Remus's cottage was just as Cecilia remembered it to be. The sun, hot and bright, highlighted the wooden windowframes, the large picture window that stretched the entire length of the kitchen; the living room that stretched behind it, receding into the mountainside with the small first floor above with the two bedrooms and bathroom, much smaller compared to the upstairs.

It had been a long journey from London, even with an overnight stop at Lancaster's railway station as she waited for the next day's adjoining train which would take her to Ambleside, her nearest town to Helvellyn. From there, she had walked the eight miles to the cottage in the early morning sun, which was now peaking overhead.

Cecilia closed her eyes, then opened them again, feeling moisture in her eye sockets. But not tears. She didn't feel like crying. Her weary bones compelled her to lean against the fence that marked the border between what wizards and non-wizards could see: the former: Remus's cottage and the latter a field looking like any other. The time she had been away from it was mere weeks, when Snape had taken her from it to the considerable safety of the Dursleys' where she had been compelled to act as tutor to Dudley. Yet, in her mind, twelve years had elapsed, in which she had met Remus again, had Septimus; been blackmailed into silence by Caelius Lupin.

Cecilia climbed up the steps, pushing on the door. It swung open, the lock broken from being forced by the Ministry officials who had come to Oblivate her memories away. Some broken crockery lay on the orange and brown flowery tiles. Cecilia stooped down, dropping her bag that Petunia Dursley had packed for her onto the floor. The dustpan lived in the utility room, a small room adjacent the kitchen and she stepped carefully over to it.

Clearly the Ministry wizards had found this room, for the door had been forced. Here was where her scientific equipment had once sat, now a scree of broken glass. Severus Snape had once stood beside her, interrogating her over her work here. Over by the window the red plastic dustpan and brush sat and she began with the expensive, ex- Nick Smith-acquired Grade A technical equipment and then moved onto the kitchen floor.

Then, having placed the dustpan on the steps outside, Cecilia pulled up her bag into her shoulder then walked to the doorway, past the de-hinged door, between the kitchen and living room. To her left the stairs ascended in the opposite direction and it had been where she her breath had caught in her chest at the unexpected presence of Sirius Black, lying up on one of the sofas, teasing her, there, of course, to help Remus the night before. And the first time she had done something magical. Legillimency, when Sirius was helping her cook Remus's breakfast. Although she didn't know it then.

Had she really become exposed enough to magical environments to be able to do magic herself? Had it really begun there?

And just to the right the 1960s wooden-framed settee where she had sat, horror-struck when she had discovered the agony and torment he had been through because of the lunar eclipse. Cecilia sat there now, thought, unbridled, unbroken, poured through her neurones, too fast to make connections, to rapid to make sense. She put her head in her lap, feeling a wave of nausea rise.

Then she saw it, in the hearth, plaited circlet of hair, red-copper of hers and sandy blonde of his. Remus had made it for them, a bond older than marriage. Auld Magic, he had called it. She knelt near the fireplace, on the green and turquoise-blue swirl-patterned carpet, the love token in her hands. It felt soft, firm. Its colours glowed in the sunlight. Cecilia sat there for a very long time.

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The sun was beginning its slow progress towards the sea when Cecilia got up from the carpet. Taking with her the only thing that she had left of Remus and pushing it into her pocket, she steeled herself for what she knew would be the hardest climb of all.

She was not wrong. The bedroom door was lying flat on the carpet next to the bed, which had had its mattress untossed to one side against the dressing table, which itself had had its drawers torn from their runners. The wardrobe, open as she had left it, had been pulled away from the wall and the curtains had been pulled from the rails, burn holes in there.

So they had really tried to check she was gone, Cecilia thought grimly and, putting down her bag, began by trying to move the heavy oak door from the floor, and succeeded in hauling it onto the landing. Then, pulling the mattress back onto the bed, Cecilia made her way to the airing cupboard. There were still sheets in there, unironed but folded neatly, as Remus did them. And that had been the point in which she had cried again, dampening the sheets with tears and mucus. Her Remus had folded those sheets; her Remus who had been taken as a half breed and executed.

Cecilia slept there, the room in disarray and it was true what a good night's sleep did. When she awoke, and found that she could get no hot water so after a very brief cold shower she went back to their bedroom and made it as tidy as she could. Then, she went downstairs and began to clean and tidy. It felt strange, Cecilia thought, that she was back where she was, when she was, when she could still feel the weight of the other world all around her.

As she made the bed she noticed something which must have fallen out of her bag: a vial. Not just any vial, but the potion pressed into her hand by Lindvald Halen – Aloysius Lupin.

Remus's.

Carefully, Cecilia put it back into her pocket, at which point her hand lighted on a small crumple of paper. It was the floo powder, that which she had given to Septimus on his way to Hedgewards. What else belonging to Aloysius Lupin was hidden here? And why did she even care? Remus was dead: she didn't know even why it was here.

Except for the fact she had no-where else to go.

Cecilia made the bed, telling herself that, if she was staying she'd better tidy the place up and clean what she could. The bed rattled a little as she tried to Accio them, which did not very much, and Cecilia wondered wherther it would have been less effort just to take them off the usual way.

It took a while to light the copper in the cellar beneath the cottage, a huge copper tub bricked into one corner in the cellar with space for fuel underneath. It served to heat the pipes in the kitchen too for hot water, and around the house with some wood lit the fire underneath. In the cupboard was some "Daz" and Cecilia began to pound away at them in the sink, before filling up the sink with cold water to remove the excess detergent. Then, with the sun out, she found the washing line and pulled it over, before throwing the sheets over it, pegging them in place. Somehow, this magic that she'd acquired did not seem worth the effort.

She looked around. Is this how those old people began, on their own with no friends and family, surviving on washing in streams and eating berries, rabbits and hedgehogs in run down, isolated, forgotten places, until one day they could do it no more? Is this how she would end up? Remus had been executed; no-one knew she was here. Cecilia's stomach lurched violently, reminding her that it would like to be fed.

There was little food in the house - she supposed it had been, from the point of view of this reality, only about a month that had passed. But she did feel hungry. The gas did not work but the tin opener did, and the tin of beans she had found in the cupboard certainly yielded to it. She had found some muggle money in a drawer in the utility room and, once she had cleaned up the glass decided that it would be a good idea to get to Ambleside for something. Tomorrow. She would go tomorrow after she had decided what to do about things. There were some cans of tomatoes and dried milk which would keep her going.

Cecilia's mind drifted to the cellar again, and not to the primitive central heating. Vial and floo powder in hand she descended again and she sat there for a while, the SALT tin, painted black with the letters stencilled on in white. She must have returned it after discovering the potential of the green flaky powder in her ability to communicate all those years ago – a month ago. It looked like sonething that might have been used aboard a ship, or could have been used to transport the precious salt long ago. But then, she also knew had used the name that she had known him as Lindvald Halen. Halen was related to the word salt.

As she reached over to the box there was just a shape, long fingers, long nose, brown eyes and hair. And that smile that had made her stomach shift.

Lindvald Halen – Aloysius Lupin. Even the memory of him made her feel uneasy, events when she had been with him even now incongruous.

She dipped her head into the box in which the SALT tin had been. The letter to Bessie was still there and Cecilia opened it and read it again.

Then, her eye lit on another letter, one she had not noticed the last time. In the same neat handwriting the words read: Mrs Frobisher. Take your time.

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"I believe she is alive; we have looked everywhere," Kingsley Shacklebolt growled as he apparated back to the fireplace.

"With respect," returned Snape, his face whiter than Sirius had ever seen it, turned to Kingsley and added, "clearly you can't have looked everywhere."

The wizards who had once been members of the Order of the Phoenix had not been inclined to vacate Sirius's house once its dissolution had been confirmed by Dumbledore.

"The obvious places, and the less obvious ones." Kingsley shifted between feet. "Godric's Hollow; Crewe Junction; Edgeford..."

"Then I'll go," Snape declared. But Dumbledore put a hand on his arm.

"I do believe when she is found, Severus, you would serve her best by being here." Dumbledore looked past him and to Remus, who was sitting heavily in the wing-backed chair in which Sirius had just been sitting, wearing a similar expression before his friend had arrived.

Remus had told them about the reprieve. A member of the Ministry had herded them all, all those labelled as half breeds and taken them back to the mainland, at which she had then declared they were free to go.

"Where?" another werewolf had asked.

"Anywhere," the witch had told them. "You are all free and released with no charge. So, the only place that I thought about coming to was to Grimmauld Place. And I ended up here."

"It seems like everyone always does," said Sirius, dully. "I am sorry that I don't know where she is, old friend. Her home in Edgeford is a burnt out wreck." Remus sighed. He had been there with Cecilia, he had taken her home. He had gone to her home, all those months ago, at Christmas, after the party.

"You don't look yourself old friend," Sirius added, after Molly Weasley had passed them a tea each. "We'll go there tonight."

Tonight, thought Remus. Yes, his friend was right. He had felt the effects of the onset of the moon. Silently, Snape moved towards Remus and handed him wordlessly a vial of wolfsbane.

"And Harry is well?"

"She succeeded, Remus," Arthur Weasley told him, smiling a warm, easy smile. "She more than succeeded. She got Harry the potion, and her return prompted the imprisonment of Voldemort behind the Veil."

"But, is she is she even alive," growled Mad-Eye. "I was there, Sirius. I know what I saw."

"She'll be found, Moony," soothed Tonks, kneeling by the side of the chair.

Remus closed his eyes for a moment, picturing Cecilia, his mind replaying his time with her. Then, he opened them sharply.

"Severus, tell me again what Petunia said!"

To his left, supporting the fireplace with his shoulder, Snape turned.

"She has gone to where she is happiest."

At this, Remus jumped to his feet, his mouth beginning to ache as it turned into a broad smile, an expression it had not been called on to exhibit for such a long time.

"I know where Cecilia is."

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Cecilia did not know how long she had sat in the cellar, the light passing through the small, horizontal window where the copper was getting increasingly less intense.

A full moon was rising. Well, almost a full moon. A tiny sliver was missing, where the light from the sun did not quite reach the whole face of it. Cecilia held in her hand the potion that his grandfather, Aloysius, as Lind, had made for Remus.

Anger flooded her face as she hated the world for taking him away from her and Cecilia raised her arm to dash it against the cellar walls.

Just as she was about to let go, Cecilia stopped her arm and quickly repocketing it, climbing the steps back up to ground level and returning to the bedroom. The smell on his pillow, his clothes in the wardrobe – dashed to the floor in the Ministry's search and that evening, after a long, warm bath, Cecilia slept.

The morning brought a fresh view from the cottage's bedroom window. Beyond the mountainside Ambleside and Windermere spread out over the top of the lake, a haven for tourists. She could be one of them, Cecilia thought. She needed to get away from here. It was a thought that her mind had conceived as she fell to sleep the night before. What good would being at the cottage do for her? No amount of tears would bring him back. Ullswater just beyond, was rippling and lapping, like a bounding puppy, excited about a walk or a toy or its food.

It was summer, after all, and little boats dipped and weaved, like leaves on a pond, their Brownian motion fascinating. And, over the hills, Cecilia thought she saw the dog that her mind so clearly had made out on the water and she closed her eyes hard to get a better view. ,

She was mistaken. For the figure was not a dog. In fact there were two figures, one just a little taller and darker haired than the other, both pacing out their steps. She rubbed her eyes, still bleary from the night before, and stood on tiptoes in an attempt to see better.

Then she saw him, dirty blonde hair, slight stoop, twinkly eyes. There was something of his grandfather Aloysius about Remus John Lupin, werewolf victim. Or, was it the love of her life, here and how, recognising her, picking up the pace, his face brightening on recognition, who she knew so well, and had seen in Lindvald Halen?

Cecilia blinked again. Of course it was a dream. How could Remus Lupin be striding in the company of Sirius Black over Helvellyn's dense peat soil?

He was talking to Sirius, too; they were happy. Cecilia strained to look again. But this time her brain did not think. Remus Lupin was walking over the mountainside towards his family's cottage and Cecilia was now flying down the stairs, though the kitchen and out of the door, down the steps, looking only at Remus, who even until the last minute, believed she was going to run right through and out the other side of him. When she didn't and thumped into his arms, he smiled down, and kissed the top of her head.

They hugged so tightly Cecilia thought she was going to lose all breath. But she didn't care: she would stay like that for the rest of their lives.

Of course she was alive; of course he had not killed her. Of course she would have come here. Sirius fought for words to say, but as it was they were not needed for, without a backwards look Cecilia Jane Frobisher and Remus John Lupin both walked arm in arm back up to the cottage.

Sirius watched them until they were gone.

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From a discreet distance and hidden by an "Incognito" charm, Severus Snape watched Sirius Black give up his friend. She had had what she needed – efficiency that had been the key: two potions, one endurance in a parallel world.

All wouild be better, now, all would be well, for everyone. The plan DD had conceived that had no chance of succeesing unless the prophecy could be destroyed, that had been made possible when the students destroyed them folliwing him and Tabitha. For only prophecies whose content was unknown to the destroyer could cancel out the prophecy. The moment the children had done that, Harry had been free. But another plan came into play: Voldemort's plan to destroy him by once his powers had been removed. While that didn't seem like a better deal, the second could be done with help.

Remiving his powers released the horcrux. But Dumbledore had been cleverer than that: he had acted shrewdly. He knew from Aloysous Lupin that his other self and Grindelwald were seeking to form an allance in their own world. So with Aloysius, the poor cursed Aoysius, and Tabitha Penwright, they had set a trap. The veil had crumbled And that was possibly the last thing Aloysius Lupin could do before his...before his time was up.

He had begged for time with Lily; he had begged, pleaded with Dumbledore to send him. He could have made the potion in the other world. His pain, throwing bitter tears to the wind and the rain, to see her again, was the only thing he needed. But, perhaps, when the time came, he wouldn't have come back. Perhaps Dumbledore knew this. He needed Snape beside him.

Dumbledore had been right.

Snape closed his eyes and disapparated.