AN: Holy crap, you guys, I'm back...ish. For the past few Nanowrimo months I've worked on Hogwarts' Muggle. Which I know sounds like an awesome thing, but it's really just shown me that I can put 100k words onto this story and still be nowhere near done. I added huge chunks all over the timeline... all except right where I left off publishing. I don't know why it's so hard to continue from this point, but it really is. There's some awesome stuff in later books that I want to share, but I'm having a hard time getting there. This chapter and the next one are as ready as I think I can get them, let's see if you guys reading them will help spur me on. I don't know if any of the followers for this story are still out there, but if you are, leave a little review. Who knows, maybe it will help.

Pasta La Vista

Brie glanced at the time as she watched Jill browse through the racks of the little Italian shop they were patronizing. It was September first and, had she decided to return to Hogwarts, Albus would have been picking her up right about then. They'd be greeting each other with a hug while Albus looked curiously around her former lab, asking if she'd worked on anything there while she'd been home. Laughing, she would not bother trying to explain how long and drawn out a process research was, and how one couldn't expect to make any progress while only being able to work on it a few weeks out of the year.

She would suspect that he knew it already anyway, seeing as she'd read a bit into the legendary Albus Dumbledore and found out a great many of his achievements must have surely come about in some kind of potions lab after much research. Instead she would simply show him some random bit of Muggle science as she knew that was what he was fishing for in the first place, the same way she subtly used to fish for bits of magic while at the school.

Using odd pieces of lab equipment and some of the old chemicals still stored there, she'd treat him to the kind of sophomoric science that she'd enjoyed as a kid in school. After he was done delighting at 'Muggle ingenuity', and she was done twitching in irritation at the term, she'd take his hand and they would turn on the spot into the crushing, and frankly, terrifying darkness, arriving almost instantly at the school. Just about the only part of that scenario Brie wasn't sad to miss was the nausea that always accompanied Apparition.

As she dwelled a bit more on the memories, she realized that for the past few years it had been Severus, not Albus coming to pick her up and her mood fell even more. It had been a pleasant surprise each time and she'd been glad for the few minutes they'd get to spend together before going to the school and being unable to freely spend time together.

On and off over the past month she'd thought of the life she'd walked away from at Hogwarts. She didn't really want to, since it made her melancholy that she wouldn't return, but for some reason she'd been unable to keep the thoughts locked away. She was still having a hard time keeping any thoughts locked away and it continued to worry her. Even though she knew it wasn't a good thing to do, she was beginning to realize that the practice was just about the only thing that had had her functioning normally over the past six or so years. The routine of the school and the clear schedules had kept her on track. Her filming schedule had filled her summers. Work had filled her vacation time. She'd barely had the time to consider any other thoughts besides the ones pertaining to her immediate activities. Now, with nothing but leisure time, her thoughts were running amok.

Everyone said that time heals all wounds, but for Brie that hadn't proven true. Time had done nothing but slightly dull the pain of being essentially alone in the world. After Rogan and her family, she'd only been able to bring herself to the point of basic functioning on her own, and that had mostly been because Evan had kept after her. Hogwarts had helped mask that fact by giving her something new to focus on. Marveling at all the things that kept her senses reeling had helped her to push everything else behind that wall of wonder.

Once the wonder had started to wear off, making a project out of befriending Severus had been a great distraction to keep her occupied. Simply being someone's friend had made her feel normal and had given her someone to talk to.

When she'd no longer been able to spend much time with Severus, studying the connection between science and magic and the discovery of magic in her family background had been the perfect thing to cling to, to keep her at the school and away from her real life where there were more memories of her problems.

Jill's problems should have been the perfect thing to continue to pour all her focus into now, especially considering that they'd been traipsing around Italy for a month, but it wasn't working. She really wished that she knew what had changed. She was still amazed that she'd really had herself perfectly fooled, believing that time had indeed finally really started to heal her. Hell, she'd been walking around giving advice on getting over and moving on like she was suddenly an expert. Right up until last year she'd thought she was getting better.

What had it been that had opened the floodgates again? What about the last school year had been different? And it wasn't Jill's problems. She'd been having difficulties before then. As she scanned her memories, something cold, dark, and indistinct niggled at the back of her mind. It had been like that any time she tried to figure it out. She could look back and line up all the events but still couldn't put her finger on anything significant.

"Thisa scarf would looka lovely on you." The heavily accented voice of the shop owner cut through Brie's thoughts, distracting her as she watched the rotund older woman walk up to Jill with a adorable silk scarf in her hands. "Your boyafriend there would think you looka like a movie star."

Brie snickered as both Jill and Evan blushed, the thoughts she'd been working on drifting away with her amusement. She gladly let them go.

"Oh, he's not my boyfriend," Jill giggled as she reached out and let the fabric of the scarf trail through her fingers.

"Oh, he'sa not, eh?" The shop owner grinned. "Then you come over here next to Isabella and keepa me company while I show your lovely friend here thisa scarf." She fairly well dragged Evan over to her, looping one of her arms through his. "And what abouta that one?" she asked, pointing to Brie with the hand holding the scarf. Surprised to be drawn into the conversation, Brie waved vaguely toward the little group. "She's your girlafriend, then?" Isabella made a kissy face to underscore her meaning.

Brie laughed outright as Jill blushed deeper and ran a hand over her smooth scalp in embarrassment.

"Oh, no, no. We're all just friends. Really, really good friends." She eyed the scarf again. "Thanks for your suggestion, but I don't really look good in scarves. It never matters how I fold them, they just never look right." she indicated her neck while speaking.

Isabella let go of Evan as she reached out and took Jill's shoulder. "No, no. I meant for up here," she said as she wrapped the scarf around Jill's scalp and smoothed it down over her forehead, swooping the extra fabric back to the nape of her neck and tying it into a large knot underneath one ear, with a bit of extra material trailing out the end, which she flipped over Jill's shoulder. "Anda now, we take this hat." She grabbed Evan's hand and pulled him over to the hat rack she'd indicated. "You, Bello, you stay next to Isabella."

Brie stifled laugher when she recognized 'bello' as the Italian word for handsome. Poor Evan just let himself be dragged along.

"And we put the hat ona the scarf." Isabella continued as she let go of Evan again once she'd pulled him back over to Jill, who was still standing there in a state of shock over the sudden goings on. Isabella took a minute to try the hat a few different ways on Jill's head. Evan took the opportunity to start inching away. "There!" she said triumphantly, giving it a bit more of a tilt toward one eyebrow. "Tell Isabella what you think. You like it, no?"

Jill turned to the mirror she had indicated while Isabella reached out and pulled Evan back to her. "No, no, you silly boy. You stay near Isabella, now." She laced her fingers through his and patted his hand while tucking it practically up under her ample bosom. Evan threw a helpless look back over his shoulder at Brie.

Brie shrugged and did her best not to laugh at him as Jill studied herself in the mirror with slightly teary eyes.

"You almost can't tell," she whispered reaching up and touching the brim of the hat with her fingertips, breaking Brie's heart a little, making her head spin with the rapid succession of conflicting emotions. It had been like that all month, one thought or action would delight while the very next could devastate. She had no idea how Jill was handling it, as she must have been having the same experiences times ten.

"You get yourselfa some big sunglasses and it will be even better," Isabella advised as she played with Evan's hair with her free hand. He hadn't had a haircut since they'd left the states and his usually short cut had started to grow out, already reaching that horrible 'in between' stage which made it stick out every which way. In another month, he'd have hair as long as it had been when Brie had met him in college. "All these things help to pulla the attention somewhere else, and maka you look glamorous."

"I think my beauty days are behind me," Jill tried to joke, with a hand to her gaunt cheek, but the statement fell flat.

"No, Bella," she stopped playing with Evan's hair and looked directly at Jill, cupping her cheek in her hand. "Thisa doesn't matter," she swept her hand over Jill's face and head. "What matters is here." She tapped Jill's heart. "Whena someone comes to my store with two friends who watcha her with such concern anda love, that person must be beautiful." Jill blushed deeply at the statement.

"Most beautiful girl in the world," Evan agreed while Brie nodded in accord, making Jill blush even more.

"You guys, cut it out!" she muttered as she checked the tags on both the scarf and hat and took out her wallet to pay. It took her a minute to manage the unfamiliar money, but she was getting a lot better at it the longer they stayed.

Isabella took the money, counted it out and shook her head. "No, now, you paya for just the scarf. The hat is a gift from me," she pushed some of the bills back into Jill's protesting fingers and put her own hand up to Jill's pale cheek again. "If you looka good, you'll feela good and life will be happy for a time. God will bless you, child. You're beautiful." She patted Jill's face, shushed her protests and waved them out of the shop. "Dream about me, Bello!" she called out to Evan as they left.

Evan shuddered as they made their way down the street. "I might have nightmares."

Jill laughed. "Oh come on, she was nice."

"She manhandled me around that store like she was herding a goat."

"You liked it," Jill replied.

"Maybe just a little," Evan admitted, making both Brie and Jill laugh out loud.

"Come on, Bello," Jill said in a decent approximation of Isabella's accent. "Let's get a cappuccino."

Brie lagged behind them both, feeling a bit like a third wheel, but she didn't much care. She liked seeing Jill happy, and Evan too for that matter. If the two of them wanted to pretend to be the only two people in the world now and then, she could deal with it.

As she watched them giggle their way up the street, Brie thought about how much Jill reminded her of Jada. She giggled the same way when she was giddy. It was something Brie had noticed countless times over the years. After Jada had died, it would make her sad, but after awhile, she actually was glad. It was just one tiny thing about her sister that she'd been able to hang on to. Sometimes it caught her off guard and would send her spinning around to find the source, before she remembered that it was Jill. It was always Jill and while Brie never actually expected that she'd turn and find Jada, something about the familiar sound and feeling would make her feel as if maybe Jada wasn't totally gone from the world.

Once Jill was gone though, there would never again be moments like that, where time seemed to fall away and maybe, just maybe her sister was actually hiding around the corner, waiting for Brie to come find her, like when they'd been young and had played hide and seek almost endlessly.

She followed Jill and Evan to a little cafe and let them order her a drink. The caffeine would have her jittery for hours, but at least she'd be awake. Without it, she was likely to prop her cheek on her hand and fall asleep right there at the table.

After coffee and some gelato from a street vendor, Jill was back at it, pulling them both into any store that caught her eye. Brie had never really been a shopping for the sake of shopping type of person and was starting to get bored with the routine. She told herself to suck it up, though, because if this is how Jill wanted to spend her time, it's what was going to happen. Evan seemed to be feeling and thinking the same, based on his reactions when Jill wasn't looking.

Brie knew that he would do the same as she was doing for as long as it took. They'd both plaster smiles on their faces and follow Jill to the ends of the earth. There would probably be a trinket shop there that she'd want to poke around in.

As she wandered the new shop, hoping no clerks would try to help her, she watched Jill eying a pair of shoes. She obviously liked them, but she put them down and walked away.

"Don't you want those shoes, Jilly?" she asked, making Jill jump. She obviously didn't know Brie was behind her.

"I just, don't need them, you know?"

"Buy them anyway. They're awesome."

"I don't think I should. I checked my accounts the other day. I'm running lower than I thought. I think I might run out of money before..." she trailed off.

"Buy them Jilly. If you run out of money before you run out of time, I'll take care of you."

Evan cleared his throat behind her back without stopping what he was doing, which was trying on all the hats and sunglasses in the store. "We'll take care of you," she amended.

Jill looked wistfully at the shoes again. "No, I think I'll leave them. Where would I even wear them?"

Brie gave an exasperated sigh, grabbing the shoes and marching Jill up to the register.

"Jilly, at this point, you can wear these things wherever you fricken want. You want to go out to breakfast in these shoes and a pair of sweats? Do it, damnit. You're not dead yet, you know!" She paid for the shoes without looking at the price and shoved them at Jill. "Come on, we're going to find a dress to go with those and Evan is taking us out tonight."

"Woo, hot Italian date with two sexy ladies!" Evan exclaimed as he tossed the latest hat back onto the rack and slung his arm around Jill's shoulder, steering her in the direction Brie had just marched. "I love when I don't even have to work at it."

The afternoon was filled with more scouring of shops, this time with all of them trying and buying swank Italian fashions, which they wore out that night. The evening was filled with music, food, and laughter as they hopped from one place to another, soaking up the nightlife and meeting new people they'd never see again once they all parted ways. Brie's Italian was rudimentary and rusty, but she was able to understand most of what everyone said while also getting her point across well enough.

Later on, as they all stumbled back into the hotel lobby, the concierge stopped Brie with a letter that had been delivered while they'd been out. Brie's giddiness vanished when she recognized the letterhead on the envelope. The production company had managed to find her. Tearing the envelope open she scanned the contents of the letter with a furrowed brow. After she finished, she shoved it all into her pocket and brought out a fistful of bills from the other. "This never arrived here," she said to the concierge, pushing the bills into his hand. My party and I will be leaving within the hour."

Accepting the bills with a nod, he asked, "Will you need help locating another suite?"

"No. I have a list and a credit card, I'll take care of everything. If you know where I went, you could forward things to me." With a wink, she turned and strode toward the elevators where Jill and Evan were still giggling over their night together.

"Pack up guys," she said to them as she came up and hit the button for their floor. "They found me, but they won't know it. We're out of here in an hour. Jill, how do you feel about switching countries? Ever been to Spain?"

A week later, Brie lay in her hotel room in Barcelona. It was three in the morning and, like most of the nights since she'd come back from Hogwarts for good, she couldn't sleep. Everything about the past year kept swirling in her head. Jill, the school, filming, working with a new director, Evan's mental and emotional state, the closed facility, her empty house that she preferred not to stay in for long, Severus, Remus, Albus, her dead husband and family and her own lack of closure there, and most of all, her inability to keep any of it at bay.

"Damnit, brain, can't you let me sleep?" Brie exclaimed as she looked at the clock and watched the numbers change from 3:10 to 3:11. That minute had felt like an eternity. "Just shut off for a minute, can't you? Just a minute?"

It was never a good sign when she started to yell at her own brain. With a groan she jammed the heels of her hands into her eyes and pressed hard until she saw little stars of light explode behind her closed eyelids. With a jerk, she slammed both hands down onto either side of her, making a muffled whomp sound on the covers. When that didn't make her feel better she indulged herself with an all over body tantrum, shifting and squirming, slamming her fists down on the bed, kicking the covers clear off and onto the floor. She still didn't feel better.

"FUCK!" she screamed into the darkness as she pushed herself up and threw her pillow at the wall. Sitting in the tangled sheets with her hands over her face, she drew in a large breath and let it out through her nose. "What is wrong with me?!"

Seriously, she was having the worst time trying to keep her brain quiet and her thoughts in order. It was really really wearing on her nerves and she kind of worried what would happen if she couldn't get it under control. She had big things to deal with soon, some of which she was already smack in the middle of.

She lay in the dark and listened to her own breathing, trying to go over the past few months and get everything ordered in her mind. She'd started the school year with no problems. In fact, she'd started the school year insisting that Severus and Albus stop treating her with kid gloves because she was a big girl who could handle all her problems and didn't need them trying to protect her. By the middle of the year that notion had been blown away by Jill's news. By the end of the year she'd been a wreck. What in the world had happened between those time markers? What was different?

Putting a hand over her eyes, she thought harder and started to make a list. She'd tried this many times over the last few months, but tried again on principle. She couldn't expect everything to go away or get better if she didn't keep putting in the effort.

"Differences... Differences..." she muttered into the shadows, her voice muffled by her hands.

"Remus," she breathed quietly. "He was new."

Could he have something to do with her problems? He had been a chatty guy, once they'd stuck up a bit of a friendship. She'd talked with him a lot more about her personal life outside of the school than she usually did with anyone else. Maybe that was it? Had she over shared her way into this mess? She doubted it. In fact, all that sharing about personal stuff had been uncharacteristic. Work stuff she had no problem with, but real life stuff she wouldn't usually have given up so much to someone new.

"Start from the beginning," she said to herself. "Severus came to get you. That's pretty normal. Got to the school, almost passed out from the ride. Nothing new there. Meeting was already in progress. New, but not significant, I wouldn't think. Just Albus being Albus, hiding things and lying to Severus. Not it."

She paused as she tried to think of more. "Usual run ins with Lucius..."

Well now there was something she hadn't considered. Mostly because she didn't like to think about Lucius with his smug face and stupid walking stick and annoying son. Would Lucius have done something to her? Could he have without her knowing at all? Maybe. It was in character for him, concerning her. If he had done something though, this was an odd something to do. What would his end game be? Driving her slowly mad until she left the school? Not out of the range of possibilities, but it seemed decidedly un-Lucius. He'd want to be around to gloat at his results.

She wouldn't rule it out, but considering the improbability of it, she also kept reviewing the year in her mind. "Missed the Sorting because I feel asleep. Everyone in the world teased me for it."

She smiled to herself at the memory. It made her feel good that so many had noticed that she wasn't there. It had made her feel as if maybe she'd been fitting in better than she'd thought while there. She always assumed that even after so many years there, most of the staff still thought of her as the odd one out. Maybe that hadn't been entirely true.

"Met Remus, found out about werewolves. Library research. Classes... Nagged Severus about being nicer to Remus. Flew on a broom. Awesome, and new, but how would that be the cause? Holidays rolled around. Kissed Severus in the snow. Still have to think about THAT some more. It was new and unexpected... but could that be my problem? The usual neurosis about being with someone besides Rogan in any kind of meaningful way?"

She paused for a minute, really wanting to gloss over the whole subject. Her brain just wouldn't let her tuck it away though. It stayed there in the front of her thoughts.

"Crap," she said out loud to the darkness. She was going to have to think this one out.

Alright, she thought. Say it was the kiss. The soft sweet almost not really a kiss, kiss. Emotionally charged for sure, but barely there. Suppose that was enough to drive you this nuts with guilt, or whatever your fricken problem is. ... Like, really Gabrielle? That's all it takes to make you this much of a mess? That can't be all this is.

As a matter of pride, she continued to try to get things ordered and continued to mutter into the darkness.

"Evan's letter about Jill... Came home for the holidays... Went back to the school... Everything goes to hell and this all started somewhere around there."

She stared into the dark for awhile before exclaiming, "WELL THAT WASN'T HELPFUL AT ALL!"

All she'd come out with was a crack brained theory about Lucius and the reminder that she was emotionally terrified of certain things.. If it somehow turned out the Lucius theory was true, though, she'd have to figure out some way to get to him and exact some revenge. She giggled as she imagined all the things that would be fun to do to him, finally drifting off to sleep with an amused smirk on her face.

Sometime before dawn, she began to dream. At first it was nice.

She was at the school, on a pretty spring day. She was sitting by the lake with her shoes off, dangling her feet in the water, running her hands along the soft grass, apparently unconcerned about being pulled in by the squid. Fluffy white clouds went by while fairies and bow truckles played in the tall marsh grasses nearby.

She sighed in contentment. These were the days she'd liked best at the school. Clear and mild and uneventful.

Slowly, dark clouds started to gather at the horizon. The dreaming, observing Brie could see them, but peaceful dream Brie seemed unaware. The temperature began to drop and even dream Brie couldn't ignore it. She shivered and pulled her feet from the lake, tucking them under her to dry and warm them. She looked around and saw the clouds swallow up the warm sun.

Her face became pensive as she felt all happiness start to drain from her. She looked around, but saw nothing. But observer Brie started to see gray wisps of what at first appeared to be smoke. Slowly the smoke began to take more shape and she could have sworn that there were suddenly gray ghosts with horrible scabbed hands.

Dream Brie still couldn't see anything, though she was whipping her head around, sure something was there. Observer Brie could feel the cold and the despair start to close in. Both Brie's knew it was dementors just from the feeling. Observer Brie knew from book pictures what she was seeing.

The dementors swooped around dream Brie, who had tears running down her face. Observer Brie could do nothing as all around dream Brie, other figures began to coalesce. She was surrounded by the wispy figures of her parents and sister, and husband. Dream Brie sobbed as she looked at them all, unable to move towards them. Observer Brie began to try to rip herself out of the dream, not wanting to see and feel anymore.

She succeeded and jolted awake with a gasp and sat bold upright. "The dementors," she said out loud to the dimness. "It's the dementors."

Those soul sucking, memory digging bastards were her problem. They just had to be. It made total sense now that she thought about it. She'd gotten progressively worse throughout the year and the only thing that was different, besides whatever disaster Harry Potter had ended up involved in, had been the dementors. Most of her 'brain' problems had started after that day with Remus and Severus, when some Dementors had been on school grounds and she'd gotten too close to them and had pretty much had a screaming break down. They were probably even the reason she'd been so open about her personal past with Remus and why she'd been so introspective the night she'd sat in Albus' office and decided she had to leave. Not to mention the mess she was over Severus' sweet little kiss.

She hadn't really thought much about Dementors as a possible cause because she hadn't been able to see them. It was kind of hard to remember something you couldn't see and had been actively trying to avoid. She'd like nothing better than to forget them and everything they'd pulled from her subconscious and had been trying to do just that.

She didn't know what kind of flood gates they'd opened up in her mind, but hoped very hard that she was going to be able to close it. She wasn't sure how to go about it, but at least she had a name to the cause now. Just that made her feel a little better.

"Know the enemy," she muttered to herself as she straighten out the tangled bed sheets. "I've got you now, you sadness making sons of bitches."

For the rest of the night, she sat in the dark, unwilling to go back to sleep, wondering how she was going to fix her problems. Her instinct, if at the school, would have been to head to the library and start reading, hoping she'd find something useful. But now she wasn't even in her own home, never mind Hogwarts. She had no way to contact anyone there either. With a sigh, she wished that she hadn't been so quick to insist that Icarus would be happier staying there. She was sure Albus would have had something to say on the subject, even if he probably wouldn't have had an actual solution, but with no owl, there was no Albus.

She really was a first for a lot of things at Hogwarts. First Muggle to go there, first Muggle to teach there, first Muggle to be able to see the place without some kind of assistance, and, she suspected, the first person ever to be effected by dementors long after she'd left. She knew that Hagrid had had a hard time shaking what they had made him feel the year they'd suspected him of letting a monster loose in the school, but doubted that he'd been effected this much and for this long. Already by the beginning of the new school year, he'd seemed to be himself again.

"Lucky me," she muttered as the sun started to peek over the horizon. She sighed again and pushed herself up. Jill and Evan would be around eventually. She might as well get a jump on the day and get showered up. It seemed to be the only thing to do right then because she certainly wasn't going to try to sleep anymore.