Where are we?

The words floated above Cecilia, or around. Or down. She couldn't be sure. She couldn't even be sure whether her mouth had said them.

She was sitting on the floor of something, something cold, something hard. It reminded her of...the floor at Durmstrang, where she had sat so many times, thinking about Remus, and his potion, and Harry Potter, of Septimus and Caelius, her jailer.

Cecilia was aware of her heart beating, dull and rhythmical, as she reached instinctively for the jumper that Petunia had sent via floo nudge to her, on her birthday. Even now, though Petunia eschewed magic, Cecilia was convinced that there was a touch of something about that jumper, for it kept her warm even when the water in her drinking glass had frozen solid.

So, they were in Durmstrang?

Th-thump, th-thump, th-thump.

Lindvald?

Again, whether these were thoughts, or words she was not sure. What Cecilia was sure of, however, was that she had gone Beyond again, in the company of Lindvald Halen, who was, in fact, Aloysius Lupin.

Cecilia felt around herself again. Yes, definitely granite.

Then a voice spoke near her ear, warm, and gentle. As she remembered it before, when she had gone to Lindvald Halen's room, when he had asked to perform an experiment together to measure background energies. Were they there, then?

"No," Lindvald spoke again. "I have just determined the location of a suitable memory where we may rest, where I can explain things to you a little better." Cecilia looked around immediately. Sitting next to her was indeed Lindvald Halen, no longer clutching her, as he had been when he had seized her in the Department of Mysteries. No longer headmaster of Hedgewards. No longer teacher of children.

In fact, in reality, Cecilia supposed, he had never been any of those things. He had come from the past and had had a different life; had married and had John Lupin, Remus's father. Caelius's father too, of course.

But, how could he have done everything he had said? He barely looked older than his early twenties, his eyes framed with curling chestnut-brown hair, his long fingers still holding, "Mysterious Mythology" and the "SALT" tin.

Th-thump, th-thump, th-thump. Was that her heart? Or his?

And she was Beyond again. Here, like last time. She remembered it, remembered the absence of emotion: not fear, not anger, not hate, not affection. It was a perfect place to think rationally. Cecilia tried to get up, but felt her legs buckle under her.

"Rest here," Lindvald told her, sitting down on the flagstones then patting the ground next to him. " I am sure you want to know everything."

88888888

Cecilia looked into the hazel-brown eyes of the man she had known as Lindvald Halen, feeling her autoimmune system tell her lungs to breathe deeply. To think that she had been, just now, fighting for her life, and for the life of her son, and now she was Beyond, a cog in a plan laid between her new life and her old.

"You needn't be concerned, Cecilia," he told her, brightly. "At least, not yet."

And with that, Lindvald began at the very beginning, where he had begun, and what had led him to this point, to be with her. It was a long story, but they had time.

"You are familiar with the scientist by the name of Schrödiger? His thought experiment about the cat?"

"Alive, or dead," mused Cecilia. "And we don't know unless we open the box, so the cat must be both."

"Unless it can be proved, the cat is to be thought of as alive and dead at the same time. That was just one possibility for quantum mechanics." He turned his head and looked at Cecilia.

"Beyond the veil, it is every possibility."

"But you are...Aloysius Lupin?" asked Cecilia, slowly. "You disguised yourself as another wizard to come to where I was?"

"To you, I was Lindvald Halen. To a good deal of other people, I am someone else. I am a timesmith."

"A timesmith? A worker, a shaper of...time?" And her mind filled with the possibilities, the endless possibilities, that someone who could shape time, change time, had at their disposal.

"You have to understand that this is a curse, Cecilia. I am merely a wizard who had the opportunity to work, in secret, with some of the greatest minds of the twentieth century. Name a physicist from the 1920s and 1930s and I worked with them. I worked with them for one specific reason: to stop the wizard by the name of Tom Riddle. But I didn't get there in a straightforward way.

"When I left Hogwarts, I went straight into the Ministry and I was noticed by the Minister for Magic and offered a job in the Department of Mysteries, solving the mysterious, untangling problems that had baffled minds for centuries. It was there I was approached by my old headmaster, Armando Dippet, to become a member of a secret muggle-wizard organisation known as "Reciprocators". I was to work in a scientific capacity and reciprocate as much knowledge as I saw fit and, in exchange, collect all I could.

"I was young then, no older than nineteen or twenty, and I was overjoyed at the adventure of working undercover in the muggle world. And, by working as a technician in the Cambridge Physics Laboratories, I carried out routine work for Niels Bohr, Rayleigh, Max Born, Paul Dirac. They talked about things, things of wonder, about the universe, and time and space. It was at the same time that, in the very vault that we were in, just then, that I discovered the time turner, Salazar Slytherin's time turner, although no-one knew that's what it was at the time; it looked like a few pieces of bent metal attached to a chain. There wasn't even an hourglass. It had sat on a shelf in the Department for hundreds of years and I was given permission to find out what it was, and how it could work.

"At Cambridge I had the freedom to work on something of my own: I developed floo powder that muggles could use, and when I accidentally knocked some of this onto my desk in the Department of Mysteries, the time turner sprang to life, and I was transported back to Slytherin's time, whereupon I found I could not get back to exactly where I had left off.

"I watched him, the night he stalked off over the highlands, towards Fort William; I followed him, begged him to show me how it worked. Once I had got him to listen to me, he showed me his time turner, the same as I was showing him. On that rainy night, I had convinced him that time travel was possible: I had come from the future and, when that erascible wizard listened to me properly, understood as I understood, that time could be thought of as events, connecting to one another by a thin ribbon, but that they themselves were discrete entities.

"Over the time I spent with Slytherin, I tried to return to my own time. But then, as Salazar always did, he had an idea that linked back to an ancestor of his, who he believed was travelling in time. I could not resist. But we found we could not control where we were going as much as we liked. We did find that we could locate other wizards of a similar bent, others who were interested in the mystical, like the muggle priest Raymond Lully, and Nicholas Flamel from Paris, who was desperate to find a cure for his wife's illness.

"So there were the four of us: Slytherin, Flamel, Lully and I. We were the Going, we went to different places, in different times. We discovered things, found things out. But it became a curse for them too.

"Like his ancestor, Herpo, Slytherin became lost in time. He was desperate to get back to the time where wizards became formally recognised and do something about their persecution. He managed to set up the wizarding school in Scotland: Hogwarts, or Hedgewards. I thought I would be lost too, for one day I tried to get back to my own time. But then Nicholas Flamel begged me to help him bring his wife to Iceland to ease her symptoms, for we had found that a particular type of rock there could be used in the time turners to make them more precise. Then we were two.

"Unfortunately, Raymond by then had come to the attentions of the Spanish Inquisition and they captured him on his return hom. I had to help him conceal his disappearance through dying by flame at the hands of the Inquisition and I decided to try one more time to get back to my own time. The iron-aluminium-silicon-oxide mineral, the red amethyst that had brought ease to Peronelle Flamel's symptoms had made Slytherin's time turner that I was using much more precise and I was able to bring him to my own time, to show him the advancement in science. I was a little out, but the changes to life, from the early 1900s to the 1920s were remarkable. So, unfortunately, was the rise in extreme wizards and, when I met Bessie, who had John, I decided for his sake that I must do something about it.

"Lully made an oath to join me and, like you, acquired a form of environmental magic. It was not enough to keep him from being killed in 1956 at the Goblin Riots, but it was enough for me to know that if I thought this way, others would too.

"So, I made enqiries at the Ministry for Magic, and got back my job at Cambridge. It was then that I was contacted by Albus Dumbledore, who had had the Head of Reciprocator position passed down to him from Armando Dippet. Aloysius stopped, and looked at Cecilia. But she smiled at him, and nodded.

"This makes sense, in a strange, weird way," she nodded. "But there's more?"

"Yes," replied Aloysius, "a lot more." But before he could continue, Cecilia sat up and looked at him.

"I remember something about Lully. He helped Louis de Broglie?" She watched as Aloysius hesistated, his forehead crinkling.

"Raymond Lully was not happy in this world," he admitted. "I look back now and wonder how reckless I was in bringing him with me. But he wanted to go; he was as much of an adventurer as I was. But he could never adjust to the future. It wasn't surprising: he had lived more than five hundred years before. America hadn't even been discovered then, and while he didn't think the world was flat, finding out the world was a sphere with every continent discovered and mapped was a lot to deal with.

"We parted ways in 1928; he travelled to Paris, I think as much to see where we had been with Flamel than anything else, but then got himself a job at the University of Paris and worked, as I did in Cambridge as a technician. He was there when de Broglie won his Nobel Prize, but he was still not happy. He travelled back to Spain, and was horrified at the civil war there. He wrote to me that he would continue our fight, and fought against Franco, tipping off the . When it was over, returned to Paris.

"He met Avery, another scientific technician at the University of Paris, and the two got along very well. And it was to Oswald Avery he told his fantastic story of being a mediaeval priest, and travelling in time, and his promise to fight against intolerance. However, as you know - "

"Avery was feeding information to Voldemort!" Cecilia felt her head lighten as the connections came together, and felt her face lighten up. But Aloysius was not smiling, and she bit back what she was about to say.

"At the time Lully was in Spain I was living in my parents' cottage with Bessie and little John. You know it, of course," he added. "Life had become dangerous; Albus Dumbledore had gone beyond quiet reciprocation to his own war against Gellert Grindelwald. I expected to get mixed up in it all and so had decided to write down all I had heard for the benefit of wizards everywhere by adapting a children's nursery story book. Where better to keep it but in my son's room, along with his other books?"

"Mysterious Mythology," murmured Cecilia, and Aloysius passed it to her.

"Raymond Lully knew it was being written and, inadvertently Raymond, feeling he had found a friend in which to confide, told him about it. All very innocent. And then Avery became involved in the "Greater Good" wizards, which drew his attention, after Dumbledore had defeated Grindelwald, to Voldemort.

"Lully had had enough of it all and disappeared into hiding in Europe while the muggles were fighting fascism and the wizards were fighting Grindelwald. And then, when he was defeated, the news came to the ears of the young Tom Riddle that was his key: had been desperate to find a way through time and space to find Grindelwald, and while the Europen muggles rebuilt their countries he began to cause chaos in Europe. Why? Because he had heard through Avery that Lully had a way of going beyond, into a place where the memories of the dead resided. And Oswald Avery told him a story, which even he didn't really believe, that the memories were places which could be reached, and, more importantly, could be changed.

"So obsessed was Voldemort in finding Lully his havoc and destruction eventually resulted in the Goblin Riots in 1956, stirred up by Voldemort as a distraction. He had tracked dear Raymond down to Budapest. But Lully for away, and had used my non-wizard floo powder warning me of the danger. Shortly afterwards, he was killed.

"I just about managed to escape from the cottage using the time turner. I promised Bessie I would be back, and John promised to keep Mysterious Mythology safe, though he didn't really understand the trouble I was in, and certainly didn't understand why his old nursery book was so important. But, I got things wrong, I am sorry to say. Dumbledore once said that only bad things happen to wizards who play with time. I was never playing.

"But," asked Cecilia, shaking her head. "If you worked with those scientists at the turn of the 20th century, and then you came back, and picked your life back up where you started..." she paused, taking in his beautiful features, clear skin, bright eyes, no sign of age. "That means you are nearly 90...but you look...so young..."

"It's a curse," Aloysius nodded sadly. "Now I have tangled the time streams, I cannot return to a proper timeline for myself. I am Schrödiger's paradox, and as a result, I am getting younger as time progresses ever on to the future. Albus Dumbledore was quite right: wizards should not meddle with time. I may look young but my body knows its true age and I am close to my end. One day, no more."

And at once, Aloysius Lupun looked his age, the experience of the years crossed through his body like an X-ray image, put in front of the eyes and taken away again. He was a timesmith, his smithy was time and space, and yet his trade was destroying him.

"You were very loyal to Remus back There," Aloysius said, after a time. "When he wasn't the person you thought you knew."

"It was difficult," Cecilia conceded. "But I married him, I had to not be led into temptation." She closed her eyes. Aloysius Lupin was beauty personified. How often he had made her catch her breath? How often had his figure, walking down Durmstrang's corridors caused her to miss a step?

"And despite this, it was during these struggles, you assisted in my experiment. It was one designed to verify I had the correct Cecilia Frobisher, from the multitude that existed. Memories branch close to one another, so I knew I was in the correct sector. But there was no room for miscalculation."

And Cecilia remembered that time, lying on Lindvald's classroom floor in the Durmstrang Institute, pretending to be a witch with limited magical ability, when in fact she was a non-wizard with a little environmental magic, knowing how she felt about him, and yet refusing to give in.

"I am sorry to have deceived you. I had to take the risk, for..." he trailed off. Clearly, what he was explaining to her was everything. "You fought well. You were the witch you always wanted to be."

"Not enough; you gave them your great-grandson." Cecilia sat up. The ceiling of the memory she was in seemed to rise further than she could see, even though her legs were still on the solid granite of what appeared to be Durmstrang.

"What now?" she asked.

"It's your choice. What would be the thing you want best of all?"

To have her son back, Cecilia thought, to be with Remus, her Remus, despite his lycanthropy, despite the death and destruction back where she came from.

"I just want to go home."

"I thought you would say that," said Aloysius. "Do you remember what happened the day Draco Malfoy discovered your hiding place at Privet Drive? When Petunia Dursley tried to fight off the dementor sent by Tabitha Penwright?" Cecilia nodded. It had led her to the hospital, and then to Grimmauld Place, and then to the Ministry. And then to the New place, where things were different. Where there was no Voldemort. A dementor had come, and her past miseries had filled her mind. She had felt useless and worthless.

"The dementor came," Cecilia echoed.

"Dementors are one of the foulest creatures of this world, and your soul is what they ultimately want, to feed on, for energy. But few people know that they have a second function, one which is a byproduct of their feeding process. They keep order Beyond, where we are now. When I knew you were going to try to escape from Privet Drive I instructed Tabitha Penwright to set one loose on you. To any other Ministry employee, Delores Umbridge included, it would just look like she had used a heavy-handed approach to deal with a person wanted by them.

"What did happen next was not supposed to happen. When the dementor desouled you, it did not destroy you. You were inextricably linked to me. Draco Malfoy recognised you, from that moment, the dementor changed your timeline and you were able to access this dimension and bring about what you have done, or will have done. Or are about to do." He looked across to her, kindly.

"In short, the dementor inadvertently provided you time to work on Harry Potter's potion and, at the same time, provided a channel through which Gellert Grindelwald and Albus Dumbledore there, who have caused so much horror and misery, to leave. They are here too: they are vital to my part of the plan. Tabitha and myself have made a good team, a unique team. I could not have done that without her. We need you, Cecilia, but it is risky."

"And Septimus?" The question hung between them for many minutes.

"I...cannot say," replied Aloysius Lupin. "I cannot tell you his fate."

Cecilia closed her eyes. And then her mind rested on the one Lupin who had constantly dogged her life, for nearly thirteen years, in the old place. As much as Aloysius reminded her of the gentle and sensitive Remus, who she had fallen in love with, Caelius's overarching mind was also in him too.

"My timeturner was recovered and placed in the Department of Mysteries. It is the one that Tabitha Penwright in her world used to access here, the Beyond, the first time, the one that, in the place you come from, Vincento is trying to get hold of for his master, Lord Voldemort. You have a choice, Cecilia. You can go back to your own world, go back to the cottage and live quietly for the rest of your days. Or you can take these, and go and win the fight back in the Department of Mysteries. That is where Grindelwald and his Dumbledore will be going; with the non-transmutable objects."

"Either way," replied Cecilia, glad that emotion was absent from where they were, "Remus is dead, and you can't guarantee Septimus's life, either."

The silence that filled the space between them seemed to grow quickly, towering over her, like a forest of trees in a film that grow in seconds to illustrate time passing slowly. She looked at Aloysius again: he gave up the chance of seeing his family too, when he chose to escape from Voldemort. And yet, he had chosen her to do what she could at the time, was giving her the chance, with the Albus Dumbledore's machinations and sleights of hand, to help Harry Potter succeed in eliminating Lord Voldemort for all time.

"You never got back to her?" Cecilia said, at last. "To Bessie?"

"My work is not over, I am still on that journey," Lindvald nodded. "I found out about my family, of course. I knew John had married and had had two sons. But no. I was condemned the moment I mishandled Salazar Slytherin's time turner." And then, into her other hand, as if to sway the matter, Aloysius pressed another vial. At that moment she remembered something else: the lycanthropy cure that she had been desperately sought to develop for Remus, that depended on ingredients needed in Harry's potion, had been developed by the Severus Snape in the new place. And a sprig of hope in the winter of her despair over her loss of Remus sprang up in her mind.

"My work will never be over, until I cease to be, Cecilia Frobisher. "In our world reciprocators began, in secret, in the 18th century, but that was the failure - muggle-wizard co-operation had happened ever since the Great Witan in the 9th century that declared there should be divisions, for the health of muggles. It was the first place we, as the Going, went back to witness, to see the great king declare this. That was what caused Salazar to decide on teaching the work of wizards, to make magic an art, the art of the wise – wise wizards working to keep their skills going, to refine and improve them.

"We worked in secret, we all had roles. But what linked Nicholas Flamel's alchemy and creation of the philosopher's stone from the Icelandic rock for Peronelle; Slytherin's refinement of spells and the creation of Hogwarts; Ramon Lully's mysticism and his desire for peace was my invention."

From his neck, on the chain, she could see the time turner that he had used when they all passed through the veil, and to every memory since. This was his place, to some extent. He had conquered time and space. But the limit was what to do with it.

"Timesmith, I was named," Aloysius continued, "and there seemed like there was nothing we couldn't do. We worked hard; we created where the memories go - a fifth dimension, yet dimensionless – here. But by leaving that night, it went wrong, I took it too far. I thought I knew what I was doing, but there was my limit, and this is my curse." Aloysius reached out and took one of Cecilia's hands, the look of pain on his face almost unbearable. She held onto it and at once, understood what he had given up, too, to fight against Voldemort.

"I met Remus's grandmother and we married. I had to keep real name of Lindvald Halen a secret, now Raymond had given it away to Oswald Avery. So I named myself Aloysius Lupin after a name on a grave where we used to walk in Penrith and after the flowers she loved. We built the cottage with no magical device save the floo, and I refined the floo powder so that she could contact me at Cambridge."

"The one I found..." Cecilia whispered.

"The one Septimus still has. Look...see..."

And it was the work of a moment that Cecilia Frobisher was looking at the cottage she knew as Remus's cottage, back in Helvellyn, in the basement. A woman, dark, curly haired, and pale face was standing where Cecilia had once stood, only instead of taking out the box stencilled on the lid with the word "salt" as Cecilia had done, she was replacing it, along with other items of clothing, a robe, and a wand.

"She died not long after giving up that I would ever come back. She had seen Caelius and Remus into the world, then went to sleep one night and did not wake up." Aloysius withdrew his hand from Cecilia's and said, "no amount of looking, and existing with memories here will ever replace living my life with her." He turned away. And Cecilia understood. She understood for she, too, had lived like that, living a life she had to for the memory of a life she couldn't live. She watched him look at Mysterious Mythology again.

"He was only three at the time, when I first gave him this. His favourite was Grimelda. And he always read it to Caelius and then Remus first. But Voldemort never gave up looking for Mysterious Mythology, once he knew what it contained and, once he did, he sent Fenrir Greyback. I have spent a lifetime – several lifetimes, learning, doing, just to get this right, I cannot eliminate Voldemort alone; I cannot reduce the impact of Grindelwald and Dumbledore. But, I convinced the right people in two different realities about it, and now the end is at hand.

"Worlds, endless worlds of difference all existing and accessed through this common place," Aloysius continued. "And what I discovered was that though there was a firm divide the magical from the muggle in most of them, such divisions are not binary; it's not wizard only, or muggle only. So I found a realiry where the most liberal non-wizard/wizard relationships existed and sought Tabitha Penwright and encouraged her to use her gift to enter the place I had left. Before she went, I then told her and Aberforth Dumbledore what I was doing. Aberforth agreed to help, and saw that this was an opportunity to correct the mistakes of his brother. Tabitha's mission was born.

"But, we did not reckon on your appearance. With so many overlaid timelines it was no wonder, but, of course, in time, Tabitha from your reality was our Tabitha, and this plan was, well, contrived in agreement with the Albus Dumbledore in your world. To - "

" - refining Harry's potion, to get rid of Voldemort," Cecilia concluded.

"Indeed. But that has now become emmeshed with the other world. Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald, once they found out about the Beyond want to ally with him and, if they cannot, overcome him to gain his power too. That has been their plan, and up to this point, have succeeded. Where they took you, and induced sleep in you, this has helped your body recover from the tired, run-down feeling of chronic magic which was giving you abilities."

"But, I am not magical," replied Cecilia, emphatically. "The DNA traces..."

"Indeed you are not, genetically. But your body has adapted to magic, and you have shown the world what you can do when your body has adapted to magic. Listen carefully, grand-daughter-in-law: when we return, it is this which will be the turning point for everything. Remember, you can do magic!"

"But...you...?" Cecilia protested.

"I?" Aloysius laughed. Cecilia looked at his beautiful features and saw Remus again, in his, bright eyes, happy features, manly beauty, and handsomeness all of his own. "There is no hope for me. I cursed for my discovery, as more events happen in my life, I get younger, as does anyone who exists behind Herpo's veil, including the man himself. I was declared a timesmith, I am just not as good as I thought I was." He took her hand again. "You went through the veil, that was very brave of you, considering – " he drew her hand to her stomach, you carried my great grandson."

Cecilia's eyes filled with wonder. Could it be? Was it that she was still pregnant? Was it that Septimus was not dead, rather, not yet born? Then she looked at Aloysius and asked the question, for Cecilia had now made up her mind.

"What do you want me to do?"

"I cannot do anything about my other grandson here. It seems there are limits to realities in different places, until there is a critical mass of how many changes are made and some sort of fission occurs. It's not just wizards to whom bad things can happen: whole realities can be pushed out of existence if a timesmith is overambitious. At least Nicolas Flamel just wanted to stay alive forever. It's those dangerous wizards like that Voldemort who risk destroying the universe. But...it comes as a price, and the price has been my family." He touched the time turner, which still hung on a chain around his neck like the most delicate pendant in the universe.

"I would take you directly back to the battle at the Ministry. Voldemort was injured by Albus Dumbledore and has few powers. Dumbledore has secured the location of all seven of Voldemort's horcruxes and destroyed several of them. On the destruction of the last, that would be the time that Harry would need his potions." He smiled at Cecilia, and took her other hand, as if they were about to dance again, as they had at Durmstrang. "Will you aid a one hundred and seventeen-year-old fool of a wizard?"

Time stopped. Or it would have done, if it were elapsing.

"You are not a fool," Cecilia breathed, remembering how much she thought she loved him. She touched his face with her hand, his skin like silk under her fingers. "Your understanding of quantum physics is truly remarkable!"

"You are kind," Aloysius nodded, taking her hand again. "I can see how he would love you. How could I resist the fascination of the secrets of time and space? It is clear to me now that physics and magic are interchangeable, such as is energy and magic." He then stared at Cecilia, his face serious, and added, "you have not answered my question."

"Yes, Aloysius. I will, help you."

"Then listen, for the window of opportunity is small. You have, in your hand, Harry's potions. Up to that moment, everything you have done in that world was meant to be. That is, it was constructed, carefully, by myself, by Tabitha Penwright, to allow the correct set of circumstances to exist in order for you to get to this point. Once he has done this, I predict that Dumbledore and Grindelwald will arrive and be challenged by Voldemort – they want his existence to feed into their own. At the right time, give it to Snape here, he can adjust it to the background levels for Voldemort's world and it will work. Harry needs to take the first, then wait exactly a minute, and take the first.

"But...Aloysius..." Cecilia began, his hazel-brown eyes twinkled at her. "If my life has been pre-determined up to now, how will I know the right time is?"

"You will, my dear..." he put hand on her shoulder. And then, like a curtain opening, on a stage, a scene stood out in front of them. Cecilia looked in amazement, then tried to run...to Sirius and to Snape. To Harry, Ron and Hermione. To other children that she knew from Hogwarts. To Albus Dumbledore.

"No," cautioned Aloysius, "you are unable to reach them...time stopped still. But tell me...what do you see?"

"The Order..." began Cecilia. "The children...from Hogwarts. And..." Cecilia stopped, panic in her chest.

"And what else?"

"Death Eaters..." Cecilia managed, and...Sirius is fighting with Bellatrix?! Lucius is fighting against Mad-Eye, and..."

"Yes...yes...you need to be quick, Cecilia," he encouraged, and she felt him stroking her shoulder gently as in his other hand the time turner was spinning. "I cannot hold this timeline indefinitely. Tabitha Penwright...she's there...and also..." Cecilia turned her head to look, "...there..." he added, "pointing to a figure that could only be Voldemort.

"But how do I..." Aloysius kissed the top of her head, then stood apart from her, taking up his wand in a flourish.

"Have faith," he declared, and, moving his arc in diagonal action, brought them back to the Ministry.