March 1988

It was one of those nights, Aaron realized, where magic wasn't going to be there for him. He stuffed the training wand back into his apron and plunged his hands into dirty dish water. The house elves were on the other side of the room, using magic to clean the serving platters and utensils. He'd just have to deal with the plates, mugs, and silverware from the students' Friday night dinner. His own dishes were in the stack somewhere.

Lara came into the room. She stood behind Aaron and watched him toss uneaten food into the rubbish bin and slide plates into the sink. "Want me to-"

"No," Aaron said, "it builds character or some shite, right?"

"If by build character you mean punishing yourself for not being able to use magic, then sure," Lara said.

"I got along fine before," Aaron said. "It's not like I had anything else to do tonight."

Lara leaned against the counter next to him. "You don't want to smuggle more of Dumbledore's bourbon up to one of the common rooms with your friends?"

Aaron used a washrag to scrub at something stuck to a plate. "Did you always know I did that?"

"I know exactly what is, and what is not, in this kitchen at all times," Lara said.

"I can get some money out of my account to pay for what I took."

"You didn't drink all that alcohol by yourself. It's fine, Aaron," Lara said. "I take a bottle every now and again myself. You haven't taken any in a while though, have you?"

"Not since my body decided to try to tear itself apart, no."

"How's that going?"

"About the same," Aaron said.

"You'll get it," Lara said.

Or, I won't. It isn't like I ever had much control over magic anyway.

"I need to get started on the ovens," Lara said. "Come find me in an hour when you decide you're tired of doing this by hand."

Aaron picked up the next stack of plates and moved it next to the sink. He tossed more uneaten food and turned on the faucet. He used the sprayer to power wash the plates and watched whatever was left of the food wash down the drain.

When he was done with the plates and the mugs, he drained one side of the sink and filled it with more soap and hot water to soak the silverware. The room was quiet now, apart from the water he ran and the clanks of forks hitting knives. The house elves had finished up their part of the dishes and left the other side of the room scrubbed and clean.

"When Minerva said I could find you in the kitchen, I didn't think it was because you were working down here."

Aaron didn't have to turn around. He knew Moody's voice. Aaron hadn't seen him since his last week at St. Mungo's. Moody had woken him up, poured Veritaserum down his throat, and made him write down everywhere he could remember having been. At four in the morning. It had taken three hours and a lot of pulling apart memories of his time spent in the great foster care system of the United Kingdom. He didn't have a choice. Under the influence of the Veritaserum, everything had spilled out of him. He had told Moody too much about the places on his list, things he had never talked about to anyone and had never wanted to talk about.

Needless to say, he was not excited that Moody was at Hogwarts.

"Dry off your hands and come with me," Moody said.

Aaron took the dish towel off his shoulder and put it on the counter by the sink. He leaned back against the counter and looked at Moody, folding his arms over his chest.

"I'm not going to make you drink anymore potions, I promise."

"I still don't know anything about the Underground station or Carrow's body, alright? I don't know what his body was doing down there. And I don't know how I got down there."

"I do," Moody said.

"Bullshit." When he said the word, his voice was even and laced with the exhaustion of dealing with adults who had always lied to him.

Moody looked around the kitchen. "This isn't the best place to talk."

"Fine," Aaron said. He dried his hands and pulled off his apron. He left the silverware to soak in the sink and followed Moody.

They took the stone steps and walked down the hallway past The Great Hall.

Moody looked down at his arm. "When was the last time you took that thing off?"

"I mean, I don't shower with it."

"Are you still feeling sick and seeing the layers when it's off?"

Aaron nodded. "Not every time, but often enough that I don't like removing it."

"No one's teaching you how to control it, are they," Moody said.

"They're scared," Aaron said. "They don't want to watch me kill myself or deal with the consequences of The Ministry watching me appear and disappear in front of muggles all over the United Kingdom again."

Moody and Aaron walked down to the dungeons. When they were inside the Potions classroom, Moody closed the door, enchanted it to stay locked, and added a noise blocking charm.

"I need another list," Moody said.

"Everything I said at St. Mungo's is still the truth," Aaron said. "I had never been to that fucking train station before I found Carrow's body. I've gone through all the places in my head. I can't think of any more that I haven't already given you, alright? I had never even been to London. They always moved me around between Glasgow and Edinburgh. I don't know where I was born. There wasn't a birth certificate. And I don't know where the hell I was for the first like seven months of my life before my social worker started keeping track-"

"It doesn't matter," Moody said. "You're right. You had never been in that Underground station before. How could you have? It was encased in concrete ten years before you were born. You didn't kill Carrow."

Moody kept his eyes on Aaron. He was sure now. "But you touched whoever did."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"I've seen it before," Moody said. "I've got two young Aurors who have what I have started to think of as amplified magical abilities."

Aaron laughed. It came out like a sudden, choking sound. "Now I know you're full of shite. I am the least magical student at this school. Didn't you see me doing the dishes with my hands?"

Moody didn't say anything. He just kept his eyes on Aaron.

"I'm rubbish at magic, alright? I've spent the last four years at this fucking school trying not to get kicked out for not being able to use magic. I'm still trying to get the hang of fucking Wingardium Leviosa. In my fourth year. I'm shite at magic."

"You're not shite at apparition, or whatever it is you're doing," Moody said. "It's the same with the other two. One of them is a walking pensieve. She can pull herself right into peoples' thoughts and memories just by touching them, but she can't cast a corporeal patronus to save her life. Her twin can erase and alter memories just by touching people, too. I think you're apparition works the same way. I think you can apparate to wherever you have been, and to wherever people you've touched have been."

Aaron leaned against a desk. He thought about what happened the day he was on the floor at Hagrid's hut, how the layers and the nausea had gotten worse when Hagrid touched him. He had seen parts of the Forbidden Forest that he had never been to. He had never been to The Burrow until he jumped there. But obviously Charlie had. He tried to remember the rest. The bakery could have been Eni's family bakery. And-

"When you grabbed me," Aaron said, "we ended up at your flat."

"Still think I'm full of shite?"

Aaron grabbed a piece of parchment off a desk. Moody handed him a quill and an ink pot.

"Write down anyone you've had physical contact with in the past two years."

That's most of Hogwarts.

Aaron wrote fast, starting with the names of his friends. He added Hagrid and Aleus, Professor McGonagall and Professor Hooch. Had Arthur touched him when he was at The Burrow? Did they move him when he was unconscious?

Shite. He didn't even know the names of most of the healers at St. Mungo's. He wrote Hospital Healers and moved on.

He hesitated on the last name, but wrote it down anyway. Moody wasn't here to dig into why he had physical contact with someone. And Aaron would be lying if he told himself he didn't think the man was capable of killing Carrow, not after he had seen how unhinged he was.

Aaron handed the list to Moody. "That's everyone, except maybe a few people I've jostled in the hallways. At that point, just go get the entire student roster."

Moody looked at the list. "I won't need that."

Aaron watched Moody's face. There weren't any expressions of surprise.

"I have to finish in the kitchen," Aaron said. "If you're going to gag me again-"

"Can I trust you?"

Moody said, "If we're going to work together, I can't gag you every time something happens. Either I trust you, and you make us both regret it, or we start making progress. One of the people on this list killed Carrow. I don't think I need to tell you how critical it is that no one knows where I got these names."

"You can trust me," Aaron said. "I won't talk."

"Don't talk about how your apparition works, either," Moody said. "Not to anyone. There's too many people out there who will want you for it."

"I won't," Aaron said.

"Good. How are your grades?"

"My grades?"

"You've got O.W.L.s next year, right?"

"Yeah," Aaron said. "If I can get a handle on the spell and charm work maybe I can squeeze by with-"

"I need you to do a lot more than squeeze by," Moody said.

"I'll try," Aaron said. "The magic isn't always there, but I do fine with the rest."

"Good," Moody said. "Keep working at it."

Moody folded the list and stuffed it into his coat.

"Aaron," Moody said, "with what you can do, it isn't an option for you to learn how to control it. You have to learn how to control it. And how to use it. If that means I come out here a few times a month to figure it out with you, so be it."

"What if I just can't control it?" Like the rest of magic.

"Let's not entertain that," Moody said. "I am going to find out how to get you to control exactly where you jump, no matter how hard we have to work."

"You'll really help me?"

"I don't think you realize how rare whatever you can do is," Moody said. "I've never seen anything like it. If you can really pull locations off of people just by touching them, it changes everything. The whole damn way we do things. Especially with how you bypass wards. It's too fucking important to ignore, or have you walking around for years cutting off your ability with an iron shackle."

"So, I don't get a say?"

"Do you really want to keep drooling and hearing what you described to me as ear destroying noise every time you take the iron off?"

Aaron smiled. "Is that even a question?"

"Admittedly, you wanting to do this is somewhat irrelevant at this point," Moody said, "but do you?"

"Yes," Aaron said, "I want to learn how to control my apparition."

"Well, yes, that," Moody said, "for starters."