don't have to do this noble breakup nonsense. I can take a hint. I know you've been seeing your ex."

Teddy shook his head. "Nope, sorry," he said. "It's not, er, that. We're not seeing each other, she and I. We're working together."

"Working together? You with a Healer?"

"Yeah. She was the first Healer to see one of the Muggle-born patients, you see," Teddy said, keeping his voice balanced. "And her...boyfriend. He's one of the ones affected."

A small wrinkled appeared between Hannah's eyebrows. "That's really unfortunate," she said in a low voice. "I'm so sorry for her." Teddy noticed that her eyes stayed cold. She's not a great actor after all, he thought, feeling deeply stupid. She had fooled him, and in his stupor, he had missed all the clues.

He sat down on the other end of the sofa, turning his body to face her. "It's weird, right?" he said. "That the Muggle-borns seem to be drawn to her."

Hannah's brown smoothed again. "Seems like a terribly timed coincidence, Teddy," she said, scooting closer to him. "But did you call me here to talk about Victoria?"

"Victoire," he corrected, implusively. Vic hated being called Victoria. "It's French," he added, when Hannah stared at him.

"Victoire," Hannah drawled, a smirk on her lips now. Her hand crept toward him, but he stood up again.

"You know what else is weird?"

She sighed impatiently. "What?"

"That the Muggle-borns all came to see you before they transformed."

There was a silence from her. He stared down at her, watching her gnaw her full bottom lip.

"I know who you are," Teddy stated clearly to her. "I know what you've done."

She looked up at him now, and he was startled to see malice in those gray eyes, familiar but not so familiar anymore. She stood up now, and he suddenly realized that she was holding her wand. He reached for his, tucked safely into his pocket, but there was a flash of blue light and blinding pain.

And then there was darkness.

Teddy's apartment looked untouched. The same coffee mug from earlier rested on the coffee table. His blue jacket hung neatly by the door, his three pairs of shoes arranged tidily on a shoe rack underneath. There was nothing to indicate that everything hadn't gone exactly as planned.

Except that Teddy wasn't here.

Victoire walked through the flat, careful not to touch anything. She had arrived at the flat at their pre-planned meeting time, knocking for a full five minutes before using Alohomora and sneaking in.

"Teddy?" she called. "Teddy!" Her voice cut through the stillness, sounding like an alarm in an empty building. She wanted to call for him again, but she knew he wasn't here. A panic began to blur the edges of her vision. She blinked hard, feeling helpless.

A stillness had descended upon the rooms. As she crept across the carpeted living room, she realized that she was holding her breath in anticipation. She walked into Teddy's bedroom, the bed still unmade, but the rest of the room was otherwise pristine. His desk was stacked neatly with books. The nightstand held a small lamp, an alarm clock and another book. Family photos lined the windowsill. Victoire leaned in to get a closer look. A photo of Teddy as a little boy with his gran. Another one of Teddy with Harry at his Hogwarts graduation. A photo of Teddy with all the Weasley cousins, his tanned, lean face smiling toothily at the camera. And finally, a photo of Teddy and Victoire at Hogwarts, his arm around her shoulders, her eyes crinkled with laughter, both in their school uniforms. Victoire had the same photo, the one she had hidden from Aunt Ginny on her first day at the Potters' just a few weeks ago.

After a thorough search of the flat, she finally collapsed on top of Teddy's mussed sheets. She closed her eyes suddenly, two fat tears leaking down her cheeks. "Teddy," she whispered. "Where are you?"

She opened her eyes, grasped the ring on her finger and turned it in a full circle. She waited it to heat up in response, but it didn't. She turned it again and again, wishing over and over that he'd reply.

Many miles away, Teddy Lupin felt his ring flash with a smoldering heat but he couldn't do anything about it because he was bound with rope at the top of a strange tower in a very strange castle.

When Teddy came to, he had found himself alone. His head throbbed, and he was freezing cold.

He looked around. He was in a room made of glossy black stone, stone so glossy that it reflected his face right back at him. He looked a wreck. Above him, a tiny, barred window let in three tiny slivers of moonlight. The circular room gave him a distinctly claustrophobic feeling-and it wasn't because he was bound with glittering, gold ropes to a pillar right in the center of the room. The odd stone was so dark, so reflective that he felt as if he were in a void-a void that was expansive and vast and narrow and restrictive all at once. He couldn't see where the walls began or where they ended. Were it not for the miniscule window, he would have the distinct feeling of being encased in a perfect sphere.

He leaned his aching head back on the pillar and tried to recall what had happened at his flat, but after the flash of blue light, he remembered nothing. How many days had it been?

The chamber was freezing cold. Is it winter, he thought to himself dully. The full moon shone brightly through the small window, betraying no sense of the time of day. Only empty, unending night. Teddy closed his eyes, wondering how he had let Hannah Priest overpower him, and feeling grateful that Victoire hadn't been there like she had originally wanted.

A section of the smooth, glassy wall slid open and Hannah strolled in, holding two wands, a wicked smile plastered profanely on her face.

"Hey!" Teddy yelled, recognizing one of the wands. "That's mine."

"Oh, well done, Lupin," Hannah said, rolling her eyes. "Next you're going to ask me where we are."

He glared at her. She chuckled. "So, figured it out, have we?"

"It would be kind of hard not to figure it out," he spat, struggling against his binds. "Since you abducted me after I found you out."

"I barely scratched the surface, Lupin." Her voice was a low, dangerous purr now, sauntering toward him. His aching head was now excruciating, but he gave nothing away as she leaned in to whisper in his ear. "You're just like me."

"Why am I here, Hannah?"

She stared fixedly at him, her eyes unreadable. He felt the warmth of her body as she leaned in close.

"I need you," she said. "I need another like me to fulfill my destiny." He waited, his breath stuck in his throat. "The Muggleborns-I've been infecting them with my tests at the Ministry. I sent them to St. Mungo's so your little blonde friend would see them."

"Why?"

"So she'd come running to you," Hannah said, now pacing slowly in front of Teddy. "I must admit, it threw a wrench in my plans when you ditched her last summer." Now his mouth opened in surprise. She noticed his expression and laughed cruelly, the sound echoing off the walls.

"Oh, yes. I've been planning this for a very long time. It's not every day that two of my father's prized victims' children fall in love."

"Your-father?"

"Fenrir Greyback," Hannah said, her voice now filled with pride. "Loyal servant to The Dark Lord only to be maligned and shunned from the rank of Death Eater." She paused. "Alas, no matter. They will pay for their hateful crimes."

"We're not-Death Eaters," Teddy said. "That has nothing to do with us."

"Doesn't it?" Hannah eyes flashed. "All of you wizards hated the werewolves. You saw what it did to your own pathetic father. You did the tests when you were just a cub. You know how wizards forced werewolves to go underground, live in filth, survive off rats and birds. Your precious godfather, Harry Potter, responsible for the most werewolf executions of our time."

Teddy was silent. He had heard about the executions, but had dismissed them as propaganda from the pro-werewolf integration campaigns.

"You wizards are so arrogant. You think you'll always win, and once you've won, you think you'll stay in power." She stopped pacing. "Well, you will stay in power, Teddy Lupin. But the rest of your family-they're not really your family, are they?-won't be so lucky."

"W-what?"

Hannah smirked. "You'll see, Lupin."

The blue haired boy was running again, and she couldn't seem to catch up to him.

"I want to see them!" he cried, running toward two huddled figures.

"No!" she cried. "You can't." She grabbed him as he was a few feet away. "You can't go."

His eyes bore into hers. "Why?"

"They're gone," she whispered. "But I need you here."

"I'm gone, too," he said, and stepped in front of an oncoming train.

Author's Note:

1. No notes, except sorry for the delay. I took a little break to buy a house, but I'm back! Read & review if you'd like. :)