We're Back

by Miss Ginevra Magdalene Darcy

The Light Side are returning, Lily, James and others who died by Voldemort in the first or second wizarding war are returning. It's wonderful and magical but Teddy's not adjusting well.

25. Chapter 24 - Ronald Weasley!

Everyone woke up an hour later than usual due to the bad nights sleep and the late night. Everyone who had been alive in 1997 were all looking forward to finding out what the trio was up to during the year but they were also scared, scared of what they would see, scared of what they would have to relieve. The trio were up earlier than everyone else, talking about what was important to show them and what they should leave out.

"What about Remus' visit?" Hermione asked, although she already knew the answer.

"No way, we can't do that to Remus," Harry said, straight away.

"Yeah, I doubt he told Tonks what happened there," Ron agreed. "We shouldn't inform her about it."

"Plus imagine how much it hurt Teddy," Harry said, as though that made it final.

Ron and Hermione smiled softly, they knew how much Harry cared for Teddy and knew the last things Harry would want for him was to be hurt or upset.

"Agreed," Hermione nodded.

"Are we going to show me leaving?" Ron asked shifting guiltily, after all these years that was still the worst decision of his life and he still felt terrible about it.

"Well, we're going to show Godrics Hollow," Hermione said slowly. "So they'll ask where you are, why you aren't there. I think we're going to have to."

"Yeah," Ron nodded. "I thought you'd say that. Just Harry… take Ginny's wand, will ya?"

"Definitely," Harry grinned. "Snape's memories?"

"You should talk to him about that," Hermione suggested. "He might not want them shown."

"Right, I'll contact him in a minute," Harry nodded. "Anything else which we definitely shouldn't show?"

"I would say Malfoy Manor," Ron said. "But that's only because I don't want to relive it."

"Sadly they, Bill and Fleur especially, have the right to know," Hermione sighed

"I've been thinking," Harry said. "Is our visit to Xeno important?"

"I don't know, Harry," said Hermione. "I mean, it's where we found out about the Deathly Hallows, Luna, and where we almost got caught but… we could tell them about the Hallows, it'd be quicker, and explain why Luna wasn't there. What do you think Ron?"

"Don't show it, we'll tell them," Ron nodded. "You think we should get some other people?"

"Definitely," Hermione agreed. "But not many."

"Just Neville and Luna, yeah?" Harry suggested

'Yeah, that seems good," Ron said. "I'm mean they've been through a bit with us, more than most people."

Harry nodded and then just then Ginny walked into the breakfast room and raised her eyebrows at them,

"Morning," she said slowly.

"Good morning, Ginny," Hermione smiled.

"Hey, sis," Ron said as Harry just grinned at wife, getting up to give her a kiss on the cheek.

"What are you doing?" she asked suspiciously, looking at the way they were still leaning slightly toward each other although they had straightened up a bit when she walked in. "You look like your planning something…"

"It's nothing," Harry said. "Just thinking of what to show today."

"We're going to bring Neville and Luna," Ron told her.

"Good," Ginny said although she looked a little shocked

"What are you thinking NOW?' Ron asked, looking at Harry.

"Don't you think Frank and Alice will want to see the final battle?" Hermione said, guessing what Harry was thinking.

"Probably," Ginny sighed siting down at the table. "They were both Auror's and in the Order of Phoenix."

"Right," Hermione said. "Now, go and talk to Snape, Harry."

"Why?" Ginny asked.

"Well, it's a bit rude just to show those important memories isn't it?" Hermione smiled.

"I'm just going to floo him," Harry said, walking out of the breakfast room towards the sitting room.

Harry grabbed a handful of floo powder and threw it into the fire before putting his head in and saying in a clear voice, "Number 2, Spinners End, Cokeworth."

Harry closed his eyes as he felt the familiar and still hated sensation of flooing and soon he was looking at a shabby kitchen where Severus Snape just happened to be making a drink of some description.

"Professor Snape?" Harry said called.

He looked around a slight look of dislike crossed his face and made Harry think of times when Snape would have looked at him with such hatred it was surprising he hadn't burst into flames. This was nothing and practically could be taken as liking.

"How can I help you, Potter?" he said sharply. "Do you realize the time?"

"Yeah, sorry about that," Harry half-smiled. "Anyway, I assume you want this quick," –Snape nodded curtly – "we've moved onto what should have been my seventh year and –"

"You want to know how much of my memories you can show them," Snape finished. "Let's see, not my childhood. I shall give you permission to show anytime I'm with Dumbledore but that is it, Potter."

"Of course, thank you very much, Professor," Harry replied. "Have a nice day."

"And you," Snape nodded, a slight smile flashing across his face.

"I doubt it," Harry said before exiting the fire place, he then contacted everyone else they had said – Alice and Frank only coming for the Final Battle as they wanted to spend some time together and get anything they needed..

"Well?" Hermione said as he entered the breakfast room again.

"Anytime he's with Dumbledore," Harry said. "Isn't anyone else up yet?"

"We are," Dora said, as she and Remus walked in. "Wotcher."

"Morning," Remus smiled.

"Good morning," they all mumbled in reply.

5 minutes later everyone else had trickled in and they began breakfast, chatting aimlessly and soon gathered in the family room. Once all the guests had arrived, Harry put the memory in and they all entered the pensieve.

The sound of the front door slamming echoed up the stairs and a voice roared, "Oh! You!"

"Oh great - Vernon," Petunia sighed.

He was still staring at the narrow fragment in which, for a split second, he had thought he saw Dumbledore's eye. It was not until his uncle bellowed, "BOY!"

"Does he know you have a name?" Neville growled.

that Harry got slowly out of bed and headed for the bedroom door, pausing to add the piece of broken mirror to the rucksack filled with things he would be taking with him.

"You took you time!" roared Vernon Dursley when Harry appeared at the top of the stairs, "Get down here. I want a word!"

"Manners help, Vermin," Lily snapped.

Harry strolled downstairs, his hands deep in his pants pockets. When he searched the living room he found all three Dursleys. They were dressed for packing; Uncle Vernon in an old ripped-up jacket and Dudley, Harry's, large, blond, muscular cousin, in his leather jacket.

"Yes?" asked Harry.

"Sit down!" said Uncle Vernon. Harry raised his eyebrows. "Please!"

"Thank you, Harry," Hermione said. "He needs teaching him some manners."

"I didn't know that word was in his vocabulary," Teddy laughed.

added Uncle Vernon, wincing slightly as though the word was sharp in his throat.

Harry sat. He though he knew what was coming. His uncle began to pace up and down, Aunt Petunia and Dudley, following his movement with anxious expressions. Finally, his large purple face crumpled with concentration. Uncle Vernon stopped in front of Harry and spoke.

"I've changed my mind," he said.

"What a surprise," said Harry.

The twins snorted.

"Don't you take that tone—" began Aunt Petunia in a shrill voice, but Vernon Dursley waved her down

"It's all a lot of claptrap," said Uncle Vernon, glaring at Harry with piggy little eyes. "I've decided I don't believe a word of it. We're staying put, we're not going anywhere."

"Idiot man," Bill said.

Harry looked up at his uncle and felt a mixture of exasperation and amusement. Vernon Dursley had been changing his mind every twenty four hours for the past four weeks, packing and unpacking and repacking the car with every change of heart.

"That was mad," Petunia told them.

Harry's favorite moment had been the one when Uncle Vernon, unaware the Dudley had added his dumbbells to his case since the last time it been repacked, had attempted to hoist it back into the boot and collapsed with a yelp of pain and much swearing.

Everyone laughed and Dudley said, "that was funny."

"According to you," Vernon Dursley said, now resuming his pacing up and down the living room, "we – Petunia, Dudley, and I – are in danger. From – from –"

"Voldemort," Luna said dreamily.

"Some of 'my lot' right?" said Harry

"Well I don't believe it," repeated Uncle Vernon, coming to a halt in front of Harry again. "I was awake half the night thinking it all over, and I believe it's a plot to get the house."

Most people snorted.

"Out of curiosity, how many houses do you have?" Luna asked.

"You don't even what to go there," Harry laughed.

"There's way too many," Ginny agreed. "We don't know what to do with half of them."

"The house?" repeated Harry. "What house?"

"This house!" shrieked Uncle Vernon, the vein his forehead starting to pulse. "Our house! House prices are skyrocketing around here! You want us out of the way and then you're going to do a bit of hocus pocus and before we know it the deeds will be in your name and –"

"Are you out of your mind?" demanded Harry. "A plot to get this house? Are you actually as stupid as you look?"

"More," everyone laughed, including Dudley and Petunia.

"Don't you dare -!" squealed Aunt Petunia, but again Vernon waved her down. Slights on his personal appearance were it seemed as nothing to the danger he had spotted.

Some chuckled.

"Just in case you've forgotten," said Harry, "I've already got a house my godfather left me one. So why would I want this one? All the happy memories?"

The god mood vanished at the question, many thinking about Harry's childhood.

There was silence. Harry thought he had rather impressed his uncle with this argument.

"You claim," said Uncle Vernon, starting to pace yet again, "that this Lord Thing –"

"Lord Thing!" the Prewett twins laughed. "Brilliant!"

"—Voldemort," said Harry impatiently, "and we've been through this about a hundred times already. This isn't a claim, it's fact. Dumbledore told you last year, and Kingsley and Mr. Weasley –"

Vernon Dursley hunched his shoulders angrily, and Harry guessed that his uncle was attempting to ward off recollections of the unannounced visit, a few days into Harry's summer holidays, of two fully grown wizards. The arrival on the doorstep of Kingsley Shacklebolt and Arthur Weasley had come as a most unpleasant shock to the Dursleys. Harry had to admit, however that as Mr. Weasley had once demolished half of the living room, his reappearance could not have been expected to delight Uncle Vernon.

"You did what?" Molly snapped.

"Nothing dear," Arthur said quickly as Harry, Dudley and Ron laughed.

"—Kingsley and Mr. Weasley explained it all as well," Harry pressed on remorselessly, "Once I'm seventeen, the protective charm that keeps me safe will break, and that exposes you as well as me. The Order is sure Voldemort will target you, whether to torture you to try and find out where I am, or because he thinks by holding you hostage I'd come and try to rescue you."

"Would you?" Petunia asked.

"As if he would even hesitate," Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Neville and Luna laughed.

"But we were horrible," Dudley persisted.

"No one deserves Voldemort," Bill said

"Plus, you may have been horrible," said Harry, "but you still family."

Petunia was shaking her head in awe at her nephews logical, amazed that although they treated him terribly he would still save them.

Uncle Vernon's and Harry's eyes met. Then Uncle Vernon walked on and Harry resumed, "You've got to go into hiding and the Order wants to help. You're being offered serious protection, the best there is."

"Thank you," everyone who had been in the order said.

Uncle Vernon said nothing but continued to pace up and down. Outside the sun hung low over the privet hedges. The next door neighbor's lawn mower stalled again.

"I thought there was a Ministry of Magic?" asked Vernon Dursley abruptly.

"There is," said Harry, surprised.

"He remembered that?" James asked.

"Well, then, why can't they protect us? It seems to me that, as innocent victims, guilty of nothing more than harboring a marked man, we ought to qualify for government protection!"

"The ministry was infiltrated," Arthur said.

Harry laughed; he could not help himself. It was so very typical of his uncle to put his hopes in the establishment, even within this world that he despised and mistrusted.

"True," Dudley chuckled, that was his dad.

"You heard what Mr. Weasley and Kingsley said," Harry replied. "We think the Ministry has been infiltrated."

'And we were right," Molly nodded

Uncle Vernon strode back to the fireplace and back breathing so strongly that his great black mustache rippled his face still purple with concentration.

"All right," he said. Stopping in front of Harry get again. "All right, let's say for the sake of argument we accept this protection. I still don't see why we can't have that Kingsley bloke."

"You liked Kingsley?" Dora said, shocked.

"Yes, he was calming and not too eccentric," Petunia said thinking of Dedalus Diggle

"Unluckily for you, 'e was protecting ze Muggle Prime Minister," Fleur said.

"As I've told you," he said through gritted teeth, "Kingsley is protecting the Mug – I mean, your Prime Minister."

"Exactly – he's the best!" said Uncle Vernon, pointing at the blank television screen.

"What makes you think you warrant the best?" James growled, still angry at this man for the treatment of Harry.

"Well, he's taken," said Harry. "But Hestia Jones and Dedalus Diggle are more than up to the job –"

"Poor them," Sirius chuckled.

"They were cool," Dudley said. "Dedalus taught me things about the wizarding world."

"If we'd even seen CVs…" began Uncle Vernon, but Harry lost patience. Getting to his feet, he advanced on his uncle, now pointing at the TV set himself.

"These accidents aren't accidents – the crashed and explosions and derailments and whatever else has happened since we last watched the news. People are disappearing and dying and he's behind it – Voldemort. I've told you this over and over again, he kills Muggles for fun. Even the fogs – they're caused by dementors, and if you can't remember what they are, ask your son!"

Dudley shuddered.

"Again with these speeches when you're angry!" Teddy chuckled. "I'm glad you rarely explode now! In fact I don't think I've ever seen in you shouting angry…"

There were a few raised eyebrows at this.

Dudley's hands jerked upward to tower his mouth. With his parents' and Harry's eyes upon him, he slowly lowered them again and asked, "There are… more of them?"

"A lot more," Ron said darkly.

"More?" laughed Harry. "More than the two that attacked us, you mean? Of course there are hundreds, maybe thousands by this time, seeing as they feed off fear and despair—"

"All right, all right," blustered Vernon Dursley. "You've made your point –"

"I hope so," said Harry, "because once I'm seventeen, all of them – Death Eaters, Dementors, maybe even Inferi – which means dead bodies enchanted by a Dark wizard –

The Muggles looked sick.

"I don't blame you," Ginny muttered.

"Did he use them?" Lily asked.

"Not this time," Bill said.

will be able to find you and will certainly attack you. And if you remember the last time you tried to outrun wizards, I think you'll agree you need help."

"What happened?" Molly said, warily.

"Hagrid broke down the door, told me I was a wizard and then gave Dudley, here, a pig's tail," Harry laughed.

"Oh Hagrid," Molly sighed as everyone roared with laughter except Dudley and Petunia

Aunt Petunia was looking at Uncle Vernon; Dudley was staring at Harry. Finally Uncle Vernon blurted out, "But what about my work? What about Dudley's school? I don't suppose those things matter to a bunch of lay about wizards –"

"What's more important: your job or your life?" Hermione snapped.

"Don't you understand?" shouted Harry. "They will torture and kill you like they did my parents!"

"Luckily it was direct torture," Lily sighed.

"Yeah, just fear," James nodded. "But still torture."

"Dad," said Dudley in a loud voice, "Dad – I'm going with these Order people."

"Thank you," Remus sighed

"Dudley," said Harry, "for the first time in your life, you're talking sense."

"Was that really necessary?" Luna asked. "I mean, you've just gained an ally."

"Habit, Luna," Harry chuckled.

"They'll be here in about five minutes," he said, and when none of the Dursleys replied, he left the room. The prospect of parting—probably forever – from his aunt, uncle, and cousin was one that he was able to contemplate quite cheerfully but there was nevertheless a certain awkwardness in the air. What did you say to one another at the end of sixteen years' solid dislike?

"Nothing," Sirius laughed, having done it himself.

Back in his bedroom, Harry fiddled aimlessly with his rucksack then poked a couple of owl nuts through the bats of Hedwig's cage. They fell with dull thuds to the bottom where she ignored them.

"We're leaving soon, really soon," Harry told her. "And then you'll be able to fly again."

"Poor owl," Neville said. "You shouldn't lock them up."

The doorbell rang. Harry hesitated, then headed back out of his room and downstairs.

"Harry Potter!" squeaked an excited voice, the moment Harry had opened the door; a small man in a mauve top hat that was sweeping him a deep bow. "An honor as ever!"

"Dedalus," Sirius laughed.

"Thanks, Dedalus," said Harry, bestowing a small and embarrassed smile upon the dark haired Hestia. "It's really good of you to do this… They're through here, my aunt and uncle and cousin…"

"Good day to you, Harry Potter's relatives!" said Dedalus happily striding into the living room.

"Bet you loved that," Gideon laughed.

"Go Dedalus," Fabian cheered.

The Dursleys did not look at all happy to be addressed thus. Dudley shrank neared to his mother at the sight of the witch and wizard.

"I see you are packed and ready. Excellent! The plan, as Harry has told you, is a simple one," said Dedalus, pulling an immense pocket watch out of his waistcoat and examining it. "We shall be leaving before Harry does. Due to the danger of using magic in your house –Harry being still underage it could provide the Ministry with an excuse to arrest him –we shall be driving, say, ten miles or so before Disapparating to the safe location we have picked out for you. You know how to drive, I take it?" He asked Uncle Vernon politely.

"Vernon wasn't too impressed by that," Petunia chuckled.

"Well, we have other, quicker moods of transportation," Hermione said.

"Yes, Harry scared me one time by apparating into my car,' Dudley said, grimacing. "I almost crashed!"

"Sorry, Dud," Harry snickered. "I was paying you back a bit for all those years."

"Right," Dud muttered.

"Know how to –? Of course I ruddy well know how to drive!" spluttered Uncle Vernon.

"Very clever of you, sir, very clever. I personally would be utterly bamboozled by all those buttons and knobs," said Dedalus. He was clearly under the impression that he was flattering Vernon Dursley, who was visibly losing confidence in the plan with every word Dedalus spoke.

"Can't even drive," he muttered under his breath, his mustache rippling indignantly, but fortunately neither Dedalus nor Hestia seemed to hear him.

"Selective hearing is best around Vernon," Lily smiled.

"You, Harry," Dedalus continued, "will wait here for your guard. There has been a little change in the arrangements –"

"What d'you mean?" said Harry at once. "I thought Mad-Eye was going to come and take me by Side Along-Apparition?"

"Can't do it," said Hestia tersely, "Mad-Eye will explain."

The Dursleys, who had listened to all of this with looks of utter incomprehension on their faces, jumped as a loud voice screeched, "Hurry up!" Harry looked all around the room before realizing the voice had issued from Dedalus's pocket watch.

"Quite right, were operating to a very tight schedule," said Dedalus nodding at his watch and tucking it back into his waist coat. "We are attempting to time your departure from the house with your family's Disapparition, Harry thus the charm breaks the moment you all head for safety." He turned to the Dursleys, "Well, are we all packed and ready to go?"

None of them answered him. Uncle Vernon was still staring appalled at the bulge in Dedalus's waistcoat pocket.

Fabian and Gideon sniggered

"Perhaps we should wait outside in the hall, Dedalus," murmured Hestia. She clearly felt that it would be tactless for them to remain the room while Harry and the Dursleys exchanged loving, possibly tearful farewells.

"There's no need," Harry muttered, but Uncle Vernon made any further explanation unnecessary by saying loudly,

"Well, this is good-bye then boy."

Dora tutted at the coldness towards their own nephew.

He swung his right arm upward to shake Harry's hand, but at the last moment seemed unable to face it, and merely closed his fist and began swinging it backward and forward like a metronome.

"Ready, Duddy?" asked Petunia, fussily checking the clasp of her handbag so as to avoid looking at Harry altogether.

Everyone frowned.

Dudley did not answer but stood there with his mouth slightly ajar.

"Come along, then," said Uncle Vernon.

He had already reached the living room door when Dudley mumbled, "I don't understand."

"You're leaving," Gideon chuckled

"So you need to walk," Fabian laughed.

"What don't you understand, popkin?" asked Petunia looking up at her son.

Dudley raised a large, hamlike hand to point at Harry.

"Why isn't he coming with us?

Everyone's frowned turned into slight smiles

"Oh, I have a tiny job to do," Harry said with the air of discussing the weather.

Ron and Hermione snorted.

Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia froze when they stood staring at Dudley as though he had just expressed a desire to become a ballerina.

"You shouldn't be so shocked by your own son expressing concern for another person," Lily said, firmly. "Sorry Dudley, it's your parents I'm annoyed at."

"It's all right, Aunt Lily," Dudley smiled, Lily's face transforming into a beaming smile.

"What?" said Uncle Vernon loudly.

"Why isn't he coming too?" asked Dudley.

"Well, he—doesn't want to," said Uncle Vernon, turning to glare at Harry and adding, "You don't want to, do you?"

"No," everyone said.

"Not in the slightest," said Harry.

"There you are," Uncle Vernon told Dudley. "Now come on we're off."

He marched out of the room. They heard the front door open, but Dudley did not move and after a few faltering steps Aunt Petunia stopped too.

"What now?" barked Uncle Vernon, reappearing in the doorway.

It seemed that Dudley was struggling with concepts too difficult to put into words. After several moments of apparently painful internal struggle he said, "But where's he going to go?"

"Nowhere in particular," Hermione said bitterly.

Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon looked at each other. It was clear that Dudley was frightening them. Hestia Jones broke the silence.

"But… surely you know where your nephew is going?" she asked looking bewildered.

"Of course they don't," Ron snorted, "because we didn't think they'd care."

"Certainly we know," said Vernon Dursley. "He's off with some of your lot, isn't he?

"Uh-oh," Sirius grinned.

Right, Dudley, let's get in the car, you heard the man, we're in a hurry."

Again, Vernon Dursley marched as far as the front door, but Dudley did not follow.

"Off with some of our lot?"

Hestia looked outraged.

"It's fine," Harry assured her. "It doesn't matter, honestly."

"Doesn't matter?" repeated Hestia, her voice rising considerably. "Don't these people realize what you've been through? What danger you are in? The unique position you hold in the hearts of the anti Voldemort movement?"

"Of course not!" Gideon scoffed.

"His family are gits," Fabian said as if that was an explanation.

"Er –no, they don't," said Harry. "They think I'm a waste of space, actually but I'm used to –"

"I don't think you're a waste of space."

As it was, he stared at Dudley for several seconds before accepting that it must have been his cousin who had spoken; for one thing, Dudley had turned red.

"Well... er… thanks, Dudley."

Again, Dudley appeared to grapple with thoughts too unwieldy for expression before mumbling, "You saved my life."

"Not really," said Harry. "It was your soul the Dementor would have taken…"

"So not the point," Ginny laughed.

"Plus living without a soul is worse than death," Hermione reasoned.

He looked curiously at his cousin. After opening his mouth once or twice more, Dudley subsided into scarlet-faced silence.

Aunt Petunia burst into tears. Hestia Jones gave her an approving look that changed to outrage as Aunt Petunia ran forward and embraced Dudley rather than Harry.

Everyone raised their eyebrows wondering how her logic worked.

"Sorry, Harry," Petunia said, softly but Harry just waved a dismissive hand

"S-so sweet, Dudders…" she sobbed into his massive chest. "S-such a lovely b-boy… s-saying thank you…".

"He didn't say thank you," Dora corrected.

"Yes but coming from Dudley, what he just said is like I love you," Ginny laughed.

"But he hasn't said thank you at all!" said Hestia indignantly. "He only said he didn't think Harry was a waste of space!"

"Yea but coming from Dudley that's like 'I love you,'" said Harry,

Everyone chuckled at how similar Harry and Ginny were.

torn between annoyance and a desire to laugh as Aunt Petunia continued to clutch at Dudley as if he had just saved Harry from a burning building.

"Are we going or not?" roared Uncle Vernon, reappearing yet again at the living room door. "I thought we were on a tight schedule!"

"Yes –yes, we are," said Dedalus Diggle, who had been watching these exchanged with an air of bemusement and now seemed to pull himself together. "We really must be off. Harry –"

He tripped forward and wrung Harry's hand with both of his own.

"—good luck. I hope we meet again. The hopes of the Wizarding world rest upon your shoulders."

"Yeah, so no pressure Harry," Gideon laughed

"Oh," said Harry, "right. Thanks."

"Not what you wanted to hear, I'm sure," Fabian chuckled

"Farwell, Harry," said Hestia also clasping his hand. "Our thoughts go with you."

"I hope everything's okay," said Harry with a glance toward Aunt Petunia and Dudley.

"Oh I'm sure we shall end up the best of chums," said Diggle slightly, waving his hat as he left the room.

Most of the wizards snorted.

Hestia followed him.

Dudley gently released himself from his mother's clutches and walked toward Harry.

Then Dudley held out his large, pink hand.

"Is this the reason you went back after the war?" Ginny asked.

"Yeah," Harry nodded, "and I wanted to make sure they were safe."

"Blimey, Dudley," said Harry over Aunt Petunia's renewed sobs, "did the dementors blow a different personality into you?"

"Probably," James chuckled

"Dunno," muttered Dudley, "See you, Harry."

"Yea …" said Harry, raking Dudley's hand and shaking it. "Maybe."

"Maybe?" Remus asked.

"Well, it wasn't likely I would survive the war was it?" Harry asked amused.

"As much as I wish it wasn't true," Remus sighed

Take care, Big D."

Dudley nearly smiled. They lumbered from the room. Harry heard his heavy footfalls on the graveled drive, and then a car door slammed.

Aunt Petunia whose face had been buried in her handkerchief looked around at the sound. She did not seem to have expected to find herself alone with Harry. Hastily stowing her wet handkerchief into her pocket, she said, "Well – good-bye" and marched towards the door without looking at him.

"Petunia!" Lily snapped.

"Good-bye" said Harry.

She stopped and looked back. For a moment Harry had the strangest feeling that she wanted to say something to him; She gave him an odd, tremulous look and seemed to teeter on the edge of speech, but then, with a little tilt of her head, she hustled out of the room after he husband and son.

"What were you going to say?" Hermione asked.

"Good luck, maybe," Petunia replied. "Maybe that Lily would have been proud, I don't know."

She faltered at the end but her sentence made everyone smile.

Harry ran back upstairs to his bedroom, arriving at the window just in time to see the Dursleys' car swinging out of the drive and off up the road. Dedalus's top hat was visible between Aunt Petunia and Dudley in the backseat. The car turned right at the end of Privet Drive, its windows burned scarlet for a moment in the now setting sun, and then it was gone.

"Good," James said.

Harry picked up Hedwig's cage, his Firebolt, and his rucksack, gave his unnaturally tidy bedroom one last sweeping look, and then made his ungainly way back downstairs to the hall, where he deposited cage, broomstick, and bag near the foot of the stairs. The light was fading rapidly, the hall full of shadows in the evening light.

"Don't you want to take a last look at the place?" he asked Hedwig, who was still sulking with her head under her wing.

"I don't think she cares mate," Ron chuckled.

"We'll never be here again. Don't you want to remember all the good times? I mean, look at this doormat. What memories …

"You've cracked," Neville laughed.

"No, I haven't!"

Dudley throw up on it after I saved him from the dementors … Turns out he was grateful after all, can you believe it? … And last summer, Dumbledore walked through that front door … "

"I suppose that's fair enough," Luna smiled.

Hedwig continued to sit with her head under her wing. Harry turned his back on the front door.

"And under here, Hedwig" – Harry pulled open a door under the stairs – "is where I used to sleep!

Everyone but Harry, Ginny, Hermione, Ron, Lily, James, Dudley and Petunia went into uproar, landing in the family room due to the anger as had happened last time.

"A cupboard!" Molly shrieked.

"What the bloody hell is wrong with you!" Neville yelled trying to reach for his wand but Harry had already taken it and was holding him back; Ginny was doing the same with Luna, who was far angrier than anyone had even seen her.

"You could be arrested for that!" Dora screeched.

Fleur had switched to French so she was probably saying things that Harry and Ginny wouldn't appreciate her saying in front of Teddy.

Teddy himself was frozen with the Prewett twins– how much more would this man be subjected to? The Wesley men clenched their fists in anger and paced. All their ears red, which was always a danger sign.

Sirius had punched the wall while Remus sank into a chair looking rather defeated.

"Are you all finished?" Harry shouted over the noise and everyone nodded after a few minutes. "Thank you. If someone could please deal with Sirius hand and then everyone can re-enter the pensieve."

You never knew me then – Blimey, it's small, I'd forgotten …"

Everyone growled.

Harry looked around at the stacked shoes and umbrellas

There was a sudden, deafening roar from somewhere nearby. Harry straightened up with a jerk and smacked the top of his head on the low door frame.

"Ouch," James said.

"Watch your head," Sirius grinned.

Pausing only to employ a few of Uncle Vernon's choicest swear words,

"Don't repeat them, Teddy," Harry said sternly as Lily tutted his language.

he staggered back into the kitchen, clutching his head and staring out of the window into the back garden.

The darkness seemed to be rippling, the air itself quivering. Then, one by one, figures began to pop into sight as their Disillusionment Charms lifted.

Dominating the scene was Hagrid, wearing a helmet and goggles and sitting astride an enormous motorbike with a black sidecar attached.

"My bike!" Sirius yelled.

All around him other people were dismounting from brooms and, in two cases, skeletal, black winged horses.

"Thestrals," Hermione said, shivering.

Wrenching open the back door, Harry hurtled into their midst. There was a general cry of greeting as Hermione flung her arms around him,

"Aww," Fabian teased

"Shut up!" they said together.

Ron clapped him on the back, and Hagrid said, "All righ', Harry? Ready fer the off?"

"Definitely," said Harry, beaming around at them all. "But I wasn't expecting this many of you!"

"Change of plan," growled Mad-Eye, who was holding two enormous bulging sacks, and whose magical eye was spinning from darkening sky to house to garden with dizzying rapidity. "Let's get undercover before we talk you through it."

Tonks rolled her eyes fondly at her old mentor.

Harry led them all back into the kitchen where, laughing and chattering, they settled on chairs, sat themselves upon Aunt Petunia's gleaming work surfaces, or leaned up against her spotless appliances;

"My poor kitchen," Petunia said, looking at Mundungus.

Ron, long and lanky; Hermione, her bushy hair tied back in a long plait; Fred and George, grinning identically; Bill, badly scarred and long-haired; Mr. Weasley, kind-faced, balding, his spectacles a little awry; Mad-Eye, battle-worn, one-legged, his bright blue magical eye whizzing in its socket; Tonks, whose short hair was her favorite shade of bright pink; Lupin, grayer, more lined; Fleur, slender and beautiful, with her long silvery blonde hair; Kingsley, bald and broad-shouldered; Hagrid, with his wild hair and beard, standing hunchbacked to avoid hitting his head on the ceiling; and Mundungus Fletcher, small, dirty, and hangdog, with his droopy beady hound's eyes and matted hair.

"Traitor!" many who had been alive muttered.

"Kingsley, I thought you were looking after the Muggle Prime Minister?" he called across the room.

"He can get along without me for one night," said Kingsley, "You're more important."

"Show's how important you are," Dudley laughed.

"Harry, guess what?" said Tonks from her perch on top of the washing machine, and she wiggled her left hand at him; a ring glistened there.

"Woo!" everyone cheered as the Lupins grinned.

"You got married?" Harry yelped, looking from her to Lupin.

"I'm sorry you couldn't be there, Harry, it was very quiet."

"It is a shame," Dora pouted, her hair dropping a few shades.

"That's brilliant, congrat –"

"All right, all right, we'll have time for a cozy catch-up later," roared Moody over the hubbub,

"Boring!" sang the twins.

and silence fell in the kitchen. Moody dropped his sacks at his feet and turned to Harry. "As Dedalus probably told you, we had to abandon Plan A. Pius Thicknesse has gone over, which gives us a big problem. He's made it an imprisonable offense to connect this house to the Floo Network, place a Portkey here, or Apparate in or out. All done in the name of your protection, to prevent You-Know-Who getting in at you. Absolutely pointless, seeing as your mother's charm does that already. What he's really done is to stop you getting out of here safely."

"Second problem: You're underage, which means you've still got the Trace on you."

"The trace?" Dudley asked.

"I don't –"

"The Trace, the Trace!" said Mad-Eye impatiently. "The charm that detects magical activity around under-seventeens, the way the Ministry finds out about underage magic!

"Oh," Dudley nodded

If you, or anyone around you, casts a spell to get you out of here, Thicknesse is going to know about it, and so will the Death Eaters."

"Brilliant!" Lily groaned

"We can't wait for the Trace to break, because the moment you turn seventeen you'll lose all the protection your mother gave you. In short, Pius Thicknesse thinks he's got you cornered good and proper."

"I doubt it!" James said.

"So what are we going to do?"

"We're going to use the only means of transport left to us, the only ones the Trace can't detect, because we don't need to cast spells to use them: brooms, thestrals, and Hagrid's motorbike."

"Oh yeah, that bike!" Harry said and Sirius perked up. "Arthur um repaired it!"

"It's broken!" Sirius yelled.

"Calm down, he repaired it, Padfoot," Remus chuckled.

"Yes, anyway," Harry said amused. "He then gave it to me."

"You have my bike!" Sirius laughed.

"At Godrics Hollow, I'm guessing you'd like it?" Harry said laughing when Sirius nodded fervently.

"Now, your mother's charm will only break under two conditions: when you come of age, or" – Moody gestured around the pristine kitchen – "you no longer call this place home. You and your aunt and uncle are going your separate ways tonight, in the full understanding that you're never going to live together again, correct?"

Harry nodded.

"So this time, when you leave, there'll be no going back, and the charm will break the moment you get outside its range. We're choosing to break it early, because the alternative is waiting for You-Know-Who to come and seize you the moment you turn seventeen.

"The one thing we've got on our side is that You-Know-Who doesn't know we're moving you tonight.

Everyone who knew about this scolded as they remembered the Death Eaters' had known.

We've leaked a fake trail to the Ministry: They think you're not leaving until the thirtieth. However, this is You-Know-Who we're dealing with, so we can't rely on him getting the date wrong; he's bound to have a couple of Death Eaters patrolling the skies in this general area, just in case. So, we've given a dozen different houses every protection we can throw at them. They all look like they could be the place we're going to hide you, they've all got some connection with the Order: my house, Kingsley's place, Molly's Auntie Muriel's – you get the idea."

"This is a good plan," James nodded.

"Yeah," said Harry,

"You'll be going to Tonks's parents. Once you're within the boundaries of the protective enchantments we've put on their house you'll be able to use a Portkey to the Burrow. Any questions?"

"Er – yes," said Harry. "Maybe they won't know which of the twelve secure houses I'm heading for at first, but won't it be sort of obvious once" – he performed a quick headcount – "fourteen of us fly off toward Tonks's parents?"

"Here comes the part you'll hate," Hermione smiled.

"Ah," said Moody, "I forgot to mention the key point. Fourteen of us won't be flying to Tonks's parents. There will be seven Harry Potters moving through the skies tonight, each of them with a companion, each pair heading for a different safe house."

"How?" Petunia asked.

From inside his cloak Moody now withdrew a flask of what looked like mud. There was no need for him to say another word; Harry understood the rest of the plan immediately.

"No!" he said loudly, his voice ringing through the kitchen. "No way!"

"Calm down," Ginny laughed.

"What is that potion?" Teddy asked, although he had an idea already.

"Polyjuice Potion," Lily said, recognizing it.

"And that does what?" Dudley asked.

"It also a human drink to become the form of another person," Hermione said.

"I told them you'd take it like this," said Hermione with a hint of complacency.

"Yes, we know you know Harry well, Hermione," Neville laughed

"If you think I'm going to let six people risk their lives - !"

"—because it's the first time for all of us," said Ron.

"That wouldn't help, you know," Luna said.

"This is different, pretending to be me –"

"Well, none of us really fancy it, Harry," said Fred earnestly. "Imagine if something went wrong and we were stuck as specky, scrawny gits forever."

Many people laughed

Harry did not smile.

"Aww, come on, Harry!" Fabian chuckled.

"You can't do it if I don't cooperate; you need me to give you some hair."

"Well, that's the plan scuppered," said George. "Obviously there's no chance at all of us getting a bit of your hair unless you cooperate."

"Yeah, thirteen of us against one bloke who's not allowed to use magic; we've got no chance," said Fred.

"You'd set of the trace if you did," Arthur warned.

"Funny," said Harry, "really amusing."

"I think so," Gideon agreed.

"If it has to come to force, then it will," growled Moody, his magical eye now quivering a little in its socket as he glared at Harry. "Everyone here's overage, Potter, and they're all prepared to take the risk."

Mundungus shrugged and grimaced; the magical eye swerved sideways to glance at him out of the side of Moody's head.

Everyone narrowed their eyes even if they had died before then or didn't know what happened – it was dangerous if he wasn't willing.

"Let's have no more arguments. Time's wearing on. I want a few of your hairs, boy, now."

"But this is mad, there's no need –"

"No need!" snarled Moody. "With You-Know-Who out there and half the Ministry on his side? Potter, if we're lucky he'll have swallowed the fake bait and he'll be planning to ambush you on the thirtieth, but he'd be mad not to have a Death Eater or two keeping an eye out, it's what I'd do.

"But he's much smarter," Arthur reasoned.

They might not be able to get at you or this house while your mother's charm holds, but it's about to break and they know the rough position of the place. Our only chance is to use decoys. Even You-Know-Who can't split himself into seven."

Everyone who had been there yesterday shared a look at that.

"What?" Neville asked.

Harry, Ron and Hermione quickly explained all they knew about Horcruxes that they had learned in their sixth year causing the two new comers to look slightly revolted and shocked.

Harry caught Hermione's eye and looked away at once.

"So, Potter – some of your hair, if you please."

Harry glanced at Ron, who grimaced at him in a just-do-it sort of way.

"Now!" barked Moody.

With all of their eyes upon him, Harry reached up to the top of his head, grabbed a hank of hair, and pulled.

"Good," said Moody, limping forward as he pulled the stopper out of the flask of potion. "Straight in here, if you please."

Harry dropped the hair into the mudlike liquid. The moment it made contact with its surface, the potion began to froth and smoke, then, all at once, it turned a clear, bright gold.

"Bright gold!" Lily said, shocked. "Wow."

"What?' Teddy and Fleur asked – Potions had been her worst subject and still was for Teddy.

"The Polyjuice Potion seems to react according to the nature of the person to be imitated, once described as the "essence" of the person. Good-hearted people result in more attractive colours and tastes, while mean people cause the opposite effect," Hermione reeled off.

"Ooh, you look much tastier than Crabbe and Goyle, Harry," said Hermione,

Fabian, Gideon, Fred and George sniggered while the marauders raised their eyebrows and Hermione turned red.

"Are you sure-?" Sirius said pointing a finger between Hermione and Harry.

"There is nothing going on!" Hermione shrieked as her and Harry looked faintly disgusted.

before catching sight of Ron's raised eyebrows, blushing slightly, and saying, "Oh, you know what I mean – Goyle's potion tasted like bogies."

"And 'ow would you know zat?" Fleur asked, looking sternly between the trio.

"We brewed Polyjuice potion second year," Ron said as though it was nothing.

"Second year!" Bill said shocked.

"Hermione," Harry and Ron said, pointing at the women in question, who blushed slightly.

"Urg, how could you do that?" Teddy said. "I'm terrible at potions."

"No you're not," Ginny smiled. "You're just not as good as you are at Defence Against the Dark Arts."

"Whatever you say," Teddy rolled his eyes.

"Right then, fake Potters line up over here, please," said Moody.

Ron, Hermione, Fred, George, and Fleur lined up in front of Aunt Petunia's gleaming sink.

"We're one short," said Lupin.

"Mundungus," Ginny growled.

"Here," said Hagrid gruffly, and he lifted Mundungus by the scruff of the neck and dropped him down beside Fleur, who wrinkled her nose pointedly and moved along to stand between Fred and George instead.

"Good idea," Molly said wrinkling her own nose – she never likes Mundungus.

"I'm a said, I'd sooner be a protector," said Mundungus.

"Shut it," growled Moody. "As I've already told you, you spineless worm, any Death Eaters we run into will be aiming to capture Potter, not kill him. Dumbledore always said You-Know-Who would want to finish Potter in person. It'll be the protectors who have got the most to worry about, the Death Eaters'll want to kill them."

"Cheery," Bill muttered.

Mundungus did not look particularly reassured, but Moody was already pulling half a dozen eggcup-sized glasses from inside his cloak, which he handed out, before pouring a little Polyjuice Potion into each one.

"Altogether, then …"

Ron, Hermione, Fred, George, Fleur, and Mundungus drank. All of them gasped and grimaced as the potion hit their throats; At once, their features began to bubble and distort like hot wax. Hermione and Mundungus were shooting upward; Ron, Fred, and George were shrinking; their hair was darkening, Hermione's and Fleur's appearing to shoot backward into their skulls.

Moody, quite unconcerned, was now loosening the ties of the large sacks he had brought with him. When he straightened up again, there were six Harry Potters gasping and panting in front of him.

"How weird," Petunia said.

Fred and George turned to each other and said together, "Wow – we're identical!"

"Of course you are," Neville laughed.

"I dunno, though, I think I'm still better-looking," said Fred, examining his reflection in the kettle.

"Bah," said Fleur, checking herself in the microwave door, "Bill, don't look at me – I'm 'ideous."

"Zat sounded bad," Fleur laughed. "I'm sorry, 'Arry!"

"Those whose clothes are a bit roomy, I've got smaller here," said Moody, indicating the first sack, "and vice versa. Don't forget the glasses, there's six pairs in the side pocket. And when you're dressed, there's luggage in the other sack."

He watched as his six doppelgangersrummaged in the sacks, pulling out sets of clothes, putting on glasses, stuffing their own things away.

"I knew Ginny was lying about that tattoo," said Ron, looking down at his bare chest.

"Of course I was," Ginny laughed

"Harry, your eyesight really is awful," said Hermione, as she put on glasses.

"Well, I don't wear them for fun, Hermione," Harry chuckled.

"Oh, shut up," she grinned.

Once dressed, the fake Harry's took rucksacks and owl cages, each containing a stuffed snowy owl, from the second sack.

"Won't that be a bit obvious?" Luna asked

"Better than no owl," James reasoned.

"Good," said Moody, as at last seven dressed, bespectacled, and luggage-laden Harrys faced him. "The pairs will be as follows: Mundungus will be traveling with me, by broom –"

"Good," Sirius said

"Why'm I with you?" grunted the Harry nearest the back door.

"Because you're the most untrustworthy?" Teddy suggested.

"Because you're the one that needs watching," growled Moody, and sure enough, his magical eye did not waver from Mundungus as he continued, "Arthur and Fred –"

"I'm George," said the twin at whom Moody was pointing. "Can't you even tell us apart when we're Harry?"

"Sorry, George –"

"I'm only yanking your wand, I'm Fred really –"

Everyone chuckled, although it was slightly sad.

"Enough messing around!" snarled Moody.

"No, no," Dudley said. "Continue."

"The other one – George or Fred or whoever you are – you're with Remus. Miss Delacour –"

"I'm taking Fleur on a thestral," said Bill. "She's not that fond of brooms."

Fleur walked over to stand beside him, giving him a soppy, slavish look that Harry hoped with all his heart would never appear on his face again.

"Sorry," Fleur muttered.

"You're not the only one, Harry," Bill chuckled.

"Miss Granger with Kingsley, again by thestral –"

Hermione looked reassured as she answered Kingsley's smile

"Which leaves you and me, Ron!" said Tonks brightly, knocking over a mug tree as she waved at him.

Remus and Teddy chuckled as Sirius laughed.

Ron did not look quite as pleased as Hermione.

"An' you're with me, Harry. That all righ'?" said Hagrid, looking a little anxious. "We'll be on the bike, brooms an' thestrals can't take me weight, see. Not a lot o' room on the seat with me on it, though, so you'll be in the sidecar."

"That's great," said Harry, not altogether truthfully.

"We think the Death Eaters will expect you to be on a broom," said Moody,

"Of course they would!" James said, proudly.

"Snape's had plenty of time to tell them everything about you he's never mentioned before,

Everyone growled at the reminder of what Snape did, except the trio and Ginny.

so if we do run into any Death Eaters, we're betting they'll choose one of the Potters who looks at home on a broomstick. All right then," he went on, tying up the sack with the fake Potters' clothes in it and leading the way back to the door, "I make it three minutes until we're supposed to leave. No point locking the back door, it won't keep the Death Eaters out when they come looking.

"But it'll keep thieves out," Petunia said.

Come on …"

Harry hurried to gather his rucksack, Firebolt, and Hedwig's cage and followed the group to the dark back garden.

On every side broomsticks were leaping into hands; Hermione had already been helped up onto a great black thestral by Kingsley, Fleur onto the other by Bill. Hagrid was standing ready beside the motorbike, goggles on.

"Is this it? Is this Sirius's bike?"

"Yep!" Sirius yelled.

"The very same," said Hagrid, beaming down at Harry. "An' the last time yeh was on it, Harry, I could fit yeh in one hand!"

"Too be honest, that isn't that amazing," Ron chuckled.

It placed him several feet below everybody else: Ron smirked at the sight of him sitting there like a child in a bumper car.

"Really, Ron?" Ginny asked.

Harry stuffed his rucksack and broomstick down by his feet and rammed Hedwig's cage between his knees. He was extremely uncomfortable.

"Arthur's done a bit o' tinkerin'," said Hagrid,

"So it's even cooler," Sirius said, looking delighted and his commented caused Arthur to smile.

He settled himself astride the motorcycle, which creaked slightly and sank inches into the ground. "It's got a few tricks up its sleeves now. Tha' one was my idea." He pointed a thick finger at a purple button near the speedometer.

"Oh dear, what does it do?" Dora asked.

"Please be careful, Hagrid." said Mr. Weasley, who was standing beside them, holding his broomstick. "I'm still not sure that was advisable and it's certainly only to be used in emergencies."

"Oh Merlin," Ginny sighed.

"All right, then." said Moody. "Everyone ready, please. I want us all to leave at exactly the same time or the whole point of the diversion's lost."

Everybody motioned their heads.

"Hold tight now, Ron," said Tonks, and Harry saw Ron throw a forcing, guilty look at Lupin before placing his hands on each side of her waist.

Remus chuckled.

Hagrid kicked the motorbike into life: It roared like a dragon, and the sidecar began to vibrate.

"Good luck, everyone," shouted Moody. "See you all in about an hour at the Burrow.

Dora flinched slightly – she hadn't seen Mad-Eye after that.

On the count of three. One … two .. THREE."

There was a great roar from the motorbike, and Harry felt the sidecar give a nasty lurch. He was rising through the air fast, his eyes watering slightly, hair whipped back off his face. Around him brooms were soaring upward too; the long black tail of a thestral flicked past.

And then, out of nowhere, out of nothing, they were surrounded.

"No!" Molly shrieked.

At least thirty hooded figures, suspended in midair, formed a vast circle in the middle of which the Order members had risen, oblivious –

"Damn it!" Sirius said.

"Language," Lily said, hitting him.

Screams, a blaze of green light on every side: Hagrid gave a yell and the motorbike rolled over. Harry lost any sense of where they were. Streetlights above him, yells around him, he was clinging to the sidecar for dear life. Hedwig's cage, the Firebolt, and his rucksack slipped from beneath his knees –

"No – HELP!"

The broomstick spun too, but he just managed to seize the strap of his rucksack

"Good thing you caught that!" Ron said.

and the top of the cage as the motorbike swung the right way up again. A second's relief, and then another burst of green light. The owl screeched and fell to the floor of the cage.

"No!" Lily said.

"No – NO!"

The motorbike zoomed forward; Harry glimpsed hooded Death Eaters scattering as Hagrid blasted through their circle.

"Hedwig – Hedwig –"

"Oh Harry," Molly sighed.

But the owl lay motionless and pathetic as a toy on the floor of her cage. He could not take it in, and his terror for the others was paramount. He glanced over his shoulder and saw a mass of people moving, flares of green light, two pairs of people on brooms soaring off into the distance, but he could not tell who they were –

"This is madness," Petunia said, her eyes wide.

"I thought they were fireworks," Dudley said, as he remembered seeing all the lights flashing across the sky.

"That's a good thing," Hermione said.

"Hagrid, we've got to go back, we've got to go back!" he yelled.

"You can't," Remus said.

over the thunderous roar of the engine, pulling out his wand, ramming Hedwig's cage into the floor, refusing to believe that she was dead. "Hagrid, TURN AROUND!"

"My job's ter get you there safe, Harry!" bellow Hagrid, and he opened the throttle.

"Good job, Hagrid," Molly nodded.

"Stop – STOP!" Harry shouted, but as he looked back again two jets of green light flew past his left ear:

"Please not –" Lily began.

"I think it is," Dora said.

Four Death Eaters had broken away from the circle and were pursuing them, aiming for Hagrid's broad back. Hagrid swerved, but the Death Eaters were keeping up with the bike; more curses shot after them, and Harry had to sink low into the sidecar to avoid them. Wriggling around he cried, "Stupefy!" and a red bolt of light shot from his own wand, cleaving a gap between the four pursuing Death Eaters as they scattered to avoid it.

"Hold on, Harry, this'll do for 'em!" roared Hagrid, and Harry looked up just in time to see Hagrid slamming a thick finger into a green button near the fuel gauge.

A wall, a solid black wall, erupted out of the exhaust pipe. Craning his neck, Harry saw it expand into being in midair.

"Cool!" James and Sirius said, smiling a little.

Three of the Death Eaters swerved and avoided it, but the fourth was not so lucky; He vanished from view and then dropped like a boulder from behind it, his broomstick broken into pieces. One of his fellows slowed up to save him, but they and the airborne wall were swallowed by darkness as Hagrid leaned low over the handlebars and sped up.

More Killing Curses flew past Harry's head from the two remaining Death Eaters' wands; they were aiming for Hagrid. Harry responded with further Stunning Spells: Red and green collided in midair in a shower of multicolored sparks,

"Fireworks," Petunia said.

"Here we go again, Harry, hold on!" yelled Hagrid, and he jabbed at a second button. This time a great net burst from the bike's exhaust, but the Death Eaters were ready for it. Not only did they swerve to avoid it, but the companion who had slowed to save their unconscious friend had caught up. He bloomed suddenly out of the darkness and now three of them were pursuing the motorbike, all shooting curses after it.

"This'll do it, Harry, hold on tight!" yelled Hagrid, and Harry saw him slam his whole hand onto the purple button beside the speedometer.

"Oh Merlin," Molly fretted.

With an unmistakable bellowing roar, dragon fire burst from the exhaust, white-hot and blue, and the motorbike shot forward like a bullet with a sound of wrenching metal. Harry saw the Death Eaters swerve out of sight to avoid the deadly trail of flame, and at the same time felt the sidecar sway ominously: Its metal connections to the bike had splintered with the force of acceleration.

"Oh no!" Lily groaned

"It's all righ', Harry!" bellowed Hagrid, now thrown flat onto the back by the surge of speed; nobody was steering now, and the sidecar was starting to twist violently in the bike's slipstream.

"I'm on it, Harry, don' worry!" Hagrid yelled, and from inside his jacket pocket he pulled his flowery pink umbrella.

"No!" the wizards yelled.

"Hagrid! No! Let me!"

"REPARO!"

There was a deafening bang and the sidecar broke away from the bike completely.

"No!" everyone now yelled this time, with the obvious exception of Harry.

Harry sped forward, propelled by the impetus of the bike's flight, then the sidecar began to lose height –

In desperation Harry pointed his wand at the sidecar and shouted, "Wingardium Leviosa!"

"Clever," Dora nodded.

The sidecar rose like a cork, unsteerable but at least still airborne. He had but a split second's relief, however, as more curses streaked past him: The three Death Eaters were closing in.

"I'm comin', Harry!" Hagrid yelled from out of the darkness, but Harry could feel the sidecar beginning to sink again: Crouching as low as he could, he pointed at the middle of the oncoming figures and yelled, "Impedimenta!"

"And now the sidecar'll fall," Lily moaned.

The jinx hit the middle Death Eater in the chest; For a moment the man was absurdly spread-eagled in midair as though he had hit an invisible barrier: One of his fellows almost collided with him –

Then the sidecar began to fall in earnest, and the remaining Death Eater shot a curse so close to Harry that he had to duck below the rim of the car, knocking out a tooth on the edge of his seat –

"I'm comin', Harry, I'm comin'!"

"Hurry up!" Petunia groaned

A huge hand seized the back of Harry's robes and hoisted him out of the plummeting sidecar; Harry pulled his rucksack with him as he dragged himself onto the motorbike's seat and found himself back-to-back with Hagrid.

"Easy for spells," Fleur said with an air of clutching at straws.

As they soared upward, away from the two remaining Death Eaters, Harry spat blood out of his mouth, pointed his wand at the falling sidecar, and yelled, "Confringo!"

He felt a dreadful, gut-wrenching pang for Hedwig as it exploded;

"Poor Hedwig," Remus said.

the Death Eater nearest it was blasted off his broom and fell from sight; his companion fell back and vanished.

"Harry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," moaned Hagrid, "I shouldn'ta tried ter repair it meself – yeh've got no room –"

"Just keep flying!" Bill snapped.

"It's not a problem, just keep flying!" Harry shouted back, as two more Death Eaters emerged out of the darkness, drawing closer.

As the curses came shooting across the intervening space again, Hagrid swerved and zigzagged: Harry knew that Hagrid did not dare use the dragon-fire button again, with Harry seated so insecurely. Harry sent Stunning Spell after Stunning Spell back at their pursuers, barely holding them off. He shot another blocking jinx at them: The closest Death Eater swerved to avoid it and his hood slipped, and by the red light of his next Stunning Spell, Harry saw the strangely blank face of Stanley Shunpike – Stan –
"Expelliarmus!" Harry yelled.

"Harry!" Lily and James yelled.

"That's him, it's him, it's the real one!"

"How did they know that?!" Teddy said, wide-eyed.

"Harry used Expelliarmus in the graveyard remember," Dora sighed.

The hooded Death Eater's shout reached Harry even above the thunder of the motorbike's engine: Next moment, both pursuers had fallen back and disappeared from view.

"Harry, what's happened?" bellowed Hagrid. "Where've they gone?"

"To get Voldemort," Ron groaned.

"I don't know!"

He gazed around at the apparently empty darkness. He clambered around on the seat to face forward and seized hold of the back of Hagrid's jacket.

"Hagrid, do the dragon-fire thing again, let's get out of here!"

"No!" Neville said. "Don't."

"Hold on tight, then, Harry!"

There was a deafening, screeching roar again and the white-blue fire shot from the exhaust: Harry felt himself slipping backwards off what little of the seat he had. Hagrid flung backward upon him, barely maintaining his grip on the handlebars –

"I think we've lost 'em Harry, I think we've done it!" yelled Hagrid.

"I doubt it," Luna said.

he looked left and right for pursuers

"We're nearly there, Harry, we've nearly made it!" shouted Hagrid.

Everyone sighed in relief.

Harry felt the bike drop a little, though the lights down on the ground still seemed remote as stars.

As a Death Eater appeared on either side of the bike, two Killing Curses missed Harry by millimeters, cast from behind –

"Oh god," Dudley groaned

And then Harry saw him. Voldemort was flying like smoke on the wind, without broomstick or thestral to hold him, his snake-like face gleaming out of the blackness, his white fingers raising his wand again –

Hagrid let out a bellow of fear and steered the motorbike into a vertical dive. Clinging on for dear life, Harry sent Stunning Spells flying at random into the whirling night. He saw a body fly past him and knew he had hit one of them, but then he heard a bang and saw sparks from the engine; the motorbike spiraled through the air, completely out of control –

Everyone tensed, their eyes wide many letting out a shriek of fear.

Green jets of light shot past them again.

"Green lights," Molly groaned.

Harry had no idea which way was up, which down: A hooded figure on a broomstick was feet from him, he saw it raise its arm –

'No!'

"NO!"

With a shout of fury Hagrid launched himself off the bike at the Death Eater;

"'E really cares about you," Fleur smiled

to his horror, Harry saw both Hagrid and the Death Eater, falling out of sight, their combined weight too much for the broomstick –

"Oh Merlin," James said.

Barely gripping the plummeting bike with his knees, Harry heard Voldemort scream, "Mine!"

It was over: He could not see or hear where Voldemort was; he glimpsed another Death Eater swooping out of the way and heard, "Avada –"

As the pain from Harry's scar forced his eyes shut, his wand acted of its own accord.

He felt it drag his hand around like some great magnet, saw a spurt of golden fire through his half-closed eyelids, heard a crack and a scream of fury. The remaining Death Eater yelled; Voldemort screamed, "NO!" Somehow, Harry found his nose an inch from the dragon-fire button. He punched it with his wand-free hand and the bike shot more flames into the air, hurtling straight toward the ground.

"Hagrid!" Harry called, holding on to the bike for dear life. "Hagrid – Accio Hagrid!"

"That'll just make you go to Hagrid," Bill groaned.

"That's what I wanted," Harry said.

The motorbike sped up, sucked towards the earth. Face level with the handlebars, Harry could see nothing but distant lights growing nearer and nearer: He was going to crash and there was nothing he could do about it. Behind him came another scream, "Your wand, Selwyn, give me your wand!"

He felt Voldemort before he saw him. Looking sideways, he stared into the red eyes and was sure they would be the last thing he ever saw: Voldemort preparing to curse him once more –

And then Voldemort vanished.

"You're in the enchantments," Dora grinned and everyone sighed with relief.

Harry looked down and saw Hagrid spread-eagled on the ground below him. He pulled hard at the handlebars to avoid hitting him, groped for the brake, but with an earsplitting, ground trembling crash, he smashed into a muddy pond.

"Lovely," Molly said, scrunching her nose up.

"Hagrid?"

Harry struggled to raise himself out of the debris of metal and leather that surrounded him; his hands sank into inches of muddy water as he tried to stand. He could not understand where Voldemort had gone and expected him to swoop out of the darkness at any moment. Something hot and wet was trickling down his chin and from his forehead.

"You're bleeding," Lily said.

"When's he not?" Ron asked.

He crawled out of the pond and stumbled toward the great dark mass on the ground that was Hagrid.

"Hagrid? Hagrid, talk to me –"

But the dark mass did not stir.

"Oh Merlin!" Sirius groaned.

"Who's there? Is it Potter? Are you Harry Potter?"

Harry did not recognize the man's voice. Then a woman shouted. "They've crashed. Ted! Crashed in the garden!"

"My parent's," Dora breathed.

"Yes!" Teddy said

Harry's head was swimming.

"Hagrid," he repeated stupidly, and his knees buckled.

The next thing he knew, he was lying on his back on what felt like cushions, with a burning sensation in his ribs and right arm. His missing tooth had been regrown. The scar on his forehead was still throbbing.

"Hagrid?"

"Is that all you can say?" Bill chuckled.

He opened his eyes and saw that he was lying on a sofa in an unfamiliar, lamp-lit sitting room. His rucksack lay on the floor a short distance away, wet and muddy. A fair-haired, big-bellied man was watching Harry anxiously.

Dora smiled sadly looking at her father.

"Hagrid's fine, son," said the man, "the wife's seeing to him now. How are you feeling? Anything else broken? I've fixed your ribs,

"You broke you ribs?" Lily said, worried.

"Apparently."

your tooth, and your arm.

"Stupid bike of yours, Padfoot," James muttered.

I'm Ted, by the way, Ted Tonks – Dora's father."

Teddy breathed out in awe, staring at his namesake.

"Skipping," Harry said.

Harry's feet slammed onto hard ground and he fell onto his hands and knees in the yard of the Burrow. He heard screams.

"That's us," Molly laughed.

Throwing aside the no longer glowing hairbrush, Harry stood up, swaying slightly, and saw Mrs. Weasley and Ginny running down the steps by the back door as Hagrid, who had also collapsed on landing, clambered laboriously to his feet.

"Harry? You are the real Harry? What happened? Where are the others?" cried Mrs. Weasley.

"Yes, dear, just scare them," Arthur chuckled.

"Sorry, Harry," Molly said.

"It's fine."

"What d'you mean? Isn't anyone else back?" Harry panted.

The answer was clearly etched in Mrs. Weasley's pale face.

"The Death Eaters were waiting for us," Harry told her, "We were surrounded the moment we took off – they knew it was tonight – I don't know what happened to anyone else, four of them chased us, it was all we could do to get away, and then Voldemort caught up with us –"

He could hear the self-justifying note in his voice, the plea for her to understand why he did not know what had happened to her sons, but –

"Thank goodness you're all right," she said, pulling him into a hug

Lily and James smiled softly.

"Haven't go' any brandy, have yeh, Molly?" asked Hagrid a little shakily, "Fer medicinal purposes?"

"Sure, Hagrid," Gideon said slowly.

"Medicinal purposes," Fabian winked.

She could have summoned it by magic, but as she hurried back toward the crooked house, Harry knew that she wanted to hide her face. He turned to Ginny and she answered his unspoken plea for information at once.

"I knew what you needed," Ginny smiled.

"Ron and Tonks should have been back first, but they missed their Portkey, it came back without them," she said, pointing at a rusty oil can lying on the ground nearby. "And that one," she pointed at an ancient sneaker, "should have been Dad and Fred's, they were supposed to be second. You and Hagrid were third and," she checked her watch, "if they made it, George and Lupin ought to be back in about a minute."

"Oh god," Petunia sighed.

Mrs. Weasley reappeared carrying a bottle of brandy, which she handed to Hagrid. He uncorked it and drank it straight down in one.

"Hagrid," Lily scolded.

"Mum!" shouted Ginny pointing to a spot several feet away.

A blue light had appeared in the darkness: It grew larger and brighter, and Lupin and George appeared, spinning and then falling.

"Dad," Teddy grinned.

Harry knew immediately that there was something wrong: Lupin was supporting George, who was unconscious and whose face was covered in blood.

"This where he lost his ear!" Sirius said, having talked to George the other night, as the smiles slid of everyone's faces.

Harry ran forward and seized George's legs. Together, he and Lupin carried George into the house and through the kitchen to the living room, where they laid him on the sofa. As the lamplight fell across George's head, Ginny gasped: One of George's ears was missing. The side of his head and neck were drenched in wet, shockingly scarlet blood.

"Oh my Merlin," Lily and James breathed.

Petunia and Dudley looked faintly sick and others disturbed.

No sooner had Mrs. Weasley bent over her son that Lupin grabbed Harry by the upper arm and dragged him, none too gently, back into the kitchen,

"What are you doing?" James snapped at his friend.

where Hagrid was still attempting to ease his bulk through the back door.

"Oi!" said Hagrid indignantly, "Le' go of him! Le' go of Harry!"

Lupin ignored him.

"What creature sat in the corner the first time that Harry Potter visited my office at Hogwarts?" he said, giving Harry a small shake. "Answer me!"

"Sheesh, Remus, calm down," Lily and Dora said together.

"A – a Grindylow in a tank, wasn't it?"

Lupin released Harry and fell back against a kitchen cupboard.

"Wha' was tha' about?" roared Hagrid.

"I'm sorry, Harry, but I had to check," said Lupin tersely

"Could have been gentler," Molly and Lily huffed

"We've been betrayed. Voldemort knew that you were being moved tonight and the only people who could have told him were directly involved in the plan. You might have been an impostor."

"But Harry didn't know about the plan until that night," Petunia said.

"I knew the date we were moving," Harry said, "and that's what the Death Eaters knew."

"So why aren' you checkin' me?" panted Hagrid, still struggling with the door.

"You're half giant," Luna said.

"You're half-giant," said Lupin, looking up at Hagrid. "The Polyjuice Potion is designed for human use only."

"None of the Order would have told Voldemort we were moving tonight," said Harry. "Voldemort only caught up with me toward the end, he didn't know which one I was in the beginning. If he'd been in on the plan he'd have known from the start I was the one with Hagrid."

"Voldemort caught up with you?" said Lupin sharply. "What happened? How did you escape?"

"That was not the way to tell me," Remus sighed.

"Yeah, sorry," Harry shrugged.

Harry explained how the Death Eaters pursuing them had seemed to recognize him as the true Harry, how they had abandoned the chase, how they must have summoned Voldemort, who had appeared just before he and Hagrid had reached the sanctuary of Tonks's parents.

"They recognized you? But how? What had you done?"

"I . . ." Harry tried to remember; the whole journey seemed like a blur of panic and confusion. "I saw Stan Shunpike . . . . You know, the bloke who was the conductor on the Knight Bus? And I tried to Disarm him instead of – well, he doesn't know what he's doing, does he? He must be Imperiused!"

Lupin looked aghast.

"Harry, the time for Disarming is past!

"That's a good point," Arthur nodded.

These people are trying to capture and kill you! At least Stun if you aren't prepared to kill!"

"We were hundreds of feet up! Stan's not himself, and if I Stunned him and he'd fallen, he'd have died the same as if I'd used Avada Kedavra!

"But so is that," Teddy chuckled.

"Yes," Remus agreed. "A very good one at that."

Harry smirked at him.

Expelliarmus saved me from Voldemort two years ago," Harry added defiantly. Lupin was reminding him of the sneering Hufflepuff Zacharias Smith, who had jeered at Harry for wanting to teach Dumbledore's Army how to Disarm.

"Come on, Harry," Ron laughed. "Remus wasn't that bad."

"Yes, Harry," said Lupin with painful restraint, "and a great number of Death Eaters witnessed that happening! Forgive me, but it was a very unusual move then, under the imminent threat of death. Repeating it tonight in front of Death Eaters who either witnessed or heard about the first occasion was close to suicidal!"

"That's true," Lily sighed.

"So you think I should have killed Stan Shunpike?" said Harry angrily.

"Of course, he doesn't," Sirius said. 'He's just wants and is trying to protect you."

"Of course not," said Lupin, "but the Death Eaters – frankly, most people! – would have expected you to attack back! Expelliarmus is a useful spell, Harry, but the Death Eaters seem to think it is your signature move, and I urge you not to let it become so!"

The trio and Ginny shared looks as they remembered the spell Harry had killed Voldemort with.

Lupin was making Harry feel idiotic, and yet there was still a grain of defiance inside him.

"I won't blast people out of my way just because they're there," said Harry,

"Good," Molly nodded

"That's Voldemort's job."

Everyone sighed at that – so many innocent people got killed during the wars.

Lupin's retort was lost: Finally succeeding in squeezing through the door, Hagrid staggered to a chair and sat down; it collapsed beneath him. Ignoring his mingled oaths and apologies, Harry addressed Lupin again.

"Will George be okay?"

All Lupin's frustration with Harry seemed to drain away at the question.

"I think so, although there's no chance of replacing his ear, not when it's been cursed off –"

"Cursed," Molly sighed.

There was a scuffling from outside. Lupin dived for the back door; Harry leapt over Hagrid's legs and sprinted into the yard.

Two figures had appeared in the yard, and as Harry ran toward them he realized they were Hermione, now returning to her normal appearance, and Kingsley, both clutching a bent coat hanger, Hermione flung herself into Harry's arms,

"You're hugging a lot, tonight," Gideon said.

"I was glad he was safe," Hermione said.

"And the first time?" Fabian asked.

"It was a friendly greeting," Harry said.

"Ah, did you have to put friendly in there?" Gideon smirked.

"Yes, we never said anything was going on," Fabian agreed.

Harry and Hermione let out a noise of frustrations.

"Something wrong?" the twins asked together.

but Kingsley showed no pleasure at the sight of any of them. Over Hermione's shoulder Harry saw him raise his wand and point it at Lupin's chest.

"The last words Albus Dumbledore spoke to the pair of us!"

"'Harry is the best hope we have. Trust him,'" said Lupin calmly.

"Stop reminding him," Teddy groaned.

Kingsley turned his wand on Harry, but Lupin said, "It's him, I've checked!"

"All right, all right!" said Kingsley, stowing his wand back beneath his cloak, "But somebody betrayed us! They knew, they knew it was tonight!"

"So it seems," replied Lupin, "but apparently they did not realize that there would be seven Harrys."

"Small comfort!" snarled Kingsley. "Who else is back?"

"Only Harry, Hagrid, George, and me."

Hermione stifled a little moan behind her hand.

"Ron," everyone except Ron and Hermione said knowingly.

"What happened to you?" Lupin asked Kingsley.

"Followed by five, injured two, might've killed one," Kingsley reeled off,

"He did," Hermione shivered.

"Thestral," Lily nodded.

"and we saw You-Know-Who as well, he joined the chase halfway through but vanished pretty quickly. Remus, he can –"

"Fly," supplied Harry. "I saw him too, he came after Hagrid and me."

"So that's why he left, to follow you!" said Kingsley, "I couldn't understand why he'd vanished. But what made him change targets?"

"Harry behaved a little too kindly to Stan Shunpike," said Lupin.

"Stan?" repeated Hermione. "But I thought he was in Azkaban?"

Kingsley let out a mirthless laugh.

"Hermione, there's obviously been a mass breakout which the Ministry has hushed up. Travers's hood fell off when I cursed him, he's supposed to be inside too. But what happened to you, Remus? Where's George?"

"He lost an ear," said Lupin.

"lost an - ?" repeated Hermione in a high voice.

"Snape's work," said Lupin.

"Severus/Snape!" Lily and Petunia screamed

"Snape?" shouted Harry. "You didn't say –"

"He lost his hood during the chase. Sectumsempra was always a speciality of Snape's. I wish I could say I'd paid him back in kind, but it was all I could do to keep George on the broom after he was injured, he was losing so much blood."

Silence fell between the four of them as they looked up at the sky. There was no sign of movement; the stars stared back, unblinking, indifferent, obscured by flying friends.

"Harry, give us a hand!" called Hagrid hoarsely from the door, in which he was stuck again.

The twins and marauders snickered.

Glad of something to do, Harry pulled him free, the headed through the empty kitchen and back into the sitting room, where Mrs. Weasley and Ginny were still tending to George. Mrs. Weasley had staunched his bleeding now, and by the lamplight Harry saw a clean gaping hole where George's ear had been.

"How is he?"

Mrs. Weasley looked around and said, "I can't make it grow back, not when it's been removed by Dark Magic. But it could've been so much worse . . . . He's alive."

"Yeah," said Harry. "Thank God."

"Did I hear someone else in the yard?" Ginny asked.

"Hermione and Kingsley," said Harry.

"Thank goodness," Ginny whispered. They looked at each other; Harry wanted to hug her, hold on to her; he did not even care much that Mrs. Weasley was there, but before he could act on the impulse, there was a great crash from the kitchen.

"Couldn't have waited a few minutes, could ya, Dad?" Ginny said. "I could've used a hug right then."

"Sorry," Arthur chuckled.

"I thought you broke up with her," Bill said.

"Friends hug," Harry said, waving a hand to Hermione.

"Plus, it's not as if either of us wanted to break up," Ginny sighed.

"I'll prove who I am, Kingsley, after I've seen my son, now back off if you know what's good for you!"

"Oh dear, Arthur snappish," Fabian yelled.

"Everyone run for the hills," Gideon shouted.

Molly hit them over the back of the head.

Harry had never heard Mr. Weasley shout like that before. He burst into the living room, his bald patch gleaming with sweat, his spectacles askew, Fred right behind him, both pale but uninjured.

"Arthur!" sobbed Mrs. Weasley. "Oh thank goodness!"

"How is he?"

Mr. Weasley dropped to his knees beside George. For the first time since Harry had known him, Fred seemed to be lost for words. He gaped over the back of the sofa at his twin's wound as if he could not believe what he was seeing.

Perhaps roused by the sound of Fred and their father's arrival, George stirred.

"How do you feel, Georgie?" whispered Mrs. Weasley.

George's fingers groped for the side of his head.

"Saintlike," he murmured.

"What?" Dudley said, looking worried.

"What's wrong with him?" croaked Fred, looking terrified. "Is his mind affected?"

"Saintlike," repeated George, opening his eyes and looking up at his brother. "You see. . . I'm holy. Holey, Fred, geddit?"

Everyone chuckled, although for some people it was rather weakly.

Mrs. Weasley sobbed harder than ever. Color flooded Fred's pale face.

"Pathetic," he told George. "Pathetic! With the whole wide world of ear-related humor before you, you go for holey?"

"That is bad," Fabian chuckled.

"It's not that bad," Gideon disagreed.

"Ah well," said George, grinning at his tear-soaked mother. "You'll be able to tell us apart now, anyway, Mum."

"I zink she'd prefer you to 'ave your ear," Fleur said.

He looked around.

"Hi, Harry – you are Harry, right?"

"Yeah, I am," said Harry, moving closer to the sofa.

"Well, at least we got you back okay," said George. "Why aren't Ron and Bill huddled round my sickbed?"

"They're not back yet, George," said Mrs. Weasley. George's grin faded. Harry glanced at Ginny and motioned to her to accompany him back outside. As they walked through the kitchen she said in a low voice.

"Ron and Tonks should be back by now. They didn't have a long journey; Auntie Muriel's not that far from here."

"Stupid women," Arthur said.

His son was late home from battle and she wanted to fuss.

Harry said nothing. As they walked down the back steps into the dark yard, Ginny took his hand.

The two mothers looked fondly at their children.

Kingsley was striding backward and forward, glancing up at the sky every time he turned. Hagrid, Hermione, and Lupin stood shoulder to shoulder, gazing upward in silence. None of them looked around when Harry and Ginny joined their silent vigil.

The minutes stretched into what might as well have been years. The slightest breath of wind made them all jump and turn toward the whispering bush or tree in the hope that one of the missing Order members might leap unscathed from its leaves –

And then a broom materialized directly above them and streaked toward the ground –

"It's them!" screamed Hermione.

Tonks landed in a long skid that sent earth and pebbles everywhere.

"Mum," Teddy breathed

"Remus!" Tonks cried as she staggered off the broom into Lupin's arms. Hisface was set and white: He seemed unable to speak,

Ron tripped dazedly toward Harry and Hermione.

"You're okay," he mumbled, before Hermione flew at him and hugged him tightly.

"Right person this time," Sirius teased before getting hit by Lily, Hermione, Ginny, Ron and Harry.

Remus, Teddy, Dora, Neville, Luna and James burst into laughter.

"I thought – I thought –"

"'M all right," said Ron, patting her on the back. "'M fine."

"Ron was great," said Tonks warmly, relinquishing her hold on Lupin. "Wonderful. Stunned one of the Death Eaters, straight to the head, and when you're aiming at a moving target from a flying broom –"

"Brilliant, son," Arthur smiled.

"You did?" said Hermione, gazing up at Ron with her arms still around his neck.

"Always the tone of surprise," he said a little grumpily, breaking free.

The trio grinned at each other: that was said a lot between them.

"Are we the last back?"

"No," said Ginny, "we're still waiting for Bill and Fleur and Mad-Eye and Mundungus. I'm going to tell Mum and Dad you're okay, Ron –"

She ran back inside.

"So what kept you? What happened?" Lupin sounded almost angry at Tonks.

Dora raised her eyebrows

"I was worried," Remus said, Dora kissed his cheek.

"Bellatrix," said Tonks. "She wants me quite as much as she wants Harry, Remus, She tried very hard to kill me. I just wish I'd got her, I owe Bellatrix.

"Please don't go picking battles with that nutter on my account," Sirius said.

But we definitely injured Rodolphus . . . .

"Good," Neville said.

Then we got to Ron's Auntie Muriel's and we missed our Portkey and she was fussing over us –"

A muscle was jumping in Lupin's jaw. He nodded, but seemed unable to say anything else.

"So what happened to you lot?" Tonks asked, turning to Harry, Hermione, and Kingsley.

They recounted the stories of their own journeys, but all the time the continued absence of Bill, Fleur, Mad-Eye, and Mundungus seemed to lie upon them like a frost, its icy bite harder and harder to ignore.

"I'm going to have to get back to Downing Street, I should have been there an hour ago," said Kingsley finally, after a last sweeping gaze at the sky. "Let me know when they're back,."

Lupin nodded. With a wave to the others, Kingsley walked away into the darkness toward the gate. Harry thought he heard the faintest pop as Kingsley Disapparated just beyond the Burrow's boundaries.

Mr. and Mrs. Weasley came racing down the back steps, Ginny behind them. Both parents hugged Ron before turning to Lupin and Tonks.

"Thank you," said Mrs. Weasley, "for our sons."

"Yes," Arthur said.

"Don't be silly," Dora and Remus said.

"Don't be silly, Molly," said Tonks at once.

"How's George?" asked Lupin.

"What's wrong with him?" piped up Ron.

"He's lost –"

But the end of Mrs. Weasley's sentence was drowned in a general outcry. A thestral

"You two!" Lily said, relieved.

had just soared into sight and landed a few feet from them. Bill and Fleur slid from its back, windswept but unhurt.

"Good," James breathed.

"Bill! Thank God, thank God –"

Mrs. Weasley ran forward, but the hug Bill bestowed upon her was perfunctory. Looking directly at his father, he said, "Mad-Eye's dead."

"No!' everyone who had been dead by this time yelled shocked, Petunia and Dudley also said it.

"Mad-Eye!" Lily said shaking her head in surprise.

Nobody spoke, nobody moved.

"We saw it," said Bill; Fleur nodded, tear tracks glittering on her cheeks in the light from the kitchen window. "It happened just after we broke out of the circle: Mad-Eye and Dung were close by us, they were heading north too. Voldemort – he can fly – went straight for them. Dung panicked, I heard him cry out, Mad-Eye tried to stop him, but he Disapparated.

"Traitorous scum," Neville growled.

Voldemort's curse hit Mad-Eye full in the face, he fell backward off his broom and – there was nothing we could do, nothing, we had half a dozen of them on our own tail –"

Bill's voice broke.

"Of course you couldn't have done anything," said Lupin.

They all stood looking at each other.

At last it seemed to dawn on everyone, though nobody said it, that there was no point of waiting in the yard anymore, and in silence they followed Mr. And Mrs. Weasley back into the Burrow, and into the living room, where Fred and George were laughing together.

"They don't know," Luna sighed.

"What's wrong?" said Fred, scanning their faces as they entered, "What's happened? Who's -?"

"Mad-Eye," said Mr. Weasley, "Dead."

The twins' grins turned to grimaces of shock. Nobody seemed to know what to do. Tonks was crying silently into a handkerchief: She had been close to Mad-Eye.

Hagrid, who had sat down on the floor in the corner where he had most space, was dabbing at his eyes with his tablecloth-sized handkerchief.

Bill walked over to the sideboard and pulled out a bottle of Firewhisky and some glasses.

"Hero shots," Fabian nodded, they'd all, except the Muggles and Teddy, drunk them.

"Here," he said, and with a wave of his wand, and sent twelve full glasses soaring through the room to each of them, holding the thirteenth aloft. "Mad-Eye."

"Mad-Eye," they all said, and drank.

"Mad-Eye," echoed Hagrid, a little late, with a hiccup.

"Hagrid," James said, fondly as they landed back in the family room.

"I can't believe it, Mad-Eye," Gideon said. "I mean …"

"He always seemed unbeatable," Fabian nodded.

Dora nodded, her eyes filled with tears, although she was cheered up by the idea of he might come back, since he was killed by Voldemort.

"Let's continue," Neville said and Harry nodded.

They entered the pensieve as Harry, Ron and Hermione were leading Scrimgeour into the Burrow and followed quickly behind them.

Scrimgeour did not speak as they all passed through the messed kitchen and into the Burrow's sitting room. Although the garden had been full of soft golden evening light, it was already dark in here; Harry flicked his wand at the oil lamps as he entered and they illuminated the shabby but cozy room. Scrimgeour sat himself in the sagging armchair that Mr. Weasley normally occupied, leaving Harry, Ron, and Hermione to squeeze side by side onto the sofa. Once they had done so, Scrimgeour spoke.

"I have some questions for the three of you, and I think it will be best if we do it individually. If you two" - he pointed at Harry and Hermione - "can wait upstairs, I will start with Ronald."

"If he's thinking he can split you three up, he's mad," Neville chuckled.

"We're not going anywhere," said Harry, while Hermione nodded vigorously. "You can speak to us together, or not at all."

Everyone nodded firmly.

Scrimgeour gave Harry a cold, appraising look. Harry had the impression that the Minister was wondering whether it was worthwhile opening hostilities this early.

"Very well then, together," he said, shrugging. He cleared his throat. "I am here, as I'm sure you know, because of Albus Dumbledore's will."

Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked at one another.

"Or not," James laughed.

"A surprise, apparently! You were not aware then that Dumbledore had left you anything?"

"A-all of us?" said Ron, "Me and Hermione too?"

"Don't say that," Molly sighed.

"Yes, all of -"

But Harry interrupted.

"Dumbledore died over a month ago. Why has it taken this long to give us what he left us?"

"They wanted to examine it," Lily said.

"Isn't it obvious?" said Hermione, before Scrimgeour could answer. "They wanted to examine whatever he's left us. You had no right to do that!" she said, and her voice trembled slightly.

"I had every right," said Scrimgeour dismissively. "The Decree for Justifiable Confiscation gives the Ministry the power the confiscate the contents of a will-"

"That law was created to stop wizards passing on Dark artifacts," said Hermione, "and the Ministry is supposed to have powerful evidence that the deceased's possessions are illegal before seizing them! Are you telling me that you thought Dumbledore was trying to pass us something cursed?"

"Are you planning to follow a career in Magical Law, Miss Granger?" asked Scrimgeour.

"No, I'm not," retorted Hermione. "I'm hoping to do some good in the world!"

"Hermione, you're Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement," Harry pointed out.

"Yes and don't you forget it," Hermione smiled. "Basically, you work for me!"

Ron laughed. Scrimgeour's eyes flickered toward him and away again as Harry spoke.

"So why have you decided to let us have our things now? Can't think of a pretext to keep them?"

"No, it'll be because thirty-one days are up," said Hermione at once. "They can't keep the objects longer than that unless they can prove they're dangerous. Right?"

"Would you say you were close to Dumbledore, Ronald?" asked Scrimgeour, ignoring Hermione. Ron looked startled.

"Me? Not - not really... It was always Harry who..."

"Ron," Remus groaned.

Ron looked around at Harry and Hermione, to see Hermione giving him a stop-talking-now! sort of look, but the damage was done; Scrimgeour looked as though he had heard exactly what he had expected, and wanted, to hear. He swooped like a bird of prey upon Ron's answer.

"If you were not very close to Dumbledore, how do you account for the fact that he remembered you in his will? He made exceptionally few personal bequests. The vast majority of his possessions - his private library, his magical instruments, and other personal effects - were left to Hogwarts. Why do you think you were singled out?"

"I...dunno," said Ron. "I...when I say we weren't close...I mean, I think he liked me..."

"You're being modest, Ron," said Hermione. "Dumbledore was very fond of you."

"Thank Merlin Hermione's there," Bill teased.

However, Scrimgeour did not seem to be listening. He put his hand inside his cloak and drew out a drawstring pouch much larger than the one Hagrid had given Harry. From it, he removed a scroll of parchment which he unrolled and read aloud.

"'The Last Will and Testament of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore'... Yes, here we are... 'To Ronald Bilius Weasley, I leave my Deluminator, in the hope that he will remember me when he uses it.'"

Scrimgeour took from the bag an object that Harry had seen before: It looked something like a silver cigarette lighter, but it had, he knew, the power to suck all light from a place, and restore it, with a simple click. Scrimgeour leaned forward and passed the Deluminator to Ron, who took it and turned it over in the fingers looking stunned.

"Cool," the twins said.

"That is a valuable object," said Scrimgeour, watching Ron. "It may even be unique. Certainly it is of Dumbledore's own design. Why would he have left you and item so rare?"

Ron shook his head, looking bewildered.

"Dumbledore must have taught thousands of students," Scrimgeour persevered. "Yet the only ones he remembered in his will are you three. Why is that? To what use did he think you would put to the Deluminator, Mr. Weasley?"

"Put out lights, I s'pose," mumbled Ron. "What else could I do with it?"

Everyone chuckled but Ron flinched slightly at the slight mention of leaving Harry and Hermione.

Evidently Scrimgeour had no suggestions. After squinting at Ron for a moment or two, he turned back to Dumbledore's will.

"'To Miss Hermione Jean Granger, I leave my copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, in the hope that she will find it entertaining and instructive.'"

"What?" Petunia asked.

"Wizarding fairy tales," Hermione smiled

Scrimgeour now pulled out of the bag a small book that looked as ancient as the copy of Secrets of the Darkest Art upstairs. Its binding was stained and peeling in places. Hermione took it from Scrimgeour without a word. She held the book in her lap and gazed at it. Harry saw that the title was in runes; he had never learned to read them. As he looked, a tear splashed onto the embossed symbols.

"Oh, Hermione," Molly sighed.

"Why do you think Dumbledore left you that book, Miss Granger?" asked Scrimgeour.

"He... he knew I liked books," said Hermione in a thick voice, mopping her eyes with her sleeve.

"But why that particular book?"

"I don't know. He must have thought I'd enjoy it."

"Did you ever discuss codes, or any means of passing secret messages, with Dumbledore?"

"No, I didn't," said Hermione, still wiping her eyes on her sleeve. "And if the Ministry hasn't found any hidden codes in this book in thirty-one days, I doubt that I will."

"If anyone can, it would be you, Hermione," Neville chuckled.

She suppressed a sob. They were wedged together so tightly that Ron had difficulty extracting his arm to put it around Hermione's shoulders. Scrimgeour turned back to the will.

"'To Harry James Potter,'" he read, and Harry's insides contracted with a sudden excitement, "'I leave the Snitch he caught in his first Quidditch match at Hogwarts, as a reminder of the rewards of perseverance and skill.'"

"A snitch?" Dora asked, skeptically.

As Scrimgeour pulled out the tiny, walnut-sized golden ball, its silver wings fluttered rather feebly, and Harry could not help feeling a definite sense of anticlimax.

"Why did Dumbledore leave you this Snitch?" asked Scrimgeour.

"No idea," said Harry. "For the reasons you just read out, I suppose... to remind me what you can get if you... persevere and whatever it was."

"Skill," Ginny laughed.

"You think this a mere symbolic keepsake, then?"

"I suppose so," said Harry. "What else could it be?"

"I'm asking the questions," said Scrimgeour, shifting his chair a little closer to the sofa. Dusk was really falling outside now; the marquee beyond the windows towered ghostly white over the hedge.

"I notice that your birthday cake is in the shape of a Snitch," Scrimgeour said to Harry. "Why is that?"

"Because Harry is a brilliant seeker," Ginny and Teddy grinned.

Hermione laughed derisively.

"Oh, it can't be a reference to the fact Harry's a great Seeker, that's way too obvious," she said. "There must be a secret message from Dumbledore hidden in the icing!"

The twins chuckled.

"I don't think there's anything hidden in the icing," said Scrimgeour, "but a Snitch would be a very good hiding place for a small object. You know why, I'm sure?"

Harry shrugged, Hermione, however, answered: Harry thought that answering questions correctly was such a deeply ingrained habit she could not suppress the urge.

"Git," Hermione said, hitting him.

"Because Snitches have flesh memories," she said.

"What?" said Harry and Ron together; both considered Hermione's Quidditch knowledge negligible.

"Prats," Hermione said this time, hitting them both.

"Correct," said Scrimgeour. "A Snitch is not touched by bare skin before it is released, not even by the maker, who wears gloves. It carries an enchantment by which it can identify the first human to lay hands upon it, in case of a disputed capture. This Snitch" - he held up the tiny golden ball - "will remember your touch, Potter.

"Cool," James said.

It occurs to me that Dumbledore, who had prodigious magical skill, whatever his other faults, might have enchanted this Snitch so that it will open only for you."

"But if that's so," Lily said. "You don't want to take it in front of the minister."

"You don't say anything," said Scrimgeour. "Perhaps you already know what the Snitch contains?"

"No," said Harry.

"Take it," said Scrimgeour quietly.

Harry met the Minister's yellow eyes and knew he had no option but to obey. He held out his hand, and Scrimgeour leaned forward again and place the Snitch, slowly and deliberately, into Harry's palm.

Nothing happened. As Harry's fingers closed around the Snitch, its tired wings fluttered and were still. Scrimgeour, Ron, and Hermione continued to gaze avidly at the now partially concealed ball, as if still hoping it might transform in some way.

"That was dramatic," said Harry coolly. Both Ron and Hermione laughed.

As did everyone else in the room.

"How come you don't show this side more often?" Teddy laughed – he had seen his godfather's dry wit a lot these last few days in the memory's but he didn't show it very often.

"It's for people I dislike," Harry chuckled.

"That's all, then, is it?" asked Hermione, making to raise herself off the sofa.

"Not quite," said Scrimgeour, who looked bad tempered now.

"It's not going to plan," Bill laughed.

"Dumbledore left you a second bequest, Potter."

"What is it?" asked Harry, excitement rekindling.

Scrimgeour did not bother to read from the will this time.

"The sword of Godric Gryffindor," he said.

"Wicked!" the twins yelled

Hermione and Ron both stiffened. Harry looked around for a sign of the ruby-encrusted hilt, but Scrimgeour did not pull the sword from the leather pouch.

"So where is it?" Harry asked suspiciously.

"Unfortunately," said Scrimgeour, "that sword was not Dumbledore's to give away. The sword of Godric Gryffindor is an important historical artifact, and as such, belongs-"

"It belongs to Harry!" said Hermione hotly. "It chose him, he was the one who found it, it came to him out of the Sorting Hat-"

Harry caught Neville's eye for a minute but then they both looked away quickly.

"According to reliable historical sources, the sword may present itself to any worthy Gryffindor," said Scrimgeour.

"That does not make it the exclusive property of Mr. Potter, whatever Dumbledore may have decided." Scrimgeour scratched his badly shaven cheek, scrutinizing Harry. "Why do you think-?"

"-Dumbledore wanted to give me the sword?" said Harry, struggling to keep his temper. "Maybe he thought it would look nice on my wall."

Everyone chuckled again.

"This is not a joke, Potter!" growled Scrimgeour. "Was it because Dumbledore believed that only the sword of Godric Gryffindor could defeat the Heir of Slytherin? Did he wish to give you that sword, Potter, because he believed, as do many, that you are the one destined to destroy He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?"

"Interesting theory," said Harry. "Has anyone ever tried sticking a sword in Voldemort?

"They'd be dead before they raised the sword," Luna said. "So I wouldn't have suggested it."

Maybe the Ministry should put some people onto that, instead of wasting their time stripping down Deluminators or covering up breakouts from Azkaban. So this is what you've been doing, Minister, shut up in your office, trying to break open a Snitch? People are dying – I was nearly one of them – Voldemort chased me across three countries, he killed Mad-Eye Moody, but there's no word about any of that from the Ministry, has there? And you still expect us to cooperate with you!"

"Yep," Dudley said.

"You go too far!" shouted Scrimgeour, standing up: Harry jumped to his feet too. Scrimgeour limped toward Harry and jabbed him hard in the chest with the point of his wand; It singed a hole in Harry's T-shirt like a lit cigarette.

"Oi!" everyone said.

"Oi!" said Ron, jumping up and raising his own wand, but Harry said,

"No! D'you want to give him an excuse to arrest us?"

"Urg, that's why he came today," James groaned.

"Remembered you're not at school, have you?" said Scrimgeour breathing hard into Harry's face. "Remembered that I am not Dumbledore, who forgave your insolence and insubordination? You may wear that scar like a crown, Potter, but it is not up to a seventeen-year-old boy to tell me how to do my job! It's time you learned some respect!"

"It's time you earned it," Lily said, angrily.

"It's time you earned it." said Harry.

Everyone chuckled as Harry and Lily grinned at each other.

The floor trembled; there was a sound of running footsteps, then the door to the sitting room burst open and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley ran in.

"Thank god," Petunia said.

"We - we thought we heard -" began Mr. Weasley, looking thoroughly alarmed at the sight of Harry and the Minister virtually nose to nose.

"—raised voices," panted Mrs. Weasley.

Scrimgeour took a couple of steps back from Harry, glancing at the hole he had made in Harry's T-shirt. He seemed to regret his loss of temper.

"It – it was nothing," he growled. "I … regret your attitude," he said,

"And I yours," Bill said

looking Harry full in the face once more. "You seem to think that the Ministry does not desire what you – what Dumbledore – desired.

"Because they don't," Dora said.

We ought to work together."

"I don't like your methods, Minister," said Harry. "Remember?"

For the second time, he raised his right fist and displayed to Scrimgeour the scar that still showed white on the back of it, spelling I must not tell lies .

Scrimgeour's expression hardened. He turned away without another word and limped from the room. Mrs. Weasley hurried after him; Harry heard her stop at the back door. After a minute or so she called, "He's gone!"

"Yes!" everyone cheered causing Harry, Ron and Hermione to laugh.

"Skipping," Harry chuckled.

"Muffiato," Hermione whispered, waving her wand in the direction of the stairs.

"Thought you didn't approve of that spell?" said Ron.

"What does it do?" Dudley asked

"Make's it so people can't hear," Ron said.

"And why didn't you approve of it?" Petunia asked Hermione.

"I didn't like the source."

"Times change," said Hermione. "Now, show us that Deluminator."

Ron obliged at once. Holding it up in front of him, he clicked it. The solitary lamp they had lit went out at once.

"The thing is," whispered Hermione through the dark, "we could have achieved that with Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder."

"True," Arthur nodded.

There was a small click, and the ball of light from the lamp flew back to the ceiling and illuminated them all once more.

"Still, it's cool," said Ron, a little defensively.

"Damn straight," Sirius nodded.

"And from what they said, Dumbledore invented it himself!"

"That makes it even cooler," James said.

"I know but, surely he wouldn't have singled you out in his will just to help us turn out the lights!"

"D'you think he knew the Ministry would confiscate his will and examine everything he'd left us?" asked Harry.

"Yes," Lily said, frowning.

"Definitely," said Hermione. "He couldn't tell us in the will why he was leaving us these things, but that will doesn't explain…"

"… why he couldn't have given us a hint when he was alive?" asked Ron.

"Well, exactly," said Hermione, now flicking through The Tales of Beedle the Bard. "If these things are important enough to pass on right under the nose of the Ministry, you'd think he'd have left us know why… unless he thought it was obvious?"

"I doubt it," Petunia said.

"Thought wrong, then, didn't he?" said Ron. "I always said he was mental. Brilliant and everything, but cracked.

Everyone grinned and nodded their agreement.

Leaving Harry an old Snitch – what the hell was that about?"

"I've no idea," said Hermione. "When Scrimgeour made you take it, Harry, I was so sure that something was going to happen!"

"Me too," most muttered.

"Yeah, well," said Harry, his pulse quickened as he raised the Snitch in his fingers. "I wasn't going to try too hard in front of Scrimgeour was I?"

"What?" Remus asked. "You know how to open it?"

"What do you mean?" asked Hermione.

"The Snitch I caught in my first ever Quidditch match?" said Harry. "Don't you remember?"

"The one you almost swallowed," Neville laughed.

Hermione looked simply bemused. Ron, however, gasped, pointing frantically from Harry to the Snitch and back again until he found his voice.

"That was the one you nearly swallowed!"

"Wicked!" the twins said.

"Exactly," said Harry, and with his heart beating fast, he pressed his mouth to the Snitch.

It did not open. He lowered the golden sphere, but then Hermione cried out.

"Writing! There's writing on it, quick, look!" He nearly dropped the Snitch in surprise and excitement. Hermione was quite right. Engraved upon the smooth golden surface, where seconds before there had been nothing, were five words written in the thin, slanted handwriting that Harry recognized as Dumbledore's

"He wrote on it?" Molly asked, shocked.

I open at the close.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Dora asked, annoyed they were getting so many questions.

"Death?" Luna suggested but no one looked as if they agreed with her.

Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny were trying to keep straight faces at how perceptive Luna was.

He had barely read them when the words vanished again.

"I open at the close…." What's that supposed to mean?"

Hermione and Ron shook their heads, looking blank.

"I open at the close… at the close… I open at the close…"

But no matter how often they repeated the words, with many different inflections, they were unable to wring any more meaning from them.

"And the sword," said Ron finally, when they had at last abandoned their attempts to divine meaning in the Snitch's inscription.

"Why did he want Harry to have the sword?"

Everyone but Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny shock their heads looking confused.

"And why couldn't he just have told me?" Harry said quietly. "I was there, it was right there on the wall of his office during all our talks last year! If he wanted me to have it, why didn't he just give it to me then?"

"And as for this book." Said Hermione, "The Tales of Beedle the Bard … I've never even heard of them!"

"You haven't!" Bill exclaimed.

"She's Muggle-born, Bill," Fleur smiled as her husband looked sheepish

"You've never heard of The Tales of Beedle the Bard?" said Ron incredulously. "You're kidding, right?"

"No, I'm not," said Hermione in surprise. "Do you know them then?"

"Well, of course I do!"

Harry looked up, diverted. The circumstance of Ron having read a book that Hermione had not was unprecedented.

"So true," Teddy chuckled as Harry dodged a punch from Ron but whacked round the head by Hermione.

Ron, however, looked bemused by their surprise.

"Oh come on! All the old kids' stories are supposed to be Beedle's aren't they? 'The Fountain of Fair Fortune' … 'The Wizard and the Hopping Pot'… 'Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump'…"

"What was that?" Petunia laughed as Dudley chuckled.

"Excuse me?" said Hermione giggling. "What was the last one?"

"Come off it!" said Ron, looking in disbelief from Harry to Hermione. "You must've heard of Babbitty Rabbitty –"

"Ron, you know full well Harry and I were brought up by Muggles!" said Hermione.

Lily and James looked sadden at the reminder they hadn't been there to raise their own son.

"We didn't hear stories like that when we were little, we heard 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves' and 'Cinderella' –"

"What's that, an illness?" asked Ron.

All the muggle-borns and half-blood's laughed.

'It's a story,' Dora giggled.

"So these are children's stories?" asked Hermione, bending against over the runes.

"Yeah." Said Ron uncertainly. "I mean, just what you hear, you know, that all these old stories came from Beedle. I dunno what they're like in the original versions."

"But I wonder why Dumbledore thought I should read them?"

Something cracked downstairs.

"Probably just Charlie, now Mum's asleep, sneaking off to regrow his hair," said Ron nervously.

The twins and Bill snickered knowing that was probably true as they appeared in the family room.

"What's next?" Fleur asked, smiling slightly.

"Something you'll love to watch from someone else's view," Harry chuckled.

"Our wedding," Fleur said excitedly to Bill who grinned.

Three o'clock on the following afternoon found Harry, Ron, Fred and George standing outside the great white marquee in the orchard, awaiting the arrival of the wedding guests.

All four of them were clutching seating plans, so that they could help show people to the right seats. A host of white-robed waiters had arrived an hour earlier, along with a golden jacketed band, and all of these wizards were currently sitting a short distance away under a tree. Harry could see a blue haze of pipe smoke issuing from the spot. Behind Harry, the entrance to the marquee revealed rows and rows of fragile golden chairs set on either side of a long purple carpet. The supporting poles were entwined with white and gold flowers. Fred and George had fastened an enormous bunch of golden balloons over the exact point where Bill and Fleur would shortly become husband and wife. Outside, butterflies and bees were hovering lazily over the grass and hedgerow.

"That looks beautiful," Lily said, causing Fleur to beam at her.

"Eet was," she said.

"When I get married," said Fred, tugging at the collar of his own robes, "I won't be bothering with any of this nonsense. You can all wear what you like, and I'll put a full Body Bird Curse on Mum until it's all over."

Molly smiled slightly as she remembered Fred now had a chance to marry which she had thought he'd lost.

"Not so fast, Your Holeyness," said Fred,

The twins chuckled.

and darting past the gaggle of middle-aged witches heading for the procession, he said, "Here – permetiez moi to assister vous," to a pair of pretty French girls, who giggled and allowed him to escort them inside.

"Zat was terrible," Fleur grinned.

George was left to deal with the middle-aged witches and Ron took charge of Mr. Weasley's old Ministry-colleague Perkins, while a rather deaf old couple fell to Harry's lot.

"Fleur's grandparents," Bill chuckled.

"Wotcher," said a familiar voice

"Dora/Mum," everyone chuckled.

as he came out of the marquee again and found Tonks and Lupin at the front of the queue. She had turned blonde for the occasion. "Arthur told us you were the one with the curly hair. Sorry about last night," she added in a whisper as Harry led them up the aisle. "The Ministry's being very anti-werewolf at the moment

Some people growled – stupid ministry.

and we thought our presence might not do you any favors."

"It's fine, I understand," said Harry, speaking more to Lupin than Tonks. Lupin gave him a swift smile, but as they turned away Harry saw Lupin's face fall again into lines of misery.

"What's wrong with you?" James asked.

"Nothing," Remus said, looking at Harry.

He smiled softly and shook his head causing Remus to deflate with relief.

Hagrid was causing a certain amount of disruption. Having misunderstood Fred's directions as he had sat himself, not upon the magically enlarged and reinforced seat set aside for him in the back row, but on five sets that now resembled a large pile of golden matchsticks.

"Oh, Hagrid," Neville chuckled.

While Mr. Weasley repaired the damage and Hagrid shouted apologies to anybody who would listen, Harry hurried back to the entrance to find Ron face-to-face with a most eccentric-looking wizard. Slightly cross-eyed, with shoulder-length white hair the texture of candyfloss, he wore a cap whose tassel dangled in front of his nose and robes of an eye-watering shade of egg-yolk yellow. An odd symbol, rather like a triangular eye, glistened from a golden chain around his neck.

"My dad," Luna beamed.

"Xenophilius Lovegood," he said, extending a hand to Harry, "my daughter and I live just over the hill, so kind of the good Weasleys to invite us. But I think you know my Luna?" he added to Ron.

"Oh yes, we know Luna," Ron and Harry beamed over at the women in questioned.

"Yes," said Ron. "Isn't she with you?"

"She lingered in that charming little garden to say hello to the gnomes, such a glorious infestation! How few wizards realize just how much we can learn from the wise little gnomes – or, to give them their correct name, the Gernumbli gardensi."

"Ours do know a lot of excellent swear words," said Ron, "but I think Fred and George taught them those."

"Wait till I see them," Molly said.

"Actually that was me, dear," Arthur said sheepishly causing everyone to chuckle and even Molly to have an amused smile on her face.

He led a party of warlocks into the marquee as Luna rushed up.

"Hello, Harry!" she said.

"How did you know that?" Dudley asked.

"Harry's face has very little to do with features," Luna said.

Everyone shared confused looks at that. Ron, Harry, Neville and Ginny also chuckled fondly.

"Er –my name's Barry," said Harry, flummoxed.

"Oh, have you changed that too?" she asked brightly.

"How did you know -?"

"Oh, just your expression," she said.

Like her father, Luna was wearing bright yellow robes, which she had accessorized with a large sunflower in her hair.

"How lovely," Petunia said after blinking a bit,

Xenophilius, who was deep in conversation with an acquaintance, had missed the exchange between Luna and Harry.

Biding the wizard farewell, he turned to his daughter, who held up her finger and said, "Daddy, look – one of the gnomes actually bit me."

"How wonderful!

"Sorry?" Bill asked.

Gnome saliva is enormously beneficial." Said Mr. Lovegood, seizing Luna's outstretched fingers and examining the bleeding puncture marks.

"Luna, my love, if you should feel any burgeoning talent today – perhaps an unexpected urge to sing opera or to declaims in Mermish

"Mermish?" Dudley asked.

"Mermaid language," Hermione said offhand.

do not repress it! You may have been gifted by the Gernumblies!"

Ron, passing them in the opposite direction let out a loud snort.

"Ron can laugh," said Luna serenely as Harry led her and Xenophilius toward their seats, "but my father has done a lot of research on Gernumbli magic."

"Really?" said Harry. "Are you sure you don't want to put anything on that bite, though?"

"I wish you had let me check it, dear," Molly sighed.

"It was fine, Mrs Weasley," Luna smiled

"Oh, it's fine," said Luna, sucking her finger in a dreamy fashion and looking Harry up and down. "You look smart. I told Daddy most people would probably wear dress robes, but he believes you ought to wear sun colors to a wedding, for luck, you know."

"Well, zen zank you," Fleur said.

As she drifted off after her father, Ron reappeared with an elderly witch clutching his arm. Her beaky nose, red-rimmed eyes, and leathery pink hat gave her the look of a bad-tempered flamingo.

"Muriel," the Weasley's and the two Potters who had met her groaned.

"…and your hair's much too long, Ronald, for a moment I thought you were Ginevra.

"It's not that bad!" Ron huffed.

"Does she have to call us by our full names?" Ginny groaned.

Merlin's beard, what is Xenophilius Lovegood wearing? He looks like an omelet.

Everyone laughed, even Luna.

And who are you?" she barked at Harry.

"How rude," Petunia said.

"Oh yeah, Auntie Muriel, this is our cousin Barny."

"Another Weasley? You breed like gnomes.

The twins sniggered.

Isn't Harry Potter here? I was hoping to meet him. I thought he was a friend of yours, Ronald, or have you merely been boasting?"

"No – he couldn't come –"

"Hmm. Made an excuse, did he? Not as gormless as he looks in press photographs, then. I've just been instructing the bride on how best to wear my tiara," she shouted at Harry. "Goblin-made, you know, and been in my family for centuries. She's a good-looking girl, but still – French.

Fleur huffed.

"There's nothing wrong with that!" Bill snapped.

Well, well, find me a good seat, Ronald, I am a hundred and seven and I ought not to be on my feet too long."

"Dumbledore was older and he never complained," Ron grumbled.

Ron gave Harry a meaningful look as he passed and did not reappear for some time. When next they met at the entrance, Harry had shown a dozen more people to their places. The Marquee was nearly full now and for the first time there was no queue outside.

"Nightmare, Muriel is," said Ron, mopping his forehead on his sleeve. "She used to come for Christmas every year, then, thank God, she took offense because Fred and George set off a Dungbomb under her chair at diner.

"Brilliant!" the twins and Marauders cheered.

Dad always says she'll have written them out of her will – like they care, they're going to end up richer than anyone in the family, rate they're going…

"Is George?" James asked.

"Ginny as you should know," Molly said. "Not that it matters."

"Just wondering," James said defensively.

Wow," he added, blinking rather rapidly as Hermione came hurrying toward them. "You look great!"

"Always the tone of surprise," said Hermione, though she smiled.

She was wearing a floaty, lilac-colored dress with matching high heels; her hair was sleek and shiny.

"You do look magnifique (gorgeous)," Fleur said.

"Your Great-Aunt Muriel doesn't agree, I just met her upstairs while she was giving Fleur the tiara. She said, 'Oh dear, is this the Muggle-born?' and then, 'Bad posture and skinny ankles.'"

"Don't take it personally, she's rude to everyone," said Ron.

"Really?" Dudley chuckled.

"It's annoying," Ginny said. "I chucked her out of our house once after she insulted Teddy."

"Nice," the twins yelled while others chuckled.

"Yes, she came to talk to me about that," Molly smiled. "I spent the whole conversation trying not to laugh or look too proud."

Ginny giggled.

"Talking about Muriel?" inquired George, reemerging from the marquee with Fred.

"Who else?" Dora laughed.

"Yeah, she's just told me my ears are lopsided.

"Stupid women," Arthur muttered.

Old bat. I wish old Uncle Bilius was still with us, though; he was a right laugh at weddings."

"Wasn't he the one who saw a Grim and died twenty-four hours later?" asked Hermione.

"Well, yeah, he went a bit odd toward the end," conceded George.

"But before he went loopy he was the life and soul of the party," said Fred. "He used to down an entire bottle of firewhisky, then run onto the dance floor, hoist up his robes, and start pulling bunches of flowers out of his –"

"Lovely," Lily said sarcastically as the boys roared with laugher.

"Yes, he sounds a real charmer," said Hermione, while Harry roared with laughter.

"Never married, for some reason," said Ron.

The women shook their heads, smiling.

"You amaze me," said Hermione.

They were all laughing so much that none of them noticed the latecomer, a dark-haired young man with a large, curved nose and thick black eyebrows, until he held out his invitation to Ron and said, with his eyes on Hermione, "You look vunderful."

"Krum," Ginny laughed.

"Viktor!" she shrieked, and dropped her small beaded bag, which made a loud thump quite disproportionate to its size.

Everyone but the trio raised their eyebrows even Ginny but they said nothing.

As she scrambled, blushing, to pick it up, she said "I didn't know you were – goodness – it's lovely to see – how are you?"

Ron's ears had turned bright red again. After glancing at Krum's invitation as if he did not believe a word of it, he said, much too loudly, "how come you're here?"

"I invited 'im," Fleur said.

"Fleur invited me," said Krum, eyebrows raised.

Harry, who had no grudge against Krum, shook hands; then feeling that it would be prudent to remove Krum from Ron's vicinity, offered to show him his seat.

"Yes, get him away from Ron and Hermione," Bill laughed.

"Your friend is not pleased to see me," said Krum, as they entered the now packed marquee. "Or is he a relative?" he added with a glance at Harry's red curly hair.

"Cousin." Harry muttered, but Krum was not really listening. His appearance was causing a stir, particularly amongst the veela cousins: he was, after all, a famous Quidditch player.

While people were still craning their necks to get a good look at him, Ron, Hermione, Fred, and George came hurrying down the aisle.

"Time to sit down," Fred told Harry, "or we're going to get run over by the bride."

"Yes, you would," Fleur nodded, nothing would have stopped her getting to Bill.

Harry, Ron and Hermione took their seats in the second row behind Fred and George. Hermione looked rather pink and Ron's ears were still scarlet. "Why were you blushing?" Ron couldn't stop himself from asking.

After a few moments he muttered to Harry, "Did you see he's grown a stupid little beard?"

Bill and Harry snorted

Harry gave a noncommittal grunt.

A sense of jittery anticipation had filled the warm tent, the general murmuring broken by occasional spurts of excited laughter. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley strolled up the aisle, smiling and waving at relatives; Mrs. Weasley was wearing a brand-new set of amethyst colored robes with a matching hat.

A moment later Bill and Charlie stood up at the front of the marquee, both wearing dress robes, with larger white roses in their buttonholes; Fred wolf-whistled

"Should have none it was one of them," Bill muttered to Fleur

and there was an outbreak of giggling from the veela cousins.

Then the crowd fell silent as music swelled from what seemed to be the golden balloons.

"Ooooh!" said Hermione, swiveling around in her seat to look at the entrance.

A great collective sigh issued from the assembled witches and wizards as Monsieur Delacour and Fleur came walking up the aisle, Fleur gliding, Monsieur Delacour bouncing and beaming. Fleur was wearing a very simple white dress and seemed to be emitting a strong, silvery glow. While her radiance usually dimmed everyone else by comparison, today it beautified everybody it fell upon. Ginny and Gabrielle, both wearing golden dresses, looked even prettier than usual and once Fleur had reached for him, Bill did not look as though he had ever met Fenrit Greyback.

Bill and Fleur were beaming as they watched their wedding through a guests view.

"Ladies and gentlemen," said a slightly singsong voice, and with a slight shock, Harry saw the same small, tufty-hired wizard who had presided at Dumbledore's funeral, now standing in front of Bill and Fleur. "We are gathered here today to celebrate the union of two faithful souls…"

"Yes, my tiara set off the whole thing nicely," said Auntie Muriel in a rather carrying whisper. "But I must say, Ginevra's dress is far too low cut."

"No it wasn't," Ginny and Fleur huffed.

"She said that about my wedding dress," Ginny complained. "Well that and it was too short!"

"But wasn't your dress –?" Petunia began, not having attended the wedding herself.

"Yeah, it was to the floor," Ginny shook her head as some of the boys chuckled or sniggered.

Ginny glanced around, grinning, winked at Harry, then quickly faced the front again.

"Do you, William Arthur, take Fleur Isabelle…?"

In the front row, Mrs. Weasley and Madame Delacour were both sobbing quietly into scraps of lace. Trumpetlike sounds from the back of the marquee told everyone that Hagrid had taken out one of his own tablecloth-sized handkerchiefs.

Lily giggled

Hermione turned around and beamed at Harry; her eyes too were full of tears.

"What is it with girls and crying at weddings?" the twins asked, looking thoroughly confused.

"Shut up," all the women snapped and Molly hit them both round the head.

"…then I declare you bonded for life."

Fleur kissed Bill cheek and he turned to beam at her.

The tufty-haired wizard waved his hand high over the heads of Bill and Fleur and a shower of silver stars fell upon them, spiraling around their now entwined figures. As Fred and George led a round of applause, the golden balloons overhead burst. Birds of paradise and tiny golden bells flew and floated out of them, adding their songs and chimes to the din.

"That's amazing!" Petunia and Lily breathed.

"It is beautiful," Luna said.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" called the tufty-haired wizard. "If you would please stand up!"

They all did so, Auntie Muriel grumbling audibly; he waved his wand again. The scars on which they had been sitting rose gracefully into the air as the canvas walls of the marquee vanished, so that they stood beneath a canopy supported by golden poles, with a glorious view of the sunlit orchard and surrounding countryside. Next, a pool of molten gold spread from the center of the tent to form a gleaming dance floor; the hovering chairs grouped themselves around small, white-clothed tables, which all floated gracefully back to earth round it, and the golden-jacketed hand trooped toward a podium.

"Smooth," said Ron approvingly as the waiters popped up on all sides, some hearing silver trays of pumpkin juice, butterbeer, and firewhisky, others tottering piles of tarts and sandwiches.

"That is brilliant," Neville said.

"We should go and congratulate them!" said Hermione, standing on tiptoe to see the place where Bill and Fleur had vanished amid a crowd of well-wishers.

"We'll have time later," shrugged Ron, snatching three Butterbeers from a passing tray and handing one to Harry.

Bill and Fleur shared a look – they didn't have time.

"Hermione, cop hold, let's grab a table…. Not there! Nowhere near Muriel –"

"Steer clear," Fabian advised.

The Weasley's all nodded, as did Ginny and Harry.

Ron led the way across the empty dance floor, glancing left and right as he went.

"Looking for Krum," Sirius teased.

"Shut up."

. By the time they had reached the other side of the marquee, most of the tables were occupied: The emptiest was the one where Luna sat alone.

"All right if we join you?" asked Ron.

"Oh yes," she said happily. "Daddy's just gone to give Bill and Fleur our present."

"What is it, a lifetime's supply of Gurdyroots?" asked Ron.

Hermione aimed a kick at him under the table, but caught Harry instead.

"Sorry, Harry," Hermione frowned.

Eyes watering in pain, Harry lost track of the conversation for a few moments.

The band had begun to play, Bill and Fleur took to the dance floor first, to great applause; after a while, Mr. Weasley led Madame Delacour onto the floor, followed by Mrs. Weasley and Fleur's father.

"I like this song," said Luna, swaying in time to the waltzlike tune, and a few seconds later she stood up and glided onto the dance floor, where she revolved on the spot, quite alone, eyes closed and waving her arms.

"She's great isn't she?" said Ron admiringly. "Always good value."

"Thank you, Ron," Luna smiled.

But the smile vanished from his face at once: Viktor Krum had dropped into Luna's vacant seat.

Hermione looked pleasurably flustered but this time Krum had not come to compliment her. With a scowl on his face he said, "Who is that man in the yellow?"

"That's Xenophilius Lovegood, he's the father of a friend of ours," said Ron. His pugnacious tone indicated that they were not about to laugh at Xenophilius, despite the clear provocation.

"Come and dance," he added abruptly to Hermione.

"Smooth," Teddy laughed.

"Yes because what I saw of you at the party with my daughter –" Bill said but stopped at the look on Teddy's face and the colour of his hair laughing.

She looked taken aback, but pleased too, and got up. They vanished together into the growing throng on the dance floor.

"Ah, they are together now?" asked Krum, momentarily distracted.

"That's a good question," Sirius said, grinning.

"Nope," Ron said as Hermione shook her head.

"Er – sort of," said Harry.

They raised their eyebrows at Harry.

"What?" he said, raising his own eyebrows and grining. "Oh, come on, everyone knew it was going to happen eventually – it was just making sure Krum kept away from Hermione, he's bad news."

"What makes you say that?" Hermione asked but there was something knowing in her smile.

"Nothing," Harry said.

"Who are you?" Krum asked.

"Barny Weasley."

They shook hands.

"You, Barny – you know this man Lovegood well?"

"No, I only met him today. Why?"

Krum glowered over the top of his drink, watching Xenophilius, who was chatting to several warlocks on the other side of the dance floor.

"Because," said Krum, "If he vus not a guest of Fleur's I vould duel him, here and now, for veering that filthy sign upon his chest."

"The Deathly Hallows?" Luna asked.

"Sign?" said Harry, looking over at Xenophilius too. The strange triangular eye was gleaming on his chest. "Why? What's wrong with it?"

"Grindelvald. That is Grindelvald's sign."

"No, it's not," Luna said.

"Grindelwald… the Dark wizard Dumbledore defeated?"

"Exactly."

Krum's jaw muscles worked as if he were chewing, then he said, "Grindelvald killed many people, my grandfather, for instance. Of course, he vos never powerful in this country, they said he feared Dumbledore – and rightly, seeing how he vos finished. But this" – he pointed a finger at Xenophilius – "this is his symbol, I recognized it at vunce: Grindelvald carved it into a vall at Durmstrang ver he vos a pupil there. Some idiots copied it onto their books and clothes thinking to shock, make themselves impressive – until those of us who had lost family members to Grindelvald taught them better."

Krum cracked his knuckles menacingly and glowered at Xenophilius.

"Are you – er – quite sure it's Grindelwald's -?"

"I am not mistaken," said Krum coldly. "I walked past that sign for several years, I know it vell."

"Well, there's a chance," said Harry, "that Xenophilius doesn't actually know what the symbol means, the Lovegoods are quite… unusual. He could have easily picked it up somewhere and think it's a cross section of the head of a Crumple-Horned Snorkack or something."

"The cross section of a vot?"

"Well, I don't know what they are, but apparently he and his daughter go on holiday looking for them…."

"Oh we did," Luna beamed.

Harry felt he was doing a bad job explaining Luna and her father.

"That's her," he said, pointing at Luna, who was still dancing alone, waving her arms around her head like someone attempting to beat off midges.

"Vy is she doing that?" asked Krum.

"Probably trying to get rid of a Wrackspurt," said Harry, who recognized the symptoms.

"Correct, Harry," she smiled

Krum did not seem to know whether or not Harry was making fun of him. He drew his hand from inside his robe and tapped it menacingly on his thighs; sparks flew out of the end.

"Gregorovitch!" said Harry loudly,

"Huh?" James asked.

"Voldemort was after him," Ron said. "We couldn't figure out who he was."

"But I thought this guys name was Vickor Krum," Lily said confused.

"It is," Hermione nodded.

and Krum started

"Vot about him?" asked Krum suspiciously.

"He's a wandmaker!"

"I know that," said Krum.

"He made your wand! That's why I thought – Quidditch –"

"Harry, shut up," Neville chuckled.

Krum was looking more and more suspicious.

"How do you know Gregorovitch made my wand?"

"I…I read it somewhere, I think," said Harry. "In a – a fan magazine," he improvised wildly and Krum looked mollified.

"I had not realized I ever discussed my vand with fans," he said.

"Zat's because you 'aven't," Fleur laughed. "Arry remembers it from ze tournament."

"So… er… where is Gregorowitch these days?"

Krum looked puzzled.

"He retired several years ago. I was one of the last to purchase a Gregorovitch vand. They are the best –although I know, of course, that your Britons set much store by Ollivander."

"That's because he's amazing," Sirius smirked.

Harry did not answer. He pretended to watch the dancers, like Krum, but he was thinking hard. So Voldemort was looking for a celebrated wandmaker and Harry did not have to search far for a reason. It was surely because of what Harry's wand had done on the night that Voldemort pursued him across the skies. The holly and phoenix feather wand had conquered the borrowed wand, some thing that Ollivander had not anticipated or understood. Would Gregorowitch know better? Was he truly more skilled than Ollivander, did he know secrets of wands that Ollivander did not?

Everyone shrugged.

"This girl is very nice-looking," Krum said, recalling Harry to his surroundings. Krum was pointing at Ginny,

Ginny wrinkled her nose.

who had just joined Luna. "She is also a relative of yours?"

"Yeah," said Harry, suddenly irritated, "and she's seeing someone. Jealous type. Big bloke. You wouldn't want to cross him."

Ginny and Hermione giggled, as James and Arthur grinned and Molly and Lily rolled their eyes, smiling.

Krum grunted.

"Vot," he said, draining his goblet and getting to his feet again, "is the point of being an international Quidditch player if all the good-looking girls are taken?"

"The sport," Dudley said a bit irritated himself.

And he strode off leaving Harry to take a sandwich from a passing waiter and make his way around the edge of the crowded dance floor. He wanted to find Ron, to tell him about Gregorovitch, but he was dancing with Hermione out in the middle of the floor.

Everyone smiled.

Harry leaned up against one of the golden pillars and watched Ginny, who was now dancing with Fred and George's friend Lee Jordan.

"Why didn't you ask me to dance?" Ginny whispered to Harry.

"Ron told me to stay away from you," Harry told her. "Hey, where are you going?"

Ginny had walked away from him towards Ron, who eyes flickered between her and Harry, and wacked him round the head.

"When are you going to learn to stay out of my life?" Ginny said.

"Um, never?" Ron said.

"Urg."

He had never been to a wedding before, so he could not judge how Wizarding celebrations differed from Muggle ones, though he was pretty sure that the latter would not involve a wedding cake topped with two model phoenixes that took flight when the cake was cut, or bottles of champagne that floated unsupported through the crowd. As the evening drew in, and moths began to swoop under the canopy, now lit with floating golden lanterns, the revelry became more and more uncontained. Fred and George had long since disappeared into the darkness with a pair of Fleur's cousins; Charlie, Hagrid, and a squat wizard in a purple porkpie hat were singing "Odo the Hero" in the corner.

"Sorry, everyone, Charlie's a horrible singer," Bill said.

"Hagrid's no better," Harry chuckled.

Wandering through the crowd so as to escape a drunken uncle of Ron's who seemed unsure whether or not Harry was his son, Harry spotted an old wizard sitting alone at a table. His cloud of white hair made him look rather like an aged dandelion clock and was topped by a moth-eaten fez.

Harry approached him.

"May I sit down?"

"Of course, of course," said Doge; he had a rather high-pitched, wheezy voice.

Harry leaned in.

"Mr. Doge, I'm Harry Potter."

"Is that really clever?" Lily asked.

"It was fine," Harry said. "He was an old friend on Dumbledore's."

Doge gasped.

"My dear boy! Arthur told me you were here, disguised…. I am so glad, so honored!"

Everyone chuckled.

In a flutter of nervous pleasure Doge poured Harry a goblet of champagne.

"I thought of writing to you," he whispered, "after Dumbledore… the shock… and for you, I am sure…"

Doge's tiny eyes filled with sudden tears.

"Oh," Molly sighed. "The poor man."

"That was nice of him," Luna said.

"I saw the obituary you wrote for the Daily Prophet," said Harry. "I didn't realize you knew Professor Dumbledore so well."

"As well as anyone," said Doge, dabbing his eyes with a napkin. "Certainly I knew him longest, if you don't count Aberforth – and somehow, people never do seem to count Aberforth."

"Poor Aberforth," some muttered.

"Speaking of the Daily Prophet… I don't know whether you saw, Mr. Doge -?"

"Oh, please call me Elphias, dear boy."

"Elphias, I don't know whether you saw the interview Rita Skeeter gave about Dumbledore?"

Doge's face flooded with angry color.

"Oh yes, Harry, I saw it. That woman, or vulture might be a more accurate term,

"Definitely," Fleur, Harry, Ron, Ginny and Hermione said.

positively pestered me to talk to her, I am ashamed to say that I became rather rude,

"Don't be ashamed," Dora exclaimed.

called her an interfering trout,

"Nice!" the twins chuckled.

which resulted, as you my have seen, in aspersions cast upon my sanity."

"Well, in that interview," Harry went on, "Rita Skeeter hinted that Professor Dumbledore was involved in the Dark Arts when he was young."

"Don't believe a word of it!" said Doge at once. "Not a word, Harry! Let nothing tarnish your memories of Albus Dumbledore!"

Everyone nodded in agreement.

Harry looked into Doge's earnest, pained face, and felt, not reassured, but frustrated. Did Doge really think it was that easy, that Harry could simply choose not to believe? Didn't Doge understand Harry's need to be sure, to know everything?"

Perhaps Doge suspected Harry's feelings, for he looked concerned and hurried on, "Harry, Rita Skeeter is a dreadful –"

But he was interrupted by a shrill cackle.

"Rita Skeeter? Oh, I love her, always read her!"

"Muriel!" everyone groaned.

Harry and Doge looked up to see Auntie Muriel standing there, the plumes dancing on her hair, a goblet of champagne in her hand. "She's written a book about Dumbledore, you know!"

"Sadly," Remus growled.

"Hello, Muriel," said Doge, "Yes, we were just discussing –"

"You there! Give me your chair, I'm a hundred and seven!"

Another redheaded Weasley cousin jumped off his seat, looking alarmed,

"Don't blame you," Dudley frowned.

and Auntie Muriel swung it around with surprising strength and plopped herself down upon it between Doge and Harry.

"Hello again, Barry or whatever your name is," she said to Harry, "Now what were you saying about Rita Skeeter, Elphias? You know, she's written a biography of Dumbledore? I can't wait to read it.

"You're mad," Sirius said.

I must remember to place an order at Flourish and Blotts!"

Doge looked stiff and solemn at this but Auntie Muriel drained her goblet and clicked her bony fingers at a passing waiter for a replacement. She took another large gulp of champagne, belched and then said, "There's no need to look like a pair of stuffed frogs! Before he became so respected and respectable and all that tosh, there were some mighty funny rumors about Albus!"

"Ill-informed sniping," said Doge, turning radish-colored again.

"You would say that, Elphias," cackled Auntie Muriel. "I noticed how you skated over the sticky patches in that obituary of yours!"

"I'm sorry you think so," said Doge, more coldly still. "I assure you I was writing from the heart."

"Oh, we all know you worshipped Dumbledore; I daresay you'll still think he was a saint even if it does turn out that he did away with his Squib sister!"

"Muriel!" exclaimed Doge.

"What do you mean?" he asked Muriel. "Who said his sister was a Squib? I thought she was ill?"

"She was," Molly sighed.

"Thought wrong, then, didn't you, Barry!" said Auntie Muriel, looking delighted at the effect she had produced. "Anyway, how could you expect to know anything about it! It all happened years and years before you were even thought of, my dear, and the truth is that those of us who were alive then never knew what really happened. That's why I can't wait to find out what Skeeter's unearthed! Dumbledore kept that sister of his quiet for a long time!"

Everyone was looking extremely annoyed at Muriel already

"Untrue!" wheezed Doge, "Absolutely untrue!"

"He never told me his sister was a Squib," said Harry, without thinking, still cold inside.

"Harry!" Hermione said.

"Ariana wasn't a squib," Lily sighed.

"And why on earth would he tell you?" screeched Muriel, swaying a little in her seat as she attempted to focus upon Harry.

"The reason Albus never spoke about Ariana," began Elphias in a voice stiff with emotion, "is, I should have thought, quite clear. He was so devastated by her death –"

Harry nodded.

"Why did nobody ever see her, Elphias?" squawked Muriel, "Why did half of us never even know she existed, until they carried the coffin out of the house and held a funeral for her? Where was saintly Albus while Ariana was locked in the cellar?

"I doubt that," Arthur frowned.

Off being brilliant at Hogwarts, and never mind what was going on in his own house!"

"What d'you mean, locked in the cellar?" asked Harry. "What is this?"

Doge looked wretched. Auntie Muriel cackled again and answered Harry.

"Dumbledore's mother was a terrifying woman, simply terrifying. Muggle-born, though I heard she pretended otherwise-"

"She never pretended anything of the sort! Kendra was a fine woman," whispered Doge miserably, but Auntie Muriel ignored him.

"- proud and very domineering, the sort of witch who would have been mortified to produce a Squib-"

"Ariana was not a Squib!" wheezed Doge.

"So you say, Elphias, but explain, then, why she never attended Hogwarts!" said Auntie Muriel. She turned back to Harry. "In our day, Squibs were often hushed up, though to take it to the extreme of actually imprisoning a little girl in the house and pretending she didn't exist –"

"I tell you, that's not what happened!" said Doge, but Auntie Muriel steamrollered on, still addressing Harry.

"Squibs were usually shipped off to Muggle schools and encouraged to integrate into the Muggle community… much kinder than trying to find them a place in the Wizarding world, where they must always be second class, but naturally Kendra Dumbledore wouldn't have dreamed of letting her daughter go to a Muggle school –"

"Ariana was delicate!" said Doge desperately. "Her health was always too poor to permit her –"

Everyone nodded.

"- to permit her to leave the house?" cackled Muriel. "And yet she was never taken to St. Mungo's and no Healer was ever summoned to see her!"

"So she didn't have to stay in St. Mungo's all her life," Molly said angrily.

"Really, Muriel, how can you possibly know whether –"

"For your information, Elphias, my cousin Lancelot was a Healer at St. Mungo's at the time, and he told my family in strictest confidence that Ariana had never been seen there. All most suspicious, Lancelot thought!"

Doge looked to be on the verge of tears. Auntie Muriel, who seemed to be enjoying herself hugely, snapped her fingers for more champagne. Numbly Harry thought of how the Dursleys had once shut him up, locked him away, kept him out of sight, all for the crime of being a wizard. Had Dumbledore's sister suffered the same fate in reverse: imprisoned for her lack of magic? And had Dumbledore truly left her to her fate while he went off to Hogwarts to prove himself brilliant and talented?

"Shut up," many snapped.

"Now, if Kendra hadn't died first," Muriel resumed, "I'd have said that it was she who finished off Ariana –"

"How can she say that?" James asked.

"How can you, Muriel!" groaned Doge. "A mother kill her own daughter? Think what you're saying!"

"If the mother in question was capable of imprisoning her daughter for years on end, why not?" shrugged Auntie Muriel. "But as I say, it doesn't fit, because Kendra died before Ariana – of what, nobody ever seemed sure-"

"Yes, Ariana might have made a desperate bid for freedom and killed Kendra in the struggle," said Auntie Muriel thoughtfully. "Shake your head all you like, Elphias. You were at Ariana's funeral, were you not?"

"Yes I was," said Doge, through trembling lips," and a more desperately sad occasion I cannot remember. Albus was heartbroken-"

"Of course he was," Ginny said, fiercely.

"His heart wasn't the only thing. Didn't Aberforth break Albus' nose halfway through the service?"

"Oh dear," Dudley said.

If Doge had looked horrified before this, it was nothing to how he looked now. Muriel might have stabbed him. She cackled loudly and took another swig of champagne, which dribbled down her chin.

"How do you -?" croaked Doge.

"My mother was friendly with old Bathilda Bagshot," said Auntie Muriel happily. "Bathilda described the whole thing to mother while I was listening at the door. A coffin-side brawl. The way Bathilda told it, Aberforth shouted that it was all Albus' fault that Ariana was dead and then punched him in the face.

"This is horrible," Sirius growled.

According to Bathilda, Albus did not even defend himself, and that's odd enough in itself. Albus could have destroyed Aberforth in a duel with both hands tied behind his back."

"That's true," Remus chuckled.

Muriel swigged yet more champagne. The recitation of those old scandals seemed to elate her as much as they horrified Doge. Harry did not know what to think, what to believe. He wanted the truth and yet all Doge did was sit there and bleat feebly that Ariana had been ill. Harry could hardly believe that Dumbledore would not have intervened if such cruelty was happening inside his own house, and yet there was undoubtedly something odd about the story.

"And I'll tell you something else," Muriel said, hiccupping slightly as she lowered her goblet. "I think Bathilda has spilled the beans to Rita Skeeter. All those hints in Skeeter's interview about an important source close to the Dumbledores – goodness knows she was there all through the Ariana business, and it would fit!"

"Bathilda, would never talk to Rita Skeeter!" whispered Doge.

"Exactly," James nodded.

"Bathilda Bagshot?" Harry said. "The author of A History of Magic?"

"You remembered!" Hermione beamed.

"Only because you kept saying it," Harry grumbled, low enough for her not to hear.

The name was printed on the front of one of Harry's textbooks, though admittedly not one of the ones he had read more attentively.

"Yes," said Doge, clutching at Harry's question like a drowning man at a life heir. "A most gifted magical historian and an old friend of Albus's."

"Quite gaga these days, I've heard," said Auntie Muriel cheerfully.

"If that is so, it is even more dishonorable for Skeeter to have taken advantage of her," said Doge, "and no reliance can be placed on anything Bathilda may have said!"

"Oh, there are ways of bringing back memories, and I'm sure Rita Skeeter knows them all," said Auntie Muriel "But even if Bathilda's completely cuckoo, I'm sure she'd still have old photographs, maybe even letters. She knew the Dumbledores for years…. Well worth a trip to Godric's Hollow, I'd have thought."

Harry, who had been taking a sip of butterbeer, choked.

"Oh Harry," Lily sighed.

Doge banged him on the back as Harry coughed, looking at Auntie Muriel through streaming eyes. Once he had control of his voice again, he asked, "Bathilda Bagshot lives in Godric's Hollow?"

"Yes, she's a fascinating old women," Lily said, cheerfully.

"Oh yes, she's been there forever! The Dumbledores moved there after Percival was imprisoned, and she was their neighbor."

"The Dumbledores lived in Godric's Hollows?"

"Yes, Barry, that's what I just said," said Auntie Muriel testily.

Harry felt drained, empty. Never once, in six years, had Dumbledore told Harry that they had both lived and lost loved ones in Godric's Hollow. Why? Were Lily and James buried close to Dumbledore's mother and sister?

Hermione and Harry nodded, as everyone tried to not to look at Harry with anything like pity on their faces.

Had Dumbledore visited their graves, perhaps walked past Lily's and James's to do so?

This time they shook their heads.

And why it was so important, Harry could not explain even to himself. He stared ahead of him, barely noticing what was going on around him, and did not realize that Hermione had appeared out of the crowd until she drew up a chair beside him.

"I simply can't dance anymore," she panted, slipping of one of her shoes and rubbing the sole of her foot. "Ron's gone looking to find more butterbeers. It's a bit odd. I've just seen Viktor storming away from Luna's father, it looked like they'd been arguing –" She dropped her voice, staring at him. "Harry, are you okay?"

"Now you ask," Ginny huffed.

At that moment, something large and silver came falling through the canopy over the dance floor.

Graceful and gleaming, the lynx landed lightly in the middle of the astonished dancers.

"Kingsley's," Sirius muttered.

Heads turned, as those nearest it froze absurdly in mid-dance. Then the Patronus's mouth opened wide and it spoke in the loud, deep, slow voice of Kingsley Shacklebolt.

"The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is dead. They are coming."

"Oh my God/Merlin," Lily and Petunia shrieked as James and Sirius paled.

Everything seemed fuzzy, slow. Harry and Hermione jumped to their feet and drew their wands. Many people were only just realizing that something strange had happened; heads were still turning toward the silver cat as it vanished. Silence spread outward in cold ripples from the place where the Patronus had landed. Then somebody screamed.

Everyone jumped.

Harry and Hermione threw themselves into the panicking crowd. Guests were sprinting in all directions; many were Disapparating; the protective enchantments around the Burrow had broken.

"Oh Merlin," James groaned.

"How strong were they?" Dudley asked.

"The best," Arthur sighed, causing everyone to groan.

"Ron!" Hermione cried. "Ron, where are you?"

As they pushed their way across the dance floor, Harry saw cloaked and masked figures appearing in the crowd; then he saw Lupin and Tonks, their wands raised, and heard both of them shout, "Protego!", a cry that was echoed on all sides –

"Ron! Ron!" Hermione called, half sobbing as she and Harry were buffered by terrified guests: Harry seized her hand to make sure they weren't separated as a streak of light whizzed over their heads, whether a protective charm or something more sinister he did not know –

And then Ron was there. He caught hold of Hermione's free arm, and Harry felt her turn on the spot; sight and sound were extinguished as darkness pressed in upon him; all he could feel was Hermione's hand as he was squeezed through space and time, away from the Burrow, away from the descending Death Eaters, away, perhaps, from Voldemort himself. . .

"Thank Merlin/God," everyone breathed.

"And now we don't hear from you for months," Ginny sighed - that had been torture for her.

"Where are we?" said Ron's voice.

Harry opened his eyes. For a moment he thought they had not left the wedding after all; They still seemed to be surrounded by people.

"Tottenham Court Road," panted Hermione. "Walk, just walk, we need to find somewhere for you to change."

"Good," Bill said. "You'll be safer in the Muggle world."

"They won't expect you to be there," Neville nodded.

"What happened at the Burrow?" Lily asked.

"They tortured Mum and Dad," Ginny said shuddering. "And Bill."

"Great way to end your wedding," the twins grimaced.

"They seemed to leave Ginny alone, which was strange," Bill frowned. "I swear I heard, 'Leave the girl or Harry Potter won't be very happy with us'"

Harry flinched and Ginny squeezed his hand comfortingly.

"But I thought that would make them go for her," Molly said, confused but everyone just shrugged.

"Skipping," Hermione said.

"Let's sit down somewhere," Hermione said hastily as Ron opened his mouth to shout back across the road. "Look, this will do, in here!"

"Yes, get inside," Remus nodded.

It was a small and shabby all-night café. A light layer of grease lay on all the Formica-topped tables,

Petunia scrunched up her nose.

but it was at least empty. Harry slipped into a booth first

"Are you under the cloak?" Teddy asked Harry. "You're all blurry."

"Yeah," Harry nodded.

and Ron sat next to him opposite Hermione, who had her back to the entrance and did not like it: She glanced over her shoulder so frequently she appeared to have a twitch.

"That's really suspicious," Luna commented.

"I couldn't help it," Hermione admitted.

his hands returning to their usual length and shape. He pulled his glasses out of his pocket and put them on again.

"Wait a minute you've changed," Petunia said. "How?"

"Hermione had everything we needed in the little bag she's holding," Harry chuckled

"What?" Dudley asked. "How?"

"Undetectable extension charm," Hermione said. "Remus taught me it during the summer."

After a minute or two, Ron said, "You know, we're not far from the Leaky Cauldron here, it's only in Charing Cross –"

"You can't," Dora said.

"Ze odd places aren't safe," Fleur said

"Ron, we can't!" said Hermione at once.

"Not to stay there, but to find out what's going on!"

"We know what's going on! Voldemort's taken over the Ministry, what else do we need to know?"

"Okay, okay, it was just an idea!" They relapsed into a prickly silence. The gum-chewing waitress shuffled over and Hermione ordered two cappuccinos: As Harry was invisible, it would have looked odd to order him one. A pair of burly workmen entered the café and squeezed into the next booth. Hermione dropped her voice to a whisper.

"I say we find a quiet place to Disapparate and head for the countryside. Once we're there, we could send a message to the Order."

"Brilliant," James said.

Can you do that talking Patronus thing, then?" asked Ron.

"I've been practicing and I think so," said Hermione.

"Good," Neville nodded.

"Well, as long as it doesn't get them into trouble, though they might've been arrested already. God, that's revolting," Ron added after one sip of the foamy, grayish coffee.

"It looks it," Petunia and Dudley said.

The waitress had heard; she shot Ron a nasty look as she shuffled off to take the new customers' orders. The larger of the two workmen, who was blond and quite huge, now that Harry came to look at him, waved her away. She stared, affronted.

Sirius and Remus narrowed their eyes.

"Let's get going, then, I don't want to drink this muck," said Ron. "Hermione, have you got Muggle money to pay for this?"

"Yes, I took out all my Building Society savings before I came to the Burrow. I'll bet all the change is at the bottom," sighed Hermione, reaching for her beaded bag.

The two workmen made identical movements, and Harry mirrored them without conscious thought: all three of them drew their wands.

"You're good," Fabian said.

"He's Head Auror," Gideon pointed out to his twin.

"But he wasn't then."

Ron, a few seconds late in realizing what was going on, lunged across the table, pushing Hermione sideways onto her bench. The force of the Death Eaters' spells shattered the tiled wall where Ron's head had just been, as Harry, still invisible, yelled, "Stupefy!"

"You have an advantage," Arthur said, looking worried.

The great blond Death Eater was hit in the face by a jet of red light: He slumped sideways, unconscious.

"One down," Fleur said.

His companion, unable to see who had cast the spell, fired another at Ron: Shining black ropes flew from his wand-tip and bound Ron head to foot

"Mmm," Molly shrieked, pressing her lips together.

The waitress screamed and ran for the door – Harry sent another Stunning Spell at the Death Eater with the twisted face who had tied up Ron, but the spell missed, rebounded on the window, and hit the waitress, who collapsed in front of the door.

"That's probably a good thing," Dora pointed out. "Don't want her running down the street screaming."

"Expulso!" bellowed the Death Eater, and the table behind which Harry was standing blew up: The force of the explosion slammed him into the wall and he felt his wand leave his hand as the Cloak slipped off him.

"Petrificus Totalus!" screamed Hermione from out of sight, and the Death Eater fell forward like a statue to land with a crunching thud on the mess of broken china, table, and coffee. Hermione crawled out from underneath the bench, shaking bits of glass ashtray out of her hair and trembling all over.

"Hermione," Ginny sighed, Hermioen was brilliant and all, but fighting wasn't her strongest suit.

"D-diffindo," she said, pointing her wand at Ron, who roared in pain as she slashed open the knee of his jeans, leaving a deep cut.

"Ouch," the twins said.

"Sorry," Hermione muttered to Ron

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Ron, my hand's shaking! Diffindo!"

The severed ropes fell away. Ron got to his feet, shaking his arms to regain feeling in them. Harry picked up his wand and climbed over all the debris to where the large blond Death Eater was sprawled across the bench.

"I should've recognized him, he was there the night Dumbledore died," he said. He turned over the darker Death Eater with his foot; the man's eyes moved rapidly between Harry, Ron and Hermione.

"Careful with what you say," Teddy warned.

"That's Dolohov," said Ron. "I recognize him from the old wanted posters. I think the big one's Thorfinn Rowle."

"Never mind what they're called!" said Hermione a little hysterically. "How did they find us? What are we going to do?"

Somehow her panic seemed to clear Harry's head.

"Always knew you were weird, mate," Ron chuckled.

"No, he's just a good leader," Ginny defended her husband.

"Lock the door," he told her, "and Ron, turn out the lights."

He looked down at the paralyzed Dolohov, thinking fast as the lock clicked and Ron used the Deluminator to plunge the café into darkness. Harry could hear the men who had jeered at Hermione earlier, yelling at another girl in the distance.

"What are we going to do with them?" Ron whispered to Harry through the dark; then, even more quietly, "Kill them? They'd kill us. They had a good go just now."

"You can't kill them," Arthur said softly.

Hermione shuddered and took a step backward. Harry shook his head.

"We just need to wipe their memories," said Harry. "It's better like that, it'll throw them off the scent. If we killed them it'd be obvious we were here."

"Brilliant, Harry," Sirius beamed at his godson.

"You're the boss," said Ron, sounding profoundly relieved.

"I didn't want to kill them," Ron sighed.

"But I've never done a Memory Charm."

"Nor have I," said Hermione, "but I know the theory."

"Surely you wiped your parent's memories," Neville said.

"It's a different charm," Hermione "The difference is small but extrememly important."

She took a deep, calming breath, then pointed her wand at Dolohov's forehead and said, "Obliviate."

At once, Dolohov's eyes became unfocused and dreamy.

"Fantastic, Hermione," Lily beamed.

"Brilliant!" said Harry, clapping her on the back. "Take care of the other one and the waitress while Ron and I clear up."

"Clear up?" said Ron, looking around at the partly destroyed café. "Why?"

"Ron," Bill said, clearly exasperated at the question but then he sighed. "Well, Mum did always say you wouldn't clean to save your life."

Ron glared at him while others chuckled

"Don't you think they might wonder what's happened if they wake up and find themselves in a place that looks like it's just been bombed?"

"Yes," Petunia said.

"Oh right, yeah . . ."

Ron struggled for a moment before managing to extract his wand from his pocket.

"It's no wonder I can't get it out, Hermione, you packed my old jeans, they're tight."

"Oh, I'm so sorry," hissed Hermione, and as she dragged the waitress out of sight of the windows, Harry heard her mutter a suggestion as to where Ron could stick his wand instead.

"Hermione!" Molly said. "You're supposed to be the good one."

"Sorry, Molly," Hermione laughed

"Boys, you've really have corrupted her," Fabian said.

"Good job," Gideon winked

Once the café was restored to its previous condition, they heaved the Death Eaters back into their booth and propped them up facing each other. "But how did they find us?" Hermione asked, looking from one inert man to the other. "How did they know where we were?"

She turned to Harry.

"You – you don't think you've still got your Trace on you, do you, Harry?"

"Not possible," Luna said.

"He can't have," said Ron. "The Trace breaks at seventeen, that's Wizarding law, you can't put it on an adult."

"As far as you know," said Hermione. "What if the Death Eaters have found a way to put it on a seventeen-year-old?"

"'Arry, 'asn't been near any Death Eaters," Fleur pointed out.

"But Harry hasn't been near a Death Eater in the last twenty-four hours. Who's supposed to have put a Trace back on him?"

Hermione did not reply.

"If I can't use magic, and you can't use magic near me, without us giving away our position – " he began.

"You're not splitting up," James said firmly.

"We're not splitting up!" said Hermione firmly.

"We need a safe place to hide," said Ron. "Give us time to think things through."

"Grimmauld Place," said Harry.

"No," Bill said.

The other two gaped.

"Don't be silly, Harry, Snape can get in there!"

"Ron's dad said they've put up jinxes against him – and even if they haven't worked," he pressed on as Hermione began to argue "so what? I swear, I'd like nothing better than to meet Snape!"

Sirius sighed.

"But –"

"Hermione, where else is there? It's the best chance we've got. Snape's only one Death Eater. If I've still got the Trace on me, we'll have whole crowds of them on us wherever else we go."

"That's a good point," Neville said, reluctantly.

She could not argue, though she looked as if she would have liked to. While she unlocked the café door, Ron clicked the Deluminator to release the café's light. Then, on Harry's count of three, they reversed the spells upon their three victims, and before the waitress or either of the Death Eaters could do more than stir sleepily, Harry, Ron and Hermione had turned on the spot and vanished into the compressing darkness once more.

Seconds later Harry's lungs expanded gratefully and he opened his eyes: They were now standing in the middle of a familiar small and shabby square. Tall, dilapidated houses looked down on them from every side.

Most people wrinkled their noses at the sight of that old house

Number twelve was visible to them, for they had been told of its existence by Dumbledore, its Secret-Keeper, and they rushed toward it, checking every few yards that they were not being followed or observed.

They raced up the stone steps, and Harry tapped the front door once with his wand. They heard a series of metallic clicks and the clatter of a chain, then the door swung open with a creak and they hurried over the threshold.

As Harry closed the door behind them, the old-fashioned gas lamps sprang into life, casting flickering light along the length of the hallway. It looked just as Harry remembered it: eerie, cobwebbed, the outlines of the house-elf heads on the wall throwing odd shadows up the staircase. Long dark curtains concealed the portrait of Sirius's mother.

The only thing that was out of place was the troll's leg umbrella stand, which was lying on its side as if Tonks had just knocked it over again.

"Someone's been in there," Dora said. "I wouldn't leave it like that."

"I think somebody's been in here," Hermione whispered, pointing toward it.

"That could've happened as the Order left," Ron murmured back.

"So where are these jinxes they put up against Snape?" Harry asked.

"Maybe they're only activated if he shows up?" suggested Ron.

Yet they remained close together on the doormat, backs against the door, scared to move farther into the house.

Some people sniggered as they looked at the Golden Trio cowering in a door way.

"Well, we can't stay here forever," said Harry, and he took a step forward.

"Severus Snape?"

Mad-Eye Moody's voice whispered out of the darkness, making all three of them jump back in fright.

"We're not Snape!" croaked Harry.

The other two seemed to have experienced the same unpleasant sensation. Ron was making retching noises; Hermione stammered, "That m-must have b-been the T-Tongue-Tying Curse Mad-Eye set up for Snape!"

Gingerly Harry took another step forward. Something shifted in the shadows at the end of the hall, and before any of them could say another word, a figure had risen up out of the carpet, tall, dust-colored, and terrible; Hermione screamed and so did Mrs. Black, her curtains flying open; the gray figure was gliding toward them, faster and faster, its waist-length hair and beard streaming behind it, its face sunken, fleshless, with empty eye sockets: Horribly familiar, dreadfully altered, it raised a wasted arm, pointing at Harry.

"Dumbledore!" everyone screamed or shouted,

"No!" Harry shouted, and though he had raised his wand no spell occurred to him. "No! It wasn't us! We didn't kill you –"

On the word kill, the figure exploded in a great cloud of dust: Coughing, his eyes watering, Harry looked around to see Hermione crouched on the floor by the door with her arms over her head, and Ron, who was shaking from head to foot, patting her clumsily on the shoulder and saying, "It's all r-right. . . . It's g-gone. . . ."

Dust swirled around Harry like mist, catching the blue gaslight, as Mrs. Black continued to scream.

"Mudbloods, filth, stains of dishonor, taint of shame on the house of my fathers –"

"SHUT UP!" Harry bellowed, directing his wand at her, and with a bang and a burst of red sparks, the curtains swung shut again, silencing her.

"What a lovely welcome," Dudley said sarcastically.

"That . . . that was . . . " Hermione whimpered, as Ron helped her to her feet.

"Fantastic," Sirius grinned. "No one's even shut my dear old mum up so quickly."

"Yeah," said Harry, "but it wasn't really him, was it? Just something to scare Snape."

He led the other two up the hall, half-expecting some new terror to reveal itself, but nothing moved except for a mouse skittering along the skirting board.

"Before we go any farther, I think we'd better check," whispered Hermione, and she raised her wand and said, "Homenum revelio."

Nothing happened.

"Thank Merlin," all the wizards breathed, apart from the trio.

"Well, you've just had a big shock," said Ron kindly. "What was that supposed to do?"

"It did what I meant it to do!" said Hermione rather crossly. "That was a spell to reveal human presence, and there's nobody here except us!"

"Good," Petunia and Dudley said, catching on to what the wizards had already realized.

"And old Dusty," said Ron, glancing at the patch of carpet from which the corpse-figure had risen.

"Let's go up," said Hermione with a frightened look at the same spot, and she led the way up the creaking stairs to the drawing room on the first floor.

Hermione waved her wand to ignite the old gas lamps, then, shivering slightly in the drafty room, she perched on the sofa, her arms wrapped tightly around her. Ron crossed to the window and moved the heavy velvet curtains aside an inch.

"Can't see anyone out there," he reported. "And you'd think, if Harry still had a Trace on him, they'd have followed us here.

"So that just proves he doesn't," Lily said. "But we already knew that."

I know they can't get in the house, but – what's up, Harry?"

Harry had given a cry of pain: His scar had burned against as something flashed across his mind like a bright light on water.

"What did you see?" Ron asked, advancing on Harry. "Did you see him at my place?"

"No, I just felt anger – he's really angry –"

"But that could be at the Burrow," said Ron loudly. "What else? Didn't you see anything? Was he cursing someone?"

"Ron, he's not a television aeriel," Ginny said.

"No, I just felt anger – I couldn't tell –"

Harry felt badgered, confused, and Hermione did not help as she said in a frightened voice, "Your scar, again? But what's going on? I thought that connection had closed!"

"It did, for a while," muttered Harry; his scar was still painful, which made it hard to concentrate. "I – I think it's started opening again whenever he loses control, that's how it used to –"

"But then you've got to close your mind!" said Hermione shrilly. "Harry, Dumbledore didn't want you to use that connection, he wanted you to shut it down, that's why you were supposed to use Occlumency! Otherwise Voldemort can plant false images in your mind, remember –"

"Hermione!" Sirius growled.

"Yeah, I do remember, thanks," said Harry through gritted teeth; he did not need Hermione to tell him that Voldemort had once used this selfsame connection between them to lead him into a trap, nor that it had resulted in Sirius's death.

"Sorry, Harry," Hermione said as Sirius said, "it's not your fault."

He turned his back on Ron and Hermione, pretending to examine the old tapestry of the Black family tree on the wall. Then Hermione shrieked:

Harry drew his wand again and spun around to see a silver Patronus soar through the drawing room window and land upon the floor in front of them,

"Sorry," Hermione said again.

"You nearly gave us a heart attack," Ron muttered annoyed.

where it solidified into the weasel that spoke with the voice of Ron's father.

"Family safe, do not reply, we are being watched."

"Thank God/Merlin," everyone who hadn't been there sighed.

The Patronus dissolved into nothingness. Ron let out a noise between a whimper and a groan and dropped onto the sofa: Hermione joined him, gripping his arm.

"They're all right, they're all right!" she whispered, and Ron half laughed and hugged her.

"Harry," he said over Hermione's shoulder, "I –"

"It's not a problem," said Harry, sickened by the pain in his head. "It's your family, 'course you were worried. I'd feel the same way." He thought of Ginny. "I do feel the same way."

Ginny beamed at him.

The pain in his scar was reaching a peak, burning as it had back in the garden of the Burrow. Faintly he heard Hermione say "I don't want to be on my own. Could we use the sleeping bags I've brought and camp in here tonight?"

He heard Ron agree.

"I didn't want to be away from you either," Ron said.

"Aww," Molly said as the landed in the family room.

"Mum," Ron groaned, with red ears as the twins snickered.

"Well, now we get to see what you three got up to," Remus said, in a forced happy voice.

"It's not pleasant," the trio said together, resulting in everyone groaning.

"What did you expect?" Hermione laughed.

"Yeah, we were living in the palace for the year," Ron chucked.

"This the next day" Harry said as they all entered the pensieve.

Do Not Enter

Without the Express Permission of

Regulus Arcturus Black

"I think Percy had one of them on his door," Bill chuckled.

"Until the twins edited it to say Priscilla," Ginny laughed.

He read the sign again. Hermione was already a flight of stairs below him.

"Hermione," he said, and he was surprised that his voice was so calm. "Come back up here."

"What?" James asked.

"What's the matter?"

"R.A.B. I think I've found him."

There was a gasp, and then Hermione ran back up the stairs.

"In your mum's letter?

"Huh?" Lily asked.

"The letter you wrote to Sirius a few days after my first birthday," Harry said.

"Oh that one," Lily beamed to her it felt like she'd wrote it a few months ago.

But I didn't see –"

Harry shook his head, pointing at Regulus's sign. She read it, then clutched Harry's arm so tightly that he winced.

"Sirius's brother?" she whispered.

"What about him?" Sirius asked.

"R.A.B," James said. "Regulus Arcturus Black."

"But Reg was a Death Eater," Sirius muttered, though this sentace seemed to pain him. "Although I suppose if he wanted to leave…"

"Wait for it," Ron muttered to Hermione.

"He was a Death Eater," said Harry. "Sirius told me about him, he joined up when he was really young and then got cold feet and tried to leave – so they killed him."

"Not exactly," Hermione said.

"That fits!" gasped Hermione. "If he was a Death Eater he had access to Voldemort, and if he became disenchanted, then he would have wanted to bring Voldemort down!"

She released Harry, leaned over the banister, and screamed, "Ron! RON! Get up here, quick!"

Ron appeared, panting, a minute later, his wand ready in his hand.

"What's up? If it's massive spiders again I want breakfast before I –"

"Again?" Molly asked.

"Yeah, that house was full of them," Ron shivered.

He frowned at the sign on Regulus's door, in which Hermione was silently pointing.

"What? That was Sirius's brother, wasn't it? Regulus Arcturus … Regulus … R.A.B.! The locket – you don't reckon - ?"

"Let's find out," said Harry. He pushed the door: It was locked. Hermione pointed her wand at the handle and said, "Alohamora." There was a click, and the door swung open.

They moved over the threshold together, gazing around.

The Slytherin colors of emerald and silver were everywhere, draping the bed, the walls, and the windows. The Black family crest was painstakingly painted over the bed, along with its motto, TOUJOURS PUR.

"Always Pure," Fleur said in distaste.

Beneath this was a collection of yellow newspaper cuttings, all stuck together to make a ragged collage. Hermione crossed the room to examine them.

"They're all about Voldemort," she said. "Regulus seems to have been a fan for a few years before he joined the Death Eaters …"

"Yep," Sirius nodded sadly.

A little puff of dust rose from the bedcovers as she sat down to read the clippings. Harry, meanwhile, had noticed another photograph: a Hogwarts Quidditch team was smiling and waving out of the frame. He moved closer and saw the snakes emblazoned on their chests: Slytherins. Regulus was instantly recognizable as the boy sitting in the middle of the front row: He had the same dark hair and slightly haughty look of his brother, though he was smaller, slighter, and rather less handsome than Sirius had been.

"He played Seeker," said Harry.

"What?" said Hermione vaguely; she was still immersed in Voldemort's press clippings.

"He's sitting in the middle of the front row, that's where the Seeker … Never mind," said Harry, realizing that nobody was listening.

Everyone snickered.

Ron was on his hands and knees, searching under the wardrobe. Harry looked around the room for likely hiding places and approached the desk. Yet again, somebody had searched before them. The drawers' contents had been turned over recently, the dust disturbed, but there was nothing of value there: old quills, out-of-date textbooks that bore evidence of being roughly handled, a recently smashed ink bottle, its sticky residue covering the contents of the drawer.

"There's an easier way," said Hermione, as Harry wiped his inky fingers on his jeans. She raised her wand and said, "Accio Locket!"

Nothing happened. Ron, who had been searching the folds of the faded curtains, looked disappointed.

"Is that it, then? It's not here?"

"Oh, it could still be here, but under counter-enchantments," said Hermione. "Charms to prevent it from being summoned magically, you know."

"Like Voldemort put on the stone basin in the cave," said Harry, remembering how he had been unable to Summon the fake locket.

"How are we supposed to find it then?" asked Ron.

"We search manually," said Hermione.

"That's a good idea," said Ron, rolling his eyes, and he resumed his examination of the curtains.

"Shaking down the curtains?" Petunia asked amused.

They combed every inch of the room for more than an hour, but were forced, finally, to conclude that the locket was not there.

The sun had risen now; its light dazzled them even through the grimy landing windows.

"It could be somewhere else in the house, though," said Hermione in a rallying tone as they walked back downstairs. As Harry and Ron had become more discouraged, she seemed to have become more determined.

"Whether he'd manage to destroy it or not, he'd want to keep it hidden from Voldemort, wouldn't he? Remember all those awful things we had to get rid of when we were here last time?

"Crap," Molly swore.

"Mum!" Bill, Ron and Ginny said shocked while everyone else stared at her in shock.

"What?" Sirius asked.

That clock that shot bolts at everyone and those old robes that tried to strangle Ron; Regulus might have put them there to protect the locket's hiding place, even though we didn't realize it at … at … "

Harry and Ron looked at her. She was standing with one foot in midair, with the dumbstruck look of one who had just been Obliviated: her eyes had even drifted out of focus.

"…at the time," she finished in a whisper.

"Something wrong?" asked Ron.

"There was a locket."

"What?" everyone but the Trio and Molly said.

"We couldn't open it," Ginny realized.

"…So we threw it away…" Dora breathed.

"Damn it," everyone else said.

"We touched that," Bill groaned after a few seconds, causing everyone to chuckle weakly.

"What?" said Harry and Ron together.

"In the cabinet in the drawing room. Nobody could open it. And we … we … "

"Kreacher nicked loads of things back from us," said Harry.

"Oh please say he did," Neville muttered.

It was the only chance, the only slender hope left to them, and he was going to cling to it until forced to let go. "He had a whole stash of stuff in his cupboard in the kitchen. C'mon."

He ran down the stairs taking two steps at a time, the other two thundering along in his wake.

They made so much noise that they woke the portrait of Sirius's mother as they passed through the hall.

"Filth! Mudbloods! Scum!" she screamed after them

"Oh shut up," the twins said together

as they dashed down into the basement kitchen and slammed the door behind them. Harry ran the length of the room, skidded to a halt at the door of Kreacher's cupboard, and wrenched it open. There was the nest of dirty old blankets in which the house-elf had once slept, but they were not longer glittering with the trinkets Kreacher had salvaged. The only thing there was an old copy of Nature's Nobility: A Wizarding Genealogy. Refusing to believe his eyes, Harry snatched up the blankets and shook them. A dead mouse fell out and rolled dismally across the floor.

"Ew," Petunia said.

Ron groaned as he threw himself into a kitchen chair; Hermione closed her eyes.

"It's not over yet," said Harry, and he raised his voice and called, "Kreacher!"

There was a loud crack and the house elf that Harry had so reluctantly inherited from Sirius appeared out of nowhere in front of the cold and empty fireplace: tiny, half human-sized, his pale skin hanging off him in folds, white hair sprouting copiously from his batlike ears. He was still wearing the filthy rag in which they had first met him, and the contemptuous look he bent upon Harry showed that his attitude to his change of ownership had altered no more than his outfit.

"Master," croaked Kreacher in his bullfrog's voice, and he bowed low; muttering to his knees, "back in my Mistress's old house with the blood-traitor Weasley and the Mudblood –"

"Don't call them that," everyone snapped.

"I forbid you to call anyone 'blood traitor' or 'Mudblood,'" growled Harry.

"I've got a question for you," said Harry, his heart beating rather fast as he looked down at the elf, "and I order you to answer it truthfully. Understand?"

"Yes, Master," said Kreacher, bowing low again. Harry saw his lips moving soundlessly, undoubtedly framing the insults he was now forbidden to utter.

"Two years ago," said Harry, "there was a big gold locket in the drawing room upstairs. We threw it out. Did you steal it back?"

There was a moment's silence, during which Kreacher straightened up to look Harry full in the face. Then he said, "Yes."

"Yes!" everyone either cheered or breathed in relief.

"Where is it now?" asked Harry jubilantly as Ron and Hermione looked gleeful.

Kreacher closed his eyes as though he could not bear to see their reactions to his next word.

"Gone."

"Gone?" everyone know echoed.

"Gone?" echoed Harry, elation floating out of him, "What do you mean, it's gone?"

The elf shivered. He swayed.

"Kreacher," said Harry fiercely, "I order you –"

"Mundungus Fletcher," croaked the elf, his eyes still tight shut.

"Damn that man to hell!" Sirius yelled.

"Mundungus Fletcher stole it all; Miss Bella's and Miss Cissy's pictures, my Mistress's gloves, the Order of Merlin, First Class, the goblets with the family crest, and – and – "

Kreacher was gulping for air: His hollow chest was rising and falling rapidly, then his eyes flew open and he uttered a bloodcurdling scream.

"—and the locket, Master Regulus's locket. Kreacher did wrong, Kreacher failed in his orders!"

"What orders?" Remus asked.

Harry reacted instinctively: As Kreacher lunged for the poker standing in the grate, he launched himself upon the elf, flattening him.

Hermione's scream mingled with Kreacher's but Harry bellowed louder than both of them: "Kreacher, I order you to stay still!"

He felt the elf freeze and released him. Kreacher lay flat on the cold stone floor, tears gushing from his sagging eyes.

"Poor Kreacher," Teddy said, he'd never dealt with the Kreacher in the memories but he liked the elf he knew.

"Harry, let him up!" Hermione whispered.

"As much as I disagree with what's happening," Lily sighed. "It's for the best."

"So he can beat himself up with the poker?" snorted Harry, kneeling beside the elf. "I don't think so. Right. Kreacher, I want the truth: How do you know Mundungus Fletcher stole the locket?"

"Kreacher saw him!" gasped the elf as tears poured over his snout and into his mouth full of graying teeth. "Kreacher saw him coming out of Kreacher's cupboard with his hands full of Kreacher's treasures. Kreacher told the sneak thief to stop, but Mundungus Fletcher laughed and r-ran … "

"You called the locket 'Master Regulus's,'" said Harry. "Why? Where did it come from? What did Regulus have to do with it? Kreacher, sit up and tell me everything you know about that locket, and everything Regulus had to do with it!"

The elf sat up, curled into a ball, placed his wet face between his knees, and began to rock backward and forward. When he spoke, his voice was muffled but quite distinct in the silent, echoing kitchen.

"Master Sirius ran away, good riddance,

"Good riddance to you too," Sirius muttered but it was half-hearted.

for he was a bad boy and broke my Mistress's heart with his lawless ways. But Master Regulus had proper order; he knew what was due to the name of Black and the dignity of his pure blood. For years he talked of the Dark Lord, who was going to bring the wizards out of hiding to rule the Muggles and the Muggle-borns … and when he was sixteen years old, Master Regulus joined the Dark Lord. So proud, so proud, so happy to serve …

"Idiot," some muttered quietly.

And one day, a year after he joined, Master Regulus came down to the kitchen to see Kreacher. Master Regulus always liked Kreacher. And Master Regulus said … he said …"

The old elf rocked faster than ever.

"… he said that the Dark Lord required an elf."

"Voldemort wanted an elf?" the twins asked shocked.

"Voldemort needed an elf?" Harry repeated, looking around at Ron and Hermione, who looked just as puzzled as he did.

"Oh yes," moaned Kreacher. "And Master Regulus had volunteered Kreacher. It was an honor, said Master Regulus, an honor for him and for Kreacher, who must be sure to do whatever the Dark Lord ordered him to do … and then to c-come home."

Kreacher rocked still faster, his breath coming in sobs.

"So Kreacher went to the Dark Lord. The Dark Lord did not tell Kreacher what they were to do, but took Kreacher with him to a cave beside the sea. And beyond the cave was a cavern, and in the cavern was a great black lake … "

The hairs on the back of Harry's neck stood up. Kreacher's croaking voice seemed to come to him from across the dark water. He saw what had happened as clearly as though he had been present.

"… There was a boat …"

"Of course there was," Fleur shuddered remembering

"There was a b-basin full of potion on the island. The D-Dark Lord made Kreacher drink it …"

"Oh," Dora said, her eyes misting slightly.

The elf quaked from head to foot.

"Kreacher drank, and as he drank he saw terrible thing … Kreacher's insides burned … Kreacher cried for Master Regulus to save him, he cried for his Mistress Black, but the Dark Lord only laughed … He made Kreacher drink all the potion … He dropped a locket into the empty basin … He filled it with more potion."

"And then the Dark Lord sailed away, leaving Kreacher on the island …"

"That's sick," Bill spat.

"Kreacher needed water, he crawled to the island's edge and he drank from the black lake … and hands, dead hands, came out of the water and dragged Kreacher under the surface …"

"How did you get away?" Harry asked, and he was not surprised to hear himself whispering.

Kreacher raised his ugly head and looked Harry with his great, bloodshot eyes.

"Master Regulus told Kreacher to come back," he said.

"I know – but how did you escape the Inferi?"

Kreacher did not seem to understand.

"Master Regulus told Kreacher to come back," he repeated.

"I know, but – "

"Well, it's obvious, isn't it, Harry?" said Ron. "He Disapparated!"

"But … you couldn't Apparate in and out of that cave," said Harry, "otherwise Dumbledore – "

"Elf magic's different," Arthur said.

"Elf magic isn't like wizard's magic, is it?" said Ron, "I mean, they can Apparate and Disapparate in and out of Hogwarts when we can't."

There was a silence as Harry digested this. Hermione spoke, and her voice was icy.

"Of course, Voldemort would have considered the ways of house-elves far beneath his notice … It would never have occurred to him that they might have magic that he didn't."

"The house-elf's highest law is his Master's bidding," intoned Kreacher. "Kreacher was told to come home, so Kreacher came home …"

"Well, then, you did what you were told, didn't you?" said Hermione kindly. "You didn't disobey orders at all!"

Kreacher shook his head, rocking as fast as ever.

"So what happened when you got back?" Harry asked. "What did Regulus say when you told him what happened?"

"Master Regulus was very worried, very worried," croaked Kreacher. "Master Regulus told Kreacher to stay hidden and not to leave the house. And then … it was a little while later … Master Regulus came to find Kreacher in his cupboard one night, and Master Regulus was strange, not as he usually was, disturbed in his mind, Kreacher could tell … and he asked Kreacher to take him to the cave, the cave where Kreacher had gone with the Dark Lord … "

"No," Sirius breathed, his voice breaking slightly.

And so they had set off. Harry could visualize them quite clearly, the frightened old elf and the thin, dark Seeker who had so resembled Sirius … Kreacher knew how to open the concealed entrance to the underground cavern, knew how to raise the tiny boat: this time it was his beloved Regulus who sailed with him to the island with its basin of poison …

"And he made you drink the poison?" said Harry, disgusted.

But Kreacher shook his head and wept. Hermione's hands leapt to her mouth: She seemed to have understood something.

Everyone who had already figured it out either looked disgusted, pained or their eyes were filled with tears.

"M-Master Regulus took from his pocket a locket like the one the Dark Lord had," said Kreacher, tears pouring down either side of his snoutlike nose. "And he told Kreacher to take it and, when the basin was empty, to switch the lockets …"

Kreacher's sobs came in great rasps now; Harry had to concentrate hard to understand him.

"And he order – Kreacher to leave – without him. And he told Kreacher – to go home – and never to tell my Mistress – what he had done – but to destroy – the first locket. And he drank – all the potion – and Kreacher swapped the lockets – and watched … as Master Regulus … was dragged beneath the water … and …"

"Reg," Sirius groaned, burying his face in his hands as James and Remus tried to comfort him.

Regulus was the only one in the family he'd even vaguely liked, the only one he felt bad about leaving. He felt bad about leaving him to mercy of their parents - if he'd stayed he might have been able to prevent this, somehow.

Nearly everyone crying now or looked extremely sad and pained.

"Oh, Kreacher!" wailed Hermione, who was crying. She dropped to her knees beside the elf and tried to hug him. At once he was on his feet, cringing away from her, quite obviously repulsed.

"The Mudblood touched Kreacher, he will not allow it, what would his Mistress say?"

"I told you not to call her 'Mudblood'!" snarled Harry, but the elf was already punishing himself. He fell to the ground and banged his forehead on the floor.

"Stop him – stop him!" Hermione cried. "Oh, don't you see now how sick it is, the way they've got to obey?"

Lily nodded sadly but she kept on eye on Sirius.

"Kreacher – stop, stop!" shouted Harry.

The elf lay on the floor, panting and shivering, green mucus glistening around his snot, a bruise already blooming on his pallid forehead where he had struck himself, his eyes swollen and bloodshot and swimming in tears. Harry had never seen anything so pitiful.

"So you brought the locket home," he said relentlessly, for he was determined to know the full story. "And you tried to destroy it?"

"Nothing Kreacher did made any mark upon it," moaned the elf. "Kreacher tried everything, everything he knew, but nothing, nothing would work … So many powerful spells upon the casing, Kreacher was sure the way to destroy it was to get inside it, but it would not open …Kreacher punished himself, he tried again, he punished himself, he tried again. Kreacher failed to obey orders, Kreacher could not destroy the locket! And his mistress was mad with grief, because Master Regulus had disappeared and Kreacher could not tell her what had happened, no, because Master Regulus had f-f-forbidden him to tell any of the f-f-family what happened in the c-cave …"

"The poor elf," Luna sobbed.

Kreacher began to sob so hard that there were no more coherent words. Tears flowed down Hermione's cheeks as she watched Kreacher, but she did not dare touch him again. Even Ron, who was no fan of Kreacher's, looked troubled. Harry sat back on his heels and shook his head, trying to clear it.

"I don't understand you, Kreacher," he said finally. "Voldemort tried to kill you, Regulus died to bring Voldemort down, but you were still happy to betray Sirius to Voldemort? You were happy to go to Narcissa and Bellatrix, and pass information to Voldemort through them …"

"House elves don't think like that, mate," Neville said.

"Harry, Kreacher doesn't think like that," said Hermione, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand. "He's a slave; house-elves are used to bad, even brutal treatment; what Voldemort did to Kreacher wasn't that far out of the common way.

"That's sick," Dudley spat.

What do wizard wars mean to an elf like Kreacher? He's loyal to people who are kind to him, and Mrs. Black must have been, and Regulus certainly was, so he served them willingly and parroted their beliefs. I know what you're going to say," she went on as Harry began to protest, "that Regulus changed his mind … but he doesn't seem to have explained that to Kreacher, does he?" And I think I know why. Kreacher and Regulus's family were all safest if they kept to the old pure-blood line. Regulus was trying to protect them all."

Most of the wizards nodded in agreement to what Hermione was saying

"Sirius – "

"Sirius was horrible to Kreacher, Harry, and it's no good looking like that, you know it's true. Kreacher had been alone for such a long time when Sirius came to live here, and he was probably starving for a bit of affection. I'm sure 'Miss Cissy' and 'Miss Bella' were perfectly lovely to Kreacher when he turned up, so he did them a favor and told them everything they wanted to know. I've said all along that wizards would pay for how they treat house-elves. Well, Voldemort did … and so did Sirius."

Sirius sighed, having gained a bit of control over himself.

"Kreacher," said Harry after a while, "when you feel up to it, er … please sit up."

Lily, Ginny and Hermione smiled.

It was several minutes before Kreacher hiccupped himself into silence. Then he pushed himself into a sitting position again, rubbing his knuckles into his eyes like a small child.

"Kreacher, I am going to ask you to do something," said Harry. He glanced at Hermione for assistance. He wanted to give the order kindly, but at the same time, he could not pretend that it was not an order. However, the change in his tone seemed to have gained her approval: She smiled encouragingly.

"Kreacher, I want you, please, to go and find Mundungus Fletcher. We need to find out where the locket – where Master Regulus's locket it. It's really important. We want to finish the work Master Regulus started, we want to – er – ensure that he didn't die in vain."

Kreacher dropped his fists and looked up at Harry.

"Find Mundungus Fletcher?" he croaked.

"Yes," Remus smiled.

"And bring him here, to Grimmauld Place," said Harry. "Do you think you could do that for us?"

As Kreacher nodded and got to his feet, Harry had a sudden inspiration. He pulled out Hagrid's purse and took out the fake Horcrux, the substitute locket in which Regulus had placed the note to Voldemort.

"Kreacher, I'd, er, like you to have this," he said, pressing the locket into the elf's hand.

"He'll go mad," Sirius warned.

"This belonged to Regulus and I'm sure he'd want you to have it as a token of gratitude for what you—"

"Overkill, mate," said Ron as the elf took one look at the locket, let out a howl of shock and misery, and threw himself back onto the ground.

"Much better," Arthur smiled.

"Does this mean I don't have to hate Kreacher anymore?" Teddy asked causing everyone to look at him. "What? I like that elf!"

Harry chuckled before saying, "we're skipping a few days."

He was in the process of lowering the newspaper when a deafening crack echoed around the kitchen.

"Kreacher's back!" Dudley grinned.

For a split second, he did not take in the mass of struggling limbs that had appeared out of thin air right beside his chair. He hurried to his feet as Kreacher disentangled himself and, bowing low to Harry, croaked, "Kreacher has returned with the thief Mundungus Fletcher, Master."

Mundungus scrambled up and pulled out his wand; Hermione, however, was too quick for him.

"Expelliarmus!"

Mundungus's wand soared into the air, and Hermione caught it. Wild-eyed, Mundungus dived for the stairs. Ron rugby-tackled him and Mundungus hit the stone floor with a muffled crunch.

Everyone chuckled.

"Muggle style!" the twins yelled.

"What?" he bellowed, writhing in his attempts to free himself from Ron's grip. "Wha've I done? Setting a bleedin' 'house-elf on me, what are you playing at, wha've I done, lemme go, lemme go, of – "

"You're not in much of a position to make threats," said Harry. He threw aside the newspaper, crossed the kitchen in a few strides, and dropped to his knees beside Mundungus, who stopped struggling and looked terrified.

"Am I that scary?" Harry asked amused.

"When you're angry?" Bill chuckled.

"Yes," he, Fleur, Ron, Ginny, Teddy, Neville, Luna, Dudley and Hermione said.

Ron got up, panting, and watched as Harry pointed his wand deliberately at Mundungus's nose. Mundungus stank of stale sweat and tobacco smoke. His hair was matted and his robes stained.

"Kreacher apologizes for the delay in bringing the thief, Master," croaked the elf. "Fletcher knows how to avoid capture, has many hidey-holes and accomplices. Nevertheless, Kreacher cornered the thief in the end."

"You've done really well, Kreacher," said Harry, and the elf bowed low.

"Right, we've got a few questions for you," Harry told Mundungus, who shouted at once.

"I panicked, okay?

"Huh?" James asked.

I never wanted to come along, no offense, mate, but I never volunteered to die for you, an' that was bleedin' You-Know-Who come flying at me, anyone woulda got outta there. I said all along I didn't wanna do it –"

"For your information, none of the rest of us Disapparated," said Hermione.

"Well, you're a bunch of bleedin' 'eroes then, aren't you,

"Yes, they are," Petunia said.

but I never pretended I was up for killing meself –"

"We're not interested in why you ran out on Mad-Eye," said Harry, moving his wand a little closer to Mundungus's baggy, bloodshot eyes. "We already knew you were an unreliable bit of scum."

Everyone smirked.

"You know, I feel sorry for the Auror's working under you," Dora chuckled.

"Why?" Harry laughed.

"Don't worry," she smiled.

"You may end up being one of them," he chuckled and her smile dropped.

"Well then, why the 'ell am I being 'unted down by 'ouse-elves? Or is this about them goblets again? I ain't got none of 'em left, or you could 'ave 'em –"

"It's not about the goblets either, although you're getting warmer," said Harry. "Shut up and listen."

"And you're authoritive," Dora grinned.

It felt wonderful to have something to do, someone of whom he could demand some small portion of truth. Harry's wand was now so close to the bridge of Mundungus's nose that Mundungus had gone cross-eyed trying to keep it in view.

"When you cleaned out this house of anything valuable," Harry began, but Mundungus interrupted him again.

"Sirius never cared about any of the junk –"

There was the sound of pattering feet, a blaze of shining copper, an echoing clang, and a shriek of agony; Kreacher had taken a run at Mundungus and hit him over the head with a saucepan.

"Call 'im off, call 'im off, 'e should be locked up!" screamed Mundungus, cowering as Kreacher raised the heavy-bottomed pan again.

Everyone laughed.

"I like this elf!" the twins yelled.

"Kreacher, no!" shouted Harry.

Kreacher's thin arms trembled with the weight of the pan, still held aloft.

"Perhaps just one more, Master Harry, for luck?"

"I can't believe I'm saying this," Sirius muttered, "…but he's brilliant."

Ron laughed.

"We need him conscious, Kreacher, but if he needs persuading, you can do the honors," said Harry.

"Thank you very much, Master," said Kreacher with a bow, and he retreated a short distance, his great pale eyes still fixed upon Mundungus with loathing.

"When you stripped this house of all the valuables you could find," Harry began again, "you took a bunch of stuff from the kitchen cupboard. There was a locket there." Harry's mouth was suddenly dry: He could sense Ron and Hermione's tension and excitement too. "What did you do with it?"

"Why?" asked Mundungus. "Is it valuable?"

"You've still got it!" cried Hermione.

"No. he hasn't," Neville sighed.

"No, he hasn't," said Ron shrewdly. "He's wondering whether he should have asked more money for it."

"More?" said Mundungus. "That wouldn't have been effing difficult . . .bleedin' gave it away, di'n' I? No choice."

"What do you mean?"

"I was selling in Diagon Alley and she come up to me and asks if I've got a license for trading in magical artifacts. Bleedin' snoop. She was gonna fine me, but she took a fancy to the locket an' told me she'd take it and let me off that time, and to fink meself lucky."

"Who was this woman?" asked Harry.

"I dunno, some Ministry hag."

Mundungus considered for a moment, brow wrinkled.

"Little woman. Bow on top of 'er head." He frowned and then added, "Looked like a toad."

"Oh please no!" Luna exclaimed, sounding unlike herself.

"Umbridge," Ginny and Neville groaned.

Harry dropped his wand: It hit Mundungus on the nose and shot red sparks into his eyebrows, which ignited.

"Aquamenti!" screamed Hermione, and a jet of water streamed from her wand, engulfing a spluttering and choking Mundungus.

Harry looked up and saw his own shock reflected in Ron's and Hermione's faces.

"Oh, this is bad," Petunia murmured as she sank into a seat in the family room.

"Bad!' Molly said. 'It's terrible!"

"Wait, so you really did break into the Ministry," Remus said shocked.

"Yep," the trio smirked.

"You amaze me," Dora said, staring at them with wide-eyes.

"How do you think they'll react when they find out we broke into Gringotts?" Ron chuckled quietly to Harry and Hermione.

"Can we eat?" Teddy said, shaking his head – he had just come to the conclusion that his godfather was mad.

"Sure, let's go get lunch," Ginny said.

The usual low whisper of "Severus Snape" greeted him, the chill wind swept him, and his tongue rolled up for a moment.

"You have that every time you come in," Luna said. "How annoying."

"I didn't kill you," he said, once it had unrolled, then held his breath as the dusty jinx-figure exploded. He waited until he was halfway down the stairs to the kitchen, out of earshot of Mrs. Black and clear of the dust cloud, before calling, "I've got news, and you won't like it."

"Oh great," Dudley said.

The kitchen was almost unrecognisable. Every surface now shone; Copper pots and pans had been burnished to a rosy glow; the wooden tabletop gleamed; the goblets and plates already laid for dinner glinted in the light from a merrily blazing fire, on which a cauldron was simmering. Nothing in the room, however, was more dramatically different than the house-elf who now came hurrying toward Harry, dressed in a snowy-white towel, his ear hair as clean and fluffy as cotton wool, Regulus's locket bouncing on his thin chest.

"That's all it took?" Sirius asked in shock. "A bit of kindness."

The trio nodded and he looked appropriately abashed.

"Shoes off, if you please, Master Harry, and hands washed before dinner," croaked Kreacher, seizing the Invisibility Cloak and slouching off to hang it on a hook on the wall, beside a number of old-fashioned robes that had been freshly laundered.

"What's happened?" Ron asked apprehensively. He are Hermione had been pouring over a sheaf of scribbled notes and hand drawn maps that littered the end of the long kitchen table, but now they watched Harry as he strode toward them and threw down the newspaper on top of their scattered parchment.

Lily and James shared a look, it looked like their study had, sheets sprewed all over the place and people bringing in the latest news.

A large picture of a familiar, hook-nosed, black-haired man stared up at them all, beneath a headline that read:

SEVERUS SNAPE CONFIRMED AS HOGWARTS HEADMASTER

"No!" everyone who had been dead yelled in shock and anger.

"No!" said Ron and Hermione loudly.

Hermione was quickest; she snatched up the newspaper and began to read the accompanying story out loud.

"Severus Snape, long-standing Potions master at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and wizardry, was today appointed headmaster in the most important of several staffing changes at the ancient school. Following the resignation of the previous Muggle Studies teacher, Alecto Carrow will take over the post while her brother, Amycus, fills the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts professor."

"That was terrible," Neville, Luna and Ginny shuddered.

"What was it like?" Lily asked.

"Not Hogwarts," Luna said.

"'I welcome the opportunity to uphold our finest Wizarding traditions and values –' Like committing murder and cutting off people's ears, I suppose! Snape, headmaster! Snape in Dumbledore's study – Merlin's pants!" she shrieked,

"Merlin's pants?" Petunia repeated.

making both Harry and Ron jump. She leapt up from the table and hurtled from the room, shouting as she went, "I'll be back in a minute!"

"What's going on?" Dudley asked.

"'Merlin's pants'?" repeated Ron, looking amused. "She must be upset." He pulled the newspaper toward him and perused the article about Snape.

"The other teachers won't stand for this, McGonagall and Flitwick and Sprout all know the truth, they know how Dumbledore died. They won't accept Snape as headmaster.

"They won't have a choice," Remus sighed.

And who are these Carrows?"

"Death Eaters," Dora spat.

"Death Eaters," said Harry. "There are pictures of them inside. They were at the top of the tower when Snape killed Dumbledore,

"Oh, so they're all together," Teddy scowled.

so it's all friends together.

Everyone chuckled at the similarity.

"You know," Ginny chuckled. "I've never noticed how similar you two are."

"Me neither," Hermione laughed. "But I suppose it makes sense."

And," Harry went on bitterly, drawing up a chair, "I can't see that the other teachers have got any choice but to stay. If the Ministry and Voldemort are behind Snape it'll be a choice between staying and teaching, or a nice few years in Azkaban – and that's if they're lucky. I reckon they'll stay to try and protect the students."

"Definitely," Lily nodded.

Kreacher came bustling to the table with a large curcen in his hands, and ladled out soup into pristine bowls, whistling between his teeth as he did so.

"He really had changed," Sirius sighed.

"Thanks, Kreacher," said Harry, flipping over the Prophet so as not to have to look at Snape's face. "Well, at least we know exactly where Snape is now."

"Good point," Bill nodded.

"Snape wasn't that bad, either," Ginny said. "It was the Carrows you had to watch for."

He began to spoon soup into his mouth.

"There are still a load of Death Eaters watching this house," he told Ron as he ate, "more than usual. It's like they're hoping we'll march out carrying our school trunks and head off for the Hogwarts Express."

"So eet's ze first of September," Fleur said. "What 'ad you been doing?"

"I'm sure it'll come up," Harry smirked. "But if it doesn't, spying."

Ron glanced at his watch.

"I've been thinking about that all day. It left nearly six hours ago. Weird, not being on it, isn't it?"

"They nearly saw me coming back in just now," Harry said, "I landed badly on the top step, and the Cloak slipped."

"Oh be careful," Molly fretted

"I do that every time. Oh, here she is," Ron added, craning around in his seat to watch Hermione re-entering the kitchen. "And what in the name of Merlin's most baggy Y Fronts was that about?"

"Ron," Arthur said, unusually stern as the twins snickered.

"I remembered this," Hermione panted.

She was carrying a large, framed picture,

"Phineas," Remus said.

which she now lowered to the floor before seizing her small, beaded bag from the kitchen sideboard. Opening it, she proceeded to force the painting inside and despite the fact that it was patently too large to fit inside the tiny bag, within a few seconds it had vanished, like so much ease, into the bag's capacious depths.

"Phineas Nigellus," Hermione explained as she threw the bag onto the kitchen table with the usual sonorous, clanking crash.

"Sorry?" said Ron, but Harry understood.

"Snape could send Phineas Nigellus to look inside this house for him," Hermione explained to Ron as she resumed her seat. "But let him try it now, all Phineas Nigellus will be able to see is the inside of my handbag."

"Brilliant," Dora beamed.

"Good thinking!" said Ron, looking impressed.

"Thank you," smiled Hermione, pulling her soup toward her. "So, Harry, what else happened today?"

"Nothing," said Harry. "Watched the Ministry entrance for seven hours.

"What fun," Bill said, sarcastically.

No sign of her. Saw your dad though, Ron. He looks fine."

Arthur smiled

Ron nodded his appreciation of this news.

It wasreassuring to catch these glimpses of him, even if he did look very strained and anxious.

"Dad always told us most Ministry people use the Floo Network to get to work," Ron said. "That's why we haven't seen Umbridge, she'd never walk, she'd think she's too important."

"True," Neville nodded.

"And what about that funny old witch and that little wizard in the navy robes?" Hermione asked.

"Magical Maintenance," Bill said causing Hermione to huff..

"Oh yeah, the bloke from Magical Maintenance," said Ron.

"How do you know he works for Magical Maintenance?" Hermione asked, her soup spoon suspended in mid-air.

"Dad said everyone from Magical Maintenance wears navy blue robes."

"Good thing about having a dad who works for the ministry," James chuckled.

"But you never told us that!"

Hermione dropped her spoon and pulled toward her the sheaf of notes and maps that she and Ron had been examining when Harry had entered the kitchen.

"There's nothing in here about navy blue robes, nothing!" she said, flipping feverishly through the pages.

"Well, does it really matter?"

"Ron, it all matters! If we're going to get into the Ministry and not give ourselves away when they're bound to be on the lookout for intruders, every little detail matters! We've been over and over this, I mean, what's the point of all these reconnaissance trips if you aren't even bothering to tell us –"

"Blimey, Hermione, I forget one little thing – "

"You do realize, don't you, that there's probably no more dangerous place in the whole world for us to be right now than the Ministry of –"

"I think we should do it tomorrow," said Harry.

Hermione stopped dead, her jaw hanging; Ron choked a little over his soup.

Everyone even chuckled or giggled.

"Tomorrow?" repeated Hermione. "You aren't serious, Harry?"

"No, I am," Sirius smirked.

"Shut up, Padfoot," James said, whacking him over the head. "The joke got old second year."

"First," Remus corrected.

"I am," said Harry. "I don't think we're going to be much better prepared than we are now even if we skulk around the Ministry entrance for another month. The longer we put it off, the farther away that locket could be. There's already a good chance Umbridge has chucked it away; the thing doesn't open."

"Unless," said Ron, "she's found a way of opening it and she's now possessed."

"Wouldn't make any difference to her," Ginny said darkly.

"Wouldn't make any difference to her, she was so evil in the first place," Harry shrugged.

They grinned but rolled their eyes.

Hermione was biting her lip, deep in thought.

"We know everything important," Harry went on, addressing Hermione. "We know they've stopped Apparition in and out of the Ministry; We know only the most senior Ministry members are allowed to connect their homes to the Floo Network now, because Ron heard those two Unspeakable complaining about it. And we know roughly where Umbridge's office is, because of what you heard the bearded bloke saying to his mate –"

"'I'll be up on level one, Dolores wants to see me,'" Hermione recited immediately.

"Exactly," said Harry. "And we know you get in using those funny coins, or tokens, or whatever they are, because I saw that witch borrowing one from her friend – "

"But we haven't got any!"

"If the plan works, we will have," Harry continued calmly.

"I don't know, Harry, I don't know … There are an awful lot of things that could go wrong, so much relies on chance … "

"That's true with all your plans," Neville chuckled.

"That'll be true even if we spend another three months preparing," said Harry. "It's time to act."

He could tell from Ron's and Hermione's faces that they were scared; he was not particularly confident himself, and yet he was sure the time had come to put their plan into operation.

"Skipping," Harry said.

"I still can't believe you're going to break into the Ministry," Lily said. "Its … it's …"

"Amazing," Fabian suggested.

"Fantastic," Gideon added.

"I was thinking mad," Lily smiled.

"Well,"Bill smirked. "They always ave been a little off in the head, if you know what I mean."

"Hey!" the trio yelled.

"Don't worry," Luna said. "The best people are always a bit mad."

"You look terrible," was Ron's greeting as he entered the room to wake Harry.

"Not for long," said Harry, yawning.

"What?" Petunia asked.

They found Hermione downstairs in the kitchen. She was being served coffee and hot rolls by Kreacher and wearing the slightly manic expression that Harry associated with exam review.

"Robes," she said under her breath, acknowledging their presence with a nervous nod and continuing to poke around in her beaded bag, "Polyjuice Potion …

"Oh," Petunia said, her previous question answered – it seemed amazing to her that they had only watched that memory a few hours earlier.

Invisibility Cloak … Decoy Detonators … You should each take a couple just in case … Puking Pastilles, Nosebleed Nougat, Extendible Ears …"

They gulped down their breakfast, then set off upstairs, Kreacher bowing them out and promising to have a steak-and-kidney pie ready for them when they returned.

The trio grimaced slightly knowing they wouldn't come back for that.

"Bless him," said Ron fondly, "and when you think I used to fantasize about cutting off his head and sticking it on the wall."

"I think we all did," Arthur chuckled.

They made their way onto the front step with immense caution. They could see a couple of puffy-eyed Death Eaters watching the house from across the misty square.

Hermione Disapparated with Ron first, then came back for Harry.

After the usual brief spell of darkness and near suffocation, Harry found himself in the tiny alleyway where the first phase of their plan was scheduled to take place. It was as yet deserted, except for a couple of large bins; the first Ministry workers did not usually appear here until at least eight o'clock.

"Right then," said Hermione, checking her watch. "she ought to be here in about five minutes. When I've Stunned her –"

"Hermione, we know," said Ron sternly. "And I thought we were supposed to open the door before she got here?"

Hermione squealed.

"I nearly forgot! Stand back –"

She pointed her wand at the padlocked and heavily graffitied fire door beside them, which burst open with a crash. The dark corridor behind it led, as they knew from their careful scouting trips, into an empty theater. Hermione pulled the door back toward her, to make it look as thought it was still closed.

"And now," she said, turning, back to face the other two in the alleyway, "we put on the Cloak again –"

"—and we wait," Ron finished, throwing it over Hermione's head like a blanket over a birdcage and rolling his eyes at Harry.

Little more than a minute later, there was a tiny pop and a little Ministry witch with flyaway gray hair Apparated feet from them, blinking a little in the sudden brightness: the sun had just come out from behind a cloud. She barely had time to enjoy the unexpected warmth, however, before Hermione's silent Stunning Spell hit her in the chest and she toppled over.

"Poor women," Ginny sighed.

"Nicely done, Hermione," said Ron, emerging behind a bin beside the theater door as Harry took off the Invisibility Cloak. Together they carried the little witch into the dark passageway that led backstage. Hermione plucked a few hairs from the witch's head and added them to a flask of muddy Polyjuice Potion she had taken from the beaded bag. Ron was rummaging through the little witch's handbag.

"She's Mafalda Hopkirk," he said, reading a small card that identified their victim as an assistant in the Improper Use of Magic Office.

Bill nearly snorted at the irony that she was polyjuicing someone in an office she would soon be department head of.

"You'd better take this, Hermione, and here are the tokens."

He passed her several small golden coins, all embossed with the letters M.O.M., which he had taken from the witch's purse.

Hermione drank the Polyjuice Potion, which was now a pleasant heliotrope color,

"So she's not evil," Luna smiled.

and within seconds stood before them, the double of Mafalda Hopkirk. As she removed Mafalda's spectacles and put them on, Harry checked his watch.

"We're running late, Mr. Magical Maintenance will be here any second."

They hurried to close the door on the real Mafalda; Harry and Ron threw the Invisibility Cloak over themselves but Hermione remained in view, waiting. Seconds later there was another pop, and a small, ferrety looking wizard appeared before them.

"Oh, hello, Mafalda."

"Hello!" said Hermione in a quavery voice, "How are you today?"

"Not so good, actually," replied the little wizard, who looked thoroughly downcast.

As Hermione and the wizard headed for the main road, Harry and Ron crept along behind them.

"I'm sorry to hear you're under the weather," said Hermione, talking firmly over the little wizard and he tried to expound upon his problems; it was essential to stop him from reaching the street. "Here, have a sweet."

"Eh? Oh, no thanks –"

"I insist!" said Hermione aggressively, shaking the bag of pastilles in his face. Looking rather alarmed, the little wizard took one.

"Never take sweets from a stranger," Dudley said.

The effect was instantaneous. The moment the pastille touched his tongue, the little wizard started vomiting so hard that he did not even notice as Hermione yanked a handful of hairs from the top of his head.

"Oh dear!" she said, as he splattered the alley with sick. "Perhaps you'd better take the day off!"

"No – no!" He choked and retched, trying to continue on his way despite being unable to walk straight. "I must – today – must go – "

The trio shared guilty looks.

"But that's just silly!" said Hermione, alarmed. "You can't go to work in this state – I think you ought to go to St. Mungo's and get them to sort you out."

The wizard had collapsed, heaving, onto all fours, still trying to crawl toward the main street.

"He's dedicated…"Teddy said but didn't notice the trio slowly shaking their heads.

"You simply can't go to work like this!" cried Hermione.

At last he seemed to accept the truth of her words. Using a reposed Hermione to claw his way back into a standing position, he turned on the spot and vanished, leaving nothing behind but the bag Ron had snatched from his hand as he went and some flying chunks of vomit.

"Urgh," said Hermione, holding up the skirt of her robe to avoid the puddles of sick. "It would have made much less mess to Stun him too."

"Yeah," said Ron, emerging from under the cloak holding the wizard's bag, "but I still think a whole pile of unconscious bodies would have drawn more attention. Keen on his job, though, isn't he?

The trio sighed and this time Ginny looked at them curiously.

Chuck us the hair and the potion, then."

Within two minutes, Ron stood before them, as small and ferrety as the sick wizard, and wearing the navy blue robes that had been folded in his bag.

"Weird he wasn't wearing them today, wasn't it, seeing how much he wanted to go? Anyway, I'm Reg Cattermole, according to the label in the back."

"Now wait here," Hermione told Harry, who was still under the Invisibility Cloak, "and we'll be back with some hairs for you."

He had to wait ten minutes, but it seemed much longer to Harry, skulking alone in the sick-splattered alleyway beside the door concealing the Stunned Mafalda. Finally Ron and Hermione reappeared.

"We don't know who he is," Hermione said, passing Harry several curly black hairs, "but he's gone home with a dreadful nosebleed! Here, he's pretty tall, you'll need bigger robes …"

She pulled out a set of the old robes Kreacher had laundered for them, and Harry retired to take the potion and change.

Once the painful transformation was complete he was more than six feet tall and, from what he could tell from his well-muscled arms, powerfully built. He also had a beard. Stowing the Invisibility Cloak and his glasses inside his new robes, he rejoined the other two.

"Blimey, that's scary," said Ron, looking up at Harry, who now towered over him.

Everyone sniggered.

"What?" Ron said. "I'm was used to being taller than you."

"Take one of Mafalda's tokens," Hermione told Harry, "and let's go, it's nearly nine."

They stepped out of the alleyway together. Fifty yards along the crowded pavement there were spiked black railings flanking two flights of stairs, one labeled GENTLEMEN, the other LADIES.

"See you in a moment, then," said Hermione nervously, and she tottered off down the steps to LADIES. Harry and Ron joined a number of oddly dressed men descending into what appeared to be an ordinary underground public toilet, tiled in grimy black and white.

"Morning, Reg!" called another wizard in navy blue robes as he let himself into a cubicle by inserting his golden token into a slot in the door. "Blooming pain in the bum, this, eh? Forcing us all to get to work this way! Who are they expecting to turn up, Harry Potter?"

"The irony," Sirius laughed.

The wizard roared with laughter at his own wit. Ron gave a forced chuckle.

"Yeah," he said, "stupid, isn't it?"

And he and Harry let themselves into adjoining cubicles.

To Harry's left and right came the sound of flushing.

"Oh please no," Dudley said, looking sick.

He crouched down and peered through the gap at the bottom of the cubicle, just in time to see a pair of booted feet climbing into the toilet next door. He looked left and saw Ron blinking at him.

"We have to flush ourselves in?" he whispered.

Everyone was laughing or giggling at Ron's tone.

"Looks like it," Harry whispered back; his voice came out deep and gravelly.

They both stood up. Feeling exceptionally foolish, Harry clambered into the toilet.

He knew at once that he had done the right thing; thought he appeared to be standing in water, his shoes, feet, and robes remained quite dry.

Teddy then burst out into harder laughter.

"What?" Hermione asked warily.

"Imagine if that wasn't what you were meant to do," Teddy laughed. "Then you'd just be an idiot standing in a toilet."

Everyone else chuckled at that.

He reached up, pulled the chain, and next moment had zoomed down a short chute, emerging out of a fireplace into the Ministry of Magic.

He got up clumsily; there was a lot more of his body than he was accustomed to. The great Atrium seemed darker than Harry remembered it. Previously a golden fountain had filled the center of the hall, casting shimmering spots of light over the polished wooden floor and walls. Now a gigantic statue of black stone dominated the scene.

Arthur sighed – it had been sickening walking past that everyday.

It was rather frightening, this vast sculpture of a witch and a wizard sitting on ornately carved thrones, looking down at the Ministry workers toppling out of fireplaces below them. Engraved in foot-high letters at the base of the statue were the words MAGIC IS MIGHT.

Harry received a heavy blow on the back of the legs. Another wizard had just flown out of the fireplace behind him.

"Out of the way, can't y – oh, sorry, Runcorn."

Clearly frightened, the balding wizard hurried away.

"You're obviously important," Luna said.

Apparently the man who Harry was impersonating, Runcorn, was intimidating.

"Psst!" said a voice, and he looked around to see a whispy little witch and the ferrety wizard from Magical Maintenance gesturing to him from over beside the statue. Harry hastened to join them.

"You got in all right, then?" Hermione whispered to Harry.

"No, he's still stuck in the hog," said Ron.

Several people snickered and laughed.

"Oh, very funny … It's horrible, isn't it?" she said to Harry, who was staring up at the statue. "Have you seen what they're sitting on?"

Harry looked more closely and realized that what he had thought were decoratively carved thrones were actually mounds of carved humans: hundreds and hundreds of naked bodies, men, women, and children, all with rather stupid, ugly faces, twisted and pressed together to support the weight of the handsomely robed wizards.

"What are they?" Petunia said, looking shocked.

"Muggles," whispered Hermione, "In their rightful place.

Petunia and Dudley shared a look

Come on, let's get going."

They joined the stream of witches and wizards moving toward the golden gates at the end of the hall, looking around as surreptitiously as possible, but there was no sign of the distinctive figure of Dolores Umbridge.

They passed through the gates and into a smaller hall, where queues were forming in front of twenty golden grilles housing as many lifts. They had barely joined the nearest one when a voice said, "Cattermole!"

"Oh no," James muttered.

They looked around: One of the Death Eaters who had witnessed Dumbledore's death was striding toward them. The Ministry workers beside them fell silent, their eyes downcast; Harry could feel fear rippling through them.

The man's scowling, slightly brutish face was somehow at odds with his magnificent, sweeping robes, which were embroidered with much gold thread. Someone in the crowd around the lifts called sycophantically, "Morning, Yaxley!" Yaxley ignored them.

"I requested somebody from Magical Maintenance to sort out my office, Cattermole. It's still raining in there."

Ron looked around as though hoping somebody else would intervene, but nobody spoke.

"Raining … in your office? That's – that's not good, is it?"

Ron gave a nervous laugh. Yaxley's eyes widened.

"You think it's funny, Cattermole, do you?"

"Don't get him in trouble!" Lily warned.

A pair of witches broke away from the queue for the lift and bustled off.

"No," said Ron, "no, of course –"

"You realize that I am on my way downstairs to interrogate your wife, Cattermole?

'That's why he was so keen to go to work!' Petunia gasped, as the trio shifted again.

In fact, I'm quite surprised you're not down there holding her hand while she waits. Already given her up as a bad job, have you? Probably wise. Be sure and marry a pureblood next time."

Everyone scowled at the man.

Hermione had let out a little squeak of horror. Yaxley looked at her. She cough feebly and turned away.

"I – I –" stammered Ron.

"But if my wife were accused of being a Mudblood," said Yaxley, "—not that any woman I married would ever be mistaken for such filth – and the Head of Department of Magical Law Enforcement needed a job doing,

"That's my job," Hermione shuddered causing Harry to chuckle.

I would make it my priority to do this job, Cattermole. Do you understand me?"

"Yes," whispered Ron.

"Then attend to it, Cattermole, and if my office is not completely dry within an hour, your wife's Blood Status will be in even greater doubt than it is now."

"That's unfair," James frowned.

The golden grille before them clattered open. With a nod and unpleasant smile to Harry, who was evidently expected to appreciate this treatment of Cattermole, Yaxley swept away toward another lift. Harry, Ron, and Hermione entered theirs, but nobody followed them: It was as if they were infectious. The grilles shut with a clang and the lift began to move upward.

"What am I going to do?" Ron asked the other two at once; he looked stricken. "If I don't turn up, my wife …

"Ron, you don't have a wife at this time," the twins chuckled

I mean, Cattermole's wife – "

"We'll come with you, we should stick together –" began Harry, but Ron shook his head feverishly.

"That's mental, we haven't got much time. You two find Umbridge, I'll go and sort out Yaxley's office – but how do I stop a raining?"

"Try Finite Incantatem," said Hermione at once,

"I doubt it'll be that easy," Remus frowned.

"that should stop the rain if it's a hex or curse; if it doesn't something's gone wrong with an Atmospheric Charm, which will be more difficult to fix, so as an interim measure try Impervius to protect his belongings – "

"Say it again, slowly – " said Ron, searching his pockets desperately for a quill, but at that moment the lift juddered to a halt. A disembodied female voice said, "Level four, Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, incorporating Beast, Being, and Spirit Divisions, Goblin Liaison Office, and Pest Advisory Bureau," and the grilles slid open again, admitting a couple of wizards and several pale violet paper airplanes that fluttered around the lamp in the ceiling of the lift.

"Morning, Albert," said a bushily whiskered man, smiling at Harry. He glanced over at Ron and Hermione as the lift creaked upward once more; Hermione was now whispering frantic instructions to Ron. The wizard leaned toward Harry, leering, and muttering "Dirk Cresswell, eh? From Goblin Liaison? Nice one, Albert. I'm pretty confident I'll get his job now!"

He winked. Harry smiled back, hoping that this would suffice. The lift stopped; the grilles opened once more.

"Level two, Department of Magical Law Enforcement, including the Improper Use of Magic Office, Auror Headquarters, and Wizengamot Administration Services," said the disembodied witch's voice.

Harry saw Hermione give Ron a little push and he hurried out of the lift, followed by the other wizards, leaving Harry and Hermione alone. The moment the golden door had closed Hermione said, very fast, "Actually, Harry, I think I'd better go after him, I don't think he knows what he's doing and if he gets caught the whole thing – "

"Probably be a good idea," Ginny muttered.

"Level one, Minister of Magic and Support Staff."

The golden grilles slid apart again and Hermione gasped. Four people stood before them, two of them deep in conversation: a long-haired wizard wearing magnificent robes of black and gold, and a squat, toadlike witch wearing a velvet bow in her short hair and clutching a clipboard to her chest.

"Umbridge," everyone snarled.

"Thank Merlin, we don't have to work with her," Hermione said to Harry. "I think I'd murder myself."

"Luckily that isn't necessary," Harry grimaced as he thought about working with Umbridge.

"Thanks to you, Harry," Arthur smiled.

'What did you do?" James asked.

"Chucked her in Azkaban where she belongs," Harry said.

"Ah, Mafalda!" said Umbridge, looking at Hermione. "Travers sent you, did he?"

"Y-yes," squeaked Hermione.

"God, you'll do perfectly well."

"For what?" Luna asked.

"Probably, something foul," Neville said.

Umbridge spoke to the wizard in black and gold. "That's that problem solved. Minister, if Mafalda can be spared for record-keeping we shall be able to start straight away." She consulted her clipboard. "Ten people today and one of them the wife of a Ministry employee!

"Courtrooms," Ginny sighed.

Tut, tut… even here, in the heart of the Ministry!" She stepped into the lift besides Hermione, as did the two wizards who had been listening to Umbridge's conversation with the Minister. "We'll go straight down, Mafalda, you'll find everything you need in the courtroom. Good morning, Albert, aren't you getting out?"

"Yes, of course," said Harry in Runcorn's deep voice.

Harry stepped out of the life. The golden grilles clanged shut behind him. Glancing over his shoulder, Harry saw Hermione's anxious face sinking back out of sight, a tall wizard on either side of her, Umbridge's velvet hair-bow level with her shoulder.

"Poor dear," Molly sighed.

"What brings you here, Runcorn?" asked the new Minister of Magic. His long black hair and beard were streaked with silver and a great overhanging forehead shadowed his glinting eyes, putting Harry in the mind of a crab looking out from beneath a rock.

"Needed a quick word with," Harry hesitated for a fraction of a second, "Arthur Weasley. Someone said he was up on level one."

"That wasn't wise," Arthur said.

"Yeah, but you're the person I could think of on that floor," Harry said.

"Ah," said Pius Thicknesse. "Has he been caught having contact with an Undesirable?"

"Harry or a muggle-born," Hermione explained

"No," said Harry, his throat dry. "No, nothing like that."

"Ah, well. It's only a matter of time," said Thicknesse. "If you ask me, the blood traitors are as bad as the Mudbloods.

Everyone scowled

Good day, Runcorn."

"Good day, Minister."

Harry watched Thicknesse march away along the thickly carpeted corridor. The moment the Minister had passed out of sight, Harry tugged the Invisibility Cloak out from under his heavy black cloak, threw it over himself, and set off along the corridor in the opposite direction. Runcorn was so tall that Harry was forced to stoop to make sure his big feet were hidden.

As he passed gleaming wooden door after gleaming wooden door, each bearing a small plaque with the owner's name and occupation upon it,

He stopped walking, leaned against a wall, and tried to decide what to do. The silence pressed upon him: There was no bustling or talk or swift footsteps here the purple-carpeted corridors were as hushed as though the Muffliato charm had been cast over the place.

He therefore set off along the corridor again, passing nobody but a frowning wizard who was murmuring instructions to a quill that floated in front of him, scribbling on a trail of parchment.

Now paying attention to the names on the doors, Harry turned a corner. Halfway along the next corridor he emerged into a wide, open space where a dozen witches and wizards sat in rows at small desks not unlike school desks, though much more highly polished and free from graffiti. Harry paused to watch them, for the effect was quite mesmerizing. They were all waving and twiddling their wands in unison, and squares of coloured paper were flying in every direction like little pink kites. After a few seconds, Harry realized that there was a rhythm to the proceedings, that the papers all formed the same pattern and after a few more seconds he realized what he was watching was the creation of pamphlets – that the paper squares were pages, which, when assembled, folded and magicked into place, fell into neat stacks beside each witch or wizard.

Harry crept closer, although the workers were so intent on what they were doing that he doubted they would notice a carpet-muffled footstep, and he slid a completed pamphlet from the pile beside a young witch. He examined it beneath the Invisibility Cloak. Its pink cover was emblazoned with a golden title:

Mudbloods

and the Dangers They Pose to

a Peaceful Pure-Blood Society

Beneath the title was a picture of a red rose with a simpering face in the middle of its petals, being strangled by a green weed with fangs and a scowl.

"That's sick," James

There was no author's name upon the pamphlet, but again, the scars on the back of his right hand seemed to tingle as he examined it. Then the young witch beside him confirmed his suspicion as she said, still waving and twirling her wand, "Will the old hag be interrogating Mudbloods all day, does anyone know?"

"I half like this woman," the twins said.

"One on hand, she hates Umbridge," Gideon smiled.

"On the other, she said Mudblood," Fabian frowned.

"Careful," said the wizard beside her, glancing around nervously; one of his pages slipped and fell to the floor.

"What, has she got magic ears as well as an eye, now?"

"What?" Petunia asked.

The witch glanced toward the shining mahogany door facing the space full of pamphlet-makers; Harry looked too, and the rage reared in him like a snake. Where there might have been a peephole on a Muggle front door, a large, round eye with a bright blue iris had been set into the wood – an eye that was shockingly familiar to anybody who had known Alastor Moody.

"Mad-Eye," breathed Dora, looking upset.

He strode straight over to the door to examine the eye. It was not moving. It gazed blindly upward, frozen.

"As long as it keeps looking up," Ginny said, "that eye can see through your cloak."

The plaque beneath it read:

Dolores Umbridge

Senior Undersecretary to the Minister

Below that a slightly shinier new plaque read:

Head of the Muggle-Born

Registration Commission

Everyone frowned – typical Umbridge.

Harry looked back at the dozen pamphlet-makers. He withdrew from an inner pocket an odd object with little waving legs and a rubber-bulbed horn for a body. Crouching down beneath the Cloak, he placed the Decoy Detonator on the ground.

It scuttled away at once through the legs of the witches and wizards in front of him. A few moments later, during which Harry waited with his hand upon the doorknob, there came a loud bang and a great deal of acrid smoke billowed from a corner. The young witch in the front row shrieked: Pink pages flew everywhere as she and her fellows jumped up, looking around for the source of the commotion. Harry turned the doorknob, stepped into Umbridge's office, and closed the door behind him.

The room was exactly like Umbridge's office at Hogwarts: Lace draperies, doilies and dried flowers covered every surface. The walls bore the same ornamental plates, each featuring a highly coloured, beribboned kitten, gambolling and frisking with sickening cuteness. The desk was covered with a flouncy, flowered cloth.

Everyone looked sick as they looked around the room – why was there so much pink?

Behind Mad-eye's eye, a telescopic attachment enabled Umbridge to spy on the workers on the other side of the door. Harry took a look through it and saw that they were all still gathered around the Decoy Detonator. He wrenched the telescope out of the door, leaving a hole behind, pulled the magical eyeball out of it, and placed it in his pocket.

The he turned to face the room again, raised his wand, and murmured, "Accio Locket."

Nothing happened He therefore hurried behind her desk and began pulling open all the drawers. He saw quills and notebooks and Spellotape; enchanted paper clips that coiled snakelike from their drawer and had be beaten back; a fussy little lace box full of spare hair bows and clips; but no sign of a locket.

There was a filing cabinet behind the desk: Harry set to searching it. Like Filch's filing cabinet at Hogwarts, it was full of folders, each labeled with a name. It was not until Harry reached the bottommost drawer that he saw something to distract him from the search: Mr. Weasley's file.

"You never said –" Ron began.

"It slipped by mind," Harry cut him off.

He pulled it out and opened it.

Arthur Weasley

Blood Status:

Pureblood, but with unacceptable pro-Muggle leanings. Known member of the Order of the Phoenix.

Family:

Wife (pureblood), seven children, two youngest at Hogwarts. NB: Youngest son currently at home, seriously ill, Ministry inspectors have confirmed.

Security Status:

TRACKED. All movements are being monitored.

"We'll we already knew that," Arthur smiled.

"Yes, didn't you say that it was some ministry employee," Molly said, trying to remember.

"Yes," Arthur replied. "It was … it was Runcorn."

Harry smirked, "couple of years late, Arthur."

"I thought something was odd," he laughed. "Should've known it was you protecting us all, again."

Strong likelihood Undesirable No. 1 will contact (has stayed with Weasley family previously.

"Undesirable Number One," Harry muttered under his breath as he replaced Mr. Weasley's folder and shut the drawer. He straightened up and glanced around the office for fresh hiding places he saw a poster of himself on the wall, with the words UNDESIRABLE NO. 1 emblazoned across his chest. A little pink note was stuck to it with a picture of a kitten in the corner. Harry moved across to read it and saw that Umbridge had written, "To be punished."

Everyone growled angrily.

He proceeded to grope in the bottoms of the vases and baskets of dried flowers. He gave the office one last sweeping look. Dumbledore was staring at him from a small rectangular mirror, propped up on a bookcase beside the desk.

Harry crossed the room at a run and snatched it up, but realized that the moment he touched it that it was not a mirror at all.

Dumbledore was smiling wistfully out of the front cover of a glossy book. Harry had not immediately noticed the curly green writing across his hat – The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore – nor the slightly smaller writing across his chest: "by Rita Skeeter, bestselling author of Armando Dippet: Master or Moron?"

"Urg," Lily said. "She would get that book."

Harry opened the book at random and saw a full-page photograph of two teenage boys, both laughing immoderately with their arms around each other's shoulders. Dumbledore, now with elbow-length hair, had grown a tiny wispy beard that recalled the one on Krum's chin that had so annoyed Ron. The boy who roared in silent amusement beside Dumbledore had a gleeful, wild look about him. His golden hair fell in curls to his shoulders. The door of the office opened.

"Oh god," Dudley muttered.

If Thicknesse had not been looking over his shoulder as he entered, Harry would not have had time to pull the Invisibility Cloak over himself.

"Lucky," Ginny muttered. "Why did you take it off in the first place?"

Harry shrugged.

Thicknesse might have caught a glimpse of movement, because for a moment or two he remained quite still, staring curiously at the place where Harry had just vanished.

Perhaps deciding that that all he had seen was Dumbledore scratching his nose on the front of the book, for Harry had hastily replaced it upon the shelf. Thicknesse finally walked to the desk and pointed his wand at the quill standing ready in the ink pot. It sprang out and began scribbling a note to Umbridge. Very slowly, hardly daring to breathe, Harry backed out of the office into the open area beyond.

The pamphlet-makers were still clustered around the remains of the Decoy Detonator, which continued to hoot feebly as it smoked. Harry hurried off up the corridor as the young witch said, "I bet it sneaked up here from Experimental Charms, they're so careless, remember that poisonous duck?"

"Cool," Sirius chuckled.

The lift was empty when it arrived. Harry jumped in and pulled off the Invisibility Cloak as it started its descent. To his enormous relief, when it rattled to a halt at level two, a soaking-wet and wild-eyed Ron got in.

"Fantastic!" the twins said.

"M-morning," he stammered to Harry as the lift set off again.

"Ron, it's me, Harry!"

"Harry! Blimey, I forgot what you looked like –

"Oh Ron," Hermione sighed

why isn't Hermione with you?"

"She had to go down to the courtrooms with Umbridge, she couldn't refuse, and –"

But before Harry could finish the lift had stopped again. The doors opened and Mr. Weasley walked inside, talking to an elderly witch whose blonde hair was teased so high it resembled an anthill.

"… I quite understand what you're saying, Wakanda, but I'm afraid I cannot be party to – "

Mr. Weasley broke off; he had noticed Harry.

It was very strange to have Mr. Weasley glare at him with that much dislike.

"Sorry, Harry," Arthur chuckled. "I don't like Runcorn."

The lift doors closed and the four of them trundled downward once more.

"Oh hello, Reg," said Mr. Weasley, looking around at the sound of steady dripping from Ron's robes. "Isn't your wife in for questioning today? Er – what's happened to you? Why are you so wet?"

"Yaxley's office is raining," said Ron. He addressed Mr. Weasley's shoulder, and Harry felt sure he was scared that his father might recognize him if they looked directly into each other's eyes. "I couldn't stop it, so they've sent me to get Bernie – Pillsworth, I think they said –"

"Yes, a lot of offices have been raining lately," said Mr. Weasley. "Did you try Meterolojinx Recanto? It worked for Bletchley."

"Meteolojinx Recanto?" whispered Ron. "No, I didn't. Thanks, D – I mean, thanks, Arthur."

"Thank Merlin, you didn't call me 'Dad'," Arthur laughed.

The lift doors opened; the old witch with the anthill hair left, and Ron darted past her out of sight. Harry made to follow him, but found his path blocked as Percy Weasley strode into the lift, his nose buried in some papers he was reading.

"Oh great," Ginny sighed, she was tired of hearing about Percy being a prat.

For the second time, Harry tried to get out, but this time found his way blocked by Mr. Weasley's arm.

"One moment, Runcorn."

"What are you doing?" Molly asked.

The lift doors closed and as they clanked down another floor, Mr. Weasley said, "I hear you had information about Dirk Cresswell."

"Sorry?" he said.

"Don't pretend, Runcorn," said Mr. Weasley fiercely. "You tracked down the wizard who faked his family tree, didn't you?"

"Thank god, that's only Harry," Petunia said and Molly nodded glaring at her husband

"I – so what if I did?" said Harry.

"So Dirk Cresswell is ten times the wizard you are," said Mr. Weasley quietly, as the lift sank ever lower. "And if he survives Azkaban, you'll have to answer to him, not to mention his wife, his sons, and his friends –"

"Arthur," Harry interrupted, "you know you're being tracked, don't you?"

Everyone laughed or sniggered as that.

"Is that a threat, Runcorn?" said Mr. Weasley loudly.

"No, eets a fact from 'Arry," Fleur giggled.

"No," said Harry, "it's a fact! They're watching your every move –"

"Thank you, Harry," Arthur said.

The lift doors opened. They had reached the Atrium. Mr. Weasley gave Harry a scathing look and swept from the lift. Harry stood there, looking shaken. The lift doors clanged shut.

Harry pulled out the Invisibility Cloak and put it back on. He would try to extricate Hermione on his own while Ron was dealing with the raining office. When the doors opened, he stepped out into a torch-lit stone passageway quite different from the wood-paneled and carpeted corridors above. As the left rattled away again, Harry shivered slightly, looking toward the distant black door that marked the entrance to the Department of Mysteries.

Sirius eyes narrowed at that place

He set off, his destination not the black door, but the doorway he remembered on the left hand side, which opened onto the flight of stairs down to the court chambers.

His mind grappled with possibilities as he crept down them: He still had a couple of Decoy Detonators, but perhaps it would be better to simply knock on the courtroom door, enter as Runcorn, and ask for a quick word with Mafalda? Of course, he did not know whether Runcorn was sufficiently important to get away with this, and even if he managed it, Hermione's non-reappearance might trigger a search before they were clear of the Ministry….

It was becoming colder and colder with every step he took; a cold that reached right down his throat and tore at his lungs. And then he felt that stealing sense of despair, or hopelessness, filling him, expanding inside him….

"Dementors," Lily breathed.

And as he reached the foot of the stairs and turned to his right he saw a dreadful scene. The dark passage outside the courtrooms was packed with tall, black-hooded figures, their faces completely hidden, their ragged breathing the only sound in the place. The petrified Muggle-borns brought in for questioning sat huddled and shivering on hard wooden benches. Most of them were hiding their faces in their hands, perhaps in an instinctive attempt to shield themselves from the dementors' greedy mouths. Some were accompanied by families, others sat alone.

"Those poor people," Dora gasped

The dementors were gliding up and down in front of them, and the cold, and the hopelessness, and the despair of the place laid themselves upon Harry like a curse….

Fight it, he told himself, but he knew that he could not conjure a Patronus here without revealing himself instantly. So he moved forward as silently as he could, and with every step he took numbness seemed to steal over his brain, but he forced himself to think of Hermione and of Ron, who needed him.

The Trio smiled at each other

Moving through the towering black figures was terrifying: The eyeless faces hidden beneath their hoods turned as he passed, and he felt sure that they sensed him, sensed, perhaps, a human presence that still had some hope, some resilience….

"They probably did," Remus nodded.

And then, abruptly and shockingly amid the frozen silence, one of the dungeon doors on the left of the corridor was flung open and screams echoed out of it.

"No, no, I'm half-blood, I'm half-blood, I tell you! My father was a wizard, he was, look him up, Arkie Alderton, he's a well known broomstick designer, look him up, I tell you – get your hands off me, get your hands off –"

"This is your final warning," said Umbridge's soft voice, magically magnified so that it sounded clearly over the man's desperate screams. "If you struggle, you will be subjected to the Dementor's Kiss."

The man's screams subsided, but dry sobs echoed through the corridor.

"Take him away," said Umbridge.

Two dementors appeared in the doorway of the courtroom, their rotting, scabbed hands clutching the upper arms of a wizard who appeared to be fainting. They glided away down the corridor with him, and the darkness they trailed behind them swallowed him from sight.

"Oh my Merlin/God," everyone said.

"Next – Mary Cattermole," called Umbridge.

"Here she is," Bill frowned.

A small woman stood up; she was trembling from head to foot. Her dark hair was smoothed back into a bun and she wore long plain robes. Her face was completely bloodless. As she passed the dementors, Harry saw her shudder.

"Don't blame you," Dudley muttered.

He did it instinctively, without any sort of plan, because he hated the sight of her walking alone into the dungeon: As the door began to swing closed, he slipped into the courtroom behind her.

"Good, now you're in," Luna said.

It was not the same room in which he had once been interrogated for improper use of magic. This one was much smaller, though the ceiling was quite as high it gave the claustrophobic sense of being stuck at the bottom of a deep well.

There were more dementors in here, casting their freezing aura over the place; they stood like faceless sentinels in the corners farthest from the high, raised platform. Here, behind a balustrade, sat Umbridge, with Yaxley on one side of her, and Hermione, quite as white-faced as Mrs. Cattermole, on the other.

"Oh Hermione," Molly sighed.

"It was horrible," Hermione nodded.

At the foot of the platform, a bight-silver, long-haired cat prowled up and down, up and down, and Harry realized that it was there to protect the prosecutors from the despair that emanated from the dementors: That was for the accused to feel, not the accusers.

"Sit down," said Umbridge in her soft, silky voice.

Mrs. Cattermole stumbled to the single seat in the middle of the floor beneath the raised platform. The moment she had sat down, chains clinked out of the arms of the chair and bound her there.

"You are Mary Elizabeth Cattermole?" asked Umbridge.

Mrs. Cattermole gave a single, shaky nod.

"Married to Reginald Cattermole of the Magical Maintenance Department?"

Mrs. Cattermole burst into tears.

"I don't know where he is, he was supposed to meet me here!"

Umbridge ignored her.

"Mother to Maisie, Ellie and Alfred Cattermole?" Mrs. Cattermole sobbed harder than ever.

"They're frightened, they think that I might not come home –"

"Spare us," spat Yaxley. "The brats of Mudbloods do not stir our sympathies."

"They do ours," James muttered.

Mrs. Cattermole's sobs masked Harry's footsteps as he made his way carefully toward the steps that led up to the raised platform. The moment he had passed the place where the Patronus cat patrolled, he felt the change in temperature: It was warm and comfortable here. The Patronus, he was sure, was Umbridge's, and it glowed brightly because she was so happy here, in her element, upholding the twisted laws she had helped to write. Slowly and very carefully he edged his way along the platform behind Umbridge, Yaxley, and Hermione, taking a seat behind the latter. He was worried about making Hermione jump. He thought of casting the Muffliato charm upon Umbridge and Yaxley, but even murmuring the word might cause Hermione alarm. Then Umbridge raised her voice to address Mrs. Cattermole, and Harry seized his chance.

"I'm behind you," he whispered into Hermione's ear.

"You nearly gave me a heart attack," Hermione huffed.

"Sorry," Harry chuckled.

As he had expected, she jumped so violently she nearly overturned the bottle of ink with which she was supposed to be recording the interview, but both Umbridge and Yaxley were concentrating upon Mrs. Cattermole, and this went unnoticed.

"A wand was taken from you upon your arrival at the Ministry today, Mrs. Cattermole," Umbridge was saying. "Eight-and-three-quarter inches, cherry, unicorn-hair core. Do you recognize the description?"

Mrs. Cattermole nodded, mopping her eyes on her sleeve.

"Could you please tell us from which witch or wizard you took that wand?"

"What?" Sirius snapped.

"They thought Muggle-borns stole magic," Remus said, wearily.

"That's insane," James snapped.

"T-took?" sobbed Mrs. Cattermole. "I didn't t-take it from anybody. I b-bought it when I was eleven years old. It – it – it – chose me."

She cried harder than ever.

Umbridge laughed a soft girlish laugh. She leaned forward over the barrier, the better to observe her victim, and something gold swung forward too, and dangled over the void: the locket.

"The locket," everyone breathed.

Hermione had seen it; she let out a little squeak, but Umbridge and Yaxley, still intent upon their prey, were deaf to everything else.

"No," said Umbridge, "no, I don't think so, Mrs. Cattermole. Wands only choose witches or wizards. You are not a witch. I have your responses to the questionnaire that was sent to you here – Mafalda, pass them to me."

Umbridge held out a small hand: She looked so toadlike at that moment that Harry was quite surprised not to see webs between the stubby fingers. Hermione's hands were shaking with shock. She fumbled in a pile of documents balanced on the chair beside her, finally withdrawing a sheaf of parchment with Mrs. Cattermole's name on it.

"That's – that's pretty, Dolores," she said, pointing at the pendant gleaming in the ruffled folds of Umbridge's blouse.

"What?" snapped Umbridge, glancing down. "Oh yes – an old family heirloom," she said, patting the locket lying on her large bosom. "The S stands for Selwyn…. I am related to the Selwyns….

"I bet she's not even pureblood," Teddy said.

Indeed, there are few pure-blood families to whom I am not related. …A pity," she continued in a louder voice, flicking through Mrs. Cattermole's questionnaire, "that the same cannot be said for you. 'Parents professions: greengrocers'."

Yaxley laughed jeeringly. Below, the fluffy silver cat patrolled up and down, and the dementors stood waiting in the corners.

He raised his wand, not even troubling to keep it concealed beneath the Invisibility Cloak, and said, "Stupefy!"

There was a flash of red light; Umbridge crumpled and her forehead hit the edge of the balustrade: Mrs. Cattermole's papers slid off her lap onto the floor and, down below, the prowling silver cat vanished.

"The dementors," Luna said.

Ice-cold air hit them like an oncoming wind: Yaxley, confused, looked around for the source of the trouble and saw Harry's disembodied hand and wand pointing at him. He tried to draw his own wand, but too late: "Stupefy!"

Yaxley slid to the ground to lie curled on the floor.

"Harry!"

"Hermione, if you think I was going to sit here and let her pretend –"

"Harry, Mrs. Cattermole!"

Harry whirled around, throwing off the Invisibility Cloak; down below, the dementors had moved out of their corners; they were gliding toward the woman chained to the chair: Whether because the Patronus had vanished or because they sensed that their masters were no longer in control, they seemed to have abandoned restraint. Mrs. Cattermole let out a terrible scream of fear as a slimy, scabbed hand grasped her chin and forced her face back.

"Do something!" Fleur said.

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!"

The silver stag soared from the tip of Harry's wand and leaped toward the dementors, which fell back and melted into the dark shadows again. The stag's light, more powerful and more warming than the cat's protection, filled the whole dungeon as it cantered around the room.

"Get the Horcrux," Harry told Hermione.

He ran back down the steps, stuffing the Invisibility Cloak into his back, and approached Mrs. Cattermole.

"You?" she whispered, gazing into his face. "But – but Reg said you were the one who submitted my name for questioning!"

"Did I?" muttered Harry, tugging at the chains binding her arms, "Well, I've had a change of heart.

Several people chuckled.

Diffindo!" Nothing happened.

"Hermione, how do I get rid of these chains?"

"Wait, I'm trying something up here –"

"Hermione, we're surrounded by dementors!"

"I know that, Harry, but if she wakes up and the locket's gone – I need to duplicate it – Geminio! There… That should fool her…."

"Good idea," Arthur grinned.

Hermione came running downstairs.

"Let's see…. Relashio!"

The chains clinked and withdrew into the arms of the chair. Mrs. Cattermole looked just as frightened as ever before.

"I don't understand," she whispered.

"You're going to leave here with us," said Harry, pulling her to her feet. "Go home, grab your children, and get out, get out of the country if you've got to. Disguise yourselves and run. You've seen how it is, you won't get anything like a fair hearing here."

"Harry," said Hermione, "how are we going to get out of here with all those dementors outside the door?"

"Patronuses," said Harry, pointing his wand at his own. The stag slowed and walked, still gleaming brightly, toward the door. "As many as we can muster; do yours, Hermione."

"Expec – Expecto patronum," said Hermione. Nothing happened.

"It's the only spell she ever has trouble with," Harry told a completely bemused Mrs. Cattermole. "Bit unfortunate, really… Come on Hermione…."

"Not the time for a chat, Harry," Ginny laughed.

'Expecto patronum!"

A silver otter burst from the end of Hermione's wand and swam gracefully through the air to join the stag.

"He's cute," Petunia laughed.

"They're not meant to be cute," Bill said. "They're meant to protect you."

"C'mon," said Harry, and he led Hermione and Mrs. Cattermole to the door.

When the Patronuses glided out of the dungeon there were cries of shock from the people waiting outside. Harry looked around; the dementors were falling back on both sides of them, melding into the darkness, scattering before the silver creatures.

"It's been decided that you should all go home and go into hiding with your families," Harry told the waiting Muggle-born, who were dazzled by the light of the Patronuses and still cowering slightly.

"Go abroad if you can. Just get well away from the Ministry. That's the – er – new official position.

"Really?" Neville chuckled.

Now, if you'll just follow the Patronuses, you'll be able to leave the Atrium."

They managed to get up the stone stops without being intercepted, but as they approached the lifts Harry started to have misgivings. If they emerged into the Atrium with a silver stag, and otter soaring alongside it, and twenty or so people, half of them accused Muggle-borns, he could not help feeling that they would attract unwanted attention. He had just reached this unwelcome conclusion when the lift clanged to a halt in front of them.

"Reg!" screamed Mrs. Cattermole, and she threw herself into Ron's arms.

"Ron," everyone cheered.

"Runcorn let me out, he attacked Umbridge and Yaxley, and he's told all of us to leave the country. I think we'd better do it, Reg, I really do, let's hurry home and fetch the children and – why are you so wet?"

"Water," Arthur smiled.

"Water," muttered Ron, disengaging himself. "Harry, they know there are intruders inside the Ministry, something about a hole in Umbridge's office door.

"Mad-Eye's eye," Dudley groaned.

I reckon we've got five minutes if that –"

"Damn it," Sirius growled.

Hermione's Patronus vanished with a pop as she turned a horror struck face to Harry.

"Harry, if we're trapped here – !"

"We won't be if we move fast," said Harry. He addressed the silent group behind them, who were all gawping at him.

"Who's got wands?"

About half of them raised their hands.

"Okay, all of you who haven't got wands need to attach yourself to somebody who has. We'll need to be fast before they stop us. Come on."

They managed to cram themselves into two lifts. Harry's Patronus stood sentinel before the golden grilles as they shut and the lifts began to rise.

"Level eight," said the witch's cool voice, "Atrium."

Harry knew at once that they were in trouble. The Atrium was full of people moving from fireplace to fireplace, sealing them off.

"No," Lily groaned.

"Harry!" squeaked Hermione. "What are we going to – ?"

"STOP!" Harry thundered, and the powerful voice of Runcorn echoed through the Atrium: The wizards sealing the fireplaces froze.

"It's a good thing you have so much power," the twins said.

"Follow me," he whispered to the group of terrified Muggle-borns, who moved forward in a huddle, shepherded by Ron and Hermione.

"What's up, Albert?" said the same balding wizard who had followed Harry out of the fireplace earlier. He looked nervous.

"This lot need to leave before you seal the exits," said Harry with all the authority he could muster.

The group of wizards in front of him looked at one another.

"We've been told to seal all exits and not let anyone –"

"Are you contradicting me?" Harry blustered. "Would you like me to have your family tree examined, like I had Dirk Cresswell's?"

"Good one," Remus nodded.

"Sorry!" gasped the balding wizard, backing away. "I didn't mean nothing, Albert, but I thought… I thought they were in for questioning and…"

"Their blood is pure," said Harry, and his deep voice echoed impressively through the hall. "Purer than many of yours, I daresay. Off you go," he boomed to the Muggle-borns, who scurried forward into the fireplaces and began to vanish in pairs. The Ministry wizards hung back, some looking confused, others scared and fearful. Then:

"Mary!"

Mrs. Cattermole looked over her shoulder. The real Reg Cattermole, no longer vomiting but pale and wan, had just come running out of a lift.

"Oh no," Dora sighed.

"R- Reg?"

She looked from her husband to Ron, who swore loudly.

"Ron!" Molly scolded.

The balding wizard gaped, his head turning ludicrously from one Reg Cattermole to the other.

"Hey – what's going on? What is this?"

"Seal the exit! SEAL IT!"

Yaxley had burst out of another lift and was running toward the group beside the fireplaces, into which all of the Muggle-borns but Mrs. Cattermole had now vanished. As the balding wizard lifted his wand, Harry raised an enormous fist and punched him, sending him flying through the air.

"Ouch," Teddy muttered.

"He's been helping Muggle-borns escape, Yaxley!" Harry shouted.

The balding wizard's colleagues set up and uproar, under cover of which Ron grabbed Mrs. Cattermole, pulled her into the still-open fireplace, and disappeared. Confused, Yaxley looked from Harry to the punched wizard, while the real Reg Cattermole screamed, "My wife! Who was that with my wife? What's going on?"

Harry saw Yaxley's head turn, saw an inkling of truth dawn on that brutish face.

"Come on!" Harry shouted at Hermione; he seized her hand and they jumped into the fireplace together as Yaxley's curse sailed over Harry's head. They spun for a few seconds before shooting up out of a toilet into a cubicle. Harry flung open the door: Ron was standing there beside the sinks, still wrestling with Mrs. Cattermole.

"Reg, I don't understand –"

"Let go, I'm not your husband, you've got to go home!"

There was a noise in the cubicle behind them; Harry looked around; Yaxley had just appeared.

"LET'S GO!" Harry yelled. He seized Hermione by the hand and Ron by the arm and turned on the stop.

Darkness engulfed them, along with the sensation of compressing hands, but something was wrong…. Hermione's hand seemed to be sliding out of his grip….

He wondered whether he was going to suffocate; he could not breathe or see and the only solid things in the world were Ron's arm and Hermione's fingers, which were slowly slipping away…

And then he saw the door to number twelve, Grimmauld Place, with its serpent door knocker, but before he could draw breath, there was a scream and a flash of purple light: Hermione's hand was suddenly vice-like upon his and everything went dark again.

Harry opened his eyes and was dazzled by gold and green; he had no idea what had happened, he only knew that he was lying on what seemed to be leaves and twigs.

"You got away." Fleur breathed.

"But why aren't you at Grimmauld Place?" Bill asked.

"We couldn't," Harry sighed.

Struggling to draw breath into lungs that felt flattened, he blinked and realized that the gaudy glare was sunlight streaming through a canopy of leaves far above him. Then an object twitched close to his face. He pushed himself onto his hands and knees, ready to face some small, fierce creature, but saw that the object was Ron's foot. Looking around, Harry saw that they and Hermione were lying on a forest floor, apparently alone.

Ron to give a low groan and Harry started crawling toward him.

He met Hermione, also on her hands and knees, at Ron's head. The moment his eyes fell upon Ron, all other concerns fled Harry's mind, for blood drenched the whole of Ron's left side and his face stood out, grayish-white, against the leaf-strewn earth.

"Splinched," Molly squeaked.

The Polyjuice Potion was wearing off now: Ron was halfway between Cattermole and himself in appearance, his hair turning redder and redder as his face drained of the little colour it had left.

"What's happened to him?"

"Splinched," said Hermione, her fingers already busy at Ron's sleeve, where the blood was wettest and darkest.

Harry watched, horrified, as she tore open Ron's shirt as Hermione laid bare Ron's upper arm, where a great chunk of flesh was missing, scooped cleanly away as though by a knife.

"Oh my god," Petunia said, looking sick.

"Harry, quickly, in my bag, there's a small bottle labelled 'Essence of Dittany'– "

"Good, that'll help," Lily nodded.

"Bag – right –"

Harry sped to the place where Hermione had landed, seized the tiny beaded bag, and thrust his hand inside it. At once, object after object began presenting itself to his touch: He felt the leather spines of books, woolly sleeves of jumpers, heels of shoes –

"Quickly!"

He grabbed his wand from the ground and pointed it into the depths of the magical bag.

"Accio Dittany!"

A small brown bottle zoomed out of the bag; he caught it and hastened back to Hermione and Ron, whose eyes were now half-closed, strips of white eyeball all that were visible between his lids.

"He's fainted," said Hermione, who was also rather pale; she no longer looked like Mafalda, though her hair was still gray in places. "Unstopper it for me, Harry, my hands are shaking."

Harry wrenched the stopper off the little bottle, Hermione took it and poured three drops of the potion onto the bleeding wound. Greenish smoke billowed upward and when it had cleared, Harry saw that the bleeding had stopped. The wound now looked several days old; new skin stretched over what had just been open flesh.

"That's amazing," Dudley said.

"Wow," said Harry.

"It's all I feel safe doing," said Hermione shakily. "There are spells that would put him completely right, but I daren't try in case I do them wrong and cause more damage. . . .

Lily nodded, "healing spells can go seriously wrong."

"How do you know?" Teddy asked curiously.

"I was training to be a healer before we had to go into hiding," she smiled.

He's lost so much blood already. . . ."

"How did he get hurt? I mean" – Harry shook his head, trying to clear it, to make sense of whatever had just taken place – "why are we here? I thought we were going back to Grimmauld Place?"

Hermione took a deep breath. She looked close to tears.

"Harry, I don't think we're going to be able to go back there."

"Why?" Arthur asked.

"What d'you – ?"

"As we Disapparated, Yaxley caught hold of me and I couldn't get rid of him, he was too strong, and he was still holding on when we arrived at Grimmauld Place, and then – well, I think he must have seen the door, and thought we were stopping there, so he slackened his grip and I managed to shake him off and I brought us here instead!"

"But then, where's he? Hang on. . . . You don't mean he's at Grimmauld Place? He can't get in there?"

Her eyes sparkled with unshed tears as she nodded.

"Harry, I think he can. I – I forced him to let go with a Revulsion Jinx, but I'd already taken him inside the Fidelius Charm's protection. Since Dumbledore died, we're Secret-Keepers, so I've given him the secret, haven't I?"

"Damn it," the twins yelled.

Molly sighed; she liked the idea that they had had food and comfortable beds all year although that wouldn't happen. When they came back Ron could only eat one helping, she saw far too much of Hermione's spine through her shirt and Harry's cheek bones were far to pronounced.

"Harry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!"

"Don't be stupid, it wasn't your fault! If anything, it was mine. . . ."

Harry put his hand in his pocket and drew out Mad-Eye's eye. Hermione recoiled, looking horrified.

"Don't blame you," Petunia said, wrinkling her nose.

"Umbridge had stuck it to her office door, to spy on people. I couldn't leave it there . . . but that's how they knew there were intruders."

Before Hermione could answer, Ron groaned and opened his eyes. He was still gray and his face glistened with sweat.

"How d'you feel?" Hermione whispered.

"Brilliant," Ron said.

"Lousy," croaked Ron, wincing as he felt his injured arm. "Where are we?"

"In the woods where they held the Quidditch World Cup," said Hermione. "I wanted somewhere enclosed, undercover, and this was –"

"–the first place you thought of," Harry finished for her, glancing around at the apparently deserted glade.

"D'you reckon we should move on?" Ron asked Harry, and Harry could tell by the look on Ron's face that he was thinking the same.

"No, you would put yourself in danger of being hurt more," Arthur said.

"I dunno." Ron still looked pale and clammy. He had made no attempt to sit up and it looked as though he was too weak to do so. The prospect of moving him was daunting.

"Let's stay here for now," Harry said.

Looking relieved, Hermione sprang to her feet.

"Where are you going?" asked Ron.

"If we're staying, we should put some protective enchantments around the place," she replied, and raising her wand, she began to walk in a wide circle around Harry and Ron, murmuring incantations as she went.

Harry saw little disturbances in the surrounding air: It was as if Hermione had cast a heat haze upon their clearing.

"Salvio Hexia . . . Protego Totalum . . . Repello Muggletum . . . Muffliato . . .

"Good job, Hermione," Remus smiled.

You could get out the tent, Harry. . . ."

"You have a tent?" the twins asked, shocked.

"You have a roof over your head," Lily breathed.

"Tent?"

"In the bag!"

"In the . . . of course," said Harry.

"Where else, Harry?" Ginny giggled as the returned to the family room.

"Tell me you have food in that bag," Lily begged Hermione.

"No," Hermione said causing everyone to groan.

"So you basically ate nothing for 9 months," Remus growled.

"No, they came to us for a while, remember, Remus?" Bill said. "We feed them well."

"That's where I went for the next memory," Harry said. "Food. But there was Dementors. Everyone in."

"But you can make a brilliant Patronus!" protested Ron, when Harry arrived back at the tent empty handed, out of breath, and mouthing the single word, dementors.

"I couldn't . . . make one." he panted, clutching the stitch in his side. "Wouldn't . . . come."

"What?" Ginny asked confused.

"So we still haven't got any food.

"Shut up, Ron," Bill said.

"Shut up, Ron," snapped Hermione. "Harry, what happened? Why do you think you couldn't make your Patronus? You managed perfectly yesterday!"

"So this is the next day," Arthur nodded.

"I don't know."

He sat low in one of Perkins's old armchairs. Ron kicked a chair leg.

"What?" he snarled at Hermione. "I'm starving! All I've had since I bled half to death is a couple of toadstools!"

"Ron," Molly reprimanded.

"You go and fight your way through the dementors, then," said Harry, stung.

"I would, but my arm's in a sling, in case you hadn't noticed!"

"That's convenient."

"And what's that supposed to — ?"

"Of course!" cried Hermione, clapping a hand to her forehead and startling both of them into silence. "Harry, give me the locket! Come on," she said impatiently, clicking her fingers at him when he did not react, "the Horcrux, Harry, you're still wearing it!"

She held out her hands, and Harry lifted the golden chain over his head. The moment it parted contact with Harry's skin he felt free and oddly light. He had not even realized that he was clammy or that there was a heavy weight pressing on his stomach until both sensations lifted.

"Better?" asked Hermione.

"Yeah, loads better!"

"What does it do to you?" Lily murmured.

"Prey's on you," Hermione said, shivering. "It made think things, things you were thinking anyway but made them worse."

"Brilliant," James said. "Blood brilliant."

"Language," said Lily.

"Next one shows how difficult it was," Harry sighed, remembering what that Horcrux did.

"Yeah, let's go to Albania. Shouldn't take more than an afternoon to search an entire country," said Ron sarcastically.

"There can't be anything there. He'd already made five of his Horcruxes before he went into exile, and Dumbledore was certain the snake is the sixth," said Hermione. "We know the snake's not in Albania, it's usually with Vol—"

"Didn't I ask you to stop say that?"

"Fine! The snake is usually with You-Know-Who—happy?"

Harry sighed, thinking how many times Ron had saved him from Snatchers by his fear.

"Not particularly."

"I can't see him hiding anything at Borgin and Burkes." said Harry, who had made this point many times before, but said it again simply to break the nasty silence. "Borgin and Burke were experts at Dark objects, they would've recognized a Horcrux straightaway."

"Definitely," Sirius nodded.

Ron yawned pointedly. Repressing a strong urge to throw something at him,

"You should have," Ron muttered.

Harry plowed on,

"I still reckon he might have hidden something at Hogwarts."

Hermione sighed.

"But Dumbledore would have found it, Harry!"

"Not necessarily," Ginny said. "Dumbledore doesn't know all of Hogwarts."

Harry repeated the argument he kept bringing out in favor of this theory.

"Dumbledore said in front of me that he never assumed he knew all of Hogwarts secrets. I'm telling you, if there was one place Vol—"

"Oi!"

"YOU-KNOW-WHO, then!" Harry shouted, goaded past endurance. "If there was one place that was really important to You-Know-Who, it was Hogwarts!"

"Oh, come on," scoffed Ron. "His school?"

"Yeah, his school! It was his first real home, the place that meant he was special: it meant everything to him, and even after he left—"

"This is You-Know-Who we're talking about, right? Not you?" inquired Ron.

"Ron!" Molly snapped.

He was tugging at the chain of the Horcrux around his neck.

"Oh," everyone breathed but they still didn't look very happy with him

"You told us that You-Know-Who asked Dumbledore to give him a job after he left," said Hermione.

"That's right," said Harry.

"And Dumbledore thought he only wanted to come back to try and find something, probably another founder's object, to make into another Horcrux?"

"Yeah," said Harry.

"But he didn't get the job, did he?" said Hermione. "So he never got the chance to find a founder's object there and hide it in the school!"

"Okay, then," said Harry, defeated. "Forget Hogwarts."

"Sorry, Harry," Ron and Hermione said.

"Yep," Harry nodded.

"So there is one at Hogwarts," Dora asked.

"That's why we went there," Hermione nodded.

"Skipping," Harry muttered, the memory stopped with the three of them standing in front of a block of offices.

"We could try digging in to foundations?" Hermione suggested halfheartedly.

"He wouldn't have hidden a Horcrux here," Harry said.

"You have no idea what you're doing," Neville breathed, he always knew that it had been hard but sometimes when he was alone, he had wondered what the hell was taking so long but they really didn't have any idea, no direction, no tool, nothing.

"Next memory," Harry said.

"My mother," said Ron on night, as they sat in the tent on a riverbank in Wales, "can make good food appear out of thin air."

"I can not," Molly said.

"No one can," Lily said, frowning. "It's the first of the five Principal Exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration."

Ron paled as he realized what this day was, he had been dreading it since they had agreed to show it this morning.

He prodded moodily at the lumps of charred gray fish on his plate. Harry glanced automatically at Ron's neck and saw, as he has expected, the golden chain of the Horcrux glinting there. He managed to fight down the impulse to swear at Ron, whose attitude would, he knew, improve slightly when the time came to take off the locket.

"Your mother can't produce food out of thin air," said Hermione. "no one can. Food is the first of the five Principal Exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfigura—"

Lily nodded firmly.

"Oh, speak English, can't you?" Ron said, prising a fish out from between his teeth.

"It's impossible to make good food out of nothing! You can Summon it if you know where it is, you can transform it, you can increase the quantity if you've already got some—"

"Well, don't bother increasing this, it's disgusting," said Ron.

"Ron!" Bill said.

"Harry caught the fish and I did my best with it! I notice I'm always the one who ends up sorting out the food, because I'm a girl, I suppose!"

"No, it's because you're supposed to be the best at magic!" shot back Ron.

Hermione jumped up and bits of roast pike slid off her tin plate onto the floor.

"You can do the cooking tomorrow, Ron, you can find the ingredients and try and charm them into something worth eating, and I'll sit here and pull faces and moan and you can see you—"

"Shut up!" said Harry, leaping to his feet and holding up both hands. "Shut up now!"

"Not a good idea, Harry," Ginny warned.

Hermione looked outraged.

"How can you side with him, he hardly ever does the cook—"

"Hey, I wasn't on either side," Harry said.

"Hermione, be quiet, I can hear someone!"

Everyone tensed.

He was listening hard, his hands still raised, warning them not to talk. Then, over the rush and gush of the dark river beside them, he heard voices again. He looked around at the Sneakoscope. It was not moving.

"You cast the Muffliato charm over us, right?" he whispered to Hermione.

"I did everything," she whispered back, "Muffliato, Muggle-Repelling and Disillusionment Charms, all of it. They shouldn't be able to hear of see us, whoever they are."

"Good," Dora breathed.

Heavy scuffing and scraping noises, plus the sound of dislodged stones and twigs, told them that several people were clambering down the steep, wooded slope that descended to the narrow bank where they had pitched the tent. They drew their wands, waiting. The enchantments they had cast around themselves ought to be sufficient, in the near total darkness, to shield them from the notice of Muggles and normal witches and wizards. If these were Death Eaters, then perhaps their defenses were about to be tested by Dark Magic for the first time.

The voices became louder but no more intelligible as the group of men reached the bank. Harry estimated that their owners were fewer than twenty feet away, but the cascading river made it impossible to tell for sure. Hermione snatched up the beaded bag and started to rummage; after a moment she drew out three Extendable Ears and threw one each to Harry and Ron, who hastily inserted the ends of the flesh-colored strings into their ears and fed the other ends out of the tent entrance.

Within seconds Harry heard a weary male voice.

"There ought to be a few salmon in here, or d'you reckon it's too early in the season? Accio Salmon!"

There were several distinct splashes and then the slapping sounds of fish against flesh.

Somebody grunted appreciatively. Harry pressed the Extendable ear deeper into his own: Over the murmur of the river he could make out more voices, but they were not speaking English or any human language he had ever heard. It was a rough and unmelodious tongue, a string of rattling, guttural noises, and there seemed to be two speakers, one with a slightly lower, slower voice than the other.

"Goblin," Bill said.

A fire danced into life on the other side of the canvas, large shadows passed between tent and flames. The delicious smell of baking salmon wafted tantalizingly in their direction. Then came the clinking of cutlery on plates, and the first man spoke again.

"Here, Griphook, Gornuk."

Goblins! Hermione mouthed at Harry, who nodded.

"Thank you," said the goblins together in English.

"So, you three have been on the run how long?" asked a new, mellow, and pleasant voice; it was vaguely familiar to Harry, who pictured a round-bellied, cheerful-faced man.

'My dad!' Tonks said, cheerful, a smile breaking out on her face.

"Six weeks . . . Seven . . . I forget," said the tired man. "Met up with Griphook in the first couple of days and joined forces with Gornuk not long after. Nice to have a but of company." There was a pause, while knives scraped plates and tin mugs were picked up and replaced on the ground. "What made you leave, Ted?" continued the man.

"Knew they were coming for me," replied mellow-voiced Ted, and Harry suddenly knew who he was: Tonks's father. "Heard Death Eaters were in the area last week and decided I'd better run for it. Refused to register as a Muggle-born on principle, see, so I knew it was a matter of time, knew I'd have to leave in the end. My wife should be okay, she's pure-blood. And then I net Dean here, what, a few days ago, son?"

"Our Dean?" Neville asked and the trio nodded.

"Yeah," said another voice, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione stared at each other, silent but besides themselves with excitement, sure they recognized the voice of Dean Thomas, their fellow Gryffindor.

"Muggle-born, eh?" asked the first man.

"Not sure ," said Dean. "My dad left my mum when I was a kid. I've got no proof he was a wizard, though."

There was silence for a while, except for the sounds of munching; then Ted spoke again.

"I've got to say, Dirk, I'm surprised to run into you. Pleased, but surprised. Word was that you'd been caught."

"I was," said Dirk. "I was halfway to Azkaban when I made a break for it. Stunned Dawlish, and nicked his broom. It was easier than you'd think; I don't reckon he's quite right at the moment .Might be Confunded. If so, I'd like to shake the hand of the witch or wizard who did it, probably saved my life."

There was another pause in which the fire crackled and the river rushed on. The Ted said, "And where do you two fit in? I, er, had the impression the goblins were for You-Know-Who, on the whole."

"You had a false impression," said the higher-voiced of the goblins. "We take no sides. This is a wizards' war."

"How come you're in hiding, then?"

"I deemed in prudent," said the deeper-voiced goblin. "Having refused what I considered an impertinent request, I could see that my person safety was in jeopardy."

"What did they ask you to do?" asked Ted.

"Duties ill-befitting the dignity of my race," replied the goblin, his voice rougher and less human as he said it. "I am not a house-elf."

"What about you, Griphook?"

"Similar reasons," said the higher voiced goblin. "Gringotts is no longer under the sole control of my race.

"I bet they didn't like that," James said warily.

I recognize no Wizarding master."

He added something under his breath in Gobbledegook, and Gornuk laughed.

"What's the joke?" asked Dean.

"He said," replied Dirk, "that there are things wizards don't recognize, either."

There was a short pause.

"I don't get it," said Dean.

"I had my small revenge before I left," said Griphook in English.

"Good man—goblin, I should say," amended Ted hastily. "Didn't manage to lock a Death Eater up in one of the old high-security vaults, I suppose?"

"If I had, the sword would not have helped him break out," replied Griphook. Gornuk laughed again and even Dirk gave a dry chuckle.

Everyone except the trio looked confused.

"Dean and I are still missing something here," said Ted.

"So is Severus Snape, though he does not know it," said Griphook, and the two goblins roared with malicious laughter. Inside the tent Harry's breathing was shallow with excitement: He and Hermione stared at each other, listening as hard as they could.

"Didn't you hear about that, Ted?" asked Dirk. "About the kids who tried to steal Gryffindor's sword out of Snape's office at Hogwarts?"

Neville, Ginny and Luna shared looks.

An electric current seemed to course through Harry, jangling his every nerve as he stood rooted to the spot.

"Never heard a word," said Ted, "Not in the Prophet, was it?"

"Hardly," chortled Dirk. "Griphook here told me, he heard about it from Bill Weasley who works for the bank. One of the kids who tried to take the sword was Bill's younger sister."

Harry glanced toward Hermione and Ron, both of whom were clutching the Extendable Ears as tightly as lifelines.

"She and a couple of friends got into Snape's office and smashed open the glass case where he was apparently keeping the sword. Snape caught them as they were trying to smuggle it down the staircase.

"Crap," the twins muttered to low for their sister to hear.

"Ah, God bless 'em," said Ted. "What did they think, that they'd be able to use the sword on You-Know-Who? Or on Snape himself?

"As good idea as that would have been in our view," Neville chuckled. "That wasn't the plan."

"Well, whatever they thought they were going to do with it, Snape decided the sword wasn't safe where it was," said Dirk. "Couple of days later, once he'd got the say-so from You-Know-Who, I imagine, he sent it down to London to be kept in Gringotts instead."

The goblins started to laugh again.

"I'm still not seeing the joke," said Ted.

"It's a fake," rasped Griphook.

"The sword of Gryffindor!"

"Oh yes. It is a copy—en excellent copy, it is true—but it was Wizard-made. The original was forged centuries ago by goblins and had certain properties only goblin-made armor possesses. Wherever the genuine sword of Gryffindor is, it is not in a vault at Gringotts bank."

"Nice," Sirius laughed.

"I see," said Ted. "And I take it you didn't bother telling the Death Eaters this."

"I saw no reason to trouble them with the information," said Griphook smugly, and now Ted and Dean joined in Gornuk and Dirk's laughter.

Inside the tent, Harry closed his eyes, willing someone to ask the question he needed answered, and after a minute that seemed ten, Dean obliged: he was (Harry remembered with a jolt) an ex-boyfriend of Ginny's too.

"No 'too' about it, Potter," Ginny said.

"What happened to Ginny and all the others? The ones who tried to steal it?"

"Oh, they were punished, and cruelly," said Griphook indifferently.

"No we weren't," Luna said.

Ginny grimaced knowing that Harry and Ron had heard that.

"They're okay, though?" asked Ted quickly, "I mean, the Weasleys don't need any more of their kids injured, do they?"

"They suffered no serious injury, as far as I am aware," said Griphook.

"Lucky for them," said Ted. "With Snape's track record I suppose we should just be glad they're still alive."

"You believe that story, then, do you, Ted?" asked Dirk." You believe Snape killed Dumbledore?

"Course I do," said Ted. "You're not going to sit there and tell me you think Potter had anything to do with it?"

"Hard to know what to believe these days," muttered Dirk.

"I know Harry Potter," said Dean. "And I reckon he's the real thing—the Chosen One, or whatever you want to call it."

"I'm not sure whether I should say thanks or not," Harry muttered.

"Yeah, there's a lot would like to believe he's that, son," said Dirk, "me included. But where is he? Run for it, by the looks of things.

"Have not," Harry huffed.

You'd think if he knew anything we don't, or had anything special going for him, he'd be out there now fighting, rallying resistance, instead of hiding.

"We were fighting," Hermione said, annoyed.

"Yeah," Ron chuckled. "We were just hiding at the same time."

And you know, the Prophet made a pretty good case against him—"

"This man is a Muggle-born and he still believes in the Prophet!"

"Idiot," Arthur muttered.

"The Prophet?" scoffed Ted. "You deserve to be lied to if you're still reading that much, Dirk. You want the facts, try the Quibbler."

"That's a different tune," Sirius muttered to James.

There was a sudden explosion of choking and retching, plus a good deal of thumping, by the sound of it. Dirk had swallowed a fish bone. At last he sputtered, "The Quibbler? That lunatic rag of Xeno Lovegood's?"

"It's not crazy," Luna said, angrily.

"It's not so lunatic these days," said Ted. "You want to give it a look, Xeno is printing all the stuff the Prophet's ignoring, not a single mention of Crumple-Horned Snorkacks in the last issue. How long they'll let him get with it, mind, I don't know. But Xeno says, front page of every issue, that any wizard who's against You-Know-Who ought to make helping Harry Potter their number-one priority."

"Hard to help a boy who's vanished off the face of the earth," said Dirk.

"At least we achieved that," Ron chuckled.

"Listen, the fact that they haven't caught him yet's one hell of an achievement," said Ted. "I'd take tips from him gladly; it's what we're trying to do, stay free, isn't it?"

"You have Hermione," Harry said, causing said witch to blush

"Yeah, well, you've got a point there," said Dirk heavily. "With the whole of the Ministry and all their informers looking for him, I'd have expected him to be caught by now. Mind, who's to say they haven't already caught and killed him without publicizing it?"

"Zat would be front page news," Fleur said.

"Ah, don't say that, Dirk," murmured Ted.

There was a long pause filled with more clattering of knives and forks. When they spoke again it was to discuss whether they ought to sleep on the back or retreat back up the wooded slope. Deciding the trees would give better cover, they extinguished their fire, then clambered back up the incline, their voices fading away.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione reeled in the Extendable Ears. Harry, who had found the need to remain silent increasingly difficult the longer they eavesdropped, now found himself unable to say more then, "Ginny—the sword—"

"I know!" said Hermione.

She lunged for the tiny beaded bag, this time sinking her arm in it right up to the armpit.

"Here . . . we . . . are . . ." she said between gritted teeth, and she pulled at something that was evidently in the depths of the bag. Slowly the edge of an ornate picture frame came into sight. Harry hurried to help her. As they lifted the empty portrait of Phineas Nigellus free of Hermione's bag, she kept her wand pointing at it, ready to cast a spell at any moment.

"If somebody swapped the real sword for the fake while it was in Dumbledore's office," she panted, as they propped the painting against the side of the tent, "Phineas Nigellus would have seen it happen, he hangs right beside the case!"

"Brilliant," Lily said.

"Unless he was asleep," said Harry, but he still held his breath as Hermione knelt down in front of the empty canvas, her wand directed at its center, cleared her throat, then said:

"Er—Phineas? Phineas Nigellus?"

Nothing happened.

"Phineas Nigellus?" said Hermione again. "Professor Black? Please could we talk to you? Please?"

"'Please' always helps," said a cold, snide voice, and Phineas Nigellus slid into his portrait. At one, Hermione cried:

"Obscura!"

"He won't like that," Sirius laughed.

A black blindfold appeared over Phineas Nigellus's clever, dark eyes, causing him to bump into the frame and shriek with pain.

"What—how dare—what are you—?"

"I'm very sorry, Professor Black," said Hermione, "but it's a necessary precaution!"

"Remove this foul addition at once! Remove it, I say! You are ruining a great work of art!

Sirius snorted.

Where am I? What is going on?"

"Never mind where we are," said Harry, and Phineas Nigellus froze, abandoning his attempts to peel off the painted blindfold.

"Can that possible be the voice of the elusive Mr. Potter?"

"Maybe," said Harry.

"Nice," Bill chucked.

"We've got a couple of questions to ask you—about the sword of Gryffindor."

"Ah," said Phineas Nigellus, now turning his head this way and that in an effort to catch sight of Harry, "yes. That silly girl acted most unwisely there—"

"I'm not silly," Ginny huffed.

"Shut up about my sister," said Ron roughly, Phineas Nigellus raised supercilious eyebrows.

"Who else is here?" he asked, turning his head from side to side.

"That's a bit obvious," Dudley said.

"Your tone displeases me! The girl and her friends were foolhardily in the extreme. Thieving from the headmaster."

"They weren't thieving," said Harry. "That sword isn't Snape's."

"It belongs to Professor Snape's school," said Phineas Nigellus. "Exactly what claim did the Weasley girl have upon it? She deserved her punishment, as did the idiot Longbottom and the Lovegood oddity!"

"Neville is not an idiot and Luna is not an oddity!" said Hermione.

"Thanks, Hermione," they said.

"Where am I?" repeated Phineas Nigellus, starting to wrestle with the blindfold again. "Where have you brought me? Why have you removed me from the house of my forebears?"

"Never mind that! How did Snape punish Ginny, Neville, and Luna?" asked Harry urgently.

"Professor Snape sent them into the Forbidden Forest, to do some work for the oaf, Hagrid."

"That's not bad," Molly breathed.

"Hagrid's not an oaf!" said Hermione shrilly.

"And Snape might've though that was a punishment," said Harry, "buy Ginny, Neville, and Luna probably had a good laugh with Hagrid.

"We did," they laughed.

The Forbidden Forest . . . they've faced plenty worse than the Forbidden Forest, big deal!"

"What we really wanted to know, Professor Black, is whether anyone else has, um, taken out the sword at all? Maybe it's been taken away for cleaning—or something!"

Phineas Nigellus paused again in his struggles to free his eyes and sniggered.

"Muggle-born," he said, "Goblin-made armor does not require cleaning, simple girl. Goblin's silver repels mundane dirt, imbibing only that which strengthens it."

"Don't call Hermione simple," said Harry.

"Thanks, Harry," Hermione chuckled.

"Yeah, she's anything but simple," Ron muttered.

"I grow weary of contradiction," said Phineas Nigellus. "perhaps it is time for me to return to the headmaster's office?"

"No," Petunia said.

Still blindfolded, he began groping the side of his frame, trying to feel his way out of his picture and back into the one at Hogwarts.

"Dumbledore! Can't you bring us Dumbledore?"

"I beg your pardon?" asked Phineas Nigellus.

"Professor Dumbledore's portrait—couldn't you bring him along, here, into yours?"

Phineas Nigellus turned his face in the direction of Harry's voice.

"Evidently it is not only Muggle-borns who are ignorant, Potter. The portraits of Hogwarts may commune with each other, but they cannot travel outside of the castle except to visit a painting of themselves elsewhere. Dumbledore cannot come here with me, and after the treatment I have received at your hands, I can assure you that I will not be making a return visit!"

"Because that's a disappointment," Teddy muttered.

Harry watched Phineas redouble his attempts to leave his frame.

"Professor Black," said Hermione, "couldn't you just tell us, please, when was the last time the sword was taken out of its case? Before Ginny took it out, I mean?"

Phineas snorted impatiently.

"I believe that the last time I saw the sword of Gryffindor leave its case was when Professor Dumbledore used it to break open a ring."

"It can destroy Horcruxes," the twins yelled

Hermione whipped around to look at Harry. Neither of them dared say more in front of Phineas Nigellus, who had at last managed to locate the exit.

"Well, good night to you," he said a little waspishly, and he began to move out of sight again. Only the edge of his hat brim remained in view when Harry gave a sudden shout.

"Wait! Have you told Snape you saw this?"

Phineas Nigellus stuck his blindfolded head back into the picture.

"Professor Snape has more important things on his mind that the many eccentricities of Albus Dumbledore. Good-bye, Potter!"

And with that, he vanished completely, leaving behind him nothing but his murky backdrop.

"Harry!" Hermione cried.

"I know!" Harry shouted. Unable to contain himself, he punched the air;

Everyone chuckled their happiness was contagious.

He strode up and down the tent, Hermione was squashing Phineas Nigellus's back into the beaded bag; when she had fastened the clasp she threw the bag aside and raised a shining face to Harry.

"The sword can destroy Horcruxes! Goblin-made blades imbibe only that which strengthens them—Harry, that sword's impregnated with basilisk venom!"

"Oh course," Fleur said.

"And Dumbledore didn't give it to me because he still needed it, he wanted to use it on the locket—"

"—and he must have realized they wouldn't let you have it if he put it in his will—"

"—so he made a copy—"

"—and put a fake in the glass case—"

"—and he left the real one—where?"

"You're good a debating when you're happy," Luna observed.

"But that's the million galleon question," Sirius said.

They gazed at east other

"Think!" whispered Hermione. "Think! Where would he have left it?"

"Not at Hogwarts," said Harry, resuming his pacing.

"Somewhere in Hogsmeade?" suggested Hermione.

"The Shrieking Shack?" said Harry. "Nobody ever goes in there."

"I doubt it," Remus said.

"But Snape knows how to get in, wouldn't that be a bit risky?"

"Dumbledore trusted Snape," Harry reminded her.

"Not enough to tell him that he had swapped the swords," said Hermione.

"Wrong," the trio murmured quietly.

"Yeah, you're right!" said Harry, and he felt even more cheered at the thought that Dumbledore had had some reservations, however faint, about Snape's trustworthiness. "So, would he have hidden the sword well away from Hogsmeade, then? What d'you reckon, Ron? Ron?"

Harry looked around. For one bewildered moment he thought that Ron had left the tent, then realized that Ron was lying in the shadow of a bunk, looking stony.

Everyone tensed and frowned. Ron buried his head in hands – hear it comes, his biggest mistake.

"Oh, remembered me, have you?" he said.

"What?"

Ron snorted as he stared up at the underside of the upper bunk.

"You two carry on. Don't let me spoil your fun."

"What's up with you?" Ginny snapped.

Perplexed, Harry looked to Hermione for help, but she shook her head, apparently as nonplussed as he was.

"What's the problem?" asked Harry.

"Problem? There's no problem," said Ron, still refusing to look at Harry. "Not according to you, anyways."

There were several plunks on the canvas over their heads. It had started to rain.

"Well, you've obviously got a problem," said Harry. "Spit it out, will you?"

Ron swung his long legs off the bed and sat up. He looked mean, unlike himself.

"What are you doing?" Teddy asked

"Making the biggest mistake of my life," Ron muttered.

"All right, I'll spit it out. Don't expect me to skip up and down the tent because there's some other damn thing we've got to find. Just add it to the list of stuff you don't know."

"He doesn't know?" Neville said. "You're a team!"

"I don't know?" repeated Harry. "I don't know?"

Plunk, plunk, plunk. The rain was falling harder and heavier; it pattered on the leaf-strewn bank all around them and into the river chattering through the dark.

"It's not like I'm not having the time of my life here," said Ron, "you know, with my arm mangled and nothing to eat and freezing my backside off every night. I just hoped, you know, after we'd been running round a few weeks, we'd have achieved something."

"You found a Horcrux," Petunia said.

"Ron," Hermione said, but in such a quiet voice that Ron could pretend not to have heard it over the loud tattoo the rain was beating on the tent.

"I thought you knew what you'd signed up for," said Harry.

"Yeah, I thought I did too."

Everyone either looked angry or upset as if they knew where this heading.

"So what part of it isn't living up to your expectations?" asked Harry. Anger was coming to his defense now. "Did you think we'd be staying in five-star hotels? Finding a Horcrux every other day? Did you think you'd be back to Mummy by Christmas?"

"We thought you knew what you were doing!" shouted Ron, standing up, and his words Harry like scalding knives. "We thought Dumbledore had told you what to do, we thought you had a real plan!"

Lily, James, Sirius and Remus looked at him shocked.

"Ron!" said Hermione, this time clearly audible over the rain thundering on the tent roof, but again, he ignored her.

"Well, sorry to let you down," said Harry, his voice quite calm even though he felt hollow, inadequate. "I've been straight with you from the start. I told you everything Dumbledore told me. And in the case you haven't noticed, we've found one Horcrux—"

"Exactly," Dudley nodded.

"Yeah, and we're about as near getting rid of it as we are to finding the rest of them—nowhere effing near in other words."

"Take off the locket, Ron," Hermione said, her voice unusually high. "Please take it off. You wouldn't be talking like this if you hadn't been wearing it all day."

Many ears filled with tears – the trio was falling apart.

Hermione had tears streaming down her face, Harry rubbed a hand across his face and Ron had his head still in his head. Both Harry and Hermione looked extremely pained and everyone guessed that Ron did too.

"Yeah, he would," said Harry, who did not want excuses made for Ron. "D'you think I haven't noticed the two of you whispering behind my back? D'you think I didn't guess you were thinking this stuff?

"Harry, we weren't—"

"Don't lie!" Ron hurled at her. "You said it too, you said you were disappointed, you said you'd thought he had a bit more to go on than—"

"I didn't say it like that—Harry, I didn't!" she cried.

The rain was pounding the tent, tears were pouring down Hermione's face.

"The happiness is gone," Ginny said bitterly – she had liked seeing the younger counterpart of her husband so happy.

"So why are you still here?" Harry asked Ron.

"Search me," said Ron.

"Go home then," said Harry.

"Yeah, maybe I will!" shouted Ron, and he took several steps toward Harry, who did not back away. "Didn't you hear what they said about my sister? But you don't give a rat's fart, do you,

"Of course he does!" Ginny cried.

it's only the Forbidden Forest, Harry I've-Faced-Worse Potter doesn't care what happened to her in there—well, I do, all right, giant spiders and mental stuff—"

If the mood had been lighter the twins would have snorted.

"I was only saying—she was with the others, they were with Hagrid—"

"Yeah, I get it, you don't care! And what about the rest of my family, 'the Weasleys don't need another kid injured,' did you hear that?"

"Yeah, I—"

"Not bothered what it meant, though?"

"Ron!" said Hermione, forcing her way between them. "I don't think it means anything new has happened, anything we don't know about; think, Ron, Bill's already scared, plenty of people must have seen that George has lost an ear by now, and you're supposed to be on your deathbed with spattergroit, I'm sure that's all he meant—"

Molly and Arthur nodded, tears flying from Molly's face at the movement.

"Oh, you're sure, are you? Right then, well, I won't bother myself about them. It's all right for you, isn't it, with your parents safely out of the way—"

"Ron!" everyone but the trio yelled.

"My parents are dead!" Harry bellowed.

"And mine could be going the same way!" yelled Ron.

"Then GO!" roared Harry. "Go back to them, pretend you're got over your spattergroit and Mummy'll be able to feed you up and—"

Ron made a sudden movement: Harry reacted, but before either wand was clear of its owner's pocket, Hermione had raised her own.

"Protego!" she cried, and an invisible shield expanded between her and Harry on the one side and Ron on the other; all of them were forced backward a few steps by the strength of the spell, and Harry and Ron glared from either side of the transparent barrier as though they were seeing each other clearly for the first time. Harry felt a corrosive hatred toward Ron: Something had broken between them.

Hermione let out a sob.

"Leave the Horcrux," Harry said.

Ron wrenched the chain from over his head and cast the locket into a nearby chair. He turned to Hermione.

"What are you doing?"

"What do you mean?"

"Are you staying, or what?"

"Don't drag her down with you," Bill said.

"I . . ." She looked anguished. "Yes—yes, I'm staying. Ron, we said we'd go with Harry, we said we'd help—"

"I get it. You choose him."

"She's doing the right thing!" Fabian said.

"Sticking by her friend," Gideon added

"Ron, no—please—come back, come back!"

She was impeded by her own Shield Charm; by the time she had removed it he had already stormed into the night. Harry stood quite still and silent, listening to her sobbing and calling Ron's name amongst the trees.

After a few minutes she returned, her sopping hair plastered to her face.

"He's g-g-gone! Disapparated!"

She threw herself into a chair, curled up, and started to cry.

Too many of the group who had been alive during this time had always seen the Trio as a sign of hope and light in the middle of the consuming darkness that was the war. To see them broken was a repulsive wake up call. It was now that most of them grasped that those three were more than just a symbol. They were more than the invincible soldiers. They were plain old human, teenagers. And Ron leaving was bringing the truth home for them.

Harry felt dazed. He stooped, picked up the Horcrux, and placed it around his own neck. He dragged blankets off Ron's bunk and threw them over Hermione. Then he climbed onto his own bed and stared up at the dark canvas roof, listening to the pounding of the rain.

"You prat, Ron," Bill frowned.

"I know," Ron said, his voice muffled by his hands.

"But he was with you," Neville said confused. "You two were as thick as thieves as you always were."

"Yeah, he got back," Harry said. "Let's continue."

"Godrics Hollow," Hermione breathed.

"Hermione, I've been thinking, and –"

"Harry, could you help me with something?" Apparently she had not been listening to him. She leaned forward and held out The Tales of Beedle the Bard.

"Polite, Hermione," Ginny tried to joke.

"Look at that symbol," she said, pointing to the top of a page. Above what Harry assumed was the title of the story (being unable to read runes, he could not be sure), there was a picture of what looked like a triangular eye, its pupil crossed with a vertical line.

"I never took Ancient Runes, Hermione."

"I know that, Harry," Hermione laughed.

"I know that; but it isn't a rune and it's not in the syllabary, either. All along I thought it was a picture of an eye, but I don't think it is! It's been inked in, look, somebody's drawn it there, it isn't really part of the book. Think, have you ever seen it before?"

"No . . . No, wait a moment." Harry looked closer. "Isn't it the same symbol Luna's dad was wearing round his neck?"

"Well, that's what I thought too!"

"Then it's Grindelwald's mark."

She stared at him, openmouthed.

"What?"

"Krum told me . . ." He recounted the story that Viktor Krum had told him at the wedding. Hermione looked astonished.

"Grindelwald's mark?"

She looked from Harry to the weird symbol and back again. "I've never heard that Grindelwald had a mark. There's no mention of it in anything I've ever read about him."

"That's because it's not his mark," Luna said.

"Well, like I say, Krum reckoned that symbol was carved on a wall at Durmstrang, and Grindelwald put it there." She fell back into the old armchair, frowning.

"That's very odd. If it's a symbol of Dark Magic, what's it doing in a book of children's stories?"

"Yeah, it is weird," said Harry. "And you'd think Scrimgeour would have recognized it. He was Minister, he ought to have been expert on Dark stuff."

"I know. . . . Perhaps he thought it was an eye, just like I did. All the other stories have little pictures over the titles." She did not speak, but continued to pour over the strange mark. Harry tried again.

"Hermione?"

"Hmm?"

"I've been thinking. I – I want to go to Godric's Hollow."

She looked up at him, but her eyes were unfocused.

"Yes," she said. "Yes, I've been wondering that too. I really think we'll have to."

"Did you hear him right?" Ron asked.

"Did you hear me right?" he asked.

Several people laughed.

"Just just go with it Uncle Harry," Teddy chuckled.

"Of course I did. You want to go to Godric's Hollow. I agree. I think we should. I mean, I can't think of anywhere else it could be either. It'll be dangerous, but the more I think about it, the more likely it seems it's there."

"What's there?" James asked.

"Er – what's there?" asked Harry.

At that, she looked just as bewildered as he felt.

"Well, the sword, Harry! Dumbledore must have known you'd want to go back there, and I mean, Godric's Hollow is Godric Gryffindor's birthplace –"

"Really? Gryffindor came from Godric's Hollow?"

"Really, Harry?" Ginny giggled. "Sometimes you miss the obvious."

"Harry, did you ever even open A History of Magic?"

"Erm," he said, smiling for what felt like the first time in months. "I might've opened it, you know, when I bought it . . . just the once. . . ."

"Well, as the village is named after him I'd have thought you might have made the connection," said Hermione. She sounded much more like her old self than she had done of late;

"There's a bit about the village in A History of Magic, wait . . ."

She opened the beaded bag and rummaged for a while, finally extracting her copy of their old school textbook, A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot, which she thumbed through until finding the page she wanted.

"'Upon the signature of the International Statute of Secrecy in 1689, wizards went into hiding for good. It was natural, perhaps, that they formed their own small communities within a community. Many small villages and hamlets attracted several magical families, who banded together for mutual support and protection. The villages of Tinworsh in Cornwall, Upper Flagley in Yorkshire, and Ottery St. Catchpole on the south coast of England were notable homes to knots of Wizarding families who lived alongside tolerant and sometimes Confunded Muggles. Most celebrated of these half-magical dwelling places is, perhaps, Godric's Hollow, the West Country village where the great wizard Godric Gryffindor was born, and where Bowman Wright, Wizarding smith, forged the first Golden Snitch. The graveyard is full of the names of ancient magical families, and this accounts, no doubt, for the stories of hauntings that have dogged the little church beside it for many centuries.'

"You and your parents aren't mentioned." Hermione said, closing the book, "because Professor Bagshot doesn't cover anything later than the end of the nineteenth century. But you see? Godric's Hollow, Godric Gryffindor, Gryffindor's sword; don't you think Dumbledore would have expected you to make the connection?"

"I hope it's there," Lily said, missing the looks exchanged between Harry and Hermione,

"Oh yeah . . ."

"Remember what Muriel said?" he asked eventually.

"Who?"

"You know," he hesitated. He did not want to say Ron's name. "Ginny's great-aunt. At the wedding. The one who said you had skinny ankles."

"Oh," said Hermione. It was a sticky moment: Harry knew that she had sensed Ron's name in the offing. He rushed on:

"She said Bathilda Bagshot still lived in Godric's Hollow."

"Bathilda Bagshot," murmured Hermione, running her index finger over Bathilda's embossed name on the front cover of A History of Magic. "Well, I suppose –"

She gasped so dramatically that Harry's insides turned over; he drew his wand, looking around at the entrance, half expecting to see a hand forcing its way through the entrance flap, but there was nothing there.

"Hermione," Neville groaned. "You're going to give us a heart attack."

"What?" he said, half angry, half relieved. "What did you do that for? I thought you'd seen a Death Eater unzipping the tent, at least –"

"Harry, what if Bathilda's got the sword? What if Dumbledore entrusted it to her?"

"Yeah, he might have done! So, are we going to go to Godric's Hollow?"

"Yes, but we'll have to think it through carefully, Harry." She was sitting up now, and Harry could tell that the prospect of having a plan again had lifted her mood as much as his. "We'll need to practice Disapparating together under the Invisibility Cloak for a start, and perhaps Disillusionment Charms would be sensible too, unless you think we should go the whole hog and use Polyjuice Potion? In that case we'll need to collect hair from somebody. I actually think we'd better do that, Harry, the thicker our disguises the better. . . ."

"These better be strong disguises," Dora said.

Harry let her talk, nodding and agreeing whenever there was a pause

"Skipping," Harry said.

They were standing hand in hand in a snowy lane under a dark blue sky, in which the night's first stars were already glimmering feebly. Cottages stood on either side of the narrow road, Christmas decorations twinkling in their windows. A short way ahead of them, a glow of golden streetlights indicated the center of the village.

"All this snow!" Hermione whispered beneath the cloak. "Why didn't we think of snow? After all our precautions, we'll leave prints! We'll just have to get rid of them – you go in front, I'll do it –"

"Let's take off the Cloak," said Harry, and when she looked frightened, "Oh, come on, we don't look like us and there's no one around."

He stowed the Cloak under his jacket and they made their way forward unhampered, the icy air stinging their faces as they passed more cottages. Any one of them might have been the one in which James and Lily had once lived or where Bathilda lived now. Harry gazed at the front doors, their snow-burdened roofs, and their front porches.

Then the little lane along which they were walking curved to the left and the heart of the village, a small square, was revealed to them.

Strung all around with colored lights, there was what looked like a war memorial in the middle, partly obscured by a windblown Christmas tree. There were several shops, a post office, a pub, and a little church whose stained-glass windows were glowing jewel-bright across the square.

The snow here had become impacted: It was hard and slippery where people had trodden on it all day. Villagers were crisscrossing in front of them, their figures briefly illuminated by streetlamps. They heard a snatch of laughter and pop music as the pub door opened and closed; then they heard a carol start up inside the little church.

"Harry, I think it's Christmas Eve!" said Hermione.

"You think?" Petunia repeated.

"We weren't getting the newpaper, it was too risky," Hermione said, "and it didn't really matter, anyway, everyday was the same was the same for us."

"Is it?"

"I'm sure it is," said Hermione, her eyes upon the church. "They . . . they'll be in there, won't they? Your mum and dad? I can see the graveyard behind it."

Everyone took a deep breath.

Hermione reached for his hand and took the lead for the first time, pulling him forward. Halfway across the square, however, she stopped dead.

"Harry, look!"

She was pointing at the war memorial. As they had passed it, it had transformed. Instead of an obelisk covered in names, there was a statue of three people: a man with untidy hair and glasses, a woman with long hair and a kind, pretty face, and a baby boy sitting in his mother's arms.

"Oh," Lily said her eyes-wide and filled with tears.

Snow lay upon all their heads, like fluffy white caps.

Harry drew closer, gazing up into his parents' faces.

"C'mon," said Harry, when he had looked his fill, and they turned again toward the church. As they crossed the road, he glanced over his shoulder; the statue had turned back into the war memorial.

The singing grew louder as they approached the church. It reminded him so forcefully of Hogwarts, of Peeves bellowing rude versions of carols from inside suits of armor, of the Great Hall's twelve Christmas trees, of Dumbledore wearing a bonnet he had won in a cracker, of Ron in a hand-knitted sweater. . . .

Everyone chuckled slightly wistfully, except Teddy, Hogwarts was a place you always missed.

There was a kissing gate at the entrance to the graveyard. Hermione pushed it open as quietly as possible and they edged through it. On either side of the slippery path to the church doors, the snow lay deep and untouched. They moved off through the snow, carving deep trenches behind them as they walked around the building, keeping to the shadows beneath the brilliant windows.

Behind the church, row upon row of snowy tombstones protruded from a blanket of pale blue that was flecked with dazzling red, gold, and green wherever the reflections from the stained glass hit the snow. Keeping his hand closed tightly on the wand in his jacket pocket, Harry moved toward the nearest grave.

"Look at this, it's an Abbott, could be some long-lost relation of Hannah's!"

"Keep your voice down," Hermione begged him.

They waded deeper and deeper into the graveyard, gouging dark tracks into the snow behind them, stooping to peer at the words on old headstones, every now and then squinting into the surrounding darkness to make absolutely sure that they were unaccompanied.

"Harry, here!"

Hermione was two rows of tombstones away; he had to wade back to her, his heart positively banging in his chest.

"Is it – ?"

"No, but look!"

She pointed to the dark stone. Harry stooped down and saw, upon the frozen, lichen-spotted granite, the words Kendra Dumbledore and, a short way down her dates of birth and death, and Her Daughter Ariana.

"The Dumbledore's," Lily breathed.

There was also a quotation:

Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Hermione was looking at Harry, and he was glad that his face was hidden in shadow.

"Are you sure he never mentioned – ?" Hermione began.

"No," said Harry curtly, then, "let's keep looking," and he turned away, wishing he had not seen the stone.

"Here!" cried Hermione again a few moments later from out of the darkness. "Oh no, sorry! I thought it said Potter."

"Hermione you are going to kill us!" Sirius growled.

She was rubbing at a crumbling, mossy stone, gazing down at it, a little frown on her face.

"Harry, come back a moment."

He grudgingly made his way back through the snow toward her.

"What?"

"Look at this!" The grave was extremely old, weathered so that Harry could hardly make out the name. Hermione showed him the symbol beneath it.

"Harry, that's the mark in the book!"

"Why would that be there?" Teddy wondered.

"The Peverells are the three brothers of the Deathly Hallows," Luna said.

He peered at the place she indicated: The stone was so worn that it was hard to make out what was engraved there, though there did seem to be a triangular mark beneath the nearly illegible name.

"Yeah . . . it could be. . . ."

Hermione lit her wand and pointed it at the name on the headstone.

"It says Ig – Ignotus, I think. . . ."

"I'm going to keep looking for my parents, all right?" Harry told her, a slight edge to his voice, and he set off again, leaving her crouched beside the old grave.

Every now and then he recognized a surname that, like Abbott, he had met at Hogwarts. Sometimes there were several generations of the same Wizarding family represented in the graveyard: Harry could tell from the dates that it had either died out, or the current members had moved away from Godric's Hollow. Deeper and deeper amongst the graves he went.

The darkness and the silence seemed to become, all of a sudden, much deeper. Harry looked around, worried, then realized that the carols had finished, that the chatter and flurry of churchgoers were fading away as they made their way back into the square. Somebody inside the church had just turned off the lights.

Then Hermione's voice came out of the blackness for the third time, sharp and clear from a few yards away.

"Harry, they're here . . . right here."

"Oh Merlin," Sirius groaned.

And he knew by her tone that it was his mother and father this time: He moved toward her,

The headstone was only two rows behind Kendra and Ariana's. It was made of white marble, just like Dumbledore's tomb, and this made it easy to read, as it seemed to shine in the dark. Harry did not need to kneel or even approach very close to it to make out the words engraved upon it.

JAMES POTTER LILY POTTER

BORN 27 MARCH 1960 BORN 30 JANUARY 196

DIED 31 OCTOBER 1981 DIED 31 OCTOBER 1981

The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

"What does that mean?" Bill asked, holding Fleur who looked slightly tearful.

Harry read the words slowly and he read the last of them aloud.

"'The last enemy that shall be defeated is death' . . . Isn't that a Death Eater idea? Why is that there?"

"It doesn't mean defeating death in the way the Death Eaters mean it, Harry," said Hermione, her voice gentle. "It means . . . you know . . . living beyond death. Living after death."

"Something like," James nodded.

But they were not living, thought Harry. They were gone.

"No," Lily breathed.

The empty words could not disguise the fact that his parents' moldering remains lay beneath snow and stone, indifferent, unknowing. And tears came before he could stop them, boiling hot then instantly freezing on his face, and what was the point in wiping them off or pretending? He let them fall, his lips pressed hard together,

Ginny squeezed Harry's hand as she, and most others, looked pained or had tears running down their faces.

looking down at the thick snow hiding from his eyes the place where the last of Lily and James lay, bones now, surely, or dust, not knowing or caring that their living son stood so near, his heart still beating, alive because of their sacrifice and close to wishing, at this moment, that he was sleeping under the snow with them.

Lily was practically sobbing now as she watched her son stand over his parent's grave.

Hermione had taken his hand again and was gripping it tightly. He could not look at her, but returned the pressure, now taking deep, sharp gulps of the night air, trying to steady himself, trying to regain control. He should have brought something to give them, and he had not thought of it, and every plant in the graveyard was leafless and frozen. But Hermione raised her wand, moved it in a circle through the air, and a wreath of Christmas roses blossomed before them. Harry caught it and laid it on his parents' grave.

"Thanks, Hermione," Harry said.

"Yeah," she said, softly, it was obvious to everyone else that they had slipped into memories and were hardly in the room at all, after a while Hermione shook her head. "I guess we don't need to do our trip this year."

"Nope," Harry smiled, glancing at her. "No more Godrics Hollow Graveyard on Christmas Eve."

"What are you two on about?" James asked taking a deep breath.

"These two went to there every Christmas Eve," Ginny said, sadly. "It was tradition."

"It was never discussed either," Ron said. "They never said a thing about it."

"It's true," Hermione said. "It's always the same, why we never brought flowers, we don't know, why I always made them, we don't know because it's discussed."

As soon as he stood up he wanted to leave: He did not think he could stand another moment there. He put his arm around Hermione's shoulders, and she put hers around his waist, and they turned in silence and walked away through the snow, past Dumbledore's mother and sister, back toward the dark church and the out-of-sight kissing gate.

Everyone smiled sadly; it was a nice but sad picture.

"Harry, stop."

"What's wrong?"

They had only just reached the grave of the unknown Abbott. "There's someone there. Someone watching us. I can tell. There, over by the bushes."

"Oh, god," Dudley groaned, speaking for the first time in a while

They stood quite still, holding on to each other, gazing at the dense black boundary of the graveyard. Harry could not see anything. "Are you sure?"

"I saw something move. I could have sworn I did..." She broke from him to free her wand arm.

"We look like Muggles," Harry pointed out.

"Muggles who've just been laying flowers on your parents' grave? Harry, I'm sure there's someone over there!"

Then he heard a rustle and saw a little eddy of dislodged snow in the bush to which Hermione had pointed.

"It's a cat," said Harry, after a second or two, "or a bird. If it was a Death Eater we'd be dead by now.

"Good point but get out of there," Remus said.

But let's get out of here, and we can put the Cloak back on."

Everyone nodded their agreement, Lily and James the fastest not wanting their son to get hurt a second time in his home.

They glanced back repeatedly as they made their way out of the graveyard. Harry, who did not feel as sanguine as he had pretended when reassuring Hermione, was glad to reach the gate and the slippery pavement. They pulled the Invisibility Cloak back over themselves. The pub was fuller than before.

Many voices inside it were now singing the carol that they had heard as they approached the church. For a moment, Harry considered suggesting they take refuge inside it, but before he could say anything Hermione murmured, "Let's go this way," and pulled him down the dark street leading out of the village in the opposite direction from which they had entered.

"Not this way," James groaned.

Harry could make out the point where the cottages ended and the lane turned into open country again. They walked as quickly as they dared, past more windows sparkling with multicolored lights, the outlines of Christmas trees dark through the curtains.

"How are we going to find Bathilda's house?" asked Hermione, who was shivering a little and kept glancing back over her shoulder. "Harry? What do you think? Harry?" She tugged at this arm, but Harry was not paying attention. He was looking toward the dark mass that stood at the very end of this row of houses. Next moment he sped up, dragging Hermione along with him, she slipped a little on the ice. "Harry -"

"Look ... Look at it, Hermione ..."

"I don't ... oh!" He could see it; the Fidelius Charm must have died with James and Lily.

The hedge had grown wild in the sixteen years since Hagrid had taken Harry from the rubble that lay scattered amongst the waist-high grass. Most of the cottage was still standing, though entirely covered in the dark ivy and snow, but the right side of the top floor had been blown apart; that, Harry was sure, was where the curse had backfired.

"That's our house?" Teddy asked shocked.

"Yeah, Ted," Harry chuckled. "That's the house."

"As you can see," Ginny smiled. "We repaired it a lot."

He and Hermione stood at the gate, gazing up at the wreck of what must once have been a cottage just like those that flanked it. "I wonder why nobody's ever rebuilt it?" whispered Hermione.

"Maybe you can't rebuild it?" Harry replied. "Maybe it's like the injuries from Dark Magic and you can't repair the damage?" He slipped a hand from beneath the Cloak and grasped the snowy and thickly rusted gate, not wishing to open it, but simply so he'd some part of the house.

"You're not going to go inside? It looks unsafe, it might –

"I didn't want to go in," Harry smiled.

oh, Harry, look!" His touch on the gate seemed to have done it. A sign had risen out of the ground in front of them, up thorough the tangles of nettles and weeds, like some bizarre, fast-growing flower, and in golden letters upon the wood it said:

On this spot, on this night of 31 October 1981, Lily and James Potter lost their lives. Their son, Harry, remains the only wizard ever to have survived the Killing Curse. This house, invisible to Muggles, has been left in its ruined state as a monument to the Potters and as a reminder of the violence that tore apart their family.

The Potters all smiled softly.

And all around these neatly lettered words, scribbles had been added by other witches and wizards who had come to see the place where the Boy Who Lived had escaped. Some had merely signed their names in Everlasting Ink; others had carved their initials into the wood, still others had left messages. The most recent of these, shining brightly over sixteen years' worth of magical graffiti, all said similar things.

Good luck, Harry, wherever you are.

If you read this, Harry, we're all behind you!

Long live Harry Potter.

"They shouldn't have written on the sign!" said Hermione, indignant.

"No," Ginny said. "It's ... it's great."

But Harry beamed at her. "It's brilliant. I'm glad they did. I ..." He broke off. A heavily muffled figure was hobbling up the lane toward them, silhouetted by the bright lights in the distant square. Harry thought, though it was hard to judge, that the figure was a woman. She was moving slowly, possibly frightened of slipping on the snowy ground.

Harry and Hermione shared a look.

Her stoop, her stoutness, her shuffling gait all gave an impression of extreme age. They watched in silence as she drew nearer. Harry was waiting to see whether she would turn into any of the cottages she was passing, but he knew instinctively that she would not. At last she came to a halt a few yards from them and simply stood there in the middle of the frozen road, facing them. He did not need Hermione's pinch to his arm. There was next to no chance that this woman was a Muggle: She was standing there gazing at a house that ought to have been completely invisible to her, if she was not a witch. Even assuming that she was a witch, however, it was odd behavior to come out on a night this cold, simply to look at an old ruin.

By all the rules of normal magic, meanwhile, she ought not to be able to see Hermione and him at all. Nevertheless, Harry had the strangest feeling that she knew that they were there, and also who they were.

Just as he had reached this uneasy conclusion, she raised a gloved hand and beckoned. Hermione moved closer to him under the Cloak, her arm pressed against his. "How does she know?"

Everyone shared an uneasy look

He shook his head. The woman beckoned again, more vigorously. Harry could think of many reasons not to obey the summons, and yet his suspicions about her identity were growing stronger every moment that they stood facing each other in the deserted street.

Finally Harry spoke, causing Hermione to gasp and jump. "Are you Bathilda?"

The muffled figure nodded and beckoned again.

"That doesn't seem like her," James said.

Beneath the Cloak Harry and Hermione looked at each other. Harry raised his eyebrows; Hermione gave a tiny, nervous nod.

They stepped toward the woman and , at once, she turned and hobbled off back the way they had come. Leading them past several houses, she turned in at a gate. They followed her up the front path through a garden nearly as overgrown as the one they had just left. She fumbled for a moment with a key at the front door, then opened it and stepped back to let them pass. She smelled bad,

Harry and Hermione sighed; they should have known something was wrong.

or perhaps it was her house; Harry wrinkled his nose as they sidled past her and pulled off the Cloak. Now that he was beside her, he realized how tiny she was; bowed down with age, she came barely level with his chest. She closed the door behind them, her knuckles blue and mottled against the peeling paint, then turned and peered into Harry's face. Her eyes were thick with cataracts and sunken into folds of transparent skin, and her whole face was dotted with broken veins and liver spots. He wondered whether she could make him out at all; even if she could, it was the balding Muggle whose identity he had stolen that she would see.

The odor of old age, of dust, of unwashed clothes and stale food intensified as the unwound a moth-eaten black shawl, revealing a head of scant white hair through which the scalp showed clearly.

"Bathilda?" Harry repeated. She nodded again.

"Why isn't she talking?" Petunia asked.

Bathilda shuffled past them, pushing Hermione aside as though she had not seen her,

"Watch it," Ron said.

and vanished into what seemed to be a sitting room.

"Harry, I'm not sure about this," breathed Hermione.

"Look at the size of her, I think we could overpower her if we had to," said Harry.

They shared another look – not if she was actually Nagini.

"Listen, I should have told you, I knew she wasn't all there. Muriel called her 'gaga.'"

"Hermione, you might want to do the spell again," Harry muttered to her, glad she was next to him.

She nodded and flicked her wand but no one saw.

"Come!" called Bathilda from the next room.

Hermione shook her head, and then said to Harry "I should have known then, all I heard was hissing."

Hermione jumped and clutched Harry's arm. "It's okay," said Harry reassuringly, and he led the way into the sitting room. Bathilda was tottering around the place lighting candles, but it was still very dark, not to mention extremely dirty. Thick dust crunched beneath their feet, and Harry's nose detected, underneath the dank and mildewed smell, something worse, like meat gone bad.

He wondered when was the last time anyone had been inside Bathilda's house to check whether she was coping. She seemed to have forgotten that she could do magic, too, for she lit the candles clumsily by hand, her trailing lace cuff in constant danger of catching fire.

"Let me do that," offered Harry, and he took the matches from her. She stood watching him as he finished lighting the candle stubs that stood on saucers around the room, perched precariously on stacks of books and on side tables crammed with cracked and moldy cups. The last surface on which Harry spotted a candle was a bow-fronted chest of drawers on which there stood a large number of photographs. When the flame danced into life, its reflection wavered on their dusty glass and silver. He saw a few tiny movements from the pictures. As Bathilda fumbled with logs for the fire, he muttered "Tergeo": The dust vanished from the photographs, and he saw at once that half a dozen were missing from the largest and most ornate frames. Then the sight of a photograph near the back of the collection caught his eye, and he snatched it up. It was the golden-haired, merry-faced thief, the young man who had perched on Gregorovitch's windowsill, smiling lazily up at Harry out of the silver frame.

And it came to Harry instantly where he had seen the boy before: in The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore, arm in arm with the teenage Dumbledore, and that must be where all the missing photographs were: in Rita's book.

"Mrs. - Miss - Bagshot?" he said, and his voice shook slightly. "Who is this?" Bathilda was standing in the middle of the room watching Hermione light the fire for her. "Miss Bagshot?" Harry repeated, and he advanced with the picture in his hands as the flames burst into life in the fireplace. Bathilda looked up at his voice. "Who is this person?" Harry asked her, pushing the picture forward. She peered at it solemnly, then up at Harry. "Do you know who this is?" he repeated in a much slower and louder voice than usual. "This man? Do you know him? What's he called?" Bathilda merely looked vague.

"Who is this man?" he repeated loudly.

"Harry, what are you doing?" asked Hermione.

"You were being rude," Hermione said sheepishly.

"This picture. Hermione, it's the thief, the thief who stole from Gregorovitch! Please!" he said to Bathilda. "Who is this?" But she only stared at him.

"Why did you ask us to come with you, Mrs. - Miss - Bagshot?" asked Hermione, raising her own voice. "Was there something you wanted to tell us?"

Giving no sign that she had heard Hermione, Bathilda now shuffled a few steps closer to Harry. With a little jerk of her head she looked back into the hall.

"You want us to leave?" he asked.

She repeated the gesture, this time pointing firstly at him, then at herself, then at the ceiling.

"Oh, right... Hermione, I think she wants me to go upstairs with her."

"All right," said Hermione, "let's go." But when Hermione moved, Bathilda shook her head with surprising vigor, once more pointing first at Harry, then to herself.

"She wants me to go with her, alone."

"No!" everyone said, something was definitely wrong.

"Why?" asked Hermione, and her voice rang out sharp and clear in the candlelit room, the old lady shook her head a little at the loud noise.

"Maybe Dumbledore told her to give the sword to me, and only to me?"

"Do you really think she knows who you are?"

"Yes," they said together.

"Yes," said Harry, looking down into the milky eyes fixed upon his own. "I think she does."

"Well, okay then, but be quick, Harry."

"Lead the way," Harry told Bathilda. She seemed to understand, because she shuffled around him toward the door. Harry glanced back at Hermione with a reassuring smile, but he was not sure she had seen it; she stood hugging herself in the midst of the candlelit squalor, looking toward the bookcase. As Harry walked out of the room, unseen by both Hermione and Bathilda, he slipped the silver-framed photograph of the unknown thief inside his jacket.

The stairs were steep and narrow; Harry was half tempted to place his hands on stout Bathilda's backside to ensure that she did not topple over backward on top of him, which seemed only too likely. Slowly, wheezing a little, she climbed to the upper landing, turned immediately right, and led him into a low-ceilinged bedroom. It was pitch-black and smelled horrible: Harry had just made out a chamber pot protruding from under the bed before Bathilda closed the door and even that was swallowed by the darkness. "Lumos," said Harry, and his wand ignited. He gave a start: Bathilda had moved close to him in those few seconds of darkness, and he had not heard her approach.

"You are Potter?" she whispered.

"Why is she talking now?" Bill asked, hating the tension in the room.

"Yes, I am." She nodded slowly, solemnly.

"Have you got anything for me?" Harry asked, but she seemed distracted by his lit wand-tip. "Have you got anything for me?" he repeated.

Then she closed her eyes and several things happened at once: Harry's scar prickled painfully; the Horcrux twitched so that the front of his sweater actually moved; the dark, fetid room dissolved momentarily. He felt a leap of joy and spoke in a high, cold voice: Hold him!

"No!" everyone yelled.

"Voldemort," Sirius groaned.

Harry swayed where he stood: The dark, foul-smelling room seemed to close around him again; he did not know what had just happened.

"Have you got anything for me?" he asked for a third time, much louder.

"Just get out!" Dora yelled.

"Over here," she whispered, pointing to the corner. Harry raised his wand and saw the outline of a cluttered dressing table beneath the curtained window.

This time she did not lead him. Harry edged between her and the unmade bed, his wand raised.

"Don't look away," Remus advised.

"What is it?" he asked as he reached the dressing table, which was heaped high with what looked and smelled like dirty laundry.

"There," she said, pointing at the shapeless mass. And in the instant that he looked away, his eyes taking the tangled mess for a sword hilt, a ruby, she moved weirdly: He saw it out of the corner of his eye; panic made him turn and horror paralyzed him as he saw the old body collapsing and the great snake pouring from the place where her neck had been.

"Oh my Merlin," Hermione shirked. "You didn't tell me that."

"I thought I'd spare you the details," Harry said, looking at everyone's revolted faces

"Thank you," Hermione nodded.

The snake struck as he raised his wand: The force of the bite to his forearm sent the wand spinning up toward the ceiling;

"She's poisonous," Arthur groaned.

its light swung dizzyingly around the room and was extinguished; Then a powerful blow from the tail to his midriff knocked the breath out of him: He fell backward onto the dressing table, into the mound of filthy clothing - He rolled sideways, narrowly avoiding the snake's tail, which thrashed down upon the table where he had been a second earlier. Fragments of the glass surface rained upon him as he hit the floor. From below he heard Hermione call, "Harry?"

"I was terrified," Hermione squeaked.

He could not get enough breath into his lungs to call back: Then a heavy smooth mass smashed him to the floor and he felt it slide over him, powerful, muscular - "No!" he gasped, pinned to the floor.

"Yes," whispered the voice. "Yesss... hold you ... hold you ..."

Everyone shuddered.

"Accio ... Accio Wand ..." But nothing happened and he needed his hands to try to force the snake from him as it coiled itself around his torso, squeezing the air from him, pressing the Horcrux hard into his chest, a circle of ice that throbbed with life, inches from his own frantic heart, and his brain was flooding with cold, white light, all thought obliterated, his own breath drowned, distant footsteps,

"Hermione," Ginny breathed.

everything going... and now he was flying, flying with triumph in his heart, without need of broomstick or thestral...

"Stay out of his mind," Neville said, looking scared.

He was abruptly awake in the sour-smelling darkness; Nagini had released him. He scrambled up and saw the snake outlined against the landing light: It struck, and Hermione dived aside with a shriek;

"Hermione," everyone now beamed.

her deflected curse hit the curtained window, which shattered. Frozen air filled the room as Harry ducked to avoid another shower of broken glass and his foot slipped on a pencil-like something - his wand –

"Fall over your own wand," the twins chuckled.

He bent and snatched it up, but now the room was full of the snake, its tail thrashing; Hermione was nowhere to be seen and for a moment Harry thought the worst, but then there was a loud bang and a flash of red light, and the snake flew into the air, smacking Harry hard in the face as it went,

"Sorry, Harry," Hermione managed to giggle.

coil after heavy coil rising up to the ceiling. Harry raised his wand, but as he did so, his scar seared more painfully, more powerfully than it had done in years.

"He's coming! Hermione, he's coming!" As he yelled the snake fell, hissing wildly. Everything was chaos: It smashed shelves from the wall, and splintered china flew everywhere as Harry jumped over the bed and seized the dark shape he knew to be Hermione - she shrieked with pain as he pulled her back across the bed:

"Sorry, Hermione," Harry said this time.

The snake reared again, but Harry knew that worse than the snake was coming, was perhaps already at the gate, his head was going to split open with the pain from his scar –

The snake lunged as he took a running leap, dragging Hermione with him; as it struck, Hermione screamed, "Confringo!" and her spell flew around the room, exploding the wardrobe mirror and ricocheting back at them, bouncing from floor to ceiling.

"There goes your wand," Hermione muttered.

Glass cut his cheek as, pulling Hermione with him, he leapt from bed to broken dressing table

"How are you managing that?" Sirius asked

and then straight out of the smashed window into nothingness, her scream reverberating through the night as they twisted in midair...

"Yes, Harry just jump out the window," Bill said.

He was Voldemort and he was running across the fetid bedroom, his long white hands clutching at the windowsill as he glimpsed the bald man and the little woman twist and vanish,

"'e was that close," Fleur screamed.

and he screamed with rage, a scream that mingled with the girl's, that echoed across the dark gardens over the church bells ringing in Christmas Day...

And his scream was Harry's scream, his pain was Harry's pain... that it could happen here, where it had happened before... here, within sight of that house where he had come so close to knowing what it was to die ... to die ... the pain was so terrible ... ripped from his body ... But if he had no body, why did his head hurt so badly; if he was dead, how cold he feel so unbearably, didn't pain cease with death, didn't it go ...

The night wet and windy, two children dressed as pumpkins waddling across the square and the shop windows covered in paper spiders,

"Halloween…" Ginny frowned. "It's Christmas."

"Crap," Sirius and Remus said.

"Remus/Sirius," Dora and Lily snapped.

"What?" the twins asked.

"It's that night," Bill gulped. "Isn't it?"

Lily, James, Harry, Remus and Sirius nodded.

all the tawdry Muggle trappings of a world in which they did not believe ... And he was gliding along, that sense of purpose and power and rightness in him that he always knew on these occasions ... Not anger ... that was for weaker souls than he ... but triumph, yes ... He had waited for this, he had hoped for it...

"Nice costume, mister!"

He saw the small boy's smile falter as he ran near enough to see beneath the hood of the cloak, saw the fear cloud his pained face: Then the child turned and ran away ... Beneath the robe he fingered the handle of his wand ... One simple movement and the child would never reach his mother ...

"No," Molly shrieked.

but unnecessary, quite unnecessary...

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief; they didn't need anymore deaths that night.

And along a new and darker street he moved, and now his destination was in sight at last, the Fidelius Charm broken, though they did not know it yet...

Lily and James winced.

And he made less noise than the dead leaves slithering along the pavement as he drew level with the dark hedge, and steered over it ...

They had not drawn the curtains; he saw them quite clearly in their little sitting room, the tall black-haired man in his glasses, making puffs of colored smoke erupt from his wand for the amusement of the small black-haired boy in his blue pajamas. The child was laughing and trying to catch the smoke, to grab it in his small fist...

Some people smiled softly while others looked angry – how dare he witness that, those last moments belonged to James, Lily and Harry.

A door opened and the mother entered, saying words he cold not hear, her long dark-red hair falling over her face. Now the father scooped up the son and handed him to the mother. He threw his wand down upon the sofa and stretched, yawning...

The gate creaked a little as he pushed it open, but James Potter did not hear. His white hand pulled out the wand beneath his cloak and pointed it at the door, which burst open.

"Ted, you sure you want to stay?" Harry asked but Teddy nodded firmly and Harry knew from the look on his face that it would be pointless arguing.

He was over the threshold as James came sprinting into the hall. It was easy, too easy, he had not even picked up his wand...

"DAMN IT," James yelled, annoyed at himself, he could have protected them better.

"James, it's not your fault," Lily said, placing a hand on his arm.

"Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! Go! Run! I'll hold him off!"

Hold him off, without a wand in his hand! ... He laughed before casting the curse...

"Avada Kedavra!"

Everyone flinched as Lily and some others started to cry. Ginny grabbed Harry's hand and squeezed it.

The green light filled the cramped hallway, it lit the pram pushed against the wall, it made the banisters glow like lighting rods, and James Potter fell like a marionette whose strings were cut ...

He could hear her screaming from the upper floor, trapped, but as long as she was sensible, she, at least, had nothing to fear...

"I had everything to fear," Lily growled.

He climbed the steps, listening with faint amusement to her attempts to barricade herself in...

"It's not funny," Remus growled.

She had no wand upon her either ... How stupid they were, and how trusting, thinking that their safety lay in friends,

"Damn you, Peter!" Sirius growled as the marauders eyes flashed.

that weapons could be discarded even for moments... He forced the door open, cast aside the chair and boxes hastily piled against it with one lazy wave of his wand ... and there she stood, the child in her arms. At the sight of him, she dropped her son into the crib behind her and threw her arms wide, as if this would help, as if in shielding him from sight she hoped to be chosen instead...

"Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!"

"Stand aside, you silly girl... stand aside, now."

"Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead -"

"This is my last warning -"

"Not Harry! Please ... have mercy ... have mercy ... Not Harry! Not Harry! Please - I'll do anything ..."

"Stand aside. Stand aside, girl!"

He could have forced her away from the crib, but it seemed more prudent to finish them all...

James closed his eyes and pulled Lily towards him, wrapping her in his arms.

The green light flashed around the room and she dropped like her husband. The child had not cried all this time. He could stand, clutching the bars of his crib, and he looked up into the intruder's face with a kind of bright interest, perhaps thinking that it was his father who hid beneath the cloak, making more pretty lights, and his mother would pop up any moment, laughing –

"Not this time," Lily sighed.

He pointed the wand very carefully into the boy's face: He wanted to see it happen, the destruction of this one, inexplicable danger.

The child began to cry: It had seen that he was not James. He did not like it crying, he had never been able to stomach the small ones whining in the orphanage -

"Avada Kedavra!"

Ginny and Hermione squeaked.

And then he broke. He was nothing, nothing but pain and terror, and he must hide himself, not here in the rubble of the ruined house, where the child was trapped screaming, but far away ... far away ...

"No," he moaned.

The snake rustled on the filthy, cluttered floor, and he had killed the boy, and yet he was the boy ...

"No..."

And now he stood at the broken window of Bathilda's house, immersed in memories of his greatest loss, and at his feet the great snake slithered over broken china and glass... He looked down and saw something... something incredible...

"No..."

"Harry, it's all right, you're all right!"

He stooped down and picked up the smashed photograph. There he was, the unknown thief, the thief he was seeking...

"You dropped it," Dudley groaned, wiping a few tears from his cheeks.

"No... I dropped it... I dropped it ..."

"Harry, it's okay, wake up, wake up!"

'It's over,' Molly breathed. 'You're waking up.'

He was Harry... Harry, not Voldemort ... and the thing that was rustling was not a snake ... He opened his eyes.

"Harry," Hermione whispered. "Do you feel all - all right?"

"Yes," he lied.

He was in the tent, lying on one of the lower bunks beneath a heap of blankets. He could tell that it was almost dawn by the stillness and quality of the cold, flat light beyond the canvas ceiling. He was drenched in sweat; he could feel it on the sheets and blankets.

"We got away."

"Yes," said Hermione. "I had to use a Hover Charm to get you into your bunk. I couldn't lift you. You've been ... Well, you haven't been quite ..."

Hermione shuddered.

There were purple shadows under her brown eyes and he noticed a small sponge in her hand: She had been wiping his face. "You've been ill," she finished. "Quite ill."

"How long ago did we leave?"

"Hours ago. It's nearly morning."

"And I've been... what, unconscious?"

"Not exactly," said Hermione uncomfortably. "You've been shouting and moaning and ... things," she added in a tone that made Harry feel uneasy.

"I couldn't get the Horcrux off you," Hermione said, and he knew she wanted to change the subject. "It was stuck, stuck to your chest. You've got a mark; I'm sorry, I had to use a Severing Charm to get it away. The snake bit you too, but I've cleaned the wound and put some dittany on it ...

He pulled the sweaty T-shirt he was wearing away from himself and looked down. There was a scarlet oval over his heart where the locket had burned him. He could also see the half healed puncture marks to his forearm.

Ginny sighed, she knew them marks - she knew all the scars Harry had. She noticed every time he came home from an Auror mission with a new one and yet, she didn't know how he got them all, she stopped asking how he kept on getting hurt and just being glad that he came home in one piece. It was rather how her mother described being a war mother.

"Where've you put the Horcrux?"

"In my bag. I think we should keep it off for a while."

"I zink you should keep it off forever," Fleur muttered.

He lay back on his pillows and looked into her pinched gray face.

"We shouldn't have gone to Godric's Hollow. It's my fault, it's all my fault. Hermione, I'm sorry."

"It's not you fault. I wanted to go too; I really thought Dumbledore might have left the sword there for you."

Everyone sighed, they had forgotten all about the sword.

"Yeah, well ... we got that wrong, didn't we?"

"What happened, Harry? What happened when she took you upstairs?

"I shouldn't have asked," Hermione shivered.

Was the snake hiding somewhere? Did it just come out and kill her and attack you?"

"No." he said. "She was the snake ... or the snake was her ... all along."

"W-what?"

He closed his eyes. He could still smell Bathilda's house on him; it made the whole thing horribly vivid.

"Bathilda must've been dead a while. The snake was... was inside her. You-Know-Who put it there in Godric's Hollow, to wait. You were right. He knew I'd go back."

"The snake was inside her?"

He opened his eyes again. Hermione looked revolted, nauseated.

"Lupin said there would be magic we'd never imagined." Harry said.

"When did you see Remus?" Lily asked.

"Um," Harry said, sharing a look with Ron and Hermione. "A little after we left the wedding, while we were in Grimmauld place."

"Oh yeah," Dora smiled. "He was so happy after seeing you three were alright."

Harry and Remus shared a look both knowing it was more than that – it was Harry knocking some sense into him.

"She didn't want to talk in front of you, because it was Parseltongue,

"Of course," Neville said, bitterly.

all Parseltongue, and I didn't realize, but of course I could understand her. Once we were up in the room, the snake sent a message to You-Know-Who, I heard it happen inside my head, I felt him get excited, he said to keep me there ... and then ..."

He remembered the snake coming out of Bathilda's neck: Hermione did not need to know the details.

"Thanks for that," Hermione smiled

"...she changed, changed into the snake, and attacked."

He looked down at the puncture marks.

"It wasn't supposed to kill me, just keep me there till You-Know-Who came."

He sat up and threw back the covers.

"Harry, no, I'm sure you ought to rest!"

"When will that ever happen?" Petunia asked.

"You're the one who needs sleep. No offense, but you look terrible. I'm fine. I'll keep watch for a while. Where's my wand?"

She did not answer, she merely looked at him.

"Where's my wand, Hermione?"

She was biting her lip, and tears swam in her eyes.

"Harry ..."

"No," everyone groaned.

"Where's my wand?"

She reached down beside the bed and held it out to him.

The holly and phoenix wand was nearly severed in two.

"Crap," the twins said.

"There goes a protection," Bill sighed.

One fragile strand of phoenix feather kept both pieces hanging together. The wood had splintered apart completely. Harry took it into his hands as though it was a living thing that had suffered a terrible injury. He could not think properly: Everything was a blur of panic and fear. Then he held out the want to Hermione.

"Mend it. Please."

"You can't," Arthur sighed.

"Harry, I don't think, when it's broken like this -"

"Please, Hermione, try!"

"R-Reparo."

The dangling half of the wand resealed itself. Harry held it up.

"Lumos!"

The wand sparked feebly, then went out. Harry pointed it at Hermione. "Expelliarmus!"

Hermione's wand gave a little jerk, but did not leave her hand. The feeble attempt at magic was too much for Harry's wand, which split into two again. He stared at it, aghast,

"Great," Molly muttered.

"Harry." Hermione whispered so quietly he could hardly hear her. "I'm so, so sorry.

"It's not your fault," James said.

"Better his wand than your lives," Remus said.

I think it was me. As we were leaving, you know, the snake was coming for us, and so I cast a Blasting Curse, and it rebounded everywhere, and it must have - must have hit -"

"It was an accident." said Harry mechanically. "We'll - we'll find a way to repair it."

'It can't be repaired,' Remus sighed.

"But…" Teddy said, looking at the wand sticking out of Harry's jean pocket, he grabbed it. "It's the same wand."

"What?" Dora asked. "That can't be possible."

Teddy handed her the wand and she stared at it then at Harry.

"Must you do impossible things?" she asked and he grinned.

"Well," he said, in a falsely matter-of-fact voice, "well, I'll just borrow yours for now, then. While I keep watch."

Her face glazed with tears, Hermione handed over her wand, and he left her sitting beside his bed.

"It probably best to get away from her," James said, knowing what he and Lily were like.

"We're moving on to the next memory," Harry said, as a different forest appeared around them.

A bright silver light appeared right ahead of Harry, moving through the trees.

"What the -?" Sirius said.

Whatever the source, it was moving soundlessly. The light seemed simply to drift toward him.

He jumped to his feet, his voice frozen in his throat, and raised Hermione's wand. He screwed up his eyes as the light became blinding, the trees in front of it pitch black in silhouette, and still the thing came closer...

And then the source of the light stepped out from behind an oak. It was a silver white doe, moon-bright and dazzling,

"Patronus," Luna said.

"Whose it that?" James asked, he knew of one person who had a doe Patronus and that was Lily but she was dead at this time.

"If I didn't know I hadn't sent it, I would have said mine," Ginny sighed.

'I thought your Patronus was a horse," Remus frowned.

'It was," Ginny said. "But sometime during the year it –"

"Changed to a doe," Dora beamed.

"Yeah," Ginny nodded.

picking her way over the ground, still silent, and leaving no hoof prints in the fine powdering of snow. She stepped toward him, her beautiful head with its wide, long-lashed eyes held high.

Harry stared at the creature, filled with wonder, not at her strangeness, but her inexplicable familiarity.

They gazed at each other for several long moments and then she turned and walked away.

"No," he said, and his voice was cracked with lack of use. "Come back!"

Several people chuckled.

She continued to step deliberately through the trees, and soon the brightness was striped by their thick black trunks. For one trembling second he hesitated. He set off in pursuit.

"Harry," Arthur groaned. "It could be trap."

Snow crunched beneath his feet, but the doe made no noise as she passed through the trees, for she was nothing but light. Deeper and deeper into the forest she led him, and Harry walked quickly, sure that when she stopped, she would allow him to approach her properly. And then she would speak and the voice would tell him what he needed to know.

Harry, Ron and Hermione laughed.

"What?" the twins asked

"It's just, if it spoke," Ron laughed. "It would have scared the life out of him."

"Why?" Dudley said and he couldn't help chuckling a little.

"You'll see," Harry said causing everyone to huff.

At last she came to a halt. She turned her beautiful head toward him once more, and he broke into a run, a question burning in him, but as he opened his lips to ask it, she vanished.

"Damn," Bill muttered.

"Lumos!" he whispered, and the wand-tip ignited.

He stood there, listening to the sounds of the forest, to distant crackles of twigs, soft swishes of snow.

He held the wand higher. Nobody ran out at him, no flash of green light burst from behind a tree.

"Why are you here?" Neville asked.

Something gleamed in the light of the wand, and Harry spun about, but all that was there was a small, frozen pool, its black, cracked surface glittering as he raised his wand higher to examine it.

He moved forward rather cautiously and looked down. The ice reflected his distorted shadow and the beam of wandlight, but deep below the thick, misty gray carapace, something else glinted. A great silver cross...

"The sword," everyone breathed.

His heart skipped into his mouth: He dropped to his knees at the pool's edge and angled the wand so as to flood the bottom of the pool with as much light as possible. A glint of deep red...It was a sword with glittering rubies in its hilt...The sword of Gryffindor was lying at the bottom of the forest pool.

"Now just get it and destroy that Horcrux," Sirius said.

Barely breathing, he stared down at it.

Again he directed the wand at the surrounding trees and bushes, searching for a human outline, for the glint of an eye, but he could not see anyone there. All the same, a little more fear leavened his exhilaration as he returned his attention to the sword reposing upon the bottom of the frozen pool.

He pointed the wand at the silvery shape and murmured, "Accio Sword."

It did not stir.

"Of course not," Remus groaned.

"It's the Sword of Gryffindor," Teddy said. "You'll have to do something Gryffindor to get it."

He set off around the circle of ice.

"Help," he murmured, but the sword remained upon the pool bottom, indifferent, motionless.

"I think that was the hat, mate," Neville said.

Harry stopped walking and let out a long sigh, his smoky breath dispersing rapidly upon the frozen air.

"You have to dive in, don't you?" Petunia groaned.

He glanced around at the surrounding trees again, but was convinced now that nobody was going to attack him. They had had their chance as he walked alone through the forest, had had plenty of opportunity as he examined the pool.

With fumbling fingers Harry started to remove his many layers of clothing. Where "chivalry" entered into this, he thought ruefully, he was not entirely sure, unless it counted as chivalrous that he was not calling for Hermione to do it in his stead.

"Good, because I wasn't going to jump in there in my underwear," Hermione said. "Especially not in front of you."

The twins sniggered.

An owl hooted somewhere as he stripped off. He was shivering now, his teeth chattering horribly, and yet he continued to strip off until at last he stood there in his underwear, barefooted in the snow. He placed the pouch containing his wand, his mother's letter, the shard of Sirius's mirror, and the old Snitch on top of his clothes,

"The Horcrux, Harry," Bill said but then Harry grimaced. "You didn't take it off. Great."

then he pointed Hermione's wand at the ice.

"Diffindo."

It cracked with a sound like a bullet in the silence. The surface of the pool broke and chunks of dark ice rocked on the ruffled water. As far as Harry could judge, it was not deep, but to retrieve the sword he would have to submerge himself completely.

"Great," Dudley shivered.

He stepped to the pool's edge and placed Hermione's wand on the ground still lit. Then he jumped.

Trembling so violently the water lapped over the edges of the pool, he felt for the blade with his numb feet.

Harry put off the moment of total submersion from second to second, gasping and shaking, until he told himself that it must be done, gathered all his courage, and dived.

He pushed through the dark water to the bottom and reached out, groping for the sword. His fingers closed around the hilt; he pulled it upward.

"Yes!" James grinned.

Then something closed tight around his neck. He raised his hand to free himself. It was not weed: The chain of the Horcrux had tightened and was slowly constricting his windpipe.

"Oh, my Merlin," Fleur screamed.

"I told you to take it off," Bill said, darkly.

Harry kicked out wildly, trying to push himself back to the surface, but merely propelled himself into the rocky side of the pool. Thrashing, suffocating, he scrabbled at the strangling chain, his frozen fingers unable to loosen it. Then arms that closed around his chest Choking and retching, soaking and colder than he had ever been in his life, he came to facedown in the snow.

"Oh thank Merlin/God,! everyone breathed.

Somewhere, close by, another person was panting and coughing and staggering around.

"Whose there?" Petunia questioned

"Hermione?" some suggested.

Yet it did not sound like her, not with those deep coughs, no judging by the weight of the footsteps...

"Ron," the twins said.

Harry had no strength to lift his head and see his savior's identity. All he could do was raise a shaking hand to his throat and feel the place where the locket had cut tightly into his flesh. It was gone. Someone had cut him free.

Then a panting voice spoke from over his head.

"Are - you – mental?"

Nothing but the shock of hearing that voice could have given Harry the strength to get up. Shivering violently, he staggered to his feet. There before him stood Ron, fully dressed but drenched to the skin, his hair plastered to his face, the sword of Gryffindor in one hand and the Horcrux dangling from its broken chain in the other.

"Ron!" everyone except the Trio cheered or yelled.

"Why the hell," panted Ron, holding up the Horcrux, which swung backward and forward on its shortened chain in some parody of hypnosis, "didn't you take the thing off before you dived?"

"Good question," Ginny said, looking at her husband who shrugged sheepishly.

Harry could not answer. Shuddering with cold, he caught up the pile of clothes still lying at the water's edge and began to pull them on. As he dragged sweater after sweater over his head, Harry stared at Ron, half expecting him to have disappeared every time he lost sight of him,

"That was kinda creepy, mate," Ron chuckled.

and yet he had to be real: He had just dived into the pool, he had saved Harry's life.

"It was y-you?" Harry said at last, his teeth chattering, his voice weaker than usual due to his near-strangulation.

"Well, yeah," said Ron, looking slightly confused.

"Y-you cast that doe?"

"Ron's a terrier," Hermione said.

"What? No, of course not! I thought it was you doing it!"

"My Patronus is a stag."

"Oh yeah. I thought it looked different. No antlers."

James, Harry, Lily and Ginny laughed.

Harry put Hagrid's pouch back around his neck, pulled on a final sweater, stooped to pick up Hermione's wand, and faced Ron again.

"How come you're here?"

Apparently Ron had hoped that this point would come up later, if at all.

"Well, I've - you know - I've come back. If -" He cleared his throat. "You know. You still want me."

"Of course zey still want you, you prat," Fleur said

There was a pause, in which the subject of Ron's departure seemed to rise like a wall between them. Yet he was here. He had returned. He had just saved Harry's life.

Ron looked down at his hands. He seemed momentarily surprised to see the things he was holding.

"Oh yeah, I got it out," he said, rather unnecessarily, holding up the sword for Harry's inspection. "That's why you jumped in, right?"

"Yeah," said Harry. "But I don't understand. How did you get here? How did you find us?"

"Maybe you're enchantments aren't good enough," Dora said, worried.

"Long story," said Ron. "I've been looking for you for hours, it's a big forest, isn't it?

"Yes," Harry and Hermione said. "That was the point."

And I was just thinking I'd have to go kip under a tree and wait for morning when I saw that deer coming and you following."

"You didn't see anyone else?"

"No," said Ron. "I -"

But he hesitated, glancing at two trees growing close together some yards away.

"I did think I saw something move over there, but I was running to the pool at the time, because you'd gone in and you hadn't come up, so I wasn't going to make a detour to - hey!"

Harry was already hurrying to the place that Ron had indicated. The two oaks grew close together; there was a gap of only a few inches between the trunks at eye level, an ideal place to see but not be seen. The ground around the roots, however, was free of snow, and Harry could see no sign of footprints.

He walked back to where Ron stood waiting, still holding the sword and the Horcrux.

"Anything there?" Ron asked.

"No," said Harry.

"So how did the sword get in that pool?"

"Whoever cast the Patronus must have put it there."

They both looked at the ornate silver sword, its rubied hilt glinting a little in the light from Hermione's wand.

"You reckon this is the real one?" asked Ron.

"The Horcrux wouldn't have reacted like that if it wasn't," Luna said.

"One way to find out, isn't there?" said Harry.

The Horcrux was still swinging from Ron's hand. The locket was twitching slightly. Harry knew that the thing inside it was agitated again. It had sensed the presence of the sword and had tried to kill Harry rather than let him possess it. Now was not the time for long discussions; now was the moment to destroy once and for all. Harry looked around, holding Hermione's wand high, and saw the place: a flattish rock lying in the shadow of a sycamore tree.

"Come here." he said and he led the way, brushed snow from the rock's surface, and held out his hand for the Horcrux.

"Yes, get rid of it," the twins cheered.

When Ron offered the sword, however, Harry shook his head.

"No you should do it."

"Me?" said Ron, looking shocked. "Why?"

"It had to be you," Harry said.

"Because you got the sword out of the pool. I think it's supposed to be you."

"I'm going to open it," said Harry, "and you will stab it. Straightaway okay? Because whatever's in there will put up a fight. The bit of Riddle in the Diary tried to kill me."

Ginny shuddered slightly.

"How are you going to open it?" asked Ron. He looked terrified

"I'm going to ask it to open, using Parseltongue," said Harry.

"Of course," most muttered.

"No!" said Ron. "Don't open it! I'm serious!"

"Why not?" asked Harry. "Let's get rid of the damn thing, it's been months -"

"I can't, Harry, I'm serious - you do it -"

"But why?"

"Because that thing's bad for me!" said Ron, backing away from the locket on the rock. "I can't handle it! I'm not making excuses, for what I was like, but it affects me worse than it affects you and Hermione, it made me think stuff - stuff that I was thinking anyway, but it made everything worse. I can't explain it, and then I'd take it off and I'd get my head straight again, and then I'd have to put the effing thing back on - I can't do it Harry!"

"You have too," Neville said.

He had backed away, the sword dragging at his side, shaking his head.

"You can do it," said Harry, "you can! You've just got the sword, I know it's supposed to be you who uses it. Please just get rid of it Ron."

Ron swallowed, then still breathing hard through his long nose, moved back toward the rock.

"Tell me when," he croaked.

"Come on, son," Arthur said.

Molly smiled at Ron proud of him.

"One . . . two . . . three . . .open."

The last word came as a hiss and a snarl and the golden doors of the locket swung wide open with a little click.

Behind both of the glass windows within blinked a living eye, dark and handsome as Tom Riddle's eyes had been before he turned them scarlet and slit-pupiled

"Stab," said Harry, holding the locket steady on the rock.

Ron raised the sword in his shaking hands: The point dangled over the frantically swiveling eyes, and Harry gripped the locket tightly, bracing himself.

Then a voice hissed from out the Horcrux.

"I have seen your heart, and it is mine."

"Oh my Merlin," Hermione said. "You said it screamed! Not talked!"

Harry and Ron shared a look.

"Don't listen to it!" Harry said harshly. "Stab it!"

"I have seen your dreams, Ronald Weasley, and I have seen your fears. All you desire is possible, but all that you dread is also possible..."

"Stab!" shouted Harry, his voice echoed off the surrounding trees, the sword point trembled, and Ron gazed down into Riddle's eyes.

"Least loved, always, by the mother who craved a daughter . . .

"Not true," Molly said, tears welling up in her eyes.

Least loved, now, by the girl who prefers your friend . . .

"I do not prefer either of you!" Hermione said, looking upset but also glaring at the boys.

Second best, always, eternally overshadowed . . ."

"Ron, stab it now!" Harry bellowed: He could feel the locket quivering in the grip and was scared of what was coming. Ron raised the sword still higher, and as he did so, Riddle's eyes gleamed scarlet.

Out of the locket's two windows, out of the eyes, there bloomed like two grotesque bubbles, the heads of Harry and Hermione, weirdly distorted.

"What in the world is that about?" Ginny said.

Ron yelled in shock and backed away as the figures blossomed out of the locket, first chests, then waists, then legs, until they stood in the locket, side by side like trees with a common root, swaying over Ron and the real Harry, who had snatched his fingers away from the locket as it burned, suddenly, white-hot.

"Ron!" he shouted, but the Riddle-Harry was now speaking with Voldemort's voice and Ron was gazing, mesmerized, into its face.

"Why return? We were better without you, happier without you, glad of your absence... We laughed at your stupidity, your cowardice, your presumption-"

"Presumption!" echoed the Riddle-Hermione, who was more beautiful and yet more terrible than the real Hermione: She swayed, cackling, before Ron, who looked horrified, yet transfixed, the sword hanging pointlessly at his side. "Who could look at you, who would ever look at you, beside Harry Potter? What have you ever done, compared with the Chosen One? What are you, compared with the Boy Who Lived?"

"Ron, don't listen to it," Bill yelled.

"Ron, stab it, STAB IT!" Harry yelled, but Ron did not move. His eyes were wide, and the Riddle-Harry and the Riddle-Hermione were reflected in them, their hair swirling like flames, their eyes shining red, their voices lifted in an evil duet.

"Your mother confessed," sneered Riddle-Harry, while Riddle-Hermione jeered, "that she would have preferred me as a son, would be glad to exchange..."

Molly sobbed.

"Who wouldn't prefer him, what woman would take you, you are nothing, nothing, nothing to him," crooned Riddle-Hermione, and she stretched like a snake and entwined herself around Riddle-Harry, wrapping him in a close embrace: Their lips met.

"Ew!" Harry and Hermione yelled, Hermione moving to the other side of Ron and Harry the other side of Ginny so there was two people in between.

Everyone chuckled.

On the ground in front of them, Ron's face filled with anguish. He raised the sword high, his arms shaking.

"Do it, Ron!" Harry yelled.

Ron looked toward him and Harry thought he saw a trace of scarlet in his eyes.

"It's trying to possess you!" Lily shrieked.

"Ron -?"

The sword flashed, plunged: Harry threw himself out of the way, there as a clang of metal and a long, drawn-out scream. Harry whirled around, slipping in the snow, wand held ready to defend himself, but there was nothing to fight.

The monstrous versions of himself and Hermione were gone:

"Thank Merlin," they said.

There was only Ron, standing there with the sword held slackly in his hand, looking down at the shattered remains of the locket on the flat rock.

"Yes!" the twins yelled. "It's gone!"

Slowly, Harry walked back to him, hardly knowing what to say or do. Ron was breathing heavily: His eyes were no longer red at all, but their normal blue: they were also wet.

"Oh Ron," Hermione, Ginny and Molly sighed.

Harry stooped, pretending he had not seen, and picked up the broken Horcrux. Ron had pierced the glass in both windows: Riddle's eyes were gone, and the stained silk lining of the locket was smoking slightly. The thing that had lived in the Horcrux had vanished; torturing Ron had been its final act. The sword clanged as Ron dropped it. He had sunk to his knees, his head in his arms. He was shaking, but not, Harry realized, from cold. Harry crammed the broken locket into his pocket, knelt down beside Ron, and placed a hand cautiously on his shoulder. He took it as a good sign that Ron did not throw it off.

"After you left," he said in a low voice, grateful for the fact that Ron's face was hidden, "she cried for a week.

"You didn't need to tell him that!" Hermione yelled, moving away from Ron to hit Harry.

He dodged by jumping round Ginny, who rolled her eyes, before Hermione resumed her position in between Harry and Ron, sending the former a look.

Probably longer, only she didn't want me to see. There were loads of nights when we never even spoke to each other. With you gone..."

He could not finish; it was now that Ron was here again that Harry fully realized how much his absence had cost them.

"She's like my sister," he went on. "I love her like a sister and I reckon that she feels the same way about me.

"Definitely," Hermione beamed at him.

It's always been like that. I thought you knew."

"I did," Ron said. "I just had doubts."

Ron did not respond, but turned his face away from Harry and wiped his nose noisily on his sleeve. Harry got to his feet again and walked to where Ron's enormous rucksack lay yards away, discarded as Ron had run toward the pool to save Harry from drowning. He hoisted it onto his own back and walked back to Ron, who clambered to his feet as Harry approached, eyes bloodshot but otherwise composed.

"I'm sorry," he said in a thick voice. "I'm sorry I left. I know I was a - a -"

"Prat," Sirius said.

He looked around at the darkness, as if hoping a bad enough word would swoop down upon him and claim him.

"You've sort of made up for it tonight," said Harry. "Getting the sword. Finishing off the Horcrux. Saving my life."

"That makes me sound a lot cooler than I was," Ron mumbled.

"Stuff like that always sounds cooler than it really was" said Harry. "I've been trying to tell you that for years."

"It was cool," Teddy said, although it was obvious he was lying. "It was just more disturbing."

Simultaneously they walked forward and hugged, Harry gripping the still-sopping back of Ron's jacket.

"And now," said Harry as they broke apart, "all we've got to do is find that tent again."

Everyone chuckled.

But it was not difficult. Though the walk through the dark forest with the doe had seemed lengthy, with Ron by his side, the journey back seemed to take a surprisingly short time. Harry could not wait to wake Hermione, and it was with quickening excitement that he entered the tent, Ron lagging a little behind him.

It was gloriously warm after the pool and the forest, the only illumination the bluebell flames still shimmering in a bowl on the floor. Hermione was fast asleep, curled up under her blankets, and did not move until Harry had said her name several times.

"Hermione!"

She stirred, then sat up quickly, pushing her hair out of her face.

"What's wrong? Harry? Are you all right?"

"It's okay, everything's fine. More than fine, I'm great. There's someone here."

"Just give me a heart attack," Hermione grumbled.

"What do you mean? Who -?"

She saw Ron, who stood there holding the sword and dripping onto the threadbare carpet. Harry backed into a shadowy corner, slipped off Ron's rucksack, and attempted to blend in with the canvas.

Hermione slid out of her bunk and moved like a sleepwalker toward Ron, her eyes upon his pale face. She stopped right in front of him, her lips slightly parted, her eyes wide. Ron gave a weak hopeful smile and half raised his arms.

Hermione launched herself forward and started punching every inch of him that she could reach.

"Ouch - ow - gerroff! What the -? Hermione - OW!"

"You - complete - arse - Ronald – Weasley!"

She punctuated every word with a blow: Ron backed away, shielding his head as Hermione advanced.

"Good," Ginny said. "He deserves it."

"You - crawl - back - here - after - weeks - and - weeks - oh, where's my wand?"

"You're bloody lucky, Ron," Sirius laughed.

"I know," Ron nodded.

She looked as though ready to wrestle it out of Harry's hands and he reacted instinctively.

"Protego!"

The invisible shield erupted between Ron and Hermione. The force of it knocked her backward onto the floor. Spitting hair out of her mouth, she leapt up again.

"Angry tiger," the twins laughed.

"I thought it was kitten," Petunia said.

"It is but she's dangerous," they grinned.

"Hermione!" said Harry. "Calm -"

"I will not calm down!" she screamed. Never before had he seen her lose control like this; she looked quite demented. "Give me back my wand! Give it back to me!"

"And let you curse him?" Harry asked. "No way."

"Hermione, will you please -"

"Don't you tell me what do, Harry Potter!" she screeched. "Don't you dare! Give it back now! And YOU!"

She was pointing at Ron in dire accusation: It was like a malediction, and Harry could not blame Ron for retreating several steps.

"I came running after you! I called you! I begged you to come back"

"I know," Ron said, "Hermione, I'm sorry, I'm really -"

"Oh, you're sorry!"

She laughed a high-pitched, out-of-control sound; Ron looked at Harry for help, but Harry merely grimaced his helplessness.

"You came back after weeks - weeks - and you think it's all going to be all right if you just say sorry?"

"Well, no," Ron muttered.

"Well, what else can I say?" Ron shouted.

"Good fight back, Ron," Bill nodded.

"Oh, I don't know!" yelled Hermione with awful sarcasm. "Rack your brains, Ron, that should only take a couple of seconds -"

"Low, Hermione," Neville grimaced.

"Hermione," interjected Harry, who considered this a low blow, "he just saved my -"

"I don't care!" she screamed. "I don't care what he's done! Weeks and weeks, we could have been dead for all he knew -"

"I knew you weren't dead!" bellowed Ron, drowning her voice for the first time, and approaching as close as he could with the Shield Charm between them. "Harry's all over the Prophet, all over the radio, they're looking for you everywhere, all these rumours and mental stories, I knew I'd hear straight off if you were dead, you don't know what it's been like -"

"Bad thing to say," Teddy groaned.

"What it's been like for you?"

Her voice was so shrill only bats would be able to hear it soon, but she had reached a level of indignation that rendered her temporarily speechless, and Ron seized his opportunity.

The men all nodded while the women glared at them.

"I wanted to come back the minute I'd Disapparated, but I walked straight into a gang of Snatchers, Hermione, and I couldn't go anywhere!"

"What are snatchers?" James asked.

"I'm sure Harry'll ask," Remus chuckled.

"A gang of what?" asked Harry, as Hermione threw herself down into a chair with her arms and legs crossed so tightly it seemed unlikely that she would unravel them for several years.

"Snatchers," said Ron. "They're everywhere - gangs trying to earn gold by rounding up Muggle-borns and blood traitors, there's a reward from the Ministry for everyone captured. I was on my own and I look like I might be school age; they got really excited, thought I was a Muggle-born in hiding. I had to talk fast to get out of being dragged to the Ministry."

"What did you say to them?"

"Told them I was Stan Shunpike. First person I could think of."

"And they believed that?"

"They weren't the brightest. One of them was definitely part troll, the smell of him..."

A few lips twitched.

Ron glanced at Hermione, clearly hopeful she might soften at this small instance of humour, but her expression remained stony above her tightly knotted limbs.

"Anyway, they had a row about whether I was Stan or not. It was a bit pathetic to be honest, but there were still five of them and only one of me, and they'd taken my wand. Then two of them got into a fight and while the others were distracted I managed to hit the one holding me in the stomach, grabbed his wand, Disarmed the bloke holding mine, and Disapparated.

"Good job," Dora said.

I didn't do it so well. Splinched myself again" - Ron held up his right hand to show two missing fingernails:

"At least it's not as bad," Molly sighed.

Hermione raised her eyebrows coldly - "and I came out miles from where you were. By the time I got back to that bit of riverbank where we'd been ... you were gone."

"Gosh, what a gripping story," Hermione said in the lofty voice she adopted when wishing to wound.

"You must have been simply terrified. Meanwhile we went to Godric's Hollow and, let's think, what happened there, Harry? Oh yes, You-Know-Who's snake turned up, it nearly killed both of us, and then You-Know-Who himself arrived and missed us by about a second."

"So not the way to tell me," Ron complained.

"What?" Ron said, gaping from her to Harry, but Hermione ignored him.

"Imagine losing fingernails, Harry! That really puts our sufferings into perspective, doesn't it?"

"Hermione," said Harry quietly, "Ron just saved my life."

She appeared not to have heard him.

"One thing I would like to know, though," she said, fixing her eyes on a spot a foot over Ron's head. "How exactly did you find us tonight? That's important. Once we know, we'll be able to make sure we're not visited by anyone else we don't want to see."

"Cold," Remus said. "But a good question."

Ron glared at her, then pulled a small silver object from his jeans pocket.

"This."

"The Deluminator?" Ginny said. "I thought you said you never figured out why Dumbledore gave that to you."

"Yeah, well," Ron said. "As you've probably guessed there's a whole lot we didn't tell you."

She had to look at Ron to see what he was showing them.

"The Deluminator?" she asked, so surprised she forgot to look cold and fierce.

Several of the men chuckled and snickered.

"It doesn't just turn the lights on and off," said Ron. "I don't know how it works or why it happened then and not any other time, because I've been wanting to come back ever since I left. But I was listening to the radio really early on Christmas morning and I heard ... I heard you."

He was looking at Hermione.

"You heard me on the radio?" she asked incredulously.

"No, I heard you coming out of my pocket. Your voice," he held up the Deluminator again, "came out of this."

"That's odd," Dora frowned.

"And what exactly did I say?" asked Hermione, her tone somewhere between scepticism and curiosity.

"My name. 'Ron.' And you said ... something about a wand..."

"When Harry's wand broke," Arthur breathed.

Hermione turned a fiery shade of scarlet.

"So I took it out," Ron went on, looking at the Deluminator, "and it didn't seem different or anything, but I was sure I'd heard you. So I clicked it. And the light went out in my room, but another light appeared right outside the window."

Ron raised his empty hand and pointed in front of him, his eyes focused on something neither Harry nor Hermione could see.

"It was a ball of light, kind of pulsing, and bluish, like that light you get around a Portkey, you know?"

"Yeah," said Harry and Hermione together automatically.

"I knew this was it," said Ron. "I grabbed my stuff and packed it, then I put on my rucksack and went out into the garden.

"Didn't tell us zough," Fleur muttered, annoyed.

"Ever heard of leaving a note, little bro," Bill grumbled.

"The little ball of light was hovering there, waiting for me, and when I came out it bobbed along a bit and I followed it behind the shed and then it ... well, it went inside me."

"Sorry?" said Harry, sure he had not heard correctly.

"It sort of floated toward me," said Ron, illustrating the movement with his free index finger, "right to my chest, and then - it just went straight through. It was here," he touched a point close to his heart, "I could feel it, it was hot. And once it was inside me, I knew what I was supposed to do. I knew it would take me where I needed to go. So I Disapparated and came out on the side of a hill. There was snow everywhere..."

"We were there," said Harry. "We spent two nights there, and the second night I kept thinking I could hear someone moving around in the dark and calling out!"

"Yeah, well, that would've been me," said Ron. "Your protective spells work, anyway, because I couldn't see you and I couldn't hear you.

"Good," Luna said.

I was sure you were around, though, so in the end I got in my sleeping bag and waited for one of you to appear. I thought you'd have to show yourselves when you packed up the tent."

"No, actually," said Hermione. "We've been Disapparating under the Invisibility Cloak as an extra precaution. And we left really early, because as Harry says, we'd heard somebody blundering around."

"Well, I stayed on that hill all day," said Ron. "I kept hoping you'd appear. But when it started to get dark I knew I must have missed you, so I clicked the Deluminator again, the blue light came out and went inside me, and I Disapparated and arrived here in these woods. I still couldn't see you, so I just had to hope one of you would show yourselves in the end - and Harry did. Well, I saw the doe first, obviously."

"You saw the what?" said Hermione sharply.

"Oops," Ron muttered.

They explained what had happened and as the story of the silver doe and the sword in the pool unfolded, Hermione frowned form one to the other of them, concentrating so hard she forgot to keep her limbs locked together.

"But it must have been a Patronus!" she said. "Couldn't you see who was casting it? Didn't you see anyone? And it led you to the sword! I can't believe this! Then what happened?"

Ron explained how he had watched Harry jump into the pool, and had waited for him to resurface; how he had realized that something was wrong, dived in, and saved Harry, then returned for the sword. He got as far as the opening of the locket, then hesitated, and Harry cut in.

"- and Ron stabbed it with the sword."

"And ... and it went? Just like that?" she whispered.

"Well, it - it screamed," said Harry with half a glance at Ron.

Hermione glared at the two of them.

"Sorry, Hermione," they said.

"Here."

He threw the locket into her lap; gingerly she picked it up and examined its punctured windows.

Deciding that it was at last safe to do so, Harry removed the Shield Charm with a wave of Hermione's wand and turned to Ron.

"Did you just say now that you got away from the snatchers with a spare wand?"

"What?" said Ron, who had been watching Hermione examining the locket. "Oh - oh yeah."

"Good," Molly said.

"Now you can have your own wand," Dora smiled.

He tugged open a buckle on his rucksack and pulled a short dark wand out of his pocket. "Here, I figured it's always handy to have a backup."

"You were right," said Harry, holding out his hand. "Mine's broken."

"You're kidding?" Ron said, but at that moment Hermione got to her feet, and he looked apprehensive again.

Hermione put the vanquished Horcrux into the beaded bag, then climbed back into her bed and settled down without another word.

Ron passed Harry the new wand.

"About the best you could hope for, I think," murmured Harry.

"Yeah," said Ron. "Could've been worse. Remember those birds she set on me?"

"I still haven't ruled it out," came Hermione's muffled voice from beneath her blankets, but Harry saw Ron smiling slightly as he pulled his maroon pyjamas out of his rucksack.

"Ron's back," everyone beamed as they excited the pensieve.

"Thought I'd end it on a good memory," Harry said. "Tomorrows bad."

Everyone groaned and Lily said, "thanks Harry, just what I wanted to know."

"Let's have dinner," Ginny said, smiling at her husband's sheepish look.

Everyone nodded their agreement and they all headed to the dining room. It was a rather quiet meal and people drifted of to bed straight after, still thinking about the day and, for those that were alive, what the next day would show.