Magic and Science

by MrsRJLupin

COMPLETE. Cecilia Frobisher continues her adventures in the wizard world with the Science and Magic Sequel. Opinions are valued, thanks for R&Ring! March 2018 The final sequel is under way: The Art of the Wize - I appreciate all reviews, rare that they are these days. Feel free to download the audio from my Youtube Playlist: MrsRJ Lupin (a space between RJ and Lupin)

26. Behind the Veil

DISCLAIMER: ALL OF THE CHARACTERS AND SCENARIOS BELONG TO JKR AND/OR WARNER BROS

DISCLAIMER: ALL OF THE CHARACTERS AND SCENARIOS BELONG TO JKR AND/OR WARNER BROS.

A/N: Please review!

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…beyond the veil memories floated like clouds…

The space in which Cecilia was descending might easily be described as infinite. The dark-greyness spanned out in all directions with clouds of lighter grey interspersing the space around her and this was one of the reasons why "infinite" would be a good adjective to describe the aether around her although there was no reason for her to suppose that here, beyond the veil, the place did actually go on forever.

As she descended the clouds seemed to part, as if repelled by her presence there, noise and chattering from those that passed her by entering her ear and cutting straight off, like a radio being played in a passing car. What was compelling her to head downwards Cecilia was unsure for the rope had to have an end sooner or later but she had a feeling that words like "end" and "down" ceased to have any meaning. For want of more suitable words to replace those with which she was familiar Cecilia noted her descent was bringing her down, or perhaps further in, to the space and she continued to weave her way past these clouds, areas of concentrated consciousness whose mysteries she was about to discover for herself.

All of a sudden she felt herself jerk to a halt, and Cecilia realised she had actually come to the end of the line. Around her waist the rope tightened but Cecilia was continuing to descend. An abstract thought crossed her mind as vague discomfort was replaced with hot agony: either she was going to have to get out of the rope, sealed so expertly with magic by Snape or she would suffocate as it eventually cut off access of the air to her lungs.

Choosing survival over certain death Cecilia's mind, overcome with survival instinct, compelled her to struggle with the knot of the rope while at the same time she caught her foot around a tendril no thicker than the rope around her that was attached to one of the larger memory-clouds. Fighting with every fibre of will Cecilia pressed her fingers below the ever-tightening rope and she pushed against it. It worked. Just as she had managed to secure herself to the tendril with her foot the rope unravelled itself and the end dangled just above her head, retreating slowly as the tendril attached to the memory pulled her towards it.

Knee bent Cecilia pulled herself towards the tendril, vaguely aware of the fact that she would have to find it later in order to get back out of the veil and also that she needed to catch Sirius's falling memory. She inched her way towards the cloud, hugging the tendril, which appeared to be made disconcertingly out of fog and, once she reached it, beguiled by the noises and voices, stuck her head into the misty mass.

Snippets, like film clips…sections pieced together began to play before her eyes. In this one Cecilia was in someone's garden as children played with toy wands and pretended to curse their dolls…

…she pulled her head back and looked up. Others drifted close. As they sailed past her Cecilia stuck her head into one…a junior quidditch league she surmised, from the look of the size of the players and brooms…

Cecilia pulled her head out. They were all lost memories, memories of anyone who has died in custody, along with those that had once belonged to people who had given up their memories voluntarily and those from whose minds the ministry had wiped. She put her head into the memory which was carrying her and watched this time as one of the wizard children leviosa'd her doll into the tree at the far end of the garden, the other, much younger child watching in awe at his sister. A memory. Whose, Cecilia didn't know. She wondered whether they would be like the ones that she had been privy to with Minerva and with Remus whether, if she slipped down between the swirling mists she would be a spectator therein? A growing certainty was beginning to dwell heavily on Cecilia's chest: who was she to decide what to change? And even if she was the person to decide the memories could only be viewed, she could not pick up anything or interact with the images she saw.

She looked up and watched other memories, some large and some small, each tethered together with at least one but many with several more tendrils, some forming these tendrils between them as if active connections between the memories were being forged as she watched.

But there was no time to ponder her own role in all of this now, let alone how the links were made together. Overhead the memory that was Sirius's, tinged with lilac, drifted down towards her. She had to catch it. And once she did it would lead her, like a guide rope as other tendrils formed, to that of his brother.

Reaching out a hand Cecilia had to lean right off the memory around whose tendril she had entwined her foot so as to be able to catch the memory. It seemed to be accelerating as it neared Cecilia and also becoming attracted to other memories as it passed them. If it connected to these memories she knew, all would be lost. She would have little or no chance of locating it again or anything whatever to do with Regulus Black in amongst all those millions of memory clouds which were drifting around.

Just as the lilac-grey memory approached Cecilia she reached out a hand. At the same time a tendril sprouted from another cloud which had been seemingly pursuing Sirius's tethering them both together. Had this not occurred Cecilia knew that she would never have reached it.

She hauled herself off the first memory using the tendril that had sprouted, ducking as a second tendril began to sprout from another memory cloud and sticking to it like a limpet. Pulling herself up to it Cecilia closed her eyes. Here she was, on the edge. There was no going back –

– and she plunged herself into the billowing cloud.

It seemed to take a few minutes before the scene before her appeared, it was as if the people in this memory were slowly making their way forward to the front of the stage. One or two made their exit before Cecilia had a chance to recognise them but there was no mistaking the person who was standing before her, or at least that person's image, enlarged to fill the whole of the arena. Despite the fact that it had to have been twenty or so years before Petunia Dursley, her thin, pointed face, blondish hair and untrusting eyes looked back out from the photograph that a woman was handing over to a boy.

Not a boy…a young man. And not a man…a wizard.

"Y…you say that you're a friend of Lily's?" The woman looked at the young wizard her eyes narrowing in the same manner as her eldest daughter conveying doubt mingled with hope.

"Yes, Mrs Evans," said the boy. "Mr. Evans." He nodded deferentially to the man standing next to the woman holding Petunia's photograph. "I've just come from Lily and James's. Lily's as worried as you are. Both of them are."

"And you can help, can you?" The man, a short, stocky man approached the young man. The young wizard nodded and glanced down, a mannerism which Cecilia had seen several times before and recognised straight away.

"Mr. Evans, I have reason to believe that she's with my brother, or at least Regulus is involved in her disappearance, somehow. You see, Lily thinks that Petunia's jealous of your relationship with her…"

"She's our daughter!" exclaimed Mrs Evans sharply. "And has unique talents; I thought Petunia understood that!" But her tone had petered out and the couple standing before the young Sirius Black exchanged knowing looks and Mrs Evans sagged at the shoulder.

"James came round to talk to her, did you know that?" Sirius shook his head as Mr Evans spoke. "'Let me talk to her,' he said. Petunia said some dreadful things. She swore she'd never see Lily again and said that she no more cared about them as her family than she did us because we were too willing to accept magic. And then – "

"You think your brother has something to do with this?" asked Mrs Evans, returning to Sirius's comment from earlier. "I was given to understand that he's a wizard too."

"He is," replied Sirius. "But he…has a tendency to change his appearance." However Mrs Evans was shaking her head in dismay.

"I blame my daughter, Mr Black, her selfish behaviour. For putting everyone out over something as petty as this."

As Cecilia watched the scene changed and she realised that she was moving quite unintentionally towards another memory which, along with several others, had joined to Sirius's original launched memory. Her head still in the cloud Cecilia experienced it as a blurring of a scene replaced not long afterwards with another.

"Did you say Sirius had been round to see Mum and Dad?" A tired-looking Lily Potter was standing in the kitchen with her hands on her hips and two pots on the stove. "Sirius?"

"He wants to help!" A man, almost identical to Harry stepped across the pattered kitchen floor. "He thinks Regulus is behind it all, Lils!" Cecilia watched as the young couple exchanged a version of the conversation she had witnessed between Sirius Black and Lily's parents and despite the young witch glancing over her husband's shoulder in Cecilia knew that, just as before, she was merely an interloper there.

She looked around her as she remembered the scene from Remus's memory. The old-fashioned but right up-to-date kitchen bedecked in late 1970s accessories. The table and work surfaces. Even the brown kitchenware. This was after the time she had seen in Remus's memory: Harry had been born. But Cecilia's overriding recollection was of her friend Henrietta Edwards reassuring Lily that Petunia would come round once the baby had been born, in the – Cecilia turned her head and saw the frosted glass door that led to the hall of the house. It didn't seem that much longer on than that; Lily didn't look particularly pregnant although she did have a small bump. She looked back at the scene and listened to the conversation.

"I tried to floo Henrietta this afternoon." Lily crinkled her forehead as she spoke.

"Oh yes?"

"No answer. I'm starting to worry about her James, it's not like her not to answer."

"Well I expect – "

A crack and a flash of light brought Cecilia's attention back to the kitchen. Both James and Lily were staring at the hitherto empty space on the brown and orange floor tiles and Sirius Black smiled at his friends, and then over to the pots in the stove that were stirring themselves, inhaling with relish.

"I found her. She was with my brother," he added shaking his head. "I don't know what she was doing with him, but it seemed that she thought he was a muggle. He'd altered his appearance and everything. Petunia's back at your parents'." Lily smiled and held out a hand towards James, who took it comfortingly.

"Though I don't know why I bothered though," continued Sirius, walking over to a chair and sitting down on it lazily. "She was far from grateful. I had to "Silencio" her in the end…she wasn't happy."

Of course she was put out thought Cecilia shaking her head. Petunia's parents didn't know her…clearly she went through a phase of rebelliousness because of some sort of bitterness towards them She didn't blame her: her life being put second to Lily's when actually she had magic too. And then there was Sirius, marching in with his size twelves and easy arrogance…Petunia Dursley had been bristling with bitterness when she had mentioned her encounter with Sirius Black and, from what she could see here Cecilia could easily fill in the gaps between the two. It was easily one of the reasons Petunia hated the wizard world…she could feel her resentment in Sirius's laid-back tone.

"I'm sure she wasn't," replied Lily, clear relief in her voice. "And I don't know what would cause her to run off like that, though she was behaving very strangely when I saw her last." She shook her head, smiling at James. "Thank you, thank you so much, Sirius."

"How did you know where to find her?" asked James Potter, sitting down opposite Sirius, who raised his eyebrows knowingly.

"Something going on with his old interest. Mother's approving," he added in a low, disapproving voice. He looked up as Lily turned to him, listening.

"Lily's concerned about Henrietta," explained James, clearly attempting to put an end to their embryonic discussion. "She can't get her by floo…"

…and then Cecilia remembered…she remembered this…she remembered remembering…knowing abut this…

…Henrietta was missing. Regulus Black had taken away Petunia Evans…

Sirius made to swing his feet onto the kitchen table but James frowned at him disapprovingly.

"So? She's been like that for months. All this going back to being a muggle. I don't think we need to worry about Henrietta."

"All the same," replied Lily reprovingly, "she is our friend."

"Then I reckoned that she should have remembered that when she handed in her wand…"

Cecilia waited for the conversation to continue but it felt as if the mood was changing. Her thoughts about Henrietta being beguiled by Regulus in the guise of Sirius, and how Petunia Evans was nearly the unwitting victim began to fade as the scene dissolved into an Impressionist painting and she felt the consistency of the memory changing from springy candy floss to smoke. She raised her head but this time there was no memory to which she could traverse. Others had attached to the dropped memory now: perhaps she could cross to those?

Carefully Cecilia inched back towards the tendril that she had crossed. Its length and breadth had increased though and she used this to her advantage, pulling herself back to the original memory that had contained Lily's parents and Sirius and over the surface to the other tendril. It was thinner than the one she had crossed, more spindly and from what Cecilia could tell newer connections like this one seemed more fragile.

She focused on the memory-cloud to which it was attached, wondering how this was related to Mr. and Mrs. Evans and Sirius. Was this something to do with Petunia herself? Was her repugnance at being rescued from the over-confident young Sirius about to be revealed? Or could this be the memory in which Regulus Black revealed the Horcrux and she could isolate it and return it to the wizards above?

Cecilia's speculation however was not to be realised. The tendril which appeared to be attached to the memory on which she was sitting gave way as she moved onto it plunging her down, away from Sirius's original memory. Through many memories Cecilia passed, flicking through scores of snippets before catching hold of something solid.

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Mrs Frobishe's alive?!"

Harry's incredulous exclamation reverberated around the domed chamber as he looked between Snape and Sirius. His gaze fell on Snape and he frowned.

"Don't look at me, Potter," growled Snape, his wand aloft, "I knew nothing until I got here. I think you'll find it was your godfather who chose to keep her secret." Harry wheeled round to look at Sirius who had the grace to look a little embarrassed.

"Never mind who knew what," shouted Ron, arcing his arm towards the assembled witches and wizards, "are you going to get that potion and take it?" Harry glanced at his friend and, with a firm nod, looked back at Snape who placed a vial into his hand. As he closed his fingers over them an inaudible cry went up, seemingly from the farther group of Ministry Aurors, who were equally challenging the Order and the Death Eaters, both of whom had in turn had raised their wands waiting, inanimate and unresisting, and for the Aurors to make a move, some of which looked bewildered at the scene before them, or very uncomfortable at the very least. Harry glanced over the scene, wondering why nothing had happened yet. And then it dawned on him: out of the three factions of wizards none of their leaders had arrived.

"Come on!" shouted Ron, pulling the arm of his friend and they followed the other young Hogwarts witches and wizards who had chosen to accompany him, scuttling back behind the Order as Mrs Weasley beckoned frantically towards them and to her relief they darted back behind them. Harry jerked his head towards the Aurors as the cry that had gone up before was repeated, this time audible and clear.

"Sirius Black!"

Through the Aurors pushed a high-ranking ministry official who had been put in charge of Sirius's recapture. His moment clearly had arrived and he was on the brink of becoming the bright shining star of the ministry.

"Sirius Black!" he panted, his combed-over hair slipping down over his face as his hat slipped off behind him. "Come quietly man, or we will take you by force." Sirius said nothing, fixing his gaze from his position by the archway to a point just over the wizard's shoulders.

"I'm warning you," continued the wizard threateningly, "no trying to resist, Black or I will – hh – " The Auror fell forward, in the space between Sirius and Snape, a large, soot-rimmed blood-red hole in his back.

From the receding corridor that led back to their office Vincento drew Tabitha back out of sight by the shoulder, wand still at her throat. For his lightness and nimbleness there was still an enormous amount of strength in his arms, neither anticipated or predicted by her in the wizard and something which had taken her aback moment before.

"Vin," she whispered. "There's Death Eaters in the Room of Artefacts." She felt him let her go and she turned as Vincento stepped away from her.

"Tabs, there's going to be a great battle here tonight," he said, his voice low and clear. "War is starting and the battle lines are drawn…which side are you on?"

Tabitha exhaled slowly and beheld her friend. Clearly if she had become involved with declaring to the wizards that their ally Snape was a Death Eater things may have become a little hairy and she silently thanked Vincento for bringing her away from the action.

"Vin, did you get my letter?" she whispered.

"What, this one?" He held aloft the parchment that Tabitha had quilled less than an hour before and she nodded.

"Tabitha why are you here?"

"I had no choice, Vin," she replied, her voice becoming shallow and sorrowful, "they knew about the veil." Her colleague crossed the dark marble floor from which the whole of the Artefacts Room was made and put a thin, delicate arm around her shoulders comfortingly.

"Voldermort returned has returned," he murmured, "he's used muggle information to get to where they are now." Tabitha turned and looked at him in horror, reading the expression on his face.

"You think I did? You think I am a Death Eater?" She glanced over at Snape who, with Sirius Black were standing guard by the veil entrance and wondered how it was that he was there, trusted and relied upon and she, Tabitha Penwright was doubted by her closest friend. She looked back at Vincento whose face had softened and placed he placed a hand on her shoulder.

"No, I can't believe that of you Tabs," he replied smiling softly making Tabitha's heart flood with the generosity and self-pity.

"I've been weak Vin. Why did I just let Umbridge use me like that?"

Before her friend had a chance to answer a flash of white light brought their attention to the archway arena. It was enough to bring the half-dozen Death Eaters who were attacking with guns a full complement of valiantly defending Order using magic to a halt. Tabitha watched a figure materialise out of the darkness, in one hand holding what looked like a limp dishcloth but was in actual fact…

"Dobby!" Both Tabitha and Hermione Granger spoke the house-elf's name but the similarity ended there: whereas the student witch screamed the name the Mysteriour whispered it to herself.

"What?" asked Vincento slowly watching as the figure moved towards the Aurors.

"Umbridge…" she said aloud. And Dobby, she added silently and Tabitha moved out of the shadows. Vincento did nothing to stop her as she sidled round behind the Order hoping not to be noticed. She was in luck. Hermione's shrill exclamation had trained the attention on the Undersecretary who was standing before them holding the limp body of Dobby the house elf, watching as Hermione shouted at Umbridge again, calling out his name. Tabitha looked carefully at the elf. It didn't look as if it were breathing. Under Umbridge's coiled arm it – he – looked quite still.

"This thing?" Dolores Umbridge laughed derisively as she let go of Dobby, letting his body slump to the floor. "This house elf tried to delay me with nonsense and you – " he pointed a plump finger at Hermione, " – you, you and you and all of you children should be at Hogwarts!"

"He was probably just trying to help," shouted back Ron, echoing Tabitha's own thoughts but Umbridge wasn't interested in the house elf and she stepped over his body and towards the Ministry Aurors who looked visibly uncomfortable in her presence. Tabitha watched as Harry made to move to the crumpled heap that was Dobby but a wizard with right red hair put a hand on his shoulder, staying his course.

"I was under the impression that I instructed you personally to attack the wizards calling themselves the Order of the Phoenix." She looked at each Auror with malevolence, ignoring their silent hints there were more significant threats than the Order wizards and that their dead colleague on the ground in front of her should have been evidence enough but is seemed to pass Dolores Umbridge by completely.

"Go on," she urged mockingly, "do it…attack them!"

A moment passed. The Aurors raised their wands. From her position near the back of the Order Tabitha Penwright waited for the spells which were intended to stun, immobilise or otherwise impede. They never came. The Order, to their credit, did not raise their own wands in defence which clearly unsettled some of the Aurors but, as one, lowered their wands too, clearly defying the demands of the Ministry Undersecretary. Tabitha felt herself shaking her head at Umbridge's clear bewilderment at the situation.

"You!" she declared to the Aurors who had been fortunate enough not to have been shot. "Do your duty!"

But before the unfortunate wizard could face the confrontation before him another person was occupying the limelight. Tabitha had strode out past the Order of the Phoenix, a rush of adrenaline surging around her lymphatic system as years of repression in the role of compliant dogsbody and resulting bitterness bubbled to the surface like magma finally resisting the pressure of the enclosed volcano.

"How stupid are you!" She skirted around the body of John Johnson, a middle-aged Auror who was the most loyal wizard the Ministry employed and completely devoted to his job, nodding deferentially towards him. "Can't you see that it's not the Order who is the enemy?" She pointed into the shadows in which the Death Eaters who had initially been fighting the Order and Aurors had slunk, trying to look inconspicuous. "Those, over there, with muggle weapons!"

Silence reigned, a short but memorable monarch during which time Undersecretary Umbridge narrowed her eyes contemptuously.

"Miss Penwright, I am appalled! A woman of your diminutive ability challenging me, Undersecretary to Minister Fudge? A useless muggle-born having done neither her duty to her wizard or muggle heritage?" She turned to look at the Death Eaters who stood solemnly shoulder to shoulder. "It is perfectly plain that they no more carry muggle weapons than I do. Surely you are not so ignorant to know that wizards possess powers far and away more potent than any a muggle could possess?"

But Tabitha wasn't listening. Instead she raised her wand at Umbridge, nullifying her boss's last assertion as years of hatred pouring out of her in seconds. This was her territory, her kingdom. She was Queen here.

"What rot! How dare you?!" Umbridge turned and made to step towards the Mysteriour, clearly ignoring the wand pointed in her direction but a voice from the shadows stayed her step, turning to look in the direction of the speaker.

"But that witch is quite correct Madam Undersecretary. We do have muggle weapons." The wands of the Aurors and those of the Order were now angled on the group of Death Eaters like porcupine quills. Wormtail leered at the wizards and dropped his hand containing the sawn-off shotgun which had done for John Johnson to his side. He looked at the body of the dead Auror.

"A good shot, wouldn't you agree? Takes some getting used to, but very effective." He stepped forward and stood in the triangle of the three factions holding the gun up approvingly. A low growl came from the vicinity of the Order wizards and Tabitha turned to look at them.

"The Dark Lord surprises you again," Wormtail continued. "He has used information accordingly acquired from a co-operative muggle to arm himself. You will not win."

"We'll have a bloody good try at it!" shouted Mad-Eye Moody. "Expelliarmus!"

The lilac-coloured spell bounced off the shotgun and narrowly missed Sturgis Podmore before rebounding from the wall and spattering into nothing.

"Thanks a lot!" shouted Sturgis, shaking his head, "That was nearly my ear!" Laughter from the Death Eaters began to echo at the entertainment before them.

"The Dark Lord himself has enchanted these weapons. Ingenious, wouldn't you say?" The other masked Death Eaters laughed and nodded in agreement as Wormtail wheeled round "It was the muggle Robert Penwright who provided us with the information…!"

Tabitha realised that all eyes were on her, those of her colleagues, those of the supposed treacherous Order and almost a dozen Death Eaters. Robert Penwright. The word reverberated around her mind as she sought to take this in. Her brother Robert Penwright, is that who he meant? Her brother? Tabitha felt herself take a few steps back as her mind raced to accommodate this new information. How had he got mixed up in all of this?

A coldness began to creep over her as she recalled the last few conversations she had had with Robert, of him scrolling through the theoretical possibilities for muggle weapons. Not theoretical any more, she thought to herself as she contemplated the shotgun.

The cavern containing the archway and veil, and several wizards and witches began to fade away from her mind as she felt herself overarch the scene. She was Queen here. The magic, in its mysterious form, obeyed its mistress.

"This is my realm," Tabitha declared, ignoring the fact that a gun was now being pointed towards her. "I would think very carefully before starting anything here." Rooting her feet to the ground and staring at Wormtail she missed the revolver that another Death Eater was pointing in her direction. The shot tore through the air and then through Tabitha's clothing, leaving a pool of dark liquid as evidence of success. Beside her, Umbridge screamed and then vanished leaving nothing but a wisp of smoke as the witch disappeared. Tabitha sank to her knees as Wormtail took a few steps towards her, the shotgun pointed unmistakably at her chest. She waited for the shot, thanking silently whatever had made her the witch that she was that she could interpret these mysteries hidden to so many before she died.

It didn't come.

What did was a battle, erupting like a pressurised volcano, the top blowing into the air as spells and bullets flew about. A piercing scream went up from the back of the Order group, someone yelling for the children to get down but the gunshots would never have reached them in any case because of the human shield that were the Ministry Aurors, located as they were between them and the Death Eaters. The hapless wizards did not stand a chance and many of them fell onto the dark marble floor of the chamber before they could fulfil their boss's latent demands, bullets lodging in skull, torso or limbs.

Tabitha felt her stomach lurch and blood began to ooze down her shoulder and she felt her heart pound as it fought to cope with depressurisation. As her gaze slowly met with floor level she realised that Wormtail was still standing over her, his black boots inches away from her face.

"Go down like your brother Miss Penwright," he mocked, holding the weapon close to her head. your filthy muggle blood will soon be reunited with – "

When he didn't finish, Tabitha looked slowly up the Death Eater's body until she reached his face, before continuing the line along the wand that was pressed to Wormtail's throat, down the long, Dark-Mark-inflicted forearm, to the shoulder before looking at the face of Severus Snape. The wizard's face was fixed in a snarl directed at the Death Eater, his body rigid and firm. Tabitha drew herself back as Wormtail began to laugh, mockingly and humourlessly.

"You won't, Snape," he rasped, his voice hollow and strained. "You've too much to lose, traitor."

"Go on," Snape growled, reinforcing his wand position at the Death Eater's throat. "One small move, Wormtail and my conscience will be eased knowing I had a reason."

"That!" spat Wormtail, throwing his gaze contemptuously at Tabitha who was inching back still further towards the wall by the archway and to safety. "That's your reason?!" Snape said nothing but continued to stare at Wormtail, his eyes fixed on his adversary. Tabitha watched the scene waiting for one of them to make a move and she wondered what would happen if neither of them did. She shuffled further back, ignoring the pain that was in her arm. Just then a bolt of blue light shot between the two wizards from the background of battle. Hitting neither of them this gave Wormtail an opportunity. Snape withdrew his wand under the influence of a revolver that Wormtail was now pointing towards him, willed him down onto the floor towards Tabitha.

"Tell the mudblood, Snape…" Wormtail stood over the wizard who was now on his knees, watching as his adversary levelled the weapon. "Tell her what you did…"

Tabitha turned to look at Snape who at first said nothing. Then he returned her gaze, staring straight into her eyes.

"There's more to all of this than your mysteries," he said slowly, taking in her face pale and blood-spattered, "I should tell you…you've the right to know…" He trailed off as Tabitha shook her head.

"No. Don't. I know too much already – " Tabitha broke off as Wormtail began to laugh, standing over them both and shook his head mockingly.

"Not that, Snape. The other thing that you did. The muggle-baiting. The capture of muggles. The torture of muggles! You were one of us then. And now – " Wormtail looked between Snape and Tabitha, "you've finally found someone you care for more about than yourself, Snape. To think it used to be Cecilia Frobisher – " With his other hand Wormtail levelled his wand.

" – Crucio!"

But and the lowering of the gun Snape was too fast for the wizard and raised his arm swiftly.

"Protego!"

The torture curse deflected from Snape's wand and against one of the walls, on course to hit Tabitha Penwright. With reflexes of a cat Snape turned again –

"Cave Inimicum!"

– before standing tall, blasting a third bolt from his wand. Wormtail, trying to reach for his gun and stumbled, the weapon and his wand tumbling from his hand as he fell towards the hard floor. He reached for the wand, but was too late. Snape stepped forward and placed a large black boot onto it. Wormtail howled as Snape stood over him, before giving the Death Eater a rather un-wizard-like kick in the ribs.

With all the strength she could manage Tabitha got to her feet. Her adversary was on the floor. He had killed her brother. They could finish him off together. But as she made to step forward she stumbled, falling heavily down as an agonising jolt spread over her shoulder as more spells from the battle behind them flew past, dissolving, hissing and spitting around them.

She watched as Snape picked up Wormtail's wand before using his own to destroy the gun and then handing the wand back to the Death Eater, who glanced in Tabitha's direction giving her a loathsome look. Honourable.

"Go!" shouted Snape as Tabitha struggled to get to her feet again. "Leave him to me!"

Another bolt, this time yellow and of a high velocity coursed towards them, hitting Tabitha full in the chest. She fell back, hard onto the floor again at the base of the archway. A disarming spell which had caught her off-guard, knocking her wand out of her hand. It rolled towards the veil, slipping innocuously over the edge and into oblivion. Tabitha cursed aloud with some well-chosen profanities. The one time she could use her abilities to her advantage and to those around her she'd now lost her wand.

A pulse of pain throbbed in her shoulder again. Her injury was getting worse. If she didn't have it removed soon, she knew, it would start to go septic. But what chance was there of this being over soon?

Her mind drifted to the scene around her. Wormtail was trying to fight Snape with what looked like a seriously impaired wand. Snape had encouraged him cruelly to show him what he was made of but there was little chance of the Death Eater actually winning. She looked at the larger arena where now more bodies of injured and dead wizards were littering the chamber. It was hard to tell who was actually winning though Tabitha hoped that it was not the Death Eaters.

An image of Robert, her brother, fixed in her mind as she began to sense a tingly feeling in her left arm. Her poor, stupid brother, motivated by greed, no doubt. Sandwiched between two demanding women. On some level she couldn't blame him for taking the easy way out and a rush of sorrowful regret made tears spring to her eyes as Tabitha wished she could have done something to help him, or if she had been a better sister by being at home with Mother so he didn't feel as if he had to resort to that.

Then her eyes rested upon the archway and she watched the material that was the veil fluttering in the non-existent wind. Had her boss taken the time and trouble to ask her Tabitha could have explained that the veil moved because of the movement of the memories contained within (and also without). She hadn't. No-one had.

That wasn't entirely true: Vincento had paid some interest.

Then there was the muggle…Cecilia Frobisher…

She couldn't do that on her own; she, Tabitha Penwright, had been the first person beyond the veil to return…but she had had to use a certain amount of magic, her own magic, to do so. There was no way that a muggle could navigate around on her own.

Around the chamber more shots were fired and Tabitha moved her head from the veil and looking up to see the Order being herded back into a corner, huddling back from the Death Eaters who they had been fighting so determinedly moments before.

She turned back and looked at the veil, considering again the feat which Mrs Frobisher was undertaking…the strength of the memories there…if she caught the wrong one…it could have a different effect completely…and that was assuming no other memories had been deposited by the Ministry since she had descended…

The report, that lay at the bottom of a filing cabinet in the office of the Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic contained specific details about the archway and what lay behind the veil. The memories, Tabitha had described, were lively, as much so as when they were in the minds of ther owners. Out of their physical containment they want to exist and they will move and bind with whatever they found to ensure their existence. The more power the better, that was what Tabitha had written, and concluded that this was the reason why wizards don't come back.

She looked across the rope, still anchored in the mysteries room at the corner of the arch. The ache in her shoulder had begun to dull as a plan began to form in her mind. If she could go behind the veil too and help Cecilia Frobisher, perhaps she could repair any damage and prevent any catastrophic errors.

But her strength of will was not matched by her strength of body and her injury caused her dizziness. Tabitha must have fallen onto the floor, but she didn't feel it and she waited for unconsciousness to consume her.

"Where're you going?" The Mysteriour opened her eyes and she saw Snape kneel down beside her, glancing between her face and her shoulder.

"To help," Tabitha spluttered, holding her shoulder as it pulsed agonisingly again.

"Why?" He raised her chin and she found herself looking at the wizard who had scorned her and denied her the information that she required for so many months and now not even caring that he had done so. She hadn't done it for herself in any case, she had gone to discover that which was required by Dolores Umbridge, the information that Umbridge had sent her, like a rat, to sniff out on her behalf. She glanced forward and noticed the slumped, unmoving form of Wormtail a few feet away.

"…well…" Tabitha sighed, looking into his eyes, "I don't really want this universe to change…"

Snape looked as if he was about to reply but the chance was taken from him as around them the whole chamber reverberated with the energy of a boom, like a low roar from the corridor of brains, as if something was exploding in slow motion.

In the chamber the wizards stood, the Order with their back towards the exit corridor, the remaining Aurors who hadn't been killed by the first round of gunfire and Death Eaters holding them all at wand-point.

The Aurors bore the brunt of the explosion and they sprayed up into the air like shooting stars landing around the place like meteorites. Some began to interact with the artefacts: one wizard disappeared into the tunnel and was immediately sucked in; another was fixed to a mirror, completely immobile. A couple of others tumbled towards the archway and through the veil.

Tabitha watched as Snape looked over her, towards the corridor of brains and she followed his line of sight, her heart pounding in her chest.

Figures were emerging through the smoke and debris.

88888888

Cecilia did not know how long she had lain on the memory-cloud upon which she had fallen. It had been a shock that the tendril had not been complete, or had been too weak to hold her. Memories had zoomed past her senses as she passed at speed through them: witches; wizards; some she knew; others, several others, she did not.

A thought lingered in her mind and for what seemed like several minutes but equally could have been hours or seconds, about how she was to actually get out from behind the veil. This thought was intermittently replaced by another which was, now she had lost the original memory that Sirius had dropped how was she going to locate the right memory, and the Horcrux?

There was only one thing for it Cecilia thought after she had come to the conclusion that she still was alive, other than accept that she would never return from the veil. She was on a memory cloud. Perhaps she could navigate her way back to the original one? All she needed was something she recognised.

This memory was denser than the others she had seen before. When Cecilia put her head to the interface between cloud and contents it was as if she was pushing her head between two thick pillows, as if the memory she had landed on needed to contain something large and voluminous. With some pushing and shoving Cecilia eventually got her head through into what seemed like a huge chamber and she shouldered her way through with some force, falling towards the shiny, patterned floor.

Just as she thought she was about to fall heavily onto it and sustain several injuries in the process she came to a halt inches from the floor. The wizards around her continued about their business, not seeming aware in any way that she was there. Slowly and carefully Cecilia pulled herself to her feet, looking around the chamber. And at the wizards.

To say they were dressed strangely would have been a good description of wizards any time but here, in this official looking place Cecilia noticed that there was something indeed odd about them, twelve sitting to one side, one in a section close to what she would have identified as the front and another, sitting high above the twelve plus one wizards on her level. As she looked Cecilia could just see a hat on his head bearing a logo of an intersected pair of letters. Cecilia moved over to the front row of empty seats.

Not entirely empty, a minor error that Cecilia acknowledged when she moved closer to the figures, one woman dressed in her finery, her dark hair dressed in an intricate 'do and a man in a dark black robe and a shock of white-blonde hair flowing down his back. Before she could speculate on the scene any further Cecilia's attention was directed to the figure, the wizard who had been occupying the chair in the centre of the hall.

"We are here to hear the conclusion of your Bill." The wizard sitting far above them in the chair was pointing his wand towards his throat which had the effect of increasing its amplitude. "If you are to allow this Bill to pass into law, Mr. Black, you must do so within the next hour, otherwise the New Year will come to pass and you will have to resubmit it. And I don't know about you but I have been inundated with party invitations. I would like to get to one."

Mr. Black…

Cecilia looked at the wizard at the centre of the chamber, at his features and mannerisms. Her first thought was that he truly was related somewhere along the line to the Blacks she was investigating. Her second thought was how lucky she had been to fall onto a memory which was connected to Sirius.

"Certainly, Mugwump." The wizard turned to address the twelve wizards and witches and wizards who were clearly thinking the same thing about New Year but were sitting silently and waiting patiently.

"I call upon you, Inquisitors of the Wizengamot, on this day, 31st December 1783, to pass into law the ban on association, transaction or otherwise connection with muggles. It is for the safety and prosperity of wizards that I stand here, and that you sit before me."

1783. That was the reason they looked so strangely dressed: robes with scalloped edges and shoes with buckles. Georgian fashions whilst still in wizard attire. And she was in the Wizengamot, the wizard's legal chamber. A thought passed through Cecilia's mind but before it could crystallise the wizard addressing the Inquisitors continued.

"I have overwhelming evidence to the Bill, as you can see from the lengthy document with which I furnished the Prime Inquisitor," he indicated the eight-inch thick stack of parchment stacked to one side of the Inquisitor's benches. "Briefly, the erosion of our magical culture by our close association to muggles. The sharing and collaborative working between muggles and wizards which has become more prevalent in these last decades."

Cecilia's mind raced as she recalled something from the back of her mind. Wizards and muggles. Their association. Laws to prevent this…

"Can you…cite any examples, Joseph Black?" Her suspicions were confirmed as the wizard who appeared to be the Prime Inquisitor, next to whom the parchment stack resided, voiced the wizard's name. He spoke clearly and succinctly which seemed to Cecilia to annoy Joseph Black. So, she was in a memory, someone's memory of the actual legal proceedings dividing muggles and wizards which Joseph Black had instigated. Were she not preoccupied with her task Cecilia would no doubt have marvelled at the coincidence and relished the experience of observing this ancestor of Sirius's, of whom she had associated only indirectly when she made connections with the Universal Link. Staring back to the floor Cecilia watched with interest as Joseph Black continued with his Bill.

"Indeed. I can attest from my own knowledge and over the decades. It is my experience that muggles seek only to gain power for themselves and that free exchange of ideas between muggle and wizard have resulted only in the advancement of muggle society. At present it is going through a Revolution, not social but industrial, where the know-how of wizards have been distilled for the use of muggles. I know this," he said slowly, beginning to pace before the Inquisitors, "because I, like so many others, built up connections in the muggle world, because we were under the illusion that it was the Right Thing To Do. We took pity on their inferiority and sought a way to assist them. As a result – " Joseph Black stopped and shot a look at the woman sitting a few seats away from Cecilia, who moved visibly at the wizard's stare, " – when the muggles whom I assisted realised the work I had carried out in my capacity as an ambassador for muggle knowledge they stole it and put it to their own ends. I was denied access to the society of men whom I had assisted, one in particular took the opportunity to steal something more from me. It is my belief that these muggles have their own reasons for this: to bring down wizard society through their development of power through science and technology. They intend to become more powerful than wizards and bring an end to us."

Again, Joseph Black stopped and fixed the woman a stare but this time she got to her feet, making to walk out. Across the floor Joseph Black crossed, stopping the woman in her tracks in front of Cecilia.

"Do not, Honoria. You are to hear the full case against your treacherous James Watt and what he has caused to happen here. You will sit – over there – next to your intended."

Honoria Black! As Joseph Black made his way back towards the Inquisitors she watched the woman sit back down a few seats away from the blonde-haired wizard and Cecilia tried to piece together what she could remember about her. Honoria Black, who had fallen in love with a muggle. Joseph Black introduced the Muggle Restriction laws and made her marry a French wizard…Malfus Malfoy…!

And here she was, sitting in the very courtroom listening to history being spun by Sirius's ancestor, something which had such repercussions down the decades to the present day. His Bill clearly intended to restrict knowledge to muggles and, that he had forced his daughter to be present when he did this attested to the cruel, bitter streak that Sirius himself had described to her. And…Honoria had loved…James Watt…?

"Thank you, Mr Black," said the Prime Inquisitor, pulling Cecilia's mind towards the proceedings before her. "I think we have heard enough. It is indeed worrying to us that muggles are attempting to undermine our society. It is, in fact, not the first time that you have proposed muggle restrictions?" He looked up towards the Mugwump, who shook his head in confirmation. This seemed to annoy Joseph Black, his annoyance playing on his features, but he said nothing. Instead he bowed his head deferentially.

"Indeed not. I did not have the support…the evidence…I have now. It is not just myself, as a collaborator with muggles who have attested to the plot to attack wizards. Others have given evidence akin to this." The Prime Inquisitor nodded his head.

"And of what do your Restrictions comprise?"

He had bribed wizards and used his influence to get the Bill heard, Cecilia remembered and now he was standing before the Wizengamot about to pass the most prejudicial, restrictive law in the history of wizardkind which would infiltrate every part of their lives and traditions. She sat forward and listened.

"Further to the complete severing of ties between muggles and wizards, muggle-born wizards and squibs are to carry fake wands so they can be distinguished amongst a crowd. In addition, they are to be stripped of bank accounts with contents of over ten thousand galleons, lest they become entangled in the muggle plot to overthrow us economically, thus impoverishing wizards in the years to come. And thirdly, for purity of the wizard world, pure blood marriages to be declared the ideal, with tax reimbursements for marriages."

Cecilia watched as the faces of the rest of the Inquisitors became stiff and still. Clearly they didn't wish to be there, maybe even they didn't want their names to be associated with what Joseph Black was proposing. But she could understand why he had got it through in the end. The wizards clearly didn't want to be associated with the Law that they were about to pass but, as Joseph Black had pointed out with relish earlier on, they were there for the interests of wizards. If a threat existed then they would have no choice but to act.

"Ah yes," nodded the Mugwump, aloft. "It is with our deepest congratulations that we wish to bestow upon your daughter for her own impending marriage?" Cecilia watched the colour drain from Honoria Black's already pale face and she imagined if the witch had something in her hand just at that moment she would have thrown it. As it was she sat stiffly in her chair.

"We have deliberated on the Bill you have put to us." The Prime Inquisitor stood up, and glanced over the other eleven Inquisitors. "It is our belief that muggles pose a great threat to our society. The muggle world is at war and prosperity is low. Economically, by cutting ties with their world it will guarantee that they will not be able to oppose us. In addition, to attest your claim Mr. Black we have further evidence that through science and technological progress some muggles have forged business partnerships with goblins, a situation which we consider most alarming."

"Thank you." From his high chair in the Gods of the chamber the Mugwump stood, bowing towards the Inquisitors. "You have passed what I believe to be the most fundamentally important laws of our time. Because of you wizards can now sleep easy in their beds." Fundamentally important? Cecilia shook her head. Do you know what is happening between your descendents at this moment?

"In addition to your Bill, which will become an Act of this Wizengamot shortly," the Mugwump continued, addressing Black, "we also endorse the declaration of any muggle who is deemed by a wizard to be at risk of undermining our world as misborn." Cecilia sat up sharply and looked at the Inquisitor wizards who were nodding amongst themselves. So they weren't protesting the proposal by Joseph Black but supporting him!

"Upon this declaration any wizard or creature under oath to a wizard may destroy the muggle. A wizard who has exterminated one on the basis of knowing they are misborn shall be exempt from prosecution."

"Curor in Potentia!" The wizard sitting next to Honoria Black got to his feet and shouted the words to the Inquisitors, the Mugwump and Joseph Black in a thick French accent. "Curor in Potentia! Power upon Bloodshed!"

No, thought Cecilia in horror. It can't have begun that way. Surely there must have been some so of resistance to it all? Those wizards can't have just sat there and merrily waved it all through?

"Well spoke, that man!" The Mugwump smiled and waved back at Malfoy. "Power amongst bloodshed, eh? Perhaps that should become your family motto, Black?"

"Per'aps," replied Malfoy, in his thick accent. "You 'ave already engaged the services of a Mr. Ludd, have you not, Meester Black?"

"Indeed," replied Joseph Black. "Mugwump, under the orders of my soon-to-be son-in-law the aforementioned gentleman has been well furnished with gold to resist the advances of the science and technology of muggles."

Ludd? As in the Luddites? Muggle history told a different tale, of workers destroying machines because it had made them, as skilled workers, unemployed, starving them into action.

"Excellent!" The Prime Inquisitor beamed approvingly at Black. "Good work, Joseph. I mentioned to the fellows of your previous success. The King of Great Britain is now considered by those around him to be mad. A physician was summoned when he told his eldest son he had been talking to little wizards in the fireplace."

Only Honoria Black sat stiffly and did not acknowledge the Prime Inquisitor's assertion; the rest of the wizards, the eleven in the benches, the Mugwump, Black and Malfoy all laughed in support, and presumably at the fate of King George.

Cecilia shook her head in disbelief. Those wizards speaking like that… how dare they! How could they! When all that separated Joseph Black and the rest of them over there and her over here was a random selection of proteins assembled in a certain sequence, allowing them to metabolise energy in a different way? A difference that had worked to her advantage by allowing her to pass unharmed beyond the veil?

"If we are quiet finished, I would like to attend a function now," said the Mugwump, disapparating and then reapparating in front of Joseph Black. He held out a hand. "Bravery, Black. Our children and our childrens' children will thank us, you know!"

"It's not true…it won't turn out like that!" Cecilia heard herself shouting in vain. "Muggles, many muggles will die, as will wizards when you pass this!"

"And your recruitment programme for the Force?" The Mugwump took Joseph Black's shoulder and headed towards the door. Cecilia began to move after them, resolving not to miss any of the conversation.

"Excellently. We need only to eliminate those who stand in our way: Watt's associates…Priestley, Boulton, Wedgwood, Darwin to start. Others who question our authority. The unfortunate incident with the village in Derbyshire was entirely coincidental but it does show how effective out methods are as well as leaving behind very little evidence. Auld Magic."

"What?!" Cecilia knew her protestations were hopeless: they could not hear her in the memory but the anger at their casual severing of muggle-wizard ties and the persecution of muggles who opposed them had rankled with her. It was almost as if she had witnessed the birth of the Death Eaters as the two wizards spoke. The Mugwump tapped the side of his nose knowingly and Cecilia felt the urge to pull him back by the shoulder and thump him.

"Do you know how much damage you're doing?!" Cecilia yelled at their retreating backs as the wizards made their way towards the door of the Wizengamot. "What you've started, Voldermort's continued! You could have just talked to your daughter, there was no need for this!" Both wizards turned round, glancing at one another briefly.

"You've condemned your ancestors to a life of struggle and strife. There'll be wizard deaths, there'll be riots!" She watched wide-eyed but defiant as Joseph Black walked towards her.

"What did you say?" Cecilia glanced behind her but could not see who Joseph Black was speaking to.

"You're so wrong," she muttered. But instead of stepping past her and talking to someone else Joseph Black took a few more steps towards her, looking at her quizzically.

"I said, what did you say? Now I ask, who are you?" There was no mistaking it. Joseph Black was speaking to her.

"It doesn't matter." The Mugwump who had accompanied Black across the floor stood next to him. "Time in custody will explain why such a witch as this, in such a bizarre mode of dress, is present in the Wizengamot."

"Who let you in? Was it her?" Joseph Black pointed past Cecilia and she turned, taking in Honoria Black's dejected expression and a spark of anger passed through her. "Speak woman, or by Merlin the Mugwump can take you off to loosen your tongue!"

"And you think your descendents will be proud of you?!" replied Cecilia hotly. "Because of what you've done tonight you've caused them more harm, distress, upset than ever you can imagine!" She shook her head in annoyance as Joseph Black made to grab her arm but Cecilia stepped away.

"Where did you come from?" he demanded as Honoria Black walked past her father and the Mugwump, making for the door.

"A long way from here," replied Cecilia, her heart jumping in her chest. How could she be interacting with the people here? These were memories, she was a mere visitor.

"But you're not a wizard." The Mugwump narrowed his bulging dark eyes as he analysed her.

"No," she replied. She was in a memory. As such she wasn't really here. She could transcend the memory, and that's exactly what she must do. Fast.

"Then you're a muggle! Tell me muggle, how can you be standing here?"

"Take me to your leader," Cecilia managed, cringing inside at the cliché. "Let me come with you to somewhere more convivial and I'll tell you everything.

At first it looked as if Joseph Black was about to argue but he made the mistake of glancing at the Mugwump who shrugged whilst continuing to stare at Cecilia.

"Go to your party, Taupin…I'll deal with this."

To her amazement the Mugwump shrugged again and turned, following the twelve Inquisitors out of the door to the Wizengamot. Once the door boomed shut Joseph Black turned to Cecilia again.

"Of course, muggle." Cecilia glanced at Black as he gestured towards the back of the Wizengamot, his voice in familiar honeyed tones. "Tell me all you can and I promise you that you will return safely to wherever you came – "

Cecilia ran.

" – from…"

Towards the doors which she had seen the Mugwump and Inquisitors had passed moments before. Behind her, the shock of her abscondment stalled him for a moment, though it was just for a moment. Cecilia knew from the thumps on the floor that he was running too, and gazing. Her only hope was to make it through the doors or to wherever the outer limits of the memory was.

"Stop!" Joseph Black screamed the demand towards her. "You are a spy! Muggles are weakening the powers of wizards!"

The doors were closer now. Around her a bolt of purple light whooshed past her, narrowly missing her right hand. Cecilia felt the heat of the spell across the back of her hand...she could feel here. And if she could feel, then she almost certainly could die. Suddenly the enormity of her task behind the veil took on a whole new meaning.

"Muggles are parasites!" Behind her Joseph Black was gaining. Cecilia saw the wizard in hot pursuit. She turned to face the way she was going, towards the doorway and beyond.

She had to get there, she must. She must get out.

"You are misborn!"

Cecilia got to the door, resisting the urge to turn and shout back something scathing to Joseph Black who clearly thought he had said something clever. She flung open the door and looked for the pillow-like folds of the memory.

"I'll get you, misborn muggle!"

Below her an empty nothingness. She could see neither the interface between the memory and its outer shell nor other memory clouds, tethered together or otherwise. Behind her…one irate wizard. There was nothing she could do as the echoing footsteps of her pursuer grew louder and louder.

And then she saw it. Her weight was making what she was standing on vibrate…there was another…almost invisible to the eye and blending in with the charcoal-grey aether.

"Muggle!"

…perhaps she could jump to the next one…the near-invisible memory was moving…if she timed it right...

"You will talk!" Joseph Black, the sixty-odd year-old wizard who had just enacted the greatest division between muggles and wizard since the dawn of settled civilisation made a grab for Cecilia's arm.

…closing her eyes, she leapt…

A whoosh beside her and the memory that had been before her slipped past. She screamed, waving her arms round frantically...nowhere there was nothing was going to be good. Cecilia closed her eyes…she still had a few strands of the passing memory and seemed to be holding it steady but, writhing with the other hand the grip of Sirius's ancestor was too much and she had to let go. Joseph Black laughed.

"You are going to wish you had never sought us, muggle," he said, pulling out his wand as he hung Cecilia out with one arm over the edge of the memory, raising it malevolently. "I am going to – "

But whatever he was going to do was lost within a roar as Cecilia's foot landed in the soft stomach of the wizard. She fell, but not without taking a handful of the memory from which she was falling in her grasp.

Plunging through memories again Cecilia's mind fixed on one thing as a diminishing figure hopped around in fury. She could alter memories. When she found the horcrux she could destroy it.

88888888

From the swirling fog and mist two wizards appeared and a hush descended in the chamber. Slowly emerging from the dimness the wizards from all sides watched as Lucius Malfoy and Albus Dumbledore were revealed to them. The effect was as if to bring a fuzzy picture into focus using a camera lens and the factions paused in their own conflict and watched in various states of awe, horror or anticipation as the mighty sorcerers displayed their might before them.

Whispers between the wizards now sprang up as Dumbledore directed the Death Eater into the path of the others, his shots weak and his aim inaccurate. When the Death Eaters noticed this a murmur of contempt began, spurring on Malfoy to drive Dumbledore back towards the Aurors and Order (who were now essentially one).

"Voldermort sends a follower to fight me!" shouted Dumbledore, stepping slowly backwards under the rain of high-energy curses falling towards him like shooting stars, "for he fears to face the truth." His voice rang out through the chamber as the Death Eater drove him back. "He has too much fear!"

But it was patently obvious to those watching the duel that he was losing. The Head of the Order of the Phoenix forged a furrow in the group driven back by the might of Lucius Malfoy. From their ranks murmurs of uncertainty began to grow and, complementing this, laughter as the Death Eaters uttered their own undisguised contempt.

"The New World will be in his hands," hissed Malfoy as Dumbledore caused the Order to separate into two groups around them. "And he needs muggles to keep the cogs turning. I can't deny Dumbledore that they have their place, scurrying around like rats – present company accepted," he added, shooting a look at Wormtail's body behind him. And then he stopped advancing. This was mainly due to the fact that Dumbledore had stopped retreating. Other wizards, those from the Order and a couple of Aurors behind them flanked the wizard on both sides, wand arms raised, their wood pointed towards Lucius Malfoy. The Death Eater dropped his arm lazily and sneered, glancing around at the Order wizards.

"And now your company is assembled Dumbledore, I will have great pleasure in reducing your power to nothing in readiness for the Dark Lord himself. We shall watch you die. Every. Single. One of you!" Behind him a couple of the taller, stockier Death Eaters guffawed horribly, the noise echoing around the chamber, back and forth between the two enclosed walls between which the wizards were standing, several of them back to back defending the area territorially.

"Or. You will hand over the muggle, and you have the Dark Lord's word that the wizards assembled here and the children – " he strained towards the back of the group where Harry and the others were standing, several of the Order firmly in front of them will go free, " – so that you may provide him with at least a bit of a challenge."

"Mrs Frobisher is not here," replied Dumbledore evenly. "I believe you are in receipt of the Daily Prophet, Lucius. Mrs Frobisher was murdered by Dementors on the information of an underage wizard – " But Malfoy shook his head as a clatter and clash behind them caused many of the wizards to stare at the intrusion.

"Mrs Frobisher's alive!"

"Idiots!" shouted Bill Weasley as his twin brothers stumbled into the chamber. Fred and George looked around at those assembled, waiting for the news to be greeted with acclaim. Instead the Order were staring at them angrily while the Death Eaters hissed at the now-obvious lie that Dumbledore had clearly just told.

"She is here," concluded Lucius Malfoy, nodding with satisfaction as the twins were ushered towards the back of the Order to scoldings from both of their parents, "though I must admit that I had it on good authority before those two arrived. You have a traitor in your midst, Dumbledore."

"Prove it!" The shout came from the back of the Order and between a ripple of wizards moving out of the way Harry moved towards Malfoy, standing next to Dumbledore, his wand aloft.

"Harry," murmured Dumbledore warningly, but the young wizard ignored him.

"Prove it," he repeated, his tone firm and his wand aloft. "I want to know who you think is a traitor, Mr. Malfoy."

"Ooh!" called a female voice from behind Lucius Malfoy. "Proper polite, and everything." Bellatrix took a few steps towards them, pausing at her brother-in-law's right-hand side. "Why don't we prove it, eh brother?" She scanned the wizards before her, each of them eyeing her back with equal contempt as if proposing a suitable candidate. From Tabitha's position, stooping as she was near the body of Wormtail with Snape near the arch the scene looked not dissimilar to piranhas toying with their prey.

"Yes," nodded Harry, turning to glance at the Order. "Traitor. Step forward and show yourself."

Amongst the Order a ripple of communication occurred travelling like a wave over a calm ocean. Some jostling near the back made Harry hold his breath but, as he watched none of the two-dozen Order came forth to claim the title. He glanced at Dumbledore before looking back to Malfoy. As he did so a figure pushed past him and walked on, positioning themselves between Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange. A cackling filled the chamber borne from a single source. Bellatrix had thrown her head back in delight as the ripple of noise became sharper and more discordious.

"Shall I reveal to the poor fools in front of us what it was that you promised the Dark Lord?" Malfoy turned to the traitor at his side. Sirius Black shook his head, refusing to make eye contact with his godson as Harry stared at him in disbelief.

"I will." He stared past the Order, as if he was talking to a spot on the wall behind them. If any of the wizards before him had anything to say about Sirius's betrayal they were too dumbstruck to voice it. Instead Sirius's words were what bathed all present momentarily as he described the deal between himself and Voldermort.

"So you see, I had to let Cecilia Frobisher do this, for I cannot…or rather, I cannot and live." He looked at Dumbledore momentarily before glancing across to his godson. "It was for you, Harry, and only you. I will bring back your parents and you can live in peace…"

"No!" screamed Harry, his emotions over-riding his cool-ness and collectiveness as the realisation that his father figure had been standing in front of them all revealing dreadful deeds and motives. "You…you can't have done. You cannot have been with them!"

"Oh but he has you see." Lucius Malfoy's honeyed voice oozed around the chamber. "Ever since Dumbledore told you about the prophecies. The Dark Lord surmised there was a way back."

"Through my brother," confirmed Sirius.

"You see Dumbledore," Malfoy continued. "Blood is thicker than water. Sirius has merely clung onto what he holds most dear, that of his family. You underestimated what loneliness would do. The soul of our Lord can be pieced together thanks to pertinent and vital information in the way it couldn't last time and ironically…the muggle is going to do it for us."

In front of the two Death Eaters and their newly-revealed accomplice outrage and fury was shouted and screamed in no uncertain terms.

"You sent her to her death, for nothing, Sirius?" Harry's voice rose above the rest and pierced the air, his sentiment summing up exactly what each and every wizard in the Order was feeling.

"Not for nothing, Harry," Sirius sighed, like a child not explaining to a parent well enough the reason for their minor misdemeanour. "For you. To rid you of the curse that has been with you since birth. Her death will be nothing, for the boy who lived...for my friends who are to be resurrected…for my cousin…so she can remarry…"

"No!"

Nymphadora Tonks pushed past Dumbledore and stood, fists on hips, in front of her cousin. Her hatred for the other two of her family was clear in her stance and she stared at Sirius with a look of disbelief and fury.

"No." Tonks's voice dropped low and she focused her gaze on her cousin. "Don't tell me that…you don't mean to say…"

The grin on Sirius Black's face and the offhand nod was enough to say, well actually yes.

"I did it for you, Dora – " He turned sharply and looked at his aunt and uncle. "Bellatrix, it's gone now, hasn't it?" Delight played on the face of the witch as further realisation caused Tonks's face to crumple. Sirius in turn grinned heartily.

"The werewolf?" She nodded swiftly at Sirius. "It was a good job my dear brother-in-law here was wearing dragonskin under his robe the night it bit…" Bellatrix placed a delicate hand on Lucius Malfoy's shoulder and the wizard nodded in agreement, "…but nevertheless…it bit…and now it is…exterminated…" She took her hand and placed it onto her nephew's shoulder. "Dear Sirius…" she mused, "…always pretending family didn't matter."

"Evening, Bella," Sirius replied. "Killed many muggles tonight?"

"Not as many as you by the sounds of it – " she nodded her head towards the veil, " – yet."

"Why…?!" Harry screamed his protest at his godfather, the one person who he thought he could rely on for anything. "Sirius, why?"

"For him! My family! To save his family, what little I have left of it…" This time Sirius's cool demeanour about his defection was replaced with frustration, leaked out through high pressure. "Tonks was supposed to marry Lupin, not a pathetic muggle…but now Remus is free of this world, free of this humiliation! He will live again without the indignity of his condition, free of her and you, Harry, will be free too." He stooped a little to Harry's height and proffered a comforting hand towards him. Harry raised his wand defensively. "All you need to do is to take the potion, Harry, and all this…everything you've ever dreamed of will be true."

Turning quickly Sirius made a run in the direction of the archway. The Order and Death Eaters watched as he neared, grinning and leering towards it with glee. From his position behind it Severus Snape made a leap, like a cat, bringing the treacherous wizard to the floor, just missing Mad-Eye Moody, who clearly had the same idea. Instead, the elderly wizard continued his trajectory towards the archway and stared down, at the fluttering veil. Behind them the Order leaned towards the arch too, peering in their direction.

"Can you see her, Mad-Eye?" Arthur Weasley called out from the back of the crowd. "Is she really down there?"

"There's a rope," called back Moody. "And clouds."

"Is she down there?" repeated Snape, his gruff words made difficult by the struggling of his former adversary underneath him."

"She is…but I cannot see her, there are limits even to my genius, Snape!" But the wizard was not listening. Snape had turned his attention to Sirius who he had now let go, holding into only by the ankles.

"Sirius, you were supposed to go." Snape spoke his words loudly and firmly so that the revelation was not lost to those around them. "Your deal, at Christmastime, with Dumbledore." Sirius struggled to turn and look at Snape. From Tabitha's vantage point it looked as if he was trying to wriggle free.

"I couldn't lose her again…!"

As one, Order, Death Eaters, Aurors, Mysteriours and children stared at Sirius Black. What was he saying? What did he mean? It seemed that Snape knew, and he continued with the conversation.

"You kept her…?!"

"Everyone believed she is dead, but I kept her Snape, just as you say. I knew I needed her, and not just for the veil – " He watched his former adversary raise his wand in a familiar gesture following the tip with his eyes. Behind him Lucius Malfoy snorted at the scene as their former ally stepped towards their newest.

Just as Tabitha, the Death Eaters and the Order and even Snape himself thought that he was about to attack Sirius Black Dumbledore moved. It was almost un-noticed to those further away from them that he extended his hand and looked between the two wizards advance.

"Severus. He's not one of them." He moved his hand towards Snape's intended victim and looked at the wizard. "Sirius. Rejoin us."

Slowly, Sirius Black turned to look back at Dumbledore. He was the wizard who had been his headmaster, who had vouched for him at his trial and who was now simultaneously his leader and his enemy.

And then time let its guard down and allowed its relativistic nature to be revealed to anyone who cared to look. Relativity, so Einstein once explained, was what made spending an hour with a beautiful woman feel like a minute and what made sitting on a hot stove for a minute feel like an hour.

It was the latter analogy which was pertinent to the situation now. The scene played out seemed slow-moving and lethargic, as if it was taking hours. Sirius took a lazy look at Snape before making a move towards Dumbledore. At the same time Malfoy raised his wand, replacing Snape as the aggressor. Behind Dumbledore and Sirius the Order angled their wands and behind Malfoy the Death Eaters lifted both wands and guns.

In reality though the outbreak of the heart of the battle took mere seconds. Ceasefire seceded out-and-out battle as both sides of wizards launched attacks simultaneously, the best of the best of both factions pitted against one another. At the back of the Order's number no longer were the children being shielded from the battle as everything it had was concentrated on challenging the enemy.

"Come on!" Fred and George were harried by Harry, who had returned to the back of the Order into joining them, as they too fought the Death Eaters. The twins looked at one another for a split second as if they hadn't heard their brother's friend but soon stepped side-by-side of Harry, Ron and Hermione, who were further forward at the right-hand side of the group, leaving Neville and Luna to defend from the left at the rear.

"You take this end," cried Harry as he deflected a couple of bullets from an inept Death Eater who had foolishly chosen to angle the barrel of his gun towards the ceiling. To his right, Ron glanced at him worriedly, exchanging glances with Hermione.

"Where're you going?" he called.

"Snape." Before them, the ex-Death Eater, Potions Master and covert Order member seemed to be losing a small battle in which he was engaged between two Death Eaters. He looked to be speaking to them but from the children's position about what Harry could not hear.

"He can handle it!" shouted back Hermione. "We need you here!"

"And I need the potion!" Harry shouted back. "Otherwise we'll just be at stalemate!"

You won't take it.

A voice in Harry's head appeared as if he had thought it himself. He shook it away, defending his transcendence across the dark, hard floor. Next to his Potions Master he fought shoulder-to-shoulder, his effort contributing to the decline of the second Death Eater who had had the misfortune to challenge Snape to a duel wand-to-gun.

"And what can I do for you, Potter?" From his lips the words curled pungently as he lay in a few good blows to the defeated Death Eater, who sank to his knees before him.

"The potion. Please, Professor. Can you give it to me now?"

Without questioning, without biting bitterness or caustic sarcasm Snape reached into his robe with his left hand and within seconds the wizard had extracted two small, gothic-shaped vials.

"Take care, Harry," he replied as he gave the vials over to Harry, pressing them deep into his hand. "These are all I have. Good luck."

Seconds later, Snape had turned stiffly from Harry and was fighting his third Death Eater, deftly aiming spells to disarm his adversary. Harry turned, pocketing the match and base potions in his trouser pocket before withdrawing to the area in which his friends were fighting. A Death Eater lay before them, seemingly unconscious.

"Congratulations," commented Harry approvingly. "How did you manage that?"

"The idiot kept on shouting how guns were going to kill us all," Fred replied, his voice light with mirth.

"But then he turned it round and pointed it at himself." George gestured towards his wand towards the Death Eater's head. "Shot off his own ear."

"Then Hermione immobilus'd him," added Ron, grinning in his friend's direction.

"Well, let's hope they're all that stupid. I don't think Bellatrix Lestrange or Draco's father are going to be that easy to defeat."

"No, indeed," commented Hermione, looking towards the centre of the battle as Dumbledore had once again taken up wand against Lucius Malfoy who had himself seemingly shunned the idea of muggle guns.

"Got the potion?" asked Ron as a group of Death Eaters looked in their direction.

"Here." Harry tapped his pocket.

"Well, you'd better take it," continued Ron, eyeing the approaching wizards. "Voldermort'll be here soon." Harry looked at his friend, about to agree with him and reach for the base potion vial but he hesitated, shaking his head.

"Why?" asked Ron, levelling his wand. Harry did so too and stood between him and Hermione.

"Not yet. It's only when Mrs Frobisher's done what Sirius sent her to do that he'll return to full power. If I take it too soon, he'll be here, it'll be like a trigger – " he cast a wordless "Expelliarmus" spell in the direction of the two short Death Eaters who dodged it easily.

"Yes," replied Hermione. "He'll be here…he'll be whole…you'll be able to defeat him…"

"Voldermort will never win." Dumbledore shook his head in the direction of Snape while he continued to fight Lucius Malfoy as the wizard attempted to engage the Death Eater with the Head of the Order of the Phoenix. Whether it was to do with his damaged wand or if instead he meant to glance in the direction of the archway and to where a figure upon whom another Death Eater was advancing, Snape was not sure. He decided to pursue to latter.

"If you say so." The ex-Death Eater heard Malfoy laugh as he retreated, ducking low as a round of volley fire from a second Death Eater break up some of the Mysteries in the first corridor. A flock of bats erupted from one and from another, a casket, black liquid oozed. Had he, or any of the Order noticed, he (or indeed they) would have seen that some of the Death Eaters appeared to be discarding their weapons, those not engaging in on the front line with the slowly-diminishing number of Order members disappearing too. Had they (or he) looked longer, they would have seen that they had appeared in the ante-chamber, the corridor through which Tabitha had once taken the wizard to show him the arch, the main way from her office to the veil and in which most of the mysteries were stored. Snape did, however, move past Sirius Black, taking the opportunity to stupefy him mildly as he went.

"Snape! He was on our side!"

"I know, Moody. Duck!"

In response to the bearing down of one of the Death Eaters who had not vanished she began to shuffle back towards the archway as the wizard concentrated not on her but on destroying the mysteries on the shelves behind her.

"No!" Tabitha shrieked. "Not the mysteries…!"

By the time Snape had made his way over to Tabitha he found her balled up to one side of the archway. In a manner unprecedented Snape reached down her arm and extracted her hand which she unresistingly gave him. The rest of the ball of witch uncurled and Snape was a little taken aback to see the distress on her face.

"What, Miss Penwright?" His voice was soft and steady, compelling Tabitha to no longer keep the secret that she had fought to conceal from him since she had brought him into the Room of Artefacts.

"…the mysteries, " she sighed, "…I am…broken. Because they are gone, I am useless…"

"Yes you are, aren't you?" asked Snape, his tone contrasting with his choice of words. "Now…take me to the Mysteriour who solved the Veil..."

Tabitha smiled at him, confidence welling in her stomach as she felt something strange happen. She felt energised, as if her body was filling with muggle electricity…

…but all her mind had gone blank as around them, the prophecies in the far-off corridor fell to the floor, Death Eaters destroying them in whatever way they could, but to her ears the destruction sounded like beautiful music as Snape reached up and stroked her hair…

…drew her to her knees as he knelt to her level…pulled her towards him…kissed her…

He broke off as suddenly as he had started and shocked Tabitha smiled back at him.

"Rest," he murmured as he leaned her against the back of one of the archway. "I have no doubt you will know what to do very soon."

From the floor Tabitha took her own wand, still embarrassingly fresh-looking for something which was eighteen years old, and replaced the one in Snape's hand with it.

"Go," she urged. "Do your duty."

Moments later Snape was using the surprisingly dynamic wand to defend the students who seemed to have already had a rough time of it in the face of the Carrows, who had, it seemed, injured Hermione and were dividing the small group into ever smaller ones.

"Mr Potter, you should now be considering taking that potion." With ease Snape drove back the Death Eaters towards the original area in which the original Death Eater groups had stood allowing Harry the opportunity to assist.

"I know…but right now Professor, it doesn't seem quite the right time…"

Snape drove the Carrows further back, immobilising Alecto and bearing down on Amycus. As they passed by the veil Harry stopped, turning to face the flickering ragged material.

"Potter! Come away!"

"Where are you, Mrs Frobisher?" The veil flicked beguilingly…hypnotically. The noises from behind it seemed to be telling him something but…what was it?

"Harry!" The shrill voice of Mrs Weasley penetrated to Harry's consciousness but he remained fixed to the spot, standing still with his hands to one side. He closed his eyes.

Harry Potter…

Just as his name appeared as a voice in his mind an explosion behind him made Harry turn suddenly and he watched as the golden cloud of debris and energy coalesced into…

"The Dark Lord!"

…Voldermort.

88888888

….down…down…through endless memories Cecilia fell. Around her the ghosts of events that had long since come to pass sped past her like advertising posters on an underground tunnel. Cecilia didn't know how long it had taken for her falling to feel like nothing but when she realised that images were not passing before her eyes she looked around.

Nothingness still surrounded her as she looked from right to left and it was only when she raised her left hand that she realised from the stolen strands of her last memory a tendril had sprung a shoot attaching itself to no less than two memories. She was no longer falling. She was attached to memories.

Under her grip the tendril felt firm and tentatively Cecilia pulled upon it. It didn't give way, far from it. Unlike the stem which had betrayed her at the start this seemed firm and secure and she pulled herself along it as the tendons of her upper left began to pull tortuously. She mustn't let go, this Cecilia knew, not to the strands and she gritted her teeth as her shoulders bore her bodyweight until she was able to pull herself up onto the memory. And then she loosed the chunk of memory-cloud that she had torn from the memory of Joseph Black and the Wizengamot, which flew from her hand into the space and was immediately surrounded by several other clouds each attached to others. They jostled with one another, some floating away and some pressing on as if a proto-consciousness within each one was determining the value of attaching to the small memory that Cecilia had held.

Cecilia lay back and looked above her. As far up as she could see (and as far as she could determine that way was "up") there seemed to be a small dot of light. Could this be the veil, she wondered. Could that be the way back to her world, and the people she knew? But she hadn't completed what she promised to do: there was no point speculating about whether that was the way home until she had found the Horcrux and destroyed it.

Surely it was only a matter of trial and error. If she could find a memory of Sirius she could probably find another where he was communicating with his brother. And once she had found Regulus she would be able to find it. The part of Voldermort's soul that Regulus had abducted and put beyond detection. She must destroy it.

Ignoring the muscular ache in her shoulders Cecilia turned over and felt the memory with her hands. She might as well start somewhere and this on was as good a memory-cloud as any other. Soft, like the first two she had encountered, the memory had the texture of warm candyfloss…

…she stuck in her head…

…and was surprised to see a wizard kneeling on the rug in front of a fireplace, his head stuck right in the hearth. Cecilia was even more surprised to see someone she knew. Sirius Black was talking to the back of the fireplace but to whom he was addressing Cecilia couldn't be sure. She moved slowly towards Sirius, looking at him and waiting for him to turn round. But he didn't. Instead he continued to talk to the hearth.

"…I walk through this funny little world of yours and I don't notice it, not many wizards do…we're too strong…but you make me weak…"

Cecilia stopped in her progress towards him, struck by the tenderness of his words. Who was he speaking to? And were they replying?

Before she could speculate or even wait to see what happened next Cecilia felt herself jerk to the right and she began to move, just like she had done from the first memory. The scene dimmed and faded and Cecilia felt as if she was rushing sideways towards an unknown destination. She had barely enough time to gather her senses when the atmosphere of this memory made her freeze and look around her. Rain was pouring all around her, or so it seemed and terror began to well in Cecilia's stomach as a storm blew open a window behind her and a crack of lightning illuminated the room.

In the far corner a bed and in the bed a person. Cecilia stared back at the person and she realised that it was a child, pyjama-clad and staring right back at her. She made to speak but no sound came out except for a brief whimper as another crack of lightning punctuated the pouring of the rain.

"Y...you…" The child began to near Cecilia and as it approached she could see it was a boy of only about seven or eight who was wandering towards her holding a book.

"Me?" Cecilia managed, stooping automatically to the boy's height but he continued to stare in the spot where Cecilia had been standing. He wasn't looking at her but someone behind her.

Something.

For when Cecilia turned she looked into the face of something she recognised. She opened her mouth to scream and run but neither of these things happened. The werewolf stepped to one side and narrowed its red eyes.

"You," the boy repeated. "You've come for the book. But you shan't have it."

And then Cecilia recognised where she was. Remus had taken her back through his memories several times to when he and his family lived in a house not far from Oxford. She recognised the room…

…fair-haired boy…book…werewolf…

…pieces of the jigsaw began to fall into place…

"Remus!" Cecilia screamed at the boy. "Give him the book! It won't mean anything to him!" But the boy just continued to stare at the werewolf, clutching the large leather-bound tome tightly to his chest. Fenrir Greyback, in his lupine form, howled.

From behind the door and further away in the house Cecilia heard footsteps. Remus's father coming to protect him. But it would all be too late…too late to save him from being bitten…

Cecilia launched herself at the werewolf. Not that it was ever going to do that much good but it so happened to be just at the moment when the creature decided to attack. It had not banked on a force winding it in the stomach as it went for its prey and Cecilia's blow caused both of them to fall towards the window. The werewolf howled again out of anger now rather than to cause fear in its victim and it thrashed around on its back as its assailant found herself somersaulting out of the bedroom window and into the dark and stormy –

– Cecilia looked up and saw another memory-cloud. For a good few minutes she watched it swirl as she came to terms with what she had just seen and what she had just done. Had that really been her Remus? And had she really attacked Fenrir Greyback? Had it been enough to prevent him from biting him?

She barely had time to think when she felt herself sinking. This memory felt like thick blancmange-like custard and Cecilia began to writhe in it which did not do anything at all to help her other than to make her sink faster. She held her breath as her face approached the misty mass and waited for the thing to either reveal another memory here or otherwise suffocate her as it dragged her beneath. It didn't take long before the former happened and Cecilia was amazed to find that the inside of this memory was now the consistency of cool dense air, of the same ilk as the atmosphere you find on a cold day.

Cecilia was staring down into a Hogwarts classroom. It looked to be the Potions classroom from the look of the shelves stacked to one side containing all manner of eyes of newt. The fireplace was the same too, a wide, undulating spray of marble. There was no-one in the room and nothing else from which she could discern anything of note.

Just as she considered that whatever was compelling her to select memories for her had got it wrong Cecilia watched the door open, one which, she noticed, had not changed in the intervening period between then and now. It certainly reverberated in the same way that it had done less than six months before when Cecilia had stormed out of the classroom on more than one occasion through her frustration with Snape. This time the young wizard waited for it to vibrate to silence before locking it magically with a short sharp spell.

If this didn't have her attention immediately then the fact that the wizard strutted over to the teacher's desk at the back of the classroom, lazily leafing through the contents of the pots and parchments definitely did: Cecilia felt a teacherly urge to scold this young whippersnapper for his audacity…

"…Tom…" A muffled voice called the name of the student through the door, the sound muffled by the thick wood of the door. Cecilia looked at it before staring back at the student, who had not been alerted to the call from beyond the door and continued to leaf through some more parchments that he had pulled out from the desk drawer.

"Tom!"

"Go away, I'm working!"

That seemed to work, for his name was not shouted through the door again and Cecilia watched the young wizard casually leaf through a book which he had found on the floor next to the desk.

"Aah!" The student yelled in frustration at the book after he had looked through it, throwing it violently towards the classroom door and, in its downward trajectory, using his wand cast a few balls of sparks at it, incinerating it to ash, which drifted down like tiny feathers onto the flagstones. Cecilia felt a bolt of annoyance at the destruction of knowledge and stared angrily at the student as he began to pace round the classroom seemingly at random, pulling other books from the shelf and tossing them onto the floor.

Cecilia allowed herself to drop into the memory. Above her the tendril would be able to be reached if she were to just climb onto the desk and she put to the back of her mind her previous interactions with the content of the cloudy reminiscence. Halfway down though Cecilia stopped, holding the tendril between her knees as the wizard called Tom brought over his books to the teacher's desk and threw them unceremoniously onto the thick oak top.

"…Hoffen curse… hog teeth…Holy Island leeches…" Cecilia waited, suspended above the student who was reading aloud from the book, and crinkled up her nose and eyes so she could see what was on the page. Though she couldn't read the small text that Tom was, she could however, read the title of the book that was inscribed in clear quill-pen by the author. She read it again, just to be sure.

"…Homeric Trojan beetles…Hoole's Law…hoopla charm…"

Authorised Auld Magic.

The student below her seemed oblivious to Cecilia reading the book over her shoulder and he continued to read aloud what seemed to be titles of spells within the book as he searched for something.

"…Hopkirk Bead…Hoppers…"

Both Cecilia and the student Tom seemed to notice the burn mark in the page at the same time. Cecilia bit her lip to stop her from calling out but it didn't matter because Tom cursed loudly at the sight.

"Merlin's arse!" This book was cast onto the floor in the student's rage but, unlike the hapless book earlier it was not incinerated. Instead, Tom picked it back up as it sparked a little under his hand as he thrust it onto the desk again. Flicking back to the pages he had been looking through moments before Tom ran through his list again before coming upon this section, seemingly burned through.

"Biblioinflamore," whispered Cecilia under her breath and she recalled a time when Remus had told her that it had been discovered, during the 1980s. Before this, it was always assumed such destruction had been caused wantonly.

"…I will find you…" Raising his wand aloft Tom angled it towards the bookshelf. "Accio 'horcrux'!"

For a moment, Cecilia was taken aback as she watched a shelf of books explode their contents onto the floor and a thin parchment unravel itself, zooming in the direction of the outstretched wand.

Horcrux. Someone was searching for a spell for a horcrux…

…there was only one person that could be…

"Slughorn, I knew you'd never destroy it." Cecilia tried to dip lower so she could read the A4-sized parchment that Tom (Cecilia could only assume "Riddle") had in his hand. "Now, all I have to do is – "

"Tom Riddle." Cecilia realised that she had said his name out loud. The hope that in this memory she was merely a bystander evaporated before her as the young wizard who would one day become the most terrible, feared wizard, looked at her.

"Who are you?"

Cecilia paused. Her will to tell him the truth began to turn into a reality as her name travelled up through her throat. She swallowed defensively and forced a smile.

"A new teacher to the school."

"Yes?" He continued to stare at her, Cecilia Frobisher, suspended by a tendril above him, seemingly hanging above him in the Potions' classroom. "The Headmaster never mentioned it."

"Professor Dumbledore only made the appointment today." It was here that Cecilia realised she had slipped up. As Tom Riddle frowned at her a little she repeated the name of the headmaster of Hogwarts during this student's day. She had even spoken to Professor Dippet, and he had provided her with valuable information towards her research into the Universal Link.

"You're no teacher."

"No?"

Cecilia felt herself grip the tendril a little tighter. She would need it, she was sure, to leave this memory very soon.

"You're an angel." She tried not to laugh at Tom Riddle, the student below her who had searched for one of the most potent spells known and used it in a way no wizard had done before.

"An angel?!" Cecilia repeated. "You believe me to be an – "

…Cecilia…we're here…

"Yes, an angel. I read the Auld Magic…" Tom continued to stare at her as she glanced past the young wizard, trying to work out where the words in her mind had come from.

"And that means that…"

"I never believed it." The young Riddle began to pace round Cecilia. "That if I read the Auld Magic that an angel would appear. It sounds like a story, something from "Mythology"." It certainly does, thought Cecilia. "But, there you are."

"What are you looking for in my book?" The reality that Tom Riddle was buying into seemed to be an easy mantle to wear. He glanced at her uncertainly for a moment before proceeding to leaf through the book.

"So you admit it," he continued. "You are an angel." Cecilia nodded, and descended a little lower.

"What is it you want from life, Tom?" She watched as he jerked his head on hearing his name, staring at her intently.

"Power. And never to die."

"And my spell will help you, will it?"

…Cecilia…look for us…

"Of course. What I intend to do will bring me everything I desire. It will bring me immortality. It will bring me overwhelming supremacy – "

…Cecilia…

She looked over her shoulder, the words sounding as if they were coming from above her and she stared back at the grey fluffiness which encapsulated the memory but her attention was brought back to what Tom Riddle was doing in the memory which had caused the room to illuminate like a flash of lightning. Once the smoke from the epicentre of the spell had cleared Cecilia gasped in horror at the agonised, open-mouthed expression on the young student's face.

…Cecilia…find me…

As Cecilia wondered what to do next, above her another tendril dropped down and, without climbing herself she was pulled up, towards the ceiling of the Potions' classroom and the cloud above…

…above towards where she could hear the voices calling her more clearly now…

And once she was through the interface between inner memory and outer she heard her name, clear and strong over her shoulder.

…Cecilia…can you hear me…?

Tim. That was Tim's voice. She looked around her in search of her dead husband but all that was there, from the few feet before her to as far as she could see were memory-clouds, of different shapes and sizes.

"Tim?"

"We can be happy again…come here…" The voice was definitely coming from before her and, as she looked on a memory-cloud sidled into view. From its vicinity she heard Tim's voice again. "We can be happy again…"

Cecilia stepped forward, stepping onto nothing and swinging herself forward with the tendril. Tim had called her. She obviously needed to go there next. Tim needed her…so she needed Tim.

As she swung nearer to the memory she let go of the tendril and looked down, waiting to see her husband again, impeded by Death Eaters through exposure on Scafell Pike and dying consequentially from pneumonia. But, while she did see the face of Tim Frobisher again it was all too fleeting and she fell through another memory that seemed to be sandwiched to the bottom of the memory, and then another, all passing before her eyes all too quickly.

"…Cec! My best friend! It's me, Libby…"

A tendril, small but visible, peeked over the edge of a subsequent memory and Cecilia allowed herself to dwell in a memory that contained something of her murdered, pregnant friend. The voice reverberated in her mind and she saw her face but Libby could not see Cecilia, hanging onto the tendril adjacent to her, waving and calling.

Come back to us. Just let go…and we can go home…

This time her friend seemed to see Cecilia but did not speak the words. Instead they appeared in her mind as they had done before and a strong feeling in her mind told her that she must hang onto the tendril and allow these memories to pass her by.

Fight it, she told herself. These are not real! They are going to make you forget your purpose here. The tendril took her further down, heart-cripplingly fast away from her friend and she flicked through another couple of cloud-memories before slowing as she heard the name she was always called by her best friend when she was at school.

Duracell!

Others tried it, but only Libby could get away with it. Below her she saw her school, and her friend, in blazer and tie, skirt rolled up at the waist-band to half-thigh length and crimped hair. It was her old life…that was the path she could take…back at school…with her friend…before this happened…

A path she could take…one which she could choose…she could see her friends and family again…

Cecilia turned sharply and descended down. This time her rate of fall slowed dramatically and she saw the confines of the memory cloud into which she was descending. Before her, a wizard. He was unmistakably so. And, unmistakably, she was at Grimmauld Place.

She watched as the wizard looked to his right to the doorway which, Cecilia knew, led into the living room of the house. He seemed to be nursing something in his hands as he sat on a chair close to the door and looked between it and the door. As she drew closer, she realised the wizard was whispering to someone.

Not just someone. The house elf was talking back to the wizard, his tone soothing. The wizard looked back towards him before gazing down at the –

"…I have it, Kreacher…" The wizard held up what looked like a large brooch for the elf's approval and the house elf's eyes shone in wonder.

Cecilia stared. Just when she had been busy deducing that this wizard was Sirius he had, in one act, shown himself to be his brother.

"There is one more for him to find…" The light from the candles overhead reflected off the facets of the brooch and the elf looked at it hypnotically. "He will search…but he will never find it…"

Regulus Black got to his feet and held the brooch, containing what Cecilia could only deduce contained the lost horcrux, out at arm's length.

"Master?" The house-elf's expression had changed from softly cajoling to one of fear. He waited for Regulus Black to do or say something and the wizard conveniently obliged. He withdrew his wand and pointed it towards the brooch. This was it…the horcrux…it had to be destroyed. She had to get hold of it to remove it from the memory. And by the look of it she would have to act fast as Regulus was about to cast a spell upon it.

"Regulus," she whispered, hoping in this memory she could talk to Sirius's brother, perhaps persuade him to hand over the horcrux to her. "Regulus…" Cecilia whispered louder. But it seemed that neither the house elf nor the wizard had heard her.

"Bood…blood into a vial…power in the blood…do you know what this contains, Kreacher?" The terrified elf shook his head rapidly, holding onto his filthy pillowcase shoulder straps before wringing his hands anxiously.

"This horcrux contains the blood of the most wizardly wizard from the line back to the first wizard. It also contains the soul of Lord Voldermort. Oh, I so wish that my brother were here to see me do this. And now Kreacher, I am going to put it beyond his reach." Regulus raised his wand again, and the scream that Cecilia gave would surely have alerted the players in this memory if it was going to. Instead she threw herself forward, in between the spell and the brooch. Out of the wizard's hand the brooch flipped as Cecilia knocked it out of his hand, the jewellery piece clattering onto the parquet floor.

Before either the wizard or the elf could retrieve it Cecilia took the brooch, cramming it into her pocket before jumping for the ascending tendril. She just made it, and painfully dragged herself higher as Regulus Black and Kreacher searched on the floor of Number Twelve for the brooch that had just been there. Cecilia hugged the tendril gratefully as she allowed it to pull her up. For a few moments she hugged it, letting the reality of the situation rest in her mind while, at the same time she tried to work out how she should get back to the veil and into the room from which she had gone behind it.

She looked down, and saw what looked like her original rope. No tendrils now sprung from memories: clearly in some way the memories knew she had been successful in her quest. The only way to reach it then was to use the memories and hope they were dense enough to bear her as she sought the rope, and shoulders aching and burning in their sockets she trod tentatively on a passing memory-cloud.

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"Come on, Harry!" Hermione's shriek brought attention to the fact that his friends, Fred and George, and Neville and Luna, were frantically beckoning him towards the antechamber. Ducking under a few spells he ran towards them, to be greeted with arms on his biceps as they pulled him out of the way of the battle that was going on. It didn't look good. Only about half of the Order remained now and only one of the original Aurors who Umbridge had summoned to capture them. Not that there was much now for them to defend: the chamber, archway and artefacts seemed to resemble ancient Greece or Rome, with the ravages of war causing the damage on the former that the ravages of time had caused on the latter. The Death Eaters had long run out of guns and other muggle weapons but this didn't matter. On the appearance of their Lord the Death Eaters reverted to their weapons of choice – wizard wands.

Behind a large sarcophagus in the antechamber the children stood, huddled together as horrific battle raged before them.

"This is rough," commented Neville, shaking his head sadly. "I hate to say it but, we're going down."

"Sirius isn't on their side then?" asked Ron, bemused.

"No Ron," replied Hermione with uncharacteristic patience. "He just made believe to them that he was." Harry looked out onto the scene and his mind drifted to the potion. He had both the base and the mach to take and he knew that if he was to actually do any good, regardless of whether Mrs Frobisher was successful he would have to take both potions and challenge Lord Voldermort.

"Do you think Dumbledore knew about this?" Harry looked at Fred and George, the only two Order members there. At this late stage it didn't matter, surely, whether they told him.

"Yes…" nodded George.

"…and no," added Fred. Clearly they subscribed to this idea of information sharing, too.

"There were to be sacrifices…" continued George.

"…for the greater good," clarified Fred.

For the greater good…

Those were the words that he knew Remus Lupin had spoken to Sirius when he had attacked Cecilia with the CVeritaserum all those months ago and what Dumbledore had mentioned when he had discussed with him about taking the potion and what the prophecies meant. He looked the scene.

"So, in the words of Mrs Frobisher, the ministry Aurors and some of the Order are Coventry and Voldermort's Death Eaters are the Luftwaffe." Ron's comment provoked a spark Harry's memory banks and he recalled a muggle studies lesson…

…the muggle Prime Minister had known that, during the Second World War the city was a target for the Germans but, if it was warned the citizens of Coventry to evacuate an even bigger prize, interpretation of vital covert communications, would be lost. And so, probably, would the War hve been.

Coventry.

Dumbledore could have come to them sooner, Harry thought…so what was the bigger prize…he watched as Snape turned to fight another Death Eater from the dozens that had poured into the chamber, before engaging another two who had turned unexpectedly and seen their ex-compatriot.

"Harry…"

But the prize was the defeat of Voldermort. So he was the Normandy Landings.

"Harry…!" He turned to look at his friends. Their faces were filled with worry and fear and he tried to smile as best as he could in order to calm them. Then, he reached into the pocket into which he had stowed the potions, gesturing for his best friend to hold out his palm. Picking up the base, Harry knocked it straight back, trying not to gag on the foul contents. His second, the match, was altogether much more palatable and while still vile, he managed not to spray it all over his watchful friends.

"Here goes," he said, withdrawing his wand. "Wish me luck."

"We wish you…to take care," whispered Hermione, who hugged him tightly, the tears in her eyes erupting quietly as she stepped away. Fred and George gave him a hearty (and vigorous) thump on the back before Harry looked at Neville, who shook his hand.

"Go for it, Harry," he said, dropping his hand almost as soon as he had taken it. The hand in his grasp was almost immediately replaced by that of Luna, who also shook his hand and told him to watch out for the Snorkacks. Then he turned to Ron. His friend stood there, a paradigm of calmness and composure but Harry knew different. He knew if it had been Ron and he were the one saying goodbye, probably for the last time, he would have tailored his demeanour in a similar way.

"See you, Ron," he said, taking a few steps back. It was cruel, he knew, not to leave his friend with anything more intimate but he hoped that Ron would, in time, realised that he had done it to spare his feelings.

"He's done it." Ron turned to Neville who had voiced the accurately-observed scene.

"It seems so." Fred and George's unison was the only thing that echoed in the ears of the young witches and wizards and each looked out onto the scene, where Harry was approaching Snape and Sirius, who were back-to-back, fighting four Death Eaters between them.

"Shall we join them?"

Rather than reply, each of the children looked at one another before withdrawing their wands defensively and striding after Harry.

"You knew, didn't you?" Harry heard his godfather shout these words to Snape as he passed by them, seeking a bolt-hole while he crept up on Voldermort, who was engaged in violent combat with Dumbledore.

Snape said nothing: he didn't need to. He was probably the best person to know Sirius because of their hostile past. It was typical of the wizard to take his friend's side, and it was typical for him to revert to his roots. Sirius had acted on principle in an honest way like Snape would have acted through cold logic and reason.

"But you didn't know about Cecilia?" And Sirius knew him too, and how to torment him. "You loved her?" Here was the knife, metaphorically speaking.

"After a fashion," conceded Snape as he ducked a curse from one of the Death Eaters. "Appreciative love. Closeness, Sirius."

"So this is it then?"

"We have to trust in her." Snape's voice was cold and plain with no edge of comfort in it. Not that Sirius expected it, but he had hoped for a time.

"It's all my fault, Severus. I should have been down there."

"You did what you thought was right, Black – " he ducked and blocked the flash above his head, " – in the same way that you did when you brought back Petunia Evans…from your brother's clutches."

"How did you know about that?" Sirius sounded genuinely shocked as Snape revealed knowledge of a secret buried deep down and long ago.

"She went with him voluntarily…she'd known him for about six months…" Sirius's mouth fell open and he was nearly caught by a bolt from one of his Death Eaters. "She was expecting Regulus's child."

"She was what…?" A couple of bolts himself and the other of his Death Eaters were down and he risked turning his head towards Snape. The wizard's face was impassive and he looked past Sirius at the immediate threat that was facing him.

"It's not only you who makes mistakes," Sirius heard Snape say as he fended off a volley of sparks.

"Regulus was the king of making mistakes!" He exclaimed.

"I was talking about myself. It takes a special person to see where help lies, even when it is packaged in a questionable form." Knocking down his second Death Eater Sirius turned; the look on his face was one of horror. Over his shoulder Snape deflected a bolt.

"Despite your best efforts Sirius, I managed to turn my heart towards another. It was not to be…just…watch it…" he added, deflecting another as one of the Carrows saw that Sirius was undefended. "I was happy enough to offer her my friendship when she needed me and I was grateful that she returned the gesture."

"Returned the gesture?"

"At a time when I felt my will was low, and my allegiance to Dumbledore had waned." Sirius shook his head so as to consider the information Snape was giving him. A childish jelly-legs jinx surprised Amycus Carrow, leaving Sirius in a position to finish her off.

"…and I treated her so – " they wheeled around, still back-to-back, defending a corner of the room where the Weasley twins were duelling with a pair of Death Eaters.

"Like you always treat people you don't understand. I'm heartened that you recognise your failing, Black. It is from here change can spring – thanks…" He ducked as Sirius blasted a Death Eater to Snape's left.

"Petunia Evans was expecting Regulus's child…he was so much younger than her…"

"Sixteen," said Snape. "And she had come all the way to Hogwarts for her sister."

"But the child's dead though?"

"Why do you say that?"

Behind them a figure crossed across the back of the archway. Tabitha had been almost completely shielded from the battle that was now in full swing, which had given her a chance to consider a plan of action. She looked up into the eyes of her friend, who stooped down to her level and took her hand.

"Vin…"

"Tabitha…how are you…?"

"Fine." She got to her knees and he pulled out by the elbow. Around her the casualties of war lay, in various states of injury ranging from stunned to dead and there was not much to tell between them. Tabitha shook her head before looking imploringly at her friend and colleague. If anyone would understand it would be Vincento.

"Vin! Come on! We have to do something!" Her shrill shriek was winded out of her as Vincento, the Mysterious gripped her elbow and pushed her down, standing again over Tabitha.

"He needed me for the mystery," said Vincento, his voice matter-of-fact and distant. "How do you think I got them here?" Tabitha watched in horror as Vincento stood over her, his wand pointed towards her face. Then he followed her eyes. Hermione Granger was standing next to him.

"Move!" Hermione demanded. "Now." But Vincento did not move. Instead the bolt that Tabitha was to have received hit Hermione full in the chest, sending her careering backwards, hitting the stone wall of the chamber.

"Expelliarmus!" screamed Ron, pushing a Death Eater out of the way and he hurried to Hermione's side before pointing it at the Mysteriour.

"I will!"

"Do not…"

"I don't need to!" Ron's voice was one of triumph and he stabbed his wand in the direction of Harry who was now, with Dumbledore, engaging Voldermort. But Vincento didn't turn. Instead he narrowed his eyes.

"Expelliarmus! Immobilus!" Ron had the presence of mind to hit the floor as a volley of spell-fire rebounded off the wall, disarming and immobilising a Death Eater. Then Ron aimed a spell at Vincento, who was now fighting him. But it wasn't happening fast enough. Tabitha looked in the direction of the veil. She needed help.

With as much strength as she could muster Tabitha ran towards the veil. No-one understood this artefact like her. No-one was as good. As she approached, she heard a cackle behind her but Tabitha ignored it and, stooping low, caught hold of the anchor rope on which the muggle Cecilia Frobisher would ascend.

But the cackling continued and all at once Bellatrix Lestrange and Narcissa Malfoy stood over the Mysteriour like malevolent vultures as she reached for the rope. Tabitha Penwright ignored them and instead looked past them and at the battle which was now taking place between Harry Potter and Lord Voldermort upon the field of devastation which the chamber had become.

Before either of the witches could say and do anything however a crack of green light like a flash of a camera illuminated the scene. All those who were fighting stopped and gaped at the scene.

That sounded like the Avada Kedavra curse thought Tabitha grimly as she focused her mind on the rope and the muggle who should now have been ascending up it. Behind her running feet and shrieks echoed around the now-still chamber. Instead of looking round Tabitha was fixed on the veil, willing with her extraordinary power that Cecilia Frobisher would emerge soon and she leaned further over the edge of the archway. If she had cared to have looked however Tabitha would have seen what everyone else was seeing: Voldermort standing over the body of Harry Potter.

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Cecilia was no longer climbing through the cloud-memories. She had been careful to select memories which were larger; from experience Cecilia knew they were denser because they contained more substance. By following this rule thumb she had managed to reach the rope, which automatically began to descend as she held onto it.

Down was not the way she needed to go but it didn't seem to matter because the light above her which Cecilia had presumed was the exit back to the chamber was coming towards her. She didn't care: Cecilia had what she needed, the brooch from Regulus which contained the horcrux. Nothing else mattered. She closed her eyes.

And then opened them when she realised the rope was now being hauled towards the light, which was rapidly now becoming quicker.

"Hello? What have you caught there, Perce? A stunning specimen, if I'm humbly to judge." It took a few moments for the faces of those surrounding her to sink in. She recognised them all, though never in Auror robes. The man called Perce helped her onto the dark, hard floor next to the archway and, as he did so, a voice of alarm caused Cecilia to shake, her scream muffled by the closing of her throat. The man who stood there, who had addressed the first wizard as Perce was someone she certainly did recognise.

The voice belonged to Lucius Malfoy.

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A/N: So…what do you think?