As soon as Wren set foot into the castle, something felt very wrong.

She'd agreed to meet Nate in an hour to check that the monster rabbit in the library was gone. It wasn't second-guessing McGonagall as much as it was Nate's excitement that made her uncomfortable. The growing ache behind her eyes unnerved her even more.

When she finally got to her room, the fire in her lungs had her sinking to the floor by her bed. She assumed that Callie had done what she'd said and taken Bunny away. Maybe that was why she felt so awful. Smeed had said that losing Bunny would make her sick. She picked a spot on the floor and stared at it, breathing slow and steady through the pain. Wren would have completely missed the flash of light if she hadn't been eye-level with the hutch.

"You're not supposed to be here," she whispered. Heat prickled through her arms and legs as she scooted gingerly over to where the little white rabbit lay. Maybe she could take him down to McGonagall herself, or just sit here and wait until Callie came back. Either way, he had to go, he just had to.

Bunny wheezed, causing Wren to sit up immediately. "What's wrong?" she asked, finally taking a good look at him.

His hind quarters had collapsed, and the side of his face and whiskers drooped into the water dish. He wheezed again, eyes bulging, like he couldn't get enough air.

Wren's chest suddenly felt heavy, like someone had squeezed the air out of her too. The pain, the… everything… was coming from him.

"Oh, Bunny!" She didn't know what to do at first, staring at the suffering animal in front of her, but then she snapped out of her shock. The tea… Smeed had said to keep drinking it.

She fumbled with her wand and managed to squirt a superheated stream of water into her mug - it should have surprised her more that the magic had worked, but she was too focused on keeping the dried leaves from spilling out of her hands. She wasn't going to die, she reminded herself. That's what Smeed had said, wasn't it?

It scalded her throat going down. Almost immediately, her limbs became her own and her breathing got easier. The connection to Bunny was dulled, and Wren was herself again.

"It's almost over. I'm here." The little animal shuddered as she tried to soothe him with her touch. Wren knew she shouldn't try to make contact with him, but she couldn't help it. She closed her eyes and focused on the tiny spark where he used to be, the feelings of security and happiness that he'd given her when she'd needed it the most.

Bunny responded with a watery picture of Rose in the southern corridor. The perspective tilted upwards to Ian holding a white rabbit with a patch of brown over one eye and little flecks of yellow in his fur. She could smell blood on Ian's rabbit... Rose's blood… and then she was falling...

Wren's eyes shot open and her free hand reached out and fought with a fist full of curtains, almost yanking them off her bed frame.

Dizzy from the vision, she lifted him out of the hutch and into her lap. "You didn't attack Rose," she murmured into his fur. "You didn't attack anyone!"

Even if she felt like she could navigate the stairs after all she'd just been through, it was no use trying to take him anywhere now. He was so close to being gone. Wren struggled to find the good in what was happening. She'd have her mind back, think her own thoughts, be her own person. There wouldn't be little voices in her ear, showing her pictures… that part of her mind would be empty.

And Bunny… she could remember him as the kind, gentle animal that she believed he was. The bundle of fur in her arms barely hung on a breath. Wren stroked his fur and murmured to him. If she was the last thing he knew, she was going to…

His dulled eyes drooped shut.

Wait. No. Not yet. Bunny? There was no answer.

For the first time, Wren allowed herself to imagine what it had been like for Gran watching Frank and Alice slip away in the hospital. She tried to hold onto the vision of Gran's kind face accepting their fate and letting them go, but it twisted and morphed into what had happened next…. flashes of anger, mourning, shutting down…

Wren sobbed silently with the little rabbit in her arms. It wasn't fair. It wasn't right. He was her friend, her companion... he'd comforted her when Gran had been at her worst. He'd made her horrible summer bearable, given her something to care about that wasn't broken.

And he hadn't hurt Rose!

She could feel the truth flowing through his labored breathing. He hadn't had any blood except hers, and nothing since she'd stopped feeding him almost a week ago. No wonder he was so sick. What kind of friend would she be if she just sat there and watched him die?

She snatched up the strap of her camera and dug the pointed end of the buckle into her finger. Then she pried his little mouth open to rub the small bead of red off her finger and onto the rough surface of his tongue.

Nothing happened at first.

Then, slowly, his jaw worked up and down, swallowing against the hand that helped to prop up his head. His suckle strengthened, and he shivered with relief.

"Come on, Bunny. You can do it," she whispered, caught up in a wave of dizziness.

Bunny's eyes snapped open. He released her finger and scrambled to his feet in her lap. Wren lay still, watching the color return to his skin, watching his mouth open wide, the fangs descend… the maw widen…

This was barely a rabbit at all, with its pointy fangs and devil-red eyes, a miniature of the demon animal in the library. It seethed with need and waited.

If she wanted to, she could still refuse.

Wren squeezed her eyes shut and remembered the baby rabbit that she had rescued in the woods all those months ago. She didn't care what Scorpius or Callie or anyone thought. They were wrong. He wasn't a monster, he was hers, and she still loved him. She hugged him close and hoped that it wasn't too late.

Take whatever you need.

Fur rubbed against her neck. She felt a sharp prick, and the gentle pull turned desperate and needy. Images flooded her mind. Fresh carrots, warm pillow… sensations that didn't have form… swirling colors... companionship... gratitude...

Wren drifted.

Smeed found Burns prying at the jammed door of an old farmhouse due west of Hogsmeade where the dogs had picked up the trail. He'd apologized to his genteel employer for the short notice of his absence. Hannah hadn't spoken much since her daughter's last visit, but he could tell that her mind was filled with questions.

Until this was over, he certainly didn't want to give her any answers.

Seeing the amulet again had jolted free old memories of complications and regret. Decades hadn't yet erased the crystalline vision of a youthful Augusta as he liked to remember her… if he chose to… which he hadn't, just to be clear. The past had a way of dulling the pain, or magnifying the loss, depending on how one looked at it. Neither of which did any good. Smeed would rather not examine his past at all, if he could help it.

"I think I'll start a new hobby," Burns murmured, finally getting the hinges to squeal. "Poetry, perhaps. I've never tried my hand at fustian intellect."

The door gave way, and they stepped into a modest, one-room living space with a hearth. Years of garbage lay strewn all over the floor, mixed with splintered furniture, and a heavy coating of dust.

Burns assessed the scene. "Fireplace hasn't been used in an age, the foot trail through the brush is almost invisible, and this door…" it squealed in protest as he worked the hinges.

Smeed took pause at the photograph above the fireplace, skewed at an odd angle with a cracked frame and no glass. Damaged as it was, he could still make out a woman with her hand on the shoulder of a young boy at her side, eyes fixed forward, grimacing as if his shoes were too tight. Smeed adjusted the frame on the wall, and continued his survey around the room, his attention landing on a pile of wood in the corner. Something inside of him stirred uncomfortably.

"We've been here before," he said.

There had been a woman huddled in the corner, but the man on the floor had commanded his attention, gasping with a gash that should have destroyed him, half-healed from a spell or a potion. Wizardry hung thick in the air, which was why they had come.

Before bleached hair and iPads, Burns had been his mentor. Tracking a rogue vampire who had turned the nearest town into a bloodbath had been their first assignment. New and nervous, Smeed had crouched down to the man, whose eyes had drifted sideways.

"What happened?"

The man's labored breathing hitched. "It attacked."

Smeed's irritation flashed again at the words. It could have been him, or Burns, or anyone.

"What did it want?" he pressed.

"It attacked my boy like a rabid, angry beast. So bleedin' fast. Never saw anything move like that, even if it were spelled." He coughed, bits of red splattered over the floor, mingling with the rest. "But I got it."

Even in his waning condition, the man's hatred pounded, ten times stronger than his pulse. His eyes flickered to an upturned table by the scorch-marked window. Burns helped to right the table, and that's where they found the slain vampire, a wand sticking out of his chest, dark essence pooling on the floor next to the immobile boy.

Smeed once again forced himself not to recoil at the memory. The endless night had still been new and exciting. The mission had forced his younger self to face the truth about what came after. This was what would happen if he slipped out of his civilized skin and became the monster that the world expected him to be.

The boy was dead. The man was dying, drained but unturned. Smeed had been too close to human to understand the necessity for any further precautions.

A knock on the threshold brought Smeed back to the present. A portly gentleman in a last-century traveling cloak leaned forward, and, finding no barrier, dipped his foppish hat to clamber into the one-room farmhouse.

Smeed nodded at him. "Austin."

The newcomer smiled, baring his glistening incisors. "Nice to see you again, Smeed. After I sent off a message to the Council about a young thrall needing their assistance, one of your little furry friends brought me even more disturbing news. I had to come and see this mess for myself." He turned to scrutinize the broken hinges. "Burns. Should have known it was you."

"Travers," Burns greeted, and got a frosty glare. "What? You've got so many names, they ought to be kept in rotation."

"Oh dear," Jeremy-Austin-Travers said, shaking a fat finger at the frame. "I saw this boy in Hogsmeade, lurking in the shadows. Was going to keep my eye on him, when I got your message."

"It was the woman," Smeed said, everything clicking into place like a puzzle assembling itself in his mind. "She was whispering 'my boy' like a mantra of grief, over and over. We looked for evidence, but not intentions. She must have revived him somehow." He shot a questioning glance at Burns.

"You know how," Burns said, straining to push the door open farther to clear the stale air. "There was blood everywhere. As I recall, you fell for the proper burial line from the grieving mother. Such a green tosser, you were."

"You could have just as easily taken the bodies out back and lit them up. You would have enjoyed yourself doing it, too."

Burns sobered. "Nah. You were young. Didn't want to scare you. Besides, the man and boy were wholly unviable. We couldn't have known how desperate she was."

"His name is Dillon," Travers said, pointing to the boy in the photograph. "A girl came to see me today, lovely photographs, real talent. She mentioned him, and you, Smeed. A noble gesture, assisting a thrall that isn't yours. It's a shame such a nice girl got mixed up in all of this."

He moved aside a chair full of rubble and swept half a century of dust off of the writing desk. "Here we are," he said, uncovering a stack of scrolls, most addressed to Hogwarts. All of them unopened and stamped with "Return To Sender" in bold letters.

"Looks like the mother was trying to get him into the school," Burns said, hovering. "And look at the dates. She tried for years."

"Seems as if he never stopped trying," the portly man concluded. "From what I heard, he thinks he's still a child. Unfortunate and dangerous." He picked out the tip of a broken wand in the rubble. "Evidently, both parents were wizards, which means he's doubly tainted. Well that seals it." He slapped his thick hand over the letters, sending a plume of dust into the air. "Someone should move along to the castle before that youngling finds his way in. The last thing we need is a blood-thirsty defect tearing into a school full of wizards' blood. My nephew is at that castle. His family will never let me hear the end of it."

Smeed watched the artist disappear through the gaping threshold and into the night. No decent fellow would have questioned his kindness towards the girl. She was in over her head and needed it. Then again, if he hadn't acted quite so charitable with that woman and her dying family all those years ago, he'd be sipping Scotch in Piccadilly Square, instead of tromping through the wilderness, tracking a petulant, needy, selfish thing with the attention span of a dust mite and half the intellect of a blade of grass.

He didn't like little kids. Then again, neither did the Council. They didn't have the patience or the resources to deal with children who were literally still children.

Burns kicked around a bit of rubble and regarded Smeed keenly. "Green, like the sprouting grass after an eternal frost…"

"Shut up, Burns."

"Speaking of poetic justice, how does it feel to be right about being sent to clean up someone's mistake?"

"Didn't know it was going to be ours. Let's go."

"Catch!"

Scorpius volleyed the packet of herbs over his head to Albus and yelled, "Expelliarmus!" at the Hufflepuff seventh year hot on their heels. Ferguson's wand skittered across the floor, but instead of slowing him down, the bleary-eyed chaser lunged at Scorpius, who took off down the hall, giving Albus a blessed moment to catch his breath.

"Oi! Potter!"

Albus had almost forgotten there was another one after them.

Ernie McCormack skidded to a halt at the junction in the corridor with the tip of his wand on fire. Albus took Scorpius' cue and fled in the opposite direction that his friend had taken. Ten steps into dodging jets of light, Albus was already wheezing. His sprints from the Quidditch penalty box onto a broom hadn't prepared him for outrunning the co-chair of the Track and Field Club. The school didn't even have a track, but McCormack's swift stride pounding into the stone floor behind him made Albus reconsider just how much field there was around the Great Lake.

For lack of a better plan, he took a sharp corner, froze in place, and cast a Concealing Charm over himself. His pulse raged inside as he tried not to make a sound. If he was lucky, the git would just run on by… before Albus passed out from holding his breath.

McCormack barreled around the corner and skidded to a halt in the empty corridor. He carefully backtracked, the dark veins on his face twitched, and his bloodshot eyes peered right through Albus, standing inches away. With a grunt, he swiveled around and launched himself down the southern corridor.

Albus released the charm and gulped in buckets of air. If he had to guess, Scorpius would double back to meet up for another go at getting the tea to Rose. The secret passage behind the suit of armor looked promising. Scorpius had run past it before they'd been separated. Albus followed it to the third floor, where most of the secret passages hooked up. He headed towards the one they used the most, thinking that his friend would likely meet him there.

Something clicked against stone, and Albus rushed forward towards the sound. Scorpius must be coming out of the other tunnel just this side of the library...

But it wasn't Scorpius. He skidded to a stop and stared at Wren as the wall slid shut behind her. How did she even know about that panel?

For a split second, she had that wide-eyed look, like she was about to turn around and pretend that she hadn't seen him at all. If she were anyone else, he'd have expected a cold shoulder for being avoided all week, except Wren didn't usually do paybacks.

She pointed to the bag of dried leaves crushed in his fist. "Why do you have the tea? Where's Scorpius?"

"We had to split up. He told me…" Albus couldn't think where to begin, out of everything she hadn't told him, but she suddenly grabbed him by the arm.

"Quick, in here!" She pulled him behind the nearest wall hanging and made a shushing motion with her hand.

"What are you…" Albus fell silent as heavy footsteps came down the hall. McCormack and Ferguson passed by, gruffing to each other with stilted words.

"We lost Malfoy."

"No matter. Get Potter. We need him at the prefect meeting in an hour."

Albus strained to hear the rest of the conversation, but only caught the words "plans" and "feast" as the voices faded around the corner.

"I think they're gone." Wren moved aside the wall hanging like she was about to make an excuse to leave. She hadn't even asked him what that was all about.

Because she knew.

Rabbits. The Restricted Section. They hadn't talked since their practice session on the bridge where they'd almost, well… not quite… he had no idea what that was, but it had ended badly. And that thing with Nate… He hated not knowing where he stood with her. And this was the worst time to bring up any of that, when he was on the run from punch-drunk thralls.

Albus wanted to at least say that he was sorry for being such an arse all week and avoiding her for no good reason, but as she stepped out of the shadows, the apology stuck in his throat.

"Wren, your face."

Her skin was chalky-white against the dark veins running over her cheeks and down her neck. Albus stared blatantly at her, trying to rationalize what could possibly have caused her to look exactly like McCormack and Ferguson, who'd just been chasing him through the castle. He almost didn't notice the footsteps down the corridor until Wren said, "We don't have to hide this time. It's Nate."

A sick feeling invaded Albus' gut as Nate appeared, just as Wren said he would. He halted in the middle of the corridor. "Oh Wren, you shouldn't have."

It wasn't just him, Berkshire saw the veins too. "What happened?" Albus demanded. "You were with her. Did someone slip her the punch at Hogsmeade?"

"No, no punch," Wren said. "Scorpius was wrong. Bunny didn't attack Rose. He didn't attack anybody, I'm sure of it."

"You believe a rabbit over Scorpius? Are you crazy?"

"Look," Nate said calmly, "what's done is done, and we can't stay here. I dodged some patrols coming up here. Before they catch up to us, there's something you both need to see."

"If it's that monster in the library, I just saw it. It's the secret ingredient in Pince's zombie punch. They're taking some to Rose right now," Albus said.

Nate nodded. "Yeah, but the punch isn't our only problem. It gets worse."

They followed Nate down to the ground floor, Wren avoiding his gaze, and Albus getting hotter by the minute. He watched her silently guide them through the castle, stopping and closing her eyes, and making right and left turns, taking roundabout ways to where they were going.

Nate's last words rang through Albus' head like a warning. She'd done something, he thought, half-expecting her to freak out and attack him at any moment, like McCormack and Ferguson, half-kicking himself for thinking she'd be capable of that. With Wren's direction, they made it safely to the west wing. Nate threw the door open to the green by the lake.

"Out there."

Blankets were scattered across the lawn, students taking the chance to be outside after the bad weather. Clouds rallied in the distance. They maybe had an hour left before the rains came again.

Albus stared into the afternoon glare. "What are we supposed to be looking at?"

Nate pointed at the students scattered all over the lawn. "Look closer. Stop seeing the normal."

"What are they…" Albus started to say, and heard Wren catch her breath. Each student had a rabbit in their lap, in their arms, or beside them and each rabbit was nibbling, sucking rather, on a finger, the inside of an arm, one of the girls was cuddling her rabbit up to her neck.

"They're all around the castle. And more are coming." Nate pointed to the woods where small white balls of fur appeared through the bushes.

All of a sudden, the students got to their feet and swelled in a large, jerky mob, heading to the castle doors.

Wren gasped. "Look! Trudy's out there!"

Wren's roommate clumsily shuffled along with the crowd, still in her Quidditch gear. Albus winced as the handle of her broom dragged behind her. She finally just let go of her broom, letting it clatter to the ground for a better grip on the animal in her arms.

"Wait!" Wren called to her, grabbing her by the arm. "What are you doing? You… you hate rabbits!"

Trudy blinked like Wren's words were tiny buzzing gnats. She cuddled the brown rabbit in her arms and looked at the darkening sky. "Smells like rain," she said in a hollow voice. Then she turned away and joined the line of students shuffling into the castle.

Albus jerked Wren away from her roommate, harder than he'd meant to. The look she gave him twisted his insides, and he let her go. She rubbed at her arm and whispered something to Nate, who nodded in agreement and squeezed through the slow-moving procession to get back into the castle.

"He'll be alright," Wren said with that glazed look Albus had begun to hate. "They're not after anyone. They need to go inside and rest before dinner. Nate's going to warn the rest of his House to stay away from the punch and all the rabbits."

Albus suddenly wished with all his might that Wren had done that too.

The Thralls weren't paying them any attention, being driven by some unseen force, with a steady, unstoppable momentum. Most of the Ravenclaw Quidditch players were also coming off the field. Like the Gryffindors, they'd apparently boycotted both the field time and their brooms for the freaky little pets. Thunder raged in the distance. Or, it could be the weather coming on. Wind swept over Albus' hair, and he blew it away, searching Wren's face for a reason not to be completely disgusted… her veins had faded to the light tan of a mostly-healed bruise. If he hadn't seen them before, he wouldn't have noticed them at all now. That's how she'd kept it from him for so long.

"All those times we were together," he said in a low voice, "the flashes of light, the mutant rabbits... the connection to Bunny. You never told me what was really going on." Before she could say anything, he went on, "You knew there were Thralls running around the castle, and I had to find out from Scorpius in the library this morning. How could you not tell me about this? It's the first time you've ever kept secrets from me. First time in... ever."

Wren looked up weakly. "How was I supposed to tell you that I'd been letting him use me as a…, I can't even say it. It was going to be over and done. I wasn't going to tell anyone."

"Nate knows."

"He guessed it on his own, and then when I found out that his uncle was a vampire..."

"Wait. What?" Albus did a double take. "Nate's uncle is trying to take over Hogwarts?"

"No!" Wren said forcefully. "It's Dillon." She sagged, the energy that she'd had up until that moment seemed to just give out on her. "All I knew at first was that I had this wonderful little furry friend that I loved so much, and when I found out what he really was, I couldn't stop… taking care of him. I never meant it to go this far. But you need to know..."

"I got it," he said, cutting her off. "Blood sucking rabbits. Vampires trying to get into the castle uninvited."

Wren looked down at her trainers and rubbed her neck, revealing two pinpricks when she moved her hand away.

"You're one of them too," he said. "Even after drinking the tea. How?"

He knew what she'd done, had all that time sneaking through the castle with her to figure it out, but that wasn't enough. He wanted her to admit it, to say it out loud without having to hear about it from someone else this time… that she'd done this horrible thing.
That she'd hidden it from everyone and that she cared more about that damned rabbit than she did about him.

The thrall parade had finished, leaving them out in the cold. Albus' mind reeled from the image his mind had conjured up, a little beast that latched on and drained the life out of the girl who stood in front of him. "I need to go," he said suddenly.

"Wait," Wren said. "If I go with you, I can…"

"Can't," Albus said. "They're expecting me at the prefect's meeting. I need to find out what they're up to, they're after me anyway." He had no intention of becoming a mindless slave to a rodent and its creepy kid-master. He could put up an act, stare weirdly into the air, and maybe they'd be fooled.

"They'll get to you as soon as you walk in. I can't bear to see anything happen to you…"

"Like what happened to you?"

Like what she'd done to herself, he'd meant to say. Wren looked agitated, like she might actually care, but Albus couldn't deal with whatever it was that she was struggling to put into words. He'd already had too many revelations for one day. "Look, as much as I'd like to hash it out with you, it's just not practical right now."

His words landed with the force of a Sticking Charm. Wren visibly shrank back, and he immediately felt like a heel.

"You're right," she said. "I'm better suited to get to Rose anyway, with… this…" she gestured to her head. "I'm sorry. I didn't want you to find out like this. It was bad timing, and… I dunno. It's harder than it looks. I wish I could… had … explained it to you earlier."

It hurt that she was right, that he probably would have thought worse of her if he had known, but he would have helped… because it was Wren, and he… his chest twisted painfully, and he wasn't sure how he would feel about things when this was all over. Logically, he saw the evidence right in front of him. She was different, not a zombie-with-a-hidden-agenda like McCormack, or brainless drones like the students on the lawn. He could still trust her, even if he didn't like her very much right now.

Albus pressed the tea bags into her hands. "I better go, before those goons come around again."

"They're not coming back," Wren said. "They have to… in the library… I… I need to find Callie and get to Rose. Just stay out of their way if you can. They didn't choose to become thralls. None of us did."

"You could have chosen differently the second time," he countered. "You could have ended it today."

Wren looked down at her trainers. "It wasn't that easy. Bunny was dying, and I had to save him. It was like my grandparents all over again. I just couldn't."

"I can't either. Not right now." Albus stopped himself, unsure of where he was going with that thought when her head suddenly snapped up and she looked at him intently, like she hadn't done in a long, long time.

"We're both doing what we have to. Be careful, Albus," Wren said tightly, and went inside without him.