Apparently Hannah had told someone that she would greet him by running up to him and throwing her arms around him. As much as he would have liked to meet her like that, he really just stunned her and apparated. It was a little too good to be true, and there was the chance that she was someone else in disguise. In seconds the two of them were in the south again, and as soon as she woke up she was crying. Luna said she hardly needed to use the mind arts to confirm her identity, but she left them alone with little more than a scowl. I didn't know I'd hurt her this badly... she had to understand that-

It was about then that she told him why she had planned to run up to him, not bothering to remove the tears from her eyes, since they would only be replaced as quickly. He put his arms around her and told her that he was sorry, and there was no one else; Lovegood was a friend and he trusted her because she kept the group together. Telling her a little about the small company of students, she nodded along and eventually apologized for not trusting him and coming up with such a silly way of verifying that he had been faithful, because it would have looked strange to anyone, but it only prompted him to apologize himself. He looked away.

"No, it's my fault for not seeing it for what it was. I haven't seen anything that... real in months. I can't tell how many of my allies are lying to me, because they're not like you or Hermione or Terry."

"What happened to them?"

"Hermione is back from China. Apparently she hasn't heard back from the people who took her here, so she's staying for the time being. We lost Terry. We're almost certain he's dead."

"What happened?"

"He got captured by the Death Eaters. We know they don't normally kill kids, but their master will, and he'll know they picked him up. They prob'ly tortured information out of him until he died."

"Why didn't you think the same thing had happened to me?" Ministry has a prison, unlike Voldemort. He had planned the excuse because he knew the question was coming. They were alone, however, alone together in one of the upper rooms of Number 12, Grimmauld Place, sitting on the edge of a musty old bed with their backs touching.

"I couldn't give up hope, not if I still had a bit left. I... I love you, Hannah." He felt her arms go around him from behind.

"I don't care how... wrong things are between us. I've wanted to hear that from you for so long..." He rounded and looked into her eyes. These were a different variety of tears entirely. "I... however far you want to go- I... don't make me say it..."

Ron pushed her back on the bed, pinning her arms above her head and kissing her. He could not have said why he did it or what kind of resistance he would have expected, but she seemed receptive to his assertiveness if it could be called that. She was wearing muggle clothes, so he took her shirt off and allowed her the use of her hands to help. He could see her expression shift from amusement over their mutual inexperience to something unrecognizable as he touched her bare skin, but the truth was he was just taking what he wanted. The witch's hand clutched the shirt on his shoulder and he removed it without hesitation. They resumed kissing, perhaps not sure what else to do, and he dragged her to the middle of the bed, her skirt not giving him sufficient access from below.

Hannah started to visibly hesitate. She looked at him uncertainly and he held her for a moment and asked if she were alright.

"We're... doing it again, we're not thinking, just...moving. I mean, I... love you, I think... I just can't help but think that we're just using each other as stress relievers." He hung his head. "It's not... it's not entirely your fault, it's just..."

The door opened behind him. He fumbled for his wand, but it closed immediately and whoever was on the other side ran off. There was a hand on his shoulder.

"I don't think he saw... anything."

"I'll be straightening him out anyway," Ron decided. "Some of us were raised to knock." She's prob'ly right. I was between her and the door. "Might as well get up if we're not in the mood," he muttered, frustrated, grabbing his shirt. He knew he had no right to be upset with her, since it was his fault too, but he could not see why they were unable to just- not- think about it and... let nature take its course.

"Who was that?" Hannah asked.

"Could've been Harper or Macmillan. I reckon I could get Lovegood to check." She shook her head.

"It doesn't really matter. I know you were, well, excited, but... that was... not the only issue. I've been feeling terrible about something."

"Is it that thing about the school?"

"I really was responsible. I could not tell you how many people I killed, and just so that I could escape."

"That's a good enough reason. What if they were all standing in your way? Wouldn't you be willing to get out anyway?"

"Maybe... I would have sneaked past them before that, though." She hung her head. "I don't know if it even turned out to be the most effective thing. Maybe if I just tried to walk out like nothing was wrong, no one would have noticed until the next day."

"Well, then there would have been more people out searching for us."

"I feel like some of them were just innocent bystanders." She was putting her shirt on again.

"The people who wanted to be innocent bystanders left in like second or third year," he argued. Am I just trying to make her feel better? Is that my job?

Nothing was said for a minute. Ron still wanted nothing more than to go back to what they were doing, but it was not going to happen. Might as well let her meet Hermione. It's been a while since they've seen each other.

Leading her downstairs, they looked happy to see each other, but it was not as if they ran to each other. Might be she just learned her lesson.

"Is it okay if we talk somewhere?" the Ravenclaw asked her.

"That would work," Hannah responded, leading her back upstairs. It seemed unlikely they would talk about him, though that was what came to mind immediately. Whatever. They won't ever tell me what it was they discussed and I'm not about to ask Luna. She prob'ly wouldn't tell me either.

He liked the idea of being able to talk with people in private; it was just that he was not accustomed to it.

The discussion the adults were having mostly had to do with getting the Philosopher's Stone back, which was what he remembered suggesting almost a year earlier. As long as Voldemort had it, he could come back to life and have as much gold as he could possibly want. McGonagall was presently dismissing Lupin's question about using the Stone to bring other people back to life.

"I am afraid that would not work. Lord Voldemort was not truly gone when he used the Stone to restore his body. All there is left of Headmaster Dumbledore, for example, is a portrait, and though Hannah Abbot may be with us to explain her theories regarding using a portrait to restore the sanity of one whose mind has been destroyed, the most we could expect to create from a portrait and the Elixir of Life is a monster, which may well be a cure worse than the disease itself."

"Where is it?" Ron asked. "The portrait-"

"When I say that we have it, Mr. Weasley, perhaps I should say that it exists. Professor Snape was the last to have it in his possession."

"You know it exists, though."

"Yes, I have seen it and consulted it at length. I regret that I could not have ascended to the position of Headmaster for your fourth year, but the portrait informed me that I had not been chosen, either by the school or by my predecessor. It told me of dark magic, and of the theories the late Professor Dumbledore had regarding Voldemort's preservation of his own tortured soul. There is only one theoretically possible explanation."

Everyone looked in her direction, though today 'everyone' was somewhat limited. It was just three underage wizards, a witch, and Lupin. Everyone else was away on some sort of mission or dead. Prob'ly got a few sleepers who haven't been traced back to us yet.

"Voldemort's soul must have been tethered to the world by a Horcrux."

"What's that?"

"It is the darkest magic in existence-" McGonagall started back.

"Wait a tick; I think Hermione should hear this."

"Perhaps you are correct, Mr. Weasley. I see no need to repeat myself." He got up and went upstairs, knocking loudly so that the others would hear. It seemed unlikely either witch had her shirt off, but they were almost certainly discussing something private. Even if they're not, they shut the door for a damn reason. Whatever it was had expired, as the door opened.

"Have you ever heard of a Horcrux?" he asked.

"I have," Hannah answered. "What do you want to know?"

"Well, McGonagall's talking about them, so it seemed better that everyone was on the same page," he said, the tips of his ears going a bit red. They went downstairs together.

"Ah. I hope you two had a productive discussion," the old Transfiguration teacher said. "Miss Lovegood assures me she did not overhear any of it."

"What were you saying about Horcruxes?" the Hufflepuff witch asked. "Did you know that Slughorn heard Voldemort was looking for research on them when he was in school?" Ron knew that their enemy had attended school as a young man named Tom Riddle, but it was weird to think of them as the same person.

"That was the late Headmaster's theory, yes. He was concerned that Professor Slughorn might have told him everything he needed to know, but apparently he swore to the contrary that he did everything in his power to keep his students from finding out about them."

"Did he tell you about that?" Hermione asked.

"Yes, I made use of our last year at Hogwarts," Professor McGonagall explained.

"Well, that doesn't make any sense," the Gryffindor objected. "If Slughorn never told him anything about Horcruxes, how could he still be around? Was he not really dead or something?"

"No, I can assure you Professor Snape discovered the body and could be quite sure that it was his former master." He knitted his eyebrows. "Directly after that, Professor Dumbledore arrived and Lord Voldemort was pronounced dead. No amount of careful enchantments could have fooled his efforts to confirm the identity of the burned body. He told me he did not wish for the information to get out, but there was some sort of talisman around the neck that might have preserved his life for an instant while he died of his own rebounded curse."

"None of the other bodies were burned?" Ron asked. He was trying to get a better idea of what had happened, now that his random guess was proven incorrect. He had understood the house burned down to its foundation.

"The bodies of James and Lily Potter were moved before the fire reached the lower floor. It appeared that they were caught off guard and tried to fight, but both died of killing curses. The baby's cradle, where the fire started, was reduced to ashes. Professor Dumbledore surmised that, failing to kill the infant with a curse, Lord Voldemort used a fire charm, and that he would not have cared whether or not the fire spread after that."

"Both of them were..." Something seemed off about it. If Voldemort were coming, and they were already in hiding, they would not have believed they could take him in a fight. It would make sense if there was someone else who could get their son out of there while they were distracting him, since they had to know his target was their son- "Why did they know he was after the baby?" he asked.

"That would be explained by the prophecy. Both Neville Longbottom and Harry Potter were candidates, but it could only refer to one, not both."

"Is that why the Lestranges went after the Longbottom family when they were in hiding?" he asked.

"Most likely; that was what Professor Snape explained to us after the killing was over," McGonagall said. "I suspect you see something wrong with the picture of James and Lily being discovered downstairs when their son was upstairs."

"You're not the only one," Lupin interjected. "My friends were both brave, to a fault, even, and that was how Dumbledore remembered them. He swore to me up and down that they would have preferred to die fighting and leave their son to whoever would take him, that they resisted going into hiding in the first place." He sighed. "At the same time, I couldn't see it. I wanted to know where their wands were, but apparently James did not have his on him."

"He could have dropped it," Hannah suggested.

"Yes, he could have, but it was never recovered. It burned to a crisp, I assume. The same was the case for Lily. Dumbledore told me I was personally involved in the investigation, and I was chasing shadows anyway." He looked around. "This was not to say he put it in those exact words, but suffice to say he believed we had the circumstances correct, and everyone with his or her head on straight agreed with him. I thought I was going to make it past that point, but that was when we learned about Sirius."

"That was incorrect, though," Hermione said, baiting for clarification.

"Most likely. Pettigrew still being alive and his actions since fleeing from Azkaban have suggested that he was telling the truth." There was a knock at the door.

"Open up, damn you; you're my house."

The door opened and Sirius Black walked in, followed by Charlie. In truth, Ron was only guessing the man's identity, but there were few people left in the world who could claim to own Number 12 Grimmauld Place.

"Afternoon, Ronald. I hear you've been busy."

"Not as much as I would've liked. You're not staying, are you?"

"No, I know where I'm needed. Chances are, Sirius will be coming back with me. We just had some news to deliver."

"Anthony?"

"I hope you're happier than I am that he's dead. It wasn't an execution; it was a matter of course." Ron shook his head. He was just running at that point. Could've killed someone else, so it's prob'ly better this way, but he really should've been tried. Of course, that was impossible.

"Not your only news, is it?"

"No. We were right in thinking Regulus was helping him. Doesn't really matter what their endgame was," Charlie explained, sitting down with them. Sirius was calling out for some elf. Haven't seen any here yet. Could've been hiding or something.

"Were you able to discover anything about the Death Eaters from him?" McGonagall asked.

"There's a good reason they're all afraid of their master. Most of them seem to think he won't die if you tried to kill him. Regulus doesn't think so. He was pretty close to Slughorn when he was in Hogwarts and he got this bizarre story out of him one time when they were drinking Steaming Stout. I think it happened at a party when everyone else was gone."

"Did he tell him about Horcruxes?"

"Enough, yeah. Don't really understand how they work, myself, but he swore up and down that he didn't have anything against Riddle at the time, but he thought things were getting out of hand, so when he asked about Horcruxes, he said they were dangerous and not worth looking into- must've known enough about them to be able to convincingly tell him it wasn't worth the risk."

"What was the risk?"

"I'm not sure. He didn't tell Regulus much about how they worked, but what Sirius figures is that they'll keep you around if you die."

"He must have had some other method of surviving," McGonagall decided. "I had thought that Horcruxes were the only way to tether one's soul to the physical world."

"Excuse me, Professor... the physical world?" Hermione asked.

"Yes, it is believed that whether or not there is another world, souls cannot remain in the physical world. You may have learned of it in an advanced Divination class had you any interest in the subject." I mean I didn't either. It was just easy to get through it most of the time.

McGonagall was talking about theories again, and it was getting a bit over his head, so he figured it was better to take a break and see if anyone else managed to understand it better. Sirius could not find his elf, which raised some questions, but he seemed to care the least of all.

"You said his name was Kreacher?" Hermione asked. "What does he look like?"

"If you'd seen him, you'd know. Well, he'd have probably announced himself. It doesn't really matter. Charlie and I need to be in contact with the Magicians of Light. There's a chance that they can help us, but they don't do firecalls."

Nothing was said for a moment. It seemed like everyone under magical majority except Hermione still had to process everything that was being discussed, so it was no surprise that she still had questions while he wanted to get out of there, if only for a moment. It had been ages since he had seen his older brother, and he understood that Fred and George had been sent with some of the Black fortune to Australia, where they hoped to make more resources for the Order. They had struggled for a while with it feeling like a cowardly thing to do, but the truth of it was they were clever inventors who worked well together, and opening a store was the best way of keeping themselves afloat while they worked. Try as they might, they could no longer operate openly in Britain because the Weasley family was on a list, thanks to him.

"Have you seen Bill at all?" Ron asked his brother when he got the chance.

"We made a stop in Egypt before we came back here. He told us we should really be setting up over there, or possibly in Ireland, because the whole island is going to be warded to keep us from Apparating out." He hung his head, having heard of the plan.

"The Ministry knows they've got us trapped like rats, and if it came to a fight, they'd win. They're forcing a fight by cutting off our escape." Charlie nodded.

"If it makes you feel any better, we did the same with dragons sometimes. Mum and Dad told Bill they've all the popular support they need, they just have to start killing us before we start going after them." Damn. If I had a big enough unit, we could have been picking off Aurors or something, at the very least, but they would have used that to say there were still Death Eaters. He had some idea they had already killed Frank and Alice Longbottom for that very reason, but also because they were sitting ducks. It was a simple matter of creating a legitimate reason to move them to a ward by themselves and being done with it.

"Have you heard anything about Dean?" he asked. Apparently the twins saw him once or twice before they moved. His plan of going after soft targets had to have succeeded at least once, if the corpses of Mrs. Crabbe and a handful of rustic wizards meant anything. They had not been reported, of course, they were discovered weeks later by either Sturgis Podmore or Elphias Doge.

"The Prophet's got no way of spinning what he's doing, so they're just bombarding everyone with useless information in case anyone does find out about the murders he's committed," Charlie said, his expression grim. "This is all second-hand, from Dad, but really they've got no choice but to kill him." Ron nodded.

"I reckon I know where I'm going next."