"My little Aethelflaed," Mary said with a wistful sigh as she watched her daughter sit on the dunes with her pygmy puff, nearly hidden by sea grass, eyes trained beyond the sea.

The relocation to the warmer climate of Tinworth offered Marty a playground, Rion scores of shells and tiny creatures for his potions, Reg the chance to lie in the sun and Mary reconnection with the moon that danced on the water, defying You-Know-Who's ugly skies. But for Regina, there was nothing.

"Potterwatch said they were fine, Darling, with no scars or memories of the ordeal," Mary reminded her. Regina gave a tight nod and continued staring.

"I'm responsible, not you. I've been to the Ministry under You-Know-Who. I should have known what would happen."

Regina cuddled her fluffy pet under her chin. "I tried, Mum. I tried to be useful without magic. I thought I was so terribly clever, but they were hurt because of me—Gran's best friend and her husband and that poor, single-mother secretary."

The crying finally released, Regina continued through sobs. "I'm worse than a squib. At least they're humble. Not I and, as the wireless said, the outcome could have been much, much worse." The warm sand absorbed her tears as the girl threw herself forward, stretched in a pose of mental torment.

Mary brushed away her own tears and looked to the sea, thinking of the reassuring moonlight on the waves the previous night, as if there was wisdom for her in the memory alone.

There are always radicals, and sometimes, they win, Patsy Watts had said to her when they first appeared at the house in Wandsworth, but that wasn't what Mary wanted to tell her daughter.

"Yes, it could have been worse, but it wasn't. In war there are always innocent victims. The fact that ours were saved is something we should all celebrate."

Regina turned her head to her, and Mary touched the usually vibrant but currently slack, dark auburn hair. "The resistance was successful, darling. Sometimes we rely on them; sometimes, they rely on us."

"No one can rely on me; I can't do anything for anyone," Regina said. She sat up again and resumed the mindless gaze, the pygmy puff humming in her hands.

"You won't always be restricted, Regina. Rion said the DA think Harry Potter will soon be ready to make a stand. When that happens and we're no longer hiding, you'll be free to use your magic with everyone else."

"Harry Potter," Regina said with a snort. "What makes everyone so sure that overrated Gryffindor will do anything? His friends are being hurt, Muggles are being hurt and he's nowhere to be found. I heard the wireless program the other night, Mum, the list of missing and dead. How can he ignore that?"

Mary put her arm around her. "Do you remember when the Prophet reported on Trelawny's prediction? He's destined to face You-Know-Who. Wizards put great stock in those things. It's something to hope and prepare for."

Regina blinked, seeming to focus on her view, rather than see past it. "I suppose…"

It was such a relief to hear a hint of life in her again. Rion and Marty ran past, playing Wizard Tag. "Oy," she yelled, "don't kick sand on us."

Mary laughed as she held her tightly with her good arm and for the first time in almost two weeks, since they first heard Potterwatch, Regina hugged back.


"Dad's home,"sail Marty, pointing to the top edge of their protected area.

Mary used her hand as a sun visor and looked up at the fat old man who had pinched her bum. He tottered down the tall sand dune, and wisps of orange appeared on his bald head. He stood straighter and took longer steps and more red hair appeared. The roly-poly frame lengthened and narrowed as Reg sprinted to her. She smiled up at him as though she was sixteen and back at Hogwarts when seeing him had set off flurries in her stomach. It was a feeling she vowed never to lose again. "Has the mighty hunter returned with food for his loved ones?"

He struck a pose with legs spread wide and muscles flexed and tossed a small, flat package to Rion. Put those things away, Son, and don't forget the glacé for that goose. We'll save it for a special occasion. And I brought Chinese take-away."

Regina and Marty grabbed the cartons and chopsticks he pulled out of his pocket and sat down to eat outside the tent. "I picked up this for you," he said, handing Mary a book. "There's a small wizard village not far from here, Rowena Crown Beach."

"The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore," Mary read. "Oh, Reg, I've been wanting to read this for months." She weighed the volume in her hands. "Heavy book for a long life."

"I've been curious about that book too," Regina said as she dug into spicy noodles. "Read it, Mum."

With the sun disappearing and tide rising, most people might have found the rocky strand to be desolate, but Mary used her wand to suspend lanterns around them and also keep them warm and comfortable outside.

"Dumbledore—the truth at last," she read from the author, Rita Skeeter's introduction. "Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore is a biographer's dream. He led such a long, full life, and I'm sure my book will be the first of very, very many exploring its many facets. Some might question how it was possible to produce a comprehensive biography in only weeks after his death, but we journalists know how much information can be obtained with a bag full of Galleons, a nice sharp Quick-Quotes Quill and refusal to accept 'no' for an answer."

Mary rolled her eyes at the thought of 900 pages of Skeeter's self-glorifying story-telling. She pointed her wand at the tome. "Narrato, Editore Maximus."

Details from the story emanated from the wand in Mary's own voice as it skipped over the pages, eliminating extraneous prose. The beating of the waves on the shore made it necessary for Mary to increase the volume of the narration. She lifted the book to suspend against the black sky and enlarged it for everyone to see. The book flipped over a number of pages to a photograph of two laughing teenage boys with their arms around each other's shoulders. Albus Dumbledore, shortly after his mother's death, with his friend Gellert Grindelwald, read the caption beneath it.

"Bloody hell," said Reg sitting next to her. He didn't usually talk like that in front of the children. She turned her head and saw him in the lantern light, eyes drawn and mouth in an angry line. "Have the wand read that section, Mary."

Again, Cherry skipped over Skeeter's snide writing to the bare information. Bathilda Bagshot was the Dumbledores' neighbor and when her great-nephew Gellert came to visit her, he and Albus were friends. Cherry turned the page to a photograph of an old letter. Reg got up to stand in front of it.

"Reg, what's wrong?" Mary asked. He stared at the book with fists clenched. She recognized the angry set in his shoulders.

"That's Grindelwald's secret sign," he said, pointing to the strange-looking A in Dumbledore's signature. "My family had a portrait of my great-Aunt Hilda wearing it on a pin. She and her husband were some of his most devoted followers. This letter sounds like Dumbledore was going to join him."

"Dumbledore defeated him in their duel," Rion said, "but he knew him earlier, enough to send him owls in the middle of the night after spending all day with him? It sounds…intimate, doesn't it? Like a love letter."

Reg nodded. "It could be. Grindelwald was famous for using sex to recruit. Hate to think what he got up to with Hilda and Friedrich."

Mary looked over at her youngest, relieved that he had his buried in Bagshot's book. "Well, it's a good thing they had some kind of falling-out. With Dumbledore's help, Grindelwald might have succeeded."

"Hmph," grunted Reg. "Look at this—For the greater good. That was part of Grindelwald's creed. It's written at the entrance of Nurmengard. That was his castle, now his prison."

Regina hadn't spoken, but Mary could tell she was thinking of something, rubbing her chin like her father did. "It's in the Australian Alps, isn't it Dad?"

"Yeah, why?" he asked still staring at the letter, apparently recalling family shame of involvement with an earlier dark wizard. That association was the reason his father had transferred Reg and his brother to Hogwarts, rather than their attending the ancestral alma mater, Durmstrang.

Regina walked over to stand next to him. "I heard something last year. After Divination I went back to ask Professor Trelawney a question. It was the last class of the day and the room was like twilight. She didn't see me. She stood looking out the window and she spoke in a monotone. 'The Dark Lord will seek The Greater Good and in the icy hills, he will receive the key to vanquish all'."

"Rubbish," said Rion. "If that's true, why didn't you tell me or Mum and Dad?"

Regina turned to her brother, disdain plain in her uplifted eyebrow and pouting mouth. "If you recall, Rion, we weren't speaking most of the year. If I didn't tell them, it must have been your turn to send the weekly owl home. After that," she shrugged, "who knows? I thought I was in love… Dumbledore died…It did happen though. Hearing 'the greater good' again reminded me of it."

Regina never lied, Mary knew. Her daughter could manipulate while being completely honest. She'd told Mary that she took Divination because it followed her favorite class, Astronomy, also in the tower. She stood under stars that Mary couldn't identify but guessed Regina could. Small and pale in the winter sky, they seemed to align in a sneaky S, like a snake.

"Do you think this could be the key, Dad?" she asked, pointing to Grindelwald's sign. "A union of him and You-Know-Who, as the professor said, could allow them to vanquish all. We're the only people who know this. Do you think we could prevent it? Recompense for our family's sinister past allegiance?"

"What are you saying, Regina?" Mary asked, though she wasn't sure she wanted to know.

"I know what she's saying, and she's right," said Reg. "You-Know-Who must not get what he wants from Grindelwald. It falls on me to prevent it."

Mary had just registered the shock of that pronouncement when her fourteen-year-old said, "Actually, Dad, I believe you and I must face him in Nurmengard together."