AN: And here it is, folks, Chapter 20. We're actually closing in on the end of the first year, after thirty thousand words and nineteen chapters written in… damn near nine bloody months. I suck at this. Anyway, new reviews from Fumes and Marius; the former thanked me for the shout-out, so I'll stick in another one (read her stuff and make me get another review, they keep me from going postal), and the latter liked the whole Dumbledore being genre-savvy as opposed to ZOMGEVIL. I stole that from Methods of Rationality, because I don't like Dumbledore bashing at all and Eliezer does a much better Albus than me. In a similar vein, Caprix has submitted a new review that compares my style to that of Mr. Yudkowsky – and then, in what I can only suppose was a fit of pique, questions as to whether or not I would consider this complimentary. I thank them very much for this, since I derive my style from a combination of him, Terry Pratchett, and Alex Turner off the Arctic Monkeys. Gods of sarcasm, they are. LeinadDjo remarks that the cure for the common cold exists, but is uncommon… yup. That was totally intentional. Honest. *sidles towards the door*. Finally, a raft of reviews from brigrove talking about various things – in order, thank you; check your PMs; Malfoy will probably get what's coming to him; and whilst I appreciate the sentiment it really isn't better than MoR. For a start, MoR's a lot better and more realistically plotted. But you're entitled to your opinion.

Christ alive, that was a long'un.

This chapter's development was soundtracked by my iPod's shuffle, so it's mostly laid-back, minor-key folk, indie and blues – with J-pop and screamo interludes. Cheers, Dad.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Harry Potter. HP is property of JK Rowling and Warner Brothers for book and film respectively. Now can I please have my kids back, Jo?

The term was passing swiftly. This was good from the point of view of a narrator, because it meant I could skip ahead to the end and leave out the Quidditch matches and so forth, which I will, because Quidditch is irrelevant. Hermione, on the other hand, was very relevant, especially since three more members of the FMA had graded up in both karate and kung fu, including Lavender again. The invite had been extended to Ron and Harry to join in the exercise program. Harry agreed; Ron said it wouldn't be fair for a boy to hit girls, because they were weaker.

He performed a complete U-turn after Hermione had staged a demonstration, and for those last three words the reader is entirely free to substitute "hammered him around the room in a somewhat alarming manner until he began to spit bits of his own teeth". Ron's presence at the next and all subsequent practices was the epitome of grit, determination, and pants-wetting terror of a certain frizz-topped young girl. And her mates.

Cora watched her daughter closely for signs of incipient exhaustion, or at least as closely as one could when helping run a decidedly busy school infirmary; Hermione had always been active, but she could burn out very easily. When she did crash, she crashed hard, sleeping for days at a time and being grouchy as all hell when she woke up. Not that Cora was herself a morning person (not without the careful application of jet black coffee that had a tendency to corrode cups, flasks and Hogwarts flagstones); it was just hard to cope sometimes when it was just her. Ioan had always made her smile, though…

And then Cora started thinking about him again.

"Cora? Are you OK?"

The older woman started and turned round, sighing with relief as the gentle, happy-go-lucky expression of Nymphadora "Call Me Tonks On Pain Of Pain" Tonks faded into view. It was only when she insisted she was fine that her newest, youngest friend knew it wasn't the case.

"Listen… there's a Hogsmeade weekend coming up soon. You've got a flat near the White Ferret, right? I'll meet you there. We're allowed to stay in Hogsmeade overnight if we're in the company of a staff member, it's in the rules, I checked… and I don't reckon as you should be alooooooooooh BUGGER!"

Cora had a habit of walking and talking. Sadly, whenever stairs and benches and so forth were concerned, Tonks had a habit of walking and falling. She crashed to the ground in a heap and got up, reassuring her companion that she was absolutely fine.

"Tonks… you do realise I'm on the top floor."

"And you're a Healer." The girl flashed a slightly gap-toothed smile. "I'll get by."

"And you're sure you can get permission from…" Cora had to think a bit. "Pomona, isn't it?"

"I'm a Prefect. She thinks we know best – first among equals, that sort of thing. It's in the rulebook, Professor Sprout feels a little sorry for me because of my ability to trip on things that aren't there… the stage is set! Ain't not nobody stoppin' me now!"

"Except me…"

"But you wouldn't. Would you?" Tonks turned on her biggest, most pleading expression, one with eyes so huge they could've got a hug out of a gravel quarry. On a human being, the effect was much more severe.

"Awwwwwww! Of course not, Tonks… Now come on. You should have Herbology now. Greenhouse 4. And be careful when you're going down the second floor staircase- oh, dear…"

"I'm OK!"

(This screen break is brought to you in Dolby Surround Sound. The previous statement may or may not have been a lie…)

Life for Hermione was not, of course, running nearly so smoothly. Eventually, Snape had found Harry being beaten up in a corridor by the minion firm of Crabbe, Goyle and Flint and had given Harry a detention for not showing Gryffindor bravery. The fact that Marcus Flint was a sixth-year with the approximate dimensions of North Dakota and that Crabbe and Goyle weren't that far behind him didn't factor into his calculations. Dumbledore had intervened, but since he'd only heard about it at the very last moment from an apoplectic Cora Granger, he'd only had time to reassign the detention to one with Hagrid.

This was one with Draco Malfoy in it as well, which McGonagall only found out when she heard the Headmaster's desk splinter from repeated head impacts.

The detention's plan was this. Hagrid, armed with a crossbow that would've made Nobby Nobbs need a long lie down, would be accompanied by the two first years to look for the creature attacking unicorns in the Forbidden Forest. Dispensation was given for the boys to use Stunners if they found it, and for Hagrid to unleash every evil-looking and worse-smelling creature he had in his secret experimental breeding chambers – and hadn't that been an interesting conversation.

The search began at eight in the evening, just as the sun was beginning to set. Draco, poised and graceful as a shuriken and about as lovable, gave Harry the usual greeting of casual threats and the promise of violence, but a single murderous glance from the man who had rescued him put paid to the Slytherin following them up. Harry then decided he loved Hagrid even more.

Hagrid's crossbow had a lantern hanging across it, and the pair followed that rather than try to keep apace of the huge gamekeeper. After a few hundred yards, they reached a clearing with a brace of very odd-looking creatures in it. They were roughly six feet tall and looked like a cross between a velociraptor and a secondary-school history teacher. Their apparent owner was there waiting for the boys.

"Now, yer'll 'ave a bit o' difficulty keepin' up with me when Oi starts runnin' of a pace, so Oi got Dumbledore ter let me let yer roide these."

"What. The hell. Are those?" Draco's face was a mask of terror, and his underwear was in need of a clean. Harry, on the other hand, was entranced by them. One squawked and knelt by him, and let him stroke the hair on its head.

"Dennissaurus. Very rare, they are. Got ter charm a female anaconda an' feed it a half-giant's blood fer forty days afore it'll lay a Dennissaurus egg, an' never you moind 'ow Oi found that out. Yer'll be ridin' 'em, an' they've not got the world's best eyesight. Talk to 'em, make sure as they know where ter go, loik."

"Let me come with you," said one in an accent that would have been vaguely reminiscent of Donald Pleasance had anyone present known who that was. "I can see, I can see perfectly…"

"An' don'tcher listen to 'em oither. Now kerm on, up yer get… Malfoy, it won't bite yer, yer smell too bad. Everyone on?" They were, Harry stroking his Dennissaurus' neck soothingly. "Roight. Let's go."

Soon, they saw what he'd meant earlier. Hagrid was a runner in the same way that a monsoon was a bit damp; add to that an almost prescient ability to track animals, in this case unicorns, and he was able to move like a spooked ostrich. Harry and Draco both were glad of their mounts, since nothing short of a souped-up quad bike would've kept up with Hagrid otherwise. They thumped through the undergrowth, stealth being rather like Andromeda. It was a faraway concept that didn't really affect them much.

(What's that coming over the hill, is it a screen break? Is it a screen breeeeeeak?)

The moon was high that night, but nobody saw it. The depths of the Forest were in pitch-darkness during even the brightest sunny days, so no moonlight, however serenely beautiful, had a hope of penetrating the thick layers of leaves and branches hundreds of feet above Harry's head. Draco was whimpering and clinging onto the neck of his Dennissaurus as if about to strangle it, and the creature was muttering words that would never make it into the release cut of a Radio 4 programme. Then it stopped. Then Hagrid stopped. Then, for the two boys mounted on their bizarre steeds, the world stopped.

A creature in a black cloak – it couldn't be called human, it couldn't be human, humans shouldn't bend that way – was hunched over the body of a weakly kicking baby unicorn. Around it was a pool of silver, sparkling in the light of Hagrid's lantern. The boys heard a slurping sound, one that reminded Harry of Petunia's carpet cleaner going over a particularly stubborn stain, and the foal stopped kicking.

"Fiat homi," said the creature, and it stood up. "Fiat lux." It raised its too-long arms over its hooded head and a sphere of silver light, shot through with a sickly, disturbing green, appeared between the slim-fingered hands.

"Fiat mors."

"RUN!"

The boys didn't need Hagrid to tell them twice. Draco, the more experienced horseman, raked his feet back as he dragged the Dennissaurus' neck around in the other direction. Harry, being tiny and adorable, just had to tell his steed to get him out of there and it complied. The creature hurled the ball of light at the fleeing boys and impacted between them, startling the Dennissauri and sending them off in different directions. Behind them they heard Hagrid roaring and firing his crossbow, then the gristly crack of a quarrel the size of a fencepost splitting ancient hardwood. The creature screamed and the air hummed with energy for a split second. Then there was a crash as Hagrid himself split a tree into fragments with his bulk.

The creature took off, pinballing between the tree trunks and shrieking murderously at the boy he was chasing. This, by some stroke of luck, happened to be Draco.

"NO! Not me! It's him you want, not me!"

I never said, dear reader, that it was a stroke of good luck.

The creature screamed again and took off in the direction of Draco's flailing arm. Harry squeaked and slammed himself flat against his mount's back, urging it forward, desperate not to be hurt again. Blood pounded in his ears as he rode for his life, every kidney-shaking jolt bringing him that bit closer to safety, to the people who looked after him. He swore under his breath that he would not let them down. Soft moonlight began trickling onto the ground before him; he was close, so close to fleeing and getting to safety.

"Fiat! Mors!"

Harry's mount was thrown into the air with a sharp bang as the Forest began to thin out into Hogwarts' grounds. The boy landed and rolled, something he'd learned from the days Petunia had thrown him down the stairs for some half-imagined slight, and he fetched up against a thick tree trunk with the creature bearing down on him. Stopping a few feet in front of him, the creature rose up on skinny legs sharply defined against the tattered cloak, and revealed its face. Harry wanted to scream, he dearly wanted to scream, but no sound would come. It died in his throat like the innocence of a child soldier, so he lay there, mouth open, waiting for an inevitable death.

The most horrible thing, some detached part of him observed, was that the face seemed familiar under the twisted lines and bared, gleaming-white teeth that shone in the limp moonlight. It felt… it felt like some precious thing, some piece of safety of his had been taken away and bent into evilness. This detached part waited for the end, knowing it would come, and wondered what dying would feel like.

And that was when the creature hesitated. Just for a moment, the lips closed around the teeth, and the lines softened, and that faint feeling of familiarity sharpened and some ancient-feeling memories in the depths of Harry's head started clanging like cathedral bells-

THWOK.

The creature's raised arm disappeared at the elbow, a spear nailing the crackling remnant to the tree above Harry's head. Blood dripped slowly into the boy's hair as the creature yowled in pain and leapt through the trees, disappearing into the canopy to lick its wounds in the deep parts of the Forest where even Hagrid was afraid of treading.

"'Arry, little 'Arry, moi lad, come 'ere, it's alroight, yer safe now, should've got 'ere quicker, no tellin' what that thing could've done to yer…"

And the Boy-Who-Lived was wrapped up in Hagrid's huge arms, and he was saved again.

(Well, now that Action Girl has had some actual action, I can call a screen break.)

"Oi'm tellin' yer, 'Eadmaster, ee wuz almost killed out there! Oi won't put up with it. Oi failed the little lad once before, Oi won't fail 'im twoice. 'E's ter 'ave no part in this foight, y'understand? No part at all."

"I wouldn't have this if there was any other choice, Rubeus. You must understand; he needs to see that he can be a hero too. If it makes you feel any better, Miss Granger is the most naturally gifted witch I have seen in a generation, and where Harry goes, she will follow, along with Ron Weasley and the rest of that exercise group she's put together. I'm given to understand Professor McGonagall has exhorted the Quidditch team to join in; mens sana in corpora sana, as they said in the Classical world. Now, can I press you to a small candied starfish? I received a crate from a diplomat, with the complements of a city with a highly unusual name…"

The conversation drifted back to normal volume, just as Dumbledore had planned it. The benefits of having a heroic Harry Potter rather outweighed the risks, or at least so the old wizard reasoned. The unfortunate fact was that Harry wasn't actually there to eavesdrop, which was a sizeable fly in Dumbledore's very small pot of ointment. He was, in fact, in the hospital wing, eavesdropping on a shouting match between Cora and Madam Pomfrey. So, he thought, were people in Bournemouth.

The row, ostensibly about Harry's treatment but really about their differing takes on medical practice and the efficacy of Muggle vs. magical remedies, had been going on for the best part of an hour. It had moved from raging at Dumbledore's sending a defenceless young boy out into a death trap of a forest onto unicorns and was currently debating the pros and cons of immortality. They were also waking up some of the other students.

This happened about once every couple of weeks.

In a lull, Harry sat bolt upright, mind working as fast as it could. You can get immortality from unicorn blood? Then that's why the creature wants it, that's what the bad man's looking for – and why do I call him that? – and there's a catch with unicorn blood, you get cursed, cursed with bad luck for the rest of your life, so there needs to be a safer way to get it, what's a safer way, what's a safer way? Sweat poured down his young face as it screwed up in concentration. FLAMEL! Nicolas Flamel made the Philosopher's Stone, and that makes the Elixir of Life, which makes you ageless so long as you have the stone! You could dunk it in sick and drink that and you'd get another hundred years! But then… if freaks lived forever, would that mean that freaks would be punished forever? Hermione'd say… Hermione'd say no, that they could run away, but where to? Everywhere hates freakish little boys like me, everywhere… it has to be destroyed. And that'll be a good thing, because it means it can end and I can see them without the mirror. The mirror! That must be where Dumbledore's hiding it! It's connected to this somehow, it's all connected, I have to get Hermione!

"… Er, Madam Granger?"

In an instant, Cora was at his side. "Yes, love?"

"I'd like to see Hermione, if that's alright… could you bring her here?" Idiot freak, you paused too long. She'll twig. Expect punishment later.

"Of course. I'll bring her over straight away." With a sharp look at Madam Pomfrey, who harrumphed off into the Really Weird Spell Damage Ward, Cora took off for Hermione's location. A few minutes pass, and Hermione was by his side, as was Ron and some bedraggled-looking members of the FMA.

"Harry, what is it? Has someone hurt you-"

"No! No. I think someone might come after me, though. And I know what's in the third floor corridor."

"Hold on… everyone, gather round… closer… Muffliato! Now. What's in there?"

"I think it's the Philosopher's Stone."

Bits fell into place for Hermione. There was something deeply wrong…

"What if You-Know-Who wants it? What if that's how he's coming back, with the Stone? And Snape knows about it… oh my… possession! He must have possessed someone! I bet it was Snape, he knows about it anyway. Ron, cloak! FMA, we ride!"

"Honour and glory!" The FMA yelled out, save for Ron on the end.

"We have a catchphrase now?"

"Yes, Ronald, we have a catchphrase now."

"Oh. Okay."

Harry struggled out of the hospital bed and stood before them, about as heroic as a skinny bespectacled victim in elderly striped pyjamas can. "This is going to be hard. The Headmaster must have it defended. But we have to do this, for everyone's sake. If it's who we think it is… everyone dies."

There was a deafening silence.

"Er… before that, could I just nip over there and have a sandwich? Ta. Sorry. Um… we should go."

Once the FMA had finished being disapproving at Ron, they took off for the third floor corridor. Cora Granger returned from a trip to the loo to find an empty bed where the Boy Who Lived had been.

She had the distinct impression that it wasn't going to be her day.

AN #2: Today's fanfic recs are Undocumented Features, Harry Potter and the Nightmares of Futures Past (Time Travel Tense Trouble FTW!), and everything by my current beta MariusDarkwolf. Thank you for reading and reviewing, I love you all, and yay for everything!

I may or may not be writing this on the back of a pitcher of some weird purple cocktail Darren next door got me.