'How was today?'

'Fine,' Hermione responded, after a very long pause. 'Arthur Weasley put on a great show. Impossible to know what Putin was thinking, but there is no way they have anything comparable to the Ministry in Russia.' The Soviet Union had cracked down brutally on witchcraft during World War II, and most of the Wizarding population fled to Finland.

'Do you think it will help?'

'Do you mean, will he back off on Crimea?' Lew could hear the gears turning in Hermione's head, snatches of her inner thoughts. American army, Lew only cares if there are nukes involved, spheres of influence, I was right about the Ministry collaboration, Putin is insane, this is hopeless. 'For now, yes, I think. He's going to test the waters. He has to see how his wizards measure up against ours. I'm guessing a proxy war in Africa or South America.'

'And Cameron?'

'Not so bad. It would have been easier if they had a history together. But good that Bush stayed away.'

'I guess so. Why did he?'

'I think they decided it would distract from the focus of the visit. He's about to leave office, anyway.'

Lew adjusted the range on her rifle and then placed it back on the rack. She drew her pistol as fast as she could and then shot three targets in quick succession. Medium range, close range, long range. The last bullet went wide.

'I guess there's nothing we can do but keep going and wait for something to explode.'

'That's all the Resistance can do, yes,' Hermione said. 'Unless you wanted to kidnap Putin, too.'

Lew grumbled. 'And have it backfire as badly as kidnapping Edward? I don't think so.'

'It's something to consider.'

Lew felt a smile creep up. 'Is that a deployment?'

'Absolutely not,' Hermione said instantly.

'I'm pretty sure it's the army's job to deal with Putin, not mine.'

Lew only cares about nuclear holocaust. 'Listen, I have to go. Rose is eating something blue.'

'Tell her Lew says only eat red or green things.'

'I will not.' Another long pause. 'Molly fed her beets last week and I almost had a heart attack.'

'Treacherous woman.'


The enemy is stirring again, Michael told Lew.

'What do you want to do?'

Can you go to Tree 2470?

Lew cast her recollection spell. She understood that the spell was taught only in the fifth year at Hogwarts, just before the wizards were allowed to leave school in England. At the Academy of Alchemy, it was one of the first spells the children were taught. She understood why they waited at Hogwarts; it was an easily abused spell, and unsuited to learning. Something memorized was not understood, and ultimately the storage of memories could be maxed out and the wizard would be unable to store new memories - a debilitating condition. There was no reversing the recollection spell.

But it was useful for some things. The massive map that Hermione made had long ago faded into white, and Lew stored it in the witch's cottage. Michael didn't need it any more.

Tree 2470 was in Greece, so Lew Apparated to Athens and flew. It took a few hours. While she flew, she listened to Michael through the raven neckpiece she had built for the purpose.

I think they can hear each other. They're trapped and angry.

'Are they at Tree 2470?' She couldn't tell whether the conflict between jailer and captive hurt Michael, or just bothered him. It wasn't clear if Michael could differentiate between those things.

I think so. I think one of them is. They're scattered in that area.

'You've been listening? Keeping track?'

It's loud. They clamor.

'Remember the myth of the eagle?'

The leaves are the eagle's wings, the fruit its blood. But the enemy?

'The falling blood could have trapped the demons the eagle fought.'

I wasn't made from an eagle's battle with demons.

'No, you weren't, Michael. You were made by love.' By trust and magic, and by Lew's betrayal. But that's not what Michael was talking about. 'You're different from the trees, Michael. Remember that? You have a name.'

Maybe I am like the demons.

'Are you trapped like them?'

Michael thought about this. No. I'm everywhere. They're… I think they are trapped in just one tree. Lew waited for him to think. This was important for Michael to understand. This was who he was. If I was trapped in just one tree, I wouldn't know what else there was. I think I would be OK.

'You are in one tree, though. Do you know why the rest accept you?'

I am this. He sent an image of his model. It was weighty now, heavier than a seven-year-old. He had put heavy wood into its limbs, thick bones to fill in the spaces. It made it easier for him to move in the body. And he had melded leaves into a thin membrane, which flaked off the frame when he moved. Brittle still, but improving fast.

'You're not. That's just your model, Michael.'

I am I am I am. A quick turnaround from saying that he was every rowan tree. There was no point in arguing this. Michael knew that he wasn't the model.

'Why do the rest of the rowan trees accept you, Michael?'

They want to think. They use me to think.

'Is that hard for you?'

No. I use them for everything else. It's OK.

'But the demons are trapped?'

They know what it is to fly, to have the world to feed on. Lew shuddered at that. It was a darker thought by far than those Michael usually expressed. Now they are trapped in just one tree.

'But the tree is different from them, right?'

The tree is me. That was why Michael was so bothered by what he called 'the enemy.' He was the jailer. Interesting that there was such a sharp distinction for Michael between the demons' possession of the tree, and his own. Was it a true distinction, or was it wishful thinking?

'Do you want me to try to get the demon out of the tree?'

Destroy the tree.

'Won't that hurt you, Michael?'

It will hurt less.

'Is that what the tree wants?'

Michael was silent for a long time. I don't think so, he said finally.

'Do you know how old the tree is?'

Tree 2470 is the oldest tree.

'In the world?'

The oldest rowan tree, he said. Yes.

'Do you think we can get the demon out of the tree without destroying the tree, Michael?'

No. Then, We have to do it.

'What will happen to the demon if I destroy the tree?'

A flashing image came from Michael, a tree burning, and a black spirit oozing out off the trunk. Then he added Lew to the image, and the spirit stood and attacked her. It had talons, a gaping toothy maw, seven legs, and wings that blocked out the sun. Suddenly the image cut out. Maybe we shouldn't.

'Can't you tell the tree to release the demon on its own?'

I tried and tried and tried but it won't.

'Maybe you should trust the tree.'

It's stupid.

'The tree? Don't you think it's very old, Michael? Maybe it knows best.'

It just says 'Duty' over and over again. Or… 'Protect.' It doesn't think that it is suffering. But it doesn't know any other life. I know that it hurts.

'So it should die?'

Michael was silent again. Maybe not, he conceded.

But then, if they didn't kill the rowan and the rowan refused to release the demonic spirit, Michael would continue to suffer. 'How often do they stir like this?'

This is the worst time. I told you the last time, and the time before. They whisper to me, Lew, even when they do not yell.

'What do they say to you?'

They tell me how it was to take whatever they wanted. I don't want to do that.

Lew released her jaw, and it popped. Michael was like a sponge, still a child in so many ways. Every time he finished a new book series, he would talk with her endlessly about it. But when Rose was learning a new idea, she asked about it every day for a week. When Michael was learning something new, he talked about it for a year. Lew recognized the signs of loneliness in his obsessive thought circles, but she was helpless to alleviate it in any meaningful way. He had only the trees and herself, Hermione, and increasingly, Rose. Nobody else spent enough time with him to engage with him. He had no playmates, just the trees.

Lew couldn't allow the demons to continue to talk to him. He was too easily influenced. She should have realized sooner how serious the situation was. Michael would never have suggested killing one of the trees if it was not so serious.

They say I am just like them, he said, interrupting her thoughts.

'You know that you aren't.'

But I am trapped, too. A change from before. Michael didn't conceal things from Lew, exactly. But he was imperfectly aware. He was made of too many pieces to hold every one of them in his mind at one time. And he was so young.

'You are their king. They love you.'

But I was something else before. With a…

He fell silent. So he did remember what Hermione showed him, so many years ago. 'Do you remember before you were in the tree, Michael?'

No. Of course not. Only Hermione had felt every moment of his life. Only Hermione had seen his death - both of his deaths. For Lew, Michael had always been an abstract; a reality, but a distant one. Her closest connection with Michael was the surges of emotion from the ring, hope and fear intermixed, protectiveness and a love that Lew had only felt from Hermione during her hunt for Jacob. Lew knew when Hermione was thinking about her baby, because close after the confused swirl of emotion always surged a bitter fury. If not for the miscarriage, Hermione would never have let Lew back in. If Michael had not been born early, Lew would never have known him at all.

Lew wished Hermione was here now. If anyone could tell Michael what he had been, it was Hermione. But Lew would have to do.

'You were our baby, Michael. Do you remember when Rose was a baby?'

Yes.

She waited, but he didn't say anything else, so she kept going. 'Do you remember how small she was? She couldn't walk or talk. Do you remember the first time you talked to her, how simple her thoughts were?' Michael had talked to Rose before Rose spoke out loud. It was his determination to communicate with her that finally unlocked the lingua spell, but he had been mostly confused by the interactions at the time.

Yes, I remember.

'You were even smaller than her. You were born, too, but too early. Your lungs were too weak to breathe. That's why Doris took you to the tree. And the tree accepted you, and you woke up for the first time. Rose doesn't remember when she was a baby, either. But after you woke up, you remember everything, don't you?'

Yes. I remember Doris. She never told me I was a baby.

'You changed. But you were a baby first. That's why you're different from the demons. They were something horrible before. And you were something good before. Does that make sense?'

But I'm still trapped. I wish I could change back.

'I don't. You're the best son I could imagine. You're so clever, and you can see so much, and you understand things that I don't even think about. And you are sweet and good. Every day we discover something new that you can do. I would be lost without you.'

I don't think so. He sounded less upset.

'I'm beginning to think you were right about the demons. Do you still want to get rid of them?'

I think it's the only way, he said hopefully.

'Let's do it.'


Lew and Hermione were the only non-Weasleys to attend Bill's birthday. Lew was scavenging in the Burrow's kitchen for beer when he appeared, like a ghost, in the threshold.

"How are you, Lew?" he said. He had already asked the question once, but Lew supposed it was different in the relative privacy of the kitchen.

"Good -" Lew started, and Hermione appeared in the other entrance. Bill's face fell. "Hermione, still looking for wine?" She poured it without waiting for her answer.

Bill said to Hermione, "I don't know what Fleur and I will do. Fleur always wanted to send Victoire to Beauxbatons, but there is no way it's staying open now."

Lew handed her the wine, and she took it distractedly. "Really? McGonagall said Hogwarts parents don't seem concerned."

Bill said, "The French have no level of understanding between their government and the Muggles." Hermione glanced at Lew, and Lew dropped her gaze, backing into one of the counters. "If America can hit a school in Argentina that hard, it will only be a matter of time. At least that's what the French think."

"We don't know it was the Americans," Lew said.

"Of course it was," Hermione snapped. "For the same reason that Beauxbatons is safe. South America has always been the playground of the States." She hadn't touched the wine.

"Apolline doesn't agree."

"Then Victoire will go to Hogwarts in three years."

"I guess so," Bill agreed. He looked at Lew. "Depending on if it's open, and if Apolline isn't too afraid to send her there."

The conversation was interrupted by a shrill scream from the living room. Judging from the speed of Hermione's retreat, it was probably Rose's. All children's screams sounded like Rose to Lew.

Lew stayed in the kitchen. Hermione and the Weasley women would trample any attempt Lew made to help, anyway.

Bill studied Lew wordlessly, and Lew returned the examination. He looked old. Lew had expected thirty-eight to look good on him, but the cigarettes and cocaine had weathered his already-scarred face, adding a decade. Fleur, his enthusiastic partner in those activities, looked not a day over twenty.

She wondered how old she looked. The six-year gap between them had never felt so short. If the past few years' stress had weathered Bill, she couldn't imagine what it had done to her.

"I know you can't talk about it, but - is there any hope at all?"

Lew spun her beer in her hands. "Most of the work is training," she said obliquely. "People are coming from all over the world now. They have no idea what they're doing with guns. Nobody can drive. It's a fucking mess. It's babysitting. And half of them haven't even been to magical school."

"Must be interesting, working with a group like that."

"There's a lot to learn, too, but I feel like I can't spare the time. How is the company doing?"

Bill shook his head. "It's changed a lot. Mostly private clients now. There's a massive hermitage movement, you know. They all pretend that they're building an impenetrable fortress and retreating totally from society, but honestly they visit each other a lot. They all refer each other to me. It's a total freak show. But it pays."

"So there's that," Lew agreed. It sounded horrific.

"Do you take…" he trailed off awkwardly. "Do you take donations, by chance?"

"Oh," Lew said, shaking her head. "Um. I actually - like what kind of donation?"

"I was thinking money, but any, I guess. Do you take items?"

"Do you have any tanks?"

Bill laughed, and then he sobered. "That's a real question, isn't it?"

"Pretty much only Muggle items are helpful."

"And you're just conjuring cash."

"Right."

"So you're building an army."

Lew shrugged. "That's an overstatement. And I'm trying to keep them in units, you know, isolated. Separating them out from their countrymen, the people they enlisted with, so they don't go off-target."

"They want to hit political targets?"

"It's taken too long, Bill. It's a fucking nightmare. Everyone is off-target, everyone thinks it's political, that we're somehow snubbing the Ministry, that we're in league with Russia or Al-Qaeda against NATO. Everything about the weapon is classified, so we can't share any progress with the group." Not that there was much to share. The plutonium was a dead end, totally ineffective against magic. "They need something substantial to focus on, more than short missions. The weapon feels -" Molly Weasley peeked into the kitchen. "It feels like a lost cause. Hey," Lew said to Molly.

"Are you ready for dinner?" Molly asked Bill.

"Yes," Bill said, and then he raised his eyebrows at Lew. "Let's get a beer soon."

"Sure," Lew agreed, wondering which of her safehouses she would sacrifice for the chance to talk with him again.


She hadn't told Hermione that she was finally going, but somehow Hermione knew anyway. The whispered prayers had layered enchantments that zigzagged across Lew's skin and blanketed her face. Be safe. Do not fear. Be strong, be whole. Be safe, my love.

Hermione had only reluctantly given up her position on top of Lew, having painstakingly coaxed out a flickering orgasm. Lew's fingers inside just made her invocation more frantic, her touch more trembling, until she forgot everything but "I love you." Lew was so focused on her face that she'd had to say "You're glowing" before Lew saw the lines of gold Hermione's benediction had left, sealed by the peak of her passion. Armor against anything but the weapon.

The invisible armor had persisted through the Polyjuice, through the layered jumpsuits and the indignity of the chemical shower, but Lew felt it when the armor fell away. The dead air of the weapon's field blanketed her, but it barely mattered; she couldn't have brought her wand here, anyway. She couldn't even bring… him, her companion. The name was a blank space, but the feeling remained.

Spectral images, so repeated that they appeared in her dreams, guided her through the corridors. Door pass, then fingerprint. She made no eye contact. She was supposed to be here, after all.

She stood before the door to the room. Too dangerous to visit Los Alamos. More dangerous yet to face down this door, but at least there was the potential of finally retrieving the information they needed. She spun Hermione's ring on her finger, disenchanted by the weapon years ago. For luck. This was the only technician who was married. She'd had to enlarge the ring to fit the finger.

Finally she reached out her hand and pressed her thumb to the pad. It beeped approval, but then her hand was suffused with an angry white glow, impossible to mistake, the meaning of which eluded her.

The floor dropped out from under Lew's feet, and she woke up on a flat metal bed with her arms and legs securely pinned. There was nobody in the room with her, but she could feel their eyes watching.

She turned her wrists in the bindings. Tight now. How much longer until the Polyjuice wore off? Was it worth slipping out of the bindings, or should she cooperate? She rubbed her fingers together, and of course there was no warmth. She snapped her fingers just to be sure. Nothing. No spark.

Dull panic crept along her arms, numbing, blinding. She gasped through it, finding a small comfort in this body. It felt less vulnerable than her own, more powerful by no specific merit except its masculinity.

She remembered the first touch of Hermione's mind after Lew left the Aurors to pursue Jacob. If Lew screamed as Hermione had, could she break through? The weapon was weakest against mental magic. But if Lew screamed for Hermione, what would it do? How would it help?

She could have woken Hermione from Harry's stunning spell seven years ago, almost did so when it became obvious that she could not trick Jacob into revealing the location of their baby. But why would she do that, when there was nothing Hermione could have done to stop her from sacrificing herself to Jacob? It would have been a comfort to Lew, but it would have hurt Hermione to have the sensation of choice without its actualization.

This was the same. There was nothing Hermione could do to get Lew back. For Lew to reach out to Hermione now would do nothing but cause her pain. Marco was the one in charge now. Marco would not compromise with the Muggles. That was definitely for the best.

But to be bound again was beyond tolerance. To stave off the numb panic, Lew recalled Hermione's touch last night. Sometimes Hermione called Lew hers, claimed her in inches and in pulsing heartbeats. Sometimes she begged Lew to keep her, to take her, to have her forever. But last night Hermione did none of these things. She had asked once, "Won't you send someone else? You're too valuable." When Lew just shook her head, Hermione asked every force of magic within her power to keep Lew safe, and that was all. In the morning, she let Lew go.

When the potion wore off, Lew slipped out of the bindings. She broke the first Marine's neck and the second Marine's knee. The third bowled her down and the fourth drugged her, bringing fleeting relief.


I thought it was safe! Hermione's hand fell from his trunk, cutting off communication completely. He couldn't see her face. She paced away.

He stretched his model's arms and stood. It was three groves away, an impossible distance. But the way was relatively safe, just a few highways to cross, no houses. He began walking.

Finally Hermione sat at the base of the tree and let her hand rest on an exposed root. "She went to the compound, didn't she?"

I told her not to go, he said.

"She had to go." Hermione's voice was flat.

It's my fault, he said in a rush. It was one of my eyes. I thought it had been disabled. All of them are disabled in Lawrence Livermore. Hermione's hand twitched, but she didn't say anything, so he kept going. It hasn't moved in more than a year. All the ones they're using move around, usually. I thought it was left there accidentally. He remembered that he was not supposed to tell Hermione about his eyes, but it was too late now.

"It's not your fault, Michael," Hermione said finally. "You didn't know."

Can you talk to her? I can't.

"No."

We have to get her out.

"How? Do you know where she is?" Hermione sounded hopeful.

No. They didn't show her to me. But the light - the sounds - it had never happened before, that the eye was activated, since it was moved to that spot. I know it's not a coincidence. She's not coming back.

"She's coming back," Hermione said, but she sounded defeated. "I can feel it, too. We have to get her back."

Will you fight? He flipped through a million clarifications, but none seemed adequate and he knew that Hermione knew what he meant.

At last she said, "I have never stopped fighting, Michael. And I will fight for Lew. But we have to be careful. We have to be smart, or I will be caught like she was. Is that OK?"

Yes. Tell me what to do.

"Tell me everything you know."

It was dark before he ran out of words, and Hermione curled up in a ball under him. At midnight, his model found her, awake there. She pulled him down and wrapped her arms around him, calling him her precious son. Finally she slept, as Lew had done a hundred times, under the spread of his branches.


A/N: All right. Starting a new (crazy) job on the 2nd, so no matter how badly I want to fill this in, I can't right now.

For my reference when I pick this back up, to those who are still reading... I hate to beg, but it would be insanely amazing to get an idea of your response so far. What do you think will happen to the Resistance without Lew? What would you have liked to have seen (character perspectives, details, explanations that I didn't get around to)?

Feedback about the previous arc is also, of course, welcome. I'm especially interested in hearing whether people think that Hermione was right in finally taking Lew back, and why. I am personally still up in the air about it.

It goes without saying, but I'm going to say it anyway: The more feedback, the more likely I will be to get back to this.