I'm ba-aaack!

Hehe. So I wasn't able to get back any of my files. Which sucks. But it was more a problem because I had a bunch of college assignments on my comp then it was because of my stories.

Still. I had had two chapters for this written and now they're gone.

So I had to retype.

This chapter goes over a little more past stuff. And the next chapter should be up in like three days. Promise.

Thanks for all your support, and I'm so sorry I made ya'll wait for me. But here we are, and we're back on track!

Disclaimer- Mr. Hate would like to inform you that no, he does not own these characters, but he has no issue with stealing them.

~HPT~

Chapter 26- Past and Present Mistakes

Wrath snarled in rage as he slowly stalked his prey.

The dark wizards before him stared up at the black drake in terror. To their eyes he was nothing more than a vicious beast, one who many of their spells would not work upon. They did not know he was Harry. But they knew he would kill them.

And kill them he did.

With a roar he was bounding forewords, moving too fast for them to hit him with the few spells that wouldn't bounce off his thick hide harmlessly. His huge teeth sank into flesh and he tore a man's arm from his body even as his claw's pierced the same man's flesh. Then he was off to the next one, this time going straight for their head.

And then he opened his maw and reveled in the sound of their screams as his flames sent them into an Earthly version of hell. A few more attacks and the cruel slash of claws and snap of teeth and he was suddenly the only living thing left in the clearing.

With a rumbling growl and a sniff to make sure he stood up to his full height and surveyed the area. It was the first time he had fought as a drake, and he found he enjoyed it. The forbidden forest was quiet around him and a deep noise of satisfaction rumbled out of his throat.

He noted that it was more satisfying to kill by his own physical power than to do it with spells. He wondered if he should be worried about that. But it wasn't as though he enjoyed killing. Not really. It was just… Satisfying to know that for every one of them he took down, that would be one less person out there hurting and killing innocent people.

He sighed and turned at the sound of crunching grass. A centaur stood at the end of the clearing. He was stocky, with a dabbled grey coat, and long blond hair. The half man eyed the bodies, then Wrath, before he looked to the sky.

"Mars has shone too brightly these past months."

Wrath made a low growl that may have been agreement, and looked up. Indeed there was what looked like a glowing red star in the sky. He didn't care much for divination, but he knew it was a sign of bloodshed. He looked back to the centaur after a moment, noting that it was watching him now.

"It will shine still for months to come. You will have our help when you need it, lightning child."

He found he was more surprised they were willing to help than he was that the centaur knew who he was. He nodded to him, and turned his eyes back to the sky.

When he looked back again a few minutes later, the centaur was gone.

~HPT~

Ron sat on the balcony of he and his brother's rooms in silence.

The clouds blocked out the sun like usual, but they were light in color today, making the outdoors brighter than they usually were. The trees swayed in the light breeze and birdsong filled the air. It was a beautiful day in Forks, marred only by the feeling of doom that seemed to have settled around their household.

Bill was alive.

The very idea of such a thing made a dark, nasty feeling settle into the pit of his stomach. He hated that man, monster, whatever he was now. Merlin knows he was no longer Ron's brother. He couldn't even think of him as though he was, and the thought that Bill and he shared any amount of blood between them made him sick.

He remembered. Above everything that had happened in the war, his memories of his capture were the clearest. He remembered what it was like to sit there and behold his mother's mangled corpse. What it was like to watch her blood drip to the ground and pool beneath her. He recalled the stench of decomposition as she rotted.

He had been locked in there for eight days straight when Harry busted in and grabbed him. His captors had brought him water each day but no food. Not that he would have been able to stomach any of it anyways. He had drunk the water only out of the thought that he might survive and wreak vengeance upon whoever was responsible for her death. It had taken him weeks to physically recover, and then not long after he learned that it was Bill who had done the deed.

He hadn't wanted to believe it at first. But he had seen Bill standing there above Percy's body with no remorse or grief in his eyes. He had denounced him as a brother once it set in, and had wanted very dearly to be the one to kill him, but then Harry had beaten him to it.

He was a little bitter, but supposed that it was fitting in a way. Harry had been Bill's lover after all. But now…

Bill was still alive.

And this time, Ron would make sure himself that he buried him.

~HPT~

There was a cold feeling against Wrath's scales. At first it was easy enough to ignore, but when it was accompanied by a pushing feeling and then giggles when he growled sleepily he sighed and lifted his head, large green eyes blinking slowly.

Bree was smiling at him, and he was confused for a moment at the world around them. Riley stood off to the side with a smile on his face, which was normal, but what was not normal was the fact that this was not their cave. He blinked slowly before it came back to him.

Ah. They were in the basement.

He groaned and stood up, shifting back so he could stretch. He let out a moan of satisfaction as his bones popped and creaked, the stiffness of the night moving out of him and leaving a comfortable 'loose' feeling behind. He sighed and looked down at Bree with a smile, doing an inner cheer at the fact that she was actually shorter than him, as few people were. His malnutrition from his childhood had not exactly been reversible.

He was happy to see her alive and well. The storm had passed them by for now, and they were lucky to have escaped it without any loss. They hadn't exactly gotten away without a scratch, but no one had died, and that was the important part.

He had followed Bree and Riley down to their rooms to sleep in Drake form after the two had interrupted him and Paul. His face turned red in mortification at the remembrance. Having two people he was fast coming to think of as being much like his own children (nevermind the fact that one of them was older than he was and the other was only a couple years younger) walk in on him in the middle of a snogging session while he was pinned up against a wall was incredibly embarrassing. It was worse than Sirius interrupting them.

He had felt even more humiliated when he learned they had come back up at the smell of blood. He had dug his nails so hard into Paul's back that he had made the shifter bleed. It didn't help that Paul had returned the favor with a particularly harsh bite to his neck. He had never quite realized till then that he and Paul were actually quite violent when they got lost in their passions.

All the same, when Riley and Bree started chuckling at them after catching them he had wished he could find some dark hole somewhere and hide in it for the rest of his life. Paul of course didn't help matters when he seemed entirely comfortable with it all and even tried to shoo them back into the basement so that they could continue.

The shifter had earned a smack on the back of the head for his trouble and an order from Harry to be put down.

After getting them to stop teasing him, he had gone down to go to bed with them. He had noticed after awhile that the animal instincts, or something about the drake, kept his nightmares at bay. To date, he had yet to have a bad dream while sleeping as Wrath.

"Good morning." He grinned.

"Morning Bree."

"I think we need to talk." He blinked over at Riley and nodded. It hadn't really occurred to him that they had yet to discuss anything.

He followed them out of the room and upstairs. The entrance to the basement was concealed in the cupboard under the stairs behind a false wall. They had a potions lab in the dungeon that Draco used, and a dueling room they had yet to actually use; so it was in their best interests to keep it all hidden away.

Neville was in the living room reading, and Harry could hear someone messing about in the kitchen; the scent of food wafting about. Hermione, most likely. The vampires paused, eyeing Neville, and Harry chuckled. He turned around and headed up the stairs, smiling to himself as he heard them follow without hesitation. Since there was more room, he decided to lead them into the Library.

It was empty, the little fireplace cackling happily, and he wondered who had lit it. Maybe Hermione, since she spent the most time in here and had the tendency to wake up early. He sank into one of the armchairs with a sigh, and waited until the other two had made themselves comfortable before he spoke.

"So, I take it you have questions?"

~HPT~

Blaise sighed into his girlfriend's shoulders. He should probably be at home, since dad had confirmed that Harry was back, but the stress of the situation was getting to him, and he needed a moment to get away. Besides that, someone needed to let the shifters and the Cullens in on what was going on, and he could do that after he had a little bit of time to himself and Leah.

He was not a fighter. Not really. He was an excellent duelist. There had been plenty of tutors in his childhood that made sure of that. He was even better at killing a single person without anyone finding out, through the use of poisons, untraceable spells, blades, etc. That, his mother had seen to. But an all out brawl with multiple opponents was not exactly his forte.

It was entirely why he had been a spy in the first place. Another skill he had half inherited, and half been taught was his ability to charm and seduce anyone he pleased. He could bring a straight man into his bed and make him want to stay there. He could get a rich woman willing to sacrifice everything and live in a cave wearing rags if he was so inclined. It was that charisma that had gleaned them much information they never would have been able to obtain through torture.

Consequentially, he usually had little part in the actual battles. At least not until later on, near the end of the war, when his cover was blown and the word was spread that he was solely on the side of the light. After that he had fought. But it had never come as easily to him as it had to those like Harry or Draco. It always left him shaking and stressed; jumpy even.

Leah seemed to understand that without him needing to tell her. She had answered the door when he knocked and had let him come up to her room. Now he sat with his head buried into her shoulder, calming himself down before he had to gather up all their new little friends and tell them about Bill.

Tell them about the war.

He knew Harry wouldn't be happy with him. They had decided when they told them about magic that they weren't going to say a word about the war, but they needed to know. They would never understand just how dangerous Bill was, and how badly he had betrayed them, unless they had the whole story.

So Blaise had taken the family pensieve.

They all had terrible memories, and they all had nightmares. One thing they had learned was that copying memories into a pensieve, while not erasing the memories, would dull them some; enough to ease the worst of the nightmares, and stop the daytime flashbacks. So they all put their worst memories into a pensieve, and hid it into a secret compartment in the attic.

And Blaise had taken it, and looked up a spell to allow many people to view the memories at one time, and now he was going to show their new friends. Because they needed to know everything.

He just hoped Harry didn't murder him later.

~HPT~

Harry sighed into his coffee. He had finished giving Riley and Bree a basic run down of the wizarding world, leaving out the war and anything directly related to their past, and the two had since taken off towards their territory in order to hunt. Now it was breakfast time for those who didn't drink blood, and he was sitting with his coffee and a plate with an omelet and hashbrowns in front of him; his family filled into the chairs around him.

Blaise had run off to see Leah before Harry had woken up, and while Draco had fire-called during the night he was still at the American Ministry; trying to organize the proper transfer of Greyback back to England. Sirius was home again though, after setting up several nasty, easily classified as dark, protection wards around the Swan home. He claimed he and Charlie were just friends but he seemed awfully protective of the man.

Not that he was really any better, as he had sent Dobby and Preacher off with instructions to locate Paul's house and main hangout and guard them; with orders to get him immediately if there were any sort of danger.

But no one needed to know about that.

He took a bite of his omelet (thank Merlin someone besides him knew how to cook) and looked around the table. Hermione looked normal for the most part, but there was a tenseness in her shoulders and a tightness around her eyes that told him she wasn't as nonchalant about the situation as she would like them to think. There was also the fact that while it was normal for her to be reading a book at the table he had never seen her read one with a title like One Hundred Ways to Fake Your Own Death that gave off little pulses of a kind of magic that made Harry's skin crawl.

Ron was quiet, and was eating his food like a normal person rather than stuffing it down like an animal as he was prone to do. He was glowering at his fork as he ate and his blue eyes were more of a stormy color than the sky blue they usually were. His other hand was also busy clawing little gauges into the wood of the table but Harry decided to ignore that for now.

Luna didn't look like anything in the world wad wrong at all. Which was normal for her. She never did seem to be worried about anything. She was, in fact, humming softly as she ate, and reading through what looked like The Quibbler. He had forgotten that she still owned the publication. He had initially believed that it had been destroyed permanently during the end of the war.

Neville was like Hermione. He looked normal on the surface, but… He was far too tense, and he was using a knife to cut the bites of his omelet before eating them. Of course, the knife may or may not have actually been the same dagger he once used to slit death eater throats, but who cared about that little detail anyways.

Sirius wasn't eating at all. He was drinking his morning coffee and staring off towards the wall; his eyes glassy and his mind somewhere far away. He looked warn down, with dark bags under his eyes and a shadow of hair across his jaw.

Harry sighed. He knew this wasn't something they were going to talk about. They all knew each other well enough to know exactly what each of them was going to do and what would happen.

Sirius was going to strengthen the wards with extra ones that were barely legal and would booby trap the house better than any temple from Indiana Jones. Then he would hover over them all and Charlie in some sort of pattern that meant he spent an equal amount of time watching over everyone, but the pattern would be too random to make sense to anyone but him.

Luna would run around doing whatever she normally did but they would suddenly find their supply of healing potions to be exponentially larger and with a much greater variety, and various first aid kits would find themselves into every room in the house, including the backyard and possibly even the school.

Hermione would bury herself in her books and would call them each down to the dueling room at one point or another to teach them all new spells and curses. They would find themselves buying much much more coffee over the next month.

Neville would take to being a little too still, and it would become commonplace to find him sharpening some type of blade, that he would undoubtedly pull out of some hidden place on his person, and it was quite possible for their garden to suddenly find itself inhabited by magical plants of the deadly variety.

Blaise would probably take off to go running through old contacts that still fed him information, and Harry doubted they would see him around all that much.

Draco was going to be overly jumpy, and it would be just Harry's luck that he would take up smoking again. He also wouldn't be all that surprised if someone came across a white ferret patrolling the edge of the property at night.

And Ron… Well, Ron would pace about and start glaring at the walls at random intervals, and most likely pay a few visits to the twins and Charley, and maybe even Ginny.

Harry closed his eyes and sucked in a breath. Ginny wasn't really something he wanted to think about right now. He had avoided thinking about it all this time…

Harry coughed into a hand as he settled into the ditch made by a widespread Bombarda and wasn't as surprised as he should have been to see blood come out.

His side was wounded badly, his cloak drenched in blood and clinging uncomfortably to his skin; leaving behind a nasty sticking feeling. Hot streaks of pain flew up his side with the smallest of movements and he held back a whimper. He wondered if he could cauterize this wound but knew that the pain would leave him unconscious and they didn't have time for that.

Colored lights of green, red, and purple flew over his head and for a moment he felt oddly calm. The various colors were actually quite beautiful with the way that they lit up the night sky and sent light dancing across his pale skin and making the blood shine in a stunning sort of way.

The moment of calm shattered as a high pitched scream pierced the night and Harry jerked back to alertness. He leapt up from his cover and ran in the direction of the scream, dodging as best he could and not even bothering to look as he sent a few nasty curses over his shoulder.

It was reckless of him, but he was beyond caring. He had lost too much blood, and the battle had been going for nearly two hours now. His magic was severely depleted and he was starting to feel the strain on his core.

He was so tired. His body ached in protest with every movement and his mind was straining with the stress. It might be better just to give up.

He was certain this might be his last battle, but he hoped the others got away all right. He had gotten separated from them early on, and now he had no idea where they had gone. He wouldn't last very long, but he could at least get to whoever was screaming and try to help them.

He shifted under a branch of the old forest they had found themselves fighting in, and suddenly he could see the person.

There was a death eater, but they wore their mask and he didn't recognize their hair. Their wand was connected to a person on the ground by a red light and it was their victim who was the source of the screaming.

Ah. Crucio.

He paused for a second, his vision blurring, but as it cleared he caught sight of a flash of red hair and something in him roared to life.

Ron. Oh Merlin, Ron.

He cast a Serpensortia and ordered the snake to kill the death eater, watching with vindictive glee as the serpent twined up around the man and sank its' poisonous fangs into his neck; even as his physical strength gave out on him and he fell to his knees. He hissed for the snake to find more like the man to kill and crawled unsteadily to Ron's side, his vision blurring again as he did.

But no, the hair was too long to be Ron, and hadn't the screams been a little too high pitched? His vision cleared up again just as he collapsed by the person's side and he realized it was Ginny. She was still breathing, but her eyes were glassy and wrongand he realized she may as well be dead. He let out a breath of relief when he realized it wasn't Ron.

Then guilt panged at him and he found himself coughing up blood again as he realized just how horrible it was for him to be relieved that his best mate's sister was hurt instead of him. He couldn't stop coughing and suddenly he puked. His vision was swimming again but he could see that the vomit was red before he rolled over onto his back. His sight was going black around the edges and he was just so tired.

Maybe he should have fought more, but it was so hard to keep his eyes open.

He closed them, and let the darkness claim him as the pain ebbed away.

As the world around him disappeared, he could have almost sworn he heard someone calling his name.

~HPT~

Paul watched the male in front of him fidget. He didn't know Blaise very well. Beyond that he was his beta's mate and his own mate's brother. But he had noticed that the chocolate skinned man always had an air of confidence about him.

Yet he seemed so nervous.

His eyes narrowed. Something wasn't right here.

His gaze flicked to the bowl-like object on the table. Sam and his pack weren't here yet, but Blaise had said he wanted to use the bowl-thing to show them something. Paul could see silver liquid within it that was swirling around randomly; images occasionally making themselves seen.

He watched it for a moment, an idea beginning to form inside his mind. He was not all that familiar with magic yet. He had seen a couple things, but Harry generally avoided talking about the wizarding world. He caught a flash of an image; his mate with tears coming down his face, and the idea became fully formed.

He met Blaise's eyes.

"Does Harry know about what you're going to show us?" His voice was carefully neutral; his face giving nothing away even as his senses sharpened and focused and his view of Blaise went from packmate to prey.

"Of course." He didn't say it too quickly and there was no hesitancy in his voice… But his heart rate picked up ever so slightly, and Paul could smell the lie in the air.

He snarled.

Blaise jumped back, wand instantly in hand. Leah was on her feet, and she shifted slightly so that she could leap between Blaise and Paul if she needed to. None of the others in the room moved or said a word. Their senses were just as powerful as his, and they had caught the lie too.

They wouldn't interfere.

Not that Paul would ever harm someone his mate called kin.

Low rumbling growls poured continuously out of his throat as he slowly moved around the table. Blaise backed up a few steps but Paul ignored him once he was on the other side of the table. Instead he turned his attention to the bowl that somehow contained memories and picked it up. Blaise made a noise as though to tell him to stop but he cut him off with another snarl.

His growls faded as he glanced down into the pool of silvery liquid but did not subside completely. Another image flashed long enough for him to catch it. There was a giant snake, and his mate, much younger and so tiny and frail looking, standing before it with a sword. He closed his eyes for a second and then raised them to look back up at Blaise.

"You are damned lucky to be Harry's brother. I would kill you if it wouldn't make him hate me. To even think about showing us- and without his permission-" He snarled again and took a deep breath.

With a glare, he turned around and left, delicately carrying the bowl of memories along with him. His instincts flared at turning his back on Blaise as he left; who was still armed, but he ignored it. He wanted to know about his mate's past, and about his family's past; but that asshole had no right to show them all without consent.

~HPT~

Ron ate his breakfast pensively. Usually mornings with the family were filled with talk and questions about how everyone slept and who had nightmares, but today it was quiet. He supposed that that was expected; what with everything that was going on. He wondered for a moment if they would talk to each other about it or just prepare and wait.

Prepare and wait, most likely.

He looked at each of their faces until his gaze landed on Harry and he frowned. The younger teen had a piece of omelet half way to his mouth but he was frozen in place. He was staring down at the table and his eyes had gone from their bright green to a dark emerald color that was filled with turmoil. His expression was mildly pained, and after a moment he closed his eyes and took a shuddering breath before he began to eat again, his eyes troubled all the while.

Ron knew that look, and he wondered what memories were tormenting his brother.

Was he thinking of Bill?

~HPT~

Harry woke up slowly.

He frowned to himself when he realized that he was indeed waking up.

Shouldn't he be dead?

He kept his eyes closed as reality slowly returned to him, and with each passing moment he became more and more aware of himself and the world around him.

The first thing was pain. He was in a lot of pain. His entire body felt sore and stiff, and the skin on his side, where that blood-letting curse had hit him, felt stretched somehow. Something in his chest hurt too. Little shots of pain radiated outward from it with every breath.

That was the next thing he noticed.

His breathing sounded funny. It was too raspy and a little strained. His throat felt raw and parched, and with that realization came the thirst. He thought about getting up to find something to drink, but then he became aware of the next thing.

Someone was holding his hand.

They were holding it very tightly, as though Harry was their one link to the world, and it was beginning to go numb.

With that realization, Harry opened his eyes…

Only to snap them shut again with a groan of pain. Wherever he was, it was entirely too bright. The hand holding his faltered at his sound, and he felt the person lean closer.

"Harry?"

"Ron?" His voice was raspy, and just above a whisper. He coughed and then tried again, managing to speak a little louder. "Water...?"

"Oh! Right." The hand let go of his, and he breathed a sigh of relief when he found he could feel his finders again. He heard footsteps, and tried to open his eyes just a little bit. It wasn't enough to see, but it let some of the light hit his eyes so that he could adjust. The footsteps returned to him, and there was a shuffling noise. He saw a shadow lean over him and then the hand was back. Something pressed to his lips and Ron spoke again. "Here"

He opened his mouth and was happy to feel water make its' way down his throat. Ron seemed to know just when he had had enough and pulled the glass away, and it was then that Harry managed to open his eyes. He blinked a few times before his vision cleared. He felt grateful for that vision correcting potion Draco had brewed for him. These days his glasses were fake; worn as a way of fooling the enemy into thinking his eyesight was still a weakness.

He became aware after looking around for just a moment that they were back on the ship, in the medical ward. Ron sat in a metal chair next to the bed and was holding his hand, though not nearly as tight now as when he had first woken up. Harry studied him for a moment. His eyes were bloodshot, and there were tear tracks on his cheeks, with dark circles under his eyes.

"What happened?"

Ron closed his eyes and a look of pain came over him that instantly made Harry recall the way he had looked for the first week after they rescued him from Malfoy Manor.

"They took Ginny to Hogwarts. She-" He swallowed. "She's like Neville's parents were, Harry. She's alive, but- there's- her mind-" He took a few shuddering breaths. "She's gone Harry. Her body's still there but she's gone, mate."

The memories hit him then, of stopping the death eater from torturing the redhead on the ground. Of being so relieved that it was Ginny and not his best mate. Guilt throbbed through him like a poison and he suddenly felt very sick. He pushed the nausea away and ignored the pain as he sat up and wrapped his arms around his friend just as Ron broke down and began to cry again.

Never again.

He wasn't going to let anyone they cared about die ever again.

They were going to end this.

It was time.

~HPT~

So there we go. I realized awhile ago that I never actually mentioned what happened to Ginny, and I thought it was funny that none of you asked.

Do you all hate her or something?

I'll admit she was never one of my favorite characters…

And I may or may not have been very pissed off at Rowling when she and Harry were paired together in canon…

But let's not talk about that.

Anyways, now you know what happened to her.

I feel kind of bad for the Weasley's. I mean, I've been pretty cruel to them haven't I?

Arthur, Molly, and Percy are dead. Ginny is catatonic and insane. Bill is evil. The twins might be a bit more evil with their pranks than they used to be, and a certainly very terrifying. Poor Ron is all traumatized by the war and on the path to vengeance.

Only Charley is ok. He's still off with his dragons and doin good.

Lucky Charley.

The irony of this, is that out of all the Weasley's, (while the twins are my favorites) I absolutely love Bill, and I adore Arthur and Molly. I never really cared one way or the other about Charley though.

Interesting, that. I'm apparently very cruel towards characters I like.