Disclaimers: Dark themes, police state ideas, mention of spousal abuse (including rape) on and off-screen, death of minor characters, graphic imagery and violence, frank sex discussion, copious bad language, villainising the Weasleys and Dumbledore, liberties taken with mythical history and the HP real-life timeline.

"Lestrange," Harry suggested.

"Draco," Hermione insisted. Again.

"Lestrange."

"Draco!"

"Ginevra Weasley-De-Mort."

"Deal."

Harry and Hermione Potter were sat in the large drawing room of their Blue Palace, trying to agree on who they were going to kill first on the list that Hermione was making. They had borrowed some paper and a felt pen for the family activity from Celesca Lovegood, who was now sat cross-legged at Hermione's feet, doing some crayoning in a large colouring book that Enola had found for her while she was rummaging through the attic. Celesca was thoroughly focused, and taking extra care not to go outside the lines of the giraffe that she was bringing to life with the vibrantly coloured sticks of wax.

Harry was equally determined in regards to his task ... and it looked as though he had just pulled out his trump card.

"Okay, we go for Ginny first," Hermione agreed. "She seems to be little Cesc's tormentor-in-chief anyway, so it'll be good to get her out of the way ... not to mention the hundred and one other reasons I'd like to see her cast onto the raging bonfire of our vengeance. So, how are we going to do it? Got anything creative or inspired in mind?"

"I was thinking it might be fun if we can find a Cluedo set, do it that way to keep it interesting and surprising," Harry considered, thoughtfully. "You know, it could be something like: Ginny Weasley … on Diagon Alley … with the barbed-wire-covered broomstick!"

Hermione pursed her lips as she mused on the idea. Then she nodded playfully. "That has merit. I think we should definitely make it public, however it happens. It'll send a message that we are in business."

"True, but it might trigger the attack from Ireland," Harry pointed out, fairly. "Right now, the ICW forces are in something of a stand-off with Riddle's supporters over there ... a bit of a Cold War, if you like ... but a high-profile strike at someone as socially prominent as Ginny could turn that war hot. If that happens, I don't want it to be on account of someone so insignificant as a Weasley.

"In any case, we have to be careful now. The rumour is that high-ranking Death Eaters have been moved to locations in densely populated Muggle areas. The risk of collateral damage is too great for us to be reckless, no matter how personal this is for us. Riddle wants to use civilians as human shields, knowing that it will deter us. I don't want unnecessary blood on my hands because of Ginny, either. The only blood I want to taste is hers ... so , when we do it, we have to be surgical and precise, not that she merits such attention to detail."

"Effing Ginny," said Hermione, angry but still mindful of the little girl sat by her chair. "I think we should de-womb her first. It would be poetic and fulfil your criteria of surgical. I'll look up the procedure!"

"You do that. But, speaking of all things natal … what are your thoughts about the, well, offspring of hers?" asked Harry, carefully. "What do we do with them?"

Hermione frowned as she deliberated on that. "I suppose we have to give them a chance, don't we? As much as I'd rather not. I mean, it isn't their fault that they were born as abominations of nature, and they are still children, technically ... albeit in the loosest form of the definition. If we just arbitrarily wipe out potentially innocent life then we are no better than the enemy we are trying to defeat."

"Spoken like a true philosopher," Harry smirked. "You are far more forgiving than me. I was all for kidnapping them and locking them in a pyramid with their uncle and granddad!"

"Keep that in mind, just in case they fail the test and we have to make the harsh choice," Hermione replied, her voice low and deathly serious.

"I'll view it as doing them a favour they didn't know they needed, if it comes to that," Harry scowled, grimly.

"And on that note, have you contacted Dietmar about the Africa Campaign?"

"I have," Harry nodded. "But it turns out that the exiled weasels aren't as easy to find as I'd hoped they would be. Their shop in Cairo is closed up and the ZGD are checking their last known residences right now, but I have the feeling that they will turn out to be abandoned, too. Something tells me that they've been tipped off to my return to active duty and have gone into hiding.

"Bill is clever enough to know how I'd react once I learned of their treachery, even if Arthur isn't. But both of them will be well aware that it is only because I wanted to to retain my anonymity that I haven't gone for them before now. I imagine that if they were sat in the kitchen at The Burrow right now they'd be sweating in their nervousness, watching that old clock of theirs as the hands bearing their names quivered as they pointed at In Mortal Peril."

"That bloody clock!" Hermione riled. "I bet it was filled with Dark Magic. We'll have to take it apart before we burn The Burrow down, just to see how it works."

"Are we burning The Burrow down?" Harry quirked, his lips curling into a grin. "I didn't know that."

"Oh yes, didn't I tell you?" Hermione replied, conversationally. Harry shook his head, his eye flashing with mirth. "I didn't? Well, we are. I've decided."

"When?"

"Just now."

"Fair," Harry nodded in approval.

"But what are we going to do with the former occupants of that rotting-cabbage scented hovel?" Hermione scowled, wrinkling her nose at the memory of the stench that always seemed to pervade the Weasley residence. "The ones trying to evade us abroad, I mean?"

"Didi suggested that we go for a clever soft kill on Arthur and Bill and Fleur," Harry went on "There's been an outbreak of Ebola in Sierra Leone. It would be easy to move it over to Egypt and make it look like a natural infection without raising suspicion. He already has a team on the ground ready to secure a sample of the virus if we go with that plan. They'll mutate it a little, to make it incurable and faster acting, and also so that it will die with the host. I'm not sure how easy I'd sleep if we ended up killing thousands of innocent Egyptians, all because our blood feud with the Weasleys just happened to spill over into their territory. The country of Egypt hasn't wronged us, after all."

"Yet," said Hermione, darkly. "But that doesn't mean they wont. Almost everyone else has, haven't they? Besides, you know what our family motto is."

"If You're Not a Potter You're A Cunt?" Harry proffered, with a little laugh.

Hermione rolled her eyes almost pityingly at him. Then she quickly snapped her head to Celesca in a surge of guilt, but the little Seer seemed to still be in a world of her own and didn't appear to have heard a thing. Hermione looked at Harry and frowned as she whispered to him. "When did the casual 'cunting' start with us? Do you remember?"

Harry shook his head and shrugged in mock dismay. "I don't know … I really don't. Maybe when we realised that the rest of the world outside of this Palace are just a bunch of cunts?"

Hermione nodded as she considered it. "Yeah … I can get onside with that idea!"

Harry hooted out a laugh. "So, yeah, I told Didi to put the wheels in motion for the Ebola strategy, just in case ... but I told him that it remains very much a Plan B for now. I really want to look Bill and Arthur in the eye before I deliver my justice down upon them. I want them to know that it was me who condemned them to their deaths for their treachery. Maybe they can accept their crimes and beg for an absolution ... not from me, mind you ... I don't have it in me to forgive a Weasley."

"And what about Fleur?"

"Is she a Weasley?"

"That's an unfortunate thing that she can claim, yes," Hermione sighed, sadly.

"Then she's suffered enough ... I'll just be putting her out of her misery," Harry scythed through gritted teeth. "It's just a good job that Bill's semi-werewolf blood meant he and Fleur, as a semi-magical creature herself, were incompatible to produce offspring. That might have been fraught with yet more moral conundrums for me."

"Let's be thankful for small miracles, then," Hermione replied.

"Mummy says I'm a small miracle," Celesca offered thoughtfully, not looking up from her place on the floor, as she was still concentrating too hard on her colouring in. "She's never said I'm a cunt, though. I don't know what one of those is. Am I one, because I'm not a Potter? Like your family motto says?"

Harry had to get up and go to the window to laugh, because Hermione was scowling at him so furiously that he supposed he ought to have felt guilty, but he didn't have it in him on account of his rolling merriment.

"No, honey, you aren't one of those," Hermione told Celesca. Harry could feel his wife seething at him from across the room, so he decided he daren't turn around to face her. It was safer this way and, besides, he was worried that he might puncture a lung holding in his laughter as it was.

"What are they though? Cunts?" Celesca went on brightly. "Shall I ask Mummy, or look it up in the dictionary?"

"No, no … don't do either of those things," Hermione begged quickly. She was borderline desperate. "It's a very bad word, Cesc … and Harry and I are very bad people for using it. Just forget all about it, sweetie."

"Yes, Celesca, don't say that word," said Harry, calming and turning finally. "We're really very sorry for using it. We are going to wash our mouths out with soapy water later just for saying it."

"You might want to change your family motto, too, then," Celesca advised them considerately, turning her innocent eyes to Harry. "You don't want a bad word on it, when you and Lady Hermione are not bad people, do you?"

"No, you're quite right," said Harry. "If you like, you can make up a new one for us. We need one now."

"Ooh, can I?" Celesca chirped, excitedly. "I'll come up with a really good one, I promise."

"Of course you can, honey," said Hermione, smiling broadly in relief now that Celesca was distracted from landing her in trouble with Luna.

"And do you think I could become a Potter after that, as I'm making up the new motto?" Celesca asked. "I think I'd quite like to be one, you know."

"You can only be a Potter if you are part of our family, sweetheart," Hermione pointed out. "And I'm pretty sure that your Mummy doesn't want to let us adopt you. What would she do without you?"

"Ah, I see, that's a pity," said Celesca. Then she casually dropped this bombshell into Hermione's lap. "But, when you have your baby boy, do you think I could get married to him? I'd be a Potter then, wouldn't I?"

Celesca looked up, her wide eyes loaded with innocence and sweetness as she glanced between Harry and Hermione, completely oblivious to the emotional devastation that she'd just unwittingly caused between them.

"Um … well … er," Hermione stuttered as she tried to form the right reply, but her heart was racing a mile-a-minute as she locked her eyes intently on Harry's face and tried to remember how to speak properly. He, quite clearly, was just as blown away by this news as she was. He had stumbled backwards to grip firmly onto the windowsill, as if holding on for dear life. "A baby boy? W-what makes you think we'll have a baby boy?"

"Oh, I've seen him," Celesca replied, breezily. "I don't know when you're going to have him, or what you're going to call him, or anything like that. But I won't be too much older than him, when we are old enough to get married. So I think I should be allowed to get married to him, really. Yes, I'd like that. I think he'll be a lot like Mister Harry, and I'd like my husband to be like Mister Harry. So, do you think I could? Will you let me? Marry your son and become a Potter, I mean?"

"Well … I … I ... Hermione?" Harry stammered, deferring to his wife to make this monumental decision ... not that she could, as they were both as utterly floored by Celesca's declarations. So Harry took a stab at responding. "Well, I don't think we can make choices like that for our … for our son. Not without talking to him about it first. What if he doesn't want to get married to you?"

"Oh I think he will," said Celesca confidently. "I'm going to be very pretty when I get bigger. I've seen it, not that that's the most important thing, but I will be. Lots of boys will try to marry me because of it. But I think I'm just going to have to say no to all of them, and marry your son, instead. Yes, I think that would be best. There, I've decided for you, Lord and Lady Potter. So it isn't your fault if he doesn't want to. But that's just silly, because of course he's going to want to. Can you give him a nice name, though? I quite like James, and I think I'd like my husband to be called James, but you don't have to call him that if you don't want to. I wont mind that much …"

Harry was reasonably sure he'd never been as gobsmacked by any single conversation in his whole life as he was with this one. It was running all his intimate conversations with Hermione close for the level of butterflies they stirred in him. And his wife was ten times worse than him. It was a good job she was sat down, Harry thought, as she might have fainted if she had been standing, if her racing breaths were any indicator of her state of mind.

"Cesc, honey," Hermione asked breathily. "Do you know that all of that will happen, or are you just guessing?"

"Oh no, Lady Hermione, I know," said Celesca brightly, so assured that it was as if she was explaining that the sky was blue, whilst stood outside on a Summer's day and pointing up at one. "It's all a long way away, but it will definitely happen."

Hermione's breathing stopped completely for a moment. She was sat still for so long that Harry was on the verge of going to her, to remind her that oxygen wasn't an enemy and was sort of key to staying alive. Then she starting talking again.

"So … we … Harry and I, that is … we're going to have a … a son?" she whispered quietly.

"Oh yes," said Celesca with a soft smile. "And at least two girls, too. But that's after. I don't know how many, or if you have any more boys after them. I haven't looked that far ahead. I hope my husband's sisters will want to be friends with me … I think I'd like that, too …"

"And when did you look at all this?" Harry asked. "When did you See for us?"

"Just then, as we were talking," Celesca explained. "It doesn't take long, and it's always quicker when it's to do with me."

"And these are definite futures? Like they are already written?" Hermione queried.

"Not written, no, but that is what they will be like if they happen," Celesca replied. "It's the best way it could be, but I can see how bad things can happen, too. But, right now, that nice future is the most likely, even more now that you are married. That's really important somehow, because most of the things I see are much better now, and it's because of that."

"Are you saying that our marriage will change the entire world for the better?" Hermione gasped.

"It must do, because there's new magic out there now that will make everything good again," Celesca went on. "And it wasn't there before your wedding, so it must have come from that. I don't know what it is though, but it's more powerful than anything ... even the stuff that my Daddy and the snake-man and the evil witch with the black hair can do. They wont know what to do when you use it on them. Then you can start making all your babies."

Hermione span her head to Harry, beaming wildly, her eyes so bright with joy that Harry was struggling to lock his gaze onto them. It was like looking at something divine ... which, of course, Hermione was in his world.

"Looks like we're going to be busy, love," Harry quirked at her.

Hermione just smiled beautifully. She didn't trust herself to speak, because she was bound to cry if she did. And they had a playful bet going that she couldn't go a full week without crying one way or another. And she was determined that Harry wasn't going to win this one. The wager was to name Hermione's new Abused Witches Recovery Centre, the first planned use of her sudden windfall of gold, after one of their mothers ... and Hermione was not going to lose on account of this.

Though, to be fair, she could think of few better reasons that she'd happily lose the bet over.

Hermione smiled at Harry, eventually mastering her composure. "That's a lot of babies to have, mind! You'd better be good to me to make all that childbirth pain worthwhile!"

"It is a lot of babies," Celesca nodded sagely as she agreed. Then she frowned, and turned on them with curious eyes. "But … Lord Harry and Lady Hermione … how do you make babies …"

Harry decided it was for the best to leave his wife to answer Celesca's numerous curiosities regarding 'the birds and the bees', choosing instead to focus on ending life rather than creating it, not that Hermione seemed particularly pleased with him for making such a choice for them. To that end, Harry summoned Neville to him, to inform him that they were now to begin the next phase of their final plan to end the tyranny of Lord Voldemort ... by ending his pitiful life. This was a plan set in motion several years ago, and it was time that the witch who they had manoeuvred into a position to bring it to fruition was brought back into the game.

"Yes, yes I think this would work very well," Luna announced, pacing around the Ritual Room as she carried out her assessment of the space. "Wow. There's a lot of power in here, isn't there?"

"Harry's been charging the space up for five years," Neville explained. "All for this one purpose. So, can you do it?"

"Yes, but not on my own," said Luna. "I'll definitely need Hermione to help me, maybe your wife, too. She has very dense magic, doesn't she? Oh, and I'll need the right type of stone, one with the right energetic vibrations ... and, of course, a human sacrifice, too."

"A … a what?" Neville baulked, his voice wobbling at Luna's serene and unsettling calmness.

"A sacrifice," Luna repeated, casually. "This is advanced Necromancy, Neville. If you're going to create a portal to the human Realm of the Dead, you're going to need to kill a human to open it up. It's quite obvious, really."

"Merlin! I didn't really think of it like that, which I should've, really," Neville grimaced, the colour easing from his cheeks. He stroked his chin as he considered the implications of the actions ahead. "Does Harry know about this?"

"Of course he does," said Luna breezily. "I imagine he already has a sacrifice in mind ... I mean, he's not short of enemies or people he wants revenge on. Any of them would do, and Harry is a useful sort ... he'd see the benefit of killing them to achieve his ends. Ironic, really, that he'll kill a bad guy to help with the killing of the big bad guy, isn't it? That will annoy whoever he chooses for it, so I imagine he'll choose carefully. Then it's just finding the right sort of stone."

"I think he already has," Neville replied. "He favours bluestone from the Preseli Hills for his monuments. The Temple of the Moon is built of it, even though it has a silver-blue marble veneer over the top, and much of Stonehenge uses the same rock. That must be what he left the Palace for, to source some for this project."

"Bluestone is high in quartz," Luna considered. "That'll do perfectly for the base. But we'll need to infuse a different kind of stone over the top, and that's what we'll carve all the runes and spells into. But I'll have to get some specific materials to make that."

"Okay. So what else do you need?" asked Neville. "I'll go and see if I can get it for you."

"Well, the Veil Arch at the Department of Mysteries was made from a very special kind of stone ... brimstone ... and you get that by roasting slate in Phoenix Fire for thirty-seven days. So we'll need to get quite a bit of that."

"There are a lot of abandoned Welsh slate mines not far from here, in Blaenau. I'll get Owain onto that, he has a lot of good local contacts."

"And the Phoenix Fire?" asked Luna.

"I'll get Hermione to go and see how Lily ... that's Harry's phoenix ... is doing," said Neville. "She might have matured enough to produce her own fire by now … she had a Burning Day when she saved Harry's life during his fight with Dumbledore, but Phoenixes grow up quickly."

"Okay," said Luna. "You do that, then, and as soon as you can. Even with the Phoenix Fire it takes at least a day to get the furnace hot enough for us to start, so we'll need a lot of combustibles, particularly a special kind of coal that burns really vigorously. Harry knows where to find that. Then I'll have to ask him to pull out my memories, so that I can see what the exact configuration of runes and carvings were around the Veil Archway at the Ministry. That was part of the reason that he sent me to work there, I think, just so I could look in detail at the Arch, then he could extract my memory of it to study later. Once we have the brimstone, he can help me reproduce the carvings in it and then we'll be able to start the building process proper."

"And the Veil itself?" asked Neville. "How will that get there?"

"Well, the necromantic spells we'll have to use are pretty powerful," Luna explained. "You have to understand, Neville … we'll be ripping a hole in the very fabric of existence … in order to reach the Realm of the Dead. We will have to take a life in order to produce an energetic release potent enough to do that, and when the soul of the sacrifice crosses over to the other side, the portal they use will be forced to stay open by the enchantments on the Archway. The spells will summon forces from beyond the portal, too … creating a cycle of renewing energy on the gateway that will be powerful enough to keep it in the open position for as long as we need it."

"Sweet mother of Merlin!" Neville gasped. "This sounds horrific! Harry never told me about all of this! How did you find out so much about it?"

"That was my job," Luna explained, patiently. "You placed Ernie Macmillan as my handler, and he made sure I worked closely with Veil experts. The whole point, Harry told me recently, was so that I could learn how it worked ... or learn how it was made, if I could."

"All so he could build his own here," Neville nodded as he understood. "Good God this is Dark ... even for the new Harry."

"It is," Luna agreed, gravely. "It really is. But if this is how Harry intends to guarantee that Tom Riddle never returns to plague society again, then it's really the only way, I think."

"What does he intend to do in the end? Has he told you how he plans to destroy what is left of Riddle's soul?"

Luna nodded. "He had to. And my little girl has seen how it happens, too. Harry's going to ask his dead ancestors to pull Riddle through and trap him somehow on the other side. Don't ask me how that works, that's a secret that Harry hasn't even shared with Hermione yet. Riddle cant ever be fully destroyed ... for once energy enters the universe it can never leave it ... but Harry does know that there is a dimension to the afterlife that nothing can ever escape from. He described it like a Black Hole for corrupted spirits ... and my daughter has had nightmares about it, too.

"So, that's Riddle's final destination, and Harry need us to build the portal that's going to send him there, so that's what we have to do."

"And little Celesca has seen all this?" asked Neville. "She's told you it definitely happens?"

"Yes, and she was quite certain," Luna confirmed, casually. "She didn't want to tell me for the longest time ... because, apparently, I was going to be killed when the portal was opened."

"What!?" Neville blurted, aghast. "What do you mean killed?"

"Yes, I was rather distressed about that, too," said Luna thoughtfully, grinning at Neville's horrorstruck expression. "Apparently, Harry's original plan was always to kill Ginny Weasley for the ritual, but Celesca told him of a future where he did that, and it made him change his mind."

"Why? What happened in Celesca's vision?

"The ritual worked well enough," Luna began. "But, somehow, when Harry cast Ginny through the portal at the instant it was opened, she reached out at the last minute and grabbed me, dragging me to my death with her. Harry decided to completely avoid that possibility by not using Ginny for it, just in case unforeseen circumstances conspired to have me be there when the Veil was opened, and that future became real."

"Like what? I'd have thought you'd have avoided this place at all costs if you thought that might happen!"

"I would, you're right," Luna nodded. "But Ginny Weasley has also been trying to torture my beautiful little girl in her dreams ... and I don't know if I could keep my hatred for her under control if I knew that she was in the same building. I might be tempted by the possibility of violent revenge ... and it could cost me my life, which would probably be my punishment for stooping to their level."

"Merlin! This is dizzying! But that future isn't going to happen now, you say?" Neville breathed.

"No, apparently not," Luna smiled. "And I'm going to have a very long life and a number of grandchildren, so Celesca says."

"Wow," Neville replied, feeling slightly dazed. "I mean ... wow. So, the future … it can just change like that? Even if Celesca has seen it one way already?"

"It can't change if it hasn't already happened, can it?" Luna pointed out, wisely. "But some outcomes can be avoided, if you know what might happen. It's really very confusing to me, but Cesc is never distressed by it. Sometimes, it looks like one thing is going to happen, and then a decision is made that changes it. But the major endings tend to remain the same. I mean, in Cesc's original vision, I was killed opening the portal, but now I'm not. But the portal still gets built and opened and Harry sends Riddle through it later. That's the main thing, and that sort of stuff doesn't seem to change. It's like Point A and Point Z remain constant, but that the letters can get muddled up an infinite number of times. It's the journey between the start and finish that changes, but the important stuff doesn't."

"Wow," Neville murmured, again. He took a seat on the edge of the circular dais at the heart of the Ritual Chamber to gather his thoughts. "Do you find it … well ... weird? You know … Celesca's gift?"

"I can't say I notice it much these days," said Luna, joining Neville and conjuring them a pitcher of fruit juice to share. "It's just one of those things. I've gotten used to it."

"Does she talk about it much, or the things she's seen?" asked Neville.

"No, not as much as you'd probably think, even though I know she has visions on pretty much a daily basis," Luna replied. "You can see how chatty she is, now she's settled and relaxed with everyone, just like a regular little witch, really. Every now and then she'll just come out with something at random, but by and large she keeps it all to herself. She learned to be discreet at a very young age. I can't blame her for not talking about it too much … she must have seen some pretty horrendous things, poor lamb."

"You being killed by Ginny Weasley must rank up at the very top of that list!" said Neville.

Luna nodded sadly. "Yes, I think it is. But I know that Cesc could look forward in time to see how everyone dies, if she really wanted to. That can't be nice for her to be able to do. And some visions just come to her, especially when she sleeps. She once told me that all of her dreams were actually real ... all visions and prophecies and things, and that she had no say over whether they were good or not. Her Seer magic just taps into energies floating around in whatever level of perception she can access them through and projects them to her as dreams. Not having any control over that part of it doesn't make it seem like very much of a gift, if you ask me. I don't think it's something I'd want."

"No, I didn't think of it like that," Neville considered. "Poor little thing. So, if Harry isn't going use Ginny to open the portal, who is he going to use?"

"I don't know, and I'm not asking Cesc to look for me," said Luna. "I'm not going to ask my five-year-old daughter to witness a murder, just to quench my own curiosity about the fruits of my work. We'll all find out soon enough, anyway."

Neville nodded. "I can't imagine Harry and Hermione will just give Ginny a free pass, though. They must have plans for her, too … I just hope that they are brutal."

"That's one thing that Cesc did say to me … that the lady with the long black hair - Ginny - is very bad, and has done something very horrible to Hermione's parents."

"Hermione's parents?" Neville queried, crossly. "How can she have done anything to them? Ron was behind their execution, we know that ... are you saying that Ginny was part of it, too?"

"I don't know, but Cesc seems very afraid of Ginny, petrified I'd say, for whatever it was she that did to the Grangers," said Luna. "But she wont answer my questions when I ask, and it upsets her too much for me to push a confession out of her. Don't tell Hermione any of this, though, as I'm quite sure she doesn't know anything about it."

"Does Harry?"

"I can only imagine he does," said Luna, evenly. "I mean … it's Harry Potter … what doesn't he know about? Especially where Hermione is concerned. And, don't forget, he went to collect The Granger's souls and was very hush-hush about the burial ceremony afterwards. It was only him and Hermione there, wasn't it?"

Neville shifted awkwardly again. He'd been there with Harry, saw how violently he interrogated Terry Boot, then how mutinously quiet he was after recovering the wandering souls of Hermione's parents. It was only now that Neville realised that Harry's anger was disproportionate to the event, as usually it was only the greatest of violations that were enough to stun Harry to silence ... he usually preferred abrasive language and the casual destruction of his property to that. And then he'd kept everyone away from the funeral, and Hermione would have be too upset to notice him doing anything unusual ... the question was, what had he done? Or, more importantly, why?

Neville was deeply concerned by this disturbing little tale, but the mention of Harry and Hermione's newly wedded status cheered him from his worried mood.

"It's so great, isn't it? Harry and Hermione, I mean." Neville grinned.

"It really is," Luna agreed with a beaming smile. "Hermione is so happy now. I've never know her to be like this. And it really suits her, more than she realises, I think. And she so deserves to be happy ... she always was one of the strongest and bravest of us, even if she wasn't able to do very much with that. It gave us all strength just to know her."

"Yeah, it definitely does," Neville nodded. "Lu … I've never asked her about this, and you don't have to answer me if it's difficult to talk about it, but ... what was Hermione like? You know … before we rescued her? On a sort of daily basis, I mean."

"When she was married to Ronald?"

"Yeah …. back then," Neville cut in quickly, before the mere mention of the hated name caused the house to shake somewhere upstairs.

"You know, Harry asked me the very same thing," said Luna. "And, as I told him … you wouldn't recognise the girl he married as the same person she was as little as six months ago. It was the worst in the middle of it, the last two years or so. She was always in so much pain … all the time. Ronald was hurting her, we all knew that, but she never said much or complained about it at all.

"Sue Bones did, constantly, about her own abusive husband. But Hermione always kept quiet about how bad things were for her at home, and she was having just as bad a time as Sue. Worse, probably, because Ronald had the favour of Tom Riddle to justify with his own domestic violence. I think Hermione was just trying to stay strong, put on a brave face, for all of us. She didn't want us to know she was suffering just as much as the rest of us were."

"But you weren't suffering," Neville pointed out. "You didn't have some arsehole wizard smashing you up all the time, like Min and Sue did."

"No … I didn't. You're right," said Luna, quietly. "But I'd been repeatedly raped when I was just sixteen, by a man who was later melded with a kimodo dragon, and then I gave birth to his baby in secret ... a baby that I had to give up and pretend, for the first three years of her life, wasn't my daughter at all, just to try and keep her safe and out of his clutches. But Celesca knew the truth the entire time, and had to wonder why I was pretending, maybe thinking that I didn't want her or love her because I'd given her up, and I couldn't even tell her how wrong she was and that she was the love of my life. So, no, I wasn't beaten up, like Hermione and Susan, but I was tortured every single day inside, in my own way."

Neville swallowed hard. Searing, marrow-level shame and pity surged through him.

"Luna … I'm so sorry … I didn't think …"

"It's all right," said Luna smiling weakly. "You didn't do any of that to me. It's not your fault."

"No … but what I said … that was so horrendously thoughtless of me. I'm so sorry, I really am."

"Don't be, I know what you meant," said Luna, smiling softly. "But, what you all take for granted a bit here, is that Harry gave you somewhere safe to live, in this Palace. Everyone not in here suffered in some way, and they are still suffering out there now. That's why what Harry is doing is so important, and why I don't mind doing a bit of Necromancy to help him. My Cesc is worth the sacrifice. I do it gladly."

Neville was roused by Luna's doughtiness. She was a fierce little warrior when she put her mind to it.

"Right then, let's get to work," said Neville, standing and puffing his chest out. "I'll go to Owain and Hermione right away, you go and draw up these plans for the Arch. Maybe Celesca can lend you some of her crayons!"

"I'll ask, but I doubt it!" Luna grinned.

"Oh, and Luna …"

"Yes?"

Neville stepped close and drew her into a powerful hug. She slipped her arms around him and embraced him deeply in return.

"I'm so sorry we didn't come for you sooner. Forgive us."

"There is nothing to forgive," said Luna. "You all saved my daughter's life. I can never show you enough gratitude for that."

They stood hugging for several minutes, drawing determination from one another. One thing was for sure, however he was going to do it, Neville couldn't wait for the day he'd get to see Harry Potter exterminate Tom Riddle … he couldn't fucking wait.

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