"No," Pandora said firmly, on hearing Lily's initial plan to acquire the First Horcrux, two days later. Her prediction had, rather unfortunately, come to pass, and the Healers had been far too busy the previous evening to further discuss the future, or Ginny's knowledge of their own time period. "It's far too reckless, and besides, there may be more important details yet to be revealed."

"But –"

"What guarantee have you that the Skeeter woman would not turn on you in an instant? Or that Lady Malfoy would agree to a proper parley? Or that her sister would not hear tell of the arrangement?"

"Rita still owes me for tipping her off over her big break, and Narcissa… we once had a fairly good working relationship, you know."

"Seven years ago. The world has changed, ever so slightly, since then, in case you have somehow failed to notice. No. And that's final."

"I could do it anyway," the redhead said sullenly. "I don't need your permission."

"But you do need Ginevra's and you trust my judgement more than your own, and we both know it," the serene witch said dismissively. "Now, if you please, I believe we had made it to the 1940s, or thereabouts, before the tale was diverted with talk of Black rituals and soul magic?"

"Um…" Ginny was still stuck on the fact that Lily Evans had known that evil cow, Narcissa Malfoy, well enough to be on first-name terms (was Mrs. Malfoy secretly a muggleborn sympathizer? Impossible!) and that she was, apparently, one of the reasons Rita Skeeter had become a household name in Magical Britain over the course of Ginny's lifetime.

The ill-connected witch sighed. "Yes, fine, I suppose. Go on with it. You'd just said that Riddle decided in his third year to make a horcrux. Or five. Bloody madman."

The time-traveler snorted. "Uh, yeah. He is. Okay. So he made his first horcrux in 1943, when he was sixteen, with a diary and the death of a girl named Myrtle, Moaning Myrtle who haunts the second-floor lav at Hogwarts – that's where the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets is, by the way."

Lily failed to hide a grin, and Ginny paused long enough for her to say, "Bet he loved that."

"It did irk him just a tad," she agreed lightly. "The second one was made in 1944, the summer before his last year at Hogwarts, with his father's death and the Gaunt family ring. He had issues with his father, you could say."

"Ironic," the green-eyed healer muttered, but declined to answer Ginny's inquiring look with an explanation, so she went on.

"Riddle tried to apply for the Defense post at Hogwarts, but was told he wasn't old enough, so he took a rather menial job that allowed him to focus on his extra-curricular Dark Arts studies. He came across Slytherin's Locket and the Chalice of Hufflepuff in 1947 and immediately decided that they would become additional horcruxes. After they were made, he decided it was time to leave Britain: his immediate immortality was assured, and he wanted to look into eternal youth before he got too old. Since he would be travelling anyway, he decided that he would make finding the Lost Diadem of Ravenclaw a priority. He had gotten the story of where it was hidden out of the Grey Lady while he was still in school, and he was already thinking that it would make a good horcrux back then. It turns out he did manage it, because that's what Harry was looking for, on – on that last night," she explained, her voice cracking slightly.

She had gathered that much from overheard snippets of conversation between terrified, evacuating Ravenclaws. He had gone to their common room, demanded to know what artifacts she might have left behind, crucio'd the male Carrow for spitting at McGonagall… and now he was dead, along with Fred and Colin and so many others. They had come so close to defeating the monster, and yet…

She quashed her grief as well as she could. This was no time for sniveling over a future she was going to change anyway! Pandora passed her a handkerchief, which she set aside and studiously ignored. Lily went from looking vaguely uncomfortable to smirking slightly, as though she knew Ginny saw the square of transfigured linen as a hopeless indicator of weakness. The youngest of the trio glared at her. She knew nothing of what Ginny had gone through! Anger drove back the pain enough to continue.

"The Diadem is hidden at Hogwarts, in the Room of Requirement, somehow, I think," she said, her voice distant and hollow. "I don't know what happened after that, because he left the diary behind, hidden, when he began to travel, and did not update it. I know… from bits of history and stories I've pieced together, I'm pretty sure, he came back to Britain in the 1950s, and started the Death Eaters by the 1960s. You'd know more than I would, about that," she nodded to Pandora.

The silver-eyed witch nodded. "They grew more powerful over the course of my childhood, whispers and bogey men. But they were not a widely-recognized problem until 1970, when they attacked the Ministry Christmas Ball, and then the Aurory attacked the Bacchanalia the following spring, and raids began to escalate. Auror 'protection' at the Festa Morgana in 1973 started a riot, and since then M. de Mort and the Lady Blackheart have been more or less in a state of open war with Dumbledore and Crouch. Not that the latter pair are nearly so well coordinated."

Lily sniggered. "I don't think old Barty swings that way, Dora. Young Barty, now… They're together," she explained to the time-traveler. "Riddle and Black. Have been for ages. Sev used to give Sirius all kinds of shite about it."

"Lily Irene, is this really the time?"

The smirking witch sighed. "Imagine, humor to lighten the mood in the face of horror. Clearly my fiancé has been a terrible influence on me. Go on, Ginny."

"O…kay. So the way the books teach it, there were nine major battles of the first war. The First Battle in '78; the Battle of Artemis, Golem Downs, and the Diagon Alley Massacre in '79; Denbigh Moor, Wolf Moon, and the Slaughter of the Innocents in '80; and Firefall and the Last Battle in '81." She counted them off on her fingers. "You, um… I imagine you know more about the first three than I do." Lily had gone hard-faced at the mention of those battles, and there were lines of tension in Pandora's serene mask. "And, well, to be honest, I don't know all that much about the details of any of them. I know that the Light won at Diagon and St. Mungo's, but the history books left out exactly how, and my parents never liked to talk about the war."

"And the Dark won the other four?" Lily asked, rather outraged.

Ginny nodded. "But then, in 1981, something happened. See, there was this prophecy made, about a child who would be the one to defeat the Dark Lord. I don't know the exact wording, but I do know that Snakeface only heard the first few lines, about a boy, born at the end of July in 1981, whose parents had defied the Dark Lord three times. That was why they attacked St. Mungo's, Lammastide of that year, I'm pretty sure. In the hopes of killing the baby. I mean, it makes sense, doesn't it? But Harry was born in hiding, and they – you," she corrected herself, looking at Lily, "stayed in hiding for over a year."

"Harry?" Pandora asked, just as Lily said, "Me?"

Ginny took a great, shuddering breath and glanced at Lily's vaguely curious features briefly before she admitted, in a near whisper, "Harry Potter… son of James and Lily Potter."

"I have a kid? Wait, how far in the future are you from?"

It was strange to think that that hadn't come up, yet, in the excitement of sharing her knowledge of Riddle and the war. In fact, it was rather strange that neither of them had yet demanded proof of her story, or to know how she knew. "1998. I'm from 1998. In 1992, my first year at Hogwarts, I was given the Diary horcrux by Lucius Malfoy, and it began to possess me. It used me to open the Chamber of Secrets. Harry is only a year older than me. He killed the Hogwarts Basilisk with the Sword of Gryffindor and destroyed the diary in the spring of 1993. He saved my life, but I was on the brink of death, with Riddle's soul half-bound to mine. When Harry… ripped him out of me… many of his memories were left behind. I – that's how I know most of this."

Pandora nodded, with an expression that said things were falling into place, but Lily looked outraged. "Please tell me you're having us on."

"Uh… no?" Ginny almost laughed at Lily's obvious disbelief. Surely having acquired a horcrux's memories was not any less likely than having been cast nineteen years into her own past?

"Why the hell was my twelve-year-old son anywhere near a basilisk armed with a sword?"

Oh, that.

Pandora did laugh. "Isn't it obvious, Lily Irene? He clearly inherited your penchant for… creative problem-solving and James Charles' noble streak."

The Gryffindor healer shut up. She crossed her arms, her face as red as her hair, and glowered at Ginny. "Go on."

Ginny swallowed hard. It was a very intimidating glower, and the next part of the story was possibly even worse than the idea of a twelve-year-old facing off against a giant snake. "Well, I don't really know that much about what happened between the last time Riddle wrote in the diary until now, because it was hidden away somewhere, and like I said the history books aren't all too clear on the details, and it's not like anyone outright said anything to me about it except for my family – the Weasleys and the Prewetts. Even that wasn't much, but you pick things up here and there, you know?"

Both witches nodded.

"Harry was, or will be, maybe? No, I'll use was. It's easier. He was born in 1980. July 31," the time traveler said abruptly. "Luna, your daughter, Pandora, was born in 1981. Her birthday was the 13th of February, but she insisted on celebrating it every Friday the thirteenth."

"That sounds like something my Xeno would encourage," the witch smiled.

"Luna's an oracle. I expect you'd figure that out soon enough," Ginny said with a small grin.

Pandora nodded. "It runs in the family, in a way."

"As far as I can tell from the hints she's given me over the years, there was a prophecy made about either Harry or Neville, Alice and Frank Longbottom's son, and the Dark Wanker. I don't know what it said, exactly, or when it was made, but the Wanker found out about it, and decided it was definitely Harry. He attacked the house where you were staying in 1981, on Halloween, and, well…"

"Well what?" Lily was practically falling out of her chair, she had leaned so far forward.

"James tried to hold him off, and you… you sacrificed yourself to save Harry. I don't know how, but you died, and he lived, and the Wanker was destroyed. He spent the next thirteen years without a body. Harry… Dumbledore sent Harry to live with your muggle sister, under blood wards that were supposed to protect him from MoldyShorts and the Death Eaters, because not even half of them ended up in Azkaban."

The green-eyed witch hadn't reacted at all when Ginny had mentioned her own death, but she glared fiercely at the idea that her son would go to live with her sister. "Not Sirius?"

"He ended up in Azkaban, framed for betraying you. It turned out Peter Pettigrew was a rat animagus, and you made him your secret keeper, for the Fidelius Charm."

"Right, I'll be having a word with him as soon as possible, but right now… who was the other godparent? Not Sev – much as I'd want him, well… he is a Death Eater."

"You'd've made Snape his godfather?!" Ginny exclaimed, aghast. "But Snape and Harry – they hated each other."

"Wait – if I'm dead, how did they even know each other?" Lily asked.

"Snape's our potions professor, or, well, he was. He murdered the Headmaster last year, and MoldyShorts made him the new Headmaster."

"Sev ended up teaching? That's fucking tragic."

"He murdered Dumbledore, and all you care about is that he was a teacher?!"

Lily just shrugged. "He's wanted to murder Dumbledore since sixth year. Bet he was a miserable professor, though. He hated tutoring. I can't even imagine him teaching a core subject."

Ginny stared at the older witch hard, for a long moment before deciding to give her the benefit of a doubt. "Are you like, in shock or something? Because we can take a break…"

The witch in question looked a bit confused at her concern. "I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be? Anyway, I was going to say that yes, I'd choose Sev, because he's been more family to me than my actual sister ever was, even if we haven't talked in a year and a half. It doesn't matter, though. Obviously I didn't choose him. Who was it? Pandora? Someone else in the Order? Lupin's not allowed because we live in a fucking fascist state, but –"

"Alice Longbottom."

"Alice? Why…? Nevermind, I don't suppose I would've told anyone. So why didn't the kid go to her? Or my parents? Or your parents? Or literally any magical family at all? Change his name, change his birthdate, he could have been raised as a Bones, or a McKinnon!"

"The Longbottoms were attacked a week after you. Bellatrix Lestrange crucio'd them into insanity. I guess your parents were probably dead. All the Boneses except Amelia and Susan, who's Harry's age, were killed. And most of the McKinnons, too. Lupin couldn't for, um… health reasons. Amos Diggory had a breakdown after Alice was sent to St. Mungo's, and I think the Malfoys had a better claim on him than we did, seeing as Narcissa's Sirius' first-cousin. So no one on our side fought it when Dumbledore hid him away, even after we found out that he was with… her. And since he was with a second-degree blood relative, none of the other side could challenge it."

"So it's Dumbledore's fault."

"It was for his own safety," Ginny protested.

"Petunia hates magic – anything unusual or strange! She prides herself on her mugglishness! We haven't been on friendly terms since I started at Hogwarts. The best he would have gotten from her would be cold tolerance – no love or even acceptance. I would rather my son live with Narcissa Black than Petunia Dursley! At least she would have known how to prepare him for –"

Ginny was appalled. "First Snape, and now Narcissa Malfoy? Seriously?! She'd have him kitted out like a little Death Eater before Hogwarts, if he wasn't killed off before his second birthday!"

"Well, she wouldn't be my first choice, but she's not that bad. Spoilt, selfish and a bit uptight, but she always comes out ahead, and living with Petunia is way more likely to make a kid hate muggles. Narcissa would probably never mention that muggles existed if she could help it. And if the Death Eaters thought she was going to turn him, they'd leave him alone, wouldn't they?" she smirked, as though making an unquestionable argument.

"You're impossible! Absolutely –"

"Ginevra Phyllis," Pandora interrupted, with the same stern tone she used to shut down Lily's ranting. Ginny flushed, and shut her mouth. "Lily Irene is perfectly capable of choosing a godparent by her own criteria. Besides, she isn't even married yet, let alone expecting."

"Thank you, Pandora!"

The elder witch turned mirror-bright eyes on her friend with a small smile. "Lily Irene, you are derailing the story." Lily flushed, and made a lip-zipping gesture. "Please go on, Ginevra Phyllis."

The youngest of the trio glared at the others for another long moment before she asked, "Where was I?"

"1981," the eldest suggested.

"Oh, well. Like I said, the Potters were in hiding, behind a Fidelius Charm, with Pettigrew as the Secret Keeper, even though everyone thought it was Black. MouldyShorts… he disappeared. It was never clear if his body was destroyed, or if he got away, or what, but I know when he showed up again, it was as a shade. If anyone knows how the protection on Harry worked, they never told me."

"I thought you said there were blood wards," Lily noted.

Ginny shook her head. "Harry said Dumbledore did those, and that was why he had to live with your sister. I mean I have no idea what you did to protect him on Halloween of 1981."

"It was Samhain?" the older witch said speculatively. "Hmmm…"

"Anyway, after that, there was a ten-year… ceasefire, of sorts. About a half of the Death Eaters pled Imperius and got off with major fines – the Malfoys took the lead in that, by the way, and it took a couple of years to round up most of the other stragglers. Um… Crouch's son turned out to be a Death Eater, so he was made to step down as the Head of the DMLE in 1981 – Hermione said that's one of the reasons Sirius never got a proper trial, reorganization in the department. Adamant Smith was the interim Head until Bagnold was replaced by Turpin in '83. Turpin cleaned house and found that Smith was a Death Eater sympathizer, so he was replaced with Amelia Bones in '84.

"By the time I was old enough to start asking questions about the war, the Truce was already in place – basically an agreement to put the war behind us all, and not talk about it except in the most vague and factual of terms. Mum didn't really agree with it – she told us all about what the Yaxleys and Dolohov and the Selwyns had done to our family, killing her brothers, and about Wilkes torturing her sister to death. We grew up knowing who we were supposed to hate. Malfoy, Nott, Rosier, Prince, Lestrange, Parkinson, Yaxley, Selwyn, Burke – there were hardly any old families who didn't have at least one or two people on one side or the other, but she said the ones who bought their way out of Azkaban were the worst.

"Then in 1991, the Dark Wanker came back as a shade, possessed the Defense Professor, and tried to steal the Philosopher's Stone. And in 1992, I was possessed by the diary. Sirius escaped from Azkaban in 1993. We found out about Pettigrew in '94, and he – the Wanker – got a new body in 1995."

"How?" Lily interrupted again, for the first time in minutes.

Ginny could only shrug. "Everything I know about that is second hand from things my brother Ron overheard while Harry was having nightmares. He didn't like to talk about it, but they were in the same dorm, you see. I think he took Harry's blood, and I know it happened in a cemetery, and Cedric Diggory died. Someone cut off his own hand, and there was an evil, demon baby involved, possibly. Ron thought that last bit might have just been a dream, though. Is that, erm… important?"

"Everything and anything could be important, Ginevra," Pandora smiled reassuringly.

"Evil, demon baby, and my son's blood…" Lily muttered under her breath, then added at a more normal volume: "Go on, I'm listening."

The time traveler hesitated. She didn't particularly care to examine her own experiences in the war too closely, and they were getting disturbingly close to that period. But she couldn't exactly refuse to tell them at least the basics, especially when Pandora had just said that anything might be important. "He – the Dark Wanker – spent most of the next year trying to get at the record of the prophecy in the Department of Mysteries. The Order was guarding it. My father was nearly killed guarding it. Harry… I think he was having visions, or dreams, where he was in the Wanker's head. He thought he was being possessed, or something. Stupid boy. Being possessed isn't like that at all."

Lily hummed. "No, if anything, it's more the other way around…"

Pandora gave her a startled look. "Subsumption, Lily Irene?!"

"What? No! It was voluntary, and it was only Sev! I wanted to see what Legilimency was like, that's all!"

"Erm… what?"

"It's not important, Ginny – No, Dora, seriously, it was ages ago, and it was only a little possession, and it's not like I can do it on a whim – it was a spell that emulated a twin bond. Almost like the Tyrolian Trimaguum, but less total. I swear, it's like you think I'm the next coming of Satan himself some days."

Pandora raised a silvery eyebrow at her skeptically. "The devil's daughter, perhaps. I rather think M. de Mort would take exception to your usurping his title."

Lily, predictably, smirked at this. "Hell is empty, and all the devils are here, Ferdinand?"

"Not all."

"Oh, shut up. Gin, go on with the story," the redhead ordered crossly. "Possession?"

Ginny, baffled, looked between the two older witches for a moment before she decided an explanation was not forthcoming. She sighed. Sometimes it was like hanging about with Fred and George to be around these two, or perhaps a calmer, more mature Luna and a darker, more vicious Hermione, always speaking in some sort of code – half old memories and in-jokes, and half obscure references no one else would catch, though it was not, apparently, intentional.

"Ah, right… so Harry thought he was being possessed, but he wasn't, and I'm not sure what was going on there, but apparently it was like, an ongoing thing? Hermione mentioned that he was supposed to be taking Occlumency lessons from Snape, but they weren't getting on well. Which really wasn't surprising. And then at the end of the year, he said he'd had a vision of the Wanker torturing Sirius at the Ministry, and he had to go – we had to go. We tried to save him, but… but it turns out he wasn't there at all – that bastard managed to trick Harry somehow, and it was just a bunch of Death Eaters waiting for us to get the Prophecy.

"We fought back, but it would have been only a matter of time until they caught us, except the Order came to save us, and – and Bellatrix cursed Sirius, and he fell through the Veil of Death… because of us. Because he was there to save Harry.

"I don't think Harry ever got over that. Sirius was the closest thing to a parent he'd ever had, you see. The only one he'd ever known. And he only had him for such a short time. And it was because Harry had been tricked, because he had run into danger, that Sirius was even there, and not in hiding like he ought to have been… He wasn't the same, after. Dumbledore started paying more attention to him, telling him things about Riddle's life, before Voldemort. The whole next school year was… bad. Not as bad as the one before, in some ways, but…

"The Bastard kept his head down during fourth year – he didn't want the Ministry rallying against him before he was ready, before he could recruit allies, I guess. But he revealed himself at the Ministry, when the Order was about to capture the Death Eaters he had sent, so by fifth year, everyone knew, and we were really at war, or at least, the adults were, outside the school. Dumbledore… he'd been cursed, or something, over the summer. His hand. He was teaching Harry about Riddle because he knew he wouldn't have enough time to finish what he had started, hunting down Riddle's horcruxes.

"I – I should have told him, them, what I knew. It might have saved them time. But I didn't. I couldn't tell anyone about – about Riddle's memories. Dumbledore especially… he wouldn't have understood that I was still me." She sniffled, and swiped viciously at the tears that were threatening to fall.

"Guess it's a good thing the nosey old bugger can't be arsed to question you himself," Lily smirked.

"What… are you going to tell him?" Ginny asked, momentarily forgetting the elder witches' opinions on their Fearless Leader in her panic. "You can't!"

The Healers exchanged a look, and then Pandora said, simply, "No."

"N-no?"

"We trust you, Ginevra."

"Plus we're sworn to secrecy, remember?"

Well, now I do, Ginny thought, feeling incredibly stupid, as well as somewhat relieved.

Pandora glared at Lily. "Even if we weren't, we would not betray your trust. You have not lied to us. You have not tried to hide anything. You are deeply damaged, yes, but the memories you stole from the one who would have subjugated you have not tainted you with his madness."

"And honestly, if it comes down to it, you're not as damaged as, say… Sirius."

"Or Lily," Pandora added pointedly, though she smirked slightly herself as she added: "Though both she and Sirius Orion are quite mad, too."

"Brilliant. The word you're looking for is brilliant," she corrected her friend. "At least for me. That Sirius Black is a bit of a nutter."

"Madness and brilliance are not mutually exclusive. My Xeno would say they go hand in hand. But the point remains, we would not betray your confidence, Ginevra, even if we could. Albus Dumbledore is a very intelligent, powerful wizard, but he has his flaws, like any other, and his stubborn adherence to his Gryffindorish worldview is one of them."

Ginny sighed, ignoring the former Ravenclaw's jab at Gryffindor. Sometimes she wished that life could be so simple as it was when she was a child, and Albus Dumbledore was brilliant and infallible, rather than merely human.

"Yeah, no worries, hon. If he looks to be getting suspicious about your cover, I'll tell him you're a time traveler, and I ran the arithmancy, and you can't tell him anything, for risk of destabilizing the time-line, or some other pseudo-realistic sounding BS. He's clearly afraid of his own power, so I highly doubt he'll press the issue."

"Afraid of his own power? Dumbledore?"

Pandora nodded. "Oh, yes. Why else would the most powerful wizard in Britain turn down the ministry to teach, and even then refuse to actively shape the experiences of three-quarters or more of the school? He is no Slughorn, to make and exploit connections, and no Flitwick, interested in shaping young minds. He looks to the big picture, with the Progressive Agenda, normalizing the muggleborn experience, but that he could do just as well and with more effect elsewhere, as he does in the Wizengamot. Hogwarts is his refuge from the temptation to re-make the world."

"That's…" That made a lot of sense, actually.

Lily apparently misinterpreted her neglected sentence, because she gave the younger girl a positively cynical smirk. "Do you really think that, if Dumbledore was willing to use all of his power and resources, this war would have gone on so long? It's been nine years, Gin. The Dark is playing games, and the Light is taking it all too seriously, and we're still not making any headway, because someone is afraid to escalate the situation to the point that he will have to actually act. And if that isn't enough, look at the laws he's put through in the last thirty years, restricting access to any magic that is remotely powerful – rituals, healing, weatherworking, alchemy – honestly, it's absurd."

"You, um… isn't that what the Dark say?"

The redhead glared. "You can't possibly think that I'm actually for the Light, here, can you? I mean, I'm not for the Dark, either, if they're being led by that madman, and I don't approve of much of the Traditionalist agenda, seeing as I did grow up as a muggleborn at Hogwarts, and I know how hard it would be for me to find work even if I wasn't a target in this bloody stupid war, but I certainly don't think the sun shines out of Dumbledore's arsehole or that we ought to set aside the lion's share of our power because of how it could be used by someone."

"And that," Pandora interrupted, "is exactly why he doesn't trust you, either."

"We're in a war, Dora! Anything goes!"

"The only people who truly believe that are you, Auror Moody, and Sirius Orion!"

"And the entire enemy side!"

"As though lowering yourself to their level is a good thing?"

"It is if it stops them from killing us all! I didn't see you complaining after Imbolc!"

"Imbolc was incredibly dangerous! You should never even have attempted that ritual! You're not at all suited to it!"

Ginny nearly did a double-take at the sudden escalation: she had never heard Mrs. Lovegood yell, even when she and the boys had taken the seven-year-old Luna on an impromptu two-day camping trip without telling anyone. Her mother had yelled at them for hours, but Pandora had just asked whether they'd found any new and interesting creatures on their two-day "walk."

"The Youthful Power seemed to think I was," Lily said triumphantly, sticking out her tongue at her older friend.

"What happened at Imbolc?" Ginny vaguely recalled the old, traditionalist holiday. It was sometime in February, and had to do with youth and potential. She didn't know anyone who actually celebrated it, though.

"Don't ask," Lily advised.

"The Battle of Artemis, I believe you called it," Pandora explained.

The time-traveler blanched. The Battle of Artemis had taken place in Hogsmeade, and it had been a slaughter. Someone on the Light side had summoned a construct that had taken the form of the Goddess and hunted down the Death Eaters like animals. Were they really suggesting that Lily Evans had been responsible for that?

"Yeah, well, anyway, if we're through discussing my possible impending war crimes tribunal, shall we continue with the story?"

It seemed they were. For perhaps the fiftieth time since her arrival, barely two weeks before, Ginny felt as though she were drowning in this strange tide of events, so different from her expectations, and anything she had ever before experienced, even in her own war. She shoved the feeling away, but before she could continue, a siren started wailing about incoming wounded.

"Oh, bloody hell. Later. I still want the rest of the story," Lily insisted, hauling herself to her feet. Pandora was already at the door, headed toward the large, open receiving bay.

Ginny followed them, eager to help. A healer's work left no room to concentrate on anything other than fixing shattered bones and torn muscles and the scorched skin of the lashes across Sirius Black's fire-whipped back.

She relished the reprieve from thinking about her friends, left behind in the future, and their own war wounds, less easily healed.