"Miss Roth! Miss Roth! MISS ROTH, PLEASE WAKE UP!"

Rane jolted awake, arms and legs pinwheeling in a tangle of sheets, and fell with a thud from her bed to the wooden floor.

"Christ!" she gasped, pulling the blankets from her face and staggering to her feet.

"Miss Roth?" The large greenish eyes staring at her were hesitant. "Miss Rane Roth?"

"The fuck - who - what are you doing in my room?"

Her visitor, who had been standing beside her bed shouting at her and clutching at her, was presently clambering onto her recently vacated bed, his eyes wide. He was a house elf, clearly, but leagues younger than Kreacher at any rate.

"Who are you and how did you get in here?" Rane shouted again, scrabbling for the wand on the tabletop next to her bed with some difficulty due to the sheets snaked around her. Empty goblets scattered loudly to the floor at her grasping. Her anger was swelling now, perhaps augmented by her initial thought that it had been Kreacher leering over her as she slept. "Huh? What the fuck are you doing in here, who are you -?"

"Please," said the house elf meekly, "please don't shout at Dobby, madam."

He was looking at her fearfully, shrinking beneath her shouting as if expecting a blow and trembling all over. Rane stopped scrabbling for her wand, sinking back a bit.

"Look, Dobby - is it Dobby?"

Dobby nodded, his large batlike ears flapping.

"Dobby," she said, trying to keep her voice relatively level, "I'm sorry for yelling, but it's really late and it's kind of weird that you're here, okay?"

"Dobby is looking for Miss Roth," Dobby said, wringing his hands and looking at her with his large eyes imploringly. "It is urgent that Dobby find Miss Roth. Dobby is sorry to come, madam, Dobby did not mean to frighten anyone, but it is urgent -!"

He shrank back abruptly, raising his long-fingered hands before his face as Rane got laboriously to her feet. She froze, lifting her own hands palms out and feeling absurdly guilty.

"I'm just getting up," she said, her voice now very low. "I'm not going to hurt you, Dobby, you just scared me."

Dobby lowered his hands, but still he watched her cautiously as she stood, untangling her long legs from the sheets and trying to appear as nonthreatening as possible (not a difficult feat for a hungover woman clad in pajama shorts with her hair standing up in all directions, or so one might think).

"Madam, please, I must find - !"

"It's me, I'm Miss - I mean, I'm Rane," said Rane, shaking her head. "You found me, it's all good."

Dobby gave a squeak of excitement that warmed Rane towards him considerably; circumstance aside, it was positively endearing. This was clearly not the type of house elf to crack your window in the wee hours to freeze you in your bed, that much was becoming clear.

"Miss Roth!" Dobby cried, and abandoning all pretense he leaped forward and threw his arms around her knees, hugging her and nearly sending Rane onto her ass again. "Miss Roth! Please, you must come, you must come at once -!"

"What - what's going on, is it the Order? Do you belong to someone in the Order?"

Dobby took a step back from her, staring up at her with a sudden steely resentment, his large ears flattening.

"Dobby does not belong to anyone!" he said stridently. "Dobby is a free elf!"

Rane blinked "I - I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you, Dobby, I've just never met a house elf who didn't belong to somebody -"

"Harry Potter freed Dobby," said the house elf, still looking defiantly at her. "And Harry Potter needs Dobby now, Miss Roth, to free him! And Dobby needs your help!"

"Harry?" Rane felt a sudden, cold flare of fear bloom in her belly. When had they last spoken? A week? More? "Dobby, is that why you're here? Harry?"

"Miss Roth, Harry Potter is in trouble and he told me to find you!" Dobby said in a rush, his eyes bugging. "We must help him, Miss Roth! Will you come? Please?"

Rane got to her feet. "Dobby, where is he? What's going on?"

Dobby shook his head violently again, his bat-like ears flapping. "Miss Roth -"

"Rane, for Christ's sake, it's Rane." For all her fear, she still felt a touch of exasperation. "No one calls me Miss anything, just call me Rane."

"Rane," said Dobby obligingly, and Rane felt her liking of him burgeon even further. Free or not, she'd never met a house elf who was prepared to call a witch by her first name without a great deal of vacillation. "Harry Potter is in danger, he was captured -"

"Captured -?"

"Dobby came here because Harry Potter asked him to!" Dobby interrupted her. "He told Dobby to find Rane Roth, and so I came here to find her, to -!"

"Okay, but how did you get here?" Rane asked, interrupting him in her own turn. "I mean, where is he, is he close? Is there a wizard with you, or -?"

"House elves can Apparate and Disapparate as we please," Dobby told her, looking at her with some insult. "We do not need wands, Rane Roth."

This was news to Rane, who knew about as much about the minutiae of house elves as she did about oenology. It made sense, abruptly, that Kreacher had been so often missing during the last six months of Sirius's life; however, she could hardly think of that right now. She shook her head at Dobby, exasperated.

"So where is he?" Rane asked for a third time. "And how do we get there?"

Dobby leaped onto the bed again, turning to look at her avidly.

"I can take us to him!"

"So if I get my boots on and - ?"

"Yes!"

" - you'll be able to take us to him right n-?"

"Yes! Yes!" Dobby was watching her desperately. "Yes, but we must hurry!"

"I can hurry," said Rane, and turned to search for her boots.

HOUSE Elf Apparition was new to Rane; the magic seemed stouter, somehow, more concentrated, and the sensation was correspondingly off-putting. When Rane landed, still with Dobby's long fingers laced between her own, she fell to her knees at once, overcome with nausea, gagging deep in her throat and trying desperately to keep her gorge.

"Rane Roth!" said Dobby, sounding concerned. Rane felt his hand on her shoulder. "Rane Roth, what is it?"

" - Sick - !"

Rane gave an involuntary urk sound and felt the contents of her stomach - nothing but half a bottle of firewhiskey and a nibble of lembas from the evening before - rise threateningly in her throat. She clamped a hand over her mouth, moaning.

"OY!" a voice hissed, and suddenly a curled fist slammed into Rane's head, knocking her onto her side where she lay groaning and clutching her head.

"WHAT THE FUCK?" she shouted, getting to her feet and glaring into the darkness, clutching at her shorts for her wand. "I MEAN JUST WHAT THE F -?"

"Rane?"

The voice that spoke was desperate with hope and terribly familiar. Rane froze at once. As her eyes adjusted, she realized she could see several figures in the dimness before her.

Rane's wand still hung at her side in a vice-like grip, but when she spoke, her voice was harsh with emotion. "Harry?"

The answer came in his embrace; she sensed a form before her in the darkness rushing forward, and then arms were flung around her. She buried her face in his shoulder, feeling the sting of tears threatening behind her eyes. She pulled away, grasped his face in her hands within the dimness, trying to make out his features, and planted a kiss on his temple.

"Harry Potter, you tell me that's you, right this second -"

"It's me," said Harry breathlessly, and hugged her tightly. "It's me, Rane."

Light suddenly erupted around them, making Rane squint. Ron Weasley stood at hand, his fist lifted and a curious, lighter-like device clutched in his spare hand. They appeared to be in some kind of dim, dank basement, stone-flagged and damp.

Rane recoiled at once as Harry's face was illuminated.

"Jesus CHRIST, what the hell -?" Rane laughed in spite of herself. "What'd you do, eat bad shellfish or something -?"

"It's a spell," Harry said, shaking his head. His face was swollen and distended, but he was smiling. "Hermione did it, when the snatchers showed up, so they wouldn't recognize me -"

"Snatchers?"

"That's how we got here," said Ron at her elbow. She turned to him.

"And did you punch me in the head?" she asked him, rubbing her temple ruefully.

"Sorry, mate, couldn't see you in the dark." Ron shrugged. "Thought you might be -"

Rane broke away from Harry and wrapped her arms around Ron next. Ron hugged her back, his wand clattering to the ground.

"Ron Weasley, you son of a bitch -"

"Oy, don't talk about mum like that." Ron pulled away from her, smirking.

Rane took a moment to simply look at them. She hadn't seen them in better than half a year, and in spite of everything she felt herself swelling with happiness at the sight of them.

"You guys look like shit," she remarked. It was the truth; aside even from Harry's face, the two of them were filthy, run down and far too thin. Ron's cheekbones stood out with grim prominence. Molly would have had a conniption, seeing them this way.

"You don't look so great yourself," said Ron bluntly.

Rane laughed openly. "Thanks for that."

"It's true, you're . . . " Harry shook his head, staring at her. "Rane, you're really thin . . . "

"Yeah, well . . ." Rane shrugged. "Things haven't been so great for me either, you guys."

They regarded one another for a moment in silence. The only way they'd communicated over the past six months had been via the Quenya spell Rane had taught them, which did not include face to face contact, and Harry had been deliberately vague about their endeavors. She had missed them, and she could feel the smile on her face. She cleared her throat, trying to seem more businesslike.

"So where are we?" she asked, straightening and pulling her wand. "Place is kinda grim -"

"Keep your voice down!" a voice said, and Rane turned to her right. There was a girl there that Rane recognized from the night Albus had died. "They'll hear!"

"Luna," said Rane, pointing at her hesitantly. "That's your name."

"Yes, that's me," said Luna, her voice still low, "but look -"

"I'm Dean Thomas." said another figure, coming into the light with both hands raised before him and looking frightened. "Are you the Elf Auror, Rane Roth? We talked about you on Potterwatch -"

"I'm Rane Roth, yes," Rane said, and with some aplomb added, "I'm not an Auror anymore but I'm happy not to be at this point. It's a pleasure."

She stuck out a hand and Dean shook it hesitantly. Rane glanced around her, feeling a touch of impatience.

"Is it just you guys?" Rane asked, looking between the four of them.

"Well, no," said Luna, "Mr. Ollivander is here too, he's not good, though -"

"The wandmaker?" Rane could not conceal her surprise. "I thought the Death Eaters got him ages ago -"

Ron gestured behind him into a corner, where Rane could now make out a curled, motionless figure. She recognized the flyaway white hair in an instant.

"Oh, Christ," she said softly. "Is he okay?"

"Yeah, no he's alive," said Dean, "but he's weak, we think he's been here for a while longer than us -"

"And there's Griphook, but he's upstairs," Harry added.

"Griphook, who the hell is Griphook -?"

"A goblin," said Dean. "A goblin from Gringott's. He's been captured same as Mr. Ollivander, we think -"

"And Hermione? Where's she?"

"She's upstairs," said Ron quietly, glaring at the ceiling above them. "They're interrogating her."

"Upstairs? Interrog - who, Ron, who's -?"

Rane stopped, looking between them and reminding herself sharply that these were teenagers and she was the adult here now. She steeled herself.

"Alright guys, somebody tell me where we're at, please. I need to know if I'm gonna help us get out of here."

"We're -" Ron began, but just as he spoke there was a scream above them. Rane recoiled, startled, staring above them.

"Rane, this is the Malfoys' basement," Harry said quickly, grasping her wrist and looking up at her face desperately. "Listen, we've been captured, Hermione is up there with -"

"With who?"

"Bellatrix."

Rane glanced at Harry, her eyes abruptly flint-like. "Bellatrix?"

That name. Rane had many enemies, as did any of the Order members, but that name . . . the father of her child had fallen at her hands. She had not had occasion to encounter Bellatrix Lestrange for two years now. She was tough to find, seeming to leap to the fore only when it suited her to. And how Rane had longed for a chance to meet her face to face . . .

"Bellatrix Lestrange?" said Rane, as if there were more than one. "Lestrange?"

"And loads more," Harry added. "But she's up there, Rane, yeah. We all saw her."

Rane was silent and still for a moment. Luna, Dean, Harry and Ron were all staring at her, and she realized with a jolt that all four of them knew exactly what was going through her mind. Luna had seen what had happened to Sirius. Ron and Harry had been there, too. Dean? Certainly he'd been told, or perhaps gleaned the tale of Sirius's death from another means. There was fear in their eyes, and hesitancy. She was aware, abruptly, of how she must look to them: a woman in bedshorts, a pair of dusty boots and a tank top, her hair tied into a hasty knot at the top of her head, her eyes shadowed and red, so thin now that she was nearly gaunt. She'd spent the night prior drinking herself into a stupor after her visit with Idril, until she collapsed into bed well after midnight, weeping, and had fallen into a nightmare-tossed slumber that had ended only when Dobby's face had appeared above hers. She stood before them now, easy feet from where the murderer of Sirius was, and she was certain she must seem as volatile and unstable as all hell. Something these kids probably didn't need right now, in any case.

"Who put you guys here?" Rane asked. "Was it just her? Just . . . just Bellatrix? Were there others?"

"Snatchers," said Luna at once.

"And it's Death Eaters upstairs?"

"Yes." Dean was nodding.

"How many of them?"

Harry and Ron glanced at one another.

"Six?" said Harry questioningly. Ron shrugged and nodded.

"Maybe seven, maybe eight," he said.

Rane sucked in a breath and released it, staring towards the ceiling. She wasn't sure if she could take on seven Death Eaters alone.

"Alright, we need to get to Hermione," she said softly. As if to punctuate this, another scream echoed overhead, and Ron flinched as if struck. "And the rest of us need to get out of here. Dobby," she said, glancing back at the House Elf, who had been shrinking in the corner, clutching at Harry's trousers and listening. "Can you Apparate these guys out of here?"

Dobby nodded at once, coming to the fore, his batlike ears flapping madly. "Yes! Yes, Rane Roth, I can! Where?"

Rane glanced at Harry, who looked as uncertain as she did.

"Not Grimmauld Place," Rane said, shaking her head. "And not to the Burrow . . ."

"Shell Cottage," said Ron abruptly. "To Bill and Fleur's. On the outskirts of Tinsworth!"

Rane could have kissed him. "That is a fucking excellent idea," she said. "Dobby, can you - ?"

"Yes! Yes!"

"Alright, Dean, Luna," said Rane, lifting her chin at them, "you guys go with Dobby, he's gonna take Ollivander with him too. Can you swing three at a time, Dobby?"

Dobby nodded, ears flapping, and Rane took a moment to be impressed with him once again. She gave him a warm smile which he returned.

"Harry!" Luna was staring at him desperately. "We want to help you!"

"We can't leave you here!" Dean whispered. "Not alone!"

"I'm not alone," said Harry softly. "Go! We'll see you at Shell Cottage. Go!" He said sharply as both Dean and Luna hesitated. They went to Ollivander, where they stood, looking hesitant. Dobby knelt, took one of Ollivander's limp hands in his own, then reached the other out to Dean and Luna. They grasped it, both looking uncertain.

"Be careful, Harry!" Luna said sharply.

"I will," said Harry.

With a bang, the four of them had vanished.