Disclaimer: Except for a few characters borrowed with permission from whydoyouneedtoknow, this is Jo Rowling's beach, and she has been kind enough to allow persons such as myself to play here. All I'm laying claim to is the design of this sand castle. (And another dedication to Starry. I'm going to have to figure some way to stop falling apart laughing. The duct-tape mummy thing is not a good look for me.)

When the Wind is Southerly

by MercuryBlue

Chapter 14: Our Tears are Not Yet Brewed

Aletha returned from depositing a protesting Ron (he'd woken up halfway up the stairs) in the guest room bed to discover a snoring Alex sprawled across her kitchen table and three adults rummaging through various of her kitchen cabinets. "Do I want to know?" she asked.

Remus looked up. "Oh, there you are. It occurred to me that Alex might be more comfortable asleep and covered in that burn-healing lotion you make. Do you happen to have any on hand, or are we on a fools' quest?"

Aletha glanced down at her hands, which still bore the marks of her most recent attempt at cooking spaghetti. Her cooking skills had vastly improved in the past twelve years, out of necessity, but not so far that she could keep hot tomato sauce from splattering, which it inevitably did if she was fool enough to wear something light in color while heating it. "No, I haven't any on hand at all. Accio burn salve."

A cabinet door flew open, and a blue jar zoomed past Sirius's head. He clapped a hand to that ear. "Oy, watch it, woman!"

"I'm sure you deserved that for something or other." Aletha set the jar on the table with a clack and flicked a spell onto Alex's shoulder, then a second along his side, wondering how well the shirt had sheltered him from Danger's pyrotechnics display. The cloth parted neatly, and Aletha tugged it off over the other arm. "Oh, good, he's barely burnt at all under the shirt. That means we only have to goo up his face, arms, and legs." She hit the shirt with another spell, restoring it to its precut state, then banished it to the counter, set down the wand, and started unscrewing the lid of the jar.

"What's in this cabinet, anyway?" Sirius wondered, again tugging fruitlessly at the edge of the door.

"Things Meghan shouldn't touch," Aletha answered, scooping some of the pastel green lotion out of the jar. "Alcohol and such. Come give me a hand with this." She started rubbing the lotion onto Alex's nearer arm.

"You shouldn't have said that," Remus commented, leaning over Alex to get a dollop of lotion. "Now he's going to alternate between staring wistfully at the cabinet and giving you puppy-dog eyes until you concede defeat and tell him how to get at the firewhiskey."

"Who says I've got firewhiskey?"

Danger laughed, coming over to help with the gooing up, though her hands, Aletha noticed, were shaking as much as her voice. "Remus, obviously."

A whining sound came from Sirius's direction. Aletha looked up. Sure enough, there was a big black dog sitting next to the refrigerator, giving her puppy-dog eyes.

"Oh, for God's sake," Aletha muttered. She picked up her wand with her ungooey left hand, marched over to the cabinet, and tapped the door, saying "In vino veritas." The locking spell released with an audible pop. "One shot," she ordered Sirius. "No more. You'll have to pour your own, though. You're forbidden to be drunk while Horcrux-hunting."

"Ah, yes, that." Sirius straightened up, human again, and snagged Aletha for a quick kiss.

"Behold our trophy," Remus said, using his wand to make something gold fly out of his pocket and drape itself over Danger's head.

Danger frowned down at the tarnished oval that was all she could likely see of the necklace. "Are you sure this thing's safe to wear?"

"Positive," Sirius said grimly, resealing the firewhiskey bottle. "Just ask Harry. Speaking of—" He raised his shot glass, which was brimming with amber liquid. "Here's to getting him back safe."

(I am perfectly safe,) Harry's voice said, a bit indignantly. (I'd love to see what can hurt me when I can just—) Aletha blinked. Had she just seen something red and child-shaped leap from Sirius to Danger? (—slip away.)

"Yeah, but it'll be damned hard to duck you in the lake like that," Sirius retorted, and poured the contents of his glass down his throat. "Aah-yaah!"

Everyone started snickering, if not laughing outright. The look on Sirius's face when he'd realized he was exhaling neon pink flame was something Aletha knew she'd treasure forever.

Remus twisted his wrist, sending a spray of equally pink sparks to land in the sink, and put down his now lotion-covered wand with a small smirk. Aletha heaved a sigh—she'd hoped they'd outgrown such sophomoric (but admittedly funny) tricks as setting firewhiskey breath afire, but evidently not—and continued smearing lotion on Alex's tomato-colored skin.

(I believe someone wanted to ask me something?) Harry asked when all the laughing fits were done and Sirius's dragon breath was extinguished.

"You're sure this locket's not a Horcrux?" Danger asked, glancing down at it again. "It's giving me the creeps for some reason..." She blinked, and her brown eyes were suddenly filled with blue. "Oh, that might do it."

"Hm?" Aletha asked.

"Remus just explained what it was swimming in. This is going to take some getting used to..." Danger looked at Remus. "Don't you dare die tonight or tomorrow. My sanity won't be able to take it." She looked back at Alex and took another dollop of burn salve to apply to her son's face. "Frankly I'm surprised I'm not in the midst of a nervous breakdown."

Remus leaned over to kiss Danger's cheek, but she turned her head, so he got her lips instead. Aletha turned all her attention to rubbing lotion into the back of Alex's hand, but had to pause, because for a minute all she could see was an image of a young face with messy black hair and two hands over his eyes. (Don't like watching people kissing?) she deliberately thought 'loudly'. (Get used to it—you'll be seeing it a lot more once everything's settled and you're living here with Meghan, Sirius, and me.)

Now all she could see was a pair of green eyes doing loop-de-loops.

(Oh, you may want to confiscate the firewhiskey bottle,) Harry said as the picture faded away. (Not that I can blame him for wanting another drink. It can't possibly taste worse than the green stuff he had his face in a minute ago...)

The words 'green stuff', interestingly, were accompanied by a minor flood of related information, which Aletha tucked away to consider later, should she care to, before looking at Sirius, who did indeed have a second shot half-poured. Aletha retrieved her wand left-handed and took careful aim at the bottle, then nailed it with a spell to seal it closed, both tasks that would be significantly easier were she using her usual hand. Odd, really, how much harder spellcasting was with one's off hand—it wasn't just the difficulties with fine motor control, either, because the problem was equally evident with spells where the wand tip was touching the object to be spelled—

"Hey!"

"I told you one shot," Aletha reminded Sirius. "You might as well drink what you've got, but put the bottle back first."

Sirius grumbled, but returned the bottle to the cabinet, which sealed itself closed with a squelch, and downed his firewhiskey. "Oh, that tastes good."

"Weren't we talking about the locket?" Danger wondered.

(This locket—) An image of the one Danger wore swam before Aletha's eyes. (—or this one?) The second one was clearly bigger than the first one and had a snakelike marking that Danger's lacked. (The snake one's the Horcrux.)

"So you were wrong about where to find it?" Danger asked quietly.

(Oh, no, that fountain is exactly where Voldemort put that Horcrux thirty-odd years ago,) Harry snapped back. (I watched that memory a half dozen times to be sure. Trouble is, sometime between then and now, someone else got in that cave and swapped lockets—it wasn't Voldemort, or anyone he sent, because I'd know if he knew that Horcrux was anywhere but that cave. And now the locket is God alone knows where, and I haven't a f—faint idea where to find it—)

"Nice save," Aletha said under her breath. She knew perfectly well, given Harry's comment earlier in the evening, what he'd almost said, and from whom he'd learned it—and there was this little trick Andy Tonks had told her about in her last letter—

(—and if whoever took it didn't kill it, and we can't find it to kill it, then—)

There was an odd tone to all this...

"Are you crying?" Sirius asked.

(No!)

"Sirius, let him be," Aletha ordered. She had no doubt that the only reason Harry wasn't crying was that he presently lacked tear ducts, but she was also well acquainted with teenage pride. Drawing attention to the fact that he was as good as crying would accomplish absolutely squat.

"God d—" Suddenly nothing was coming out of Sirius's mouth but cerulean haze.

(What did you do to him?) Harry asked, sounding as if he was having a laughing fit, rather than a crying jag. A vast improvement, Aletha thought. (Is he swearing the—air—blue—oh. Oh.)

"Yes, oh. Little trick I learned recently. By the way, Sirius," Aletha added with a trace of malice aforethought, "that won't go away till you've gone a few minutes without even thinking a swear word—and every time you do say a swear word, it'll come back, at least till the hex wears off. Not sure on the time frame, since I don't think I hit you square on, but it'll be a while..."

'While' was here defined in fractional hours, not collections of hours, but there was no harm in letting him think the hex would take rather longer to go away than the half-hour maximum Aletha estimated.

"I think he's done," Remus said, turning Alex's limp arm this way and that. Aletha took a look and saw he was right. Remus and Danger had been working faster than Aletha'd realized, apparently. In any case, everywhere Danger had managed to burn Alex was now coated in burn salve, except for the first places it had gone on, where the salve had already soaked in. No point in putting more on, though, because it wouldn't accomplish much of anything beyond making sure whatever he slept on needed a degreasing tomorrow, and the jar was three-quarters empty in any case.

(In that case, why don't you two—) This clearly referred to Danger and to Aletha herself. (—get him to bed, and you two—) Equally clearly Sirius and Remus. (—go see if there's actually anything in Little Hangleton.)

(Patience is a virtue, Harry,) Aletha thought 'aloud'.

(Not one I particularly care to acquire, at least not till this is over.)

"Should I be hoping you find it and need to defuse it, or you don't find it because someone already defused it?" Danger wondered aloud.

(I'd feel better if I got to watch it die,) Harry answered. (Besides, I want to get a good look at the thing before it dies, to see what it looks like to me now—I'm pretty sure it'll have an icky green color to it, like you're blue, Letha, and Sirius, you're brown—but I can't be positive, because someone incinerated the first Horcrux before I ever saw it.)

"I'd never have been able to get it out of that room, you realize," Aletha pointed out, going over to the sink. "I only got Lily and James's wands because you've a legitimate claim to them." She knocked the faucet handle with her wrist and stuck her hands under the water.

(Not my point.)

"I know it's not. And it wasn't first, it was second, you got the diary. Maybe third, the locket..."

(Not helping.)

"Wouldn't the Horcruxes all be connected to him the same way you say you are?" Danger asked, standing in line for the sink. "Couldn't you jump around between them the same way you're jumping between us?"

(What good would it do me?) Harry asked. (None of them have eyes, and the only one with something like a brain already got shishkabobed on a snake fang, so all I could find out from something like that is which way I should look if I was standing where Voldemort is and I wanted to be looking straight towards a Horcrux. That and an idea of about how far from him to them. And since I don't know where he is, knowing which way and how far won't help at all. Oh, did I mention I didn't bother finding out anything more about where any of them are beyond what to Apparate to if you want to get there? And I don't think I'd be able to tell the link to one Horcrux from the link to another.)

"Good points, all," Aletha acknowledged, stepping out of Danger's way and picking up a dishtowel to dry her hands. "Remus, do you happen to recall the Sobering Charm better than I do? I really don't want you coming back to tell me my fiancé got blown up because he did something stupid that he probably wouldn't have done if he hadn't had a glass and a half of firewhiskey..."

Remus chuckled. "I might at that."

xXxXx

"This is it?" Sirius asked. "Lord High-and-Mighty There's-No-One-On-Earth-Better-Than-Me hid one of his treasures here?"

It did not, Remus had to admit, have anything like the aura of mystery that the cave had. Of course, that might just be a side effect of standing under starry skies, the world illuminated by a Lumos charm, rather than under a roof of rock, the world illuminated by a poisoned Fountain of Knowledge.

(It's here,) Harry said, an excited note in his voice. (It's definitely here. There's something green about ten feet from you. It's exactly the right shape and shade. That's got to be it.)

"What now?" Remus asked, glancing around what could once, sixty or seventy years ago, charitably have been called a cottage of the fixer-upper variety. Now it was just a wreck. His eyes slid around the ball of light in midair and over the slight blur of the background that was Sirius under Disillusionment (two full-grown adults had difficulty fitting under an Invisibility Cloak designed for one, and Remus's rock had smashed Sirius's scissors), and the thought flitted across his mind that it was a very good thing this place was, according to Harry, a mile or so from the nearest habitation. It wouldn't be good if someone came by and saw the Lumos.

(We shouldn't just blow it up or whatever—there's a curse on it that triggers when it's destroyed and kills the destroyer in nasty ways,) Harry informed them.

"Hand grenade?" Remus wondered aloud. "Put it next to the thing, Accio the pin from twenty feet, Apparate out?"

"What's a hand grenade?"

Remus couldn't speak for laughing—or for the hands covering his mouth to muffle the laughing. Fortunately, Harry was not so afflicted. (Muggle toy. Pull pin, wait five seconds, boom. And that would destroy the ring nicely, I'm sure, but I don't know what it would do to the curse, and I don't want to find out. I doubt it'd be anything as simple as the curse just going away because it couldn't find any of Voldemort's enemies to kill. Meghan had an idea, though—)

"When?" Sirius asked.

(While you four were chatting in the kitchen. You didn't actually expect them to go to sleep, did you? I really want to see Hermione's face when she wakes up and realizes she spent tonight first crying on Ron's shoulder, then sleeping on Ron's shoulder—this shouldn't be funny, it really shouldn't be, but I can't help laughing—)

"I'd rather like to see that myself, actually," Remus commented, thinking of Hermione's vehement denials in dreams circa mid-July—only four weeks ago, but the last few days seemed like ages—that she was fond of either of her incompletely identified male friends in any way beyond the purely platonic. "And Meghan's idea was..."

(Well, Voldemort's got to eat too, right? And weeds are the enemy of all growing foods and anyone who eats them, aren't they? So if it happens that any of the plants right around here are a kind that kills edible plants, then we can—I think—I hope—point the curse at those plants, and it'll be doing its job of killing enemies of Voldemort, and it won't bother us at all. And we'll be doing the people in this area a favor into the bargain.)

"Girl's got brains," Sirius said, sounding impressed.

"Good to know she takes after Aletha in that department," Remus remarked, taking a look of what the wand light showed him of the local flora.

"Yeah, it—hey!"

Remus doubled over laughing. A minute or two later, when he could breathe again, he pulled out his own wand, pushed just its tip outside the cloak, and murmured "Lumos." He shone the light around, then nodded in satisfaction. "These are a royal pain for gardeners. If we can direct that curse to this kind of plant—" He indicated the specific variety with a blue spark. "—we're good to go. Rock-paper-scissors you for who destroys it and who puts up a shield charm on us both just in case," he added, extinguishing his wand and returning it to his pocket to free his hands.

Five seconds later, Remus was grumbling and Sirius was cheering as quietly as he could. "So where exactly is this Horcrux?" Sirius asked.

(About ten feet thataway—down some—a foot left—couple inches forward—your wand tip's six inches above it.)

"Any concealment charm that doesn't conceal the shadow as well is a rather poor concealment charm," Remus observed, looking at the pattern of black.

"You're not the one who spent the last two minutes fighting a compulsion to look somewhere else," Sirius pointed out. "Anywhere else. Da—" Blue haze.

("Damn strong compulsion," he says. I wouldn't know how strong it is, but I had to keep kicking him so he'd keep looking where I was pointing.)

"That translates to 'damn strong compulsion', Harry," Remus said.

(If you say so. And the concealment charm's fifty years old, just about. He meant to go back ten or eleven years ago and give it a boost like he'd been doing every few years, but circumstances intervened.)

Remus laughed, then stepped carefully around the Horcrux and started glancing over the nearest plants. "Ah. Here." He spelled that one to stretch as far as it could manage towards the concealed ring, then moved around behind Sirius, out of the line of fire, and thought the incantation for the strongest shield charm he knew. "Ready when you are."

"Five—four—three—two—one—Avada Kedavra."

Green light leapt from Sirius's wand to the ring. Something black and smoky boiled up from where the two met.

(That's it—)

A strange hissing filled the air. Coming from right in front of him, Remus realized—

The black smoky thing, which had a snakelike appearance, hissed back and lunged for Sirius, but more of the first hissing stopped it cold, and more still sent it diving for the plant Remus had positioned, which withered away as the smoke-snake disappeared into it.

(Phew.)

Remus heaved a sigh of relief as well.

"Was that me?" Sirius asked.

"Of course it was you, who else would it be?"

(He means the hissing, and actually that was me,) Harry said, though the last few words sounded as if they almost had to be dragged out of him. (I'm a Parselmouth. It seems I can speak through you, which is good, because the curse thinks I'm Voldemort because I'm a Parselmouth—oh, and I have no clue how we'd get the next Horcrux without being able to speak Parseltongue to its hidey hole.)

"And you only just mentioned this obstacle because..." Remus trailed off.

(One crisis at a time, please, and since I can speak Parseltongue through you, this isn't a crisis after all.)

"Well, that's reassuring," Sirius commented.

(Good. This Horcrux is really most sincerely dead, by the way. There's other magic on it, but nothing that'll hurt you, I think.)

"Good. Reducto."

"Well, if you can do gratuitous damage, so can I," Remus decided, glad he hadn't let his shield charm fall. Some of the flying ring bits might have hurt, had they hit. "Go back to Crozer Street and talk to Danger and Letha, you two, I'll catch up once I've burned this place down."

(Better idea,) said a tart female voice in his head. (You tell me all about this, they watch while you light it up, you all come back at once so we can tell you what we just found.)

Remus winced. (Danger, ow...) He'd forgotten all about the connection between them.

(It's existed for all of what, an hour and a half?) Harry pointed out.

(True.) Remus set the past several minutes to play through Danger's mind on fast-forward. "Sirius, get out of the way." Once he'd obeyed: "Incendio." Foosh. "Aguamenti! Aguamenti! Aguamenti!"

Sirius, of course, was laughing.

A/N: Reviews are good. Flames are bad. Praise is nice. Constructive criticism is preferred. Questions are welcomed. Proper grammar is appreciated. Email addresses are required if you want a reply. Clear enough?